On today's podcast, I'm going to speak about overcoming depression
Greetings. Thank you for tuning in to listen to equipping the Bride podcast. I'm brother Jason DeMars from Beaufort, South Carolina, a minister at Bethel Tabernacle. New episodes of this podcast are posted every Friday. You can watch this podcast on YouTube and listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. If you have any questions, testimonies or prayer requests, please let me know at jasondemars.com. I also have free books and tracks available at my website, and shipping is free as well. May the Lord richly bless you.
Greetings, everyone. God bless you. Thank you so much. To everyone who's been placing the orders on our website for the books that we offer. Remember, they're free and the shipping is free as well. It's been quite a number of orders over the last month or so, and so always thankful to have, have the opportunity to send out God's word to feed and equip God's bride. So, just wanted to start by reading some listener feedback before we get into overcoming depression. Here we have on Apple Podcast Review. We got a five star from Smith Inspirations, and she says, wise sound Bible teachings. I always appreciate Brother Jason's Bible teaching and his heart for mission work. So thank you Sister Smith. God bless you. We have here on YouTube some feedback on podcast number 12 about Elohim beautiful and accurate.
Appreciate you. That's from brother Reza h We have a few things, a few questions here that I want to address before I get there. There was, there was at least a one person that signed up and subscribed to the podcast and is a monthly supporter, and I wanted to thank them for that. I believe that was yes, brother Reza subscribed and is helping support this podcast on a monthly basis. If you'd like to do that, you can do that too. There's a link at the bottom of this podcast or YouTube video or Facebook if you're watching there, and you'll be able to go onto the Buzz Sprout and select $3, $5, $8, or $10 to be able to support this podcast. If it's something that's a blessing to you and helping you can help continue it. By helping, you know, this goes towards paying for the expense of the software that we use, of the subscription services that we use in order to host the podcast. Also can go towards equipment as time goes on and definitely will go towards helping get books out there for free. So please, if you, if you desire to do that, there's a way to do that, and I greatly, greatly appreciate that. Thank you to all the subscribers.
So here's from YouTube. This is Mia Mo. God bless you, brother Jason, I have a question. I'm a nurse and I do have a desire to serve my family and husband one day, but I want to understand, is it wrong for a woman to work in hospitals as a nurse or doctors, or even in school as teachers? Isn't a nursing teaching also sort of ministry too? So, so first of all, nursing and teaching are, you know, it's a sort of ministry, but it isn't a ministry that we would, per se has an application and say that a woman has no right to be behind the pulpit or to handle God's word. The Bible says that man was designed in a way, and woman was designed in a way that man was to be the, the, the head of the home. And he was to be the leader in the home, in society, in the church, and the woman was to be the nurturer and the keeper at home.
And so, I, I don't believe that it would be wrong for a sister to go to school to become a nurse or to teach, but I don't believe this should be the goal of our sisters, and I don't believe it should be the default. The Bible says in I believe it's first Timothy, that Timothy was instructed by Paul to instruct the older sisters to teach the young women to be among other things to be chased, et cetera. And one of them was keepers at home or a manager of the home to oversee the home to be a housekeeper. And this goes far beyond just, you know, cooking and cleaning and so forth. It, it means to be, to have oversight, to watch over the home, to have effect, impact, to raise the next generation. Brother Branham says the fifth Gospel is mother.
And so this is very important to understand as we're looking at this, that the goal and the aim, and the thing that we as the, as the fivefold ministry and as the church need to be teaching, is that young, young ladies make it your purpose and your plan to be a keeper at home. Brothers, be set. Have your mind set on working in such a way and preparing yourself in such a way that your wife can be at home, set up your finances that way, and make this your priority. I, I believe that this should be the priority. So is it wrong for a woman to work in a hospital as nurse and doctor and school and teachers? I don't believe it's wrong, but I don't believe it should be the aim of sisters or their goal. The Bible says that their aim should be to be keepers at home.
I know there's situations the husbands disabled or ha isn't able to get work. I know there's situations, but I believe that the, the ultimate goal should be for a mother. She should be want to be a mother. She should want to raise the next generation to be filled with the Holy Ghost and to be people that are walking in God's word. That should be her goal not to have a career. If it's a career, we need our mind and our hearts baptized with the Holy Ghost and transformed to be according to the word, God's order is for men to be leaders, men to be providers, for sisters, to be keepers in the home. You might hate me for that, but that's fine. It's God's word. We stand by God's word. Michael Beckford says, brother Jason, I've been watching many of your videos so far.
I have enjoyed everything I've watched. Well, I'm glad, I'm glad I've made it so far. Thank you. This was four months ago, so who knows what <laugh>, what's come of it since then. But Michael says, I would like your perspective on receiving the Holy Ghost and tongues. Have you made a video on this? Yes, I've spoken about it before, certainly, but I'll, I'll be glad to speak about it again. I believe that you received the Holy Ghost after you believe so. You, the Holy Spirit is involved in every part of salvation. He draws you, he opens your heart, you repent, you believe the word, but that you have to go on to receive an experience of receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I believe this is a supernatural experience. I believe the evidence, the ultimate evidence of this is walking in the truth of the word, but I don't believe that there's an initial evidence.
The reason why I don't believe there's an initial evidence is if you look at initial evidence, it's looking at external. A person can be anointed, speak in tongues, and not be saved at all. Heathens do this. These things can be mimicked. I don't believe there's an outward initial evidence of receiving the Holy Ghost re evidence of receiving an anointing. Sure. Evidence of actually receiving the Holy Ghost. I believe the evidence of receiving the Holy Ghost is that you continue, you, you, the Bible says, when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth and show you things to come. And so the evidence of receive that you've received, the Holy Ghost is that you're walking in the light of your day. All right, so what about tongues? So if you look through the Book of Acts several times when believers received the Holy Ghost they spoke with other languages.
Now, today, many of our churches, they have people jabbering off. They teach them go, go into a, go into a private room and teach them to jaber, jaber, jaber jabber. And they don't really speak in another language, a supernatural language, or even a heavenly language. They're just jabbering things off. And so I don't believe that's the evidence of the Holy Ghost. I do believe that we can receive the Holy Ghost and speak with tongues, but I believe it's speaking other languages, not just jabbering off nonsense. You can speak in another language when you receive the Holy Ghost, but remember, if you're in a service and you speak in another language, there should be an interpreter there. So you speak in another language, there's an interpreter in that, in, in Acts two, they didn't need an interpreter because they spoke in everyone's language that they understood.
Okay? So I believe in tongues. I believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost and Fire. I believe that it's a an experience that you have with God subsequent to salvation. But I don't believe, and I believe it is the new birth, but I don't be, I do not believe that the e it's the evidence of speaking in tongues. I believe that you can speak in tongues every day of your life and never have the Holy Ghost truly the baptizer, the baptism in your soul that has changed you from what your old being to your new being. So I hope that answers the question. Any follow up questions, feel free to get in touch with me. I certainly appreciate you and I just encourage everyone, please go on and give your feedback. This helps the algorithms go on and give your feedback. If you listen to the podcast, just takes, takes less time than making a cup of coffee.
Go in. You're listening to the Apple Podcast. Give me a review. Tell me, tell me your thoughts, give me your feedback. Give, go, go into detail on what, what you think about this podcast. Appreciate that. If you're listening on YouTube, please do the same. We greatly, greatly appreciate that. Give me a like, and on Facebook and give us a comment, we, and, and share the video. We definitely, definitely appreciate that. So let's go into looking at depression. Depression is a malady that is rampant in our society today. And I believe many of the reasons are is we live contrary to God's designed order. So when we live contrary to God's designed order we suffer the consequences. Smartphones and the flow of information that we have is too fast, and it's more than what God wants us to absorb at once. And certainly we can learn to, to deal with it. But it's very important in my understanding, is that we have time to think. We have time to meditate, we have time to read. And many times our attention span is too short. We can't even spend very much time reading and looking in the things that are so vitally important in our day.
We just go into the infinite scroll that Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter gives to us. And so spend time reading, spend time thinking, spend time meditating. This is important, but let's look at this defeating depression. Proverbs 12:25, anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad. So there we have the problem, the source of the problem, the solution to the problem. A good word certainly can speak of a positive word, but more than anything, the Bible is a good word. So the, the revelation of the word in the Bible will make your heart glad. But anxiety causes depression. Anxiety speaks of this concern or solicitude respecting some event. Future are uncertain, which disturbs the mind and keeps it in a state of painful uneasiness and expresses more than uneasiness or disturbance. And even more than trouble of or solicit.
It usually springs from fear of ser or serious apprehension of evil and involves a suspense, respecting an event and often a perplexity of mind to know how to shape our conduct. Many times our mind gets going and we start thinking about hundreds of different things, and we're making up scenarios that never exist, and we get into fear about them. And this leads us to depression. And the spirit of depression leads to su suicidal thought and actions. Number one, we're living in an age that's afflicted with anxiety that leads to depression. Or as brother Braham called it, a neurotic, it's a neurotic age. It's a age of depression. Number two, just because you're a Holy Ghost, ghost filled believer, doesn't mean you don't experience depression. Brother Braham did he even attempted suicide. Number three, it is clear through the message that depression comes via an evil spirit, a shadow of misty darkness that would hang over a person.
There is a spiritual war taking place on earth, and Satan seeks to control using depression. He'll even put a spirit of depression on a, on someone that will work to prevent them from repenting and making things right, leading them to be released from depression. Brother Banham says it's Satan's Eden. And in this nervous age that we're living in, and I'm a nervous person myself today, I got my mind up, says something, I've just going to do it. And tomorrow it's a million miles from me, something is done, cut it in and done this and that. And you have a time trying to keep your wits together. The medical and psychiatric community defined depression as merely a medical condition. The Mayo Clinic says a mood disorder that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest, also called major depressive disorder or clinical depression. It affects how you feel, think and behave and can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems.
While there certainly can be medical conditions that cause or contribute to depression from the point of the view of the Bible, I will believe you'll see it's a human condition. People that are facing depression need help. And that's what the body of Christ is here for. That's what you and I are here for, is to help one another. But we are made up of body, spirit, and soul. And so depression, depression can come as a result of various factors relating to our body, spirit, or soul. Unless you define the patient correctly, you can never bring a cure. Cure. If you think that depression is merely a physical thing, you can't bring a cure because we are also a spiritual being. Depression can come from lots of different things can come from one guilt, two false guilt, three, misplaced shame, four fears, five, suppressed bitterness or hatred. Six, hopeless grieving. Seven, a traumatic event in your life. Eight unscriptural expectations. So there were men of God in the Bible that faced depression. Moses in numbers, chapter 11, faced depression.
Everyone was everyone. This is numbers 11:10 through 16. Moses heard the people, we throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord was greatly kindled. Moses also was displeased. And Moses said unto, unto the Lord, so Moses was displeased. This was the children of Israel complaining and weeping over the situation that they found themselves in. And it was a, a weeping of unbelief. He says, Moses said unto the Lord, where therefore has to afflicted th servant, and therefore, have I not found favor in thy sight that thou lays the burden of all this people upon me. Now here's Moses problem. He's telling God, you laid the burden on me. But God never said he did that God said, I will leave them out with a, with a high hand. Have I conceived all these people, Moses speaking?
Have I begotten them that thou should have sand to me, carry them in that bosom as a nursing father bears the suckling child unto the language. Thou swear us, the th fathers, when should I have flesh to give unto all this people? For they weep unto me, saying, give us flesh that we may eat. I'm not able to bear all this people alone because it's too heavy for me. And if thou deal with us, with me, kill me. I pray the out of hand if I have found favor and I cite, let me not see my wretchedness. So here's Moses. His fears and anxieties lead him to depression and to a suicidal spirit. God kill me. But the Lord gives him comfort. And he says, you feel alone. You feel like this burden is yours, but it's not. The Lord said unto, unto Moses, gather under me 70 men of Israel who now knows to be the elders and die people and officers over them and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation that they may stand there with me.
So he's overwhelmed, he's full of anxiety, he's depressed, he wants to die, and God's remedies says, I'm going to give you some helpers. I'm going to send men beside you to be there with you to strengthen you. Another example is David Psalms 32:1 through five, blessed as he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man done unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, in whose in whose spirit. There is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long for day and night, my hand was heavy upon me. My moisture has turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledge my sin under the and my iniquity. Have I not hid? I said, I will confess my transgressions under the Lord and now forgave us the iniquity of my sin. So here we have David keeping silence and refusing to confess his sin.
He's under the weight of guilt from unconfessed sin. He's experiencing anguish in his soul that he describes as his bones waxing old through roaring. In other words, he was weeping so much that he felt an inner pain in the depths of his body. God's hand of conviction fell heavy upon David and the result was depression. He was hiding his sin. But then he spoke, spoke and confessed his sin to the Lord and he realized that he was forgiven and he felt the release his sins were forgiven. So hidden and unconfessed sin before God can lead to ex anxiety and result in depression. And we say this is God being mean, but this ist God being mean. This is God's kindness leading you to repentance. We know the story of Elijah. He has the Mount Carmel experience. Then Jezebel threatens him. Then he runs. He not only runs out into the to a far city in Judah.
He runs further into the wilderness to hide from Jezebel. And he makes this request. He sits down under a juniper tree and he requests for himself that he might die. He says, it's enough now, Lord, take away my life. I'm not better than my father's. And is he lace and slept under that juniper? Dre God sent an angel from heaven. Mother calls him, calls that angel, the softest handed angel to come down and touch him and to give him food. So this was God's grace to Elijah. But Elijah, after a great supernatural experience comes to depression, Jonah. Jonah wants to die because of wrong thinking. He has a wrong thinking about the Ninevites and God's purpose. He's angry because God did not destroy the Ninevites. He's angry because he had success at his revival. The people repented and because they repented, he became angry.
He said, kill me Lord. This was a wrong way of thinking. And many times this was, this is what it goes back to is misunderstanding what's happening, misunderstanding what God is allowing and doing in our life. If we just understood that in those darkest hours, in those most difficult moments, those are the areas that God is displaying himself. Job, job fell into depression and wanted to die and wished that the day that he was born would never have come to existence. What Job didn't understand is we would never remember Job if it wasn't for his trial that he faced. And so the trial that job faced is the moment that God says, this is your finest moment that I want to preserve for all of history so that they see the feelings and everything that you went through. And the fact that you stayed and remained in faith regardless of your circumstances, even though it brought you to depression, sorrow, sadness, misunderstanding.
Yet you said the Lord gives and the Lord takes away blessed me the name of the Lord. So this, this was a terrible trauma that job went through. He lost his children property. He struck with terrible sickness. He said, even if I put a smile on my face and tried to put away the depression, I would still be afraid of the pain. God came to Job. God healed his body. God eventually gave him more children, renewed His prosperity comforted job, no doubt. But still he had the, that didn't erase the memory of his loss and the pain that he went through. And many times, some of us have traumatic events that we've went through, raised in a home that produced trauma or a person could have been raped, physically abused, lost a spouse, a parent at a young age, or even been hurt in a bad church situation.
These are all forms of trauma that lead to anxiety, which results in depression. Often the memory and the hurt of them lasts a lifetime. But this is what the gospel is for. That's what the message was sent for, is to appoint unto them. This is Isaiah 61, 13 point under them that mourn and Zion to give unto to us and unto them, beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning, garment of praise, for the spirit of heaviness that they might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified. And Brother Branham says, and be certain of God, young man, you're nervous, upset. Don't you know God can heal nerves. Now, it's hard for a nervous person to get ahold of it. You've been wanting a place to place your feet. See, you're a great thinker crossing bridges for you. Ever get to it and taking other things. Don't do it no more. You don't feel bad now. See, it's off of you. If you'll go believing, it'll never come on you again.
And so I think I find that astounding if you really look at that. He says you're nervous and it's a hard for a per nervous person to get a hold of healing. You're, you're, you're, you're a great thinker and you're crossing all the bridges before you get them. Don't do that anymore. The thing is off of you, if you go believing, it'll never come on you again. So it's if you go believing. So he says, don't do it anymore. Don't cross the bridges. Don't think like that anymore. Instead go believing. And that will never come on you. So if you're facing depression, I want to give you some advice of what to do to get help. Number I I have 10 points here that I want to go through. Number one, talk to your pastor or someone that you trust in the body of Christ. Talking through the depression can often lead you to discover wrong ways of thinking, unrepented of sin, or just help release the pain that you have, that you have by talking to someone that cares. Number two, act in obedience to God's word.
A spirit of depression will many times take you into the place or you're disobeying God's word. Don't do that. Keep obeying God's word. Number three, wake in the morning. Spend time in prayer and reading the Bible before you go to sleep, pray and read the Bible through the day. Listen to sermons of Brother Braham number. That's number four. Number five, attend every church service and Bible study and prayer meeting the church offers. I understand that spirit of depression is going to try to take you out of fellowship, but don't do it. Just keep going. See, I can't get up. You can. You can. Number six, talk to and fellowship with like-minded believers. The spirit of depression will try to isolate you. Don't let it isolate you. Get to fellowship that even sometimes the fellowship will deliver you. Number seven, this is simple, but exercise your body.
Drink water, eat healthy. You do those things many times. Just those basic things. And you get delivered from a spirit of depression. Number eight, resolve conflicts quickly as best you can. Don't hold on to grudges and anger and say, oh, I'll just let go of it. No, no. You know, you need to talk. Talk through it and speak about it and resolve the conflict you have. Number nine, start doing something to serve others. Take your focus off of yourself and put it on others. When you start to do that, you, you'll, you'll get joy from serving others and you'll want to keep doing it and it'll put you in a position where that depress spirit of depression starts to fall off of you. Number 10, talk to yourself in your thought life using scriptural patterns of thought. Not demonic lies from patterns of the past. Think God's thoughts and speak God's word many times.
Time moving on from traumatic events. When dealt with under the principles of God's word can often slowly heal anxiety that leads to depression. God can miraculously release you from the way of thinking that led to your traumatic event that holds the having the hold of depression on you. Traumatic events happen, they happen to us. But God's intent is not for us to be imprison to them. No. He wants us to overcome and to walk forward in faith. And many times it's the thinking that we have about the event that prevents us from moving forward. So ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and search your mind and renew your heart according to the word, to understand the situation according to what he speaks over you. Though the underlying trauma remains. There is a fountain, a wellspring, a person you can continually come to that will give you rest for your soul. But you have to go to him. You have to release your anxieties on him because he cares for you. And you have to battle against the spirit of depression.
We're coming up on our time. I want to finish with Philippians four, six through nine. Be careful being anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known unto, unto God. So we can do one of two things with a thought that our situation that comes to us, we can think anxious thoughts or we can take the situation and by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make our request known done to God. So it's a way of thinking. He says, be an don't worry about anything. So that is our job. If a situation comes, you say, I'm a worrying person. Don't let that spirit come on you. Don't worry. That's what Paul is saying. Don't worry. Instead of worrying. Replace that worry with prayer and supplication and thanksgiving. Tell God about it. Speak to God about it.
Pray. If you do that, then the peace of God, which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Then he tells us what to think. Think about Brethren Fi Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true whatsoever. Things are honest whatsoever. Things are just whatsoever. Things are pure whatsoever. Things are lovely whatsoever. Things are of a good report. If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. So now instead of thinking thoughts of worry and anxiety, we're supposed to think about things that are true, honest, just pure, lovely, good report of virtue and of any praise. So if you control your thought life to think about God's word, think about God's promises. Think about the, the, the testimonies and the wonderful thing that God, things that God has done and promised for you. Think about those things, then you'll have peace.
But if you think about all the possibilities and horrible things and if you feel are filled with worry, then you won't have the peace of God. Those things which you have both learned and received and heard and seen in me do and the God of peace will be with you. So obey the message. Think about the positive things. Don't think about negative. And if the negative things come, make your req, bring them to prayer in prayer to God. Release them to him because he cares for you. Right? So this is, this is not saying, this is not saying don't come to a prayer line. But this is saying that just what Brother Branham said, if you'll don't do that, if you go believing, it won't come onto you again. Don't think about the anxious things. Don't think about all the possibilities. Don't cross all the bridges before you get there.
Don't do that. Think on the promises of God. Think on the good things, the positive things that Paul lists here. Think about those. Then peace will be in you and, and the things that you've, the word that you've heard obey it. That God of peace shall be with you. Amen. So I hope that was a blessing. I hope that was helpful to you. If you have any questions, prayer request or testimonies, please let me know. We certainly appreciate you. Please remember me in prayer. I'm currently on a missions trip. I'm in Turkey now, so pray for me. May the Lord richly bless you.
Thank you for listening to Equipping the Bride podcast. New episodes are posted every Friday. I wanna remind you that if you have any questions, testimonies, or prayer requests, please let me know at jasondemars.com. I also have free books and tracks available at my website and shipping is free as well. Please, I ask you to remember the believers in the missions work in the Middle East in prayer, may the Lord richly bless you.