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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Dennis Smith

Emotional Healing

Well, this afternoon we want to move into the area of emotional healing.

I actually came to understand what I'll be sharing this afternoon before I understood what I shared this morning.

And I remember when I came to understand this morning's teaching, thinking, well, why the emotional healing because what I shared this morning would solve the problem.

But then I began realizing that there are certain things in our lives that can at times get in the way of us really being able to let Jesus live out his life in us.

And that's where what I'll be sharing with you this afternoon comes in.

As I had mentioned earlier, deliverance is not the ultimate goal.

The goal of deliverance is to get the things out of our life that are obstacles in the way of us growing into the fullness of Jesus.

And again the theme of this weekend comes from 1 John 3, 2 where John told us that those that are ready to meet Jesus will be just like him.

And so everything I'm sharing this weekend is the how.

The how we are to become just like Jesus.

And it's important we know the how because if we know we're supposed to, but don't know how to get there, then that can be very frustrating.

It's also important that we realize that that's where God wants to take us.

Because if we don't realize that, then it's easy to become complacent, and say, well, I just gotta put up with this stuff till the Lord comes.

And if we draw that conclusion, if we are living when Jesus comes, then we won't be ready.

So it's important we understand where he wants to take us in our experience with him, and we understand how we are to cooperate with him to get there.

The standard is high, as I was sharing this morning.

That is a high standard and so if we do not understand that then it is going to be very easy to fall back and say, well, God understands.

But we could find ourselves short of where we should be when he comes.

I do wanna say also, as I said before, do not get discouraged if you don't see yourself where you want to be.

The word process, the Lord's impressed me very strongly with.

It is a process of growing into the fullness of Jesus.

But we have to understand the principles of how we cooperate with God in that process.

I've had a chance to share these messages many places in the United States, also some internationally, and everywhere I go, we're all the same.

We all have some of the same hurts in our life.

And these hurts can cause some very negative emotions, such as depression, sadness, stress, anxiety, fears, panic attacks, and then they can lead critical spirit, feelings getting hurt easily.

All of these things are symptoms of a deeper hurt that's in the life.

And the good news of the gospel is that God has made it possible for us to be free of these things.

Now, most have concluded, as I've just observed through the years now since I've been in this, as I run across people, most have concluded there's really not an answer though to it, because they haven't found the answer.

And if we ask God to help us and, you know, deliver us, but we don't understand the principles of how to cooperate with him then many times we will not get the deliverance not that God doesn't want to give it but there's a certain combination of God's will to do it and us understanding how we were to cooperate with God to get there.

For instance, that's why we have a health message, right?

It's because as we understand the principles of health, we can achieve better health.

Now we can pray to God for healing and there's times he overrules certain things and brings in healing but an important part of health physical health is to understand the principles of good health and that's the same thing here for good emotional health there are certain principles biblical principles that we need to understand and then enter into that.

Until I began to understand these things, I was in the ministry for quite a few years and to be honest with you, I began questioning where's the power?

It our religion seemed to be very much intellectual Now praise God.

I knew by faith that God forgives us When I asked for forgiveness, he's promised to forgive me.

But as far as the here and now and everyday living, and as a pastor, people would come to me and they'd wanna have prayer because they were struggling with this negative emotion or that negative emotion, maybe intense struggle with depression, next time you see them, they're the same, or if you get off the phone from them, you're depressed because it kind of took you down while you were talking to them.

And so I didn't tell anybody, but I had my questions.

Or is there something for the here and now in our walk with the Lord?

The first individual that I think I ever prayed with for the Baptist Holy Spirit, this was a young man that became an Adventist through a Revelation seminar that I had given.

He had tried to commit suicide at least twice, he really did not like how the medication made him feel that he was on for his depression.

And as I started understanding some of these things and we began praying and we had prayer for the Holy Spirit.

He didn't feel anything at the time, but he told me later when he was driving home, he started feeling joy in his heart, he started praising God and singing songs of praise, and this thing started lifting.

But then he had to come to realize what were the weapons of his warfare.

We are in a warfare and there are weapons for this warfare.

Now our weapons as Paul says are not carnal, They are not of this world, but there are very powerful spiritual weapons that we have in order to overcome Satan's attacks.

And that's what we'll be talking about today, what some of those weapons are.

And this young man ended up being free from the depression that he was under.

Now, Ephesians chapter 4 is really the foundation to what I'll be sharing with you.

Paul here tells us in verse 26, be angry but don't sin.

The very next verse says, neither give place to the devil.

Some translations say don't give the devil a foothold.

When we hang on to anger, we give Satan a right of passage into our life.

Now I'm not talking about necessarily devil possession, but certainly devil oppression, and in due time it could lead to devil possession but there is a lot of oppression especially here in the United States I have a friend of mine pastor friend from Haiti and when I was getting into some of this, I was asking him about this because, you know, Haiti has a lot of negative stuff that goes on there with voodoo and all the rest, and there's a lot of devil possession there, and I was talking to him about some of that and also about oppression and his feeling too as he observed in the States there is a lot of oppression in the United States.

The problem with many Christians and us the Seventh Adventists at least in the Western world we are very ignorant of this warfare we're in.

Now, you go out to the mission field, you're thrown right in the middle of it.

And so you have to become a little more aware of the warfare.

But here, it's almost like the devil is in an intellectual battle with us, and as long as we understand the intellectual facts, we're okay, but not so much in a real warfare.

Don't believe that, because we are in a very real warfare.

So this is the foundation here, is anger, and not being able to let go of the anger, which gives a rite of passage to Satan.

And what causes this anger is abuse most the time in childhood and it can go in our adult life too, but the greatest damage will be done in childhood and Satan knows that.

So he does everything he can to try to set up situations and the symptoms of abuse which has not been healed, you know, the pain that's not been healed.

The symptoms of that, anger, depression, anxiety, fear, sadness, heaviness, critical attitude, rebellion against authority.

It can lead to attempted suicide, arthritis, fibromyalgia, eating disorders, addictions.

These are all symptoms of wounds that have not been healed.

So if an individual has the symptoms, then I guarantee you they have the wounds.

Now they may not be aware of those wounds because we do a pretty good job coping mechanism and we suppress these.

And we can come to the very point that we're totally unaware of that those things happened to us in the past or just kind of wrote them off.

I've observed and I'm not a doctor and this is just pure observation, I've observed, for instance, and I won't say this 100% of the time, but quite often arthritis can be connected with a critical spirit, an anger.

Or fibromyalgia, I've observed many times, is connected with sexual abuse in childhood.

This is just, for whatever reason, it finds its way into the realm of the physical in that way.

Now, Ellen White understood the connection between the physical and the emotional, she said Testimonies Volume 1, 566, that which brings sickness of body and mind to nearly all is dissatisfied feelings and discontented repaintings.

And there's many other statements she has that mental attitudes find their way into the physical realm.

We are created a whole being, we have a spiritual dimension, a physical dimension, an emotional dimension, and what affects 1 will affect the other.

Now, when we hang on to that unforgiveness, and by the way, we have no right to be angry at anyone for anything they personally did to us.

Because sometimes we think we're justified in our feelings, but we're not.

In fact, there's a very strong statement over in Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12.

He says here in verse 14, 14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." So God's word is very clear.

We are not to have anger, bitterness toward anyone.

Now in and of ourselves, that's impossible.

Because we're by nature angry, prideful, selfish, that's just how we are.

And so because of that sinful side of us, the natural response is anger and unforgiveness.

So it takes God's grace to get us out of that.

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Emotional Healing

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