GYC 2025: Seeing the Invisible

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Generation. Youth. Christ. (GYC)

Addiction in the Last Days: Breaking the Invisible Chains on the Mind

Eric Walsh

01 A Generation Addicted: Drugs, Demons, and a Rising Death Toll

02 The Brain on Drugs: How the Devil Chains the Mind

03 The New Drug: Pornography and Sex Addiction

04 Healing the Brain After Addiction: The Power of Our Health Message

05 Sobriety and the End of Time: The Need of a Clear Mind to Avoid Deception

This last 1 is about really focusing on how do you beat this?

So our scripture is taken from John chapter 8 and verse 36.

The Bible says, "'If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.'" And so beating addiction and healing the brain, the power of the Adventist health message.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to continue in our study and to move forward.

And we're asking for your Holy Spirit, Lord, again, to lead as we address these issues and look for solutions, Lord, that are centered in Christ.

So, the Bible story I'm going to look at for this is, I'm going to start in Matthew 4, and then we're going to go to Mark 1.

Matthew 4 says, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward and hungered.

Mark says it like this, and immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

And he was there in the wilderness 40 days tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered unto him.

To really understand Christ you have to understand The Bible says he was tempted in all points as are we yet without sin.

He took on our infirmities the Bible says that means every desire everything from thirst to hunger to ailments like fatigue Christ experienced them all and I would have to argue there was probably no part of it that the devil did not attack him more on on those things that are attached to the dopamine system we talked about and here's 1 of those places here Jesus in the wilderness 40 days he's fasting for 40 days there are 3 people in the Bible the Bible says fasted 40 days who are they Moses Elijah and Jesus interesting huh because then they they're reunited on the Mount of Transfiguration.

So here he is fasting and 40 days of fasting is like the point at which your body can actually die like that's the that's the outer limits of how long you can fast.

So Jesus at his weakest physical point, food releases dopamine, so he's at a place where you know it that it's that that it's that that sensation is what he's after.

He's there with the wild beasts, the angels are ministering to him.

Verse 3 says, and when the tempter came to him, when Satan came to him, he said, if you are the son of God, command that these stones be what?

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Satan, when Satan, so Satan comes to Jesus looking like an angel of light.

He comes down as if he is on the Father's side.

He uses the same strategy here he used with Eve in the garden and 1 of the questions he asked, he said listen, if you are the son of God, Satan comes with this if to try and get Jesus to doubt, if you are the son of God, commanded these stones be made bread.

Now, you go to that part of the world, the stones are smooth, in fact they almost look like loaves of bread sitting there.

I wonder sometimes did Satan supernaturally try and make the smell of bread wafer from off the stones?

But Jesus is not, his dopaminergic system, His drive for survival is trumped by 1 thing.

When you go here, he says, it is written.

With this, Jesus gives us an example of how you beat the flesh, right?

Many look on this conflict between Christ and Satan as having no special bearing on their own life, and for them it has little interest.

But within the domain of every human heart, this controversy is repeated.

Never does 1 leave the ranks of evil for the service of God without encountering the assaults of Satan.

The enticements which Christ resisted were those that we find it so difficult to withstand.

They were urged upon him in as in as much greater degree as his character is superior to ours.

With the terrible weight of the sins of the world upon him, Christ withstood the test upon appetite, upon the love of the world, and upon that love of display which leads to presumption.

These were the temptations that overcame Adam and Eve, and that so readily overcome us.

And the difference is, our nature is corrupted.

We have the desires, and Satan sees the environment you grew up in.

He sees what you liked, what you didn't like.

He watches as you are victimized or experience trauma or neglect.

And the devil sees these things and he sets a plan in place.

We spend hours, years sometimes of our life not even considering what Satan is planning and while we're ignoring his existence he is plotting our destruction that is how Satan operates and he studies you when when if you are if you if you if you If someone walks by that you're attracted to and you look at them, the way you look at them, Satan reads your face and knows what it is you're extracting from that person.

James Kyle, brilliant physician and pastor, he had a saying when he would talk, he said this, your body will conspire to kill you.

If you give yourself everything you desire, everything you want, everything you beg for, everything you, your body will desire, your body will conspire to kill you.

So how do you get this all under control?

Only 8% of people who make New Year's resolutions stick to them.

And those who don't usually abandon them after just 1 week.

So that's why I always say if you want to go to the gym, just wait till January 9th and all the machines open again, treadmills empty, right?

And I said this before, but 1 of the things the devil is doing, if you're going to fight addiction and all of these traps of sin, this equation is an important equation to understand.

Stress equals demands, we talked about this before.

And what the devil is trying to do is give you false resources.

What I came to tell you today, if you wanna beat the stress equation, 1, you reduce the demands, you don't feed the flesh, but then you find those heavenly resources.

You find those things that God gives that can actually give you victory, right?

And so 1 of the chemicals involved in this is the chemical GABA.

So tomorrow morning we're really gonna go deep into how this all plays out spiritually, the bodies, the sanctuary, somebody's asking me about it, all how we're going to lay that out tomorrow morning.

1 of the neurochemicals in the brain is gamma, gamma amino butyric acid.

It slows down the brain, inhibits, helps you to control yourself.

Both alcohol and marijuana knock this out.

That's why that guy, when I was talking to the guy, you know, the drive-by shootings, he said what he said, because that's how you knock it out.

You become disinhibited and you'll do things you otherwise would never do.

What we understand about this then is that when the Bible says the love of Christ constrains us, I believe in the most holy place in your brain, the frontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex specifically, the Holy Spirit works there to pull the levers to get control.

And if you allow the Holy Spirit to work in your mind, if you set the stage properly for the Holy spirit to work in your mind, the Holy Spirit will get you back where you're supposed to be.

Here's 1 of the things a lesson I've learned and I learned this from I think it was Roger Reynolds books.

He says sometimes when you pray what you've gotta say is God, I give you permission to work on this thing.

We pray some weak prayers sometimes Lord.

You know if you know if you if you if you if it's your will if you if you'll do listen when I'm praying for people I love who are not in the Lord I say God I give you permission to work on their heart for your Holy Spirit to go in because true love if you really get experience Christ love he says He says if you love me keep my commandments So people talk about how much they experience God's love, but if you really love him, you're not trying to go break the commandment You're not looking for an excuse or a reason.

There are too many Christians trying to find a back door into glory right, so Gabba is important.

It's that control mechanism and it goes with this verse.

2nd Corinthians 514 for the love of Christ constrains us because we just judge why does his love constrain us because we just judge that if 1 died for all, then we're all dead.

In other words, it is what Christ did for us on the cross.

This is why LOI says you should contemplate the cross for like an hour a day.

I'm telling you, when I was a kid, I had an Aunt Eva.

My aunt, she'd come in from Rhode Island, and she was a very serious Adventist lady and We loved when she came because she made real good stuff But my brother and I were always tremble because she'd wake us up to have worship with her in the morning And so she'd get us up at 536 o'clock in the morning to have worship with her and we would just be like man, oh Tiva coming.

We got to wake up early and she'd wake us up and let me tell you something, she would have worship with us in the morning and she'd begin to read the Bible and she would always read something about the crucifixion and every time she would begin to weep and I remember being a little kid in elementary school and my brother and I just being like how why don't you read the Bible she started crying all the time that's no nobody else cries when they read the Bible.

I learned lately on my aunt used to be addicted to cigarettes.

She was a vegan way back when vegan wasn't even popular.

She I found out later on she was she used to drink heavily smoke You know follow none of god's laws and practices when she read the story of the cross She wept because she realized what her sins cost her savior Let me tell you something you behave differently when you realize that every time you sin, you crucify Christ afresh.

If you actually love him, you're not trying to crucify him again.

Well you go to some churches and they will basically preach that you can live however you want.

Series

Addiction in the Last Days: Breaking the Invisible Chains on the Mind

04 Healing the Brain After Addiction: The Power of Our Health Message

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Morning Devotional

Laughing Out Loud

1h 1m

GYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

But Now

1h

Morning Devotions with Justin Kim

Out of Egypt, Upon This Mountain

46m

Devoted Devotions: A Vibrant Devotional Life for the Last Days

Bound by Devotion

59m

Holy Sexuality

2. Sex and the Media

44m

Go and Do: New England Conference Youth Week of Prayer

05 Overdosed

48m

The Blame Game

42m

The Sabbath

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down

46m

GYC 2009 Plenary Sessions

GYC 2009 Keynote Address: Unashamed

1h

Mental Health

05 The United States of Addiction

1h 3m

Think On These Things

Think on These Things- Part 2

39m

Plenary

The Miracle of Mission

1h 34m

Sound Doctrine