Spiritual Depression: Its causes and its cure
D Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1965, 300pp.
Available from Moore Books
02 9577 9966
info@moorebooks.com.au
www.moorebooks.com.au
Is the Bible sufficient to treat the ills of the mind and soul? Is it sufficient to deal with anxiety, guilt, fear, grief and depression? These are questions that we often answer with a “no”; in sermons, books and counsel, we tend to take our solutions from psychology rather than the Bible. While there are undoubtedly times when psychology is useful, we are poorer for our neglect of a more biblical wisdom.
Where can we find such wisdom? 40 years ago, we might have gone to Westminster Chapel and heard D Martyn Lloyd-Jones applying the Bible’s solutions to the ‘miserable Christian’. A respected and innovative doctor, Lloyd-Jones left the medical profession to become a pastor, and applied his diagnostic skill to the cure of the soul. After preaching to thousands on Sundays, he met with those who sought his counsel—a practice that is hard to imagine many popular preachers doing today. Those who felt intimidated by the redoubtable preacher were delighted to find a kind and gentle counsellor.
Lloyd-Jones taught that the solution to spiritual discouragement lay in God’s word, rather than psychology. Concerned about the joyless state of Christians, especially after the stressful years of World War II, in 1954, he preached a sermon series that was later published as Spiritual Depression: Its causes and its cure.1 Each sermon takes one cause of discouragement (e.g. worry, doubt, regret, suffering) and addresses it from a biblical perspective.
Lloyd-Jones was convinced that Christ’s power within us is sufficient to meet every need. All Christians long for joy, and the discouraged feel its lack acutely. This is appropriate because healthy Christianity involves the emotions as well as the mind. Yet we don’t find joy by pursuing it directly, but by pursuing Christ. In him, we discover joy that persists even through unhappiness:
You cannot make yourself happy, but you can make yourself rejoice … If you seek the Lord Jesus Christ and find Him there is no need to worry about your happiness and your joy. He is our joy and our happiness. (pp. 115-116, 118).
Lloyd-Jones wasn’t naive about the power of human emotions. We shouldn’t repress our feelings for in the face of suffering and death, sorrow and grief are appropriate. But we mustn’t allow feelings to control us. Our business is not to change how we feel, but to believe. We do this by turning our thoughts from our inner states and meditating on the love of Christ, preaching to ourselves and arguing ourselves out of discouragement and into faith: he writes, “we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ‘ourselves’ to talk to us!” (pp. 20; cf. p. 116.) In this way, we will learn to replace hopeless, doubting and anxious thoughts with robust thoughts full of faith, hope and joy.
One of the book’s great strengths is that these broad principles are applied to very specific situations, thus giving us practical models. The woman who fears denying Christ if her three-year-old is threatened is reminded of the paralyzing and pointless nature of fear, and is encouraged to remember the power and love God provides through his Spirit. The middle-aged man weary of the Christian life is warned against seeking comfort in alcohol or in new spiritual programmes, and is exhorted instead to set his mind on the great and glorious hope to come.
There is a delightful clear-mindedness and practicality about Lloyd-Jones’s cures. Yes, we may have to repent of sin, but we may also need to rest if we are overworked, or exercise if we feel dejected. Modern life militates against joy in God; constant entertainment can make us discontented and impatient with solitary prayer. Apparently ‘spiritual’ solutions like prayer and self-examination can actually be unhelpful, especially for introverts obsessed with their inner states. We need to be aware of such personal vulnerabilities, for Satan tailors his attacks to our temperament.
I have very few criticisms to make: Lloyd-Jones’s exegesis sometimes seems a little forced,2 and his argument, although generally clear, is occasionally opaque.3 But he covers so many issues in depth, it’s the kind of book you’ll want to read slowly, taking time to absorb his ideas, and to reflect and pray about his suggestions.
Spiritual Depression is an enormously helpful guide for anyone involved in the cure of souls and anyone who is despondent and in need of help. It gives preachers a wonderful example of how to address issues like dejection, joy, worry and doubt, and it models for counsellors the rare art of applying God’s truth to conditions like grief and anxiety. Best of all, it assists every Christian to overcome discouragement and recover joy.
Endnotes
1. The sermons were published in 1965 from the edited shorthand notes of a parishioner. A more appropriate title would have been ‘Spiritual Discouragement’.↩
2. For example, the contention, in sermon 3, that the two-stage healing of the blind man is about double-mindedness.↩
3. It was only after much reflection that I came to grips with the argument, in sermon 19, that tumultuous anxiety can coexist with inner peace.↩
