I want to talk this morning about
biblical counseling. We'll look at a few selected
scriptures, and I'm going to introduce the topic this week, and we'll
dive in a little bit more next week. So pray with me, and we'll
start our time together. Father, thank you so much for
the privilege of being back from Russia, being here with our body,
with this church that I love and enjoy so much, their love
for you and their love for your word and their desire to exalt
Christ And thank you for the faithful men and women in this
body who pray and support and give and serve. And I pray, God,
as we venture into this important topic of biblical counseling,
that you would give us deep conviction and that you would give us an
appropriate balance on what your word teaches on this important
topic. And it's in Jesus' name we pray,
amen. Well, her name was Candace. She had light brown hair and
a splash of freckles across her face. She was born into a poor
family in the backwoods of North Carolina. Her parents were poor
and plagued with various troubles and even struggled with drug
addiction. The police had visited their
home several times in the first few years of Candace's problem
filled life. When she was just five years
old, she was plucked away by social service workers, and she
was given to a well-to-do single nurse who was looking for a child
to love, and she ended up serving as Candace's foster parent. Her adopted mom found Candace's
behavioral problems too much to handle. Candace was not used
to having any kind of daily schedule and had never been to a daycare
before. In addition to all of these challenges
in her new life, she missed her parents and did not know what
had become of them. The new foster mom tried everything
she could to help, doctors and psychologists and medication,
but nothing seemed to be working. So she sought help from a group
of therapists in the state of Colorado. She paid $7,000 for
a controversial psychotherapy treatment called rebirthing. Rebirthing is a therapy to treat
children diagnosed with attachment disorder where the adopted child
resists a loving relationship with their newfound parents.
The children are taken into a special room for therapy where they are
covered in blankets and pillows meant to simulate the womb and
are encouraged to push their way out or to emerge in an effort
to be reborn. Candace was wrapped in a blanket
and surrounded by pillows to simulate this womb like experience
and there were four Committed therapists who pushed against
her for 70 minutes They were saying emerge and bond with your
new mom emerge Why are you being such a wimp? Candace screamed
and she begged them to stop. And they kept saying, push, push. And Candace said, I feel like
I'm going to die. And they said, go ahead and die
then. And she did. Candace died from
suffocation after undergoing rebirthing therapy. And when
the therapist finally removed all the pillows, she was found
lifeless underneath. Two of the four therapists were
charged with reckless child abuse resulting in death. Both received
16-year prison sentences. Rebirthing therapy has now been
banned in many states. It has been described as potentially
abusive and pseudo-scientific. Senator Mark Hillman at the time
said this, quote, no one can read about this and not be horrified. The sheriff from North Carolina
who knew her family said about Candace, she didn't have a chance
from the moment that she was born until the moment she died
at 10 years old. That's a tragic story. Now, I'm
not here this morning by any means to hint that every psychological
experience ends in physical death, but it is kind of crazy to see
how our culture has completely bought into the field of psychology
as an answer to every problem. And in our over psychological
world, people have exchanged the wisdom of God that helps
us deal with challenging issues for a lie. And the lie is this. The lie is the simple belief
that psychology is equipped to help provide needed comfort and
true life change. It is not. Psychology is nothing
more than man's wisdom. In fact, open up your Bibles
to 1 Corinthians 3 and look at verses 18 and following. Here, Paul kind of addresses
this whole concept, if you will, of the difference between man's
wisdom and God's wisdom. And in 1 Corinthians 3, 18, we
read this, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you
thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool. that he might become wise. For
the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written,
he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord
knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let
no one boast in men. Well, this is exactly what's
going on in our culture. People who claim to be wise,
who gain degrees and study with many years of their life devoted
to psychological study and research, claim to know and understand
more about the human heart and human behavior than God's word. On the other hand, the Bible
tells us in Isaiah 9, 6, for unto us a child is born. To us,
a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and
his name shall be called wonderful. Counselor, mighty God, everlasting
father, and the prince of peace. So we have a choice to make this
morning to whether we're going to trust in the wisdom of this
world, which provides various ideologies and systems of thought
to help us address difficult issues in life, or we can go
with the wonderful counselor, Jesus Christ, So the answer to
the problems of the human heart obviously do not lie within the
secular wisdom of this world, but within the knowledge of God. Only God can change a life from
the inside out. Only God can truly heal the brokenhearted. We didn't sing songs this morning
about secular psychology. We sang about how God and his
truth lives forever. And so we have a choice to make
this morning to whether or not we're going to receive influence
from the wisdom of the world, or we're going to look simply
to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Listen to what Jesus
says in Luke 4, 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because
he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. And he
has sent me to proclaim liberty. to the captives and recovering
of sight to the blind, to the liberty, those who are oppressed
and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. So we kind of understand
a little bit that it's all about Christ. It's about Christ coming
to set us free from our sin problem. It's about Christ coming to bind
up the broken hearted. It's about Christ coming to each
one of us to proclaim the year of the Lord's Favor and so this
morning I want to take a look at this important topic of biblical
counseling and it's a huge privilege for me to Attempt to teach you
some of the things that God is still teaching me in this process
of biblical counseling You see counseling is all about change
It's all about helping people change. And so I'm an individual
in need of great change. You're an individual in need
of great change and biblical counseling is helping us get
to where God wants us to be. He wants us to change to become
more like his son, Jesus Christ. And so what I'm going to attempt
again to teach you this morning are just things that I've drawn
from all of the education I've been able to pursue. Things I've
learned from counseling classes at the Master's Seminary, things
I've learned as I've become ACBC certified, things I've learned
even in my experience in the medical world working as a physician's
assistant, and from my experience at helping start a biblical counseling
center at Lakeside Bible Church, and my opportunity to help serve
alongside of Steve, Pastor Severance, starting our counseling center
here. I've benefited greatly from many men and women who've
been before me, men like Jay Adams and John MacArthur and
Wayne Mack and Stuart Scott and John Street, Ted and Paul Tripp,
Lou Priolo, Steve Vires, just to name a few. But the more I
study the Bible and I read books and articles on biblical counseling,
and the more I counsel, the more I feel inadequate. to be able
to really help a person sitting across the desk with their problem,
because I realize that I'm not even the answer. It's not me,
it's not my training, it's not my background. It's somehow helping
this person see that they need Christ, that Christ is the answer,
that Christ provides true hope, that Christ can bring about good
things from bad things that happen in this life. And so like you,
I'm in the process of becoming a better counselor and in no
way claim to have the answer to every question. However, I
am a firm believer in the sufficiency of the Bible. I am a firm believer
that God has given us all that we need for life and for godliness
and it's found in God's word. And so when I sit there sometimes
across the table from somebody telling me about the horror of
their life, sometimes I'm without words and I'm like, I'm not sure
where to start. I'm not sure what to say other
than I'm so sorry that this happened to you. But I believe in a good
God who is actually sovereign over all things and can even
work this difficult thing for good in your life. And I wanna
help teach you to respond with a heart of gratitude and to keep
you from becoming bitter and to help you to realize that you
don't have to remain a victim, but you can be victorious by
thinking biblically about these situations that have happened
in your life and so my goal over the next couple of weeks is to
kind of introduce biblical counseling to you this week and next week
i want to focus a little bit more on teaching you how to do
it all right so this morning let's look at the first of these
four major headings number one will be this again an introduction
to biblical counseling so let me give you a definition so make
sure we know what we're talking about that's your first blank
there in your outline biblical counseling is confronting admonishing
instructing people with the Word of God in the power of the Spirit
of God to help them change in their thinking and behavior to
make them more like Christ for God's glory and for their good. That'll be our working definition
of biblical counseling. We're here to help instruct people
Admonish people to confront one another as we desire to help
each other change Notice the the key word there is we don't
want just we don't want people just to have an intellectual
Understanding of who God is we want God to radically change
their life We want marriages put back together again. We want
men who stop looking at pornography We want young people obedient
to their parents. We want to all be like Christ,
each one of us in our own way. And it comes from looking at
God's word, looking at our hearts and realize that we're in desperate
need of the grace of God. And by God's grace, we can change. So we've got to understand first
having the right theology so that we can move into the right
methodology of what biblical counseling is. And so my desire
is to instruct you and to help you and equip you and to help
us all grow spiritually so that the counsel that we offer may
be more God-honoring, more Christ-centered, and more Spirit-dependent so
that you can serve our church and our community with greater
precision. All right, I mean, here's the
idea. You might be sitting here already thinking, well, I'm not
really a biblical counselor, so this just applies for seminary
students and people that took biblical counseling classes at
the college, right? Well, that's wrong. This applies to everybody.
Biblical counseling is biblical discipleship. Biblical counseling
is biblical sanctification. Biblical counseling is practicing
the one and others with one another. And every time we open our mouth,
we're offering counsel to somebody about their life and their situation.
And what you're telling them is either based on your opinion
or Lord willing, it could be based on the principles of scripture
so that you can really help somebody. So let's begin by just acknowledging
there's lots of problems out there, right? Everybody has a
problem. All you got to do is look at the news, look at the
headlines, and you realize our world is in a mess. And so the
question is, well, how are we going to help fix the mess? I
mean, what is the answer to people's problems? This world would say
psychology, psychotherapy, and medication. They would say these
things are the solution to help people with their personal issues.
Whereas the Bible says the only solution to men's problems is
for man to repent from his sinful rebellion against God and to
get into a right relationship with God through his son, Jesus
Christ. Biblical counsel begins with
the gospel. If somebody doesn't know Christ,
we can't help them. So when people come to me for
counseling and I begin to start with the gospel to help them
and they say, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want Jesus. I just want
you to help me in my marriage. And I just look at them and say,
I'm sorry, I can't. I can't help you. There's nothing
I can do to help you have a better marriage because God's not into
behavioral change. He's into heart change. I mean,
sure, I could offer some different anecdotes of how to love your
wife and how your wife should respect your husband. And we
could talk about that all day long. But if you don't know Christ,
then it's leading you into further legalism. It's leading you into
thinking, oh, if I abide by certain morality and a certain marriage
code devoid of Christ, somehow we'll have a better marriage.
Well, I mean, it is possible, I guess, from a human perspective
that you had a better marriage, but at the end of your life,
when you die, you will go to hell. And my goal in biblical
counseling is not help people have a better marriage on their
way to hell. But my goal in biblical counseling is to lead one and
to lead all to Jesus Christ who provides answers that we need
for life's most difficult problems to give us help and to give us
hope no matter what your situation is. And I believe this because
of my relationship with Jesus Christ. He changed me. I wasn't changed by secular psychology. I wasn't changed by picking up
a textbook and attending an introduction to psychology on a secular campus.
I was changed by the gospel. So this morning, I want to teach
you two major things about psychology, A and B. There on your outline,
A is this, psychology is diametrically opposed to the Bible. The world's
way is psychology, but God's way is Christianity. Psychology
and Christianity have been enemies from the very beginning. Their
foundational beliefs are diametrically opposed to one another. Strangely
enough, however, Much of the evangelical community has tried
to get these two sworn enemies to marry each other. And they
call the marriage Christian counseling. Basically, the idea of Christian
counseling or Christian psychology, the marriage maybe more specifically
would be Christian psychology, right? Secular psychology married
together with Christianity. This idea is really secular psychology
disguised in spiritual terminology. It is a blend of psychological
theories and therapies sprinkled with Bible verses. There are
countless books and clinics and live radio programs that have
catapulted Christian psychology into a billion dollar business.
So in the world of counseling, as far as the church is concerned,
you have this psychological Christian counseling, which oftentimes
is just called Christian counseling. And then you have biblical counseling. So Christian counseling by and
large is dependent on integrationism between Christianity and psychology
Whereas biblical counseling is dependent on the Bible alone
And it's sad but not surprising that so many in the church today
depend on secular Thinking to fill a void that exists in every
person's life And so I'm here this morning to give you a very
bold claim and the bold claim is this godly counsel or biblical
counsel does not need man's wisdom at all. There's not one thing
that the world of secular psychology offers in addition to the Bible
by which that we need in order to change a person's life. That's
adding to the gospel. And so the idea is while there
may have been advancements in psychology with both the secular
person and the Christian could look at and say, hey, that research
is helpful. We interpret it from two different
worldviews, one from a secular worldview, one from a Christian
worldview. And so it might be interesting to look at various
studies. They're really just common grace of general revelation. which is available to all of
us. It's really how we use that research that really defines
whether or not it's truly helping or not helping. So maybe I could
just paste this whole thing this way, make it all like this. Turn
to Jeremiah 2.13. I don't know what paste means,
but maybe I could point you to Jeremiah 2.13 to say, this is
what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to couch it maybe
with this concept, all right? Jeremiah, he's pleading for God's
people to repent and to come to Yahweh. And they don't want
to do it. They want to do their own thing.
And so in Jeremiah 2.13, he writes this, for my people have committed
two evils. They have forsaken me, the foundation
of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold
no Water what I'm trying to suggest to you today. Is it psychology
is a broken? Cistern if you try to take man's
wisdom who is left God tries to explain human behavior and
development From a secular worldview my friends that's called a broken
cistern and the broken cistern of psychology doesn't hold any
life-giving water And so the idea is I want to come to the
living water of Christ and His Word to drink deeply so that
my heart can be filled with satisfaction and real answers to what's going
on in my life. And so not seeking complete satisfaction
in God and in the provision of His Word is sin. False teachers
teach that you can find answers outside of the Bible. That's
why the New Testament is filled with warnings of this. Paul told
Timothy that false teachers be careful for them because they're
the ones that have an appearance of godliness, but deny its power. He tells Timothy, avoid such
people for among them are those who creep into households and
capture weak women. Burdened with sense led astray
by various passions, always learning, but never able to arrive at a
knowledge of the truth. Second Timothy three, five through
seven. And so the idea of the false
teacher is, well, they appear godly. Even Christian psychologists
appear godly because they talk a little bit about the Bible,
but if they give way. into secular ideology in any
way. It is possible that they could
be captured into this system of thought that doesn't come
from God's word. And it could be, could it be
possible that they're always learning, but never really able
to arrive at the knowledge of the truth, which is Christ. and his word, which is completely
sufficient for all that we need. And so if Paul is warning Timothy
about some of these false teachers, how much more should we be worried
about just full-blown secular psychology? I'll never forget
taking a class on this subject from Dr. Stuart Scott at the
Master's Seminary, and he talked about how in his early life he
felt unable to really manage some of the cases going on in
his church. And so he would call other pastors
and say, hey, what do you guys do? Some of these complicated
counseling cases, and they would say, oh, we defer. or we refer,
we refer them to other Christian counselors who have psychologist
degrees and they're able to handle some of those really difficult
cases. And that way you can just focus on studying the word and
preaching. And so he said, okay. So he starts referring some of
his members of his church to this Christian psychologist.
And after a while he noticed this one family wasn't coming
back. And so he called the guy up and he said, hey, are you
getting counseling? He said, sure. And he said, how's it going?
He's like, it's going great. He said, well, where have you
been? I haven't seen you at church lately. And he said, oh, my psychologist
told me not to come anymore. He said, well, how come? And
he said, well, I was struggling with depression and coming to
church made me feel more depressed. So my Christian psychologist
said, well, don't go back. You could just have a love relationship
with God between you and the Bible. You don't need to be a
part of a church. Well, if that's the kind of counseling, and again,
I know it sounds like I'm throwing every Christian psychologist
under the bus. I don't mean to do that. Only
those that would hold to any type of real secular principle
as a part of their counsel. You understand that, right? But
the idea is that it's a slippery slope. because we really can't
combine what the world has to offer and what God has to offer
and somehow mix them together. Instead, what's happening in
our culture in churches by and large is 2 Timothy 4, 3 and 4. For the time is coming when people
will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they
will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions
and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into
myths. I wonder if some of the false
teachers of our day could be Christian psychologists who claim
to know Christ and yet are offering a kind of counsel that's really
rooted in and based on secular psychology. Well, you're probably
asking, man, what's got Adam so fired up about this? I mean,
what's really wrong with psychology anyway? You may be thinking,
can integrating psychology with Christianity really be that bad
to warrant such a scathing rebuke? Well, let me take a moment and
answer that question to you this morning. And I want to answer
the question, what is wrong with psychology? By the next four
points in your outline, I want to talk about four basic reasons
why psychology is wrong. Number one, psychology is wrong
because of who founded it. Psychology is wrong because of
who founded it. By the way, psychology is the
study of the soul, okay? So we're taking the wisdom and
intellect of trained and educated men who are trying to explain
the soul of man without God. That's what psychology is all
based on, all right? So it's wrong because of who founded
it. Sigmund Freud is known as the father of modern psychology
and psychotherapy. He was not a Christian, and he
was trying to explain human behavior and development from a secular
worldview. He has been described as, quote,
an atheist, God-hating Jew with a lot of sexual hang-ups, close
quote. He hated his father and had a
sexual love for his mother. He was a pervert. He called himself,
quote, a completely godless Jew and a hopeless pagan, close quote. He considered the Bible to be
a storybook filled with fairy tales. He hated religion so much
so that he claimed that it was only invented to fulfill man's
needs, even admitting that he devised psychotherapy as a substitute
for religion. He even proposed that he began
practicing his psychotherapy on Easter Sunday morning to provide
a way where people could get answers outside of the gospel.
And so Freud is obviously not a friend of Christianity. He
is a self-proclaimed enemy. If you look at 2 Timothy 3, 5,
we read this, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its
power, avoid such people. Now that passage again is talking
about false teachers. So if we're supposed to avoid
false teachers, how much more are we supposed to avoid somebody
who outright tells us that they hate God and they want to come
up with a substitute for religion? Think we should tap into their
way of thinking and benefit from their work, or maybe we should
avoid them altogether. How about Psalm 1, 1 and 2? Blessed
is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands
in the way of sinners, nor sits at the seat of scoffers, but
his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates
day and night. Listen, if you have a problem,
come to Christ. Don't sit at the feet of a scoffer. Don't sit at the feet of a sinner
or listen to the counsel of the wicked. Trust in God. Look to God's word. Believe that
Christ is able to change you and to give you hope even in
the most difficult of situations. Let me give you a second reason
why psychology is wrong. Number two, psychology is wrong
because of what it teaches. It's hard to get a handle on
exactly what psychology teaches because it's constantly changing.
From its origin, it has been fragmented into dozens of different
competing philosophies of psychology, such as depth psychology, behaviorism,
hierarchy of needs, etc. It's been estimated that today
there are over 250 different philosophies of psychology. However,
even though it has evolved into many different forums, all of
these forums are based on the same foundational theories and
core beliefs. In other words, no matter what
kind of psychologist you are, because they argue amongst themselves
about what's the right way to do it. All secular psychology
is founded on four presuppositions. Okay, four foundational beliefs. Number one, and this is little
a in your outline, they would all believe that man is a product
of evolution and is basically good by nature. Remember, we're
talking about secular psychology here. This is where it comes
from, that we're all a product of evolution. Freud believed
that we're all animals. who simply live out our instincts,
and this comes out in his view of sex. No limitation. Anybody
can have sex with anybody at any time, just like an animal
would. B.F. Skinner, another well-known secular
psychologist, taught that people were animals that can be conditioned.
So he based this assumption on experiments like the now famous
Pavlov's dogs. Remember that experiment? Basically
had some dogs in the kennel, you bring a dog out, you ring
the bell. After you ring the bell, you put some food in front
of him and he's like, and he eats all the food. The next day
you do the same thing. You take him out of the kennel,
you put him in this room and you ring a bell and he sits there and
kind of looks at you funny. Then you put some nice food in
front of him and he devours the food. After doing this day after
day for several weeks, what you can see happening is you could
bring the dog out, put him in the room, ring the bell, and
all of a sudden the dog starts salivating. Even though there's
no food there, the dog all of a sudden starts salivating, and
they say, well, you can train people. It's behavioralism. The dog salivates as a result
of the environment. So if you tweak the environment,
you can change what the dog does or doesn't do. Now that's supposed
to be brilliant psychology. Let me just say that's just like
common sense. I can train my dog to sit down and then feed
him a doggie biscuit. But that doesn't help me understand
the human heart. In fact, the whole point here
behind what Skinner did and what Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
and others who set up self-actualization is they're trying to teach that
within you, you're actually good. So since you're good, what you
got to do is go through different layers of peeling the onion back
to get down to the core of who you are to find out that there's
a hero within you. It's within you. Don't look without.
You just got to be true to yourself and have faith and faith and
realize that you are special. And so inside of your own heart,
you can have this incredible beauty that you just need to
tap into. Well, that's the exact opposite of what the Bible teaches
in Psalm 51, 5. David says, behold, I was brought
forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Romans
3, 10, there's none righteous, no, not one. Romans 3, 23, for
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. My friends,
if you start looking deeper within your own heart, you realize that
you are a sinner. You're created in God's image,
but you're a reprobate. And without the grace of God,
you can never live this life in a way that would honor God
and in a way that you would truly find satisfaction and contentment
and true purpose. Well, let me give you a second
foundational belief, which psychology teaches. B, man is not responsible
for his actions and attitudes. Psychology teaches that people
are victims. Their problems are not their
fault, but they are the result of what someone else has done
or hasn't done to them. They have been abused or deprived
and their needs have not been met. Now let me just say that's
true in a lot of situations. People are victims in the sense
that somebody might have abused a child or something might have
happened horrible and in a sense that child initially was innocent. But the difference is this, over
time that child has to respond and deal with what happened to
them. And if they try to respond and
deal with what happened to them from a secular standpoint, it
will never lead to saving grace and true freedom from that horrible
circumstance. But if that child, by the grace
of God, were to become born again, They could learn how to discipline
their mind, not to meditate on the past, but rather to meditate
on Christ's goodness. Not only that, they could begin
to look at the gospel of what happened to Jesus Christ and
realize that an innocent man suffered, but while he was suffering,
he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who
judges righteously. that you could teach that young
child, now becoming a young adult, that they don't have to be scarred
for the rest of their life to the point that they're not able
to enter into a normal marriage covenant. But rather, you could
teach that child that no matter what's happened to them, they
can continue to look to Christ, that they can find healing in
Jesus who binds up the hearts of the brokenhearted, and they
can receive. It doesn't mean that all of a
sudden their life is a piece of cake and it's not a challenge.
Sure, it could be a challenge. But the problem is psychology
would just keep feeding, oh, you're a victim, you're a victim.
Therefore, if you struggle with alcoholism, or you get angry,
or you get mad, or you become an addict, that's okay because
that's just kind of, that happened to you. And now you do that and
it's understandable. Psychology also, some forms of
it, will try to produce in you memories of the past that aren't
even there. They try to dig back. If they
can find something, then they'll hang that as a scapegoat. That's
what happened to you. Your mother dropped you as a kid. That's
why you've never bonded with your mother. No, you've never bonded
with your mother because you were rebellious. You didn't want
to follow what mom said. Well, my mom wasn't perfect.
Well, neither was mine. But we still have a responsibility
to act in a God-honoring way. And so the idea is some psychologists,
if they can't find something to hang the scapegoat shingle
on, they'll make up stuff. And they'll put it in your, quote,
subconscious of stuff that happened, which is also very dangerous
practice. So what does the Bible teach
about all this? Why do we sin? Well, James 1, 14 and 15 says,
but each person is tempted when he's lured and enticed by his
own desire. Then desire, when it's conceived,
gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown,
brings death. I mean, the reason we sin and
struggle isn't necessarily primarily based on the sin of others, but
on our own sin. Well, let me move on. The third
foundation to psychology would be this, the Bible, prayer, and
the Holy Spirit are inadequate and too simplistic to solve deep
emotional and spiritual problems. So there's your answer right
there. Psychologists claim that they claim to have actually a
type of higher knowledge and greater insight than the Bible
ever gives. So psychologists really know
how to deal with your problem, not you. You're not really capable. You're thinking too simplistic
about it. You've got to go through the
deep recesses of psychology in order to understand what's really
going on, which is why D psychiatrists think of themselves as experts
in dealing with people's problems. So psychiatrists are the trained
professionals and they are convinced that pastors and lay people and
Christians are completely unqualified and unskilled to deal with life's
most complex problems. In their opinion, counseling
is best left to the experts. And so the pastors should refer
people to them as the specialist and submit to their expertise. In other words, pastors should
stay on their turf. Let the psychologist deal with
the soul. So they would say that if you're really sick, next part
of your outline there, you should see a doctor. I agree with that. If you're sick, you should see
a doctor. If you're confused about God, you should see a pastor. I also agree with that. What
I don't agree with is number three, if you're depressed, see
a psychologist. I believe that a psychologist
would offer counsel that is contrary to the Bible. Now, let me just
be clear. If you're in here and you've
been to a psychologist, I'm not saying you're in sin. If you're
in here and you've been to a Christian psychologist, I'm not saying
you're in sin. I'm just trying to make the case that even Christian
psychology can be built on a slippery slope if they give any credence
at all to a secular ideology in the type of counsel that they
give. And I'm also saying that any pastor or any Christian is
able to offer better counsel in Christ than the trained professional
can offer without Christ. It's evident that psychology
teaches unbiblical ideas and methods, and psychology at its
core is truly diametrically opposed to what the Bible teaches. Psychology
has been correctly summarized by one author as a war on the
Word of God. I mean, it's the fool who says
in his heart there is no God. Psalm 14, 1. In 1 Timothy 4,
1 through 7, we're warned again that we wouldn't devote ourselves
to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. You say,
well, Adam, are you saying that Christian psychologists are purporting
the teaching of demons? If they offer secular psychology
as a rationale behind what's happening and trying to help
people by subscribing to the methods of Freud and Skinner,
then yes. If they're just given the bible
and giving some common sense Ways to think about life might
not be that harmful But why not just come to the bible alone
to help you? Think through all of life's problems
and how to respond to all of life's problems by growing in
christlikeness By realizing that you know, I need to put off ungodly
ways of thinking about things and I need to put on godly ways
of thinking and acting. That's called Christian growth
and sanctification, becoming more like Christ. That's the
goal. The goal isn't like, oh, I need
to have some research from some study that says what most men
struggle with in their marriages. I mean, that could be interesting,
but is that really gonna change you? 1 Thessalonians 5, 21, 22
says, but test everything, hold fast to what is good, abstain
from every form of evil. Well, again, we're talking about
four reasons why psychology is wrong, right? The first one was
because of who founded it. The second one was because of
what it teaches. The third one is this, psychology is wrong
because of how it works. It's wrong because of how it
works. Since its inception, psychology has been promoted and accepted
as a full-fledged science. However, none of its theories
or hypotheses can be tested and verified through traditional
means of true science. And because they cannot be proved
by measurable data or empirical evidence, I'm saying to you,
psychology is not a true science. Psychology likes to think of
themselves as being based on a medical model. In other words,
psychology equates mental illnesses to physical illnesses. And when
a person suffers from a physical illness, Doctors diagnose that
particular illness based on symptoms that can be verified through
blood tests and x-rays, etc. Right? And based on their test,
they can know for a fact that there's a problem. For example,
if you have a flu, or a flu virus, you can go to the doctor, they
can swab out your nose, they can put that on a lab microscope
swab thing and take it to the lab, all right, and they can
look at it and say, you know what, this guy's got, they've
got the flu. Okay, so they come back, say
you need to take this antiviral medication, we're going to put
you on you know, this medication for a couple days, and you're
going to be a little bit better, right? It'll help you fight the
flu faster. If you have a bacterial infection, same thing. They can
swipe your throat, put it in the lab, it grows it out. Oh,
you've got bacteria. In fact, you've got Streptococcus
bacteria, so we're going to give you this antibiotic, and if you
take this, you'll be better in a few days. That's how medicine
works. We get that. So what psychologists try to
do is they try to tap into that and they say, well, people with
psychological problems have a mental illness, right? And so they diagnose
these particular illnesses in the same way that a doctor would.
First, by listening to the symptoms and the complaints of the patient.
However, these symptoms cannot be verified through medical means. There are no x-rays, blood tests,
MRIs that tell you that you have a chemical imbalance. And so
the going trend of secular psychologists is that if you struggle with
depression, for example, then you have a lack of the neurotransmitter
serotonin in the synaptic cleft gap between the neurons in your
brain. So what we need to do is give
you some selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors that if we
give you these drugs, they'll increase the level of serotonin
which produces a euphoric feeling and all of your problems will
go away. Well, the problem with that is if you've been depressed
or you've been diagnosed with clinical depression, it wasn't
blood work that gave that information to your doctor. There is no blood
work which gives a chemical level of what the normal levels of
serotonin are in the brain. So it's a hypothesis. You say,
well, Adam, how come people who are on the medication get better?
Well, studies show that a third get better, a third stay the
same, and a third get worse. How is that working for you?
How would that work in the field of diabetes, for example? What
if you went in with a diabetic problem and they give you insulin
and say, well, a third of them get better, a third say the same,
third get worse. You'd be like, I need a new doctor. I'm looking
for a little higher percentage than thirds, okay? So the people
who do do better oftentimes boast of doing much, much better. There
are some chemical properties in the drugs. So I'm not saying
that drugs don't have chemical properties. I'm just saying that
we don't know scientifically what the normal level of the
chemical should be and how this drug truly affects it. So you
say, how come some get better? Well, there's this thing called
the placebo effect, right? The idea that I'm going to the
doctor, I'm receiving medication, I'm feeling better, therefore
I must be getting better. Now, hear me well. I used to
be a physician's assistant, and I have seen depressed patients. I have also prescribed, as a
provider, medications for people who have asked for specific medications
to help them with their struggle of depression. So I'm not saying
that it's a sin to think of yourself as having a challenge or to take
a medication. If you're here today and you're
struggling with depression and you take a pill for it, I don't
believe that's a sin. I do, however, believe it's a
conscience issue. If you're looking to that pill
as the end all salvation of your struggle, then you're an idolater. If though you're looking to Christ
and you're constantly in the word and in prayer and receiving
good biblical counsel and you personally on your own decide,
but I'm going to also take the pill. I say that's between you
and the Lord. There's a lot of Christian our
biblical counselors who initially said oh you can't take the these
medications just hear well from your pastor I'm saying hey, you
can do whatever you want unto the glory of God, right? And
the idea is if you're thinking of it as an essay as I have to
or I need in order to be happy then that's idolatry if you're
thinking of it as you know, I don't know what else to do and So I'm
just gonna continue to pray and just take this medication for
a while to help me through a difficult point again That's between you
and the Lord. All right, so I just want to
be clear on that I'm not coming down hard here saying anybody
who's ever taken any medication is a complete sinner Enslaved
to to the medication. All right, but I am saying this
we need to understand that there's still lack of true evidence that
that stuff is Works and so I'm saying what we know works is
biblical truth Christ works God's Word Discipleship can help grow
you into a place of where you can handle the issue with a little
bit more biblical fortitude Let me move on number four. You can
ask questions to me later if you want to talk more about that
but the fourth reason psychology is wrong as this psychology is
wrong because it has not Again, that's just the idea of, it's
not like people go to psychologists and all of a sudden they're all
better and have no more problems. And so I'm saying that at the
end of the day, psychology doesn't, can't truly claim that it cures
all of the issues of depression or psychological problems. Now
let me just end real quick here by just pointing you here and
you can study on your own, but let me give you the second thing
about psychology. Psychology cannot be integrated
with Christianity. It just can't. You can't really
integrate the two. Let me give you four reasons,
just quickly, why you can't do that. Number one, integration
attempts to mix Christ with Belial. So Belial is another word for
Satan. And in 2 Corinthians 6, 14 and 15, it says, what accord
has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer
have with an unbeliever? In other words, you can't mix
oil and water. You can't mix light and darkness. They don't mix. That's like theistic
evolution. That's like saying, Oh, I'm a
Christian. I believe in creation, but I also believe in evolution.
So somehow they work together. It doesn't work. Get off the
fence. All right. Number two, integration
denies the Bible's claim of sufficiency. Certainly psychology is not developed
to be a help to Christianity, but rather in opposition to it.
So basically integrationism is the idea that we need the Bible
plus other research from man. Number three, integration denies
Christ's adequacy as the wonderful counselor. Well, that's great
that you're a Christian and you go talk to your pastor about
your problems, but if you really want help, why don't you come
to my office and I'll give you some professional help. Well,
that sounds so acceptable, right, in our culture, but if it denies
the adequacy of Christ, then it is a false teaching. How about
this one? Number four, integration assumes
that for 2,000 years, God left the people of his church without
the necessary resources to solve people's problems and to live
godly lives. So what did we do before Sigmund
Freud? He's the father of modern psychology. How in the world
did the church in the 1700s and 1800s deal with problems with
depression? You gotta go to Christ. I mean,
the bottom line is we need Christ. We need to be balanced. We need
to be biblical. We need to be understanding,
but maybe you could just take home these principles. You've
got to be able to build your foundation on the rock who is
Christ and not the sand of this world. I don't care how much
research you look at. I don't care how many studies,
well, studies show, so what? The Bible says the problem is
your heart. Number two, don't be intimidated
by the world system, but rather put your confidence in God's
word. How many of you guys have been intimidated before when
someone says, well, I got bipolar. You're like, Ooh, I guess I can't
talk to you. Oh, you've been diagnosed with
depression. Go see your psychologist. No,
I think our response should be like, Hey, I'm so sorry about
your struggle. I'd love to talk to you about
what God's word says. I'm not saying you start to tinker
with their medication. I'm not saying you tell them,
hey, you got to quit taking your meds. In fact, I tell them, don't
say that. What they do between them and
their psychologists or them and their doctor, that's up to them.
But you can still offer to them hope in Christ. You can lead
them to Christ. Don't be so intimidated by, quote,
educated people who think they understand it all when the Bible
says that the wisdom of this world is fleeting. Lastly, ask
God to help you be a better counselor who seeks to point others to
Jesus. At the end of the day, remember
we're all people in need of change, helping people in need of change,
and the person who produces change is Jesus Christ. Now look, I started off telling
you about Candace who physically died. While that's extremely
rare in the world of psychotherapy, people are dying spiritually
every day by believing what psychotherapy and secular psychology teaches
instead of the Bible. We wanna be a church that offers
real answers to real problems in Jesus. Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for a church that is
earnest to learn your word and apply your word and to take great
pride in our savior, Jesus Christ, who is the only life-changing
agent who has ever lived. Forgive us, God, for being enamored,
impressed, Overly interested in what the world has to say
on the behavior of the heart Help us to be truthful to be
honest to be open to consider anything All with the grain of
salt as we compare what the world offers to what you have already
offered us in your all-sufficient inspired infallible word Help
us be a church that stands on the rock of Jesus Christ, who
offers counsel from the life of Christ, who sees change coming
from Christ. And it's in his name we pray.
Amen.