"The following message is a transcript from our National TV Show “Encounter the Real Jesus”
Introduction: My friend, do you know the real Jesus? Who laid down His life for you. Who loves you, no matter your race, gender, or past sins. Do you know the Father who protects, the Shepherd who guides. Jesus who carries you through trials, who holds you and will not let you go. Do you know Jesus, who catches your tears. The one who cries with you and laughs with you. Welcome to, "Encounter The Real Jesus." You will get to know Him more, and you will never be the same again!
Defeat Depression - Defeat the Spirit of Depression
Hallelujah my friend, and welcome today to, "Encounter the Real Jesus." May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all today on this special program.
I am excited to share the word of God with you today. There is a word of promise, it is a word that we can stand upon, it is the rock, hallelujah. And you know when you stand upon the rock, everything around you can be shaken but you who stand upon the rock cannot be shaken. The word of promise today is powerful, “'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)
Defeat depression. This is our number two series, and as we speak again about depression, God is going to take us deeper into Him and equip us to defeat this wicked spirit. God does not want us to live day by day with the depression, he wants us to completely destroy it out of the house of God, Out of our heart, soul and mind. You know, depression is something that we have even found inside of the church. But God wants to give you the victory and go and get those people who have been oppressed by it. In the book of Jonah, we are going to see how Jonah battled with depression and won!
Jonah Battles With Depression and Won
Like Elijah, Jonah fought depression, and both men won the battle. So when depression knocks on your door and at the neighbor's house, there is nothing to fear because it will be defeated in Jesus name. You will go out to people that are so oppressed and God will use you to deliver them.
In Jonah chapter 2, and it says--in verse 2 "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; You heard my voice.”
We have the man of God, his name is Jonah, he is a prophet, a true real prophet. And he is serving God, he is doing everything he can to live righteously. But there is another city, the city of Nineveh. Where the people would be living a life of sin. Now, Jonah thinks that those people need to be judged.
Sometimes we think that the people have gone too far, we even write them off our list but you know, God is so merciful. We see that God is slow to judge. It is because he does not want anybody to perish. He wants everybody to come to repentance. Now, Jonah disobeys God even though he heard the voice of God telling Him to go preach to Niniveh. A true prophet hears the voice of God. And he disobeys the voice of God and because of this he gets judged by God who threw him inside a fish, a big, huge fish. We have never seen anything like this before. And isn't this true? When you follow God, every day there would be new adventures. So do not be worried if strange things happen along the way. Do not be shocked when you see things that you have never experienced before. The Holy Spirit would be there to guide you.
Listening to the Voice of the Enemy & Believing Leads to Depression; Listening to the Voice of God and Disobeying Him Leads to Depression.
Last week we saw how Elijah was falling into depression because he listened to the voice of the devil but today I want you to know my friend that it would be possible to also to fall into depression when you hear the voice of God and you know Him and you would work with Him, but you choose to disobey Him. Our friend, Jonah, he was a very stubborn boy. God tells him, go to Nineveh.
But he wants to go to another place. He has his own mind. Then the Lord comes, and then he throws him inside of the belly of the fish. From there, Jonah prayed the prayer that we have just read.
It looks like he would be so depressed. And what did he do? and what he did--and we should all do; it is to always pray. Usually when the enemy will throw people into depression, he will take away their ability to pray. But the solution is to cry out to God.
Even if you would be in the place where there is not enough strength to give voice to your words, my friend, even try your best and speak within you, think about God and be praying within your heart because your thoughts are also prayer. Here we have to be careful of what we think. So the secret here, in Jonah winning, he called out to the Lord, he cried for help. And then did God answer him? The answer is found in verse 7:
“While I was fainting away,
I remembered the LORD, And my prayer came to You, Into Your holy temple.”
And even when you cannot form the words, you just remember God and remember that He loves you, you have a good start right there. And do not ever believe the voice that would come to tell you that God does not care. God will always care for you. It is always to have hope no matter what. You see the problem with Jonah he began to hear his own mind. He thought the people needed to be judged, and when that did not happen, he lost his hope. The Bible says, in Proverbs chapter 13, at verse 12, that Hope deferred, it makes the heart sick. But the desire fulfilled would be a tree of life. Never allow the enemy to take away Your Jesus; never let the enemy talk to you and say that he does not care, he won't be there for you. As long as you are on earth, God will always be there for you no matter what!
I know of a young man in our church who was healed of depression. For about two weeks, he did not leave the couch. He was drinking himself to death. He was not taking a shower nor eating; he was drinking himself to death. Somehow the enemy reminded him ‘oh, you have sinned too much. There is no hope for you. There is no chance for you!’ But you know every time when the devil open his mouth, he is always lying. Whenever you see the devil speaking, trash it. Because there is no truth in him. He is the father of all lies. We have to hold onto the word of God. We heard about this man and we prayed for him and he was saved and delivered in our 2012 revival. Today, he is a mighty servant of the Lord.
So the answer to depression is to pray, hallelujah! We are going to see how John was able to defeat depression and we will look into the depth of how we could apply this in our lives today. God is real my friend, trust Him to solve the most impossible situations. He will pull those who are depressed from the grip of the enemy. I want to take a break and I shall be right back. Thank you.
Announcements: When Christians learn to pray effectively the devil will be in trouble all over the world. He will lose in your household. He will lose in your neighborhoods and in your city and your state. The whole nation will be transformed. For the gift of any size to this ministry, we will send you, "Praying Deeply," a prayer training manual taught by the Lord to pastor Christine, through a face to face encounter.
Welcome back my friend, so we would be speaking about--defeating depression, and defeating every demon and defeating every devil that would come against you. God wants to help us so much so that we are strong to become the people who are mighty and when the enemy would be assigned against you, he will just tremble and say, “you know what? I cannot bother these people because there is too much prayer going on and too much fire inside of them.” And how did Jonah come out of the depression? He was fainting away. The Bible tells us what He did:
1. That he cried out. This means strong prayers. when you pray, cry out to him deeply. Cry out with all of your heart, and he will answer you.
2. That he remembered the Lord.
3. That he worshipped and gave thanksgiving
In verse nine it says, “But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the LORD.”
Praise and worship, and thanksgiving is a good medicine and also a great vaccine against depression.
I will never forget this one time, when there was--a young man in our congregation and he was really trying hard, and doing everything to get out of the depression. I spoke to the Lord and I said, oh Lord, do you really want me to do deliverance for this man? What do we do? When we prayed for him, depression did not go away at first. So I took it to the Lord and the Lord spoke to me and he said “no need for deliverance, all he needs is to just smile and to be joyful and you just encourage him.” You know, the Bible says that the joy of the Lord would be our strength. Even when it would be hard, but you try, you smile and you choose to be happy, it chases darkness away. Even when you don't feel like it, you just practice it and the joy will come little by little and this joy will give you strength. The Lord will begin to work, come to you and give you more and more abundant joy and life.
In spite of everything that happened, Jonah does not have any other choice because he loves the Lord. Oh, dear beloved friends, we love our Lord, we do not want to harm him, we don't have any other choice but to do His will. So, he moves on, and he obeys the voice of the Lord. And then he says Lord, I would go to Nineveh. He went there, and he began to preach. In chapter 3:4, Jonah cries out and he says, yet, 40 more days and Nineveh will be overthrown. He is a true prophet, right? So he speaks to them, he preaches the best he can, and then the next thing that happens it would be that the people
responded to God: from the King to the common man, and to lowest and weakest person in the whole nation, they all repented. You know repentance would change everything. Inside of you, you have the key that would cause God to change everything that he has said about the nation or even about you and that would be repentance.
As we repent God will bring joy to you and as we repent the strongholds would be uprooted, as we repent the enemy flees. So when they repented, the Lord was so pleased that he changed his mind and he said, I will not destroy this place. I will not destroy these people. And did this make Jonah happy? According to what we see in chapter 4, he was not happy the entire city returned to God. He prayed, he said, oh, Lord; please take my life from me. For death would be better to me than life. How could that be? People had repented, and you would think that Jonah would go and be joyful because anyways he loves God. But you see my friend, Jonah would be one of those people who loves God but he has his own strong will. He has his own expectations and his own hope. But today the Holy Spirit is reminding us to choose the will of God over our own will. Even when it will not make sense. When you do the will of God, the whole world will be changed. When you choose to do the will of God, and this is not about you, it will change an entire nation. So Jonah was concerned that his own prophecy would not come to pass, because remember he had said yet, 40 more days Nineveh would be overthrown. His own prophecy did not come to pass and now he is concerned about his character, about himself. And here again, we see him falling into depression, and you know what? God never leaves his people. He did not leave Jonah. God started the dialog.
God wants you to talk with him. Anything that would be bothering you, talk to him and even if you would have anger talk to God because He wants the relationship between you twos to be resolved.
My friend, today no matter where you are, you can know that God has a plan for you, to pull you out. There are so many people that would be watching and maybe you would be thinking, you have committed blasphemy and I get that a lot in ministry and people will say, "I think I have committed the unpardonable sin and I cannot be forgiven." My friend, that is a lie from the devil. As long as there would be life, and as long as you are on the earth, as long as you are in this, please know that there is hope. And the hope is Jesus Christ, our God, He is our King. So we must hope in God and never, never be discouraged because God always stands with his people. God is always fighting for them. Now, I want you to prepare your heart because you know my friend, we are going to worship in spirit and in truth. Now, as we worship, I want you to lift up your hands and give them to the Lord so that the Lord can take your hand and dance together with you. The vision of the King would be a song that we shall do now and we shall forget about all of these things that oppress us and we shall take a few minutes here and focus on the Lord.
Song: Vision of the King by Julie Meyer
Come, and consume me. Overwhelm me. Overwhelm me. Come, possess me, for I am yours. I will be yours. And it is forever. Oh, it is going to be forever. Grant me a vision of the King. Grant me a vision of the King, the King of glory. Grant me a vision grant me a vision of the King of glory of glory.
Music fades.
Together we worship the Lord. And that would change the atmosphere, The glory of God comes down and changes everything. And anything that cannot stand in the presence of God fades away, it must leave. Sometimes we feel like okay, I don't know how to start praying but my friend, the moment that you begin to worship and the moment that you begin to lift up your hands and singing, your soul would be awakened. And you will be able to pray and you would be able to read the word. Yes, praise and worship are very powerful weapons. In Psalm 42:5, the Bible says--why are you in despair, oh, my soul? and why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God. For I shall again praise his name. No matter where you stand today, no matter what would be going on, WORSHIP GOD. And please know, that tomorrow will come. And we shall still be alive. So, let's praise Him. So lift up your hands as we pray.
Father I thank you for touching, and releasing your power to destroy every chain binding your people. I ask you oh, Father, Abba, Father, bless your people who would look to you in this difficult time. I thank you that freedom is coming your way and Jesus is here to touch you. Jesus is here to give you joy and he is doing that my friend. God is good! Remember to SMILE and to BE HAPPY!
Encounter the real Jesus, it is brought to you by Christine Coleman, and the Blazing Holy Fire Church where you will find healing and deliverance and intimacy with God. You can join our 7 PM revival services, 9250 E. Bellevue Ave., Greenwood Village, Colorado, 80111. For mobile giving you can text 720-586-4390. Or you can visit blazing holy fire.com for more options. Until next time Jesus says, smile and be happy.
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