Hell: A help for depression.

I find that I've been checking the Pyromaniacs blog quite a lot lately and being greatly helped by what I read. So I started reading this post and was struck by a quote from Spurgeon, a regular guest on the Team Pyro blog spot.

I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to, but I always get back again by this—I know I trust Christ. I have no reliance but in him, and if he falls I shall fall with him, but if he does not, I shall not. Because he lives, I shall live also, and I spring to my legs again and fight with my depressions of spirit and my down castings, and get the victory through it; and so may you do, and so you must, for there is no other way of escaping from it. In your most depressed seasons you are to get joy and peace through believing.

When I went to the quote in context I found a really terrific sermon that just kept exhorting the hearer to find their joy and peace in Christ by constantly returning to him. Now Spurgeon wasn't going to ignore medical advice:

I believe there are some persons who are beyond the reach of the preacher and who must be dealt with, if treated at all successfully, by the ordinary physician. Their case has gone beyond the limits of argument. Their mind has got into a disordered condition and the body, also, and therefore both body and mind must be set right by some other means before it is likely that spiritual reasons will prevail upon them. Provided you are sane people in some measure of health, and that you are sincere persons, we think that with God’s blessing we may be the means of comfort to you this morning.

and being a serious depressive himself, you have to believe that he didn't offer the qualification, or hold out hope, lightly.

If like me you are someone who struggles with depression, then go to the sermon by clicking on the link—I think you will be helped by what Spurgeon says, and I pray that you are.

But what jumped out at me, and what I hadn't expected, was how bold Spurgeon was in directly addressing his hearers with the reminder of God's terrible wrath and the very fires of hell—yes, even as he spoke of dealing with the depths of depression. He says for example:

Can you see the Son of God agonizing in the garden? Your Maker lies on the ground. Can you see Him taken before Herod and Pilate, and there mocked and scourged and spit upon? Can your eyes endure to see that spectacle of grief when the plowers made deep furrows on His blessed back? Can you believe that He is very God of very God, and yet is suffering thus? Can you see Jehovah grind Him to powder between the upper and the nether millstone of His wrath?
Can you hear Him say, “It is finished”? Can you mark the fearful shriek of “Eloi! Eloi! Lama Sabacthani?”

Can you believe that this is the Son of God—standing for sinners and suffering all this weight of wrath and punishment for us—and yet think that He is not worthy of being trusted to do that for which He died?

or again, he says:

But being what I am, unworthy, undeserving, and Hell-deserving, I trust Christ to save me—and if He does not save me, He is not as good as His word!

Spurgeon urges his hearers to trust in Jesus alone, and to expect joy and peace as a consequence. But if they don't, what then?

But if I wait for joy and peace, and afterwards trust, I go the wrong way to work, and put the cart before the horse. Then I have begun to expect a harvest before I sow the wheat—to expect the flower before I cultivate the stem—and I shall be mistaken and go down to the pit with a curse because I would not obey the command, “Believe and live.”

[bold mine]

As Spurgeon drives to his conclusion, he imagines the state of mind of the depressed person (or perhaps he simply reports!):

Now, I will finish with this declaration. If you can get into such a state that all the sins that were ever committed should swear that they will block your pathway to peace. If all the suggestions of Hell that ever came up from the infernal pit should surround you at one time. If, in his own proper person, the very Prince of Hell should stand across the way and swear to spill your soul’s blood...

Yet, yet in that fearful extremity, if you can believe, you are saved!

Spurgeon uses the power and horror of hell to bring comfort to his own soul, and to those of his hearers.

His text?

“Joy and peace in believing.” (Romans 15:13)

The horror of hell highlights the triumph and goodness of the grace of God in Christ, and brings joy and peace in believing for the depressed heart.

By the way, how wonderful for those preachers among us incapable of improvisation to see that Spurgeon chose to preach from a full text! His hard labour in this matter means that we all share in the blessing of he wrote.

Do you think Spurgeon would have been a blogger?