The Mind Under Attack // Battlefield of the Mind - Part 2 - Pastor Vlad

Today I would like to speak about when the mind is under attack. I remember when I heard a testimony of a father that I knew of him from as an acquaintance and he had an attack on his mind where he was not able to perform his normal functions which was driving a vehicle and it was so severe it was so difficult.

It was so painful that he wasn't able to perform these duties and he would just stay home and not being able to provide for his family. Eventually, he saw a doctor, a believer, but who helped him to get on some medication and throw that mental loop off and wean him off of that medication.

And this person function perfectly. In the world of deliverance, in the world of the world that we are in, spiritual warfare, sometimes there is a label that gets put on us, is that these people, they think everything is a demon. They don't believe in none of the science.

They don't believe in none of medication. They don't believe in professional help. They just think everybody should shake, bake, throw up, manifest a demon, and that is it. And I want to tell you something. Hungrygen believes in casting out demons. But we don't believe that casting out demons solves all other problems in our life.

We don't believe that every single mental health issue is a demon. We do believe that there are demons and they do exploit mental health issues, but you can have an attack on your brain. There are people who have damage in their brain, missing chemicals in their brain and because of that they have certain issues that need treatment and they need medication.

With that said, the mental health tsunami that is happening in our culture has gotten very big. For example, the statistic says in University of Michigan that antidepressant use from 12 to 24 year olds is 66% since 2016. So since 2016, I've lived in the United States since 1999.

Since 2016, the anti-depressant pills have gone up 16.66%. One in five adults are currently on psychiatric medications. 20 million of US children ages 3 to 17 have a mental illness. Common categories include ADHD, anxiety, depression, behavioral disorders, and childhood anxiety and depression diagnosis have increased over time. 22% of US adults suffer from mental illness, 18 plus.

In 2008, 1 in 10 Americans were taking psychotropic medication. In 2021, the estimate is one in four. So in 2008 1 in 10 in 2021 it's 1 in 4 after COVID everything just spiked. We have more therapists more treatment options more awareness than ever before yet rates of depression and anxiety keep rising and not falling.

Your struggles might be real and they probably are real. Not only are they real, they are painful. Part of the pain is that nobody has been actually able to identify what some people are experiencing and offer a solution. Instead, just the ways to cope. And today I want to share with you some of the things that the current mental health tsunami as well as the secular therapy treatment is missing and why the Bible, the scripture for a Christian does not ignore a lot of that which has some solid good understanding, research and teaching, but it brings other parts into play that are effective in dealing with your mental health.

I'm going to highlight three main points. I have four of them, but I won't get to the fourth one because of the time and I'll probably move it to the next week. Number one is there has been an inflation of labeling. A label can describe your struggle, but it should not define your identity.

Today, everybody has a label. In fact, it's actually pretty common. You meet a 16-year-old and they have already been diagnosed and a label of like five things that they are. I have panic disorder, depression disorder, and this you're like 16 years old and they're walking around. Things that used to be called normal.

For example, a kid who couldn't sit together, was just a boy. He was told to run and do chores and burn energy. Today, he is labeled as ADHD. Normal fear has become phobia. Being strict and orderly has become OCD. Having mood swings have become bipolar. Being shy is called social anxiety.

Being energetic is called being hyperactive. Being distracted by the phone saturated culture has become attention disorder. Things that our parents used to give us belt for today you get meds for. Now I want to be very careful. We do have mental health workers in our midst who are doing an amazing job.

I do not want to make a mockery of somebody's real pain. But I do want to speak into an area where there is diagnosis shopping happening in our culture where people who are hurting genuinely hurting and some who are noticing that it gets you attention are shopping for a label.

There is a danger of being labeled because then you become a victim of that label and you ignore the biblical precedent to sanctify yourself, renew your thoughts, take your thoughts captive, submit yourself to God and resist the devil. And you're walking around and saying, "Well, I just have this problem.

It's medical. It's who I am." You know, Thomas Edison was kicked out of school because he was called by his teacher too slow. He was called by his teacher. He doesn't understand. He's stupid. His mom did not accept that label. His mom didn't sign him up for some kind of therapy or medications.

His mom pulled away and said, "No, that's a bad teacher, not a bad diagnosis." And told her son, "My son is smart. My son is going to be taught differently." And he became one of the smartest minds in our generation, in the previous generation. And so we have to be careful as parents especially and we have to be careful as young adults and we have to be careful as adults.

We are living in a broken world where there's real issues and real problems and things are not and cannot necessarily be fixed by just throwing a label at somebody. And to get that label is not that hard. In fact, I want you to watch this clip. This is not a Christian guy.

Well, I don't know if he's a Christian or not, but whatever he has some truth in it. Play the clip. My mom has been through so much that whatever she tells me to do, that's what I'm going to do. For example, everybody told me I have ADD and I told my mom I have ADD and she said no.

So, I don't have ADD. I feel bad that I don't have it because I wanted it. And it's easy to get. If you want ADD, you can have it. You go to a doctor and you go, nah. And then they give it to you. I had teachers that didn't believe in ADD and they were like, Maricel made me a believer.

And when I told my mom that I have ADD, she threatened to give it to me. I said, "Mommy, I have ADD." And she goes, "Ah, you want ADD? I can give you ADD right now." And in that moment, I decided to focus. Humor does good. ADD, ADHD are real behaviorally and biologically, but it can be worsened by our culture and it could be worsened by our environment.

In a spiritually oppressive world, the enemy can exploit this struggle to increase your doubt and steal your hope, using biology and behavior to pull people away from depending on God. Diagnosis shopping is when people go looking for a label because it feels like a shortcut to explain the real pain they are experiencing.

Many mental health diagnosis, they're actually symptom based. They're heavily shaped by your self-report. How we describe how we feel. There's often no blood work done, no x-ray, no scan that proves the diagnosis in the way that we can prove many physical illnesses. And there is one reason definitions, they can shift, diagnosis can shift as the culture shifts.

Today I brought you a mental health Bible. I bought it online. So this is the Bible. This is the book that is used to diagnose people it's very big you probably will never read it. I won't read it I just can't go quickly through it and this one pretty much describes all the mental health illnesses that mental health professionals would use to give person a diagnosis.

Now unlike a broken ankle, a broken tooth unlike a problem in your stomach with blood, or something where the doctor does blood work, where the doctor does a scan, an X-ray, and then they come to conclusions based on, hey, you have this problem, you have this deficiency. The way you get a mental illness most generally is you describe a problem.

So, you're the one describing it and then if you fit into the one of the many criterias according to this book, then you get a label. And the secular therapist, they're good therapists, but there's also secular ones. Secular therapist is really a pastor with a notepad who can give you meds.

They give you medication and some kind of a treatment. The challenge with this book though and this is not me you know making fun of the mental health bible, but the challenge with this book though is it does get updated with culture. So as the culture changes for example that homosexuality was called a disorder at one time if you can put up the signs.

So in 1952 it was called a disorder. In 1968 it was part of the sexual deviations. In 1980 it was ego dissentric homosexuality. 1987 weirdly homosexuality is no longer a disorder. Now in 2013 it's not a disorder at all. So this book operates as the culture shifts. So disorder labeling does as well.

Certain things are no longer politically correct. So we remove them. And therefore to stake your whole life based on what this book says, oh I must have this or I must have that. You have to be careful that this bible changes as the culture does. Take another example is transgenderism.

At one time it was called a disorder. Then it was changed into gender dysphoria. And now none of that is a disorder. Why? Because you're transphobic. If you're going to think that is a disorder, how dare you do that in this culture now? That can get you cancelled.

That could get you kicked out of job. But that used to be in this book. That was a disorder. If a pastor gets up and says that is a disorder, today you will be labeled with all kinds of labels. But that is what this book was saying today.

That's not a disorder. Today, an anxiety about your gender dysphoria is a disorder. And so, I want to show you that it changes with culture and changes with time. The human condition is not getting better. It's getting worse. And the way that we diagnose it and the way that we view it according to the culture has been fluctuating.

There is also a diagnostic inflation. Definitions broaden so more people can meet the criteria. Even good professionals can be pulled into it as a criteria gets loosened. When financial incentives and pharmaceutical solutions are added, system can drift into unhealthy directions. Diagnosis inflation can turn normal struggles into disorders.

People go to bed fine and wake up sick when the categories expand. If we're not careful, diagnostically categories can cause healthy people to see themselves as sick or moral spiritual battles can be treated only as medical ones. Worry becomes a disorder. Anxiety becomes a diagnosis and people can lose their call to renew their mind, guard their heart, pursue spiritual healing because the label becomes the final explanation.

When we inflate diagnosis for struggles that aren't truly severe, we don't just confuse people, we also hurt people who have real crushing pain because serious suffering gets minimized. Resources are diluted and mental illness becomes so broad that it loses meaning for the people who genuinely need urgent help.

Number two, the confusion that happens with the topic of mental health is this where confusion is in many people's mind is that your brain is your mind. Number two, the brain is not the mind. The mind does the thinking and the brain is the instrument that it uses.

The brain is the physical organ inside of your skull. You can scan it. You can measure it. You can see the damage. You can see the swelling in your brain. You can have tumors in your brain. You can have chemical effects in your brain. Doctors can examine the brain the way they examine your lungs, your kidneys, and the way they even take tests of your blood.

Your mind though is the inner life of you. It's where you think, it's where you reason, it's where you imagine, and where you make choices. Your mind is different. It cannot be put under microscope. You cannot x-ray somebody's thoughts. You cannot weigh somebody's imagination. You cannot measure somebody's wisdom.

You cannot take a blood test for somebody's decision making faculty. That's why because mine is immaterial. It belongs to the inner dimension of who you are. Romans chapter 12 verse 2, it says the following, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

The Bible doesn't command your brain to be renewed. The Bible commands your mind to be renewed. The Bible doesn't say, "And we have the brain of Christ." The scripture says, "We have the mind of Christ." So the Bible separates. See, the Greek and the Roman world separated the world into two parts.

There's the physical part and then there's the immaterial part. The Hebrew world view always viewed you as one whole being that has dimensions that overlap. There is the physical body that God deeply cares for, which is composed of your brain, all of the systems and structures. And then there is the immaterial dimension of you that overlaps and lives in the material parts of you.

God wants to renew the immaterial part of you. He wants to change it. He wants to make it new. And then God wants to heal the physical part and one day He will raise it back from the dead. So this part is not evil. Though the Greek thought that human body is evil, you want to get out of it so that you can have a really fulfilled life and really be deeply connected to the spirit mind of yourself.

God teaches us that our body is His creation and one day He will make it new. But God's target right now through His kingdom is the mind of the person, the heart of the person, the immaterial part of the person. With that when you go into a doctor for example when I need to get my teeth done and I have a cavity the dentist that works on my teeth I honestly don't care if he's a Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, a Buddhist, an atheist, agnostic, or honestly if he's a witch doctor as long as he doesn't drill any witch sorcery stuff into my teeth I don't ask for his theological preference why he is working on the physical part of me that can be scanned that could be x-rayed and that could blood work could be done on.

He went to school for that and he's an expert in that it's a physical tangible part of me but when I have a problem with anxiety when I have a problem with depression when I have a problem my mind cannot turn off, and I have a problem with sleeping I am no longer working with the physical scannable blood work can be done dimension of me.

And now when I go for example to a therapist I am concerned about the therapist's framework of thinking. Why? He's not touching my tooth. He's touching a spiritual part that an X-ray cannot see. He is touching the invisible part a blood work cannot measure. He is a pastor dealing with the supernatural reality of me.

Now a good therapist will do blood work, will do a scan to eliminate all other physical problems that I have and then work with me to help me to get better in my mind. The problem I have though as a pastor is this, when a Christian who believes in God, believes in this Bible goes to somebody who is a secular therapist for example and they do not understand that psychotherapy or the mental health treatment today they're not working just with your brain.

They are working with the immaterial spiritual invisible part of you. A part that cannot be seen under the microscope, a part that cannot be scanned. Now, the best way to describe the mind and the brain in my mind, and this probably is not the best according to the professionals, but I'm not a professional.

I'm a simple guy, and this is how it makes sense for me. Dan, hi. Piano, hi. Dan is the mind. Piano is the brain. So the relationship between your mind and your brain is similar. It's just generalized. Okay? So this is not a perfect illustration, but it will get the point across.

Your mind is what does the thinking, but your mind thinks with your brain or through your brain. Who does the playing piano? Dan. But Dan plays the piano through the piano. Now Dan, if you can stop playing piano, disconnect your fingers from the keys, you'll no longer hear the music.

When your mind is disconnected from your brain, that's what happens when you die. No more music. When you are alive, the way God created it is that your mind thinks through your brain. But please make a distinction. Dan is not the piano and the piano is not Dan.

Your brain is a physical organ. Doctors can examine. Doctors can treat. Tumors can develop. This piano can have broken keys. This piano can have issues. This piano cannot play music on its own. Somebody needs to work this piano. Now I can get behind these keys, and well I will right now and I can tell you that's about all.

So the problem isn't the piano the problem is Vlad now I can take this piano to the shop and say no I am not playing good piano because this piano is hindering. Well the person can examine the piano says no nothing is wrong with the piano the problem is with you.

So the challenge has happened is this is that we have and to the piano shop when reality it's the pianist that needs a teacher that needs to be trained. Many people what they have done is they have went and they said, "Well, I want you to treat this so that I could fix that.

Put me on meds in here." See, medication cannot help this guy. Medication helps the piano. Medication is the different plugins. It can help the brain. But the problem is that the brain is not responsible for the mind. It can influence the mind. If this is not good, that cannot play really well.

But you can have a great piano. If you have a bad piano player, piano is not the problem. The culture puts a lot of emphasis on how much the piano is the secret of great music, which is true. The Bible puts a lot of emphasis on how much the pianist plays the great music through a great piano.

Meaning as your mind is, so is your life. May you prosper in your soul so that your life will prosper. Paul tells us that renew your mind and therefore you will be transformed. So the Bible wants you to take care of your brain. Eat the broccoli, get some sleep, get 20 thousand or 10,000 steps in, you know, eat healthy, do all of this stuff.

Take care of your brain. When your brain is in trouble, go to the doctor who can treat it. But please understand, the reason why bad music is in your life is not just because you have a bad piano. It's because you are bad at playing it. That's what the Bible tells us.

The mind is the problem. And who treats the mind? The mind is spiritual. The mind is immaterial. The mind is the part of you that will never die. The brain will die when you die. It will turn into ashes until God will resurrect it. But your mind will live forever.

And that is a spiritual part, an invisible part, immaterial part of you. So when you and I have a problem with the piano player, how many of you know it will be foolish for me to take Dan to a piano shop that fixes pianos and they said, "Hey, can you fix Dan?"

Why? He's not playing piano. I want him to play piano. They said, "Well, we fix pianos. We don't fix piano players and also it would not be wise for me to take a piano that's missing few keys to a piano teacher and say piano teacher would you fix the keys and they will say no, I train piano players I don't fix the keys.

Do you see the difference between a piano and a piano player? Do you see the difference between your brain which can have damage, which can have issues that could affect your mind, that could affect your abilities there are children that are born with the chromosome that are missing.

And you see sometimes they're autistic or have some very heavy learning disabilities because of the damage that was done when they were born to their brain. And it affects their ability to function on this earth and their mind is limited or restricted or influenced by that infirmity. But generally speaking, the Bible puts all the emphasis and the weight for us as human beings on our mind as a decision making for our life, not on our brain.

Are you with me? The brain is like piano. The mind is like the pianist. A broken piano can affect the sound. If the keys are stuck, you won't play smoothly. In the same way, the brain health can influence your mood, focus, and emotions. Sleep, exercise, good food can help the instrument to function better.

But piano does not choose the song. The pianist does. The brain can influence your mind, but it should not be described as the brain controlling the mind. Scripture keeps responsibility on the inner immaterial person. Guard your heart for out of it spring the issues of life. The Bible doesn't teach guard your brain for out of it spring all the issues of life.

Meaning the pianist plays through the piano. The mind works through the brain. And it tells us we can take authority over our thoughts, bringing every thought into captivity for the obedience of Christ. Take care of your brain, but don't shift the weight of your decisions unto your biology.

God calls you to renew your mind, guard your heart, align your thoughts with Christ. The Bible doesn't always use one single word like modern psychology for our mind. It uses a family of words to describe the inner person. The mind, the heart, the soul, the spirit, the conscious, and the thoughts.

All of that speak about that immaterial part of you that is real that cannot be seen by any machine on this earth that cannot technically be medicated through any medication. All that medication does, all that treatment does is it affects the physical. And if the physical is the problem, then the immaterial can function better.

If the physical isn't the problem, it does not necessarily fix the spiritual. It could limit the symptoms. It could numb the symptoms, but it doesn't cure the real issue. And as I wrap up this the last thing that I want to share today which is the two main aspects of mental health and last year I took a deeper dive because I've noticed that our generation is anxious.

It's like crazy. And so read different books by therapists both Christian and not Christian theologians and not theologians. people who've studied our generation, people who have done a deep research into why are we so anxious, why are we so depressed and what I found out through all of that is a big first of all is how people are trying to treat the spiritual part of us by only treating the physical.

But sometimes they're missing that we the real us is the mind. It's not the brain. The brain will die. You will continue to live. The second part that I've seen and that is this what I'm going to address on today is the secular therapy and all of its emphasis on mental health awareness days and all of that which has its place where it's limited, is that it does not include the framework that the deepest problem humanity has is sin.

When a therapist who is trained professionally, who can write prescriptions, does not believe that your deepest problem is sin, and you go in there to get treatment for your mental health, not for your brain, your mental health, and they think your problem is not what the Bible says your problem is.

You can get misdiagnosed spiritually. You're treating a spiritual part of you. You're not just treating the brain. You're not treating the blood. You're not treating your skin. You're not treating your vascular system. You're not treating your heart and your lungs. You're treating a part a therapist cannot see.

A counselor cannot see. I cannot see. You cannot see. But you and I know that it's real. And when they walk into that part of your life which is invisible and their framework is that part of your life, the core problem is not sin. Then it gets shifted to something else.

And nowadays of course it's shifted to trauma which is true. Many of us are traumatized. Many of us have had traumas. But many of us did not have trauma. We just had good parenting. If I would go and tell my therapist the fact that my dad spanked me because I cussed out my cow when I was milking it.

Long story. Won't go into it because I'll lose you. Yeah. One of my jobs before this job that I didn't get paid for was milking a cow. And I picked up a habit of cursing. And I cussed like a sailor for seven days. Why seven days? Because on the seventh day, a cow tilt the bucket of milk and I gave that cow every word that a Russian vocabulary did not have.

And my dad was walking by and he caught that. Now, he thought that there was a principality from heaven that fell that was sitting in that barn. He would have never imagined it was his precious, beautiful, handsome, spiritual son because he didn't teach me those words. So, my dad did, you know, what they taught him to do from the Bible, spare not the rod, you know, that part.

And he spanked me. I'm going to tell you one thing. I never cussed again. Now, I tell you that story today. Okay, you can say, "Well, Vlad, today you have trauma in your life." Why? Because your dad spanked you. Maybe, perhaps. Or I'm a born sinner who cost a lot and my dad helped to deliver me through the belt.

Now, we're not bringing deliverance through the belt to the United States. I don't want to go to jail for that, but I do believe some families probably would have benefited from that deliverance anyway. So today the main problem that a secular therapy will present is that if you have some kind of a mental health problem it is most likely due to some sort of problem that you experience trauma and there are people who experience serious trauma and there are people who simply grew up in a broken world.

All that is we grew up like this all the time and the moment you begin to see that a trauma is the main problem that you have guess who's responsible for your problem? Your parents. So guess now what the solution is. Cut off your toxic family, which is a new trend.

Cut off your mom and dad. Look what they did. And some parents were very toxic, 100%. There are stories that some parents did to their kids. It is terrible. Maybe a healthy boundary will be good. But when you begin to cut off your family, guess what you're doing?

You're saying my mom and dad whom God called to raise me, they are the problem of all. They are the cause of all my problems and sometimes they were no 100%. Maybe they've done something that were not that was not right that needs to be dealt with. We need to forgive and etc.

But this thing where you cut off your family, guess who can you go to now? You can't go to your family. You go to a person who is paid by insurance to take care of you. They don't care for you. I know they say they do, and I'm pretty sure they do.

Wait until your insurance stops paying. Sorry, I can't see you. Why? You can't call me at 2:00 in the morning. Why? I'm not your parent. So, the source, God doesn't say, "Teachers, therapists, Sunday school teachers, youth pastors, raise your children." He says, "Parents raise your children." But parents are stupid.

But parents don't know anything. Parents are not professional. They don't know how to raise their children. You think God did not know that. Parents are not perfect, but they gave you birth. They brought you into this world. And some parents say they can take you out of this world and they've done it.

And they shouldn't do that. But the reality is that what I've seen and I've seen these people who go through sometimes getting this treatment and they come back, cut this person off, cut this person off, cut this person off. And they're walking in this bubble and the only person they talk to is only mental health professional.

Who may I remind you is on the clock and they remove community completely, walk away from the church, quit this job but what they do fail to understand sometimes is that it's not only the trauma that is caused by your environment it is the fact that also you have the Bible says a selfish nature.

You're the center of your own universe that causes some of these things that need to be dealt with as well if you want to have a good mental health, you must understand you are not a brain. You have a mind and your mind does the thinking. And the Bible teaches us that while the brain problems are real, you need to take care of the brain and the mental health professionals are very important people, there's place and purposeful medication and all of that.

At the end of the day, you as a human being, you are broken and the Bible has something to say about your mind. And modern treatment often manages symptoms, but the gospel changes the core being. Medication can tune up the piano, but only Jesus can change the pianist.

The brain can be treated, but the mind must be transformed. What our culture calls disease, the Bible calls disobedience. Our culture has replaced repentance with treatment. The biblical diagnosis is deeper than our modern models, labels. The Bible doesn't say the mind is just unhealthy. The Bible says the mind is darkened.

Now, I want you to see what the Bible describes the mind before Christ. Blind 2 Corinthians 4:4, Corrupted 2 Timothy 3:8, Darkened Ephesians 4:18, Deceitful Jeremiah 17:9, Depraved Romans 1:28 & 1 Timothy 6:5, Defiled Titus 1:15, Futile Ephesians 4:17, hardened Exodus 7:14 and sick Jeremiah 17:9. That's worse than not healthy.

That is the state of mind of every human being who is not connected to God. Now imagine treating that with medication. The core issue that you and I have is sin. And that's what the Bible says. Jesus did not come just to make you a little bit happier.

Jesus came to make you new. And what happens in our modern tsunami of mental health is this is it ignores a biblical precedent for which the root issue is sin. And because the root issue of sin, God sends His son Jesus Christ to take the inner immaterial part of you that is sick, defiled, darkened and bound.

And God gives you a new heart. God gives you a new mind and then he gives us a word. He gives us a church. He gives us a godly family so that our mind can be renewed. In other words, so that Dan who is made new. Now let's take Dan to school to teach him how to play these keys.

God gives us His word. God gives us the church. God gives us godly parents and godly mentors. So that not only He gives us a new mind, God gives us also a training for our mind. Your mind needs to be trained. Your mind needs to be renewed. Your mind needs to be a place where you win spiritual battles.

My friend, your mind is a lot more spiritual than medical. Your mind is a lot more moral than medical. And don't fall into this trap where somehow mental health is only the issue of the secular culture can treat. But God, I mean, what does God know about mental health in 2026?

Please understand God created the world that your mind operates in. He knows a lot more about it. Imagine somebody. So I have a YouTube channel. Five of them. I know a thing about YouTube. Let's say somebody comes to me who has never done YouTube and says something about YouTube and says, "No, Vlad doesn't know anything about it."

Not to brag. I have over two million subscribers just on one channel. I know a thing or two about YouTube. Okay. I'm not an expert though. The people who made YouTube that my channel is operating on know everything about YouTube because they made it. My channel operates on the platform they created.

So you have to understand this is that the platform on which your mind is operating is called the spiritual world. Guess who made that world? Not a doctor, not a therapist, not a pastor, not a mental health professional. The creator of heaven was visible and invisible. created the platform where your mind is operating at right now.

He has given us some insight and He is telling us this is how you can operate with your mind on this world. A label can describe a symptom but the scripture exposes the condition. Today's focus is on therapy which aims to relieve the symptoms for this life and which is good but scripture says many of our root problems are spiritual not psychological.

Our biggest problem is not what therapy can solve. Our biggest problem is sin. Many Christians turn to secular therapists who deny the spiritual dimension of human problem, yet expect to find wholeness in that system. Secular therapy cannot see how profoundly sin affects us. It corrupts our motives. It fuels relational conflict.

It clouds our thoughts. It binds us to spiritual reality. Therapy can ease these symptoms, but it cannot cure your sin. The most common psychotropic drugs are anti-depressants, mood stabilizers, anti-anxieties, anti-psychotics, and stimulants. They work on your brain. But see, the mind is the problem. If someone has dark thoughts about death, they're not just having chemical malfunction, but it's a spiritual crisis.

Medication can dull the pain, but it cannot bring light to a darkened mind. Depression is often a symptom, but the darkened thought life is the true cause. Anxiety is more moral than medical, and the scripture gives us remedy for it. Can therapy or medication help? Of course, for symptom relief, but not for your root issue.

Taking antidepressants for spiritual despair is like taking Tylenol for your tooth infection. It will mask your pain, but it doesn't heal your tooth. Relief without repentance, without salvation, is simply numbing for a season. Salvation is not just coming to the front and praying a prayer and raising your hand and shedding few tears and putting your name on a guest card.

Salvation is not just God taking a pretty good mind and improving it. He takes the wreck mind, flat tires and all, engine does not run, transmission doesn't run and makes it brand new. The gospel tells us that Jesus doesn't upgrade our sick, depraved, blind, deceived, selfish mind. Jesus transforms it.

Salvation brings a new heart. Meaning a new you, new creation identity. The mind starts renewing. You have a new illumination, a new light that comes on. God shines the light into the heart to give knowledge of Christ. And then not only that, God gives you new power called the Holy Spirit to fight the spiritual battles that now come in your mind.

Salvation doesn't just calm you down, it wakes you up to a real battle. Where the limit is in the secular therapy in dealing with mental health crisis and that is they ignore how profoundly sin affects our inner self. They ignore that. And secondly, that is what I'm going to deal with next week is they ignore that there are invisible enemies that no radar can detect, but they are real.

They're called persons without bodies. They're called demons who somehow someway made your mind the target of their fight. So imagine walking into a room and only thinking, I just have depressing thoughts. I just have anxious thoughts. Oh, it's just the pressure. It's just my parents. It's just my trauma. 100%.

All of these things could be the symptoms of the root issue. The Bible, the word of God, God who created your whole being, your body, soul, and spirit. God who created a part of you that nobody else can see, no scan can see and that no blood work can detect.

God who created that He's saying in the root of this there is a root nobody else can see that is growing all the fruits and this root is called your fallen nature, your sin and I have sent My Son Jesus Christ to deal with that root. God is not saying the symptoms are not real.

God is not saying that the pain you're experiencing is not important. It is important but God goes deeper into it. He doesn't want to mow the lawn. He wants to uproot the grass. He doesn't just want to clear the spiderwebs, He wants to squash the spider. And the moment you get a new nature, the moment you get a new mind, the moment you get a new identity, God says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.

That's not over." Why? Because now you just stepped in the line of fire. Now there are forces you cannot see. You know they're real. You feel their presence at night. You feel their presence in your mind. Something foreign is attacking my mind. And God pulls the curtain and says, "And now you're the target.

But because you're the target, I'll give you the greatest power the universe has ever seen, My Holy Spirit, to walk with you and fight with you and to win with you. Mental health is real, but the mind is more spiritual than you think. The mind is not the brain.

The mind thinks through the brain. The root issue of the mental health tsunami according to the scripture is more spiritual than we give credit to. And the solution is a lot more spiritual than we imagine. The mind is affected by sin more than you realize. And when you get a new mind through Christ, you become the target.

So what do you do with the target part when the devil and when demons start to attack your mind? Next week I will tell you. I want you to rise to your feet. We're going to open this altar for prayer in just a moment. As last week people were receiving prayer, this week they will also receive prayer.

You don't have to be a member of our church. You don't have to be a Christian to receive prayer. We love you. We want to pray with you. This is a spiritual place where God encounters people. God heals people and restores people. But right now, we want to pray specifically a very important prayer.

And that is for what I just mentioned. God wants to take this piano player and He wants to change him. I'm so hopeless in playing piano. I've tried. But if somebody could make me brand new with the ability to play that I can get it just get in the keys and like within a few hours play, man I would pay money for that.

Unfortunately there is no system that can do that. God sent Jesus Christ to take the old you, the broken you, the sick you, the defiled you. The culture says that you have a disease. God says you have disobedience. You're dead in your sins. God came to take that broken part, nail it on the cross, wash you with the precious blood of Jesus Christ and the inside that part of you, you will never get rid of.

You can people who take their own life, you cannot get rid of you. You will be stuck with you forever. And God knows that. You can get rid of your body, but you cannot get rid of your mind. It follows you into eternity. And that sick, broken part, God says, "I want to make it new and take the old thing and nail it to the cross."

And that happens through salvation. That happens through repentance. And that happens through the blood of Jesus Christ and through the work of the Holy Spirit. I want to lead you in the prayer. Nothing magical about this prayer is just a sincere heart talking to God. And the church will pray with you.

Say with me. Say, " Lord Jesus, I believe you are the son of God. Who died on the cross for all of my sins. All of my brokenness. I ask you right now would you forgive me for all of my sins? Would you wash me with your precious blood?

I surrender my life. The good, the bad, and the broken. Fill me with your Holy Spirit. Make me new. And teach me to live for your glory. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen.