“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9.

I agree with Dr. Jay Adams, barring an injury to the brain or some disease process that interferes with brain function there is no such thing as mental illness. If there is no physiological issue there is no psychological issue. In that regard, mental illness is a misnomer. Before you allow how you feel about that statement to affect what you think about it, read the next paragraph.

We assume people who commit suicide are suffering from some sort of mental illness and that is why they take their own lives, but that is a visceral perspective. I think we can say with certitude that the one who commits suicide, whether their pain is spiritual, emotional or physical, believes there is no hope for relief in life, and hopes there will be relief from their suffering in death. For the one who believes those two things, suicide is not a mental lapse but a very rational response.

Despite what you believe about suicide it is driven by a loss of hope for relief in life, and a hope of relief in death. I am not making any moral judgments here, just making an observation and giving an explanation. The traditional religious view of suicide teaches it is a damnable act. As I have written before, I do not believe that, and only God can judge the motives and intents of the one who takes his or her own life. I am very content to leave the issue of suicide in the hands of a very capable Judge.

But to address the problem of suicide we need to get to the root cause and modern medical science has been unable to do that. Typically, psychological therapy consists of trying to give the suicidal person a reason to live, but that is the best modern therapy can do and has proven in many cases to be inadequate. People who are suffering need hope to live, not a reason.

Secular counseling may be augmented with medication, but some of them carry warnings that the medication itself could contribute to suicidal ideations. That is not a clarion declaration that modern medical science knows how to treat suicidal people.

The late Orval Hobart Mowrer was an atheistic, secular psychologist, a former president of the American Psychological Association, and taught at Harvard and Yale. He wrote in his book Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion in chapter four titled, “Sin,” The Lesser of Two Evils, “For several decades we psychologists looked upon the whole matter of sin and moral accountability as a great incubus and acclaimed our liberation from it as epoch making. But at length we have discovered that to be free in this sense, that is, to have the excuse of being sick rather than sinful, is to court the danger of also becoming lost… In becoming amoral, ethically neutral and free, we have cut the very roots of our being, lost our deepest sense of selfhood and identity, and with neurotics, themselves, we find ourselves asking: Who am I, what is my deepest destiny, what does living mean?”

Here is an atheistic, secular psychologist admitting that all modern psychology has accomplished is to give those suffering “an excuse of being sick rather than sinful.” This is because most people have accepted the Freudian presupposition of non-responsibility for psychological problems. This Freudian perspective of non-responsibility for mental and emotional problems has infiltrated the church and its counsel causing Mowrer to ask, “Has Evangelical religion sold its birthright for a mess of psychological pottage?”

Have we? Has the church accepted the idea that biblical counseling is insufficient to address supposed mental illness issues and sold its counseling birthright by accepting humanistic theories about man’s emotional and mental problems?

We live in a sin-cursed world and in our natural state we are completely fallen. The root of all our problems is spiritual, the sin nature. Modern psychological science either does not recognize or chooses to ignore the spiritual root of our problems and does not therefore have any ultimate answers for suicide. The root of the problem is sin; sins committed against us, and our sinful reaction to the sins committed against us often compounding the problem.

Jeremiah gets to the essence of the issue when he addresses man’s spiritual condition. Jeremiah writes that the “heart,” our fallen nature, is “desperately [sin]sick.” The only remedy for sin is the counsel of God’s Word. A biblical counselor trained in the application of God’s Word to the sinful problems of this life is competent to counsel any mental or emotional problem, and if that counsel is received and applied by the counselee, it will always alleviate the problem.

“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them,” Psalm 139: 13-16.

It is in the news that a draft of a pending Supreme Court decision that would strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that in essence created a right to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy when the mother’s health was in danger. That decision created a slippery slope that has landed our legal system approving partial birth abortions for any reason whatsoever.

Abortions have always been available when the mother’s life was genuinely threatened. C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General during the Reagan administration, made the point that the mother is literally the life support system for the baby. If the pregnancy became life-threatening to the mother it was also a threat to the child and the pregnancy was medically aborted in an effort to save the mother and the child though it was not always possible to save both. But there is a vast difference in aborting a pregnancy and aborting a baby.

As the Psalmist penned it so well, life is sacred because it is “wove” by God in the womb. Roe v. Wade was a purely fabricated “right” to abortion when the word “abortion” appears no where in the language of the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court’s responsibility is to interpret the Constitution, not invent “rights.”

The Tenth Amendment, the last of those known collectively as the Bill of Rights, reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This means the federal government, that is, the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch have no authority beyond that which is expressly given by the Constitution. Abortion as a medical practice has traditionally fallen under the purview of the individual states because it is not mentioned in the Constitution.

Overturning Roe v. Wade will return the issue of abortion to the rightful authority of each state. While I rejoice in its rumored demise, I also see that it will not necessarily mean the end of abortion for whatever reason. All Roe v. Wade did was to pave the way to make abortion legal for any reason, it did not make abortion a legal requirement.

Those who willing abort their baby for mere convenience do so because their hearts are darkened by sin and do not respect the sacredness of human life. Only changed hearts will bring the end to the practice of abortion.

A recent article published on the Christian News Headlines website shared a discovery that lends support to the historical authenticity of the Bible. The Associates for Biblical Research revealed a leaden amulet with a curse written on it.

The curse contains only 40 letters in Hebrew; translated into English the curse reads “Cursed, cursed, cursed, cursed by God YHW. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by YHW, cursed cursed, cursed.”

The amulet was found in 2019 among other things formerly excavated on Israel’s Mount Ebal. In the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience are recorded. Moses delivered this message to the Israelites while they were across the Jordan River from Mount Ebal.

Scholars date the curse to circa 3,200 years ago making it the earliest Hebrew inscription found. That places the curse during the time of the Judges. It is a discovery of a Hebrew curse at the very location associated with those curses Moses wrote about, but it is even of more interest to Scholars for another reason.

Scholars had long “assumed that the early, and supposedly primitive, Israelites simply lacked the skill to come up with the written grandeur of books like Genesis and Deuteronomy. This tiny curse reveals that the right people at the right time in the right place were writing about God just as the Bible describes. Despite the confidence of the scholarly consensus, this provides proof of the Israelites’ literary ability, hundreds of years before skeptics thought it possible.

Skeptics have repeatedly attacked the historical authenticity of the Scriptures thinking if they can show it is historically inaccurate they could not have been inspired by God. I have read many of them and found the attacks on Scripture to be inaccurate, but not the Scriptures.

In fact, because I believe the Bible is inspired by God I am not surprised by archaeological discoveries that prove its truth. I expect there to be historical discoveries that support the historicity of the Scriptures, it is just a matter of time before more are uncovered.

Such discoveries while heartening to the believer mean little to the unbeliever. No one is ever converted to Christianity on the basis of the evidence; no one is ever argued into heaven. It has been said, “God has provided enough evidence to make it reasonable to believe Him; yet has left enough out that we cannot come to Him by reason alone we must come by faith.”

The Scriptures state the matter clearly, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him,” Hebrews 11:6.

The evidence of biblical historicity strengthens the believer’s faith but does nothing for the unbeliever. As George MacDonald once said, “To give truth to him who loves it not, is to give him reason for more multiplied misinterpretations.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God,” Ephesians 2:8. Regeneration, becoming a new creature in Christ, is accomplished only through faith.

“Like a trampled spring and a polluted well, is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked,” Proverbs 25:26.
This verse in Proverbs is an explanation of what happens when righteous people give in to policies and practices advocated and advanced by wicked people in society. When the righteous stand by allowing it to happen, we become defiled ourselves. This is a biblical principle we cannot afford to ignore.
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education into law the LGBTQ+ community went into full propaganda mode characterizing the legislation as the “Don’t say gay” law. The law does not say anything about homosexuals or gays, nor heterosexuals or straights.
The law prevents school children from being taught about sex or gender in kindergarten through third grade. I am opposed to all sex education in public school; sex education is the responsibility of parents.
Disney’s LGBTQ+ employees staged a walkout and accused Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek of not being outspoken enough in protesting the law. I titled this article “Disney Plus” because Disney has decided to actively add an LGBTQ+ agenda to its entertainment practices.
Latoya Raveneau an executive producer for Disney Television Animation said in a meeting of Disney employees her team is actively pursuing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” for “adding queerness” to children’s programing.
Another Disney employee, Allen March, production coordinator for Disney, said that his team is committed to “exploring queer stories” to make sure the shows include enough “gender nonconforming characters.”
The president of Disney’s General Entertainment Content, Karey Burke, said in a conference call “that 50% of Disney’s characters will be either LGBTQ+ or racial minorities by the end of this year, as part of something described as the ‘Reimagine Tomorrow’ campaign.”
Mark Robinson, the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, said last August 2021, speaking to the congregation of the Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, North Carolina, “You can go to the doctor and get cut up, you can go down to the dress shop and get made up, you can go down there and get drugged up, but at the end of the day, you are just a drugged-up, dressed-up, made-up, cut-up man or woman, you ain’t changed what God put in you—that DNA. You can’t transcend God’s creation. I don’t care how hard you try.”
Disney is an entertainment giant. While some are afraid of giants, David taught us not to be afraid of giants. I have typically been against boycotts, but Disney has entered the cultural war on the side of the Enemy and I will not support anything to do with Disney entertainment that seeks to inculcate children with sexual perversion.
J. Lee Grady writing for Charisma in his article titled “Fire in My Bones” wrote, “To question the concept of gender is to challenge God’s fixed order of creation. To question whether God made us in His image, male and female, is to arrogantly rail against God’s authority. And to groom innocent kids to embrace perversion should be called what it is—child abuse. May God deliver our country from this demonic conspiracy.”
I agree, Most businesses take a neutral stance when it comes to cultural issues, but Disney has decided to side with the LGBTQ+ community against parents’ rights. It now has an agenda to indoctrinate children with homosexual and transgender influences.
Christian parents cannot allow those who cannot be biological parents to trample the springs of children’s minds or pollute their thoughts with wickedness.

During the Easter season our thoughts turn to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most pivotal event in human history. Christianity is founded upon it and human history is divided by it. Indeed, Christianity stands or fails on its historical authenticity.
     Do we as Christians ask the world to blindly embrace the reality of the resurrection? While faith is an essential component of Christianity there is a difference between faith and blind faith. We have not been left totally in the dark. The evidence for the resurrection is clearly seen in the lives of the apostles and the faith that was founded on their eyewitness accounts.
     I cannot formulate, nor have I ever read, a more compelling argument for the historicity of the resurrection of Christ than that offered by Scottish theologian Dr. Principal Hill. The late Dr. D. James Kennedy in his book Why I Believe shares the following statement by Dr. Hill. Hill said, “But if notwithstanding every appearance of truth, you suppose their testimony to be false, then inexplicable circumstances of glaring absurdity crowd upon you. You must suppose that twelve men of mean birth, of no education, living in that humble station which placed ambitious views out of their reach and far from their thoughts, without any aid from the state, formed the noblest scheme which ever entered into the mind of man, adopted the most daring means of executing that scheme, and conducted it with such address as to conceal the imposture under the semblance of simplicity and virtue. You must suppose that men guilty of blasphemy and falsehood, united in an attempt the best contrived, and which has in fact proved the most successful, for making the world virtuous; that they formed this singular enterprise without seeking any advantage to themselves, with an avowed contempt of loss and profit, and with the certain expectation of scorn and persecution; that although conscious of one another’s villainy, none of them ever thought of providing for his own security by disclosing the fraud, but amidst sufferings the most grievous to flesh and blood they persevered in their conspiracy to cheat the world into piety, honesty and benevolence. Truly, they who can swallow such suppositions have no title to object to miracles.”
      History is replete with accounts of those of different faiths who have died for what they believed, but they died believing those things to be true. There is not a single record of anyone who died for what they knew was a lie. If the disciples stole the body of Christ and hid it to feign Christ’s resurrection, is it reasonable to believe they gave the remainder of their lives to suffer privations, persecutions and death knowing the resurrection was a lie?
     This is the point that Dr. Hill makes so cogently. Ours is not a blind faith. An empty tomb gives mute testimony to the angel’s words, “He is not here, but He has risen,” Luke 24:6.