In Peter Allison's sermon, 'Defeating Depression God's Way,' he explores Proverbs 18, focusing on the relationship between a broken spirit and knowledge. Allison argues that depression often stems from self-pity and a lack of spiritual insight, which are counteracted by seeking true knowledge and wisdom. He emphasizes the necessity of beginning any pursuit of knowledge with the presupposition of God's existence and truth, as all wisdom is hidden in Christ. The sermon underscores the importance of discerning good knowledge from bad, explaining that true knowledge humbles us and aligns us with Christ's power. Allison discusses the role of faith and the Holy Spirit in acquiring knowledge and stresses the need for ongoing spiritual growth. He warns against the dangers of bad knowledge, which leads to pride, and highlights the role of love, guided by true knowledge, in overcoming personal and spiritual struggles. The sermon concludes with a call to grow in grace and knowledge, using God's Word as the ultimate guide.

Please turn in your scriptures to Proverbs 18. If you need a Bible, they are back on the, there should be some copies back in the hymn book rack. Proverbs chapter 18. I would like to read verses 14 and 15. The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness, but who can bear a broken spirit?

The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge." of the wise seeks knowledge. Father in heaven, we come to you this morning to seek of your knowledge, to seek to learn of you. We ask that you would teach us. We ask that you would prepare our hearts, our minds, open our ears and our eyes. And May Your Word go forth this morning and fall upon soil that You have prepared and bring forth fruit a hundredfold.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Last week we looked at 12, 13 and 14 and saw this connection between this instruction about pride and the two faces of pride that are described immediately after. The pride of knowing everything, of thinking too highly of ourselves, and also the inverted pride of Thinking too lowly about ourselves thinking about ourselves nonetheless we also see a similar connection I believe in this verse 14 that speaks about the spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness but who can bear a broken spirit with the verse that immediately follows that dealing with knowledge. Who can bear a broken spirit? The woe is me spirit.

The spirit that is filled with self-pity. The spirit that leads ultimately to depression. I think the connection of these two verses points us, and other passages of Scripture confirm this, points us to in the direction of God's answer for the broken spirit. And that is that the heart of the prudent acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge. Now how are these related?

Well, let's look first at what this knowledge is, a few things that are taught about it, and then We will be able to see this connection between this knowledge that the prudent gets and the broken spirit. We see first that it requires wisdom and prudence to seek and to get knowledge. In other words, it requires knowledge in order to get knowledge. Because it's said that it is the heart of the prudent that get knowledge. It's the ear of the wise that seeks knowledge.

So We need to have this wisdom in order to seek knowledge. In other words, we need knowledge to seek to get the knowledge. But how do we get the knowledge in the first place to get knowledge? We can't, can we? It's a bit of a problem.

It's sort of like another problem. Bible says that those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. But how can we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if we don't know Him? If we don't have faith? How can we ask Him to save us?

How can we call out to Him? And the answer is we can't. God has to first do a work within us. He has to change our heart. He has to give us a new heart.

He has to give to us faith. And he says that, so that's why the Bible says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. As God sends messengers to bring His Word to us, we hear it. But without the Holy Spirit accompanying that Word, It does us no good. It's like the seed that falls on the hard packed soil, a hard packed path.

It bounces off and Satan comes and snatches it away. If there isn't already faith there. We need a new heart, we need a regenerated heart before we can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's the exact same problem. We cannot know God unless God first reveals himself to us.

We can't call upon him unless he first gives us the faith to do so and changes our heart from that which is at enmity against him to that which loves him. That's why this work of regeneration has to precede the turning to Christ in faith and repentance. Turning to Christ in faith and repentance follows. It's the fruit of God's work of regeneration in us. A work that John describes is, it's like the wind, you can't see it.

But you can see the effect of it. The effect of this regeneration is that we turn to the Lord in faith and repentance. You notice this is the heart of the prudent acquires knowledge and the ear of the wise, the heart and the ear. Romans 10 speaks about those same two organs when it speaks about salvation. It says that if the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart That God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But how can you call on Him whom you have not believed? And how can you believe in Him in whom you have not heard? And how shall you hear without a preacher? Faith comes by hearing.

So the ear, it's the ear of the wise that seeks knowledge, and the heart of the prudent that acquires knowledge. We can't know anything at all unless God first reveals it to us. That's why this has to be the starting point of anything. We can't just start with nothing. We can't start with a blank slate and say, well, I'm going to study this field.

I'm going to just put all my everything aside and I'm just going to study this with an open mind and a blank mind and I'm going to come to the truth. If we start with nothing, we will end up with nothing. It's the heart of the prudent that acquires knowledge. It's the heart of Those who have knowledge that acquires knowledge. Our starting point must begin with God.

Must begin with God. We have to, as it were, pre-suppose that God is, that He exists, before we can ever begin to study anything at all. If we assume nothing, if we start with nothing, that is where we will end up. This is very evident in modern physics today. As it seeks to understand more and more about this world that God has made and more and more of the structure of matter and the structure of the universe.

The more that we study and the more that we understand about this, the more we realize we don't have an explanation for it. If we don't start first with God and His Word, wherein God speaks to us and reveals to us knowledge. Our study of knowledge has to begin with the presupposition that God's Word is true. That all knowledge, all wisdom and knowledge is hid in Jesus Christ. If we don't begin with that, we will never get to the truth.

It requires wisdom and prudence to get knowledge. And all wisdom is hidden in Christ. That's an important truth for the scientists to remember, but it's also an important truth for everyone else to remember. Mothers and fathers and preachers and engineers. And whatever other work you do.

Doctors and so forth. That all knowledge is hidden in Christ. And if we seek to begin any study without acknowledging that God is, and that God is the source of all truth, we will end up nowhere. And that God's truth is revealed to us in the Scriptures, the Word of God. This has to be the standard by which everything else is evaluated.

This has to be the presuppositions upon which we base all of our study of any field. This is illustrated in what is called the Big Bang, cosmology. That is derived by solving some differential equations, very difficult differential equations. In order to solve such equations you have to assume some starting point. You have to make some presuppositions or some assumptions about the solution of the system you're trying to describe.

And Stephen Hawking in one of his books is very honestly admits that those presuppositions that they bring to the solution of these mathematical problems are entirely arbitrary. They've chosen some presuppositions to solve these equations based on their philosophy. But they have no basis for choosing those presuppositions over other presuppositions. If I remember correctly, I believe that those presuppositions are that the earth is in no special place and that the universe is unbounded. Now those have technical meanings that are far beyond what we are talking about here today.

Those are assumptions that even everybody that is honest admits are philosophical assumptions that they have to bring to the table in order to solve these. You can other people, Christians, have made biblical presuppositions and solved the exact same equations and get a very different answer. Who's right? Well, I don't know. They may have solved the equations incorrectly.

But the point is we have to begin with biblical presuppositions to get to the truth in any endeavor. Knowledge seeking knowledge, getting knowledge requires wisdom. But knowledge must also be the right knowledge. Knowledge is valued according to its character and purpose. There is such a thing as good knowledge and bad knowledge.

Paul told the Philippians in Philippians 3.10 that I may know Him, that I may know the power of His resurrection, and that I may know the fellowship of his sufferings being conformable to his death. That I may know him, that I may know the power of his resurrection, that I may know the fellowship of his sufferings. But what things, he said, were gained to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is faith, that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith." Why? Why is it this is salvation, this is justification.

Why? That I may know Him, that I may know the power of His resurrection and fellowship of His sufferings. To know is to have a personal acquaintance or experience with Christ. It's to experience more of Christ. To know the power of the resurrection is to have a greater assurance of our everlasting life.

It's to know in the sense of experience His power in triumph over sin. That's what it means to know Christ. It's to experience something. It's to experience His power in triumph over sin. It's to experience and to know the dignity of our body.

Our body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. The Lord has come to save us body and soul I Said we are made body and soul in in the image of God Paul told them a little later he will in this chapter that he will God will change our vile body that may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he's able to subdue all things even to himself We we know Christ in in that we know this in the experience of power in our life of being dead to sin, dead to it, and alive to Christ. So that we are crucified with Christ in the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." This is what it is to know Christ, to have this experience. True knowledge is humbling. True knowledge is humbling.

Paul told the Corinthians, now he is touching things off into idols, 1 Corinthians 8, 1. We know that we have all knowledge, yet knowledge puffs up. Wrong knowledge makes proud. True knowledge makes us to know Christ and to experience his power in our life. Knowledge puffs up.

Bad knowledge puffs up. It produces pride, but charity edifies. And if any man thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. If any man thinks he knows anything, that's bad knowledge. Paul says he doesn't know anything.

He has no good knowledge. If we think we know something, If we think we know anything, Paul said he knows nothing. Good knowledge, bad knowledge. Bad knowledge puffs up. Bad knowledge doesn't experience the power of Christ, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings.

It doesn't know Him in His person. It doesn't live this life by faith in Christ such that He is living in us. If any man thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. If we think we know something, that's the knowledge that puffs up. Paul says we don't know anything as we ought to know.

There is a command, there is an obligation, there is a should in that as we ought to know. We ought to have the right knowledge which doesn't puff up, which rather enables us to know Christ and to know His power in our life. When we have this knowledge then we realize that we know nothing apart from Him, that we can do nothing apart from Christ. That we have nothing apart from Christ, because everything That we have comes down to us from the is given to us by the father of lights So we have to have this right knowledge and and the scriptures in many places call us to this right knowledge Paul said to the Colossians for this cause we also since a day We heard of it do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will. That's not the knowledge, He's not praying for the knowledge that puffs up.

He's not praying for them that they would have a knowledge that such that they think they know something. He's praying for them that they would have good knowledge, true knowledge that knows Christ, that is experiencing his power in their life. Why? So that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. He is praying that they would have knowledge so that they might abound and be walk worthy of the Lord and be pleasing in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God.

He is not praying that they will increase in the knowledge that puffs up, but that they would increase in the knowledge that knows Christ and knows the power of His resurrection and experiences this power that lives in this power of Christ's victory over death and sin. Strengthened with all might according to his glorious power unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness. That's what true knowledge, that's what good knowledge leads to. That we are strengthened according to His glorious power and it leads to patience and long suffering with joyfulness. That is good knowledge.

And Paul prayed, he prayed every day for these Colossians, saints of Colossi, that they would have this good knowledge. And that they would grow in this knowledge, that they would increase in this knowledge. Because not only are we commanded to get knowledge, but we are commanded to increase that knowledge. This has to be an ongoing pursuit. It's not good enough to study real hard and learn a bunch of things 20 years ago, or even a year ago, or a day ago.

This is an ongoing study, an ongoing pursuit. Peter said in 2nd Peter 318, but grow in grace good knowledge grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. See, if we're not growing in the good knowledge, in our experience of the power of Christ in our life, if we are not growing in that, then we are dying. It is one or the other. There is no such thing as a static Christian.

If we're not growing in grace and in knowledge, then we have nothing. It is the heart of the prudent that acquires knowledge. If we are acquiring good knowledge, we are growing in wisdom, and that wisdom teaches us that we need to continue to seek and acquire knowledge, to seek and acquire, to know the power of God in our life, and to live in that power and not our own strength. It's the instant we stop growing in grace and knowledge, we want to start living life in our own strength. We start to think that we know something.

That we've done all this study and now we know something. And Paul says, the instant you think you know anything, you don't know anything at all. So true knowledge teaches us the more we learn, the more we grow, the more we learn that we don't know. The more We learn how dependent we are upon the Lord Jesus Christ in everything we do. We are warned against not having knowledge.

Hosea 4.6, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you. That you should be no priest to me, seeing you have forgotten the law of God, I will also forget you. I will also forget your children. Seeing that you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children." Lack of knowledge destroys us.

Satan attacks this knowledge of God, this experience of Jesus Christ. That is why in our spiritual warfare, Paul says that we are called to destroy whatever sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Whatever sets itself up, The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Satan is there to snatch away that seed as soon as it is sown, and we are called to be diligent, to put on the armor of God to resist Satan, we are called, we are said that we shouldn't be ignorant of Satan's ways. He wants to snatch that seed away.

He wants to attack the knowledge of God, to exalt himself against the knowledge of God. And in our spiritual warfare we are called to to cast down every high thing that would exalt itself against the knowledge of God. Our knowledge must also be or Our love must be according to knowledge. How do you love someone? Paul told the Philippians in this Philippians 1 9 and this I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge in all judgment Love abounding in knowledge How do you love a person who doesn't work?

How do you love your wife your husband your children? How do you love your enemy? You put any person that you can think of, you put that in that sentence, how do you love them? Because we're commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are commanded to love our enemies.

How do you love them? Well, Paul said he prayed that their love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Our love of God is grounded in His excellencies. It's grounded in His loveliness. And our love for one another must be grounded in this image of God that we bear.

Love must be trained according to the Word of God. And so that's why Paul goes on to say in the very next verse, I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ. Our love must be according to knowledge. And so this is then what The heart of the wise is called to seek. The heart of the wise acquires knowledge.

The ear of the wise seeks knowledge. But this understanding then, this statement follows immediately the who can bear a broken spirit. See a hopeful spirit it says has a good effect on the body, a salutary effect on the body. But a broken spirit, a spirit without hope, it only adds to whatever physical burden there was there in the first place. A hopeful spirit versus a broken spirit.

A broken spirit is that spirit that pities itself. Maybe there is a just reason for pity. Maybe you have no arms and legs. Some people are born that way. Maybe you have some lesser problem, but still very real.

Still very real. Maybe you've been wronged. Maybe somebody has done something that's violated what is your right and you've been justly wronged. You can begin to pity yourself, self-pity. You begin to think about how you've been wrong.

You begin to think about what you don't have and what you see other people have. Envy is one sin that can lead to these kinds of feelings. When you see somebody else and you think, why do they get that? Why don't I have that? And that leads then to anger.

Get angry about that. Get angry at God. Why did he take my mother or my father? My mother or my father. Everybody else has a mother and a father.

Turns to bitterness. And then we become depressed. Depression. See, depression didn't just happen. Depression see it's depression didn't just happen it followed this pattern of responding wrongly To sit to to something We something happened was a problem a real problem And we respond in a sinful way to that real problem.

That creates an additional problem due to our sinful response. And that additional problem due to our sinful response creates another sinful response. An additional sinful response. And you can see that this cycles down and down and down to unimaginable depths of depression. Sin becomes a rope of bondage.

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, Proverbs 521, and he ponders all his paths. His own iniquities entrap the wicked man, and He is caught in the cords of his sin. Our depression comes from our own sinful response to problems, which then creates another additional problem, which we then respond to in an additional sinful way and our sin then becomes cords that entrap us he shall die for lack of instruction lack of knowledge And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. This man here that is being described, who is caught in the cords of his sin, his own sin has bound him in ropes and put him into bondage and he dies for lack of knowledge, lack of instruction. First second Peter 1, 3 connects all this.

According as His divine power has given unto us all things, there is power, God's power, His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Now what doesn't pertain to life? If you're alive, everything pertains in some way to your life. And so His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Godliness is how we please the Lord, how we walk in His ways.

Through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue. How does this divine power come to us? Through knowledge. Remember, good knowledge, not the bad knowledge. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you may be partakers of the divine nature.

Yes! Did you hear that? Right. We are partakers of the divine nature Through the knowledge of him that has called us the glory and virtue whereby we are given exceeding great and precious promises that we might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge." And he goes on then to give this chain of graces that are to be added to our life, one of which is knowledge.

So what's the solution to this problem that creates a sinful response that gives an additional complicating problem which gives an additional sinful response What's the what's the solution to that? Well, well to break that pattern we have to ask what is our problem and what does God want us to do about that problem. And that, as we saw in Peter, comes through knowledge. That divine power To do what God wants us to do about our problem comes through knowledge of Him. So we have to look.

What is our problem? We envy Him, for example. Envy. It looks at what others have and wants to have it itself. It's selfish.

OK. What is God? What is our problem? Looking at ourself. What does God want us to do about it?

To look to the other people. So instead of. Being envious, maybe we should God wants us to pray for other people. To pray for those that we're thinking about. And to look for good in them in the situation we find ourselves.

To know the promises of God, to recognize the good in others, Or in the situation. And then we need to look how to edify that person. So the thief instead of stealing is to do the opposite. Instead of taking away from people He used to work with his hands that he may give to people that have need If if we're having a problem envying Then we need to express appreciation for the gifts of others to to be thankful to read to ask the Lord to give us a Delight in their gifts and appreciate their gifts and communicate that appreciation of their gifts to them See this is this is the true knowledge of Jesus Christ knowledge of Jesus Christ. True knowledge says, what is my problem?

How does God look upon me? And secondly, what does God want me to do? What does God's Word want me to do? To answer each of those questions requires us to have a knowledge of the truth, a knowledge of the Word of God, to rightly understand our situation. Sometimes we need counselors to help us in that knowledge, to help us to see what our problem is and to see what God wants us to do about it.

May each of us grow in grace and in knowledge this week. Almighty Heavenly Father, We thank you for the wisdom of your Word. We thank you that in you is all wisdom, and that your Word is sufficient for our every need, such that we can be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Grant to us, Lord, diligence that we might be students of your Word, growing in grace and in knowledge, that we may know your power in our life that is according to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, Who has called us to glory Father may we live in that hope May we live in that power Not it that is not our own that is not of our flesh, but it is of you. Father, may we know you.

In Jesus' name, amen.