I want to continue where we left off yesterday specifically looking at at how sleep trauma and anxiety are related uh yesterday we we left off with a quote um from The Clinical Psychology review uh and today I want to go back to that as we begin uh yesterday uh uh as we ended we connected anxiety and depression uh as things that actually disturb sleep and which lead uh eventually if you don't get sleep to psychosis so even in uh uh cases of going through trauma we saw yesterday that anxiety is very common in fact distress
is part of the very definition of going through trauma but the specific quote if we can get set up on on the screen uh from The Clinical Psychology review I noted that even with even in people that have no psychiatric diagnosis that removing sleep elicited psychotic States we're still not on oh there we go um so it it is a problem that uh really it's irrelevant whether you're diagnosed or not as we looked at just briefly yesterday psychiatric diagnoses are simply redescriptions of a known description as uh was uh saying someone has post-traumatic stress is
telling them what what should be expected and what they already know it's not actually finding something in the body or in the person's soul it's simply redescribing what was already known I I want to look at the schizophrenia bulletin uh in or excuse me schizophrenia section of the British medical journal and specifically look how excessive worry is known once again to be part of of sleep problems now I'm going to warn you we're going to get a little technical in in talking a little bit about brain science but I'm going to take us back to
the word of God and what I find fascinating in studying actual objective science but not something that surprises me is that valid science and the word of God are never in conflict in fact they they agree with one another and that is because God spoke General Revelation and special Revelation into existence I would argue that we always should realize God's intention of natural Revelation if you look at Proverbs or uh which is which is a wisdom or psychology book if you look at Ecclesiastes or you look at um uh David's uh writings in Psalms the
natural world always points us back to Supernatural Revelation and Supernatural Revelation is always the lens that we interpret natural revelation so as Christians we are all for science it helps us to understand God if we're doing it biblically we are opposed to scientism that science will Deliver Us ironically that was one of the things that was a huge blessing about Co though Co itself was not in the United States the leading scientists were telling us literally saying you need to trust science and when what they were saying for us to trust was shown to be
false ironically by by empirical evidence people began to question the scientism that they had begun to believe and I see more than ever people ready to hear a Biblical perspective even the unsaved so look what the British medical journal says in their section on schizophrenia for so I don't want you to get lost in their Theory but I do want you to understand that they widely recognize that worry or anxiety is a serious issue that hinders or impaires sleep um I'm going to show you a a scripture reference in just a second but the Bible
has a lot to say about this specific issue and so it should not surprise us if we're actually reading our Bibles and understanding it that science is simply confirming what the scripture says in fact let's look at that passage Psalm 127 verse 2 isn't it fascinating that God uses the illustration of bread here to talk about anxious toil and he contrasts this with trusting in the Lord that God gives his beloved sleep uh we won't take well if you look at Ecclesiastes 5:12 it gives us another uh uh interesting truth that's that secular science has
now come to realize listen to what it says so work actually helps us to sleep I I see a lot of people that don't physically exert themselves during the day God has given us the body to actually physically work to labor so that when it's time to sleep we're we're physically exhausted not just mentally and if you think about it working out is is really kind of a pseudo work it's a it's simulating what we would do in traditional times and the point he's making here is that if we obey God we will sleep as
God intents and what I mean by obeying God is I'm referring to the Genesis 1-2 uh what What's often called The Creation mandate where God commanded man to work and oversee his creation work is a blessing it's given to us prior to the fall work is not a result of the Fall the curse has affected work and so that there is sorrow and pain involved now and we see that in chapter 3 but that's a whole another lecture if we go back to Ecclesiastes chapter 5 and we consider that the worker whether he eats or
or not will sleep but the wealthy because of of his eating will not he will struggle with sleeping it's fascinating because there's there's two things here that are given and in the wi wisdom literature you see this many times so work and food are mentioned in regard to sleep if you're working you'll sleep whether you eat or not in the second section it points out that if you eat late then you will struggle to sleep and that's exactly where science is realizing now if you eat late you may struggle and probably will struggle to sleep
so with that in mind if we go to Psalm 127 verse 2 again he describes xiety as the eating the bread of anxious toil if I can say it this way to you when we are on our bed about to go to sleep or or getting ready to sleep we are thinking about something or meditating on something if we are anxious we most often do that right before we go to sleep if we are praying to God and trusting on him even in the times of distress we are meditating on God rather than the problem
the trauma the the distress so anxiety if you think about it is a form of negative meditation it's also an indirect confession that I am not the Sovereign God in control and I would graciously argue that anxiety isn't just what might happen what I might lose it's meditating on past events that are distressful as well as current situations and future possibilities and God tells us as Believers that that we can cast our cares on him because he cares for us he as and anxiety is is a honest confession that I'm not in control of situations
but then it's a mental meditation to try to figure out Solutions or or try to guard against uh losing what we love so it's it's not insignificant that he says in Psalm 127 the contrast between anxiety and God granting Bel his beloved sleep in uh Proverbs 12:25 we see another truth regarding sleep in in regarding anxiety sorry uh it says that anxiety in the heart causes depression but a good word makes it the heart glad uh I I don't have time today to talk about the construct of major depressive disorder for but the overwhelming vast
majority of symtoms listed as major depressive disorder directly relate to insomnia in fact insomnia is one of the symptoms listed and so anxiety is a central problem that causes a lot of our struggles and I would lovely lovingly argue that it's an inorganic problem which is why scripture talks so much about it but listen carefully please it's not just something we do it's a a condition of our souls if you would a default position we are naturally trying to figure life out within our own resources and within our own wisdom in fact if we took
the time to look at Matthew we would see that Christ uh tells us that we should not be like the Gentiles who are anxious about what they will wear and what they will eat anxiety is the natural position or condition of all of us praying and casting our cares on God is the is the supernatural alternative to our normal state uh I want to keep moving here I wish I had more time to talk about anxiety but I want us to see how how common insomnia or sleepless nights was in regard to uh going through
distress we have several examples in scripture in fact Psalm 4:8 says in peace I will both lie down and sleep for you alone oh Lord make me to dwell in safy if we're going to sleep sleep well it doesn't matter where you're at you must depend on the Lord I have lived in uh the Dominican Republic for several years and we went through a time where uh we lived in the most violent city in the Dominican Republic uh we had people try to break into our house couple weeks later A man was killed right outside
of of our wall in fact the fight woke us up in the middle of the night and as you can imagine we struggled to sleep but we had to come to a place of trusting the Lord uh in uh and that's not just to sleep but for all of life uh I want to just quickly look at some examples that you can study on your own in 2 Corinthians 11 verse 27 Paul uh even includes sleepless nights in his list of Trials and traumas in other words he includes it in being tortured and persecuted and
if you've counseled anyone that's struggling with with impairing insomnia you know they're being tortured which is why seculars so often confound sleep problems with what they call mental disorders uh in Esther 61 we see the example of King Xerxes not being able to sleep as he dealt with hmon uh Christ himself in Matthew 26 uh: 38 he was in such distress that he says that he he almost was about he was about to die because of his sorrow and of course we know from scripture that he physically bled out of his sweat glands it's actually
in in in medicine considered to be the most distressful situation uh someone can go through uh I I've only seen this one time in all the years I've been Counseling in fact three months ago um I began to counsel a family and they sent me a picture of this uh of their son he's a he's a pastor as we began counseling and it's a gruesome picture when this young man gets distressed he bleeds out of his eyes it's not just rare it's a sign that a person is is in in in immense anguish in their
soul in fact in Luke 22:44 the the condition that Christ is in is defined in Greek as anguish but notice what the text says in luk 22:44 it says that in anguish he prayed and that was the entire night in other words Jesus himself was in such distress for our souls and the cross that that would uh that he was called uh to bear and to die on that instead of sleeping he spent the night praying uh I I again wish I had more time to talk about sleep but it's really interesting within secular literature
that seculars have discovered the last hour of of wakefulness is is often the most significant in regard to what we dream about but not just what we dream about uh what actually becomes a permanent memory so you who are students I'm going to give you a little cheat if you want something to go from your temporary memory to a more permanent state really study for an hour on that one subject and then go to sleep it it is scientifically proven that whatever you think about becomes ingrained in your thinking but watch this they have also
seen that if what you meditate on before you go to sleep is negative in content or distressful that it's anxiety driven that the over overwhelming content of your dreams when you go into dream state is is also distressful horrific even demonic what was the last word you used demonic uh it's incredibly interesting to see what this this research has shown us and I personally believe it gives new light to how many times the Bible tells us to meditate on his word day and night um and it's interesting because science wants to say that the only
the brain is active while we sleep uh the dreams has been a Fascination for Humanity uh for since the beginning of man essentially and many times I get asked that question is is the Mind actually active while we sleep um about about two and a half months ago I counseled a couple in our church and the wife had had a dream that her husband cheated on her and it was so real that she was holding him accountable as if he had really done something I have also talked with people that have a dream about someone
that that in their dream they like that they've never even considered liking and so they for weeks began to consider do I really like them and I want to answer that question with scripture uh Ecclesiastes 2: 23 says this e even in the night his heart does not rest in other words it's not all about the brain in our dream states we we will see in our dreams our fears our lust we'll see our aspirations we'll see our loves and hates it's so important that we take thoughts captive and really meditate on his word day
and night uh I won't take time to talk much about this but I want to mention cannabis uh cannabis uh a lot of people take cannabis to help them sleep after going through some distressful situation because it does uh uh stimulate the dopam magenic system but here's the problem with cannabis if you don't sustain cannabis it so damages the dopamine uh re-uptake that the vast majority of people then struggle with insomnia so it's actually in the withdrawal state that people then go into a psychotic State and all the literature in Psychiatry right now uh they
state that probably 50 to 60% of all new cases of schizophrenia relate to cannabis use and they can't explain why but I'm telling you it's directly related to insomnia caused by cannabis so let's look at a Biblical phenomenology of trauma we we've already looked briefly at a secular phenomenology they want to argue that our bodies are our Sovereign gods that dictate who we are especially after going through trauma I want to approach uh looking at a Biblical phenomenology asking a couple questions to us the first question is are are traumatic experiences normal I want us
to look at scripture but I also want to cross reference secularism as well uh for example I want to start looking at a a a research study done by the University of Wake Forest in the United unit States they estimate that between 70 and 90% of all people who go into a a a hospital to get help for mental illness that they have actually endured a traumatic experience in other words there's many people who theorize that trauma is the central feature of all of what we're calling mental disorder now again I've I've just walked you
through that they don't consider how sleep impacts all of this and then they don't consider how sleep is impacted by spiritual things such as anxiety or depression or guilt or uh horrifically broken relationships all of these things factor in so it's a very simplistic approach to say ah well the body is causing all your problems but thankfully we have a a an an alternative in scripture so I want you to see how normal going through trauma is and and don't miss this Dr Baker has has t touched on this a couple of times but I
want to take it to another level and that is that that the Bible isn't just descriptive just as secularism is it's far more descriptive in other words just quickly let me use the illustration of depression depression is one descriptive term it describes someone's internal experience or state I feel depressed or I am depressed it's describing that internal experience secularists use that one term in in reference to that internal State I I believe it's actually to make us believe that the description is actually an organic thing but scripture has over 20 descriptive terms in other words
scripture is far more Superior in describing our true internal States and the reason why secularism has gained so much uh ground even in the church is that when someone describes my experience I'm willing to listen and accept that especially when they use a label that redescribes the description so then I begin to think that if I reject the label now I'm rejecting the very description of my experience so we're not going to see the word trauma in scripture but we're going to see a whole bunch of words that describe the exact same thing so I
want to look at this uh as through scripture this morning uh first of all in job 5 verse 7 listen to what the verse says in other words we should expect the moment we're born to experience trauma now I don't know about you but I'm so thankful I can't remember my birth but by any measure a a a birth is traumatic it's part of the curse that we see in Genesis chapter 3 and job is pointing out in all of his distress that this is what man should expect just as sure as Sparks Fly up
from a fire we are going to face this trouble uh he goes on in chapter 14 to use the same word listen to what he says in verses one and two he's saying you can count on two things in your life you're going to die our days are numbered and our days are full of trouble now I'm going to confess something to you that I struggled with when I was young when I was some of your age I had a delusional view of life I believed that as my dad used to say the early bird
gets the worm I don't know if that translates that if I worked hard I would see the results I wanted that I was going to quote have the American dream and then when life started not going my way I had a roote Awakening I'm going to tell you one of the the greatest ways that we can help people in trauma is start teaching children when they're young the reality of Life the first time someone that I thought was Godly deeply hurt me and not only did not repent but kept going further it began to test
my faith and tomorrow morning we we'll look at that aspect of trauma as well and job is just painting a really difficult but honest assessment of all of our lives what about Psalm 39 ver 6 we walk about like a shadow you and I are just blimps on the history of mankind boy do we think we're something don't we but notice what he says also for nothing they are in turmoil if your life is in constant turmoil welcome to Being Human now I'm not saying that we shouldn't have peace in our hearts I'm not sure
that we can get to it today but this is exactly what Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and 5 I I kind of picture it uh as as I've seen some uh movies okay not some movies ton of movies not that I not that I watch a ton of movies but this seems to be in a ton of movies so how many of you have watched an action movie like Mission imposs or something and the main character is is walking towards the camera and of course he's not looking into the camera that would be
poor acting he's looking beyond the camera and behind him things are just exploding and he just keeps walking at the camera he he doesn't Flinch and and as silly as this illustration is this is exactly the picture Paul gives in 2 Corinthians 4 that everything is falling apart around him it is even inflicting him but he says my soul is stable and we'll look at that I think tomorrow to start we might get to it in just a second what about Ecclesiastes 9:3 listen to what Solomon says just as surely as you and I have
to face death we also have to face our very delusional nature it's an evil that we're faced with in fact death itself is traumatic now if you're a Believer it's a joy it's freedom but still tempor in a temporal sense it is a massive trial that we all must face for time sake let's keep going here Romans 18: 18- 2 probably eight right uh eight8 18 through 25 sorry read that whole [Music] thing for here's a perfect example of how God intends nature to point us to the word of God nature itself is groaning in
the Pains of child birth I don't know if you realize this or not but every time we see see a natural disaster occur we see a hurricane wipe out entire lands earthquakes happen tsunamis all of these things point to this reality that even the natural world is in distress the natural world is awaiting God's Redemption when we see a plant that is diseased I've gotten to the age in my life where I like plants now it's a weird thing it's that or cooking some of you know what I'm talking about and I I like to
keep plants alive but I'm just going to be honest with you I really don't do well with plants so far I've done well with my own kids they're alive so that's good but when I see a disease on a plant it's a reminder that even the natural world is in distress in in anguish uh there's a word in Hebrew in English is translated as vexation and it has many usages but all of them reference essentially the state that we're in because of Genesis 3 uh U you said there's several uh usages or nuances uh for
example distress in Psalm 2 verse 5 Terror uh Terror in Isaiah 28:19 trauma and abuse like in Nehemiah 9:27 AB sorrow Psalm 319 uh I uh anguish in Isaiah 91 distress or Calamity as in Deuteronomy 2 ver9 and even guilt and shame which is a major issue of distress in the soul as seen in Proverbs 12:1 16 and what's fascinating is when this word vexation is used it tells us specifically what is vexed so for example in Ecclesiastes 2:17 17 it says vexation of spirit but examp or verse 22 of the same passage in Ecclesiastes
vexation of heart uh we see the same thing with the concept of depression one of the descriptive terms in scripture is a crushed spirit it's not only more violent ENT than the word depression that has the idea of just pressing down but it tells us specifically what is being crushed the spirit so I want to ask another question now what is the believer's response to tr to to intense distress and even bodily harm and I'm really thankful we'll get to uh end our time together this morning with this passage so if you would turn to
2 Corinthians chapter 4 we'll look at 7-8 I I don't think any of us would argue that Paul uh was was a man that understood what we describe as trauma today from from being Shipwrecked and getting bitten by a poisonous snake to uh the constant threat of being killed uh to being chased to being uh having Stones thrown at him listen to what he says uh if you would this is a a personal philosophy if I can use the word trauma of the Apostle Paul uh let's read together what he says and I'll stop you
like that okay talking about the body here the Jars of Clay so I want to stop here just a second and we're going to continue reading uh on and let the context fully explain what he's saying but I want to give you a hint so that you can see this as we read on he's saying these things happened to me in the physical world to my physical body and he's saying but my soul was in a different state so watch this again in verse eight just reread it we are afflicted in every way but not
crushed we're perplexed but we're not driven to despair we're persecuted but not forsaken we are struck down but not destroyed and he makes it clear in verse 10 that we're always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our bodies and you read through 12 yes let's continue here in verse 13 so this is our hope I don't know about you but I want all trauma to cease from my life I don't want to go through the loss of my family I don't want to
see my if if if God would design in his Providence to allow one of my children to die before me I want to escape the vation of this world but he's pointing out that that we have a hope that allows us to think differently about life so now let's go to verse 16 temp Paul is saying though my body is being Afflicted though it's wasting away though it's being traumatized I don't lose heart and notice he uses the phrase momentary affliction I just want to remind us as Believers that this is the closest to hell
we will ever come every time that the vexation of this World shows itself to us we need to understand and be thankful that God has delivered us from real trauma that is coming and so he says our inner self despite all this happening to us is being renewed this flies in the face of secular theory that if you go through circumstances that your inner man cannot be renewed so continuing on to chapter 5 the very next verse listen to what 2 Corinthians 5 1-10 says for stop so listen to what he says about this tent
now Jars of Clay and now he's describing our bodies as a tent he's saying who we are is not our body in fact we're going to get a new body in the resurrection who we are is in Christ it's inorganic it's spiritual we are longing to put on our Heavenly dwelling but notice what he says that why while we're in this physical body we grown and he repeats this exact phrase in verse four and he adds another description he says for while we are still in this tent We Grown being burdened and this idea of
groaning is the idea of of calling out in anguish if you've ever heard someone hear the words that their loved one has died and them call out and groan you know exactly what this verse is talking about I know our time is up but I I I just ask you to give me two more minutes just so we can finish this section of second Corinthians in verse number uh six through um through 10 for he's saying twice again that we should be of good courage as long as we're living in this body and going through
this distressful world we can still be of good courage I would graciously argue that our bodies do not determine Who We Are that our relationship with God and our relationship with others determines who we are this is what scripture teaches [Music] in
