so I want to pick up uh where I left off yesterday we were uh looking at a Biblical phenomenology of trauma and we were asking a couple questions within uh uh this section and yesterday we were looking at what is what exactly is normal is it normal to go through what we call trauma uh is is it normal to struggle once we've gone through these experiences and today I'm going to be asking the question is the testing of one's Faith the normal effect of life and I wanted uh I want us to look at a
very important passage to begin so I will ask you to turn in your Bibles to James chapter 1 James chapter 1 we're going to look uh specifically at verses 12 uh excuse me 2 through 12 this morning let's read that together for so I want to go through this and not uh a deep uh deep dive U into exposing the text but I want to look at this passage of scripture a little bit uh closer in fact the next section talks about our depravity and you may not have ever seen this before uh maybe you
have but the word here for testing or trials is the same word that is used in the next section in regard to how we are tested in our sin it's the word temptation if we could think of temptation as being confronted with a choice if I could say it this way what James is is relaying to us is that our human depravity tests us it causes us to have to make decisions but what he's exposing in these first 12 verses is that our human fragility forces us to make a decision as well it tests us
and so when we use the word trauma we should think of it as a testing of our faith in fact I want you to see this again in verse two and this is actually why he can give such a a a a an Abrupt and surprising statement to start count it all joy boy I tell you if if my children do something good I I would count that as Joy or or there's a really good but trials how do we count trials as Joy and so unless we understand what he's actually saying we can't get
to that point now let me just give you uh a historical background for the context I I realize there's a lot of pastors here and professors so a lot of you are already aware of the historic context but James is writing to the Hebrew people that are in Exile uh they are not just in in Exile or going through a trial they are being chased and being killed and being plundered they are being completely uh uh attacked in multiple ways could you imagine going to a Biblical counselor and as you sit down to tell him
all the trials you're going through he looks at you and says count it all joy it it doesn't seem attractive to even me but that's exactly what James is giving us here and I want you to understand the perspective because it's vital what James is saying is in order for us to be able to get through this trial let's use the word trauma uh yesterday we looked at several words that are in the scriptures whether it's vexation or Calamity and here trial is used or again uh the Greek word reflects Temptation uh in English English
uh there's a a translation in in one of the translations the King James version that uses the word divers as as what a diver does James and he's saying when you go through every type every level or every depth you should be able to count that as joy and the only way that we can do that is to have a truthful perspective of what is happening in fact I would graciously argue that why why trauma is so disturbing is that it is it is uh correcting or even attacking a false way of thinking our view
of life was not able to to explain or even allow us to endure the situation so he says my brothers and he's speaking here to Christians when you encounter or face every level every depth of trial as we saw two days ago the secularist uh uh call trauma a a a an intense uh trial essentially they look at trauma as a severe problem but notice what he says when you do encounter these trials he says it is a testing of your F faith that produces steadfastness and I want you to understand that clearly from the
word of God when we think of the word trauma we need to immediately understand what it is biblically it is a testing of your faith and that is every level of what we're calling testing including what the world calls trauma let me say it this way do you really believe what you say you believe what you really believe will be exposed when life doesn't go your way especially when it deeply hurts in the soul uh I started a book several years ago on on the philosopher Frederick nii uh I probably have around 80 Pages written
and it's really kind of a hobby book just personally for me although I do think it is uh fascinating to to study his life and and can be beneficial but Frederick nii actually gives us a case study in trauma and rather being the humanistic philosopher that that the world claims that he is he actually is a case study and Trauma that trauma that leads to madness he died in a mental ward which makes sense why our societies have accepted uh this humanistic philosophy and are now ending up in a mental word the history of Frederick
nii is a case study in the testing of Faith I'll just give you a a a a brief overview so you can contemplate this ni's father was a Lutheran Pastor when nii was five his father died of a brain infection in that time they called it the liquefying of the brain and nii at 5 years old watched his father pass away and he writes uh in multiple places that this was incredibly traumatic for him in fact it's interesting to read and I don't don't recommend it if you're not secure in your faith but he he
starts in his series of books concerning uh alleged philosophy talking about how that impacted his life I'll come back to his writings in just a second but n's uh nii went on to study in seminary in fact he was called the little Pastor because he was at the top of his class he was the picture of what a Seminary Student should look like but there was a problem in his heart and his work his right writings reflect this uh having written 14 books I I can tell you that my thought process progresses with anyone who's
written a multitude of books you can see how their thoughts have have progressed toward where they're at now and if you read through chronologically n's writings you see the same reality and he begins writing struggling with a simple concept How could a good God allow human suffering it's a question that if you're paying attention we hear a lot from the unsaved and as you begin to read through his books he reveals the struggle it becomes profound until he gets to a point where he says God is dead because I know human suffering is real and
if human suffering is real I can't accept that God is good and so he essentially says we have to get rid of every single element of God in our society and this was one of the main things that drove him into m Madness in hindsight he was diagnosed with bipolar by numerous psychiatrists now it's interesting you read some history on ni and they will assert that nii had some brain dysfunction much like his father but that is actually historically Incorrect and it's based on the actual fear that nii had he feared having the same death
as his father uh he did have eye problems but he literally drove himself into a manic State I won't spend too much more time on ni but it's fascinating to see that he he talks about his father's death as he writes and he says that it changed his life forever and in one particular case in German in Germany in German uh he doesn't say my father or uh uh talk about his human father he uses the definitive article the father he says when my when the father died and within the context you can see he's
actually referring to his concept of God if I can because it's related let me relieve your mind from this struggle of how can a good God allow human suffering the right question is how how can a good and holy God not immediately send us to Hell which is the worst of all suffering in other words the fact that we have life is God's mercy because you and I immediately deserve to be in the lake of fire for all eternity in other words the suffering we endure here is far less than what we really deserve and
what is fascinating as we study scripture is God allows us to go through these times for our good even in Psalm 32 it says that God is near to the broken hearted and he saves the crushed in spirit we have to become hopeless in order to place Our Hope only in Christ and our concept of God Is So skewed that if life goes our way we can accept that he's good and in this text he says let the testing of your faith produce endurance it's interesting how God has made the body to reflect this truth
those who are in martial arts will actually punch or kick uh trees and hard objects to build to build strength and calluses and that physical trauma actually strengthens the bones and so we see these martial artists who who break boards and break uh concrete blocks they have actually built up to being able to do that and the text here in James 1 says this let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing but notice what the verse goes the the passage goes on to say you say Daniel I don't
understand though what I'm going through I don't understand how going through deep impairing and distressful trials can actually cause me to be stronger in my faith and that's why God says to us here through James if you do lack wisdom if you do lack being able to understand go to God and ask him and he gives generously to all without reproach I thought it was so fitting uh in in the holy spirit's leading the the last song that we sang that we need to go to God and talk with him because he satisfies but you
notice that we have to approach him in faith so our our faith is being tested but our faith in God should not waver during these times we should expect that God is going to give us answers to why we're going through what we're going through but notice if if we're really not wanting answers to understand from God's perspective what happens Bible says that we become double-minded literally skic it it's actually not the word schizo there but it means split or double or two- minded It's really fascinating because now we're thinking one way and trying to
think another way so if this audience that James is addressing is brothers in Christ in other words you and I can be double-minded imagine unsaved people that have no wisdom of God in their lives and look at the result here they are driven like a a a a wave in the sea and tossed by the wind in other words instead of being being controlled by the word of God in the Holy Spirit their circumstances control them whatever happens in life is where they're headed and that's how this section ends that he is a double-minded man
unstable in all his ways rather than being controlled by truth he is now controlled by circumstances and feelings I would State clearly that this is not an abnormality this is the normal man it's only when we have the wisdom of God can we have stability I want to look at a quote from uh a secular um uh medical booklet this is published in the United States by the Department of Health and Human Services uh this particular one was published in 2015 and I was actually given uh this by a physician I was speaking in Florida
and the physician came up to me and gave me this book and for the vast majority of hospitals on the Eastern side of the United States this is the standard book for them uh it's it's called a quick quick guide for clinicians trauma informed care and Behavioral Health Services listen to what they say about trauma so you can see that even even from a secular medical perspective they understand that trauma is challenging one's worldview if I can quote specifically uh what they say trauma can alter core beliefs and assumptions about life beliefs and assumptions that
provide mean and and a way to organize one's life and one's interactions with the world one of the things that I often talk about when I counsel people who have been through trauma is identity because as you can see it they note here this this uh event challenges even how we view oursel it's our beliefs in all of us that provide meaning to life uh and our relationship with others so even from a medical perspective they understand that trauma is challenging our faith as James 1 says and so I just encourage you as we counsel
others or we deal with our own suffering and struggles that we realize that trauma is a testing of faith if we're in Christ and ask for wisdom he will give it to us and because of that trauma we will actually be stronger it is not one's genes that determine if they're strong it's faith in Christ now please don't misunderstand what I'm [Music] saying I do not counsel when someone comes into my office for help you just need to have more faith you just don't have enough faith I'm saying that every one of us needs to
have our faith challenged in order to have endurance and this is a Biblical concept you see throughout the entire New Testament it is a testing of faith that we're dealing with here if I can say it this way to you the humanistic concept of trauma informed counseling wants us to go back and say that trauma is the the main problem the central thing that needs to be addressed but scripture tells us that it is actually our faith that needs to be addressed and reality does that it forces us to to realize where we're not able
to explain life or where we're in error so we would argue for Faith informed counseling yesterday we saw from uh one of the universities of United States that around 70 to 90% of all people who enter a mental health clinic identify as having gone through some type of trauma in the United States the National Council for Behavior Health actually says it's 90% and that's why they advocate for trauma informed counseling please don't misunderstand what I'm saying I am never excited when I hear that someone's been through trauma it is a consequence of the fall but
I know when people are coming to for help and they're in Christ that their faith is being tested so I want to encourage you uh as you counsel to understand that faith is the central thing we need to focus on uh I want to uh give you a couple secular perspectives on this very issue because they understand that trauma is underlying many of the struggles that we have uh for example Dr Charles Whitfield says this charlesfield I think we can all understand that children who go through a traumatic experience in their childhood will struggle uh
let's look at another one by another psychiatrist Robert Dr Robert barison Robert bar listen to what he says in Medscape py he's saying a person's character and Trauma explain every single psychiatric diagnosis and I would I would uh remind us that within this context sleep is a problem in almost all these cases uh article published in Science Daily from the University of Liverpool says something similar Science Daily lip lip as Patrick noted I added here the question what about faith so you see that seculars immediately go to the event as if that caused the struggle
but God's word says that that no our faith determines how we react to that event uh and it is interesting that the specific hallucinations are actually directly correlated to the trauma that a child went through uh Dr Charles nimro as he was addressing the American Psychiatric association in 200 19 said these very profound words Charles for nice you want me to read the question h no yeah why not uh in our in our church in New York we have several people that were diagnosed as byar for years we're in and out of psychiatric words were
on drugs and you would never know that now we have a young lady who is diagnosed as schizophrenic she fit into this very uh uh framework at one point in time you would never know it now I could go on and on and give you examples of people who have been through trauma and then fit into the psychiatric system and they do fit or don't they they were fit but as they've either gotten saved or grown in their faith God has given them that endurance that the trial was intended to give them I'm thinking of
one uh particular young man um named Adam Adam has given his testimony publicly and and even uh in video on the internet for years he was on uh extreme psychiatric uh drugs such as lithium he was diagnosed as bipolar uh last year he uh called me and said Pastor Dan I I I see God is working my heart to become a counselor right now they're not living in our state but they're going to be moving back and he said I really want want to give people hope who have been diagnosed as bipolar as God has
given me and it's sad but humorous after years and years of being on these drugs and labeled as bipolar when he got saved and God began to change him the doctor fought what God was doing and to the point where he weaned himself off of drugs over a two-year period which I personally would not recommend I always encourage anyone who who themselves wants to get off drugs to go to a licensed physician who is also knowledgeable knowledgeable about tapering nonetheless after about six months of being completely off these drugs he went to his psychiatrist and
he told his psychiatrist that he hadn't been taking drugs for six months and the psychiatrist couldn't believe it and he fought him again and said you you will have a relapse and he said no I am I am changed so then the physician got to the point where he said well you must have been misdiagnosed and this is the fluidity of a diagnosis uh we're running out of time here so I want to skip ahead uh on page 20 of the dsm5 it says something very fascinating an expectable or culturally approved response to a common
stressor or loss what's fascinating in India is they don't buy into the the eugenic kinian system so when someone goes into a psychotic break the family surrounds them and as the World Health Organization has has attested to in numerous articles they they most often recover in many third world countries including some tribes here in the Amazon uh when a shaman or a witch doctor is set into place they are actually put in that place because they've gone through some type of psychotic break isn't that crazy no pun intended that they would look at someone as
being more advanced or having esteem rather than disordered as I argued yesterday there really should never be a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder it's not disordered to have posttraumatic stress it's exactly what trauma does otherwise it's not trauma it is testing the faith so we've got to begin to look at at our struggles and those around us as normal there is a uh Holocaust Survivor who was actually a psychiatrist named Victor Frankl frankco he's a fascinating uh study and his books are fascinating to read and obviously he's a he was a Jewish man he says
in his book man search for meaning is it really abnormal to struggle is it abnormal to go through the vexation of life or what the world calls trauma I I'll never forget one of the uh what I would call traumas that I went through and it was actually by uh men that that I thought were Godly and I thought something was really wrong with me and I think that was even more painful than the the circumstances and events that I went through and as the years went on and I began to meet people and they
began to share with me that they went through the exact same thing with these exact same people it was healing to me I began to realize that I wasn't just this this Pariah this unique thing that that we are all going through this together I want my church to be a church of discipleship and they will tell you that I challenge them often that we can't have discipleship without trans transparency that includes not only confessing our sins one to another as the Bible tells us to do but sharing in our weaknesses weeping with those that
weep and rejoicing with those that rejoice one of the greatest problems I believe in our churches is that we are not as transparent as God wants a lot of that's the fear of man a lot of that is our victimhood uh society and I'm not saying that that uh uh we we are not wronged and defrauded and sinned against but when I decide that my identity is what some man or woman or a group of people did to me I live continually submitting to their rule over my life we we have the choice when we
have have uh uh faith in God or faith in ourselves to pursue having an identity in Christ or pursue what has happened to us and what we've been through and was the second uh what has done to you I want to end our time just looking at a couple verses very quickly and we won't have to time to fully go through this there is a Biblical truth that we looked at yesterday in 2 Corinthians that I want to illustrate even more today in 2 Corinthians 3 we see that we are created in the image of
God who is a spirit and it says that those who have this this reality this hope are being transformed into the same image change is one of the the desires of biblical counseling it's not the goal but it certainly is a desire when people come for counseling and God makes it clear that that goes back to our being created in the image in the inorganic or spiritual image of God but we are embodied so let's look quickly at a couple verses and you can study this on your own Proverbs 15 it literally says that good
news refreshes or makes healthy the bones I don't know if you you've thought through this but every thought that we have consists of language or words so as we obey scripture and take thoughts captive and we decide to have the Living Word in us living we're replacing our deceitful thinking with words of life I've been encouraged by many of you coming and saying that that God has used this in your life to encourage you but that is the good news the gospel it refreshes the bone in other words don't miss this if I think right
my body responds let's look at another passage Proverbs 16:24 you can see the same truth if I think biblically and in wisdom my body will respond look at Proverbs 12:18 uh and one more uh Proverbs chapter 3: 7 through 8 God is telling us that there is a specific effect to our bodies of what words we allow to live in US in other words how we think directly affects our physical nature in fact if we don't believe this then we also have to deny that the wages of our sin is not just physical death but
spiritual death if we if we reject this we also have to I'm all for talking about neuroplasticity it's a fascinating subject but I don't know if you realize it it's happening right now it's not some magic bull it every thought that we have every habitual pattern of behavior that we have is causing our brains to conform I can tell you biblically and scientifically if we focus on the good news our bodies will change our hope is truly in the one who was traumatized far more than you and I have been traumatized and that of course
is Jesus Christ he is our hope I hope you've been encouraged by this week [Music]
