“If you and I find ourselves afflicted by this condition, there is only one thing to do, it is to go to Him….He is our joy and our happiness, even as He is our peace. He is life, He is everything. So avoid the incitements and the temptations of Satan to give feelings this great prominence at the centre. Put at the centre the only One who has a right to be there, the Lord of Glory.”

Reversing the order of my title, we all have feelings, most of us have known depression at one time or another, and many of us know about the great Welsh expository preacher of last century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981). In this piece I will discuss all three. And my audience here, like that of Lloyd-Jones, is the Christian.
Yes, Christians can and do experience depression, struggle with despair, and can be overcome by what they are going through. I am one of those. Lloyd-Jones knew much about this as a minister of the gospel, and sought to help his people by extensively dealing with it.
As with so many of the vital books that we have from him, the volume I am quoting from here began as a series of 21 sermons which he had delivered at Westminster Chapel in London over consecutive Sunday mornings in 1954. He had been concerned about the rather joyless condition of many English Christians, especially just after WWII.
These sermons were put together in book form in 1965 and titled Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures. I have the 1998 Marshall Pickering edition, so my page numbers refer to that volume. In this book of 300 pages, he looks at a number of aspects of depression and how the believer should deal with it. The 21 chapter titles are these:

General Consideration (Psalm 42:5, Psalm 42:11)
The True Foundation (Romans 3:28)
Men as Trees, Walking (Mark 8:22, 26)
Mind, Heart and Will (Romans 6:17)
That One Sin (1 Timothy 1:16)
Vain Regrets (1 Corinthians 15:8-10)
Fear of the Future (2 Timothy 1:7)
Feelings (2 Timothy 1:6)
Laborers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16)
Where is Your Faith? (Luke 8:22-25)
Looking at the Waves (Matthew 14:22-33)
The Spirit of Bondage (Romans 8:15-17)
False Teaching (Galatians 4:15)
Weary in Well Doing (Galatians 6:9)
Discipline (2 Peter 1:5-7)
Trials (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Chastening (Hebrews 12:5-11)
In God’s Gymnasium (Hebrews 12:5-11)
The Peace of God (Philippians 4:6-7)
Learning to be Content (Philippians 4:10-12)
The Final Cure (Philippians 4:13)

In this article I am drawing from just one chapter—Chap. 8 on “Feelings”. The 12-page chapter is loaded with helpful insights and spiritual truths, and here I simply want to offer a number of key quotes from it.
“There are those, I know, who will not recognise the condition at all but will brush it aside impatiently, and say that a Christian is one who sings all the day long, and that that, ever since they were converted, has been their story—never a ripple on the surface of the soul, and all has been well. Since they will not recognise the condition at all, they have grave doubts about those who are given to depression and even doubt whether such people are Christians at all. We have shown repeatedly that the Scriptures are much kinder to such friends, and do grant clearly by their teaching that it is possible for a Christian to be depressed. Not that they justify this, but they do recognise the fact, and it is the business of anyone who is concerned about the nurture and care of the soul to understand such cases and to apply to them the remedy that God has provided so freely in the words of Scripture.” p. 107
“Feelings are meant to be engaged, and when the gospel comes to us it does involve the whole man. It moves his mind as he sees its glorious truths, it moves his heart in the same way, and it moves his will.
“The second statement which I want to make is this—and these are very simple and elementary points, but we are often in trouble because we forget them. The second is, that we cannot create feelings, we cannot command them at will. Let me put this quite plainly. You cannot generate feelings within yourself. You can, perhaps, make yourself weep and bring tears to your own eyes, but that does not of necessity mean real feelings. There is a false sentimentality very different from true emotion. That is something beyond our control; we cannot create it. However much you try you will not succeed. Indeed, in a sense, the more you try to produce feelings within yourself, the more you are increasing your own misery. Looked at psychologically it is one of the most remarkable things about man that in this respect he is not master of himself. He cannot generate or produce feelings, he cannot bring them into being, and to attempt to do so directly is always to exacerbate the trouble.
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True Christianity offers you something different than the world does, but true Christianity will cost you. And there will be consequences. What you saw from most of the professing church was a fearful and cowardly display of the fear of man and the love of this world. 

DC Talk’s 1995 hit “What If I Stumble?” starts with someone reading these lines: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Like it or not, true Christians have to deal with the consequences of the professing church. Many unbelievers look at the professing church’s lack of faithfulness and conclude that such is what true Christianity is.
As such, for many a true follower of Jesus, the response of the professing evangelical and even Reformed church during the coronavirus has been one of the most discouraging and disheartening parts of this whole year. Dealing with government overreach, media-induced fear, and hysteria without end would have been bad enough. But the one place where Christians should have been able to find refuge was in the church. There, believers should have found a different spirit—a spirit of faith and trust and courage. A spirit of freedom and peace. Believers should have been able to point to the church—the called out ones—and said to a watching world, “Behold, there is something otherworldly, something different from the world.” Sadly, that wasn’t the case for most churches. Uncertainty, fear, cancellations of fellowship, mask requirements, and social distance regulations thrived in the church just as much as in the world.
I’ve entitled this “A COVID Apology to America, on Behalf of the Evangelical Church.” This is what I believe the professing evangelical and Reformed church should say to America. And, of course, she should not only say it, but change course accordingly.
The Apology (7 parts):
America, we’re sorry. We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show you how different Christianity is from the world. And we failed.
Years ago, Leonard Ravenhill said, “The world out there is not waiting for a new definition of Christianity; it’s waiting for a new demonstration of Christianity.” The COVID debacle of 2020-2021 was the perfect opportunity for us to give you that new demonstration of Christianity. We could have shown you what it means to live a life free from fear. We could have shown you what it means to value spiritual things more than material things. We could have shown you that Christians are different. Instead, most evangelical churches acted just like the world. Our profession of faith made little difference in our lives. Our churches closed their doors just like the Lion’s Club and community BINGO night. It’s too late for us now to change how we responded. But the least we can do is say that we’re sorry.
We’re sorry we contradicted so much of what we had told you previously.
Prior to the coronavirus, we told you that it was vital for Christians to gather together and fellowship. We preached about passages such as Hebrews 10:25: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” We told you about Christians throughout church history who were willing to meet despite the dangers of persecution, oppression, and even death. We held these men and women up as examples of faithfulness. And then, when the coronavirus struck us, we scattered like sheep without a shepherd. Forgive us.
Prior to the coronavirus we told you that living for Christ was worth more than anything this world could offer, including safety, health, and prosperity. We told you about Christians—going all the way back to the apostles—who truly understood the gospel and were willing to give up everything to follow Jesus. We told you about the missionaries and housewives, preachers and plowboys, who were willing to die if they could only read the Scripture. We told you that obedience to Christ was not an optional part of discipleship, but the very essence of following Jesus. And then, when it was going to cost us something to stand for Jesus and stand against the world, we crumbled like a house of cards. Forgive us.
We’re sorry we perverted the glorious and beautiful blessing of Christian fellowship.
We neglected fellowship. For some of us, it didn’t even take one week for us to cancel fellowship. We dressed it up with a lot of explanations and qualifications, but the bottom line is that we told everyone to stop meeting together as a church body. We did not accurately demonstrate the doctrine of Christian fellowship. We made Christianity to look no different than a social club or sports league, willing to cancel gatherings on the word of a pagan tyrant.
But even worse than abandoning Christian fellowship, we perverted fellowship. We encouraged you to think that Christians view “online” events as gatherings, fellowship, or services. This is all a gross perversion of what God intended for the church. We know that none of these things are fellowship, but we continued to act as if they were. To our shame, when we finally found some courage to meet (or, if we’re honest, when the state allowed us to meet), we continued to enforce mask and distancing mandates. We showed that we really don’t care if true fellowship occurs—where believers can interact with one another, see each other’s faces, and act as family—we really only cared about continuing to present a façade of Christianity. We did have good motives and intentions. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Truth be told, we caved to the pressure. Our actions are a stain upon the true church’s testimony concerning the doctrine of Christian fellowship.
We’re sorry we conformed to the world.
Christians are supposed to look different from the world. The fear that characterizes so much of our world, amplified to the extreme during the coronavirus, is unbecoming for a true Christian church. We know that we have been charged to not be conformed to this world (or “age,” see Romans 12:2). However, we found the temptation too strong and the potential cost too high for us to have our minds transformed during the coronavirus. Instead of standing as a city upon a hill as a light for a lost, confused, and scared world, we acted just like everyone else. Just like the pagans in the plagues of the second and third century, we encouraged you to stay away from others.
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We are called to be faithful to the truth. The enemies of God hate the truth. And they would have us think that to speak the truth is a hateful or dangerous thing. They want us to fear their labels. They want us to fear being called bad names. But whenever the temptation arises, let us not fall back or retreat, but let us pray with Nehemiah, “O God, strengthen my hands.”

Fear can be an instrument for good. The fear of falling to your death may prevent you from standing dangerously close to an edge. This is a healthy fear. But fear can also be used as a weapon to hinder good. The fear of social disapproval may prevent you from doing or saying the right thing. This is misplaced fear. It’s the sort of fear that shouldn’t control our lives, and yet today, many are consumed by it.
The fear of being called a bad name, slapped with a dangerous label, or accused of thinking a wrong thing largely dictates what people can and cannot say, despite how harmless, good, or true it may be.
But if we wish to gain any ground in the public square, we must overcome our misplaced fear of being called bad names. We will be called bad names. That’s a certainty. Jesus was called bad names, but that did not prevent him from doing what was right. He spoke the truth, regardless of opposition because his God-given mission was not defined, dictated, or directed by those attempting to silence him.
It’s no different today. Political and religious discourse is dominated by name-calling in an effort to shut down an opponent without having to grapple with his ideas. We don’t need a debate on “racism” or “hate” because everybody knows these things are wrong. Simply, mark your opponent as a hate-filled racist, and you don’t need to entertain his arguments. We’ve already agreed that both racism and hate are wrong.
But false accusations of “racism” or “hate” are oftentimes only used to silence those who are neither racist nor hateful. It’s only those who reject such labels that the false charge is designed to silence. An out-and-proud racist doesn’t care if you identify his racism. He may even help you do it. As such, it is only those who are not hate-filled racists who are likely to retreat when the accusation is raised.
And when it is raised, it’s not because our opponents care about such things, nor because they genuinely believe we are those things. It’s raised precisely because we are not those things, and they know that we care about not being those things.
In this sense, they’re wielding our own principles against us. They’re beating us with our own moral measuring stick. And falsely so! But what might happen if we stopped caring about their false allegations? What if we stopped caring how that dishonest and morally bankrupt segment of society viewed us? Suddenly, their false accusations would be stripped of all their silencing power.
In the book of Nehemiah, we’re told that the enemies of God wanted to prevent Nehemiah and his men from rebuilding Jerusalem’s defences. Their tactic was to weaken the hands of the workers by manufacturing misplaced fear through a false accusation.
They attempted to do this by accusing Nehemiah and his men of “intending to rebel,” and this, they argued, was why they were rebuilding the wall (Neh. 6:6). The false charge was brought against Nehemiah and his men in the hope that it would “frighten” them from their task. The enemies of God were hoping, through a false label, the workers’ hands would “drop from the work, and it would not be done.”
There is nothing new under the sun. Rather than fairly portraying their political opponents, they resorted to misrepresentations – such as accusing them of extremism, or domestic terrorism, to weaken their hands, thereby, stalling their God-given task.
The same tactic is still employed today. “I don’t want to be considered a bigot,” people think, “so, I best abandon any public defence of what’s now considered a controversial opinion.”
Had Nehemiah and his men caved to the fear of a false label their God-given work would have ended. But unlike many today, Nehemiah and his men did not listen to the false charge, nor did they allow any fear of the consequences hinder their task. Instead, Nehemiah prayed: “O God, strengthen my hands.”
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