Millions needlessly suffer from various forms of emotional and mental illnesses. There are definite causes for all the fear, frustration and mental breakdown in the world today — and there is a CURE! It's time we learned HOW to have healthy, happy, SOUND MINDS!
THE TRUE state of mental and emotional health in today's world is appalling! It is now estimated by officials that 15 to 30 percent of the world's population suffers from some kind of mental or emotional disorder. But why? Why is there so little peace of mind around the world — and, perhaps, even in your home? Why, in this age of scientific "enlightenment" and technological and medical "advancements," should mental illness skyrocket at such an alarming rate?
A Shocking Picture!
In the United States alone, more people are in hospitals suffering from mental illness than from cancer, heart disease, and all other diseases combined. And ONE HALF of all hospital beds in the U.S. are occupied by mental patients! Most people who are not receiving hospital care take pills for their mental or emotional problems. ONE IN EVERY SEVEN Americans is estimated to be taking tranquilizers in an attempt to "escape" from anxiety and worry! Take a close look at the alarming facts. The American Blue Cross Association estimates that some 19 million Americans are mentally or emotionally unbalanced. This means that one in ten is suffering from some mental disorder! But Blue Cross also estimates that only between 10 and 20 percent of these are receiving some kind of treatment. The mental and emotional health of New York City dwellers is especially shocking. "Every other adult in this city admits to having had an emotional or mental problem for which he [or she] wanted some help. But only one in twelve sought such aid" (By Earl Ubell, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, Nov. 19, 1965). In Britain, one in four has some kind of psychiatric disorder, ranging from minor neurosis to major mental illness, according to a recent survey. Mental and emotional illnesses rate number one in Australia. A survey made by the New South Wales Association for Mental Health showed that "one person in every three who consulted their family doctors needed help for some form of mental stress." The report estimated that "one family in five in New South Wales could expect to have a member as a patient in a mental hospital at some time" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, June 26, 1967).
"Professionals" Affected Too
Even psychiatrists are winding up "on the couch" needing psychiatric help. Last September a study team which examined the records of nearly two hundred doctors who were treated at two British psychiatric hospitals reported the startling fact that MOST of them were psychiatrists! "Psychiatry as a specialty may attract more doctors themselves in need of psychiatric help," the team reported in the British Journal of Psychiatry, "for the stresses involved in the practice of psychiatry may predispose to mental illness." Their recommendation was that all prospective doctors should be screened by psychiatrists to prevent them from breaking down later in life! Mental problems also affect the clergy. A recent survey of two thousand ministers of one well-known denomination in the U.S. reveals that nearly ONE FOURTH of the ministers and their wives have had psychiatric care or counseling, or would like such assistance! Did you ever think to ask yourself, why? These are the men the public looks to for assistance when trouble comes.
Basic Reasons Why
Mental problems most often begin with WRONG THINKING! This past decade has witnessed the age of avoidism — unwillingness to face facts and make decisions. This tragic state of mind exists at all levels of society — including the government! "Let's avoid controversy" is the slogan of our era! Avoidism is the very NATURE of mental illness! The sick patient, unwilling and sometimes unable to face the problems of the real world, retreats into the unreal jungles of his own mind. Whenever the real world is blighted with avoidism, it provides the precise climate in which mental illness can flourish. Another tragedy in our thinking is passivism. It is characteristic of those who just sit idly by. The television becomes the family altar. Hundreds of thousands of children are allowed to spend more time worshipping its mystic light than they spend sitting in school! No wonder 4.5 million American children are in need of psychiatric treatment today! Passivism is both a symptom and a cause of mental illness. Scientists, in their quest for mere physical knowledge, have actually produced madness in a sane person by putting him in an environment where there is absolutely nothing to do — a total state of passivity! Much of what is wrong with the world today is sloth, apathy, dullness of mind and mental laziness! This is far worse than mere physical laziness. Another vital factor destroying mental health is the blurring of standards. Clergymen and laymen alike seem no longer to have precise ideas of good and evil. Many are guilt-ridden because of conduct which they aren't sure was wrong. Or right. The hydrogen bomb has become the symbol of our age of mental sickness. People feel themselves powerless to deal with such massive forces. They try to quit thinking about them. They go about their usual routines, but the terror still lives in their subconscious minds. This fear is a factor in the desire of so many to GET as much as they can RIGHT NOW! "Why work hard to achieve a future that will be blown apart," is the attitude of so many today. Most people simply have never learned how to DISCIPLINE their minds, or their emotions! They haven't learned to channel their thoughts and energies into the job to be done. Instead, their thoughts turn inward — toward the SELF. And so their emotional frustration increases accordingly. The reaction of fear, frustration and helplessness in the face of these trying situations is a MAJOR CAUSE of mental breakdown — and of the deep sense of insecurity that plagues nearly everyone.
The ROOT Cause
Of course the ROOT CAUSE of all mankind's fears, frustrations and feelings of "emptiness" is unknown to scientists, psychiatrists and doctors. Not even the clergy seem to understand! Most people have no ultimate purpose — no GOAL in life. To the basic question, "why am I here?" they can only answer, "I DON'T KNOW." Here lies the basic reason for all the twisted, unhappy lives and mental anguish in the world today. Hopelessness prevails. There is no understanding of what lies beyond! God is unreal. Man feels absolutely cut off from God. Man needs to know who, what and WHY he is! To know the very PURPOSE for his existence! To know why he feels "empty" and what he needs to fill that vacuum — that SPIRITUAL VOID which exists within his mind! Yet most people don't know the answers to these basic questions of life. Why?
God's Purpose for Mankind
God made human beings for a purpose! That great and wonderful purpose for human existence was first revealed in the Garden of Eden. God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26). God made man — His greatest masterpiece of physical creation — of the dust of the ground. A clay image of Himself — in the form and shape of God with the potential of developing the character and mind power of God. But man was made incomplete. Man was made to need God — to receive the HOLY SPIRIT of God. God, on that sixth day of recreation week, had only BEGUN His master creation. God made man a perfect physical creation. But he was not yet a perfect SPIRITUAL creation! God made man for the purpose of being fashioned by the Spirit of God into the very character "image" of God — into very spirit-born SONS IN GOD'S FAMILY! Job realized God was forming a special creation in his life when he said, "If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my CHANGE come. Thou shalt call [at the resurrection], and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the WORK of thine hands!" (Job 14:14-15) Notice! "Thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands." That "work" was Job! Job knew he was merely a piece of divine workmanship — character — in the hands of the Creator. Man was born a piece of pliable clay to be molded spiritually in the hands of the Master Potter! (Isa. 64:8) Job is yet to become a completed PERFECT SPIRITUAL CHARACTER at the resurrection! How? Through the miraculous changing power of the HOLY SPIRIT! But what is the Holy Spirit? Exactly why do we need it? How does it fill that great "void" in man?
The POWER of God
Practically no one today understands what the Holy Spirit of God really is. The Holy Spirit is the source of divine power — dynamic, SUPERNATURAL POWER that can change your very mind! The Holy Spirit is the essence of God — His very life, His mind, His nature and His LOVE. The Spirit of God is the very POWER God used to create the universe! (Heb. 11:3)
Man Must Be Begotten Again
The Holy Spirit is the "seed" or germ of eternal life. It is the begettal of the spiritual life of God within us. And just as a physically begotten baby receives the nature of its human father, so the spiritually begotten son of God also receives the divine nature of his spiritual Father, GOD! "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature..." (II Peter 1:3-4). The new spiritual life must now begin to grow. Once we are begotten by God's Spirit, we must grow spiritually until we can be BORN of God at the resurrection. Then we will attain to the very likeness and stature — the very COMPOSITION — of God! Notice this marvelous truth with your own eyes: "Beloved, now are we the [begotten] sons of God, and it doth not yet appear" — just as an unborn human baby does not yet "appear" like its adult form — "what we shall be: but we know that, when He [Christ] shall appear, we shall be LIKE HIM... "! (I John 3:2)
Rejected in Eden
God made His Holy Spirit available to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. All they had to do to receive eternal life was to obey God by eating of the fruit of the symbolic "tree of life" (Gen. 2:9, 16-17) which represented the Holy Spirit. But because of rebellious, disobedient HUMAN NATURE, Adam and Eve REJECTED it! Instead, they partook of the wrong tree — the fruit of the "tree of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17; 3:3, 6, 7). They cut themselves off from access to the spirit of God and the gift of eternal life! Ever since then, God has allowed man to go his own way. For nearly 6,000 years men have learned, by hard experience and suffering — by mental and emotional disorders — the RESULTS of living without the Holy Spirit! There has been war — not peace. Death — not life. Why? "For to be carnally minded is DEATH: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind [the natural, unspiritual mind with which each of us was born] is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God [the law which would bring life and peace] neither indeed can be [of itself]" (Rom. 8:6-7). Jesus Christ came nearly 2,000 years ago to herald the arrival of the Holy Spirit once again for all who will accept it. But the vast majority have rejected God's gift of eternal life to man. The world has sought after self-gratification and whatever pleases the self. The world follows the way of the carnal, unspiritual mind which produces all the fear, worry, frustration and spiritual emptiness experienced today!
Man's Greatest Need
All mankind DESPERATELY NEEDS God's Holy Spirit! A human mind guided by the Holy Spirit from God finds peace, happiness, spiritual power and eternal life! The results of having God's Holy Spirit within one are "love, joy, PEACE, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5:22-23). But the carnal mind, without God's Spirit, is HOSTILE toward God (Rom. 8:7), and cannot think spiritually. To put it plainly, we are not FULLY sound-minded until we think like God! Make no mistake! Most carnal-minded persons have normal minds. That is, they generally think soundly, can come to certain right decisions, can be emotionally well balanced. But without the revelation of God's Word and the indwelling of His Holy Spirit they go off half-cocked in wild theories and speculations — in guessing about what is morally right or wrong. No mind is truly FULL and COMPLETE unless that person has received God's Holy Spirit. The "sound mind" which comes through God's Spirit (II Tim. 1:7), means just what it implies. It is a truly balanced mind. The man possessing it is a balanced man — a WHOLE MAN. He is guided by the supreme mind of God Almighty! Only the Holy Spirit can impart the deep understanding of our real PURPOSE and GOAL in life which prevents one from "cracking up." Man has yet to realize that the spiritual power available through God's Holy Spirit is the power needed for true sanity, self-mastery, for accomplishment, success, abundant joy, peace of mind and the HAPPINESS we all desire! Do you now begin to see what this world is missing? Do you begin to grasp how much better your life would be if you were in spiritual contact with your Creator? God's Holy Spirit can free you from fear, frustration, and the threat of mental illness plaguing mankind today. God's Holy Spirit imparts mental health, happiness and sound mindedness. But there are prior conditions to receiving it!
The Steps to True Sanity
First, you must "thirst" for — sincerely desire — God's Holy Spirit more than anything else. Jesus said: "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water! But this spake He of the SPIRIT, which they that believe on Him should receive..." (John 7:38-39). Peter then clearly defined the way to receive this Spirit of Power: "Repent, and be BAPTIZED... and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). When we are reconciled to God by the death of Christ as a result of our sincere repentance of past sins, faith in Christ's shed blood for the remission of our sins, and our submitting to the symbolic burial of our past sinful life in the waters of baptism; then God is MORE WILLING to give us His Spirit than we are willing to give bread to our children! (Luke 11:10, 13) But remember, God gives His Spirit only "to them that OBEY Him" (Acts 5:32). No one who continues to flagrantly break God's law of love can receive the Spirit of God. So if you are willing to obey your Creator, if you are willing to surrender your will to "live by every word of God" and let the Bible be the AUTHORITY in your life, then God will certainly give you His Spirit — His power in your life!
Find Out for Yourself
You can know more about God's Holy Spirit and His purpose for mankind! You can understand the answers to the really BIG questions concerning your very existence that you have always wondered about. You owe it to yourself to learn the meaning of today's chaotic world conditions and how you can ESCAPE the nuclear holocaust awaiting this present generation! How? Simply by enrolling in the free Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course! There will be no obligation on your part, except that we expect you to STUDY your Bible at least one-half hour a day. Remember, this is a BIBLE STUDY Course. The lessons are designed to lead you into a systematic study of your BIBLE! So don't put off being enrolled in the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. It's like no other Bible Course you've ever seen! Do it right now before you FORGET!
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