Never Tell Someone To Snap Out Of Depression

Job 16:1-2, “Then Job answered and said, I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.” Proverbs 25:20, “As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart.” Proverbs 25:11, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 14:7, “Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge.”

I have written a few articles recently to share my ongoing depression with my web visitors. Since I have lived alone unmarried since 2006, and have been banned from attending Harvest Baptist Church on Guam and ostracized by them since 2014, I have no wife or friends to talk to when I am down. So I do the next best thing, which is to share my broken heart and troubled life with my thousands of web visitors. I have been working day and night, labouring in prayer and typing website articles, since 2002 to help others. I do this freely from my heart for God and truth, and never for a single penny in all these many years. It has been my joy, passion and privilege to preach the Gospel, proclaim the truth, contend for the faith, and feed the Lord's sheep for the past 18 years.

Most of my web visitors are understanding, but a few are characters who lack compassion, and more than a couple have been downright abusive and mean. Kindly said, I don't tolerate abuse from web visitors, I show them the door! I don't like bullies. One man criticized me this week, in response to my articles explaining my depression. He harshly said to “Snap out of it!” in response to my articles. My father used to wisely teach me: “Never force anything!” My Dad loved to build things. He always had a project going—with a hammer in his hand and a  mouthful of nails—staying busy. 

I often think of what my father taught me about never forcing anything, applying it to everything else in life. You cannot force a person out of depression. You cannot force a person not to worry. You cannot force a person to love other people. It takes times for a person's life to get messed up, and it takes time for someone's life to improve. That is why I always counsel web visitors to get involved in a local Bible-believing church. We all need a church family. We need fellowship with other believers. I don't recommend just any church, but a growing church. Please listen to this wonderful sermon by Pastor Bob Gray Sr., called: “Why You Should Be A Part Of A Growing Church.”

Honestly, some people are just trolls. That is, they will find fault to criticize you no matter what you do.

Only a naïve person would tell someone who is battling depression to “Snap out of it!” What a hurtful, unkind and useless thing to say. I would NEVER say that to someone. Depression is not something that you can just snap out of. It takes time to heal. Nobody wakes up one day and decides to be depressed, it is a process which occurs over time. I have struggled with depression increasingly over the years, simply because I haven't been able to find a woman to marry. I get down being all alone. Even God Himself said that it is not good for a man to be alone. Genesis 2:18, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Being on Guam is the big problem, because it is really difficult to meet single people here. I couldn't even sign up for “Match.com” because it isn't offered on Guam. I have tried to move. I attempted to relocate to the mainland in 2013, but quickly became overwhelmed with loneliness and returned to Guam broken and tired.

The best thing you can say when someone is down, depressed, having a bad day, or is upset, is either something gentle, soft, kind or say nothing. Saying nothing is always a safe bet! I didn't write this blog article to vent, but to teach my readers not to kick someone who is already down. I have had a few people kick me while I was down, simply because I think it made them feel empowered. It is not what you call me that matters, it is what I answer to! I have learned over the years that I am stronger than I think, in Christ. God gives me His strength. Psalms 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”

I love people and am here simply to do what I can for Jesus Christ, but I would have quit long ago if I didn't, “Go from the presence of a foolish man,” as the Bible teaches in Proverbs 14:7b. I have been eating healthier foods, walking more, doing what I can to fight against depression. Since 2004, I have been afflicted with constant chronic neck pain. In 2006, my former wife divorced me. In 2009 and 2010, I underwent two major neck surgeries, which made me 100% worse. In 2013, I tried to move back to the United States, but was overcome with loneliness and frustration, and came back to Guam $50,000 poorer. I am not sulking. The past is the past. I am pressing forward by faith, LOOKING UNTO JESUS the Author and Finisher of our faith!!!

In late 2013, I crawled into the Harvest Baptist Church on Guam. I thought I had found a wife there, the nurse Kris. I hadn't been so happy in several years, but my joy turned to pain in late 2014 when ungodly pastor, Marty Herron, and Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, threw me under the bus, because I told THE TRUTH about the Devil's Bible revisions and the lie of Lordship Salvation. Like the heathen world, they cruelly abandoned me, and I went into a lasting depression with no church family, while they laughed in my face at Harvest and couldn't have cared less. 

When you mistreat someone, how it affects that individual depends mostly on what is going on (or not going on) in that person's personal life. What seemed like no big deal to Pastor Marty Herron was a traumatic ordeal for me, which he caused by his cruel lack of compassion between 2014 to 2018. In 2018, he quit as pastor of Harvest. In hindsight, I now humbly realize that Marty Herron defines “white privilege,” who is just a spoiled financially very well-to-do religious man, who only cares about himself and his clique of like-minded snobby friends. Respectfully, Dr. Herron can wipe his mouth as the guilty woman in Proverbs 30:20, but he cannot escape the eternal consequences of his cruel treatment toward me, lack of compassion, bidding Godspeed to false teachers like Dr. John MacArthur, using Devil's Bibles and preaching a counterfeit gospel of Lordship Salvation. God will not be mocked, a man sows what he reaps (Galatians 6:7). I love pastor Herron and his family, but he is a wolf in sheep's clothing!

I fell in love with another woman at Harvest, Abby, in 2017, and I pray for her every day. And I still pray FOR HER...lol. I love Abby. But their pastors despise me since I am from the Hyles-Anderson College camp. I heard multiple Harvest staff members criticize Pastor Jack Hyles and First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. That includes former Pastor Marty Herron, who described Pastor's School when he attended as a harsh place. Neo-evangelicals think standing for the truth is being harsh, so they sell out in sinful compromise, not standing for anything that matters. Harvest criticized me too! They are not worthy to shine Dr. Hyles' shoes! 

Harvest has the problem, and I am suffering for their backslidden and in many cases, unsaved, condition. Harvest is full of tares! I'll snap out of my discouragement when I find a wife. I'm not holding my breath. Ungodly associate Harvest pastor, Jared Baldwin, even mocked me, asking me how my beliefs were working out for my social life. God will hold Jared accountable for his injurious, ungodly and hateful words against me. I stood for THE TRUTH, which they rejected again and again in their arrogance and sinful pride! They literally laughed and scorned, as if everything I stood for is a joke to them! Bible infallibility is not a laughing matter! John MacArthur's damnable plan of salvation is not a laughing matter! Right doctrine matters!

Still today in 2020, Harvest Baptist Church on Guam couldn't care less about me as a human being, and all my neighbors ostracize me continually. All I ever humbly requested (three times in 2017) is to please let me attend church services, so I can have a church family. The Bob Jones University crowd hate me, just as they hated blacks up until 1971 at BJU (forbidding them from enrolling), and hated a female student who said she had been raped at BJU (whom they expelled to silence her). Now the BJU crowd hate me, trying to silence me by kicking me out of church, for standing faithful for the infallible and inspired King James Bible, and exposing Dr. John MacArthur as a false teacher regarding the plan of salvation. 

BJU is corrupt, not me. Harvest Baptist Church is corrupt, not me. Dr. Marty Herron is corrupt, not me. Dr. Steve Pettit is corrupt, not me. Pastor Gary Walton is corrupt, not me. They all make me depressed, since I have no church family and no opportunity to find a Christian wife. Who wouldn't be down and discouraged? That is not something I can just snap out of! Perhaps my website readers wonder why I write about this so much. It is simply because I am lonely without a companion. I need a wife. To find a wife I need to be in fellowship with other Christians. And to fellowship with other believers I need a church family. 

Someone who is down on them self needs lots of love, not to be shunned and avoided. If the pastors of Harvest were genuine men of God, they would have said: “Why of course you can come back to church David, we love you! All we ask is that you not cause any trouble. If you're willing to put up with us, we're willing to put up with you.” I would have gladly thanked them and abided by that. Everyone needs a church family! Some people say it is better to stay home than to attend a bad church, but no one can go it alone with no social life. That is not normal, wise or healthy. Harvest couldn't care less, nor their Satanic hero Dr. Steve Pettit, who requires serving Christ to be saved. It is shocking to me that Baptist churches are so drastically different today in theology, that there is a night and day contrast between plans of salvation. It is something out of The Twilight Zone!

Since Harvest Baptist Church is just a convenient three minute drive from my place, and is the biggest independent Baptist Church on Guam, and dozens of my neighbours either work or attend Harvest—it frustrates the hell out of me that they continue to ostracize, shun and reject me. It may be their legal right, but they have no Biblical right! Any reasonable person could understand! I have every intention to keep writing, preaching, and raising a ruckus, until they do the right thing and embrace their hurting brother. Romans 14:10, “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” A hurting dog barks!

You're damn right I'm down and discouraged. I told THE TRUTH that God only authored ONE BOOK, not two, not 339 versions (Matthew 4:4). I told THE TRUTH that Lordship Salvation is a manmade lie, and that there is only ONE GOSPEL, which is to simply believe in the death on the cross, burial and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). My Christian life has been adversely hindered by a local independent Baptist church, because I told THE TRUTH, but they rejected the truth and me together! God will deal with them, so says the Scriptures (Romans 3:4; Proverbs 30:5-6; Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 6:7). 

Kindly said, you cannot go against THE TRUTH and prosper. Harvest is not prospering today, there is a spirit of defeat over the entire ministry, because they have betrayed THE TRUTH. I love them all unconditionally at Harvest, but I cannot just snap out of what has happened. This is serious. The betrayal of the Word of God is serious. The preaching of another gospel (aka, Lordship Salvation) is serious. For Bob Jones University and the HBC of Guam to bid Godspeed to a false teacher like Dr. John MacArthur is serious. This stuff gets me down. I have tried to find a wife. It's not like I haven't prayed earnestly and made an effort. Harvest Baptist Church has repeatedly thrown me under the bus, and that is on them! I love them anyhow!

Lord willing, when this COVID-19 pandemic situation hopefully eases up in a few months, I will make another attempt to leave Guam for the United States. I am praying and researching which city I would like to move to. Alaska here I come! I have actually thought about Alaska, believe it or not. I wish Abby would marry me, and then we can move anywhere she wants to live, or stay on Guam and I'll buy her a house. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma looks nice too. The world is getting crazy today across the sea! Guam is still normal compared to the U.S. mainland. Jeremiah 10:21, “For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.”

To God be the glory. I am just a VOICE!