Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure is a collection of 21 sermons David Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached on consecutive Sundays at Westminster Chapel sometime prior to September 1964. Here’s a sampling of my favorite quotes:
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”
“Spiritual depression or unhappiness in the Christian life is very often due to our failure to realize the greatness of the gospel.”
“Believe the Word of God, my friend. Do not go on praying frantically to be forgiven that sin. Believe God’s Word. Do not ask Him for a message of forgiveness. He has given it to you.”
“We must never for a second worry about anything that cannot be affected or changed by us. It is a waste of energy. If you can do nothing about a situation stop thinking about it; never again look back at it, never think of it. If you do, it is the devil defeating you.”
“What matters first of all if you are a Christian is not what you once were, but what you are.”
“Avoid the mistake of concentrating overmuch upon your feelings. Above all, avoid the terrible error of making them central.”
“I cannot make myself happy, but I can remind myself of my belief. I can exhort myself to believe, I can address myself as the Psalmist did in Psalm 42… That is the way. And then our feelings will look after themselves. Do not worry about them.”
“Let us remember this man Peter, who should never have looked at the waves at all. Why not? For this reason, that he had already settled that question before he went out of the boat! …That is always the trouble with weak faith, it comes back again to questions which it has already solved and answered.”
“It is very difficult to be humble if you are always successful, so God chastises us with failure at times in order to humble us.”
“An unquiet spirit, a grasping desire to have our own way so frequently robs us of our joy.”
“The Christian is not just a good, decent, moral man; the life of God has entered into him, there is an energy, a power, a life in him and it is that that makes him peculiarly and specifically Christian.”