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living the good life dr. neil nedley
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in this podcast, we will hear living the good life dr. neil nedley
recorded august 10, 2023
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr
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Here's one.
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Upcoming Podcast Content
00:04:10
Speaker
Gaining Dimmels and Other Interests On Joseph Weekland's Harmonica Player Podcast!
00:04:35
Speaker
Living the Great Life with Dr. Neil Nedley. Enjoy this presentation.
00:04:54
Speaker
Well, yes, we are on. Man, that's hard to keep something good like that short, isn't it? But it's amazing some of the visiting that's going on, you know, some old Adelphian Academy friends that haven't seen each other since, I don't know, 20, 30 years almost.
00:05:12
Speaker
It's amazing. I just want to remind you that tomorrow morning we have another series of presentations going on. They are on the flyer, but just so you know, starting at 9.30, Choice in Health by Don McIntosh, and then at 11 a.m., the two roads. You don't want to miss that.
00:05:30
Speaker
There's only two roads in life. Which one are you going to take? And I want to take the road to heaven. How about you? So I just want to invite Dr. Nedley. Come on back up again and just continue. In to catch or a bus. So we'll just leave the time in your hands. OK. Thank you, brother.
00:05:54
Speaker
All right, thank you, Pastor.
Self-Control's Impact on Health and Society
00:05:56
Speaker
Well, we're going to be dealing in this hour. The subtitle could be Living the Psychological Good Life, and you'll see where I got that quote from, actually, from a
00:06:09
Speaker
A psychologist well known from University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Seligman. But everyone is looking for the good life, the psychological good life. They'd like to live a great life. And there's a lot of different ways to try to pursue that, but many people are disappointed with their pathway of pursuing it. And so I've subtitled this also dealing with the mental illness we all have.
00:06:39
Speaker
and this goes beyond just with those that have mental illness. I first began to understand a little bit more about this mental illness after
00:06:50
Speaker
living quite a while. I was already a physician at this point. I had finished my specialty training and was actually a director of an ICU in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where I had set up a practice which was a lot of hospitalized patients and also outpatient medicine, particularly trying to keep people that were very sick out of the hospital.
00:07:20
Speaker
And this conference crossed my desk. The title of it was the first international conference on the elimination of coronary artery disease. And I thought, this is a conference I'm interested in. What do you think was the number one reason for admission to the hospital in 1991?
00:07:44
Speaker
coronary artery disease. We would see congestive heart failure. We would see people we'd have to intubate. Their lungs were all filled with fluid and be on a ventilator and try to dry out their lungs and try to put them on inotropes to get their heart beating stronger. And most of that was due to significant coronary artery disease, having heart attacks before or ischemic cardiomyopathy.
00:08:10
Speaker
And I thought, this isn't talking about just preventing the disease. It's talking about what? Eliminating it. And I thought, well, let's see. Are there quacks that are going to be giving these conferences here or these seminars and not know? It was University of California, San Francisco. It was Cornell. It was Cleveland Clinic.
00:08:35
Speaker
Ivy League schools and also European speakers. And I thought, this is an amazing conference. I'm going to have to go. My son was just, oldest son was just two years old, or I'm sorry, two months old. He was our only son at that point.
00:08:56
Speaker
We ended up having four boys and no girls, but that was the first. And so he took his first plane ride to Tucson, Arizona, and we attended this conference. And good video cameras had just come out then. I had one, and I was filming these presentations and filming the slides. And I was excited. I was learning all this. And by the time I was through with that several days of meetings,
00:09:23
Speaker
I began to reflect on all the things that I'd learned. There was about 200 that attended the conference, and I thought, this is so compelling that in 25 years, I'm a young physician now, but if I'm fortunate to still be practicing 25 years later and still teaching, I love to teach students and medicals and explain to my student that this is what I used to see every day, but this might be the only time they'll ever see it in their career.
00:09:55
Speaker
because I just knew this disease was going to be virtually eliminated by putting into practice what we had learned about it. Well, 25 years, more than 25 years have passed. And what do you think the number one cause of death is? It's still coronary artery disease. Is it because that information was false?
00:10:19
Speaker
No, we actually now know it's more true than it was then. We know how to absolutely prevent as well as eliminate coronary artery disease. So why is it still the number one cause of death? The world hasn't changed that much and it's not due to lack of good scientific information. Somehow we think there's scientific gaps in knowledge that will somehow help us
00:10:44
Speaker
to avoid this number one cause of death. By the way, even at the height of the COVID crisis, COVID still did not become the number one cause of death. It still wasn't as common as heart disease. And you know, just think about that for a minute. Heart disease we can eliminate and prevent. Thousands would die every day. The media would say nothing if they died about heart disease. A preventable disease.
00:11:10
Speaker
But they were counting every one of those COVID deaths. And a lot of people thought this was by far and away the number one cause of death throughout the world. It never did even reach the number two cause of death. It reached the number three in some countries. But the reason why coronary artery disease is still the number one cause of death is actually due to a mental illness that is prevalent in almost every person in the world. What is that mental illness?
00:11:42
Speaker
Lack of self-control. Lack of self-control. Self-control is the ability to keep ourselves from acting on our behavioral and emotional impulses.
00:11:57
Speaker
And Dr. Baumeister, who's now the most quoted researcher in all the world, says self-control failure is central to nearly all the personal and social problems that currently plague citizens of the modern developed world. And he calls it the number one problem in all the world. And he has some compelling reasons for calling it that. When we know how to eliminate the number one cause of death and we're not eliminating it,
00:12:26
Speaker
and this is the cause of it, I would say that's a pretty big problem. And diabetes, by the way, yes, it's genetics that loads the gun, but it's lifestyle that pulls the trigger. Do you think we know how to prevent diabetes? Yeah, at least over 90% of diabetics are type 2 diabetics, and that disease is totally preventable, even if you have the bad gene. Why is it increasing? Lack of self-control.
00:12:57
Speaker
Sexually transmitted diseases. It was kind of interesting in the 90s. I mentioned 1991. I remember in the late 90s when the liberal academics from several universities came forward and said, if we would just make condoms readily available and pornography readily available, we would eliminate sexually transmitted diseases and rape. They did both of those things, but what do you think happened to sexually transmitted diseases?
00:13:26
Speaker
They've increased. They haven't gone up. By the way, I never heard an apology from any of those liberal academics that promoted all of that. 80% of strokes are preventable. If we would put into practice what is best to prevent them? For some it's just taking a medicine. They might have a condition called atrial fibrillation. And that can cause a stroke if you don't take a blood thinner. But they don't take the blood thinner and they end up with a stroke. Alcoholism.
00:13:53
Speaker
By definition, it's lack of self-control. What do you think has happened to alcoholism during the pandemic? It's gotten worse. In fact, all of these addictions are at an all-time high. Murder, by the way, that went up too. In fact, the CDC said last year murder rates have gone up higher from one year to another than ever before in US history.
00:14:18
Speaker
And that's due to lack of self-control. Rape is off the charts in regards to how common it is, lack of self-control. Once you learn the principles of mentally healthful living, and you recover from that, and if you go back to depression, it's going to be due to lack of self-control.
00:14:40
Speaker
And cancer, Harvard says 80% of cancers are preventable if we put into practice what is best for our health. And so this is significant in regards to all these causes of death, but it doesn't end there. Unwanted pregnancy, adultery and divorce.
00:15:02
Speaker
often due to lack of self-control of one or both partners. Underachievement, this is the number one reason why college presidents lose sleep. They admit people that are high academics but they're failing their college in classes. Why is that? Lack of self-control. Well, they are in college. They don't have the accountability. Their parents are gone and they're up watching late night Hollywood movies and
00:15:26
Speaker
smoking their marijuana or using edibles or drinking or whatever, and they can't pass their classes. Financial failure, often due to lack of self-control. Relationship problems due to lack of self-control. And the most common addiction now in America is not alcoholism. It's technology addiction. And those that are in it know that the technology is not helping them, but they just can't seem to get off of it.
00:15:55
Speaker
or they can't make a decision, I'm just gonna go phone free, because it's not helping me. And by the way, when they make that decision, it does start to help them considerably, but they just can't seem to do it. But, you know, this is not a new problem. Paul talked about it in the Bible. He says, I don't really understand myself. I wanna do what is right, but I what? I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
00:16:24
Speaker
That's pretty bad. I wanna do what is good, but I don't. I don't wanna do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. There's another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to sin that is still within me, and then one of the saddest texts in all the Bible. Oh, what a miserable and wretched person I am. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
00:16:54
Speaker
That term wretched is mentioned one other place in scripture. By the way, it's also mentioned in the most famous Christian hymn. What's the most famous Christian hymn? Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that what? Saved a wretch. A wretch is someone who doesn't have self-control. But the other place in scripture it's mentioned is to the last church
Psychological Views on Self-Control
00:17:25
Speaker
of Laodicea. Weimar University took us on a tour of the seven churches in order
00:17:33
Speaker
So we got to the seventh church, Laodicean Church. This was the wealthy church. It's a beautiful church. When you walk in, you see the big message to the Laodicean Church by Christ. And they had a lot of similarities to today's society. They were into drama and theater. They had two giant amphitheater theaters going full time.
00:17:59
Speaker
And they were also into sports. They had the largest sporting arena, and that was going on, too. But they had a problem. He said, because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and what else? Why naked? What is it that they didn't have?
00:18:22
Speaker
They didn't have the robe of Christ's righteousness. So that means there could be salvation issues at stake when you're a wretched individual as far as poor self-control. So the big question, and this is being asked now and virtually everywhere in psychology now today, that particularly Baummeister, the most quoted researcher, is talking about it and writing about it and having books about it.
00:18:51
Speaker
What is the secret to avoiding this wretchedness? By the way, I should mention, with this being the number one problem in all the world, you'd think you would hear about it a little more in politics today. The current president has never mentioned it once. The past president never mentioned it once. They have never had a discussion about it in the halls of Congress. They'll talk about other problems
00:19:19
Speaker
They won't talk about this problem. And by the way, do you think this problem is causing problems in the country? Do you think it's causing a lot of wasted funds being poured in to individuals that if they had self-control, we wouldn't have to do this? So our economic crisis, all of these things have this as a central theme. By the way, speaking of politics,
00:19:50
Speaker
We have one party that's saying we need to decrease expenditures and we need to cut all this government spending. And we have another party that's saying we just need to tax the people more and spend more money. And it turns out that neither one of them thinks if we would solve the mental health crisis in our country.
00:20:17
Speaker
You get rid of the mental health crisis in our country and the books are balanced. And you don't have to raise taxes and you don't have to cut expenditures. So that's another discussion, but once again, these things are preventable and avoidable and even reversible. So what are the secular psychologists telling us the answer is? The secular psychologists tell us the answer to this problem is temperance. By the way, I'm for that word.
00:20:48
Speaker
Weimar has a trademark. Does anyone know what the trademark is of Weimar University? It's an acronym called New Start. You heard of New Start? Some of you have heard of it. What does the N stand for? Nutrition. By the way, I wish I could tell you all the latest studies on nutrition and brain biochemistry. That's very exciting as well. We'd have to have a lot more presentations to do that.
00:21:16
Speaker
E is exercise. W is water. By the way, that's a simple remedy that helps our circulation and helps our brain health. S is sunlight. We talked about that the last hour. The first T, temperance. What is temperance? It's moderation in the things that are healthy and abstinence in the things that are unhealthy.
00:21:44
Speaker
But strict temperance requires what type of self-control? Comprehensive self-control.
Measuring and Improving Self-Control
00:21:51
Speaker
Now the example I use of someone who had meticulous self-control in a particular area but didn't have comprehensive self-control is the most famous governor ever of the state of California. Who is the most famous governor?
00:22:11
Speaker
You would think it would be Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan is not near as famous as this one. In fact, when I go around the world and go around the country, some people have never even heard of Ronald Reagan. But most everybody have heard of this governor. Governor Schwarzenegger. How did he get famous?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't because he was governor. It was bodybuilding. Mr. Universe, do you think it requires meticulous self-control to build up the big muscles that he had? Absolutely. You have to be at the gym when you don't want to be at the gym. You have to be taking the right supplements. You have to be on the right nutrition. You have to be doing all of the things to build up those muscles. And you have to be persistent. And he did all of that.
00:23:04
Speaker
And he got Mr. Universe. But in an area of his life where it was more important for him to have self-control, when his maid was cleaning his house, he lacked it. And he lost the love of his life due to not having comprehensive self-control. And by the way, he did not want to lose his wife. He loved his wife. And he begged her to stay.
00:23:35
Speaker
But she didn't know about any of this till he turned 18. And the son that came out of the maid, that was conceived with Arnold and the maid, and she says, you have betrayed me. Much rather giving up Mr. Universe and all those things than to lose his wife. But he lost her due to not having comprehensive self-control.
00:24:05
Speaker
Dr. Peterson from University of Michigan, not too far away from here, says, in our endeavor to measure this class of strengths called temperance, we have found that among people in the mainstream developed world, strengths of temperance are infrequently endorsed and seldom praised. Yet, the strengths of temperance are very important, and they have a rich array of positive consequences for the what?
00:24:30
Speaker
psychological good life. Why does he say that? Because he's been studying it and a lot of others have. If you want to open the door to the good life that everyone is searching for, you have to open up the door to comprehensive self-control. So here's what the studies are showing. By the way, in order to study it, before we get into what the studies are showing, first you have to be able to measure something.
00:24:57
Speaker
This is one of the reasons why when people come to universities, they're wondering, why do I have to take college math? Why do I have to take these math things? Well, if you want to speak in today's world, you speak in the areas of research. And if you want to research something, you've got to mathematize it. In other words, you've got to be able to measure it. And so they have a self-control test to measure it. And then they look at outcomes.
00:25:28
Speaker
This would be a sample of a self-control test. If you say getting up in the morning is hard for me, is that low self-control or high self-control? That's low self-control. I blurt out whatever is on my mind. Low or high? Low. I have a hard time breaking bad habits. Low. I do certain things that are bad for me if they are fun. Low self-control. I get carried away by my feelings. And this is what a lot of people
00:25:59
Speaker
do that get themselves into trouble. By the way, this has been around for a while. I remember when I was at Adelphian Academy, there was a song that came out, You Light Up My Life. Do you remember that song? You light up my life. You give me strength to carry on. You light up my day. And then the end of it sounds like just a nice healthy love song until it gets to the end. Does anyone remember how that song ended?
00:26:30
Speaker
It can't be wrong when it feels so right. That tells you about the relationship that that was. And that means that was emotional reasoning. You get carried away by your feelings. And this is a very common problem that people run into. Sometimes in the counseling world, we get into this where a person
00:26:58
Speaker
In fact, I'm dealing with a situation right now. A person has extricated themself from a marriage relationship who the spouse, and this is the person saying this, has done nothing wrong, has been faithful, has been a good provider, has been all of those things, but the feelings,
00:27:26
Speaker
are just gone and so totally extricating themselves from the relationship. Now when you take a marriage vow, what does it say? For better, for worse, and until what?
00:27:46
Speaker
Until death, that's a pretty solemn oath. I must admit, it took me a while to be ready to take that oath with Erica, because I realize this is not just a roommate for a year or two.
00:28:01
Speaker
This is a lifetime, you know, it's pretty somber and sober to think about that type of oath. But it turns out it's worth working on those. If the feelings are gone, we can take care of feelings. Feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving.
00:28:22
Speaker
And when we are just living our life, and the advice that this person is getting is being gotten from her friends is just go with your feelings. Have you ever heard that? Just go with your feelings? That's a ticket to living the psychological bad life. You might think it's the ticket for the good life now. There are bad things coming your way that you have no control over that are going to really cause issues.
00:28:50
Speaker
I do many things on the spur of the moment. Is that high self-control or low self-control? Low self-control. I spend too much money. Low self-control. I keep everything neat. High self-control. I don't keep secrets very well. Low self-control. I often interrupt people. Low self-control. I'm always on time. High self-control. I have trouble saying no. That's low self-control. I'm not easily discouraged.
00:29:20
Speaker
High self-control. I eat healthy foods. High self-control. Pleasure and fun sometimes keep me from getting work done. Low self-control. I have trouble concentrating. Low self-control. Sometimes I can't stop myself from doing something even if I know it is wrong. Low self-control. I'm able to work effectively towards long-term goals.
00:29:43
Speaker
That's high self-control. Well, when they study a large group of people, and of course university professors who are studying these things are studying college students, and then following them over time, they find out those with high self-control have better personality adjustment, higher self-worth, better at controlling their anger, fewer symptoms of obsessive compulsive patterns, depression, anxiety, hostile anger, phobias, paranoia, and psychotic tendencies.
00:30:12
Speaker
In addition, people with high self-control accept themselves as valuable, worthy individuals, and are relatively able to sustain this favorable view of self across time and circumstances. But it occurs without registering inflated or narcissistic views of self, so they don't have arrogance, but they have self-worth.
00:30:30
Speaker
People with high self-control are more conscientious, more emotionally stable, make better relationship partners, get along better with other people and are more accommodating of other people. This surprised them, they thought accommodating. They're actually much more accommodating than people with low self-control. Those are the ones that are not as accommodating.
00:30:50
Speaker
They report more satisfying relationships, and they have better adjustment in their relationships. In addition, they have better family cohesiveness, less interpersonal conflict, better perspective, better empathy of others. They don't wallow in their own personal reactions to other people's problems. They have more secure interpersonal attachments. They manage money well, they spend less, and they save more.
00:31:15
Speaker
In fact, this is so important that I've told my students at Weimar University, before they think of seriously dating someone, they should give them a self-control test.
00:31:27
Speaker
And they should also take that test themselves to see if they're appropriate for a marriage relationship. By the way, our SA president, the one that ran her after I said that, took the self-control test. They both scored very high, so it looks very promising for that relationship. You'd probably pretty much have to, you would have to have at least good selective self-control to run 72 miles.
00:31:52
Speaker
at 7,000 feet elevation. That's a lot of mental fortitude to do that. But here's what Dr. Peterson says, in the course of daily life, in spite of their best efforts at self-control, people inevitably sin and transgress, at least on rare occasion. Now, do you think we could generally agree with that statement? I think so. Now, notice what happens.
00:32:19
Speaker
People with high self-control when they mess up score relatively low in shame and high in shame-free guilt. What does this mean? Individuals with high self-control are inclined to take responsibility for their transgressions.
00:32:35
Speaker
rather than externalizing the blame or minimizing the importance of the transgression. So when a low self-control person messes up, they're either saying it's no big deal, you're making a big deal out of nothing, everybody does it, or they're blaming someone else for what they just did. Where a high self-control person
00:33:01
Speaker
When they do wrong, they're inclined to focus on the effects of their behavior and in so doing are inclined to do what? Make amends. In contrast, low self-control individuals are more apt to experience painful feelings of shame and emotion that often provokes the two D's. What are the two D's? Defensiveness and denial rather than the two R's that the high self-control people go for when they mess up and that is repair and redemption.
Methods to Enhance Self-Control
00:33:29
Speaker
Now my father would tell me, you're going to find two types of people that you're going to run into in life. He says you're going to run into people with one year's experience 20 times over, or you will run into other people that have 20 years of experience.
00:33:49
Speaker
What did he mean? When you have 20 years of experience, you become a better person over time. But when you're doing one year 20 times over, you're repeating the same behavior, expecting different results, and you're not making amends, and you're not improving throughout life.
00:34:06
Speaker
All of us have this opportunity to improve throughout life. Self-control, studies can't find any undesirable consequences of high self-control. And they've tested for curvy linearity to see if excessive self-control, the ones that score at the very highest, might produce negative consequences but no negative patterns.
00:34:25
Speaker
were found. Although in our society there may exist a stereotype of an over-controlled person, one who's overly restrained, cautious, uptight, and not spontaneous, we see no evidence that self-control is to be blamed.
00:34:39
Speaker
Dr. Peterson and Seligman, when they were first writing about it, however, said relatively little is known about how self-control is acquired and strengthened. This topic must be regarded as a high priority for further research, especially in view of the many benefits that self-control confers. So they tell us all the benefits, but then they say, we don't know how to take someone with low self-control and turn them into a person of high self-control. By the way, this is an area that it's been very gratifying to see individuals
00:35:10
Speaker
make that transformation in our program. We see individuals that have very low self-control and post-program they will be turned into individuals with high self-control.
00:35:22
Speaker
So most acts of self-control involve overcoming some incipient response to the immediate situation in order to pursue some greater long-term benefit. Hence, the ability to transcend the immediate situation is crucial. People who live only in the present moment are unlikely to exhibit good self-control, whereas future-mindedness will facilitate self-regulation. So we can't just live for the present. We also have to live for long-term goals.
00:35:52
Speaker
Now, Dr. Baumeister from Stanford, he's the most quoted researcher, he has researched bright lines. He says, these really help with self-control. You might have noticed how those can help you even staying in your lane when you're driving down the highway. Bright lines. What does he call a bright line? Zero tolerance is a bright line. Total abstinence with no exceptions any time. And then, although he was not a religious person,
00:36:22
Speaker
He did a study on his psychology students at Stanford. All universities can run into this problem, but Ivy League schools tend to have even more problems with this. It's called cheating. And the kids aren't ready for their tests, and so they feel like they have to cheat in order to be able to survive and stay in. And so they were having a real problem with cheating at Stanford. And so he designed a test.
00:36:50
Speaker
If you read his book, he'll tell you how to design it. But he designed it in such a way where he could immediately tell if cheating was occurring. And he had three psychology classes taking that test that day. So the first psychology class, he had them read the school's honor code, which Stanford talks about no cheating, academic integrity, and all of those nice things. Then he had them take the test.
00:37:21
Speaker
Do you think they cheated? Widespread cheating, even after reading the school's honor code. The second group, he thought, well, let's see if the power of positive psychology helps. So he had them recite their 10 most favorite books, then take the test. How do you think they did? No better. Widespread cheating.
00:37:46
Speaker
So his third group, after he's immediately seeing these results, the third group, he thought he'd do something else. He got Bibles for all of them. He had him put her hand on the Bible and read the Ten Commandments. Then they took the test. No one cheated.
00:38:10
Speaker
And so he says this, if you believe that the rule is sacred, a commandment from God, the unquestionable law of a higher power, then it becomes what? An especially bright line. He writes about this in Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. So there's advantages of utilizing these bright lines, even in our program. Now, Don, how many of you were here last night?
00:38:37
Speaker
All right, a large amount of you were here last night. I think Don talked about the Ten Commandments, which is where Christians and atheists agree on, interestingly. But it turns out that a lot of people that come to our program, when they ask him, because they all think Don is very brilliant in coming up with the questions to uncover the issues.
00:39:06
Speaker
And of course, what he's doing is he's going through the effects of these commandments. And then afterwards, as some of them will praise him for his brilliance, I've never had an interview like this, and it's really getting to the core issues. And as they're praising him for his brilliance, sometimes he'll say, well, do you know where I got this from?
00:39:26
Speaker
And they'll say, no, I have no idea. He said, well, I got it from the hand of God himself. And of course, this is the only portion of scripture that God wrote with his own hand was the Ten Commandments. And he have never even heard what they are. And then they'll be interested. And so he'll sign that as reading to be able to read about that.
00:39:50
Speaker
But it also helps with self-control. So as we study those things and see them as bright lines, it can help us with that comprehensive self-control. Proverbs says, he that is slow to anger, if you're slow to anger, is that low self-control or high self-control? High self-control is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit, that means you're managing your emotions,
00:40:14
Speaker
than he that taketh a city. Commentary on that verse, he has conquered self, the strongest foe man has to meet. The highest evidence of nobility in a Christian is what? Self-control. He who can stand unmoved amid a storm of abuse is one of God's heroes.
00:40:40
Speaker
He who has learned to rule his spirit will rise above the slights, the rebuffs, the annoyances to which we are daily exposed, and these will cease to cast a gloom over his spirit." It comes from a little devotional book called My Life Today. The man or woman who preserves the balance of the mind when tempted to indulge passion stands higher in the sight of God and heavenly angels in the most renowned general that ever led
00:41:07
Speaker
an army to battle and to victory. Now this is what I have found out a lot of religious people are confused about. They think that if they ask God to perform psychic surgery on them so they'll never sin again, if he doesn't answer that prayer there's a problem with God. Why does God never answer that prayer?
00:41:40
Speaker
He will never take away our power of choice. Why is he never gonna take away our own power of choice? Because God is a God of love and love is always a voluntary choice.
00:41:55
Speaker
And so he wants us to be able to experience love, which has to be that voluntary aspect. So when we ask him to come in and do psychic surgery so that we'll never sin again, that's not God's problem, because his principles are love and freedom and truth as well. The Bible says God cannot tell a lie. I suppose he could if he wanted to, but he puts truth above himself.
00:42:23
Speaker
And so truth and love go together. But this is what he can do. The man or woman who preserves the balance of the mind when tempted to indulge passion. Passion is the lower brain. It's the I want. I want to do this. My feelings are telling me to do this. But the higher brain is the frontal lobe, the executive function. And it's saying, your lower brain wants to do this. But the higher brain is saying, this is not a good idea.
00:42:53
Speaker
And so when you actually turn down the opportunity to indulge passion, this statement says you stand higher in the sight of God and heavenly angels and the most renowned general that ever led an army to battle into victory. And this opens the door to the psychological good life.
00:43:15
Speaker
So assistance in self-control. Bright lines help us. Worthy goals help us. When we have worthy goals, we're more likely to succeed. Enhancing the frontal lobe with appropriate music, appropriate lifestyle, appropriate nutrition. Slowing down a limbic system in overdrive. All of those have been shown to be helpful. But there is a fail-safe solution on top of those things to comprehensive self-control. And this is what a lot of people don't understand.
00:43:46
Speaker
Christ told about in a parable, he says, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man seeking what?
Self-Control and Spiritual Health
00:43:53
Speaker
Goodly pearls. If you're seeking for goodly pearls, you're searching for the good life. God does not condemn people for searching for the good life. He wants us to experience the good life. And when we're seeking goodly pearls, this man is after the good life. But this man,
00:44:14
Speaker
says, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and did what? Sold all that he had and bought it. In fact, I'm sure his friends and relatives and acquaintances were thinking this man had lost it. He's getting rid of this. He's getting rid of that. He's selling his car. He's selling his house. He's even getting rid of his retirement nest egg. He's doing all of this for just
00:44:45
Speaker
One, pearl. In the parable, the pearl is not represented as a gift, the merchant man bought it at the price of all that he had. Many question the meaning of this since Christ is represented in the scriptures as a gift. He is a gift, but only to those who give themselves soul, body, and spirit to him how?
00:45:09
Speaker
without reserve, putting our all on the altar. When we thus give ourselves holy to him, Christ with all the treasures of heaven gives himself to us. We obtain the pearl of great price. So when we have a problem with self-control, we're actually having a problem of selfishness.
00:45:36
Speaker
And God's love is self-sacrificing. Self-sacrificing love has to come from outside of us, because naturally as fallen human beings, we are selfish. That's also part of the mental illness we all have. And so we have to open our hearts to God's love, and we can obtain that if we're willing to put our all on the altar, including our own self-centered desires.
00:46:06
Speaker
We're told God's abounding love and presence in the heart will give the power of self-control and will mold and fashion the mind and character. By this show, all men know that ye are my disciples. If ye have what? One to another? Love. This is the self-sacrificing love. If we be true lights in the world, we must manifest the loving, compassionate spirit of Christ. To love as Christ love means that we must do what?
00:46:35
Speaker
practice self-control and it means that we must show what? Unselfishness at all times and in all places.
00:46:44
Speaker
So the true transformative healing and self-control is dependent upon obtaining the pearl. And that treasury of jewels of truth is open to all. Love can change you and it can change the world. Not erotic love, romantic love, or even brotherly love, as good as those loves are in their own time and place. It's a love that human nature totally lacks. And that's why it has to come from outside of us. And when we get it,
00:47:11
Speaker
We should spread it around. Kind words, pleasant looks, little attention, small acts of love, let it flow to others and it will increase the blessings and happiness of life. That little book, My Life Today, says genuine love is a precious attribute of where? Heavenly origin, which increases in fragrance in proportion as it, what?
00:47:35
Speaker
is dispensed to others. So you become a channel. This is not just one way. You are thus dispensing that to others. And when you do that, you can receive more of it tomorrow. The little attentions, the small acts of love and self-sacrifice that flow out from the life as quietly as the fragrance from a flower, these constitute no small share of the blessings and happiness of life.
00:48:02
Speaker
So we'll end with two examples in self-control who met. They were contrasts, actually. Paul before Nero. The countenance of the monarch, that's Nero bearing the shameful record of the passions that raged within. And the countenance of the prisoner, that was Paul telling the story of a heart at peace with God and man.
00:48:28
Speaker
Fortunately, Paul did not end his writings with Romans 7.24. He also did 7.25 in Romans 8, which basically tells you what I've been telling you on how to have comprehensive self-control through our spiritual relationship and life. The results of opposite systems of education stood that day contrasts that a life of unbounded self-indulgence, that was Nero, and a life of entire self-sacrifice,
00:48:58
Speaker
That was Paul. Here were the representatives of two theories of life, all absorbing selfishness, which counts nothing too valuable to be sacrificed for momentary gratification, and self-denying endurance, ready to give up even life itself if need be for the good of others. That was Paul. And what a transformative influence he was in the world.
00:49:22
Speaker
And that's why Nero did not want to execute him publicly, because he would have too much influence. So there was only 24 at his execution, but many of those 24 made a commitment to giving themselves all to Christ and putting themselves on the altar of sacrifice and obtaining that good life of comprehensive self-control.
00:49:48
Speaker
The souls be purified and noble and may fit for the heavenly courts. It boils down to just two lessons we all need to learn. What are the two lessons? Self-sacrifice and self-control. And that's what's gonna be present in everyone who makes it eternally. So for physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health to be comprehensive and lifelong, it does demand the gospel to be complete. And that's what was missing.
00:50:17
Speaker
and that international conference. They told us all the things we need to do to prevent and eliminate coronary artery disease, but they didn't tell us anything about self-control. And this is the missing element in psychiatry today. This is the missing element that's causing the number one problem in all of the world. And this is why science
00:50:46
Speaker
that tells us about what is best for our health, if it's going to change the world, has to be combined with the gospel. You separate those, you don't produce much benefit. You put them together, and that's when you take a person that was low self-control, and now they become a person with high self-control. Many criticize, however, what they think is the lowest part of humanity.
00:51:15
Speaker
when they don't exercise self-control even when it can obviously help them. And since I was in the GI world, I would obviously hear criticism from nurses about patients, particularly when the alcoholic was coming in with hepatic encephalopathy. They were out of their gourd, they were fighting the nurses, and I'm writing
00:51:35
Speaker
for an NG tube to be put down into that stomach so they can give them lactulose and neomycin to get rid of the liver toxins and so we can get that patient's mind back and they can have another chance at being discharged and stay away from alcohol.
00:51:55
Speaker
And I often would get a lot of questions by those nurses. Why are we doing this? Why are we fighting this patient? This patient's just going to, once he gets better, he's going to go out and drink his last liver cell away and die. And he has no self-control. And despicable things would be said about that individual. However, I viewed those individuals differently because I knew they didn't really want to die.
00:52:26
Speaker
They didn't want to have all those bad things happen to them. They just did not know the secret to comprehensive self-control. Nobody had told them that. And there were many times when their brain came back and I went over that parable and went over a few simple things that they would go out of there and not drink again.
00:52:50
Speaker
Some of those people that I treated in Ardmore, Oklahoma back before I came to Weimar in 2008 are still alive today because they have followed everything I told them to do, including their diet, getting rid of alcohol, and all of that, but they found the secret to comprehensive self-control. I'm more concerned about people who think they have it all together, but they've got one vice that they think they have to have.
00:53:20
Speaker
and that person might be considered a good person, but could become a great person like Paul or Daniel. That one vice could still kill them and hurt others and it gets in the way of true self-sacrificing love.
00:53:35
Speaker
We're told the strongest bulwark of vice in our world is not the iniquitous life of the abandoned sinner of the degraded outcast. It is a life which otherwise appears virtuous, honorable, and noble, but in which one sin is fostered, one vice indulged. Those people often have at their fingertips the ability to have comprehensive self-control if they would put their all on the altar. But instead,
00:53:59
Speaker
They decide another pathway which leads to decreased happiness. Paul gave his secret in three words. What was it? I die daily. Daily putting our all on the altar. We cannot earn salvation, but we are to seek for it with as much interest and perseverance as though we would abandon everything in the world for it.
00:54:25
Speaker
So everyone is searching for the good life. It's okay to search for it, the pearl of great price, but today you know how to start the road that gets there. Don't pursue any more substitutes to the good life that doesn't get you there. I recommend you choose comprehensive self-control, even the secular scientific world says there's no downside. But to do that, we must put our all on the altar of sacrifice and give ourself to God and open our heart to his love. Paul's last words.
00:54:55
Speaker
Days before his execution, he wrote to Timothy. For God gave us a spirit, not of what? Fear. Not of fear, but of what? Power. And love. And the type of love was called agape, which is a self-sacrificing love. And what else? Self. Control.
00:55:19
Speaker
Pastor, I'll turn it over to you. Or should we, do you want me to pray? Okay, I'll go ahead and end with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you that you've had this, that you've shown us a secret that the world is searching for and how to obtain the good life. We thank you that you love us. You loved us so much to give us bright lines.
00:55:46
Speaker
And you also love us so much that you're willing to give us power to overcome even the worst habits if we are willing to put our all on the altar for you. In a way, you've already given yourself completely to us.
00:56:09
Speaker
You put your all on the altar of sacrifice for us because you thought we were a pearl of great price. And Lord, we want to, although we can't return the favor in fullness like you did, I know there are those here that have struggled with self-control in their life.
00:56:32
Speaker
And they're wanting to obtain the victory, to open the door to the great life I know you have prepared for each one of us.
00:56:42
Speaker
Perhaps they know more now how to get there. If there's anyone here that wants to say to God, I want to choose comprehensive self-control and I want to choose to put my all in the altar for God. Just tell God by raising your hand tonight and saying, as Paul said, I die daily. I want to put my all in the altar for you.
00:57:08
Speaker
And we now pray your blessing upon each hand that was raised, that you indeed give them the power of a balanced mind when tempted to indulge passion. And we thank you for hearing and answering this prayer in Jesus name. Amen.
00:57:42
Speaker
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