Forty years ago, at the height of the psychedelic revolution, subsequent staff members of the Christian Spirit Magazine, LeRoy and Eloise Gardenier wrote and distributed a tract called Drugs in the Last Days. In it they connected the Greek word pharmakeia (which is translated sorcery in the KJV) with another valid translation of the word – drugs. The word is used in Revelation 9:21 and 18:23 where it prophesies that at the end the whole world would be deceived by drugs. That they would be used mightily by Satan to deceive all nations just before the return of Christ.

For the most part, it was expected that the fulfillment was taking place in the sales of street drugs and in the invasion of drugs in suburban communities all around the world and on every continent. They could never have foretold that its fulfillment would reach as deep and as dark into the personal lives of “god-fearing” America as it has over the last decade and a half. The world‘s populace are placing their fate in the hands of their new sorcerer god.

While many Christian groups are unsettled about political developments, the decay of the judicial system, violence in public schools, the right to life and other significant issues; a crisis of enormous proportions has already fully sneaked in through the back door, gutting people of every good social faculty of discernment and shred of spiritual common sense. Drugs, prescribed with the best of intentions (the road to Hell is truly paved with such good intentions) are weaving their mind magic to deceive the unsuspecting person who is trying to cope with the mountain of end-times problems. Drugs are convincing them they can do it without God’s help.

Especially at risk are the young, the forsaken, the innocent and the aged, all of which have little defense against wholesale drug prescriptions pushed by physicians they trust without question. The debate over these facts has long ago been decided. It is too late for the tide to turn.  Drugs like Haldol, Ativan, Prozac, et. al. are not merely mind-altering drugs, they are mood-altering drugs which cause deep chemical reactions in the brain. While designed to curtail and control depression they often have the opposite effect of adding a weird depression that is now known to lead to increased thoughts of suicide, as well as other abnormal side effects. Take Ritalin for instance.

It cannot be denied that suicide is on the rise, and it can hardly be denied that psychic drugs have something to do with it. Many drugs, such as Ativan, are used by health care to control patients, simply for the convenience of the caretakers. A Clockwork Orange is not just a futuristic Sci-Fi work of literary brilliance. Reality has superseded the ugly conjectures of that nihilistic nightmare scenario. Many experts admit prolonged use can cause irreversible damage to the memory, personality and mood of the user.

These neuroleptics and antidepressants are not medicines, they are legal psychedelics, and much more, because they are thirty-five years advanced, glued to the mind of the world by the drug salesmen giving kickbacks to trusted family practitioners. These drugs are like carpenter ants gnawing away inside petrified minds. They are designed to hollow out the psyche, do away with the unpleasantries of life’s problems. If the emotion is tough, dark or bleak then do away with it and its memory. Don’t deal with it. If I’m reaping the rotten fruits of a crappy relationship which I built by my own self-will and vain half-knowledge then mask it and pretend like it will go away. Other peoples’ minds don’t change just because a drug has altered mine. The unrealistic pretense is that I will be relieved from anxieties and that is the source of my bad relationship(s). Have anxiety about it. Then surgically remove it with a pill and it is no longer a problem?

Yeah, right! Alfred Adler, pioneer in the field of psychology, once said that most emotional depression and anxiety stems from a person’s loss of courage to face overwhelming problems. Should we trade truth in for madness and call it increased sanity? Should we pretend that things are changed when they are not? Does feeling better about a lie make my feeling better any more true? Should Christians trade in faith and courage for the lifeless “lithium shuffle” or a pack of lies? What happened to the beauty of repentance and admitting we were wrong? What about faith for maturity and changes brought about by God’s love and promise for righteousness? Let that be infused into our minds rather than a drug-induced pack of lies that amount to nothing but bogus sacraments of deceitful chemicals.

When someone close to me had a “street” drug problem I was not moved by God to just shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, I hope the person will grow out of it. I think I’ll let it run its course. It might be good for him or her anyway.” I didn’t kid myself into thinking more drugs would be the solution. I was led to do everything in my power to encourage and help this person stop the drug habit. Christians should be careful! The carpenter ants are in the home and they are being touted as a cure for termites. Sure, they may eat the termites, but where do the carpenter ants go? When is their appetite quenched?

Each one of us has to be sensitive as to how we must deal with a drug usage crisis in our lives and what we should insist upon. Drugs for treatment of physical ailments are obvious in their benefit. The wholesale distribution of ritalin in our schools to young helpless children is a national scandal of growing proportions. A six-year-old kid squirms in his seat and someone thinks about giving him some legal dope. The mental depressions and anxieties we are all susceptible to and have all experienced in one form or another are real and need attention, cure and even some form of therapy. But drugs have too easily become the first and last resort. Love and care are irreplaceable in therapy, especially for the conditions of sickness in the soul and spirit.

The church should lead the way in this form of treatment, but alas, the church has sold its birthright for a little worldly soup of drugs and abandoned its needy people and cast off one of the prime blessings of the healer and savior, Jesus Christ. Brain chemistry ought not be the solution (especially in the long term). Christian support through church/fellowship, family understanding and encouragement and, above all, loving-kindness and care should be central to treatment of depression, anxiety, personal problems and anguish. It is especially the duty of the heads of households, elders and pastors to direct, as much as possible, every Christian toward believing that “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” Rom. 8:28

A Final, Final Word: Is there absolutely no use for drugs in medicine or treatment of mental problems? Not at all, there is. But be skeptical and on your guard. Do not accept without question what the world is professing to be the cure; often it is only part of the world’s lack of faith and its own system of salvation. In the last days the whole world will be deceived by drugs. It’s happening now! The whole NA/AA gospel is a false religion, that denudes God of personality. A person’s injuries of soul, or bruises of the spirit cannot be dissolved or cured by psycho-medication. We must turn our backs and flee from our sin. We must be cured in our heart from the injuries inflicted upon us by the world and the degradation of other peoples’ sinful actions upon us. We must be cured. Christ can heal our hearts, drugs are the quack that try to heal us by messin’ with our head!