Title:- How To Unseat The Heavy Horsemen of Hopelessness Using Keys!
Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick....
“When all hope was lost; he invented it.” So goes the tag line to the 1999 American remake of Frank Beyers ‘Jakob der Lugner’ or ‘Jacob the Liar.’
Robin Williams plays the part of the fictitious Jakob Heym, a poor café owner and Polish Jew held captive and dying in the Warsaw ghetto. His friend, professor and local medical practitioner Dr Kirshbaum, reports to Jakob of a distinct drop in the suicide rate since Jakob reported hearing a favourable report on the radio about Allied troop advancements. The word goes out that Jakob has a secret radio and in turn, Jakob is forced into making up even more favourable but false reports to keep people alive in the ghetto, for he has no radio and never had! Even so, the brutalised ghetto population has gained hope through Jakob’s lies and so begins to hang on to the what little life it has. Maybe there is a way out of their hell? Jakob lies to give people hope and keep them alive.The film, though set around a fictitious character is never the less rooted in both twentieth century atrocity and a timeless truth. “People cannot live without hope.” Just yesterday I met a remarkable man who had shot himself in the foot, he told me that he “had heard of other people dying of non life-threatening flesh wounds just because they told themselves they were going to die. So when I accidentily shot myself I just kept telling myself you are not going to die, you are not going to die.” And die he didn’t! Hope you see, is life itself to many injured folk.
Bunyan in that other timeless classic ‘Pilgrims Progress’ has the giant named ‘Despair’ take the characters ‘Christian’ and ‘Hopeful’ into his castle-yard, and show them the high pile of other pilgrim’s bones that had failed to escape his clutches. “These,” said he, “were pilgrims, as you are, once, and they trespassed on my grounds, as you have done; and when I thought fit I tore them in pieces; and so within ten days I will do to you: get you down to your den again.” And with that, says John Bunyan, he beat them all the way thither. They lay, therefore, all day on Saturday in a lamentable case, as before. Now, when night was come, and when Mrs. Diffidence and her husband the giant was got to bed, they began to renew their discourse of their prisoners; and withal, the old giant wondered that he could neither by his blows nor counsel bring them to an end. And with that his wife replied, “I fear”, said she, “that they live in hopes that some will come to relieve them;”Dear Christian friend, if you have no hope in the betterment of your circumstance, if you have no hope of the redemption of your situation, your are in a most pitiable condition and may I tell you that you have undoubtedly been blinded by the enemy and robbed of your inheritance as well as made to suffer for the pure purpose of his own demonic pleasure. Enough, it’s time to flee doubting castle and giant despair! You need that hope you have lost and as a child of God you have every reason to both possess it and to live off it, for hope is your inalienable right and your most reasonable expectation.
This is the second time I have spoken about this despairing kind of hopelessness this year. My reason for doing so, is that I have observed HOPELESSNESS to be a most effective weapon of the enemy, that is consistently brought against the sons and daughters of the Most High God. Hopeless and miserable Christians are an open show of shame in the heavenlies. The enemy delights in such degradation and it is this time of year, this time of autumnal endings and preparations for winter, when the monsters of misery seem to leave that foul pit and plunder the promises left lying around by us lackadaisical Christians. Enough of that! Enough of it!
Recovered hope is the only solution to your despair and is as easy to get as it is difficult to apply.
First, reach into the bosom of your own heart and find the promises of God laid up for you there. He has spoken to you in the past. Remember those words?
Now secondly, reach into the Scriptures and seek out all those words which are “yes” and "let it be so in Christ Jesus.” In other words, take His promises declared to you in the Bible and stick them in your dark dungeons door lock and turn hard. Put some effort into your belief, even get a friend to help you if needs be, even get a giant slayer to pray with you maybe, for sometimes these oppressive monsters of despair almost need crow barring off the backs of beleaguered pilgrims. Yes sometimes we even need deliverance from these oppressive menaces. The lock might be hard, but it must be turned with the keys of promise.
When hope comes through that promise opened door, so comes in the light; when light comes, so comes deliverance; when deliverance comes, then comes life and joy and fruitfulness. Real hope is only contained in the promises of God made toward you in both the Scriptures and in your heart. Go find all those keys of promise for you must have hope to live! Come on now, you can do it! For if lies can keep thousands alive, then how much for the truth can make you live again.
Listen:- Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12
Pray: - Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your tabernacle. Then I will go to the altar of God, To God my exceeding joy; And on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 43:3-5
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