CHAPTER 4. IS THERE HOPE?

CHAPTER FOUR 

IS THERE HOPE? 

In the light of what has been mentioned, one wonders if it is too much of a bother to continue on walking with the Lord. It sounds all so depressing. Is there then any hope for us in this time? The resounding and absolute answer is yes! Our hope rests only in the Lord, there is none other that we can turn to in order to be kept safe from the pressure and tribulation that is and will be. If you have got this far reading, stay with it. We must hear and know what lies ahead so as to be prepared.

The Holy Spirit of God spoke to me in 1984 with an authority that is uniquely His. The sound of the words reverberated in the depths of my inner man, this is what He said, ‘you need to draw closer each and every one in order to be kept safe in the day of trouble’. This drawing closer is obviously to the Lord and in Him is the only place of safety; the you was meant in the plural sense. The day of trouble could be near or remote.

If we are focusing on the circumstances that surround us, we will be distracted from Him who is our refuge. God is our hope. If we are looking to find refuge in our own plans and resources, they and we will fail. God is our hope. If we are looking for security in our professions and pension schemes, they too will fail. God is our only hope. What does the scripture say concerning us?

“So we take comfort and are encouraged and confidently and boldly say, the Lord is my helper, I will not be seized with alarm – I will not fear or dread or be terrified. What can man do to me”? (Heb. 13 verse 6)

Again in Romans we read,

“What then shall we say to all this? If God be for us, who can be against us? – Who can be our foe, if God is on our side?  (Romans 8 verse 6)

What this all boils down to is, do we believe that God is able to sustain us and keep us from the evil one who is against us. If we have trouble believing that, then we are in a sad state of affairs. God is well able to sustain us, He is the God of covenant and all of His heart is purposed to do good for us. What if He chooses to remain quiet and seemingly do nothing even in the face of adversity? Will He still be our hope?

“For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace, and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome”.  (Jeremiah 29 verse 11)

God has covenanted with us through the shed blood of His Son.  If we walk in His ways and do His will, then He will keep us and sustain us in His bountiful grace. If we refuse to obey Him and are rebellious then we expose ourselves to the exploitations of the enemy who is unmerciful. Know this and know it well, the devil is a hard taskmaster and an unmerciful dictator; he has no concern for you or me in the slightest. He is totally contrary to our Father who is in heaven. Do we suppose that God is like some revengeful puppeteer who wants to see pain and suffering inflicted upon His creation because He has nothing better to do? No, no, no. The heart of God is as a deep well that is immeasurable, full of love and compassion with unfailing mercy and grace toward us. Did He not show us His great love in that while we were still sinners, He gave His Son for us? In Him is our hope.

It might be the case that He disciplines us with the rod of His chastisement, that is to say, He chooses the instrumentation by which He will deal with our heart and soul attitudes. He corrects us for our own sakes. Discipline and chastisement are all part of our walk with the Lord, He allows times and seasons of testing and trials to come our way to mature our otherwise shaky faith. When we are first born from above, we have to undergo growth experiences that mature our faith, that bring us to a place of quiet trust and settled peace in the Lord. Testing and trials are there not to weaken us but to make us strong in order that we can endure when hardships of a persecutory kind come our way and they will come if they have not already. The peaceable fruit of righteousness is the result of having been trained by the discipline of the Lord and certainly the process is painful but we need to learn to be submitted to Him in these times.

“And have you completely forgotten the divine word of appeal and encouragement in which you are reasoned with and addressed as sons? My son, do not think lightly or scorn to submit to the correction and discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage and give up and faint when you are reproved or corrected by Him; For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes. You must submit to and endure correction for discipline. God is dealing with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not thus train and correct and discipline? Now if you are exempt from correction and left without discipline in which all of God’s children share, then you are illegitimate offspring and not true sons at all. Moreover, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we yielded to them for training us. Shall we not much more cheerfully submit to the Father of spirits and so truly live? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for only a short period of time and chastised us as seemed proper and good to them, but He disciplines us for our certain good, that we may become sharers in His own holiness. For the time being no discipline brings joy but seems grievous and painful, but afterwards it yields peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands, and strengthen your feeble and palsied knees, and cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet – so that the lame and halting limbs may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured”. (Hebrews 12 verses 5 – 13)

If we fix our whole modus vivendi, our whole way of living, upon Him so that we live and move and have our being in Him then we have hope. The Lord God is our sure foundation, refuge and strength in Him and in unbroken fellowship with Him there is safety. You can be in the most volatile region on the face of this earth and be untouched if you are dwelling in the secret place of the Most High. An open reading of Psalm 91 declares the sure word of God, the state of being of one who is in covenant with the Most High God. If God is not in control of the events of these last days or at any time past, present or future then He cannot be God. If God for a brief moment lost control of the entire universe in the most miniscule way then He would at that point no longer be the all-powerful creator of heaven and earth to whom all things submit. Then our faith would be in vain. The fact is, and we can derive assurance from this, that God is who He says He is. Our hearts and minds need to be settled in this. He yearns over us with a love that transcends anything we have or ever will imagine. He is and always will be our hope unmovable and steadfast.