HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS WORLD
Bud Hancock returns with a timely article about the state of our world and the reality of Hope. Many thanks to you Bud.
Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
Hope for the Hopeless World
By Bud Hancock
Psalm 119:114 “Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word”
What IS hope? I often hear people say, “I hope the weather … or I hope this….or I hope that…etc.” Such statements are a sure indication that every person “hopes” for……something. They may not know why they hope, but all hope emanates from and finds its source from within the human, from the human spirit as it tries to commune with God’s Holy Spirit, searching for truth; I personally believe it is a desire implanted in the human spirit by God at the creation of His man. As such, hope comes from God, and therefore having hope is absolutely a good thing. To be hopeful indicates a yearning, a longing for something to be desired, in most cases, something beneficial. As long as a person hopes, or has hope, the human spirit has, or is looking for, a connection to the God of hope. Many would consider “hopeful” to be a positive state of being; I believe that to be a fair statement.
However, hopelessness is also a state of being, one that is totally devoid of hope or hopefulness, one having no hope. Hopelessness is a terrible state and one in which no rational person would ever desire to be found. The one thing that should always be available for any person who feels hopeless is……hope. Now the conundrum: there is NO hope from this cursed, lost and dying world, the spiritual habitation of all the hopeless souls.
The only hope for anyone living in this world is that which comes from the knowledge of Jesus Christ and acceptance of His completed work of redemption. Please don’t make the mistake of believing that this saving hope can be found anywhere “IN” this world. For any citizen of this cursed world to become hopeful about his or her future, he or she must look outside the world. And what, exactly, should a hopeless person be looking for to finally become hopeful? A real track record of TRUTH!
I remember when, as a small child, my Dad would promise me that he would do something. Based on his past actions, I had hope that he would do it, and, I knew that I could take comfort in his promises. His word to me had always been truth and therefore I knew he would not lie to me because he loved me so much. The truth of his words based on past actions provided my hope that whatever he said he would do, he would indeed do.
The source of hope must spring from truth. There is no hope whatsoever in a lie. Those who base their lives on a lie should be aware that a lie has no foundation of fact or truth, nothing to recommend it to anyone as a basis for any hope. There is only one source of truth, and therefore only one source of hope for the world: Jesus Christ, Who plainly told us all that: “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). This man Jesus IS truth, just as His Father in heaven IS truth.
But how do those poor souls who live in a constant state of hopelessness ever find the hope they need to keep going and not just giving up? Unless they come into contact with a believer whose life is the embodiment of true hope, or they hear the message of hope that IS the gospel spoken of by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter five, they may never find the hope they seek, the hope that can turn their hopeless lives around.
The hopeless person is constantly being bombarded with fear, one of the primary weapons of our adversary, Satan. He works diligently to keep any sign of hope from being seen by the hopeless. Not only are the hopeless fearful, they live in constant torment, and miss the glorious state of peace that passes all understanding (1 John 4:18).
PERFECT LOVE CASTS OUT FEAR
Every person has been dealt the measure of faith (Romans 12:3) whereby hope can be attained. Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”,but what exactly does that mean? The word “substance” is the Greek word ”hupostasis”, (Strong’s 5287, pronounced hoop-OS’-tas-is), and is a composite of two other Greek words, hupo (Strong’s 5259, pronounced hoop-o’), meaning “under”, and histemi (Strong’s 2476, pronounced “his’-tay-me”), meaning “to stand”. When used together, the word means to stand under, to support, to be a foundation for. So faith is the foundation for…what? According to God’s word, faith supports, or is, the foundation for “things hoped for”, or for a life filled with hope. Anyone who has even a glimmer of hope for anything will need to exercise his faith to attain it.
But Hebrews 11:1 also says that faith is “the evidence of things unseen”. The word “evidence” is the Greek word “elegchos” (Strong’s 1650, pronounced el’-eng-khos). It has been translated as proof, conviction and evidence.
In the legal world, when a person has been charged with a crime, the prosecutor offers evidence in the form of some proof that will bring a conviction of the charges. The word “evident” is an adjective that means “clear to the vision or understanding”. The evidence is almost always something that can be seen, touched, handled and evaluated with the eyes.
By its very definition, hope is something expected but not yet attained, making it as yet “unseen”. When faith is applied to one’s “hopes or desires”, that which is hoped for or desired can and should then become “seen”. Based on these statements, a better way to read Hebrews 11:1 might be, “Now faith is the foundation, the support, for one’s hopes and desires and provides the ability to see things that are, as yet, unseen”.
While faith is the powerful spiritual tool that men use to achieve their hopes and desires, and provides the ability to see things that are unseen, every person must be made to realize that he has the measure of faith (Romans 12:3), given to every person by God, and only needs to understand how to use that measure to become hopeful and to gain the ability to see the things hoped for that are as yet unseen.
People use their personal measure of faith every day whether they realize it or not. For example, when one drives across a bridge, high above a body of water, he has faith that the engineers who designed it, and the workmen who built the bridge, knew what they were doing. By his action of driving across the bridge, he exercises his faith in men, even though everyone knows that there is some amount of fallibility in all men; mistakes can be made by even the most skilled and proficient men, and often their mistakes bring death and destruction. Still, the power of his faith permits him to cross the bridge without fear of it collapsing. One who comes to the understanding that there truly IS a God who created all that can be seen , and Who provided to all mankind, the word (the promise) of His power, His Love and His righteousness, combined with His perfection, the fact that God cannot lie and He does NOT make mistakes, he can and MUST then exercise his God-given faith to enter into the desired state of hopefulness, wherein he can learn to hope without fear and begin to see the things his hope has been longing for. I personally have felt hopelessness more than once in my life and it took some time to understand that the only way to regain hope is to do what I have stated in this article. If you are in, or near, a state of hopelessness now, first, do NOT give up. The enemy does all he can to persuade you that you will never have any hope for anything good in your life. But realize that he is a chronic liar and is incapable of speaking truth. Continue to hunger for the hope that is missing from your life. If you do not have anyone in your life who can guide you toward a place of hope, pray that God will bring someone across your path who can be that guide. Then LISTEN to his words of truth and allow God’s Holy Spirit to make those words come alive in your spirit.
Remember this: God loves you and wants to become the hope that you have longed for. He can provide the path to that place of hope that you have never yet found, and will welcome you when you find it, because it is the same place where He has always been: IN HIS WORD!. Allow His word to become the light that will displace all the darkness surrounding you; the more light you enter into, the more hope you will find.
Blessings and Maranatha!
Born and raised in a small textile town in North Carolina, Bud’s family moved to Michigan in the hope of finding better employment with General Motors. After graduating from high school, Bud began an apprenticeship with General Motors to become a Metal Modelmaker. Retiring after a 30 year career, which included an eight year stint as a Metrologist (Science of high precision measurement), he and his wife moved back to North Carolina to be near his elderly parents. Shortly thereafter, with both of his parents having passed, he began a new career in the bank security/ATM business, advancing from an entry level technician to one of two North Carolina customer service managers for his employer. Retiring again after 13 years, he and his wife of 51 years relocated to Tennessee where Bud began writing articles emphasizing Biblical teaching and geopolitical issues. At age 75, he and his wife relocated to South Carolina with their Miniature Schnauzer, Baxter. Bud continues to study God’s word and write articles on Christian living and geopolitical issues from the Biblical end times perspective.