PRISONERS OF HOPE I want to speak today about the hope that can be found during times of uncertainty when many have lost hope and are grieving that loss. I am framing this within the time frame of Israel trying to find their way forward and still floundering after being in captivity in Babylon for seventy years. The prophets at that time knew that God was preparing them for a new hope and were encouraging and challenging them to prepare for that time. Zechariah 9:11 Because of the blood of my c...
PRISONERS OF HOPE
I want to speak today about the hope that can be found during times of uncertainty when many have lost hope and are grieving that loss. I am framing this within the time frame of Israel trying to find their way forward and still floundering after being in captivity in Babylon for seventy years. The prophets at that time knew that God was preparing them for a new hope and were encouraging and challenging them to prepare for that time.
Zechariah 9:11 Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set you prisoners free from the dungeon. Return to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will doubly restore all to you.
Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi all wrote to Israel before there was a four hundred years of silence during which time there was no king and no prophetic voice until the time of John the Baptist and Jesus. Jeremiah wrote the book of Lamentations about the hopelessness felt by Israel in bondage in Babylon during their time of standstill as God’s people. They had lost all sense of a future and were grieving their past. They needed to find hope.
For almost two generations they had been oppressed by cruel leaders of other nations and many had put their hope inother gods of other nations, and many had felt that God had abandoned them, but he hadn’t. Jeremiah captures their mood in the following Scripture from the book of Lamentations.
Lamentations 3:11 He has dragged me into the underbrush and torn me with his claws, leaving me bleeding and desolate. He has bent his bow and aimed it squarely at me, and sent his arrows deep within my heart.
He has filled me with bitterness and given me a cup of deepest sorrows to drink. He has made me eat gravel and broken my teeth; he has rolled me in ashes and dirt. O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is. All hope is gone; my strength has turned to water, for the Lord has left me. Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me! For I can never forget these awful years; But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
The prophecy of Zechariah about being prisoners of hope speaks to us today, just as it spoke then to Israel. It is a prophesy of renewed hope.
Zechariah 9:11 Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set you prisoners free from the dungeon. Return to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will doubly restore all to you.
This is being set free from a dungeon of disappointment and returning to God’s prison of hope in him.
Disappointment has to do with what we expect of life, of ourself, and of others. This can lead to a wrong hope because we can have wrong expectations of all these things. Our only true hope is because of a true expectation of God.
Our hope is not based upon what we can do, or others – Our hope is based on what God does do and is doing. Our faith is the foundation of this hope.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance (foundation - hypostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things (deeds-pragma) not seen. That means the things (deeds) that God is doing in the world of the unseen, what he is doing! That is what our faith is, and that is what our hope stands upon.
Our hope is not always reliable when it is in something we want to have.
Our hope is always reliable when it is in Someone who gives us what he wants us to have, doing the good thing (deed) for us. Faith is not trying to believe as hard as we possibly can, that God will give us what we want to see happen – that can be a wrong expectation and lead to disappointment and lead to giving up on God. Our faith undergirds our true hope in God, that he will do his good thing (deed) that is his will for us.
So what do we expect from God concerning his prison of hope, and not living in the dungeon of disappointment.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of grief, to give you a future and a hope.
Psalm 139:17 How precious it is, Lord, to realize that you are thinking (purposefully) about me constantly! I can't even count how many times a day your thoughts turn toward me. And when I waken in the morning, you are still thinking of me! (God’s thoughts are about his deeds that he will to do for us in the world of the unseen, the world of faith – which reinforces our hope).
Zechariah 9:11 Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set you prisoners free from the dungeon. Return to your stronghold, you prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will doubly restore all to you.
It is not the circumstances that defeat us. It is our reactions to them that defeat us – we lose sight (faith) of God.
Our stress or discomfort or frustration can awaken us to hear the message of hope and to put our hope in God.
What does our future hope depend upon?
Our future hope does not depend on our controlling our circumstances.
Our future hope does not depend upon what we have failed in in the past that may dash our hopes for the future.
Our future hope makes us ready for action.
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds to be ready for action (not reaction), and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
We take on a mindset of moving forward in God’s empowering grace. That means that when God reveals to us what his is doing, and that is seen in the circumstances he places before us after we have surrendered a situation into his hands. We then are empowered to respond to that in a God given faith that Holy Spirit gives to us. Remember what Jeremiah said in that last part of Lamentations;
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord
Our future hope depends upon how we are responding to what is – now.
Miracles become familiar occurrences with The Holy Spirit composing and arranging situations with supernatural creativity beyond our ability to organize them. It is not so much seeking these things, but expecting them - our hope is imprisoned in God.
He is in this situation, and is with me in this situation, and is transforming me, and is transforming my future.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
This is waiting for us to take hold of, in every challenge that seeks to rob us of a true hope. Get yourself into this hope – it is the true understanding of your faith!
