Christ Is Victor
November/December 1999
Vol.12, No. 6
"Hope
In The Midst Of Despair"
We are passing through days of much gloom and darkness. The newspapers are full of dark tidings, which move us to pain and sorrow. The recent weather related calamities, which carried away thousands to their deaths, have left the survivors with scarcely a wish to live. Loved ones were destroyed before their eyes.
Yes, indeed in many countries days of awful gloom are upon people. Yet, in the midst of it all, when you know Jesus as your Saviour, Lord and friend, an unbounded hope characterises your thoughts and actions.
Thus we come across a strange and startling phrase in scripture. "Ye prisoners of hope." Zech. 9:12. A prison cell inspires little hope. But this is a different sort of confinement. Here you are shut in with hope. You are surrounded by the promises of God.
There must be a time of discipline and even chastening in every person’s life but all the time it must be remembered that it is only a season of preparation for great things. You are held in check for a season, to inherit great blessings.
Great hopes and plans for God’s work does not just fall upon us. Personal ambitions of a selfish nature and longings for fame and money evolve out of our natural mind. So many men spend the greater part of their lives chasing shadows. At last they turn sour and get peevish or disgruntled. By then life and youth would be gone and the disabilities of old age limit their usefulness greatly.
But true repentance for sin and genuine turning to the Saviour, opens new horizons, such as one can hardly imagine.
John Bunyan who has found an enduring niche in English literature as the
author of "Pilgrim’s Progress", was once profoundly shocked,
when one of the vilest characters in
Yes, John Bunyan was very poor, scarcely making a miserable living from his trade as a tinker, patching pots and pans. But when he got converted, although he was an uneducated man, his life was projected into a great usefulness.
His twelve years in Bedford prison, for having preached at unauthorised meetings, or ‘conventicles’ as the British Govt. of that day called them, were turned to good account. The book he wrote in prison has found its place in history as the book which has sold more copies than all books, save the Bible. His lucid and expressive language of small native English words is looked upon as a work of art.
Then also his prison warders gave him freedom to go in and out as he pleased so the prison was hardly a prison to him.
His life was so transformed after his conversion that his fame spread to many places.
God says, "Ye prisoners of hope, I will give you double of what you had before." A sick mind, which is preoccupied with material things, is a such mind. You can simply grow sick by brooding over your bankbook. But God helps us to pile up riches which last for into many generations. The riches of faith and inexhaustible riches of love.
Now, God blesses our labours and the produce of our fields, when we trust Him and obey Him. It is simply tragic that thousands of farmers have lost their harvest and their seed grain. Oh that they would turn to the Saviour who can make them possess double and give them the glorious hope of sure admittance to heaven by cleansing through His blood. "My hope is in thee" cries the psalmist. Now we must take stocks of our prospects and our position before God. What are our hopes and expectations? There are several who are so beaten up that hopes and expectations have left them. They have fears and worries only. Continual fears of failure, loss and death dog them.
When our hope is in the Living God, then there is quite a possibility that faith increases in our hearts, our hope will grow as big as our knowledge of God. It is quite staggering to think that our hope can grow as wide and vast as our great God. A positive frame of mind then begins to dominate us. New hopes surge in our souls, such as we never had before. The longing to be a part in some concrete way in bringing millions of souls to Jesus grips us.
We look too much on the situation and not on God, who can upturn tables in the twinkling of an eye and change completely circumstances that offer no hope. The assessment of the political commentator and the journalist weigh much more with men than the word of God. The word of God makes us to hope. The journalist paints, a stark and striking picture. "There is little hope," he says, "Take it easy for our worst fears will be upon us shortly." What bleak predictions proceed from the press? But the man who makes Jesus his Lord, can cry from the depths of the darkest valley, "Thou art my hope O lord, Thou art my trust from my youth."Ps.71:5
Christ gives us hope even in death. A converted man can tell his children even as the cold hand of death is enfeebling his voice, "Children be sure to turn to Jesus, from your sins and meet me in heaven." Thus even in death the hope of a converted man soars.
I went out to pray one evening on a hill, which overlooked a large
residential suburb of a communist city in
The Bible speaks of Abraham as "One who against hope, believed in hope". Yes, what a victory he saw when he trusted in God.
What are our hopes for this New Year? "More holiness give me, more strength to overcome, more patience in suffering, more sorrow for sin, more faith in my Saviour, more sense of His care, more joy in His service, more purpose in prayer." Is this our hope? I shall be like Jesus. "More and more like Jesus till I see Him face to face." Then great things can be expected.
Let none of my readers say, "No, it is impossible, I cannot be lifted from my gloom and my resentment. No, I am a prisoner to my passion and pride, to my unbridled tongue and hasty temper." The Lord Jesus died to release you and make you a prisoner of hope, an inheritor of a twofold blessing.
Let the light that streams from the Cross, flood you and banish your gloom. There is no hope like the hope that fills the heart of a repenting sinner, when he looks at the Saviour’s bleeding side and outstretched arms. Come now, dear reader and let your darkness be turned into light, your heaviness into singing.
Jesus has brought us hope, which only increases as the days go by.
"My hope is built on nothing less."
-- Joshua Daniel
"Forgiveness,
The Ultimate Healing Medication"
Imagine this scene from a recent courtroom trial in
Several years later, Van der Broek and his cohorts had return to take away her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then, almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, Van der Broek came back to fetch the woman herself. How vividly she remembers that evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body and set him aflame were, "Father, forgive them."
And now the woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions
offered by Mr. Van der Broek.
A member of
"I want three things," begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. "I want first to be taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a decent burial."
She pauses, then continues. "My husband and son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van der Broek to become my son. I would like for him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have remaining within me."
"And, finally," she says, "I want a third thing. I would like Mr. Van der Broek to know that I offer him my forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was also the wish of my husband. And so, I would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so that I can take Mr. Van der Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven."
As the court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. Van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. And as he does, those in the courtroom, friends, family, neighbours-- all victims of decades of oppression and injustice-- begin to sing, softly, but assuredly, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
-- Selected
Say What?
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy"
Proverbs 28: 13
"I Have Set the Lord Always Before Me"
Psalm 16
This is a wonderful Psalm that brings out the deepest feelings of a child of God. Eighth verse, "I have set the LORD always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." I felt God at my right hand during my college days. This was true even later on, all through my life by His grace. "Always before you" – while in the midst of friends, while in the midst of enemies, while in your games, at meal times and while asleep. "My reins (inward parts) instruct me in the night watches." When you keep God’s word in your heart, it instructs you in your sleep. The heart holds the reins of he body. What your heart values and preserves, will determine your character. What you preserve in your heart as the most precious ambition will direct your actions. God spoke to Abraham in the night time and showed him the stars. God wants to instruct us in the night seasons—deepening your desire for Him. You must meditate on the word of God. When the thoughts of God and the Word of God dominate your subconscious and envelope your whole being with the desire for Him, which He puts there, your life will be a success. Youth is the time when the lusts of the flesh try to pull down your spirit’s desire. It is a time of a real fight. If God is your portion you will conquer. Your inheritance is God. Your inheritance is divine nature. The nature of the One who died on the cross is the nature that will conquer the world. Those who possess that nature will dominate the world. A man full of God’s thought and nature can never be shaken. They may be put in prison, burnt or killed, but they cannot be shaken. God is their portion. Fifth verse, "The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot." David says that he drinks in God and His nature. God is your inheritance and he preserves your inheritance. David rises to great heights in these deep thoughts. Sixth verse, "The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage." The portion of the land which God had measured for Him was in the best place.
You will have victory in every place that you tread. God gave me such
victories in my youth. I could present Him as the supreme One in every college
I went to. Young people were attracted to Him. You must conquer like that.
Young people, you will never be moved. You will not be defeated. Your faith
will be honoured. Be pure and holy in the sight of
God. Zechariah 12:8 & 9, "In that day shall the LORD defend the
inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be
as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD
before them. And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy
all the nations that come against
--Late Mr. N. Daniel
"Heaven
– Place of God’s Presence"
Once I heard of a little sick child, whose mother was seriously ill; and so, in order that she might have quiet, and that the sick child might be no trouble to her, the little one was taken away to a friend’s house, and placed in care of a kind lady for a time. The mother grew worse, and at length died. The father said, "We’ll not trouble the child about it; she is too young to remember her mother; just let her remain where she is until the funeral is over.
This was done, and in a few days the little girl was brought to the house. No mention was made of her mother or of what had occurred; but no sooner was she taken to the house than she ran first into one room, then into another room, into the parlor, the dining room, and all over the house, and the way into a little room where her mother used to go to pray alone.
"Where is mother?" she cried. "I want mother!" And when they were compelled to tell her what had happened, she cried out, "Take me away, take me away; I don’t want to be here without mother."
It was the mother who made it home to her. And so it is in Heaven. It is not so much the white robes, the golden crown, or the harps of gold, but it is the society we shall meet there. Who, then, are there? What company shall we have when we get there? Jesus is there, the Holy Father is there, the Holy Spirit is there—our Father, our elder Brother, our Comforter.
--D.L.Moody