Overcoming Hopeless Situations 1982

Everybody in this world has to go through their share of hopeless situations. Hopeless in the sense that it just is not going to work out the way we wanted it to. For instance, if your motor blows up or you throw a rod or whatever, out in the middle of nowhere, two o'clock in the morning, in zero weather, the hope of getting that car going again that night isn't that great.

Probably the best thing to do is try to flag down a ride to someplace where you can get some sleep. You have a restaurant, thousands of dollars in debt, can't get any credit. You just might have to close up.

A woman has a husband who won't take care of his problem. He comes home night after night from the bar and starts beating on her and the children with a baseball bat. I mean, it might be a good idea for her to pull out for a while, so things quiet down before somebody gets killed.

Our normal response to a situation when we have concluded that it is hopeless is to get out. The ship's sinking. Here's a lifeboat.

For goodness sake, let's get in there and shove off. But once we've entered the kingdom of God, we've entered the body of Christ, we've begun to experience the life of the kingdom, then our whole idea of what is a hopeless situation and what to do about it has to change. Matthew chapter 16, one verse, verse 18.

I tell you, you are Peter, the rock. And of this rock, your confession that I'm the Christ. I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

If there's any place in any universe that's hopeless, it's this place called Hades, the region of the dead. When the rich man landed in Hades, he soon lost all his hope. Father Abraham, send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.

I'm tormented in his flame. Sorry, can't be done. Well then, send him to my father's house.

I have five brothers to warn them about this place. Sorry. If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen if somebody comes back from the dead.

I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. My church will crash those gates. My church will conquer the kingdom of hopelessness.

It will specialize in overcoming hopeless situations. And if you read the gospels, it's just one hopeless situation after another. The wedding feast at Cana.

Terribly embarrassing. They run out of wine. So Jesus turns the water into wine.

Peter fishes all night, catches nothing. Hopeless. Launch out into the deep, says Jesus.

Let down your nets for a catch. Up comes this net full of fish such as Peter never saw before. Or the woman, the widow woman, whose only son is now being buried.

Hopeless situation. There was no social security, no kind of financial aid at all. This was her only hope.

Her only hope of survival. Now he's dead. So Jesus says, young man, I say to you, arise.

And the dead man sat up and began to speak and he delivered him to his mother. Good Friday afternoon. Hopeless situation for the disciples.

We had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel. Now he's dead. Two days later, the third day, Jesus, alive from the dead, stands in their midst and says, Peace be with you.

On this rock, I will build my church and the gates of death shall not prevail against it. It will crash through those gates of death. It will overcome.

Where the church, the body of Christ, is about its business, that it's been called to perform, it will always be in the valley of the shadow, ramming those gates of death, overcoming one hopeless situation after another. The scribes and the Pharisees couldn't get this through their heads then or now. How come your master, they say to the disciples, always hangs around with tax collectors and sinners Why does he always linger in hopeless alley with all those losers? Because that's exactly what he came to do.

He came to overcome hopeless situation of death, the hopeless bondage of sin, the hopeless tyranny of Satan. Our problem is that we still haven't understood in our hearts that the hopeless situation is meant to be the normal environment for the believer. Not so that we can walk around and wring our hands and moan and complain, but so that we can conquer that hopeless situation and move on to another one.

Our response, however, is like sons and daughters of Adam instead of sons and daughters of God when we've concluded that a particular situation we're in is hopeless, it's either get out or throw up your hands in despair and sink. Now once we've we've found ourselves in a situation which we believe is hopeless, if we're satisfied that we're not in this thing because of our own rebelliousness, then it's important for us to see that God put us there in that mess for one reason, to conquer it, to overcome it, to throw down the strongholds of Satan, to crash through those gates of death. Jesus stood on the brow of the hill looking down over Jerusalem and wept.

Wept because beneath him lay a hopeless city. This was the city that killed every prophet that was sent to it, rejected every messenger ever put in its midst. And now it had rejected the Messiah himself.

And Jesus longed, even to that moment, to be able to gather the people of that city together like a hen gathers its chicks under her wing, but they refused. So what does Jesus do? Does he walk away and say, okay, if that's the way you want it, too bad. Instead, Jesus goes straight down into that mess and offers himself as the atonement for their arrogant sin.

He walks into the temple. It stinks with the smell of animals that are being sold. It's polluted with the clink of money, hot with the atmosphere of greed.

This is hopeless. The house of prayer has become a den of thieves. Does Jesus turn and walk away? He goes right on in and overcomes that mess.

And that's exactly what he calls us to do corporately and individually all the time. Walk straight on into that hopeless situation and take authority. Begin to rule, conquer.

Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Don't let Satan give you a hard time. You give him a hard time.

2 Corinthians 10 For though we live in the world, we are not carrying on a worldly war. For the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

Revelation 2 Same thing repeated again and again. To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. He who conquers shall not be hurt by the second death.

To him who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna. He who conquers and keeps my works to the end I will give him power over the nations. Conquers what? Conquers the lie of hopelessness.

Conquers the lie that in order to survive in this world we have to compromise with evil in some way. That lie must be destroyed. We have to break through the gates of death, pull down the strongholds of Satan, get somewhere.

And the more hopeless it looks the more the Lord says don't run away, go on in. And in my name do something. So how do we do it? Two things.

First, we have to overcome the hopelessness in our own hearts. Then, the second thing, we begin to overcome the hopelessness in the circumstances around us. Notice that before our Lord preached a sermon or performed a miracle he first dealt with the hopelessness which was lodging at the door of his own heart in an awesome battle with Satan in the wilderness.

Are you sure you're the Son of God? How do you know you're not some crazy man? You know, you and I think we have weird thoughts coming. You know, you really believe that stuff? How do you know? Jesus had to deal with that as a man too. God the Son indeed, but now as a man divested of his divine prerogatives he has to wrestle with this.

Okay, if you're the Son of God command these stones to be made red. Jump from this pinnacle. Let's see if the angels bear you up.

You're the Messiah? Take authority over the nations. Prove it. Ah, but they belong to me.

I'll give them to you if you bow down and worship me. And in every instance he's beaten by confessing faith in his Father. And we do the same thing now.

We deal with the hopelessness that lodges inside our own souls by confessing and living faith in Jesus. 1 John chapter 5 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world that is born of God? We overcome the world which is a spirit of hopelessness ruling the whole system always starting with high hopes and always ending up in disillusionment.

We conquer this by the confession and the living of faith in Jesus. You wake up in the morning already you feel hopeless. Already it looks like another dead-end day.

And so you turn the heart away from the darkness to the light. Jesus, you are the light of the world. You are the light of my life.

You are my hope. I don't step into this day by myself. I step into this day with you and in your name.

I take charge of my heart and refuse to allow it to be troubled or afraid. We overcome hopelessness within by the exercising of faith in Jesus. Then we overcome hopelessness in the circumstances outside ourselves, around us that we deal with every day by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.

Revelation chapter 12. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony for they love not their lives even unto death.

And we conquer Satan, the liar, the father of lies, the source of all hopelessness by the word of our testimony, for they love not their lives even unto death. Now the thing that makes any situation hopeless is the presence of Satan in that situation. Where Satan is present, death is present.

Sin is present. Lies abound. Fear rules the atmosphere.

Drive Satan out of that mess and hope returns. Two things always drive Satan out of any situation. The blood of the Lamb and the simple testimony that Jesus is Lord.

We begin by pointing to the blood, reminding him of the blood which he can't stand to think about or look at because it reminds him of his defeat which took place at Calvary. That the decisive battle has been won and when he's reminded of that he begins to go. Then we begin to confess and this confession terribly disturbs him always and causes a rustle and a flutter and a stir and often he becomes violent and starts playing dirty and he may get a couple licks at us but we know that we will conquer.

For instance, when Jesus walked into the temple and began to throw over the tables of the money changers he knew there would be a cost to him. I mean it wasn't going to be right away he's going to get killed tomorrow. This is the beginning of the end as far as his life in flesh and blood but he also knew that he was going to conquer through this.

When Jesus walked down into Jerusalem again to give testimony to his father to his father's mercy he knew that this would mean the laying down of his life but he also knew that this would mean that he would conquer and we too will conquer when we quit being scared. When we love not our lives even unto death and when we begin to open our mouths and speak the testimony that burns in our hearts and letting the consequences be what they will. If we're rejected if we find ourselves in danger and it's much easier to say than to do but it has to be for all of us even if it means our death.

For too long we who have professed to be followers of Jesus have turned us into hopeless people. It comes out on our faces and our tone of voice and the way we deal with problems and our attitudes toward ourselves and other people and toward God. May God help us now to begin in the name of his son to throw down those strongholds of Satan to take authority over these things to bring down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bring every thought captive to obey Christ.

May God help us to begin to break through those gates of death in fact and set the captives free. Let's take some time before God in prayer.