GUEST PREACHER: HOPELESSNESS is worse than Covid! (Read: Isa.55: 1-5)

by REV HENDRIK STOLTS
THERE is currently a disease that is spreading faster than the Covid virus and that is a thousand times more deadly. HOPELESSNESS spreads like a wildfire.

It steals the life that God intends for each of us in Christ, little by little from us, so that life becomes one big millstone in which we just stare at our circumstances and become cynical about everything. We already know that governments, the economy, a bank account full of money and a lot of possessions, cannot guarantee hope in your heart.

That your physical circumstances also cannot secure your hope. There are people who live in castles and they are hopeless, while there are people who live in shanty’s, who live with hope.

The words in Isa. 55 is directed at God’s children who lived in exile in Babylon. We must remember that they are there because God punished them. Often, when God’s children were in need, they placed their hope in the wrong things.

They sought their happiness and joy in outward things, in people, in power, prestige, wealth and false idols. Hence God’s question: *”Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”* (cf. John 6:27) Hopelessness is guaranteed if you place your hope for happiness, peace and prosperity in that which can bring no hope.

Like Israel of old, we want to fill a void in our hearts and lives, with outward things and false gods – a void that only the true God can fill and where only He can give us peace and happiness. God created each of us so that we can ONLY find our highest joy, happiness and hope in Him.

The tragic truth is… while the culture of the day encourages us to seek our hope in that which can bring no hope, our unemployment is at its highest ever. More and more people are losing their jobs/incomes.

We are experiencing wars, uprisings and floods, pandemics and misery. Rich and and wealthy people lose everything overnight… None of those false idols establish hope in people’s hearts.

The ONLY hope we can stand on is not in something or in circumstances, but in SOMEONE (more on this this week).

– CAJ News