Rev 21:3-4 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (4) He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
In this present world, we all too often meet people whose situation seems hopeless. Many of you have either been in that position and others of you are in it right now. You are stuck. You have been deceived by an evil spouse. You have children from the marriage. You have given your life to raising those children and have not been in the workplace, so leaving and supporting yourself is not possible. The evil one threatens to take your children and has the legal resources to keep you in court for years. Your family members have been turned against you by the lies. Your church only reinforces the demand that you remain married. This is just an all too common scenario.
Hope is a powerful thing. And so is hopeLESSness. Our enemy knows this very well. Satan can be expected to do all that he can through his servants to strip hope away from us. I had a good friend who caved to this hopelessness and threw himself off a bridge and drowned. He was a Christian, but the enemy got such a grip on him that he concluded that death was his only “hope.” Which, of course, is no hope at all.
But for the Christian, hopelessness is a LIE. When your mind is dwelling on your hopeless condition, then you need to shake the lie out of your mind and replace it with Christ’s truth. Part of hopelessness is the idea that it has no end. That your hopeless condition is permanent. THAT IS A LIE! Listen to Peter on this:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
(1Pe 1:3-9)
There is an OUTCOME if you know Christ. Now, “for a little while, you are grieved by various trials. But the Lord is using these very trials for His glory and for your good – for the strengthening of your faith.
One day your grief is going to be changed into “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.” That IS going to happen. This is hope. It is certain. Every thought that Satan launches at you like a missile is a lie. We must shield ourselves from these darts with faith in the certain and true promises of the Lord. The devil is not going to win. He cannot separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, no matter what trials he sends your way. So never give in to hopelessness. For the Christian, it is a lie.
Sarah
Thank you, Pastor! Thank you for being faithful to share truth, being a true shepherd and caring for so many. We are grateful to the Lord for you and for these words you shared.
Jeff Crippen
Sarah – Thank you for your kind words. From almost the very beginning of the Lord leading me to see and expose evil – especially domestic abuse – hiding in the churches, there have been attacks from servants of our enemy to stop this ministry and to alienate people from me in particular. ALL of these attacks have come from people parading as Christians, but who were just wearing a disguise. In some cases it took years before we realized what they really were.
One such enemy announced to our church one Sunday that the people we were ministering to at a distance and who in many cases considered themselves part of our church here, should just go find a local church where they were. He said he didn’t know them, didn’t care about them or think about them. Of course most all of them had tried many times to find a sound church and numbers had been forbidden to leave their abuser or given unbiblical instruction that they should stay in the abuse and it would sanctify them, and others had even been ex-communicated when they did leave their abuser.
I still didn’t realize fully at that time that in fact he was actively trying to destroy our ministry because he was jealous. He wanted acclaim for himself and he wasn’t getting it. Of course, he could have made the effort to get to know these people too, but that wouldn’t serve his goal of praise for himself. And that is just one example of several different attacks – but the Lord has been faithful to protect us – and all of you – from these evil plots. These kind of people where such a convincing disguise that it still amazes me how they are able to deceive for quite some time.
Every time I wrote a book on the evil of domestic abusers in the church, another one of these enemies would creep in among us and work to destroy. They all have one thing in common – they want glory for themselves and are jealous if they perceive anyone else is getting it. And that is how they think. They actually perceive the Lord’s blessing on a ministry as self-exaltation by those serving in that ministry. They do so because they project their own sin onto others.
Thank you again – and all of you who follow this blog – for your encouragement.
Z
Dear Pastor Crippen,
I’ve asked you for prayer several times and asked for your congregation to pray also for serious health issues. I assumed all congregants would be glad to pray for a sister and brother (my husband was diagnosed with cancer) in need. To now find out a congregant and professing “Christian” dismissed my plea for the prayers of my fellow congregants as non-existent to him is deeply hurtful.
But I know this is an anomaly. That you and your wife Verla, your “TWBTC” and the rest of your congregation were sincere in their prayers for me and my husband.
Thank you for exposing the imposters.
Susan Tramper
Thank you for the hope!
Jacob Dedrick
Amen! Reminds me of one my favorite verses.
Psalm 91:1-16
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day