Hope for The Lost

“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.” (Psa. 130)

On the back page of our December 2019 issue Brooks Alden wrote A Christmas Wish in which he says, “It’s Christmas, no longer a birthday celebration for Jesus the Lord. Just a time to give and get, a holiday & no chance to be bored. Yet, strange it is, for the nagging sadness is just an empty feeling. Just a symptom of life without Christ, an aimless life of drifting”. I found this comment to be very reflective of what I noticed in people this year during the Christmas season. There is always so much hype and people running around visiting, buying presents, etc. almost in a frenzy of excitement, driven by what they feel is expected of them in this man-made holiday. It lost all reference to Jesus Christ and to the wonder of His birth and this wonderful gift from God the Father to us, a gift of hope. As a result of this man-made holiday the expectations result in a feeling of being let down when it is over because all the hype is gone and it is back to the same old stuff of life. Nothing has changed.

This is such a different view than those of us who celebrate the birth of Christ with rejoicing and praising God on High for His wonderful gift to us. We are humbled by His immense love for us that He would send His Son to earth as a baby, as part of His plan to save us from ourselves (our sinful nature). In Matthew 11:2-6 Jesus sends this message to John who is in prison, “Now when John had heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, And said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” He is telling John that He is the one they have been looking for and He is the one who brings them light in the darkness; hope and life. He has come to help us. He promises blessings to those who are not offended by Him, which unfortunately today is most of the world. In John 3:16-20 we are again told that those who believe in Christ are not condemned as He has come to save the world. If we believe in Him, we are saved and not condemned but those who do refuse to believe in Him are condemned already. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”

There is a time coming very soon that all evil will be exposed, and Jesus is coming to destroy this evil. Knowing Christ and having faith in Him is our hope, not some worldly system that is destroying the world and destroying our souls. All the signs are there that He is coming very soon. Evil abounds and earth events are causing so much devastation to the earth it is hard to see how we can survive much longer. Here are just some headlines from thebigwobble.org.

These headlines are from the last week in December 2019. What does 2020 hold?

• Aussie Bushfire Update No 14: ‘Suicide’: More than 30,000 trapped in East Gippsland: Melbourne on fire: Fires creating own lightning: Sydney surrounded: Wildlife annihilated
• What’s up with Alaska? Bone crushing cold Christmas: 2019 warm records broken in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter: Fires: Cod, Crab, Salmon gone: 5-year long seabird die-off
• Fish all gone! Gulf of Alaska fishery to close for the first time ever: No more cod: Salmon all but gone: Millions of small sea birds died since 2015
• Grand farewell to the decade and the year: The Eastern Ridge of The Pacific Ring Of Fire puts on a Christmas show with 5 major quakes in the last 36 hours
• Biblical sized plagues bringing Somalia to its knees: Record breaking drought: Cholera epidemic: The worst flooding in living memory: And the biggest locust invasion in 25 years

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28). This is the hope for the lost. Our Israel lands need to wake up and see where their true hope really is. We must pray they will see the light that is only in Jesus Christ.