Hope Abandoned

In this powerful episode of Rhema Reloaded, we dive deep into the reality of abandoned hope those moments where faith is tested, questions arise, and God can feel distant. But is hope really gone… or is it being rebuilt in a deeper way?

Presenter:  ⁨@SheanWilliamsWorld⁩  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello everybody and welcome to Ring of Reloaded with me, Sean Williams. It is an honor and a privilege to have you sat in with us today. We're continuing with our third instalment of the Job series. I'm not gonna do too much talking at the beginning because I really want to jump into it. But very firstly, would you please do us a favor? Can you please subscribe? It's that little button just below, right here. Just subscribe, like, share. Um, also, if you're enjoying the Bible study and you want to continue yourself, the Bible study notes are just below in the description. So please grab them if you want to use them for your Sunday school class, your youth group, um, if you're ministering in in your local assembly or you do a home group, please, please, please, please, please, please. We are not trying to be exclusive with the gospel, we we just want to provide a space where we can come and we can share in the spirit of truth, honesty, and more than anything, just because we love Jesus. That's it, and we want to see his word spread everywhere. Because what's better than that? Exactly. So, if you will, we're gonna jump into the book of Job, chapter three. Um, and the title of this segment of the series is called Hope Abandoned. Okay, um, it's been really quite overwhelming at moments studying and researching um the book of Job and also breaking apart because there's so much. There is so, so much. Like on a spiritual level, what he's dealing with, obviously the fact that he's going through something that he wasn't even aware of, right? Like his consistency has put him in a place where God was like, yo, I got someone that, yo, I'm a bet on my guy. Imagine someone betting on you don't even realise, but you're feeling all of the connected emotion and the variables that go with such a situation. Then you've got um the soul element, the emotional element of a guy who is doing everything in his power to live right, act right, look after the blessings God's given him, like his family, um, his business, um, his livelihood, and then you've got the physical element that we're now looking at, and we saw in chapter two where he's being afflicted within himself. This has gone past spiritual affliction and and and emotional affliction. Now his his body's breaking down. Um but as I was going through, I was just like, hope abandoned. We've all been through moments in the last five years where I feel like we've probably abandoned hope, not on purpose, but sometimes you can go through things and it can feel so rigorous and it can feel so overwhelming that you think, why am I anchoring myself to something that doesn't have the capacity to sustain me? I'm gonna say that one more time. Sometimes we can go through things and it feels so rigorous and feels so intense and visceral that we ask ourselves, why are we anchoring to something that does not appear to have the capacity to sustain us? That's the beauty of hope. Hope is the ability to trust in what you can't see, knowing that it's there, irrespective of your visual perception. The Bible tells us that much, not much, all of what we see or all of what appears came from what didn't appear. We understand that faith is the substance of things what hoped for. It's the evidence of what we can't see. So, what is the evidence of what you can't see? Conviction. What does conviction do? It causes you to act. Anyway, I'm waffling enough. Let's get into the book of Job chapter 3. As I said to you last time, he has just come out of uh an absolute moment. Um, not only has all of his belongings gone, um, but towards the bottom end of chapter two, he has a really, really hard discourse with the person that is probably closest to him, who is his wife. Um she says to him in verse something like he says, Listen, are you still maintaining your integrity? Are you still trusting that god of yours? Look around you, buddy, he's deserted you. I know some of you have had those thoughts. I know some of you have had those thoughts and those fiends moments. We get them. In the silent hours of the night or the super early hours of the morning where it's still and quiet and sometimes it's dark, and she says to him, she was just like, You still maintain your integrity. She's like, curse God and die. Now, I I want to give slight um mitigation to Job's wife because she was leaning into the security of what they'd built together. Now, if you were to take a minute and ask yourself, okay, what do I view my security as? For some people, it is a relationship with their partners, for others, it's their job, for others, it's their savings, for others, it's their social circle, for others, it's their routine. For her, it was her husband's ability to provide and her children. All of those had gone, okay. But he manages, in amongst all of this information coming to him, all this bad news, everything going wrong, he manages to turn around and he says, Listen, you are talking like this is what I love about Job. He never allows himself to become emotion, well, in this moment, he doesn't allow himself to become emotionally overrun to the point where he doesn't keep speaking truth. Does that make sense? That's what peace will do. The Bible in Philippians 4 verse 7, it says, And the peace that passes all understanding will guide your heart and mind. He's he's tapped into this peace right now because that's the only way that he manages to get this out. He says, You are talking like a foolish woman. Then he asks her, Shall we only accept good from God? Is that what this is? Are we only meant to live in a season of summer? Are we only meant to live in a season of spring? Are we only meant to have a week of winter? He goes, Are we only to accept good from God and not trouble? And then the Bible finishes it of that verse in chapter 10, uh, in verse 10 of chapter 2. In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. Okay, now what I want to do is I want to jump into verse 3 because at the end of verse 2 we see that his three friends who had them got into the WhatsApp group. Can you imagine the WhatsApp group at that time? They're like, yo, man, you heard what's happened to Job. And they're like, word did reach me. And they're like, I think we should go and see him. And they're like, Well, yeah, he's lost his his uh investments, he's lost his properties, he's lost his workforce, he's lost his resources, his kids are dead. So the boys gather themselves together and they decide to saddle up the donkeys, and it's like, right, let's go see our boy. And the Bible tells us that as they're approaching, they think they see him, and he's in such a bad way, they're like, Can't be him. We've all been in a position or we all know a friend or a person that's been through something, and you know when you see them and you're trying to act like everything's normal and they look fine, you're like, they do not look fine. But you're like, How are you? You look well, and you know they don't look well, and they know you're lying, but we're all just kind of trying to keep it on an even kill. This is exactly what's happened here. And verse uh, I should say chapter two ends with the Bible saying that Job opened not his mouth, he he he he had nothing to say, and at the beginning of chapter three, oh Job has some stuff to say. We're gonna jump into that right now. Uh chapter three, verse one. After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed. Yeah, you heard that right? Job did to the day of his birth what his wife said for him to do to God. He cursed the day of his birth, he said, May the day of my birth perish. And the night that said, A boy is conceived, that day may it turn into darkness. May God above not care about it, may no light shine on it. Now, I've had a couple of friends that have just um had some babies. I could not imagine Spidler turning around and going, ha, ha, ha, yeah, curse that day, little man turned up. Wouldn't. Because to bring a child into the world is firstly to understand that God has blessed you, but it's also it's life. And life is light. But the moment that Job is going through is overwhelming for him that the light is now gone out to the point so much that he curses the start of the process and the journey. He says in verse 4, That day may it turn into darkness, may God above not care about it, may no light shine on it, may gloom and utter darkness claim it once more, may a cloud settle over it, may blackness overwhelm it that night, may thick darkness seize it, may it not be included among the days of the year, nor be entered in any of the months, may that night be barren, may no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day. Those who are ready to rouse Leviathan, may its morning stars become dark, may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of the dawn. Then it says in verse 10, For it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes. Right now we are seeing an absolute capitulation, and when I say an absolute capitulation, I mean a complete and utter capitulation in Job's his his strength of character and will and mind. Um as I was reading these first 10 chapters, it actually took me back to a scripture in the book of Psalms, chapter 45, and we're just gonna quickly run over to there. So if you can, you can either wait with me because you know, um, the team will put it down below. But let's have a little look and see what Psalms 42. And we're gonna look at verse five. And David starts by saying, As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you. This is verse one, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God, where can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food, day and night. Why people say to me all day long, where is your God? These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the mighty one, with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng. Check verse five. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my saviour and my God. Verse six, because he doesn't stop there. He comes back round to praise, but listen, when your soul is on the floor, it's on the floor. Verse six, my soul is downcast within me. Now he's just finished saying, for I will yet praise him, my saviour and my God. But then he goes into verse six, my soul is downcast within me, therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. And then he says, Deep calls to deep, in the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By the day, the Lord directs his love at night. His song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? He said, My bones suffer mortal agony, my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, where is your God? Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope. Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior, and my God, right? So we can see that Job's situation, Job's feeling, everything that is coursing through his emotional streams. It's not crazy. God's not sitting there not claiming to understand how you're feeling, but he's asking you to remember that it's a feeling, it's not the permanency of his will or his purpose for your life, it is a moment in a season of time that he is allowed to perfect you and to strengthen you. It is not his final judgment for you or about you. Okay, now we're gonna head back over into Job and we're gonna go to um verse 10 because the next thing that I want to look at is when you're going through a moment of struggle, you go through the first phase, which is like I said, it's a bit of a capitulation. Because you're trying to readdress the balance of what's happening, your your ability to speak life and peace into yourself whilst your the the physiology of yourself is sending all of this external information, like we don't have this, and that's gone wrong, and the other's not right, and then you've got your soul here trying to connect with your spirit room, please give me something, please give me something, otherwise we're gonna have a complete revolt upstairs. Okay, then we get to verse um we get to verse 11, and now Job is in the he's finished like cussing in terms of like himself, and now he's like, wait there, there's a god that I'm supposed to trust and is meant to be helping me out. So he goes into verse 11. Why did I not perish at birth? What a thing to say, and die as I came from the womb. Why were there needs to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace, so I would be asleep and at rest with kings and rulers of the earth who built for themselves places now lying in ruins, with princes who had gold, who filled their houses with silver. Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn child? He really said this, guys. He really said this. Like an infant who never saw the light of day. There the wicked cease from turmoil. His tribulation and his trial has got him to a place where he's identifying with the worst of those existing. The Bible says this was a righteous man. Not was, is a righteous man because he hasn't done anything wrong. I want to take a minute and let you know that you haven't done anything wrong. There are going to be moments where God is going to take you through certain moments and passes that aren't going to feel like the plan or the path. And sometimes visually, they're going to feel like they aren't the plan or the path. I was having this conversation earlier. If you as a whole being are split into three dimensions, you are a spirit, you live in a soul, you have a body. The body is the apartment in which you live in. The spirit is who lives in the apartment, the soul is how you live in the apartment. What does your spirit look like? What colour is it? What is the texture? Does it have hair? Oh, you've never seen your spirit. Right, so it's intangible to you, right? It's invisible. What in your soul? What does your soul sound like? What does it look like? The colour of your soul's eyes? The shape of your soul's ears. I'm so sorry. It's invisible. Right. So then if our makeup is more of what you can't see than what you can, is the basis of reality or is the basis of authentication the ability to see? Eyesight is the external projection of what's in front. Is that the ability to see? You see, sometimes the word of God will charge, it will what's the word I'm looking for? It will challenge you. It will challenge you to look beyond what makes sense to you and explore that which you don't know. Why? Because when you don't know, you have to trust who does know, and that's either going to be God or something else. Your trials and your tribulation bring you to the precipice of asking you, what do you believe? What will you trust? The Bible's telling us that as Job was going through all of this, that even though he was feeling this pain, it was visceral, he was able to tell us what he was feeling, what was happening. He never charged God foolishly. He never said anything, but yet he questioned. Let's go to verse 16. Or why was I not hidden away in the ground like a stillborn? So it's 17. There the wicked cease from turmoil, turmoil, and there the weary are at rest. 18. Captives also enjoy their ease. They no they no longer hear the slave driver shout. 19, the small and the great are there, and the slaves are freed from their owners. Verse 20. Why is light given to those in misery? And life to the bitter of soul. I'm gonna say that one more time because it's such an amazing juxtaposition. You know when you're going through some stuff and you have those really kind of kooky thoughts where it's like it kind of makes sense, but it doesn't because it's kind of leaning towards something that should make you feel better, but then you're kind of tied to this feeling of like I'm just down. And here he goes, why is light given to those in misery and life to the bitter of soul? Listen, we're gonna do one more quick scripture jump because the correlation between Job and what's happening, and also one of my favourite biblical characters, it's this dude called David. Um and you know, I was gonna go jump into verse seven, but I need to give you the whole thing. Uh, well, not the whole thing, but you know. Verse 1, you have searched me, Lord, and you know me. Take a minute and and really take that in. God has searched and he knows you. When you feel lost, know that he's already found you. Why? Because he searched and he knows you. So if he knows you, he knows exactly where you're gonna go. When you're feeling happy, when you feel scared, when you feel sad, he knows. Verse 2, you know when I sit and when I arise, you perceive my thoughts afar off. You discern my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you you know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, but yet when we go through these moments, what's the first thing we want to do? We want to understand, right? He says, It's too lofty for me to attain. Verse 7, where can I go from your spirit? It's unseen. So the unseen lives in the scene, on the scene, he'll always find you. Okay, seven, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you're there. And he goes, You don't just live in heaven, he goes, but if I make my bed in the depths, you're there too. He said, if I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, do you see what he just did there? He just said, God, on the three planes that you gave us dominion, where did God give us dominion? The book of Genesis, chapter 1, 26 and 27. And God said, Let us make them in our image, in our likeness. And he said, and God blessed them and gave them dominion. The beast of the land, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, right? What's David just said here? He just said to us that he goes, Um, if I go to the heavens, you are there, the air. He said, if I make my bed in the depths, he's talking about the ocean, he says, There you are. He said, If I rise on the wings of the dawn, or if I settle on the far side of the sea, land, sea, air, God, there. Always. Right? So he then said, even there, your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me. Was Job not talking about darkness? So, what's God trying to say? That there isn't a hole dark enough that you can climb into that he can't find you. There is no hole physically, mentally, spiritually, he will come and find you. Do you understand? You stay in the hole as long as you want. Because he's in it with you, and the minute that you decide you are. Ready to believe in your Lord, Savior, and King, and that He is exactly who you claim to be, climb out. And guess who's going to be on the other side waiting for you? He. And yes, he will be climbing with you. He. Okay? Verse 12. Even the darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine like the day. For darkness is as light to you. 13. For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your questioning should take you right back to God. Every question that you answer, the fruit of your question should take you back to the seed of who he is. That's why your salvation cannot be a duty-filled transactional situation. It has to be a relational, everyday investment that you take from one step to the next. Why? Because love is the death of duty. God loved you so much that He chose to die for you before you even know you existed. Does that sound like duty to you? So, if you will, verse 21 of chapter 3, it starts to lean us into the feeling and the notion that irrespective of how it feels, your job is to trust the accounting of the master accountant. I said, no matter how it feels, your job is to trust the accounting of the master accountant. David said, Whither shall I flee from your presence? If I take the wings of the morning and ascend, I'm gonna run into you. If I descend to the depths of the earth in the lowest parts, we don't even know what's going on in the Mariana trench. They're the depths David's talking. He was just like, I'm gonna find you down there. If I take the wings of the morning, and I like, or if I go to the far side of the sea, God, you're still there. So then what does this tell us? Because we know that life is a conglomerate of moments, seasons, and cycles, so we're not going to live life without trial, we're not going to live life without tribulation. So then there's two questions that sit, okay? How do you then get yourself in a position when you're feeling the worst within yourself? How do you then put yourself in a position where you can talk to your soul, and within your soul, your soul then realizes that it is going to bypass the temporal information of your external world and it's going to root into your spirit that's anchored to who? To God. Why is that the most important thing? Because God lives outside of time, he purposed time and predestined you the plan of your life within time. He's the one that knows it, irrespective of what's happening in the moment, because he understood the before and he's in charge of the later. Okay, if you will go with me to the book of Psalms, chapter 34, and this is what I want to kind of get towards. It says, I will extol the King James Webb says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise, his praise, his praise, his praise will always be on my lips. I will glorify in the Lord. Then David starts to get a little deep. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Why are the afflicted gonna hear and rejoice? Because David knows about that good accounting. Glorify the Lord with me, let us exhort his name together. I sought the Lord and He answered me. There's the accounting. If you seek God, you will find him. That's why sometimes our trials and tribulations come so overwhelmingly because what does it do? It's meant to shut us down. What are you gonna seek when you're in a state of flux? Nothing. Okay? David says, verse 4 I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame. Do not allow something that God died for to be the barrier or the obstruction that stops you from going into His presence. He died for your shame. He died for everything that you think you've done wrong and that isn't right in your life. He took care of that on Calvary, right? Then David gets to the heart of the matter. I love it. Verse 6. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him. He saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps. I'm gonna say that one more time. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Now I'm gonna go one better. We've been given the comforter. The Holy Spirit encamps around your heart. He encamps around your mind. And he's waiting for you to give him permission to be exactly who he wants to be in your life. Every single start of your day should be Well, Holy Spirit, I love you and I welcome you into my day. Here's the driver, here's the steering wheel, you drive the car. Verse 8 Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his holy people. For those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. How can you question the master accountant? How can you convince yourself that he's not good? And just so that you know, the same breath you're gonna use to keep yourself alive to convince yourself is the same breath he breathed into you. Just say it. Just just light accounting. But in the same breath, I'm not trying to say that you're not supposed to be human. I am not one of those believers that believes that everything should be speaking in tongues and God will and bla blah blah blah blah di sometimes I I do not want to read my Bible. Sometimes I there are times I don't want to talk to nobody, no one. There are times I'm like the Holy Spirit, and I'm just like, well, you're lucky you're the Holy Spirit, and I can't see you, even though I can feel you. Why? Because as humans we were built with as this kaleidoscope of emotions and feelings. But I want to finish our Bible study today with this passage of scripture. Um, if you will, we're gonna go to Hebrews chapter 4, and I'm gonna finish it with this because it will make sense exactly who he is, exactly who he is, and it literally says this. Verse 14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. What is faith? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, it's the evidence of what we can't see, and then this is the bit, and this is for all of you that are going through a moment. For we do not have a high priest, Jesus, who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin, and here is a solution, and we're gonna finish right here. So then, and I'm it says us, but I'm gonna personalize it for you, so then you should approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need. I loved hanging out with you all today. The notes they're down in the description. Job for one chapter abandoned hope. I'm not giving you the right to do that today. Because I've just given you hope beyond hope. I'll see you next time, guys.