Heart Attacks
Pt. 2 - Baby Buffet
Introduction
I am placing a demand on your memory today. I preached the first message in this series almost 4 weeks ago. We are right in the middle of combating 5 principalities that we are assigned to confront and drive out of our body and region. The first was isolation. We talked about how we need each other. God designed us for one another. We then confronted poverty. We must learn to manage and be diligent with what God has placed in our hands. God breaks poverty off our lives not by giving us more money but rather by helping us learn to handle what we have already been given. The third principality is hopelessness so we now continue our assault on hopelessness.
Paul, in Romans 15:13, says "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." This is a made as a statement of what should be normal for followers of Christ. We should be so rich in hope that we such an excess of hope that we overflow. Yet, I submit to you that we too often find ourselves so overwhelmed with life until we are void, empty and bankrupt in the area of hope. So, I have taken the position that hopelessness is the direct result of a heart condition. Like David said in Psalms 27 we are on the precipice of losing heart which then results in a loss of hope. This is why the wise man says above all else guard your heart. He could have just as easily said guard your hope. Without hope you lose heart. Without heart you lose hope.
Over the next few weeks I want us to look at some areas in which this principality attacks in our lives. I want to unmask and pull into the light what hopelessness does so that we can uproot it. Since I am also convinced that most don't even recognize the subtle existence and work of hopelessness in their lives we must expose how it works or it will continue to bring about slow but steady fall out. So I want to take the time to pull back the covers on what hopelessness does and why it is so deadly by looking at some hopeless situations in Scripture. Then we will follow up this expose by discussing why we should have hope! Simply said the goal is to lay bare the places in our life that we have given up on so that we can grab hope again.
I want to read an account today in which you will see a glaring example of how isolation and poverty often join forces to pave the way for the principality of hopelessness to attack. We have got to learn that the enemy layers attacks!
Text: 2 Kings 6:24-33
At a later time, this: Ben-Hadad king of Aram pulled together his troops and launched a siege on Samaria. This brought on a terrible famine, so bad that food prices soared astronomically. Eighty shekels for a donkey’s head! Five shekels for a bowl of field greens! One day the king of Israel was walking along the city wall. A woman cried out, “Help! Your majesty!” He answered, “If God won’t help you, where on earth can I go for help? To the granary? To the dairy?” The king continued, “Tell me your story.”She said, “This woman came to me and said, ‘Give up your son and we’ll have him for today’s supper; tomorrow we’ll eat my son.’ So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I told her, ‘Your turn—bring your son so we can have him for supper.’ But she had hidden her son away.” When the king heard the woman’s story he ripped apart his robe. Since he was walking on the city wall, everyone saw that next to his skin he was wearing coarse burlap. And he called out, “God do his worst to me—and more—if Elisha son of Shaphat still has a head on his shoulders at this day’s end.” Elisha was sitting at home, the elders sitting with him. The king had already dispatched an executioner, but before the man arrived Elisha spoke to the elders: “Do you know that this murderer has just now sent a man to take off my head? Look, when the executioner arrives, shut the door and lock it. Don’t I even now hear the footsteps of his master behind him?” While he was giving his instructions, the king showed up, accusing, “This trouble is directly from God! And what’s next? I’m fed up with God!”
This account has to be one of the most serious and graphic examples of hopelessness chronicled in Scripture. The enemy has laid siege on Samaria. Surrounded. Cut off. Alone. See if this word sounds familiar . . . isolated. Isolation attacks first and then poverty takes up the onslaught. How broke were these folks? In one of the most broken accounts in Scripture two mothers come up with a gruesome and stomach turning plan. They covenant to kill and cook their own children for dinner. The one woman follows the plan the other bellies up to the baby buffet and then hides her child. So now that isolation has prepared the foundation poverty seals the deal and hopelessness takes hold. I am literally revealing how the enemy works in our lives right now.
The king is drawn into the situation and after hearing what they have done he is so distraught that he says he is fed up with God (hopelessness end game is to get you to give up on God) and with Elisha and sends an executioner to kill the prophet.
Some thoughts about this account.
1. Hopelessness is deadly because it will cause you to consume your tomorrow today.
These babies were these ladies heritage. These infants were their future. In fact, these babies were boys which in the atmosphere of a patriarchal system also carries implications for these ladies if their husbands ever passed. These boys carried all the legal rights and ownership of property with them. These ladies forfeit their future because with no male heir there can be no inheritance passed down. In fact, the male child was so desired that we have record of couples that would do stupid stuff to get (Abraham and Ishmael) a boy and these ladies are now so swallowed up by hopelessness that they willingly kill the male child.
The immediate overruled the ability to have long term foresight and any ability to think past their "now" need.
How many of us allow hopelessness to so arrest our hearts that we make decisions today that will destroy our tomorrow?
I am so lonely today so I will settle for one today that will fix my loneliness but cost me my health, my money, my time, and break my heart later. I know they aren't right for me. I know that I give up peace to be with them. I know I forfeit my anointing and my future. Because I can't stand being alone one more week, one more month, one more year I am no longer alone but I am also no longer whole.
I am so desperate for acceptance today that I will do things that will cost me my future reputation and will haunt me for the rest of my life.
I am so hopeless in the area of my finances that I will make a choice today that will bankrupt me for decades to come.
Hopelessness tries to get us to become nearsighted. All we can see is the desperation of the immediate. We consume what we need for later . . . now.
Too many of us kill stuff that other people would kill to have! Too many of us walk away from stuff other people are waiting on. Too many of us are hopeless in the middle of what others are hoping for! Some would kill to have your wife but you destroy her because of your hopelessness. Some would kill to have your job and you won't even show up because you have allowed hopelessness for promotion or fulfillment to set in. Some would kill to have your church family but you walk away because you are hopeless!
We will all encounter what the king encountered . . . one day! One day that makes us think it is our last day and in that moment if we are not careful we will make "rest of our days altering" decisions!
More times than not choices made in moments of hopelessness leads to regrets and wounds! You can see that in this account.
2. Hopelessness will cause you to consume someone else's future.
However, there is another dangerous aspect of hopelessness revealed in this account that we see played out in our daily lives. Hopelessness will not only bring you to the place where you are willing to consume your future but you will also willingly consume the future of those around you. It was bad enough that this woman offered and ate her own son but now she wants the king's help to find and eat the other ladies baby. There was no remorse over what she had done. You would have thought the pain of what she had lost would have gripped her but her hopelessness was so deep and so destructive that her only desire was to finish the plan.
We must rip hopelessness out of our heart because if we become convinced that nothing will ever change, it is then that we become an accessory in the enemy's plot to spread pain. How many of us out of the hopelessness of our lives have reached out and consumed someone else's dreams, hopes, future, and plans? We not only sabotage our own future we take an active role in crushing those around us. We use phrases like this "I am not happy" to excuse our actions, but what it really stems from is "I am not hoping!" We allow our lack of hope to cause us to crush those who still have hope.
Out of hopelessness we say things with no regard for the long term impact it will have on others. Out of hopelessness we take actions with no regard for the devastation it will produce in those around us. We take no thought, no concern, no pause, no remorse just my need, my hunger, my want, my desire, my feelings! Hopelessness makes us selfish! In fact, how do you know if you have lost hope? You become self-centered. Your conversations will revolve around you! You will consume others in an attempt to answer your lack of hope!
3. Hopelessness will cause you to attack the assigned.
I have talked about this on numerous occasions so I won't tarry long. I have never understood it but I think I have finally gotten to the root. I have never understood how people can walk away from, bad mouth, and attack people who only want to and are assigned to help . . . until now. I think the root is hopelessness. Attacking the assigned is a direct result of hopelessness.
I also see from this account that hopelessness is contagious. The women were hopeless and it rubs off on the king. Now he is hopeless to the point that he says, "I am fed up with God." Since he can't get to God his hopelessness produced anger (ever noticed that hopeless people seem to be angry all the time - victims) towards the one God had assigned to have an answer to the need. He knows he can't touch God so he sends someone to kill God's chosen man . . . Elisha. Elisha was the one assigned by God to bring relief to the hopeless situation. Read further in the account and Elisha is assigned to announce that the famine will be over one day later. But the Kings wants to kill the one with the answer.
How many of us, because of hopelessness, attack, kill, cut off, cuss out, dismiss relationship with the very ones who God has positioned and assigned in our lives to bring the answer we so desperately need? We crucify the one that would break what is causing us to be hopeless! God has someone in your life that has a famine breaking word and if you are not careful, then you will allow your belief that nothing is ever going to change to cause you to kill the assigned. You will intentionally hurt them and silence the word and it is lost forever. They have the key to your breakthrough but your hopelessness rises up and you add another lock to the door. You distance yourself from your designated deliverer. Too many of us send out executioners (texts, messages, comments, looks) that will seal our own death. Who are you attacking who might be your deliverer?
So tell me your story. What is causing your hopelessness? What is causing you to be so nearsighted that you are doing things in February 2016 that will produce destruction in your February 2030? Tell me your story! Why are you so dead set on destroying your son's life, your daughter's life, your co-workers life? Are you, one who is supposed to be overflowing with hope, so hopeless that you have now become heartless? Tell me your story! Has hopelessness brought you to the place that you have now become the assassin of your own answer? Have you shaken your head because you can't seem to figure out why you continue to say what you say and react like you react when that person tries to assist? Why are they always preaching at me? Why can't they just mind their own business? Why are they such a know it all? They are assigned. Your answer is wrapped up in them and you are on full fledge attack! HOPELESSNESS!
Principalities work together in harmony! Isolation brings poverty! We are surrounded but relationally bankrupt. Poverty leads to hopelessness.
