Hopelessness After Hours

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This is the Truth Network. Coming to you from an entrenched barricade deep in the heart of central North Carolina, Masculine Journey After Hours, a time to go deeper and be more transparent on the topic covered on this week's broadcast. So, sit back and join us on this adventure. The Masculine Journey After Hours starts here now.

Welcome to Masculine Journey After Hours. We're glad that you're with us this week, and we are talking about the topic of hopelessness. But don't lose hope. There is hope in the midst of this topic, and that hope is Jesus, and we're going to talk more about that. And we will go a little deeper in this segment. We're supposed to be going deeper, and so we will share a little bit of our stories.

But first, we've got a couple clips that we're going to do. The first one is from a movie called Shawshank Redemption. Not a real uplifting movie, most of it, but the end of it's pretty decent.

It is a good movie. But in the scene, Shawshank is a prison, and so you have a guy that's been wrongfully sent to prison, and while he's there, he's trying to make the best of it. And so he gets on the good side of the warden by doing his books.

He's an accountant, so he does his books. And so while he's up there one day, he decides he's going to play over the loudspeaker some classical music, which is against the rules. And so he does it and locks the door and keeps the warden out, keeps everybody out, and they eventually break down the door and they throw him in the box, which is this great big metal box out in the middle of the sun that you just sat in there and sweat for days. And so where we pick up this scene is he's coming back to the lunch table with all of his friends when he's just gotten out of the box. And so the topic of Hope will eventually come up, and I want you to listen to what Morgan Freeman's character talks about on Hope and Andy Dufresne, who's the lead character here that got thrown in the box, his response to that. Hey, look who's here.

Ice Grove. Hey. And you couldn't play something good, huh?

Hank Williams or something? They broke the door down before I could take requests. Was it worth it? Two weeks in the hole? Easiest time I ever did. There's no such thing as easy time in the hole.

That's right, a week in the hole is like a year. I'm Mr. Mozart to keep me company. So they let you tote that record player down there, huh? This is in here.

In here. That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you. Haven't you ever felt that way about music?

Well, I played a main on Monica as a young man. Lost interest in it, though. Didn't make much sense in here.

Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget. Forget? Forget that there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone, that there's something inside that they can't get to, that they can't touch.

It's yours. What are you talking about? Hope. Hope. Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. It's got no use on the inside.

You better get used to that idea. Like Brooks did? If you haven't seen the movie, Brooks was a character in the movie that got out, he got parole, and couldn't deal with the outside and ended up committing suicide. And so Andy's letting his friend, I can't remember... Is it Red? Red, yeah. Let Red know, hey, you know, hope is necessary.

And Morgan Freeman's actually right. Red is right in this. Hope is a dangerous thing and the enemy knows that. That's why the enemy comes after the hope so much. Because he knows that everything in our life depends on the hope.

Right? I mean, what is faith without hope? Or hope without faith? They go hand in hand and the enemy knows that if he can steal our hope, everything else will crumble.

Everything else will fall. I'll go ahead and be a little bit more transparent. There was a time in my life that I seriously had considered suicide. I actually was fully planning on doing it, just didn't know how to do it and have my kids still get the insurance. There had been some stuff that happened in my marriage and some very difficult things that really just kind of rocked my world and caused me to kind of lose a lot of hope because everything I had was tied up in my family. And didn't know at this point if I was going to lose my family, didn't know what was going to happen with it, but my whole foundation was rocked. And so, you know, when you have that happen and your identity is in, you know, who you are versus whose you are, right, meaning God's in my identity and him. And I was a Christian, been a Christian for a lot of years. I was going to church every Sunday, going to church a couple times a week most weeks and those types of things. And was volunteering on whatever board or whatever at the church and all the stuff, you know, doing the walk. Fortunately, God got me to a right doctor that listened to me and put me short term on some medication that got me to a better place mentally until I could get to a better place spiritually.

Right. You know, honestly, I needed the medication to be able to bridge me to get me there because I was already at a place where it was just there was no hope. And the enemy had me so convinced that my family would be better off without me.

You know, they'd have all the insurance money, you know, and all these other things. And, you know, he goes past the truth and uses logic, you know, disguised as truth to make that happen. And so, you know, it very fortunately did not end up there, obviously, because as Danny said in the first show, I'm talking now, so I didn't go there, but it was all but there. You know, and I've had other periods of hopelessness. I'd love to say that being a Christian has insulated me from that, but that's not a true statement. It's only as strong as your walk is at that moment.

Right. If I'm walking with God on a daily basis, and yes, my faith is going to be strong, but it only takes that slight erosion to start. And once you don't stop it and it continues to erode, eventually it's just going to wash away and you're going to be at that place that you said you'd never be at again. You know, and I found myself there. I hope not to get there again.

I hope to catch it soon enough. But, you know, there are days that, you know, I begin to wonder. I love the passage that you'd read, Danny, on the first show. You had talked about a man's thinking.

Is that right? Was it in Proverbs? Yeah, Proverbs.

Hope deferred. Oh, no. What was the one, The Way a Man Thinks? That was from Rodney's, I mean, Rodney's Worldview. Oh, yeah, it was on Rodney's Worldview.

If a man thinks it's in his heart, so is he. I'll take credit for it, though. Nah, it's all good.

Yeah, I'm not giving you any more credit. But anyway, we'll kind of, we'll move on. That was kind of my story. But, you know, hopelessness is something that you've got to guard against. You know, it's one of those things that you've actively got to say, no, I'm not going to let my heart start to go there. You know, because once you've gone there, it's a lot quicker trip back if you're not careful. Right? It's a very slippery slope, you know, maybe a gradual couple steps, but bam, then you go, then you go. Anyone else want to add anything where I get the next clip ready?

Yes, that would be please, somebody add something? Well, it's clear that as we know each other's stories, everyone that we think accepts in the Herald has been there. That actually either attempted suicide or thought very strongly about it. And it's very much part of my story.

Even from like, from what I understand, they put me into counseling because I think when I was five years old, the first time I tried to commit suicide. Wow. Yeah. And so it's, you know, it's, I can remember going to the counselor because apparently, you know, what I did was I put a plastic bag over my head. Wow.

And, you know, until I turned whatever color and freaked my family out pretty good. And it was interesting, you know, working through that over the years. Yeah. And it's a process. Yeah.

You don't get there quickly, typically, and you don't get back from there quickly. And it was very, very much a part, you know, of what I would call a generational sin in my family. Yeah. And, you know, my grandmother, in a big way, and then my mother, you know, she spent two years in the hospital when I was about 11 or 12 after a very serious attempt.

And, you know, so it runs in families and the guilt that comes along with that and how everybody, you know, has left and it's in Tammy's family as well. Yeah. And Chuck, you actually have the next clip if you want to tell us a little bit about that.

Sure. It's the clip where Robin Williams, Patch Adams, Hunter Adams, is actually contemplating suicide. He's standing on the cliff. And just to kind of give you a back story of that, you know, when you research Hunter Adams, he had actually contemplated suicide three times that year before he actually went through and actually went into the medical field. So he was living in a state of hopelessness for a long time. And he had had some success and actually found his purpose in life, you know, through his name, Patch. You know, he was healing people.

He actually got that in a mental hospital that he had checked himself into. So what you're seeing here, he goes through some stuff in life and he loses to a woman that he had grown to love at the school that he was attending. And he had gotten so close to her.

It was really an intimate relationship. And he lost her. It was actually one of his patients, you know, who Patch Adams had devoted his life to, to caring. And he was teaching away. And he actually took a lot of blame on himself. He said, you know, I taught her to love like this, to care for patients like this.

I'm the one that killed her. And so that's what brought him to this cliff. And at this point, he's actually having a conversation with God. Yes, yeah, with God. Tell me what you're doing.

Okay, let's look at the logic. You create man. Man suffers enormous amounts of pain.

Man dies. Maybe you should have had just a few more brainstorming sessions prior to creation. You rested on the seventh day. Maybe you should have spent that day on compassion. You know what?

You're not worth it. What you don't see at the end of that clip is Patch Adams. He actually turns around and he's given up the idea of committing suicide.

He's releasing that. And as he turns, he sees a butterfly resting on a bag that he had brought with him. And it just reminds him of really brings him back to his purpose because he reflects back on the woman that he lost, Corrine Fisher. He had developed that relationship with her, but what the story doesn't tell is she had wounds herself and she was on guard when she first met Patch Adams. So they worked through that, through their intimate relationship, and actually found out that she was actually wounded by men at an early age.

And she said she could remember locking herself in a room and just looking out the window and looking at the caterpillars. And as they made that change into a butterfly, that's what her life represented and that's what she told Patch. And so it really caused him to reflect and say, you know what? I do have a purpose. My purpose is to bring life to people, to bring happiness to people. And so it just gave him a new direction and outlook on life.

Thank you. When I've listened to that clip, I'm reminded that I don't know that Patch is able to internalize seeing the butterfly and having those feelings until he gets rid of the poison that's inside him. Which is what he's just done on the mountainside as he's talking with God, as he's contemplating suicide. He's spewing out the stuff inside him and he's just being authentic and real.

And especially, not all Christians obviously, but there are a lot of Christians out there that believe we can't be authentic like that with God, which is so silly because he knows our thoughts anyway. He already knows what we're thinking. And so for us to share that with him puts us in a place sometimes where we can hear him now. Where we might not even be able to hear him when we had all that poison inside of us. And so when Patch gets rid of that and he turns around and sees the butterfly, now he can be reminded of the girl, he can be reminded, okay, maybe God is here for me. Yeah, how do relationships work when one person holds it in and doesn't speak? You can't ever come to any kind of terms if you don't ever say what the problem is.

Good point. I found where it was Elijah who after he had all the great victories with the prophets of Baal and all that stuff. And Jezebel says, I'm going to kill you is basically what she says. And he runs for his life and what he says is exactly what you just said. He said, it is enough now, oh Lord, take away my life for I am no better than my father's. So he just was crushed in defeat because he went against all these other prophets and had all these victories, called down fire from heaven.

And one woman says, I'm going to kill you. And he runs for his life and he just thinks it's over. So, you know, and he had a great journey with God. So it's not that we can't even say it's a lack of faith because God gives us the faith that we have. That's scriptural, so it's a matter of not believing in who we say we believe in. Or not believing what he tells us about us.

Chuck, as you were saying before the show, identity. What is the phrase? It's not what a man isn't that he's afraid of, it's what he truly is. Yeah, that's a deep one. Thank you, Danny. Anyone else want to share, before we get to Robby's clip, anything that wants to come to mind?

Kenny? I think he's putting your finger on it, that honesty to God. Because he was, you know, in this clip he was hurting. And he was expressing that hurt, that doubts, confusion, and all these questions, God, why? And you know, as finite beings we cannot really understand God. But we can understand love. And if Satan takes that love away from us, to me that's one of the roots of hope. We love God and he loves us enough to give us the truth about where we're at, what we need.

And what our need is, is to get closer to him. Because he's the only real protection we have against that enemy that's always constantly trying to find some way to get at us. Because he hates us. You know, we're at war. He declared war on us. Anybody who believes in God, he's at war with you. And he wants to do anything he can to pull us away from the hope, the love, the truth, and each other.

He wants to isolate us, because when a wolf is going after something, he wants to get wounded, frail, and lost. And separate. Absolutely.

Chuck, did you want to add something else? Just to go back to the Pat Chatham's movie, and I hate to keep talking about Pat Chatham's, but I just love that movie because there's so many clips you can use in it. But there was a point in it that reminded me of the talk that Robby gives about the lover stage, you know, and the masculine journey. It's really about that intimate relationship with God. You know, into me I see.

We've got to open up to that, and we've got to open up to those around us and share that and be vulnerable. Just to kind of touch back where Pat Chatham was, and it kind of touches on that love. He shared a poem when he lost Corinne, and it really spoke to me when I heard it, and I've seen that movie a million times. It just says, I love you without knowing how, or what, or from where. I love you straightforwardly without complexity or pride. I love you because I know no other way than this. So close that your hand on my chest is my hand.

So close that when you close your eyes, I fall asleep. I mean, that's how God sees us. That's the love he has for us, and it was poured out on Christ, and that's what saves us.

And when we find rest in that, that's where our hope comes from. Thank you. Robby, you are up. You are up. Yeah, so, wow, the idea of suicide is complicated.

It is. So here's the genius of Victor Hugo, which wrote the book Les Miserables, which became a screenplay and all sorts of other things. But throughout the drama, however you want to look at it, the Jean Valjean character that we've shown so many clips on, Grace, throughout the years, how he was a convict, and he was shown grace when he stole the silverware, and he was given the golden candlesticks. And so he ends up showing grace, but the whole time he's being chased by a legalist.

And this person knows nothing but the law. And Jean Valjean had not gone to Jean Valjean and fulfilled his parole. And so legally, he was supposed to go back to the quarries where he was supposed to be. And after chasing him for a lifetime, Javier finally catches him just at the point in time where Jean Valjean is actually in a position to kill Javier, and he doesn't. And so it puts him in a very strange position because he now has experienced grace, and as a complete legalist, he can't accept grace.

Right? And unfortunately, here we have real suicide. See, life is not whether or not you jump off the cliff or whether you fall into the river as Javier is fixed to do that, but life is to not choose God to begin with, not to accept Jesus Christ. And in that is the actual idea of suicide, and unfortunately, people are committing real suicide every minute that they're not accepting Jesus as their Savior because there is no life apart from Him.

And so in spite of the fact that Javier's been committing suicide his entire life, he now is actually going to take his physical life to match the life that he's lived. But listen to his explanation of why he's got to do that because, as Rodney pointed out so well, his worldview is based on the law. That is an important memo for the prefect. It will explain what I've done with the prisoner.

Make sure he sees it before breakfast, sir. I'm glad I had time to myself. I needed to think about what you deserve. You're a difficult problem.

Move to the edge. Why aren't you taking me in? You're my prisoner. Do what I tell you. You don't understand the importance of the law.

I've given you an order. Obey it. Why didn't you kill me? I don't have the right to kill you. But you hate me. But I don't hate you.

I don't feel anything. You don't want to go back to the quarries, do you? Then for once we agree. I'm going to spare you from a life in prison, Jean Valjean. It's a pity the rules don't allow me to be merciful.

I've tried to live my life without breaking a single rule. You're free. So the splash that you heard, you heard that Jean Valjean was chained and put up on the edge of that river. But when he said you're free, he took the handcuffs off Jean Valjean.

He put them on himself. And since he could not reconcile the law, a life for a life, he considered that to be his physical life, which he didn't realize. He'd actually been in the, he was the one that had been in the prison since the beginning of the movie, right? Since the beginning of the book, however you want to look at it, Jean Valjean, too, was in prison both physically and really, however, when the bishop gave him grace and he accepted it, right? Then he promised to become a new man and the idea of this new creation.

And so when we really grasp the idea that it's, yeah, physical life, there's a lot of stuff there, but the real prison is for the people that never experienced Christ to begin with and the real hope that comes from real life. And so I think it's easy to get tripped up, you know, because as we talked about in the pre-show, which became very agitated at times, that to some extent we're all committing suicide. And, you know, if you're talking about your physical body, I mean, what'd you eat for dinner?

Or did you get the amount of sleep to eat? In other words... Be quiet. You're stepping on toes now. Nobody asks you. You know, so is there anybody out there without sin that, you know, is there? You know, there isn't.

No! So the only chance I have is Christ. And therein lies the actual opportunity that we all have for life and life abundant is to walk into that relationship, into that closeness, and the closer we can get, the more life we can have.

Yeah. And I think I'm going to go ahead and try to answer the question that we had, because I think we all landed at the same place at the end of last week of do people commit suicide or are they condemned to hell as soon as that happens? Did they ever make it to heaven? How everyone say that?

Where we ended up landing was none of us know. Only God knows. Right? He's the only one that knows their heart.

Right? And so as Sam clears his throat... You know, it is. That's something we got to leave, but we leave in very capable hands, right? I mean, there's nobody's heart I trust more than God's. And so if there's somebody that can decide what really, you know, which are enemies of God and which are not, I mean, he knows.

Right. I think it really goes back to, I mean, if they've received him, as it is said, I mean, obviously that comes into play. Now, again, the whole thing of do you have time to repent?

All that stuff is irrelevant. It's did they know him? We talked about the loss of hopelessness and God doesn't want anybody to get to that point, but really only he knows, particularly at that very time, you know, where that person is. Just like if they died any other way. Yeah. You know, where we kind of landed on some of it is it's hard to think unless right on your deathbed that you repent of everything that you've ever done. You know, you're more likely probably going to die with some unresolved sin. Right. And so, you know, if sin alone is what convicts you to go, then we all go. Right. So God has to judge a heart. When you look back at the thief on the cross, he didn't do any works to get to paradise. He got to go to paradise because he believed that Jesus was the Lord. Right. And believed in him. And that's what we're called to do. And so we know that's not an answer, but it's the only answer we can have is that God's the only one that really knows for sure and we're going to leave it with him.

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