Hopelessness

Not key to cool off the Russian nightmare.

No, the devil's nightmare here. From its time to man up. Challenging men to step into their true manhood. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. Life feels more like a losing battle than something worth dying for. Grab your gear and come on a quest with your band of brothers who will serve as the guides in what we call The Masculine Journey. The Masculine Journey starts here now.

Welcome to The Masculine Journey. We're glad that you're with us this week and you may be glad when we're done with the topic, not sure. We're talking about hopelessness this week, but I think it's important to kind of understand how we landed on this topic. So, you know, a lot of times people say, how do you guys come up with the topics? Well, we hopefully, God leads us into topics and that's what we believe happens. And so last week we were talking after the show and I was talking about this last Sunday, I was a part of a panel at church where we had to answer some questions that were submitted that people had about the Bible, about God, about, you know, their faith, you know, that kind of thing. And so, you know, I was going through what some of the questions were and one of the questions was, do people who commit a suicide go to hell?

And so I don't know that we're going to answer that today. But what we landed on as we talked about it and had a lot of good discussion in our group was really, you know, it comes down to what's the root of that? What's the root of getting there? And the root of getting there is hopelessness.

You know, at the end of the day when nothing else matters, when it really doesn't seem to matter what I do or I don't have an impact or I make a negative impact on this world, then, you know, the enemy starts whispering to you, well, it'd be so much better off without you, right? And the hopelessness gets worse and worse and then eventually some people act on it, you know, and that's where we end up. And so we're going to talk about this topic of hopelessness, you know, and kind of see where God takes us with it.

You know, it's always his show and we'll go where he takes us. And so we may answer the question, we may not. You're just going to have to hang on and see if we do.

But right now we're going to talk about the topic of hopelessness. And Danny, you have the first clip. It's been a while since you've had a first clip. Yeah, it has.

It's been a dry spell, like a baton average went way down or something. Oh, hold on. I'm going to play someone else's. Okay, go ahead. Well, my clip is from hopelessness and Danny. Yeah.

Hopeless in Seattle or clipless in Seattle, something like that. A clip is from the show Young Sheldon. And Young Sheldon, if you're not familiar with it, he's a young prodigy.

He's genius. And he believes in science. He doesn't believe in God.

But his mother is a devout Christian lady. And the episode is where she has a crisis of faith. She loses hope. And there's been a tragedy in the neighborhood. And so she's just kind of mulling over the way things are working and not sure where she's at, with her faith.

And the interchange we're going to hear is between her and Sheldon, and he becomes the catalyst of restoring her faith. So we can play it and we'll talk about it on the other side. Can I sit with you? I think mommy needs to be alone right now. Mom, I'm scared. Why? You didn't go to church. You stopped saying grace. I don't understand what's going on. It's kind of hard to explain. Is it me?

Did I do something wrong? Of course not. Come here. Faith means believing in something you can't know for sure is real. And right now, I am struggling with that. So you don't believe in God anymore? That isn't something for you to worry about.

I need to figure this out myself. Can I help? Maybe I could provide a fresh perspective. I don't think so, baby. Did you know that if gravity were slightly more powerful, the universe would collapse into a ball?

I did not. Also, if gravity were slightly less powerful, the universe would fly apart and there'd be no stars or planets. Where are you going with this Sheldon? It's just that gravity is precisely as strong as it needs to be. And if the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the strong force wasn't one percent, life wouldn't exist.

What are the odds that would happen all by itself? Why are you trying to convince me to believe in God? You don't believe in God. I don't, but the precision of the universe at least makes it logical to conclude there's a creator. Baby, I appreciate what you're trying to do. Logic is here, and my problem is here. Well, there are five billion people on this planet, and you're the perfect mom for me.

What are the odds of that? Thank you, Lord, for this little boy. Hopelessness is a progression of what a mentor of mine used to call spiritual erosion. It doesn't happen overnight. And what you would see if you saw that episode was a progression in a 30-minute sitcom, but a progression of her kind of losing faith.

And as we talk about right here, making agreements and vows and believing lies and spirals down, you know, of course, that's a sitcom. But in our own life, I know in my own life, I had a journey where that happened over a course of several years. And I ended up in a place where I actually thought about taking my own life. And, you know, there was lots of addictions and stuff, but it boils down to I began to lose hope that, number one, that because of some of the decisions I made, God didn't want anything to do with me. All the things that the enemy whispers, you may as well go on and give up because he's not coming for you.

But obviously, y'all figured out by now I didn't commit suicide, so y'all are pretty smart like that. But that's the reality of, I think, what we're talking about for me. And I love what Proverbs 13 says, it says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire is fulfilled in the tree of life.

Because if I lose hope in who he is and what he's capable of, then I don't have to have any hope. I mean, you know, we may as well just pack it up and go home. So, that's just kind of my take.

Thank you. You know, as you're talking through the Proverbs there, you know, you come back to, you have the two trees in the garden, you know, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, and the enemy trips us up with the knowledge. He always has, he's done it since the garden, right? And that's what he uses to get us to make the agreements, right? Is he applies to our logic, he applies to our logic, you know, what we think is logical. And so, he'll do that, you know, to where we say, okay, yeah, I can kind of agree with that a little bit. And then he's got you a little bit hooked.

And then he pours it on and pours it on. And that's, you led me into where I kind of want to go is where does the root of hopelessness start, right? And it starts with an agreement. Some type of agreement. The agreement may be, you know, if I was only a better husband, then this wouldn't happen. Or if I was only a better dad, this wouldn't happen. Or you fill in the blank, right?

A better employee, I wouldn't be looking for a job. You know, whatever the case is, whatever he's got you with, it's something that's designed to trip you up so he can get you on the hook to where you can start pouring it on and building the case. And it's even, it's even if I memorize more scripture, if I prayed more, if I, the more that I need. So, yeah, yeah, it's, we need more life. We don't necessarily need more knowledge, right? We need more of life. We need more of God. Right?

And that's where the life is. And so, any other thoughts on that clip before we move on to another one? Nice clip, Danny. Yeah, good job. Rodney, you're actually next. You want to set your clip up? Well, then I better get a microphone. Yeah.

Yeah. So the question that you had asked, which kind of spurred me into mind was the beginning of this, what brings it on? And that's where I was like, well, wrong thinking.

Well, what does wrong thinking come from? And it's like truth or error. And then I'm going through and it's like, well, really what I'm talking about here, I guess, is worldview. And so I just kind of went out and did some searches for, is there anything I could find that would help describe that in a clip?

And there are a lot out there. And this one is from Truth Project. It's called, What is Worldview?

And there's another one I thought just a lot longer that I couldn't get in the clip, but it's a video by Twelve Stone Church. And he did a really good job on a whiteboard. It's describing Christian worldview versus non-Christian worldview, kind of like for dummies. I was like, oh, I can get that.

And I liked it. And so just, again, I think there's a lot there that people can understand. And I think this will help people see what just is a good, simple definition for worldview. Worldview, as the word suggests, is how we look at the world around us. How do we understand life as it hits us in the face? Nobody is without a worldview.

The only question is, is it a good one or a bad one? Worldview is a set of basic assumptions that help you make sense about reality, or it's a set of basic assumptions about reality. A worldview is like a lens through which you see things. And you're not really aware of the lens. You're only aware of the things you see.

So it becomes the glasses, the spectacles, the filter through which they're actually seeing life. And the whole universe and the world and human life is understood through that lens. On the basis of that worldview, you make your momentary judgments in life. So everyone has a worldview.

And I think it is the grid that frames the nature of reality for you and the judgments that you make for yourself and others in life. There's a proverb that says, as a man thinketh, so shall he act, or so is he, depending on the translation. And our thinking really does govern the way we act, the choices we make.

There are ideas that have consequences. And our culture is shaped, first of all, by distorted ideas that yield distorted lies. All the non-Christian worldviews, whether they're atheistic or religious, are alternatives that are basically a refusal to bow to the truth as God sees it. If you don't have a Christian worldview, if you don't understand the doctrine whereby God is sovereignly involved in every aspect of your life, then you have no basis for stability, no basis for morality, no basis for hope. And as the Apostle Paul said, we become pitiable creatures. And when we live according to the lies and the illusions of the world, then we suffer deeply. And if you have no hope, that's kind of where the less and less hope you get, the more and more you end up suffering. Because it's just, when you're believing lies and you're believing what the enemy's telling you, you're just going to be in a constant state of, well, I have to do it myself.

And as we all know, that just doesn't work very well, I mean, if God's not leading you. But that's where even there they said in their atheism, I mean, there is no atheist because they have a worldview, which is kind of counterpart to just religion. It's just the same thing, it's just a different way of saying it. So I also, you said, words as it take us spiritually, emotionally, and things of that nature.

It's just, it's kind of like degrees of it, right? You ratchet up your unbelief, you ratchet up your disbelief, you don't believe in the right things, then that goes to more hopelessness. Just like if you were saying that, I'm in control here, and I can take care of this, and then you don't, something doesn't happen.

Well, you have nowhere to turn, because you're always turning things inward. When you go to God, you say, well, the truth is, God says I'm working all things for good, so either I believe or I don't. And where I really went, what I loved about this, well, I won't have time to read into it, but in John 14, 6 is actually my favorite verse, and then 7 through 11 is him saying, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and Philip asking him, well, can you show us the Father?

And he's just trying to explain, no, you have seen. So it's that view of me is a view of the Father. We'll be back right after the break, maskandjourney.org. What we have in our boot camp is something that makes you stronger, and it gives you the strength to go on your regular walk with God. It's something that will make you be bigger than you were when you got there.

How's things been going since the last boot camp? Doing good, growing. I've got growing pains. I came up here as a little boy, falling down, getting up, and now I'm a cowboy ranger going into adolescent hood.

It's a pleasure to be here. So you're speaking about cowboy rangers. Is that one of the talks that really came alive to you this weekend? Yep. I don't want to grow up real fast.

I had to do that a long time ago. I'm just taking baby steps along this journey, and I can't think of any place or group of guys I'd rather be with because you are appointed and accountable for me to learn and listen, and I've got a notebook full of good tools that's going to help me grow. Register today at masculinejourney.org.

Welcome back to The Masculine Journey. That is a group called Matchbox 20, and the name of the song is Unwell, and that's actually my bump. I picked it for this week, and the reason I did is you've got a person there that's wanting to be well, but they know something's not quite right, and they're trying to hold on to hope. That's what I really hear in that song is I really want to try to hold on to hope, but it's feeling like life's not given me a lot to be hopeful about. And so, as that song continues, he sings more about that, and I think that's where we often find ourselves is we're not born into a place, I don't believe, where we don't want to have hope, I think, as a young kid, unless it's robbed from you at a very early age, which happens to some people, but for most people, that's not the story. They have hope. They have hope that tomorrow's going to be better.

Christmas is coming, and all the other things. My birthday's coming, and everything's going to be perfect at that point, and you have a lot of hope, but then the enemy and the enemy and the world just does its best to beat it out of you, right? And to strip it from you and to strip you away from God, which is really the goal, and so that becomes a place from hope. The only place you can navigate if you don't have God in the midst of it is into hopelessness, as Rodney was talking about before we went into the break. The worldview will lead you to hopelessness. Yeah, and the other passage just kept resounding with me was the fact that you of your father, the devil, when he's talking to the Pharisees, because they're seeing him, they're hearing him and just rejecting and rejecting and rejecting.

You have a father that's either going to be in heaven or in hell. It's just sad that we're so easily distorted and pulled in directions. Yeah. So, Andy, you actually have the next clip.

Yeah, you made the first show. Mr. Trailer. Yeah, my favorite thing to submit a trailer. You like trailers?

Yeah. So, this is a trailer for the movie Captive. It's a true story.

I remember this happening. The news talked about it, and they made a movie out of it in 2015. There's multiple captives out there. That's why I'm qualifying it, but anyway, I haven't seen the movie, but I knew the story.

Brian Nichols was a guy that was on trial for rape. He ended up killing, I think, the judge and the bailiff and an ICE agent, four people. And he gets out, and he kidnaps this girl who happens to be a meth addict who is really going through some struggles with it. And this person has given her the perfect, driven life to try to help her out. She throws it in the trash. A woman finds it, sends it back to her. She has it with her. She ends up reading some of it to him, and now that I've told the whole story.

But the trailer, you get the points, and there's some really, just really impactful points that are made in it, and we'll talk about it after we play that clip. I'll send a prayer to you. I hate this car. I lost everything. My husband's dead, and I said I was an unfit mother. Took away my little girl.

Have you heard of this book? Help me. You're late, Ashley. The lady dropped this off for you.

When I heard I had a son, I had to break out. Breaking story right now. Police looking for this man. Murder suspect, Brian Nichols. I want eyes in the sky. All choppers up now.

Let's flush Nichols out. My name is Ashley Smith. I'm a mother. I don't trust you, Ashley. You scream again, and I will have to kill you. I don't trust you, Ashley.

You scream again, and I will have to kill you. I need to see my daughter. You're not going anywhere. God, please help me.

What is that? What are you doing? Just a book. Read it to me. You want to know why you were placed on this planet? You must begin with God. He expects you to make the most of what you have been given.

I haven't been given anything. You have a son. Christopher, it's your daddy. You're gonna hear some bad things about me. Whatever happens, I love you, little man. The greatest tragedy is not death, but life without purpose.

Do you forgive me? I don't know, but maybe God can. Yeah, that is powerful to me. Just how God put two really broken, hopeless people together, and both of them benefited from it. You could tell, you know, the man, he said, I don't have anything.

I haven't been given anything. Well, she reminded him, well, you have a son. Well, yeah, that was the reason that he wanted to break out and get away was to go to that son. So obviously, he had something to live for, but that's the way the enemy will take it. He'll make it, all these people around us, depending on us, love us, whatever. He'll make you think you're the most isolated person in the world, and you have no purpose.

That was the other thing, I think. I hope a lot of times it's tied with the purpose. You can have all your physical needs and all that stuff taken care of. You can live in a nice house, but if you don't feel like you have purpose, you lose your hope a lot of times. And I think that's where you have men that go to midlife crisis in the middle of their lives is that there's really no purpose. They've consumed all they can consume, and it's not brought them any kind of hope, any kind of hope for the future, any kind of like, okay, yeah, I've lived on this planet, and I've consumed a lot, but what is my purpose?

Why was I born? So men have midlife crisis in the middle of their life. Yeah. Okay, well, that makes sense now. All right. Okay, thanks for calling me out on that, stating the obvious. I know, Andy, it would be normal for that. It would be normal.

David's not a captain. Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. I'm a captive. You guys are kind of quiet today.

You've got a quiet crowd. Harold, you always have something to say. Yeah, the thing that occurs to me is that reading through the Old Testament, how often you hear, the battle belongs to the Lord, and yet the Israelites had to fight. So when you hear the expression, the battle belongs to the Lord, to me that means he's in charge of the outcome, but he's not going to do it without you. And maybe it's just my nature as a little guy, but I'm highly competitive, and so my attitude going into stuff is, I will not lose, at least voluntarily. I will fight on, and I will count on God to make up what I can't do. So I have never been without hope so far, and I'm nearly 82. And I'm hoping that that will continue.

That will continue, but our attitude has a lot to do with it, and if we expect God to be there with us and fight our battles, then we need to line up with him and be ready to march. Just my thoughts. Yeah, I would also add then, as the identity and the poser, trying to be somebody you're not, like pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh, just be positive.

Snap a rubber band on your wrist, and all these other things to try to snap you out of stuff. It's not about posing and trying to be something you're not. It's being a whole new creature in God. It's about a total change in a directional to repentance. It's turning from that direction where I just know I'm hopeless and I can't do it, I can't, I can't. No, it's not even looking at yourself anymore. It's turning the other way and looking at God only and forgetting about yourself and just saying, I'm trying to live for you, Lord.

Help me, help me, help me. And just crying out to him and just asking for that so that he does give you that new direction and going that way. Yeah, I'll add to that, Rodney. When you look at 2 Corinthians 5.17, I believe it is, it talks about being a new creation. You know, a lot of times in that hopelessness, we forget that we are a new creation in Christ. You know, we remove that veil and we quit looking at ourselves the way God does.

And we start viewing ourselves the way we would or the way the world would or, you know, whoever we insert in there. So I think that's a key point is just remembering that we are a new creation in Christ and just rest in that and that'll help bring us through that hopelessness. Yeah, I think it's also important to realize that, you know, hopelessness is not just a byproduct of not being a Christian.

All right? I've been a Christian for a lot of years and I've had periods of hopelessness in the midst of that. Now, granted, I was not focused on the right things, right? But, you know, it's a slow slide initially, most of the time. You know, it's just, sometimes it's an assault that sends you there, like an assault on your heart, but it's a slow slide that can get you there.

Yeah, Robby. Well, the fascinating thing is the word hope in Hebrew, I knew you weren't going to want to know, but... Yeah, I was just... Dang, you read my mind. I think it's really insightful.

It's takava. And it really has something spectacular in it. It has to do with relationship. In the first letters of tav, which is like in the end, there's going to be a union that you're going to be holy, you're going to be close to God, you're going to be... And so, it's fascinating that as you see that this is going to work out to where I actually will be together with God, in that is truly, in the end, is your hope. And so, all those aspects of unity and, you know, I guess, identity and all those different things, they all play into it, but, you know, a big old God hug is really kind of what we're looking forward to.

Yeah. One of the things about that, though, like those two, it was two individuals that really had lost hope. One of them had started their path back, and then the other one was really totally lost. What I will say is there can be a positive aspect of hopelessness. A lot of times, it's when we finally come to the end of ourselves. We've tried to make life work on our own, apart from God, and that total feeling, whether you're a Christian or not, we both... I've felt very hopeless, like you said, as a Christian.

I've came to the end of myself from trying to work this thing out on my own and really let go and let go, like David likes to say. Yeah, I just want to make sure that people weren't hearing, you know, you don't have strong enough faith. Yeah. It's you've bought into a lie of the enemy, you've been violated in some way to where your heart's been assaulted, and the enemy's playing on that.

Yeah. And so you break through and get hope again by dealing with those issues with God and taking it to Him and saying, God, I need to turn this to You. Because our answer is always going to be found in Him. But we could also be shaming people if we're not careful by saying, well, if your faith was just stronger. And that's not what we're saying. What we're saying is God is the answer. But we do have a boot camp coming up in the fall, but we have a weekend getaway coming up in June. And that's at our website to West Virginia with a group of us and people from Ohio. We'll talk with you next week.