Letter to IHACA delegates Philip G. Ney April 2017
Keeping Hope Alive in Chaotic Times
“Whom shall I send as a messenger to My people? Who will go for us? And I said, “Lord, I’ll go, send me! And He said, “Yes, go but tell my people this. You will hear my words but you will not understand; you will see what I do but you will not perceive its meaning. Harden the hearts of these people, close their ears and shut their eyes, that way they will not see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn to Me for healing, (Isaiah 6: 10), “They will see what I do but they don’t perceive its meaning. They hear My words but they don’t understand them so they will not turn from their sins and be forgiven” (Mark 4: 12). “Go and say to my people, you will hear my words but you will not understand. You will see what I do but you will not perceive its meaning for the hearts of these people are hardened and their ears cannot hear and they have closed their eyes, so their eyes cannot see and their ears cannot hear and their hearts cannot understand so that they cannot turn to Me and let me heal them.” (Acts 28: 26) Jesus and Paul quote Isaiah.
The hard heartedness of their day is similar to that of our day when there is such an immense need out there and apparently so little response. It is enough to make one lose hope. Yet, we must keep hope alive otherwise we will be destroyed by cynicism and despair. We have to keep our own hope alive and we must keep the hope alive in our family, church and nation.
These are truly chaotic times: a) There is moral chaos, otherwise called moral relativism. People seem to forget that Einstein disproved Max Plank and the quantum mechanics that seemed to show that there was no absolute truth but that every track of reality was equal and parallel so that no one could impose one’s morality upon another.
There is economic chaos. “Stimulating the economy” by borrowing or printing money cannot work. Though there is slight current upsurge, the underlying problem of declining population has not been dealt with. With implosion, you cannot run a free market economy. An elite, liberal few are determined to rid the world of a great portion of its humanity in an effort to reduce pollution and global warming. The idea is that since humans cause global warming, fewer people would reduce warming and the world will last. This is scientific nonsense. Results of ice core samples taken from the Antarctic, show cyclic global warming and cooling of 15 degrees C. for 800 million years.
There is relational chaos resulting in:
a) Distrust, eventually leading to internecine war
b) Desperate competition, even among pro-lifers
c) Disloyalty, even among family members, as Jesus predicted.
There is despair, partly from declining fertility. Children produce hope. With fewer children, there is less hope, with less hope, people are less likely to have children. Despair also comes from the experience of PASS, which affects at least 50% of the world’s population.
Chaos and despair also stem from unresolved problems. There is a huge amount of undealt-with guilt and grief complicated by guilt resulting from transgressing the most basic of all human instincts, that is to preserve the young at all cost.
Death and despair result from re-enacting unresolved problems. The world is sucked into a vortex and people are realizing it can only go down. As Isaiah predicted, people are not inclined to listen in spite of the fact they ostensibly want to be educated.
The world’s Pseudo-solutions
1) Control. People think that with increasing control economic problems can be resolved.
2) Distraction. When people cannot endure the turmoil of their mind or the chaos they see on television news, more vivid exciting forms of entertainment.
3) Scapegoating: When a nation cannot deal with its problems, it turns upon a minority and blames them. It was the Jews during the Nazi regime. It may be the Christians next.
4) Sexual and identity chaos. The APA now records their forty-five paraphilias.
5) Band-aides, false and incomplete therapies result in chronicity of the problem and self-deprecating. Fear and false hope eventually result in “men’s hearts failing them for fear”, literally. There will be spiralling medical costs, which the government will attempt to control by limiting the care of the elderly and handicapped.
Hope Alive
1) With intensity and determination we must preach and heal, “You need Jesus. You need healing.”
2) We must change our lifestyle. We must do this voluntarily before we are forced to do it.
3) We must dare to be different.
4) We must dare to be consistent. Abortion results in a huge number of very deep problems. This means we must change our lifestyle to be consistent with our belief the preborn is a real live person.
5) We must dare to be loyal to family, friends, and fellow IHACAns.
6) We must dare to listen and help others listen by our example. We must be prepared to listen, particularly to what we do not want to hear.
7) We must dare to be true to the Lord.
8) We must dare to be courageous.
9) We must dare to die.
10) We must fight a loosing battle victoriously. The scripture made it plain things cannot get better until they get much worse. Isaiah asked, “Lord how long must I do this?” and God replied. “Until their cities are destroyed and no one left in them.” Isaiah 6:11
11) We must dare to flee to share the gospel in places where it seldom heard. That is where you can be safe. Please read and think about the above and fill in the spaces with how it has an impact on your life and what you are prepared to do about it.
As IHACAns our hope is kept alive by being in touch with reality and the joy of seeing counselees heal and come to know the Lord Jesus.