"Hope is a dangerous thing."

"Hope is a dangerous thing."

I just watched 1917 and I won't give anything away but the above line is spoken by a commanding officer to a young lance-corporal. He meant it is dangerous to have hope in such a dire situation as WWI, but I submit that, in this cosmic battle into which we were born, hope is dangerous because it is our weapon against the enemy. A hopeful people are a people full of potential, and if you oppose them, danger.

This brings me to Isaiah 61:1: "...the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted..." (NASB). The word afflicted here is the Hebrew word 'anav which can mean, "poor, humble, afflicted, lowly, (very) meek." But Genesius' Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon gives one more meaning that I clung to when I first read it: miserable.

Miserable comes from root words meaning "pitiable."

I just wanted to give you hope this morning that if you feel miserable, lowly, poor, meek, pitiable, YOU have good news preached to you by the Lord. And as we approach the end of Lent, I find it of the utmost importance to tell you that the aforementioned "good news" is Christ's birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and continuing work on our behalf. "...to bring good news to the afflicted..." And I believe we can weather anything this world or the devil himself throws at us with this news.

Hope is a dangerous thing.