If it is, good! You won't be the first person to be delivered from a totally hopeless situation! God has delivered his people from so many hopeless situations, it would be hard to count them all. You may fit right into the pattern. First, the hopeless situation, then the supernatural deliverance that was impossible through natural means.

Of course, I won't kid myself into thinking that you necessarily enjoy being in a hopeless situation, such as a report that you have an incurable disease that will slowly destroy your body, hurting and embarrassing you, making you an increasing burden to your family's time and money. But at least a report like that defines the situation clearly. You must either believe God or die. Either you put his Word to work in your life, or your life on earth will end. In a way, that is a better situation than one where the doctors think that trying eleven different treatments might cure you or delay the progression of your illness. In the case where they might be able to help you, you can lean on the arm of flesh and waver in your walk with God more easily. When it's God or an early exit, the choice is easy. You have no choice but to hear God's Word and act on it.


It's funny how we get so down on the spies with the bad report who could not enter Canaan, and the grumblers who predicted that the Egyptian army would "terminate" them at the Red Sea, but then when we face a situation that pales in comparison, we don't want to walk the walk of faith that Moses did. We admire Moses for his courage and trust in God, but we want to run away from the situation rather than be taken through it. We get an electric bill in the mail that we can't pay and we panic. Let me tell you, God can deliver you from things much bigger than electric bills!

The Israelites were not just being sued at the Red Sea. They were not just going to be inconvenienced. They were going to die. There was no way out. They were surrounded. They followed God's instructions, and it looked like God had let them down and given them up to die. Some even said so. Picture what they must have feared. No life to enjoy a spouse and children, no chance to ever fulfill your dreams and make something of your talents. Just a sure, ugly death at the hands of the merciless Egyptians. Just watching the enemy butcher your family and friends, knowing that you're next. It was over; there was no way out. This is not a fairy tale. This happened to around two million real flesh-and-blood people like you! Death was certain and everything was hopeless -- except for one thing. These people had obeyed God's Word, and God was not going to let them fail. God had promised them something -- the land of Canaan. God's promise meant more than all the Egyptian chariots put together.


God's promise was the only thing these people had, but it was all they needed. When God's promise is the only thing you have, rest assured that it is all you need, too. And God has provided healing for your body even if the doctors have given up hope. God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites. That was impossible -- there was just no way it could happen. God can heal whatever is wrong with your body even when seems to be no way that it could happen.

Later, God told Israel to conquer Jericho. Talk about "Mission: Impossible!" The shout of victory out of their mouths caused Jericho's walls to fall flat. The shout of victory out of your mouth can flatten the walls that stand before you, no matter how impenetrable they seem. God is well able to give you the victory when you can't possibly figure out a way to get it.


How about Daniel? Wouldn't you consider being thrown into a den of lions to be a hopeless situation? It was certain death. We get religious about it because we know the outcome, but Daniel was going to be executed as a criminal. They just happened to use lions instead of gas chambers, electric chairs, firing squads or lethal injections back then. He would have made a good subject for one of those "death row" movies. All appeals have failed. They throw a switch or pull their triggers. But the gas that is supposed to end his life somehow doesn't do it. The electricity in the chair doesn't hurt him. The bullets all miss. He's not dead. This is a fairly good illustration of what it must have felt like to be Daniel. He was a regular person like you, not some comic book hero. I'm sure he had some disagreeable feelings before he got thrown to the lions. How would you feel if you were about to be executed using the standard procedure where you're from? All Daniel had was God, and God was all he needed.


Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego were also supposed to be executed for their stand for God. Their situation was hopeless, too. You just don't survive being thrown into a furnace. The people who threw them in didn't even survive! Don't you suppose they might have had some tense moments, even though they knew that God would deliver them? It was God or nothing, and God was all they needed.

What about David at Ziglag, where the enemy had torched the city, carried off the women and children captive (including David's two wives), and his own army started to commit treason against him by speaking of stoning him? How would you like to be David that day? This really happened to a real person. David did not have the advantage of reading 1 Samuel 30 to see the outcome. David was probably about ready to die! He was "greatly distressed." I suppose that if bandits kidnapped your family and burned down your house, you would be greatly distressed, too. Don't get religious about it; you know full well that you would not consider it a good day. David "encouraged himself in the Lord his God," prayed and got instructions from God, and got everything back! If David had quit, he would not have gotten anything other than a fatal stoning. He chose to encourage himself in the Lord despite impossible circumstances. If David can do it and get the victory, so can you! David didn't have your new and better covenant!


Consider Hezekiah's dilemma. He had at least 185,000 men coming at his city, intent on conquering it. How would you like to have 185,000 people heading toward your town, intent to take it over? Not only that, but they've hired a good PR man who has managed to put fear into the people in your town so that they feel defeated before the battle even starts. You can see why Hezekiah rent his clothes. (Rent means tore; it does not mean that Hezekiah visited the local tux shop.) When he cried out to God, God sent an angel and killed 185,000 people in one night. (Side note covered elsewhere in this book: God can and will remove you from the picture if you actively set yourself against his works. You won't stop his plans. God reserves wrath for his enemies. The idea is not to make yourself one of his enemies.)


Now on the other hand, King Asa had a hopeless situation -- an exceedingly great disease. King Asa did not encourage himself in the Lord his God. He did not seek God at all. He looked only to doctors who could not cure him. He died. Asa served the same God that David, Daniel, Hezekiah and the others did. In times past, his trust in God delivered Israel in battle. But when he stopped trusting God, God stopped coming through for him.

Backslidden Israel got into some really hopeless situations, and the people died!

From this, we see that being in a hopeless situation is by itself no guarantee that you will be delivered. If you stay true to God and to his Word, you will be, but if you doubt him or trust in man, he will not necessarily come through for you. God does the impossible stuff but it is up to you to trust him and take him at his word.


Now suppose that you took the religious world's approach to a deadly illness. You just accept it as the will of God. You pray to die as painlessly as possible and to have peace while so doing. There won't be any deliverance for you if you do that -- you'll just die! The greats of faith listed above were actively trusting God to deliver them. Their deliverance did not just happen. Hezekiah got no help until he asked for it. Just because you are a Christian does not mean that God will just swoop down from heaven and heal you, any more than he would just swoop down and save sinners irrespective of his Word.

The woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 got no help until she reached out and received it from God. I don't mind stating that God can and does use doctors, but he didn't use the doctors who worked on this woman. She lost everything paying their bills and still only got worse. She had an incurable disease, but her faith got her healed of it. (That's not being arrogant; Jesus himself said that her faith had made her well. Argue with him if you don't like that.)


Think of all the blind and deaf people Jesus healed. Their situations were incurable. No one else was going around healing those people. Yet nothing was impossible when men came to the Savior. He is the same Miracle-Worker today.

Your illness is curable, even if your doctor says it isn't. The Great Physician stands ready and able to heal you. He will be more than happy to heal you of your hopeless terminal illness!