“Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.” Zec 9:12
This is a passage that has always captured my attention. My mother (she is now with the Lord), would always cite this verse. This morning I decided to take a closer look at it.
It’s a verse that uses two interesting words together: prisoners and hope! It can be interpreted both as being a prisoner of hope or a prisoner that has hope.
Personally I feel that it is kind of mixture of both. In one sense we are prisoners in this world: limited by our flesh and carnal desires, surrounded by enemies, hardships, and physical and emotional handicaps. Yet we have what Peter in his first epistle, chapter 1, verse 3 calls a living hope to which we have been born again to, through the work of Jesus Christ.
We continue in this tabernacle of flesh like Paul says in 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, groaning so that we can be clothed with the spiritual reality, that Christ has given us in our new birth. So on one hand we are prisoners, but on the other we have a living hope. It is this hope that has to become the dominating factor of our lives. We need to “walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Co 5:7)
When we walk by faith, we base our lives on our hope, and not on what we are experiencing at the moment – prisoners. We may be prisoners now, but we have already been bought, we have already been set free, we have a living hope, and that has to become our lifeline.
Apostle Paul in the previous chapter (2 Co 4) says that everything we experience now is producing, generating the greater glory which will become our reality. And that is what is expressed in our original passage in Zechariah – “double unto thee”. Also in Isaiah 61:7, where it is promised “double honor in the place of our shame”.
So we are prisoners now, but heirs of all. That is our hope! We are prisoners that have a living hope, and we are prisoners of our hope – which means, we are prisoners because of our hope. We have chosen to be prisoners, to obtain a higher hope. We could be “free” and enjoy the pleasures of sin, but there would be no hope – we would have our reward now, and nothing to hope for, or we can accept the limitations of our faith, and endure the shame of the cross, but at the same time know that we do not belong to this world, and therefore we are heirs of the life to come.
Look at these passages to confirm what I have been saying:
Heb 3: 6
Heb 6: 18
Heb 7:19
Jer 14:8
Jer 17: 13
Heb 11:1, 24
Rom 8:14-24
In this last passage, Paul clearly shows, that being born again is not a changing of religion, not a theory, but a change in what leads our lives. What is the driving force of our lives? Are we driven by what we have or want to have now – money, happiness, success, fame etc, or by what we hope for, what we were born again to hope for – please God, experience the powers of the life to come, the power of the Holy Spirit, who is our new owner?
When we realize the true nature of who we are in God, through our new birth, and what we are called to, we will begin to enjoy the fulfillment of this calling now. We will start to see the eternal power of the life to come being released into our reality today, (Heb 6:5) and taste of the invasion of eternity into the realm of today.
I have always cherished a description of faith used by my father (I don’t know exactly where he got it) which basically says that faith is a perpendicular line that connects our dimension of time with eternity. In other words every time we really exercise our faith in God and his word, we are creating a perpendicular line of access into eternity and we bring into existence that which is “not”. Romans 4:17
We can experience the fulfillment of our hope more and more as we choose to be prisoners of hope. It will become greater and greater until death is absorbed by life, and it is a full day. 1 Co 15:53, 2 Co 5:4, Prov 4:18
When we understand this principle, we can experience prosperity, happiness, success in this life, be we can also go through deserts, valleys, times of scarcity, of living at the limit of our endurance, momentary defeat, etc – it will not change who we are, and we already know that in all these things we are more than over-comers. We are “prisoners of hope”. It is our hope that defines us, it is our hope that drives us, it is our hope that enables and empowers us.
It is this hope that enables us to be transformers in our generation. That is a whole subject in itself – to be a transformer, not only a church-goer. But what I do want to emphasize is that the manifestation of our hope is not limited to after we die, but it is for today, for now, God wants us to live by faith, to walk by faith, to change our surroundings by faith, to establish a new atmosphere wherever we are. To be the connection of eternity with “now” – our timeline. Our living hope as Peter calls it, is living – it’s dynamic, it’s transforming, it’s revolutionary! Sometimes that’s hard to see, when we look at ourselves and our present limitations of the prison we live in, but then as we give way to our Hope- the shackles are broken, the prison doors are open, the chains that hold us down fall to the ground and we can soar like eagles. (Is 40:31)
That’s why we have the word of God which is like a candle which shines in a dark place, reminding us of the true reality of our hope! It also keeps us from being captured by the transitional joy of the worldly delights, it keeps us focused on our true hope.
Another observation of our original passage in Zechariah 9:12 – we notice it calls us to return to the stronghold – there is a stronghold in God where we are protected from the weapons of the enemy, from the control of the “prince of the world”. We are in this world, but we are not of this world, and in this world, God has provided a stronghold, a fortress where he will us our lives as arrows in his bow as the passage continues speaking of in Zechariah 9, and also in Isaiah 49:2, which he will use to destroy the world system (again a whole other subject in itself). But it is in this fortress that is the Church, where we are protected under the shadow of his wings ( Ps 91.) It is here that we are prisoners of the Lord, and not of the enemy, we belong to him, and therefore we are truly free!
