Having Hope During Hopeless Times

It is a message of hope that allows us to rise above the frustrations of what is and go on, because we see what will be as God's plan comes to realization.

We have talked—I heard a message Ferris Bowen gave recently—talked about being assaulted by the news. I made that same type of a comment two weeks ago when I was here. I checked the news this morning. It's just gotten worse. You can go and check what's going on in the Gaza Strip. Nothing good happening there. You can go over to Iraq and Syria. Now they're not calling it ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, because they've got their eyes on a much larger area, and they're just calling it now the Islamic State. And you have Christians—anyone who takes the name of Christianity up in northern Iraq, and they're basically being given the option, you can convert to Islam or you're dead. And that's it. So we look at all kinds of things going on in this world around us. Two weeks ago, we had the horrible fire storms, wildfires up in the state of Washington. Now, it seems like they're down more so in northern California. Well, Mr. Holiday, again, a week ago, in his letter, he mentioned a lot of those things. And then let me read just a little of what he wrote. He said, we live in a cynical age, a time in history when so many are pessimistic about the future. Many have given up hope of finding a job and have dropped out of the workforce in the United States. Financial woes abound. Our southern border is like a sieve with not only children crossing the border, but also criminals, gang members, and terrorists. They bring with them the potential for major diseases like tuberculosis that can quickly spread across the country. And let me pause right there. What about Ebola? You know, that started in those, there's three little countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and there's one more in that far western part of Africa, and then someone. Liberia. Thank you. Yes, those three. And now we have two health care workers from the United States who've been over there. They've got it, and they came back to Atlanta. And I sure hope that the quarantine ward is as good as they claim it is over there in Emory University Hospital. So, anyhow, back to Mr. Holiday. He says, crime runs rampant in some of our major cities like Chicago, where on any given weekend, dozens of people are shot. We have major scandals in this country involving the Internal Revenue Service and the Veterans Administration. Our political system is gridlocked, the values on which our country was founded are being undermined constantly. And then he says, all of these situations contribute to the hopelessness shared by many in society. They do not yet understand the optimism that we have for the future. This is one of the main reasons why the Feast of Tabernacles is so important. It is a time that we assemble together with God to have our hearts and minds refocused on the great hope revealed in God's plan. Then he referred to Hebrews 6. And let's turn there because the book of Hebrews refers to this hope that God has given to us.

There's a couple of neat phrases here. Hebrews 6, and we'll just look at verses 18 and 19. Let's look at the latter part of verse 18.

Speaking of, you know, we who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. So it reads as though we have to go and actively lay hold on and latch on to the hope that God has therefore us. Verse 19, this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.

So we live in a world with very little hope. These are hopeless times, and hopelessness, sadly, can be highly contagious. The title of the sermon is Having Hope During Hopeless Times.

Because we're not the first people who have lived in a society that had very little hope, and yet stay separate from it and not pick up that disease called hopelessness. At times, the hope quotient of one of God's servants can wane. We have to admit that. We have lots of scriptural examples, and I'll rather than take the time to turn to these, I'll give you a few scriptural passages you could make a note of, or if you want to try to turn there real fast. Numbers 11 verses 1 through 15 tells a story of a time when Moses, he wanted to be out of his job. The children of Israel were so frustrating to him at times.

Numbers 11 tells a story of there was this murmuring, complaining, and I thought it was interesting. The early verses, the fire of the Lord, consumed some on the outskirts of the camp. So what does that tell us? We better have both feet planted right in the middle of the church. You get out there on the fringes, you're in grave danger. It goes on, and it started with the mixed multitude. We remember when they came out of Egypt many years earlier, there were these other peoples that went with them and were welcome. And yet, first with them, they got sick and tired of the manna, what it was called the food of affliction. It was the food they had while they were paying the price of sin. Well, it began spreading, and you had all of Israel, and you had them in the door of their tent, and they were complaining about this manna. They wanted some flesh. Well, later on, they got the flesh, and we know the rest of that story. But in the meantime, Moses, he goes to God. It says God was angry, and Moses was certainly perturbed greatly with them. And Moses goes to God in prayer, and he said, you know, did I conceive all of these people? In other words, am I the father of every last one of these complainers? Well, he was a father-type figure, yes. But no, he was not literally the one who conceived all of them. And then he says to God, if you treat me like this, please kill me here and now. And so Moses, he was tired of his job. The hopelessness and the attitude of murmuring complaining were wearing on him. And his, what I call, the hope quotient, his hope quotient waned for a while, but he recovered. It was temporary, and God had a lot for him to do in the meantime. Another example would be Elijah. Now, we remember the story of 1 Kings 18. 1 Kings 18, Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal, the prophets of the Grove, the two sacrifices, Israel. Elijah says, how long are you going to halt between two opinions? And you remember the story of the other prophets' sacrifice, and they're crying out, and they cut themselves, and it went on and on, and they wailed, and nothing ever happened. And then about the time of the evening sacrifice, it was time for Elijah's burnt offering. And, you know, the barrels of water that had been poured on three times. And then after his little brief prayer, the fire from God came and consumed all of it, licked up all the water. Then the hundreds of the false prophets were killed.

But then you go to 1 Kings 19 and what happens? Jezebel sends a message, I'm going to make you like one of them. And Elijah, he heads to Mount Horeb, which is a long way down. He gets out of there. He ends up in a cave. And in 1 Kings 19, the first 11, 12 verses tell that story. But from that cave is where he cried out, you know, I've been zealous for you, but the people haven't torn down the altars. They haven't kept the covenant. And essentially, you know, I'm the only one. Well, God reassured him that no, no, you're not the only one. But it seemed that his hope quotient had waned, again, temporarily because God had a lot for Elijah to do. Job 3 verses 1 through 11. That's where Job, you know, he's had things blown away. He's lost family. He's physically hurting. And he opened his mouth and he cursed the day of his birth. And then verses later, he asked, why didn't I just die on the day of my birth?

Well, again, we get to see him go through. He passed through and the end of the book was a lot better picture. Jeremiah, more than once Jeremiah was in just the bleakest situation. Jeremiah 20 verses 1 through 14 tell of one time when because he was giving the house of Judah, the message of God, the prophetic message God had given Jeremiah for all his trouble, he gets stuck in stocks there in the gate of Benjamin. And at that time, he said, cursed be the day in which I was born. Let the day not be blessed in which my mother bore me. But again, God had a lot more for Jeremiah to do. He had a long, long ministry. It went a long time after that point. And then Jonah. Jonah would be another example. His prayer from the belly of the fish was mentioned in the sermon. He did then go and he was the reluctant prophet at first, but then he did God's job or the job God had given him.

And the unthinkable took place. The Ninevites listened and they proclaimed fasting and prayer and they repented. They changed and he didn't foresee that. And he was waiting for the time when they would get fried. And it says that the Lord relented of the evil that he had. You know, he had the plan where they were going to be warned and then destroyed.

So Jonah is in his funk, if we can use that term. And in Jonah 4 verse 3, he said, therefore, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

So these are all examples. There are so many we could turn to in the Bible. Of servants of God, through whom God worked powerfully, who then just got down on the dumps and they lost hope. Dictionary.com defines the word hope as a noun as the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best. So you have hope of, maybe hope of winning. I will tell a story on myself. Last February, there was a Super Bowl. And I hoped Peyton Manning would get another ring and wait three weeks and announce retirement.

I am afraid he's trying to get another season or two more than he ought. And too many times, some of the really greats do that. Well, obviously, from about the first play, when I saw he wasn't even looking and the football went zinging by his ear, I thought, this is not bode well. And sure enough, it was all downhill. It was not a pretty sight. That was my personal hope. Now, so much so I have a personal policy to not talk about football during church, and I just broke that. So please forgive me of that.

The word hope as a verb to feel that something desired may happen. I gave an example that we might hope for an early spring. Or, you know, of course, the rain is kind of spotty in some areas here. We might hope for more rain and in other areas, and I hope it'll stop raining finally. But, you know, there's a difference in the way humans use the word hope and the way the Bible uses it. With humans, it's more of a hope so. I hope my team will win this ballgame. I hope I'll get a raise. I hope it's something we want. But the way the Bible uses it, it's more of a not hope so. It's a no so, and that's K-N-O-W. We know beyond any doubt. We have an expectation that is so sure and certain and real. And there's a difference there. Humans have this limited hope. And when the Bible speaks of like when we just read here, we have this hope we have as an anchor of the soul. We see what will be as God's plan unveils. And it's real and it's genuine.

Now, in looking at biblical examples, in my estimation, there's one man that I don't find him ever losing hope. And he wrote a lot that we have in the Bible. But I don't find that David ever had that hope quotient wane. Even in some of his Psalms, when he would begin his Psalm and they're trying to kill me, or sometimes he was just angry and he'd say, you know, break their teeth, oh Lord. But as he goes through the Psalm, he ends on an upswing.

And you realize there was that level, that modicum of hope, that was never compromised. Now, David, we actually are introduced to him before he's even named by name. Because in the days of Saul, 1st Samuel 13 would be where the story is, where Saul had 2,000 soldiers, Jonathan had 1,000, Jonathan went in a position where they struck at the Philistines, and God gave them a great overthrow. Well, then you have the Philistines regathering up north. I believe it was around Geba there on the south side of that Beth-Haven Pass around Micmash. And the Israelites were together around Gilgal Shiloh, that area down below Jericho. But they were waiting for Samuel, waiting for Samuel to come as God's prophet and offer burnt offering.

And of course, ask God's guidance and God's blessing as they go out to war. Well, they waited one day and that led to another day. And he ended up being a week. And Saul gave, he got impatient. And Saul offered the burnt offering. Now, Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul had no business doing that.

That was, you know, the offering of offerings by that time was something that was to be done within the tribe of Levi, but specifically the priestly lines. And so, as he is finishing the burnt offering, then here comes Samuel. So here came Samuel, and he informed Saul that God would have made your kingly line permanent, but now it's going to end. And he said, that's when he said that the Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart.

That's 1st Samuel 13 verse 14. A man after his own heart. Now, the apostle Paul, early in his ministry in Acts 13, he is in Antioch and Pisidia. And Sabbath day comes. He goes to the synagogue. There's the customary scripture readings. Then he stood up to speak, and as he spoke, he quoted from that very verse, but he added the phrase, who will do all my will?

So David hasn't even been named yet, but God, through Samuel, tells Saul, your line ends. I'm going to seek out a man after my own heart who will do all my will. And he is going to be the shepherd of Israel. Well, that led to different events. And then in chapter 16, we have the story of Samuel going to the household of Jesse, and you had Eliyev and Shammah. And there's a third one, the three older ones mentioned. Then down through the sons, and well, is there anyone else? Well, yeah, we've got the young one out here at the flomps.

And that's when David was anointed to become the next king. But it was not explained when that would happen. And it turned out to be quite a while before it happened. And then chapter 17, you have the story of Jesse sending David to go to where the Israelites are set up in array there for battle with the Philistines at the Valley of Elah. Take some supplies to your three oldest brothers, see how they're doing, and come back and report.

Well, while he's there, you have this giant named Goliath bellowing out his challenge. And David says immediately, well, who is this uncircumcised Philistine to defy the armies of the living God? Well, what he says is repeated. He gets all the way to Saul. And when David ends up speaking to Saul, and he offers saying, I'll go fight the guy. I think I've told you, I read it. I forget what commentary it was, but somebody made the wonderful, insightful comment that Israel looked at Goliath and said, this guy is too big to fight.

David looked at Goliath and said, this guy is too big to miss. You know, if I sling something at him, I've got to hit him.

Well, you had a man of faith versus, you know, fear had been contagious throughout Israel. So David is telling Saul, you know, here he is just a kid, just a kid, just a teenager. But he says, well, you know, the bear came and here's what happened. And the lion came and here's what happened. And the Lord delivered him into my hands. And then he said he will do the same with this with this uncircumcised Philistine who's dividing the armies of God. And you know the rest of the story. But he was, I said he was just a kid, just the teenager. But you know, a lot of times a child has a beautiful faith. They have a living hope like Peter wrote about God has begotten us again with this living hope that sadly, sometimes as we get hurt and we get a little life experience under our belt, we don't like to be hurt. And we build these protective shells around us. But you go back and you look at Samuel when he was little and he was there with Levi, not Levi, Eli. And God would call to him in the night and he'd just go running off to Eli. Yes, my Lord. And just this beautiful, trusting, open, faithful, hope-filled approach to life. Well, David, David is a man of great hope and he lived that hope. But you know, he also faced death, it seems like, continually. From the time as a lad, he faces Goliath. And then for years and years, it seems that jealousy came along for Saul right after that because of the Israelites singing Saul has killed his thousands, but David is tens of thousands. And he would eye David and he, one time, threw the javelin at him and at other times got Armin chased after him. And so he was continually a danger at the hands of Saul and many others. And then later in life, including his own son Absalom. But as he writes, we have an insight into his mind and how he thinks. And he does not appear to me to have ever truly lost hope or truly even had it waned much. No matter what it was, he still saw a cross to what God's plan was going to mean. Let's go to Psalms. Psalm 3, first of all.

Some of the times when David wrote, we know what was going on in his life.

Now, a lot of the times we don't. There were times when he wrote the most magnificent praises to God. And we don't know exactly when, where, what was going on in his life. I'd like to know that someday.

At other times he wrote under great duress. At other times when he was sick, wounded. But every time he'd go through and his hope would come out. Psalm 3, right under there, it says, now a lot of Bibles that will have it in a little smaller print, a little smaller font. But realize where it says, a Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son. Now that is in the inspired Hebrew. You know, it's not something added by translators later. It's in the Hebrew. In fact, if you have the Jewish Tanakh, the Jewish translation, that will be there verse one. And then our verse one will be there verse two, if that makes sense. Look at Psalm 7.

Psalm 7, a meditation of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush of Benjamin. And there was that instance back in Samuel where he had been threatened. So he's writing this, save me from those who persecute me, deliver me, lest they tear me like a lion.

He begins that way, but again, he goes full cycle. Psalm 18, Psalm 18, to the chief musician, a Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spoke to the Lord, the words of this song, on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul and he said. So these are just some of the examples. When he had every reason to become infected with hopelessness, but he didn't because he had a genuine hope that got him through. Let's go to Psalm 38 because here we have an insight. We aren't told when, where, how it happened. But in Psalm 38, another Psalm of David, the bring to remembrance, Oh, Lord, do not rebuke me in your wrath, nor chasten me in your hot displeasure. So David was being chastened. He was being punished by God.

For your arrows pierced me deeply and your hand presses me down. There is no soundness in my flesh because of your anger and or any health in my bones because of my sin. He wasn't blaming it on anyone or any, anything. He wasn't blaming it on events. It was his. If you read Psalm 51, that Psalm of repentance, he says, against you, you only have a sinned on this evil in your sight.

My sin is ever before me. And so he's doing that again here. Verse five, my wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness. Again, he brought it on himself. And maybe he was wounded, had wounds that were healing and festering. And then just again, we were just left to wonder. Verse 10, my heart pants, my strength fails me for the light of my eyes. It has all gone from me. So it reads kind of like a panic attack that he's having here. Heart racing and hyperventilating, perhaps. Verse 11, my loved ones and my friends stand aloof at my plague. My relatives stand afar off. So he's deserted by friends and family.

Verse 12, those who seek my life, lay snares for me. So people are literally trying to kill him. But let's go down to verse 15. For in you, O Lord, I hope you will hear, O Lord, my God.

Verse 21, do not forsake me, O Lord, O my God, be not far from me, make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation. There are times in every Christian's life, when it seems we have done all that we physically can, all that we know to do, and we find we've backed ourselves into a box canyon. There's no exit.

We reach a point where we have exhausted all options that we can see with our limited vision.

It may be illness. I mean, boy, it just seems like a continual thing we live with now. We have so many of our brethren who suffer so much. It's ongoing. And when it just goes on and on, it just can kind of sap the hope out of you if you're not careful. It might be injury.

It might be a child in distress. As parents and grandparents, when that child is three or six or nine, I mean, there are a lot of things we can do to go fix things when they get themselves into a mess. You can run over there and you can get them away from a hot stove or whatever it is. But the older they get, the more that that child in distress, we can't go and fix it like we would like to. And we pray and we place them in God's hands and we wait and we hope. It may be a breach in a relationship. Sometimes you have wedges driven between. It may be two people. It may be several people. And Satan gets in there and drives a wedge between brethren. But you know, we can only do our part. You can do everything you possibly can. But if the other person has reached a point where they shut that door and won't even listen to you, they aren't even open to it, it's frustrating. It's painful. You know, God wants us to have a healing of the breach, but you can't do their part. They have to do their part. And so sometimes we just wait. We've done everything we can. We just wait and we continue to pray and to hope that the latter end will be resolved. Sometimes it's financial distress. Things happen over which we seem to have had no control. And we come to a place where we look around and all we have is God. And we wonder, is that what he was working out all along? And the answer is probably so. To bring us to a point where all we have is God and we have to rely on Him. David, of course, had a number of children, but his son Solomon wrote, and we have his writings in the Bible. He wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which to me is a fascinating book. It reads as though it's written late in life. It gives me hope about Solomon. Some people want to read 1 Kings 11, you know, about how all these women and their wives turned his heart, and they just want to sweep him aside. But if this really is the last thing he wrote, he tried this great experiment. He was a man with no budgetary constraints. He built buildings, and well, there's a certain enjoyment in enjoying the fruit of your own labor, but it's not the ultimate happiness. He built pools. He built gardens. He did huge feasts and found that the secret of life is not in eating and drinking.

And hopefully he somewhere along the line learned that it sure isn't going to come out of your harem, either. But at the end of that book, he said, here's what's important. Fear God, keep his commandments. This makes the whole man. So when I read Ecclesiastes, I like it. I'm glad it's there because somehow I want to think, and I believe the latter end of Solomon was a whole lot better than what we saw for a while there in 1 Kings. He writes a number of intriguing statements, and to me, one of the more intriguing is when he wrote that a living dog is better than a dead lion. And he just kind of plopped, lays that out there. And we'll come back to that in a little bit. A living dog is better than a dead lion. You read Ecclesiastes, and let's go to Ecclesiastes 9. You read this and yeah, it kind of reads like a man who became a cynic.

And you can actually read this and kind of become a little cynical yourself if you aren't careful. But he had tried it all, he had seen it all, and he came to the point in life where he also just had to all he had was God, and he had to just place his life in the hands of God. And if we do that as well, there's always hope. There's always hope. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 1, For I considered all this in my heart, so that I could declare it all, that the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hand of God. And that's true, much more than we realize. Our lives are in the hand of God. People know neither love nor hatred by anything they see before them. All things come alike to all one event happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good, the clean, and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.

As is the good, so is the sinner. He who takes an oath as he who fears an oath. There is an evil in all that is done unto the Son, that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil. Madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. I have a friend that when his dad lived, he said that as a kid growing up, if he was complaining about anything, his dad would just say, well son, life stinks and then you die. And when I read that last verse, I think of that saying that my friend mentioned that his dad told him, life stinks, son, then you die. After that, they go to the dead. Verse 4, but for him who is joined to all the living, there is hope for a living dog is better than a dead lion. And I think through these four verses, what Solomon was saying is that he had learned that as long as we place our hands, our, excuse me, our, our life, our lives in the hands of God, as long as we're living, we have time. And that means there's hope because God's not through with us yet. If we live, God isn't through with us. There's time. Let's go to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11. And in verse one, we have that beautiful definition of faith. But here we see that faith is hinged or linked with hope.

Hebrews 11 verse one. Now faith is the substance or the marginal note in my Bible says the realization of things hoped for, the evidence, marginal note, the confidence of things not seen.

Now we know in the Bible that faith, hope, and love are linked together. Paul did that at the end of the love chapter. He said, now these three abide faith, hope, and love for charity in the old King James. But the greatest of these is love, but they are hinged together. These are three great pillars of a Christian's life. These three go hand in hand. We just read a definition of faith. I think one of the simplest definitions I've ever heard is many, many years ago, Mr. Harold Jackson visited us out in Lubbock, Texas, one of the old long-time evangelists. He said that faith is the degree to which you believe the promises of God. In a nutshell, that's about as good as I know to do. Faith is the degree to which we believe God's promises. Now hope, again, the world thinks of hope as being, well, I hope my team will win, or I hope it will have a cool front come through, or I hope it'll stop snowing. It's kind of a hope so. This is what I want to happen, but as the Bible uses it, it is a know-so. So hope is this earnest expectation. You know, it's what you see through eyes of faith that you then wholeheartedly expect to see happen in God's due time. And of course, then love, we know, is outward concern toward others. But David lived his life this way, and he writes so many times in the Psalms, and he is so far down the dumps, but then he comes out. He says, But in you, I do hope, O Lord. What happens if we lose hope? You know, we live in a world around us that there are people who have a degree of faith and belief in God, I mean, up to a certain level. I'd like to think that as those who've been given God's truth, who cherish the truth, who want to live by what we find to be biblically sound, I'd like to think that we understand a lot more. But it is possible for our hope quotient to suffer. But the world around us, so many, they have nothing to live for. What happens to people when they lose hope? Well, from time to time, we have a major disaster that hits this country, not this country, this world.

We're, this December, I believe, will be the 10th anniversary of the earthquake off an Annaman Sea and the tsunami, the tidal waves that hit, what was that? I said Indonesia this morning. I think it's Malaysia and southern Thailand, you know, that area of Phuket Island and all that. Thousands and thousands of lives lost. And you look at the footage and you've got people who, I mean, they've had everything they've worked for, swept away, they've lost it all. And to me, the look on the face says, I have no hope.

Not that many years back, we had the hurricane that hit New Orleans, Katrina. And, you know, there'd be people who had everything, they lost everything they were and all that they had. And a boat would get them off of a roof and bring them somewhere to dry ground, they'd step off and they had nothing. And it was a look of hopelessness to me that I kept seeing off of their faces.

Thursday, a week ago Thursday, I was trying to finish this sermon. I thought, I need a good catchy story for the beginning, the introduction. So I did my Google search and I forget the exact words, but it was real close to this. Examples of people who have lost hope. And for those of you who do that, you know, it pops up with all these options. And there was one, two, three down the list that got my attention. And it seemed a little different. And boy, was it ever. I clicked on it. It took me to a webpage, a webpage that is devoted to help people who have no hope and they have decided to end their life. And it went through all of these different ways by which people have killed themselves and laid out, I mean, even like the area of using a firearm, even laid out where you shoot yourself to have the greatest success. And so I got off of that website in a hurry. I did not want that rubbish in my mind at all. But there are websites where there are people looking for that kind of information. They have no hope. They've lost all hope. They don't have the hope burning within them that you and I have been given. But in the hand of God, as long as we live, there's hope. There's always hope. Where do we go if we sense or we find that our hope quotient is suffering? Well, where do we go for any answer? We go to the Word of God. We combine a study of the Word of God with prayer. Hope, like faith, like love, these are things that come from God. I think there's a limited sense of faith and sense of hope that humans have, but it is just that it's very limited. But then there's God's faith, the type of faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had when they told the king that our God's able to save us. But if he doesn't, we're still not going to worship your image.

God can give us that type of a hope that Peter wrote about, that we've been begotten again with this living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let's go back to the book of Psalms once again. Psalm 119. Because there are places where it ties together hope and God's Word. Psalm 119 is that long, long, beautiful Psalm. But let's just notice verse 81. 119 verse 81, My soul faints for your salvation, but I hope in your Word. Let's go to Psalm 130. And that's one of these Psalms of essence or Psalms of degrees.

Psalm 130. And let's read verse 5. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I do hope. So here too it links together hope with the inspired Word of God. Now, it does say, Paul wrote, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. We go to the Bible, we read stories of men and women of faith, and God intervened for them, and God saw them through. We come here, we hear each other's stories, it strengthens our faith. I can't help but conclude that it does the same thing with regard to hope. We go to the Word of God and it gives us hope because it paints this beautiful picture that over time becomes so much more real as again we fill in the details. God is our anchor. He's the anchor of the soul. God is the anchor of our present and of our future.

The Bible tells us that God will not allow us to be tried beyond what we're able to endure, certainly with His help. The Bible tells us that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Here in verse 7, verse 130 verse 7, O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is mercy with Him, abundant redemption. Here it ties together hope with mercy and with redemption. And we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. There is a covenant that God established with us, again, as you've heard it many times, as if it were symbolically written, the ink being the blood of Jesus Christ that made it all possible.

When our hope is in God, not in self, not in human beings, not in the almighty human mind, and not in the things man has made. When our hope is in God, it is a rock-solid hope.

Yes, the church sign up there near Athens says, man's way leads to hopelessness. God's way leads to endless hope. And the book of Hebrews said that this hope is an anchor of the soul. Let's back up in the Psalms to Psalm 31. I think we can learn, we can have our hope shored up, strengthened a lot from just reading in the Psalms because of what David went through.

Psalm 31 is the Psalm of David. He's crying to God in verse 2, deliver me speedily. Be my rock of refuge.

Verse 4, he prays, pull me out of the net.

He says, you are my strength.

Verse 9, he says, in the middle, my eye wastes away with grief. Yes, my soul and my body.

It's a bleak time. But as David goes through the Psalm, we find once again that he comes out of it. He ends on a high note. He speaks in verse 20 of how you'll hide them in the secret place of your presence from the plots of man. And he says in verse 24, be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord. Again, the world around us has little to hope for.

Christians can take heart and be courageous when we place God as our hope. When God is our hope, we have a sure thing. When our hope is in the world, our time is consumed with worrying about what tomorrow will bring and we have no peace of mind. But when we have hope in God, we have hope not only in today, the present, but also in the future because God is the one who guarantees our future. Psalm 33 verse 18.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy.

Verse 22, let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us just as we hope in you. Psalm 39.

39.

Verse 7. This is another Psalm of David. Verse 7, and now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. The human tendency is to look to ourselves, to look to other humans, to look to, oh, our employment, our employer, maybe unexpected inheritance that will come, retirement funds. We tend to look at those things, but those things can so easily be swept away. This last week, the stock market, it went down compared to some other times. It's just a little glitched, but there have been times. I think it was the fall there around the feast of 1987. Stock market, I forget what percentage it dropped, but Sam Walton was living then. Before the drop, he was worth $8 billion. After the drop, he was worth $6.2 billion. He says, it was all just paper, anyhow. Well, in 1929, there were others on Wall Street up in High Rises in New York City. When the stock market crashed, their life was over. They jumped out of windows and took their own lives. But, you know, if you look at any of these, there's not 100% certainty. An employer might think he's making his own decisions, but when one of God's elect worked there, think of Joseph working there in Egypt. God was sovereign. God was behind the scenes, working everything out. And the employer might think that they're making decisions, but it's, of course, subject to God's sovereignty. When we look to God, place our hands and our lives in God's hands, there's always hope. Psalm 42, verse 11. Now, this is actually one of the Psalms of some of the sons of Korah. Verse 11. Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God. For I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God.

So, the psalmist here kind of examining his own heart. Why am I so downcast? Why am I so distraught? And he comes to realize that there's no reason to be distraught when your hope is truly in God. And that gives him reason to praise. Those who stray or when we stray from God, we have every reason to be depressed, downcast, discouraged. The world's an uncertain place, but when our hope is in God, we have a sure thing.

65. Psalm 65.

I'm sorry, I said that wrong. Dyslexia is kicking in. Make it 62, but verse 5. Psalm 62, verse 5. 65. My soul wait silently for God alone, for my expectation, or the marginal note says, my hope is from him. It tells us that hope comes from God, which is why we go to the Bible to study of it, but also we go to God on our knees and pray for it. It comes, my hope is from him.

Oftentimes, we struggle with tomorrow when we ought not. Obviously, we need to make plans. We need to be prepared. The Proverbs says, the wise man foresees the evil and hides himself. But it's so easy for us to shift into the realm of worry. Worrying about tomorrow is just taking trouble from tomorrow and paying for it today. We don't have control over it. But if we lie down at night to try to go to sleep, and we start in our mind running over the things that happen today, and then if that leads to what in the world we're going to do about things tomorrow, then you turn around and you didn't sleep very well. You didn't get the rest that you needed. But it's easier to sleep when we leave tomorrow in the hands of God.

We've got too many here to turn to. There are so many places. Let me just read. I've got some of these I've got in my notes. Psalm 71 verse 5.

Psalm 71 verse 5. It says, For you are my hope, O Lord God. You are my trust from my youth. So is that one of David's? No, it's it's it's anonymous. We one-third of the Psalms don't have an author mentioned. Verse 14, But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.

So it reads to me that our hope needs to be linked together with praising God. More and more. Psalm 147 verse 11. The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.

One look at one example from Jeremiah. Jeremiah 29. There is a fascinating little statement made here that ties in hope with our future.

In Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah is reassuring the Jews. God through Him is reassuring the Jews that after 70 years of captivity in Babylon, you are going to return. Now, Remnant will come back and you're going to rebuild and you're going to go forward. Jeremiah 29 verse 11.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. And so He hinges together, future and hope. And we bank our eternal lives on the fact that God has a plan. He is working out for us. He knows all that there is to know about the coming Kingdom. He's doing a lot better job preparing that place for us than we can even imagine. But hope, you see, is not just for today, the present, but it's also for tomorrow, the future. Let's turn over to the New Testament. Romans 4. Just got three different quick references here. Maybe more than that, but three different places. Romans 4. This is a chapter where Paul was speaking about Abraham. Abraham being the father of all them that believe. And this is where it says in verse 13, that he was the heir of the world. Because ultimately, if you're Christ's, you're Abraham's seed and heirs to the promise. And that promise ultimately is to inherit the whole world. Now, in chapter 4, verse 17, speaking again here of Abraham, in the presence of him whom he believed, God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. Verse 18, who, contrary to hope, in hope believed.

So Abraham, way back when, wandering around dwelling in tents, dwelling in a land that wasn't his yet. Contrary to hope, in hope believed. So there it's tying belief or faith with hope together. So that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, so shall your descendants be. Let's look at chapter 5.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And then down it speaks here of tribulations leading to perseverance, leading the character, leading to hope. Verse 5, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us. So here He starts with faith, and He hinges that to hope, and He hinges that to the love of God that's poured in our hearts. First Peter 1. We should read the words where Peter actually said we have this living hope. As we have seen in our Bible studies on the general epistles, James is called the apostle of faith, and rightly so.

Faith and hope and charity or love. But James is the apostle of faith. He said, I will show you my faith. By the way, I live my life. Peter is called the apostle of hope, because a number of times you're going to find the word hope or hoped in in his letters. And then John, we all know that he uses the word love over and over and over. But in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

And that is that that we place our hope in. Looking to the inheritance, and it should be, as Peter called it, a living hope. A hope that is so genuine, so real, that we live by it. And then let's go to Philippians 1. Philippians 1, and we'll read some of the most encouraging scriptures in all the Bible. That's my assessment. Philippians 1, and as Paul customarily did, he sent greetings. This is one of his prison epistles. He's cooling his heels in Rome when he writes to Philippi. And in verse 3, he thanks God every time he thinks of them. And in verse 4, he prays for them. And in verse 5, he has always has always cherished the fellowship in the gospel that he has had with them. But verse 6, being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. There is a scripture that says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. We look at the world around us. We can't help but see. As we look at the news, the world is in peril. In the sermon on the mountain, no, on the all of that prophecy, rather, Jesus spoke of a time of great tribulation such as the world has never seen.

And the apostle Paul, he wrote to Timothy and he spoke of that in the last days, perilous times would come. And Peter wrote of a time when the last days scoffers would arise, saying, where's the promise of his coming? Well, we're living in those days. We're watching it every day around us. One of the booklets the United Church of God puts out, I love the title. It's the Book of the Holy Days. God's Holy Day plan, the promise of hope for all mankind. And we are just a few weeks away from once again beginning to keep the fall Holy Days. And the first one's going to remind us that the King of Kings is going to step on this earth and he is going to begin reigning. And the next one, the Day of Atonement, is going to remind us that the rotten government of this world, the spirit behind it all, his days are numbered. He's going to be out of here. And then the Feast of Tabernacles reminds us of, you know, of course, one of the things that happened with trumpets is the dead in Christ rides that great trumpet blast and then rain, live and rain with Christ for a thousand years. And forever, the same time will come when the saints, what was Daniel say? The saints of the Most High will be given the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. Amen. And in that, we must place our hope.