ISRAEL'S HOPE ENCOURAGED; OR, WHAT HOPE IS, AND HOW DISTINGUISHED FROM FAITH: WITH ENCOURAGEMENTS FOR A HOPING PEOPLE
Hope is excellent, 1. Against those discouragements that arise out of our bowels. 2. It is excellent to embolden a man in the cause of God. 3. It is excellent at helping one over the difficulties that men, by frights and terrors, may lay in our way.
1. It is excellent to help us against discouragements arising out of our bowels (Rom 4). This is clear in the instance last mentioned about Abraham, who had nothing but discouragements arising from himself, but he had hope, and as well he exercised it; wherefore, after a bit of patience enduring, he overcame the difficulty and obtained the promise (Heb 6:13-18). The reason is that it is the nature of genuine hope to turn away its ear from opposing challenges to the word and mouth of faith and perceive that faith has got hold of the promise of hope, notwithstanding problems that do or may attempt to intercept, will expect, and so wait for the accomplishment thereof.
2. Hope is excellent at emboldening a man in the cause of God. Hence the apostle saith, 'Hope maketh not ashamed'; for not to be ashamed there, is to be emboldened (Rom 5:5). So again, when Paul speaks of the troubles he met with for the profession of the gospel, he saith, that they should turn to his salvation. 'According to,' saith he, 'to my earnest expectation, and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death' (Phil 1:19,20). See here, a man at the foot of the ladder, now ready in will and mind to die for his profession, but how will he carry it now? Why, with all brave and innocent boldness! But how will he do that? O! By the hope of the gospel that is in him; for by that he is fully persuaded that the cause he suffereth for will bear him up in the day of God and that he shall be well rewarded for it.
3. It is also excellent at helping one over those difficulties that men, by frights and terrors, may lay in our way. Hence, when David was almost killed with the reproach and oppression of his enemies, and his soul full sorely bowed down to the ground therewith, that he might revive and get up again, he calls to his soul to put in exercise the grace of hope, saying, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God (Psa 42:11). So again saith he in the next Psalm after, as afore he had complained of the oppression of the enemy, 'Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God (Psa 43:5). Hope, therefore, is a soul-encouraging grace, a soul-emboldening grace, and a soul-preserving grace. Hence, it is called our helmet or head-piece, the helmet of salvation (Eph 6:17; 1 Thess 5:8). This is one piece of the armor with which the Son of God was clothed when he came into the world, and it is that against which nothing can prevail (Isa 49:17). For as long as I can hope for salvation, what can hurt me! This word spoken in the blessed exercise of grace, I HOPE FOR SALVATION, drives down all before it. The truth of God is that man's 'shield and buckler' that hath made the Lord his hope (Psa 91:4).
[Encouragements to exercise this grace.]—And now to encourage thee, good man, to the exercise of this blessed grace of hope as the text bids, let me present thee with that which followeth. 1. God, to show how well he takes hoping in him at our hands, has called himself 'the God of hope' (Rom 15:13), that is, not only the author of hope but the God that takes pleasure in them that exercise it, 'The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy' (Psa 147:11). 2. He will be a shield, a defense to them that hope in him. 'Thou art my hiding-place and my shield,' saith David, 'I hope in thy word'; he knew he would be so, for he hoped in his word (Psa 119:114). 3. He has promised us the life we hope for, to encourage us still to hope, and to endure all things to enjoy it (Titus 1:2). 'That he that ploweth should plow in hope and that he that thresheth in hope, should be partaker of his hope' (1 Cor 9:10).
Quest. But you may ask, what is it to exercise this grace, right?
Answ. 1. You must look well to your faith, that that may prosper, for as your faith is, such your hope will be. Hope is never ill when faith is well, nor strong if faith is weak. Wherefore Paul prays that the Romans might be filled 'with all joy and peace in believing,' that they might 'abound in hope' (Rom 15:13). When a man by faith believes to joy and peace, then hope grows strong, and with an assurance looketh for a share in the world to come. Wherefore look to your faith and pray heartily that the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace in believing. 2. Learn of Abraham not to faint, stumble, or doubt at the sight of your weakness; if you do, hope will stay below and creak in the wheels as it goes because it will want the oil of faith. But say to thy soul, when thou beginnest to faint and sink at the sight of these, as David did to his, in the places mentioned before. 3. Be much in calling to mind what God has done for thee in former times. Keep thy experience as a choice thing (Rom 5:4). 'Remember all the way the Lord led thee these forty years in the wilderness' (Deut 8:2). 'O my God,' saith David, 'my soul is cast down within me, therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites from the hill Mizar' (Psa 42:6). 4. Be much in looking at the end of things, or rather to the end of this and the beginning of the next world. What we enjoy about God in this world may be an earnest of hope or a token that the thing hoped for is to be ours at last. Still, the object of hope is, in general, the next world (Heb 11:1). We must, therefore, put a difference betwixt the mother of hope, Faith; the means of hope, the Word; the earnest of hope, Christ in us; and the proper object of hope, to wit, the world to come, and the goodness thereof (Psa 119:49; Col 1:27).
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