“Is... there... any… hope?”

 

On May 23, 1939, the S-4 submarine Squalus sank off of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The entire crew was trapped in what appeared to be a prison house of death. Eventually though each of the thirty-three crewmen were rescued.  When the rescue squad reached the stricken sub, one of the divers tapped with metal on the hull in an effort to locale the sailors. He then placed his helmet up against the side of the vessel and he heard the familiar tapping – the longs and the shorts – of the Morse Code. What was the message that was being spelled out from within? It was repeating the same question. The question was, "Is... there... any… hope?"

 

Isn’t that same question being asked again and again today?

·        Listen to the lyrics of pop music;

·        Catch the message of stage and screen;

·        Notice the cries from the urban areas of America to the bug infested squalor of Calcutta.

·        The question is the same -- "Is... there... any… hope?"

 

Some time back, Charisma magazine carried an article on hope.  The account was written by a London rabbi.  He told of an experience in a Nazi concentration camp in which he was a prisoner.  I wish to share a portion of the story with you: “It was the cold winter of 1944 and although we had nothing like calendars, my father, who was a fellow prisoner, took me and some of our friends to a corner of the barrack.  He announced that it was the eve of Hanukkah.  He then produced a curious-shaped bowl, and began to light a wick immersed in his precious, but now melted, margarine ration.  Before he could recite the blessing, I protested at the waste of food.  He looked at me, then at the lamp, and finally said: 'You and I have seen that it is possible to live up to three weeks without food.  We once lived almost three days without water.  But you cannot live properly for three moments without hope.’”

 

Take from a person his wealth, and you hinder him; take from the individual his purpose, and you slow him down. But take from man his hope, and you stop him. He can go on without wealth, and even without purpose, for a while.  But he will not go on without hope. Hope is like oxygen. Take oxygen away and death comes by suffocation; take hope away and death comes by despair.  We live on hope.  When hope dies, we die.

 

An eminent American cardiologist noted that “hope is the medicine I use more than any other.  Hope can cure nearly anything.”

 

A noted minister wrote: “The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”

 

I make no apologies about it.  As a Minister of the Gospel, I see myself as a agent of hope.  I ever seek to encourage people to put their hope in Christ.

·        I want them to have hope in a better future;

·        Hope after this life is over;

·        Hope in the face of tragedy;

·        Hope while in a troubled home;

·        Hope when finances are low;

·        Hope when hope makes no sense.

 

Do you have hope this morning?

·        Many sermons are preached today on the need of faith.

·        We have preachers who are known as "faith preachers."

·        We have churches that are known as "faith churches."

·        There is even a Bible school in Tulsa that is built on the message of faith.

There is truly a need for more faith in this world.  However, faith is, according to Scripture, the substance of what?  HOPE!  We have to have hope before we can have faith.  Many people today have lost faith because first they gave up hope.

 

I am not here this morning to minimize the need of belief, but before we can run a race, we have to have a starting point.  Hope is that starting point.

 

PLEASE NOTICE WITH ME NOW THAT HOPE IS A MAJOR THEME OF SCRIPTURE.

The word "hope" is found some 158 times in The New International Version of the Bible?  

·        The Bible points out that we are saved in hope.

·        Hope is likewise tied to the second coming of Christ.

·        God the Father describes Himself as The God of Hope.

·        1 Corinthians 13:13 then adds: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  Again, hope finds itself in some pretty select company.   

Hope, along with love and faith, is truly one of the centerpieces of Christian truth! We are a people of hope! 

Having said that, I want to now share with you two

of my favorite “hope” stories.  Both are found in the Old Testament. 

The first one features Abraham.  While most people associate faith with this great man, I see him as also being a person who possessed great hope.  The brother was old.  His wife was old.  His animals, his tents, his clothes were old.  Everything about the fellow reeked of age.  Something else marked him and his wife.  They had never had a child.  They were both old and barren.  It was in such a hopeless situation that God came to Abe and told him that he was to become a father; Sarah was to become a mother.  Years passed.  Five, ten, maybe fifteen years and then the Lord appeared to Abraham once again and repeated the promise.  At this point, Abe was 99 and his wife was 89.  Nonetheless, within the year the promise was fulfilled and Isaac was born.  

Listen to these words found in Romans 4:18-21: “Against all HOPE, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations..., Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead‑since he was about a hundred years old‑and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Did you catch what was the foundation of Abraham's hope?  THE PROMISES OF GOD.  GOD SAID IT, THAT SETTLED THE ISSUE.  

·        Late night feedings.

·        Diapers.

·        The terrible twos. 

·        Weaning.

We're talking serious business here, people!  "SARAH, GET READY, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!"   

 Hear me please. Sometimes all that we hope for is contrary to hope, is against hope, and simply defies us to have hope.  That was Abraham.  Notice Romans 4:18 now from several additional translations:

“When hope was gone, he hoped on in faith....”

“Who against hope believed in hope....”

“Who past hope upon hope believed….”

“Abraham, when hope was dead within him, went on hoping….”  

·        He had hope in God's word in spite of what he saw when he looked in the mirror or when he looked across the bed at his wife Sarah! 

·        He had hope in God's word in spite of what the calendar or the birth certificate said. 

·        He had hope in God's word REGARDLESS! 

That hope led to faith.  That faith led to the promised blessing!

 The story of Abraham was put in the Bible to inspire HOPE in us!  You do not have to doubt God or His great promises.  He is true to His Word.  

Before I come on to my next point, I want to share a with you a quote from Max Lucado’s great book, God Came Near.  Lucado writes, “Hope is not what you expect; it is what you would never dream.  It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I’m-dreaming ending. It’s Abraham adjusting his bifocals so he can see not his grandson, but his son.  It’s Moses standing in the promised land not with Aaron or Miriam at his side, but with Elijah and the transfigured Christ.  It’s Zechariah left speechless at the sight of his wife Elizabeth, gray-headed and pregnant.  And it is the two Emmaus-bound pilgrims reaching out to take a piece of bread only to see that the hands from which it is offered are pierced. 

Hope is not a granted wish or a favor performed; no, it is far greater than that.  It is a zany, unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and be there in the flesh to see our reaction.”

 

NOW I WANT TO GO TO THE SECOND “HOPE” STORY. 

This one features Jonathan, the son of King Saul.

In 1 Samuel 14, we find the Israelite army in a desperate situation.  The Philistines had five times as many chariots as the Israelites had men. In addition, the enemy had captured all the Hebrew blacksmiths, which meant no new weapons could be forged.  The cold fact was that the Israelites were all waiting to die.  King Saul was confused and had lost the faith and confidence of his men.  Things could have been worse, but I don’t know how. 

It is at this time that Jonathan, the king's son, steps to the fore.  Did he stand and rally the army with an impassioned speech full of faith?  No. He could muster only a scrap of hope.  He turned to one other person, his young armor bearer, and suggested that they go and check out the Philistine outpost. Why? The Bible in I Samuel 14:6 quotes him as saying (The Living Bible): “Yes, let's go across to those heathen, Perhaps the Lord will do a miracle for us. For it makes no difference to him how many enemy troops there are!’”

 Notice, he made no promises.  No predictions.  He just stated a fact: Victory was possible. In response to such hope, God gave the enemy over to Jonathan and the armor bearer.  Before the day was over, Israel had won a stunning victory.  

People in trouble often say, "I don't want to get my hopes up."  Well, friends, I want to challenge you to get your “hopes up” in the Lord!  Hope is not silliness.  Hope is the quiet whisper inside the Christian's heart that says as did Jonathan, “Perhaps the Lord....”

I want to now make this message up close and personal.  Some people within the sound of my voice today have lost hope. They have given in to despair.  I can see it in the face, I can hear it in the talk, I can recognize it in the spirit.  

These folks love God; love the church.  They have simply given up hope in some area or areas of their lives.  It is as if they have a secret little closet somewhere hidden in their hearts. That room in now reserved for matters of discarded faith. 

 I have known people who have given up on divine healing.  Oh they have seen others healed, it just has not worked for them. They have read all of the books on healing, have listened to all of the tapes on the subject as well as attended every healing service within five-hundred miles.  Nonetheless, they are still sick.  After some period of time, they simply opened up the door to their little closet and they tossed in any hope for healing.    

Others have given up on an unbelieving spouse or child coming to the Lord.

Others have thrown in any hope of their marriage getting any better, any hope that they are going to bear a child, or that they are going to see some long-held dream realized.

On the outside of the door hangs a sign that declares, “IN THIS ROOM ARE

STORED ALL OF THE THINGS THAT ARE JUST TO HARD FOR GOD.”   Sad!  Tragic!

 Dr. Charles L. Allen is one of my favorite authors.  He also pastored the largest United Methodist Church in the world, the First United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas for many years.  He once wrote: “When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.”

 What, if anything, have you tossed into your private little closet?  What, if anything, have you given up on? Well, today, I believe that I have a Word from the Lord for each and everyone of you: 

·        God wants us to open that room up to His inspection. 

·        He wants to go in there and clean out that smelly place of doubt and fear. 

·        He yet wants to prove to you that He is God and as such, He is able to do “Exceeding and abundantly above all we are even able to ask for or to think of.”

·        He wants to restore your hope. 

·        He wants you to believe. 

·        He wants you to be confidently expectant once more.

1 Thessalonians 2:16-17 declares: “May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and GOOD HOPE, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” 

 The God of Hope wants to give you GOOD HOPE this morning! 

 Some time back a speaker stepped to the platform at southwestern Assemblies of God Bible College. The school has chapel every morning.  The students were half asleep when it came time to introduce the speaker.  He was about 70 years old.  He stood 5' 6" and weighed maybe 110 pounds.  The gentleman didn't look too great or all that interesting.  He was a congressman by the name of Willie Upshaw.  He came to the pulpit and didn't say a word for quite some time.  He simply stood there and stared at the students.  He had been a politician for over 40 years.  He knew how to get people's attention.  As the fellow finally began to speak he said something that the students there that day say they have never forgotten.  He said, "I was a cripple all of my life."  By this time the speaker was moving all over the platform.  He was a picture of health and energy.  He continued on, "They never saw me come into congress except on a rolling cot, in a wheelchair, or on crutches."  Then he reared his head back and screamed as loud as he could, "NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP!"

          Throughout his sermon that morning he would speak only a paragraph or two and then he would again shout as loud as he could---always in threes---"NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP!"  He was really quite dignified, and the yelling was somewhat out of character, nonetheless, he was trying ever so hard to get his message across to keep trying. He went on to explain that only two years before, while sitting crippled in a revival service, the preacher said to him, "Congressman, God now gives you the faith to be healed."  Willie then told that "for the first time in my life, I stood to my feet and walked -- 68 years I was a cripple."  And then he reared back his head, and shouted once more, "NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP!  GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE AND HE STILL HAS AN ANSWER FOR YOU."

 Friends, I echo the words of the congressman.  God wants to put hope back into your heart today!  Quit quitting!  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP ON GOD!

That is the message behind the story of Abraham.  That is the message that the Bible is wanting to communicate with it’s account of Jonathan and his armor bearer.  That is the story of Willie Upshaw.  Have hope!  Saints of God, have hope!

 Romans 15:4 declares that: “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures WE MIGHT HAVE HOPE.” 

Furthermore, Romans 15:13 adds: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may OVERFLOW WITH HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

 Who is the Scripture speaking of here?  The GOD OF HOPE!  Our God is not the god of doubt, He is not the god of despair, nor is He the god of gloom and doom.  No, who is He?  He is “THE GOD OF HOPE” and He wants you to “OVERFLOW IN HOPE BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT” that is at work within you this morning!

 We talk about the God of love, and we hear much about the God of power, but we don't hear near enough about the God of hope!

·        He gave us the story of Abraham for hope.

·        He gave us the Bible for hope.

·        He gave us His wonderful promises for hope.

·        He gave us the Holy Spirit for hope.

·        He gave us Himself so that we might have hope!

Let me ask you a simple question. Which two books in the Bible allude to hope more than any others?

Would you believe Psalms and Job?  That’s right.  While the Psalms carries the word 30 times the book of Job has it 17 times.  I can’t help but believe that the secret to Job’s success in his time of testing was hope!  He refused to cave in, to quit, to give up.

·        His wife cried: “Why don’t you just curse God and die!”  She had lost hope.  She was in the grips of despair.

·        His friends lost hope too.  They reverted to finger pointing and fatalism.

·        Job, on the other hand, said in Job 23:8-10: “But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” 

 Job still had his hope.  He knew that the trial had a purpose, and he also knew that in the end, he would come though the trial victorious--like pure and tested gold!  He was not about to give up!  

·        The Psalmist wrote in Psalms 31:24: “Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.”

·        Psalms 71:5 likewise notes: “For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth.”

·        Psalms 146:5  then adds: “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God....”

 Are you getting the message?  God wants His people to be optimists.  He ever wants His children to look to Him in confident hope!

 Having said that, please notice with me that THE BIBLE TEACHES US THAT A GODLY HOPE IS A PATIENT HOPE

As you know, patience in not one of America's virtues.  We seek instant gratification.  Christian hope, on the other hand, is ready and able to wait.  Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 of “endurance (or patience) inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As Christians:

·        we wait for the coming day of our salvation--when we shall fully receive the blessings God has for those who serve Him.

·        We wait for His glorious appearing.

·        We wait for the dawning of His kingdom.

·        We wait for our new bodies.

·        We wait to see Him!

·        We wait to see those who have preceded us in death.

·        We simply wait--patiently by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 10:23 encourages us to “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”  Don't give up your hope, He is saying.  Wait! Hold on.  “Never, never, never give up!”

 Again Paul writes in Romans 8:24-25: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, WE WAIT FOR IT PATIENTLY.”

Christian friend, who has given you permission to give up hope?  Does God no longer hear your prayers.  Does He no longer care?  Oh, I speak as one who has gone crazy!

Of course:

·        He hears!

·        He cares!

·        He delivers!

·        Friends, hope on!

Your victorious faith must begin with a patient hope!

 The noted commentator, Charles Barclay, once said: “The Christian hope is not simply a trembling hesitant hope that perhaps the promises of God may be true.  It is a confident expectation that they cannot be anything else but true!”

 David therefore wrote in Psalms 42:11: “Why are you downcast, O my soul?  Why (are you) so disturbed within me?  PUT YOUR HOPE IN GOD....”

·        I can almost see David shaking himself here.

·        He is talking to his soul and giving it a tongue-lashing.

·        He is rebuking the doubt and the despair that had crept into his heart.

·        He then prescribes for himself the remedy --- hope in THE GOD OF HOPE!

 

SO MY WORD TO YOU THIS MORNING IS, HAVE HOPE!

In recounting his experiences as a political prisoner in Russia, Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells of a moment when he was on the verge of giving up all hope.  He was forced to work 12 hours a day at hard labor while existing on a starvation diet, and he had become gravely ill.  The doctors were predicting his death.  One afternoon, while shoveling sand under a blazing sun, he simply stopped working. He did so even though he knew the guards would beat him severely -- perhaps to death.  But he felt that he just couldn't go on.  Then he saw another prisoner, a fellow Christian, moving toward him cautiously.  With his cane the man quickly drew a cross in the sand and erased it.  In that brief moment, Solzhenitsyn felt all of the hope of the gospel flood through his soul.  It gave him courage to endure that difficult day and the months of imprisonment that followed.

  ·        Ours is not a vain hope,

·        a pretentious hope,

·        or a presumptuous hope.

·        Ours is a hope that is grounded in the sure work of God through His Son on the tree two-thousand years ago. 

 The song writer wrote, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

 Yes, we have hope because our hope is in Christ!

 Whenever you are tempted to give up hope:

·        Look to the Cross. 

·        Look to Jesus and to the victory that He won there. 

·        Look to His Holy Word and to the wonderful and faithful promises that He has given to you each and everyone of us who serve Him.

 Then too, please remember these words found in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you  hope  and a future.”

I want to close this morning's message with a little story that I have taken from the devotional magazine, OUR DAILY BREAD: “While attending college, I visited a psychiatric institution with a group of students to observe various types of mental illness. The experience proved to be very disturbing.  I remember one man who was called ‘No Hope Carter.’  His was a tragic case.  A victim of venereal disease, he was going through the final stages when the brain is affected.

          Before he began to lose his mind, this man was told by the doctors that there was no known cure for him.  He begged for one ray of light in his darkness, but had been told that the disease would run its inevitable course and end in death. Gradually his brain deteriorated and he became more and more despondent.

          When I saw him in his small, barred room about two weeks before he died, he was pacing up and down in mental agony.  His eyes stared blankly, and his face was drawn and ashen.  Over and over he muttered these two forlorn and fateful words: ‘No hope! No hope!  No hope!’  He said nothing else.”

How sad to be like "No Hope Carter", a person totally devoid of hope.

 The lost have so little to hope in.  What hope and what assurance do they have beyond this very moment?  Beyond the grave?  Their plight is one that is sad indeed!  No hope! No hope! No hope!

 Do you have hope?  Do you know THE GOD OF HOPE?

The world is asking, “Is there any hope?”  Our answer is yes, there is ample hope in the God of Hope!