Romans chapter 15, our text will
be found in verse 13. The title of the message is simply,
The God of Hope. The God of Hope. Romans 15 and verse 13 says,
Now the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Now, in the Scriptures, in 2
Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 3, the Apostle describes our
God to us as the God of all grace. Our God truly is the God of all
grace. If there's any grace to be found,
if there's any mercy to be found, if there's any truth to be found,
it is in this. He is the God of all grace. The grace of faith, love, and
this one, hope. Hope. Paul describes, Peter describes
Him as the God of, I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians, as the God of
all comfort. Peter describes Him in 1 Peter
5 and verse 10 as the God of all grace, but in 2 Corinthians
1, 3, He is the God of all comfort. Now, who here needs grace? Who among us needs the grace
of God? Well, he is the God of all grace. Who among us needs comfort? Well, he is the God of all comfort. In this chapter, in chapter 15
and verse 5, he is also the God of patience and consolation,
the God of patience. And in our text, he is the God
of hope. This word hope, I want you to
understand, it is not a wish, it is not a maybe, it is not
a might, but this word means confidence, assurance, hope,
steadfast, rock-solid assurance. This is our God, the God of all
hope. And I have three points tonight,
and each one of them are found directly in this text. I want
us to see, first of all, that God is a God of hope to a very
specific people, a very specific people. He is the God of hope
to the poor, to the poor. And that word is a broad meaning. It's not just having to do with
monetary things, but rather weakness and feebleness. He is a God of
hope to those who are hopeless, hopeless. The second point of
my message will be this, the result of hope is this, joy and
peace. Everyone who has hope will have
joy and peace. And the third thing is, the cause
of these graces is the Holy Spirit. The Apostle says, through the
power of the Holy Ghost. This is how hope joy peace and
all grace come to believers through the power of the Holy Ghost so
let's look at this first one the God of hope to the poor studying this you come across
it came across this passage in Job Job chapter 5 you want to
go over there you read it with me Job chapter 5 Job chapter 5 and verse 15. Job chapter 5 and verse 15. Scripture here says, But he saveth
the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand
of the mighty. So the poor hath hope, and iniquity
stoppeth her mouth. Now God is the God of hope then
to the poor. The poor have hope. He saveth
who? The poor. The poor have hope
in God. Now in this passage, this man
is condemning Job. He's not using this as a means
to help Job, but rather to condemn him. He thinks Job's sinned,
and this is the reason that his afflictions has come on him.
And he's talking about the poor being an innocent group of people. He said, if you were poor, then
God would help you. Elphaz was speaking here of how
God saves those who are innocent and poor. He was speaking against
Job, saying that his troubles had come upon him because he
was guilty of some sin. Isn't that what religion tells
us? Man, you just must have really sinned. If you're in a bad place,
you must have really done something wrong. Otherwise, God would save
you. That's what the poor, that's what the wicked preachers of
this day preach. They preach, well, if you just
have enough faith, God will do it. That's the reason you're
sick, is because you just don't have enough faith. That's foolishness. That's not what this is intended
for. The thought and motive of this
man was wrong. But remember, even God speaks
through an ass. Even God speaks through an ass.
Even that high priest that condemned Christ, you remember, he spoke
the truth. It is necessary that one dieth
for the people, that all die not. Well, he was prophesying
and didn't even know it. And so was Elphaz here. This
is a prophecy. This is a fulfillment. This has
a fulfillment not of the poor being innocent, but rather the
poor who are guilty. The guilty poor, not the innocent
poor. There is no such thing. All who
are spiritually poor, listen, they have hope. God is a God
of hope to the poor in spirit. Jesus said, Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. This last couple
of weeks ago I preached to you from Psalm chapter 12 and verse
5. For the oppression of the poor
and the sighing of the needy, now will I rise, saith the Lord,
and set him in safety. Who? The poor and the needy. poor and the needy. And the word
poor in Job here in this passage signifies not only impoverished
monetarily, but rather poor, so poor in strength, feeble,
weak. One who is exhausted in strength,
in wealth, and in substance. Now is this not the condition
of all men by nature? Poor, weak, feeble. Because of the sin of Adam, the
sword of justice is drawn, and the mouth of the law only curses,
and the hand of the mighty God is set against sinners. To see our hope, we must first
see our hopelessness. If you're ever going to know
the God of hope, you must, of yourself, need hope. You must see your hopelessness. Your helplessness. Helpless to escape the wrath
of God. In Hebrews, the apostle here
says, Hebrews 12, 25, Paul's talking about those Jews who
refused to hear the law that was given to Moses. You remember those that were
20 years of age and over died and their corpses fell in the
wilderness because of their unbelief, because they would not hear Him
on earth. How much more so do you think
you would escape the wrath of God if you don't hear Him who
came from heaven, Jesus Christ? See that you do not neglect so
great a salvation." Why? For our God is a consuming fire,
Paul says. My friend, there is no hope in
our flesh to save us from the justice of God. Why? We are poor. We have nothing to pay the debt
that we owe the justice of God. Our strength is so feeble we
cannot work to merit God's favor. We are poor. And if we neglect
to hear Christ who has come from God, and neglect to hear His
Word, how shall we escape the consuming fire of God's wrath? We won't. You won't escape. Here's His Word, isn't it? He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned." Now listen, if you won't hear that, you won't
escape. You must hear that. You must believe on Him and be
saved. If you will not, you will be
damned. And now, even that we that have
been delivered, we who know our poverty, we who have been delivered,
we who trust in Jesus Christ, Don't we need to keep this constantly
in our own hearts? Do we not always need to be reminded
of our poverty, of our need? We do. We need not to look to the flesh
to bring us to God, to make us acceptable for Him. Instead,
we need to always be looking to Christ alone. looking to Christ
alone. Therefore, we who have seen our
poverty must constantly walk with Christ through this world,
ever leaning on His blood and righteousness as our only standing
before God. For though we were saved, He
has saved us. This flesh is still poor, isn't
it? He saved us. He's given us a new nature, a
new heart, righteousness, His righteousness. We have His righteousness. His blood cleanseth us from what? All our sins. Yet we still have
this poor nature dragging about in our body. This flesh is weak
and devoid of any strength. It is still unable to deliver
itself or stand against any of our foes. Therefore, we must
lean hard on the God of hope. Why? Because it is the God of
hope who helps the poor. It is the only hope the poor
have. Frail and sinful though we be,
yet God has by His Word given us that are spiritually poor promises. Now what is the poor
hope in? We hope in His promises, in the
promises of God. Go over to Hebrews chapter 6,
Hebrews chapter 6, and read this with me, Hebrews 6 and verse
17. The scripture says, Wherein God,
the God of hope, is willing more abundantly to show to the heirs
of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by
an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible
for God to lie, that we might have a strong consolation who
have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the whole." set before us. Which hope we have is an anchor
of our soul, sure and steadfast, which entereth into the veil,
whether the forerunners entered for us, even Jesus, made and
high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Now, God
willing more abundantly to show us. Isn't that something, that
God was willing? And not only willing, willing
more abundantly. willing more abundantly to show
unto the heirs of promise. See this, the grace of our God
and His willingness to give to us who believe comfort. We need comfort, constant comfort. And God is willing to show us
this comfort. He's willing to comfort us, knowing
that we need constant reminding of the hope that doesn't lie in ourselves,
it doesn't lie in our knowledge, our strength to preserve or to
maintain God's salvation. God is always willing to show
you that salvation is not in you. Not of you. Doesn't He show
that to us constantly? He's more willing to show that,
that you, that there is no way you had any part in that. You
convinced of that? I am convinced of that. The more
I grow in grace, the more I'm convinced I had nothing to do
with this. That all my hope doesn't rest in me at all. but rather
in the promises of God. Now, how does God show us? By
two immutable things. What are these two things that
are immutable? Listen, it is His counsel and
His oath. Those things are immutable, unchangeable. His counsel. What is this? This
is the eternal counsel. God is willing to show you your
hope. through His counsel, His covenant,
His everlasting covenant that He has determined and purposed
to save us. He chose us, didn't He? He chose
us. We didn't choose Him. We never
would have chose Him. He chose us. Aren't you glad He's willing
to show that to you? More abundantly He's willing to show you this.
The counsel of His will was to choose you. He purposed to shed
His blood for us. This was always His purpose. To shed His blood. according
as He hath chosen us in Christ, before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy without blame before Him, in
love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children."
How? By Jesus Christ, who hath redeemed us with His own blood. This was purposed. This was His
counsel. And in this covenant of counsel
of grace, he agreed to quicken our dead souls and give us life
to make us acceptable before God. This is the counsel. And
what does he say about his counsel? What does God say about his counsel?
He said, I'm God and there is none else. Declaring the end
from the beginning. ancient times the things were
not yet done saying my counsel shall and I will do all my pleasure
I don't know where it's found I just read it the other day
many other devices of men but the counsel of the Lord that
shall stand I don't care what men devise. I don't care what
men devise. The counsel of God shall stand. God is willing to comfort us
by showing us this immutable thing, His counsel. What was
His counsel? To save you. to save the poor
and needy. And the second thing is His oath.
He swore it. Not only did He purpose it, He
swore. And when He can look around His...
I like the way God uses language, we can understand. It is as though
God looked around, looking for somebody to swear on. And when
He could find nobody higher than Himself, He swore by His own
name to do what He purposed to do. He swore by His own glory to
do it. An assurance of all assurances
is that God swore, and He cannot lie. This should be comforting. This
should be assuring to the poor and needy, to those that God
is the God of hope of. Surely this should give us great
consolation, strong consolation. God swore that He cannot lie
and has moved all things and is moving all things even for
one purpose. One purpose. That is to save
His people from their sins. To bring us all in to the fold. to bring us all in and save us. And this oath and counsel, I
want you to understand this, it's immutable. Who will change
it? Who? Who can change the counsel
or the oath of God? I know men think they can. They
just end up fulfilling it. Our Lord said this, my sheep
hear my voice, I know them, they follow me and I give unto them
eternal life and no man is able. Not that no man wants to, Satan
wants to, the flesh, our flesh wants to. No man is able to pluck
them out of my hand. Father which gave them me is
greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of his hand."
This is the strong consolation. You know what that word, strong
consolation, means? It has the idea to invoke comfort. God is moving you to be comforted
by these two things. Who is to be comforted? All who
have fled to Christ for refuge. To what? Lay hold on the hope
set before us. Every time I preach, I want to
set Christ before you. Why? That's the only thing I
want to do. I want Christ to be set before you. I want you
to see Him. I want you to see He's the Son of God. I want you
to see His person. I want you to see His deity,
His humanity. I want you to see His life of
righteousness. I want you to see His mediatorial
office as our high priest, as our representative. I set Him
before you. He is the only Savior of sinners. He is the only hope for the hopeless. I set Him before you. Now what
should you do? Lay hold on Him. Grab Him with
all your soul, with all your might. How? By faith. Lay hold on the hope. If a man invites you to his home
and set out a spread of food in front of you, do you think
it's too presumptuous to eat it? No. It's what it was set out
for. What do you think Christ is set
out for? He set out that you should lay hold on it. Like that
woman that come up behind in the press. She touched the hem
of his garment. She lay hold on the hope set
before her. That's what you should do right
now. Every one of us lay hold on that
hope, that refuge. Why? He has entered into the
veil. He is the only high priest. He is the only one who can represent
us before God. He is the only one whose blood
has been accepted by God to pay for sin. The only one. He is
the high priest. How long? Forever. Forever. This hope that God sets before
you, Paul says, we have as an anchor for the soul. An anchor. or the soul, both sure and steadfast,
that entereth into the veil. The God of hope sets now before
you the only hope, for we can ruin sinners. And all who lay
hold of this hope have a sure anchor." What's the purpose of
an anchor? It's to keep the ship, isn't
it? is to keep the ship from dashing against the rocks. It's
keep the ship from drifting. Look out there in the ocean.
You leave the ship out there and the water seems to be calm.
Everything seems to be well. I'll tell you this, if you don't
have an anchor, he's going to drift off course. He'll drift. Isn't it so with us in our moments
of peace and prosperity? If we have not the anchor of
our hope in Christ, we should surely drift away. An anchor has another purpose
in the storms, in the midst of the storms of life. The Christ
is our anchor that keeps the ship, that keeps the soul. That's
what He does in the midst of all of our trials and troubles. God is willing to show us this
hope. And I tell you this, we should
show others this hope. Isn't that what the business
of this church is? To show others the hope that is in Christ. The
anchor that we have found. The anchor that holds our soul.
We should set this same Christ before others who is an anchor,
sure and steadfast to keep the soul. Let this then be a comfort to
our hearts many times when we are in our lowest estate, when
the exercise of our faith is low and our hearts are overcome
with grief and spiritual sorrow and slumber overtakes us. It
is then when the sadness When our sadness is high and our joy
and peace are low, it is then that the God of hope gives us
hope. Look for consolation in His counsel, in His oath that
cannot be changed. It is immutable. It's unchangeable. You know what, I also think about
His covenant, His oath, His counsel. It is without merit on our part. We did nothing to merit this.
This was all of grace, all of mercy. You remember David David said this in Psalm 42,
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within
me? What was his remedy? Hold thou
in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. And the very next time in verse
11 of that same chapter, Psalm 42 in verse 11, he asks the same
question. Why art thou cast down on my
soul? 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. If the God of hope, if we hope
in the God of hope, Is it not our desire then to
praise him? David gives two reasons why he
shall yet praise him. He says, for the help of his
countenance. For His presence, for His salvation,
His oath, His counsel are the anchor of our souls because of
Him. I will praise Him because of
His countenance, His presence. Seeing Him and the beauty of
His person and nature, we see the wonder of His work on the
cross. And what does this move you to do? Praise Him. Why art thou cast down? Are you
cast down? Why are you disquieting my soul? Hope in God, the God of hope.
And I know this. I shall yet praise Him for the health of His countenance. Isn't His countenance health?
Isn't His presence health? It is. It is. And the second
thing we praise Him for, He is the health of my countenance. He, by His hope, by His oath,
by His covenant, by His blood and righteousness, by the anchor
of my soul, He lifts up our head that hangs down and gives our
sickly countenance health. And the downcast spirit, He gives
joy and peace. Behold then, believer, the God
of hope, are you poor? Are you needy? then I present
before you the only anchor for your souls, Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Our great High Priest, the eternal
counsel and covenant of God, the immutable, unchangeable eternal
counsel. And what is the result of this?
If the God of hope is to give us hope, and He is our hope,
what does this do? What is the result of this? It's
always two things, joy and peace in believing. Now what our text
says, go back to your text, He said, Now the God of hope fill
you with all what? Joy and peace in believing. The result of God's hope and
confidence that is in Christ is always joy and peace. By His
Spirit, He takes this blessed hope of Jesus Christ, this sure
anchor for our souls. And by faith, He fills us with
all joy and peace. Now, I'm going to ask a silly
question. Do you want joy and peace? Do you want true joy? I'm not
talking about this silly stuff in the world. I'm talking about
lasting joy. Something that's real. Something
that fills the heart and the soul that can't be taken away
in the direst of conditions. True, lasting, eternal joy and
peace. Does anyone long for the joy
of God's salvation? You remember David when he sinned,
committed that horrible sin with Bathsheba and then killed her
husband. He spent at least a year out
there, not really, his conscience not bothering him, trying to
hide it. Thought he'd got away with it. You remember when God
revealed his sin? What happened at that moment?
David, his joy was gone. He had no joy, he had no peace.
And he cried out this, Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation."
You notice he didn't say, my salvation. He said, I want to
know your salvation. Why? Because that's the only
joy, is knowing His salvation. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation. We know many times because of
our sin like David, we lose the joy of his salvation. Then there are other circumstances,
like Job. Job did nothing, but he lost
his joy. He lost the joy of God's salvation. But either way we lose it. It
is our prayer that God would restore it. And how do you know
if you've lost joy and peace? Because you're just going through
the motions. The worship of God is no longer
enjoyable. The study and prayer seems dry
and cold and different. The zeal we once had, the joy
we once experienced seems distant from us. The loss of joy leads
then to the loss of the second thing, peace. When you lose the
joy of His salvation, you begin to lose your peace. The peace
in your hearts, because there is no joy in hearing the Word
of God, no zeal to speak His name, no passion in His service.
What do we begin to do? We doubt. We have peace with
God at all. It is a point I long to know.
Oft it causes anxious thoughts. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I His or am I not? What a miserable condition this
is. To be without joy and to be without peace. But this is
my prayer and the prayer of the apostle. That the God of hope
should fill you to full. I want to have so much joy it's
coming out of my hair. I want so much joy it's bursting. That's what he's saying. I have
my prayer to God is it fill you with both joy and peace. How does this joy and peace come?
In believing. That's the only way. In believing. Through faith. Now those of us
who have come to Christ, have you ever stopped coming? Do you
ever stop? No. Remember the apostles when
they were confronted with that? Will you go away also? Lord,
to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. They didn't stop coming. They didn't have nowhere else
to go. They were confused and troubled. The whole group had
just left. They had lost everybody that
they thought they had gained. They were the only ones left.
But where else could they go? Believer, when you lose your
joy and peace, where else are you going to go? We have no place
to go. We only come to Christ. We come
to Him. So then let us come to Him. To
see God's joy over us. Now if you want to know true
joy, you must see God's joy. Not stop looking at your joy.
You must see that God joys over you. What is not our joy that
should give us strength, but rather it is God's joy for us. You remember what it says in
Nehemiah? He had preached and people were weeping and he said
this. He said to them, Go your way,
eat the fat and drink the sweet. Oh friends, have you no joy? Eat the fat and drink the sweet. Eat the flesh. and drink the
blood of the Son of God." Why? It's nourishment to your soul.
It's sweet to your taste. And He said, "...send portions
to them that have nothing prepared." What is that but to go and preach
the Gospel, declare what we've eaten and we've drank? Give to
them, for this day is holy unto the Lord, neither be you sorry,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Now, what's the joy
of the Lord? It's my strength. The only way
I'm ever going to be happy is to know this, if God joys over
me. If God rejoices over me, if God
is happy with me, if God is pleased with me, only in this can I find
joy, true joy, lasting joy. Strength. Rejoice, poor believer,
for God's joy is over you. And don't rest in your joy for
Him, but rest in His joy for you. In Zephaniah chapter 3 it
says, "...in that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou
not, and to Zion let not thy hands be slack." Don't let them
hang down. Don't be mournful. Don't be weepy. Don't be dreary. Why? The Lord
thy God is in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will
rejoice over you with joy. He will rest in his love. He
will joy over you with singing. You got that? God sings over
you. That's how happy God is with
you. I didn't say it. God said it.
Joy over you with singing. This started, I know in eternity,
but the Lord Jesus said this, there is joy in heaven over one
sinner that repented. Rather than 99 just persons who
need no repentance. Believer, if we are living with
no joy, then let us repent, return to the Father's throne and see
that He's not run out of joy for you. You often run out of joy for
Him, but He never stops rejoicing over you. He never runs out of
love, pardon, mercy, grace, or power. Now what is it that causes God
to joy over you? Only Christ. Only as you are in union with
His Son, Does God joy over you? Now does that not make you happy?
That God is happy with you, satisfied with you, as satisfied as He
is with Christ. He is just as satisfied with
you who are in Christ. Just as happy. Now then, do you feel peace in
your hearts? Do you feel peace in your hearts? We are often doubting our peace
with God. But listen, if God rejoices over
you, then you should know this. God is at peace with you. Paul said, Therefore being justified
by faith, we have what? Peace with God. Now listen, it was the object
of our faith that justified us. It was the object of our faith
that justified us. But when we believed in Him,
we also were justified. Justified before God. How? Through our Lord Jesus Christ. Only through Him. And the Lord
Jesus Christ speaks to us and He said, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not
as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. Why should you not be afraid?
Because God is at peace with you. And you are at peace with
God. Through Christ. Always through
the Son of God. Was the scripture saying Colossians
1 and verse 20, He hath made peace by the blood of His cross. The reason of peace with God
is outside of ourselves. Just as the work of peace was
by the blood of cross, it was outside of us. If you are to be full of joy
and peace, it must not come but by the sight of faith, but by
faith. Because the lack of peace comes
from what? Unbelief. Isn't that right? If
you have no peace in your own heart, it's because you don't
believe God. You don't believe His Word. He
said, I've made peace. So then, you have what? Peace. You're at peace. We must not trust then our feelings
or our thoughts, but rather trust the immutable Word of God. Trust His oath, His counsel,
and Christ our anchor. Let us not try to rest in our
faith But through faith in Christ, it is the channel of all the
joy and peace to our hearts. Newton wrote how sweet the name
of Jesus sounds in a believer's ear. It soothes his sorrows,
heals his wounds, and drives away his fear. Dear name, the
rock on which I build, my shield and hiding place, never failing
treasury field, with boundless stores of grace." Isn't that
what he says here in our text? He says, this is, that God may
fill you with joy and peace in believing that you may not only
have hope, but abound in hope. That you may abound in hope.
that you may be sure at every turn and circumstance that all
is well with you." All is well. And the third, this thing, this
joy and peace and hope comes only through the power of the
Holy Ghost. He said that at the end. It may
abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. This is the
source of all the graces of God. Faith, hope, love, joy, peace,
meekness, temperance, all come from the Holy Spirit. power of the Holy Spirit. We,
being poor and weak, need power. We need joy. We need peace. We
need faith in believing in the God of hope. But all of this
comes not by our power, but by the power of the Spirit of God
that dwells in every one of us. I'm so glad God's taking care
of everything. It's not just... He's left none of this to chance
or us. None of it. None of it is to
be done by our power, our will, our anything. It is all of Him. And this is true of all hope
and peace and joy must come from the Spirit of God that dwells
in us. Hope, joy and peace and faith and all these graces are
fruits of the Spirit. If we are to enjoy God as the
object of hope, enjoy communion with Him in His house and His
ordinances, enjoy being favored with all the blessings of grace
laid up in everlasting covenant and abound in these things, it
is the person of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that works these
things out, that shows us these things. You think you know this
just because you're smarter than everyone else? Is that how we
come to know it? Did we figure this out ourselves?
No. This is the work of the Spirit
of God in us. Not by might nor by power, but
by My Spirit said the Lord. I know each of us who believe
has every one of these graces that I've just mentioned. Faith,
hope, love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance. We have these. But
we have them in a measure. Isn't that right? We look at
someone else and we say, they have a measure. And we look at
ours and we say, we have a measure. But we all have a measure given
to us of God. The Holy Spirit. We have all
of these in a measure, but don't we long to have more? Are you content with your faith?
Because I'm not. Are you content with the joy
that you have now? Or the peace that you have now?
The hope that you have now? No, I want more. I want to grow
in these things. I want to abound in these things. I know we long to have these
things constantly, believing constantly, keeping and not be
moved from the simplicity that's in Christ. Isn't that true? I
don't want to be moved from this. And let us pray that the Spirit
would fill our hearts with power. that it would be abounding and
overflowing in us and to us by the Spirit. Jesus said, The Spirit,
like the wind, bloweth where it listeth. You can hear the
sound thereof. You can't tell where it's coming
or where it's going. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit of the God. The Spirit is like the wind when
He comes to us in the beginning, but then He takes up residence.
You want to know where the Spirit of God is? There it is. It's
right inside of you, in every one of us. But how often do we
feel the Spirit of God? Not as often as I want. And so we know this. At times
we've been so hopeless in our situation, so full of grief and
sorrow. And then out of nowhere comes
this strength, this faith, this assurance, this hope. Where's that come from? The Spirit
of God dwelling in you. When you need help, who do you
call? You call your Father. Who is that? It's the Spirit
of God dwelling in you. You believe on the Son of God.
Who is that? It's the Spirit of God dwelling
in you. You have hope, steadfast hope, an anchor for your soul. mature and steadfast, unmovable,
immutable as the counsel and the oath of God. Who is that? It's the Spirit. In closing, I just want to recite
this song to you. You know it well. Will your anchor
hold in the storms of life? When the clouds unfold their
wings of strife, when the strong tides lift and the cables strain,
will your anchor drift or firm remain? Will your anchor hold
in the straits of fear when the breakers roar and the reefs are
near? While the surges wave and the
wild winds blow, shall the angry waves then your bark o'erflow?
Will your anchor hold in the floods of death? when the waters
cold chill your last breath on the rising tide that can never
fail while your anchor holds within the veil. Will your eyes
behold through the morning light the city of gold and the harbor
bright? Will your anchor safe by the
heavenly shore when life's storms are past forevermore Yes, we
have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while
the billows roll, fastened to the rock that cannot move, grounded
firm and deep, where? In the Savior's love. Oh, my
friends, the God of hope. You know the God of hope. He's
the hope for the poor. Are you filled? with joy and
peace in believing in the Son of God. He's our joy. He's our
peace. And we know this only through
the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray that God will bless this
to you. Let's be dismissed in prayer.