Seeking for the help of the Lord, I direct your prayerful attention to Romans chapter 15, the portion that we read, and verse 13. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that he may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Romans 15 and verse 13.

Hope, a good hope, as we have sung, a good hope through grace. You would be mindful there are those upon this earth that do have hope, but it is not a good hope. The definition of hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen. It's a feeling of trust. So it is vital that our hope and our expectation is based on a right foundation.

We think of those who have a vain hope or an empty hope, a hope that is in the creature, a hope perhaps that is just for time, not realizing that we have a soul which is eternal. And the apostle says to the Corinthians, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we've all been most miserable. And so a hope that is just concerning in this life, that is not a good hope. We need a hope that is beyond the grave, an eternal hope. We need one that has a good foundation, not a hypocrite's hope that just has an outward form of religion, but nothing really in the heart. not the hope of the world that is looking to themselves or looking to luck or chance or just a fatalistic spirit.

There are many that can have a hope and an expectation and desire, but it does not have any real foundation. It does not have anything that will stand up to the God of heaven or through time. And so it is good for us to think of that, and no doubt there's many of us, we know those round about us, that will say that they hope everything will turn out well, but they don't want to know the truth, they don't want to know the word of God. They're like Bunyan's pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress, who had one that was ignorance, walking along the way, And when they came to the river of Jordan of death, then there was one vain hope, a ferryman that brought him over to the other side, an empty hope. And it proved that there was a way to hell right beside heaven. They could get right to the gates and yet not be right at last.

But while he was living, Bunyan pictured this, that the others, the Christian and hopeful, they could see this man was resting his hope on something other than of Christ and the Word of God. It was empty, it was vain, and they tried and tried to warn him, but he wouldn't be warned. It's a good thing if we have a concern that our hope is a good hope, that it does have a good foundation, and if it does, then to be really encouraged and strengthened in that hope, and to rest and trust in what that hope is anchoring upon.

And indeed, in Hebrews, it speaks of hope as being an anchor of the soul, and Peter, he speaks of the hope as being a lively hope, or a living hope, not just an empty or vain or dead one, but as we have sung, a good hope through the grace of God.

So I wanted to look concerning this verse, and the verse divides itself really up into three parts. And firstly, the object of hope or the source of hope, which our verse begins, now the God of hope. There is the object, there is where hope looks to. And then secondly, the power to hope. At the end of the verse, we read that it is through the power of the Holy Ghost, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. I want to speak in that in the second place, the power to hope. It's not resting in ourselves, it is through the power of the Holy Ghost. And then thirdly, the blessings of hope, which are in the middle of our text. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that he may abound in hope. The blessings of hope, joy and peace in believing and abounding in hope.

But firstly, the object of hope. Now, the God of hope. We read in the Psalms, those that are cast down, why art thou cast down, O my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. Christ shall yet praise him.

And the object of hope, it looks right to God, the God of heaven and of earth, The Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is going outside of self and is looking to the Almighty God, the God who we must appear before on the last day. It's really going to the highest authority and the highest power that we could go to. A good hope will always look there, it will look toward God, it won't run away from God, it won't hide from God, it will look toward Him.

And even though we might be like Job, so tempted, so tried, so afflicted, yet his hope was still in his God. Jonah, though cast out of the sight of God, he says, I'm cast out of thy sight, Yet will I look again toward thy holy temple." Even though he'd been running away from God, his hope, it was going back to that same God, the God that chastens, the God that corrects, the God that we've sinned against, the God that we've offended.

The hope is not looking for someone else, but to God himself and the provisions in God.

But then there is the other aspects that are jointly bound up with our hope in God. In Paul's epistle to the Thessalonians, he speaks in his first epistle of the hope of salvation. And he says in the fifth chapter in verse eight, but let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.

And he says, for God had not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord. Jesus Christ. And so the looking is to the God who has a plan of salvation, a plan of saving from death, saving from hell and saving to heaven. And part of that plan was that he himself, God's only begotten son, should bear the wrath of God in our place.

And this is the the wonderful aspect of looking to God and looking to his salvation, that his offering was a rough-ending sacrifice. And there's that hope and expectation of that. We think of the Jews when they had sinned, when they had offended God, when they were brought to Babylon, they had been given those promises. The Lord would bring them up out of Babylon. He would raise them up again. There would be hope. There would be salvation. There would be deliverance. It wasn't just a casting out of God's presence.

And so they were given those tokens of Jeremiah buying land and saying, there shall be land bought and sold in those days to come. And it's good for us to look at those scriptural examples where those who've gone before us were raised up with the hope and 70 years went by and then that was fulfilled.

With Joseph in his prison, how that his hope based upon the word of the Lord, based upon what God had given him in the dreams and in God's time it came to pass. like Abraham and the long line listed in Hebrews 11, they were given promises like Abraham to his seed. Abraham saw my day, said Christ, but he died without actually seeing that in the flesh. But he died in hope that that would happen and come to pass. And that was a saving hope and the coming out. of Egypt, going into Egypt, coming out. God had told Abraham all those things. And we in these gospel days, we can see that the hope that Abraham had, it was brought to pass. They did go into Egypt. They did come out. The promised seed did come. Our Lord Jesus Christ was provided. My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering. And it's a great thing to strengthen our hope when we see how the Lord has worked in those generations that have gone before us and that which is in the scripture.

We know, we'll try to refer to this perhaps later on. But then also we have that hope of the resurrection. We have spoken of that which needs to be beyond the grave, not just in this life alone. And this is vital that we have that hope, the hope of the resurrection. And so that is also spoken of in the Word.

Paul, when he was brought before the council, when he had those of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and he realized that one believed in the resurrection, one not, Then he said to them in Acts 23 verse 6 that, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, of the hope and resurrection of the dead am I called in question. And so his preaching, his stand, was in the hope of the resurrection.

Of course, we have the beautiful chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, where The Apostle addresses those that say that there is no resurrection of the dead, and he sets forth all the implications if that was not so. Our hope, the object of that hope, is looking to a resurrection blessings. And you might say, our hope for that, for our unconverted loved ones, it's God will quicken them and raise them to spiritual life. Our hope is in that. Our hope is upon him that raises the dead, that quickens the dead.

And that those are the Thessalonians who thought their loved ones had perished. No, says the apostle, they are with the Lord. And when the Lord comes again, you'll bring them. And we which are alive shall be caught up with them in the air and the dead in Christ. They shall rise first. and the expectation, the comfort and hope is looking to God who raiseth the dead. An impossible thing for us. We cannot quicken a soul. We cannot raise the dead at all. But when the object of our hope is in God, and specifically this aspect, this what God is able to do, that is what hope is to to fasten upon.

We look all around and we think, well we have no power, we have no mind, all there is is death. But we're looking unto God and our hope is to that object, God himself who raiseth the dead. Then we think of what is said for us when the dead are raised and what is beyond the grave. The word sets forth of that which is laid up for us in heaven. When Paul writes to the Colossians in his first chapter, he says, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is a hope of glory. It is a hope that is laid up in heaven, verse five, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.

Many of the expressions of hope in God is looking beyond this world, is looking for that which is to come. And that is what is the feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen. Paul says, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And he is looking to the Lord to perform these things for him. We think of the hope of righteousness, which is by faith. When Paul writes to the Galatians, he speaks of this in the fifth chapter And he says, for we, through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh by love.

What would it be if we did not have a hope of a perfect righteousness, a righteousness which was wrought for us by the Lord, and provided for us and that we could stand faultless before the throne of God. It is vital aspect of hope that we're looking to God to provide that, that we can stand faultless before the throne. And our hope is upon the effectiveness of that precious blood. When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

And we think of the hope of the children of Israel when Moses came, God had appeared, and they believed he had appeared, their hope was in God, but then they weren't delivered, weren't delivered, and sign after sign and miracle after miracle, but then the blood needed to be shed, and when the blood was shed, Then they were let loose. Then they were set free. And so our hope mustn't be in those signs and wonders and all those things. It is in the blood. It is in the word.

Elijah knew that when God passed by, when he was in the cave, there was the wind, there was the earthquake, there was the fire, but then the still small voice. And that was what humbled Elijah and the Lord spoke to him. And so our hope, our object in God is in all of these aspects of God, that which we're looking to Him for life, for the resurrection, for glory, for salvation, for righteousness, for pardon, for forgiveness. Our hope in everything that will stand us at last faultless before his throne, we are looking for in God himself.

Now the God of hope, how rightly their verse starts in this way, that our God is the God of hope and all that he has done All that he's done lays up a real hope for the people of God. Was it for nothing? Did Christ come for nothing? Are the things that he's done not relevant to us? Can never be imparted to us? We can never receive the benefit of those things? God forbid. The whole work of God. summed up really our Lord saying the Son of Man came not to destroy men's lives but to save them.

Hope thou in God. May we have that object where we've been looking for circumstances or in man or in self or something else our direction again this morning. be directed unto God Himself.

We're on to look secondly at the power of hope. Our text says, Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that he may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Through the power of the Holy Ghost. This is not a grace that is to be drummed up by ourselves, by a power of persuasion or a resolution of ourselves. It is the gift and work of the Holy Ghost, of the power of God.

Constantly through the Word of God we're reminded that true religion is not just reading it like a self-help book and then going away and applying the rules and obtaining the benefit. But we are dealing with a living God, the true God, a God when he sent forth the apostles to preach the gospel, he said, tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high. No use preaching. without the power. When the Word is to become effectual with the Thessalonians, it was said by the Apostle that they received the Word not in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. It had come with power. And that was what was so vital. And we have a living God that is able and will raise up in the hearts of His people a hope. a good hope, a hope that looks in God and a hope that has a good foundation.

We think of other ways in which the power of God is set forth in the preservation and keeping of God's people. Peter, in his first epistle, he says in verse 5, chapter 1, who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." And again he's pointing to the power of God being the keeping of God's people, but it is through the means of faith.

God uses means, but nevertheless it is the power of God upon those means, like the preaching. It hath pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. The preaching of the word is the means, but the power is of God. Some believe the word spoken, some believe not. As many as were ordained unto eternal life believed, but God used that means and it is the power that is to have the praise and honor and glory, not ourselves.

But then when we think of faith as keeping, and when we think of the power of God in this context, with giving hope, then we think of the great work of the Holy Spirit, which is the inspiration of the Word of God. If we go a few verses before our text, go to Romans 15 and verse 4, we read, For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.

So there we have the inspired Word of God, the Scriptures of truth, and they are written for us. that we through those scriptures should have patience and comfort of the scriptures and that we might have hope. Our hope is based upon what the Holy Spirit has inspired in the Word of God. Hope is based upon what God has written and what God has said.

The Bible is a spiritual book It is a book that is inspired. God breathe, thou sense, the word of God endureth forever. Heaven and earth, said our Lord, shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away. And this then is what we are to look for. We are to use the word of God, be much in the word of God, Remember the Word of God.

And of course, the Holy Ghost, again, is spoken of as the Remembrance. He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Again, my mind goes to John Bunyan and his pilgrim when they were shut up in Doubting Castle and Giant Despair and their case seen most hopeless. But then hopeful, he suddenly remembered that he had in his bosom the key of promise. And it was through that key of promise that they were released and obtained their deliverance, remembering the promises of God.

And it is the Holy Spirit that brings to remembrance His word and what He has said to His people. Sometimes it is that he said that even God remembers, like God had respect or remembered his people in Egypt, the promises he'd given of them, he was going to bring them out of Egypt and he was going to bless them.

But our Lord spoke most specifically for the Church of God that when he went, when he ascended up into heaven, that he would give us another comforter which shall abide with you forever. He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you." And it's in this way, if you and I expect and look for hope, a good hope, that it will come through the Holy Spirit, bring to our remembrance, bring to our attention, the Word of God. And faith will be given to hold onto that Word and to hope based upon the Word of God. Some of us, we have texts, we have passages, sometimes our mind might go blank, and if we asked you this morning what they were, you say, I can't remember any of them. But then the Spirit is able to bring them back, and there's specific texts that are a strength and comfort to you.

Then again, we have those who've gone before us, and we've seen them in their illness, we've seen them brought down to death and they've been given one or two words of scripture and they've held on to that word, they've pleaded that word that has been so needful for them and so precious to them. It may be it was brought to their attention through the ministry, it may be through the reading of the word or while they're in prayer, the word was brought to their remembrance and that is a work of the Holy Spirit to take that inspired word and to bring it with power, bring it so that it raises up hope in a poor sinner, raises up an expectation.

This is what we look for here. A bounding hope through the power of the Holy Ghost is necessary for us to think, well, how is the power of the Holy Ghost made known? How is it brought to us? How does it act? Well, it is the power of God, but not like that fire and earthquake and wind, but there's still small voice. Like in the springtime, where the new growth is springing forth without any noise or commotion, just gently, powerfully, coming into new life.

And those words that are used to raise up hope and to maintain hope for the people of God, it is the Holy Spirit that brings them to our remembrance, impresses them upon us, directs our attention to them, and gives us faith. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the Word of God. To trust in that word, that was the other part of the definition of hope, a feeling of trust. Feeling of trust in the word. Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good. I'll never leave thee, nor forsake thee.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest rhyme, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And it is the Holy Spirit that makes that word a very real word, gives it its authority, its sweetness, and its savour. This is something that we are to pray for. We think of our Lord saying, if ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?

And to ask for that power, and specifically to give you a good hope, to give you His Word that you hope upon, a Word that He has made precious, open to your understanding, open to you in such a way that through it raises up a real hope that is an eternal hope, a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, a hope in that salvation that He has wrought on Calvary.

All our hopes, all the Holy Spirit's work will always magnify the Lord Jesus Christ. It will always show forth His work, His blood shedding, It is the Holy Spirit that blesses the ordinances of the house of God, given by our Lord, baptism, the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, showing forth his death until he come. They're all used to strengthen and to raise up hope for the people of God.

I, if I be lifted up above the earth, will draw all men unto me. And it is that hope then that is the work of the Holy Spirit. We know those times of contrast where we don't feel hope, or feel to really struggle to hope. And then times when the Lord gives us that hope, and then we'll know the difference. When the Lord gives us that power to hope, Hope against hope, hanging upon the Lord. Well, if the Lord blesses us with hope, what are the blessings that are joined with that hope? It's not just hope on its own, but there are the blessings of hope that are spoken of here. Now we might say that we have a hope of something coming to pass, but if it doesn't move us, if it doesn't have an effect, then we question the real reality of that. If we have a hope of heaven, but it never fills us with joy, it never makes our face to shine, then we say, well, how strong really is that hope? If we do not believe the Word of God, how can we really be hoping in it?

But our text, it gives the blessings of hope, that ye may abound in hope. It is filled you with all joy and peace, in believing. There are some of the blessings of the hope. I believe some of us have known what it is to have the joy of the Lord, to have our heart leap, and to have those blessings that may not last long, but we really have the joy of what we hope in.

I mentioned it many times, I think, the time that I preached at the Pilgrim Home. And a chap there that I did not know, and afterwards, and as he paid real attention to the Word, and I said to him, are you in just for convalescent or permanently? No, he said, permanently. And then his face changed, and he lit up with real joy and expectation. He says, but this is not my home. Pointing up, he said, my home is above and in heaven. And you could see the joy, the sudden realization that he had a heavenly home to go to. And it's a beautiful thing to actually see.

And so the blessing of hope, when that hope is there, there'll be those things that accompany it, that are joining with it, bound up with it. And, you know, Paul, when he writes in the earlier chapters in Romans, in Romans 8, says how that we are saved by hope. And he says in verse 24, he says, well, if you'll read from verse 23, not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

And there's a waiting then. for him, believing that it will come, the Lord will come and he will bless us and he will favour us. We think of what he says in Romans 5 and verse 5, how that hope maketh not ashamed. He says how that we glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience, experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, and this is why, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

And there is the fruit and effect of hope, and why we are not ashamed of that hope, because we've actually got those Those earnest, those tokens, those foretastes, the blessings of joy, of gladness, of expectancy, and of a peace of God that the Lord gives to His people here below. He said, this is not your rest, it is polluted, but to help in that hope, to strengthen that hope, to give the blessings of hope, I'll give you that joy. and peace in believing.

When Paul writes to the Ephesians, he wants them to know what is the hope of their calling. When God calls a sinner, when he quickens one into divine life, there is a real hope bound up with that. Everyone that knows that change that has known that change, say, I'm not now what I once was. The Lord has made a difference in my heart and a difference in my life. Then we have that hope bound up with that calling, that that calling is a heavenly calling. It's for a purpose. The Lord doesn't call his people and then leave them. He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. And that's a blessed thing, where the Lord gives those blessings of hope and gives us to see and put his stamp upon it and says, that was my hand. That was my working, my providential working, my blessing through the word of God. The change wrought in you was wrought by my grace. That was what was done.

We may mention before concerning hope as being an anchor. An anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, which entereth into that which is within the veil. Instead of being tossed to and fro upon every wind of doctrine, it's a blessed thing to have an anchor. You might say I'm not making much headway, I'm at a standstill, but blessed thing if we're not going back, that we're not going on rocks and we're held fast.

Now with the Apostle Paul, when they're in that hurricane, they cast those four anchors out of the stern, hope for the morning, and held fast. It's a blessed thing then to have the hope given as a blessing in that way that keeps us. We might go through tribulation, we might go through sickness and illness and many trials, but there is still that hope surviving, that hope looking up to God.

We think of how the apostle joins and binds up the hope in that beautiful chapter in 1 Corinthians 13, where he says there, of love or charity, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail. Whether there be tongues, they shall cease. Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. But then he speaks of, in the end, the summary of hope. Now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.

And when the Lord then gives with a hope, he gives love, love to the Lord, love to his people. We know that we pass from death unto life because we love the brethren. When he gives that love to his word, the word that we've hoped upon and rested upon, and the Lord gives us that love to them. There are these blessings that accompany salvation, and blessings that accompany hope. You've only got to see that in a child that's given the promise of something in the future and they're hoping in it. And it affects how they behave. It affects their joy, their expectation, their excitement of waiting for it to come to pass. There are many things that are joined with hope that make the reality of that hope.

And these blessings, they are brought by the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Again, may we think of those that have gone before, and especially the hope raised up right from the Garden of Eden, the hope in the promised seed, and how that hope was held onto by so many generations. The Lord's dear people having those times when they rejoiced, when they saw Christ die, when they were glad. And yet it was waited for, for a long, long while. Hope is something that is not a short-term thing. And though the Lord may give those blessings in the midst of a long trial, yet for the most part, as we're looking for heaven, we're looking to be with the Lord there, that hope, That's where it is looking, that's where the anchor is. But as the Holy Spirit gives us that hope here, he gives us times of joy, times of believing, joy and peace in believing, times of gladness, times of real expectancy, times when that hope to us is a blessed hope, a good hope, a hope through the grace of God. May we not despair then.

This hope is not something that we fan and keep alive ourselves, but something that God gives to his called children, something to be asked for, something that is given by the power of God and that anchors in not ourselves. So when the devil comes and shows us all what we are and all of our sin, you can say, yes, but thy hope's not there, devil. My hope is in the Lord. That's where I hope, is in what he has done, not in what I have done.

My hope is that he which hath begun that good work in me will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. May our hope be strengthened. May we really encourage this morning to hope in God and to walk out this verse.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost. Amen.