And here we have Paul in Acts
17 speaking to these Jews, the chief of the Jews, and I love
the way it says in verse 17, it came to pass, well it of course
is God's eternal covenant and purposes, everything that comes
to pass is covered by the it, including what's happening right
now, that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews.
I love the fact that here's Paul in chains, those Jews seemingly
with their freedom, and Paul called them. Now it might speak
very much of the respect that he may have had or the notoriety
that he had, although that doesn't seem to be the case when we read
verses 21 and 22. But nevertheless, they came. They came, the chief of the Jews. And when they were come together,
he said unto them, Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing
against the people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered
prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who,
when they had examined me, would have let me go, because there
was no cause of death in me. But when the Jews spoke against
it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar, not that I had ought
to accuse my nation of, Paul's enemy wasn't the nation Israel. For this cause, therefore, have
I called you, to see you and to speak with you, because that
for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain. It's a glorious
picture, isn't it, of our apostle Paul. It's a glorious picture
of the end of the Church, that the great
apostle to the Gentiles, the great apostle to this world in
so many ways, the man entrusted with writing half the New Testament,
the man entrusted with those glorious words, that we continually
find so much comfort in, don't we? The words that God gave Paul. Here he is chained. He's bound
with a chain because of the hope of Israel. He's bound with a
chain because of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. What a glorious
thing to be bound to. To be bound to a hope. To be
bound because of a hope. To be bound with a hope. And they said unto him, We neither
receive letters out of Judea concerning thee, neither any
of the brethren that came showed or spoke any harm of thee, but
we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest. For as concerning
this sect, this heresy, this choosing, we know that everywhere
it is spoken against. And when they had appointed him
a day, there came many to hear him into his lodging, to whom
he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them. These are all descriptions of
the hope of Israel, brothers and sisters. Persuading them
concerning Jesus out of both the law of Moses and out of the
prophets from morning till evening. And the end result of the proclamation
of the hope of Israel, the end result of the proclamation of
the gospel throughout this age until the Lord Jesus Christ returns,
is simply there in Acts 28, 24. And some believed the things
which were spoken. See, they wanted to hear He was just going to give them
the word of God. We're not here to give opinions. Paul wasn't
there to give an opinion. He wasn't there. They didn't
need Paul to tell them what he thought. They needed Paul, as
we do, to tell us what God said. Some believed on the things which
were spoken, and some believed not. for you, my brothers and sisters
in Christ, to have the hope of Israel. I want us to know who
this hope is. The hope is a person. I want
us, most of all, to have the same hope that Paul had. I want
us to have this apostolic hope in He who is the hope of Israel. is found twice in the book of
Jeremiah and once in the book of Joel. And Acts begins with
Joel, with the book of Joel, from Joel chapter 2 on, ultimately
with that crescendo or promise that whosoever shall call on
the name of the Lord shall be saved. And then it goes on to
remind us that those who are the Lords will be the ones who
are called upon and will call upon Him. But also, at the beginning
of the apostolic testimony, the Holy Spirit-inspired testimony
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, it speaks of the hope of
Israel out of Psalm 16. He says of the Lord Jesus Christ in verse
26 of Acts chapter 2, this is speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Therefore did my heart rejoice. You go back to the previous verse. Because thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see
corruption. Thou hast made known to me, this
is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking, the ways of life thou shalt make
me full of joy with thy countenance. He's speaking David is speaking
as a prophet, and he's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he's speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ as the one who hoped.
He's the one who hoped perfectly. So I wanted to have a look at
two things. I wanted to look at the definition of the hope
of Israel, which is the definition of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
I want to look, in closing this morning, if the weather permits,
I want us to look at the Lord Jesus Christ as the one man who
perfectly hoped. one man who hoped and the one
man whose hope was fulfilled and gloriously fulfilled. Our
hope, brothers and sisters in Christ, is as secure and as certain
and as real as the Lord Jesus Christ's fulfillment and gratification
of that hope right now. We're going to sing again. Thank you, Tom. Number two. This is a quotation from 2 Timothy
1 verse 12. I know whom I have believed. Salvation is in whom. I know
whom I have believed and am persuaded that he I know not why God's wondrous
grace to me he hath made known, nor why unworthy Christ in love
redeemed me for his own. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. I know not how this saving faith
to me he did impart, nor how believing in his word brought
peace within my heart. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I know not how the Spirit moves,
convincing man of sin. Revealing Jesus through the Word,
creating faith in Him. But I know who I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. I know not what of good or ill
may be reserved for me. Of weary ways or golden days
before his face I see. But I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day. I know not when my Lord may come
at night or noonday prayer, nor if I walk the vale with Him or
meet Him in the air. But I know whom I have believed,
and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. Let's let me know I think the
weather in here gets too unpleasant for us. I'm happy if you need
to adjust. It's a difficult day and we're
thankful for modern technology that allows us to be here. I firstly wanted to have a look
at the fact that as Paul reached the end of his journey, and maybe
he was unaware of how close he was to the end of his journey,
but there were more got towards the end of the journey the more
he spoke about hope. In Acts 23.6 Paul is continually
reminding these Jewish people who were brought before him as
accusers of him, the one who upset the nation, the one who
had defiled the temple, and so on and so forth. None of the
charges against him were ever true. But in Acts 23 verse 6
it says, But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees
and the other Pharisees, I love the way he just confounded this
mob of people before him. And you'll see that at the end
of Acts 28 as well, the Jews don't agree amongst themselves.
The Lord's people agree amongst themselves. The Lord's people
all agree amongst themselves. about who the Lord Jesus Christ
is and about how he saves sinners like them, the rest of the world
has got all of its confusion you could possibly imagine. But
Paul, he proceeds at one part with Sadducees and the other
Pharisees. He's cried out in the council, Medan, brethren,
I'm a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and of the hope and resurrection
of the dead. So the hope is a resurrection
from the dead. The hope is signed and sealed
by the Lord's resurrection from the dead. I'm called into question. So Paul was chained and Paul
was accused because of his belief in the hope of the resurrection
from the dead. Go over a chapter into chapter 24 verse 15. Let's
start at 14. But I confess this unto thee,
that after the way which they called heresy, so they call the
gospel a choosing. Paul calls it being enchained
and being bound. The Lord takes you captive. You'll
be captive to him and you'll be delighting in your captivity.
The way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers,
believing all things, which are written in the Law and in the
Prophets, and have hope toward God. which they themselves also
allow that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just
and the unjust. The resurrection that he's speaking
of is the resurrection at the end of time when every single
human being that has ever lived will stand in a resurrected body
before that Great White Throne Judgment. There is. planet is resurrection and life
beyond that resurrection, or death, spiritual death remaining
beyond that resurrection. Paul gives his testimony in verse
5. They knew me from the beginning
that if they would testify that after the most straightest sect
of our religion I lived a Pharisee and now I stand and am judged
for the hope of the promise God made unto our fathers. Unto which
promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night hope
to come. For which hope's sake, King Agrippa? I am accused of the Jews." So
it's the hope. So this theme of resurrection,
this theme of the hope of Israel, is very much before Paul, as
he's spent these last years in jail and has opportunities to
bear testimony. So when he does have the rare
opportunities to bear testimony to his accusers, he wants to
talk to them about the big things of life. The big things of life. Hope. Some people are glass half-full
people, and some are glass half-empty people, aren't they? And I suppose
I've always been an optimist. This is what got me into more
trouble than I can possibly imagine over the years. And all of us, to some extent,
are timed to spare hope. And it's a shocking thing to
think of in this world of ours, the plague of people who take
their lives because they see nothing worth living for into
the future. evil that falls upon people,
and I wish anyone that ever got to speak to hear anything that
I ever said would expunge the notion of that from your mind.
But nevertheless, people are brought into places where they
have no hope, and what a shocking thing it is when people are left
absolutely and utterly despairing of anything into the future.
It shouldn't be so with us, brothers and sisters. All the trials and
all the pains that the world goes through and all the people
of this world, one way or another we feel. And then on top of that
we feel others that they never feel. But God's people living
in this world should be people of joy and should be people of
hope and should be people of expectation. Not because of anything
in us, but because of the God Our God solemnly ordains everything
that comes to pass. And whether it is in the circumstances
of our lives a cause for joy or a cause for pain, at the end
of the day, if we fail to see the Lord's hand in it, then that's
where hope is. And God, in mercy, brings hope
to His people. So I wanted to look at Paul's
journey of hope. We've looked again and again
at his conversion, but I love the way he reiterates his hope
again and again. If you turn with me to Titus,
I wanted to make sure you knew last week that the hope that
Paul was talking about is a person. The hope is a person. The hope
is a promise, that the promises are all yea and amen in a person. That's why we sing that song,
I know whom I have believed. I don't know what, I know a whom. Paul says to Titus, and he probably
wrote this letter from prison in Rome, most likely, Paul, a
servant of God, Titus 1.1, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according
to the and the acknowledging of the
truth which is after godliness. When you read that word godliness
almost exclusively in the New Testament, the word godliness,
the word ungodly, we're going to have problems. Anyway. It means to not reverence
God. It's quiet, thank you. The truth which is after godliness
is after reverence, revering the Word of God, revering the
God of the Word, in hope, verse 2, in hope of eternal life. That's our hope. The hope is
the hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised
before the world began. Take hold of that, brothers and
sisters. The Lord Jesus Christ hoped in
the word. His hope was in thy word. Again
and again he says it in the Psalms, that he hoped in the word. We
have a hope, don't we, in eternal life, which God that cannot lie. If we would just read our Bibles,
with that phrase written at the top of every page and at the
beginning of every verse in the end, God cannot lie. It's God
that cannot lie, promised before the world began. So your hope
is an eternal hope, and eternity, we think of eternity as something
that goes into the future. Eternity actually is all of what
we see as time, and it had no beginning and it had no end.
And there's glorious hope in that, isn't there? There's glorious
hope that God promised it to his people, promised it to his
elect people before the world began. Did he know about your
backsliding? Did he know about your sins?
Did he know about your fall in your father Adam? Did he know
about you coming forth from your mother's womb speaking lies?
Did he know about you going around to establish your own righteousness? Did he know about you wearing
a mask as a hypocrite in this world? He did. All of it. Nothing surprises our God. It's the hope of eternal life
which God, I cannot lie, promised before the world began. He promised
it in that eternal covenant of grace, but hath in due times
manifested his word. He manifests this word, this
word of truth, these scriptures that we have, he manifests that
through preaching the gospel. I pray that the Lord allows us
to continue as a fellowship that takes the message of the Gospel
with the seriousness with which we began our church. Because
without the Gospel there is no power of God under salvation.
Without the Gospel there is no word from God. Without the Gospel
there is no reason for hope. You see, there's nothing in the
Gospel that disturbs the child of God regarding his hope. And
there is so much in the Word of God that disturbs the pretended
believer, doesn't it? Even this verse that we just
read in verse 1, the faith of God's elect. There are multitudes
of churches, there are multitudes of people professing some belief
in a certain God and in a certain man called Jesus, And yet they
find the doctrine of election offensive. There is no preaching
of the gospel without the doctrine of election. There is no declaration
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is without the declaration of
him being the elect one and God the Father electing a people
in him from before the foundation of the world. There is no acknowledging
of the truth without the gospel. And it comes through preaching.
Preaching. Which is what Paul was going
to do. You listen to what he said in Acts 28. He finished
his journey as he began. He began in chapter 9 preaching
as soon as he was converted. He was preaching and he expounded
and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading them concerning
Jesus. They took the Old Testament scriptures
and said this is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in here
is about Him. He's manifested his word through
a preaching which is committed unto me according to the commandment
of God our Saviour. And Paul, writing from this same
prison, speaks, if you turn over the chapter to chapter 2 verse
11 in Titus, he says in verse 11, For the grace of God that
bringeth salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that
denying ungodliness and worldly lust we should live soberly,
righteously and godly in this present world. And what are we
doing? We're looking for that blessed
hope. Looking for that blessed hope.
Are you looking for that blessed hope? I want you to be looking
to that blessed hope. It is a reality that's going
to come upon this world. It's a blessed hope. It's a blessed
hope. It's a hope that brings blessing
in. It's a hope that causes us, that
word blessed means, to be in an enviable state. To be envied. The children of God have a blessed
hope. And the glorious appearing of
the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. who gave himself
for us that he might redeem us. He gave himself for us, for a
particular people, that he might redeem us, he might buy us back
to himself from all iniquity and purifier to himself. A peculiar
people, zealous for good works. They're peculiar in this world,
aren't they? They're peculiar. They're a special
people. They're a particular people.
They are a people of his choosing. They are a people who are caused
and caught up and chained to him. There are plenty of people with
hope in this world. talking about the fact that the
world's going to end, and climate change is inevitable, and so
on and so forth. And immediately they say, but
there might be this tipping point in 10 or 12 years' time when
we'll be into this sort of catastrophic, cataclysmic cycle. But they always have some sort
of hope, don't they? But we can do it. The hope of
man. Job says, So are the paths of
all that forget God. And the hypocrite's hope shall
perish. The hypocrite's hope shall perish,
Job 8.13. 8.14, he goes on to say, whose
hope shall be cut off and whose trust shall be as a spider's
web. That hope has as much ability
to hold you up and sustain you as a spider's web has to sustain
your weight. The hope of the hippotrip shall
perish. Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles. And he says of the Gentiles,
all of us here minus Cole, all of we Gentiles, he says at that
time, Ephesians 2.12, at that time you were without Christ,
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the
covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the
world. What a glorious gospel we've
got to bring to people in that state. What a glorious gospel. And then he says, he goes on
to say, that's what you were. You had no reason for hope. But now in Christ Jesus, you
who were sometimes were far off are made nigh, are made near
by the blood of Christ. not a possibility of failure
when our God creates. Made nigh. Lord Jesus said when
he's lifted up you'll draw all people to himself. No wonder
there is a sweet fellowship amongst the children of God around this
world and in churches where the gospel is preached. It should
be that we're drawn near to him, we're drawn near to each other. And the same blood cleanses us.
The same hope is instilled in us. It is a glorious declaration
of our great God and Saviour, Paul's hope. Paul had a hope,
didn't he? He had a hope as a Pharisee.
His hope was that God was going to accept him on the basis of
his activities. He was going to accept him on
the basis of his lineage as a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was going
to accept him on the basis of his works of righteousness. He
was going to accept him on the basis of his legalism, that he'd
gone to the law of God and studied it intently. And he, remarkably,
is the only person recorded in that had the audacity and the
ignorance to say that before the law I was blameless. Isn't that remarkable? He didn't realise that he was
without hope, without any real hope. So the hope comes when
the Lord Jesus Christ comes. Paul is imprisoned because of
this hope. He calls himself one for the hope of Israel, and
he says, I'm bound. And the door was open, wasn't
it? The door had been open for Paul all the time. Some of you
have been looking at Bunyan's life. It's remarkable, isn't
it? Bunyan spent those 11 years in that jail in Bradford, and
the door was open all the time. All the time. All he had to do
was deny the gospel. All he had to do was deny his
calling from God and he could escape. The point is, of course,
that Paul was chained and he was delighted to be chained to
the Lord Jesus Christ. If he's taken you captive and
chained you to himself, He'll make you. I love this. There's
a lovely verse in Zechariah. It's the second last book of
the Old Testament. If you turn there, there's a
lovely phrase, lovely description of our Lord Jesus Christ. The phrase I want us to look at is
in verse 12. It says, turn ye to the stronghold, you prisoners
of hope. You've been taken captive by
the Lord Jesus Christ. You've been taken captive by
His hope. Why don't we go back to verse
9 of Zechariah 9 and listen to this declaration. This was the
Lord Jesus Christ coming into Jerusalem. He says, Rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just. I love that description. He must
be just. He's a just God and a saviour. The salvation of God's people
is a legal salvation, it's a just salvation. He is the just one
and He's the justifier of all those who believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He is just, having salvation. Salvation is in His
hands, it's not in your hands, it's not in your will, it's in
His will. He has salvation. and lowly, riding upon an ass,
upon the colt, the foal of an ass. And I will cut off the chariot
from Ephraim, I'll cut off the power of Israel, and the horse
from Jerusalem, and the battle bow. And the battle bow shall
be cut off and he shall speak peace unto the heathen. He's going to speak to the Gentiles,
and He's going to speak peace to the Gentiles. And His dominion
shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the
ends of the earth. There's nothing that's not under
His control. As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant
have I sent forth where there is no water. Does salvation seem to you like
being set free from a prison? I love how the Lord Jesus Christ
ascended on high and led captivity captive. You're captive to him
and you're free. Does it feel like freedom? You need to hear the gospel again
if it doesn't feel like freedom. For liberty Christ has set us
free. And don't get entangled in a
yoke of bondage. Don't get entangled in a yoke
of doing something that you think is going to add to the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ to make yourself right with God. That's
the yoke of bondage. And our Adam flesh loves the
whip of the law and loves a little bit of yoke of bondage and loves
a little bit of self-righteousness. He's got to take us out of that. The blood of the covenant I have
set forth thy prisoners out of the pit where there is no water.
You might recall that Jeremiah was placed in a pit where there
was no water and just mud. Then this lovely verse, turn
you to the stronghold. Turn you to the stronghold. He
is the stronghold. He is that tower that the righteous
run into. You prisoners of hope. Even today do I declare that
I will render double unto thee. You might recall that word double
is what the Lord asked his servants their hope. Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity
is pardoned, for she has received the Lord's hand double for all
her sins. Do you know what that word double
means? To fold over. So imagine there you are with
the page of all of your sins laid out before God. To receive
double is to fold over so that all that's seen, all that's seen
by God is the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
receiving double. It's doubled over, they're gone.
By thy blood you have set these people free from that prison. Such is the glorious work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Life and the Word of God began
with me preaching on Psalm 16, and then we began in Colossians. Colossians has that verse that
speaks of the hope. Several times in the book of
Colossians it speaks of hope, the hope of our great God, the
hope of Christ in you, the hope of glory. So the Gospel comes. The Gospel comes. It comes with power from on high. The Gospel comes revealing the
one in whom all of the saints of God have all of their hope.
The Gospel comes and causes the people of God not only to rejoice
in hope here, but to rejoice resting here in the fact that
at the end of this time, at the end of this life, no matter what
the circumstances of the journey between here and there, Paul
would have had many plans, didn't he? He was hoping to go to Spain
and he would have gone to all sorts of places. He had many
plans. that we have seen here. Paul
had the delight of bringing this Gospel, this Gospel that brings
hope to the Colossians. He said, We give thanks to God
and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying for you always. Colossians 1 verse 4 now, Since
we've heard of your faith in Christ and the love which you
have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you
in heaven. which you heard before in the
word of the truth of the gospel. Our hope is laid up. It's kept
in heaven. It can't be defiled by the things
of this earth, and it can't be defiled by the activities of
Satan, it can't be defiled by our wickednesses. It's laid up
for you in heaven. And it's come to you as it is
in all the world, and bringeth forth through it as it does also
on you, since you heard of it and knew the grace of God in
truth. He goes on to describe the way
this hope comes to people, and it's all in the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This gospel, keep proclaiming
again and again and again and even when you get to Rome, even
when you get to some Jews who have been in rebellion against
the gospel, who have read your letter to the Romans most likely
and have stood in rebellion to that church and stood outside
as Jewish unbelievers, you can bring this gospel to them in
the hope that some will believe. Why? Because the gospel all of the power comes from Him,
and all of the fruit is His fruit. You listen to these glorious
descriptions. There's a seventh-fold description
of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in Colossians 1. We give thanks unto the Father
in verse 12, which has made us meet. It means that He's qualified
us. He's qualified us. He's done the qualifying, not
us, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Our hope
is our inheritance, isn't it? We have an inheritance, brothers
and sisters. We are joint heirs with Christ. We will reign with Him. We will. When this life is over
and the Lord Jesus Christ has finished this work in this world,
and this time, this gospel age is done, and this earth is wrapped
up, the saints of God have a hope of a new creation, a resurrection,
a new creation. Resurrected bodies. Resurrected
bodies that are like the Lord Jesus Christ. Resurrected bodies.
A body that can commune. A body that can be touched. A
body that can love. You'll wipe every tear from your
eyes, brothers and sisters. A body that can eat with you.
A body that can walk with you on Limas Road. A body that can
talk to you. A body that can teach you. a
body that can speak to you words of
peace and there will be no unfulfilled
desires like those apostles in Emmaus that I just qualified us. Verse 13 of Colossians
1. He's delivered us. This is how
we have this hope. He's delivered us from the power
of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear
Son in whom we have redemption through his And having made peace, verse
20, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him
to reconcile. He's made peace. He's made peace. Those that rest in hope have
peace. Have peace. And verse 21, and you that were
sometime alienated to enemies in your mind by wicked works,
yet now hath he reconciled. He's reconciled you to God, he's
reconciled you to himself. In the body of his flesh through
death. So this is the hope, isn't it?
That the Lord Jesus Christ is presenting you holy, unblameable
and unreprovable in his sight. If you continue in the faith,
grounded and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which
you have heard, which is preached to every preacher under heaven,
whereof I thought were made Over in verse 27, we quote this
a lot, don't we? This mystery was hidden from
ages and from generations. None of the people of this world
heard of this, except the Jewish nation, but is now made manifest
to whom? It's made manifest to saints,
to holy ones, 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. Christ in you, the hope of glory. The hope that Paul has. is the
hope that all believers have. As Paul says to the Corinthians
in 1 Corinthians 59, he says, if for this life only we have
hope in Christ, then we are of all men most miserable. See our hope, our hope is a hope
at the end, but the beauty and glory of this hope is that this
hope carries We are carried, we are kept and
we are carried by our God. It's a good hope. Isn't it a
good hope? It's a good hope through grace. It's a good hope of calling. That's what Paul's prayer to
the Ephesians was, that the eyes of your heart might be opened,
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may
know what is the hope of his calling and what is the riches
of his glory is his inheritance among the saints. It's a hope
laid up from us in heaven. It's a hope that's founded in
the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a hope that
the Hebrew writer calls the full assurance of hope. It's a full
assurance of hope. The question that I am exercised with, and
I trust you answer, the Lord allows you to answer, How do I know? How do I know? I love how Hebrews 6 describes
it to me. Read earlier, Paul talks about
the full assurance of faith. And then he goes on to talk about
the promise of God and the fact that God cannot lie. And then
he talks about this extraordinary thing. He says that, verse 18,
Hebrews 6, that by two immutable things in which it is impossible
for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, strong comfort,
full assurance of faith, full assurance of hope. Have you done this? Has the Lord
the Navy of Judah to do these things, he'll have fled. Fled. There's never a word in scripture
where we are to stay in anything that resembles false religion
or in the things of this world. We flee. Have you been made to
flee? We've fled for refuge. Have you been made to find and
made to know that there's a hiding place? A hiding place. in this world, a hiding place
from the storms of this world. A hiding place where you can
hide from God. That's what Moses had to do,
isn't it? There's no exaltation of the character of Moses that
he had to be hid in a rock. And God says that our lives,
our lives are hid with Christ in God. And like that great ark, the
wrath of God falls on the Lord Jesus Christ and doesn't fall
on us. We flee to a refuge and we lay hold of the hope upon
the hope set before us. You lay hold of it, do you need
it? He says, which hope, this is
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have as an anchor to the soul. Is it anchored? Both sure and steadfast, verse
19, and entereth into that within the veil. Whether the forerunner is for
us that made a high priest forever
after the order of Melchizedek. Have you fled? Have you fled
to a refuge? Do you have an anchor for the
soul? What's the evidence? What's the
evidence? Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for. Isn't that remarkable? There's
a substance in the things we're hoped for. There's a reality
to it, isn't there? The substance is the Lord Jesus
Christ, that finished work, that death upon Calvary's tree, that
buried body in that tomb and that risen glorious body. That
hope that's entered into the vows. It's a substance. See, our hope and our faith is
not in whims and opinions, it's in a substance. Faith is the
substance of things, I call, and it's the evidence of things
not seen. It's the evidence. Faith is the
hope. Faith is the evidence. He says, and I'll close here,
in Romans 8, that glorious chapter that begins with no condemnation
for the children of God and finishes with no separation for the children
of God. He says in verse 24, For we are
saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. But if we hope for what for that
we see not, then do we with patience wait for it? We have a person who is our hope. We have a person whose promises
secure that in his word do I have, in
his word do I have That's right, it's a hymn by
Don Fortner, so be still my heart and doubt no more. Be still my heart. Great and Sovereign God, I cast
my soul and rest. My Father can controls the world,
and what He does is best. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and the power combined to make thee blessed. Raging storms and fiery trials,
He keeps me from all harms. He walks with me and holds me
in His everlasting arms. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blessed. Find God with skill
infallible. great designs of grace shall So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power, the mind to make thee blest. My life's hopes, my new
circumstance, is ordered by my God, who promised that in all
things He will ever do me good. So be still, my heart, and doubt
no more. Believe and find sweet rest. God's wisdom, love, and truth,
and power combine to make thee blest.