you you the the Well, it's good to see people
again. And we're thankful that we can
meet again this morning in person. And as we meet together this
morning, we're certainly glad and thankful for those who are
watching by way of the internet. And I thank God for the means
that he has given to us so that If we are unable to be here,
at least we can watch, you can watch by way of the internet,
and we're so thankful for that. Well, I want you to open your
Bibles to the book of Lamentations and chapter 3. And I'm going
to read a verse from this portion of Scripture, but I'm also going
to come back and I'll be speaking from Lamentations chapter 3 in
just a little bit. So you might want to put a ribbon
or a bookmark or your bulletin, something like that, in this
portion of scripture, Lamentations chapter 3, and of course that's
the little book kind of squeezed in between Jeremiah and Ezekiel. I would like to say to the men
who meet on both Sunday evening Wednesday evening that we're
going to be meeting in the back. We can kind of more social distance. It's much more space back there. So we'll begin that this evening. We'll meet back there. We won't
meet in the office. And I think that, appreciate
Bill has set it up in kind of a nice circle for us and So those
of you who haven't felt comfortable coming, certainly it's a better
situation back there, and I welcome you this evening at 6, and then
of course the rest of us, all of us will be here at 6.30 for
the worship service. Well this is a Blessed portion
of scripture Lamentations chapter 3 and As I said I'll be speaking
from a portion of this this evening, but I want to show you verse
32 and Just draw a little milk from this, and I hope it'll
be a blessing to you, Lamentations 3.32, but though he cause grief,
that is though God cause grief, Yet will he have compassion according
to the multitude of his mercies." And the word grief, I kind of
want to focus on that. God causes grief. Now grief here means a multitude
of things. There's the grief that God brings
about over our own sinfulness. And it's a wonderful thing when
God disturbs us over our guilt and our sinfulness because He
has mercies that He gives to us. His forgiving mercies and
the mercies of God in Christ Jesus, of course. And then also
the word grief means affliction of any sort. Any difficulty,
trouble, trial that we experience is ultimately due to God sending
it. Like He did to Job. And many
of us have experienced, in fact all of the people of God have
experienced grief of one sort or another. And we recognize
the wisdom of our Father who sends these things. And we're
also thinking that He will have compassion according to His mercies. And it's the multitude of His
mercies. He shows compassion to us. He
shows love and great tenderness to us. He is our Father, and
He cares for all of His children, loves us with an everlasting
love, and we're so thankful for Him. Now, Ron's going to be reading
for us from the New Testament, the book of Romans, and if you
would, go to chapter 8, Romans chapter 8. And he'll be reading
a few verses from this portion of Scripture. We ask God to bless
as we gather together this morning. I'll begin our reading in Romans
8 with verse 16 and finish with a very familiar verse of 28. The Spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children,
then heirs, heirs of God, and join heirs with Christ. If so
be that we supper with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation
of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of
God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly,
but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope. because
the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now. And not only they, but ourselves
also, which have the firstfruits 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, what hath
he yet hoped for? But if we hope for that we see
not, then do we with patience wait for it. Likewise, the Spirit
also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth
the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that all things work together for good, to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. Our Lord and our God, our Father
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, we give
you thanks once again for calling us into this place to worship
your Son. to lift him up in prayer, to
lift him up in the reading of the word, to lift him up in the
preaching of the word, that he may be lifted up in our heart,
and that we can rejoice in the word we're going to hear today.
This is not a time that has come by accident. This is a time that
you have purposed from all eternity. And the message we're going to
hear this morning is a message that you have purposed for us
to hear. I bless our pastor as he stands and opens your word
to preach Christ to us and him crucified. Never let us turn
our attention away from him. For if we do, we follow vanity,
we follow pride. But in your son, we follow hope,
love, faith, and charity. For in him we have all these
things. For in him we are accepted by
you. For in him our sins have been
paid for by his bloody sacrifice. And in him we have come into
this place to worship this morning. Let your spirit rest upon each
one in here, but we'll let it also rest upon each one who may
be viewing or who may hear this message later on. And we bring
before you our brothers and sisters in trial and affliction. Lord,
we know these are light afflictions compared to the glory that awaits
your people. We know these are light afflictions
compared to what our Lord and Savior, your Son, went through
on our behalf before you to pay for our sin. Unmentionable agony,
unmentionable loneliness when you forsook him. Lord, we now
look to him. We now know that we have a place
in glory with him for he has promised it. And bless us now
as we open your word and as our pastors preachers your word,
that Christ may be exalted and lifted up. And we'll give you
all the praise and all the honor and all the glory in his name
for his sake. Amen. so ? Thy hope, blessed Jesus, is anchored
in me ? Thy righteousness only now covereth me ? Thy blood shed
on Calvary now is my plea Wonder the Savior, the glory
to Thee. In Thee is salvation so full. Thou shalt forth Thy praises
through all eternity. My Savior, my Savior, my Lord, My hope is in thee. I stand on the rock that no tempest
can shake, and lie from thy hands every moment I take. Thy love will endure when all
others forsake. My hope, my hope is in Thee. Wonderful Savior, all glory so full and so free. I'll shout
forth thy praises through all eternity. My hope is in thee. My hope is in thee. My hope for eternity rests in
thy hand. My heart deeply longs for that
fair better land, where one day complete in thyself I shall stand. in me. Wonderful Savior, all glory
to thee. In thee is the My savior, my savior. Thank you. Years ago in church that I was working in.
The name of it was Calvary Baptist in Virginia, Salem, Virginia. Of course, I was a student on
Bible college. We drove up every weekend. music director, choir director,
Sunday school teacher, took care of the youth and that sort of
thing. And that was one of my favorite,
favorite songs to lead our choir in singing, and we love singing
it. It is just wonderful. My hope
is in thee. That's the name of that song.
Thank you, Susanna, for singing that. Well, let's go back to
the book of Lamentations this morning. Lamentations chapter
3. The book of Lamentations chapter
3. Let me begin reading at verse
18 of Lamentations 3. Here's the prophet of God He
says, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Remembering mine affliction and
my misery, the wormwood and the gall, my soul hath him still
in remembrance and is humbled in me. But then the prophet of
God God brought some things to his mind. And that's why he writes
in verse 21, this I recall to my mind. It's like all of a sudden
God brought some things into his mind and into his heart.
And he said, therefore I have hope. Well, what did God bring
to his mind? To his remembrance? Just this. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed, and that's because His compassions, they
fail not. They are new every morning, great
is our faithfulness. And then the prophet of God says,
the Lord, that is God who is my Savior, Christ Jesus, is my
saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for him and to the soul that seeketh him. It is good
that a man should both hope and very quietly wait, patiently
wait for the salvation of the Lord. Let's ask God to bless
this morning. Lord, we bow before You again,
recognizing our utter inability to receive anything of the spiritual
nature unless it be given to us from above. Therefore, we
call out to You, O Father, that you would send the Spirit of
our Savior and reveal to us that which is needful for us to know
from these verses of Scripture. Lord, reveal to us the Son of
Redemption, that one who is the Son of your love. We're so thankful
for Christ Jesus. and that He pitied us. He saw
our neediness. He saw our awful condition in
sin. And He willingly stepped forward
to be our surety in the covenant of grace. And He entered into
this world for us. For us He lived. For us, He died
and was buried. For us, He was raised again.
For us, He ascended. And for us, He represents us
before the majesty on the high. Thank God we have a great high
priest. That one who is indeed seated
in the heavenlies. Our Mediator. Our Mighty Advocate. And His name is Jesus Christ
the Righteous. We're thankful that He ever represents
us there. And He governs all things for
our good. And Father, for Your glory. May
this one who is God, our Savior, be our hope. And if He is our
hope, then we have a good hope. We have a very confident expectation
of future good and future glory in the Savior. Bless your word
to the hearts of these gathered, these who watch. Lord, be merciful to all of us. We
read that your compassions, they fail not. Lord, would you pour out upon
us a realization of your very tender and fatherly compassions upon us. We need you so desperately every
hour of every day. We read in Hebrews 4 that we're
instructed to call upon you in our time of need. Oh Father, ours is always a time
of need. And we're so thankful that we're
freely compelled and instructed to come boldly unto the throne
of grace. And there we may find mercy and
grace to help us in our time of need. Be gracious and merciful to us,
Father, for Jesus' sake, Amen. We typically use a very common
expression, and it is, I hope. I heard some of you say just
several weeks ago, I hope we have a white Christmas. And,
well, you did get your wish. You did get your desire. But
all of the things that we hope for, and using the word hope
there as a wish or a desire, all of the things that we hope
for in this world won't come to pass, we know that. But this
word, H-O-P-E, hope, as used in the Word of God does not mean
merely a wish or a desire. It is a what we might call a
confident expectation of good out in the future. And it is
based on God's faithful Word. That's the word hope as it is
used in the Word of God. We may correctly say, I hope
to be saved someday. If by that we mean, I hope, I
anticipate, I am very confident, I believe God's Word that out
there in the future, one day, I will fully realize God's salvation
ultimately. I know we're spiritually saved,
but this, though our souls have been redeemed, this body has
been redeemed as well by the blood of the Lord Jesus. And
this body is going to have to go back to the grave. It's got
to go back to the dust. We're going to die. The soul
goes back to God. But we have a good hope regarding
this body. Because though it is going to
be committed to the ground, our expectation is one day, and this
is what God's word says, these bodies will be raised. And we'll
have incorruptible bodies and immortal bodies. So that is a
good hope having the expectation of total and full salvation. It is a, someone said, one writer
said, it's waiting for something. Here's what a Bible hope is.
It is waiting for something that I can't see with my eyes. But God has promised in His Word. That's good. Waiting for something
that these eyes can't see. But God has set it forth and
He has promised in His Word. I can't see heaven. I can't see
the right hand of God. I can't see everlasting glory. I can't see the dear Savior at
the right hand of the Majesty on high. These eyes can't see
that. But I fully expect to enjoy being
at His right hand. What's the basis for that? What
God has said. What God has said. Several years
ago I was asked to visit a man who was dying of cancer. At that time I pastored in Rocky
Mount, Virginia. So I went to see him and he was
Primitive Baptist, was the church that he went to. And I had known
him, I didn't know him real well, but I knew him and he was a rather
robust fellow and he was quite the farmer and always very stout
and all that sort of thing. And I went to see him in the
hospital and he was just, well, just skin and bones. Cancer does
that. And so, he knew me and spoke
to me and I spoke to him and I said, well, I just wanted to
ask you, is everything alright between you and God? That's what
I want to ask you. And he said, well, let me tell
you preacher, I hope so. I hope so. And he said, I hope
when the dust settles and all the smoke is cleared, I hope
I'm on the right side. And I said to him, that is not
a good hope. That's just a wish. What he was
saying was, maybe I'll be on the right side, maybe I won't
be on the right side. And I said, I tell you, that's
not good enough for me. I said, the Word of God says
we can know, we can know we have an assurance of our relationship
to God through Christ Jesus and His work of redemption. And he
said, well I just hope I'm on the right side when it's all
said and done. Now that's not a Bible hope. That's not a good hope. A good hope is, well, didn't
the songwriter express it quite well? My hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's good hope. And he said,
I dare not trust that the sweetest frame but I wholly lean on Jesus'
name." That's a good hope. Do you have a good hope? Now,
I'm going to be preaching on that very subject this evening. A good hope. Do you have a good
hope? Let me tell you several things,
and first of all, I want you to go to the New Testament with
me, and hold your spot here in Lamentations 3. But go to the
book of Ephesians, the second chapter. In the Bible, a hope, a good
hope is a confidence, an expectation of future good and glory based
upon what God has said. One writer said hope is simply
faith directed toward the future. It's what you can't see now.
Your eyes can't behold it. Not the literal eyes, but your
eyes of faith do. And we have a hope in Christ
Jesus. We have a very confident expectation. I believe God. God can't lie.
Can God lie? You know God can't lie. And God
said, He that hath the Son hath life. You've got everlasting
life if you have the Son of God. If you believe Him, therefore
you can have a confident expectation. It's all going to wind up just
perfectly. We have a good hope. A good hope. But here are five things I want
to give you in time that's remaining. Number one, we have no hope by
nature. That's the first thing I want
to say. We have no hope by nature. Ephesians chapter 2, look at
verse 11. Here's the apostle writing to
believers, to Ephesian believers in the Lord Jesus, and he is
taking them back in their memories to their former condition, spiritually. He says in verse 11, Wherefore
remember that ye, being in time past, Gentiles in the flesh,
who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision
in the flesh made by hands, at that time ye were, you were in
a sad state, because you were without Christ. You are without Christ. That
means you had no righteousness, no peace, no forgiveness, no
life, no way to God, no truth of God. You are without Christ. And that's the way we all are
by nature. Those of us who are the children
of God, who are saved by the grace of God, this was our condition. We were without Christ. Number
two, he says, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. He's not talking about national
Israel now. The reference is to spiritual
Israel. We had no part among the people
of God. Peter expressed it this way in
2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 10. You are now the people of God
who were not the people of God. You had no privilege of saying,
I'm a child of God. I'm numbered among the people
of God. You were aliens from God's true Israel. Thirdly, he
says, you were strangers from the covenants of promise. That
is, from all the promises found in the covenant of grace, you
could not lay hold of any of them and say, this is for me. You couldn't. That was your natural
condition. And then he says in the next
state, number four, having no hope. That was our condition. Having no hope. When Adam defied
God, he sinned. We died, we lost all hope of
entering into the paradise of God. Man has no hope in and of
himself. Adam became an enemy of God.
He defied God. He rebelled against God. And
now he has no hope. And when he rebelled against
God, so did we. That means that we're born having
no hope. There's no reason for you who
are outside of Christ Jesus, there's no reason for you to
expect that one day things will wind up good for you. They won't. They won't. They can't. Not outside
of Christ Jesus. If you're without Christ Jesus,
things are not going to wind up good for you. There's no future
promise of life everlasting for you, of glory, of paradise, of
being with the Lord Jesus. Why, you're an alien from God's
true Israel. and all the promises of God in
the covenant, well, you're just a stranger to them all. And you have no hope. There's no reason why anybody
who doesn't believe Christ Jesus should ever expect that one day
they'll be with the Lord Jesus in glory. You've got no hope.
There's no hope whatsoever. And then he says you're without
God in this world. Without the knowledge of God,
and the knowledge of God, that is eternal life according to
John chapter 17. By nature we had no desire toward
God. We were in opposition to God. That is the natural condition
of all people. We have no hope by nature. Do you remember in the book of,
you don't have to turn there, 1 Thessalonians chapter four,
Paul is talking to the believers about when loved ones die, when
God takes them, they leave this world in death. God said in 1
Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13, He said, we sorrow not as
others who, remember what He said? Have no hope. I tell you the saddest thing
for me is to go to a funeral home or graveyard And I have
no confidence that that person whose funeral service I'm officiating
at, when I have no confidence that they had a good hope. That's a sad thing. You see, when someone is a believer
and they give every evidence of loving Christ Jesus, no, they're
not perfect and they're not without their flaws, none of us are,
but they give indication through their love of the Word of God
and their appearance here in the worship services and by their
speech. They give some evidence that
they love Christ Jesus, that they have a good hope, but when
a person dies and you don't have any confidence that they had
a good hope, that's a sad time. How did they die? They died without hope, I'm afraid. Do you have hope? Now, on the other side, the flip
side of the coin, so to speak, Though we hate to see the loss
of a believer from our congregation, for them, it's a most joyful
time. I received word this week that
a dear lady who was converted under my ministry, and I do believe
she was converted, had many sweet talks with her, baptized her,
and she's in a very bad way physically. She told her boys, she said,
I just want to go home to be with the Lord Jesus. When she leaves this world, it'll
be happy. be happy for her. She's a dear
soul. I've known her a lot of years.
Buried her husband, buried her mother, buried her father, buried
her sister, buried her brother-in-law, then buried her sister, buried
her uncle, and now her son said she just can't have dialysis. eat up with cancer. She's in
renal failure and pancreatic cancer in a bad way. But she's got a good hope. There'll be sorrow for her family,
a little bit of sorrow on my part, but she sent me the sweetest
birthday card here just a few days ago. But you see, for those who have
a good hope in Christ Jesus, it's a different kind of sorrow,
isn't it? It's altogether different. We miss them, but we wouldn't want them back
for nothing, because they've gone on to glory. And everything
that this awful thing of sin has brought about in their bodies,
that's forever done with. That's gone. That's over. They're never going to know another
day of sickness or pain or disappointment. They're in the presence of the
Lord of glory. They're rejoicing before Him.
And when she breathes her last, and her son, I'll just share
this with you, her son said, she can't talk, would you leave
her a voicemail? And I said, I would. I said,
I'll call in the morning, leave her a voicemail, and I did. I
kind of put some thoughts together and had some scripture for her
and told her I loved her. But I said, if I don't see you
down here again, I'll see you up yonder. And arm in arm we'll
worship Christ Jesus together. That's good hope. That's good
expectation. That's confidence. She got confidence
in Christ Jesus. What about you? What about you? See, by nature we have no hope. Paul said, we sorrow not as others
who have no hope. That's the time to sorrow. That's the grief that breaks
the heart. But let me give you, let me go
to the second point here real quick. Here's the second point,
and I'll have you turn to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Number one, we have no hope by
nature. Here's number two, we only have
a good hope through grace. Now this is going to be my text
this evening. And the subject is going to be
a good hope through grace. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse
16. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God, even our Father, which hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish
you in every good word and work. there is a good hope to be had. And it is an expectation, it
is a confidence, it is an assurance that everything out in the future
is going to be wonderful and it's based upon the grace of
God. It's not based upon your works,
it's not based upon your decision, it's not based upon your baptism,
It's not based upon taking the Lord's Supper. It's not based
upon the good opinion that others have of you. A good hope is a
good hope through grace. Through grace. You see, hope is itself a gift
of grace. By nature, I have no hope. You have no hope. But by grace,
we have a good hope of good things to come. And it's all due to
the graciousness of our God. Grace that had no beginning for
us. Grace that always was and has
been. That everlasting grace Grace
was given us, 2 Timothy 1 in verse 9 says, grace was given
us before the foundation of the world. We do experience grace
in this life at conversion, but that's because grace was given
to us way back yonder. It's really without beginning.
Grace was given to us in Christ Jesus. Grace chose us. Grace reached out to us and God
said, you'll be mine. Grace gave us to the surety,
the Son of God. Grace in the heart of the Lord
Jesus said, I receive these as a gift. I pledge my faithfulness to the purpose of God in salvation
for these. Grace sent Him from glory. Grace
sent Him to the cross of Calvary as the substitute, as that offering
for sin. Grace did that. In your mind's
eye do you see Him suffering and bleeding and dying upon the
cross of Calvary? Why does He suffer so? Grace
is behind it all. God's sovereign saving grace. Grace reached out and smote Him
for all of His people. And grace raised Him up from
the tomb because He paid the debt we owed. Grace took Him back to glory. From glory He sheds His grace
on His people. He hasn't shed His grace upon
this country. He shed many a mercy, but not
grace. Because the grace of God always
saves. The grace of God never fails. And one of these days, grace
having kept us to this day, it'll never let us go. One of these
days, grace will take us on home to glory. We have a good hope
through grace. Do you expect future good out
there, preacher? Yes, I do. What do you base that
on? The grace of God. Not my faithfulness,
not my preaching, not my praying, not my studying, not my doing
anything. Grace. That's the theme of God's
people. That's always our theme is grace. Here's the third thing. We only
have a good hope from the Word of God. Look back at the book
of Colossians, if you would, chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1, verse 4. Paul writes to the saints of
God, and he said, verse 3 says, we give thanks to God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since
we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and the love which ye
have to all the saints for the hope, for the hope which is laid up
for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before, ye heard it in
the word of the truth of the gospel. We have a good hope from the
Word of God. And we read in 1 Corinthians
13, and you know this, now abide at these three, faith, hope,
and charity, or faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of
these is charity or love. And that's because faith, one
of these days, we'll exchange faith and we'll get to sight. We'll see the Lord. Be a blessed
day. And even hope, hope, a confident
expectation of future good, hope will be exchanged for reality. Won't need any hope then. But
we'll always have love. Love for the Savior. Love for
the Gospel. Here Paul is talking about Hope
being laid up for the people of God in heaven, which we have
heard. Where did we hear it? We heard
it in the Word of God. In the Word of God. There's no
hope apart from the Word of God. Look back at Romans chapter 15.
I'll give you two or three verses here to read. Romans chapter
15, verse 4. Romans 15 verse 4, For whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning,
that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope. There is no hope apart from the
Scriptures. Because this is the Word of God.
Our hope is not in what we do. Our hope is not in what we feel. Our hope is not in a profession
of faith. Our hope is based upon the Word
of God. What God has said. Because that's
what lasts forever. Our faith must be founded upon
God's Word. Our hope must be founded upon
God's Word. And our love must be founded
upon God's Word. We go to the Word of God to find
out. We find out the truth. The truth of God. of God's person,
of God's attributes, of God's characteristics. We don't go
to Reader's Digest to find out about God. The people who edit
that and write that, most all of them, maybe all of them, together,
they don't know God. You don't want to go to something
in the world that the world puts out, the world's idea about God.
Just go to God's Word and find out who He is. Our hope of who
God is, our expectation of seeing God in Christ Jesus someday is
based upon His Word, what God has said. This Word tells me
of my sinful condition, tells me of the Christ of God. It tells
me of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. I tell you, I rest my soul. I'm always honest with you. As
honest as I can be with you, I trust my soul's salvation to
what God has said in this book. Not what some man has written. And I really appreciate the writings
of men. I'm thankful for the writings
of men. I enjoy reading the writings of men, but they're just men.
Our hope is based upon the Word of God. I believe the Scriptures, don't
you? And then fourthly, and now go
back to Lamentations. Maybe you didn't think I'd get
back to this, but here we go. We'll go back to Lamentations
now. We only have a good hope in the Lord. In the Lord Jesus
Christ. You know, Jeremiah is called
the prophet of sorrow. The weeping, weeping prophet. And he writes of so many afflictions
that the Lord brought upon him. The Lord brought his servant
under the severe guilt of sin. The Lord made the load of his
sin to be very, very heavy upon Jeremiah. In fact, he felt that
the Lord had cast him off forever. He lived to see the people of
God taken into captivity in a foreign land. They became slaves and
servants to an idolatrous people. He was broken hearted. He talks, and I read this a little
bit ago, in verse 18, he said, My strength, my hope is perished
from the Lord. You're talking about somebody
who at this point was a pessimist. He felt like every single thing
was against him. He felt like God was against
him. He writes in verse 19, remembering
my affliction, my misery, the wormwood and the gall, that's
all I had. Maybe some of you, maybe someone
out there, that's the way you feel. That's my life, preacher,
just like Jeremiah, that's my life. And Jeremiah said this in verse
20, My soul hath him still in remembrance, and is humbled in
me. It's all I can think about is
what he said. It's all I can remember. Bad things, horrible
things that have happened to me. But then it's like the Lord just
shook him out of his despair. That's what the Lord has to do
to us sometimes, you know? We get so down, upset, sad, and
then God brings to your memory, hey, you've got good hope, don't
you? You've got a good hope, don't
you? You have a good expectation of future glory, don't you? And the Lord reminded him he
had a good hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what he says. Let me point
out just a few things here in this text. Number one, he had
a hope in the Lord's mercies. Look at verse 22. It is of the
Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. Oh, I don't find any
hope in the waters of baptism or the Lord's Supper, but I do
have hope in the mercies of the Savior to me. Because they're
called His sure mercies. That's what they're called. They're
sure. There's nothing sure in this
world except taxes and death. Oh, there's something more sure
than those things. There are the everlasting mercies
of God. I do have hope in the mercies
of the Savior to me. Mercies. I like that. Not just
mercy, but mercies. Multiplied mercies. Manifold
mercies. Mercies that can't be numbered.
Next time you get to feeling sorry for yourself and down in
the dumps and all that kind of stuff, remember this portion
of Scripture. What Jeremiah said. He said he
had hope in the Lord's mercies. While the mercy of the Lord,
the Scripture says, endureth how long? Forever? Is that what it says? Forever. Forever. Eternal mercy. Covenant mercy. Redemptive mercy. He bought me. He paid my debt. He cancelled the handwriting
on the wall against me. He took away from me my filth
and robed me in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus. I stand perfect
in Him. He sent a preacher to me. Oh,
what a mercy! He sent a preacher to me. And when that man preached that
night, as far as I was concerned, nobody else was in that building
but me. Because that message has come
right to my heart. Oh, I know he was a flawed man,
he was a sinful man like all the rest of us, but he's the
man with the message. That's who he was. The man with
the message. Like John the Baptist, there
was a man sent from God whose name was John. There was a man
sent from God whose name was Henry. And it may just be there's
a man sent from God whose name is Jim. to minister to you. I tell you what, he spreads his
truth using men. Sinful men without preaching
of the gospel. You're lost. And Jeremiah, watch
this, he had hope in the Lord's mercies. Number two, he had hope
in the Lord's compassions. Oh, his compassions. Verse 22. because His compassions fail
not." That's His tender love. His tender love. It'll never fail. My love for the Lord falters,
grows weak at times, but His tender love, His compassions
toward me will never change and never fail. And get this, His
compassions toward His people are indestructible. They're indestructible. Now,
I would never counsel, of course, anybody to go out here and live
a wicked life, anything like that. That'd be stupid to say
something like that. But I will tell you this, if
you mess up, and you're going to, you mess up every day, But
if you mess up big time, and I hope you don't, I pray that
God keep you and keep me too, from doing anything that would
bring embarrassment to the name of Christ Jesus or embarrassment
to the work of God. But if we do, you're not going
to destroy God's love. David, you committed adultery,
as I know. David, You had Bathsheba's husband
left all along for the enemy to shoot at him and kill him.
I know. I know. But David, I do have this good
news for you. God's love toward you is indestructible. Oh Saul, Saul, you persecuted
my church, the Lord said. Saul says, I know I did. Oh,
how you mistreated my people. And didn't you hold the robes
of those, the coats of those who stoned my servant Stephen
to death? Oh, yes I did. But let me tell
you something, Saul. God's love for you is indestructible. You didn't kill His love. Whom
He loves, He loves forever. Forever. And the reason He loves
us is He just loves us freely. Hosea chapter 14 verse 4 says
that. I will love them freely without
a cause in them. So I don't know how the Lord
could love me. Well, I don't either. And I don't
know how He could love you or me. But the reason He loves us is
not to be found in us. It's found in Him. It's found
in His heart of love. I love them freely without a
cost, without a reason that's in them. There is no reason in
us. Thirdly, Jeremiah had hope in
the faithfulness of the Lord, verse 23. They are new every morning, that
is His compassion. Great is thy faithfulness. I
promise you this. It is not your faithfulness that
keeps you from being consumed. It's His faithfulness. I am the
Lord. I change not. Therefore, you
sons of Jacob are not consumed. God is faithful to His oath.
God's faithful to his promise. God's faithful to his covenant.
He can't lie. He's faithful to always see and
remember the substitutionary death of his son for me. Like
the hymn writer said, five bleeding wounds he bears received on Calvary. They ever plead for me. And what
is their plea? Forgive them, oh forgive, they
cry. Don't let that ransomed sinner
die. Oh yeah. Jeremiah had hope in
the faithfulness of the Lord and fourthly he had hope in the
Lord's goodness. Look at verse 25, well verse
24, the Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope
in Him. I hope in Him. He's my portion. He's all I got. He's my future. Well, how does your future look,
preacher? Really good. Really good. Yeah, well, what if the stock
market crashes? Really good. What if you get
sick and cancer eats away at you? What do you think about
the future then? It looks really good. Really
good. Because the Lord is my portion.
Nothing in this world. I'm not even a citizen of this
world. I'm a citizen of that world.
I'm a member of the Lord's family. That's why I have hope in Him.
That's what Jeremiah says. He says here in verse 5, he had
hope in the Lord's goodness. The Lord is good unto them that
wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. To wait for the
Lord is to wait for final deliverance. Wait on the Lord and be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on
the Lord, Psalm 27, 14. The Lord's good to those that
seek Him. That's why David said, when thou saidest, seek ye my
face, I said, thy face, Lord, will I seek. I seek him. Do you seek him? I seek him in
his word. I seek him in his house. I seek him in the words of the
Lord's servant. I seek him. And then here's the last thing,
here's the fifth thing I want to give you real quick. We only
have a good hope because salvation is God's salvation. Look at verse
26. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. I'm
so thankful for the salvation of the Lord, aren't you? Oh,
spiritual salvation, that's of the Lord, He saves from sin.
But you know, every kind of salvation is of the Lord. Salvation from
the law is of the Lord, Christ honored it. Christ paid the penalty
for me breaking it. Salvation, that's of the Lord.
Salvation from death, there'd be a perfect body. Salvation
from any trouble or danger is of the Lord. Our hope is in the
Lord. So learn then these five things
about hope. By nature we have no hope, no
expectation, no confidence of future. Close your eyes here
and open them in. You got a good hope. You got
a good hope. I don't want you to be uncomfortable
in this life, but it really doesn't matter what things we have to
go through with down here. Because we have a good hope in
the Lord. One old Baptist preacher, one
of my favorite writers, John Gill, He lay dying, and just
before leaving this world, he quoted to a dear friend some
of the words of a song by Isaac Watts. He quoted these four lines. He raised me from the depths
of sin, the gates of gaping hell. and fix my standing more secure
than it was before I fell. And I'll close with the verse
that Susanna sang, My hope, blessed Jesus, is anchored in Thee. Thy righteousness only now covereth
me. Thy blood shed on Calvary Now
is my plea. My hope, my hope is in Thee,
wonderful Savior. All glory to Thee. In Thee is
salvation, so full and so free. I'll shout through the ages,
through the ages. I'll shout forth Thy praises
through all eternity. My Savior. My Savior. My hope is in Thee. My hope is
in Thee. I hope you can echo those words
too, honestly. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving
us a good hope. A good hope by grace. A good
hope found in the Word of God. A good hope in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The good hope of salvation is
of the Lord. Oh, thank you for all that you
have done, are doing, and Lord, what you shall yet do for your
people. Bring us to wait quietly for
thy salvation. O Lord, calm any anxieties. Calm the troubled soul. All who rest in the Lord Jesus
are resting upon the solid rock. And we shall not fail to someday
enter into that land of glory and see our Savior face to face
and be with Him forever. Bless these dear people to whom
I've been speaking. Make thy word effectual to them. For Christ's sake, I pray these
things. Amen. you you Yeah. you you