Let's turn to Romans chapter
15 together. Romans chapter 15. Most people in this world live
without hope. Their hope is an illusion, a
refuge of lies, The hope that Job spoke of when he said, the
hope of the wicked shall perish. Tuesday afternoon, Shelby and
I drove up, we left Tuesday morning, drove up for her sister's burial. They just had a graveside service,
so we attended. And there was a preacher. Folks always gotta have a lying
preacher to secure their hope. There was a preacher. And he
talked about salvation by grace and saying amazing grace, salvation
only by grace. And God will save you by his
grace if you will. If you will. And he proceeded
to talk about what you have to do. You have to repent. You have
to believe. You have to make your decision
to come to Christ. And I had made up my mind I was going to
just keep my mouth shut as long as he walked by and didn't say
anything. But he didn't. I was the last man whose hand
he reached out to shake and I took his hand firmly and I said to
him, if God's salvation and God's grace has to wait for a dead
sinner to make a decision to pray to come to Christ, to repent,
then God's grace and God's salvation is worthless. And I hope God
will teach you that. And I said it loud enough for
everybody to hear me because I wanted them to hear me. I could
not stand there and silently give acknowledgement to what
the man had declared to be a hope where there is no hope. If you
hope in yourselves, you have no hope. If you hope in anything
you do, you have no hope. If you hope in any righteousness
of your own, you have no hope. If you hope in anything you have
felt or experienced, you have no hope. Our hope is in Jesus
Christ, our Redeemer. Sometimes God's people, however,
think that their hope has perished. They carry heavy burdens, heavy
burdens. They face difficult times, trials,
heartaches that just keep pressing them down. Until you think that
God's mercy is clean gone forever. My hope, my message this morning
is hope. That's it. Hope. That's the title
of my message. Hope. 15 times in the book of Romans,
15 times in these first 15 chapters of Romans, Paul uses the word
hope in connection with God's salvation, in connection with
eternal life. He was inspired by God the Holy
Ghost to speak of the hope of God's elect 15 times in this
epistle. Abraham, he tells us, believed
in hope. Having access to God by faith
in Christ, we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Our experience
of God's grace, it gives sinners a hope that maketh not ashamed. And then it tells us that we're
saved by hope. Then in Romans 15, 4, we're told
that this book, the Word of God, the Bible, this blessed book,
written by the inspiration of God, the Holy Ghost, was written
specifically to give poor, needy, helpless sinners, such as we
are, hope. And that's precisely what we
read here. Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures
might have hope. This book is written to give
you hope. It's written to give you hope. I've said this to many of you
in private conversation during times of difficulty. I say it
to people all the time. I don't know anything about the
business of pastoral counseling and don't pretend to. I can't
tell you anything in private. I haven't told you in public.
I just don't engage in that kind of stuff. But I tell you what
to do. when trouble comes and you're
pressed beyond measure and you can't express in words the weight
on your souls. The best thing you can do is
bury yourself in this book written to give you hope. Bury yourself
in this book written to give you hope. The Apostle Paul we
read earlier wrote these words. 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. I want us to look in the scriptures. and find out what God tells us
about this good hope through grace, the hope that God gives,
and if God will give us this hope, then your hearts will be
comforted and established in Jesus Christ the Lord. 46 years ago, back in 1972, I
heard Brother Henry Mahan preach on this subject. We were together
in a meeting down in Birmingham, Alabama. In his introductory
comments, Brother Mahan made several statements that I immediately
realized were important enough to be remembered and would be
needed in time to come. So I jotted them down. They were
powerful, powerful statements. He said, somewhere between proud
presumption and dread despair is the believer's hope. Somewhere
between a fleshly familiarity with God and a slavish fear of
God there is the believer's hope. Somewhere between modern decisionism
and medieval fatalism is the believer's hope. And then he
went on to say, in the word of God, we are hedged about between
the promises of God and his warnings. On the one side, we have his
promises, lest we despair. On the other side, we have his
warnings, lest we presume. This matter of the believer's
hope is a subject of immense importance. The scriptures tell
us, as we've read twice now, that all believers are given
of God a good hope through grace. All who are saved are saved by
hope. We live in hope of eternal life,
that God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began. You may
have noticed we sang one of our hymns this morning a second time. We sang it last week and again
today. And I looked through our hymn book. Sadly, you'll search the hymn book almost
in vain to even find the hymn that uses the word hope. Almost in vain. You find here
and there, there's no hymns on the subject, little writing on
the subject. Most everybody has something
to say about faith. Everybody got something to say
about love. Very few people have anything to say about hope. Most
of you can talk very comfortably about faith and you can talk
comfortably about love. But very few, I fear, can speak
comfortably about hope. As it is used in the scriptures,
the word hope does not represent an empty, baseless wish. It doesn't represent that at
all. As it's used in the Bible, hope
is the expectation of faith. expectation based upon the promises
of God in His Word and upon the goodness and grace of God assured
us by His Word. What is your hope? What is my hope? We hope that
we are saved. forgiven, justified, redeemed,
sanctified, and accepted with God. We hope to go to heaven
when we die. We hope in the day of judgment
to stand among the redeemed. But what's the basis of our hope?
Let's bring it to the Word of God and find out if we have a
good hope, a good hope. that makes not ashamed, a good
hope that will comfort our souls, a good hope that will establish
us in Christ, or nothing but the delusion, the hope of the
wicked that shall perish. The believer's hope gives him
peace, contentment, and confidence in a world of woe. The believer's
hope establishes him in the midst of a constantly changing life
and constantly changing world. The believer's hope sustains
him in the midst of sorrow. The believer's hope holds him
firm in the path of faith. It is that which anchors the
soul. The believer's hope looks forward
with confidence. Faith principally looks backward,
principally. Hope looks forward. With confident
faith, we look forward to tomorrow with hope because of the hope
that is ours in Christ Jesus the Lord. Now with that said,
turn with me to Lamentations chapter three. I've read this
to you so many, many times, preached to you from it. I have no idea
how many times. But here is God's servant, Jeremiah. He's called the weeping prophet.
There's a reason for that. The first 29 chapters of the
book of Jeremiah are all taken up with judgment and woe. Jeremiah's people and his nation
His family and his friends had all apostatized from the Lord.
He lived among a people who professed to be God's people, who professed
to be God's Israel, Abraham's seed, but they had stooped to
becoming idolaters following the way of the wicked in the
land. When Jeremiah spoke to them,
even when they said they would hear him, they refused to hear
him. When he told them what God said, then they would imprison
him and they derided him. Jeremiah was full of sorrow.
He was slandered by the very people who ought to have cherished
him. The church of God was in bondage in a heathen land. And this old prophet understood
clearly what they were going through. He felt the pains that
they ought to have felt. He felt the judgment they ought
to have felt. And he saw all that transpired
as being the strokes of his loving father's hand upon him. The work of God's wisdom, the
work of God's goodness, the work of God's purpose for him. In
the midst of his soul's trouble, he said 24 times, 24 times, he said, this is God's
doing. This is God's doing. Let's begin
reading in verse 15, Lamentations chapter 3. He, the Lord God, the God I worship
and serve, my Savior, the Lord of hosts, He, He hath
filled me with bitterness. He hath made me drunken with
wormwood. He hath also broken my teeth
with gravel stones. He hath covered me with ashes. And thou hast removed my soul
far off from peace. I forget prosperity. He's not
talking about the prosperity of a rich man. He's talking about
the prosperity of his soul. I forget prosperity. And I said
it, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. Remembering
my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall, the
bitterness, somehow, When these things come, it's hard to remember mercy.
And we quickly remember gall and bitterness. My soul hath been still in remembrance
and is humbled in me. Having said that, the prophet
immediately seems to have seen the foolishness of his unbelief.
And looking away from himself to his Savior, his soul was refreshed
with hope. His heart was revived with expectation. Look at verse 21. This I recall
to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we're not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. Therefore will I hope in him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that
seeketh him. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Now
let's look at these things Jeremiah speaks of. I know when we speak of hope, when you're disinclined
to hope, When I encourage you to look with confidence toward
tomorrow, when you're disinclined to do so, it's difficult to find
reason. Let me give you reasons. First,
here is our hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed. Some have hope. and family relations,
have been raised in a good Christian home, had good parents. Some
have hope in their church. Some have hope in themselves,
their works, their prayers, their devotion, their commitment, their
experience, their decision for Jesus, their feeling close to
God, their walking with God. Folks look to many things for
hope. But God's people have this good hope. We hope upon God's
mercy. The believer's hope is that God
will deal with us in mercy. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed. Things around us consumed. Wealth
may be consumed. Health may be consumed. Family
may be consumed. But we are not consumed, neither
in our being nor in our well-being because of the Lord's mercies. What are those mercies? I like
the way the prophet puts it in plural, mercies, not just mercy,
mercies. Mercies are described in many
ways in scripture. God's mercies are eternal covenant
mercies. When David lie on his deathbed
and he looked back over his life, he said, although my house be
not so with God. Things aren't the way I wish
they were. Things didn't turn out like I'd planned. My sons
and daughters hate God and hate me. My wives hate God and hate
me. Although my house be not as I
desire it to be, be not so with God. Yet the Lord hath made with
me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. This
is all my desire and all my salvation, though He make it not to grow.
God has made with us in the person of His Son an everlasting covenant. And by that covenant, He has
ordered all things, all things in the universe, yes, but all
things in our lives, They're all ordered and sure. And they
come to pass exactly according to God's tender mercies, revealed
in His everlasting covenant, wherewith He blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in Jesus Christ before the world began.
And I don't know about you, but that greatly sustains me when
I get to thinking about those things that would push you down
and depress you. Look over your life, past and present. Look over the
joys and the sorrows. Look over the things that you
look back on with pleasure and the things you look back on with
bitterness. Look over the experiences that
have rejoiced you and the experiences that have made you weep and understand
that this is God's way for you. This has been his way for you. This has been his way for me. Not the way we would now choose,
not the way we would desire now, not the way we would set, could
we set our own path, but his way. My God, as I look to whatever
tomorrow you have appointed for me in this world, I ask that
in days past, so for every tomorrow you will order my steps in your
way according to your word and your covenant given to me in
Christ before the world began. God's mercies are eternal covenant
mercies and God's mercies are redemptive mercies. Redemptive
mercies. In Christ, we have redemption
through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. And in these redemptive
mercies, in these redemptive mercies, the Lord graciously
makes known to us the manifold wisdom of God. He shows us, little
by little, day by day, in the experience of our lives what
He purposed for us from eternity and shows us His wisdom in it. Oh, the wisdom with which God
has ordered our lives for the redemption of our souls. Redemption
means deliverance. It's not just the blood atonement,
but the deliverance that comes to our souls by blood atonement. So God's mercies are saving mercies. Saving mercies. The Lord God
our Savior is that one whom the triune Jehovah trusted with our
souls before the world began. That one with whom the triune
Jehovah trusted the rule of the universe before the world began,
in whom ye also trusted. after that you heard the word
of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also after
that you believed you were sealed, sealed with that Holy Spirit
of promise, the earnest of our inheritance. The Lord God purposed
our salvation before the world was. He purchased it at Calvary
and he performs it at his appointed time of love. He comes and gives
life to dead sinners. This preacher I referred to at
the beginning of my message, he read Ephesians 2. You, as
he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sins. He said,
that word dead, that means you were lost. No, that's not what
it means. That's not what it means. Dead. Plum graveyard dead. Dead. Now you tell me what a
dead man can do, and I'll tell you what a sinner can do. What can he do? I don't care
what influence you put on him, what can he do? I don't care
how you pressure him, what can he do? He's D-E-A-D, dead. And until a dead man can get
up and walk on his own, a sinner can't come to Christ on his own.
Until a dead man can get up and walk, a sinner can't believe.
Until a dead man can get up and walk, a sinner can't repent.
To be quickened is to be made alive from the dead. That's the reason the new birth
is called the first resurrection. The dead must be raised to life. And this is God's work. This
is the work that only God can do. This is the work that God
does for us by His mercy, according to His infinite, sovereign, immutable
good pleasure. You see, God's mercies are forever. He says, My mercy will I keep
for Him forevermore, and My covenant shall stand fast with Him. All that mercy is in Christ. All of it was earned by Christ. All of it is given by Christ. And until Christ can lose the
mercy, until Christ breaks the covenant, mercy cannot be lost,
and the covenant cannot be broken, no matter what. God's mercy stands
forever. Back at our text here, Jeremiah,
our Lamentations 3. Look at the next line. What is
our hope? His compassions fail not. His love is strong as death. The jealousy of his love, as
hard as the grave. What are you saying, Pastor? The love of God for us is indestructible. I chose my word on purpose. Indestructible. That means, Mark Henson, you
did nothing to get it, and you can do nothing by which to lose
it. Indestructible. Indestructible. The gifts and callings of God
are without repentance. You see, God's love for us is
everlasting. He loved us when there was no
good to be found in us from everlasting. He loved us without consideration
of anything except his own will. His love is altogether free. In Hosea chapter 14 in verse
4, the Lord God speaks of our backsliding, our sin. And He
says, I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. I will love them freely." We love folks for a reason. A young man finds a young lady
and falls in love with her for a reason. She attracted you. Something about her just won
you. So you ask her to marry you. A young lady finds a man
and falls in love with him for a reason. His appearance, his
personality, his intellect, his down home ways or his uptown
ways, whatever. She finds something about him
that appeals to her and she loves him for a reason. God has no
reason to love man. God has no reason to love you,
none, none. He loves us freely for Christ's
sake, in Christ, because of Christ. And he loves us permanently. Having loved his own, which are
in the world, He loved them to the end. And I'll tell you something
else about God's love. The prophet says, His compassions
are new every morning. See that in verse 23? His compassions
are new every morning. The Lord God opens every day. loving us as freshly, as vigorously,
as fully as if he had just fallen in love with us. His compassions, his co-passion,
his warm-hearted, warm-blooded passions with us are new every
morning. Every morning. Every morning
we awake. Let us awake with the knowledge
of God's everlasting love as new and as fresh as if it were
born today, set upon us from eternity. What is our hope? Our hope is the Lord's mercy
and his love, his compassion that are new every morning. And
our hope is his faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Lord willing, I'll come back
to this tonight. So let me just be brief. Others talk a great deal about
their faithfulness or your faithfulness. But it is not our faithfulness
to God that keeps us from being consumed. It is God's faithfulness
to us that keeps us from being consumed. He is faithful. Have you not proved it? Again
and again, God is faithful. Faithful to His own, so that
He says, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. He says, fear
not, for I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. Let's move on. Here is our hope. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul. Therefore will I hope in him. Today, men talk about His pardon
and miss His person. They talk about His blessing
and miss His being. They talk about His grace and
miss His glory. Jeremiah says, the Lord is my
portion. I will hope in Him, my portion. He is that which belongs to me. He is that which belongs to me, my property, my possession, my
portion. He made himself so. John Gill
made this comment on this passage. He said, The Lord is the portion
of his people in life and in death, in time and to eternity. All that he is and has is theirs. The portion of Jacob is not like
the portion of other religious folks, for he is the former of
all things, and Israel is the rod of his inheritance. The Lord
of hosts is his name. Christ the Lord is our portion. He is exactly the portion we
need. In Him is everything we need. This sweet, sure proportion is
the satisfaction of our souls. Oh my God, teach me to seek satisfaction
nowhere except in You. As Christ is our portion, we
are His portion. Listen to this, the Lord's portion
is His people. We are to Him all that He is
to us. Now Merle, see if you can get
a hold of this. As God, the triune Jehovah, everything
to you. Are you listening? So you are
everything to Him. He's my portion, and I'm His
portion. He's our portion, and we are
His portion. So that as all He is, is all
to us. So all that we are is all to
Him. Number five, the Lord is good
to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him. The
Lord is good. The Lord is good. Oh, how good. The very word God is but an abbreviation
of the word good the Lord is good he's good in all his person
all his attributes good in all his works in everything he does
good in all his ways appointed for us the Lord is good the Lord
is good to those who wait for him to wait for him is to calmly
trust Him for deliverance. Wait on the Lord, be of good
courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Those that wait on the Lord shall
inherit the earth. Since the beginning of the world,
men have not heard nor perceived by the ear Neither hath the eye
seen, O God, beside thee, what thou hast prepared for him that
waiteth for him. The Lord is good to the soul
that waits for him. The Lord is good to the soul
that seeks him. Seeks him. Seeking the Lord. To seek him
is to know your need of him. To seek Him is to seek Him sincerely. Where He is to be found, in His
Word, in His house, among His people. To seek Him is to call
on Him. To seek Him is to trust Him.
To seek Him is a way of life. The Apostle Paul, after preaching
the gospel for many years, when he was about to leave this world,
he said, I forget those things which are behind. And I pressed
toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus. We are coming to Christ. Yes, we have come to him, but
we're coming to him, coming to him. Believers are people who
thirst for Him and hunger for Him and seek Him. Now I'll tell
you something about those who seek Him. They are sought of
Him. We seek Him because He sought
us. His church is called sought out. Sought out, a people loved of
the Lord. The hymn writer put it this way.
I sought the Lord, but afterward I knew. He moved my soul to seek
Him, seeking me. It was not I that found thee,
O Savior, true. No, I was found of thee. Turn back just a few pages to
Jeremiah 29. Now I'm gonna tell you something
about seeking the Lord. Back many, many years ago, Oh,
this has been, oh, how many years ago? I can't remember, the early
70s. I was preaching for Brother E.W. Parks at our home church in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina. Brother Parks was Moose Parks'
father. And Moose and Sandy were there
for the services that night, and they left the parking lot,
and they came back while we were standing around talking. And
Moose said, Brother Don, Sandy, Tells me she's lost, and she
wants to talk to you. So Moose and Sandy and I went
back into one of the rooms and visited her a little bit. She
had been raised in religion. She had made a profession of
faith, been in church as long as I'd known her. But God showed
her she was lost, and we talked a little bit. And I prayed with
her, and I said, Sandy, there's nothing else I can tell you except
seek the Lord. Seek him, and you'll find him.
Seek Him and you'll find Him. I'm not going to give you something
to do. I'm not going to tell you something to say. You seek
Him and you'll find Him. Well, I don't know if that's
so. Let's see. Jeremiah 29, verse
10. Thus saith the Lord, that after
70 years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you and perform
my good word toward you, causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that
I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall you call upon
me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto
you. And you shall seek me and find
me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. and I will be found of you, saith
the Lord. If you seek Him, you'll find
Him. Now you can play games and all
that stuff, but if you seek Him, you'll find Him. At God's appointed
time, you will find Him, and you will find yourself waiting
on Him, believing Him. When you search for me with all
your heart, you will find me. All right, back here in Lamentations,
one more thing. Our hope is God's salvation. It is good that a man should
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. I
recall many years later, Brother Moose and I were talking about
that experience of God's grace that Sandy went through. And
he said, when we left, he said, I just didn't have anything to
say, because I thought surely you would say something else.
You got to do something. No, you seek him. And wait. Wait like a beggar before the
throne of grace. If you will, you can make me
whole. Wait for God's deliverance. It's
good for you to take your place in the dust at the throne of
grace. And you will never find mercy
until you do. Lord, if you will, it's all together
up to you. If you will, you can make me
whole. That's the thing to do waiting
for the salvation of your soul. And the same is true with regard
to any time of deliverance from any trouble, any temptation,
any trial, any foe. Wait on Him. Just wait on Him. Just wait on Him. He is able
to deliver us, and He will. Look at Lamentations 3.31. For the Lord will not cast off
forever. But though He cause grief, yet
will He have compassion according to the multitude of His tender
mercies. It's good for troubled saints
to wait on the Lord. Deliverance comes only from the
Lord. Let's turn back to one very familiar
passage description. I'll wrap this up. John chapter
13, verse 7. Jesus answered and said unto
him, that is to Peter, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou
shalt know hereafter. He is washing Peter's feet. And he does this in anticipation
of the severe trial Peter was about to endure. You remember
Peter said, the Lord said, Peter said, if I wash thee not, thou
hast no part with me. And the Lord said, okay. And
Peter said, okay, wash me all over, not just my feet and my
head and my hands, everything. I need washing all over. And
the Savior said, if you've been washed, you need only to have
your feet washed. Now what I'm doing now, you're
not gonna understand, but just a little while, you're going
to. Verse 37. Peter said unto him, Lord, why
cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy
sake. And he was telling the truth, he did, he did, but he
spoke too boastfully, too arrogantly, too confidently for Peter. Jesus
answered him, wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, the cock shall not crow, for thou
hast denied me thrice. And you know the rest of the
story. Peter denied him. And then the Lord met Peter at
Galilee and restored him. But watch his next word. Watch
his next word. I know you're in trouble, you
say, but preacher, you don't know how I've been, you don't
know what I've done. The Lord Jesus said, Peter, before
the night's over, you're going to deny me three times. And his
very next word, his very next word, Let not your
heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. And I say to you, children of
God, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Rest your
soul upon Christ. What can you do in the midst
of trouble? Confidently expect God to intervene. Confidently expect God to help. And understand that however He
intervenes, Whatever He does, He does for you to deliver you
according to His tender mercies and His everlasting purpose.
Amen. All right.