Is My Hope a Good Hope?

My subject today is entitled,
Is My Hope a Good Hope? Now, I'm sure we don't realize
how often we use the expression, I hope. For example, someone
says, do you think the snow will continue? And you reply, well,
I hope not. Will the sun shine tomorrow?
Well, I certainly hope so. It's been a long time since we've
seen the sun shine. I hope it shines tomorrow. Are
the children coming to visit this weekend? Well, I hope so.
Is the patient improving? Well, we hope he is. We hope
he's doing well. We use that expression so frequently. I hope, I hope, I hope. Well, the term is also used frequently
in connection with our spiritual condition. Are you a Christian?
I hope so. Are your sins forgiven? Are you
a child of God? I hope so. I hope to meet you
in heaven. I hope the circle will not be
broken. I hope all will be well with
me at the judgment. I hope so. I hope. I hope. Someone said, hoping men live
on, and hoping men grow old, and hoping men lie down and die,
and hoping men come to the judgment, but too often only to hear the
Master say, I never knew depart from me. I hope. Is my hope a
good hope? There's nothing wrong with the
word hope in connection with our spiritual condition, nothing
wrong with it at all. In fact, it's a scriptural word,
it's a very good word. We have a good hope. We have
a hope in Christ. Now by the faith, hope, and love. And then in Romans 8.24, Paul
said we're saved by hope. And in 1 Peter 1.3, Peter said,
God hath begotten us unto a living hope. And then in Romans 5.5,
the scripture says, and hope maketh not ashamed. And then
my text, 2 Thessalonians 2.16, God hath given us a good hope. A good hope. Many, all religious
people have some kind of hope. That's what I've been talking
about. Are you a Christian? I hope so. Are you going to heaven
when you die? I hope so. Will everything be
all right with you at the judgment? Well, I hope so. I have a hope. You have a hope. Almost everyone
has some kind of hope, but the question is, is it a good hope?
The old Titanic left the American shores, and when it left the
American shores, on board were many classes of people, old and
young, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, educated,
uneducated, many classes of people. But when the report was put on
the wall after the ship had gone down and the water had settled
over it, the report was posted on the wall, just two classes
of people, saved and lost. Saved and lost. And this is the
thing that we're dealing with today. We've got a hope, but
is it a good hope, a good hope, and a bad hope? A strong hope
and a weak hope. A true hope and a false hope.
And I don't want a false hope. I don't want to go through life
with a false hope. I want to go through life with
a hope, but I want a good hope. So here's the question that we
have in our message today. This is our subject. Is my hope
a good hope? And it's for you to examine your
hope and me to examine mine. And not to examine yours by mine
or mine by yours, but by what God says. So I have written down
five marks of a good hope. And I want you to listen to them
carefully and weigh them. Search the scriptures whether
these things be so. But here are five marks that
characterize a good hope. And I believe if these five things
are true of this preacher and of you, then we have a good hope.
And we have a strong hope. And we have a sure hope. First
of all, a good hope. Now listen to this. A good hope
is one that a man can explain. Now listen to the scripture before
you say anything. In 1 Peter 3.15 the scripture
says, But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready
always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason
of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. In other words,
if I come to you today, there in your home or wherever you
are, and I ask you, you say you have a good hope, you say you
hope you're saved, you hope you're a child of God, you hope to be
in heaven, give me a reason. And it says here in God's Word
that you are to be ready always to give to every man that asks
you for your reason of the hope. Give an answer to every man that
asks you a reason of the hope that is in you, not proudly,
not boastfully, meekly, with meekness and fear and trembling. Not cocky and haughty and smart
aleck and grabbing somebody out by the lapel and saying, I'm
a Christian, are you a Christian, are you born again, with meekness
and trembling and fear. Now, good hope is more than an
idle wish. A good hope is more than just
a desire A good hope is one that is based upon a reason, and you
are to be able to give to that man an answer that asks you to
give him a reason for your hope. You say that your sins are forgiven,
you say that you're a child of God, you say if you die tonight
that you'll stand in the presence of God, well give me a reason
for that. What's it based upon? I'm not saying that a man must
be a theologian, that he must be a scholar, quite the contrary. Actually a man can be brilliant
in material things and not know God. A man can be brilliant even
in religious matters and not know God. Nicodemus was, Saul
of Tarsus was, Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he didn't understand
the new birth, he didn't understand regeneration. Saul of Tarsus
was educated in the best school of his day, he was one of the
top ecclesiastical leaders, he was a Pharisee, and yet he didn't
know God, he's 40 years old. He didn't know Christ, didn't
recognize Him. So I'm not saying a man has to
be a scholar or a theologian, quite the contrary. A man may
be just a very poor, uneducated individual and still know God
because a knowledge of God comes by revelation, not by education. It comes by regeneration, not
by education. It comes as God the Holy Spirit
teaches a man to know Christ. There was a great old, actually
not formally educated, black man who pastored in Richmond,
Virginia, back during the Civil War. His name was John Jasper.
He wasn't educated in the schools of his day, but he was educated
at the feet of the Holy Spirit. He knew God, and he knew how
to preach the gospel. And a man came to him one day and said,
John Jasper, you think you'll go to heaven? And he said, yes,
I do. But he said, when you get there
and you walk through what they call the pearly gates and someone
meets you and says, John Jasper, what right you got to be here?
What would you say? And John Jasper gave this classic
reply. Well, I'll tell you, when I get
to glory and somebody asks me, John Jasper, what right you got
to be here, I'm going to say, I got no right to be here. I'm
not here on my righteousness. I'm here on the righteousness
of another. Christ died for my sins. That's my hope. And my
friends, I'm not saying that you have to be a public speaker.
There are many people who know God who could never stand before
this Cameron's feet. There are many people who know
God who could never stand in a pulpit and preach. There are
many people who know God who could never stand to their feet
in a large congregation or small congregation and speak or pray
or do anything openly like that. But they know Christ and they
can put it in their own words and they can talk to you. There
are people who, you know the Bible says, though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, it profiteth
me nothing. I'm like a sounding gong and
a tinkling cymbal. But what I'm saying is this.
If you have a good hope in Christ, you'll be able in your own words
to explain the reason for that hope and the basis for that hope. You'll be able in your own words
to say, I'm saved because Jesus Christ died for my sins. Because
I, a poor lost sinner, before the Lord did fall. and I cried
to the Son of God to cleanse me and put away my guilt. That's
my hope. Secondly, a good hope is one
that a man can, in his own words, explain. Secondly, a good hope
is drawn from the word of God. Now listen to this scripture,
Psalm 119, 49. Remember the word unto thy servant,
upon whom, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. David, writing
Remember the word, the word of God, the scriptures, upon which
you've caused me to hope. Listen to this, Romans 15 forward. Whatsoever things were written
before were written for our learning, that we through the scriptures
might have hope. Our hope is based upon the word
of God, not upon feeling. You can't build a good hope on
feeling, because feelings come and go. The scripture says, the
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
You may have a good religious feeling today, and tomorrow not
have such a good religious feeling. And the scripture says in Proverbs
28, 26, the man that trusted in his own heart, his own feeling,
is a fool. We trust the word of God, not
our feeling, God's word. He hath said, so that I may boldly
say. If they speak not according to
the law and the prophets, the word of God, there's no truth
in them, there's no light in them. We cannot base our hope
upon our own thoughts. A thing is not right because
I think it's right, it's right because God says it's right.
It's not true because I think it's true, it's true because
God says it's true. He said, your thoughts are not
my thoughts, and your ways are not my ways. There's a way that
seemeth right unto me, and the end is death, destruction, damnation. Old Naaman came down to the prophet
of God to be cleansed of his leprosy. And the prophet of God
said, and I'll tell you what God said for you to do, go down
to the river Jordan and dip seven times and you'll come up clean.
And Naaman was angry and he stomped his feet. He said, I thought,
I thought the prophet of God would come out and say some words
over me and I'd be healed. This is what I thought. And his
servant said to him, it's better to do what the prophet said than
to do what you think. And that's what I'm saying to
you, not what I say, what God says. Do what God says, not what
you think. We can't build our hope upon
our thoughts, upon our feelings, nor upon our deeds. Don't put
any confidence in the flesh, in yours or mine or anybody else's. The scripture tells us that over
and over again. Put no confidence in the flesh. In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. In the flesh no man can please
God. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. To offend in one part of the
law is to be guilty of the whole law. All have sinned and come
short of God's glory. Our righteousness is our filthy
rag. Don't put any confidence in your
flesh. It'll fail. And if you belong
to God, he'll make sure it fails so that your confidence will
be in him and not in your flesh. And then don't put any confidence
in tradition. My friends, if I could tell the
whole world this today, I'd do it. A thing is not so because
it was said a long time ago. A thing is not so because it
was said by a great man. A thing is not so because the
majority of people believed it. A thing is not so because we've
always done it this way. A thing is not so because my
forefathers practiced it. A thing is only so because God
said it. And if you can't find a reason
for what you're believing, and a reason for what you're trusting,
and a reason for what you're practicing, and a reason for
your hope in God's word, you're in trouble. Because Christ said,
my word will judge you. He said, let every man be a liar
and God be true. And we must do that. The Bereans
searched the scriptures to see if these things were so. So a
good hope, number one, is one that you can put in your own
word. Number two, it's a hope that's based on the scriptures,
not on feeling, experience, or good deeds, or tradition, or
denominational sectarianism, or our forefathers' practice,
but it's based on God's Word. And thirdly, a good hope rests
entirely on Jesus Christ and Christ alone. Now listen to the
scripture. 1 Timothy 1.1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by
the commandment of God our Savior, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is our hope. He is our hope. And in Colossians
1.27, Paul wrote, Christ in you, that is the hope of glory. Christ in you. Not you in the
pool, not you in the church, not you in the moral law, but
Christ in you. That's your hope. He is our wisdom. He is our righteousness. He is
our sanctification. He is our redemption. That's
our hope. My friends, we know that we've
sinned. Any man say he hath not sinned, he's a liar and the truth's
not in him and he's made God a liar and he's deceived himself. We know we've sinned. We know
we have no righteousness of our own. What the law says, it says
to every one of us, that the whole world might become guilty
and every mouth be stopped before God, and we have no hope of any
kind of righteousness in our flesh, and the only way we can
do business with a holy God is to have a perfect righteousness,
and we can't produce it, and we can't present it, so somebody
else is going to have to do it for us, and that's the reason
Christ came to this earth. To give to us a perfect righteousness
by the disobedience of one, our father Adam, we were made sinners. That's how we got in the mess
we're in, because of what happened in the garden. And it was passed
on to us by imputation and by impartation. This guilt was born
in us. This nature of sin was born in
us. The nature of holiness was lost
by Adam in the garden, and we retained only the will to do
evil. The natural mind is enmity against
God. We're without natural affections.
Our feet are swift to run to mischief, and the poison of snakes
is under our tongues, and our mouths and throats are open sepulchres,
and there's none that doeth good, no, not one. We need some help,
and that's why Christ came down here. By the disobedience of
one, we were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, Christ,
we were made righteous. What the law couldn't do because
of the weakness of this flesh, God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh condemn sin in the flesh. Christ did
for me what I could never do for myself, and he gave to me
all that I lost in Adam and Moab. He restoreth my soul. And then
we know that our sins must be punished. The justice of God,
as well as the law of God, must be honored. The justice of God,
as well as the holiness of God, must be satisfied. And God says
the soul that sinneth shall die. The wages of sin is death. I
will not clear the guilty. So Christ came down here to pay
that debt. The sword of God's justice was
bathed in the blood of Christ. It pierced the heart of the Son
of God. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. He was wounded for
our transgressions. On the cross of Calvary he took
our place. He died in our stead. He took
our guilt and our sins. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was laid on him, and by his stripes we are healed. The gospel can
be summed up in two words. The first word is substitution.
Christ took our place. He took our place before the
law as a human being. He was tested in all points as
we are yet without sin. He was tried. He was made flesh,
just like his brethren, in order that he might be a faithful,
perfect high priest. He was our substitute. He went
to the cross, and there he was our substitute. In the grave,
he was our substitute. And the second word is satisfaction.
What he did in the flesh, the Father was satisfied with. What
he did on the cross satisfied the justice of God, honored the
law of God. What he did in the tomb satisfied
the Father, because he raised him. He put his stamp of approval
on Christ's work, took him to glory and sat him down on his
right hand. Now, the old high priest in the Old Testament never
sat down. They never sat down because their work was never
finished. But Christ, having finished his work, sat down.
His work's done. He redeemed us. He entered once
into the holy place and obtained eternal redemption. He came once
into this world, appeared in human flesh to put away sin.
He did it. It is done, the great transaction
is done. I am my Lord's and he is mine.
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is what I hope is based
upon, Christ and his perfect work. The Father can be just
and justify the ungodly because the Son did all that was required
of us. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. That's the mark of a good
hope. A good hope. It can be explained in your own
words. You can say that. Christ died for my sin. How do
you know that? God's word says it. That's what
God's word says. So it's based on God's word.
A good hope will be taken from the word. And a good hope is
based not on my work, but his work. Not on what I've done for
God, but what God did for me in the person of his Son, built
on Christ. Now, fourthly, a good hope is
felt in the heart. Now, salvation is not feeling,
or feeling is not salvation, but salvation is a feeling. Someone
says, well, I feel saved. Well, that doesn't necessarily
mean you're saved, but if you're saved, you do feel it. Now, listen
to Romans 5.5, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit. The
love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If any man be in Christ, he is
a new creature. Let me ask you some questions.
Can a weary man lie down and not feel rested? Can a thirsty
man drink and not be refreshed? Can a hungry man eat and not
be satisfied? Can a sick man be healed and
not rejoice? Well, neither can a weary, guilty,
defiled, hell-bound sinner be born again, regenerated, and
brought to a living union with the Son of God, and not be filled
with joy in his heart, and elated in his heart. That's right. Salvation, a good hope, is not
just a mental agreement with a system of doctrines. A good
hope is not just a decision of the mind. A good hope is felt
in the heart. The man who has a good hope has
joy. A man who has a good hope has
peace with God. He has peace with people because
he knows that God worketh all things out for his good and God's
glory. And he has happiness in Christ.
Someone says, well really a Christian is a great paradox. And he is. A Christian is empty. He'll tell
you he's empty. But he's also always full. Full
of joy and gladness full of the Spirit of God, full of praise
for his Redeemer. He needs nothing. God meets his
every need. A Christian is sorrowful. He
has great sorrow, heaviness of heart, because of the sin in
him and the sin around him, but he's always rejoicing, rejoicing
the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. A Christian is humble,
but he's also exalted. He's less than the least of all
the saints, and yet he's a child of God and an heir of God and
a joint heir with Jesus Christ and the Son of the King. A Christian
guilty, he'll tell you he's guilty. He'll tell you he's the chief
of sinners, but he'll also tell you that he's justified and he's
holy and he's unblameable in God's sight. He's poor, but he's
rich in all the things that he is in Christ. He's at war with
sin, but he's at peace with God. It's felt in the heart. A good
hope is felt in here. Now, we don't base it on that
feeling. We base it on God's word and
on the work of Christ. But that feeling's there. That
joy is real. And that gladness is real. And
that peace is real. And that comfort is real. He
may not be able to explain it to you, but he feels it in his
heart. A little boy was standing out
one day, flying a kite. And he had bought several balls
of string, and he had a big kite, and he had it way up there in
the cloud. You couldn't even see it. And a man walked up to
him. He said, Son, what are you doing?
And the boy said, Well, I'm flying a kite. Standing there holding
a string. The man looked around. He said,
I don't see it. How do you know it's still up
there? The boy said, I feel the pull on the string. I know it's
up there. And that's the way it is with
the child of God. He may not be able to pass on to you this
joy, but he knows it's there, because he feels it in his heart.
God will have to give it to you. And then the fifth mark of a
good hope. It will be manifested in a good life. Now, 1 John 3,
verse 2, says, Now are we the sons of God, right now, through
faith in Christ. And it does not yet appear what
we shall be. But we know that when he shall
appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this
hope," what hope? What hope? Now brethren, this
is the blessed hope. And this is not just the return
of Christ. That is a blessed hope. But the
blessed hope here is that we're going to be like him. That's
what he's talking about here. We are now the sons of God through
faith in Christ. We are born again, regenerated,
blood-bought children of God. That's right. But we're going
to be something else. We're going to be like Christ.
When he comes, we're going to be perfectly conformed to his
holy image. We're going to be done with sin,
and we're going to be done with the things of this world, and
be just like Christ in thought, in word, in deed, in attitude,
in motive, in all things. We're going to be just like him.
When he comes, we're going to be just like him. And he that
hath this hope in him, what hope? That he's going to be like Christ,
purifies himself even as Christ is pure. He wants to live for
his Lord's glory. He wants to live for the glory
of his gospel. He wants to live for the good
of others. He wants his life to be a life of honesty and holiness
and integrity and purity and truth. He wants others to see
Christ in him. And we grow in that grace and
in that knowledge, manifesting his love and his joy and his
peace and his meekness and his humility and his gentleness and
his kindness and his patience. That's the fruit of the Spirit.
And that is manifested in a man's life, day by day, more and more,
as he grows older in Christ. And that's the basis, and that's
the mark of a good hope. Five marks of a good hope. It
can be explained in my own words. It's based on the Word of God.
It is because of what Christ has done. It's a joy and a reality
in my heart, and then it'll be manifested in a good life. If you want this message on cassette
tape, why don't you write to me? It'll be sent to you for
a small charge. We'd be happy to hear from you.
Until next week at the same time, Henry Mahan bidding you a very
pleasant good day.

Is My Hope a Good Hope?

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Is My Hope a Good Hope?

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