Category Archives: Hope

Hope and Scripture (Psa 119.174)

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I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD;
And thy law is my delight (Psa 119.174).

Biblically speaking, hope is not wishful thinking but the joyful and confident expectation of blessedness yet to be fully experienced. This hope has an intimate relationship to Holy Scripture. People without Scripture have no hope in the true sense. People with Scripture but without faith are also completely devoid of hope. Hope is essentially faith with respect to the future based on God’s verbal promises in Scripture, and so only believers possess it. The same Bible which promises future blessedness also awakens a desire and craving for that blessedness. Apart from Scripture’s revelation of God’s glorious plan for his beloved ones, we would have never dreamt of such things. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (1 Cor 2.9-10), and the Spirit reveals them by the
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God Nearer Than Our Enemies (Psa 119.150-51)

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They draw nigh that follow after mischief:
They are far from thy law.
Thou art near, O LORD;
And all thy commandments are truth (Psa 119.150-51).

Each afternoon during my first year of elementary school, I had to walk a couple of blocks home. While I cannot recall the specifics, some older boys began to bully me between the school and my house. I felt traumatized to some degree until my friend Kenny, older and stronger than the bullies, began to accompany me each day on that walk. Nothing bad ever happened when Kenny was with me. And so even though I knew the bullies were never far away, as long as I had Kenny right by my side, my heart was at peace.
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God Our Savior (Psa 119.122)

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Be surety for thy servant for good:
Let not the proud oppress me (Psa 119.122).

“God our Savior” was a favorite expression of the apostle Paul (1 Tim 1.1; 2.3; Tit 1.3; 2.10; 3.4; cf. Jude 25, only other occurrence). It acknowledges our desperate need without God, our resort in trouble to God, and our hope of deliverance by God. When we recall that Christ is at the center of God’s redeeming work, there is no better summary of the gospel message which is the Christian faith than “God our Savior.”
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Assured of Safety (Psa 119.114)

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Thou art my hiding place and my shield:
I hope in thy word (Psalm 119:114).

Unbelievers have much to fear, and the absence of fear in them is a telltale symptom of spiritual insanity. Paranoia is a groundless fear based on delusion, but there is also a tranquility based on delusion which is even more dangerous than paranoia. Jesus spoke of people living in the days of Noah who were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, as if all were well, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Something similar will happen to sinners when Christ comes again (Luke 17.26-27). The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, for while people are saying, there is peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape (1 Thess 5.2-3).
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God’s Enduring Faithfulness (Psa 119.90)

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Thy faithfulness is unto all generations:
Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth (Psa 119.90).

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) announced that “God is dead,” by which he expressed his belief that the idea of God had been so generally rejected that it no longer remained relevant as the basis for morality or explaining the meaning of life. The “God is dead” concept was popularized in America during the 1960’s and taken a step further—that not only the idea of God, but God himself, had truly died. The fruit of this kind of intellectual perversity is nihilism, a philosophy that ethical values do not exist objectively but are falsely invented, and that life is utterly without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.1 Any right-thinking person shudders to consider the implications of all this for society. Indeed, this kind of atheism has already produced injustice and violence on a grand scale throughout the twentieth century.
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My Hope is in God’s Faithful Love (Psa 119.88)

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Quicken me after thy lovingkindness;
So shall I keep the testimony of thy mouth (Psalm 119:88).

The assurance of salvation that God’s people enjoy amidst the persecutions we suffer is not founded upon our love and commitment to God, but rather upon his to us. The only true and living God, the God of the Bible, reveals himself to be full of love and faithfulness toward his chosen ones. Christian believers can know for sure that we cannot perish, and that we shall finally be delivered from all our sins and miseries into joyous freedom and inexpressible bliss because of the Lord’s wonderful character and redeeming work for us and in us.
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Not Yet (Psa 119.82)

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Mine eyes fail for thy word,
Saying, When wilt thou comfort me? (Psa 119.82)

Triumphalism, that unrealistic expectation of enjoying in this life nearly all of the blessings, whether physical or spiritual, of the age to come, threatens the well-being of sensitive Christians because it only deepens their dejection. That crucible of unfulfilled desires, whether holy or natural, instead of being accepted as the normal lot of God’s beloved people, is interpreted rather by triumphalists as a sure sign of exclusion from his favor, and this only increases the miseries suffered by the poor Christian.
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Gospel Consolation (Psa 119.76)

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Let, I pray thee, thy merciful kindness be for my comfort,
According to thy word unto thy servant (Psa 119.76).

Moved by the Holy Spirit, the psalmist here prays earnestly for comfort. “I pray thee” is emphatic expression, like, “Please! I beg you!” with a focus on the desire of the speaker, used to heighten a sense of urgency.1 If we generally despise such pleas, we exhibit the ungodly trait of pride2 and influence of Stoicism.3 The more our true humanity is restored, the more we will be sensitive to the importance of right feeling and of our need to look above for deepest consolation.
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God Has Been More Than Fair With Me (Psa 119.75)

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I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right,
And that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me (Psa 119.75).

Many unbelievers implicitly acknowledge God’s control over all things, including their personal catastrophes, and then hold a grudge against him. Perhaps when a loved one was dying of cancer, the person now spiritually-disgruntled had prayed earnestly for healing. “Oh, God, please don’t let her die,” the father pleaded for his sick daughter. And then she not only died, but suffered grievously for six months in the process! And God made this happen to her when she was only four years old—an innocent little girl who did not even know what was happening to her and suffered it all without complaining. Now the father hates God and feels completely justified.
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