Phoenix tribune., 1918-12-28
HOPE

In him, purlIleth nlmSeiI, even as ne
Is pure" First John iii:3.
Christian hope is a firm expectation
Of all promised things, so far as they
may be for Gods glory and our good,
but especially of eternal salvation and
our happiness in Heaven. Such hope
is founded upon the grace. blood,
righteousness and intercession Of
Jesus Christ.
Christian experience relates man
to all time: the past. the present, and
the future.
To represent these respective states
the Scriptures use three important
terms with which we are all familiar:
pardon, assurance, hope.
The sins of the past are separated
from us, "as far as the east is from
the west;" the experience is as assur-
ing as the joint witness Of Gods spirit
and ours can make it; the prospects
of the future are "as bright as the
promises of God"
Hence our salvation filling the
whole round of time, becomes, in truth,
ian everlasting salvation"
1t does not all lie in possession,
much of it, yea, most of it, is yet In
expectation. The best is yet ahead of
us: "it does not yet appear what we
shall be-"
Though the present may be dark
with clouds of sorrow. the future is
spanned with rainbows Of hope.
weeping may endure for a night,
but joy cometh in the morning" This,
then, is our consolation; 1--WE are
saved by hope"
Saving hope must have two distin-
gushing characteristics: it must rest
upon a present experience and reach
towards a personal Lord. Hope can
not live apart from experience.
"Tribulation worketh patience; and
patience, experience; and experience,
hope" "and every man that hath this
hope in him, purifieth himself"
Such hope must grow out of a liv-
ing experience and express itself in
personal purity.
To hope, then, is more than desirey
it is also to reasonably expect. We
may desire that which we have no
expectation of receiving; we cannot
Dur desires may be so
groundless as to make us miserable,
as when we long for the recovery of a
lost possession or the restoration of
lost health, neither Of which we ex-
pect; but it is all different, when we
hope Desires may mock us; hope
saves. .
But hope must have an object, as
well as a foundation; it must reach
towards personal Lord, hope thou
in God!" Man is not self-sufficient.
God is not only the author Of his
faith, but the object of his hope:
(which we hope we have as an an
chor of the soul, both sure and stead
fast and which entereth into that with
in the veil"
Only that soul is safe amidst the
drifting tides and driving tempests,
the anchor of whose hope reaches out
into the beyond and takes hold upon
the changeless and eternal
But as a reminder of constant obli-
cation, we should not forget that our
present faith is the ground of our fu-
ture hope; it is the chain that holds
the anchor. Hence our Lord said to
Peter: Il have prayed for thee, that
thy faith fail not" 1t is like blind
ness not to see that if faith fail. all
fails; if the chain breaks. the anchor
is lost and we are at the mercy OF the
winds and waves.
Hope is essential in every depart
ment OF human life. 1t inspires the
farmer as he goes forth to prepare the
soil and sow the seed. 1t encourages
the physician as he grapples with
disease and nurses his patient back to
health 1t sustains the statesman as
he pleads for a better citizenship and
juster laws. 1t sustains the minister
as he wins the shining, comforts the
sorrowing, and tells the triumphs Of
the cross. In every sphere Of human
endeayor we are saved by hope. Hope
is the handspring of human life. In
public places and the railway stations.
l have listened to the clock on the
wall, wearily ticking away the calen-
dar of time, on either side are the
weights; at the center the spring, con-
tracted and expanded by turn. Take
away those burdensome weights, and
the old clock would run away with
itself; take away the handspring, and
it would not run at all; so it is with
life; cur burdens save us from run
ming into fanaticism, while hope
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