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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn Your commands.
May those who fear You rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in Your Word.
Psalm 119:73-74
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His Word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Psalm 130:5-6
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Yesterday, we entered into the season of Advent, a time for Christians to prepare and anticipate the celebration of Jesus’ birth on Christmas day. ‘
In light of this, I’m providing a series of messages to support this special observance with each week centered on one of the four Advent themes, themes which begin with the matter of hope.
In the first message, we looked to the Psalms and how our main focus when it comes to hope needs to be on the One who is our source of hope, the Lord God Almighty, for without Him, all people would be hopeless.
Today, we’re going to move to a truth that comes from the God who is our Maker and Master. For all believers can find hope in and through His Word. We see this affirmed as we look again to two excerpts from the Book of Psalms:
Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn Your commands. May those who fear You rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in Your Word. Psalm 119:73-74
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His Word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130:5-6
In both these instances, we find the psalmists finding their hope through the Word of the One who was their source of hope and as we read through the scriptures today, we too discover this for ourselves.
How do we know that the Bible is from God?
The scriptures tell us so and given that our Lord is perfect in truth, we know that every bit of His Word is true. Here’s what we read in
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
All means all and so every single word we read in the Bible is breathed out by the God from whom all things come. He is the great Originator, the Initiator of every holy and divine genesis that has ever happened.
Note that a Christian has everything they need in the scriptures which thoroughly equips them “for every good work”. In it, the “servant of God” finds teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” as well as, for the purpose and point of this message, hope.
This hope from God runs like blessed threads through the tapestry of the Bible, and one place you will easily locate it is within the Lord’s promises, promises that He has never broken and will always keep.
Need some examples?
Consider these assurances found in the scriptures:
As Moses addressed the Israelite people before they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, we find him sharing these words before sharing a similar message them again with Joshua who would be their new leader (Vv.8-9):
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6
In other words, he was telling them to not lose hope for God was with them.
And just in case we want to think this was just an Old Testament assurance, we find this question posed by the Apostle Paul in His letter to the Romans:
“If God is for us, who can be against us?” v.31
God is greater than anything and so there’s nothing a believer will come up against that He can’t conquer. He is our great Defender and Protector, and all we need to do is place our trust in Him. For with our Lord, we will always have hope, no matter what.
After the great flood when all of mankind was wiped out with the exception of Noah, his wife, their three sons and their spouses, and many pairs of other living creatures, God made a promise to never again send another flood of that sort.
What was the sign of this promise?
We often see it in the sky after a rain for it is none other than the rainbow.
“I have set My rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember My covenant between Me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” Genesis 9:13-16
Words from the Lord promising that He would never send “a flood to destroy all life” are words that fill Bible readers with hope, especially because of the truth that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). And given that all are sinners and will face judgment from an almighty, all powerful God who hates sin, I’ll finish with one final promise, the one that is the most significant of them all spoken by our Savior Jesus:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” John 3:16-18
Friends, every single created person is going to live forever after death. No one’s body stops functioning and is simply placed into the ground to finish things.
This is because within each body is a soul and that soul is either going to the eternal damnation and torment of Hell or the everlasting beauty and glory of Heaven. We only have the latter option because of the God who is the source of all hope and extends messages that breed hope through His Word.
Here, we see that He didn’t wish for anyone to perish in Hell and so out of love, He “gave His one and only Son” Jesus so that whoever would simply believe in Him would “not perish” but rather “have eternal life”.
With this, we see where Jesus is the determinant as to whether a person will face God’s condemnation or His salvation. For anyone who believes in Christ “is not condemned” but someone who has refused to believe “in the name of God’s one and only Son” will go unsaved and destined for a life forever in Hell.
The blessed truth here is that God’s Word conveys His most significant action, an action that brought the best hope ever to anyone who believes in His Son Jesus. This Advent season, as we anxiously wait to celebrate our Savior’s birth, let us remember that it was God and His communicated Word that makes this hope possible.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
