The Power of Hope
W. Carl Ketcherside
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One of the great differences between being in Christ Jesus and being on the outside is hope. It isn't that those on the outside do not have hope for all men do. The difference lies in the varying degree of intensity. Those who know the Lord find their hope increasing as they grow older, those who do not know him find their hope waning, and frequently being supplanted by those two malign evils to personality--dread and despair.
Every rational person realizes that he is not going to get out of the human predicament alive. All of his plans for postponing the inevitable are doomed. His string is going to run out. The thread is going to be snipped. The Christian, "sustained by an unfaltering trust," is able to "wrap the drapery of his couch about him and lie down to pleasant dreams." Not so the one who sins away his day of grace and suddenly faces the blackness of darkness. Without hope we are of all men most miserable.
Then, what is hope? The simplest definition is that it is "a joyous anticipation of the future." Although it is related to expectation they are not the same. One may expect bad as well as good, storm as well as sunshine. It is only when expectation is accompanied by desire that it is an ingredient of hope. We desire some things we do not expect, and expect some things we do not desire, but when we have desire and expectation in equal proportion we possess hope.
Hope is not a retreat for the cowardly or inadequate. Instead, it is a resilient and powerful quality of the soul, lingering on even when the rationalization argues that it is futile. Long after others have given up the search for one who is lost, a mother keeps the light burning in her heart, reacting inwardly to every step on the porch, and every knock on the door. Like Abraham we hope "when hope seems hopeless" (Romans 4:18).
My faith and my hope are grounded on the same foundation as the faith and hope of Abraham. It is a firm conviction of the validity of every promise of God, because "God makes the dead to live and summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were." The first is the ultimate in power, the second the ultimate in knowledge. God raised Jesus from the dead. So God can raise men from the dead. And he has promised me I will share in eternal life on a more magnificent scale than I can ever imagine now.
The fact is that Jesus made sense out of death by making sense out of life. By showing me how to live he taught me how to die. And the last gasp of oxygen into my collapsing lungs is of no real consequence. It is not lifting the latch that is important but what lies beyond the door. I am convinced that ineffable joy awaits in the other room. Jesus has begotten me to a living hope. "And the God of all grace, who called you into his
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Beginning with Romans 8:18, the apostle places suffering and splendor in proper perspective. Suffering is for awhile, splendor is after awhile. It is the splendor which really counts. The whole created universe, now writhing in agony, is standing on tiptoe, looking down the long road, waiting for the spectacle of triumph when the sons of God come into their own. It is the people of God who give meaning to the whole creation. Man was at the peak of God's creation. His fall subjected his whole domain to despair. His final victory will bring rejoicing to all. Hope is written in shining letters across the face of the whole order.
"For we have been saved; though only in hope. Now to see is no longer to hope: why should a man endure and wait for what he already sees?" (Romans 8:24).
This does not mean that hope is an agent or cause of our salvation. We are not saved by hope as an operating principle. The point at issue here is that we have been saved, but there is more to come. In our flesh and blood we are not adapted for existence in a celestial realm. We have not yet shared in all to which our salvation makes us heirs. There is something for which the universe is expectant--joyfully and triumphantly expectant.
When hope becomes reality it ceases to function as hope. The sight of the goal renders hope unnecessary. The endurance test is over. The waiting period is ended. Expectancy gives way to experience, anticipation becomes enjoyment. This is the essence of the Christian life. Tears and trials today, smiles and splendor tomorrow.
"But if we hope for something we do not yet see, then, in waiting for it, we show our endurance" (Romans 8:25).
This is a confirmation of the statement in Romans 5:3-5, which says, "Let us even exult in our present sufferings, because we know that suffering trains us to endure, and endurance brings proof that we have stood the test, and this proof is the ground of hope. Such a hope is no mockery, because God's love has flooded our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us."
Hope is validated by God's love. The heart flooded with love is the heart that can be filled with hope. It is useless to expect hope to provide its bounty when there is no love, for love is the soil in which hope grows and blossoms. The heart is merely a vase and hope is a cut flower where there is no love in which the roots may be put down.
"In the same way the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. We do not even know how we ought to pray, but through our inarticulate groans the Spirit himself is pleading for us, and God who searches our inmost being knows what the Spirit means, because he pleads for God's own people in God's own way" (Romans 8:26, 27).
Hope comes to our aid in counteracting despair and makes it possible for us to endure and hold on in spite of suffering. But we have another helper, for the Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness. He does so in many departments of life, one of which is mentioned, that of prayer.
We are all ignorant of many things with regard to prayer. It is far easier to theorize about prayer than it is to practice it. Often we develop stereotyped words and phrases which we repeat monotonously and with little consciousness or real concern. Sometimes we cannot express the real concern. Sometimes we cannot express the real burdens nor find words in which to couch our deepest longings. All of us have found occasions when we wanted to pray and could not really do so.
For just such emergencies God has given us the indwelling Spirit as an intercessor. We have only one mediator, one bridge-builder, the man Christ Jesus. But we can have many intercessors. Indeed we are all to make intercession for one another (1 Timothy 2:1). And we have
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The Spirit translates our inward inexpressible desires into prayer, taking the intangible and inarticulate groanings of the inner man and putting them in the words of heavenly language. Thus we can be sure that we are on a direct line to the throne room in glory if we are in Christ Jesus. Let me illustrate what I mean.
I know a precious mother who could neither read nor write. She was placed at field work by her immigrant father when she was a mere girl. She was denied any formal education. Later she married and bore six children whom she dearly loved. She and her husband were found by the Shepherd and entered the fold. They sought eagerly to rear their children to God's glory. With her little brood by her side she never missed a meeting of the saints, listening intently to words she could not read.
One day a message was received that her husband had been killed in an accident at work. Stunned by the tragic news she locked the door of her room and kneeled down by the bedside. Later she told me that with breaking heart and gushing tears she had tried to pray but no words would come. For a long period she kneeled in the glowing dusk, dumb in her anguish. Then it seemed to her that she could feel strong arms about her shaking shoulders. There stole over her an indescribable sense of inner peace. She arose from her knees ready to face life with new courage. Although she had been unable to utter a sound except her choking sobs she had the distinct feeling that she had prayed and that God had heard. Of course she was correct!
Then there was an elderly brother, confined to a nursing home where he had but little privacy. Once an elder in a rural congregation, he had faithfully served God's heritage entrusted to his care. He had prayed by the beds of the gravely ill and by the gravesides of the dead. His life had been a veritable life of prayer, daily offered to the God whom he loved. Now his mind often wandered and he lost the thread of thought completely.
When I visited him he confided to me how at night when the patients were tucked into bed, he talked to God for comfort. But he said that frequently he had a lapse of memory and could not recall what he had said. He would even fall asleep not knowing if his prayer was finished. He felt relieved when I told him that the Spirit carried his inmost secrets to the ear of God, and God understood.
I have often found relief in prayer, especially when I was in deep need of forgiveness and divine understanding. And the greatest consolation comes when I realize that all does not depend upon human vocabulary. The Spirit decodes my impulses and desires and transmits them in rational language. And God hears and grace takes over. I do not so much need to learn how to pray as I need to learn how to trust.
God searches and penetrates the recesses of my being. He knows my every thought and intent. He also knows the mind of the Spirit. The communion between God and the Spirit is absolute. It is perfect. And the Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. He pleads for God's own people in God's own way. If nothing else prompted me to be one of the people of God this alone would be sufficient motivation. I must be one of the saints because I desperately need the Spirit as an intercessor.
Let others fill their journals with argument and debate about how the Spirit works, or if he works. I prefer to fill this little paper with the grace of God and my own gratitude that my Lord did not leave us as orphans. I am happy that he came to us in the Spirit and the Spirit moved in to live with me in my frail tent. I am overjoyed because of the warmth, the understanding, and the power which he furnishes day by day. In short, I am thrilled beyond my poor ability to express that God has adopted me and that I am a member of His majestic family.