Romans 4:18 - Homiletics

Hope against hope.

Faith and hope are allied, though separate, exercises and habits of created, finite mind. Neither of the two is possible to God, who is independent and eternal, and can neither confide in a superior nor anticipate a future. Man's highest welfare depends upon faith, which is the principle of a high and noble life. Hope is less necessary, yet it belongs to a complete development of human nature, which looks forward to the future as well as upward to the unseen. Faith must have an object, and hope must have a ground. Faith is in a person; hope has respect to experience anticipated. If there be faith in a Being who has given definite promises, there will be hope in whatever is the matter of those promises. He who believes in God will hopefully expect the fulfilment of Divine assurances.

I. THERE IS HOPE WHICH IS BASED UPON NATURAL HUMAN EXPERIENCES . TO some extent, hope is a matter of temperament; circumstances which to a despondent man seem to afford no gleam of comfort in looking forward to the future, will arouse the brightest expectations on the part of the man of sanguine disposition. Still, hope is often precluded by the stern teaching of constant experience; and a man would prove himself mad if, in certain circumstances, he should look forward hopefully to the enjoyment of health, honour, or riches. Abraham, in the circumstances referred to in the context, might hope for many blessings; but, if illumined only by the experience of his own life and by the experience of preceding generations, he could not hope for a posterity which should take possession of the land of Canaan as their inheritance. And we, if enlightened only by earthly wisdom, could not venture to anticipate blessings which the gospel, upon Divine authority, assures to the believing and obedient. Human hope could not so far delude us.

II. THERE IS HOPE WHICH IS BASED UPON THE FAITHFUL PROMISES OF THE ETERNAL . With God nothing is impossible; from God nothing is concealed. Therefore, when he deigns to reveal his purposes to men, and when those purposes are purposes of mercy, those to whom they are made are justified in embracing them and in acting upon them. In the case of Abraham, that which human hope would have had no ground for anticipating was assured by the firm and unchanging promises of the Supreme; and Divine hope justly prevailed. He hoped in God against any hope or failure of hope which might be natural to him as man. And Abraham did not hope in vain. He embraced and believed the promises. He and his family, "not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Hope triumphed, even over the bitter trial connected with the sacrifice of Isaac. Looking forward to the future with the bright and piercing eye of hope, our father Abraham saw the day of the Messiah, and he rejoiced and was glad.

APPLICATION . Often the Christian, if reduced to the limits of earthly anticipations, might give way to discouragement and fear. But he has hope, as "an anchor to his soul," by means of which he may ride out the storms of time. Let him hope against hope, and his confidence shall be justified, and his anticipations shall be realized. His is a hope which, in the beautiful language of the Apocrypha, is "full of immortality."