|
A
Living, Transforming Hope
By
Paul Earnhart, from "Christianity Magazine" January
1991,
It
is reported that several years ago researchers did a study
to determine the effect hope has on those undergoing hardship.
Two sets of laboratory rats were placed in separate tubs
of water from which they could not escape unaided. The Researchers
left one set in the water and found that within an hour
the exhausted rats all drowned.
The other
rats were periodically lifted out of the water and then
returned. These animals swam for over 24 hours. Why? Not
because they were given rest, but because they had hope!
They had come to believe that if they held out just a little
longer, someone would reach down and rescue them. Without
defending what seems to have been a rather cruel experiment,
we simply observe that if this is the effect of hope on
unthinking rodents, what must its power be in the lives
of human beings?
There is
nothing so critical to the success of gospel teaching as
that it gives genuine hope to sincere hearers. Any supposed
teaching of Christ which drives honest searching hearts
to despair is a subversion of God's gracious purpose. "In
the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs
of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed
with an oath, in order that by two unchangeable things,
in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong
encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold
of the hope set before us." Heb. 6:17-18.
We do not
speak here of the proud, the insincere, the worldly hearers.
The gospel is designed to cause them to stumble in their
lusts. But genuine and humble souls should be made to rejoice
at the implications of the story of the cross. However much
tempered with sobriety, the response of such people to the
preaching of Jesus should always, at last, be joy.
This is
not to deny that the gospel begins with a profoundly painful
indictment of sin, but it is easy to say that such should
not be the final impact of the message. If the preaching
of Christ begins by driving us to our knees in repentance,
it must end by lifting us to our feet in confident faith
and hope. Paul says that we are saved "in hope"
(Rom. 8:24) and truer words were never spoken. It is the
confidence we feel in God's gracious promises and the assurance
He gives us of our power to obtain them by faith that keeps
us going and growing, serving God through good times and
bad.
Indeed,
it is this living by hope alone, having seen none of those
blessed things which are the driving influence of our lives,
which causes us to be so profoundly changed in character
and attitude. We have to do right when not only is the reward
for right nowhere in sight, but when punishing consequences
for doing it are very near and very tangible. So is faith
deepened and hope brightened (1 Peter 1:3-9).
And there
is every reason that those who have trusted in Christ should
have a bright and confident hope. The most wonderful thing
has already happened. God, in the cross, has demonstrated
His love for us so powerfully that we can never again have
cause to doubt the depth of His commitment (Romans 5:8;
8:31). As Paul wonderingly asks, if that is what God is
willing to do for His enemies, what would He be willing
to do for His friends (5:10-11)? It is beyond imagining!
But it is
not just God's overwhelming love for us that gives us hope,
but the immensity of the power that works that loving purpose.
Some have love, but no power. Others have power, but no
love. God has both, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to
the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and
ever. Amen." (Eph. 3:20-21).
On March
5, 1979, scientists noted what was then called the most
powerful energy burst ever recorded. This burst of gamma
radiation picked up by satellites lasted only one-tenth
of a second, but in that brief instant it emitted as much
energy as the sun does over a period of 3,000 years. That
kind of energy, coming from our sun, would have vaporized
the earth.
We marvel
at the power that God sends pulsating through the universe,
but it is dwarfed by the power that a loving God has exercised
to save a lost humanity. Even the power that created the
world is small by comparison to the enormous energy which
God wields to produce spiritual rebirth in a single human
being. That power, Paul says, beggars our wildest imaginings,
and it is working in us!
How great
then, our hope should be, and how powerfully such a hope
should affect how we live our lives and how we face our
troubles and our failures. If we should grasp even a measure
of this truth, would it not revolutionize us? Lord, increase
our faith -and our hope.
|