Unbelievers Without Hope
Ephesians ii. 12. Having no hope.
No hope! The condition of such a man may well excite concern and commiseration. Men can live and be happy without riches, without honors; they can suffer manfully, and struggle through accumulated sorrows, if there be but a glimmering light in their path. They can rise superior to depression, if there is anything to lull the terrors of apprehension, and they may but feel bound to the world by the consoling, the magic influence of hope. But when this last, silent stream of consolation is dried up, there is nothing left on which the mind may repose its fears, or its griefs. It has no resources left; it sinks unfortified under the burden of its calamity; and the despairing, sullen sufferer has but the one desire left him, “O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave!”
Such instances of suffering are rare; and we naturally ask, Of whom is the apostle speaking, whose condition is so emphatically and mournfully described, as *’ having no hope?’’
Perhaps it is the man who has committed the unpardonable sin, and for whom there is no forgiveness, either in this world, or ‘that which is to come. Or it may be the man who is in the agonies of death, and is just about to appear before his Judge to hear his doom. Or is it the state of the damned that he is speaking of? No, it is none of these. They are men who are living within this world of mercy; who were “without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” The reason why they had no hope was, that they were thus alienated from God.
Man is no earth-born creature, but destined to immortality. There are strong desires of the future implanted in his bosom. The present does not satisfy him; present things lose their relish and pall on his immortal appetite. There is no resting-place beneath the sun, where he sits down satisfied. If he looks not beyond the attainments, or researches of earth, what hope has he that is worth the name? It terminates on earth; it exhausts itself on objects that may pass away and be dissolved in an hour. Nothing is more uncertain, than that such objects can be attained; and if attained,, whether they may not be lost; and if not lost, whether they can satisfy. They are temporary, delusive, and absolutely degi’ading. Man himself is vain, apart from his immortality. They are withered hopes that are fixed upon the things of time; hopes that are desolate; hopes that conduce not to the end and perfection of our being; hopes which, for the most part, man enjoys in common with brutes. Such hopes are a fiction of the imagination — a false elation of the mind — a mere image and semblance of hope — a mistake, a folly, an infatuation which it will require “eternity to deplore, and eternity to comprehend.”
There may also be hopes of future and eternal good,
4S UNBELIEVERS WITHOUT HOPE.
that have no good and solid foundation. There are re. ligious hopes that are vague and uncertain, changeful and fluctuating, because they have nothing to rest upon. They are indulged with great hesitation, because those who indulge them are enveloped in doubt, and shrouded in darkness, on all the great subjects which relate to their immortal well-being. Some hope because they have the form of godliness; some because they think it would be unjust and cruel for God to destroy them; some because they persuade themselves they possess the religion of the Bible, when they are utterly destitute of it; some because they believe that all men will be saved. Their hopes rest upon a foundation of sand; and in the high and important sense in which the Scriptures speak of hope, they are no hope at all.
No man can decide whether his hope of a blessed immortality rests on a true and solid foundation without going to the Bible. Jesus Christ, whose Spirit is the author of this revelation, himself came from heaven, in order to assure us of the reality of the heaven from which he came. His redemption solves the dark problem, “how can nian be just with God.” He alone has procured eternal life for guilty men; has made an adequate and accepted satisfaction to divine justice, so that God can now “be just and the justifier of him that believeth.” Here is the sinner’s hope. The rock Christ is the only support of the perishing soul. Reason and philosophy may build their hopes on nature; grasping self-righteousness and towering pride may raise the edifice of their expectations on presumption; error and imagination may build their “castles in thy air;” but Christian hope, the only hope that is not as the spider’s web, rests on this sure foundation that is laid in Zion. Every other is fluctuating and unstable; it has no permanency, no reality; it is a refuge of lies; put it to the test, and you detect its fallacy — it disappears — it is swept away. No other foundation sustains the hope that is built upon it. All other hope perishes when God takes away the soul; it is the deathgrasp of the merest presumption; it is as the “giving up of the ghost;” it is not hope. When trouble and changes come, it is in trepidation ajid alarm; it is no anchor when the storm beats heavily. The day is coming that will test the hopes of men. It will be a wrathful day that lays waste every vain confidence. It is a bewildered mind that; it is dissatisfied with itself; it courts deception; it “sports itself with its own deceivings;” it has no hope, that rests not on Christ.
Hope that is firm and true, must also not only rest on this sure foundation, but its genuineness must be evinced by good evidence. There is a hope for eternal life which is without ourselves, and wrought out and perfected by the finished work of Christ alone; and there is a personal preparation for heaven that is within ourselves, that is inwrought in the soul by the operation of God’s Spirit. What Christ has done /or us is the foundation of our hope; what he has done in us is the evidence of its genuineness. It is one thing for the foundation to be laid; another to build on that foundation. The foundation stands, though I refuse to build upon it; while my building- upon it, by humbly and gratefully receiving Christ Jesus, furnishes me the only assurance that I am “growing up an holy temple in the Lord.” “Christ in you the hope of glory” — this is the evidence of a good hope. “Hope maketh not ashamed because t the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, by the Holy Ghost.” And “this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Those there are who profess to have hope in Christ, who neither believe in him, nor love him, nor obey him. Men may not persuade themselves that they have a good hope, unless they can discover these marks of it. They have no hope — no hope that looketh within the veil — none that is the precursor and earnest of heaven — none that will not in a little while be turned into despair. It is a hope that is dead, and severed from all vital contact with Christ and holiness. It dwells among the tombs; it is desolate and dark; it is a living death; a hope that is hopeless.
Let us then be urged to greater fidelity in inspecting the nature, the foundation, and the practical influence of our hope. Self-delusion in this matter may overtake us as well as others. We may not take it for granted that we have a good hope, without honest and thorough inquiry. “As ye have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him.” If you do not glory in his cross, because by it the world is crucified to you, and you to the world; if your hope rests on anything but Christ, and does not lead you to progressive obedience to his will; it is false and spurious. If, upon impartial inquiry, you find your hope is one that has mocked you, give it up. If it be so with any of you, I pray God you may be convinced of it. It is a miserable and guilty state that you are in, and you must see and feel it, if you are ever brought out of it, and into the glorious hope and liberty of the children of God. It is an awful thing to be thus deceived; but blessed be God, there is a way of return and recovery. The Saviour, who died, proclaims, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Every one that will may come in this “new and living way.” Listen to his invitations; embrace his offer; lay hold of his promises.
“My soul would fain indulge a hope
To reach the heavenly shore;
And when I drop this dying flesh,
That I shall sin no more.
“But O! this dreadful heart of sin,
It may deceive me still;
And while I look for joys above,
May plunge me down to hell.
“Come then, O blessed Jesus! come,
To me thy Spirit give;
Shine through a dark, benighted soul,
And bid a sinner live.”
Some of you are professedly without Christ, without God in the world, and are sensible that you have no hope that can stand the test that tries the spirits of men. What shall we say to you? My friends, you are making a hazardous experiment, and one that will certainly disappoint you. You cannot live thus, and yet hope to die a peaceful death, and enjoy a happy immortality. It were a desperate experiment, equally opposed to the truth of God, to all the known principles of his government, and to God himself. Your hope deserves not the name of hope; for God is not in all your thoughts. God is not your friend; for you have made him your enemy. Instead of loving him, you have alienated yourselves from his love, and have boldly said to him, “Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy Ways.” Religion is a burden to you; its privileges give you no joy; you drag its hopes as the galley slave drags his heavy chain. This world is your idol, and could you command its bounty, you would be content to dwell in it for ever. Believe me it is time for you to take the alarm. You are going to your own place, and the graves of the slain are there. Your descent to it is rapid; it is as dark as it is precipitous. A few slanting and oblique beams of the sun may fall upon it, and that sun is going down. Here and there a projecting bough, or tree, scathed by the lightning, which has twisted its roots into the fissures of the rock, may intercept your progress, and break your fall; but your feet shall slide in due time, and to that world below, that bottomless abyss, whence there is no return.
But I would fain believe there are some among you whose hope is as an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast. To all such persons, the subject on which we have been dwelling addresses the most delightful encouragement. A Christian seaman has the same high character and the same blessed promise, that belong to those who pursue a less perilous, and more tranquil calling. The name of the Lord is a strong tower, into which the righteous runneth and is safe. You may be “in dangers oft,” but he that keepeth you shall neither slumber, nor sleep. “Though you take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, there shall his hand lead you, and his right hand shall hold you.” No matter where you live, or where, or when you die; your “life is hid with Christ in God, and when he who is your life shall appear, you also shall appear with him in glory.” No matter where your mortal body may find its last rest; whether in the tranquil grave-yard, and in the place of your fathers’ sepulchres, in the deep earth; or in the deeper sea; it is enough that the great Saviour watches over it as his own, and at his voice it shall come forth.
If you are thus “begotten again to a living hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead,” let it be seen that yours is a good hope through grace. Cherish such a hope as this, and honor it by your habitual deportment, fearing God and departing from evil. Cast not away this confidence, for it hath great recompense of reward. Hope is the flower of Paradise, left to scatter its rich perfume over a dreary world. It lives even under lowering skies, and is watered by the spray of the ocean. It enhances your pleasures, and refreshes your toil; it cheers your melancholy and soothes your sorrows; it heals your wounds, and dissipates your fears. Clouds may hang over the lowly vale of your earthly pilgrimage; but the light of hope shall scatter them. Night may shut in and cover the dark passage which leads to immortality; but the light of hope shall stream in full glory there, and clear up the dark valley. “If in this life only we have hope, we are of all men the most to be commiserated.” It is not in this life that your hopes centre; you will not be thus miserable, because disappointed. Nor is it an imaginary happines in an imaginary future that you are searching after — grasping at shadows, and rejecting the substance. Hope may be firm that anticipates eternal realities. It is fast anchored, and enters into that which is within the veil, “whither the Forerunner has for us entered.” The time is short; be you sober, and watch unto prayer.” As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation and godliness. Be ye sober, I say, and watch unto prayer, lest Satan take advantage of you; lest you grieve the Spirit of God; and lest, after the lusts of your former ignorance, a wound be inflicted on your hopes that may not be healed, though you seek it carefully and with tears.