Following Judah's Lion

There is Only One Hope

Ti.2:13 - Looking for that Blessed Hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

Hope. What is hope? The dictionary says this, “to have a wish to get or do something or for something to happen or be true, especially something that seems possible or likely”. And so is earthly hope. I hope to get that job, I hope he’s not hurt, I hope I’ll be able to make the party. All these are utterances that use the term hope, but they are poor shadows of the word when used in a Biblical sense.

The hope that God references in His Word has eternal and glorious implications concerning God and His eternal kingdom. How can we compare the hope of employment with the hope of salvation? The hope of Christmas with the hope of eternal life? The hope of seeing a friend with the hope of seeing the Risen Christ? Gather together all the fulfilled hope of every person that ever lived and it could not compare to one single second in the presence of the Lamb of Glory. We are sometimes so attached to this present world that we fail to recognize that our hope is not of this world, not in this present time, no, our hope is a surpassing hope that overshadows any and all areas about which we may have hoped.

And there is only one hope. And this hope is the portal that leads to all other hopes that live forever. Jesus Christ, the Creator of the universe and Savior of the world, He alone is hope. What? Am I saying that Jesus is the one and only way to eternal hope and even well meaning religious people who do not believe in Jesus are without hope in this world? I am not saying that myself, I am sharing what God’s Word itself declares. Jesus by His own earthly mouth declared Himself to be the only way to the Father, and the Father declared Him to be His Son. Do not question or doubt it, embrace it.

The great Apostle was going about the business of murdering believers in Jesus and destroying their hope, or so he thought. On his way to Damascus he came into the presence of the One he sought to persecute and in one glorious encounter Jesus became the hope of Saul, now Paul, of Tarsus. And all the skeptics cannot explain what happened to Paul and why he suddenly became a follower of the Hope he once sought to destroy. There is only one explanation, Paul met Jesus, the Hope of the World. For the rest of his life Paul would go throughout the world preaching the hope in Christ to all who would or wouldn’t listen until he finally went to be with his eternal Hope, even at the hands of men who had no hope.

When a person descends emotionally and spiritually to where they have absolutely no hope whatsoever they are suicidal. But when a person meets and believes on Christ they are resurrected with His own life. It is an experience that only the redeemed can understand, but it is a hope that is offered to whosoever will believe on Jesus, His hope is that pervasive. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden is a call to the hopeless. Jesus gives hope to all who call upon His name, it is a miracle that transcends words. I have personally seen severely depressed people come to Christ and have their whole emotional lives transformed. I have known criminals with no hope believe on Christ and find a tangible hope they never knew existed. I have seen sinners whose lives were not worth living come to Christ and be completely full of the most demonstrative hope that only God can give. The Scriptures command us to be ready to give an answer when people ask us why we have such hope inside us and the answer is simple and glorious, our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. And it is this hope that makes us not ashamed. We cannot help but speak the wonderful works of God as they did on Pentecost. The Lord has done so much for us it would be impossible to list, but the world needs to hear that only Christ gives eternal hope. All other hope is a mirage, passing with the world.

On Monday, January 2nd, 2006 at 6:31 a.m., Sago, West Virginia an underground explosion causes a power outage at Sago Mine as two crews entered the mine to resume production after the holiday. After 13 miners were trapped deep within a coal mine in West Virginia, the news came that 12 out of the 13 had escaped death and were saved alive. Oh the joy and thankfulness that spread throughout the community and especially the relatives. But several hours later it became apparent that the news that they were alive was tragically erroneous. All but one of the 13 miners were found dead. The outrage of the miscommunication almost eclipsed the feeling of loss that the close knit community had felt, and it would have been better if the information that they were alive had never been given to the families. For several hours they had rejoiced with false hope that would cruelly be taken from them by a tragedy compounded with the incompetence of a communications debacle. Grief mixed with anger.

Just what had happened in West Virginia? False hope was given and later revealed for the tragic lie that it was. That is exactly what all hope without Christ is, a false hope with eternally tragic consequences. How many souls will pass in front of the Great White Throne judgment seat and wail that they had been promised hope, secure hope that now has been taken from them? Some had derived their hope from Joseph Smith, some from Charles Russell, some from Mohammed, some from Mary, some from their church, some from their baptism, some from their good works, and some just relied on some intangible hope that things would work out somehow. And now on this day of unspeakable horror they are marching toward the reward of believing a lie, a damnable lie that can never be undone. And on that day the echoes of God’s justice will reverberate throughout the infinite expanse of God’s dwelling place saying, “There is only one hope and it is in Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God!”.

And so those of us who have found an everlasting hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ know that we have been delivered from all the hopes and dreams of our own flesh, we stand alone by faith in Christ who is our hope, and that hope dwells within us and at the same time in heaven itself. And now this hope abides for us and our children and our children's children and yea for the whole world! And on the first day of completed hope all God’s recipients of His offer of hope will kneel together before the Incarnate Hope. Every nation will be represented, men and women from every race, educated and unlearned, kings and serfs, rich and poor, and in one colossal chorus of worship we will bow and proclaim that “Jesus Christ is Lord”.

There always has been, there is, and there always will be only one hope, and that hope is in God’s Christ, world without end, amen and amen.