If In This Life Only WE Have Hope

From the Pastor: Dr. M. J. Seymour, Sr.

“And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (I Cor. 15:17-19) “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;” (Heb. 6:19)

“HOPE” – such a simple word thoughtlessly spoken by vast multitudes that have so very little perception of the depths of God’s grace that preserves and illuminates the eternal state of the redeemed within this one simplistically little word. All of the redeemed’s passions and visions of their future state in eternity are encapsulated in this soft delicate utterance. All that we are and all that we anticipate to be in and with our blessed Lord Jesus is expressed in the blossom of “HOPE.” Destroy hope in Christ Jesus and even our very spirit weathers into emptiness. If He be not raised from the dead and alive forevermore, we have but a fragile shell barren of life after death. Mankind would be no more privileged than a decaying tomato on its bush. “HOPE” must inevitability be occupied with fulfillment or as empty as the breath of death.

Thanks be unto God that we have a hope that is anchored securely beyond heaven’s veil in the Holy of Holies, embedded in the blood of the Lamb sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat of the Most High God! The hope of the redeemed is as full and alive as Christ the Lord of Glory is. It would be easier to empty the heavens of its stars and galaxies than to drain dry the promises of the Father’s gift of hope. Shall He that saves to the uttermost be found incompetent to fill up so great a salvation? Shall fleshly death make void the royal decree of eternity’s Sovereign? God forbid that we should harbor the horrid disease of unbelief in the Father’s ability to have raised Jesus His Christ from the dead and will in the same power of His might raise up all those He has given to His blessed Son.

Would we not be pitiful creatures indeed drowning in the depths of unfathomable miseries if there be no heavenly hope for the redeemed of the Lamb? Let the heavens and the heaven of the heavens hear the voices of our rejoicing praises, for there is no god like unto our God and our Eternal Life-giver! Hope! Sweet Hope!