Hope Keeps Us Going
Hope is a precious treasure that enables us to carry on in the face of adversity, giving us the strength to survive and thrive in a fallen world.
A.W. Tozer emphasizes the vital role of hope in our lives, describing it as both precious and treacherous. He argues that hope is essential for survival in a fallen world, as it provides the strength to endure adversity and prevents despair. Without hope, the human spirit would falter, leading to a bleak existence devoid of purpose. Tozer illustrates how hope has sustained individuals through dire circumstances, enabling them to persevere and find meaning even in the darkest times. Ultimately, hope serves as a powerful motivator that keeps us moving forward in life.
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Among those treasures with which we are all endowed by nature, hope stands by itself as being at once the most precious and the most treacherous.
Just because hope is so common we accept it as a matter of course, without realizing how precious it is. Without it life in a fallen world would be unbearable; without it the zest for living would disappear almost at once; without it one hour of adversity would break our spirits and drive millions to suicide. It is not too much to say that if all hope were destroyed within the human breast, the race of mankind would die out altogether in a very few years. Even the procreative drive and the instinct for self-preservation would hardly be strong enough to save from extinction a race from which all hope had fled.
Hope is a nurse and comforter and enables us to go on after every reason for going on has disappeared. Hope has sustained the spirit of a shipwrecked sailor and given him strength to stay alive through the long days that seemed years till help and rescue came; hope has steeled the patriot to fight on and win at last against overwhelming odds; hope has saved from insanity or suicide the prisoner in his lonely cell as he checked off the years and months and days on his homemade calendar; hope has enabled the sick or injured man to wait out the pain and the nausea till health returned and the suffering ended; hope has made light the feet of the traveler hurrying home in near exhaustion to the bedside of someone he loved.
Sermon Outline
- The Preciousness of Hope
- The Importance of Hope
- Examples of Hope in Action
- Hope helped the shipwrecked sailor
- Hope inspired the patriot
- Hope saved the prisoner
Key Quotes
“Without it life in a fallen world would be unbearable; without it the zest for living would disappear almost at once; without it one hour of adversity would break our spirits and drive millions to suicide.” — A.W. Tozer
“Hope is a nurse and comforter and enables us to go on after every reason for going on has disappeared.” — A.W. Tozer
“Hope has sustained the spirit of a shipwrecked sailor and given him strength to stay alive through the long days that seemed years till help and rescue came;” — A.W. Tozer
Application Points
- Hope is essential for survival in a fallen world, and we should cherish and nurture it in our lives.
- We should recognize the importance of hope in our lives and make a conscious effort to cultivate it in times of adversity.
- Hope can help us overcome even the most daunting challenges and give us the motivation to keep going.