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Hope saves inasmuch as —

I. IT REVIVES.

1. While despondency benumbs, hope sends a thrill of life through every fibre of our being. If, e.g., you tell a sick man that he has no chance of recovery, how rapidly he sinks; but if you tell him there is hope, he revives, the blood circulates through his veins with a vigour which all the medicines in the world cannot inspire. Take the case of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38.).

2. Transfer this to the spiritual. Look at a man who is struggling with evil around and within him. If you make him believe that it can never be subdued, paralysis and death settle upon his energies. But if, in moments of depression, you meet him with instances of success, and show him that the work must succeed, you inspire him with life. How often hope revived St. Paul we know. The hope of his calling, the hope of salvation, the hope of Israel, the hope of the glory of God, the hope that his work would yet bear fruit, that blessed hope, the glorious reappearing of Christ, in his moments of depression, came to him like inspirations from heaven. Had they had no power, the world would have borne a very different look. It is the same with ourselves. Take the hope of forgiveness, the hope of heaven breathes life into the dullest. And when sorrowing for those we have lost, that which reconciles us to the will of God and sends us back to duty is the hope that they are as the angels.

II. IT SUSTAINS. It is the principal cause of success. In those who watch by the sick this is evident. How it sustains through long nights of weary watching, and enables them to make sacrifice after sacrifice! Without hope, again, who could endure the myriad anxieties of life? Or look at the advocates of an unpopular cause. How hope sustains them! That of St. Paul and his companions is a case in point. To their heart and hand hope gave courage, labour, patience.

III. IT INCITES TO ACTIVE ENDEAVOUR. If we wish to incite children to diligence, we use hope. It incites the student, the workman, the merchant, the soldier, the sailor, the artist, the statesman. Hope, in fact, is the great mover of the human mind. The hope of doing good is the inspiration of our noblest deeds. The hope of subduing our evils, and of being transformed into the image of Christ, incites us to struggle against them.

IV. IT PURIFIES. "Every man that hath this hope purifies himself even as He is pure." Conclusion:

1. This hope is Divine, God is the God of hope — its object, its source. The hopes by which men are revived, sustained, or incited, are not their own. They are inspired by the Holy Ghost. And what solidity is here given to our hopes as believers, as citizens of heaven! Their mere existence is a pledge of their reality and truth.

2. The gospel of Christ is a gospel of hope. It does not contradict the soul. Men have always believed that their parentage is Divine. The gospel confirms this: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." They have always believed in immortality. The gospel says, "In My Father's house are many mansions." They have always believed in the Divine nearness. The message of the gospel is, "Lo, I am with you alway."

3. See the necessity for preaching it. Tell men they are the children of the devil, and you do the best you can to make them such. But tell them they are the children of God, and you give them hope.

(W. M. Metcalfe.)

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KJV: For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

WEB: For we were saved in hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for that which he sees?