1. When in better states of mind, and in clearer views of
the subject, they find that they have desired and perhaps have obtained,
a wrong thing—a thing which no right-minded man ought to have coveted
and sought. How large a portion of man's earthly desires and expectations
are fixed on objects which true religion, reason, and conscience—at length
tell them are forbidden by God. It is awful to think what a preponderance of
human energy, in many men's pursuits, is going forth after illicit gains and
pleasures! In some few cases, alas, how few—they are at last brought to see
their iniquity, and to blush over it! They discover, to their shame and
confusion, that they had been kindling unhallowed fires in their soul, and,
like Balaam, resolutely going forward in a forbidden path. Oh, the
confusion, humiliation, and deep compunction which some have felt in looking
back upon past objects of desire and expectation. Bad hopes have caused
bitter tears to myriads!
It is of course a mercy to find out that they were bad,
and to abandon them—but how much greater a mercy never to have had them! And
this is the climax of all mercy to know, as the Christian does, that his is
a "good hope." His desires and expectations are indulged under the approving
smile of true piety, reason, and conscience. Who ever blushed over the hope
of heaven? Let the Christian raise his desires to the greatest intensity,
let him carry his expectations up to the highest pitch, he never need to
check his ardor; he never need to say, "Am I right in all this?" May I not
be yet ashamed of having thought, and felt, and wished, and labored so
earnestly?
2. Men are ashamed of hopes that end in utter
disappointment. Of the objects of earthly pursuit, how many turn out to
be mere shadows? Think what millions every day sit down in grief and dismay,
amid the wreck of shattered schemes, and then lay their heads at night upon
their pillows—to pass the sleepless hours of silence and darkness in
ruminating upon defeated purposes and frustrated expectations. How much of
human grief arises from this source!
True it is, that in multitudes of these cases men are the
victims of folly—as well as of disappointment. They had been
employed in building 'castles in the air'. Their desires were the offspring
of unholy ambition—and their hopes had no other basis than their own wild
imaginations. Observers saw, if they themselves did not, that there was no
probability in their prospects; their hopes were the speculations of their
imaginations, and they therefore deserved the disappointment they
experienced. But this does not apply to all.
Even those who are most moderate in their desires, and
most sober in their expectations, who have reason, true religion and
conscience on their side, and are thus justified both by God and man in
their plans—even these are doomed oftentimes to disappointment. It is said
of God, in dealing with us, "He disappoints the hope of man." I admit that
in such cases there may be no shame felt over the object selected, or the
means used; no consciousness of guilt, no blushing for folly—but still, in a
mitigated and figurative sense, even such people are ashamed of their hopes.
This will not apply to the Christian. No disappointment
awaits him. He, in his expectations of life eternal, is building no castles
in the air. His is "a sure and certain hope." Its foundation is the work of
Christ, the promise and oath of God. Should he even be mistaken in his
faith—should he have been following only cunningly-devised fables in resting
his belief on the gospel of Christ—should he sink at death into
annihilation, even in that case he would not live to blush; he will have no
existence, and therefore have no consciousness of disappointment. But this
is a mere 'negative view' of the subject.
The gospel is not a cunningly-devised fable, or a divine
revelation; he will live, and will realize his expectation, and have his
desires gratified. No, no! wherever there is disappointment elsewhere—there
will be none here. His most assured earthly expectations may fail; what
appear to be substances may be only shadows; what seemed to be stars may be
only meteors. But this awaits not the Christian. Heaven is no mere
speculation. It is a glorious certainty. All the evidences of Christianity,
as a revelation from God, sustain his anticipations. Doubts and fears now
sometimes, like fleecy clouds swimming over the sun's disc, occasionally
throw their shadows on his path, and for a little while darken his
prospect—but even these will all vanish, and the whole scene of heavenly
glory, will shine out in cloudless and eternal splendor.
3. But there is another cause of men's being ashamed of
their earthly hopes, and that is, the disproportion between the
expectation and the fruition. How far short, in most cases, does the
reality fall of the anticipation—"Hope tells a flattering tale," and always
looks at its object through a magnifying medium, and usually one of high
power—and paints it also in colors supplied rather by the imagination than
the judgment. To him who surveys the prospect from an eminence, where
everything looks beautiful, the cottage and the homestead are all
picturesque—but how different an aspect does it wear when these parts of the
picture are surveyed near at hand, with the dirty heaps, and broken windows,
and shattered doors, and other signs of poverty, which distance had hidden
from view. So is it with our hopes. Distance lends enchantment to the scene,
which usually dissolves on a near approach.
How few of our expectations have been realized up to
their full amount. How often, when we have gained the object of desire and
pursuit, have we exclaimed, with surprise and grief—"And is this all? O you
mirthful deceiver, how have you beguiled and cheated me. Have all your
promises come to this?" In ordinary cases this is true, and in some it is
absolutely afflictive. How much time, strength, energy and money have been
sometimes expended upon an object of desire; what expectations have been
indulged; what bright visions have been raised; what blissful anticipations
have been let loose; what large calculations of coming enjoyment have been
made, and all this to issue in the sad confession, "Is this all?" Must not
such a man be ashamed of his hope?
Again, I triumphantly say that this will never happen to
the Christian when he reaches heaven. He will never have to say, "Is this
all?" The Queen of Sheba, when she saw the glory of Solomon, confessed, with
delighted surprise, "That the half had not been told to her." And the
glorified spirit will declare that a thousandth part had not been told. A
thousandth part of heaven would a thousand times more than compensate—for
all the time, the energy, the strength we have spent in seeking after it!
Could heaven only be obtained by a thousand martyrdoms, successively
endured—it would be a cheap purchase of "the incorruptible, undefiled
inheritance, which does not fade away."
If there be shame in heaven it will not be that our hopes
were so high—but that they were so low; not that we expected too much—but
too little. How will it surprise us as we walk the golden streets, that we
could, with such a prospect before us, dwell so little upon it. No taunt
will be thrown at us from any quarter, "See what your hope has come to—do
you not blush to compare the reality with the expectation?"
But now dwell upon the logic of the apostle, as well as
upon his assertion, "Hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit, which he has given to us." The
"love of God" is an ambiguous phrase, and means, in some places, God's love
to us, and in others, our love to God. Commentators are divided in opinion,
as to which of these the apostle refers to in this passage. By a proper
explanation, I think both may be included. When a person loves us, and is
kind to us, he sheds abroad upon us his love—by conferring upon us its
fruits. His love is inherent in himself—it is its gifts that are bestowed
upon us. And yet, in common parlance, we say he has bestowed much kindness
upon us.
God sheds abroad his love in our hearts, by giving us the
Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit of God, by his work in us, gives us assurance
that our hope will never make us ashamed; and he does this in two ways.
First—By giving us a foretaste, pledge, and fitness of
the heavenly inheritance. He imparts such a bright view, and such a deep
sense of God's love to us, and causes this so to fill the heart with joy
unspeakable, as to convince the soul, from its happiness in this world, that
in the full enjoyment of this love in heaven, there will be no
disappointment. Some believers, as John Howe, Halyburton, Payson, and
others, have had such a perception and sense of God's love, as was almost
overpowering—and even believers of less stature have known something of
this. There are moments in the life of all real Christians, when their views
and sense of God's love, in itself and in its gifts, are so vivid, as to
lead them to say, "No—this cannot be delusion—this frame of mind must be
God's work; and if, in this world of ignorance, and earthliness, and
imperfection, there is such happiness—what will heaven be, where the
sun of God's love will, without any intervening clouds, pour its full
effulgence upon my happy spirit?"
Then the work of the Holy Spirit is not only to reveal
God's love to us—but to produce in us love to God in return. "We love him,"
said the apostle, "because he first loved us." In ordinary cases, love
generally produces love. It always does here. Wherever the Holy Spirit
really gives a clear view and deep sense of God's love to us, he, by the
same operation of his grace, subdues the enmity of the carnal mind, and
produces a genuine and supreme love to God. And who, that knows the reality
and power of this divine passion, does not know that it is heaven begun?
Christian reader, have there not been moments in your experience, when love
to God has been so fervid in your soul, when the heaven-kindled flame has
burnt so strongly, as to compel you to say, "If heaven, as I am taught, is
to consist, so far as its subjective happiness is concerned, in the perfect
love of God—I feel assured, from what I now experience, that I can never
there be ashamed of my hope."
And then there is another way in which the work of God's
Spirit assures us we shall never be ashamed of our hope—and that is, this
work strengthens our faith in the divine origin and truth of the gospel. We
have already shown how faith and hope operate on each other. Faith, of
course, is the originator and sustainer of the hope. But then hope may
strengthen faith, by acting back upon it.
Among the evidences of the truth of Christianity,
the 'experimental' one is, to many people, the strongest, and to all really
converted people, it carries great weight—"He who believes, has the witness
in himself." Chalmers truly says, "That in the course of the believer's
pilgrimage, never does the hope of experience supersede the hope of faith.
So far from this, in the very proportion that experience grows in breadth,
does faith grow in brightness. And it is this last, which still constitutes
the sheet anchor of the soul, and forms the main element of its peace, and
joy, and righteousness. It is well that in looking inwardly upon himself, he
sees the growing lineaments of such a grace and such a character forming
upon his person, as to manifest him to be ripening for eternity. But along
with this process, he will look outwardly upon God in Christ, and there see,
in constantly increasing manifestation, the truth, and mercy, and the
unchangeableness of his reconciled Father—by far the firmest and stablest
guarantee of his future destiny. The same agent, in fact, who brings about
the one effect, brings about the other. He causes you not merely to see
yourself to be an epistle of the Spirit of God, and to read therein the
works of your personal interest in the promises—but he also causes you to
see the promises, as standing in the outward record, invested with a light,
and an honesty, and a freeness, which you did not see at the first
revelation of them."
Thus the good works and the graces of personal religion,
which are the fruits of the Spirit—not merely supply you with a foretaste of
heaven, and assure you that it will exceed all your highest and happiest
attainments now—but they cast back a reflex light on the faith from which
they emanated, and equally convince you of the certainty as well as
greatness of that celestial state. So that God's love to us, revealed by the
light of the Spirit; and our love to God, produced by the same divine
agent—assure us we shall never be ashamed of our anticipations of heaven.