Hope is what keeps people going. People in the Holocaust who lost hope died quickly, they tell me. Countless thousands who continued to hope perished too. But some who dared to hope survived, often in incredible circumstances.People like Ruth Dobschiner, a nurse in Nazi-occupied Holland who lost all her family in the Holocaust but survived herself as a result of what seemed like a series of miracles. She came to faith while hiding in a Dutch attic. After the hostilities she moved to Scotland, and lived and worked in Glasgow for quite some years.
A couple of years ago I came across a bench dedicated to her name in a National Trust sanctuary south of Oban. I never did find out how it came to be there. One day, perhaps, I will.
Christians who have trusted Christ for His salvation have a hope more certain than the ground beneath their feet. One day this old world might be rolled up like an old blanket, but the hope we have who have trusted in Christ extends clean out of this world into the next.
The book of Hebrews speaks of those
. . . who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the inner part behind the veil,
where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. . .
This hope, both sure and steadfast, goes beyond the veil into the very presence of God. Jesus is the forerunner. He has entered for us. His presence there is proof that those who own Him will be there with Him.
Whenever I read those words in Hebrews (and sometimes when I don't) I have a picture in my mind. The details may sound a little ridiculous, but the picture as a whole so clearly illustrates the point.
With me is a rope, perhaps of the sort that mountaineers use, but absolutely unbreakable. The rope goes from me up into heaven and over the windowsill of God's throne room (I told you the details of the picture were somewhat unbiblical). At the end of the rope is an anchor, and one arm of the anchor is caught around one of the legs of God's throne.
In other words, only if God Himself is overthrown can the hope He has provided fail.
Now there is a hope worth having.
