The Solid Rock
I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. Psalm 130:5 ESV
Hope – Psalm 130 is a cry to the Lord from the depths of despair. It’s not despair over the external circumstances of life. It’s despair over the chaos of disobedience, of sin at the center of who I am. It is agony over my true state of being – twisted and bent before the holy God. The psalmist tells us that there is hope. Forgiveness is possible. Restoration can come.
But not immediately.
If I want to know the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, I will have to deal with death – my death, the destruction of those things that I could not wait to consume, to possess, the destruction of my unbridled desire to have the world my way, the destruction of any residual belief that I can barter a solution with God. If I am going to experience recovery, I will first have to wait in the grave. That’s why waiting must be at the core of who I am. When I reach this place of surrender, there is no negotiating. I am done, finished, empty, exhausted. There is only one thing left. The promise of YHWH.
The Hebrew word yahal is connected to batah, the verb “to trust.” Over and over the Psalms assert that trust in God will bring praise for His faithfulness. Unlike men, God can be counted on always. His deliverance is guaranteed, even if it is not presently visible. Waiting in the dark only prepares me for the blessing of His light and His word assures me that this light is coming.
Plato has taught us to be suspicious of claims of hope. In the Greek world, hope is merely the projection of desired ends in order that I may survive the current trauma. Hope is not real. It is merely psychologically necessary, a convenient crutch to support my battered psyche until I can return to a more rational state of mind. So when the psalmist declares that I can hope in God’s word, my good Greek training whispers, “Well, if you need to believe this, go ahead, but you know that things don’t turn out that way in the end, do they? You don’t really think God’s goodness will show up, do you? After all, how could the world be in such a mess if what God says is really true?” Ah, the wonders of paradigmatic assumptions. If I listen to all that good training, I will stay in the dark, brooding over the lie of fate.
But God isn’t Greek – and neither are the ones who stand on His word. Throw Plato out with the bath water. To trust God is to remember what He has done in Israel and to wait for His handiwork to show itself again. Hope is not a dream of the future. It is an anchor firmly set in real past events. If I want to know where God is going, I must know where God has been. My hope is in the past, not the future. God did what He said He would do and He will do what He says He has yet to do. I can be confident of His promises because I know what He has already done. And that’s the end of it.
When Edward Mote penned the lyrics to a famous Christian hymn, he forgot that YHWH’s acts with Israel are the real basis of our faith. Without the Great I AM, the mission and accomplishment of Yeshua would be pointless.
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.
When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.
His oath, His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood. When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my Hope and Stay.
When He shall come with trumpet sound, oh may I then in Him be found. Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand; All other ground is sinking sand.”
Mote was right. I do stand on the righteousness of Yeshua, but not alone, not alone.
Topical Index: hope, yahal, trust, Psalm 130:5
Thank you, Skip. The past few days have been fitting in nicely with what I hope to share this coming Sunday. I do not preach frequently, and when I do, I try to do it well. You are a big help.
In observing Passover, the people are to look back at what Y-H brought them out of. They are to remember and in so doing having hope (today). This makes so much sense. One can SEE what Y-H has done and have hope then in what He will do. Neat. One can literally be filled with hope if the focus in right to start with.
Is anything impossible for Y-H?
Solid.
Thank you.
Hope is a confident expectation, the sure certainty that what God has promised in His Word is true, has occurred, and OR WILL in accordance with God’s sure Word.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Matt. 6:19-21
Food I ate yesterday or last year does me little good today. I acknowledge it got me here, tho. I hope for food today and all my days. But I’m not worrying about it. God knows my needs.
Clothes I bought last year — lets see — some have become ripped, a white blouse was stained . . Oh, I certainly do hope for clothes for the future. But I’m not worrying about it. God knows . . .
Those treasures sent on ahead, Oh I do hope to see them there (future) but not worrying about that at all, I want to see my Savior more!
Speaking for myself only, *hands up* — not forcing my opinion on anyone, I have analyzed and find that all my hope is future, no need to hope for what I’ve already seen, grateful for it, YES, but once seen its no longer hope.
Personally, I’d feel silly hoping for that pair of slacks that I ripped.
One can not hope for something future, having no assurance of what lies within the next sun rise without basing it on what one knows HAS happened in the past. The past gives substance to what will be in the future. Peoples trusting pagan gods wished their hopes on pagan deities unreliable and perceived attributes and had their futures dashed and destroyed. They trusted entities with no solid and proven track records. We can have hope in the future precisely for the reasons demonstrated by YHWH in the past. His past trust worthy dependability is our only basis for any hope of what tomorrow and beyond offers. We can only know assurance about tomorrow because of his dependable performance in the past. That is precisely why YHWH did what he did, demonstrating his nature and character, that of a solid rock, able to be stood upon, unshaken. That is why he wanted Israel to remember what he did over and over. To give them assurance of what was yet to be. It was unknown to them, but based on what he had already done, visible for them to see, observe and remember, enough to be a tangible hope for what they didn’t know in the future. Based on his past actions, the future will be secure within hi guiding hand. Hope.
1 Cor. 13……..12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand; All other ground is sinking sand.”
Mote was right.
Hmmm
One of my favorite professors in undergraduate school had a very negative interpretation of Hemingway
My mother, who never went to college, said he probably “could not be trusted,” when I told her of him
The “Old Man and the Sea” was one of her favorite books, for some odd reason
Don’t you see, surely you see that it’s not hope for a “pair of slacks that I ripped” or a “stained white blouse.” But hope in the faithfulness of One who gave you that pair of slacks in the first place. Hope that the other 20 pairs of slacks you have that aren’t “ripped” and have been supplied to you, will continue to be supplied to you and your seed as long as you see, observe and remember His faithfulness and loving-kindness. Hope that the Faithfulness of the Master is not that He will give you the old food from last week, last month or last year but fresh manna today.
“Personally I’d feel silly hoping for the pair of slacks I’ve already ripped.” – I’m afraid that this is too often, for many of us, the paradigm of His faithfulness. My hope is in the object of His faithfulness, ie , a pair of slacks, a better car, a nicer house rather then hope in the Supplier of everything I need.
Don’t you have personal testimony of what He has supplied to you, brought you out of, delivered you from, diverted you around, not supplied to you (when we ask for things that He knows we don’t need even when we think we know best). All of these things and the history of His written faithfulness to His covenant people are what give us hope!!
Since were quoting songs:
“He’ll do it again
He’ll do it again
If you’ll just take a look
At where you are now
And where you’ve been
Well hasn’t He always come through for you
He’s the same now as then
You may not know how
You may not know when
But He’ll do it again”