Verse by verse teaching - Proverbs 13:12 "Hope Deferred"

Proverbs chapter 13, God willing, we'll be expounding verse 12. The title of the message tonight is Hope Deferred. Hope def. Hope def. Proverbs chapter 13, verse 12. And this verse begins with the word hope. Hope. I'm going to wait just a minute until they get settled down over there so no one will be distracted. Hope. There we go. Hope is a frequent topic in the Bible, Old and New Testament. We use the word hope. Kind of flippantly sometimes. What do you think? You think it's going to rain? Well, I hope so. But that's not the kind of hope that we find in the Bible. So we want to make sure and have a biblical definition of hope tonight. Hope. And the reason it's always in the Bible, Old and New Testament, is because hope is a fundamental part of our relationship with God. Now, if you were to combine the words desire and the words expectation, if you were to take those two words together, desire and expectation, if you were to combine them together, then you would have the word hope. You would have the meaning of the word hope. In the Bible, hope is when we desire something that's good, something that's righteous, something that's needed. And we have the expectation of receiving it. Our desire plus our expect of obtaining that desire. And hope can be a wide variety of things, all depending on our circumstances. At the time, most of us saw the video of the young woman in central Texas who climbed a tree to escape the floodwaters below her. And when she was in that tree, I guarantee you she had a strong desire that somebody would rescue her. And she probably had the expectation, being up there nice and high in that tree, That if she could hold on long enough, then someone would eventually see her and either come and help her or send somebody to come and help her. And being rescued was that young woman's hope, the desire and the expectation of receiving it. Suppose you were sick, you couldn't work. So you had no income. You had no money to pay for your basic needs. And the loved one from out of town hears about it, and you're talking to that loved one on the phone, and they say, Well, I'm going to mail you a check. To help tide you over for a little bit. Well, in that case, you would have the strong desire of having your financial needs met. And because of your loved one's promise to mail that check, you would then have the expectation of receiving that check in the mail. Therefore, getting financial help would be your hope. Hope is stronger than a wish. It's stronger than a mere desire. A person might desire a new Raptor pickup truck. Y'all ever price one of those things? Boy, I tell you, I saw Brother Eddie got him a new pickup. Brother Jess got him a pickup. But they didn't get a raptor pickup, and not a new raptor pickup for sure. But you might have a desire. for a new Raptor pickup, but because of the price tag, you may have no expectation of obtaining it. So hope Hope always gives people some degree of pleasure, some degree of joy, whereas a wish or a desire May actually cause that person to have sorrow and depression. Why? Because they may have the desire, but they would know that desire would always be unfulfilled. So they have a longing for something they can never obtain. And because of this, a person may always have that desire even after they have given up hope. Obtaining it. And I thank God because of that. Praise the name of Jesus. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, God always gives His people hope. Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight. God never puts a desire in our heart. Without giving us the hope of receiving it. Isn't that a good promise? God never puts a desire in our heart. Without giving us the hope of receiving it, God never does the bait and switch. You know what they'll do on the thing of those pickups, those pickup commercials. $20,000 off, manufacturer's retail price. They'll have a nice little pickup on there. But then you go to their website. And you can't find those things on there, you know. You may find one, but you can't find the one you're looking for like that with that price. It's a little bait and switch. So they give you some hope. But then you realize that hope comes with shame in the end. It lets you down. And so, but with God, God never puts a desire in our hearts without giving us the hope of receiving it. When the Apostle Paul was in prison, He was suffering many afflictions for the gospel's sake. But Paul had hope in that prison cell. And that's one thing that every one of us can claim. Even in the prison cell, even on the deathbed, even in the dungeon, wherever you are, whatever your circumstance is in, even in the unemployment line, whatever circumstance you're in. You can always have hope as a child of God. Not a mere desire, but a desire plus the expect of receiving it. In that prison cell, the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 1:1 through 20. He said, For I know that this, that is that captivity he was in. the persecutions he was facing. I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ according to my earnest ex. And my hope, which is basically saying the same thing, that in nothing I shall be ashamed. But that with all boldness, as always. So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. Now listen to Paul's response. Listen to Paul's hope. He said, in this dungeon, in this prison cell, wherever he's at in that particular time, whatever kind of holding facility they had him in, he said, I know this. I know that this circumstance shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Now, when Paul said that it's going to turn to his salvation, he didn't mean he was going to be delivered from that prison cell. He didn know. Because he ended up saying, he said, I have this knowledge according to my earnest expectation and my hope. And then he tells you what that hope is, that in nothing I shall be ashamed. In other words, no matter what I go through, my h will never be let down. My hope in Jesus Christ will always be realized. And here's what my hope is in this prison cell. Here's what my hope is when my health is running out. Here's what my hope is when my persecutors are chasing me. It's that In nothing I'll be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by what? Death, even if they kill me in this prison. Christ will be magnified. If I live and suffer, Christ will be magnified. If I'm set free to preach the gospel again, Christ will be magnified. Whatever happens to this body, Christ Jesus will re honor and glory. And that 's my hope, and that's my joy, he says. And that should be the hope and the joy of every one of us. Don't look for God to pluck you out of all of your hardships, He's not going to. I thank God that Brother Neil first won to church this morning. He barely beat us, or this afternoon. He barely beat me and Brother Rick. It was a race up here, but Brother Neil beat us. Here he is, first one here. And there's been nights when I pulled in, there he is sitting out there in his wheelchair, or his walker, rather. And sitting on waiting on church to start. How precious that is. But you know what? I'm not going to get up here and tell Brother Neil if he'll come down and let us anoint him with holy oil, then he's going to get up and start shouting and walking and moving, because he's probably not. But I can tell him that he has an earnest expectation and hope that in his body Whether it be by pushing a walker, sitting in a wheelchair, laying in a bed, or standing up and walking. Christ will be magnified in his body. How many of y'all have been encouraged watching Brother Neil walk to church? Raise your hand. Look at that. Look at that, Brother Neil. Had the people who've been encouraged by God. Through your sufferings, it's encouraged me a lot. I'll tell you that right now. It's encouraged me a lot. If you've been encouraged by Brother Neil. Type in on Facebook. I'd love to read that to him before we end. But that's the great expectation, hope we have: that if we're yielded to the Holy Spirit of God. Then we can know that no matter what situation we face, it's not the end of our life. The end of our ministry, the end of our usefulness for God, because in nothing we shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as all Always Christ shall be magnified in our bodies, whether it be by life or by death, if if We are trusting in Jesus Christ. Now, if Paul was sitting over there in the jail cell sucking his thumb and saying, Woe is me. God, what's wrong? How come I'm here? You think Christ is going to be magnified in Paul's body? Oh, no. All of his enemies are going to say, no, look at there. Where's his God at now? That's not the way Paul was. Paul is like, hey, I'm here. That means God's going to use me here. Hey, I can't see good. That means God's going to use me and let me see things I couldn't see any other way. Paul understood. And praise God, no matter where we are or what our circumstance is, there is always hope for the child of God. There is always the earnest expectation of the believer in Jesus Christ. And now Solomon, talking about hope, is going to make us aware tonight that there are times when our hope is, look back in your text, deferred. Def. We don 't like that word deferred, do we? You know what deferred means? Huh? Put off. Del. The Hebrew word translated deferred, it means to draw. So let's say that I got a pencil, and I put a pencil right here on a piece of paper. See where that pencil is? That's when we want our desire to be obtained. You know what happens? The pencil just keeps coming and coming. And here we are, following that pencil. And we're doing this. And it just keeps going and going. That pencil just keeps drawing and drawing. We would say in these Texas. It's drawing it out. It's getting drawn out. We use that a lot of times, don't we? Use that same idea in the Hebrew word. We'll say, man, that meeting should have been over a long time ago, but they keep drawing it out. And so Solomon is now talking about hope deferred, hope that's drawn out. Sometimes our hope doesn't come when we'd like for it to. Sometimes our hope gets drawn out. It gets deferred. If you're that young woman in the tree, you don't want your rescue to be drawn out. You want it to come as soon as possible. If you're that sick person needing financial help, you don't want your loved one to delay mailing that check. You want it to come quickly. But when that boat doesn't come by soon, and when that check doesn't arrive in the mail when we expect it to. Then our hope deferred being drawn out, look back in your text, maketh the heart sick. It makes the heart sick. And every one of us, at least the older people in here, the kids may not have, but almost all of us have experienced this before. When your hope gets deferred or gets delayed, your heart gets sick. Now, we wouldn't say heart sick today. We would probably say heartach. But it's the same thing. Hope deferred makes our heartache. We've been stuck in the tree waiting on a boat for a long time. We're tired, we're hungry, we're thirsty, we're bruised. Our knees are scraped and we're beat up, and we finally think we see a boat coming floating toward us in the distance. Our heart is cheered up. We get a smile on our face. We say, Thank you, Lord. As we watch it come our way, and then we realize it's only a remnant of a demolished travel trailer. That's a letdown. But you know, things like that are real. We are the sick people waiting on the check, and it's been over a week since our loved ones said that they were mailing it. And we see the postman come by, and we watch them take a white envelope, stick it in the mailbox, do like that, and drive away. Thank God it's here. We go out there in a junkmail. Another day has gone by, no financial help has come. Hope deferred makes the heart ache. When we delay our obligations to our fellow men, we become the cause of their heartache. You remember that. If you've got an obligation to your fellow man, the Bible says don't put off, if it's in the power of your hand to do it, don't withhold good to someone to whom it is due when it's in the power of your hand to do it. But thankfully, church, God doesn't give us hope to give us heartache. He doesn't give us hope to give us heartache. The devil wants us to think that he does. He gives us hope because he wants us to have something to look forward to. Something to have joy in our heart about. And nevertheless, Christians have aching hearts when their hope is deferred. The Bible documents that for us. Psalm 42, verse 3, the psalmist said, My tears have been my meat day and night. In other words, all I've had to eat is heartache. While they continually, that is, while my tears or my enemies or whoever continually say unto me, Where is thy God? That's what the devil loves to tell us. That's what our own flesh wants to tell us. That's what our enemies want to tell us. When hope is delayed and when we're suffering, Where's God? And why did He let you go through all this? Not wanting to suffer, we naturally. Want our problems fixed right away, but God doesn't fix our problems right away. Sometimes God makes us wait a long time, sometimes God makes us wait a lifetime. Sometimes we don't get our des until Jesus comes again. And when this happens, again, Satan loves to make us think that God has forgotten us, that God doesn't care about us. And our hope deferred makes our heart ache as we say, Where is God? Where are you, God? Jesus appeared to His disciples after He rose from the dead. And the Bible says in the book of Acts chapter 1, verse 6, I love this verse. Here he is now. Now, Jesus just rose from the dead not too long ago, and now he appears to his disciples. And he tells them what all is going to take place. And there's no mention. And they're still under Roman rule. He hadn't said a thing about reigning on David's throne and when he's going to do that. And they're like, wait a minute. So they asked him. Acts 1:6, when they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? What about that? I want you to notice that phrase, at this time. At this time. That's when we want everything fixed, isn't it? We want it fixed at this time. And when we don't get things when we expect them, our hearts ache, the Bible says. And one of the ways. To fix a heartache isn't by God giving us what we want at this time. But one of the ways to fix a heartache that's caused from hope delayed. It is to change the expectation of our hope. Had Paul expected God and said, I claim in the name of Jesus, I'll be delivered from this jail cell. Had John the Baptist said, I claim in the name of Jesus of Nazareth that I'm going to be delivered from this jail cell. And he loses his head. And everyone's wondering, what happened? Where's God? But one of the ways to fix our heartache that's caused from hope delayed is to change the expectation of our hope. Here's the kingdom of truth for you tonight. Unbiblical expectations cause unnecessary heartaches. Unbiblical expectations Cause un heartaches. They said, Lord, will you at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? Now, watch how Jesus handled that unbiblical expectation. It wasn't time to restore the kingdom. And he's Acts 1, 7 through 8. And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons. You see, it's not for us to know when God's going to do something for us. He says, which the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the utter parts of the Of the earth. In other words, Jesus was saying, You disciples don't concern yourselves with me restoring the kingdom to Israel. You need to concern yourselves with being witnesses to Israel and to the utter parts of the earth about my death, burial, and resurrection. That's what you concern yourself with. Now, that's a good lesson for these prophecy buffs, isn't it? That all the time they spend trying to get us to think that every News headline as a signal that Jesus is about to split the skies, open, and come. If they had spent more time spreading the gospel and being witnesses of his death, burial, and resurrection. Than they do spreading the misinformation they give, then more people would have hope in the coming Savior rather than having disappointment in the fact that He hasn't already come. If you're not expecting Israel to be restored at this time, then you won't be brokenhearted because it's not. If you're not expecting Jesus to split the eastern sky the next few days, you're not going to be disappointed and brokenhearted because He's not. Instead, you're going to be busy preaching the gospel of the kingdom in Jesus' name. My wife and I had a wonderful time studying the scriptures together last week concerning the timing of the rapture. We got it down to within a few weeks, didn't we? No, I'm kidding. But concerning the timing of the rapture, the general timing of the rapture, and some people think it doesn't really matter, but it does. It matters. A man I used to go to church with lost his wife to cancer many years ago. It's always hard to watch your loved one go that way. And the church he belonged to believed in the imminent return of Christ, which means they believed that he could come at any minute because all the signs of his coming have already been fulfilled. Trust me, they haven't. I can take you and show you. Other people can explain them away with scriptures that aren't there and just with their explanations. But he said specifically what the signs of his coming would be. He gave very, very good detail. And then he told us to be watching for those signs. But because this man believed that Jesus could come at any second, when his wife came down with cancer, do you know what he started doing? He started praying. That God would let Jesus come back and rapture the church so his wife wouldn't have to die with cancer. He's praying for God to do that. Just any minute, let's just go. Lord, don't make her suffer. Let's go. Do you know what that is? That's an unbiblical expectation. Now, that's a man with a broken heart who loves his wife. I give him that. But it's an unbiblical expectation, and unbiblical expectations bring unnecessary heartaches, unnecessary disappointments. It's bad enough that his wife had to die, but it's even worse when he prayed for Jesus to come and have mercy, and he never got that prayer answered. All because he had a wrong expectation. Tammy said something the other day that was so simple yet so profound. Y'all want to hear it? She said, quote, we get to go through things. We get to go through things. Folks, we get to go through things. For our growth and for God's glory, and for our eternal reward. We get to go through things in this life. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad? Jesus said, In the world we will have tribulation. In other words, In the world, you get to go through things, church. Christians shouldn't expect to be delivered immediately. We should expect tribulation at. This time, the time the apostles were talking about, when they said, Will you restore the kingdom of Israel at this time? If he did, the troubles would be over. Jesus would reign on the throne. Things would all be well. But no, we should expect tribulation at this time, and then we should expect deliverance in God's time. And know deliverance will come in God's time, we will have hope in our tribulations at this time. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Look back in your text. But when the desire comes, if you have your Bibles open, underscore, when the desire comes. See if this won't bless your heart, folks. When the desire comes, here's a kingdom truth for you tonight. When it comes to God's promises in Christ Jesus, hope deferred is never hope denied. When it comes to God's promises in Christ Jesus, hope deferred is never hope denied. One day this world will wait no longer for the redemption of its Creator. God defers hope for many reasons, but he never denies hope. Jesus is the hope of every child of God, and that means our hope is coming one day. Our des That we're expecting is coming one day. Titus chapter 2, verse 11 through 13 says, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world at this time, looking for that blessed hope. You see, we have hope at this present time. Looking for that blessed hope. Our hope's not going to come around us, it's going to come above us. And the glorious appearing of that great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. The Bible says when that desire comes, look back in your text, it is a tree of life. When the desire comes, it's a tree of life. Jesus is every Christian's desire. He is our hope. Speaking of the return of Christ in Hag chapter 2, verse 7, God said, And I will shake all nations. And the desire of all nations shall come. Now, listen to that. That's what's going to happen. That's going to be how it works. I want to shake all nations. And the desire of all nations shall come. What is the desire of all nations? It's a who is the desire of all nations. Come, thou, desire of every nation. As the song says, Jesus is our hope, He is our desire that we're waiting on in our earnest expectation. And our hope. He said, I will shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts. And that desire shall be to us, the Bible says, what? A tree of life. A tree of life. The tree of life wasn't lost in the Garden of Eden. Do you know what that tree of life was in the Garden of Eden? It was the hope of everlasting life. That tree of life was the hope of everlasting life. And they reject that hope of everlasting life. But that wasn't the end of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That wasn't the end of the hope of everlasting life because as soon as God gave that gospel message there in the Garden of Eden, He was giving us the hope of everlasting life, and that we're going to have that tree of life one day. Revelation chapter 22, verse 1 and 2 says, And he showed me a pure river of water of life. Who's that water of life? That's Jesus. This is the figurative idea of the water of life. It's a river. What does a river do? It flows. It flows, it moves. And so here is Jesus, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He's sitting on his throne. He is the stone. Who has set up his kingdom that's become a mountain now. And on his throne, having restored the kingdom to Israel. Jesus sits on his throne, and from the restored rel of Creator In creation, through the gospel message comes a river of water of life. He says, it's clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. See where that water of life comes from? The throne of God and the Lamb. Jesus is our God and Savior. It proceeds from his throne. From putting God back in his rightful place, the water of life issues out. And then he goes on to say, Verse 2: In the midst of the street of it, or the stream of it, if you would, and on either side of the river was there the tree of life. Look at there, the tree of life. It's back. It's back, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Abraham was promising thee all the nations of the earth will be blessed. That means all the curse will be removed from every tribe and tongue and color of Creed of people all over the world. In you, Abraham, in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And now, here's that tree of life. It has leaves for the healing of the nation. It has fruit that bears every Every month it's got twelve manner of fruits yielding her fruit every month. I told Tammy after I studied this, I said, I just received a wonderful truth in God's word. It's going to be eternally springtime when Jesus comes. Every month, fruit bearing, life fresh in you. Every month when Jesus sits on his throne, the tree of life will proceed from his kingdom reign, and it will heal every hurt. Wipe away every tear, and forever fill us with the glory of God. That is our eternal hope. It is our expectation, and we will never be let down. We will never be ashamed. For the hope that we now have in our hearts. You carry that hope with you through every heartache of your life, and you know that when Jesus comes, that tear is going to be dried up. That cancer is going to be fixed. That heart's going to be healed. That loved one's going to be raised from the dead if they know Jesus Christ. You carry that hope. And never think, never ever think, that as long as you're living, that God has no use for you. Because, whether by life or by death, he can be magnified in your body. You just walk in his grace and bear witness to his name. Father, we thank you so much for your precious word. Thank you, Father, for the great promises that we have read together tonight. It's hot. I haven't sweated preaching in a long time. But Lord, I'm thankful, Father, for the ability to be able to share your word. And God, one day it won't be summertime, it'll be springtime when Jesus comes. His precious name, we thank you and we love you. Amen.