Hope
One of the most beautiful words in all of God’s Word is the word we seek to examine tonight.
It is the word “hope,” but it is not found at all in the first seven books of the Old Testament.
It does not occur until the book of Ruth when Naomi entreats her daughters-in-law to return to the homes of their fathers in Moab (Ruth 1:12-13).
“Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.” (Ruth 1:12,13)
In both the Hebrew language of the Old Testament and the Greek language of the New Testament the words for hope mean . . .
a. To wait or to look for something with eager expectation.
b. More often than not it refers to the patient endurance of God’s people in the confident expectation that God will act decisively for the salvation of His people.
Before we look further in the Scriptures at this word, I would like for you to consider three points:
a. Hoping always entails waiting, though all waiting is not done in hope.
b. The object of the hope determines the quality of the hope.
c. For those who are Christians hope is not just a “maybe,” but a confident expectation.