September 15 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf..." (Heb. 6:17–20).

Devotional

The hope of heaven fostered by an unregenerated mind is an illusion. It has no foundation in fact. There is not a single element of goodness in its nature. It is the notion of a mind at enmity with God. It is the delusion of a heart in covenant with death and in agreement with hell. It is a treacherous beacon that decoys a too trusting but deluded voyager to the rocky shore. Unscriptural, unreal, and baseless, it must eventually cover its possessor with shame and confusion of face.

But the believer's hope is not like that. Begotten of the in-breathing of the Spirit of God, springing from a renewed mind, and based upon the atonement of the Savior, it must be essentially a good hope. Cleansed from moral impurity, not in the laver of baptism, but with the blood of Christ; justified, not by the ritual of Moses, but by the righteousness of the incarnate God; sanctified, not by sacramental grace (falsely so called), but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit—the believer's hope of heaven is as well founded as is the throne of the Eternal.

Moreover it is a "good hope through grace" (2 Thess 2:16). The first and the last lesson we learn in our Christian course is, that "by grace we are saved" (Eph. 2:8). Lord, do you require of me one thought of stainless purity, one throb of perfect love, one deed of unsullied holiness upon which shall hinge my everlasting happiness? Then am I lost forever! But since you have provided a righteousness that justifies me from all things, that frees me from all condemnation—and since this righteousness is your free, unpurchased gift, the bestowment of sovereign grace—I clasp to my trembling yet believing heart the joyous hope this truth inspires.

It is a "blessed hope" (Titus 2:13). Its object is most blessed. The heaven it embraces is that blissful place where the holy ones who have fled from our embrace are resting in the bosom of the Savior. They are the blessed dead. To them the day of their death was better than the day of their birth. The one was the introduction to all sorrow, the other is a translation to all joy. Blessed hope! the hope of being forever with the Lord. No more to grieve the Spirit who so often and so soothingly comforted our hearts; no more to wound the gentle bosom that so often pillowed our head. No more to journey in darkness, nor bend as a bruised reed before each blast of temptation. To be a pillar in the temple of God, to no longer go out forever.

And what a sanctifying hope it is! To the spiritual mind, this is its most welcome and elevating feature. "And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure" (1 John 3:3). True hope detaches from earth and gravitates toward heaven. Never does it glow more brightly in the soul nor kindle a more heavenly radiance than when it strengthens in the believer a growing conformity of character to that heaven towards which it soars.

It is, in a word, a sure hope. Shall the worm undermine it? Shall the tempest shake it? Shall the waters extinguish it? Never. It saves us. It keeps, preserves, and sustains us amidst the perils and depressions of our earthly pilgrimage. And having borne us through the flood, it will not fail us when the last surge lands us upon the shore of eternity.

A few more years shall roll,
a few more seasons come,
and we shall be with those that rest
asleep within the tomb:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that great day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

A few more storms shall beat
on this wild rocky shore,
and we shall be where tempests cease,
and surges swell no more:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that calm day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

A few more sabbaths here
shall cheer us on our way,
and we shall reach the endless rest,
th'eternal sabbath day:
Then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that sweet day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

'Tis but a little while,
and he shall come again
who died that we might live, who lives
that we with him may reign:
then, O my Lord, prepare
my soul for that glad day;
O wash me in thy precious blood,
and take my sins away.

(Horatius Bonar, 1844)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.