(A) Introduction.

Promises are motivational. They give hope. Hope is the confident expectation of achieving a desired end or goal. Hope is fortifying and plays a part in actually achieving the desired goal. In the autumn I broke up a concrete path running along the front of my house. I dug the strip of sandy earth this exposed and worked in three bags of compost. Then I went to the nearest garden centre to buy some bulbs. The packets held out such promise of a colourful display next spring. On the front of each packet was a picture of the blooms I could expect if I followed the instructions on the back. I bought lots of bulbs and planted them out. I did so gladly, buoyed up by the expectation that in a few months yellow daffodils and red tulips would be brightening my front garden. I keep looking to see if they are coming up, not because I doubt the promises, but because I hope to see green shoots soon.

(B) God's promises and the quality of hope.

The quality of hope, its intensity and vigour, depends upon three factors:

(a) How much we long for the desired end.
The Hebrew Christians had been promised eternal life if they believed in Jesus. See Ch5v9: he(Jesus) became the source of salvation for all who obey him. There were signs that they were caring less about the desired end, their personal salvation. They were getting lazy. See Ch6v12: We do not want you to become lazy but to...inherit what has been promised. Some of the Hebrews were not showing the same urgency as the author himself who was amongst those that had fled to take hold of the hope offered to us.

People are much more likely to recover from a serious operation if this is strongly desired and their hope is vibrant. I used to live next to a poor old countrywomen. We called her Aunty Alice. I have vivid memories of her picking up potatoes for sixpence a sack. How she scrabbled about to earn a few extra shillings! She wasn't blessed with much imagination but a lot of sturdy common sense. When she was in her late fifties she was diagnosed with colon cancer. She took the operation in her stride. She wanted to get better to look after her husband, Didi, who would have made a poor job of looking after himself. She had a lively hope. Alice did get better and, although she had to wear a bag, lived another 30 years. Nurses have told me that some men who have the same operation feel so diminished by it that they give up the will to live and die in a few weeks. Their desire to survive is minimal, their hope weak and the outcome predictable.

I am a wild flower enthusiast. I read last spring that wild grape hyacinths grew on a roadside verge at Cavenham, a village north of Bury St Edmunds. So in April I set off to find them. I really wanted to find them, I had high hopes of finding them, and I did find them. They were a gorgeous inky blue.

It is vital to really want eternal life, to want it more than anything else, and to do anything to get it. If our desire is great then so too may be our hope. Certainly if our desire is feeble then our hope will be but weak and sickly. A faint and dying hope makes it unlikely that we shall obey Jesus and benefit from the source of eternal salvation.

(b) The reliability of the person making the promises.
A person needs two qualifications if we are to have much hope in their promises:


(1) They must be credible and trustworthy. It helps if they are specialists in, or authorities on, the subject they are making promises about. If you had a very bad back and I promised to cure it by using my special trampling technique on your spine you would have every excuse for having no hope of a cure. My friend Phyllis has spinal stenosis. She is finding it harder and harder to walk as each day passes. A few weeks ago she went to see an orthopaedic surgeon at Addenbrookes Hospital. He told her he could and would operate and he was sure that her pain would be relieved and her mobility greatly improved. Phyllis was so much more cheerful after her visit. She had seen one of the foremost authorities on this disease in the country and he had given her hope.

There are two ladies, Hazel and Eileen, who attend our church who are very knowledgeable about wild flowers. I wanted very much to see henbane. They suggested that I go to the shingle ridges at Felixstowe as they had found it there. I didn't doubt them. They knew what they were talking about. I set off on my expedition with good cheer and with every confidence that I would soon be making the acquaintance of one of England's more sinister plants.

(2) They must have integrity. They mustn't give you false hope. It is no good being assured of achieving a desired end if either you are incapable of achieving it or the person making the promises is unable to deliver it. There are wicked individuals who advertise for home workers in the newspapers. They promise the home worker a good income for work done. The poor gullible home worker has to pay a considerable sum for materials to start work. The money is paid, the work is done, and the person who made the promises takes off. It is a cruel deception. The orthopaedic surgeon has every intention of operating on Phyllis and he knows that the success rate of the operation is good. He has integrity and Phyllis' hope is well founded.

The writer to the Hebrews stresses the dependability of God. He does so in a rather strange passage in which he refers to the ancient promises God made to Abraham. In Genesis 22 we can read these promises which were given after Abraham obeyed God to the extent of being willing to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Gen22v17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me. The verse which is particularly difficult is v15 And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. I don't think this means that Abraham himself waited patiently for these promises to be kept but rather there were times of patient waiting by his descendants, the people of God, as, one by one the promises to the Patriarch were realised. After 400 years in Egypt the Israelites had become a numerous people. Another 40 years of wandering in the desert followed before the Israelites, under Joshua, began to take possession of the cities of their enemies. Many, many more centuries passed before the advent of great David's greater Son who was to be a blessing to all peoples. The point the writer is making is that God kept his promises and blessed the one who obeyed him. In other words God is entirely credible and trustworthy. God wished to emphasise the binding nature of his promises by swearing by himself that they would be kept. This is a way of highlighting the integrity of God - his solemn undertaking to carry out his promises. The Hebrew Christians can be supremely confident that God will bless them if they continue to work for him and love and help his people. If they exercise faith and patience they will inherit what God has promised as Abraham did. They have been given the hope of eternal salvation and if they hold on to this hope they will be greatly encouraged.

(c) The ability of the person making the promise to deliver it.
If the realisation of a promise depends upon the ability to deliver by the person making it then the vitality of our hope will rely upon our knowledge of, and faith in, that ability. When I was a young man my cricket club lost it's ground. This was a severe blow. My three brothers and I loved cricket. I am afraid Saturday was for cricket just as much as Sunday was for church. Several people said, "Don't worry, you'll get a new ground." This gave me no hope. The people making these and similar remarks had no ground to give us. One day the largest landowner in the village, Mr Francis, said to our captain in his unemotional, brusque, way, "I'll give you a ground." My hope revived; he had land to give. Even before the tenancy agreement was written and signed my hope was lively and my spirits high because I knew him to be a man of his word and he had the ability to keep it.

So the writer stresses that Jesus is in a position where he can keep all the promises he makes to his followers. He has entered the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Jesus has gone there, to heaven, before us and has entered on our behalf. Jesus has gone into the actual presence of God the Father as a high priest for ever. He sits at God's right hand, in a position of power and authority, and is able to ensure that all the promises he has made are kept. Jesus continues his saving work there. He is still working to bring many sons to glory. The apostle John in his Gospel sums it up in these words, John3v35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

Our hope is grounded in our knowledge of God's trustworthiness and integrity, Jesus' power and authority, and the promises that both God the Father and God the Son have made. Hope is the Christian's anchor but it is important to remember that an anchor is only as good as the ground it takes hold of. An anchor may drag across a sandy or muddy bottom on a wild and stormy night but let it take an hold of bedrock and nothing will dislodge it. Our hope will be an anchor for the soul, firm and secure if, and only if, it enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf

(C) The endurance of the Christian

The writer says in v12 we want you to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. Now faith and patience, or endurance as it is better called, are not the same as hope although linked to it. Much will later be written about faith so I am going to concentrate upon endurance here.

William Barclay in his book, 'New Testament Words', says this of endurance: It is the quality which keeps a man on his feet with his face to the wind. It is the virtue which can transmute the hardest trial into glory because beyond the pain it sees the goal.

I would say that endurance is staying power informed and coloured by hope. We are helped to endure by hope, by holding on to, and being spurred on by, the promises. In the early 1980's I taught with a rather stocky PE teacher. Tim Hutton was a large, genial, man with plenty of ability to bluff. He had, however, agreed to an enterprise where this ability would be of no help. He had signed up for a 24 hour sponsored walk of 40 miles in South Wales. I poked fun at his figure, expressed my doubts in his sanity and forecast excruciating weariness and soreness of foot. I also promised him £5 if he completed the trek. Tim Hutton suffered on that walk. He found it much harder than he had anticipated. Many times he felt like giving up. There was one thing that spurred him on - the hope of relieving me of a five pound note. He told me so.
I had a lovely girl in my form, Amanda, who contracted Hodgkinson's Disease. She has endured very unpleasant treatment including both radio and chemotherapy. She has felt rotten, lost her hair and had to give up her Advanced Level Course in the hope of getting better and returning to normality. I pray God she does.

Hope by itself is not enough. In a dreadful storm at sea the anchor may be out and holding but still the waves and wind have to be endured. Tim Hutton kept firmly in mind a picture of Johnny Reed handing him a five pound note but to keep going he needed will power and the resolve to hobble on in pain. He only succeeded because he had grit. The long ordeal proved that in every respect he had guts.

Once again it is clear that Christians are responsible for their walk. Abraham showed this. His hope was tested. God had already promised to make of him a mighty nation when the command came to sacrifice Isaac. Imagine the perplexity and mental anguish Abraham experienced as he prepared to obey God. God would not have removed the emotional pain he suffered as he walked up the mountain with his boy. There would have been no peace in his heart as he raised the knife to slay his darling son. Abraham endured and obeyed God. He willed it. God said that as a result of his obedience through his offspring all nations on earth will be blessed.

(D) The reward

We must never forget that those who show diligence to the very end v11 make their hope sure and those that obey God with faith and endurance like Abraham inherit what has been promised v12

I shall never forget Tim Hutton hobbling into the staff room on Monday morning. He made a bee line for me, his face wreathed in smiles and his hand stretched out. I gave him his £5 as graciously as I knew how. It would have been a bad ending if I had refused to pay! Sadly not all those who endure in hope do make a good ending. Many end their careers in bitterness because they do not terminate with recognition or appreciation. I have heard of employees made redundant after many years of loyal service being escorted off the premises on the same day that notice is given. What Godless behaviour. A lad at my school had horrible treatment for leukaemia over many, many, months. He endured bravely hoping eventually to be just a normal boy able to do those things his friends did. He died aged fourteen. It upset us all because we felt he deserved to live.

God promises that those who endure to the end will make a good ending. We shall be like Jesus who endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before him. Jesus did enter into his joy. Paul wrote these wonderful words to Timothy, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearing. It would be a dark and shameful thing if Paul fought in vain, that he finished the race and there was no crown. The promises have been made, the great high priest installed and if we endure we shall receive.

People who live by the promises will obtain the promises - that is God's unchanging purpose - and his purposes cannot fail.