Both the chief words in the text, I believe, are intended to be qualified by that expression, of the hope,' which follows the last of them. The confidence is the confidence of the hope,' and so is the rejoicing.' That is to say, the ground upon which there can be reared this fair structure of a Christian life all radiant and exultant with courage and triumph is the great hope which Christ sets before us, and which in Himself is brought into contact with our hearts and minds. The hope of the gospel is the basis upon which the courage and the exultation rest.
When a vessel is sunk at sea, how do they float it again? They take great caissons, and fasten them to the sunken hull, and pump them full of air, and their buoyancy lifts it up from the ocean bed, and brings it up into the sunshine again. Fasten your sunken and sad hearts to that great hope that floats upon the surface, and it will lift you from the depths, and bring you into the sunshine. Think of the hope which you and I profess to have! How can sorrow and dumpish dismality live in the presence of such a solid and radiant thing? What would become of our anxieties, real and deep as they are? What would become of our domestic sorrows, painful and heartrending as they are for some of us, if once we walked in the sunshine of that perpetual hope? Who cares about the rough stones, and the sharp, jagged thorns upon the road, or oven much about the blood upon his naked foot, when he can see the prize hanging yonder at the winning-post? If we had that immortal crown, and that blessed peaceful hope that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,' always blazing as a reality at the end of every dirty alloy down which we have to go, and every dreary road along which we have to travel, how the dirt and the dreariness would be forgotten, and we should press toward the mark' with courage and with triumph! Think and realise to yourselves, dear friends, the contents of your hope, if you are Christian people--fellowship with Jesus Christ, the knitting of all broken ties that it will be for our joy and peace to have re-knit; the absence of all trouble that has served for discipline; the rod being broken when the child has grown to be a man; the rest and peace, the wisdom and power, the larger service and closer fellowship with the dear Lord, which are waiting certainly for every one of us. And then, if you can, grumble about the road, or be sad or cast down by reason of the greatness of the way.' We are saved by hope'; and if only we can make real to ourselves the facts which hope based upon Christ reveals as absolute certainties for us all, the clouds will scatter and the darkness will pass before the shining of the true Light.
