369. Hope and Strength
Joel 3:16 The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
The Lord promises that He will be for the Church Hope and Strength. Hope is the present reality of a future or invisible event that we do not see now. Strength is the spiritual strength needed to fight and overcome our spiritual enemies, For instance, we hope for a time of peace and calm. Hope says we have it now, but it must be apprehended by the faith that the Spirit gives. Strength is in the object of our faith, which is Jesus, the Overcomer.
We do not see or enjoy all the promises, gifts, blessings and good things that the Lord has already given to us. Hope makes present and visible the eternal invisible things of God that are not seen. The Lord Himself is with us and in us to be our strength. If God is for us, who can be against us? When we are looking at a hopeless situation Jesus is our Hope. When we are weak Jesus is strong. We acknowledge our hopelessness and weakness, and then we believe in Jesus as our Hope and Strength. Jesus is many things to us. Jesus is everything to us. Jesus not only gives us what we need; Jesus is what we need.
The promise and blessing of Hope and Strength comes to us in our present circumstance and need when the Lord speaks. When He speaks a word it is like a roar; He roars like thunder. He overwhelms evil with His Voice. When He speaks heaven and earth is shaken. We don’t see it happening that way because this is what happens in the spiritual realm. God’s Word is as loud and authoritative and positive to our spiritual life as thunder is to our physical ears.
Faith sees and hears the awesome power of God’s Word The thunder of the Gospel is necessary to defeat and demolish such a powerful enemy as evil. The earth was literally shaken and tombs were opened and thunder clapped when Jesus died for our sins on the cross. This was just a tiny example in the physical world of what was really going on in the spiritual world. Jesus says with a huge voice to Sin, Death, and the Devil: “You are finished!” God’s authoritative Word says to us: “You have hope and strength.”