Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
The believer’s source of strength
Many are almost despairing because of their trials and their temptations. But be our circumstances what they may, here is an antidote to them all.
I. the promise--“He shall strengthen your heart.” We have duties, many, varied, arduous. Often they are very trying; but this promise is for us. And so in our temptations. These are continually occurring, and we know not how to overcome them. Again this promise is given. But you ask, “How am I to attain this strength? Must I always go on sinning?” No, for--
1. Faith is one grand means of victory over sin. “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.”
2. Watchfulness is another help; taking care to keep away from the occasions and inducements to sin: occupation in what is good and right, storing the mind with God’s truth.
3. Prayer. This must by no means be neglected, the more we pray the stronger we are.
4. In mortifying sin be careful to leave no part remaining. Cut down the tree, but not this only, pull up the roots.
5. Guard your thoughts and desires.
6. If sin has gained power over you, at once--delay not a day--in seeking to subdue it. The longer it is left the greater will be the difficulty. “Today, if ye will hear His voice,” etc. But in our own strength no one is sufficient for these things; but the grace of God will help us.
II. To whom this promise is made.
“All ye that hope in the Lord.” Not the sinless, the perfect, but, etc. They are such as put all their trust and confidence in Christ. (J. Marshall, M. A.)
Courage
The word comes from the Latin words, “cor” and “ago,” meaning, the heart, and to put in motion. Courage, therefore, means the active heart, or the spirit of the heart. For it is that spirit which enables us to encounter danger without fear, and bear adversity with calmness.
I. WE admire physical courage; but, after all, it is chiefly a constitutional endowment. If a man be full of animal courage, no credit to him; for he has to thank his father and mother for his vigorous body which inspires him to be brave. Physical, or animal courage is not a rare quality. Moral courage is the great thing, that which will inspire you to do right at all costs. It was that which Jesus had and which He helps us to acquire.
II. true courage will never swerve from that which it knows is right. Margaret Wilson, in the days of Charles II., was tied to a post on the shore at the flow of the tide, but offered her life if she would obey the Church. Higher and higher the water rose, but she would not yield, and she died, crying out with her last breath, “Christ only is my Master.” And many such martyrs there have been. That is moral courage. Dare to follow that which your conscience declares to be the truth; and be a Christian all out, though it may run you into risks of limb and life. It is the coward who is afraid to follow his convictions. Do not be a religious or political “turn-coat” against the secret conviction of your mind. “Toe the mark “in every sense in matters of truth and morals, and be brave enough to die rather than do wrong.
III. have you courage to show yourself a Christian? And how many there are who cannot do this. But wily should you fear. Oh, be brave, not cowards. No doubt it does need moral courage to stand against ridicule, but be not jeered from the right.
IV. if you possess true courage, you will not be ashamed of your humble but honourable surroundings. Don’t have any false shame. Your hat may be battered, your shawl may be shabby, your coat may be an everyday one, but come up bravely to the house of God, and fear nobody. If the coat is the best God has given you, thank Him for it, and for all He has done for you.
V. let me urge you to have courage to decide for Jesus Christ. (W. Birch.)
Strength for the courageous who hope in the Lord
Note--
I. what is required in the exhortation--“good courage.” How this is founded on hope. (Romans 8:24; 1 Thessalonians 5:8). How needful is it--
1. When a man’s sins press heavily upon him, and the cares and sorrows of earth weigh him down, how miserable is he if he have not hope.
2. Courage so founded is enduring.
3. And we are made more than conquerors over our spiritual enemies.
II. the promise. “He shall strengthen your heart.”
1. We are ignorant of our own hearts, and--
2. We are unwilling to know.
3. Hence we cannot strengthen our hearts; the Gospel only can do this.
III. the persons to whom this promise is made,--those who “hope in the Lord.” Those also distrusting themselves hope for all in Christ. (G. C. Tomlinson.)
Consolation for the troubled
I. believers may have great need of strength from God.
1. David knew this, and from his own experience declares what God will do for His people.
2. There are many trials which the believer shares in common with the men of this world.
3. There are others peculiar to himself. He may be calumniated and despised; deprived of the fellowship of other Christians; cast down by reason of his departures from God, so that he walk in darkness and hath no light.
4. And there are sorrows which come to him through the sins of others. Those near and dear to him living in sin; the wickedness of the world; the divisions of the Church and her cold-heartedness.
II. the hope which the Christian has in God. It does not make him neglect means. It is founded on the Lord Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection and intercession. It implies that his life is free from presumption and that he prays for the Divine blessing.
III. conclusion.
1. Expect trials.
2. Maintain faith.
3. Remember the promises
4. Tell others of Christ. (B. W. Noel.)
The cure for a weak heart
I. an approved company. The text is addressed to--
1. Men of hope. They have not yet entered into possession of their full inheritance; they have a hope which is looking out for something better on before; they have a living hope which peers into the future beyond even the dark river of death, a hope with eyes so bright that it seeth things invisible to others, and gazes upon glories which the unaided human eye has never beheld. Have you this good hope?
2. They hope for good things, for this is implied when the psalmist speaks of those that hope in the Lord, for no man hopes for evil things whose hope is in the Lord.
3. If you are the persons spoken of in the text, this hope of yours is rooted, and grounded, and stablished in the Lord: “all ye that hope in the Lord.” You have not a hope apart from the ever-blessed Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
4. Some of them do not get much beyond hope, “All ye that hope in the Lord.” This passage picks up the hindermost, it seems to come, like the men with the ambulance, to look after the wounded, and carry them on at the same pace as those who march in the fulness of their strength.
II. There is An occasional weakness apparent in many of those that hope in the Lord.
1. It is a dangerous weakness, for it is a weakness of the heart. They lose their courage, their joy departs from them, and they become timorous and fearful.
2. This weakness occurs on many occasions.
(1) In the battle of life.
(2) In times of temptation.
(3) In the midst of great labour for the Lord.
The best of men are but men at the best; and, therefore, who wonders if their heart sometimes faileth them in the day of suffering, in the hour of battle, or under the broiling sun, when they are labouring for their Lord?
3. If this weakness of the heart should continue, it will be very injurious.
(1) At the present time, I believe that it restricts enterprise.
(2) It endangers the success of the best workers.
(3) It pleads many excuses.
III. A seasonable exhortation. I like the way this is put. It is not alone, “Be of good courage”; there is an “and” with it: “and he shall strengthen your heart.” At the same time, the exhortation is not omitted. It does not say, “He shall comfort your heart, therefore you need do nothing.” They err from the Scriptures who make the grace of God a reason for doing nothing; it is the reason for doing everything.
1. If you want to get out of diffidence, and timidity, and despondency, you must rouse yourselves up. Do not sit still, and rub your eyes, and say, “I cannot help it, I must always be dull like this.” You must not be so; in the name of God, you are commanded in the text to “be of good courage.”
2. Do you not think that your God deserves to be trusted? What has He ever done that you should doubt Him?
3. If thou art not of good courage, what will happen to thee? I would not have you deserve the coward’s doom, and speak of it as “retiring.” No, get not into that class; be thou rather like that soldier of Alexander, who was always to the front, and the reason was that he bore about with him what was thought to be an incurable disease, and he suffered so much pain that he did not care whether he lived or died. Alexander took great pains to have him healed, and when he was quite well, he never exposed his precious life to any risk again. Oh, I would rather that you should be stung into courage by excessive pain than that you should be healed into cowardice! Christ ought not to be served by feather-bed soldiers.
IV. A cheering promise. “He shall strengthen your heart.” God alone can do this.
1. Sometimes by gracious providences.
2. By the kindly fellowship of friends.
3. By a precious promise.
4. Beside all that, God the Holy Spirit has a secret way of strengthening the courage of God’s people, which none of us can explain. Have you never felt it? You may have gone to your bed, sick at heart, “weary, and worn, and sad,” and you wake in the morning ready for anything. Perhaps, in the middle of the night, you awake, and the visitations of God are manifested to you, and you feel as happy as if everything went the way you would like it to go. Nay, you shall be more happy that everything should cross you than that everything should please you, if it be God’s sweet will. You feel a sudden strengthening of your spirit, so that you are perfectly resigned, satisfied, prepared, and ready. (C. H. Spurgeon.).