Faith, hope and charity. Part two. Hope. What is hope? Here's the definition, desire for an anticipation of a future event or condition in a gospel sense. We see references to hope throughout the scriptures from Alma 3221 we read if ye have faith, ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true
. In First Peter 315, we be ready always to give an answer to every man that ask you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So if you have an expectation for things because of your gospel knowledge, the question is why and is this founded on things that are true or is it just something
you wish was true? So hope requires both a what and a why? In Alma 2812, we read while many thousands of others truly mourn for the loss of their kindred. Yet they rejoice and exult in the hope and even know according to the promises of the Lord that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God
in a never ending state of happiness. So where is the why? And where is the what in this, the why is according to the promises of the Lord? That's why these people believe this. The what the, what they believed was that they would be raised to dwell at the right hand of God in a state of never ending
happiness. So they didn't just make up this belief. Uh If you have hope in something for a flimsy reason, your hope will be very weak and it won't be sufficient to carry you through the demands of life. Here's another one. So we're looking for the why and the what? This is Maroni 925. May Christ lift
thee up and may his sufferings and death and the showing his body unto our fathers and his mercy and long suffering and the hope of his glory and of eternal life rest in your mind for ever. The why is because of his sufferings and death? So what is oh and the the showing of his body to the fathers and
his mercy and long suffering and the what is his glory and eternal life? So these people had hope of his glory and had hope of obtaining eternal life. And this was because of the sufferings and death of Christ and the showing his body unto their fathers and his mercy, mercy and long suffering. So how
do you obtain hope or increase the hope that you have? Well, one way is by obtaining promises. So you can do this in at least three ways by learning more about God by obtaining his word and by living His word. In Alma five, we have an example of this. He asks, what grounds had they to hope for salvation
? Behold. I can tell you, did not my Father Alma believe in the words which were delivered by the mouth of Abdi. And was he not a holy prophet? Did he not speak the words of God and my Father Alma, believe them. And according to his faith, there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold, I say
unto you that this is all true. So here's a group of people who had hope for salvation. The question of why? Well, it's because a prophet came and delivered God's words to them. So it was through God's words that they had hope for, for salvation. God's promises can come through several topics. Uh They
can offer deliverance, they can promise a blessing, they can promise protection or several other things. But we'll focus on these. Um they come in multiple categories. They can be specific to certain people or circumstances where they can be general. So let's talk about some specific promises in Genesis
3211 and 12, Jacob is praying to the Lord and he is invoking a promise. He said, deliver me, I pray thee from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me and the mother with the Children. And thou say, said, I will surely do thee good and make thy seed
as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. So he's invoking the promise that came through Abraham, that his posterity, Jacob's posterity would be like the sand of the sea. And he was saying, Lord, you've made this promise and if this promise is true, you will have to protect me from
Esau because if he kills my, my wife and my wives and kids, then I will not be able to have posterity as numerous as the sand of the sea. So this was a really rough time for Jacob. And likewise, when we obtain promises from the Lord, they can carry us through very hard times and they can empower us to
have faith and act in the absence of surroundings that seem to support what we the outcome we expect and hope for. In first kings 18, we have another specific promise. Um It came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah, the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham
Isaac and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me o Lord hear me that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again, then the fire of the Lord
fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice in the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. So if you remember the story, this is when Elijah challenges the priest of all and he, they each have a sacrifice that they prepare. And uh he dug a trench around his and he dumped
enough water on the wood um that it actually filled the trench. And some people hold up this example as a power as, as um the power of the priesthood, et cetera. Well, Elijah wasn't just out there. Oh, I have an idea. I'm going to challenge the priests of all and I'll make this really extreme situation
so that it's obvious that God has power. He was told to do this and it says right here um that he was told to do this, that I have done all these things at thy word is what he says. So um this was a promise and that's an important point too that um God doesn't have to come to you and say, I promise you
that he might, but whatever he says according to his word, that's his law and that's what he acts according to. So anything he tells you any information he conveys to you in a way is a promise, at least for our purposes. It fits this, this framework that we're going through here. So Elijah was told go
challenge the priests of all, prepare the sacrifice. I want you to dig this trench around it and I want you to dump all this water on it and fill the trench and uh I will consume it. And that's exactly what happened. So you can be empowered to do dramatic things when you have God's promises. There's
another specific promise. This is from second Samuel seven. And um this is about David. uh He's praying and he says, oh, now o Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, establish it forever and do as thou hast said, and let thy name be magnified forever
saying the Lord of hosts is the God over Israel and let the house of thy servant, David be established before thee for thou o Lord of hosts, God of Israel hast revealed to thy servant saying I will be build thee and house. Therefore, hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee.
And now o Lord God, thou art that God and thy words be true and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant. Therefore, now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant that it may continue forever before thee. For thou o Lord God has spoken it and with thy blessing, let the house of thy
servant be blessed for ever. So he was asking that his family, his house would uh receive the promised blessing that he had from the Lord. And he was able to invoke this blessing. And um consequently, bless his posterity with a greater situation than they otherwise would have had. And he was able to
do this because he had a promise from God. But promises aren't just specific. So you can obtain promises like those that we covered if you seek God and you do what he tells you to do. But there are also general promises which you already have because they apply to everyone. So maybe God is going to tell
you to go challenge some apostate priests and he will prepare a situation that will make it abundantly obvious who's telling the truth and who's lying, uh who knows, but he for sure will honor these promises that I'm about to cover and many, many more that are all throughout the scriptures. You could
actually do a study of this and start in Genesis and go through the entire body of scripture, pulling out promises that are general, they're available to everyone. They're based either on the character of God in the sense of what He has done or the conditions they are predicated upon are clearly defined
so that if you live those conditions, you will receive the blessing in Matthew 1128 the Lord said, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. That's a general promise because we have the conditions here. If you come unto the Lord, he will give you rest in John 1418.
He says, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you in Matthew 631 and 33. He says, therefore, take no thought saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed but seek ye first, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added
unto you. So if you seek the kingdom of God first in your life and His righteousness, or how He is, if you implement that in your life, then he will bless you with everything that you need and those are powerful promises. So if you do these things, you can uh receive the, the the promised outcome. Now
, beyond specific promises, uh we should all realize that Jesus Christ himself is our chief hope because he can give us specific promises. But in the end, the greatest promise that He has is his own character, how he is and, and who he is. He's perfectly loving. He's true and he's faithful. He's just
and he's merciful and he's all knowing no matter your situation, no matter your struggles. If you place your trust in God without reservation, he will bless you and He will make your situation much better than it is. He will give you the strength to endure any trial and He will fill your life with joy
. And happiness to overflowing. God is no respecter of persons. If you do what others have done, you will receive the same treatment from God that they have received. If you find an outcome or a blessing that you desire in the scriptures, the only thing that you have to do to obtain it is whatever that
person did to obtain it because God operates through law and He does not change. If you follow the law, you will receive the same outcome. It's not always super clear what the law was, but that's a different set of challenges. This is this principle, the principle that God is no respecter of persons
is uh critical to obtaining and finding strength in the promises that God makes. In conclusion. Hope is desire for an anticipation of a future event or condition. It requires a what and a why as you seek, God, you will obtain more hope by discovering additional what's or maybe more clarification on what's
that you already believe and you will get more wise, the more effort and obedience you manifest, the more hope you will have. That is the key to obtaining these promises.