How To Wear The Armor of Hope and Praise

Hope is in the future. Each has its place. Hope is based on faith. Faith is the substance. Faith is in the heart. Faith is for now, never for the future. But hope is in the mind and is for the future. And it says, oh, there's some beautiful scriptures. I wish I could preach you a sermon on hope, but let me give you the one in Hebrews 5,

“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, steadfast and sure, and which entereth into the veil, whither Jesus, the forerunner, is for us entered.”

Hope is the anchor.

Now, why do you need an anchor? Why does a ship need an anchor? Because a ship is floating around in a basically unstable element, which is water. And no matter how much that ship may want to be stabilized, there's nothing in the water to make that ship stable, is there?

So what does the ship have to do? It has to pass its anchor out from itself, through the water, and into another element that is stable. What's that? Well, I like to say the rock. So what is hope? It's your anchor. You live in a realm that's impermanent, unstable, insecure. That in your material situations and circumstances, there is no basis for security.

I smile when I see insurance companies advertise peace of mind, as if they had the ability to give peace of mind. They don't. You can have all the insurance in the world and be riddled with insecurity because it doesn't depend on those things. But when you've passed your anchor out of time into eternity and fastened it in the rock, then your little boat is secure. And the anchor is hope.

Praise the Lord. Put it on. Use it. Also, it speaks about hope. I didn't want to do this, but in Hebrews 5, it says it's like the horns of the altar.

“We fled for refuge to the hope set before us.”

You know, in desperation, a man who was being pursued by his enemies would flee to the altar and grasp the altar by its horns, and no one dared to pull a man away from the horns of the altar. So when you are in absolute desperation and all the demons are on your tail, what do you do?

Get to the altar and grab the horns and hold on. And the horns are hope. Never give up your hope, friends. The world may collapse around you, but God is still on His throne. All right. Now, then there's the garment of praise. We've got I've got 5 more minutes and a lot to cover.

It says in Isaiah 63:61. Well, we better read it quickly. Isaiah 61. This is the gospel. Isaiah 61. This is what Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue in Nazareth. It's quoted in Luke 4:18 and following when He said,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”

He quoted this scripture. Let's read it. John Wesley said when he quoted these words, “Is there ever been a preacher of the gospel of whom these words were not true?” That was his comment. In other words, every preacher of the gospel should be able to say these words.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

And you notice in the synagogue, He stopped there. He did not say, “The day of vengeance of our God,” because He came to bring grace, not judgment. Judgment will be on the next visit.

“To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty in place of ashes, the oil of joy in place of mourning, the garment of praise in place of the spirit of heaviness.”

If you've had the spirit of heaviness, you don't want it back, put on the garment of praise because when you're wearing the garment of praise, the spirit of heaviness does not like to come near you. This is a true story, and it illustrates this. I was in London years back as a pastor, and a lady arrived who was a member of our congregation, dragging a rather reluctant husband by her hand without warning, said, “This is my husband. He's a backslider. He's just come out of prison. He's got an evil spirit. Pray for him.”

And in those days, praying for a person with an evil spirit was an embarrassment to me. So I didn't know what to do, but we had with us a couple of Russian Jewesses who'd been saved in the Baptist Church in Russia and later received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they said, “In Russia, the Baptists are more Pentecostal than the Pentecostals are in Europe.” And when they started praying, they didn't care what the neighbors thought. They just let go and praised God.

So we started to pray in that sort of vague way that people do pray when they think they ought to be doing something, but they don't know what to do, which is the normal way most Christians treat evil spirits, see? And we were really praising the Lord, and this poor man who'd just come out of prison came up to me privately, and he said, “I think I'm going.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Too much noise.” And I didn't have an answer ready, but God gave me one. Well, I said, “I'll tell you who doesn't like the noise. It's the devil. And he doesn't like the noise because we're praising Jesus, and he never likes that. But,” I said, “you've got two alternatives. You can go now, and the devil will go with you, or you can stay, and the devil will go without you.” He said, “I'll stay.”

Now, I made a promise without meditating, but a few minutes later, he came up to me, saying, “It's just left. It left my throat.” I didn't understand really what he was saying, but the devil left because he couldn't stand the atmosphere of praise any longer. And if you put on the garment of praise, you embarrass the devil much more than he can ever embarrass you. Don't wait to feel like it. Praise is a sacrifice. Hebrews 13:15,

“By him, Jesus Christ, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise unto God”

whenever we feel like it. Is that what it says? Continually.

“Just saying it in my heart.” No. “Even the calves of our lips.”

That's not in your heart. That's out loud, out of your mouth. That's what God requires. David said when he was in the court of a heathen king, slobbering on his beard and scrabbling on the door, pretending to be mad in order to save his life, you know what he said? He wrote Psalm 34. And remember, that's when it was written. And the first verse says,

“I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

There is never a time, and there is never a place when you should not be praising the Lord.