Hebrews 7:14-24 For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood.… Hope may be a flatterer; it may be a true friend. It may be a light unto my path, or it may be an ingis fatuus to lure my feet to death. Many have been saved by hope, many have been lost by hope. When an Ohio river steamboat was burned, a passenger was drowned by a defect in his. life, preserver. The first thing I do on entering the state-room of a steamer or ship is to examine my life-preserver. I once found one with the strings so insecure that if I had trusted to it, it would have betrayed me. How dreadful to trust hope, to follow hope, to be lost by hope! It is not apt to be so with that hope which comes of trial, which grows out of discipline, which has its door in the "valley of Achor." The trouble with joy-born hope, nurtured in sunshine and luxury and ease — the trouble with such hope is that it is conceited. It looks to self and not to God. It is based upon a continuance of prosperity. These cannot always continue. All of its joy has come from the quiet and comfort of its own narrow life. Such hope is doomed to sure disaster. It is like the spider spinning. his silken web out of his own bowels, and laying his beautiful geometrical plans, when one sudden sweep from a counter plan brushes the graceful spinner and his work into one black ball of dirt, in which we find his hopes have become his winding-sheet. (R. S. Barrett.) Parallel Verses KJV: For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood. |
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