THE ANCHOR HOLDS

Sermon given at annual FCI ministry banquet, March 22, 2002

By Reverend William Claire Greiner

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, will be forever etched in our hearts and minds. America like a large ship has been battered by the raging sea of terrorism. Its sails have been tattered and torn. And yet, in the midst of fear and confusion there is hope, a hope that is anchored in God’s Word. It is the same hope that motivated the pilgrims in 1620 to leave England in search of a new life in a new land. With hope burning in their hearts 102 pilgrims on board the Mayflower endured 66 days of suffering on stormy seas. It was a hope based not on man’s ability but on God’s infallibility.

With the passing of years, however, that hope began to fade, until in this last generation America has forgotten the divine "Friend" whose power and guidance our forefathers relied on. The shift from dependence upon our Maker to reliance upon ourselves has undermined the very foundations of America. The cold winds of change are definitely blowing across the land. The signs of the times are springing up all around us, challenging us almost daily to "Get ready! The King is Coming!"

In light of that blessed event, our prayer is that hope will be rekindled in homes across the nation, and that mothers and fathers will lead their children in righteousness with a hope that is sure and steadfast and anchored in Christ. It is the only security in an insecure world.

"That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments" (Psalm 78:7).

The Bible speaks of hope as being an anchor for the soul. Hebrews 6:18-20 reads: "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil, where the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest forever after the order of Melchizedec."

Titus 1:2 tells us that "In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began" (Titus 1:2).

When God makes a promise, He not only will keep it, He must keep it. He has never failed, and He never will. God never deviates from His will or from His promises. He cannot.

In Genesis 17:1 God introduces Himself as the "Almighty God." That’s why, when God asked Abraham to leave his home in Ur of the Chaldees, he obeyed and went "looking for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." His hope was secure in a God who not only kept His Word but in a God who would also keep him. God is almighty, and just as surely as He kept His promise to Abraham, He will keep His promise to you and me. Abraham was secure because of the very being of God who cannot lie.

Since, therefore, God has promised that all who come to Him through his Son will be saved, it is impossible for anyone who trusts in Christ not to be saved or to lose salvation once it is attained. God promises again and again that if men come to Jesus Christ they will know salvation. "But as many as received Him to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name" (John 1:12).

My wife’s mother is 95 years of age, living in a nursing home in Indiana. She has said repeatedly, "If the God of the universe can’t keep me, who can?" Last week she told Ruth on the phone that her advice to her family and friends is, "Keep hope burning in your heart. Don’t ever let it die."

Praise God, the anchor holds because of who God is!

II. OUR HOPE IS SECURE BECAUSE OF GOD’S PURPOSE.

Abraham’s security was not only in God’s Person, but also in God’s purpose. God did not take Abraham from his homeland and send him to a foreign land to sojourn the rest of his life in order to fulfill a divine whim. God had a purpose for Abraham and for the world through Abraham. Abraham had not asked God to send him to Canaan or to bless the world through him. It was God’s idea, God’s purpose, God’s plan.

The Abrahamic covenant, with its promise, was unconditional. God did not tell Abraham he would be blessed if he fulfilled certain requirements, if he met certain conditions. God told Abraham to do many things, and Abraham was obedient. But it was not Abraham’s obedience, as important as that was, that guaranteed the fulfillment of God’s promise to him. God’s promise guaranteed its own fulfillment. Abraham was a spectator, watching what God was doing for him and through him.

God had a predetermined purpose for Abraham, and this purpose was that Abraham would be blessed that the world would be blessed through him. He said,"I will bless you and I will surely multiply you." Over fourteen million of the physical descendants of Abraham are still in the world today. Besides that, many more millions are his spiritual descendants.

The fulfillment of God’s promise was not up to Abraham but to God. Abraham was a spectator, watching God work through him. God’s promise did not depend on anyone’s faithfulness but His own.

God has a purpose for your life and mine, and regardless of the storm, He will "perfect that which concerns you."

"Surely, just as I have intended," God says, "so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand" (Isaiah 14:24).

That is God’s ultimate purpose for your life and mine — that we might be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. The storm sharpens that image!

The anchor holds because of God’s divine purpose!

When God made His promise to Abraham, He confirmed it with an oath, saying, "By myself have I sworn." No other oath would have been appropriate. If He had sworn by anything else or anybody else, he would have been swearing by something or someone less that Himself, so dishonoring Himself and His Word. If He had sworn by heaven and earth, Abraham could have said, "since heaven and earth shall perish, so too Thine oath. But he swore by His great name: as His name lives and last for ever and ever, His oath also shall last for ever and ever. That stamp of eternity is upon that which God sware to Abraham.

I believe the pledge of God’s oath is the Holy Spirit. Three times Paul refers to the Holy Spirit as God’s pledge to believers (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14). In modern Greek, the same basic word used by Paul (arrabon, "pledge") means engagement ring, an earnest of marriage. As if His bare promise were not more than enough, God swears an oath on Himself and gives us the presence of the Holy Spirit as a pledge, an earnest, on the oath.

God says His promise and His oath are immutable, without any possibility of change or variance. The term (ametathetow) was used in relation to wills. Once properly made, a will was ametathetow, unchangeable by anyone but the maker. God has declared His promise and His pledge to be ametatetos, even by Himself. They cannot be turned around or altered. "You’re secure," He says. The anchor holds. "Come to Christ; there’s nothing to fear. I’ll hold you; I’ll never let go of you." Our security is not in our never letting go of God but in His never letting go of us.

It is crucial to feed on God’s Word and teach it to our children and our grandchildren that they might have an anchor for these troubled times.

The Psalmist said, "My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in Thy word" (Psalm 119:81).

Outside the Peabody Maritime Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, there is an old anchor, whose original weight was 4,004 pounds. It doubtless served its ship well, but in a great gale its shaft was twisted.

Not so with the believer’s anchor which is reinforced by the pledge of God as proof against all tides and tempests.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

God said it, I believe it, that settles it!

The anchor holds!

God gave the security of His purpose and His pledge. But notice where the anchor is cast: "within the veil," in the holy of holies, in the very presence of God. This means, in the first place, that we do not cast our anchor on anything within ourselves. We are not seeking our security in our own feelings. We had better not, for feelings are exceedingly changeable things. What you eat before you go to bed at night may determine your feelings when you rise next morning. Whether your coffee is hot or cold may have something to do with your feelings the rest of the day.

We shall not cast anchor in our experience, so dependent on temperament, so easily misinterpreted, nor in ever varying circumstances; nor in human judgment, never wholly trustworthy; not in any ecclesiastical system. The best anchor may "drag" in any of these unsafe anchorages. But "we have an anchor of the soult, both sure and steadfast and which entered into that within the veil, whither the forunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec" (Hebrews 6:13-20).

The figure here is drawn from the Temple where a great veil hung before the Holy of Holies. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter within the veil to sprinkle blood before and upon the Mercy Seat, but he could not abide there. The service had to be repeated again and again, yet could not take away sin. As a consequence, the high priest could not secure the right of entrance for any one else. He was not a forerunner.

Our Lord corrected all that when He entered into heaven, into the holy of holies, not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with His own precious blood, a perfect and lasting atonement. He passed through the heavens into the presence of God, not for a moment, but to sit down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. In doing so, He rent the veil, opening the way for every believing sinner to press into the presence of a holy God. He entered as a Forerunner, a Pioneer of the way to God, and we who are cleansed from our sin by His precious blood, have access with boldness into the holy of holies. We have access not only now, but a joyful entrance when we leave this earthly scene. He will not be in Heaven and leave us behind!

John Knox, the "great apostle of the Scots," as he was dying, said to his wife, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor." She understood, and read the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel, which has rightly been titled the "High-Priestly Prayer." John Knox knew his anchor had been cast "within the veil" in the Holy of Holies, and in that hope he was secure.

"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:15,16).

Dr. Macaulay in his exposition of Hebrews reminds us that the picture of the "forerunner" is that of the anchoria which was used in olden days in the harbors of inland seas to assist vessels which could not make port under their own sail. In such a case a forerunner went from the ship into the harbor and fastened a strong rope to the anchoria, a great rock embedded and immovable close to shore. Then by means of a winch on board the ship, the vessel was brought in.

Christ our forerunner has gone before and secured our anchor within the veil in Heaven. He remains there forever as Guardian of our souls. We are "moored to an immoveable object," and praise God, we shall make port at last.

Many of you here tonight have loved ones who have completed the journey. I know specifically of three widows in this audience who within the past 8 months have bid farewell to their life-long partners.

Let me share in closing the story of one of them. Orlie was 96 years of age. He and his dear wife had been married 69 years, and they had attended all our banquets. Last September he was admitted to the hospital where his health quickly deteriorated. On Friday evening, September 28, we went to visit him. We were rather startled when we walked into the room to find him lying on top of the bed, instead of being curled up under the covers. What was more amazing was the fact that, instead wearing the usual hospital garb, he was fully dressed in his jacket, shirt, trousers, socks and shoes. He greeted us with a big smile and said excitedly, "I am going home tomorrow." "That is wonderful," we responded, though doubting the reality of the statement. After a brief visit we prayed with him and assured him of our love. As we said good-night and left the room, his words echoed in our hearts: "I’m going home tomorrow!" He died at 5:30 the next morning. He had indeed gone home!

The anchor holds!

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song inspired by the pain of a man whose daughter was called in a car accident.   The words express the blessed hope of the believer:

This is not at all how
We thought it was supposed to be;
We had so many plans for you,
We had so many dreams,
And now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile,
And nothing we can say,
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain,
The pain of losing you, but...
We can cry with hope,
We can say goodbye with hope,
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no...
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope.
There's a place where we'll see your face again.

Never have I known
Anything so hard to understand,
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan,
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father smile and say well done,
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true,
'Cause now you're home,
And now you're free, and . . . 
We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so . . .
We wait with hope
And we ache with hope;
We hold on with hope.
We let go with hope.

Thank God for the blessed hope that guarantees a joyful reunion beyond the veil!   

The anchor holds, and that same anchor is available to you today. There is hope for your troubled marriage. There is hope for your anguished soul. There is hope for your depression. There is hope for your loneliness. There is hope for your fears. There is hope for your future. There is hope for eternity.

There is an anchor for all who "flee for refuge to lay hold upon the hope God has set before them." We will never know whether God can hold us until in desperation we run to Him for refuge. Perhaps you need to do that tonight.

If you are not saved, will you lay hold of the hope God has set before you and invite Christ into your life? Know the security that is found in Him.

Christian, perhaps you are struggling with fears and doubts and you are wondering how you are going to make it through the storm. The waters are deep and dark. Your sails are tattered and torn, and your heart is weary.

God says, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord thy God" (Isaiah 43:23).

Contemplate God’s power. Consider His purpose in your life. Claim His promise. Confess your need to your Heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ. He has promised never to leave you nor forsake you!

"And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope" (Job 11:18).

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