Classic Sermon Outlines (continued)
Everlastyng Consolation and Good Hope
B. The Gifts Bestowed.
1. Everlasting comfort. There is one source of comfort which, because it comes from an unchangeable Christ and communicates unfailing gifts of patience and insight and because it leads to everlasting blessedness and recompenses may well be called "external consolation"
2. Good hope. In the cross and in the Christ lie the foundation and the object of a hope which stands unique in excellence and sufficient in its firmness. "A good hope"; good because well founded; good because grasping worthy objects.
C. The Presupposition of Heaven's Logic.
1. The statement of heaven's logic. God has given; therefore God will _ give.
2. Three suppositions. It presupposes inexhaustible resources, unchangeable purposes of kindness, patience that is not disgusted and cannot be turned away by sin.
III. THE SPECIFICATION OF THE DESIRES INCLUDED IN THE PRAYER.
A. A Comforted Heart.
1. The connection between the past gift of everlasting consolation and the present and future comfort of hearts. God has bestowed the materials for comfort; God will give the comfort for which He has supplied the materials.
2. Man's need met. It is not enough for us that there should be calmness and consolation twining round the cross if we choose to pluck the fruit. We need and we have an indwelling God who, by that Spirit who is the Comforter, will make for each of us the everlasting consolation our individual possession.
B. A Stable Heart.
1. Man's natural instability. We all know how vacillating, how driven to and fro by gusts of passion and winds of doctrine and forces of earth our resolutions and spirits are.