Sermon Illustrations

. The greatest English poet of the eighteenth century Alexander Pope penned these immortal words in his An Essay on Man:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never IS, but always TO be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

[SOURCE: Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733]

It seems we never achieve but always desire, we always hope for “peace on earth among those whom God favors.” The prophecy of Isaiah in our text assures us that our hope will become reality when Jesus, our King, returns and reigns as the Promised Messiah of Israel over all His creation.

Hope is confidence that something we desire