There’s another “skepticism” today. We live in a world of skepticism. So many people today have no concept at all of the hope which we have, because they do not see some of the things in the Scriptures that we believe.

The French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, said, “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.”

Also, Bertrand Russell said, “That man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms, that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; [that all the labours (labors) of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspirations, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system;] and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. [All these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.]”

Well, that’s kind of a negative attitude toward life. It’s no wonder, then, that some people live in despondency and despair if they adopt that sort of philosophy for their life.

The imminent anthropologist, Dr. Frederick Star, had a debate with Clarence Darrow, the noted orator of two or three generations ago. The debate, which is titled “Is Life Worth Living?” was interesting to me, and I have that book in my library where the debate is printed. Both men were agnostics [Agnostic: one who believes it is impossible to know if God exists], and they were debating, “Is Life Worth Living?”

Dr. Star was in the affirmative. “Yes, life is worth living,” he would say. He began to tell, “Life is worth living for all of the pleasures that you can have. Life is worth living just for those pleasures.”

But then, Clarence Darrow, being the orator that he was, the powerful orator that he was, even though he was an agnostic, came back, and he said, “Well, if at any time, then, there are more sorrows than there are pleasures in life, well, of course, life would not be worth living.”

So, Dr. Star made another attempt. He said, “Life is worth living because of all of the pleasures that you can have, and all the money you can make and the things which you can enjoy in life.”

But then, Darrow came back, and he said, “BUT, if at any time life is so filled with poverty, and you do not have any of the money to buy all these luxuries and own all of these things and life becomes miserable to you from that point of view, then life is not worth living.”

Well, what I want to read to you is his last sentence in his last summation in the last speech he made. He simply said, “Life is an unpleasant interruption of nothing, and the best thing that can be said of it is that, it…does…not…last…long.”

That’s a very, very discouraging way to look at life. There are a lot of people who look at it that way.

Then comes Jesus, and He gives us another philosophy of life. He says, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live….” He tells us about the purpose that there is in life and that there is something that is waiting for us somewhere. Life…really…does…have…its…meaning. We talked a little bit about that this morning. I wish we had time to devote one whole sermon to it.

But, there are people who are living life without any meaning and without any purpose, and so, they live with this very negative and despicable attitude. For that reason, depending upon who you are reading, we are told that, once every tick of the clock in America there is an attempt at suicide, or we are told that, there are eight to ten people who try to commit suicide every hour of the day. Not only that, but some of them are successful in so doing. Because of despair, because of negativism, people are killing themselves.

So, it is with people who seem to live without hope. But, the Gospel …gives…people…hope! Again, I want to think about three things. A lot of other things could be said, but I want to talk about the HOPE that God gives us in THREE WAYS.

First of all: The Christian has a HOPE THROUGH THE GOSPEL OF A RETURNING SAVIOR.

When Jesus had told His apostles that it was time for Him to make His departure from this world (it was about time for Him to be crucified on the cross), they were very discouraged, of course—they were despondent. So, in John, chapter 14, the very next chapter after He had made that announcement to them at the last supper, then He says to them, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. ²In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” [John 14:1-3]. And He continues in that fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, and He says, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live, ye shall live also,” [John 14:19].