Psalms 78:6 “That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.”
Those who can have this blessed “hope” are those to whom God the Father “hath chosen” in His Son “before the foundation of the world” and “hath” given “faith” (Hebrews 12:2) at the instant He gave them Spiritual Birth (John 3:1-8). In this context, they already have “hope” because it is referred to as “their hope”; but, we are charged to “set” our “hope in God”, versus setting our “hope” in ourselves or in others or in things of this present world. The Word of God teaches us about “the works of God”; thus, when we read the Word of God and when the “gospel” is “preached” and we prayerfully give worshipful attention to it, it is “mixed with” the “faith” that the Holy Spirit gives us; thus, setting our “hope in God”. Thus, to “set” our “hope in God” requires us to “not forget the works of God” and to “keep his commandments”. We don’t go to Church to entertain or to be entertained; but, we go to Church to worshipfully hear the Word of God preached, to learn it, and to be refreshed in it. Peter exhorts us to “gird up the loins of” our “mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto” us “at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:13). And then, he instructs us to “add” several things to our “faith”, one of which is “knowledge” (II Peter 1:5). And then he explains: “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (II Peter 1:8); for, our “hope” is “in God”! Those who are “fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” are those who have “set” their “hope in God”! Great pain and misery and shame are at the door of those who “forget the works of God” and do not “keep his commandments”. So, let us sincerely go to and be a part of the Lord’s Church, read the Word of God, and transform our lives to it (Romans 12:2); “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25)!