I’d like to tell you the story of hope about a brave Christian who lived 500 years ago, his name was William Tyndale. Tyndale was born in England in 1494 and went to school at Oxford and Cambridge. He was a brilliant student who learned to speak seven languages. He was proficient in biblical Hebrew and Greek. As Tyndale read the New Testament in Greek, he became convinced that a person was saved by faith alone and not by works.
God spoke to Tyndale and gave him the calling to translate the New Testament into English so that everyone could read it for themselves. All of the church authorities in England or Europe warned Tyndale against doing the translation, but he persisted. Finally, he completed the first English translation of the Greek New Testament in 1525. The church authorities did everything they could to stop the distribution of the English New Testament. They did not want ordinary people to be able to read the Bible for themselves.
Tyndale was not deterred and began to translate the Old Testament into English. Tyndale was tracked down in his hiding place in the Netherlands and was arrested. He was accused of heresy and put on trial. Tyndale refused to recant his faith or to repent of translating the Bible into English. Tyndale was found guilty of heresy and was hanged and burned at the stake in 1535. William Tyndale was an example of someone staying true to God’s calling in the face of severe opposition. The New Testament that we read today are largely based on Tyndale’s excellent translation.
My message today is entitled “Find Hope in Difficult Times.” The difficult times in Tyndale’s life do not deter him from fulfilling God’s purpose in his life. So too we need to find hope when we face difficult times in our lives as well.
Philippians 1:27b-28a (ESV) …[I trust] that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.
When we face opposition in life, we must not be frightened, but we must stand firm. We are striving or another translation says fighting for the gospel.
Philippians 1:29 (ESV) For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
I believe that this verse is true for every believer. We are given the grace to both believe in Jesus, but also to suffer for Him. Today in America, we are not facing being burned at the stake. Yet, we do face opposition of many kinds to our faith in Jesus.
Behind the difficult times that we face in our lives is our enemy Satan. He works in other people’s lives to negatively influence us away from God. Satan can also work through circumstances to cause difficulty and problems in our lives. His goal is to weaken or destroy our faith in God. He desires for us to get discouraged and to lose hope.
Today, God wants to give you hope, no matter what difficulty you are in or may encounter in the future. We are going to continue learning from the life of the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah encountered great opposition in carrying out God’s calling on his life. So, let’s see how we can find hope when we are …