28. The hope. Today the hope of the Christian is centered in the new earth, where every noble ambition, now so often thwarted, will be carried out, every pure delight enjoyed without the admixture of the slightest trace of sadness. Failure will be unknown, and every success will open the way to still greater achievements. Sad partings will never come to cloud the eyes. Farewells will cease to introduce long hours of anxious waiting (see Rev. 21:4; GC 675-678), for every journey will be safe and prosperous and lead to a happy return.
The expectation. The sinner has recurrent attacks of fear (see on 24), but he persuades himself that everything will come out well in the end even if he does deliberately defy God and live in conflict with the laws of life. God’s long-suffering accounts in part for his false hope. Because his iniquity is not immediately punished, and he is given a continued probation, the transgressor strengthens himself in his evil and presumes upon the goodness of God (see Eccl. 8:11; Rom. 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).
At the very moment when the hope of the righteous is to be realized, the expectation of the wicked utterly perishes, leaving the sinner helpless and hopeless in the knowledge that it is forever too late to exchange his selfish mirage for the glorious certainties of those who were willing to surrender self.