Thursday, June 21, 2012

The 7 Promises Of God to Man

We are all accustomed to promises. We are also accustomed to seeing them made and broken. Anyone who has lived for a number of years would certainly never lay claim to having kept every promise made. There are many reasons why this is true. Sometimes we forget, sometimes we are negligent, and sometimes it may be due to circumstances beyond our control.


A brokenhearted young lady will often say, "But he promised to marry me". And the answer comes back: "Yes, but I changed my mind". People do change their mind, and they do break their promises.


What about the promises of God? How certain are they? The Apostle Paul, in writing about the promises of God to Abraham, addressed the church at Rome with these words: "For the promise that he should be heir of the world, was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith . . . therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed" (Romans 4:13, 16). God's promise to Abraham was first spelled out in Genesis Chapter 12. It was repeated in Chapter 22. Verse 18 reads: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice".


Now a promise is of no more value than is the ability of the one who makes it to carry through. It also includes willingness to do so. God did carry through with Abraham. Paul points out in Galatians 3:16, that it was through Christ God intended to fulfill the promise to Abraham. Also in Acts 13:32-33, the Apostle says: "And we declare unto you glad tidings how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again."




The contour of Jesus' life, while living on earth, was shaped by his trust in the power of the promises of God. When Jesus said: "I am that bread of life", John 6:48, "I am the light of the world", John 8:12, "I am the resurrection and the life." John 11:25, He did so fully realizing that He had been empowered with this right by the Father who had promised to raise Him from the grave. There were more than 500 brethren at one time who bore witness to the fulfillment of this promise according to I Corinthians 15:1-6.

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