One old hymn I used to sing when I was a Southern Baptist said I was "standing on the promises of God." We were always told those promises were rock solid, always dependable. Our preachers assured us that not one of God's promises had ever failed. Have you ever heard this claim? In the book of Numbers, we see this:
|
23:19 - God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? |
I intend to look in the Bible, which Christians say is "holy" and "the Word of God," to see exactly what God's promises are, and how they hold up in the real world.
From Leviticus, chapter 26, we have this:
|
If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land. And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you. You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new. I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you, and I will be your God and you shall be my people. |
This is a part of God's contract with the people of Israel. Note that God's promise here is conditional - "if you do what I want, I'll do this for you." Also note that this promise is conditioned on actions only - following the laws given to Moses.
God also gave several warnings against certain things that displeased him:
|
Deu 8:19,20 - If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. |
God's promise: "If this happens, the nation of Israel will be destroyed." The problem is that the Bible says Israel did stray away from the original religion, yet the Jewish people were not destroyed. It looks like this promise didn't carry the weight we are told it should.
|
Deu 11:16,17 - Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshipping them, for the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you. |
The promised result of turning away from God is drought, starvation, and perishing "quickly." This promise was not carried out, in spite of plenty of opportunities.
What about promises Jesus made? Christians in particular have a good impression of the reliability of the promises Jesus made. After all, the man is the central figure of their whole religion. If you can't trust Jesus, you need to look for another religion. Or none, if you prefer! {;-)
So what were some of Jesus' promises? In Matt 20:21,22, we have:
|
Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to this fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will be done. Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, it will be done. |
There's that truly big word, "if" again! It looks like a blank check from Jesus, to get whatever you want. However, if you don't have faith, you get nothing. Is this truly a promise, or a loophole big enough for an oil tanker to sail through? Ask yourself this - how do Christian preachers deal with this passage? They say God answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is "no." Sometimes, it's "wait." That concept is not mentioned by Jesus, so far as I have found yet.
Here's another promise from Jesus:Mat 18:19
|
Again I say to you, that if two of you shall agree on earth regarding anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my father who is in heaven. |
Have any Christians asked God for favors in pairs? Did they completely agree as to what they were asking for? How's the track record there? There's only this condition put on this promise, that two believers need to agree on what they ask, and God will do it for them. I'm pretty sure this is not seen in reality, and the only way out is to either accept that this promise is false, or to accuse all Christians who have not gotten what they ask for of not being "true Christians." Either way, there are problems.
There are many more examples of this sort of thing, many of them are cataloged in my "Bible Commentary Project," if you're interested in seeing such things. However, these are only conditional statements. They contain loopholes, often huge and troubling.
The Bible is full of many outright, unconditional promises from God. Many, like the prophecies, are too vague to be worth getting too upset over, and they have their own special problems, such as timing (especially in the book of Daniel). But let's look at a few absolute promises found in the Bible, things that are supposed to be from God, with no conditions, loopholes or wiggle room.
I have often heard that the Bible does not promise believers that life will be easy when they are saved. However, the Bible does say, in Ps 91:9,10 -
|
Because you have made the LORD your refuge, the Most High your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. |
And in Ps 121:5-8, we have:
|
The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time and forevermore. |
One last verse from the Old Testament is Prov 12:21 -
|
No harm happens to the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble. |
All these statements from the Old Testament show that God intends for his true believers to have an easy, trouble-free life, and it states that God will keep them from all bad things. But let's turn to Jesus, and see what sorts of things he promised his followers. After all, the New Testament is more up to date, suppopsedly giving a better picture of the things God really intends for his believers to hear.
So - did Jesus promise Christians a rose garden? Not exactly that - however, he is reported to have said, in Luke 10:19
|
Behold, I give to you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall hurt you in any way. |
Jesus also made this remarkable promise in Mark 16:17-18
|
And these signs shall accompany those who believe: in my name they shall cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues. They shall pick up serpents. And if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover. |
These are pretty remarkable promises, and they should be quite easy to verify. If you think you can stand on all the promises found in the Bible, think long and hard about them. Don't just accept what a preacher tells you - do some looking. Read the promises found in the Bible, and ask yourself if they are being fulfilled. Do you get everything you ask for? Did God ever completely and quickly destroy any people? Have you ever been able to drink a deadly poison and not be hurt? Be honest with yourself, and if you don't like the answers you get, maybe you should think about standing on something other than the promises of a book of ancient myths. Maybe you should consider standing on your own, in a mature, rational manner, as nearly all humans are capable of doing.
