October 04, 2023
God is a promise-keeping God. It is the way He operates. Over 7,000 times in the Scriptures, God gives man promises. Some are unconditional (“I will do this”), and some are conditional (“I will do this IF you do this”). But all are ironclad promises from the One-Who-Does-Not-Lie.
FAITH
Our task is to hear and believe. We can choose to ignore God’s promises and live on our own, of course. But the results are disastrous. We can hear His promises and choose not to believe Him, and the results are the same. Faith is the operating principle with God. And His promises are given to get us back into the correct posture with the One who made us. We were made to live on God.
A DYING MAN’S UNDERSTANDING
Jacob, later named Israel, comes to Egypt with 70 people in a stroke of Divine providence, led there by his son, Joseph, who he assumed was forever gone. But God was setting things up to save the world and bless Jacob in the process, true to His promise. At the close of his life, he recounts what God has done.
When it was told to Jacob, “Behold, your son Joseph has come to you,” Israel collected his strength and sat up in the bed. Then Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me, and He said to me, ‘Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.’” (Genesis 48:2-4)
Jacob’s devious character did not thwart God's promise to his father and grandfather. Nor did his sons' murderous attack on Jacob’s son, Joseph. A famine that threatened the extinction of his whole tribe could not stop God. To the contrary, all of these factors played into a Divine symphony of Sovereign grace.
Jacob saw his family of 70 delivered into the best of the land in Egypt and prosper there. This straggling band of Israelites would grow into millions by God’s blessing in the ensuing years. They would languish in Egypt under a different ruler and somehow be delivered back into the Promised Land in Canaan. Jacob could not have seen that his seed would be persecuted and scattered around the world in the future. But then, by God’s faithfulness, be brought back to the land named after him (Israel) in 1948, and once again, thrive. Ten million Israelites now inhabit the land.
Why? Because God made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that this land would be an “everlasting possession.” And God keeps His promises.
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