The Promises

We have for our subject to-day, w The Promises.” i am not going to talk much, but I want to have the friends all to be ready to give a promise. I remember a few years ago, in our church in Chicago, we wanted a little more life in the prayer meetings, and we just gave out, instead of having prayer meeting the next Friday night, that we would have a promise meeting, and wanted everyone in the house to bring a promise. We were so afraid the whole Bible would not be read through that we gave each man a book to read, and we got the sixty - six books read through in one week. One man found a promise in Job. I didn’t know there were any promises in Job. We had promises from all parts of ths

Bible. I think if the people would just feed more on the promises of God that we would not have so many gloomy Christians. That is what the promises are for — to help us in this wilderness journey. I don’t believe there is a man can get into any position in this world — trouble, darkness, gloom, despondency — but God has some promise that will help him out if he will only hunt it up. But we have to hunt for it.

A man said to me, “What promise do you think the most of in the Bible?” “Well, I could not tell. I have three children, and I could not tell which I like the best, but, I suppose, if I had ten it would be the same thing.” The promises of God are all good.

But, we want the promises rightly divided. Satan has some promises, and there are a great many people can’t tell the difference. They are living on the Devil’s promises and wondering why they don’t grow — why they don’t get spiritual power. When Satan makes a promise he may fulfill it and he may not. He don’t care whether he does or not. Then he has not the power to make all his promises good.

Then there are promises that are made by manu They are, perhaps, good, and perhaps not But when God makes promises they are good — God’s promises are all good.

I remember, a few years ago, I went to work for a man in Chicago — it was quite a number of years ago. But time goes so fast in the Lord’s service, it don’t seem to be but a few days — my employer said, “I am going to send you out into the country collecting.” The day before I started, he went to the safe and took out a large number of bills and notes, and spread them out on the table, and there he was at work. He would take his pencil and mark on the margin of the bills and notes, and I didn’t understand what it meant I was to start off on the ten o’clock train, at night. Before I started he said to me, “I want you to sit down and I will explain to you about these notes.” Said he, “When you come to a note and find” D “written on it, that is doubtful. Get all the collateral you can on that note. When you come across a note with” B “written on it, that means bad. That, settle up if you can. Then there is another class of notes you will find” G” marked on That means good. No discount on them. They are worth one hundred cents on the dollar. It was the same promise. The notes all read the same. Four or six months after date, “I promise to pay.” All the difference was in the one that signed it. So when you come to these promises of the Bible, you want to find out whose they are, If it is some promise man has made, it may not be worth that (snapping his finger.) If it is a promise of the devil, I would not give that for it He is an old liar and has been from the foundation of the world. But when God makes a promise, you ca.n write down g-o-o-d on that promise every time. I think the people of the church are really dividing them into three classes. A great many people take some of God’s promises and mark them “B,” bad, and think God is not going to keep them. Then some they mark M D,” doubtful. And then there are a few they have seen fulfilled, and when they can’t get around it, they mark them “G,” good. When we come to one of God’s promises, let us put down “good.” There is no discount on any promise God ever made. Then we must bear in mind who the promise is made to. If the promise is jnade to pay this country one hundred million lollars, it would not help me pay my private debts. The nation might be worth one hundred million dollars more and I not be worth a cent The promise of a nation is one thing.

We want to get a little closer to some promises that arc to us. There are some promises that are to the church. They are very good. Then there are promises to individuals. Those are the promises we want to hunt up. Then there are promises made to Abraham; some to Adam; some to Noah; some to Moses; some to Elias, and to Gideon. Now I could not take a promise that was made to Gideon. If I should take three hundred men to meet the great army of the Midianites, I would get most outrageously beaten and driven back, because that promise was not made to me, but to Gideon. When we study these prophecies, we want to find out that they are for “me.” I know there are some for me, and I can lay hold of them from the fact that they are mine.

Now, I am going to give you one or two promises I think a good deal of, and then I will throw the meeting open for others to give promises. John, First Epistle, second chapter, twenty-fifth verse: “And this is the promise that he hath promised us even eternal life.” That means me. That promise was for me. God offers it to me, the promise was eternal life. Life without end. That is something I can appropriate. I can lay hold of that. Then turn to the forty-second chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, sixth verse, you will find another promise: “I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness and will hold thine hand and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles.”

We read in the tenth chapter of John and twenty-eight verse, “And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand.” No one “shall pluck them out of my hand,” neither devil nor man. Some one has said we might slip through His fingers. But we can’t slip through his fingers because we are a part of His body. He has not only promised me eternal life, but he has promised to keep me. The keeper of Israel never sleeps. He will keep all them that put their trust in Him.

In the forty-first chapter of Isaiah, tenth verse, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: Be not dismayed; for I am thy God; and will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Thirteenth verse,” For I, the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, fear not; I will help thee.

In the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews, last part of the fifth verse, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”

Then I turn over into the twenty-third chapter of Joshua. We find there that Joshua was old and weary, and going to rest. If you want to get the real testimony of a man you don’t want to take it in the middle of his life. Joshua was one hundred and ten years old when he gave this testimony. He had tried God in the brick kilns of Egypt making brick without straw. Talk about the hardships we have to go through. We don’t know anything about it. You want to go back six thousand years and see what those men endured. He found God’s word was true. This is his testimony: “This day I am going the way of all the earth; and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you.” Oh, let us drive these devil’s lies back into the pit whence they came. God will fulfill all his promises. There is a man that tried him one hundred and ten years and found him true.

I knew an old lady that marked in the margin opposite the promises T. P., T. for tried and P. for proven. What we want is to try the Bible and see if it is not true.