The Preciousness of the Divine Promises

“Whereby are e;iven unto us exceeding great and precioli3 promises.” — 1 Peter i. 4.

The promises of God are the jewellery of the Bible. Every page of this sacred volume is rich and sparkling with these divine assurances of Jehovah’s love, faithfulness, and power towards His people. We can scarcely cite, as illustrating His beneficence and forethought, a more appropriate and costly evidence of God’s wisdom and goodness than this peculiar provision which He has made for the exigencies of His Church. It meets the believer at every step of his journey, confronts every circumstance of his life, and chimes with each phase of his mental and spiritual experience. Upon no spot in the wilderness can he plant his foot, strange and untrodden though that path may be, but a gem from this casket meets his eye, the sight of which inspires his heart with confidence, his spirit with comfort, his soul with hope.

Now, God, in giving us these divine assurances, proceeds with His Church upon the same principle which holds together the social fabric of Imman society, viz., promise and trust. It is promise, in some form or other, and trust in that promise, which binds man to man; and it is the confidence we repose in his word which gives credence to his statements, his discoveries, and his testimonies; and which lures and sustains us in our individual path of acquisition and research. The promise of gold allures the avaricious, the promise of glory fires the ambitious, the promise of pleasure stimulates the worldly, the promise of intellectual reward sustains and animates the student. And although these promises may prove as visionary and fitful as a dream, yet, for the moment, they impart confidence and inspire hope. Thus man’s credulity in man is the great ligament of human society, and the promise of reward the pole-star of his life. Now, our heavenly Father deals with His children precisely upon the same principle — of promise and trust;. He speaks, and challenges our belief; He promises, and asks our confidence; He utters His word, and bids us rely implicitly on His love, faithfulness, and power to make it good.

Among the preciou,s things of God, then, how inconceivably precious and indispensable are His promises! Imagine what would have been the condition of His children apart from the divine promises of which the blessed volume is so full. What must have been the desolateness, the sadness, and the sinking had we not the divine assurances of God’s Word on which to rely; and in the realisation of which we are guided in our march heavenward, are upheld in weakness, cheered in depression, and conducted step by step to final blessedness. Oh, were it possible to erase from the sacred volume all those precious promises which cluster in its pages, like golden fruit bending from the Tree of Life, what a wintry gloom would enshroud the whole of your future, both the life that now is, and the life which is to come. Eob a man of God of the “precious promises,” and you extino;uish the sun of his moral firmament, and roll back the darkness and confusion of chaos. Rob him of the promises, and you cut off every S])ring of comfort and consolation that cheers and gladdens hi? heart in this vale of suffering and tears.

Another observation we make refers to the fact, that these are not the promises of man, hut of God. They are the promises of Jehovah, the promises of an Infinite Being; the promises of a God who cannot lie — consequently He will fulfil them; and of a God of Omnipotence, — and consequently He possesses the power to make them good. We bid you keep this truth vividly before you, that the promises on which God has caused you to hope are the promises of Jehovah — consequently there is the certain pledge of their timely and complete fulfilment.

They are, moreover, comprehensive in their character, and are adapted to all the varied circumstances of individi*al history — so comprehensive and so adapted, that we cannot conceive of any condition in which you, as a child of God, may be placed, any circumstance by which you may be surrounded, any sorrow by which you may be depressed, any perils that may confront, any darkness that may overshadow you, or any wants of which you may be the subject, in which you may not find some promise of His blessed Word that meets your case. Away with the promises (as it regards my personal experience) if I tliouglit there was a sorrow feeding at the core of my heart which God’s word of promise could not console, an intricacy in my path through which it could not guide me, a bitter in the cup God causeth me to drink for which it had no sweetness. Beloved, we want you to keep this view of the precious promises of God’s Word constantly before you. They are comprehensive, and adapted to all the circumstances of your personal history, and so prove themselves to be the precious promises of Jehovah.

Yet one more observation. These promises of God are covenant promises; that is, they are the promises of the new covenant of grace. We deal too much with the old covenant, and too little with the new. Our faith is too much of a Jewish faith, and too little of a Christian. A more glorious covenant is the covenant of grace; and its promises are “better promises” — promises of more precious blessings than ever appertained to the old covenant. They are all signed and sealed with the heart’s blood of the Mediator of the covenant, and, consequently, they are the precious promises of our Covenant God. That covenant must be broken, the oath of that covenant must be violated, the God of that covenant must change, and the “blood of the everlasting covenant’’ must cease to be efficacious if one solitary promise on which your poor, trembling, and anxious soul hangs its all, should fail. They cannot fail, because they are the promises of the new covenant of grace. “VYell may they be called” exceeding great promises. “They are the promises of a great God, and of a great covenant. They are “great,” in themselves, because they promise us great blessings. They are “exceeding great,” because they are the promises of Jehovah. They rest upon four foundations, or pillars; and so long as these pillars stand, so long must stand the precious promises of God’s word. God’s holiness is one pillar upon which they stand, which will not suffer Him to deceive; God’s goodness is another which will not suffer Him to forget; God’s truth is another, which will not suffer Him to change; God’s power is the fourth, which enables Him to accomplish all that He has promised. With these few general observations, we now proceed to a more particular illustration of their preciousness and efficacy. “Exceeding great and precious” is the character given to them by the Holy Ghost, and the Holy

Ghost never uses worclG without profound significance and meaning.

They are ‘’precious promises,” because of the source ‘from whence they originate. “What are these promises? They are the unfolding of the heart of God; they are the revelation of the mind of God; they are the exponents of the will of God; they are, in a word, God Himself. If a faithful and true friend, a man of probity, integrity, and honesty, who would rather pluck out his right eye, or sever his right hand than violate his word, makes us a promise, it is but another exhibition of his own self. In that promise we read his veracity, his kindness, his love. We receive the promise, believe the promise, act upon the ]Dromise, because we know the man, and feel sure that the promise is a reflection of his character. We want no other endorsement than the probity, integrity, and friendship of the promiser. Look at the promises of God. They are exceedingly precious, because of the source whence they originate. They are the throbbings of the infinite and deathless love of God. I cannot, with a weeping eye, light upon a precious promise, but the moment I see it I behold my Father’s love exhibited and imveiled. I read God’s heart in the promise. I seem to hear the gentle, tender accents of His voice; therefore, as the revelation of my Father’s love, the promises of God become exceeding precious. Oh, how often has your heart been touched with the kind promise of a parent! You have read in that assurance the love whence it originated. Beloved, read the love of your heavenly Father in the precious promises. They are but the echoes of His heart sounding from each page of the sacred volume.

They are precious, too,/rom the channel through which they floiu. All the promises of God come to us through a channel — the same channel through which every blessing flows — but which, we fear, is too much overlooked, and in our sad forgetfulness of which we have such low thoughts of Jesus, and such dim views of God’s love. Beloved, there is but one channel through which God bestows any blessing upon us. You ask what it is. I give it you in God’s own precious words: — “There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” All your blessings flow to you through Jesus. Your providential mercies, the higher blessings of grace — your sins pardoned, your name written in the

Lamb’s Book of Life, the glories of heaven unfolding to your faith — all flow to you through the one Mediator. Jesus is the medium through which the precious promises of the word come to us. We ask you, then, if the promises are not precious 1 if they do not derive inconceivable value and sweetness from the channel through which they flow? 0 it is kind of God to send you a blessing or a rebuke through one who loves you! Dearly beloved, look at the precious promises. They all come to you through the merits, mediation, finished work, atoning sacrifice, the incessant and ever-prevalent intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consequently, they become exceedingly precious. Nay, more than this. Every promise meets and centres in Christ. ‘’ All the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus.” Not a solitary promise that buoys you above the surging billows, or that joaiiits its bright bow on the dark cloud that overshadows you, or that distils its drop of sweetness into your .nauseous draught, but that promise is in Christ, through Christ, from Christ and will be made good to you in virtue of your union with Christ. Here the case of many of God’s saints is met who say,” I dare not claim the promise; T am so sinful, so unworthy,

BO unbelieving, I have so often looked at the promise and rejected the comfort that it gives, that I dare not now appropriate it.” Dearly beloved, the ground on which you stand with regard to the promise of God, is the finished work of Jesus Christ; and these promises come to you in virtue of what Christ has done; consequently, there is not a sin-burdened, sorrow-stricken soul but may stretch forth his hand and receive these precious jewels as they flow out from the open casket of God’s word.

They are precious in themselves. Take thje promise addressed to a soul under a conviction of sin, spiritually and earnestly inquiring his way of pardon, acceptance, and salvation. The Holy Ghost has given you a deejD sense of your sinfulness. You see your heart to be vile, your nature depraved; smitten with godly grief for sin, and bowed in the dust of self-abasement, you are almost on the brink of despair. But Christ’s promise meets your case — “Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give thee rest.” “Look unto me and be ye saved ail the ends of the earth.” “Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.” The moment your eye of faith, though misted with tears, can descry tliesc promises, hope springs up in your heart. Oh, precious promise, that bids me come weary and heavy laden with sin to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive Him a& all my salvation and all my desire! Will you not say that is an “exceeding great and precious promise,” that bids the sin-weary find rest in Jesus? Or, are you oppressed by some of those varied mental and spiritual exercises that do so much cast down the child of God? How precious is the promise — “Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God.” Or, are you a child of the light walking in darkness, no starlight, no sunlight, not a solitary beam to cheer your way — all spiritual gloom around you? Listen to that precious promise — “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that walketh in darkness and hath no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himself upon his God.” What a precious promise is that? Or, are you suffering from a sense of the Divine withdrawment, tht suspended manifestations of the Lord’s love to your soul i What a precious promise is this — “Por a small moment have I for”

saken thee, but “with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer?” Or, conscious of backsliding and departure from God, having gone astray like a lost sheep, your heart smitten with godly grief, beginning to doubt the reality of your former Christian experience? Hear the touching words of the Lord — “Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I vdll not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity.” Oh, what precious promises are these to the ^^oor, heart-broken penitent! Is there nothing in these gracious assurances that meets your case? Or, are you in trouble, difficulties hemming you in on every side, all things seeming to make against you? Is there no preciousness in that promise — “Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me?” Oh, hov, many a tried and afflicted saint, buffeting th the storm, has been buoyed up and’ kept above the waves by this one solitary and precious promise of God, “Call upon me in the day of trouble!” Or, are you assailed by the fiery darts of the enemy? List to the promises addressed to the temited, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temytatious.” “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Are you in deep affliction, in sore adversity? Listen to the promise of thy God — “When thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, and through the floods they shall not overflow thee.” “All things work together for good to them that love God.” “Casting all your care upon Hiin, for He careth for you.” Are you troubled because answers to prayer are delayed; because the vision tarries and appeareth not? The promise is — “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.” Are you anticipating an evil, looking at it in the distance, and trembling at its approach? Hear the soothing word of thy Father — “Come,. my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.” Could sweeter chimes breathe upon your troubled spirit words more appropriate or more

THE DIVI¥E PROMISES. 153

soothing? Are you afraid of coming short of eternal glory — of perishing at last in sight of heaven? Listen to the promise — “He that hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” “Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.” Thus kept, how can you perish? Are friends and kindred alienated, and do you feel desolate and lonejy? — “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” — -’-’I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” is the precious promise of thy God. Do the infirmities and weaknesses of age accumulate around you? “Even to old age, I am He, and even to hoar hairs vfill I carry you. I have made and I will bear. Even I will carry and deliver you.” This is the precious promise to God’s dear aged saints. Let us learn from these words to be very tender, sympathising, and patient towards the aged. They are dear and precious to the heart of God, and it is an honour — oh, how great! — to place our arm beneath the aged one whom God carries in His loving heart. Are you afraid of temporal poverty, that the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal will fail you? Hear thy God — “Your bread and your water shall be sure.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God. and His righteousness, and all things shall be cadded to you.” Are yon in bondage through the fear of death? Cling to the precious promise — “This God is our God for ever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death.” Thus have we travelled through a few of the varied circumstances in which you may be placed, for each one of which God has provided a precious promise, on which He causeth your soul to hope.

Precious, too, are these promises in the experience of His people. You can testify to their inconceivable preciousness. What, my beloved, would you have done without them? Have they not stanched many a bleeding wound? and dried many a falling tear? Have they not calmed many a, perturbed moment? Have they not guided your feet through many a labyrinth, shed light on many a lonely path, been as oil on the broken waters of many a dark billow, and like voices of music have broken sweetly on many a dreary night of weeping and of woe? You have fled to them in times of necessity, have entwined your arms of faith around them in Vv’eakness, and having tested their soothing and support, you can put your seal to the truth, that the promises of God are “exceeding great and precious.”

Precious are they, too in the fruit they hear. Who can describe the peace and joy of the soul when faith takes hold of the Divine promises? Who will not say they are “exceeding great and precious promises,” as he beholds the precious fruits these promises bring forth in the happy experience of the saint of God? With this bare outline of the subject, let us, in conclusion, refer to one or two practical inferences.

We exhort you, beloved, to take hold of the Piomiserin the promise. The mere promise is nothing to us if we cannot descry that which underlies the promise, — and that which we are to deal with in the promise is, the Promiser Himself. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God, “because he counted Him faithful who had promised.” He would have staggered at the promise of man, because it was so marvellous; but wHen he saw the Divine Promiser in the promise, he knew that what was impossible with man was possible with God, and so he believed Him faithful that had promised. Rest in Jesus, ye wearied and burdened ones, — rest in God, ye tried and tempted ones, — rest in the Holy Ghost, ye sad and mournful ones; for all the precious promises of God, on which He has caused you to hope, are but tho unfoldings of God Himself. Deal, then, with the Proiniser in the promise, and you will find the promise to be like a rock of adamant beneath your feet.

We exhort you to store your heart ricldywith the precious promises of God. Take them on board your bark plentifully, for you have yet many a storm to weather, and you will need them to ballast your vessel in the tempestuous sea. Furnish your memories abundantly with them; let your heart deal closely with them; the time will come when the promise will be more precious to you than gold, yea, than much fine gold; and when afiliction cometh, and the dark cloud gathers, oil then, how ]3recious will you find the promises of your Covenant God to be with which you stored your mind and fed your faith!

Recollect, they are God’s gifts, and are not your purchase. “Whereby are given unto you exceeding great and precious treasures.” Come, then, to God empty-handed. Do not reason and hesitate because of your past unbelief; but as gifts of God’s free favour, welcome and trust in them.

God may sometimes write the sentence of death upon a promise, and everything in His providence may seem opposed to its fulfilment, though for jears you have clung to it. Be not, however, staggered at that. There is a life in that promise, beloved, that never can die. Take, as an illustration, the seed you have sown in the earth. You go and look at iL and find it, apparently dead and decayed — a mass of dust only; but there is a vital jirinciple there that cannot be lost, and in process of time that seed will geradnate and become a beauteous flower. So is it with the precious promise of God. Month after month, year after year has rolled by, and you see no fulfilment of the promise; but wait God’s appointed way and His ordained time, and the promise shall rise again in all its life, loveliness, and fruit. God will cease to be rather than not fulfil the word on which He has caused your soul to hope.

Walk in the holiness of the promise. Oh, those are solemn words in 2 Cor. vii. 1 — “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spi7’it, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” The crowning glory and preciousness of these promises is, that they are sanctifying, promoting that holiness of life “without which no man shall see the Lord.” Having therefore these rich clusters of precious promises bending down from the Tree of Life, whence we may pluck them at all times, in all seasons, and under all circumstances, let your life be a holy life, and let the sanctifying influence of the promises mould and govern your conduct.

In all your future path “be ye followers of them .who through faith and patience inherit the promises,” in all their fulness, blessedness, and preciousness. Follow them as they followed Christ; imitate them as they imitated God; press after them as they pressed forward and reached the ooal and won the prize, for ere long you too shall be put into their full possession — the promise of grace terminating and expanding in the full enjoyment of the promise of glory. And when the time of your departure is at hand, your work finished, your battle fought, and your victory won, and when the soles of your feet smite the chill waters of death, then shall you find the path through those waters all paved and glowiug with the exceeding great promises of your covenant God. Standing upon these precious stones, when heart and flesh are failing, and you are about to leave a wife in lonely widowhood, or children in friendless orphanage — eternity, a solemn, untried eternity, unveiling its realities to your view — with what firmness will faith plant its feet upon these Divine promises — so shall you pass peacefully, triumphantly over Jordan, and all the harpers will meet and welcome you on the other side. The Lord grant that these exceeding great promises may become increasingly precious to our hearts, and purifying to our lives, and all the praise and honour shall redound to Him who has declared, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away,” Lord, help us to receive Thy promise, and to trust in Thee the Promiser!

“How oft have sin and Satan strove

To rend my soul from Thee, my God 1
But everlasting is Thy love,

And Jesus seals it with His blood.

“The oath and promise of the Lord

Join to confirm the wondrous grace;
Eternal power performs the word,

And fills all heaven with endless praise.

“Amidst temptations sharp and long,
My soul to this dear refuge flies;
Hope is mj anchor, firm and strong,
While tempests blow and billows risa;

“The gospel bears my spirit up;
A faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation of my hope
la oaths and promises and blood.**