Editorial – promises, promises

A promise is only as good as its keeper. Do you believe that… about GOD?

I knew it! I just knew it!  I was so confident as I put my cross on the ballot paper that my trust would be vindicated. Their manifesto had been so clear, so convincing, so reassuring. And do you know what? They have delivered on every one of their promises – and now we can all live happily ever after… Don’t you just love a good political fairy story?

Contrast the words of a leader whose trust was fully vindicated: “And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed.” (Joshua 23:14)

In a world of fragile promises, there is One who never lies, never fails – but do we Christians have any higher regard for the promises of God than we do for aparty manifesto? Let’s investigate…

Actually, our concern here is not with flawed secular society, but with the flawed Church and believers’ relationship with God who does not lie or change His mind. (Numbers 23:19)

If someone makes us a promise and we fail to act upon it (hold that thought – we will return to it), at best we have a low estimate of their word and therefore a low expectation of their reliability. At worst, we think them a liar and instinctively withhold our trust. 

Or perhaps we have an issue with the timescale. We trusted their character and expected fulfilment, but much time has passed and expectation has given way to disappointment – perhaps even bitterness? Perhaps the problem lies not with the Guarantor, but with the intended beneficiary .A disposition to cynicism and suspicion may develop from repeated hurts at the hands of fellow mortals, but if applied to divine promises, it’s a theological statement about His character. It’s also a (negative) statement of faith. If the ‘righteous live by faith’ (Habakkuk 2:4),can they expect to inherit God’s promises through unbelief? 

Do we even know…?

Of course, in this age of low Bible literacy, another question pushes to the front… Do we even know God’s promises? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6)- as true today as it was 700 years before Christ when Hosealamented the waywardness of God’s people.

In this edition, we have deliberately repeated a section of Chuckand Karen Cohen’s Israel updatefrom last time. (Honestly, it began as a slip-up, but we met with God’s purpose in the accident and decided that it wasn’t – see pages 8-10). It clearly needs repeating, because the message is not getting through to many Christians – and it concerns one of God’s promises; the only one to which He, by His own words, committed His whole heart and soul (Jeremiah 32:40-41). Countless numbers of Bible-loving believers have so spiritualised God’s promises to Israel’s patriarchs that, if much of the Church is to be believed, Abraham’s modern descendants need to find ways of grazing their flocks on theological hot air instead of actual soil with actual grass within actual (Godgiven) boundaries.

So often I hear Bible-believers say: “I just can’t get my head around the Middle East. It’s so confusing and difficult to understand the issues”. Well no, brothers and sisters. With the deepest respect, it’s not difficult to understand unless your New Testament has gotten disconnected from your Old Testament (see Romans 15:8). It’s not difficult unless you think the Jewish nation exists because of political injustice rather than as evidence that God is faithful to promises He made even to unfaithful people and their descendants. (As also in the case of the Church!) It’s not difficult to understand unless you get your ‘news’ from the BBC, Al Jazeera, the average British tabloid or social media.

If you believe Israel practises ‘apartheid’, South African style, then you don’t know that Arabs sit on Israel’s Supreme Court, and as Members of Israel’s Parliament, or that Jews and Arabs use the same buses, same parks, same hospitals, get treated by the same doctors, study at the same universities and fight in the same army to defend Israel. If you think it’s all just a bloody civil war between Arabs and Jews and you don’t see that the prime mover in challenging Israel’s boundaries, in shaping (our) media coverage, in influencing (our) foreign policy – and even our theology – is Islam… then, of course, you will find it all rather confusing. If you think God’s promises to the patriarchs have been transferred to the Church it will always be confusing… Or do we imagine that a God who would arbitrarily remove His faithfulness from Abraham’s family can be trusted by the Church?

Believing the worst…

Perhaps you don’t realise that you were born anti-Semitic (as were we all) By nature we are sinful, not righteous, at enmity with God and therefore instinctively opposed to His will and purpose. You may not realise that, even as a Christian, there may be a latent distaste in you towards all things Jewish and an unrecognised predisposition to believe the blackest media coverage of Israel – of which there is no shortage…

Very few (not least the Jews themselves) can separate the title ‘chosen people’ from wrong ideas of arbitrary divine favouritism. But the Bible is clear that the Jews were separated from the nations for the nations; to reveal the unmerited favour and righteousness of the Creator to the entire human race as good an explanation as any for their continued existence despite relentless historical attempts at their extermination.  They were not chosen because they were Jews, they became Jews because they were chosen. Bless your sanctification with a good read of Romans 9, 10 and 11 and see how these critical chapters about the Church and the Jews form a bridge between Paul’s brilliant exposition of God’s grace in salvation and the practical outworking of our salvation in holy living.

Best to get your Mid-East news from the God-fearing rather than the God-daring! Start with Chuck and Karen’s quarterly Watchmen from Jerusalem 1 – it’s extensive citations alone are sufficient to support your confidence that the news is coming to you ‘as is’. Priceless for Biblical insight on the news and targeted prayer.

Let’s not dismiss Israel as a side-issue for the Church. It’s not a side issue that God keeps His promises – over 4000 years! Yes, I know, it’s not the centre because that place belongs to Jesus, not Israel. That said, the mission field becomes more like a battlefield every day – and the effectiveness of our testimony will stand or fall on our confidence in the Word of God. Countless believers before us have tested – and proved – the reliability of God’s Word. It says what He means – and He means what it says.

Which is why we Christians and Messianic believers need to revisit the assurances and promises that God breathed into the scriptures for our profit (2 Timothy 3:16). Are we familiar with His promises, do we trust them so as to act upon them? In our struggle against sin, do His promises make the difference between defeat and victory? Let’s consider a few…

Peter urged the first Christians to “make every effort to supplement your faith…” (“furnish your faith with resolution” Moffatt) and set out a lifestyle marked by “virtue… knowledge… self-control… brotherly affection and love”. These godly imprints on the disciple, says the apostle, will make the difference between a merely academic glimpse of Christ and the intimate fellowship with Him that produces a fruitful GODhonouring lifestyle. The alternative to this ‘furnished’disciple is a spiritual amnesiac who has forgotten God’s extravagant forgiveness and consequently lacks assurance about their standing with God. The result is disabled witness, uncertainty in prayer, lack of trust in God’s Word and promises…. (see 2 Peter 1:3-10) 

‘Everything’ means… Everything!

But this is no mere pre-match hype from Peter, no dressing room pep-talk that essentially leaves the outcome to your own sweat. In Christian discipleship, perspiration is always met with inspiration. The spiritual resources we already possess from God are more than equal to every demand upon us. Peter’s exhortation was prefaced with this staggering assurance: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness [“everything we need for living a godly life” – NLT], through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence”. (2 Peter 1:3)

‘Everything we need…’. King David agreed: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing”. Paulsaid as much to the unruly Corinthians: “…you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:7-8). Centuries before the giving of the Holy Spirit, Mosessaid to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that
the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Exodus 20:20) Paul, echoing Moses: “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6) Can there be any doubt that Our Holy God is committed to our perseverance and perfection in Christ? Now we return to our question. Are these Bible assurances and promises any use to us? Do we believe God’s Word – really believe it, right now, in the midst of any and all discouragements?

A plaque above my desk declares: “We live by promises, not explanations”.It’s not there because I instinctively ‘trust and obey’but because I instinctively don’t. Have we prayed for strength to overcome our worst traits, without ever seeing the victory?

Is that a signal to give up on the promise that “I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13)?

Is it no longer true that “with God all things are possible”? (Matthew 19:26) Do God’s promises cease to be true at the first hurdle or the fifth of the fiftieth?

Or are we like the ‘tough who get going when the going gets tough’? GK Chestertonsaid: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

What then? Shall we follow Jesus with renewed confidence in His promises and will we therefore also dare to believe that His promises to Abraham and the Jewish people still hold good?

1 www.ifi.org.il/category/wfj/