God’s Promises

Romans 9:4i

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

The scripture that we will be dealing with in our study today is Romans 9:4: “They are the
Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
worship, and the promises.” We will be looking at the last word, “the promises”.

“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together according to the law of God in the
holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, and forsaking all
others, keeping only unto her as long as you both shall live?”

“I will”.

“Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together according to
the law of God in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honor and keep him,
and forsaking all others, keeping only unto him as long as you both shall live?”

“I will.”

“I call upon these persons here present to witness that I take thee to be my lawful wedded wife to
have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and in health, to love and to cherish till death do us part. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
Which means I give you my promise.

THE POINT AND THE POWER OF A PROMISE

On the basis of those simple words coming from the lips of an ordinary human
being, you and I commit ourselves without any reservation to another human being. The most intimate
relationship possible to us humans here on earth begins. If ever one of the partners steps back in
the slightest way from those promises “for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, for
better, for worse, to love and to cherish,” even a little — though the physical intimacy may
continue, the emotional, the spiritual intimacy is spoiled. However imperceptibly or unconsciously
one person steps back from those vows, the spiritual and emotional intimacy is spoiled. It can only
be restored after a lengthy period wherein the guilty partner can re-establish trust with the other.
Those of you who are married now and those of you who will marry better get that one straight. It is
true. However little you step back from those vows you spoil something.

Wordsworth has a line that says, “There have passed away a glory from the earth…” Every one of us
who is married knows that. We know that the norm for God’s plan in marriage is that we should be in
love all the days of our lives. I don’t think that there is one husband or wife here who does not
realize that you have only to step back from those vows the slightest bit, and there has passed away
a glory from the earth which is only restored after a lengthy period of confidence building. That is
the point and the power of a promise for us human beings. We are not just fascinated by the sequence
of promised events following a promise that is not what makes a promise so important to us — but a
kept promise declares the nature of the person who has promised. That is the point and the power of
a promise.

A promise that is kept declares to the other person that he has a nature that is consistent. We
little transient human pieces of earth need solid stable people here on earth before we will open
ourselves to anybody. We are so insecure that we need immovable fixed points that we can hang onto.
Those are the only points to which we will open ourselves without reservation. The only way we can
ever establish those fixed points is if those fixed points seem to us to be consistent and reliable
and stable. We are not fools. We will not open ourselves without reservation and without any holding
back to anybody whose nature we doubt or question. I don’t care how naive you particularly happen to
be. We are so built that we will not open ourselves without reservation to anyone whose nature and
consistency we cannot trust — and that to us is the importance of promises.

CAN I TRUST THIS PERSON TOMORROW?

That is why divorce is such a major tragedy. Do you see when you promise again “for better, for
worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” you already said
that to somebody else? That is the difficulty you are placed with after a divorce. I am not saying
that it can’t be gotten over, but it is difficult because the natural question is, “How do I know
that you really mean it this time?” If you said it before and you didn’t keep it, how do I know that
you will keep it this time? And then you are driven back, “Well, really and truly for better, for
worse, really and truly for richer and poorer.” It is a difficult one to settle. That to us is the
importance of a promise. We sense that if a person keeps a promise that they have made they will be
the same tomorrow as they are today. But if they don’t keep a promise that they have made, then
there comes a great hesitation and shakiness in our attitude towards them. The only way we can tell
about a person’s nature is by examining the track record of their promises.

That is why the sensitivity groups are so silly; all that circus routine that we used to go through
in order to be open with each other. We are not fools. We know the issue is not whether they are
prepared to be open with us but the question is what are they going to do tomorrow with the
confidences that I have shared with them? Our problem is not to open ourselves and take our clothes
off or be really sensitive or really honest today. Our problem is, “Can I trust this person
tomorrow? Have they a track record of consistency and reliability so that what they are today is
what they will be tomorrow?” The reason we don’t love each other is because it is so hard to find
people to whom you can open yourself completely without reservation and know that they are reliable
and won’t take advantage of you. That is why we have so many partial relationships. That is why we
have partial openness and partial surrender because we have only partially kept promises all through
our lives.

STILLED IN DEATH

One of the tremendous problems all of us have even with the person whose reliability we are sure of
is that there will come a time when their consistent reliable lips will be stilled in death. That
hits all of us. Even if you have had a dad that has just been like a rock or if you have had a
partner who has just been as steady and consistent as a clock, someday they will die. There will
come a day when those lips are stilled. There will come a day when those lips will not be able to
keep those promises because everybody dies. That is the central neurosis of our time. We feel that
we are made for something far beyond time and space, but we can’t find anyone whom we know who will
still be the same beyond this world of time and space.

So we are shaky about who to trust and rely upon. The Eastern religions don’t help. The Hindus

present their images of God, and the god often is somebody who is arbitrary and inconsistent and
unreliable. At times the Hindu gods fight. At times they make peace. At times they are cruel, and
at times they are kind. They are less reliable than many human beings. Islam presents a prophet,
Mohammed, who in his own life evidences all the unreliability and inconsistency of an ordinary human
being. When you look around the world it does seem to be filled with unreliability, inconsistency,
and broken promises.

Lance, who is our budget director and is responsible for the whole financial planning of the nation,
we just discovered, can’t even keep his check book balanced. It makes you wonder if there is anybody
that you can depend upon anywhere. Isn’t that what makes us often so insecure in our own
relationships? Because we see not only in our own lives but in others a long steady trail of broken
promises. To us that says something about the nature of the person who has promised. Repeatedly, we
feel that there is no one who you can trust, and there is nothing reliable in this world.

Let me tell you something that will happen tomorrow without any doubt. Are you ready? The sun will
rise. I will tell you another thing: there will be a spring in 1978. I will give you one more
prophecy. There will be a harvest in 1979. You see the point. We are surrounded by inconsistency and
unreliability in our world yet there is a set of natural events that are absolutely certain. I
wonder how many of us would be in psyche wards if there weren’t those certain fixed events? I wonder
how many of us could live sane balanced lives if there weren’t these certain set events that happen
day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year? These events testify to the
being of some mind in the universe that is reliable, some mind that keeps on keeping on whatever
happens. There is some mind that keeps on exercising authority over these events of spring and
harvest, summer, winter, day and night no matter what anybody else does.

That is the kind of person our dear Creator revealed himself to be to these Israelites. He revealed
himself to be a person who is absolutely reliable, who is the same today as he was yesterday and who
will be the same tomorrow as he is today. In fact, he actually promised those things. It is in
Genesis 8:22: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day
and night shall not cease.” Our Creator promised that to Noah. That promise has been kept, some
people say, for 4,000 years while some scientists say for millions of years. Now that is a good
track record. It is a promise that has been kept without fail for thousands of years.

We call that promise by a different name in our financial world. They ask, how is your credit? It
really means what is your record of promises that you have made to repay loans and your repayments
of those loans. It is interesting that your credit is always better if you have made some of those
promises. If you have paid cash for everything your credit is no good at all. What they want to
examine is your track record. Our whole financial world system is based on trust. It is based on the
reliability of a person to make a promise and keep it.
Our Creator has kept that promise for thousands or perhaps millions of years. Now, that is what God
is like — and not just in those big things — but in the little things also. I think a lot of us
sit here and say, “Ah well, yeah, that is just some big arrangement he has made about the whole
universe. He looks after those things but what about a person like me?” He has kept the same
faithfulness and reliability about his promises with individual details of people’s lives.

Look at this one in Genesis 17:15: “And God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not
call her name Sarai but Sarah shall be her name. For I will bless her and moreover, I will give you
a son by her. I will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples shall come
from her.’ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to

a man who is a hundred years old? Sarai who is 90 years old bear a child?'” Then God apparently made
an impossible promise in chapter 21:1: “The Lord visited Sarah as he said and the Lord did to Sarah
as he had promised. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God
had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of the son who was born to him, Isaac.”

Another promise is in Luke 10:19: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and
scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you.” Then Luke writes in Acts
28:1-6: “After we had escaped, we then learned that the island was called Malta. And the natives
showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to
rain and was cold. Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, when a viper came
out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. When the natives saw the creature hanging from his
hand, they said to one another, ‘No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the
sea, justice has not allowed him to live.’ He, however shook off the creature into the fire and
suffered no harm. They waited, expecting him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead; but when they
had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he
was a god.” God kept his promise that you would be able to tread on serpents and they wouldn’t hurt
you.

THE BIBLE IS A BOOK OF PROMISES

The Bible is a book of promises. The Bible is a history book, and believe me, you can check it
yourself. It is so chock-full of promises that just by going through the promises and finding that
they were not fulfilled you could disprove the reliability of the book. There are promises on every
page and you can check up on them because it is a history book whether the promises were fulfilled
or not. It is full of promises that God kept, and you know that I know that attitude that you would
take in your scepticism: “Yes, how do you know that the promises were kept? Who knows, maybe Paul
had a friend write that up who was with him when that happened.” There are promises in the Bible
that the whole world can see. There are promises that concern such national and international events
that all you have to do to see if they were kept is to check up on the contemporary histories of the
other nations that were involved. In other words, the promises were not done in a corner. They are
so obvious that you can check the Egyptian and Assyrian histories and find out that they were
fulfilled.

Here is one of them in Genesis 15:18: “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To
your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river
Euphrates…'” Now that land you can check on because those rivers still exist. That was 2000 B.C.
Then in 1000 B.C., I Kings 4:20 (it is a thousand years after the promise was made): “Judah and
Israel were as many as the sand by the sea; they ate and drank and were happy. Solomon ruled over
all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt; they
brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.”

God made promises that you can check on. That is why the Bible itself says that God is a God who
does not change. Look at this verse in James 1:17: “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is
from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to
change.” That is what the One is like who made you. There is no change in God. This morning you are
facing a God who has proved to be absolutely reliable. Do you see that you have no excuse today for
saying, “Well, I’m not sure of him. I’m not sure whether I can give myself without reservation to
him. I don’t know what he’s like, and I don’t know if I can trust him.” The Bible has so many
promises that he has fulfilled that you dare not question his reliability unless you have cast

yourself into absolute skepticism about everything.

TRUST HIM AND HE WILL ACT

Today you are facing a dear Creator who is absolutely reliable, whose consistency you cannot doubt.
Let me share with you a promise he makes to you. “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he
will act.” That is a promise that he makes to you in Psalm 37:5. If you are sitting there with a
financial mess on your hands, that is what God is saying to you this morning. If you are sitting
there with a domestic mess on your hands, that is what God is saying. Commit your financial or
domestic way to me, trust me and I will act. If you are sitting there burdened with some
relationship at work that you cannot make right, God is saying, “Commit your way to me. Trust me
and I will act.” Now do you see that if you don’t do it, you are simply rejecting God? Committing
your way does not just mean, “Okay, Lord, you help me out of this problem.” Committing your way
means, “Lord, here are my finances. I commit my whole financial way into your hands. Lord, you think
that I should sell the car? I’ll sell the car. Lord, do you think that I should give more money to
you? I’ll give more money to you. Lord, do you think that I should give up this job? I’ll give up
this job.” It means committing the control of it. A lot of us have the feeling that it means
shipping all of our problems over to him but then continuing to run our own lives the way we want.
No. He is saying, “I make you a promise. If you commit your ways to me — your financial ways,
career ways, your professional ways, your domestic ways, your vacation ways, your personality ways,
your marriage plans — if you commit all your ways to me, and trust me with them, and stop worrying
about them, and being anxious about them, then I will act.”

Trusting means leaving them there and to stop worrying about them. You can’t worry and trust. Worry
means that you are only trusting yourself. But God is saying, “Commit your way to me. Trust me and
I will act. If you have any doubt, all right, check up on me. You can check my record over thousands
and millions of years. See if I will keep my promises. All you have to do to inherit the promises as
the Jews did is to have faith and patience. You may have to be patient with me, but if you are
patient with me and if you walk in faith, then I will fulfil that promise. You need not have any
doubt about it. You commit your way to me, trust me and I will act. I will take care of the acting.”

I will tell you what I’m afraid of. I am afraid that some of you are getting accustomed to an
academic study of God. I want you to see clearly that I have presented evidence to you that God will
not let you down. That in order to let you down, he would have to destroy the whole image and
revelation of himself that he has built up over thousands of years with millions of people. God will
not do that. God will not let you down. I have to charge you with a deliberate sin if you will not
commit your way to the Lord because you have no excuse for arguing that he isn’t reliable. If you
are going to hang onto that financial mess and keep worrying about it, or if you are going to hang
onto things in your life — trying to work it out by yourself — I have to charge you with downright
rejection of God. You are declaring to him, “I do not care whether you are the God of the universe.
I am going to run my life even if I make a mess of it; I am going to run it.” I have to charge you
with that if you do not act today and commit your way to the Lord. Don’t you see the logic of it?
There is no hole in the logic of it.

Will you take action today? If there is anything in your life that is a shadow or cloud — or if
there is anything that you are not sure whether it is right or not — you can get rid of that now.
Commit it to the Lord, trust him, and he will act. I know that you have all sorts of reasons why you
are doing it, but trust him to sort the thing out and he will satisfy you. Commit it to him. If you
have some anxiety or problem, commit the whole thing and the control of that area of your life and

abide by whatever he says. Those of you who walk out of here today without committing your way to
the Lord, do you see that you are simply crucifying Christ again if you don’t because you see what
your God is like, and you are simply rejecting him and putting him to death again. Face it now and
make your decision. Let us pray.

Dear God, I want to commit my way to you. Lord, I pray now for my brothers and sisters who have
heard this for the first time and may be shocked by it all. Lord, I pray that you will enable them
to forget what they feel like and face the fact that you have never been found to lie. You have
never broken a promise. You are making a clear, simple promise to us today: “Commit your way to the
Lord; trust him and he will act.” Lord, I pray now that you will enable them to see that we either
reject you or accept you as God of our ways. Lord, I pray for each one who is bowed before you that
they might commit their ways to you and stop worrying this very moment — that they may stop
fretting and wanting their way in these situations — that they might be willing to have it succeed
or fail or go any way — that they may commit their way to you and trust you. Lord, we see from your
record that you will unquestionably act and not fail us. Lord, we would thank you for that. Father,
we commit these ways that you have shown us, that we have been trying to operate ourselves, into
your hands and your control. Thank You for taking them. Thank You for taking mine. Thank you, Lord,
that we intend to trust you now and walk with an unwrinkled brow and clear eyes, free from worry and
fret and anxiety, free from wanting our own way so that we can enjoy your world. Amen.