Does God ever not keep His promises?

[Dr. Shane]

As has been said: hedged around with so many preconditions that it is impossible to ever say that the promise has not been kept.

What would be the motive for wanting to say a promise has not been kept? What kind of person would even look for a way that they could say that? I mean, really... we are talking about God. What kind of person wants to be able to claim that God doesn't keep His promises? I understand that in the Great Controversy God is on trial. Let's remember who His accuser is.

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

As has been said: hedged around with so many preconditions that it is impossible to ever say that the promise has not been kept.

What would be the motive for wanting to say a promise has not been kept? What kind of person would even look for a way that they could say that? I mean, really... we are talking about God. What kind of person wants to be able to claim that God doesn't keep His promises? I understand that in the Great Controversy God is on trial. Let's remember who His accuser is.

I know you are directing this at Bravus. But let me be clear that I don't believe that God doesn't keep His promises. That is however ... because His promises have so many conditions ... that it is impossible to claim them.

[Dr. Shane]

I think of God's promises as spiritual laws. They are the consequences of certain actions but there are exceptions. We are promised that if we obey our physical needs will be provided for. In general, that is true. A faithful Christian normally doesn't have a hard time keeping a job and earning a living. However there are times of famine or persecution when we know faithful Christians have died from hunger.

As Adventists, we don't believe in the prosperity gospel. That is, obey God and give the church your money and you will prosper. Such a gospel attracts selfish people and promotes selfish motives. That is not Adventism. Adventism is much more like the faith of the three Hebrew worthies that told the king they would not bow down to him even if their God would not save them from the fiery furnace. In fact, John the Baptist is a symbol of the Adventist movement. John prepared the way for Christs first appearance while we prepare the way for Christ's second appearance. Shall we expect God to provide for us greater than He did for the Baptist?

[Dr. Shane]

I know you are directing this at Bravus.

Not at all. Bravus simply echos what many others are thinking. I am not directing any comment specifically at him.

[LifeHiscost]

"God's promises are conditional." {PCP 25.5}

In light of this Word;

"“....without Me you can do nothing."

John 15:5 NKJV

___it is obvious I can accomplish nothing. Therefor since I am commanded to keep the Seventh Day Sabbath, the only condition for obedience is submission to the indwelling Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Then this Word below begins to be accomplished in my life.

"For with God nothing is ever impossible and no word from God shall be without power or impossible of fulfillment."Luke 1:37 AMP

And subsequently, with submission, this promise is totally fulfilled.

"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..."Philippians 1:6 NKJV

Sometimes when my emotions tell me the work He is accomplishing is very slow, I ask Him this;

"...help me overcome my unbelief!”"

Mark 9:24 NLT

He then tells me;

"Because...you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."Romans 10:9 AMP parenthesis their's LHC

Maybe later the way may be more difficult. But each time I've come to a rough place;

" he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."Hebrews 13:5 KJV

Mission accomplished. Praise the Lord!

God blesses!

[Overaged]

I think of God's promises as spiritual laws. They are the consequences of certain actions but there are exceptions.

How would the following scripture fit into this portion of your post Shane?

2Pe 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

2Pe 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:

2Pe 1:4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

[Woody]

Quote:

"All the promises of God are on condition of obedience to Him." {LYL 83.1}

Shall we define the word 'ALL' ?

[Overaged]

Quote:

All the promises of God are on condition of obedience to Him. {LYL 83.1}

Shall we define the word 'ALL' ?

Show us how Woody! Show us how!! LOL

[Woody]

Well you do enjoy being blind don't you?

[Overaged]

Well you do enjoy being blind don't you?

The "blind" leading the blind!

[Woody]

Okay. You got me on that one. Guilty on that count.

[Sonny]

Quote:

"All the promises of God are on condition of obedience to Him." {LYL 83.1}

Shall we define the word 'ALL' ?

Unless we are living Christ's life - a life where He "thought not, planned not, lived not, for himself" the promises of God will never be answered.

Why does God make it so impossible? To break us of our spiritual pride. He never gave the law as a means to an end. The law was given to show how rotten - how selfish we really are.

[Bravus]

What would be the motive for wanting to say a promise has not been kept? What kind of person would even look for a way that they could say that? I mean, really... we are talking about God. What kind of person wants to be able to claim that God doesn't keep His promises? I understand that in the Great Controversy God is on trial. Let's remember who His accuser is.

The kind of person who earnestly and authentically believed, obeyed, sought God's face... and over time and experience was forced by reality, reluctantly and painfully, to recognise that God simply does not do what the Bible claims he will do. all the dancing around the question that has occupied this thread allows some to continue to make excuses for God and be comforted, but my own set of experiences has led me to the place where, if I am not to reject God, I must radically reinterpret what the Bible says about him.

(Just by the way, you, Shane, do exactly the same thing, saying 'Well, the Bible really means this...' when that is quite different to what the Bible actually says - and many others in this thread do the same.)

Honesty compels me: and the insinuation that any questioning comes from Satan is just an evil, unworthy control trick.

Take on the issues like a man and don't hide behind insinuations.

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

As has been said: hedged around with so many preconditions that it is impossible to ever say that the promise has not been kept.

What would be the motive for wanting to say a promise has not been kept?

Because how can you trust your life, your time, your means to someone who can't keep his word? Whether God keeps His word and thus trustworthy is an issue that each of us has to settle in their own minds, because the reality of our experience is that most of our prayers are NOT answered, at least in the way we pray/ed.

My wife is struggling with this issue right now. She has a health problem. And in accordance with the instruction in James 5, she asked for an anointing so she could be relieved of miserable pain. Well, nothing happened. Wouldn't that raise questions in your mind whether God keeps His promise or not? If you are returning a faithful tithe and the groundhog or deer thrash your garden anyway, wouldn't you wonder about His Mal 3 promise?

While I may not agree with Bravus' solution/conclusion, I do appreciate his being candid about how he deals/dealt with it. I had to come to grips with the same dilemma, and so I showed my own solution.

[Woody]

Quote:

Unless we are living Christ's life - a life where He "thought not, planned not, lived not, for himself" the promises of God will never be answered.

Good Points there Sonny.

And of course we know that no one is living Christ's life.

[Woody]

Quote:

Take on the issues like a man and don't hide behind insinuations.

Excellent advice.

We DO need to honestly look at this issue. And that seems very difficult for some here. Instead they stick to old traditions.

[Woody]

No man can improve the Bible by suggesting what the Lord meant to say or ought to have said. . . . {FLB 13.4}

[Gerr]

That ought not to be. But alas! for some it's true.

[Woody]

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." 1Jo 3:22

[Overaged]

Okay. You got me on that one. Guilty on that count.

I am sorry my friend...It wasn't my intention to "get" you. So glad you are a part of our forum church family Woody! What would I ever do without you to keep us on our toes?

[Overaged]

"Forced by reality," meaning what? God didn't answer the way you ordered Him to? Or expected Him to? What is your bottom line evidence that God does not do what He says He will do? Saying such a thing goes even further than just saying He does not keep His promises.

Unfortunately, what you call "excuses" is just your excuse. God says "come let us reason together," and there is an expectation on His part, and in His Word that we will not only consider what the Bible says; but what it means by what it says. For every Ellen White quote that others dig up about supposedly not doing that; there is one that says to do that so lets look at the Bible and see what it says, then consider its meaning via the context, as well as the author's intention, which is most often embedded in the text under consideration, or in other related texts. It's called "exegesis Bravus; and I am sure you are aware of what that is. God expects it of us.

Quote:

(Just by the way, you, Shane, do exactly the same thing, saying 'Well, the Bible really means this...' when that is quite different to what the Bible actually says - and many others in this thread do the same.)

Christians must consider what the Bible means by what it says. A quick example out of many would be how that the Bible says my "old man" is "dead to sin." Well; I havn't got an "old man" nor am I an old man! When the Bible *says* that it means only one of several possible meanings. Accusing Shane or anyone else of "making excuses" is neither scholarly nor "honest" as you keep trying to say you are.

Quote:

Honesty compels me: and the insinuation that any questioning comes from Satan is just an evil, unworthy control trick.

You almost sound like you are just borrowing ideas from certain web sites when you talk like this. But even if you are not, this *says* that you are *honest* and we are not. That is the real "control trick" being brought to bear here. It is evil to demand standards of discussion from people that you do not hold to yourself. Are we *evil* because we do not ascribe to your totally hopeless theology, and because we believe in God's promises?

Quote:

Take on the issues like a man and don't hide behind insinuations.

I am already a *man* I just have utterly failed to do this the way you mandate with your control grid of unseen evil motives and heinous volitions of those who trust in God's promises. The "insinuations" you have pushed at us in this post alone are worthy of the very labels you have averred so solemnly and so formally. Having to tell everyone that you are honest just makes it worse. When will you just come up with some of this "evidence" that you keep alluding to?

If anyone had even half a clue as to how to deal with this subject "like a man" it would be me, If anyone ever had even half a reason to doubt God's promises, it would be me. yet; it was because of people in our Church who put Christ first, and taught me what they could from their experience with the Word (1 John 1:1-3), how that "God is love;" (1 John 4:8), and how that "Love never fails." (1 Cor 13:8), that I can echo the words of those who have gone before me:

Psa 18:6 "In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears."

I don't say it with the unreality that God actually did "answer" my prayer the precise way I or others thought He should, but with the end result being that I know in my heart how Jesus loves even me. (John 6:37)...

There is absolutely nothing that your "intellect" and "power of reasoning" could hit me with to convince me that God does not love me; or that He does not/cannot keep His Word. I have been through too much to see it another way.

Maybe there are some of us here who really need to consider the following counsel:

Jam 4:3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. (KJV)

Jam 4:3 And when you ask, you do not receive it, because your motives are bad; you ask for things to use for your own pleasures.

Jam 4:4 Unfaithful people! Don't you know that to be the world's friend means to be God's enemy? If you want to be the world's friend, you make yourself God's enemy.

Jam 4:5 Don't think that there is no truth in the scripture that says, "The spirit that God placed in us is filled with fierce desires."

Jam 4:6 But the grace that God gives is even stronger. As the scripture says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Jam 4:7 So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you.

Jam 4:8 Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners! Purify your hearts, you hypocrites!

Jam 4:9 Be sorrowful, cry, and weep; change your laughter into crying, your joy into gloom!

Jam 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Jam 4:11 Do not criticize one another, my friends. If you criticize or judge another Christian, you criticize and judge the Law. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it.

Jam 4:12 God is the only lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?

Jam 4:13 Now listen to me, you that say, "Today or tomorrow we will travel to a certain city, where we will stay a year and go into business and make a lot of money."

Jam 4:14 You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.

Jam 4:15 What you should say is this: "If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that."

Jam 4:16 But now you are proud, and you boast; all such boasting is wrong.

Jam 4:17 So then, if we do not do the good we know we should do, we are guilty of sin. (GNB)

I would like to discuss James 4:3, 8 with you more in depth if you are willing; but I am out of time for now.

Bravus; please be clear on one thing. My only intention here is to challenge your ideas, not you as a person. I actually enjoy our discussions. Take care and "bring forth your strong reasons": Isa 41:21 "Produce your cause, saith the LORD; bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob."

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Woody

Okay. You got me on that one. Guilty on that count.

I am sorry my friend...It wasn't my intention to "get" you. So glad you are a part of our forum church family Woody! What would I ever do without you to keep us on our toes?

Well I do try. God willing I will continue.

[Gerr]

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." 1Jo 3:22

Then God is/was safe in promising anything & everything, knowing that He doesn't have to keep ANY of them because He knows/knew that NO ONE could keep the law perfectly, and that His promises are just carrots on a stick.

[Bravus]

Overaged: Shane insinuated that the sort of person who would ask the questions I have been asking is on the side of Satan. That's very clear in his post. In my opinion that is completely over the line for this forum and should have been moderated, but it wasn't so I had to respond. It's a 'control trick' because it tries to make the question go away by attacking the motives of the questioner, rather than addressing the question. Anyway, I think I've said all I need to on that issue.

You do keep on imputing things to me that I never said and never meant. I have not said any of you are dishonest. Saying that honesty compels me to my view makes zero comment on your honesty. On the contrary, I have been very careful to acknowledge that others with other sets of experiences and assumptions have honestly arrived at their views. Both Shane and Gerry and now you have given powerful personal testimonies and I have never attacked or impugned those.

In terms of my evidence, as I've already clearly said it's the accumulation of a lifetime if experience, both personal and vicarious. There's not time to list it all here - and I'd be a pretty shallow person if just one incident had formed my view. It's arisen from a lifetime of wholehearted struggle.

And finally, a very important reminder of what I've consistently said, and people have consistently missed. What I'm questioning and challenging is not God but our imperfect human understanding of God. Two very different things.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted By: Woody

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." 1Jo 3:22

Then God is/was safe in promising anything & everything, knowing that He doesn't have to keep ANY of them because He knows/knew that NO ONE could keep the law perfectly, and that His promises are just carrots on a stick.

Here's the thing...if you are living Christ's life then you won't ask selfishly, right? You won't ask for riches...for material things for yourself, etc.

James 4:1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? ["sin living in me"] 2 You lust and do not have ; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain ; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.