The Shelter of God’s Promises #1
Something To Hold On To
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. - 2 Corinthians 1:20
Introduction
Sheila Walsh begins her book The Shelter of God’s Promises by telling of receiving a letter in the mail from someone who had attended one of her conference speeches. In the letter, an unknown woman shared that she had been through so many struggles… illness, financial hardship, the breakup of her marriage. She made a simple statement that captured her attention: “I would not have made it this far without the promises of God.”
In the storms of life, when things look really bad, can we trust that God will keep his promises? In this series of lessons we will be looking in the Scriptures for some of the promises of God that will see us through the difficult days - and we all have them.
1. WHAT IS A PROMISE?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary says a promise is: “A declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified…that gives the person to whom it is made a right to claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.”
Most frequently in the Old Testament, the word promise refers to “speaking,” “speech,” or “to say.” When God says something, that settles it.
"A promise is the assurance that God gives to His people so they can walk by faith while they wait for Him to work.” —James MacDonald in Always True.
Psalm 119:50, 148, 154 ESV “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life … My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise. … Plead my cause and redeem me; give me life according to your promise!”
2. GOD’S PROMISES ARE NEEDED IN THE HARDEST TIMES: Moses
Moses was called to lead God’s people out of slavery and to the promised land. He was called the friend of God. Exodus 33:11a “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” Even so, Moses was very much a human being. He sometimes doubted (Exodus 3:10-4:13). He murdered an Egyptian (Exodus 2:11-14). At times, Moses was angry, afraid, disappointed, and discouraged.
When we arrive to Exodus 33, Moses had been upon the mountain of God and received the Ten Commands, brought them down Mt. Sinai, and found the people were engaging in idol worship - a golden calf. Moses threw down the commandments. Moses was discouraged; God was unhappy. 3,000 people were killed and a plague broke out. God suggested that he should just let them go on without him (32:33-33:3). Moses puts himself in between Israel and God and makes atonement for them. Moses asks for assurance that God will go with them. (32:13-17 “...if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
Moses then requests to see the glory of God. (Exodus 33:21-23 “And the Lord said, "Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
Then he told Moses to get new stones for new tablets. Moses was discouraged by the people’s sin, but God answered his prayer with a promise: ‘My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” Walsh: “Even when they had proven to be totally faithless, He remained willing to start all over again.” Through all of our hardships, we have been held close to God in the shelter of his promises - the greatest promise of which is Jesus.
Matthew Henry: “Upon the rock, there was a fit place for Moses to view the goodness and glory of God. The rock in Horeb was typical of Christ the Rock: the refuge, salvation, and strength. Happy are they who stand upon this Rock. The cleft is an emblem of Christ as smitten, crucified, wounded, and slain.”
3. GOD’S PROMISES ARE KEPT IN CHRIST: Paul
In the face of some disappointments and discouragements, the apostle Paul reminded the Corinthians that in Christ we find the shelter of God’s promises.
As he begins the second letter to the Corinthian church, he faces some criticism. There were some people in the church at Corinth who didn’t like Paul. They claimed that he had broken his promise to come to visit them. When his plans changed, some of his critics used his change of plans to accuse him of deceit, and they even cast doubt on the message of Christ that he preached. So Paul is put in the position of defending himself. But Paul uses this dispute to declare the “yes” of God’s promises - the dependability of those promises.
2 Corinthians 1:19-20 ESV “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. 20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.”
Barclay: “...A God who loves us so much that he gave us his Son is quite certain to fulfill every promise that he ever made. He is the personal guarantee of God that the greatest and the least of his promises are all true.”
-This includes all of the Old Testament promises that the Messiah would come. In him “the just shall live by faith” (Hab. 2:4) and all nations are blessed (Gens 12:3).
-In the New Testament, lives are changed when they are turned over to Christ.
-“Finally Christ is God’s ‘Yes’ to me. He gives me something on which I can found my life and build.” (Best)
Barclay: “It is through Jesus that we say “Amen” to the promises of God. We finish our prayers by saying, 'through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’ … Amen means So let it be, and the great truth is that it is not just a formality … it is the word that expresses our confidence that we can offer our prayers with every confidence to God and can
appropriate with confidence all his great promises, because Jesus is the guarantee that our prayers will be heard and that all the great promises are true.”
In Jesus, God says Yes. In Jesus, we say Amen.
In 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 Paul ennumerates the struggles and afflictions he went through in his work for God.
Paul ends this passage by blessing God and praising Him, even though his hardships were deep and severe.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
When Difficult times come, we survive in the shelter of God’s promises …
-We trust Jesus, the Promise.
-We keep our eyes on Him.
-We praise Him in hardship.
-We find gratitude in the storm.
-In Jesus, God says Yes. In Jesus, we say Amen.
Adoniram Judson, the great missionary to Burma, once said: “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”
4. GOD’S PROMISES ARE YOURS (2 Peter 1:3-4)
2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (ESV)
Very Great and Precious Promises!
Herbert Lockyer wrote a book entitled, All the Promises in the Bible, in which he there are 7,457 promises of God found in the Bible!
God’s promises are not generic, but they are for you.
Charles Spurgeon said: “Do not treat God’s promises as if they were curiosities for a museum; but believe them and use them.”
Conclusion
Walsh: We are each invited from the worst storms of our lives to find our safe hiding place in God. God provided shelter for Moses not in a moment of shining triumph but when his heart was broken by the failthlessness of those around him. When the people failed, God’s glory caused Moses’ face shine as He reiterated His promises one more time. Our faithlessness does nothing to diminish God’s faithfulness. … A promise from God is a promise kept.
E. Stanley Jones was a great missionary who spent most of his life taking the gospel to the people in India. At the age of 87 he suffered a crippling stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. He could no longer preach so he simply said, “I can no longer preach a sermon - so I will BE a sermon.” He trained himself to write with his left hand and he managed to talk out of the left side of his mouth.
After his stroke, he managed to write the most important book of his life entitled, The Divine Yes!
In it he wrote, “When I came to the autumn of my life, to this stroke which left me in shambles, I knew that the only Christian way to fall was to fall on my knees and thank God that though outwardly I am only a half person, in Him I am whole and well and the same person as before. I discovered that in this stroke, I had fallen, but I had fallen into the arms of Grace...I haven’t read a thing in six months. I see but in a haze. My speech is thick and sometimes muddled. Yet I see that life is good. Jesus came that I might have life and have it abundantly. He is not only life, he is life with a Yes in it, the Divine Yes! (page 131-135)
After reading that I think there are only two words needed to finish this message: “YES!” “Amen!”
The Shelter of God’s Promises is where I turn when I need something to hold on to.
Next week: The Promise of Provision
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Resources
Barclay, William. The Daily Bible Study Series: The Letters to the Corinthians, Revised Edition. Westminster Press, 1975.
Best, Ernest. Interpretation series: Second Corinthians. John Knox Press, 1987.
Bill, Brian. Standing on the Promises of God.
https://sermoncentral.com/sermons/standing-on-the-promises-of-god-brian-bill-sermon-on-promises-of-god-158180
Dykes, David. God’s Favorite Word is “Yes”
https://sermoncentral.com/sermon-series/2-corinthians-hope-for-cracked-pots-sermon-series-from-david-dykes-13033
Jeremiah, David. Encouraging Words for a Discouraging World. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2024.
Walsh, Sheila. The Shelter of God’s Promises. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011.
