Introduction. As the faithful who lived before us, only when our own faith grows to the point where God’s promises have more substance and reality than anything else in our lives, can they take their true position of power (Heb. 11:13-16). God has revealed that the eternal realities of His promises, built on His omnipotent power, foreknowledge, and veracity, are far firmer than all the temporary and transient things existing today. What is truly real and permanent with the second coming of Christ, an unexpected death, “a time for war and a time for peace,” health and illness, prosperity and adversity all lurking just over the horizon of time? “Since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.” At some point, we must replace the illusions of this life with the true realities of eternity. Only then can we be “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God,” and “according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” (2Pet. 3:11-13).
James was very forceful about our need to learn this. He revealed that all future plans, based on a confidence that present realities will continue into the future, is only “boasting in your arrogance.” The truth is, we are only “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” The absolute truth: “you do not know what will happen tomorrow.” Nothing is fixed or permanent. It can all change “If the Lord wills.” (Jas. 4:13-16).
James was very forceful about our need to learn this. He revealed that all future plans, based on a confidence that present realities will continue into the future, is only “boasting in your arrogance.” The truth is, we are only “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” The absolute truth: “you do not know what will happen tomorrow.” Nothing is fixed or permanent. It can all change “If the Lord wills.” (Jas. 4:13-16).
There is so much more going on in this age than the permanence of our own comfort and enjoyment. God is working to save as many as possible, which often requires His children to make sacrifices. When God, “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1Tim. 2:4), sees a need to judge a nation, ending its prosperity and freedom, those then living will quickly see this truth. Jesus revealed that what happened to those living before the flood or before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, can happen to any nation or people when God sees the need. Who could have foreseen that when Rome fell, and the commencement of the 1000 years of dark ages began, that God was paving the way for a new culture that would produce multitudes of Christians, who once again were going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature?
Thus, as we sing, “Time is filled with swift transition, naught of earth, unmoved and can stand, build your hopes on things eternal, hold to God’s unchanging hand,” we acknowledge these truths. After years of prosperity and peace, many have been lulled into a false sense of security, but we must not be among them. The present reality is an ever-changing vista, based on the conduct of the wicked and God’s eternal purpose. The history of Israel’s judges and kings reveal that the circumstances of Noah and Lot are not exceptional. The history of the rise and fall of nations, and our own history of pandemic, war, and depression, should warn us that nothing is fixed.
God’s promises are different. Since He cannot lie and swore with an oath, they are absolute, eternal and never changing. Since God can speak of eternal realities in promises, they are the only permanent things we can truly count on.
This is the true purpose and value of God’s eternal promises. Yet we don’t have to wait until the outer man is decaying to see this. Even in our youngest days, there were signs all around us. Long before we noticed anything within, we saw grandparents aging before our eyes, losing their vigor and passing from this life forever. A decade later, our own parents began the same process as their hair greyed, their faces wrinkled their vigor languished and they too “go the way of all the earth.” Finally, our bodies also begin to show the signs of what is surely coming, “when man goes to his eternal home,” “the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” (Ecc. 12:4)
Yet faith places this into the perspective of true reality. All that we see and experience here is “temporary” and “but for a moment.” As our faith grows, we can see the first glimmers of the full light of God’s promises. What we then see, in the light of God’s promises, is a “light affliction which is but for the moment,” compared to the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” that is just over the horizon.
Paul revealed the true power of all God’s promises. They allow us to “see the unseen!” Since the days of Abel, those whose minds were filled “with the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen,” were looking for the country and the city “whose builder and maker is God!” The entire scope of this article has been summed up by Paul: “the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Only the things God has promised are eternal, and though “unseen” with the fleshly eye, can be clearly seen through the eyes of faith. This is “the hope which is an anchor of our soul, both sure and steadfast.” (Eph. 1:18; Heb. 6:19) All that seems real in this age is temporary and transient, a “vapor” that will soon “be dissolved,” making way for the eternal plans God has revealed in His promises.
As Peter summed up the gospel, he too spoke of God’s divine power. The same divine power that made the “gospel the power of God unto salvation,” “energizing those who believe.” (Rom. 1:16; 1Th. 2:13).
After God worked “His divine power,” first in creating the heavens and the earth and then by writing the Scriptures, making the course of history lead to His eternal promises, and finally sealed them by Jesus’ death on the cross. This allowed Him to give us “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Yet it was not this power alone, but also what the power allowed God to promise: “by which have been given to us His precious and exceeding great promises.” We must not minimize the power of these promises to complete our strength and power. It is “through” both His divine power and “His precious promises” that we “may become partakers of the divine nature,” and “escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2Pet. 1:2-4).
Conclusion: Those who are not empowered by both God’s “divine power” and “His precious and exceeding great promises” will find it much more difficult to “become partakers of the divine nature” and “escape the corruption that is in the world.” As Paul summed up his own life, He spoke of a loss of all that is here that was in the way in order to gain a future.
- “as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, as it was in the days of Lot...” (Lk. 17:26-30)
Thus, as we sing, “Time is filled with swift transition, naught of earth, unmoved and can stand, build your hopes on things eternal, hold to God’s unchanging hand,” we acknowledge these truths. After years of prosperity and peace, many have been lulled into a false sense of security, but we must not be among them. The present reality is an ever-changing vista, based on the conduct of the wicked and God’s eternal purpose. The history of Israel’s judges and kings reveal that the circumstances of Noah and Lot are not exceptional. The history of the rise and fall of nations, and our own history of pandemic, war, and depression, should warn us that nothing is fixed.
God’s promises are different. Since He cannot lie and swore with an oath, they are absolute, eternal and never changing. Since God can speak of eternal realities in promises, they are the only permanent things we can truly count on.
- Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. 17 For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. (2Cor. 4:16-18)
This is the true purpose and value of God’s eternal promises. Yet we don’t have to wait until the outer man is decaying to see this. Even in our youngest days, there were signs all around us. Long before we noticed anything within, we saw grandparents aging before our eyes, losing their vigor and passing from this life forever. A decade later, our own parents began the same process as their hair greyed, their faces wrinkled their vigor languished and they too “go the way of all the earth.” Finally, our bodies also begin to show the signs of what is surely coming, “when man goes to his eternal home,” “the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” (Ecc. 12:4)
Yet faith places this into the perspective of true reality. All that we see and experience here is “temporary” and “but for a moment.” As our faith grows, we can see the first glimmers of the full light of God’s promises. What we then see, in the light of God’s promises, is a “light affliction which is but for the moment,” compared to the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” that is just over the horizon.
Paul revealed the true power of all God’s promises. They allow us to “see the unseen!” Since the days of Abel, those whose minds were filled “with the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen,” were looking for the country and the city “whose builder and maker is God!” The entire scope of this article has been summed up by Paul: “the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Only the things God has promised are eternal, and though “unseen” with the fleshly eye, can be clearly seen through the eyes of faith. This is “the hope which is an anchor of our soul, both sure and steadfast.” (Eph. 1:18; Heb. 6:19) All that seems real in this age is temporary and transient, a “vapor” that will soon “be dissolved,” making way for the eternal plans God has revealed in His promises.
As Peter summed up the gospel, he too spoke of God’s divine power. The same divine power that made the “gospel the power of God unto salvation,” “energizing those who believe.” (Rom. 1:16; 1Th. 2:13).
- as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2Pet. 1:3-4)
After God worked “His divine power,” first in creating the heavens and the earth and then by writing the Scriptures, making the course of history lead to His eternal promises, and finally sealed them by Jesus’ death on the cross. This allowed Him to give us “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Yet it was not this power alone, but also what the power allowed God to promise: “by which have been given to us His precious and exceeding great promises.” We must not minimize the power of these promises to complete our strength and power. It is “through” both His divine power and “His precious promises” that we “may become partakers of the divine nature,” and “escape the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2Pet. 1:2-4).
Conclusion: Those who are not empowered by both God’s “divine power” and “His precious and exceeding great promises” will find it much more difficult to “become partakers of the divine nature” and “escape the corruption that is in the world.” As Paul summed up his own life, He spoke of a loss of all that is here that was in the way in order to gain a future.
- Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ... 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. ... 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:8-14)
- Blessed (be) the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, (1 Pet 1:3-6)
- Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (I Jn 3:2-3)
- For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (Phil 3:20-21)
- If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth. 3 For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, (who is) our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory. (Col 3:1-4)
- So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 43 it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 44 it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual (body). . .48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. . .53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. . .58 WHEREFORE, MY BELOVED BRETHREN, BE YE STEADFAST, UNMOVEABLE, ALWAYS ABOUNDING IN THE WORK OF THE LORD, FORASMUCH AS YE KNOW THAT YOUR LABOR IS NOT VAIN IN THE LORD. (1Cor. 15:42-58)