Guaranteed With An Oath 

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Oh, give thanks to the Lord!
Call upon His name;
Make known His deeds among the peoples!
Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him;
Talk of all His wondrous works!  -  Psalm 105:1-2

He is the Lord our God;
His judgments are in all the earth.
He remembers His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations…  -  Psalm 105:7-8

 

Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast…. – Hebrews 6:17-19

 

An oath should carry great weight for both the person making it and the person receiving it. lt's a decisive appeal to the highest power available, intended to end all doubt over someone's word and confirm the reliability of the promise being made. Though people have repeatedly made nonsense of oaths through lying and perjury, they are still meant to demonstrate the integrity of one's word.

 

An oath is, of course, only as good as the character of the individual making it. Therefore, we know that God's promises are trustworthy if for no other reason than the fact that He made them. He didn't need to guarantee His promise with an oath; the bare promise of God to His people is sufficient to command our belief. Yet He went a step further, swearing by Himself, since He cannot swear by anyone or anything greater.

 

God has brought us from the realm of hopelessness into the reality of hope, and the anchor of our souls is secure and certain. It is fixed to an immovable object - the promises of God — and fixed in the unseen heavenly realm by the God who cannot lie. These promises are so secure, in fact, that sharing them with others in evangelism is compelling to them, because we live in a world that is full of desperation and a culture that tries to cover its discontentedness with fake smiles, vacations, and material gain.

 

How wonderful that we can be people who are grounded in faith, anchored by the promises of our God. Jesus Christ is worthy of our trust, and we can know that "all the promises of God find their Yes in him" (2 Corinthians 1:20), whose life, death, resurrection, and ascension have achieved for us a momentous and eternal victory.

 

Which promises of God to you do you find hardest to trust and to build your life upon?  Remember who made those promises. He is the same God who swore to childless, elderly Abraham that his descendants would be as innumerable as the stars in the sky above him and who kept His promise. He is the same God who swore to His disciples that He would be rejected and killed, and then after three days rise again - and who kept His promise.  Remember who has made the promises you find hard to believe. Remember what he is like.  That is the anchor for your soul and the hope for your future.

 

 

 

 

 

The devotional message, “Guaranteed With An Oath”, was written by Pastor Alistair Begg of Truth For Life.  Read from their 365 Daily Devotions, page 290, with permission from Truth For Life and The Good Book Company.  For more information, go to TruthForLife.org/365.

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