16 Sermon Illustrations on Promises Of God

A preacher going to a country church one Sunday morning was overtaken by a deacon who remarked, "What a bitter cold morning, sir. I am sorry the weather is so wintry." "Oh," replied the minister, "I was just thanking God for keeping His Word." The man stared at him and asked, "What do you mean?" "Well, over 3,000 years ago God promised that cold and heat should not cease, so I am strengthened by this weather to emphasize the sureness of His promises." A Fasting Father Takes a Meal Siamese Bettas are called "fighting fish" because the males will fight each other to the death. Usually, if only one of the species is kept in a fish tank, it gets along well with the other fish. Yet in reproduction, it is the male that makes the nest. Using its saliva and air, the male builds a nest of tiny bubbles, each smaller than a BB-shot. When the nest is about the diameter of a coffee cup, the male mates with the female and the eggs fall. The male gathers the eggs and places each one in an air bubble. After mating and during the gestation period, the male remains under the bubble nest, not eating. He carefully catches each developing egg when a bubble breaks and places it in a new bubble. He continues this effort around the clock under a forced fast for about two weeks. When the young hatch out, they usually are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but the male fighting fish cares for them until they begin to leave the nest and adhere to the sides of the breeding tank looking like little shards of broken glass. Suddenly the time of parenting is over. It is as though an alarm goes off inside the fish, as it turns from minister to marauder. If the breeder is not alert, he may lose all the young to the hungry father, who then eats up the very ones he so diligently cared for. How fortunate is man that God has designed parents so that though the young may become independent and venture in life on their own, unlike these fish, ours are not short-term parents, but lifetime parents, even as God is our eternal parent.

"We have a strong tie upon God, because he giveth us the promise, which is our ground of hope. Surely we may put his bonds in suit, and say, 'Thy handwriting is placed before thee, O Lord?' We say among men—we have it in black and white, and there is no getting over it: a man's handwriting binds him. Now, we may be sure that the Lord will never deny his own writing, nor run back from a bond given under his own hand and seal. Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before him with this reasonable request, 'Do as thou hast said.' The Creator will not cheat his creature who depends upon his truth; and, far more, the heavenly Father will not break his word to his own child. 'Remember the word unto thy servant, on which thou hast caused me to hope,' is most prevalent pleading. It is a double argument: it is thy word, wilt thou not keep it? Why hast thou spoken it if thou wilt not make it good? Thou hast caused me to hope in it, wilt thou disappoint the hope which thou hast thyself begotten in me? How sure are thy promises, O my God. Forgive me that I ever doubt them, and give me more faith, that I may treat them as the blessings which they guarantee, even as men pass cheques and notes from hand to hand as if they were the gold they stand for.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MEDITATIONS, 5

Cadet of. Where is thy casket of promises? Bring it out. Open the jar of jewels. Pour out the golden ingot, stamped with the image and superscription of heaven's King. Count over the diamonds that flash in thy hand like stars. Compute the worth of that single jewel, "Ask and ye shall receive;" or that other ruby, "All things shall work together for good to them that love God." Bring forth that royal Kohinoor, "He that believeth shall be saved." Then remember who it is that gave them, and to what an unworthy sinner, and tell me if they are not "exceeding great and precious." When Cæsar once gave a man a great reward, he exclaimed, "This is too great a gift for me to receive." — "But," said Cæsar, "it is not too great a gift for me to give." So the smallest promise in thy casket is too much for thee to deserve; yet the most magnificent promise is not too great for the King of kings to bestow. God scorns to act meanly and stingily by his children; and how must he scorn us often when we put him off with such contemptible stinginess of deeds or donations! Spurgeon.

A drummer-boy lay dying in the City-Point Hospital. The Twenty-third Psalm was being read to him. When the words, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me," were read, he desired them repeated again and again. Blindness was upon him; and he desired to have his hand placed so that he could feel the words which he could not see. Then he wished to have the promise laid on his breast, so that he could press it to his heart. Thus clinging with both arms to the promise, he went down into the valley, and passed to his rest.

If we had the tongue of the mightiest of orators, and if that tongue could be touched with a live coal from off the altar, yet still it could not utter a tenth of the praises of the exceeding great and precious promises of God. Nay, they who have entered into rest, whose tongues are attuned to the lofty and rapturous eloquence of cherubim and seraphim, — even they can never tell the height and depth, the length and breadth, of the unsearchable riches of Christ which are stored up in the treasure-house of God, — the promises of the covenant of his grace. Spurgeon.

In commercial crises, manhood is at a greater discount than funds are. Supposing a man had said to me last spring, "If there comes a pinch in your affairs, draw on me for ten thousand dollars." The man said so last spring; but I should not dare to draw on him this fall. I should say, "Times have changed: he would not abide by it." But God's promises "are from everlasting to everlasting;" and he always stands up to them. There never was a run on heaven which was not promptly met. No creature in all the world, or in lying, audacious hell, shall ever say that he drew a draft upon heaven, and that God dishonored it. Beecher.

Who is there that is not tired of climbing up the black face of the cliff of Resolution to fall back again, day after day, upon the shore? They who gain their subsistence by searching for nests along dangerous heights search with their waists girdled with a cord let down from above, that, if they slip, they shall not fall and be lost. We need God's golden cords and bands of promises, reaching from heaven, to enable us to defy stumbling or downfall.

— Beecher

When a pious old slave on a Virginia plantation was asked why he was always so sunny-hearted and cheerful under his hard lot, he replied, "Ah, massa! I always lays flat down on de promises, and den I pray straight up to my hebenly Father." Humble, happy soul! he was not the first man who has eased an aching head by laying it upon God's pillows, or the first man who has risen up the stronger from a repose on the unchangeable word of God's love. Spiritually that man was a Cressus; for all his soul's wealth was in the currency of heaven. If you take a Bank-of-England note to the counter of the bank, in an instant that bit of paper turns to gold. If we take a promise of God to the mercy-seat, it turns to what is better than gold, — to our own good and the glory of our Father. T. L. Cuyler, D.D.