For more information and to purchase the full version of this book by Colin Urquhart visit the Kingdom Faith Resource Centre: http://www.kingdomfaith.com/ResourceCentre
TRUE
Promises
C o l i n Ur q u h a r t
Kingdom Faith Resources Ltd. Roffey Place, Old Crawley Road, HORSHAM West Sussex, RH12 4RU E-mail: resources@kingdomfaith.com www.kingdomfaith.com First published in Great Britain in March 2004 by Kingdom Faith Kingdom Faith Church is a registered charity (no.278746) Copyright © 2004 Colin Urquhart All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. Short extracts may be used for review purposes. Unless otherwise stated, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited.
ISBN 1-900409-53-4
CONTENTS
The God Of Promise
7
God’s Promise To Abraham
11
Believing The Promises
15
Promises Already Fulfilled
19
The Promises of God’s Word
23
Speaking The Promises
33
The Prayer Promises
41
Specific Promises
45
Promises By ‘Revelation’
51
True Prophetic Promises
57
Scripture Promises
65
TRUE PROMISES • 7
1 THE GOD OF PROMISE
From His first dealings with mankind God has shown Himself to be a God of promise. Throughout His dealings with His people He has proved Himself faithful to the promises He has given them. God has given us the Biblical scriptures as a revelation of Himself and His purposes. Both the Old and New Testaments are full of promises, some general, others more specific. When His people live with trust in their Lord, they are able to inherit these promises and see them fulfilled in their lives. Nothing encourages our faith more than seeing for ourselves the wonderful scope of what God promises us as His children. So in this book we will not only speak about God’s promises, how to receive them and see them fulfilled in our lives; we shall also list several of the key promises that have a direct effect on the course of our daily walk with the Lord. When God gives promises He reveals something about His nature and His heart. He reveals His will for His people and shows how great is His desire to bless them.
8 • TRUE PROMISES
From their early years children understand promises. When they want something from their parents they do their utmost to extract promises from them. To the child a promise is something that should never be broken. Sadly parents sometimes break promises, but our heavenly Father never does so. He is not a man who would lie, neither is He like the devil who deceives. Parents may have good intentions when making promises, intending to keep them. But circumstances can change and they can find themselves unable to gift what was promised, or do for the child what they intended. However, God has all His divine and heavenly resources SO WHEN HE SAYS available; and He is able to see the future as clearly as He sees the past or the present. So SOMETHING WILL when He promises something now, He can HAPPEN IT CERTAINLY already see it fulfilled in the future. He does not have to withdraw what He has said, nor WILL TAKE PLACE. does He need to change His mind. He is perfectly aware of all the circumstances; so when He says something will happen it certainly will take place. As we shall see, some promises in scripture have conditions attached to them. So we will not see the outworking of the promise until the condition is fulfilled! However, He always makes all the resources of His Spirit available to us to enable us to fulfill the conditions He sets before us. Why should God choose to work through promises? Because He knows how prone we are to look at present circumstances and our feelings, believing they are the truth.
TRUE PROMISES • 9
Facts are different from the truth. We cannot deny the facts of what is taking place, or even how we feel. But facts can change. Circumstances can change and our feelings can certainly change very readily from one moment to the next, depending on how we respond to the situation in which we are placed. However, God’s words of truth are eternal: Heaven and earth will pass away; my words will not pass away. (Matt. 24:35) He does not want us to put our faith in the present facts, but in Him and His ability to change the facts, knowing that nothing is impossible for Him. No matter how dire our present situation, God is able to change things and faith is ignited when we believe what He promises to do in bringing His power and love into the situation. We shall see that there is a difference between the promises we have in scripture and which will certainly be realised, and those which are sometimes received in prayer. Are these truly from God? Sometimes they are, but at other times we may have been listening to our own soulish desires. Because of this confusion some have accused God of not fulfilling “promises” given to them, when in truth God was not saying what we wanted to hear. If God was ever to break His Word, creation would immediately go into chaos. Not only did God create by His Word, but He sustains His creation by His faithfulness to His Word. So He would never give a promise He did not intend to keep! Perhaps all of us would acknowledge that we have made mistakes
10 • TRUE PROMISES
in this area, convinced that God would act in a certain way and then being disappointed when He failed to do so. We will have to see how we can keep such mistakes to a minimum and instead know that what we hear and believe is certainly what God has promised, and therefore what He will do! We can be encouraged by realizing that the vast majority of the many prophetic promises God has given in the scriptures have already been fulfilled. This encourages our expectation that those which remain to be fulfilled in the future will certainly be accomplished in God’s perfect timing. Such promises relate to His overall purpose that He is outworking in the history of mankind. Testimonies also abound to the faithfulness of God in fulfilling His promises to individual believers when they fulfill the conditions attached to these promises.
TRUE PROMISES • 71
Other titles in this series include: TRUE AUTHORITY TRUE CHURCH TRUE COVENANT TRUE DISCIPLES TRUE FAITH TRUE GRACE TRUE LIFE TRUE LOVE TRUE SALVATION TRUE SPIRIT TRUE WORSHIP TRUE GOD TRUE HEALING TRUE PRAYER
All these books by Colin Urquhart and a catalogue of other titles and teaching materials can be obtained from: Kingdom Faith Resources, Roffey Place, Old Crawley Road Faygate, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 4RU. Telephone 01293 854 600 email: resources@kingdomfaith.com
For more information and to purchase the full version of this book by Colin Urquhart visit the Kingdom Faith Resource Centre: http://www.kingdomfaith.com/ResourceCentre