It lifts my soul to spend time thinking about God’s great love for me. But you may have noticed that most of my information about the amazing love of God comes from the Bible. What if these verses about God’s love are not true? What if it’s all a sham?
Solomon has an important word for you. After he spent seven years building God’s temple in Jerusalem, he prepared to dedicate the fabulous new structure. He told the great crowd that had gathered that day,
The LORD said to my father David, “Whereas it was in your heart to build a temple for My name, you did well that it was in your heart. Nevertheless you shall not build the temple, but your son who will come from your body, he shall build the temple for My name.” So the LORD has fulfilled His word which He spoke; and I have filled the position of my father David, and sit on the throne of Israel, as the LORD promised; and I have built a temple for the name of the LORD God of Israel (1 Kings 8:18-20).
What a testimony to the faithfulness of God in keeping His Word! God had said to Solomon’s father, David, that Solomon would build the temple, and he had. And so Solomon is saying, “Look! God had made the promise to my father David, and here is proof that God keeps His promises.”
The glorious temple now standing before them was the fulfillment of God’s promise. God had kept His promises; the glittering temple provided the proof.
After Solomon had spoken to the people about the faithfulness of God, he turned before the altar, knelt down, lifted his hands toward heaven, and talked to God about the people. As he began his prayer of dedication, he declared,
Lord God of Israel, there is no God in heaven above or on earth below like You, who keep Your covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their hearts. You have kept what You promised Your servant David my father; You have both spoken with Your mouth and fulfilled it with Your hand, as it is this day (1 Kings 8:23-24).
As he finished his prayer and got up off of his knees, he turned again to the people and spoke once more about the faithfulness of God:
Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses (1 Kings 8:56).
Can you imagine the terrible consequences if even one word of God’s promises had failed? If just one of His thousands of promises should fail, we would have to conclude that we have not heard from God, for if God speaks about some future event, then it must happen. One failure along the line—one solitary word falling short—would bring discredit to the whole field of biblical prophecy and, in fact, to the whole revelation of God. We would have to conclude that the Bible is not God’s revelation to man.
This is why other books of religion that purport to be revelations of God stay away from specific predictions. In fact, in Isaiah’s day God challenged His “rivals” to prove their divinity by foretelling the future. “If your gods are really God,” the prophet suggested, “that’s easy to prove. Just tell us a few things before they happen, so that when they take place we will know that they really are gods.” Silence! Nothing. But then God said, “That you may know that I am God and that there is no other god like Me, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen many years in the future. After you’ve been carried away to Babylon for your disobedience, I will raise up a servant named Cyrus. He will set Israel free and allow My people to return from captivity.” God made this bold prediction one hundred and fifty years before Cyrus was born (see Isaiah 44:28, 45:13). Not one word failed of all that God spoke concerning Cyrus. Amazing!
Oh, how certain is the Word of God! You can be sure that all it predicts shall happen. You can count on it.
- excerpted from Love The More Excellent Way by Chuck Smith
