Broken promises have crushed the heart of God for over 6000 years. Are you one who has crushed His heart? Do you keep the promises you make to Him? God keeps every promise He has made to humanity. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise (II Peter 3:9). There is a promise to cover every need you will ever have, but every promise is conditional. You have to meet the conditions of a promise before you can claim it.

The Psalmist said, Teach me thy way, O LORD, and lead me in a plain path (Psalm 27:11). When you follow that path, the Lord will pave it with His promises; and you must live by those promises.

When you make a promise to God and don’t keep it, your words are idle; and Jesus said, Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36). Some so-called Christians speak more idle words than they do anything else. James spoke of those kinds of people saying, If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain (James 1:26). A bridled tongue does not speak idle words.

Noah and Enoch Kept Their Promises

In Old Testament days, the broken promises piled up like mountains. They destroyed a whole civilization except eight souls in Noah’s day. Those eight souls were saved because Noah honored God and found grace in the eyes of the LORD (Genesis 6:8). Noah didn’t break his promises to God. He followed God’s instructions day by day and built the ark that saved him, his family and two of every kind of animal on the Earth at that time.

Keeping their promises to God was not easy for Noah and his family, but they put God first. They had to separate from all other family members and friends. I’m sure people thought they were crazy, but it didn’t matter to them because they were living by promise.

Enoch lived by promise, and the Lord took him home alive. And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him (Genesis 5:24). The Lord took only one other person to Heaven alive, and that was Elijah. And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven (II Kings 2:11).

So many of the Israelites broke promise after promise to God. They mistreated one another and disobeyed God again and again, but Elijah was willing to stand in the gap for the Lord. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none (Ezekiel 22:30).

Abraham, a Man of His Word

God created Adam and Eve with His own hands, and they were to have always walked with Him. God told them never to go to the tree of sin and death, but they didn’t keep their promise. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:16,17).

Eve was the first one to disobey and break her promise, and then she persuaded Adam to break his. The devil couldn’t get to Adam, but he let Eve influence him. Are you letting any one of your family members or friends drag you away from God?

Abraham did not allow that, and he didn’t break any of the promises he made to God. Even when his wife, Sarah, doubted God, Abraham believed. He even obeyed when the Lord told him to offer his only son as a burnt offering on Mt. Moriah. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of (Genesis 22:2). I’m sure that request broke Abraham’s heart, but he set out the very next day to do as the Lord had requested.

Because Abraham believed God, he became known as the father of the faithful. God had promised Abraham a nation would come from his seed, Isaac; so Abraham had such great faith in God that he knew if he sacrificed his son in the name of the Lord, God would raise him up. Abraham knew the nation God had promised him had to come.

God and His Son Gave All

The Bible is full of types and shadows of things to come, and little Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice was a type of Jesus carrying the Cross to Golgotha. Abraham, his father, was a type of God willing to give His son. The difference was that God stopped Abraham from killing his son at the last minute and instead provided a lamb caught in the thicket to be used as the sacrifice. However, there would be no substitute provided for Jesus and no stopping Him from dying on that Cross. He had come to give His life so we could have eternal life one day. What a great sacrifice that was for God and His Son.

God gave His whole heart when He gave Jesus to die on the Cross, yet people think nothing of breaking His heart again and again. Watching Jesus die on that Cross hurt God so much that He had to turn His back on the awful scene, or He would have come down to save His Son. That’s why Jesus cried, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Matthew 27:46)? Doesn’t that make you want to weep?

The Bible tells us that Jesus went to the whipping post for our healing. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). That healing is for yesterday and today.

Jesus healed so many people when He lived on Earth. The blind got their sight; the deaf heard; cripples were made to walk; and those who were dead were raised to life. Even so, how many of those people were at the foot of the Cross when Jesus died? Just a few were there to say, “Jesus, we love you so much, and we thank you for everything you have done for us.”

Keep Your Promises to God

When you get ahead of God, lag behind Him or break your promises to Him, you will find yourself in trouble; and you have brought that trouble on yourself. It breaks God’s heart, and how many times have you done that? When you dearly love someone, you don’t want to hurt them in any way let alone break their heart into pieces; and you are supposed to love the Lord more than anyone or anything else.

When you were saved, you told the Lord that if He would forgive you, you would do anything for Him. Have you kept that promise? If not, you must repent and never break another promise to Him. God promised, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (Hebrews 13:5). Have you promised the same thing to Him?

Prayer, fasting and living in the Word will bring you all the power you need in this final hour to live like Jesus and keep every promise you make to Him. When you practice those three things consistently, the Lord will give you all the faith and love you need; and you will have more of His joy, courage and strength than you ever thought possible.

Success and Failure Before God

When Moses chose to follow God, he kept the promises he made to Him. It took God forty years to make Moses into the man He needed him to be, and then nothing could stop him. Moses went to the burning bush and received the fire of the Holy Ghost, power for service. He had divinity, the Word of the living God, faith and determination. He had it all, and God used him in amazing ways.

God did so much for the Israelites under the leadership of Moses, but they wouldn’t keep their promises to God no matter what He did for them. They watched God drown Pharoah’s whole army in the Red Sea, yet they grumbled and complained and broke promise after promise; and many people today are doing the same thing. Even so, God has never broken even one promise He has made to any person. You can trust Him completely.

Joshua took Moses’ place. He had seen all the people’s disobedience and the broken promises; and he said, Choose you this day whom ye will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24:15). Joshua lived by that promise.

Nearly all the kings in the Old Testament broke so many promises to God. God gave King Solomon so much and did so much for him, yet even he started breaking his promises to God. He no doubt went to hell because the Bible gives no record that he ever got right. Thankfully, the Bible tells us, Behold, a greater than Solomon is here (Matthew 12:42). That person is Jesus. He’s greater in wisdom, riches, love and in keeping His promises. He’s greater in holiness, righteousness and purity.

David was a man after God’s own heart, but he committed adultery and broke his promises to the Lord. God chose Saul to be the first king of Israel. He was the best man God could find at that time; but later, Saul backslid and even became devil possessed…more broken promises.

Hannah Promised God Her Son

The Lord said in His Word, When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay (Ecclesiastes 5:4,5). When God spoke of a vow, He was speaking of a promise. You have to decide that you will never break another promise to God no matter what anybody does.

Hannah wanted more than anything to have a baby boy, so she prayed to the Lord and made a vow before Him. And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life (I Samuel 1:10,11).

The Lord heard Hannah’s prayer, and He gave her the little boy she had asked for. She named him Samuel because it means “asked of God.” Hannah loved little Samuel so much, but she kept her promise to God. As soon as Samuel was weaned, she took him to Eli the priest in Jerusalem; and Samuel stayed with him and ministered to him in the temple.

How many mothers would have kept a promise to give up their child? Hannah was only able to see her son about once a year, but she stood by her vow. What great love for and gratitude to the Lord that was.

Live by Promise

Never make God a promise you won’t keep, or you will be in trouble. Some people have promised God that if He will give them a job, they will tithe; but when God answers their prayer, they don’t follow through. They break that promise to God, and the Bible says that is robbing God. Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings (Malachi 3:8).

God’s promises never have and never will fail. The Bible says, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away (Matthew 24:35). God’s Word includes promise after promise for us, and they will abide forever.

When you live in the promises of God, you will be safe. You will have nothing to worry about. The divine promises are worth more than all the wealth in the world. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it (Matthew 13:45,46). Jesus is our promised Savior, the pearl of great price; and He is life.

Through the promises of God, you can have abundant life. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Through the promises of God, you can have unspeakable joy. In whom [Jesus], though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory (I Peter 1:8). Through the promises of God, miracles and healings take place. God said, I am the LORD that healeth thee (Exodus 15:26).

If you have broken any of your promises to God and you aren’t ready for Christ’s return, it is time for you to get ready. It’s time to fall before God and repent of any broken promises and tell God you will never break another one. The hour is too late. Say the sinner’s prayer located on page 6 of this magazine, and invite the Lord in today.

Always keep your promises to God, live by His promises and serve Him for the rest of your life. Then one day, all Heaven will be yours. God bless you today.