A Word in Season: Great and Precious Promises (2 Peter 1:4)

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When the Apostle Peter wants to encourage and exhort God's people to a life of true holiness, seeking after all righteousness, holding fast to Christ, he reminds us of the exceedingly great and precious promises which

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God has given to us, those promises through which we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

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Those promises are exceedingly great and precious as promises and in their fulfillment.

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Whether you think about the nature of the promise itself, the things that are held out, or the very thing itself, the fact that we have those things now in substance, those promises are great and they are precious, exceedingly great and exceedingly precious.

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They are great and precious in their clarity to us. They do not veil things, but they hold things out.

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We're left in no doubt about the mercies that God intends for us, the assurances that we have.

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To be sure, there are some things that we don't fully understand, there are some things that we have yet entirely to grasp, there are some promises that are so exceedingly rich and great that we struggle to comprehend them.

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But by and large, the things that God assures us of are very plain in our sight.

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We're not left in any confusion about just what God has provided for us. Then they are exceedingly great and precious in their certainty.

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Not one of God's words falls to the ground. They're like silver tried seven times in the furnace.

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Everything that God has made known, every promise that he's offered is yes and amen in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. They're exceedingly great and precious in their variety, for they are more than can be counted.

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Yes, but also they are beautiful in their variety, in the range and the depth of what

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God holds out to us. Every possible goodness is made known to us in these promises.

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They're also exceedingly great and precious with regard to their applicability, for that variety means that for every circumstance that we are in, for every situation that we face, for every need that we have, for every sorrow through which we go, for every suffering through which we pass, for every moment of all our experience as God's people, there is a promise upon which we can hang.

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There is something which we can plead. There is something which we can look to.

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There is some hope that we can lay hold of in order that our souls may not be overwhelmed.

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And therefore they are exceedingly great and precious with regard to their utility, for we can first plead them.

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We must take God's promises to him. We must plead them in prayer.

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We must, as it were, hold them before a faithful God, the Lord of covenant mercy, and say,

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Have you not spoken? It's a wonderful thing to hear a Christian wrestle with God.

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There's a holy argument, if you will, that is truly humble, yet at the same time entirely confident that if God has spoken, then he must be true to his word.

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And it may be then that in the deepest moments of distress, in the greatest moments of need, that we need to drag some of these promises out and put them, as it were, before the eyes of our

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God and ask him, Have you not said these things? Have you not granted these assurances?

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Have you not promised that you will undertake for us in this or that particular way so that at this very moment, we should not die, but live, that at this very time, we should not be cast down, but held up, that at this very moment, rather than being trampled underfoot and utterly done away with, you should sustain us and cause us to rise again.

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And so it is that as well as pleading them, we rest upon them. For there is also, as well as that proper urgency, a proper patience in remembering that God will prove faithful in all that he has said.

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And there are times when we must, in the language of the Psalms, look to him in that posture of eager and expectant waiting, confident that these exceedingly great and precious promises that God has given to us will secure and advance salvation in us and all his people, that to the very end, he will prove our