Promises Promises

Anyone remember the band Naked Eyes? They had a big hit back in 1983 called Promises Promises. It is one of those songs I have heard many times but never really thought much about it. I know the chorus but never really payed much attention to the lyrics of the song until the other day. I was riding to work with the song playing a little louder than normal and maybe I was trying to sing along but if you are like me if you don't know the words you just sort of make something up. As I pulled into the parking lot at work the song ended and I decided I was going to look up the lyrics online when I got to my office. So I did. Here is the chorus, what I try to sing along to. Take a quick look at the chorus and I will tell you what I got out of this song.

On and on we laughed like kids
At all the silly things we did
But you can't finish what you start
If this is love it breaks my heart

You made me promises, promises
You knew you'd never keep
Promises, promises
Why do I believe
All of your promises
You knew you'd never keep
Promises, promises
Why do I believe?

If you look up the lyrics to the entire song you will see that it is a song about a couple who promised to be together but eventually one leaves the relationship. I is a song about a broken promise. I was thinking about this a passage of scripture came to mind along with a simple lesson from the Lord.

James 4: 13-15 - 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

In other words we do not have the ability to make and fulfill promises. We may think we are making and keeping promises but in reality we are completely dependent on the grace of God. Even when we leave the office or home and say "I will see you tomorrow." we cannot guarantee that we will wake up the next day. Imagine how many people went to bed last night after telling their spouse "see you in the morning" and never woke up. Just like in the song, look at how many people promise to love their spouse until death and end up breaking that promise. God and God alone can make and fulfill promises.

Numbers 23: 19 - God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

Joshua 21: 45 - Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the house of Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.

I Kings 8:56 - "Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses.

God is faithful and able to fulfill every promise he makes. One of his greatest promises comes at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 3 we read where Adam and Eve blew it. They did what God told them not to do. They ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and plunged the whole world into sin. Once they chose to disobey there was nothing they could do to stop it. Only God could save them and the entire world from the chaos their decision created. God summed up what would happen in verse 15:

Genesis 3: 15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

God was prophesying about the coming Messiah who would pay the ultimate price for Adam and Eve's sin as well as everyone else's sin. The serpent, Satan would strike Christ when he was nailed to the cross but Christ would crush Satan's head when he rose from the grave defeating sin and death. Satan has been ultimately defeated, his head has been crushed and God's promise was yet again fulfilled.

Stop looking to the world for promises it can never keep and look to God and his promises that have never been broken.