A Promise Is Good, but a Promise Kept Is Better

Excerpt From Newsletter

That is, if you believe the promise, you receive the blessing as an inheritance that will result in the inheritance of what was promised by all who receive the promise by faith (belief). But those who refuse to receive the promise of the inheritance—which is also the blessing—by hearing and believing it remain under the curse that God placed on “the ground” from which they came and to which they are going to return:

But to the man He said, “Because you listened to the voice of your woman and you ate from the tree that I commanded you, saying, ‘Don’t eat from it!’ the ground is cursed on account of you. In pain you must eat from it all the days of your life. It will sprout thornbushes and thistles for you; nevertheless, you must eat the green plants of the field. You must eat bread {obtained} by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground because you were taken from it, because you are dirt and to dirt you will return.”
(Genesis 3:17–19) —my interim translation

The reason the promise is also the blessing is because the promise is the Living Word of God that comes to the True Believer as a spoken blessing. The introduction to that Living Word of God is what some folks nowadays call “the Gospel.” If you hear and believe the Gospel, you will repent. In so doing, you obtain the blessing and inherit the promise, which is the hope of inheriting what was promised. (The word hope explains how Pandora’s Box relates to all this.)

If you stubbornly reject the Gospel and refuse to repent, however, you will remain under the curse God has already imposed on “the ground” from which He formed the man Adam. But (and here’s where opening Pandora’s Box unleashes the evil bottled up in all Pretenders) one can only receive the promise as a spoken blessing from someone who has already received the promise as a spoken blessing. That requires action on the part of someone whom God has called to deliver the promise to others. That person is called an Evangelist. That’s what Paul has in mind when he says this:

But the righteousness based on faith speaks thus, “do not say in your heart, ‘who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus {as} Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same {Lord} is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him; for “whoever will call upon the name of the lord will be saved.” How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!” However, they did not all heed the glad tidings; for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So faith {comes} from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
(Romans 10:6–17)

“A Promise Is Good, but a Promise Kept Is Better,” The Voice of Elijah^®, October 2005, p. 3

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