Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Trust me, in the big scheme of things there's not a promise God makes he doesn't keep. He cannot fail to keep his promise because nothing's going to get in the way. Satan isn't going to thwart the plan, your sin, blunders won't thwart the plan. There's nothing that can happen in the political, socio, religious world that is going to thwart the plan. Nothing can derail it. God will prevail.

Dave Drewy: Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez offers biblical proof for having full confidence in God's words. There's no promises he won't keep, no plan he'll fail to accomplish, and that's exactly what we're unpacking in today's lesson. And if you're joining us for the first time, we'd love to send you a complimentary booklet called Promises, Promises by Pastor Mike. It's a perfect companion to what we're studying. Reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Now here's Pastor Mike with today's message, Impeccable Promises and Divine Character.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The writer of Hebrews is giving us reasons to be assured that what God says is true. And the point of it is this: If you will get to the place where the writer of Hebrews is, you'll find your attitude, your life is totally turned around. As a matter of fact, you will be, as the text is about to tell us, greatly encouraged. Take a look at it. Back to Hebrews chapter six and jump into the middle of verse number 18.

God did this—did what? He made a promise then made an oath, and those are the two unchangeable things. And then he throws in this phrase, "in which it is impossible for God to lie." So that we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

The Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. Let's examine that. It’s still part of this concept, and I developed it throughout the rest of scripture, but John Owen in his classic 13-volume commentary on Hebrews, says, just remember this: Every promise of God is built on four pillars. And the more I read that and examined it and thought of it, it's true.

How is it that God cannot lie? Well, because his character does not allow it. Because there are things his character will not allow, because the minute he allows those, he ceases to be God. God, by the nature of his perfection, he has to limit himself in areas, including the first one I want to talk about based on a most fundamental attribute.

I want us to state the most basic attribute of God. The one that if you put angels flying around in the presence of God, they would just start spurting out. They would say what about God? Holy, holy, holy. So jot it down. God is holy. What does holy mean? Holy means you are perfect, you are set apart from sin, you cannot sin.

Now, God lying is a big statement. Picture it this way. Don't miss this distinction. God lying is a big statement. That means what he says, he does. That's the point. Now the aspects of that are number one. One aspect of that, and John Owen is right in this, the first pillar is that he's holy. And if he's holy, there's one thing that can lead to lying or one thing that constitutes lying, and that is—and you need to understand this as a subset—is deception. And if you're holy and perfect and set apart from sin, you cannot deceive.

God is holy, therefore he can't deceive. Be assured by God's impossibilities. First of all, that he's holy. He cannot lie. Why? Pillar number one, because he's holy, and if he's holy, he won't deceive us.

Number two pillar here: God is omniscient. Omniscient. Let's just use the word that the theologians use. He's omniscient. And if he's omniscient, here's the thing: he can't forget. He can't forget. Then jot down next to that Second Peter chapter three, because in Second Peter chapter three, here's how Peter puts it: Oh, I know God promised stuff a long time ago. He said, but remember this. He said a thousand years is like a day and a day is like a thousand years.

Now some people think that's some eschatological equation and they're going off making all kinds of charts. It's not about eschatology and making charts. It's about this: God didn't forget. He could make a promise a thousand years ago and if you said, "Hey, did you make a promise?" He'd say, "It’s like I made it yesterday. I remember everything about it. Absolutely. I don't forget. I'm God. I'm God and I remember everything."

Turn to one passage in the middle of the psalter, actually the end of the psalter. Psalm 147. 147. I thought of this passage. I remember and it happened recently and I was thinking about when it happened to me when I was a kid. Now we didn't have a big family. I had my mom, my dad, had my older brother Dave, and had me. But sometimes, mom would be calling us for dinner or I'd be in trouble or something, and mom would look right at me and she'd call me by every name in the house except for mine, right? David! David! Dave! Michael!

And I remember as a kid thinking, I live here. You can remember my name. And you have this thought as a kid. I'll never do that to my kids. I've got three kids, okay? It takes me sometimes a few names to get to the right name. Look at John, I call him Matthew, Karlin, Stephanie. Start naming my friends, staff members. Whoever you are, get upstairs!

And I thought of this passage. Psalm 147 verse four. He determines the number of the stars and calls each of them by name. And the point is, he's not getting them wrong, right? As a matter of fact, great is our Lord, verse five, and mighty in power. Now underline this phrase: His understanding has no limit. See, and that's the impressive thing that you can remember the names of all the stars.

At Yale University, they did a study trying to figure out how many stars are visible in the best conditions. A magnitude for you astronomers 6.5 or greater. Yale study recently published: there are close to 10,000 stars in the sky on a winter night, new moon, with a 6.5 magnitude or greater which you can see with the naked eye. Close to 10,000 stars.

So let's just assume you've got no smog, you've got no lights, you've got no football stadiums. The ancients in the Old Testament, David looking up into the sky, he's going to see probably on the right night about 10,000 stars over his head and he's going to go, "Wow, that's a lot of stars." And so when the Holy Spirit inspired this text and said, "Oh, by the way, God determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name," David went, "Wow, that's a lot."

I went out last night, I let my eyes adjust, I'd just been reading this passage and I sat outside and I looked up and I said, "I'm going to count the stars. How many stars?" And make up names as I go, just like, let's do this. I know that's stupid. Guy needs a hobby. What's wrong with him? I'm looking up at the stars and I'm trying to count them just for the sake of this passage, and I'm looking up and I'm thinking, "What a bizarre thing." And I couldn't remember, picture it, did I count those? Oh, I don't know. Ah! I started over. I got to the thirties about four times and that was about it.

David could look up in the sky and see over 9,000 stars in the sky and he said, "Wow, God's got them all named." Now we understand the Holy Spirit's inspiring this text, who, by the way, knew there was a lot more than 10,000 stars in the sky, right? Recent count—like they know, right—70 sextillion stars in the sky. Let's forget that word. There is 70,000 million, million, million. That's a lot. And that ain't even right. That's just what they're saying. That's their best guess with all their Hubble telescopes and all the mathematics and all the equations and algorithms. 70 sextillion stars.

Now when the Holy Spirit wrote this, he knew how many stars there were. That is amazing. I mean, I'm running out of names by at least 50 sextillion, right? Fred. Freddy. Frederick. I don't know. But the Bible says he knows them all. Even if you just take the number of what David would have seen looking up into the sky as he read this, right, 9,000. How many promises did we say there was in the Bible? 7,487? I don't know. It seems ironic. As a matter of fact, some researchers say, well, on an average night, average conditions at winter, new moon, you probably see about 7,000, 7,500.

God's not forgetting any of his promises. He doesn't look at the stars and forget their names. He doesn't look at his promises and say, "Did I say that? I don't remember that." God remembers it all. God is omniscient, he cannot forget. God cannot lie. Pillar number one: he's holy, he won't deceive us. He's omniscient, he won't forget. Okay.

But there are times, there are times I make promises to my kids and then circumstances change, right? Circumstances change and I look at my kids and say, "I know I said that, but I didn't know this was going to happen." See, so things have kind of changed. Or you know, I said I'd do that, but I don't much care for that place anymore. My appetite is changed. We're not going to do that.

Thirdly, third pillar that makes God a God who always tells the truth and never lies. Not only that he has good intentions and he never deceives, not only does he have perfect knowledge and he never forgets. Thirdly, ready? He's immutable. He will never change. Immutable. I mean, isn't that where it goes in the book of Hebrews? Jesus the same yesterday, today, and for how long? Forever. God, I love this passage. Malachi chapter three verse six: I, Yahweh, do not change. I don't change. If I said something to you, it's going to happen.

Psalm 102 verses 25 through 28. Don't have time to look at it, but a great passage tying in the covenant of Abraham. Talking about God who laid the foundations of the world, he does not change, he will remain the same even though the earth wears out. God does not change. And then he says this, I love this, the punchline is this: The children of your servants will live in your presence. What's the point? You're always going to keep your covenant, always, because you don't change. God is immutable.

That's exactly what Balaam was saying, under duress, I might add, as he received the oracle from God and he said, "God is not a man that he should lie. He's not the son of man that he should change his mind." He's not like that. And I know you experience people like that. I do too. Bottom line is you're not dealing with God if you're dealing with someone who changes their mind. I know there's some anthropomorphisms in scripture about God doing this, changing that. Trust me, in the big scheme of things there's not a promise God makes he doesn't keep. God makes promises and keeps his promises because God is immutable, he doesn't change.

Lastly, fourth pillar. God doesn't lie. What does that mean? Well, he's not deceiving because he's holy. He's not forgetting because he's omniscient. He's not changing because he's immutable. There's one more thing you’ve got to say. There are sometimes I make promises to my kids and I'm just not able to keep my promise, okay? God's not like that. He is, let's use the technical word, he is omnipotent. Put that down. He's omnipotent. And because he's omnipotent, when he is faced with, quote unquote, challenges in keeping his promise, guess what? They're not a problem.

My son recently got a gash over his eye and I'm such a good parent I don't remember which eye, one of them. But I saw all the blood, scooped him up, dropped off the family, took him to the hospital. And I'm sitting in the hospital and he's bleeding into his eye and I'm trying to keep his eye from bleeding. And of course, I don't know why they don't build more hospitals but it's busy, right? Everybody's busy.

And so they come in, they look at his eye, the doctor says, yeah, he's going to need some stitches but I'm backed up back there, right? So you're just going to have to wait. Okay. So what do we do? We wait. And we wait. Well, this happened at a nighttime situation. And so I got to the hospital at 9:30 and we waited from 9:30 to 10:00, to 10:30, to 11:00, to 11:30, to 12:00, to 12:30. And we're now getting into the place where they're going to stitch up my son's eyeball.

So after midnight, we're sitting there and my son, you know, he's like... well at about 9:30, I said, listen, son, when we're done here, just hang in there, be a trooper, and we'll go get some ice cream. We're walking to the parking lot out of the ER at about, I don't know, 12:40. And I'm thinking, darn it. Ice cream. Where am I going to find ice cream? I don't know. But I'm going to be a good dad. If mom were in the car, we wouldn't do it, but I'm thinking we're going to do it. Dad's going to do it. Ice cream at midnight's not going to work for most moms but dad's going to do it.

So I start driving. And driving. And driving. And I went to every place I could find. I saw a couple places didn't look safe. I saw other places I thought would be open, they were closed. I wanted to find a drive-through somewhere in the county that was open. I finally found one—I thought. I pulled into Ortega Highway at that little street off the freeway that bumps into it, restaurant row, my favorite street. Taco Bell, Del Taco, McDonald's, Carl's Jr., they're all right there. Right on the corner, there's the Jack in the Box. Oh, dude, I'm like, yes! There was like five cars in the drive-through. Yes! Getting your ice cream. They have ice cream there, don't they? Well, not just shakes? Fine, a shake, it's ice cream.

So I pull in. And I don't know if you remember how that one works but you can kind of enter the drive-through from two different areas. Well, there's like three cars up to the little Jack in the Box window thing, talking thing. And then like we're all like there. We're merging. It's pushing 1:00. And we're waiting. And waiting. And here's the joke on all of us: they were closed. They were in there, darn it, doing something, laughing at us all. The lights were on. We find out they're closed. We drove around. I was so mad.

Well, at that point, I said, son, listen. I know I promised you ice cream. I know you have a new eyelash on your eye with all these stitches hanging out. I know that'd make you feel better. I know I promised, but I just can't. I don't know where to go. Drive to Santa Ana? I don't know where to go. "That's okay, dad." So dad drives home. Lying to his son. Now I didn't deceive him. Didn't forget. I mean, I was ready to go. I didn't change. Four hours didn't change my appetite for ice cream, I was ready. But I was not able.

Here's the thing: God is omnipotent, see? And if God makes a promise, here's the thing: he can't fail. He cannot fail to keep his promise because nothing's going to get in the way. Satan isn't going to thwart the plan, your sin, blunders won't thwart the plan. There's nothing that can happen in the political, socio, religious world that is going to thwart the plan. Nothing can derail it. God will prevail. Prevail because he's all-powerful, he's omnipotent.

One last passage. Romans chapter eight. Great way to end our message. After all the great things that are promised, inferred, implied, explicitly said in Romans chapter eight about the greatness of God's redemption in carrying it out, and the hope of the redemption of his children in heaven and his victory on the way there. He ends with this, verse 31. Romans 8:31. What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Here's a God all-powerful, holy, immutable, omniscient. If he's for us, man, who's going to be against us?

And look what he's done for us. He didn't spare his own son, he gave him up for us all. How will he not also along with him graciously give us all things? Are we talking about a house on the hill and a boat in the harbor? Are we talking about a nice car? We're not talking about any of that. Give us what? The promises. He's going to deliver on what he says. He's going to give us everything, every promise he's going to deliver on.

Who's going to bring a charge against those whom God has chosen? Well, it's God who justifies. He's in charge, he's all-powerful. Who's going to condemn? Well, Jesus Christ has been commissioned to give all judgment out, but he's the one who died for us. More than that, he was raised to life and now he's at the right hand of God and he's interceding for us. The only one that can condemn us and hurt us, the all-powerful one, the only one to fear in the universe is the one saying, "I'm for you now. You put your trust in me, I'm on your team. I'm for you."

Who's going to separate us then from the love of Christ? Maybe some trouble? Nah. How about hardship? Nope. How about persecution? That sounds serious. People shooting each other. No. Famine, starving to death? No. Nakedness? No. Danger? No. Sword? No. As it is written, and I know it gets hard, he quotes in verse 36: we face death all day long, considered like sheep for the slaughter.

But no, let me tell you. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Why? Because that love never goes away and the promise never goes away. The presence of God and the kingdom of God. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, demons, present things, future things, any powers, height, depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in the son of Abraham, Christos, the Messiah, Jesus, our King, our Lord. Nothing. He's all-powerful. Didn't deceive us. Won't forget. Won't change his mind. And nobody's going to get in his way.

You hang your hat on those kind of promises and you will walk out with encouragement even in situations people think, "Yeah, you ought to be discouraged right now." Don't get discouraged. God is a great God, a powerful God, an awesome God who keeps his promises.

I know this is hard and for some of you here it's against a backdrop of a lot of personal pain. I've experienced my share of people letting me down and I'm sure that you have too, but there are some of you here that probably have had devastating things happen. People that promised to be there who left. People that promised to love you that don't love you. People that promised to do this or that or the other and they have stabbed you in the back. I can't sympathize with all of that.

But I do know like the apostle Paul, it doesn't matter who fails you on this planet. Doesn't matter what promises have been broken to you. Even in a good intentioned apostle who said in First Corinthians 16, "I'm going to come see you guys," and in Second Corinthians one he says, "You know I didn't make it." He says, but know this, our human frailties. For Paul it wasn't deception, and for some of you it was, some of you it was people forgetting, some people it was they didn't have the power to fulfill it, whatever it was.

But remember this, Paul makes this distinction in Second Corinthians chapter one. He says just know this. He says in this earth you find people making promises and things and sometimes it's yes and sometimes it's no, sometimes they do it and sometimes they don't. But remember this, the message that we spoke to you, that me and Silas and Titus came in and told you about. He says just remember this: it is always yes, he says in Christ Jesus.

There's a great text, let me read you the last part of it. He says it's not yes and no, but with him it is always yes. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him—here's your Greek lesson coming to fruition—the Amen is spoken to the glory of God. What's that mean? We just stand back and say, "Man, it's true. It’s true." God is a God who keeps his promises, no matter how many promises he makes. Christ, the son of Abraham, will always make sure he fulfills them. Nothing will thwart it.

Be encouraged this week. No matter what happens to you, God is a God who is going to keep his promise. In the short run to be with us, give us grace, in the long run to make every wrong thing right. Let's pray. God, I pray you would help us to fortify our confidence in you, because we understand, we have a deepening understanding, an increasing understanding of the character and nature and attributes of God.

God, you've done so much to condescend to us in giving us oaths and promises and covenants. God, you didn't need to do any of that, because if you say it, it's going to happen. If you mention it, it's true. And yet, God, you showed us how much you loved us, how much you care for us by giving us covenants, even swearing by yourself that you would bless the world through the offspring of Abraham.

And indeed you have. And us sitting here thousands of years later, 4,000 years after the promise was spoken to Abraham, we sit here as Gentile people being blessed, being from all those different nations, nations no one had ever even heard of. Because Christ has called us to the place of saying, "Trust in me and you'll never taste death." Oh, you'll go through the threshold of physical life to that life, but in reality there's nothing that's going to separate you from the covenant love and the blessing and the presence of God.

Help us, God, to be where Paul was, where that was so real that the momentary light afflictions of this life, they're really nothing. I mean, they're so inconsequential next to the surpassing greatness and value and the glory that's going to be revealed to us one day. God, let eternity and the unseen things be so real to us this week, because you've bolstered our confidence in the words and promises of yourself. God, help us in that I pray, fortify our faith, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Dave Drewy: We can have supreme confidence no matter what life brings because God is always true to his word. This is Focal Point and you're listening to a mini-series in the book of Hebrews titled When God Makes a Promise. Don't forget, if you've missed any part of this study, you can always catch up online at focalpointradio.org.

And right now, we're offering a book titled All the Promises of the Bible by Herbert Lockyer. This comprehensive resource examines every covenant and guarantee God makes throughout scripture, organizing them by theme and unpacking their meaning for believers today. Request your copy of the book All the Promises of the Bible today when you give to Focal Point. Simply call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org. Now Pastor Mike, why don't you tell us a little bit about the special trip coming up this year?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zuiderdam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. We'll gather for devotional times in God's word followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey.

Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org. Just go to focalpointradio.org to learn more.

Dave Drewy: Well, the Bible says Jesus was forgiving sins even before his crucifixion. So why did Jesus have to die at all? I'm Dave Drewy, inviting you back again tomorrow when Pastor Mike Fabarez sits down for a personal conversation about the reasons why Christ needed to go to the cross on the next episode of Ask Pastor Mike. That's Friday right here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know, we live in a culture where every point of view demands affirmation. It’d be easy to tell people what they want to hear, but we must teach the Bible accurately, unapologetically, and without compromising and without editing it. God's word is truth. If you want to send me a question, I encourage you to get in touch with us at focalpointradio.org.

Dave Drewy: Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.