When God gives us a promise, it is as valuable as the fulfilment. It might not work out as we imagine but when God says something He keeps His word. As I wrote with a friend in one of my recent songs: "Your words are life/feeding my soul/worth more to me/than silver or gold.

A strange thing happened to me last year. Years ago the Lord spoke to me and made a promise, nothing world shattering and definitely not "You're goona be a star!" Just something personal. The years rolled by and nothing happened then when there was a development in that area it was in completely the wrong direction and the promise looked well nigh impossible to fulfil.

The next day I was called for jury service and during the trial there was some legal hiccup and two witnesses had to have their statements read back to them and had to answer, phrase by phrase, the question, "Did you say and was that true?" and each time they had to answer, "Yes, I said that and it was true." I must have heard the question and answer a hundred times. The clerk of the court said he had never seen anything like it in his life.

God speaks in mysterious ways and when he says it, he means it.

Thanks for the comment. I think it is really important that we realise we live by God's words - Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We need to make sure in this day and age that we are truly hearing the voice of God - in His written word and 'now' word and not getting confused and shaken by the words of fear, manipulation and deceit that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

OK - my timing's a bit off. Not a good thing for a bass player! Noel, in the post below, I referred to your comment about us claiming God says things He really doesn't.

As far as our expected lifespan, if we view what Solomon said to be an average lifespan, not a maximum, then our understanding of Scripture is not double-minded.

John, I hope you and your wife are feeling better!

A biologist at our church offered the following comment regarding the principle of “one flesh”: At conception, the genetic information from the father and the mother join together to begin the life of a new and unique person – two becoming one. Of all the creatures God created by the power of His Living Word, man is the only one made in His image. God ordained marriage for no other creature: “…Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24

Don’t miss how Jesus refers to this in his teaching on divorce: “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning of creation made them male and female…” (cf. Matthew 19:4). And Jesus is quoted in Mark 10:6, “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female…’”.

Was there death before sin?

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, bears witness with the Lord Jesus to the inspired words of Moses, “…on the day that you eat of it, dying you shall die.”, when he writes, “Therefore just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned – for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses…” (cf. Romans 5:12-14).

If we in our thinking transform death to something it isn’t, i.e. the “mindless” mechanism by which more complex and “better” genetic information is accumulated over gabazillions of years (this is illogical!), we displace what God tells us through His Word what death is – the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), and the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26).

Just as death had no part in God’s creation until it entered through man’s sin – “And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day” (hey, did God really say, “the sixth day”?), death will have no part in the new heaven and the new earth – “…death shall be no more…” (cf. Revelation 21:4).

Are we saved from death by the blood of Jesus Christ and His resurrection? Yes! This, of course, is the Gospel message! Or are we, as a species, transformed into “higher and more complex beings” by the mindless yet somehow creative power of death? This, of course, is modern man’s “anti-Gospel” message!

Noel, your comment makes me think of what Eve did as she rationalized and conversed with the Serpent, falling into the trap of doubting God’s Word, adding her own words to God’s command.

I'll go for 120 then....

One popular misconception is that we are supposed to live for 70 years, the old, "Three score and ten," which folk get from Ecclesiastes but that was Solomon speaking not God. God put the limit at 120 years and if push comes to shove I know which one I will believe.
The world's other great book, the Guiness book of records, agrees with God and the oldest anyone achieves is 120 something.

Does God really say a lot of the things we say He does?

He did and he was correct. Last week my wife and I caught a bug. I could watch her and know that in 12 hours time I would be doing exactly what she was already doing. One flesh it is.

Does Jesus really say, “…from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’
(Mark 10:6-8)?

Once upon a time a magician, not an illusionist but a real magician, produced a rabbit from his hat. He then took it to the vet and asked the vet, "How old is this rabbit?" The vet examined the beast and said, "Oh about two years old. The magician just smiled.

God may have taken a zillion years but if he did do it six days, how would you tell?

Did God really say...

Exodus 20:1 & 11
And God spoke all these words, saying, “…in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day…”

...that He created all things in 6 days?