The Promise (God Keeps His Word)

Can you trust God's promises when you feel forgotten?

The Bible is full of promises — some made by men, and some made by God. In this study of Deuteronomy, Dr. Toby Holt shows the contrast: human promises are notoriously flimsy and often broken, but the promises of God are iron-clad. On the plains of Moab, Moses gathers a new generation of Israel — the children of those who came out of Egypt — to recount how faithfully God has kept His word through forty years in the wilderness, and to renew the covenant God swore to their fathers.

Dr. Holt draws the comfort out for the discouraged believer: the God who kept His covenant with Israel is the same God who binds Himself to every one of His people. His faithfulness does not rise and fall with your circumstances or your feelings. When depression whispers that God has forgotten you, His promises stand unchanged — anchored not in your ability to feel them, but in His own unchanging character. Because God keeps His word, your hope is as secure as He is.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why are God's promises more secure than any human promise? Because God cannot lie or change. Human promises fail because people are weak and fickle; God's promises hold because they rest on His unchanging nature and His power to fulfill them.

2. What is the covenant Moses renews in Deuteronomy? On the edge of the Promised Land, Moses calls Israel to renew the covenant God swore to their fathers — a binding promise grounded in God's faithfulness, not the people's performance.

3. How does this help when I feel abandoned by God? Because feelings are not the measure of God's faithfulness. His promises are objective and unbreakable; your security is grounded in what He has sworn, not in what you can feel.

"Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him." — Deuteronomy 7:9 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This study is part of New Geneva Theological Seminary's teaching on depression and hope. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.