Inevitably, we encounter challenges and difficulties that can be pretty unexpected. At the same time, it’s also quite surprising to experience developments that are to our advantage or desire. I remember when my wife and I first started dating. She kept saying “Yes” to my invitations to spend time together until she ultimately accepted my marriage proposal. Looking back, it is easy to see how things worked out, but at the time, I was amazed that it did.
Ultimately, what I came to understand back then and continue to realize today is that, although I live in a world full of surprises, I don’t have faith in a God who is caught by surprise. God, the Triune Judeo-Christian God of the Bible, never changes, never reneges, and never leaves a promise unfilled. He’s not one way today and another way tomorrow. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. To be sure, God’s timing of God’s decree may not align, but delay does not mean denial or abandonment.
God is a God who keeps His promises.
Indeed, throughout Scripture, we see God fulfilling His word, but one passage in particular I want to highlight in this article.
By the time we get to the end of the books of Kings, we see the depths of the deplorable state Israel and Judah have plunged into. Ten tribes of Israel are decimated, and now the remaining two tribes of Judah are being wiped clean by Babylon. The way this occured is grisly and grim. Furthermore, as we near the end of 2 Kings 25, it appears that Babylon is about to wipe out the final kings of Judah, as the Assyrians did to the kings of Israel, squashing one of God’s promises.
However, what the Babylonians do not know is that they’re up against a God who keeps promises. Indeed, one particular tribe had received a promise from God (2 Samuel 7); David’s tribe, Judah, was promised to be the house from which the Messiah would come. And so, as we reach what seems to be the most hopeless situation unfolding in Zion, the City of God, at the end of 2 Kings 25, we’re left with just a glimmer of hope.
“Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the year that he became king, released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison; and he spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the throne of the kings who were with him in Babylon. Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes and had his meals in the king’s presence regularly all the days of his life; and for his allowance, a regular allowance was given him by the king, a portion for each day, all the days of his life” 2 Kings 25:27-30.
Notice…
- A king from the tribe of Judah is released from prison in Babylonian exile.
- This king is given special treatment, being spoken kindly to and promoted to a position of prominence within the Babylonian court.
- Also, this king from Judah is granted regular access to the Babylonian king’s presence throughout his life.
Applications…
- God is faithful despite His people’s unfaithfulness.
- God made a promise to deal with sin well beyond the sin of the Israelite kings.
- Indeed, dating from Genesis 3:15, God promised to deal with sin by crushing the serpent’s head by the seed of the woman.
It was Christ, born of a woman, born under the Law, who offered His life to redeem sinful humans to the one and only Holy Triune God. Yes, it was Christ who enabled God to keep His promise and bring the nations to Himself.
Thus, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation…you are baptized into one spirit…and you are now being transformed into the image of the Son of God.
Are you facing challenges? Trust in the God who keeps His promise. Is the pain too much to bear? God is with you, as He was with His Son, through the pain.
Lord, help us. Amen.
— November 13, 2025