God’s Promises

By Everek R. Storms

The Scriptures contain a grand total of 8,810 promises. How do I know? I counted them.

I do not guarantee my count to be perfect, but it is the most accurate I know of.

The Bible contains eight kinds of promises. There are 7,487 promises that God has given to man. This is about 85% of all the promises in the Bible.

There are also 290 promises made by man to God. The majority of these—235 of them—are to be found in the Psalms, such as, “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.” (Psalm 51:15)

There are 28 promises that were made by angels. Most of these—23 of them—are found in Luke. One example is the promise made by the angel to the women at Jesus’ tomb: “Behold, he goeth forth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him” (Matthew 28:7).

There are actually 9 promises made by Satan—e.g., “All things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:9).

2 promises were made by an evil spirit. “Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will entice him…” (II Chronicles 1:20-21)

There are also 2 promises made by God the Father to God the Son, and one made by a man to an angel. 

One of the 66 books of the Bible has no promises at all—Titus. 17 others contain less than 10 promises each. Even such an outstanding book as Ephesians has only 6 promises.

The New Testament has 1,104 promises; the Old Testament 7,706. This means that 7 out of every 8 promises are found in the Old Testament. You cannot afford to skip the Old Testament when you read your Bible.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have over 1,000 promises each—a total of 3,086 in the 3 books, or more than 1/3 (35%) of all the promises in the Bible. Most of them are of a prophetic nature: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Many verses have more than one promise. Here is a verse with 4: “That that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

Another verse has 5 promises: “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished” (Isaiah 51:6).

The chapter with the most promises is Deuteronomy 28. These 133 promises refer to the blessings and cursings God promised the Israelites when they would reach Canaan, according to whether they would obey or disobey His commands. 

A somewhat similar chapter is Leviticus 26, which has 94 promises—3/4s of all the promises in the book.

The most outstanding chapter, as far as promises are concerned, is Psalm 37. Practically every verse in it is a most precious promise. Here are some of these 43 wonderful promises:

“Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (verse 4).

“Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass” (verse 5).

“The meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (verse 11).

I have read my Bible through many times, but the time I read it counting the promises was one of the most precious. Time after time I have had to agree with Solomon: “There hath not failed one word of all his good promise” (I Kings 8:56).

The promises are ours for the asking—7, 487 of them made by God Himself. They are waiting for us to test and prove them. We go to church and sing, “Standing on the promises,” but some of us are simply sitting on them! 

We are living in troubling days, but the reply that Adoniram Judson gave his mission board when they inquired about the prospects for the future of his ministry is still true for all of us: “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

You can count on the promises of God. Why not try some of them and see for yourself?