John Bevere - How to Know If a Promise Is from God

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You know, all of us were talking in between these sessions, and when I was a baby Christian, I wish I had the understanding of the first two lessons. You have no idea how many days I was almost crying and shouting about my emotions. I thought, «God, what have I done? Why is Your presence gone?» If you look at Jesus, He’s the best example.

Here’s Jesus, and the masses all came out from Judea and Jerusalem to hear John the Baptist in the wilderness. Jesus comes out, gets baptized, and the heavens open up; the Holy Spirit descends in bodily form like a dove and rests upon Jesus. Then God the Father speaks, «This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.» Here’s what we would do in America, because we’re such good entrepreneurs: «Oh my gosh, God just announced I’m His chosen child right in front of all the masses! Get on social media! Everybody go to my Instagram story right now! I’m starting my ministry! The first meeting is going to be in Jerusalem.» But what happens? The very next verse says, «Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit.» It wasn’t the devil who led Him; the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days. There’s a reason for this, and I’ll show you that reason later.

I want to talk in this lesson about the process of a promise, okay? The process of a promise. First of all, to make sure we’re on the same page, let me define the word «process.» A process is a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end goal, right? So we’re going to talk about the process of a promise. Now, if we look at this, let’s discuss the way God works in our lives. First of all, He gives us a promise. He does this with all His kids. If I sit down with any true believer who has a relationship with the Lord and I say, «Tell me what are some of the things God’s put on your heart?» they can go back and say, «Man, when I was a young believer, after walking with the Lord for three or four years, God showed me I should do this or that,» right? So, what does that promise do when God gives it to us? It awakens our destiny. Remember, He predestined us—don’t get nervous with that word; I’ll talk about it in another lesson—but it awakens our destiny. Then you have to go through the process; that’s when the process begins. God gives the promise, and then the process begins.

What is the process? It is the development of the needed faith and character to fulfill the promise. In other words, when the promise is given, we don’t have the character or the faith to fulfill it. The third step is the promise is fulfilled. So, let me use Joseph as an example. God gives Joseph two dreams: he’s going to be a great leader, and his brothers are going to serve him. His mother and father are going to bow down to him. When God gave him that dream, do you know what the Bible reports about Joseph? He had a little character problem; he was a bragger and a tattletale. It actually points out that he told on his brothers and got them in trouble. So, he definitely doesn’t have the character for what God’s called him to do. God gives this promise through two dreams, awakening Joseph’s destiny, and what happens next? The process begins. He is sold into slavery.

First, he goes into a pit, which I love to say is for preachers in training, as in the previous lessons. Anyway, then he’s sold as a slave. These are his own brothers who have done this. When you’re sold as a slave back then, you’re going to be a slave for the rest of your life; your wife’s going to be a slave, your kids are going to be slaves. It would have probably been kinder if they had killed him. This is serious. When you’re the heir of a wealthy man, Jacob, whose father is Jacob Israel, and now you’re sold as a slave—wow! He thinks his whole destiny has changed. Right? So he’s thinking God will come through; He’ll show my dad where to jerk my brothers, but one year of slavery, two years, three years, four years… Ten years of slavery, and no word from home. He’s still obeying God. Remember I said we mature when we obey God in the midst of the desert.

Potiphar’s wife gets the hots for him. He’s a slave in Potiphar’s house. She approaches him every single day, but he keeps resisting. Finally, she grabs him by the robe; he says no and flees sexual immorality. He does exactly what God says and ends up in the dungeon. Now, our prisons are country clubs compared to those dungeons, right? He’s in this dungeon now, and boy, if there was a time for him to get bitter with God, it was then, absolutely. So I’m going to continue his story in a minute, but I want to go back to when the promise is given because we need to backtrack here for just a second.

God gives us a promise. Here’s the really important part: Is that promise really from God? I want to give you five things to look for when identifying if a promise is from God. First of all, does it line up with Scripture? If it’s contrary to Scripture, throw the promise out; it’s not from God. It’s the enemy trying to puff you up and get you out of the will of God. In other words, God’s not going to make you a promise about being married to someone when you’re married to someone else. You got it? That’s what I’m talking about. You can immediately go, «That’s ridiculous. That’s the enemy. Get thee behind me.» Handle the devil the way Jesus handled him: «It is written.»

Number two: Is this promise bigger than you? If you can accomplish this promise, it’s not from God. The reason God will always make your promise or your life calling bigger than your ability is that if He didn’t, then He’d have to share the glory with us, and He said, «I’m not sharing my glory with anybody.» This is why God calls a guy whose worst subject in high school was English and creative writing—hello, me, right? I really did score 370 on the SAT in English. I’m not kidding! In all my travels, I’ve only met one person who scored lower than me on the SAT. God says, «Write,» and I’m like, «What? You’ve got the wrong boy.» I did nothing for 10 months, and then two women came to me from two different states and said, «If you don’t write what God’s given you, He’s going to give the message to somebody else, and one day you’re going to have to give an account for it.» I would have missed my destiny, right?

So, you know, one day I’m sitting there thinking, «Whoa! I know I can’t write.» Well, then, there was another day when I was trying to preach and put my wife to sleep, and I’ll tell you about that later. Here’s the deal: what it did for me was realize how I can’t do anything without His grace and empowerment in my life. Here I am, tens of millions of books later, translated into 108 languages. People always say, «Oh, you’re such a great author,» and I’m like, «The reason my name’s on that book is that I was the first guy to read it.» You know, I realize it was Him who accomplished it through me. The dream was much bigger than my ability.

Number three: Does the fulfillment of this dream benefit only you, or does it benefit others? If it benefits only you, you better check into it a little closer. If you look at the prophet Nathan, who comes to David in 2 Samuel, this is amazing. He says, «Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts: 'I took you from the sheepfold, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people over Israel.'» This is amazing, right? But if you go to 2 Chronicles 14, you get interesting insight. David went through a wilderness. Look at the humility of David: David realized that the Lord had confirmed him as king over Israel and had greatly blessed his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel. Because David went through that 14-year wilderness, he had that character. He realizes God did this for the sake of His people.

Can I tell you people are like, «Whoa, your books are in 108 languages. They’re in the tens of millions.» I realize God did it for the sake of His people; I was just the donkey He chose to ride on. You see what I’m saying? David had an understanding of that.

Number four: Has your dream been confirmed by leadership? That’s very important. Has leadership confirmed your dream? If you look at Acts 13, I’m sure Paul already knew this and Barnabas already knew this, but while the leaders of the church in Antioch were praying and fasting, the Holy Spirit spoke through the leaders of that church and said, «Hey, separate Me, Paul, and Barnabas for the work I’ve called them to do.» So they were sent out by the Holy Spirit.

And the fifth one: Has the dream or what God has spoken to you been repeated? You know, over and over. I remember God sending ministers I greatly respected—ministers who were greatly respected in the body of Christ at large—saying to me when I was an engineering student at Purdue, «John, you are called of God,» over and over. My mother was Catholic and was very against me having anything to do with Bible studies, Christianity, and all that. I was raised Catholic, baptized Catholic. So God was sending me these ministers who had international ministries saying, «I don’t know why you’re at this university. What are you doing at this prestigious university? You’re called to the nations.» The guy who helped me in my walk with God was standing right beside me laughing and said, «He knows; he knows.» But that guy also knew that God had a lot of character development to do in me because I was far from ready.

Here’s the thing: You’re always going to think you’re ready before you’re ready, so just get ready for that. Okay, I’ll tell you more about that when I share my personal testimonies. Let me say this: a promise will inevitably usher you into a new season. So, what happens with Joseph? He gets that dream, and bam, he’s now in a pit. He’s a slave, so he’s gone into a season of wilderness. It’s very important that we understand that a promise will keep you on course; this is so important until you reach your destiny.

If you look at Luke 1:37, «No word or promise from God shall be without power or impossible for fulfillment.» When God speaks a word, it’s got all the power you need to fulfill that promise if you just stay in line with that promise. Number two: God says, «I am alert and active, watching over My word to perform it.» This is when He spoke to Jeremiah when he was a 16-year-old boy, and I’m sure Jeremiah doesn’t record his wilderness, but he went through a lot of wildernesses before he started bringing the word of the Lord to Israel.

Now, let’s return to Joseph. Look at Joseph. He’s in a situation where he’s been a slave for 10 years, a dungeon for two years. He’s going backwards from the promise. When you’re put in a dungeon and you’re a slave, and you’ve been accused of raping one of the king’s officer’s wives, you’re in that dungeon to rot. They don’t want to execute you because that’s too easy. They put you into these dungeons. I said our prisons are country clubs; they are. I’ve been in a Middle Eastern dungeon. They’re usually emptied-out cisterns below the ground, damp; the ceiling’s only about four feet high—horrible, horrible places. They provide what is known as the bread of affliction and water of affliction, giving you just enough bread to keep you alive and just enough water to keep you alive because they want you to suffer. That’s where Joseph is.

Now watch what happens. We’re going to go to Psalm 105, and this has to be one of my favorite scriptures in the Old Testament. «He sent a man before them.» Remember, Joseph said the same thing to his brothers: «You didn’t send me here; God sent me here.» That’s amazing. Just like God led Jesus into the wilderness, God led Joseph to Egypt. But He knew how wicked his brothers were. They had a lack of character, and God said, «I’m going to use their lack of character to fulfill My purpose in Joseph’s training.»

God didn’t make those brothers do it; He knew they would do it because God can’t be tempted with evil, nor does He do evil. Now look at this: «They hurt his feet with fetters; he was laid in iron.» Whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you understand? He’s not only in this damp dungeon, which may have a four-foot ceiling; they’re hurting him with fetters and irons. Get the picture here: this is not a country club prison like ours today. Now look at this: «Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.»

Now I’m going to leave this scripture up because there’s a lot in here that we don’t see on the surface. We have to go back to the original language. If you look at «his word,» it’s the Hebrew word «dabar.» Okay? Here’s what it means: it means spoken word or speech. So basically, it was Joseph’s personal promise. Now let’s go back to the scripture again. «Until the time that his word"—can we put «until the time that Joseph’s personal promise from God came to pass»?

Now look at this: «The word of the Lord tested him.» What is the word of the Lord? There’s a different Hebrew word that means God’s word. You know how Psalm 19 says «the word of the Lord»? You’ll see this word more often in Psalm 19 than any other place; it’s the scripture that we have, the word of God. So, «The word of the Lord tested him.» How did it test him? Can he still obey God in the midst of this hardship?

Now look at this: «Tested him.» I love this; it is «sarap,» a verb meaning to refine. And this is what we’re going into in the next lesson, so I’ll give you a little preview right now. To test—this word describes the purifying process of a refiner who heats metal, takes away the dross, and is left with a pure substance. If you look at Joseph, he does not have the character to handle this position of authority. But when God’s done with him after these 12 years, and his brothers finally come back, he’s not bitter. He doesn’t say, «Oh, you guys created a hell on earth for me for 12 years; I’m sending you all to the dungeon to let you taste this for the rest of your lives.» He doesn’t do that. He’s not bitter. He says, «Hey guys, God sent you here to preserve our family.»

So if you look at this, once his brothers came and stood before him, the Bible says, «Then Joseph remembered the dream which he had dreamed about them.» Now I want to make this really clear: that Hebrew word doesn’t mean, you know how we say in English, «Oh yeah, I remember that; I got a dream five years ago,» right? That’s not what that word means. That word «remember» means he kept in mind the entire time. Let me show you how it’s used in a different place. It says in Genesis 8:1, «Then God remembered Noah.» God didn’t go, «Oh my gosh, I just flooded the earth; I got a guy down there in a boat. My goodness, I’m going to do something about it.» No, God kept in mind the whole time this was going on.

So Joseph kept in mind the whole time he was a slave, the whole time he was in the dungeon, «God made me a promise. My brothers are going to come down and bow before me.» And they did. So you see that when you properly handle the promise, you fulfill your destiny.

Okay, so I just want to give you some counsel here. Number one: Stay in the process and embrace it. James 1:4 says, «So don’t get out of anything prematurely; let the trials do their work so that you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.» You’ve got to remember why—because God will fulfill what He has started. Philippians 1:6 says, «I am fully convinced that the one who began this glorious work in you will faithfully continue the process of maturing you through your union with Him and will complete it.» God’s going to finish it. In the meantime, you’ve got to steward the process. How do we do that? Paul said to Timothy, «This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies—these are the personal promises—that were made to him by God, previously concerning you, that by them,"—by what? By the promises that God made—"you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience.»

Man, there were so many times—I mean, when I got saved, here I am an engineer at Purdue University. I have a bachelor’s in science in mechanical engineering, and I’m sitting there thinking, «But I’m not called to be an engineer.» God shows me, «You’re called to ministry.» Now I have a desire for ministry, and I thought in 1982 I had to start my preaching ministry because Jesus was coming back in 1988. Let me tell you something; there was a lot of maturity that had to take place in this boy for God to be able to entrust what He called me to do. Why? God wants to protect us. He doesn’t want what He called us to do to destroy us, and we’ll talk more about this. So, we saw the word «refinement,» and that’s what we’re going into in the very next lesson.