“So David said to [Mephibosheth], “Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually.” – 2 Samuel 9:7

Whatever happened to simple language and trust in the simplicity?  People’s word used to be their bond.  It seems to be a rare thing anymore.  We are always looking for assurances of people when they say they will or will not do something.  We often ask a person, “Do our promise?”  In doing that, we are requiring an oath, over and above the simple “yes.”  Sometimes a person will go a step further and say something like, “Yes, I promise, on my mother’s grave.”

In Matthew 5, Jesus addressed this issue when He said, But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’ (Matthew 5:37).  He was saying that the extra promise or ‘oath’ should be unnecessary. 

In the Old Testament, a covenant was a type of binding promise. Before David became king, he and Saul’s son Jonathan made a covenant involving Jonathan’s future children. Jonathan asked David to promise that when he became king, he would care for Jonathan’s children. And David did. Years after Jonathan died and David became king, he heard that Jonathan’s disabled son, Mephibosheth, was alive and living as an outcast as a descendant of Saul. So David brought Mephibosheth to his court and made ample and permanent provisions for him.  Why? Very simply, because he had said he would.

David kept his promise to Jonathan. And God keeps His promises to us. And we should keep our word to one another—always.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote: “God hath promised to keep his people, and he will keep his promise.“