It is a common moral rule that you shouldn't make promises that you can't keep. So many times, in real life and in fiction, we see people breaking this rule and suffering the consequences, be they falling out with a friend or family member or even something more dire like someone maybe getting hurt because we couldn't keep our promise.

Throughout the Bible, we see God make various promises. Promises to keep us safe, promises to make sure that we are never without what we need, promises to give us eternal life with Him in Heaven. The difference between our promises and the promises of God is that we very easily do not keep our promises. Even promises that we thought we could keep can often be forgotten, but God's promises are not like this. They are never broken.

One of the first promises that God makes in the Bible is the promise to Noah that He will never again flood the earth to destroy all but a select number of the living organisms in the world. So far, He has kept this promise, and we can trust that He will continue to keep this promise for all eternity. Another promise that He has kept is the promise to David that one of his descendants will always reside on the throne of Israel. Even though there isn't a (human) king of Israel anymore, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, was born of the line of David, and He will rule forever in the new Jerusalem.

The fact that God keeps His promises in this way is a testimony to His faithfulness, that when He says He will do something, He will do it. Much like the character in David Bowie's Queen B***h, "[He] don't make false claims". This is shown even when the promise God is making seems almost impossible.

In Genesis 12:1-3, God promises a 75-year-old Abram (later known as Abraham) descendants as many as the stars in the sky, or grains of sand on the earth. Abram at this point is an old man, and his wife, Sarai, is herself only ten years younger than her husband, and is barren. Abram could be justified in his scepticism of this promise; how can the two of them, old and past child-bearing age, have a child at all, let alone descendants which match the stars in the sky in number? Indeed, Abram has to wait a while before this promise is fulfilled: 25 years, in fact. Isaac, the second patriarch and father to Jacob who later becomes Israel - is born to Abram and Sarai when they are 100 and 90 respectively in Genesis 21:1-5.

The promise to Abram of a large number of descendants seems almost ludicrous when you look at it in earthly ways. He is himself an old man, with a wife who can't have children. How then can this promise be fulfilled? I think that if I had to wait so long for such a promise to be fulfilled, I would begin to doubt whether it would ever actually happen. Abram, however, 'keeps the faith' and sees the promised child born to him at the age of 100. Even though it took 25 years, God still kept His promise to Abram when it seems impossible, simply because Abram trusted that it would happen.

Another way in which we see the promises of God fulfilled biblically is in the vast number of prophecies that Jesus fulfilled; in fact, it was by these prophecies that it was first determined that Jesus was indeed the Messiah promised to the Israelites over 400 years before. It is estimated that Jesus fulfils more than three hundred prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament, showing the faithfulness of God over the centuries from the Old to the New Testament.

• In Micah 5:2, it is prophesied that the promised Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. This is fulfilled in Luke 2:4-5.
• In Isaiah 7:14 it is prophesied that the Messiah will be born of a virgin. This is fulfilled in Matthew 1:20-23.
• In Zechariah 9:9, it is prophesied that the Messiah will make a triumphant entry into Jerusalem. This is fulfilled in Matthew 21:8-11.
• In Psalm 22:18, it is prophesied that the Messiah's clothes will be divided by lots. This is fulfilled in Mark 15:24. This last prophecy is not directly influenced by Jesus - He did not tell the soldiers to divide His clothes by lots, but they did this of their own volition, showing that God's promises and prophecies can even 'predict' what people will choose in their own free will.

The promises and prophecies about the Messiah who would rescue the world were held on to tightly by those living in Old Testament times. When they were fulfilled, even though some did not believe that they had been fulfilled, it showed God's faithfulness to His people even over centuries.

God has promised to save us from the evils of the world - the effects of the Fall - and even though it hasn't happened yet, we can take solace in the fact that God has never not kept one of His promises, and He never will. Even if we have to keep the faith like Abram, we can still trust that no matter how long it takes for God to fulfil His promise, it will be fulfilled, and when it is the world be better for everyone.

Over the past eight weeks, we have been looking at the character of God in a number of different ways. We have learnt that God is a Creator, God is Loving, God is a Warrior, God is our Father, God is Famous, God defines us, and God is faithful. Yet God is also eternal, and He will carry on in these characteristics for all eternity.