Precious Time is the third studio album by Pat Benatar, released on July 6, 1981. It peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, chart and produced the top 20 hit "Fire and Ice"; the song that would later win the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1982 and reached No. 17 on the U.S. Pop chart and No. 2 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart. The single "Promises in the Dark" reached No. 38 on the U.S. Pop chart and No. 16 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart. Precious Time was also Benatar's first album to chart in the UK, reaching No. 30.
Benatar wrote this song with her guitarist and future husband Neil Giraldo. The song deals with trials and tribulations of past relationships and how they affect the one you're in now. Haven't we all had to tend the emotional scars left behind from whoever got there first? In the case of Giraldo and Benatar, things worked out quite well: they got married in a cow pasture in Maui in 1982, and have been married ever since. They've also continued their musical partnership as well, with Giraldo producing all of Benatar's next albums. Giraldo and Benatar were dating when they wrote this song, which was early in their musical partnership. In an interview with Neil Giraldo, he explained: "That was a song that Patricia started first. I mean, I start probably 93% of them, and she'll jump in after I get it started. But she actually started writing that on an airplane. And then she put some words together, and she said, 'Here, try to do something with this thing.' Actually she slipped the words under the door of our music room in this little house we had. We wrote that I think in 1980. Even though we could have put it on Crimes of Passion, we ended up putting it on Precious Time instead. But she put the words under the door because she was too embarrassed to let me see the words face to face. Then she had a little bit of an idea of a melody, so I took a little bit of what that was, and I wrote it on piano in our little music room. My favorite guitar I had in the room at the time fell and busted while I was writing, and busted the top of the neck off it. So that was like a curse. And then when we went to record it, we had everything but the last verse, and then I just wrote the words for the last verse in the studio while we were recording it. So that's how that one goes."
Never again, isn't that what you said
You've been through this before
You swore, this time, you'd think with your head
No one would ever have you again
And if takin' was gonna get done, you'd decide where and when
Just when you think you got it down
Your heart securely tied and bound
They whisper promises in the dark
Armed and ready, you fought love battles in the night
But too many opponents made you weary of the fight
Blinded by passion, you foolishly let someone in
All the warnings went off in your head, still you had to give in
Just when you think you got it down
Resistance nowhere to be found
They whisper promises in the dark
But promises you know what they're for
It sounds so convincing, but you heard it before
'Cause talk is cheap and you gotta be sure
And so you put up your guard
And you try to be hard but your heart says try again
You desperately search for a way to conquer the fear
No line of attack has been planned to fight back the tears
Where brave and restless dreams are both won and lost
On the edge is where it seems it's well worth the cost
Just when you think you got it down
Your heart in pieces on the ground
They whisper promises in the dark
This mornings devotion is about promises. We have all made them and perhaps some of us have broken them. We have had people promise us things and we have had those promises end up being broken and then trust is lost and relationships and friendships end. This morning we look at the promises of God.
The true hope of salvation in Jesus Christ, the hope of the gospel, is founded upon promises made by God in the Bible. These are described by the Apostle Peter as “great and precious promises”, by which we may share “the divine nature”, that is, eternal life (2Pe 1:4).
The phrase ‘to give one’s word’ has the same sense as ‘to promise’. In the Scriptures, God gives His word concerning the future, with all the force of a promise. All of the prophecies in the Bible concerning the future are therefore, in a sense, promises. But those principal promises that constitute the gospel are linked to covenants, or binding agreements. It is remarkable that the Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, should be prepared to enter into covenants with us, and to affirm us by solemn oaths, but this is what the Bible records.
The beginning of the promises
The expression of God’s gracious intention and promises to save begins in Scripture immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve, in this pronouncement: “I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman [Eve], and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15). these words foretell a conflict between good and evil that would be resolved by the victory of a Saviour provided by God, the promised seed (or descendant) of Eve. In the course of time, our own wickedness drove God to bring the judgement of the Flood upon the earth. But in the aftermath, He made a second great promise to faithful Noah: “I will not again curse the ground any more… While the earth remaineth… summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Gen 8:21,22). This promise of the permanence of the earth was confirmed by a covenant, made by God with all flesh, and symbolized in the rainbow (Gen 9:11-13).
God’s promises to Abraham
The next great development in the unfolding of God’s promises for the future was made to Abraham (originally Abram). He was called by God, about 2000 BC, to leave his home in Mesopotamia to journey to Canaan, which was to become known as the Promised Land.
The promises God made to him were amazingly wide in scope:
- “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great… and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 12:2,3);
- “Lift up now your eyes, and look… for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed for ever” (Gen 13:14,15);
- “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall your seed be” (Gen 15:5).
- Abraham’s belief in the last of these promises from God was “counted… to him for righteousness”, in other words, his sins were forgiven because of his faith (v 6; cf Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jam 2:23).
These promises once again focused on the promised seed, descended from Abraham, eventually revealed as the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 3:16). The multiplication of that seed “as the stars of heaven” refers to the multitude of people of all ages who would gain salvation through Jesus, by believing the same promises (Dan 12:3; Heb 11:12,13). God endorsed His promises to Abraham by covenants, first a covenant for the land of Israel (Gen 15:18) and then one with his seed, that He would be their God. This was marked in Abraham’s natural descendants, the nation of Israel, by the rite of circumcision (Gen 17:1-14). Finally God sealed all of His promises and covenants with a solemn oath: “By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD… that in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heaven… and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen 22:16-18). These promises, subsequently reiterated to Isaac and Jacob (Israel), are the very foundation of the gospel of salvation (Gal 3:8,9). They require that Abraham and all the faithful must rise from the dead, as Jesus did, in order to enjoy them (Acts 24:14,15; 26:6-8).
God’s promises to David
Nearly 1,000 years after Abraham, when his descendants, the nation of Israel, had become a kingdom in the land of promise, God made further momentous promises to David the king: “I will set up your seed after you… and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be My son” (2Sa 7:12-14). These promises too were affirmed by God by covenant and oath (Psa 89:3,4), and were reiterated by the angel Gabriel at the annunciation of Jesus’ birth (Luk 1:32,33). God was faithful.
God’s promises fulfilled in Jesus
All of these promises are centered in Jesus, (Acts 13:32,33; Rom 15:8,9; 2Co 1:19,20), and so the New Testament begins with the words: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mat 1:1). But there are other promises in the Old Testament directed personally to him. For example, Jesus is personally promised rulership of God’s Kingdom: “Ask of Me, and I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession” (Psa 2:8). Exalted to God’s throne in heaven, Jesus is affirmed by an oath to be a priest or mediator for all believers: “Sit thou at My right hand… The LORD hath sworn… Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek” (Psa 110:1,4; 1Ti 2:5; Heb 5:5-10).
God’s promises to us
While God’s promises cannot fail to be fulfilled. He is a covenant keeping (Promise Keeping) God he will not go back on a promise. He laways seeks to fulfill his promises to us. He will never break them. We need to receive the truth about the promises of God. We need to appropriate them in our lives. We need to see the God behind the promise and have an intimate relationship with him. Promises are the commitment he has for us. It is said that there are over 7,000 promises in the bible more than enough for a life time of relationship with Christ.
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