by Dan Wilson
Pendle Hill Pamphlet #60, 1951

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The Promise of Deliverance is the assurance that there is a power, available to humanity, by which disaster can be abolished forever. Do not be deceived. There is no promise that we shall not be in great danger. There is no promise that we shall be delivered from the fury of present warfare; nor from the consequences of deep-seated and widespread evils inherent in even the best of our institutions; nor from this or that calamity. Great numbers of the world’s family are born into starvation, disease, homelessness and hopelessness. There is no promise that our particular loved ones, our homes, our careers, our hard-earned security, our healthy bodies, our political and economic freedom, or our lives, will be spared. Millions who are as good as we are, who possessed as much as we possess, have lost everything in our time.

There is no promise that western civilization can be delivered from the fate of prior, perhaps greater civilizations. There is no reliable foretelling that our worst fears will not come true. But this Promise of Deliverance does not play upon fear. There is enough fear already in the world and in our hearts. We are stricken with the disease, fear, which grips us in paralyzing fascination. Our foreign and domestic policies are filled with fear. Our personal lives reflect it. Our churches, for the most part, evade it by neglecting the urgent relevance of their fearless gospel. The message of deliverance drives away fear. It is basically opposed to despair. It is the very opposite to an announcement that man is abandoned to doom. That God is real and that God acts for man’s deliverance is the Promise.