Does God still need to keep His covenant with Abraham?

Answer:

God made a series of promises to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 15:18), which can be summarized as having three basic elements: land, a nation, and a blessing to all nations. God used promises to demonstrate to the world a fact about His nature: God always keeps His promises. "For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, "Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you." And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us" (Hebrews 6:13-18). The reason the evidence of God's promise to Abraham is so powerful is that God kept those promises.

When God brought Israel out of Egypt, it was because He remembered His promise. "I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say to the children of Israel: 'I am the LORD; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD'" (Exodus 6:4-8).

God brought Israel to the borders of Canaan and told them to take possession of the land. "See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers-to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - to give to them and their descendants after them" (Deuteronomy 1:8). They fulfilled God's command. "So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had said to Moses; and Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. Then the land rested from war" (Joshua 11:23). And thus God's promises concerning the land were fulfilled completely. "So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass" (Joshua 21:43-45).

The nation promise was fulfilled while the Israelites were in the land of Egypt and the seed promise was fulfilled much later in the coming of Jesus.

The point that needs to be made is that God does not need to keep His promise to Abraham, those promises were kept.

You are correct that people have a tendency to only "prove" what they want to believe when they read their Bibles. They miss the fact that there were several other promises that God made concerning the promises He made with Abraham. For example, God promised to destroy Israel if they forsook Him (Leviticus 26:27-39). He promised to drive them from the land. "When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell" (Deuteronomy 4:25-28). They would cease to be a nation. "Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the LORD your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God" (Deuteronomy 8:11-12).

All of these things happened, just as God promised. Israel sinned grievously against God, despite God’s longsuffering. The northern tribes were removed from the land (II Kings 17:7-18). When the remaining tribe also sinned, it too was removed (II Kings 23:26-27).

Yet, God in His mercy promised that the second captivity would only last 70 years. The whole nation would not be restored, but a remnant would return to the land (Jeremiah 25:8-13; Isaiah 10:20-23). This, too, was fulfilled as Ezra, Zerubbabel, and Nehemiah returned the people to Israel. Like a broken jar, it would be repaired, but it would never be whole like it once was (Jeremiah 19:7-13).

God kept all of His promises.

Still, people reject this simple statement. "The land was promised forever in an everlasting covenant as an everlasting possession in Genesis 13:14-17; 17:7-8; I Chronicles 16:16-18; and Psalm 105:9-11." Thus, the claim is that since Israel has not been occupied continuously since its original possession, the land promise has not been fulfilled.

The problem stems from ignoring the meaning of the word "forever." The Hebrew words for “forever” and “everlasting” can mean eternity or time without end, but its technical definition is “what is hidden; specifically hidden time, long; the beginning or end of which is either uncertain or else not defined; eternity, perpetuity.” For example, when the word "forever" is applied to the affairs of individual men, it signifies all the days of that man’s life. When it is applied to a nation, it signifies the whole dynasty – all the time up to its destruction. We use "forever" in a similar fashion. “I’ll love you forever” means I will love you all the days of my life.

There are numerous things in the Bible which are stated to be forever which did not mean eternal, as the following chart shows:

The real sad fact is that when people claim that God has yet to fulfill the land promised to Israel, the implication is God is unable to keep His promises. If such were true, then what happens to the promise of eternal life? After all, the Hebrew writer argued the certainty of that promise being fulfilled based on the fact that God fulfilled His promises to Abraham. The truth is the claim is false. Modern Israel is a nice country, but it is not the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham -- those promises have already been fulfilled.