If you will turn in your Bibles
tonight to the book of Deuteronomy, I'll read to you a verse of Scripture that the Lord's people in so
many generations have found to be a comfort Sometimes I get in such a state wondering what I'll do. And that's usually the problem,
isn't it? We're depending too much on what we'll do. But here is something that is
a blessing. And it's found in the ninth verse
here in Deuteronomy 7. He says, "...know therefore that
the Lord..." This isn't some fake idol. This is Jehovah. "...know therefore that the Lord
thy God..." This is the God of His people. He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy
with them that love Him, and keep His commandments to a thousand
generations. It is not something that these He speaks
of here. It's not their love for Him or
their keeping His commandments that sustain this covenant. But it's an attribute of God
Himself. that does it. And so what we sometimes fail
to remember and more often fail to believe is what he says here
about God. One of those elementary and essential
things about God. And that is that God is faithful. Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, the faithful God." If there is anything, I believe,
that characterizes our day, it must be unfaithfulness. In every vow that men and women
make with each other in every aspect of the business world,
everywhere, unfaithfulness. An old fellow by the name of
Arthur Pink, he died sometime in the fifties as a pretty sound
preacher and writer, but he said in his day, unfaithfulness is
one of the most outstanding sins of these days. And when I think about that,
I think about what would he say now, about 50 plus years later. And if it be a great and unspeakable
blessing, which he said it was, to think of God's faithfulness How much more ought it to be
tonight? That regardless of what time
it is, or what year it is, or who's alive, God is always faithful. And He is not only called here
the faithful God, but He is spoken of as surrounded and clothed
by faithfulness as if he wears it as a garment. It says in Psalm 89, O LORD God
of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness
round about thee? Clothed in this faithfulness,
in Isaiah 11, and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." It says that great is his faithfulness. Infinite and immeasurable and
unending is his faithfulness. Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the
heavens, and thy faithfulness reaches unto the clouds." He never forgets, He never fails,
He never falters, and He never forfeits His Word, because He is faithful. God is not a man that he should
lie, neither the Son of Man that he should repent. Hath he said,
and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall
he not make it good?" Who could stop him? And why would
he ever want to cease from being faithful? And every believer
that has ever lived along with that weeping prophet, Jeremiah,
can say this as he did. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed, because His compassions fail
not. They are new every morning. Great
is thy faithfulness. I don't know how often I think
of that one verse. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed. We can't attribute it to anything
that we do or don't do, nothing in ourselves. And we would be
consumed in the next instant either by the devil or this world
or by our own selves. And so it is His mercies that
we are not consumed, and it is because His compassions fail
not. They are new every morning, and
great is His faithfulness. And the Lord's people in this
world, they prove it day after day. hour after hour, they prove
it. And the faithfulness of God is
one of the most comforting and the most practical of His attributes,
because His faithfulness is joined with His ability and with His
power. He's the faithful God. Now, how is it that God demonstrates
His faithfulness? There are three things that I
want you to listen to quickly tonight. And the first one, and
the highest one, I guess you would say, is this. God is first
faithful to Himself. You say, well, why would you
want to say that God is first faithful to Himself? Because
if He's not faithful to Himself, He can't be faithful to anybody
else. And this simply means what Paul was saying when he spoke
or wrote this epistle to young Timothy, the second one, he said
this, If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he cannot
deny himself. You say, does that mean if I
am not faithful, God will still be faithful? I can almost promise
you, you won't be faithful. In one respect or another, if
we are always those who are characterized, I'm afraid, by this unbelief
of the flesh, we're always going to be found without belief. But not him. Paul said he cannot
deny himself. He abides faithful. The Lord's
people sometimes, they are found not believing on Christ. But the Lord God Himself, He
always believes on Christ. Hold your place right there and
turn to Ephesians, I believe it's Ephesians 1. I used to read this verse and
I thought somehow it just didn't add up to saying what I thought
it ought to say. But look here in Ephesians 1. When he's talking about everything
that God has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, he says that
we, verse 12, that we should be to the praise of His glory
who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after
that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." When he says here, in whom ye
also trusted, that means he's talking in that previous birth
of somebody else who trusted in Christ. Who is that? the Father
Himself, that we should be to the praise
of His glory who first trusted in Christ. Long before the world
ever was, the Father trusted in the Son and entrusted everything
to the Son, and it is that same One that we're called upon to
trust, the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is faithful to His person. He must be faithful to who He
is. He must be faithful as the Holy
One, as the Just One, as the Righteous One. And some say God
can do whatever it is He wants to do. And they think they're
really saying something important about God. But the truth of the
matter is, God first has to be faithful to Himself. He cannot
do anything that is inconsistent with who He is as this holy and
good and righteous God. He cannot be inconsistent with
Himself. And He's not going to do anything
for you or me that is unfaithful to His character. Not anything. And that's what makes the Lord
Jesus Christ so absolutely essential. Because God can be faithful to
Himself and bless every one of His people and give to them of
His grace and mercy, save them with an everlasting salvation
in such a way in Christ that He is faithful to Himself. And He's faithful to His promises.
and his prophecies. In Genesis 8, it says, while
the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat
and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. Now, you might want to just turn
to Genesis And Mark, Genesis 8 and 22, and every time one
of these idiots gets on TV and gets to harping about global
warming and scares everybody to death here and such as that,
when that stops happening, that's when this earth will be
no more as it is. You see that? While the earth
remains, seed time and harvest, and cold,
and heat, and summer, and winter, and day, and night shall not
cease." I don't care what Al Gore says. That's what God says. As long as this world stands,
that's going to go on. And it sounds to me like it's
going to go on in cycles, irrespective of the time that it's in. And
that's what he said. And God's going to be faithful
to that. And then turn and look at Genesis 15, verse 13. It says
that he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall
be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve
them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years. And also that nation whom they
shall serve will I judge, and afterward shall they come out
with great substance, and thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace. Thou shalt be buried in a good
old age, but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again,
for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." Did that happen? Let me read you this verse in
Exodus 12. And it came to pass at the end
of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day
it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from
the land of Egypt. And they went out with substance. They went out with gold and silver
and precious stones. And they went out when God in
His faithfulness had promised, and there was not Pharaoh or
his army or anything that could stop them. They weren't faithful
to Him. But He sure was faithful to them. And that is true of every prophecy
and of every promise that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, because
He cannot lie. And He is faithful to His plan
and His purpose, which is to redeem and call and justify and
glorify a people. And that's exactly what he's
doing. He's going to be faithful first
to himself. And then the second thing is
this, God is faithful to His Son. He is faithful to His Son. Every covenant promise, every
blessing that God has purposed to give His people. Every single
one of them are bound up in the One who is called the Mediator
of this covenant, of the One whose blood is the blood of this
everlasting covenant, to this One who is called the surety
of His people, the Savior of His people, the Redeemer of His
people. Everything in our salvation and
welfare Everything for time and eternity is all hinged in Christ. And you can mark it down. God
is faithful to His Son. He is in His purpose, the very
basis of all that we have, because the death of Christ was not an
experiment, but was rather the accomplishment of everything
that he stood for and his people in him that were to be the objects
of God's grace. And he did exactly, detail for
detail, everything that He purposed to do. When you read that first
chapter of Ephesians, and it talks about everything He did
in Christ, everything He did to the praise of His glory and
His grace, everything He did before the world began, and not
one promise to His people can fail. Do you know why? Because no promise
that He has made to His Son can fail. Not one. And if He fulfills every
promise to His Son, that means the fulfillment of every promise
to us. Every promise. I mean everything. Because God's
faithfulness to His Son is our ground of security. Turn over
to Psalm 89. In Psalm 89, David, is spoken of, is used as a type
of Christ, and he's spoken of as having a people, just like
David did. If you look back in verse 29, you
have to know he's talking about more than David after the flesh
here. His seed also will I make to
endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his
children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they
break my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I
visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with
stripes. Nevertheless, my lovingkindness
will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail." They'll fail. But he said, I
won't fail. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David, his seed shall
endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. And it shall be established forever
as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Now, did the sun come up this
morning? Well, I couldn't hardly see it for those clouds, but
I feel fairly sure it came up this morning. And he said that
is just simply a witness to his faithfulness of all that he has
promised to his son and therefore promised in his son. He's promised his son to save
all those that he gave to his son. He's promised to save everyone
that He died for. And He's promised all the glory
to His Son for their salvation. And He's going to be faithful
to that. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth
and he said, God is faithful by whom you were called unto
the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. The one who
called us is the one who's faithful. And
he loves his only begotten Son, and he is pleased with his only
begotten Son, and He has accepted the sacrifice of His Son on our
behalf, and He has seated His Son at the right hand of the
Majesty on high, and He will defend His name, and He will
defend His honor, and He will spread His gospel, and He will
bring to pass His Kingdom. He is faithful. And then the third thing is this,
he's faithful to his people, to his elect. Those whom God has chosen and
redeemed and called to Christ in faith, he'll save every one
of them and he will keep them so that
not one of them shall be lost or ever finally fall away." Now, I know over a course of
time, over a course of 25 or so years, that this church has
been in existence. We've seen some just depart what
they once said they believed. That's right. But if they die, if they depart
from this world in unbelief, it will not be because of any
unfaithfulness on God's part. But every person that leaves
this world like those described in Hebrews 11 as believing God, it will be because He was faithful
to them. He was faithful to them. They're weak. They're fallen. They're helpless. And they're
often so pitiful. And they require the faithfulness
of God. And they'll have it. Do you ever get the feeling sometime
in your weakness and in your sinfulness that you just wonder
if you'll be found faithful at the end? If he is. Because if it's left up to us,
Unbelief and sin reigned so thoroughly in us. If he had not made the
Lord Jesus Christ to be unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, as Tim said, if he hadn't made
Christ to be everything to us, there'd be no hope for us. No
hope. He is faithful to discipline
us in His love. Like the psalmist said, I know,
O Lord, that Thy judgments are right and that Thou in faithfulness has afflicted me. He is faithful to forgive us
based on that sacrifice that Christ offered in our place.
And if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. As a matter of fact, It can be said that God is faithful
to all men in general. And that means that in His judgment,
in all that He has promised and purposed in His judgment toward
men, He's going to be faithful in that. If somebody tells us they're
going to give us a million dollars, we want them to be faithful in
that, don't we? If they tell somebody they're out to kill
us, we don't want them to be faithful in that. God's going
to be faithful amongst His people and to His
enemies. In His faithful sayings to them
of salvation based on Christ alone, all the gospel sayings
to sinners, He is faithful. And He means it. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Then he said again, for bodily
exercise profiteth little. But godliness is profitable unto
all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of
that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and
worthy of all acceptation. It is a faithful saying, for
if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. And this is a faithful saying,
And these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that
they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain
good works. These things are good and profitable
unto men. And I'll tell you, such a faithfulness
is this. it ought to stir us to faithfulness. It's His faithfulness, then,
that enables us and encourages us to be faithful. This is really something, this
statement that Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 4, in verse 2. It's one of those statements
that's a principle that applies so many ways in Scripture, so
many ways toward us. He says, moreover, it is required
in stewards. Now, what's a steward? A steward is somebody that has
been entrusted with a treasure or a particular job He's been
entrusted, he's been made a steward of that. Stewardship has to do
with it. Moreover, it is required in stewards
that a man be found faithful. Whatever God has given us, whatever
task He puts to our hands, whatever work He gives, whatever witness,
He opens the door for whatever work it is. He said it's required that a
man be faithful. And God has made us stewards
of the gospel, of that time He's given us, of the resources He's
given us, of the abilities He's given us. Turn over to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, and look down at verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness
to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new
and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say, His flesh. And having an high priest over
the house of God in light of all these things, let us draw
near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed
with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised."
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much more,
as you see the day approaching." God is faithful, and therefore
His people are to be faithful. They're not to trust and rely
on their faithfulness. But they're to be faithful because
He in Christ is faithful to us. Faithful is He that has promised. And He'll do it. He'll do it. We'll never be found rightly mistrusting the faithfulness
of God. If we're found not trusting Christ,
not trusting the God of all grace, the problems with us, it's not
because of his unfaithfulness. And maybe sometime tomorrow,
next week, next year, maybe he'll bring this very thought back
to our hearts. The Lord, the Lord thy God, he's
faithful. Father, tonight we ask that you
might give us faith. to believe what you say about
yourself, how we've proved it over and over again. And we can
never say that we've ever found you unfaithful. It is your mercies that we are
not consumed, and your faithfulness that is our hope. Lord, encourage our hearts, we
pray. Give us grace to be faithful
as we contemplate and think about and thank you for your faithfulness
to us. Faithful and just to forgive
our sins as we confess ourselves sinners before you. We thank
you, Lord, tonight and pray again for these ones that are upon
our hearts and for our own selves, our own physical, our own spiritual
neediness. We ask everything in Christ.
Amen.