I feel like I have more time
this time to say it's nice to be here. It really is. It's been a couple of years,
and that's too long. I said that last time, but we
both are making a commitment. It's not going to be that long.
Turn with me, if you would, to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Verse 9 says, God is faithful, by whom you
were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. God is faithful. Isn't that good news? That is
honestly some of the best news that a sinner could hear. God
is faithful. Look at verse 4, it says, I thank
my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is
given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything you are enriched
by Him, in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the
testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come behind
in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom
you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ, our
Lord. I feel like I could just stop.
That is such good news. You know, we are so unfaithful. We are so unfaithful. I never cease to amaze me. We
are so unfaithful. I was talking to a brother in
Kingsport one time. We were talking about our lack,
our insufficiency, our inability to be what Followers of Christ
ought to be God's people. You know, we're
supposed to be God's people. Think about that. We are supposed
to be God's people. And we were talking about how
pitiful our efforts are and how shameful they are and how shameful
we are. And he said to me, thank God
he is faithful. And I said, amen. Amen. How right
you are. Thank God He is faithful. Verse 9 says, God is faithful
by whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus
Christ our Lord. The Bible dictionary says that
the word faithful means worthy of trust. One that can be relied on. God
is worthy of trust. God is one that can be relied
on. The concordance says it means
sure, true. Webster's Dictionary says it
means steadfast in affection or allegiance, firm and in adherence
to promises. What that means is if He loves,
He will keep on loving. If He loves, He will keep on
loving. If He promises, He will do it. Don't you love knowing that everything
that He said in this book is absolute, firm, truth, ordered,
sure, done, no changing? If He promised, He'll do it.
He said in Isaiah 46, I have spoken it, I will also bring
it to pass. I have purposed it, I will also
do it. God is faithful. God is faithful
to His Word. He is faithful to His promise. He is faithful to His people.
And I want to take just a minute tonight to see what He has promised
to be faithful in. In His Word, what has He promised
to His people to be faithful in? We're going to just read
a few scriptures together. Go with me to Deuteronomy chapter
7. Deuteronomy 7 verse 9, it says, Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and
mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to
a thousand generations. That blesses my heart. so much. How can a sinner keep the commandments
of God? Only in Christ. Outside of Christ,
all have sinned and broken His commandments. So the Lord God
made a covenant. The Father promised to choose
a people. The Son promised to die for those
people, to pay that redemption price for those people. The Spirit
promised to call all of those people. It was a covenant of
mercy. Mercy for sinners that did not
deserve mercy. Those are the only people that
receive mercy. Those who do not deserve mercy. God made a covenant of mercy.
It was a covenant of redemption from sin. Redemption from condemnation. through the blood of Jesus Christ.
It was a promise of salvation for sinners. And he said, I will
keep my covenant. I am going to keep my covenant.
If he did not say that, I think I would despair from a lack of
hope because I don't give him any reason to keep his covenant.
I don't give him, I provoke him. I am so ashamed of everything
concerning me. And the only thing that I have
to go on is, he said, I will keep my covenant. I made a promise
to save you, and I'm going to save you. He is God. He said, I am God, and if I said
I'll do it, I'll do it. I'm going to keep my covenant.
And he said right here, I'm going to do it not because of you,
I'm going to do it because of me. Look at verse 1 right here. Deuteronomy 7 verse 1, When the
Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whither thou goest
to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee,
the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites,
the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and mightier than thou, and when the Lord thy God shall
deliver them before thee, Then thou shalt smite them, and utterly
destroy them, and thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor
show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages
with them. Thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they
may serve other gods. So will the anger of the Lord
be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall
you deal with them. You shall destroy their altars
and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn
their graven images with fire. Verse 11 right here says, Thou
shalt therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments
which I command thee this day to do them. Did they do that? If we know anything about what
happened to them, did they do that? Here's the answer. No,
they didn't. He said, this is what I command you to do. Did
they do it? No. No, they didn't. But look at
verse 6. For thou art an holy people unto
the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto Himself. Above all people that
are upon the face of the earth, the Lord did not set His love
upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than
any people, for you were the fewest of all people. But because
the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the oath which
He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen
from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. Know therefore that
the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth
covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments
to a thousand generations. He said, know that the Lord your
God is God. And if he says he will keep his
covenant, he will keep his covenant. That's amazing. He made a covenant
concerning his people. That covenant was not dependent
on his people. It was not conditioned on His
people. That covenant was in spite of
His people. It was a covenant to love His
people. It was a covenant to redeem His
people. And He said, I'm going to do it. Not because of you,
but because of Me. He'll do it because He's faithful.
Hebrews 6 I absolutely love this. It says, because he could swear
by no greater. And I don't think anybody ought
to say, I swear to God. I think it's blasphemous for
anyone to say that. There's only one man who could
say that. And that one man said, because he could swear by no
greater, he swore by himself. He said, I swear to God, I will
save you. I love that. He swore to Himself. He will not break His promise
to Himself. He is faithful. He'll keep His
promise. He'll show mercy to His people
because He's faithful. Look with me at 1 Thessalonians
5. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 24 it says,
Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. He made
a promise to have mercy on his people and he will show it. He
made a promise to call his people and he will call them. He will
call every single one of his people. He will call all of them
to Himself. Look at verse 23 right here.
He said, The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray
God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will call His people
to purity, to holiness, to spotless innocence, He will sanctify His
people. Sanctify them wholly. He will
preserve every one of them wholly, blameless unto the day of His
coming. He faithfully will do that for every single one of
His people. Look with me at 2 Thessalonians
3. 2 Thessalonians 3 verse 3 says, But the Lord is faithful who
shall establish you and keep you from evil. He will establish you and keep
you. Keep you from evil. He will have
mercy on you. He will wash you. He will keep
you. He shall. He shall. He shall. Look with me at 2 Timothy
2. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 13 says, if we believe not, yet he abideth
faithful. He cannot deny himself. You know,
we didn't believe in the first place. That faith that we have,
that was not of ourself, that was of him. He gave it to us,
he authored it, he performed it, he finished it, We didn't
believe in the first place. The only way any sinner can believe
on Him is if he abides faithful in providing faith to believe
on Him. And thank God He will do that
for all of His people. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. And Christ will supply it. He
will produce it in His people. keep on producing it in His people.
He will give it to His people and He'll keep on giving it to
His people. His disciples asked Him, Lord, increase our faith.
And He would. And then He would say to them,
are you yet without faith? What happened to the faith I
just gave you? And then He would give more faith. And He gives
more faith. And He gives more grace. Gives
more faith. We look away, and He turns our
eyes back to Him. We look away, and He turns our
eyes back to Him. And let me tell you how the rest
of our life is gonna go. We're gonna look away, and He's gonna
turn our eyes back to Him. And then we're gonna look away,
and He'll turn our eyes back. God is faithful. He is so faithful. If we believe not, yet He abideth
faithful. He cannot deny Himself. He will not deny Himself in His
desire to cause His people to look to Him. He will not deny Himself in keeping
His people looking to Him. He is faithful. Turn with me
over to 1 John chapter 1. 1 John 1 verse 9, it says, If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Daily. He did that eternally,
and He'll do that daily. We need it daily. What He's done
for us eternally, we need Him to do that for us daily. He saved
us. I need Him to save me. Every
day. Lord, save me today. Save me
right now. Forgive me right now. I need
forgiveness right now. I needed forgiveness then. I
need it now. I'm going to need it tomorrow.
Lord, forgive me. Forgive me. Somebody asked me
one time, if God's people are forgiven, why are they constantly
crying forgive me? I said, it's because they're
constantly sinning against Him. He forgave every sin in the blood
of His cross and it's done. But I have to live it out. And
it feels awful. And I'm constantly saying, forgive
me. Forgive me, please. Verse 7 right
here says, if we walk in the light as He is in the light,
that means the truth. And you know what the truth is?
I'm a sinner and I need forgiveness. If we walk in the light as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Every time that we confess our
sins to Him, He is faithful and just to remind us that the blood
of Jesus Christ, His Son, has cleansed us from all sin. We
sin against Him and we say, I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. And His Spirit takes this word
and reminds every child of God, the blood of Jesus Christ has
forgiven you from all of your sin. This is one of my favorite
stories to tell. This is taken from a message
by Charles Spurgeon. One of the messages of his that
was written out. He said, during this last week,
I have been with Brother Offord conducting prayer meetings, and
he told one evening a tale, which I made him tell every evening
afterwards, for I thought it so good. Charles Spurgeon used
to preach most nights. He would preach most nights of
the week somewhere. So this man went with him and
one night this man told a story and Spurgeon loved it. He made
him tell it all week, everywhere they went. He said there was
a poor man living on Dartmoor who had been employed during
the summer in looking after horses and cows and so on that were
turned out on the moor. I don't know what that means,
but I can imagine. He was a perfect heathen. and never went to a place of
worship, perhaps since he was a child. For him, there was no
Sabbath. After a time, he grew very ill. He was over 60 years of age,
and having nothing to live upon, he went into the workhouse. I
don't know what that is. While he was there, It pleased
the mysterious spirit to make him uneasy as to his soul. He
felt that he must die. And the old man had just enough
light to let him see that if he did die, all was wrong with
regard to a future state. He had a little grandchild who
lived in a neighboring town, Plymouth, I think it was, He
asked Lee for his grandchild to come in every day to see him.
As he was very ill and near death, that was allowed. She came in
and he said to her, read the Bible to me, dear. She complied. And the more she read, the more
wretched the old man grew. Read again, said he. The more
she read, the more dark his mind seemed to be with a sense of
guilt. At last, one day, she came to
that passage in the first epistle of John. You know it. The blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. Is that there, he asked. Yes, grandfather, replied the
little girl, that is there. Is that there? Oh yes, grandfather,
it is there. Then read it again. Read it again. She again read, the blood of
Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. My dear, are
you sure it is just like that? Yes, grandfather. Then read it
again, dear. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanseth us from all sin. Then, he said, take my finger
and put it on that verse. Is it on that text, child? Is
my finger on that blessed text? Yes, grandfather. Then, said
he, tell them, alluding to his friends, that I die in the faith
of that. And he closed his eyes, and doubtless
entered into eternal rest. And I will die in the faith of
that truth. By the grace of God, and so will
you, I trust, brethren and sisters, die with your finger on that
text. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanses us from all sin. God is faithful. And every child
of God can say, I am a sinner. And He has promised that His
blood is able to and already has, by faith given from Him,
already has cleansed me from all my sin. And He's given me
faith to believe that. In His faithfulness, He's given
faith to believe that. I believe Him. By His grace, I believe on Him. And I die in the faith of Him. I die in the faith of His faithfulness. Is that not what we're dying
in? The faith of His faithfulness. The hope of His faithfulness.
The truth of His faithfulness. In closing, go with me back to
1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 4 says, I
thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is
given you by Jesus Christ, that in everything you are enriched
by Him in all utterance and in all knowledge. even as the testimony
of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come behind in no
gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall also confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless
in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom
you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen. Thank God he is faithful.