So we've been dealing with the
doctrines of the Bible, the things of God, and when we started with
God, His being, His nature, His essence, what He is, who He is,
and we have to do that, you've got to deal with His attributes.
And some people, they just hit the high spots. And some of the
commentators in some of the theology books and doctrinal books, they
go into great detail about it. And I'm just trying to hit the
high spots. But you could not talk about
God and His being and His existence without dealing with His attributes,
the things that make God to be God. Now, our nature is fallen. Our nature is sinful. Our nature
is flesh. God is Spirit. God is holy. God inhabits eternity. We can
only speak where we're at at that particular time. We change. God never changes. We're immutable. God's immutable. So everything
about God is so far beyond us. And all we can know about Him
is what He's made known in His precious Word for us. And here
He talks about He says in verse 22, it is of the Lord's mercies
that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. That's
the same thing as He said when He told Jacob, He said, O ye
sons of Jacob, you are not consumed, because I am the Lord, and I
change not. It's because of His faithfulness.
And listen, these compassions and mercies are new every morning.
And this is what I want to talk about. Great is thy faithfulness. The faithfulness of God. And
that's why Jeremiah said, The Lord's my portion, saith my soul,
therefore I'm going to hope in Him. And many times it says in
God's Word that God is faithful. God is faithful. Faithful is
He. Now, things in this world and things in this world we live
in is a constant movement. Nothing stays static. Nothing
stays Everything in this world is always moving, constant moving. And there's nothing in this world
that's sure, absolutely nothing. Everything in this world is temporary.
I'm temporary, you're temporary, this building's temporary. Everything we see, touch, taste,
handle, is temporary. Every relationship is temporary.
But God, bless His holy name, is ever the same. Ever the same,
and he has faith because he's ever the same. Everything about
our covenant God is vast, great, incomprehensible, incomparable. He never forgets. We barely can
remember. He never fails. Seems like that's
all we do. He never falters. We stumble
around. He never forfeits his word, and
sometimes we can't keep ours. So He's faithful. He is faithful. And let me tell you what He's
faithful to first of all. Look with me at Psalm 119 and
verse 89. First of all, He's faithful to
His Word. You know, that's why He said that He magnified His
Word above His name. You know Psalm 119 and verse
89. God said He magnified His Name
above His Word. And what he says is that I will
never give another word. My name will have to cease to
be. My name would be blotted out, and that's why he said his
word. He's magnified it above his own
name. Because he said that my name, my reputation, my honor,
my glory, my veracity, my power, my covenants, everything depends
on my faithfulness, on my word to you. In Psalm 119 and verse
89 it says this, Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is
settled where? In heaven. That's why He says,
you know, let every man be, let God be true, let every man be
alive. God's Word is settled. We're
not going to settle it. We're not going to change it.
We're not going to manipulate it and do what you want to with
it. It's settled. It is settled. Look over here
in 138, verse 138. And He is faithful to His Word.
And I'll tell you, beloved, He's faithful. And He's faithfully
told us all we need to know. He's faithfully told us everything
we need to know. Look here in Psalm 119, 138. Thy testimonies, thou hast commandment,
are righteous, and very faithful. Very faithful. Oh my, catch thyself
on His Word. And He's told us faithfully,
been faithful to tell us all we need to know. And I tell you
the only thing, the only one that can make us know what we
are in ourselves is God and the Holy Spirit. And He's been faithful
to reveal to us and make us know what we are in ourselves. He
makes us know. that we're ruined, and we find
it in the Scriptures. Now, people say, well, I'm not
that bad, but the Scriptures tells you that there's none good,
no, not one. And when that says that, that's
telling me that I'm not good, no, not one. There's none righteous,
no, not one. And oh, my, he's faithful, and
that's why we must be faithful to tell men the truth about themselves.
He tells us the truth about the world. He's been faithful to
tell us the truth about the world. This world is deceiving. It's
untrustworthy. And oh, we were sitting out with
Little Riley this morning, Mary and I was, and Mary just out
of the clear, she just said, Oh, sweetheart, I hope the world,
when you grow up, don't spit you up, chew you up and spit
you out. Because this world is cruel. This world is not a friend,
not even a friend to the people that's in it. They will not be
faithful to one another. They will not tell the truth
to one another. They'll lie to one another, manipulate one another.
And they certainly have nothing to do with Christ and His gospel
and His people. And the world, the Lord told
us, that it's a deceiving, unfaithful, God-rejecting, God-hating, Christ-denying
generation. And He told us what we're to
believe about Him. He told us He's faithful to make
Himself known as He is. Not like we want Him to be. Not
like other people want Him to be. Not like we thought He was.
I had a conversation with somebody yesterday. And they started talking
about churches they'd been to, and the things they'd witnessed,
and the things they'd been trying to be talked into, and all that.
And she said, I hope, I hope I get to go to heaven. I hope
I'm good enough to go to heaven. And I said, wait a minute. You don't go because you're good.
You ain't got no goodness about you. I said, if there's any goodness
about you, you wouldn't need Christ. I said, and I know this,
I know without a shadow of a doubt, that if you're going to have
anything to do with God, you've got to have something to do with
His Son. There's no other way in the world that God's going
to have anything to do with you, except through His Son. Huh? And God's
faithful to make us know that. I mean, beloved, he is faithful
to make himself known. Now, he don't make himself known
to everybody, but I tell you, he is faithful to make himself
known to his people. He's faithful to reveal himself
to his people. And I'll tell you something else.
Now, look over here with me in 2 Corinthians just a minute.
2 Corinthians 2. He's faithful also to his promises. Now, this is
what I love. He's faithful to his promises.
He has said it, surely it will come to pass, he said. Oh, he's
faithful to his promises, but where is his promise? Huh? Look at St. Corinthians 1, look
at verse 19. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ,
who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus,
And Timotheus was not yea and nay. We didn't preach a yea and
a nay gospel. We didn't preach, yes, you can
be saved, yes, you can be lost, yes, you can believe in free
will, and yes, you can believe in sovereignty, yes, you can
believe in grace, and yes, you can believe in works, yes, you
can believe in all the calls, and no, you can't believe in
all, you know, no yea and nay business. And listen now. For
all the promises of God are in him yea. God said all the promises of
God in him are yay! There's no wishy-washy, there's
no up or down, in or out, back, front, no other way with God.
For all the promises of God in him are yay, and not only that,
but God says they're amen! Let it be so! And why is it to
the glory of God by us? Ah, he's faithful to his promises.
Joshua, this is one of the verses of scriptures that I often use
when I'm writing letters and put the end of it. Joshua 21,
verse 45 says this, All the things, surely everything that he hath
promised has come to pass. It has. It has. And then, I know,
is he faithful to his promises, but he's also faithful to his
threatenings. Not only is He promised to save His elect, not
only is He promised to give us eternal life in Christ, not only
is He promised to keep us, not only is He promised to preserve
us, not only is He promised to teach us, not only is He promised
to carry us all the way to glory, not only is He promised to forgive
us all of our iniquities and make us accepted in the Beloved,
but He's also faithful to His threateners. If He makes a promise,
He also makes a threatener to those who don't believe the promise.
He's not only going to take many to glory, but he's going to send
a multitude to hell. There's going to be a multitude
go to hell. You know, it's a Sunday evening. Somebody last week, they was
telling me about they went to an uncle's funeral. And they
said, you know, it's awful what the preacher said, what he went
through and all that. and said, you know, nobody dies lost, no
matter how they live. And I said, you know why they
do that? I'll tell you why they do that. Because if that person
don't have any hope, that means I don't have any hope. So you've got to give them hope
if you want any hope for yourself. Ain't that right? If you're not
going to come to God, if you're not going to come to Christ,
if you're not going to accept God's testimony against yourself,
If you're not going to listen to what God has to say about
how ruined and how vanity's best state's altogether vanity, and
that you can bypass Christ by just being good, living a pretty
good life, and not hurting anybody, and helping folks out when they're
in need, if that's all it takes, and that's what people think.
Well, you know, he tried his best to keep the golden rule.
He was good to his wife. He was really good to her. And
they go on and on about it like that, and the reason they have
to do that and believe that and put up with that is because if
they don't believe that fellow has a hope, then they don't have
a hope. And I'm here to tell you that
they don't have a hope. And you don't have a hope if
you're not in Christ. And God's faithful to make men
understand that. And I tell you that word of man
is unfaithful. The word of man, Christ is faithful.
All God's faithful, but the word of man, it's unfaithful. And
lo, how many people have the best intentions. And people say,
my word is my bond. When somebody starts telling
you their word is their bond, now there may have been a time
that that may have been so. But I don't believe it now. I don't
believe it now. No, no, no, I don't believe anybody's
words are bonded. I just tell you, no. Believers
are the only people I think you can take at their word. But man,
the word of man is unfaithful. I mean, beloved, they've had
the best intentions. But you take in the business
world. The business world. You know what a fellow will do
in the business world to get a leg up on you? What he'll do? To come out on top? What he'll
do to make a dollar? What he'll do to cause his business
to prosper? Huh? What he'll do? Look with
me over in Psalm 146. You know, and what about the
social world? We live in a social world. When you was in school, you had
social studies. Studied the world around you. And in the social world that
we live in, people socialize, like go to socials. All that
unfaithfulness. In the social world, there's
such unfaithfulness. There's unfaithfulness, vows
absolutely mean nothing. Happiness is everything. Unfaithfulness
in marriage, unfaithfulness in word, unfaithfulness in vows,
unfaithful. You know, you get around and
people are unfaithful to everything that's right, just, and true,
apart from the grace of God. And look, that's what God tells
us about man's word. Look here in verse 3 of Psalm
146. Put not your trust in princes. You know what a prince is, don't
you? It's a person of power. Person of prominence. Person in a position of power.
And then there's the Son of Man. That's just a man like you and
me. Don't you put your trust in Him. Don't do it in the Son
of Man. Watch this. In whom? No help. No help. And look what it says over in
the margin. It says no salvation. They can't save as much as they'd
like to. And what's this? His breath goes forth. I mean,
one of these days, you put your trust in Him, and He's going
to leave. You see, His breath is going out of His mouth for
the last time, and He's going back to the earth. And the day
that that happens, everything that He ever thought, everything
He ever believed, everything He ever... It's gone! But now
watch it. Happy, blessed is He that hath
the God of Jacob. Who's the God of Jacob? The God
of election. The God of covenant. The God
of promise? Oh, He is the God of Jacob, for
the God who grabs you, and needs you, and lays hold on you, and
changes your nature, and changes your walk, and makes promises
to you. Happy is he that hath the God
of Jacob for himself, whose hope is in the Lord his God. I tell
you what, it would be awful. What would we be, right at this
moment, if we depended on the people and power of this world
right now. Where would we be if we depended
on our government? Where would we be if we depended
on bankers? Where would we be if we depended
on the world out there? Where would we be? So what are
we going to do? Ain't got but one place to look,
and that's look outside ourselves and look to Christ. Lord, this
world is yours and everything in it, and you do what you want
to with it. I'm going to look to you. Kings come and kings
go. Princes come and princes go.
Governments come and governments go. Marriages come and marriages
go. Babies come and babies go. But
I tell you the only thing that remains faithful is God in Christ. In all of your lives, look over
at 2 Timothy, just a moment. 2 Timothy. You know, it's a shame. It is, it's a shame. I told Brad the other night, I
said, Brad, I trust you better than I trust myself. You learn by the grace of God
that God's faithfulness is going to keep you. God's faithfulness
is going to make you what you are. It's going to keep you keeping
on, keeping on. Keep you believing. Keep you
cleaving. Keep you trusting. Keep you calling. Keep you looking.
Keep you praying. And if He don't do that, we won't
do it. He keeps us doing those things. And we want to do those
things. He put it in our hearts to want
those things. But beloved, knowing enough about myself that I trust
somebody else, better not trust myself. to do things that ought
to be right. But look here in 2 Timothy 3.1. This know also, that in the last
days perilous times shall come. And I tell you, they've been
perilous since Christ came. For men, and here's the thing
about it, men shall be lovers of their own selves. Oh, my. My mother told me years
and years and years ago, She said, if you can't love yourself,
you can't love nobody else. Well, evidently she loved herself.
She didn't love nobody else that I ever know. And that's awful to say, but
you know, that's the truth. That's just the God honest truth.
And all covetous, covetous, boasters, brag and blow and boast,
proud, Blasphemers. Who do they blaspheme? Everybody. Everything that comes out of
their mouth is filthy. Blaspheme parents. Blaspheme
everybody. Blaspheme the person next to
you. Just blasphemers. Disobedient to parents. Unthankful. Oh, what an awful way to be.
Unthankful. Unthankful. Unthankful to people
that's good to you? Unthankful to people that treat
you good? Unthankful to people that give
you a job? Unthankful to people that feed
you? Unthankful to people who buy you clothes? Unthankful to
people who furnish your home? Unholy! Without natural affection. Truth breakers. Truth breakers. False accusers. incontinent, have no ability
to control themselves. Fierce. And oh, listen, they're
despisers of them that do good. Hate even those that do good.
And I tell you, not only is the word of man unfaithful, and that's
where we're at, but in the religious world. Men take vows to preach
the truth. They go off and go to these seminaries,
they get in front of a bunch of men, a bunch of men lay hands
on them, dedicate them to the ministry, say, well, we're going
to lay our hands on you, you're ready to go preach. And they
take vows. I'm going to preach the truth.
I'm going to tell the truth. And then they turn right around
and deny it in its practice, deny it in its preaching, deny
it in its power. How can you preach the grace
of God and not live by the grace of God? How can you preach the
grace of God and then not practice it, live it, and then deny the
very power of God. They claim to believe in grace
and end up preaching free will. Oh, my. And I'll tell you something
about us. Now, if you don't know, I'm telling
you the truth right here. We're unfaithful to our own principles. Most of us are unfaithful to
our own principles. Would you all agree with that? And we're unfaithful to one another. Did I cross y'all's minds today?
Did everyone in here pray for me? We're pretty unfaithful. Well, I didn't
pray for you. I prayed for you as the church,
as the saints of God, as the congregation, as Lenten and Grace
Church. I didn't go over you by name. Huh? And we discourage one another.
Why would we want to discourage one another? We don't mean to,
do we? You know, but the reason being
is that we're men. Man in his best states altogether
vanity. We don't mean to be unfaithful. We don't mean to be unfaithful
to our preachers. We don't mean to discourage one
another. We mean to pray for one another. We mean to love
one another. But what I'm telling you is that the way we are and
the way God is, We can't trust our faithfulness with the Word
of man, but we can trust God and His faithfulness in His Word.
And I tell you, not one of us is immune from this sin of unfaithfulness. Oh, the light and privileges
we have, Lord, keep us, keep us near and faithful to Thee. But God is faithful. Oh, look
with me right quick. Deuteronomy 7. Deuteronomy 7. But God is faithful. You know, Deuteronomy 7, what it says here, verse 9, Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, listen now, the faithful God, which keepeth
covenant and mercy with them that love him, and keep his commandments
to a thousand generations." Oh, the scripture says, Psalm 89.8
says that faithfulness is round about him. Faithfulness is round
about him. And what God has said is so. You know, He said it in Isaiah
7.14, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, thou
shalt call his name Immanuel. What did the angel say? Unto
you is born this day in the city of David a... God's faithful
to His Word, isn't it, over in Galatians 4? He said, when the
fulness of time was come, God made His Son made of a woman,
made under the law. He said it 700 years before Christ ever
came. Do you think He can keep His
Word? And I tell you, beloved, let me tell you this. He's faithful
not only to His own self and His own Word and to us, but He's
especially faithful to His Son. He chose him to be our substitute,
to be our mediator, to be our surety. Behold mine elect, and
whom my soul delighteth. And he chose him. What was he
elected to do? What did God choose him to do?
To be our mediator, to be our substitute, to be our surety,
to bear our responsibility, to bear our sin, to bear our judgment,
to bear our wrath? to satisfy God's justice, to
magnify His law. And oh, beloved, not only that,
but he was faithful to his son. He promised him a people. He
said, son, I'm going to give you a people. They're going to
be yours. I'll give them to you. And you
pay for all their debts. You pay for all their sin. You
pay all their obligations. You pay what's necessary to redeem
them. And He gave them that people.
And then, beloved, how are those people going to get to Him? How
are they going to know anything about Him? Well, look in John
6 and I'll show you. Oh, all that the Father giveth
me. When was that given to Him? Before the world ever began. And know how many times in John
17 where it says, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to
me. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to me. Those that
Thou gavest me out of the world. Them that Thou gavest me, I gave
Your word. On and on and on and on, the one that gave me. And
oh, my, look what it says here, John 6, verse 44. Now, God promised
Christ a people. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me to draw him. And I'll raise him
up at the last day. Oh, man, if nobody can come,
well, then somebody's going to draw him. The father's going
to draw him. And it is written in the prophets. Now watch it.
They shall all be taught of God. And every man, therefore, that
hath heard and hath learned of the Father, he comes unto me.
God takes the responsibility and faithful to his Son to see
that we hear, to see that we learn, to see that we're brought
to one place. at the feet of Christ, to trust
Him and Him alone. And, O Beloved, if He promised
him, I'll tell you what else He promised our dear Savior.
He promised him sufferings. Promised him sufferings. There
in Limitations 3, where I read there, it says there He gave
His back to the smithers. It's cried out in chapter 1 and
verse 12. It said, Woe, behold, whose Who
suffers like unto my suffering? Who sobs like unto my suffering?
Whereby you that pass by. You ever seen anybody suffer
like me? He promised him sufferings. He promised him shame. He promised
him sorrow. He promised him a death. He promised
him a grave. But he also promised to raise
him up again and give him the highest honor in the universe
at his own right hand. And he promised him the heathen
for his inheritance, and that's us. And He promised him a bride
adorned, and He's got that. And let me show you the 1 Corinthians,
which is right quick. Chapter 1, verse 9. Not only
is He faithful to His Word and to us, but He's also faithful
to His saints and to His Son. And look how faithful He is to
us. 1 Corinthians 1.9. God is faithful, by whom you
were called under the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. He is faithful. I want to be faithful. Don't
you want to be faithful? Oh, I want to be faithful to
His Word. I want to be faithful to Him. I want to be faithful
to you. I want to be faithful to my children. I want to be faithful to my friend,
to my brother. And I fell at it. But God don't
fail. He's faithful to His saints.
God is faithful by whom you were called under the fellowship of
His Son. And not only that, but, beloved, He's faithful to preserve
us. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, I give unto them eternal life.
They shall never perish. Never. Neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand. And that's one thing we was talking
about yesterday. That person I was talking to, they was talking
about, you know, That people get saved and they get lost again.
I said, oh no, no, no, no, no. I said, it's according to who's
doing the saving. If God saves you, she said, you
know, they say they're going to be saved forever. And yet
they, they, they, you know, go to church for three or four months
and they quit. I said, if God saves you, you're saved and you're
saved forever. It's according to who does the
work, who starts the work. And it's not what we do for God,
it's what He does for us. And I tell you, beloved, and
that's what He says, He said, I give unto them eternal life,
they shall never perish. He told His Father, He said,
Father, I've kept them through Your name, now I'm no longer
in the world, so I'm going to give them back to You, and You
keep them. And then He's faithful to discipline
them. He don't have to, you know, he don't have to, he don't have
to keep telling us something over and over and over like we
do our kids. And the way people do. I've told you, I'm not going
to tell you again. Five, six minutes. I'm not telling
you another time. If I could tell you one more
time. But that's not the way God is.
Listen, people say, God's trying to speak to you. If God's got
something to say to you, you're going to listen. And if He disciplines
you, you know you've been disciplined. When He chastised you, the Scriptures
tell us that fathers chastise their sons because they love
them and they need them. Well, God, that His sons, those
whom He loves, He chastises them, He disciplines them, and, beloved,
and I tell you, when He does, you'll know you've been disciplined.
You'll know why He is disciplined for. And here's what I love about
it. Nobody else knows about what you've done. Nobody else knows
the discipline you need and what you've got. But you and God,
that's what I love about it. He not only gives us what is
good, but He is faithful to withhold from us what ain't good. And He sends sorrow as well as
joy. Let's go over Psalm 119 again.
I'll be done in just a minute. Psalm 119. Look at this. He's faithful. He sends sorrow
as well as joy. Psalm 119, verse 71. You know, at the time, Paul said
it this way, Indeed, the chastisement of God seems to be grievous,
but the end thereof is joy and peace. And here in Psalm 119,
verse 71, look what it says. It is good for me that I have
been afflicted. Boy, when it comes on you, you
don't think it's good. You don't feel good. I mean, it's painful. But he said,
it's good for me that I might have been afflicted. Why? That
I might learn thy statutes, that I might learn your ways, that
I might learn what you have to say. You just imagine if God
let you go on just fat and happy and sassy. You know what the sin of Sodom
and Gomorrah was? fullness of bread and olives. When you get
fat, when you get sassy, when you eat a big bait, you know,
you get real sleepy, you don't do like that. And if God lets
you get real fat and never let nothing come your way, you know
what you'd do? You'd go to sleep and just forget God that quick.
So what does God do? He sends affliction. He sends affliction. And then
look down in verse 75. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments
are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." Faithfulness. Faithfulness to do. And, beloved,
He's faithful to us in every way, in every instance. And I'm
going to show you another thing. Look with me over to 1 Corinthians
again, real quick. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. He is faithful to us in every
way, in every instance. And in being faithful to us,
he's faithful to his own glorious being. First Corinthians 10.13
says this, "'There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common
to man,' now listen, "'but God is faithful, who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that you were able, but will with
the temptation also may make a way to escape, that you may
be able to bear it. That when you think you can't
bear it, it's just more than you can handle. He makes a, opens
up a door, lets that pressure off. Hebrews 10.23. Hebrews 10.23. Let us hold fast the profession
of faith, our faith, without wavering. Why? For He is faithful,
that promised. He's faithful, that promised.
And then, beloved, He's faithful to glorify His people. You know
what He's going to do? One of these days, He's going
to take us and change us in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And the foundation of God stands
sure. The Lord knows him better than
he does. He is faithful. He is faithful. Our Father, in the blessed name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, thank You for allowing us to speak
of You tonight. Lord, our efforts are so feeble
that yet Father, we delight in speaking of you, seeking to honor
you. Speak high of you. Speak of what you do. Speak of
your ability, our inability. Speak of your power, our impotence. Speak of your grace and our great,
great need of it. God, please do a work in our
hearts, the work in the hearts of those who are gathered here
tonight. Please instruct us in the things of Christ. Help us
never to waver because you are faithful to the promise. We thank
you in Christ's name. Amen.