Turn back in your Bibles, if
you would, to that third chapter of the book of Lamentations. Brother Joe read those first
twenty verses of Lamentations 3. This book is the Lamentations,
the lamenting of Jeremiah the prophet. And they are also expressions,
as we read in those first twenty verses, of the Christ. Christ as He hung on the cross. But there is no doubt that they
are also expressions of the Lord's people. I thought about it as those first 20 verses were
read, how often times so many of the Lord's people can identify
with what Jeremiah is saying. He said, I am the man that has
seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. Surely that particularly
pertains to Christ and Him crucified. But oftentimes we are brought
to feel those same expressions arise in our hearts and our minds. Almost a hopelessness. But I had him stop reading there
in that 20th verse, so that we might look at the
words and verses immediately following. He goes on, this I recall to
my mind. Even in this state, I recall
something to my mind, therefore have I hope. 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. Great is God's faithfulness. And if you would, turn back also
over to Deuteronomy chapter 7. Deuteronomy chapter 7, where we find These words spoken
to that people, Israel. And the words spoken to them
are words that are actually spoken to God's spiritual Israel. He says in 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 ye 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 Bondman
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, and repayeth them that hate him to their face,
to destroy them, he will not be slack to him that hateth him, repay Him to His face. Thou shalt therefore keep the
commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command
thee this day to do them." As I said, His words here to
Israel are most especially to be applied
to spiritual Israel. That nation was a type and picture
of the Lord's true people, the church, Zion, believers. And what he says is that his
love And his choice of this people
is joined inseparably to his faithfulness. He not only has
set his affection upon them, he not only has made choice of
them, But He has promised to be faithful to them. Verse 9, Know therefore that
the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God. And to know something, as the
word is used and expressed in verse 9, means a lot more than
just having the facts. No, it is to be assured of something. And not only to be assured of
something, but to have comfort because of this knowledge. God says, as if to herald something
out to us, Know ye therefore that the Lord thy God He is God,
and He is also the faithful God. And he is not only described
in Scripture as this faithful God, but he is spoken of as surrounded
and clothed by faithfulness as if he wears it like a cloak or
a garment. The psalmist says, O Lord God
of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness
round about thee." In Isaiah it says of him, "...and righteousness
shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
his reins." You remember Jeremiah records in what was read, saying
of this faithfulness which is infinite and immeasurable and
unending, he describes it by a word that we abuse so much,
which really and truly can only be applied to something about
God. He says, this faithfulness is
great. Great is thy faithfulness. And old author Pink says of this
in a few words that seems to sum it all up. He said, he never
forgets never fails, never falters, never forfeits His Word. He is the faithful God. And in Numbers we read, 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?" He's the faithful God. And I will say this without any
doubt, our faithfulness, Our maybe imagined faithfulness can
never ever be the cause of any comfort to us or any assurance. Remember those words that characterize
us in those first 20 verses. But though that is the case,
every believer that has ever lived along with this weeping
prophet Jeremiah, can say this, where we read, it is the Lord's
mercies that we are not consumed. Because His compassions, they
fail not. They are new every morning. And when he contemplated that
very thing, the Lord's compassion on himself, the Lord's mercies
to him, the fact that they were new every day, he said, great
is thy faithfulness. And to simply remember, as the
prophet does, Something of the things of God's former faithfulness,
whether it be to this nation of Israel, whether it be to any
of the Lord's people mentioned in the Bible, or whether it be
His proof of His faithfulness to us throughout our lives. Just to think about His faithfulness. is one of the most comforting
and practical of His attributes. Because if you remember about
the Lord's faithfulness, His faithfulness is joined with His
ability and power. His faithfulness is arising out
of who He is as the triune God, able and mighty to save us, and
inclined in His heart to show us mercy. And if we forget any
aspect of how the Lord is faithful, then we will surely fail to grasp
something about the magnitude and the glory of His faithfulness. Jeremiah said it's great. And
when the Spirit of God moves His prophets, moves His apostles
to say something about an attribute or characteristic of God, and
He calls it great, you can just count on it. It is just exactly
that. It is great. And one of the things
that we find out about God in this character, God in His faithfulness,
is that as God, He first of all shows and proves Himself faithful
to Himself. How could we ever have any comfort
How could we ever live with hope and without fear and doubt if
God, first of all, was not faithful to Himself? Paul reminds Timothy in 2 Timothy
2, he says, "...if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful."
He cannot deny Himself. God will always be faithful to
who He is. He is faithful to His person. He must be faithful to who He
is. He must be faithful to His own
holiness. If he ceased to be holy in any
way or in any act, he would not be God. He must be faithful to
his own justness or justice. He must be faithful to his own
righteousness. And though some say expressing
a way around this very thing, some say God can do anything
He wants to. That's not exactly true. He cannot
be inconsistent with Himself. All that he does, and especially
all that he does in salvation, as well as providence, all he
does, he does in a way that causes him to be faithful to who he
is as the thrice holy, just, and righteous God. And He's not
going to do anything for you, and He's not going to do anything
for me that is unfaithful to His character. Not anything. And that's exactly what sinners
would have Him not do. And that would be to offer a
salvation that would let them be like they want to be and cause
him to not be like he is. He said, I am a just God and
a Savior. And he is faithful to himself. Being faithful, he is faithful
to all his prophecies. In Genesis 8, he says something
that maybe in this day of imagined global warning or various reasons
for climate change to bring men and women to despair of life,
but also to despair of God. This is what he said in the first
book of the Bible. while the earth remaineth. Seedtime and harvest, and cold
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." You can bring your charts, You
can bring your so-called data, you can offer your logic and
your opinions, but God is going to be faithful to His own prophecies,
and He says that these things shall remain as long as the earth
remains. And we are to rest in His faithfulness
to His prophecies more than anything else, more than anything that
man could ever offer, more than even as it might appear to be
to us in our own eyes. It will be as He has prophesied
and foretold not only this, but all things, Because great is
his faithfulness. When you read back in the book
of Genesis also, he speaks to Abraham. And he said unto Abraham,
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? All you have
to do is read in Exodus 12, and it says, "...and it shall come
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." God says it, it shall be fulfilled. And not only that, but every
prophecy that He gave through the prophets, whereby to identify
the Christ right down to the place of His birth, He was faithful to bring that
to pass. And he is faithful not only to
these prophecies that he gave through the prophecies, speaking
as he did in those days, and also in the New Testament, but
most especially, great is his faithfulness to his promises. How could God assure that all
his promises would be fulfilled and carried out especially as
they pertain to the salvation of His people. He made those
promises depend on the faithful Son. The Scripture says all the promises
of God are faithful, they are yea and amen in Christ. Jesus. In other words, what would
seem to any thinking person, if he knew the character of the
One who promised, if he knew the condition of those who the
promise were made to, how could they ever be made sure? How could
God exercise this great faithfulness in bringing them to pass? It's all because he made them
yes and true in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he cannot lie. You read Hebrews 6 and verse
16. It says that he promised, and
he who promised, he cannot and he has not lied. And He is faithful, demonstrating
this great faithfulness to Himself. He is faithful to His own plan
and His own purpose. You say, what is God's plan?
Well, I can say this for sure. And that is, God's plan for this
world, for this earth, Up to this point, in one sense of speaking,
was and is to have been just exactly what has happened from
the first day of creation to this very day in which we live. If it happened in this world,
It happened according to the will and the purpose and the
plan of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own
will. Whatever has happened, every
detail of every event, Right down to the crucifying of His
only begotten Son, everything has happened from the fall of
Adam to this very day, and that was and is the will of God. He has no contingency plans. He has nothing to jump back on
or rely upon if something fails, because He never fails. because
his faithfulness is joined with this ability to bring all his
will and all his plan to bear, and especially that purpose and
plan which he has to glorify himself in the salvation of his
people. What is his purpose in that greatest
sense? It is to redeem, it is to call,
it is to justify, it is to glorify a people that He loved before
the foundation of the world and chose before the foundation of
the world in the Lord Jesus Christ. And whatever else that goes on on this earth, The
overall of it, every detail of it, being His purpose, being
His will, being His plan, all of it happening together, but
there in the center of it, chief amongst it, is the salvation
of His people to the praise of the glory of His grace. Because He is faithful. Isaiah
says, "'Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and His
Holy One, to Him whom man despiseth, to Him whom the nation abhorreth,
to a servant of rulers kings shall see and arise, princes
also shall worship, because the Lord that is faithful the Holy One of Israel, and He
shall choose thee." They're going to have to bow
down. These are all going to have to be redeemed. They're
going to have to be redeemed, brought forth. Because he's faithful,
and great is his faithfulness to all his prophecies, to all
his promises, and to all his purpose. Paul called it a purpose
of grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. And being as He is, it can be
said and must be said also, great is His faithfulness to that Mediator,
to that Redeemer, to that great High Priest that He appointed,
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Somebody says, well, it doesn't
look much like it to me. when He allows His Son to be
taken and at the hands of wicked men and women to be taken and
slain in their anger and in their vileness. But that's His greatest faithfulness. If there was ever an hour If finite minds could ever imagine
it. If there was ever a point in
the face of God, in the purpose of God, that would seemingly
have brought the greatest strain upon Him. If we could even think
such a thing. That hour when the Lord Jesus
Christ was hanged on that cross. And in faithfulness, the Father
looked upon him, knowing him to be the substitute and the
surety of his people. The Father looked upon him as
the one who now is also the sin-bearer, who has taken all the sins of
his people upon himself. who now comes before divine justice
to have the hand of justice smite him with that sword of divine
wrath. And here is the Son. This is
the hour of His greatest glory. Will He be faithful to His Son? Will He not just destroy all
the earth, looking upon that lovely One, that only beloved
and begotten Son, the One who has done all His will, the One
who never ceases to love Him? Will He hold back His hand? Will
His faithfulness be tried to this point that in order to be
faithful to Christ, He'll not be faithful to those He represents? We know He was faithful. Because the Christ cries out
from that cross, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why? It wasn't that he didn't
know. It wasn't that the Father didn't
know. It was that his people might
know that both the Father and the Son, in great faithfulness,
they're carrying out That divine design and purpose to save a
people from their sins by Christ's suffering for their sins. Being the ransom payment for
their sins. Shedding His blood for the remission
of their sins. He's faithful. He's faithful to His covenant
promises to Christ. which was to give Him a people,
and in saving them, He would give to Him glory. You see, our Lord possessed as
the Eternal Son that glory of God. But there was a glory promised
to Him as the God-Man. He talks about it in John 17,
a glory concerning these people that the Father gave Him. He
calls out to the Father in that prayer, "'Glorify now thy Son
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.'"
What's that? The glory of being the Savior
of God's people. and at the same time glorifying
God in saving them. Based on His substitutionary
death, based on His sacrifice for their sins, based on His
blood being the price of their redemption. God's purpose to save His people
in Christ was not an experiment. It was to glorify both the Father
and the Son, the triune Godhead, and that faithfulness of the
Father to His Son is the ground of our security. Turn back quickly to Psalm 89.
And look down at verse 3. He says, I have made a covenant
with my chosen. I have sworn unto David my servant. David being a type of Christ. He made a covenant. In verse 8, it says, "'O Lord
God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee, or to Thy
faithfulness round about Thee?' And then in verse 30, he says,
"'If His children, Now, God's faithfulness as God
the Father to God the Son is God's faithfulness to all who
are in the Son. He says, if His children forsake
my law and walk not in my judgments, If they break My statues 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. My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall
endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me." God's faithfulness to His Son. to this David, to this one that
David called, looking to Christ, his Lord, is the great proof of his faithfulness
to those he loved and chose in Christ. Oh, he said, if his children,
if they forsake my way, if they falter, stumble, sin, he said,
I'll visit them with the chastening rod. but I will not utterly forsake
them." You say, why do you believe in
the security of the believer? I believe it just because of
statements like that. You say, well, we believe that
a person can be saved, but they can do something and be lost
again. I don't believe that. I don't believe it because that's
exactly the opposite that the Bible teaches. He said, they're in my hand,
they're in the Father's hand, and I'll keep them, I give them
to them eternal life, and they'll never perish. He didn't say they'd
never sin. He didn't say they'd never fall.
He didn't say they'd never be unfaithful. That they would never
fail. That they would never do things
they ought not to do. That they would not break His
commandments. But He said, I'll never forsake
them. Because He's faithful. Salvation
is based on God's faithfulness. Christ's faithfulness. not my
faithfulness. And he's faithful to save all
these given to Christ, all He died for, and to give Him all
the glory for their salvation. Paul said, God is faithful by
whom you were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord. He loves the Son. He's pleased
with the Son. He's accepted the sacrifice of
the Son on our behalf. He's enthroned Him. And He honors His intercession.
He was faithful to raise Him from the dead. He's faithful
to exalt Him to that high and lofty throne. And He'll be faithful,
now listen, He'll be faithful to defend His name and His honor
and His gospel and His kingdom. You can count on it. You say,
it doesn't look like it. You and I can't see what's going
on. Sometimes we can see a little
bit of the results of what God does. That's about it. But I assure you, great is His
faithfulness to His Son to defend Him, to honor Him, and to tell
us that at His name every knee shall bow. And every tongue will
confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And since he is faithful to himself
and faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, you can mark this down. Great is his faithfulness to
his elect people. That's what he's saying here
in Psalm 89, that's what's being said in Lamentations 3, that's
what's being said all throughout this whole book. To those that
God has chosen and redeemed and called to Christ in faith, to
these that are described as His people, His elect, whatever name
the Bible gives them. He'll save every one of them,
and not one of them shall be lost or finally fall away. They
are weak, and they're fallen, and they're helpless, and their
hope and their necessity is God's faithfulness. If you go back and read again
those first 20 verses of Lamentations 3, and so many other places in
Scripture, you'll find out that in themselves, in their natures,
they are no different from anybody else. They are like Paul said, they
are what they are by the grace of God. It is He who has made them to
differ. All of their redemption, all
of their sanctification, all of their glorification is sure because of God's faithfulness. Paul writes to the Thessalonians,
and he says, "...and 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. Faithful is He that calleth you
who also will do it." And great is His faithfulness
to discipline us. I used to get a whipping as a child
and hear those words, this is going to hurt you more than me. I never believed that until I
became a parent. So hard it is against this flesh
to discipline, but absolutely necessary if we love Him. You see, discipline is the manifestation
of love. abuse, or be to death, or anything
like that. But you better have some kind
of discipline. If you don't, don't say you love your children. The greatest example being God
Himself. The psalmist said, I know, O
Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness
has afflicted me. And great is His faithfulness
to forgive them based on Christ's blood shed in their place, and
His righteousness imputed to them. He is faithful to do it. John is saying, if we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It isn't a matter of, I wonder
if God will forgive me. He's faithful to do it. It isn't a wonder that He can
be faithful and at the same time be just to forgive us of our
sins. How can that be in Christ? And we ought to remember this
also, and that is that great is His faithfulness really to
all men in general. He's been faithful in every promised
judgment that has ever taken place on this earth. Whether it was the flood, whether
it was Sodom, wherever it was, whenever it was, to whomever
it was. In verse 10 of Deuteronomy 7,
he says, "...and He repayeth them that hate Him to their face,
to destroy them. He will not be slack to him that
hateth Him, He will repay him to his face." That sinner outside of Christ,
you ought to take that to your heart. God is going to be just
as faithful to judge everyone outside of Christ and cast them
into outer darkness as He is to His people. And He said, great is His faithfulness
in those faithful sayings to them of salvation based on Christ
alone. Gospel sayings to sinners are
faithful sayings because it's God who said them. One of the most wonderful verses
in all of the Bible. Sometimes I think I'd like to
preach on this verse every time we meet together. This is truly
the epitome of the good news. Paul writing to Timothy in 1
Timothy 1 and verse 15, he says, 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. Here we are in 2014, and here I am a man after all this
time, still standing up, telling sinners, come to Christ, look
to Him, trust Him alone, The cross that He suffered upon,
that blood He shed, that's the basis upon which God has promised
to forgive each and every one who looks to Christ. And if you
look to Christ, it's because He first looked to you. There are a lot of things that
people want to be told about the Bible. I can't tell them. But if the Spirit of God ever
brings them to an end of themselves, and they see themselves for the
wretched sinners that they are just like me, I can tell them
without any qualification or hesitation that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners. We can't save ourselves. We can't
be good enough for God to accept us. But in Christ, He does. Paul 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. Again, Paul, it is a faithful
saying, for if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with
Him. And then his words to Titus.
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
to me. In other words, God's great faithfulness
ought to stir us to faithfulness. Now when I say, I know that God
cannot ever accept my faithfulness, am I saying that to excuse my
unfaithfulness? Or do I acknowledge that, and
in acknowledging that, I'm thankful for His faithfulness to me and
seek grace and strength that I might, in every measure He
would enable me, be faithful to Him? It's His faithfulness that encourages
us and enables us to be faithful. Paul writing in 1 Corinthians,
he says, "...Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man
be found faithful." You say, what am I a steward
of? Well, if we are true believers,
We're said to be stewards of the grace of God. Just personally speaking, how
would I be a steward of the grace of God? Well, first of all, a steward
of the grace of God, a possessor of the grace of God, would be
thankful for that grace. have gratitude in his heart for
that grace. And a steward of the grace of
God would be inclined, I'm sure, to be gracious to others. You say, well, this one or that
one didn't do me right, or whatever it is. Well, what does it matter? or so-and-so
said something about me wasn't true. My problem is, grace has taught
me that even when man has said the very worst about me, it won't
be as bad as what could be said about me. He's made us stewards of the
gospel. What would a wise steward? That's
somebody who's given something a charge, given something to
take care of, watch over, to use wisely. What would a steward
of the gospel be? Number one, one who hears it. One who hears it. One who believes it. One who's
thankful for it. One who seeks to get that gospel
out to other people. Aren't you so glad that God's faithfulness is not
like yours? In other words, if God's faithfulness
to get us the gospel had been like our faithfulness To get
it to others? Would we ever have heard it? I don't think so. He's made us stewards of the
time we have in this life. He's made us stewards of resources
given to us. He's made us stewards of abilities. And it's required of a steward
that they be found faithful. Now, let me just say this in
the end. Who is God great in faithfulness
to in His mercy and grace in Christ? Well, the prophet said, to those
who love him and keep his commandments. That's commandments. But that's
not the ten commandments. Because we're not under law,
we're under grace. But he still gives us some commandments.
Everything he says to finite creatures like us, even in the
gospel, is commandment. But the apostle John in 1 John
3 and verse 23, he kind of sums it up. He says, and this is his commandment, that we should believe on the
name of His Son, Jesus Christ. Acknowledge Him. Cast away every hope but Him. Rely solely upon Him. Believe on His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And love one another as He gave
us commandment. Love one another as He gave us
commandment. And those who do such, they manifest that God has been
great in His faithfulness to them. Great is Thy faithfulness, O
God our Savior. There is no shadow of turning
with Thee. Everything changes, not our God. Everyone proves unfaithful, but not our God. Don't ever depend on me too much.
I'll prove unfaithful in some way or another." But he doesn't. Great, amazingly
great, infinitely great is his faithfulness. Father, we thank You this day
for Your precious Word, for the revelation of yourself
and your grace and mercy in Christ crucified. Help us to be faithful, but help
us never to rely on our faithfulness. But help us to remember your
faithfulness, that it might be a comfort and an assurance to
our hearts. We thank you that you are who
you are. And we thank you for your grace
to us in Christ. We pray in His name, Amen.