Faithfulness of God

00:01 Invite you to turn in your copies of the Scriptures this morning to the book of Hebrews, the 6th chapter. And I want to share with you on the subject of the faithfulness of God. God is faithful. Amen? Have you found that to be true? I have. That He has promised. 00:23 He has made some promises to us. And He is faithful to those promises. 00:31 And in Hebrews 6:13 and following, He talks about the promises and purposes of God in Christ as compared with the promises of God to Abraham so far back in the Old Testament, the father of our Christian faith, as it were. 00:54 The father of Judaism, yes, and the Israelite people. But birthing that out of that, being birthed our Christian faith, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the New Covenant which has been made for us and with us and to us. For God made a promise. 6:13. 01:14 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, that is Abraham, had patiently endured, 01:34 he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. 01:44 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 (the word immutable means unchangeable). That by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, 02:06 we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, 02:26 even Jesus, having become high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. This is a loaded passage of Scripture. It's rich in nuance. It's rich in reaching back into the Old Testament. It's rich in establishing our hope, 02:47 our consolation in Christ, our anchor for the soul, our steadfastness in the things of God, the steadfastness and sureness of our presence, of His presence in our lives. So many implications of this passage of Scripture. And it's based on two things: the immutability of His purpose. 03:09 In other words, the purpose of God. The promise of God. And the oath of God. What do we mean about the oath of God? Well, we have to think just a little bit about oaths. Oaths are what we would call in our day and age, 03:30 we would think about that as swearing. But that's not what an oath is. If you take an oath of office, you lay your hand on a Bible sometimes, or a Quran, depending on what religion you are. But you appeal to an authority. And in our culture, 03:50 you raise your right hand and you swear and take an oath to be faithful to the promises that you have made. And you appeal to a higher authority. "So help me, God," sometimes is included in the oath. The oath of office. 04:09 The oath of testimony in a courtroom. We as Anabaptists believe that when Jesus said, "Swear not at all. Do not take an oath," we take that seriously. We take that literally. We're not promoting oaths in this passage of Scripture because we should be totally truthful. 04:29 The people of God should not need an oath to establish their credibility. That's the reason behind Jesus' prohibition of oaths. But nevertheless, we need to understand some things about oaths and about covenants in the Old Testament. 04:42 And an oath that God made without a strong judicial system in Old Testament law and legalities, there was a swearing of oaths. And there would be an appeal. There'd be a promise made, and then there would be an appeal to a higher authority. In the pagan world, 05:02 it would be an appeal to the gods of the pagans. In Judaism, there would be an appeal to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And basically, as you make that appeal to that higher authority, you're saying in essence that I will be faithful to this oath that I'm making. 05:23 And if I am not faithful to this oath, then I call upon this higher authority to judge me for my unfaithfulness. That's the point of the oath. And God made an oath. And because He could swear by no one higher than Himself, He made His oath in relation to Himself. 05:46 And so He's saying here to Abraham so many years ago, "I will bless you and multiply you. I will give you a people. You will be the father of many nations. And in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed." And the Abrahamic covenant, which we won't take time to go back and look at in Genesis, but you're familiar with it, 06:06 that there would be a seed of Abraham that would bless the nations of this world, the kingdoms of this world, the peoples of this world. And God is making a promise. And He said, "Just for the record, I'm going to put my own name on the line here that I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 06:27 And beyond that, I'm going to swear by my own authority and by my own power because there's nobody higher to swear by. And I'm going to hold myself accountable by my power and my stability and my faithfulness to accomplish what I have promised to Abraham." Now, 06:48 that was in relationship to the Old Covenant, the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which was then affirmed as a covenant through Moses and the people of Israel, the nation of Israel, as it was established under the time of Moses. 07:04 But let me remind you this morning of a new covenant that Jesus has made that is based upon His faithfulness, the same faithfulness by which God made a covenant with Abraham. And that same faithfulness by which God made a covenant with Israel, God has made a new covenant with us. 07:22 And this should end all disputes because there is faithfulness in God to His promise and to His integrity of Himself. And so after Abraham had endured, the promise wasn't unfolding right away. But after Abraham endured, 07:43 he received the promise. And this promise was based on two unchangeable things: the unchangeableness of His counsel and His purpose, His decree, His name, and the unchangeableness of His character. 08:03 That it is impossible for God to lie. Now, I want us to think about this this morning in relationship to our lives as Christians. 08:14 In relationship to the promises of God that God has made to us based on the purposes of God in His character and the fact that it is impossible for Him to lie. Consider some Scriptures this morning. 08:32 1 Thessalonians 5: "And the very God of peace sanctify you holy. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 08:45 Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it." God making a promise that He will preserve us for Himself unto that day. 1 Corinthians 1:9: "God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." And we're very familiar with this verse. 09:07 And it goes very well with this. 1 Corinthians 10:13: "There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but also with the temptation will make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it." Hebrews 10:23 says, 09:28 "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised." So when God makes a promise by virtue of His oath to us in the New Covenant, rooted and grounded in the covenant that He made to Abraham, you can count on God to keep His promises. 09:49 And that counting on God to keep His promise gives us strong consolation as we run to the Lord Jesus Christ for refuge. And we put our hope in Him. And that hope anchors our soul. That hope is steadfast. It is sure. And it takes us into the very presence of God where we can see Christ, 10:09 the forerunner of our faith, and the one who is our high priest by virtue of the priesthood of Melchizedek. We go on. 10:19 "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3: "But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil." 2 Timothy 2: "If we believe not, 10:40 yet He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself." You see, this is rooted; these promises that God has made are rooted in His personality, in His character, and not in our feelings. That's an important point to make this morning. 10:58 That our confidence in God's promises is rooted and grounded in His character, not in what we feel. Amen? So there are some days when we feel saved. There are some days we may doubt our salvation. There are some days when we feel forgiven and we feel the joy of forgiveness. 11:18 And other days we may doubt whether or not we're forgiven. But the confidence that we have is not rooted in us. It is rooted in Christ. He is the hope of the soul. 11:30 And so Peter goes on to say, "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator." May I remind you of Revelation 1:5: "Jesus Christ, 11:45 who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead." And so one writer said it like this, Robert Walker, in 1783. By the way, it's true in 2019. "God's hand is not shortened. The blood of Christ has lost none of its virtue. His intercession is no less prevalent, 12:05 nor is the power of His Spirit in the least impaired by length of time and constant exercise." In other words, God doesn't get tired for exercising His power. Neither does He get weakened by the length of time that He needs to exercise His power. 12:23 And so the time that has elapsed from Abraham to today does not diminish God's ability to be faithful one iota. And the exercise of that power does not exhaust His power in any way. 12:37 I want to share with you in the time that remains this morning the application of some of these things in the faithfulness of God. Number one, God is faithful to forgive. God is faithful to forgive. We claim that promise that if we confess our sins, He is what? And what? 12:57 He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 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, cleanses us from all sin. That's 1 John 1:7. In other words, 13:15 if we meet the conditions of repentance and confession, when we confess and when we repent, God is faithful to forgive. He'll do it every time. He's not unable. He is not unwilling. He is ready to forgive and to cleanse. 13:36 I want to just read some verses here from Psalm 32:1-5: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven." Why is he blessed? Because he's forgiven. And he knows that he's forgiven, rooted in the character of Christ, the character of God, whose sin is covered. 13:54 "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was turned into the drought of summer." He's describing the conviction that he felt for having broken God's law and violated God's character. 14:15 He said, "My vitality was turned into the drought of summer." Then he said in verse 5, "I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity have I not hidden." That's confession. This is repentance. "I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,' and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." How do you know that? 14:37 Because God is faithful to forgive when we repent and confess. He'll do it every time. God is faithful to remove the guilt. Guilt results when the comparison of man's lawlessness and sin, both his deeds and his sinful condition, 14:58 are compared with the character of God's faithfulness. Sometimes we think about sin being acts that we do that break God's laws. And we would be right to think about that in that way. But I think that's an incomplete perception. It's correct, but it's incomplete. 15:20 We are not just sinful because we violate God's laws. We are sinful because we violate His character, which are reflected in His laws. So when we lie, we violate His truthfulness. We don't just violate one of the 10 commandments, 15:38 which says, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," even though that's part of it. We are violating the character and holiness and unchangeableness of God. 15:50 When we lust, we are not just violating His prohibition against looking and lusting and sinning sexually. We are violating His character of moral perfection. That's the basis of our sin, is the violation of His character. 16:11 When we steal, we are violating His character of integrity. When we curse and hate, we are violating His character of love and blessing. When we rebel, we are violating the very character of God and the authority of God. I really encourage us as parents, 16:32 as we teach and train our children, to not only help them to see their violation of the rule, but their violation of God's character. The moral essence of God's nature is the essence of sin. And when we hold up the nature of God in comparison to the sinfulness of man, 16:54 there's not one of us that can stand. But thanks be to God that He is faithful and just, that when we come to Him and confess and repent and trust in Jesus Christ, He is faithful to forgive and eliminate the guilt. Amen? It's a little weak this morning. 17:13 To eliminate the guilt. "There is forgiveness with thee," Psalm 130:4 says. Colossians 2:13 says, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses." He removes the shame. 17:34 For with sin comes shame. It comes embarrassment. It comes a hiding, a withdrawing from God, a withdrawing from things that are holy, a withdrawing from the holy people of God because of the embarrassment and the shame of our sin. And when we're forgiven, that shame is eliminated and that guilt is taken care of. 17:56 How do you know this? Because of the character of God, because of the promise of God, by which He has sworn in an oath, not only by virtue of His purpose of forgiveness, but by the covenant that He has made appealing to no one greater than Himself. "He cleanses the conscience. 18:17 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 18:28 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." How do you know this works? You know it because God said it. 18:43 God promised it as a reflection of His covenant-keeping character and His oath that He has sworn by Himself. Every year in the Old Testament, every year's sacrifice was a declaration of guilt. Every year, they brought the sacrifice that said, "You are guilty. 19:05 You are guilty. You are guilty. You are guilty. You are guilty." Every year for thousands of years. Now, with the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west. And we can take that to the bank, if you want to use that term. 19:22 You can count on it because of the covenant that God has made through His Son, Jesus Christ, with us. And so this morning, if you struggle with guilt, if you struggle with shame, if your sins are weighing down upon you, let me assure you that where there's confession and repentance, there is forgiveness. Now go and sin no more. 19:42 We emphasize the going and sinning no more. But you can't go and sin no more until you've received the blessedness of forgiveness. And that washing of the blood of Jesus Christ is a complete washing. We are acquitted, never to be tried again for that sin. Oh, 20:01 there's a Scottish doctor many years ago whose husband died. She was a doctor, or her husband was a doctor with a real good nature. And he loved people. And he cared for people. And he's a merciful man. And when he died, she went to his book of accounts. And she noticed that he had many people recorded there and what he had, 20:21 the service he had performed for them and whether or not they had paid or whether or not they hadn't paid. 20:26 And over some of those accounts, he had written in his own handwriting in red, "Forgiven. Debt paid in full. Forgiven. Forgiven. Forgiven." And she was not particularly minded to be as forgiving. 20:44 And so she was wanting to collect on these accounts where her husband had been so benevolent, so gracious. She wanted to sue it. The law, and Scottish law, was brought into play. And she took it to the judge. And the judge said, "Is this your husband's handwriting?" She said, "Yes, it's my husband's handwriting." He said, "Well, ma'am, 21:02 if this is your husband's handwriting, there is not a court in this land that will make these people pay what your husband forgave them. You cannot accuse them." Thank God for that. It's a picture of our forgiveness in Jesus Christ. 21:17 When God, through Jesus Christ, writes over our account, "Forgiven," Satan himself can't dig up those sins. There was a man who, I think he might have been a pastor, who had a woman come to him with a pile of sand in her hand. She said, "Pastor, these sands represent my sins. 21:36 I am so burdened down with sins. This pile of sand represents my sin." He said, "How does it represent your sin?" He said, "They are innumerable. They are so many I can't count them." And he said, "Ma'am, I want you to do something for me." He said, "I want you to go to the beach where you got this sand. And I want you to go to the beach. 21:56 And I want you to take a shovel. And I want you to pile up the sand on the beach. And that's your pile of sin. And then I want you to take a step back and watch what happens to that pile as the current comes in." If you've ever been on the beach, you know what happens to the pile. The pile dissipates and disappears. 22:14 And where there is repentance and confession of sin, there is forgiveness that the sin, the pile of sins that have stood against us and maybe even we've carried on our backs can roll away because of the character and promise and oath of God to Abraham, to Isaac, 22:34 Jacob, to us in Jesus Christ. Another thing that God is faithful to do today is He is faithful to keep and preserve and protect. The Bible says, and we quoted it a moment ago, that the very God of peace, "Preserve your whole spirit, 22:53 soul, and body to be preserved blameless under the coming of Christ." 1 John 5 says this, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. But he that is begotten of God keepeth himself. And that wicked one cannot touch him." I love that promise that when there is a right relationship with God, Satan himself cannot touch us. 23:14 He cannot grab us out of the Father's hands. He cannot do anything in our lives without the Father's approval. He cannot afflict. He cannot oppress without the Father's approval. And He can never take us out of the Father's hands unless we discontinue walking in faith. 23:36 And so we have the promise of God that He is faithful. 2 Thessalonians 3:3, "But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil." Even our body is under the care of God. Psalm 121, "The Lord is thy keeper. The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. 23:56 The sun shall not smite thee by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even forevermore." God is faithful to preserve us. 24:13 You say, "Well, what happens when God doesn't preserve someone such as Sister Carmen or Sister Nelita or someone else who is snatched out of this life, what we may call prematurely?" Well, that word prematurely is only our word. It's not God's word. 24:32 It's not God's word. And the important thing, even if He does not preserve our body in the context of these few years that we have, He does preserve our body in the context of His total purposes and program of the resurrection at the end of time. That's part of the promise. 24:53 That's part of the vow that He's made to us is that Carmen, Nelita, this other young man, if he were a believer, that they are preserved. And their bodies will be resurrected at the last day as part of the preservation. But beyond that, there is a preservation of soul. 25:12 And there is a preservation of spirit that while God may allow the body to suffer decay because of this world we live in where the curse is still very much a part of our practical experience of sin, sickness, death, and decay, just look at yourselves. None of you look like you did 10 years ago. 25:34 You pick out some old pictures. You say, "Wow. They sure have aged." Of course, we haven't aged because we see ourselves in the mirror every day. But we look at somebody that we see haven't seen for a long time. "Oh my. They sure have aged." Yeah. We are very much subject to the curse that is still in effect today of death, disease, decay. 25:54 And that curse has not yet been eliminated. It will be. But it hasn't yet been. If it had been, then no Christian should ever die because that's the ultimate effect of the curse. But be that as it may, there is a preservation of the body to the resurrection. There is a preservation of the soul in the time of suffering. 26:14 And there's a preservation of the spirit in the time of death that God holds those spirits in His hand in the bosom of Abraham, as it were, as we see in the book of Luke. There is a preservation that is faithful. Our faithful God has committed Himself to. God is faithful to His word. 26:36 "Blessed be the Lord," 1 Kings 8 says, "that hath given rest unto His people Israel according to all that He promised. There hath not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised by the hand of Moses, His servant." That was spoken by Solomon over around 1,300 years ago. And there still hasn't failed one word of His faithful promise. 26:57 "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us word, not willing that any should perish, but all that all should come to repentance." May I remind you of a very personal verse for us in Philippians 1:6 where that God, He who has begun a good work in you, 27:16 will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So what we're saying this morning is that God has spoken in His word. He has given us His promise. He has revealed His purposes. And He has sworn to be faithful by an oath in relation to Himself. And it is impossible for Him to lie. 27:37 It is impossible for Him to change. It is impossible for Him to violate His promise. Even if we violate our promise, He remains faithful. He cannot deny Himself. And we can take it, as it were, at face value and believe it. You see, the devil says, "God is not faithful." The devil says, "God is not faithful." You can't trust him. 27:59 That's what he told Eve. You can't trust God. Eve, God is holding out on you. God is deceiving you. God is lying to you. God is not good. He said He's made a good place. He's given everything for you. But He's holding out from you. He's not telling you the truth. You can't trust God. And Eve bought that lie. 28:18 The lie that Eve bought was that the character of God is not sufficient to sustain His promise. And the character of God cannot be depended upon and relied upon. The 10 spies, again, Satan inspiring them to say, "God cannot be trusted. This God who promised to lead you in, 28:38 even though He led you out, He's not able to take you in. And He's not telling you the truth. You cannot trust Him." And you know what happened to them? Same lie in the wilderness. Yeah, God could bring you out. And He could take you in. But He cannot sustain you. 28:56 And so they began to murmur and to complain and to argue and to gripe and to challenge God, "Why have you done this?" And they criticized His goodness and His power and ability. This is what the Scripture calls unbelief. But the Holy Spirit says, "God is faithful. 29:16 God is faithful." That is the Holy Spirit speaking in Hebrews 6. God is faithful. You can trust Him. Verse 10, "He is not unjust to forget." This is a negative way of saying the positive. He remembers. He remembers His promise. He remembers your works. He remembers His covenant. 29:36 The Holy Spirit says, "God is faithful." Sarah found Him faithful. Abraham counted Him faithful. Noah believed in His faithfulness. Moses found Him faithful. Joseph found Him faithful. Daniel found Him faithful. And countless others through the years have found Him faithful. Have you found Him faithful? 29:56 And again, it's not based on how we feel. It's based on the credibility of His promise as an extension of His holy character in where He cannot lie. He cannot betray Himself. He cannot deceive. He cannot violate His commitment. And oh, there's great rest in that faithfulness, is there not? 30:18 Great rest. A lady once asked John Wesley. She said, "Mr. Wesley, suppose that you knew that tonight you would die at 12 o'clock midnight or tomorrow you would die at 12 o'clock. How would you spend the intervening time?" His reply, "Why, madam, just as I intend to spend it now. 30:38 I would preach this evening at Gloucester and again at 5:00 tomorrow morning. After that, I would ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon, meet the societies in the evening. I would go to Rand Martin's house, who expects to entertain me, talk and pray with the family as usual, 30:59 retire to my room at 10 o'clock, commend myself to my heavenly Father, lie down to rest, and wake up in glory." It's just that simple. Why could he say that? Because he trusted in the character and the promise and the oath and the person of God. That's how you know anything. That's how you know anything is through the character of God. 31:21 Gone are the days when my little girls would stand on a counter in the back of the bus that we traveled on. We had very little things to entertain us. So we'd entertain ourselves like this. My second daughter, the older one, was a little bit too big for this. But the second one, she'd stand on that counter about 18 months, two years old. 31:43 And I'd say, "Jump." And she'd stand there. "Should I? Shouldn't I? Should I? Shouldn't I?" And then she'd jump. And I'd catch her. Why would I catch her? Because it's in my nature to love my child and not to let her fall. It's in my nature that I said, "When I said, 'I will catch you,' with every earthly power within me, 32:04 I will do what I said I would do." Not once that I ever recall did I stand back and watch her fall. Because if I had, she'd have never done it again. But as you are faithful to your children, it makes it easier for them to trust you, right? So she'd jump. 32:24 I'd catch. "Again, daddy. Again." She'd jump. I'd catch. She'd jump. I'd catch. Get the picture? God has said, "Trust me. I'll catch you. I'll never let you fall. I'll never forsake you. I will never turn a deaf ear to you. 32:43 I will never refuse to forgive you when you meet the requirements of repentance and confession. I will faithfully take you through. I have delivered you from Egypt. I am sustaining you in the wilderness. I will take you in. I give you my word. 33:00 And I swear it as an oath on my character. You can count on it." What is our response? Trust and obey. For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. Let's pray. 33:18 Father, I pray this morning for that one or more who may be grappling with the question, "Can I really trust God? Will God really come through for me? Will God sustain me? 33:29 Or will I somehow be eaten up and consumed by the enemy of my soul?" Lord, we take heart today in the promises of God that have been sworn by an oath to Himself. And we trust. Lord, don't let us listen to the lie of the enemy that says, "God is not good. 33:49 He cannot be trusted." But let us listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit who says, "You can trust God because God is faithful." Lord, let us tell the stories of the faithfulness of God in our own lives. Let us tell the stories and listen to the stories of the faithfulness of God in Scripture. 34:08 Let us tell and listen to the stories of one another as we declare the faithfulness of God week after week after week in our testimony times. And Lord, preserve us unto that great and awesome day when all that are in the grave shall hear His voice and come forth to newness of life. In Jesus' name. Amen.