I have seen more than 27,000 days during my short lifetime. Every one of them followed a period of darkness which I have called “night.” The succession of night and day, night and day, has been throughly consistent throughout my life. In fact, that succession has been consistent for more than two million days. The secularist may have a different explanation, but the Bible believer knows that the consistency of day and night, day and night, is due to the sovereign will and omnipotence of the faithful Creator. It was God who said to Himself and perhaps to Noah, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall NOT cease.”
There are even more important statements about the relationship of God to the succession of days and nights. In Jeremiah 33, Jehovah challenged willful humanity, “If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season, then may my covenant be broken with David my servant…” And in Jeremiah 31, we read: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinance of the moon and of the stars for a light by night… if those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Without getting into the application of those statements, I will just say that the Lord uses His promise of the day and night, as illustrations of His covenants with Israel and David. Again, when at any point during the last 25,000 days has the sun failed to rise? I have not seen it. The point is: God is faithful who hath promised these things.
God is faithful toward His CREATION.
And if God were NOT faithful, creation, each of us as individuals would instantly vanish. We wouldn’t be destroyed; it would be more as if we instantly evaporated. God, in no way, is required to be faithful toward this Christ-denying, sin-loving, rebellion-employing world. But God is faithful by nature. “All things were created by him, and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things CONSIST” – Colossians 1:16-17. Each part of creation “consists,” “stands,” and “continues” because God faithfully maintains them.
In I Peter 4, the apostle was encouraging his brethren who were suffering persecution. “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” – verse 16. It is one thing to suffer punishment as an evil doer. And it is something else to suffer the consequences of our foolish actions. But when we suffer because we are Christians and as servants of the Lord, we have the promise of the divine support of the faithful God. This should be a point later in this lesson, but there is a reason to bring it up now. I Peter 4:19 says – “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.” Peter deliberately tied together the words “faithful” and “Creator” when encouraging the persecuted saints. Because the One who created all things out of nothing, can easily take care of our needs today even if the world turns all its fury against us. God is faithful – He is the “faithful Creator.”
Several times, as God speaks to Israel, He highlights an important point about His faithful character. For example there is Leviticus 26:44 – “When they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.” When Israel rebelled against the will of their Saviour, they were engulfed by their wicked neighbors. And yet, God was faithful toward them, because He is the faithful God, and he preserved them. David said, in Psalm 119:75 – “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.” But remember Israel’s wicked neighbors, Babylon, Assyria, Rome and all the rest, were just wicked as Israel. And the faithful Creator, maintained His covenant with the ungodly just as He did with Israel – springtime and harvest, summer and winter, daytime and nighttime.
When hurricanes are drenching coastal American cities, the unbeliever may scream, “Where is the God of love that those Christians talk about?” When tornados are sweeping through the Midwest and fires are engulfing the far West, the atheists cry a lot and then chuckle about the foolish faith of the children of God. But just as God never abandoned His chosen nation, even when He was judging them for their sins, He’s right there in the midst of the judgments He is employing on the rest of the world. God is faithful toward His creation in many general ways. “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord His God.” Psalm 146:6 appears to be speaking to people who are not children of Jacob. “Happy” are these converts whose hope is in Jehovah, “Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that there is; which keepeth truth for ever.”
Why hasn’t the wicked world been destroyed as yet? There are several answers to that question, but one is that God is faithful. “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.” This wicked world will be incinerated one day, but that day hasn’t come because God is merciful and faithful to the timetable He established before the world began.
Psalm 92 expresses the worship of one of God’s poets. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, and to sing praises unto thy name, O most High: To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.”
God is faithful toward His creation, because He is faithful to HIMSELF.
This should have been the first point in this lesson, because – as I suggested Sunday – this the foundational principle below all faithfulness. Jehovah is the faithful God. Deuteronomy 7:9 – “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.” Isaiah called Jehovah “faithful” – Isaiah 49:7. Paul picked up on Moses’ and Isaiah’s theme, saying, “God is faithful…” and “God is true…” “The Lord is faithful…” “faithful is He that promised…” and “the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you…” In Revelation 19, the Apostle John “saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True…” Christ is called “Faithful and True,” because it His nature to be faithful and true.
I know this is perhaps borrowing some of the riches of Israel, but we can apply Psalm 121 to ourselves. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.” The Psalmist refers to the Lord as our Creator; He will not suffer our foot to be moved. And this faithful God is more alert and protective than ADT or any other home protection system. “He that keepeth thee will not slumber… nor sleep. “
As you know there are a number of COVENANTS which God has made. The most important are those which He made unilaterally – God’s unconditional covenants. There was His covenant with Abraham, which could not be broken by Abraham or any of his children. There were His covenants with Moses and David, and the extremely important New Covenant. Paul was speaking about the last one, but he could have applied it to them all when he said, in Romans 11:29 – “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” – they will not be withdrawn.
God is faithful to His WORD. He is the God who cannot lie. “For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us” – II Corinthians 1:20. O, what a blessing the written Word of God is to us. How would we ever know of His love, if He hadn’t faithfully commissioned and enabled faithful men to share it with us? How could we ever have heard the good news of the gospel if the Lord wasn’t faithful in mercy and grace? We should memorize and utilize in our prayers Isaiah 25:1 – “O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are FAITHFULNESS and truth.” Numbers 23:19 – “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?”
In a sense, it doesn’t matter whether or not you believe that God will keep His promises. Because those promises, in themselves, are not dependent on you or your faith. “If we believe not, yet he abideth FAITHFUL; he cannot deny himself” – II Timothy 2:13. However, “let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for he is FAITHFUL that promised)” – Hebrews 10:23.
I’ve already touched upon God’s faithfulness to His SAINTS, but let me highlight that once again.
How often has He to His people: “I will not forsake thee?” Moses testified, “(For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.” “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” “And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.” Paul wrote, “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
There are many individual children of God to whom the Lord showed Himself faithful in temporal ways. For example there was elderly Sarah, who was blessed with a baby, because God was faithful to his promise to her. The Lord not only promised Sarah and Abraham a son, but also a nation flowing from that son, and yet God told Abraham to kill that son in sacrifice to Him. And yet God was faithful to His promise. God told David that he would become king. Before it came to pass, David passed through a lot of rough water, but it did come to pass. After fifty, sixty, ninety years of declaring that judgment was coming, Noah may have been feeling the heat of ridicule and persecution, but God was faithful to His word, and the floods came. The Lord promised that the disciples would preach before kings, and they did, because the Lord is faithful. There are many more examples of the Lord’s faithfulness to individuals. We will deal with some of those in lessons to come.
Perhaps the most important to you and me, at least practically speaking, is His faithfulness in SALVATION. Hosea is a colorful book in which we need to spend some time. It describes how God goes out of His way to save wicked souls and bring them to Himself. In chapter 2 He says, “I will betroth thee unto me FOR EVER; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in FAITHFULNESS: and thou shalt know the LORD.” That pretty well summarizes the eternal nature of the new life sinners may have in Christ. Paul says in I Corinthians 1 – God “shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day our Lord Jesus Christ. God is FAITHFUL, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”
There is no reason to doubt, question, or worry about our eternal salvation, because God is faithful. I Thessalonians 5:23-24 – “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.” Paul told his young friend Titus that he was “in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.” And that promise was carried out through the sacrifice, followed by the priestly ministry of the Saviour. “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a MERCIFUL and FAITHFUL high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” – Hebrews 2:17.
As you know, in several places we are told to be holy, because God is holy. I have no scripture with which to back this concluding thought, but I still believe that it is scriptural – We are to be as faithful to God as our limited abilities permit. We are to be faithful because God is faithful.