The Faithfulness Of God # 1

 The Faithfulness Of God # 1

Unfaithfulness is one of the most outstanding sins of these evil days. In the business world, a man's word is, with exceedingly rare exceptions, no longer his bond. In the social world, marital infidelity abounds on every hand, the sacred bonds of wedlock being broken with as little regard as the discarding of an old garment. In the ecclesiastical realm thousands who have solemnly covenanted to preach the truth make no scruple to attack and deny it.

Nor can reader or writer claim complete immunity from this fearful sin. In how many ways have we been unfaithful to Christ, and to the light and privileges which God has entrusted to us! How refreshing, then, how unspeakably blessed, to lift our eyes above this sense of ruin, and behold One who is faithful - faithful in all things, faithful at all times.

"Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God" (Deut. 7:9). This quality is essential to His being; without it He would not be God. For God to be unfaithful would be to act contrary to His nature, which is impossible; "If we believe not, yet He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). Faithfulness is one of the glorious perfections of His being. He is as it were clothed with it: "O Lord God Almighty! Where is there anyone as mighty as You, Lord? Faithfulness is Your very character" (Psalm 89;8). So too when God became incarnate it was said, "Righteousness will be His belt and faithfulness the sash around His waist" (Isaiah 11:5).

What a word is that in Psalm 36:5, "Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens, and Your faithfulness reaches into the clouds." Far above all finite comprehension, is the unchanging faithfulness of God. Everything about God is great, vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word.

To every declaration of promise or prophecy the Lord has exactly adhered; every engagement of covenant or threatening He will make good, for "God is not man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak, and then not act? Does He promise, and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19). Therefore does the believer exclaim, "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness." (Lam. 3:22-23).

Scripture abounds in illustrations of God's faithfulness. More than four thousand years ago He said, "While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." (Genesis 8:22). Every year that comes furnishes a fresh witness to God's fulfillment of this promise. In Genesis 15 we find that Jehovah declared unto Abraham, "Your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them ... But in the fourth generation they shall come here again" (verses 13-16). Centuries ran their weary course. Abraham's descendants groaned amid the brick kilns of Egypt. Had God forgotten His promise? No, indeed. Read Exodus 12:41, "At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the Lord's divisions left Egypt."

Through Isaiah the Lord declared, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Again centuries passed, but "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." (Gal. 4:4).

God is true. His Word of promise is sure. In all His relations with His people, God is faithful. He may be safely relied upon. No one ever yet really trusted Him in vain. We find this precious truth expressed almost everywhere in the Scriptures, for His people need to know that faithfulness is an essential part of the divine character. This is the basis of our confidence in Him. But it is one thing to accept the faithfulness of God as a divine truth, it is quite another to act upon it. God has given us many "exceeding great and precious promises," but are we really counting on His fulfillment of them? Are we actually expecting Him to do for us all that He has said? Are we resting with implicit assurance on these words, "He is faithful who promised" (Hebrews 10:23)?

~A. W. Pink~

(continued with # 2)