"God is Faithful" (I Cor. 1:9)

One of the outstanding signs of these times is that of   unfaithfulness. This evil is manifested on all sides. It is   rare indeed to find a man whose word is as good as his bond, and   hence men's transactions with one another have to be put down in   writing, spelled out in great detail, signed and sealed to make   sure of the faithful performance of what has been agreed upon.

Infidelity in Social Realm

In the social realm too, infidelity abounds on every hand. The sacred bonds of matrimony are so often broken with no more regard to the seriousness of the obligation entered into than the casting off of an old garment. Infidelity in the Ecclesiastical Realm In the ecclesiastical realm, thousands who have taken solemn church vows to "walk together in Christian love, to strive for the advancement of this church, in knowledge, holiness and comfort; to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline and doctrines; to contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry...to maintain secret and family worship, to religiously educate their children, to be just in their dealings, faithful to their engagements, exemplary in their deportment; to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and to be slow to take offense and always ready for reconciliation,"etc., etc., neglect and forget these solemn vows almost as soon as taken, giving them as little consideration and attention as though they had not taken them. The matter of being faithful to their solemn covenants before God and the holy angels gives them no great concern.

Unfaithful Ministers

Multitudes of preachers who have solemnly sworn to preach the truth and nothing but the truth, make no scruple to go so far as to attack and even deny it! Whether they keep their word or not occasions them no twinge of conscience; they seem utterly immune to any sense of the responsibility they have glibly assumed. O the awful and fearful judgment of "the living God" when at last they "fall into" His hands!

All More or Less Unfaithful

Nor can we claim complete immunity from this fearful sin, for in so many ways and so many times have we, alas, been unfaithful to Christ, and to the light and privileges God has granted us. "A faithful man who can find?" (Prov. 20:6). Friend, "Let us search and try our ways" Lam. 3:40). In view of these things how refreshing it is, how unspeakably blessed, to lift up our eyes and look above this scene of sin, ruin and corruption to One who is faithful in all things and at all times. "The Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God" (Deut. 7:9). "Faithfulness is an attribute of the living God; without it He would not be God. For Him to be unfaithful would be for Him to act contrary to His nature, and that is utterly impossible. "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny (be false to) Himself' (2 Tim. 2:13). Faithfulness is one of the glorious perfections of His character. `O Lord God of host, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? or to Thy faithfulness round about Thee" (Psa. 89:8). And when God became incarnate in the person of His Son it was said `righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins' (Isa. 11:5)."

God Unfailingly Faithful

In Psa. 36:5 we read these reassuring words, "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds." The unchanging faithfulness of God is far above our finite comprehension. "Thou art great, O Lord God; for there is none like Thee" (2 Sam. 7:22). "Everything about God is great - He is great in power, great in wisdom, goodness, mercy, holiness, love, wrath, etc.. He never forgets, never falters in carrying out His word, never fails to do as He has said. He strictly adheres to every promise, every engagement, every covenant He has made, and will make good every threatening" for "God is not a man that He should lie: neither the Son of man that He should repent: hath He not said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Num. 23:19). Well might every one of His blood-bought children joyfully exclaim with the prophet of old, "His compassions fail not, they are new every morning: great is Thy faithfulness" (Lam. 3:22,23).

Scriptural Examples of God's Faithfulness

Scripture furnishes us with many illustrations of God's faithfulness. He is faithful in what He has said in respect to the world in general. In Gen. 8:22 He declared "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease;" that the world will never again be destroyed by the waters of a flood: "neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the earth" (Gen. 9:11), and as a token and confirmation of this God set the rainbow in the cloud (Gen. 9:13), and for some 5000 years He has been faithful to this covenant in spite of violent storms and sudden great inundations. Every year that passes over our heads gives us fresh witness of the faithfulness of His word. In Gen. 15:13 God said to Abraham, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in the land that is not theirs, and shall serve them...but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again." Hundreds of years ran their weary course while Abraham's descendants groaned amid the brick kilns of Egypt did God forget His promise? Indeed He did not. "And it came to pass at the end of 430 years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the host of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt" (Ex. 12:41). From this we may certainly conclude that whatsoever God has said concerning the world which has not yet been fulfilled will most certainly be fulfilled in His time!

God a Living God

Psa. 39:6 says, "Every man walketh in a vain show," but we read in Jer. 10:10 that "The Lord is the true God, that He is the living God, and an everlasting King" in opposition to all fictitious deities - gods by name but not by nature. Our God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal and immutable, and truly so. There is nothing in the Divine nature that is imperfect and sinful, He is "A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deut. 32:4). "God can be safely relied upon, for He is true and His word of promise is sure. In all His dealings with His people He is faithful. None ever yet really trusted Him and was disappointed. The precious truth of the faithfulness of our God is expressed and emphasized throughout the Scriptures which are the basis of our confidence in Him." It is one thing to believe in the faithfulness of God, to believe that He will unfailingly make good His word of promise, and an entirely different thing to really act upon it. God in His goodness has given us "many exceeding great and precious promises" such as "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed" (Psa. 37:3).. "They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing" (Psa. 34:10). "He shall dwell on high: his bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure" (Isa. 33:16). Do we really expect that God will do for us all that He has said? Are we resting with absolute assurance on these precious words, "He is faithful that promised" (Heb. 10:23)? It is so easy to profess a faith in God that we do not possess, and hence we need to plead the cry of the apostles, "Lord, increase our faith" (Luke 17:5), call it out into exercise and act.

We are often tempted to Doubt God's Faithfulness

"There are many times in the lives of Christians when it is not easy to believe that God is faithful. When our faith is being sorely tried, when it seems He does not hear our cries, when it seems certain we shall be overwhelmed by our circumstances and our pleas for His help seem to be unanswered, then we begin to waver and to doubt His love and care, doubting that He will most certainly deliver us. How often we are staggered by friends we trusted who have failed us or betrayed us. How we have been tempted to doubt His love and care when one near and dear to us has been snatched away by a violent death, or when it may be we are in a perilous situation and death stares us in the face! Then we are solely tempted to cry out in unbelief with His disciples `Master, carest Thou not that we perish?' (Mark 4:28), and then He proved Himself to be better than all our fears." When we are severely tried and falter, let us seek help from the Lord to heed Isa. 50:10. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon His God."

God's Ways Mysterious

God's ways are mysterious and past finding out. He has told us so. He says in Psa. 77:19 that "His way is in the sea and His paths in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known." As to life's experiences that you do not understand, remember that in His own good time He will make all plain to you, for He says in John 13:7, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter!" God will demonstrate sooner or later that He has not forsaken us who are His children nor deceived us. "And therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you, and therefore will be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you: for He is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for Him" (Isa. 30:18).

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace,
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread,
Are rich in mercy, and shall break
In blessings o'er your head.

God is faithful in all His undertakings, for He says in Psa. 89:33 that He will not "suffer His faithfulness to fail." Hath He not said, and shall He not do it?

God Faithful in His Counsels

In Isa. 25:1 we read "Thou hast done wonderful things; Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth." He has been faithful to every covenant He has made with man. "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" (Deut. 7:9). God has not promised His people security from outward afflictions, but He has promised that He will be with us, support us under them and deliver us out of them in due time, all of which will be faithfully performed by Him. "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 ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear it." (I Cor. 10:13).

God Faithful in Afflicting His Saints

"I know, O God, that Thy judgments are right, and that Thou in faithfulness hath afflicted me" (Psa. 119:75). But "In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them" (Isa. 63:9). God's people are described as a "poor and afflicted people" and that "many are the afflictions of the righteous," but He has promised that He will be with us in them.

God Faithful in Preserving His Saints

"God is faithful by whom ye are called unto the fellowship of His Son" (I Cor. 1:9). "We have no ground for confidence in the absolute security of the saints based on the strength of their resolutions or their ability to persevere, but on the veracity of Him that cannot lie. God has promised His Son a people for His inheritance, that He would deliver them from sin and condemnation, give them the gift of eternal life in glory, and it is certain He will allow none of them to perish." For He has not said, "I give unto my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish" (John 10:28), and that He will be with them unto the end (John 13:1)?

God is Faithful in Chastening His People

"Whom He loveth He chasteneth" (Heb. 12:6). God is not only faithful notwithstanding afflictions, but faithful in sending them. "Then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes: My lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer My faithfulness to fail" (Psa. 89:32,33). Let us humbly acknowledge that we deserve His corrections, cease from all murmurings and instead thank Him for His faithful dealings with us. God never afflicts us without a cause: "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you" (Cor. 11:30), and "The curse causeless shall not come" (Prov. 26:2). Afflictions are necessary to cause us to seek the Lord. "In their afflictions they will seek me early" (Hosea 5:15).

Free From Care

"The foundation of God standeth sure" (2 Tim. 2:19). If we fully apprehend this precious truth we shall be preserved from worry. "If we are full of care, if we are anxious about the morrow, this is to reflect upon the faithfulness of God who tells us to `Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof' (Matt. 6:34). Has He not cared for each of us through all our years? And will He forsake us in old age when hoar hairs are upon us? As we look to the future, let us remember what Job said (in 5:19), and rest upon it, that `He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil befall thee.' The apprehension of this truth will keep us from murmuring and from our proneness to complain. God is greatly honored when under trial and chastening we have good thoughts of Him, when we vindicate His wisdom and justice, and believe that He loves us even when rebuking us, for `God dealeth with us as with Sons, and what son is there whom the father chasteneth not?' (Heb. 12:7).

God Faithful to His Threatenings

In closing, let us remember that "the faithfulness of God appears also in the execution of His threatenings as well as of His promises. God threatened Adam that in the day he ate of the forbidden fruit he would die, and die he did. He immediately became mortal, death began at once to work in him, and he was seized with an awful sense of guilt, a terror of conscience, and a sense of Divine wrath." And the sentence of death passed not only upon Adam but on all his posterity in him as stated in Rom. 5:12: "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." God threatened that the old world would be destroyed by a flood for their impiety and wickedness, and though He exercised long suffering patience and forbearance, yet He brought it upon the world of the ungodly and destroyed them all as He said, God has threatened the damnation of all who believe not: "He that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark 16:16). He has threatened that all impenitent sinners "shall be cast into hell" (Psa. 9:17), and it shall be done. Hath He not said, and shall He not do it?

Practical Application

Now, friend, let us ask, How do matters stand between your soul and God? Have you been "born again" (John 3:3)? Are you a child of God? Are you a "new creature" in Christ? Or do you just take it for granted that you are? Have you "believed to the saving of your soul" (Heb. 10:39)? We read in 2 Tim. 2:19 "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity." Is that true of you? Is it? The mere fact that a man believes the Bible to be the Word of God proves nothing as regards his salvation. The devils also believe that and "tremble" (James 2:19). The fact that a person is sincere in regarding himself as on the road to heaven proves nothing. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). One may have "all knowledge," faith to "remove mountains," may "bestow all his goods to feed the poor," yea, "give his body to be burned" yet if he has not love, that love expressed and manifested in obeying in heart and purpose Christ's words in John 14:23 "If a man love Me, he will keep My words" then he is "nothing," then he certainly is not saved. To all such we say, "Seek ye the Lord while He is to be found, call ye upon Him while He is near" (Isa. 55:6), for "now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Cor. 6:2), hence make haste to flee from the wrath to come" (Luke 3:7).