Part 20 | The Only True God – God is Faithful

By Ryan King

Friday 4th June 2010

As we draw near the end of our study on the Attributes of God, we come to God’s attribute of faithfulness. You may remember a while ago we looked at the immutability of God, that is, the doctrine that God does not change, and indeed cannot change. We saw three particular areas in which God is unchanging: his personhood, his purposes, and his promises. Because God is unchanging it follows logically, and more importantly, it follows biblically, that God is also faithful. But what do I mean when I say God is faithful? Turn your attention now to the Old Testament book of Lamentations, particularly the third chapter. Lamentations is a book of poems mourning the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian empire. Lamentations presents us with a picture of horror: a city besieged, starving people, people trading in treasures for a little food, people killing other people when food becomes scarcer, women eating their children when at last there is no food, bodies lying on the street corners, the walls breached and overrun, the leaders fleeing before the enemy, the young men slaughtered, the women raped, the survivors carted away into slavery in a foreign land, the temple looted, destroyed, and now a desolate roaming ground for wild beasts… Chapter three, the words of ‘the man who has seen affliction’ (v.1), paints a graphic picture of a man in suffering. Verses 16-18 read,

He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD.”

After a period of dwelling on his suffering, this hopeless, helpless man says, in verses 21-24,

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

It is on the basis of these words and the whole of Lamentations 3 that I submit to you the following definition of God’s faithfulness: God, because he is God, is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy to whoever calls upon him but he certainly will judge all who reject him.

For the purposes of our study, the above definition can be divided in to two parts, the first of these dealing with God’s response to whoever calls upon him. God’s faithfulness in this area is seen in two ways in Lamentations 3.

God’s Faithfulness in Repentance

First, I would have you note that God’s faithfulness is seen in repentance. You may have thought before now that repentance was a human work, but I am now telling you, that a person cannot repent unless God first works in him to do so. The afflicted man says:

Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord! Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

The following verses outline how God and the nations relate to the people during this time, as a result of their sin. It ends with a picture of the afflicted man’s current state and how he finally calls out to the Lord for help:

I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, “I am lost.”

How did the afflicted man come to this point? What brought him from writhing in his own misery to repenting toward God? The turning point is verses 21-24, when he is brought to see the faithfulness of God. The afflicted man has repented, but only because of the work of the faithful God in his life bringing him to that point, in this particular case, through suffering.

God’s Faithfulness in Redemption

Not only though do we see God’s faithfulness in repentance. We also see God’s faithfulness in redemption. Is God so wrapped with a cloud that even when his people repent, he will not hear them? Or is God so angry that he hears his people but ignores their cries for help? Not so with the faithful God.

I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help!” You came near when I called on you; you said, “Do not fear!”

You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.

Though scum and garbage among the peoples, their appearance is in no way off putting. Envision with me the Sovereign Lord God of the Universe, stooping so low as to hear us, and humbling himself so much as to come down to us, grabbing hold of those rocks which cover us in the pit, and throwing them aside, taking hold of us and pulling our drenched, drowned selves up to safety, and breathing the breath of life into us. That is the work of the faithful God! He hears this man crying from the pit, and he pays the price of ransom, he rescues him, he saves him. Those who are completely lost and dead in their trespasses and sins are brought to repentance by the work of the faithful God, who does not leave his work unfinished, but goes on to redeem that person, and although not explicit in this passage, continues the work of salvation in a person life, strengthening them and helping them, and if ever they should wander or stray, or get a little to close to the pit, he brings them back to himself. Why? Because God is faithful.

God’s Faithfulness in Retribution

Remember that our definition of God’s faithfulness says that God, because he is God, is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy to whoever calls upon him but he certainly will judge all who reject him. We have seen God’s faithfulness toward those who call upon him. But God is also faithful to those who reject him. He certainly will judge all who reject him. Our text shows us that God’s faithfulness is seen not only in repentance and redemption, but also in retribution. Is this thought not appealing to you, that God inflicts justice and vengeance? Your feelings and emotions don’t matter at this point. God’s word does. It is written “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). Having brought his people to repentance, and having redeemed their life, God takes up their cause. Who threw this man into the watery pit? Who cast these stones over this man’s head? God knows:

You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.

You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me. The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long. Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.

Does God see these things and let them continue? No, we are told in Scripture that God is of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong (cf. Habakkuk 1:13). He sees those who have harmed this man, who have rejected one of his own, and therefore have rejected him, and he goes forth to hunt them down.

You will repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands. You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O LORD.

They have hunted, so shall they be hunted. They have cast down, so shall they be cast down. They have smitten others, so shall they be smitten. Peoples and nations have been destroyed and countries wiped of the map, so shall they be destroyed and their nation, their empire, be no more. God is faithful, and he will certainly judge all who reject him.

I don’t know who you are, where you are, or what you have done. But I do know this. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you confess your sins and turn from them, the Lord is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin and to cleanse you of all unrighteousness. You may be saved. You may be strong in the faith. Don’t stop looking to the Lord. Don’t go back to that pit. Die to sin daily. You may be backslidden. You are called to return to the faithful God, who as the father in the parable of the prodigal son, will welcome you with open arms and rejoicing. You may be lost, without hope or help in this world.  Quit looking to this world. Look to the Lord in repentance and faith, and be saved. God sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was God,

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6-8).

Call to Jesus, cry out to Jesus. He will hear you. He will rescue you. He will say to you ‘Do not fear.’ And indeed, if your hope is the God who helps, if your faith is in the faithful God, there is never any reason to fear. Others should definitely be afraid, for there is a reckoning that is coming. But you can say with suffering men of God,

Though he slay me, I will hope in him… (Job 13:15)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:22-24).

But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. (Micah 7:7-8)

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no heard in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s he makes me tread on my high places. (Habakkuk 3:17-19)

And in pain or prosperity, may we say of our faithful God: ‘Blessed be the named of the LORD’ (Job 1:21).

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