God is faithful (Quality: Average)

[0:00] May we try to make a plan. May we turn back to the 4th of the Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13.

[0:13] We should have to consider what the Apostles have to say to the believer in the coming, what the Lord our God will say to us here this afternoon.

[0:25] 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13. There hath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man, that God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted, a God that you are able, but will, with the temptation also, make a way to escape, that ye may be able to relax.

[0:59] How is there anything more comforting and encouraging and strengthening to the child of God than to be assured that God is faithful?

[1:14] We live in a day of faithlessness. We live in an air environment. Men and women, young people, think nothing about breaking their word, breaking their promises, and in many ways revealing a character of faithlessness.

[1:35] But our God is a God who is absolutely faithful. And as we turn to the Scriptures, we see implicitly throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament this glorious truth that God is faithful.

[1:53] All his dealings with Israel of old, his covenant people, were on the grounds of his faithfulness. And as we read through the pages of our New Testament, we see implicitly that God is faithful.

[2:13] But there are many times in the Old and New Testaments when God explicitly states to men that he is a God who is faithful.

[2:26] Remember in Deuteronomy chapter 7 and the 9th verse, and we're a chapter where God reminds his people that he didn't choose them because they were greater than the other nations.

[2:40] Indeed, they were smaller than the other nations. He chose them out of his sovereign, the love for them. And he tells them that in verse 9, Know therefore that the Lord, thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him.

[3:03] Explicitly and clearly, God tells his children that he is faithful. And we find reference to his faithfulness time and time again in the Word of God.

[3:18] His faithfulness is abundance. Remember in Lamentations 3.23 where the sorrowing prophet Jeremiah is reminding those to whom he's wanting that God's mercies are new every morning.

[3:34] And then he says, Great is thy faithfulness. Great abundance is God's faithfulness.

[3:45] The psalmist reminds us that his faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. To the psalmist of all, the clouds are unreachable. And surely he's speaking of the limitlessness of God's faithfulness to men.

[4:02] He reminds them that his faithfulness will never fade. It isn't a faithfulness that comes in fits and starts, as it were.

[4:14] It's a faithfulness that goes on and on forever and forever. It's very interesting to turn out the page into the scripture and to see the different contexts in which God portrays his faithfulness.

[4:30] we see it in the beginning of this very letter to the Corinthians in the opening chapter in the ninth verse where he says, God is faithful at whom you are called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

[4:51] It's in the context of the glorious, irresistible call of God to sinful men. And in that call, God reveals his faithfulness.

[5:05] We find it in Paul's second letter to the Thessalonians and in the third chapter and the third verse. In the context of God's keeping, will he keep his people?

[5:17] In the midst of great trials and distresses, yes, says the apostle, but the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil.

[5:30] Isn't that wonderful that we have this glorious promise of God's faithfulness in the midst of his promise to keep? And did you notice there in the first letter of Peter chapter 4 and verse 19, the apostle again puts this wonderful fact of God's faithfulness in the context of suffering.

[5:55] Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls in well-do as unto a faithful creation.

[6:07] He who has created us, he who has made us, is the one who will be faithful to us in the midst of suffering. He who reminds us of it in the midst of his promise that he is faithful.

[6:21] The promise, it says the apostle to the Hebrews in chapter 10 and verse 23. And again, remember, in 1 John and the opening chapter there, the apostle again holds up God's faithfulness to us in the context of forgiveness of sin.

[6:41] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

[6:52] But here in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul brings this glory to the Lord's faithfulness into another context. It's into the context of temptation.

[7:05] his writing, his writing is, remember, to believers. He opens his epistle unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saved, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours.

[7:30] He's writing to Christians indeed in the opening verse of the 10th chapter. He reminds them that they are brethren. For over brethren, he says, I would not that you should be ignorant.

[7:43] Paul was a faithful pastor. His great purpose was to teach his people. There is nothing that is a greater flow to the blessing and the upbuilding of the child of God than ignorance.

[7:57] And Paul wouldn't have these people to be ignorant. I wouldn't have them to be ignorant, he said. And he reminds them of God's great and mighty sovereign power in bringing Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and into the wilderness and finally into the promised land.

[8:16] And so he said, I would not that you should be ignorant. How that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

[8:28] They did all eat the same spiritual meat. They did all drink the same spiritual drink. Or they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them.

[8:39] And that rock was Christ. His great company of Israelites all had the same experiences. They were all like any strike of Moses in the cloud. They all went through the sea.

[8:50] They all had the same spiritual meat and the same spiritual drink. But with some of, says the apostle in verse 5, that with many of them, God was not well pleased.

[9:03] Indeed, he was very displeased with them. So displeased, says the apostle, that they were overthrown in the wilderness. What did he tell them this?

[9:16] Why is it in the scripture? What's the apostle for? In verse 6, now these things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

[9:31] There was that within them that went after these evil things. He goes on in the subsequent verses to list five great areas of temptation to which the great bulk of Israel fell.

[9:46] And, by the fact, I think it is very worth our life, although we don't have time this afternoon to do so, to open our Old Testament scriptures and go through these five areas of temptation to which the apostle Paul alludes here in the chapter of 1 Corinthians.

[10:05] here were rocks upon which Israel fell, the great bulk of them. They all had the same opportunities, the same experiences, the same spiritual blessings, but with many of them God was very pleased.

[10:19] You have to them in the wilderness. Why did he? Well, because they ran shithead upon these rocks which the apostle, as it were, would have pulled up before the believers here in Corinth.

[10:34] And he is with these five areas of temptation. I think if you look at them, you will find that they cover every area of temptation that can come to the child of God.

[10:48] And I think you will also find, as you prayerfully meditate upon, that at the roots of every temptation is the temptation to doubt the faithfulness of God.

[11:04] Now, I'm quite convinced that this is any temptation that comes to you, and you will find that basic to it is the temptation to doubt God's faithfulness.

[11:18] And the apostles reminding these believers in Corinth and taking them back in their minds to these areas of temptation to which the children of Israel were submitted and to which they failed.

[11:36] And the apostle goes on having mentioned these five areas to remind these people in verse of heaven how all these things happened unto them for instance they were figures, they were models he says, and they are written for our admonition from the end of the world outcome that here might be a force for our learning that we might be admonished by them that we might be corrected by them that we might learn as a result.

[12:08] And so the apostle said in verse 12 whether I think that think that he find that take heed lest he fall and if I know my own hearts my defense I know your hearts how easily we can say well that's all right for them but I can never thought I'm grounded I'm settled I'm established in my faith close as the apostle look at these things with humility and with the sense of being prepared to be taught by the Holy Spirit of God then he introduces this wonderful 13 verse for it is a wonderful verse there have no temptation taken taken you but such as is common to man what does he mean by temptation well the scriptures use this word in two senses it means testing and testing comes to the believer from two sources it comes from the devil and the devil is always tempting us he's always testing us and he does it with one objective that is to cause us to fall and to bring us into sin the devil never tempt us for any other reason but that but God also tempts us

[13:31] God also tempts us remember concerning Abraham and the Lord tempted Abraham not to sin God never tempts he never tests a man or a woman with the objective of making them sin remember James says this God cannot be tempted with evil never tempt us any man why does God test us well he tests us in order to be able to prove us in order that we might be proved by him and proved before him he tests our faith he tries our faith and so the apostle says that there have no temptation taken you but such as is common to man literally such as is human God's testing on us he's never superhuman you see we're just human beings with all our frailness and our frailty and God knows

[14:38] God never tests us with superhuman testing as he might test angels with angelic testing we are human and he tests us in line with our humanity it is common to man but it also means that that our testing our temptation is never a unique choice we always tend to think it is there is something very loud about the human heart and when we find ourselves in the realm of testing and temptation we can be I believe the devil would insinuate this into our minds that we can get this in a way that nobody else has ever been dealt with nobody else has ever gone this way nobody else has ever had to experience this and I don't but it isn't like that there is no temptation taking you says the apostle of that which is common to man and having said that then he puts in this wonderful statement but God is faithful now why does he in the realm of testing and temptation why does he call upon the faithfulness of God after all in the midst of testing we feel our weakness do don't we want to be reminded of the power of God why does he call upon the omnipotence why does that God is powerful

[16:09] God is your powerful one in the midst of our testing and temptation don't we feel that we need a sense of his love why doesn't it be false to say but God is loving he doesn't say that does he he says but God is faithful why does he call upon the faithfulness of God for two reasons I believe and the first is what I previously said I say again that basic to every temptation that comes to the child of God is the temptation to doubt God's faithfulness that's why the apostle put it in and secondly I believe he uses it because he says all God's other attributes rest upon his faithfulness rest it won't help me much to know that God is all powerful if in the midst of my temptation

[17:10] I don't also know that he is faithful to use his power on my behalf it won't help me to know that God is a God of love if I can't be sure that in the midst of my trials he would love me and his love his power all in other attributes as it were rests as far as human experience is concerned upon God's faithfulness so the apostle here calls upon the faithfulness of God there have no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but God is faithful how do I know in the midst of my trials and testings that God is faithful one answer that one can give is this that if God never tested me he wouldn't be faithful to the very testings that come to the child of

[18:15] God are a proof that God is faithful to us he allows the testings to come indeed he brings the testings and the trials and the tribulation into the life of a believer and if he didn't do so he will be unfaithful to his trial God is faithful to us in that he permits us indeed he causes us to know testings and temptations about God's distance snowed and temers into the home and then hear him he allows testing to come to me.

[19:05] How do they show his faithfulness? How do I experience and know his faithfulness to me? Well, here surely are some of the answers that God's testing of me proves the reality of my faith.

[19:23] Do I really have saving faith? Well, the devil will come along and say, no, you're not really a believer. The world may look upon me and say, well, if that's a believer, I don't think you are.

[19:34] How do I know that I am a true believer? Well, because God's trials and God's temptations that come to me prove the reality of my faith.

[19:48] Prove that it's a real faith, a living faith, a saving faith. And that's because if God does that for me, he's being faithful to me, isn't he? Don't I want to know that my faith is real?

[20:00] Don't you, dear friend, want to be assured that you have true, living, saving faith? How does God show it to you? Well, by the very fact that he tries you, that he puts you into tribulation.

[20:16] Remember James in his letter, and in the opening chapter, he said, knowing this, that tribulation, tribulation, where there's patience, and patience, experience, and experience hope.

[20:34] The Apostle Paul says something almost exactly the same in his fifth chapter to the Romans, and in the third verse, that tribulations, in which the Apostle said we can glory, tribulations produce something within us.

[20:50] They produce patient continuance, and that patient continuance also produces fruit in our lives.

[21:02] God proves his faithfulness to us by proving the reality of our faith. My friend, if my faith breaks all together under trial, then I need to look at it again.

[21:17] It shouldn't be a saving faith. It will produce evidences and fruits that it is true saving faith. How does God prove his love to us in tastings?

[21:35] Well, his very tastings show his love for us. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteth. He's scared of every son whom he received.

[21:48] Solomon has said it a thousand years before the Apostle Paul. You remember that the writer of Hebrews reminds his readers of it, that when God tests us and God tries us, it is to prove his love for us.

[22:04] My friend, don't we want to know his love for us? Are we sure that he loves us? My friend, if we have no testing, if we know nothing of divine divine fatherly chastisement, then we shall know his love.

[22:17] The father who loves his children is the one who disciplines them. And he brings these very things into our lives and they prove to us that we're in his family.

[22:30] But we've been adopted as his own bloodbath, redeemed children. My friend, that wonderful isn't it? Don't you want to know that God loves you? Well, here's one of the ways, says the Apostle, in which we can be assured that God loves us when he chastens us, when he tempts us, when he tests us.

[22:51] How do I know that God is faithful to? Well, I know, says the Apostle, because he tests.

[23:03] And you see, testings and trials that come from a father who loves his children are the very things that bring blessedness to us.

[23:16] Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, as I gave in chapter 1 and verse 12. And that word really means happy, very happy. A person to be infinite is the one who is being chissed.

[23:31] In that sense, the person who goes through life and seems to have no upside down, no problems, no difficulties, is not the person to be in life and to be infinite. The very opposite.

[23:44] Because it is through these very things that true spiritual blessedness is imparted to the child of God.

[23:57] There is no temptation taken as such as is common to them. But God is faithful. Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are here.

[24:12] Like I tell my mother that God is faithful to me in the midst of temptation. Well said Paul right into the experience. I know that he is because he controls the temptation.

[24:24] He will not suffer you. He will not allow you to be tempted above your age. Like I said, it is only God himself who knows the limits to which he can take any one of his children.

[24:40] And he will never take any one of his blood brought ones. one I overpass the ability which he gives by his grace to be able to endure such temptation.

[24:54] He will not suffer us but to be tempted. He knows the severity of the temptation. He knows the duration of it. He knows the kind of temptation that he should bring into your life and mine.

[25:08] He controlled it, did he not? in the experience of Job, although Job didn't know. Job had to see as it were into heaven and see the heavenly word that was going on between God and Satan himself.

[25:26] Job didn't know that God was controlling and limiting and as it were hedging around his service in the midst of his temptation. But you might know.

[25:37] you may feel sometimes and sometimes we even say I can't take anyone. I've come to the very end. My dear friends, you and I are not the ones who can assess the limits of God's grace in us and God's grace to us.

[25:57] It is only God himself. This heavenly father who loves us. This heavenly father who has designs of grace and mercy for us in the very temptations that come to us from his gracious and loving hands.

[26:13] He lives the temptation. And how the Lord he is about that word from the prophet and his eye. The bruised and green he will not break and the smoking flanks he will not perish.

[26:26] My friends, you will. You may feel that you have been battered and bruised and you can go do that. You may feel that the very life where it all has been taken out of you by the trials of God.

[26:44] Trust him to know the limitation because he is controlling everything that concerns our trials and our temptations.

[26:57] how do I know that he is faithful? Well, says the apostle Paul, I know that he is faithful because it is he who makes the way to escape.

[27:09] He will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are in but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to dance.

[27:21] Notice, my friends, what the apostle says, will with the temptation. Let's not say that he will take the temptation away. Now, we know finally that he will.

[27:34] We know there is always an afterward in God's feelings with us. But here it is not out of the temptation that he will show us a way to escape in the midst of the temptation with the temptation also make a way to escape that we may be able to dance.

[27:55] My friends, how does he make the way of escape for us? Well, one of the ways in which he does it surely is this, that he tells us why he is putting us into this place of testing.

[28:11] You see, that's one of the tragic things about the world. The world sees the old things that are happening. Tragically you suddenly rush into a home in your family, and they make no sense whatsoever.

[28:23] there's no hope of escape for them in the sense that they can make no sense out of it. But God never tests his children without telling them why he is doing it.

[28:37] And once the child knows why it is being chastened by her and sees the point and the purpose of it, then he is much more likely to be able to submit to it.

[28:50] how much more so with the child of God. God tells us why he is doing it. Why does he chastise us? Why does he bring us into testing and temptation?

[29:03] My friends, the most glorious reason is given to us in Holy Scripture, that we might be made partakers of his clothing, that we might be made like Christ.

[29:19] and all writing to the Ephesians in the evening chapter of this will to them. Reminds them that according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the word, that we might be whole and without blame before him in love.

[29:39] And you can never walk through the dirt and the filth and the beslut of this word and keep ourselves clean and make ourselves whole.

[29:54] It is only the Lord who can do this for us by his spirit. And one of the means that he uses is this very means of testing and temptation that we might be made more like Christ.

[30:10] The eternal and ever blessed son of the father. God purposes that all his people shall be fine and united. from the moment he justifies us through faith in Christ, from that very moment he begins a process of sanctifying us and making us holy, making us conform to the image of his son.

[30:33] I think don't want to be like him. Isn't that that garing within our hearts is what I want. I do want to be like Christ.

[30:44] I want to reflect something of the grace and the love of the very son of God himself. This is the way that God will bring us in his own loving and kind and sovereign ways to liken us to Christ.

[31:05] He will show us the way it was getting. Why is he doing it? And immediately we recognize why he is doing this. Immediately we prepare to submit to it.

[31:18] He purposes to sanctify us. He's like the goldsmith that one sees in the village, sometimes an Indian, sitting over their crucible with molten gold in it and every little speck of impurity that comes to the surface is scaled off in order that the gold might be sanctified, it might be purified and it means a process of peace and the same sort of process where you and I feel the heat of God's shaking behind the heart.

[31:52] My friend, we can be assured of this, that as the goldsmith in India sits over his crucible and never leaves us, when God puts us in his crucible in order to purify it, he never leaves, he never goes away, he is there, he is sitting over the crucible, he is near his hand, he is closed by, no, he will with the temptation also make a way to escape.

[32:26] We remind us why he's good, it reminds us in English, very sufferings, we are made a partaker of Christ's sufferings, that's what Peter said in that chapter we read together from his first epistle, that we should be made partakers of Christ's sufferings, not his atoning sufferings, they are unique, and none other than the sinless Christ of God could ever have borne any of those great atoning sufferings, but in a strange sort of way of being in the same pattern, and partaking with Christ in his sufferings, so the belief goes through these trials and testings and temptations, and we are partaking with him, of his sufferings.

[33:20] Would there be anything more glorious than this? And I think once we catch the vision, once we realize the truth of this, our very suffering, being raised to the place where we are partaking with Christ in his sufferings, I think, do we mourn?

[33:41] Do we complain? Do we repent? No, we see the wonderful purpose of God dealing with us in the way in which he is dealing with us, and the way to escape is immediately opened up before us, and we prepare willingly and gladly, and will join our hearts to submit to his chastising heart.

[34:07] Remember, Peter in the opening chapter of that first lecture of it reminds us that our very suffering now, for the sake of Christ, will redound to Christ's glory in that great and everlasting day.

[34:25] The trial of your faith, he said, be much more patient than the gold that perishes. Those betrified with fire, may be found unto praise and honouring Lord at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

[34:40] Your suffering now, my dear beloved Christian friend, my suffering now, here, in this life, in these days, are going to redound to the glory of Christ in that great day when he shall come.

[34:57] I think that's what I understand. once I realize the solution, surely I see a way to escape with my trials. I don't complain, I don't murmur, in that great day Christ is going to be glorified by the way in which I react to the trials that my Father sent upon me, even now.

[35:22] God is faithful, who will not stop us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with a temptation also make a way to escape that we may be able to bear.

[35:37] What is that way to escape? Well, he was sure to, that Christ is even now involved in our suffering. He's our great high priest.

[35:50] He's been exalted to the right hand of the Father. He's a merciful and faithful high priest, said the right hand of the Hebrews, and he feels this in our infirmities and in our reflections, in our trials and our testings.

[36:09] He's been here, he's lived in this world, he knows what trials are, he knows what temptations are, he knows what you and I are going through. He doesn't just, as it were, sit apart there in the glory and look upon us with unconcern and his heart is involved, he feels with us, and as a result of his feeling with us, he's able to suffer us when we are tempted.

[36:38] Oh, my friends, in the midst of this of the apostle Paul, we have a God who is faithful. There hath no temptation taken, but such as is common to man, that God is faithful, who will not start for you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that you may be able to bear.

[37:07] My friend, may he play the truth of this, not only in our minds, but in our hearts. May we by his spirit be able to comfort us and be able to live in the midst of our trials to his praise and God and God.