Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #12 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are continuing to look at Revelation 21:5:

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

In our last study we were looking at the true nature of God.  It is one of His glorious attributes that He always speaks the truth and the Lord Jesus Christ is God and, therefore, Christ said that He was Truth.  The Word of God, the Bible, comes from the mouth of God and completely identifies with Him, so His Word is truth.  The Holy Spirit is Eternal God, one of the Persons of the Trinity, so we read in John 14 of the Spirit of truth.  The Spirit is truth.  Truth is that which is very much identified with God – He is Truth. 

On the other hand, we look at man and the Bible says that every man is a liar.  It says that we are born speaking lies and it says that the heart of man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, so man’s nature is completely set against God’s nature.  One is true and one is a liar and Satan is the father of lies and because man believed Satan, they became like their spiritual father and they developed a love for the lie rather than a love for the truth.

But there is another statement where God is speaking of His word at the end of Revelation 21:5:

… Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Again, this is making reference to the entire Bible, not just the Book of Revelation.  It applies to all Scripture and all the words of God are “true” and all the words of God are “faithful.”  Before we look at what the Bible has to say about the faithfulness of God’s Word, let us contrast this with mankind’s faithfulness, just as we did with the word truth.  It says in 2Thessalonians 3:2:

And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith.

We might miss what God is saying here if we read it too quickly, but He is actually making an all encompassing statement concerning mankind.  It is similar to the statement in Romans 3 where it said, “every man a liar.”  All men are liars, according to the Bible, and, likewise, all men have not faith in their natural, fallen condition because they are spiritually dead.  That is why the whole idea the church has adopted as they encourage man to exercise their faith in order to become saved is impossible.  According to God’s standard, “all men have not faith.”  Of course, the churches have a much lower standard and they will settle for a “profession” of faith, which only comes out of the mouth but is not coming forth from a changed heart.  However, that must be okay with the churches and congregations.  I am being a little cynical, but that is actually how it is.  The churches prompt men and try to stir them up to “accept Christ” in order to bring salvation to themselves by their own faith, but the Bible says, “all men have not faith.”  They do not have saving faith and, therefore, all men are not faithful.  Christ went on to say this in Matthew 17:17:

Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.

Those who read the Bible literally want to think this refers only to that “generation” living at the time of Christ, but it is the entire “generation of evil,” the same generation that has been upon the earth all through history, from the fall of Adam to the end of the world.  That is why Christ makes reference to a generation of evil that will not pass away until all His Words have been performed, because it is all the same “evil generation.”

Another way of looking at the “generation of evil” is to look at the way Jesus describes them in Matthew 17, verse 17.  They are “faithless” and they are “perverse.”  The term “faithless” means they have no faith, as it also said in 2Thessalonians, chapter 3.  This is the nature of man.  He is “faithless” and he is not someone that can be counted upon or trusted when it comes to spiritual things.  He is not someone that you can rely on for truth, for wisdom or for knowledge of God.  He is a faithless creature because of his sin, so he is the last one you would want to check with in regard to spiritual things, but we must go to the Faithful One and God is faithful. 

God speaks the truth and man is a liar and God is not a man that He should lie. We need to understand that God is not “man.”  Mankind is a creature that was created in the image of God, but due to his fall into sin he brought ruin upon that image and it is no longer an accurate reflection of the Being of God because God remains perfect, pure and holy.  He is true and faithful and the Word of God also remains all those things.  It is man that has fallen from his high estate and not God.  God remains in the high and lofty place and He is the Most High God and His Word remains elevated far above this world and its evil and.  The Word of God is pure, “purified seven times,” as gold and silver and it is a glorious and wonderful thing that in this wicked world where we cannot trust any man or anything, there is the Word of God, the Bible.  It is a source of truth and light that reveals the perfect character of a faithful God and that is what the Bible says of God in Deuteronomy 7:8-9:

But because JEHOVAH loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath JEHOVAH brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that JEHOVAH 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;

The number “thousand” points to the completeness of time; God is always and eternally faithful and He will remain faithful into eternity future and His Word will remain faithful.

But notice in verse 8 how God brings up the fact that He has sworn with an oath to our fathers and He mentions His covenant.  What did He swear?  He swore to Abraham that the land would be his for an everlasting possession and for his seed after him.  He promised him that his seed would be as the stars of heaven for multitude.

God is faithful.  Historically, He was faithful to deliver the Jews that were in Egypt, according to the promise given to Abraham that in the fourth generation they would come out and return to the land.  So, historically, there was a physical element to the promise that God fulfilled, but we have seen that the deeper spiritual fulfillment and the ultimate fulfillment would be when God gives the new heaven and new earth to His elect, the spiritual seed through Christ.  Once they are placed in the new heaven and new earth, it will be the point of the ultimate fulfillment of the Word of God in regard to this promise.  It will be a time, once again, when God’s faithfulness will be confirmed because He had made promise of these things and His Word has always proven to be true and faithful as it comes to pass.  Of course, God’s Word has proven true and faithful repeatedly over the many centuries of earth’s history.  There are really only a few things that remain in order for every precious promise of God to be fulfilled.  It is just a short amount of time when He will fulfill the last of His promises and He can only do that when He destroys this world and creates the new heaven and new earth.

It says in Hebrews 10: 23:

Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

This is referring to God and He is faithful.

In the context of the Great Tribulation in 1988 as it led to the beginning of judgment, it says in 1Peter 4:17:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

Judgment came first upon the churches and it transitioned to include all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth on May 21, 2011, so both judgments are being referred to in this verse.  Then it goes on to say in 1Peter 4:18:

And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

Certainly, when we look at the spiritual situation today, it fits this statement perfectly.  It says that the “righteous scarcely be saved” and the churches have been spiritually destroyed and there are none righteous there, as God has already separated the wheat from the tares.  The people that came out of the churches are being severely tried and many of them have gone back to the world or to the churches or to former doctrines.  It appears they are either “scarcely saved” or they may not be saved at all.  It is only the remnant of true believers that are holding on to the sound teachings of the Word of God and they are not esteemed highly at all; they are despised and looked down upon.  We know there is a “great multitude” that were saved, but most of them are out there among the nations and we cannot know where those tens of millions are located.  They may be living in China or India or Africa.  How can you see this great multitude?  There is certainly an appearance of “scarcity” of salvation.  Then it goes on to say in 1Peter 4:19:

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.

The elect “suffer according to the will of God,” and the previous verses had pointed out that it is a thankful thing to suffer for “well doing” or for Christ’s sake or to suffer as a result of holding onto truth.  You suffer because you are acting according to the spirit within you in a faithful way as you uphold and maintain God’s commandments.  You will not deny them or compromise them and this often brings suffering in this world, in one way or another, and that is a good thing as long as it is for the Word of God or for Christ’s sake.  It is then thankworthy and you can feel good about that.

On the other hand, if you suffer because of your sin as a murderer or evil doer or busybody, then there is no thanks for that.  That is why the people of the world suffer in their evil doing. 

All with suffer, to varying degrees, whether for well doing or for evil doing, but if we “suffer according to the will of God,” it means we are suffering for what God has shown us in the Scriptures – they are His commandments.  For example, the will of God is that Sunday is the holy Sabbath Day and the command is to remove your foot from His holy day, so the child of God wants to be faithful to that commandment and he would not work on Sunday.  This could lead to trouble at work in our modern society, where more and more companies want their employees to work on the Sabbath and it could lead to hardship for the child of God.  We can see how that could be.  It is the same with other commandments of God.  When God says that what He has joined together, man is not to put asunder, we know that today over 50% of marriages end in divorce and we have some believers that are divorced and then they became saved.  Now what is the faithful will of God regarding them?  The will of God is that the divorced person is to remain single and not remarry, unless the former spouse had not remarried and they could get married again to that former spouse.  That is the only option the Bible permits, so there are true believers that want to do the will of God and they will remain single.  They may feel a little lonely and they might prefer to be in a marriage relationship, but they want to do it God’s way, so there may be some suffering as they seek to do the will of God. 

This is how it is with many things the Bible commands and God’s people will do things according to the will of God, even if it brings hardships, difficulties, tribulation or affliction.  They suffer for the Word’s sake because it is a faithful spirit God has placed within them.  It is the spirit of Christ.

Again, it says here: “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.”

Here, again, God is described as being “faithful.”  He is called the “faithful Creator” and this takes us back to the very beginning when He spoke and brought the earth and universe into existence.  The sun, moon and stars and all the creatures came into existence as God continued to create for those six days.  He was the faithful Creator.