Faithfulness of God - Part 2 — Derek Melton

The Sovereignty and Knowability of God

And next week, the Lord willing, I'm going to begin a time of instruction upon the sovereignty of God. And so we're going to start moving into the characteristics, the attributes of God. I was speaking with our pastors this morning in our pastors' meeting that it's not possible to worship a God you don't know.

If we don't know or have even a glimpse of revelation of the supremacy of God, the sovereignty of God, it's hard to worship a God that we don't have a revelation of His enormity and His unbounding power, unlimited power.

And so we're going to start a discourse on that. And not knowing when I began this short message on the faithfulness of God, was it going to lead into other of his attributes and characteristics? But I'm really feeling a stirring down deep, deep in my soul to preach upon God from the Bible, the word of God is given to us that we might know God.

It's amazing how many sermons are preached and pulpits, pulpits across the land and nobody ever hears about God. We preach from the Bible all about man, but the object of the Bible is not man is God. The purpose of the Bible is that we might know God.

So we're going to begin that in, in, in, in, in the weeks coming and give thanks to Jesus for it. And we want to prepare our hearts to receive it. And there'll be some weighty truths, but I believe that we're able to receive it and that God's going to bless it and anoint it.

It's going to help us to mature and to grow in our knowledge of God, Isaiah 21 or 25 one says, Oh Lord, thou art my God. I will exalt thee. I will praise thy name for thou has done wonderful things. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

Let's pray. Father, give me an ability to be able to communicate Lord, these timeless truths, these words that come forth Lord, from your heart that have been inspired by your Holy ghost for that have been written Lord God, by Holy men, as the spirit of God spoke to them inwardly by your power and greatness, Lord, help us to receive from the words of God today that we may have hope in Christ Lord, that we may put trust in you and that you're a God that never fails a God that is always faithful and true father God.

We know Lord God, Lord God, that faithfulness and truth Lord are of thy counsels. They're of your character. And we give you praise for that Lord. Help us this morning to stay alert and awake to not have a spirit of slumber, but Lord, you receive these truths by faith Lord, that we may live and move and have our being in you as we trust you in Jesus name.

Amen. Now, go with me in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 11. We're going to dive right into this and I will try to not give more than we can digest in one setting. That's one of my challenges that I have is to try to put out too much information to where it cannot be digested.

So I'm trying to be sensitive to the amount that I'm pouring for so we can take, but I don't want us to lose any good thing that comes from above. And so I want us to be able to receive and to be able to put the heart and to practice what we have been given and not for it to flow over the top and then down the ground.

That bottle will only hold so much. Everything else is waste, isn't it? Verse one in Isaiah 11, and there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Can you identify the capitalization in this passage that we're seeing here?

Coming for the rod out of the stem of Jesse, a branch that capital B shall grow out of his roots. This is prophetically speaking some 400 years, I believe, before the birth of Jesus Christ, prophetically revealing Jesus Christ to his people, and it shall grow out of his roots and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears.

But with righteousness, he shall judge the poor and reprove with equity. That word equity means what? Just justice for the meek of the earth, and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips, he shall slay the wicked and righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faithfulness, the girdle of his reins.

Love it. And it's in an uncertain generation. That the certainty and the faithfulness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is an unmovable bulwark, you know, if you don't understand what that word bulwark means, go back and reacquaint yourself with some of the hymns that were written three or four or five hundred years ago, especially during the Reformation period.

Martin Luther penned one of those powerful hymns, a mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark, never failing. It's an unmovable fortress. And so we see here that in a time of uncertainty. The time of unrest, and we could go into all of the unrest that we're facing in our culture, economic unrest, moral unrest, and there's chaos, it seems to be abounding on every every front.

But the faithfulness of Jesus Christ in these turbulent times is an unmovable and an abounding fortress for the people of God that we can have confidence and trust and faith in Jesus Christ based on his faithfulness to us and to generations that have gone on before us.

God is a faithful God. Well, then the faithfulness of God is the basis of our trust, the faithfulness of our God. Our God is not a man that he should lie. Our God is faithful to every generation. So we're going to continue where we left off last week.

We talked about several areas to whereby our Lord will always and is always faithful to us. We're going to exhort you from the word of God today in regard to the faithfulness of God. So go ahead and turn with me to Ephesians chapter five.

Caring for Absent Members and Preparing Christ’s Bride

There are certain members of the body that are not with us this morning. Can you please look around and identify those who are not here and make a mental note that we might be able to call and encourage them this morning after the service and let them know that we love them and miss them.

Sergeant Williams and Jerry are not with us today. We need to be encouraging them. You know, he has lost his job with the closing of Bravo Company and is unemployed. And I'm sure there are certain challenges, certain fears that they're facing.

About their financial situation that is to come, because as you all know, that the bills that come in don't stop. They don't stop. And so we possibly will have the opportunity to help them out in times to come.

And we're willing and joyful to do that. But encouragement is an important thing. The body of Christ learned to encourage herself. So the first point I want to make today is that God is faithful. To prepare a bride for his beloved son.

God is faithful to prepare a bride for his beloved son. In an Ephesians chapter five, starting in verse twenty five, it says, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

But God is faithful in the preparation of the body of Christ in this very hour to be a chaste virgin presentable under his son at his appearing. God's at work. And I know there's many times when we look inwardly and we see the spots, we see the stains, we see the blemishes.

But yet we forget the promise that God is at work and he is faithful, working in our hearts, in our lives by the Holy Ghost, by the continual and perpetual workings of divine grace. But not only does grace save, but grace also continues to prepare, continues to equip, continues to work in our lives, revealing issues that we have, revealing sins that are still dormant or existent in our lives, in our hearts and making us ready for the coming of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Holy Ghost is at work, preparing a bride for Jesus Christ. Say Amen. Whether we would be absolutely amiss. We would be wrongful in our thinking if we believed that our salvation and also our sanctification were for the sake of our own inheritance and our own possession alone.

We are so much preaching today about what the believer inherits in redemption. And we hear it so much that it overrides and it also overshadows the very chief purpose in redemption, and that is to bring the promise of God to the son that was made.

Beloved, the chief purpose in redemption is that God would be glorified and that the son would receive a promise of an inheritance that God had made into him. Amen. We are simply beneficiaries. I've talked about the benefits of God before from this pulpit as being resident residue, residual, residual blessings from a covenant with a blessed God.

I will never negate the realities of our God blessing his people, but beloved, we are blessed because we are in covenant with the blessed one. Amen. We are a blessed people, a blessed nation because of whom we are in covenant with the blessed God that created the heavens and the earth.

Say Amen. But we are changed from glory to glory by the very power of God under the very image of his beloved son, Jesus Christ, but it's for the purpose of God and for the praise of our God. And again, it's not that we don't become beneficiaries of God's nature, it's not that we don't become beneficiaries of the goodness of God because we are and we do and we are receiving those benefits even now, but they're not the chief beneficiary.

Jesus Christ alone is the chief beneficiary in redemption. You're looking at me like deer in the headlights. Jesus Christ is the chief beneficiary of your salvation. Thank you. I think we've become influenced by good intentioned men that have taught that have taught us that we alone are the chief beneficiaries of all things in redemption.

But this is not true. Turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm chapter two. Lord, we love the manna of your word. We love your word. In the second chapter of Psalm. We see the inspired writings of the anointed Holy Spirit dealing with the heart of the king, and it says in verse seven, I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me, thou art my son.

This day, have I begotten thee ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thine possession. You see this church that I will give thee. This is a promise again.

Once again, beloved, you must understand that this is hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus Christ. This is a prophetic announcement of the promise that God made to his son before he was incarnate, before he became flesh and dwelt among us, a promise being revealed through the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, a promise God's making his son that I am giving to you a people.

Beloved, the chief in and redemption, the chief beneficiary, I might say, in redemption is Jesus Christ, because God made Jesus a promise that the elect of God belong to you. So whenever a a a lost man or woman, boy or girl is born again, it is a fulfillment of the promise that God made his son Jesus.

This is that boy or girl, man or woman benefited by this? Well, most certainly, of course, we're benefited by it. But the chief beneficiary is not the recipient of redemption, but the one that's receiving good on the promise that God has made, that I will give to you the heathen for thine inheritance.

Glory to God. He receives the praise for it and we receive the residue of it. By being changed in our hearts and our lives, by the grace of God, to where we can live our lives, glorifying Jesus Christ, the one that has begotten us and paid for us with his own blood.

Amen. Now, turn with me into Daniel chapter seven. If you need more ammunition than just just out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. The seventh chapter of Daniel, I know that all of us have trace elements of humanism in us.

I have fought within myself for years about things. Theologically and doctrinally, that did not compare with what I was taught. Nearly to the point of theological insanity, but. I'm beginning to see now, even though there's been a sword that's smitten me time and time again, that God is sovereign.

God's unmovable. God is holy and that all things rotate around him and not me, and I'm not saying that I'm absolutely cured of this disease, but I'm saying the Lord is working on the inside of me, revealing the the the magnitude of his existence and who he is and revelation of his person to my heart.

And I am dwarfed by it. I am dwarfed by it nearly to the point where I feel as the the publican smiting my breast, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner in Daniel chapter seven, verse 13, it says, I saw in the night visions.

And behold, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and he came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom and a people, nations and languages that should serve him.

Do you see this? His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away in his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed. That'd be a good spot for a say law, but there's not one there. Beloved, I want us to see that in redemption.

The chief beneficiary is Christ, one like the son of man. That came with the clouds of heaven and came to the very ancient of days and they brought him near before him and there was given to him dominion, there was given unto him glory, there was given unto him a kingdom and there was given unto him a people.

We are his inheritance. Beloved, the spirit of God is at work in this hour with the faithfulness of God working on the behalf of his self, working on the behalf of himself to prepare a people that his son may have a promise fulfilled.

And God is a faithful God to follow through with that which he has promised and spoken. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Now, I don't want us to misconstrue what I'm trying to say. I am not saying in the, in even the most remote way that we are not beneficiaries or partakers of the benefits of redemption.

Sometimes I come across with such zeal and enthusiasm to illuminate a powerful truth that we have been not seeing or that we possibly have been neglecting that it can almost look like I'm saying that we receive no benefit in redemption.

That would be foolish. It would be unsound, it would be unscriptural, unscriptural. I'm not trying to say that at all. I'm only addressing a misnomer, a wrong, a wrongful belief that has tendencies to elevate mankind as the chief beneficiary and not his Christ.

Do you understand this now is the assertion of that glorious attribute of the faithfulness of God that works through all types of. I put in my notes multiple divine providences towards the end of our preparation as the bride of Christ.

There are divine providences that God asserts. That we fall into impractical experience. That assert authority in our lives through situations that we are experiencing that are providential. We don't understand it, nor at the time do we see it.

But it's being orchestrated by the very hand of omnipotence that God is at work in our hearts and our lives by the Holy Ghost, by providence, ascribing certain situations and drawing his church, drawing his people through these seasons for a providential purpose.

That's pruning and cutting things away from us that are that that are required to be pruned or cut away, that we may be that bride that is without spot or wrinkle or blemish. There are providential workings of God that we don't understand at the time that they're going on, that God is at work in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.

He is at work in and through Christ by the Holy Ghost, preparing a bride for himself, that whenever he appears, that we shall not be ashamed at his appearing. But we don't understand what we're going through.

In fact, many times we as a children of Israel, we murmur and complain, Oh, God, if it if it needs be, let this cup pass for me. The blood of this cup is before you, that you might be prepared when he returns and that you might be one of his own.

That's that's received unto himself as a chaste virgin. And. That there's no other means, there's no other way that you could be dealt with and your life and your heart dealt with, that you might become an integral part of the bride of Christ.

And there's no other means that is given under heaven whereby that could be accomplished. Many times we even shake our hands at the heavens because of the discomforts of our temporal situations unknowingly.

We're trying to refute the very hand of omnipotence and providential grace that's working in our hearts and our lives to prepare us to be the very bride of Christ. We don't know it, we don't see it now.

Hallelujah. But we have the promise of God that whenever he comes, that we will be like him. We know this. We see this in the word of God. This identifies with the continual work of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives unto preparation for that great day.

Behold, the cry of the bridegroom for thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee is a prophetic rendering by Solomon of the bride of Christ. Thou art all fair. How much fair thou art all fair.

Thou are altogether comely and beautiful. There is no spot in thee, my love, beloved, the work of grace in our lives and the work of the Holy Spirit and the faithfulness of God is being asserted that whenever he appears, that we will be like him and that we will be a bride grew a bride for the bridegroom that's prepared and arrayed and white without any spot or blemish, a wrinkle or any such thing.

The faithful of God, the faithfulness of God is being asserted unto that end for his own glory. Amen. Hallelujah. Beloved child of God, listen, as you are traversing in that pilgrim's way and we've been using that terminology quite frequently and will continue to do so, you will find stains upon your royal garments.

And the spirit of God will reprove you for these stains, but it's for your own good and it's for his own glory. And you're also going to find that through repentance and through confession that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from every stain.

The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from every sin. Psalms 50, 21. But I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes. Hallelujah. Oh, Lord, reprove me as you see fit that I might have nothing on the inside of me lingering within me that grieves your Holy Spirit.

Oh, prepare me that I might be a part of that, of that number. Of the bride of Jesus Christ. Love it from the time, from the very moment. That we enter into the kingdom of God as mere babes. The Holy Spirit of God begins to work in our lives wholly W. H. O. L. L. Y.

For the benefit of the son of God who has been promised a spotless bride. Knowing your heart, so child of God, that he will not fail, he is faithful, beloved child of God, know in your hearts that God will not fail.

He is faithful. He knows how to keep that which is committed unto him against that day. Second, Timothy 112, for I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him.

Against that day, God is faithful, our God is faithful in the Amplified Bible and second, Timothy 213, if we are faithless, if we do not believe and are untrue to him, he remains true and faithful to his word and to his righteous character, for he cannot deny himself.

He's faithful even when you're not. God is faithful even whenever you are not. Have you ever felt like you're unfaithful to God? Let me see your hands if you have ever felt that way. How many of you have never felt that way?

We need to visit after the service. He is able. And he will remain true and faithful, even whenever we are untrue and unfaithful, he is true and faithful, according to his own character. The second point I want to make is that God is faithful to help us in times of heavy.

God’s Faithfulness in Times of Temptation

Temptation, God is faithful to his people in seasons of heavy temptation, anybody ever been tempted? First Corinthians 10, please, some of you are being tempted right now to fall asleep and God's faithful to help you in times of heavy temptation.

Hallelujah, and first Corinthians chapter 10, please turn there quickly and I'm going to spend some time dealing with this subject. In verse 13, the Bible says there hath no temptation taken you. But such as common to man, but God's faithful.

I love it. There is no temptation taken you. But such as is common to man, but I love it when God throws in a bite because I mean there's something good coming. But God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

We all know that that temptation does indeed present itself to all of us as we do traverse the pilgrim's way. There are diverse temptations that are set as snares for the saints to put the saints back in the chains from which they've been formerly set free and delivered.

But yet we see the operation here of the faithfulness of God that is set against these temptations and measuring them every one against the grace that's been given unto us. Every device of Satan that is beyond the grace in possession of the child of God or the sign of God is faithfully bound and dispersed away from the very path in which we trod.

There is no temptation that you are going to face in magnitude that is beyond the grace of God that has been given to you to overcome it. Every temptation or every device of the wicked one that comes your way that is greater than the grace that you have received by faith, God in his sovereign power, in his providential workings, cast it away to where the saint never has to deal with it until the grace is there in his life to be able to overcome it.

Say hallelujah. There is no there's no excuse for us to fail other than we just don't trust Christ. Love it. It's important that we know that God only allows the temptations that we have the grace in possession to conquer and to be victorious.

Now, listen, why does he even allow these temptations to come at all? Why? Why would God allow temptations? To come our way. And beloved, because it is permissible on the behalf of God for temptations to come into Buffett, the child of God, to exercise the grace that's given to us.

To exercise the grace given to us, beloved, how will we know the power of God's grace if we never see it asserting itself in our lives, giving us victory over sin? How could we? And if there were no temptation to sin, how could we then know the power of God's grace?

Oh, beloved, listen, the tempter's snare is measured against the saint's grace. If the snare is disproportionate to the saint's grace, it's bound and it's rendered inert or inactive or are completely powerless.

But beloved, if the snare being set is proportionate to the grace given, it has divine permission to be there that God's grace that is active and alive and working inside of us might yield victory over the temptation and God's glorified in it.

Listen, God is always faithful to erect a shield to his very elect. From the tempter's snare, that's beyond or above our ability to resist. God's always faithful, God blocks, let's put it in human down to earth lingo, God blocks temptations that you can't face with the grace that you've received.

Do you realize the grace that you've received today and the grace that you receive next year is going to be different, different as far as magnitude and breadth and width and depth that next year as you continue to traverse the pilgrim's way following after Jesus Christ being led by the spirit of God?

Thanks. Listen, temptations that you can't face and conquer today that you'll face and conquer next year. If there's a temptation that you're giving into, rest assured that God's always being faithful to assert in your life the grace.

It's just that you're not responsive to it. It's what you're giving yourself to. Beloved, once again, God is always faithful to shield his elect from the tempter's snare that's above and beyond our ability to resist those temptations that have permission or controlled by the very hand of omnipotence.

Every temptation that's permitted has the blueprint ensuring victory attached to it. Let me say that again. Every temptation. That's been permitted by God, that's permissive by the will of God, and there's no temptation that you're facing that's not there with permission by divine omnipotence.

But with that temptation, there is a fixed unto it a divine blueprint on how do you overcome it? God makes a way available for escape. Hallelujah. The faithful creator has already designed a way of escape from the very tempter's snare, and the snare will never become so burdensome that we have no grace to bear up underneath it.

The hand of God only permits such temptation or evil as is done by his discretion, and only is it done for his glory. Beloved, our adversary is attached or affixed unto a leash. His devilish workings are limited only to that which divine permission allows and only that which omnipotent allows, and it's only allowed because it brings the omnipotent one glory.

The very moment that the operative power of darkness begins to attempt to diminish. Listen to me. Look at me. The very moment that the operative power of darkness begins to attempt to diminish the glory of God, its hand is stayed and its power is rendered in operative.

The darkness that God allows, God allows that he might be glorified by it. Beloved, let me tell you something, there is no comparison between your redeemer and your adversary. There is no comparison. There's nothing that the enemy does.

That is not under the control of omnipotence, never forget that the devil doesn't have that kind of power. He's on a leash. He has chains around his neck, his feet and his hands, and he's under the control of God's omnipotent power.

Power belongeth unto God. Amen. Beloved, there are those that maintain that the workings of Satan are without bounds and they're without restraint. But beloved, this cannot be, number one, and primarily because it violates scripture and it's wholly inconsistent with the omnipotent one as revealed to us in the scriptures of God.

Second Thessalonians 2, 7 says this, for the mystery of iniquity does already work. Only he who now let us it will let. The mystery of iniquity is visiting. But it's under the restrictions of the permissive will of God and it is controlled.

It's controlled until he be taken out of the way. So it finalizes that. And I'm not going to go into all of the thoughts in regard to the church being raptured and yada, yada, yada, yada. I don't think that has anything to do with that personally, but I'm not going to get into it because I don't want to get into a fight with anybody.

But the fact of the matter is, is that iniquity and the assertion of iniquity. The assertion of evil in the world that we live in is under the control of divine omnipotence, and the devil cannot take one step beyond what God gives him permission to take.

With every step that God gives him permission, God has a plan and a purpose to turn the whole situation around to where God's glorified. They should make a child of God very happy and blessed. My next point is God's faithful to save those who he has promised to save.

God’s Faithfulness to Save the Promised Elect

God's faithful to save those who he has promised to save. One of the burdens that is born by saints, true saints of God. Is the burden that is born in regard to their loved ones who are yet bound by the wicked works of darkness and that are yet in the chains of sin and destruction.

But yet covenant children, we see their burdens, we witness their chains, even to the point of despair for their lives. You have a family member, a loved one that you are burdened about their their condition before God.

Of course. There's times when we see glimmers of hope. It looks like they're not in a salvation, but soon these glimmers of hope dissipate and the power of sin once again ravages and holds and claims once again those that we love in seemingly endless bondage.

But yet the word of God gives us promises as his elect, our God has promised to bring salvation to those who are of our loins, our loins, because he is faithful and just. Just as he has promised, he is faithful and just, just as he has promised, you all know the passage in Acts 16, but once again, we're going to read it, turn there.

Are you blessed today? Are you delighting yourself in the word? Oh, beloved, we must receive the love of the truth. We must receive the love of the truth. So again, beloved, the word of God does give promises to the elect of God.

God has promised to bring salvation to those who are of our loins, and he is faithful and just to save them just as he has promised. In verse 31, and they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved in thine house.

And they spake unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes and was baptized. He and all of his. Straightway, straightway, let me read it again.

They said, believe in the Lord, and we know the story. About the the keeper of the jail. And it was in fear. And he was inquiring and they said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, not only you, but your house, those that are of your loins.

Those of those of the covenant of your family. And they spoke unto him the word of the Lord. And to all that were in his house, and he took them that same hour of the night and he washed their stripes and he and all of his beloved, it'll be written within the annuals of our own history and testimony that you and all of yours.

You and all of yours, even though at this moment in time, all of yours may not yet be. But God and his wonderful faithfulness to his beloved elect to those that are in covenant with him, his purchase prize.

He said, those of thine loins, those that are in your house, they shall be saved. They shall be saved regardless of the ups and downs you've experienced with them for the last 30 years. There's coming that great day.

In the day of salvation. When God in his wonderful providence and God in his great wisdom. Has written in the books of history. This is the day of their salvation. The more time I study the word and the more time I spend with him, the more I see that salvation is all him.

It's all him. Turn with me back over to the second chapter of acts right quick, please. I just want to give you one more evidence of scriptural truth in regard to the faithfulness of God to promise as he's promised to save those that are of our loins.

In Acts chapter two, verse 39, for this promise. Listen, what promise was the promise to receive remission of sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for this promises unto you. And it's under your children.

And to all of them that are far off, even as our Lord, our God shall call this promises unto you and your children, but it is talking about those of your own house. It's not just specifically saying you're naturally born children.

It's talking about those of thine house, some of you have parents that you're believing God for their for their salvation. Some of you do have children that have come from your loins that are not yet saved.

Some of you have have. Those in your family, a brother or a sister that are not yet say beloved, they are of thine house and God is faithful to fulfill his promise to those that he is in covenant with.

God is not a man that he should lie. God is the author and the completer of their salvation. God is not able to fail in this regard. He is faithful and true. It's inscribed upon him. It is who he is. And he's made a promise to his people that those of thine loins, those of thine house shall be saved regardless of what you see.

Beloved, there is a day written in the hallmarks of history to where their salvation is written upon the records of God that they shall be saved. You see it not as of yet, but beloved, you shall see. You will see the faithfulness of God in its operation and saving of your family.

Praise God, praise God, your heaviness regarding your unsaved family and the members of your family. That heaviness must consider the promise of God. And beloved, the question does present itself before us as God faithful or is God unfaithful?

To his promise and beloved, we know as his children that God is faithful to his promise. He will save to the utmost those that he has promised to save. He is faithful to his promise, but yet that we begin to to question.

God's providence with questions such as, well, what if they choose not to be saved of the more the closer you grow to Jesus, the less you find these questions in your vocabulary. But there are those that question divine providence with questions such as, well, what if they choose not to be saved and we forget the the divine prerogative in salvation?

You have not chosen me. I have chosen you. I wasn't looking for God when he saved me, were you? But beloved, he was looking for me. I had an interruption course face to face with Jesus Christ. He reminds me much of the ninth chapter of Acts.

There was no tangible, visible light, but beloved, there was revelatory light. I began to see my sin, I began to see myself in light of the magnitude of the holiness of God, and it broke me. I was not looking for God.