To the beloved people of God, who, at this present time, have forgotten prosperity and whose souls are removed afar off from peace. To those whose hearts cry out even now, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” Whose remembrance is of their affliction, misery, wormwood and gall of present circumstances, and their hearts humbled within them. May this message put you in remembrance of, and establish you in, the gracious truth that, “It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning” great is thy faithfulness”(Lamentations 3:22-23). May the faithful God make you to soon hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

The testimony of the writers of the Scriptures in both the Old and New Testaments abound with a single theme: the faithfulness of God. No time is wasted in dwelling on the unfaithfulness of man, for every believer is well aware of the deceitful and desperately wicked heart within [the flesh]; and when walking under its influence and dragging its heavy chains of unbelief, his only hope is in the faithfulness of God. We are often defeated by a morbid introspection of the heart and mourning over our unbelief, our failure and sin, when the source of victory is not to be found in our hope of perfect obedience, but in the perfect faithfulness of God to us. We seem to forget that if we should succeed in doing all those things commanded us, an honest heart would still force us to say, “We are unprofitable servants…”[Luke 17:10].

Therefore, this message will be of no profit to those who are satisfied with their own steadfastness and fascinated with their own faithfulness; but it will gender hope to the soul who languishes in his lethargy and will, by the grace of God, move him to worship and praise the faithful God who keeps him in all his ways.

When the heart is painfully aware of its own unworthiness and filled with doubt that God will hear and undertake in its deepest trial, doctrine cannot afford the heart the rest it desires and longs for. This is the time for testimony. Testimony of past experiences, when time after time God brought delivering grace into the midst of impossible circumstances in our lives. It was the remembrance of God’s great faithfulness that brought courage to the heart of Jeremiah when his strength and hope had perished from the Lord. It was the constant rehearsal of God’s past faithfulness to Israel that caused the Psalmist to walk once more in the light of His countenance.

If the disciples had considered the miracle of the loaves, their hearts would not have been hardened by fearful unbelief in the midst of the contrary winds that threatened to destroy them. Remember, it was the faithful God who first revealed Christ to you when you were dead in trespasses and sins and on your way to eternity in hell (Matthew 16:17); and it is by His continued faithfulness that He will meet your every need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, and faithfully perform the work of grace He has begun in you until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 4:19,; 1:6).

The believer’s needs are not all of a spiritual nature, nor are they entirely material. Being body and soul both, there are many “things” of this present life necessary to his welfare. In these “things” our Father delights to show His great faithfulness; and strange as it may seem, I have found that He especially delights in doing exceeding abundantly above all that I have asked or thought at the height of my own unfaithfulness to Him. This He does to ever remind me that every good and perfect gift comes from Him and that it comes by the purest grace, not depending upon my works or faith [James 1:17].

I see this in Elijah, who slept under his juniper tree in unbelief and fearful defeat; yet, the faithful God would not let him go hungry because of his unfaithfulness, but sent an angel to bake him a cake and set a cruse of water at his head. So abundant was the supply of his physical needs, that Elijah went 40 days and nights in the strength of that ministry [1 Kings 19]. This was not the first experience of this nature for the prophet; for the faithful God sent His ravens morning and evening throughout the long exile at the brook Cherith with bread and meat for His hungry servant. When the brook went dry, God faithfully commanded a widow to take the last handful of meal in her barrel and the little oil remaining in her cruse and bake Elijah a cake. This she did, wondering where the next meal for her and her son would come from, only to find the hand of the faithful God upon the barrel and cruse so that it failed not [1 Kings 17]. Elijah’s life was one long testimony of the faithfulness of God to meet every material and spiritual need for His own name’s sake; and when the prophet was old and tired, God picked him up at Jordan and gave him free transportation to heaven by a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11).

Elisha caught his mantle, stood on Jordan’s banks, and called upon the faithful God to meet him in his need. The waters parted at the touch of the mantle; and crossing over he soon found all “things” provided by grace; for, a great woman was constrained to feed him and prepare a special chamber that he might have a place of rest (2 Kings 4:8-11).

Israel wandered 40 years in the wilderness of Sin because of unbelief; yet the faithful God fed them, and cared for them, and caused neither their clothes or shoes to wax old (Deuteronomy 29:5.)

When a widow couldn’t pay her dead husband’s debts, and his creditors threatened to take her sons as bondmen, the faithful God caused a pot of oil in her house to multiply until all her neighbours’ vessels were filled. So gracious was the supply of her material needs that she sold the oil, paid her just debts, and there was still enough left over to keep her and her children (11 Kings 4: 1-7.)

When Paul was enroute to Rome and his ship was wrecked in a fierce storm, he found himself stranded on the island of Malta among barbarous people, without provisions or help. The faithful God prevailed upon these heathen to show him no little kindness, kindle a fire to warm him and receive him into their homes. When he left, weeks later, they honoured him with many honours and provided him with all necessary things for his journey (Acts 28:1-10.)

When 5,000 hungry folk found that the day was far spent and they had been too interested in the Word of God to think about food, the Lord Jesus took a little boy’s lunch, blessed and broke it into enough for the multitude and 12 baskets of left-overs (John 6:1-13).

When Peter couldn’t pay his taxes, due to lack of funds, the Lord Jesus Christ provided a coin in the mouth of a fish swimming in the sea and caught by Peter’s hook (Matthew 17:27).

So faithful is God in providing every need of His own that He remembers to clothe the lilies, and Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them. He feeds the ravens who never sow, reap, or build storehouses; and He never forgets a single sparrow that falls to earth. It would require a large volume for the personal testimony of this writer alone to record the faithfulness of God in meeting the material needs of a large family; but truly I can say, “Amen”, to David when he testified: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Psalm 37:25).

When the believer is walking in the sunshine of fellowship with the Lord, his heart is filled with praise for His loving kindness; but it requires the deepening shadows of the night experiences to magnify His exceeding great faithfulness to us. Gethsemane and Calvary’s long night were necessary before the faithfulness of God in resurrection could be seen. Only in the long nights of suffering, sin and unbelief in our lives, is the faithfulness of God made clear to our poor hearts and we learn that “God giveth songs in the night”[Job 35:10;Psalm 42:8].

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