FAITHFULNESS

R. Besley

Deuteronomy 7: 6–9; Revelation 3: 14; Matthew 25: 19–21; Luke 16: 1, 2; 1 Peter 5: 10–12

In view, I think, of all that has been before us while we have been together, we may be reminded of the faithfulness of God. I desire to say a word with regard to faithfulness, and our thoughts immediately turn to God Himself. The apostle says, “God is faithful”—a word of establishing power for the soul of every believer, “God is faithful”. Whoever else may prove unfaithful, God is faithful as I am sure, beloved brethren, we are continually proving.

First of all, let me remind you that God is faithful to His purpose. Something took place before ever this world had foundation. You and I can but feebly apprehend such a moment, but before ever the world was, God engaged Himself to give effect to the purpose of His good pleasure, and He is faithful to His purpose. God’s purpose is to have us in sonship, consciously known and enjoyed, in the heavenly places with Christ, occupying holy relationship to Him, and He known in our hearts—“To us there is one God, the Father”—and God will carry that out. Indeed already there are those of us on earth, the subjects of divine workmanship, who are enjoying this wonderful position, elevation and relationship, into which God purposed to bring us. But the hour is at hand when God will carry out His purpose in finality, and all the ferocity of the enemy’s power against Him cannot in any way whatever interfere with God carrying out His purpose. He is faithful to it. God has not changed His purpose on account of what man is; He has not introduced something else, but that which He purposed in Himself in eternity. God will be faithful to it and He will carry it out.

God also is faithful to His promise. When the enemy came in to mar what God had set up in paradise, God pronounced in the presence of the serpent, though the woman was in the transgression, the word that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head, and God is faithful to that promise. In the fulness of the time God’s Son has come in, the Seed of the woman. Wonderful thing! God gave the word to Mary, “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and power of the Highest overshadow thee, wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God”—in the fulness of the time, marvellous hour in the history of this universe! And that great and glorious Person has put His heel on the enemy’s head and the initial touch to crush the serpent’s head has been given by the Son of God. God is faithful.

Years passed. Much happened on the earth, but God is ever true to what He says. You may rely on that with absolute confidence. God is faithful. The promise coming in by His word to Abraham as to the coming seed became fulfilled in the coming in in type of the risen man, Isaac, but actually in the Person of the Son of God, and we are in the presence today of a condition of things where God’s word has been publicly set aside, but we stand upon the immutable rock, that God is faithful.

The wicked Balaam had to say, “Shall he say, and not do?” He will. Whatever He has said, He will do. There may be some things which He has said which may cause grave concern to certain persons, but God is true to His word, and He is true to His covenant. God made a covenant with Abraham and God will be true to His covenant. Indeed the settlement of the tribes in the land was a witness to the faithfulness of God to His covenant. Even Joseph saw it, though Joseph was going to die. You and I may have to face death, but not one thing that God has said shall fail.

We are counting on it. We know that everything He has said, He will do. And though the people were in bondage, stricken with hard taskmasters, think of the magnificent word in the midst of it all, “God will be sure to visit you”, and He did. How unlikely it appeared! If you had been in Egypt then and seen the power of Pharaoh, the assumption of man’s glory, you might have been disposed to say, It is impossible. But the rolling waters of the Red Sea were the witness that God would visit them and bring them out, and the whole power of Egypt was shattered under the smiting of the hand of God. God is true to His covenant and though today the tribes are scattered and we have in this very city men who blaspheme the name of God, yet God will be true to His covenant; He will bring the tribes and set them in the land, and they shall own Christ as the Messiah, the King of glory.

So I referred to this wonderful passage in Deuteronomy for no doubt it has a spiritual suggestion to us. God has taken us up because He loved us, and God will be true to us. Let me say one word with regard to the earthly situation. You will remember, beloved brethren, a remarkable passage in Psalm 36 that God’s faithfulness “reacheth unto the clouds”. The clouds would appear to indicate a region which is beyond our understanding, but God may be trusted where we cannot trace Him. With unerring confidence you may trust God where you cannot trace Him. It is wonderful to fall back on the greatness of what God is in His faithfulness. In Genesis 9 God establishes a covenant with the earth, and you and I are now in the presence of earthly things. I am alluding to this, beloved saints, because we are passing through a moment of difficulty, and many do not understand what God is doing.

Let me remind you that His faithfulness reaches unto the clouds, where you cannot trace Him—but you can trust Him! Wherever a cloud is there is a token that God is thinking about you, for God said, “I set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be for a sign”. This present cloud of economic depression, this cloud of difficulty, these circumstances in which some say that they see no way out—remember that the cloud is the witness that God is thinking of you, and He is faithful. “I set my bow in the clouds”, and in every cloud God sets His bow as signifying that He is thinking about us in the difficulty. He has not forgotten. I am far more concerned as to whether we should be forgetting God. I have no concern whatever that God will forget us, but I have some concern that perhaps we may forget Him! Let us remember, beloved brethren, that God is faithful and His faithfulness reaches unto the clouds. So rest your confidence in Him. You may be sure that the difficulties in which we are found have the greatest good in view.

You may remember a very remarkable incident in connection with the cloud recorded in 1 Kings 18 where God had allowed matters to rest, disciplinary matters in relation to Ahab and to the throne and the people, and Elijah stood to retain the testimony for the true God. After the overthrow of Baal’s kingdom Elijah utters a remarkable word, he says to Ahab, “There is a sound of abundance of rain”, and yet there was not a cloud in the sky. What would he mean by saying there was a sound? I do not think I exaggerate the position when I say that Elijah was so near to heaven that he could hear a movement in heaven before it was felt on earth.

Elijah has to be tested; he goes up to Carmel and puts his face between his knees and cries to God. He says to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea”. Think of the exercises of that man of God when the servant comes back and says, “There is nothing”. Has God failed me? Will God ever fail us? He will never fail us! Elijah’s servant goes the second time, and the third time, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth time. This man is alone on Carmel who had given his word, “There is a sound of abundance of rain”. God’s “faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds”, even if it be but a tiny one the size of a man’s hand and I do not know what He is going to do.

But the servant comes back the seventh time and says, “Behold, there is a cloud, small as a man’s hand, arising out of the sea”. Elijah says, That will do. What a realization to his heart!

Beloved saints, in the assemblies from which you come, in your homes where you know what difficulty and pressure and sorrow are, have you never seen the cloud the size of a man’s hand? You say, God has heard me. That is what Elijah said, He said to Ahab, ‘Get in your chariot and hurry’, and the rain poured down in torrents! God is faithful. I know that I have failed. With bitter sorrow have I had to groan before God in the sense of it, but God has never failed and God never will fail. With absolute certainty we may cling to His word that He will keep His covenant to a thousand generations. He will see us through in regard of earthly things. And we have the new covenant, implying that God will bless us to the very fulness of His power, for God has withheld nothing, and all that He has to give, He gives in the fulness of His love, So we rejoice in God, we joy in our God. I was touched by the way the beloved saints sang that hymn, ‘We joy in our God’, and we desire that there might be a witness and a testimony in this country, wherever we are, in city or town or village. I beg of you, brethren, do not speak about the difficulties, speak about God! Do not enlarge upon the difficulties, but expand your testimony as to the greatness and faithfulness of God, and may God help us in it!

Now one word with regard to Christ. I submit to you that it may be suitable, for He is presented as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God”

to Laodicea and, alas, we are in Laodicean conditions today. Do not look out on the churches in Christendom, let the thing come right home to our own breast that Laodicean conditions are here, and the Lord appeals to us in respect of them. Have we never said, “I am rich, and am grown rich”? Have we never said that? Have we never boasted of the great things that we have? Let us watch and take care. Here is One who speaks as “the Amen, the faithful and true witness”. That is what the church should have been, faithful to every divine thought of which light has come to us. Are we, beloved brethren, faithful? The Lord was. It cost Him suffering; it brought Him into reproach; it broke His heart. It says, “I chastened my soul with fasting”, Psalm 35: 13. What for? In fidelity as a witness for God on the earth. Thank God there has been one faithful Witness here, standing for everything that is of God.

Are we pledged to it in fidelity to God and in love to Christ that we are not going to relax in regard of anything that is according to the divine mind and divine pleasure, to be a faithful witness and true? It is not only as resisting what is contrary, but as establishing what is according to God; for fidelity would seem to stand perhaps in relation to resistance to what is contrary and “true” for the establishment and maintenance of the truth, and the Lord Jesus has done that even unto death. It brought Him down to death, but He stood

as the faithful and true Witness. Beloved brethren, shall we allow the power of this to come home to us? What about our place here as standing for God? What about your place in school, in the office, as standing in relation to the assembly of the living God on earth? What about your place in the home? Are you faithful? He was! He was faithful in the home circle so that He became an alien among His mother’s children. Blessed, holy Lord, here on earth a faithful and true Witness! When I think of personal unfaithfulness, my heart often finds comfort in thinking about Jesus, the faithful and true Witness. Thank God, the earth has been adorned by the presence of such a Person! In fidelity and in standing for the truth He went down to Calvary’s cross and died. Such a Christ is the precious object of our affections, and by the grace of God may He have a greater place than ever in our hearts.

Now I want to pass down to ourselves and I want to raise the question as to fidelity in service.

You may remember the remarkable incident in Numbers 12 when Miriam and Aaron rebelled against Moses because he had married an Ethiopian woman. I ask whether we are prepared to accept God’s servants as marked by what may be outwardly unlovely? How are we regarding the servants of God? God takes up that challenge to Moses, and God takes up the challenge for all His servants. The word comes for you and me, “Touch not mine anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm”, Psalm 105: 15. Never mind the rough exterior of the servant. The Ethiopian is ugly, so may some of the servants be in their mannerisms and exterior, but have you not sight to see further? What a reflection upon the shortness of your vision! Jehovah says, “My servant Moses ... is faithful in all my house”. Jehovah challenges Moses’ position in the presence of Miriam and Aaron.

Beloved brethren, we have to learn to be faithful in all God’s house. I put it to the brethren, and I trust you will accept it, for I put it to you just as a simple person speaking to many here who are serving, I ask you whether we are marked by faithfulness. God is not looking for brilliant abilities; God is not looking for intellectual skill; God is not looking for wonderful memories that can gather up things and retail them at great length. He is looking for faithfulness, and He will have it. And it may be found with what is connected in figure with what is Ethiopian, and we must accept it. Have we descended so low that we are using the place given to us to serve to glorify ourselves? Shame on us if it is so! That is not faithfulness. Every servant must serve with one end in view—“He must increase, but I must decrease”, John 3: 30. That is what God is looking for. Unless we are prepared to go out of sight I question whether our service is characterized by fidelity. I do long for you, beloved brethren, that the hour may dawn in our history when we may hear the precious lips of our adorable Master say these words, “Well, good and faithful bondman”, Matthew 25: 23. That is what God is looking for and may the Lord give it to us, if it please Him!

One word with regard to stewardship. God is looking for faithfulness in stewards. The teaching in Luke 16 is that man in his responsible place as a steward is proved unfaithful and he is put out of his stewardship. But you and I, in the light of divine truth and having the knowledge of God, take up our earthly position and regard ourselves as stewards and not our own. Have you come to this? Can you say, I have got $2,000, and how proud you feel! You will excuse me, it is not yours. You are only a steward and God will hold you responsible.

Are we faithful as stewards? I respectfully put it to the brethren, to the

beloved saints, God is looking for faithfulness. It will be a humbling thing when I stand at the judgment seat of Christ if He unveils to me my unfaithfulness as a steward. And He may say to me, I cannot put you over a single village, let alone ten cities. And we shall bow in the presence of Him who sits there on that judgment seat, and we shall know that His judgment is just. Oh that the Lord may search into our hearts and touch our affections so that we may be found faithful as stewards, for His name’s sake!

Finally, brethren, I allude to one other thought—faithfulness as a brother. Silvanus is designated by Peter—and it is a remarkable illusion to Silvanus—for he says, “the faithful brother, as I suppose”. How Peter has come under divine tuition; the man who was so ready to rush in without any hesitancy is here a man who has been instructed of God, and he says with grave consideration, “the faithful brother, as I suppose”. Silvanus, according to Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians, was a preacher, and he was a preacher contemporary with the great apostle. Paul sets him in conjunction with himself. He speaks of the Son of God and he says that He had been preached by Silvanus and Timotheus and himself. But Peter does not speak of Silvanus as a preacher, but as a faithful brother. And again you will recall that in Paul’s two communications to the Thessalonian assemblies he identifies Silvanus with him. Now Silvanus might have been perhaps somewhat inflated in the estimation of himself as being identified with the great apostle. I do not know where I should have been in such circumstances. Do you think you would have just simply stood as a faithful brother? That is what the Lord would look for, and that is eternal. What constitutes a brother is the element of divine love wrought in the soul which reaches out to all the brethren, and that will stand

for eternity.

May the Lord grant that the result of our being together these three days will be that we may learn afresh the greatness and faithfulness of God, the greatness and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and learn to be faithful as servants and stewards and brethren, for His name’s sake.

Address at Rochester, USA
May 1932

(This address was among the papers of Mr. P. R. Besley, whom the Lord took in May 1989. It has been made available by his family).