vast, incomparable. He never forgets, never fails, never falters, never forfeits His word. Every promise or prophecy the Lord has given He exactly fulfilled, every covenant or threatening of judgment He will make good, for "God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?" (Num. 23:19). Sont then the believer says,

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (Lam. 3:22, 23).

Scripture has many illustrations of God's faithfulness. More than four thousand years ago He said,
"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (Gen. 8:22).

Every year that comes is a fresh witness to God's fulfillment of this promise. In Genesis 15 we find that Jehovah declared to Abraham,

"Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But  ... in the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." (Genesis 15:13-16)

Centuries came and went. Abraham's descendants groaned in their slave laobr in the brick-kilns of Egypt. Had God forgotten His promise? No, indeed. Read ,

"At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt." (Exodus 12:41)

Through Isaiah the Lord declared,

"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel." (7:14).

Again centuries passed, but "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law" (Gal 4:4).

God is true. His Word of Promise is sure. In all His dealings with His people God is faithful. He can absolutely be relied upon. No one ever trusts in vain in God. We find this precious truth expressed almost everywhere in the Scriptures, for His people need to know that faithfulness is an essential part of the Divine character. This is the basis of our confidence in Him. But it is one thing to accept the faithfulness of God as a Divine truth, it is quite another
to act upon it. God has given us many "great and precious promises," but are we really counting on His fulfillment of them? Are we actually expecting Him to do for us all that He has said? Are we resting with assurance on these words,

"He is faithful that promised" (Heb. 10:23)?

There are times in the lives of everyone when it is not easy, no not even for Christians, to believe that God
is faithful. Our faith is sorely tried, our eyes are filled with tears, and we can't see through our blurry eyes the evidences of His love. Our ears are distracted by the noises of the world. We are attacked by the whisperings of Satan, and we can no longer hear the sweet sound of His still small voice.

Our plans have not come to pass, our friends on whom we relied have failed us, a brother or sister in Christ has betrayed us. We begin to stumble. We try to be faithful to God, but now a dark cloud hides Him from us. We

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