Faithfulness You Can Trust

There was a movie comedy from many years ago entitled, Undercover Blues. In this movie, the slapstick bad guy called himself, Morte, which in Spanish means death. However, the undercover spies liked to provoke him by calling him, Mortie. If anything could go wrong that he tried, it did. In the course of the story, he is introduced to another really bad person who had been kicked out of the Czech Republic for crimes against the state. Upon introduction, she was attempting to make him feel comfortable and trust him, by speaking Spanish to him, though it really wasn’t much. Being impressed, and somewhat short on intelligence, Morte responds with, You speak Spanish. She responds, Si. In his naivete, Morte states, I trust you. At that point, the henchmen point their guns at him and she leads him inside, only to double-cross him. Who can you trust?

When Walter Cronkite used to present the evening news on CBS, even though some considered him liberal, they still felt they could trust him to present the news as facts and not opinions. Obviously, at this point in our history, it has been made quite clear, that unless you are there personally, it is extremely hard to believe what is being reported, especially when it is disproven readily by those right there observing. Just who can you trust?

Even as an unbeliever, it was drilled into me to be honest at all costs. Any falsehood would be found out somehow, so you might as well tell the truth. I discovered later, after being saved, that Satan is the father of lies. Well, we don’t want to be practicing what Satan promotes.

Sadly, in the religious world, we are given strong reason not to trust what a lot of leaders, preachers, and teachers are saying. They practice worldly deeds, with all kinds of deception, and in the guise of religion, they allow falsehood to triumph over truth. They are teaching and proclaiming that which is a false hope and a direct contradiction to the Word of God.

Is there anything or anyone we can trust? I believe that the author of Hebrews helps us to know that we can absolutely trust God’s faithfulness. And rather than be tempted to trust only a part of what God says and remain within our own secluded cocoons, we need to believe the whole counsel of God and proclaim the good news of salvation to those outside of Christianity, so they too can be saved.

If we have Christ within us, then we will want to take Christ to the outside world.

We Can Trust God’s Promises. - 6.13-15

You’ve heard the phrase, I swear upon a stack of Bibles. The reality is it doesn’t matter how tall the stack of Bibles may be, nor if it’s a stack of comic books. If a person is not fully committed to telling the truth regardless of the cost, then it doesn’t matter what they swear by. Plus, people can forget or simply make mistakes. However, we can fully trust God’s promises.

Hebrews 6:13–15 NASB95

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you.” And so, having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.

Those who were stuck on going back to Moses and Abraham, were going to be reminded that the ways of the Old Testament Covenant were not going to get them to heaven. Their focus needed to be upon Jesus Christ and the New Covenant. But even in the Old Testament, we know that God’s true followers did so in faith and did not put their confidence in the Law. So, the author to Hebrews is about to use Abraham as an example of a man of faith; and even more clearly later in this book.

As I implied earlier, someone who lies or is fallible cannot swear upon themselves, or upon anything or anyone else. However, you can trust Someone Who doesn’t even have the ability to lie. When God promises to do or not to do something, it is guaranteed. There need not be any second-guessing or wondering if we can count on God’s promises.

In the context of the whole book, the central issue seems to be that a large group of Jewish people who had heard the gospel message and had seen the many miracles of Jesus, and who clearly knew how to be saved, were reluctant to do so, instead clinging to Jewish tradition and religion. Yet, God had plainly promised in Jesus Christ, that whoever would believe on His Name would be saved. In fact, God had told the nation of Israel in the Old Testament that if they would just come to God and live in faith for Him, they would have eternal life.

In addition, for those who felt like they could lose their salvation, the logical thought should have been that if God promised salvation, then not only could they be saved, but they couldn’t lose their salvation. If they could save themselves or even lose their salvation, then God’s promises couldn’t be true. And God cannot do anything which denies His very character.

So where’s the proof of the great legacy of many generations to follow Abraham? Just looking at the ethnic descendants of Abraham, the number stands well over 14 million. Then we need to add to that all those of us who are spiritual offspring of Abraham.

Fortunately, for all of us, God’s promises are not based on how good we are or how we do various things for God or even our ethnicity. God’s promises are based upon God’s faithfulness, not ours. All we have to do is to go back to the beginnings of Genesis, look around at the world today, or even look at our own lives, and realize that were it not for God’s faithfulness to His promises, everyone would be in a permanent mess with no hope.

We can visualize this from Genesis 15, when God made the covenant with Abraham. When an agreement was made normally, an animal or several animals would be cut in half with a space between the halves. When the two individuals were going to make a covenant, each of them would walk between the pieces of meat to show their commitment to doing what they needed to do to make sure the covenant would be kept. But as we read Genesis 15, we discover that Abraham fell asleep and the Lord (using a smoking oven and a flaming torch) went between the two halves of the animal. What? You mean that Abraham had nothing to do with this covenant to make sure that everything happened as it should? That’s right. God took complete responsibility. Our salvation is not based upon anything we can do, but only upon God’s faithfulness to His promise.

Notice also the phrase having patiently waited. This is not the picture of someone sitting on the front porch in their rocking chair, hoping everything keeps going the way they had hoped. This is the picture of someone who has been told to do something, while not even knowing the end result, does what is needed and trusts God for the outcome.

We Can Trust God’s Truthfulness. - 6.16-18

We’ve talked about God being the greatest there is, so that when God promises to do something and swears by His own Name, we can fully trust Him. But that is based upon the reality that in God, there is no falsehood, no dishonesty, no deceit, no guile. God is, in and of Himself, truth. He can only tell the truth.

Hebrews 6:16–18 NASB95

For men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

We know that God doesn’t even need to swear an oath, because He is truth. It has been suggested that this pledge or swearing upon Himself, is actually seen as symbolizing the Holy Spirit. The understanding is that in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is called a pledge from God. It is similar to an engagement ring, or earnest money or a down payment.

We read these verses and see the phrase two unchangeable things and might wonder what they are. Simply they are God’s promises and His oath. It is impossible for either of these to change. This word was a word used in connection with irrevocable wills in the legal system. In other words, God’s promises and His oath cannot be altered or changed in any way by anybody.

I appreciate how one writer described this as a good reason to trust God’s faithfulness.

Our security is not in our never letting go of God but in His never letting go of us.

Like those in the Old Testament who had to flee to the cities of refuge to avoid being killed by the family of someone they may have accidentally killed, so we come to Jesus as our refuge. The difference being that our judgment was taken care of by Jesus, plus we can’t leave Christ. In addition, since Jesus has risen from the dead, Satan nor anyone else can touch our souls.

We Can Trust Jesus’ Work. - 6.19-20

The promises and truthfulness of God can be completely trusted. Jesus has done all that needs to be done and will continue to do what needs to be done. We can trust Jesus’ work. This also gives the motivation and confidence that the work He has called us to do can be done in His power.

Hebrews 6:19–20 NASB95

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

We have been blessed with the faithfulness of God in what Jesus did on our behalf. Jesus, by paying the price for our sins, has opened the way for all of us to enter the Holy of Holies. There is no need for earthly priests, for we have Jesus as our heavenly Great High Priest.

Jesus has already entered within the veil. He has not come back out of the Holy of Holies, like the Old Testament high priests were required to do. This was done once for all. In fact, the temple veil has been brought down, as it were. Thus, we are secured or anchored in Christ. Jesus is forever interceding for us, as He will not leave.

A Greek philosopher stated, One must not tie a ship to a single anchor, nor life to a single hope. However, that is totally wrong regarding our eternal souls. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus Christ. Jesus is our anchor and hope. Yet, Jesus is not an anchor in such a way that we’re not to move. In fact, we are to move forward. Jesus is our anchor in that we cannot be dislodged from our eternal security in Him.

Jesus is a forerunner for us, so that we may follow Him into heaven.

Conclusion

We know that God has never failed. There is no reason to consider that He could fail in the future. God’s promises can be trusted, for it is impossible for God to break His Word.

We also see incredible safety by the author’s use of the term refuge, likening Jesus to the cities of refuge where a person could go for absolute safety. It’s only in Jesus Christ we can find protection and salvation, thus providing hope.

Jesus is the one who will keep us anchored, so that we’re not drifting aimlessly about, or even away from God. But we are held tight to Him and can move outward beyond the church walls and the confines of our homes to proclaim Christ to all who do not yet know Him as Savior.

If we have Christ within us, then we will want to take Christ to the outside world.

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