The Character of God- Part 7

Subtitle:  God is Faithful Truth

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 19, 2025.

Today, we will look at the fifth description of God’s character.  God is faithful truth!

With this sermon, we will bring this series that looks at the character of God to a close.

God is faithful truth in the Old Testament

The Hebrew word used here is emeth (em’ eth).  Modern Hebrew says emet.  It means truth, but by extension, it means the dependability and trustworthy nature of that which is truth.  Thus, it is sometimes translated as faithfulness.  At its root, the concept is one of stability or firmness.  You might picture the old hymn, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.  It speaks of Christ as the “Solid Rock” and states that all other ground is “sinking sand.”  That is a very biblical picture and is at the heart of this word today.  Are you building your life on Christ the solid rock, or are you building on anything else, which is sinking sand?

Truth is a foundational concept.  To believe that something is true when it isn’t true is to discover many unexpected ways in which your underlying beliefs do not uphold your actions and steps.  I might believe that I am a 7 foot 2 inch all-star basketball player.  However, that will not change the reality of what would happen if I tried to play against NBA players.  The reality of what I actually am will be crushed by the reality of what those NBA players can do.

Our thinking is powerful, but it doesn’t change the truth; it doesn’t change reality.  It can, however, change how I respond to reality.  My thinking can powerfully change me, if I properly respond to truth.

On the other hand, to believe that something is false when it is actually true isn’t much better.  I pretty much doom myself to trying a bunch of ways that don’t work.  Of course, many a scientific discovery happened because someone tested false assumptions about what is the truth.

Foundational truths do not conform to our desires.  It is what it is, and a wise human will quickly see through the lies that they are basing their life upon.

Of course, we are not always able to properly discern truth through a scientific discovery, whether in science or God’s work in our life.  We can praise God that He hasn’t left us alone to only discover truth by our senses.  God has revealed many truths to humanity through the years, things that we would have never discovered without His revelation.

The word Amen also comes from this same root and essentially means, “that is true” or “that is trustworthy; you can stand on it.”  A double amen intensifies the meaning.  The Gospel of John has 25 occurrences of the double amen.  The King James Version translated this as “verily, verily.”  For a Hebrew person to use this double Amen, a perfectly trustworthy thing will follow.

In the Bible, people who have emeth have stable character and can be trusted by others.  They keep their word.  This doesn’t mean they are never late for an appointment.  It is not a statement about perfect performance of what they say, i.e., they are never stuck in traffic.  Rather, it is a statement about their character.  They mean what they say and do everything they can to back it up.  If you have ever crossed a creek by stepping from rock to rock, you have probably found that some rocks look stable, but they are not.  You can confidently step on them and then they wobble, often sending you into the water.  A person of emeth doesn’t wobble when you trust them or lean on them. 

This brings us to some of the occurrences of this word in the Old Testament.

Moses would sit and judge the disputes of the people when they were in the wilderness.  In Exodus 18:21-22, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, recognizes that it is too much for him.  The multitude of problems will where him out.  He then counsels Moses to select “men of emeth (truth/faithfulness)” who will be able to decide the smaller problems and only send the hard issues to Moses.

A man of emeth is not just someone who tells the truth.  Rather, they are men who live life by truth.  It is part of their character.  They do not see their position of authority as a way for gain.  Instead, they know the truth that lies behind their position.  The position is not for enriching them, but for the help of the people.  God talks a lot about authority, but notice this one thing throughout Scriptures.  Leaders are always supposed to be for the purpose of serving the people, not serving themselves.  Positions of authority do not exist because some people are just better than other and deserve to rule over the people.  They don’t deserve a better life with the people buying off their favor.  God cares about the people.  He only cares about those in authority in as much as they help or hurt the people.

The truth is that two people committed to honoring God may not always agree, but they should be able to come to an agreement without someone else judging their case.  The problem isn’t about wisdom, but about our sinful unwillingness to honor God in our disputes.

Abram demonstrated the verb form of this word in Genesis 15.  When emeth is in a verb form it takes on the idea of believing or putting your trust in something or someone.  This is what lies behind the famous verse in Genesis 15:6.  “[Abram] believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (NASB).  This believing is not talking about a mere intellectual belief in God’s existence.  It is talking about all the actions that Abram did because he believed that God was trustworthy.  Thus, Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans and traveled to Canaan.  There, he lived in tents, awaiting God’s promise. He was more than a trustworthy man, but also a man who saw God as trustworthy.  In the Bible, God is the greatest One at being faithful truth, trustworthy.

Believe it or not, we even have a verse in which it says that Israel believed God.  In Exodus 14:31, Pharaoh’s army had just been drowned in the Red Sea.  This caused Israel to believe in God.  Yet, as they travelled with God through the wilderness and to the Promise Land, their faith in God was tested.  Each test begs the question, “Do you trust God now?”  It is not that God is purposefully causing all of these things, though He can surely test how trusting we are.  But, as things happen in life, He is watching to see what we will do.  Will we believe in Him, or put our trust in something else?

We know that Israel failed very often.  Yet, God helped them (even helps us) because He is faithful truth.  It is His character.  This means that God is not simply a truth-teller, or One who wants truth from others.  He is the foundation of all truth itself.  He is the only being in the universe that is absolutely dependable.

Jacob coming back to Canaan, with his 2 wives, 12 kids and many herds of animals, stopped at the border and confessed to God that he was unworthy of all the faithful truth that God had shown to him (Genesis 32:10).  When Jacob had left for northeastern Syria, God had spoken promises to him.  Over the last 20 years, God had proven to be trustworthy and had shown Jacob faithful truth, not because Jacob deserved it, but because God keeps His word.

This brings us to Moses and his rock metaphor for God.  Deuteronomy 32:31-32 points out that the fallen spiritual beings that the nations worshiped as gods were not trustworthy.  Their rock is not like the Rock of Israel.  Their gods wobbled whenever they put their trust in them, but Yahweh was an absolute stable rock.  This is another way of speaking about God’s emeth, faithful truth.

We should recognize that there is a parallel between Israel running from the giants and David fighting Goliath.  In Numbers 14, Israel balked at fighting the giants.  They decided to kill Moses, pick a new leader and go back to Egypt.  However, God steps in and that doesn’t happen.  Still, they are told that they will stay in the wilderness for 40 years as a punishment for their unbelief towards God. 

Thus, later when David comes to check on the battle his brothers and Israel were fighting against the Philistines, he finds a giant challenging Israel and everyone trembling in their tents.  They were not believing God again.  They were essentially on a spiritual trajectory back to Egypt, back to the wilderness.  Yet, God steps in.  This time He raises up a “man of emeth” who will face the giant and give Israel victory over the Philistines.  Solomon recognizes this in 1 Kings 3:6.  “You have shown great lovingkindness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You…”

You may see the pattern now that a trustworthy person is someone who is trusting the truth of God in their life, their decisions and actions.  David lived out the truth of God even when it looked like it could get him killed.  Of course, David would later fall woefully short of this during the event in which he commits adultery with Uriah’s wife and then has him killed in an attempt to cover it up.  David fell short, but the pattern of salvation coming through a man of perfect emeth is made clear in the Old Testament.

People are not born with trustworthy genes.  Trustworthiness comes from a life of putting your trust in God.  It comes from the experience of life in which we discover that God is the only One who can uphold our trust perfectly.

Thus, God promised David that one from his offspring would be that perfect Psalm 1 picture of a man who fully trusts God and thus becomes a tree of life to all who will eat of his fruit.  This offspring would be the Anointed One of Psalm 2 who would inherit dominion over all of the earth, bringing salvation to those who bow to him in allegiance.  This Messiah would not fall short.  This was revealed to David and he spoke of it (sang of it) in his psalms.  This would be a forever kingdom because the king is a man of perfect emeth.  He is stable, unfailing and trustworthy, and so, his kingdom is a kingdom of emeth.  He would stand up to the giant, spiritual forces that were dominating humanity and fully trust God.

This is why the Bible speaks of the kingdoms of this world falling before the Messiah.  They definitely will not be able to stand against his return as Revelation 19 declares.  However, over the last 2,000 years, nations have risen and fallen at his command.  The united States of America is falling apart even now before Jesus has come back.  We could even cease to exist as we currently do, whether split apart or taken over by a foreign power.  Regardless, the problem is always our lack of trusting God.  America is not trusting God, and it is destroying our country.  Yet, He gives times of opportunity for repentance.  Perhaps, the US still has time to repent and be restored before Him.

In 2 Samuel 7:16, we are told of a prophecy from God through the prophet Nathan to David.  David’s throne would be “established” forever.  This is the verb form of emeth, but it is in a passive form.  It is the idea that something will be made trustworthy, faithful truth.  His kingdom will be like a rock because The Rock of Israel, the Stone of Israel (Genesis 49:24), will arise.  A kingdom can be no stronger than the one upon whom it is built.  The Messianic Kingdom will last forever because it is built upon The Rock.  All other kingdoms are built on sinking sand.  Only Messiah’s kingdom can go through the fire of God’s wrath (a day when He judges all the nations on earth) and survive.  All other kingdoms will not survive.  At least, not in their current forms.

This brings us to the catastrophe of the exile.  There was a civil war in Israel in the days of Solomon’s son.  The nation was divided into ten tribes in the north called Israel and 2 tribes around Jerusalem called Judah, or Judea later.  The northern tribes were wicked and eventually God used the Assyrians to conquer them and cast them out of the land.  This happened circa 722 BC.  This left Judah feeling vindicated, but they were not any more righteous.  They were exiled by the Babylonians around 136 years later (586 BC).  The northern tribes never really returned from exile.  Whereas, as many as desired of Judah, came back from Babylon 70 years later.  In this environment, there was a question on the minds of Israel.  Is it over?  Is it possible that God will not keep His word because we have failed so badly?  Did we misunderstand the promises and they were always conditional on our obedience?

Psalm 89 is a treatise of this crisis.  It starts out praising the promises of God to David.  Verse one sings of God’s emeth (faithful truth) and praises Him.  Yet, at verse 38, we have this.  “But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.” Seven more verses detail the reality of being cast off by God. 

Verse 46 begins a series of questions.  “How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?”  Verse 49, “Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?  God had sworn an oath to David in His emeth, faithful truth.  Yes, Israel has sinned greatly, and the house of David has sinned just as greatly.  Yet, God is faithful even when we are faithless.

Jesus is the faithful truth of God

The questions above were answered throughout the Old Testament prophetic books.  God would cast Israel out of the land, but He would still be faithful to send the Messiah and save humanity.  Still, from 400 BC to the time of Jesus, there were 400 years of silence from God.  They had heard enough.  They had enough truth to weather the years and wait for Messiah, if they could but trust God.

This is why Matthew 1:1 is so powerful.  Whenever we find the Gospels together in antiquity, it is always Matthew first.  Matthew opens his Gospel, and the New Testament, with a bold declaration that Messiah had come in the person of Jesus.  God had finally kept His promise and sent the One who would save Israel and the nations.  The name Jesus in Hebrew basically means “Yahweh is salvation” or “the salvation of Yahweh.”  Notice that Matthew emphasizes that he is from the line of David and Abraham.  The names of the fathers in between are important and Matthew goes on to give the full genealogy.  However, don’t miss the main point.  In Jesus, God was fulfilling His promises to David, and His promises to Abraham.  He could have even added Adam.  Messiah had come and God’s faithful truth, His emeth, was on full display in the face of the failures of Israel and the failures of the Gentile world.

The presence and work of Jesus was a confirmation of the promises and faithfulness of God.  We see this in Romans 15:8-9.  “For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, 9 and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; as it is written, ‘Therefore I will give praise to You among the Gentiles, and I will sing to Your name.’”

The Incarnation of The Word of God into the man Jesus is God keeping His word, but Jesus is also the very truth of God itself.  Nothing that has been made was made without him.  He is the effective cause of creation.  He is the absolute bedrock truth of all reality.  In Jesus, the Truth of the world stepped down into it, but men loved darkness rather than the light.  To put your faith in Jesus is of a greater nature than putting your faith in man’s scientific understanding.  Yes, you can follow the science (our current understanding), or you can follow the One who is the mind behind how all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  Science rightly understood can only point back to its Creator.

A believer in Jesus doesn’t just become more trustworthy.  They even become like the Rock that they are building upon.  They are more stable, enduring, than all the “wise” people of this world who refuse to stand upon Jesus, who refuse to believe and trust God.  They are both on quicksand themselves and a quicksand to those who trust in them.

We are not Israel going against giants in the Promised Land literally.  However, we metaphorically face the same thing.  The big obstacles in front of us challenge us and are akin to the giants of old.  Will we trust Jesus and take hold of our personal inheritance and the inheritance of our people?  Or, will we tremble at the powers flexing in front of us?  Will we shrink back from trusting God’s word, standing with Jesus and his ways?

Jesus went through death and then God raised him up.  He is forever a testimony to those who would dare to follow him that God will uphold them as well.  He is also a testimony to those who shrink back that there is no other way to salvation.  As a Christian, if I really believe God, then I have no excuse to quit in the face of scary, big people, fallen spirits, or circumstances.  Most of us will not face the threat of death like Jesus and his apostles.  But, we can face even that with complete trust in God.  We can choose to honor Jesus by walking into it.  We can look into the face of tormentors and tell them to go ahead and do what they want, but I am going to stand with Jesus because that is your only hope of salvation.

Those who think they are so powerful, who are pounding on those nails or wielding those weapons of annihilation, who are so following the science of their own wisdom, they are going to be flat on their face before Jesus in the future.

It doesn’t matter if I live long enough to see that or not.  That is not my hope.  My hope is Jesus!

The giant ideologies and giant people, of fame, power and fortune that we face, try to intimidate us.  “How dare you stand against the great and powerful Oz!”  But, I’d rather stand with Jesus, the slain lamb, than with all the smoke and mirrors of this world.  I’d rather stand with Jesus than any empire that this world tries to establish without Jesus!

Faithful Truth audio