Okay, let's turn this morning to Numbers chapter 14. Numbers 14. And we'll begin at verse 13 through 19. And Moses said unto the Lord, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them. And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land, for they have heard that thou art Lord among this people, that thou, Lord, art seen face to face, and that thy cloud standeth over them, and that thou goest before them by daytime in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night. Now, if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations which have heard the fame of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. And now I beseech thee that the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying, The Lord is long-suffering. and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. And the Lord goes on, of course, as you know, and pardons, answers Moses' intercession. Let's pray together. Glorious and long-suffering God, what a picture these verses are in numbers of our own lives, and thy multiple tender mercies and long sufferings shone toward us time and time again despite our unworthiness and our frailty. Lord, we ask that Thou wouldst pardon all our iniquity and receive us graciously afresh this morning. As we look at these two wonderful attributes of long-suffering in truth, and perhaps begin a third, we pray that Thou wouldst be in our midst this morning, that we may not grow weary of looking at these rich and glorious attributes, but that each one may be like an open book helping us to read about who Thou art. Lord, may we drink it in. May we love Thee in Thy every attribute. Be mindful of us now. Remember Nancy, Hannah, and Chris, and Emily, and the other siblings. Lord, graciously be near to them in this time of great need. Restore Nancy to health, we pray, and give her a good day, a day of divine benediction, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, this morning we want to look at the two attributes of long-suffering and truth. Perhaps we'll start the dynamic attributes, section C. Perhaps not. When Reverend Ryan McGraw comes next week, you all know the times, right? On Monday, he's going to... I've given you those times. Have I? You're looking blankly. The week after. You're right, the week after. Thank you. Have I given you the times of the week? Yeah. Okay, good. Monday there's two long sessions, I think. Then he will cover the Holy Trinity and the decrees of God. Next week there will be no class because I'll be gone, so neither of my classes will meet. The following week, After Ryan lectures for this class for six hours, covering Holy Trinity and decrees, then I'll come back and have one session to finish up the attributes of God, and then I'll go on where he left off, which is, I think, with Providence, and just continue on. It looks like we'll be in good shape to finish the class on time without any other extra classes. So I think that will be good. So he'll be covering the whole doctrines of Trinity and Decree, giving you two class sessions on each. He's lecturing six hours, so he'll do two class sessions on Monday, and that will be Trinity, and then he'll do the decrees in the regular class times, Tuesday and Thursday. Okay, is that plain? You want to communicate that to him after class, perhaps? Okay, so today we look at long suffering and truth. Long suffering is really, another aspect of God's love and goodness. You could simply call it the patience of God. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament portray God as long-suffering, as a patient God. The Hebrew phrase for long-suffering is erik ap. The term erik comes from the verb erik, to be long. Typically, this word in its various relationships with other words is translated slow to anger, slow to wrath, or simply long-suffering. In a very literal way, it can mean God is long of nose, someone like having a long nose. It goes on and on, it seems. So the idea is, in the original word at least, that God's patience just goes on and on. Now, the New Testament Greek word, corresponding Greek word, is makrothumia, makrothumia, makrothumia. In the Gospels, makrothumia is shown particularly in the parable of the unmerciful servant by the king to the wicked servant, Matthew 18, 23 through 35. That wicked servant who is long-sufferingly forgiven, a huge debt, is then expected to show the same kind of long-suffering patience to his debtor, but he doesn't. And that, in turn, teaches us how impatient we are with people when God is very patient with us. When Paul uses, in the Pauline letters, uses the word longsuffering, he usually does it in relation to The word wrath, God's wrath, he contrasts the two. God is long-suffering so that He doesn't exercise His wrath. Romans 2, verse 4. Romans 9, verse 22. Sometimes, longsuffering is simply included in a list of descriptions about God's character. But normally, the usage of the word longsuffering is connected with the idea that God is patient in postponing judgment upon sin. Stephen Charnock, a Puritan, defines in his Existence and Attributes of God, God's patience in part this way. God's patience is part of the divine goodness and mercy yet differs from both. God, being the greatest goodness, hath the greatest mildness. Mildness is always the companion of true goodness, and the greater the goodness, the greater the mildness. Who's so holy as Christ, and yet who's so meek? God's slowness to anger is a branch of his mercy. The Lord is full of compassion, slow to anger. It differs from mercy in the formal consideration of the subject. Mercy respects the creature as miserable. Patience, or long-suffering, respects the creature as criminal. That's an important point, I think. Mercy respects the creature as miserable. Patience, or long-suffering, respects the creature as criminal. Mercy pities him in his misery. Patience bears with the sin which engendered the misery." So, we could say that God's patience is God's power of control, which He exercises over Himself, purposely causing Himself to bear a bit longer, particularly with a wicked, so as not to yet punish them. Classic text here is Nahum 1 verse 3, where we read, the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. So think of a parent, Those of you who have children, you'll be able to identify with this very, very well. Sometimes your child does something very wrong and there's a surge of anger that rises within you. You've got the power to administer the discipline on the one part of the human anatomy where it's befitting to do so. You also look at the whole situation and you say, right now, right now is not a good time for me to administer, excuse me, to administer this discipline because I feel anger. And so you back off and you control your own anger. and you say, I'll do this later, I'll postpone this for now. Now the parallel isn't complete because of course God doesn't have any passions in that sense that are prone to spin out of control like we do. But the principle of it, waiting to punish and then controlling yourself He's what God purposely does many times. He's going to punish this wicked person, but he waits. He's slow to anger and gives one more opportunity. And so Sharnar goes on to say, men that are great in the world are quick in passion and are not so ready to forgive an injury or bear with an offender as one of a lower rank. It is a lack of power over that man's self that makes him do unbecoming things upon a provocation. A prince that can bridle his passions is a king over himself as well as over his subjects. God is slow to anger because great in power. He has no less power over himself than over his creatures." Isn't that an interesting point? So the patience of God is that excellency of God which causes him to sustain great injuries without immediately avenging himself. A.W. Pink comments on this and says, Not that there are any passions in the divine nature, but that God's wisdom and will is pleased to act with that stateliness and sobriety which becometh his exalted majesty. God is longsuffering. So that's a definition. Now let's look at some examples. First, take the example of God giving the Decalogue at Mount Sinai into the hands of Moses. Moses coming down from the mountain, finding the people already breaking the first commandment. Remember what Moses does in his anger. He breaks the two tablets of stone on which the law was written. In Exodus 34, God commissions Moses to take two new tablets so that he could write the Decalogue on those new tablets again. Moses goes up Mount Sinai again for the Lord to write the Decalogue. But before the Lord does so, we read in verse 6, And the Lord passed by before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. And verse 7 then goes on to speak of God's mercy and willingness to forgive sin. Now, though the reference in verse 6 is just to this divine attribute, among others, In the context of what's happened, it's very appropriate for God to underscore his long-suffering character. If he were not patient, he would have destroyed this people. He would never have rewritten the Decalogue. This shows how long-suffering God is. Numbers 14 is another example, which I read to you part of it. The scene there in Numbers 14 is the rebellion of the people of Israel after the spies returned from spying in the promised land. All of them except Joshua and Caleb say that there are giants in the land and the Israelites will be destroyed if they try to conquer the land. But God had brought the Israelites through Egypt through the wilderness to this land. And he promised to give it to them. And yet when the people heard the report of the spies, they murmured against God and against Moses. And they said, we want to return to Egypt. You realize what an insult this is to God. Talk about a slap in the face. I say that with reverence, but this is infuriating. And God threatens, and you understand it of course, to destroy them. Why didn't you go back to Egypt? What have I been to you, my people? And then Moses goes to intercede. And what does Moses plead on? Well, verse 18, it's obvious. His greatest plea is this long-suffering character of God. that God wouldn't ruin his own reputation among the nations, but would still have patience. And confronted with this moving plea for pardon on Moses' part, God is long-suffering yet once more. In the New Testament, God's longsuffering is often evident as well. Paul gives us a wonderful example in Romans 1, where he catalogs the sins into which the heathen have fallen. And he begins chapter 2, then, by saying that those who do such things are guilty of punishment. God may have withheld punishment, Paul says, but don't mistake God's delay. Don't fool yourself and think just because He's delaying, He won't punish in the end. But let this delay bring you to repentance. And then in Romans 2 verse 4, you see, He brings us all into a crystal clear explanation. He clarifies the reason for this delay. He says, "...or despisest thou the riches of his goodness in forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." So here we see a very interesting truth about God. That God is slow to judge. He's longsuffering to judge sinners. Not because he doesn't care about their sin, or not because he's not powerful enough to judge, but he's long-suffering in order to give them a chance to repent. Isn't that what we often do as parents as well? We give one more opportunity. There's a vast difference between a parent who says, I'm going to give you one more opportunity to give you a chance to repent, Going to be long suffering here. A parent who really means that. Vast difference between that and a mother who says, now next time you talk, I'm going to spank you. And the next time never, never, never comes. That's a shallow long suffering where it's an empty threat. God's threats are real. Sometimes he just delays the punishment temporarily to give an opportunity to repent. The last example I mentioned to you is from 1 Timothy 1, verse 16. I think this is a wonderful example, and I want to point this out to you because this text is often ignored. We hear a lot about 1 Timothy 1.15. And I must confess to you, I preached on verse 15 several times without making much mention of verse 16. And then one day, verse 16 and 17 jumped out at me. And now when I preach this passage in various churches, I try to do 15 through 17, because I believe it belongs together. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief, how be it? Verse 16, for this cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering. Why? For a pattern to them which should thereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Now unto the king immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. You see Paul is saying This gospel is worthy to be accepted of all. This gospel that says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I'm the chief one. So if I'm the chief one, if it's possible for me, it's possible for everyone. And then in verse 16 he goes on to say as much when he says, I'm actually a pattern. I'm a pattern for those to come, so that when people look at me, They can say, look at that, look what God's done, look at that, that persecutor of the church, throwing Christians into prison. God had mercy on that man. He can have mercy on me. He's long-suffering to Paul. He can be long-suffering to me. Now, what are the applications of this? Well, I've just listed three. I'm sure you can come up with more. This promotes, first of all then, a pattern for us. A pattern for us. If God is so long-suffering with the greatest of sinners, ought we not be long-suffering to other people and reach out to them? Colossians 3 verse 12 says, "...put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering." You see what Paul is saying here? Here are some of the communicable attributes of God. If you're the elect of God, you're not the elect of Satan, then you would be conformable to Satan's attributes. But you're the elect of God, and therefore you must be like God in God's communicable attributes, so you must also be long-suffering. And again, Ephesians 5 verse 2, a well-known text, be ye therefore followers, in the Greek actually, imitators or emulators of God as dear children. So when you're tempted to be disgusted at the dullness of other people or at the slowness of your own elders, perhaps, to respond to your teaching and to learn and to grow or you're tired of ministering to people who don't seem to respond and you wonder if you're just casting seed upon hard ground, remember God's long-suffering. Remember God's long-suffering to you in your own life. Didn't you go after evil? Wasn't God patient with you, with your vile conduct, with your blindness to your need for your own salvation? And if grace has snatched you as a brand from the burning, and gave you a place in God's family, and brought you near to the heart of God, and you were adopted into the family of God as a rebel sinner, ought you not reach out to other people? And be long-suffering? Peter has the expression in the King James Version that God exhibits His long-suffering to us word. Long-suffering to us word. And so shouldn't we be long-suffering to His children? Just this morning, my wife was listening to a program, an adoption of a family that has four biological children and they're taking, well, they have taken a number of other very, very, very rebellious children into their own family and actually adopted them into their family. They would go to the insane asylum and take the hardest cases and bring these children into their own family. They were talking about the patience that they needed. These children had huge, out-of-control anger problems. One child they took, the therapist said, of the 900 children in this city that are in the insane asylum, this is the worst case of all 900. This boy has absolutely impossible, incurable anger. As these parents said, we want him. And they brought him into their own home. It's just astonishing. Isn't it astonishing? I mean, if you gave me $10 million, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't think of doing it. But they did it. And that young man today is a wonderful young man. But what did it take? It took a lot of patience. Firm discipline, but yes, but a lot of patience. There are times this young man, when he first came, upset the whole home, turned everything upside down. Literally and figuratively. And they bore with him. And they loved him. That's what God does to you and me. He goes out and finds the worst he can find. He says, I want, I want that young man in my home and in my family. And he brings us in. And we're rebels. And he works with us. He's long-suffering. Oh, the grace of God in his patience to us. And you see what Paul is saying over and over again, not just in Colossians 3.12, other places, Galatians 5.22, he includes longsuffering as a fruit of the Spirit. He says the more Christ-like believers come, the more we will exhibit the longsuffering of God. You can turn that around and say, the more we do not exhibit God's long-suffering, to that very extent, the further we have to go to be remade into Christ's image through the Spirit's ministry. Secondly, the long-suffering of God ought to promote amazement from us. That's my second application. It ought to promote amazement from us. Not just the amazement that God works with me, which I just spoke about. That's amazing too, of course. And the most amazing, really, ultimately. But isn't it also amazing that God is so patient with the whole world today. On every hand, all around us today. I mean, the newspaper shows it every single day. Pages one through five of the newspaper. Just look, every single day, the murders, the abuses that people do to each other. That's just amazing. Sometimes I wonder if I should even bother to pick up the paper. It's depressing. People everywhere are sinning with what the Bible calls, sinning with a high hand. Sinning openly, blatantly against Almighty God. The divine law is trampled underfoot. Just last night, I don't know if you read that story of a young man who has a baby in critical condition. Because this young man just keeps shaking the baby. It just didn't fall into the sin one time, or two times. He said to the hospital people when they picked up the baby, I've blown it, he said. I've blown it because I was shaking this baby. They asked him, how many times have you done this? He said, oh, about 50 times. 50! Not 5, 50 times! A colicky baby, so he just shakes it and shakes it. He's probably gonna, baby's probably gonna die, he's probably gonna be charged as a murderer. But, just think of God in heaven. If you were God, wouldn't you do something to this man? The patience of God, it's amazing. And how people talk about God and abuse God and act as if they're God. You know, I've often compared it to ants. And you've heard me do that, I suppose. But I'm so often reminded of that. I've spent some time in my life in a couple of different situations, spending a couple of hours watching ants. But ants are very, very small. They're wise in some ways, the Bible says, but they're very small. For an ant to get up on its hind legs and challenge us about something. Our brain power is certainly 100,000 times larger than an ant's. All we've got to do is just go, you're done. If that ant gets rebellious, that's what we do, don't we? Step on it. Well, God is far greater to us than we are to an ant. We're smaller than an ant in his sight. All he's got to do is just go, you're done. And yet we get up on our hind legs and we rebel against God? The God of the universe? And we don't do that just once, twice. We do it 50 times. We do it a thousand times. We don't do it ourselves. Our neighbor does it. Our family does it. Our churches do it. Our society does it. The whole world does it every single day. And God allows this world to exist? I don't know if you ever have this, but maybe it's a sign I'm getting older, but sometimes I look around and I just, I get so depressed with all the sin and all the, I say, wouldn't it be wonderful just to be taken out of this sinful world and be brought into that land of sin-free glory? Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly. But if I'm weary of it and I'm a part of the problem, I'm a sinner. Imagine what it was for Jesus to live on this earth for 33 years and live in the midst of sinners in the smoke, that heavy smoke of sin, sin everywhere. And he's a sinless one? How long shall I be with you, O ye of little faith? You could see indications there of Jesus' weariness under sin. Yet he was long-suffering. Yet he didn't destroy his disciples. Yet he didn't destroy the world. He even gave a promise when he destroyed the world with a flood the first time, he would never do it again. The rainbow is a token of the amazing long-suffering of God. And you see, just like in Paul's day, so in our day, people notice this, that God doesn't punish people who abuse Him often, or He delays punishing them. And they think that because He delays punishing, that He doesn't notice. What is that text in Proverbs? It says, because the wicked man, or the wicked man goes on sinning exceedingly because the punishment is not yet executed. And so the world today often thinks that God doesn't see and they go on sinning all the more recklessly. And still God is long-suffering. Oh, the amazing patience of God. We never would be patient like that. The Bible speaks of Him in Romans 9 as having much long-suffering. in fitting the vessels of wrath to destruction." Isn't that interesting? Just the opposite of what people say today. People say, how could God send anyone to hell? How could he reprobate anyone? Paul says, the vessels that he fits for destruction, he exercises much long-suffering on those very vessels. No one, no one is going to go to hell who doesn't deserve it a thousand times. And then thirdly, the longsuffering of God ought to promote submission in us. When we consider the things I've been saying, It ought to make our hearts melt. It ought to soften us. It ought to make us pliable in the hands of God, like clay in the hands of the potter. If God is this long-suffering, oh, we can trust ourselves to Him. We can submit to Him. He's not going to be a harsh, capricious Father. It ought to make our consciences tender. It ought to make us soul like clay in His hands that we would say, Lord, we trust Thee to do with me what Thou desirest. Shape me, mold me, fit me, form me the way that Thou wouldst have me to be. So, when God does send His judgments, or when we do face afflictions, knowing that God is long-suffering, our trials are to move us to childlike submission and, as Paul puts it, to continuance in well-doing, so that we strive to emulate this wonderful divine attribute. You know in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ tells us to love our enemies. That's quite a challenge for us. And then he goes on and says, that curse you. That takes a little long suffering, don't you? Don't you think? A little patience to bless people that curse you. And do good to them that hate you. And then he says in that context, be ye therefore perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. In other words, we are to submit even to those injuries done to us patiently. Here's another statement of A.W. Pink that I think is beautiful. God bears long with the wicked, notwithstanding the multitude of their sin. And shall we desire to be revenged because of a single injury done to us? You see, when we learn from God's long suffering, we say with David, as Shimei curses him, let him curse. Let him curse. When you see people who are always immediately ready to defend themselves and to give it back to people, give something to them, At best, you're looking at a rather immature child of God. But when you see someone who's long-suffering, who's willing to be stepped upon even, who's not a fighter, who's willing to submit to God's ways, chances are you're looking at someone quite spiritually mature. And what an important lesson this is for the ministry. Don't you think? Ministers of all people need to be long-suffering. A minister who is short-fused, a minister who is quickly self-defensive, very, very, very seldom will last long in a church. He may end up being a minister his whole life, but he'll be changing churches very frequently. Because he's not exemplifying Christ. He's just going to wreak havoc. The only way to control uncontrollable people is to be controlled yourself. I want to tell you a story before I move on to the next attribute, or before I open it for questions. I know this may be taken to an extreme, but it's a very, very touching story. It happened in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in the former denomination I served. There was an elder in that congregation who is now deceased, probably for thirty years. I knew him as a young boy. And I'm not sure I've ever met a man with such a loving character in my whole life. You couldn't be in the presence of this man for one minute, for one minute, without feeling he was exuding love. It was just natural for him, it was natural for him. And I was a young boy when I came to his house the first time. I was 16. And I was just a new convert. And I hadn't hardly dared to tell anyone about my conversion. I hadn't dared to tell anyone about my call to the ministry. And there was something about this man that just opened me right up. And it wasn't just me. It was lots of people. He was a special, special, long-suffering man. Anyway, we were sitting there one night and he asked about my conversion and I told him with a flood of tears how the Lord converted me. It took me way too long. I was way too detailed. But it was just so wonderful having an adult ask you how the Lord worked in your heart and caring about you and accepting you. And I was in an atmosphere where people didn't think that you could possibly be converted when you were young. I didn't dare tell my conversion story, but this man, I just felt like he accepted me and I just told him everything. And I got all done. And he looked at me and he said, now, young man, he said, I want to hear how the Lord is calling you to the ministry. And I was so stunned, because I had been praying that somehow there'd be a child of God that would ask me that question, because I'd been reading all these Baptist books about how they were called to the ministry, and often what happened in the call to the ministry is that someone else would ask you, don't you think you're being called to the ministry? And so I made that a matter of prayer. I was so young. And I thought, well, maybe this is all my imagination, because no one's asking me. And here this man asks me. Well, I told him I called to the ministry and I was weeping as I was telling him. I didn't even dare look up at him. I thought, you know, surely he's going to reject this and so on. When I was all done, I just kind of snuck a look and his face was bathed in tears. He's such a lovely, beautiful man. I just, I came home from that visit I had really, really experienced Communion of Saints that weekend and it was wonderful. There's something about a long-suffering person who accepts you with all your foibles and all your weaknesses that is compelling, it's drawing, it's so much like Christ. That's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing when a minister has that kind of love, that long-suffering love that exudes itself. But anyway, I wasn't intending to tell you that. This is just a foreplay, a pre-run of what I'm about to tell you. In this congregation, there was a man who was absolutely recalcitrant. And I don't wish this on you at all, but I will tell you that it seems like every congregation I serve, there's like one of these kinds of men in the congregation. It seems like there's always someone who is just absolutely obstinate. Almost everything that comes out of their mouth is unedifying. If you didn't know their character, I'm talking about a really tough, crude, rough-around-the-edges, ugly character. If you didn't know their character, I mean, if you took face value what they said, you'd probably excommunicate them from the church, but sometimes you say, well, you try to be long-suffering, this is, yeah, that's his character, and you try to overlook a few things, but this guy, he was in your face, he was obnoxious, he said the worst possible things about the elders and the church, and one elder after another went there, and they made absolutely no headway. So they're talking at the consistory meeting, this is out of control, and we need to start the process of excommunication. And it was painful, it's not a big church, and man has lots of relatives, and it's just going to upset the whole church. You could just see it, you know, everything is going to be in tumult. But what can you do? Sin produces confusion. The last moment, one says, but there's one elder here, this brother, who hasn't been to see him. Maybe he can go. Maybe love will win him over, the man said. The elders and deacons said, are you willing to go, brother? And he said, oh yes, I will go, I will go. Pray for me. So he goes to visit this man. This is basically what he says. I don't know word for word, but basically what he says. He said, Brother, I'm the last elder to come and see you. And I want you to know that I love you. But your behavior has been unacceptable. But rather than take it out on church people, on the elders and deacons, Would you please take out all your enmity and your hostility? Take it out on me." And he comes over in front of them and he lays down, actually lays down in front of the chair and he says, please go ahead and stand up and walk on me. But don't walk on the name of Jesus Christ and don't walk on the church. Walk on me. Go ahead and abuse me, but stop abusing the church of Jesus Christ. And this man, if you knew him, I mean, he said this all in love. This is not put on. You go ahead and walk on me. And that man sitting in that chair began to sob uncontrollably. Long-suffering love won him over. And there was no problem. The whole problem was resolved. He apologized, asked for forgiveness, came in front of the consistory, wept in front of the consistory. But what an illustration it is of the gospel. Isn't that what Jesus does? He laid himself out on the cross and said, you can walk over me. But I love you. I've died for you. Isn't that what breaks us down? Oh, the longsuffering of God. And oh, that we will be more like him. Be ye perfect. as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Any questions on the long-suffering of God? All right, let's look then for a while at the truth of God. Truth of God. Our God is a God of truth. He knows truth. He speaks truth. His promises are reliable. He's dependable. He's faithful. The first word that is used in Hebrew for truth and the main word is aman, which means to confirm, to support, to uphold. It can also mean to be certain and to be established. The root idea here is there's firmness, there's certainty about God. God is true, true to His Word, true to Himself, true to His character. And of course, from that is derived the word, closely connected to it, of Amen. This is true. When you say Amen at the end of your prayer, you mean, it shall certainly be. You say it's a word of confidence. It conveys the idea of truth. Truly, it shall The second set of Hebrew nouns, qesot and qoset, occur much less frequently than aman, but they too come from a root which means the right or the truth. And they speak of God as being true. Daniel 4, verse 37, and Psalm 60, verse 4. In the New Testament, there are two main terms for truth. The first is aletheis, which refers to the reality of something, something that is actually the case. Romans 3 verse 4 is a very good example. Let God be true, but every man a liar. In that passage, Paul is responding to the idea that what God has promised might not be fulfilled. And he's basically saying, if everything else fails and everyone else fails, don't think that God won't do as he has said. His nature is true, and reality matches what he has promised. The second New Testament term is Eleithnos. And it conveys the idea of being genuine. Genuine. Something that conforms to the ideal. Paul uses that in 1 Thessalonians 1 verse 9 to note that the Thessalonians have been turned from worshipping idols to worshipping the true and the living God. Now interestingly, in the Old Testament, the word truth and its cognates occur 185 times. In the New Testament, Greek, 183 times. That's 368 times the Bible speaks of truth. The concept of truth is everywhere. It teaches us that God and His Word is factual, faithful truth, complete truth from the objective perspective, but also true experiential reality from the subjective perspective. And both perspectives flow out of the Triune God Himself, who is the essence of truth. Jesus Christ himself is truth personified. He says, John 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now in the Bible, what you find most references to truth concern either God himself or the salvation that God provides. The Father declares the truth, John 1.18. The Son brings and is the truth, John 1.17 and John 14.6. And the Holy Spirit leads us into all the truth, John 16.13. And all of this is so, so that true believers by grace may know the truth, John 8.32, may do the truth, John 3.21, and may abide in the truth, John 8.44. Now, when you take this introduction, That tells us several things about God, and I've listed them for you, five things here that I want to mention briefly. The first is this, God is always the God of truth. This is His character, this is His attribute. And so constantly, the Bible speaks in these terms. Psalm 40, verse 10 and 11. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD, let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. Psalm 108 verse 4, For thy mercy is great above the heavens and thy truth reaches to the clouds. And then Psalm 138 verse 2, which talks about the appropriate response from us in the presence of such a God of truth. I will worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth. For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. In the New Testament we find the same thing. Each member of the Godhead is actually said to have this attribute. John 1.14, we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth. Part C, God always tells the truth. God is truth, yes, but we may know He's truth because He always tells the truth. God cannot lie. Numbers 23, verse 19. He cannot be mistaken. His word is always true. Psalm 119, verse 142. Also John 17, 17, sanctify them in thy truth for thy word is truth. Because God is true, the gospel his apostles proclaim is true. The gospel does not lie. The gospel does not provide a false remedy. Galatians 2, verse 5. Then part D on the outline, God always does the truth. God always does the truth. What does that actually mean? Well, to say that God's laws and statutes are true means that they correspond to the way things should be. The writers who make such claims are assuming that there is such a thing as objective moral standards of right and wrong. They're saying that God's laws always correspond to these objective standards. Nehemiah 9, verse 13 says, Thou camest down also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, good statutes, and commandments. The psalmist says, Psalm 119, verse 151, Thou art near, O Lord, and all Thy commandments are truth. And then part E, God's teaching is the truth. We can label it corporately as the truth. Those who follow God and His ways are said to follow the truth. Psalm 26 verse 3, speaks of keeping God's commandments in this way, for thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth. And finally, part F, God's truth declares his faithfulness. God's truth declares his faithfulness. The biblical concept of God's truth is that that makes God dependable and reliable. He's a God who keeps his promises. God is not a man that he should lie or a son of man he should repent. Has he said and will he not do it? Has he spoken, will he not make it good? Numbers 23, 19. And that's the point also of Deuteronomy 7, verse 9. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him, and keepeth His commandments to a thousand generations. So God is dependable. He's true. He's dependable. That's the first sub-point under F. When we need Him in trouble, He's there. He's reliable. Psalm 89 speaks of this powerfully. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever. Mercies shall be built up forever. Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. O Lord of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness round about thee? So truth and faithfulness, you see, are very closely related. Jeremiah says that God's mercies and compassions do not fail. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. Second application of God's truth declaring His faithfulness means that God is faithful to His people. He is faithful in preserving His people. God is faithful by whom ye are called into the fellowship of his Son. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 9. He's faithful in disciplining his people. Think of Hebrews 12. He disciplines as a father, not for his own pleasure, but for our profit. And he's faithful in glorifying his people. Faithful is he which calleth you, he also will do it." 1 Thessalonians 5, 24. The foundation of God stands. Sure, the Lord knows them who are His. 2 Timothy 2, 19. He will fulfill His work. He will glorify His people. Now that leads us then to three applications. Three applications. Number one, God's truth ought to promote in us an increasing confidence in God. We read in 1 Peter 4.19, Therefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful Creator. You see, when we trustfully resign ourselves and all our affairs into God's hands, fully persuaded of His truth, of His faithfulness, we will be satisfied that He does all things well. We'll trust Him. Because He's true. Just like you trust a person. Someone's true to you all the time. You trust their word. So that promotes confidence. Secondly, it also preserves us from complaining and murmuring. If the Lord knows what's best for us, and He's true to us, and He's faithful, then really, everything He does is for our profit. Why should we not trust Him? Why should we murmur when something goes against us? It's for our good. Romans 8.28. And then thirdly, it also preserves us from worry, preserves us from undue anxiety, to be full of care, to view our situation with dark forebodings and a sense of impossibilities, to anticipate tomorrow with great anxiety, is to not know much about God's truth and faithfulness. I love the text in Job 5, verse 19. He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee. You know, I've pleaded that text many a time before God, many a time in trial. I said, Lord, You've helped me every time up till now. Help me once more. You've always been true to me. Help me one more time to preach. Help me one more time to get through this Consistory meeting with these problems on the agenda. Help me one more time. Once more, Lord. Six times you've helped me. Do it number seven. Seven is the number of completeness. In other words, God saying, I'll always help you. I'm always true to my people. I will never forsake the work of my own hands. Well, that's, there's a wonderful relief from worry. Next week, I was given the assignment to speak in New Jersey on adoption. And one of the topics they gave me, I first couldn't see the, Connection of it all was Matthew 6, at the end of Matthew 6, about, you know, why do you worry about food and clothing? Your Heavenly Father knows you have need of these things. Seek first the Kingdom of God, His righteousness, adoption. Then I thought, oh yeah, OK, I see it now. It's all about the Father caring for us as His children. He looks after everything. He looks after our clothing. He looks after our food. He looks after all the details of life. He's true. He's faithful. All right, that leads us then to three conclusions. Three conclusions. The first I'm calling absolute necessity of truth. If God is true, that means the whole of Christianity and salvation is grounded on Truth. Because everything in Christianity is dependent on God. And God's Word, which comes from God, therefore, is a trustworthy Word. And His Son, whom God sends, therefore, is a trustworthy Savior. And so the whole framework of Christianity hangs on truth. the truth of the written word, the truth of the living word, all flowing from the truth, which is God himself. That's why Jesus could say of the Bible, Thy word is truth. And this spirit-applied truth through God's word in Christ Jesus is critical. It's critical for you as a minister, future minister, to have authority in the congregation. Your authority is grounded in truth. It's critical in Christian doctrine that you bring. It's critical in Christian experience that we have truth. It's critical in Christian living. Truth is the glue that keeps the church together. It's the foundation upon which the church stands. Take away truth. and you've lost all your authority. What have you got? You've got nothing but a society, a people gathered together. That's why it's so important when you're on the pulpit. It's different in a classroom, where you might be saying, I might be saying to you in a classroom like this, you know, seems to me that this is the case from A, B and C, that the result is D. But on the pulpit, You're bringing truth to your people in the name of the God of truth, with a sense of authority. Therefore, you don't say in the pulpit, well, I want to share a few of my thoughts with you today. No, you come with authority. Martin Luther once said, peace if possible, but truth at any price. So we look at truth first. Truth is the foundation of peace. You can't have real peace without truth. So there are few things as important as truth. Thomas Goodman put it this way, God has but three things dear to himself in this world. His saints, his worship, and his truth. And it is hard, he added, to say which of the three is dearest unto him. Does he love his people more than truth? Does he love his worship more than truth? Does he love truth more than... God says, I don't know. He loves them all. All are important to him. His saints, his worship, his truth. But think about this with me for a moment. It's kind of interesting. If truth is the cement that holds the church together, isn't there a sense in which truth is the cement that holds everything together? If a husband can't trust his wife, the marriage falls apart. If he can't say, when I come home and ask her where she's been, she's going to tell me the truth. If she's been out with another man all day, she's going to lie to me. can't trust her. Truth is essential for a marriage to function. By extension, isn't truth the cement of all of society? That's why when we come in front of a judge, we've got to swear an oath, we're going to speak the truth and nothing but the truth. The whole judicial system would be a farce if it doesn't demand truth. So for mutual trust, for business decisions, for judicial law, for family life, for international cooperation, in all areas of life, at home, at church, at school, at work, we need truth. Scrap truth and truth-telling, and what do we have left? We have chaos. And that's precisely why it's so hard to work between nations sometimes in our world today. I mean, when you work with nations today like Iran, or you work with the Palestinians, you know, remember Yasser Arafat, you work with this guy, you sign an agreement, and he absolutely didn't mean what he signed whatsoever. So you proceed in the Middle East to try to negotiate things according to the agreement and you just go around blatantly break it. It meant absolutely nothing. Truth meant nothing. And that's the way it is in many nations around the world today, I'm afraid. There are so many nations where the leaders are just there for one reason. Power. Power. Money. Corruption. Not truth. So, you understand then the point. Absolute necessity of truth. An absolute necessity that when you become a minister of the gospel one day, that you be a man who has a reputation for truth. If people get from you the feeling that you're an exaggerator, or you're a minimizer, or you're a twister of truth, or you're political, and you're maneuvering, it's a disaster for your ministry. If they can't trust you, you might as well give up. Your ministry is going nowhere. Secondly, truth has many experiential characteristics. Because really, in conversion, what is the Holy Spirit doing? He's convicting us of truth. I'd like to mention just three of them. First, truth is convicting. If spirit-applied truth enlightens our dark souls, sin becomes sin. Then we see the truth of our divine origin, our paradise, innocency. We see the truth of our subsequent fall. We see the truth of our damnable sins and our thoughts, our words and our deeds. Sin then becomes sin for us. And we say, I'm miserable, I'm rejectable, I'm condemnable. But secondly, truth is also liberating. Liberating. The hell-worthy sinner. who agrees that he deserves to die and go to hell, will not go to hell. Because the truth will set him free. The truth of God's grace in Jesus Christ. And that grace comes to us through Jesus' active obedience of obeying the law for us as sinners, and his passive obedience of paying the price of sin. And when we see that, we see the truth of the gospel that Jesus takes our place on the cross so that he became the guilty one that we might be set free and the Holy Spirit seals that truth to us and we see all our salvation in Jesus Christ who is the truth and by whom God can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus well brothers isn't it true then that our soul is liberated and there's a peace that passes all understanding that flows into our heart from gospel truth This gospel truth then becomes internalized. Becomes an experiential jubilee. Grace becomes grace, just as sin became sin. Christ becomes Christ. Gospel truth becomes truth. Truth and Christ become inseparable. Then we understand why Jesus could say at one point, I shall set you free. Another point, the truth shall set you free. It's the same thing, for He is truth. Truth is convicting. Truth is liberating. And thirdly, truth is transforming. Transforming. For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. John 18, verse 37. And he who hears my voice, John 10, verse 4, cannot but follow me. You see, when truth takes hold of us, we're conquered and we're transformed. I just love that part of the story about Bartimaeus when Jesus heals him and his eyes see Jesus and he falls in love with Jesus and with truth. And Jesus says, go thy way. Go home, Bartimaeus, your faith has made thee whole. And the text says, and he followed Jesus in the way. Go thy way, and he followed Jesus in the way. So he couldn't go home. Truth captivated him, conquered him. And so, he follows Jesus in the way. In what way? Well, Jesus was on his last journey to Jerusalem. He followed Jesus in the self-denying way, the cross-carrying way, the burden-bearing way, the narrow way. the way which leads to Jerusalem, and to crucifixion, and ultimately to resurrection, and to glory. You see, when truth captures us, it transforms us, and it makes us fit for heaven. It makes us godly. William Grinnell said, Godliness is the child of truth. and then must be nursed with no other milk than that of its own mother. You get that? Godliness gets nursed by truth. And finally, our last application, our call to reflect truth. We must, as children of truth, adopted into the family of truth by the God of truth, become truth tellers and truth livers. Truth and untruth are antithetical because God is truth. And therefore, we must be conscientious to always speak truth, live truth, A Christian has a high call to integrity, absolute integrity. And here we fall short many times. Many times we're truth perverters or truth twisters, and that ought to grieve us. But in the ministry, there will be temptations to skirt around the truth, to avoid problems, But our model here is, of course, our Savior. He lived for 33 years on the earth. He came into all kinds of trouble. He was slandered. He was ridiculed, mocked, spat upon, scourged, slapped, challenged, accused of being a drunkard and a devil. But He never opened His mouth with one word that wasn't fully truth. So we are called to love truth. John Huss, who sealed this beautiful statement with his own blood, has much to teach us. He said this, search the truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth till death. Let me repeat that, that's a good sermon quotation for you. Search the truth, hear truth, learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth until death. Proverbs 23 verse 23 puts it perhaps most simply of all, buy the truth and sell it not. William Bridge put it this way, keep the truth and the truth will keep you. Keep the truth and the truth will keep you. And Thomas Brooks said, every parcel of truth is precious as the filings of gold. You must either live with it or die for it. May God help us to repent of all our lack of truthfulness and return to Him to find mercy and pardon, He who is truth itself. All right, so that's the burden of what I wanted to bring you about the doctrines of God's attributes and long-suffering in truth. Any questions on the attribute of truth? You, yeah, Tiago. How do you explain the text? God sent all spirits to tell lies in the Bible. To tell the lies to So God sent the false spirits to tell lies. How would you explain that to a person in church? How God could do that? I'd probably ask for a little time, which is what I'm going to do right now. To research that, if you send me on your computer to my email, send me the actual text you have in mind and let me look at that. Our time is actually up already and I don't want to say something shallow about that because I think that's a pretty profound issue. Let me work with that a bit and I'll start out the next class and answer that question. Thanks for it. Yep. Marnie? I was just curious. You're going to Princeton next week, right? Dr. Gilkes is preaching in New Jersey this coming Thursday. Is he coming with you to Princeton? No, no. I'm actually going separately. I'm going first to Mississippi, and then I'm going to New Jersey. I won't be in New Jersey until next week, Thursday. I'm sure he'll be back before that. All right, whose turn is it to close in prayer?