Will Lack of Faith Nullify God’s Faithfulness?
Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written: So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge. (Rom 3:3-4)
It began in the Garden of Eden. God made Adam and Eve stewards over his creation with dominion over all. Only the fruit of one tree was withheld from them. We will never know the power of the dominion God gave because their “lack of faith” brought death. In that moment “everything he had made” that “was very good” changed to “all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” Their “dominion over all the earth” became “what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” (Gen. 1:26-28; Eccl. 1:14-15).
Did their “lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” Multitudes think it did. How many blasphemies have been uttered because of the curse? People ponder “why do bad things happen to good people?” There is inexplicable suffering and hardship everywhere. “What kind of a God would create such a world?” But he did not create “this” world! In great faithfulness God created a “perfect” world. A world Adam and Eve’s “lack of faith” destroyed. Yet the wicked wilfully forget the guilt and responsibility of Adam and Eve. They seek to blame God and make him look bad for all their troubles.
Paul’s question in Romans was based on a similar event. God had promised Abraham that he would be a great nation. At the Exodus, God promised a land flowing with milk and honey, peace, prosperity, health, and long life to them. They would become a kingdom of priests, holy and righteous, his own special possession, a powerful nation none would conquer or subjugate. God would bless them in every possible way.
So what happened? Only a few weeks out of Egypt their “lack of faith” began. They squandered all God’s promises. “For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Heb. 3:16-19).
By their unbelief (lack of faith) Israel justly received God’s wrath. They deserved it and far from nullifying God’s faithfulness, they established it! This “lack of faith” continued through Judges, Kings, Prophets and even their Messiah. It brought terrible retribution. Israel went to Assyria around 720 BC and Judah went to Babylon around 586 BC. What was left was destroyed by Rome in 70 AD.
From this we learn a fundamental truth. Any time it appears God is not being faithful, take a closer look. We will always find man’s “lack of faith” causing the paradox. The greatest perplexities of life are always caused by man. This includes the Curse of Gen. 3 with all its suffering, the prevalence and damage of false religion and error, and the terrible carnage of tyranny and corruption. All are produced by man’s freewill.
Moses described the issue as we face it even today. God was justified to destroy Israel. Their murmuring, rebellious, disrespectful and selfish hearts cried out for it. But how would God’s enemies use it? After the bad report of the spies, Israel wanted to go back to Egypt. God told Moses “I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them.” The problem: “If You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness” (Num. 14:12-17). But even if God had destroyed them and the enemies had said all these things, God would still have been true and every man who spoke thus a liar!
We can’t stop such slander. In the end, God will “convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 15-16). But we must not be influenced by it. Our confidence in God must not waver no matter what “evidence” the wicked put forth. We must be like Abraham who “did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20). God is faithful! His commands are just, righteous and for our good always. He is kind, generous, gentle, merciful and loving. We should be drawn to him and serve him gladly. All the slander and harsh things spoken by the ungodly are lies. Any negative thing they throw at God is always a punishment or consequence of man’s “lack of faith/unbelief.”
Armed with this simple truth: “Let God be true and everyman a liar,” we are steadfast! When God is slandered, his word mocked and his doctrines and moral standards disregarded, the righteous quote this truth. Even if the whole world disagreed with God (as before the Great Flood), God is still true and every man a liar. God is faithful! Man’s unfaithfulness can never nullify that! Regardless of the persecution or sorrow we incur only, one logical choice exists: “Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).
It began in the Garden of Eden. God made Adam and Eve stewards over his creation with dominion over all. Only the fruit of one tree was withheld from them. We will never know the power of the dominion God gave because their “lack of faith” brought death. In that moment “everything he had made” that “was very good” changed to “all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” Their “dominion over all the earth” became “what is crooked cannot be made straight and what is lacking cannot be numbered.” (Gen. 1:26-28; Eccl. 1:14-15).
Did their “lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness?” Multitudes think it did. How many blasphemies have been uttered because of the curse? People ponder “why do bad things happen to good people?” There is inexplicable suffering and hardship everywhere. “What kind of a God would create such a world?” But he did not create “this” world! In great faithfulness God created a “perfect” world. A world Adam and Eve’s “lack of faith” destroyed. Yet the wicked wilfully forget the guilt and responsibility of Adam and Eve. They seek to blame God and make him look bad for all their troubles.
Paul’s question in Romans was based on a similar event. God had promised Abraham that he would be a great nation. At the Exodus, God promised a land flowing with milk and honey, peace, prosperity, health, and long life to them. They would become a kingdom of priests, holy and righteous, his own special possession, a powerful nation none would conquer or subjugate. God would bless them in every possible way.
So what happened? Only a few weeks out of Egypt their “lack of faith” began. They squandered all God’s promises. “For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Heb. 3:16-19).
By their unbelief (lack of faith) Israel justly received God’s wrath. They deserved it and far from nullifying God’s faithfulness, they established it! This “lack of faith” continued through Judges, Kings, Prophets and even their Messiah. It brought terrible retribution. Israel went to Assyria around 720 BC and Judah went to Babylon around 586 BC. What was left was destroyed by Rome in 70 AD.
From this we learn a fundamental truth. Any time it appears God is not being faithful, take a closer look. We will always find man’s “lack of faith” causing the paradox. The greatest perplexities of life are always caused by man. This includes the Curse of Gen. 3 with all its suffering, the prevalence and damage of false religion and error, and the terrible carnage of tyranny and corruption. All are produced by man’s freewill.
Moses described the issue as we face it even today. God was justified to destroy Israel. Their murmuring, rebellious, disrespectful and selfish hearts cried out for it. But how would God’s enemies use it? After the bad report of the spies, Israel wanted to go back to Egypt. God told Moses “I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them.” The problem: “If You kill these people as one man, then the nations which have heard of Your fame will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to bring this people to the land which He swore to give them, therefore He killed them in the wilderness” (Num. 14:12-17). But even if God had destroyed them and the enemies had said all these things, God would still have been true and every man who spoke thus a liar!
We can’t stop such slander. In the end, God will “convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 15-16). But we must not be influenced by it. Our confidence in God must not waver no matter what “evidence” the wicked put forth. We must be like Abraham who “did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God” (Rom. 4:20). God is faithful! His commands are just, righteous and for our good always. He is kind, generous, gentle, merciful and loving. We should be drawn to him and serve him gladly. All the slander and harsh things spoken by the ungodly are lies. Any negative thing they throw at God is always a punishment or consequence of man’s “lack of faith/unbelief.”
Armed with this simple truth: “Let God be true and everyman a liar,” we are steadfast! When God is slandered, his word mocked and his doctrines and moral standards disregarded, the righteous quote this truth. Even if the whole world disagreed with God (as before the Great Flood), God is still true and every man a liar. God is faithful! Man’s unfaithfulness can never nullify that! Regardless of the persecution or sorrow we incur only, one logical choice exists: “Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (1 Pet. 4:19).