The Faithfulness of God 8/2/2020 9 AM
by Darrell W. Johns
August 2, 2020 · Atlanta West Pentecostal Church (Lithia Springs, GA)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Jeremiah 33:19-21, Jeremiah 33:24, 2 Kings 24:14, Jeremiah 33, Genesis 1:3-5, Genesis 1:16-18, Revelation 21:23, Revelation 22:5, Isaiah 60:19-20, Psalms 19:1-3, Genesis 8:22, Hebrews 1:3, Psalms 89:34-37, James 5:8, Romans 8:22-23, 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2, Hebrews 10:23, Jude 1:20-21

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/darrell-w-johns--the-faithfulness-of-god-8-2-2020-9-am
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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turn in your bibles to the book of jeremiah chapter 33 jeremiah 33. i appreciate our worship team taking us into the presence of the lord i appreciate everyone serving everywhere to make sure we can safely gather in worship and i appreciate you complying respectfully with our protocols so we can make sure that out of the abundance of caution we protect the most vulnerable among us jeremiah 33 19 new king james and the word of the lord came to jeremiah saying thus says the lord if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there will not be day and night in their season then my covenant may also be broken with david my servant so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne and with the levites the priests my ministers i want to speak to you today on the faithfulness of god thank you for standing you may be seated in atlanta west i typically write an article about what i'm feeling the lord is saying to our church the bible said that the spirit speaks expressly or specifically to the church god's word is eternal and it has application throughout all the ages and in every culture but from that word god directly speaks to us about what we need in any particular period of time and i felt several weeks ago that this month in the month of august that we should preach and teach about the faithfulness of god that he is faithful to his principles to his promises to his people and to his purpose jeremiah 33 gives us an example of the faithfulness of god and his covenant people jeremiah 33 opens with a pretty bleak outlook jeremiah is referred to as the weeping prophet my son justin just finished jeremiah and ezekiel and his bible reading he said man dad there's so much gloom and doom in jeremiah and ezekiel and man what a rough life ezekiel had and we were talking about the misery of jeremiah's prophecies he had it pretty rough jeremiah has been put in prison by king zedekiah because of his preaching and prophesying about the fall of jerusalem he's been telling them that bad things are coming and most people don't like to hear bad news even if they're living poorly and so because of jeremiah's unpopular preaching he's been thrown in prison and now he's in the court of the prison he's not down in that deep pit in the mire you know he's in the court of the prison there's one thing i've learned that you can lock up the preacher but you can't lock up the prophecy and you can't prevent god's word from coming to pass regardless of what you say so zedekiah has no answer for nebuchadnezzar king of babylon and he makes his assaults on jerusalem seems like the power of the enemy is absolutely overwhelming and there were plenty of pessimistic voices predicting the ultimate demise of the people of god jeremiah 33 24 these people have spoken god chose these two families you know he's speaking of israel the northern kingdom those 10 tribes judah the southern kingdom really judah and benjamin was allied to him and he said the lord those that he chose he has cast them off he has despised his people they will no more be a nation before him things are going downhill fast for that southern kingdom of judah the jews in judah had a very clear memory of what had happened in the northern kingdom in 721 bc when the assyrian army came and captured the capital of syria and carried away the citizens of the northern kingdom into captivity this left that southern kingdom that smaller kingdom feeling vulnerable they were no better and they were under a prophecy of god that they too would be carried away in 597 bc king nebuchadnezzar of babylon launched an assault on jerusalem he pillaged the city and the temple ten thousand jews were taken captive into babylon the most prominent people will kill were carried away second kings 24 14 says that the princes and all the mighty men of valor even 10 000 captives and all the craftsmen all the blacksmiths none remained in jerusalem except the poorest of the people this land had been plundered and now in jeremiah 33 it appears that this second assault has happened it was about 10 years later it would end with the destruction of jerusalem and either 587 or 586 bc historians differ on when it actually happened nebuchadnezzar came back to finish what he had started and he destroyed jerusalem he reduced it to rubble he set the temple on fire and burned the house of god king zedekiah was forced to witness the murder of his sons and the last thing he saw would be his sons dying and then they poked out his eyes and zedekiah with that memory that would last to the end of his life was carried away into babylonian captivity jeremiah speaks about the feeble and fruitless efforts of zedekiah the king and the people of judah trying to resist babylonian invasion he said you try to pull down your houses to get materials to build bulwarks to strengthen the walls against the siege ramps of the babylonians but it's really not going to do you any good at all if there was a jerusalem post and if you could have read it the outcome the headlines were bleak the fall of jerusalem was certain it would have read something like this god has forsaken his people it appears that god cannot keep his promises the promises of israel's god have broken down his contract with him is null and void religion has failed you and we told you so but jeremiah who is in the court of the prison speaks god's words of future promise in the face of present peril in jeremiah 33 the lord gave them promises i'll summarize them but you should go back and re-read this chapter again the lord says i'm coming to bring health and healing this is at a future time and there will be in jerusalem an abundance of peace and truth i find it interesting not part of my sermon that the lord told jeremiah to buy land invest in the future i heard years ago that when no one else is praying you should pray when no one else seems to care about the things of god you should when the stock is low buy it because it's going to come back again and that's what the lord was telling jeremiah right now when no one thinks there's a future i'm telling you that there is a future amen he said i'm going to come back and i'm going to cleanse israel they're going to build these places again i'm going to pardon their iniquities and then i'm going to bring some things back to this city there will be desolation but i'm bringing back peace and prosperity and then he said that there's going to be joy back in this city again there will be praise and honor and you will hear all the good that i will do here and that all the other nations are going to fear and tremble at the prosperity that i procure unto it and there will be heard in this place that is desolate now there will be voices of gladness there will be the voice of the bridegroom there will be the voice of a bride in other words normal life will return where people will get married again they'll be saying praise the lord of hosts for the lord is good for his mercy endures forever in this place that is desolate there will be a sacrifice of praise and i will cause the captives of the land to return as at the first it may look dark now but there's a revival coming it may not look like anything good will come now but trust my word i've got a future there's a future for my people he predicted that blessing would come again the lord said i will perform that good thing which i have promised to the house of israel and to the house of judah in those days and at that time i will cause to grow up to david a branch of righteousness i believe this is a prophecy of the coming of the messiah jesus christ and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth and in those days judah shall be saved and jerusalem will dwell in safety and in this place then there will be a name that says the lord our righteousness for this saying the lord said david shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of israel i'm bringing back my priesthood he said this is the prophecy that comes to them when everything is falling apart those who are looking at the current crisis the demise and the defeat of judah might have questioned these words of the lord they were probably thinking if god is so powerful then why is he not stopping this tragedy from happening the lord had been cleared that israel and judah would be punished for their sins judah would go into captivity for 70 years because they violated god's sabbath principles for allowing their land to rest every seven years nothing they could do would speed up the process of god's punishment of his people but into the darkness of their doubt there is this light of promise that came shining through you may think that these prophecies of promise were like a pipe dream you may say there's no way they were saying that there's no way that god can turn this catastrophe around but god can and god did here's what we know about our god from the bible that it is impossible for god to lie and that all the promises of god are yes and in him they are amen to the glory of god through jeremiah the lord told his people if you want to know how certain my promises are if you want to know whether or not i am faithful to my word if you want to know whether or not i can turn this around in a moment or time i want to tell you that my covenant with david in his house that my covenant with judah and israel that it is just as certain as my covenant with day and with night jeremiah 33 19 and the word of the lord came to jeremiah saying thus says the lord if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night if you can end the sun from coming up in the morning if you can stop the moon from rising if you can change my order of the universe and life on planet earth if you can stop day and night from happening day and night if that can be broken then you can break my covenant with david but we know that he was saying that there is something that is certain that has been from the beginning that has been ordered by the lord that god made a promise today and god made a promise tonight and every day no wonder the bible would say that his mercies are new every morning great is thy faithfulness god is faithful now this is fascinating it is intriguing and i'm probably in over my head today because on the first day of creation before there was a sun before there was a moon genesis 1 3 and god said let there be light and there was light and god saw the light that it was good and god divided the light from darkness and god called the light day and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning were the first day everybody say the first day and then on the fourth day of creation the bible says that god made two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night on the fourth day of creation and god set them in the firmament firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness and god saw that it was good now it is impossible humanly for me to comprehend day and night without the sun and the moon god created the sun to rule the day and god created the moon to rule the night but day and night existed before the sun and the moon were created it was the first creative day when god said let there be light that he created light and darkness and day and night i believe creative days were 24 hour days and i've read a lot of explanations about what in the world did god do on day one to create light and light and darkness and to divide them and there are numerous explanations for what god might have done in that temporary period between the first day and the fourth day in the new jerusalem however the bible says in revelation 21 23 and the city had no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of god to lighten it and the lamb is the light thereof and in revelation 22 5 and there shall be no night there and there need no candle neither the light of the sun for the lord god giveth them light and shall reign forever and ever and in isaiah 60 the lord said there will be one day no need for the sun or the moon but the lord shall be unto thee and everlasting light and god shall be thy glory so i don't really know what it was but i just know if at the end that god is the light that in the beginning god was the light and in god there is no darkness at all so the lord said if you want to question my covenant you've got to go back before there was a sun and before there was a moon you've got to go back to the first day when i said let there be light and let there be day and let there be night and if you can stop my covenant with the day and if you can stop my covenant with tonight then you can stop my promises why don't we applaud the greatness of our god so it's pretty amazing mind boggling beyond any scientific explanation and i've read some like black holes can emit light right and perhaps there was something god did temporarily from the first day to the fourth day to allow there to be a source of light why did he do that i have no idea that's why he is the creator and you are not but the lord said i want you to go all the way back to the beginning and i established something that was absolutely impossible day and night without sun and moon and if you can stop that covenant then i guess you can say that my other promises that i've made are going to fail you jeremiah told the people that if you can break that then you can break this but god is faithful today i want to assure you that nothing can breach or break the promises of god however we live in a time when we relate to day and night as being ruled by sun and moon the lord did create those heavenly bodies to rule the day and to rule the night today at 6 51 a.m when the sun rose over the eastern sky in atlanta god preached a sermon that i've got a covenant with the day that you cannot stop this evening at 8 20 pm when the moon rises and darkness to sins on our beautiful city we will know that there is a god who is in control and he is faithful to his covenant with day and with night in psalm 19 the heavens preach the heavens declare the glory of god and the firmament shows his handiwork day unto day utter speech and night unto night showeth knowledge there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard you may see say well there's some people that don't have a bible but they have a son and they have a moon they have the intelligent design that demands an intelligent designer that this did not happen by happenstance or by evolution but there was a god who in the beginning said let there be light and there was light and let there be day and there was day and let there be night and there was night and whatever he speaks will come to pass and you cannot stop it from happening and we are the people of the promise of god he is faithful go ahead and applaud him for he is a great and mighty god after the worldwide flood in noah's day the lord reconfirmed his covenant of day and night in genesis 8 22 the lord said well the earth remaineth see time and harvest and cold and heat and summer in winter the seasons of the middle east and day and night shall not cease god made a covenant with the day he separated them by covenant with the day and my covenant with the night as if there are two parts of one covenant or two separate covenants and he is faithfully kept them and if you can disannul god's word in the day and night to the sun and moon then go ahead and question the promises of god how how is god's covenant with the day and night kept well hebrews 1 3 said that all things are upheld by the word of his power perhaps he set it in motion and it just stays in motion but the bible said that he holds it up by the word of his power god's covenant that jeremiah spoke of with day and night but when we think of day and night we think in terms of the sun and moon so let's talk about day and night in that context so since school is starting can i be your elementary teacher today can you be students for a moment and i'll be a student teacher i know there's some variation in the details of this but day and night occur because of the rotation of the earth right every 24 hours the earth makes a complete revolution a solar day and as the earth rotates on its axis half the earth is exposed to the sun and experiences light and the other half of the earth is pointed away from the sun and experiences darkness if you were looking down on the earth from above the north pole you would see that the earth rotates counterclockwise and we would watch daylight and darkness sweeping across our globe from east to west the earth is traveling through space in its orbit around the sun at a speed of 18.5 miles per second and according to nasa the earth is 92 billion 900 000 miles away from the sun and every 365 days the earth orbits the sun you know that the earth is tilted on its axis at 23.5 degrees and it points almost directly at polaris the north star because of this tilt we have seasonal changes as the earth makes its annual trek around the sun but god is more reliable than the sun and the moon and his covenant with day and night predates the creation of the sun and the moon god has no seasonal variations that we experience on earth and god has no shadow of turning that we experience every day the bible says that god does not slumber nor does he sleep and god is faithful and in his faithfulness he created a covenant with day and with night and since his covenant with day and night has not changed then we can recognize that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning there is no change with him whether it is day or night in your life whether there seems to be blessing or cursing god is the same jesus christ the same yesterday today and forever even the earth will whack so but god is from everlasting to everlasting the same i am the lord and i change not but to us every sunrise and every sunset is a reminder of the faithfulness of god it preaches that god keeps his promises the heavens declare the glory of god when we were in colombia mississippi to be with justin and teresa for during after his hospitalization and heart surgery their house faces west their church faces west and there's a hill in it some of the most beautiful sunrises day after day and you could look and watch they were different every day but they were gorgeous every day and every sunrise and every sunset is a magnificent reminder of the faithfulness of god friday night i was outside late it's looking up into a partially cloudy sky and a beautiful waxing gibbous moon full moon is supposed to be tomorrow august 3rd the lord said in psalm 89 my covenant will i not break or alter the thing that has gone out of my lips once i have sworn in my holiness that i will not lie unto david his seed shall endure forever and his throne as the son before me it shall be established forever as the moon and is a faithful witness in heaven so here today in august 2020 like the house of judah we are searching for a promise in our pain if you only look at what is going on currently in our cultural circumstances it is hard to find a word of hope we see a world in crisis and here is what we know life is uncertain culture changes people are fickle economies fluctuate political pendulums swing and pandemics historically plunder the lives of people the weather of course is extremely unpredictable and the most certain reality in our world is uncertainty there are many people in our country who are reeling from the pain of political economic social and underneath it all spiritual unrest there's a polarization taking place pulling people apart these are perilous times but james gave us a word he said be patient establish your hearts for the coming of the lord is at hand it is near so we should not underestimate the powers of darkness that are working to undermine and unravel the fabric of our culture we should not think it's strange that we are experiencing radical surges of unrest we're feeling the collision of the ages i believe that is what paul wrote about in romans 8 when he said the whole creation is groaning and laboring in birth pangs unto now and he said even those of us who have the first fruits of the spirit we are groaning within ourselves we are waiting for something to happen this age will give that way to a future age when the kingdom of god will come and his will will be done ushering in the end of all things and eternity to be with the lord we feel this groaning within ourselves the devil knows he has a short time to work fallen angels are wrestling walking in dry places looking for souls to inhabit this cultural shaking could destroy our nation or it could birth a spiritual awakening while all of this craziness and our culture is enough to drive many people crazy we are not of this world and he's given us a peace that does not come from political peace bible tells us that we should not soon be shaken ii thessalonians 2 paul said by the i beseech you brethren by the coming of our lord jesus christ by our gathering together to him that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as if the day of the lord was at hand the day of christ was at hand god is unfolding his end time plan before us and in the interim it will be painful but ultimately it is filled with promise for the people of god this is the message of hope for god's people in this hour that we do not know what the immediate future will hold but as we said years ago in a song but we know who holds a future amen and it would behoove every one of us to put our hands in the unchanging hand of god amen for underneath are the everlasting arms don't be shaken don't be discouraged because there is a god who is true all above all and in you all the bible is a book of god's unveiled plan and unfolding plan so we can take courage in these challenging times and we can lean on those everlasting arms so i want to assure you today and we're going to say it several ways in the next month that god is faithful he is faithful to his principles to his covenants and god is faithful to his promises not one of them will fail god is faithful to his people he will never leave you he will never forsake you and god is faithful to his purpose temporarily and ultimately god's will god's purpose will be done and we can trust in the steadfastness of god as a writer of hebrews said let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful who promised through his sovereign power he will guide us through perilous times he will give us direction he will give us provision he will never leave us he will never forsake us he will keep us strong and he will keep us steadfast while the world is shaking and if you ever find yourself doubting drink in the beauty of a sunrise watch the sun as it goes down in the evening gaze up into the moon at night and remember that god's covenant with day and night is even more sure than sunrise and sunset in the phases of the moon jeremiah said if you can break the covenant my covenant with day which happened on the first day of creation if you can break my covenant with night that happened before the sun and moon were created if you can break that covenant then you can question anything else in my word but since from that day till this day my covenant with day and my covenant with night has never failed then you can trust me that my word will never fail so bow your hands and let's pray right now maybe we should just lift our hands to the lord right now and we should thank him for his unfailing promises hallelujah [Applause] hallelujah i said lift your voice to the lord and begin to praise him just as the heavens declare the glory of god would you declare his glory right now hallelujah [Music] my moments of fear through every pain every tear there's a god who's been faithful to me [Music] when my strength was all gone when my heart had no song still in love god proved faithful [Music] to me every word he's promised is true and what i thought was impossible i've seen my god [Music] to me looking back his love and mercies [Music] questions [Music] he's been faithful faithful to me looking back [Music] [Applause] [Music] he's been faithful [Applause] faithful to me [Music] when my heart looked away the many times i could not pray even then god was faithful [Music] the days i spent so selfishly i was reaching out for what pleased me even then my god was faithful to me every time i come back [Music] [Applause] [Music] faithful if you're able to stand would you do that now otherwise just make your seat an altar and would you respond to the glory of god that is in this house and when you thank him that he is faithful to his word thank you lord [Music] let the lord strengthen your heart right now hallelujah let not your heart be troubled [Music] hallelujah [Music] if you need a renewing of the holy ghost receive it right now let the lord descend on your spirit open up your heart to the lord if you've been filled with question marks instead of exclamation points would you look to god's covenant with the day would you view his covenant with the night and would you know that god has never failed and he never will fail you hallelujah that said reach out to the lord really reach out to him now open your heart to him people may have failed you you may feel like the fabric of things are falling apart but there is a god who is in control of times and seasons and all things i said go ahead open up your heart right now don't be stoic but be demonstrative open up your heart to the lord minister let the lord minister to you right now if you're watching online open your heart to the lord don't let this be like some show don't let this be a spectator sport but respond to the presence of the lord that is coming into your home right now if you've never received the gift of the holy ghost with the evidence of speaking with other tongues let the spirit come on you right now speak in other tongues as a spirit gives you the utterance the ability to speak out let the holy ghost that breathe life into this world let it come into you right now [Music] let's worship the lord let's lift up our voices from the depth of our soul let there be a loud voice of praise in this house right now [Music] hallelujah hallelujah go ahead let it be sustained just a little bit in your heart [Music] thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus for your faithfulness [Music] hallelujah hallelujah strengthen strengthen our hearts strengthen our faith strengthen our resolve o lord while this world is shaking in fear we know that everything that can be shaken will be shaken so that the things cannot be shaken will remain we thank you lord that we are receiving a kingdom that can never be shaken we thank you god lord help us serve you god with reverence oh lord knowing that you are consuming fire there is wrath coming on this world but there are new heavens and there is a new earth coming for the people of god pray lord god [Music] is there anything too hard for me to do for behold i gave sarah a son at old age the beast of the field is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills what do you want me to do for you come unto me and receive these better promises now would you come to the lord right now let your heart turn to him right now that said open up your heart to the lord right now let the spirit of the lord come all over you in strength hallelujah hallelujah they that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint in the presence of the lord there is strength and beauty there is perspective in the house of god hallelujah go ahead and lift up your voice to the lord lift up your heart to him right now receive something special from the hand of god [Music] foreign [Music] so and said let the lord sweep it on you right now whoa there's a touch of god there's the strength of the lord [Music] i said you're going to need this strength tomorrow you might need it this afternoon so go ahead strengthen your heart and god the bible said that he who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself builds himself up jude said but you beloved building up yourselves on your most holy faith praying in the holy ghost keep yourselves in the love of god it is our contact with the spirit it is our engagement with the holy ghost that builds our spiritual strength right now it is not just speaking in an unknown tongue it is a strength of god that comes to you and your weakness go ahead come on break up that hard ground of your heart and let the spirit of the lord quicken and speak to you right now hallelujah [Music] so [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah thank you lord god amen lord i give you praise and honor we just thank the lord again for his faithfulness to us thank you lord for your faithfulness thank you lord for your faithfulness to us hallelujah so may the lord bless you keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace may the lord lift up his countenance upon you amen we want the favor of god on our lives and the blessing of the lord amen