It was a time of great persecution. The writer of the book of Revelation was banished. The Roman tribunal said he was to be banished to Patmos. He was sent to a desolate, abandoned island where survival was most difficult. The days came and went. Rains fell upon the island and there was no protection. Food was scarce and the difficulties were very great. Then the Lord began to pour out great revelations and visions. It is difficult to understand this unless you go through something that is similar. The Lord came to John in a moment when every pressure was against him and survival was most difficult. John wrote of it: And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True. Revelation 19:11.
This is important. I know nothing the Lord means to me more than that He has a name written, He is Faithful. He is faithful and He is true. Nothing He has ever said is deceptive. He has never dealt with you falsely. In this walk He has never held before you things you cannot walk in. He is faithful. As I looked up to the Lord in my midnight prayer He spoke to my heart, as He will speak to yours, “I am faithful. I am true.”
We are not very faithful. We try to be faithful and true to each other, but we’re not. We can’t quite make it. Oh, the wonder of the love of God that covers a multitude of things within the Body of Christ where we fall short of what we really should be to each other! In moments of pressure we draw back. Sometimes when others need you the most, you’re not there. And when you need someone the most, you reach for them and they are not there.
I had been going through intense dealings when this word reached my heart so deeply as the Lord spoke right out of the heavens. He said, “I am faithful and true. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” I don’t think we really appreciate our Lord yet.
I began to feel the compassion of this faithfulness, of being true. It is important. I have faced one situation after another of people who have put themselves into such jeopardy and problems because of just a little folly or a little drawing back. And I keep hearing the words, “He is faithful and He is true.” We waver; moments of murmuring come up on our hearts, and there are times when we get so busy we don’t walk with the Lord like we should—we don’t love Him like we should; we don’t wait before Him. I’m so glad this walk is based on His faithfulness and not mine.
In Galatians 5:22 we read, … the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; but I stopped with faithfulness. The King James Version says, “faith,” but faith is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is faithfulness that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
This was so real. I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” Revelation 19:11–16. The emphasis keeps coming back to Him. He is the One, the Faithful and True. With His grace, we can walk in faithfulness too. We can be the people that God wants us to be.
My heart is reaching out saying, “O God, I have been faithful to publish a word and that by Your grace, will reach the nations. I want to be faithful though, I don’t want to feel that I have to be something, that I have to produce something. I just want to be in that place where He is everything. We hear about unidentified flying saucers, but I want to be one of those unidentified flying warriors behind that One who is called Faithful and True.
It is very important that you keep faith with one another. It is very important that you don’t put one another down. We are supposed to walk humbly before the Lord. I often speak sharply when rebuking or ministering to people and rarely do they draw back. But that is not the issue. There is a cry, an ache in my heart, “Lord, I’ll speak Your word, but don’t let my spirit put another man down. Don’t let me shame him. When he reaches for something that he believes I can be to him in God, don’t let me be the occasion to let him down.” Don’t let this happen. When a brother comes and reaches for something—when he looks to see the Lord in you—God grant that he will see Him.
This isn’t a sermon. It was just something in my heart. It meant more to me than I can describe. It was like a voice out of the night said what I needed to hear, “I am Faithful and True.” I want that worked in my heart. I thought of the times that I have failed to communicate because I was so wrapped up in battle and so pressured. I could have done better and I didn’t. I should have thought, not of myself, but of what I could be to someone else. I wondered as I thought about it, “Lord, how many others whom I have met or ministered to that I was not faithful to in any way?” I know we are going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and for what shall we be judged? Certainly not for the eloquence of our sermons or our prophecies, but … moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. I Corinthians 4:2.
Only one thing really matters; it is how faithful you are to the Lord—how much you love him.
God help those who have had a word from the Lord and yet have unfaithful hearts. What a terrible state it would be to have a word from the Lord and be unfaithful to it—to have anything that God has ever committed to you or told to you—and to abandon that which God is speaking to your heart. How horrible it is to be harsh in judging anyone when God has ordained that we walk in love, in unity, and in humility. How deadly it would be not to esteem every man better than yourself and seek not for your own, but for the other’s welfare. Life isn’t much when it is lived for yourself. It doesn’t have any meaning when you allow yourself to be torn up in your own personal life and emotions. When your world is so small, you are so immature and blind you can’t see anything but yourself. That is very deadly.
This Scripture became a reality in my life. “I am He that is Faithful and True.” I wish every one of you could have a meeting with the Lord like that. Pray that God will meet your heart and give you a revelation of how faithful and true your Lord really is.
You want those gifts of the Spirit and you want that fruit of the Spirit too. Which do you want most: the love or the joy, the peace or the patience? Those are wonderful. There is kindness—don’t pass that up. Then there is faithfulness and goodness—don’t pass them up either. Don’t miss the gentleness and self-control, nor the discipline. What a beautiful cluster of divine virtue the Spirit grows in our heart! It begins when He starts speaking to us, revealing himself to us that He is faithful and true.
The next time you feel as if you are on an island, banished by everyone, when you have a struggle to lift your head, and you cry like the Psalmist, “No man cares for my soul” (Psalm 142:4), look up, because He is about to open the heavens and say, “Come up, for I will show you things to come,” and you will have a picture of Him who is Faithful and True.
When you go through trials that are very difficult, the Bible becomes like a memory to you. The Lord brings the experiences others have gone through, and they are as real as if they were your own—you remember what it must have been like for that man to hear the words, “I am He that is Faithful and True.” Time doesn’t change them. Centuries can roll on and they are still real to you, echoing out of the centuries from the Word.
Maybe God is telling you that you’re like old John on the island of Patmos. God delivered him, and He will deliver us today. He is going to bring good things to us. Authority is going to be given to the saints of the Most High. They are going to possess the Kingdom. Lord, let us be faithful. Let us be true.
A long time ago, Simon, a black man of Cyrene, was passing through Jerusalem on a very fateful day. Soldiers seized him and made him pick up the cross when Christ fell beneath it. It was not an easy experience to recall, but later, when the early Church would gather secretly, not knowing which of their members had been taken captive, destroyed, crucified, or thrown to lions, he told the story many times, as well as his two strong sons after him who served the Lord too. It was a comfort to the Christians, a strange kind of honor that a man would be humiliated in an hour of execution by being made to carry a condemned Man’s cross. There were no sweeter services than when these, who were living for the Lord and suffering, would think, “I too will carry His cross.” Jesus said everyone of us must do that: “Deny yourself, take up the cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).
This Walk with God will be persecuted. We are going to carry His cross. We are going to be faithful and true because He is going to work it in us. I pray that we will not turn aside from one word or one prophecy that He has crowned us with. Not one thing that He gives us to walk in will we ever draw back from. And if we do, I pray God will give us an occasion to repent. There is nothing more grievous than our being unfaithful to Him who is faithful and true. But let us look to Him and He will help us.
We would pray: “Lord, deal with my heart about the words that You have spoken to me. Let me call them to mind. Let me bind them upon my forehead and upon my wrists. Let them be written upon the fleshly tablets of my heart. Let me walk, Lord, in the word that You have given me. And let me be forgiven for the times, when under pressure, I have lightly cast them aside.”
Do you really regret these periods in which you have wavered or drawn back? Does everyone have them? Can we get over that and be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, inasmuch as we know our labor is not in vain? We can be that faithful.
We look to Thee, O Master. We see what You are to be to us—how You have loved us and spoken to us. We are so aware of what a contrast we are, but we are believing for those gifts of the Spirit to be in us. Work in us that faithfulness, that gentleness, that discipline. Meet our hearts. Forgive us where we have failed. Prepare our hearts for Your coming; in Thy name we ask, Lord. Amen.