FAITHFUL AND TRUE

Transcript

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Everyone This is Pastor Dean Thompson with a word of hope Faithful and true Behold a white horse the one sitting on it is called faithful and true Revelation chapter nineteen verse eleven After the wedding announcement heaven opens and John sees the returning Christ. The image is majestic, a white horse, eyes like a flame of fire, many crowns, a robe dipped in blood, but of all the titles given to this rider, the first one John records is the one most worth pausing on. The one sitting on it is called faithful and true. Before he is called the Word of God, before any name of power, he is named faithful and true. Think about what it means that this is now the conqueror, this is how the conquering Christ is introduced. In a world drowning in broken promises and convenient lies, the one who comes to set things right is above all faithful. He keeps his word. And true, he is utter utterly reliable, with no gap between what he says and what he is. The deepest quality of the rider and the white horse is not raw might, but trustworthiness. The most powerful king in the universe is also the most dependable. This matters enormously for faith, because faith is finally a question about the trustworthiness of its object. We can muster all the willpower in the world to believe. But if the one we believe in is unreliable, our faith is misplaced and doomed. Christian faith rests easy precisely because its object is named faithful and true. We are not asked to trust a fickle deity who might change his mind, but one whose very name is faithfulness. Our believing is only as good as the one believed in, and he is good all the way down. Notice that his robe is dipped in blood, where the battle is even described. Many readers assume this is the blood of his enemies, but the timing suggests otherwise. The robe is already blood stained as he writes out, it is the blood of his own sacrifice. The conquering king comes wearing the marks of it of the cross. Still bearing the evidence that he first gave himself for it. Even in triumph, he is the lamb who was slain. His victory and his sacrifice are not two different things. And his name, John says, is the word of God. The one who comes to make all things right is the same one who was in the beginning with God, through whom all things were made. The story does not end with the arrival of a stranger, but with the return of the one who has been at the heart of everything from the start. The faithful and true rider is the eternal word coming back to finish what he begun. There is great steadiness to be drawn from this title. In seasons when everything else feels unfaithful and false, when promises are broken, when truth seems negotiable, when the people and institutions we trusted let us down. In all of it, there is one who remains faithful and true. He has never broken a promise, he has never told a lie. He is exactly who he says he is, and he will do exactly what he has said. So anchor your faith today, not in your own ability to believe, but in the one who is named faithful and true. When everything around you proves unreliable, he does not. When you cannot trust your circumstances, your strength, or even your own resolve, you can trust him. The rider on the white horse keeps his word. Stake your life on the one whose name is faithfulness itself. O Lord Jesus, faithful and true. When everything around us proves unreliable, you do not. We anchor our faith not in our own believing, but in your trustworthiness. You keep your word and we trust you. Please help us to trust you to the very end. To hold on to faith to the very end. Amen. God bless you, brothers and sisters.