Our text is from Psalm 110. When GOD speaks, He says, 'This is My will for you!' He also bends our wills to His, and that's the part that proud Man resents bitterly. 'I am the captain of my own ship! I am the master of my own fate! I will have nobody tell me what I'm going to do with my life! Not even GOD!' That is proud Man; and that's what he says.
But when GOD puts His hand on you, you can't get away. So he says, 'I am an apostle of YESHUA',
and the wonderful thing is, he gloried in it! He revelled in it! He boasted in it! 'I magnify my office so that I can provoke to jealousy my countrymen and save some of them that way.' This is Saul, an apostle of YESHUA Ha'Mashiach by the will of GOD. To whom is he writing? He's writing to the saints which are in Ephesus and faithful in Messiah YESHUA. Saints, first of all, are not dead people. In the Catholic church, you can't be a saint until after you're dead. Well the Bible says you're a saint right now. The moment you have put your trust in GOD, you are one of His 'sanctified ones'. The word 'saint' comes from the word 'sanctify', which in turn comes from the root meaning 'to separate'. You are a 'separate' one. GOD has separated you out from the herd to make you His!
Psalm 4; we see there David speaks like this; Psalm 4, verses 2 and 3: 'How long, oh you sons of men, will you turn My glory to shame? How long will you love worthlessness and seek falsehood? Selah. But know that the LORD has set apart for Himself, him who is godly; the LORD will hear when I call to Him.'
That is the one who is the saint; the one who loves Him; the one who desires to live for Him. Again in Psalm 16, this is the voice of the Messiah because it's a Messianic Psalm; verses 2 and 3: 'O my soul you have said to the LORD, 'You are my LORD, my goodness is nothing apart from You.' And to the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.'
They're not dead, are they? GOD regards His saints as the excellent ones! YESHUA looks on you as a member of His excellent ones, and all his delight is in you! Another Psalm says, 'The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delighteth in his way.'
The LORD takes delight in His people! How heartwarming that is! He says, 'You are GOD's precious jewels,' to the saints who are in Ephesus, and then he says, '...and faithful in Messiah, YESHUA.'
The distinguishing characteristic of a saint is that he is true to GOD; he or she is true to GOD.
Abraham, Moses; remember what GOD says about Abraham? We go back to Genesis, Chapter 18, verse 19; and then also in Chapter 26 of Genesis, and verse 5. Genesis, Chapter 18, verse 19; GOD says there: 'For I have known him'
[Abraham]'in order that he may command his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the LORD to do righteousness and justice; that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.'
Here is Abraham teaching his children and his household after him that they keep the way of the LORD to do righteousness and justice. And again in Chapter 26 and verse 5, GOD promises to bless Isaac because 'Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.'
That's faithfulness.
Later on we come to Moses in the Book of Numbers, and we find that his own brother and sister are speaking against him and feel that he is really taking too much on himself: 'Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?'
The LORD stood up for Moses, and He rebuked them and He says in Numbers 12, verse 6: 'Hear now My Word, if there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision, and I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant, Moses. He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly and not in dark sayings; and he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, Moses?'
GOD says about His servant Moses, 'He is faithful in all My house.'
Now you and I are the children of Abraham by faith, and one way in which we can show it is not only by our faith, but also by our faithfulness. Let's not mix the two terms. 'Faith' and 'faithfulness' are separate terms, and we must make sure we don't jumble them, as some translators do. Faith of Abraham leads to faithfulness towards the GOD of Jacob.
