3 But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.
The certainty of our ultimate salvation is grounded in God’s faithfulness. The Lord is faithful to all His promises that He has made. The Lord cannot lie (Numbers 23:19). Neither will He alter nor fail to perform that which is gone out of His mouth.
Men may be faithless and turn out to be untrue, but not God. Though many (who are church members) may abandon their sacred and solemn vows and show no fidelity to the cause of Christ, God will never desert His great purpose on which He has set His heart and pledged His Word.
Our lives may be stained with our failings, but God shall be true to us in purifying and preserving us for Himself. As 2 Timothy 2:13 declares, “If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” God will not abandon us nor the work He has begun in us.
1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” Our God is so faithful that He will never allow us to be assaulted at a level which is beyond our ability to handle. We just need to be trusting and have nothing to fear. Our God is absolutely and always faithful; we must hold on to the great truth of His faithfulness. Even if we doubt, He remains faithful. So, let us pray that our hearts will learn to trust in His goodness and faithfulness.
The Lord who is faithful “shall stablish you, and keep you from evil.” The Greek word for “stablish”, sterizo, is the word from which we get the English word “steroids”; it indicates that the LORD will make us strong and firm in His establishing of us. The Lord will build us up on the inside, and protect us from the evil one and all his evil attempts from the outside. He will strengthen us and shield us from all the destructive wiles of the devil.
God’s perfect faithfulness grants perfect assurance of our salvation. His faithfulness is the foundation and guarantee of our eternal security. Because God will not fail to keep His promise to “stablish” and “keep” us, we can most assuredly say, like Paul in 2 Timothy 4:18, “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”