[0:00] Now perhaps if you could open your Bibles again at the passage which you read, that's from the letter of Jude. Tonight I want us to look particularly at the end of this particular letter.
[0:16] I don't know what was in your minds as we read through this chapter of God's Word together. It is a letter which in itself, in the largest part of it, is rather disturbing to read.
[0:30] At least I find that myself. It's a letter that speaks of some things that are not particularly nice to hear. It's a letter that speaks very frankly indeed about the fate of those who depart from the living God.
[0:49] It deals in the main with the subject of apostasy. That is those who go away from God.
[1:02] And who go away from God in such a way as to never ever return again. Now that subject, the subject of apostasy is one that may trouble us.
[1:14] And we may also say, so it should. We may even wonder, we can ask, why is the subject of apostasy ever recorded in Scripture?
[1:25] Why is it there at all? What is the point of it? If these people are going away from God anyway, well they're going to go and nothing is going to bring them back. I think it is there mainly as a warning for those who do profess to belong to God.
[1:40] So that they themselves will sit up. That they'll be on the alert. And that they may examine themselves. To see if they are in the faith.
[1:52] So that they will not go away from God. So that they will never find themselves in this desperately unhappy and totally hopeless situation. But it's there to keep us on the alert.
[2:09] But I don't think the doctrine of apostasy, we can call it that, is there to create within us any unnecessary doubts or fears in our own hearts.
[2:19] For we don't have to fear if we have come to put our trust in the living God. Now what I have to say tonight, I will say at the outset is largely, it is mainly, it is primarily for those who have come to trust in Jesus Christ as their Saviour.
[2:38] And whatever else one may hear, perhaps from this pulpit, whether it's to our liking or otherwise, something that we always will want to make clear is that there is a difference.
[2:49] There is a difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. There is a difference between the person who has come to trust in Christ and the person who hasn't. There may not be a very visible difference right here and now.
[3:01] Sometimes it's like the sheep and the goats that you can find at times mixing together in the same grazing patch. Particularly those in the variety you find in the Middle East. They look, at least from the distance, very much alike.
[3:14] But there is a difference. And that's how Christ explained it. There is a difference between the sheep and the goats. And one day it will be seen very, very clearly. Because there will be a separation.
[3:25] An eternal, absolute separation between them. Now I'm just expressing what is always, in a sense, at the basis, at the bottom of our faith, that there is a difference between the Christian and the non-Christian.
[3:40] And if we are addressing Christians, it may be that those who as yet do not know the Lord may find this a bit difficult to follow or a bit less interesting.
[3:51] I hope not. For what we have to look at tonight is that those who are Christians, that is, those who have come to trust in the Lord, need not fear that they will ever apostatize.
[4:04] That big word, which means to go back, to go away from God. Those who have trusted in the Lord need not fear. Because we have, in this very same chapter, not only the teaching on apostasy, what it is like, but we have the answer to apostasy.
[4:22] We have the best answer that can be given. Now we call this, the perseverance of the saints. And simply that means, once saved, always saved.
[4:36] Once a person has come to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, if they have truly given their life to Christ, if Christ has saved that person, if he has got them in his hand, he is not ever going to let them go.
[4:48] Now that is a very wonderful, a very powerful, a very precious truth for us to have. If Jesus has us in his hand, no matter what, he can never let us go.
[4:59] Nobody can pluck us out of his hand. It is very reassuring. And it is because of that, that we can talk of the perseverance of the saints.
[5:11] Jesus himself says it is those who persevere, who, if you like, struggle on. Those who endure to the end, they shall be saved.
[5:23] Now that is what the gospel says to us repeatedly. It is not a question, well, I used to believe in Jesus about ten years ago. Or it is not, well, I went to Sunday school when I was young for the first twelve or fifteen years of my life.
[5:36] Therefore, will I get into heaven at the end of the day? It is not that. It is putting our trust in Jesus Christ, to know him in a living, personal way, and to go on walking with Christ, knowing Christ, day by day, persevering in our relationship with Christ, so that at the end we are still there.
[5:57] Those who persevere to the end, they shall be saved. Now that is what the gospel says. But then we ask the question, well, how do I know?
[6:10] How am I so sure that I will not apostatize, that I will not fall away, that I will not change my mind and give it all up, and go back on my Christian profession?
[6:20] Well, I think the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints means two things at the same time, or it takes together two truths, which we have to hold together, and we have to hold together equally tightly.
[6:38] The two truths are these, that I am saved as I persevere in the Christian life, as I go on walking with my Lord, I am saved. But also this, I am saved because I am preserved by Jesus Christ.
[6:56] Not only I am going along with him, but perhaps in a sense, even more importantly, he is keeping me. But these two things have to be borne in mind and held together.
[7:10] Take both these truths. If my salvation depended on myself, my getting to heaven, as it were, at the end of the day, my ultimate eternal life, depended solely on me, and on what I was able to do, while I would fail, and I would fall, and I would never get there at all.
[7:28] But it is because my salvation is of the Lord. It is because I put my trust in God to bring me through. And because God is greater, and he is bigger, and he is more powerful than I am.
[7:39] Because he is the saving God. Then I will come through. On the other hand, if we only stress, well, the Lord will keep me, no matter what.
[7:52] What happens? If that's our main emphasis in our lives, I know what happens. We become careless. We say, oh well, God's going to see me through anyway, and I'll just go off and have a good old time, and I'll enjoy myself, and I'll not bother from my Bible for a few weeks, and I'll not bother praying, and, oh well, Christian fellowship, they're a funny bunch.
[8:10] You can take them or leave them as you like. And so on it goes. Well, it doesn't work like that. Christian perseverance depends on these two things. My persevering, and the Lord keeping me as well.
[8:24] The two truths ought to be kept together. Well, perhaps we can take them in this order. Two things I want us to look at, particularly tonight, to think about.
[8:35] These two headings. The activity of our salvation. That is what we are going to do in terms of our own salvation. Our activity in our salvation.
[8:48] That is to persevere in our Christian lives. And the assurance of our salvation. That is that we are preserved, we are kept by God.
[8:59] Now these two. And perhaps we think first, most of the activity of our salvation. What is it? When you look here at the end of the Jude's letter, particularly, perhaps if we can go back to verse 20.
[9:14] Take it from there. But you, dear friends, and this is Jude instructing them what their activity is going to be. You, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith.
[9:26] Now that's the first thing. That's the first activity that we have to comply with in our Christian lives. Now what is Jude talking about?
[9:38] Building yourselves up in your most holy faith. He doesn't mean, well, somehow I'll have to find more faith. Somehow I'll have to believe better. Somehow I'll have to have a greater amount of this thing called faith.
[9:50] I don't know quite how to grasp it or describe it. Is that what we're saying? No, faith, the word that Jude uses here is the same really as he's talking about when he goes back.
[10:01] If we can go back as far as verse 3. Dear friends, lo, I was eager to write to you about the salvation you shared. I felt I had to write to you to urge you to contend for the faith, the faith that was once entrusted to the saints.
[10:15] Now what Jude means by the faith is not a belief as such, the act of faith itself. He is thinking more of the object of faith.
[10:26] He is thinking of the truths that we believe, of the actual teaching, the doctrine of the Christian gospel. And when he says that we must grow up in our holy faith, he is saying there that we must pay more attention to Christian truth.
[10:46] We must, as Christians, if we're going to persevere and go on in the Christian life, we must understand better the things that we believe. Now we were talking this morning about the man who was blind, but then he was given, by Christ, he was given some sight.
[11:01] He saw just dimly, poorly, he had half vision. And many Christians seem to stop at that stage. They stop and they never make any further progress. But Jude is saying here, if we are going to go on in the Christian life, we must progress, and particularly in this area, of understanding what we ourselves believe.
[11:22] Now, we have people coming around our doors who are not Christians. They may somehow or other want to call themselves Christians of a sort, maybe, or they would call themselves certainly God's churches, or whatever.
[11:37] I'm thinking of some of the major sects. Now whatever else may be said against them, we can say this for them. And very often, even though they are very far off the beam, they know what they believe, and they believe what they know.
[11:50] And I wonder if as Christians, we really have as much investment in what we really believe. Do we understand the Christian faith for ourselves? Even, I don't mean necessarily deep, deep, but I mean do we understand it at all?
[12:04] Can we sort it out? Can we explain it to others? The basics of what we really believe. If somebody came and asked us, could we give a reason for the hope that is in us? That we must grow in our understanding of scripture.
[12:17] We must give more attention to Christian truth, to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And that's not simply sitting down and studying the Bible.
[12:29] It is partly that. But it's never that as it were as an end in itself. We can go to Bible school or to theological college, but we may not get an inch forward in growth in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
[12:43] We may be able to answer all the questions. We may be able to get good marks in our exams. But are we really growing as Christians? It is only when our knowledge is applied in a practical way in our relationship with Jesus Christ, growing in that sense, developing as Christians, putting what we know into practice.
[13:05] Think for example for a minute of who these apostates were that we read of here. What was one of their main characteristics? They were those who abandoned the faith. Those who denied God, who denied the basic principles of faith.
[13:19] Now you say to me that Jude must have been talking about some strange, weird breed of men. Well he was. But the trouble was that they weren't just in Jude's day, they are here today. They are part of what the Christian church in its broadest label is.
[13:33] They are infiltrated within the church even as they were in Jude's day. People are there who are denying the very basics and fundamentals of the Christian faith. People who will call themselves Christians but doubt whether Christ ever rose physically from the grave at all.
[13:48] How is it possible? They are denying what is absolute, absolutely sensual to Christian faith. It happens, not then, but now. Who are these apostates?
[13:59] They are people who disobey the truth. It is their relationship to the truth that is wrong. And Jude is saying here if we are going to persevere, we have to apply attention to the things that we believe, to scripture truths.
[14:17] We have to know them for ourselves, we have to put them into practice. The second activity that Jude speaks of is praying in the Holy Spirit or in the Holy Ghost.
[14:31] Verse 20, the second half, and pray in the Holy Spirit. Now how do you know if someone is a Christian? I mean a true spiritual born again person.
[14:42] How do you know? What is one of the evidences of a Christian like that? I'll tell you. A Christian is a person who prays. Remember the time when Saul was converted on the Damascus Road.
[14:56] We very briefly mentioned that sort of experience this morning. Saul was converted very suddenly, very dramatically, very wonderfully. He was taken into Damascus. There he was sitting blind, literally blind, because of the bright light that he had seen.
[15:11] And he had been such a persecutor of the Christians that when the Lord said to Ananias, one of the Christians in Damascus, to go and to contact Saul, as he was still known, Ananias was afraid to go.
[15:25] What evidence has he that this man is really turned round? He'll get me if I go there. The Lord said to Ananias, behold, he prays.
[15:37] It was the one evidence that the Lord presented to Ananias that he was a man who was genuinely converted. He is a praying person. And that is the evidence of a Christian, the basic evidence.
[15:50] He may not know all the theology, but he's in touch with God. Genuinely so. Now it's not just that we say prayers. Many, many persons professing Christians, otherwise we can say prayers, we can recite them.
[16:05] Without knowing anything of the Spirit's presence, of the Spirit's help, we can go through the motions. Even as grown, mature Christians, we can go through the motions. But praying in the Spirit is another thing.
[16:19] That is when we realise, when we are consciously aware that we ourselves are in touch and in communion with God. That is praying in the Spirit. Spirit. Remember the scene that is described from Acts chapter 4.
[16:35] Remember after Peter and John were released from the Sanhedrin's grip and from their interrogation and they went back to fellowship with the disciples and they met together, they had a prayer meeting and the whole place shook where they were praying and they were all, each of them, filled with the Holy Spirit.
[16:53] Now that is the sort of prayer meetings that we need to see in our churches. That is the sort of prayer meeting I would want to see in this congregation. Not just the visible shaking of the building, I may be afraid of that, but far more this, the knowledge that God is really among us and that we're not just going through the motions.
[17:12] What do we need when we get down in our prayers? Oh well, I've got five minutes, so I'll go through my usual bits and pieces. I've got a shopping list of petitions here to present before God before I rush out from my work or something.
[17:23] It's not that. Praying in the Spirit is knowing that God is there. It is communing with God. Now if we're going to grow as Christians, it is growing in towards God, into a knowledge of, into an experience of God.
[17:37] And we cannot do that in Rome. We need the Holy Spirit. Paul told us that, didn't he? He said that often when we're really trying to pray our best, we know we're not praying at all, we cannot find the words, but it is the Spirit within us who is praying, interceding with groanings that cannot be uttered at all.
[17:57] That is prayer. When we're stuck for words and when the Holy Spirit takes over, that's prayer. To pray only mechanically is no proof of our spirituality at all.
[18:12] And yet to stop praying, to stop praying, that is the first step to backsliding. It's the first possibility of apostasy.
[18:26] When we lose touch with God, then we are in dangerous ground indeed. But to pray, to pray regularly in the Holy Spirit is to pray as we should and as we must.
[18:39] And it is that activity that keeps us persevering in the Christian life. Remember somebody saying to me once, not long after I was converted, the more you pray, the more you want to.
[18:52] It's true of many things in life, but it's certainly true of prayer. It's also true the other way around. The less we pray, the less we want to. I wonder which way are we going. The activity of praying in the Holy Spirit.
[19:05] then there is this activity also of keeping ourselves in God's love. We read it there. No, it is not what we may describe as our love for God.
[19:19] We've got to keep this heart warm. We've got to feel an affection coming from us towards God. It is not that. That ought to be part of it and will be part of it. But keeping ourselves in the love of God, by that good means reminding ourselves of God's love for us.
[19:35] It is of God's attention towards us, of his interest in us. What Jude is asking us to do is to stop, to think, to meditate on the Saviour's love for us.
[19:53] You know, if the subject of apostasy makes us feel unhappy, we find this a rather bleak and dreary subject, surely here is something that should make us happy, something that should thrill us.
[20:03] the reality of the love of Christ for sinners. Now how deeply do we experience and do we appreciate Christ's love for ourselves?
[20:17] How much of that is a reality in our Christian experience? Oh, I know we can talk about it, we can quote all the verses, but how much right now for the Christians here is that a living reality, knowing, thinking of Christ's wonderful love for them?
[20:31] You know how Paul said, I don't know how he was feeling when he said it, when he penned his letter to the Galatians and he had some hard things there to say to the Galatian Christians, but he reminded them, as he reminded himself, the Son of God loved me and he gave himself for me.
[20:52] Now that was a wonderful truth. Perhaps Paul was feeling down, maybe I'm conjecturing, but it could have been that situation. And there he stopped and he thought, well what is all this Christian life about? Look at all the dreary tasks I've got to do as an apostle.
[21:07] How burdensome a task it has become. But he stops and he thinks, ah, but the Son of God loved me and he gave himself for me. And that alone was enough to keep him going, plodding on in the Christian life and work.
[21:23] Our activity is to keep ourselves in the love of God. To think of the Saviour's love. To think, once I was lost, but now I am found.
[21:36] To think of what we were thinking of this morning with a blind man. Once I was blind, but now I see. Once I was away from God, but God brought me in despite myself. He brought me in.
[21:48] The Saviour loved me. He died for me. He rose again for me. He's ascended in the right hand of God for me. Now that is something to thrill us.
[21:59] To make us wonder. Keep yourself in the love of God. Jesus also said this, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
[22:12] He said this, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Now what he is meaning there was this. That we will have a greater appreciation of Christ's love for us.
[22:23] If we are attached to Christ, not in a sentimental sort of way, but in a way of practical obedience, we will think more of Christ. We will evaluate him much more highly if we give ourselves over as slaves of Jesus Christ in what he himself calls followers.
[22:42] Those who are totally committed. Those who are true disciples. You see, the Christian life is not just a question of our feelings and of our emotions.
[22:53] Well, I feel like I am a Christian today. Or I feel I love Jesus today. And I've got this warm sort of glow in my tummy or something. The Christian life is a matter of our own obedience to Jesus Christ.
[23:08] And in a sense, Jesus makes love equivalent with obedience. Or obedience equivalent with love. How do we know that we love God? How do we know and appreciate God's love for us?
[23:21] It is because we give ourselves to him willingly in service. Now we are to think. Think much of what Christ has done for us.
[23:33] And obey him. By doing so, it is by this walk of obedience that we will be saved. And we will be kept. Kept from apostasy. And from disaster.
[23:44] Then there is one other activity. We are to be waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
[23:54] Look at verse 21 there. Waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here, George is, if you like, going on to yet another new theme.
[24:05] He is talking here about looking forward to the coming again of Christ in glory. Now I think if there is anything that is calculated to stimulate the Christian heart, it is this.
[24:18] It is the looking for the appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. If there is something that is going to keep us from sin, if there is something that is going to make us aware of who we are, it is to remember that we believe, that we hope, that one day we will stand with Christ in glory perfected.
[24:36] Jude is saying remember that. Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is encouraging our Christian lives in terms of Christ coming again.
[24:51] Look back to this same earlier part of the passage. In verse 14, talking about Enoch, remember the man who walked with God. Enoch from the book of Genesis, the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied about these men.
[25:05] and he said, see the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones. Way back at the very beginning, not long after the disaster of sin coming into the world had happened, even there there was this great obvious picture revealed to Enoch of what was going to be the end result of all the disaster of human history.
[25:25] Christ was going to come, yes, in all his power and all his glory, revealed with thousands of his holy ones, of his angels. same thing Christ intimated himself.
[25:39] Now Enoch prophesied this because he looked for the coming of the Lord, as we have it there in verse 14. This surely is an incentive.
[25:53] It's an inspiration to holy living. Remember when John wrote his letter, the third chapter of his first letter, we have just before Judea in their Bibles. When John wrote that, he said, behold the manner of love, the kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the sons of God.
[26:12] And so we are. And he went on to say that one day we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.
[26:26] Now that to me is a greatest incentive, what we have, for becoming more like Christ even now, not just then, but now. In fact, John puts it this way, that everyone who has this hope, the hope of not only seeing Christ but being like him, everyone who has this hope is a person who is going to purify himself.
[26:46] He is going to make himself clean. He is going to live a holy life here and now. It's an utter contradiction for us as Christians to be unholy. We are. We don't pretend that we are without sin, but it's still a contradiction.
[27:01] The Lord has every right to say, be ye holy even as I am holy. That is the standard he sets for us. That is what he expects of us. Because that is what one day he will make us to be.
[27:14] And if we really believe that, we will start being holy here and now. You think, think of the coming of Christ.
[27:25] Christ. What does it mean for you? I know what it means for these other men that Jude speaks of. He tells himself how desperate, how dreadful it's going to be for these men, having turned their back on God, having turned their back on faith, they waken up one day to find if it's all true.
[27:42] The things that he wanted to trample under feet and throw out the window, it's all real. It's like those politicians who pretend that a nuclear disaster may never happen, to wake it up some morning to find it happened right in their own backyard if they ever waken up to see it.
[27:57] That is a problem. Except, there is this difference, that the coming again of Christ is more definite than any nuclear bomb going off. Think of these things.
[28:12] How will we be? Will we be among those who are still going away from God, when God himself appears in the person of Jesus Christ? Or will we be those who are sitting, waiting, who are eager to see the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed to us in that day?
[28:34] That is one thing. The activity of the believer that will make us persevere. There is one last one. And that is our activity in saving others.
[28:44] Just very briefly here, we see those who are still outside of the kingdom. It says in verse 22, be merciful to those who doubt. Now let us remember that as Christians we have a responsibility not just to our own souls.
[28:58] That may be our first responsibility, without being selfish. But we have a responsibility to others who live around us, no matter who they are, no matter what category they're in. And there are three categories here.
[29:10] That as Christians we ought to be merciful to those who doubt, those who question the Christian faith that we believe, that we imagine we believe so firmly and so well. Be merciful to those who doubt.
[29:21] Try and help them. Persuade them. Teach them. Convince them that these things are real, that they are true, that they are worth believing, that Christ is worth trusting. But don't despise them simply because they don't believe what you believe.
[29:34] If you have honest doubts, answer them. Win them for Christ. He says for those immersed in sin, snatch them from the fire. There are those who perhaps have no worries about religion at all.
[29:47] They're living a very ordinary life. It may be humdrum, it may be exciting. We don't know, but we know this. It's a life away from God and it's a life immersed in sin. It's a life that is up to the eyeballs in selfishness and in greed and in all different forms of ungodliness.
[30:05] What are we going to do with such people? We're going to write them off and say, God condemn you. No, we're not. We're going to take these people and we're going to grab them by the collar and snatch them from the fire because that's where they're going.
[30:16] That is their lot. They're creating their own hell around them even as they live away from God. And what are we going to do to lead them to that hell? No, it's not. Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world.
[30:29] Why? Because it was condemned already. He came to save it. And it's the job of the Christian to go on doing that very thing. Snatch from the fire those who are immersed in their own sin.
[30:40] There is one last category here we think. Those who are in dangerous error. It's not spelled out clearly.
[30:51] Some commentators believe there's not a third group here at all. I think they're here. Right through this book, this letter, Jude has been talking about people particularly. They're not ungodly people.
[31:02] They're not people without a Christian label. They are people who are in the church but simply don't believe it anymore. And who have never apostatized even though they still carry a Christian label. Now he says for such people, he says we have a responsibility to them, those who are in error, those who are wrong in their belief.
[31:20] A responsibility is there, is to have mercy on them. But to beware of the contamination. You may wonder, what is the hardest person for a Christian to preach to?
[31:33] The hardest person for a Christian to evangelize. Christ. He's not a person who's never heard about Christ. He's not a person who's never thought very much about God. He's a person who has another faith.
[31:47] And because they believe something, perhaps very sincerely, but they are in error. They are wrong. It is far harder to convince them. In fact, they have as much chance almost of pulling you their way as you have of pulling them your way.
[32:03] And that is why Jude says we have a responsibility to them. What are we going to do with people who are not professing Christians? Those who follow the sects. Those who follow weird creeds. What are we going to do to those who deny Jesus Christ?
[32:18] We are going to try and win them. As long as there's life, there's hope. But watch out. Beware of contamination. Make sure that they don't rub off their wrong ideas on you.
[32:33] Seek to save them. Now that, my Christian friend, is part of what we started talking about. It is a perseverance of the saints. How are we going to get to heaven? Well, we're going to sit back and we're going to have a nice time and we're going to look after number one and we're not going to bother too much with anybody else in this world because Christ has kept a little home for me in heaven.
[32:52] It's not true. We have a responsibility for those in the world around us. We have a responsibility to save them, to evangelize them. And we can use that word broadly and we can interpret it in all varied sort of degrees so that every Christian has a place to evangelize.
[33:10] We are never too old. We are never too unfit. We are never too unqualified. There's always somewhere for us to pass on what we believe to someone else somewhere. And we have a responsibility.
[33:21] You see, if we are not doing what we ought to be doing, if we have no concern for those who are lost around us, it comes back to this, are we really concerned about ourselves?
[33:35] Are we persevering in the Christian life when we're missing out part of what Christ asked us to do? The great commission that he left us with. Go and teach. Go and preach.
[33:47] Go and win. There is activity. of the Christian. There is one other thing, just very briefly. It is the other half of the activity of our salvation.
[33:58] There is the assurance. Not only are we to be involved in all these things, but we have to remember all the time that God is in this with us. That is what it's all about.
[34:10] This is something that is necessary, it is perhaps not easy, it is never easy, to persevere in the Christian life. But we do not persevere alone. It is not as a God, it is well, here is your list for today or for your life, let's get on with it.
[34:25] Go and get on with it. He is not a God who abandons us. He is a God with us. Emmanuel. And he preserves us. In all that we do, he is keeping us.
[34:40] So that we have this assurance that at the end of the day we will be saved. It is sort of the two truths together. As we persevere, he preserves or keeps. Now what simply does Jude tell us here?
[34:55] He is telling us this, that God is able to keep you from falling. Have we any worries? And somehow, we are going to slip out of the grasp of the hand of Christ. It can't happen.
[35:08] God is able to keep you from falling. He is not only able to keep. What we have here is a term, he is keeping. Really. It is a present continuous. Peter tells us, we are being kept by the power of God.
[35:23] It is something, the truth that the Christian can hold on to. God is able to keep us. Not only that, he will present you in the presence of his glory.
[35:35] It is not that he will keep us as it were till we die out of this world. But we can't make it across a big white Jordan. It is too big and it is too wide and it is too deep. It is not that. He is going to carry us across.
[35:46] He is going to keep you from falling in this world. He will present you in the presence of his glory. It is what we were saying this morning.
[35:57] That he who begun a good work in you is going to carry it on and perform it to the day of Jesus Christ. Non-stop. Not only will he present you in the presence of his glory, he will present you faultless.
[36:13] I am purposely taking these one at a time. He will present you without thought. Now stop and think about that. I don't know what you're like with your neighbours.
[36:25] I don't know what you're like with the people that live in your own house. I don't know what you're like with the people that you work with. What you see in them. But we know this and every person we know we can put a whole list of all the things that are wrong with them.
[36:36] Can't we? We can all do it. Whether we actually write them down or not, it's all in here in the head. I don't like the way so and so does such and such and so on. The list is very long in some cases.
[36:47] But we all have these faults. Whether we see them in ourselves or other people see them, it doesn't matter. Read this text again. He is going to present you without any fault in the presence of his glory.
[37:01] And that I believe is something almost beyond what we can comprehend at all. You know that's what glory is. It's all this world. Class. It's all this world that's where mind is.
[37:14] All that is wrong. Class all the perfection of glory that God can and will add to it. And you put that in your own life. All the faults taken out. All the glory added on.
[37:26] That's what heaven is. He will present you faultless. He will present you with exceeding joy.
[37:36] Do you know this is our Saviour's great aim. Do you know what the Christians call? The saints of the earth in whom is his delight.
[37:51] Christ loves the Christian even more than the Christian ever loves Christ. Christ. And he loves us. And he rejoices in us.
[38:02] But his joy is not yet complete. Until that day. When he shall stand and we shall stand with him. And seeing him. We shall be like him.
[38:13] For we shall see him as he is. And then Christ's joy will be exceeding great joy. And that is how he is going to present us. Have you ever had an experience.
[38:26] Of having someone. Perhaps say for example. We'll take the case of the young man. Who goes away from home. From his mum and dad. He's off to work for the first time.
[38:37] And he falls in love with this girl. We'll not say where or when he met her. It doesn't matter. But he brings her home. And it's when he presents her to mum and dad.
[38:48] He's so in love with her. And he's just bubbling over with joy. Because he's got the woman of his life within there. Now that is a very poor analogy.
[38:59] Of something like we have here. Christ who loves us. Will be bubbling over with joy. When he presents us. Without any fault at all. In the glorious presence.
[39:10] Of God our saviour. Now it is this. Not only that the saviour. Is able to do. But that he is doing.
[39:21] To him who is able to keep you. From falling. Now I said at the beginning. Some of us may be Christians. Some of us may be not. And there's a big difference between.
[39:33] But this. That Christ. Who is able to keep us. Is able to save. Everyone who puts their trust in him. And everyone who puts their trust in him.
[39:44] He will not only save them. Even when they trust him. Tonight. But he will keep them. To that time when he will make them. Change them. Even like himself.
[39:55] Perfect. May God bless. His word to us. And to him who is able to keep you from falling. To present you before his glorious presence.
[40:06] Without fault. And with great joy. To the only God our saviour. Be glory. Majesty. Power and authority. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[40:16] Before all ages. Now. And forevermore. Amen. Now shall we sing. Just a few verses.
[40:27] To our God's praise. From Psalm number 91. And we'll sing from verse 14. This is a psalm.
[40:40] These verses at least record the words. Of the Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking. Of the person who has put their trust in him. This is Jesus speaking. Because on me he set his love.
[40:53] I'll save and set him free. Because my great name he hath known. I will him set on high. And so on. These three stanzas. Psalm 91 verse 14.
[41:04] We'll stand to sing to God's praise. Because on me he set his love.
[41:15] I'll save and set him free. Because my great name he hath known.
[41:29] I will him set on high. I will him set on high.
[41:42] I will him set on high. He was my great name he hath known.
[41:57] I will him set on high. He'll call me.
[42:08] I'll answer him. I will be with him still. A child to deliver him.
[42:25] And honor him. And honor him I will. And honor him I will. And honor him I will.
[42:39] And honor him I will. In trouble to deliver him.
[42:54] And honor him I will. And honor him I will. Is the difference.
[43:10] You could explain. I have no idea.