Praise God. From whom all blessings flow. Looking in the book of Jude, I thought of this as we sang this song a moment ago. Verse four of number 266. It says, inform the listening world how Jesus, when he fell, the powers of darkness hurled down to the depths of hell. It says, inform the listening world.

Now some might take that to mean that the world is listening. That's not what the hymn writer's talking about. He's talking about the world, those men in the world that do listen, that have been given an ear to hear. And the listening world is those that desire to hear the word of God. And it is to them that the gospel comes. Gospel doesn't just come in a manner that it's just like cast, as the Lord said, don't cast pearls before swine. Now that doesn't mean that we're to go out here and try to castigate everybody as being swine, but the gospel is sent to sinners. It's sent to those that are here and those that are dying, those that need something. Those that look in themselves and find nothing whatsoever to rejoice in, but need something outside of themselves. That's who the listening world is.

And the Lord will always speak to those that are listening. He said to them, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. And he will. A man that's seeking the Lord and desiring to know the Lord, he'll find him. Seek ye the Lord while he may yet be found. He will be found. He will be found.

Some people say, well, the Lord was never lost. No, he wasn't, but he does. Let us find him. You remember when you played hide-and-seek with your children. And of course, when they were real little, they couldn't find you, you know. But you let them find you. And they said, oh, I found him. But they didn't find you at all. You showed them where you were. And that's the way the gospel is. The Lord shows us where he is. In such time as we couldn't find him, really in such times we weren't even looking for him, he came to us. That's the message that we preach. That's the message of the gospel. A sweet and glorious message. But it's only glorious to those that are listening

You know, somebody's listening, they want to hear. You know, when, I've probably said this before, but when I was a child and my mother called me, I could hear her every time she called me, but I wasn't listening. I didn't listen until she spoke my whole name, first, middle, and last, and then my ear, perked up because I knew that was the time that I needed to come. May the Lord give us such an ear as that.

Now we've been looking here in the book of Jude for some time, several weeks, and we've gotten down to the last couple of verses as far as what we've been able to look at and share. And of course he's speaking there. As to the church in general, as we recap what we looked at last week, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And if some have compassion, making a difference, others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Now speaking to the church and our responsibility to one another as brethren the Lord. We're to be looking for one another's benefit. And if we see a brother or sister that's doing something that won't result in their benefit, we need to Speak to them. And that's what he's saying here. We're contending for the faith. We're setting forth the word of God to God's people. And we know that everybody doesn't have the same understanding. Everybody doesn't have the same mindset. Everybody has the mind, the heart, the understanding, the wisdom or lack thereof that the Lord has given. And so we need to be mindful of that and ask the Lord for spiritual guidance. There's no one size fits all in our dealings with one another.

Now there is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There's no alteration there. But how we interact with one another with the word of God, there is a difference in how we see one another and how we would help one another. And we need to be mindful, ask the Lord for wisdom. Don't just go off thinking, well, everybody's got to see this just like I see it or whatever, but we need to seek the Lord that he might give us a tender heart.

You know, when the Lord came to his disciples, sometimes he rebuked them, but he always did so with a tender heart because he loved them. Remember what he said to Simon when he gave him one of the most harsh reminders of what he was. Yet he said it with mercy. In his heart, he said, Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not. Oh, what a glorious master he is. He demands much from us, but he does not demand more from us than he gives us. You know, that's a glorious thing.

And so we don't look at the demands of Christ as a legal thing like being under the law. But we look at his demands as those things that we desire to walk in. What does he expect of us? That's what we want to do. You know, I don't want to make him ashamed of me. I mean, that's what the grace works in the heart of a man. He desires to please the Lord. Now, he knows he doesn't. He knows how far from ever doing that that he is, but that's always within his mind and heart to do those things that are pleasing in his sight.

And so he says in verse 24, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Now unto him that's able to keep you from falling. Now, How could he be one that could keep us from falling if he was not the one that would get us in the first place? Now how foolish is it to have a message which is basically the thing that I grew up hearing was that the Lord can't do anything until you let him. But then once you let him, you can't get rid of him. I mean, that was kind of the way that it was, you know.

But the same Lord that's able to keep us from falling is the same one who seeks us out where we are. And he knows them that are his. And he calls them by name. and they can't perish. He calls his own sheep by name, that to him the porter openeth. He calls his own sheep by name. And not another shepherd they will not hear. Why is that? Because he will keep them from falling. See, he won't let them be destroyed, just like with Peter.

Now he had one disciple, that denied him, one disciple that betrayed him. He didn't pray for him. But there was another one, Simon Peter, he said, Peter, I've prayed for thee that thy faith fail not. Now what made the difference? The grace of God. And the same one that told Peter, Satan's desire to have you. Now how did Satan, how was Satan able to desire to have Peter? Same way that when he came before the Lord in Job's day. You see, Satan didn't instigate that. He didn't say, Lord, let me get it, old Job. The scripture says that the Lord said to Satan, hey, have you thought about old Job over here? Then Satan said, ah, says you just give it to me for a little while and I'll show you how faithful he was. Well, the Lord already knew Job, didn't he? He knew what Job was. He knew Job folded up like a $2 suitcase if left to himself. And he almost did. But something happened, and the Lord appeared to him in a whirlwind. And Job said, I heard of you, but now my eye seeth thee. and I abhor myself and I repent in dust and ashes because the Lord will keep us from falling.

See, he won't lose one of his sheep. He knows wherever one of them are. Now, you know, the Lord gave that parable or illustration of a shepherd that had Sheep, 99 of them were in the fold already. He had them. But he said one was lost out on the mountain. And he said the shepherd, he won't be satisfied with the 99. He's got to have 100. Because that's his sheep. And he's not gonna let his sheep perish. He's gonna do whatever he has to do to get that sheep. He will keep us from falling.

Now he'll keep us from falling once we're in the fold. He won't let us get out. Now we try, you know, sheep are more docile creatures, but when I was growing up, we had hogs. And a hog's one desire in life is to get out of whatever pen you put him in. And the Lord has equipped him with the ability to do that. He will go through something, he'll go under something or he'll go over it.

And I never believed, of course, in all my messing with hogs, I had never seen this till one time Curtis, I'm getting off the track here, but the thought came to my mind here about, Curtis got me to help him pin up some hogs that he had out in the field and we got them all in there finally, we thought. We had them in there, but this one old sow, one of her pigs was outside of this pen, and we were trying to get those hogs into a truck, and she decided she wasn't getting in the truck because she was gonna take care of her son, daughter, or whatever it was.

And that hog, there was a fence about that, or a board fence about that high. And this was a full-grown hog now. And she just reared back on her haunches, and she jumped over that fence. Now, I had never seen that before, and if you'd have told me that a hog could do that, I wouldn't have believed it, but she did that.

And that's the way God's people are. We would, if the Lord didn't keep us, we would jump out of the pen. Even though he has given us plenty of feed and water and everything that we need, but we're just like those hogs that would go under the fence, through the fence, or over the fence, except The mercy of God keeps us, keeps us from falling.

Now unto him that's able to keep you from falling. Now he's, you know, I've heard men use this, say, well, he's able to keep you from falling, but he might not. You know, cause it's, if you decide to get out, you might be able to get out. No. I remember one time back when we were kind of coming to some understanding of what the truth was and Curtis was wrestling with the idea of the effectual call of God, of the irresistible grace, as some people call it. And he said, well, he says, you know, you can bring a cow up to the gate But you can't make him go through it. And later on, he came to understand that the Lord can make a cow go through the gate. And when it gets him in the gate, the cow can't get out. Because the Lord is not just able to keep us from falling. He's willing to keep us from falling. And that's a glorious thing. He has whatever we need. And so he's able to keep us from falling and he will. That means he will keep us from falling. And to present us faultless before the presence of his glory. With exceeding joy.

Now there's joy, the scripture says, in heaven over one sinner that repented. There's joy among the people of God. as we rejoice in the salvation which the Lord gives us. That's exceeding joy.

But I'll tell you where the exceeding joy here that's spoken of, the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, is the scripture says, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, suffering for our sake. The Lord rejoices in his people. He rejoices as a strong man to run a race. He rejoiced when he came into the world. Though he was a man of sorrows, he was a man of joy because the joy that was in his mind and heart for the redemption of his people exceeded the sorrow that he had to bear for us. And he joyfully endured the cross. He didn't go there unwillingly.

I know some people present when the Lord prayed, Father, take this cut from me, they say, well, you know, the Lord, he got to thinking about how terrible this was gonna be, and he was asking the Lord to, you know, not let him go through with this if he didn't have to. That's not what the Lord was praying. He was praying about becoming sin for his people, knowing that the one thing that he desired was to please his father. But the one thing that he was called upon to do to please his father was to become displeasing to his father.

Now you think about, you think about the saying, being between a rock and a hard place. I mean, how could a man, a man can't even comprehend that. You know, his desire was to please his father, In fact, he said that's the reason he came when, as Brother Al pointed out there a moment ago, when the Lord came in to Pilate. And Pilate said, are you a king? And he said, thou sayest that I'm a king. He wasn't denying that he was a king. But he said, this is the reason that I came into the world. to do my father's will. See, that's why he came. And he came joyfully. He was glad to do his father's will. And so when he prayed, he was in agony. That's why he sweat great drops of blood. See, it wasn't that he was dreading what was about to happen. It was that he was being torn apart. over our sin, which he gladly bore as he came to do his father's will. And he said, Father, not my will, but thine be done. Oh, what a glorious Savior. And he will present us faultless before the presence of his glory.

Now, some people, again, have the idea, well, we're going to have to pay for our the things we've done. You know, we know that the Lord's paid for our sin and everything, and we're gonna go to heaven, but we're gonna come, you know, we're gonna go before the great judgment throne, and we're gonna be sad, and you know, our life's gonna play out like a movie up here on the screen, and you know, all the things we've done are gonna be shown. How foolish. Christ has taken away our sin as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers it no more. Now if the God who made heaven and earth and all things therein can't remember our sin, where is it? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justified. Yeah, it's Christ that died.

See, one glorious thing, dear brethren, present you faultless. Are you faultless? No. He didn't say you're faultless. He said he was gonna present you faultless. That's how you're going to appear. You know, you look in the mirror I look in the mirror and I see an old man and I wonder where in the world did he come from, you know? But it's as if, see, if I was faultless, I'd have no blemishes, and that's how God sees us. Because he sees us in Christ, which is where he put us. That's where we've been since from before the foundation of the world. We were chosen. We're in Christ.

Oh, what a glorious thing. Think of His mercy and kindness to us because we know we're not faultless. I mean, when we read this and it says He's going to present us faultless, we wonder, well, how can that possibly be? But it is true. because of the joy that was set before Him. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever. Boy, that's a mouthful there. To the only wise God. The only God. The only wise, and He's wise, our Savior. He's our Savior. The only wise God.

See, there's a lot of people in the world that claim to worship God. Their idea of God, I mean, man makes God in his own image. There's very few people that don't have some concept of God. Most people think of him as somebody with a long beard, you know, sitting up on some big majestic throne, and that's how they picture God. But he's, He's our God. Now, we don't possess Him, but yet He says He's given us the privilege to call Him Father. Everybody can't call Him Father, because He's not their father. The Pharisees couldn't. The Lord said, you're of your father, the devil. But you see, by His grace, according to His mercy, He's made us His children, the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.

You know, that's why the Lord saved His people, for His glory. Now, we're great beneficiaries, but let's don't ever forget that the Lord does all things for his glory. Now some people might get upset about that, but I rejoice in it, because I want him to have all the glory. He's worthy of the glory. See, a man who loves the glory of God desires for him to be glorified. He's not seeking any glory for himself, but he wants him to have it all. And that's exactly what is going to happen. That's what he says here. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.

What else is it? He has it all. It belongs to him. He made it out of nothing. It's his world. He can do with it what he wants to. But you know the glorious thing is that he had been mindful of sinful creatures. You know, if you made something, and we've all done this, anybody that's ever built anything's been this, sometimes you build something and something doesn't turn out like you want it to and you just tear it all apart and start again. And that's really, I mean, that's how we would think of it. I mean, that's really, if you look at men and what we are by nature, God should have just gotten rid of us. But because it's all according to his purpose, his glory, he would manifest himself as the redeemer of sinners. And we've been made the recipients of that which he's done to his glory.

and may he have dominion and praise forever. That's our hope and our desire that his name be lifted up, magnified. The Lord Jesus said, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all unto me. And he will.