All right, Jude 24. Bringing this book to its conclusion,
short little book that I believe has communicated one of the most
important lessons that believers today can learn, and that is
contending for the faith. Which involves, and it's not
an easy thing, it's not an easy task, because we have so much
against us. You know, the Bible says we're
in a warfare, and that warfare is with Satan, who is the great
deceiver. You know, when you think of Satan,
for example, think of two things. First of all, Satan is the great
deceiver, okay? His ways, his methods are deception. And he loves to counterfeit Christianity. He loves to counterfeit the gospel. And so we have to be skillful
in the word of righteousness so that we can understand. You
know, I was writing some things this past week about how Satan's
ways of deceiving people today. And I've got a list of about
five major things there, and I don't have them all written
down here today, but just like, for example, one of Satan's biggest
deceptions is majority opinion. And that's why Christ, in the
Sermon on the Mount, he said, broad is the way, wide is the
gate that leads to destruction, and many be there that go on
that way. There is a way that seemeth right
to man. Another thing that Satan uses
is emotions, emotionalism and all that. And not that there's
anything wrong with emotions in and of themselves, but emotionalism
is when people judge the validity of of their beliefs based on
their emotions. You know, well, I know it was
right because I felt it. You know, somebody told me one
time, Sid, I had that experience and it was real. Well, nobody's
questioning the reality of any religious experience you have,
but that doesn't make it true. That doesn't make it in line
with the truth. People have all kinds of religious
experiences that are based on false ideas. So you remember,
I always think about it, and I can't think of where the scripture
is. It's either in 1 Kings or, you know, where Elijah and the
prophets of Baal, you remember where he stood against the prophets
of Baal? There was like 600 of them and
one of God's prophets. And they spent days trying to
please their false god. They cut themselves with knives.
They danced around. They hooped and they hollered,
you know. And Elijah got up after they were finished. Elijah got
up and he prayed, I think it's a 64-word prayer, and boom, you
know, God did his work. You see what I'm saying? So think
of Satan as the deceiver. And then secondly, think of Satan
as the accuser. He loves to accuse. I mean, he
loves to look at Bill Parker and say, he's a sinner, he deserves
damnation. Well, that's right, except for
one thing. I have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous. He's my defense attorney. And
he pleads the merits, not of my works, but of his. His blood,
His righteousness for me. But we're in a warfare with Satan.
We're in a warfare with the world. The world, you remember Christ
told him in John chapter 15, he said, he said, if the world
hates you, don't be amazed it hated me before it hated you.
The world's religion, the world's way of thinking, the world's
way of salvation is a false way. And we're separated from the
world because we know that salvation is all of grace. But then here's
another kicker. We're in a warfare with ourselves
because we still have what the Bible calls the flesh. That is
the remaining influences. And I'm going to talk about that
a little bit in the message today on the truth shall make us free. The truth will make you free.
But we still have to contend with our own sinful thoughts
and desires and motives and goals. We have to fight ourselves. That's
the warfare of the flesh and the spirit, isn't it, the scripture
calls it? Paul described it in Romans 7, 14 through 25. So in
all of that, what are we doing? We're contending for the faith. And that's the faith of the gospel.
So with all that going on in our lives as believers, how in
the world, how in the world can we keep from falling unto perdition? Because you and I know if God
has shown you your sin and shown me my sin, I'm sure you'll agree
with me on this, that if God were to lift his restraining,
providential, gracious, powerful hand off of me for One second,
I would fall into perdition, fall into damnation. Well, look
at verse 24. Now unto him, that's God, that
is able to keep you from falling. There it is. We cannot fall unto perdition,
unto damnation, unto perishing, because God keeps us from falling. That's his preserving grace. We persevere because by the power
of the Spirit, but the only reason we do is because God preserves
us. And I love these scriptures that
talk about the ability of Christ. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1.12,
I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. He's
able. You see, when we talk about salvation
and the continuance of it, what are we talking about? We're not
talking about our own ability and our own goodness and our
own righteousness. We're talking about Christ's
ability, Christ's goodness, His righteousness imputed to us.
He's going to keep us. He said in John chapter 10, no
one's going to pluck you out of my Father's hand. He said,
I and my Father are one. That's what he meant. In Hebrews
chapter 7, the writer wrote that because of his priesthood, which
involves his advocacy, standing in our place, pleading the merits
of his blood and righteousness, he's able to save to the uttermost. That word uttermost means what
we would say today to the nth degree. them that come unto the
father by him. I believe Paul was the human
instrument to write Hebrews, so sometimes I'll interchange
it, but I don't argue that point. It doesn't matter. It's the word
of God. But he wrote in Hebrews chapter 10 that there are those
who claim to be Christian but then forsake it. They never were
saved to begin with. He said, we're not of those who
draw back unto perdition. John said in 1 John 2, of those
who drew back, who forsook and apostatized, that's the biblical
word of it, which means to fall away and deny the truth, totally
deny it, call Christ accursed. He said they never were saved
to begin with because if they had been saved, they would have
remained with us. So all they did was just expose not their
salvation, but their false profession. So here's what Jude writes, unto
him that is able to keep you from falling. God is able. And he says, and unto him that
is able to present you faultless before the presence of his glory
with exceeding joy. Now, you've got to look at this
in the biblical way. And I'm going to deal with this
again in the message coming up. Right now, as a believer, one
who looks to Christ, I can biblically and rightfully claim faultlessness,
perfection, righteousness legally as I stand represented by Christ,
my surety and substitute. I am righteous before God. In
that sense, legally, God sees no sin in me. Now that doesn't
mean, that's not talking about God's omniscience. I mean, He
knows me, He knows my heart, He knows my faults. But it's
talking about His justice. He does not hold them against
me. He does not charge me with sin. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. I stand
righteous in his sight, in the court of his justice, based on
the imputed righteousness of Christ. That cannot improve. There's nothing I do that improves
on what Christ did. You see that? His righteousness
is perfect. And that's how I stand before
God legally, forensically, objectively. I'm in Christ. All right? But now in myself, as I exist
in this state in the world, I'm not righteous at all. I'm a sinner. Everything I do falls short.
Even that which God enables me, I hear people today talking about
faith is the only work that God will accept. Well, my friend,
if that's true, then it's got to be perfect faith. Do we have
perfect faith? We have faith if we're believers.
but we're still ridden with doubts and fears and misgivings and
why me's and all of that. The only way that anything can
be accepted before God from a sinner or done through a sinner or done
in a sinner is through the blood of Christ. That's the only way. But here
when he says he's going to present us faultless before the presence
of his glory with exceeding joy, I believe what he's talking about
here is the glorified state when we're glorified permanently. And not only will we be righteous
and perfect in Christ as we stand in him legally, at that time
we'll have a new body, a spiritual body. We'll be totally free from
the presence of sin, the influence of sin, the contamination of
sin. And I'm going to tell you something, you drive yourself
crazy trying to sit around and figure out what that's going
to be like. John said in 1 John 3, remember,
it does not yet appear what we shall be. I can't imagine what
it would be to have a moment of sinless thought. Now I know
that shocks some people. I can't imagine going through
a day, an hour, a moment, in perfection with no sin, no contamination,
no fleeting thoughts entering in to take my attention away
from the glory of God in Christ. No sickness, no sorrow, and that's
what he's talking about. Present you faultless, totally
free from the remaining influences and contamination of sin. Well,
somebody said, well, if I try to be good enough, I'll make
it. That's not what he's saying. Unto him that is able to keep
you from falling, unto him that is able to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. That's a
joy that we, we have joy in Christ now, but then it'll be uninterrupted
joy, exceeding joy. It'll be perfect joy. And then
he says in this doxology, this benediction, verse 25, to the
only wise God our Savior. This is the wisdom of God. I
used to read some of the old Puritan writers and they would,
I think some of them really felt like that if they could box themselves
off or closet themselves off from the world that they could
be better people. I just go live in a cave or live
in an ivory tower. And true believers will find
out very quickly that if you shut me up all by myself, sin's
still going to be there because I'm there. And that's the way
it is. But I think some of them would
come to the end of the rope and they say, why does God leave
us in this world, in this state, still with our sinful thoughts
and all of that? Well, it's his wisdom. He has
a purpose for it. And you know, I know some of
the answers to that is this. It's the sense of our sin that
continually keeps us looking to Christ for salvation, for
righteousness, for forgiveness. I was talking to an old friend
of mine up in Kentucky last week and he was talking about how,
you know, he really felt like that when God saved him, that
he had the notion, I mean he heard the truth now, but he still
had the notion that as he grew in grace and knowledge and as
he grew older, that his thoughts would be better, his attitude
and all of that, that he would be less sinful, you know. Well,
he's like 92 years old and he looked at me, he said, he said,
Brother Parker, it ain't true. No, he said, if anything, I see
myself as a greater sinner now than I was before. And what he's
talking about is an awareness of how far short we fall of the
righteousness that God requires in ourselves. Well, what is growth
in grace and in knowledge of Christ then? Well, it's exactly
what it says, growth in grace and in knowledge of who? Of Christ. Christ becomes more precious.
We gain more assurance from viewing him, looking to him, resting
in his power, his blood, his righteousness. That's what growth
in grace and knowledge is. In other words, it's still God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So he says in verse 25, to the only wise God our savior
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. What a doxology. That's
what it's all about. That's worship, right there.
That's looking to Christ, the glory and the majesty, the dominion
and the power of God, now and forever. Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever. Now, in conclusion to this study
on your lesson, I listed here five things, five biblical truths,
that prove that if you're truly saved, Saved by the grace of
God. I'm not just talking about a
mere profession. But I'm talking about a truly
sinner saved by grace. One who's born again by the spirit. That they can never lose that
salvation. The reason that people who claim
to be Christian think they can lose it is because they think
they did something to gain it. And if you can do something to
gain it, then you can, through whatever, and usually it varies
with denominations, you can sin enough, they say, to lose it. And they go to particular scriptures,
they go to Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10, for example, and they go
to the parable of the sower and the seed. You know, talking about
the stoning around here and the thorning around here. They say,
well, they were saved. Well, the whole purpose of that article
or that parable is to show that sinners who are not changed,
miraculously born again by the Holy Spirit, they won't receive
the truth and stay with it. That's what that's about. But
listen to these, and I want you to look at these. I've got five
of them here. I was thinking either in the book What is Salvation
or What is a Christian or both, I've got more than five. Just
have more room there. But here's the first thing, and
this is important now. True believers are part of an
everlasting covenant of grace, all conditioned on Christ. This
covenant is important now because the gospel message is the preaching
of the terms of a covenant. And here's what it says, that
God, who chose a people before the foundation, he gave them
to Christ. That means he put all the responsibility
of the conditions of salvation upon Christ. and sent Christ
his son into the world to become incarnate as the representative,
the surety, the substitute of his people, he fulfilled all
those conditions to secure their salvation. That's the gospel
message. It's all of grace. Now I've told
you about covenants in the Bible. When we think about covenants
in general, you can think about bilateral covenants. That's where
you have two people or two groups, and each group must agree to
the terms in order for the covenant to be enforced. All right? Well, any time you see a bilateral
covenant in the Bible between God and sinners, it's a failure
on the part of the sinner. There's only one. Did you know
that? Well, somebody said two because
of Adam, you know, in the garden. God made a covenant with Adam,
and the terms were in the day that you can eat of every tree
of the garden except for this one, and in the day that you
eat thereof, you shall surely die. That was a bilateral covenant. Adam's continuation in the garden
was conditioned on his obeying the law, the law of God. What'd
Adam do? He failed. Well, that tells you something,
though. I mean, Adam, here he was in that garden, in a perfect
environment, but he was a created human being, subject to fall,
and he fell. Now, of course, we know that
was all according to the purpose of God beforehand, because God
had already set up another covenant, the everlasting covenant of grace.
The other bilateral covenant is God's covenant with the nation
Israel, the old covenant, and what happened? They failed. Now, every other covenant that
relays or communicates or pictures salvation is a unilateral covenant. God is the only party and man
is the subject. But the covenant comes in force
not based upon man agreeing to its terms. Somebody said, well,
don't we have to agree to its terms? Yes, but that's not what
puts the covenant in force. It's the covenant being in force
that makes us agree to the terms. And remember God said, he said,
look, in the last days, I'm gonna make a covenant with my people
that's not like this bilateral covenant, which they broke. But
he said, I'm gonna give them a new heart, a new spirit, a
new mind. There are conditions of the covenant.
But who are they upon? They're upon Christ. Who fulfilled
them? Christ. Who met them? Christ.
What is the main condition of that covenant? Righteousness
had to be established. You didn't do it. I didn't do
it. Still don't. Christ did. So that's number
one. It's a covenant of grace. And
that's what every believer recognizes. And then here's the second thing.
True believers are preserved by God's sovereign grace and
power in Christ. That's what Jude's expressing
here. Unto him that is able to keep you from falling. God's
able. It's God's ability. It's God's sovereign power. It's
not by our power or our goodness. It's by His. Should we do everything
in our power to be as good as we can be? Yes, but that's not
the force of salvation. That's not the ground of salvation.
That's not the cause of salvation. The force and the ground and
the cause of salvation is Christ crucified and risen from the
dead. It's all Him. And then look at
the third one. I love this. I love them all. True believers can never lose
salvation because they can never be charged with sin. You cannot be condemned if you're
in Christ. How do you know that? Because
that's what God says. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that does. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ.
Christ is the author and finisher of our faith. God made him to
be sinned. Christ was charged with the sins
of his people. Christ who knew no sin, for us,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We have righteousness
charged to us. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth righteousness without works. That's the issue. What's the evidence that I have
righteousness imputed to me? Abraham believed God. Do you
believe God? Now I know what men say. I know what women say. I know
what religion says. What does God say? You understand
that? We were talking about this last
week. I said, it comes down to a point. Are you going to believe
God or are you going to believe people? Now, I love people. And I have
a lot of friends, you know, all that. But the thing about it
is, if they say something that cannot be backed up with the
word of God, what are you going to do? You gonna believe God
or believe them? That's what it comes down to,
isn't it? True believers cannot be charged with sin because Christ
was charged with that sin. True believers do not owe a debt
to God's law and justice because Christ paid the debt in full. Now, if you can't be charged
with sin, how could God sentence you to condemnation? He can't.
He wouldn't be just to do so. And then here's the fourth one.
True believers can never lose salvation because Christ stands
as their advocate, mediator, and intercessor. You know, over
there in Romans chapter 8 that I've quoted several times this
morning, when he says this, he says, Verse 33, who shall
lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It
is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. As long as Christ is pleading my cause, I cannot be condemned. Now if Christ would ever stop
pleading my cause, then I could be condemned, couldn't I? But
he will not stop and he cannot stop. You know why? Because he
died, was buried, was risen for my sins. He's my advocate. He's my intercessor and he won't
quit. And you know what? He doesn't charge me a dime for
that. That's a gift of God's grace. I have an advocate who
is Jesus Christ the righteous, and he won't stop. He ever liveth
to make intercession for his people. Know what the scripture
says? He ever liveth to make intercession for his people.
He arose from the dead. So his work as advocate and intercessor
based upon the merits of what he accomplished on Calvary, evidenced
by his resurrection from the dead, and he won't stop. And
then lastly, the fifth one here, true believers can never totally
apostatize, fall away from the faith, or totally leave Christ,
as described in 1 John 2, 18 through 19, because of the ever-abiding
presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives, in their hearts.
Turn to 1 John, and I'll conclude with this. Here's a passage, 1 John 2, start
out at 1 John 2. Here's a passage a lot of people
are confused about. But you gotta keep it in its
context. The issue here has to do with
false preachers seeking to seduce the people of God to look elsewhere
for salvation, for assurance other than Christ. And that's
what false preachers will try to get you to do. Look elsewhere. Somewhere, you know. And there's
a lot of elsewheres. I don't have time to list them
all, but there's a lot of places. In other words, they'll try to
get you to look in, look out, look there, look here, look back,
look forward. Anywhere but Christ. What's salvation? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Look unto me and be you saved,
all the ends of the earth. I'm God. All right? And that's
what he says, look at verse 26 of 1 John 2. These things have
I written unto you concerning them that seduce you. That's
false preachers trying to seduce true believers to look away from
Christ, look elsewhere, look to your works. You haven't done
enough. You're not living up to what you should live up to,
you know. You see what I'm saying? I'd rather see a sermon than
hear one, that kind of thing. Well, the Bible says, faith cometh
by what? Hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So that's
what he's writing about. Well, some of these believers,
most people think that John wrote this first letter from the church
at Ephesus. He may have, it doesn't matter,
but it's written to the church. And some of these people who
had professed to be believers were seduced away. They left
Christ, they left the church, they left the gospel. They forsook
their own profession. And so what does John say in
verse 18? Little children, 1 John 2, little
children. It's the last time, as you have
heard, that Antichrist shall come. Even now there are many
Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They
went out from us, they left, but they were not of us. How
do you know that, John? Well, if they'd been of us, they
would have no doubt have continued with us. But they went out. that they might be made manifest
that they were not all of us. Verse 20, but you, now who's
he talking, who's the you there? That's truly born again people,
true believers. You have an unction, that's an
anointing, a power from the Holy One and you know all things.
That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, jump across the page to
1 John 3, 9. Now, I don't have time to go
through all of this, but I have expositions of this on messages. What he's talking about is the
doing righteousness and committing sin. What is doing righteousness?
It's believing in Christ as our righteousness. The committing
sin that he's talking about here is forsaking Him. turning away
from him, apostatizing. And he says in verse 9 of 1 John
3, whosoever is born of God, that's the new birth, doth not
commit sin. Now we know he's not talking
about that we're sinlessly perfect in ourselves because we're not.
And the Bible says we're not. In fact, 1 John 1 says we're
not. If you say you have no sin, you make God a liar. That's what
he said. What do you mean you do not commit
sin? You don't forsake Christ like these who left him. That's
what he's talking about. Context begs for it. Somebody
said, well, that means you don't practice sin. OK, well, let's
talk about that. What do you mean you don't practice
sin? Does that mean that you have seconds, moments, hours
in your life where you're sinlessly perfect? Well, you don't practice
immorality. Okay, you better read your Bible
now. But that's not what John's subject. John's subject is not
morality versus immorality. If you want to talk about morality
versus immorality, go to passages like 1 Corinthians and places
like that, other places. Because the Corinthians were
involved in some immoral behavior. And Paul said, stop it. That's
not becoming to a Christian. But here, John's not talking
about morality versus immorality. In fact, he uses an illustration
that strikes at the very ground of salvation, and it's Cain and
Abel. Yes, sir. Yes, it is. It is. But here's
the thing. What John is talking about is
those who have a profession of faith in Christ, but are being
seduced to forsake Him, fall away, and he says, if you've
been born of God, you won't do that. If you've been truly born
of the Spirit, look at verse nine again, he says, whosoever
is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in
him. The seed there is the believer,
who is the seed of Christ. Remember he said those who, unless
the seed of wheat fall into the ground and die, it will not bring
forth fruit. The church is his seed, a believer,
his generation, his child, his offspring. And he said they remain
in him, they remain in Christ. And he cannot sin, he cannot
forsake Christ, why? Because he's born of God. The
Holy Spirit won't let you totally forsake Christ. Now you may stray
and be tripped up, and we can talk about that, but the Holy
Spirit will not allow God's true children to totally apostatize
and fall away and forsake Christ.