Well, if you turn in your Bibles
to Jude, I just have a four-word sermon that's focused on one
word. It says, preserved in Jesus Christ. Let's just read these
opening verses. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the
Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and call, mercy unto you
and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write to you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. We have been looking at these
three remarkable promises, these remarkable gifts of God's grace,
the calling of His people, the sanctifying of His people and
the preserving this evening of His people in Jesus Christ. And as I said last week, it is
just remarkable. that these are multiplied mercies. They are multiplied mercies,
they are multiplied evidences of the love of God, and they
bring with them multiplied peace. It is just remarkable, isn't
it, that the word preserved means to attend to carefully, to take
care of. It means to guard, to garrison
as a prisoner. And it is, like the other verbs
in these sentences, it is actually a passive verb. It is something that God does
for us. It's done by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are preserved in Christ Jesus,
we are preserved by Christ Jesus, and we are preserved for Christ
Jesus. We are guarded, guarded by Him. We are kept, kept at the end
of Jude, if you, the verses we sing now unto him who was able
to keep you from falling, to keep us. There is a keeping of
God's people by the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a preserving,
a preservation. We love to delight in the fact
that the saints of God will persevere to the end. They persevere to
the end because they are preserved in Christ Jesus. Their perseverance
is the believer taking hold of the Lord Jesus Christ by the
hand of faith, but preservation is Christ taking hold of the
believer by the hand of His grace. I love that verse in Isaiah 40
where it says He carries His little ones. Isaiah 40 verse
11, He shall feed His flock, like a shepherd. He shall feed his flock like
a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with
his arm, with the omnipotent arm of his sovereign power, and
carry them in his bosom. In his sovereign hand he carries
his people close to his heart and shall gently lead those that
are with young. He will gently lead his people
on. This preservation is something
that's precious to those who are tried and wearied saints.
I can't speak about the trials that you go through with any
great insight. And in some sense, when the deepest
of trials come, they are intensely personal, intensely private and
just between us and Him. But there is a precious comfort,
isn't there? I don't know about you, but there
is precious peace in the fact that we are preserved in Christ
Jesus. We are preserved to be His servants. That's how Jude describes himself,
isn't it? They willingly give themselves into His service.
In fact they delight to be in His service. They delight to
have their steps ordered by Him. They delight in the fact that
His yoke is easy. And they don't want to be without
His comforting presence. The scriptures describe us being
compelled and constrained by love. His love for them and their
love for Him. What a remarkable thing, to be
preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. That specified people, there
is a them, isn't it? To them, in verse 1, to them
that are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ. As Norm prayed earlier, we are
preserved because we were, before this world began, we were put
in that covenant of grace, that everlasting covenant of grace
and election. And in that moment, At that time,
before the foundation of the world, we were declared to be
accepted, accepted, that word means to be graced in Ephesians
1.6, accepted in the Beloved. We are preserved in Christ Jesus,
we are accepted in the Beloved. Preserved in Christ Jesus is
our surety in that eternal covenant and at that moment God the Father
looked to Him for absolutely everything that was required
of all of His sheep. And the Father had these people,
that sanctified group, those ones set apart for God's service
and God's use and God's glory and He entrusted the souls of
all of them into the hands of His Son before the foundation
of the world, before the fall of Satan, before the fall of
Adam and our fall with Adam. And when we came forth from our
mother's womb speaking lies, with our fists shoved in God's
face, we were preserved in Christ Jesus. Preserved until the time
of love. I don't know about you brothers
and sisters, you think back on your life and think of the number
of times you survived. within millimetres of dying. Just, I rode a bike around Sydney,
I cannot believe how silly it is to ride a motorbike around
Sydney for four or five years. The number of times I came within
milliseconds and millimetres of having catastrophic agram,
fell asleep riding a motorbike. Imagine that. Preserved, isn't
it? When we were little, one of the
things we used to do, I don't know why we did it, we went looking
for tiger snakes. And I was only telling him, my brother and I,
I don't know why, whose idea it was that we would go searching
for tiger snakes, they were all over the place. Anyway, but there
was a big iron corrugated iron tank on the ground with a flat
bottom and it had been there for years and years and all the
weeds had grown up around it so it had this sort of hedge
of weeds around it and we worked with sticks and levers and bricks
and things to lift this thing up high enough off the ground
so one of us could go underneath to see if there was a tiger snake
underneath there. And of course I was the littlest. My brother
and his mates were bigger and stronger and they were holding
the sticks. It was my job to go underneath to see if there
was a tiger snake. And I put my head, I parted the
weeds and I put my head and I looked up and there was this tiger snake
and I could still see its head and its fangs and its yellow
underbelly. Just milliseconds away. All it
had to do was Preserved. My brothers and sisters,
that's just one of multitudes. You no doubt have thought of
many as I've been speaking. The number of times we have been
preserved, the number of times we've been preserved when there
are diseases rampant around, so close have we been to just
and we're preserved, preserved in Christ Jesus, preserved through
all, through all of our wicked unbelief, in all of that time
of our unregeneracy where we treated God and treated His
Son with such utter contempt and we were worthy recipients
of the righteous wrath of God by our actions and yet because
of this eternal covenant we were preserved in Christ Jesus. And
then that time of love came and He came and He called us and
He revealed to us that we were set apart in God the Father. And He revealed to us that we
were preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we were one with
Him, that that blood shed on Calvary's tree was shed for a
specific people, and that blood was efficacious. And because
of that blood that was shed from the foundation of the world,
we were preserved, preserved. preserved. You see, it's not
wishful thinking, is it? This mercy to you and peace and
love in that sanctifying work and in that preserving work and
that calling work. These are the promises. These
are the blood-bought promises of every child of God in this
world. Don't you love how Romans begins? Romans 8 begins with no condemnation
and it finishes with no separation. And then in Romans 8, I think
it's 31, it says, Will he not along with Christ give us all
things? He is the Great Shepherd. He
is the Good Shepherd. He is the Chief Shepherd. He
is. He is that one who preserves
us in Himself and preserves us for Himself. He is a man and
He's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He's able
to succor, He's able to care for, He's able to understand
and appreciate what we go through, those that are tempted. The manifold
temptations of this world You think of the reality of what
Jude is talking about here. This preservation in the Lord
Jesus Christ is the only thing, the only thing that stops these
people, stops his people, this sanctified group. It stops them
from falling into the apostasy that he speaks of here. It stops
them. It protects them. from those
temptations and sins within us. It protects them from Satan who
wanders about constantly. It protects them from the world
which entices and distracts. He says in his preservation,
I will never, never, never leave you nor forsake you. When you
think of the falls of these people here, if you go look down there
in Jude, it talks about, in verse 5, he wants to put you in remembrance.
He wants to put you in remembrance, remembrance of the remarkable
privileges that the people in Egypt had. There was no group
of human beings on planet earth who witnessed the glory and the
majesty and the promise keeping activities of a sovereign God
as he preserved his people in Egypt. and at the same time brought
destruction upon that nation, devastated that nation, robbed
it of its glory and robbed it of its treasures, and robbed
it of its people. what remarkable gifts they had. He wants to put them in remembrance
that the Lord, verse 5, having saved the people out of the land
of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not. You need to be preserved. To keep on believing, you need
to be preserved in Christ Jesus. And the angels, imagine what
it was like. We have so little said about
the angels in the scripture and it's interesting isn't it when
Isaiah sees those angels in Isaiah 6. They cover themselves, don't
they? They cover their feet and they
cover themselves. They want to hide themselves
from the Majesty. They want people to look at the
Lord. But these angels which kept not their first estate,
They didn't keep it, but left their own habitation. He hath
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment
of the great day." What extraordinary privileges those angels had.
Every one of them fell individually and purposely. and it's their
responsibility. Satan fell and he took a third
of the angels with him to hell. What privileges, you see, we
have had so few privileges compared to these. But see, it was the
elect angels that were saved. And then in verse 70 it says,
even as Sodom and Gomorrah, just as the angels had fallen after
having received remarkable privileges, in like manner they gave themselves
over to fornication, going after strange flesh, are set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Anyone who knows anything of
the depth of his own sinful heart will be amazed and stand in awe
at the preserving of our God. when others with the most remarkable
privileges and have seen the most amazing things have fallen. There is a blessedness to the
children of God. No wonder the scriptures describe
it, this indescribable blessedness, this joy unspeakable and full
of glory. Our great God, our great Saviour,
our great Redeemer, preserves His people from all of those
falls. And all of His titles display
His preserving, don't they? He is the head of His body, the
Church. And if the head is now safe and
secure in Heaven's glory, then the body is safe, isn't it? I
think it was Spurgeon who said, you can try as hard as you like
to drown me, but if my head's above water, it doesn't matter
what you do to my body, you can't drown me. Our great head has
gone to heaven and he's taken all of his blood-bought children
with him. He is that great high priest. He is that surety of
that eternal covenant. He is the source of all blessing. and it flows to Him as the nourishment
flows from the plant into the branches because we are one with
Him. We are preserved in Him because
He is preserved. Preserved because He is God Himself. Therefore the everlasting love
of God in Christ. causes his people, causes his
people to be complete in him, complete in him. We are qualified. I love how Colossians speaks
about it. We are qualified, qualified made
meat, suitable, qualified to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in light. And it's all by him, all by him. His Church is preserved, preserved
from the foundation of the world, preserved in Him, preserved by
Him and preserved for Him. We are His, aren't we? We are
His by those covenant surety agreements. We are His by creation. We are His by the purchase of
His blood. We are His by the promise of
all the scriptures. We are His by His conquering
the hearts of His people with His love. We are His by our willingness
and delight to have Him to have Him as our Lord and Saviour. He's won us over, brothers and
sisters. He wins His people over and we
are His by His preserving grace and His sovereign, providential
dealings over all things. He rules over all of this creation. He moves this whole creation,
the thoughts and the activities of men and Satan and all of the
physical things as well, He moves all of it. for the safety and
the preservation and the protection of his people and for the glory
of his name. And even when they fall, Even
when they fall and others fall around us and cause us deep distress,
He still is working all those things for our good. Part of
His preserving of us is that He causes us to be fearful, causes
us to be cautious, causes us to look to Him and to cling to
Him. He preserves us and He causes
us to cling to Him for His preservation. We are sanctified, we are chosen,
we are preserved because we are truly one with Him. We are preserved
because He has betrothed Himself, He has committed Himself to His
people. They are the gift of His Father.
and all the members are preserved, because they are beheld as one
with Him, no separation, no distinction between the two. And He keeps
them. He keeps them from falling. He
keeps them from that unpardonable sin of unbelief. He keeps them
and preserves them from the second death. He keeps them and preserves
them from falling away from His faith and trusting Him. What wonders, what wonders of
preserving grace. Multiplied mercies, multiplied
mercies. Preserved in Christ Jesus, we
are preserved before we were called in Christ Jesus. And this preserving creates perseverance
till the end. He will keep, he will guard,
and he'll watch over his own. He is a jealous, jealous God. Let's look at some of the scriptures.
There are so many scriptures that speak of this that it is
just an extraordinary wonder that people would want to say
that there is some doubt about this being written in Holy Scripture
and people want to say that people can lose their salvation. If
they can lose their salvation they need to find another word
for it. It's not salvation if you can lose it, brothers and
sisters. It's not salvation by grace if it depends on you to
keep it. Let's just read some of them.
In Job 17.9 it says, the righteous shall hold on his way. Those that are made righteous
by the Lord Jesus Christ and they walk in his way, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the way. They'll hold on his way and they
won't fall back and turn to the left and right. They will struggle,
they will have their trials in this world. They will be tested
and sifted. but they will be preserved by
God. Psalm 94.14, the Lord says, for
the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake
his inheritance. Job 33.24, he is gracious, then
he is gracious unto him and says, deliver him from going down to
the pit, for I have found a ransom, a ransom for his soul. Paul when he was writing Romans
was dealing with the whole issue in those chapters 9, 10 and 11
about if all of these remarkable promises in chapter 8 are so
secure, what on earth happened to the Israelites who fell and
fell and fell and fell, that physical nation Israel. And then
in Romans 11.2 he says, God has not cast away his people which
he foreknew, and to foreknow them is to foreknow them in love. Lord, Elias says, they have killed
thy prophets and digged down thine orders, and I am left alone
and they seek my life. How often God's people have found
and thought themselves to be one among a multitude of lofty
ones. And what's the answer of God?
What was the answer of God? But what sayeth the answer of
God unto him? I have reserved to myself 7,000
men. Elijah didn't know one of them. I have reserved to myself 7,000
men who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so
then at this present time also there is a remnant, there is
a remnant according to the election of grace. They are They are kept
by grace, not because of works. Otherwise grace is no more grace. It's a gracious activity of God.
God's grace is everlasting grace. It's efficacious grace. It's
powerful grace. They are these children of God,
these preserved ones of Lord Jesus. They are engraven on the
palms of His hand. As sons they will abide in his
house forever. He describes them as the apple
of his eye. His delight is in them. They
are his inheritance. And as they came up to Jerusalem
to those great feasts they sang those songs of degrees. degrees
and there are songs of degrees you can read in those psalms
from 120 on. They're just remarkable psalms,
aren't they? And they speak again and again
and again of the preserving of the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm
121. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh
my help. My help cometh from the Lord,
which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to
be moved. He that keepeth thee. shall will
not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel,
he that keepeth spiritual Israel, shall neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD is thy keeper, the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil. He shall preserve
thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going
out and thy coming in from this time forth, even for evermore. Psalm 125 and those psalmistic
decrees. They that trust in the Lord shall
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about
Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth
for evermore. See he surrounds his people with
his love. He multiplies mercies and love
and peace to them and he guards them and he protects them and
he watches over them. And as he says in John 10, I
give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them
me is greater than all, and no man shall be able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one. He just
makes all these promises, doesn't he? I don't know where on earth
the Armenians find any rest or peace, and I don't know where
they find in the scriptures this stupid notion that God's children
can be lost. They are kept by the promises
and the power of our God, aren't they? In the eternal covenant
is full of I wills and they shalls, the I wills of God and the they
shalls of His people. Jeremiah 32 is just a remarkable
description of this eternal covenant. Behold, I will gather them out
of all the countries where I have driven them, in mine anger and
in my fury and in great wrath. And I will bring them again unto
this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely. And they
shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will give
them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for
the good of them and their children after them. And I will make an
everlasting covenant with them, and I will not turn away from
them to do them good. And I will put my fear in their
hearts. and they shall not depart from
me. They shall not depart. I will and they shall not depart
from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them
to do them good. I will plant them and I will
plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with
my whole soul." That eternal covenant is based on the promises
of God. It's based on His testimony. He's written it down. You can
find just multiplied examples of it throughout the New Testament.
John 17, the Lord Jesus prayed that high priestly prayer and
he says, I have kept them. All that you have given me, I
have kept them, I have preserved them. and none of them is lost
but the son of perdition that the scripture might be fulfilled. God in 1 Corinthians 1.9 is faithful,
by whom you are called into fellowship of the son of his son Jesus Christ. Now he which establishes you,
he which establishes you establishes us with you in Christ and has
anointed us is God. Peter writes about the fact that
we are kept by the power of God through faith. You see, the character
of God is indispensably and intricately entwined with all of this, isn't
it? The preserving work of our Lord Jesus Christ is just a reflection
of the fact that He is God. and he sovereignly rules over
all things, and he cannot change, he cannot alter the things that
have gone out of his mouth. The character of God necessitates
the keeping of his children, all of them. I change not, I
the Lord change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. He's made a promise and he has
no reason ever to change it. He is extraordinary in his wisdom,
our great God, isn't he? What man would set out to achieve
something and not be able to finish it? Our God never sets
out to do anything but is not able to finish it. And he has
all the power. to do it. He has the power to
protect them, the power to preserve them. He who has all the power
to create and control this universe and to rule every little tiny
thing in it has the wisdom and the resources and the power. Whenever he says, It is done. His mercy, we've spoken about
it, this multiplied mercy, the mercy of God is from everlasting
to everlasting. His compassions fail not. Thy mercy, O Lord, endures forever."
They are preserved, enduring forever because of Him. And the
very nature of our God as described as just. He is a just God and
a Saviour. The very justice of God demands
the salvation of all of God's people because they are preserved
in Christ Jesus. It's a horrifying thought, isn't
it, to think, as modern religion does, that the Lord Jesus Christ
could suffer for the sins of the entire world, and God the
Father punish Him with all of His infinite wrath until He says,
it is finished, and then turn around, and for countless multitudes
of those people, God will, according to their understanding, will
send them to hell because they didn't appropriate what the Lord
Jesus had suffered. It's just perfectly unjust, isn't
it, for God to punish them twice, to punish those sins in the Lord
Jesus and then punish those sins forever. The justice of God,
the justice of God and the truthfulness of God demands the salvation
of all of His people. And He's faithful. God is faithful. He's faithful to His word. He's
faithful to His Son. He's faithful to His promises.
He's faithful as a husband, a friend and a brother. He's faithful
as the head of his body, the church. He's faithful to his
eternal covenant. He's faithful to his love. He
loved them with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness
He's drawn them. I love what John 13 says, the
Lord Jesus said, having loved His own, having loved His own
which are in the world, He loved them to the end. He loved them
completely, He loved them purposefully, He loved them to the end. They
are called his adopted children. What father would cast off his
adopted children? Our great God is a good father. He keeps them to the end. He keeps them despite the depths
of their fall. You might recall our friend Peter. Simon, Simon, says the Lord Jesus
to Peter on that night, when they, all of those disciples,
had boasted, boasted of the pride of their abilities. Simon, Simon,
behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat. If any of you have experienced
the sifting of Satan, you will find multiplied delight
in the fact of what the Lord Jesus Christ says in response
to that. I've been sifted on several occasions
and I imagine all of God's children will be sifted. And it's so painful
that it becomes just a private matter between us and our God.
But what does the Lord Jesus say in Luke 22, 32? But. One of the great buts, isn't
it? Peter's going to be sifted. Peter's
going to be sifted by a servant girl where he will deny his association
with the Lord Jesus Christ and he will utter curses so that
he can prove that he wasn't with this righteous man. And what
does the Lord Jesus say? But I have prayed for thee. That's all we need, brothers
and sisters, don't we? But I have prayed for thee that
thy faith fail not. The preserving hand of God upon
his people will take them and allow them to be sifted and take
them into trials which are shocking trials, aren't they? And we are
taken to places where we despair of ourselves and we cry out like
Paul that we are wretched men. And what else does the Lord Jesus
promise? He says, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith
fail not. And when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren. The preserving hand of the Lord
Jesus in praying for Simon and promising these things was actually
to the strengthening of his brethren. How does a fallen apostle strengthen
his brethren? How does an openly fallen apostle
strengthen his brethren? He's a testament, isn't he? He's
now a trophy of grace. because he can say with utter
clarity and conviction, it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not about what I do. It's not about how I feel. It's not about my good works
and my good deeds. It's not about my proud boasting.
It's not about my religious attainments. We are preserved in Him, preserved
in Him. Strengthen thy brethren, sifting
and sifted. I love what Mr Hart, and I'll
close with one of his hymns, what tongue can fully tell that
Christian's grievous load. who would do all things well
and walk the ways of God, but feels within foul envy lurk,
and lust and work engender in sin. Poor wretched worthless
worm, in what sad plight I stand. When good I would perform, then
evil is at hand. My leprous soul is all unclean,
my heart obscene, my nature foul. to trust to Christ alone by a
thousand dangers scared, and righteousness have none. is something
very hard. Whatever men may say, the needy
know, it must be so, it is the way. Thou all-sufficient Lamb,
God blessed forevermore, we glory in thy name, for thine is all
the power. Stretch forth thy hand and hold
us fast, Our first and last, in thee we stand.