I thought we'd be looking at
familiar passages. Every Sunday morning I finish
preaching and then we sing those last two verses from Jude. Sometimes things that we look
at quite regularly, we can become so familiar with them that we
forget how glorious they are. Jude's letter, short though it
is, is an amazing letter. you could say that it was a glorious
interruption from the Holy Spirit. Because he actually had, according
to verse 3, he had a diligence to write to you concerning
our common salvation. And then he says, but I found
it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly
for the faith. which was once for all delivered
to the saints. So we have two wonderful descriptions
of our salvation there and our faith. It is common, common to
all of God's people because God's the author of it and God is the
teacher of it. And it was once for all delivered
to the saints. And so we have a salvation and
a faith which was written down and delivered and therefore we
have something which is common to us all and trustworthy. Anyway, before we start looking
at these last couple of verses, let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you caused your servant Jude to write these
words. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that your word is living and active and it's true. And we
praise you, Heavenly Father, for the power of the things that
you have written about yourself, about your dear Son, and the
things you have written about the Blessed Holy Spirit. And
especially, Heavenly Father, we thank you for the salvation
that you have written to us about. May we be caused, like Jude,
to rejoice with joy unspeakable. in the things that you have done
for your people. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the letter
begins. I think Jude was disrupted by
the Holy Spirit from writing what he wanted to write, but
I think he actually gives us a summary of what he was going
to say. in the first verse. He calls
himself a bond-servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James. He could have called himself
a brother of Jesus Christ or a half-brother of Jesus Christ,
but he calls himself just a bond-servant, a slave of Jesus Christ and a
brother of James. And then he has a specific audience
for this letter, just as all of God's preachers throughout
the world have a specific audience. Others can look over the audience's
shoulder and see what God is saying, but the Bible is written
for God's children. And Jude says that there, doesn't
he? To those who are called. Literally it says, to those who
are the called ones. sanctified by God the Father. Some versions, some old manuscripts
say, loved of God the Father, which is true from Ephesians,
and preserved in Jesus Christ. That's a description of God's
activities, isn't it? The Holy Spirit calls, God the
Father loves and sanctifies from eternity, and all of God's children
are preserved in Jesus Christ. And then the things that flow
to God's children from that calling and that sanctification and that
preservation are listed there in verse 2 for us. We receive,
as God's children, mercy from God. We receive peace from God. We know and receive love from
God. And these things are multiplied
and multiplied and multiplied. We are the recipients of grace
upon grace, of gift upon gift, gift, gifts immeasurable. And then in verse three, there's
another description of these children of God, beloved. It's wonderful words, aren't
they? Now the rest of the letter is
a challenge, isn't it? It's a challenge about the false
teachers. The false teachers who have crept
in unawares, verse 4. And they came into these churches,
and in verse 12, they are spots in your love feasts. They joined
in the love feasts of God's people as if they were there, but they
were spots for they were blemishes. And while they feast with you,
and this is a description of them. Firstly, these are people
without fear, without fear of God, without fear of God's judgment. and they serve only themselves. And Jude goes on to remind us,
if you go back and read this letter, that these things were
ordained of God and controlled by God. And he finishes the letter
as he begins the letter with an encouragement to his people
not to be shaken by these things, and to be reminded of what he
started with, that we have a God who is just remarkably amazing. Let's just read these verses
that we sing quite regularly and I can read them to you in
the King James Version because that's the one we sing each week.
now unto him who was 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 Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever. Amen. When I finish preaching
on Sundays and we sing those words, I feel the depths of the
inadequacy of the things that I say compared to the beauty
of the God that I am speaking about. It's an amazing privilege
to speak on God's behalf, and it's an awesome responsibility. And so He says now, He says here
at this very moment. And He also means in the light
of all that has been said. Now to Him, unto Him. And the Him there, according
to verse 21, is the Lord Jesus Christ. says, keep yourselves
in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life. He's not denying the work of
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. But the specific reference
I believe here is to the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus in his
role as our mediator, the Lord Jesus in his office as the great
shepherd and high priest of his people. He is able. The word means power, means strength,
means force, capability, resources. He is able to keep. He is able. He has the power. He has the power because of who
he is. As he prayed in that upper room
in John 17, you have given him authority over all flesh, that
he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. Jude wants us to be reminded
that in the face of a church that seems to be struggling and
under assault, in a place in a world where Christians are
struggling against the secular powers, when there is just so
much that seems to be discouraging. And especially inside the church,
the discouragement of having false brethren rising to positions
of power and leadership in the church and leading many astray.
It causes God's people to walk in heaviness, doesn't it? that
our God is able. He is all powerful. He has spoken
once and it is done. He wants to proclaim the absolute
sovereignty of God. He wants us to remember that
our God is powerful. God has a will to resolve what
he seems good to himself, and he has the power to execute his
will. As Arthur Pink said, holiness
is the beauty of all God's attributes. So power is that which gives
life and action to all the perfections of the divine nature. He upholds
all things by His Word of Power. He is able, our Saviour is able
to keep you It means to keep an eye on you, to guard you,
to watch over you all night long as a faithful watchman stands
on the ramparts of the castle. He keeps an eye with them, keeps
an eye on us constantly, forever. While I was with them, he says
in that same high priestly prayer in John 17, 12, while I was with
them in the world, I kept them in your name. He kept those whom
you have given me. I have kept, and none of them
is lost except the son of perdition that the scriptures might be
fulfilled. Our great Redeemer, is able. Our Great Redeemer is powerful.
Our Great Redeemer is powerful to guard us. He's to guard His
people, to keep you, these called ones, these sanctified ones,
these preserved ones. He's able to keep us from falling. He's able to keep us from stumbling. He's able, always, to keep us. Even though we might, with the
hymn writer sing, O to grace, our greater debtor, daily I am
constrained to be. Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel
it. Prone to leave the God I love. Here is my heart, O take and
seal it. Seal it for thy courts above. We are kept from falling. In
the context of Jude, he keeps his people from falling into
the grotesque errors of doctrine and false teacher. As he calls
it there, he says, they have gone, woe to them, for they have
gone in the way of Cain. They have run greedily in the
error of Balaam for profit and perished in the rebellion of
Korah. These are the spots that have
crept in and live amongst the believers. And so they fall,
and all of us here don't have to walk long with the Lord Jesus
and in the company of those who profess Him to see people fall
away. Across the creek from us lived
a young fellow who was a truck driver and he ran over what ended
up being a body on a road somewhere when we'd come back from India
for one of our visits. He was actively and passionately
involved in things at church and people were professing what
a wonderful transformation and conversion this guy had had.
And when the court case was over and he was exonerated, he had
gone. How many people have we seen
come into the fold of Christians and leave as if nothing that
they had heard had mattered to them? It's a sanitary warning,
isn't it? They are around us and before
us all the time. teachers, false teachers that
Judah's talking about, were subtle. They'd managed to insinuate themselves
into the flock. And in those New Testament letters,
they took positions of leadership. So it's a preservation that we
need from God. You see, man can't preserve himself. Any man who thinks he is strong
is self-deceived and a fool. Could Adam keep himself in the
garden? Could Eve keep herself in the
garden? There we have a pair of perfect
human beings, liable to fall. Could the angels keep themselves? They couldn't keep themselves.
The heart of man is desperately wicked, desperately wicked, and
beyond cure. You see, Jude is reminding us
that our strength is not in ourselves, for we have none. Our strength
is in the Lord Jesus. and what He has done in eternity,
what He has done in time, and what He has done in all of creation,
and what He's done in the way He has preserved and cared for
His people. The Lord God is my strength.
He will make my feet like deer's feet. He will make me walk. He will make me walk. As we saw
last week in Hannah's prayer, He will guard the feet of His
saints. If we are going to be preserved,
our preservation is all of God. And all of this has a purpose,
doesn't it? We read on to the next verse. All of this has a purpose for
God to get great glory and God to have great joy. His purpose in all of this, in
all of this creation, is to present you, to present these sanctified,
these preserved, these called vessels of God's mercy and grace,
to present you faultless. Do you know what that word faultless
means? It means internally pure and
perfect. Internally pure and perfect. And these chosen jewels in God's
crown are going to be presented like a beautiful work of art. They'll be held up before all
creation in heaven. And the Lord Jesus will get extraordinary
joy as He presents sinners like us. in the ages to come, he might
show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward
us in Christ Jesus. Just remarkable, isn't it? Just remarkable to think. as
sinners who know something of our sin to be reminded of what
all of this pain and all of this difficulty and all of this tribulation
in this world is all about. It's like childbirth, isn't it?
It's extraordinarily painful, extraordinarily difficult, and
fraught with all sorts of doubts about, is it going to work? Is
it going to happen? Will someone come out of this
who brings great joy? of God was conceived in eternity. We read about that in those first
verses. And the Church of God was birthed
together with the Lord Jesus in His crucifixion, His death
and His burial, and that wonderful resurrection. and the Church
of God was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon the church on
that day of Pentecost. And there is just around the
corner for this child, this church, a marriage. And that's what this
is talking about, isn't it? Just around the corner is a marriage. This presentation for these people and we're going to be presented
before the presence of His glory. It's remarkable, isn't it, to
keep before us what it is to be a man in the presence of God. It's just good to go back through
the scriptures and just remind ourselves of people meeting God. Moses met God in the burning
bush. Job met God. Just listen to what
Job said when he met God. God answered Job, verse 40. The Lord answered Job and said,
Shall one who contends with the Almighty correct him? He who
rebukes God, let him answer it. Then Job answered the Lord and
said, Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer you? I lay
my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will
not answer. Yes, twice, but I will proceed
no further. Job in verse chapter 42 says,
I know that you can do everything, that no purpose of yours can
be withheld from you. You asked, who is this who hides
counsel without knowledge? Therefore, I have uttered what
I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I
did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak. You said, I
will question you and you shall answer me. I have heard you by
the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. Therefore I
abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. Ezekiel met God and
was overcome, overwhelmed for seven days. He saw the likeness
of the appearance of the glory of God. Isaiah met God Peter
met God in some extraordinary way in that remarkable catch
of fish. And Peter says, go away from
me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. John, an old apostle, remarkable
servant of God, meets God in Revelation, and he falls down
as if he is dead. Sinners like them, sinners like
us, are going to be presented by the Lord Jesus in the presence
of that holiness, in the presence of that glory, with exceeding joy. all of what God does is glorious. He takes His people into the
Holy of Holies in heaven to be with Him. We are asked to stand
in His presence. As Malachi 3.17 says, they're
jewels, but they're more than that. He says, they are my jewels. His ability is glorious. His
guarding us is glorious. His protecting us from falling
reveals His glory. He presents us faultless before
the presence of His glory. And He does it with exceeding
joy. This is not a struggle for our
God who is all-powerful. It's for the joy set before Him. in your presence is the fullness
of joy. At your right hand are pleasures
forevermore, says Psalm 16. So Christ chose you, Christ redeemed
you, Christ saved you, Christ keeps you, Christ shall present
you. And we are being transformed
regardless of what we see from one glory to another. And no wonder after this, Jude
ascribes to God wisdom. To the only wise God, our Saviour. The only wise God. All that God does is just wise. All the wisdom that men have
in this world is the wisdom that God has granted them. All of God's works are wise. Imagine what's involved in running
this universe, from the tiniest microscopic things that we can't
see to the biggest things that we can possibly imagine in the
universe. The wisdom that's required to
hold all of that together. Scientists think they are clever
and they just touch the very edges of it. O Lord, how manifold
are your works! In wisdom have you made them
all. See, God is described in the
New Testament three times as the only wise God. And it's a description of our
Lord Jesus. It's He who is the Wisdom of
God. That man born at Bethlehem, raised
in Nazareth, crucified, dead and buried, is God. And He is Wisdom from God for
us. But He is God. If there is something
that this world needs to hear, if there is something that this
religious world needs to know and to be challenged about and
to have proclaimed to them, is the deity of the Lord Jesus. So much heresy starts and finishes
with the denial of the deity of the Lord Jesus. He is God. He declared Himself to be God. He was killed because He declared
Himself to be God. God the Father declares Him to
be God. God the Holy Spirit declares Him to be God. He is God alone. Wise. The only wise God. And what a great description
of Him. He is our Saviour. He never intended to save everyone
else. He's our Saviour. That same group
of preserved, called, sanctified, loved children of God. He is their Saviour. He is our
Saviour. And to Him, to this God, be glory,
His glory, and not man. To His Majesty. He is the King of Kings. He is crowned with glory and
honour. He sits on a majestic throne
of glory. He sits in majesty on a throne
of grace. And he's a powerful king sitting
on that throne. His dominion, his rule over his
creation. This is his. He can do with it
as he likes. He's king of creation, he's king
of providence, he's king of grace. And he's my king. And he's king
forever. And He has, as we saw earlier,
He has the power to bring to pass all that He has ordained,
all that He has willed, all that He has desired. He has omnipotence. He has all power. He has authority,
all authority. He's made promises, and He fulfills
them all. And in heaven they sing, worthy
is the land that was slain to receive power and riches and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And the wonderful thing that
Jude finishes with is that this goes on now in heaven. Right now God is calling His
people. Right now our Saviour is preserving
His people from falling. Right now He's guarding them
and keeping them. And right now He's in the business
of presenting them and preparing everything for that marriage
feast to present them faultless. And they'll be faultless now
they are faultless. Thou be faultless for ever. He is eternal. He is unchanging. As he revealed himself to Moses. And we'll finish here in Exodus
15. Just some beautiful words. In verse 11. Who was like you,
O Lord, among the gods? The answer, of course, is absolutely
none. Who was like you, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? You stretched out your right
hand. It's a reference to a hand of power and authority. The earth
swallowed them. You, in your mercy, have led
forth the people whom you have redeemed. This was 1,500 years
before the Lord Jesus came. You have guided them in your
strength to your holy habitation. And I love those words in Zephaniah
3. The Lord your God is in your
midst. The Mighty One will save. He will rejoice over you with
gladness. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with
singing. That's what we sing on Sunday
mornings. Let's think about it again each week.