Would you turn with me in your
Bibles to the book of Jude? Jude, J-U-D-E. It's the last
book before the book of Revelation. I want to bring a message out of
the last two verses in this book. I've always treasured these two
verses of Scripture and often refer to them. And you probably
have heard me quote them at least in part, one way or another. And maybe you even quote them
yourselves in your heart. But the book of Jude is written
for our comfort and our amazement at what our Savior has done and
will yet do for us. So let's read together. I want
to read the whole book of Jude to you. Isn't that amazing that
we could read the entire book of a Bible in our hearing? I hope you don't get tired of
hearing. I know that I see little Hurley
back there. He's lifting his hands earlier.
And I feel for you, Hurley. I understand what it's like to
be limited by the weakness of our
flesh. I feel for you. Because I was
a kid once, and even now, I mean, my flesh bothers me. That's why
I appreciated Todd's sermon so much on on the Amalek, the war,
that unending war between our flesh and the Spirit and God's
commitment to always have war with our flesh. And I love that
part where the elder shall serve the younger, that God is going
to take our flesh and He's going to even use that to bring us
to Christ. Isn't that amazing? So a little
hurly back there, I pray that God would give you grace just
to grow up and and endure that time of being young and going
through that. The book of Jude. Jude, the servant
of Jesus Christ and brother of James. Jude is, I think, the
name of the disciple that we read about in Matthew 10. I think
his name is Thaddeus there. And you look at that, or Thaddeus,
or whatever it was. Here it's Jude, the brother of
James. James of Alphaeus, I think. To
them that are sanctified by God the Father, sanctified here,
God the Father, before the foundation of the world, chose His people
in Christ. That's what sanctified them.
He chose them to be holy and without blame before Him in love
in Christ. And when God the Father chose
them, Think of it this way, simply. He said, they're mine. And when
God says something is His, He sanctifies it. It's mine. And you can read that in Exodus,
the book of Exodus. I won't take you there right
now, but in Exodus chapter 13, verse 2, it says, all the firstborn,
Separate them from the womb. They're mine. Sanctify them to
me." That's what it means, to sanctify. The Father says of
his people, they're mine. And so, because they're his,
he gave them to his son, he says in the next phrase, and he preserved
them in Christ Jesus. He set us apart and gave us to
Christ, even putting us in him, so that all he would look to
his people for, he would no longer look to them, but look to Christ.
and find it in Christ." And so they were kept in Christ and
preserved in Him. And then it says, "...and called."
Here it doesn't mention the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of God
takes the gospel and with life-giving power shows us the Lord Jesus
Christ and His work for us on the cross, and He calls us with
that wooing, persuading grace to look to Him only. mercy unto
you, and peace, and love be multiplied." So he's writing to the saints,
isn't he? Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you
of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto
you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints. Earnestly contend
for it. It says in the book of Hebrews,
labor that you might enter into that rest. And you wonder, what's
this laboring and earnestly contending for? earnestly contend, like
the Apostle Paul, to be found in Christ, not having my own
righteousness, but His only. To know that you are found in
Him by God, that's what you need to contend for, the faith earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.
For there are certain men crept in, unawares, who were before
of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness, taking God's grace and claiming
that by it God would make sinners lascivious. The grace of God
gives license to men to sin. See what it does? It just turns
men into beasts. But it doesn't. If you've ever
seen a dog on a chain, lunging at the end of the chain. There
was a great Dane that lived across from us when I was a kid. Maybe
in the fifth, sixth grade. And he would run at the end of
that chain and hit it. This dog was as tall as I was.
And I was worried he was going to come off the chain. As long
as the dog was on the chain, he was a fierce beast. But you
know what happens usually when you set a dog free? He comes
up to you and he licks your hand. He's nice to you. He's free.
When you set us free, when God sets us free in Christ, what
does it do to us? It humbles us. It brings us to
His feet, like that woman coming behind Him, pouring her alabaster
box on Him, anointing His feet, weeping over His feet, drying
them with her hair. That's what the grace of God
does. It sets us in our right mind,
doesn't it? We have the mind of Christ. It doesn't turn us
into lasciviousness. But those who oppose the grace
of God accuse God's grace of making us lascivious, and they,
in their own hearts, they know that if they were set free, they
would go and do whatever they want to do and be the greatest
monsters of iniquity. So they turn the grace of God
into lasciviousness. And they deny the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance,
though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the
people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that
believed not." Remember Hebrews chapter 3? He says... Turn to
Hebrews chapter 3 with me for just a moment. This is important
because this is what Jude is talking about in these verses.
Hebrews chapter 3, he says... Verse 12, "...take heed, brethren,
lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing
from the living God." What is faith? It's coming to Christ. What is unbelief? It is departing
from Christ. And He says, Departing from Christ?
What does that mean? It means depending on myself,
looking for satisfaction somewhere besides in Him. My religious
experiences or my prayers or whatever I can do, something
I can drum up, something I can do before men to make them think
that I'm a good Christian. Those things are things that
lead us away from Christ. If I need something more than
I have in Him, then I am departing from Christ. He says, take heed,
brethren, the whole book of Hebrews is about the perfection God has
established for His people in Christ. In chapter 6, He says,
let us go on to perfection. That means going on to the fulfillment
that Christ has made for us in His own blood, that covenant
that He's done in our blood, in His blood. So He says, take
heed. And then look a little bit further
down, verse 14. We are made partakers of Christ
if we hold the beginning of what? Our confidence steadfast to the
end." Our confidence is Christ, isn't it? What He's done. We
look to Him only. While it is said, today, if you
will hear His voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation
for some, when they had heard, did provoke. How be it not all
that came out of Egypt by Moses? But with whom was He grieved
forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned? whose carcasses
fell in the wilderness, and to whom swear he that they should
not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not." So
those were the ones that sinned. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. Unbelief is that great sin that
he later warns us. He says, looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, he says, leaving that I can't remember exactly what
it says, but that sin which does so easily beset us. So that's
what he's saying here in the book of Jude. He's warning them.
God saved Israel out of Egypt. When God sent Moses to Egypt,
And he told them the Lord was going to redeem them. You know
what the people did? They still worshipped the idols
of Egypt because of unbelief. And yet God redeemed them. And
he exhorts his people, God's people, he says, don't have an
evil heart of unbelief. Exhort one another daily, lest
there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief. Then he gives
another example in verse 6 of Jude. were created perfect, but some
angels fell. And he warns us, he says, do
you remember the angels that fell? They didn't keep their
first estate. The Israelites, all of them except
Caleb and Joshua, were in unbelief and had to be destroyed in the
wilderness, except those two. And then he says, and think of
the angels. And then verse 7, he goes on, "...even as Sodom
and Gomorrah and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves
over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set
forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire
from heaven." Can you think of that? Heaven? sending fire on
the earth to destroy those two cities. An example. What are
we seeing in these first few verses? We see first the greeting
to God's people, sanctified by God the Father, preserved in
Christ, called, and yet He sets before us His great warning.
We have these people, the Israelites, set up before us, angels, and
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah set up before us as examples.
What do you think you're going to do comparing yourself to these
people, these angels and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,
the evil that we saw in them, their tendency to depart, and
the doom that they suffered, the propensity of our heart to
do just like them, our own weakness and inclination towards sin,
and the utter destruction they suffered? What would you do?
What are you going to do? And I know what your first reaction
is. I gotta get busy. I gotta make sure that everything's
in order, right? Let's keep reading. Verse 8,
Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion,
speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when
contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses,
durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord
rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those
things which they know not. But what they know naturally
is brute beasts and those things that corrupt themselves. Woe
unto them! For they have gone in the way
of Cain." What was Cain's way? He was doing everything right.
Working himself sweating. All these beautiful fruits and
vegetables He had the best looking things to offer God for all of
his labors and brought it to God thinking God will accept
this He has to accept this I've and I've sweat I've labored my
whole life for this He's got to accept me and God rejected
him No. God can receive nothing from
man. He only receives from Christ. Your only hope of acceptance
before God is what God thinks of Christ and His offering. If
we learn nothing else in this place in my whole life here,
I hope we learn that in our hearts. And that we will rejoice because
of that. God has received me as His Son because of what He
thinks of His Son. But don't go in the way of Cain.
They ran greedily after the heir of Balaam." Balaam taught the
children of Israel to serve idols for a reward. And he reminds
us also, those that perished in the gainsaying of Korah, who
rejected God's choice of Moses and Aaron and thought they also
were capable of being holy and serving the Lord, thinking that
this whole matter of being saved and serving God was man's doing. Verse 12, these are spots in
your feasts of charity. When you have these get-togethers
because you love the Gospel and you love one another, these who
believe these other ways, who deny the Lord Jesus Christ and
depend on their works, they're spots in your Feast of Charity.
When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, Clouds
they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit
withereth. Without fruit, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their
own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness forever. And Enoch, also the seventh from
Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and
to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly
deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard
speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them." Enoch
liked to drive his point home, so he used the word ungodly four
times in his sermon. Ungodly. Verse 16, "...these
are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts." What
does it mean to complain? It means to say, What God has
done is not enough. I'm just not satisfied. I deserve
better. I'm entitled to more. He's not
good. All these things are just unbelief. Now he's turning back to the,
at first he gives these hard, hard warnings, doesn't he? And
what does it do? It rattles us. It shows us, have
you ever thought about the, what it means for the angels who sinned? They had no second chance. One sin, forever destined to
eternal torment. The Israelites, 40 years in the
wilderness, they go to Canaan, about two and a half years out
of Egypt, and they get to the borders of Canaan. And they see
the giants there, and they're afraid of them. And God says,
I'm going to bring you in. I'm going to destroy the people
of this. And they don't believe God. After
He brought them out of Egypt, destroyed the nation of Egypt,
brought them through the wilderness, they still did not believe God. And then Sodom and Gomorrah and
all the other examples he's given here. And he says, But beloved,
remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there would
be mockers in the last times, who should walk after their own
ungodly lusts. When you don't believe Christ,
you are a slave of sin. That's what he says, isn't it,
in Romans 8? If you walk after the flesh,
you fulfill the lust of the flesh. But if you walk after the Spirit,
which is to look to Christ only, then you're going to walk in
the Spirit and you're not going to fulfill the desires of the
flesh. He says here in verse 19, "...these be they who separate
themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit, but you, beloved,
building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the
Holy Ghost, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for
the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life, and of some
have compassion, making a difference, and others saved with fear, pulling
them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by
the flesh. Now, in consideration of all of these who went before
and their eternal doom, in consideration of your own tendency, to do the
same. And don't think yourselves more
capable than them. In consideration of all of the
consequences that come upon them, and your own inability to have
any strength over your own weakness and unbelief, what are you going
to do?" He gives us that right here in these verses. Verse 24,
Now unto Him. You see that? That's the first
point. Now unto Him. Unto Him. The whole message here is about
God's people. He says, all of these dangers,
all of your own internal corruptions, all of your own inability to
overcome the wicked one in yourselves, and the horrible doom that's
the consequence of this. What are you going to do if you've
learned nothing else from the history of Scripture? Learn this,
that men, as it says in Jeremiah 23, 13, he says, those who are
accustomed to do evil, Like the leopard, they can't change his
spots. Or the Ethiopian in his skin. You can no more do good
than that animal or that man. You can't change yourself. God
Himself tells us and warns us, we only have one hope. Now unto
Him, the Lord Jesus Christ is being spoken of here. Unto Him
that is able to keep you from falling. It says he's able. It doesn't mean he's got a potential
ability that he never exercises. It means he's got an ability
that he carries out. He's able and he does. He's not
only able, but He does. He's able to keep you from falling. When I was a young person, I
went up to Bullard's Bar, and I remember standing and looking
out over the dam, and like drawing back. There's something about
heights that high that just sends you, it kind of makes you dizzy,
doesn't it? He says, when you consider these
that fell, the angels that fell, all the nation of Israel that
fell, Adam fell. Judas fell. Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram fell. All these people that fell. Cain
fell. Balaam fell. And you listen to
the words of Balaam. What are you going to do? What
do you think about yourself? Now unto him who is able to keep
us from falling. That's what he's saying. Look
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider Him. Put your hope in
the Lord. That's your only hope. The only
way you're going to escape eternal damnation for your own sins is
if Christ Himself keeps you from falling. Now unto Him who is
able to keep you from falling, There the giant is who just pushed
that other guy off the cliff. He's about to push you off and
the Lord comes in with his rescue and he says, now unto him who
is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless.
before the presence of His glory." Have you ever thought about someone
who's on the run from the law? And maybe you thought, I could
hide him. I could keep him from the punishment
of the law and preserve him from justice falling on his head.
But here he says, no, no. It's not just that the Lord has
kept justice from falling on our head. He hasn't kept the
rebel in hiding so that the king, whose officers are out to get
him and bring him to justice, don't find him. It's much better
than that. The king has taken the rebel
himself and brought him into his palace, into his own court. And he's presented the rebel
before him, in his presence, faultless. That's what he's saying
here. What does the Lord say in Ephesians
chapter 5? Look at this with me. Ephesians chapter 5, that
Christ has done for His people. He says in Ephesians 5 and verse
25, Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present
it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."
How did he do that? He gave Himself for us, and then
His Word, which tells us about what He did for us. The proclamation
of the King is sent to these, the bride, the bridegrooms coming
out with all of His glory, and He says, look what I've done,
you're going to be arrayed in My own beauty. I'm going to put
my own robe upon you." What does it mean to be faultless? It means
that God looks for our iniquities and He doesn't find them because
Christ has removed them. God Himself. Look at a few verses
with me. I want you to enjoy these. Look
at this, Jeremiah. Chapter 50. We'll just take a
few moments here to scan what God has said in His word. Remember
Psalm 135, In thy word do I hope. Let's look at that word. Jeremiah
50. He says this in verse 20. Maybe
you've got this memorized. I should have it memorized. He
says, in verse 20, In those days and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, and they shall
not be found, for I will pardon them whom I reserve." That's
what Jesus did. He gave himself for his bride,
that he might sanctify her, cleanse her with the washing of water
by the word, to present her to himself, holy, spotless, without
blame. And here the Lord says that when
He does that, He's going to seek. And there will be a search done.
And when He does do that, He says, "...the iniquity of Israel
shall be sought for, and there shall be none." God Himself will
look. They can't find anything wrong.
Imagine that. You think about God. If we could
even have just the smallest understanding of what it means who God is in His character,
in His perfections. Coming before God, seeing His
wisdom, think about it. God's wisdom is so infinite that
you could hear from Him and you would never stop learning. You
would be amazed at everything He said and it would be as if
you never understood a thing. with everything he says, because
it's an infinite wisdom. The Queen of Sheba said about
Solomon's servants, thy servants are blessed because they get
to stand and hear your wisdom. That's just the small part of
it. And to see His glory, see the
perfections of God's justice. I mean to be able to see God
in His justice, that He cannot tolerate sin. That's a glory
of God. To see God in His justice and
all these things coming together. His wisdom and His justice and
His power. God's power to do whatever He
wants and actually doing whatever He wants in every minute detail
throughout time and eternity. His power. His word is power. To see God and come before Him
and to know that He will not cheat. He won't fudge the books. And He's going to look at His
people. And He's going to examine them to make sure that they're
holy. Because His holiness will not...
It cannot tolerate any sin. And He wants to find perfection
there. And He looks, and He searches,
and He finds. And yes, it's perfect in every
way. Because the Lord Jesus Christ has perfected us forever by His
one offering. Look at Isaiah chapter 44. Same thing there. He's going to present us faultless,
faultless. without sin, Isaiah 44, 22, I
have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a
cloud thy sins. Return unto me, for I have redeemed
thee. And then look over at verse,
chapter 43, 25. He says the same thing. I, even I am he that blotteth
out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember
thy sins. Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter
10. I don't want you to feel like
you're not getting to use your Bible today. Hebrews chapter
10. He says, verse 14, "...for by one offering he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified." Listen to this. Ghost, the Holy Spirit also is
a witness to us. For after that he had said before,
the Spirit of God said this, this is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my
laws into their hearts and in their minds will I write them
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Not because he sees them and
he doesn't want to remember them so he just, by his will, I'm
not going to remember them. No, He remembers them no more.
Because by His one offering, He's perfected us forever. And
so the Holy Spirit testifies of that in the covenant of grace. And He says, "...their sins and
iniquities will I remember no more." Because in verse 18, now
where remission of these is, there is no more offering for
sin. We need no more offering because
the sins have been paid. Remission has been granted. Everything
is done. And so, this is what it means
to be faultless. Our sins are taken, but it means
more. It means more than just being faultless. It means more
than just to have our sins removed. It means to have a positive righteousness. A standing before God, that when
God sees us, He finds beauty there. He finds perfection. This is incomprehensible. It's imponderably wonderful that
God could do this in the Lord Jesus Christ. But this is what
he did. Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling. You
see what he says to sinners? He says, look, you can't do this. The enemy is too strong. Your
own internal corruptions are so powerful and you are too weak. When you see the monster of your
iniquity, and the fiend of hell, and the damnation that will come
upon all those who are ungodly, who do all these things, what
are you going to do? You better lift your eyes and
say, now unto Him, and Him alone who is able to keep me from falling. not only keep me from falling,
but to present me to himself without fault." But look at the
next phrase in Jude, verse 24. He says, "...not only faultless,
but before the presence of His glory." The presence of His glory. Here, God, in His glory, As Isaiah
said, when I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train
filled the temple, and the seraphim flew, and you know what they
said? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord! And the temple shook at
the voice of them that cried, Holy, holy, holy! It's in the
presence of the glory of God that God presents His people
faultless. It means that our state is acceptable
to God in His glory. But it means something else.
It means that God, in presenting us to Himself, finds His glory
made known, so that His glory is not only, we're not only faultless
and accepted in the presence of His glory, but His glory is
actually magnified and made known in bringing us into His presence
as faultless. So we are We are the reason that
God's glory is seen, and that reason is seen in what Christ
has done. That's why He's called the brightness
of His glory in Hebrews 1-3. The glory of God is seen in what
Christ has done for sinners. And think about that. It says in Psalm 19, the heavens
declare the glory of God. The earth showeth forth His handiwork. Day unto day. You know what it
says there. And so we think of God's glory as seen in His power
and His greatness and His things about God that intimidate us.
But God finds His greatest glory in His condescending humility
to stoop down and to lift up those who in themselves were
enemies of God and to reconcile them to Himself by the death
of His Son. That's God's greatest glory.
So when He brings us into His presence faultless, in the presence
of His glory, He's not only showing us His glory, what He's done
for us, but He's making known that glory in the subject and
matter of our salvation. Look at John 17. He's going to do this. This is
not a doubtful thing. And He draws our eyes off and
away from all the dangers of our own corruptions and our enemies
and even God's wrath. to Him who is able to keep us
from falling. John 17 verse 1. Jesus spake
these words. And He lifted up His eyes to
heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. What? Glorify
thy Son. Why? "...that thy son also may
glorify thee." How? "...as thou hast given him power
over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many
as thou hast given him." That's the glory of God. He glorified
His Father. by His Father glorifying Him. And His Father glorified Him,
enabling Him to bring those God gave to Him into eternal life. That was His glory. That was
the will of God. The eternal will of God He fulfilled. Look
at Psalm 21. Psalm chapter 21. It's phenomenal. What we do when we meet together
When we're talking to one another, we're talking to one another
about the great things that He has done. We're talking about
the glory of God. And so, I think about this. I speak this to myself and I
speak this to you because God himself speaks this to us. Do
not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner
of psalms. Can you imagine the offensiveness
it would be to a king to invite you to his feast and you say,
I just can't come. But I'm going to show my glory.
I'm sorry, it's not interesting to me. God is showing His glory
in the gospel. We need to think of it as so
important as just all that. Lord, I gotta hear it. I gotta see it. I wanna see your
glory. Show it to me. Tell me things, eternal things
that I can't see unless you reveal them. Show me your Son. Show
me what you've done for me and my soul. Psalm 21, the King shall
glory in thy strength. O Lord, in thy salvation how
greatly shall he rejoice. The King is Christ. What is He
saying here? Well, we just read in John 17,
He says, "...glorify thy son..." Why? "...so that thy son can
glorify thee." How? As many as you've given Him,
He's going to give eternal life to by His own work on the cross. And He says, The King, the Lord
Jesus Christ, says to His Father, He greatly rejoices in your salvation. The salvation you gave Him to
accomplish, the race you gave Him to run, the people He came
to save, He rejoices in that. Thou hast given Him His heart's
desire. and hast not withhold the request
of his lips. For thou preventest him with
the blessings of goodness, thou settest a crown of pure gold
on his head. He asked life of thee, and thou
gavest it him, eternal life for his people, length of days for
ever and ever." Listen to verse 5. His glory is great in thy
salvation, honor and majesty hast thou laid upon him." Christ's
glory is seen in his salvation of his people. And that's the
glory of God. You see God Himself acting. You see God's thoughts towards
His people. You see God's thoughts about
His own justice and His own mercy. The throne of God is established
on judgment, but it's also established on mercy. And you see this in
the work of Christ. God establishes and makes known
every perfection to the highest point. in the death of His Son. As Todd mentioned in Galatians
6.14, I glory in the cross because that's where I see God's glory.
It's in His salvation, the salvation in Christ. It's in Christ. Look
at Psalm 29 and verse 9. The voice of the Lord maketh
hinds to calve and discovereth the forest." And listen, "...and
in his temple doth everyone speak of his glory." Everyone in God's
temple speaks of his glory. What's in the temple? The altar. What's the altar there for? The
sacrifice? And what was happening there
on the sacrifice? God was propitiating Himself
by the offering of His Son. And not only propitiating Himself,
but making His people, reconciling them to Himself. And then declaring
that to them. And that's His glory. To bring
many sons to glory. That's the glory. And so He says
in Jude, unto him who is able to keep you from falling and
to present you faultless before the presence of his glory." And
notice the next words in verse 24, "...with exceeding joy."
Exceeding joy. God doesn't use hyperbole like
we do. We do that. It's awesome. What's
awesome? Everything's awesome. God doesn't
do that. Exceeding joy. What God is saying
here is there's going to be not only a presentation of His people
to Himself by His Son, the work, the will that He had, the work
that He did, And He's going to do all that and present them
to Himself in the presence of His glory. But there's going
to be a joy in that. What was the joy that was set
before the Lord Jesus Christ? Was it not that race that He
ran to save His people from their sins by Himself, bringing them
out of the misery, and the helplessness, and the shame of their sin, to
look upon His face in His glory, and to see what He had done for
them, and to rejoice, and actually love God, and see the beauty
in Him for what He had done for them? There's going to be great
joy in that day. Zephaniah 3.17. Turn to there. Zephaniah 3.17. Where is Zephaniah? It's in the
Z section. It's just before Haggai, if that
helps. It doesn't help much. Habakkuk,
then Zephaniah. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah. Look at this. Verse 14, Zephaniah
3, "...Sing, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O Israel! Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart! You be happy, O daughter of Jerusalem! The LORD hath taken away thy
judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy,
the King of Israel. Even the LORD is in the midst
of thee." Thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it
shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not. And to Zion, Let not
thine hands be slack. What does that mean? That's a
message of peace, isn't it? Peace be unto you. Fear thou
not. God has received you for what
he thinks of his Son. Verse 17. The Lord thy God in
the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice
over thee with joy. He will rest in his love. He
will joy over thee with singing. The joy of the Lord is my strength. What makes you strong? If your
dad looks at you and he sees how you're acting and stuff in
your life, you've experienced that. I remember I was out raking,
trying to smooth out the dirt. My dad was raking and I'm raking
and everybody's around. We're all raking, all of us kids.
And I couldn't get it right. There was something about the
ground that he wanted it level. I couldn't get it right. He wasn't
happy. And therefore I wasn't happy.
I felt miserable because he wasn't happy. But whenever my dad was
happy with me, it didn't matter what else was going on. I was
happy. Everything's fine. If dad's okay, I'm okay. If my
wife is happy with me, I'm happy. If you are happy with me, I'm
happy. But if the Lord Jesus Christ is happy with me, if He
stands in all His regal majesty before all this universe, conquering
as King and reigning over all, having the glory of God, and
He stands up and He says to His people, and He receives them
with everlasting joy, and He's singing, and He's rejoicing over
them, what are you going to be? You're going to be happy. exceeding
joy. Received into His presence, you
know that He's not fudging the books. He has made you faultless
and presented you in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Now unto Him, unto Him, He says
in the next part in Jude 25. Listen now. All of the church, they're looking
at Him. Our eyes have been drawn away
from all of the destruction that should come upon us, and the
weakness of our flesh, and the corruption of our nature, and
the fall of all these people. And you know that it was just
in God to condemn them. And yet, we stand there with
our hair tingling on the back of our neck, and He says, now
unto Him, that's able to keep you from falling and present
you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."
To who? To the only wise God, our Savior. Our Savior. He tells us, your
Savior is the only wise God. The one who is your Savior is
the very only wise God. Be glory and majesty, dominion
and power, both now and ever. Amen. How can we express this? The only thing I can think of
is that when we see the Lord, and see what He's done, and how
He has received us as Himself, and all the work that He's done,
and we take our crowns and we cast them at His feet, We want
to say, we see that He's done it all. And we see His wisdom,
and we see how He's reconciled His justice and His mercy, His
love and truth, His grace toward us. And He's magnified the perfection
so that justice now cries out with joyous triumph. They're
perfect. They're absolutely perfect because
God in His wisdom has imputed the righteousness of Christ to
them. And we see the glory of God. We see the glory of our
Savior. And we say, He's glorious. We don't add glory to Him by
saying that, but we recognize and realize it. And we say it
as if for the first time in praise and uninhibited, unimpeded, Worship
of God. He's done it. He's everything.
Look at John 17 one more time. John 17. And we'll close with
this. There were a lot of verses I
was going to take you to, but we just aren't going to have time,
about how He's going to present us faultless. I'll just mention
a couple of them, but first let me read John 17. this verse in
verse 24. Father, Jesus says to his father
in his prayer, I will that they also whom thou hast given me
be with me where I am that they may behold my glory which thou
hast given me for thou lovest me before the foundation of the
world. I think that there's something
that we don't even understand what it's going to be like really. You know, we think there's this
intimidation, this intimidatedness of God. We're going to see Him,
we're going to be so intimidated. And I think there's truth to
that. But there's something else that
the Lord brings our attention to because of His atoning work
for us and Him standing for us that we just don't realize. And
that is that when we see God in His glory, we're going to
know the love of God and we're going to be so at peace and rest
that we're going to finally be able to have that intimate communion
that goes beyond description of words. that we know ourselves
to be so accepted for Christ's sake, so loved for His sake,
that there will be no shame, there will be no remorse, there
will be no sadness and sorrow. All the tears will be taken away
and we'll stand there and we will just embrace, as it were,
our Master with a holy sense of pure acceptance before
Him. And He says, I want them to see
My glory, because you love Me before the foundation of the
world, O righteous Father. The world has not known Thee,
but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent
Me. And I've declared to them Thy name, and I will declare
it, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them,
and I in Thee. the love of God, to know the
love of God that passes knowledge, the height, the depth, the length,
the breadth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge.
That's the apostle's prayer for all of the people to whom he
would minister directly and indirectly through his epistles by the Spirit
of God. And that prayer was for us, his
people. Now when you consider your own
tendency to fall away, to not believe Christ, to depart. Remember
what Jesus said to his disciples? Are you also going to go? Lord,
where else would we go? We're sinners. We have no strength
in ourselves. We have to look to Christ only.
Now unto Him, and looking to Him, you'll find He is able to
present you faultless before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy. And then you will say, in complete
unison and without any inhibitions, unto Him be glory and majesty,
dominion and power forevermore. Amen. Every saint of God is going
to be able to say that. And now, He directs our attention
in all this, Jews, all these warnings. Lift your eyes. Behold
the salvation of the Lord. It is the Lord Jesus Christ.
He died for us, and He will bring us to glory. Never think that
your salvation depends on you for a moment, because if you
do, that's departing from the living God. But look to Christ
only, because in looking to Him, you're changed into the same
image from glory to glory, conformed to His image. What a mercy. Let's pray.