Let's read these first seven
verses here. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ
to the strangers, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,
Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you,
and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
by Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy,
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, a living hope, by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible
and undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for
you, who are kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready
to be revealed in the last time. wherein ye greatly rejoice, though
now for a season, if need be." If it's necessary, if God says
it's necessary, if it needs to be so, you are in heaven, as
through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith,
being much more precious than a gold that perisheth, though
it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. I want to take
my subject there in verse 5. Kept by the power of God. Who
are kept? Who are those that are kept?
God's elect, those strangers, those that have been set apart
by the Spirit, those that have been given a living hope. These
people are the people that's being kept by the power of God.
Now, there's two sides to every coin. There's two sides to every
issue. God's sovereignty and responsibility. And then there's election in
the proclamation of the gospel. You know, God is sovereign. He's
going to save His people. But men must respond. They must
respond. They're going to respond. And
then, though we are responsible to believe God, to walk according
to His word and His will, seeking the knowledge of God, And then,
though we believe in election, we also believe in proclaiming
the gospel, because that's how God saves His people. And that's
the way it is with the doctrine of preservation and perseverance. And here in verse 5, we have
both. We have perseverance and we have preservation. First of
all, we're kept by the power of God. That's preservation.
God's going to preserve us. He's going to keep us. But look
what it says here. through faith. That's perseverance. God preserves us, and we persevere. And I'll tell you, look over
here in Jude, over to your right, that Jude is right before the
book of Revelations, that one little chapter there, and let
me show you something here, if I can, in verse 20. You know what it talks about
here? This is what I'm talking about. God, the Scriptures blesses
us with great, great promises on one side and then warnings
and responsibilities on the other, promises to keep us in comfort
and assurance, but also warnings and responsibilities could keep
us from being presumptuous and leaning too much to ourselves.
And he says here in verse 20, But you, beloved, building up
yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
You build up your holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. Listen
to this. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Looking for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. He says now in verse 24
here, it says, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you flawless before the presence of his glory. He
told us to build up our faith. Told us to keep ourselves in
the love of God, and then He says, we'll come to Him that's
able to keep you from falling. To keep us from falling away
from keeping ourselves in the love of God. Keeping ourselves
praying in our most holy faith and building it up. Now, I do
know this much. I know this without a shadow
of a doubt. That a person who God has made to be a sinner.
If a person has ever been lost. Now, I'm talking about lost.
to the point that somebody else has to come and find them. As
our Lord Jesus Christ says that that lost sheep, he went out
into the wilderness and found that lost sheep and laid it on
his shoulder and brought it back to the fold. I know that that
person who has been taught by God to be a sinner that has been
lost, and then God finds that sinner They know by experience. They know by experience that
they must be kept. They know they must be kept.
And I'll tell you, I've got three things that way I want to look
at this. We not only must be kept from some things, ourselves
kept from some things, but we also need to be kept to some
things. And then God, in His wonderful
mercy, keeps some things from us that would harm us if it wasn't
in His blessed will. Now let me tell you some things.
that must be kept, controlled by the power of God. God must
keep them. We have lots of enemies in this
world. And our enemies must be kept, they must be controlled
by the power of God. You know, every believer, now
this is, we know this from experience, every believer has a traitor
in his castle. You know how the enemy gets in?
He gets in through this, through this old flesh. And every believer
has a traitor in the castle. And we have lots and lots of
enemies. Peter says that we have an enemy, it's a roaring lion. Satan is a roaring lion, goes
about seeking whom he may deny. And he also transforms himself
into an angel of light. So there's ways that He comes
to us that we would, if God don't keep Him and control Him, that's
why He said, Lord, deliver us from all evil. Keep us from temptation. Deliver us from evil. Now look
over here in 2 Corinthians 10. Look what Paul said over here
in 2 Corinthians 10 about being kept and the enemies that we
have. Oh, what enemies we have. And
there's nothing that an enemy would rather do than to overthrow
us. That's why Paul said, I'm persuaded
that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things to come, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God that's in Christ. There's lots of things
that labor and want to and try to keep us from Christ and the
love of God that's in Christ. And look what he said here in
verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 10. For though we walk in the flesh,
we're in this body, and we're living in this body, in this
earth, this old flesh, we do not war after the flesh. We're
in a war. For the weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal.
They're not of this flesh. They're not natural. They're
not fleshly. But they're mighty through God through the pulling
down of strongholds. And oh, what kind of strongholds?
Well, this is what he says, casting down imaginations. Oh, reasonings
that we have, imaginations that we have, things that go on in
our mind. And every high thing, things
that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. And it brings
into captivity our thoughts, whatever, to the obedience of
Christ. We know and understand that our
thoughts must be brought, our mind must be brought, our imaginations
must be brought to what Christ did and His obedience. Not our
obedience to Him, but His obedience that saved us. We've got to leave
off our minds and our reasonings and our carnal understanding,
and we come to what Christ did, and all of His obedience is what
we come to. And I tell you, beloved, the
flesh, our carnal nature, the world, Satan, sin, all these
things are our enemy. Our enemy. And the flesh, The
world in Satan's weapons, he's got lots of them. He's got lots
of them. You remember when our Lord Jesus
says the strong man armed, his goods are safe until a stronger
man armed comes and spoils all of his goods and takes them from
him. Now, that strong man is Satan, and he's safe as long
as a stronger man comes. He keeps his goods. And what
are his goods? Us. And the flesh is Satan's
weapons. You know what? He's got three
great weapons. First weapon he's got is ignorance. Ignorance. Men are ignorant of
the Scriptures, ignorant of themselves, ignorant of God. And ignorance,
so much ignorance prevails about the things of the Scripture.
And men would rather have their opinions and their feelings than
to have the truth of the Scriptures. And the second thing is not only
ignorance, but pride. Pride will not let a man, apart
from the grace of God, admit that he's wrong, that he's done
something wrong, that he is wrong, that he thought wrong, he acted
wrong, his motives are wrong, everything about him is wrong.
He don't want to admit that he failed, he won't want to admit
that he done this, that, and the other. And the third thing
that he really uses is self-righteousness, and that's something that is
natural to us as water running downhill. Self-righteousness
is as natural to us as water running downhill. Of course,
I know all of you that way. All you've got to do to find
out if you're self-righteous is let somebody start telling
you how sorry you are right to your face. You know, when you talk to somebody
and they start talking about you, you know, But Scott Richardson
will give you a perfect illustration. Scott's got a couple of boys
that the Lord blessed him with a couple of boys. And he said,
boy, your boys seem to be awful, awful nice. And then they got
some sense. And he said, well, he said, he's
in spite of me. He said, he always had to be
in spite of me. And everything that happens to
us has to be in spite of us. And that's the way we're talking
about self-righteousness. What have we got to be self-righteous
about? And all common witness, and let me show you, and through
faith, let me show you over here in Ephesians 6.10, talking about
these enemies and things that we need. In Ephesians chapter
6. Our enemies must be kept. If
God wants to turn the devil, you know, and He did, He turned
him loose on Job, He turned him loose on Paul, He turned him
loose on Simon Peter. He said, Satan sought to sit
you as wheat. And the only reason why your
faith did not fail is I prayed for you. And the only reason
our faith does not fail is Christ prays for us. That's what I'm
talking about. We understand that we need to
be kept. All God's got to do is just lead us to ourselves.
And oh, what a prayer we pray. Lord, please don't leave me to
myself. Don't leave me to my understanding,
my self-righteousness. Don't leave me to my imagination. Don't leave me to my pride, and
my prejudices, and my ignorance." And look what he said here in
Ephesians 6.10. He says, finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord, and listen to this, in the power of His
might. How do you do that? You just say, Lord's got all
the power, and the minute you understand that you don't have
none, He's got it all, that's when you're strong in the Lord.
You contribute everything to Him, and then put on the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to withstand who? The wiles
of the devil. He comes to meetin' with us.
He comes in our brains. Oh, Mr. Bunyan, when he talked
about Christian, he says when Christian was on his pilgrim
journey, he says that somebody got on his shoulder one time
and somebody was whispering to him about the existence of God
and God's mercy and God's grace, that he may have sinned so much
that God wouldn't save him. He said, I don't know if it was
my voice or the voice of the obelisk, but it sounded like
my voice. But it was the obelisk sitting
on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. And that's why he comes
to Michael the archangel, and the archangel said, the Lord
rebuked thee, Satan. The devil didn't try to... Michael
the archangel didn't try to rebuke you. He said, the Lord rebuked
you. I got no power against you. And when he come against Job,
Job had no power against him. And so you see, he says, that
you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we're
wrestling, and we are wrestling. Not against flesh and blood.
If you could get hold of flesh and blood, you could wrestle
against that. But we're not. But against principalities. Against powers. Against the rulers
of the darkness of this world. Oh, do you feel like things get
out of control sometimes? Well, I tell you what, there's
spiritual wickedness out here in this world. Rulers in the
darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high
places. Wicked spirits in heavenly places
is what he's talking about. Wherefore, he says, take unto
you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand
in the evil day. And there's going to be an evil
day coming. And having done all to stand, Having done all in the margin
set all to overcome, stand! Stand, therefore! When you've
done, you can't do nothing else, stand! Having your loins girt
about, what are you going to girt about with? Truth! Truth! Having on the breastplate of
righteousness the very righteousness of Christ, That's the only righteousness
they are. Oh, I've got my shield against
my own sin, the sin against the devil, the enemy of the girl,
the enemy of the flesh, and the enemy of myself and sin. I just
say this in respect of the righteousness of Christ is the only righteousness
of God. And you can't take that away
from me. And look what he says. And your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace. And above all things, taking
the shield of faith. What's the shield of faith? That
faith that God give us in Christ. That faith that God give us that
belongs to us and nobody else. And when that he throws him with
fiery darts, it'll quench the darts of the wicked. And oh,
beloved, that's what he says through faith, kept by the power
of God, through faith. So we have enemies that must
be kept. And then look what he says back over here. He said,
who are kept by the power of God. We who are kept. Who is
kept? We are. And I said this last
week, I'm pretty sure this word kept here means like a city,
garrisoned, guarded, protected. Got a guard around it. Got a
perimeter around it. You got soldiers around it. And you got all the necessary
things around you so that they can't get in and get to you. And you know what He keeps us
in? And bless His holy name for this. He keeps us in the faith
of the truth. He keeps us in the faith and
the belief of the truth. He's the one that teaches us
the truth, and He keeps us in that truth. He's the one that
taught us the truth, brought us the truth, revealed the truth
to us, and He keeps us in that truth. And how does He do it?
By the gospel. By the truth of the gospel. That's
how he does it. You know, there's lots of...
I read it to you this morning where Paul said, by the time my departure's
at hand and I'm ready to be offered. How do I lie, Paul? Because I've
kept the faith. I believe the truth and I kept
that truth. I believed it from the time God
taught it to me, and I believe it now when I'm fixin' to leave
this world, and I'm fixin' to go out into eternity when I'm
fixin' to go meet my Maker, when I'm fixin' to face my God, when
I'm fixin' to fight. And I fought this fight, and
we just talked about wrestling, not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities and powers. He said, I fought that
fight, and I'm through fighting. My war's over. But he said, oh,
I kept that faith. And, oh beloved, wouldn't it
be something? Some men get weaker as they get older. There's some
men, you read them, and they got weaker as they went along.
And there's some men, the longer they go, the stronger they got.
The more clear they got, the more faithful they become, the
more powerful they become, the more assured they become. And
that's, you know, Henry Mahan, he ain't preached in quite a
while, but I tell you, he never, ever got weak. The Lord you hear
him preach, I mean, he'd nail it every time. Scott Richardson
nailed it every time. Donald Sportner, after all these
years, nails it every time. I mean, they don't get weaker.
I tell you, the truth just gets a stronger hold on you, more
precious to you, more necessary to you. And God, bless His Holy
Name, keeps us in that truth. How long has He kept you in the
truth of the Gospel? Oh, and you know, there's some
people over in 2 Thessalonians that don't get kept in the faith
of the Gospel. They don't get kept. You know,
that's why John says, you know, they went out from us because
they were not all of us. Look in 2 Thessalonians, Chapter
1, or excuse me, Chapter 2. He says they went out from us
because they were not of us. If they would have been of us,
they would have taken Thessalonians 2. If they would have been of
us, they would have no doubt continued with us. But they went
out from us. Went out from us. And Paul says, you know, the
Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall
depart. What are they going to do? Depart from the faith. giving heed to seducing spirits.
Oh, that preacher, they're just too serious. He's just too narrow. Those folks up there, I think
that, you know, they think that you've got to absolutely believe
the gospel before you can be saved. And they give heed to
these seducing spirits. Well, I was saved 30 years ago,
and I had this experience, and I ain't going to give my experience
up. And they give heed to these seducing
spirits. Well, you know that they give
too much of God's charge and not enough man's responsibility.
Or they don't preach enough old works. They don't tell us enough
about what we need to do. And so they give heed to these
seducing spirits and these doctrines of the devils. And the devil
comes along and talks to them and whispers in their ears, and
the next thing you know, you don't see them. And a month goes
by, two months goes by, three months goes by, six months goes
by, eight months goes by, and where were they at? Huh? Where will we be a year
from now? And look what now over here,
here's the folks who weren't kept by the grace of God, wasn't
kept in the truth of the gospel. Look what he said here in verse
3, 2 Thessalonians 2. Let no man deceive you by any
means, that that day shall not come, except there first come
a falling away. A falling away. What's that falling away mean?
They're falling away from the revealed truth. It's not people
getting lost again. It's not people going back to
the world. It's turning away from this gospel, turning away
from the truth, and there's a falling away. And that man of sin, that
man that deceived him, that man that enticed him away, that man
that caused him to give heed to this seducing spirit, he'll
be revealed. Now look down here in verse 9. Even him whose coming is after
the working of Satan with all powers and signs and lying wonders. Now, beloved, what that means
is that He comes with great power, and He comes with signs. He gives
them, says, well, give me a sign, Lord. Well, I should do this,
or I should do this. And He gives them a sign. Gives them just
what they want. And He comes with the lying wonder. He comes,
makes them deceive, and makes them think, yes, I know Christ,
and yet they don't believe the gospel, they don't believe His
Word. They go on through eternity, and they stand up and say, oh,
they're looking at me from up in heaven now, looking down at
me. And they live without God all their lives. And watch this
now. And He deceives them into unrighteousness
in them that perish. And here's the reason why. Now,
these folks had a faith. These folks had a profession
now. I mean, Satan deceived them. Oh, he took them away. Oh, they
said, you would not believe how many people we got. Somebody
talked to me the other day. Doogie was. He said, up there
where he lives, he said, they've got mega churches. Churches that
they got thousands in them. Thousands of people in them. And just to give you an illustration,
he says, He said, there's a sovereign, they play basketball against
a school up there, a church up there, called the Sovereign Grace
Church. And they play basketball in their
gymnasium, and it's Sovereign Grace Church now. Well, I found
out about this Sovereign Grace Church years ago, when I was
going to go up there. And you know what this Sovereign
Grace Church was? It's a Pentecostal group. Tone-speakers. And they believe the five points
of Calvinism. Every single one of them do. The preacher does,
claims them. And yet they all get up and they've
got great big bands and great big screens, and they dance in
the Spirit and they run the aisles and speak in tongues and do everything
under the sun that you can imagine. And yet they call themselves
sovereign grace. That's a lying wonder. And look what he says, and oh,
they thought, boy, we've got everything here. We even beat
that school over there. We win the basketball. God's
for us, that's for sure. And then because, look what he
said, with deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
period, because they received not the love, love of the truth,
that they might be saved. Do you love the truth? I love
it. I love it. I love the gospel. I love the grace of God. I love
God's word. I love the righteousness of Christ.
I love to talk about blood. I love it. You love it. I mean, we, you
know, we've tasted that the Lord is gracious. We've tasted the
word of God. We've tasted that heavenly gift. And we love it. And look what
he went on to say. And because they received not
this love of the truth, God sends them a strong delusion that they
should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe
not the truth, but they had pleasure in all the unrighteousness. I
don't be damned. I want to be this one over here.
God keep me kept in the truth, kept in the truth. You see, beloved,
the believer, by the Spirit of God, he knows the message of
the Scriptures. He knows the meaning of the Scriptures. And yet he himself is as great
a mystic to the natural man as the Scriptures is to the natural
man. Paul says we're judged of no man, but yet we judge all
things. He says people don't discern us. They don't understand
us. They can't judge us. But we can
judge all things because we know the Scriptures. We understand
those tales. We understand the Scriptures. We understand the
message of God. You see, with the believer, he's
like this. He believes God. Yet he cries, Lord, help thou
my unbelief. He has a new nature, yet he pens
after God and holiness. And yet he has an old nature
which must be put down constantly. He rejoices that in Christ he
is perfectly holy, yet knows that in my flesh dwells no good
thing. He rejoices evermore, and yet
he has continual sorrow. He knows that all of God's elect
will be saved, yet he prays for and he witnesses to all men,
praying and hoping that they will hear and come to Christ. Oh, this man, he is aware of
a growth in grace, and yet he says about himself he's less
than the least of all the saints. He longs to depart and be with
Christ, and yet he's content to remain here until the Lord
calls him home. That in Christ he has all things,
and is rich, and possesses all things. And yet in himself he
is as poor and he's a beggar and has nothing. Not only are
we kept in the faith of the truth, but we're kept in the love of
God. In the love of God. Now this
is a wonderment. This is a wonderment that an
infinite, eternal, immutably holy God would love a human being. would love a fallen sinner. But
he does. But he does. And not only did
he love him, but he loved him with an everlasting love. And
it was his cord of love that brought him to himself. And he
manifested that love of God towards him in his blessed son. And we
love God first because he loved us. And that's why Paul, when
he wrote to the Ephesians, he said, under them that love the
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. And look what he says. You keep
this and look over in 2nd Corinthians, 1st Corinthians 16, 22. Look
what it says over here. 1st Corinthians 16, 22 about
the love of God. Nobody loves Him. That's what
I was talking about. Read. Love God. Love God. We don't love him like
we should. Don't love him like we want to.
Don't bless his name if we don't love him like we will one of
these days. One of these days it'll be pure. Go on down north
and I love you. Do you love me, Solomon Peter?
Yes, Lord. Do you love me, Solomon Peter? Yes, Lord. Ask him a third
time. Say, Lord, you know, you know,
you know. Look what he said here now in
verse 22 of 1 Corinthians. If any man love not the Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha. Do you know what that
means? That means let him be cursed. Let him be damned when Christ
comes if he loves not the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, not
only did He bring us that love, but we got to be kept in that
love. We don't have to be made to love
our wives or love our children. But God brought the love of God
and put it in our hearts, shed it abroad in our hearts, and
He brought it to us, He put it in our hearts, and He has to
keep it in there. He has to keep it in there. Huh? And all to love Him, love His
Word, love His people, love His truth. And this love is not meritorious. It's the fruit of the Spirit.
For the fruit of the Spirit, the first one is love. Love. That's the first one. And tempting
the love of God by faith. And then look what it says here
in our text again. Not only we're kept in the love
of God, but we're kept through the heaviness and manifold temptations
that we face. Oh, if you need be, you're in
heaviness through manifold temptations. Verse six, we're to need be.
And we're kept. Kept. You say you greatly rejoice,
though for a season, if it's necessary. You know, there's
some need be's in God's Word. He must needs. through Samaria. Must needs go up to Jerusalem.
And here, beloved, it says it needs to be here in heaviness
through a lot of different trials. And then he says, the trying
of your faith, the trial of your faith being much more precious
than gold. I watched this thing last night
about these gold, going after gold up in Alaska. And one day,
one day, in about six hours, they took over $20,000 worth
of gold. I mean, you could have held it
in your hand like that right there. Oh man, they just rejoiced. They
put that in a jar and they took it and weighed it all. And then
when it was all said and done, they had over $300,000 worth
of it. Oh, man, they just, whoo! I guess I would too if I was
looking for gold. But they got happy about that.
Well, he says, your faith is more precious than all the gold.
Would you rather have your faith or have that $300,000 worth of
gold? I want my faith. Because it's more precious than
that. Gold won't guide your way into glory. Gold won't put away
your sin. Gold Can't keep you when your
faith is being tried. Faith won't buy your health back.
Gold won't buy your health back when it's gone. And when you
lose your mind, all the gold in the world can't buy your mind
back. That's why it says your faith
is precious. And oh, when God tries it, you
see, we'd never know we had it if God wouldn't try it. We'd
never know how precious it is if God didn't try it. You know,
when Abraham offered Isaac, it wasn't to prove his faith to
God. God knew he had faith. God gave it to him. But you know
who it was to prove it to? It was to prove it to Abraham.
And it was to prove it to Isaac. Prove it to Sarah. Prove it to
those men that he said, John the Lamb will come back to yonder
and worship Him. They said, oh Abraham, he went up there and
he come back with that boy just like he said he did. He pleased
God. And that's what we say. And this
faith is being tried, and we're kept in this. God keeps us through
this, and God helps us through these things. That it might be
found at the appearing of Christ unto the praise, honor, and glory
at our Lord Jesus Christ's appearing. When Christ appears, He says,
when He says, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith
on the earth? He will. If He'd come right now, He'd
find something right here with faith. He's going to have a people
that believe when He gets here. Amen. And who are the ones kept
by the power of God? Who are they? It says here, the
elect, verse 2. That's who are kept by the power
of God through faith. Elect. God's elect. Those who
have been set apart by the Spirit. Those who have come under the
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Do you remember When
Moses, when God told Moses to take, I had all the people gather
around. And they offered that sacrifice
and all the people came around. He said, now Moses, he said,
you take this blood of this lamb and you sprinkle it on all the
people. Sprinkle it on the books. Sprinkle
it on the walls. Sprinkle it on the altar. And every place where that blood
sprinkled, God said there was remission of sins. Sprinkled on the book. That book's
got to be sanctified. That book's got to be true. That
book's got to be blessed of God. And, beloved, that's what's happened
to us. We've come to that sprinkling of the blood. You know, listen,
we're strangers. And we're those who are kept
by God's abundant mercy that gave them a living hope. And
then look what we're kept to. We're kept to an inheritance
in verse 4. Oh, an inheritance. Incorruptible. Undefiled. It's not going to
fade away. Reserved for you. For who? You. Who are kept by the power
of God. Oh my, look with me quickly over
Numbers chapter 6 with me in verse 24, and I'll close with
this. Numbers 6.24. This is that high
priestly prayer. You remember, God told Aaron,
this is what you'll do in blessing. Numbers 6.24. Numbers 6.24. Look what he said here. And I'm going to read you some
verses before I get over here and psalm. I'm going to read
you two verses before I get to that. Just to show you. Set this
up. Oh, God save us and keep us.
Asaph says truly, God is good to Israel, even to such as are
of our clean heart. But as for me, My feet were almost
gone. My steps had well not slipped. But now look what he says. Number
624. The Lord bless thee, and listen
to this, and keep thee. The Lord keep thee. Lord, keep me in your providence. Lord, keep us by his grace. Lord, keep us by planting your
fear deep in our heart. And then maintain that fear in
my heart. Lord, keep me when I'm waking.
Keep me while I'm sleeping. Keep me by day. Keep me by night. Keep me at home. Keep me when
I'm in public. Keep me when I'm with my family.
Keep me when I'm with my friends. Keep me in the world. Keep me
in the church. And the Lord keep us according
to His promise every morning. Keep me by Your Spirit. Keep
me by Your grace. And this is the blessing from
the high priest. And do you have a need to be
kept? Do you have an interest in this blessing? I do. Lord, keep me. Keep me. Keep me, David said it this way,
keep me as the apple of God's eye. Keep me. The Lord bless you, and the Lord
keep you. Oh, blessed, blessed, blessed
Savior, my Redeemer, our Redeemer. the very lover of our souls,
loved us, gave yourself for us, keep us day in and day out. And
Lord, here's the most gracious and wonderful thing at all, that
you've put in us a desire to be kept. You've put in us we
want to be kept. We know we can't keep ourselves.
We can't keep ourselves from sin. We can't keep ourselves
from falling. We cannot keep ourselves from
wandering and our minds wandering. But Lord Jesus, keep us. Keep
us pleading. Keep us believing. Keep us trusting. Keep us in faith. Keep us in
the truth. Keep us in the love of God. Keep
us in the grace of God. Keep us in the gospel. Keep us
loving one another. Keep us, Lord, gracious. Keep
us humble. And Lord, keep us rejoicing and
trusting and believing, no matter what happens to us in this world.
It comes from You. And keep us from ever, ever faulting
You. for complaining about you, but
just humble ourselves under your blessed hand, Lord Jesus. Just
humble ourselves under your hand and say, It is the Lord. Let
him do what seemeth good. Oh, bless your holy name. Amen. Amen.