He is Able

Return with me in your Bibles back to the book of Jude. And after that long almost introduction, I promise to be brief so that we can enjoy. Jenny's chocolate cake. One of the things that I wanted to add to that list is that I'm fearful of not believing that the gospel is the power of God under salvation. God says it's the power. Isn't it an amazing thing? Here we are preaching the Lord Jesus Christ and God says it's the power of God under salvation. Let's just look at these glorious words.

Now unto him that is able. Now unto him that is able. That word able is the word that we get dynamite from. If you translated it, just wrote out the Greek letters, you'd have the word dynamite, dynamos. It means to have power, to be strong, to be powerful. He's able. He has the power to keep you from falling. He has the power to compete. to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

We can't rush through these words, they're just too precious. So I'm praying that the Lord would allow us some little time to contemplate them and contemplate them more deeply. One of the things that's interesting is that the word now is actually the word and, and so this necessarily is joined with the phrases, the words just above it. now is to keep you from falling.

And how's he going to do that? In the hearts of his people in verse 21, he's going to keep you in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to keep you looking unto eternal life. And he's going to build you up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost.

So he's going to do the building. He begins the building. He is the foundation for the building. He is the capstone of the building. He puts all the stones in the building. And when the building is completed, what's the cry? Grace. Grace is the cry. He did it all. He did it all. He did it all. That's the building, that's the most holy faith that we looked at last week. Praying in the Holy Ghost and keep yourselves, he's able to keep you from falling.

The previous verse, and so then there are three ands, aren't there? And on some have compassion making a difference. He's able to keep you from falling and he's able to keep you having compassion on some, making a distinction, making a difference, making a distinction through the trial that is going to come.

Every one of God's children is going through a trial of faith. They will go through a trial of faith. They are going through some trial of faith and they will go through some trial of faith. And that's what making the difference is. And we have compassion on our brothers and sisters as they're going through their trial. And others say with fear, pulling them out of the fire. Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him. He's able. He's able to keep you from falling back into the fire. That's been going back under the law according to this. Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. What's the garment spotted by the flesh? Any garment that has any flesh in it at all is spotted by the flesh, isn't it? Any garment of any righteousness has anything to do with you in it.

If your righteousness is not all the Lord Jesus Christ, you have fallen. Thank God he's able to keep you from falling. He's able to keep you from falling. He's able. He's able to keep you being merciful. He's able to keep you in his merciful mercy. He's able to keep you in his love, the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. We love talking about the love of God, don't we?

I love John 3.16. For God so loved the world that he sent his only son. He loved the world of his elect that he sent his only son.

Whoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life. The love of God is eternal love. The love of God is not to be polluted. People fall into this ridiculous notion that the love of God is some universal wish on God's part, that God wants. God loves everyone, but he can't quite get that love to them, and he can't quite get that love in response to them. So please, please, please be nice to him. Our God is not a beggar. Our God is absolutely sovereign. He's able to keep you from falling. He's able to keep you in and on your most holy faith. He's able to keep you.

Let's just go back through Jude and I want to sort of go from the bottom up to the top and I want us to look at what it is for this one, the he that is able. In verse 15, he's the one that's spoken against. They speak against him. All the hard speeches that these people speak. And he's able to execute judgment at the beginning of that verse. He's able to judge. But what are all the lies that are said? They're spoken against him. Every lie about God is spoken directly about the Lord Jesus Christ. Every issue of theology.

There's an issue that goes directly, somehow there's a pathway from that directly to the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they speak against him. Verse 14, he's the coming Lord, the Lord cometh. Our Lord is a coming Lord. Don't you love the fact? I'm looking. Are you looking forward to his coming? I wish I was looking more forward to it. I'm fearful of not looking forward to it enough. But what a glorious day. What a glorious day when this universe is just going to be wrapped up.

God's children will be taken out of here. and we will be with him forever, and we will be like him, and we will be able to see him as he is in all of his glory, and not just a glimpse, not just a glimpse. Heaven's not a glimpse of God. We see through a glass darkly here. We get glimpses of his glory. We see him all the time. Every thought of heaven will be a thought that glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the coming Lord. And listen to who he's coming with.

10,000, we read about them in Revelation, 10,000 of his saints, this one that's able, this he that is able, is the one that has an innumerable company of people and he calls them saints. He calls them saints. He calls them holy ones. Not that they have to do something to make their holiness happen. He's the one that keeps them in their most holy faith. He's the one that's given them their most holy faith because he's the author and the finisher of that faith. And they're his saints. He calls them his saints.

In verse nine, It speaks at the end of that verse, the Lord rebuke thee, Satan. The Lord rebuke, he's able to rebuke Satan. What an extraordinary thing, he's able to rebuke Satan. He's able and he's made a mockery of Satan on the cross of Calvary and he's able to rebuke him and he's able to take all of his weapons away. What's Satan's great weapon against you?

The law of God. You've broken the law of God and you've broken it again and again and again. You've broken it in thought, word and deed. You haven't loved God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind. You haven't. You haven't loved your neighbour as yourself.

And Satan comes along and he accuses the brethren, he's the accuser of the children of God. And every time he accuses us, he never has to lie. But he has to tell one lie over and over and over again. He has to lie about the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what Colossians 2 says about the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in verse 13 of Colossians 2, and you being dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh, have he quickened together, this is the one who's able, he's quickened together with him, we were resurrected with him, we were crucified with him, we were buried with him, we were resurrected with him, we have risen with him, we're reigning with him, having forgiven you all your trespasses. And notice the word that's not there. It's the same word that's missing in our verse in Jude. There's no if. There's no if. This is a grace act, isn't it? He's forgiven you all your trespasses.

Listen to what else he's done. What's against you? The law of God. Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us. He's taken an eraser to the whiteboard and there's nothing left. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, which was contrary to us. That's what was against us, it was contrary to us, and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in the cross, is what that means. Therefore, let no man judge you. with all of these things that religion is judging people on. He's able to rebuke Satan. He's able to rebuke him. Verse seven speaks of our God. This he is a just God. His judgment is just.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, like manners, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. That vengeance of eternal fire fell on Sodom and Gomorrah. And that vengeance of eternal fire fell on the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. And that's what it means, and we're pulling them out of the fire. We're telling them that the fire has already fallen on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you can't get out of that fire yourself, and he's done it.

He keeps the angels, in verse six, he keeps the angels in judgment. He reserves the angels that believe not. and he reserved them in judgment. Our God is a God of justice and our God is a God of judgment. And his judgment is good, his judgment is holy, his judgment is perfect.

And this is the one, the judge, the ruler, the reigner, is the one that's able to keep you. There's no point speaking about the ability of someone who doesn't have the ability to do all of these things. What ability he has? And verse five, he saved the people out of the land of Egypt and then he destroyed the unfaithful and the unbelieving amongst them.

Verse four of Jude, he's the only Lord God. Don't you love that? He's the only Lord God, only Lord God. And he's our Lord Jesus Christ. For all of the children of God, we can say he's ours. He says you're mine. And we say, he's our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you love that? He's our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the midst of these creeping men that he says are ordained for this condemnation, and he says to these people, he speaks of a common salvation. There is just one salvation for all of God's people and that salvation is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ is all of our salvation.

And this is the faith that you should earnestly claim for the faith. He's delivered the faith to the saints and we're just ambassadors saying this is the faithful one. This is he who is faithful in his ability to keep you from falling. And he's going to remind you at the beginning of this, isn't it, how glorious it is to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What an honour. What an amazing grace gift that he gives his people. He says, you can serve me. He doesn't need it. What a grace gift. And listen to his description, they're sanctified, all the children of God are sanctified by God the Father. That means they are made holy, they are set apart to be his, for him and for his glory.

Is he able to keep them? God the Father set them apart. Is he able to keep them from falling? Of course they can be kept from falling. I love the fact that they are sanctified and they are preserved in Christ Jesus and both those words are in the perfect tense. That means it's perfectly completed and it's in the passive tense. That we didn't have anything to do with it. Is he able to keep you from falling? He's always able to keep you from falling.

We're sanctified by God the Father, we're preserved in Jesus Christ and because of all that we are called. We are called. We are called by him. And he's able to keep us from falling and he's exhorting you, he's saying, come alongside. Come alongside one another in this trial of your faith. Stand alongside one another.

He's gonna keep you from falling by keeping your brothers and sisters from falling. He can keep you from falling. Do you see what I mean? And he does it all and he gets all of the glory. He's gonna keep you from falling. He's going to keep you from falling, from going back into that garment spotted by the flesh. He's going to keep you from falling by going back into the fire. He's going to keep you from falling.

Look at the beginning of this letter of God to these people. The people he's speaking about do one thing at the beginning. and then he describes it in greater and greater detail all the way through those next 15 or 18 chapters in Jude, and then he summarizes their situation at the end.

They are turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. They are translators of grace. They translate grace, and if you translate grace and you mistranslate it, what do you end up with? Works. How do you translate grace? You add a little bit of works to it.

Romans 11.6 makes it abundantly clear if it's of grace it's not of works. You can't have one and the other. You can't have grace and your works all mingled together.

It's either 100% of grace and he's going to keep you from falling into that lasciviousness. He's going to keep you from falling into that notion that on two sides of it, one is that because you're saved you can do whatever you like and it doesn't matter. Where did that notion come from? It's not in this book, is it? And it's not in the hearts of God's children. But the real turning of the grace of God into lasciviousness is that If you don't put people back under an obligation of them doing something, grace is no longer sufficient.

Grace is effective if you do. You just add the list. You've been in evangelical circles long enough to know the list. You have a list of all the things you dos and don'ts. And all the laws and all the obligations that people are put under, they're translators of grace. Any works, any law gospel is a falling from the grace of God. That's where you're falling from. You're falling from the grace of God. And at the very end of this description of these people, he says, they have not the spirit. Who's going to keep you from falling?

Having the Spirit of God. Spirit of God has to work in the hearts of these people. I've listened to a number of sermons as I'm sort of mowing the lawns or doing other things, and I've listened to sermons on sermon audio, and every single one of them who comes from some sort of reformed legalistic background, It says that these teachers are teaching people that the saved people out there can live any how they like.

They can live in adultery and drunkenness, they can live in all of these ways, and it doesn't matter. When was the last time you heard from a pulpit someone say that? When? That's not what they're saying, are they? The translating of grace is translating of grace into works.

And they are saying to these people that the grace of God is not as sufficient. operation of God to have his people kept in his faith, in his love, in his most holy faith, in his love. He's not able. What they're saying is he's not able to build you up in your most holy faith unless you do something. He's not able to keep you in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unless you add your doing.

What's falling? Falling from the power of God and the ability of God. Falling from looking to him and waiting on him and resting in him to do what he's promised. Who's made the promise? Don't you love the fact now under him that he's able to keep you from falling?

And there's no if at the end of the sentence. It just goes straight on, doesn't it? And he's going to present you faultless. before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. He's a joyful God. For the joy set before him, he went to the cross of Calvary. He's going to keep you from falling from that. He's going to keep you from falling from the common salvation that was once delivered to the saints. God calls them holy ones.

Satan's servants say you can now know good and evil. You can come to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is the law and you can work out what is good and what is evil and you can go to the Ten Commandments and other places and you can find out what they are and you can operate. as if you don't really need the grace of God, even though you'll call it the grace of God. Do this and live. Don't do that and live. Moral reformation is what this religious world teaches. That's translating grace, translating the grace of God.

It's falling from grace in which the saints stand, sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Christ Jesus. They can't fall. It's falling into unbelief, he's able to keep you from falling into unbelief. He's able to keep you from falling into unbelief about the character of this great and glorious God. He's the only wise God, our saviour. Falling, he's able to keep you from falling from his glory, from his majesty, from his dominion, from his power. From his grace, both now and ever, amen. May the Lord cause us to rejoice in the hymn, the hymn that's able. Thank God he's able. I know I'm not. Thank God he's able, amen.

He is Able

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