So we're Daniel chapter 7 and
I want to read verse 13 and 14 and 18. So Daniel chapter 7 verse
13. I saw in the night visions, and
behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven
and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before
Him. And there was given Him dominion
and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages
should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed. Then again verse 18, down to
verse 18, and there we read, But the saints of the Most High
shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, even for
ever and ever. Amen. And may the Lord bless
this reading to us. Our Lord Jesus Christ never attempted
anything that he did not achieve, nor did he ask for anything that
he did not receive. When he tells us, therefore,
in Luke chapter 12 and verse 32, it is your father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom. And he speaks of that little
flock that was placed into his care and keeping, saying, I am
the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. We may be sure that our Saviour
obtained each and every lamb for which he paid the redemption
price. And when the saviour further
states, I am come that they, that is the redeemed people,
the purchased possession, I am come that they might have life
and that they might have it more abundantly, he did not fail in
that purpose. He succeeded. And we may be equally
sure that all for whom Christ came and for whom he died, they
will have the abundant life that he promises. The psalmist tells
us in Psalm 84 verse 11, For the Lord God is a sun and shield,
The Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he
withhold from them that walk uprightly. Now, Balaam spoke
about the righteous, and here is the psalmist speaking about
those who walk uprightly. But this means those who walk
by faith, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is to them
all their righteousness. The Lord is our righteousness. Not our own works, not our own
doing or our own goodness, but we gain all our righteousness,
all our justification, all our sanctification from the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so those who walk uprightly
are those who walk in Christ. And the psalmist says that no
good thing will be withheld from those people. So that when the
psalmist says, when he uses this little phrase, the Lord will
give grace and glory, it is a powerful statement that should be noticed. The Lord will give grace and
he will also give glory. It assures us that the Lord God
is determined to supply grace and glory, as well as all good
things, says the psalmist. To supply these things to those
that he loves, to those he has chosen in Jesus Christ. Now we have spent the last few
weeks thinking about some of the foundational doctrines that
comprise the gospel. And we have seen that those doctrines
reveal to us the God of all grace, the God of all goodness, the
God who gives freely his blessings to his people, not on the basis
of their works or their goodness, but on the basis of his own mercy
and love. For example, we have seen how
our sovereign God gives grace to such as Noah, who despite
being himself hopeless and an abject sinner like all other
men, found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So that when the
Lord destroyed this world with the water of the flood, Noah
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And our sovereign God has
also shown grace because he set his love upon a definite number
from Adam's fallen race and set them apart in covenant grace
and peace. He preserves that people. He protects that people. He saves
that people by the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives us all good
things. And again, we have seen that
our sovereign God sent the Lord Jesus Christ into this world
to save those particular sinners that he had chosen by substituting
himself in their place and by paying the price of their ransom
and redemption. We have seen that the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit engage together to quicken those exact same loved
people, the ransomed sinners, with a new spiritual life and
teaches them about their blessed inheritance by the preaching
of the Gospel. We've seen that God's grace is
particular. We've seen that it is limited.
We have seen that it is efficacious for all those set apart in Christ
and only those set apart in Christ. This is the purpose of God. So
when the psalmist says to us, the Lord will give grace and
glory, we understand that that grace has been given in the covenant
of grace and in the way in which God has dealt with his chosen
people. And we understand that glory
must follow. Our subject is the final perseverance
of the saints. And that is what we're going
to think about today. We're going to take this subject,
and I'll tell you in a moment what that means, but we're going
to speak about the final perseverance of the saints. I came across
a little definition which I thought was quite interesting. It's the
maintaining of the Lord's chosen people in a state of grace until
it is succeeded by a state of glory. So what we mean by the
final perseverance of the saints is that during all of this time
when the grace of God is being granted to us, we are waiting
and we are being maintained in grace until we enter the state
of glory. Some people call it final preservation
rather than final perseverance. It's equally good because the
Lord's elect have been committed into Christ's covenant care,
where we are protected from injury, we are protected from destruction,
we're defended against evil, we're safeguarded with the goodness
and the mercy of God all the days of our lives. So whether
we say perseverance or preservation, we believe that the child of
God, the Lord's little flock, will continue in grace all the
days of their lives because God keeps them from destruction,
protects, saves and delivers so as finally to bring each one
into the state of eternal glory. Now I wanted to read the portion
from Daniel's vision. Not because we're going to refer
over much to those particular verses or indeed the wider context
of Daniel's visions and prophecies, which are paralleled in the book
of Revelation and both mysterious and glorious at the same time. But I wanted to note, I wanted
us all to note, how even in these Old Testament passages, the teaching
of God's covenant purpose was revealed to these Old Testament
people and understood by them. Daniel has spoken about four
kings and four kingdoms of world history. Interestingly, these
kings and kingdoms are the same kings and kingdoms, or at least
some of them are, that we've been thinking about in our studies
in Isaiah recently. and we find that here the Lord
was showing both in the things that were and the things that
would be, how his purposes would be fulfilled. Each of those kingdoms
in their time seemed impregnable and invincible. They had been
raised up with a majesty and a glory and a dominion that swamped
all the other nations around about them. But what Daniel and
Isaiah before him were telling the Lord's people was that the
rise and the fall of these nations was known to God and foretold
by Him. That although there was the evident
power in these kings and in their kingdoms, really it was God that
was behind it all Over all these kingdoms, Daniel tells us, the
everlasting kingdom of the Son of Man, our Lord Jesus Christ,
will rule without equal, and will rule without end. This is speaking about the glory
that is yet to come, the manifestation and the revelation of the Kingdom
of God, His Church and the Kingdom of Heaven, Christ's rule over
this world. In this spiritual kingdom, the
saints of God, chosen, redeemed, called and converted by God,
all the graces that he has shown will be preserved and they will
reign with their saviour, what does Daniel say, forever and
ever. So that Daniel is pointing to
the saints of the Most High and telling us that the kingdom shall
be theirs to possess and that they will possess it forever,
even forever and ever. Daniel is pointing to the glory
that was yet to come and the eternal kingdom of Christ. I want to show you, if we can
just take a few moments, a few things about our everlasting
glory that is revealed to us here in this passage. the crown of righteousness that
is laid up for us in heaven when the church is gathered home. And I want to look at it from
three views. For our greater confidence in
these days of grace before the time of glory comes, because
this is what will comfort the Lord's people and this is what
will bless us in these days that yet remain for us individually
and for the church as a whole. Here are the three things that
I want to draw your attention to. The first one is this, that
for God, as far as God is concerned, for God, our glory is his pleasure. For justice, as far as justice
is concerned, our glory is right and proper. And for believers, our glory
is a sure and certain promise. So those are the three headings
that I want to take and just to touch lightly upon each one
and then we will be done today. So here is the first thought
that for God Our glory is His pleasure. We look forward to
that time when we will enter into heaven. We look forward
to the revelation yet to be seen. We look forward to that eternal realm where we will see
the Lord, we will see the church. All of these things will have
their fullness and their reward and their blessing for believers. But we must realise too that
pleasing as these things will be to us, it is the Father first,
it is Jehovah first who takes pleasure in our glory. And I take this heading really
from the Lord's words that we've already mentioned from Luke chapter
12. Fear not, little flock. Yes, we feel so little very often. We feel like lambs. We feel like
a flock of sheep, vulnerable and exposed. The Lord says, fear
not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to
give you the kingdom. Every aspect of sovereign grace
pleases Jehovah our God. Now remember what we've said
in recent weeks. The elect, we the elect are adopted
to be children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will. We are predestinated unto adoption
according to the good pleasure of his will. That is Ephesians
1 verse 5. So the giving of electing grace
pleases God. And we can say more. We are redeemed
by Christ, whose sacrifice for our sins was well-pleasing to
the Father. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well-pleased. Why? Because He was obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross, so that the death
of the cross and the sacrifice of Christ pleased Jehovah. Isaiah tells us, it pleased the
Lord to bruise him. Paul says, our conversion pleases
the Lord. He says, for it pleased God to
separate me from my mother's womb and to call me by his grace
and to reveal his son in me. And if it pleased the Lord to
reveal His Son in Paul, it pleases the Lord to reveal His Son in
you too. The grace of God towards this
church is God's pleasure. He is pleased to bestow these
blessings of grace upon us. Paul tells us, it pleases God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. We think to ourselves, wouldn't
it be so much better if there was another way to do this? Another
way to gather or recruit or to bring the people of God into
the family of Christ. What does the Lord say? It pleases
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. It even pleases the Lord to see
the very works of righteousness that he places within us being
exercised, so that every aspect of grace pleases the Father. Now, we ought not to be surprised
about this. It is, after all, his perfect
will according to his perfect design. And he has done all things
well. But just as all grace pleases
the Father, so too our glory shall please God, who delights
in mercy and rejoices in heaven over one sinner that repents. Glory, the glory of the church,
the glory of individual believers, the glory of the Lord's people,
everlasting life and the possessions of the mansions of heaven and
the attendance of the great congregation around the throne of our God. It's his free gift to us and
the Lord delights to give good gifts to his children. We've
not earned it, we've not merited it, we've not deserved grace
and we will not deserve glory. but God is pleased to give his
little flock the kingdom of Christ and to seat them together with
Christ in heavenly places. For God, our glory is his pleasure. Here's the second heading that
I have for us today. As far as justice is concerned,
our glory is right and proper. Daniel told us in those verses
that 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him and judgment was set
and the books were opened. This tells us that there is a
judgment to come, that Daniel conceived, Daniel perceived,
Daniel understood, had revealed to him in these visions of the
night that there was a judgment to come, that all nations would
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And especially we're
told in Revelation about the great white throne judgment.
It's spoken of in Revelation as being Great White Throne because
it is a symbol both of the majesty of God and his purity and his
justice and his equity. God deals rightly and properly
with men and women. On this Great White Throne, the
judge will sit, the Lord Jesus Christ. to execute judgment upon
the nations of this world. And we are told in Revelation,
as in Daniel, that books will be opened, that judgment will
be dispensed. But here we note that there will
be no complaints or objections to the glory of the Lord's elect. There will be nothing in those
books that suggest that there is any problem of these people
obtaining glory. The books suggest a record or
an account, but when the records of the sins of God's elect are
sought for, they will not be found. When the lives of God's
people are assessed and examined, they will be without sin. There
will be evidently a holy people, a righteous people, and their
sins will have been taken away. everlastingly removed, never
more to be remembered against them. Micah in chapter 7 speaks
about thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. And having had our sins laid
upon Christ, having had our sins borne by him and punished in
him, all the sins of God's people are no more to be seen on them. But we through his blood and
his righteousness are without fault, spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing. the law is silent, justice is
satisfied, mercy is vindicated, glory is justified. For the elect of God are a holy
nation, holy and blameless before him in love. So our glory The
glory that is laid up for us as the people of God is God's
pleasure to give us. And it is justified. Our glory is right and proper
because our sins have been removed and placed onto the shoulders
of our substitute and our saviour. And finally, Not only is our
glory God's pleasure and our glory justified, but for believers,
our glory is sure and certain. It is a promise of God and it
will be faithfully fulfilled. Daniel, again, speaks of God's
saints. his sanctified people. And he speaks of that sanctified
people, the saints of God, possessing the kingdom forever and ever. This is our inheritance. This
is what is waiting for us just beyond the brow of the hill. This is our good and blessed
hope given to us, spoken of throughout scripture in the Old Testament
and the New. It is God's pleasure to give
us the gift of glory. as he has given us the gift of
grace. Justice has no complaint about
it. The law finds no fault in us,
so nothing stands in our way to obtain it. When Christ, who
is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him
in glory. That's God's promise to us. The
Apostles are frequently about the matter of comforting the
Lord's people in this world with the great promises of glory that
is to come. Now we, in ourselves, we often
feel weak. We lament our sinful bodies and
this flesh that so disappoints us. We recoil against the battles
that must be fought and the opposition that we face. But friends, God's promise of
glory is as sure as his promise of grace. The foundation of God
standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord knoweth them that are
his. Do you fear that you may not
persevere to the end? But whose job is that? The Apostle
Paul says in Philippians 1, verse 6, being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. This is God's work. It is God's
work that we persevere. It is God's work to preserve
his people. Are you discouraged in the fight?
Brothers and sisters, we must through much tribulation enter
into the kingdom of God. But enter we will. Do you fear
that you might not keep the faith? What about when we're old? What
about when we're frail? What about when we're weak? What
about when our mind begins to go? What about when we no longer
have any strength? The Lord is our strength. The
Lord is faithful, who shall establish you and keep you from evil. He will keep you from evil. That's your hope. That's what
you trust in. For the gifts and calling of
God are without repentance. We are his workmanship. Our Lord
Jesus Christ is right now bringing many sons and daughters to glory. For some of us, the entrance
into his more immediate presence may not be very far away. Maybe as Mary, now, or Tracy,
recently, we too shall soon be leaving this state of grace to
enter the state of glory. As believers, your eternal life
has already begun, but the full experience of it remains to be
enjoyed. Again, it is your father's good
pleasure to give you the kingdom. He is able to keep you from falling
and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory
with exceeding joy. That's Jude chapter 1 verse 24. And I trust to that we're all
able to say Amen.