I want you to turn back in your
Bibles to the book of Jude first. You also may keep your hand in
our Old Testament passage of Deuteronomy chapter 8. We'll
be going back and forth. Jude chapter 1 is where we want
to begin our thoughts on our second message concerning God's
preservation of His people. The Scriptures are very clear
as we have just seen in Psalm 121 that God keeps His people. In fact, He is called our Keeper. God watches over us. God protects
us. He highly regards us. And He
has promised to keep us. And the writer to the people
of God in the book of Jude says as such very clearly in the opening
passages of Jude, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother
of James. You'll notice that Jude does
not leverage the fact that he was the physical half-brother
of our Lord Jesus Christ. In our day and age, I think anybody
would try to leverage the fact that they were actually physically
related to Jesus if they could. But that would only be because
they would have failed to understand the great distance between Christ's
humanity and his divinity. that with regards to his humanity,
that there was not much advantage that could be taken on the part
of his brothers and sisters in the flesh. And I would rather
think that they would have been humbled to know that the man
who was among them from the time that he was born and grew up
as a child and an adult, that they missed him altogether. They
totally missed their brother altogether. until he rose again
from the dead because as we have affirmed and stated often that
the Bible teaches us that a prophet is not honored in his own household.
That's just one of the ways in which God keeps his servants
humble and our Lord Jesus Christ did not avert that particular
principle as well. The only person in his family
that believed on him was his mother Mary, until after he rose
again from the dead. So they could take no glory in
the fact that they grew up with this man who was a prodigy and
a miracle of grace, sinless and perfect in all of his being,
because they saw him just as everybody else. And they missed
his glory. which means until God actually
changes your heart and makes you a new creature in Christ,
all you can see Christ as is maybe a good teacher, someone
that was exceptional in his philosophy and committed to his principles.
It requires the grace of God to see Jesus Christ for who he
really is. The glory of the invisible god
the son of the highest the redeemer of his people that takes grace
For which jude and james both say we are slaves Of jesus christ
Can you see the turnaround? We're slaves of christ. We're
not his brothers There's no merit in that. There's no salvific
benefit in that. We could say that we are physically
his brothers, but they needed to be saved just like you and
I do. And when they came into a saving relationship with him,
they were able to admit that Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory. and the Savior of sinners. And
from that, Jude goes on to say that for all of us who are believers
in Christ, we are sanctified by God the Father. We talked
about that last week. To be sanctified means to be
what? Set apart. Set apart means to be chosen
or elected out of a common group and then to be made special.
But he goes on to say, we were sanctified by the Father. We
were preserved in Christ Jesus. That's the Son. And we were called
by the Holy Spirit. All three persons are intricately
involved in our salvation, for which we give them glory, don't
we? We give them glory for choosing us and preserving us and calling
us. And the message today that we
want to contemplate as our second consideration is the fact that
God is our keeper. Does God know how to preserve
his people? Does God know how to actually preserve his people?
Let me just share with you a few verses to affirm this. Psalm
31 verse 23. I just want you to mark who it
is that God says that he preserves. Let me lay a foundation here.
Psalm 31 verse 23 says this, O love the Lord, all ye his saints. Now that's what we are if we
believe, right? Love the Lord all you his saints for the Lord
Preserve it the faithful. Do you see that? for the Lord
preserves the faithful and Plentifully rewarded the proud doer now if
you're one of God's faithful ones those who trust Christ Who
rely upon the gospel of grace? Guess what God preserves you? God preserves you The next verse
I want you to mark is Psalm 97 verse 10. It's another verse
that underscores the preserving nature of God towards His people.
Now we have seen that God preserves the faithful, those that trust
Him, those that rely upon Him, that abandon themselves to the
reality of His grace and the security of His salvation in
Jesus Christ. God preserves the faithful. Psalm
97 verse 10 says this, Ye that love the Lord, what? Now isn't
this quite interesting? Saints, the second time around,
the psalmist is describing the character of the relationship
between the believer and their God as that of them loving God. Isn't that what it says? Ye who
love the Lord. It really can be another term
for the believer. What is a believer? He is one
who loves the Lord. He loves the Lord. David said
it in the Psalms, I love the Lord because he hath heard my
cry. He's heard my supplication. He's
saved me by His grace. In other words, our love to God
is because He first loved us. I want you to think that through,
child of God, because many of the promises of God are to them
that love Him. To them that love Him. That becomes
another title or phrase for a believer. You guys know the scripture,
all things work together for good. To them that what? Love God. Yeah, that's an issue
for us. We've got to reconcile that to
be a believer is to be one that loves the lord And we love him
because he first loved us and we love him for who he is first
And then what he does second and the two are closely tied
together We love him for being a lovely god in verse 10 says
you that love the lord hate evil That's another manifestation
or attribute of love towards god child of god. You and I can't
say we love god And we love evil, too You cannot say you love god
and love what he hates You love the lord you hate evil He preserveth
the souls of his wife See there it is again. God has a specific
people that he preserves He preserves the faithful and he preserves
his saints and they both love him Look at Psalm 116 verse 6
as we continue to meditate on the persons and characters of
those that are preserved by God. 116 verse 6. Here again the psalmist
is speaking very specifically about the love relationship between
the believer and God. In verse 1 he says, I love the
Lord, here it is, because He hath what? heard my voice and
my supplication because he has inclined his ear unto me therefore
will I call upon him as long as I live child of God never
forget this it was God that first called you that's why you call
him it was God that first loved you That's why you love him.
It was God that first saved you. That's why you came to him. You
come to God because he initiated everything. And this is what
the psalmist is underscoring as well. And then he goes on
to describe God's blessings to him. The sorrows of death can
pass me and the pains of hell got a hold of me. I found trouble
and sorrow. Now, isn't that our life child
of God? Keep telling you don't don't tell people that your life
is so easy that because you are a child of God you have averted
difficulties struggles challenges problems You may not like this
But trials are appointed for you You may not like this, but
God has set you up for difficulties God has purpose you to go through
things to shape your character to to expose your weaknesses,
to expose your flaws, to show us his faithfulness in our life.
You may not like the way things happen. None of us really do. And that's because we really
want to be God. See, life would go wonderful
for us if everything went our way. That's the only part we
don't like about this salvation thing. It don't go our way. It
would salvation would be great if everything lined up the way
we wanted it worked out the way we wanted it to and We understood
everything that God was doing but we don't do it and it doesn't
work out always the way we want it Does it and it doesn't always
feel good and we don't always get our answer don't but we find
at the end of the trial that we still trust God don't we because
God is faithful isn't he and God will preserve you. He will
keep you in the midst of your trouble. This is what the psalmist
is saying So regard what he says now in verse 5 and 6 after the
trouble He said then I called upon the name of the Lord in
verse 4. Ah, you mean? All this mess that I'm in is
designed for me to call on God See it. I wouldn't have had to
call on God if I had control of everything that went down
God says I know that That's why I take the control out of your
hands. And I take you through trouble so you can call on me.
Do you know God takes pleasure in his people calling on him?
Do you know God takes great pleasure in his people depending upon
him? I mean, from the bottom of our souls, saying, Lord, help!
And he'll often take you through the kind of trials, child of
God, that he won't respond to your crying out until you cry
out. I mean, really cry out. from
way down inside. I mean cry out in a way that's
embarrassing. That's how he teaches us to call
on him. Am I making some sense? You know how sometimes we're
children and we're going to learn that today all whom the Lord
loves he what? And you know how we're trying to train our children
when they're born. And first of all, they start
crying and whining. That's an evidence you're alive.
We who are born again have received the spirit of adoption by which
we cry what? So God knows we're going to cry.
And early on in our salvation, he cuddles us and he carries
us and he holds us. But after a while, he lets us
cry. Isn't that how you train them? Let them cry for a minute.
And then you begin to learn the nature of their cries, don't
you? Our children's cries are manipulative. Haven't you learned
that mamas? Watch this. Yours is too. God knows when you're crying
is simply a manipulation. And he lets you cry until that
cry is real. Am I telling the truth? See,
and then you learn. You know what? I really wasn't
calling on God. I was pulling his coattail to get him to do
something for me. God hears the voice of our cry. We'll learn that when we deal
with the whole doctrine of tongues. God hears the truth of the cry. He doesn't hear the words. He
hears the voice of the cry. And so the psalmist says, I love
him because he calls me through my troubles to call upon him,
to call upon the name of the Lord. Oh Lord, I beseech thee,
deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful, isn't
he? He's a God of grace. He's a God of righteousness.
He's a God of mercy. Now, here it is. Here's what
the psalmist says. The Lord preserveth the what? See, this is what our elder was
saying. He was saying to you that when we sing a hymn like
only a sinner saved by grace, that hymn is only for real people. It's not for phonies. is not
for self-righteous people who really think that they are no
longer sinners. See, if you really think that
somehow you are better than the next person intrinsically, ontologically,
by nature, or by some giftedness, you aren't simple anymore. You're
very complex. That's a nice way of saying proud. Because the simple person is
a person who sees himself singularly just as God has declared them
to be. You know you're all right when
you can see yourself the way God sees you. And you know how
God sees you? He sees you the right way. You
and I, by nature, are a mess. God works with us to strip us.
Am I telling the truth, Brother Skinner? He strips us of all
of the facade of our self-righteousness and our self-aggrandizement and
our assuming that we can come to God on the merits of something
we are, something we did. When you become simple, you know
what you do? You agree with God and you don't argue with God
because you've learned that God is right even when I don't quite
understand it. That's simple. That's why our
lord praised him. He praised him in matthew chapter
11 in verse 25. He says I thank thee oh father
I thank thee that you have not revealed this glorious gospel
to the wise and the prudent But you have revealed it unto simple
people. He called them babes Folks that
just take god at his word Taking that's what you're gonna learn
You're gonna learn that grace goes so deep into your soul that
it forces you to take god at his word And then one day what
God does is reveals to you a level of your corruption and your sinfulness. And you know what you do? You
go, man, God was right. Well, yeah, he was right. You
and I are that vile by nature. And then we come to thank him
for the enormity of his grace in our life. He's still there.
He's still keeping us. He's still preserving us. He's
still got his hand on us. He's still talking to us. He's
still providing for us. Am I making some sense? Here's
what he says. The Lord preserves the simple.
I was brought low and he helped me. That's good stuff, isn't
it? All right, go back to your text.
Let's work some things through. Does God know how to preserve
his people? Now saints, I want you to understand something.
We were talking last week as we dealt with the four aspects.
We were working on five aspects of God's preservation in our
life. We spoke about how God the Father
himself, according to Jude chapter one, preserved us. He preserved
us. We are preserved by God. It's
the act of God who preserved us, the act of God the Father.
And he preserved us in Jesus Christ, his darling son. So the
Father preserved us. by his own initiative, his own
coveted purpose, and he preserved us in his son, Jesus Christ.
That's the sphere of our preservation. To be preserved is to be in Christ. to be in crisis, to have all
of the necessary resources by which you and I are not only
kept and provided for, but are designed to be brought to our
full purpose in God. God preserves you from destruction. He preserves you from disintegrating
in terms of you not reaching your full potential or being
what God has called you to be. He's preserved you so that you
and I can come to full Purpose for which he has created us in
Christ He's preserved us that we might be made into the image
of his dear son and he did that by placing us in Jesus Christ
and then he also Preserves us by the ministry of the Spirit
of God. We talked about that. How are
we preserved by the Spirit? Well the Spirit according to
Ephesians 1 verse 13 seals us We are sealed with the Holy Spirit
Sealed by him 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verse 20 as well says
it we are sealed by the Spirit of God we are the Depository
of God's work through Christ. We are his treasure. We are his
hidden treasure and God seals us That means he protects us
from destruction By the presence and ministry of the Spirit of
God in our life this here is the doctrine of the security
of the people of God and what that means is no matter what
you and I go through in life, and even the foibles that we
are inclined to engage ourselves in, the troubles that you and
I often find ourselves in by our own doing. If we are God's
people, He has preserved us. The Spirit of God has established
boundaries around you, parameters, guards. Remember we said last
week, He has contained us. This is beautiful. because you
can't go as far as you would. That's the other part we don't
like. See, we try to extend the boundaries of our own objectives
and plans and goals, and we're really not asking God about it.
We just want him to sign off. But the job of the Holy Ghost
is to contain you within the framework of God's purpose of
grace to conform you to Jesus Christ. You know what that means?
Everything that you and I attempt to do, purpose to do, our objectives
that are contrary to God's word, the Holy Spirit turns those things
around and uses them to conform us to Christ. To grow us up in
Him and to guard and to keep us from destroying ourselves
because we would if we were left to ourselves. How many times
have we gotten into trouble and got way out there on the end
of the plank looking out over at the sharks and asking the
question, how did I get myself in this trouble? And the Lord,
in his mercy, told you on back in. Didn't he tell you back in? And you're here today to give
him thanks for it. Many times we have gotten so far out on
the plank in self-deception, wrapped up, as our Angelo said,
in the world's delusions. thinking that it was our right
to have what we want right now. Remember, humanism is a man-centered
ideology. Secularism is us wanting it now
because there's no future. And you and I fall prey to that
all the time, which brings us to our fourth consideration,
which is where we left off last time. And that is God preserves
us because of what? Temptation. Because of temptation
go back to Deuteronomy chapter 8 and I want you to see again
what he says about that This is going to be the point at which
we make a connection between God's purpose of preserving us
in his call to conform us to the sonship of Jesus Christ back
in Deuteronomy chapter 8 and Here's what God said in explaining
to Israel why they found themselves wandering in the wilderness for
40 years. And God doesn't hide from us
His motives and His intents. They are very clearly laid out
in the Word of God. All the commandments which I
command thee this day shall you observe to do that you may live.
multiply and go in and possess the land which the Lord your
God swore unto you see his objective was for them to possess the land
but their possession of the land was for them to multiply in order
for them to multiply they have to live in order for them to
live they've got to obey God you guys got that so obedience
wasn't merely in order for God to prove that he is their God
obedience on their part was for them to fulfill what God had
purpose for them to do and that was for them to possess a land
and that God had purposed for them to fill it, to multiply
their own seed in order to dominate the land. Like, like, like landfill,
like, like a ground cover when you, when you put a certain ground
cover on the ground, these little pieces of grass that grow and
spread everywhere. It's the stuff that starts off
small and then in a month it's covering everything. And then
you even start regretting that you put it down because it started
coming up in the house and everywhere. This, ideologically, is what
God had purposed the believer to be, a means of multiplication,
so that the gospel could be represented in your person, in your children,
in your children's children, all over the world. God was saying
to Israel, and he's saying to us, the reason I brought you
into the land was not so you can merely enjoy the benefits
of the land, but that you might spread my glory, my name, my
honor everywhere in the multiplication of your sons and daughters so
that men and women might come to know Christ. That's true for
us today. The job of the church is to spread
his name and his fame and his glory in the process of multiplication. If you and I fail to understand
our job here is to also multiply in the means of the gospel We
have failed to understand the reason for which God has left
us here So he says to the children of israel over in verse two And
you shall remember all the way which the lord god led thee these
40 years. Are we in the wilderness child
of god? He's leading us too, isn't he? He says to humble you
You can sum up the whole of the life of the child of God to humility. Do you see that? And to prove thee, to know what
was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or
not. It's the reason why he led us through the wilderness, he
said, to humble you, to prove to you. And he, what? Humbled thee. That's what happens
in our life. And he suffered you to hunger.
And then he fed you with manna. Which you did not know neither
did your father's know that he might make you to know that man
does not live by what? But only by every word that proceeds
out of the mouth of the Lord that the man lived and then he
said I kept you I Did keep you I watched over you only I didn't
do it your way I did it my way so that I could achieve my purposes
in your life I led you these 40 years because I intended to
humble you I Child of God, individually, collectively, personally, my
job is to humble you. Because in order for you to enjoy
who I am and what I have for you, you've got to be conformed
to the image of his dear son. See, in Jesus's life, all throughout
his earthly ministry was humility. See, actually, you and I can
tie Deuteronomy 8 to Matthew chapter 4. See, we've talked
about the three covenant paradigms, the husband-wife model, the king-servant
model. What's the other model? The father-son.
As God the Father is talking now to national Israel as his
son, So God the Father took his only begotten son Jesus Christ
and ran him into the wilderness by the Spirit too in Matthew
4, didn't he? The parallels are there. So now
we get an opportunity to see how God worked in Christ's life
to be a model for us of the success of humility so that Christ could
bring about glory to God. Did God the Father humble his
son? He humbled him even to the obedience of death. The whole
of Christ's ministry was a real humility. You know one of the
areas in which the humility of Christ came extremely clear to
me? I mean, we could certainly say
the cross, when all of the people were spitting on Him and maligning
Him and ridiculing Him, the ultimate quintessential rejection. But
do you remember that time when our Lord, right before He was
going to be betrayed by Judas, took the disciples in the upper
room, and they were going to have the Lord's supper or the
Passover, And he took off his garments and he put on a robe. Do you guys remember that? Now,
why did our master do that? Can I tell you why? Because the
other disciples were too proud to take their clothes off and
go around and wash the feet of their brethren and the master. He sat there after their excursion
was over, doing ministry everywhere, walking in sandals and dusty
shoes. One of our elders, Elder Al,
said this yesterday in our evangelism class. We went out and started
knocking on our doors and letting people know we're at grace. Because,
I mean, if you're going to be here, you better let people know
you're here, right? I mean, that's only... Nice, that's nice, courteous. You know, you don't stay here
for 20 years and don't let your neighbors know you're here, right?
So we're walking and some of the folks get back after our
knocking on the doors and they like tired, tired, tired. And Al said, now you think you
tired? Think about our master and the 12 disciples. They walked
everywhere and they didn't have nice shoes on like we did. They
had sandals. It's hard work. The disciples
are sitting in the upper room, tired from the day's journey,
but too proud to serve. And our master took off his clothes
and he put on a servant's cloth and he bowed and he washed the
feet of all his disciples. And they were struggling with
that. Because see, you and I, unless we are humbled, we won't
serve. All we'll do is talk. That's
all you do, talk, complain, argue, make excuses. Am I telling the
truth? And so our master, understanding that the disciples were stuck
on stupid like we are, he said, if I'm going to do it, I got
to do it myself. So he took off and he started washing their
feet and Peter was tripping, wasn't he? What you doing? And
the master says, right now you don't understand. But after I'm
crucified, risen and glorified, You'll get it. See, what I'm
talking about is if you don't understand your call, your salvation,
the process by which God is now working in your life as really
being encompassing the whole concept of humility, you're going
to fight against God's ways. If you don't understand that
God has designed to glorify himself in your life through a process
of humility, you are going to fight the whole thing through
and you will never understand the mystery and the satisfaction
and the grace and the honor and privilege of joining Jesus Christ. in this wilderness sojourn of
being humbled by God so that you can be used by God in a way
that brings him glory. All right, so the point is, is
that God's gonna do it. He says, I humbled you. It's
gonna happen, child. When he called you by his grace,
he didn't have a plan on letting you go. You're going to be humbled
and you might as well submit to it. And he goes on to say
here in the text, in order that you and I might learn that man
does not live by what? Bread alone. All right. I want
to go back then to our master's temptation. Go with me to Matthew's
four because that's where we left off last time. I want you
to see this because our master is now being tempted, isn't he?
In Matthew's four, where he's driven into the wilderness, he's
being tempted by the devil. And there's some things for us
to learn about that as well. We sit last week. that there
are three temptations here in Matthew chapter four, of which
temptations you and I also are often finding ourselves tempted
with. The first of which is the temptation
of our need and our lust. All of us have desires. We are
created with passions. We are created with lusts. The
word lust in itself is not a bad term. The problem with lust today
is that we attach to it evil motives and objectives. So we
call it inordinate lust because our lusts today are driven by
our sinful inclinations. But even the good that you do
must be executed by a lust, by a desire, by a passion. Remember what David said in the
Psalms, one thing have I desired, That will I seek after. You will not seek God if you
don't desire God. He gives us lusts and passions,
therefore, to pursue Him. It becomes the motive. It becomes
the impelling, the drive to do the thing. And so I need to understand
the benefit of my passions, my lusts. They simply have to be
directed the right way. But here comes the devil, and
you know what he tells you? All the labor of man is for his
belly. that your lust really is designed to terminate in the
gratification of your own satisfaction. That the goal for you, child
of God, is to experience a satisfaction which terminates in you and not
someone else. So the devil says, if you be
the son of God, turn these stones into bread. Now watch this. Our
master was hungry. Have you ever been hungry? Yeah,
you like hungry 10 times a day, even though you live in a country
where food is all over the place. You can use being hungry a little
while. Our master was hungry being 40
days in the wilderness. That's a long time. How many
of you have ever fasted for 40 days? See, there I knew it. Ain't
a hand in the room. Listen to, not one. Not one hand
in the room that did 40 days. All right, you raised your hand
there. Now you know you cheated. Okay, so now watch this. But our master
did 40 days in the wilderness without food and water. That's
a serious fast. That means he had consecrated
himself to God. He knew he needed God to do the
ministry that God had called him to do. That's serious devotion
to the Father. At a point of utter weakness,
because he's hungry, the body now is toiling with pain. It
wants to eat something, dirt, rocks, grass, something. The
devil comes. Let it turn these stones. You're
the son of God. You're the son of God. Aren't you a child of
the living God? You can do whatever you want
to. You can turn these stones into bread. And our master said,
man shall not live by bread alone. He overcame that task, didn't
he? He overcame that test. That second test that came to
him, we saw it very clearly in our outline in Matthew chapter
4. The second test that came to
him was the devil took him up into the holy city and he showed
him from the pinnacle of the temple. He told him from the
pinnacle of the temple to jump down. If you be the son of God,
jump down from here. God will take you up. He'll catch
you up. His angels will provide for you. And we talked about
that temptation too, that befalls the children of God. And it's
this. And please mark this because
we struggle with it. We struggle with our identity
in Christ. We struggle with our calling
in Christ. If you be the son of God, God
will catch you if you jump down off this temple. Well, I don't
need to tempt God in order to know that I'm a child of God.
I don't need to act in such a way that God must deliver me in order
to affirm my sonship. See, at that point, I'm struggling
with my identity. I'm struggling with the security
of what God said that I am in Christ. And people do that. I
mean, on a human level, we are dealing with a whole world that's
struggling with their identity right now. That's another subject,
but it still falls under the category of confusion. The devil
is tempting Jesus to actually misrepresent or misapply his
calling as the Son of God. Why would you and I, simply because
we are children of the living God, act in such a way as to
tempt God? So what? That he can affirm to
us our sonship? Your sonship and mine is affirmed
by faith. It's affirmed by the fact that
God said we are children of the living God. It's affirmed by
the fact that God takes care of us every day. It's affirmed
by the fact that God is faithful, is he not? As we were underscoring
God saying he's going to preserve us, he's going to keep us, he's
going to guard us. If you're a child of God, you can believe
that. You don't have to tempt God. You don't have to tempt
God. You can simply grow in grace
and in the knowledge of the Lord and affirm your sonship by watching
God take care of you. In fact, if you got a God's son
and you need something, all you do is call on him. If you're
a God's child and you need something, you simply call on your God and
he will come through. The third temptation then is
the temptation to worship or offer sacrifice or pay allegiance
to this secular world system. And he said unto him, I'm sorry,
look at verse 7, Jesus said to them, it is written, you shall
not tempt the Lord your God. And again, the devil takes him
up into an exceeding high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms
of the world and the glory of them. The devil shows them all
the kingdoms of the world and the glory. We are dealing with
something that's outside of the scope of human limitations here. We're dealing with the dimension
in which the son of God and the devil are in a very profound
dimension and realm. How can the son of God in his
human level see all the kingdoms of the world? There must be something
of a transcendent dynamic taking place by which the devil is showing
him all the kingdoms of the world. But the devil also knows he's
human. And the devil also knows he has to struggle with pride. Just like you and I do. The devil
also knows that the Son of God has actually been ordained to
be the Savior of the world and to be known by everyone all over
the world. What the devil does not agree
with is the methodology by which Jesus' fame would be spread.
So what the devil does is tempt you and I as sons of God to clamor
after the world. It's fame. It's fortune. It's aggrandizement. It's pseudo
blessings. It's material gratification. And for them to acknowledge us
as some great someone. You see that, don't you? This
is the great temptation with which our whole world is tempted.
And you and I are tempted by it too. And this is why I said
to you, this is why I said to you last week, be careful because
the rung up the ladder. Each rung up the ladder to secular
and worldly success is a rung of what? Compromise. The rung
up the ladder of secular human success, where you've got the
lights on you, where your name is up in lights, wherever you
go, they're talking about you. The rung up the ladder of that
success requires your compromise of biblical truth every step
up the ladder. the people that you know who
are now known everywhere and are on that pedestal to be observed
by people all around the world and especially in the religious
realm which is where you and I have to be extremely discerning
because you will fall prey to believing that they are in that
position. She's in that position because
of their obedience to Christ and nothing could be further
from the truth. Nothing could be further from
the truth. and vicariously because of our sinful passions and cravings
to want to identify with successful people, you may find yourself
drawn in by them and desiring to be where they are, not knowing
that they have made a deal with the devil behind closed doors
to deny God's glory, to deny the truth of Christ, to distort
the scriptures, to deny the exclusive claims of who Christ is. Explicitly. as I've told you
before. They plainly deny the Lord of
glory. Do you want to be promoted in
this world? You must abandon the true gospel. Do you want
this world to laud you and applaud you for your humanitarian efforts,
your altruistic, philanthropic efforts because you give and
you've got great social programs and you guys are doing ministry
all over the world and they're putting your name in lights and
you're at the White House and you're at this meeting among
these prestigious people. You want to be there among those
people? You must deny the Lord of Glory. You must deny the claims
of Scripture. You must deny the exclusivity
of the cross, the exclusivity of the Son of God, the exclusivity
of the Gospel. You cannot, in this present world
system, be lifted up without first saying Jesus Christ is
not the only way, the only truth. and the only life. You must fall
prey to this ecumenical, syncretistic, pluralistic society where all
ways ultimately lead to God. Am I making some sense to you?
You must do that. And so in the front, forefront
in your churches, you may pretend you love Jesus, living large,
but you have denied him behind closed doors and signed a contract
to be wealthy until you perish. Now watch this, I've said it
before. Here's how the devil works. You know what he loves
to do? He loves to get you way up there in lights, where it's
all about you. And then he strategically by
appointment and by strategies and by methodology, along with
your agreement, pulls the rug from up under you and you fall.
And everybody watches you fall. And ignorant Christians come
to discover that they were being tempted by and drawn in by compromisers. who turned the grace of God into
lasciviousness, which is what Jude verse 4 says. Certain men
have crept in unawares, pretending to be grace preachers, pretending
to preach Christ, who have turned God's grace into a license to
sin. Now watch this. I have come to
learn that Christians are a little slow, but they're not that slow. We're just sinful. I've learned
that Christians are a little slow. That's why God gives you
faithful pastors. But mostly your problem is you're
just sinful. You know what that means? You know that they are
compromisers and you still listen to them. You still are drawn
in by their teaching. You still buy into their lies. You still want what they want.
You still clamor after their success. You still grapple with
the temptation of the wilderness. You want bread instead of the
Word of God. You want God to do something
large in your life. Jump. We'll watch. Go ahead and
jump. Won't we watch? We'll watch because
we're not persuaded that God has chosen to set aside the law
of gravity. That the object that jumps off
of a building will fall at 32,000 feet per square second. And when
you hit the ground and splatter everywhere, we'll say, OK, God
didn't set that law aside. We'll watch you. Because we are
sure that God is never honored by us sinning that grace may
abound. Aren't we persuaded of that?
God is never honored by you going contrary to God's word, by you
knowing it's wrong and still doing it. We are see we we watched
religion for dozens of years and we are persuaded that God
gives grace only to the what? That's right only to the humble
only to the humble I want you to be very careful child of God
that what Jude is encouraging us in and Jude the book of Jude
chapter 1 verses 1 through 4 is that when God says he will preserve
you it means that he will preserve you as you persevere in the gospel
Are you hearing what I'm saying? His preservation of us equals
our perseverance in the gospel. Our Lord Jesus Christ has passed
the test, hasn't he? He has passed those three fundamental
trials that tempt all of us. Lust of the flesh, pride of life,
and pride of, lust of the flesh, pride of life, and the pride
of things we see. Jesus has overcome all these
temptations, and now he will go into ministry. Our Lord Jesus
Christ in this wilderness temptation did not go through these trials
for himself. As you watch him overcome in
Matthew chapter 4, where the text tells us, and the devil
left him for a season, right? He did not go through that test
for himself. Let me help you understand something.
Christ did not need to be tempted. Christ did not need to be tried.
He was God in the flesh. Deity by nature perfect impeccable
unchangeable Mark this he did what he did not for himself as
I watched my master obey every Command of God overcome every
temptation the devil put on him. Guess what? I know he did it
not for himself, but for me the obedience of Christ the patience
of Christ the success of Christ The victory of the son of God,
the triumph, the endurance, his overcoming all those temptations
was for us who believe. He did it not for himself, but
as a mediator for his people. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. See,
Christ was the last Adam. He was the second man from glory.
And what he went through was not for himself. He went through
it for me because he knew if I had to go through it myself,
I would fail. Hallelujah, and then God wrote
it down to help me know the reason why I preserved you is because
I have a substitute who took your place a Surety who was more
willing than you to stand before the devil and be tempted and
he won the victory He obtained the prize. He overcame the temptation
and I know my father will keep me because of him. I Am I making
some sense? Because see, truth be told, in
this wilderness sojourn, I've tried to eat stones for bread.
You too. Truth be told, I may not have
jumped off the top of the pinnacle of the temple, but I've taken
a few stairs and tried to jump. You too. Truth be told, we will,
if left to ourselves, seek to acquire fame and a granddaughter.
I don't care if this is in a little local store, in the school, at
your job. You will want to be more famous
than God wants you to be, because that's your nature. But God loved
you in Christ before the world began and made sure that he had
a surety and a substitute and a representative to actually
get the job done before you even got here. In other words, I've
passed the test in my representative even before I went through it.
I get an A already. Isn't that good? I get an A on
the test because of him who loved me and gave himself for me. That's
the only reason I can get up every day, go to the throne of
grace and say, Lord, have mercy on a brother. I messed up. Help
me today. Because I know I'm saved by the
grace of God in Christ Jesus. He is my wisdom, redemption,
sanctification, and righteousness. He is my obedience. I overcome
all things in him. Isn't that good? Isn't that good,
Brother Mike? That good. He gave you an A before
you let you take the test. Because he knew you were a transgressor
from the womb. What kind of love is that? He
knew you were a transgressor from the womb. So he covered
you before you got here. She gonna mess up. Sam's gonna
mess up. But it's alright. I fixed it before he started.
Isn't that good, Brother Gray? I fixed it before he started.
And it's on this basis that we should love him with all of our
heart, soul, mind, and strength, and persevere to keep the gospel. See, because really what we're
talking about, I'm gonna close it down here, is the gospel. What you and I are talking about
is the gospel. Can I make this proposition?
The gospel that you and I are called to keep, to guard, to
protect, not to distort, not to malign, not to weaken, not
to give away, not to steal like Esau, not to steal like Judas
Iscariot. The gospel that you and I are
called to keep is the gospel that keeps you. The very gospel
that God has placed in your hand and told you and I to keep is
the gospel that keeps you. Inherent in the gospel is all
that I have said concerning the preservation of God in Christ
for us Christ said it in John chapter 17 verse 11 father. I
have kept them through thy name Those whom you have given me
I have kept therefore father keep them through thy name The
son kept us by his work The father kept us in Christ and the son
now as our mediator is saying to the father keep them keep
them Keep them all three persons are interested in keeping you
and I because there's a day when God is gonna manifest his glory
in Himself and by his people for which you and I have to hold
on am I making some sense? We have to hold on Saints We
have to keep the gospel that keeps us Because the gospel keeps
us it's the power of God and the salvation to everyone that
believes see this is why you have to come Sunday after Sunday
after Sunday, isn't that right? I'm going to church why so I
can be kept all over again Because some of us are out there when
we come and we need to be reminded of the long arm of grace How
it reaches out and told the sinner out of the ditch and brings him
back to God And puts him in the place that he's supposed to be
I need to hear the gospel to be reminded once again the keeping
faithfulness of God in my life And then God will encourage me
to keep the gospel and I want to keep the gospel with all my
life Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ is an example to us par excellence
Yes, he is the greatest model in the world. Yes. He is the
perfect example and specimen of humanity, but his excellence
as a model does not save us and What saves us is that he was
our substitute. He was our representative. He
was our go-between. Pastor, what in the world are
you talking about? In our present culture, you have
a whole bunch of people that pretend to believe the gospel,
who do not see Christ. as a necessary atonement for
sin, as a necessary means of propitiation for sin. They don't
believe that God the Father is holy enough to send people to
hell. They play church, making Jesus
a social worker, a great philosopher, some prophet, some model of which
we are to emulate, but they deny the specific work of Christ dying
as the sinner's substitute and redeeming them from a real hell
and a real sin and a real wrath by a real atonement. Are you
hearing me? But the people you and I are
dealing with are real sinners with real problems. And their
problems start with their nature, not their culture, not their
society. See, the false gospel that you
and I are observing today is a social gospel. It's a political
gospel. It's a prosperity gospel. And
it has, as it were, destroyed all of the essential elements
of the true gospel by which men and women are actually saved.
And what this means is this, and you need to get this, young
people. The gospel is not about accommodating your lifestyle.
The gospel is not about affirming your feelings. The gospel is
not about accommodating who you are. You know how the old song
goes, express yourself. Well, God's expressing himself
very clearly when he says you are a sinner by nature. That's
where your problem starts. See, we have a false gospel that's
permeating everything, either on the political end, the social
end, or the prosperity end, telling people, you are all right just
the way you are. That is diametrically opposite
of what the Bible teaches. Your problem is you're wrong.
You're wrong. That's what I'm teaching our
evangelistic team. You got to let people know God's
holy, you're sinful. That's a tremendous problem.
The gospel does not embrace us or affirm us or accommodate us. You know what it does? It confronts
us. The gospel confronts us with
the reality of your problem. And then it brings the solution.
And the solution is a savior who died on Calvary's tree as
a real, real sacrifice for sin. not for you to model in the flesh,
but for you to bow down and believe in as the only grounds of your
total salvation. The gospel promises change of
life. It tells you that it has the
power to put away your sins judicially, change your nature personally,
and put you on a path of conformity to Jesus. Am I making some sense? The true gospel must then be
preached, but it first must be kept by you. You must keep the
gospel for yourself because you and I need to be rescued. We need to be rescued from ourselves. We need to be rescued from this
world system. We need to be rescued from the
devil. We need to be rescued from the lies of false religion.
Right now, I can tell as I'm talking to you that some of you
know experientially that you are trapped by the lies of false
religion. Strange, you've been under this
gospel for years. And so with that, I warn you,
how is it that you can be under the truth of the gospel week
after week, month after month, year after year, and still find
yourself drifting down the path of this secular world system
and buying into the lies of another gospel? How is that happening,
ladies and gentlemen? How is that happening? How are
you drifting from the truth of the gospel in the midst of the
church? Well, you can ask Judas Iscariot. You can ask Judas,
because Judas was with the master, wasn't he? He was with the master.
How did Judas go three and a half years with perfection and then
sell him for 30 pieces of silver? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So you and I are called upon to persevere in the faith. Because
in persevering in the faith, God keeps us. Let me close with
one portion of scripture. Turn with me in your Bible to
2 Timothy chapter 4. This is the last verse. And as
you are headed there, 2 Timothy chapter 4, listen to the apostle's
words, who himself found himself persevering. Listen to it. As
you are heading there, the apostle Paul is speaking to Timothy about
the days in which you and I are presently living. He says over
in verse 2 to Timothy, preach the word. Be instant in season
and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering and doctrine. You guys remember that? We used
to preach that stuff like 100 years ago. Remember that? You
don't hear any rebukes today. No warnings, maybe exhortation,
but calling it what it is, you don't hear it today. He told
Timothy, Timothy, preach it. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. Ladies and gentlemen, you meet
Christians all over the place who fit this bill. They don't
endure sound doctrine. In fact, they would not listen
to what I'm saying for nothing in the world. They would not
hear what I'm saying for nothing in the world. They would cut
me off as, and then you too trying to say what I say, they would
cut you. You know that. This is false
Christianity. Are you hearing me? These are
people who don't know God, but they swear they do. Listen to
it. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own what? Ah,
there it is. Paul says they heap to themselves
teachers to tickle their what? You in bad shape when the only
reason you go to church is to have a psychologist tickle your
ears. You know you are stuck on yourself. Will you scratch
that itch, preacher? Will you scratch? That's it. That's it. That's
it. But Isaiah said it very plainly in the book of Isaiah. These
are the people who will not hear me. They say, cause the Holy
One to cease from among us. Speak to us smooth things. Tell us lies. Tell us lies. Listen to what
Paul tells Timothy. And they shall turn away their
ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables. But you
watch in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist,
make full proof of your ministry. Thank you, Lord, for I am now
ready to be offered in the time of my departure that here. And
you know what Paul told Timothy? They're getting ready to kill
me. You know why they're going to kill Paul? Because he kept
the gospel. Watch it. For I am now ready to be offered,
and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good
fight. See, you gotta fight, saints.
Do you see it? You can give up if you want to,
but believers persevere by the grace of God and they fight.
And you know what they fight? A good fight of what? Faith. Now without faith that's impossible
to what please him and faith comes by hearing and hearing
by what? We're not jumping off pinnacles. We're believing God's
Word by God's grace. We're keeping the gospel Listen
to it. I fought a good fight. I have
finished my course now you and I haven't finished our course
Can I ask you a question? Are you even still on the course?
I? Can you look back at where you were a year ago and where
you are now or five years ago and where you are now and honestly
say that you are still on the gospel course, that you are running
this race with patience, that you are really looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of your faith? that your eyes are locked
on Christ, that you've got your mind on the prize, that you have
put away old things, that you are pressing toward the mark
of the high calling of God in Christ. Can you say that's what
you're doing? If not, you need to go time out. Coach, come get me. Get the tow
truck, because I'm off the course. And according to your word, if
I don't run lawfully, I will not be crowned. There's a whole
lot of people pretending to believe the gospel, to trust Christ,
and they're not running the race. They're not keeping the faith.
Listen, when you keep the faith, you know what you find yourself
fairly frequently doing? Telling people about Jesus and
they don't like it because they're telling you about their God.
Everywhere you go, you get evangelized. Am I telling the truth? I have
fought a good fight. I have fought a good fight. I
have finished my course. I have what? See, that's what we're talking
about. When we have finished our journey and we lay our heads
on our pillow in preparation to leave this world, will God
have preserved us? Will he have kept us? Will he
have brought us to that place where we can say with Paul, I've
run, I've fought, I've finished. That's the exhortation. Now as
God's promised to keep his people, He won't let one of them fail.
Are you hearing me? All for whom Christ died, we'll
see him in glory. I believe that with all my heart.
Do you? But he calls you and me to persevere in the gospel. Amen.