Jude 1:24-25 Now to him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,… WE ARE IN DANGER OF FALLING. By "falling" he means sinning. The original word signifies stumbling, and may be applied to any false step we make in our Christian course, whatever its nature and termination. We are prone of ourselves to fall. What God said of His people of old, "they love to wander," He might say of us. And we are assailed continually from without. As though to make His old servants feel their danger, almost all the falls which God tells us of in His Word are those of long tried men. Noah falls after six hundred years' experience. Lot falls when an old man. And David, who passed so safely through the snares of youth, falls in mature age. II. THE GREAT GOD OUR SAVIOUR IS ABLE TO KEEP US. Conceive of a vessel with its planks loose, its sails rent, and its pilot ignorant and half blind; and then place it among shoals and rocks, with a storm raging — there is a picture of the Christian's condition in the world. That wretched vessel, you would say, is a doomed one; it will inevitably be lost. But suppose you are told that there is an invisible Being watching over it and determined to preserve it; one who can turn it about just as He will, and do what He will with those stormy winds and foaming billows, make those waves roll as He pleases, or, if He pleases, not roll at all — what should you say then? "That vessel is safe." And what would you do? You would delight in looking at it amidst its perils, for you would delight in contemplating the power which is so wonderfully preserving it. So with the believer. "He shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand." God is magnifying His power through that man's weakness, and that man's dangers and temptations. Again let me say, we need high thoughts of God; high thoughts of His mercy to lead us at first into His ways — our sinfulness makes that necessary; and then high thoughts of His power to lead us cheerfully on in His ways — our many dangers render this needful. III. THE LORD JESUS HAS HIGH DESIGNS CONCERNING US, WHICH HE IS ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH. We should have thought it a great thing to have been presented to Christ in the day of His humiliation; to have sat by His side with John, or at His feet with Mary; but He says here, "I will present you to Myself in the day of My glory. To do you honour, I will welcome you in all My splendour." And we are to be faultless before His glorious presence. A thing sometimes appears pure and white, but bring it into the daylight or put it down on the new-fallen snow, it appears so no longer. Not so here. We shall bear the daylight; our whiteness shall bear the snow. Think of that, when sin is tormenting you. How complete in the end will be your deliverance from it! Every fragment and trace of it will be gone. And yet further — Christ will do this "with exceeding joy." "He will give us joy," you will say, "as He does it. We shall shout for joy as He calls us to Himself." But this, I conceive, is not the apostle's meaning. He is not thinking of our joy, but of Christ's. Ours will be nothing to His. IV. IN KEEPING HIS PEOPLE AND ACCOMPLISHING HIS GLORIOUS DESIGNS CONCERNING THEM, GOD MANIFESTS HIS WISDOM. "The only wise God." Some of us rarely think of God's wisdom as doing anything now to keep or save us. It planned the glorious scheme of our salvation, we think, and then retired, leaving mercy and grace to execute it. Or if we do carry our thoughts farther than God's mercy and grace, we take in perhaps only His faithfulness. But all the perfections of Jehovah are at work for us. Not one of them does He suffer to be unemployed. Our hope therefore ought to rest on all His attributes. It would be a stronger hope if it did so. Mercy must ever be its mainstay, but here are two supports placed under it quite unconnected with mercy — power and wisdom. And observe how beautifully they are coupled together. Power to keep us would be nothing without wisdom to direct it — it would not know how to help us; and wisdom would be nothing without power — it might see what was needed for us, but there it must stop, it could not accomplish it. (C. Bradley, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, |
    |