Jude VII

MINISTER, Rev. Thomas O. Scarborough.

Jude. Verses 24-25.

Well this morning we are changing tack almost completely in the book of Jude -- we have reached the very last two verses of the book of Jude -- and you will remember that right at the beginning of the book, Jude said that what he had actually wanted to write about was the salvation that we share.

Let us go right back to verse 3. In verse 3, Jude says: "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write, and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."

Therefore, what Jude had wanted to write about was the salvation that we share -- but such was the situation in front of him, that he just had to write about contending for the faith.

Now we said that although Jude got side-tracked -- he didn't entirely get side-tracked -- and if we look carefully at this book, we see that Jude does indeed tell us about the salvation that we share.

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He tells us about this in the first two verses of the book -- and now in verses 24 and 25 -- at the end of the book -- he tells us again about the salvation that we share.

So our verses this morning are verses 24 and 25 -- and let us read these two verses to begin: "To Him who is able to keep you from falling, and present you before His glorious presence without fault, and with great joy -- to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power, and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."

This is one of the most famous blessings of the Bible -- and you might even know it off by heart -- it is one of the choruses in our chorus book.

So let us take the thoughts in these verses one by one.

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Firstly, in verse 24 -- He -- that is God -- is able to keep you from falling.

Notice that this does not say: "He will keep you from falling," but it says: "He is able to keep you from falling." It says that you don't need to fall. You don't need to slip -- this word is sometimes translated as -- "slip".

That should be a great encouragement to us. He -- the Lord -- is able to keep you from falling. God has the power to keep you from falling.

So let us look at what it means exactly to fall -- or to slip.

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You can of course fall into sin -- although this is by far not everything that this verse means -- as we shall see in a moment.

Anyway, here’s a verse in the Bible that refers to sin as slipping. The Psalmist says in Psalm 73 verses 1 and 2: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I had nearly lost my foothold."

In this case, slipping and falling clearly refers to sin. And that is what sin is -- it is losing your footing in life -- falling into things that are shameful -- that are damaging.

But what it means to be a Christian is that God is able to keep you from falling.

If you are not a Christian believer, you are not in that position. Sin is your master -- that is a clear teaching of the Bible. But when you are saved, you need not fear -- God is able to keep you on a steady path.

So that is what it means to Jude to be a Christian -- when you become a Christian by putting your faith in Jesus Christ, He -- the Lord -- now has power over your life, and He is able to keep you from falling -- in every area of your life. By His mercy, He can steer you around sin.

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Now this verse does not only refer to sin, as I said.

The original Greek word referred to was a horse -- and in particular a sure-footed horse that will not slip -- that will not fall. Apparently you get sure-footed horses -- which have that special ability to walk safely.

So the first meaning of these words of Jude is: "He -- the Lord -- is able to keep you from losing your footing in life." He is able to hold your life steady, and give you an anchor and a foundation.

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Let us hear some verses along these lines, from the Old Testament. The Psalmist says, in Psalm 94 verse 18: "Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your love, O Lord, supported me."

And this is how the Bible version "The Message" puts it: "If God had never been there for me, I never would have made it. The minute I said, 'I'm slipping, I'm falling,' Your love, O God, took hold and held me fast."

So God is able to keep us from falling, from slipping, when we get into situations that normally would make a person slip -- that would ruin things, and cause damage, and cause embarrassment, and cause defeat.

The Bible says: "Even youths grow weary, and young men stumble and fall -- but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength." (Isaiah 40).

It's a wonderful thought. Once you are saved -- once you know the Lord -- He is able to keep you from falling.

What is more important in life than that? Few things can be more important.

No matter what happens in your life, He is able to keep you from falling.

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Let us move on in verse 24.

Jude says that He -- that is the Lord -- is able to present you before His glorious presence.

Now this is a simple reminder to us that as Christians we are destined to stand in God's presence. That is an awesome thought. We are going to see God Himself.

We are going to see His glory.

The Bible says: "No one has ever seen God." (1 John 4:12). Nobody on earth can ever, ever see Him. The best we can do here, says the Bible is to love one another, because then God lives in us.

But one day we shall stand in His glorious presence.

And notice again that this is what it means to be a Christian -- this is the salvation that we share, says Jude -- in verse 3 -- and because we have this salvation, we shall be presented before God's glorious presence.

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Let us then notice how we shall be presented before His presence, in verse 24.

We shall be presented before His glorious presence without fault -- without any fault or sin. There will not be a single sin in our whole person -- we'll be completely cleansed.

That is how we shall be presented before God.

Now there is a very important New Testament teaching behind this -- that is the teaching of justification -- "just-as-if-I'd" never sinned -- except that there is one very important difference here in Jude -- and that is that we see here what our justification will ultimately mean.

So often we understand justification in earthly terms -- that we have been cleansed of our sin now -- that we can enter into God's presence now with boldness when we pray to Him and worship Him.

But Jude shows us here what it will finally mean -- in terms of our personal relationship with God -- that we shall appear before God's glorious presence without fault.

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Now it's important to understand that not a single one of us is without fault. We are sinners -- and one of the greatest spiritual problems of Christians is that so often they are unable to see just how sinful they are.

In fact I doubt that any one of us sees just how sinful we are,

When we compare ourselves with God's glory -- we are sinful through and through. If you can only see that you lost your temper, or that you watched the wrong TV programme -- you are pretty blind to your sin.

And you will find that one of the great marks of all the great men and women of God in the Bible is that they were able to see just how sinful and weak they were.

The apostle Paul wrote: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners -- of whom I am the worst." (1 Timothy 1:15).

So if you want to compete with Paul for spirituality -- you will need to think that you are worse than the worst.

King David said: "Surely, I was sinful from birth -- sinful from the time my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5). You can hardly describe your sinfulness in stronger words than that.

So the fact is that we can never appear before God without fault because of anything good that lies in us. That is very important. If we would depend on what lies in us -- and so many people do -- that is never enough.

In fact if we dare to walk into God's presence on the basis of our poor sinful selves, God will reject us -- He will cast us out of His presence -- that is how bad things are with us in God's sight -- at least before we are saved.

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But Jude says we shall appear faultless before His glorious presence -- not because of who we are -- but because we turned to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we asked Him to forgive us, and to cleanse us by His blood. That is why we shall appear faultless in His presence.

We will appear faultless in His presence because He did something to us -- through the Lord Jesus Christ -- which took all our sins and blemishes away from us -- and placed them on His only Son.

The Bible says: "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

And let us hear what the Bible says. It does not say: "Blessed is

the man who never sins." It says plainly: "Blessed is the man

whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

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That is incidentally also how we can appear before other people, blameless and pure.

A minister can appear before his congregation blameless and pure - he knows he is unworthy of being a minister of God -- but in the sight of God he is faultless, because he has been justified.

And that is how you can appear with confidence in the presence of any other human being -- because God has cleansed you -- He has justified you.

Often people run into trouble in personal relationships when they look at themselves, and they see themselves through their own eyes -- but not through the eyes of God, who has cleansed them through the blood of Jesus Christ.

They say: "Oh, what my husband or my wife says about me -- what a wretch I am -- or what my boss says about me, or what others say about me -- I don't have the right to contradict that."

But they fail to stay in that spiritual condition before God where they are able to say: "My transgressions are forgiven, my sins are covered. How blessed I am that the Lord will never count my sin against me."

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Now to return to the main point here -- what Jude is doing here is to look at the meaning of justification -- of what it means to be absolved in God's sight -- from the eternal perspective.

He is saying that what this will ultimately mean is that because of what Jesus our Saviour has done for us, we shall one day stand in the presence of God's glory -- and we shall be without fault.

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Then, moving on in this verse, let us notice the phrase: "with great joy".

Now if we had the slightest fault in us -- and we have more than that -- one would expect that we would appear before the presence of His glory with shame, or with fear -- we would be afraid to be presented before Him.

But here in the book of Jude we read that what it means to be a Christian is that we shall be presented before His glorious presence with great joy.

So perfect is the work that Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross -- so perfectly has He cleansed us of our sin -- that we shall appear before God Himself -- before His glory -- not with the slightest doubt or fear -- but with great joy.

The famous commentator William Barclay says: "Surely the natural way to think of entry into the presence of God is to think of entry in fear and in trembling, in shame and disgrace. But by the work of Jesus Christ, we know that we can go to God with eagerness and with joy, and with all fear banished."

If you find that you cannot enter God's presence with joy -- if you still have doubts and qualms about coming before Him -- then you have not understood how tremendous is the work of Christ for you. It is absolutely perfect and complete.

Not only will you enter God's presence without fault -- which is one thing. You will enter His presence with great joy, says Jude.

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Let us move on to verse 25.

The final verse is dedicated to "the only God our Saviour" -- and here are a few thoughts all wrapped up into one.

There is only one Saviour. There is only one God. God the Father is our Saviour, just as God the Son is. And it is the whole purpose of God to save.

Those are just a few of the thoughts that are here.

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What I would like to focus on lastly this morning -- very briefly -- is just four words here -- they are words which describe to us who God is.

The words are just after the beginning of verse 25 -- glory, majesty, power, and authority.

God is a God of glory, majesty, power, and authority.

Now at first glance, those words might all seem to be pretty much

the same, but they are not.

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Glory means that God is glorious -- He is a God of splendour. A description that might come close to that is that He is a God of pure light.

And remember that what the Bible judges us for as human beings is that we come short of His glory. It is one thing to come short of perfection, or to come short of righteousness -- it is quite another to come short of glory. There may be people who claim to be righteous -- there may even be a few who claim to be perfect -- but who can say that their lives match the glory of God.

God is a God of glory.

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Secondly, God is a God of majesty -- and this refers to God's position.

There is nobody greater -- there is nobody more important -- than God. Nobody has a higher position.

To say that God is a God of majesty means that nobody can come near the fantastically great position that God has.

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Thirdly, He is a God of power. This is one attribute of God that Christians very often forget. They somehow can't believe that God has power over everything.

But if He doesn't have power over everything, then He is no longer God -- He is something less than God, but He is not God.

Not only, as the Bible says, does God sustain all things by His powerful word -- but He also has power over every single part of our lives.

Basically, God has the power to carry out anything that He wills.

Part of our Christian growth is learning more and more that God has power over all things.

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Finally, God is a God of authority.

That means that He has the right -- He has the absolute right -- to do what He wills. So nobody can say why did the Lord do this -- or why did He do that?

I am sure we would sometimes like to know -- and sometimes we do know -- why God does certain things.

But when Jude says that God is a God of authority, this means His sovereign will -- He has the right to do whatever He does in this world.

That should in fact be a great encouragement to us -- because God is not evil. Everything God does is good. And if we could only see it, we would see that everything He does brings Him glory.

AMEN.