Teaching Resources International

“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, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” — Jude 1:24, 25

We may derive much evil or much good from the falls of others.  We may derive much evil from their falls if we follow their bad example, or if our pride suggests to us that we are better than they are.  It is an evil thing for a man to look upon his fallen brother, and then to say, in the spirit of the Pharisee, “God, I thank thee that I am not such a sinner as that man is.”  This kind of spirit would make it very probable that we should yet become even worse than the poor fallen one.

But, on the other hand, much good may come to us through the falls of others if, the moment we see or hear of the falling of our brethren, we reflect that we should have done the same if we had not been upheld by God, that all the evil that has come out of them might also have come out of us, for it is in every one of us by nature.  Unless God’s restraining hand shall prevent its being displayed, it will be displayed in our life as well as in theirs.  Every wreck ought to be a beacon.  One man’s fall should be another’s warning.  Dost thou see thy brother’s foot trip against a stone?  Then, take care how thou goest along that way.  Dost thou see him yield to temptation?   Then, mind that thine ears are closed against that which fascinated him, and turned him aside from the right path.  Wherein thou seest that he failed in anything, set a double guard upon thyself just there, and ask God to give thee grace to keep thee with special keeping in that particular point which was his weakness, and which may, unknown to thyself, be also thine own.

I am led to make these remarks because the Epistle of Jude describes certain gross offenders; the apostle says a good deal about persons who were in the church, but were evidently not of it; and who, therefore, were the church’s weakness and dishonor, spots in her solemn feasts, clouds without water, trees without fruit, “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame.”  Now, if the reflection from that description should be, in the case of any of us, “We are superior persons to them, and are not at all likely to fall into such a condition as this,” the consideration of their condition would have had a very unhappy influence upon ourselves.  But if we use this Epistle in the right way, as Jude means us to do, and begin to look at our own weakness and to dread our own failure, and then close all, as he does, with a doxology to him who is able to keep us from falling where others have fallen, and to present us faultless when others will be condemned, and to bring us to exceeding joy while they will be banished to the place where they will have to endure exceeding misery, surely we ought to give honor, and praise, and glory “to the only wise God our Savior;” and this will be a blessed way of extracting good out of the failings and falls of others.

This is my object in speaking to you upon this text, and I am going to talk to you very simply upon three things: firstly, our danger; secondly, our safety; and, thirdly, our gratitude.

I. The first thing we are to consider is OUR DANGER.

We are in danger of falling – not only some of us, but all of us; not merely the weak, but also the strong; not the young alone, but the old and the middle-aged – all are in danger of falling into sin, and so bringing dishonor upon our profession, sorrow to our own souls, and disgrace upon the name of Christ, whom we profess to love and serve.

That we are in danger should strike us very clearly because we have seen others fall into sin. I scarcely dare to recall all that I have seen during my observation of the professing church of Christ.  Though I think I have been peculiarly favored as a pastor, there are sore places in my soul, bleeding wounds that never will be healed this side heaven, that have been caused by the backsliding of men with which I took sweet counsel, and in whose company I used to walk to the house of God. I have known some, who have preached the gospel, and preached it with power, live to depart from it altogether.  I have known others, who have served at the Lord’s table, who have discharged the duties of the deaconship or the eldership with considerable diligence, who have afterwards given way to their evil passions.  I have thought some of them to be amongst the holiest of men.  While they have been praying, I have been lifted up in devotion to the very gates of heaven; and if anyone had said to me that they would one day fall into gross sin, I could not have believed it.  I would sooner have believed it to be possible of myself.  When I have heard of their fall, it has struck me with a sharp pang; and when it has been my sad duty to enquire into the matter, and I have been compelled to be convinced of the truthfulness of the accusation brought against them, I have been staggered to think how far a man may go in profession, and yet not possess the grace of God in truth; and how like a Christian a man may be, and yet not really be a child of God; and how he may have many resemblances to the grace of God, and yet may not have that grace in his soul indeed and of a truth.  “Howl, fir tree; for the cedar is fallen;” is a cry that may still be heard.  Those who seemed stronger than we are have fallen, so why may not we?  Nay, shall we not fall unless sovereign grace shall prevent that dread calamity?  Our Lord’s disciples, who sat at the table with him, when they were told that one of them would betray their Master, each one enquired, “Lord, is it I?”

That was a very proper question.  There was not one who asked, “Lord, is it Judas?”  Probably, no one of them even suspected him, and it may be that the worst hypocrite in this assembly is the one upon whom there does not rest at this moment a single shade of suspicion.  He has learnt to play his part so well that his true character has not yet been discovered.  One of these days, the thirty pieces of silver will prove too attractive to him, and then he will sell his Master.  Will that traitor be yourself, dear friend, or will it be myself?  Surely, if this has been the case with others, it must be a matter for our own serious consideration, seeing that we also are as liable to be tempted as they were, and as liable to yield to the temptation.  John Newton was right when he wrote, —

“When any turn from Zion’s way,

(Alas, what numbers do!)

Methinks I hear my Savior say,

‘Wilt thou forsake me too?’

“Ah, Lord! with such a heart as mine,

Unless thou hold me fast,

I feel I must, I shall decline,

And prove like them at last.”

Beside that, not only have others fallen, but we ourselves, although in a great measure kept by divine grace, have not been faultless. If all men knew all about us that might be known, we should hardly be able to look them in the face.  Someone is said to have once wished that he had a window in his heart, so that everybody could look in and see all that was there.  But if he had such a window, he would want to have blinds to it, and he would probably keep them down for the most part, for who would like his neighbor to read the thoughts of his heart even for a single hour?  Have there not been times with you, my brethren, honorable men, Christians of good standing in the church, when your feet had almost gone, your steps had well nigh slipped?  And sisters in Christ, preserved as you have been in the faith of Jesus, and enabled honorably to maintain your Christian character, have there not been times when temptation has been very strong upon you, and when you have half consented to the sin that has been suggested to you?  I know, if you are flesh and blood like the rest of us, you must confess that it has been so with you.

So, then, we have this double warning – what we have seen in others, and what we have felt in ourselves.  Besides, dear brethren and sisters in Christ, ought we not to realize the danger of our falling when we consider the world we live in, and the flesh we live in, and the tempter who is continually tempting us? The road we have to tread is often so slippery that we have need not only to watch our feet, but also to pray, “O Lord, hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”  There are also many who watch for our halting, and some who do more than that, for they set traps for us; and if they could but catch us in them, how rejoiced they would be!  If we do not fall, it is not because they have not tried to make us fall, but because God has upheld us by his grace.  If we know ourselves at all, we must have come to the conclusion that, apart from the grace of God, we are a mass of sin and corruption, and capable of anything that is evil.  I do not wonder that John Bradford said, as he saw men taken to be hanged at Tyburn, “There goes John Bradford but for the grace of God.”  There is powder enough in all our hearts to blow our character to pieces if God does not keep the devil’s sparks away, or quench them in a mighty stream of grace before they can do us mischief.  Utter weakness art thou, O man, and many and mighty foes are seeking thy destruction; thou needest an infinite Friend to keep thee in safety against all the machinations of thine adversaries!

We need constantly to cry to God to keep us from falling, remembering what a dreadful thing it would be for us to fall.  We know that a true child of God cannot fall fatally or finally; but we also know that some, who profess to be the people of God, do fall foully, fatally, and finally, and that others, who are really the people of God, have fallen to their own great grief and to their Lord’s dishonor.  O my dear sister, what sorrow there would be in the hearts of those who know you if you were to turn aside, and how the enemy would blaspheme, and how would those who are weak in the faith be staggered if you were to be permitted to disgrace your Christian profession!  And my dear brother, you who are of venerable years, looked up to and respected by many, what grief would fill your own heart – when the Lord brought you to penitence for your guilt – if you were allowed to fall into sin; and, meanwhile, how much mischief you would have done to the Church of God, and to souls seeking the Savior!  Pray very specially for those of us who stand in prominent positions, for it is not easy to keep a clear head when one is upon the top of a pinnacle; but when you have prayed for us, pray also for yourselves.  God can keep men in safety on the tops of pinnacles if he puts them there; but the men in the valley will fall if they think they can keep themselves securely.  I remember talking once to a lady who assured me again and again that she prayed daily for me that I might be kept humble.  I told her that I should pray the same prayer for her; and when she said, “Oh, I am never tempted to be proud,” I replied, “Well, dear friend, I am afraid you are very far gone in that direction already, or else you would not talk as you do.”  We can easily perceive the danger in which others are; and if we do, we ought to pray for them; but let us not forget our own peril, for the greatest danger does not lie in the position we are called to occupy, but in our relying upon our own strength and not upon our God.

“Lord, through the desert drear and wide,

Our erring footsteps need a guide;

Keep us, oh keep us near thy side.

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.

“We have no fear that thou shouldst lose

One whom eternal love could choose;

But we would ne’er this grace abuse.

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.

“Lord, we are blind, and halt, and lame,

We have no stronghold but thy name:

Great is our fear to bring it shame.

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.

“Lord, evermore thy face we seek:

Tempted we are, and poor, and weak;

Keep us with lowly hearts, and meek.

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.

“All thy good work in us complete,

And seat us daily at thy feet;

Thy love, thy words, thy name, how sweet!

Let us not fall. Let us not fall.”

There are dangers that are peculiar to every position.  To those who live a very quiet life, there is the danger of the rust and the moth, and to those who live an active life, there is the danger of being cumbered with much service.  You who are young are certainly in danger from impetuous companions; and yet it is remarkable that, amongst the offenders, even against morality, mentioned in Scripture, we do not read of many who were young.  David falls not into such foul sin until he is advanced in years, as if to show us that it is not age that gives strength to resist evil.  Age brings experience; but unless grace comes with the experience, it gets to be like the manna in the wilderness, which bred worms and stank when men tried to feed upon it after its proper time.  We are all safe while we are in God’s hands, but we are none of us safe in our own keeping; and every position that we may occupy has its own peculiar perils.  Do not be in haste to get away from a position in which you are tempted, for you will be tempted in every position; and, possibly, the temptation which assails you in your present circumstances may be less powerful for evil than the one to which you would be exposed if you were to change your place.  Many a man of God has leaped out of the frying-pan into the fire.  I have even known some who have thought that they were going to get into a port where they would never again suffer from storms; and they have gone out of their proper course in order to get into that port, and there the most dreadful hurricane they ever knew has come upon them.  Be ever afraid of not being afraid, and be always in fear when you feel that you are perfectly safe.  When you realize your danger, and fly to the Lord to guard you, then you are safe.  But, when you begin to think, “All is right with me, nothing will make me fall now,” you are not very far off a bad fall in which you may suffer serious hurt.  May God keep you, my dear brothers and sisters, may he preserve each one of us, till we see his face in glory at the last!

Did you notice that the text indicates what a joy it will be to be kept from falling? Jude says, “Christ is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” It will indeed be exceeding joy to be kept from falling, and to be presented faultless at the end.  I have often prayed that I might be able to say what George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, said just before he died; his words were these, “I am clear.  I am clear.  I am clear.”  He felt that he had faithfully discharged his ministry, and spoken all that the Spirit of God had taught to him; and if I may say what he did – that I am clear of the blood of all men when I lay down my body and my charge – I will not ask anything more.  And if each professing Christian here shall be clear at the last, and be able to say, with Paul, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,” you will have exceeding joy.  I do not think so much of the harps of gold and the streets that shine with dazzling splendor, and the other descriptions of the glories of heaven, as of this, —

“May I but safely reach my home,

My God, my heaven, my all!”

May I get where I shall never again sin, and where I shall not even be tempted to sin!  May I get where flesh and sense shall no more destroy the sacred pleasures of my soul!  It will be exceeding joy, even to dancing and leaping of spirit, as the Greek has it, if we may but be presented faultless at the last, having been kept by sovereign grace even to the end.  This must suffice concerning our danger.

II. Now, secondly, I am to speak upon OUR SAFETY: “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,… to the only wise God our Savior.”

Our  safety lies in our Savior, — “God our Savior.”  Just think of that great truth for a moment.  When we first came to Christ, we rejoiced that he was a Savior, a sinner’s Savior.  All our hope and comfort lay in the fact that God had appointed him to be our Savior.  Well now, beloved, in looking forward to the temptations that will assail you in your future life, keep your eye on your Savior.  You did not have him to be a Savior for a time, to cleanse you from sin, and then to leave you to fall back into sin.  When you took him to be your Savior, I hope you took him for all your life, and for eternity.  That is how he took you; he espoused you unto himself in an everlasting wedlock; and, therefore, he would have you depend as much upon him for sanctification as for justification, rely as much upon him to keep you from sin as to keep you from hell, and trust as much to him to enable you to overcome your present temptation as you trusted to him at the first to overcome your fear of condemnation.  Christ is your Savior from beginning to end, so always regard him in that light; and as your Savior let it be very comforting to you to reflect that he is divine: “The only wise God our Savior.”  He who has undertaken to save you is no mere man, and no angel; he is nothing less than the omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient God.

Your peril can be averted by his omnipotent might.  The hidden dangers in your pathway all lie unveiled to his all-seeing eye.  You are safe, not because you can see and avoid the dangers that beset you, nor yet because you are strong and can conquer your adversaries, but because your Savior is God, and therefore you shall be saved, continuously saved, perfectly saved, and presented as a saved one at the last.

Observe how Jude puts this precious truth: “Unto him that is able to keep you from falling.”   Why does the apostle lay such stress upon the ability of Christ?  You know that our faith sometimes fails us concerning Christ’s ability and sometimes concerning his willingness to save us.  One came to Christ, and said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;” and another said to him, “If thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.”  Now, in this matter to which Jude is referring, I suppose that we should not have had any doubt about God’s willingness, because it must be the will of the thrice-holy God to keep his people from falling; if any question did arise, it would be concerning God’s power, and not concerning his willingness.

And here let me remark that this is a very wonderful power.  The power to create a world, the power to divide the rocks, the power to shake the mountains or set them on a blaze, is a very inferior power compared with that which is able to keep us from falling, because God has been pleased to make us free agents, and he never deprives us of our free agency.  Yet, without the destruction of a quality which is necessary to our responsible manhood, God is nevertheless able to keep us from falling.  Of course, he could keep us from falling into certain sins by shutting us up in a prison or by depriving us in some other way of the power to commit those sins.  But he does not keep us in that way.  He leaves us as free agents, with every faculty and propensity that we had before; yet, by some mysterious, omnipotent working of his Holy Spirit, which we can no more understand than we can the blowing of the wind, he does keep his people from falling.  If he turned them at once into angels, so that they never had a desire to sin again, that would be a simple process; but he lets them remain men, and, as I know from my own experience, men with the same passions as before, and with the same possibilities of sinning as before; and yet, by a divine working which is nothing less than a continuous miracle, he keeps them from falling again into the sins in which they once indulged; and everyone who knows by experience the power of God to keep a child of his from falling, must and will magnify the name of the Lord, even as Jude does in this doxology.

Observe, too, that the apostle puts God’s wisdom side by side with his ability: “to the only wise God our Savior.”  You know that it needs great wisdom in a parent to keep his child from evil; but it needs far greater wisdom for God to keep men and women, whom he treats as men and women, and not as logs, or bricks, or stones, from falling into sin.  And, oh, what divine wisdom there is in the dispositions of providence, and in the manifold workings of the Holy Spirit, in using saints to protect saints, and even in using sinners to warn saints, in using holy pleasures to allure saints to good, and using evils to drive saints from evil!  What you and I owe to God’s rod we shall never know till we get to heaven; the love there is in every twig of it, and in every smart and bruise that it makes, we shall never fully estimate until our faculties are enlarged beyond the narrow bounds of this finite state.  It is the tender mercy of God that keeps some of you poor.  It is God’s lovingkindness which prevents you from prospering in your endeavors, and which makes you cry out in the bitterness of your spirit, “All these things are against me.”  God wounds us that he may heal us; he kills us that he may quicken us; he lays us low and digs out our very foundations, that he may build us up to be fair temples in which he may abide forever.  So, our safety is assured by the fact that we have a God who is able and is as wise as he is able to keep us from falling.

And then we have something more than mere safety, for the text adds, “and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” We have this word “present” several times in the New Testament.  Paul wrote to the saints in Rome, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”  He also wrote to the Christians in Corinth concerning his desire to present them “as a chaste virgin to Christ.”  To the Ephesians, he wrote that “Christ, also loved the church, and gave himself for it, … that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.”  And here Jude writes concerning Christ presenting his people “faultless before the presence of his glory,” — not presenting them unfallen, but “faultless.” I suppose there are some brethren, who have grown so familiar with the idea of their own perfection, that they can quite understand what it is to feel perfect; but I am so familiar with the sense of my own imperfections that it takes me a long while to grasp the fact that I shall one day be “without fault before the throne of God.”  I can sit down, sometimes, with an aching head, and believe that it will wear a crown by-and-by.  I can look at these hands, and believe that I shall one day wave a palm-branch of victory.  I can and do fully expect to wear the white robe and to sing the everlasting song in glory.  But it will be more than all this to be absolutely perfect, with never a risk of a hasty temper rising, or the fear of men checking one’s lips from saying what is right.  There will be no undue haste; and, at the same time, there will be no sloth; there will be no preponderance of any grace so as to cause it to grow into a fault, and no deficiency in any point of character.

To be faultless before men is a great thing.  To be faultless before the devil, so that even he cannot find any fault in us, is greatly to be desired.  But the most wonderful thing of all must be to be presented by Christ “faultless before the presence of his glory.”  That is, where the light is brightest, no speck of sin is to be seen.  The saints shall be so perfectly purified by the omnipotent grace of God the Holy Spirit that even the Lord himself, in whose sight the heavens are not pure, and who charges his angels with folly, shall look upon his redeemed people and declare that they are faultless, holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight.  Oh, blessed portion, glorious hope!  This is something that is worth struggling for.  So, brethren and sisters in Christ, let us fight more valiantly than ever against our sins and corruptions.  Armed with the two-edged sword of the Spirit, we shall win the day.  He who is able to keep us from falling will not be satisfied with acting on the defensive for us, and protecting us from our enemies, but he will enable us to carry the war into the enemy’s country, and we shall be “more than conquerors through him that loved us;” and we shall have this resplendent character at last, that we shall be “without fault before the throne of God.”

III. The last thing upon which I have to speak is OUR GRATITUDE.

I must speak upon it briefly, but I hope you will think and act upon it at great length; yea, throughout your whole lives, and that I shall do the same.  The apostle says, “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, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.”

So, then, the text winds up with the thought that to God must be all the praise. It is well to know on whose head we are to put the crown.  If we could save ourselves, we might praise ourselves; but I trust that none of us is so foolish as to imagine that we can do anything to save ourselves.  I have heard of a vessel that was in a storm once – not a very severe one – but a gentleman on board thought it was, and went about amongst the sailors and passengers finding fault with the captain’s management of the vessel, and saying that he was sure the ship would go to pieces and that all an board would go to the bottom of the sea.  He did so much mischief by his foolish talking that, at last, the captain said to him, “We must rely upon every man doing his duty; will you go and hold that rope over there?”  He went at once, and there he stood, like a martyr, and held on to the rope until the storm had abated, and then he began congratulating himself upon the eminent part that he had played in saving the ship in that terrible storm.  When he got too proud, the captain said to him, “I only gave you that bit of rope to hold just to keep you quiet; your holding it was of no other use whatever.”  Then the gentleman saw what a fool he had been; and when a man thinks he has done something towards his own salvation, if he could only know the truth of the matter, he would soon see what a fool he is.  He was a far more sensible man who said that he was saved because Christ did his part, and he did all the rest.  Somebody asked him, “But what was ‘the rest’ that you did?” and he replied, “Why, Christ did it all, and I only stood in his way and hindered him all I could.”

That is about all that we shall ever do in the matter of our soul’s salvation.  It must rest with Christ alone, and our wisdom is to commit ourselves to him who is able to meet all the necessities of our case and to conduct us safely to our journey’s end; but since, from the first to the last, salvation is of the Lord, —

“Then give all the glory to his holy name,

For to him all the glory belongs.”

Whenever you hear anybody praising some good minister whom God has blessed to him, join in his praises as one brother should do concerning another, but then add, “We have had enough of that strain, dear friend, so now unto him that is able to keep us from falling be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.”  And if anybody should ever praise you for any spiritual help you may have given, always pass on the praise to him that is able to keep you from falling, for he deserves it all.  Give to him, in the very highest degree that is possible, glory and majesty, dominion and power – the highest praise of which your thankful heart is capable and the deepest devotion to which your grateful spirit can attain.

How much better we will praise God one day than we can ever do while we are in this body!  Good old John Berridge, speaking of the saints above singing in heaven, says, —

“O happy saints, who dwell in light,

And walk with Jesus, clothed in white;

Safe landed on that peaceful shore,

Where pilgrims meet to part no more.

“Released from sin, and toil, and grief,

Death was their gate to endless life;

An open’d cage to let them fly,

And build their happy nest on high.

“And now they range the heavenly plains,

And sing their hymns in melting strains;

And now their souls begin to prove

The heights and depths of Jesus’ love.

“Ah, Lord! with tardy steps I creep,

And sometimes sing, and sometimes weep;

Yet strip me of this house of clay,

And I will sing as loud as they.”

And so it shall be with us, yet we shall always feel as if our loftiest praises could not rise to the height of his great love wherewith he hath loved us.  I remember saying in a sermon one night, “When I get to heaven, I will sing more loudly than anybody else, for I shall owe the most to sovereign grace.”  As the close of the service, a good old sister said to me, “You made a mistake in your sermon tonight.”  “What was that?” I asked.  “Why, you said that you would sing the loudest in heaven; but you will not, for I shall, for I shall owe more to grace than you will.”  I soon found that all the other Christians there were of the same opinion as that dear old soul, that each one of them would owe more to the grace of God than all the rest; and, surely, that will be the only contention amongst the birds of paradise, which shall sing the most sweetly to the praise of their adorable Lord.

But the text seems to me to say that, while we are to give God the praise, and to give him only the praise, and to give him the best praise that we can, we are to give that praise to him now. Jude says, “Now and ever.”  What! are we to praise the Lord now for keeping us to the end?  Will it not do if we praise him when the end comes, and we have been kept to the end?  Will it not do if we praise him when we are presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy?  But can you not believe God’s promise that he will keep you to the end, and bless his name for it even now?  Many a time you have expressed your gratitude to a friend when he has said, “I will do so-and-so for you.”  You were sure that he would do what he said, his promise was enough for you; and as the Lord has promised to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, surely you can say, —

“And a ‘new song’ is in my mouth,

To long-loved music set,

Glory to thee for all the grace

I have not tasted yet.

“I have a heritage of joy,

That yet I must not see:

The hand that bled to make it mine,

Is keeping it for me.”

Now I close by saying that this praise is to be perpetual: “both now and ever. Amen.”  We may begin now, but we must always keep on, as long as we live, praising him who is able to keep us from falling.  What! keep on praising him?  Yes, even when the deep waters are all around you, still praise him; and if they grow deeper yet, still praise him.  Let this be your soul’s resolve, —

“I’ll praise my Maker with my breath,

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler powers:

My days of praise shall ne’er be past,

While life and thought and being last,

Or immortality endures.”

If I can send the children of God away from this service praising him, good will have been done; but I wish that those who are not God’s people would feel a great longing after these good things.  Some of you young people are just now starting in life; you have an excellent character, and you hope you may be enabled to preserve it to the end.  Let me just tell you of something that was a great help in bringing me to Christ.  I knew a young man, a little older than myself, who was often held up to me as a model; and he certainly was a model in many respects.  But I saw him go wrong, sadly wrong; and then I thought within myself, “I may do just as he has done.”  And when I heard it said that the Lord would keep his people right to the end; that Christ had said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand,” I must confess that the doctrine of the final preservation of the saints was a bait that my soul could not resist. I thought it was a sort of life insurance – an insurance of my character, an insurance of my soul, an insurance of my eternal destiny.  I knew that I could not keep myself, but if Christ promised to keep me, then I should be safe for ever; and I longed and prayed to find Christ, because I knew that, if I found him, he would not give me a temporary and trumpery salvation, such as some preach, but eternal life which could never be lost, the living and incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever, for no one and nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Dear young people, do you not feel the same kind of drawing that I felt then?  Do you not wish that you were Christ’s that you might be kept through life honorable and consistent?  May his gracious Spirit lead you to trust yourself to Jesus this very moment!  Then you will be safe and saved for ever.

Ay, and you old people too, and all of you whatever your age may be, rely upon Jesus, make him your sole confidence, and then he will keep you to the end.  When my dear old grandfather was dying, one of my uncles said to him, “Dr. Watts said, — ‘Firm as the earth thy gospel stands, My Lord, my hope, my trust:’” — but the aged saint said, “That won’t do for me now, ‘Firm as the earth.’  Why, the earth is slipping away from me.  I want something firmer than the earth now.  I like the doctor best, my boy, when he says, —

Firm as his throne his promise stands,

And he can well secure

What I’ve committed to his hands,

Till the decisive hour.”

“Sovereign grace,” said he, “is my trust now. God’s promise standing firm as God’s throne, and my faith linked to it.  There is the safety of my spirit.”  And so he passed away.  It is a grand thing to feel that God’s throne might sooner fail than that a saint can perish, for his throne itself is established in righteousness, and he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness: faithful and just, not merely merciful and gracious; and his very faithfulness and justice require that he should keep the soul that has obeyed his will and committed itself to the Redeemer’s hands.  May the Lord thus save us all, for Jesus Christ’s sake!  Amen.

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“Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:24

Heaven is a place where we shall never sin; where we shall cease our constant watch against an indefatigable enemy, because there will be no tempter to ensnare our feet.  There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.  Heaven is the “undefiled inheritance;” it is the land of perfect holiness, and therefore of complete security.  But do not the saints even on earth sometimes taste the joys of blissful security?   The doctrine of God’s word is that all who are in union with the Lamb are safe; that all the righteous shall hold on their way; that those who have committed their souls to the keeping of Christ shall find Him a faithful and immutable preserver.  Sustained by such a doctrine, we can enjoy security even on earth; not that high and glorious security which renders us free from every slip, but that holy security which arises from the sure promise of Jesus that none who believe in Him shall ever perish, but shall be with Him where He is.  Believer, let us often reflect with joy on the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and honor the faithfulness of our God by a holy confidence in Him.

May our God bring home to you a sense of your safety in Christ Jesus!  May He assure you that your name is graven on His hand, and whisper in your ear the promise, “Fear not, I am with thee.”  Look upon Him, the great Surety of the covenant, as faithful and true, and, therefore, bound and engaged to present you, the weakest of the family, with all the chosen race, before the throne of God; and in such a sweet contemplation you will drink the juice of the spiced wine of the Lord’s pomegranate, and taste the dainty fruits of Paradise.  You will have an antepast [foretaste] of the enjoyments which ravish the souls of the perfect saints above, if you can believe with unstaggering faith that “faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it.”

From Morning and Evening, December 11.

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Faith is essential.

According to the Christian religion, faith is the great essential thing.  “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”  Whatever we may do or may be, we cannot be acceptable with the Most High unless we believe in him.  Even prayer can only be a mockery if it be not the prayer of faith.  “He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently him,” or else he does not really pray.  The Lord Jesus Christ died to save men but it is certain that no man will be saved without faith.  Even the blood of Jesus Christ does not save any except those who believe in it.  “God so loved the world” is a very wide expression, but remember how the verse goes on, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  Without faith, Christ is not ours.  His blood cannot cleanse us; his life cannot quicken us.  We must have faith to get at the blessings of salvation.

Faith is continuous.

Suppose we could be brought into touch with Christ without faith for a while, yet, if we had not continuous faith, we should not have a continued connection with the Savior, and consequently should not abide in eternal life; for it is written: “the just shall live by faith.”  They not only begin to live by faith, but continue to live in the same manner.  In our holy religion, everything is by faith, faith for life, and faith for death. Even the first tears of repentance must be salted with faith, and the last song on earth shall be full of faith. Ye must have faith, or ye must perish.  “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned,” is the declaration of Jesus Christ the Savior Himself.

Faith is relying on Christ.

We have [already] seen that it is essential.  It is [also] very important to understand its nature.  Well, faith with regard to God is the same as faith with regard to anything else.  It is the same act of the mind, though it differs as to its object.  When I believe in God, it is the same kind of mental act as when I believe in my friend.  I believe with the same mind.  Tis true that all saving faith is the work of the Holy Ghost in us; but be it always recollected that we ourselves believe, and that the Holy Ghost does not believe for us. What has the Holy Ghost to believe about?  It is not written that he is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  No, but we are to believe in him.  He leads us to faith, but the faith is our own act and deed.  If I understand aright the faith which saves, it is just this.  God has revealed such-and-such truth, I believe it to be true, and I so believe it to be true that I act upon it.  God has said that he has laid sin upon Christ; I believe he has done so.  He tells me that, if I trust Christ, I may be assured that my sin was laid upon Christ.  I trust Christ, that is, I rely upon him, and the reliance which springs out of belief is the essence of faith.

Faith is evidenced by its actions.

When a man believes a bank to be safe, he will put his money into it if he has need to do so; when a man believes in the honesty of another, the practical issue of it is [that] he takes his word and trusts him.  Now, mark, if I really do rest in Christ, I shall do what Christ bids me.  Faith must lead to obedience. He bids me forsake sin, and I do it by his help.  He bids me follow him, and I shall do it if I really believe in him.  A doctor says, “Now, trust me, my man, and I will cure you.” I trust him.  He sends me medicine and I take it.  But suppose I do not take the medicine; well, then, I never trusted him; my neglect proves I have not done so.

Faith includes obedience.

The only trust that saves the soul is that practical trust which obeys Jesus Christ.  Faith that does not obey is dead faith—nominal faith.  It is the outside of faith, the husk of faith, but it has not the vital corn of faith in it.  Sinner, if thou wilt be saved, thou must give thyself up to Jesus Christ to be his servant, and to do all that he bids thee.  Thou must rely alone upon him; trust not in fiction, but in reality, not by profession merely, but with thy whole heart; and thou must continue to lean, rest, and lie upon him, trusting alone in him.  This is what saving faith is.

Faith is a gift of God.

Now, there are some who say they wish they could get this faith; they declare that they would do anything to get it.  They earnestly long to believe, but somehow they cannot get a grip of faith, cannot quite make out what it is; or if they know what it is, they are still puzzled, they cannot exercise it.

Albeit faith is the gift of God, it is always the act of man— while faith is a privilege, it is always a natural duty.  Men are bidden to believe in Jesus, and are sinful if they do not believe in Jesus.  Where faith does exist, it is the gift of God; but where it does not exist, it is because men will not believe in him, but shut their eyes to his light.  If they would but see it, that light would convince them.

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“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, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” — Jude 1:24, 25

Paul’s writings abound in doxologies.  You will find them in different forms scattered throughout all his Epistles.  But he is not the only apostle who thus pauses to magnify the name of God.  Here is “Judas, not Iscariot,” but the true-hearted Jude, who has been writing an Epistle which seems all ablaze with lightning, it burns so terribly against, certain orders of sinners.  Almost every word that Jude writes seems to have the roll of thunder in it; he appears to be more like the Haggai of the Old Testament than the Jude of the New.  Yet he cannot close his short Epistle until he has included some ascription of praise to God.

Learn from this, dear friends, that the sin of man, if we are ever called to denounce it, should drive us to adore the goodness and glory of God.  Sin defiles the world; so, after you have done your best to sweep it out, resolve that, inasmuch as man has dishonored the name of God, you will seek to magnify that name.  It is true that you cannot actually redress the wrong that has been done, but, at any rate, if the stream of sin has been increased, you may increase the stream of loyal and reverent praise.  Take care that you do so.  Jude is not satisfied with having rebuked the sons of men for their sin, so he turns round to glorify his God.

Observe that these doxologies, wherever we meet with them, are not all exactly the same.  They are presented to the same God, and offered in the same spirit; but there are reasons given for the doxology in the one case which are not given in the other.  Our morning text [Ephesians 3:20-21] told us of what God is able to do, and so does this.  They both begin with praising God’s ability; but while Paul spoke about the greatness of that ability in what it could do for us, Jude speaks of the greatness of that ability in preserving us from falling, and perfecting us so that we may be presented faultless before the presence of the glory of God.  Let us, in an adoring frame of mind, think over this sublime subject.

I. First, LET US ADORE HIM WHO CAN KEEP US FROM FAILING.

I address myself, of course, near only to God’s own people.  When shall we ever see a congregation in which it will be needless to make such a remark as that?  I cannot call upon some of you to adore God for keeping you from falling; for, alas! you have not yet learned to stand upright.  God’s grace has never yet been accepted by you.  You are not on the Rock of ages; you have not yet set out upon the heavenly pilgrimage.  It is a wretched state for you to be in, in which you cannot worship him whom angels worship.  It is a sad state of heart for any man to be in! to be excluded — self-excluded — from the general acclamations of joy in the presence of God, because you feel no such joy, and cannot, therefore, unite in such acclamations.

But to the people of God, I have to say this, dear brothers and sisters, we need keeping; therefore, let us adore him who can keep us.  As saved souls, we need keeping from final apostasy.  “Oh!” saith one, “I thought you taught us that those who are once saved shall never finally apostatize.”  I do believe that doctrine, and delight to preach it; yet it is true that the saved ones would apostatize, every one of them, if the Lord did not keep them.

There is no stability in any Christian, in himself considered; it is the grace of God within him that enables him to stand. I believe that the soul of man is immortal, yet not, in and of itself, but only by the immortality which God bestows upon it from his essential immortality.  So is it with the new life that is within us.  It shall never perish; but it is only eternal because God continues to keep it alive.  Your final perseverance is not the result of anything in yourself, but the result of the grace which God continues to give you, and of his eternal purpose which first chose you and of his almighty power which still keeps you alive.  Ah, my brethren, the brightest saints on earth would fall into the lowest hell if God did not keep them from falling.  Therefore, praise him, O ye stars that shine in the Church’s sky, for ye would go out with a noxious smell, as lamps do for want of oil, did not the Lord keep your heavenly flame burning.  Glory be unto the Preserver of his Church who keeps his loved ones even to the end!

But there are other ways of falling besides falling finally and fatally.  Alas, brethren! we are all liable to fall into errors of doctrine. The best-taught man, apart from divine guidance, is not incapable of becoming the greatest fool possible.  There is a strange weakness which sometimes comes over noble spirits, and which makes them infatuated with an erroneous novelty, though they fancy they have discovered some great truth.  Men of enquiring and receptive minds are often decoyed from the old paths, — the good old ways; and while they think they are pursuing truth, they are being led into damnable error.  He only is kept, as to his thoughts and doctrinal views, whom God keeps, for there are errors that would, if it were possible, deceive even the very elect; and there are men and women going about in this world, with smooth tongues and plausible arguments, who carry honeyed words upon their lips, though drawn swords are concealed behind their backs.  Blessed are they who are preserved from these wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Lord, thou alone canst preserve us from the pernicious errors of the times, for thou art “the only wise God our Savior.”

And, dear friends, we need keeping from an evil spirit.  I do not know whom I should prefer, — to see one of my dear Christian brethren fall into doctrinal error, or into an un-Christian spirit.  I would prefer neither, for I think this is a safe rule, — of two evils, choose neither.  It is sad to hear some people talk as if they alone are right, and all other Christians are wrong.  If there is anything which is the very essence and soul of Christianity, it is brotherly love; but brotherly love seems to be altogether forgotten by these people; and other Christians, who, in the judgment of sobriety, are as earnest, and as true-hearted, and as useful as themselves, are set down as belonging to a kind of Babylonian system; — I hardly know what they do not call it, but they give it all sorts of bad names, and this is thought to be a high style of Christianity.  God grant that the man may be forgiven who thought it, to be a worthy purpose of his life to found a sect, whose distinguishing characteristic should be that it would have no communion with any other Christians!  The mischief that man hast done is utterly incalculable, and I can only pray that, in the providence of God, some part of it may die with him.

O brethren and sisters, I charge you, whatever mistakes you make, not to make a mistake about this one thing, — that, even if you have all knowledge, and have not charity, it profiteth you nothing; even if you could get a perfect creed, and knew that your modes of worship were absolutely apostolic, yet, if you also imbibed this idea that you could not worship with any other Christians, and that they were altogether outside your camp, your error would be far worse than all other errors put together, for to be wrong in heart is even worse than to be wrong in head.

I would have you true to God’s truth, but, above all, I would have you true to God’s love.  My brother, I think you are mistaken about this matter or that, but do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?  If so, I love you. I have no doubt, that I also am mistaken about some things, but, do not therefore withdraw your hand, and say that you cannot have fellowship with me.  I have fellowship with my Father who is in heaven, and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and with his blessed Spirit; and methinks that it ill becomes you, if you call yourself a son of that same God, to refuse to have fellowship with me when I have fellowship with him.  God save you from this evil spirit; but, you may readily enough fall into it unless the Lord shall keep you.  Your very zeal for truth may drive you into a forgetfulness of Christian love; and if it does, it will be a sad pity.  O Lord, keep us from falling in this way!

But there are falls of another sort which may happen to the brightest Christian; I mean, falls into outward sin.  As you read Jude’s Epistle through, you will see what apostates some professors became, and you will be led to cry, “Lord, keep me from falling.”  And if you were the pastor of a large church like mine, you would see enough to convince you that traitors like Judas are not all dead, — that, amidst the faithful, the unfaithful are still found, — that there are bad fish to be thrown away, as well as good fish to be kept; and every time we execute an act of discipline, — every time we have to bemoan the fall of one who looked like a brother, — we may thank God that we have been kept, and may sing this doxology, “Unto him that is able, to keep us from falling, be glory and power for ever.”

And, dear friends, there is a way of falling, out of which people are not so often recovered as when they fall into overt sin; I mean, falling into negligence as to natural or Christian duties.  I have known professors who have been very lax at home, — children who were not obedient to their parents, — husbands who did not love their wives as they ought, — wives who were quite at home at this meeting and that, but very negligent of their domestic duties.  And, mark you, where that is the case, it is a thing to mourn over, for the Christian ought to be absolutely reliable in everything he has to do.  I would not give two pence for your religion if you are a tradesman, but, not fair in your dealings!  I do not care if you can sing like David, or preach like Paul, if you cannot measure a yard of material with the proper number of inches, or if your scales do not weigh rightly, or your general mode of business is not straight and true, you had better make no profession of religion.  The separation at what is called “religious” from the “secure” is one of the greatest, possible mistakes.  There is no such thing as a religion of Sundays, and of chapels and churches; at least, though there is such a thing, it is not worth having.  The religion of Christ is a religion for seven days in the week, — a religion for every place and for every act; and it teaches men, whether they eat, or drink, or whatever they do, to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the glory of God.  I pray that, you may be kept from falling away from that religion, and that, you may be kept up to the mark in serving the Lord in all things, and attending diligently to the little commonplace matters of daily life.

And you know, dear friends, there is another sort of falling; that is, when the heart gets gradually cold, when the Christian wanders away little by little, — when the life becomes more or less inconsistent with the profession.  Oh, how many professors get into this state!  They are like people who are not as well as they used to be.  They do not know when they began to feel worse; it was months ago, and every day they have got weaker, till now you can see their bones, though once they were full of flesh.  Now they discover that, whereas once they could have walked ten miles without fatigue, half a mile or less wearies them.  Their appetite, too, has gradually gone; they scarcely know how.  Ah, these are the sick folk with whom the physician has more trouble than he has with those who are suddenly seized by some well-known disease; and that gradual decline of spiritual health, which does not come all at once, but, little by little, is one of the most perilous of evils; and we have need continually to cry, “Lord, keep us from this;” and to praise his name that he is able so to keep us.

Thus I have shown you that we need keeping; and, brethren, none but the Lord can keep us. No man can keep himself; without God’s grace, he will surely fail.  And no place can keep us.  Some people think that, if they could get into such-and-such a family, they could keep from sin, but are mistaken.  In every position which man occupies, he will find temptation.  We have heard of the hermit, who hoped to get rid of all sin by living in a cave.  He took with him his little brown loaf and his jug of water, but he had hardly entered the cave before he upset his jug, and spilt the water.  It was a long way to the well, and he got so angry with himself for what he had done, that he soon discovered that the devil could get into a cave as quickly as he could, so he thought he might as well go back, and face the trials of ordinary society.  You cannot be kept from falling by choosing another situation.  You had better stop where you are, brother, and fight the devil there, for perhaps the next place that you select as the scene of combat may not be as suitable as the one you have now.

“Ah!” says one, “I wish I could get to

“A lodge in some vast wilderness,

Some boundless contiguity of shade

Where rumor of oppression and deceit,

Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more.”

Yes, yes; but that is not the way to conquer sin, is it?  Suppose the battle of Waterloo is just beginning, and here is a soldier who wants to win a victory; so he runs away, — gets off to Brussels, and hides himself in a cellar!  Is he likely to be numbered among the heroes of the day?   No, brethren; and if there is any sin to be overcome in this world, there is no credit to the man who says, “I’m going to hide somewhere out of the world.”  No, no, my brother; accept the lot that God has provided for you; take your place in the ranks of his soldiers; and whatever temptation comes, look up to him who is able to keep you from falling, but do not dream of running away, for that is the way to fall, that is being dedicated before the battle begins.  Nobody but God can keep you.  You may join whatever church you like; you may wear a hat with a broad brim, and say “thou” and “thee;” you may meet with those who break bread, and preach nothing but the gospel of the grace of God; you may dwell amongst the best people who ever lived; but you will still be tempted.  Neither place nor people, neither manners nor customs can keep you from falling; God alone can do it.

But here is the mercy – God can do it. Notice how Jude’s doxology puts it: “To the only wise God our Savior.”  It is because he alone is wise that he alone is able to keep us from falling.  He does it by teaching us the truth, by warning us against secret sin and by his providential leading.  Sometimes, he keeps temptation from us; at other times, he allows a temptation to come to us that, by overcoming it, we may be the stronger to meet another one.  Oftentimes, he delivers us from temptation by letting affliction come upon us. Many a man has been kept from falling into sin by being stretched upon a bed of sickness.  Had it not been for the loss of the eye, he would have looked upon vanity.  Had it not been for that broken bone, he would have run in the ways of ungodliness.  We little know how much preservation from falling we owe to our loss and crosses.   The story of Sir James Thornhill painting the inside of the cupola of St. Paul’s is probably well  known to you.  When he had finished one of the compartments, he was stepping backward that he might get a full view of it, and so went almost to the edge of the scaffolding, and would have fallen over if he had taken another step; but a friend, who saw his danger, wisely seized one of his brushes, and rubbed some paint over his picture.  The artist, in his rage, rushed forward to save his painting, and so saved his own life.  We have all pictured life; what a fairy picture we made of it; and as we admired it, we walked further and yet further away from God and safety, and got nearer and yet nearer to perilous temptation, when trial came, and ruined the picture we had painted; and then, though scarcely knowing why, we came forward and were saved.  God had kept us from falling by the trouble he had sent to us.

God has often kept us from falling by a bitter sense of our past sin.  We have not dared to go near the fire again, for our former burns have scarcely healed.  I have also noticed, in my own case, that when the desire for sin has come with force, the opportunity for sin has not been present; and when the opportunity of evil has been present, then the desire has been absent.  It is wonderful how God prevents these two things from meeting, and so keeps his people from falling.

Above all, it is by the Divine Spirit that God bears us up as upon eagle’s wings.  The Spirit teaches us to hate sin, and to love righteousness, and so we are daily kept from falling.  Brethren, join with me in adoring the Lord that he will keep us to the end.

Have we committed our souls into the hands of Jesus?  Then, our souls are safe for ever.  Are we trusting him to keep us till the day of his appearing?  If so, he will keep us; not one sheep or lamb out of his flock shall by any possibility be destroyed by the wolf, or the bear, or the roaring lion of hell.  They shall all be his in the day when they pass again under the hands of him that telleth them.

II. NOW, SECONDLY, LET US ADORE HIM BECAUSE HE WILL, AT THE LAST, PRESENT US “FAULTLESS BEFORE THE PRESENCE OF HIS GLORY WITH EXCEEDING JOY.”

There will come a day, brethren, when we shall either be presented in the courts of God as his courtiers, or else be driven from His judgment-seat as rebels against His authority.  We look forward with the confident expectation that we shall be presented as the friends of Christ, unto God even the Father; and that is, indeed, a cause for adoring gratitude.

Do you notice how Jude puts it?  “To present you faultless.”  There shall be none in heaven but those who are faultless. There shall by no means enter into those holy courts anything that defileth.  Heaven is perfectly pure; and if you and I are ever to get there, we must be pure as the driven snow.  No taint of sin must be upon us, or else we cannot stand among the courtiers of God.  His flaming throne would shoot forth columns of devouring fire upon any guilty soul that dared to stand in the courts of the Most High, if such a standing were possible.  But we are impure, — impure as to our acts; and, worst of all, impure as to our very nature; how then can we hope ever to stand there?  Yet, dear brethren and sisters, our confidence is that we shall.  Why?  Is it not because Christ is able to present us faultless there? Come, Christian, think for a minute how faultless Christ has made you so far as your past sin is concerned.  The moment you believed in him, you were so completely washed in his precious blood that not a spot of sin remained upon you.  Try to realize that, whatever your past life has been, if you now believe in Jesus Christ, you are cleansed from all iniquity by virtue of his atoning sacrifice, and you are covered by a spotless robe of righteousness by virtue of his blessed life of perfect purity and obedience to his Father’s will.  You are now without fault, so far as your past sin is concerned, for he has cast it all into the depths of the sea; but, you feel that you are not without fault as to your nature.

“Oh!” say you, “I feel everything that is evil rising at times within me.”  But all that evil is under sentence of death.  Christ nailed it to his cross.  Crucifixion is a lingering and very painful death, and the culprit struggles ere he breathes his last; but your sins have had their death-blow.  When Christ was nailed to the cross, your sins were nailed there too, and they shall never come down again.  Die they must, even as he died.  It will be a blessed hour when sin shall at last give up the ghost, — when there shall be not even the tendency to sin within our nature.  Then shall we be presented faultless before the throne of God.

“Can that ever be done?” asks one.  Well may you ask that question, brother.  Can it ever be that we shall not be tempted by one foul lust, nor be disturbed by one unbridled passion, nor feel the emotions of envy or of pride again?  Yes, it shall surely be.  Christ has secured this blessing to you.  His name is Jesus, Savior, “for he shall save his people from their sins.”  He must and will do this for all who trust him.  Rejoice that he will do this, for no one but God can do it.  It must be “the only wise God our Savior” who can accomplish this; but accomplish it he will.  Does your faith enable you to picture yourself as standing before the throne of God faultless?  Well then, give to the Lord the glory which is due unto him for such a wondrous act of grace as that.

This is how you are to be presented by Christ, in glory.  There is a great stir in a family when a daughter is to be presented at court, and a great deal is thought of it; but, one day, you and I, who have believed in Jesus, shall be presented to the Father.  What radiant beauty shall we then wear when God himself shall look upon us, and declare us to be without fault; — when there shall be no cause for sorrow remaining, and therefore we shall be presented with exceeding joy!  It shall be so, my brother; it shall be so, my sister; therefore do not doubt it.  How soon it shall be, we cannot tell; possibly, tomorrow. Perhaps, ere the sun rises again, you and I may be presented by Christ “before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”

We cannot tell when it will be, but we shall be there in his good time.  We shall be perfect; we shall be “accepted in the Beloved;” and, therefore, “unto him be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.  Amen.”

III. That is the note with which I have to close my discourse.  LET US, BECAUSE OF THESE TWO GREAT BLESSINGS OF FINAL PRESERVATION AND PRESENTATION BEFORE HIS GLORY, OFFER UNTO THE LORD OUR HIGHEST ASCRIPTIONS OF PRAISE.

Jude says, “Both now and ever.”  Well, we will attend to the “ever” as eternity rolls on; but let us attend to the praise of God “now” — at this moment: “To the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power now.”  Come, brethren and sisters, think of what you owe to him who has kept you to this day, and will not let you go.  Think of where you might have been; and think, I may say, of where you used to be, in your unregenerate state.  Yet you are not there now; but here you are, without self-righteousness, made to differ from your fellowmen, entirely through the grace of God.  You have been kept perhaps twenty years, thirty years, forty years, — possibly, fifty years.  Well, unto him be the glory; give him the glory even now.

How can you do it?  Well, feel it in your hearts; speak of it to your neighbors; talk of it to your children.  Tell everybody you meet what a good and blessed and faithful God he is, and so give him glory now.  And be happy and cheerful; you cannot glorify God better than by a calm, quiet, happy life.  Let the world know that you serve a good Master.  If you are in trouble, do not let anyone see that the trouble touches your spirit; — nay, more, do not let it trouble your spirit.  Rest in God; take evil as well as good from his hand, and keep on praising him.  You do not know how much good you may do, and how greatly you may glorify God, if you praise him in your dark times.  Worldlings do not care much about our psalm-singing unless they see us in pain and sorrow, and observe that we praise God then.  I like, and the world likes, a religion that will wash, — a religion that will stand many shows, and much rough usage.  Some Christians’ joy disappears in the wear and tear of life; it cannot endure the world’s rough handling.

Let it not be so with us, beloved; but let us praise, and bless, and magnify the name of the Lord as long as we have any being.

I know that, in speaking thus, I am only addressing a part of my congregation.  I wish that every man and woman here were now praising the Lord, and I am sure that you could not have a better occupation to all eternity.  Remember that, if you do not praise God, it is impossible for you ever to enter heaven, for that is the chief occupation of heaven; and remember also that praise from your lips, until those lips are divinely cleansed, would be like a jewel in a swine’s snout, a thing altogether out of place.  For you, dear unsaved hearer, the first thing is, not praise, but prayer, — nay, not even prayer first, but faith.  “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” and then, in faith, pray the prayer which God accepts.  But, thou must first, believe in Jesus.   “And what does believing in Jesus mean?” thou askest.  It means this: thy sin deserves punishment, for God, who is just, must punish sin.  But his Son came into the world to suffer in the stead of those who trust him; and now, God can be Just, and yet the Justifier of every soul that believes in Jesus.  In the person of his Son, God hangs upon a tree, and dies a felon’s death; wilt thou believe in the merit of that death, and in the love of God, who spared not his own Son in order that he might spare us?  Canst thou trust Jesus as thy God and Savior?  Wilt thou do it now?  Then thou art saved.  The first moment of thus trusting God is the beginning of a new life, — a life which will drive out the old death of sin.  The moment that thou dost thus trust thy God, thou wilt be placed upon a new footing with regard to him, thy whole aspect towards God will be changed.  Repentance will take such possession of thy spirit that thou wilt be actuated by new motives, and swayed by new desires; in fact, thou wilt be a new man in Christ Jesus.

This is being saved, — saved from the love of sin, saved from returning to sin, saved from falling, and so completely saved that Christ shall one day present thee “faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”

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“The righteous also shall hold on his way.”- Job 17:9

The man who is righteous before God has a way of his own.  It is not the way of the flesh, nor the way of the world; it is a way marked out for him by the divine command, in which he walks by faith.  It is the King’s highway of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it; only the ransomed of the Lord shall walk there, and these shall find it a path of separation from the world.  Once entered upon the way of life, the pilgrim must persevere in it or perish, for thus saith the Lord, “If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.”  Perseverance in the path of faith and holiness is a necessity of the Christian, for only “he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.”  It is in vain to spring up quickly like the seed that was sown upon the rock, and then by-and-by to wither when the sun is up; that would but prove that such a plant has no root in itself, but “the trees of the Lord are full of sap,” and they abide and continue and bring forth fruit, even in old age, to show that the Lord is upright.  There is a great difference between nominal Christianity and real Christianity, and this is generally seen in the failure of the one and the continuance of the other.

Now, the declaration of the text is that the truly righteous man shall hold on his way; he shall not go back, he shall not leap the hedges and wander to the right hand or the left, he shall not lie down in idleness, neither shall he faint and cease to go upon his journey; but he “shall hold on his way.”  It will frequently be very difficult for him to do so, but he will have such resolution, such power of inward grace given him, that he will “hold on his way,” with stern determination, as though he held on by his teeth, resolving never to let go.  Perhaps he may not always travel with equal speed; it is not said that he shall hold on his pace, but he shall hold on his way.  There are times when we run and are not weary, and anon when we walk are thankful that we do not faint; ay, and there are periods when we are glad to go on all fours and creep upward with pain; but still we prove that “the righteous shall hold on his way.”  Under all difficulties, the face of the man whom God has justified is steadfastly set towards Jerusalem; nor will he turn aside till his eyes shall see the King in his beauty.

This is a great wonder.  It is a marvel that any man should be a Christian at all, and a greater wonder that he should continue so.  Consider the weakness of the flesh, the strength of inward corruption, the fury of Satanic temptation, the seductions of wealth and the pride of life, the world and the fashion thereof; all these things are against us, and yet behold, “greater is he that is for us than all they that be against us,” and defying sin, and Satan, and death, and hell, the righteous holds on his way.

I take our text as accurately setting forth the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints.  “The righteous shall hold on his way.”  Years ago, when there was an earnest, and even a bitter controversy between Calvinists and Arminians, it was the habit of each side to caricature the other.  Very much of the argument is not directed against the real sentiment of the opposite party, but against what had been imputed to them.  They made a man of straw, and then they burned him, which is a pretty easy thing to do, but I trust we have left these things behind.  The glorious truth of the final perseverance of the saints has survived controversy, and in some form or other is the cherished belief of the children of God.

Take care, however, to be clear as to what it is.   The Scripture does not teach that a man will reach his journey’s end without continuing to travel along the road; it is not true that one act of faith is all, and that nothing is needed of daily faith, prayer, and watchfulness.  Our doctrine is the very opposite, namely, that the righteous shall hold on his way; or, in other words, shall continue in faith, in repentance, in prayer, and under the influence of the grace of God.  We do not believe in salvation by a physical force which treats a man as a dead log, and carries him whether he will it or not towards heaven.  No, “he holds on,” he is personally active about the matter, and plods on up hill and down dale till he reaches his journey’s end.

We never thought, nor even dreamed, that merely because a man supposes that he once entered on this way he may therefore conclude that he is certain of salvation, even if he leaves the way immediately.  No, but we say that he who truly receives the Holy Ghost, so that he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, shall not go back, but persevere in the way of faith.  It is written, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved,” and this he cannot be if he were left to go back and delight in sin as he did before; and, therefore, he shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.  Though the believer to his grief will commit many a sin, yet still the tenor of his life will be holiness to the Lord, and he will hold on in the way of obedience.  We detest the doctrine that a man who has once believed in Jesus will be saved even if he altogether forsook the path of obedience.  We deny that such a turning aside is possible to the true believer, and therefore the idea imputed to us is clearly an invention of the adversary.  No, beloved, a man, if he be indeed a believer in Christ, will not live after the will of the flesh.  When he does fall into sin, it will be his grief and misery, and he will never rest till he is cleansed from guilt; but I will say this of the believer, that if he could live as he would like to live he would live a perfect life.   If you ask him if, after believing, he may live as he lists, he will reply, “Would God I could live as I list, for I desire to live altogether without sin.  I would be perfect, even as my Father in heaven is perfect.”  The doctrine is not the licentious idea that a believer may live in sin, but that he cannot and will not do so.  This is the doctrine, and we will first prove it; and, secondly, in the Puritanic sense of the word, we will briefly improve it, by drawing two spiritual lessons therefrom.

I. LET US PROVE THE DOCTRINE.

Please to follow me with your Bibles open.  You, dear friends, have most of you received as a matter of faith the doctrines of grace, and therefore to you the doctrine of final perseverance cannot require any proving, because it follows from all the other doctrines.

We believe that God has an elect people whom he has chosen unto eternal life, and that truth necessarily involves the perseverance in grace.  We believe in special redemption, and this secures the salvation and consequent perseverance of the redeemed.  We believe in effectual calling, which is bound up with justification, a justification which ensures glorification.  The doctrines of grace are like a chain – if you believe in one of them you must believe the next, for each one involves the rest; therefore I say that you who accept any of the doctrines of grace must receive this also, as involved in them.  But I am about to try to prove this to those who do not receive the doctrines of grace; I would not argue in a circle, and prove one thing which you doubt by another thing which you doubt, but “to the law and to the testimony,” to the actual words of Scripture we shall refer the matter.

Before we advance to the argument, it will be well to remark that those who reject the doctrine frequently tell us that there are many cautions in the word of God against apostatizing, and that those cautions can have no meaning if it be true that the righteous shall hold on his way.  But what if those cautions are the means in the hand of God of keeping his people from wandering?   What if they are used to excite a holy fear in the minds of his children, and so become the means of preventing the evil which they denounce?  I would also remind you that in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which contains the most solemn warnings against apostasy, the apostle always takes care to add words which show that he did not believe that those whom he warned would actually apostatize.  Turn to Hebrews 6:9.  He has been telling these Hebrews that if those who had been once enlightened should fall away, it would be impossible to renew them again into repentance, and he adds, “But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak.”

In the 10th chapter, he gives an equally earnest warning, declaring that those who should do despite to the spirit of grace are worthy of sorer punishment than those who depised Moses’ law, but he closes the chapter with these words, “Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”  Thus he shows what the consequences of apostasy would be, but he is convinced that they will not choose to incur such a fearful doom.

Again, objectors sometimes mention instances of apostasy which are mentioned in the word of God, but, on looking into them, it will be discovered that these are cases of persons who did but profess to know Christ, but were not really possessors of the divine life.  John, in his first Epistle, 2:19, fully describes these apostates; “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”  The like is true of that memorable passage in John, where our Savior speaks of branches of the vine which are cut off and cast into the fire; these are described as branches in Christ that bear no fruit.  Are those real Christians?  How can they be so if they bear no fruit?  “By their fruits ye shall know them.”  The branch which bears fruit is purged, but it is never cut off.  Those which bear no fruit are not figures of true Christians, but they fitly represent mere professors.  Our Lord, in Matthew 7:22, tells us concerning many who will say in that day “Lord, Lord,” that he will reply, “I never knew you.”  Not “I have forgotten you,” but “I never knew you”; they were never really his disciples.

But now to the argument itself.  First, we argue the perseverance of the saints, most distinctly from the nature of the life which is imparted at regeneration. What saith Peter concerning this life? (1 Peter 1:23.)  He speaks of the people of God as “being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”  The new life which is planted in us when we are born again is not like the fruit of our first birth, for that is subject to mortality, but it is a divine principle, which cannot die nor be corrupt; and, if it be so, then he who possesses it must live for ever, must, indeed, be evermore what the Spirit of God in regeneration has made him.

So in 1 John 3:9, we have the same thought in another form.  “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”  That is to say, the bent of the Christian’s life is not towards sin.  It would not be a fair description of his life that he lives in sin; on the contrary, he fights and contends against sin, because he has an inner principle which cannot sin.  The new life sinneth not; it is born of God, and cannot transgress; and though the old nature warreth against it, yet doth the new life so prevail in the Christian that he is kept from living in sin.  Our Savior, in his simple teaching of the gospel to the Samaritan woman, said to her (John 4:13), “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”  Now, if our Savior taught this to a sinful and ignorant woman, at his first interview with her, I take it that this doctrine is not to be reserved for the inner circle of full-grown saints, but to be preached ordinarily among the common people, and to be held up as a most blessed privilege.  If you receive the grace which Jesus imparts to your souls, it shall be like the good part which Mary chose, it shall not be taken away from you; it shall abide in you, not as the water in a cistern, but as a living fountain springing up unto everlasting life.  We all know that the life given in the new birth is intimately connected with faith.  Now, faith is in itself a conquering principle.  In the First Epistle of John, which is a great treasury of argument (1 John 5:4), we are told, “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.  Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?”  See, then, that which is born of God in us, namely, the new life, is a conquering principle; there is no hint given that it can ever be defeated; and faith, which is its outward sign, is also in itself triumphant evermore.  Therefore of necessity, because God has implanted such a wondrous life in us in bringing us out of darkness into his marvelous light, because he has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, because the eternal and ever blessed Spirit hath come to dwell in us, we conclude that the divine life within us shall never die.  “The righteous shall hold on his way.”

The second argument to which I shall call your attention shall be drawn from our Lord’s own express declarations. Here we shall look to the gospel of John again, and in that blessed third of John, where our Lord was explaining the gospel in the simplest possible style to Nicodemus, we find him laying great stress upon the fact that the life received by faith in himself is eternal.  Look at that precious verse, the fourteenth: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Do men therefore believe in him and yet perish?  Do they believe in him and receive a spiritual life which comes to an end?  It cannot be, for “God gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish;” but he would perish if he did not persevere to the end; and therefore he must persevere to the end.  The believer has eternal life, how then can he die, so as to cease to be a believer?  If he does not abide in Christ, he evidently has not eternal life, therefore he shall abide in Christ, even to the end.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

To this some reply that a man may have everlasting life and lose it.  To which we answer, the words cannot so mean.  Such a statement is a self-evident contradiction.  If the life be lost, the man is dead; how, then, did he have everlasting life?  It is clear that he had a life which lasted only for a while; he certainly had not everlasting life, for if he had it he must live everlastingly.   “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life” (John 3:36).  The saints in heaven have eternal life, and no one expects them to perish.  Their life is eternal; but eternal life is eternal life, whether the person possessing it dwells on earth or in heaven.

I need not read all the passages in which the same truth is taught; but further on, in John 6:47, our Lord told the Jews, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life;” not temporary life, but “everlasting life.”  And in the 51st verse he said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.”  Then comes that famous declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ, which, if there were no other at all, would be quite sufficient to prove our point.  John 10:28: “And I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any” (the word “man” is not in the original) “pluck them out of my hand.  My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”  What can he mean but this – that he has grasped his people, and that he means to hold them securely in his mighty hand?

“Where is the power can reach us there,

Or what can pluck us thence?”

Over and above the hand of Jesus which was pierced comes the hand of the omnipotent Father as a sort of second grasp.  “My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”  Surely this must show that the saints are secure from anything and everything which would destroy them, and consequently safe from total apostasy.

Another passage speaks to the same effect – it is to be found in Matthew 24:24, where the Lord Jesus has been speaking of the false prophets that should deceive many.  “There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect;” which shows that it is impossible for the elect to be deceived by them.  Of Christ’s sheep, it is said, “A stranger will they not follow, for they know not the voice of strangers,” but, by divine instinct, they know the voice of the Good Shepherd, and they follow him.

Thus has our Savior declared, as plainly as words possibly can express it, that those who are his people possess eternal life within themselves, and shall not perish, but shall enter into everlasting felicity.  “The righteous shall hold on his way.”

A very blessed argument for the safety of the believer is found in our Lord’s intercession.  You need not turn to the passage, for you know it well, which shows the connection between the living intercession of Christ and the perseverance of his people: “Wherefore also he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).  Our Lord Jesus is not dead; he has risen, he has gone up into the glory, and now before the eternal throne he pleads the merit of his perfect work, and as he pleads there for all his people whose names are written on his heart, as the names of Israel were written on the jeweled breastplate of the high priest, his intercession saves his people even to the uttermost.  If you would like an illustration of it, you must turn to the case of Peter which is recorded in Luke 22:31 where our Lord said, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”  The intercession of Christ does not save his people from being tried, and tempted, and tossed up and down like wheat in a sieve, it does not save them even from a measure of sin and sorrow, but it does save them from total apostasy.  Peter was kept, and though he denied his Master, yet it was an exception to the great rule of his life.  By grace he did hold on his way, because not only then, but many a time besides, though he sinned, he had an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

If you desire to know how Jesus pleads, read at your leisure at home that wonderful 17th of John – the Lord’s prayer.  What a prayer it is!  “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.”  Judas was lost, but he was only given to Christ as an apostle and not as one of his sheep.  He had a temporary faith, and maintained a temporary profession, but he never had eternal life or he would have lived on.  Those groans and cries of the Savior which accompanied his pleadings in Gethsemane were heard in heaven, and answered.  “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me;” the Lord does keep them by his word and Spirit, and will keep them.  If the prayer of Christ in Gethsemane was answered, how much more that which now goeth up from the eternal throne itself!

“With cries and tears he offered up

His humble suit below;

But with authority he asks,

Enthroned in glory now.

“For all that come to God by him,

Salvation he demands;

Points to their names upon his breast,

And spreads his wounded hands.”

Ah, if my Lord Jesus pleads for me I cannot be afraid of earth or hell; that living, intercessory voice hath power to keep the saints, and so hath the living Lord himself, for he hath said: “Because I live ye shall live also.” (John 14:19.)

Now for a fourth argument.  We gather sure confidence of the perseverance of the saints from the character and work of Christ. I will say little about that, for I trust my Lord is so well known to you that he needeth no word of commendation from me to you; but if you know him you will say what the apostle does in 2 Timothy 1:12: “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”  He did not say “I know in whom I have believed,” as most people quote it, but, “I know whom I have believed.”  He knew Jesus, he knew his heart and his faithfulness, he knew his atonement and its power, he knew his intercession and its might; and he committed his soul to Jesus by an act of faith, and he felt secure.  My Lord is so excellent in all things that I need give you but one glimpse of his character and you will see what he was when he dwelt here among men.  At the commencement of John 13, we read, “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.”  If he had not loved his disciples to the end when here, we might conclude that he was changeable now as then.  But if he loved his chosen to the end while yet in his humiliation below, it bringeth us the sweet and blessed confidence that now he is in heaven he will love to the end all those who confide in him.

Fifthly, we infer the perseverance of the saints from the tenor of the covenant of grace.  Would you like to read it for yourselves?  If so, turn to the Old Testament, Jeremiah 32, and there you will find the covenant of grace set forth at some length.  We shall only be able to read the fortieth verse: “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.”  He will not depart from them, and they shall not depart from him!  What can be a grander assurance of their perseverance even to the end?  Now, that this is the covenant of grace under which we live is clear from the Epistle to the Hebrews, for the apostle in the 8th chapter quotes that passage to this very end.  The question runs thus: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead. them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.”  The old covenant had an “if” in it, and so it suffered shipwreck; it was – “If you will be obedient then you shall be blessed;” and hence there came a failure on man’s part, and the whole covenant ended in disaster.  It was the covenant of works, and under it we were in bondage, until we were delivered from it and introduced to the covenant of grace, which has no “if” in it, but runs upon the strain of promise; it is “I will” and “You shall” all the way through.  “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.”  Glory be to God, this covenant will never pass away, for see how the Lord declares its enduring character in the book of Isaiah (54:10): “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”

And again in Isaiah 55:3: “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.”  The idea of falling utterly away from grace is a relic of the old legal spirit, it is a going away from grace to come under law again, and I charge you who have once been manumitted slaves, and have had the fetters of legal bondage struck from off your hands, never consent to wear those bonds again.  Christ has saved you, if indeed you are believers in him, and he has not saved you for a week, or a month, or a quarter, or a year, or twenty years, but he has given to you eternal life, and you shall never perish, neither shall any pluck you out of his hands.   Rejoice ye in this blessed covenant of grace.

The sixth most forcible argument is drawn from the faithfulness of God. Look at Romans 11:29.  What saith the apostle there, speaking by the Holy Ghost? “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” which means that he does not give life and pardon to a man and call him by grace and afterwards repent of what he has done, and withdraw the good things which he has bestowed.  “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.”  When he putteth forth his hand to save he doth not withdraw it till the work is accomplished.  His word is, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6).  “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent” (1 Samuel 15:29).  The apostle would have us ground our confidence of perseverance upon the confirmation which divine faithfulness is sure to bestow upon us.

He says in 1 Corinthians 1:8, “Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”  And again he speaks to the same effect in 1 Thessalonians 5:24, “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”  It was of old the will of God to save the people whom he gave to Jesus, and from this he has never turned, for our Lord said (John 6:39), “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”  Thus you see from these passages, and there are numbers of others, that God’s faithfulness secures the preservation of his people, and “the righteous shall hold on his way.”

The seventh and last argument shall be drawn from what has already been done in us. I shall do little more than quote the Scriptures, and leave them to sink into your minds.  A blessed passage is that in Jeremiah 31:3: “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”  If he did not mean that his love should be everlasting he would never have drawn us at all, but because that love is everlasting therefore with lovingkindness has he drawn us.  The apostle argues this in a very elaborate manner in Romans 5:9-10: “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.  For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”  I cannot stop to show how every word of this passage is emphatic, but so it is; if God reconciled us when we were enemies, he certainly will save us now we are his friends, and if our Lord Jesus has reconciled us by his death, much more will he save us by his life; so that we may be certain he will not leave nor forsake those whom he has called.

Do you need me to bring to your minds that golden chapter, the 8th of Romans, the noblest of all language that was ever written by human pen?  “Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.  Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”  There is no break in the chain between justification and glory; and no supposable breakage can occur, for the apostle puts that out of all hazard, by saying, “ Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?  It is God that justifieth.  Who is he that condemneth?  It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”  Then he heaps on all the things that might be supposed to separate, and says, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  In the same manner, the apostle writes in Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  I cannot stay to mention the many other Scriptures in which what has been done is made an argument that the work shall be completed, but it is after the manner of the Lord to go through with whatever he undertakes.  “He will give grace and glory,” and perfect that which concerneth us.

One marvelous privilege which has been bestowed upon us is of peculiar significance; we are one with Christ by close, vital, spiritual union. We are taught of the Spirit that we enjoy a marriage union with Christ Jesus our Lord – shall that union be dissolved?  We are married to him.  Has he ever given a bill of divorce?  There never has been such a case as the heavenly bridegroom divorcing from his heart a chosen soul to whom he has been united in the bonds of grace.  Listen to these words from the prophecy of Hosea 2:19-20. “And I will betroth thee unto me forever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.  I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord.”

This marvelous union is set forth by the figure of the head and the body; we are members of the body of Christ.  Do the members of his body rot away?  Is Christ amputated?  Is he fitted with new limbs as old ones are lost?  Nay, being members of his body, we shall not be divided from him.  “He that is joined unto the Lord,” says the apostle, “is one spirit,” and if we are made one spirit with Christ, that mysterious union does not allow of the supposition of a separation.

The Lord has wrought another great work upon us, for he has sealed us by the Holy Spirit.  The possession of the Holy Ghost is the divine seal which sooner or later is set upon all the chosen.  There are many passages in which that seal is spoken of, and is described as being an earnest, an earnest of the inheritance.  But how an earnest if after receiving it we do not attain the purchased possession?  Think over the words of the apostle in 1 Corinthians 1:21-22; “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.”  To the same effect the Holy Spirit speaks in Ephesians 1:13-14; “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”  Beloved, we feel certain that if the Spirit of God dwelleth in us, he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead will keep our souls and will also quicken our mortal bodies and present us complete before the glory of his face at the last.

Therefore we sum up the argument with the confident expression of the apostle when he said (2 Timothy 4:18), “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom; to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.”

II. Now, how shall we IMPROVE THE DOCTRINE PRACTICALLY?  THE FINAL PERSEVERANCE OF THE SAINTS.

The first improvement is for encouragement to the man who is on the road to heaven. “The righteous shall hold on his way.”  If I had to take a very long journey, say from London to John o’ Groats, with my poor tottering limbs to carry me, and such a weight to carry too, I might begin to despair, and, indeed, the very first day’s walking would knock me down; but if I had a divine assurance unmistakably saying, “You will hold on your way, and you will get to your journey’s end,” I feel that I would brace myself up to achieve the task.  One might hardly undertake a difficult journey if he did not believe that he would finish it, but the sweet assurance that we shall reach our home makes us pluck up courage.  The weather is wet, rainy, blusterous, but we must keep on, for the end is sure.  The road is very rough, and runs up hill and down dale; we pant for breath, and our limbs are aching; but as we shall get to our journey’s end we push on.  We are ready to creep into some cottage and lie down to die of weariness, saying, “I shall never accomplish my task;” but the confidence which we have received sets us on our feet, and off we go again.  To the right-hearted man, the assurance of success is the best stimulus for labor.  If it be so, that I shall overcome the world, that I shall conquer sin, that I shall not be an apostate, that I shall not give up my faith, that I shall not fling away my shield, that I shall come home a conqueror, then will I play the man, and fight like a hero.

This is one of the reasons why British troops have so often won the fight, because the drummerboys did not know how to beat a retreat, and the rank and file did not believe in the possibility of defeat.  They were beaten oftentimes by the French, so the French tell us, but they would not believe it, and therefore would not run away.  They felt like winning, and so they stood like solid rocks amidst the dread artillery of the foe till victory declared on their side.  Brethren, we shall do the same if we realize that we are preserved in Christ Jesus, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.  Every true believer shall be a conqueror, and hence the reason for warring a good warfare.  There is laid up for us in heaven a crown of life that fadeth not away.  The crown is laid up for us, and not for chance comers.  The crown reserved for me is such that no one else can wear it; and if it be so, then will I battle and strive to the end, till the last enemy is overcome, and death itself is dead.

Another improvement is this; what an encouragement this is to sinners who desire salvation. It should lead them to come and receive it with grateful delight.  Those who deny this doctrine offer sinners a poor twopenny-halfpenny salvation, not worth having, and it is no marvel that they turn away from it.  As the Pope gave England to the Spanish king – if he could get it – so do they proffer Christ’s salvation if a man will deserve it by his own faithfulness.  According to some, eternal life is given to you, but then it may not be eternal; you may fall from it, it may last only for a time.  When I was but a child I used to trouble myself because I saw some of my young companions, who were a little older than myself, when they became apprentices and came to London, become vicious; I have heard their mothers’s laments, and seen their tears about them; I have heard their fathers expressing bitterest sorrow over the boys whom I knew in my class to be quite as good as ever I had been, and it used to strike me with horror that I perhaps might sin as they had done.  They became Sabbath-breakers; in one case, there was a theft from the till to go into Sunday pleasuring.  I dreaded the very thought; I desired to maintain an unsullied character, and when I heard that if I gave my heart to Christ he would keep me, that was the very thing which won me; it seemed to be a celestial life assurance for my character, that if I would really trust Christ with myself he would save me from the errors of youth, preserve me amid the temptations of manhood, and keep me to the end. I was charmed with the thought that if I was made righteous by believing in Christ Jesus, I should hold on my way by the power of the Holy Spirit.  That which charmed me in my boyhood is even more attractive to me in middle life; I am happy to preach to you a sure and everlasting salvation.  I feel that I have something to bring before you this morning which is worthy of every sinner’s eager acceptance.  I have neither “if” nor “but” with which to dilute the pure gospel of my message.  Here it is; “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.”

I dropped a piece of ice upon the floor yesterday, and I said to one who was in the room, “Is not that a diamond?”  “Ah,” he said, “you would not leave it on the floor, I warrant you, if it were a diamond of that size.”  Now I have a diamond here – eternal life, everlasting life!  Methinks you will be in haste to take it up at once, to be saved now, to be saved in living, to be saved in dying, to be saved in rising again, for ever and ever, by the eternal power and infinite love of God.  Is not this worth having?  Grasp at it, poor soul; thou mayest have it if thou dost but believe in Jesus Christ, or, in other words, trust thy soul with him.  Deposit thine eternal destiny in this divine bank, then thou canst say, “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day.”  The Lord bless you, for Christ’s sake.  Amen.

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