PT-1 “The Lord Preserves the Saints” (Jude 24a)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/2/2025 10:15 PM

My Worship Time                                                    Focus:  PT-1 “The Lord Preserves the Saints”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                     Focus:  Jude 24a

            Message of the verse:  “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,”

            This evening we get the privilege of beginning to look at the ending to Jude’s letter by looking at the first part of verse 24.  We will find out that because God is perfectly faithful, supremely powerful, and infinitely loving, that He will now allow His children to fall away from saving faith or not allow them to defect from the gospel so as to be lost again in their sins, and that is very, very good news.  Not only is He willing to preserve believers as seen in Rom. 8:28; Eph. 1:9-11; and cf. John 17:20-23, God is also able to preserve them to the end.

            Now it was during our Lord’s earthly ministry that he taught definitively that God sovereignly secures all who believe as seen in John 6:37-40:

37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. 38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39"This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. 40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.’” (Also see John 10:28-29; and 1 Peter 1:3-5)

 

            John MacArthur writes:  “Scripture is filled with many other testimonies to God’s promise and power to preserve His people.  In another New Testament doxology, Paul exulted to the Ephesians, ‘Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen’ (Eph. 3:20-21; cf. 2 Cor. 9:8).

 

            “Humanly speaking the path to heaven has always been perilous (cf. Acts 14:22; 2 Cor. 6:4-10; 11:23-30; Heb. 11:32-40; Rev. 12:10-11), full of dangers from Satan and his apostate agents (Luke 22:31; Eph. 6:11-17; 1 Thess. 2:18; 3:5; 1 Peter 5:8-9; cf. Job 1:12-19; 2:6-7; Matt. 4:1-11).  But, from God’s perspective the path to heaven is absolutely safe, not because believers are able to preserve themselves, but because God is able to keep them.

 

            “To keep is the translation of a military word (phulasso) meaning ‘to guard,’ or ‘to watch over.’  God is at His post, standing guard over believers to ensure their safety (Ps. 12:7; Prov. 3:26; 1 Cor. 1:8-9) during any assault from the enemy (cf. 1 John 5:18).  He is the One who keeps them from stumbling into apostasy.  As Jesus the Good Shepherd told His listeners:

 

9/2/2025 11:04 PM

 

27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

 

The Lord Jesus again entrusted His followers into the hands of His Father in His High Priestly Prayer recorded in John 17 (cf. vv. 9, 11, 15).  In verses 24-26 (NKJV), He prayed

 

Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world….And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You  loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

 

The Son’s infinite love for the Father ensures that He will keep those whom the Father has given Him.  And vice versa, the Father’s infinite love for the Son makes certain that He will protect those whom He has given to the Son.  Thus the believer is secured by both the Father and the Son.

 

            “Salvation is also guaranteed by the Holy Spirit.  The apostle Paul underscored this truth while writing to the Ephesians.  After emphasizing His good pleasure (1:3-12), Paul added:

 

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory (vv. 13-14).

 

9/2/2025 11:15 PM