Jude's Doxology
(No. 2994)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1906.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
NOVEMBER 7, 1875.
"Now unto Him who 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. 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. 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 [Sermon No. 1266, Volume 21–PAUL'S
DOXOLOGY] 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
FALLING.
I now address myself, of course, 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," says 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–everyone of them–if
the Lord did not keep them! There is no stability in any Christian,
considered in himself. It is the Grace of God within him that enables
him to stand. I believe than 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 Brothers and Sisters, the
brightest saints on earth would fall into the lowest Hell if God did
not keep them from falling! Therefore, praise Him, O you stars that
shine in the Church's sky, for you would go out with a noxious smell,
as lamps do for lack 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 beside falling finally and fatally.
Alas, Brothers and Sisters, we are all liable to fall into errors of
doctrine. The best-taught man, apart from Divine Guidance, is capable
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 of God. Men of enquiring and receptive
minds are often decoyed from the old paths–the good old ways–and
while they think they are pursuing the 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, You alone can preserve us from
the pernicious errors of the times, for You are "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 Brother 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 has done is utterly
incalculable! And I can only pray that in the Providence of God, some
part of it may die with him.
O Brothers 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 profits 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 I
think 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 the
Truth of God 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 who is able to keep us from falling, be
glory and power forever."
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
twopence 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,
"secular," 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 become 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 to continually 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, Brothers and Sisters,
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 they 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. There is a story which they tell in Scotland of a family who
were thriftless and, therefore, did not succeed. But they thought it
was one of the "brownies" that kept them from getting on, so they
decided to "flit." They put all their things into a cart, but just as
they were about to start, they heard a noise that made them cry out,
"The brownie is in the churn!" So, wherever the churn went, the
brownies would go too. And you may remove wherever you like and think,
"If I get into such a position, I shall escape from temptation, but you
will find that "the brownie is still in the churn," and he will follow
you wherever you may go! You cannot be kept from falling by choosing
another situation. You had better stay 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 again.'" 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, Brothers and Sisters, 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 defeated
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 among 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 losses 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 nearer to perilous temptation! But 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,
by God's Grace, 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.
Brothers and Sisters, 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 forever! Are we trusting to 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 counts
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, Brothers and Sisters, 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 defiles. 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 to ever stand there? Yet, dear
Brothers 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,
as 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," you say, "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 before he breathes his last. But your sins have had
their deathblow. 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?" 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
for 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–and accomplish it He
will! Does your faith enable you to picture yourself as standing
faultless before the Throne of God? 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 before 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 forever." Well, we will attend to the
"forever" 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, Brothers 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 fellow men entirely through the Grace of God! You have been kept
perhaps 20 years, 30 years, 40 years–possibly 50 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–no, more, do not let it trouble your spirit. Rest in God–take
evil as well as good from His hands 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 showers 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, 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 also remember 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–no, not even prayer first, but faith
"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." And then,
in faith, pray the prayer which God accepts. But you must first believe
in Jesus. "And what does believing in Jesus mean?" you ask. It means
this–your sin deserves punishment, for God, who is just, must punish
sin. But His Son came into the world to suffer in the place 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–will you 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? Can you trust Jesus as your God and Savior? Will you
do it now? Then you are 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 you
thus trust your God, you will be placed upon a new footing with regard
to Him–your whole aspect towards God will be changed. Repentance will
take such possession of your spirit that you will be actuated by new
motives and swayed by new desires! In fact, you will 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 you "faultless before the Presence of His
glory with exceeding joy." May God do this for everyone of you, my
Hearers, according to the riches of His Grace! It is my heart's last,
best and strongest desire that everyone of you may be saved. May we all
meet in Heaven, before the Throne of God, never more to be parted!
While I am away, listen with all earnestness to other heralds of the
Cross, and pray the Lord to bless their messages to your salvation, if
mine have not been so blest. I pray that by some instrumentality, you
may all be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation. Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: THE GENERAL EPISTLE OF JUDE.
Verse 1. Jude. That is to say Judas, not Iscariot.
1. The servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James. He does not say,
"and brother of our Lord," for we know that James and Judas were, both
of them, among the Lord's kinsman according to the flesh. But now,
after the flesh, knows he Christ no more, but is content and happy to
be known as "the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James."
1. To them that are sanctified by God the Father. For the decree of
election, the setting apart of the chosen is usually ascribed unto God
the Father.
1. And preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. We have here a very
blessed description of the whole work of our salvation–set apart by
the Father, joined unto Christ and preserved in Him–and then, in due
time, called out by the Spirit of God.
2. Mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied. Christian letters
should be full of love and good will. The Christian dispensation
breathes beneficence–it is full of benediction! "Mercy unto you, and
peace, and love, be multiplied." May the Divine Trinity give you a
trinity of blessings!
3. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was necessary for me to write unto you and exhort you
that you should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered
unto the saints. In the sense of being once and for all given to the
saints, the faith of Christians is not a variable quantity. It is not a
thing which changes from day to day, as some seem to suppose, vainly
imagining that fresh light is bestowed upon each new generation. No,
the Truth of God was delivered once and for all, it was stereotyped,
fixed–and it is for us to hold it fast as God has given it to us.
4. For there are certain men crept in unawares. They did not boldly
avow their heresy when they came in–they would not have been allowed
to enter if they had done so–but they sneaked in, they climbed into
the pulpit, professing to be preachers of the Gospel when they knew,
all along, that they intended to undermine it. Basest of all men are
those who act thus! "There are certain men crept in unawares."
4. Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. Proscribed by
God as traitors long ago! Those who have not the courage of their
convictions probably have no convictions at all, but seek to undermine
the faith which they profess to hold.
4. Ungodly men, turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness, and
denying the only Lord God, and Our Lord Jesus Christ. Antinomians,
"turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness," falsely declaring
that the Law has no binding force upon the Christian's life and saying
that we may do evil that good may come–and Socinians, "denying the
only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."
5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this,
how that the Lord, having saved thepeople out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed them that believed not. If we have no real faith,
we may appear to go a long way towards Heaven–but we shall not enter
the heavenly Canaan.
6. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own
habitation, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto
the judgment of the great day. See, then, the need of stability, the
need of abiding in the faith and abiding in the practice of it, lest we
should turn out to be like the Israelites, who, though they came out of
Egypt, left their carcasses in the wilderness, or like the angels, who,
though they once stood in God's Presence in Glory, have fallen to the
deeps of the abyss because of their apostasy!
7. 8. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like
manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise
dominion and speak evil of dignitaries. They cast off all restraint;
they claim to have liberty to do whatever they like–and when reproved,
they utter railing words against those who honestly rebuke them!
9. Yet Michael the Archangel, when contending with the devil when he
disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing
accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you. To what does this refer? I
am sure I do not know. I cannot think it refers to anything recorded in
the Old Testament, but to some fact, known to Jude, who here speaks by
Revelation and records it. We believe it and learn from it that when an
archangel disputes with the devil, he does not use hard words even
against him, for hard words are an evidence of the weakness of the
cause which they are used to support! Hard arguments softly put, are
the really effective weapons, but it takes some of us a long time to
learn this and generally, in our younger days, we wear away our own
strength by the violence with which we use it.
10. But these speak evil of those things which they know not but what
they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt
themselves. It is a horrible thing when a man's sin goes the full
length of his knowledge and he sins up to the degree of his
possibilities!
11. 12. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran
greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the
gainsaying of Korah. These are spots. "These are spoilers," so it may
be rendered.
12. In your feasts of charity. They spoil your love feasts at the
Communion Table. They mar your fellowship when you gather together for
worship.
12. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Some of
the best Christians who come to the Lord's Table, come there in great
fear and trembling. And I have known some who have had an undoubted
right to be there, half afraid to come. Yet those very persons who have
a holy fear lest they should come amiss, are those who really ought to
come. "Feeding themselves without fear" is the mark of those who are
further off from God.
12. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. They believe
according to what is said to them by the last man who speaks to
them–they are easily persuaded to this doctrine, and to that, and the
other.
12. Trees whose fruit withers, without fruit. They seem to be bearing
fruit, but it drops off before it ripens.
12, 13. Twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea.
They have nothing to say for Christ, yet they must say something, so
they are "raging waves of the sea."
13. Foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved
the thickness of darkness forever These are the false professors of
religion, the members of the church for whom there are seats reserved
in Hell! This is a dreadful thought–"to whom is reserved the blackness
of darkness forever"–not for the heathen, not for the open refusers of
the Gospel, but for such as creep into the churches unawares, teach
false doctrine, live unholy lives!
14, 15. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these,
saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among
them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and
of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against
Him. How Jude knew that Enoch said that, I cannot tell–it is another
instance of Divine Inspiration.
16. These are murmurers, complainers. You know the sort of people
alluded to here, nothing ever satisfies them. They are discontented
even with the Gospel. The bread of Heaven must be cut into three pieces
and served on dainty napkins, or else they cannot eat it! And very soon
their soul loathes even this light bread. There is no way by which a
Christian can serve God so as to please them. They will pick holes in
every preacher's coat and if the great High Priest, Himself, were here,
they would find fault with the color of the stones of His breastplate!
16-19. Walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaks great
swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of
advantage. But, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before of
the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there
should be mockers in the last time who should talk after their own
ungodly lusts. These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having
not the Spirit. People who must, if they make a profession of religion
at all, be continually breaking up churches and holding themselves
aloof from others, having no fellowship with anybody but those who can
say "shibboleth" as plainly as they can, and sound the "h" pretty
loudly.
20-22. But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy
faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And
of some have compassion, making a difference. Some of those professors
who are not living consistently with their profession, in whom you can
see signs and tokens of sin, yet there may be some trace of repentance,
some reason to hope that they will forsake the evil when they see it to
be evil–"have compassion" upon them.
23. And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating
even the garment spotted by the flesh. When you have to deal with
unclean professors, there must be an abhorrence and detestation of
their sin even when there is great gentleness towards the sinner. We
must never be such believers in the repentance of the guilty as to be
willing to wink at sin, for sin is a great evil in any case and
repentance cannot wipe it away. And though it behooves us to be tender
to the sinner, we must never be tender to the sin. How beautifully this
short and sad Epistle ends! Having described the many who, after making
a profession, yet turn aside, Jude bursts out with this jubilant
doxology!
24, 25. Now unto Him who 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.