Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2296
“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. Amen.” Jude 1:24,25.
THE point and pith of what I may have to say will lie in the alteration of this text caused by the revision of the New Testament. The Revised Version runs thus, “Now unto Him that is able to guard you from stumbling.”” I am not going to speak at any length upon the rest of the text, but shall dwell mainly upon this remarkable alteration, which certainly gives the meaning of the original better than the rendering in the Authorized Version.
To begin, then, here is a doxology. Jude is writing upon very practical subjects, indeed. His short Epistle is of the most practical kind, but he cannot finish it without a doxology of praise. Is there any work which we should complete without praise to God? Prayer should always have praise mingled with it. The preaching of the Gospel, or the writing of it. The teaching of the young and every other form of Christian service should be combined with the spirit of praise. I think that I may say of praise what we read of salt in the Old Testament—“salt without prescribing how much.” You cannot have too much of praise! “With all your offerings you shall offer salt,” and, “with all your offerings you shall offer praise.” It seems delightful to me to notice how the Apostle Paul stops almost in the midst of a sentence to bow his knees and utter a doxology of praise to his God. And here Jude, with burning words denouncing sin, and urging Believers to purity, cannot conclude his Epistle without saying, “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. Amen.”
Beloved Friends, we may well continue to praise God, for our God continues to give us causes for praise! If we will only think, we shall begin to thank! If we will only consider, even, the mercies of the present, we shall break out with ascriptions of praise to Him. At this very moment, every Believer here has a reason for a doxology. My text begins with, “Now,” and closes with, “now and forever.” The praise of God should be given at the present time and it is to be perpetually carried on—therefore now is the time for it to be rendered—“both now and forever. Amen.”
Consider, then, dear Brother or Sister, you have at this moment a cause for ascribing praise to God, and you have this reason for it, at any rate, that He is able to guard you from stumbling—His ability is to be employed for your good! His power is intended for your keeping! Oh, sing unto the Lord a now song, tonight, with heart and soul bless Him who is able to guard you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!
I. Coming to the text at once, I shall notice, first, THE DANGER TO BE DREADED. It is “stumbling.” What is
that?
Well, first of all, it is a lesser form of falling. A horse may stumble and not fall—yet it is a sort of falling. If there is much stumbling, it will be a fall! Now, there are faults to which the child of God is very liable, which do not amount to actual falling—but they are stumblings. Like David, we have to say, “My feet were almost gone; my steps had well near slipped.” We are not actually down, but it is a wonder that we are not. We have not broken our knees, but we were within an inch of doing so! A little more and we would have fallen to our serious hurt. The text speaks of, “Him that is able to guard you from stumbling”—to preserve you from the smallest form of grieving the Spirit, or the faintest trace of sin which would not amount to a fall. The Lord can keep you from that which is not a fall, but which might lead to it. I want to set a high standard before you tonight. Jude does not say that you are able to guard yourselves from stumbling,
for you are not—but the ascription of praise is to Him who is able to guard you, even, from stumbling, and to present you, not only pardoned, but faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy!
Stumbling is, next, not only a form of falling, and a matter, therefore, to be grieved over, but it is a prelude to falling. Oftentimes we first stumble and then, after a while, down we go! If we could recover ourselves from the stumble, we should not have to gather ourselves up from the fall. Long before the child of God falls into public sin and injures his character, those who watch him will have perceived his stumbling. He stayed up, just stayed up—but you wondered that he did. He kept on, perhaps for months, but as you looked at him, you said to yourself, “I am afraid that he will come to something worse. I feel sure that he will have a stumble, and another stumble, and then another stumble. And he will be down, by-and-by.” Oh, that a child of God could notice his own stumblings! Then he would soon be delivered from them! But it is too often with us, to change the metaphor, as Hosea says, “Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not.” He is getting feeble, he is becoming prematurely old, but he has not seen the change in the color of his hair! He has not looked in the glass of the Word lately, so he is unconscious that he is declining. If Satan cannot conquer Mansoul by storming it, he sometimes triumphs by sapping and mining, gradually undermining the walls and getting a secret entrance in that way. May the Lord make us very watchful—that we may not be ignorant of Satan’s devices—and may our Savior guard us, even, from stumbling—for then we shall be kept from falling!