“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.” (Jude 1:24)

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Jude here concludes with this gracious doxology.

Do you feel your need to be kept?

None are safe but those who are kept by God’s power. Let us look for a moment at the need of keeping. I feel to need keeping, in the first place, because of myself. O the capability of sin in my nature! I have been brought to realise that there is no sin committed, but what I am by nature capable of. We should destroy ourselves if left to our own powers. We are full of combustible material; it only needs a spark from hell to set us on fire. I know it. And where is the seat of all this? It is in the heart, that fountain of evil, from which proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, thefts, murders. My heart is by nature no better than the most depraved wretch lying in gaol. I am capable of those things recorded in this chapter, but I pray to be kept.

As is our nature, so are our desires. Apart from grace, everything, every motion of our life, every thought, is utterly depraved; we cannot look without sin, we cannot entertain a desire without sin, we cannot eat or drink without sin.

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.”

This is a good word, a kind word, to people who have everything in them that is calculated for their overthrow and destruction. And another thing – it is the aim of the devil ever since he was cast out of heaven, to undo and ruin man. He does not mind a bit about cats or dogs, and there is a reason for it. What the devil aims at is the Person of the Son of God. Man alone was made in God’s image; therefore he is the object of the devil’s attacks, and a mighty kingdom is his! O look at the power of Satan’s kingdom, look at what he has done in the world, look at what he has done in our own nature, in our own hearts and lives! Look at the kingdom of the devil today! O what a world it is! Unless divinely kept, we should be utterly consumed and ruined by the world and the power of the devil, the god of this world.

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.”

This ability is very blessed. I dare not say you will be glad that you cannot keep yourself, but, seeing that you cannot, you will be glad of Him who has a particular ability to keep you from falling. His ability is in this – He is God, and God is greater than the devil, grace is greater than sin, and Christ is greater than Moses. Blessed ability! The nature of it! It will help you to come to Him, poor, falling creature. O the falls that I have had!

“If ever it could come to pass,
That sheep of Christ might fall away,

My fickle, feeble soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day.”

I know it. Peter fell sadly, basely, but he did not fall out of the hands of Christ, he did not fall from grace, he did not fall into perdition. It is as impossible as it is unwarrantable to try and determine how near to hell a child of God may be permitted to sink, or how near to heaven a child of hell may be permitted to rise; but some of the children of God have in their experience been very near to the gates of hell, and some of the children of the devil have been allowed to get very near to the gates of heaven.

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.”

Do you feel this response in your heart: “LORD, do keep me. ‘Hold me fast and keep me near Thee, For Thou knowest I’m but a worm’”? Well, we need that divine teaching before we come to Him thus. There appears more and more a necessity to have a discovery of what we are. Now again – this ability. God alone is omnipotent. Have you ever been thankful that the devil is not; though his power is mighty, it is limited? God’s power is unlimited; therefore He is able to keep you from falling. Not only so, He is also omniscient, so that He has kindly promised that, with the temptation, He is able to make a way of escape. This ability of omniscience is a great comfort. You cannot be where God cannot see you. It is very blessed, my friends, to experience a sense by faith of the comfort of the divine perfections of Yahweh. They are a comfort. Those very perfections that are a terror to the wicked, rendering God a consuming fire to them, are a comfort to His dear people who are taught to revere His holy name. His wisdom, His knowledge, His power, His grace, His omniscience, His omnipresence – all are in this ability to save and to keep. It is definitely declared in the last verse: “Now unto Him … to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power.” Why, my friends, this will enable you at times to look at the storm undismayed, it will give you to believe what the LORD has said: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

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By Frank L. Gosden