"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."
"Those who You gave me I have kept."--John 17:12
And who could keep His people but the Lord Himself? All the saints and angels in heaven could not keep a believer from finally falling and forever perishing. Unable to keep themselves, how could they keep another? There is not one rational being in the universe who, left to his own upholding, but would prove his own destroyer--and terrible would his suicide be! The restraining and upholding power of God over His creatures, is marvelous, universal, and incessant. "Power belongs unto God." It reigns in heaven, it rules on earth, it is felt in hell. "God has spoken once, TWICE have I heard this (heard it in the solemn tones of its resounding echo), that POWER belongs unto God." "Kept by the POWER of God."
In the intercessory prayer which Jesus, in the exercise of His priestly office on earth, offered--the Royal Prayer, pre-eminently and emphatically the Lord's Prayer, a type of His intercession on our behalf within the veil--His keeping of His people is solemnly affirmed, "Those that You gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost." But you will perhaps reply, "Was not Judas given to Jesus, and was he not lost?" Most assuredly! and the answer to this is, Judas was given to Christ as a disciple, as an apostle, as a minister, but not a saint, nor for the salvation of his soul. And what a dreadful picture, and what a solemn lesson does his history present! We gather from it how far a religious professor, or a Church officer, or a preacher of the gospel distinguished for his gifts and usefulness may go, and yet be utterly destitute of the converting grace of God, and dying so, "go to his own place." O Lord, "hold me up, and I shall be safe." "Keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins, and let them not have dominion over me." "Search me, O God, know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way."
But the Lord is our keeper. He is a Divine keeper. Deity alone could keep us from falling. The same power that upholds the universe upholds the saints, and no power short of this could uphold them one moment. My soul! the Savior that redeemed you and called you, keeps you; and because He is divine, you are divinely kept, kept every moment, and kept forever! "Kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation."
But we equally needed a human keeper, one in personal union with our nature, acquainted with our weakness, in sympathy with our infirmities, temptations, and sorrows. We have all this in Jesus, the Lord our Keeper. Oh, there is not an angel in heaven who could have compassion upon our infirmities, pity our weaknesses, sympathize with our assaults, bear with our proneness to fall, and restore us when we wander. Jesus can! Jesus does!
Nor does this divine keeping release us from the solemn obligation of personal and incessant prayer and watchfulness. There is a sense--limited indeed--in which the believer is his own keeper. "Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (Jude 21). Let us, then, be in our watchtower whole days and whole nights, watching over our besetting sins, watching against the evil of the world, and watching against the assaults of the Evil One of the world. Oh, you weak and humble saint of God, often fearful lest at last you will fall short of heaven, look up! the Lord that bought you with His blood, called you by His grace, preserves you by His indwelling Spirit, and who prays for you moment by moment that your faith fails not, keeps you, and will continue to keep you, until He brings you to glory. "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!"
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