(Jude 20-25)
"But ye, Beloved, Building Up Yourselves in Your Most Holy Faith"
THIS IS THE WAY BY WHICH THE DEVIL IS OVERCOME. "If ye continue in My word," said the Lord Jesus, "then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32). The truth and the faith are one. The truth presented to us in its completeness in our once crucified, but now risen and glorified Lord is our "most holy faith". It is set forth for us in the Word of God — the Holy Scriptures. "I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abides in you, AND YE HAVE OVERCOME THE WICKED ONE" (1 John 2:14).
"Praying in the Holy Ghost"
THIS IS THE WAY BY WHICH THE FLESH IS OVERCOME. For to pray means that we have no confidence in the flesh but are conscious of our dependence upon God, and to pray in the Holy Ghost surely necessitates walking in the Spirit, and "This I say then, walk in the Spirit and ye SHALL NOT FULFIL THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH" (Gal. 5:16).
"Keep Yourself in the Love of God"
THIS IS THE WAY BY WHICH THE WORLD IS OVERCOME. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world," and while it may be all very attractive to those who do not know God, it loses all its glamour when the glory of God's love shines upon the soul, "Love not the world neither the things that are in the world, If any man love the world; the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).
"Looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ Unto Eternal Life"
THIS IS THE WAY BY WHICH THE PULL THAT THE EARTH WOULD EXERCISE UPON US IS OVERCOME. It is the way that we are kept from being entangled by its plausible schemes for self-improvement that leave God and Christ out. We look not for great leaders rising up from amongst men to put things right, but we look for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from heaven; our hopes are all centred in Him, and consequently shall we be heavenly minded and not earthly minded. "For many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ … WHO MIND EARTHLY THINGS. For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like to His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself (Phil. 3:18, 21).
OUR MOST HOLY FAITH is the impregnable rock upon which infinite mercy has set our feet; and upon which we stand clear of the horrible pit of our lawlessness and sin; and of the mire and dirt of Spiritism, and other anti-Christian delusions of the devil. Here we have firm footing, and are no longer tossed to and fro, or carried away on the swirling, changing tides of modern thought, or by doctrines of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive. AND THAT ROCK IS CHRIST.
THE HOLY GHOST dwells in us according to God's wonderful grace, and by prayer puts us into true contact with the power of God, so that we are maintained in triumph in our conflict for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It yields great comfort, and conduces to quietness and confidence of heart to know that a divine Person, who is the Spirit of truth, is in us, to be a witness to the truth and maintain us in the faith. To be praying in the Holy Ghost is simply to be in communion with Him.
THE LOVE OF GOD is the Sun of our faith, in the bright beams of which our souls develop; it is the atmosphere, the very breath of the new life. In it we are preserved from the chilling, deadening influences of the world.
THE MERCY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST is our hope and expectation, a hope that will not make us ashamed, but will grow stronger and brighter as we draw near to its realization, for the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us.
Being thus delivered from the horrible mite in which the devil, the flesh, and the world would have submerged us, and kept free from the entanglements of earthly things WE ARE ABLE TO SAVE OTHERS; to have compassion upon them as they struggle and cry out for deliverance. There are two great qualities needed for this, COMPASSION for men in their miseries, and FEAR of that which causes the misery, which is sin; and a third, HATRED of the pollutions of the flesh. Compassion in us must ever be fenced by fear and hatred of evil, lest by contact with it we become used to it and so think little of it. To be saviours of others we need courage, energy, promptitude, for we must pull them out of the fire. The reference is to the angels dragging Lot and his wife and daughters out of Sodom. If we realize that the evil and pollution of the world-system is such that it cannot be made clean, but must be the subject of the fire of God's judgment, we shall fear and hate it more; and we shall see that the only way of safety from it is to be pulled out of it, and be set instead in the world of which our most holy faith is the foundation, the Holy Ghost, the unifying power, and the love of God the light and joy — that is, God's world to which all His children belong.
As we dwell in the light of joy of God's world, and are conscious that the fashion of man's world passes away, but God's world abides for ever, we can raise our doxology. WE CAN GLORIFY GOD. We can ascribe glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and for ever to Him, for He is THE ONLY WISE GOD who has not only established a world of eternal felicity, but is our Saviour, and has found a way by which he can deliver us from the world of pollution which is doomed, and bring us into His world. But not this only, He is able to keep us from falling, to keep us from stumbling back into the mire out of which He has dragged us, and to present us pure from all pollution, faultless before the presence of His glory — before which only the perfection of His own work could stand — and this not with shame and regret but "with exceeding joy", for then He will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us. This is the day of the activities of that grace towards us, in us, and through us, and it is by this grace alone that we are able to save others and glorify God.