“Kept By the Power of God”
Steve Hanchett, pastor
Berry Road Baptist Church
Emil Lucas’ parents immigrated to the United States from Germany and settled in Northeast Oklahoma about the time the Indian Territory became a state. Emil never married and after his parents passed away he stayed on the farm and lived in the same white, tin-roofed, clapboard house his father had built and he had grown up in. By the time I became aquatinted with Emil he was approaching ninety years old, most of his teeth were gone and his face was leathered and his lips were stained brown from chewin’ tabbaco. I never saw Emil dressed in anything other than bib overalls.
When I met Emil he had long since passed the age where he could plow and plant his fields, so most of his land was leased out to other farmers. But Emil was still able to keep a herd of cows around. We lived just down the road about a mile from Emil’s house, so I drove by there often. During one stretch of time, about once a week I would pass by Emil’s and find some of his cows in the road. Generally I would stop and get Emil and he and I would herd his cows back inside the fence.
One day a heifer had gotten out and had wandered away quite a distance. So I stopped and went to the door and offered to give Emil a ride down the road and help him retrieve his cow. He got into the car with me and as we headed down the road he looked at me with his toothless frown and said repeatedly in his heavy German accent, “I caint unerstan howd dem cows keep gettin out.”
We drove up on his cow about the same time he finished his lament. As I put the car in park and we opened the doors, she casually looked up at us with a knowing glance. Before we could do a thing that cow walked through the ditch, put her nose under the middle strand of barbed wire, pushed it up and walked through the fence and back into Emil’s pasture. I looked at Emil and said, “Emil, I think I see the problem.”
Emil’s fences were in pitiful shaped. Those cows might as well have been a free range herd. The fence was more like a suggested boundary line then a secure blockade. I didn’t fault Emil, after all he was pushing ninety. That is not the age most folks are out fixing fence. I actually kind of admired him for working as hard as he did at his age. I understand that Emil stayed right there on the farm until the day he died.
Emil’s problem with his herd of cows was he just wasn’t capable of keeping the secure in his pasture. His health had declined and he no longer had the energy or the strength do what needed to be done to keep his herd safe. The task was too much for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t care or didn’t have good intentions. He just wasn’t able to keep them secure.
God has a herd too. Well, he calls them his flock. We began last week to look at the question, “Can the Saved Be Lost Again?” One of the most important issues we need to address in really answering that question is whether or not God is capable of keeping His flock secure. Or to ask it another way, does God allow His sheep get outside of His fold? Some people would answer with and emphatic yes. They believe that a sheep has the power not only to get out of the fold but once outside the fence he can change his nature and become a wolf.
I think they believe this for the reason we talked about last week. They see the weakness of the flesh and the fallibility of man and they know that man is capable of the worst of sins. They also look around them and see all the people who had at one time professed a faith in Christ, but now no longer serve Him. And they are trying to sincerely deal with this issue. There is no doubt that sheep do have a tendency to wander. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,” is the way the hymn writer expressed it. So you will get no argument from me about human weakness and frailty.
But I think that to really answer this question we need to start with God and not with man. When we start with man we fail to ask what I think is the more important question. We shouldn’t start by asking whether or not man is weak and frail and prone to failure. The more important question is whether or not God is like Emil. Is He so feeble and weak and without power that he is not capable of keeping His flock safe and in the fold.
So I can’t think of a better place to start that to look at what the Bible says about the Keeping power of God. That keeping power of God is the cornerstone of the believer’s security. God is at work keeping us safe. And it seems to me that the Scriptures emphasize three things about God that ensures that the person who is saved will always be saved. So I want us to look at those three truths today that demonstrate God’s intention of keeping the saved saved.
1. The power of God
2. The presence of the Holy Spirit
3. The prayers of Jesus Christ
First, consider the power of God to keep us safe. What could possibly bring about the loss of your salvation? Certainly we recognize that Satan wants to steal, kill and destroy. He is the arch enemy of all who unite themselves to Jesus Christ. The Scriptures are clear that all who name the name of Jesus are in a spiritual battle against Satan and the demons of hell. If he has his way none of us will survive with our faith in tact. Satan is going to try to disrupt, disturb and destroy your faith in God. He will use poverty or prosperity. He will use sin or self-righteousness. It matters not to him what method is used so long as the end result is the destruction of your faith in Christ. So it would be wise to ask, “will God protect us from Satan’s evil plans? Will he keep us safe from the evil one?”
We also know from personal experience that there lurks in our hearts a sinful nature. It constantly pulls and tugs on our hearts. This desire to disobey God and His laws constantly seeks to seduce us into forsaking Christ and indulging ourselves in the sinful pleasures of this world. You know as well as I do that each one of us has a pressure point in our life. A spot where we are most temptable. So we naturally wonder if God will keep sin from conquering us? We wonder if God will save us from ourselves because we have found the enemy and it is us?
As if the flesh and the devil were not enough to keep us concerned we still have another enemy. This world we live in is at war with the people of God. The world system and the culture of which we are a part is not designed to produce godliness and faith in our hearts. The centers of power in America are Hollywood and Washington DC and neither one is friendly to the cause of Christ. This world seeks to lure us with flattery and intimidate us with force. It is always beckoning us like a spiritual whore standing on the corner as we pass by. There it is calling us away from our walk with Christ. It holds out its entertainment and pleasure and brings all of that seductive force to bear against our souls. So it only makes sense to ask whether or not God will keep us safe from the seduction and pressure of this world? Can He keep us safe?
I want to declare to you today God’s determination to keep us safe for Himself. And the very first guarantee we have that God will not allow us to be overcome by Satan, defeated by the flesh or seduced by the world is His vast, unlimited, boundless, unfathomable power.
God has made certain promises to those who place their faith in Christ for salvation. It is significant to note that God’s promises and God’s power are linked together. If God makes a promise but is not capable of carrying it out then His promises are merely His best wishes for us. If God didn’t have the power to do what He promised than we could not call them promises. We could only say that they were nice thoughts and hopes and dreams. These best wishes from God would certainly teach us about His compassion and love for us but they would do nothing to secure our faith, build our confidence or guarantee our future.
When I read about the slaughter of the Christian people of Sudan and Indonesia my heart breaks and I want to rescue them and deliver them. I pray for them. But what I desire for them are at best only hopes and dreams and wishes for a better life, for security, and safety and liberty. The fact remains that I have no power to guarantee anything better for them. If God’s promises are not connected to His power than they are nothing more than His best sentiments on our behalf.
More importantly, if His promises are not joined to His power than His integrity is at stake. If God makes promises that He cannot keep than what is at stake is more than our welfare, the very glory of God and the reputation of His name is at stake.
But here is what I know: not one promise of God will fail to come to pass. What does this have to do with our eternal security? God has made promises to us that He will keep us, that He will complete His work in us, that He will bring us to glory and that nothing will separate us from Him. Listen to a few of the passages in which we find God’s promises to us. I was talking with a friend this week and told me that when he became a Christian he couldn’t find anyone in his church except the pastor to show him in the Bible what it said about eternal security. So you ought write these verse down in the flyleaf of your Bible, or memorize them or do something so that you can share this with others. Listen to the promises of God:
“My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand.” (John 10:27-28)
“He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
“Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:14
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst. . .This is the will of the Father who sent me, that of all He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. . .He who believes in me has everlasting life. . .If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. . .He who eats of this bread will live forever.” John 6:35,37,39,47,51
“Our Lord Jesus Christ, who will confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:7-9
Our salvation is not secure if it depends upon us. And if it did depend upon our keeping ourselves in right standing with God we have reason to fear and to doubt. We don’t have the power, the strength, the ability or the wisdom to overcome the world, the flesh and the devil. If left to us we will surely fall. But what these Scriptures teach us is that the keeping depends upon God. He has promised to keep us. And I want you to know that He has the power to keep us. He is able to do that which He promised.
“I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that what I have committed to Him until that Day.” 2 Timothy 1:12
“Kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:5
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” Jude 24
What is at stake in this is the very integrity of God Himself. I believe this is why Jesus went to such great pains to point out that Judas was on the side of the devil from the beginning. He did not want the disciples to live in the constant fear that they might in the end betray Him and fall from grace. But that is exactly what they would have thought had Jesus not repeatedly told them that Judas was a betrayer from the beginning. So Jesus hammered it home over and over again that Judas was not saved and then lost. Judas was never saved to begin with. It was so important for the confidence and hope of the disciples for Jesus to emphasize this truth. Had he not done so they would have naturally concluded that if Judas could fall then so could they.
F. B. Meyer wrote about two Germans who wanted to climb the Matterhorn. They hired three guides and began their ascent at the steepest and most slippery part. The men roped themselves together in this order: guide, traveler, guide, traveler, guide. They had gone only a little way up the side when the last man lost his footing. He was held up temporarily by the other four, because each had a toehold in the niches they had cut in the ice. But then the next man slipped, and he pulled down the two above him. The only one to stand firm was the first guide, who had driven a spike deep into the ice. Because he held his ground, all the men beneath him regained their footing. F. B. Meyer concluded his story by drawing a spiritual application. He said, “I am like one of those men who slipped, but thank God, I am bound in a living partnership to Christ. And because He stands, I will never perish.” (Our Daily Bread)
The first reason we can have confidence in God’s keeping us safe in His fold is because He has promised to do so and He has the power to carry out his promises.
But we have even more reason to be confident. We are not only secure because of the power of God, we are secure because of the presence Holy Spirit. When a person is born again the Holy Spirit of God comes to indwell the spirit of that person. Our bodies become the very temple of the Living God. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer accomplishes a number of very important purposes in our life.
The most obvious result is that the presence of God’s Spirit within the believer gives us the power to live the Christian life. Without the Holy Spirit filling our lives we would be incapable of carrying on the work of Christ in our cities, our churches and our homes. The Christian life would be the most frustrating life possible if God had told us how to live and not given us the power to do it.
The Holy Spirit of God is not only the person who coveys to us the power of God for godly living. He is the light of Christ in us to give witness of the reality of Christ’s love and salvation for the world. Jesus said, “you shall be witnesses - after the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”
The Holy Spirit is also that personal presence of Christ in our lives that brings to us the possibilities of peace and joy and love and faith in this world. The Christian is given the Spirit and He fills us with the divine personality of God and grants to us the fruits of Who He is.
With all of that said, we must not overlook the fact that the Holy Spirit’s presence is also the guarantee that God will keep us safe and bring us into our heavenly home. The Holy Spirit is the earnest of God that makes us to know that He will accomplish what He began. Listen to how Paul says it in Ephesians:
“In {Christ} you trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14
Note three important ideas in this text: First, he is talking to those who have genuine faith in Christ. Second, he tells us that those who have genuine faith are sealed with the Holy Spirit. {Notice also the particular name Paul gives to Him - the Holy Spirit of Promise}. Third, note that he elaborates on this by saying that the Holy Spirit’s presence in us guarantees our final redemption and inheritance.
He says that when he says that the Holy Spirit seals us. But what does he mean when he says we are sealed with the Holy Spirit? Look to the book of Revelation and we will get a good picture of what he means:
“Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (7:3) “They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” (9:4)
Now this passage is in reference to the Jews who are saved and called of God to preach the gospel during the Great tribulation. They are kept from being killed until they have finished their work on earth. And the way they are protected is they have the seal of God on their foreheads. Now, this is not exactly the same thing we are talking about when we say we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. Obviously no Christian is promised that they will not die at any particular moment in history. Nevertheless, it serves as a clear illustration of the principle. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit and what that means is that He is the mark of God on us that guarantees us the protection of God on our soul and spirit.
So we are secure first because of the power of God, second because of the presence of the Holy Spirit and third because of the power of Christ. We have this great prayer-warrior on our side - the Lord Jesus Christ. He is praying for you and it is the prayers of our Great High Priest that guarantee that God will complete His work in us.
The book of Hebrews presents many challenges before us about this whole subject. We will look at some of those passages later in this series. But so many who point to the book of Hebrews as conclusive proof that you can loose your salvation seem to by-pass one critical verse. Hebrews 7:25
“Therefore He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
This verse takes us to the very throne-room of God and lets us see our Savior who not only died to save us but now lives to keep us saved. A powerful illustration of this work of Christ is seen in the life of Simon Peter. If anyone was prone to abandon the faith and lose his salvation it would have been Peter. He was up one minute and down the next. He was listening to the Spirit of God one moment and the whisperings of Satan the next.
Just before the greatest hour in human history, the hour upon which our eternal destiny hangs, Jesus looked Peter in the eye and told him of Satan’s evil plot. Look at it in Luke 22:31-32. “Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail, and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
What guaranteed that Peter would return to the Lord. What hope did he have that he would not fatally and finally apostatize? Jesus tells us - He prayed for Him.
I don’t know when, or through what circumstances of life, or by what strength of temptation it will come. But I am sure of this - your faith will be sorely tried and tested. And what hope do we have that we can stand the test? The hope we have is this. If we are children of God and if we truly know Christ, He is always interceding for us. And when Satan comes to sift us as wheat, Jesus Christ prays that our faith will not fail. And even though we might stumble as Peter did, we will return. Not because of the strength of our character and the nobility of our heart. We will return because of the effectiveness and power of His prayers.
We get a glimpse of the intercessory prayers of Jesus for us in John chapter 17. There, I believe, we see the kinds of things that Jesus is praying for us right now. Listen to a part of that prayer”
“Keep through your name [All that God is and all that god can do] those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are.” John 17:11
“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” John 17:15
We are kept by the power of God. We are secure because of God’s integrity - He will keep His promises; we are secure because of the presence of the Holy Spirit - He seals us; we are secure because of the prayers of our Lord - He saves us to the uttermost.
