Jude 1:20-21 - Homiletics

The law of Christian safety—to keep ourselves in the love of God.

"Keep yourselves in the love of God," etc. The soul's one asylum and retreat is the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The act of grace which calls us to the Christian life introduces us to the knowledge of that love, and brings us within its pavilion. The sum of all subsequent Christian duty is to be true to it; the sum of all Christian wisdom is to suffer nothing to turn us away from it. But our continuance within it demands that we persevere in building up the structure of a holy life on the foundation of the faith given us; that we nourish and strengthen that life by prayer, and that we keep the eye of expectation on the future. The Christian life, too, is necessarily a progressive life. Growth is its security against decay, and its protection against temptation. And the prayer that nourishes and strengthens is prayer in the' Holy Ghost—prayer prompted by him, directed in its subjects and its frames by him, interpreted in its deep and unutterable longings by him. "So great is the sloth and coldness of our carnal nature," says Calvin, "that no one can pray as he ought unless moved by the Spirit of God; even as we are so prone to distrust and fear that no one dare call God 'Father' save by the dictation of the same Spirit. Hence comes the desire, hence the earnestness and vehemence, hence the activity, hence the confidence of obtaining, hence, finally, those unutterable groanings of which St. Paul speaks. Therefore not without cause does Jude teach them that none can pray as he ought save by the guidance of the Spirit." The judicial decisions of the future are committed to the Son of man. The hope of mercy in the day of his coming is one of the gifts of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. That hope is the light which brightens the believer's path in the darkened present, and makes him proof against the seductions of sin and error. The expectation of that mercy is the inspiration of his courage; it is the call from beyond the stars which makes it easy for him to hold by the love and truth of God, and bid away whatever would tempt him to depart from these.