Saints Divinely Kept

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John 17:11

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father…

Our text is all about keeping. Three or four times over we have some tense of the word "keep." Greatly do we need keeping. You have been redeemed and regenerated; you are pure in heart and hands; you have aspirations after the holiest things; you are near the gates of glory; hut you must be kept. Here is —

I. A CHOICE PROTECTORATE. "I kept them." This care —

1. Was continuous. He made this the chief employment of His life. In this chapter you have "the ruling passion strong in death." He has kept them in life, and now He says, "I am no more in the world," &c.; and the one thought of His heart is, "What is to become of them?" He closes His life by commending them to the keeping of His heavenly Father.

2. Is ever needed. Sheep never outgrow this necessity. If the disciples always required keeping, you and I do.

3. Was ever personal. The Good Shepherd kept the sheep, not by proxy, but by His own hands. What must have been the effect of the personality of Christ upon those eleven? There are some men whose influence upon others has, for want of a better word, been called "magical." History tells us of warriors who have inspired their soldiers with boundless loyalty, grappling them to themselves with hooks of steel. The influence of the Christ upon those who actually lived with Him must have been superlative.

4. Was most successful. Of the eleven not one was lost. They were very fickle at first, extremely ignorant, and strongly tempted. Influences which made some go back would naturally have had the same power over them if Jesus had not kept them: yet of those whom the Father gave Him not one of them was lost.

5. Was attended with an awful sorrow. "None of them is lost, but the son of perdition." He knew that often people would say, "Can this Christianity be true which has such false-hearted traitors in its midst?" He allowed that objection to come up at the very first. But the Watcher over the sons of men could not lose even Judas without deep regrets.

II. A TEMPORARY PRIVILEGE. The eleven were not to have Christ with them always. They were to fall back on another mode of living common to all saints.

1. Now, why was Christ with them at all? It was because they were very weak. They wanted fostering and nurturing. You had great joys in your early days. You have not had them lately, it may be; for you have travelled to heaven at a steadier pace. Certain spiritual joys are the privilege and the necessity of our religions babyhood, and we outgrow them. The Lord went away that the disciples might grow to spiritual manhood.

2. Choice as the privilege was of having Jesus Himself to be their Pastor, apart from the grace of God, this special boon had no power in it. The Lord Jesus Christ might preach, but He could not touch the heart of the son of perdition. No ministry of itself can turn a heart of stone into flesh. "You must be born from above." Let this be a warning to such as are not profited under the Word when faithfully preached. Beware lest ye perish under the gospel.

III. A BLESSED PRAYER. "Holy Father, keep," &c.

1. "Father." It is the Father who keeps us! The Lord Jesus was tender to us when He selected that title, and did not say "Jehovah" or "Elohim."

2. "Holy Father." The keeping means keep us holy; and who can make us and keep us holy but He who is Himself holy?

3. "Keep them." We need keeping —

(1)  From discord. "Keep them that they may be one."

(2)  From error.

(3)  From sin.

4. Through God's own name. It requires the very name of God to keep a Christian.

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