THE KEEPING POWER OF CHRIST
W. McKillop
John 17: 11, 12; 2 Timothy 1: 12; Isaiah 26: 3; Revelation 3: 10; Jude 24, 25
These passages refer to the Lord’s keeping power. In John the Lord is speaking to the Father as about to leave the world, and He prays, “Holy Father, keep them in thy name”—and then what I want particularly to refer to in this section—“When I was with them I kept them in thy name”. When we think of how the Lord kept His own in the Father’s name, it evokes admiration and adoration from our hearts. When the Lord took up the disciples, they were as diverse as we are, and as difficult as we often are, and yet He kept them. He kept them in this specific way—“I kept them in thy name”. The Lord is not speaking in a general way exactly about keeping these persons, but “When I was with them I kept them in thy name”, that is the Father’s name. We might say, speaking reverently, that it was a remarkable accomplishment on the Lord’s part to keep these persons in the Father’s name, that is in the light of the revelation of the Father in Himself. I am assured He has no less a thought in His heart for us than this, that He should keep us, by the Holy Spirit, in the Father’s name.
In John’s epistle, one of the great tests is whether persons acknowledge the Father and the Son. If we are in Christianity at all in a vital way, that is the light that we are in, and the light the Lord would keep us in, and keep us together. He is not speaking here about keeping them individually exactly, but keeping them collectively. The Lord is bent on keeping us in this sense, beloved brethren, keeping us together in the light of the revelation of the Father in Himself. It is not only that we are to be kept from evil or kept from the world, but that we are to be kept in the realm of revelation, kept in the Father’s name. There is really no greater
privilege in these closing days than to be kept by Christ in the Father’s name. There is nothing less than the full thought of Christianity in the Lord’s mind as He speaks here to the Father. When you think of those that the Lord had contact with, you can see what He had in view with every one of them.
If it is the man who was healed and sent by the Lord back to Decapolis, which would be an area of concentrated wickedness, you might wonder, How could the Lord keep him in his isolation? But I am assured that the Lord kept him just as He kept the man in John 9 who was cast out of the synagogue; and as He kept the woman in John 4. As we think of our respective histories, we are here really because the Lord has kept us. We have not kept ourselves. We are kept by the power of God through faith. The persons that the Lord has in view here would have faith and the Holy Spirit, and I would say they would have love for one another.
Therefore the Lord says, “I kept them in thy name”. Wonderful matter, that as He finished His service here, He could say that to the Father! I am assured that as the dispensation finishes there would be no lesser thought than that the persons who are kept are kept by Christ in the Father’s name. It is something the soul can rest on, the keeping power that the Lord has. He kept them in the Father’s name, and He says, “not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition”. It was needful that Judas should be lost to fulfil the Scripture.
This would lead, as we know Him, to assurance on our part regarding His ability to keep what we entrust to Him, as the apostle says in 2 Timothy. He says, “For which cause also I suffer these things; but I am not ashamed”. The suffering did not deter the apostle; he says,
“for I know whom I have believed”. He would be like those we were speaking of earlier who had known Him that is from the beginning. It is a great matter in our soul experience to be able to say, “I know whom I have believed”. We have believed Him that is from the
beginning. He says, and am persuaded that he is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to him”. Paul had entrusted an immense amount to Christ when you think of his labours; his work in Corinth, Thessalonica, Philippi and other places. He had an immense amount to entrust to Christ. Of course, there was also Paul’s own knowledge of God.
Whatever knowledge of God we have acquired, we can entrust to Christ as knowing Him and being persuaded that He is able to keep that. The time came when the apostle was to give up his life, but that would not interfere with the deposit that he had committed to Christ. The Lord would keep that for that day, the day of display. So he says, “the deposit I have entrusted to him”. I suppose we might have to say we have not much to put on deposit with Christ, but we have something; we have the work of God in our souls, we have the knowledge of God. These things we can entrust to Christ knowing that He is able to keep it for that day. So the apostle does not just say, I believe He is able to keep it, but I “am persuaded”. His assurance grew out of his close links with Christ; therefore he could say that He is able to keep for that day the deposit I have entrusted to Him.
Now in Isaiah the Lord is thinking about our minds. The Lord thinks a good deal more about our minds perhaps than we realise. He knows generally that the tendency to slip begins in our minds; the tendency to unbelief begins in our minds; the tendency to doubt, to be fearful, all that begins in our minds. So this word is, “Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on thee, for he confideth in thee”. That is a word of great comfort. If we were to be occupied with what is transpiring in the world, politically and economically, we would have very unsettled minds because what is clear is that everything there is just on shifting, sinking sand.
So He is presented here as “Jah, Jehovah, ... the rock of ages”. The Lord is that; it is not merely the ‘Rock of Ages’, as we sing in that gospel hymn, but it is that Person as the bedrock of the whole divine system in
which we have part, through grace. So He says, “on this rock I will build my assembly”, Matthew 16: 18. Our minds often become very perturbed when matters arise in localities—
sometimes matters which really do not concern us—but our minds become agitated. What the Lord would say to us is, I will keep your mind in perfect peace when it is stayed on Me. Then it adds, “for he confideth in thee”. No matter what comes up, whether it be assembly exercises, or physical illnesses, or death among us (because we have that experience from time to time, or the heartbreak of young persons leaving us (even for a time), or the unresponsiveness of our relatives who seem to be immune to the effect of the truth, all that is not to agitate our minds.
You recall that Peter walked on the water until he saw the wind; it is a remarkable thing that when he saw the wind that is when he began to sink. As Mr. Stoney said many years ago, Peter could no more have walked on smooth water than stormy water, but as long as his view was on Christ he walked, but when he became occupied with how the enemy was stirring up things he began to sink. I want to encourage us, beloved, to have our minds stayed firmly on Christ, as it says here, “Jah, Jehovah ... the rock of ages”, for that is who He is. Elsewhere Isaiah says, “he shall be the stability of thy times” (Isaiah 33: 6). The fathers know that.
Fathers know Him that is from the beginning; they know it is Christ who is the stability of our times. We have to say that the stability is not in us, but we find it in Christ. As our minds are fixed on Him, we shall find that He imparts peace. That is what He did when He came in after His resurrection; He said, “Peace be to you”. I would encourage us to acquire the spiritual habit of having our minds unalterably fixed upon this glorious Person; we shall prove what He says, that we shall have perfect peace. You might say, How could that be down here? Well, it cannot be found around, but the Lord is saying, You can find it because I will give it to you. Whether it is in our own minds or in our households or in our
localities, He orders peace—“Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on thee”.
I referred to the passage in Revelation 3 because the Lord is speaking prophetically about what is to come. He says, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience”, or it might be
‘the word of My endurance’. What the Spirit of God is saying to us, beloved brethren, is that we are to keep the word of His patience, the word of His endurance. James encourages us to be marked by endurance. The Lord says, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience”.
So I would say it is not that He is doing all the keeping; He is keeping us, but then there are things that we are to keep. We are to keep the word of His patience, and as Paul says to Timothy, we are to keep by the Holy Spirit the good deposit entrusted. I apprehend the good deposit would include what began to be spoken about by the Lord, and was spoken and written about by the apostles, and in more recent times has been spoken and written about in the recovery through those whom the Lord has raised up. He is saying, Because thou has kept it, I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial. Notice that “I also”; He is saying, as it were, Because you have done something, I also will do something. “I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial”.
I do not want to occupy you with prophecy exactly, but that is not the tribulation, it is not the time of Jacob’s trouble, it is another matter entirely—“I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world”. The whole world will be affected by it, the hour of trial. Notice what it says, “to try them that dwell upon the earth”.
These are not persons exactly who are wicked sinners like the men in Sodom, that is not the character the Lord gives them, but them that dwell upon the earth. That is persons who are simply dwelling in what is earthly with no thought of what is heavenly, whose thoughts do not extend beyond what they enjoy in their lifetime. But
this hour of trial is coming, and the Lord is saying, I will keep you out of that “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience”. How much Christ loves us! How much He loves the assembly that He would keep us out of this. If you think about it, and we should think about it, it is going to be a complete upheaval of all that men are resting in at the moment; all that the earth dwellers are dwelling in. This hour of trial is coming, and it will be dreadful. But the Lord is saying, I will keep you out of that, “I also”. That word “also” is precious. It is not, so to speak, an arbitrary matter, but a matter of affection, the Lord saying in love. You have kept the word of My patience, and I also will keep you out of the hour of trial.
Well, I referred to the two verses in Jude because they bring out a most encouraging thought—that He is able to keep us without stumbling. Stumbling here is not a matter of the person falling and needing to be helped up; stumbling from Jude’s point of view is apostasy.
He says, “But to him that is able”. To my mind that is Christ, “him that is able to keep you without stumbling”. Peter denied the Lord but that is not the kind of thing that Jude is speaking about. We might speak about Peter’s failure but it was not stumbling in the sense of this scripture. We read in Isaiah about persons who “shall stumble, and fall, and be broken”
(Isaiah 8: 15); they are persons who have no part in divine things at all. The Lord is saying, through Jude, “to him that is able to keep you without stumbling”. That is the greatest comfort. Not only is the Lord going to keep us out of the hour of trial, but He is also going to keep us out of the apostasy into which the western world is proceeding. How sorrowful it is that there are persons who identify themselves outwardly with the name of Christ, but they are about to stumble. Already, John tells us, there are many antichrists; but it will soon be that the antichrist will arise, and this whole area that has been so favoured of God in this dispensation will fall into open apostasy. But Christ is able to keep us without
stumbling—“and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”. How the Lord’s feelings will enter into this! With what exultation will He set us blameless before His glory; not one charge can be raised against us by any person or power or agency in the universe, blameless before His glory. We shall be fully in consonance with that glory because He has kept us without stumbling.
This leads on Jude’s part as he writes to a doxology— “to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from before the whole age”, or as you will notice the footnote says, Or ‘course of time’. I suppose this is Jude’s way of going back to what we have in John 1, in the beginning, “from before the whole age, and now”—
now, this very moment, our very selves in this meeting—“and to all the ages”, all that is to follow. Out of the whole course of time will arise these wonderful ascriptions of praise to God and to Christ; “to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority”. Well might we join with Jude in saying “Amen”. Our souls should come up in holy activity as affected by the speaking of the Spirit through Jude in calling our attention to Christ in this way; that He will keep us from the great apostasy, and He will set us with exultation blameless before His glory. It is a wonderful thought that we shall be like Him, fully; when we see Him we shall be like Him, and He will set us before His glory blameless. This should lift up our spirits and cause us to exult as we think of the glory and greatness of Christ. Indeed, in a certain sense, we could say that this ascription of praise is to Him the only God our Saviour. But then He is the One who is doing it operatively through Jesus Christ our Lord, and what a result there is and will be eternally—glory, majesty, might and authority.
May these simple thoughts, beloved brethren, stimulate our souls and cause our spirits to exult that we
are in touch with such a glorious Person, and with such wondrous matters, and that we are here together with such lovable persons who are the subjects of the keeping power of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Address at Ormond Beach
27 December 1996