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Jude verses 1-11
"Jude,
the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified
by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to
write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto
you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints. For there are certain
men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the
only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how
that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the
judgment of the great day. Even as
Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves
over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise
dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not
bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things
which they know not: but what they
know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain,
and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying
of Core."
Who Was Jude?
"Well
I'm not sure how far we're going to get this evening as we jump into this
little Book of Jude, Judas, more properly. Not Judas Iscariot, he's the most familiar Judas to most of
us in the New Testament, most often mentioned. There was a Judas among the apostles, which is different
from this man Jude. This man Jude
tells us he is the servant of the Lord, and the brother of James, and the
Church from the earliest times agrees that this is one of the Lord's
half-brothers, same mom, different father. He would be the youngest. Early Church fathers tell us, Matthew 13 I think, Mark 6,
mentions the brothers of the Lord, James, Joses, Simon and Judas, Jude. Early Church fathers tell us that they
were the uterine siblings of Jesus Christ. It isn't until the 3rd century there's a bishop
in Salamis who starts to [erroneously] tell us they were from Joseph in a
previous marriage, that they came into the family when Joseph and Mary
married. But the early Church
fathers know nothing of that, they tell us these were all the younger brothers
of Christ, that after Jesus was born, that Mary then had other children, and
that there were at least four other boys, that are named, and at least two
sisters, because it says sisters in the plural. And again, I'm always amazed as I think of this, you know,
here is a household, Jesus could have been an only child, and it seems, he
would have gotten more attention. But he grows up in a house with four brothers and two sisters and a mom
and a dad. There's at least nine
of them in this carpenters home, which I'm sure wasn't from the lifestyles of
the rich and famous. And it is
interesting in that context, as we study James and study Jude. Both of them are extremely
forthright. There's over fifty
imperatives in James's short book, and Jude in the same spirit, is very
forthright and very direct. Neither of them are believers during Christ's earthly ministry. The family comes to him once, and they
feel that he's lost his mind, they don't, you know, growing up in the same
house, there wasn't anything about Jesus that won them. You know, they grew up in a carpenter's
shop, and in the order, Jude would be the youngest. So if you're the youngest brother in the house, the younger
of other brothers, you understand that place, you understand what it's like to
look up to older brothers. James,
besides Jesus the oldest, and Jude becoming part of the ministry, we only have
some traditional history from Eusibius, he tells us that he traveled with a wife,
that he was in fact an evangelist in the early Church. He's not named specifically as an
apostle. But just imagine his
memories, growing up in the house with sisters, with Jesus as the oldest boy,
and his other brothers. And as he
comes to faith, after the resurrection, we're told in Acts chapter 1, as the
apostles are gathered, believers are gathered in the upper room, that the
"brethren" of our Lord were there, Jude by then a believer. And just imagine again, James and Jude
raking through their memories, as now they've come to know this one as their
Saviour, as their Lord. Jude will
end by saying 'our Saviour and God.' So it's very interesting, as he begins he calls himself "a servant of
Jesus Christ, and the brother of James," he's not claiming any superior place,
saying as he writes to the believers, 'Hey, you know who my older brother
was, you know, I'm in the family, I'm a made-member, and I want you to understand
that.' There's none of that here. His small letter is not a doctrinal
statement, per se, he's not addressing a specific problem in a specific
church. It seems to be a letter
that was circulated, and it is challenging the Church [entire Body of Christ]
in regards to 'embracing and holding onto the faith that was once
delivered unto the saints, and then a warning of false teachers and apostates, and the destruction
that they can do.' So it was a letter no doubt that was
circulated commonly through congregations. And most believe at this point in time, only Jude and John
are still alive, of those who were eyewitnesses of the Lord's ministry, that
knew him. So, Jude writing, tells
us as he begins, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James," the doulos, the slave of Jesus Christ,
one without rights, interesting. I
mean, what's it like to grow up with an older brother, you think he's a
goody-too-sandals his whole life, 'This guy, we can never get him to do
anything wrong with us.' And then, what's it like to find out
that your older brother was God all along? I think James and Jude need a little counseling, maybe,
those are kind of very impressionable, that's a very impressionable thing to
have happen to you. But yet on the
other side of that, who could be more filled with wonder at the fact that he
had come and lived in a household, he had come and got splinters in his hands,
and he had worked for a living, and for thirty years was faithful to God
without any demonstration of who he was. His public ministry was only three and a half years, he spent the vast
majority of his life pleasing his Father, so again, when he came to the baptism
at the River Jordan, and John the Baptist baptized him, a voice said "This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am already well pleased." And he hadn't done a miracle, he hadn't preached a sermon. And Jude grew up with no doubt, a sense
of that righteousness, a sense of something, and then coming to understand that
after the resurrection, what God had done, and how desperately God desired to
come and walk in the midst of his own creation, and rub shoulders with sinners
and tax gatherers and harlots, and to look into their faces, and to demonstrate
who he was.
'Having Been
Preserved By The Lord Jesus Christ, And Called'
So
he calls himself "a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James," now they would know who that was, as he
wrote, "to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in
Jesus Christ, and called:" (verse 1) "sanctified by God" now that's what my translation says,
your translation might say 'loved by God the Father,' because there's a discrepancy in some
early manuscripts where the word is either "loved" or "sanctified." But when you're in the sphere of his
love, your life is set aside, it is sanctified. They go together. When we come to verse 2 he uses the same word for "love" there, in fact
that 'love is multiplied to us.' So, I like
the idea that we're sanctified, we're set aside, for him. The same word that the Bible uses for
"saints," same root word here. So
you look around the room, look around the room, the saints. It's not the little guys on the
dashboard, they're sitting here on Wednesday nights, look around, that's who we
are. "sanctified by God the
Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:" that
we are 'having been preserved' it means that it is done, that we're guarded. And I am thankful for that. And the longer you go on with the Lord,
the more you're going to realize, that the reason you're sitting here tonight
is because you're in the present condition of 'having been preserved by
the Lord Jesus Christ.' I don't know about you, there are
enough times I've banged my head, there are enough times that I would run ahead
of the Lord and get into something I shouldn't get into, or I would lag behind
with a cold heart, and get off track. There's enough people around here that come in, and we see them, they
backslide or they turn, and they end up getting banged around, and whupped and
they come back, you know, looking like something the cat dragged in, but
they're back. And you look at them
and you think, 'You know, I'm confident in their Shepherd, because they're
preserved, he does such a good job, he does such a good job.' So I'm thankful. "preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:" Jesus
said 'You've not chosen me, but I've chosen you, called you.' "preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: mercy unto you, and peace, and love be multiplied." (verses
1b-2) You might have come through a day or a
week where all you can say is 'All I want is a little peace.' You ain't gonna find it in this world. You'll find two things in the New
Testament, there's "peace with God", and everyone in this room whose saved
tonight, we have that. But there
is also the "peace of God." And
that's objective and subjective. We certainly have peace with God, but the wonderful thing that God
offers us, if we stay in his presence, and we depend upon his strength, and
we're filled with his Spirit, that we have "the peace of God" also in our
lives. There is no resource in this
world for that, so "mercy unto you, and peace, and [agape'] love be
multiplied." And I love what Jude says here, not 'be
added to you,' but 'be
multiplied unto you.' You've gotta love God's math, there's
nothing fuzzy about it. Here's 'mercy,
peace and love,' not added to us, 'multiplied.' And I
appreciate that.
"Contend Earnestly
For The Faith Which Was Once Delivered Unto The Saints" Why? "Because There Are Men Crept In Unawares, Ungodly Men"
He
begins, "Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend
for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." (verse 3) Interesting to me, thinking of how his older brother was,
how he addresses the believer, "beloved". Verse 4 begins with the word "For there are
certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and
denying the only Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ." So,
he says, 'I sat down to write unto you, I gave all diligence, and I
wanted to write to you in regards to our common salvation.' And who doesn't? What a great thing, just to sit down and talk about what God has done on
our behalf, and how blessed we are, and what God has done for us. And he says 'he was inclined to
write this letter to the Church in regards to our common salvation.' Now, evidently the Holy Spirit moving Jude to write, the
other apostles gone, John still alive. Jude writing, and he says, 'but it was needful' King James, the idea is, 'he was moved,' or 'he was impressed, the Holy
Spirit forced him,' the idea is, in that sense, it is forceful. He wanted to write in regards to our common salvation, but "it
was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend
for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." (verse 3b) 'I wanted to write about our common salvation, I sat down, and as
I began to write, and I was trying to be diligent, it was urged upon me, the
impression was made upon me, I couldn't escape it, that what I needed to write
to you about, is that you would earnestly contend' and that was a word from the
gymnasium, from the Olympics in his day, it was a word that spoke of complete
exhaustion after competition in the Games. That you would give yourself (contend) completely to
this. Think of the things that we
completely give ourselves to in this room. What are the things that we completely give ourselves to, to
the point of exhaustion? He says, 'the
Holy Spirit impressed on my heart that I would exhort you, that you, not the
pastor, the believer, all of us, should earnestly contend' for what? "for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." 'to
contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered unto the saints.' Paul, remember, writing to the Galatians says, 'I'm surprised that
you're so soon moved away from the Gospel of Christ,' he said, 'to another Gospel.' Well it's not another Gospel, it was a deformed Gospel. 'But though we or an angel from
heaven bring any other Gospel to you, let him be anathema, let him be eternally
damned.' And what he's saying here, is the
Gospel itself. No doubt, as the
New Testament writers wrote, they came to understand more about the Church in
some ways. Paul developed that in
his writings. But the Faith, you read in Acts chapter 2, the
sermon that Peter preaches there, his nomenclature is from the Old Testament,
it's filled with blood, with the cross, with atonement, with the death of
Christ, with the power to save. He
says 'the Faith that was once delivered, once and for all to the
saints,' it
doesn't have additions made to it. It's not a faith that broadens and adjusts
to the culture and the society. He
says it was "the faith which was once" once and for all, a one-time deposit "delivered unto
the saints." That faith that was given to us in the
beginning, that Jesus Christ, his oldest half-brother, of the tribe of Judah,
of the line of David, was the Jewish Messiah, the Jesus of the Bible. Not the Jesus of so many religious
clouds blowing around out there, he was Jesus, born of a virgin, of the tribe
of Judah, of the line of David, in the city of Bethlehem, who walked among us,
not who became Christ [as the Gnostics taught], who was Christ, who was
crucified for our sins, died, rose on the third day, ascended, who is
returning, the Jesus of the Bible. [Pastor Joe just describe the essence of
what the Gospel is. What is the
Gospel? See, http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm] That "Faith",
that we would earnestly contend for, just like we were in some athletic
competition, contend for that faith, to defend it, to care for it, to uphold
it. It was once and for all
delivered unto the saints. Why? He says, 'For
there are certain men crept in unawares, that want to destroy all of
that.' "For there are certain men crept in
unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men,
turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord
God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." (verse 4) They're
sneaks, they don't just walk into the front door with a smile, they creep in
unaware. "who were before of
old ordained to this condemnation," you
know, an interesting idea, that of old, there was a pronouncement against those
who would do despite to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. "who of old were ordained to this
condemnation, ungodly men," and he says they do two things here, one), "turning the grace of our God
into lasciviousness," two),
they "denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ" denying his Lordship. [And there are heresies, Gnosticism,
Arianism, that deny the deity of Christ, and this was creeping into the Church at
this time, when only Jude and John were still alive. These heresies are still alive within the Body of Christ
right now. See, http://www.unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/What%20is%20Arianism.htm] Look, they've snuck in, they've come in. Nothing new, is it. Jesus said, 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a
devil,' Judas in
there, in that group. Paul in Acts
chapter 20 as he writes to the Church, he's gathered with the elders from
Ephesus on the beach at Miletus, and he says, 'I ceased not to warn you
over a period of two or three years that after my departure grievous wolves
will come in, not sparing the flock, and men would arise out of your own midst
drawing disciples after themselves instead of after the Lord Jesus
Christ.' So here it's nothing new, and it's
early, this is early. John is
still alive. He says 'Already,
in our day, in the Church, there is this problem of false teachers, false
ministers, false pastors, false prophets, false evangelists, those who have
snuck into the Church unaware.' They look like Christians, they talk
like Christians, they wear Christian bumper stickers on their chariots, they
listen to Christian music, they look like they fit into the Christian culture,
and he says, 'But I want you to recognize them in two ways, number one
is, they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.' Now look, the grace of God is a very, very remarkable, unbelievable,
staggering thing which was developed in the New Testament, the grace of
God. Mercy is not getting what you
do deserve, but grace is getting what you don't deserve. Ok? We've been through this. Mercy is when they commute your sentence, when you're headed
to the gas chamber. Grace is when
the governor comes in, and puts his own son in the gas chamber instead of you,
takes you out, shaves you, gives you a new suit, puts you in a car, takes you
to the court, changes your last name, makes you his son, puts you in his will,
leaves the mansion and everything he's got to you. That's grace, getting what you don't deserve, God's
grace. Now look, to me the gospel
of grace is the most demanding gospel that there is. People talk about cheap grace, and they do that in the sense
of 'aren't you afraid people are going to go out and sin again?' I'm not afraid at all. 'Well
people turn it into cheap grace,' that's their problem, it's not my problem, it's not the Bible's problem. [Comment: the apostle Paul showed us in Romans 7 what the law is for,
it's a mirror, to show us where the sin is. Paul also showed us in Romans 7 that we, of our own selves
have no power to overcome sin, on our own, through our own efforts. James in James 1:22-25 shows us the
same thing, Gods law is a spiritual mirror which reveals where the sin is. Paul goes on in Romans 8:1-10 to show
us that it is the Holy Spirit of God, now placed within us, that takes our
natural, Satan inspired hostility towards God's law away from us, and replaces
that hostility with a love for God and his laws. King David expressed this same Holy Spirit inspired love for
God and his laws in his entire 119th Psalm. Grace is not a license to sin (where
sin is defined in the Bible as the transgression of God's law in 1st John 3:4). The entire New Testament
tells us from one end to the other, not to sin, to come out of sin. And by the Bible definition for sin,
that means the entire New Testament is telling us not to break God's laws. Those who say that God's grace is a
license to go out and do whatever you want, including sin, are practicing
lasciviousness, as Jude is pointing out here. They're the false teachers, twisting God's grace into a
false definition. Once you're
pardoned by the governor, as in Pastor Joe's analogy, you're not supposed to go
out and break all the laws which got you incarcerated in the first place with
that death sentence over your head.] Because a legalistic gospel will turn you away and defeat you. Because man could never live up to the
law [without God's Holy Spirit, that is. Calvary Chapels see this a little differently than the Sabbath-keeping
Churches of God, but in essence, we live by the same obedient lifestyle. See, http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm for a discussion on
law & grace]. The gospel of
grace says to you, 'When you fail, when you fall, get up again, dust
yourself off, let's go, you have no excuse. Let's go forward.' Because God is
busy conforming you into the image and likeness of his Son [and what image is
that? 1st Peter
2:21-22, "For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
that ye should follow his steps: who
did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth…" Sin is what? "Sin is the transgression of the law" 1st John
3:4. And taking it further, the
image of Christ is more than just avoiding sin, it is having demonstrated
active love, agape-love toward others (see, http://www.unityinchrist.com/Agape/Agape%20I.htm)] And in that it is the most demanding gospel there is. But, Paul had to address the Church and
say 'Hey look, the grace of God is not license for our flesh, it's
liberty [i.e. liberty, freedom from sin], we have liberty, we're all growing,
we're all going through that process, and just because there's grace that
doesn't mean we can go out and sin [which is the transgression of the law, 1st John 3:4] and there's no big deal about it.' And Jude here says, we have to contend for the faith that was once
delivered unto the saints, because we believe there's life-changing power in
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We
live in a world that is powerless to change itself, it's drifting along in the
tide or the undertow of a culture and a society. And we're saying to them, 'We believe that if you
accept Jesus Christ, that he forgives you of your sins and the living Christ
comes and takes up residence in your being. And that he who is in us is more powerful than the one who
is in the world [i.e. Satan, the one who is in the world].' And there should be a change in our lives [through Jesus and God the
Father dwelling within us by the Holy Spirit he puts within us, cf. John 14]
when we get saved. But Jude says 'There
are those who rather take the grace of God and turn it into lasciviousness.' They tell you, 'I tell
you, you can live in sin, you can compromise, yea you can sleep with your
girlfriend, yea you can go out and drink and get drunk, what's the big deal,
yea you can spend all the family's money at Atlantic City, you're just sowing
your wild oats, you're saved by grace, don't worry. Yea, you can live this way, yea you can do that, yea you can
do this.'
Second Thing, Those
Who Have Crept In Are Denying The Lordship Of Jesus Christ
And
he says there's two problems there. One is, 'they're turning the grace of God into lasciviousness,
into license to live sinfully,' and the other is, 'denying the Lordship of our only God and Saviour Jesus
Christ.' You know, he's not just Saviour, he's
Lord. Not just
fire-insurance. Some people want
that. They just don't want to go
to hell, so they're willing to stay close enough with Jesus, they like to have
fire-insurance, but the Scripture teaches he's Lord of our lives, that he's to
be our Master, that the real pursuit of a human life is to find the right
Master. And we get mastered by
drugs, we get mastered by sex, we get mastered by money. All of those masters are cruel. Money's a great servant, it's a lousy
master. But we come finally to the
Master who laid his life down for us, who bled his life into the ground, who
gave everything for us, whose preserved us, whose called us, whose every day
whether we are cognizant of him or not, whether we're ignorant of him, and how
sad, we often go through a day and haven't sat still long enough to say 'Lord,
speak to me, here I am, lead me, make your Word alive to me today.' Because yes, he's Saviour, but he's Lord, he's Lord. And when we say the word Lord, there's
only one option, that's to serve, that's to serve. That's what people back away from. There's an accountability with it. He says this, 'Look, here I am, the end of the first
century, I can remember my older brother, I can remember when I didn't
believe. I can remember just
thinking, 'Can this really be?' and then after the resurrection, when my life
was transformed, and I think of the men that knew him and walked with him, and
the women, that laid down their lives, that have been martyred, that have gone
on. It was nothing for them.' You know, you read about these men that were tortured, that were dragged
behind chariots, that were shot full of arrows, that were skinned alive, that
were impaled, you read about what happened to the apostles. There was not struggle there, 'Boy,
should I let myself watch pornography? Can I go to an R-rated movie? Should I be smoking this or snorting this?' no, no, no, no, they were dead men,
not when they died, they dead long before that. They had laid down their lives for the One they loved. K.P. Yohanan when he spoke to us down
at the conference, he said that some of the churches in a particular area in
India got a letter, and the letter said 'We want this amount of money from
your churches within this amount of time, or we're going to start to kill all
of your pastors.' And K.P. said, 'It's easy for me to
say, if you don't think I'm spiritual that's your problem,' but he said, "I called the elders
there, and we fasted and prayed, and I said, 'You have to make a decision, you
do have money, I don't know if this is a one-time deal, I don't know all the
circumstances, I don't know what you need to do.'" And he said, "They got back to me and said, 'K.P., we prayed and said
'We're not going to do that.'" And the pastor in the middle of it, the
young pastor said, "If we do this, it's going to set an example to every
other young pastor that's being raised up to be held hostage by the
world." And he said, "If they put a bullet
through my head, it will be the fastest communication that I've ever had with
my Master. That normally when I
get alone and it takes awhile for me to get into his presence," he said, "if they shoot a bullet
through my head, I'll go right into his presence, and I'll be with him immediately." He found the right Lord, the right Master.
'I Want To Put You
In Remembrance Of Three Examples, Egypt, The Angels That Fell, Sodom &
Gomorrah'
1. The Example Of
Egypt
He
says, 'Look, I just wanted to sit down and write about what we believe,
common salvation, how wonderful it is,' and he said, 'just the Holy Spirit would not leave
me alone, it was made needful for me to write unto you that you would earnestly
contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered unto the saints, because there are these that have crept
in unaware, they're in our midst, they're a contamination to the Body of
Christ, God is going to judge them, they're ungodly, and they're turning the
grace of our God into lasciviousness, and they're denying the only Lord God,
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.' And he
says, "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this,
how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed them that believed not." (verse 5) He's saying, 'Now I want to remind you of certain things,' and a lot of our learning is
repetition. I'll tell you,
probably most believers, the most amount of Scripture they have memorized is
songs, if we sing the Psalms, a lot of the songs we sing are right out of the
Scripture, and you realize you know all the words, because you sing it every
week. Most of you can sing
a,b,c,d,e,f,g, etc., you can't just say it without singing it. You don't know the letters of the
alphabet without the tune that goes with it, I know, because I'm just like
you. Because repetition, Peter
says 'I'm not telling you anything new, as long as I'm in this body I
want to put you in remembrance,' John said, 'I'm
not giving you a new commandment, but an old commandment.' And Jude says here 'I want to put you in remembrance about some
things that you already know, as we think about this struggle in regards to
false teachers and those who would ruin the Church and the grace of God.' "I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye
once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of
Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not." (verse 5) Now he's going to talk about the children of Israel in the
wilderness, who were brought out of Egypt, he's going to talk about the angels
and the fact that they fell, and he's going to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah
and the fact that they were destroyed. He's going to use three examples of those that were extremely
privileged, and though they were extremely privileged, God had to deal severely
with them. And in verse 8 he comes
back to who he's talking about in verse 4, when he says "Likewise also these filthy dreamers…" So as he goes through, he's not telling us we're going to get destroyed,
there's certainly always an exhortation to us. But he goes through those who were in great privilege, but
also in great sin, and how God dealt severely with them, and he says "Likewise
also these filthy dreamers
defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." (verse 8) So, he's going to move through these three examples. First he says, 'The children of
Israel (verse 5), the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt,
afterward, destroyed them that believed not.' (verse 5) So, first example, children of Israel, the Lord bringing them
out of Egypt. A lot of Christians
say, 'If I could just see that. If I could just see the Lord walk on the water, if I could just see a
leper healed. If I could see a
miracle, it would make it so easy,' no, no, no, no, that will never create the stedfastness in your life (or faith)
that you long for. And when God is
ready to put a miracle before your face, he will, and when he does, you'll find
out you don't have a file to put it in [mentally]. I've seen several miracles, they make a staggering
impression momentarily, temporarily, but you don't have a file for it, and the
impression of that fades. The
children of Israel in the land of Egypt, think of what they saw, the water of
the Nile being turned to blood, the ground being turned to lice, all of the
frogs coming up on the land. My
wife would have remembered that. [laughter] You know, if she
lived in Goshen and the frogs came up and didn't mess with her stuff, she would
be 'Praise God!' Think of all of the plagues that came
on Egypt, think of the darkness, so thick they were knawing their tongues, and
yet Goshen was in the sunlight, how God divided between his people and the
Egyptians. And think of what
finally took place of course on the night of the Passover, the angel of death
going through, the blood on the doorposts and the lintels, the children of
Israel coming out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Red Sea, the Red Sea, you would think they had seen
enough in Egypt. wouldn't you? If
you saw all of those miracles, do you think you'd be standing at the Red Sea
with Edward G. Robinson saying 'Hey Moses, you brought us out here to kill
us in the wilderness, didn't yaaa,' and the people saying 'Yea, yea.' That's the way we are. They had to cross, if they crossed a mile
abreast, over 8,000 abreast, it would have taken all night to get through the
Red Sea. Not the Reed Sea, the Red
Sea, the Egyptian army destroyed the next day. How long after that they were already griping and
complaining about the fact that God could not provide for them? And mixed in with them is the "mixt
multitude." It amazes me, how the
whole movement in the Church, we want to bring the unbelievers in. There's enough trouble when there's
half-a-dozen unbelievers that want to stay with us. We love people to come in and get saved, we love
people to walk into the church, and what hits them in the face is the love and
the demands of Jesus Christ. That
he's paid the price, that they're sinful, that if they repent, turn away from
their sins, they can turn to him, he'll forgive them, they'll have eternal
life. We don't want to like get
them in and shmooze them so they don't even know what the terms are. The children of Israel had enough
problems with the "mixt multitude", we don't know how much of an influence it
was for them, they came to Kedesh Barnea, they turned away [from entering the
Promised Land]. And the whole
generation then dies in the wilderness. He's saying 'Remember the great privilege they had,' he's not saying to the Church that this is who you are, he's saying 'Remember
the examples we have, I'm putting you in remembrance of these things.' They saw miracles, all kinds of things, they were
privileged. And yet still, turned
away. 'Take heed, be
wary.'
2. Second
Example: The Angels That Kept Not
Their First Estate, That Sinned
Verse
6, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own
habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the
judgment of the great day." I'll read verse 7 because it helps
throw some light on it, "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about
them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after
strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire." (verse 7) So the second example is the
angels. It says, "which kept
not their first estate," and it puts some responsibility on them in the grammar there, 'they kept
not their first estate,' is 'their principality.' Remember Paul writes to us about
principalities and powers and so forth [angelic]. Now angels weren't involved in reproduction, angels are "a
host" they were all created on the same day. You and I, there's a Saviour for us, there's no Saviour for
angels. Because there's a fixed
number, they were all created at one time. You and I, we can blame, 'Well, if it wasn't for Adam and
Eve I wouldn't have all these problems,' we have somebody to blame, so there's a Saviour for
mankind, because sin came to the whole race through one man, there's salvation
and eternal life which comes to the whole race through one man, which is Jesus
Christ. But the angels were a
fixed number, they were a host, and they were created on a certain day, in the
days of creation. [And Job shows
the angels shouting for joy at the creation of the earth, so this angelic
creation took place probably before the BIG BANG, the creation of physical
matter, and SPACE-TIME itself.] The fall [angelic fall] occurring before the temptation of Adam and Eve. [Many think this would have been during one of the E.L.E.'s,
extinction level events, probably the KT barrier E.L.E. 65 million years ago
which killed off all life on the planet, including all the dinosaurs. Jesus did say that he saw Satan fall as
lightning to the earth in Luke 10:18.] Because Lucifer, Satan is already fallen, coming to tempt. So, 'the angels which kept not
their first estate, principality,' arotis tense 'they left, once and for all, their own
habitation, their own dominion.' There was a choice made by the angels,
and they deliberately left behind their own ascribed principality, the place
that they had ascribed to them, they left that behind, he says, and "he hath
reserved [them] in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the
great day." Darkness is bad enough, but being under
it must be worse. That sounds
scary. We, just with the senior
high, with the graduating class, we go down to Virginia, they go with a spelunker
down there, and they go caving. And part of that process is, when he gets them down into a cave at a
certain point, he turns the lights out. That's not exciting to me. When I was 13 years old I was in a cave in New Mexico, and the guide did
that to us, took us down, we crawled around, we got way down there, and he
turned the light out. Now let me tell you, that is black. You only think you know what dark is. When it's so dark if you put your, you can't see anything
but fireworks in your retinas it's so dark, there's nothing in everything, it's
just black. And that's where they're reserved, in
some place like that, under darkness, he says, "unto the judgment of the
great day." They sinned, they left. 2nd Peter tells us, "the
angels that sinned," he says, "God hath reserved unto judgment," put them into Tartaroo, into some
holding-place. It says here, "Even
as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving
themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh," "in like manner" the Greek phrase there ends with the
word tutois, it
means "to these" and it's 'even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities
about them, in like manner to these' and the gender has to refer back to, it can't refer to
cities or Sodom and Gomorrah, it goes back to "angels." 'in like manner to these [angels]
giving themselves over,' the form of that grammar here only works one way and demands one thing. And that is, 'that the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah, in like manner to these angels, gave themselves over to
fornication and on occasion going after strange flesh.' And it's one of the places in the Bible which points us to this, no
doubt, very strange situation in Genesis chapter 6, where "the sons of God go into the
daughters of men," and
take them as they want them, and giants are born out of the union. Josephus says they were fallen angels
[being referred to here in Genesis 6], the Septuagint says they were fallen
angels, all of the ancient rabbis say they were fallen angels, all the Church
fathers say that they were fallen angels. It isn't until 'modern' scholarship
looks at it and says 'it is too strange to deal with.' So, the sons of God, and competent scholars, say 'This must be
referring to the godly line of Seth, and that they went into the Canaanitish
women,' and they don't
talk about whether they're talking about Canaan, which didn't exist until after
the Flood, or Canaanitish because they were related to Cain, 'and because
you had a godly line, believers, marrying unbelievers, giants were born.' Now if that was true, our nursery would look strange back
there, you have to understand that. First of all, there was no godly line of Seth, Seth was a sinner, his
father and his mother fell, Seth had to offer sacrifices, there was no godly
line. And it says that the giants
that were born out of that [fallen angelic union with human women] were in the
earth in those days, and also after the flood. So they weren't from the line of Noah and his wife, and his
sons and their wives, because they were righteous, they were acceptable in the
sight of God, and preserved [through the Flood]. Somehow there are races of giants, the Anakim, the Elamites,
the Zamzumin, the Rephidim, there's all of these tribes of giants after the
Flood, and whatever gives birth to them [i.e. whoever sired these giants]
doesn't drown in water, that survived all of that. In fact, Deuteronomy speaks of the sixty cities of the
giants, up in the area of Bashan. A book written in the 1860s by archeologists that were there then talks
about some of those cities and what they looked like. So we have this very strange allusion to angels who left
their first principality, their assigned position, and they left that behind
once and for all, and somehow got involved in some sexual sin. And they're reserved unto the judgment
of the great day. Isaiah chapter
24, verse 21 and 22, 2nd Peter, the Book of Revelation, we're not
sure what that means. It's kind of
a strange idea. And it's strange
because it says 'As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the
days of the coming of the Son of man,' and that was
one of the strangest things that marked those days. I have an idea that the post-Rapture world is going to be a very,
very supernatural
and strange place. But these
angels, privileged, in their principality, walked in the presence of God, far
more intelligent than you and I are, able to look into the face of God. And yet in one sense, because they're
finite and God is infinite, they are not even able to understand, because
Satan, Lucifer says, 'I will be like the Most High, I'll sit in the sides of
the north, I'll do this,' not even understanding the impossibility of what he was saying, because of the
holiness of God. So there's fallen
angels.
3. Third
Example: Sodom And Gomorrah
You
see, he warns, 'Look at them, look at their place, look at their position,
the power they had, fallen.' "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the
cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and
going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire." (verse 7) "strange flesh" heteros, other than normal flesh, it's a
description of the sin Sodom and Gomorrah, sodomy, no according to God's
original plan, ah, homosexuality, he really has no connotation to it, the Bible
speaks of it in a different context. Does God love the homosexual? Of course, Christ died for the homosexual, of course. Has the Church failed to reach that
community? Probably in many ways
[except for the Brooklyn Tabernacle, pastured by Jim Cymbala, who wrote "Fresh
Wind, Fresh Fire," an
incredible book about group prayer and the power of it.] Does God love the sin? No, he doesn't. And it says here, Sodom and Gomorrah,
the cities in the plain, as lush, it was like the Garden of Eden, it was
beautiful, in the midst of God's blessing, privileged. But there was a perversion. It tells us in Ezekiel as a matter of
fact, 'Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness
of bread, and the abundance of idleness was in her, and in her daughters. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the
poor and the needy.' It says what produces that kind of
sexual perversion in a culture is pride, full belly, idle time---pride, full
belly, you have farmers producing enough for thousands of families, we're used
to going to the grocery store, getting whatever we want. I remember in the early '70s when they
had the bad earthquakes in Guatemala, friends of mine went down, were part of
the teams there, and they said people stood in line for over a mile with baskets
and buckets to get wheat. Do you
think people up here would stand in a mile long line here to get wheat? The guy with the most guns would be in
the front of the line in this culture. Pride, full belly, and idle time, idle time. What do we do with our time? We love to watch, I won't ask you to raise your hands, Scream! Scream-2! Scream-3! I haven't seen none of them. It isn't that I haven't seen something I shouldn't have
seen, but I didn't see those. I like
a good western, where all the bad guys are dead at the end. [My favorite westerns are "Last of
the Dogmen", "Hidalgo" and "Quigley Down Under"] That's why I don't' go, because there's
something in me that likes that. I
like Charles Bronson when all the nuts are dead. [Liam Neeson is good for that in a modern setting, as in his
movie "Taken!" He's a believably scary good guy.] I like Dirty Harry, 'make my day!' I like Schwarzenegger before he was governor. He's an eliminator when he gets rid of the bad guys. There's something in me that likes
that. But I can justify that, you
know, that's the good guys killing the bad guys. It's righteous. It's not like these sick hack 'em up, chop 'em up movies where it's just
perverted and cutting people up for having fun. No, the bad guys win in those sick movies. When Freddie Kruger's around, Dirty
Harry and Arnold Schwarzenegger should be there to kill him. That's what I think [laughter]. But my point is, in a culture, you
listen to the lyrics in our music now, you look at what's happening in the
movies now, you look at the television shows, look at what's all around us,
look at what's become acceptable, sexually. And there's enough of that in the Church. It is heart-wrenching sometimes to youth
pastors, when they have to talk to parents about the things the parents are
allowing the kids to do, that are coming to youth ministry---to defend children
from the license of their parents is insanity. It's insanity. He gives these three examples, and it says 'here, going after
other flesh other than God had prescribed,' they "are set forth for an example,
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." The fire
that fell on Sodom and Gomorrah was not a volcano, but whatever it was, if
you've ever been to the Dead Sea and see where Sodom and Gomorrah were, and say 'this place used to be like Eden, like the Garden of God,' whatever hit the ground there split
the earth's circumference, that rift there [called the Great Rift Valley] is
the longest rift in the world, it's one fifth of the earth's circumference, the
rift that runs from Damascus all the way down through where the Dead Sea is,
the Jordan Valley, all the way into North Africa [I believe actually central
Africa]. Whatever happened there
was extremely serious.
Those Who Have
Crept In Among Us Are Filthy Dreamers And Despise Authority
And he says, they were "set forth as
an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Yet, or "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise
dominion, and speak evil of dignities." (verse 8) Now
he comes back to those who have crept into the Church. Now look, just listen to me please, if
you're here tonight, and you sneak into this church, and you're only here to
pick up girls, go somewhere else! You know, the world's out there, go on
out there and have as much of it as you want. The Church is not called to supply your carnal needs. We can't do that! That's not what we're here for. There's a bar on the corner, go on out
there and have at it, until you're sick of it and done with it, we'll be here,
we'll love you, you're welcome to come back, and say 'Look, this is what
Christ has done for you,' if you're tired of all of that, and you're through with it, Jesus loves you,
he's paid the price for you. But
if you're here, look, I'm going to tell you something, [sounds like Pastor Joe is
picking a personal bone here, based on how some guy-folk only come into Calvary
Chapel Philly to check out the chicks, guys who are about as converted as my
cat. But he's kinda off-text
here.] in the old building we had somebody come who was blind, who was hitting
on the girls in the church. That's
why Jesus said, 'hey, if your eye offends you, pluck it out, if you think
your problem's your eye, pluck it out and you'll find out you'll still lust
without your eyes, because it's a heart-problem.' If
you think it's your hand that offends you, you slug somebody, cut it off, and
you'll slug somebody with your stump. That's what he's saying, that the heart of the problem is the heart. But if you're here tonight, and you're
here, and you're deliberately causing one of God's children to sin for your
pleasure, hey, Jude holds these things out, and says 'consider the great
privilege the children of Israel had, and those who would not believe died in
the wilderness. Consider the
angels, who could have claimed to have been closer to God, look at the
privilege they had, the light they dwelled in, what they saw, what they
understood,' don't
say 'If I could only see this, then I'd believe.' 'No, think of what they saw, and they sinned. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah, they had
everything, all of the privilege the people in this world could want, and they
sinned, and they suffered the punishment and the vengeance of eternal fire, to
be an example.' Look, look, God loves you. What Jude is saying is, we have this
common salvation, we have this message of God's love, and it's available, and
it's pure and it's holy, and it has to do with Christ, and the price that the
Father and the Son paid so that we can be forgiven. But he says, there are those if this ilk, that come in
among us, "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise
dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed
about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but
said, The Lord rebuke thee." (verses 8-9) Now no one else tells us about this
anywhere, and you read that and say, 'Well, thanks Jude, for all the details
here.' He just kind of throws this out here
for us. Michael, the archangel,
there is only one archangel, he's arch-A, he's the head angel, he is The Head
Honcho amongst angels, Michael, his specific duty is over the nation of
Israel. "Yet Michael the
archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses,
durst [dared] not bring against him [against the devil] a railing accusation,
but said, The Lord rebuke thee." So he's talking about the fact people
are in the Church, they don't understand lordship, they turn the holiness of
God into lasciviousness, because they don't understand. And it says, 'even Michael the
archangel, when he was disputing with the devil over the body of Moses,' now we're not told about this anywhere
else, but we know that God had a purpose for the body of Moses, because Moses
was going to show up on the mount of Transfiguration with Elijah, and I think
that body is going to show up sometime in the future outside of Jerusalem, one
of the two prophets. So there was
still a plan for that frame, evidently, and God knew where his body was buried,
ah, the children of Israel would have made idolatry out of his body if they had
it, no doubt [like the Catholic Church does with "relics"]. God buried him, Satan wanted to do
something to it, and behind the scenes in the spiritual realm there was some
contention over it, and Michael, the archangel, he didn't say 'Get outa here
you stupid devil! Who do you think
you are? When we get to the Book
of Revelation, one angel is gonna bind you, just one, Harry, unimportant angel,
we don't even name it, just Fred, you stupid devil.' You have people in the Church [Pentecostal types] that say 'I bind
you Satan! I do this, I put chains
on you, I do this to you, I do that to you!' He
says, chill. The best policy in
spiritual warfare is to keep the Lord between you and the devil. He can only be at one place at one
time, and we always say 'The devil made me do it,' I'm sure he's bothering Billy Graham
or George Bush or somebody else. Ok? But we do have some
buck-private demon liar whose ugly, who hassles us. 'The evil one comes, he touches us not.' We're sealed with the Spirit of promise, we're washed in the blood, and
our Dad can beat their dad. And
that's all that matters. [applause] And we just want
to keep our Dad between us and the enemy at all times. We don't want to wade in there like
we're some big expert, because we read a book. Not this book, some other book.
Those Who Have
Crept In Among Us, They're Like These Three Bad Guys
Michael himself, the archangel, didn't
bring some railing accusation, he just said, "The Lord rebuke thee." "But these speak evil of those things
which they know not: but what they
know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves."
(verse 10) 'Talking about these who have crept
into the Church, that think they're something. "they speak evil of those things which they know not:" they don't know what they're talking
about. "but what they know
naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves" the desire of the flesh, and so
forth. And he says now, "Woe
unto them! for they have gone in
the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and
perished in the gainsaying of Core." (verse 11) Woe unto them, they have gone, he says to us here, "the way of Cain," what is the way of Cain? The way of Cain, I know, you want to
know, how did Cain get his wife? Don't worry about it, that's not what God would have us think about. The way of Cain, two sons, Cain and
Abel. Cain and Abel are more alike
than any identical twins that have ever been born. God created Adam. He didn't create Eve. He
took something from Adam's side, and made Eve. With that he builded a woman. Eve had the exact same genes and chromosomes that Adam
did. And those two boys were made
from one pure strain of genes and chromosomes. They looked more alike than any identical twins that had
ever been born, there wasn't mom's side of the family and dad's side of the
family. They didn't fight about
who had Thanksgiving and Christmas with whom, they didn't have the influence of
this group of kids or that group of kids or the music or the television
shows. They're two boys, more
alike than any two that we've ever known, born to Adam and Eve, no doubt
instructed by Adam in regards to atonement. Just imagine, no matter what they found they were excited
about, that blew their minds, 'Dad, look at this! Look at this grape that's this big, look at this turtle we
found, it has 94 different colors!' and Adam was always like, 'yea, that's cool, eh, that's really something.' They must have said to Eve, 'What is wrong with dad? I mean, he is always bummed out, you
know, what is it with him?' And she probably said, 'Boys, the
other side, the other side, he can never tell you what the other side was
like. We walked in the cool of the
day, with God, before the Fall. He
can't tell you what that was like, to look into his face, to step into his
presence, to be clothed with light. That's what's wrong with your dad.' And
you know that once in a while they saw Adam go off in the evening, dragging
some lamb with him, 'baah' screaming and yelling, and he'd come back, blood on his hands, on his clothes,
peaced up, peaced out, and that look on dad's face. And he taught those boys, and when those boys came to
worship God, one of them came with God's religion and the other one came with
Cain's religion. Abel came with
the blood of the Lamb. Those are
the two fountainheads of all the religions in the world. One fountainhead is substitutionary
atonement, that an innocent substitute (a lamb, as prescribed in OT law) has to
die in our place, that somebody else has to shed their blood, because God is
just, and for him to both be just and the justifier of the ungodly, the fitting
price has to be paid and his wrath has to be satisfied. And Abel came in faith, not deserving
anything, and shed the blood of a lamb. Cain came in defiance of that, with the fruit of his own labour, the
sweat of his own brow, with the fruit of the ground where he toiled and he
laboured, coming his own way, not caring for God's way. "they have gone in the way of Cain," making up their own religious systems,
thinking that what they do is good enough, thinking they're more righteous than
other people, thinking they're better than someone else, thinking they have
some spiritual secret. "they
have gone in the way of Cain" he
says. He says, "they have run
after the error of Balaam for reward," The error of Balaam, remember Balaam,
hired by Balak the king of Moab to curse the children of Israel, because he had
heard about some of the victories they were having over the Amorites, and they
had killed Og of Bashan who was 13 foot tall, they had slaughtered giants. And now the king of Moab, Balak, thinks 'How am I ever going to do war with these people?' so he hires this prophet named Balaam,
who evidently had some notoriety for his magical arts and his power, to come
and curse the children of Israel so they could defeat them. And you remember the whole story, he
says, 'God should I go?' God says 'No.' And then they send back again, say 'are you coming?' And he says, 'Well, alright I'll go,' and on the way his donkey stops, won't
move, he's beating the donkey, kicking the donkey, trying to get the donkey to
move, the donkey finally looks up, and says, 'What is it with you!? Haven't I always been a good
donkey? I've always done
everything…' It says God opened the mouth of the ass
to speak to Balaam, and there was an angel standing there with a drawn sword
that the donkey saw that Balaam didn't see. 'I can't believe you're beating me like this.' I would have died of a heart-attack. Those of you who have dogs at home, what if you were beating
your dog, because your dog just chewed up something in the house, and your wife
just chewed your ear off because the dog chewed up something in the house, and
you're going to take your frustrations out on that poor beast, so you're
beating him around the house, and he turns around and says 'What is wrong
with you!?' You would drop dead. Balaam says to the donkey, 'You're
lucky I don't have a sword or I'd kill you.' He
argues with the donkey, like he's talked to donkeys in the past. He enters right into an argument. Don McClure, he's a Scotsman, so he
appreciates money, he says, "What kind of man would kill a talking donkey? What's wrong with that man?" The error of Balaam was that he could sell for money, he prostituted
whatever gift that he had. Look at
a television today, those prostituting the Gospel of Christ. All they care about is money, all they
do is beg for money. You know,
it's interesting, when he went to curse the children of Israel, it says the
Holy Spirit came on him, and he said 'How lovely are thy tents O Jacob,
there is no iniquity found in thee.' And he
blessed them instead of cursing them. The Holy Spirit came on him. But he still went out and figured a way to destroy the children of
Israel, for money, for money, the error of Balaam. He says, 'They've gone in the way of Cain, making up
their own religion, they despise lordship, so they don't care about God's
religion. They've run after the
error of Balaam, they're greedy, they're carnal, they care about money, what
they can get out of God's people, not how they can serve God's people or lay
their lives down for God's people,' And lastly he says, they've "perished in the
gainsaying of Core." You guys remember Numbers chapter 16
hopefully, Korah. And he's of the
tribe of Levi. He has great
privilege, he was allowed to serve, he was a Kohathite. And he comes to Moses and Aaron and
says 'You guys take too much on yourselves, who do you think you
are? You think you're the
hot-shots, you think you're the only one around here that has any
authority?' And they're envious, and they have no
respect for the leadership that God had raised up amongst the children of
Israel, and they come with their censors. And Moses says 'Is it not enough for you to be Levites, now you
have to be priests too?' And he falls before God and says 'God,
I don't want to have anything to do with them,' and Dathan and Abiram get involved in
the whole thing. And the problem
is, a Korah will never do things the way God says. God says if you have something against someone, you go to
them alone. You talk about it
privately. A Korah will always go
and blab and sow discord and cause problems, instead of going to their brother
or sister and talking to them alone. He gets 250 people involved. And then he starts a mutiny, and then comes to Moses. And Moses falls down (in front of God),
because Moses and Aaron, they didn't want the position of leadership. Moses said to God, 'Send somebody
else, I can't talk, I don't know how to talk,' God says, 'I'm sending you,' 'I
don't know how to talk,' 'What's
that in your hand?' 'I don't know
how to talk,' 'Throw it down,' it turns into a snake, and he runs away. God has to get him back again, they
didn't want it. But Korah refused
to recognize God's order, and Moses said, 'Alright, come tomorrow, bring
your censors, and maybe this is the way we'll tell, we'll have God do something
new, Korah. Let's try this,' He says to the rest of the children of Israel, 'Get away from
their tents,' He says, 'Korah, how about if God
is on your side, he does this, and opens up the ground and swallows me and
Aaron and our families, but if God is on our side, how about if he just opens
up the earth, and swallows you and your 250 buddies and everybody up?' And it says when Moses said that, the ground opened up,
Korah and all of his crew, it says, went alive down into the pit [and it
slammed shut!]. Bad day for
Korah.
In Closing
Jude, brother of James, servant of
Jesus Christ, he could have said 'Youngest brother of Yeshua, pee-wee, the
littlest one in the family.' 'I'm the servant, the bond-slave
of Jesus Christ, to those of you who are sanctified, preserved, called, mercy,
peace, and love be multiplied unto you. I sat down and I was diligent, I was going to write to you about our
common salvation, but it was needful of me to write to you in regards to the
fact that you should earnestly contend for the faith that was once and for all
delivered unto the saints, because there are those who have crept in among us,
unawares, whose judgment has been written about, spoken of by God, who are very
busy turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the Lordship of
Jesus Christ. Wherefore I put you
in remembrance of certain things, you know them, of how the children of Israel,
after all the miracles they saw, and everything that went on, and they were
brought out of Egypt, yet in unbelief and grumbling and bitterness, some of
them turned away, and they were destroyed. The angels who had unimaginable prestige and position before
God and in the presence of God, deliberately, some of them deliberately turned
away, and fell. And Sodom and
Gomorrah, with all of the blessings, there was no place on earth where life was
more lush and blessed. And yet
they just gave themselves over to perversion, and have been held up as an
example of those who will be destroyed with eternal fire. Likewise these filthy dreamers, who
come in among you, who defile themselves carnally, they're like these men. Remember this, where there's genuine
order, Michael the archangel, he's the archangel, he's the head man, when he
disputed with Lucifer, with Satan over the body of Moses, he didn't bring some
railing accusation against him, he just said, 'The Lord rebuke you,' because he
understood the order. But these,
not understanding dominion, not understanding order, defile all these
things. He says they've gone the
way of Cain, inventing their own religion, instead of the faith that was once
and for all delivered unto the saints. They've run in the error of Balaam, prostituting whatever they have,
they're driven by carnality.' In the end he's going to say, 'These have not the Spirit,' that that's their problem. But he says 'They've run after carnal things, and
like Balaam, though with certain privilege, they sold out, they sold out for
carnal pleasure and carnal means. And like Korah, they have no respect for the leadership that God has
raised up, for the truth that God has imparted to the Church. But rather see it as a place where they
can have their own position, and their own say, they're trouble-makers, cause
division instead of causing unity.' His
challenge is 'Look out, look out for those who would destroy the work of
our Lord, Saviour, older Brother, Jesus Christ.' The Epistle of Jude is exhortive, it's a challenge, not a doctrinal
treatise. Read ahead, we'll finish
the Book of Jude next week. But
what a great challenge for us. Look, if this is your family (spiritually speaking), we'll have the
musicians come, we'll sing a last song, but if this is your family and this is
your church, you have a responsibility, if you see a brother overtaken in a
fault, you have a responsibility. It says let those of you who, not the pastors, in a spirit of meekness,
challenge that person, restore them. If you see someone here, spreading discord or false doctrine, hey, stand
up. What would you do if you were
home with your brothers or your sisters, and saw somebody sneaking into the
house, claming to be a brother or sister, you'd recognize them right away in
your own house. And if they were
destructive, you'd deal with them. For all of us, you know, take some ownership, not to be judgmental, but
to be discerning. And the
exhortation is to all of us, that we would earnestly contend for the
Faith of
Christ, because
it's out there being watered down, it's being changed, they're making their own
rules about it, 'We can't talk about sin, because it's bad for self-esteem,
we can't talk about hell, we can't talk about sin, we can't talk about
adultery, we can't talk about drunkenness, we can't talk about drugs, we can't
talk about homosexuality, we can't talk about abortion, we can't talk about the
culture, we can't talk about people that are lost, we can't talk about right
and wrong,' no, no,
no, you're the light of the world, the salt of the earth, you and I are the
ones receiving this exhortation that we would earnestly contend for the
faith. It still has the power to
save people, and to change their lives forever. It still has the power to save, the same as it did 2,000
years ago when Christ handed it to the apostles, so…[transcript of a connective
expository sermon on Jude verses 1-11, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary
Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]
related links:
What is "the Faith" we're supposed to
contend for? It's outlined in the
Gospel of Christ. see, http://www.unityinchrist.com/misc/WhatIsTheGospel%20.htm
What was the early Church like? See,
http://www.unityinchrist.com/history2/earlychurch1.htm
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