Now open your Bibles with me
to the book of Jude. Again, next to the last book
of the Bible, where this man Jude, who is the
half-brother of Jesus of Nazareth, wrote as he was inspired by the
Holy Spirit to write these words, words of Holy Scripture, God
breathed words, that's what I read at the beginning in Second Timothy.
This is the word of God, this is not the word of men. Even
though God did use men to write these words, he is the author. And so when we read the Bible,
we read it as the word of God. We read it as the book of life. We read it as our authority. This is our authority. There
was a preacher one time who called a preacher friend of his in another
state. And when he called the man, he
said, last night I had a revelation from God, and I just want to
check it out with you. And the preacher on the other
end of the phone said, well, if it's from God, why do you need
my opinion? If somebody tells me that they
have a revelation from God, you know what the first thing I'd
ask them? Where did it come from? Because if it didn't come from
this book, forget it. That's right. That's how great
this book is from Genesis to Revelation. I put in the bulletin
today a little poem written by a man, I don't know who he was,
John Clifford, talking about the blacksmith, the anvil and
the hammer, and how all those hammers wear out over the years,
but that anvil stays the same. This Bible has come under so
much criticism since God providentially brought it together, even by
some hands that were hands attached to unbelievers. But that's the
providence of God. And he brought it together. And
this Bible has come under so much criticism and so many attacks
and all those criticisms and attacks, they're like those hammers,
pound on the anvil and they wear out and they go away, but there's
the anvil. And here it is, the word of God. Well, Jude had reminded
these professing believers that God is a righteous judge. That's
what the Bible tells us. Who must and who will punish
all sin with divine judgment. How does that make us feel? God
cannot look over, pass over, or ignore any sin. In our minds
we look out at people and we talk about great sins and lesser
sins and we may flippantly sometimes say we're all sinners. We shouldn't
say that flippantly, we are. Including this preacher, I'm
a sinner saved by grace. That's it. That's my fame. Only a sinner saved by grace.
Only a sinner saved by grace. This is my story. To God be the glory. And God
is a God of, He's holy, He's righteous, He's just, and He
must punish all sin. How does that make us feel? Well,
if we're in Christ, sinners saved by grace, washed clean from our
sins in His blood. That's just a metaphorical way
of saying that He paid my sin debt with His own life. Clothed
in His righteousness, His righteousness imputed, charged to me. I stand before God in a Righteous
robe. That's a metaphor for the merits
of Christ's death charged to my account. My sins were charged
to Him. As sinners saved by grace, we who believe in Christ, here's
the comfort that we have knowing that God is a just God and must
punish all sin. Here's our comfort. In Christ,
we have already suffered the full measure of divine punishment
for all our sins. in the death of Christ as our
surety, our substitute, our redeemer. Our judgment is passed. We who
are in Christ, we're safe and we're secure. We cannot be charged
with our sins. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? That's what it says. Who can
condemn us? What is the reason that God cannot
condemn me? The next verse in Romans 8 there
says, it is Christ who died, yea rather, risen again, seated
at the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession
for us. We cannot be condemned because we're in Christ. He was
condemned in our stead. That's what substitution is all
about. That's what saved by grace means. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now whose righteousness
does grace reign by? Yours? Mine? No, it's Christ.
And He has given it to me as a free gift. It's called in Romans
5, the gift of righteousness. And how did God apply it to me?
By the divine act of imputation. He erased my debt. He washed
my debt away. and gave me his merits, his righteousness. And that's what the scripture
teaches. We cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ,
Romans 8 tells us. And because of God's grace and
power in Christ, we who are truly saved, we cannot leave him. We cannot forsake him. Why? Because
he won't let us go. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, him that cometh to me I will no wise cast out.
This is the will of him that sent me, that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the
last day. Now that being the case, God
has determined to glorify himself in the salvation of his people
in a way that the world looks at as foolishness. You see, God
is a God of means and ways, and all the ways and means that He
employs, they glorify Him. They don't glorify men. They
glorify God. And He has determined in His
sovereign will and good pleasure to glorify Himself, honor Himself,
lift up Himself in the salvation of His people through a means
that the world says is foolish, and you know what it is? It's
the preaching of the gospel. The preaching of the good news.
And when that good news is empowered by God, empowered by God now,
not by the eloquence of the preacher, not by how he looks, not by how
many jokes he tells, and not by how he can keep you awake,
When that word is empowered by God through the preacher, it
will bring his elect, his sheep, the people of his love, his church,
into the fold. And that's why it's called the
power of God's word. That's why the gospel is the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. You
know, if you're a believer today, if you're really a believer now,
not just claiming to be, That means the true Gospel has been
empowered by God to your salvation. To bring you to Christ. And what
Jude is saying here in these few verses is for the church
and for the ministers, pastors, elders, evangelists, that's our
calling. To preach the Word of God. My
calling is not to entertain you. I wouldn't be very, as you know,
I'm not very good at entertaining anybody. The power, the authority is not
in how I can keep you awake or how many jokes I tell or my eloquence
or my pulpit presence. The power is the word of God.
My old pastor used to say it this way, preach Christ and then
get out of the way. That's a good idea for preachers.
Preach Christ, preach God's Word, and get out of the way. Leave
people open to the Word of God. And that's what Jude is saying
here. He's talking about false preachers who have crept into
the church unawares, unknowingly, stealthily. And one of the ways
you can know them is because they don't stay with God's Word. They may quote a verse here and
quote a verse there. I had a friend from Texas who
used to call them longhorn sermons. Point here, point there, and
a lot of bull in between. Preachers who read a verse and
then they launch out and the verse and the preacher never
meet again. These false preachers, they may
quote a verse, they may say some right things, but they don't
stay with the authority and the power of God's word. You see,
God, listen to me, God does not call his sheep into the fold
by the preaching of a lie or an error. He does so by the gospel,
the good news. wherein the righteousness of
God is revealed, wherein we see the glory of the person of Christ.
Who is Jesus Christ? Because I tell you, that person
there, who is Jesus Christ? That's our salvation. He's our
salvation. It doesn't matter who I am and
how many credentials I have and whatever letters you want to
put on the end of my name. It's Christ. God. Manifest in the flesh. That's
who He is. That's the kind of person it
takes to save sinners like us. If he was only God, he couldn't
save us. Did you know that? Because God
cannot die. If he's only man, he could not
save us. You know why? Because man cannot
work forth an everlasting righteousness and give eternal life. He's God-man. He's God-manifest in the flesh.
He's the living Word of God. And that living word was made
flesh and dwelt among us. God manifest in the flesh. Emmanuel, God with us. And the gospel proclaims not
what we do for him, not what we should do for him. Now we
should do a lot of things in obedience to honor him and thank
him. But the gospel declares what
he's done for us. for his people, for his sheep. The good shepherd gives his life
for the sheep. And so he commands us, his church,
to preach the truth, to contend for the faith, and stand against
all of Satan's ministers who would pervert or confuse or compromise
that truth. You know, in the Bible, the church
is called the pillar and ground of truth. And you know when people go looking
for a church, I've heard it a lot of times, I get phone calls from
people, what can your church offer me? And I'm not joking
with them when I simply tell them we can offer you the true
gospel and the word of God. You know that's not what they're
looking for though. They're looking for programs to keep the kids
busy and this, that, and the other, social atmosphere, all
of that. They're not looking for the truth.
Here in these verses, listen to this in verse of Jude. In these verses, God the Holy
Spirit exposes in detail false preachers who have crept in and
assures that they'll be judged by God in the same way as all
unbelievers. And he says, look at verse eight,
this is Jude eight. He says, likewise, also these
filthy dreamers, Now the word filthy's been added by the translators,
but it's a good addition. These dreamers. How many preachers
do you hear that say, I had a dream? I can remember one out in Kansas,
I think it was, that said he had a dream, and he dreamed of
a 10-foot Jesus. But it was a false Jesus, a false
Christ, And these filthy dreamers, these false preachers who preach
their ideas, their opinions, their dreams. Jeremiah talked
about it in his day. He said, those who come preaching,
I've dreamed a dream. Let me tell you about my dream.
I don't want to tell you about my dreams. It embarrasses me. These filthy dreamers, and they
defile the flesh, he says. Like Israel of old, you remember
back here he talked about Israel who came out of Egypt and those
were destroyed who did not believe and what did they do? They went
into idolatry, that's what that defiling the flesh, it can refer
to immorality, sexual immorality, but it also refers to idolatry.
Like Israel of old, they defile the flesh by their behavior,
by their idolatry, not encouraging believers to fight sin in a godly
way. Like all false prophets, they
preach lies in the name of Christ, claiming to be Christian. Like
unbelieving Hebrews, they defile the flesh by preaching not the
true and living God as he's revealed in this word, but a God who's
like unto themselves. The God they preached was one
who would accept the works of men for salvation and who would
not allow men to fulfill their fleshly lust while claiming to
be saved. All of that. Just like them. And he says, like the fallen
angels, they despised dominion as they hated the truths as it
is in Christ and salvation by him alone. They don't want to
be under the authority of God's word. exclusively. They refuse to bow to the Lord
God and submit to Christ as the Lord their righteousness. They
despise the truth that inspires God's true people to live godly
lives, not only in the realm of morality but in contending
for the truth, all of these things. And then, in verse eight, they
speak evil of dignities. Just like Sodom and Gomorrah,
they speak evil of the true Christ and his ministers who preach
the one and only true gospel of God's grace. They hate the
authority of God's word. They want to say, well, let's
add our opinions. When I read that, I thought about
John chapter three, Verse 19, where it says, the light has
come into the world, and that light is Christ, and the gospel
that reveals Christ, that describes and preaches the true Christ,
and it says, and men love darkness and hate the light, because their
deeds are evil. Look at verse nine. Now it says
here, yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil,
He disputed about the body of Moses, does not bring a railing
accusation, against him a railing accusation, but said, the Lord
rebuke thee. Now that verse has given a lot
of people a lot of different opinions and a lot of trouble.
Because this incident of Michael the archangel disputing with
the devil over the body of Moses, you can read from Genesis to
Revelation, you're not going to find any reference to that
in this book. Some of the scholars, so-called, they say this is,
you got this from another book that's not in our Bible. You've
heard of the Apocrypha, the intertestamental scriptures, and you'll see it
in the Catholic Bible, but they're not God-breathed, inspired words
of God. I've read them, I've studied
them. They're not, they don't belong in this book. But there is one called the Ascension
of Moses, which states a lot of mythology. And one incident
here about the devil striving to bring up the body of Moses,
the actual dead corpse of Moses. Now, nobody knows where Moses
was buried. God saw to that. But Michael the archangel, what
is an archangel? Well, that's the lead angel.
The word angel, you know, means messenger, doesn't it? Even God's
preachers are called angels, you know that? I can assure you
I don't have wings under this coat. I'm a messenger, though, in that
sense. You read the book of Revelation,
the angel of the church, that's the pastor, the elder. So some people say, well, this
is the head angel Michael. Now, nowhere in the Bible Will
you find any hierarchy of angels? That came out of the heresy of
Catholicism. And what does the word Michael
mean? It means one who is like God. That's what the name means. And some say, well, this must
have been an incident where this head angel disputed with Satan
to bring up the body of Moses because Satan wanted to bring
that body back up in order to put it before the children of
Israel so they could worship it. And I agree that men and
women by nature will worship all kinds of icons. They'll go
to this grave and that grave and say they're healed and all
kinds of stuff. But I don't believe that's what
it's talking about. There are some who say that Michael the
archangel is actually a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ. And I have
a tendency to go along with that. And the body of Moses here is
not referring to Moses' dead corpse, but the body of the law
of Moses. And then we begin to understand,
now you don't have to agree with me on that. If you don't, you
can be wrong, but that's okay. This is not essential gospel
doctrine, other than this point here that I'm about to make.
Satan has always sought to bring sinners to seeking righteousness
by their works of the law. That's his goal. Satan, let me
tell you something. Satan would rather have you in
a false church, hearing and believing a false gospel, having false
assurance, much more than he would have you down at the local
bar drunk. Now that's right. Is it wrong
to be down at the local bar drunk? Yes, it is. But I don't think
most of those people down there who are drunk think that's going
to save them. They know they're doing wrong. But sitting in a
false church under a false gospel in a false refuge? You remember
what Christ told the Pharisees when they go out to encompass
sea and land to get converts to their law keeping? He says,
when you get one you make him two-fold more the child of hell
than you are. Because now they're ensconced
in a false profession. And boy, I'll tell you what it
takes to get you out of a false profession to get me out of a
false profession. It takes the power of God's Word. Whatever you believe, if it's
Michael the archangel, or if you believe like I do that it's
a pre-incarnate visitation of Christ, here's what this verse
teaches. Here's what we need to take away
from this verse. It said that Michael durst not
bring against him a railing accusation. In other words, he wasn't arguing
with him. He wasn't giving him his opinion.
But he said this, look at verse 9. The Lord rebuke thee. Now, some people say, well, that
couldn't have been Christ's thing, or He wouldn't have said, the
Lord rebuke thee. He would have said, I rebuke thee. Hold on. Turn to Matthew chapter 4. I
want to show you something. Now, here's a passage where nobody
can argue that this is not the Lord Jesus Christ Himself contending
with the devil. He's on the Mount of Temptation.
And I want to show you how the Lord Jesus Christ himself went
against the devil on the Mount of Temptation. Look at verse
one of Matthew four. Then was Jesus led up of the
Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, tested of the devil.
And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he was afterward
hungry. He was hungry, just like you
and I would be hungry. Now that was a human element
of Christ without sin. He had no sin, but he suffered
the infirmities of the flesh. He was hungry. Verse three, and
when the tempter came to him and he said, if thou be the son
of God, command that these stones be made bread. Look how Christ
answered. He answered and said, it is written. You see that? It's written, man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. What did he do? That's the equivalent
of saying the Lord rebuketh thee. What is God saying? Christ is
God. He's God in human flesh without
sin. He is the living word. He's the
incarnate word, the subject of the written word, the preached
word. And yet under the authority He basically says, the Lord rebuketh
thee. What does the Bible say? This is quoted from Deuteronomy.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God. Where are we going to find the
words that proceed out of the mouth of God? Right here in this
book. Now he didn't have the written scriptures back then,
other than the Old Testament. He knew the word of God, he knew
the authority. Well, let's go on. He says in verse five, then
the devil taketh him up into the holy city, that's Jerusalem,
and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto
him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down, for it is
written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in
their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash
thy foot against a stone. Now what's the devil doing here?
He's quoting from the Psalms. The devil quotes Scripture. Think
about it. So do false preachers. But they
don't preach Christ. They don't preach salvation by
God's grace based upon a righteousness imputed. And if they do, they
don't stay with it because their heart's not in it. 2 Corinthians
11. Well listen to how the Lord answered
him here. Verse 7, Jesus said unto him, It is written, Again,
thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. It's written. And then
one more verse say, again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding
high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world
and the glory of them. And he said unto him, all these
things will I give thee if thou will fall down and worship me.
And then Jesus says, Jesus unto him, get thee hence Satan for
it is written. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
God and him only shalt thou serve. Now, could Christ had simply, without speaking
a word, just crushed the devil and thrown him out? He had that
power, but that's not what he did. He invoked the authority
of his own word. That's what he did. And that's
what we're to do. And I believe that's what Christ
back here in the book of Jude was doing. And if you believe
it was an archangel or whatever, that's what he was doing. False
preachers tell you that in some way, now listen to this, in some
way salvation is conditioned on you in some way at some stage
to some degree. Something that you do by way
of keeping the law. Establishing righteousness by
your works. But the Word of God says, oh
no. Righteousness comes only by Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's the Word of God. And as
false preachers, look at verse 10. He says, these speak evil
of those things which they know not. One of the greatest accusations
that false preachers bring against the preaching of God's free and
sovereign grace, oh, you give people an excuse to sin. Now
you know why that accusation comes from them? Because without
their legalism, they don't have any motivation not to sin. That's right. The only motive
they have is legal and mercenary. You know what legal is? That
means fear of punishment. You know what mercenary is? That's
for promise of earned reward. I had a fellow up in Ohio tell
me that the reason he preached is because he felt like he wanted
more rewards than everybody else. That's a false preacher. I'm
not getting any more reward or rewards for what I'm doing today
than you are from sitting there if you're a believer. because
nothing of salvation has been earned or deserved by me or you.
It's all a free gift from God. Paul the apostle has no higher
position in glory than the thief on the cross who looked to Christ.
Do you believe that? Surely the false preacher says,
surely Paul's got a bigger mansion. Huh? He's got to. And you know what happened to
David when he sinned? You know David had worked up
a mansion in heaven, but when he sinned with Bathsheba, he
just earned himself an old hut on the beach somewhere. A tent
maybe. No. No. It's all of grace based upon
a righteousness imputed. Righteousness that Christ worked
out. That's the whole thing. And they speak evil of those
things. Verse 10, but what they know naturally is brute beast
in those things they corrupt themselves. You know what that's
saying? They preach what's natural to man. Now the Bible tells us
the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
Neither can he know them. They're spiritually discerned. And so when they preach their
salvation by works conditioned on sinners, they're only speaking
what's natural to man. Just like, no better off than
the brute beasts who operate in the jungle by their instincts. That's what he's saying. But
when God brings a sinner to know Christ and to preach Christ,
that's a miraculous, God-sent, divine message. That's what it
is. And the reason we must be born
again by the Spirit of God is because without the Spirit of
God giving us spiritual life, we're no better off than the
natural brute beast who walks by his instincts. And that's
what false preachers do. But my friend, you know, we sing
a song, there's power in the blood. Well, there's power in
the Word that preaches the blood, if God's pleased. You know, over
in 1 Peter chapter 1, It tells us in verse 22, 1 Peter
chapter 1 verse 22, seeing you have purified your souls and
obeying the truth, that's the truth revealed to sinners in
the power of God through the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the
sovereign agent that comes forth from the Father and the Son,
empowering the Word of God to bring us to faith and obedience. unto unfeigned or sincere love
of the brethren, so that you love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Now listen to this, verse 23,
being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now my dream,
it may entertain you, but it's not gonna live and abide forever.
But this word will. The gospel will. All flesh is
as grass, you've heard this, all the glory of man. As the
flower of grass, the grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth
away. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is
the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. Listen to this. Christ said in John chapter five,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.
Do you hear the word of God? What does the Bible tell us about
hearing? It tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. The hearing ear, spiritually speaking, is
a gift from God. You must be born again. Well,
you don't have ears to hear. You'll hear this just like you
hear any other morality tale. But this is life. Peter said
that. When the multitudes were following
Christ and then they turned away from Him, Christ looked over
and He looked at His disciples and He said, will you go away
also? Peter said, to whom shall we go? You have the words of
life. We've got no place to go. James 1.18, of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth, that we should be kind of firstfruits.
But here's the, here's one I quote all the time. Romans 1.16 and
17. The gospel, Paul said, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, the Greek,
or the Gentile also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed. When you hear the gospel, you're
hearing about the righteousness of God. From faith to faith it
is written, the just shall live by faith. What is the righteousness
of God? It's the entire value, merit, worthiness, power of the
obedience unto death of the Lord Jesus Christ as my surety who
took my sins and put them away. My substitute died on that cross
to secure and save his people from their sins. Not to try to
save them. He didn't die for everybody to
make a stab at. He secured the salvation of his
sheep, he said in John 10. And as my redeemer. The gospel
presents the true Christ who is the good tree that cannot
produce evil fruit. The gospel reveals the righteousness
of God and not any supposed boasted righteousness of men. The gospel
sets forth a righteousness imputed, charged to my account. What did
David say? As Paul wrote it in Romans 4,
6, the blessedness of the man unto whom the Lord imputeth,
chargeth, accounteth, righteousness without works. That's what the
gospel teaches. It's called the word of righteousness.
And we need to pay heed to it. We need to be affected by it
and we pray God that he will send the spirit to empower it
under the salvation of his people. Hear the word of, oh earth, earth,
earth, Jeremiah said, hear the word of the Lord. That's what
we're all about, okay.