Good morning, everyone. Good
to see you here this morning. Today's message is taken from
the Book of Jude, where we're going to focus primarily on the
first four verses of this short epistle. You know, most of the
New Testament epistles have headings such as the Second Epistle of
John or the Epistle of Paul, the Apostle to the Ephesians.
But note that the Book of Jude is titled the General Epistle
of Jude, and that's because it was not written to a specific
church at a specific location. but rather it was sent generally
to the church, to all believers everywhere, and it's certainly
relevant in our day. And in my study, I became impressed
with the similarity between the heresy of which Jude writes that
had already developed within the early church and that which
remains and is pervasive in our day within the professing church. By that I mean among those who
consider themselves to be Christians. But I'm speaking of those who
have embraced and promoted a false, a perverted gospel, a way of
salvation that's contrary to God's gospel of salvation by
grace alone. as it's set forth in God's Word.
You know, sadly, the more popular version of the doctrine that's
referred to today as salvation by grace. I'm speaking of the
doctrine taught and embraced by most professing, quote, Christians
in our day. Actually, as we'll see today,
it's a perversion of grace. just as had surfaced in the day
of the Apostle Jude. And so, in keeping with Jude's
exhortation to oppose this, I've titled this message, The Perversion
of Grace. The one chapter book of Jude,
it's an exhortation to believers to continue in and to contend
for the faith, the gospel of God's grace in Christ. Now, to
contend for the faith is to stand firm in opposition to any false
doctrine, the false doctrine of which Jude writes. And that
requires our discernment and understanding. And so Jude spends
a large portion of the book describing the methods and the practices
of unbelievers who would pervert God's gospel. But he starts out
his message with a stark distinction between those to whom he is writing,
the saved, and the lost within the professing church. Again,
among those who consider themselves to be Christians. And it's important
that we see this. This is often the case with many
of the New Testament epistles. Think of how much is written
to religious people. So we see that Jude's epistle,
it's delineating not just between saved and lost, but between the
saved and lost among those who would profess to believe on Christ.
And we're going to focus on the very striking distinctions he
makes between these two groups as found in the first four verses
of Jude. And I'll say at the onset, you
know, I know there are many insincere pretenders who attend various
churches for less than noble reasons. Some people choose a
church for business advantages or for social reasons. And I
think when that's the case, it usually becomes apparent to others
in their congregations, you know, over time. Although I know we
can be fooled. But Jude is warning against those
who had crept into their houses of worship, were on their way
in, so to speak, by appearing to be in agreement with God's
gospel of grace. while in reality, as we'll see,
they held to a perverted notion of grace. Another gospel, a false
gospel. And I'm probably overemphasizing
this, but it's because I want everyone who hears this message
to strive to objectively hear these distinctions God makes
through the Apostle Jude. This general epistle is just
as relevant to our day. So let's examine ourselves anew,
afresh, by these descriptions. and test whether our faith is
valid, true God-given faith or not. That's a lot easier said
than done. Think about it. As much as the
New Testament warns against those false professors, religious folks
who believe a false gospel, None of us knowingly believe a false
gospel. If we did, we'd no longer believe
it. So we have evidence in the scripture there's many false
professors in the Christian church. But we all start out listening
to this message thinking, well, that's not me. So that means
it's incumbent on us to set aside our preconceived judgments and
consider afresh what God's word has to say. I pray we can open
our minds to hear from God with the attitude of the psalmist
who wrote, search me, oh God, and know my heart, and try me,
and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in
me, and lead me in the way everlasting. So let's make that our sincere
prayer today. Now, as I said, Jude's writing
to those who were saved, true, genuine believers in the professing
church. And they're described as the
book opens in verse one, where we read, 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. He's writing to the saints, the
sanctified ones. You know, I was speaking with
some men before church and commenting on how in my former spiritual
darkness, I would read passages like this, that as many of the
epistles open in a similar fashion, and I would quickly conclude,
well, that's talking about me because that's talking about
believers. It's describing the saved. But in hindsight, I know
it was if I was reading someone else's mail at the time, because
while I thought it included me, I glossed over those descriptions
of those who were saved. See, I didn't believe the descriptions
to be true of me, so we see the contradiction. And you can see
this in the very first phrase, where believers are described
as those who are sanctified by God the Father. In this verse
one, we see the work of the entire triune Godhead, Father, Son,
and Spirit. And he begins with the sanctification
of all true believers by God the Father. To be sanctified
means to be set apart. The saints, all true believers,
are sanctified. In some context, the word sanctified
means to be made holy. And as we're about to look at,
you'll see in Ephesians 1 that both of those descriptions, made
holy, set apart, could be applied to the saints. Although, clearly
here I think in Jude 1, it's more a direct reference to God
having chosen or elected, set apart a people in Christ from
before the world began. You say, well, how can you say
that? All it says is sanctified by
God the Father. How do you know that's what that
means? Well, we interpret Scripture with Scripture. And look with
me at Ephesians 1, where Paul opens his epistle to the church
at Ephesus saying, in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him. before the foundation of the
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him
in love. You know, in Peter, in 1 Peter
2, he refers to the saints as a chosen generation. So true
believers to whom Jude's epistle is directed They're first identified
as those chosen by God the Father in Christ, before the foundation
of the world. Chosen, set apart, sanctified
by God the Father. And secondly, they are described
in Jude 1 as those blessed by God the Son, as it reads, as
they are preserved in Christ, in Jesus Christ. And that preservation
in Christ, it didn't just start when we came to believe God's
gospel. See, just as God's elect were chosen in Christ from before
the world began, they have thereby always had this inseparable grace
union with Christ, whereby they have been and they shall continue
to be preserved in Him, that from all eternity through all
eternity. God saw his elect in Christ,
represented by him, one with him, even before they fell with
the rest of humanity in their common representative, Adam.
But the elects, they never fell out of their union with Christ.
They're eternally united to Christ, and thereby they're eternally
preserved. and by God's design. So you haven't
fallen with the entire human race in Adam. God is glorified
in the subsequent redemption of his elect. It was a redemption
made necessary because of Adam's fall, but that was no contingency
plan. It's all in keeping with God's
infinitely wise, eternal purpose and will. God's elect were ruined
by the fall of the rest of humanity in order that they might be preserved
by Christ's redeeming work on the cross, his blood payment
due unto the Father's holy justice for their sin. And thereby, see,
God achieves his chief design. He receives all glory. God's
elect then continue to be preserved so that God will, in time, be
glorified in their hearts, that they will experience and enjoy
in their respective lifetimes all the privileges of grace that
derive from that everlasting covenant of grace made between
Father, Son, and Spirit. God's elect then were preserved,
see, in Christ before being called to Christ in belief of the gospel.
On that note, a few weeks back, some of you may have read it.
Jim put an excellent article in our church's bulletin. It
was written in the 19th century by J.C. Philpott, and I want
to share that with you. And he was commenting actually
on Jude verse one. He wrote this, he said, what
a mercy it is for God's people that before they have a vital
union with Christ, that is before they're grafted into him, he
said experimentally, I think in our day we'd probably use
the word experientially, meaning before they came to know of their
union, they have an eternal, imminent union with him. He goes
on to say, he says, it's by virtue of this eternal union that they
come into the world, at such a time, at such a place, from
such parents, under such circumstances as God has appointed. It's by
virtue of this eternal union that the circumstances of our
lives are ordained. By virtue of this eternal union,
they are preserved in Christ before they are effectually called. They cannot die until God has
brought about a vital experiential union with Christ. So whatever
sickness they may pass through, whatever injuries they may be
exposed to, whatever perils assault them on sea or land, die they
will not, die they cannot until God's purposes are executed in
bringing them into a vital union with the son of his love. Thus
this eternal union watched over every circumstance of their birth,
over their childhood, over their manhood or adulthood, watched
over them until the appointed time and spot when the God of
all grace, according to his eternal purpose, was pleased to quicken
their souls and thus bring about an experiential union with the
Lord of life and glory. Now there should be no doubt
if they were so preserved in Christ from eternity past that
there existed no possibility of Christ not coming in time
to die for their sins, no possibility that they would not be preserved
until they were conceived and subsequently called a Christ
in belief of God's gospel of grace, then it's likewise certain
and sure they will be preserved until grace sees them in heaven's
eternal glory, forever preserved from eternity through all eternity. Think about that. You believers,
rejoice in your future certainty as you look back and marvel at
how the Lord ordered the events of your lives to bring you to
a place like this, to here, and cause you to embrace this glorious
gospel of grace. See what a blessing is found
in that little phrase, preserved in Jesus Christ. So true believers,
to whom Jude's general epistles directed, they're identified
first as those chosen by God the Father in Christ, sanctified. Secondly, as those preserved
from eternity to eternity in Jesus Christ. Thirdly, believers
are described in Jude 1 as those blessed by God the Holy Spirit,
as it reads that they are called. Now, Jew doesn't invoke the name
of the Holy Spirit, but we know that's implied because from other
scripture we know it is the work of the Holy Spirit to call sinners
from spiritual darkness to light, to the light of the gospel of
God's grace. Paul spoke of this work of the
Spirit really along with the work of the entire, all three
persons of the Godhead when he wrote this in 2 Thessalonians
2.13. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation, sanctified by God the Father, through sanctification
of the Spirit. Now he's speaking of being set
apart in regeneration and conversion, being saved through the sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you
by our gospel. to the obtaining of the glory
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Believers are called by God the
Holy Spirit to believe God's gospel of grace by the blood-bought
gift of faith that was purchased for them by Christ, in whom they're
preserved all the way to final glory. You know, I think our
appreciation for the blessing of the Spirit's calling of God's
elect is enhanced if we just will remember that until that
takes place in God's appointed time, that none of the eternally
blessed children of God have any apprehension of the love
of God the Father in election, or of the grace of God the Son
in redemption by which they're preserved. So believers rejoice
in having been so enlightened by the gospel call of the Holy
Spirit. So again, all true believers
to who Jude's general epistles directed, they're identified
as those chosen by God the Father in Christ from before the foundation
of the world, set apart, sanctified by God the Father. And secondly,
as those preserved from eternity to eternity in Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, as those irresistibly
called by the Holy Spirit, by the means of the preached gospel
of God's grace in Christ. What does this mean? Well, it
means if you're one of the saints described by God through the
Apostle Jude, you're not going to have a problem with being
sanctified, preserved, and called. You're going to rejoice in it.
You see, these descriptions are reserved for the saints. They
describe only them, and they describe each and every one of
them. Those who shall, without fail, inherit heaven's eternal
glory by God's grace in Christ. That means if you're a believer,
you're going to have a problem with the glorious doctrine of
election. No, you're going to discover you need it. You see,
if you truly believe salvation is by grace, that necessitates
the truth of election. no election, then salvation's
not by grace. Think about that with me. If
salvation is not totally of God, then that means it has to be
owing to something in the other party of salvation, the sinner.
Something that the sinner must merit, at least in part. But
salvation's by grace, and grace refers to the unmerited favor
of God as far as the recipient is concerned. So that's not salvation
by grace, but many call it grace. But don't be deceived, that's
salvation by works, and God won't have it. Secondly, if you're
a believer, you'll have no problem with the doctrine of eternal
preservation of the saints. You'll believe once saved, always
saved, because true believers know that all the conditions
for their salvation were fully met, see, by the eternally immutable,
unchangeable Son of God in whom they're preserved. And thirdly,
if you're a believer, you'll have no problem with the calling
of the Holy Spirit. you'll believe in the doctrine
of his effectual, invincible, irresistible calling. Because
you see, we come to see by the light of God's gospel who we
are. Sinners. Sinners. The Bible describes
us as children of wrath, just as others, by nature. You see, we were all in times
past spiritually dead, in spiritual darkness, and so thereby we recognize
we never would come to believe this gospel on our own. You truly
need God's mercy and grace. We need his electing grace, we
need his preserving grace, we need his grace and his effectual
call to believe God's gospel of grace. You see, you'll believe
Christ when he said in John 6, 44, no man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me drawing, and I will raise him
up at the last day. You'll realize you must have
been called, that your salvation cannot be a product of your free
will decision. A believer believes God as he
spoke through the Apostle Paul. saying, it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now, back to Jude, as we move
to verse two, he expresses his desire that the resulting graces
from their sanctification, preservation, and calling be multiplied. As he writes, mercy unto you,
and peace and love be multiplied. Those who are truly saved, you
see, among the professors of Christianity, they're recipients
of God's mercy, peace, and love. A grace that's absent can't be
multiplied. Jude's desire that these graces
be multiplied is an expression of his wish and desire that they
have an expanding view and a growing appreciation for their being
so blessed. See, multiplied with fresh applications,
as we attend the God-appointed means, as we're doing this morning
in gathering to worship, means for growth in grace and knowledge
of Him. And we worship one God who subsists
in three persons. But all three persons, one God,
they're of one mind and essence. And truly God in His threefold
character of persons, The entire Trinity, see, is the fountain
of all mercy and peace and love. But I find it interesting to
consider how these fruits and effects of the glorious acts
of grace that Jude had mentioned in verse one are related. Fruits and effects here that
every true believer experiences. So consider the mercy from God
the Father. That's not mercy. if you presume
to do something to save yourself. But what mercy we behold when
we see the source of our salvation having originated from God having
chosen us, God who the scripture says is no respecter of persons,
having chosen us in the election of grace so as to show mercy
on us. I'm talking about on sinners,
unworthy and undeserving just as much as all of the fallen
race of humanity in Adam. You know, if you ever see, if
you're convinced of sin by God the Holy Spirit, you'll see your
unworthiness to be saved. If God judges me based on the
best sermon I could preach, I would deserve His eternal wrath. You
see, if we see how undeserving we are, then and only then do
we really see we truly need God's mercy. Secondly, consider the
peace made between God and His elect, all those He saves. peace
that was made by the redeeming work of God the Son. God's Word
tells us that Christ's work of reconciliation finds true believers,
as we read in Ephesians 1, as holy and unblameable. Elsewhere
it says unreprovable before God. Ha! A sinner like me and you,
holy? Unblameable? Oh yes, for they
have the very merit of the perfect righteousness of God which Christ
established for them as their substitute, which God imputed,
or charged, to their accounts, in the same way as we learned
from 2 Corinthians 5.21 that he became sin. He had their sins,
the demerit of those, the guilt, imputed or charged to him. so
that he could pay the debt due unto God's justice that would
find them all accepted in the beloved, accepted in their substitute
and surety, Jesus Christ. Lastly, consider the love shed
abroad in the believer's heart by the Holy Spirit as he makes
these blessings known to us that we might rejoice in them. The
Spirit directs our hearts into the love of God. You remember
Christ said, he said, when the spirit comes, he won't speak
of himself, but he will point sinners to me. And you see there,
when he points us to Christ, therein we experience the love
of God. We read of that in 1 John 4,
10, where it says, herein is love. Not that we loved God,
but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. that sin-bearing, justice-satisfying
sacrifice, propitiation. God, see, doesn't love us because
we choose to love him first. That's backwards. As verse 19
of that same chapter declares, we loved him because he first
loved us. So in these first two verses
of Jude, we have a description of true believers to whom he
is writing, and we have a description of the fruits and effects of
their salvation. But when we get to verse 4, we're
going to see descriptions of others who profess to be Christians
in the church, but we're going to see a sharp contrast with
this description we've looked at so far. We'll see in verse
4 those who actually embrace a false gospel, as I hope you'll
see a perversion of grace. But in transitioning to verse
4, he first writes in verse 3, 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."
The wording here suggests that Jude perhaps had in mind following
a course similar to the other apostles in the writing of their
epistles, expounding, say, further on the same or common salvation
spoken of in those epistles. But it seems that Jude, being
just the instrument, the penman, as all the writers of the biblical
books were, that he was overruled by the real author, God the Holy
Spirit. That he's saying, I had intended
this, but instead I was led to bring before you these differences
between God's chosen and the reprobates who had infiltrated
their ranks. And so his message becomes an
exhortation to contend for the faith. It means to stand opposed
against anything that would oppose the faith. That's the gospel
of God's grace in which they believed. I thought it was noteworthy
he called it a common salvation. It's common not as in plain,
but common as in same. So all who are saved have a common
salvation. They're saved the same way. In
accordance with God's one gospel, one way of salvation. And we
see that clearly when Christ is quoted in John 14, 6, saying,
I am the way, singular, the and the life, excuse me, the truth
and the life. No man cometh unto the Father,
he said, but by me. And I thought it was also noteworthy
that he referred to the gospel doctrine, the faith, as that
which was delivered unto the saints. Here he's referring to
the Old Testament saints. See, one gospel, one way of salvation. They look forward to the promised
Messiah. We look back at his finished
work. Then in verse 4, Jude writes,
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. So here we have described others
who profess to be Christians, but not the saved to whom Jude
is writing. These are described as certain
men who had crept in unaware. So I want to delve into that
a bit. First, you can know he's not talking about every lost
sinner. That's not a description of those who make no pretense
of believing on Christ and a way of salvation by grace. Rather,
he's speaking of those who had infiltrated the professing church.
Listen, even at this early stage in the church age, you know,
this was believed to have been written within 30 years of Christ's
death, burial, and resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 11, we read
of such and we can see there how men might creep in under
the radar. As Paul, he described the ministers
that would come and transform themselves into ministers of
righteousness. Now, that means they were preaching
the righteousness of God in Christ, not their own righteousness.
They would appear to be true believers of salvation by grace. And yet, the Apostle John writes
how those that abide not, in other words, they continue not
in the doctrine of Christ, he said they hath not God. You see,
that doctrine of Christ, that's the gospel wherein the righteousness
of God is revealed. So while they may appear for
a while to believe that, you can't hang, I don't believe,
where your heart's not at. Ultimately, out of the heart,
we issues forth the things that matter to us. Well, you know,
the scripture elsewhere, I guess, would describe these as the tares
among the wheat. If time allowed us to read the
whole book here, you'd see when you get over to verses 11, 12,
13, thereabouts, Jude compares these false professors to different
known characters whose method and techniques, they had different
problems, but they were all men who were exposed. He speaks of
those such as Korah and Balaam that they would know of from
the Old Testament scriptures. They were men of renown. in their
congregations, but they were exposed for what they were. In
Jude, he gives description of them to relate how they're like
these he's speaking of back in verse 4. He calls them, he says
they're like clouds without water, carried by the wind. Describes
them as trees without fruit. He says twice dead. That is,
spiritually dead as we all start out from our representative Adam. but twice dead. That is, they
were under the sentence of the second death. He calls them wandering
stars, kind of like a falling star that blazes for a while.
But Jude says in verse 13 of them, a star that is reserved
the blackness of darkness forever. And through Jude, God pronounces
that the same tragic end, see, is reserved for the false professors
described in verse four. saying that they were before
of old ordained to this condemnation. Now there's a contrast to consider,
isn't it? From verse 1, we know some are ordained unto life.
They're sanctified in God's eternal election, but these were ordained
to condemnation. Jude here is acknowledging God's
sovereignty, not just in Providence, in all things in salvation. He's describing those who will
never identify with the descriptions of the saved from verse 1. And
that doesn't make God the villain simply because he leaves them,
these religious people, who profess, probably sincerely think they're
believing on Christ, leaving them to their own spiritually
dead appetites, to their own perversion of grace. He's given
them what they want. If you're going to be judged
by your works, if you're going to be saved by your works, you're
going to be judged thereby. You better have a perfection
that meets that of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you see, these are
allowed to follow the desires of their desperately wicked hearts. That's the way all of our hearts
are described as we're born into this world. We need grace, don't
we? He describes them as ungodly
men. Now, certainly an immoral person
would be an ungodly man, but that's not an accusation that
they were immoral. If that had been the case, they
wouldn't have fooled no one. Remember, they crept into their
houses of worship unawares. And so we know that they're ungodly
in the sense that they oppose God, as is uniquely revealed
in God's gospel of grace in Christ. And we see that as he speaks
of what they do with the grace of God. And you know, that's
where we all start out. It's dead sinners, spiritually
dead, at enmity, the scripture says, enemies of God. And then
Jude tells us how they might be identified. He describes them
as those who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. That word translated lasciviousness,
it refers to any unlawful desire. Lascivious behavior is behavior
that indulges our sinful desires. It may be used to describe outrageous,
immoral conduct, indecency, but basically, it's living with no
restraints on our conduct, conduct that we would pursue as a result
of our sinful tendencies. And so, how do they turn the
grace of God into that? Well, first we know that you
can't turn God's grace, the principle of grace, the love and favor
that he shows on people, into something it's not. So we know
it's not speaking of the principle of grace, but rather the gospel
doctrine of grace. I used to think this phrase referred
to those who would seem to embrace the doctrine of grace. In other
words, a doctrine that renounces any notion that my salvation
is conditioned in any way on the things I do or anything found
within me or proceeding from me or anything I refrain from
doing. But they would seem to embrace
that truth, but perhaps would do so in order to justify fulfilling
their unlawful desires. In other words, by abusing their
presumed freedom in Christ as an excuse, as a license to sin. And that certainly would expose
someone to be a false professor. One who has no regard for God's
clear revealed will in scripture as it concerns our character
and our conduct. But I had a hard time getting
settled on that understanding of this. Because one who openly
lusts after the flesh, now I know we're all sinners. There's only
two kind of sinners in the world. Sinners and sinners saved by
grace. But one who conducts himself in any sort of openly outrageous
manner, listen, whether physically, outwardly, or spiritually, if
someone came along and said, oh, I believe salvation's by
works, well, that doesn't fool anyone, not for very long. An
outrageously immoral person doesn't fool a true Christian. That's
not even embraced by many, if any, of the lost among the professing
church. So how could it be properly understood
that they crept in underwears, in their underwear, I guess,
in their underwears, excuse me there, tongue twister, under
the radar if they were using grace as a license to fulfill
their own sinful appetites. And so I went to Robert Hawker's
commentary. I felt like I needed to mention
him because I borrowed liberally from him. And if you want to
study this entire book, I highly recommend that. And if you do,
you'll see I borrowed very liberally in preparing this sermon. This
verse teaches that these ungodly men, and remember now, they were
ungodly in their opposition to the truth of God and his gospel.
They held the view that the doctrine of salvation by the free and
sovereign grace of God would lead to lasciviousness. In other
words, they're charging that God's way of salvation is a way
that would lead to that which would displease him in the way
of character and conduct. And so they then deny that salvation
is truly by God's sovereign grace in Christ alone. In other words,
they gotta have something more. I gotta find something I can
do, find something within me. We've heard the heresy of those
who would look for an inherent righteousness while preaching
an imputed righteousness. In other words, the imputed righteousness
of Christ just isn't enough for me. And they charge that because
I think in their minds that would open up the floodgates of sin
and they know that would be opposed to God's will. And I think that's
where we find the similarity with the heresy of our day, in
which so many who profess to believe salvation by grace, they
object, and I bet many of you have heard this, and I certainly
have, if I believe like you do, and they're meaning God's true
gospel of grace, his plan of salvation contrived by his infinite
wisdom, whereby he determined to pardon sinners of his own
choosing. As he said, I'll have mercy on
whom I'll have mercy. I'll have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. He determined to pardon sinners
of his own choosing, freely and fully and completely, all on
the sole basis of Jesus' obedience unto death in their place, based
solely on his blood and righteousness. They say, why if I believe like
that? Man, I'd forget it. I'd just go live like the devil.
I have no reason to live an upright and moral life. And they don't
mean that. They have no intent of going
to live. They know that's contrary to the Bible. It doesn't take
the work of the Spirit for us to see that truth. Our natural
conscience tells us that. I don't know any professing Christian
who really believes that they should not strive to obey God's
revealed will as it's set forth in the Scripture, not if they
claim to believe the Bible. Instead, that's a product of
our natural inclination to cling to the idea, there's got to be
something I can do, something found within me, or something
I can refrain from doing that'll make the difference in my own
salvation. It's a refusal to rest in Christ
alone. And they'll say, they may say,
many do say, oh, it's salvation by grace, but, and there's always
a but, But you've got to believe, or you've got to accept Jesus
Christ as your personal Savior, or you've got to confess Him
in believer's baptism. And you know, a believer will
believe. A believer does accept Christ. A believer does confess Him in
believer's baptize. But here's the difference. They
do so because they're saved. I'm speaking of those who do
so. They have to do something in
order to be saved. And that makes all the difference
in the world. So they refuse to believe that salvation is
totally conditioned on Christ alone. And they can come awful
close to agreeing with you on everything. But instead they
turn the doctrine of God's grace into a licentious doctrine. And
thereby they deny the true gospel in their determination, I'm going
to cling to my version of grace. And that's a perversion of grace.
You see, really, my version versus your version is not what matters.
We better find out God's version of grace. And listen to me, if
your salvation is determined in your mind by your decision,
or anything found in you, or anything proceeding from you,
If you believe that's the case rather than seeing all of salvation's
conditions and requirements having been fully met by Jesus Christ
alone, you can call that salvation by grace as many do to the cows
come home. But it's not what God calls grace
and that's not God's gospel. That's not his way of salvation
in Christ who is the singular way. And you know, I say that
stridently. in frustration and desire that
others would see the truth of grace. But unless the spirit
calls us by God's gospel of grace, you know what? We all naturally
imagine the same. Who makes you to differ? We're
all born also with a natural conscience. It tells us that
it's wrong to live an outrageously immoral life. And so that's not
our problem. Our problem lies in self-love.
that has us unable to see really a valid motive or reason why
I would seek God and obey Him if salvation's really out of
my hands. If it's as you say, Randy, if
it's truly, excuse me, as God says, salvation is of the Lord. In our self-love, we can't imagine
being motivated to obey. Look, well, wait a minute. I
don't know. I'd live like the devil, we say, because What you're
telling me, I wouldn't get anything in return. See our selfishness
coming out there? It's all about us. Apart from the new birth, we
can't see why we would forego the sinful indulgences of our
fleshly desires if our behavior is not going to at least influence
our being eternally favored. See, apart from God's grace,
we can understand, but we just can't fully enter into the true
believer's Spirit-given motivation to obey God out of grace and
gratitude as do the recipients of His mercy and grace. You see,
you can't enter into that if you're not a recipient of His
mercy and grace. If the doctrine you espouse denies
the need for His mercy and grace. So it doesn't compete with our
determination to control our own eternal destiny. We'll say,
or I would once say, oh, Jesus did it all. Thank you for the
mercy and grace in Christ Jesus. And I'm sure glad I believed
and did my part to save myself. You see, we cling to something
that'll make the difference by nature. So in spiritual blindness,
you know, we wouldn't have said this if we knew 1 John 4, but
we really do think God will love us if or because we first love
Him. We would choose Him. But as we
read just a moment ago, God says it's the other way around. And
notice, in turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, that
Jude says that they thereby deny the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, that could not be said of
them unless our understanding is correct here about turning
the grace of our God into lasciviousness. See, that can only be said if
their so doing equated to a denial of God's gospel of salvation
by grace. the free and sovereign grace
in Christ alone. As Mr. Hawker explains, he said
if their profession was in the, quote, Christian church, we know
then they could not be denying Christ, the being of Christ,
the being of God. No, like the false professors
of our day, they presume to be worshiping God. They're not denying
his existence. But they do indeed deny the true
and living God. the Lord of the Bible if they
deny the efficacy of the shed blood and the justice satisfying
righteousness of Jesus Christ to save everyone for whom he
lived and died. You see, to deny that he fully
accomplished what he was sent to do, what he willingly agreed
to do as the scripture is so clear, to save his people from
their sins, you see, that treats his precious shed blood as anything
but precious. It treats it as worthless if
he failed to redeem even one for whom he lived and died. That
denies the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And I
asked at the onset, let's prayerfully consider our own state in light
of this stark contrast between the saved and the lost found
within the professing Christian church. You know, I pray God
will deliver others just as he once did for me, as he has for
you. From our blindness, you know,
from the blindness where I unwittingly once embraced a false gospel,
that actually denied the Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ,
whom I presume to be worshiping. It was a gospel, see, that scorned
God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. That's a doctrine
of lasciviousness. I want you to consider how many,
just as I once did, turned God's grace into lasciviousness by
contrasting them with Jude's description of the saints back
in verses 1 and 2. You see, one way they do so is
in their rejection of the doctrine of election. The true believers
described as God's elect, sanctified by the Father from before the
world began, as we read in Ephesians 1, and yet those who object to
election object to salvation by God's free and sovereign grace. You can't reject election and
not reject grace. They'll object saying, wait a
minute, if I'm truly at the mercy of God, as you say, if Christ
died only for his elect but not others, then there's no motive
for me even to seek to know God. I might as well eat, drink, be
merry and forget about it all. And what they're really saying
is, so I don't believe what you're saying. And they'll go on to
talk about how thankful they are. I think about those times
when I would pray and thank God for being merciful and gracious
to me when I didn't know a thing about His mercy and grace in
Christ, while at the same time revolting, rebelling at the notion
that I really am at His mercy. Don't tell me God chose some
and not others. Listen, if you can make a decision
for Jesus, If you can do anything that results in your being saved,
you don't need God's mercy. You just need to do whatever
your religion prescribes is required of you. And so mercy is not going
to be multiplied as a grace from God in that particular heart. You see, for one such as that
has yet to learn and receive of God's mercy. Not if you're
refusing to submit to the sovereignty of God and salvation. Because
that's to be ignorant of your desperate need for God's mercy
and grace. And a grace that's absent, it's
not going to be multiplied. Secondly, whereas a true believer
is eternally preserved in Christ based upon Christ's substitutionary,
peacemaking, finished work of redemption on the cross. In contrast,
the lost among the professing church deny free grace if they
presume they can make their own peace with God by something they
do. How many times have you heard
at a funeral, he made his peace with God? Maybe it's by their
sincere religious interest. Maybe it's because of their generally
good characters compared to others. For many, it's their so-called
free will, choice, or decision for Jesus. Well, peace is not
going to be multiplied as a grace from God in their hearts. because
that's to know nothing of the peace of God that was established
by Christ for his people alone, single-handedly. Thirdly, whereas
a true believer is said to have been effectually drawn by God
through the calling of the Holy Spirit to believe God's gospel
of free and sovereign grace, well, in contrast, the lost among
the professing church will turn that doctrine into lasciviousness,
suggesting that that can't be true or you'd have a license
to sin. But the Holy Spirit says of those
He calls, as we saw, that they love Him because He first loved
us and sent His Son to be the propitiation, that sin-bearing,
justice-satisfying sacrifice for their sins. But the false
professor insists, well, his or her favor with God is because
of their choice. See, in essence, you know, when
we believe that, we believe there was some loveliness about us,
you see. We might be, call ourselves,
oh, I'm a bad sinner, but at least I chose, I decided for
Jesus, we would think. And so, in essence, we're saying
he loved us because we loved him first. See what, see the
contrast. Now, to which one of these counts
do you belong? and closing on us to consider
one final distinguishing characteristic of those who are saved. In verse
19, Jude made note of how Jesus said, there will be mockers among
them. And then when he gets to verse
20, he says, but ye beloved, speaking to the brethren, true
believers, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. Now
there, he's not talking about conjuring up their own faith.
He's speaking of the body of faith. In other words, growing
in grace and knowledge of the doctrine of the gospel of grace
by God's means, such as praying in the Holy Ghost. Keep yourselves
in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life. How do you keep yourselves in
the love of God? He says, by looking for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. So that looking for the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ is compatible with what we read
in 1 John 14, here in his love, not that we love God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be a propitiation for our
sins. That word propitiation is the same word translated elsewhere
as mercy. It's referenced to the mercy
seat. That is where God's wrath is appeased by Christ's offering
of himself for sins, the sins of his elect. So we keep ourselves
in the love of God from that perspective of 1 John 4, 19,
knowing all the while we love him because he first loved us. Do you see your desperate need
for God's mercy and grace? Do you look exclusively to the
mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ for your eternal life? The sanctified,
preserved, and called do. And unto them, Jude writes, mercy
unto you and peace and love be multiplied. So be found among
these. Cast aside and repent of any
perversion of grace. Join the mercy beggars, the sanctified,
the preserved and called, needing and finding mercy in the Lord
Jesus Christ.