Well, I'd like you to turn with me in your bottles to the Book of Jude. This is a precious portion of scripture. It is just 25 short verses, but there is such extraordinary wealth. And when God opens up these scriptures and shines the light of the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see, like all of the scriptures, these are precious, precious words to us. And you just love how it begins.

Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ. He was a half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. He lived in the same house as the Lord Jesus Christ for nearly all of his life. He lived with God Almighty as his brother. But listen to how Jude describes himself, a servant. What's the highest honor that he can have? He can be a servant, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James. And listen to what he attributes all of this to, and all of God's children attribute all of their faith and all of their walk with the Lord to, to them that are sanctified by God the Father. and preserved in Jesus Christ.

What a preservation that is. What a glorious preservation. Preserved from the beginning of the world. Preserved when Adam fell. Preserved when you came into this world speaking lies. Preserved when we drank iniquity like water. Preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. and then called.

There's a time of calling. I pray that that might be a time that each of us hears that voice yet again calling us back into fellowship with him. And listen to the end result of it. We have three glorious attributes of God in Trinity, and then we have three glorious fruits of that mercy unto you. Mercy unto you. And love.

And his prayer is that they'll be multiplied. I want them to be multiplied. And it finishes, doesn't it? It finishes this little book. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless. before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. That's something I wish I spent more time contemplating. I pray that you do it. Is our God joyful? Demands us to rejoice in him. He's a joyful God. This is not out of control, brothers and sisters, because now unto him, that is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God.

In all of this, in all of this, in all of what happens, in all of what the church of God goes through and every member of that church goes through in all of this life, God is wise. God is wise. God is wise. Norm just read it. No one under God always works from the foundation of the world. This is the wisdom of God that we see on display. This is the wisdom of a joyful God that we see on display.

To the only wise God, our Saviour. I love how the scriptures make it so abundantly clear that Jesus Christ is God Almighty. Jesus Christ is God Almighty, the fullness of the deity dwells in him. And what's the end result of it all? Glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen means, do you agree? Amen means, I agree. Truly, truly, I agree.

And in the midst of the book of Jude, almost all of the rest of the verses are talking about the contention that God's people will have in this world. If you love someone, you will defend them. If you love If you love someone, their glory matters. If you love someone, their word matters. If you love someone, everything about that person And we're talking about God Almighty.

So why? That's the question that is on so many lips and it's so often repeated in the scriptures. Why? Why? Why are things like they are in this world? Why? Why are we here and not over in that building that can hold 500 people? Why is the Church of God so small in this world? Why?

Why is the declaration of the glory of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, why is that declaration that we read in Acts chapter 15, that he purifies the hearts of his people? And they access that purification By faith, that's what he's done on the cross. He's purified the hearts of his people and by faith we say Amen. By faith we believe him. There is one parable that I want us to contemplate because As we go through Jude, he gives many examples of people who have fallen away, and it began with the very first church service in all of human history.

They were at a very, very special place and a very special time in extraordinarily special circumstances outside the garden of God, where God had set up an altar of worship for himself. There came Cain. We have looked at, in recent weeks, Balaam and we have looked at Cora. One of the questions that should come to mind is, why did these people Why were they allowed to continue on for as long as they did and be as influential as they were for as long when we've just read about the glory of God and the wisdom of God and the power of God and the dominion of God?

Turn with me to Matthew chapter 13. There's a parable here which is a parable that speaks of all of human history. So when you kids are studying history, this is a parable that you ought to ask your history teachers to remind you of again and again and again. Matthew chapter 13. And in verse 24, there's a parable that the Lord gives. And it's a parable that covers all of human history. It's a parable that explains why in the book of the Jude, we read so much about these creeping deceivers that come into the church of God and turn people's eyes from the Lord Jesus Christ to anything other than him. Listen to this parable, verse 24 of Matthew 13.

Another parable he put forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field. And while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat. and went his way. So tares are a plant that grows exactly the same and looks exactly the same as wheat.

And the only difference between the tares and the wheat, that as the wheat matures, you've seen wheat fields, as the wheat matures, the head of the wheat hangs down and gets lower and lower and lower. The closer to harvest, the lower and the more humble the head of the wheat is. the tare's head sticks up and tares are poisonous. And so until that moment you couldn't tell the difference. Okay, so that's what these people were saying.

But when the blade was sprung up and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the tares appear when the fruitfulness is seen, okay? When the fruit of God's work is seen, the tares are seen. So the servants of a householder came and sat under him and they asked some questions. Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Surely your seed was good seed. So where from whence then has these tears? Where did these tears come from?

They're pretty good questions, aren't they, in this world of ours. When you see all of the depravity of mankind and all of the opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ, they're good questions to ask. And he said, this is God saying unto them, An enemy hath done this. I remember when I first went to India and I walked down the streets and you see scenes there which cannot be seen in the Western world. And I know we have plumbed the depths of depravity in this world of ours in ways, but there is not only that sort of idolatry, depravity of idolatry over there, But there's the depravity exhibited in people living in the most unbelievably difficult circumstances. And I remember saying so often to myself, an enemy has done this. To take people who are made in the image of God Almighty and for them to be reduced down to what you see. He said, God speaking, an enemy has done this. The servant said to him, of then that we go and gather them up. Okay, we've seen them. We know that they're at our service. Should we go out and put on our swords and our shields and go out and do battle with these enemies and pull them all up and get rid of them all? Should we get rid of the goats?

And he said, God said, no, lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. We don't have a clue who the tares are and who the wheat is. Then listen to what he says. This is a great explanation of what's going on in this world. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, gather ye first, gather you together first the tares and bind them in bundles and burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn. That's the parable that explains all of what's going on in this world and it's a parable that explains all of what's going on in all the Church of God. until the Lord returns. He's going to gather them. He's going to send his reapers.

That's not our job. It's too big for us and God hasn't appointed us to do that. God has appointed us to preach the gospel about the way the Lord Jesus Christ by himself purifies the hearts of his people, how he purged their sins Our simple, simple task given us by the Lord is simply to proclaim Him, to proclaim Him. He's the answer, He's the solution. Christ is all and we don't need anything else. We don't need any other wisdom.

And so I want us to turn back to Jude and I want us to Seeing we haven't looked at it for a couple of weeks, I just want to quickly read the first 13 verses. So we read that first two verses about Jude being a servant and the sanctifying work of God the Father, the preserving work of Christ, and the calling work of the Holy Spirit, the mercy of God, the peace that he has won with his blood. and the love that is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

And then he says, 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 you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. It's enormous, but reading about that faith that was once delivered unto the saints in Acts chapter 15.

They delivered it and declared it and kept on declaring it. And the reason is, 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, into lustfulness. Now, the simple explanation of that is that if you preach what they preached in Acts chapter 15, the end result is that people would be wicked. And the solution that they were dealing with in Acts chapter 15, the solution that men came up with in their wisdom was, well, there's a very simple solution to this. Let's put people back under the law of Moses. Let's get them circumcised and let's whip them with the law of Moses and then out will come lives of obedience and sin will be reduced. That was exactly what was going on. That's exactly what Jude is dealing with. We need to keep going back to the foundations again and again and again. That's what it is. They're turning the grace. They're translating grace.

They're saying that grace allows the people, if you just preach that salvation is entirely by the grace of God, and irregardless of your works, God will save his people from their sins, Then there will be just wickedness breakout. I love the story of the old preacher in England who must have had an issue with alcohol. And anyway, he preached against alcoholism and he preached against the drunks and he preached against the drunks and he preached against the drunks in his village until there wasn't a sober man in the village. And then the Lord saved him. Then the Lord saved him and he preached the grace of God and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, what he wanted to achieve by law keeping was achieved by God's spirit in the hearts of his people because they loved the Lord Jesus Christ. God's people love him. They love him because he first loved us. God's people hate the thought of living in this world in such a way that they dishonor him.

They don't need to be whipped. Love doesn't whip each other. I don't have to go and flog my wife. My wife works harder than almost anyone I've known. And she doesn't need a set of rules to be put on the refrigerator every day. She does it because she loves. I trust that I might be able to do the same in return, to do it because of love. Anyway, let's keep going.

They've crept in. That's what they're doing. And the result of this is they're denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. They're denying that he purified the hearts of his people by faith. They're denying that great testimony. This is the testimony of all believers. We believe Listen to what the testimony, this is a testimony of all of the saints of all time. This is Abel's testimony and Enoch's testimony. We believe, Acts 15, 11, this is what we believe. This is our testimony. We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved. Through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, not His grace plus me doing something.

So that's what they're denying. They're denying his lordship. They're denying his lordship in salvation. They're denying his lordship in the work that he does in the hearts of his people. If he's purified the hearts of his people by faith, what will come out of those hearts? What will those hearts do? With those hearts we believe under salvation, Romans 10 says. That's what they're doing, and that's the issue, isn't it? For all of God's children, the issue is the glory of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore I'll put you in remembrance, though you 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 has reserved in everlasting change under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah 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, speak evil of dignity.

They blaspheme God and they blaspheme his people. 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 rebuketh. The Lord will deal with these people in his time. But these speak evil of things which they know not. But what they know, naturally, as brute beast, 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 a ward, and perished in the Gainesvane. That's a speaking against. He spoke against Moses. He spoke against Aaron. He spoke against the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's what Korah did. Cain said, I can come to God without blood. I can come to God without a blood sacrifice. Balaam said, you can compromise. You can compromise. You can talk about God from the very temples of Baal and you can cause people to compromise. And Korah said, You can come to God with an offering of your own thinking and you don't need the offering. Basically all of them are saying you don't need the Lord Jesus Christ. Basically they're all saying they're denying the Lord Jesus Christ.

Listen to this description of them and I wanted us to see these five things and I'll have to be very brief with them but these are not that they were once upon a time, not that they will be in the future. These are spots in your feasts of charity, your feasts of love, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without order, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackest of darkness forever.

Creeping deceivers. This is a description, this is God's description of these creeping deceivers. I was listening to all sorts of messages around these verses the other day and one of these guys said, he started this sermon going, now that we know these things, we can spot these people a mile off.

And I stopped the tape right there and I thought, that's exactly the opposite of what Jude is saying. If they creep in, If they creep in, we will have to wait for the Lord to expose them. That's exactly what Enoch did and that's exactly what Michael did.

We just wait. Our task is to encourage the children of God. Our task is simply to declare the glory of God and the grace of God in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. These people creep in. They creep in They creep in because the children of God want to accept and encourage everyone they meet to come and hear the gospel with them. They can creep in because the children of God are aware of how weak and how frail they are, and they love to think that others might come and hear and be saved and find their rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. These particular ones creep in because they look exactly like the apostles.

When a wolf is wearing sheep's clothing, you have to get very, very close to the wolf to smell it and to see its teeth. If a wolf's in sheep's clothing, you're not going to see it from a distance. And as I keep saying, it's not our task to tear them up. Our task is to preach the gospel and God's children will be cared for.

So these people creep in because their theology is so orthodox in so many ways and they are zealous and they are particular about the things of God because Because of what I spend a lot of my time on the internet, I come across all sorts of apologetic ministries, and there are people who are running apologetic ministries against the Mormons, and there are people who speak against the Pentecostals, and there's people who speak against all sorts of things. The Muslims, and you just name it, there's an apologetic ministry out there, and they are prominent on the internet. I have yet to hear one of them proclaim the Gospel faithfully. I'd love it if there was one that proclaimed the purifying work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts of his people that's done by grace alone.

The issue what I'm trying to highlight is that if we are going to contend we're going to have to know what the gospel is and we're going to have to know how God's people contend and we're going to have to know what we're contending against. And God gives us these glorious descriptions of these people so that we will see what they're like. As I said, our task is simply to declare the glory of God. Our task is to declare the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified and nothing else. and everything that we say is going to speak about Him all of the time. We're going to talk about the glory of what happened on the cross of Calvary.

These people, according to Jude, they are spots in your feasts of charity. We'll have to look at this more closely next week, Lord willing. But they are spots in your feasts of charity. What's a spot? Actually, one of the things that's really interesting is that the word actually means, it's one of those words that's changed its meaning over the years, but it actually means a hidden reef. We were just last week, or the week before I think it was now, we were up at a little place called Crowdee, and Crowdee's a little sort of headland that sticks out almost like an island in the ocean joined to the mainland by a sand spit.

And on top of this thing is the tiniest lighthouse you'll ever see. It's only, not much, it's not as high as this building, it's a tiny little lighthouse. But on that lighthouse it has all the white panels all the way around except one. And one of the panels is a red panel. And the red panel shines to the northwest from that lighthouse across the bay.

And the simple point is that when you're sailing down there and your ship is in the place where the red panel is, you're in great danger of running into mermaid's reef. These men, these deceivers, are spots. They are hidden reefs. They come to make shipwreck of the faith of others.

You're sailing along very happily and someone comes along and says to you in the nicest possible way, Christ is not all. Not completely all, there's a little bit that you can do. There are these things that you can do, and you can please him more by doing these things. And you can please him more by not doing these things. All of our pleasing of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything other than Christ is a shipwreck to you.

They feed themselves. They come in and they feed themselves. Listen to that. They feed themselves sumptuously, Peter says. They feed themselves without fear. There are three great descriptions of these people in these scriptures. They have no fear of God. They have no reverence for God. And they don't have the spirit of God. They share in the love that the church has for one another, but they're feeding themselves. Their God is their belly. See, true love gives.

God's ministers That word is, we are just servants, table waiters. I don't know if you've served in a restaurant. I have. I've done a little bit of it in my early days. All you do is you take something from the kitchen, don't you, the chef has made, and you bring it out and you try not to disturb it on the plate and you try and place it in front of people.

We are servants of God, and what do we do? How do we serve? We serve by bringing to people the eternal covenant of grace in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we serve. That's what we're serving all the time. We're saying, as Acts 15 says, he purifies the hearts of his people by faith, and he does it by grace, and he does it all, and he keeps his people, he preserves his people. We're saying The Christ is all. These people have no fear. They feed themselves. They feed their fleshly desire. And what are the fleshly desires? We need fleshly desires. I'm just like you. My flesh is exactly the same as you.

When I finish preaching, I like it for someone to come in and tell me how wonderful it is. And John Newton said that a long, long time ago. Someone came to him as soon as he finished preaching. And said, that's the most wonderful sermon I've ever heard. It just touched my heart so much. And Newton turned to him and said, well, Satan told me that as soon as I finished preaching.

But we are just, we have a desire for recognition, we have a desire for position, we have a desire to be acknowledged for what we are. Cora did it, Balin did it for reward. We want our will and our worth and our works to be rewarded. They feed themselves without fear. There's not a thought that they might be lost. There's not a thought that they might be a fraud. There's not a thought that they might be wrong. To feed oneself is to be filled up on yourself.

God's in the business, and I've trusted his servants, and I trust that I might be, so our job is to bring people down. Religion wants to make people alive, to do and do and do. We want people to be dead. Religion is telling people how to live in this world and how to get better and better and better in this world. We're telling people how to die. We're telling people how to live in this world. If you know how to die well, you'll know how to live well in this world. God's in the business of killing people like he did Saul of Tarsus.

He wants to kill him of all of his self-righteousness, kill him of all of his religion, and reduce him down to the one place where Paul was secure in all of this world, in the dirt, at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, and saying, Lord, what will you have me do? He'd never said that ever before. He thought he'd done it all. They fill themselves up.

They have no spirit, they have no fear, they have no reverence, they have no awareness of God. And they are under the water and you can't see them until you run into them in your little ship. If you have time you can read Ezekiel 34 and the Lord speaks very, very strongly about the shepherds of Israel that feed themselves and don't care and don't feed the flock of God. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds.

I've been a farmer for most of my life. I know what it is to live in a drought. I know what it is to live dependent upon God providing the rain all the time to keep my family fed. And droughts, the thing that's extraordinary about droughts is that the same weather patterns come over and the clouds come over, and yet they don't drop any rain. Or if they do, it's just so little rain that it's all eaten up by the sun the next day. Clouds without water, they promise, don't they?

They promise something, and yet they deliver nothing. They promise people freedom. They promise people all of these things in union with themselves. But God says that they are themselves slaves. They're without water. They're without the water of the word.

The water of the word. What flowed out of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary? blood to wash away the sins of all of his people completely, and water to bring us the word by which his people live, though without any water. It speaks of the Holy Spirit. Water is just essential to life. The Holy Spirit brings the living water. He's called the water of life, and he's a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

There is a river, we read it in Psalm 46 at the beginning of our message, and you can read about it in Revelation 22, there is a river that proceeds from the throne of God. The streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of most high. Listen to what the river is doing. bringing God is in the midst of her, Psalm 46 verse five. She shall not be moved, God shall help her.

And that right early. The Lord Jesus Christ is a fountain and they're carried about by winds. If you find someone who is able to change their teaching, and change their teaching to suit the audience that they have before them, you are in the midst of one of these false teachers. God's people don't change. We preach about a rock. A rock doesn't change. We're preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. We have, in the mercy of the Lord, began preaching the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified in all that we can muster of our passion for his glory and for the good of his people. I can go back to the sermons that we began with. We can go back to the messages, the things in the scriptures that moved our hearts and we haven't changed a thing. We haven't changed a thing. God says, meddle not with those given to change.

I was with a preacher once and we were talking about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's one issue to talk about with people and that is what happened at the cross. And if you find them changing and moving and being in somehow not absolutely really clear, clear, clear about it, so the children will understand that the Lord Jesus Christ died for the sins of his people, period. And if he died for their sins, their sins are gone. Period, that's what justification is. And if he died for their sins, he sees no sin in them now. Who can bring any charge against the children of God? It's Christ to justify.

And I was talking to this pastor about it, and he said, I'd lean towards that. And I thought, isn't that lovely? Whichever way the wind blows, he says, I'll lean. And if there's someone who denied that, he said, I'd lean that way, wouldn't he? He leans. God's people stand. We're standing on a rock. We don't have to lean anywhere. We don't lean for anyone. We are clouds without water. I'll just mention these others. They're trees whose fruit withereth. Without fruit, they're twice dead.

How do you make someone twice dead according to the scriptures? How do you make someone twice the child of hell? Matthew 23, the Lord Jesus Christ describes exactly how you make someone twice the child of hell. You go to the cesspools of this world and you bring someone out of all of that depravity. You bring him out of the brothels of Jeffrey Epstein and you bring him to religion and you polish him up. and you put him under the law of Moses and you get him to live right in your eyes and get him to clean up his external life.

Listen to what the Lord says in verse 15 of Matthew 23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You're actors is what that means. You compass, you travel land and sea to make one follower of yourself, one proselyte. And when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

What an extraordinary declaration. These people had their mission organisations, they had their Bible colleges, and they had their people going out all around the world and bringing them back. You can read about the names of the countries they came from in Acts chapter 2. What is highly esteemed among men is abomination to the Lord. They're raging waves of the sea. foaming out their own shame. They foam out their own shame. The waves look powerful and the foam looks as if it has substance. What's foam?

It's puffed up. It's puffed up knowledge. It's puffed up knowledge without grace. It's puffed up so-called human wisdom without fear of God. It's puffed up in pride and it's full of anger. It's raging against the rock. It's lashing out without restraint. and it never moves the rock, and they foam out their own shame. The rock is unmoved by the rage. Our God's a rock. We have a rock.

They are wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackest of darkness of earth. Well, that word, wandering stars, and the word stars means, I mean, the wandering word means planets in the original. And when you think, if you look up to the night sky and you see all those stars and you can navigate by the stars, but there are other lights in that sky that you can't trust at all for navigation because they're moving all over the place. They look as if they have light. They shed light and they're mixed with the stars and the skies.

But they move and they cannot be relied on. There is reserved for these people the blackest of darkness of hell forever. There is a Christ to proclaim and the solution to all of this is for us to simply declare Him. for us simply to say amen to what he says. And when someone comes along with anything other than Jesus Christ and him crucified, giving men something to do rather than looking to him in faith, trusting him, relying on him alone. If someone comes and says something other than that Christ is all, then we have met the wreaths and the wandering stars and the trees. Let's read one verse together which has been so significant for us.

God puts all this in its right and proper place. In 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30, the whole purpose of God in bringing his gospel and securing his people in this gospel God has chosen these things that no flesh should glory in His presence. He takes all the things that are despised by the religious people of this world and He brings them all to nothing, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But listen to this, listen to what God is, God has made. But of Him, God has put a people in the Lord Jesus Christ. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus. in Christ Jesus.

Who of God is made unto us wisdom? I'm looking at some incredibly wise people. I'm looking at some incredibly wise people. Wisdom is much, much better than having intelligence, I promise you. I'm looking at some, he's our wisdom. He's all the wisdom I need. He's all the wisdom.

And he's all my righteousness. What's righteousness? That's my obedience to the law of God. He's all of my righteousness. He's made of God unto us. He's made my righteousness. I didn't make Him, He made it. And He's all of my sanctification. He's all of my holiness. He's all of my separation from this world. He's all of my separation unto Him. And He's all of my redemption. That's what He did on the cross of Calvary. a substitute who satisfied God Almighty. What a Savior to have.

Would you want to proclaim anything else other than that? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you would bless your word to our hearts and that you would cause us in the midst of the trials, in the midst of the opposition, to your gospel, and your church in this world, Heavenly Father, we just praise you that you reign, you reign, and you are wise, and you are the only God. We praise you, Heavenly Father, that you rule and you reign. We praise you that the Lord Jesus Christ has been given power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. Heavenly Father, I pray that that power would be exercised in our lives and over our lives in such a way that we walk in this world as children living by simple, simple faith in your dear and precious son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let us be turned from him, our Father. We pray in his name and for his glory and for the good of your people, our Father. Amen. Let's have a break.