It was just lovely to have some sweet, hear the sweet fellowship in the break and so I appreciate the way the Lord works amongst us in all sorts of wonderful ways.

One of the, Enoch walked with God It says in Hebrews chapter 11 in Jude 14, and Enoch also, the seventh from Adam prophesied of these. And so the false teachers, which are so wonderfully described here, were known to Enoch and Enoch prophesied about them.

Don't you love the fact that everything that happens is in the sovereign hand of our God Almighty? And don't you love the fact that He does nothing without telling His prophets beforehand? And the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Enoch was bearing testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And listen to what he says. In the midst of all of this depravity, this wickedness, which, you know, fills up so much of this letter and I pray as time goes on the Lord might give us clarity about the description of these false teachers.

The longer I study it the more I believe that They are represented most clearly in the false teachers that came before the Lord in Acts chapter 15, came before the Lord and all of his apostles. And the brazenness of those guys, they were prepared to have a debate in Antioch with Saul and Barnabas. no small disputation, they were prepared to come all the way down to Jerusalem and meet with the apostles, all of them in council, and declare to the apostles that they didn't have the gospel. that there must be something that we do to add to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ for us to be saved, for us to live in this world pleasing to God.

And that was the foundational error in the New Testament church, and it was the foundational error in the Old Testament church. What did Cain do? in the days before Enoch, he brought the works of his hands to God Almighty, having known that the only way of acceptance and the only way of covering shame was told him by Adam and Eve. And that was the Lord Jesus Christ who took that animal, that lamb, and he slew it in the front of them and he covered them.

And so the rebellion of the false teachers is an extraordinary rebellion. And after the Jerusalem Council, we don't have time to look at it today, but I want you to, if you have any time, to go and look at it over the next little while. The thing that's remarkable about those people after the Jerusalem Council You keep waiting, where's the white flag? When are they going to put the white flag up and say, hold on a second, we've got this wrong. We've told Paul and Barnabas that they're wrong. We've told Paul and Barnabas that they went on their missionary journey preaching another gospel. We've come down, we've argued with these. Did they stop? Did they stop? No, the rest of the New Testament letters are written with that as the background and that as the foundation to the apostasy that Jude is talking about.

And he paints it in so many different colours and it's like your children have a colouring in thing and it's sort of an outline, a dark outline and they colour it in and they stay within the lines, all the good ones, I love staying within the lines. when I was coloring in as a little kid. But anyway, but you take something which is a white sheet of paper and has all the outlines on it. And you color it in and you color it in and all of a sudden there's a sun and all of a sudden there's a tree and all of a sudden there's a beautiful lake. And that's exactly what Jude and the rest of the New Testament Church's writers are doing, is giving us a picture, a clearer and clearer picture. Beware, says the Lord Jesus Christ. But also, in the midst of this letter, as I said at the beginning, at the beginning of this letter is a declaration of the eternal covenant and purpose of God Almighty. At the end of this letter, we sing it each week, is a declaration of the eternal covenant in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he does in the hearts of his people. And in the middle of it, we have Enoch who speaks of that covenant again.

Listen to what Enoch's preaching was. He says, behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and all of their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Extraordinary, isn't it? Ungodly means to be without fear, to be without awe, to be without reverence of God Almighty. Tis not no God. That's why Jude 19, if you're still in Jude, says these people don't have the spirit in Jude 12. They are without fear. And these are the translating people. They translate the grace of God. They translate the gospel of the grace of God into lasciviousness, into filthiness. They're saying, what they're saying is that if you preach the Lord Jesus Christ and plead with sinners and encourage sinners, To look to the Lord Jesus Christ and look to Him alone and not look anywhere else ever if you can, they're saying that just looking to Him alone and trusting Him alone and walking with Him alone is not sufficient to please God. And they are as rebellious as the people in Acts chapter 15, and nothing has changed. And the Lord warns us again and again and again, you beware of them. You beware of their leaving. You beware of the little bit of yeast. All it needs is a little bit of yeast, a little bit of your works, and the whole batch of dough is ruined.

You can see, I don't have time this morning, but I want to at some stage, to go to the end. And I pray that you might do it during the next week. But if you go to the end of all of the New Testament letters, read Paul's last testimony of Peter's last testimony, 2 Peter 3. Read this letter of Jude. Read the end of Hebrews. You read the end of James. You read the end of 1 John. And they all have exactly the same message. It's extraordinary, isn't it? In that gospel age were those remarkable witnesses who walked with the Lord Jesus Christ and spent all that time with him, that their parting words were pleas to the saints of God about the false teaching which had infected the church in their day.

So I want us to just briefly look at this. I just love these words here. Just come back with me to Jude chapter 15. And this is Enoch preaching. He prophesied of these. And I love how he prophesied. To walk with God and to please God by faith is to be involved in the proclamation and the fellowship of the gospel. And the gospel is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all who are in him have a fellowship with him and in him. I am closer to my brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ than I am to anyone else in this world. And I don't wish that to be the case, and I love my family very dearly, but I had a long chat to Gabe, for example, earlier this week, and we chatted away for 45 minutes, 50 minutes, and we could have just spent more and more and more time. The only thing we're longing for is more time together. That's how you feel. That's how I feel about my brothers and sisters in Christ. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, I love you and I express it poorly. But I really want to say that I love the fact that the Lord's gathered us together and the Lord has knitted us together.

And the more difficult the trials are, the closer we are drawn to one another. So the gospel is a person and all of those members of his body are united and they're knitted together and he grows them together.

So Jude preached the eternal covenant, but then he wants us to go and be reminded of Enoch the 7th from Adam and his prophecy. And I love what he says. Isn't it interesting that At the very beginning, the first prophecy, of course, is in Genesis chapter 315. The first prophecy expressed by a man is the prophecy of Enoch. The Bible begins with a prophecy saying the Lord's coming. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming from heaven with all of his saints. And the end of the Bible in Revelation chapter 22, how does it finish? How does this glorious word from God to us finish? What's he say? Surely I come quickly. He's only been away two days since the resurrection. It's not long. And all of what passes in that time between now and when he comes and after the cross, it's all in his perfect timing. He's got a perfect purpose in all of this, in everything that comes. Surely I come quickly.

And what does the church say? What is the church response? Even so, come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus.

So I love how Enoch begins, he says, behold, you take note of this, in the midst of all of this, in the midst of all of this apostasy, in the midst of all of the trials that you're suffering, you behold, you fix your eyes upon the Lord Jesus Christ, you behold him, behold him, but you behold the Lord cometh, the Lord cometh. with 10,000 of his saints. 10,000 of his saints. Enoch and Jude and all of the writers of scripture are saying, thy God reigneth, thy God reigneth. but he reigneth with his people. He can't be separated from them. The Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints. The multitude of the redeemed, the multitude of those who will populate the new heavens and the new earth, the multitude of those who will be with the Lord Jesus Christ on that great day of judgment, and he'll say, well done, thou good and faithful. It's a multitude beyond number.

Let's not for one moment think that our glorious Lord has a victory that's small. It seems small and has seemed small in every generation. Like I said earlier, only eight people went on that ark out of a population that could have been billions of people. At every stage in all of history, God's children have been a remnant, a remnant, so small that they can be ignored by the religious world around them.

But listen to what he says. This is what Enoch says. This is what God says to us. He cometh with. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. Revelation begins, He's coming. He's on His way. He's on His way. Let's not think that the events of this world mean anything in the culmination and the greatest things that happen in our lives. The most important thing that's going to happen in all of our lives, every single life, is that, isn't it? This just lasts for a moment. It's just a breath. It just goes like a weaver's shuttle. It flies away. For any of you who have lived as long as I have, you think it's just been like that. It's just disappeared in a heartbeat. The great issue is of life is to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. Enoch walked with him and he says that when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back he's coming with his saints. He cannot be separated from them. He cannot be separated from them.

His body is perfect. It was perfect in eternity. Not a bone of his shall be broken on this earth. His body will be perfect and a glorious body. When he presents his bride to his father, it's going to be a glorious bride. An immense number of people, but glorious, just glorious. That's the issue of life, isn't it? The issue of life is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is reigning and ruling and when He comes, He's just going to wrap this whole thing up.

And when you read Jude and you go through some of the trials that Jude and the other apostles went through, you say, come Lord Jesus. But while I'm here, come Lord Jesus, come, come and comfort me, come and be with me, come and cause me to walk with you by faith.

First Thessalonians chapter three says that not just 10,000 of his saints, it says all of them, All of them. All of them. None missing. Not one. No empty chairs in heaven. None with cobwebs on them. All of them are coming. All of them. And I love what he says. He says, his saints. His. That's a pronoun of ownership, isn't it? It's His. He owns them. He owns them by creation. He owns them by redemption. He bought them with His blood. He owns them by love. He comes to His own people and He allures them. He reveals Himself in the Gospel.

is so attractive that we love to be in his presence we love to be in his company he draws us that's why the shulamite said in song of solomon draw me draw me and we will what run after you We'll run after you, not dawdle, we'll run after you. He's taken me into his banqueting house. What's his banqueting house? The banqueting house of his word, the banqueting house of fellowship with him, the banqueting house where he reigns supreme. And what's his banner over me? He's taken me into his banqueting house and his banner over me is love.

And what does he describe them? They're called saints. They're His, and because they're His, they're saints. That's why Jude says, isn't it, they're sanctified, they're saints by God the Father, they're preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they are called, and listen to what the saints are, now unto him that is able to keep you. He's able, he's powerful, that's what that word means. He has the power to keep you. and present you faultless. That's what a saint is, someone who's faultless. A saint is someone who's been sanctified by God the Father, someone who has been preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and still is preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and call, we hear the call of God Almighty calling us as sheep to himself. He's going to present you faultless. That's what he says, faultless, faultless.

And he's going to do the presenting. What a great day that is. What a great day that is. When the Lord Jesus Christ presents his bride to his father. What's it going to be like? What a remarkable, remarkable day. I want to be there. I don't care what it costs. I want to be there. I don't care what I have to lose in this. I want to be there. I want to be with all those saints. They're his saints. He owns them.

present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. There is, as Enoch says, there is a great day of judgment coming. Four times in this verse he talks about the judgment coming in a particular way on the ungodly. Ungodly, they're among you. Ungodly deeds they've done. Ungodly in their commitment of their deeds and all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken.

Who have they spoken against? Him. What did the Lord Jesus Christ say on the road to Damascus to Saul of Tarsus? Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Do you see what Jude is wanting and why Enoch is so special in all this? In the midst of all the trials, all the hard speeches are against him. Against him. And we can rest in the fact that he's absolutely sovereign over all that. And he's taken our hard speeches and put them away and covered them in his blood.

Because I spoke hard speeches, you might not remember being wicked, like I was wicked at university, I was wicked. And I just couldn't speak ill enough of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I just, I'm disgusted by it. But I know what it is. God, wants us to know that there is a great day coming. And the Lord Jesus Christ is coming from heaven in great power and great glory. And he's coming. He's coming to judge this world, and He will judge righteously, and He has judged righteously on the cross. It's perfect justice that He executed in His Son on the cross at Calvary. And He'll come with all of His saints.

Romans 8, turn there and we'll close. Romans 8 begins with these glorious words, isn't it? There is now! Romans 8 verse 1, there is now. I love the fact that it's now. It's now and tomorrow it'll be now if the Lord tarries. The next day it'll be now if the Lord tarries and it's going to be now no matter what people say about me or against me, it's about the Lord, isn't it? There is therefore, Now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

We walk like Abe, that's to walk as Enoch did, to walk with God, to walk pleasing to God by faith. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, the problem with the law is the fact of our flesh. Soon as our flesh meets the law, or the law comes and meets our flesh, all it does is make sin worse. It exposes it and promotes it. weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sin for flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law, that's perfect obedience to the law, might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

That's why Jude is saying, we know, verse 28, you know it well, we know that all things work together, no matter what they are, no matter what, all of them are working together. Everything is worked together. In the original, it means they are worked together by God. There are no accidents in this. Together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. Who's doing the work? Who's doing the predestination? Who's doing the conforming? He is, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. That's why he's coming with them, because they're his brethren.

Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. To be justified is to be faultless. To be justified is to be perfect. To be justified is to have never sinned, because all of the sins of all of God's people were laid on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why he can take us into heaven. That's why he can come back with us.

What shall we say then? Just come through these questions with me. What shall we say then to these things? If God before us If we walk with God and we please God by faith, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also?

This is one of the most lovely words in all of the gospel, isn't it? Freely, freely. No cause in us, freely. Give us all things. What do we want? We want all of those things we looked at earlier in the first hour. We want to live with God. We want to walk with God. We want to please Him. We want to honor Him in our lives.

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. This is a day of judgment, isn't it? It's God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather than is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us on our behalf.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, as it is written, for thy sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as cheap for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, in all of the trials that Jude is talking about, in all of the trials that Enoch suffered, and all of the saints suffered, in all these things we are more than conquerors.

Why are we more than conquerors? Not only do we conquer, but in the trial and in the struggles of life, God gets an opportunity to reveal his faithfulness and his glory and cause us to look to him and to lean on him. We're more than conquerors. Sorry. Through him that loved us, for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Where's the love of God? In Christ Jesus. When he comes, that's why he's coming, behold, the Lord cometh. with 10,000 of his saints. Amen, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truthfulness of it. We thank you for the power of it, Heavenly Father, to enter not just into our minds, but to come deeply and become a living word and to become spirit and life in the lives of your people. We praise you Heavenly Father that you are continually putting us in situations where we are forced. to see that the circumstances of our life are impossible and we must rest and must lean and call upon you.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you'd be merciful to us and for those that we love this week and may we go from here with our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. May we look to eternity past and eternity to come and may we, Heavenly Father, have boldness on the Day of Judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.