I like the fact that our God asks us to ask the question, why? Why? Why do the heathen rage? As you can well imagine, not only does God ask the question, but he has a good reason for us asking the question, and his answers are always good, and his answers are always glorious, and his answers are always good for the eternal glory of his name and good for all of his people.

I want you to turn with me and your Bibles to Jude and I just want to read the first four verses today. We read all of it last week and I pray that as you have time you might go to this precious little book, the last letter in the scriptures before the book of Revelation, and I'm well aware that there are seven letters to the churches in there, but this is the general epistle of Jude. So this is a letter written not to a specific church, but it's written to all of the church, and it's written to all of the church in all of the ages of time until we don't need a Bible any longer. And we will be in the presence of God. Isn't it amazing to think that all of this, including these Bibles, will be burnt up? And then we'll know what the Bible really is all about. Then we'll be in the presence of Him who caused these Words to be written, but also caused his saints to go through this.

So this is Jude. Jude declares himself at the beginning. the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend. That's to strive to the point of agony. That's how serious that is. Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

This faith, the faith, is the declaration of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is just one faith. There is just one faithful one and this book, God took 1500 years and 39 authors to write a book that declares the glories of his dear and precious son. And this is one of the last ones written. the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into sin. into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lasciviousness is just lust expressed, lust expressed, ardent desire expressed. So the question again is, why the trial? Why, when God is absolutely sovereign, and why, when God absolutely rules over all men, why, why would he in the very glory days of the church, as it were, when for those who went to the churches where the apostles were pastors and preachers and their servants were, those people had the gospel perfect and pure. These days you need to leave religion and you need to be set apart by God Almighty and preserved in Christ Jesus and to be the recipient of mercy and peace and love and have that multiplied to actually come out of religion and come into the knowledge of God. It is, as promised by God Almighty, rare in our day.

And there are so many scriptures that declare to us again and again and again the promise of these trials. But I want us to turn to Daniel because I want us, as we go through these times, to remember the wonder of the great blessing of these trials. At the very heart of the blessing of these trials is intimacy of relationship with God Almighty. You know the story well. I thought we'd have a story for the children. There were these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel chapter three. You can read their story.

And there were certain, verse 12, we'll begin there, there were certain Jews whom thou set over the, this is the accusation made against them, and the command was that anyone heard this music. Isn't it extraordinary that the command to bow to the image was accompanied by music? God's worship is accompanied by music, and Satan, in his deceptions, uses music in the most powerful way.

But when they hear that music, verse 10, we'll go back there, and all the kinds of music, they shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whosoever falleth not down and worshipeth, that he should be cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

There are certain Jews, this is the accusation that they bring, whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not regarded thee, they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

Then Nebuchadnezzar, in his rage and fury, commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Now if you be ready, that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet and the flute and the harp and the saxophone and the salsary and the dulcimer and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made.

Well, but if you not worship. That's the arrogance of man, isn't it? Who is this God that you're talking about? Who is this God that you declare to be sovereign and holy and righteous and just? And I love their answer. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said unto the king, O Nebuchadnezzar. We are not careful, we're not going to hide our words from you in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. But if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Therefore he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his armies to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and cast them into the burning, fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Therefore, because the king's commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, and the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound in the midst of the burning, fiery furnace.

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished. and rose up in haste and spake and said unto his counsellors, did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, true, O king. He answered and said, lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt. And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke and said, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come forth and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came forth of the midst of the fire.

And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's councilors being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and has delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's world, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve or worship any god except their own god.

It's a great story. It's a great story of the power of our God. The question I want to ponder with you for just a few minutes is, what was it like to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in that fire? Do you think they communed in any way at all in the midst of that? This is eternal life, that you know Him. You know Him as He truly is, this particular God, and to be in the presence of that God.

No one who has lived for any length of time at all, wants any trials. I don't want any trials at all. I don't even want to cut myself. I don't even like treading on prickles. I don't like any trials at all. In fact, I like my life to be as comfortable and as easy as it could possibly be.

But, but, everyone here will attest to the fact that God is going to take his people through trials. And he's going to take his people through trials, and the trial is going to be about the glory of God. The trial is going to always be, for God's people, about the glory of his name. The trial is always going to be about what did he say? Is he faithful to what he said? Can he be trusted? Can we answer the why question always by saying God did this? And he doesn't owe me an explanation, but I'm so, so thankful that he wrote a word where he's made the promise that I will Never, never, never, never leave you nor forsake you. That's the original language of that passage in Hebrews. I will never leave you.

Such is the glory of our God that in the midst of whatever trial comes your way, you're either coming out of a trial, you're in one now, or you're about to go in one. And Jude, Jude is a glorious book that speaks such words of peace and comfort to the children of God. And I love how Matthew's gospel finishes. It says you, he says, all power, all power, verse 18 of Matthew 28, all power, how much? All of it, is given unto me in heaven and in earth, Go ye therefore, because of I have all this power, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I command you, am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

At the heart of the message of the book of Jude is that these are the trials that the church must have. God has ordained them. But at the very heart of this book is I'm with you. And I want you to note something that I've always loved if you Throughout the scriptures, in the gospel accounts of the Lord Jesus, and particularly in John's gospel, the Lord says, I am, I am. And he's using the very words that when Moses in Exodus 3 said, what's your name? If I'm going there to tell these people that God has sent me to rescue you out of Egypt, tell me what your name is. What an extraordinary thing. Tell me what your name is. And God says, I am that I am. You tell them that I am has sent you.

And when the Lord Jesus Christ used those words, he was saying, I am God almighty here on earth. I am God with you, Emmanuel. And the wonderful thing, And I don't like talking about Greek, because God speaks very, very good English, but in the original Greek, he uses two words, ego eimi, ego eimi, I am, I am, all the way through, all the way through, until he gets to Matthew chapter 28. And then the two words are broken. And now he says, I with you, of the age. Isn't that wonderful? That's exactly what happened on the cross, where he and his people were so amazingly and wonderfully united eternally in union with him, that he now says, with all their sins gone completely and forever. I with you am, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

What were those men? How did those men feel in that fiery furnace? I don't know, and we're not in the business of speculating about how it was. But we do have the testimony of men throughout history. And when the Roman Catholics were burning people at the stake, they used to have a horrible way of burning them. And some of them were burnt, what was called a slow burn. So they'd burn, they'd have a fire sort of organized so that it would burn off their legs and their arms. And one of these men that was subjected to a slow burn told his friends, who were watching and waiting and praying for him as he was about to go to glory. He said, I'll give you a signal that God is with me. And with the stumps of his arms, he clapped them together and rejoiced and said, God is with me.

If God's with you, my brothers and sisters, if God is with you, what the world does and the trials matter little. There's only one thing matters, isn't it? One thing matters. Our God is true and our God is faithful. That's a long introduction to what I want to talk about in due, but I pray that the Lord might cause us to stand as Jude stood with his brothers and sisters all that time ago. And he writes a general epistle to us by the power of God for us to stand alongside him. There is a cause worth standing for, but there is a person, there is a God, there is a saviour who stands with his people.

We're going to sing number three, Be Thou My Vision. Thanks. you I'll turn back in your Bibles with me to the book of Jude. I just wanted to read these first four verses again. But before I do so, I just want to ask the Lord to be with us and help us. Heavenly Father, we do thank you that your word is true. We thank you for your faithfulness. This reveals in your Word, and we thank you that you are faithful to your Word, and we thank you, Heavenly Father, that all of that faithfulness and all of that glory and all of the good for us is entirely bound up in your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray that we might speak well of him this morning, Heavenly Father, and not darken counsel with words without knowledge, and that we might go from here knowing that you have met with us and spoken to us, and that you have made these great and precious promises and sealed them in the blood of your dear and precious Son. Bless us, Heavenly Father. For Christ's sake, we come and pray. Amen.

Jude, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James. We looked last week at the fact that Jude was in truth the half brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so not only does he not claim that as the greatest blessing, what an amazing blessing to have been born into the house where the Lord Jesus Christ was your elder brother. to live in the presence of holiness and purity and to live in the presence of perfect obedience, to live in the presence of someone who never had a sinful thought about you, ever. What a remarkable family that must have been, what a remarkable household. So ordinary was it that no one in Nazareth thought two hoots about it. Isn't that a remarkable testimony to the blindness of men? That we actually need the Spirit of God to reveal holiness when it's standing in the very presence of us. That's how fallen man is.

But he's a servant. He says, I'm a servant. I'm just a bond slave. and a brother of James to them. And this is a wonderful description of the work of God Almighty. And Lord willing, go and look at these words. in more detail, but we speak about them each time we meet.

To them, listen to the phrase, to them that are sanctified, that means set apart to be holy, set apart from all of Adam's race, set apart by God the Father to be his. set apart by God the Father to come into this world and to live in this world in such a way that the Lord Jesus Christ gets all the glory for all of their salvation. They're set apart. They're set apart and they're preserved. We looked at that last week. What an amazing thing. They're preserved. Listen to where they're preserved. They're preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have been put by God the Father in that sanctification. They've been put in the Lord Jesus Christ. What a safe place to be. What a very safe place to be. In him. In him.

We were circumcised in him. We lived in him. When he lived on this earth 2,000 years ago, what's the record of Angus Fisher's life? 2,000 years ago, I was born into this world, and I lived before God and men, perfectly obeying every law of God from the heart. I love God with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind, and I love my neighbor as myself. I lived in perfect fellowship, in perfect obedience with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what the scripture declares all through his life. And on the cross of Calvary, I was in him. I was crucified with the Lord Jesus Christ. The wrath of God fell on all of my sins on the cross of Calvary when I was crucified with my Saviour. Until holy justice says those sins are not just punished by holy wrath, but they are gone altogether. I'm preserved. I was preserved.

Oh dear, some people might not think they need to be preserved. You've lived a life like mine, I need to be preserved from myself. I need to be preserved from the world. I need to be preserved from the devil. I need preservation all the time. Some people have the ability, they think, to keep themselves. God's children know that we need to be kept by the power of God. Nothing short of the power of God is gonna keep me. And what a wonderful place to be, preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a description of the children of God. It's a description of what God does in the children of God. And then after he's done all of that, then he calls them to himself. He calls them to himself. We hear the shepherd speak those wonderful words to us. He says, come unto me. He says, come unto me. Oh, you're weary of life and you're weary of trying to earn your own righteousness. You're weary and you're heavy laden. He says, come. The gospel doesn't say go. The gospel says, come to him. And those who come, Those who are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and called, they're the recipients of mercy. Mercy. Mercy from God Almighty. We're the recipients of the peace. The Lord Jesus Christ is our peace with God. We are the recipients of the love of God.

And don't you love what he goes on to say, let's it be multiplied. I want to see it again and again and again. I want to see it increased. I want to see it more clearly. I want it to be seen in people that I love and care for more and more clearly. I want it to be multiplied. I want it to be increased.

And then he has this lovely description of these people. They are beloved. I love that word. They're beloved. They're beloved of the Father. When he set them apart and put them in his Son, they loved of the Lord Jesus Christ and they loved of the Blessed Holy Spirit.

Because I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness, therefore with mercy, have I called you. 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.

This faith is a description of what God has done. We've just been describing the faith. We're describing the faithful one in describing the faith. Faith is a noun. It's a description of the glorious faithful one. And it was once delivered. It never needs to be changed. It never needs to be adjusted in any way at all. It's finished. And it's delivered unto the saints. It was entrusted unto the saints and God's saints until the Lord returns.

We'll just keep saying this is who God is. He's a sanctifying God. This is who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He's a preserving God and we're preserved in him. This is how the blessed Holy Spirit, he calls us in love to him.

And so with all of that, the question is why? why the trials and why Jude is writing. He wants to lay that foundation and then he says this is what's happened. This is what's going to happen, this is what has happened and it will happen throughout time.

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.

One of the first things that comes to mind is the extraordinary irrationality of unbelief. People die in their sins because they are their sins and they go to an eternal place of punishment and wrath, 100% because of their own fault. The first thing we need to remember when we come to passages like this that speak of this condemnation is that we do not declare in any way whatsoever that God is in any way the author of sin or confusion. Go their way, because they willfully choose their path. What an extraordinary grace to walk away from.

Listen to what God says. Let no man say, this is James 1.13, let no man say when he is tempted, when he's tested, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man. Amen? He doesn't tempt any man.

But there are these promised trials. So Jude, to go back to our friend Jude, Jude thought the best description he could give himself was he was a servant and then he was a brother of James. But there is a greater still blessing from God Almighty and that is to be entrusted to go into battle and stand for the glory of God in this world. Paul says he doesn't want to be troubled by any man because he says, I bear in my bodies, Galatians 6, I bear in my bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bore physically in his body, he bore the marks of the 39 lashes that the Jews had put upon him on several occasions.

But if you read 2 Corinthians 12 and 11, you'll see that the greatest trial that Paul had was a trial in the church. He has all of those problems. He has shipwrecks and he's been in the, In all sorts of trials he's fought wild beasts in Ephesus. He's been troubled on every side physically in so many ways. He's been almost everywhere he went in his early missionary journey he was about to be sort of cast out and stoned and treated with utter contempt.

But the scars that he's speaking of are the fact that he bore in his body, the fact that God had made him faithful. God had made him faithful, and God says, I will cause my people to stand, and stand they will. So it's an honor to be a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a greater privilege than being a blood brother of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But there is in the saints of God a greater blessing altogether, and that is to bear the marks of having been made to stand. And so this is who God is, and this is what he says. And just to give you a brief history of the early church, the early church began with a proclamation in this gospel age. The church, obviously Abel was a part of the church and so was Adam and Eve and Noah and multitudes of others. There was the church in the wilderness. Abraham had the gospel preached to him. The same gospel that we hear is the gospel that Abraham had.

But nevertheless, when the Holy Spirit came upon those people in Pentecost, the very first thing that happened as they preached the gospel in Acts 4 and 5 is that there were trials, there were oppositions to it from the Jews. And then when Paul was called into ministry, listen to what God says. Our Lord Jesus Christ commissions Paul and he says, He says to Ananias, who didn't want to go there, he said, I don't want to go to that guy, he's an enemy of the church. And the Lord Jesus Christ said to Ananias, you go thy way, you go there, for he is a chosen vessel unto me. He's been sanctified by God the Father. He's been preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. despite all that he did, all of his enmity against God, he was preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then he was called, he's a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name. What a great honor to bear the name of God Almighty, to bear the name of the Lord Jesus Christ before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For, I, this is Acts 9, 16, I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. Great things he must suffer for my name's sake.

It is as, Jude reminds us on several occasions, it is appointed, it's appointed to God's people that they will be made to suffer. I love how he speaks in, he says to the Philippians, Paul says to the Philippians, for unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. There's lots of suffering in this world and we should not be the cause of it in any way, shape or form and we should stand opposed to the suffering in this world and do what we can in what's before us to stand against the suffering of this world. But there is a suffering for His sake. There is a suffering for His name's sake, for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it goes on throughout the rest of the New Testament.

The New Testament letters are written in the face of opposition to the gospel from people within. Jude calls them some who creep in. Creep in. They creep in. It means they creep in and they come alongside as if they come in through a side door. And they creep in and they sit and go alongside the children of God. They come to spy, as Galatians 2 says, they come to spy on the freedom that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They come to spy and to stand opposed to the fact that we've been set apart by God the Father, we've been preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he has promised to do a work in the hearts of his people which he must bring to fulfilment all the time. He must, not just Tell you that you're sanctified by God the Father. Tell you that you're preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ. Tell you that you're called, but you will feel the sanctifying work of God the Father. You'll be set apart from this world.

This world can believe pretty much anything these days. And this world can believe pretty much anything about a being called God. And this world can believe pretty much anything you like about a person who had a name called Jesus and this world will believe pretty much anything about a Christ. But Jude's talking about contending for the faith and these certain men come in and they are denying this faith, they're denying the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So let's remember as we go through this book that these are trials that no one wants, that no one brings upon themselves. These are trials that come because of a stand taken for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I love how Peter describes it. This is just an amazing passage of scripture. He says, His writing to the saints of God, 1 Peter chapter one, if you can turn there, it's just such a glorious passage of scripture. I just love it so much. He said, blessed be the God and father, verse three, of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, Jude's saying, I want this mercy to be multiplied. I want the mercy to be able to stand for the truth. I want the mercy to be able to declare the name of God. His abundant mercy has forgotten us again into a lively hope, into a living hope. We have a living hope. Our hope is the Lord Jesus Christ. Into a living hope. by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fate has not a way reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein you greatly rejoice.

So now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that Listen to the wording here from our God, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

The trial of your faith, It's not the trial of your life, it's the trial of your faith. It's the trial of your faithfulness, isn't it? It's the trial of you standing for the glory of God in this fallen and dark and depraved world. The trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes. Gold doesn't perish to our thinking. In the providence of God it will perish, like everything else in this creation. Though it be tried with fire, it might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so Jude, like all of God's saints, when they are called upon by God to write the history of what was happening in their churches, because the history of what was happening in their churches was gonna happen until the Lord returned.

Wherever there is a faithful witness to him, there will be a trial. And I want us to look at what the heart of this is. We know that these men, creep in. So we can only be aware of them if we are the recipients of God the Father's sanctification and mercy multiplied. We'll only know about them for those who are preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll only know about them when we are called by God the Holy Spirit.

But listen to what they do. They're ungodly men. And five or six times in the letter to Jude, he uses this word ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. Ungodly deeds, ungodly thoughts, ungodly actions, ungodly men. Ungodly means with no reverence and no awe and no worship of God. And these are men that we'll see are actually in the churches, they're not on the outside of the churches.

But I want us to look just briefly if we can, if the Lord would allow that we might see what they do. Because what's the condemnation? What do they do? They're ungodly men. They are turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. And in that they are denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the grace of God? We've just been reading about it, haven't we? Paul opens his letter talking about the grace of God. The grace of God sanctifies a people. The grace of God puts a people in the Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of God calls people Grace of God. Like all terms in the scriptures, they are so corrupted these days. We need to keep going back and saying, what is grace? What is grace?

And up the back you have those booklets by Arthur Pink on the attributes of God. It's worth reading the short chapters in there. They are just remarkable. But grace. If you are defining any attribute and action of God, Please hear this, if you define any action and attribute of God, every attribute of God is linked to it. So when we're talking about the grace of God, we're talking about the eternal act of God. You can't talk about the grace of God without talking about election. That's what Jude begins, sanctified by God the Father, set apart by God the Father in eternal election.

The grace of God is the eternal, absolute, free favour of God, giving and ensuring the reception of all spiritual and eternal blessings to a people who are guilty, who are unworthy, who have no merit in them, and they can give nothing in return, can be demanded from them. These are people who have no merits. They are ill-deserving, hell-deserving. Grace comes completely unmerited and completely unsought. It is altogether unattracted by anything in or from the recipients of grace.

So grace cannot be bought. Grace cannot be earned. Grace cannot be won by anything the person does. It comes as a pure gift bestowed. When God said, let there be light, what stopped the light coming? When God says, let there be grace, what stops the grace coming? It comes to those who don't ask for it, have no desire for it. It comes as sovereign mercy from God Almighty exactly as it did to the thief on the cross.

What happened on the cross with that man? He was cursing God and in a second he was praising God. That was grace, wasn't it? Grace is sovereign grace. Grace is electing grace. Grace is glorious grace. Grace is saving grace. There is no grace where there is no salvation. All grace is saving grace because all grace is the grace of God and God cannot fail.

All grace is love, loving grace. All grace is wise grace. All grace is just grace. All grace is holy grace. So, if you want to read a glorious description of the grace of God, just turn to those opening verses of Ephesians chapter 1. All spiritual blessings are given. All spiritual blessings are given.

So how is it that these teachers Translate, transpose the glory of the grace of God in sanctifying, preserving and calling and keeping his people into lasciviousness. into something else. There's no longer grace.

You might have heard the term common grace. There's actually a website in Australia and I think there are music bands that call themselves common grace. That word is never in the Bible. There's nothing common about the grace of God. All of the grace of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. If grace were common, then everyone would be saved.

So how is the grace of God turned into lasciviousness? It's turned into lasciviousness by people mocking the grace of God. It's turned into lasciviousness by people making it a common thing. by telling men that God's mercy, love, and grace are universal things and they embrace all men. God is merciful to all of his creation, but the grace of God and the saving mercy of God always has particular recipients. They're sanctified by God. They're set apart. God set them apart. God set them apart and he put them in his son from before the foundation of the world. and they're now in His Son in heaven. They're seated with Him in heaven right now.

Also, people turn the grace of God into lasciviousness by saying, well, if that's how God saves people, then sin doesn't matter. No child of God ever sees that. No recipient of grace, no called person ever, ever treats sin lightly. Sin, for a believer, is a grievous thing, because they see sin in themselves that no one else ever sees, and they are forced again and again and again to look to the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and say, it costs this much. I hate it. Lord, protect me from it. Protect me from it. And yet Paul says that sin is with him all of the time.

But I think the essence of it, and we'll have to close soon, but the essence of it, and I want you to just listen to some Bible verses with me, but I think the essence of turning the grace of God into something that is licentiousness and leads to wickedness is to say and declare that the grace of God is ineffectual unless you do something. That is at the heart. That message is at the heart of the fall of man. That message is at the heart. If you go and read Acts chapter 15 and read the books of the New Testament, you will see that that notion that God cannot do something unless I do it. God cannot do something unless I help him. Have you heard that phrase, God has no hands but my hands and no feet but my feet? What a load of rubbish. I thought he sat on the throne of the universe and he rules and reigns over all things. He uses his people. I'm not saying that for one second. He uses his people for his glory and Jude is calling his people to stand. It's saying, that sanctification is not a completed activity, a declaration of God that his people are holy in his sight and there is something they must do and something they must add to make themselves more progressively sanctified. That is turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

Every time you see and hear blasphemy in this world, every time you hear and see wickedness in all of this Western world which has had the Gospel, I pray that you would say, as God says, that all of the cause of all of that began in the pulpits of this world.

I love the story of an old English preacher and he preached against drunkenness in his village and he preached against drunkenness so strongly in his village he said finally there wasn't a sober man in the village and then the Lord saved him and he started preaching the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and the village sobered up. We don't believe that. But that's true.

And so I want you to just look, I'll just read a few verses with me. You can follow along if you can or you can write them down. But I want you to see that at the heart of obedience to God and at the heart of fellowship with God is love. Listen to what God says about love. Can he cause his people to love each other? Can he cause his people to walk in love?

He says in 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 9, Isn't that the best way of loving? To have God teach you. We are taught of God. We are taught of God. I've quoted John 6 so many times. We are taught of God. In Isaiah 54, 13, he says, And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of them. Of thy children, they're going to be at peace. Grace, mercy and peace be multiplied. They are taught of God. Grace comes and teaches.

Turn with me to Titus chapter two. I can read it for you very briefly. I just want you to see something. I want you to see that the false teachers that Jude is dealing with are those who say that God's done the best he can do and now it's up to you and you can complete the deal. But listen to what he says, for the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared unto all men, teaching us. It's grace. When grace comes, when that grace that speaks of the sanctifying work of God the Father, the preserving work of God the Son, and the calling work of God, It teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, that we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.

And what do we do? We're looking for a blessed hope. We're looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. How does grace cause God's people to live in this world? We look to the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't look to myself for anything. I'm not looking for hope in anything I've done, anything I've said, the best prayers, the best sermon, nothing. The best reading, the most extraordinary moments in the scriptures, I'm looking to Him. All of it, if it's come from God, if it's bringing salvation, if it's appeared, it's going to cause us to look to the blessed hope and the glorious appearing.

We know those verses in Proverbs, isn't it? In Proverbs 3, in all thy ways acknowledge him, and what is his promise? And he will direct your path. What do you do? You acknowledge him. Can he direct your path? Or do you need to do something else? He says he'll direct your path. He says, I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

The issue that Jude is wanting us to see is that our God says, yes. Our God says, I will. And our God says, they shall. Amen. Amen. And he gets all the glory. And he gets all the praise, and his people get all the comfort of resting in him in the midst of the trials that he's promised. In the midst of the trials.

There's much more to say, but I just pray the Lord might use that. comfort His people and strengthen us. How God's able. He's able. We sing it each week, don't we? He's able. He's able. He's able to keep you. He's able to present you. He's able to present you for the presence of His glory. Is He able? Religion says no, He's not. God says I can and I have and I will. God says that they're already seated together with me in heavenly places. That's how united we are to our blessed Saviour.

May he protect us and cause us to stand, bear the scars and stand for the glory and for the grace of our God.