Okay, we're going to be in the
book of Jude again this morning. I had to think a bit for a title
or something to label this, and I'd like to label this or title
this this morning, Beware and Remember. And I think that probably
fits a lot of what we're gonna be looking at in the next several
lessons, but beware and remember, and we're gonna be considering
mostly Jude verse four and verse five today. I'd like to start
by by reading the first five verses
once again. It says, 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, 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 exhort you that you should
earnestly contend for 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 lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance,
though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the
people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that
believed not." I find it helpful, and I think
needful, as looking and studying through the book of Jude, and
I think other places too, to not forget the context that we're
in in the book of Jude that went on before that, and those things
that Jude wrote to God's people, wrote to the church, these things,
says, all of scripture is given by inspiration of God and for
the several things that the benefit of that is to the church and
to God's people. And we're gonna see that down
through this and some other passages that there's the two things that
God has delivered his people by his grace and mercy has delivered
his people and those that are destroyed because of unbelief.
And it mentions here and several places in the preaching that
we have of Paul, Peter, and others that we have in the
New Testament, besides the old, that reminds us of these things.
It talks about what God delivered his people in time past his people
he delivered. Others were destroyed. And there
are several examples he talks about down through here in verses
5 through 19 in this book as time goes by. But today we're
going to look at some thoughts in verses 4 and 5 here. And three, kind of three points
that are discussed here in verse 4 We'll mention verse five in some
thoughts, but point one being, or how this
can be kind of divided, there'll be in the church certain ones
that are ordained or appointed to this condemnation, as it said,
ungodly men. The ones that he's going on and
Jude is going to discuss and say to beware of and examples
of those things are those that God has ordained them to be in
that place at that time. As Paul was ordained to be in
the place where he was, not only as God delivered him and made
him into what we view as a great preacher in many of the books
that God had him pen, that we are dear to us, Paul was not
always that man. And by nature, and by in religion,
he attests himself that he was not a very, he was not a good
man. And yet he was appointed at those
times to that all steps are ordered and determined by God, and even
those things there. So this, we're going to look
at this as a thought of the certain ones that are deigned of old,
and we're going to look at turning the grace of God into lasciviousness,
and we're going to see what that speaks about. And then denying
the third point would be denying the only Lord God and our Lord
Jesus Christ. And then the conclusion or fourth
point will be the thought from several verses
of looking to our Lord and not looking to ourselves or to any
other thoughts or men, but what the scripture has to say. Jude says, certain men crept
in unawares, who were before of old, ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, first part of verse four. And these were certain
ones, it says, and as the scripture in several places talks about
certain ones, certain people, these are marked out ones, they're
ordained, they're marked out, were appointed to this condemnation
and to this position that they had here. God ordains and appoints all
men to wherever they are, whatever they're doing. And they've been
appointed. These ones that were in their
midst, and it says here, and it's interesting, the phrase
that the Holy Spirit had Jude use here, where it says, crept
in unawares. And we have some examples in
the scriptures of those that were in their midst that were
crept in unawares. We've seen people in our midst
that we took them to be as we are. They said they were. They've said, yes, we believe
what the Scripture had to say. And then down the road a ways,
we're very surprised because they don't value that scripture
and our Lord the same way as what the gospel teaches us and
preaches to us. And we're surprised by that because
we judge by what we see. We judge by what people say to
us. And there's people that maybe
we don't take to and we don't necessarily care for them. We
can be surprised that maybe they are not what we view them as
either. We can have a poor opinion of
somebody and then we're proved wrong. But we can have, as these
did that Judith's talking about, these were people amongst them.
They weren't ones that came in with the flag waving and we're
going to take this church over and we're going to make it ours.
It doesn't say that. It said, crept in unawares. And the thinking there being
that they were joined to the church like the rest of them.
They were joined to the church as they were. Turn to the book
of John chapter six for just a second or two here. John chapter six. reading some words here that the Lord
himself said to them, to the disciples. Above this, in this chapter,
the Lord speaks to them and is talking about eating his flesh
and drinking his blood, and that he that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him. And it says, these
are hard things to hear. He was the bread that came down
from heaven, he said, that they were fed with. And it said, many
of them, who can hear it? Who can hear these things? And
then verse 63, starting in verse 63 and reading down, the Lord
says, it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are
life. But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus,
and this is not his word, for Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed not and who should betray him. And
he said, therefore, I said unto you that no man can come unto
me except it were given unto him of my father. From that time
many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him.
Then he said unto them, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered unto
him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ,
the Son of the living God. And Jesus, in verse 7, answered
them, Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? And
a couple of things with this passage, as it says here, there
were some hard things for them to hear and to understand. And
it said, the spirit quickeneth, flesh profited nothing. And that's
something that we maybe ought to read and have
in mind every day, because that the flesh profiteth nothing,
the Spirit is all that giveth life." And then the thinking
down here, the thought to tie it to Jude 4 was It says, Simon Peter says, where
shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal
life, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,
the Son of the living God. And then Jesus answered them,
Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He
knew who He knew who Judas was all along. He wasn't going to
have to wait and find out and see if he picked a good dozen
to be his disciples or not. He knew that. And he said that
even before it was revealed to them, that it says, have I not
chosen you 12? And one of you is the devil.
They didn't know that. And there was those, when he
said that, you're all going to deny me. And they'd all said,
Is he talking about me? I mean, they didn't say, yeah,
we know the one that's marked out. I don't think it was evident
to them who he was at that time. And as it were, crept in unawares
to them, he was in their midst. And he went out, when they went
out two by two, I don't think he probably was the one that
always was the dissenting vote on everything, you know, and
said, well, I don't quite believe that. I think outwardly and what
he had to say, and maybe he even believed that, I mean, as far
as what he was saying that he believed it. the Spirit didn't bear witness
with His Spirit, that's for sure, that He was the Son of God. But
the thought there being that they We don't know, we can't
see the heart. We see what comes out of the
mouth, and we can judge by that only that much, by what a person
says and what they believe and what we see. And I think that
was a real example of that amongst them. We're gonna talk about
a couple others in just a minute. And then in Acts chapter 20, Let's turn to Acts 20 for just
a minute here. Okay. Starting with verse 28
of chapter 20. Let's start verse 28 of chapter
20 of Acts. It says, unto yourselves, and to all the
flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed
the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves
enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves
shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples
after them. Therefore watch and remember
that by the space of three years I cease not to warn every one
of you, every one day and night with tears. And now brethren,
I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able
to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them
which are sanctified." And here speaking to those that he had preached to, and that
he had shunned-it says that he had shunned to declare all the
counsel of God, that these things, as it says here, after my departing
shall grievous wolves enter among you, not sparing the flock. Of
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to
draw away disciples after them. And I think we know of those
things that take place, and that is what natural man, whether
it be in whatever walk of life, but in religion in particular,
there are those that like to draw men unto themselves. And
there are those that, as John was a true forerunner of the
Lord and said, it's not me, don't look to me, I'm pointing to him,
I'm pointing to the, the one that was prophesied of old, the
one that is the true Lamb of God and that shall take away
the sin of the world, and not myself. He was very humble, and
he had quite a following, and he could have had a following
in his own right had he desired that. And he did not. And there was a time when Paul
talked to several of them and said, there's some divisions
here that shouldn't be here. Some of you say you're a Paul
and Apollos and others. So that's not the idea here. That's not the objection here
or the object here. Object is to preach the gospel
of him who is sent. the anointed, the Savior, the
Lord, our righteousness. And that's, it's not who you
follow after. Now, we have those that we enjoy
to hear, preach the word or to fellowship with in that way and
different things. And there are those that are gonna gravitate
together in that way, but not as a division and say, I'm of
this guy. Now we, as our group, we are
in this group, and Norm is our pastor. We are of this group,
but... as a shepherd of the Lord's flock,
not of Norm's flock per se, under his name. And there are those that follow after
certain ones, and that's who they follow after. And you kind
of wonder if the Lord is maybe a little bit second second in
line, or they want him to be second in line. And there were
those, as it talks here, that are of your own self, men of
right speaking, perverse things to draw away disciples after
them. And I don't think, when it speaks
here, we have to we kind of have to think about the wording and
what the words mean. Here, when it says they're speaking
perverse things, I don't think that they were something that
was 180 degrees out of what's right, as far as morally going,
or those type of things. But anything that changes, as
it says here, that changed the grace of God into anything else,
those are perverse things. And it doesn't have to be, but
just a little bit of how much leavening does it take to leaven
the whole lump? Is it just a little bit? How
much can be tolerated? A little bit or none? And I think
we're speaking perverse things just as it will be speaking of
these men that crept in unawares. I don't, you know, pretty the the sound of the bell just has
a little bit off ring pretty soon. And say, wait, what's not
square here? And here it talks about the perversion
of the grace of our God. And we'll look at that in just
a second. But anything that is not square with
the gospel is not right. I mean, it doesn't matter if
it's a church doctrine or church thinking or whatever it is, if
it's anything other than declaring the whole counsel of
God and only God's counsel, then it's not right, it's wrong. And
I think that as it says here, that those are crept in under
men, and they're called ungodly men because if they're perverting,
as we'll see, perverting the gospel or the grace of our Lord
and Savior, or denying Him as who He is, and I think these,
we're gonna look and see, it's not denying that there is a Lord
Jesus Christ, it's denying by, did He really say this? as in the garden. Did God really
say that? He knows you're not going to die. Well, they did
die right then and there in the spiritual sense, the spiritual
death. And so it's not denying Him by
saying, I don't believe He is the Lord. but by what is being
taught, it does say that. Anything that takes away from
what he is to his people, what he has done, or who he is just
of himself, is perversion of the gospel, and it's to be guarded
against, and to be, as it said up in Jude, we have to stand
and defend the defense of the faith of the gospel. Turn to Numbers chapter 16, please. We're going to look at a couple
of thoughts here. that he gets to, and we're going
to introduce it a little bit before Jude does, but it goes
along with what we're saying here about those certain ones
of old and turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. In
Numbers chapter 16, and there's quite a There's quite a section here
and it's dealing with Numbers 16. Chapter 16, Numbers. It says, Now Korah, the son of
Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan, and
Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of
Reuben, took men, and they rose up before Moses with certain
of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, famous
in the congregation, men of renown, And they gathered themselves
together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye
take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Wherefore then
lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord? And
when Moses heard it, he fell on his face. And he spake unto
Korah, and said unto all his company, saying, Even tomorrow
the Lord will show you who are his, and who is holy, and will
cause him to come near unto him. Even him who he hath chosen will
he cause to come near unto them. And the story is they took censers,
they put incense in them, Cora, 250 men of renown, and they offered
strange fire there before the Lord, and to condense it down
a little bit in the end, Cora and those 250 men, and all their
houses, and all their men, and all their things that pertained
to them, the ground opened up and swallowed them. And before
the whole story is over with, the plague that came upon them,
14,000 people died of the plague before when Moses went before
the Lord and stood for them before the Lord, and the plague stopped.
And we know that, sure, we spent some time in those passages recently. And, but the point of being,
Korah told his lineage. He was from the families there.
And certain of the children of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly,
famous in the congregation, men of renown. These weren't outsiders
that came in one afternoon and said, this is a bunch of nonsense.
Here's what we want to do. These were men of the group. These are men of Israel. These
are men, it says here, 250 princes, famous in the congregation, men
of renown. Those are not bad things about
those men. They were well, their standing,
as far as the congregation goes, they were in good standing. That
is how they viewed it. They were certain men marked
out to this condemnation to do that and showing that several
things from this as you go through that, the point being, God determines
who is, what goes on and how it goes on. God puts the people
where he puts them to speak for him as he had them speak, and
as Moses, and Moses didn't put that up. When they came up against
Moses, Moses said, fell on his face. And it was a serious thing. It wasn't Moses they were complaining
against. It was God and how God was doing
His business that they were complaining against. And it was a serious
thing, and God took it very seriously. And
then in chapter 22, move over to Numbers chapter 22 just for
a little bit. chapter 22 of Numbers, starting
with verse 1, and we're reading a couple of different little
places here, but starting with verse 1, Numbers chapter 22,
And the children of Israel set forward and pitched in the plains
of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho. And Balak the son of
Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites, and Moab
was sore afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab
was distressed because of the children of Israel. And Moab
said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up
all that are around about us, as the ox licketh up the grass
of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was
king of the Moabites at that time. He sent messengers, therefore,
unto Balaam, the son of Baor, to Pithor, which is by the river
of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying,
Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt. Behold, they
cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me. Come now, therefore, I pray thee,
curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me. Peradventure
I shall prevail that we might smite them, and that I may drive
them out of the land. For I walk that he whom thou
blesseth is blessed, and who whom thou cursest is cursed.
And then skipping down to verse 19, it says, Now, therefore, I pray you, tarry
also here this night, that I may know what the Lord will say unto
me more. And God came unto Balaam at night
and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up and
go with them. But yet the word which I shall
say unto thee, that shalt thou do. And Balaam rose up in the
morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab, went with the princes of Moab.
And then it says, verse 22, God's anger was killed because he went,
and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against
him. Now he was riding upon his ass,
and his two servants were with him. We know that we spent some
time also about Balaam and Balak, and requesting him to curse them. He was going to get paid for
this. He wasn't doing it as something he had a mind to do necessarily
on his own, but for pay, they wanted him to curse the children
of Israel. He tried to curse the children of Israel. and several
times, and it was not to be. If God does not curse a people,
they are not going to be cursed people. It doesn't matter what,
and obviously men curse God's people out with the words. I
mean, they say that, but this is a picture of it. He was not
allowed to curse them by word. And the The point being here
that Korah and Balaam were both ones
that came, that they were known people. They weren't strangers
to the group. They were known people. They
weren't ones that come in to overthrow. They were known of
the people, but they crept in unawares. Balaam was going to
do that for money, for gain. And in Jude, let me go back to
the book of Jude. Jude, it talks about the ones
that creep in down through here, and we're going to look at-they're
going to look at these in future time, but in verse Verse 11 of Jude, it says, of
these certain men crept in unawares, that are going to do some things
that we're going to look at. It says, Woe unto them, for they
have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the heir
of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These
are spots in your Feast of Charity when they feast with you, feeding
themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water,
carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots." It goes quite
a description on, and we'll see that before and after that spot.
But here, likening them, have gone in the same way of Cain.
Cain, we know that Cain came to offer his offering of the
work of his hands, as it were, the fruit of the garden, of the
fields, and things like that. And Abel brought a lamb. I firmly
believe that those boys were taught by example of what the
covering that was needed for themselves, that it was a covering
that was provided not by the work of their hands, but by God
Almighty had to provide the covering, as he did literally with Adam
and Eve, symbolically in the offering of that lamb that was
given. And one of them, showed that
by God's working in him that he had that hope in that Lamb,
the true Lamb of God, and the other did not. The other did
not. Cain's offering was not even
a squint your eyes and see what it had to say. It said plainly,
my work, is covering enough. And that's all natural man comes
up with too, is my covering is good enough. And Abel's the picture
of the true covering and that robe of righteousness that started
with Adam and Eve, that literally and then on spiritually to God's
people. And that's what was being spoken
of. And then greedily after the heir
of Balaam for reward, whatever that reward might be, people
falling after you. It doesn't have to be dollars
and cents, but Balaam was doing that for reward. That's what
he was looking for. And Korah, it says, gainsaying
of Korah and Korah wanted the preeminence there too. They were
jealous, those men were jealous, is what it boils down to, of
Moses because they thought Moses was taking too much on himself. God placed Moses in that position,
and when God first approached Moses about that, he said, I
can't do that job. Moses did not seek after the
position that God placed him in. But by God's grace, he did
do that and could do those things. And Moses and Adam, or Moses
and Aaron, and they weren't after gain. They weren't after doing
religion's things their way. They were after what God saith,
and this is what they did. And that's what they did. And
we know the story of all down, of the children of Israel, ways
that they turned aside, like every day and a half they turned
aside, maybe every day, maybe every minute they turned aside
from what God said, this is the way and pretty soon there not
in the way. And by natural religion and natural
man's heart, that's all that can be done is the wrong thing.
It can never be the right thing. And God has to deliver his people
from those things and from that. these certain ones that were
ordained of old, it says, of God, ordained of old. And the
next point and the next thought, turning the grace of our God
into lasciviousness. And there's many words that of
definition of lasciviousness. It can be wantonness, shamelessness,
outrageousness, or false or, there's another word I wanted
to put in that I can't think of right this moment, but those
things that are not true to God's gospel, those things, and the
grace of God. Let's turn to Romans chapter 5 for a thought
on this. Romans chapter 5. And this Obviously, it speaks of our salvation by our Lord, the
faith and peace that is only by Him, and God's grace where
we stand. But starting with verse 19 of
Romans 5, it says, For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin did abound, grace did
much more abound. that as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord." And starting with chapter six,
verse one. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us,
as were baptized into Christ Jesus Christ, were baptized into
His death? Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should
walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together
in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness
of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin." how we come to the position we're
in by our Lord Jesus Christ. And here, in verse 20 and 21,
where it says, the law entered that the offense might abound,
but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. that sin
has reigned unto death, even might grace reign through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then
to these things? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? That's part of the thought that
others had, and it's dealt with more than one spot by Paul, but
that if grace took care of the sin, so we sin more and we get
more grace, and that had to be a thought that was brought up
because he addresses it here, and the Holy Spirit addresses
it here. And it says another place, if it's used for a cloak
to do those things that are not right, it can't say, I'm under
the grace of God, so whatever I do, is covered by the grace
of God, and so whatever I do is no problem, because natural
man likes that kind of thinking, because there's other religions
where you can go and you can be absolved of what you did this
week, and next week's a new week, and you can go do what you want
to do, kind of, and you can come back and say, well, I'm kind
of sorry for that, and they say, well, no problem, you're covered,
and good to go. That is not God's attitude or
thoughts towards the grace of God at all. God's people know where they
have come from, know what they are made of, and by God's grace
alone are we what we can be if we are His people and His sheep,
by His grace alone. And there are those that were,
as I said, turning it into, to not the grace of God, whatever
that may, whatever perversion that will be, whatever way that's
wrong, it's turning it into lasciviousness. And then a couple more spots
just to look at in Galatians chapter one. In Galatians chapter one. First verse of chapter one of
Galatians, it says, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him
from the dead, and all the brethren which are with me unto the churches
of Galatia. Grace be unto you and peace from
God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself
for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world
according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory
forever and ever. Amen. I marvel that ye are so
soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ
unto another gospel. which is not another gospel,
but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel
of Christ. But though we who are an angel
from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before,
so say I again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than
that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade
men or God? Do I seek to please men? For
if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. for I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ." And that's where we, by God's grace, must stand and
must be, that these here he talked about, it's not another gospel.
If it's not the gospel of Christ, it's another gospel that's not
the gospel at all. It may be another teaching and
other thoughts, but it's not the gospel. And that's what it's
speaking about, and we're going to get into further detail down
as we look into Jude a little farther. And I'd like to close
one more time with the thought in The last two verses of Jude.
It says, now unto him that's able to keep you from falling
and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with
exceeding joy, to the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and
majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Thank you for your attention
and being here today. And we will look a little further
into Jude next time.