Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James, to them that are sanctified, separated,
made holy, set apart by God the Father, set apart in the covenant
of grace, set apart to the gospel, set apart to Christ when we were
given to Him in the eternal covenant of grace, and preserved in Christ
Jesus. You know, we were preserved in
Christ also before the world began, because He stood as the
Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. For whom He did
foreknow, them He also did predestinate. Them He predestinated, He also
called. Them He called, He also justified,
also glorified. All of that is in the past tense. And then we were called. And
now you know you've been sanctified. How you know you've been preserved?
You've been called. That's how you know it, by your
calling. And then he says, mercy unto you, and peace and love
be multiplied. Be multiplied. He says, may it
abound. He said, may it super abound
towards you. May the love and mercy and peace
of God abound towards you in abundance. And then he called
them love. He expressed his love for them.
Beloved expressed his great love for them. Then he talked about
his zeal. I have much zeal and diligence
in writing unto you of the common salvation, and to exhort you
earnestly 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. That's
why I wanted to tackle my message this evening, Denying Christ.
But he had this zealousness, this diligence in writing to
them and telling them and exhorting them to earnestly contend for
the faith of the common salvation. And beloved, we need to contend
for the faith. But let me tell you where we
need to contend for it, two places more than any place else. First
of all, we need to contend for it in our own hearts. Contend
for it in our own hearts. And in our own lives. You know,
Paul, when he wrote to the Hebrews, he says, unless at any time you
should let these slip. You know, that's why the Lord
said, take heed how you hear. How you hear. You know, men can
go through great trials. Great, great trials. Men in the
Scriptures did. He just read Hebrews 11. Some
of you have been through some tremendous trials, great trials,
great, great trials. And then we can go through great
losses. I mean, we can have some incredible losses. But if you
lose the gospel, leave the gospel, lose the faith, then you've lost
the only means of salvation that God means for you to have in
this world. And so we've got to guard our
own hearts, contend for the faith in our own hearts. That's what
he read there. Consider him, beloved, that could
endure such contradiction against sinners against himself, lest
you be wearied and faint in your minds. When you think things
are so against you, you think how Christ came to save sinners
and then how sinners treated Him. and how he was treated by
even those who he saved. Peter, a disciple whom he loved,
denied him. John, even all of them, forsook
him and fled. He endured this great, and look
at us, how he endures us and the contradiction that we are
towards him. Lest you be weary in fainting
your minds, so contend for the faith in your own heart. There,
in your own heart and in your own life. And secondly, we need
to contend for it in the church. In the church. You know, a church
can endure and survive schisms, divisions, arguments, money problems,
discouragements, even disagreements. But if the church loses the gospel,
loses the faith and stops contending for the faith, It has no reason
to exist anymore. And so we must earnestly contend
for the faith. We must do that, God helping
us, in our own hearts and lives and in the church. The church
can go through some great things and have some great losses, just
like in personal lives. But if we walk away and start
compromising water down the gospel, we have no reason to exist anymore,
none whatsoever. And so that's why, and that's
why he wrote and said it's necessary for him to write and exhort them. Why? He says there in verse four.
Here's just why it was, why we have to earnestly contend for
the faith. For there are certain men prepped 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 thy Lord Jesus Christ. Let's talk about
these men. First of all, let me give you
this. How did they get in? How did they get in the church?
How did they come among the saints of God? How did they come among
the Lord's people? Well, there's certain men that
says they've crept in unawares. Crept in unawares. How did they
creep in unawares? That don't mean they snuck in.
How did they creep in unawares? They came in as professors. They
came in as those who are believers in Christ. They took the name
of Christian. You know, our Lord Jesus Christ,
they say, here's Christ and there's Christ. Many false prophets and
wise and say, follow me over here and follow me over there.
And so they come in as professors, they come in as Christians, they
come in as believers, and they don't come in and start suddenly
teaching false doctrine. If it was, you could spot them
real quickly. No, no, they come in and they're very subtle in
their way. They're their father the devil,
and they're very subtle and very crafty in how they start dealing
with things and insinuating things and dropping errors on people's
minds. Now, you keep Jude and look with
me over in Ephesians chapter 4. And that's why we have to
earnestly contend for the faith, because you'll have people that'll
come in and try to draw you away from the faith. And tell you
there's more to the faith. There's more than just common
salvation. And tell you there's more in
the Bible than Christ to be preached. But look here at Ephesians 4.14.
And this is where Paul warns these folks here. He says that
we be no more children. Don't be no more children. Don't
act like children. Tossed to and fro. Carried about
with ever wind of doctrine. There's ever wind of doctrine
out there. Coming up with new doctrines all the time. They
got what they call now, a new thing going around called the
emerging doctrine, the emerging church. We got the church has
to emerge and has to evolve to meet the deeds of the modern
man. And then they've got what they call the new Calvinism.
How can there be a new Calvinism? And I mean, you've got all these
things, and I read a long paper about it the other day. And Paul
says, send it to me. I want to see it about this new
Calvinism. And also, that's why don't be no cared about with
every wind of doctrine. By the slight of men. Men will
say, boy, look at this. Ain't this something? Look at
this new thing here. I've just seen that. What do
you think about that? And then with cunning craftiness,
they'll start telling you, boy, don't you see this? Don't you
see that? And that fellow left this off and that. And then whereby
they lie and wait to deceive. They're just waiting to deceive.
They're just waiting to pounce on people. And then back over
in our text, they're subtle and crafty. That's why Paul said,
I'm fear-blessed. Satan by subtlety beguile you
from the simplicity that's in Christ. I mean, he comes with
craftiness, and he tries to beguile you away from the simplicity
in Christ, tell you you need to be doing things. And listen,
here's how they also creep in. They creep into people's hearts.
They creep into their affections, and they do it by pretense. You
know, the first thing they'll tell you is, I love you, and
I love the preacher, and I love this doctrine, but, but, Whenever you hear a buzz,
automatically your radar ought to go up. Oh, they come, they slip these
errors in a little at a time. And I'm going to give you an
illustration of it. There are some folks that went to Brother
Mahan's years ago. One of them took off and committed
adultery on his wife, got caught. And you know who he blamed? He
blamed Brother Henry. You know why he blamed Brother
Henry? Because Henry wasn't preaching against adultery. What kind of
fool has to have adultery preached to him to keep from committing
adultery? And then there's a bunch of others
that got around. They wanted to start saying, well, Henry's
not preaching enough about holiness. And so they started getting together
to have meetings and start talking about, we need to start living
holy lives. We need to have some holiness different than what
we've got. We're not living good enough. We're not living holy
enough. And that's what they do. They come slipping in these
little old errors. And they'll start talking about,
well, the preacher's not saying enough about this. The preacher's
saying too much about that. He should say something about
this. And the next thing you know, they've got folks, oh,
I never thought of that before. And Paul called them false bread.
And look over here in 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2. He says this, you know, slipping a little air
in people's minds, just a little bit at a time. But there were
false prophets also among the people. There were false prophets. There was always false prophets
among the people. Even as there shall be false
teachers among you. There'll be false teachers among
you. And if you could recognize them,
you wouldn't know they were false. Now see how they do it privately.
They get people one or two or three at a time and start saying
things about this preacher and that preacher, and why they do
it this in the church, and why you do that, and why you do this
other thing. Don't you think we ought to be doing this? And
why don't he start feeding his people? Oh, you know, go on and
on. They shall bring in damnable heresies privately. And they'll
come to the place that they'll even deny the Lord that bought
them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And listen,
and many shall follow those deadliest, lascivious, pernicious ways.
And this is what the end result of it will be, by reason of whom
the way of truth shall be even spoken of. Ah, we need to leave
that place, sir, that God's not telling at all. And oh, and here
they come back over in our text. And I tell you, not only do they
creep into people's hearts and affections by pretense, But they
appear meek. They always appear meek. Loving. But you know what our Lord said?
He said, Beware false prophets who come in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they're ravening wolves. Ravening wolves. And that's the way Absalom was.
You know, David's son. And he was a handsome man, big
old long curls hanging way down there and he wanted to be the
ruler. And everybody started bragging
on what a fine looking fellow he was and all, what a fine fellow
he was, what a good preacher, what a good man he was and all
that. He said, well I'll tell you what to do. He sat down right
at the gate. Anybody want to come to David
for judgment, he'd say, no, no, don't bother my daddy. Don't
bother my daddy. I'm as smart as he is. I know
as much as he does. You just tell me your trouble
and I'll take care of it. Next thing you know, he said,
I'm going to take the throne. I'm going to take the throne.
And that's the way they do. Now, he looked like she, he's
dressed as she's clothed and sitting out there, you know,
it looked good. Now, don't bother my daddy. My daddy's an important
fella. He's the king. You don't need to be bothered
by some sort of guy like you. I can handle it. I can handle
it. Next thing you know, he handled
it enough, he says, you know, dad, these folks want me to be
king. He appeared meek, but boy, it
ended up being just a death. And then they come along and
they tell you about a higher and a better gospel. I got a
better gospel. You know this gospel, y'all,
you just go on with grace, grace, grace, grace, grace. There's
got to be more truth than grace. There's got to be some part for
us. And they said, we got a better gospel, a higher gospel. And
this will make you holier, make you better, make you stronger.
Well, look what Paul said over here in 2 Corinthians 11. He said, Whoa, if a man brings
you another gospel, bring you another gospel, don't
even bid him gospel, just let him be accursed. You know, I
was looking there when we sung 309 tonight. 308, right across the page was, you
know, lift me up, put my feet on higher ground. How can you
be on higher ground than being in Christ? And look what Paul
said here in verse 4. Yeah, verse 4. For he that cometh
preaches another Jesus. And there is another Jesus that's
being preached. Lots of them. They preach another
Jesus. And we've not preached this Jesus.
We've not preached to Jesus that's after the flesh. We've not preached
to Jesus that's powerless. We've not preached to Jesus that
loves. We've not preached to Jesus whose
blood is not effectual. Or if you receive another spirit,
another spirit other than the Holy Spirit, another spirit other
than the Spirit of God that exalts Christ, or another gospel, which
we have not, which we ourselves have not accepted. You bear with
him, so why wouldn't you bear with him who does preach the
gospel?" And he says, there's people that's out there doing
that. And oh, listen, beloved, so they think they can preach
a higher and better gospel, and I'll tell you another reason
how these fellows creep in. They come in, they creep in,
they come in, they say, boy, oh boy, they come in with their
education, they come in with their great learning. and their
education, they always wanted to talk about the original language.
Do you care anything about Greek? Anybody here want to learn the
Greek language? Anybody here want to learn the Hebrew? If
we did, what good would it do us? We all speak American. We speak American around here. Then you know, so they come in,
you know, no greater learning. They make folks say, boy, that
fella's so smart, I don't have a... And Wayne Boyd told me this
one time, him and his wife, they went to this church, they went
for a while, and when they would leave, they said, boy, that sure
sounded good, but what did he say? I don't know. They done that for about a month. It sounds good, but I just didn't
know he was so far over their heads. I said, what did you just
say? I don't know! And if you don't know what somebody's
saying, what's the use of listening to them? You know, I'll tell
you, that's when they got, oh, we got to live from it. The Greek
means this, and it's in this tense, which means it's in that
tense over there, and this verse over here means the same thing,
and they go along with all the Greek. And they said, the Hebrew's
this way, that way, another thing. You know what Paul called that?
And he said, if the greatest teacher of his age, Gamaliel,
he said, I count it all but done that I may win Christ, be found
in Christ, know Christ. And that's what he said about
everything. And that's it right there. We have to unlearn everything
we ever know. God save us and unlearn us from
what we have learned. And they use these things to
draw attention away from Christ and to themselves. And if anybody
wants attention drawn to themselves, be scared to death of them if
they're not drawing attention to the Lord Jesus. Now, look
back here, not only did they creep in unaware, this is why
he said, I've got a right to you and to tell you earnestly,
because here are these certain men crept in unaware. Now, here's
what God views of them. Here's what God says about them.
They're conditioned before Him. who were before of old ordained
to this condemnation." Oh, my! You mean God ordained these men
before of old to this condemnation, ordained them to be false teachers,
to be false teachers? You know, the Scripture says
that it's necessary that e'er must come that the truth may
be manifest. The error, you know, he says,
an error must come so that you'll know the truth when you see it.
And of old ordained, when it says here of old ordained, that
means written in a book. That means God had a book and
He wrote down what everything's going to happen. You know, it
says, as many as were ordained to eternal life, they believed.
And these fellows here were ordained to condemnation and judgment
and damnation. You want to believe a lie? God
said, I'll ordain you to believe a lie. You want to be a false
prophet, a false teacher? You want to cause havoc in the
church? I'll let you cause havoc in the church, but it'll cost
you your soul. And as to the church, they crept
in unawares. But God was aware of them. before
they ever got there. And that's why he says that they'd
receive the burden left if it were possible. Oh, he ordained them, he decreed
them to this condemnation, to this judgment. That's why Peter
says their damnation slumbered not any longer. Their damnation's
here. You know, people say that God
ordained men's ways, the ways of men, but oh, no, He ordained
men's persons, too. Yeah. And they're not only our
men's ways, the object of God's decrees, but their very persons
are the object of God's decrees. When Paul said, Would it please
God who separated my ways from the one who separated me from
my mother's one? He said, Jeremiah, before you
was formed in your mother's belly, I knew you, and I ordained you
to be a prophet. And that's the way these fellows
was. He said, before you was ever formed, before you come
into this world, I ordained you to damnation and condemnation,
because you are a liar, you was born a liar, and I didn't save
you from being a liar. Now that's scary, isn't it? You know, that's Pharaoh. You
know what God said about Pharaoh? Pharaoh, he was walking around
his road, told my, he was high-minded, who is the Lord. He kept promising,
I'll let him go, I'll let him go, I'll let him go. I'll let
him go. And finally God just said, this
is what I'm going to do to you. The only reason you exist right
now. The only reason you're living
right now. The only reason I brought you
into this world and gave you a being is so I could show my
power in you when I found you in the Red Sea. You're going
to find out I'm the Lord. You're going to find out I'm
God. And that's why this generation don't know nothing about that,
because they don't hear this God. You know, not only does
He have an election, but He has a reparation. If He has a choosing,
He has a passing by. If He has ordination to life,
He has ordination to damnation. And I certainly don't want to
be in, I don't want to be, I don't want to be one of them goats
on the lamp. You know, that's why he says, oh said this, I
told you this morning. They said, Lord, look at all
the works we've done. We've cast out devils. We've
done many wonderful works. We've preached. We've done all
that. We've done all that. Depart from me. I never knew
you. Everything you've done in my name was just a sham. It was
a put on. It was a pretense. It was a lie. I don't know you. And there's
Nedney Knesser. God raised him up and turned
him out to eat grass. Judas! Have not I chosen you
twelve, and one of you is a devil? And Pilate. Do you know why Pilate
was where he was? And listen, let me give you an
illustration. And I'll show you this about how these men all
lived. God warned Pilate several times. To leave Christ alone,
let him go. He didn't want to even deal with
it, and he sent him back to Herod. You deal with him. Herod sent
him back. His wife told him, says, don't
you dare lay hand on this man. Said, I just had a dream, and
it troubled me, it scared me. Don't you raise a hand against
this man. And he told him time and time
again, I don't find any fault in him. But willing to content
the people, he sealed his fate. Now, why wouldn't it be somebody
else besides Pilate? Because that's the one God had
there. And oh, beloved, when men start
to play with opinions, when men start to play with their opinions,
and their ideas, and their philosophies, and their interpretations, and
start to pervert the ways, the truths of God, they don't consider
the end of it, which is the damnation of their own souls. And that's
why he says, you've got to earnestly contend for this thing. I mean,
you stand for it. You earnestly contend for it,
because there's somebody standing right around the corner, just
waiting to steal, to rob and destroy and take away the truth
from you, if he can at all. And change your view of the truth,
if he can. And how did these men come to
this? How did they come to this to be of old ordained to this
condemnation? Now let me tell you something.
They did not know anything about God's decrees. When they're out
here lying on God and perverting the truth, they didn't know anything
about God's decrees. They didn't know a thing in the
world about God's decrees. God ordained it to them. They
didn't know it. And they didn't care. Only thing
they cared about was their belief and their teaching and what they
wanted to believe. They didn't, and I'll tell you, this is how
they come to this. They didn't believe God's revealed Word.
They didn't reveal the will of God in His Word. They add to
it or they take away from it. Or they pervert it. They twist
it. And let me show you this. Will
you keep, Jude, look over in Mark chapter 4 with me just a
minute. God put things, me and Bruce Crabtree was talking about
this the other day. God puts things in His Word that's hard
to be understood just so men can stumble over the Word, and
God uses it for judgment. He puts things in His Word, and
Jacob asked me a question this evening. One of the fellows says,
in light of John 3.16, how can you teach limited atonement that
Christ died only for His elect? Well, John 3.16 is not the gospel. It's the cause of the gospel.
For God so loved the world that He gave. Now, if you want the
gospel, you go back up to verse 14, as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness. Christ must be lifted up. Why
was He lifted up? God so loved that He gave. He gave His Son to be lifted
up. And when he's lifted up and you see him crucified on the
cross, you see him dying, you see him bearing his sin, you
see him as your substitute, then whosoever believes on him, he
has life. Why does he have life? Because
God loves. Here it is loved, not that we
love God, but that he sent his own Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. And why would you want to pitch
cap on one verse of Scripture just to deny everything else
in the Bible? This Scripture don't make this,
don't jive with what I believe about it. Well, I don't care
if it don't jive with you, we've got to take it all. John 3, 16, not the only verse
of the Scriptures. You know, in the world he's talking
about, it's another thing. You know, there's three words.
Let me cut off on this. I'll get back to Mark in a minute.
But in John chapter 1 and verse 9, there's three worlds in one
verse of Scripture. He was in the world, and the
world knew Him not. That means He came to the earth.
That world there means He came to the earth. He was in the world,
and the world knew Him not. He made the world. It was He who made the world,
the second one. And the world received him not. The people
that's in the world didn't receive him. Not just the earth, but
the people. The world there is the people that's in the world.
There's the world that he made, the heavens and the earth. There's
the world that he came into, the earth, and they knew him
not. And then there's the world that
received him not. That's the human race. They did
not receive him. Alright, but look over here.
God puts things in His Word that harden men. They don't understand
it, so they take it the way they want to. Look here in Mark 4.11. And He said unto them, talking
to His disciples, He said unto them, It is given to you to know
the mystery of the kingdom of God. But unto them that are without,
all these things are done in parables. Now watch it. That
seeing they may see and not perceive, not understanding. They can see
and say, boy, what's that? And hearing they may hear and
not understand, lest at any time they should be converted and
their sins should be forgiven them. God said, I'm going to
let you know what it means. But these folks are going to
hear the same thing, going to see the same thing, going to hear
the same thing, but it's not going to have the same effect
on them. Huh? You see that? And then, beloved,
here's another thing that God does. God leaves them to follow
their own hearts. You leave a man, what have God
left us to follow our own hearts? I started out in Pentecostalism.
Tongue-speaking Pentecostal. That's where I started out. Wouldn't
know God from a goat. I had a great experience, but
I wouldn't have known God from nothing. I had a great experience,
incredible experience. But what if God had left me to
follow my own heart? Where would I end up then? That's
where my heart took me then. But God leaves them to follow
their own hearts. You know, that's what he said
about the Pharisees. Oh, Lord, you hurt these Pharisees' feelings.
He said, just let them alone. Just let them alone. Just let
them alone. They want to be Pharisees? They
want to be self-righteous. They want to trust in themselves.
They want to be offended. They want to find fault. Just
let them float. And they said, Ephraim, he's
joined himself to idols. God said, let him alone. He wants
an idol? Let him have it. Hug on to it.
That's what God said, and that's what He does with them. And God
does it. Look over in Exodus with me,
Exodus 9, 16. God does this to bring honor
to His own name. Exodus 9 and verse 16. God does
this to bring honor to His own name. You know He says in He
says this, Proverbs 16, 4, while you turn, he says this, that
the Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the evil,
for the day of destruction. Made all things for himself.
Look here in Exodus 9, 16. And in verse 16, and he's speaking
to Pharaoh. And in very deed for this cause
have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power. that my
name may be declared throughout all the earth." Oh my, and you
know what we're doing? We're proclaiming his name tonight
for what he done to Pharaoh thousands of years ago. He got glory to
his name, didn't he? Now let me give you this real
quick, back over in our text. So we see what they are before
God, old ordained to this condemnation. They crept in unawares. Look
at their character. Look at the character of these
people. He says, they crept in unawares before of old ordained
to this condemnation. Listen, they're ungodly. Ungodly
men. Ungodly men. And I was looking
this up, and this means without worship, without the desire to
worship, without any will to worship. without true knowledge
of God, and without a desire to have any knowledge of God.
But now they have a will worship. They have a will worship. They
worship according to their own will, according to those dictates
of God, the way they feel that you ought to worship. But oh, the scripture says that
God justifies the ungodly, and Christ died for the ungodly,
but these are, these are men who won't acknowledge God. When
it says ungodly, you call them ungodly sinners, ungodly men
doing ungodly deeds. These are men who won't acknowledge
God as the first cause. They won't acknowledge God as
the first cause of all things. They won't acknowledge God hardly
at all. And one thing, and I'm honest, it disturbs me up to
no end. There's lots of ungodly men out
there that's in pulpits all over America. Ungodly men. My son used to say, one of their
favorite pastimes up in the middle of the night, they'd be watching
some false prophet on TV giving prophecies and all that, and
they'd watch him, so they could laugh at him. Ridicule him. He's a fool. And, oh, beloved,
these are men who won't acknowledge God as the first cause. Is God
the first cause of everything? Is He? But they won't acknowledge
that. They'll talk about accidents.
They'll talk about chance. They'll say, God didn't have
anything to do with this. God didn't have anything to do with that.
The first thing, God doesn't have anything to do with anything.
He ceased to be God. That's the only way in the world
we can deal. That's the only way I can deal with things in this
life. I don't know how other people do it. That's how Peggy's dealing
with it. That's how she's doing it. She says, I need Christ.
I need Him. I need Him. I need Him. And when she got
that news of that step the other day, she said, I just started
crying and I fell into Christ's arms. I didn't have no place
else to go. I just fell into his arms, she told me. And it just breaks your heart
to hear. I mean, she said, I just fell into his arms. I couldn't
go anyplace else. And that's what we do. Lord,
if ever you know, I know I don't understand it now, but just this
is for my good and your glory. And one of these days I'll know
it. Oh, these fellas won't do that.
They're like those Athenians on Mars Hill that had an altar
to the unknown God. And they don't depend, these
ungodly men here, they don't depend upon Him. They depend
upon their own abilities, their strengths, their wisdom, their
gifts. And they don't trust Christ.
They're not like us. And Paul, when he says, I know
whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep
that that I've committed unto him against those days. And these
are men who love the praise of men. more than the praise of
God. They have a form of godliness,
and a form is just an outline, an outward semblance of godliness.
And the Scripture says, from such, turn away. Now, let me
give you their teaching. Here's what they teach. Here's
two things about them, their manner of life. Look at the first
thing about them. They turn the grace of our God
into lasciviousness. That's the first thing they do.
That's the first thing they do. And they take grace and make
it something less than grace. And secondly, by doing that,
they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, they
don't get up and say, I don't believe Jesus Christ is the Lord.
They don't do that. No, listen, I'll tell you how
they do. They turn grace into lasciviousness. They turn the
grace of God, the gospel, into wantonness. Shameful conduct,
shameless conduct. That means their absence of any
restraint. They have no restraint upon themselves. The Scripture says they're past
feeling. And look, Paul warned the church of that over here
in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 21. Just, you know, you go right
back to your left, just a couple of pages, a few pages, 2 Corinthians
12, verse 21. You know, there's nothing about
the gospel, nothing about the grace of God that would cause
a man to live a lascivious life. Is there? No, the gospel, you
know what it does? It turns us from idols to serve
the living God. It makes us ashamed to sin, and
these fellows are preaching a gospel that makes them where they're
not even ashamed to sin. They have no restraint. They're
past feeling. And look what he says here. Paul
told them here in verse 21, 2 Corinthians 12. And last, when I come again,
my God will humble me among you, and that I shall be well many
which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness,
and fornication, and lasciviousness which they have committed." He
said, when I get there, you folks that's lived and claimed grace,
and claim you're saved by grace, and claim you know grace, and
you've fornicated, and you've lived a filthy, ungodly life,
and went where you wanted to, and lived like you wanted to.
When I get there, if you ever repeat it, you're going to hear
something." That's what he said, and that's what he meant. I tell
you, that's, oh my. And the gospel turns men, their
gospel turned men away from grace. Their gospel turned men away
from the gospel. It turned them away from God.
It turned them to the flesh and the ways of the flesh. And look
over here a second before you see this. Chapter 3. You know, these men have to rest
the Scriptures to do this. They have to rest the Scriptures. They have to rest the Scriptures.
Here's 2 Peter 3.16, "...as in all his epistles," Paul, he's
talking about Paul according to the wisdom given unto him,
"...and also in all his epistles, speaking of them things, in which
are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned
and unstable rest, twist, as they do also the other scriptures,
unto their own destruction." Oh my, their gospel turns men
away from God, turns them to the ways of the flesh, trusting
the flesh, looking to the flesh. The gospel of the grace of God
saves us from sin, saves us from trusting the flesh. And these
men use grace to excuse their depravity. Well, I'm a sinner
and I can't help it. I'm a sinner, and all I can do
is sin. That's all I can do, and I'll
just give in to it. God knows about me. And listen,
that's why here in verse 19 of Judas says this, in verse 19,
These be they who separate themselves sensual, fleshly. They don't
have the Spirit. That's why Solomon and Gomorrah,
they went after strange flesh. And I'll tell you something about
God. He'll give every one of us, if that's the route we want
to go, He'll give every one of us enough rope to hang ourselves. If you want to go after the flesh
and deny the grace of God by the very act and way you live,
God will give you enough rope to do that. And God, I don't
want to do that. Do you? No. And then here, not only that,
but it says here that not only did they turn the grace of God,
they denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. They
denied the only Lord God, Jesus Christ, is what that means. They
denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
and the Son. You deny one, you deny the other.
And what did they mean when they denied Him? They didn't get up
and say, well, He's not God, He's not Christ, He's not the
Savior. They don't do that. They deny His power. They deny
His supremacy. When He says, Thou hast given
Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to
as many as Thou hast given Him, they say, no, no, no, no, no.
That's not right. When He said, all power of heaven
and earth is given unto Me, They say, well, really, that's
not what it meant. And as you know, He said, all judgment is
committed unto me. They'll talk about, you know,
God, no, no. They love His power for healing.
They love His power for miracles. But they don't want Him to reign.
We will not have this man to reign over us. And they deny
His power as the only Savior. They say, there's other ways
to God. Now, I can get it on video if you want to watch it.
Billy Graham and that fellow that was in that crystal cathedral,
what was his name? Schuller. They sat and talked
and they come to the conclusion that God had other ways of saving
men other than Jesus Christ. They said that there's people
all over the world who were seeking the Lord in their own way. And as long as they were seeking
the Lord in their own way, God would save them and see that
they got to heaven. And they don't even have to say
that they haven't even heard the name of Jesus yet. Well,
if that's so, let's never tell anybody about the Lord Jesus
Christ and let them go the best way they know how and see where
they end up. Where would you end up without
Christ? Uh-huh. Oh, and they say, well,
he needs our cooperation. Yeah, he's Savior, but he can't
save us unless we cooperate with him. We must let him save us. Oh, you got the land done. So
that denies him being the only Savior. And then they deny his
work. They deny his death. They deny
the power of his blood. And listen, this is one of their
favorite sayings, and I'm going to try to explain to you how
awful this saying is. They'll say, His blood is sufficient
for all that it's only efficient for the elect. It's sufficient
to save everybody, but it's only effectual and efficient for His
elect. Now, you say, what's wrong with that? Well, I'll tell you.
That means that they can say, God loves all of you. Christ
died for all of you. And yet they say in their minds,
and they'll tell other people privately, say, but I know he's
only going to save his elect. Well, then, if he's only going
to save his elect, why don't you preach that the death was
only for the elect? Why don't you preach that his death was
intentional? It's not just sufficient for everybody. It's only intentional
for those who Christ died for. Why don't we just say that? You
know, the Scripture says that he laid down his life for his
people, his sheep. The vessels of mercy and the
vessels of honor, the children of God, the elect, the sons of
God, they all got a name. He named them for the transgression
of what? My people, was he speaking. A
fellow told me that one time. He said, every time you talk
about it, you talk about his people, my people. That's what
God calls them, he said, his people. He didn't like that.
He didn't like the fact that, you know, he wanted to include
everybody. God called them his people. These are my sheep. And he says,
you know what? When he says, how many? He says, you know,
they shall deceive who? Everybody? No, everybody's already
deceived. He said they shall deceive the
elect, if it were possible. Oh, well, I'll tell you, I got
to quit. I got to quit. I say it took
too long, but you see that? That's why we got to earnestly
contend for the faith.