It really is. And I'm not going to add to. And
try to put you into a different place, but Jude has written an
extreme complaint here, has he not a complaint? He is. Not as much as in grumbling and
complaining, but in warning, Judas warning the church. To beware of those who are teaching
and living things that are opposed to truth. And I want to remind
you that all of the letters of the New Testament predominantly
are written because of that very same thing. Even the gospel accounts
are written so that people may be certain of what is true. As
we see Luke being commissioned by Theophilus to write his gospel.
and his accounts of the apostles and the acts of the Holy Spirit.
We see that there is the main occasion for that is to secure
the truth in the narrative of history, as well as the doctrines
that are a result of God's revelation to man. And so when you see the
epistles, when you see Peter writing, when you see Paul writing,
when you see James writing, you see that there's this negative
aspect of the apostolic writing that seems like they're always
getting on to someone. It's because they are. And even
when they're not getting on to someone, they're seriously dealing
with false teaching, false living, false things that do not line
up with the gospel. And Jude is no different. And
I don't know if Jude just didn't have enough paper. Or if Jude
was in a hurry or if Jude was running for his life or if Jude
ran out of ink or what, but Jude's letter is very short. But what
he did do in the writing of this small little composition is he
packed it full. He packed it full with the hope
for the believer. He packed it full with those
who are struggling in their faith to hold fast to the day that
the Lord Jesus comes and secures that which he's purchased. He
packed it full of warnings, warnings to the church to pay attention
to those who claim to be among them as brethren. But yet by
their lack of repentance, by their lack of holy affections,
by their lack of holding to the authority of God's word, they
prove themselves not. part of the family of God. And
so for the whole of this letter, though, there's some deep doctrine
in the context of what he teaches about the hope of the believer,
the whole of this letter in its, in its, in its construct, 80%
of it, if you will, roughly what is, is dealing with the explanation
of the adjectives of what these people look like, what they think,
what they do. And as I've said in the last
few weeks, it's frustrating, especially here in this Advent
season. It's a better word than Christmas season. But in the
season of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, where we are as
my cultures across the world reflecting upon the coming of
Christ, when we look in comparison, is it really even to show that?
But in the context of this season, it seems a very unfitting letter.
Why don't we just take a break? Because I think, as I said this
last week, if you take a break from Jude, you're just going
to have to start over because there's just a pulse with this.
It's a couple of heartbeats and then it's over. And we don't
want to we don't want to just sort of take a break of this
because a season dictates to us. And also, I came to the conclusion
that what better thing to think about than the absolute justice
of God's holy anger? in the context of the coming
of the sun, because Jesus was sent into this world, not that
we would be given gifts, but that he would be the gift. He
would be the gift to those who believe on him to give eternal
life to them, except and to and to forego the wrath of God, because
he accepted the wrath of God on himself. So when we know that
as the gospel, And we understand that the gospel is all about
God. We understand that the gospel is starts and ends with God. We understand that the gospel
is only good news when man's ability is trumped. We all we
understand the gospel is only the gospel when it is a sovereign
gospel, not a not a synergistic gospel. Then we need to understand,
then, you know how some of this issue that we see in Jude's day
applies to us today. Where are the Where are those
who have crept in unnoticed amongst the church? You see, we are so
we are so enamored by our cultural explanation of what the church
is. We still, in some sense of our being, we still feel like
the church is where we go, even though we know the right doctrine,
even though we know the things that we've that we've been taught,
even here under the teaching of the Lord's Word as grace through
church, we are We still have those things in our lives. We
still have those little uncanny, unnoticed, untagged expressions
in our heart. And we think, I'd go to church
in Claxton. I'd go to church with these people. I come to this church. Rehoboth
had a baptism this morning, and last night they let it run. And
I don't know if it flowed over, but they got like four inches
of water in their worship service this morning. It's like, wow,
you know, the flood comes. I was thinking I would, you know,
text Pastor Gary some little cute things about what you're
saying, hang some rainbows in when people walk in. I have some
water, but we're not going to flood. But you think what was
I saying about that? Oh, you know, people like my
church has flooded. My church has flooded. That's
what I saw. Some people say on their church hasn't flooded.
The building that the church participates in has flooded.
The church is us. We are the body of Christ. We
are the bride of Christ. There's a great emphasis on understanding
the church as a body and the church as a bride. And then in
an objective way, in a descriptive way, we understand that the church
is beautiful because it's been bought by the blood of Jesus
Christ. And so it If we see all of this and we understand it
is the sovereignty of God, we know that it is in spite of us
that we are born again. This one is in spite of our wisdom. It's in spite of our ability.
It's in spite of our decisions. It's in spite. Friends, God does
not accept us because we accept him. God accepted us before the
world began in Christ Jesus, because God would be wicked to
receive us had Christ not paid for our sins. And faith is exercise
because it is a gift of God. God gives faith to those who
hear his word, and there is no other way to salvation except
by God in his gracious favor, giving the gift of faith to the
hearing of his word that you might be born of God and thus
become a child of God. And then when you grow in your
faith and you realize just how amazing and deep and eternal
the love of God is for you, you realize it was not something
that you came to your senses over, but it was something that
God brought to your senses and that by his power and by his
loving kindness, you were able to come to see and savor Jesus
Christ as your absolute satisfaction. You think, well, OK, so what
are we doing here? Well, why are you going over
there? Because that is the common salvation that Jude felt necessary,
that he wanted to write about, but that he felt necessary. He
had to deal with this false teaching, false living little little sect
of individuals because they were by their presence stood in opposition
of the gospel of Jesus. Do you see that? He stood. They caused the vision, as you'll
see. And the reason I just want to
want you to sort of just get the feel for this, because there's
a lot of text here. I want to go through verses nine
through the end of verse 16. I want to just try to get that
out. But it doesn't mean that we're
through. And so be of good spirit next week when we come back to
some of these things to deal with, because there's some of
the stuff that it's all there developed as an argument. And
so the argument is clear. These are these people. This
is what they do. Here's the examples. Here's the Old Testament examples.
Here's outside apocryphal writings. And when I say apocryphal, that
doesn't mean the apocrypha of the Catholic Church. But that's
where the name comes from. The word apocrypha means non-apostolic. They're non-canonical. They're
non-scripture. Just like Paul uses non-scriptural
sayings in his expression, thus making them scripture to some
of the people that he writes to, especially to the Corinthians.
So will Jude do the exact same thing? But I don't want you to say,
OK, we finished because there's some things there. There's some
things about angels that I think we need to look at in depth.
There's some things about the spirit of Cain and of Korah. and avail them that we need to,
we need to revisit in the context of false teaching among the church.
But for the sake of the argument today, I want to go through these
texts. We saw last week, look at verse eight. It says yet in
like manner, these people also rely on their dreams, defile
the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones.
So that's what we looked at last week. We talked about the reliant
on their dreams is this esoteric type uh, internal thoughts, experiential
types of everything that anybody else could think of. Well, this
is true for me because I experienced it. Well, that's not, that doesn't
make things true because we experienced it. I know that's one of the
root fallacies that we teach our children when they're in
like the second grade, just because you saw it and experienced it
doesn't make it true. So there's an empirical search,
you know, or a search for the empirical reality of truth. And
we can't have a somewhat truth if it's that makes it no truth. And so in the in the understanding
of our dreams, we can't just go with what we feel or we know
or we experience. And even what we experience,
even if it is true, we've got to find out where the foundation
of that truth lends and rests, because There are many people,
especially in the context of 12-step programs, who have experienced
a great high power that have given them freedom over their
problems. But it doesn't make the high power God. And it doesn't
make the high power Jesus Christ. Just like many people would like
to say to you that the word Allah is just a word for God for most
times, but they're wrong. The word Allah, yes, may be the
word for God in that language, but the term and the person,
if you will, Allah is not the God of the Hebrew Bible. Never
has been, never will be. His name is Jehovah. Yahweh. Jesus. So we look at these things, we
see these people to find their place, rejecting authority, blaspheming
the word of God, the holy ones of God, blaspheme. Another word
for that is slander. The word blaspheme and words,
as a matter of fact, the English translation of the of the Greek
word for blaspheme is slander. And so when we think of slander,
what is the slander of the Holy Spirit that we see in Matthew's
gospel, Jesus talking to the spiritual leaders of his day,
that they slander the Holy Spirit and they bring false accusation
against the Holy Spirit of God because they see that which God
is doing and they give credit to the devil. So they blaspheme.
And so we see that word blasphemy, and we think we need to understand
that it means to slander. It means to bear false witness.
It means to defame. And what is the spirit of defamation?
What is the spirit of slander? What is the spirit of blasphemy?
What is the sin of that? Murder. Murder. Murder is the
spirit of that type of thing. We see that in that John writes
about Cain, as we'll see in a moment. John, in his first epistle, writes
about Cain. And Cain hated his brother. Why?
Because his brothers were righteous and his were wicked. The world
hates the church. Friends, if being part of the
body of Christ and living out your faith in reality is not
costing you something, there is a problem. There's a problem. And I'm not saying you need to
be polarizing. I'm not saying you need to be a jerk, because
that in itself is sinful. We don't need to go and just
start picking fights with people, as we'll see. But what we need
to understand is just the very existence of our being, living
as a holy person, who have been saved by Jesus Christ, is polarizing
enough. You ever been among co-workers?
And you mind your business. You don't even talk about spiritual
things. But they know something's different
about you. They hate you for that. They
want to know why you don't talk the way they do or why you don't
act the way they do or why you don't laugh at the things that
they try to show you, because it's not funny. And what happens? They go ahead
and in their own hearts and minds is what I call the tabloid syndrome.
They'd rather see you torn down than to see themselves broken
under your picture, under the picture of your perfection, if
you will. So these people rely on their
dreams. Jude is about to give some examples,
and in verse nine, this is a troublesome verse. This verse is found. This this this allusion, this
reference is found nowhere in scripture. But what do we know?
Look at what it says. But when the archangel Michael,
see what what he is doing is he's trying to now build the
argument that he just made. These people defile the flesh.
They are they blaspheme the holy ones of God and they reject the
authority of God. But when the Archangel Michael,
contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses,
he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous or slanderous judgment,
but said, The Lord rebuke you. And then, what does he say? Verse
10, But these people, which ones? These unholy, ungodly, wicked,
rebellious defamers. These people blaspheme all that
they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they,
like unreasoned animals, understand instinctively. So there's some
stuff here. See, I might not even get through
verse 16. But here's here's what you need to understand. First,
you need to understand that in history, these are the intertestamental
mental writings. What Judith is alluding to are
the writings between the testaments between Malachi and Matthew is
a period of about four to five hundred years. And that's called
the intertestamental period. What does that mean between the
testaments? And so between that, there was no prophets. There
was no writing of scripture. God was silent. God was silent
until he spoke to Zechariah and the Holy of Holies when he told
him that his wife, who was way beyond childbearing age, would
give birth to a son. And God spoke and Zechariah came
out stricken mute, he could not speak. The first word that he
said is his name shall be John at the birth of John the Baptist.
And Elizabeth was was with child and just some season, not a month
or so later, Mary comes and shares with her what the angel of the
Lord had spoken to her, that you will be given birth to a
child and you are a virgin. The Holy Spirit has given you
a child inside of you and he will be Emmanuel. He will be
God with us. He will be the Messiah. He will
be the one. He's the one. And you know the
story as Elizabeth who was cousin of Mary. Mary goes in to talk
with Elizabeth in the house and Mary Elizabeth is with child
with John. And she says the angel of the
Lord appeared to me and I'm going to and when she entered the room,
the scripture says that the child inside Elizabeth left with joy
for he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was filled with the
Holy Spirit. I don't know if you understand
anything about sovereignty or not, but that child was saved prior
to his birth. That's what the Bible teaches
about God. That's what the Bible instructs
us about the Holy Spirit in dwelling a fetus. We don't need science
to measure out the expansion of life in the mother's womb.
God has done it already to the narrative of history. The point I'm making here is
that God spoke, God spoke But all throughout Scripture, how
does God speak? He speaks when he shows himself to people like
Moses and Joshua. He speaks through his word, through
his apostles. But a lot of times, especially in the Old Testament,
he spoke and even in the New Testament, he spoke through angels. He came
and angels, he'd send angels to do the work that he was doing.
He sent angels into Sodom and Gomorrah. He sent angels to do
the destruction of Egypt. He sent angels to do the work. And so would it be a farfetched
thing to see here in this verse nine, the archangel Michael,
and there's only seven archangels referenced in the scripture,
only three of which I think that are named. And Michael is definitely
one of them that we see throughout the narrative. And so here's
Michael from the writing of this called the assumption of Moses.
It's an apocryphal writing. And they don't even have a lot
of it, but they do have the we can you can go look it up. You
can go look and find some of the writing there. And no, it's
not scripture. But in the context of Jews, hearers,
they understood that the story went a little something like
this as Moses was not allowed to go into the promised land.
God, the Bible says that God buried Moses. In the desert,
the God took care of Moses body, does it not say that? And it
says that nobody knows where it is. Well, this apocryphal
writing assumption of Moses is probably just that. It's probably
one of these things where tradition in the oral tradition, people
said, well, this must be what it was like. And this is what
the story says, roughly, that as they buried Moses in the desert,
that the devil was there with Michael and other angels. And
you've seen the Septuagint and other places of scripture where
that God buried. And then we see some translations
that said they buried the body of Moses. Either way, God is
the author of it all. And so what we found in this
narrative is that in order for the devil not even to know where
the body of Moses was, that God ordered Michael, the archangel,
to dig him up and bury him someplace else unknown. And that at that
particular time that the enemy is there trying to be the accuser
of Moses. Moses, what was he? How could
he accuse Moses of murder? Moses was a murderer. He murdered
an Egyptian soldier and he buried his body in the dirt. You remember
that? He hid it. And then he fled to
many. And he fled out of Egypt into
the wilderness. And that's where God called him
some 40 years later to go back into Egypt and declare to the
Pharaoh to let the people of God go. And so the accuser of
the brethren, do we not see that the scripture teaches that the
angels are due the bidding of God? One. Secondly, do we not
see that the scripture teaches that this, that Satan is many
times in the presence of the holy ones of God? Look at Joe. God was meeting with the celestial
beings of heaven. And among them was the devil
and Satan's. And he says, Satan, what are
you doing? He says, you know what I'm doing? scouring around,
seeing if I can devour. And God says, have you considered
my servant, Joe? And Satan goes, I can't touch
Joe. You've got a protection around him. I can't touch him.
I'll take my hand off of him. You do anything you want to with
Joe, but kill him. So there's, there's an understanding.
There is a biblical narrative that teaches that the devil is
amongst the people or the angels of God. And the, the scripture
also teaches that there are, that there, that the enemy is
the accuser of the brethren. That the enemy of God, that the
devil and all the following, they accuse us. The scripture
also teaches that we have a high priest named Jesus who stands
in the gap there and says, OK, here's the accuser. And you know
what's crazy about the accusation? The accusations are true. Moses was a murderer. But because
of the blood of Jesus Christ, Moses was no longer responsible
for the consequence of that murder because Jesus paid it. It's paid. And so this is what Jesus alluded
to. His hearers were familiar with this story. And so nothing
new doctrinally is imposed here because of cultural. Pop culture, if you will, pop
culture, then it'd be antiquity now, but nothing, nothing's imposed
there. But what he's trying to show
you is this. When Michael, the archangel, contended with the
devil, he was disputing about the body of Moses. Michael did
not presume to pronounce a slanderous or blasphemous judgment on Satan. What's that mean? That Michael
did not look at Satan and say, I rebuke you, you're a liar.
If he had, would he have been true? You're a liar. Because
Moses was a saint, no longer a murderer, because Jesus paid
for the sins of Moses. Nobody would have gotten upset
for an angel or a human being to look at the devil and go,
that's a liar. You're a liar and you're judged accordingly.
But what does Michael say? He said, the Lord rebuke you. Do you see that? What did Michael
do? The angel, Michael, did not do
what the other angels had done, did not do what Satan had done.
He did not do what these people were doing amongst the people
of God. And he did not take upon himself the authority to be the
judge, but rather place the one who is the highest judge of all
things as the one who would do the rebuking and the slander
and the righteous judgment of Satan. You will be reviewed by
the Lord. It's not my battle. So he did
not come apart. And who would have fussed about
it? Who would have complained that Michael would have rebuked
the devil? But Michael's saying it's not
my place to rebuke you, but the Lord's place to rebuke you. You
keep on saying what you want to say. I do the Lord's bidding
and you keep running your mouth as you will. The Lord will see
your day of judgment. You're guilty in front of him.
Is that not true? And the argument that he makes
there is because there were so others who had left their proper
place, the angels of heaven. The people of Egypt are the Israelites
led out of Egypt and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah had left
their natural created order and have subjected themselves to
be gods to do that, which was unnatural. Satan did the same
thing. Even the archangel Michael, when
arguing with the arch enemy of God, did not take his own authority
on the matter, but rather subjected himself to the one who judges
righteously. You want to see a better argument
than that? You could have done it better than that. But it didn't
fit with the argument of the angels, did it? The better argument
would be to go to Peter and see when Jesus was reviled, he did
not return with revile with revile, but entrusted himself to the
one who judges faithfully. Jesus is the creator of all.
He is God, but rather subjected himself to the judgment of the
Father. There's one thing. But these
people, look what happens. Even Michael didn't blaspheme
Satan, but he would have gotten probably a ticker tape parade
had he done it. You see what the point I'm trying to make?
He's not a liar. He's not wrong in saying the
devil's a liar and that he's judged. But the judgment comes
from God. But these people, these unbelieving,
ungodly, defamed people, they blaspheme, they slander everything
that they do not understand. So if the Archangel Michael didn't
slander the obvious devil who should have been slandered because
it was not his place, who do these people think that they
are to slander the truth of God's Word? And then yet they come
out and slander those who teach it. When they themselves are
ignorant of it, who are they to dare put themselves as the
God of heaven? That's that's what he's arguing.
They blaspheme all that they do not understand. And they are
destroyed by all that they like unreasoned animals, they are
destroyed by all that they understand instinctively. Now, if you went
to Peter, you'd see that. Peter and Jude parallel each
other in a lot of ways here, because Peter, Peter says that
the exact same thing, if you will, matter of fact, turn to
second Peter, chapter two, verse verse 10 or 12 or somewhere in there. Second, Peter two. Verse nine in the Lord knows
how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous
under punishment of the day of judgment, especially those who
indulge in the loss of defiling passions and despise authority.
Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the
glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power,
do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before
the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct,
born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of
which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction,
suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count
it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes
reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. They
have eyes full of adultery. Insatiable for sin. They entice
unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed.
Accursed children. Forsaking the right way, they
have gone astray. They have followed the way of
vain. I'm the son of the Lord. Their love gained from wrongdoing,
but was rebuked for his own transgression. A speechless mule, a speechless
donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's
madness. Waterless Sphinx. Does that sound familiar? So here are these people who,
by the rejection of the word of God, they only act on what
they feel. Well, I feel, does this does
this sound familiar? Well, I feel, well, there's just
no way that this is the God that I love. There's no way that that's
true, because that's not the Jesus that I was taught. It doesn't
matter about obeying the word of God, because I'm saved by
grace. You see how that sounds? God
doesn't expect me to do anything different, but float along in
my little fluffy cloud of grace. And when he wants me to stop
sinning in a certain area of my life, he'll do it. You hear
that garbage? This sounds so good, it sounds
like the loving God that we all want to know, the God that has
opportunity for every single creature to be saved, that the
Vatican has released a statement that all animals have souls and
they live in a spirit world in heaven until the recreation of
the earth. But Jesus said that, Peter, why? The same man who would say in
the spring of this year that, God does create people gay and
we need to give them the grace because they'll be gay people
that are born again as gay people. You know, why do we have to identify
ourselves with our sins? Friends, we need to love all
people and realize it's not about behavior changing and modifying
people, but it's about God taking their dead hearts and recreating
them into a new creation, beautiful and holy. And then when they
are born again, God will take and change their lives according
to his good pleasure. And the scripture teaches that
we will strive for righteousness, not be a slave to sin. These
people do not understand because they're ignorant, and because
of that, they will be destroyed. They only act on instinct. They
only act on that which they feel. Look what he says in verse 11.
Woe to them. That's not a, you know, that's
not a like, hold down, slow down, low horsey. That's woe. That's
woe in an Old Testament way. Woe to you. It is. Your destruction
is come. You will not live. Woe to you. Woe to them. Woe to them. And then he gives examples. Look
at these three examples that he gives. For they have walked
in the way of Cain. and abandoned themselves for
the sake of gain to Balaam's era and perish in Korah's rebellion. Now let's talk about those three
things. And without having an hour to really discuss, I might
come back and revisit some of those. What is the way of Cain?
How did Cain walk? Cain walked in direct rebellion
against God. Cain walked as a hater of God
amongst the people of God. For crying out loud, he's the
second born. I mean, he's the first born.
of Adam and Eve? Is he not? And then he kills his brother
because he hates his brother's righteousness. He hates his brother's
righteousness. And God rejects his offering
because his heart is wicked. You can do all you want to do
for the kingdom of God. You can pray and teach and preach
and love and serve and give and everything else you want to do.
But when your heart is not born of God, every single bit of good
things you do is wicked before it. It's rejected. The words
are rejected. The prayers are rejected. None
of it is honorable. None of it is holy. And the way of Cain was he was
with God. He was in the presence of God.
He was walking in the, in the, in the sovereignty and the providence
of God. And he rejected God and God,
even in his grace said, you have gone out from me. You will go
out from these people, but I love you and will protect you. I will
mark you that no one may harm you. Do you know what that is?
That's God's grace. And do you know what Cain did
when God gave him protection? He hated him even more. Cain hated God even more. I don't know if I just misspoken
there. Cain hated God even more after God protected him. And
so Cain is the first example of hating God in the Bible. Adam and Eve were deceived, but
they loved him. Cain hated him, and so Cain willfully rejected
the gospel. And God gave him grace again,
and he willfully rejected the grace of God. These people are willfully rejecting
the grace of God because of what they believe, because of how
they live. because of their insubordinate
attitude about when nobody's going to tell me that I'm not
writing this, when if a mule, if a donkey opens his mouth and
speaks the words of God from this text, we better bow on our
face and take heed in brokenness. If we drive by a billboard and
some pagan adult superstore has printed the Bible up there for
some unknown reason and it brings the words of God to our heart,
we better stop the car and praise God for the delivery of His truth
and be convicted therein. If God's Word comes to a pile
of horse manure and we hear it, we better respect the Word. It doesn't matter how it gets
to us. When we hear the Word of God,
we are subject to it. Cain. They walked in the way
of Cain of hatred and direct rebellion and abandoned themselves
for the sake of gain to Balaam's error. Some people are confused
about Balaam. Oh, he blessed Israel. So why
did he bless Israel? So we can get rich. So you get
rich. So for the sake of gain, people
have gone away. They're like, oh, let's just
do good things for the church. Let's just do good things for
the people of God. Let's just be a part of this. Let's do good
things. And all the while, they're taking advantage of it. They're
reaping the benefits of the body, and they're not part of the body,
whether it be financial or food or clothing or shelter or affection
or fellowship or whatever it might be. It's just for their
personal gain. Do you see that? You want to
know how to, you want to know how to filter that type of person
out of the body of Christ, stand everybody up and said, we're
going to do a whole testimony month. And every day we're going
to stand up and give me the number one reason why you're so thankful
to be a part of the fellowship here. And they were like, Oh,
you know, I just materialism, materialism, emotionalism, materialism,
survivalism, just down the road. Sounds like you've done that.
No, I haven't done that for that purpose, but we used to have
testimony times in several churches that I pastored, and we actually
had to start bringing it down to some strict regulations because
I got tired of materialism. Got tired of hearing about this.
You see what I'm saying? We're grateful to be part of
the body of Christ because God in his mercy has saved us. He's
adopted us as sons. We can call him daddy. And all the benefits of being
a member of the church is so much more than just the material
things. They're important, but so much
more than that. And if that's if that's our hope
and what happens when nobody has it to give us. Speaking with a brother last
night, how things going at your church where they're great, we keep
getting a whole lot of new families and they stay as long as They
can take advantage of people. We said, so what do you mean
it gives me? And I'm like, that's horrible.
And it's breaking our hearts because we love them now because. And some of us, we've been we've
been in that boat this year. For people who love the body
of Christ as long as they can believe it. As long as they can
take it, as long as they can get. When we who are assembled here
today, Everything we have is each other's. And we don't have
to take anything, do we? But you know what I'm talking
about. You know, you know who they are. Because they're here for
just a second and then they go. And then we find out, where are
you? Well, I'm up here at this church. And then we find out they're
gone from that church to that church. And then they're up here at this
church. And then they're up here at this church. And they just keep running. These
people were in this church so that they could financially gain
from it. Not in need. In greed. There's a big difference. the
way of Balaam and Paris and Korah's rebellion. Oh, this is, I think
in the book of Numbers, we see Korah's rebellion, Korah and
all those people related there. They rebelled against the authority
of God by saying, Moses and Aaron, we're not going to submit to
their authority. These aren't we know God has appointed them,
but no more. We're done. We're putting new
people as the head of the people. And what happened? The scripture
says that God opened the ground and swallowed them. And they
perished, they rebelled against the authority of God by rebelling
against the people that God had put in control of Israel. As
the head, you really want to be Moses? You really want to be Aaron? The chief priest of priests?
No, you don't want to be that. They wanted something different.
And these people are perished in this rebellion. And then he
gives some descriptives. Look at these adjectives. These
people are hidden reefs. You know what a hidden reef is?
They're hidden reefs at your love feast. as they feast with
you without fear. They're shepherds feeding themselves. They're waterless clouds. They
are swept along by winds. They are fruitless trees in late
autumn, twice dead, uprooted. They are wild waves of the sea,
causing, casting up the foam of their own shame. They are
wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been
reserved forever. Let's unpack that for a second.
Look, think of this imagery and understand what is a hidden reef.
I don't really boat, but I've got enough common sense to know
that when, when you are on a boat, whoever's driving that boat wants
to stay away from the reefs because it will crash you. They're hidden.
They sort of stay right up under the water level. You don't want
to run up in on a reef. It will, it will, it will wreck
the ship. These people are like hidden reefs against which the
body of Christ will crash and sink. That's the picture. They're deceptive. Do you see
that? They're liars. They're greedy. And they're not just hidden reefs
out in the wilderness. They're hidden reefs at your
love feasts. And you have to look a little
bit into this if you want to understand. But in the first
church, these were the Acts 2 gatherings. They gathered daily and devoted
themselves daily to the apostles teaching, to prayer, to the singing
of songs and to the breaking of bread. There's the breaking
of bread, not just the Lord's table, but the food. They got
together and they ate. And they ate because what they
did as a community was they took care of each other's needs. They
fed one another. It's like when we're in sickness
or we got a new baby or death in the family and we do a good
job. It was like that a lot. It was
a culture in which that everybody, some people could never eat if
the whole church didn't eat. Do you see it? Which is why Paul
tells the Corinthians who are just taking advantage of the
of the Lord's table, the Lord's table was also an opportunity
for people without food to actually get food in their stomachs. And
he was saying to some of them, those of you who have food, stop
eating and you're eating it all up before the poor people can
get in there. Let them eat first. And then if there's anything
left, you can have it. But here are these people who are coming
to the fellowships of the church and their hidden wreaths. They're
there to break the church apart. And they have no fear. They're
content. They're at peace. They're just
among the church and they're, they got their arms folded. They
got their hands out. They're probably at the door with a greeter
badge and they're there and everybody's sort of enjoying their, their
time together. And one thing leads to another
and, and there they are, but they have no fear. There's nobody
that knows anything about, they're so good that they're, that people
are just receiving of them. But friend, I want you to, yes,
always be suspect of how this affects us in our fellowship
and in the group that we call Grace Truth. But don't be blinded
to the reality that many people who claim to be part of the body
of Christ and other congregations may very well be the ones who
are a part of this morning. Be very careful. It is a dangerous thing. that
so many men of God can just meet you once and oh, I want you to
come preach to my people. And my response to that is very
shocking to them. You don't even know me. We got
the same spirit. We were talking about. We're
talking about football. And I'm holding the Bible and
now you want me to preach to your people. Oh, I'm sorry, it was baseball.
See, I don't even know the difference. So I'm not even an expert on
the hobby that you have, and you think I'm qualified to preach
to your people. Do you know what I believe? I mean, this is the
conversations that I have. Jesse probably has them, too.
People see you preach or see you with a Bible, see you pray
or talk to you in town, and, oh, I want you to come preach.
I want you to come preach. I want you to come pastor. When somebody came in here and
said, hey, I'm the Apostle Paul, and I want to talk to your people.
Sit down for a minute. And when we find out he's true,
then we'll let him. But we've got a real problem in Christendom.
We've got a real problem in the body of Christ. As the bride,
we've got a bunch of different lovers coming in and saying they're
the bride of Christ. And it is a dangerous thing. They're shepherds feeding themselves. Do you see that? Feeding themselves. I thought to myself, what does
that look like? And I'm going to really burn
some rear ends right now when I say this. Not in here, but
other people may hear this. They'll hear it. The devil makes
sure they hear a sermon like this. These are pastors who are cared
for by the church that they may do the work of the ministry and forsake the church that takes
care of them. By becoming more popular, by
trying to become something they're not, by seeking after esteem,
by trying to be big and bold and build their ministry, build
their name. You ever seen that? They reject the call of God for
the prestige of another call. I'm the shepherd of the body
of a resurrected Savior. They don't want that. I want
to be the pastor of a first church. I want to be known as doctor,
not as brother. I want to be known as the director
of this and the manager of that and the association thing of
this. I want to be known as these things. In this world, titles
are like gas. They come and go. And that's about what they're
worth. But we know this. And people, you know, just we
were talking last night about a book that somebody told Robin
that she needed to write and one of my children, I want to
say who said you should put your name on the front of it and put doctor
in front of it and all of it, because people believe anything
the doctor wrote. So it gives credibility, doesn't it? Well,
PhDs. are like the common cold, they're
everywhere. MBAs, everybody's got one. I don't want to take away from
good scholarship, but let me tell you something. What difference does
that make? When Paul says in 1 Corinthians that he took the
common people, he took the nothings of the world to bring to nothing
the things that are. You know what that means? That means that
the young 12 year old ruddy David walked into the battlefield of
the Israeli army. and stood toe-to-toe with a 12-foot
man named Goliath who defamed the name of God and it enraged
him. He says, what's wrong with you
pansies? He just cursed God. This isn't
about the war anymore. This is about the name of our
God. What's wrong with you? You're sergeant, general, captain,
soldier. I'll take care of it because
God will take care of it. People were amazed, as we see
in Luke's writing, that these unlearned men had such wisdom
coming out of their mouth. He could not believe that simple-minded
fishermen could be so learned. It's good to learn and to study,
but friends, let me tell you what that does for you. It will
not prepare you if you're not a nothing. Every day, the wisdom of man
goes to the grave every few seconds. I don't know what the statistic
is now, but somebody dies and that entire history of that person's
wisdom dies with them. It's gone. And it's worth more
in death than it ever was worth in life. Feast with you without fear,
shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds. I know I'm
taking a lot of time on these descriptors, but just thinking
if we don't get through, we'll just pick it up next week. Think through
this. Here's a farmer and his crops
are drying out and the clouds come. And he stands there with
his family and he's prayed for God to bring rain. And all of
a sudden the clouds come and they hear thunder and the clouds
are there and they build and he's standing outside going,
oh, we're about to be saved. And they blow on by. Waterless
clouds. That's the picture. People in
who put their hope, feed us, show us, reveal to us, take us,
pray for us, be there and go into your place with the Lord
so that we might, just as brother prayed today, that we might go
with you and we are looking and we're thirsty and the water that's
about to come out of these clouds just blows on away. They're swept along by the winds.
fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. You needn't explain that. What happens in autumn? A tree
dies. Is it good for anything? No. It's dead once because of
the season and then it's uprooted. It's dead again. It's gone. That's
what these unbelievers are. They're wild waves of deceit. No order, no focus, no obedience,
just relentless, ruthless, wild, whatever they touch, whatever
they drown, whatever they break. They don't care. They just blow
themselves into whatever stands in their way. They knock it down.
They erode the unity of the church. They all they do is bring and
all that's left is casting of the foam of their own shame.
What's left after the waves come into the shore? Just the foam
of those waves. It didn't care that a young child
spent three hours building this great castle to show his mother.
It just washes it all away and all that's left is just sticky,
stinky, fishy foam. They're wandering stars. And you look out and you try
to plot your course, and as the earth rotates, the star moves
and you walk in a circle. No direction, no clarity, no
phobia. You cannot. People try to put
their bearings on these individuals because they seem to be the strongest
among the fellowship. But all they're doing is running
around in a little loop for their own personal gain. They are unbelievers,
ruthless, haters, blasphemers. They defile the gospel of Jesus
Christ. They defile the grace of God.
And here's something, too, that I think that needs to be said
is that the defamation of God's grace is not just in the hyper
grace. but in the man-centered grace. I think it's wicked to say that
God has made provision for salvation. Would you come? Do you want God to accept you? Then do A-B-C. It's wicked. And if you ever want to see what
the foam of shame looks like, just look at the Church of America. At the sea of people who have
put their hope in their own faith and not the faithful one of God. But the outcome of these, the
latter part of verse 13 is this, for whom the gloom of utter darkness
has been reserved forever. The Lord turns. To execute judgment. To convict all the ungodly of
all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such
ungodly ways. Look at verse 16. I just want
to read it. These are grumblers. Malcontents. What is that? These aren't people that are
content. These aren't people that are at peace with God. These
aren't people that are at peace with the with the gospel. These
are people who are grumbling. They're complaining. They hate
where God has placed them. They hate the authority of God's
word over them, and so they grumble against it. Well, you know how
those Baptists are. I don't want anything to do with
those Baptists. You know how that guy is, you
know, that pastor, you know, that deacon, you know, that elder,
you know how they are. They just want to hold the word
of God over me. Who do you think you are to tell
me what I should or shouldn't be doing, you know, you ever
heard that? God's word says. Why is it the
messenger that always gets shot? The Lord would be acute. Not
me. His word rebukes you, not me. They're malcontents following
their own sinful desires. They are loudmouth boasters. These are the people who sing
their own praises. And sometimes they do it in the most humble
of ways. What does it look like? It's anything that comes out
of our mouth, even with tears, that gives credence to our clout.
You know what that means? That means when we build ourselves
up so that other people can see us. I want people to see me. I want people to see my ministry.
I want people to see the work that God's doing through me.
I want this. Friends, we're to be a body with
one head. That's why I'm not a big fan
of memorializing chairs, handbooks. In honor of, I'm not a big fan
of giving money for a building project so you can have your
grandma's name on a brick. It's not a big fan of that at
all, because I think that's the only reward that that person
will ever get for that good deed. We do not need to let our left
hand know what our right hand does. And I think that those
that want everybody to see what both hands do, they're loud mouth
boasters and they show favoritism. You know what that looks like?
It's not the least of these that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 25.
It's the prestigious ones, like the book of James. You know,
well, I don't really treat people like that. Well, how about outside
the church? Are you somebody because of who
you are, who your daddy is? To take pride in that? But in
specific, there are those people in the community who rub shoulders
with the right folks so that they can get the recognition
that they look for, so that it can be advantageous to the sake
of their ministry. Friends, if we're looking for
a high place, we're going to lose our lives.
If we're looking to lose our lives for the highest place,
For the sake of the gospel, Jesus says that all who seek to save
their life will lose it, but all who seek to lose it for the
sake of the gospel will find it. It all boils down to this. There's
a challenge that Jude has given us here to look deep first within. To see if there is not that we
are these people, but don't be surprised if we start to see
some of that recipe in our own hearts. The question is, are
we able to hear the authority of God's word and stop? And to walk. Those of you who
can't make it on Tuesdays, I really encourage you to go on the website.
It's audio and video to look at the weight of sin are going
to be three more weeks into that four more weeks. And we're going
to be we look at how what sin looks like in relationship to
the believer. And sometimes we look in our lives and we see
this type of, we see pride, we see arrogance, we see pet doctrines,
we see these things. And I think Jude writes that
so that the Christians can see in their own and then that they
can look without and see in others. But it's not that we just take
and chop off their head, but we see in verse 22, it says,
and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them
out of the fire to others, showing mercy with fear, hating even
the garments stained by the flesh. And so there's hope for those
who live this way and believe this way, that by the sending
of God's word through the local church, that they would hear
it and be saved. But if they're not, then there's
a whole different thing that has to be done, and it's not
in it's not in Jude's writing for us, but we know what the
scripture teaches. And finally, it's written here.
There's a lot of reasons, but it's written to us this way that
the church may be protected. But the church may be protected
so that everybody who's anybody doesn't just come and say, I
want privilege to be a part of your family, to live in your
home. When these people that have ill intentions toward the
body. It happens all the time. It happens everywhere. And that's
one of the reasons that as Grace Truth Church, that before we
ever met for the first time in my house a few years ago, that
we developed documents that talked about what we would do and how
we would receive members and what was expected and by whose
authority the church would be governed and by what word and
even specifically in specific doctrines of vital importance.
What do we say that the Bible says about these things? Because to just say everybody
who cries out, yeah, I'm a Christian, and then we give them full access
to our home. This is our home. We are in a life together as
we live as one body. I don't know about you all, but
I mean, I've been in most all your homes. All of you, matter
of fact. And most all of you have been
in mine. And not just the house, but the
intimacy of our lives. That's what it means to be in
covenant relationship with the body of Christ. Jude writes these
things that the church may be protected. That the church may
be. Corrected. So that it would be
continue to be beautiful and have hope and worship together,
not that we have to be spiritual police and paranoid about every
little thing, we don't need to make that the major, but we need
to be aware. So my prayer for you is that
as you look at your own life, as you look at the life of others
and as you consider what it means to be a covenant member of a
grace through fellowship, a grace through church, that you'd see
that our time in the world together is the most vital aspect of how
we live out our faith. What I mean by that, we've got
to make sure that we put emphasis on learning together, that we
live it out together because we're here 90 minutes a week.
That's not enough to do life. Crisis and calamity doesn't come
here. It may. I've had people die on the front
road before. But it's rare. And we just keep on preaching.
And we stop, and we deal with it, and then next week, we keep
on preaching. But for the most part, the crisis and the calamity
is going to come when we're out there. I'm going to have people
whose marriages are in trouble, have people whose jobs are in
trouble, have people whose minds are in trouble, have people whose
children are in trouble, have people who lose their home through
fire, have people who die, get people who are young in the world
standards and they get bad news. I have people who are going to
become apathetic and people who are going to become angry and
people who are going to become sinful. And people who are going to seemingly
forsake the call of God. People who were of us and then
just don't want anything to do with us anymore because it's
too hot or it's too cold, the music's too loud. And we're going to have to deal with
these things, and we're going to have to be patient, we're going to have
to be loving, and we go as far as we can. But in the end, what's
going to hold us together is what we've learned through scripture. So that we're not relying upon
our dreams to take us to the place that God's called us to
be as a people. Because here's a dream that most
people don't understand is a dream. Friends, the church is not about
utopia. And I'd say real ministry is when it's the hardest with
the people who are the hardest to deal with. Who are taking
more than you could ever give. And who desire more care and
ministry than you will ever have. And at the end of the day, you
go, I'm going to lose my mind. But I didn't. And God is faithful. And it builds a complete beyond
camaraderie, it builds a spontaneous, supernatural, very sticky, intimate
life together that the world looks upon and goes, this is
foolish. But that the people of God look
upon and go, we know. We know how it is that we have
been able to do these things. So I pray you find yourself in
the faith. I pray you find yourself in love with God and in love
with God's people. And. If you're willing to receive
them. That we're able to just see you
work mightily, Lord, you call people from different places,
from different seasons, from different cultures. You call
us all to the gospel. You call us to know you and to
love you and to love each other. And Lord, I thank you that we
are able to come and study your Word together and to pray for
each other every day, all the time. And Father, I thank you,
Lord, that we're not perfect people. I thank you, Lord, that
we get overwhelmed and we get sick and then we get broken and
we get diseased and we get frustrated and then we get tempted. I thank
you for that stuff, because we are always reminded of your ever
present grace and how much we need you. Not just individually,
but corporately and father, how much we need each other. Let
us be a body that truly goes and and heals and walks together. Let us be a people for your.
Possession by the power of your grace that the world may see. You, not us. Lord, as we leave this place
and prepare to be with family and to celebrate our holiday
season, Christmas, Advent, whatever it might be that we call it in
our own circle. Let it be an opportunity for
us to continually, as we did last week and the week before,
celebrate the sending of Jesus Christ, our Savior, into this
world, that he might suffer and die in our place, that your justice
toward us would be satisfied. Lord, I pray as we grow, Lord,
and I thank you for the addition to our family of the Quellers
and of Brooke, that we might become Better now, because there
are more parts to work with us. And the beauty of it, Lord, that
even before any formal things ever take place, we as Grace
Truth Church, God, we minister to each other despite what's
on paper. People have joined our fellowship long before they
petitioned to be members, and for that, we thank you. And it's
not about the cart before the horse, but Lord, it's not the
cross before the church. And we pray these things in the
name of Jesus our King. Amen.