But the songs we sang this morning. Directly relate to the fullness
of the gospel in many ways. Because, as we'll see in Jude,
verse four, there is an indictment against certain people. And this indictment deals with
four areas or four things that we see here. And I believe it
all comes down to one thing. I say it often. That the holiness
of God. Is the display. Of his intrinsic
worth. So what I mean by that is that
God is worthy. God has value. God has glory
and deserves it because He is infinitely worthy of such things
because he is infinitely holy within. So without the holiness
of God, there's no goodness from God. Without the holiness of
God, there's no perfection. Without the holiness of God,
there's no justice. Without the holiness of God,
there's no measure of standard. There's no opportunity to to
see and to behold. There's no opportunity for worship
anything but just futile attempts at idolatry. So as we put the
holiness of God at the at the center, at the core of all that
we do and know as God's people. We need to realize that everything
that's written in the New Testament, especially in these letters. It is written from the understanding
from the assumption that the readers or the hearers of these
words. Sort of resonate with that understanding
that everything rises and falls on the doctrine of God's holiness.
Now, let me explain to you how that works out an application.
It works out an application because for what reason did God create
the world? Think about it. Why did God create
the world? Some people say so that the world
could just behold his glory. Great. Good answer. Some people
would say because he wanted to. Great answer. There's no real
wrong answer as long as you're in the right scheme of theology,
the right understanding of proper doctrine. But what's the ultimate
reason that God created the world? If we just look at the creation
account, If we just look at the reality of what all has transpired. God would have been just as good
and just as glorious and just as holy and just as awesome and
just as satisfied had he never created anything else. So while there is an infinite
measure of explanation of why God created the world, we have
a very specific purpose that we'll see in the New Testament
that you've already know, you know, the answer. We'll say that
there's one thing that we know for certain is not a reason for
God's creation of all the world, and that is God did not create
the world in any way to keep himself company. He did not create
anything that he might share life with them because he needed
to. He made he did not create anyone
so that he would long after them because he needed companionship. God is infinitely satisfied with
the intrinsic value of his own holiness because in perfection,
that means just that there is nothing lacking in the consciousness
or the presence or the essence or the or just the expressiveness
of something that is perfect. So God in no way is lacking in
anything to cause him to have a need for anything. So therefore,
when God created the world, it's because it pleased him to create
the world. God created humanity because
it pleased him to create humanity. But specifically, God made man
and then from man made woman that he may show the immortal
picture in a temporal way of Christ and his church. so that
God would do two things with all of humanity. He would have
a group of people who fall under the judgment of His condemnation
justly and rightly because He's holy and perfect and good and
holiness requires recompense when wickedness is present. And
the other side of that is to be praised for His glorious grace
and the beloved of God who before the foundation of the world were
elected to be transformed into the image of the Son forever
to worship Him because of His goodness in giving a pardon. But He did not let sin go. He justly condemned it in Jesus
Christ for all who believe. So there's the reason God created
the world. And because the holiness of God
effectually deals with all of this. Why in the image of the
creation of man was everything else good? God said, let there
be light and there was light and it was good and there was
the end of the first day. And God created this and he said
it was good and God created this and he said it was good and God
spoke and the waters teemed with life. and birds flew in the air
and creatures crawled on the ground. He gave life to all of
them and he said it was good. And on the sixth day, he created
out of the dust of the earth, man. Ish, Hebrew word. And he put into him the breath
of life and he placed him in the garden and he said, it is
not good that man should be alone, so I will create a suitable helper
for him. And he put the man into a deep,
deep sleep and he took a rib from Adam. And he created out of Isha, Eve,
out of Adam. That's what it means. Man, woman
means out of man. And he gave her to the man and
the man looks at the woman and says, flesh of my flesh and bone
of my bone. And God says, let no one separate
what I have put together. And that is an eternal decree.
right before they fell before the eyes of God into temptation
of their own flesh by trickery of Satan, that God would declare
them just because the one who He would bring to the seed of
a woman would be His Son, Jesus Christ, the Holy and Anointed
One of God. When we try to separate the holiness
of God from any aspect of understanding the gospel or living it out as
God's people, we are watering down, not even watering, we are
putting out the fire of truth. So when we look at Jude's letter
here, we need to keep that fresh in our minds. In Christ alone
and as Jesus Christ On the cross, when he bled and he died, the
wrath of God was satisfied. What does that point to? The
holiness of God. Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God
Almighty. It's the only reason we worship
God. Let's look at Jude. Every week, I'm just going to
pick up where we were, start at the beginning and go to where we're
going to go. I want to go through verse 13 today in reading, but
we will stop at verse 4. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James to those who are called beloved in God
the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace and
love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very
eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it
necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered to the saints for certain people
have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this
condemnation. Ungodly people. who pervert the
grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want to remind you, although
you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out
of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed those who did not believe.
And the angels who do not stay within their own position of
authority, but left their proper dwelling. He is kept in eternal
change under gloomy darkness into the judgment of the great
day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which
likewise indulge in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,
serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Yet, unlike men, are these people also looking to the ones who
he just referred to? These people also, relying on
their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme
the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael
contended with the devil, was disputed about the body of Moses,
he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said,
let the Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all
that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all
that they, like reasoning animals, understand instinctively. Unreasoning
animals. Woe to them, for they walked
in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain
to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are
hidden reefs at your love feast, and they feast with you without
fear. Shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along
by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted,
wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame,
wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been
reserved forever. It was about these that Enoch,
the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes
with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all
and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness.
They have gone that they have committed in such an ungodly
way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken
against him. These are grumblers, malcontents following their own
sinful desires. They are loudmouthed boasters
showing favoritism to to gain advantage. Let me pray. Lord, may we never be found to
be living in the latter days of this text. And as we hear
your word today, would you would you show us in the depths of
our soul? The reality of who we are. And father, those who are the
beloved, the reality of who we have been saved from. So God, please plant this word
in the hearts of each of us. That we might understand the
significance of Jude's writing as it pertains to us. So that
we may look to your face and worship you. Father, speak through
me. Do not let my words get in the
way of yours. And I pray these things deeply
and sincerely. And with fear and trembling,
by the authority of Jesus Christ. Amen. It's really easy, and I spoke
last week a little bit on the sin of assumption. It's been
something that's readily brought to my attention in my own life
where I see or smell something that looks or smells familiar,
and I go, oh, that's that. You ever do that? You ever just You
know, well, that must be that or you hear someone say something
and it sounds a little bit like or even exactly like something
else that you've already labeled and you go, OK, that's that this
person is that way. Well, the sin of assumption is
assumption by definition means to to make a judgment on a particular
issue, person, thing or whatever, without any evidence to support
such judgment. And the same thing would be true
when we take the evidence and we assume that what we think
is evidence is evidence. So the can gets kicked all the way back
to the corner. We need to kick it to the corner of the truth
of God's word and decide where we are assuming things that should
not be assumed versus what we know is true. And so if we cannot
find out truth in areas of of. of ambiguity, then what we do
is we do hold to that which we know is true and we move from
there. Does that make sense? So we don't have to be experts
and pundits on those things which are ambiguous. We've got enough
of that on television and everywhere else. But what we can do is be
not just experts, but proclaimers, heralders of that which is foundationally
true and provable. And we see that here in Jude's
letter. He says of the church there in verse three, Beloved,
though I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,
I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for
the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. We spent
an extensive time on that last week, an hour and ten minutes,
actually. And what it means is we stand up, we press forward,
we stand against anything that does not stand in the orthodoxy
of truth as we know it in the scripture, not as we interpret
it, not as we think it, not in the relative nature of what we
see as truth, but what God says is true. And that's why the syntax
of the scripture is so important. Syntax is how all these words
and phrases and punctuation, all this kind of stuff fit together
to create meaning. The reason you can follow me
somewhat today is that you can understand the syntax that's
coming out of my mouth. Most of the time, half the time,
maybe I don't even understand what's coming out of my mouth
most of the time. So but you can follow me. You understand
the language, you understand the dialect, you understand the
specific phrases and the sentences and the subjects and the verbs
and the nouns and all of these different things as they work
together to create words that create meaning. If I just ripped
off a bunch of words without in a proper form, they would
be senseless. Much like Paul teaches the Corinthians
in chapter 13 of his first letter, that if we have all the great
wisdom and all of these things, we're just clanging noise if
we don't have love. It sort of reminds me of that
sometimes, the way we read the Bible. We read the Bible without
comprehension. We read the Bible with a very
scary assumption deep within our heart that we don't even
realize is there. And we pave over what this text is actually
saying. I say that a lot, Donald. You
know what I mean when I say pave over? You ever seen them build
a road? Are they going to repair a highway? They don't fix the
problem and they don't tear up the old. They just pave it over.
And so there's some places in the world that the road can be
12, 18 inches high. I don't know when they decide,
well, we better dig some of that down. I mean, you know, as you say,
there's no shoulder because they have to pour something to grade
that down so you just don't flip your car off the side of the
ditch. And so when we pave over the text, we wrongly, or not
even wrongly, we just ignorantly assume we know what's happening.
Let me show you what I mean by this in verse 4. For certain
people, have crept in unnoticed. Now, we know what the context
is here. There's some there's some issues of people who are
who have crept in the church, who are a part of the church,
and they've come in sort of unnoticed. It wasn't that they just all
of a sudden appeared. They've been there, but they
were unnoticed in their truth. And what is it that we automatically,
what do I assume? Let me go ahead and tell you
what I assume when I first read these words and I started to
study Jude. And I thought, oh yeah, I got
that, that's good stuff. And then you read it again and
again and again. That's why I tell you to read what we're going
through at least once a day if you can. If not, at least a couple
of times a week. Because as you read in repetition
of the letters in their entirety, you can see the context. And
so we see this certain people of Krypton notice the first thing
we want to do is we want to ring the alarm. We want to go, oh,
false teachers. And we're probably right to an
extent that there were false teachers that Jude was talking
about. But the rest of his letter doesn't teach that. Now, would
false teachers apply to the principle of people who come in unnoticed?
Absolutely. But in the absolute context of
what Jude has written, it's not just, it's not theology that
is the problem. It's not doctrine. Where do you
get that? Because they came in unnoticed. It's different than the people
of Galatia who have come in noticed. Yep, the gospel alone, Christ
alone, faith alone. But if you're not circumcised,
you're really not right before God. See, that's obvious. Error, as
it comes in, bold and bolsterous, is obvious. It's not unnoticed.
You ever had that come into a church that you've been sitting in?
You know, there have been several times, it's not a lot, but several
times throughout the tenure of my ministry, people have interrupted
me during preaching. I mean, you know, when it's class
time and it's interactive. But there have been times where people
have interrupted during preaching. And one such time, somebody yelled
out, heresy. Heresy. And I'm like, you know,
I had some really big, strong guys that were looking out for
it all. And they took him outside and we talked. And then one of
those mini conferences that we did had another guy walking around
and sharing a bunch of Absolute heresies and handing out literature. And we tried to talk about it. So we just had to confront it
right there. You know, some of you guys in the last break have
been inundated with this false truth. Those are obvious. If
somebody came walking through here streaking, it's not like
they're going to come in and sit down and after church. Well,
by golly, George, you don't have clothes on. No, we're going to
notice it when they hit the parking lot. We don't notice it. So but
unnoticed means that they blended in fairly well. And though there
are Opportunities to contend for the faith, the one true salvation,
Jude, that's once and for all given to all the saints, all
who claim to be in Christ. It's the same truth. It's the
same message. It's the same reality. It's the same gospel. It's the
same doctrine. It's the same theology. It's not a mix of different
revelations. It's once for all, forever done.
There's no more new. There's no more fresh. There's
nothing more. The mercies of God that was good before eternity
are the same mercies of God that are good today. And though there are people who
come in like that, there are people from the outside against
whom we have to contend for the faith and stand up for the faith.
In Jude's context, he's talking about those people who come into
the church in such a way that they sign the covenant, that
they say, we believe every word of your confession. We believe
it. We can teach it. We agree. But then all of a sudden
something happens. It's not that they change their
mind. It's like many Southern Baptists today. How many years
were you part of a church and had never read the doctrine of
faith or the statements of faith in the church you were a part
of? Or worse, you went to the website and saw the 1115 words
that encompassed all of Scripture. And we're 19 bullets. We believe
God is truly the God to create all the world. Jesus is a son
who saved everybody. The Bible is true, period. I
mean, you know what I'm talking about. All these people are godly.
This is just the most orthodox God-fearing. And even that and
his liquid melting steam evaporating form of whatever we want to call
it there without being rude. They don't even follow that.
How many how many Baptists actually know why they're Baptists? How
many people even know what the word evangelical means in the
context of doctrine and practice? We went through Titus. We see
very clearly that Paul teaches that if we say we believe in
right truth, 1 John also, that the belief of that truth will
affect the trueness of our actions. The trueness of our heart and
the trueness of our words. So if we say we walk in light,
but our actions, words, desires and the way we live our life
is contrary to that which we confess with our mouth, that
confession is a lie. See, there's the argument. The
same thing is true in Titus, 1 John. Jude is no different.
But it's not as much as the teaching of these people as it is the
actions of these people. That's how they came in unannounced
or unnoticed. They came in and they were loving.
They came in and they said, oh, yeah, I believe that. Oh, yeah,
I believe that. Oh, yeah, I have conversations all the time with
people. And they say to me, and I'm not talking specifically
about a recent, but it made me remember other conversations.
They said to me, I believe the same way you do. And I'm thinking
in my mind, you have no idea what you're saying, because if
I sat here just to go over my my general doctrinal statements
on one thing, we'd be here for five hours. You really want to
play that? You really want to sit at this
table right now? I have a lot to do, but I will
cancel it all if you want to talk. You know, and so we just
you know, I believe the same way you do. You do you really?
Do you believe the same way I do? Do you believe the same way each
other do? And that's why it's so important to have documents
for a local fellowship so that there's no question. Well, what
do you think about that? Even the pastor, I mean, you
imagine 15, 20 years from now, if I die, this church is grown,
you know, a couple of hundred people or have several different
churches that have grown and multiplied out of this congregation,
Statesboro, other places. And you imagine that the documents
remain the same, that there may be an opportunity in the future
where other men of God who stand in the pulpits of a grace through
church or a sister church of that would actually not even
know what's written in the documents. It can get like that. But yet
we tell us a godly church. It's a godly man. Friends, I've
been on staff of churches who had the most sound, had the most
solid theological foundations in their writings. And then part
of the pastor's role and authority and job, if you will, had to
use the term is to govern based on the understanding of scripture
that the congregation has so that we walk in the way we say
we believe. And we started doing that. Where'd
you get that stuff? That's that's just that's not how we believe
on things. Well, right here on page three of your document that
you gave me when I came here, that you wrote 35 years ago as
a people. That's what it says. I'm not
making this stuff up. You did. Well, we don't believe
that way. I don't know why that's in there.
It's got your name as one who voted it in. I don't remember that. And why'd you do it? You see,
you see what I mean? See how lightly we can take truth and
how easy it is when everybody who comes in says, well, I'm
a Christian. I want to come in and join your church. I'm going
to be a fellowship. Is that the way it works? Jude's
warning against people who just come in and say the right stuff
to measure the outcome of what they say about how they live.
Look at this. Certain people from within. These
are possibly and there's a lot of there's a lot of Don't even
worry about it. There's just a lot of people
who have gotten a lot of different thoughts about verse four. There
are about six different theological views about verse four of Jude
and volumes written on each. But I would just say, let's see
what we can see that simply written that makes sense. And what it
says to us is that there are people who have crept in. These
could be travelers who are just traveling through or these could
be people who have covenanted together with a local congregation
and stand on right doctrine. But something happens. There
are four things that he says about these people. What are
they? Let's list them quickly and I'll talk about each one.
First, he said that they were designated for condemnation.
Look at that. Who long ago were designated
for condemnation for this condemnation. That's one. Secondly, he says
they're ungodly people. They're ungodly people. And thirdly,
they are people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. And fourthly, they deny our only
Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now see, what's really interesting,
and here's an assumption, here's an assumption that I made, I
was envisioning. Do you picture stuff when you read it? And not
only do I picture stuff, I parallel it. I parallel it with a possible
conversation that might happen with a possible person that needs
to talk about this particular issue. Or I remember a conversation
that I have had with a person that this applies to. Either
way, I picture it, even if it's just abstract people. that I
don't even know in my own mind, I picture it. And so when I'm
thinking through this, sometimes daydreaming is what you call
that, by the way, folks. And it's very it's very productive. You
should do it often. You know, you think, OK, I know
some people like that. Well, I bet if I talk to them
like this, this is what they'd say. This is what it would look like.
But that's not it at all. These people who Jude is referring
to if they sat in front of him and they said, look, you're denying
the Lord Jesus as master. No, we don't. No, we don't. We
know he's Lord. We know he's master. He's our Lord and Savior. He's our master, our king. He
died for our sins. And without him, without faith
in him, there's no way possible we can have eternal life. We
believe that we don't reject the gospel. But you said they
did. You you pervert the grace of
Jesus. No, it's by grace alone, through
faith alone. We believe that we know for sure
that if it wasn't for God's infinite mercy given to us, we would not
have opportunity, nor would there ever be even even a small movie
in the direction of wanting to repent of our sins. We know we
know we trust in that we believe every day in the grace of God. And then we would say, well,
you were designated for condemnation. No, no, no, no, no. First, there's
one chapter five verse nine says that you're not destined for
condemnation, for destruction, but destined to life and resurrection
and eternity. We don't believe that you got
us wrong, Jude. But he doesn't have them wrong. And he wouldn't be able to sit
down and say, now when you were talking with Brother so-and-so
last week, you mentioned this and it's a theological error.
He wouldn't have found that. I want you to hear these words. These people come in unnoticed
because they believe the same way we do. You see the difference? People
that Jude refers to and the people that Paul writes to in Galatia. The Judaizers. Or the Gnostics and others who
are dealing with John's letters. Be very careful to do two things
during the rest of the sermon. One is pray that God will give
you a give you a sense of hearing. So you're not talking to yourself
throughout the rest of the sermon trying to work through that.
One and secondly, don't forget to look in the mirror. And realize that if it were not
for the grace of God, you and I each would be right, solid,
maybe even write books about right doctrine, but we could
be wicked. It came to my heart this week
and just thinking through some of these things, if I can find
the exact phrase in this journal, I'll read it to you. It doesn't
matter. The gist of it is this, is that there are many people
who are righteously walking in wickedness. And Jude is not even talking
about those. What I mean by that, there are people who live an
absolutely righteous moral life who are lost and they claim to
be saved and they are wicked. And there are people who live
a theologically sound life who by their actions and by their
lifestyle, they are wicked. And that's the people who Jude
is referring to. Let's look at these four things.
They were long ago. We're designated for this condemnation. If you would, if it would not
upset your balance of life and if you're not the type of person
who is very obsessive I just challenge you to go to like a
Bible.org and look at even there, the different types of commentaries
that can come to explain the views on what is meant there. Peter's writing, oh, that's who
it is. It's all about Peter. Oh, it's
all about. It's talking about Enoch. Oh, it's talking about
this is so much. Jude is writing right there what
he's about to talk about, OK? To the interest, interesting
thing about context. He says this condemnation, verse
5, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew
it, that Jesus, he's talking about the condemnation of historical
proportions that he's about to show you. He's not he's not given a revelation
of something else. But what he's saying there is
that Scripture speaks of people like this. Scripture speaks of
the condemnation that is awaiting people. who deny the Lord who
bought them. Remember Peter's writing? Some
of you have brought that up in a Q&A in the last few months.
How can they deny the Lord? If the Lord bought them, how
can they reject it? You see, they profess that they
have been redeemed and purchased by Christ, but their lifestyle
proves differently. Scripture speaks in verses 5
through 16. Tell us the answer to this condemnation long ago,
because the condemnation of the wicked has not changed. When
God brings judgment, as we'll see in the weeks to come, God
has is bringing judgment based on unbelief, a rejection of Christ,
staying in the natural state of depravity and loving sin,
just to name a few. So when you see this, understand
that there are people. There are people who have been
destined to wrath. It's a hard thing to swallow,
but let me help you understand why do we start out this message
with a real with a little commercial about the holiness of God, because
in God's destiny for people unto judgment, he is good. Did you
hear that? When God rightly judges people
before the world began that they would be cast into eternal judgment,
he's right in that. Now, some people like to say,
and I don't want to I don't want to get on soapboxes. Well, that's
just not the God I know. And Paul would say. Well, let
me proclaim to you who is the true God that you don't know,
the unknown God. And if there's nothing but rip,
snort, stomps and pulpit slaps to answer that, it's bad theology. You know what I mean? People
can be passionate and loud and bolsterous and get amens and
people passing out in tears and be wrong. The second thing we see that
will start to show us what he means by this. People who are
ungodly people, ungodly people. The reality of this word means
that they're morally rebellious, ungodly, that they see the morality
of God. Let's change that. That's such
a weak word. They see the holiness of God
and the commands of God. And they say by their lifestyle,
not by their mind and not by their mouth, they think they're
right. They say with their lifestyle,
I live the way I live. And if it's ungodly, God's grace
abounds. You see, the next part perverting
the grace of our God. That's what that means. Ungodly
people. These are people whose actions
disprove their confession. These are people whose lifestyle
say that the doctrine that they hold to has no power in their
life. These are the ones who praise
God with their lips, but their hearts are far from it. These
are the ones who haven't even washed the outside of the bowl
and the inside is dirty, too. They're ungodly. They're not
walking in the light of Christ. They're not walking in obedience
to the commands of Christ. Wait a minute. Christ came to
fulfill the law. So faith in Jesus is all we need. Faith in Jesus is all we need.
Absolutely. But faith is not flat. What's that mean? It doesn't
lay on a table with a signature on it and say, yep. Whether you
came down an aisle, said a sinner's prayer, or believe faith that
way, it's all the same thing. It's a man-centered focus. Christ
saved us. What does Paul say in Ephesians?
That we've been predestined to be in the image of Jesus Christ,
the Son, holy. What does it teach us? That he
who began a good work. What's the good work? That we
walk in the things that God has prepared beforehand for us to
walk in. Ephesians 2.10. And that we also
display as come to the light to show that all of our good
works have been carried out by God. To say that there is no
purpose in obedience as a believer in Jesus takes Jesus and makes
Him a liar when He says That if you love me, you'll obey me. Christian, do you know what disobedience
looks like in our lives? We are given an option. You want
to talk about free will? You have free will when you're
born again. You have the freedom of your
will to recognize sin and choose Christ every second of your life. Sin in our lives is not blind. It is not deceit. It doesn't
sneak up. Yeah, I'm not saying that it
can't, but it's not the norm that we don't walk this way.
I understand the difference. Well, I sinned last year. No,
I was upset yesterday. Come on, get with it. I'm not
making light of that. Christ suffered on the cross
because of that frustration in your soul. So that you could
be Forgiven. But I'm saying that when our
heart toward the grace of God. Produces no fruitfulness for
the things of God, we are not the people of God. That's why church discipline
is not just suggested, it's commanded. And I find it, don't you find
it odd that, yes, it is all about the grace of God. But if our
lives don't fit the picture of the gospel power, we're to be
removed from the fellowship of the church. Isn't that odd? Where do you get that? Jesus teaches that in Matthew. Paul teaches it in 1 Corinthians.
Paul teaches it in Timothy. Hebrews teaches it. Moral rebellion. That means the
life of these people who hold to truth lives a lifestyle that
does not evidence that truth has any effect in their lives.
And I could go on and give you a psychology lesson on what that
looks like based on the theology of the Bible, but ultimately,
what do you love? What do you live for? What do
you long for? What do you hope for? What do
you want? You want holiness in your life. If you do, you strive
for it. Recognizing that you're striving
has no effect on your eternal destiny, but that God's eternal
destiny for you has full effect on your striving. Let's move to the third thing
that Jude says about these people, he says they they. Pervert the
grace of God. Some texts say they. They defame it or defile it.
They pervert the grace of God into sensuality. Now, the word
pervert and sensuality together, it brings it brings. Faults of
sexual immorality, and that's the point that you want to make.
It's not just that these people were living in sexual immorality,
but I guarantee you it was probably one of the largest issues that
they were dealing with. It was a large issue, but he
doesn't specifically deal with that. But I think he uses this
language in such a way because he's saying that by their lifestyle,
they sell the grace of God out as some license for immorality. Oh, you know, I'm trying, but
I'm just not going to stop doing this right now. God's still working
on me. It took him just a week to make
the moon and the stars, you know, that that thing sun and the earth
and Jupiter and Mars. But until he's done, I'll keep
sinning. And I didn't have a song goes. I'm just going to keep
on. No, we strive. We press into
the gospel so that our lives. Will be glorifying to God. To the one who bought us. This act of rebellion, this sensuality,
this perversion. is an act of rebellion against
God licensed to sin as an act of rebellion against the gospel. And the reason that it's there
is because, though they say they believe sound teaching, they
don't. They know the facts of sound
teaching, but they have no application thereof. Friends, don't be confused
to think that everybody who is being revealed in Romans one
about having been turned over to reprobate mind. Or ignorant
or obstinate of true doctrine. I said that there are a lot of
people who are obstinate of certain theological platforms that are
truly the children of God and God will bring them to truth
one day. To understanding to be free from the by from the
confines of of legalism or whatever it is that they may be. Bound
to. But don't think that just because. Someone isn't living a life of
extreme sin that they could not be in this number. Because we
don't know what people do when no one's looking. And we can
put an act on. Every one of us. We can talk differently in front
of this group of people than we do this group of people. We can. We can talk about different
topics in front of this group of people that do that, I'm not
talking about just differences in interests, you know what I
mean? Hey, don't tell these people
that I go to church, OK? You ever heard anybody say that?
Or don't don't bring the Bible up around these people. Something's different. sensuality, perversion of the
grace of God and the sensuality. It denotes the idea of adultery. Or infidelity, it denotes the
idea that something is going against the beauty of the marriage
of the lamb and his church, that there is some type of of fornication
or there's something there we perverted. In other words, we
can have multiple lovers in this life and Christ is our husband,
but he doesn't mind. You see that Christ will always
be the faithful husband, whether I'm the faithful wife or not.
That's true in a nutshell. But it doesn't mean that we have
the right, nor for those who are born again, we don't have
the heart to cheat against our husband. You've lost me, James. What are you talking about? Now
we've gone to adultery because the gospel, the marriage, God
created man and woman and put them together to show Christ
in his church, Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. They're not two separate issues.
One is temporal and one is eternal. One is a shadow. One is the true. One is the anti type of type.
And what the other is that we are looking at a small picture
of the reality of gospel Christ coming to take his church and
make it blameless. And it is not good that Christ
be without his bride, nor was it good that Adam be without
his bride. That's why God created the world.
to save a people of his own possession by the power of his own gospel
through the through the body of his own son. And so we cannot say to God. That those who live immorally
among us are OK. And that's why every sin should
grieve our hearts. Hebrews, Chapter six. Says, for it is impossible. For
it is impossible for those who have what tasted the heavenly
gift. who have once been enlightened,
who had tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit
and tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of
the age to come and have fallen away, it is impossible to restore
them again to repentance since they are crucifying once again
the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. That's a difficult passage for
a lot of people. That's why throwing the law in the garbage, especially
the two that Jesus upholds, to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, mind and strength, which institutes what? Obedience
to him and an honor to him and glory to him and to love your
neighbor as yourself. And as the apostles demand and
command to do all things for the glory of Christ, to do all
you do, whether in word or deed or food or drink. for the glory
of God. It's impossible for us to say
that we are born again when sin is abounding and we're OK with
it. And I think another part of this
is when we do this to the grace of God, we say that God's gracious
love, Ephesians 2, a lot of people in this vein of thinking love
this text. Once you were dead in your trespasses
and sins against him, but God made you alive because of the
great love with which he loved you by grace, you have to say
that is true. But they say they like to take
that out and make that context a pretext. They tattoo on their
foreheads and say, this is all that matters now. This is all
that matters. They don't even know verse 10
down there says, For you've been saved by grace. You've been saved
through faith. And this is a gift of God, not
of your own doing, so that no one can boast. For we are God's
workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which
he created beforehand for us to walk in. You see that? We
can't blot out what we don't like. But yes, we don't walk
around under this compulsion and fear, wondering if I have
a bad attitude today, am I going to hell? No, you're not. But
if you have a bad attitude today, God will, through not just conviction,
but the refreshment of the gospel of redemption, remind you that
you have been purchased and that you have the power to overcome
that sin and you can celebrate it and fix the offense and walk
together in harmony and unity in the face of Christ. You can
do it. Until tomorrow, and then you
can do it again. And then tomorrow, and you can do it again the next
day, and the next day. Grace upon grace upon grace, God effectually
continues to impart the power of His gospel, Romans 116, so
that we can walk in the divine nature of Christ, not perfectly,
but pressingly. It might not be the right use
of that as an adverb, but 2 Peter 1, verse 3, for God's divine
power gives us the ability to walk in all things, to walk the
way He wants us to walk. And the perversion of God's grace
says that God is a forgiving God. Listen to me. And we stop. God forgives you. God forgives you. God forgives
you. Isn't that a half truth? Isn't
that just the introduction to the real truth? God forgives
you and you should not be forgiven. God, here's the truth. Let's
say it this way. God has forgiven no sin. Oh, he's a heretic. Now we're
out of here. Tear up my covenant. I'm gone. But appease me for
a moment. We know God forgives sins. OK,
now this soundbite to get me in trouble, but I just want to
play this out for just a minute. Let's change it to say it this
way. God has never forgiven any sin. but has demanded repayment
for every sin. Is that true? Yes. Because the
perversion of God's grace means that God sees sin and just washes
it away. Just wash it off. He loves us
so much, it's alright that you sin. Spray it on down there and
flush it out with the dog kennel. We just get it on out of here.
That's a perversion. That's a perversion. God looks
at my wickedness and says, you, dear son, are free because I
put your guilt on the holy son of mine. Your sins have been
paid for. My judgment has been poured out
on your sin. My holiness has brought justice
for your sin on the back of my son. See, there's a difference. And the holiness of God demands
repayment of sin. No one will be forgiven of sin
if their sin is not paid for. God forgives you, O sinner, because
he brought justice for your sin on the cross of Christ. There
is a true statement. Satan did not come up with all
sorts of twisted theology in the garden. He just questioned
the fullness of God's holiness. He just questioned the power
of God's wisdom that God knew best for them. And he says, don't
you want this food, Eve? And she and Adam stood there
and looked at it, and they were like, yeah. And he said, seeing that it was
good to the eye and good for food, good for the body. It wasn't
even a bad thing. It wasn't like it was a case
of liquor. Don't do that. Wasn't a bunch of cocaine. It
was food. That God had set apart. For his
purpose. No, she says. For God said. See, this is what we thought
of. Adam, my husband, told me, God said, if we eat of this,
we will die. And then Satan says, did he really
say that you would die? Surely, see what happens? He
perverts the grace of God. Surely, you will not die. But God knows you will be like
Him. Every one of those statements
are true. You eat this fruit, you're not
going to fall dead. Yet. And you will be like God
because you'll know good from evil. He's hiding something from
you. You need to know it. So seeing that it was good for
food and that it was good to the eyes, she took it and ate
it and gave it to her husband who was standing there with her.
Don't give Adam a big break, y'all. Yeah, all you women just
said amen and all the husbands are looking at the ground. And they ate of it and their
eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. And they
were ashamed. See what sin does. As the grace of God. Is able
to be applied to you because God himself became a man and
became naked and ashamed. And he bore the reproach, not
just of man. Those who put him on the cross,
but he bore the reproach of all who are the children of God forever. Faith alone saves. But faith is not cheap. Faith is not free. And faith is not alone. Faith
is not cheap because Jesus, the God-man, had to buy it. He has to gift it. And the only
way God the Father can give faith to wickedness is He had to pay
for it. through the holiness of his son.
Faith is not free. Because he had to pay for it.
But it's freely given to us because there's nothing we can bring
in exchange. And faith is not alone because faith in itself,
Pistuan, Pistis, faith believing John 3, specifically, is an ongoing,
everlasting action. The gift of faith is a spark
of God, a gift of God, and the outcome of the expression and
the living of that faith is forever. And I could hide in a cave and
work that out in 20 years, I think. Faith is a full and forever commitment
to Christ. To his truth. To his work. To his sufficiency. To his law. And to his love. And that brings us to the last
thing that Jude says about these people. Is that they deny our
only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. And they would say, no, we don't.
We don't deny Jesus as Lord. We don't deny the grace of God. But by their lifestyle, they're
not saying, as Romans 10 says, Jesus is Lord. But they're saying
Jesus is the giver of freedom to sin. I can get away with my
sin because Jesus saved me from it. That's what they're saying
by their actions. But salvation. Effectively puts
Christ as master, as Lord. Not there's no such thing as
having. Salvation without Jesus being
master. It doesn't work. And we don't
make him master. He becomes master. He becomes
Lord. He becomes our owner. You see that? We become a slave
to what? Not the law, for the letter kills. The Spirit gives life, Paul says.
I don't want to open that can of worms. We become a slave to
righteousness. We become a slave to holiness. We become a slave to Jesus in
our hearts, in our minds, in our deeds, in our words, in our
affections. All these things become a slave
to righteousness and the wickedness of our flesh, though it challenges
is not overpowering the lordship of Jesus Christ. Years ago, there were many tracts
and discipleship studies done about now that you've got salvation,
you've got to be discipled in order to make Jesus Lord. If
he's not your Lord, you don't need discipleship. You need saving. Because what you did is you did
something over here to affect salvation. Now you've got to
do something over here to affect Lordship. That's wrong. Where
is it? Don't give me twelve words and
tell me that's a common truth. Show me the context of the Scripture
that teaches that anywhere. It doesn't teach that. As a matter
of fact, when we see this talk, we see that those who are not
living as though Christ is their owner are not Christ. He doesn't
belong. We don't belong to him. And these are the people who
are referenced in Jude's letter. These are the people who are
among the church. This is why church discipline is a mandate. Because what does it do? These people reveal unbelief. By their lives, Jesus is not
Lord. They say they believe this way.
They look good. They act well, especially in
the beginning. They get in and all of a sudden
the covers come off, the honeymoon's over and we start to see who
they really are. And we realize they're not of us. How do we
know they're not of us? Because they don't walk in the
light of God. And I will say this, and I don't
want it to be an issue of conviction. Because I'll close with a statement
about conviction. Guilt ridden conviction is not
purpose in Scripture for the church. Guiltless conviction. Wow, thank you, God, and we rejoice
in it. Thank you for showing me that.
So I'll say this phrase. The remedy for sinfulness is
not conviction, but redemption. Because I can preach to you in
such a way that will cause you to do one of two things. Well,
I'll tell you how it works. I can preach to you in such a
way to twist this up, to make it seem like this letter is pounding
you in the head about your lifestyle. And I can warn you by stepping
back over there to Hebrews chapter six, verse four. You better watch
out, lest you be burned. And it'll work. And you'll be
in church and you'll carry your Bible. You might even put Bible
verses on your mirrors. But you'll do it in a way of
fear of condemnation when the scripture says, therefore, now
there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus and that
true love, what love cast away fears. We're being perfected
in the love of God, the love of God, and this that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us, the love of God. And
this is that while before we love God, God first loved us
and the love of God is seen in the giving of a son. For God
loved the world. So in this way, so loved the world that he gave
his one and only or the only begotten son, that whoever so
or whosoever believing in him is believing in him will not
perish, but those that believe are believing not in him are
condemned already. So you see, the believers are
not in condemnation. It has been lifted because Christ
has been condemned for us. So God and his holiness. For
which we praise him. Actually. Actually allows us
to to walk without guilt. So redemption is the remedy for
sinfulness in our lives. But when conviction comes, it's
a conviction unto worship, not a conviction unto condemnation
and guilt. So I can preach that way. But why do I why do I not
do that? Because that's not what the text
is trying to do. The text is trying to make the
beloved of God, the friends, the beloved, the church, be keenly
aware that there is an opportunity by which we measure the confession
of each one of us. And when we see people slipping
away, slipping apart, falling away, no spiritual drive, there
is a concern for us. Saw a person yesterday as they
were walking up, I saw just by their countenance that they weren't
well. And I said, are you OK? I don't
feel well today. I could tell because you were
walking up. I could see that your shoulders are dripping a little
bit. And we can tell that about our
people, about each other's body language. Are we not keen enough
to see it in our spiritual lives? I beat this horse, I don't want
to be the horse, I want to groom the horse and let it keep trotting,
but church attendance is a serious issue in Scripture because it
is an indicator of something. It's an indicator of something
when there are other things that we must do that are easily put
before fellowshipping with the saints of God and study of his
word together. There is a problem. And most congregations throughout
the last hundred years have decided, I know, let's do this to get
people interested. Let's have this get people interested. Well, what are you going to do
to get people interested if you're not interested in seeing the
face of God through the word of God? You're not interested
in God. If you're not interested when
I talk about. The common salvation found in
Jesus Christ, you're not interested in that salvation. And I'm not talking about one
day out of the month, I mean as a lifestyle. We find it very difficult for
people to say they love you when they don't want to see you. And if people don't love you,
beloved, they don't love the master that bought you. They
don't. Don't let them fool you. We'll see in the next weeks.
What these people look like, what they actually did. But keep
in mind that the fruit of their confession was absent. They did
not have a life. That personified the holiness
of God. And a lack of striving. Toward
obedience really is a revelation of the trueness of one's heart. Three things. In closing, three
other places of Scripture that sort of give a little bit of
a light on what these people do. In Galatians 2, we hear these
words, yet because of false brothers secretly brought in. Who slipped
in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ so that they
might bring us into slavery. Now, what's he talking about
there in Galatians 2? The context, the occasion is these Jews who
had been converted, if you will, I use air quotes. to Christianity,
came into the Christians, the Gentile Christians said, OK,
we're the people of God. Now we're saved by the grace
of God in Christ. But for you to be really. Brought
into the fellowship of the saints, you've got to exercise the right
of circumcision, you've got to do some other stuff, you've got
to do this, you've got to do that, you've got to be baptized.
You've got to come down, you've got to stand and confess, you've
got to do that, you've got to take this class, you've got to
be here, you've got to Use this Bible. You see how that works
in today's application? Or you're not saved. And if you
are saved, it's just barely. You're not really approved. If
you want to be a full member of God's body, you've got to
do these things. Paul says that they snuck in secretly and that
they brought in this wrong stuff. They saw the freedom that they
had in Christ and they tried to bind them to other things.
In a legalistic way. To make us back into slavery
to the law. That's one thing that happens
with people like this, and it may be the other way around.
Set of slavery to the law, slavery to anti-numism, slavery to the
anti-law, slavery to the anti-rule. You don't have to obey anything.
Slavery to what? Perversion of grace. Titus, we
were there months ago. In verse 16 of the first chapter,
Paul writes, They profess to know God, but they deny him by
their works. They are detestable, disobedient
and unfit for any good work. And you know what? A lot of people
in that vein that Jude is speaking of, they actually hold leadership
positions in churches. It's why the argument of a lot
of unchurched people are, I live a better life than that deacon.
or than that pastor, or than that so-and-so, or that sister
so-and-so. And they're right. And then the
fallacy that comes in response to that is, well, you know, you
think we'll stop using banks because there's counterfeit at
the bank? No, but I don't want to be around
a false people. They're everywhere. But when
we do nothing about them, what happens? They take over. Why is it that most congregations,
you find the one guy who's the guru? The one gal who's so mission
minded, she can't wait to graduate high school so she can go to,
you know, Tally Alla Boo Boo, somewhere nobody's ever heard
of. Because there's 12 people there that she wants to reach
for the gospel. She'll have to swim the Pacific to get there.
I'm going. Whoa, look how God has anointed
these guys, this guy and this gal, and they're eccentric, excited,
just over the top. No, they're normal Christians.
Now see, don't be convicted, but really, I'm not on mission,
but yes, I am. You're not on mission, but yes,
you are. We're on mission. And God calls people to certain
different places, but he doesn't call us some to affection for
his word and his people and others not. Why is it that the guys
who love to study Scripture are the, I don't know, what do you
call them? I'm trying to think of the word
everybody likes to use. All the weirdos. But yet. That's what Scripture
teaches us. And we should love his word.
Because only through his word are we going to have intimacy
with him. We like music, but we can't listen to music riding
down the road and say we've experienced Jesus. We think we have. I think I have. The irony is
some of the most brilliant music ever performed is done by Mormons. Come thou Fount. Some of the
greatest Puritan hymns ever made Listen to the Mormon choir, sing
them and you will faint. You talk about you want to be
charismatic, learn how to faint the spirit. Just listen. I mean,
it'll just. It'll blow your mind. Those people are worshiping a
false god and there's no truth coming out of their mouths, except
that the word. But I can experience the truth of the gospel through
that, even though it's wickedness being But it's still not really
experiencing Christ, is it? Because the music moves us sometimes. I'm saying that not to say, stop,
please do. But the word of God is what moves
us. The word of God is what takes
us into the presence of God. The word of God is what commands
us and compels us to walk in the steps of Christ. Finally, in 1 John 2, 22, he
says these words, who is the liar? But he who denies that
Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who
he who denies the father and the son, you see, and we talked
about that. At our Wednesday night study
in Statesboro once. And we we look at him, we think it's really
obvious that somebody came here, said I reject the gospel. Truly, all of us know, I don't
believe Jesus is divine like Jehovah's Witness. Mormons. Islam. Most Southern Baptists, most
Methodist. Most Presbyterians, most Episcopal,
most Anglican, most Catholic, I mean, you know, we can get
on down the road, there's everybody, majority in almost every group. They deny this. Not by their
mouths, but by their lives. Because we say, who is the liar
but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? What's the application
here? I'm lost. It's simple. We deny
that Jesus is the Christ and become liars when we say, according
to 1 John 1, the very third or fourth verse, if we say we have
fellowship with Him, with the light, but we walk in darkness,
we lie. If we say we love God, hate our
brother, we lie. If we say, if we say, but we
walk, but we walk, we lie, we do not practice the truth. So
by our actions, we say Jesus is not the Christ. And by their
actions, Jude says that they deny the Father and the Son.
Does that make sense? So in that, We package all this
up to realize that there is a back to the beginning. Condemnation set long ago for
these people. Are you among them? Are you? The ungodly who profess
to be in Christ, are you? The perverter of the grace of
God who. Says he's your master, but by your actions denying Friends, there's no conviction
of sin that will save you, only your redemption from sin. In
church, as we look carefully at our own lives and at the lives
of each other, we need to be careful to see, not as police
officers, but as intimate parts of a body. We take care to look
after one another. So that at the smallest time
when we see these things sneaking into our lives, into the lives
of each other, we say, hey, this looks bad for you. How can I
help you? And the Word of God, the law
of God is not burdensome for the child of God. Let's do not
forget that. Let's do not forget our purpose
in evaluating and, quote, judging our own hearts and actions so
that God's name would not be defiled and that His grace would
not be perverted. Let's pray. Lord, days like this can become
very weary physically. And sometimes physical slowness
can be misconstrued in our hearts and in our own lives as a lack
of power, lack of fire, lack of fuel by your spirit. Father, I imagine that sometimes
when these words were written as Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians,
he came to them in trembling and fear and unable to utter
sound sentences. Many would laugh if you look
at that old fool. Let us not measure the truth
of the Word that is sent to us by its dynamic presentation. Help us to measure it by its
truth. Father, I pray that You would
just hold us in a way that sets us into a continued reaching
in toward each other, that we would Be mindful of our brothers
and sisters among our fellowship that we would continue to see
how we could be about the business of urging and encouraging each
other as long as it's called today that we may stir each other
up to good works and to love and affection. That we may press
together into obedience. With the fullness of our joy
being found in the obedience of Christ. Father, that we be mindful of
each other and petition your throne on their behalf. That
we would seek out those who are hurting and missing. And that
we would not stop until we find them and bring them back. That we would preserve the holiness
of your gospel by disallowing continued sin and rebellion.
And we would also pray, Father, that You would help us not to
assume the worst, even though it may appear that way on the
outside, but to hear and listen and hold to that which is told
to us and then measure that which is shown to us so that Your church
would grow deeply in love with You. We thank You for this opportunity
to sing hear the Word, and to pray to You, and to love each
other, and to share our lives. In the name of Jesus, we pray.
Amen. Amen. Amen.