Now turn in your Bibles with
me to the book of Jude, next to the last book of the Bible,
the book of Jude. I've been preaching through this
and I had planned originally, it's noted in your bulletin,
that I was going to preach from Jude 12, verse 12, just one chapter
in this short little epistle. to preach from verse 12 to verse
16, but I'm not gonna get through the last verses here on 14, 15,
16. And the reason I decided to cut
it off there is this morning, I wanna talk to you about worship.
Worship, true worship. That's what we're here for. We're
here to worship God. I wanna praise God. I wanna give
him the glory. And that's what true worship
is all about. And someone said one time, if you want to learn
to worship, read the Psalms. And especially Psalms like what
Brother Robert just read, that's Psalm 96. That's what that's
all about, giving glory and praise, admonition to the Lord. You know, I grew up in churches
where it was a lot of bragging on men and women. They used to
have testimonies, and I heard one preacher said not all they're
doing is just brag-a-monies, and that's about what it amounts
to. I'm not here to talk about myself or to talk about you.
I'm here to talk about God. Talk about Christ, who is God.
And that's what worship is all about. But I want to do it here
from the book of Jude. I entitled the message this way. It's kind of a negative. When
worship is ruined. When worship is spoiled. And
if you look, you know, Jude here in this little epistle, he is
encouraging the people of God to earnestly contend for the
faith the gospel, the truth of God's word, contend for it, stand
for it, stand firm, don't waver, don't compromise, defend it against
false preachers and false believers. And that's the world we live
in. Those, especially he mentions in Jude, those false preachers
and false believers who have crept into the assembly Here
on earth, the true church where the gospel is preached, where
Christ is preached in the glory of His person, who is Jesus Christ. He's God manifest in the flesh,
God-man. And what Christ has done, the
power of His finished work, He has fulfilled all righteousness
for His people to ensure their salvation. and their final glory. Those who stand and preach Christ
as a mere possibility of salvation are not preaching the gospel
of this book. And we need to understand that.
But these false preachers who claim to preach the true gospel
had crept in unawares, bringing in false doctrine, seeking to
corrupt the assembly. Now, such false preachers are
spoken of throughout the Bible. The Lord himself in the Sermon
on the Mount, you remember he mentioned, beware of false prophets
who come to you as what? Wolves in sheep's clothing. Claiming to be Christians, claiming
to preach the gospel. But they're inwardly ravening
wolves. And Jude is dealing with that. In the last days, that'll be
one of the greatest threats of the church here on earth. Now,
he makes it clear that the true church of the living God, true
people of God are safe and secure. And those last two verses of
the book of Jude, those are a comfort. Look what he says, now unto him
that is able to keep you from falling. You know, even a true
believer can be sidetracked for a while but he will not, he or
she will not fall away completely, apostatize from the truth. And you know why? Because he
keeps you from falling. And to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. That's the
reason that, you know, we talk about once saved, always saved.
That's a phrase that gets thrown around. cut up and segmented
in different ways. We talk about the security of
the saved. Why is it that we're secure in salvation? Because we're saved by the grace
of God, not by our works, not by our decision, but by the grace
of God, based upon the blood of Christ, based upon His righteousness
imputed to us, and because out of Christ we have the Holy Spirit,
who has given us a new heart. And he keeps us from falling.
And if he didn't keep us from falling, what would happen? We'd
fall. You would, I would. Don't ever think otherwise. But
at the same time, even though we're secure in the grace of
God, in the righteousness of Christ, he tells us to earnestly
contend for the faith. Be on guard. We don't want our
loved ones to be deceived, do we? We don't want our children
to be deceived and sidetracked away from the gospel. But these
false preachers had crept in, that's what he says, like a spy
going into a foreign country to undermine that country. Stealthily, that's what it is.
You heard that, stealth. And he says, beware of them. And he identifies them, and I
preached on this last week, verse 11, woe unto them. Look at verse
11 of the book of Jude. For they've gone the way of Cain.
Now what is that? That's the way of salvation by
works. Abel brought the blood of the
Lamb, Cain brought his own works. Salvation is not by works, it's
not by the works or the wills of men and women, it's by grace.
is through faith, but that's not of yourselves, it's the gift
of God, not of works lest any man should boast. So any preacher
who claims to preach grace and appear to be a sheep, but who
introduces conditions put upon you and me at any stage to any
degree in any way for us to attain or maintain salvation, that's
the wolf coming out in him. That's the sheep's clothing and
the wood. He got sheep's clothing on. Oh, he claims to believe,
he might even claim to believe sovereign grace. But when he
introduces works, he's gone the way of Cain. And I'll tell you
what, if you're not skillful in the word of righteousness,
if you're not on your toes, you might not hear it. He says, they've
ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for a reward. That's compromise
for gain, whether it be money. Now, a lot of commentators, they
say, well, Balaam wanted money. Yeah, he wanted money, but he
wanted more than that. He wanted a following for himself. And
I'll tell you, I mean this from the bottom of my heart, and I've
seen it over the years. The worst thing that can happen
to any preacher, even a true preacher, is to have a following
for himself. That's the worst thing that can
happen. That's why I tell you, don't follow me, follow Christ. I'm just a signpost. That's the
way it ought to be. But Balaam, he wanted to follow
Him and he compromised his own, what he thought was the truth.
Well, he did speak the truth because God, against Balaam's
will, spoke the truth through Balaam and that's something.
But then finally Balaam revealed himself. caused the children
of Israel to compromise. And then it says, they perished
in the gainsaying of Korah. Gainsaying is rebellion. That's
what it is. And what Korah did is he rebelled
against God, because he rebelled against God's appointed leader,
who was Moses, and God's appointed priest, who was Aaron. And Korah
and his company said, we want some of that for ourselves. and
they rebelled. Now that's what he says about
these preachers. But they appeared on the outward, the outside,
to be people of God, to be preachers of the truth. You know, Paul
spoke of that in the book of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. You
don't have to turn there. But what he's saying here is
these appear to be righteous outwardly, but in reality, they
deny the only Lord God. They deny the Lord Jesus Christ.
Their denial is not openly seen. I mean, they don't come in wearing
signs and say, hey, I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing. They don't
come in and have horns on their head and pointed tails and carry
pitchforks. They don't advertise their false
views. They disguise them. like Satan's
minister. Let me just read you this. This
is 2 Corinthians 11, 13. Paul writes, for such are false
apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into
the apostles of Christ. When our boys were growing up,
they used to love to play with these transformers. You remember
that? You could twist them and turn them. One would turn into
a plane. One would turn into a car. Well,
these are transformers here. You know what that means? It
means that they can say right things at certain times. But they won't stay with the
right thing. They won't stay with it. They're
transformers. And why won't they stay with
it? Because their heart's not in it. their hearts somewhere
else. And listen to what he says in
verse 14. He says, and no marvel, don't be amazed at that, for
Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Do you
know Satan can appear as an angel of light? Satan can quote scripture. And then verse 15, he says, therefore,
it's no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers
of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.
They can preach righteousness, the right righteousness, but
they won't stay there. They'll always, at some way,
at some stage, to some degree, introduce man and woman so that
we can get some glory. Now, as believers, If we're true
believers, we have to be equipped. We have to be ready to guard
the truth and expose these false teachers. As God is my witness,
that's why I refuse to invite anyone that I'm not sure of to
preach from this pulpit. We're here to worship God, and
I don't want that worship to be corrupted. I may make a mistake
sometime, Just like Brother Mahan said, you may preach once, but
if you don't preach Christ, you will never preach here again.
And that's what we've got to be on our guard. The Bible says
we have to be skillful in the word of righteousness. That's
this word here, the gospel, in order to discern, make a right
judgment between what's good and what's evil. And as I said,
Jude identified him here. And look at the beginning in
verse 12. He shows us how serious this issue is. The presence of
these false preachers and their doctrine. This is serious business. This is something we should never
take lightly. And here's what he says in verse 12. These are
spots in your feast of charity. Spots, blemishes. spots, and
he says, when they feast with you. Now what are these feasts
of charity? That's one thing that there's
a little bit of division over there. I believe what it's talking
about, feast of charity, is our worship services. What we're
doing right now, we're holding a feast of charity. the people
of God together feasting on the Word of God. Now that's what
I believe it is. Now some say, well, it's the Lord's Supper.
Well, what is the Lord's Supper? It's an act of worship, isn't
it? Where we fellowship together. We're gonna take the Lord's Supper,
Lord willing, next week after the message. Others say that
back then they had fellowship meals. Well, we used to have
fellowship meals, and I'm hoping that we can get back to that
sometime. After the service, we go back and we feed our physical
bodies after we fed our spiritual bodies with the Word. I don't
think it's talking about that, a fellowship meal. I think if
that's what he was talking about, he would have said that. But here's the point. Whatever
these feasts of charity are, what they are, It has to do with
the people of God in the fellowship of truth and the Spirit, worshiping
the Lord. That's what it's about. And what
he's saying here is when you let these false preachers in,
when they're exposed for what they're doing, and you let them
lead in worship. I'm not talking about somebody
just coming and sitting down and listening now. But we're
not gonna stand there at the door and say, now, if you're
not a true believer, you can't come here. No, we're to be evangelistic.
But I'm talking about when you let them in the pulpit, when
you let them teach, they are spots in your feast of charity. Now some Greek scholars think
the word spots there should be translated hidden rocks instead
of spots, like a dangerous reef that can make a ship shipwreck.
Well, that's okay. Here's what I know about spots.
We don't need them, we don't want them, they're not good. The apostle spoke of two men,
he's speaking to Timothy, 2nd Timothy, I think, chapter two.
He spoke of two men who preached false doctrine, Hymenaeus and
Philetus, and he said they overthrew the faith of some, which simply
means they exposed some false believers who followed them.
Well, if any false believers are in here this morning, I don't
want you to be exposed by following me. I want you to follow Christ.
He says here in verse 11 or verse 12, these are spots in your feast
of charity, in your worship services, in your fellowship meetings.
And he says, when they feast with you, feeding themselves
without fear. What he's saying there is they're
here only for their own selfish ends. They're not here for love
of God and love of the brethren. They're not here to worship the
Lord in godly fear and reverence and respect. They've got another
agenda. And it's exposed when they preach
their false doctrine. That's how you know. Talking
about themselves. Applauding men. He says here
in verse 12, he said, they are clouds, clouds they are without
water. You go out on a beautiful sunny
day and you see those big white clouds and aren't they beautiful?
When I was a kid, we used to talk about what shapes we saw. And they're so beautiful. But
what if they're up there and you're a farmer and you're in
a drought? You don't wanna admire beautiful
clouds, you want some storm clouds that'll give you some rain. And
these false preachers, they appear righteous. They appear beautiful.
They might have the most pleasant voice you've ever heard. They
might tell the most wonderful stories and tug at your heartstrings.
They might make you laugh and keep you awake, but there's no
water there. There's no word of God. That's
the water of life for the people of God. He says they're carried about
of winds. The Bible talks about those who
claim to be believers, but they're tossed to and fro by every wind
of doctrine because they're not indwelt by the Spirit, and they
don't have the law and the word written on their hearts. They
don't have a real knowledge and a love for God's word. Carried
about of winds, whichever the way the wind blows. Like Brother
Randy was telling me one time over, and I think Robert, you
told me this too, You had people in the church that you used to
go to, they said, well, we gotta keep up with the times. That's
carried about by wind. The word of God, listen, you
go to Genesis 1, the same gospel there's in Revelation 22, it's
the same gospel we preach today, it doesn't change. He says, trees
with whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up
by the roots. Dead trees. The fruit that they
do bear is not fruit unto God, but it's what Paul called fruit
unto death. They have no fruit of the Holy
Spirit within. Their preaching propotes nothing
but spiritual death and condemnation. This is the way of any who do
not preach the gospel of Christ and his righteousness alone as
the only ground of salvation. It's dead works. He says they're raging, and here
in verse 13, they're raging waves of the sea, foaming out their
own shame. Their pride is great is what
that means. Their words are loud, but they're empty of substance
and stability. They make a big splash, but it
only brings shame. He says they're wandering stars
to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. They're
like shooting stars, that's what that is. Shooting stars are beautiful
to watch, aren't they? But they don't last long. They don't last long at all.
There's no lasting light there. They'll perish in the darkness
and death of damnation forever. So here they are, spots on your
feast of charity. To allow such deceivers into
your worship services and fellowship as preachers and teachers is
like setting ourselves up for failure, for destruction. They ruin the worship. They spoil
it. They defile it. How do we know
that? Well, what is true worship? Let
me just say a few words about this. Think about this, true
worship Number one, knowing, believing,
recognizing who God is as he reveals himself in this word.
That's what that psalm that Brother Robert read was all about, who
God is. Praising God for who he is. Whatever
God says in this book, that's what he is, that's who he is.
If he says he's the God of sovereign, electing grace before the foundation
of the world, you know what? That's who he is. You say, well,
I don't believe that. Well, that's who he is. Whatever
God you do believe in, however he is, he's not the God of the
Bible. If he's the God of all sovereign
grace, he says, God says, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I'll be gracious to whom I'll be gracious. Does your
God not have that right? Oh, that steps on my dignity.
Oh, that intrudes upon my free will. Does it? What does this
book say? Well, preacher, I know that's
true, but you shouldn't preach that, because people don't like
to hear that. Let me tell you something. If I preach to you
just what you by nature wanted to hear instead of what you needed
to hear, I'd be a spot on your feast of charity. I need to hear
about this God. And mainly, He's a just God and
a Savior. He's the one who justifies the
ungodly. Based upon the glorious person
and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, He saves His
people by righteousness. means and righteous ground. That was in that Psalm 96. He
judges righteously. How in the world can a sinner
like me stand before a holy and just God who must punish all
sin? How in the world could I stand
before Him and be judged righteous? Only as I stand by His grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. washed in his blood, clothed
in his righteousness, charged, accounted, imputed to me. That's
how. That's how God reveals himself.
He's a just God and a savior. He's a sovereign God. He's a
gracious God, but he's a righteous God. He's a loving, merciful,
gracious father, but he's also a righteous judge. How can that
be? only by His grace through the
righteousness of His Son, freely imputed to me and received by
God-given faith. Here's the second thing, worship.
Knowing, believing, and recognizing that we're sinners who have no
merit of our own and no right to approach God but by Jesus
Christ. You see, this gospel, this word
is not about who you are and who I am. We're sinners. I know that salvation could have
never been conditioned on my choice of God. Why? Because the Bible tells me who
I am as a spiritually dead, fallen, ruined sinner who by nature would
not choose God. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're
spiritually discerned. That's right. There's none righteous,
no, not one. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that doeth good. That's what the Bible says
of me. The Bible tells me that in my
natural state, I drink iniquity like water. I love this water and I need
it desperately sometimes. But the Bible says of me naturally
and my natural state, fallen in Adam, ruined, that I drink
iniquity like water. And here's the thing, by nature
we don't even recognize it as iniquity. You remember those
preachers who stood before the Lord in Matthew chapter 7? Lord,
haven't we preached in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't
we done many wonderful works only to hear him say, depart
from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you. Why was that
iniquity? Because it falls short of the
perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. I'm telling you right now, as
a lost sinner and as a saved sinner, I've never done one thing
or had one moment where I could say I measure up to the perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. At my best
and at my worst. I stand before God in Him. I'm a sinner. And that's the
third thing. Praising and thanking God for all the blessings of
grace freely given us by Christ. That's what that psalmist was
doing that Brother Robert read. Think about it. Think about what
God has given us. That's what worship is all about. None of which we deserve. None
of which we've earned. Even the next breath you take,
that's worship. If God is to be honored and magnified,
to be worshiped, if sinners are to be saved by the power of God
and the Holy Spirit converted, if God's people are going to
be edified, there's two essential things, two essential. I read
it at the beginning of this service, John 4, 23 through 24. Listen
to it again. Christ said to the woman at the
well, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers,
now he's gonna tell us what true worshipers are here. There are
false worshipers. They're all over this world.
They're in churches where the gospel's not preached. Many of
them call themselves Christian and other things. But he says,
true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth,
for the Father seeketh such to worship him. Now a lot of times when you go
to scripture, you'll see that word spirit. And there's somewhat
of a minor argument over that. Should that be capitalized, meaning
the Holy Spirit? Or should it be a small letter,
meaning our spirit, the spiritual life that God has given us? And
sometimes you can take either position and not do any damage
to the gospel. But I believe it's talking about
the Holy Spirit here. And I'll show you another verse. Well, verse 24 there, it says,
God is a spirit. That's talking about the spirit
of God. And they that worship him must
worship him in spirit and in truth. Now, some people say,
well, if that means the life of God within us by the Holy
Spirit, that means that we're to worship sincerely, honestly. And that's true. We don't need
to put on airs around here. We don't need to try to be somebody
we're not today. We're coming before God. And
He knows our heart. That thought that just shot through
your mind, I don't know what it is, but God does. You see
what I'm saying? So there's no use trying to put
on a facade here. What good would it do you or
me? Let's just be who we are. I'm only a sinner saved by grace. Only a sinner saved by grace.
This is my story. to God be the glory. Well, Philippians
three and verse three, I think is another verse that says the
same thing. Paul writes, we are the circumcision.
Now he's talking about spiritual circumcision of the heart there.
That's the work of the spirit within us to bring us to saving
faith in Christ, to convict us of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment. And he says, we are the circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. Now I believe the word spirit
there should be capitalized. means we worship God as we're
guided by the Holy Spirit and rejoice or have confidence or
boast in Christ Jesus. How do I know I'm being led by
the Spirit? Because I'm boasting in Christ. I'm not boasting in
what I did, what I've done or what I tried to do or what I'm
pledging to do. I'm boasting in Him. I'm talking
to you about His precious blood. The blood of Christ cleanses
me from all sin. I'm talking to you about a righteousness
that I had no part in producing. If I had any part in it, it'd
be corrupted. The righteousness of God in Christ. So we rejoice
in Christ. Our confidence is in Christ.
And have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in my best
works. My assurance. It's because of
who Christ is and what he's done. It's not because of what I've
done. And so for a believer, our worship services and our
fellowship are of the utmost importance. And there's those
two central elements. First of all is the spirit of
God. That's number one. And secondly
is the truth of God. How do you know you have the
spirit of God? Whoever's preaching, whoever's teaching, are they
preaching truth? That's it. And if they're preaching
truth, here's what you'll be led to see. You'll be led to
see the glory of God by the Holy Spirit in the face of Jesus Christ. Our worship services, you know, our worship services and our
fellowship are of the utmost importance. They're not to be
neglected. Now, I know there are providential
hindrances. We've got some people who live far away who listen
to us. Sometimes you're sick and you
can't be here. But don't be one who consciously neglects the
worship services. Forsake not the assembling of
yourself together. You know what we show when we,
it's not just coming to church. That's how I grew up, we're going
to church. You gotta be in church somewhere, no? You know what
we do when we gather together in our feast of charity? Number one, we're showing our
love for Christ. If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let
him be anathema, maranathema. And we're showing our love for
the brethren. By this we know that we pass from death unto
life if we love one another. That's what we're doing. This
is our fellowship. It's not based upon who won the
game last night. That's not our fellowship. We
may agree on that. My team got obliterated. If it
was based on that, I wouldn't be here. I'd be home crying.
But what good would that do? Someday that's going to be gone.
But I'm talking to you about something that's going to last
forever. This is our love feast. That's what that is. It's Christian
love. It's love of the truth. Let me give you this in closing. What should be important to a
believer? Well, number one is what I've been talking about,
worship. Both publicly and privately. That ought to be our main concern. To glorify God, to worship, not
only in what we say, but in what we do. That's important, isn't
it? I want to reflect to other people
the grace of God. by what I say, the power of God
by what I do. What would be the second thing
that we ought to be concerned with? I'll tell you what, growth
in grace and in knowledge of Christ, I want to know more.
I want to know more of him. I want to study the scriptures.
Now, I know there's, sometimes you're so busy, and I know this
day and age, I mean, we've all, it's so busy. But you know, our
worship service here is sometimes the only time people read the
Bible. That ought not be. And that's no excuse now. That's
what we're doing. We're here reading the Bible.
We're studying the scriptures this morning. But that's what we ought to be,
that I grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ. What's the third thing?
Evangelism. I want to see others come to
Christ. Oh, well, if they're elect, they'll come no matter
what. That's not the way I read it. I know this. If a person
is elected by God before the foundation, they're going to
come to a saving knowledge of Christ. I know that. But you
know what? Our sovereign God is pleased
to use weak, old, sinful vessels like me and you to convey His
message. I want to be part of that, don't
you? That's why I preach on TV. I was getting my hair cut Friday. And a fellow beside me, he got
up and he looked at me. He said, how's your church doing?
I never met the Val. I thought, well, church is doing
fine. He said, I watch you on TV. I'm going to come and visit
you sometime. Hope he does. He's not here today.
But I hope he does. That's why I want to be, I'm
not on there to promote Bill Parker. I'm there to preach the
gospel. And then lastly, What should
we be concerned with? Godliness. Obedience. Motivated by grace, by love,
by gratitude. That's what we ought to be concerned
with. That's the people of God. That's what worship is. Living
in the grace of God. Walking by His Word. Seeking
to please Him. Seeking to glorify Him in all
things.