Now open your Bibles with me
to the book of Jude, second to the last book of the Bible right
before Revelation. And I'm going to speak to you
on this one verse here, Jude 4, where Jude, as he had opened
his epistle here, as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to let them
know that it was His desire to speak of their common salvation,
to speak of the salvation which is common to every true believer,
every child of God, every sinner saved by grace. There's only
one way, and that way is the way of God's grace that's revealed
in the glorious person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. There's no other way. There's
one hope of glory. And that's Christ, who is both
God and man in one person. That's the doctrine of Christ,
who he is. He is God manifest in the flesh,
and upon one ground, which is the merits of his righteousness,
his blood. Same thing, his blood, his righteousness,
which he accomplished on the cross of Calvary as our surety,
as our substitute, as our redeemer, And now he is our keeper. I love
that. He's the one who preserves us
unto glory. And Jude makes certain that the
people that he's writing to, as he gets to the meat of the
matter here concerning the danger that they're in, the danger of
false prophets, that the true people of God are safe and secure
in Christ. I love the way this epistle ends
in verse 24. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling. That's our hope, isn't it? We're
not able to keep ourselves from falling, and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power,
both now and forever. Jude writes here that although
it was his intent to write of this great salvation, the Holy
Spirit inspired him to go another direction, to warn them of the
dangers of false preachers, false religion, false doctrine. And this is not a pleasant subject.
And the reason is, for us especially who know Christ, I would say
that every one of us have loved ones and friends, family, who
have fallen prey to false gospels. And that's sad, isn't it? I mean,
it breaks our hearts, doesn't it? Because we want the ones
we love to be saved. We ought to think the same of
even our enemies. But we do. Jude writes here, look at verse
four, he says, for there are certain men crept in unawares. Crept in, stealthily, you know
what stealth is, that's sneaking in. Unawares, that is not noticeably,
who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. This is
not taking God by surprise. This is well within God's plan
and purpose. I know people don't like to hear
this, and they don't understand it, but I'm going to tell you
something now. God's in control of all of it. That's what the
Bible teaches. We want to think, well, these
things are out of God's control. It's almost like one, I heard
a false preacher when I was a young man talk about salvation and
damnation is like a baseball game. Christ is trying to run
up the score and Satan's trying to run up the score and whoever
comes out in the end gonna win. Well Christ already said in the
passage that Brother Mark read about the narrow gate, the gospel,
the way of salvation, few there be that find it. Satan's running
up a higher score than what Christ is according to that false preach,
but that's not the case. Christ is going to win. He's
already won this battle. And he'll win in the end. So
they were before of old. They're like Pharaoh. Vessels
of wrath, fitted for destruction. I know that's hard to take for
some people. But that's who God is. He's got
his ways, his wisdom. He's sovereign. He said, I'll
have mercy on whom I will. I'll be gracious to whom I will.
And he told Moses, that's my glory. Think about that. That's his glory. He's the potter. We're the clay. Somebody asked me about how do
you answer the seeming contradiction between God's sovereignty and
man's responsibility? And I told him, I said, I'll
tell you exactly how I answer it. I just go to Romans 9 and
I read what God says. That's how I answer it. Here's what God says. You think
God's unfair? God forbid. You think God's unjust? God forbid. Hath not the potter
power over the clay? To make one vessel unto damnation,
one vessel unto salvation. But you know, here's the thing.
We live here on this earth in the limitations of our minds
and our bodies. God's in his world, he's sovereign,
he's all wise, he knows all things. We don't. There are secret things
that God has not revealed to us. There are revealed things
that God has revealed to us. And one of those revealed things
is this, you are commanded by God to seek the Lord. That's
what I'm commanded. If you even ask this question,
well, what if I'm not one of God's elect? That's not your
business. If your religion, your belief
system, is founded upon that kind of question, you know what
you're doing? You're trying to play God. And
you don't have the substance to do that, neither do I. All
I know this, is that all whom God chose before the foundation
of the world, all whom He justified in the person and work of Christ,
all whom He adopted into His family, His spiritual, eternal
family, All for whom Christ died on that cross and put away their
sins and established righteousness. All who are brought by God the
Holy Spirit to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who
God's elect are. All that the Father gave him
shall come to him. So he says they were before of old ordained
to this condemnation. He calls them ungodly men. Now
ungodliness refers to all of us in our natural state. That's
what we are by nature. When I say by nature or natural
state, I'm talking about as we are fallen in Adam and born spiritually
dead in this world. That's how we start out. That's
our state by nature. But at some point in time when
God brings us under the gospel, Gives us a new heart, a new mind,
new knowledge, new motives, new goals, new incentives, brings
us to faith in Christ. That's godliness then. The ungodly
here are those who have no fear of God before their eyes. Somebody,
I always heard the story of a father punishing his children. He said,
I'm gonna put the fear of God in you. You can't do that. Only
God can put the fear of God in us. Romans 3.18 says there's
no fear of God before their eyes. That is the unbelievers. What
is he talking about? There's no respect, no reverence,
no awesomeness in their hearts, in their minds of the God who
justifies sinners through the person and work of Christ. That's
what the fear of God is. So the ungodly man here refers
to unbelievers who claim to be Christians. They claim to be
Christians. And what do they do? He says,
they're turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and
denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I
entitled this message from Matthew chapter seven that Brother Mark
read. And in Matthew chapter seven,
excuse me, this part of the Sermon on the Mount, and I've preached
through the Sermon on the Mount many times. And usually when
I come to this portion, I make it clear. I'm not gonna go back
over all of this. But the title of this message
is taken from verse 15 of Matthew 7, which says, beware of false
prophets. Beware, that means be wary. Okay,
be on your toes. Be ready, as Jude said, contend
for the faith. Struggle, the word contend, we
get our English word agonize from it. agonize over this. And what he's telling us is this
is no casual matter. This is serious business here.
We who are the church of the living God, the true believers,
we've got to be on our toes. We've got to be ready. We've
got to be prepared. We've got to be equipped in all
these areas. Put on the whole armor of God
that you may withstand the wiles of the devil. Study to show ourselves
approved unto God workmen that needeth not to be ashamed rightly
dividing the word of truth We've got to be equipped But here in
Matthew 7 on the Sermon on the Mount Christ starts off He says
judge not that you be not judged and a lot of people say well
that forbids any judgment at all. Oh, no What he's forbidding
here is self-righteous judgment That's what he's saying, don't
do. That's what we are by nature. We judge self-righteously. He
says in verse two, for with what judgment you judge, you shall
be judged, and with what measure you meet, it shall be measured
to you again. Now let me give you an example
of what he's talking about here. If you ever look upon another
person and judge them to be lost and deserving of damnation because
they are sinners, well, what are you? Huh? What are you? You're a sinner,
aren't you? That's what I am. You've just
damned yourself. That's what Christ is saying,
don't do. Don't do. He says, with what judgment you
deliver, that's how you're going to be judged. That's the way
I look at the world. Like the Pharisees, who judged themselves
to be righteous and despised others. Well, how do they measure
up? I made the point in a bulletin
article this morning that one segment of all false gospels
is that they measure righteousness on a sliding scale. Well, I may
not be perfect, but I'm not as badass. Well, okay, and I'm glad
you're not as badass, but where's that gonna get you when you stand
before God at the judgment? When God says he's gonna judge
the world in righteousness, not on a sliding scale, but by that
man whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance
unto all men that he hath raised him from the dead. You see, the
standard of righteousness is not a sliding scale that we compare
one another and judge one another. I can look at a person and say,
well, I'm more moral than that person, but human morality is
not my righteousness. Christ is. How do I measure up
there? The gospel lays out one standard
of perfect righteousness that cannot be moved. And that's Christ
Jesus, His blood, the obedience unto death, His merit. And that's
where I've got to measure up to. And the only way I can measure
up to Christ is to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness which is received by faith. I
stand before God not in works of my own, but in Christ. And so, if you look over in verse
13, this is Matthew 7, this is what he's talking about. He says,
enter in at the straight gate. Well, what is that straight,
that narrow gate? That's the gospel way. That's the way of
God's grace. That's the way of Christ and
His blood. His righteousness imputed. That's what it is. That's
the ground of salvation. That is my righteousness before
God. My sins were imputed to Him,
His righteousness to me. That's the narrow way. That's
the way of the cross. And he says, for wide is the
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. You know
what way that is? Any other way than Christ. The grace of God. Many be there which go in there
at. Many. How many? I don't know, but many. And he
says in verse 14, because straight is the gate and narrow is the
way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it. And
then he says, beware of false prophets. Now, if in Matthew
7, one, he's, he's, uh, banning all judgment, how in the world
could we beware of false prophets without judging them to be false?
See? We're commanded to judge righteous
judgment. Now how do we as sinful people,
even sinners saved by grace, how do we judge righteous judgment?
I'll tell you how. By God's word. Not by our word,
not by our thoughts or our imaginations, but by God's word. Paul, for
example, in Galatians 1, he said they're preaching another gospel.
which is not another. And he said, if I or an angel
from heaven preach any other gospel than that which I preached
unto you, let them be anathema. That's a judgment. They're not
preaching the true gospel. He says in verse 16 of Matthew
7, you shall know them by their fruits. Now, what do most people
think of when they come to that verse? They think about, well, if that
preacher is a moral person, dedicated, charitable, lives like a pauper, then that means the fruits of
grace. That's not what he's talking
about. What if that man who's moral in the eyes of the world
and lives like a pauper and charitable and all that, what if he preaches
another gospel? You see what I'm saying? What
are their fruits? Do men gather grapes of thorns
or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bringeth forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not
forth the good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire,
wherefore you shall know them by their fruits. You know what
they're talking, what Christ is talking about there? He's talking about
the fruits of what they preach. If a man preaches a false gospel,
there'll be no good fruit that come out of that. That's what
he's saying, there'll be no salvation. You see, the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation. Did you hear that? Not a false
gospel. And somebody said, well, I learned
some truth. Well, that's okay. And God, if you believe the gospel
today, God used that truth to providentially bring you to where
you would hear the true gospel. Romans 6, 17, and 18 says that
he brought you under it. But false gospels will never
result in the salvation of sinners. Now that's true. Read the book. There'll be no good for you.
But only the true gospel is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone that believe it. Back here in Jude, verse four. Now he said, let's contend for
the truth. Let's stand firm for the truth.
Let's defend the truth. Let's preach the truth. Well, what does it take for us
to contend for the faith properly? Well, it takes truth, knowledge,
wisdom. Look at Jude 20, verse 20. He says, but you, beloved, building
up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. Building yourselves up. What
does that mean? That means making use of the means of growth and
grace and knowledge, becoming skillful in the word of righteousness.
Knowledge, it takes truth, it takes knowledge, it takes wisdom.
What's the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Well, knowledge
is to know the truth. Wisdom is to know when to say
it and when not to. There's a time to speak and there's
a time to shut up. Wisdom is knowing what to do
with it. And we pray for that. We need
prayer. When we contend for the faith,
we need to do it prayerfully, don't we? That's what Jude said
there in verse 20, praying in the Holy Spirit. I think about
this in Ephesians six where Paul is talking about putting on the
whole armor of God and he concludes it in verse 18 of Ephesians six,
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit,
watching there unto with all perseverance and supplication
for all saints. Prayer, prayerfully. We need to do it in perseverance.
Look at Jude 21. He says, keep yourselves in the
love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life. Keep yourselves? Well, we can't
keep ourselves, but we're told to keep ourselves. Well, listen
to me. The only way we're going to keep ourselves is as God keeps
us. That's right. And we're to look intently upon
Christ. talking to some people last week
about a young man who's going through some terrible things
because he feels like he's committed the unpardonable sin. And I told
him, I said, have you asked him what is the unpardonable sin?
You know, nobody really knows what that is. Well, I preached messages on
this, and I'm not gonna preach a message on it today, but I'm
gonna tell you, and this may shock some people. There is no
such thing as the unpardonable sin. If you read Matthew 12,
Christ is not telling them that a particular sin is unpardonable
or unforgivable. You know what he's telling them?
He's simply telling them this, that without him, without Christ,
without his blood to wash away my sins, without his righteousness
to justify me before God, without Christ, no sin can be pardoned. The only way any sin is pardoned
is by the blood of Christ. If you reject the blood of Christ,
nothing you do is forgiven or pardoned. The problem with most people
in that area is they're looking within themselves to find assurance
of salvation. That's the wrong place to look. In the book of Hebrews chapter
12 it speaks of that. It says remove every burden,
every hindrance that blocks our way, tries to block our way in
our Christian walk. And that's unbelief. And how
do we do it? Looking within ourselves to find
assurance? No, looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. You know what dying to self is?
A lot of it has to do with stop thinking about yourself and start
thinking about Christ. That's right. I had a person
tell me one time about this assurance thing. He said, well, I don't
doubt Christ, I doubt myself. And I asked him, I said, well,
when does the gospel or God's word tell you to look to yourself?
It doesn't. It says look to Christ. Set your
mind on things above. where Christ sitteth on the throne.
That's who we're to consider. Consider the apostle and high
priest of our calling. False preachers will tell you
to think about, look to yourself, to find some reason that you
can say, I'm saved. Perseverance. And then third,
to contend probably, we need compassion. Now listen. We need to be concerned for the
souls of men and women, each other's souls. Compassion is
what it takes, love. Not love that brings us to compromise
and tell them what they want to hear, but love which is bold
enough to tell sinners what they need to hear. I remember when
I first began to hear the gospel, sitting in a congregation, and
I was a lost man. And I heard a preacher preach
the gospel. At that time, he did the most
loving thing a human being can do for another. But I didn't
see it that way. I told my mother, I said, that's
the meanest man on earth. Thought he was mad at the world.
But then something happened. The Lord gave me a new heart.
And then what I saw, used to think was hatred, I saw as love.
Tell me the truth. Well, back in Jude, verse four,
these ungodly men. Jude says here they turn the
grace of God, verse four, into lasciviousness. Now, many preachers,
when they go to the book of Jude, they say this, I heard two preachers
say this. They said that Jude is dealing
with a moral problem, not a doctrinal problem. Well, I differ with
that. Now, the word lasciviousness
is a word that is commonly describes what the Bible calls, or what
the language means, unbridled lust, or loose living. And it certainly applies to sexual
immorality that pervaded in the Gentile world then and in this
world today. Some believe these preachers,
these false preachers, were promoting the idea that because we're saved
by grace, it doesn't matter how we live. And certainly if a preacher
consciously says that, well, I'm saved by grace so I can go
out and just sin as much as I want to, live as loosely as I want.
Any preacher who says that is a false preacher. And there may have been some
who did this, again, especially in the Gentile culture of this
day, and in the Gentile culture of today, the Jewish culture
and the Gentile culture. There may have been some who
did this, but I don't believe that many true believers would
be in danger of being fooled by such preaching. I don't think
you all would. I think if I had somebody up here to preach, and
they came up and said, now look folks, we're saved by grace,
so it doesn't matter what we do. I think that most of you
all, if not all of you in unison, say not so. But let's consider this. God's
word and God's grace never gives us liberty to promote sin, sexual
sin or any other sin. The liberty of grace is the liberty
to obey, the liberty to serve, not the liberty to sin. That's
not what grace is about. Grace is not only a doctrine,
grace is a power within. The Holy Spirit indwelling us
with our spirits, fighting against the flesh. That's part of it.
That's the fruit of it. We do see a barrage of sexual
immorality in our world today. Think about it. I mean, the entertainment
industry especially, my goodness. Somebody said, well, it's worse
today than it was back in the day of Jesus. I really don't
think so, but I do think it's worse in one way. It's on our
TV screens, on our movie screens. I mean, the entertainment industry
is just, they don't care. I mean, anything goes. And it's rampant in false churches. Think about these churches who
are receiving homosexuals into their spiritual family, putting
them in roles of leadership, transgenders, all of that stuff.
There are false churches who are doing that. Viewing adultery, fornication,
and perversion casually as if it's all good and not evil, that's
not right. And as a true church, we're to
stand firm and fight such evils, we're to contend for the faith
in that way. We're realizing that we're all sinners who need
salvation by grace. Listen, when we talk about sinful
people, we need to understand that we're sinners too. We always
have to keep that in mind now. And Christ himself, he told the
disciples, he said, now look, it's not what goes into the mouth
or into the eyes that defile them, it's what comes out of
the heart. I need the grace of God just
as much as the worst sinner you can think of on this earth. Now does that mean I condone
the sin? Absolutely not. We, as the people of God, we
are to promote obedience, morality, repentance, We tell our young
people to keep themselves pure from fornication and save themselves
for marriage. That's what you should do. That's
godliness. We tell them that marriage is between one man,
one woman, not two men, not two women. One man, one woman. We tell them they're to dress
modestly. We tell them that a man is to look like a man or a boy
like a boy and a girl like a girl. All of that. And those are things
we promote and contend for. But here's what we need to understand.
Human morality is not our righteousness. Christ is. You see that? All of those things that we promote.
We're not promoting salvation by the righteous works of men
and women. But does that mean that human
morality is not important? Well, no, it is important. Paul
in Romans 6 and verse 12, he said, let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof,
neither yield you your members, that's your bodily members, as
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves
unto God as those that are alive from the dead, you've been born
again by the Spirit, and your members as instruments of righteousness
unto God, promoting the glory of God in Christ. But then he goes on in verse
four, he says, they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus
Christ. If they deny him by their deeds,
their immoral conduct, what are they denying? They're denying
the power of Christ to work in his people and motivate them
to war against the flesh and the lust thereof. If it's in
doctrine, They deny him by preaching salvation in some way, to some
degree, at some stage, by the works of men and women. That
denies the truth of the gospel. Now, as we contend for the faith,
are we to recognize and stand against the evil of sexual sins? Are we to promote godliness and
obedience in those areas? Well, yes. But we're to be just
as adamant. to recognize the evil of doctrinal
sins. And I think there is a doctrinal
problem here. I know there is, in Jude. How do you know that? Well, look
at verse 11. And I'm gonna get to, I'm just
gonna give you just a couple things about these today. And
when I come back, I'm gonna preach a message on these things. But
he says in verse 11, woe unto them, for they have gone in the
way of Cain. Now what is the way of Cain?
Well, some may say, well, he murdered his brother. But he
was rejected by God before he murdered his brother. What did
he do? He brought the best that he could
offer unto God, seeking acceptance, seeking blessing, salvation by
works. That's the way of Cain. And that's
what false preachers do. At some stage, in some way, to
some degree, they're gonna make salvation with its benefits and
blessings conditioned on us and not on Christ alone. And again,
in some way, they're going to measure righteousness by that
sliding standard, that sliding rule, instead of the perfect
righteousness of Christ. When we realize that the perfection
of righteousness can be only found in Christ. What does that
do for us? You know what it does? It causes
me to look out of myself and look to him, rest in him, plead
his blood. And you know what? That's gonna
affect everything I do. So it's the way of Cain, salvation
by word. They ran greedily after the heir
of Balaam for reward. You know what Balaam did? Now
we'll look at that. Balaam was a false preacher, he was a compromiser. And he compromised it in order
to get reward. Now that could be money, or that
could be people. Compromise the gospel. You know,
I've had people say this to me. Y'all have such a small group
of people over there. What are you preaching? Well,
I realized that if I changed my message, Just tone her down
a little bit now. You know how it is. That we'd
get more people in here. That's what preachers do. If
we'd speak peace where there's no peace, that's what Balaam
did. Because he wanted a following. You know the worst thing that
can happen to any true preacher, any true preacher, is to gain
a following for himself. That's the worst thing that can
happen to him. Just like I think I mentioned last week, I don't
want you to follow me, I want you to follow Christ. I'm just
the messenger boy. That's it. I'm not your salvation. Now what John said, I'm not the
Messiah. I'm not even the authority, God's
word is. Follow me as I follow God's word. And then thirdly, he says they
perished in the gainsaying of Kori, that's Korah. You remember
Korah back in the Old Testament who challenged God's choice of
Moses and Aaron? Moses was God's prophet, Aaron
was God's priest, Korah and his band, they challenged that, they
wanted their own place. Now what is the gainsaying? The gainsaying is opposing. What is the gainsaying of Korah?
Going against God's authority. How do people go against God's
authority? They go against God's word. That's how Jude identifies
some of these false preachers, in that way, and we need to see
that. Well, we understand that the saving relationship of the
Father comes through Christ the Son, and that we need, we need
God's word We know that salvation is not by our works, but by the
work of Christ. We know that in everything, God
himself sets forth the standard by which we are to judge things,
ourselves included. We understand that we cannot
compromise the glory of God in Christ to gain a following. That's what we realize. And so
we pray, Lord God, keep us from the evil one, don't we? That's
what it's all about, okay.