Turn with me in your Bibles back to the book of Jude. I was doing this in a sense in reverse order. I just wanted us to go back and look at these creepy deceivers and then I wanted to finish before we have the Lord's Supper looking at Enoch just one more time. Maybe not the last time. I love looking, listening, reading the story of Enoch.

Jude speaks with great strength, doesn't he, about these people that have crept into the churches of God. And he says, In verse 10, if we start there, these speak evil of those things which they know not. But what they know naturally, what they know with their own will and their own wisdom, They know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Don't miss that, please, before we go too much further.

These people are fully responsible before God for what they do. Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds are they without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackest of darkness forever.

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of thee, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. So who, who ultimately is the person to whom all of these people are speaking against? They're speaking against the Lord Jesus Christ.

What an extraordinary thing in the providence of God that he has left his church to be so small and to be so fragile and to be so easily infiltrated by these people. And he's done it. We mustn't forget this. He's done it. Jude says that they're ordained, of old, Jude 4, they're ordained for this condemnation. God, in his sovereign grace and mercy, has brought this to be. These people are, as I just said, they're fully responsible for what they've done. And God is fully and absolutely sovereign over all of it.

And it is for the good of his people. It's for the good of his people. Even though Jude gives 30 descriptions of these people and he describes, as I said earlier, he describes all of human activity from Abel and Cain at the first church service outside of the Garden of Eden to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the end of this creation.

He has this one thing in mind for his people. He wants them to be strengthened. He wants them to be encouraged. He wants them, when others speak ill of our God, he wants his people to know. As we read in Acts chapter two, They called, listen to what Acts chapter 2 said, this very first declaration of the gospel. In Acts chapter 2.

He says to all of these people in Acts 2.38, repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. In the name of Jesus. We use the word name of Jesus Christ a lot. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ is all of his attributes.

It is the being behind the name. to call on his name. God's people call on his name, but they're calling on him to save them. They're calling on him to save them by his sovereignty. They're calling on him to save them by his justice and by his grace. They're calling on all of the attributes of God that are revealed in the scriptures. And these creeping deceivers, their deception is extraordinary, isn't it?

And the God's servants described them in such detail so that God's children will not be proud of what they know about how they are to discern them because they can't creep in if we can see them. I told you a couple of weeks ago someone said I can spot them a mile off. No you can't. Paul didn't and Peter didn't.

And just imagine what it was to be in a church service and to have Cain feasting there with you. To have Balaam bring scriptures to you while he joins in a love feast with you. To have Korah bringing the elements of priestly service to you, all hiding their self-righteousness and their hatred of God behind the sheep's clothing of piety. and great words, as we'll see in the rest of you, with a faint humility. They speak of grace and they speak of mercy and they speak of the Lord's name and they speak of the cross and they speak of blood.

How do we discern them? By our intelligence, with all of our learning, with all of our experiences, not by might and not by strength. These are in the Church to humble us and to cause us to cling ever so much closer to God and to His will, and for Him to keep us safe, and for Him to keep us secure.

There are a multitude of ministries in this world, apologetic ministries and all sorts of other ministries, which go to great deal of trouble to discern the false teachers around, and they'll give them all sorts of names, whether it's hyper-Calvinists or Arminians or whatever. And yet the very people The very people who are so prominent often in that are the very same people who are not walking with God at all. We desperately need of God. Our task, as I keep reminding, trying to remind myself, our task, a walk, Enoch's walk, you walk and you walk slowly and you walk alongside someone and you walk in the same direction and you're walking to the same destination.

We'll look at that later on. But our task is to be faithful in the little things that are in front of us all of the time and leave the Lord to sort out those people. It's remarkable to think that Moses, who knew so much, knew that those Moabites at Balaam's direction had camped down next to there.

And it wasn't until the Lord chose a time to reveal all of that and to expose them. Cain came to church many, many, many times until finally the Lord exposed him and exposed what was in his heart. We are dependent upon God. He says, not by your might and not by your strength, but by my spirit will I build my church. But nevertheless, I think it's incumbent upon all of God's servants to actually declare plainly, as best the Lord will allow us, who these people are and what they are.

And Norm read to us a remarkable passage of scripture, which I commend to your close study in Acts chapter 15, here a few weeks ago. I want us to have just a very brief look at that. And I want us to be reminded that these people are speaking against him. And what are they speaking against when they speak against him? Look at Jude verse 1. They're speaking against him, the sanctifier. Always the start of false religion is sanctification.

Is it a cooperative activity or is it something that God does? The preservation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Does God preserve his people and preserve them perfectly? Did he preserve them before this world began? God says he did. What was Satan's great accusation in the garden? Hath God said? Is God's word true?

And what he raised in Eve's mind is the thought that she could actually debate and discuss the word of God. Instead of being under the word of God, Satan encouraged her to be over the word of God. And then openly he says to her, you shall not surely die. Having brought her into a place of debate, then he brings her into a place of open rebellion.

And she took the fruit and ate, and gave some to Adam, and they both died. They became spiritually dead. See, when they were alive to God, Satan said to them, you will not die. You surely will not die. And after they were dead, He kept saying to them, and he's been saying to people ever since, you're not really dead. You're not really dead. You've got a free will. You can make your decision.

Satan's messengers come And let's just read some of these verses in Acts chapter 15, but I want to spend a bulk of my time until we finish in the book of Galatians, because I think it's just so incredibly important. The issue in Acts chapter 15, the only time all of the apostles met together in conference was over this one particular issue, and it was just one issue. It was about sanctification. It was about your walk with God. It was about the law of Moses.

There are certain men at the beginning of it, certain men which came down from Judea, taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. In verse 5, there arose, but there arose up certain, and listen to the Holy Spirit's description of these people in Acts 15 verse 5. They're certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believe. What came first? They were a sect of the Pharisees. They were in the people that chose, that it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there'd been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them, men and brethren, you know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. God made a choice. God did it. God did the work. God sent the preacher. God sent the faith.

And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. And you can read about it in Acts chapter 10 and 11. And put no difference between us and them. Listen to this. This is what God did. This is what God did in the hearts. Purifying their hearts by faith. God looks at the hearts of people. To walk into the presence of God you have to have clean hands, you have to have done nothing wrong and you have to have a pure heart. How do you get a pure heart? How do you keep a pure heart? Is it something that you do or is it something that God says he's done? What's it just say? What has the religious world said ever since? As God said. Did he really say that? Purified their hearts.

By faith. Who gives the faith? He gives the faith. Who's the object of faith? We just read about it in Jude, isn't it? He is the object of faith. It's the Lord Jesus Christ is the object. That's the faith, isn't it? Faith is a noun. It is a description of the Lord Jesus Christ as God Almighty and the Saviour and Redeemer. And faith is a verb. Unless the verb and the noun are united, you don't have saving faith. If your faith is a denial, if anything of your faith is a denial of the character of God, you don't have the faith of God's elect. You don't have the faith of the saints.

Verse 10, now therefore why tempt ye God to put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? No one's ever borne the law, no one, no one. They knew what it was to live under the law. No one has ever borne it. And these people think and even teach today that you can bear it. But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they. How is a Jew going to be saved? Exactly the same way a Gentile is saved. It's the only way. They're not going to be saved by their law-keeping.

I want us to, as we look at that and contemplate the wonders of those glorious declarations and the import of that particular meeting, how incredibly significant it is, how incredibly significant every word in the Word of God is. I want us to see if the Lord will allow that when Jude gives 30 descriptions of these people in the book of Jude, he's describing the same people that were there in Acts chapter 15, and he's describing exactly the same people that Paul is talking about in the book of Galatians and throughout the rest of the scriptures. They were the enemies of the Roman Church, and the Corinthian Church, and the Philippian Church, and the Colossian Church, and the Thessalonican Church. They're the enemies of all the churches, and they remain the same today. They are given all of these descriptions so that when they come along and God exposes them, we'll say, oh yes. That's exactly what God said about them. God is faithful to his people.

So turn with me to the book of Galatians. There are a couple of things I want to see here that are just so, have really sort of struck me in the last little while. And it's got to do with how serious is the gospel. And for the people of God and the people who wrote the book of God, it's a matter of life and death. These apostles who wrote this signed their testimony of God with their lives. But also, I want us to see how this letter begins. I hadn't seen this to the same depth that I did just a few days ago, and I've been contemplating it all week.

It begins, Paul, an apostle, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. and God the Father who raised him from the dead. He's an apostle. He wasn't an apostle by his own choosing or his own activity. And listen to who he's writing with. So Paul is writing, and all the brethren which are with me. And he's writing to the churches of Galatia. And if you go through all of the rest of the New Testament letters, this is the only letter where Paul doesn't describe them as saints. He doesn't, he's just writing to the churches.

He's in doubt of these people being saved at all, despite the extraordinary testimony that he bore to their devotion to him and to what had happened amongst them. And then he says, Verse three, grace be unto you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world. According to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. And then he goes on to say, I marvel that you, I am astounded, that you are so soon removed from him. Please note that.

You're removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. Just as the people in Jude's day, they were turning the grace of God, they were perverting, they were translating the grace of God into lasciviousness. They were saying that if you preach the Lord Jesus Christ, and you preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of his people, he will purify their hearts. And if he's purified their hearts by faith, he'll do an awful lot in their flesh, in terms of their walk before men in this world. He says, I marvel that you were so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ.

But though we, and who's the we there? Paul is speaking, joined as one with all the brethren. How serious is church? We are told continually that you can go and worship God in any old church around here. It doesn't really matter. You can choose. You can choose. It's like going to a smorgasbord. You can choose the one that suits you the best.

Not according to God. Not according to God. But though we We, Paul and all the brethren with him, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you. Let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God, or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

This gospel is so important. Let's go back to verse 5. He says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him. That's what the false teachers in Jude were doing. They were wanting people to be removed from him. To go to a Jesus who has all the letters in the name, but not the name behind all the letters.

If you understand what I'm saying. See the gospel, the point I'm wanting to make, the gospel is a hymn. The gospel is the gospel of grace. Therefore it's 100% grace and 0% works. It cannot be any mixture of the two. Salvation is not a cooperative work begun by God and finished by us. Not at the beginning of our salvation. Paul didn't begin by some decision that he made. He began by a decision that God made.

Listen to how he describes his conversion. Verse 15, but when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal his Son to me, in me. Please don't forget that. Please note that. That's the hope of glory. That is salvation. It's Christ in you. The hope of glory. That I might preach him. See, Paul preached the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is a hymn. The gospel is a hymn.

Last week we looked at the highway in Isaiah. There is just one way, there is one highway, there is one destination, and that is to the exclusion of all other ways. He says, I am the way. Therefore any way which is a denial of him who is the way is not a way to God. It's not a way to heaven. It's not the highway to heaven. Isaiah so wonderfully says that no lion, no unclean shall walk there, no unclean person, no unclean doctrine, no unclean practice, just the redeemed and the ransomed.

Walk on that highway, that highway that God has prepared. I love the fact that it's actually in the original, it means a causeway. I love the fact that it's a highway that's really broad and it's got great walls on either side of it. And God's children put in there and put on that way by the Lord Jesus Christ. are kept is exactly what Jude says. They're preserved in that way. We are promised by God that there will be false teachers. And this must be for the glory of God and it must be for the good of God's people.

And Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, I can read some of these verses, but Paul, this Paul had a fear. He feared for these Galatians and he had a fear For the Corinthians as well, I fear less by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. 2 Corinthians 11, 3. So your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ.

That means the singleness, the oneness. He is the way. He puts his people on the way. He loves these people. He says of these false teachers that come in, for such, verse 13, are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers... Satan has ministers in this. Where do you find Satan's activities in this world? Not in the bars and the brothels and the horrible things that happen all over this world. Satan's greatest activity is in the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. Behind pulpits is his greatest activity.

His ministers, he calls them his, God calls them his ministers, also be transformed as ministers of righteousness. What sort of righteousness are they ministers of? The righteousness of men, whose end shall be according to their works. For want of time, I don't have time to go, but if you go to Revelation 21 and 22 at your leisure, you'll see that the people who are excluded from heaven are those, among other things, are those who make a lie. They make a lie. Peter warned about these people. They use feigned words. To make a lie, it's the word we have, pseudo. Something that looks to be something but is not really at heart.

When Peter says they used feigned words to make merchandise of your soul, the word feigned in 2 Peter 2.3 is the word we have for plastic. You can mould a Jesus to suit your purposes. You can mould a Jesus.

These speak against him. I want us while you're there in Galatias I want us to just go very quickly and we always run out of time and I'm sorry but if you'll just give me a little bit more of your time I just wanted to go through and look at what it was that Paul was declaring that these false teachers had and why these people They bewitch the children of God. They try and bewitch the children of God. They want people, as in Acts chapter 15, as these false teachers in Jude, they want people to go back under a covenant of works to finalise and to finish a covenant of grace.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the covenant himself. And in his covenantal activities, he does a work in the hearts of his people, which is the work that he promised when he first preached in Luke chapter 4. Listen to what he says he's going to do. This is what God says the Christ is going to do. This is what it is for him to be the Christ.

In Isaiah 42 verse six he says, I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people for a light of the Gentiles. And what will he do? To open blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners out of the prison and to them that sit in darkness out of the prison house. I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. God's going to do it. That's the simple story of the Gospel is that God has promised and God will perform. The simple word of the false teachers is you must do You must do something for God's activities to work.

Turn with me in Galatians. I just want to look at what these people were told here. I want us to see why Jude writes so strongly, why God writes so strongly about these people. If you turn with me, we'll just go through the book of Galatians and Paul in the first couple of chapters talks about his history and the history of him and his dealings in Acts. that are read about in Acts chapter one.

And he talked about how serious the gospel is, and he talked about how he stood in Peter's face. But this religion, this religion of men, this religion that dresses up under the lies and the guise of law-keeping, this is why Paul is so severe. This is why he's so severe. Because he loves them. But most of all, he loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And these people, as we read in Jude 15, they speak against him. And he warns them, he warns them in the most extraordinary ways. Listen to what he says, these people, these people that put people under a covenant of works, a covenant of salvation by law keeping.

In 2.16, I'll just read you a list of the things that they miss out on and the judgment of God upon them.

They are, in the words of 2.16, not justified, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. To be justified is to be declared in the courts of God to have never sinned. If God the Father transferred all of my sins to the Lord Jesus Christ and he bore them in his own body on the tree of Calvary, then they are gone. That's what it is to be justified. Do you see they're speaking against him? If they say that that's not the case, they're speaking against him. They're not justified.

Verse 19, we'll just read through these and you can follow along with me. Paul lives under God. He says they do not live unto God. Verse 20, they are not crucified with Christ. There is one issue in Satan's armory that all of his arrows are pointed at, and that is at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the promises of God, the revelation of God, the name of God that's revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says they're not crucified with Christ, verse 20.

And Paul says, I live by the faith. He lives, in verse 220, he lives by the faith of the Son of God. These people are not living by the faith of the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself for me. They talk about universal love, that God loves everyone. There is a particular love that God has for a particular people and every single one of the people that he loves is saved because they're the people that are in union with him. Verse 21, they frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness, any sort of righteousness whatsoever, come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Verse three, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? That's such a strong, strong statement. The greatest curse that personally came upon anyone under the law of God was for you, as a gentle and soft woman, to have a baby. and eat it and not share it with the rest of your starving family. And for you, a soft and gentle man. You can read about it in Deuteronomy 28. Three times in all of the word of God is this word used about bewitching. Do you see how serious it is?

They frustrate the grace of God. They make to themselves Christ's death in vain. Verse 1 of chapter 3, they are bewitched. They do not obey the truth. They're disobedient to the truth. Verse 2, they do not have the spirit. Verse 7. that they are not the children of Abraham. They're not Abraham's faith children. Verse nine, they do not have the blessing of Abraham. I want to have the blessing of Abraham. Abraham's called a friend of God.

Verse 10, they are under the curse and live in that curse while under the law. Verse 17 of chapter three, they are not in covenant with Christ. with all of the promises and blessings and inheritance and all the promises of his work in the hearts of people. Verse 21, they are still under the tutors, they're still under the schoolmaster. Verse 27.

They haven't put on Christ. God's people have put on Christ. Verse 28, they do not belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are not heirs with him. Verse five of chapter four. They are not redeemed. They do not have the adoption of sons, and they do not cry Abba Father.

Verse nine, they are in bondage to the weak and beggarly elements. Verse 19, Paul has now become their enemy. Paul, verse 20, stands in doubt of their salvation. Verse 21, Do you hear the law? They do not hear the voice of God speaking in the law that says one thing to sinners, guilty, guilty, guilty. They do not hear the law. Verse 31, they are the children of Hagar and they're not the children of the Jerusalem above. Verse 1 of chapter 5, they are still entangled in a yoke of bondage, and they do not wear Christ's easy and light yoke. He says, come unto me, my yoke's light. My light yoke is easy. Verse 3, they are debtors to do the whole law. You go back to the law at one point to do one thing, you are obligated to do all of it. with your heart and your hands.

Verse four, Christ has become of no effect to them. Verse five, they have fallen from grace. Verse six, they don't have faith working by love. Verse eight, they have been persuaded by someone other than Christ. Verse nine, their whole body, their whole lives, body and soul are polluted by leaven. Verse 14, they have not fulfilled the law of love. Verse 17, the lusts of their flesh are fulfilled. Verse 22, they do not have the fruit of the spirit. Verse 25, they do not walk in the spirit.

Verse three of chapter six, they think themselves to be something when they are nothing. Verse 8, they reap corruption, reap the corruption of their flesh. Verse 12, they make a fair show in the flesh and deny the cross of Christ. Verse 18, God says that they're hypocrites.

They glory in the flesh of their followers. Verse 15, they are not new creatures. The new creation, God says, is created in righteousness and true holiness. Christ in you is the hope of glory, but their glory is in their flesh. Verse 16, they do not have the peace and mercy of God. They are not the Israel of God. The thing that's extraordinary is that the false teachers in Galatia and the false teachers in Jude heard those words said against them.

How hard are our hearts? God, create in me a new heart, was David's cry. Create in me a new heart. Create in me a new heart. Give me a right spirit. Don't let me be one or one who joins with them who speak against him. May the Lord be our teacher and our guide. Amen.