Jude verse 14 to verse 16. Jude chapter 1 verse 14. And Enoch also, the seventh from
Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousands 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. These
are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their
mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in
admiration because of advantage. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word also. When our Saviour met his two
disciples on the Emmaus Road, he showed them how all the Old
Testament prophets were speaking about him. And that included Enoch the prophet. Enoch the prophet. Enoch does
not have a book named after him, like Isaiah, or Jonah, or Malachi. His life story isn't recorded
in the way that Samuel's is, or Elijah's, or Elisha's. Nevertheless, Enoch is an Old
Testament prophet. He is a man of faith who testified
and prophesied concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And it may well be, because I
don't know who those two were on the road to Emmaus, it may
well be that Jude was one of those two disciples on the road
to Emmaus that met the Lord Jesus. And if so, if he was, then surely
He joined the dots concerning what the old prophet said. It is Jude who tells us what
Enoch said. Behold, the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of his saints. And I'm sure that he would link
that prophecy concerning Christ's coming with the words of the
saviour himself, who said, I will come again and receive you unto
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also. And I'm sure
that as he heard the angels in the day of Christ's ascension
corroborating this theme, this same Jesus which is taken up
from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen him go into heaven, that Jude understood it was all about
the Lord Jesus Christ. It was about his incarnation.
It was about his life. It was about his death. It was
about his success. And it was about his coming again
for his people and to judge the world. And Enoch, we're told,
was the seventh from Adam. He lived before the flood. So from the very beginning, before
the flood, The few believers, and there were not many. Remember,
in the Ark, there was only eight. Okay, it's true that Enoch was
a couple of generations before Noah, but I don't imagine there
were very many believers in those days, for all the wickedness
there was in the world. But from the very beginning,
before the flood, these few believers knew that God's Messiah would
come. They knew he would save his people
and they knew that he'd judge the world for sin. They knew
that he would come with 10,000s of his saints to judge the ungodly. And surely the Lord knew that
there was plenty of sin in that antediluvian world, in that pre-flood
world, the world before the flood. It's hard to know exactly how
much Enoch understood about Christ, or the detail to which his knowledge
extended. But listen to what I'm about
to say now. I have little doubt that Enoch
knew a lot more about the Lord Jesus Christ than we know today. I have no doubt that Enoch knew
a lot more about the Lord Jesus Christ than we know today. And why do I say that? Well,
I say that because I'm making a simple deduction. Enoch was
a man of faith. Enoch was a, the writer to the
Hebrews tells us that, Enoch was a man of faith, a born again
believer. Furthermore, we are told that
he walked personally with God. And I have no doubt but that
that means he walked and he talked with the Lord Jesus Christ, intimately,
man-to-man, face-to-face, as Moses did. And may we not assume
that he knew Christ in person? In pre-incarnation appearances,
we've spoken about these often, these theophanies, I mentioned yesterday that Enoch
was translated into God's presence when he was 365 years old. Now, it's easy to remember that,
because he lived a year for every day of the year. So he was 365
years when he was translated into God's presence, but he didn't
die. He did not die. He walked with the Lord and he
was not. And the writer to the Hebrews
tells us that he was translated into God's presence and did not
die. Enoch's son was called Methuselah. And Methuselah was born when
Enoch was 65 years old. And the birth Methuselah seems to have coincided
with a significant change in Enoch's life. Perhaps the Lord met him and
told him at that time about the forthcoming flood, about Noah
and about the ark and what would happen. Enoch definitely knew
that the fountains of the deep would not be opened and that
the rains would not begin on earth until the year that Methuselah
died. He knew that. That was the reason
why he called him Methuselah, because that name means when
he dies is the emission. When he dies is the sending out
of the waters. Now it would take almost a thousand
years for that to happen, but it did. Just as the Lord had
told Enoch it would, and just as Enoch had prophesied, if only
by giving his son this name. Now what did I say there about
Enoch's age when he was translated? He was 365. What did I say about
when Methuselah was born? He was 65. What does that give
us? Three centuries. Three centuries,
300 years. After his son's birth, Enoch
spent the next three centuries in intimate communion and personal
conversation and regular fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He
walked with God. Hence the reason that I have
to suspect that Enoch knew a lot more concerning Christ's coming,
his life, his death, his success, his coming again to judge the
world with 10,000 of his saints than we know today. We would
not have known that Christ is coming with 10,000 of his saints
Where did that number come from had Enoch not told us? Where
did Enoch get that information but from Christ himself? To have faith in Christ you need
to know Christ and Enoch knew Christ and believed. When the
Lord met Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration,
do you remember what they talked about there? Peter and James
and John were there and they wanted to build a tabernacle
for all three and the voice of the Lord came from out of heaven,
this is my beloved son, hear ye him. So in the Mount of Transfiguration,
the Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured there and Moses and Elijah came
and stood with him and they spoke together. Do you remember what
they spoke about? They spoke about Christ's death
and what he would accomplish by his sufferings at Calvary. And I see no reason to doubt
that Enoch also spoke to the Lord Jesus Christ about those
selfsame things. I wrote a few things in the introduction
yesterday about Enoch and his prophecy, and I hope you've had
opportunity to read that. If you haven't, do go back and
look at it. I think it's very interesting,
some of the things that I mentioned there. For time's sake, I'm not
going to repeat it here. Suffice it to say that Enoch
was a prophet though the full extent of his
prophecy is unknown to us. Jude tells us enough for us to
know that Enoch knew the Lord, and by the testimony of this
brother, men like Noah also trusted Christ,
learned about preaching righteousness, and lived by faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So that this is the testimony
that Enoch and men like Noah had. They trusted Christ, they
preached righteousness, and they lived by faith. And if someday,
if someday someone chisels that into my gravestone, that he trusted
Christ, he preached righteousness and he lived by faith. My dust
shall rest content until Christ comes with ten thousands of his
saints. I want to take three headings
from Enoch's prophecy and Jude's application and leave them with
you today. The first one is this, Christ
is coming back to judge this world. Paul puts it like this. He says, God has appointed a
day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that
man whom he hath ordained, that is Christ, whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him, Christ, from
the dead. So that as sure as Christ is
risen from the dead, He is coming back to judge this world. And
if Enoch was assured that Christ was coming back with 10,000 of
his saints to judge the world in righteousness, I am sure he
knew that he would have to rise from the dead. And to rise from
the dead, he must first die. And that's the Gospel. If Enoch
knew the end of the Gospel, I see no reason to think that the beginning
was hidden from him and that the incarnation of the God-man
was in any way hidden from him. Job knew that it was so. Where
did Job get that information? but from the testimony that came
down through the line of these patriarchs, these faithful men,
these prophets of God. The fact of judgment, the fact
of judgment to come should comfort the Lord's people as well as
cause us to tremble. It is the mark and evidence of
the sovereignty of God, the sovereignty that we so often speak about,
that Christ is coming back with authority to judge this world. He is coming back with the authority
of a judge in his own court. and from the fall of Adam and
his exclusion from the garden, this knowledge has attended sinful
man. There is no denying it. Right
from the very beginning, there has been a knowledge that there
is a day of reckoning coming. There is a day of accountability
when books shall be opened, when records will be unsealed, when
men and women will be judged in perfect holiness and justice
and righteousness. There is a judgment coming. And Jude's words are significant
because we're told that Christ will convince all that are ungodly
among them. People will mock and laugh and
poo-poo that and say, no, that's just nonsense. All things are
going to continue as they always have done from the beginning. In that day, Christ will convince
all that are ungodly among them. of the legitimacy of the judgment
that they are incurring. There will be no doubt. There
will be no argument about what is right and wrong. There will
be no grey areas. All will be convinced of their
sin and their guilt and the fairness and the justice of God's judgment
being applied. And let me say, if I may, to
those of you who may have a sensitive spirit on this matter. I had
a conversation with a lady a few weeks ago on this subject and
I could see even just in the conversation that there was relief
on her face as we talked about this. So those of you who have
a sensitive spirit concerning the judgment that is to come,
maybe you look to that day with a degree of dread for the sins
that you fear will be exposed. Well, let me say that if you
have Christ as your saviour, you have no sin to be exposed. You have no ungodly deeds to
be convinced of. You have no ungodly deeds to
bring you shame. Remember we spoke about Joshua,
or Jeshua, a few weeks ago, and how Satan contended for the body
of Moses? We made reference to this man
called Jeshua, so Jude was speaking of him, we felt. and it's the
account from Zechariah chapter three. There, the angel of the
Lord told Jeshua that he had a robe of righteousness. The
Lord said, take away the filthy garments from him. That is what
has happened when we were converted. Our filthy garments were taken
away, or at least the knowledge of that. Our filthy garments
were taken away at the cross when the Lord Jesus Christ bore
our sin. But our experience, our knowledge
of that forgiveness and that cleansing took place at our conversion. And we were given a righteousness The angel of the Lord said to
Joshua, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee,
and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. That is what Christ
has done for you. Your sins will never be remembered
against you. They can't be. They are forgotten
by God. Now, despite the fact that I
mentioned earlier that the books will be opened, Your sins have been carried away
by Christ on the cross. That's what your account says.
Your sins have been borne by him in his own body, on his own
shoulders. They are really and they are
truly gone. We used to sing that chorus,
didn't we? Gone, gone, gone, gone. Yes,
my sins are gone. That is one of the big lies that
these false, these ungodly teachers, these ungodly men, these false
preachers tell us still today. They tell us that Christ bore
the punishment for our sin when he died for the sins of all men
and women. That he took the punishment,
but we still carry the sin. Well that's not justification
and that's not true. Our salvation is founded on a
better hope than that. It is founded on a better promise. Christ didn't take our punishment. He took our sin and he made it
his own. and then he died under the hand
of God's wrath for the sins that we had committed but which he
carried. He became sin for us. That's real, imputed sin. Our sin was laid on him. And it's real, imputed righteousness
If you are the Lord's, your sin is gone forever, never to be
recalled or remembered against you again, and certainly not
to be brought out and praided before the guilty ungodly of
this world. The people that are coming back
with Christ are sanctified. They are a holy people. And Jude's
contrast is between the godly and the ungodly. Men and women
are ungodly by their works and their words. We are not godly
by our works, but by divine righteousness, imputed and applied according
to the sovereign purpose of God in salvation. Enoch was the seventh from Adam. He was the seventh generation
from the fall of man. and he knew that a universal
judgment was coming, typified by the flood. He knew that Christ
would return with 10,000 saints, sanctified, holy souls returning
to repossess their corrupt sleeping bodies. that they might be transformed,
changed into incorruptible heavenly bodies like Christ's own body,
there to be eternally with him. Let me draw another point from
Jude's little comments here. It's this. In this judgment that
Enoch points to, and Jude describes, particular notice is taken of
these false teachers and ungodly men who have committed ungodly
deeds and uttered hard sayings against God. Now, let me take
you back a few verses if I may. Remember what Jude has accused
these men of doing. turning the grace of our God,
he says, these men are not with us. These men are outside. These men are condemned to this
condemnation. These men are not beneficiaries
of the covenant purposes of grace. They have turned the grace of
our God into lasciviousness, licentiousness, immorality. and they have denied the only
Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, they act and speak against
God's being, against his perfections, against his providence, against
his purpose in salvation, and against judgment, against his
word, against his worship. They speak these things against
God, God the Father, God Jehovah. They speak against Christ particularly
in his God-man role, in his offices as saviour. They speak against
his person. They speak against his blood.
They speak against his righteousness. They speak against his his efficacious
sacrifice, the sacrifice that accomplished what it was purposed
to do. They malign his ministers, they
misuse his people, they corrupt his truth, they mock his ministry. Who does? Who does all those
things? Jude is talking about free will
preachers free will teachers in the church. He is talking
about those who yet present the gospel in the context of men
making themselves fit for God's grace by what they do. works righteousness and free
will go hand in hand as turning the grace of God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. This
is the essence of what Jude is speaking about. These are the
ungodly deeds and these are the hard sayings that are uttered
by these false teachers. Jude says, both the works and
the words of these men will earn Christ's condemnation. And I
thought about this. Certainly their corrupt, immoral
works, these are rightly condemned, but I suspect it is their good
works just as much because they wrongly imagine that their good
works, so-called, tend to holiness, make them well-pleasing to God. make them salvable in some way,
a reason for their acceptance with God. What does God hate more than
hypocrisy? It makes him sick, and yet so
much of modern day Christianity is full of self-righteousness,
people endeavouring to get to heaven on their own merits. If
ungodly deeds are works righteousness, then the hard sayings that brings
on their judgment are the false doctrines they preach and their
denial of free grace and sovereign mercy. I'm convinced that this
is what Jude has in view, has in mind in this passage. and
it's the difference between the religion of the world and the
religion of heaven. It is the difference between
the righteousness of men and the righteousness of God. Paul
tells us, by grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of
yourselves, that is the gift of God. So then it is not of
him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth mercy. Here's the third thing that I
want to leave with you. The contrast between the way
of the ungodly who walk after their own lusts and those like Enoch who walk
with Christ, who walk with God. is presented for us here by Jude. I mentioned yesterday in the
little introduction how the fourfold repetition of ungodly in verse
15 emphasizes the contrast between the way of the Lord in Christ
and the way of the natural man in Adam. Whatsoever is not made holy in
Christ is ungodly and outside of Christ. The Saviour told Nicodemus, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of
the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee,
you must be born again. These are the two strands, these
are the two lines that have always been. There was the line of Cain,
there was the line of Seth. Enoch, Methuselah, these men
were in the line of Seth. These were in the line of the
covenant purpose of God. This is the distinction that
is made throughout the whole of history. What is not made
holy in Christ is ungodly and outside of Christ. There's no
graduation in holiness. There's no becoming more or less
holy according to our efforts. If we walk in the light as he
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. The writer to the Hebrews tells
us that Enoch walked with Christ. He walked in the light. He had
fellowship with Christ and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's
son, cleansed him from all sin. He also tells us that Enoch walked
by faith, just as did Abel. Enoch walked by faith. If we
walk by faith, we are righteous before God. If we walk by faith, we're not speaking about works
here, we're speaking about regardless of works. If we walk by faith,
we are righteous before God. And if we have not faith in the
completed work of Jesus Christ, nothing we do or say is acceptable
to God. There are the ungodly in this
world. and there is the godly. David
says, If we are godly, it is because
God has set us apart in the covenant of grace and because Christ has
accomplished and secured everything necessary for our deliverance
from sin and fitness for eternal life. If we are ungodly, it is
because we are still relying upon our own self-worth. Paul
tells us, Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust
of the flesh. May God give us grace today to
walk with God in the Spirit as did Enoch. That we might be fit
for his presence through the faith that looks to Christ alone. Amen.