And I think because it is such
a little passage, and just to give us our context, we'll read
from verse one. So Jude 1 and verse one. Jude the servant of Jesus Christ,
and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the
Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. Mercy unto
you, and peace, and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before
of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance,
though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the
people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that
believed not. And the angels which kept not
their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment
of the great day. even as Sodom and Gomorrah and
the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over
to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise
also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion,
and speak evil of dignities. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. Just to change for a moment the
writer and the passage, when the Apostle Paul in his second
epistle to Timothy reminded his young friend that all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. He was pointing us to the authority
of the Word of God. And Jude knew this too. Jude and Paul are agreed in their
understanding of the importance of Scripture. And so here, in
Jude's little passage, in Jude's epistle, here, Two, we find Jude
telling us that he is providing some Old Testament examples as
instances of God's past previous judgments against sin, in order
to, his purpose being, to support his references to God's impending
judgment against the ungodly men of verse four who had crept
into the church unawares. And perhaps you'll remember we
spoke last week about these men and we spoke about how particularly
it is false doctrine, it is the errors of their teaching that
Jude has in view because he is telling the Lord's people, he
is reminding the Lord's people that they need to stand fast
for the true doctrine, the doctrine of God's grace, the doctrine
of God's covenant purpose to save his people from their sins,
that they have to stand for and they have to contend for. against those who have crept
into the church, who have established themselves in the church with
a false teaching and a false doctrine. Now, let me just make a couple
of points here in this context, if I may. In elevating the scripture,
as Jude does here by pointing to these Old Testament examples,
and as Paul emphasised to Timothy, In elevating Scripture for us
by what they say and the examples that they give, these men emphasised
the usefulness and the benefit to the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ of the Scriptures in our understanding of our faith. The
Bible must always be our reference and the authority in all matters
of faith and for the way that we live our lives, for the direction
as to how we are to live in this world and amongst men and women. The scriptures are to be our
reference and our authority. Paul told Timothy that the scriptures
were profitable for doctrine, that is to teach us to know God,
to teach us who God is, to teach us about God's being, about his
persons, about his perfections, about his purposes in this world
and for this world. We know God from the scriptures. We were speaking to the young
people about this conviction of what is true. The scriptures
speak to us, the scriptures speak to our hearts, they speak to
our minds, they speak to our souls. And because we have faith
as God's gift, we respond, we relate to the word of truth and
we learn who God is in a way that men and women who have not
faith can never discern, though they read the scriptures from
beginning to end. The Scriptures are profitable
for doctrine to teach us to know God. Paul also said the Scriptures
are profitable for reproof. That is, they are a profit to
the Church, they are of profit to the Church, as defence against
errors and heresies. And this is what these false
teachers, these ungodly men were bringing into the church. They
were bringing error, they were bringing heresies in amongst
the body of Christ. Paul says, the scriptures are
profitable to reprove that error. And in God's word, there is an
answer for every false teaching in the world. He says that the
Scriptures are profitable for correction and conviction of
sin, that every sin will be found out by the Word of God, every
deceit will be exposed by the Word of God, every lie will be
laid bare by the testing of it against the Scriptures. and it's
profitable for instruction in righteousness. This is how comprehensive
the word of God is. It is profitable for instruction
in righteousness to reveal God's holy will, to make us wise unto
salvation, to teach us the gospel, and to point us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. And Jude, in his little epistle,
tells us that the ungodly are ordained to condemnation. And he gives us three examples
from the Old Testament to support his point. He gives us, first
of all, the example of rampant unbelief amongst the children
of Israel. whom God had brought out of Egypt
and who yet, to a man and to a woman, God had saved these
people out of Egypt and yet to a man and a woman, they died
in the wilderness because of their unbelief. Two men alone,
two men out of that vast multitude that left Egypt, two men, Joshua
and Caleb, the two spies who trusted the Lord, were the only
ones who entered into the promised land. Jude also gives us the
example of rebellious angels who forsook their first, their
holy and honourable estate and were cast out of heaven and are,
says Jude, reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the
judgment. And he gives us a third example
as well in these verses that are before us today, that of
Sodom and Gomorrah with a few other cities of the plain, whose
abominable activity the Lord condemned as very grievous. And Jude would have us consider
the false teachers that he speaks of in verse 4 in the light of
these examples that he is bringing forward for this purpose. and especially he would have
us reminded about how serious a matter it is that false doctrine
be tolerated in Christ's Church. And how certain that we should
be that the Holy Lord God, who in times past condemned unbelief, judged rebellion, and punished
iniquity will do so again. Our Lord, who acted in the way
that he did in time past, will do so again. And we are reminded
just how serious these judgments are. because there is an eternal
fire that brings suffering of vengeance against the souls of
those who are unbelieving and who are rebellious and who are
corrupt and sinful in their conduct and in their attitudes. So here is the warning that Jude
is giving to us. And I'm going to consider four
points quickly today in order to give us an overview and perhaps
a little bit of insight into what Jude is referring to here. I would like us to consider firstly,
the holiness and the justice of God. Secondly, the certainty
of judgment. for sin, thirdly, the wonder
of God's grace, and fourthly, what it is to be jealous for
the true gospel. So the holiness and justice of
God, the certainty of judgment, the wonder of grace, and our
jealousy for the true gospel. So let us take these one by one
and seek the Lord's help and guidance as we consider these
points. First one then is the holiness
and justice of God. Whenever we consider the Lord's
dealings with men and women, it is necessary for us to note
and consider the holiness and the justice of God. This is the God with whom we
have to deal. What we've said about the scriptures
being profitable for doctrine and reproof and correction and
instruction applies here with our understanding of God. We
must know how God has revealed himself in scripture. The only
way we know God is through what scripture tells us and God himself
has revealed himself as what kind of God he is. God's revelation
of himself is primarily as the Holy Lord God, the Holy One of
Israel. And he declares, for example,
in Isaiah chapter 57, this of himself, for thus saith the high
and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy,
I dwell in the high and holy place. And God is holy in his
three persons. He is the Holy Father, he is
the Holy Son, and he is the Holy Spirit. And he is uniformly acknowledged
as such by those who minister to him, be they ministering spirits
or gospel preachers. For these uniformly cry aloud,
holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. And God's holiness
opposes all sin. The psalmist tells us that God
is angry with the wicked every day. There is an antipathy in
the holiness of God to all that is sinful and evil and wicked
and iniquitous. God made Adam a sinless creature,
but Adam fell and brought condemnation on himself and separation from
God upon himself and all his posterity. Paul teaches us this,
that there was this federal relationship, Adam as the head, and in Adam
sinning, he brought judgment and he brought sin and corruption
into the soul, into the very nature and being of all Adam's
posterity, so that all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God, so that all are under condemnation by God. because of his holiness
and because of his justice. Romans chapter one tells us the
Apostle Paul is speaking and he says in verse 18, for the
wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. That's just what we do. We hold
the truth in unrighteousness. We have no desire after the truth
because we are by nature inherently unrighteous and opposed to God.
and God's holiness demands justice. And sin must be punished. It
is of the nature of our God. Paul says in Galatians 6, verse
7, be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap. God promises justice, and
he will render to everyone that which is due. The wages of sin
is death and Christ will judge all men and women according to
the standard of God's perfect holiness. So this is our first point and
our first understanding, that whenever we come to consider
God, whenever we come to consider the nature of God, the person
of God, the works and ways of God, who God is revealed by scripture,
it must be in the context of the holiness and the justice
of God. The second thing that I want
us to draw from what the Apostle Jude tells us here is this, that
there is a certainty of judgment for our sin. Each illustration
that Jude gives to the church here in this little epistle reveals
God's hatred of sin and his determination to punish the ungodly who transgress
his will and his law. Sin is primarily unbelief. Sin is primarily unbelief. People say we live good lives,
we don't do things wrong, we try to be good, we try to be
good neighbours, we try to be good people. Sin! is unbelief. Sin is not believing in God,
not trusting in God, not honouring and praising and worshipping
God as we should because we deny Him. It is at the very core of
our nature and our being to assert ourselves and our will above
God and His will. It is unbelief. And it was unbelief
that was witnessed amongst the children of Israel in the wilderness
that caused God to act as comprehensively as he did against that people
at that time. Sin, the sin of unbelief, it
doesn't just lie latent as a sort of native disregard of God. It manifests itself, it stirs
itself into action and into pride and into rebellion, as with the
angels who fell. And it culminates in fleshy,
sensual, unnatural practices. and just how sinful men and women
truly are is seen principally amongst these children of Israel.
This is a whole nation that we're speaking about here. And they
had been given every privilege and every blessing from God. This people that died, as I say,
with the exception of Caleb and Joshua, these two exceptions,
the rest of the people that came out of Egypt all died in those
40 years in the wilderness, two, a man and a woman. And yet these
are the very people that had seen God's judgment in the plagues
of Egypt, which afflicted the Egyptians while wonderfully passing
them by. They had left behind their slavery. They went out enriched for a
promised land. They saw victory in the destruction
of the Egyptian army and Pharaoh at the Red Sea. They drank sweet
water at Mara. They were delivered repeatedly
out of the hands of their enemies. But when they came to the borders
of Canaan, they refused to trust the Lord and they provoked him
with their unbelief. So that the Apostle writing in
Hebrews chapter three tells us in verse 17, but with whom was
he grieved 40 years? Was it not with them that had
sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom
swear he that they should not enter into his rest? but to them
that believed not. So we see that they could not
enter in because of unbelief. And we learn, too, of this angelic
rebellion against God in which Satan opposed and is defeated
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan was cast out of heaven
onto the earth where he set up a kingdom amongst men in opposition
to Christ's kingdom and it is this, these two kingdoms that
we see playing out in the history of humanity by Satan's rebellion
and by the rebellion of those angels, these previously holy
creatures, once blessed with high honours in their first estate,
we find that they too were condemned to hell and even now are reserved
in everlasting chains under darkness, irreversibly, irretrievably doomed
and waiting for judgement. There is no grace, there is no
mercy, there is no release, there is no hope for these fallen angels. And Jude brings this example
together with the Israelites that fell in the wilderness in
huge, huge numbers, together with these angels to our attention
to emphasise the certainty of judgement and the everlasting
nature of judgment and condemnation upon all who rebel against God's
rule, God's will, and God's person. The third example that we're
given is that of Sodom and Gomorrah and a few other cities beside. They're called the cities of
the plain. And these were destroyed by God with fire for their wickedness. Now this was sexual immorality
primarily, but it was wickedness of every kind. And these cities
were once successful communities and once desirable places to
live. Lot had chosen to make his home
here. And the inhabitants of these
cities enjoyed the fruitfulness of the land. They enjoyed God's
goodness. They enjoyed his blessing. but their prosperity, their riches,
the good lives that they had, they led them to indulgence. They led them to promiscuity.
They led them to immorality. So that we see that very often
it is ease of life that leads people to these divergent ways
of acting and conduct. and the Lord describes the activities
within these cities of the plain as very grievous to him. That is a testimony which continues
down through the history of the world and it is as relevant today
as it ever was then when we see the same kinds of immorality,
promiscuity, fornication and impropriety being practiced in
our nations today. It is very grievous to the Lord
and James tells us in chapter 1 verse 15, when lust hath conceived
it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth
forth death. And here we are told that there
is an everlasting separation, there is an everlasting death,
there is an everlasting fire, there is hell. set before men
and women who are judged by God, the holy God, and whom Christ
will separate from himself. Adam's sin brought us all into
a state of condemnation. Sin is ungodliness and it must
be judged. and Paul points this out to the
church at Rome. Listen to what the apostle says
to the church at Rome and listen and try and note the similarities
between what Paul says to the church at Rome and what Jude
is saying in these verses before us today. Paul says that unbelieving,
rebellious, and fleshy men and women, says Paul, changed the
glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness through lusts of their own hearts,
to dishonour their own bodies between themselves who changed
the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creature
more than the creator who is ever blessed forever. Amen. That's what Paul says and that's
exactly what Jude is teaching us here. These wicked men, these
ungodly men come into the church with their unbelief, come into
the church with their false doctrine and they corrupt the lives of
men and women by their false teaching. A holy God will not
always endure their wickedness and he will bring judgment against
them as he did with the children of Israel in the wilderness,
as he did with the angels who lost their first estate, as he
did with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's a very
dark, it's a very bleak, it's a very black context that we
find ourselves in, in recognition of what Jude is here telling
us. And yet here, we also find a
gem, a light, a brightness, a glory. in the darkness, because we are
confronted with the wonder of grace. As fearsome as the examples
that Jude has left us are, they nevertheless set off the brightness
of God's grace and mercy and blessings to his people within
the covenant of peace, within the Lord Jesus Christ. The examples
that we are given, and remember, Jude is writing to the church.
He is writing to those who are sanctified of God the Father,
preserved in the Lord Jesus Christ, and called by God the Holy Spirit.
He is writing to the church with these examples of judgment, and
they ought to make us tremble. for they reveal our need, they
reinforce again and again our need of a saviour to deliver
and reconcile us to the holy offended God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ alone is that saviour. His atoning work, the unique
and exclusive way of escape for sinners, And we should note carefully
the distinguishing nature of grace. God's justice slew multitudes
in Sodom and Gomorrah, millions in the wilderness. It left these
fallen angels in ruin and misery. And yet grace bestows love and
pardon and reconciliation and glory on fallen men and women
guilty of exactly the same unbelief and rebellion that takes multitudes
to hell and condemns them to everlasting fire. Jude's warning us to be jealous
of the true gospel. More on that in a moment or two,
but let us be clear what the true gospel is. Paul says there
is another gospel, which is no gospel at all, but a perversion
designed to deceive. Paul tells us that the God of
this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. The glorious gospel tells us
what Christ has done and accomplished for his people. Free will and
works gospels. Works-based gospels are imposter
gospels. They're not the true gospel at
all. They tell men and women what they must do to be saved. The true gospel tells us what
Christ has done to save us. The gospel of free will is a
counterfeit gospel that isn't worth the paper it is written
on. and there is all the difference
between heaven and hell in this message. The gospel tells us
of righteousness imputed, righteousness freely given, bestowed by grace
and received by faith. The true gospel tells of sovereign
purpose, of covenant promises, of divine appointment, of glory. It honours God the Father and
God the Son and God the Holy Spirit in their various roles
in accomplishing the covenant purpose of the Godhead to bring
salvation to God's chosen people. And it attributes all praise
and thanks to them for so great salvation. The true gospel teaches
a work finished on the cross, a perfect cleansing for sin,
a complete forgiveness, an effectual redemption, a real reconciliation. While the pseudo gospel of free
will and works religion has nothing to give, nothing to give, but
vain cliches, empty offers and human wisdom. human psychology,
to stir up pride in the natural man. And this brings me to my last
point, that we are to be jealous for the true gospel. You and
I, brother and sister, you and I who are the audience, the recipients,
those to whom Jude writes, the sanctified, the preserved, the
called, those who are the Lord's people by faith, we are to be
jealous for the true gospel. Because ours is the gospel of
saving grace, and it is the most precious possession we have,
short of Christ himself. Let us never grow weary of standing
fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. Let
us never cease contending earnestly for the faith once delivered
to the saints. Our sovereign grace gospel is
non-negotiable. We shall not unite with those
who preach another gospel. We will not unite with those
who say the only difference is the words that we use. that it's
mere semantics, that we're all fighting the same battle for
the same cause of God and truth, we will not hear that claim. Paul gave his life for this gospel
that we preach, and so did Peter. I don't know about Jude, but
likely he did too. And there are some who tell us
today that we're all brothers and sisters in Christ and we
should not fight over details and fall out over minutiae. Well,
that's all well and good, but surely the work of Christ on
the cross is no mere detail. Surely the extent of the atonement
is no mere detail. Shall we deny our liberty in
Christ? Shall we set aside the justifying,
sanctifying righteousness with which Christ has made us free
and holy and perfect and without blame before Him in love? Shall
we go back under the law of Moses in order to please men when God
explicitly tells us, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased, hear ye Him? Shall we say peace, peace, when
there is no peace? No. No, no, a thousand times
no. Rather, we shall earnestly contend
for the faith once delivered to the saints. We shall study
God's word, which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, and for instruction in righteousness. We shall learn
to love the Lord more and more by deepening our appreciation
of what he has done for us We shall cherish the gospel that
he has gifted to us through the labours of faithful men who gave
their lives to deliver it to us. We shall actively hear free
grace preachers. We shall actively support free
grace ministries. reckoning them a gift from God
for our souls to feed and nourish and refresh us day by day. The Apostle Paul says, And with
this, I'm going to close. It's just a reading from 2 Corinthians
4. Here's what the Apostle Paul
says. Listen to it carefully, please,
and maybe refer to it again later as well, and just think about
what the Apostle is saying here. It's 2 Corinthians 4, verse 1. Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, this gospel, Seeing we have this ministry, as we
have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced the hidden
things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, not handling the
word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants, for
Jesus' sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Amen. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us today.