And I cannot imagine living in
more perilous times than the day in which we live. I cannot
imagine a more difficult time for men and women to live in
this world for the glory of God, seeking to do the will of God
than this day. I cannot imagine a more difficult
time to faithfully preach the gospel of God's grace than the
day in which we live. Men and women are so inundated
with religious heresy that it is impossible, except God the
Holy Spirit give you a seeing eye, a hearing ear, and a believing
heart, it is impossible to teach men and women the way of truth.
This is a religious age. Religious, what an understatement.
Almost everybody you know professes some kind of faith, and yet the
moral decadence around us is astonishing. The self-centered
lewdness of this age is shocking. There is in our generation, as
never before, a contempt for authority, which is really just
an outward expression of contempt for God. Where is the child who
honors the authority of his father? Where is the student who respects
the authority of his teacher? Where is the wife who honors
the authority of her husband? Where is the man who honors the
authority of civil government? Everything around us is the reflection
of utter anarchy and rebellion against authority. And yet, this
is the most religious generation I suppose has ever lived. We have more religion and more
ungodliness, more churches and more corruption, more preachers
and more pornography, more Christians and more convicts than any age
has ever lived. I look at these things and frankly,
I'm vexed. My soul is vexed with the ungodliness
of our society. I am grieved for the glory of
God and the truth of God. And I hurt for you who in this
generation try to worship and serve the living God. I read
the newspapers with some regularity, try to keep up a little bit with
the news going on around us, much as I can stomach. And I
constantly ask myself, my God, what's going on? What's going
on? I'm afraid I know the answer.
Western civilization, not just the United States, Western civilization
as we know it in this day, is a generation under the judgment
of God. We live in an utterly apostate
religious world. Now that's a fact that simply
cannot be disputed by anyone with spiritual perception and
understanding in divine truth. The New Testament plainly teaches
that before Christ comes again in his glory, as this generation
is drawn to its clothes by the hand of God, there will be a
general universal wholesale departure from the truth of God by many
women who profess to believe God. Nothing is so evident to
me in this age as the utter silence of God. You remember that from
the death of Malachi to the preaching of John the Baptist, God sent
no prophet for 400 years. His silence was deafening. Turn
to Amos chapter 8. Let me show you something. Amos
the 8th chapter. The silence of God in this age
is utterly deafening. Amos chapter 8, verse 11. Behold, the days come, saith
the Lord God. that I will send a famine in
the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but something
a whole lot worse than that. A famine of hearing the words
of the Lord. Everybody in this country's got
a Bible. Most have got several. Folks
go to church. regularly for the most part. But the book says here, they
shall wander from sea to sea, from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro and
seek the word of the Lord. Folks run here and there, listen
to radio, watch television, go to one church after another,
jump from one religion to another, warning a word from the Lord,
and shall not find it. Now, I thank God he has yet his
7,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal, but they are scattered
far and wide in this age. The religion of this generation
is the religion of Antichrist. I'm not looking for something
to say. I want you to, I want that to settle in. All Arminian
freewill works religion. Call it by whatever name or denominational
title you wish to give it. All religion that centers in
you. your feelings, your works, your
righteousness, your decision for Jesus is Antichrist religion. Never before in history have
all professedly Christian churches, I include in that just anything
you want to include in that word Christian. Never before in history
have all professedly Christian churches of the world so openly
denied the gospel of Christ. Now I'm not talking now about
the apostasy of Rome. Romanism has always been apostate. Papacy was anti-Christ from the
beginning. But in our day, the children
of Rome are rapidly running home to the harlot mother, not in
name, but in belief and practice. Let me show you what I'm talking
about. The major tenants of all organized religions and all religious
leaders in this world are purely Roman. Free will is a Roman doctrine. It was taught by the Church of
Rome from the beginning. Justification by something you
do, human righteousness, salvation by works is a purely Roman doctrine. The notion that men have of separation. Listen to conservative religion
anyway, any brand of conservative religion. They will do their
dead level best to convince you that all evil is out yonder. And if you can just separate
yourself by not eating this or drinking that or tasting that
or going there or wearing the other thing, then you'll be holy.
It's nothing but Roman Catholic asceticism. The teaching of rewards,
a loss of rewards in heaven based upon our works is nothing on
this earth, but a Protestant doctrine of purgatory. Now this
is precisely what God told us would happen in these last days.
You can read it for yourself in first Timothy four, you can
read it in second Thessalonians two, many other places. Truly,
these are perilous times. The apostate religion of this
day is the result of judicial reprobation. That is of God casting
men off in judgment who have heard and will not receive the
love of the truth. Ralph Barnard made this statement
once. I've forgotten where I heard it, which tape it was on. He
said, there is, this is a reprobate age, an age that cannot be explained
apart from the judgment of God. That's the only explanation.
You read your newspaper tomorrow morning, open it up and look
at it and hear that statement. There's no explaining this except
the judgment of God. Go home tonight, turn on the
news, listen to it. There's no explaining what went
on in this world today except the judgment of God. This is
one of the most solemn things in all the book of God. When
God gives men light, the light of the gospel, and they refuse
to walk in that light, they're in danger of divine judgment,
of being cut off while they live, cut off with a satanic deception,
cut off in judicial reprobation. You remember what our Lord said
to Ephraim? He said concerning Ephraim and Hosea 4.17, is joined to his idols. Leave
him alone. You remember what God told his
prophet Jeremiah concerning Israel? Jeremiah weeping for his nation,
pleading with God for him. God said, don't speak their name
again. Don't pray for this people. I won't hear you. Our Lord Jesus
spoke plainly in the parable in Luke 20 of God taking his
vineyard from the hands of those who had abused his son and giving
it to another nation, the casting away of Israel so that he might
gather his elect from the four corners of the earth. Reprobation
is the work of God. It is the work of God fixing
it so that those who will not receive the love of the truth
can't receive it. That's about as serious a matter
as I know of. It is Christ himself, we're told
in Revelation 20, who loses Satan for a little season to go about
and deceive the nations again. It is God the Holy Spirit Who
ceases to restrain the powers of darkness. Paul tells us in
second Thessalonians two, and then that same passage, God,
the father, we're told sends me in a strong delusion that
they should believe a lie because they received not the love of
the truth. Can you imagine anything more
solid? Turn to Jude, the book of Jude. The scriptures tell
us that God Almighty sovereignly employs Satan and his hellish
imps to secure the damnation of those who will not receive
the love of the truth. Are there any marks by which
we can clearly identify messengers of Satan? by which these men
who deceive the souls of men with false doctrine can be distinguished
from God's true servants? Indeed there are. They're given
to us many places in the scriptures. The man of sin will be revealed,
Paul said in 2 Thessalonians 2. He won't be revealed to the
world. When you think about Antichrist,
forget all these notions that come out of Hollywood or come
out of stupid religious magazines that portray him as some kind
of a monster with pitchfork and horns and a red tail. Comes with
a badge on his chest that says 666. Forget that nonsense. Antichrist
is a deceiver. a deception, and he will be revealed,
but not to the world. He'll be revealed to those who
know the Christ of God and to no one else, to those to whom
God gives discernment, teaching them by his Spirit and by his
Word. Those false prophets by whom
Satan deceives the souls of men are clearly identified here in
Jude's epistle. Let's begin in verse 4. Jude
is describing apostate religious leaders who have crept into the
church. For there are certain men crept
in unaware, sneaky devils, 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. Now, these are preachers, teachers,
Religious leaders who sneak into local churches, disguising themselves
as the servants of Christ, but they are really messengers of
Satan. The apostle Paul describes them
in second Corinthians 11. They are men who are apostate
from the faith of the gospel, who transformed themselves into
angels of light and ministers of righteousness. But Paul warns
us that the Jesus they preach is another Jesus. The God they
preach is another God. The spirit they preach is another
spirit. The spirit by whom they preach is another spirit. And
the righteousness they preach is not the righteousness of God
in Christ Jesus, but a righteousness you perform. The salvation they
preach, work salvation, freewill salvation, salvation by decision
you make for Jesus is a snare of Satan by which they would
forever destroy your soul. Now, there are a lot of people
who've walked away from the truth, but Jude's not talking about
just folks who profess faith for a while and then depart from
it. He's talking about people who turn their back upon God's
truth and then devote themselves to the promotion of Satan's lie.
I went to school with a young man my first year in Bible college
out in Springfield, Missouri. He and I were good friends, very
good friends. was abused and maligned and lied against for
believing the gospel of God's free grace in that school, finally
kicked him out of school. He went off to another school.
And, uh, I didn't hear from him for years and years and years.
And some years later I was out West and found out my good friend
had abandoned the gospel altogether and was going about everywhere
he could promoting utter atheism. He's not just talking about abandoning
truth. He's talking about men who've abandoned the truth and
then give themselves over to the destruction of the truth.
These are the people Jews here talking about. Men who walked
away from the truth and now go about promoting that which would
destroy truth. Men under the judgment of God,
whose damnation is just. Men seeking to destroy the souls
of men in the name of serving them and serving God by serving
them. We are warned to beware of such,
warned throughout the book of God. But nowhere in the word
of God are we given a clearer, more precise, and more instructive
description of false prophets than that which Jude gives us
in these 25 verses of his epistle. In verse 4, he identifies them
as deceitful, ungodly wretches, who sneak in to churches. They sneak in under disguise. They sneak in under pretense.
They're not sincere. Don't give them that much credit.
They're sneaks. They're deceivers. They know exactly what they're
doing. They sneak into the churches having abandoned the faith of
the gospel, having turned their backs upon divine revelation,
but pretending to be gospel preachers. Men who preach a mixture of works
and grace, asserting that the preaching of salvation by free
grace, preaching of salvation is by the righteousness of God
in Christ alone, that the preaching of salvation by grace alone without
your works, without you doing anything to qualify for grace,
will lead men to licentiousness and lasciviousness and ungodliness.
These preachers of works righteousness deny the only Lord God and our
Lord Jesus Christ. Then in verses 5, 6, and 7, he
gives us examples of apostasy, reminding us of things that all
who read the book of God have constant familiarity with. The
Israelites who came out of Egypt but later perished in the wilderness,
the angels who lost their first estate, and the Sodomites who
refused to hear the word that Lot preached to them. Apostasy,
you see, is nothing new. It began back in the book of
Genesis when Adam and Eve sinned against God. When the whole race
was plunged into sin and depravity and death by the sin and fall
of our father Adam, first thing they did was they invented a
system of works religion. They sewed some fig leaves together
and thought by their fig leaves they could cover their sin in
the presence of God. Apostasy is nothing new. God
judged it then, and God has judged it throughout the ages, and God
will continue to judge it as he describes here in the book
of Jude. He will do so until at last the whole Babylon is
cast into hell. Now let's look at verse 8. Here,
Jude is continuing to identify those false prophets, those that
he mentioned in verse 4. He tells us in verse 8, let's
read verses 4 and 8 together. For there are certain men, verse
four, 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. Now skip down to verse eight.
Likewise also, these filthy dreamers, these filthy dreamers. I couldn't
think of a better title for this message, filthy dreamers. These
filthy dreamers, religious fellows, preachers, theologians, church
leaders, Sunday school teachers, filthy dreamers. Likewise also
these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion,
and speak evil of dignities. He continues to describe the
same men in verses nine through 11, actually all the way down
through verse 19. But tonight I want us to focus our attention
on these filthy dreamers described here in verse eight. Now the
text begins with a word, likewise, also, it's a word of comparison. Jude is telling us this, these
false prophets I'm warning you about. These false prophets I'm
warning you to beware of are just like those fallen Israelites,
those fallen angels, and those fallen sodomites. They are men
under the judgment of God, men whose damnation is just. They
defile the flesh like the sodomites did. They despise dominions like
the angels did, and they blaspheme God. They speak evil of God like
Israel did in the wilderness. And then he tells us four things
about them. First, he says they're filthy dreamers. Filthy dreamers. In the Old Testament and during
the apostolic era before the completion of the canon of the
New Testament, God used to speak to men by dreams and visions. He revealed his word and his
purpose when he would come to men in a vision, in a dream.
He came to Jacob and revealed himself in Jacob's dream as Christ
the latter, by which men alone can ascend up to God, by which
alone God Almighty can come down to men in grace. Over and over
again, God spoke to men by dreams, revealing his word, revealing
himself, revealing his will to them by dreams. Now, obviously
that is no longer the case. He did so in Acts chapter 10,
where, where the Peter was dreaming and the Lord spoke to him concerning
Cornelius and so on. But now we have the sure word
of prophecy and we no longer look to dreams to give us direction
with regard to the will and purpose of God. But these men are described
here as dreamers, dreamers, the word dream. Our dreamers here
is a word that's never used anywhere in the scriptures in a good sense. It's never used with reference
to a man hearing from God. This word means men beguiled
and deluded by their dreams. Beguiled and deluded by their
dreams. Turn over to Jeremiah 23, I'll
show you. Hold your hands here in Jew, Jeremiah 23. The Lord God speaks in verse
25 and he's talking about false prophets. He says in verse 25,
I've heard what the prophet said, the prophets that prophesy lies
in my name. Now I told you they're not deceived.
They're willfully ignorant. They prophesy lies in my name,
saying, I've dreamed, I've dreamed. God spoke to me, and let me tell
you what about the word the Lord gave me. Jeremiah 23, look at
verse 25, 27 now. Which think to cause my people
to forget my name by their dreams. Which they tell every man to
his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
Verse 28. The prophet that hath a dream,
God says, let him tell a dream. Let him tell a dream. And he
that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. After all,
what is chaff to the wheat? The dream's nothing. It's nothing,
saith the Lord. Verse 32. Behold, I am against
them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord. and do tell them
and cause my people to err by their lies and by their likeness. Yet I sent them not nor commanded
them. Therefore shall not this people
profit at all, saith the Lord." Look in Isaiah 56. These false
prophets, these filthy dreamers, the fact that they are described
as filthy dreamers implies something else about them. They are men
who are asleep. And look at how God describes
Isaiah 56. They're blind, sleeping, self-serving,
greedy dogs who are dreamers. Remember Paul said, beware of
dogs, evil workers, the concision, beware of those who preach salvation
by works. He's talking here about the same
fellows in Isaiah 56, the dogs. used throughout the Old Testament
law. Remember God required thou shalt
not bring the price of a dog into my house. He wasn't talking
about if you raise dogs, if you want to sell one of your beagles,
you can't pay tithes on it. That's not what he's talking
about. He's talking about male prostitutes. Don't bring the
price of a whore or of a dog into my house. And he's talking
about specifically false prophets. Now look at it, Isaiah 56 verse
10. His watchmen are blind. They're all ignorant. They're
all dumb dogs that cannot bark. I can't think of anything on
this earth more useless than a dog that can't bark. Sleeping,
lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they're greedy dogs which
can never have enough. And they are shepherds that cannot
understand. They all look to their own way,
that is the men who look after themselves. Everyone for his
gain from his quarter. The word translated filthy dreamers
back here in Jude refers to men who are in a confused state of
mind. Men whose imagination is perverse,
abnormal. Men who are held captive by ungodly
sensuality, making them blind, making them deaf, making them
dead to reality. They're called filthy dreamers
because they turned the grace of our God into lasciviousness.
So what we saw in verse four, that when it says they turned
the grace of God into lasciviousness, Jude is not saying that these
are fellows who, uh, they, they, they believe in salvation by
grace. And they, they, they, because they believe salvation
by grace, they go out and live an ungodly life. No, no, no,
no, no, no, no. No, he's talking about just the
opposite. These fellows who teach salvation by works. These fellows
who teach that you've got to do something. Now you've got
to do something. There's got to be something in
you that makes a difference. They turn the grace of our God
into lasciviousness. They say, than we who preach
free grace. When we tell men you're saved
by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, by the
righteousness of Christ, by the blood of Christ, without any
contribution on your part of any kind. They say, well, if
you say, if you preach that, folks will go out and live like
hell. That's what it's talking about. They turn the grace of
God into lasciviousness. So Jude calls them filthy dreamers.
The doctrine they proclaim is according to their own filthy
flesh. They are, as Peter says in the passage of Brother Bobbery
just a moment ago, scoffers walking after their own lust. Turn back
to 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2. That passage
was in 2 Peter 3. Look at 2 Peter 2, verse 10. Peter's describing the same fellows,
these filthy dreamers. Religious fellows now. Remember
now, we're not talking about, we're not talking about, what's
that fella, Hugh Hefner and the Flint fella, Larry Flint. We're
not talking about those fellas. No, no, no, no, no. We're not
talking about the fellas who produce movies in Hollywood.
No, they're perverse of another kind. We're talking about religious
folks. 2 Peter 2 verse 10, chiefly them
that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness. and
despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed. They're not afraid to speak evil
of dignities. You see, he's talking about the
very same people. Verse 12. But these as natural brute beasts,
as beastly men, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of
things that they understand not. They don't know a thing on earth
about free grace, and they talk bad about it. They don't know
a thing on earth about substitution. They speak evil of it. They don't
know a thing on earth about imputed righteousness. They speak evil
of it, speak evil of things they don't understand, and shall utterly
perish in their own corruption. Verse 18, for when they speak
great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust
of the flesh through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped
from them who live in error. God's servants are not such.
They are not sleeping dogs who proclaim dreams, loving to slumber,
but rather they are vigilant watchmen over your souls who
proclaim the word of God's revelation in Jesus Christ the Lord. Therefore,
God says, he that hath my word, Let him speak it faithfully to
the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
the words of this book, it is because there is no light in
them. How much plainer could scripture
be? Well, he says some good things. You know, it's hard to speak
the English language and not say some good things. It's hard
to speak a full sentence and not say some good things. That
silly old man in Rome, he stands up in his balcony and when he's,
well, if he's able to stand up, I don't know if he can now or
not, but when he does, he says some good things. Well, sure
he does. Sure he does. But it's full of
dead men's poison. Full of it. They have no light
in them. Those who deny free grace, those
who deny the gospel of Christ, those who deny the accomplishments
of Christ have no light in them. All right, let's look at the
next thing Jude says. He tells us these filthy dreamers are
men who defile the flesh. The word defile means to pollute
and corrupt. It certainly means that. But
the word has a primary meaning that means to die with another
color. That's what Jew's talking about.
They die the flesh with another color. That's what religion does
all the time. It dies the flesh with another
color. Without question, anytime men
and women are persuaded, that righteousness is something they
can perform, unrighteousness always follows. You can see it
throughout history, you can see it in the scriptures. Those who
preach salvation by works, that is, those who preach that somehow
your acceptance with God depends on something you do, unrighteousness
always follows. That was the case in the earliest
days following our Lord's ministry, and that's the case today. Let
me give you three examples, all mentioned in scripture. The Corinthians,
you remember in 1 Corinthians 7, they were convinced that if
they would really be holy, if they'd really be holy, I mean,
I'm not talking about just ordinary saved sinners like you and me,
I'm talking about holy, holy people, really be holy, then
they ought not marry. If they really be holy, they
ought to separate themselves from evil things. Don't eat some
meats. Don't drink some drinks. Oh,
now if you'll do that, then you'll be good. Oh, you'll get to be
good. Now that's what they were taught.
What was the result? Incest? Divisions? Going to law against one another?
abuses of the Lord's table, got drunk at the Lord's table, fornication
such as was not named among the Gentiles. That's the result of
works religion. You remember our Lord in Revelation
2 mentions the Nicolaitans and their ungodly deeds? The Nicolaitans
taught this. They taught that God's grace
must be supplemented by our works. They didn't come out and out
and deny the salvation by grace, no. I've only heard one or two
real brazen idiots talk like that in my lifetime. Nobody talks
like that. Nobody does. Oh, who would deny
salvation by grace? But now, grace alone? That's
another story. That's another story. They said
the grace of God must be supplemented by our works. Christ's righteousness
must be completed by our righteousness. And the result was that the Nicolaitans
openly taught that adultery was a matter of indifference. And
in their regular exercise of religion, practiced wife swapping.
That's in the name of God, in the name of worshiping Christ.
The Gnostics, these were the fellows who taught that salvation
by grace and the knowledge of Christ is arrived at through
diligent study and learning of spiritual things. In other words,
you fellas who are not quite as bright as we are, you fellas
who don't have quite as much gray matter as we do, you fellas
who are just kind of down yonder in the lower segment of society
as brilliant folks consider it, y'all have no hope. Salvation
comes by learning. by learning spiritual things,
by deep, diligent study. These Gnostics taught such nonsense
and the result was they gave themselves over to carnal, incestuous
pollutions that are unimaginable. I won't read it in public. I
read it to the men back there a little while ago. If you want
to see just how far men will go in such stuff, Get you an
encyclopedia and look up the word borbarites, B-O-R, B-O-R-I-T-E-S,
and see what the encyclopedias tell you about them. These were
the Gnostics. All right, here's the third thing.
They despised dominion, despised dominion. They're filthy dreamers. They defile the flesh. They dye
the flesh another color, make the flesh look good, and they
despise dominion. They set aside, refuse and reject
dominion. Let me give you a very literal
reading. They despise the Lord, the one who has dominion. Of
course, those who despise God's dominion and teach others to
do so despise all authority. They despise all dominion, doesn't
matter where it's found. They despise dominion in the
home. They despise dominion in the state and they despise dominion
in the church. They're like the sons of Korah. We're as holy
as you are. We can do everything you can
do. We don't have to listen to you when I pay attention to you.
We are all the sons of God and the saints of God. We all have
a right in this thing. It's characteristic of apostate
religionists to rebel because they are the agents of Satan
who himself rebels against the government of the Almighty. That
which Jude's talking about here is the fact that all false prophets,
all who reject God's revelation of himself in the gospel, all
who preach what they do and what they practice in works religion,
do so because they despise God's dominion. That's the root of
all rebellion. You remember How the Psalmist
writes in Psalm 14, this is the passage from which Paul quotes
in Romans chapter three, the fool has said in his heart, there
is no God. And the words there is are in
italics. They were added by the translators.
There's never been a fool who said in his heart, God doesn't
exist. He may scream it to the top of
his lungs, but he doesn't say it in his heart. Romans 1 tells
you otherwise. He knows that God is, but the
fool says in his heart, no to God. No, I will not bow. No, I will not surrender. No, I will not obey. And that's the essence of all
rebellion and sin. They despise God's sovereign
dominion and providence. The scriptures teaches plainly.
God rules everywhere, all things, all the time. Believers rejoice
in it. These filthy dreamers despise
it. The scripture teaches God's absolute
sovereign dominion and predestination. We rejoice to declare that our
God from eternity ordained all things that come to pass in time.
We rejoice to read in the book of God, he worketh all things
after the counsel of his own will. We delight in God's dominion. He rules the world that he made
absolutely according to his will. These filthy dreamers despise
dominion. They despise. God's sovereign
dominion and grace. God says, he hath mercy on whom
he will have mercy. Aren't you glad he does? He has compassion on whom he
will have compassion. Thank God he does. These who
despise dominion, these filthy dreamers, they say, I won't worship
such a God as that. Filthy dreamers. They despise
the dominion of Christ the Lord. The declaration that the God
man, our Redeemer, who by the merit of his blood and his righteousness
sits now upon the throne of universal monarchy and holds all flesh
in his hands and rules all flesh according to his will to give
eternal life to whom he will. They despise it. Believers rejoice
in it. And they despise the dominion
of this book. I realize that we have in our
hands a translation of the Bible. It's called the King James Translation.
And I realize that it is written in what people consider archaic
English. But I want to tell you the reason.
I want to tell you the reason why there are so many translations. As a matter of fact, if you go
to a local bookstore, any of them, any town in this country,
once in a while when a chub was out shopping and I'd rather Do
something, then look at dresses with her. I'll go in religious
bookstores. Most of them are idol shops.
They just sell little trinkets and religious pictures and silly
stuff, you know, just silly sentimental slop. And go look for a Bible. Go look for a Bible. Do you know
you can find scads of all kinds of versions and translations
and paraphrases? You'll be hard-pressed to find
a King James translation. You'll be hard-pressed to find
it. Do you know why there's so many translations? So many different
ones because everybody is trying his dead level best to find a
book from God that says what they want it to say. That's exactly
why. They despise the authority of
this book. It can't mean what it says. Oh, it does mean what
it says. It is a lamp to our feet and
light to our pathway, but they despise it. All right, one more
thing quickly. Jude tells us these filthy dreamers
speak evil of dignities. The word speak evil of? You ought
to write this in the margin of your Bible somewhere. This is
the word. They blaspheme dignities. Quite literally, blaspheme glories. They blaspheme. They blaspheme. Just like the Jews in the wilderness
blaspheme God, spoke evil of God. Can God prepare a table
in the wilderness? Can God feed these people? Can
God give us water where there's no water in a desert? Well, what
sounds so bad about that? It's called blaspheming God.
And for that, God killed him. It is a denial of his glorious
character as God. They blaspheme God in all that
is his glory, in all the attributes of his being. blaspheme his righteousness,
his justice, his truth, his grace, his mercy, blaspheme him in all
things. And they blaspheme the revelation
of God's glory in Jesus Christ, which comes to us by the gospel.
For they tell us things totally contrary to the Christ of Scripture. They tell us that Jesus wants
to save everybody. He loves everybody. Oh, sweet
Jesus, sweet, sweet Jesus. He tries to save everybody. The book speaks otherwise, doesn't
it? Would you show me anywhere in this book, anywhere, anywhere
in this book, I'll give the challenge to anybody who hears this message
by any means, anytime, as long as I live, I'll give you $100
for the verse, for every one of them you find, anywhere where
this book even hints that God Almighty tries to do anything. God doesn't try, He does. He
doesn't try to save, He saves. He doesn't offer salvation, He
saves. Christ didn't die to make it possible for men to be redeemed.
He redeemed somebody. He didn't establish righteousness
hoping that somebody would pretty please accept it. He brought
in righteousness and puts it on his people. He is our righteousness,
our redemption, our sanctification. Salvation is not something that
God throws out there in the world of opinions and said, if you
want to, you can take it and I sure would be grateful if you
had it. Salvation is the operation of God's omnipotent grace in
his people. Faith in Christ is not that by
which we make God's grace effectual to us, but rather faith in Christ
is the result of the sovereign operations of God's grace working
effectually in us. We believe because he gave us
faith. We believe because he called
us by his grace. We believe because he redeemed
us with his blood. We believe because he loved us
with an everlasting love and chose us as his own before the
world began. Now, Jude says, I warn you, beware
of these evil workers. Beware of these dogs, these certain
men. crept in unawares, who before
of old were 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. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers
defile the flesh, despise dominion. and speak evil, blaspheme the
very glory of God. Beware, beware. Cling tenaciously
to Jesus Christ the Lord. and Him alone as your redemption
and righteousness and sanctification and acceptance with God. Cling
to Him. And anything that smacks of free
will, anything that smells like works, anything that smacks of
something contrary to free grace in an almighty sovereign Redeemer,
run from it like you would the plague. Amen. All right, Brother
Lindsey. Number 116 in the.