tonight with me to the small
letter of Jude, the next to the last book in our Bibles, Jude. We've been bringing messages
from this letter for several Sunday evenings now and I pointed
out last week to us that Jude spends a great deal of this letter
speaking about false prophets, false teachers, and we know that
it's so important that we sit under the ministry of a man that's
called of God who preaches the word of God and declares the
gospel. Now these last six verses we're
going to look at tonight And what I see in them, verses 20
through 25, I see five exhortations to believers, to those who are
saved by the grace of God, to those who have faith in Christ. been born of the Spirit of God,
five exhortations to believers, and then we see he speaks of
a wonderful prospect, which we all have. He's finished his warnings about
the false prophets, and now he addresses God's children, if
you notice in verse 20, but you, but you, beloved, He's speaking to believers, isn't
he? But you, believers, beloved. Someone might question what I
said just now about Jude giving us five exhortations or giving
God's people five exhortations of things that we should do.
But I want you to keep your place here, but turn back just a page
or two to 1 Peter, 2 Peter, I'm sorry, 2 Peter chapter one. If anyone should have any questions
about the word of God telling believers, that is God's children,
what we should do. 2 Peter chapter one, verses five
through eight. And beside this, giving all diligence,
add to your faith virtue. We know that when a person comes
to know Christ as his Lord and Savior, he does so by faith. Faith is the receiving grace. It is the empty hand that receives
the bread of life. But the faith that we are given,
it is a gift of God. That is, faith is a gift of God. Natural man doesn't have saving
faith. All men have some kind of faith.
There's no question about that. But true faith is a gift of God. It is worked in us. When God
the Holy Spirit regenerates and gives us life, Faith manifests
that life. We believe in Christ. But Peter
here tells us, beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith
virtue, which means courage. Add to your faith virtue. And
to virtue, knowledge. And to knowledge, temperance.
And to temperance, patience. and to patience, godliness, and
to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you
and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, There's
nothing strange about the word of God addressing God's children
and telling us of things that we should do. And I want you
to look back a page or two farther into the letter of Hebrews chapter
five. Hebrews chapter five, and the
apostle here to these believers, For when for the time you ought
to be teachers, the apostle says you should be by this time teachers. You should be able to teach the
gospel, should be able to teach the word of God, to speak to
others, but you can't do it. You can't do it, why? For when
for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that
one teach you again. In other words, they had not
used diligence, studying, applying themselves to do what the scriptures
tell believers that we should do. You should be teachers, but
you have need that one teach you again and teach you the very
first principles of the word of God, the oracles of God. and
are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. Babies need milk, right? For
the first few months of their lives, I guess they pretty well
live on milk, their mother's milk or formula. Babies do, but
not adults, not adults, not those who grow. And after a few months,
even babies that have lived on milk The mothers began to feed
them food. Yeah, milk is food. I know that.
But I mean, fruit and baby food, right? My wife and I were talking just
this past week one night about babies. You start them off on
fruit, and some fruit they really like, peaches. Your child loves sweet potatoes. But when you try to give them
some meat, that's a different story. That's a different story. Most babies, they'll spit that
out. But here was some believers,
some children of God. The apostle said, you haven't
advanced. You haven't grown like you should
have. And the reason they hadn't grown,
the word was there. The preaching, the teaching was
there, but they had not applied themselves, obviously. They hadn't
studied. And so they still needed milk.
Well, let's go back, if you will, to Jude now, and let's look at
these five exhortations that the apostle gives to believers
in these few verses. Verse 20, once again. But you,
beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. That's
what we are to do. That's what we are exhorted to
do. Build up ourselves on our most
holy faith. Jude, just like we saw the apostle
Peter say, give all diligence in building themselves up. Now, Jude, when he says this,
he's not denying that we should all know, we should all know
and we should all acknowledge our absolute dependence upon
God. If we are to build up ourselves
on our most holy faith, we need God's help. We need God's power,
God's strength to do that. Remember the apostle in the letter
of Philippians said, it is God who worketh in you both to will
and to do of his good pleasure. He works in us the will. The
will, first of all, to do, to study, to learn, to grow. Yes, we depend upon him, but
we too must not act as if we had no responsibility. that we
have a part in building ourselves up on our most holy faith. What does he mean, your most
holy faith? Our most holy faith is that which
is revealed to us in the word of God, the faith, the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints. Remember he said
that in the first part of his letter. that we are to contend
for the faith, the truth that was once for all. And that's
what that word tells us there, once for all. The word of God,
the truth, is not something that is evolving. It's not something
that has evolved over the last 2,000 years, 2,100 years, since
Jude wrote these words, since the Lord Jesus Christ declared
these truths. Word of God, the truth is the
same. It's like God, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. It doesn't change. Now, men change. Society changes. The norms of
society change. That's true. But that doesn't
mean that the Word of God changes. No. God's Word was once for all
delivered unto the saints. That's the reason these cults,
that have come along in the last 200 years or 300 years, maybe
I should say. It seemed like at one point in
the history of our country there was about three that developed,
that came along and in each one of them there supposedly was
a new prophet of God and a new revelation from God. And they
began to teach a faith, which is not the faith, which was once
delivered unto the saints. Building up yourselves on your
most holy faith. The truth about God. That would
be included in our most holy faith, the truth about God. And
I've always enjoyed reading Arthur Pink's Attributes of God. I've
told you that many times. But what a blessing to read about
God, His omniscience, His omnipotence, His immutability, His mercy,
His grace, His wisdom, all of these truths about God, how they
bless your heart when you read and learn about our great God. What a blessing. So our most
holy faith would include the truth about God, but it would
also include the truth about man. Man was created in the image
of God, but man fell in the garden. And like Charles Spurgeon years
ago, one time said in a message, man didn't break his little finger.
He didn't break his little finger in the fall. He broke his neck. We come into this world dead
in trespasses and sins. That's part of our holy faith,
the condition of all men as we are born in this world, natural
men. We must be born again. Our most holy faith would include
the truth about Christ, of course, his two natures. that he's both
God and man, fully God and fully man. And his offices as the one
mediator between God and man. He's our prophet, he's our king,
and he's our great high priest. These would be included in our
most holy faith. The word of God, the truth about
the word of God. So many people today who call
themselves Christians They've pretty well cut out this part
and cut out that part of the Word of God. No, the whole Bible
is the Word of God. I wouldn't listen to a man who
believed that the first few chapters of Genesis was only a fable.
If I cannot trust in what the first few chapters of Genesis
tells me, how can I trust in the next chapters of Genesis? Or the Psalms? Or the Prophets?
Or the gospels? No, we believe in the inspired
word of God. All scriptures given by inspiration
of God. And this is the final authority,
the word of God. It's not what the church says.
It's not what some council of men have come up with. It is
what God says in the word of God. Building up yourselves on
your most holy faith. And we must remember, as the
Apostle Paul, I know in this place, I'm going to cite 1 Corinthians
3, he's especially talking to ministers, to preachers, but
it applies to all believers. We must be careful the materials
we use in building. Gold, silver, precious stones. We don't want to be building
with wood, hay, and stubble, because that stuff's going to
go up in a fire. No, we want to build ourselves
up on our most holy faith with precious things, and where are
those precious things found? In the Word of God. In Proverbs,
we read a number of Proverbs, which tell us and exhort us about
this. In Proverbs 23, the wise man
said, buy the truth. Now he's not talking about buying
it with money. Buy the truth, expend your strength,
expend your time. Buy the truth and sell it not. And then again, another place
in Proverbs 2, he said, yea, and this is a promise, If thou
criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding,
if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as hid
treasures, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find
the knowledge of God. Then. So that's the first exhortation
here. We are to build up ourselves
on our most holy faith. And then the second exhortation
is we are to pray in the Holy Ghost. I listen to a radio program sometimes,
and they take questions, call-in questions. It's a Bible program. And I've been surprised over
the years, just listening now and then, really, but How many
people call in and ask this question, what is the difference between
the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost? What is the difference? There is no difference. There
is no difference. The same word, which literally
means breath, is translated sometimes Spirit and sometimes Ghost. Now I prefer Spirit the Holy
Spirit and I tell you why because Obviously words change over time
as they are used and for so many people the word ghost Means to
them Something that at one time lived in a body and that body
died and now their ghost is Walking around or is in the house or
wherever you know God the Holy Spirit never had a physical body. He never did. The only member
of the Trinity who had a physical body that you could touch, you
could handle, you could see, the Apostle John tells us in
1 John, the only member of the Trinity who had a body, a physical
body, was the Son of God, the eternal Son of God. to use the
term the Holy Spirit. Look with me in Luke chapter
one, just a moment. I like the hymns we sing. You know, we sing good hymns
here, try to. I like all of them, but you know,
I really like the hymns that speak to us about the Trinity.
There's something about singing that people remember. You know,
God told Moses to teach the nation of Israel that song in the last
part of Deuteronomy. And I wouldn't doubt some of
us in this building are a little bit up in age. We can still remember
some songs or words or partial words of a song or lullaby. or something that we learned
when we were just children. I like to sing scriptural songs,
don't you? But here in Luke chapter one
and verse 35, we see the Trinity here. There's scriptures that
we come, as we read through the word of God, where we see the
Trinity. This is when the angel announced
to Mary, the Virgin Mary, that she would have a son. The angel
answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost. Now that's one member
of the Trinity, right? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee and the power of the highest, that's
God the Father, the power of the highest shall overshadow
thee. Therefore, that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. Now Jude tells us to pray in
the Holy Spirit. One of the titles of the Holy
Spirit is the title Helper, Helper. Just as the Lord Jesus Christ,
when he was here in the earth, here in the world, in the flesh,
he helped his disciples all the time. They'd come up against
a problem they couldn't deal with, and the Lord would help
them. God the Holy Spirit lives in every believer, and he is
our helper. He's our helper. I need a helper,
don't you? I do. Every day I need a helper.
And I tell you, I need a helper probably as much as any time
when I pray. When I pray, I need a helper. Look with me in Romans chapter
8 and verse 26. I need a help to know what to
pray for. I need help to know how to pray.
I just need help, period. Romans chapter 8. And verse 26,
the apostle said, likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, himself
maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because And this is truly
wonderful here. He, that is the Holy Spirit,
He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will
of God. Now we have God the Holy Spirit
living in us, making intercession for us, and we have God the eternal
Son at the right hand of the Father making intercession for
us. James said, the effectual fervent
prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And the Holy Spirit is
the only way that any of us can ever pray fervently as we would. Notice the third thing back here
in Jude. We are to keep ourselves in the
love of God. That's in verse 21. Keep yourselves
in the love of God. Now this may mean, it may mean
either God's love for us, or it may mean our love for God. And so we'll consider it both
ways. Keep yourself in the love of God. Now you know that God's
love is sovereign, God's love is eternal, God's love is free. And we may take this as an exhortation
to mean that we should think often of it. We really should. We should take time to think
about the fact that God has loved you if you're one of his children.
There was no beginning. He has loved you from eternity. There was nothing in you that
could cause God to love you. His love is free. and there's
nothing you can do that will cause God not to love you. We should think about his eternal
love for us. We should meditate upon it, that
it was God's love that caused him to give his only begotten
son that we might have everlasting life. John Gill brought this
thought out If you look at the words in the text, keep yourselves
in the love of God, John Gill said these words, the original
Greek words could be rendered, preserve yourselves by the love
of God. Preserve yourselves against Satan's
temptation. Preserve yourselves against the
snares of this world. Preserve yourselves against the
lust of the flesh. Take yourselves to the love of
God. And then the example, of course,
of Joseph when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife to commit
uncleanness. You remember the words that he
spoke. How then, how then can I do this
great wickedness and sin against God. Sin against God's everlasting
love. God's special love. How could
I do that? Keep yourselves in the love of
God. And then number two, we should
consider this as our love for God. And we do love Him, right? We don't love Him like we want
to. And I'd say we don't love Him like we should. And we don't
love Him like we're going to. Thank God for that. But we do
love Him. When He asked Peter, Peter Simon,
son of Jonas, loveth thou me? Yea, Lord, thou knowest that
I love thee. And finally He said, thou knowest
all things. Yes, we love Him. But the scriptures,
now listen, keep yourselves in the love of God. The scriptures
do tell us of some people who had left their first love. The church at Ephesus in Revelation. They had left their first love.
Doesn't mean they'd stopped loving Christ, stopped loving God. But
the fervency of their love was cold. They became indifferent. they allowed themselves to grow
cold. It's like a man and his sweetheart,
you know, when he's dating her and before they come together
in marriage, his love is warm and he loves her and he just
wants to be with her. Every opportunity he has, he's
with her. He can't say enough good things
about her. But then, many times after marriage
and love, is not as warm as it was. It begins to grow cold. We began to take one another
for granted. And I'm speaking to all of us
husbands and wives here tonight. The same thing is true about
our love for Christ. Keep yourselves. Think about
it. his great love for you. That
he loved you so much that he gave himself for you. That he suffered all that he
suffered. The thorns, the hands pierced, the feet pierced, the
side opened up. He suffered all that because
he loved you. He loved you. This is one reason that we need
Christian fellowship too. We need each other. There's a
proverb which says, iron sharpeneth iron. So a man sharpens the countenance
of his friends. We need Christian fellowship. Preacher I was talking to yesterday,
he told me, he said, have you heard of these e-churches? I said, e-churches? What in the
world is that? I never had heard of it. He said,
well, it's people now, they actually have churches. They call them
e-churches. People don't ever assemble together. They just stay home and watch
sermon audio. They just stay home and watch
the streaming. And I told him, I said, you know that flies in
the face of over 2,000 years of Christian practice. God's
people are sheep, and sheep is one animal that must live in
a flock. It's still true. If you ever
see a sheep by itself, it's either lost or it's sick, one or the
other. We are sheep and we need each
other. We need Christian fellowship
to stir up and encourage one another in our love for Christ. Now, here's the fourth thing. The last part of verse 21, we
are to continue looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life. We, if you're one of his children
tonight, you have partaken of his mercy in the past, when before
the foundation of the world, he chose you in Christ. You've
been partaker of His mercy in the present, and Jude is speaking
about mercy in the future. Looking for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. In other words, as long as we're in this body,
as long as we're in this world, we need the mercy of God. And thank God the scripture says
His mercies are new every morning. Every morning, every morning
we get up, Lord, I need your mercy today. I needed it yesterday,
but I need it again today. Mercy. And then the last thing
we are, notice this in verses 23 and yes, verse 23 and others,
no verse 22 and 23 and of some, have compassion making a difference,
and others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating
even the garment spotted by the flesh. You notice we read of
some, verse 22, and of some, and then
verse 23, others, some, others. In other words, some believe
this is referring to lost people, and some believe it's referring
to believers who have fallen, not fallen from salvation, but
they're not what they once were. We're to make a difference. We're
to use discretion. That's what he's saying. You
don't deal with everyone the same way. You use the same truth,
the gospel. But some you deal with in a more
gentle way. And others need to hear fire
and damnation. That's what they need to hear. Not everyone. And Jude says, hating even the
garment. spotted by the flesh. We're to
love both, some and others. We're to love them. We're to
show compassion for them, but we're never to love them and
show compassion to them to the extent that we are dragged into
their sin, into that garment spotted. Now, here's the last
thing, and I'll close with this, but a wonderful prospect before
us. Verse 24 and 25. Now to him that is able to keep
you from folly. Able. Is your God able? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
do you serve a God that's able to keep you from burning in that
fiery furnace? Daniel, is your God able to keep
you from the lions eating you? Is your God able? Is your God
able to save you from your sins? He is if he is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's able. Now, unto him who
is able, not only able to save us, but able to keep us, keep
us from falling, and present you faultless before the presence
of his glory with exceeding joy." Think about that. Meditate on
that sometime this week, if you will. We are traveling. We have a prospect before us
of joy, joy, joy, nothing but joy. Everyone there will have
the same joy. Can you imagine that? We have
joy in this life, don't we? But sometimes our joy fades.
Sometimes things happen in our lives and we lose that joy. Maybe we shouldn't, but we do.
But in heaven, when he presents us before his throne, faultless,
he's going to do it with joy. And it is going to be a place
of eternal joy. Eternal. Well, I pray the Lord
would take these words, words of Jude, and use them and help
each one of us to heed these exhortations. Now, we're going
to