I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle of Jude, found right before the book of Revelation. This morning we're going to embark into a study of this wonderful letter. As I've been preparing for what book we would cover next, I found my heart in 1 John, reading that a lot. I found my heart also in 1 Peter. But then I kept coming back to Jude, and I realized it had been about eight years since we have been in this book. and with things that are going on in our culture and our society, things that are rising up in churches, that I think it's very beneficial that we would spend some time here in the next few weeks. But what I want to do this morning as you turn there is I'd like to read all 25 verses just so that we have this in our hearing, but this morning we're going to consider just the first two. The letter to Jude. It says, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace be and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they are in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way, these men also by dreaming defile the flesh and reject authority and revile angelic majesties. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. But these men revile the things which they do not understand, and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them!" For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the era of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah." These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feast, when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves. Clouds without water, carried along by winds. Autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. Wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam. Wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts. They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. that they were saying to you, in the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are doubting. Save others, snatching them out of the fire. And on some, have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. You know, as this epistle closes with those words, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever, those very words are attacked by what Jude is writing about, false teachers who crept in unnoticed. As he says there in verse 12, that they are hidden reefs in your love feast. In other words, they come in and many times you don't know they're there. until they begin to show their ugly head. This letter, as you've noted from our reading of it, is devoted to false teachers or apostates. And Jude, like Jesus, wants to warn us, as he said in Matthew 7.15, to beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. And here, by what Jude is writing, as you note in verse 3, he started out by writing about our common salvation, but he felt it necessary to appeal to the believers to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. Now, why would he do that? Why would he say that? Well, because there are those who have risen up who are attacking that faith that had been handed down. They're attacking the very gospel that we preach. That's going on today as well. There are people on TV that attack the gospel by preaching something that is not in the Bible, by adding to the Bible, by adding revelation, or even standing up and saying, the Lord said to me, and then again propagating something the Lord did not say. You know, and I find it very interesting when that happens because when I look at the Bible and I think, wow, there's a lot here, wouldn't you say? I don't have one of those little skinny Bibles that, you know, it doesn't look like there's much there, but there is a lot here. And the canon has been closed to what God has given to us. And for someone to rise up and say, God said to me, or I have a new revelation, or I have a new gospel. I have one word for that, heresy. Heresy. There is no new gospel. We don't need another gospel. In fact, turn with me to Galatians chapter one and listen to what Paul says for those who are propagating another gospel. He wrote to the Galatians, these believers in Galatia, and he said to them in verse six, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. There is only one true gospel. Only one. There are many religions preaching what they call a gospel, but there is only one gospel. One, not many. And you wonder why we have denominations. We differ in what we believe, but really, even on the gospel, whether we realize that or not. Just like what Pat Robertson did this week, standing up and saying that you can divorce your spouse if they have Alzheimer's, because in his mind, to have Alzheimer's, you're dead. That's what he said this week on the 700 Club. That is the total ignorance of Scripture, ignoring Scripture. It's till death do us part, not, you know, here's this person here, and maybe they're not being able to exercise all their faculties, but they still are a person. Absolutely. Our government wants to take people that are like that and just push them off somewhere and let them die. And yet we believers in Jesus Christ are to uphold the Word of God and we are denying the gospel when we propagate something else. We preach a different gospel. And I know it's easy to get up there and attack the cults because we know that they're preaching a different gospel. And here in this case, you had the Judaizers coming in and saying, you've got to be circumcised in order to be saved. And the Galatians were starting to grab that. And that's why he says in verse 6, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. That's not the gospel Paul preached to them. And he says in verse 7, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But notice this, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be anathema, accursed. And as we have said before, so I say now again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed. Notice the emphasis that he's making here. It's deadly to preach a different gospel. It's deadly for yourself because you're leading people astray. And Jesus said it would be better to put a millstone around a person's neck than to lead believers astray and cast them into the sea. It'd be better that you drown than to preach a different gospel. But it goes on every day. It goes on every day. And I believe that there are believers caught up in some of these movements and some of these churches where the gospel is being denied or changed, that there are those who have heard the true gospel but are still there for one reason or another. Maybe they're there to change things, or maybe they just don't know when to leave. But I think in what we find here in this letter to Jude, He gives us some identifying marks, some characteristics of these false teachers that we can identify. In fact, in that passage that I quoted in Matthew chapter 7, where Jesus says to beware of false prophets, He says right after that, you will know them by their fruits. Now again, some do not manifest it immediately, do they? Go with me to Acts chapter 20. When Paul wrote to the elders at Ephesus, he gave them this warning. First he told them, verse 28, to be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. You need to guard yourself and you need to guard the flock. Why? Verse 29, I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert. Remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. Two ways these false teachers are going to come in, one from the outside and the other from within. And both are deadly. Because people can come in from the outside, have the great appearance of being a Christian, being one of us. and then eventually showing their ugly head. And you listen, it's usually not all at one time. It usually goes in little circles as it circulates through the fellowship. As this person or persons gets along with people in the fellowship, they have dinner together and they go to places together. They begin to earn each other's trust. And then all of a sudden, a little bit at a time, something is shared. You sit there with a little bit of doubt in your mind, well, that doesn't really sound right. But I know this guy and I trust him. And then a little more is shared. And the same as with those who come in the fellowship. They go through the whole process. They get into the church. They sit there. They may sit there for three, four, five years and everything be fine. But all of a sudden, it rises up. Now, I don't know for what reason. that the Lord has allowed me to see and to experience problems and troubles in churches, but I have, and I've seen a lot of trouble for 23, almost 24 years. Our church has experienced trouble, almost to such a point that it put us out of existence, and that's exactly what Satan wants to do, put us out of existence. And Satan attacks when he is threatened. And anytime the Word of God is upheld, and the Word is being preached, and people are being evangelized, he is threatened. He doesn't want that, so he will attack you. He will attack your home. He will attack your spouse. He will attack your children. He'll do everything to silence whoever it is in that home, in that family, that is preaching the gospel. He will do what he can to stop it. I've seen that so many times in my family. to discourage us to such a point to where I just say, guess what, I quit. And I have to tell you, every time I think about that, every time I get discouraged to the point to even consider those words, I keep thinking about what Jesus said to Peter and to the disciples. He said, will you go away too? And then Peter says, we've come to know that you have eternal life. In other words, where can we go? In fact, when I think about giving up, it's not giving up on the Christian life, it's just leaving the preaching ministry, okay? And in fact, sometimes we tend to think that our lives will be better if that happens, and frankly, I'm not so sure that that's the case. Because I know my life in the sense are things that I will say or not hold back no matter where I'm at, whether I'm a preacher or not, because I'm a Christian first, and I believe this book wholeheartedly. I don't always follow it like I want to or should, and nor do you. but I desire with all my heart, with all passion, to obey Christ, to do what He says, to do it exactly the way He says, and not question it, like how our kids do, where they, you tell them not to do something, a few minutes later, they're coming back at you again, then they're doing it again. My kids were doing it to me this morning, my younger ones. And I said, you know, if you say that again, there's gonna be consequences. And then I usually raise the number of spankings. I'm gonna give you 200 spankings. Meaning, please stop. Stop trying to wear me down. I know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing. All you know is you want whatever it is you want, right? But stop. And we're no different. When we get older, we do the same thing. We're told something that we can't do or can't have, and then we just wear that person out till we get it, or we make both of our lives miserable, right? Paul says, among your own selves men will arise. Notice this, it comes out of their mouth, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. We had a direct hit on that verse in our church about two years ago, where people had left our church, and one in particular, we had to remove his ordination. Because of what he was doing, we confronted him in front of an elder of a church that he was attending, and we had to confront that by saying, listen, you are trying to lead people away from this church. You need to stop. About the third time that had been confronted. exactly what it's saying right here, trying to draw away the disciples after them. There are some people in this world that always seem to think that they have to have a following, that it's always about them. Guess what? It's not about me, it's not about you, it's not about us, but it's about Jesus Christ. We follow Him. And we only do what Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ, if that leader is following Christ. And I don't say that, it's just like a little cliche. You know, as we put out, it's like a story I heard one time Swindoll was talking about. He said that there was this camp leader at this camp with all these young kids, middle school age, And he wanted to kind of loosen them up a little bit, so he thought he'd give them something easy. And he says, what is brown, has a bushy tail, climbs trees, hides nuts for the winter? What do you think it is? Okay, you know. The whole class was quiet, which is amazing. But they were all quiet. So he thought, well, he'd ask it again. And he did. And one person in the back raised his hand. He says, well, I think it's a squirrel, but I'll say Jesus Christ. And sometimes that's just the way we deal with everything. And we have to come to the very meat of the issues. That's one of the reasons or primary reasons why we do life application at the end of the message. Let's deal with the meat of what we've just talked about. How does this apply to your life? What are the implications on you? Do something in your life. Did this hurt you? Did this help you? Did this encourage you? Did this discourage you? Did this give you insight to things that are going on in your life? Did this help you in terms of what the Holy Spirit's been doing all week in your life? We have to get to the meat of it. Sometimes I feel that way when kids answer a certain way in class, that they have no different response than that one group. Well, I think it's a squirrel, but I have to say it's Jesus Christ. Because again, we're not willing to be real. And you know the one thing about trouble, the one thing about stuff like this is it makes you real. Because you begin to evaluate what you're hanging on to, what you're holding on to. What is steering your life? Who is steering your life? Are you really committed to this book? Because if you're not, then you're not gonna understand what you're going through or why you're going through it. In fact, in most cases, you run. Now, I'm not saying that we aren't tempted to run. When somebody rises up in a church, they do things or say things, and we go, oh my goodness, what has just happened? You feel like running. I do too. Just take a big swallow and gather myself and say, okay, now we got to address this issue. But isn't that the same way it is with church discipline? I mean, isn't that the crux of the whole matter there? Somebody you see in sin, and the Scripture puts this implication on you, if you see your brother or sister in sin, it's not going to tell the preacher. It's not going to grab the elder board. It's not going to grab anybody else. First, it's you and that person alone. And you confront the sin. Well, it does get a little different when you have a false teacher rise up because you've got an immediate issue that has already spun you to about the fourth step. You don't have an opportunity for a private issue because this person has stood up and spoken something perverse to draw the disciples away. You have to deal with that immediately. Almost so much so to where you have to grab that person and escort them out of the room. Because what they just said and what they just did was so dangerous to the flock that's sitting there. It's not to say that the flock is ignorant and can't get it and can't stand up for themselves, but it's the protection of the flock. Look at who he's talking to. Acts chapter 20, who is he talking to? Look at verse 17, from Miletus he's sent to Ephesus and he called to him the elders of the church. This is not old people in the church, this is the leadership, the elders of the church. And he told them, verse 28, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. One of the responsibilities of all elders is to guard the flock from false teaching. So you might get a little bit out of shape if I come to you and say, listen, you shouldn't be listening to that or watching that because what you're watching or listening to is false teaching. But I'm not gonna leave you right there either. Let's sit down and talk about why this is false teaching. Let's talk about what they're saying. It might not be saying it right then and there on the program you're watching, but this is what they're known for. This is what they propagate. Listen, it amazes me that anybody would follow after Joel Osteen when he sits there on CNN and denies sin. To Larry King. We'll not talk about sin. That's why that church is as big as it is. And that's why many churches are as small as they are when they do talk about sin. And only those that are there are those who want to talk about it and want to do something about it. and don't want to go on denying it. You know, one of the heresies that's propagated through that whole movement is if you speak anything bad or negative, which therefore sin is bad and negative, then that's what's going to come upon your life because your words have power. Just as God said, let there be light, you have the same kind of power that God has by those very words that he has spoken and the words that you speak. And again, what do we say? Heresy. The Bible doesn't say that you have power in your words that you can create like God could create with the power of His words. If that's true, go to every hospital and please empty those hospitals with all these sick people. Please go to the funeral homes and raise these people from the dead. You notice that all of the people that propagate this stuff stay away from those two places. I wish we had the gift. I wish we could walk through there and raise people from the dead. I wish we could walk through there and raise up people that are in sickness, that are on their deathbed, or just sick, period. I wish I could have applied that gift this week in my home. I wish I could have applied it to myself. No, but I, like you, we go down to the local pharmacy and we get the strongest thing we can find, or we go to the doctor and get them to write something stronger for us. And we take vitamin C and we try to do everything we can to eat right and live right. But wouldn't it be nice if we could just walk over to each other and say, be healed. And I don't think you'd fall down and that either. That's the kind of stuff that's permeating the church. Then you have those who want to stop talking about the blood of Christ. Stop talking about Calvary. If you stop talking about that, how can you even engage in the Lord's Supper when Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me? Remembrance of what? If you don't talk about the resurrection, what are we remembering? What are we talking about? If you're not talking about sin, if you're not talking about the cross, what are we talking about? In fact, we're a little tired of our preaching called foolishness, so we change how we preach and we turn it into a talk instead of preaching the Word. Caruso proclaimed the gospel, the euangelion, the good news. We have to herald it, just like the runner. He would run through the streets and go to the king to bring good news. You don't think when he got there to the king, he's going, king, let's have a talk. Hold on, let me catch my breath. Before he even gets there, when he's in earshot of the king, he's telling him the good news. In fact, the king is reading how he's coming and judging his demeanor as to whether he's bringing good or bad news. What we have to share is good news. But we even mess up there. We want to talk about the good news, and rightly so. We want to talk about the benefits of following Christ, rightly so. without talking about the bad news, because the bad news is uncomfortable. We don't want to be rejected. We don't want to be put aside or put out, because we're sharing there at the water fountain, in the break room, how a person needs to see their sin, and we're talking to them about sin. We're talking to them about repentance. Listen, the gospel encompasses that. It's not just saying, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. We need to talk about who Jesus is. We need to talk about what He means by believe. Is it just have some mental facts about Christ in your head and that makes you a Christian? Is it just say Jesus is Lord and that makes you a Christian? Not at all. First Corinthians 12.1, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. We've got to show people that they are hopeless and helpless, and they can't even change their condition. You can't even do anything about your condition. So in that disparity, you fall helplessly before Christ, crying out for His mercy to save you. But you can't do all of that if you don't see your sin. If you don't think that you have sinned or are a sinner, guess what? The number one thing that points out that we're all sinners is death, right? Death, we're all gonna die and we all know it. We just don't know when. And for someone to say, well, I'm not a sinner, the wages of sin is death. Well, as we come to this letter, again, you note in verse 3 that Jude had a purpose in writing, and he wanted to warn those in verse 1 who are the called, the beloved in God the Father, those who are kept in Jesus Christ, he wanted to warn them about this apostasy, about this false gospel that's being proclaimed. He wanted his hearers to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. Heard some time ago that there are three generations in a church. There's the first generation that founds the church, goes through all the headache and the process of starting and planning a church. And then there's a second generation that comes along and they help to fight to maintain what has been established. They're somewhat part of that first generation, but then there's a third generation that comes along that could care less because they weren't part of the first two generations. And I fear that that's, in many cases, where we are when it comes to the gospel because we haven't had to fight for it. We live in a country where it's freely given. And we still can preach it. Yeah, there's pockets of resistance. There's places where people in America are preaching and they're going to jail for that. But that's not the norm yet. We can still preach the gospel. Again, we haven't had to fight for it. We're the third generation. And many times, we could care less. Well, who is this man who is writing this book? Well, his name is Jude. He is the writer. In fact, in Greek, it's literally Judas. But you can understand why the English translators would not put Judas. Who do you think of when you think of Judas? You think of a traitor. In Hebrew, it's Judah. Again, a common name in Palestine. The Greek Name refers in the New Testament about 33 times. Judah occurs in the Old Testament, get this, over 700 times. The name, as Edwin Blum would state, gained added luster from Judas Maccabeus. a national hero of the Jews who led the revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC. But the perfidy, he says, of Judas Iscariot might perhaps have led practically all major English versions except for the revised version to use the form Jude rather than Judas in translating this letter. And I like what Maxwell Coder says, men call their sons Paul or Peter. They call their dogs Nero or Caesar, but the name Judas has been blotted out of our language except as a synonym of apostasy and treachery. I have never met a person named Judas. Have you? Now, I know in the early 70s, you had some of these rock groups naming their kids like one rock group named her son, God. There are actually six men in the New Testament that are referred to by this name, eight of them if you count the Old Testament. You had Judas Iscariot, Matthew 10, 4. He betrayed Christ. He certainly would not be the author of this book, right? Not with what he's writing here. That's what I find even amazing about the Bible. When we struggle with the whole issue of inspiration as to how God used men in penning His Word, we can ask a simple question, would men in their own accord write what you find here? Men is not into condemning himself. Men is in everything to promote himself. Men want the pat on the back or the pat on the back of the head, no matter how big their head gets. They want the pride. They want to boast. That's their nature. But the Bible tells us, 2 Peter 1, it was holy men. holy men, not stained glass men, not men that you find in certain cathedrals, you know, as part of the windows, or those who have cities and cathedrals named after them. These were regular, ordinary men. But they were men that were set apart by Jesus Christ for salvation, for the gospel. They were men that spent time with Jesus, or were associates of the apostles, 40 different authors covering a span of 1,500 years, Sixty-six letters, not one contradicts the other. That's very hard to get two people in the room to keep them from contradicting one another, and yet you've got a period of 1,500 years. You have all these different authors, and they do not contradict one another. It's amazing, isn't it? The second Judas, or Jude, that you had is Judas of Galilee, Acts 5.37. He caused an insurrection. He was executed long before the church began, so we can't say he's the author. Then you had in Acts 9.11, Ananias was told by God to inquire of Saul of Tarsus at his home, that is of Judas' home. He's only mentioned here. There wouldn't really be any reason to ascribe this book to him. And then in Acts 15.22, you had Judas Barsabbas. He's also called Joseph in Acts 1.23. He was a chosen man, according to Acts 15.22. He was a prophet. We had prophets in New Testament times, according to verse 32. He's a good candidate as the writer of this letter, except that there's no mention of him being the brother of James. If you'll notice that in verse 1, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. So that disqualifies him. Then you had the Apostle Judas, not Iscariot. He's also known as Labius Thaddeus. In Luke 6.16 and Acts 1.13, the King James says that he is the brother of James, but the Greek construction says otherwise. The word brother is not in the text and it literally reads Judas of James, which is better understood as the son of James. So that only leaves us one more. Judas, the brother of Jesus, Matthew 13, 55. Best candidate listed here as having a brother named James. James was a prominent leader in the church at Jerusalem, and Jude's readers would immediately recognize him, which would give us why he would even mention in verse 1 his brother. Now, he tells us about his relationship to Jesus Christ. He says there, a bondservant. Now, there's a problem here with that translation. It's the Greek word doulos, doulos. And I want to read from this book by John MacArthur called Slave. Many of you may have this copy now. But one of the things he points out in the first chapter, almost a conspiracy when it comes to this word doulos. He says this, Scripture's prevailing description of the Christian's relationship to Jesus Christ is the slave-master relationship. But do a casual read through your English New Testament and you won't see it. The reason for this, as simple as it is, shocking, the Greek word for slave has been covered up by being mistranslated into almost every English version, going back both to the King James Version and the Geneva Bible that preceded it. Though the word slave appears 124 times in the original text, it's correctly translated only once in the King James Bible. Most of our modern translations do only slightly better. It almost seems like a conspiracy. Instead of translating doulos as slave, these translations consistently substitute the word servant in its place. Ironically, the Greek language has at least a half dozen words that can mean servant. The word doulos is not one of them. Whenever it's used both in the New Testament and in secular Greek literature, it's always and only means a slave. And according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, a foremost authority on the meaning of Greek terms in Scripture, the word doulos is used exclusively, quote, either to describe the status of a slave or an attitude corresponding to that of a slave, end quote. That dictionary continues by saying this. The meaning is so unequivocal and self-contained that it is superfluous to give examples of the individual terms or to trace the history of the group. The emphasis here is always on serving as a slave. Hence, we have a service which is not a matter of choice for the one who renders it. which he has to perform whether he likes it or not because he is subject as a slave to an alien will, to the will of his owner. So the term stresses the slave's dependence on his Lord. And while it's true that the duties of slave and servant may overlap to some degree, there is a key distinction between the two. Get this, servants are hired and slaves are owned. Servants have an element of freedom in choosing whom they work for and what they do. The idea of servanthood maintains some level of self-autonomy and personal rights. Slaves, on the other hand, have no freedom, no autonomy, no rights. In the Greco-Roman world, slaves were considered property to the point that in the eyes of the law, they were regarded as things rather than possessions. To be someone's slave was to be his possession, bound to obey his will without hesitation or argument. Now our country has dealt with the ugly issue of slavery. It is an ugly past. And praise God, it is the past. Right? I find it very interesting that, and I don't want to diminish what he has done, in bringing about this equality into where a person is not judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. But Martin Luther King Jr. did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. I found that very interesting about a couple weeks ago when I was reading a biography by him. that he shocked his Sunday school class at an early age to say that he didn't believe that. And from that point on, he says, doubts continued to arise. And some of the influences in his life were not Christian. Again, I don't want to minimize what he did. He did a great thing, a wonderful thing. And if it wouldn't have been him, it would have been someone else eventually doing that, right? But folks, Even as we come to a letter like this, we come to a place, you know, of examining ourselves and our commitment to the authority of the Word, and our commitment to seeing others surrendering to the authority of the Word itself. And we read statements like in the first verse, identifying that kind of relationship with Christ as being a slave. When you look at When you look at the rest of Scripture and you look at the other writers of Scripture, that's exactly how they viewed themselves. Paul would have been furious to have a city named after him or to have a cathedral named after him. He'd have been furious over that. In fact, the way he looked at himself, 2 Corinthians 4, was as a minister, but in Greek, it is a different word. The word itself means a third-level galley slave on a slave ship, pulling his oars. He was a huperiates, an under-rower. That's the way he viewed himself. And I know he's a great apostle, and I don't want to minimize that either. But He would not want us to name churches after Him, to name cathedrals after Him, to put Him up on this high pedestal so much so that we worship Him. And nor would Jude. And so again, the reason why the writers of Scripture would identify themselves as slaves of Christ is to keep people from doing that, number one. And number two, this is the way they saw their relationship to Jesus Christ. They were bound up in His will. It's not my will, but it's His will. But how do you live every day? Do you live like you're a slave of Jesus Christ, or do you live like you're a hired servant? How do you live your life? Are you the one calling the shots? Most of the time, the answer is yes. I find it even interesting that you see that phrase, Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, when you find out in John 7 and verse 5 that he was an unbeliever prior to Jesus' resurrection. It says in John 7 and 5 that even his brothers did not believe in him. In Mark 3.31, his brothers and his mother came and they were standing outside and they sent for him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting around him and they said, look, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. But he answered them saying, who is my mother or my brothers? And he looked around in a circle at those who sat about him and said, here are my mother and my brothers. And notice this, for whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. We're brothers and sisters of Christ because we desire to do his word. Again, this is how Jude viewed himself, as a slave of Christ, Paul, James, Peter, John, They all viewed themselves the same way. Now, the reason why he tells us that he's the brother of James is probably to add weight and credibility to this letter because of James' position in the early church there at Jerusalem. Also, possibly to eliminate the confusion that had been associated with his name because of the traitor, Judas Iscariot. Now, notice his audience here. He says, to those who are the called. Kletos from kaleo means to call, to be appointed. It's used of the calling of Paul to be an apostle there in Romans chapter one, where it says Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle. It's also used to designate believers in Romans 1.6. He says, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ, called to be saints. Or Romans 8.28, we're called according to his purpose. Now the Bible gives two types of calls. Matthew 11, 28 to 30, that's our Scripture memory verse for this week. Look at it in your bulletin for just a moment. Look at what it says. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That is a general call. That's a call that goes out to everyone. We call everyone to repent. We call everyone to believe in Christ. But yet there is also an effectual call. That's the second call in scripture. And that call results into salvation. All that the Father gives me will come to me. It's not optional. You came to Christ because of the effectual call. You may have heard the general call that went out numerous times, but one of those calls, your heart was pulled at, you responded only because of the Holy Spirit's work in giving you the new birth. And I know that there's a wrestling of what happens when you called and then you're born again, or you're born again and you come. And I would tend to lean toward the idea that you're born again and you come, because you can't come prior to that. You're dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2.1. You're dead, you're a corpse. No matter how much someone kicks or pricks or prods you, you're not going to wake up. You have to have someone more powerful than you, God Himself to wake you up. Ephesians 2.5 says, God made you alive. So God is the one that does that. So he's writing to true believers. He's writing to the elect, these that are beloved in God the Father. You might have sanctified in your text, but the better translation is beloved, beloved in God the Father. It's true that we are sanctified, we are set apart to God. But you'll notice here, by using the word beloved, and even the perfect tense that it occurs in, it suggests that we're not only beloved one time, but we continue to be the objects of God's affection. Listen, if you're struggling with whether God loves you, you're going through some tremendous trials, just think on the truth of that point right there. To know that you are continually the object of God's affection. always the object of His affection. There's nothing that we could do that would ever stop that. Not to say that God would be pleased by our sin. He's grieved by our sin. And it was taken care of at Calvary. Praise God, right? And then, of course, last, he says, kept for Jesus Christ. kept for Jesus Christ. And here, that word tereo, it means to guard, to keep safe, to watch over. It stresses vigil and care. It stresses a real commitment to guard and to keep something, to cherish it as one would a priceless treasure. Over in John chapter 6, It says in verse 39 that this is the will of Him who sent me, Jesus is talking, that all that He has given me I lose nothing, but I will raise Him up at the last day. We're kept, we're preserved. Go with me to 1 Peter 1. This is another verse I love, 1 Peter 1. Look at verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. We've been preserved. We've been kept by Christ. Again, another false doctrine is that you can lose your salvation. I always come at it from a different angle. I say, first of all, if you could lose it, then you had to work for it, so therefore you didn't have it to begin with. I come at it from that angle. I don't come at it from the idea that a person can lose it. I come from the attitude, did he have it to begin with? And yeah, we can demonstrate many times in our life that we're lost. Any time we give into sin, what are we demonstrating? What are we giving into? The old man who has just resurrected? The Bible says in Romans 6, we've got to reckon him as dead. He's dead. The old man died. You say, well, he seems to keep showing his ugly head. Well, that's the remnants of the flesh that you still possess. We still have this body of death that we walk around in. We're still walking around in this corpse. In fact, the Bible tells us that that is what is yet to change. As far as our spirit is concerned, we have been changed. We have been transformed. But then we're gonna put off this lowly body. We're gonna be given a body like unto His, a glorious body. Heard someone say this week that we tend to look at ourselves as a body with a spirit, and really we're spirit with a body. I heard that and I thought, that's pretty good. We are a spirit with a body, because we will never die in that sense of going into annihilation or out of existence. We're either going to reside where? In heaven or hell. You're going to live forever somewhere. It's either in heaven with Christ or in hell, in utter darkness, in your sin. And by the way, Matthew 10 says that you would have a body for hell just as you would have a body for heaven. Horrifying words. Well, verse two, and we'll close right here, notice the greeting that he gives. He says, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Mercy, Elias, pity, compassion is divine pity that expresses itself in help for the needy. It presupposes a need. It presupposes helplessness. What are we? We're very needy, aren't we? We haven't arrived. It's like that hymn says, I need Thee every hour. Oh, I need Thee. We need Him every minute, every second. We owe our breath to Him, our very life to Him. We owe everything to Him. And then He says, peace, and what follows mercy is peace, isn't it? This, in classical Greek, denotes the antithesis of war, or the condition resulting from the cessation of war, when war ends, what do you have? Peace. Romans 5.1, peace with God and with our Lord Jesus Christ. So, mercy and peace. And then he says love. This is that same love that God demonstrates to the sinner, that he loves him unconditionally. He didn't say clean up your act and then I'll save you. He didn't say clean up your act and then I will make you worthy to even have my son die for you. When we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly, right? This is that unconditional love that God shows toward us. It's that same unconditional love that a husband is to have toward his wife, that Christ has toward his church. And there he desires for it to be multiplied or to be increased, to abound. So, beloved, as we get into this letter, I want you to see just how important the gospel is, how important that body of faith is. I'm not talking about just your believing and being faithful. I'm talking about that body of truth that was passed down to us. We are to guard that. We are to fight for that. And my prayer is that you will see that. We have to contend earnestly for the truth because there are false teachers that are teaching the opposite of truth, which is error. There are those who are fighting against the tradition that has been handed down to us, just like you would have a person by the name of Rob Bell who is attacking the doctrine of hell in a book that he had published a few months ago. And here is a person that calls himself an evangelical. You have that kind of stuff going on. And you even have, even like in some years past, a book written by Peter Kreef, who was an apologist for the Catholic Church, who had an endorsement by Chuck Colson. You have that kind of stuff happening too. Is Chuck Colson not a Christian? No, I wouldn't say that. But we can be deceived. Don't just hang on that verse that says that if it were possible even to deceive the elect, that's referring to the end time, referring to that period of tribulation with the Antichrist. You can sit in a place, Alan could tell us, he sat in a church for 15 years, deceived, also lost. God woke him up. God granted him eternal life. From what I understand, one of two things happen. Either I'm going to change the situation that I'm in, the church that I'm around, the people that I'm around, or I'm going to leave. And I think he tried the first before coming to the second. There are those that are sitting in churches this morning deceived. They're sitting in places they shouldn't even be. Now, when I say something like that, does that just give us freedom to just turn on the radio or turn on the TV and just sit there and soak all that heresy in? Let me give you a verse as we close. Now, I promise you I'll close right here. Go to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Look at verse 22. He has just talked about examining everything carefully, holding fast to that which is good, and then he says, abstain from every form of evil. And we tend to interpret that verse in a very generic sense, but you know what it's primary reference to? False teaching. False teaching. We are to abstain from sitting under that. We need to make an impact in this world with the true gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, that truth that has been passed down to us. We are to pass it on. Is this what you're giving your family? Is this what you're discipling others in? because this is what we need to stay committed to. Again, there's going to come a time when there's not going to be a church that people are going to be able to go to where the truth is preached. It's going to be so watered down and so compromised. We have some friends in England, they said they have a very, very, very hard time finding a church that will preach truth. They're all liberal churches. Very hard. That's why, like in China, where you have the state-registered church that has people in it, either they fear for their lives or they're not believers. They're part of all of that system. And on the other hand, you have the undergrounded church. The church that the authorities cannot find that is the true church. And those churches, from my understanding, are growing so much. Because you know what? To be a part of the underground church, you're going to pay, you're going to count the price, aren't you? You're going to count the cost, because the cost in this case is your life. And usually when persecution turns up like that, that's the only way. Many times you can tell who are truly part of the true church. Well, we have a lot to look into, don't we? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank You that we have been given an opportunity to study Your Word. We thank You for that opportunity and we pray, Father, that You would help us to be alert. You would help us to be on the guard against those who seek to propagate heresy, those who seek to bring in damnable heresies that blaspheme your very name, Father, by preaching a different gospel. Help us to see the danger of that. Help us to see the necessity for us to contend once for all for the faith. We pray heavily, Father, that you'll continue to bless our time together. We pray now in Jesus' name. Amen.