Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Jude. You'll be reading the first two verses in this little book of the New Testament. If you're using the Pew Bible, this is found on page 1308. You're now the reading of God's holy and inerrant and life giving word Jude 1 and 2. Jude a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ may mercy peace and love be multiplied to you. Grass withers and the flowers fall and the word of our God abides forever and ever. Let us pray together. Heavenly Father we come now before you gathered as your people with your word open in front of us and we would request your divine aid to help us understand it right that we might be changed for having met here together seated at your word. Would you undertake by your Holy Spirit for me. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable in your sight. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. The letter of Jude has been referred to as one of if not the most neglected book in the New Testament if not the whole Bible. For many Jude may simply be that little obscure book that comes right before revelation for others perhaps Jude is the book that contains if nothing else that wonderful doxology at its close or it's the one with that familiar call for us to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. However Lord willing as I trust that we will see the more we begin to unpack this little book. how relevant and helpful a book it is for Christians living in dangerous times. And that there are likely reasons for the relative obscurity of this little book. For one, it's Such a little book. Its brevity is a reason for some of its neglect and obscurity. Some of it is because of its mistakenly perceived tone of doom and gloom. There's a lot of polemical attacks in this little book. For others, it's reasons of its obscurity, the references that it contains to, and the usage of obscure Jewish non-canonical literature that's just unfamiliar to us. Another of the reasons for the neglect of this book, however, is the unique relationship that this book has to another book of the New Testament, the book of 2 Peter. In fact, a large portion of the verses in Jude, 15 of Jude's 25 verses, bear a striking similarity to verses in the second chapter of 2 Peter. And scholars have long noted the similarity between the content of Jude and the content of 2 Peter 2, There are really three possibilities for the reason for this, and there are good arguments to be made for these three different possibilities. One is that Jude was using 2 Peter as he wrote his little book. The other is that Peter was using Jude as he wrote his book. Or thirdly, they were both relying on an already existing oral or written source that they were adapting for their own purposes. The vast majority of scholars at this point virtually all agree with really very few exceptions that Jude was written first and Peter then was adapting the material in the book of Jude for his own purposes where he would leave some things out, add other things according to his purposes. However, This is one of those areas where we need to exercise some intellectual humility. Much ink has been spilled over this. Here's how one scholar puts it, the very fact that arguments either way appear to their maintainers to be of equal cogency seems to show that on traditional lines we shall never reach a conclusion. And the parallels between Jude's material and the material in 2 Peter, while they are obvious once you notice them, and in places they are quite close, They are never exact in their language. And so it's probably best to conclude in the manner in which Paul Gardner puts it, it is impossible to be absolutely certain who actually wrote first. And fortunately for readers of Jude and second Peter, whoever wrote first doesn't really have an impact on the meaning and application of each individual book. Jude wrote for a particular purpose in a particular context and so did Peter. The particular issue though between the two is also related to the idea or the timing of when Jude was written because we know that Peter died in the mid to late sixties. If Jude was using Peter's material, the book could have been written anytime probably from the mid to late forties all the way into the eighties of the first century. However, if Peter was using Jude's material, that puts the book of Jude at a much earlier date, where Jude must necessarily have been written prior to the mid-60s in the first century AD. And in any event there is abundant testimony to the early date of Jude's writing and and really its early inclusion in the New Testament canon and its acceptance in the canon of the New Testament. One church father Clement of Alexandria wrote a commentary very early on the book of Jude. Another church father, Origen, commented that this book was holy scripture, and in another commentary wrote that Jude wrote a letter of few lines, it is true, but filled with the powerful words of heavenly grace. So the book of Jude had a wide circulation quite early, and really the questions of Jude's canonicity only arose at a later date over the issue of Jude's use of some of the non-canonical literature, which we will look at when we arrive at those parts of the letter. The genre of Jude would probably best be described as a letter, but it's a letter more in the form of a sermon. In fact, some would call it an epistolary sermon. Letters didn't normally end with a soaring doxology at their close. And the form of Jude, furthermore, is very similar to an early Jewish Christian form of biblical exposition. So as now we look at verses 1 and 2 in this little letter of Jude, we need to recognize that Greek letters from this time period, Greek letters such as Jude, would normally open with the standard formula, such as we see here, from person X to people Y. But this is not simply a standard letter. This is much more than a standard opening. simply meant to get the formalities out of the way. There is much to be gleaned as we look at the details of the introduction to the book of Jude. One of the best pieces of advice I received from one of my seminary professors was that we ought not to skim over these openings and closings and greetings of the New Testament letters because there is much glory to be gained within. The Holy Spirit has inspired these opening lines no less than the substance of the book itself. And so the first detail we want to examine from our text is the author himself. Who is Jude? The book begins, as I said, with a standard opening format, identifying the one writing and Jude identifies himself with two separate descriptors. And the way we identify Jude is by the second descriptor that he uses as the brother of James. The way Jude refers to his brother is such that he is assuming that his readers will immediately recognize the one to whom he refers. This is James on a first name basis if you will. This is James the author of the New Testament book by the same name. that influential leader of the early church that we read about in the book of Acts in Jerusalem, the one who played such a prominent role in that first church council meeting in Acts chapter 15. And Jude's Jewish Christian readers were meant to recognize this reference without any elaboration. James, I know exactly who he's talking about. Oh, this is his brother. Richard Bauckham puts it like this. Only one early Christian leader was commonly called simply James without the need for further identification and only one pair of brothers called James and Judas are known from the New Testament. Jude therefore uses this phrase to identify himself by reference to his more famous brother. So one of the things we see right off the bat in this greeting of Jude is the humility with which he introduces himself by aligning himself with his more famous brother. And this humility of Jude becomes even more apparent when we understand that James and Jude had another even more well-known brother. They were the brothers of the Lord Jesus. And this would become this, this term, the brothers of the Lord would become a very important term in the early church. We even see it used in the new Testament. Richard Bauckham writes again, their blood relationship to Jesus put them in a special category in the eyes of the first Christians. And they preferred a title for them, which indicated this special category, the special indeed. And yet Jude does not identify himself by this special category. The description alone in that description that he does not use for himself tells us a great deal about Jude the man. He doesn't do what you and I would surely do what the early church would do for them by designating them as the brothers of the Lord rightly so. Instead Jude simply calls himself a servant of Jesus Christ. The word there, you may have a footnote in your English translation, is perhaps better translated as a bond servant, the Greek word doulos, a slave of Jesus Christ. Here is the blood brother of the Lord Jesus himself calling himself a slave. of the Lord Jesus. This confession of humility as J.D. Charles writes, remarkable for someone who was a skeptic before the resurrection, illustrates the nature of paradox inherent to the Christian faith. Servanthood brings freedom. Abandonment yields blessing. Humble submission grants authority. This is how Jude would have us know who he is. This is how he knew himself to be. This is his preferred designation, if you will. Norman Hillier says this, Jude has come to realize that the greatest distinction that anyone can achieve in life comes about through always being at the complete disposal of the Lord Jesus Christ. This brief little letter in and of itself displays, as we'll see as we move on, a rhetorical brilliance and a mastery of Greek vocabulary, and more important for our purposes, a theological depth and a pastoral zeal and a Christian faithfulness and worship from someone who was not all that long before an unbeliever and a skeptic. Just the existence of this letter in the form that we have it in our Bible is an amazing testimony to what God can do with a life wholly dedicated to him. I am not my own. You, believer, are not your own. You are bought with a price. And Jude's polemic that we're going to get into, and a polemic it is against sensuality and human autonomy and lawlessness, it's going to be quite aggressive. Jude's polemic can only be properly sourced in the fact that you and I and his readers and himself have been redeemed, bought with a price, purchased by God for his service and use in this life. Michael Green puts it this way what a change from the days before the resurrection when his brothers did not believe him but thought him deranged. Now that he had become a believer Jude's aim in life was to be utterly at the disposal of the Messiah Jesus. This is not a dour unwilling service to the Lord either. This is not Slavery in the sense you and I might think of such a concept. This is a willing and a glad and an eager ownership and service to a master. Here's how Spurgeon puts it. They were not servants that could come and go at their pleasure, but they were bondservants of Jesus Christ. Though there were no free men on earth more truly free than they, yet these servants of Jesus Christ delighted in wearing chains of love which were soft as silk, yet stronger than steel. They rejoiced to feel that they had no liberty to run away from Christ. Their desire was to have their ear bored to the doorpost of his house, to be his servants through their whole lifetime and throughout eternity. This is who Jude is, a man writing with humility. Another element that we see in this introduction of Jude is the authority with which he writes. Calling himself a servant of Jesus Christ, this is not unfamiliar language to the readers of Jude's letter. This was a description that was used in the Old Testament at times as well. This would be a designation in the Old Testament for key leaders. It was used of Moses, it was used of Joshua, it was used of David. Ultimately it would be used to look forward to Jesus himself, the servant of the Lord in Isaiah. It was used in the Old Testament for those who were in roles of influence and leadership in their service to God. In the New Testament even, it's used by Paul and others, Jude included, as one of their humble and quiet ways that they designate their representative authority under the Lord Jesus. Here's what JND Kelly says. As a self designation, the title has a special significance. It connotes one who is charged to labor in Christ's service, his authorized minister and representative. Well, this is Jude, a man writing with both authority and astounding humility as a servant of the Lord. The second feature of this introduction to Jude we want to examine this evening is Jude's audience. We've seen the author Now we will look at Jude's audience. We don't have enough information from external sources to determine the exact nature of Jude's audience as far as location or things like that. And Jude, unlike Paul and many of his letters who tells us exactly to whom he is writing, Jude does not explicitly address a specific church or region of churches. However, more importantly for us, the recipients of Jude's letters are described for us in the second half of verse one in a more general sense. Now the occasion for Jude's writing, as we're going to see in the next passage and moving forward, is the presence of false teachers, particularly their antinomianism. But before he gets to this rather shock and awe approach of dealing with these folks, he wants to establish his readers. in understanding who they are, that they might know who they are. In fact, throughout this entire letter, there's going to be a distinction that we need to notice that Jude keeps making between the people he is addressing in the letter. You beloved you and these that he refers to on the outside. These are those who were prophesied beforehand and so on and so forth. The first description of Jude's readers is that they are those who are called. The root for this term, again, goes back into the Old Testament and would be a concept not unfamiliar to Jude's readers. It emphasized God as the initiator who called his very people into being going all the way back to the very call of Abraham. God called a people to himself to be his people. So what does it mean that Jude's readers are those who have been called? This is a word and frankly a biblical concept that is largely misunderstood by a vast swath of the evangelical world. If you've ever had the sometimes frustrating experience of trying to train a puppy, you are well aware of the ineffectual nature of your calling to them at times. You can call until you're blue in the face and you may very well often more often than not be greeted with a blank stare or even a turn in the opposite direction. Many people understand God and his call to be something of that nature is one who who invites and perhaps coaxes but will not and cannot compel us does not compel us to come. That is not what Jude means. That is not what the Bible means when it refers to God's people as being those who have been called. No, this call is effectual. To be one who is called is to be one whose heart has been pierced and captured by the gospel. Like that wonderful reference that we heard preached a Lord's Day past from Hosea chapter 11, when we understand the effectual call of God to be like that of a roar of a lion. Hosea 11.10, when he roars, his children shall come. When the divine lion roars, his children cannot but come. The gospel call is effectual. Douglas Moo puts it this way, this word reflects the New Testament conviction that being a Christian is a product of God's gracious reaching out to bring helpless sinners into a relationship with himself. So for Jude, the focus is not so much on the believer being the one who responds to the call, But on the God who sovereignly calls believers, Paul Gardner puts it this way, underlying the whole letter is Jude's great commitment to the sovereignty of God. The reader of Jude is never meant to think of himself as having somehow in any way contributed to his own salvation because of his response to the gospel. We are not the ones who chose God. But we are the ones who have been chosen and called by God and thus could not but respond to God's irresistible call to those who are called. I love the way the late Keith Green put it so wonderfully. I tried but could not refuse. You gave me no time to choose. You put this love in my heart. The second descriptor Jude gives for his audience is that they are those who are beloved in God the Father. Here is the background and the bedrock underneath the calling of God for his people. Why did God effectually, irresistibly call each and every believer? Not because of any sort of perceived merit or worth on their part. Because of God's love That is why we have been called, as Paul put it, in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, Ephesians 1.5. And the word here for those who are beloved in God the Father is a Greek form called a perfect participle. It's a Greek construction that really cannot be conveyed by a single English verb tense. It takes a sentence to define what this really means. It means something that happened in the past that has continuing and ongoing results. God hasn't merely loved you at some point in the distant past. He's writing to readers and he wants them to know that not only has God loved them in distant past, they are currently in a state of being loved by God the Father. Relationship to the call of God, this is sort of like the hymn writer marveling at his being included at that great feast of grace. Why was I a guest? Why was I made to hear your voice and enter while there's room when thousands make a wretched choice and would rather starve than come? It was the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in. It is the love of God that stands behind and underneath and all throughout his sovereign choice and effectual call of every believer in the Lord Jesus. Now interestingly, Jude's readers are said to be beloved in God the Father. It's a rather unique way of stating the love of God the Father for his people. Now what this means, as J.N.D. Kelly very helpfully puts it, that they are loved by God and that his love enfolds them. As a result of being called, they have fellowship with him and in that fellowship experience his love. In other words, the love of God is not something, is something rather, in which we are. Not something merely directed toward us, but enfolding us. In troubling times in life, in dark times, when we are all too well tempted to give in to the self-pitying suspicion that nobody loves me. Jude would have us remember right off the bat that we are beloved in God the Father. Peter David puts it this way, perhaps this could be depicted by a child picked up into his father's arms and experiencing the father's love while he or she remains there. This is like an ocean of love in which we swim. the bottom of which we cannot reach. This is a love that had no beginning, continuing now and will never have an end, evermore, never ending, always present and folded in the love of God, swaddled like a little baby, if you will, in the love of God the Father. That is you. That is the reader of Jude's epistle. That is me. Thirdly, he describes his audience as those who are kept for Jesus Christ. We have been called because we have been beloved in God the Father. We are currently being loved, but how can we ever hope to make it to the end? The answer is that God is the one who is protecting, guarding, keeping, preserving his called and beloved people. We may have a lot to worry about, but this is not one of those things. God will keep his people. The very word itself, something being kept, implies sort of an ongoing idea. Something is currently kept. It's a state of things. Something being kept safe, if you will. Something being kept special. But again, here the very form in which this word appears is another Greek perfect participle. It's a powerful word when we understand the ins and outs of this. And not only were they once objects of God's love and preserving care, but they do and they will continue to be the objects of his love and of his keeping. The idea of those who are kept for Jesus Christ is both present then and ultimately future oriented. We are being kept for Jesus Christ. Being kept here is described then with reference to the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Douglas Moo writes this, being kept for Jesus Christ means that God throughout this life exercises his power on behalf of Christians to preserve them spiritually intact until the coming of Jesus Christ in glory. The word here is in a passive form as well implies that we are not the ones doing the keeping at all is God who is the one who is the keeper of his people. Jesus said in John chapter 6 verse 39, this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day. In John chapter 10 verses 27 through 29, Jesus said again, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. Lord Jesus in that great high priestly prayer and John chapter 17 would pray to this and holy father keep them in your name. Now the way Jude constructs the second half of verse one in the Greek is a bit awkward to put into English. So we have what most of our English translations say is sort of a list of three things, called, beloved, and kept. It would be a bit awkward to translate it literally into English, so we translate it as a series of three things like that. But in reality, what Jude is doing is is sandwiching all of these things into one nourishing, rich statement. If you were to read this literally, it would sound something like this. To those who are the beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ called ones. It's a whole package deal this little statement that Jude gives us. And sometimes to use a cooking analogy to really appreciate a fine meal it pays to go back into the kitchen and examine the individual ingredients and really see what they're all about. But only so that we can then more fully enjoy the prepared dish at the end. That's what Jude wants for us. He wants us he intends for his readers to be nourished by these grand truths put together for their good. that they might know who they are in Christ. This is our whole identity. Before we get to contending for the faith, before we get to the warnings of the dangers of the false teachers doomed, this is the foundation for the identity of the believer. It reaches back into eternity. into the very heart of love in the Father. It looks forward all the way to the eternal glory for which we are currently now being preserved and will be. Here is that which lies beneath any call to Christian faithfulness or obedience and a call to those things there will be in the book of Jude. But the gospel is what's underneath it all. In fact, these opening lines and the closing doxology form what is known as an inclusio, another sort of sandwiching in of truths, as a reminder to these saints that God is able to preserve them. Their inheritance is being kept and will be kept. It is secure. This gives us a timeline perspective on what is an altogether brief life for us in this world. The past fact that we have been loved and called and that we are currently being loved and will be, and then that future orientation, whatever our future holds, we are being kept for that day. And it's also language with a biblical timeline. Jude, again, is reminding his Jewish Christian readers with his use of the called, loved, and kept language of their connection with and to the ancient people of God. Again, this language goes back to describe God calling a people, and it also finds its reference in the Old Testament in the servant songs of Isaiah. Language of those who were called and beloved and kept which are which is pointing forward to in the case of Isaiah to the Lord Jesus himself and we who are in him as the eschatological people of God. What do I mean by that. This is Old Testament language ultimately describing the people to whom and for whom and in whom all of the promises of God are being fulfilled. The recipients of this letter, those who are called Beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ are the recipients of the eternal covenantal love and the election and calling and those who are being kept for the glory of eternity in Christ Jesus, the people of the promises of God. So before we don any of our battle gear in the war that Jude is going to wage against false teaching and lawlessness in the war against our own flesh and against the devil and against the world in times of trouble and uncertainty we must not look to ourselves and our circumstances but we must look to who we are in Christ. What God has done for us what he's doing in us what he is continuing to do and what he will do until that day. So lastly, then, we'll look at the third feature of Jude's introduction and appeal. We've seen an author and his audience, and now we'll look at his appeal. Jude concludes his introduction to this letter with another standard sort of inclusion in an ancient letter such as this. Part of the greeting of an ancient letter would include well-wishings such as this. But in the New Testament letters, that ordinarily standard form of greeting would take on a much more important role. This would be known as sort of a confident prayer wish, if you will. This is what I'm asking the Lord for you and I am confident that he will grant it for you, is what Jude is saying here. The first thing Jude confidently wishes for in this prayer is mercy. The mercy of the Lord in the Old Testament would be that that steadfast covenant love of the Lord and in the New Testament it's used primarily as it fleshes that idea out of the saving mercy of God in Christ Jesus. And it looks forward to the culmination of that mercy at the last day of judgment. We will receive mercy from him. The peace that Jude confidently asked for for God's people is that that reconciliation with God the one with whom formerly we were at war but now we are at peace with him. And then furthermore for Jude's particularly his Jewish Old Testament readers would understand this as a much more holistic concept the Hebrew concept of Shalom. the holistic idea of wellness and flourishing. Matthew Harmon writes this, in the Old Testament, peace communicated the state of wholeness and completeness that would result when God consummated his promises. Thirdly, Jude wishes very confidently that the readers would have love multiplied to them. We've received mercy and we know peace with God. And it is to the great blessing of every believer to experience more and more a sense of the love of God. And more than likely, since he's already talked about the love of God, this also has in focus a growing love for others that is an overflow of our own personal experience of God's love for us in our own hearts. And once again, it is all three together. that the reader is meant to take heart in. Here's what Michael Green says. Mercy from God, peace within, love for men, all in fullest measure. Could one imagine a more comprehensive prayer of Christian greeting? He says, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. In fact, normally these greetings wouldn't even contain an actual verb. In the original language, it would just say grace to you. But here Jude explicitly uses a verb which intensifies the meaning here in and of itself. Moreover, the actual verb he uses really intensifies the meaning of this wish prayer. This is the thrice blessing then multiplied. The picture would be that of an exponentially growing blessing. The provision of these graces in the lives of these saints that it would they would abundantly overflow on an exponential level in their lives. These are saints who as we will see are in much need in their state of what will be seen as clear and present danger from without and from within. And again the way this verb is written is in the passive form indicating that God is the one who will do the multiplying. God is the one who will provide these graces in their lives and then multiply them. Are not these the great needs in our life? To experience mercy. To know the mercy, the saving mercy of God in Christ. To know peace with God and that well-being and flourishing that comes from knowing that we are at peace with the Almighty. And to know the love of God that we might love others all the more. These are things every human soul deeply longs for. And these are things that God will multiply for his people. There's two implications by the idea that Jude asked for these things to be multiplied. One is that they are already in possession of them to some extent. You can't multiply something that's not already there. They have already experienced mercy and peace and love. This is true of you. This is true of me and every believer. Remember, that you have experienced the saving mercy of God undeserved forever. You have peace with him. You know love from him and thus you have shown love to others as a result. You have this now. And secondly the implication is that you need more of it. You are in need of more and more multiplication of these graces. We ought never to be content to remain where we are in our Christian experience. In other words, our Christian experience of knowing and realizing the mercy and love of God and his preserving care and peace with him and our understanding of the depths of the mercy that we have received. This is not something that we merely check off like a box. Moving on from, this is the ocean in which we swim and these things need to be multiplied. They are the foundation from which our Christian lives are being built up. Well, although Jude opens his letter in a form that is somewhat standard to letters of that day, he does so in a way that is so much more than standard. Jude, this humble and, as we will see, zealous and earnest and eager servant of the Lord, wants his readers desperately to know where their hope is found so that they will be able to live accordingly. How could a man such as Jude make such grand and majestic assumptions about these readers? How could a man such as Jude make such a bold appeal as this with such confidence in God? It was because Jude was a man who knew himself to be writing as one who had been called. Jude was one who had been called knew himself to be beloved in the father and knew himself to be one who was being kept by Jesus and for Jesus. I've mentioned briefly earlier this evening Jude's former unbelief in the Lord Jesus. We read this explicitly in John chapter 7 verse 5 where we read not even his brothers believed in him. One thing this shows us a sobering thing this shows us is that merely being in the presence of Jesus is not sufficient. Sitting in a Christian worship service does not a Christian one make. This is particularly poignant I think for those who have grown up in a church. Being seated next to your family in church does not mean that you are a true worshipper of the Lord. J.C. Ryle puts it this way about Jude and his brothers. Seeing Christ's miracles, hearing Christ's teaching, living in Christ's own company were not enough to make men believers. The mere possession of spiritual privileges never yet made anyone a Christian. But Jude did know the Lord. Here was one who formerly had not believed, but now had come to know. In fact, in Acts chapter one, we find the brothers of Jesus gathered with the apostles in the upper room waiting for the promised Holy Spirit. Jude would go from an unbeliever and a scoffer to one who would play a vital role in the early church, one who would write a letter. Even for our sakes, nearly two millennia later, And here, in the way Jude describes each and every believer, this is the view Jude had of his own faith. It was by grace he had been saved through faith. It was not of himself. It was the gift of God. He could not boast. Jude knew that he was not the one responsible for his own standing and remaining in the faith, for his being called, for his being beloved in the Father, for his being kept. for that great day. He knew that he was not the one who could ultimately and effectually accomplish his own preservation. He was not even the one who could have initiated his own belief. Jude remembered that he was a scoffer who had been rescued from a future destruction. He was one who had been called effectually from darkness into light. by the one that he now has dedicated his entire existence to serving. The one to whom he now points his readers as the one they must look to, not only in obedience, but to him who would be the one who would keep them, the one who would be faithful in keeping them until the very end. My friend, if you are here this evening and you have not yet come to know the Savior Jude, would invite you. The Lord Jesus, through the words of Jude, would invite you to come and believe. And this Savior who calls sinners out of darkness, who has loved his people from eternity past, who will guard, keep, and preserve you for all eternity, can be yours. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. If you are here this evening and you do know the Lord Jesus, It is because although you were once lost, you have been found. If you love him, it is because he first loved you. And although we're going to be told later in the book that we are to keep ourselves to follow Jesus as our master and Lord, and we, his servants, we are to do this knowing all the while he is the one who is keeping us secure until that great day when you will see him face to face. Charles Spurgeon described this realization and experience of the Christian like this. Those who are the beloved of the Lord are called. They have heard a voice which worldlings have not heard. They have seen a face which the blind men of this world have never seen. They have touched a hand and a mystic hand has touched them which those dead ones who still lie in the wicked one have never felt. They are the called by Christ to come out from among the ungodly, to be separate from them, to follow him and to keep following him till at last he bids them enter his glory to be with him forever and ever. Amen. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the little book of Jude. Would you bless its contents to our souls as we study it? We thank you for your word and its effectual nature. We ask your blessing upon it in Jesus name. Amen.