All right, well why don't we get started? We're gonna be in Jude and we're gonna be in verses 14 and 15. 14 and 15, but we're gonna read verses 14 through 16 just to see the full context. So it reads here in verse 14, and Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lust, And their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage." Alright, so here is a little turn in the text. Still, Jude is describing characteristics of these false teachers, but now he's going into a prophecy. And so what we're going to see now in our larger context of false teachers is a confirming prophecy. That's what we're going to be talking about today, getting into a confirming prophecy. And this is speaking for verses 14 and 15. Of course, verse 16 is more like a conclusion. But we have here a confirming prophecy. Well, before we get into the details of the actual words, we need to talk about this prophecy itself. We know that there are various books out there that are false writings, and one of those is the book of Enoch. And we've talked about this a little bit in our introduction to Jude, even when we were crossing over the issue of Michael and Satan and talk about the assumption of Moses. Here we are discussing the book of Enoch. How many of you have read the book of Enoch? I have. I actually have. Actually, I guess, if I remember, I was doing a paper on it or something. But I did read some of it, and it is interesting. So when we read through this, it brings our memories back to what we talked about in verse 9 with the assumption of Moses. We call these books false writings. There's a fancy word, pseudepigrapha, but basically it's false writings. The Book of Enoch is one of those. The meaning of a false writing is that they hijack the name of a Bible character and they write a book that will attempt to sound like scripture and then saying that it was spoken and written by that Bible character. So that's the nature of a pseudepigraphic book. The allegation is that Jude quoted the book of Enoch in his epistle. That's the allegation, which then would give credit to that false writing as being part of the canon of scripture. When it is clear from history and from the institutions of the Old Testament and New Testament That this false book has never been rendered as being part of the inspired words of God. It's not in your Bible. It's not there. It's not in the 1611. It's not there. It's never been received as part of the inspired words of God. It is said that the Book of Enoch was discovered in the 2nd century. That's kind of the word that's out there, which would indicate that probably a false writer took the words in Jude's epistle and concocted an entire false book under the name of Enoch, which is why I believe this happened. If you ever read the Book of Enoch, you will notice a lot of fantasy. a lot of building upon things that are unfounded in the words of scripture. For instance, it plays off the idea that the sons of God in Genesis 6 were the fallen angels, and it goes through all sorts of fantastical ideas about angels and their relationships with mankind, things which are highly unknown in many different ways. Though this false writing may attempt to sound like the words of the Bible, there are several parts and characteristics about it that would tell us that it does not really sound like the inspired books of the Bible. It reads like a mock-off version of the books of the Bible, with a flair for theatrical fantasy. It's very certain that God's people did not receive this book into the canon of scripture. God's people, as being ruled by the Holy Ghost, ruled out its contents as being not inspired by God. So we don't receive the Book of Enoch as being inspired by God. It's kind of like the Book of Mormon. It tries to sound like scripture, but it's not scripture. And that's where the deception is. So that's a little word on the Book of Enoch. Now the prophecy itself in the Book of Enoch, you can find it almost in the very beginning of the book, chapter 1 verse 9. The supposed story is that an angel interpreted a vision, and this is coming from the book of Enoch, that an angel interpreted a vision that Enoch had and announced this future judgment of God. That's the story as it comes from the book of Enoch. These words of Enoch found in Jude are nowhere found throughout scripture. We know that Enoch was a real person. He did live in an era and time when the world was full of falsehood, full of wrong, full of irreverence towards God. It was a very bad world. There's no doubt that he was a preacher and a prophet in his time on earth. But the major question is, how did Jude get a hold of the prophecy of Enoch, the very words, When there is no record in Genesis or the rest of Scripture that he spoke these words, how does he know that Enoch said these words? Well, there's some ideas that we can throw out there. Some believe that Jude wrote Enoch's prophecy as from the testimony of the Holy Ghost. Jude being under the inspiration of God. I believe this is the most viable option and explanation for how Jude knew Enoch's exact words that he was writing under the inspiration of God. Case closed. Case closed for all these books that have been written in the New Testament. They were writing as guided by the Holy Ghost. That's what Jesus said would happen. The other option is others believe that perhaps Jesus spoke about Enoch and also spoke about his prophecies to his disciples, and then those disciples passed down that knowledge. This could be, but again, there's no verifiable record of that ever happening. So we can't dogmatically say that's true. We don't have record of that happening. We do have record that the Holy Spirit did use these apostles to write down the New Testament. It's what the Bible says happened. Then the third option is that it was tradition passed down through the ages from coming as traditional prophecies that surrounded the name Enoch. Of course, this could be possible, except that it was a very long time ago. I'm talking about pre-flood. So it's a long time ago, and it would be only possible unless those traditions were an act of God to preserve them. The promise that we have is that God would preserve his words, not traditions. So I don't know. That's just those options. I tend to go with the first one, where Jude was writing under inspiration of God. And case closed. We see that in scripture. It's sound with doctrine. So that would be the case there. Nevertheless, it is the truth that these words being in Jude's epistles, they are for sure now part of the inspired words of God. So we have them now in scripture. They are inspired as being part of the book of Jude, which is part of the canon of scripture received by the churches. So that's a little word about the Book of Enoch, the controversy over that, and the whole thing that people really – that's just a little synopsis. I'm sure there's all kinds of huge discussions on these books that are out there, and we're not going to get into that. That's not our point here. Our point is to understand kind of where we stand on this, but we don't want to miss the message that's here. Okay? Another thing that we see here is the antiquity of Enoch's prophecy. Here, Jude was hearkening to a point in time when Enoch spoke specific words that matched the very people who lived in his own day and who were destined to meet the same kind of judgment. Enoch spoke in a day before the flood. And in that day, Enoch spoke of a coming day when the Lord would judge the world of sinners and the ungodly. Enoch's message was a warning to his own generation. that they should take heed because God was to be the judge of their ungodly ways and would administer severe judgment for them. And he did. We know that he did. So Enoch was definitely a prophet during that time, a preacher during that time, just like Noah was during that time. And people should have listened. One of Jude's point is that what he was saying about false teachers in his day was nothing new. So what he's saying here, this is nothing new. This has been spoken before. So I'm not bringing something to you that is new knowledge. This is old knowledge. There was a sense of antiquity to his words. Jude's mention and quotation of Enoch would provide authentication and solidity to his words and message. It would say that others who had the authority of God had been saying these things for a long time now. Jude could look at Enoch's prophecy as confirmation and verification to what he has been writing up to this point. Jude made some very strong points in all the previous verses. Very strong points. And we've been going through this. It's very strong points. He's saying some very strong things about false teachers, about people in his day. And you don't just say those things unless you're sure about it and you really mean it. So he's giving himself some backing. Those strong points needed some support and confirmation by going back to an old prophecy by a respected prophet of God and would confirm several general points about false teachers and their characters. So I have three points here that we can see just from this idea that this is an old thing, that this is not new knowledge. It's old. So what do we see here? First of all, this is an age-old problem. The idea of false teachers and false doctrine, ever since the beginning, Satan coming in and giving his false doctrine about God. This is an age-old problem. It was obviously a problem back in Enoch's day. There were tons of rebels and straight-up defiant people towards God. They needed to be warned of what kind of end would come to them if they continued in that way. So this problem is nothing new. It's nothing novel, nothing of any surprise. We should not be surprised that there are false teachers in our day. There have been for a very, very, very long time. No surprise. So there should be no dramatization of this fact. It just is. There is no special turn of knowledge about this. We should not be so surprised. There is no time to make a big moment of surprise and commotion about it. It's just time to settle down and contend for the faith. The presence and upheavals of false teachers and false doctrine is a normal thing in our day. So long as we live in this sinful world, so long as we live in a deceived world with falsehoods guided by the prince of darkness, the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, so long as we live in this condition as a world, we're going to have false teachings, false doctrine, false teachers out there. You're going to have apostates. You're going to have rebels out there. No surprise. No shocker. So this is an age-old problem. As it was a problem back then, it's a problem today. Secondly, there were some back then, there will be more. We are to expect more. Now this is the message of 2 Peter 2.1, so we just want to quickly go back there. 2 Peter 2.1 makes this point. says, but there were, see that were, there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. See that? There were false prophets back then, there shall be false teachers among you. That's exactly what I'm saying, okay? That's what we're seeing here. You had some back then, there are gonna be some today, and there's gonna be more as time goes on. There were false prophets back then. There will be many false teachers in our time. More will come as times go on before Jesus comes back. They will continue arise and to be. Therefore, we are called to combat the rise and power of these falsehoods. We are called to contend for the Christian faith. We are called to be more and more vigilant as the days grow worse and worse. We have to be. Especially with all the internet now, it's gone wild. It's like English ivy, worse. Or morning glory, worse. It just grows all over the place. You cut it down, it keeps growing back. More. It's like that tree up there by the court. Cut it down, grows back worse. That's the way false teaching is. And there's going to be more, and we need to be more vigilant as the times grow worse. Thirdly, all of them will end the same way. God's severe judgment. Just a common note here. The people in Enoch's day ended in the worldwide flood. And to this day, they burn in hell. The same will happen with present day false teachers and apostates. God's judgment shall come. This is part of the message that Jude is relaying. And we actually see it in our parallel passage, so going back to 2 Peter 2, we see in verse 3, that same message that's being said there. 2nd Peter 2.3 says, "...and through covetousness shall they with vain words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." So lingereth not, slumbereth not. It's coming. It's coming for them. It's to warn us, but it's also to comfort us. It's to warn us of the dangers and detriment of false teachers and their teaching. And it's to comfort those of us who get wearied with the ongoing fight against falsehood and its damaging effects we see. It's to help us be comforted to know that there's an end to this. It's to tell us that these false men are not in a good condition spiritually. They will not have a good ending. No happily ever after for them. So tell us that their ending is coming. The time is short. The darkness of false doctrines is pining away. We can be assured of this, that God's justice shall suddenly unleash itself upon the growing and multiplying falsities permeating the world we have today. This is just the truth. So first of all, it's an age-old problem. We're going to expect more. Third, they all will end the same way. God's severe judgment. These are truths that we see just from the sense of the antiquity of Enoch's prophecy here. It's to help us be aligned with the truth and to help us be assured that this is all good for us. This is to help us be encouraged that there's going to be an end to this, but it's also to help us be more vigilant with what we're encountering in our day. Say, well, it was worse back then. No, no, no. Things are still bad today. I mean, how many times do we see people get swept away by some doctrine? So easily, just like that. And we just hang our heads low, say, why? That's because we live in this kind of world where people are swept away with false doctrine. So we need to keep on our toes. We need to keep contending for this faith. Keep strong. Keep vigilant. A third thing we see about this confirming prophecy is we're going to see the content. So we're going to look at the content of this prophecy. Notice here we see a sudden and terrible sight. Notice here it says behold. Behold. A sudden and terrible sight. The word behold tells us this. What is depicted in Enoch's prophecy seems to be a sudden thing to behold. Surely it is no surprise, we've already been through that, it's no surprise that this would happen. There would be these kinds of people and God would severely judge them, that's no surprise. So it's not sudden in so much in that sense. It is sudden in the sense that it is a terrible, terrible ending for these people. Anything that happens tragically, Even if we were expecting it, it's still shocking to us, right? Okay? The fallout will be horrible for them. This word definitely applies an exclamation on the situation of false teachers. It points to a terrible thing to witness. It will be something quite spectacular having that awe effect. It's how we read the book of the Revelation. There are numerous visions and factors in that book that perhaps take our breath away. That even for us who won't be the ones experiencing those things, we only imagine what it will be like for those people in those days. We just imagine, and just thinking about it shocks us. It takes our breath away. We get this sudden shock to our system. Say, wow, that is horrible. That's the idea with behold here. This is shocking. This word behold gives the ambience that there is something here worth seeing and hearing about. Enoch was designating this vision he saw to be an extraordinary and very solemn and serious prophecy to which the hearers in his day should pay attention to." They should have paid attention. They should have taken heed. They didn't listen. And so should we in different aspects as we consider the operations and ends of false teachers and their teachings. And for those who rebel against the Lord's way and turn apostate, we are to consider that this is a very serious and solemn thing to behold and consider. Again, it's to help us be warned, but help us to warn others of these things that are around and what the end will be. It's like when we go out preaching the gospel and we talk about the second point. What are we doing? We're trying to help them realize how heavy of a situation they're in. We're trying to urgently help them see the gravity of their fate if they don't repent. And so here, with Behold, we're seeing the sense Second, we see the Son of God. Here it says the Lord. It's the Son of God. We know that's who will be coming back and executing. But here he's known as the Lord. This is Jesus the Messiah. He's rendered the Lord who speaks to him as being the one in charge. He's the one in charge. In that coming day, Jesus will be the boss. and the master of the moment and the future undertaking. He will be the executor of all judgment and righteousness. The moment and task of judgment will be left into his hands. The book of Revelation and many other prophecies, even Jesus' own words, tells us this truth. All judgment will be given to the Son. Even the devils know this. When they encountered Him, they said, is it our time? Is it our time? We know who you are. We know who you are. And we know what you'll do. So, there's this truth that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will be the one to do this judgment. We know this to be true. It should allow us to rest assured that He will judge rightly with every situation of falsehood and unrighteousness. Because, you know, these false religions, these false teachings, the rebellion that's out there, it just runs rampant. It seems like it goes unchecked. But there's a day coming where it will be put in check. It's all going to be put in check. We need not worry because Christ is coming back to be the Lord, the King of kings, the judge of all things, the judge of heaven and earth, coming on a white horse with a sword out of his mouth. He's going to do judgment. So we have no worry about this. So the Son of God. We see also, thirdly, the showdown. we see the showdown, says the Lord cometh. He cometh. This coming is no doubt speaking of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Again, we know this from many texts of all scripture. This is what the final end will look like. This is how the judgment upon the world will be. The word cometh is the Aorist tense, actually. Very likely it's speaking in the sense of point action, not time of action. Especially since this is a future event, not a past event. Aorist is normally seen as past, but this is obviously not past, this is in the future. So we're seeing kind of action here. So in the Aorist, it's speaking in the sense that the coming will be sudden. Right? And that's what we read throughout Scripture of the Second Coming. It's going to be sudden! Like lightning! Final, abrupt, and comprehensive. He will come, and He will come to do business with a lot of things. With false teachers and their doctrine, with the sinners of this world, who are full of defiance and rebellion, all at the top of His list. It will be a showdown. of a battle between the Son of God and the sinners of this world." Jude was saying here that those apostates in his day were no different than the kinds of rebels that will come to face-to-face with the Lord Jesus unashamedly. We talked about that. They're not ashamed. You know, foaming out their own shame. They don't care. Pouring out their defiance. They will have this willful defiance And the Lord will come against them with strength to deal with them. We have already seen these traits in many of the examples before mentioned by Jude. And it all comes down to a face-off with God. Like Korah, right? Came down to a face-off. Who's gonna win? Of course God will. But Korah, for some reason, thinks he has some sliver of a chance to win. It goes along with it. loses. So we see the showdown. Fourth, we see the saints. We see the saints. It says here in verse 14, "...with ten thousands of his saints." The idea of with is the idea of accompaniment. These saints will come with the Lord. In other words, the Lord will be furnished or equipped with an entire host of saints. In fact, it will be not just 10,000. The word for 10,000 means myriad, or innumerable, multitude, an unlimited number. It's kind of like, say, there were thousands of people, okay? There's no exact number. It's just a lot, a lot. It's a symbolic number to express the countless numbers that will assist the Lord in this coming showdown. The Lord will not be alone. He will come with an army of heaven to deal with sinners and their sins, with all the defiance of the world, to deal with it, to deal with false teachers and their falsehoods, which will have come against the Lord in deed and in word." And we see that as we go into verse 15. Who will be these saints? Well, the word saints simply means holy ones. holy ones. From several texts of scriptures, it's most likely to be the holy angels, and we see that in various passages. 1 Thessalonians 3.13, Matthew 25.31, Revelation 14.10, and then 2 Thessalonians 1.7, you see the angels will assist them in this coming. Even the number of 10,000 has been associated with the concept of an innumerable company of angels. We see that in Hebrews 12, 22. So even that word 10,000 is often associated with angels. Yeah, it could be that there will be believers who will attend the Lord's coming, probably, but for sure we can say that these holy ones will be the heavenly hosts of angels coming to do judgment on earth alongside with the Lord Jesus Christ. But this does not exclude us from our moment of judgment in that time period, because we do see that in 1 Corinthians 6, 2 and 3, that we will have moments where we will be judging things in that time period. But, as far as who will be coming with the Lord in that moment, out of heaven will be the host of angels, innumerable. So the saints there. Then we see also the sentencing. The sentencing. In verse 15 it says, to execute judgment upon all. And we see here as we filter through all this that there's a dual purpose of Christ's second coming. It says to execute judgment, and then it says to convince all. And we'll get to that when we get to that. But first of all, we want to see this first one, to execute judgment upon all. Again, this is an aorist infinitive, which again has the idea of a sudden and terrifying and final moment, both entire and complete in its occurrence. It's going to be sudden, it's going to be terrifying, and it's going to do business. No doubt there will be a process to the follow through, but standing back from the picture, and that's kind of what's happening here, We're getting a synopsis. It's standing back from the picture. We see something very sudden, very final, and accomplished in all its entirety. No loose ends. Everything put into finality. Now this is obviously, when we read through this, there's a quick hearkening back to verse 3 and verse 4 where we see the condemnation. We see these ideas being spoken of throughout Jude. They're headed for this condemnation. This is what Jude is saying through this prophecy. They're just like these people that's spoken of in this prophecy. They're headed for a very bad fate. The word execute really means to do or make something happen. It's a typical word for to do or to make. Here the doing and making is judgment, which in this context is the sentence of condemnation, damnation, damnatory judgment. condemnation and punishment to wicked doers. And that's what we've read in 2 Peter 2, 1. We keep going back to that because that's our parallel passage. It says But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." And I like what I said before. These rebels, they do it to themselves. They're giving so many chances to change and to turn away from the rebellion. It's amazing how merciful the Lord is, how much time God gives to people, allows them to amend their ways. but people like this they do it to themselves they bring upon themselves swift destruction and that's what we have here with these ungodly sinners they bring upon themselves the swift destruction because you just keep going down their road not stopping like Balaam just keep going down that road even though the Lord is trying to stop him he just keeps going And so what we see here is justice will be served upon them. This will be the one purpose of Christ's coming. He will do justice upon the wicked, the ungodly, the sinners, and all false men. In short, He will take action against them. He will come to do judgment and to make judgment for them. And what we see here is, and what we know throughout all scripture, it won't look pretty. It won't be a pretty sight. It will be destructive. It will be damnation. And it will be a done deal. So, who would ever want to follow the path of these people? Why would you want to follow the path of these people when we see it ends in a horrible, horrible, horrible train wreck? Why? Judas saying, watch out for these people. They creep in unawares. Contend for the faith. Don't let yourself get swept away. Don't let others get swept away. Contend for the faith. Be strong. Come face to face with it and fight it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word here, this prophecy that is preserved for us. Helpful to us to understand the end of this sinful world. Let it warn us, but also let it comfort us to know that everything will be taken care of in Your hands. And so, Father, we pray that You give us strength and boldness to be strong in our faith, to be strong in our practice, to align ourselves with Your Word, and to stick to that. and not to allow these flighty, false doctrines out there to sway us or affect us in some way, but to be strong in the faith, to be faithful to you. In Jesus' name, amen.