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I would ask you to turn in your
Bibles this morning to the book of Jude. Again, that small one-page
letter. Maybe a page and a half in some
of your Bibles. It's found just before the book
of Revelation. Today we return for our third
installment in a series of messages that We're going to be bringing
on this small, often overlooked, frequently misunderstood letter
of Jude. We saw last Lord's Day that this
is something of an emergency letter. Jude had proposed in
his own thoughts to write a very different kind of letter about
our common salvation, but he became aware of a danger, a need
among his readers. Jude saw, knew, understood that
his readers or in danger of being unduly influenced by a group
of teachers who had come among them. He uses the language, they
crept in unnoticed. And their teaching, as well as
their living, their lifestyle, would be very perilous if imbibed
or followed by his readers. And so he changed from his intention
to write to them about their common salvation, a theme he
was eager, he says, to write on, to do this less joyful but
yet most necessary task of urging them to contend for the faith. to understand that their faith
was in peril by these adversaries. And it wasn't that they were
to get nasty. It wasn't that they were to get
argumentative. It wasn't that they were to get angry. It's
just that they would be on their guard. They'd be wary and watchful.
They would be sober, be vigilant, as Pope Peter writes, knowing
your adversary, the devil, ultimately walks about as a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour. And he wants them to contend
for the faith of the gospel against these interlopers who would come
into the congregation to fight the fight of faith with gospel
armor, not using the world's tactics, but those weapons of
our warfare that Paul says are mighty through God. for the casting
down of strongholds. He said about these false teachers
that their condemnation was long ago designated. He wants them
to be clear in this. These are not people in favor
with God. These are people in opposition
to God, opposition to his son, opposition to his church, opposition
to his word, and their condemnation being
long ago designated is a likely reference to the way such people,
such as false prophets, false teachers, in the Old Testament
scriptures are universally to be understood as under divine
judgment. It would seem that Jude believed
his readers could well benefit from a bit of a lesson in Bible
history. Bad examples. a little bit of
sanctified scared straight. You remember that? That TV show,
Scared Straight, showed you about what jail is like from the inside.
And you don't want to go there. A little bit of scared straight. Here's what these people are
like spiritually. Here's what their destiny is. You don't want
to go there. So in verses five to seven, Jude
presents three examples. I'd like to say they're all examples
from scripture, but the second one I'm a little bit, a little
bit uncertain about. One to three clearly, not one
and three, clearly are from the Hebrew Bible, from the books
of Moses, from the Torah. One from Genesis and the other
from Exodus and the books that follow. Clearly those events
are biblical events. The second is less from the text
or place in the Bible that you can pinpoint, and it's more a
teaching derived mostly from biblical sources concerning fallen
angels. So he's going to go into that.
He's going to actually set out to his readers something that
clearly is an earthly deliverance, an earthly manifestation of divine
power to save the people. And then he's going to look from
an earthly thing to a heavenly thing, something that happens
in an unseen place, and yet we feel its impact continually. And then he's going to present
another biblical example of a time when heavenly beings came to
earth, not the bad ones, but the good ones, and something
that happened in the city of Sodom. Genesis chapter 19. So that's where he's going. These
are examples illustrate, intending to illustrate the dangers of
false teaching, highlighting the spiritual recklessness, the
impiety of their teaching, the pride that's behind it, the sensual
practices that informs it, The reality that these are people
that cast off all restraint other than their own brains. They're
gonna follow their own light. And they're gonna cast off all
divine instruction, all teaching of God's servants, God's prophets.
And Jude wants his readers to understand there's a just penalty
that such teaching, such living, always does receive from the
hand of God. Let me read it to you, and then
we'll begin to look at these one at a time. He says, Now I
want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that
Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward,
destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels, who did not stay
within their own positions of authority, but left their proper
dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness
until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah
and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality
have pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing
a punishment of eternal fire. See, it's the judgment aspects
that he does seem to be highlighting. It's the end of the road for
these people that he wants to be before his readers, that you
don't want that to be the end of your road. You want to have
the gospel hope ever before you. You want the hope of glory, the
hope of a God who goes on rescuing, goes on keeping. And the way
in which he keeps is in a way in which we keep ourselves in
his love. We keep ourselves ever appreciating the reality of his
goodness and of his grace that's been given to us. in the Lord
Jesus Christ. So it's the end, yes, but it's
also the lives these people lived that is consistent with that
end. And those kinds of lives, we
need to see them as ugly. We need to see them as undesirable.
That the Lord himself should be our great passion. The great
desire of our hearts is to know, should be to know him. The great
desires of our souls should be to pursue him. To know the joys
of his grace and his presence and of his salvation. Now he
begins with a word that is, I called it a generous word in the outline.
A very gracious introduction. Maybe I didn't say generous.
Maybe I said gracious. He says, I want to remind you, although
you once fully knew it, he says to them, I'm not putting
rank on you here to be a teacher. You probably have your teachers
in the church. And though I'm probably a person
who you know about, and you know my faithfulness, and you can
certainly benefit from my teaching, I want to teach you as someone
that appreciates what you've already learned. I want to teach
you as somebody who appreciates that you've already had your
teachers who have come among you. And my work is not to introduce
something new. I don't want to set out to you
something that you haven't known before, because I know you know
it. I mean, you've been in Christ for a while. And as the writer
of the Hebrews says, by the reason of the time, you ought to be
teachers. But unfortunately, those people had some kind of
a stunted growth in spiritual things. where they needed to
go back to the beginning. They needed to go back to ABC. They couldn't really utilize
the full alphabet of the Christian life. Jude doesn't want to think that
these people have that kind of a problem. No, they really don't.
I want to remind you, I want to be one who just stirs up your
mind by way of remembrance, as Peter says in his letter. And
he recognizes, although you once fully knew it, clearly you had
teachers in your midst. They've taught you the Word of
God. And I just want to not start from scratch. but from the basis
of common understanding that you know the Bible, you know
the Old Testament, you've had prophets, so you've had apostles
among you. In verse 17, he mentions, but
you must remember, beloved, the prediction of the apostles of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And you're a wise people. You're
a knowing people. You're a knowledgeable people.
But sometimes even the people that know the most need that
refresher course. We need to have our pure minds
stirred up by way of remembrance. Because even the things you know,
we can be very clear on them here this morning, as we sit
in God's presence, as we look to Him, as we have open Bibles
before us, as the Word of God is explained to us. But go out
to your car and find out something got stolen as you're sitting
in here and worship. And where's your mind then? We had an experience once in
church where we were worshiping, blessing God, praising God, feeling
righteous and wonderful and good and happy. And then we went outside
and found out that my wife's car had gone out of its whatever
the stick shift was supposed to be in or she thought it was
in wasn't quite well parked and it slid down the hill and it
smashed into somebody else's car. Imagine walking out of church
and finding that state of things. It'd be so easy to just have
everything of spiritual interest, concern. Our minds are just inundated
by our circumstances. Christian reality becomes eclipsed
by the reality of the pressures of life, the trials we come under. Now we're thankful that the fellow
whose car it belonged to that got smashed, he had recently
heard God's word that morning, and he made reference to the
sermon and said to my wife, who was simply crushed, That's OK. Remember what we heard
this morning about the grace of God, about the sovereignty
of God, about the goodness of God. We were in there worshiping,
and God knew what was happening out here. And I guess he also
said, actually, he was an insurance salesman, so I guess he had the
best of insurance. So he didn't have a problem with
that. But you understand my point. We need daily refresher courses
in the things of God. Remember reading Francis Schaeffer?
He was a theologian back in, an apologist preacher back in
the 80s, 1980s, 90s. And something he wrote that I
read where he said, the reason I read the Bible every day is
I so quickly forget what's in it. How's that? I mean, we all know that, don't
we? we're all groping for the things we thought we saw and
didn't say something about and we're all you know probably needing
to do that daily refresher course of having our minds renewed by
the word We need refresher courses, not
just in the small stuff, but in the great things as well.
And you see, nothing was greater in the life of the nation of
Israel. No event was more central to
the Old Testament scriptures than the Exodus. The yearly feasts of the Passover,
tabernacles, weeks, were each reminders of the deliverance
of God from bondage, from the servitude that the people were
under, under harsh taskmasters in Egypt. They were not free.
They were slaves. They were held in what one writer
calls an iron furnace, the iron furnace of Egypt. And the people were to live in
constant remembrance of the reality that God came. God came, had
mercy and compassion upon this enslaved people. He saw their
plight. It's a wonderful statement as
their miseries are mentioned. And the book of Exodus, I think
is in chapter three, it simply says, and God knew. God knew. That's all you need to know is
that God knows. And he's committed to his people. And the God who
knows is going to act sooner or later for the good of his
people. And so the people were to live
in the light of their identity as the people saved out of the
land of Egypt. Now, succeeding generations were
never in Egypt, but they were part of the people who were.
And that people was their people, so they were a people delivered
from bondage. Now, there's two things in Jews'
words that are a bit debatable. First of all, who delivered them
from Egypt? Of course, in the Old Testament, it's clear. It's
the covenant God of Israel, Yahweh. I am who I am, the eternal God. faithful to his promises, came
in mercy and in love, remembering the promises he had made to their
fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And yet when Jude relates
the matter of their saving, being saved out of Egypt, he says,
Jesus that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt. Now
I know there's a textual difference in some ancient texts, but clearly
the majority do say Jesus. And upon the basis of the fact
this is the more difficult reading, I mean, Jesus was born in Bethlehem
and the Exodus took place millennia before. How did Jesus do it? Well, the same way Jesus could
say to his contemporaries before Abraham was, I am. The reality
is that Jesus, who was incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary,
born in Bethlehem, was also the eternal word made flesh. He was
the God of Israel incarnate. The God of Israel enfleshed in
the person of the Lord Jesus. It's perfectly proper for it
to say that it's Jesus who did the action. Although under the
different name of Yahweh, and it's Yahweh Jesus. It's the God
of Israel. The God of Israel who came and
delivered a people out of the land of Egypt, who also comes
at the end of the days to deliver his people through the giving
of himself, an offering and a sacrifice for their sins. So it's Jesus who saved a people
out of the land of Egypt. Jude's saying, in essence, I
wanted to write to you about our common salvation, but you
know what? We're not the first people who
possessed a common salvation. The whole of the nation of Israel
experienced a common salvation. They all were brought out of
slavery. They all were delivered from the Red Sea. They all were
saved. And yet afterwards, some of them
were destroyed. Afterward, the same saving Jesus
destroyed those who did not believe. Now, the other problematic issue
is what was their sin? What did they actually do to
deserve what this judgment holds forth, this destruction that
is mentioned. Now, some say the main thing
that is probably in view is their refusal to enter into the land.
Because that's the time that God said you're going to wander
for 40 years. That's the time when God said,
those of you who said we're going to be destroyed by the Canaanites,
in fact, you're going to be destroyed in the wilderness over a 40-year
period of time. until another generation is matured
and grow and are disciplined and are trained to know differently
than you do, to know that I am a faithful God, people I can
use, a people who will obey me. And so Israel experienced God's
training 40 years in the wilderness to enable them to enter into
the land of Canaan. But those who sinned were destroyed. They fell in the wilderness.
Their bodies died. We're carrying for the birds
of the heavens. A lot of them probably, there
was so much death that took place, a lot of them probably never
even received a burial. They died under the curse of
heaven. What's Jew's point? The point
is when God saves you from slavery, when God brings you out of a
bondage, when God brings you out of a state of misery, when
God brings you out of a state of helplessness, he reaches out
and with his own hand of mercy, love, and kindness, and power
becomes your deliverer, becomes your rescuer, becomes your savior. Your reaction ought to be what,
I mean, if somebody rescued you from a fire, what would you feel?
Deep sense of debtorship. What can I do to repay you for
rescuing yourself from me? Jesus does more than just endanger
himself. He dies. He gives up his life,
a ransom for many. And our reaction should be, This God is my God. I will follow
Him through life to death. No questions. I will look to Him. I will trust
in Him. I will follow Him. I will love
Him. I will pursue Him. This God is
worthy of all of my love, my labor, my worship, my service. When God saves a people, He designs
that people to be united to Him in loving worship, service, characterized
by faith and faithfulness. This is a people who fell in
the wilderness, who simply despised God Himself and despised the
favors of God. Jude was dealing with a bunch
of people who perverted the grace of God. They were grace perverters. Jude looked upon these Old Testament
people that sinned against the God of their mercies, the God
of their salvation, who worshipped a golden calf, who sat down to
eat and drink and rose up to play, a people that constantly
were complaining in the wilderness about food and drink, even though
God sent manna from heaven. Absolutely complaining that this
God has sent them out into the wilderness in order to kill them.
Let's go back to Egypt. We had it better there. Better
food. They forgot all of their misery.
They forgot all of their trials in Egypt. They simply despised
God's favor. They pursued their own desires
and not his. They imitated pagan rituals.
They satisfied their own sensual lusts. That's what people, the people who do these things
are the people who ultimately will know destruction away from
God's presence. And eternal destruction away
from God's presence is how the Apostle Paul describes the end
of unbelievers. So that's the first thing. He sets
forth this refresher course in Old Testament history. by reminding
them of the end of those who had received that typical salvation,
that salvation that was only salvation from a human tyrant. But you Christians have received
a greater deliverance still, a greater salvation yet, a salvation
that was joined to the giving of the Son of God's life for
your redemption. That gift should be treasured.
That reality should be nourishing your hearts to follow Him and
to be faithful to Him and not to follow after these grace perverters
and sensual actors who deny the only Lord
and Master. Christ is to be the one we ever
confess and we ever follow and we ever worship and love. Well,
there's another thing he mentions, and that's the matter of the
fallen angels. Verse six, he mentions the angels,
moving from an earthly scene, deliverance of the people from
Egypt to something of a heavenly scene. Angelic beings, spirit beings who scripture indicates
exist in God's presence. You know, God made man in his
image and likeness in Genesis chapter one and said, be fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. The whole humanity
was to be coming from that pair that would ultimately, oh, at
this point, what do we have? Eight billion souls upon the
earth today? from that single pair. It keeps
going up. Every four or five years you
add another billion to it. I think I stopped counting around
six billion, but you can go to that world population thing.
It's over seven, probably eight billion by now. An amazing number
of people that came from that first pair. But there does seem
to be that heaven got populated before Adam and Eve were even
created. That there is a population of spirit beings in the presence
of God. innumerable myriads of angels,
10,000s of 10,000s of angels. If you think you can't count
Abraham's seed, they're so vast in number, you can't count the
population of earth at seven, eight billion, you're not gonna
be able to count the heavenly beings either. And yet there
was this company of spirit beings that dwelt in the presence of
God, who didn't think heaven was good
enough for them. They didn't think enjoying the presence of
God, being servants of the living God, that this was poor work
for them. And they were really made for
better things. I mean, it's astounding that
creatures should come to such conclusions. But there were these
conclusions of these spirit beings. How many of them? We don't know.
But the reality is that when God made the heavens and the
earth and everything that's in it and put man in a garden, there
came along a snake that talked. Now, talking snakes are not everyday
occurrences. And snakes actually are not supposed
to talk. They are not created with the
kind of vocal cords that would enable them to talk. So there's
something going on here that's behind the actual scene. And
of course, we're told that the serpent is actually Satan, it's
the adversary. It's the adversary that comes
in the form of one of the beasts of the field that God had made
and comes to do what the devil does, which is to tell people,
minding God, there's no profit in that. There's no good in that.
You will not die. Don't believe God's threats because
they're vain. And God really doesn't have your
best interests at heart, so do what I... Where'd he come from?
Where'd he come from? Where did that being come from? Well, in
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I
really think the matter of heavens can't exclude his own place of
dwelling. I mean, we have in scripture
the fact that we pray our father who's where? In heaven. That
doesn't mean the heavens where the birds fly. And it doesn't
mean the heavens where the stars and the sun is in the celestial
heavens. It means God's own place of dwelling,
wherever that is in his universe, wherever that is a spirit entity,
spiritual entity exists, of a God who's there, his angels are there,
and according to Hebrews chapter 12, the spirits of just men made
perfect are there as well. So when you ask the question,
where did Alan's mother go? Alan gave you the answer. She's
with the spirits of just men made perfect, what we call heaven.
Not some cloud where they're playing harps.
Not some spaceship off in some foreign distant galaxy. But with God. With God in the
place of divine dwelling. Our Father who is in heaven. That's where they are. As spirit
beings. But there's some angels that
were actually created to dwell in that place. With the myriads of angels that
are faithful servants to the heirs of salvation, faithful
servants of the living and true God, who are not in the place
that they were first created to occupy. Jude uses the language. They didn't stay within their
own position of authority. They had authority. And we read
about angels that have authority in certain regions of the globe,
in the book of Daniel, of Michael that's out in Persia fighting
with the Prince of Persia, he calls him,
the Prince of Persia. The stuff behind the scenes that
you can't see through a telescope, you can't see through a Hubble
telescope, it exists in the unseen world of spiritual realities.
And part of that are these angels that fell. these angels that
did not keep their first estate. And I think I made a reference
on the outline to a wrong opinion about this. There are people
who, because of some Jewish legends that were told in the intertestinal
period between Old and New Testament, who think that Jude is reflecting
an idea that angels descended from their first estate at the
time of the flood. When we read in Genesis chapter
six, of this sons of God choosing out wives for themselves among
the sons of men, the daughters of men. And they think that's
angels. The angels came and they occupied
human bodies and then they cohabited with women. And the result of
that was a bunch of giants called the Nephilim. And because of
that, God brought the flood. I don't think God brought the
flood because of what the angels did. I think God brought the
flood because human beings had departed from him. And violence
was in the earth and the hugeness of those persons with the fact
they were giants in the direction of rebellion and sin and violence
and oppression and every way that they could gain for themselves
at the expense of others. That's what society was like.
There was violence in the earth. And it wasn't caused by some
hybrid of angels and humans. It was caused by human beings
in the pride and perversity of their own hearts living out their
rebellion against the living God. These angels aren't judged
in the flood. Humanity got judged in the flood.
So I think it's a human enterprise. And the fact is Jesus tells us
about the angels of heaven that they don't marry. They're not
given marriage. There's not I know they come
in the form of men in Sodom, but the sexual identity of angels
is really problematic to think. I mean, they're spirit beings,
folks. They don't reproduce. The myriad number of angels that
Hebrews talks about is a fixed number. They're not having angel
babies. I know we think of cherubs as
little angel babies. But look at the description you
have in the Bible of cherubs. They're frightening guardians
of the throne room of God. They're fierce. Not little babies. The angels don't have babies.
I know you say, Veronica, it's a little angel. Yeah, okay. You'll
find out. The point is, Jude's not referring to some
legend. that the Old Testament makes no reference to. The sons
of God marrying the daughters of men, if you read Genesis in
its context, it's talking about the descendants of Cain, those
who did not know God, those who departed from God, who were out
from the presence of God. And they were marrying the daughters
of men who were the faithful children of Seth, that line of
people of which it said they called upon the name of the Lord.
of which Enoch came from that line of people who walked with
God, and Noah who walked with God. And yet there was an intermingling
of those lines through intermarriage. They married one another. People
were marrying without any sense. Well, is this a guy that I can
trust to lead me well and lead me in the ways of the Lord? No,
if he beats me every night, it won't matter to me. I want him. He wants me. That's all that
matters. Or more should be on the table
when you choose a life's partner. Righteousness should be the key.
And that was a generation that forgot that. That was a generation
that forgot that and the whole earth became corrupt as a result.
The line of the godly was corrupted by intermarriage with people
that had no concern at all for the will and the ways of God.
But here's an account of angels made for God's presence. What's
a greater favor than that? What's a greater blessedness
than that? To be created, to be in the presence
of God, to have authority given from God, labors directed by
God. I mean, we pray, hallowed be
your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as
it is in heaven. And we pray that with any sense
of what it would be like if earth became like heaven. What a wonderful,
I mean, Was it Louis Armstrong, what
a wonderful world it would be? Absolutely! What a wonderful
world it would be! That's another song I'm thinking
of. But the point of it is, heaven
would be upon the earth if that prayer was answered by God. That's
what we long for, that's what we desire. Because heaven is
a place of perfect blessedness, perfect joy, perfect peaceableness,
perfect environment. These angels thought they could
map out for themselves a better course in life. And of course
the result of it is what? Bondage and darkness. Bondage
and darkness. kept in eternal chains. They
didn't keep their first estate. God says they'll be kept in eternal
chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great
day. Now, I don't know how you put a spirit being in chains. They're not literal chains. And
I really don't think that a darkness you should think of necessarily
a given place. I know some people want to look
upon under the earth somewhere, some place of the netherworld,
the underworld, putting together the Bible with a lot of concepts
that come really from Greek myths. I don't think that's really what
we're to see. These spirit beings though are in bondage to their
own desires and they cannot stop doing the things that they do.
I mean think of the ones who Jesus met in the Gospels when
they were inhabiting the legion of demons in the man and the
Gadarenes. And what do they say when they
see Jesus? They say, what have you to do
with us, Jesus, the Son of God? Have you come to destroy us before
the time? I mean, they know their end is
destruction. They know their doom is coming.
They know. It's not a happy ending to the
story. But they don't fall at his feet
and worship, do they? No, they acknowledge he has authority
over them. They didn't like their authority
in heaven. They thought they were the big
shots who would have authority that they would gain for themselves.
But the Son of God appears in their presence and they quake.
The demons believe and tremble, James says. They tremble at the
presence of the Son of God. Really, it's not a happy existence.
It's a dark existence. It's a gloomy existence. It's
an existence in bondage. Imagine being a person so accustomed
to sin, so kept in the bondage to sin that you can't possibly
do otherwise than just to go on in rebellion. No repentance
for these people. No change for these people. No conversion for
these people. No salvation for these people.
I'm saying people, spirit beings, these messengers that who are
created by God for his will and purposes, who have violated their
standing, violated their creation by rebellion. It's a horrid existence. You don't want to go there. I
don't want to go there. And then finally, there's that example
that he gives from Genesis chapter 19 of Sodom and Gomorrah. And
here's an example of an earthly situation, but it's an earthly
situation that's very interesting. Because the first words of Genesis
19 is this, two angels came to Sodom. Two angels came to Sodom. These heavenly angelic beings
are sent by God to Sodom. Originally there were three angels,
and one of them turns out to be the angel of the Lord, some
kind of a presence of God that met with Abraham. And in chapter
18 says, shall I not tell Abraham what I'm going to do? He's a
friend. No secrets with me and Abraham.
And so God says I've heard the cry of the city of Sodom. It's
come up to my ears and I've come down to see if the report is
altogether what is heard of what's happening in Sodom. And these
angels came to Sodom for the very purpose of finding out.
And they come into the center of the city and No one goes out
to greet them. No one goes out to find out who
they are. Finally, a lot does. And Lot receives them into his
house. But now understand where they are. They're in a place
called Sodom. That back in chapter 13 of Genesis
is the place that Lot looked at. Remember he had to leave
Abraham because their herds had become too great. The land was
not going to sustain all of the herds and cattle and sheep and
the rest that Abraham possessed and that Lot possessed. So they
had to separate. And we read that Lot looked at
the Jordan Valley. And he saw it like the garden
of God. There's a place that was well
favored by God. This was a land that was under
divine, the smile of heaven. God gave it water that was rarity
and scarcity in the Middle East. Fruitfulness. It was a land of bounty, a land
of plenty. Yet these Sodomites did not return
thanks to God, did not become worshippers of God. In fact,
in Ezekiel chapter 16, Ezekiel chapter 16, read a bit about
what the Sodomites were guilty of. I know it's been used for
the purposes of, you know, mainly one type of sin, but really much
about the sinful practices of Sodom often goes under underappreciated. And here's a statement in Ezekiel
chapter 16 verse 48. As I live declares the Lord God
your sister Sodom. Now he's speaking about the people
of Israel. And yet they were guilty of many
of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. And so, just like Isaiah addresses
them as Sodom, so Ezekiel does. As I live, declares the Lord
God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you
and your daughters have. You're doing worse than they
did. Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and
her daughters had pride. Again there, pride. They had
excess of food. Again, it was a land that was
filled with plenty. Garden of God. Everything that
delighted the eye, things desired to be fed upon. They had excess of food. They
had prosperous ease. But what were they guilty of?
Total indifference to the needs of others. They didn't need the
poor. They didn't need the needy. The
angels are standing out in the courtyard and nobody's going
out there even to find out who they are or what they need. They
were haughty and did an abomination before me so I removed them when
I saw it. So something of a backstory to
what we read about in chapter 19. And God came down through
the angels to see, is this really as proud, as self-absorbed, as
self-seeking, as callous and heartless a people as has been
reported as the cry of their sins have come up to me? He sends
the angels down and Lot is the one that gives them hospitality,
receives them into his home. And no sooner does he do that
that the people begin to see, well look, those angels, I mean,
you've got to think angels are pretty good looking. You have
to think that. The angels would be remarkably
beautiful and remarkably lovely. Regardless of what you think
in terms of sexual properties, just wonderfully wondrous. Why should Lot get the benefit
of all that? That's what they think. They gather the whole
of their crowd together and they begin to try to knock down the
door of Lot's dwelling for the purposes of getting at these
angels to use them, abuse them for their own perverse desires. That's why Jude speaks of the
fact that they indulged in sexual morality and pursued a natural
desire. And you know it's an interesting
thing that happens. When Lot's faced by the reality of that
mob, he thinks he should step on forward
as the one to save the situation. And you know what a wonderful
idea he came up with. He's about to sacrifice his own daughters
to the lusts of these perverts and he thinks he's doing them
a service or a favor. And I think Lot had some real
problems trusting God in the midst of this situation, of even
recognizing that he's entertained angels unawares, as Abraham did. I think there's a powerful warning
there about seeking our own solutions to the complex problems of this
sinful world. I mean, we think sin's gonna rescue
this situation? to save these people, these angels,
at the unconscionable cost of sacrificing his own daughters
to a violent, rapacious mob? First of all, these angels didn't
need him. Any help from what? What did they do? They blinded
these guys. And then the intensity of their perversity is revealed,
that even being blinded, they're groping for the door. They want
their desires fulfilled. Ultimately, the cities receive
fire from heaven. Total destruction away from the
presence of the Lord, a judgment of eternal fire. Now, does that
mean the souls of those people in eternal flames? Well, I don't
know about eternal flames as being the only description of
the plight of the lost. That is one picture, not the
only one. Certainly fire destroyed their
city, but it's a judgment of eternal duration. It's in the pages of our Bible,
and it speaks to the issue of God's eternal opposition to evil
in all of its forms. That's the point of it. You don't want to be part of
a community of people who despise the grace of God. You don't want
to be like the Israelites that failed to honor the God of their
salvation. You don't want to be like angels
created for glory, choosing darkness and choosing bondage. You don't
want to be Like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose only
passion is their own desires that they're going to pursue
regardless of who they hurt, regardless of who they destroy,
for they themselves will experience a judgment of everlasting destruction
away from the presence of God. You say, well, I'm not tempted
to go in the direction of any of those sinners. But hey, you
know, none of those sinners thought they'd end up where they were.
They didn't really. And one of the things that often
is the pivotal issue, it's who are you listening to? Who are
you following? That was the danger of these
teachers. That's a danger of false teaching. in the Christian
world today. That's why we have to be on our
guard. That's why we have to be teaching the truth. That's
why we have to be rooting and grounding all of our understandings,
all of our beliefs in the Word of the Living God Himself. Again,
we're all too prone to forget, but we need to refresh our courses
again and again and again. So may God help us to be a people
who are ever meditating on the law of the Lord, day and night,
marinating our hearts, our minds, our souls, our beings, in the
truth of God's Word. Even if it's between the innings
of the World Series. To find a time for the Lord.
To find a time for His Word. to find a time for the things
that are essential, that are important. It's going to keep
you out of heresy. It's going to keep you in the
paths of truth. It's going to keep you on the way that leads
to light and life and joy, unspeakable and full of glory. And that should
be the burning passion of our hearts, to know Him, to love
Him, to be with Him, to enjoy Him, to bask in the blessings
of so great a salvation. May God be pleased to bless His
word. As the way of life and death is before us, goly, let's
go before him and choose the way of life. Father, we're thankful
for this portion of Jude. We're thankful that in the midst
of these difficult illustrations that this servant of yours has
given, yet there's wondrous things to consider. We pray that we
would consider those things. We pray you'd give us understanding
in them. And we pray that you'd give us to have a deepening passion
for the things that pertain to your grace, the fullness of your
favors, that we would treasure your grace, we would not despise
it, we would not reject it, we would not turn from it, that
we would keep ourselves in the blessings of the grace and salvation
of the living God, as we'd ask these mercies coming to you,
in Jesus' name, amen.
Those Who Despise The Grace of God
Series Jude
| Sermon ID | 102024190495512 |
| Duration | 49:34 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Jude 5-7 |
| Language | English |
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