sure sure we have many languages way back then okay the jewish people apparently were very literate i mean quite they had to read okay and i don't think there's any other civilization i've heard of that has that kind of uh i mean uh in that period of the world okay had that kind of uh Literacy? Greek society would have. But this would have been, yeah, first century. This would have been before the golden age of the Arabic world, so they wouldn't have yet. The Roman civilization not so much. Those places that were influenced by Greece, especially like Egypt and obviously Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, places like that would have had that kind of culture of literacy. in various points. And it's one of the reasons why the New Testament is written in Greek rather than Latin, which was what the Roman Empire was speaking of. It's just those who were literate read Greek. But as far as for deep story, history, So, yes and no. The Jewish Bible was Hebrew, but the most influential Hebrew scripture were translated into Greek. It's called the Septuagint or the Septuagint. That was the most influential Old Testament, and it included the Apocrypha, by the way. The whole translation did. And for the early church, that was what they used. They didn't use the Hebrew. In fact, we don't even have somebody after the earliest church using the Hebrew in the Christian world until the late 300s. And that would be Jerome when he translated the Latin Vulgate. He went to the Hebrew instead of the Greek. But the Greek translation of the Old Testament is what the early church used for about 300 years. That's how influential it was. And so the majority of the quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Greek Septuagint. It's not from the Hebrew. So yeah, Greek and also Jewish people would have had a literacy rate that was pretty extensive. And so you can see a letter like Jude is able to quote vast array of literature and assume that all the people in the churches would have understood these references. These are massive references. Some of these aren't even in the Apocrypha, they're just culturally known. It's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like using a sermon illustration and me using, you know, oh goodness, Paul Bunyan as an example, right? You know, who got the big old blue ox and can chop down a forest. It's using a cultural reference like that. Me using that as a sermon illustration is not saying, oh, that's a legit historical happening. It's me using a cultural reference that, people would understand. That's a lot of what Judah or Jude is doing here. And really fascinating, he is Jesus's younger brother. So, grew up with Jesus as his older brother, which would be a very unusual perspective for sure. James the same. And so, When he's writing all of this, he's going to be pulling from a very deep history of Jewish background, not just because he is Jewish, all the apostles were, but because the church that he's writing to is obviously Jewish. So whether this is the church in Jerusalem, whether this is you know, the church in maybe in Samaria or something like this, whatever the case may be, he is writing to them to contend, especially when false and corrupt leaders affect the church. They can lead astray the people of God very easily. It happens all the time. And so a lot of what he is expressing to them here is saying, look, this is not just something you can sweep under the rug. If somebody is truly conducting their life in a way that carries no virtue, towards Christ in any way and instead takes advantage of the passions of the flesh. The most notable one, especially for men, is money and sex. And so he uses those two as huge indicators of the issue that you're going to be coming up against. And so here he kind of spells out the whole thing. Where we're picking up is in verse 17 through 21. because there he uses multiple references to the Spirit of God, and that's why we're here. We want to know what Jude is saying the role of the Spirit of God with all of this is. So, let's pick it up in verse 17. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, quote, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourself up in the most holy faith, meaning the gospel, and praying in the Holy Spirit, are to keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Again, we're going to see multiple overlaps here. His main quotation there regarding what the apostles taught us is out of 2 Peter 3. Again, we've already gone through 2 Peter because that was written before this. And then here we have Jude quoting that and establishing for us that the divisions that keep happening in the church usually happen because ungodly leaders come in. It's just one of the things that happens. And when that happens, people follow different leaders and he's saying, look, you have to be able to discern for yourself which one is a godly leader, right? As a church, that's your responsibility. What are they pushing you on towards? And in the case that he's been saying all along, those who reject any godly authority and instead establish themselves, he's given multiple examples of this throughout history, that's not the people to follow. Those who will keep encouraging to build up, praying in the Holy Spirit, the gospel, these things are what you need to be looking for and following. Because, he says this quite plainly here, there will be those leaders who come up in the church who are following their own ungodly passions. And he uses that very broadly, because it can show up in all sorts of different ways. Someone following their own passions doesn't have to just show up in some rank lewdness. Sometimes it can be quite under the surface. Sometimes just a desire to control other people and to establish their own kingdoms. That happens all the time with pastors, by the way, if you're not aware. And that needs to be resisted. Because it's not about the leader. It's not about the pastor. It's not even about the church itself. It is about Christ. And so he's going to establish this and say, this is what we focus on, regardless of everything else that's happening. These are the undeniable realities of this. And he says, the reality is, in verse 19, divisions will arise up in the church. Why? Worldliness and those who are devoid of the Spirit. Divisions in the church are not of the Spirit of the Lord. which is why you'll usually get accusations of false teacher or whatever, and then it creates divisions. And especially in a country like this where you can separate off and just go build your own church, we end up with just permanent separations. And that is unfortunately things that we haven't yet learned how to deal with. But the reality is that these divisions do not come from the Spirit of God. There is a great deal of sin because the Spirit of God is to bring unity amongst believers, no matter how much they're different. We're not supposed to sit here and try to figure out how to make all of us exactly uniform copies of one another. If we do that, all we're going to do is separate from any Christian who's different than us, and that creates more division because our standard is not Christ, our standard is us. And that's a problem. And so he's saying here that this is the type of leadership you must avoid. It is those who cause divisions, who are worldly people, who are devoid of the Spirit. Again, the Spirit is present. Unity through humility is going to be the order of the day. As the book of Philippians described, as the book of 1 Peter describes, there's no way that the Spirit of God is orchestrating division in the church. It's just not happening. Verse 20, but you, beloved, And there he turns away and he says, ignore worldliness, ignore those who are following their own passions. Beloved, he addresses the church, build yourself up in your most holy faith. That is the expression of the gospel. Build yourself up in the gospel, in your dependence upon Christ, and praying in the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit, as he is expressing, is the corrective for the natural divisions that occur between people, then every instance of worship should be in the Holy Spirit. This is exactly, it goes back to what Jesus was saying to the woman at the well in John chapter 4 when we were back there looking at that. What was the Father seeking? What was the woman asking, first of all? She was asking whether it was Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion that God should be worshiped on. What did Jesus say? The day is soon coming that those who worship God will worship him in what? Spirit, capital S, and truth. It won't be on that mountain or this mountain. And he's like, right now it is this mountain because salvation came from the Jews. But the reality is the Father is seeking such worshipers that worship him in his own spirit. In other words, we're not looking to dig down into our ability and our greatest emotions that feel right towards God and then present that as worship. No, even in our best attempts, it's just like our works. We cannot worship properly. This is why the Spirit of God is absolutely essential to this. Not only for worship, as Jesus himself explained, but also for fellowship, as now Jude is explaining. We can't fellowship in the church devoid of the Spirit of God. What's going to happen? All that's gonna come up, what's that? That's it. We're gonna look just like our culture. We will make factions, we'll fight, and we'll make our own places. That doesn't mean all fighting in the church is bad. Sometimes things actually need to be fought against. People could look at Jude and say, hey Jude, you pointing this out is you causing division because you're calling people worldly that are worldly. Well, yeah, some divisions are good and necessary and helpful and protection for the church. But he says here, as far as Christians, The standard, if it is not our sin getting in somewhere, the Spirit of God is not causing division amongst Christians. That would be us. It'd be kind of like us looking at our Christian life and going, you know, all that sin that keeps cropping up, that's the Spirit of God leading me into that. No, it's not. That's you. Right? The Holy Spirit does not lead us to sin. We do not do that. That's why we have that prayer in the Lord's Prayer, lead us not into temptation. That's certainly a prayer that is followed well by the fulfilling of that request. Jude expresses, because he doesn't even stop the sentence, verse 21, he says, No where in here are we talking about establishing ourselves as the standard for Christian living. Right? We've walked through so many aspects of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, expressing all manner of different ways that Christians live. Right? When you have a certain view about whatever scruple you are imposing upon yourself, whether through cultural reasons or not, that is just fine. The issue comes up when you impose that on another Christian. That has come up multiple times in these, whether it's in the book of Galatians or in the book of Romans, and that is connected directly with the Holy Spirit because it requires humility for Christians to live next to one another. It requires humility for them to fellowship. It requires humility for them to worship. And at all points, that must be by the Holy Spirit because otherwise, what do we do? I mean, those of you who have been Christians for any amount of time know, we, 20 years ago, it was common for churches to divide over the speed of music. Was that of the Holy Spirit? No, that was foolishness. There can be good found and bad found in any tempo of music, I promise you. And if you don't believe me, I can show you. Yes, sir. Around 1960, I was in a choir in our church, and the local church by half hour away introduced the guitar. We got on a bus and attended one of their services to decide whether or not we approve of it. Yeah. It leads to siloing of one of the most precious aspects of the Christian life and that is worshiping with other believers. And if we define ourselves instead of by the gospel and instead by how fast our music is or how nice our parking lot is, all these things, it will just lead to bad leadership every single time. It will. Because all it's going to do is the person who pushes for the thing that we like the most is going to be our leader. But as we've walked through, that's not the standard of a Christian leader. A Christian leader is not one who will not challenge us. I mean, I can't imagine wanting from my fellow elder, Ralph, just to agree with me on everything. That's the last thing I need. I don't want a yes man. I don't want no challenge. That's insane. I know I have blind spots. I need somebody else. We all do. And this is kind of the whole point of church leadership. Otherwise, we are unnecessary entirely. What's the point? If we're not here to encourage these things, and then we just all fight over differences of opinion, and then see who's left bloodied at the end, and they win, and then they're the right ones, that's not how the church is to function. Not in any way. And so when Jude is bringing up these divisions, he was saying, these are the divisions that are caused not by Christian versus Christian, these are the divisions that are caused up by secret unbelievers inside the church. That can't be missed. Because such divisions that pull Christians' views away from Christ and onto somebody are not Christians. He's not going to make any bones about it. The setting oneself up as the leader that will mediate between you and God is an absolute problem. One of the most obvious examples of this throughout history is what the Roman Catholic Church has done. to set up between you and God needs to be the entire church. If I need somebody between me and Jesus, he's no savior of mine. He's the enemy. Then the church is my savior. It happens in smaller churches too. It happens everywhere. And this is why Jude is saying this. Even at this early point, this is Jesus's younger brother that's still alive. So we're talking apostolic era. There are already false prophets and false teachers Peter had warned about them in 2 Peter 2. Jude is warning about them and saying, look, look at their lives. Look at the outcome of their faith. See what's going on here. See what they are teaching you about. Is it the gospel? Is it the most holy faith? Is it the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life? Or is it you need to become them? And if it's you need to become them, get away from them. It's dangerous. I don't want to become somebody else. And somebody else who's infatuated with making other people into them is not a Christian attitude. Even if they are Christians, I'm not even going to make a call on the salvation. I'm just going to say, that is a leader Christians cannot follow. So he expresses this and says, the church, he says to these Christians, he says, you have a responsibility to keep yourself in the love of God. That's not an expression of do enough good works and God will love you. No. That is, if you follow these false teachers, these false brethren, what's going to happen is you will lose full sight of the love of God. 2 Peter even warns that if we are not giving attention to those things, where we add to our faith virtue and knowledge and self-control, brotherly kindness and love and all of these things. If we do not give diligence to these things, it is possible for us to get to a point where we even have forgotten that we were saved at all. I can't imagine a worse place to be but a Christian who has forgotten that they're a Christian. Now, I wouldn't believe that that's possible unless scripture says it plainly and directly, and it does in 2 Peter 1. It is possible for a Christian to get to a place where they have followed false teachers long enough that they have forgotten their own salvation. And they are walking around thinking themselves unbelievers, and they are actually believers. It's nutty. Have you seen the reference before? I feel like we should turn there. Hang on, let's go there. 2 Peter 1, just a few pages back. It's an important reference because it's one of these places that is a great warning and a great comfort all at the same time. Watch this, verse three, chapter one, 2 Peter. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, to supplement your virtue with knowledge, to supplement your knowledge with self-control, to supplement self-control with steadfastness, or patience, to supplement steadfastness with godliness, and with godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. Now, this is where I'm really focused. If these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the alternative, verse 9, Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities, you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." That verse 9 there is really the kicker of what I'm referring to. The danger that does actually sit for Christians who are, whether through who they're following or whether through their own lack of diligence, find themselves, I'm just happy that I'm saved. I don't have to do anything else. I don't have to focus on growth in the Lord. I don't have to focus on the Spirit of God. I don't have to focus on the gospel or in any way enjoying the Christian life. I'm just going to go, I was saved, that's it, I don't have to care. And what he's saying here is, wonderful that you have faith, but you need to grow past just that. Add to your faith, virtue. Add to your virtue, knowledge. Add to your knowledge, self-control. You're not done just because salvation has occurred. If you're not giving diligence to these things, you can actually become a Christian that is, as he says, and I will quote, so nearsighted to the point of blindness that you cannot even see your own salvation anymore. That's kind of brutal. And what Jude is saying, also having quoted 2 Peter, what he's saying is this is not just anything, and it can just happen by and be caused randomly. He says, actually, one of the greatest errors is in following wrong leaders. And unbelievers who get in the church tend to seek out leadership positions. They just do. And so what Peter goes on to warn about in 2 Peter 2, and what Jude is warning about in his entire book, is to say, Those promises without effect, those supposed sheep that are actually wolves wearing a clothing of sheep, those are the ones to avoid more than anybody else. I would sooner sit with the most immature Christian in the world than a harmless wolf in sheep's clothing. That's what Jude is trying to say. What? No real harm is being done? No real harm is being done? Christian fellowship with unbelievers is nothing but harm. That's what he's saying. We cannot treat that as if it's just another this and that. What he's saying is this type of stuff, for those who are devoid of the Spirit, who are worldly people, will destroy the church with its divisions. It will do nothing towards the Spirit of God, not even accidentally, because the Spirit of God and the work of the Spirit of God does not come by accident. He says, so how do we guard ourselves about that? I mean, that's the big question, is that how do we guard ourselves from that? Because that's the last thing I want. I do not want to be led astray by somebody who is an unbeliever. He says it explicitly, verse 20. But you, this is back in Jude. But you, beloved, build yourselves up. All plural. You, church, all y'all, build y'all self up in the love of God and in the most holy faith. All of it is plural references. It's not, you know, Vic, go sit under the tree with your Bible and ignore all the Christians. No. It says, the way to protect yourselves from false teachers is Christians gather together and remind yourselves of the gospel all the time. Do not forget it. No matter what happens, no matter what sirens call of fame or anything else comes your way, Build all of, I hate that English has dropped the plural second person. Build all y'all selves up in the love of God. Build y'all self up in the most holy faith. And all of you's guys, I'm gonna use all the Americanisms for this, all of you's guys pray in the Holy Spirit. Do it together. Worship in the Spirit of God together. Because it is true Christian fellowship in the Spirit that protects the church from false teachers. That is Jude's final encouragement to them all. Any questions here? Because we're going to go to 1 John next. Can you do a quick comment on the Pope? A quick comment on the Pope. Oh, yes, the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, is going the way of all the mainline denominations. And it is not the ancient, most holy, singular, one holy church. It is a fabrication of time. And the office of papacy, in its concept of infallibility, is a concept of the 1800s, officially. And the primacy of Rome is a concept of the 6th century. It is not of the early church. It is not of scripture. Therefore, it can pound sand. There. That's my statement on a Roman Catholic church. And as far as the current papacy and what it's doing, you can wake up tomorrow and he'll do completely different than that. He is not consistent in any way, not with those who came before him and not even with his own self. So this would be one of the great examples of a waterless cloud, not somebody worth following, which is why I don't. Nope. No, it's going to be something else. It's going to be something else. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's going to be weird. Whatever it's going to be. The thing is that most people don't realize that Vatican II in the 1960s, when it took place, laid the foundation stones for all of this in how much it capitulated to the postmodernist rise in philosophy and theology at the time. Most people haven't noticed it because all the popes that we've had since then, all the way up to Ratzinger, who was Pope Benedict, were all Vatican I popes. Francis is the first Vatican II pope. He's the first one that is consistent to what the church decided in the 60s and it's why he's so Bizarrely different, you know, even though Benedict had resigned and then for 10 years you had an overlap The two of them were so diametrically opposed because the church is not consistent with itself And so yeah, no, I wouldn't I wouldn't I wouldn't put any stock in that in any way at all But yeah, so it shouldn't surprise us that he's getting rid of cardinals that will remind the church of its roots. As much as I disagree even with those roots, but the church itself is not unified in any way at all because there's a lot of waterless clouds there. Yeah, no problem. I want you to see this great aspect here in verses 22 and 23 before we leave Jude. Because he says to the church, sorry, did you already turn to 1 John? Sorry. He says to the church, yeah, I know, Bible drills here in the end of the New Testament where they never happen. He says to the church here, in addition to all of you worshiping the Lord and praying in the Holy Spirit and waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, look at this beautiful aspect of fellowship here at the tail end of this, the effect of real fellowship. Verse 22, have mercy on those who doubt. save others by snatching them out of the fire, and to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment that's stained by the flesh." In no way is the church encouraged by taking a light view of sin. In no way is that loving or kind. A loving and kind thing is not to say to somebody who's in the fire, don't worry, the flames will not consume you. It is to snatch them out of it. It is to give them the gospel. It is to give them the clarity of what scripture says. Not to say, hey, you best be like me. No, to say the standard is holiness. Neither you or I have ever attained it, but salvation is found in Christ alone. And the spirit of God has us grow. and to appreciate the mercy of God that's been given to us, is now to be given out. Look what he does with this. In verse 21, we wait for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in response, verse 22, we also have mercy. I am merciful because God has given me mercy. I forgive you because I know I have been forgiven from so much. I can help you with a splinter in your eye because God has helped me with a log in my own eye. You see the humility that is absolutely essential for this. Yes, Jack. We have a gentleman from America down there who said there's mercy and there's tolerance. Tolerance is acceptance. And if they are not following the word of God, and you're being merciful, it's not the same as being following. Yeah, it can become enabling. I mean, you're accepting that, and it's over. Right. Yeah, once we become enabling, there's no solution, there's no gospel. And so many churches are so consumed with how many people they want that they just, they don't even care if unbelievers fill their pews. Because we just, in the American world, a successful church is a church with lots of people. Unbelievers and believers? Right. Because if you are going to preach the Scriptures properly, no unbeliever is going to be comfortable in that setting. Because you're going to have to call out everything. And you're going to have to express the nature of this. If unbelievers are comfortable at church, the pastor is doing something very wrong. And I'm sorry, that's just, there is no biblical grounds for that whatsoever. When the church gathers together, the presence of unbelief, I'll tell you how much the early church hated this. The early church, for those, by the time you got into the mid-100s, in certain aspects of the church, in certain areas, the persecution that would come down on people for becoming Christians, at some points in the Roman Empire, and only in certain places, persecution would come on them, and then they would fold. And so some of the early Christians were writing and saying, you know what? We can't just be baptizing people just because they believe in Jesus. We have to make sure that they fully understand the risk of what they're signing up with before we'll even baptize them. And so what they would do is actually delay baptism for a couple of years while they catechize them and train them in theology so that they knew the risk they were signing up with so that when they were questioned, they wouldn't become what was called the lapsed, those who folded under persecution. And so here's the thing, as they admitted they were Christians, but not ready to be baptized yet for its own risk, they wouldn't even let them sit in the communion service as Christians. This is how much certain aspects of the early church protected even the communion service. If you were a Christian but not yet baptized, you couldn't even be in the room You weren't allowed to witness what was going on at the most precious part of worship in the church. I'm not recommending that. I'm just saying what they were understanding was to say, not only are unbelievers, I mean, it was public. If you were an unbeliever and what was called a catechumen in the service, and then we came to the time of communion, you were all dismissed. Out of the room. It is time for the central fellowship of the church. And nobody But Christians are welcome to attend or even witness it. So, how far have we come to say that a church ideally should be 50-50 believers and unbelievers? I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen. Christians will lose sight of their salvation. The church will in no way preach the gospel because the second you start doing that, the other half leaves. All you have to do is get a leader in there that looks charismatic and happy and all this kind of stuff. And now you have an unbeliever leading the church. Correct. The only people that can unite believers and unbelievers are unbelievers. Let that one settle in. And Jude will be very clear about this. So is Peter. Peter actually looks at false teachers in the church who are doing this exact thing. And he's saying, this is actually where the reference, God has a special place in hell for these people who will mislead the church to the point that it is about this. 2 Peter 2 is one of the most harsh chapters in all the scriptures where he actually expresses, let's see if I can quote it straight up, where he says, for them, these false teachers, the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever. He said, this is, they are following in the way of Balaam, they are working all of these things for their own benefit, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the spiritual health of anyone because they aren't even Christians to begin with. Yes, ma'am. I think there are two types of people, the person who is searching, but has a prophetic side, and then the people that are denying it. So I would actually say yes for the second one, not necessarily for the first one. The first one, if we're going to go consistent with Romans 3, we're going to say there's no one who seeks after God, no one who desires him on his own terms. There are those who are trying to find God on their own terms, but to actually come to the Lord, he has to regenerate them first. He actually has to draw them, because nobody is naturally going to stumble upon God. Not on his terms, because his terms say, you don't even have the ability nor the desire to follow me on my terms. And so there's no one actually seeking for God his way, there's seeking for God all manner of ways. And we give them the gospel, and God uses the word of the gospel to actually bring their soul to life again so that they believe in Christ. So, I would say there's really one category of unbelievers, and then there's an addendum to that. One category of unbelievers. No one seeks after God. It's stated in 15 different places throughout the Old Testament, many places throughout the New. And then there's those who knew who God was and fully and ultimately rejected him, those who commit the unpardonable sin. That's a whole nother category, as Jesus refers to, which I don't call the unpardonable sin, it's just everyone does. It's really the sin that will never be forgiven. That's a biggie. And whether that can even be committed today is actually even debatable. But as far as for unbelievers are concerned, nobody's actually seeking after God as he reveals himself to be. And so what are we finding? The only people that are saved, they're not those who find God. It is those whom God saves. That's the order of how it works. And there are those who will say, you know, I'm honestly seeking, you know, if you provide me the right evidence or whatever, then I'll believe in your God. You're not going to ever believe in my God like that. It's not about enough evidence because the reality is you're still putting yourself as the arbiter of what's true. God doesn't let you do that. God comes up and says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Oh, well prove it to me. No. It's trusting. They will have a blind faith in themselves. And what Christ says is, that's not how it is. And in scripture, it's never blind faith. It is taking the Lord at his word. And in our natural state, we don't do that. We want the fruit for ourselves. We want to decide what's good and evil. We want to be the arbiters. And God comes up and says, no, I am. I tell you what's good and what's evil. That's how this works. Well, no, I have to make sure you're true first. Good luck with that. What are you going to correct? It's one of these things that I absolutely am just aghast that people do not recognize. When an atheist will come up and go, you know, you Christians, you believe in this God, right? But then there's all this suffering in this world and God doesn't do anything about it. Boom, there, God can't be real. You just come back and go, I'm sorry, how did you define what's evil? How do you know if the suffering is wrong or bad? What moral code are you working with? You're borrowing from our worldview to defeat our worldview. So you set up your own worldview. Tell me what's evil. And tell me what's good. Because I promise you, it'll just look like you. Amazing, they're making a God after their own imagination. Exactly as God said, everyone does. And so, this is one of the things I pray quite often. God, let us worship you as you reveal yourself to be, not as we would prefer you to be. Because if we're honest with ourselves even now, we would desire God to be different than he reveals himself to be. There are certain aspects of our life we would want him to think less of our sin and more of somebody else that annoys us. Right? Yeah? Yeah. We want God to be more like us. That's not the Holy Spirit speaking, that's you. And then when we look at other people and we say, we don't want them to be more like Christ, we want them to be more like us. That's not the Holy Spirit, that's you. I don't want you to be more like me. I want you to be more like Christ. I want it with all my heart, because if you're more like me, that demonstrates me to be a false teacher. That's exactly what he's saying here. Because you'll pull away from the church, the focus on the gospel, the focus on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will never have mercy on those who disagree with you. You will just seek to destroy them, no matter what it takes. And so Jude is, while warning about false teachers, then establishes what is it that the Spirit is actually doing. The same mercy that Christ showed to you, you will be showing to others. So what if they're doubting? They need mercy. What if they're weak? They need help. What if they're false teachers? They need to be excised from the church. Lest they bring us all down with them. It's the whole point of the book of Jude. Did I say we're going to do 1 John today? You didn't say when. That's right. Just try to weave it into the sentence. I'm not giving the sermon today, Ralph is. I'm actually creating his sermon today. It's part of our ordination thing that we're working on. Yeah. Nope, I'm not gonna start 1 John, there's no way. We will pick up in 1 John next week. So we're just gonna be satisfied with Jude today and end a little bit early. Let's pray as we go. Father, I pray you continue to work on our hearts through your Spirit. I pray for all of us that we give diligence to add to our faith virtue and knowledge and self-control and brotherly kindness and love and all of these things that you express to us, the importance of these things, that we do not lose sight of our own salvation, but instead glorify you and give you the glory and the thanks that is owed to your name for these things. Father, we pray that we do not just do that on our own. We do not forsake gathering together, but we come together as Christians, as we ought, and we remind ourselves and each other of the gospel and the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ who has cleansed us from all sins. Father, we also lift up our own fellowship, that we may have mercy on those who doubt, and that even in our own lives and each other's lives, we do not allow any quarter for sin, but instead help one another with the various logs and splinters in our eyes and the problems in our hearts, Father, even in those places especially, that Scripture speaks on clearly, that we do not in any way enable sins, but combat them. And Father, for those places that are matters of conscience, I pray you give us grace with one another and understanding that we do not automatically assume the worst about one another, but to intend to guide one another towards Christ and see his gospel played out even in our fellowship every day we come together. We're grateful for that. We pray for it this day in your son's name. Amen. Sure. They are a Jewish country. They are not a believer of France. Yet.