All right, well good morning everyone. Just two things as I begin today, which would be one of the thoughts I had this week as our pastor is in California, as he's graduating, to try and honor him in some way. One of the things I thought to do was to sneak into his house and take one of the master's ties and wear it in honor of him, but thankfully it was my mother, so ironically Mother's Day, who advised me against that, and she used the adjective, that would be creepy. The second thing that I would like to add would just be thankfulness for Eric and for Stephen and John and Michael, our pastors, our elders, for entrusting the pulpit to me today, although perhaps that is regretted a little bit by my first point that I made. So anyway, I wanna invite you to turn to the letter of Jude, the letter of Jude. We've been in 1 Peter towards the end of our Bibles. We're gonna go even further. This is the final epistle before we come to John's revelation. This is a short letter. It's a neglected letter, I think, in a lot of ways. But Jude is one of the most interesting of the epistles, those pastoral letters that you're gonna find in the New Testament. And I think one of the most compelling elements of his writing style is his ability uniquely to conjure these incredibly striking word pictures and metaphors that express his zeal and express his passion for the well-being of the church. But most notably, and we're going to look at this today, his grave concern for the purity of the church. So Jude writes as a wise pastor in a lot of ways, and that's one of the reasons why I always enjoy revisiting this letter again and again over my Christian life, because with any good book that you return to time and time again, the author kind of becomes like a friend to you, and even just studying this week, Jude has felt like a friend to me. And so he begins with one of the most interesting introductions, if you look at verse three, to any epistle, because he indicates that when he sat down to write, He actually wound up writing about something, as he was carried along by the Spirit of God, something he didn't initially intend to write about. He wanted to write about, he says, our common salvation. So at some point, he realized that the very salvation he wanted to celebrate was in danger of being compromised unless the church rose to the occasion of fighting for its survival. And so it starts out, perhaps, as this friendly, encouraging, comforting letter to the believers, and it's a general letter. It's not like some letters from Paul that are to a church. This is to those who are called, beloved, that would be all believers. Instead, this becomes a call to every believer in the church to contend earnestly. for the doctrine in the church, for their own souls, and we're gonna see for each other. So this morning I wanna look at the verses 22 and 23, but I'm gonna start reading in verse 17. And I'm gonna be reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. The flow is done so well. And so Jude writes to the Christians, starting at verse 17. But you beloved must remember that the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ that they were saying to you in the last times there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, not having the Spirit, but you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And then verse 22, and on some who are doubting, have mercy. and for others save snatching them out of the fire and on others have mercy with fear hating even the tunic polluted by the flesh. If you were to title the sermon today, it would be the Ministry of Mercy. At this point in the letter, Jude has been warning his readers of certain false-hearted infiltrators who've somehow managed to worm their way into their fellowship, even in some cases, those that have become shepherds of the flock of Christ. And we can see clearly through the letter as we read how concerned Jude has been to expose and denounce these men and their characters. And I was talking with Mike this morning. It's interesting how Jude doesn't hold back any punches. Listen to how he describes them. They're creepers. They're ungodly persons who pervert the grace of God into sensuality. These people are deniers of Jesus. They're defilers of the flesh. They're rebels. They're blasphemers. Unreasoning animals. Hidden reefs to run aground. Self-absorbed clouds without water. Fruitless trees with dead roots. Crashing foamy waves. Wandering stars roaming the empty cosmos. Grumbling, lustful blame shifters. arrogant, self-exalting flatterers. When Jude comes to the conclusion of this letter where we started at verse 17, the tone changes dramatically, doesn't it? These verses here are a powerful reminder and a searching reminder that in the believer's concern for Christ's church, we can never be blind to what is an essential responsibility of the church. And so in verses 22 and 23 that we're gonna look at today, Jude gives the readers direction on how to respond to those who have been deceived in the church, either by someone who is apostate or a doctrine rooted in apostasy. And so in Jude's classic preference, when you read through the letter, he likes to use triads, triplets, to emphasize his points. There's three kinds of people here that he mentions, and I think each are progressively more difficult to turn away from the error they believe. First, we see that there are those whose lives have been unsettled by false teachings. They are the ones that he calls are doubting. And second, there are those who have embraced elements of false teaching to their detriment. They're wandering, so to speak, and they must be saved, he says. And thirdly, because Jude, I think, is leading us to this escalating climax, he says there are those who've become almost irreparably immersed in the thinking and the lifestyle of these false teachers and false teaching. You see, there's always a moral and a doctrinal fallout to false teaching. And you find it throughout the Old Testament where no sooner are God's people led away into some sort of theological error. We've seen this in 1 Samuel, and we're gonna see it further as we go along. But no sooner are people of God led away into theological error that their lives are submerged into immorality, into godlessness. And that's why when you read the New Testament, the writers are always so concerned that we take error seriously. Because people will be led by it. It's not just thinking wrong, things but living godless lives. And at the outset, I too want to make this clear as well. There's a fine dividing line in a church between someone who's a watchful brother, a watchful sister, and someone who is just a bloodhound sniffing out heresy. I don't think the New Testament is ever encouraging us to be the kind of people who are looking for monsters under the bed all the time, and always on the prowl for some heresy to condemn in the church. We are to be watchful. We are to be careful and guarding each other. But it's in addition to what Jude says here, being merciful, being generous, being kind, because the cause of Christ and the honor of God is at stake. So I think it's significant at the outset here in the flow of Jude's writing before he comes to this exhortation to show mercy to those who doubt, to chase after those who are entwined in error, that he takes time to exhort the believers to give themselves to the cultivation, so to speak, of personal godliness. That's why he says in the verses right before, verses 20 and 21, build yourselves up. on your most holy faith. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God. You're waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to return alive. There's little doubt, I think, that as a progression of Jude's thought, knowing that the success that we'll have in rescuing the perishing, like that old hymn says, snatching men and women from the fire, in large measure, it's going to depend on the kind of lives that we're living before God and we're living before the world. If we're going to engage meaningfully in this effort, we have to be attentive to our own souls first. We have to recognize a priority here, because the gospel has to come from lives that manifestly reveal its power and its grace. That's what's so striking when you read, like Paul's farewell, for instance, to the elders in Ephesus. Acts chapter 20, verse 28, he says, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. Why? The next verse tells us. I know that after my departure, Paul tells them, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. That really shouldn't surprise us, because as we read through the scriptures again, truth is never divorced from life. When Paul writes to Timothy, his second letter to him, encouraging him to purify his life, He's encouraging him. He's wanting to impress upon him. He says, and I love this phrase, if he's ever to be useful to the master, he would need to be mortifying sin to the flesh. He'd need to be engaging day by day, moment by moment, putting sin to death in order that he would become a useful vessel for the master to take and use for the glory of his son, for the blessing of his word to the people. And so that's why I'm sure when Jude, before he comes to exhort us here in 22 and 23, to be merciful to those who doubt, to snatch others from the fire, to save them, he prioritizes the necessity of being the kind of men and women who make the cultivation of personal godliness the great activity of our lives. And this is so that our witness for Christ would impact a godless world because the world is accustomed to hearing words upon words upon words. But we want our words to actually register in their hearing. And that often comes because our lives have been shaped by the gospel. Lives that have been filled with the gospel, lives that manifestly in all our poverty are bringing glory to God. So all this is so that we might be effective in what Jude calls us So, what you've probably already noticed in these verses is this unwritten premise that men and women are in danger. And as we see here, some more than others. Some are doubting. Some are wandering. Some are running headlong into a destruction that they will never return from. Some are heading for a lost and godless eternity, which is why Jude exhorts us to show mercy. Mercy upon those who doubt, snatching others from the fire. The great reality, Jude is telling us here, is that there are people even among us heading in the opposite direction. They're heading away from Christ. They're heading toward a godless eternity. And if they persist in that way, they will find themselves irreversibly and irretrievably damned forever. And so, Jude is saying here, brethren, show them mercy. Show them compassion. Be to them the compassion of Christ. And so, as we kind of launch into these verses here, I just wonder if we don't take seriously enough This is food for thought to consider. Jesus' words in John 3.16, we know well, but John 3.17, Jesus says, "'For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.'" Of course, it is Christ who is in fact set in judgment over this world. The primary movement of Jesus coming into the world, the primary movement of the incarnation, the primary grace of God as He sent His Son into the world was to save and not to condemn. And that is what pulses through, as it were, the heart of God today, this morning at Fellowship Church. And so Jude is telling us, brethren, have mercy on some, save some. So we're gonna look closely at these three different kinds of people, each one, I think, in a more perilous situation than the next. And as we look at each, we wanna make note of where our responsibility and effort to reclaim them lies. So first, we're to have mercy on those who doubt the faith, verse 22. I think she's referring to the effect that the false teachings had on some in these Christian churches. Paul's teaching has a deeply unsettling influence, and especially, I'm sure, on fledgling Christians, who Paul says in Ephesians chapter four, he says, they're like children that are tossed here and there by waves. They're carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. That sounds a lot like who Jude has been describing in this letter. We need an understanding and a recognition of what doubt is, though. Our mercy has to be informed. So the questions that we should be asking before we mobilize and we try to figure out the how of this is who are these people that are doubting? Why are they doubting? What are they doubting? We have to understand there's really different categories to doubt. There are certainly people who have no intention of opening their heart and their mind to the truth. They're resolved to kind of keep Jesus Christ at arm's length, at a safe distance, but there's another kind of doubt that I want to focus on this morning in this first point. Remember when Jesus reunites with the disciples in Galilee after the resurrection. We read in Matthew 28 that when they saw him, they worshiped him. but some doubted. You remember in Mark chapter nine, the account of the father who had a demon-possessed boy and he comes to Jesus and Jesus states to him, all things are possible to him who believes. The father immediately responds with that cry, I do believe, but that's not the end of it, help my unbelief. So in keeping with Jude's practice of triplicate examples, we could also consider how Jesus dealt with one disciple who, in particular, he's unfortunately remembered in history as the one who was doubting. So unless I see, Thomas said, unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails, put my finger into the place of the nails, put my hand into his side, I will not believe, John 20, 25 says. How did Jesus respond to him? Did he write him off? comes to this precious man and he says, Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand here and put it into my side. And apistas alapistos, do not be unbelieving, but believing. When Calvin in his commentary references this exchange between Jesus and Thomas, after he uses some pretty unflattering language to describe Thomas, he uses this wonderful word to describe the grace of God in this situation. He says, Jesus Christ accommodated himself to Thomas' doubts. He stooped down to where Thomas was. He didn't write him off. Yes, you read the verses that follow after that. He rebukes Thomas, gently I might add, but he rebukes his lack of faith, but that's not where Jesus began. He says, Thomas, behold my hands. Put your hand in my side. He's merciful to sinners. And so, I wonder, I really can't help but wonder, How many present here in this room today might identify in some way with that? Perhaps recently, perhaps suddenly, unexpectedly, you've been blindsided by doubt in some way. Scripture reveals and our experience confirms that the temptation to doubt in some form and at some time is a common temptation for all Christians. Not just some Christians, for all Christians. Someone who doubts is not unique. Someone who doubts is not alone. But more often than not, I think we find that this person is woefully unprepared and even scared to tell someone about his doubts, leaving him vulnerable to this doubt. The ignorance about what doubt really is, what is entailed, and reluctance to divulge it, I think is all too common among Christians. And I would also venture to say that probably many of us aren't just prepared to deal with temptation to doubt ourselves, but maybe we're probably unprepared to effectively deal with this temptation when someone reveals it to us. So I would ask yourself, or ask you to ask yourself, what if in the foyer after our meeting this morning, and in the course of a conversation, this kind of person informs you of his or her temptation to doubt, how would you respond? How would you react? What would you say? You see, Jude, again, as I stated, he's such a wise pastor. He's aware of those around him who've been adversely influenced, those that are struggling with doubt. He's aware of the reality of doubt, and he's caring for those who are tempted to doubt, as evidenced by this exhortation for the church to contend for one another. This wise pastor is not surprised by the temptation to doubt because the temptation to doubt the trustworthiness of God is actually a common temptation to all Christians. We have to recognize that. No Christian is exempt from this temptation. No Christian. not the heroes of faith that we know so well throughout the redemptive history. That includes Job, that includes Jeremiah, that includes King David, that includes John the baptizer, that includes all of the apostles, that includes the apostle Paul, Not them, not your pastors, not the most mature Christians you know. From the Garden of Eden to the gates, the doors, I'm gonna call them the gates of Fellowship Church, Satan has as his aim to take anything he can to exploit your weaknesses and plant seeds of doubt in your mind. Every Christian, please note this, every Christian will become familiar to some degree with this temptation and we should not be surprised by this temptation. but you should be prepared for it. If you're not prepared for this temptation, you'll be vulnerable to the effects of this temptation, particularly if you don't tell anyone about this temptation. Charles Spurgeon didn't want his congregation to be surprised by this temptation, and one Sunday, he sought to prepare his church. And these are his tenderly given words to his church. I want to read this. It seems as if doubt were doomed to be the perpetual companion of faith. It is not possible, I suppose, so long as man is in the world, that he should be perfect in anything. And surely it seems to be quite impossible that he should be perfect in faith. I think I shall be quite safe in concluding this morning that there are some here who are full of doubting and fearing. Sure I am that all Christians have their times of anxious questioning. The heart that has never doubted has not yet learned to believe. Yes, there may be timid ones here, those who are always of little faith, and there may be also great hearts, those who are valiant for truth, but who are now enduring seasons of despondency and hours of darkness. Spurgeon assumed that it would be wise and safe to conclude that there were both timid ones, as he calls it, and those with great hearts of faith, both experiencing this temptation to doubt. And I think it would be wise to make the same assumption this morning. And so, if this applies to you in this moment, please know God wants you to experience mercy this morning from His Word and from one another. And if you aren't presently experiencing this temptation, I wanna gently inform you and prepare you that at some point, all of us will be numbered among those who are tempted to doubt. And so anticipating this, God kindly provides through Jude in verse 24, or verse 22, those who are called to care for us, those we can turn to when we find ourselves dogged by the reality of doubt. So given the reality of doubt, and our acknowledgement of His existence, how, here's the how, how do we care for, how do we contend for those who are tempted to doubt? Jude simply says we're called to have mercy on them. I think that describes the appropriate disposition of our heart when a new Christian informs us of their temptation to doubt, or an older saint informs us of their temptation to doubt, or your spouse informs you of their temptation to doubt, or one of your children informs you of their temptation to doubt. This particular temptation to doubt is real. And so Jude, I think, describes the appropriate disposition and response of our heart when someone approaches us and divulges to us their temptation to doubt. He says, have mercy on him. So how can we? Let's think about this. How can we communicate mercy to those who doubt? We have to realize at first, But we have to start by declaring our gratitude. Specifically, we cannot, note this, we cannot have mercy on others if we aren't acutely aware of the mercy we have received from God himself. It was Calvin who said, mercy is God's proper work. And Paul says in Ephesians 2, if you are a Christian, he says, it's solely because God, quote, being rich in mercy, the greatest verses in all of the Bible. But God, being rich in mercy, God was merciful to you. He substituted his son for you and your sins. He revealed the gospel to you. And so look back at verse two of Jude. We see Jude, he references the mercy that we've received, the mercy that was revealed. And he has this desire that it would be freshly multiplied in our lives. And then coming down to verse 21, we read earlier, Christians are described even as those who are waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Christians are those who now are not living in fear of future wrath because of the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our relationship to God is as a gracious, a merciful father. So recognizing and remembering, acknowledging that you've received mercy from God should make you eager to show mercy to those who doubt. It should protect you from responding self-righteously or impatiently with those who are tempted to doubt. If you're not attentive, listen, if you're not attentive to the mercy of God in your life, you will be vulnerable to a self-righteous disposition of heart toward those who acknowledge temptation, to those who acknowledge their need, to those who acknowledge their weaknesses, to those who acknowledge their sin and confess their sin to you. If you're not conscious of divine mercy in your life, you will lack compassion for them, and you'll be vulnerable to being impatient with them. So it's with gratitude, it's also with humility. We read these references to the mercy of God. There should be a lot of effects that it should have on us, but one of those is a humbling effect. When someone approaches us, they acknowledge that they're experiencing this temptation to doubt, the response shouldn't be, how could you? Why would you doubt? When it's seasoned with mercy, the response should be something like, I would love to help you because God has helped me, God has been merciful to me. There's not scolding. You're gonna care for them, wanna comfort them, wanna seek to appropriately exhort them, and it's gonna be done humbly. We have mercy on those who doubt by remembering that we have inexplicably received the mercy of God, and that we are even now waiting for that final day of consummate mercy. But we have to examine the doubt. And this is a majorly important point that has to be made here. Sub-point, I guess, if you would. Because it seems to me there is a common assumption among believers that doubt and unbelief are synonymous. Certainly doubt and unbelief can overlap. but it would be a fundamental stake to say that these words can be used or are used in Scripture interchangeably. A careful study of Scripture is gonna argue otherwise. And this is a critical distinction. Typically, when the New Testament refers to unbelief, it's speaking of, I think, a much less ambiguous word of disbelief, the refusal to believe. It's a rejection of God. It's a rejection of His Word. Doubt is different from that. And there is nuance, I get that. In B.B. Warfield's Select Shorter Writings, he has this article on this topic, and Warfield writes that in the New Testament, we encounter a series of terms for doubt, which run through, quote, the shades of meaning expressed by our words, perplexity, suspense, distraction, hesitation, questioning, and skepticism. What Warfield there is trying to explain is that doubt is not synonymous with unbelief, and that faith is also not synonymous with the absence entirely of doubt. And the presence of doubt is not necessarily the absence of faith. There are many shades of doubt is what he's saying, and I think saying well. So, whereas unbelief involves a whole scale, rejection and refusal, doubt You want to think of it in terms of uncertainty. There's hesitation, there's questioning, there's being perplexed, there's being distracted in your walk with the Savior. And that would be quite different, I think, than a refusal to believe, a rejection, a resistance or defiance that characterizes the false teachers as they're portrayed in verse 8, those who are rejecting authority, rejecting God and rejecting His Word. Yes, doubt weakens faith, but the presence of doubt doesn't mean there is the absence of faith. And I think there's a fundamental difference between the unbelief that would characterize a non-Christian, someone who clearly doesn't believe and has no faith, and the Christian that doubts at times and wavers at times in their belief. The Christian who's struggling to believe, not refusing to believe. And again, this is why this is such an important point. I realize that in trying to make this distinction, that I run the risk of being misunderstood. So please know, I want to emphatically state, in no way am I implying, in any way, shape, or form, that doubt isn't serious, because it absolutely is. When we submit to our doubt, when we succumb to our doubt, we are sinning. Because scripture is clear, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. James warns us about doubt. He says, the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, James 1.6. To give oneself to doubt is sin, it's always portrayed in scripture as being detrimental, always. And so, listen, especially in our, in this modern world, it is not cool to doubt. It is not humble to doubt. And it's not courageous, as some might try to convince you, to deconstruct your faith. Because when we doubt, we're exalting our perceptions, our opinions, our feelings, over the immovable truth of God's word, and God's gracious promises, and God's wise command. So again, the distinction I'm trying to make is not to trivialize doubt in any way. We cannot minimize doubt. Doubt is to be opposed with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. It is to be addressed so that it can be eventually resolved with God's word so that once again, we can walk confidently in faith and please God as a result because He is truthful, right? He is trustworthy. But we're to have mercy on those who do doubt. We're not to condemn them if they are struggling with doubt. And I would say those who are struggling with doubt, don't automatically condemn yourself. They should be gently encouraged and patiently instructed from the Word of God. And I want to give you a reason why this distinction is vitally important. You'll notice most of the time is spent here on doubting. But this distinction is vitally important. One of the reasons is from my own personal experience. I think something that can characterize one's conversion is the wrongful assumption that as someone who's now experienced the miracle of being regenerate, the presence of faith, that now there's gonna be the absence of any impulse to doubt for the rest of my life. That would be my experience. If you were to interact with me soon after my conversion, which was in Bible college of all places, I'm sure I would have boldly declared to you, doubt, unbelief, those are a thing of my past. Those have nothing to do with me. For a little while. because it wasn't soon after. But I couldn't comprehend doubt and unbelief because my heart was filled. It was flooded with faith, with zeal. The things that I had been taught, the things that I had learned in my childhood, being in church and being in a home where the word of God was taught and we did pray and we did talk about the gospel, but it all came alive. But an individual like this is so vulnerable when through, and it may not be a long time after, and encountering even maybe just one trial, that they find themselves tempted to doubt. And if that individual's never taught about this temptation, I think they're going to find themselves defenseless to it. And so when I actually did acknowledge doubts that I had over the course of time, What I was simultaneously acknowledging was a deep fear in my life, and that was that somehow this temptation to doubt the very presence of it somehow, some way, was calling into question the genuineness of my faith, the authenticity of my conversion. Certainly it should sober you, but frequently I would find myself ashamed and fearful and condemned. And so the hope that entered my soul was when a pastor from years past, as his expression of mercy to me, the doubter, he made me acutely aware of this reality that doubt is a temptation common to all Christians. The doubt is not rigidly synonymous to unbelief, and even in some ways, and this is profound, the presence, profound coming from him, not from me, the presence of doubt itself in my struggle to conquer sin, which so much entailed what I was doubting. Why can't I conquer? Why can't I be victorious over these sins? But that struggle to conquer sin can actually be somewhat of a validation of your conversion, and not an argument to question your own belief. Now, listen to some of these prayers, and these are by men that I think we would all esteem, but I'm gonna leave their names anonymous. That's kind of the point. Is it any wonder that we resonate so with prayers like this? I fall short of thy glory every day by spending hours unprofitably, by thinking that the things I do are good when they are not done to thy end, nor spring from the rules of thy word. Another one, sin's deformity is stamped upon me, darkens my brow, touches me with corruption, lowest abasement is my due place. For I am less than nothing before thee. My sin is that my heart is pleased or troubled, as things please or trouble me, without my having a regard to Christ. That's from the Valley of Vision. Prayers that we esteem, prayers that we hold up as wonderful devotional pieces of our worship before the Lord. But you see, when I, Before I came to know Christ, I cared not for the things of God. None of this would have resonated with me. But as a believer, doesn't your soul wither at the thought of displeasing Him? That's why those prayers resonate with us, because the more we grow in our sanctification, we talked about this in the adult Sunday class, the more we grow in our sanctification, I think the brighter that light shines on our sin. And there is an increasing temptation and increasing opportunity for Satan to creep in, as he did with Job, trying to convince him even to doubt. So one of the ways that we can show mercy to those who doubt is helping them see this distinction between doubt and unbelief. Now again, we're never to accommodate the gospel to doubters. We don't lower it. We don't lower the terms of God. We are to be merciful to doubters, though. We're to be tenderhearted, we're to be kind, we're to be forbearing. In other words, we're to be to them as God in his grace has been to us, because how easily do we forget, I think in our zeal, for God's honor, for the integrity of the gospel, that we become less than merciful to doubters, right? We forget that we're to be called generous believers, kind believers, those that are forbearing with one another. to be unyielding regarding the honor of Christ and the truth of the gospel, and yet to do so in a spirit that's generous. As Ian Hamilton, the Scottish pastor, says, large-hearted. So, friends, remember how God in His grace has been merciful to you. With that in mind, we have to be merciful to them. So again, the first point is really one of the main ones, but the second point would be to save those, the second group of people, save those who, I'd use the word, wander from the faith. This is verse 23, the first half. These are those who've wandered into the lifestyle, the teaching of those false-hearted impostors that were described before. For others, save, he says, snatching them out of the fire, So it should be clear, Jude's talking about people who have gone a little bit further than doubt, right? They've wandered from the faith. He says already, they're in the fire. We have to save them out of the fire. These are people that are convinced. They've bought the lies. They've owned the lies, perhaps. They're being singed by hell, to use this imagery. The language is a little bit difficult to interpret here, but notice what he's saying. I think that's an important point. He says that we're to go save them. We're to go and save these people. So if your theological canary in the gold mine has woken up, don't worry. We're saved by sovereign grace and we're not saved by any other way. Jude's not violating that. So what is he imploring us to do when he says save them? In the providence, the purposes of God, in his saving work until that final day, to those of us who believe, are we not the mouthpiece of God, the hands of Christ, the feet of Christ? Are we not his ambassadors? Remember Paul's very moving language to the Corinthians. He says, we are ambassadors for Christ. As God is pericleo, as he is pleading, we're making his appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Those are such momentous words in the New Testament. How often do we think about this heavenly employment to stand before men and women as these divinely appointed ambassadors? And in James chapter five, we read this, my brothers, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the air of his way will save his soul from death. The next word that he uses in snatching them out of the fire, it's stronger. They're snatched out of this burning. This is not gentle. So we were gentle before. This is vivid. This is mercy that's infused with force. It's taking by force. That word literally means carried away from, attacking. This rescue mission is demonstrated in these situations as a forceful course of action. Jude knew his Old Testament well. We see this in many places, but right here, We think back to Amos chapter four, where the prophet is, he records the Lord, God, who is recounting how he plucked his people as a brand, as a fiery coal from destruction. And then earlier in 2 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, a little bit later, after that passage about being ambassadors, Paul tells the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, he says that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds as we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Smashing fortresses, freeing captives. John MacArthur would say here, he says, people are victims of ideas. They're imprisoned by ideas. So the point being, if they're to be won back from the burning building, then someone has to have the courage to go reclaim them. Someone has to speak up when the church is believing lies. Someone has to speak up when Christians are being taught by seminaries to apologize for the Bible when it's not in step with public opinion on the roles of men and women in the church and in the home. Someone has to speak up when Christians are persuaded to close their churches indefinitely in the ambiguous name of public health. Someone has to speak up when Christians are shamed by the high priests of wokeness to repent for whiteness, regardless of if their skin color is light or dark. Someone has to speak up, as a musician this is passionate to me, when Christians are seduced by the sultry sounds of Jesus culture and hill song to go wading into the cesspools of their teaching. It's not that I think that we're always lacking in courage, but we're a culture that tends to mind its own business. We feel uncomfortable when the Bible actually tells us to go and interfere, because we're gonna get some flack for it. Jude's imperative here is pointed right at me. I hope it's pointing at you as well. We have to run the risk of getting burned, but that's what Jude's telling us to do. It requires energy, if you were to put a sub-point under there. It requires energy and vitality, but also, it requires concern. This is a solemn responsibility before God, and it embodies our concern for them. We read from Ezekiel 34 this morning, I love, about the Lord searching for his sheep and going after them, and he says, I will do it. I was so moved by that. But if you were to look a chapter earlier in Ezekiel 33, there's a warning issue to the one who's negligent in this responsibility that Jude's talking about. He says, Ezekiel 33 verse six, if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, blow his trumpet, so that the people are not warned and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. We have to remember that no one is beyond God's reclaiming love. There is no one so steeped in sin, there's no one so ensnared by Satan that the gospel cannot free them and make them whole and lift them from the dung heap of this earth if God so wills it. Because we can have men that preach these kinds of truths from a pulpit just like this and rarely be moved by it. Rarely broken ourselves by the reality of those that we see falling away. and even running away. You remember Jesus when he approached the holy city of Jerusalem and he was weeping over it. He's weeping over the people. You remember Paul when he was grieving over his countrymen. He was willing, in Romans chapter nine, nearly willing to give up his heavenly inheritance with Christ just so that they might be claimed by God for the sake of them. We're called by Jude to snatch these ones from the precipice of a lost and ruined eternity. So the point I would want to leave with you here is just that they are about to be swallowed up. They're in the process of being swallowed up, and so you cannot sit idly by. You cannot just watch to see what happens. You cannot hope somebody else goes after them. You can't write them off and say they're going where they deserve to go. They foolishly didn't listen to our admonitions. They become drunk full of this false teaching, the lies. You have to go out and get them. Jude's saying, you have to go bring them back. And so thirdly, this third group of people were to have mercy on those who, and the word I would use would be abandon the faith. Second half of verse 23. On others have mercy with fear, Jude says, hating even the tunic polluted by the flesh. So Jude is taking us, I think, to the very zenith or the pinnacle where men and women have become so immersed that even as it were, the very clothing has been stained by sin. And yet Jude still says we are to show them mercy. But it is extremely dangerous. There's an attitude of caution, or the sub-point here would be with an attitude of sobriety. This is not a love the sin or hate the sin statement from Jude. This is a warning that in showing mercy to these people, watch out. Watch out. Understand how contaminating sin can be and how easily it can pollute your life and your efforts to win them. Remember how vulnerable, remember how susceptible you are. It is dangerous work. Because they are so deeply deceived, often this kind of person is articulate in their deception, subtle, satanic, advocates of the error that now has captured their hearts and captured their minds. So I guess as a second sub-point of this, it's to be with a holy hatred of sin. As he says, we're to hate the tunic, the clothing, polluted by the flesh. The fear that we might be corrupted by their evil if we get too close. This situation, this kind of person, is someone that, and I might get flack for this, you can't make a friendship out of this. situation. You can't get intimate here, excepting this. The language of this inference is as coarse as you're going to find in all of Scripture. The garment, the chaton, it's the undergarment. And John MacArthur, what he writes here is be very careful, almost phobic, as you try to give mercy, the mercy of the truth to these people, and a little further he says, because what comes out of them is a filthy pollution, and you're in danger if you get too close. The idea of undergarment and this pollution, you get the idea. So remembering the potential for ourselves to become contaminated, to become soiled, it is no easy thing. but to have it before our minds, to be praying to God as we seek to show mercy, it is vital to our spiritual well-being. In Paul's salutation as he's closing his letter to the Romans in that long chapter 16 of greetings and all these exhortations, he says in verse 17, I think this is actually in the worship guide today, I urge you brothers to keep your eye on those who cause dissensions. and stumblings, contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them." You have to be so careful. In the letters to the church in Smyrna, the church in Philadelphia, we learn that they maintained purity. This is Revelation chapter 3. They maintained purity in this, and they even received a commendation. In chapter 3 verse 4, It says you have a few names in Sardis who have not defiled their garments and they will walk with me in white for they are worthy. But the chapter before, Revelation 2, we read that it was the failure to confront false teaching that doomed the church of Pergamum, that it permitted the teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans. It was the failure of the church in Thyatira. They tolerated a woman named Jezebel, ironically, to teach people to commit acts of immorality and eat sacrificial food to idols. If you have ever wondered what God's view of false teaching is, this is it, it's filth. You must do more than fear being contaminated by sin. You have to hate your sin. You have to hate sin itself. That's really the only safety. There are quite a lot of sins, I think, in our lives that we'll never get out of the habit of unless we hate them vehemently. We know the quote well from John Owen, you have to be killing sin. This is my paraphrase. You have got to be killing sin or it absolutely is gonna kill you. God alone can put hatred of sin in our hearts. If we don't hate the sins that we've been delivered from by the power of God, there isn't the least chance we're gonna help someone out of their wreck. The New Testament is clear when it talks about evil, when it talks about error, sometimes you even have to steer clear of it for your own sake. And I'm telling you, it may even be that there comes a time when the only thing you can do for someone in showing mercy to them like this is pray for them. But at least you can do that with mercy. You can do that energetically. You can do that soberly. So I want to conclude this morning with two points, I guess, of application. The first is that whatever else a church is to be is to reflect in its life an attitude of the mercy of God. We ought to be a church that excels in mercy because if we have believed unto Christ, we are simply sinners who have received mercy. That's all we are. And so having received mercy, we are to show mercy. And so ask yourself, if there is an absence of mercy in my life, a failure to show mercy to other people, it puts a question mark, at least, on your profession, at least to other people. Do your lives show mercy? Do your lives show kindness, large heartedness? To people who have been taken in by the false teaching, by the false living of a godless world, do you show mercy? And the second would be, for whatever else a church is to be, it is to be soberly and cautiously keeping watch over their souls while relying upon God's preserving grace to keep them and deliver them. That's a lot to unpack, I know. But it's not difficult to imagine these original readers hearing this, reading this from Jude, and as they're looking around wondering, am I going to make it? Am I going to make it? Have you ever had that experience where someone who had every appearance of being genuinely converted and was blindsided by doubt in some form, or their lives were being shipwrecked on lies, carrying them away, and you tried to help, and other people tried to help, and it left you unsettled with this torment, the secretly tormenting thought, am I gonna make it? Am I gonna persevere? I think Jude anticipates the reader's need for assurance, and we often read this in our benediction each week, but it's verses 24 and 25. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless. Jude wants to root their contending for one another in the preserving grace of God. He wants them to contend for others without fear. That as ones that have been saved, as ones that have been purchased by God, they won't stumble, they won't fall away. He wants to assure them that they will persevere in contending because God will preserve them. He wants to remind them that God is able to preserve them as they contend for those who are tempted to doubt and struggle to doubt, those who are being swept away by every wind of doctrine. God is promising to keep them from ultimately falling away. And he not only promises to preserve us, friends, he promises to present us blameless on the last day. Don't miss that reference. I know this isn't the direct focus of our text this morning, but the final judgment day of examination, of evaluation, when we shall appear before the presence of His glory. This is the same glory that Adam and Eve had to hide from, that Isaiah was caused to cry out and say, I'm undone. The same glory that John fell down as though dead in Revelation. That's the glory referenced here. and we are informed that He will present us before the presence of that great glory blameless. How is that possible? I am full of blame. To study my life casually is to be acutely aware of blame and sin. So what is up with this Jude? I can only be presented blameless before the presence of His great glory on that day because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord. That's how sinners like you and like me are presented blameless on that particular day. So there's no wonder there's this little reference tucked away there with great joy. Yeah, I guess so. The joy of a Christian on that day is going to exceed any joy that you experience in this life. The joy on that day of being presented blameless before the presence of his great glory rather than eternally judged, it's gonna be a great day of great joy. Even the angels are gonna be filled with joy. God himself is gonna know the most joy as he observes his magnificent redemptive plan coming to fruition. And so, since it is He who commissions us to be instruments of mercy and encouragement to brothers and sisters within the church who are struggling with doubt. Since it is He who sends us out as beacons of salt and light and truth to those who wander outside the church, and since He does all the preserving, since He does all the presenting, He gets all the glory. So it's no wonder Jude breaks out into worship to the only God, our Savior. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jeffrey, why don't you guys come on up? Our Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for your word that always speaks truth to us because it embodies truth itself. Your Son, Jesus Christ, Lord, the one that came, the one that died for us, the one that paid the penalty for our sin that was so insurmountable in our weakness and our shame, Lord, We are thankful that your son is the living word of truth. And we even look at his life and how he extended mercy and compassion, how he pursued those who wandered away, how he chased down and even rebuked those false teachers who were leading the people astray. Lord, may we have that mercy, may we have that compassion, that level of insight, that level of discernment to help those who doubt. And Lord, for those of us perhaps who experience doubt even today, might there be mercy found? Might there be encouragement found in one another? Might we point each other gently and patiently to the word of God that speaks a better word than we could ever try to give on our own? We thank you so much for your goodness to us, your mercy to us that is undeserved in every way, shape, and form. We pray this in your name, amen.