begin discussion and rotate. All right. And again, for the faith that was once for all of us. For the faith that was written about long ago has securely gripped anyone who fears Godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our holy, sovereign and holy. Though you already know all of this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered His people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority, so abandoned their own homes, these He has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal life. Yet, in like manner, these people also rely on their dreams to defile the flesh, inject authority, and blaspheme in a glorious way. But when the Archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, He did not presume to pronounce the blasphemous judgment, but in general, lords are being killed. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Respondent? Well, to them, they've taken away religion, they've rushed for profit into needless mirrors, They've been destroyed in Korra's rebellion. These matter-of-one-ishes out here, love-beasts, eating with you without slightest malice, shepherds who feed only themselves. They're clouds without rain, blown along by the wind. They're autumn trees, without fruit and without fruited, twice dead. They're wild waves of the sea, summing up their shame. They're wandering stars, around the blackest darkness has been reserved forever. all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly world. And all the harsh words ungodly citizens spoken against them. Excuse me. Go ahead. are constant grabbers, never satisfied, doing whatever people they feel like. Their love now show off, and what they show respect for others is shown as you get something from them in return. Dear friends, remember what the Apostle Lord, Lord Jesus Christ, said in Philippians, that in the last times There would come these scholars whose whole purpose in life is to enjoy themselves in every evil way imaginable. They stir up arguments, they love the evil thoughts and the sins of the world. They do not have the Holy Spirit living in them. What do you think? You must build up your life even more strongly upon the foundation of our holy faith. Learning to pray in the power and strength of the Holy Spirit. Stay always within the boundaries of God's love to reach and bless you. Wait patiently for the eternal life that our Lord Jesus Christ in His mercy is going to give you. who argue against you. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save some way, snatching them from the very flames that hail themselves. And as for others, help them to find their Lord by being kind to them, but be careful that you yourselves aren't pulled along into their sins. Take every trace of your sins while Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and who is able to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Very, very short book. He was kind of prepared for it as we studied through especially second Peter, Peter's second letter. And he was going to write them about the fee. letter, and he's writing not to a specific church like Bethel, but to believers more widespread, and letting them know that, in fact, probably what they're already aware of to some degree, was that there would be those that would infiltrate, and they would try to have a certain effect upon the church And so just sharing more is helping them to understand the situation, to help them understand what the church needed to do, to understand more the goings-on of these individuals. Because usually we have troublemakers, they don't come in as a troublemaker. I always wished at the store that there would be people that would wear t-shirts that say, I'm a shoplifter. I mean, it's usually signs that they kind of give away and kind of flag it down so you kind of know to watch out for it. So often problem makers don't really appear that way, or maybe just someday. And so it's identifying what is positive to do what they're doing, understanding why they do what they do, and understanding the intended effects of what they do. And then also looking to the church as we get to the end here, as far as they're going to have some effect. And he says there's going to be people that doubt. There's going to be people that have actually gotten caught up with what's going on, not only doubting, but starting to have doubts. How do you deal with the effects, the damage, the carnage? And Jude loves to use examples and he loves to use analogies. And for real often, it's helpful for us to, if we have those analogies, we can relate to certain things. For example, Herod's fox. Herod's not a four-legged animal and didn't have a tail, so why would Jesus prefer to Herod as a fox? Okay. All right. So, you'll be aware of it. I mean, Fox today, we may use that sound, but generally it's a good-looking person. Oh, Jesus, what a chance it's going to be. And in some cases, there's going to be more than one quality about that. Why would we use a duck or a horse? Right now, the term in politics is a rhino. What, two-ton people with horns? All right. So, anyway, analogies are good, but you have to understand the reference points A and B and what it is they have in common. And what it is, if there's more than one thing in common, what is it that's being focused on? Jesus did the same thing with his parables. of those things are pretty understandable. When you get into Levin, a little bit more difficult, because Levin was always considered a bad thing, because of its corrupted qualities. Anyway, let's start with verse 8, and he's going to start this right off the bat, as far as not to say these troublemakers, but he says, in the very same way, very same way, these groups of people that gave themselves into, or up to, or left their place, as the examples of the angels, as those of Israel that have started out into the promised land and didn't continue, they gave up that position. Sodom and Gomorrah gave themselves up to perversion. So it says, in the same way, We know part of what he's going to make this comparison to. But then he says, these dreams. And depending on your translation, you might have, in their dreams, is actually more of a literal translation. So what is it about dreamers? And what is it that these people would have in common with a dreamer? Do you have any biblical examples of dreamers? And that is a possibility in that these people may be saying that they received a dream as to why. Because again, they're going to know when they're going to try to change things up. And remember my old A and B there, we go back to that. They're trying to get you to go from A to B, so new information. A is not as good as it was. B is better than what we thought it was. They're going to shake things up, but how do you do that? You've got to go in and in a seemingly reasonable way convince someone of things being different in the status quo. So there's a possibility, he does not say that they did, but they could have said that they received this new revelation by way of a dream. But if someone says something to you and you don't really believe it, you say you're dreaming. So what's the difference between a dream and not a dream? Have you ever had a dream that's just been so real A lot of young dreams are real. Some people don't remember their dreams. My son-in-law does not remember hardly any of his dreams. I remember mine very vividly. But you wake up and you think, how in the world could that have seemed real to me? In my case, my dad's alive still, or something that totally does not match up to reality. It just seems so real. So this is part of the idea of just using this dreamer. So the dreamer, when someone's being referred to as a dreamer, and you've got just the opposite example with Joseph. Remember all of his dreams back in Genesis 37? He said, you know, brothers, I had this dream, this really awesome dream. Let me tell you about it. But when they go to put him to death, they say, OK, now let's see what comes to this dreamer. And did they believe his dreams or not? I don't know. But his dreams were real. And it matched, it didn't match so much reality, but how reality was going to turn the change All right, so he says, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authorities, and slander celestial beings. So he refers to these people as dreamers, but that would be the first question. Why is that? Is it because they claim that they have dreams? Or is it because what they're claiming does not match reality? And that, again, is the other common reason why we refer to people as dreamers. is what you're saying doesn't line up. Remember, he's filthy generous. Yes, and some will. He's very strong. Yeah, in the King James, it draws off of a different translation. In the Greek that I have, it does not have anything that really connotates the filthiness. Yeah, that's why I enjoy hearing the different translations. anywhere from a very old English literal translation to the paraphrases, I think it's helpful to get kind of this wider grasp of what's being said and how to take it. So the English standard says, these people are relying on their dreams. Relying on their dreams, okay. But if it's making a comparison, if the comparison is the very same, then there can't be too much question that it is one thing, like Detective Foyle would say, there's only one explanation. So it has to be the immorality. It has to be the immorality of what he was just talking about. That would certainly be a possibility, because within the Church, immorality is wrong. It's a sin that's not to be followed, it's not to be tolerated. In their lifestyles, however, they follow it. They've given themselves into it. And they do it without fall or fear. And so that's a change from the status quo as far as, no, this is not good. And for them to say, this is good. This is what we do. So yeah, either it is these guys are dreaming that they think that they can promote this as reality. Or that they really, what, they really are greedy. So... I think the common dream, what they saw then and what we see today, is the dream that any one of us as a human being knows more than God. So, obviously, if there's something in this book that I don't like and that I don't want to believe in, then I dream that I have the great intellect and insight to be able to discern that this book is wrong and either it misrepresents what God really said or God was wrong. And so I am dreaming that I have more insight and understanding and therefore power than God. What has that to do with me? Right, and what you're strongly implying is it doesn't line up with what you want God to say. Yeah. Because otherwise it's pretty plain what He says. Yeah. But to get to that point to where He didn't say, He isn't saying that, then obviously what he has said has run into a wall, and the wall is, I don't want to hear it. Now getting back to last week and the earlier verses, it says in verse 4, it says, they are godless men, men without God, who change the grace of our God, the grace of God which forgives us our sins, and which gives us access to God, which gives us salvation, that they have exchanged or changed the grace of God into a license for immorality. So that's been kind of an introduction into these people. So we're just adding more and more and more. And so they say that God's grace has made us acceptable. That would be a possibility of how that would come across. And so these people that are coming in, in order to influence people, you usually don't influence them from the bottom, you influence them from the top. They're going to be working their way into positions of authority. And that's going to show up in verse 12. where he says, and another analogy, shepherds who feed only themselves. Shepherd is a term for leadership, outside the church, but inside the church. And so you expect a shepherd, and my grandfather was a shepherd, I think I showed that. You expect the shepherd to take care of the flock. And what does it say about these? Who feed only themselves. So these are, are taking advantage of the sheep, and instead of caring for the sheep, they're using the sheep to care for their own date, their own personal date. Are you extending the analogy? Boy, the passage I read the other day, it couldn't have been any clearer on that. This is from the Psalms. Those are good examples as far as how How do you go from a very conservative organization, yearly meeting, to being to that point, which way is it going to fall, as to the very same things we're reading about here, being to be accepted and embraced and what's the other word? Affirmed. How did you get to that? Affirmed is such a good Quaker word. Such a good Quaker word. You pick and choose the scriptures that you're going to use, and then work with them. Use the message that you want to say. God is not in love, therefore He embraces love in any form. And how dare you condemn the love? Sure. Okay, so like that one, when we say God is love, do we all agree God is love? Yes, absolutely. But what is the definition, what does that mean? That God is love. And you know, John 3, 16 is one of the oldest, most memorized verses. God so loved the world that he gave his son. It's not God so loved the world that he affirmed every individual, but he gave his Son that those who believed in him, that is, in the Son and what he did, would not perish. So God's love is, number one, declaring what is right and wrong, and then, number two, declaring that you don't you don't hit the bar, and then that you need something on the outside and then providing that on the outside. That's God's love. And it's not even that they bypass everything. He didn't start out without any kind of a conscience that there's no right or wrong, there's no standard, just saying, hey, I just love you all. You're all just part of the family. let us know, because otherwise there's no way of measuring that one. You don't know how far you've gone. Other than having just to describe where that bar is, it would be perfect for I am perfect. You're not perfect. And you never can be perfect. You can't do anything to fix your lack of perfection. And so God has put all that out, which we don't like to hear. But then he gives that grace to be able to hear and to be drawn That's God's love. Not in affirming what I've done, but in affirming God's love and just taking that cost to make that possible. Well, in verse 5 and 6, he already says, there's examples of what he does to those kind of people. He destroys them. Because the angel is down in the darkness and it's like, but we're not. We allow them to stay. Or if we allow them to stay. It's kind of like if I were to read a letter or write a letter to this group here or to the, you know, the body at large here and say this is what's going to happen. We've seen it happening already. And let me go back as far as just this kind of people or the people or even angels, if they do such things, this is what happens. We see the example and the precedent has been established. It's the same thing that's going to happen to babies. And there's that reminding, just like Jesus said, I'm going to remind you, I'm going to tell you ahead of time so that when it happens, you will remember what I said to you. And there's just nothing like going through something that's very hard, strange. For example, when Lisa and I lost the baby, there was that grace with that that we knew that it was part of God's plan and part of God's grace. So as we went through that time, We had grace not only for ourselves, but for the staff that was there. We ministered to nurses. I wasn't like that. But there's that knowing ahead of time, so that when things happen, it's like, wow, Jesus said something about this. He said this would happen, and this is what I should be thinking about when it happens. It's a dude, I think. It's a dude. So that's part of what a dude is. But this is really important. I want you to know, I want you to remember, and the same thing is going to recur. It's going to repeat itself. He is an incredible teacher. In short little letters, an incredible teacher. And he gives good, I think generally very clear examples of things. Whether the examples of people. what people did or could be examples of analogies of other, you know, when he starts talking about in the natural order of things, whether in the ocean or in the stars or clouds. And he's going to list three things here. He says they pollute their own bodies. And again, as they're doing this, this is not hidden. We think of these kinds of sins as hidden sins. In this case, they're not hidden. It's out there. It's like, we are able to do this without repercussion from God. Well, things are lawful to me. Yeah. Yeah, just remember when Lot was there and the angels came and the people of Sodom had completely, overall, had given themselves up to, as it says here in verse 7, given themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. It wasn't that they were occasionally tempted, and eventually Lot says, you know, don't do this, and they said, oh, so you come in as an alien and now you're going to judge us. We do not want anything or anyone to tell us this is wrong. This was not a weakness. This was giving themselves over to this. But it does take increments and subtlety to get started. I was reading, and again did not go too far into politics, but as far as China and its plan, with regard to the United States. A hundred year plan. That's how many generational cycles. Five in some cases less, but it's this over and over very easy getting and you're going to have more influence and more effects in some areas than others, but it's a slow entrenchment Very, very patient. Satan is patient. God is patient. Satan is also patient. And in some cases, that's what it takes. If you look at the sower and the seeds. The first thing is to have the bird eat it. It's gone. A little bit longer life. You've got the seed on shallow soil. It takes just long enough for the sun to come up. and heats things up, withers it, so you've got days, months, years. A couple of years. And then the next one that happens is old. It survives, but it's choked out. That's a longer period of time. You just can't forget that Satan is also willing to be patient as the need dictates. Okay, so these dreamers pollute their bodies, which we've talked about, reject authority, slander celestial beings. I don't see too much slandering of celestial beings in our day. I think it's an extension somewhat of rejecting authority, though. It's a lack of acknowledging and respecting the authority. And so we have an example here. It says, but even the Archangel Michael When he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him. So you got Michael as God's archangel, and he and Satan were getting into it. It says, he did not bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, the Lord rebuke you. Well, this doesn't appear in scripture as we know it. It actually comes from a writing or a book called The Assumption of Moses. And yet, what is interesting is that some, including Origen, one of the early church fathers, he believes, for what it's worth, that that comes out of Zechariah. And in Zechariah chapter 3, where they've got Joshua, the high priest, and he's getting dressed up, And you have a very similar situation there. And so the angel of the Lord says, the Lord rebuked you. The Lord rebuked you. And very possibly it comes from that. If you get a chance, let's go back just very quickly to Zechariah 3, almost to the end of the Old Testament. 3-1, Then he showed me Joshua the highest priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuked you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuked you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?" So that even the Lord himself, and whether or not in that whole episode Michael was involved, I don't know. But we do have the actual biblical account of the Lord, not being slanderous, but just saying, the Lord rebukes you. But in contrast to that, starting with verse 10, it says, but these men speak abusively against what they do not understand, and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals, these are the very things that destroy them. What do we think he's referring to in verse 10 when it says, what they do not understand? Seems to be within the context of authority, of acknowledging authority and giving that authority its proper respect, or at least not going as far as blaspheming that authority. I have another thought. I think they had a drug problem. I think they had a drug addiction problem. They polluted their own bodies. It might be what the dreaming's about, and it certainly explains the abusive behavior. Like a hallucinogenic type? Yeah. And it's really, you know, we know a lot more about addiction than we used to, and it's highly possible They were doing something that was just altering all their cognition and everything. But I just wonder if it's embedded in that expression, they're polluting their own bodies. As far as chasing that out, I'm just looking for other places where it talks about polluting as a way of corruption. Just looking for the references and seeing that that's... Yeah. Pharmakos is the word that's used in Revelation. Yeah. Where they get into the... Okay. Into the sacred arts and into the drug part of it. Yeah. And then it just turns into the behaviors, the kind of behaviors that we know today are all related to that. Because their sense of reality is so warped, it's so altered. It's a possibility, certainly not excluded from their decision, their will to restrain themselves. We're seeing that a lot now with drugs and with all these States, and I think even the federal government, to some degree, almost falling over themselves to open this up. Well, if you read a little bit further, it says that they speak to people of what they don't know and what they know naturally. So they're speaking to people of whatever they want, whenever they want, no matter what. They're just going to speak people. And it kind of reminds me of the riots going on lately. First it's like, we're going to riot about this. Then when they get their way to some degree, then they turn around and riot against it. They're just there to talk hatred, period. You're talking about the peaceful protest, right? No. No matter what happens, they're going to just talk evil. Whether it's something they know or they don't know. They just want hate and want what I want us to look at this again that that in verse 4 it says they're godless men they don't have God therefore they don't have the Spirit of God they do have their human nature which sometimes also referred to as the flesh part of nature Flesh and carnal are the same thing. Carnal just sounds worse. That's who we are as humans, apart from God. Part of it is not intrinsically wrong, but if given over and influenced by that, yeah, it definitely leads that way. And then we've got the sinful nature that was passed down. These are guys, again, that don't have the Spirit of God in them, not only directing them, but giving insights. That's one of the many benefits as believers. We can go into a situation, we've got the Spirit of God telling us, this is wrong. You need to stop this. You need to get away from this. I don't know if you've been to places or done things, seen things, and you realize the Spirit of God is telling you, this is not right, this is not good for you, you need to leave. And these people are unreceptive to that. So they don't, it's very similar, what we're reading here to what Paul says back in 2nd Timothy 3, he says, in the last days, such and such is going to happen. Let me get to it here. That's a passage that John has shared with us a number of times. But mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days. I'm going to go through just a few verses of lists of their characteristics, but some of these things are going to be exactly the same as what we read here in Jude. There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, So that lovers of money is going to correspond with the greed of Balaam. Boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, well of course because they don't have God, without love, unforgiving, look at the next one, slanderous, without self-control like those in Sodom and Gomorrah, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, Now here he says, having a form of godliness, but denying its power. Have nothing to do with it. These people are going to come in, or have, I say have been, because it says in verse 4, certain men, back in Jude verse 4, certain men have secretly slipped in among you. So he's saying that this is already taking place, to some degree, and it could be different degrees depending on the different churches. And so, as Paul refers to them, having a form of godliness but denying its power, these people are coming in trying to influence the church. And you can't come in and influence the church without some kind of, at least an appearance of Christianity. We're not going to have someone come in and talk about something that goes 180 degrees. It just won't be tolerated. There's no draw, there's no hook in the beginning to get us even interested in them. We may not have that problem in this church, but Jennifer experienced it at that other church that she witnessed them denying facts in the Bible. Interpreting it how they want to interpret it. It's happening all over the place, actually, in lots of churches. There's a place going towards, I think it's, I don't know, it's going out towards the Amel area. They have a big gay pride flag out in front of the church. It's like, well, where are you going to draw the line? It was already drawn. I don't know if you ever go through logical sequences as far as, if you're here and you weren't there, what were the steps along the way to get to where we are now? And a lot of that's implied. And so what you're describing now is this very thing that's going on here that's been unchecked. And if you get to the very end and you see its effect on some people, it says, snatch others from the fire and save them. To others show mercy, mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corruption. It has gone that far. When people get off track, it is not like there is that slow. It is like you are there and all of a sudden it just starts panning out. I just got new headlights for the car and had to have them installed because I'm not much of a mechanic. Anyway, my job was to get, because they have a factory set for the low beams and they were down, it would be great if I was hunting night crawlers while I was driving, but not for driving. I had to angle them up and on the very front of the car it says do not What, do not aim above 1.2%, which would be a slope. 1.2%, that's not very much. If I did everything within 99%, I would be happy. Not much. But the difference between the car, and then I was parked behind our truck where I had something that I could level and see if I was going up or down. From the car to the truck, it was that far up. And you just think, out a ways, how much more of a change. And with that one, you've got to, I forget how many times, you've got to get a screwdriver about that long, go down, and then it catches what looks like a bottle cap, but it has holes, and so you're twisting, and this thing is geared such that you've got to twist and twist and twist. particularly just a little bit, and that's kind of what's going on here, just so slow, so incremental, like the little frog that gets slowly boiled, you know, he'd say, hey, this is a nice, you know, little hot tub, and next thing you know, he's gone. The shooting school that Jen and I have gone to has a shooting competition at the end that takes a couple of different forms. One is they put up a target of somebody who's being held hostage by somebody, and the hostage takers, you know, just about this much of their face shows up behind the head. And to put pressure on you, they have you write your loved one's name on the hostage. And then you're to try to shoot the hostage taker. Jen did great. Didn't even touch the hostage. I creased the ear on Jennifer. And then they do a shooting competition where at 30 feet away you have the same thing only it's in steel targets. And the target is painted so you can't, you can easily tell if you nicked something. And I won my competition but I put a little tiny crease in the paint. And so I lost. I was disqualified because it was just that tiny hair from 30 feet that by the time it got to the target, it was off target. That's at 30 feet. Yeah. Yeah. And about an eighth of a second. Or less. A hundredth of a second. I think we hear that continually today. I see things come through, I've seen books that are sometimes shared by people I know, and they're selling all sorts of things, cups, t-shirts and such. that say, I believe in science, yes, absolutely worshipping science and rejecting the creator of the celestial, now God says, you know, you have no excuse, you look at what I made up here and you've got to know that I'm real. Just look at it, you've got to see. And these slanderous celestial beings Continually, as they speak abusively, continuously about what they do not know or understand. And that, I think that is a major thing in our society today. We don't see it in that same way that it would seem back then because people today are so much more educated and understanding and they know all of this. And you read, I read the creation science stuff and I see, here is the scientific proof, the scientific evidence. This is what real science says. And they won't even look at that. Oh, that disagrees with our preconceived emotional beliefs. We have already rejected that out of hand. movie about the, you know, in which the archaeologists found Joseph, they found, you know, there in Goshen, they found that, they found his empty tomb, and the Science worshippers say, oh, that just can't possibly be him because that does not fit our preconceived notions. And then they have the nerve to turn around and say, we believe in science. You Christians are rejecting science. That squandering celestial being. And the God who created us would not ever force a woman to take a child to term if she didn't want to. So again, these people are without God, without the Spirit of God, and so they're not going to understand the things of God. Go back to John, and he's talking to Nicodemus. You don't even understand these earthly things, so how can I explain heavenly things to you? Plus the other passage, as far as by faith, we understand that God created heavens and the earth, I paraphrase, but out of nothing. By faith we understand. Without faith, without the Spirit of God, we do not understand. And so here, all these things that should be understood, they do not understand, and so they're going to be railing against them. But the things that come natural, those Those are the things that they do understand, and it says these are the things that destroy them. I think another factor that could allow false teachers or people who aren't Christians to run their way into churches and incrementally make changes Another factor that I think allows that is when Christians are afraid to hurt other people's feelings. I feel like a lot of Christians are generally nice people. They're not like wanting confrontation. I think most people I think don't want confrontation, but I think when you start to love other people and wanting to be nice, more than we love the truth. That can be a problem because let's say someone said something that's off base in church and everyone knows it. No one really wants to say that was wrong. It's awkward. It feels weird. It's not nice, you know. But sometimes you've got to do that to preserve the truth. And then one thing I was looking at in regards to that in Matthew chapter 16 I was thinking about this on my phone where it was Jesus who asked I guess his disciples who do you think I am? and Peter said that he was the Messiah the Son of the Living God and then Jesus said to him God is blessed to be silent, son of Jonah, and my father in heaven has put him to service to you. And then he goes on to say other nice things about Peter and his future. But then, just like a few verses later, the next thing he's saying to Peter, is get away from me, you Satan, you know, because Peter said, basically, he said, heaven forbid, sir, this is not going to happen to you. that he would have to go and die. So basically I was just, that was a pretty short span Jimmy, and then you're blessed, and then you have to make the decision to start over. Jesus loved Peter, but he was not afraid to say you're absolutely wrong. He didn't, I guess there wasn't fear of man, maybe that's another factor. That was the last thing he did over. That's a good example. The same as you. that you're talking about that were based on what Jesus had revealed of himself. He asked the disciples, you know, who am I? What can you say about me? And Peter said, you're the son of God. Well, what did the leaders say about according to Matthew today? Well, you're doing this by Beelzebub, by Satan, you're catching Jesus. And that's why Jesus is, you know, and you're somewhat crossing over from Slander to blasphemy whom Jesus has and He gave him several opportunities before he made that pronouncement when he finally said, says to them that that's something that won't be forgiven. Letting them realize, let it sink in and help them to understand that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a very serious thing. And when they continued unchecked, then he says, okay, you've basically crossed that threshold. But they saw the very same things, but they, and even as the spiritual leaders, they did not understand. Although later on, Jesus says, I think you really did understand, and in the parable, that he is right at the very end, It has the tenants say, this is the son, let's kill him. And the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders there are the tenants. And so within that parable, they do understand. But not understanding so as to respond in the proper way, but to respond, oh, I don't like this, so we'll change it. I don't know how they can think this is the son of God, so we'll kill him. Anyway, it's a lack of understanding that says these are the things that destroy them. Yeah. I think there's one word here that never gets used about it, but they're cowards. They dance all around fear. So like the passage this morning, you know, that we read this morning, There's a paragraph in there about, you know, not being afraid that people are going to reject you. There's pre-training by Christ about what happens when people reject you so you know that you're ready for that that's going to happen. You're going to have Peter to tell you, you know, you can't do this, you can't do that. But these people, they have no sense of that. They go wherever fear tells them to go. They want to be accepted. They want to be popular. So they want people to like them. They flatter other people for the advantage that they get out of it themselves. But first it's down there in 16. A little bit later it says that, in my version it says, their blemishes among you, and then it says they do this without this light as qualm, which qualm is actually translated as fear. So they do this without fear. They're following through without the fear of the, certainly without the fear of God, and without the fear of repercussion. That to me is scary when someone gets to that point. Yeah, that was that's coming up in verse 12. It says these are blemishes at your love feast eating with you without the slightest flaw Other translations are going to have fear But in between let's look at 11 real quick It says woe to them and it's going to give three examples from the Old Testament If and not just the names, it's not just Cain and Balaam and Cora but it's the way of Cain it's the error of Balaam, and it's the rebellion of Korah. I think those words get missed. We just see, okay, pain. Well, what do we know about pain? Very few verses. He kills his brother. What else do we know about him? Okay, that's right. Okay. They were told to offer sacrifice. He offered one that God rejected. I'm assuming that he knew what was acceptable and what was not. And then God confronts him on it. Okay, I think this should be good enough. God says, no, that's not good enough. He said, now if you do what's right, But all the words that describe him, it says he was angry, his face was downcast, all these descriptions of someone that I don't like what I hear. I don't like God telling me what to do. Now it doesn't, it's interesting, I had remembered it that God said that you did not offer an acceptable sacrifice like your brother. God did not put his brother in it at all. He said you did not do what was acceptable. And so, he ends up taking it out on his brother. He probably heard God say to Abel that, you know, it's a good job, good sacrifice. And yet, to himself, and we are very competitive. We don't like it when someone else hears something nice and we hear something bad. We take that to heart. That's our human nature. Especially his little brother. He didn't do that. I didn't have a chance to. Okay, so the way of pain. He did what was wrong. God confronted him on it. He did not repent. But he let his anger carry itself out through him and he eventually killed his brother. And he even lied to God about it as if he could do that. he acknowledges what he's done to some degree if you go back through in the chapter 4 yeah 4 1 through 15 he does seem to acknowledge what he's done but he says you know my my penalty you know is excessive so there seems to be in that he's still he doesn't tell I didn't do anything but he says my penalty is excessive More suffering? Because he said, I'll put a mark on you so no one will kill you. That had to have been a point of suffering for God to have drawn his life out. And I don't know as far as what all, was God wanting him to repent, maybe? Was it as an example, maybe, to others? It was a warning to others, but that retribution would come on them if they'd harmed him. There's no indication that anyone did put him to death. I don't know, I don't understand all of God's reasonings in that. So that's the way of Cain. So he did what was wrong, he disobeyed God, God called him on it, he refused to repent and to deal with it as he should have, and that carried out into murder. Balaam's error we described, we discussed a little bit last week, and now when Peter talks about the same thing, again 2nd Peter and Jude overlap a lot. And he adds a little bit to the discussion there. Let's see if I can find... 2 Peter 2.16. Make it 15. They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness. that he was rebuked by his own. And so that seems to be this error as far as, and what, the other part of the equation is back, remember he was hired by Balaam to, or by Balak, to pronounce a curse on Israel. what God tells me to do and God actually stopped him along the way. God told him, you know, you can go ahead and go, but the fact that he went, you know, he was after that money, that greed, and that is in exchange for the harmful effects on God's people. That's part of what's being implied here. And so that happens several times. There's three times that he's supposed to utter a curse and he utters a blessing and then he says, you know what, God gave me a, you get a free one here. You get a fourth blessing on the people. And then he seems to phase out of it, but in, uh, That was in numbers 22 through 24, but in 25 when Israel attacks What is the Moab It says that they also put Balaam to death and if we look at numbers 31 I Think it helps us to understand that he you know he didn't get paid and didn't he didn't make his money and there was still money to be made and there's and so there's another way that he could still collect and greed was the underlying cause but in 31 8 let's see okay they also killed Balaam son of Beor with a sword and then we go down to verse And it says, have you allowed all the women, that is the women of Moab, to live, he asked them, that is Moses asked them. They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the Lord in what happened at Peor, so that a flag struck God's people. Now, kill all the boys and kill every woman who has slept with a man. So what we see in there was that what he was not able to do through cursing that Balaam was open to do I'll get I'll still get my fee and so I will will seduce the people or or bring about the seduction through the Moabite women and It was very effective. I forget how many thousands of Israelites were killed through that. It's the same same final effect is that the people of God were influenced, were seduced into giving in to the flesh. And for the individual there, all he was concerned about was the profit, the greed of it. So that's two examples. We have Cain, we have Balaam, and then the third one, we get back to Jude, is going to be Korah. I don't know if you remember about Korah's rebellion. No, it's in Numbers 16, thank you. Verses 1 through 3. Now the thing is, and this almost puts him back with the angels, remember the angels that left their positions, left their homes, because he had a good position. He was a Levite, but he was not a priest. And he was not content with that position that he had. He was not following the Spirit of God. Verse 16. First three verses, Korah, son of Ishar, son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and, so that made him a Levite, and certain Reubenites, he had Dathom, and of Iram, sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Caleb, became insolent. and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders, who had been appointed members of the council. They had positions, and even positions of authority. They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, you have gone too far. The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. So why do you set yourselves above the Lord's assembly? They said, you're no better than us. Why are you over us in this? And then down to here, verse 8. Moses also said to Korah, now listen, you Levites, isn't it enough for you that God, the God of Israel, has separated you from the rest of the Israelite community, has brought you near himself to do the work of the Lord's tabernacle, and to stand before the community and to minister to them. That was your God-given assignment. He has brought you and all your fellow Levites near himself, but now you're trying to get to priesthood too. It is against the Lord that you and all your followers have banded together. Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?" And then down to verse 28, Then Moses said, this is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea. Moses answers him, it's not me, it's not that I exalted myself to this position. As you recall, Moses didn't want that position. From the outside, he did not want that position. I don't want to be your leader. But God put him as the leader in that sense and Aaron as the priest and so Korah, Dathom, Abiram, this 250, they go up and they rebel. They say, we don't like the place that we've gotten. We want your place. And so what do they do? They change the truth. They're, in a sense, dreamers. They say, we're all priests. Well, in one sense, God tells his people Israel that they will be a kingdom of priests. but not in this sense. And he obviously wasn't one to go between God and man as an intercessory. Even when Moses told Korah here, he says, okay, you get your censors. Let's see. Let the Lord decide and show. No, I'm not going to do it. Yeah. It's rejection of God's word. So again, these examples, same examples from the churches, you start out with God's word and you say, well, maybe it doesn't mean this. Maybe it means something else. Let's open it up to be a little bit more inclusive. And eventually, within the French church here, it is a source of truth, not the source. It is a source, which means we can also have b source and c source in there. Or further to the church service that I was just part of, it's a spiritual guide. It's not the truth. It's a spiritual guide. So again, that's not the step when you don't just go in and say, the Bible's not good anymore. It takes a lot of these just really seductive steps to get you to that point. Yeah. Yeah, kind of like the land of Israel without any trees. You're saying about kind of opening themselves up to kind of the says after they finish saying all this, the ground ends and it's split apart and the earth opens its mouth and swallow them. All of them, their possessions, go to the grave alive. I mean, just be careful what you open yourself up to. Exactly. There's another really interesting word, and I'll kind of finish with this, in verse 12, it says, these men are blemishes at your love feasts. I want to focus on that. We'll give it just a couple of minutes. Blemishes are not just blemishes, meaning there are blemishes on something. You don't just have one. There's a blemish. There's a whole family of blemishes. No, it's a blemish is something on something else that blemishes that entity, the host, if you will. So anyway, in both translations, it's blemish or spot that's used here. The word here, and Jude uses a different word than Peter does, and actually it's a word for rocks. And the way that it's used, any of you that have been out in the water, and all you see is the top of the water until you hit a rock that's hidden underneath the surface. And that's the word that's being used here. And so in some translations or some notes you might see that it's also translated as hidden rocks. So it's like it looks okay on the surface, but underneath is the danger. It's just a perfect analogy for what these people are. A lot of stuff sounds really good, really smooth. If you've ever been the one to hit the rock, you know, have that damage caused to your boat, whether it be capsizing or at least the serious damage, you realize, wow, that's not what I saw. It's not the way it presented itself. So if they are blemishes, as these men are blemishes, what are who or what entity is being blemished? Right, the churches. I'm hearing a little Yeah, it's the church body. The church body is being blemished by that. And God's church is to be without blemish. And so by allowing those people in, and I think, doesn't Peter say that in 1st Peter that they are, these guys are the blemishes? Maybe 2nd Peter, I think he gets into it quicker here. These are your spots and blemishes. Let me use the second here. Second Peter 2.13. I have to write it down, right? I look a lot more ignorant than I am. 2.13. Oh yeah. They are bought and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. I think that puts it even more clearly. They're with you, you allow that, and you allow them to blemish you. Well, I personally don't like punishments. I don't. If I see one, I try to hide it. I try to deal with it the best I can. And in the church also, that's our role. All right. That's all that I, as far as I want to get today. Any other comments? Other passage, statements, observations? There's a lot there in those few verses. And it's just now starting with all these analogies as he gets into it, going from blemishes, shepherds, clouds, trees, waves, stars, all these points of comparison that we can relate to. But you're juicy. I think so. All right, well, we'll pick up with We'll start with verse 12 again from the second part of 12 and we'll work towards the end. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the wisdom and writing ability that you gave to Jude to describe these things. All these different pictures that we can connect to. and see things for what they are. Sometimes analogies are just very striking and they can stay with us. Help us to understand this but also help us to understand what it means and how we how we take this forward in the protection of our church and in the presentation of our church at the end when we are presented to Christ. remind us of these things and add to them throughout the week. Help us to, as we see things happen, where these principles come to play, maybe not just in the church, but where we work or in other circles. Help us to see and to understand these principles. And thank you again. We pray for your grace to go with each of us this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.