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in the little letter of Jude
toward the end of your Bible, just before you get to the Revelation. So, you ought to be able to find
it as small as it is there. It's been a few weeks, so I'm
going to begin reading from the very first verse and read down
to the beginning of verse 8, just to give us our context so
we can hear it and see it clearly. This is the Word of the Lord
through the half-brother of Jesus, Jude, who says, Jude, a servant
of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are called. That's you, church. Beloved in
God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and
love be multiplied to you. Beloved, Although I was very
eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it
necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered to the saints. Why? Because,
verse 4 says, certain people have crept into the church unnoticed
who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly
people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and
deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now He's going
to talk about that condemnation that is coming upon them. Verse
5, Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew
it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards
destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay
within their own position of authority, but left their proper
dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness
until the judgment of the great day. just as Sodom and Gomorrah
and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality
and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing
a punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these people
also." And then he's going to continue to describe the judgment
that is coming upon them. Let's pray. Father, it's hard
to face the side of your character, Lord, your character is all one
thing, but the realities of judgment, the realities of your fury at
that which mocks and denies your sovereign goodness. So I'd ask
that you would give us this morning ears to hear and undistracted
minds to take in your truth and to understand what this would
require of us. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. And so we're going to have to
talk about judgment this morning. God's righteous judgment against
those who, verse 4 says, pervert the grace of our God into sensuality
and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. The judgment
of God against sinners is not a pleasant topic. But oh, how
necessary it is to our understanding. For while pop theology denies
God's judgment and the warnings of punishment for those who persist
in sin, Scripture is clear. These warnings are for our good
to point us to our need for a Savior. And so that's where we begin
this morning and need to begin this morning. Church, we need
to be reminded about God's judgment. We need this reminder because
we forget, because we tend to downplay it. Look what it says
in verse 5. It says, now I want to remind
you, church, although you once fully knew it. He's reminding
us of something we already know or we should know, but are all
too willing to forget. And that is that there is hell
to pay for those who defy God's authority, who ignore His warnings,
and who continue in unbelief. And Jude says, you know this.
And the words he used mean, you know this full well. There's
no ambiguity here. For the Bible-taught Christian,
there is no doubt what Scripture says about It's not that the
scripture is unclear in what it says, it's that we don't like
what it says and choose to forget it and subvert it and find ways
to put it out of our minds and keep it out of our mouths. Romans 1.18, among many places,
warns that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness
suppress the truth. When Stuart Townend and Keith
Getty wrote that wonderful song we just sang, In Christ Alone,
They included that line, till on the cross as Jesus died, the
wrath of God was satisfied. Don't you love that hymn? And yet in 2013, when the Presbyterian
Church USA, a liberal denomination, wanted to include this song in
their hymnal, they demanded to make a change. In place of the
wrath of God was satisfied, they wanted to put the love of God
was magnified. Now, the love of God is magnified
in the cross to be sure, but they wanted to take this out
because they found it offensive. They objected to the word wrath. They objected to the idea that
God's wrath indeed is a central feature of the cross that Christ
carried in our place. And to their credit, Talon and
Getty refused, saying that it would gut the song and distort
the gospel. And aren't you glad they did? Because without the threat of
the wrath of God, you would have no need for the cross of Christ.
You have no need for the gospel and the warning it brings to
flee from the wrath to come by fleeing to Christ if there is
no wrath to come. And so this is a question you
really do need to deal with personally this morning. Do you have room
in your theology for the righteous judgment of God that falls upon
sinners? And if not, listen, then you
do not have a biblical faith. And that ought to concern you.
You're just making stuff up. You're just choosing to believe
that which is pleasant rather than facing the truth. Because
until you understand bad news about the wrath of God that brings
judgment against our sin, you really can't understand the good
news about the Savior who died to take that wrath in our place
and set us free. Amen? Are we hearing this? To help us understand these warnings
of God's judgment, Jude is going to give us three biblical examples
of that judgment that fell upon those who defied Him, who disbelieved
Him, and who disregarded His authority. So, three examples
of God's judgment that serve as warnings for us today. And the first of these warnings
is from Exodus. The warning that God's judgment
falls on would-be believers, on mere professed believers who
do not continue in faith. Verse 5, he says, I want to remind
you that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterwards
destroyed those who did not believe. Who did He destroy? He destroyed
those who did not believe, those who did not continue in their
faith. And so notice who these people
are. They're not some hardened pagans out there, some Philistines
who've never heard of the grace of God. These are Israelites. These people were part of the
believing community, at least outwardly, they were part of
the very congregation that God had rescued out of Egypt. And so clearly we're talking
about the events from the book of Exodus, but notice a couple of
things here. First of all, just notice who
the Savior is. Jude writes that it is Jesus
who saved a people out of Egypt. Now, some manuscripts give this
simply as the Lord who saved, but the very best manuscripts
say it very clearly that it is Jesus. Now, think of that. Think
of what that says to you about our Lord Jesus Christ. It is
a wonderful reminder that our Lord Jesus did not begin His
life in the womb of Mary. He did not begin His saving mission
at Bethlehem. He is and has always been, from
eternity, God the Son, our only Savior. And so according to Jude,
when we read the book of Exodus, we need to do so understanding
that it is Jesus who saved them, just as He saves us. It was Jesus
Himself who stood before Moses at the burning bush. Do you remember
the scene? Exodus 3 verse 2 says that the
angel of the Lord appeared to Him in flaming fire out of the
midst of the bush. The angel of the Lord is one
of the ways the Old Testament very commonly talks about Jesus
in His pre-incarnate appearances. Before he ever came to earth
through the womb of Mary, Jesus the Savior came and saved a people
as we see here. Paul makes the same point in
1 Corinthians 10 when he refers to the Exodus generation. And
he says of them, hey church, we must not put Christ to the
test as some of them did. And they were destroyed by serpents.
Why were they destroyed by serpents? They put Christ to the test.
Christ who led them through the desert. Christ who rescued them
out of Egypt. And so who is this Savior? In
the book of Exodus, it's Jesus, God's own eternal Son, our Savior. And this same Jesus went down
to Egypt to rescue His people from their slavery. And how did
He do it? Just think of the imagery in the book of Exodus. A lamb
was slain. Its blood was shed for a covering
to save them from death. when judgment fell. Now that's
all symbolic at that point in the book of Exodus, but already
we see it is pointing us forward to the Christ and what He came
to do in saving us. And so the whole Exodus 6-14
story is a salvation story pointing us to Christ as our only Savior.
The very Christ that you too must embrace by faith. But then
comes the twist. Not only did Jesus go down to
Egypt to save the people, but afterwards, verse 5 says, this
same Jesus destroyed those who did not believe. And so there is salvation for
those who trust Him, to be sure. Praise God, we've celebrated
that. But there is also destruction for those who do not continue
in their faith. Now, what's Jude talking about
here? Well, he's referring to really
many places in the story, but specifically places like Numbers
14. Do you remember Numbers 14? Soon after he had saved them
out of Egypt, Jesus led them through the wilderness to the
edge of the promised land and was ready even then to give them
the promised land. But the spies came back, ten
of the twelve, and told them how difficult it was going to
be, how hard it would be to take that land, and how strong the
people who lived there were. And the result is the crowd of
them rebelled. They refused. They would not
believe God's promise that He would give this to them. In other
words, they did not continue in faith. And the Lord who saved
them out of Egypt destroyed them in the desert. Numbers 14 verse
11, the Lord says to Moses at that point, how long will this
people despise Me? And how long will they not believe
in Me? And then He continues and says,
not one of these men who have seen My glory and My signs that
I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet they have put Me to the
test, they have not believed Me, therefore, they will never
enter this land. And they died in the desert. They did not receive the promised
land. And so judgment fell on the very
people he rescued out of Egypt. Why? Because they did not continue
in faith. So here's the warning for us
that Jude wants us to see. Listen, mere membership in the
believing community, in our case the church, does not guarantee
your salvation. This is not saying that you can
lose your salvation, but listen, if you do not continue in your
faith, you never had salvation. Matthew 24 verse 13 says, He
who endures to the end. will be saved. That, by the way,
simply puts the lie to the false doctrine of once prayed, always
saved. Just have this little experience,
just say these little magic words, and you've got a salvation that's
going to stick even if you live in total pagan unbelief. Salvation is not a singular event
or singular experience. It is an ongoing reality that
His grace brings us into. Salvation is not found in a prayer
that you prayed once upon a time or a decision that you made.
Salvation is found in the person of Jesus Christ. And so we are
saved by trusting Him, by clinging to Him now and throughout all
of life into eternity. And so the question that you
must ask yourself is not, did I profess faith in Jesus once
upon a time? Did I have this certain experience?
Did I pray that prayer? Was I baptized? Am I trusting
Him now? And will I continue in this faith
knowing that He is faithful? Because listen, when you do have
that kind of faith that looks to Jesus and keeps looking to
Jesus, then there is great assurance of salvation. When we get to
the end of Jude's little letter, down in verse 24, he's going
to say to us, now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
He can do this, and to present you blameless before the presence
of His glory with great joy. God, dear Christian, is able
to keep you, and He will keep you, but He will keep you by
keeping you in the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
And understand, warnings like this one are part of that keeping. You hear the warning, as we're
going to hear this morning, and you understand that some who
professed outwardly will be lost, and you say, that's not going
to be me. And you run back to Christ and
you say, Jesus, I'm clinging to You with all I've got. And
amazingly, you find it's His grace that's keeping you in that
clinging. Tom Schreiner helps us understand
this in his commentary when he says, the main point Jude makes
is clear. No person in the believing community
can just presume on God's grace and think that an initial decision
to follow Christ or be baptized can ensure future salvation regardless
of how one lives. Israel's apostasy is a warning
to all who think that an initial commitment secures their future
destiny without ongoing obedience. Those who are God's people demonstrate
the genuineness of their salvation by persevering to the end. These
warnings are one of the means God uses to preserve His people
to the end. Those who ignore such warnings
neglect the means God has appointed to obtain final salvation. So,
Jude pinpoints the reason Israel was judged. They failed to believe
in God. The call to persevere in faith is not a summons to
something above and beyond faith. God summons His people to believe
in His promises to the very end of their lives. Christians never
get beyond the need to believe and trust. And all apostasy stems
from a failure to trust in God's saving promises in Christ. So dear one, heed the warning. Continue in faith. continue looking
to Christ, confident that He will do it. That's the first
warning. Here is the second. Second, Jude
says, God's judgment falls on those who reject His creation
order and insist on their own way. Verse 6, And the angels
who did not stay within their own position of authority, but
left their proper dwelling He has kept in eternal chains under
gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Even angels who transgressed
are not exempt from God's judgment. Now, what's he talking about
here? Well, it could, I suppose, refer to that initial fall of
Satan, when he with a third of the angels rebelled and were
cast out of heaven, but more likely, it is a reference to
Genesis 6, 1-4, as understood by the popular literature in
Jude's day. And so let me just read that
to you. You can look at it yourself later as well. But Genesis 6,
1-4, that familiar passage says, When man began to multiply on
the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of
God, which Jude is going to interpret as angels, saw that the daughters
of men were attractive. They took as their wives any
they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit
will not abide with man forever, for he is flesh, and his days
shall be a hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the
earth in those days and soon afterward when the sons of God
came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them,
these were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. So this is just one of those
passages that just raises a thousand questions, doesn't it? Who are
the Nephilim? What is this? We'd love to pursue
all those, but who are these sons of God? Are they fallen
angels? That is the popular view, and
it seems to be the view that Jude is taking. Or maybe another
theory, they're the godly line of believers descending from
Seth, earlier in Genesis, who are now intermarrying with the
ungodly line of Cain, and putting in jeopardy the promise of the
seed of the woman. That's another view. In fact,
it's the view that I've held most of my adult life. And now
Jude's making me question myself. And then what sin is involved
here? I mean, it must be pretty bad
because it provokes the full judgment of God in the flood
of Noah. But then Jude doesn't follow
the story of Noah in the flood. He focuses instead on these angels
as he identifies them. Now where does he get this? Because
Genesis says nothing about angels under judgment or eternal chains
or gloomy darkness. All that language is drawn from
Jewish tradition as found especially in the book of 1 Enoch. And we know that 1 Enoch is on
Jude's mind because he's going to quote it to us directly down
in verse 14, as we'll see in a few weeks. Okay, now I'm really
opening up a can of worms, aren't I? I mean, what is the book of
Enoch? Is it part of Scripture? Easy
answer, no, it's not. And we'll get to some of that
down the line. You're just going to have to wait if that's got your curiosity.
But for now, I just want to show you the point that Jude is making
here. No, he is not endorsing Enoch
as scripture, but he is using Enoch's story to make his point.
And what is his point? Let me just summarize the part
of Enoch's story that Jude is referring to here. It's found
in that old book, Enoch 6-19. But here's what was happening
there. When sin was set loose on the world, Enoch says, everything
got turned upside down pretty quickly. Well, we see the same
thing in Genesis. And man's sin, he says, did more
than just wreck the world, it wrecked the entire cosmos. And
then in that environment of sin set free, fallen angels came
and did the unthinkable. According to Enoch, they took
on human form in a kind of a false incarnation. Maybe by possession,
I don't know, and sought to procreate with human women. And the goal,
it seems, of this was to pervert the human bloodline. Man made
in God's image, since it would be through man that God would
send the Savior to crush the serpent's head and end the reign
of sin. So in a very real way, this was
seen as a preemptive strike by Satan in an effort to destroy
the promise of the Messiah. And so picking up Enoch's language
here, Jude says these angels refused to stay within their
God-appointed domain. That's the language he uses here.
God created these angels to fulfill a role and perform a task for
His glory, but they rejected their God-appointed role to pursue
their own rule and do their own thing in opposition to God. That's
the core of their sin. It's not just that they did this
terrible thing with these women, it's that they defied God's creation
order. God's created purpose for them
in order to exalt and glorify themselves. Think about it. What
were angels created for anyway? Hebrews 1.14 says that they are
ministering spirits. sent out to serve for the sake
of those who will inherit salvation. They were created to be subservient
to man made in God's image. They were created to serve those
whom God would save from the mess that is set loose upon this
world. They were made to serve, even
before man was around, for God's glory. But these fallen angels
rejected creation order as given by God to pursue their own glory
in their own way, which is what Jude means when he says they
abandoned their proper dwelling, that place in creation that God
had given them. Well, that's not what angels
are for. Angels weren't made to mix with
humans or exalt themselves above humans or rule over humans and
raise up their own line of humans, but that's exactly what these
angels have tried to do. And Jude says, since they did
not keep to their own place as appointed by God, God has now
kept them, verse 6, in eternal chains. under gloomy darkness
until the judgment of that great day." That, my friends, is a
devastating judgment. Eternal chains, meaning there's
no way out for them, that there's no escape. These chains are eternal. Under deepest gloom, There is
no hope for them. There is no Savior appointed
to come and rescue them as Christ has come to rescue us. And they
are waiting, they are waiting eternally, waiting for the judgment
of that great day, the judgment pictured in places like Revelation
or Matthew 22. 13, when the king says, bind
him hand and foot, cast him into the outer darkness and that place
where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Or 1 Enoch,
I'll just quote one of his verses that clearly are on Jude's mind,
and he says that they will then be held under the judgment of
the eternity of eternities. They'll be led away into the
gaping abyss of fire and into the torment and into the jail
being shut up from all eternity. And whoever is burned up and
destroyed from the present time will be bound up together with
them until the completion of all generations. And there are
many passages in Enoch that say similar things. Okay, so what is the warning
for us? For us is this, defy God in His
creation order and there is hell to pay. Quite literally. Thumb your nose at your Creator.
Say to Him, You didn't make me. I owe You nothing. I'm going to write the rules.
I'm going to be sovereign. I'm going to do what I please.
And there is no hope for you. If God is willing to judge angels
who defied Him? What will He do with you? 2 Peter
2.4 gives the answer, for if God did not spare angels when
they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains
of gloomy darkness to be kept until judgment, well then the
Lord knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day
of judgment. So these are sober warnings,
and think of all the ways we, especially in this culture today,
continue to do this very thing, to defy God's creation order. Secular humanism, which seeks
to define our lives as human beings apart from God. Man the
measure of all things. God no longer in the equation.
We rule the roost apart from Him. Secular feminism, which
defies God's creation order once again, specifically for women,
saying that a woman is no different from a man, that there are interchangeable
parts, that there are no defined roles in marriage or society
or anything else. Transhumanism, that we can defy
these bodies and manipulate them genetically and maybe improve
on them and who knows, maybe even do away with our bodies
entirely and upload our consciousness into a computer where we ourselves
can be eternal. And then of course there's the
whole array of LGBTQ confusion and rebellion as a culture in
free fall refuses to acknowledge and celebrate what God has given
us in His good creation of our bodies as male and female and
instead we demand gender fluidity and self-determination even though
all of that is simply a farce. And these are just some of the
ways that we defy God's creation order. We refuse to submit to
His sovereign design of our bodies and our lives so that we receive
them as His good gifts and instead we demand to be our own gods. What hubris! Listen, there is
only one God in the universe and He permits no rivals. Rival
Him. And you pay the price, just as
these rebellious angels. Which brings us then again to
the third and related warning. And that is that God's judgment
likewise falls on those who defy God by persisting in sexual immorality
and perversion. Verse 7, just as, notice the
just as, he's really continuing in the same class of sinfulness,
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which
likewise indulged in sexual immorality, defying God's creation order,
and pursuing a natural desire, rather than natural desire, these
serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. So Sodom and Gomorrah, you remember
Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19, infamous for what? Well, infamous
for the judgment of God that fell upon those cities because
of their blatant sexual immorality. Now, of course, there are many
today who, trying to dodge the obvious implications of this
passage, will say that, well, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah
really was not homosexuality or sexual perversion. It was
something else. It was that they just weren't
hospitable enough. And I say this with as much grace
as I can. Those who say such things are
not being honest with the Scripture themselves. They're not being
honest. Yes, there are places in Ezekiel
where it brings in other sins that were committed, such as
arrogance, but it never divorces it from the core sinfulness that
Jude shows us here. By the way, notice how Jude,
almost like he is foreseeing where people would want to go
with this one day, defines their sin very, very clearly. First
of all, he says that the sin that brought judgment upon Sodom
and Gomorrah was very clearly one of sexual immorality. Verse
7, these cities which saw this judgment, why? Because they indulged
in sexual immorality. And the word he uses here refers
to any kind of sexual activity outside the bonds of covenant
marriage of one man and one woman. So we are back to creation order
again. God made us as sexual creatures and created us to be
bound together, one man and one woman, in a relationship of joyful
sexual intimacy that by definition excludes all other arrangements. He, being a good Creator, made
sex for our good to bind a woman and a man together for life in
a relationship that would establish a family and bring children and
create the foundation of society. That was His created purpose
so that by definition, any violation of that purpose, any sex outside
the bonds of that relationship is a grave evil. And he makes
that really clear in places like 1 Thessalonians 4, 3-8, which,
by the way, when you listen to this, remember this is New Testament.
You don't say, well that's Old Testament. This is New Testament. Listen
to it. For this is the will of God. Your sanctification, and
he's going to define this sanctification in terms of what you do with
your body. Your sanctification in that you abstain from all
sexual immorality. That each one of you know how
to control his own body in holiness and honor. Not in the passionate
lust of the Gentiles, the pagans who do not know God. So if you
ignore this to go your own way, and you refuse this, you are
living like those who do not know God. And that no one transgress
and wrong his brother in this matter, why not? Because the
Lord is the avenger of these things. Do this, face Him. As
we told you before, and so solemnly warn you now, for God has not
called you to impurity sexually, but to holiness in your body.
Therefore, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but
God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you. Thumb your nose at this.
Say, I'm going to do it my own way. I'm going to follow my own
feelings and do what I think is right, no matter what God
has said. Then you are putting your face in God's face, spitting
at Him and saying, I will not be ruled by you. Listen, dear one, you cannot
disregard God's command regarding sex and marriage and have any
claim that you actually know this God. Paul is saying reject
this and you reject Him. And as we'll see in rejecting
Him, you come under His fiery judgment. Listen, this is just
one of those areas where our culture is so far off base and
so tragically misguided that it's destroying itself. And part
of being a Christian is embracing wholeheartedly and without reserve
the biblical standard for sexuality. That means abstinence before
marriage of one man and one woman, faithfulness in that marriage
in seeking to honor God. But second Jude goes even further,
doesn't he? Second Jude goes on to declare that the sin of
Sodom and Gomorrah specifically involved homosexuality. Now,
man, that's controversial today, isn't it? But the fact that it's
controversial shows just how far off the mark we have run
as a culture. Jude says the sin of these cities
that brought God's judgment was what? They pursued unnatural
desires. Literally, they went after strange
flesh. Meaning, they indulged in that
which was contrary to the nature given by God in their creation. And Paul will pick up that same
thread and say that same thing in Romans 1 when he describes
the Roman culture that was falling apart and the sins of Rome and
the Greek culture that were bringing God's wrath. Listen to how he
describes those. Romans 1.24, Therefore God in
judgment gave them over to the lusts of their hearts, to impurity,
to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Ignoring the
bodily creation and the creation order, they're going to do their
own thing. Verse 26, for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable
passions. Their very feelings and desires
were perverted and bent and twisted. So that He says, their women
exchanged the natural relations, woman with man, for those that
are contrary to nation, woman with woman. And the men likewise
gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with
passion, sexual passion, for one another. Men committing shameless
acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty of
their evil. Years ago, I was teaching for
Missouri Baptist, a class largely unbelievers who'd never read
the Bible. And we read this in a passage as we're introducing
the Roman world. And this young woman raised her
hand. And she said, excuse me, professor,
do you think this is talking about homosexuality? And I said,
I think that's rather obvious, isn't it? Or you could continue
to places like 1 Corinthians 6, 9, and 10. Paul says, do you
not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom
of God? Do not be deceived. Then he defines the unrighteous
who won't inherit the kingdom of God. He says the sexually
immoral, idolaters, adulterers, and men who practice homosexuality. These, and he goes on, will not
inherit the kingdom of God. Listen, the problem is not that
the Bible is unclear. The problem is people don't like
what the Bible clearly says. Because it bucks up against our
cultural desires and our self-centered values and our demand for total
human autonomy. And so we have bought the lie
of identity politics that leads a man to say, this is who I am
and to respect me you have to respect this. My desires define
me. And God says, no, this is your
sin. your desires betray you. They've
bent and twisted you into something perverse, something I never designed
you to be, but I have sent Christ to rescue you if you'll repent
and believe My promise. And of course, by the way, that's
true of every sin, right? I mean, Jude is focusing on this
sin, but this is true of your sin. Whatever your sin may be,
that sin perverts and twists and mangles us. But Jude does
focus on this sin. Why does he do that? We'll go
back to the beginning of the letter. And what do we see these false teachers
doing? Look at it again in verse 4. He says that they are perverting
the grace of our God into sensuality. They're saying that the gospel
frees me to indulge in sexual sin. So they're perverting the grace
of God into sexual sin, condoning sexual sin on religious grounds,
and thus denying Christ's sovereign rule. The whole point of Jude's
letter is Jude is warning us about these false believers who
have slipped into the church, twisting the gospel into something
that condones sin rather than remedies sin, and embraces a
sexual immorality as something God now approves of. And it just
seems obvious to me that Jude is warning us about the very
thing we see taking place all around us today, where so-called
churches in the West, specifically mainline denominations, but sadly
also some who are evangelical, They'll do the same thing. They'll
wrap themselves in a rainbow flag. They'll justify homosexual
activity and homosexual sin on some grounds that, well, we've
just, for all these years, those stupid people who lived before
us misunderstood the Bible. Think of someone like Andy Stanley
or someone who says, oh, that's not what the Bible says. When
he knows full well that it is. So I just want to be as clear
as possible here. Listen to me please. You cannot be wrong with
God on these issues and right with Christ. You cannot be wrong
on these issues and right with Christ. Isn't that what Jude
is saying? Those who would come under the
guise of religion and teach the acceptance of sins the Bible
defines as perversions, or to use the Old Testament word, abominations,
You know, the so-called clobber verses? There are folks who will
say, well, those are clobber verses. As if by calling it a
clobber verse, you remove it from Scripture and you don't
have to consider it because it's a clobber verse. No, if it's
a clobber verse, let it clobber you! It's trying to tell you
something. And dear one, these people cannot
be embraced as brothers. And I hate to say that, but it's
true. They are corrupting souls and leading people to indulge
in lusts that will damn them. And part of contending for the
faith once for all delivered to the saints is to be willing
to say that. Now, we must say it with compassion
and even tears. with humility, knowing our own
sin and our own need of a Savior, to be sure, but until people
understand that they are under God's wrath for sin, they will
never seek the Savior. And so God's wrath fell upon
Sodom. Genesis 19, verse 24, Then the
Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire, that's the original
fire and brimstone. out of heaven from the Lord,
and He overthrew those cities, meaning He destroyed them, and
all of the valley, and all the inhabitants of those cities,
and everything that grew on the ground, quite literally, fire fell from heaven. The fires
of hell itself. And so Jude says, in fact, that
is just a preview of the eternal fire of the judgment that is
yet to come. Do you see that in verse 7? He's
not unclear. These people, he says, serve
as an example. These cities serve as an example
by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. The fire that burned through
Sodom was lit by the same fury that will burn in eternal judgment. 2 Peter 2.6 makes that clear
as well. By turning the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah into ash, He condemned them to extinction, making them
an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. And brothers and sisters, we
ought to fear. And we ought to understand it is not compassionate
to hide this from people and to refuse to say with tears what
God has warned. And so Jude says, We must know
these warnings. Do you know these warnings? And we will know these warnings
if we honor Him and His Word above all. So the question is
this. What are you going to do about
this? Will you take it to heart? Will you take it to heart for
yourself? Will you let these warnings of judgment lead you
to repentance? Will you let them drive you to
forsake your sin, whatever that sin is, and run to Christ for
cleansing and forgiveness by faith, knowing that the same
One who calls down judgment upon sin saves from sin for all who
call upon Him? Will you take it to heart for
yourself? Will you take it to heart for
those you care about? People blinded and confused by
this broken culture. Or will you just leave them in
their sin knowing what awaits them. Can you at least be moved
to pray for them? To cry out to God, pleading for
their souls? And to look for opportunities
that He would give you to lovingly warn them and point them toward
the Savior, even though it's uncomfortable, even though it
might harm your relationship. Because this is what our disposition
should be toward those whose lives are given over to these
things. Jude is going to get there eventually, but I'm going to
have you skip down to the end of Jude's letter. I'm going to
close with this, verses 20-23. As Jude is wrapping it all up,
he gives us two admonitions. First he says, but for you, beloved,
Building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Praying in the
Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of
God. Waiting for the mercy of the
Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Oh, keep clinging
to Jesus and the Gospel, knowing His power to save. And then in
verse 22, what about others? And have mercy on those who doubt.
There are those out there doubting. There are those professing Christians
who are falling in unbelief. Have mercy on them. Go to them.
Love them. Share the gospel with them again.
Verse 23, save others. These are the ones who have indulged
in these sins. Snatch them out of the fire. And to others, also
in their sins, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment
stained by the flesh. Don't condone their sin. Don't
say it's a good thing. Understand that it's a terrible
thing. But there is a Savior from terrible things, and His
name is Jesus. And so this is our calling in
light of these warnings of coming judgment. We must take the warnings
seriously. And we must cling to Christ by
faith as our only hope. And then we must warn others
with compassion and seek to share the good news of His salvation
with them, knowing that all, all, all who repent and believe
will be washed and cleansed and saved by His mercy. May the Lord
give us clarity and compassion as we consider these warnings
of judgment. Father, it is always a hard thing
to consider Your straight clear words about judgment and judgment
to come. We live in a culture that hates
this kind of thing. They would mock us. They were
listening in. They would call us haters. They would see us as just the
scum of the earth for even daring to believe such things. Lord,
but that puts us in the quandary. We can believe You or we can
believe them. To believe them is to partner with them in their
own destruction and perhaps even our own. To believe You is to
bring salvation to ourselves and to others who through us
might hear by the power of Your Holy Spirit. So Lord, we choose
by Your grace to believe You. To let the chips fall where they
may. To take these warnings to heart. And I pray Lord for anyone
in this room that needs very personally to take the warnings
to heart. to flee the wrath to come by
fleeing to Christ, by believing that Jesus died to take away,
yes, my sin, and gives life to the one who turns to Him, that
the power is in you. We don't have to clean ourselves
up first. We don't have to straighten ourselves out first. We just
come running to You with all the mess and muck and stink still
clinging to us, and we say, Jesus, I'm a mess, but You promised
to clean up the mess, and I am throwing myself without reserve
upon You, Lord, Cleanse me. Save me. Make me new. And by
Your grace, I will follow You to the end. Lord, would You grant
that even this morning for Christ's sake? Amen.
Three Warnings of Judgement!
Series Jude: Contending for the Faith
Because we know God will judge all who persist in their sin and unbelief, we must be willing to heed his warnings and hold fast to Him in the faith and holiness which save.
I. We need to be Reminded about God's Judgment v 5a
II. Three Examples of God's Judgment that Serve as Warnings for Us vv 5b
(1) Exodus: God's Judgment falls on would-be believers who do not continue in faith v 5b
(2) Angels: God's Judgement falls on those who reject His creation order and go their own way v6
(3) Sodom: God's Judgement falls on those who persist in sexual immorality and perversion v 7
| Sermon ID | 29251438333500 |
| Duration | 47:45 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Jude 5-7 |
| Language | English |
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