I couldn't help but thinking, listening to singing how blessed it is, how all is well. Is all well with your soul this morning? How precious it is to know that all is well. For ourselves personally, and I would pray for your families, because this is the joy in our lives. I was thinking also, what would we do with the 79 who left to fit them in? Isn't that great how God works? He knew some new folks were coming, so he had to make room. And it always thrills me that those that move away, you know, enter right into the work where they go. I just got a letter this week from Bill Crago, thrilling me. that the church that he's in in Pennsylvania, down near Reading, has the same visitation program as we do. And he started it as soon as he got there. go out every two weeks with a good group of men visiting in the community. And Bill, I believe, went to a Sunday school convention in Pennsylvania and presented it. And 20 churches now in Pennsylvania are using the plan that we use on visitation work. 17 in New Jersey are using the plan. that we use in our visitation work. And so we praise the Lord for the outreach as our own folks leave us. We hate to see them go, but I'm thrilled that wherever they go, as one of the families came to me, Carl Knutson, and he said when he went and moved over to Jersey and went to the church and he said, told a fellow where he came from, He said, the pastor, where he came from, he said immediately, he said, praise the Lord. He said, if you come from there, you're a worker. And sure enough, Carl Knutson is already in the brigade work, and right away they were in the work. So we praise the Lord for the witness that the church bears. Also one other thought, as I was looking over the congregation, I'm used to Alice sitting in a certain place in the congregation. She was not there this morning. She had to run home between the Sunday school and the service. So I looked and looked. I couldn't find her. She's here. But between the time while the offering was being taken, my heart was thumping. And I thought, well, I will ask one of the ushers to call my home and see that everything is all right. And then I thought how precious it is that one day, we shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. I'll never have to look for her anywhere. We'll be in that congregation above where Christ dwells. No looking. Isn't it wonderful that 1 Thessalonians 4 tells us, the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord. And then shall we ever be with the Lord. This is what our faith means to us, and that thought came to me this morning. Would you turn with me just for a moment to Jude, and then I want to take you over to Revelation, for we are dealing with the condition of those who are in the church but spiritually dead. And all we are saying is that everybody that walks in the door of a church doesn't become a Christian automatically. You'd think so sometimes. That the mere fact that they walk in the door, as someone as well said, you're no more a Christian when you walk in the door of the church than you are a car when you walk in a garage. And there is this inclination. to think that because you walk in the doors of the church that this redeems you. But our relationship is to the person of Jesus Christ. It has nothing to do with being a Baptist. I love the Baptist church and I love the freedom it gives me because we are a New Testament church. And we believe in Christ as our personal Savior. But I never have felt and never could feel that being a Baptist is why I'm redeemed. There will be those from many, many sectarian groups that are there in glory because they've trusted Christ as personal Savior and been redeemed in the blood of the Lamb. And they believe in the doctrines of our most holy faith. There will be whole sectarian groups that will have no part in the salvation of God, who if they subscribe to the doctrine deny the power of Christ to redeem the soul, and frankly say in their doctrinal statements that Christ has no power to save a human soul. This would take in Christian science, This would take in Unitarianism, Universalism. This would take in any of the groups that deny that Christ is the Son of God, that he's the Redeemer, that he says, I am the way, no man can come to the Father but by me. He makes it very clear. And so, beloved, you and I are redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ. I'm thankful that you're here and we're together under the Word of God. But if you should ever leave here, I don't send everybody to Baptist churches where they go. I try to find out the best gospel preaching church in the community. And sometimes the Baptist church is a clubhouse. I hate to say that. And I wouldn't send them to the Baptist church. I would send them where the Word of God is preached in power. And while they may not agree with me on some of the peripheral doctrines of the church, They would agree with me on the fundamental doctrines of the Church, that Christ is the divine Son of God, that he paid that atoning price for my sins on the cross of Calvary, that he is risen and that he's coming again. These are the essential doctrines of our Christian faith. There are many other things, but these are the key doctrines of our Christian faith. Now, this morning, if you would look at Jude in the twelfth verse, we are talking of those who are in the church, who are gobbed as the angels of light. If I might take the ministry first, gobbed as the angels of light, gobbed as those who have the Word of God. They stand in pulpits, or they are part of churches. but they have no saving faith in Jesus Christ. The world by and large is filled with this number. I would remind you that Jesus says those who are redeemed belong to a very tiny flock. He says, fear not, tiny flock, for it is the will of your father to give you the kingdom. So it is not the vast numbers and has nothing to do with sectarianism. But by and large, if we were to go, and you people, I've said many times, have come to me after a vacation and said to me, pastor, I hardly believed it until I went on vacation and went into some churches and heard what was preached from the pulpit and couldn't believe. that it was possible that men could stand in a pulpit and not preach the gospel of the saving grace of our Savior Jesus Christ. And yet this is a prevalent thing. You will find it if you go from church to church that the number of churches preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ are not in the majority, but rather in the small minority. So, beloved, when you hear that there will be this type person that Jude speaks of here, he's speaking now of those within the church. He's not speaking of those outside. The epistles are to the church about the people in the church. It's hard to believe sometimes when you read Corinth, the Corinthian epistles, and when you read Jude, and when you read some others, that within the church there can be these things and these characters who are so far from the things of God. Notice what he says, 12th verse. These are spots in your feasts of love. In other words, they're with you when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit. I underline the next two words, twice dead, very important words. plucked up by the roots, they're in the church but twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own chain, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. When you read those words, they're very frightening. To think that within the confines of a church that is preaching the gospel of Christ many times, there still could be this type person. I, as I look at my congregation, I believe in my heart that those that are here and who have heard the Word and have confessed Christ as their Savior, I believe in my heart that you're redeemed. Truly only God knows that. I, as I've said, no one really knows whether a husband or wife is redeemed. We believe they are because they've given the evidences of it, and we can feel as confident as any human being can feel confident. But in the final judgment, we would have to say that man looks upon the outward things, but God does look upon the heart. so that it is the heart that God judges, you see, so that we might have all of the appearances. We might be sheep in wolves' clothing. We might be those who are so far from God that it's hard to believe. And we must remember that this is not in any way to affect us. This is a very important thing. If your faith, I have to repeat this, if your faith rests on men, you are in for some terrible disappointments. And I don't think all of you can think of points in your lives when you have been tremendously disappointed, either in the church you went to, the man in the pulpit, the board, or somebody in the congregation has disappointed you greatly. so that if you get your eyes on men, you are in for tremendous disappointment and despair. You must ever keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. For these men that are spoken of here, it says they feast with you at your table of love, and they feed themselves without fear. and they are twice dead, trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. And this would indicate, plucked up by the roots, I'll just quickly mention this, they're past all help at that point, plucked up by the roots. God is judging them here, knowing of their eventual outcome. God knows your end. This is not some fatalism, and this is not some predestination to hell. It has nothing to do with that. God being God must know the end from the beginning. He says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I have to know. The mere fact that he knows that you are not going to be saved has nothing to do with predestination. He gives you the opportunity to be saved. He opens the door for you. He says, I am the way. Jesus says, I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. So he offers the way, but because he is God, he must know the beginning from the end, and he knows those that will foam out their own shame. He knows those that are going to be plucked up by the roots. He knows those that are twice dead because He sees all future things presently. He sees you already glorified in Jesus Christ. He sees you already, listen, already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That's His redeemed. He sees you who are redeemed predestinated to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. He sees this. He also sees those who will hear the Word of God, who will seem by some appearances to be redeemed, but will at the same time be twice dead. plucked up by the roots, foaming out their own shame. And only you know, it doesn't bother me in the least when I read that. Why? Because I'm redeemed. It doesn't bother me in the least. I know that God must know that. I'm glad that he knows it. It would be tragic if he didn't know that, because if he doesn't know that, then he doesn't know about me. If he doesn't know who's lost, how can he know who's saved? God, being God, must know all things. Therefore, he must know the lost, he must know the saved. When you come into the world, he opens a door. The way is open that you might come to Jesus Christ. The door is open. Now, you may say to me, how about the pagans here? And this is the usual question. I say this, the Lord of all the earth can do no wrong. And don't you be concerned about that. All I know is this, I have heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, and God calls upon Martin Guinn to make a decision about Jesus Christ. And I can leave everybody else in his hands. I'm not worried one iota. He can't do anything wrong. That's all I know. The Lord of all the earth, it says, can do no wrong. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is true. He is holy. He is righteous. He can do no wrong. So don't be distressed. God hasn't given you to see all things. He says, you see now through a glass darkly, but then you'll see face to face. And then you'll understand. You'll have a great deal of understanding when you see Jesus face to face. Don't try to dig into things that are not your province. He says, my thoughts are above your thoughts as high as the heavens are above the earth. So beloved, if we will just leave everything else. You individually, you're the one. It's you and God. There's many a soul who's lost today because they have a question about the pagans. What's God gonna do with the pagans? And they let their own soul be lost because they're worrying about the pagans. You can leave them in God's hands. That's not your concern. That's God's concern. God did this. God made it all. And I have not one iota of doubt. I know that no one shall get into heaven without the blood of Jesus Christ. That's all I know. And how God is performing it with you and with me is by faith, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he has saved us. So don't let anyone ever confuse you about the pagans here and the cannibals there, what's God gonna do with China and what, leave it in God's hands, all right? He's got a lot more wisdom than you. You with that little finite head on your shoulders are gonna decide what's God gonna do with three billion people. Why, it's hard for us even to conceive of the universe we live in. You can't conceive of it. It's an impossibility. Isn't it strange how people try, out of their little finite mind, they set down some philosophy, and a lot of men all run in and say, isn't it wonderful? Some man's come along, and he thinks the way I do. It must be right. But remember, the word of God says there is a way that seems right to man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death. And so, we can leave it all in God's hands. God's dealing with men individually. Oh, I'm so glad for that. I've never been concerned about the pagan world. All I say is, send out missionaries. Do all you can. Preach the gospel. To as many as received him, to them he gave you the power to be the sons of God. Do everything you can, but don't you worry about it, Martin Gein. It's in God's hands. And you're just a little finite man. You've been being redeemed in the blood of Christ. You're a son of God. Thank Him for it. And then leave everything. If He redeemed you, do you think you'll have any problem with the rest of humanity? No. Not a thing. I have listened to explanations and explanations of people trying to explain this and explain that when all you really have to do is believe in Christ and it's all revealed to your heart and you rest in it completely and say, Lord, thou art the one. Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom of God. I'm quoting now, who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? No one! It's all in his hands. And so, here is this group in the church, and we might say, how can this be, these people existing in the church? Well, God says they do exist in the church. He said there are like trees who are plucked up by the roots. Never a possibility of springing up and sprouting again, of showing any form of life. God knows them, I don't. There may be some that I might meet and look at, and you know how often you meet somebody and you say, you may say, what can be done for that man's soul? What can be done for that woman's soul? Can they be redeemed? Are they beyond redemption? No, they're not beyond redemption. Only God knows that. My witness goes out regardless. In our visitation work, we meet families. Undoubtedly, God knows the end. I don't. We walk into a house and we proclaim the gospel. We pray with them. We ask that Christ may come into their heart. The Lord knows whether Christ will come into their heart. It may not be right at that moment, but it may be someday that Christ will come into their heart. And so, we go out and we believe we should be witnesses for Jesus Christ. He's called upon us to be. He's called upon you to be a witness for Jesus Christ. To live for Jesus Christ and to so proclaim that saving grace of our Savior that others will come to know Him. First, He starts with your family. That's the place. And then you can get out to the neighborhood outside. The raging waves of the sea. That's what He calls it. In Isaiah, it says, the wicked are like a troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. These are not rooted and grounded in faith. Raging waves of the sea, any sudden change. Here they are, Christians. Let me give you an example. Here they are, Christians. Say, we're born again. We really love Christ as our Savior. How much? How much? Let me ask you a question. If someone is bearing a solid, wonderful testimony for Jesus Christ, let's take a young person, bearing a good testimony for Jesus Christ, claiming that Christ is their personal Savior, claiming they're indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, and For some mere affection, for some other person who has no relationship to Jesus Christ, they'd sweep the whole thing away and marry them so they'd be married. For the sake of marriage, those who are claimed to be the bride of Jesus Christ, sweep it all away and marry. Now, let me say this. Some have been swept off their feet, I believe, with all my heart, who've been redeemed in the blood of Christ and have married and have lived to really regret it deeply in their soul. They've repented to God and said, Lord, I was wrong. Some have even had their mates depart from them. Some have married and have been, as someone passed me at the door a few weeks ago and said, Pastor, can I say this to you? I'm just one of the fortunate ones. I disobeyed God. I got married and my husband got saved. I said, praise the Lord. Isn't that wonderful? It happens. But I want to say this, the cases where it happens are so rare, so rare, so few. and the heartaches that ensue are so terrible. And oh, that we might see that we must be rooted and grounded in the things of God so that if some little affection comes in, if something like this happens, young people, how I plead with you here. I'm not pleading with parents this morning. I'm not pleading with those of you who have married. Many of you know that in the beginning you disobeyed the will of God, and you're praising God that your husbands or your wives are saved now. You're thankful for that, and I'm thankful for that with all my soul, but I'm pleading with those who are not yet married. If I were to ask those who are married, I said, would you counsel with some young people? They would tell you, they'd say, well, even though we're happy today and my mate did get saved, I have to say to you that I was disobedient. I'm fortunate, but I can show you a lot of my friends who aren't so fortunate. Their mates are still far off from God. So don't do it. Oh, make sure, young person, that you really are going out, if you're in the marriageable age, with someone who loves your Savior, because love is a tremendous emotion. Oh, it sweeps up the soul, and we're swept into a marriage that is, oh, such a burden. How Alice and my heart broke when we were saved, Alice's two sisters came to Christ. They were younger than Alice. And they came to Christ, and we were all baptized together in Belle Rose Baptist Church. And the one sister, she went on with the Lord. She's married to a Baptist preacher today out in the Midwest. Has a wonderful church out there. But the other sister truly broke our heart. She was such a lovely girl, beautiful girl, still a beautiful woman. But some sailor boy swept her off her feet, unsaved, didn't care for the things of God, loved his beer, loved his drinking, never had anything. Do you think that she's been happy? They've been married now, oh, well over 20 years. And I want to tell you, many, the weeping she's done over a marriage that she knows never should have taken place. He's still far off from God. And 20 years of going on this way. Oh, how I plead. Be careful, young people. Be careful. You know, these people won't look like this. May I say this? They won't look like trees rooted up. They won't look like raging waves of the sea. We may think, you know, well, this should be evident. We should be able to see it. But I want to say this. In my study, I have to be most careful where love sweeps someone up, that emotion, that feeling within the breast. sweeps a young couple into my study, and one is saved and the other is unsaved. And I have to be so careful because love, this emotion within the heart for another one, and it is not agape, remember. This is not God's love. It has nothing to do with that. This is eros. That is that which Paul speaks of. It is an emotional attachment for another person that is so strong you can't break it. And you feel that marriage is the only answer. they come in, and I'm so afraid that the one who is unsaved has learned the language of salvation, and because of the emotion, is going to say to my ears, yes, I trust Christ as my Savior just to get mad. You ask me how I know? I've had it happen. After marriage, never went to church again. Do you not think my heart breaks? The discernment of the man of God is limited to the confession of mouth. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and the confession is made with mouth, and the pastor listens, and the words are the proper words, even memorizing a verse of Scripture, that will fit in. follows, though, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart," that's the heart side, that's that which I cannot see, "...that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." And so, how could this young person possibly know, impossible to know, that this one who merely wants that joining together of the flesh, that's all, They mistake it. It's love, but it's not God's love. God's love is given to the redeemed of the Lord, and that is an experience that only two saved people can understand in married life. That's all. The other love that he speaks of is eros, and that has to do with emotional marriages, has to do with the sweeping in by emotion. How can I live without this person? And time and again, the exact, listen, I'll give you an idea of how people can use words. You wouldn't possibly know this, but let me show you. Last week, Joe Hart knows, last week, this is the, preachers have to, you know, I've been preaching 20 years now here, and I get to know pretty well. I receive a call on the phone. I wasn't here. Joe was here. This man said, I'm a saved man, and I'm from Germany, and I've just gotten to the United States, and I have a problem, and I would like to talk to the pastor about it. So when I came in the office, Joe Hart told me, this man has a problem. He'd like to come and talk to you about it. I said, when he calls again, if I'm here, give him to me, because I know from my experiences. So I said to him, I said, tell me a little about your faith. Well, he stumbled all over the place, of course, you see. I said, you mentioned that you're a Christian from Germany. Where? He said, oh, Stuttgart. I mean, you know, you've got to pick some place. So I said, tell me, is your need financial? He said, how did you know? I said, let me ask you how many other preachers you've been calling. How do I know that? The evangelical ministers of Nassau County already know. We're called on this type thing sometimes two, three times a week. I had them come to the door. I had one fellow, I'll be frank with you, I gave him five dollars. He was such a bruiser that I figured five dollars was… He came into my study, and first he said, he said, I'm really in bad trouble. I'm a Christian, and I know Christ is my Savior, but I've gotten in a lot of trouble, and I used a gun in a burglary, and he pulled the gun out, you know, and then he put it back in his pocket. So I said, what do you need? He said $5 would help. So I reached in and gave him the $5. I sat with him and talked with him for a few minutes about Christ, but he brushed me off. He didn't want anything to do with that. He said, that's all I want. That's all I want, just $5. But he knew all the language of a Christian. He knew about the blood of Christ, and preachers are told, be careful, be careful. Now, I'm just saying that because people can know all the language, young people. Mothers and daddies will tell you this, they know all the language. And oh, be most careful. God says about them, they don't look at, you know, the devil never has horns and the devil never has a pitchfork. But they say here, raging waves of the sea, they won't look like it, like trees plucked up by the roots, twice dead. Never will they look like it. And they can learn the language from you and use the language so that they can possibly get a union of light and darkness and the misery of it. May I say this? I hope no girl wants to get married so much that she'd marry an unbeliever. Do you know why I say that? Single loneliness is better than married misery. May I repeat that? Single loneliness with Christ is better than married misery. And I say that for every young fellow too. They may not look like the raging waves of the sea, and like the trees uprooted, and they may not look twice dead, but God says, I'm warning you, they'll even get into the church, and they'll even use the language of the church, but be careful. If they've done it because they've become emotionally involved in something in the church, be most careful that you do not fall into the trap and find yourself in this terrible position. Oh, God may help it after, but it's rare, so, so rare. I think it's just as rare as the fact that the thief on the cross got saved at the last minute. But God warns you, don't wait till the last minute, because He only has one and all Scripture where it worked. And so it is that we should not be joined up. What fellowship has light with darkness? If Christ is light, it says he's the light of the world. He has come to enlighten our understanding. Light dwells in our breast. We shine as lights in the world. Now, what fellowship, he says, has light with darkness? None at all. None at all. Oh, may God give us wisdom. Young people above everything else, may God give us wisdom. I hope you would die without a mate and rather have a mate who will be a heartbreak to your soul. God, may I preach that in all power, that no young person here has a heartbreak of soul because they've disobeyed thee. Thou dost warn us. May we accept the warning with all love. Let us pray. Father, we thank Thee for Thy Word, and Lord, we recognize that these people will never look like You describe them here. You tell us that they feast with us, they're at our tables of love, they feed themselves without fear, they'll come home to dinner, they go through all of this. but they're clouds without water. They're carried about by all kinds of doctrines, always questioning, always learning, never coming to the knowledge of the truth. That's what thy word says. trees whose fruit withers, then it gets worse, father, and worse, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. It starts so gently. They come to the table. and they end in darkness. Now, Father, touch every heart this morning. May we really be redeemed in the blood of Christ. Give us a yearning for thee and thee alone. And may every desire of our heart be guided through thee as thou wouldst have us to be. Bless us who are parents that we may stand fast for the gospel, Bless those who are young folks and children. Oh God, as was prayed in my study this morning by the young men, when they prayed, God, give us strength in an evil world. Do mothers and fathers know that? Their young men pray in my study. God, give us strength in an evil world. So Lord, do this for us. in Christ's name, amen.