All righty, we are working our way through the General Epistle of Jude, a little book, just one chapter, 25 verses. And the Lord, although Jude actually wrote this book very early on in the writings of the New Testament era, probably before a lot of Paul's books, definitely before John wrote 1st, 2nd, or 3rd John, but God had this book at the time of the King James Bible moved right to the second last book of the New Testament before Revelation. Because God could see down the corridors of time what was going to happen and how things were gonna get worse just before his son returned, which is what the book of Revelation is all about. Which incidentally will be starting next week in Sunday school. And we'll begin the book of Revelation, the 22 chapters. I'm hoping we can do a chapter every three weeks. It's gonna take time, there's a lot of depth in there. And so I hope there'll be good studies. But Jude is written to tell us right before the coming of Jesus Christ for the second time in verse three, that you're gonna have to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints, because there's gonna be certain men, a whole bunch of certain men, who are gonna creep into the work of God unawares, and these are ungodly men, he says in verse four. They turn the grace of God into a kind of lasciviousness. I mean the grace of God is based on a full focus of the cross work of Jesus Christ. That's where I met God's grace when I finally focused on the cross of Jesus Christ and recognized that Why is Jesus hanging on a cross? And then God's showing me, well, he's dying for your sin. You actually belong on that cross, but he's taking your place. And when you begin to see that, you see how serious and sober and great the work of salvation is, and you begin to focus on that, and lasciviousness is just like falling away from that and beginning to focus on other things. And God wants our focus on the uplifted work of the Savior. He said, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me. The uplifted Savior. You start putting them down on the level with the rest of us and all of a sudden we start slipping and sliding away and doing other things. And these men wanna get our focus off of Christ. The church I was in, the ungodly men that crept in and started that monstrosity that's described in Revelation 17, the mother of harlots, the great whore with the golden cup in her hand that's the scarlet colored beast, Roman Catholicism. had me focusing on candles and statues and rosaries and Mary, but not on Christ. And that's big. That's the major denomination in the world. And Jude is saying, look, we've got to contend for that faith was once delivered to the saints about Jesus Christ. That's where our focus needs to be. And what he's trying to do is, verse five, putting the people in remembrance, how that even though the Lord once saved people out of Egypt, he destroyed those that did not believe. You either believe and you're saved, or you don't believe and you're not saved. And he's showing God makes a clear division between the saved and the lost. When we preach on the streets, we tell them, you know, Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost. So I tell them, you know, we park, they park for one minute there at the red light, and I tell them, listener, you're either saved or you're lost. There's no third category. You're either saved or you're lost. Some girl put her hand out the window, thumbs up. I said, there's a saved one right there. The rest of you, if you're not saved, you're lost. And Christ, God destroyed them that believe not. If you're not a believer, you're lost. Now God wants to save you. And that's the good news why I'm preaching on the street today, I tell them. Because I have good news for you, you can be saved right now, before the light turns green. You can get saved that quickly. God can bring salvation in an instant, in a moment of time when a heart turns to him. And so he's showing, you gotta watch out for this thing. Verse six, God took angels and put them in everlasting chains under darkness. If he can do that to an angel, what's he gonna do to a lowly creature like a person that's a not believer? I wanna put you in remembrance, Sodom and Gomorrah, God destroyed them. because they were given over to idolatry and idleness and fullness of bread and all kinds of sins, like not just fornication, but I guess they would call that today homosexuality. But he said that's the abomination of sodomy, men with men and women with women. And God destroyed that with the vengeance of eternal fire. And so these men, verse eight, they are filthy dreamers. And they come in and they're just making a mess of things. And we've got to stand. Now listen, we can't change it out there. They wanna do it out there, but inside the church, the pillar and ground of truth and the house of God, all that can be allowed in here is the word of God and the truth of God. And that's what Jude is trying to say. Stand inside the churches. Don't allow something to call itself a church and have these evil men running it. And if there are evil men running that thing and calling it a church, call it out and tell it, that is not a church according to God's Word. That's a church according to the lascivious desires of ungodly men who've made up their own type of religion and put the wrong label on it. You've got to stand. Jude was trying to get some men to stand. Verse 11, woe unto them. They've gone in the way of Cain, who had a false sacrifice instead of God's lamb. They ran after the error of Balaam for reward, and they get into the business for money, like we were reading the book written by Martin Luther, and he was doing the battle with Pope Leo, and Pope Leo said, and I didn't bring the book with me, but I quoted it last week to you, Pope Leo said you know how much money we've made off of this myth of Jesus Christ I mean he wasn't a believer, but he knew boy We're making lots of money here in the Middle Ages all this money flowing into the Catholic Church. That's going after money greedily rather than going for souls and going for God's word. And the gainsaying of Korah and talking about people that want to change the order of service in God's church. It's real simple. We serve the Lord. We're here to serve the Lord. And that's what we're here for. And when these men come in, they're spots. in our Feast of Charity. They are clouds without water. They are trees whose fruit is withered. They have no fruit. They're twice dead, plucked up by the roots. And we see this. And what he's showing us is This is a battle that God has been dealing with since the Garden of Eden, verse 14. Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, and you go all the way back to the beginning of the book of Genesis, and then the fourth chapter when they leave the garden, in the fifth chapter you've got 10 names of people who were calling on the Lord, and beginning with Adam, and the seventh name down there is Enoch. And Enoch prophesied of these wicked men, telling them, Behold, the Lord is coming with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon all. And he was trying to warn them before the flood. These men were living ungodly lives before the flood. They had given up on the truth of God. They had gotten to the point where God looked down And it grieved him at his heart and repented him that he had made man on the earth. And he said, what I see is the wickedness of man is now great in the earth. Every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually. I mean, whenever he turns over to his own imagination in his heart, his deceitful heart, he comes up with wicked imaginations. And Enoch was preaching about this. Now, what's curious about this passage here is, and this is what God wants us to learn as we read our Bible, The writer of the Bible, as we saw a few books ago when we were studying 2 Peter, go back just a few books to 2 Peter 1, and here is Jude and he's writing. And he's learning, 2 Peter 1, verse 19, we have a more sure word of prophecy. And so again, Jude is kind of prophesying these men are gonna creep in the church at the last days. And you can be sure of it. And we ought to take heed. And that verse 19, that sure word is a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arises in your heart. And the fact is the dawn of the millennial day will come and Jesus Christ will return. And in the meantime, we need to know this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation for the prophecy that Judah's writing came not by his own will, But this holy man of God, Jude, spake as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. So Jude is writing down, here's Jude, I'm trying to figure the time when he wrote it, maybe 45, 50 AD. And here he is writing about a man named Enoch that lived 3,000 years before Christ. How does he know what Enoch said? God told him. Now here's what we're learning as we read our Bible. The Bible is a history book written by God. Now God has decided what is gonna go in the book and what he's gonna leave out of the book. And in the determinant counsel and the foreknowledge of God as he wrote these things down, he thought it would be whatever he put in is sufficient for you. And at one point he told the Apostle John, he said, write this down. There are many other things which Jesus did in the New Testament and probably many things that God did in the Old Testament. The witch, if they were written, one every one of them, I suppose the world couldn't contain the books that could be written. But God said, look, I wanna choose what I want here, so I'm just putting little pieces down. So I'm telling Jude, because Jude is writing a book on judgment, right before the Lord comes and brings the hammer down. There was a time before the first judgment when God brought the hammer down of the flood that destroyed the whole world, except for eight souls, Noah, his wife, the three sons, and the three wives. Everyone else was destroyed on planet Earth. I want you to know there's a judgment coming. You'll read in the book of Revelation. Billions will be killed by the Lord right before the second coming, the battle of Armageddon. And before the battle of Armageddon, seven seals that are opened all over the world. And one of the seals that God opens is turning all the animals against men. So today when you step out in your yard and that little squirrel runs away from you, that's because God put the fear of man on all the animals. But God says, part of the judgment I'm gonna bring to all these unbelievers is I'm gonna take the fear of man off the animals. And a bunch of squirrels might say, that looks like good food right there. And eight squirrels attack and bite. Ain't gonna be fun. I'm gonna turn the birds loose. Go, peck their eyes out, he tells you in the book of Proverbs. And you say, that doesn't seem fair. And God says, well, actually, let's think it through, it is fair. Why do those animals struggle? Why is it there are predators and prey? You know why? Because of your sin. In the garden, there were no lions feeding on simple animals. When you were obedient to me, God says, in the garden, everybody got along. There was peace on earth. When you brought, you, you, Mankind, who had dominion over the earth, brought sin into the earth, you set everything amiss. And these animals have been dying and fighting and going extinct for 6,000 years because of your sin. And I've kept the fear on them, but you know what? For the last seven years, I'm lifting it. They may as well get back on the guy that caused all the trouble to them. And the animals will be attacking men. So those nice deer that you see will come busting through your family room and knocking you around with their antlers, and the birds will be attacking, and the squirrels will be attacking, and I'm gonna give your carcasses, our meat to the birds and the beasts of the air. That's just one of the seven seals. I mean, this is big judgment God's bringing. And God says, now Jude, you warn these people, this is what happened. And I sent a preacher named Enoch Before the first judgment and along with him I sent Noah I had Enoch and Noah and before this judgment I'm sending my people out there, and I want you to know now What's God gonna do verse 14 the reason I'm telling you this and telling you this God said look I? I coulda had Enoch write a book, but I didn't. I had him preach on the streets. And nobody knew about it till I told Jude, oh, by the way, I had Enoch preaching back then. Let the folks know there were faithful preachers that contended for the faith even before the flood. I wanna see if there are some faithful men that will walk in the shoes of Enoch today. And that's all you know about Enoch is what I just told you in these few verses here. But that won't stop knuckleheads from writing phony books like I'm holding in my hand right here. Here's a book called The Other Bible. I don't know if you're aware of this book. I bought this at Barnes and Noble. This was a book that was compiled over the years by a man named William Blake. He was a famous poet and writer back in, I can't remember, the 17, he was born, 1757, lived till 1827, and he collected all these pseudepigraphal textbooks from around the world. There's a whole bunch of them. There are apocalyptic books, the Book of Enoch, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Book 2, the Sibylline Oracles, the Apocalypse of Beirut, the apocalypse of Ezra, the ascension of Isaiah, the apocalypse of Peter, the apocalypse of Thomas. There are divine Gnostic texts, the book of Simon Magus, the book of Ptolemaeus, his letter, the book of Bacillides. There are Books of Acts, the Acts of Andrew, the Acts of Doubting Thomas. There are Infancy Gospels, the Infancy Gospel of James. He wrote this before he was two years old. The Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. It wasn't the real Matthew, it was Pseudom. These are all the books that you see on the History Channel that were not included in the Bible. Why not? Because they're garbage. They're pure stinking garbage written by ungodly men, men who are condemned, men who deny the truth of the Lord God, and they write their own religious texts. Yeah, and devils, okay, men conspired by devils. God says, I've given you all that you need right here. You have scripture. Scripture is all that you need that the man or woman of God may be throughly furnished unto all good works. That the man or woman of God may be perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. I can't be perfect. Actually, God says you can. You can be perfect, just like this marred, broken pen. It ain't perfect, but you know what? It writes. And when it writes, it's doing what I want it to do perfectly. I want it to write. And you may be all broken, but if you do what I want you to do, you can be perfect in my sight with my word, God says. How do you like that for a definition of perfect? Not Funk and Wagnalls, but God's. So, I'm telling you this All we know about Enoch is God says he was a preacher. He was a street preacher. I use preachers, God says. Go into all the world and preach. Preach the truth. I don't need writers, I need preachers. I have a few writers. They're holy men of God that I inspired to write, but now the canon is closed. Don't add to my words. Don't subtract to my words. Learn my words and speak my words. That simple. Ah, the simplicity in Christ. And Enoch was a preacher. What is God going to do? The same thing we can do on verse 14. Behold, the Lord is coming. The Lord is going to come with 10,000 of his saints. By the way, go back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 33. Moses. You see, the same message is given throughout the Bible. God doesn't change His message. The message is the same for every generation. Every generation has been snakebitten by sin, and every generation needs the same solution. It's the uplifted Savior. And every generation needs the same warning that the God who created one day will judge. The Creator is also the judge of the earth. And so in Deuteronomy chapter 33, verse 1, this is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death, and he said, The Lord came from Sinai and rose from Seir unto them, shined forth from Mount Paran, he came with 10,000 of his saints, and from his right hand went a fiery law for them. And the judge is coming with the law book in his hand. And just like he came down on Mount Sinai with the law, and he came with 10,000 of his saints when he brought the law, and I think the saints he meant at that time were the holy angels that were all around him on the mount. He's gonna come back with them, and he's gonna come back with the law book, and the books will be opened. And everyone will be judged by the deeds written in the books, unless they have a Savior. At which point they've moved from under the law to under grace. I'd rather be under grace than under the law. We're no longer under the law, we're under grace. Because the Savior said, I will keep every jot and tittle of the law. I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law. And I'll fulfill it for you, if you'll put your faith in me. And so the Lord's coming with 10,000 saints. He's going to execute judgment upon all. And for you and me, the judgment has been executed for us according to the book. And so we've moved from judgment to grace. But the others, they're gonna still fall under the judgment. When he comes, he's going to convince, verse 15, all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed. So one of the things that's gonna happen at the judgment is when the individual stands before God and says, I didn't do that, I didn't think that, I didn't say that, God will have a recording and a picture. I mean, we think we're in the 21st century because we've come up with photographic evidence and evidence that can be transcribed and recorded. God's had that forever. and God will be able to show them, and they will be convinced of that which they said, and they did, and they thought. All their hard speeches, end of verse 15, which the ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And people have taken his name in vain. And people have said things like, you know, we used to believe in God back in the old days, but now that we have science and we have the answers, maybe we created God, God didn't create us. but he is the creator of heaven and earth, and a lie like that is speaking against him, and this will be brought forward for them. They blasphemed his name. I mean, today, I guess the major name that's blasphemed is J-E-S-U-S, and you'll hear that all the time. By the way, I was showing them yesterday a Bible study. That's how you know that is the name of God, Jesus. That's how also you know that Yeshua is not the name of God, right? I showed them in Bible study. Remember Psalm 139? Take a look at Psalm 139. Now I know bad teachers are trying to teach dumb Christians that Yeshua is the name of God, or Jesus, but it isn't. How do I know? Psalm 139. Let's see. Talking about verse 19. That's a great psalm, by the way. On your own, read Psalm 139. It talks about how God's known you since you were in your mother's womb. Okay, God's known you from the moment you were conceived. He knew your soul. God's desire is to draw your soul to him. If you didn't get to him, it's because you blocked everything God tried to do. But anyways, verse 19, surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God, And so the psalmist says, so you depart from me, you bloody men. I don't want wicked people next to me. I want to separate from the wicked. Why? Verse 20, they speak against thee wickedly. Thine enemies take thy name in vain. I've never heard anyone swear in the name of Yeshua. I've heard them sneeze in the name of Yeshua. I've heard them sneeze in that name. But you've never heard one of them swear in that name. Because that ain't his name. His name is Jesus. In every movie, in every television, you've never heard anyone swear in the name of Yeshua. It ain't his name. Dumb Christians may be using that name because a Hebrew and Greek scholar who's a liar that crept into the churches taught it to them. But those with God's Word know the name of Jesus is above all names. There's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Back to where we are. Sorry to have to teach you truth, but somebody ought to do it. Yeah. These ungodly sinners have spoken against him and against his holy and his precious name. Verse 16, these people are murmurers. They are complainers. They walk after their own lust. Their mouth speaks great swelling words, Hebrew and Greek. God says, but the common men heard Jesus. My words are all plain, it says in the book of Proverbs. My words are simple. They're in the language you speak, if you're English speaking. I gave you English words. Very simple. You ever read the Gospel of John? Second grade level. Let's see, the first sentence, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. Every single word in that sentence is one syllable, except for the big word beginning. That's a good way to teach a child to read. God said, I gave you simple English to teach your children, not great swelling words to confuse them. Soteriology, eschatology, who came up with that garbage? Those are theologians that use words like that. God speaks simply to you, let me show you things in the end times. There's your eschatology, end times, let me show you. Soteriology, let me show you how I save that which is lost. Soteriology is about salvation. God gives you simple words, not great swelling words that you gotta go to seminary to learn. Hebrew and Greek that you're studying your brains out, you don't even want your reading. No, great swelling words, these men creep in. They have men's persons in admiration because of advantage. They have a PhD, they have a THD, they have a DD. They have so many degrees, where do they find how many degrees are in hell where they end up? Talk about hot. Men of high degree are a lie. You just read that in Psalm 62, remember? Mark just read it to you. Men of high degree are a lie. You want the simple men that God chose. Let's see, Peter was a fisherman. He wrote a great couple of epistles. You read the writings of Matthew. God writes Amos. Amos was nothing more than a herdman out there. These men were called from simple occupations and God spake to them and God spake through them. And we're not to admire them because they have advantage and they were close to God. We're to listen to the words and heed. Ye beloved, verse 17, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. You need to contend for the faith once delivered to the saint. You know what that faith is made up of? Words. W-O-R-D-S. Individual, holy, perfect, pure, inspired, preserved, translated words for you. Go to 1 Timothy 6. Words. Well, it's just the message. No, it's the words. They're incorruptible words. Well, I've got a corrupted version. Well, then put it down and get the one that God wrote. Words, 1 Timothy 6. He's talking about believing masters are faithful and beloved in verse two, verse three. And if any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, what do you mean? Even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when you read in a King James Bible, any one of the four Gospels, and you see those words in red, that's exactly what Jesus spoke. My words are spirit and they are life. I know your modern teachers have told you the originals were lost. The originals are in heaven, they ain't lost. He never put them on planet Earth. All he did was bring copies of translations down. I don't even know what the language of heaven is. But when he translated it the first time, it was into Hebrew for people living in Israel. And that was the Old Testament. And when he translated that heavenly language the second time, he translated it into Greek for the people in the New Testament. And when he was ready at the time of the printing press for you, you folks sitting in this room, he translated it into English. both Testaments, and united it into one. So you could have an entire, united, holy Bible, and you could read. And these are the wholesome words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness. And beloved, you need to remember these words. Go to 2 Peter 3, couple books to the right. It's just, it's almost inconceivable to me that within the church, the evangelical church of Jesus Christ, there are leaders up there telling you you can't trust your Bible. But you can trust the originals, which you can't get your hands on. So God wrote a book and lost it. Seriously, that's the God you worship. Yeah, but he's good, he saved me. No, no, these are ye beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Peter chapter three. By the way, the scholars hate 2 Peter. I was in a pastor's library when I was newly saved, and it's my, I'm a book reader. So he was tied up with something, I had to wait in his office for a little bit, and he had his library over there, and I just go right to the books and start reading. And I pulled the commentary off the shelf. And the commentary he had on 2 Peter was the scholar saying, we're not sure Peter even wrote this epistle. We don't think it belongs in the Bible. And I understand why they hate 2 Peter, because chapter two, verse one says, just like there used to be false prophets back in the Old Testament among the people, there shall be false teachers among you who privily will bring in damnable heresies. And so the scholars hate 2 Peter, and we're not sure he wrote it. 2 Peter three, verse one. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you. Who? That would be chapter one, verse one, Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of the Lord. We're not sure who wrote it. You have trouble reading English, do you? You never got past second grade? There's no doubt who wrote this book. Simon Peter wrote it. He signed his name to it. This second epistle, beloved, I write to you in which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. What are you stirring me up to? Verse two, that ye may be mindful of the words. Not the message, not the gospel, not the intent, not the idea or the notion. I had an idea and I got a little money, I can turn it into a notion a little bit more, I can turn it into a concept. No, that was Woody Allen. No, no, these are the words. the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior. You better know this. There's gonna come in the last days scoffers. They're not gonna believe that book. They're gonna change that book. Say, well, they can change it all they want. I'm not gonna read it. They're buying millions of these new books written by these scholarly scoffers. New versions coming out, 150 versions since 1901 in the United States alone. 150 versions, they can't get it right by now? With all these new Bibles making things better, why is it the modern Christian is dumber than a Christian that lived in 1840? The average Christian today can't answer just about anything. If you doubt me, go to any evangelical church and ask them some questions. If you doubt me, listen to Ask the Pastor. Forget the guys in the pews. God has a book. Those of us that believe it and read it, we get a lot from him. We don't need commentaries. Back to where we are. Yes, verse 17, Jude. Beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you there are going to be mockers in the last time who are going to walk after their own ungodly lusts. These mockers, these scoffers, God told the prophet Isaiah about them in Isaiah chapter 28. I mean, this has been a problem God's been dealing with every generation. And so we need some men to earnestly contend for the faith. Some men to get on their knees before God, ask God for wisdom like Solomon, and then stand for it, and doing all they can to stand. And God will empower them by his word. Isaiah chapter 28, woe to the crown of pride, you drunkards. And the Lord, where was I? Isaiah 28, verse 22 is the one I'm looking for. But he's talking about, Verse 14, wherefore, hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men that rule this people in Jerusalem. Hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful Hebrew and Greek scholars that are trying to rule my people and my church this day. Verse 15. 21, the Lord will rise up, as He did in Mount Parazim, He'll be wroth, as in the valley of Gibeon, that He may do His work, His strange work, to bring to pass His act, His strange act. He's talking about judgment. Bringing the hammer down. Verse 22, now, therefore, be ye not mockers, don't you mock and scoff at God's word, lest your bands be made strong, for I have heard from the Lord of hosts a consumption even determined upon the whole earth. He's gonna bring his judgment down on that thing. You get away from these scorners. You get away from these mockers. He told you there's gonna be mockers and scorners in the last time. You separate yourself from them. They're in the last time. Go to Psalm 92, the last time. How do I know it's in the last time? You know, one of the ways you'll know is the population explosion. Right before God brought the judgment of the flood, there was a population explosion. Men began to multiply on the face of the earth. If you want some good studies in population dynamics, you need to go back to a researcher in the 1960s, Dr. Henry Morris, PhD. He was a saved believer scientist. They hated him in the scientific world. He wrote a book called The Genesis Flood. And he's the one upon whom back the guy that built the ark, what's his name? Ken? Ken Ham and Kent Hovine. Those guys are all standing on the shoulders of the work of Dr. Henry Morris from the 1960s. And I've gone over the population dynamic studies he did during the time from the garden to the flood. It was 1,656 years. and what the number of children was per family. And the population probably before the flood had rocketed up to almost two billion. Just vroom, right up on a big J curve. And judgment comes, watch Psalm 92. Verse six, verse five, O Lord, how great are thy works! Thy thoughts are very deep. Verse six, a brutish man knoweth not, neither does a fool understand them. Why? Verse seven, when the wicked start to spring as the grass, and all the workers of iniquity flourish, and there's a big population boom, it's that they'll be destroyed forever. Yeah, that's not the only verse that tells that. There's another one in Acts that confirms it. You see a population explosion, look out, judgment's coming. And you guys can do the population studies from the 1800s. It was about 300, 400 million people at the beginning of 1800. By the end of 1800, we're a little past a billion. And then all of a sudden, 30 years later, 2 billion. 15 years later, 3 billion. 11 years later, 5 billion. And just keep up, up, up, up, up. And we're up to 8 billion now. And that's when judgment's coming. Go back to where we are. He told you on the last day, the mockers would come. The workers of Iniquity would flourish, and then comes judgment. They're gonna walk after their own ungodly lust. By the way, all these people being born, are they godly? Do they pray? Are churches being filled more than ever? Are you seeing more people carrying Bibles? Even the modern ones, you don't see them carrying those, which I'm glad they shouldn't anyways, because they're garbage. Now, these people, these mockers, verse 19, these are they who separate themselves. Separate themselves. I remember when Abraham was saying to Lot at one point, as Lot was looking down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, he said, look, the whole land's before you, Lot. Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. You want to take the left hand, I'll go to the right. You want to go to the right hand, I'll go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and he turned his tent towards Sodom and Gomorrah. And these people separate themselves from truth, and they go right for the wickedness. And they're sensual. They have not the spirit. Remember a few books back, we were studying the book of James, and James said the wisdom they have is not the wisdom that comes from above, which is pure and peaceable and gentle and easy to be treated and full of mercy and good fruits, the wisdom from God without partiality, without hypocrisy, the one that has righteousness. No, their wisdom is earthy and sensual and devilish. lascivious and it leads to increasing sin and transgression and iniquity they have not the spirit and Paul wrote in the great book of Romans chapter 8 and I love this verse I show it to people all the time Romans 8 verse 9 and And he says, speaking to the believers in Rome, ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his. And he's trying to show us again, judgment is coming. Somebody needs to stand like Enoch. Someone needs to take Jude's writing and stand and say, listen, you're either in the light or you're in the dark. And judgment is coming and you don't want to follow these people that are leading you in the wrong direction He closes the epistle verse 20, but ye beloved Since you're not one of them build up yourselves on your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. He's showing, what do I need to do? I need to build myself up. How do I do it? On my most holy faith, faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God, I need a holy Bible. I need the Holy Bible. There's only one pure, perfect, holy Bible, the one given by a king. For you and for me in English, it's the King James Bible. I was listening to Robert Breaker the other day talking about Raina and Valera. and talking about the great men they were in Spain. And the reign of Valera is the pure and perfect Bible in Spanish, for the Spanish people. And God has been faithful during the age of the printing press to give a pure and a perfect Bible so people can build themselves up on their most holy faith, reading their Bible. In every language, you have a faithful God. He is faithful and true. Don't let a scholar lie to you. Whatever language you speak, find the Bible in your language. We're English, we've got it. It's the King James Bible. And we're to build up ourselves on our most holy faith. Every day we read a little more and we build up a little more. And we read a little more and we build up a little more. And not only that, that's the first thing to do. The second thing we do is we pray in the Holy Ghost. We help the Holy Ghost guide us into holy prayer through the Holy Scriptures. And we pray according to the will and the word of God. And when we do that, one, read, that would be faith, two, pray, that keeps us in the love of God. And we have no doubt, we know that we know that we know. We don't vacillate all over and wonder from day to day and have doubts from day to day. We have a certain sure word that we're God's child serving our Father. No doubts about it. Every single day. I never have a doubt every day. I know what I got to do. I got to get up. I got to build up myself. I got to pray and I got to get out there and do what the Savior wants me to do. No doubts. No questions. Very simple. God doesn't want you double-minded. He wants you sure and certain, and this builds you up in the love of God. And we look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. We're gonna get into situations in this world, whether the world, pushes on us, whether the devil tries to get in our mind, or whether our own flesh gets in the way once in a while, and what we need to do at those times is we come boldly onto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. There's gonna be needs, spiritual needs that we come to, and we just come right back to the throne of grace. He closes out the epistle, and in the meantime, as we're keeping ourselves in the love of God, verse 21, and we're looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, not just for us, but for others. We're beginning to look on the needs of others, and what we're doing is we learn, we see situations out there. Of some, we have compassion. And I guess we could title this making a difference. God wants us to make a difference. We have a world where people are confused. Ungodly men have crept in. Ungodly men have denied the Lord. Ungodly men have changed the words of God. Ungodly men have mocked. God has to be the most misrepresented person in the world. God is completely misrepresented because of ungodly men. And so we're standing up and we want to have compassion and show them the truth about their creator. Show them the truth about the Redeemer. Show them the truth that God wants to adopt them and they can say, Abba, Father, and they can be part of the family. And we go out and we have compassion. That's the wooing word. That's the grace. That's the common salvation of verse number three. That's the love of God. But, that's verse 22. 22 incidentally, there were 22 letters in Hebrew, and to the Jews, 22 meant light. And that's bringing light. 23 in the Bible is like death. And some people who are close to death and may be killing themselves, others we save with fear, pulling them out of the fire. And so we have the wooing word of compassion in verse 22 with the grace and the love of God, and we have the warning word of the truth of verse 15, the judgment's gonna come. Man, you've got yourself in a fiery mess here, and God's gonna bring judgment on it. I gotta pull you out of this thing. God wants to pull you out. And so we have a balance in the way we work. We have the wooing, gracious words of Jesus in the New Testament, and we have the warning, judgmental words of God at Mount Sinai. And that's a good balance, and a good preacher, a good teacher, a good witness has both in his arsenal. But notice, he begins with 22 with the wooing word. I mean, when you first have a new prospect, so to speak, unto whom you wanna give the gospel and you've been praying for them, the first thing you wanna do is show them the goodness of God and the compassion, and hopefully the goodness will turn them. But some of them are hardened and wicked, and you're gonna have to try and pull them out of the fire by giving them the truth of judgment. You know, there's a day coming you're gonna have to stand before God and answer to God. and show them the judgment of God, kind of pulling them out of the fire. And as we do this, verse 24, unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and that same Him is able to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, who is that? The only wise God, our Savior. To Him be glory, majesty and dominion and power both now and ever amen and so Jude says look we got to get back to the faith we got to get back to the roots of our faith And I wish all those evil men were just out there in the university and out there in the halls of government, but they've crept into the church, and they've confused Christians. And the biggest area of confusion is not knowing that God, your perfect God, has given you a perfect Bible, so he can speak to you directly. Yes, he'll use teachers, but he'd like to speak to you directly. And he'd like you to get into the words which were spoken before of the apostles and of our Lord Jesus Christ, even wholesome words of the doctrine that is according to godliness. And part of godliness is building yourself up and then going out and pulling others out of the fire and making a difference, making a difference, having compassion, having a tract like this, God's greatest gift. God loves you and telling about the compassionate love of God, that God so loved the world that his son laid down on that cross. God would provide himself a lamb to take away your sins and tell them about that. And then maybe if they don't, then you can give them a tract that says God's last name is not damn and let them know about judgment. But first we try and give them the compassion and making a difference. And Jude wants us to make a difference because the next thing on God's clock is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And that's the next book we'll be studying, and we'll start next week in Sunday school, theoretically at 9.30. We'll probably start a few minutes before 10, because we're realists around here. And what the heck, we've got all of eternity anyways. We're in no rush. So let's pray. Lord, thank you for helping us through the book of Jude. It's a great little book. It's a powerful little book. And thank you that we're living at the time where the Lord's coming with 10,000 of his saints, and one day every eye shall see Him. And Lord, thank You for our salvation. We pray and thank You in Jesus' name, Amen.