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Our scripture reading this morning
is from second Peter chapter one. I'll remind you that second Peter
is Peter's last word to the church, much like second Timothy. These
are the last words of an apostle and last words, especially in
that context are lasting words. Let us read it with that conviction
in mind. Simon Peter, a slave and apostle
of Jesus Christ, to those who have received the same kind of
faith as ours, by the righteousness of God, by the righteousness
of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Grace and peace be multiplied
to you in the full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord,
seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness through the full knowledge of
him who called us by his own glory and excellence. For by
these he has granted to us precious and magnificent promises, so
that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having
escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. Now for
this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith
supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge. And in your knowledge, self-control.
And in your self-control, perseverance. And in your perseverance, godliness. And in your godliness, brotherly
kindness. And in your brotherly kindness,
love. For if these things are yours
and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful
in the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in whom
these things are not present, that one is blind, being nearsighted,
having forgotten the purification from his former sins. Therefore,
brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and choosing
sure, for in doing these things, you will never stumble. For in
this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ, will be abundantly supplied to you. Therefore, I will always be ready
to remind you of these things, even though you already know
them and have been strengthened in the truth which is present
in you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly
dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the
laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord
Jesus Christ has indicated to me. And I will also be diligent
that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these
things to mind. For we did not make known to
you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following
cleverly devised myths, but being eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such
an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory
This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves
heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him
on the holy mountain. And we have as more sure the
prophetic word to which you do well to pay attention as to a
lamp shining in a dark place. until the day dawns and the morning
star rises in your heart, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy
of scripture comes by one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made
by the will of man, but men, being moved by the Holy Spirit,
spoke from God. The Apostle Peter said that the
Word of God has more authority than your own personal experience. Heavenly Father, we praise you
that you are the God that we come to worship and praise and
serve this day. Not the God of man's imagination,
not the God of religion, but the God of the scripture that
has revealed himself on the pages of scripture and ultimately revealed
yourself in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is
the church of the Lord Jesus Christ meeting here on this Lord's
Day, on his day, bringing our hearts into fellowship with one
another and subjection to you and the the authority of your word. We
pray that your word will be enthroned in this place, enthroned first
in this pulpit and enthroned in the hearts of all that are
here, that our Lord Jesus Christ might receive the praise and
the glory that he is due by the response to the preaching of
the word about him. It is for his glory that we have
met and it is in his name that we pray. Amen, you can turn with
me to the book of Jude again. And just, we'll go ahead and,
oops, we'll go ahead and pray, but we'll open it with a little
review. It has been a little while, and it's important to
remember the context of where we come from so we can understand
fully where we are going. Brother Vince, I don't know why,
but it's incredibly difficult for me to not revert back to
that accent from VBS for some reason. I don't know why. Yeah,
the Irish Jamaican accent. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, Jaquan
Holbrook. Yeah. I don't know why. That accent
was a lot of fun. But anyway, all that being said, and since
I do have a split moment here, thank you all again for those
of you who did participate in VBS. That was absolutely a success. I appreciate it. So let's go
ahead and pray, and we'll dive into our sermon. Dear Heavenly
Father, we come before you today seeking what you would have us
find, Lord. We want out of this sermon, we
want out of this Scripture what you intended, Father, and that
is to change life. We want out of this Scripture
what you had it written for, Father, and nothing more, nothing
less. Father, allow Scripture to speak. not as some sort of
display of speaking prowess, Father, but allow scripture to
speak because it is the only tool that we have that is going
to change lives. Allow it to do what it's supposed
to do. Calm our hearts and minds. Allow us to focus in your name. Amen. So when last we were together, Last few times we were together,
just kind of backing up and reviewing again, we see this sense of urgency
from Jude. We don't see a man who's resting
on his laurels. We're not seeing a man who is
writing a letter purely because, okay, we have to write this letter,
have to get out of this, out of the way. I'm writing this
because, you know, it's all sunshine and rainbows. He's writing with
this sense of urgency. We've actually seen some militaristic
words used. in the opening of Jude to stir
the audience, to stir his recipient towards action. He's not simply
trying to excite them. He's not simply trying to get
them up and bouncing around aimlessly. He's trying to call them to specific
action. And we saw that specifically
in verse four, why he has to call them to action, why there's
this sense of urgency, what is at stake? We studied verse four,
it says, for certain people have crept in 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. And there are many parts of that
verse that should, be our call to action, but there are certain
parts of that verse that should absolutely scare us. And I believe
on a personal note, and I believe I'm well-founded in saying this,
but possibly the most horrific idea in that verse is the idea
unnoticed, closely followed by long ago. Okay, there is a sense here in
the unnoticed that our churches are their churches, hopefully
not ours, but it is necessary to remain on guard. But the idea
of unnoticed being you didn't see them come in. The idea of
unnoticed being they crept in so well, they got in, they embedded
themselves like a splinter and they're just festering now. And
we've said it before, but it is much easier to keep them out
than to get them out once they are in. And the idea that they
are in is why he has to say, listen, it's time to move. That's
the sense of urgency. He's not saying, be on your guard,
they're coming in. He's saying, get them out, they're
already in. And then we move on through verse
four, we moved on through verse four rather, and we saw the idea
of what exactly they were doing. Once they crept in, once they
put on that sheep's clothing and crept in as the wolves they
are, well, what did they do? Well, they do a heartbreaking
thing. Ungodly people who pervert the
grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and
Lord Jesus Christ. A group of people, a type of
person, a person whose one and only goal is to defame the name
of the Lord who sent his son to die on a cross for us. Now that should get us a bit
riled up. The idea that there's someone out there taking blessed
scripture that is designed to save my soul from damnation is
using it for their own profit and their own means and their
own motive. That's a problem. That should stir the heart of
a Christian. This scripture is sacred to us,
and yet we see what they're doing with it. And listen, again, part
of the reason we're going through Jude is that this is not a message
simply for 2,000 years ago. This is a message that rings
louder and louder every day that life goes on. This is Sunday morning. Brother
Vince has said many a times he can't imagine being any other
place here than here on Sunday mornings. And there are many
people that feel that way about their churches around this nation,
around this world. We are blessed here that we have
so in as far, that is not a word, so far as we can tell, we have
denied the infiltration of these people into our midst, but there
are many churches, quote unquote churches, around the globe this
morning that are meeting, and they are under the sound of a
man or a woman or a person in the pulpit who is doing the second
part of verse four. And that should grieve us. They
keep the word church on the sign. They're nothing more than a club.
They're nothing more than a meeting place. They happen to just wear
nicer suits. And honestly, that depends on
which club you go to. They're just a church in name.
Because folks, the moment you depart from using this scripture
the way it's supposed to be used and saying what this scripture
says, it is no longer a church. It is a building that happens
to have people inside of it on a Sunday morning. You're lucky
if they're like-minded people. And he says all of this, and
he brings this point to our mind because he wants to stir us to
action. He wants us, Jude, he wants us
to look to the left and the right as we're sitting in our pews,
and he wants us to look forward and backward as we're standing
in the pulpit. He wants us to examine scripture and look around
at what's being taught and say, does it align with scripture? Does it align with what Christ
came here to die for? Does it line up with, again,
I'll quote the last part of verse four, our master and Lord Jesus
Christ? And if it does not, well, it
has no business in a pulpit, it has no business in a pew,
it has no business in our hearts and no business in our minds. And perhaps then we can fully
understand why he uses that strong language, why he uses a military
rallying cry. The biblical equivalent of something
like, remember the Alamo, effectively. Just go out there and remember
what they've taken from us. Go out there and remember what
you're fighting for. But all that being said, we saw the idea,
partially last time, In verse 4, I'll read it all again. For
certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated
for this condemnation. We see that there is going to
be a point, we saw starting in verse 4, the idea that the Lord
has not This has not been unnoticed by him. It's been unnoticed by
humans. It's been unnoticed by the church.
It's been unnoticed by maybe the pastor or the lay person
or the pew person, whatever the case may be. The Lord did not
have this unnoticed under his nose. If you serve a Lord who
didn't notice this, you're not serving the Lord. And he starts
us off that way in verse four and then continues in verses
five, six, and seven, explaining the Lord has missed nothing.
There's something for these people. And it's easy to kind of jump
on a horse and say, how you gonna get yours? Yeah, there is a bit
of you got yours coming, buddy. There is a bit of that, but it
should also pain us to know that this is happening. It should
pain us to know that our scripture is being misrepresented, but
it should also give us great hope in the fact that the Lord's
going to right the ship. But then read with me in verse
five through seven. We've got some specific examples
that we need to look at today. So verse five, six, seven. Now
I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that
Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels, who did not stay
within their own position of authority, but left their proper
dwelling, as 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 indulge in sexual immorality. You may have a translation of
this as gross immorality. and pursued unnatural desires,
serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet unlike man, these people
also rely on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority,
and blaspheme the glorious ones. We see three primary examples. Now, this closely, if you're
thinking back or you're thinking towards the second Peter direction,
you do have a parallel there. You'll see that often between
Jude and Peter. They are riding, fighting the same battle, the
idea of the apostates that have gotten into their midst. So if
you see some parallel there, it's, you're not mistaken. But all
that being said, there's one... In the passage that this parallels,
there's a little change up, and we'll get to that in a moment.
There's a little bit of detail here that we may not have had
in 2 Peter, but I'll cover that in a moment. But look at verse
five specifically. Now, I want to remind you, although
you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out
of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. So
we're all likely familiar with the Exodus story, with what's
going on here, but... Just a little review, it always
helps. Even the choir has to be preached
at every now and then. But a little review of the story. We understand that the Israelites
were brought out of Egypt. We understand the story of the
plagues. We understand the story of the
Passover. We understand God's full power on display. You'd be hard-pressed to find
many stories that just prove that God is who he says he is
outside of things like the plagues and bringing the Israelites out
of Egypt. There's just so much of him on display, right there
for all to see. He's revealed himself to his
people every way but face-to-face, which they could not handle,
by the way. He's revealed himself to them in every way possible.
The idea of his presence in a cloud, just guiding them. They have
seen this all firsthand. But it's this beautiful story
of redemption, mercy, grace, promises, protection, and his
power on full display. But it turns into a story of
his divine judgment. Rightful judgment, justified
judgment. Now, what's interesting here,
start off with me, when you look at verse five, it says, now I
want to remind you, although you once fully knew it. Now. We're speaking to a Jewish audience.
So part of the reason he says remind is because he knows that
his followers, his readers, know this story. Gives us an idea
of who his audience is. They know this story. They know
of the scripture. He doesn't have to repeat. He
has to only reference. However, it's interesting the
way the verbiage here works. I want to remind you, although
you once fully knew it, there's a verb usage here that we would
miss in the English that is very, very important for us to actually
catch. I wanna make sure we study that for a moment. What he effectively
is saying is this, I know you have the head knowledge of it,
but I need you to think of the implication. I know you have
a head knowledge of it. I know you grew up listening
to grandmother and mother tell you this story, but I need you
to not only have it as a historical thing in your mind, audience,
I need you to grasp what it means and why it means what it means.
I need you to grasp the implications. It'd be the same way you could
think of it if you ever taught or led a classroom. of students
or of followers and maybe they can regurgitate information but
do they truly know it? I can recall several stories
on that from personal experience, but the idea that maybe that
student can sit there and tell you these complex formulas or
regurgitate their charts and graphs, but do they truly know
why and how and where? Have they reached, for my teacher
friends in the room, have they reached the peak of the pyramid
and gotten from knowledge to synthesis? I'll throw that in
for you. Have they gotten from knowledge to synthesis? Do they
understand and apply? And that's what he's begging
of them. You know it, what does it mean? You know it, audience,
but what's the implication? You know it, why is it important?
You know it, now what are you going to do with it? And in so many cases, we find
ourselves in the being reminded Sunday after Sunday, but never
in the application phase. And I beg of us I beg of us. We can hear it Sunday
in, we can hear it Sunday out, but sooner or later it's got
to be applied. Knowing scripture and not having
a place to apply it is a problem. Because scripture is completely
applicable. There's not an unapplicable verse
in these scriptures. Everything's good. So I challenge
us to do what Jude is saying here. You know it now, what are
you doing with it? You know it now, what's the implication?
You know it, now go and do it. Now, Jude is asking them to remember
what God had done in times past. Okay, recall the story, but here's
the thing, going from recalling to synthesis, going from recalling
to using it, He's asking them to remember, this is the God
of the past, he's the same God he is today, so how do you think
he's going to treat things now? His attitude towards sin and
rebellion has not changed. For some reason, a modern church
may look at the God of the New Testament and say, well, he's
cooled off a lot, that means we can too. He hasn't cooled
off, folks, there's just a savior that's come along. The way he
looks at sin has not changed, it's been paid for. He still
hates it. He still hates rebellion. He
still hates everything that he hated in the Old Testament. The
standards are the same, but somebody's met the standards for us. We
don't need to soften up. Our God has not softened up.
He's just sent somebody who can meet the standard that we could
not meet. So, Now I want to remind you, this God who had a problem
with sin, who had a problem with rebellion, who had a problem
with doing something outside the confines of where he said
to do it, I'll finish reading the verse, that Jesus who saved
a people, his people, out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed those who did not believe. I'll actually turn back so you
can just kind of get an understanding. It's Numbers chapter 14. And
it's a little bit lengthy, you might wanna go back or you may
wanna hold your finger, it's up to you. But Numbers chapter 14, I just
wanna make sure that we have a clear point of reference here.
14, verse 26 through 38. So numbers
26, excuse me, numbers 14, verses 26 through 38. And the Lord spoke
to Moses and Aaron saying, how long shall this wicked congregation
grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of
the people of Israel, which they grumbled against me. Say to them,
as I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing
I will do to you. Your dead bodies will fall in
this wilderness, and all of your number listed in the census,
from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me.
Not one shall come into the land I swore that I would make you
dwell, except Caleb and Joshua the son of none, but your little
ones. who you said would become a prey
I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.
But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in the wilderness,
and your children will be shepherds in the wilderness forty years,
and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies
falls in the wilderness, according to the number of days in which
you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day. And
you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know
my displeasure. I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely
this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered
together against me in the wilderness. They shall come to full end,
and there they shall die." Understand the absolute severity
that is happening here. The giganticness, if that's another
word I'm gonna make up this morning, the giganticness of this situation. These people had seen the full
power of God on display and chose to grumble. Again, complained about everything
from the food to the direction to the leadership. I cannot emphasize enough, you've
seen all but the face of God and you choose to do this. It's
a glaring look into the human heart and how deep and how dark
it can get. When you wonder, well, how could they do that?
Look at that passage of scripture. How could somebody get to this
point? How could somebody do this? The human heart is dark. I couldn't imagine, do you understand
that at one point they are so blind to the fact that they are
following the God of the universe through the wilderness, they're
so blind to it. They talk about going back to Egypt. They talk
about going back into slavery. And I almost hate to make a VeggieTales
reference, but I'm a youth pastor, I get to do that. But in VeggieTales,
there's a character that says, oh, we should go back to Egypt.
Don't you remember three meals a day, swimming in the Nile?
And the other character says, we were in slavery. to which the original character
replies, nothing is perfect. Again, I'm a youth pastor, I
get to play that card. I get to play VeggieTales. But all
that being said, they make light of it, but it really was a silly
situation. Why go back to what God has saved
you out of? But they're so blinded by the temporary, they're so
blinded by how good it used to be, they're so blinded by this
plane of existence, they forgot God exists on another one. And he responds thusly, this is not God being overbearing
or harsh, this is God punishing the people who knew better, who
knew the standard. They had Moses himself leading
the way. They knew the God they served.
They still grumbled, still complained, still raised false idols. Just
watching them in the wilderness and watching their adventures
for all those decades, it is just a glaring reminder of where
our hearts can end up at if we don't pay attention. Because
your heart can always get a little bit darker and a little bit harder.
We have to guard that. We have to be careful with that. And a little last note there
on that first point in verse five, if we find ourselves grumbling
against God and being dissatisfied with where he has us, we're effectively
calling God a liar. You are shaking your fist at
the God of the universe saying, I know you said this is good,
but I don't want this. You are questioning the will
of a sovereign God. That is a dangerous place to
be, folks. It's a foolish place to be. But even more so, he goes through,
again, I'll read verse five into verse six, just because, again,
it's good to have that running context. Now, I want to remind
you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved
a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who
did not believe. He says, listen, if you think he's missing these
apostates, if you think he's missing these false teachers,
if you think he has no issue with false doctrine, Hold on.
You see what he's done to sin in the past. You see what he's
done to rebel in the past. Here's one example. Now here
goes example two. We look at verse six. And the
angels who did not stay within their own position of authority,
but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal change
under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. So
we move into our second, excuse me. We move into our second bold
point here. the apostate angels. Now, a little heads up here,
because if we read through this, I almost hesitate to give all
three sub points here, but I will. In studying for this, there was
a realization that there's actually three schools
of thought on this verse, one of which is absolutely out in
left field, but I'll mention it just because we need to have
our guard up. There's three different incidences
that people argue that this verse could be pertaining to, the angels
rebelling, and one of them being an unmentioned rebellion that
is not mentioned in the Bible. I call it tomfoolery on that
one. We're not going to, we're not even going to entertain the
idea of something happening outside of the bounds of scripture. But
the second one is that maybe these were the angels that were
part of the original rebellion, the one third cast out. And then
finally, the piece that fits the best, which I will explain
and I will back up with scriptural evidence, The final piece, the
third piece, is that this is likely the angelic downfall from
Genesis chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. the downfall and angels who went
beyond and far beyond their relegated place and far beyond where they
had been limited to. And they went and knew the daughters
of man. And if you remember the story
of the Nephilim, if you remember the story of the great men from
Genesis chapter six, it's likely referring to that. And the reason
that we believe it's that third one is because of the specific
mention here of being cast away under eternal chains. It matches
up with that specific passage in Genesis chapter six, verses
one through four. But no matter which of those
final two it may be, our operative issue here is actually at the
beginning of verse six, and the angels who did not stay within
their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling. Outright rebellion. They had
a place. They forgot it. They chose not
to recognize it. They moved outside of their proper
place and there were consequences. They're held under chains. They're
held under eternal darkness. Don't miss the idea of did not
stay within their own position of authority. Do not miss the
proper dwelling. These angels had been created
with a purpose and a position. They were supposed to be in one
place and they chose to be in another. Their offense was leaving
their posts and overstepping their boundaries. Oddly, this may be the example
wherein we can find, we may find ourselves the easiest, oh, well,
I'm not an angel. This doesn't apply to me. Well,
hold on. As a believer, you have a post. As a believer, you have
a place to be. In the middle of that scripture,
in the middle of God's will, when you wander outside of God's
will, you are in rebellion. Oh, I've never tried to overthrow
the king of heaven. That's only because you've never
tried to meet him face to face. The human heart, again, is dark. We have a place, we have an assignment,
we have a job. We have a will of God, a God's
will imposed upon our lives. And when we step outside of that,
we're no better than this. And we see the consequence that
comes with it. When we step away from where God puts us and we
are outside the boundaries he sets, we are effectively shaking
our fist at God, whether we behave as the angels or whether we behave
as the Israelites did. Both of these scenarios have
us looking back at God and saying, nope, I will not, I don't like
it, I don't want it. We must look like we're throwing
a temper tantrum before the Lord of the universe when we do that.
The same way we look at our children and say, that's silly, why are
you rolling around on the ground like that screaming? That must
be what we look at when we rebel against God like that. We have a lane, we have a place,
we have an assignment. And how do you think the Lord
perceives neglecting that assignment and neglecting the place he puts
us? Don't miss the fact that even
the angels have their day coming. The fallen angels, that is. Nobody
escapes this. Again, what Judah's trying to
push home is, listen, believer, you may think that God has had
this creep in on him unnoticed the same way we did, but he has
not. He saw the angels do it, he saw the Israelites do it,
he's seen everyone do it, and there's a day coming where they
will answer for that. There is a day. Many a false preacher
I imagine this morning are smiling from behind the microphone and
the pulpit thinking they've got another one over. They did not. They did not. I want you to notice
that in the first example when he looks at the Israelites, it
is. But the angels, it's a little
bit later, whether now or later, the Lord saw it. He'll make,
he will fix that. They will answer for that now
or later. For the angels, later. For the Hebrews, it was immediate. They can stand in the pulpit
behind their fancy suits and their microphones and their however
many followers on social media, but the Lord has seen and the
Lord is going to hold accountable those who have taken his scripture
out of context and twisted it for their own perverse wants
and needs. It is not lost on the Lord. Oh, I knew there was one more
note I wanted to mention. Perhaps it's tempting to separate
ourselves and say, well, listen, this is still, we're still talking
angels. I don't, this can't be that near and close to home for
me. I'll remind you that what the angels are recorded doing
here is how the original problem started when Satan stepped out
of line. He had a designated area as well.
And he decided, nope, I don't like where you put me, I want
yours. That's how all this started. Don't miss the power in that
second example here. And Satan's got his day coming. But now we read through verse
six, the angels who did not stay within their own lane, who did
not stay within their own position of authority, but left their
proper dwelling, left where they were supposed to be, left where
God had intended them to be. He has kept an eternal change
under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. I
want you to notice the word eternal in front of change there. God
has not forgotten, God will not forget. That is in the perfect
tense, the idea that those chains will not disappear. He has kept an eternal change
on the gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day,
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which
likewise indulge in sexual immorality and pursuit unnatural desire,
serve it as the example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Now, this example, perhaps, and certainly to the original audience,
they would have, this would have been living color to them. But
even in our modern day and age, there are people who've never
been inside of a church that know this story. We take modern words from the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to describe gross sin. Okay,
everybody knows this story. It's a very strong wording. There's very strong wording in
verse seven I wanted to mention, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and
the surrounding cities, which likewise indulge. Again, ESV
uses the word sexual immorality, NASB, and I believe King James
all use the word gross in front of it, the gross immorality.
The word there is actually porneo. If you listen to the root word
in the middle of that, you can see just how serious this word
is. Okay, it is an absolute perversion, a complete twisting of God's
intents and purposes for human sexuality. A complete twisting. These Gentiles' mind were so
warped that they abandoned natural God-given desires. something programmed that God
has given us and within our genetics, they absolutely just look past
it. If you ever want, again, we are looking at just how dark
and just how far from God's will people can go. They'll override natural programming
to have what they want. They'll override natural programming
to fulfill their fleshful desires. And I say again, please don't
look down at your nose at these people. Remember that this could
have been us too, but God. Very easy to look down upon noses. I am capable of this too. It
is nothing but the breaks that God put himself there in my life
that this has happened to any one of us or me. Praise God. But all that being said, they're
warped. We have this idea that they desire
this strange flesh, the Greek there, if I can remember, is
a heterosarcus, the idea of... Until I studied for this, I didn't
realize when he, it says they pursued strange flesh in the
original story. He's not simply referring to
the fact that they were not desiring of a woman, they were desiring
of men instead. It's referring specifically to the idea that
they even desired the angels that came into the city. They
desired something that they didn't even completely comprehend, but
they wanted it badly. They were willing to jump head
first, feet first, everything first into absolute filth. And the Lord holds them to a
punishment because we see at the end of it, after they pursued
their unnatural desire, if we look at the second piece of verse
seven, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal
fire. We know how that ended for them. a wildly large, grandiose picture
of just what the Lord thinks about sin. When you look at the
complete and total destruction of those cities and the surrounding
area, there's indication in the original language, the idea that
when he decimated the area, the word there is actually just turned
to ash and then layered ash on top of it. just to erase its
existence. MacArthur in one of his commentaries
says, of all the places that we've found in scripture, we
have not found that one. We found other historical sites.
We found where certain gardens were, where certain arches were,
where certain pools were. We have an idea of where a little
bit of everything is, and there is no markers for where Sodom
and Gomorrah was. the complete and utter decimation
of this area because of the absolute perversity that this city or
these city-states lived in. You want a picture of what God
thinks about our sin? That's it. And rightfully so, he gave a
standard. He programmed, in this case,
he programmed a standard into our genetics, programmed a standard
into our mind, and they went past it. And we see again, they're a bit
like the angels and the Hebrews before them in that there was
a natural place to be and they chose not to be there. And now they'll be undergoing
the punishment of eternal fire. Now again, we have been looking
at verses five, six, and seven, and we see just how dark a human
mind, or how dark a created mind, in the case of the angels, how
dark a created mind could be. We see the slippery slope it
is to leave the designated area that God has put us in, the designated
way he's told us to use his scripture, to use his pulpit, to use his
church. We see the slippery slope that it is. And we can walk ourselves,
we can walk ourselves through a little bit of a, a questionnaire,
as it were, because we have these three heinous actions
in these three verses. Because with the Israelites,
we say, well, how much worse could it be that you actually
saw God work and saw all but his face, and you saw him free
you from slavery, only to forsake him weeks later? Well, the answer
follows in the following verse, in verse six, when you have to
ask the angels, how much worse could you be than to see the
holy God in person and still turn away? And you see the answer
in the next verse. Well, how much worse can you
be to, How much worse can you be than to override your very
programming and the way God naturally designed you? And we answer that with the rest
of the book of Jude, and that is to twist and pervert every
single thing God has ever said and given us into something that
serves us and only us. He's starting off, now keep in
mind that we are only through verse seven, and we have to get
all the way through verse 24. We still have a plethora of verses
left. The vast majority of this book
is still left, but he has set us up in such a way that our
brain has gone from, oh, perhaps this is not such a large issue,
perhaps this is just something we can take care of when it gets
here. No, no, no, the battle cry has been sounded, and he's
given us the staunchest, the most in-your-face examples he
can of just how God feels about people who leave behind their
natural position. He's given us exactly what God
thinks about sin, so that when we read the rest of this book
and study the rest of this book, there is no question of what
God thinks about it. We don't get to look at anything
else in the rest of this book and say, well, maybe, you know,
it's a one-off, maybe it's not as bad as we think. Nope, he
starts us off with the standard. Knowing what's coming for these
apostates, listen, it's very easy to look at verses four through
seven and say, oh, you're gonna get yours, brother, so-and-so
on the TV is preaching that false dog, you're gonna get yours.
Looking at these verses and looking at how God looks at sin and looking
at how God looks at apostasy, it should break our hearts. The
idea that somebody's going to take, they're going to have to
answer to God for that. You're going to have to stand
before the God of the universe one day and explain, I know you
had a standard, but I, there's no, but after that, I know you
had a standard, but you can just stop. I know you had a standard
and now comes the judgment. It may sound a little bit odd,
but there should be a soft portion of our heart that weeps for these
apostates to come back to true faith. There should be a part of us
that weeps for these people and beg of them to come home, to
come back into repentance, to come back to the natural place
that the Lord has for us. Do we take this as seriously
as we need to take it? I cannot imagine stronger evidences
than verses 5, 6, 7. I cannot imagine stronger language
than verse 4. I cannot imagine more urgent
language than verses 1, 2, 3. And somehow, sometimes we just
don't see it as serious as it is. Folks, listen, if a church has
ceased to preach the gospel, if people like this are inside
of our churches, that should alarm us. End of story, there's
no way around that. It should alarm us. It should
alarm us that even though we have had ourselves protected
here at OVC, it should alarm us that this is the kind of thing
that is trying to get in. It should alarm us that this
is the opposition. that there are dark hearts that know no
bounds that would want nothing more than to get inside this
church, inside of our children's minds, inside of our Sunday schools,
inside of our pulpits, inside of our Bible studies, inside
of our heads, inside of our lives. This should alarm us. And he's
done everything in his power to make that as forefront and
to the center of attention as possible. Now I mentioned, The last time
we were together, I was going to try to make this, not that
scripture needs any assistance on this, but to make this as
practical and as, for lack of a better term, as in our faces
as possible. I wanted to bring up after, or
for each sermon, for each passage, I wanted to bring up a very practical,
real world threat that churches and Christianity are facing from
apostates. And last time we were together, what we looked at and
what we sounded our own alarm on was this idea of Christo-paganism. that have started to step into
our churches. I wanted to bring one during each sermon, just
something that we all need to focus on or something that we
can be aware of, something that we can sound our own alarm on.
And last time we were together, we looked at Christopaganism,
the idea that inside of our churches, there is a growing movement that
now has a name. It's been around for a very long
time, and now it has a name. It has literature. It has followers.
It has signs. And Christopaganism studies this
idea that you can believe this Bible and you can also study
witchcraft. You could also study Wicca. You
could bring in elements of voodoo and just have it sit right alongside
the Bible. Folks, there are churches out
there this morning that are doing this. That should alarm us because
it's one or two steps away from being inside OBC. It takes one
or two weeks where the guard is down and it's in here. But that's what we looked at
last time. I just wanted to review the Christo-paganism movement.
But this time, one that perhaps we're a little bit more familiar
with that's very much knocking at every church's door, this
idea of theistic evolution. And if you can't tell by the
title, the theistic evolution, if you can't tell by the title,
that is the idea that the Lord himself, that God needed evolution
as a way to put us on this planet. If you serve a God who needed
anything but himself to put you here, that's not a God. Theistic evolution undermines
the entirety of Genesis chapter one, two, three. If you got that
wrong, everything else is wrong. If you knock down the foundation,
what else happens to the structure? And there are churches, and there
are well-known, otherwise straightforward preachers that let that into
their churches, and goodness gracious, if there's not some
chaos now. I've watched one particular preacher whose name I won't mention,
watched one particular preacher over the last 20 or 30 years,
this kind of got into his head and his church and even the stuff
that he was writing at the time, 20, 30 years ago, all good. And
now I wouldn't dare pick up one of his books. Because again,
if you question the power of the Lord to have put creation
in the place, you question the power of the Lord to save, to
redeem, and to keep his promises. That's a problem because if I
can question God, everything's fair game. So just another of our own little
alerts to put up this Sunday, to know that these are real world
threats. These are things that are knocking at our door, waiting
to get in. And I think this one scares me
a bit because it's already conquered so many places. There's Bible
study curriculums. When I study for Bible study
to give to the teenagers or Sunday school lessons for the teenagers,
a lot of these pre-made programs that you can buy off of Christian
websites, this is in there. This is part of Christian curriculum
in some circles that the Lord needed millions of years, billions
of years to put us here. The Lord spoke and boom. I don't know what's even appealing
about a God who needed evolution to put me here. I want a God
who said, I'll step off of my soapbox.
All that being said, I'm hoping that this morning that the severity
of what we face really hits our hearts and mind. I'm hoping that
the severity of what Jude is trying to throw at us is really
landing where it's supposed to land. I'm hoping that this week
we'll be on higher alert for what the world and what Apostates
are trying to get into our church. I hope we're more alert this
week. I'll ask you to stand. You don't wanna, no standing? Stand, stand. We'll pray and
stand, but we do have a baptism today. I'll hand it over to Brother
Vince. So we'll just stand up, get a little blood circulating,
then you'll sit right back down. All right, I'll go ahead and
pray and close us out to the baptism. Dear Heavenly Father, we come
before you today again, and now at the end of our sermon. Again, hopefully on alert, Father.
Hopefully as riled up as Jude was when he wrote this, understanding
the sense of urgency of what could indwell within our churches
if we let our guard down, and understanding what's already
in some churches because guards were let down. Father, you have
held the same attitude towards sin for all time. You have held
the same attitude toward apostasy and false doctrine and false
prophets for all time. That has not gone anywhere, Father.
Hold that true in our hearts and minds, lest we fall prey
to it. Bless our time as we go our separate ways. Keep us safe,
Father. Bring us back to this wondrous place that exists only
for your glory next Sunday, Father. In your name, amen.
Three Historical Examples of God's Righteous Wrath
Series Jude
| Sermon ID | 84251911355707 |
| Duration | 54:37 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Jude 4-7 |
| Language | English |
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