Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, we ask that, again, coming to your word, that by your Holy Spirit, you would speak to us. And Father, that we would see what you desire for us to not only know, but apply in our lives, Father, that we might be pleasing to you. And so we commit this time to that purpose. In Jesus' name, amen. We're in the book of Jude, and I'm gonna pick it up at verse three, coming into a difficult passage, but I'll talk about that in a minute. Verse three, beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing, that you contend earnestly. You wonder what that looks like. Contend earnestly. You put that into, that's not what it is, but you put that into a physical situation, you would be fighting, okay? Okay, that you contend earnestly for the faith. which was once for all delivered to the saints. And then the Holy Spirit through Jews says, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness. and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. What's the problem that Jude is addressing? Let me just give you a little illustration. Many years ago, going into Vietnam on a nice airliner, you know, just like you'd get out in the United States. And I can remember, but I can remember coming into, flying over Da Nang Airport, and wing dipping down to make that turn, to come in, and I can remember, here's war going on down there. And oh, it was a whole plane full of Marines. And we're all looking out the window. And I'm thinking, there's got to be bombs going off. And maybe when we get closer to the ground, we'll see tracers. And you know what? Nothing. Nothing. And so we land. And they were moving us to another, airfield, get on a smaller plane, go up into I-Corps, Quang Tri, and they trucked us over there with no weapons. They just loaded us, all these Marines, into the back of a truck, and we were terrified. I thought, this is a war zone. We're going down the streets there. And I'm thinking, if anybody has a weapon, they can just. And I remember thinking, isn't the Marine Corps nuts? But then, I did get out to where, initially, they were on a far support base, and they're shooting out rounds at night. But nothing really going on. And then we went out into the bush. And a lot of patrolling, a lot of moving around, nothing. And my whole point is, you start to think, there's no war going on. And I really think that that's what Jude is talking about. And I remember that day when it all happened for me, the beginning of it. We found a rudimentary underground hospital just out in that northern part of South Vietnam. We're crawling around, just pulling stuff out of there. I'll be honest, just having a ball. Just so much fun, blowing stuff up and laughing, and what did you find? Unbeknownst to us, just a few hundred yards up on this ridge above us, there was a landing zone. And I'm convinced that every morning we would go out from just a small base, go through the wire, make our way down, take us, I don't know, maybe an hour to get out there to where we found this hospital. And we kept doing this, I think it was the third morning. And I'm convinced that they'd been up there maybe for two of those days, maybe three of those days, and they had an ambush all set up. And we got called up there and went up with a squad and we got ambushed and people got killed. First time for me, we're at war. And a friend of mine said, you know what the problem with all the movies about war is? Compression. And I said, what do you mean? He says, well, you know, if it's a two hour movie or a three or a one or whatever, they gotta fit a war into that time. And so mostly of what you're gonna see is shooting and bombs and all this kind of stuff going on. But the problem is a lot of times it's not like that. A lot of times it's quiet and things are going the way you want. And to be honest, a lot of it's kind of fun. You know, I thought it was, I loved being in the out of doors and up the jungle, seeing all this wildlife and stuff. And I think about how, what the Holy Spirit says here, for certain persons, verse four, have crept in unnoticed. You don't know that already in your midst, the enemy is at work. And to me this whole, these things that are coming up here where Jude is gonna give examples of past people being led astray and not recognizing, going with their emotions, going with that which is not right. And we look at the first one last time, verse five. Now I desire to remind you though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, okay, the Passover and coming out of Egypt, Exodus generation, then we have these serious words, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. So now, we come to verse six. I was reading a comment on this, and I'll read verse six. And angels who did not keep, next example, and angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned the proper abode, is kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. The comment in this commentary was, I found myself in some agreement with it. There's a lot of pastors and Bible teachers who'd rather not do this verse because it's just so different than what we're used to. Here's my problem. I picked the book of Jude and It's like I'm on a railroad track, and I can't turn off the railroad track, and I gotta deal with this first. And there may be disagreement, I kind of expect that. And I know that I can remember years ago, well, this is talking about, and we'll get into this, but the sons of God, those are the line of Seth, the godly side, and so forth. But I started really trying to, pull together scripture that probably has a bearing on this. And there's a lot of it. And what happened was, I couldn't escape that this verse is talking about something that, I'll be honest, to me is so far out there. I can see where people say, you believe that? But I'm sorry, but I don't have anywhere else to go because I've been tied into the rest of the weight of Scripture, comparing Scripture with Scripture, and okay, all that. Let me read you that verse, sixth verse. We're gonna do six and seven, hopefully. And angels, notice this passage says, whoever Jude is talking about, they are angels, angelos, okay. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode. Then it says, he, referring to God, has kept in eternal bonds makes me think, whatever these angels are, and we know they have to be fallen angels, demons, but they're in eternal bonds. They're not the ones that are around today, as far as carrying out Satan's will on this earth. And it's interesting, we don't have time to do a lot of this, but it's interesting how The demons that Christ came up against and cast out, they knew about this place of imprisonment. Go to Luke chapter eight, verse 31. This is that legion of angels, if we look at verse 29, for he had been commanding the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for it had seized him many times, and he was bound with chains and shackles and kept under guard, and yet he would burst his fetters and be driven by the demon to the desert. And Jesus asked him, what's your name? And he said legion for many demons had entered him, that would be certainly thousands. And they were entreating him, notice what they're saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, recognizing certainly his authority and who he is. And they were entreating him not to command them to depart into the abyss. They know about the abyss. We find And by the way, if you had the King James, bottomless pit. Go to Revelation chapter 20 and verse one. Earlier in Revelation, we have Satan coming down to the earth in great wrath, knowing that his time is, what, short. if we looked at where does the short end up? Well, chapter 20, verse one, I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil, and Satan had bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, so that he should not deceive the nations any longer. Until the thousand years were completed after these things, he must be released for a short time. Okay. Let's go back to Genesis chapter six. Genesis six. So here we are prior to the flood. Very early on. Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them. Genesis six, verse one. That the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. They were attractive. And it says, and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Sounds like this is a one-sided situation. I choose you. OK, you've got no options. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever. Behold, he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days, this is talking about, I believe, during the building of the ark, that God is gonna be gracious. extending this time of preaching for Noah to 120 years. It's not talking about men are gonna live 120 years. It's talking about, it's not a setting of how long. Moses said three score and 10 or four score. At any rate. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim. were on the earth in those days, and also after. We find that, well, let me read on. When the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, Those, now notice, those, I believe it's referring to the children, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown, famous. You know, I don't put a lot of weight on this, but if you go back to mythology, it's always talking about some type of relationship between what's called a god and a god. These women and the offspring that come out of it are, and now you can say, Whittles, how can this be? I don't know, but what's it doing here? All scripture, all scripture is inspired by God. Genesis 6 too, also I mean. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching or doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. Now I will say, I don't know if you're aware of this, but today, even among unbelievers, there's been quite a resurgence of talking about Nephilim and all of this stuff. In fact, I heard about one guy who's studied it as a believer, and it was a great opportunity for him to witness to somebody that started talking about this. I'm not saying that everybody's got it right, because a lot of it's off the wall. At any rate, okay, so back to chapter six. Those, end of verse four, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. It's just terrible stuff going on. And that, I think, what a, What a picture. What a revelation of the human heart. And that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Ever see yourself that way? He said, well, that wasn't a bad thing that I was thinking, but there was something bad connected with it, whether it's pride or just independence and I'm gonna do what I do. It's this continual thing. One of the things that's disquieting, I guess I would say, is that as we grow in the Lord, we see ourselves I know Linton Whittle's flesh like I never knew before. Now I'm old, you know, and it's certainly taken, you know, time to get there, but in scripture you just keep seeing. Why is it that I so consistently have the wrong attitude? Do you know what I mean? Why does it take so little to provoke me? Why, when I'm tired, do I not want to be bothered? Do you know? OK. And it goes on explaining, and the Lord was sorry. Anthropopathism, that just means it's putting into human thinking something to explain something about God, and the Lord knew all this was gonna happen, and the Lord was sorry that he'd made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart, and the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky, for I'm sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord, and I want you to come down to verse 11. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God. And we're just given an indication here. And the earth was filled with violence. You know, you think about what was it like to have these offspring and these demon entities And what was it like as far as the men were concerned who, the normal men, you know, you can just see there's just, the Lord says, bloodshed, violence. Okay. All right. Verse 13, then God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. And behold, I'm about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark, okay. Now let's go back to Job, because we want to try to nail down this term, the sons of God. So Job chapter one, we have another. You know, it's interesting how often in scripture God provides us with a little window that there's something huge going on in the plan of God that has to do with what Barnhouse called the angelic conflict. I know a lot of people have called it that. But there's this war going on. And where I'm headed here is we're in this war. We have to understand that God has taken us as believers and we're in a war. And you know, I go back, you know, that illustration of Vietnam. Whittles, you're in a war, you know? Oh, how I've thought about and how I wish that I knew that that enemy ambush was up on that ridge. Oh my. But I can remember just, I was a Ford observer, so I was with this, happened to be with a lieutenant, and he said, hey, Whit, let's go up and secure this landing zone. You know, piece of cake. We won't even take the platoon. We'll take a squad. You know, those things that when they happen, you just can't quite get them out of your head, you know, and you go over, well, what if I had a, you know, we had this thing, recon by fire, where you can come up on the side of a ridge and then just lay down your machine guns and start shooting. And usually, you can break an ambush doing that, because they don't know that you didn't see them. And so they fired. Then you're in a much safer position. It's just like what we did. We just walked out across this landing zone, and immediately people got killed. OK. So Job, Chapter 1. Verse six, now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. Interesting, Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? Then Satan answered the Lord and said, from roaming about on the earth and walking around on it. The Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? For there's no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil. And Satan answered the Lord, does Job fear God for nothing? Thus made a hedge about him, so forth. Then chapter two, verse one. Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. To me, these are angelic beings, okay? And I believe they're, and I don't know exactly, but they have to be fallen, some of them, because Satan came among them, okay? And that helps me understand, and plus, let's go over to Job 38. And in Job 38, We're gonna start in verse one. This is where God is confronting Job. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, isn't this a great question? Who is this that darkens counsel? Have you ever thought about that? How many times have I had an answer to something and really, It was the wrong answer, and I darkened counsel. I didn't enlighten, I made it worse, okay? And so God says that to Job. My words without knowledge, now gird up your loins like a man and I will ask you and you instruct me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? So here we go. Tell me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements that you know? Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone? Verse seven, when the morning stars, that's a reference to angels, when the morning stars sang together, and, what a verse, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. at the creation of the Earth, God says the angels did what? They shouted for joy. There's ramifications there. Was this before the fall of Satan? I'll let you grapple with that. Okay, now. Let's go to 2 Peter, chapter two. Is there some of these passages that I just couldn't ignore them? And by the way, as we read this, think of the similarity between what Jude was warning about and what Peter's warning about, okay? But, so Peter says, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who brought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, generally a sexual connotation to that, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. We're in a war. And their judgment from long ago is not idle. That's just so much like what Jude's saying. God deals with these things. And their destruction is not asleep. But notice, he goes right back to the same thing. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell, Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness. Well, we looked at the bottomless pit and the reserve for judgment. Notice, he connects it with, and did not spare the ancient world. All goes back to the same time of Genesis 6, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood. upon the world of the ungodly. And then he does what Jude did, and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, another example, to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter. Now, let's flip back to Jude. because I want you to see what to me is the, I guess I would say to me it's the most important connection. So I'm in Jude, verse six. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. And then he says this. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, now this phrase is a, I gotta say, this is the clincher for me. Since they, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, in the same way as these, these refers back to the angels in verse six. in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality." And then it says, and went after strange flesh, or of another kind. In other words, God never intended for men to have sex with men or for women to have sex with women. It's a crossing of a line, okay? And these in the same way as, these angels in the same way as the Sodom and Gomorrah bunch, they crossed a line. They went in to human women. Okay, then. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter three. And we're gonna come to verse 18. 1 Peter 3, 18. For Christ also died for sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God. having been put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit. Then it says this, in which, in which spirit, he also went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison. Then it defines them, brings us right back to Genesis again. Who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah. Asenad always strived with man. During the construction of the ark in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely. through the water, and corresponding to that, corresponding to that ark that Noah and his family were in, and corresponding to that, baptism now saves you. And then immediately people's minds go to water baptism, but not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I just love the thinking there. Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross. And then he was raised up, and where did he go? In his resurrection, he ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God. Could my sin still be on him? Scripture says that is the foundation for a good conscience. Okay, so I'm not saying that we're gonna be careless and so forth, but the most important thing is, were my sins really forgiven? Well, he became sin for us. He made him of no sin to be sin on our behalf, and through the resurrection of Christ, he's seated at the right hand of the Father, and there's no sin in that holy presence. There's no sin in him. And my sins were on him. A lot there to think about. Okay, we will stop there. Father, how we thank you for the resurrection of our Savior. who bore our sins on his body on the cross, and through faith in him, by your grace and by your mercy, we are made right before you as we trust in Jesus Christ. See ourselves as sinners, Father, and turn to you. What a grand thing, Father, you have done. May we continue to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we ask in his name, amen.