Jeff Miller

May 29, 2022

The Hill to Die On

Victory Celebration

Jeff Miller

May 29, 2022

The Hill to Die On

Introduction:

It Is Impossible to Lose Your Salvation: (Jude 1:24-25)

Because of God's Power . (Jude 1:24a)
See: John 10:28-29
Because of God's Promise . (Jude 1:24b)
See: John 6:39 | Philippians 1:6

5 Descriptions of How Thoroughly God Dealt with Your Sin:

Your sin is Washed away . (Isaiah 1:18)
See: John 15:10
Your sin is Removed . (Psalm 103:12)
Your sin is Lost . (Micah 7:19)
Your sin is Forgotten . (Jeremiah 31:34, Heb 8:12, 10:17)
Your sin is Pardoned . (Romans 8:1)

Because of God's Prestige . (Jude 1:25a)
See: Psalm 23:3 | Psalm 25:11 | Isaiah 48:9, 11 | Ezekiel 20:44 | 1 John 2:12
Because of God's Permanence . (Jude 1:25b)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:50-00:52
Open up your Bibles with me to the book of Jude.
00:54-00:56
And while we're turning there, let's just take a moment and pray.
00:56-01:03
I'm going to ask if you would please pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's Word.
01:04-01:10
And I will pray for us to be open to receiving it as the Word of God.
01:10-01:11
Alright, let's pray.
01:12-01:15
Our Father in heaven, there are so many things that could distract us right now.
01:15-01:32
And I just ask that we would be so laser-focused that Your Spirit would supernaturally grab our hearts and minds right now to think about nothing else but Your Word.
01:33-01:36
We believe that Your Word does Your work.
01:36-01:39
That's what You claim, and we trust You.
01:40-01:43
That's what we're asking for again today, Father.
01:45-01:47
I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
01:49-01:55
We're finishing our series in Jude called "The Hill to Die On." And this is the victory celebration.
01:55-01:59
And if you haven't been with us the last couple of weeks, I want to give you a quick review.
02:00-02:07
Jude was written by one of the half-brothers of Jesus, and he starts with a call to arms.
02:07-02:14
He says, "You have to contend for the faith." He's talking about apostates.
02:14-02:18
Those are people that go into churches and promote false teaching.
02:19-02:28
And it happened even as early as this, and even until today in our church we have dealt with that.
02:29-02:34
There are people that want to push their unbiblical false teaching.
02:37-02:38
So what are these people like?
02:38-02:40
Well, that was the next section of Jude.
02:40-02:44
He says, "Here's how you know the enemy." And he describes these enemies of the truth.
02:45-02:47
Then last week was a stand your ground.
02:48-02:50
He tells us we need to be ready.
02:50-02:51
They're coming.
02:52-02:53
We need to be strong in the Lord ourselves.
02:54-02:58
And we need to be merciful because God was merciful with his enemies.
02:59-03:01
And it's a holiday weekend.
03:01-03:07
And a lot of times for my family, that means getting together with extended family.
03:07-03:13
And normally that sounds like fun, but I got to tell you, It's not always great.
03:14-03:16
Like, let me tell you why though.
03:17-03:25
This all stems back from a New Year's Eve several years ago at my wife's sister's house.
03:26-03:41
Nieces, our cute little nieces said, "Hey, you need to try this buffalo chicken dip." And I'm like, "Okay." And they're like, "Don't worry, there's nothing in it that you won't like." You see where this is going, ladies and gentlemen?
03:44-03:50
Well, I took a bite of the buffalo chicken dip and immediately I knew something was dreadfully amiss.
03:51-04:03
I was like, "Mm, oh." I'm like, "What was in that?" And they're like, "It had ranch in it!" And they start laughing and I am literally throwing up in their kitchen sink.
04:06-04:08
You're like, "Why did you tell us that horrible story?" Well, here's why.
04:10-04:14
I trusted them, and they deceived me.
04:16-04:22
And because I was gullible enough to fall for their deception, there was a price that I had to pay.
04:24-04:28
I.e. being sick in their kitchen sink, literally.
04:30-04:33
And that's where we left off last week from Jude.
04:34-04:43
He said there's a danger of being deceived by these people who have crept into your church to deceive you.
04:44-04:46
And that's where we left off.
04:46-04:55
He said, "Show mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by the flesh." Now listen, they're your mission field.
04:55-05:02
We can't look at these people as our enemy and we have to throw them out.
05:02-05:05
We have to evangelize them, right?
05:05-05:06
That's where we left off.
05:07-05:13
But he says, "Hate even the garments stained by the flesh." And we explained in detail what that meant.
05:13-05:18
I'm not going to bark up that tree again, but here's the principle, church, and this is so important.
05:20-05:26
When somebody creeps in and they're trying to teach false doctrine, you're trying to convert them, right?
05:26-05:31
You want them to come to know Jesus Christ, at the same time, they're trying to convert you.
05:32-05:37
You see them as your mission field, they see you as their mission field.
05:37-05:42
That's why Jude says you have to show mercy with fear.
05:45-05:55
Because just like me on New Year's Eve, falling for the horrible chicken dip or whatever it was, there's a danger that you can be deceived.
05:57-05:59
And that's why you need to be careful.
06:01-06:06
Because we are all prone to being deceived.
06:08-06:11
You see, now we have to ask ourselves, "Well, what if I fall for it?
06:11-06:15
What if these false teachers come, and what if their thing they're saying makes sense?
06:15-06:18
And what if I begin to question certain things?
06:18-06:21
And what if I kind of get caught up in what they're teaching?
06:23-06:29
Could I lose my salvation?" So here's the truth I want you to see today.
06:30-06:38
And this is absolutely critical whether we're dealing with false teachers, or battling with sin, or whatever.
06:39-06:42
This is an absolutely critical truth.
06:43-06:54
If you are truly saved, if you are a true, born-again believer in Jesus Christ, you absolutely cannot lose your salvation.
06:57-06:59
called the doctrine of security.
07:01-07:02
That's what we're gonna talk about today.
07:04-07:06
And you see how the stage is set here?
07:07-07:08
Like, wait a minute, what if I'm deceived?
07:08-07:12
What if these people deceive me and I believe it and I could lose my salvation?
07:12-07:13
That's how Jude closes this.
07:13-07:15
He goes, no, no, no, you're not gonna worry about that.
07:16-07:17
You don't get to worry about that.
07:19-07:22
If you are truly saved, there's nothing that can take that from you.
07:24-07:30
Because if you take away security, you don't have hope.
07:31-07:32
All you have is doubt.
07:33-07:34
All you have is worry.
07:34-07:36
All you have is like just constant anxiety.
07:39-07:41
There's no joy in the Christian walk.
07:41-07:43
There's no assurance.
07:43-07:49
There's no resting in the finished work of Jesus if it's possible that I could lose my salvation.
07:51-07:53
But you see, here's the thing.
07:54-07:58
We think that we can lose our salvation when we start to think that it's up to me to keep it.
07:59-08:02
But it can't be up to me, because I fail every day.
08:02-08:03
How about you?
08:05-08:16
So the only hope that I have of staying saved, and the only hope that you have of staying saved, if you're really saved, is if God Himself somehow holds on to you.
08:19-08:39
Because if God doesn't hold you, hope do you have?" We'd start to ask ourselves questions like this, and I hear this all the time from people, like, "Hey, Pastor Jeff, how much messing up is too much? You know, what sin could I commit that would cost me my salvation?
08:39-08:58
Is there a line? Is there some kind of like line that like, if I cross this line, now I'm not saved anymore, like, where is the line? Like, is there some certain sin I could commit, or certain number of sins that I could commit, or what if I start doubting, or what if I have questions about the Bible?
08:59-09:00
Is there some kind of a line?
09:00-09:05
And if I cross the line, would I be able to go back across the line again if I believe?
09:06-09:08
Or is it like you cross the line and you can't go back?
09:11-09:12
That's how some Christians live.
09:13-09:16
Just with lack of assurance.
09:18-09:27
And then some say, "Well, maybe God grades on the curve, right?" Then I want to compare myself to others, but that's a problem.
09:28-09:29
That's a problem for all of us.
09:30-09:34
Because I can always find somebody worse than me. Always.
09:34-09:41
Some of you are laughing because you're like, "That must be hard for you to find somebody worse than you, Jeff." No, I can always find somebody worse than me.
09:42-09:47
Like, look, I realize I'm a bad person by nature, but I'm not as bad as that guy.
09:47-09:50
Anybody else know what I'm talking about? It's easy to compare.
09:51-09:53
Like, okay, so maybe God grades on the curve.
09:54-09:57
Like, okay, I'm looking at everybody here and...
09:59-10:05
There's another side of that coin though, in that I can always find somebody better than me.
10:06-10:11
Right? Like, look, I'm trying really hard, but I'm never going to be as good as this guy.
10:13-10:13
Never.
10:14-10:19
And no matter how hard I try, He's always way better than me.
10:19-10:22
So if God's grading on the curve, boy, He just brought the average way up.
10:25-10:32
And I just have to hope that I'm good enough to get to heaven.
10:32-10:35
But how good is good enough? And I'm right back where I started.
10:37-10:40
Can you lose your salvation if you're truly saved?
10:40-10:41
Can you lose your salvation?
10:41-10:48
I've talked to so many Christians that say yes, but Jude says no.
10:50-10:53
So let's look at what he says, verse 24 and 25.
10:53-10:55
Look very closely here, and then we're going to break it down.
10:58-11:52
Jude closes his letter by saying, "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God Our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. And if you're a Christian, this is the best news that I can give you. If you are truly saved, Jude closes by reminding us that nothing can take that away. So if you have an outline, which we always encourage. I want you to jot down four reasons from Jude that it is impossible to lose your salvation. It is impossible to lose your salvation. Why?
11:53-12:32
Number one, it's impossible to lose your salvation because of God's power. Because of God's power, look at verse 24 again. It says, "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling." Stop there. "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling." He says he's able to, first of all, keep you. That word keep is a military term. It was a term used to describe somebody being guarded or watched over. That to me isn't as captivating That is the first part of that phrase.
12:34-12:36
He is able.
12:38-12:39
He is able.
12:40-12:46
Like, "Well, I don't think I can keep my salvation, Jeff." It's not up to you.
12:47-12:48
He is able.
12:48-12:49
Did you see that?
12:49-12:54
You can't save yourself, and you can't keep yourself saved.
12:55-12:59
And if you could lose your salvation, You absolutely would.
13:01-13:08
But you see, the power to save is God's, and the power to keep you saved is God's.
13:09-13:10
He is able.
13:12-13:18
And if you think you can lose your salvation, it's because you think that it rests in your power.
13:20-13:22
But that's not what the Bible says.
13:23-13:24
The Bible says it's in His power.
13:25-13:27
He is able. Did you see that?
13:28-13:31
Notice how Jesus said it back in John chapter 10.
13:31-13:32
We just went through the Gospel of John recently.
13:34-13:37
But I have to quote this passage.
13:37-13:45
Jesus said, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish." Look at this, "And no one will snatch them out of my hand.
13:46-13:54
My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." Do you see that?
13:54-13:57
According to Jesus, if you're truly saved, where are you?
13:58-14:00
You're in his hand, right?
14:01-14:06
You are in his hand and he says nobody can take you from his hand.
14:09-14:10
You know, and I like to use illustration.
14:11-14:13
If I had something here, we'll just use my ring for example.
14:14-14:20
If I just said, "Hey, I have this ring here and if you can get it out of my hand, you can have it." And it's worth a fortune, it's really not.
14:21-14:21
This one's not.
14:21-14:23
You can have this.
14:24-14:25
All you got to do is take it from me.
14:27-14:29
there's a lot of people in this room that could take that from me.
14:30-14:34
There's a lot of people in here that can come up and snatch this out of my hand.
14:35-14:55
But, if I had, say, Hulk Hogan up here, and the ring was in his hand, and I'm like, "If you can snatch the ring out of Hulk Hogan's hand, brother, then you can have it!" There's not a person here that would be able to take it from him.
14:56-14:59
And you're like, "Isn't he 100 now?" That's not the point of the illustration.
15:01-15:04
6'7", 2 inches from heaven, 303 pounds, whatever.
15:05-15:07
You couldn't take it from his hand.
15:09-15:10
You see what Jesus is saying.
15:11-15:17
He says, "If you belong to him, you're in his hand." Then he ratchets it up again.
15:17-15:22
He goes, "You're in the Father's hand." Now, who could possibly take you from the hand of God?
15:22-15:23
Who? Who?
15:24-15:30
Anybody that would take you from the hand of God Himself would have to be stronger than God.
15:32-15:33
He's able.
15:35-15:37
He is able to keep you from stumbling.
15:38-15:48
That word "stumbling" literally in the Greek is the same word where we get "apostate." He's able to keep you from falling away if you're truly saved.
15:48-15:49
It's a question of ability.
15:49-15:57
You can't keep your salvation in your own power, and you don't need to worry about that.
15:58-16:00
He has the power to keep you.
16:01-16:04
So it's impossible to lose your salvation because of God's power.
16:05-16:07
Secondly, because of God's promise.
16:08-16:09
Look at verse 24 again.
16:10-16:24
It says, "And to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy." So He's able, two things, to keep you from stumbling, and to present you blameless.
16:26-16:28
Like when and where?
16:29-16:32
Before the presence of His glory, with great joy.
16:34-16:41
Boy, I could spend probably four sermons unpacking that statement, but just for today's purpose, I want you to see this.
16:43-16:46
When God saves you, He declares what your future holds.
16:47-16:48
You see that?
16:49-17:07
When God saves you, He's like, "I already know what your end game looks like." In other words, John 6.39, it says, "And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should," look at this, "lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day." Did you see this?
17:07-17:11
When you're saved, Jesus is like, "I'm not going to lose you, but here's what I am going to do.
17:11-17:14
I'm going to raise you up on the last day." That's exactly what Jude's talking about here.
17:17-17:33
Paul commenting on this concept, Philippians 1.6 says, "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." He promised to see you through to the end.
17:36-17:38
He promised to finish what he starts.
17:40-17:45
And your salvation being secure, listen, it's based on God's integrity.
17:47-17:50
It's based on God keeping His promise, you see.
17:53-18:02
So when I say, "I'm saved, I'm going to heaven," that's not a statement of my ability.
18:03-18:08
That's a statement of, "This is the promise that God made me and I believe it." It's God's integrity.
18:10-18:15
It says, "He'll present you blameless." Blameless.
18:15-18:21
You're going to doubt your salvation when you don't truly understand how thoroughly you've been saved.
18:23-18:25
So that's why we've talked about this before.
18:25-18:26
I'm going to go through this very quickly.
18:27-18:30
Five descriptions of how thoroughly God dealt with your sin.
18:31-18:38
We're gonna doubt our salvation when we, you know, sometimes we view forgiveness as sort of like God saying, "Okay, you know what?
18:38-18:46
You're a sinner and I forgive you, but don't you dare mess up because I remember what you did." And we have this idea that we mess up and God's like, "I knew it!
18:47-18:47
You're a screw up.
18:49-18:55
You're unsaved." And I need to remind you here of how thoroughly God dealt with your sin.
18:56-19:00
All right, quickly, five descriptions of how thoroughly God dealt with your sin.
19:00-19:02
First of all, letter A, your sin is washed away.
19:03-19:11
Isaiah 1.18 says, "Though your sins are like scarlet, "they shall be white as snow." That's a thorough cleansing.
19:12-19:13
Your sin is washed away.
19:14-19:15
Letter B, your sin is removed.
19:17-19:25
Psalm 103.12, I love this, says, "As far as the east is from the west, "so far does he remove our transgressions from us." How far is the east from the west?
19:25-19:26
How far?
19:26-19:27
How far is that?
19:28-19:29
It's infinite, right?
19:31-19:33
You know what's so interesting to me about that?
19:33-19:36
Is God didn't say as far as the North is from the South.
19:36-19:37
Do you know why God didn't say that?
19:38-19:43
Because if you keep going North, eventually you start to go South again.
19:43-19:43
You know what I mean?
19:44-19:48
Like grab a globe, keep going North, eventually go South.
19:48-19:50
That doesn't happen East and West.
19:50-19:52
You keep going East, you will never go West.
19:54-19:55
Your sin is gone.
19:56-19:56
Your sin is removed.
19:57-19:58
Letter C, your sin is lost.
20:00-20:08
I love this, Micah 7.19 says, "You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." Think about that.
20:09-20:11
Using my ring as an illustration again.
20:13-20:23
Imagine that I'm on a cruise ship and I'm standing leaning over the edge of the deck, just leaning over the railing, looking down at the ocean.
20:23-20:59
And we were actually married on a cruise, a party on back in 2002. But imagine I'm leaning over the railing and there's the we're on the cruise middle of the ocean traveling and I'm just playing with my ring and oh that's unfortunate and it goes into the ocean. What are the chances I'm ever going to get that back? What are the chances? Zero! There is no No way anybody's ever going to find that.
20:59-21:01
You can hire the best diver...
21:03-21:04
Mucklewood, thank you.
21:10-21:13
Knowing him, I bet you he'd put on a scuba suit and go look for it.
21:14-21:15
Thank you, Muck.
21:15-21:19
But if that really did drop into the ocean, I don't even think he'd be able to find that.
21:19-21:21
It would be gone forever.
21:21-21:25
And that's what God says, "I did with your sin." Or like on the cruise ship, over the edge, boop!
21:25-21:27
Your sin is gone!
21:28-21:29
Right? Your sin is lost.
21:30-21:31
Letter D, your sin is forgotten.
21:33-21:44
Jeremiah 31-34, God says, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." This must be very important to God, because He says it twice in the New Testament.
21:45-21:48
Hebrews 8-12, Hebrews 10-17.
21:50-21:57
God says, "I will remember their sins no more." I can't even wrap my brain around that because I know, I know my sin.
21:58-22:08
And I think people, we get this idea that we're gonna stand before God someday and God's gonna say, well, okay, we're gonna talk about letting you into heaven, but first I gotta talk to you about your sin.
22:09-22:11
And remember when you did this?
22:11-22:13
And I've had friends tell me that.
22:13-22:21
They said, Jeff, I think someday when you die, God kind of shows you a movie of your life and shows you all of the sin that you committed.
22:21-22:30
And I said, "That is absolutely not true, "if the Bible's true." Because God says He's willing to forget your sin.
22:31-22:43
Then we'll stand before Him someday and say, "God, I was such a screw up and I did this "and boy, I really messed up here." And if the Bible's true, God's response is going to be, "Yeah, I don't remember that.
22:44-23:05
"But God, surely you have to understand, "I was such a, you know, I had lustful thoughts, God, and I was deceptive and I lied so many times, and then I received Christ, and God's like, "I just don't remember your sin." He has chosen to forget about it.
23:08-23:10
And He said it three times in His Word.
23:12-23:28
"Your sin is forgotten." And then finally, "Your sin is pardoned." Romans 8.1, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." When we receive Christ, we are pronounced not guilty.
23:29-23:30
This is courtroom terminology.
23:30-23:38
God the Judge slams His gavel down, and He says, "Oh, you received My Son for the forgiveness of sin. Payment is made.
23:38-23:51
You are pronounced not guilty." Now let me ask you, who's going to run into the courtroom and say, "Hold on, Judge! I have reason that we should pronounce them guilty and condemn them." Who's going to tell God that, really?
23:52-23:54
Who's going to overturn that judge's decision?
23:55-23:56
Like, anybody? No.
23:58-24:00
He's already pronounced you not guilty.
24:02-24:04
"No condemnation," it says.
24:05-24:21
So do you see - and I could go on, but I'm not going to - Like, "Well, what's your point here?" My point is this, if I can lose salvation, that means my sin will be held against me.
24:23-24:23
Right?
24:24-24:27
That means God's decided, "You know what?
24:27-24:30
I am going to hold your sin against you." And do you know what that means?
24:31-24:34
All that stuff I just shared with you, God lied about all of that.
24:34-24:35
That was all lies.
24:38-24:39
If I can lose my salvation.
24:42-24:49
that if all these things are true, and I believe that they are, it's just simply this, church, God promised to keep you.
24:49-24:50
He promised.
24:52-24:52
Is his word good?
24:54-24:55
I'll go with it.
24:56-25:00
All right, it is impossible to lose your salvation because of God's power, because of God's promise.
25:00-25:02
Thirdly, because of God's prestige.
25:03-25:07
Because of God's prestige, look at the beginning of verse 25.
25:09-25:26
that says, "To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority." Whatever the false teachers may claim, there's one God, there's one Savior.
25:27-25:30
Jude reminds us, and he has a prestige unlike any other.
25:30-25:32
He gives us a list again.
25:32-25:34
These could all be their own sermon.
25:35-25:37
I want us to look at the big picture here, right?
25:40-25:42
He describes as God, first of all, glory.
25:43-25:47
Glory is the radiance of all that God is in His being and in His nature.
25:48-25:53
Glory is what God radiates, like the light from a light bulb.
25:54-25:56
That's the glory radiating.
25:58-25:59
Speaking to His character.
26:01-26:03
Majesty speaks to God's greatness.
26:05-26:10
Opinion speaks to God's power, and authority speaks to God's sovereignty.
26:13-26:18
We worship God for the way that He's demonstrated His power, and for the way that He keeps His promises.
26:20-26:28
So let me ask you, if God lacks the power to keep you, and if God's promises fail, would He be worthy of worship?
26:31-26:32
I want you to think about this.
26:34-26:36
Why does he list this?
26:36-26:38
You know, the glory, the majesty, dominion, and authority.
26:41-26:42
Why does he list this here?
26:42-26:43
I want you to think about this.
26:45-26:54
When God saves someone, obviously that person who is saved receives a benefit, right?
26:57-26:57
Eternal life.
26:59-27:00
Sin forgiven.
27:02-27:14
But God personally has a vested interest in salvation, in the very work of salvation.
27:16-27:19
God personally has an interest in the work of salvation.
27:19-27:22
It's not just about the benefit of the one who receives it.
27:24-27:37
You're like, "Well, what in the world does that mean?" I'm going to tell you, and you're never going to be able to read God's Word again without seeing this phrase and thinking about this.
27:37-27:44
Because there's a phrase that comes up in God's Word over and over and over and over and over.
27:45-27:54
Old Testament, New Testament, and when you see it, sometimes I think we gloss over it, but this is such an important phrase.
27:56-28:06
And the phrase is this, "For His name's sake." Some variation of that.
28:07-28:08
For His name's sake.
28:10-28:11
What does that mean?
28:12-28:16
It means that salvation is more than the person receiving the benefit.
28:16-28:24
God personally has a vested personal interest in the work of salvation because salvation has to do with the very reputation of God Himself.
28:25-28:26
You understand what I'm saying?
28:27-28:28
Let me give you some examples.
28:30-28:33
This is about the reputation of God.
28:34-28:36
And I had this whole giant list of examples.
28:36-28:38
I narrowed it down to just a few here.
28:39-28:40
But here's some examples.
28:40-28:42
Psalm 23.3.
28:42-28:43
You're familiar with this one, right?
28:44-28:46
23rd Psalm, he restores my soul.
28:46-28:48
He leads me in paths of righteousness.
28:48-28:49
Why would he do that?
28:50-28:51
Because I'm awesome?
28:53-28:54
Because I'm in need?
28:54-28:55
Why does he do it?
28:55-28:55
Tell me.
28:57-28:58
Come on, more than three of you.
28:58-28:59
Why does he do it?
29:00-29:01
For his namesake, do you see that?
29:04-29:05
That's why God is working.
29:06-29:10
Not because of me, but because of his reputation, right?
29:11-29:14
And then next, Psalm 25 11.
29:15-29:15
Look at this.
29:16-29:20
For your namesake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
29:21-29:22
Why should you forgive me, God?
29:22-29:27
because I deserve it, because I'm not that bad, because I promise I'm not going to...
29:28-29:33
God, why should you be so motivated to pardon my horrible sin?
29:33-29:34
Why, God, why?
29:34-29:35
Do you see how He appeals?
29:37-29:38
It's because of who you are.
29:39-29:40
It's because of your reputation.
29:41-29:44
It's because of what salvation means to you, right?
29:44-30:43
Isaiah 48 verses 9 and 11, it says, this is the Lord speaking, He says, "For my name's sake I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise I restrain it for you that I may not cut you off." Then verse 11, "For my own sake, for my own sake I do it. For how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another." Do you see? God's stressing a point. Why am I doing what I'm doing? It's not because of you, it's Ezekiel 20 verse 44, "And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I deal with you for My name's sake, not according to your evil ways, nor according to your corrupt deeds, O house of Israel, declares the Lord God." You're like, "That's very Old Testament." Pastor Jeff, do you have anything from the New Testament?
30:43-30:44
What about 1 John 2.12?
30:46-30:47
This one statement really sums it up.
30:50-30:57
As John writes, "I am writing to you little children, because your sins are forgiven." Why? Why are your sins forgiven?
30:59-31:00
Do you see it? Say it. Say it.
31:02-31:04
"For His name's sake." Do you see that?
31:06-31:08
God has His reputation attached to His work.
31:11-31:13
And here's the point. Listen closely, please.
31:14-31:19
God works for His glory and for our good. Both.
31:19-31:31
But, the Bible puts the priority on God's interest over ours as the basis of His action.
31:33-31:38
In other words, God's actions are based on and motivated by His glory, not us.
31:40-31:47
Or to put it another way, you being saved says nothing about you, but it says everything about God.
31:50-32:03
So God saving people speaks to how awesome He is, His prestige, so He will keep you, He will fulfill His promise to you all the way to the end because that's what brings Him glory.
32:05-32:10
It's impossible for you to lose your salvation because of God's prestige, right?
32:11-32:11
It's not about you.
32:14-32:17
We are the recipients of the most awesome benefit.
32:20-32:23
Salvation is about God's glory, and that's why He's going to keep you.
32:25-32:28
And finally, number four, because of God's permanence.
32:29-32:36
It's impossible to lose your salvation because of God's power, because of God's promise, because of God's prestige, and finally because of God's permanence.
32:37-32:38
Look at the end of verse 25.
32:39-32:47
He says, "Before all time and now and forever, Amen." That's pretty simple, isn't it?
32:48-32:49
This is all time, right?
32:49-32:50
Past, present, and future.
32:52-32:58
God's plan will be carried out because God doesn't change.
32:59-32:59
You see that?
33:01-33:06
When God saved you, He made a promise to keep you.
33:07-33:10
And it's not as if God's gonna change His mind about that.
33:12-33:25
God adopted you as His child in Christ, and you don't have to worry that tomorrow God's going to take you back to the adoption agency and say, "Hey, sorry, it's just not working out.
33:25-33:29
"I'm gonna have to give her back." That's not how He works.
33:31-33:33
Because He doesn't change.
33:34-33:41
He goes, "Look, did I make a promise to save you Did I make a promise to pronounce you righteous and holy in Christ?
33:41-33:43
Did I make a promise to keep you?
33:43-33:47
Did I make a promise to someday present you blameless in heaven?
33:48-33:50
I'm standing by that promise.
33:51-33:58
God's not like us, where we change our minds and we're so fickle and we change.
33:58-33:59
God's not like that.
34:01-34:02
He doesn't change.
34:02-34:04
His word doesn't change.
34:04-34:06
His promise to keep you doesn't change.
34:06-34:13
His power doesn't change, and His motivation of His glory, that will not change.
34:15-34:26
So when you fully embrace this truth, that in Christ your salvation is a done deal, you're free to be who God called you to be.
34:28-34:32
You're free to do the work that God has prepared for you.
34:33-34:48
free to pray, and you're free to worship, and you're free to love others, even apostates, without fear of messing up, without fear of getting kicked out of the family, without fear of somehow doing something so bad that you forfeited heaven.
34:49-34:50
It's not going to happen.
34:52-35:17
So listen, if you're a believer and you've been plagued with doubt, and I know a lot of believers are. Now's the time to confess that. And now's the time to receive the truth of God's Word and joyfully live in the power and the promise of God. To His glory. Forever.
35:18-35:23
I'd like the worship team to come back up please. I'm going to lead us in a prayer and I'd like you to bow your heads with me.
35:25-35:33
Because I know, church, so many times over the years I've had people come to me, and this is the thing they struggle with.
35:36-35:37
And I'd just like you to bow your heads.
35:37-35:43
If this is you, if you're like, man, this is the thing that I'm struggling with right now.
35:44-35:52
I do believe that I sincerely receive Christ, but I just, I don't know, I think I forfeited that.
35:52-35:56
Listen, it's time to take God at His Word.
35:59-36:01
It's time to confess this truth before Him.
36:03-36:07
That Father, there are times that I doubt.
36:09-36:27
Because I recognize my own sinfulness and my own waywardness, and I look at Your holiness, and I start to compare myself with others, And Father, I start to wonder if I truly lost my salvation that I knew that I had.
36:30-36:38
Today, no matter what I've thought in the past or what I've wrestled with, Father, today I embrace your promise.
36:40-36:43
You have promised to keep me in your power, and God, I believe that.
36:44-36:47
I believe that it's not up to me and it can't be up to me.
36:50-36:51
Father, I receive that today.
36:53-36:56
Salvation is based on Your power, it's based on Your promise, God.
36:56-36:59
It's Your integrity, God. It speaks to who You are.
37:01-37:03
It's based on Your prestige, God.
37:04-37:07
That my salvation isn't even really about me.
37:07-37:10
It doesn't even speak anything about me, but it says much about You.
37:13-37:15
And God, we rest in the truth that You never change.
37:16-37:27
We don't have to worry that next week, Jeff or Rich or Matt or somebody from the church is going to stand up and say, "Hey, we got new information.
37:29-37:33
God's changed His terms and conditions." We don't worry about that.
37:34-37:36
Because You've told us this is forever.
37:38-37:45
So Father, I pray that we would be a church that has a humble confidence before You.
37:47-37:57
Yes, confident in Your power and the truth of Your Word, but humble, knowing that it's not anything in or of us.
37:59-38:12
But Father, as we embrace this humble confidence and turn from Your Word to proclaiming how we feel about You in song.
38:12-38:24
Father, I pray now we would lift our voices and truly celebrate the joy that comes from knowing that once we belong to You, there is not a force in the universe that can take that away.
38:25-38:28
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Jude 1:24-25

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
What do you think makes true Christians doubt their salvation?
Have you ever doubted your salvation? Why? How did that situation resolve?
Can a true Christian ever become apostate? Why or why not?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

May 22, 2022

The Hill to Die On

Stand Your Ground

Jeff Miller

May 22, 2022

The Hill to Die On

Introduction:

How to Deal with Apostates at HBC: (Jude 1:17-23)

Be Ready . (Jude 1:17-19)
See: Acts 20:29-31 | 2 Peter 2:1 | John 2:26
Be Strong . (Jude 1:20-21)
1. In the Word . (Jude 1:20a)
  See: John 15:10
2. In Prayer . (Jude 1:20b)
3. In Obedience . (Jude 1:21a)
4. In Hrayer . (Jude 1:21b)

  
    Be Merciful . (Jude 1:22-23)
     To those who Doubt . (Jude 1:22)
    
To those who Dabble . (Jude 1:23a)
    
To those who are Deliberate . (Jude 1:23b)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:50-00:56
Let's bow our heads and I'm going to ask you to pray for me, and I will pray for you as we are turning to God's Word together.
00:57-01:00
Father in Heaven, Your Word matters very much to You.
01:02-01:08
And it matters that we communicate it clearly and accurately and urgently.
01:09-01:12
I pray, Father, that our hearts are open to receive it.
01:15-01:19
And I would be faithful to do nothing more than just communicate what you've already said.
01:21-01:25
We thank you ahead of time, Father, for the work that you're going to do through this Word.
01:26-01:27
We pray in Jesus' name.
01:28-01:54
And all of God's people said, "Amen." Many years ago when I was at North Street as an associate, I was sitting where our family sat, usually about the third pew back, "and as Pastor Bob was preaching, "he said my name and then just kept going." And I leaned over to Aaron and I'm like, "He said my name." And Aaron's like, "No, he didn't." And he just kept preaching.
01:55-02:01
And he was like, "And Jesus said in Matthew 7, Jeff," and he just kept preaching.
02:01-02:05
And I'm like, "I heard it for sure that time." And he kind of pointed.
02:06-02:09
So I'm trying to be inconspicuous as he was.
02:10-02:12
And I kind of looked over my shoulder to where I thought he was pointing.
02:12-02:17
And I saw a guy sitting on the other side most of the way back, and he didn't have a shirt on.
02:19-02:23
And I'm like, ah, Bob wants me to take care of that.
02:26-02:27
That's where I got to the big buck.
02:27-02:35
So I recognized the guy, he actually, I met him in prison and he got out of prison and he came, which was great.
02:35-02:43
But I went up and I said, hey, can I, I said, "Can I talk to you for a second outside?" So he comes outside with me on the porch out there.
02:44-02:59
And I said, I said, "I know it's hot." I said, "But you know, I was just kind of thinking it might be distracting for people who are trying to listen to the Bible with a guy without his shirt on.
03:00-03:21
So if you could do me a favor, and do you have a shirt?" He's like, "Oh yeah, I got a shirt." I'm like, "Great." I said, "If you could do me a favor and put your shirt on." I said, "It's not a huge deal, but I'm just thinking it might just lessen distractions for people." He goes, "Well, yeah, I got a shirt." And he kind of pulled it out.
03:21-03:23
He kind of had it tucked in the back of his pants.
03:23-03:24
He pulled it out and put it on.
03:24-03:30
And the shirt was, you know, the Led Zeppelin shirt with like the naked angel guy making this pose.
03:31-03:32
You know what I'm talking about?
03:33-03:34
Don't Google it now.
03:35-03:48
But like, it's like this naked guy, so he puts a shirt on, he goes, "Yeah, I got a shirt." So I'm standing out in the porch with him, and I'm like, like, you know what, it is kind of hot.
03:50-03:50
(congregation laughing)
03:50-03:52
Why don't you just go ahead and pop that shirt off?
03:52-03:58
And there's some things that they don't cover in Bible college.
04:00-04:01
And that was one of them.
04:01-04:42
But you realize there are certain people certain scenarios that come up in the church that has pastors and elders like "I'm not sure how to handle this." But when it comes to people coming into the church to promote false teaching, we're told exactly how to deal with those people. Okay, there's no guesswork work there, and for the leadership of this church, we don't have to wonder what should we do if somebody comes in and starts teaching an unbiblical message.
04:42-04:45
And really, that's what the book of Jude is all about.
04:46-04:48
It's to contend for the faith.
04:49-04:57
And he describes these apostates, these people that are infiltrating churches, preaching their own little anti-gospel agenda.
04:58-05:06
He describes them by their conduct and he gave us a blast of illustrations from the Old Testament and a blast of illustrations from nature.
05:09-05:14
And church, listen, we are not exempt here.
05:16-05:18
Our church has dealt with this in the past time.
05:19-05:28
People who have come into this church, gone through small groups, tried to push some unbiblical doctrine, that has happened here.
05:31-05:36
And there are no issues right now that I am aware of.
05:38-05:52
And I'm hoping that this sermon series is a serious preventative word from God for us at Harvest Bible Chapel, because if apostasy is not dealt with when it arises, it will do major damage to the church.
05:52-05:53
It will lead people astray.
05:55-05:57
This is serious business, church, all right?
05:57-06:03
So on your outline, if you're taking notes, which I always encourage, how to deal with apostates at Harvest Bible Chapel.
06:05-06:08
Again, Jude gave us the call to arms, contend for the faith.
06:08-06:11
He gave us the description, you gotta know the enemy.
06:11-06:14
And now, here it is, this is how you deal.
06:14-06:16
First of all, number one, write this down, be ready.
06:18-06:19
Be ready.
06:21-06:23
Look at verses 17 and 18.
06:23-06:29
He says, "But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
06:30-06:37
They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions." Stop there.
06:38-06:47
He says, when this happens, when people come into the church to teach an unbiblical message, causing problems, he goes, "You shouldn't be surprised at this.
06:47-06:50
And don't think that you're doing something wrong." Right?
06:50-06:52
Like, "I thought this church was solid.
06:52-06:53
Why is this happening?
06:53-07:00
Don't be surprised, don't think you're doing something wrong, and don't think that this is like God abandoning you or anything like that.
07:01-07:09
He's saying, look, God told us repeatedly through the apostles and told us through the word of the apostles, this is going to happen.
07:09-07:14
As I said, it's happened here, it's going to happen again here.
07:17-07:19
The apostles told us this, he told us, right?
07:20-07:24
So many places, but the apostles told us, Paul talked about it in Acts 20.
07:26-07:39
Paul said, "I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
07:39-07:48
Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears." So Paul talked about it, that's one of many places.
07:49-07:51
Peter talked about it, didn't he?
07:51-08:09
2 Peter 2.1, "But false prophets also arose "among the people, just as there will be false teachers "among you, who will secretly bring in "destructive heresies, even denying the master "who brought them, bringing upon themselves "swift destruction." So Paul did, Peter did, John, John talked about it.
08:10-08:23
This is 1 John 2.26, he says, "I write these things "to you about those who are trying to deceive you." So he goes in with some more descriptions of these people.
08:25-08:26
He calls them scoffers.
08:27-08:32
They're going to mock God's word, they're going to mock you for believing God's word, they're going to belittle you.
08:32-08:35
"Oh, you believe, I can't believe you believe that." Oh, come on.
08:36-08:38
It's so much deeper than you realize, man.
08:38-08:40
They're scoffers.
08:41-08:43
It says they follow ungodly passions.
08:46-08:47
They follow their ungodly passions.
08:48-08:52
That basically in the Greek means, it points to being self-centered.
08:54-08:56
That's the root of all sin, by the way.
08:57-08:58
Being self-centered.
08:59-09:03
It's, I don't really care what God wants, what I care is what I want.
09:03-09:04
That's sin.
09:05-09:07
You see, the Gospel message is this, church.
09:08-09:37
That Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, came and died for your sins, and He rose from the dead give you the promise of eternal life. And you are called to turn from your sin, that's repentance, and receive Him. That is the gospel message. And the evidence of truly receiving Jesus. How do you know somebody actually, really, truly, genuinely, sincerely did this? How do you know? Here's the evidence. He changes you.
09:37-09:48
Now look, none of us are perfect because we still live in this sinful flesh, but the gospel teaches when you receive Jesus Christ, God's Holy Spirit comes in and dwells you.
09:49-09:53
And don't tell me that the God of the universe has taken residence in your heart and you're no different.
09:55-09:56
He radically changes you.
09:56-09:58
He changes your appetites.
09:58-10:01
He changes your desires.
10:01-10:08
And these people that he's talking about here haven't been changed by Jesus because all All they have are ungodly passions.
10:09-10:18
In other words, he's saying you'll know that they don't know Jesus because they act like people who don't know Jesus.
10:20-10:21
Look at verse 19.
10:22-10:32
It says, "It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit." Now it says they cause divisions.
10:33-10:46
Now, maybe like me, the first time you read that, you're like, "Oh, they divide the church." They do, that's true, but actually that's not what Jude is saying here.
10:48-10:53
The Greek literally is translated this, they make distinction.
10:56-10:57
Like, what does that mean?
10:58-11:01
That means they make a distinction between themselves and everybody else.
11:01-11:02
In other words, they think they're superior.
11:03-11:05
We talked about this a little bit last week.
11:05-11:11
You've got to watch out for the guy that's like, or the girl, "I'm on a higher spiritual plane.
11:11-11:13
I'm so much more enlightened.
11:13-11:14
I know so much more than you.
11:14-11:18
Just sit down and listen to me, because I will teach you.
11:19-11:21
I will teach you the right ways of the Lord.
11:21-11:23
There's more to it than what you see here.
11:23-11:27
Let me teach you." You've got to watch out for the people that make distinction.
11:28-11:29
You're down here.
11:29-11:30
They're up here.
11:32-11:36
He says they're worldly and devoid of the Spirit.
11:37-11:47
And really this is the bottom line, like Jude you really could have led with this, but under inspiration of the Holy Spirit this was like last and most important main event teaching here.
11:47-11:48
This is the bottom line.
11:49-11:50
They don't have the Holy Spirit.
11:52-12:02
They're trying to do ministry apart from the pure truth of God's Word, and they're trying to do ministry apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, And that never works.
12:03-12:04
Alright?
12:07-12:08
The point here is this, be ready.
12:11-12:11
Be ready.
12:13-12:18
Look, I've told you this before, but I absolutely love this church.
12:19-12:23
Because this church, you have a sincere love for the Lord.
12:24-12:27
And I know you have a sincere love for His people.
12:28-12:33
I know you have a sincere love for the Word of God being upheld for what it is.
12:35-12:45
So since all those things are true, don't you think Satan's going to send some missionaries here to try to cause problems, to try to get us off track?
12:46-12:47
That's why he says be ready.
12:47-12:49
Don't be surprised, we know this is going to happen.
12:51-12:52
All right, secondly, be strong.
12:54-12:55
Be strong.
12:56-12:58
We're aware of the danger, right?
12:59-13:06
The absolute best way to be prepared to deal with these troublemakers is to be strong in the Lord yourself.
13:08-13:09
That's how you have to be prepared.
13:10-13:11
Be strong in the Lord yourself.
13:12-13:25
And Jude here reminds us, he goes, "Look, you've got to go after, in your own personal walk with Jesus, you have to go after what's probably the four most important spiritual disciplines." He lists them here for us.
13:26-13:28
First of all, be strong in the Word.
13:29-13:30
We'll go to the first part of verse 20.
13:33-13:41
He says, "But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith." Stop there.
13:43-13:46
He says, "You need to be built up in your faith." Question, how does that happen?
13:47-13:47
The Bible's clear.
13:48-13:50
There's only one way that your faith gets built.
13:51-13:59
comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. Oh yeah, this is why I love this church.
13:59-14:03
Yes! So if you're going to grow in your faith, you have to grow in the knowledge of God's Word.
14:04-14:16
Right? And that's where he starts. You've got to be built up in your faith. And church, I'm going to tell you, that's how ministry is designed here. That's why this church goes verse by verse, Book by book.
14:16-14:18
That's why we do expository preaching.
14:20-14:27
As I want you to know what the Word of God actually says, not what I think it says, not my little spin or creative twist on what it says.
14:27-14:29
I want you to know what it actually says.
14:29-14:36
Whether it's me or Richard, whoever else stands up here and declares the Word of God, we want you to know what the Bible actually says.
14:36-14:36
Right?
14:37-14:43
Then we have the small group ministry, and the intention of small group ministry is to To dig deeper on that truth.
14:44-14:51
To say, "Okay, because of what the Bible says, how does this apply in my home, in my workplace?" Let's think deeper.
14:51-14:55
What does God say and how does this look when I apply this in the context of my own life?
14:56-15:03
That's how ministry is designed in this church, is to help you grow in the knowledge and application of the Word of God.
15:06-15:07
So how are we doing there, church?
15:07-15:08
How's your Bible study?
15:11-15:13
Just on that last little exercise, it sounds like pretty good.
15:14-15:15
How's your small group involvement?
15:16-15:23
It's important in order for us to grow, as he says, in your most holy faith.
15:23-15:26
Secondly, he says, "And praying in the Holy Spirit." Did you see that verse 20?
15:27-15:28
And praying in the Holy Spirit.
15:30-15:31
This is a whole other sermon.
15:33-15:34
But here's the short version.
15:34-15:36
He's basically saying praying according to God's Word.
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Praying according to God's will.
15:40-15:42
That's praying by the Holy Spirit.
15:43-15:48
I could spend a lot of time telling you what that means, but for the sake of time, I'm going to tell you what that's not.
15:50-15:55
That's not just - hear me - that's not just praying the sick list.
15:55-15:56
We've talked about this before.
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Yes, should we pray for the sick?
15:58-16:00
Yes, absolutely, 100%.
16:00-16:02
But I've seen this in every church.
16:04-16:27
We spend just this crazy amount of time talking about people's sniffles and ailments and very little time talking about spiritual warfare, talking or praying about spiritual warfare, praying about souls being saved, praying about leaders standing strong, praying about the church taking a stand, praying about the war for the unborn, these really deep spiritual things.
16:27-16:34
We spend very little time on that, but we'll spend a lot of time talking about, you know, "Ethel has the gout," or whatever.
16:36-16:47
Yes, pray for that, but whatever happened to praying for the deep spiritual things, especially in a world that's just falling apart?
16:49-16:51
How's your prayer life right now?
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Do you say your prayers or do you pray?
16:57-16:58
There's a difference.
17:00-17:01
Praying is praying in the Spirit.
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"according to his will, according to God's word." So be strong in the word, be strong in prayers.
17:08-17:11
Thirdly, he says, be strong, write this down, in obedience.
17:12-17:26
Look at verse 21, he says, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." "Keep yourselves in the love of God." He's not saying, "Stay saved," as if you could lose your salvation.
17:26-17:29
So make sure that you do your part to stay in his love.
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That's not what he's saying at all.
17:32-17:35
Because if you're truly saved, you cannot lose your salvation.
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You can't be unadopted, you can't be unsealed by the Spirit, you can't be unregenerate.
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If you're truly saved, you are saved, you are a child of God.
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What he's saying here is simply this, keep yourself in a position where you'll experience His blessing.
17:49-17:51
And that's obedience, right?
17:52-18:08
Jesus talked about this, John 15.10, Jesus said, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love." Look, He's our Heavenly Father, we are His children, and we get it, right?
18:08-18:17
Kids want to do what pleases their parents, because they want to feel the expression of that relationship.
18:20-18:21
So He says, "Look, obedience.
18:21-18:22
How's your obedience?
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Is there any area of your life right now where you're like, 'Man, I am not obeying the Lord right now.'" you're not feeling like you're keeping in the love of God right now, because there's an area of disobedience in your life.
18:36-18:38
And that's why he says, "Keep yourself in the love of God.
18:38-18:41
You're a child of God, act like it." All right?
18:42-18:47
And then finally, he says, "Be strong in hope." Be strong in hope.
18:48-18:50
Look at how he words this closely.
18:50-18:57
He says, "Waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
18:58-19:03
Waiting for the mercy, he's talking here about living in the expectation of Jesus' return.
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He's coming to give the greatest mercy, which is eternal life in all its fullness.
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And knowing Jesus is coming to take us to heaven motivates us to holiness right now.
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It motivates us to obedience, to serve Him right now while we wait.
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And again, I have to ask, How often do you think about and long for the return of Jesus Christ?
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How much have you thought about that in the past week?
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How many times have you looked to the sky and said, "Today?
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Is it today, God?
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Is it today?
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I'm watching.
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I'm waiting." Your ultimate priority, listen, your ultimate priority is your personal walk with Christ.
19:44-19:54
And Jude is reminding us that that applies here because, listen, you're going to fall victim to these spiritual predators that come into the church if your walk isn't strong.
19:56-19:57
So you've got to be ready, you know they're coming.
19:57-20:07
And secondly, he says, "You've got to be strong yourself or you're going to get eaten alive." So how to deal with apostates at Harvest Bible Chapel, be ready, be strong.
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Number three, write this down, be merciful.
20:12-20:21
Now, Jude addresses actually dealing with these apostates.
20:23-20:26
Some of you are like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, you know what they say, right?
20:27-20:35
When your only tool is a hammer, you treat every problem like a nail, right?" No.
20:36-20:39
We can't approach them all the same way.
20:41-20:45
What we're going to see here is we have to discern where they are.
20:47-20:55
We have to see how committed these people actually are to the false teaching, and we need to deal with them accordingly.
20:58-21:11
And if your immediate reaction is, "Oh, you know what, Pastor Jeff, if somebody's teaching false doctrine, we should immediately grab them and throw them right through that window, just throw them right out." immediate reaction, then I would say you're not thinking like Jesus.
21:16-22:09
Because I need to remind us that the enemy is our mission field, right? And we need to meet them where they are. So you need to be merciful. He breaks it down for us into three categories. First of all, be merciful to those who doubt. Look at verse 22. He says, "And have mercy on those who doubt." These are people that are confused, right? They know what the Bible says, and then they hear this false teaching, and they're "Yeah, that kind of makes sense too." And they don't know what to think, right?
22:10-22:11
You know what I'm talking about?
22:11-22:15
They're like, "I kind of see what they're saying.
22:16-22:23
You know, I hear what they preach to church and I kind of hear this." And they're not sure what to think.
22:26-22:28
And apostates go after the weak.
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Somehow they figure out real quick who the immature believers are.
22:36-22:43
And they sink their hooks into them and make them begin to doubt God's word as presented.
22:44-22:48
Like, yeah, I know the preacher gets up and says this, but actually it's a little deeper than that.
22:48-22:49
There's a little more to it.
22:49-22:51
Let me share with you this.
22:51-22:57
I got a pamphlet for you that explains, you know, so much deeper than what the preacher is saying.
22:59-23:02
What do we do with these confused people that the Bible says to have mercy on?
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We have to give them the truth.
23:09-23:11
They don't need a harsh rebuke.
23:12-23:13
They don't need church discipline.
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They don't need made to feel stupid.
23:18-23:24
You just need to sit down with them and show them the truth directly from God's Word.
23:24-23:30
"Look, I know you're hearing these other things, and I know there's a lot of confusion right now.
23:30-23:33
Let's just sit down and see what God's word actually says.
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Let's take it straight from here." That's what they need.
23:35-23:43
They need a friend to sit down and, let's just talk about what the Bible says, about who God is, who Jesus is, how we're called to respond.
23:45-23:47
You need to have mercy on them.
23:48-23:50
So have mercy to those who doubt.
23:50-23:51
Be merciful to those who doubt.
23:51-23:55
Secondly, be merciful to those who dabble.
23:58-23:59
Dabble, look at verse 23.
24:00-24:12
It says, "Save others by snatching them out of the fire." This is a tougher group, right?
24:12-24:16
Because according to this, they're already being singed by hell.
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Do you see that?
24:17-24:19
They like have one foot in hell already.
24:22-24:24
These people bought the lies.
24:25-24:29
Somebody came along with this false teaching and they're no longer in the confused state.
24:29-24:30
They're buying it.
24:31-24:31
They're sold.
24:32-24:33
They're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.
24:33-24:35
That makes a lot of sense.
24:35-24:36
Now I understand.
24:36-24:37
Yeah, I'm with you.
24:37-24:39
I totally… Yeah, I'm understanding now.
24:39-24:42
Yeah, yeah, yeah." They have totally bought it.
24:44-24:49
Judah's saying it's time to up the urgency because now it's a mission.
24:49-24:55
And understand when he says snatching them out of the fire in the Greek, that is not a gentle term.
24:56-24:58
Like put your arm around them, lead them by the hand.
24:58-25:04
And that word literally means to grab somebody and take them by force.
25:04-25:06
It could also be translated attack.
25:06-25:12
That means like they got a foot in hell and you grabbed them and I'm getting you out of there, man.
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No, we're not doing this.
25:16-25:17
Again, we're not being harsh.
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It's not a call to be jerky.
25:19-25:26
It's not a call to be condescending, but listen, church, you have to be as blunt and direct as possible with the word of God.
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And you're like, well, what's the difference between the doubters and the dabblers in our approach?
25:34-25:35
It's kind of like this.
25:35-25:37
You know, we talked about rat poison a couple of weeks ago.
25:38-25:40
Let's kind of revisit that as an illustration.
25:42-25:49
Using rat poison as illustration, the doubter is somebody that is looking at the box of rat poison.
25:51-25:57
And they're like, "You know, I never considered eating this for breakfast, but this person says that it's good.
26:00-26:04
I'm thinking about trying some of this." How would you address that person?
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You would come alongside them and say, "Look, I know you're thinking about eating that, And let me tell you why that is a terrible idea.
26:12-26:14
Because do you know it contains arsenic?
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And do you know what that's for?
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That's the part that kills the rats.
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And you don't want that in your body, do you?
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And you're just gonna come alongside and explain as they're looking at the box and debating, right?
26:24-26:25
That's the doubter.
26:25-26:32
The dabbler is the person that's like, you know what, so-and-so told me this stuff was great and I can't wait to try it.
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And they got a handful of it in their hand and they're about to put it in their mouth.
26:37-26:40
Now, do you see where the tone gets ratcheted up a little bit?
26:41-26:42
Just to get that out of your, no!
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You don't eat that!
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What are you thinking?
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You're not gonna address them like the doubter because there's a real danger right now, isn't there?
26:52-26:54
You don't eat that stuff.
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No, that stuff is going to kill you.
26:58-26:59
You see the difference?
26:59-27:00
Much different tone.
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And then finally, to those who doubt, to those who dabble, and finally to those who are deliberate.
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To those who are deliberate.
27:12-27:13
Look at the end of verse 23.
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He says, "To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh." These people are kind of the heart of the problem because they're infecting the doubters.
27:31-27:33
They're infecting the dabblers.
27:33-27:35
Now we're getting to the source of the problem.
27:38-27:44
And he says, look at this very closely, he says, "Show mercy," do you see that "with" fear?
27:46-27:51
In other words, he says, listen, in dealing with them, you have to tread very carefully.
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Like why?
27:54-27:57
Why should I be more careful in treading with them than the others?
27:58-28:00
Well he gives us a clue as to why.
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He says, look at this, hating even the garment stained by the flesh." What does that mean?
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I'm going to tell you what that means and I'm going to explain it.
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What he's saying is, when you deal with these kinds of people, you don't want to get yourself dirty in dealing with them.
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How does he mean that?
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Look, this is what the Bible says, alright?
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You were praying for me to accurately communicate what the Bible says, and I'm praying for you to receive it.
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I'm going to tell you this is actually what the Bible says here, alright?
28:48-28:54
In the day this was written, much like in our day, they wore outer garments and they wore inner garments.
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you could say they wore outerwear and they wore underwear.
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And the Greek word here for garment literally is underwear.
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So when he talks about a garment stained by the flesh, when he talks about underwear being stained by the flesh, that is a very nice way of saying what?
29:24-29:25
You can say it, go ahead.
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You don't want to say it.
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You want me to say it.
29:30-29:30
All right, I'll say it.
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He's talking about pooping your pants.
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That's what he's saying.
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A garment stained by the flesh is underwear that's been pooped in.
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And without going into a deep biology lesson here, when that event occurs, what happens is you have this nastiness inside of you that comes out.
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And he's saying that's what's happening spiritually.
29:59-30:01
These people have nastiness inside of them.
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And it's coming out of them.
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So when you deal with these people with their spiritual nastiness coming out of them, look, you don't want to touch that just as you wouldn't want to handle somebody else's poopy pants.
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Why? Why wouldn't you want to handle somebody else's poopy pants?
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Because you don't want to get poop on you.
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This is what he's saying.
30:32-30:34
I have a great illustration for this.
30:37-30:41
And for the last couple days I've debated on whether I should share it or not, or if I should just move on.
30:44-30:45
Do you want me to share it?
30:47-30:48
All right.
30:50-30:51
Jack, are you on board with this?
30:56-30:56
All right.
30:58-30:59
Just remember, you asked for this.
31:00-31:21
But several years ago, when we still lived up in Prospect, picture this, it's three in the morning, it's dark, Aaron and I are sleeping, and our beloved Doug Gordy, rest his soul, we talked about him recently, but he was a boxer, and he came over to my side of the bed.
31:22-31:23
It was again about 3 in the morning.
31:23-31:26
He came to my side of the bed to tell me that he was having some tummy troubles.
31:29-31:36
And he wanted to tell me that he needed to go out, but the problem was the event happened much quicker than he was expecting.
31:37-31:46
So he came over to my side of the bed, and in the silence of the 3 a.m. morning in beautiful prospect, there was this sound.
31:50-31:52
It was like...
31:52-31:55
Did you ever blow up a balloon and then let it go?
31:56-31:59
You know that sound it makes as it's flying across the room?
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It was like that.
32:04-32:06
But imagine that balloon was filled with pudding.
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That was the... You wanted to hear this.
32:10-32:12
That was the sound.
32:14-32:15
And it was so loud.
32:16-32:17
But I immediately sat up.
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Like, oh my gosh.
32:22-32:24
Erin immediately sat up.
32:24-32:28
And she turned and looked at me and she goes, "What did you do?"
32:28-32:29
(Laughter)
32:30-32:31
(Applause)
32:35-32:35
(Sobs)
32:36-32:37
(Laughter)
32:38-32:39
(audience laughing)
32:46-32:48
She thought that was me.
32:48-32:49
(audience laughing)
32:56-32:59
Oh, and I was like, yeah, Erin.
33:01-33:05
I hung my backside over the side of the bed and let it go.
33:08-33:12
Well, okay, so you turn the light on to assess the damage.
33:14-33:20
And well, you know, on our bed, we had these beautiful decorative pillows.
33:20-33:22
You got the decorative pillows, ladies and gentlemen.
33:23-33:24
You know what I'm talking about?
33:24-33:25
You never lay on them.
33:26-33:27
You're not even allowed to really look at them.
33:27-33:30
They're just like there as decoration.
33:30-33:33
And then you carefully lay them beside the bed.
33:33-33:37
Well, let's just say one of those decorative pillows took the hit.
33:39-33:39
Bad.
33:44-33:47
And I'm going to tell you what I asked Erin next.
33:48-33:55
And in telling you this, I want you to keep in mind that it was three in the morning, and I was tired, and I also want you to keep something else in mind.
33:55-33:56
I knew Erin loved these pillows.
33:59-34:08
So my question to her was, "Do you want to try to salvage this pillow?" Like I said, it wasn't a very smart question.
34:11-34:13
Let's see how you think at three in the morning.
34:14-34:17
But you know, as a husband, my immediate response was just throw it away.
34:17-34:19
And I'm thinking if I do that, she's like, "No, you can't throw that away.
34:19-34:23
I love that pillow." So this whole like conversation happened in my head.
34:23-34:33
And I'm like, "Do you want to try to salvage this pillow?" And she was like, "No, throw it away." And that's a husband's job, of course, was to clean up after that.
34:35-34:37
But here's the point in that story.
34:38-34:43
Even though she loved that pillow, it was how you say defiled.
34:45-34:58
And she was like, "I no longer want anything to do with this because I can't risk the thought of even letting that thing get me dirty.
34:59-35:09
I don't even like the thought of possibly being contaminated by this." And this is what Jude is saying here.
35:10-35:22
When you deal with people who are deliberately sold on this false teaching, he's like, "Look, when you deal with them, you've got to deal with them in fear because you don't want to get contaminated.
35:23-35:26
You don't want their poop on you," is what he's saying.
35:28-35:32
And you're like, "Well, contaminated how?
35:33-35:40
What does that mean?" Okay, please don't do any more stories, but I understand you don't want contaminated, but contaminated how?
35:40-35:42
And I've been thinking a lot about that this week.
35:44-35:45
Well, contaminated how?
35:48-35:51
And then it occurred to me exactly what Jude's saying.
35:53-36:03
You see, when you're addressing people like this, while you're trying to reach them, they're trying to reach you, right?
36:04-36:18
In other words, while you are trying to persuade them regarding the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they are trying to persuade you concerning their weird extra biblical heretical thing.
36:21-36:25
You're trying to convert them, but they are trying to convert you.
36:25-36:26
They see you as their mission field.
36:27-36:29
So their false teaching, here's what he's saying.
36:31-36:35
With their false teaching, you need to view it and react to it for what it is.
36:35-36:36
It's filth.
36:37-36:42
He goes, "As you deal with them, don't get contaminated.
36:44-36:55
Don't let their poop get on you." And still, even people this committed, the calls to be merciful, but the tone gets ratcheted up again, doesn't it?
36:57-36:59
It's like, "I'm going to make this as clear as I can.
37:00-37:02
This is what the Bible says.
37:02-37:05
And they're like, well, I've learned some of these other, no, no, no, no, I'm not, no.
37:05-37:07
I'm not being contaminated by that garbage.
37:07-37:10
I want to, all I care about is what the Bible says.
37:10-37:14
All right, I don't want to hear your extra stuff that somebody somewhere said.
37:14-37:16
All I want is this.
37:16-37:19
And if you're not willing to talk about this, then we're not talking about it.
37:21-37:22
Not gonna get contaminated.
37:24-37:27
As stern and straightforward as possible.
37:30-37:33
There is zero tolerance for somebody messing with the message.
37:35-37:50
And while they are all ultimately victims of the enemy, there is a big difference in the way we approach somebody who is confused over doctrine, versus someone who is committed to promoting it.
37:53-37:56
I'd like to ask if the worship team would please come up.
37:58-38:00
if our elders would please come up.
38:01-38:06
We're going to close this time in a word around the Lord's table.
38:09-38:17
Because really the word of the day in dealing with these apostates, the word of the day really is mercy, right?
38:18-38:18
Mercy.
38:21-38:23
And that absolutely has to be our attitude.
38:27-38:29
Because the question is, how do we treat enemies?
38:31-38:32
How do we treat enemies?
38:33-38:39
Well, my response to that is, how did God treat His enemies?
38:42-38:47
The Bible says by nature we are enemies of God.
38:49-38:50
And what was God's response?
38:53-39:16
response was to show us mercy, by sending his son to die for our sins. So we want to gather around the table to celebrate his mercy. And today, there's another reason we're gathering around the table.
39:18-39:20
This is about being motivated.
39:22-39:27
Because I could give you all these reasons why we should show mercy to enemies of the gospel.
39:28-39:32
You know, they're not that bad, maybe they don't deserve it, let's give them a second chance.
39:33-39:44
But the bottom line biblically is this, there is one reason, one compelling reason, one biblically God motivated reason to show mercy to someone, and that's because we have been shown mercy.
39:45-39:46
This is our motivator.
39:47-39:55
And this should determine, in following our Father's example, how we deal with troublemakers.
39:57-40:00
We show mercy because He showed us mercy.
40:01-40:02
I'd like you to stand.
40:03-40:17
And as the worship team plays, we're going to ask, when you're ready to receive the Lord's Supper, you come down these middle aisles, you receive the elements from Dan, from Boyd, and I'm going to ask that you take the elements back to your seat through the outside aisles.
40:17-40:21
And I'm going to ask that you be seated and hold on to them.
40:22-40:28
And as a sign of unity in the church, after everyone receives, I will lead us in taking the Lord's Supper together.
40:29-40:30
So please come.
40:32-40:37
We show mercy because we are the recipients of mercy.
40:39-40:45
The Bible tells us that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it and He gave thanks.
40:46-40:48
And He said, "This is My body which is given for you.
40:49-41:02
Eat this in remembrance of Me." After the meal, Jesus took the cup and He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sin.
41:03-41:10
Drink this in remembrance of Me." Would you please stand as we worship?

Small Group Discussion
Read Jude 1:17-23

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Which spiritual discipline do you most need to tighten up in your own life (Jude 1:20-21): the Word, prayer, obedience, or hope? How will you go about that today?
How can you distinguish between:
who is deceived,
a backslidden believer,
and a “committed to error” apostate unbeliever (Jude 1:22-23)?
Be specific: what are some practical ways you can show mercy to those who are teaching / promoting / believing false doctrine while confronting them over their error (Jude 1:22-23)?

Breakout
Pray for one another to have wisdom and discernment when dealing with apostates when they show up at HBC!

Jeff Miller

May 15, 2022

The Hill to Die On

Know the Enemy

Jeff Miller

May 15, 2022

The Hill to Die On

  
    Introduction:

Know the Enemy: The Dossier on Apostates (Jude 1:5-16)
They have been Warned . (Jude 1:5-7)
    
They are Irreverent . (Jude 1:8-10)
    
They have Always been Around . (Jude 1:11)

  
    They are Dangerous . (Jude 1:12-13)
    
They are Doomed . (Jude 1:14-15)
    
They are Self-focused . (Jude 1:16)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

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Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the book of Jude.
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It is the next to last book in your Bible.
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All the way near the back.
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And while we turn there, let's bow our heads.
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I'm going to ask quickly if you would please pray for me, and I will pray for you as we approach God's Word together.
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Just pray that I would be faithful to clearly communicate a difficult passage, and I will pray that our hearts are open to receive something that may be difficult to hear.
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Alright, let's pray.
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Father in heaven, for those who are sitting here today, those who are watching this stream, those who are going to be listening to a podcast later or watching it online later, this is Your Word.
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We know how serious You are about Your Word.
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And Father, we want to be just as serious in the way that we communicate it.
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So Father, by Your design, faith comes by hearing.
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And I pray, Father, that You would bring much fruit through the proclamation and reception of Your Word.
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We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
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Jude, are you there?
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The very first church that I pastored was in Ohio.
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And there was this little community church, Clear Creek Community Church.
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It was just outside of the town where the Bible College was located.
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And one day the pastor of that church just up and vanished.
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Just gone.
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And the elders of the church came to me and they were like, "Will you be our pastor?" And I'm like, "I don't know anything." Like, I'm going to Bible college to someday hopefully be a pastor, but I'm like, "I don't know anything." And they're kind of like, "Well, of all of us, you're kind of the most qualified." And I'm like, "I'll try." That was how I became a pastor.
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That's a true story, unfortunately.
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But I'm like, "Okay, I can get up and I guess I can preach a sermon, and then I hope to heaven none of those are recorded.
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I had no idea what I was doing.
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But another guy at the church said, "I'll lead worship time." And you know sometimes when somebody leads worship and they kind of do little sermons or words of encouragement in between the songs.
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Well, I'll never forget the one day when he got up to, he was leading worship and he said, "You know, Jesus wants His light to shine through you.
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And He said, "Are we to take that light, and are we to hide that light under a bushel?" Are we to hide that light under a bushel?
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He says, "Yes, we are." And He goes, "And let me tell you why.
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when you hide that light under a bushel, that bushel catches on fire and it just makes the light brighter. And it was about then that I realized that he thought a bushel was a little tree, not like a basket. And I'm like, "This doesn't even go with the song." Remember that song, "This Little Light of Mine"?
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"I'm gonna let it shine." Remember? And then, you remember the line, "Hide it under a bushel yeah that's how the song goes no but he had this whole thing about yeah I did under a bushel man because then our light will be brighter and and you're like I know what you did Jeff I know exactly what you did Jeff you went up on stage and you grabbed that heretic by the scruff of his neck and by the seat of his pants and you threw him right through that stained-glass window because you don't tolerate that kind of thing and no that is that is not how I I handled that. Because look, even though he taught something that was incorrect, he wasn't a heretic. I knew this guy. He loved the Lord. He loved that church. And last I heard, several years later, he actually became the pastor of that church, believe it or not. And look, anybody that's been in ministry for any period of time has face palm moments. I can't believe I said that. I can't I did that and we're just gonna chalk that up as a whoopsie to him.
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But you see as we talk about Jude, like why are you telling us this story?
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This guy was maybe a little bit ignorant, but he was a lot innocent.
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But as we talk about Jude, there are people that intentionally go into churches to teach wrong things.
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Intentionally teach an anti-gospel message.
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And you're like, "Well, hang on a second, Jeff.
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How do you know the difference between, you know, your guy at this church with the bushel thing, and how do you know, like, the difference between him and somebody like the Jews talking about, that somebody that has malicious intent and is directly teaching something anti-gospel in order to cause problems in the church?" How do you know the difference?
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I'm glad you asked that because that's where we're going today.
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Jude calls us to contend for the faith, and that was our message last week, it was a call to arms.
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He's like, "Look, truth is worth fighting for.
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This matters. This matters to God. This should matter to us." He said, "You have to fight for the faith." That was last week's message.
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And he says in verse 4, "Because certain people have crept in on notice," and we call them apostates.
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That sounds like a big fancy church word, but just to define it for you, an apostate is somebody who knowingly teaches or believes something that's unbiblical.
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Knowingly. Right?
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And this takes so many forms, I could keep you here all day telling you all the different variations of this, but it can be everything from legalism to license, like we talked about last week, The prosperity gospel to the social gospel.
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There's just so many examples of this.
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But the bottom line is it's a false gospel and it ends up corrupting people.
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Because they have wrong views about who God is.
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They have wrong views about who Jesus is.
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They have wrong views about what it means to be a follower of Christ.
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What it is that He's done for us.
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Now Jude doesn't describe what the false teaching is.
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and we touched on this last week.
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Jude wasn't like, "Hey, be on the lookout for the guy that's teaching these things." He doesn't do that.
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Because truthfully, false teaching comes and goes and changes, and there are so many of them.
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Always new ones popping up.
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Jude does something under inspiration of the Holy Spirit that is infinitely wiser.
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And that's what we're going to see in this passage.
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He tells us about the character of the kind of people that would teach wrong gospel messages.
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Do you understand why that's so genius?
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It's because the gospel is the only means by which people are changed.
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So if you have somebody that doesn't believe the true gospel, then they're not saved, right?
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Unsaved equals unchanged. You see the point.
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Only Jesus Christ can change people. That's the gospel.
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When you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sin, He rose from the dead to give you eternal life.
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He's coming back to take His church to be with Him.
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But you see, a very important element of the gospel that often gets overlooked, is the truth that Jesus Christ transforms people.
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God's Holy Spirit comes and indwells you, and you are not the same person.
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So that's Jude's point here.
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He goes, "You want to find the person that's teaching a false doctrine?
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Look for the person that hasn't been changed.
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Look for the person that's still living in their sin.
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Look for the person that's still acting like the world.
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Look for the person that's self-centered.
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You look for that guy who obviously doesn't know Jesus Christ by the way that he lives, and you're going to know that you might have an apostate among you.
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Right?
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This is a dense passage, because Jude describes these apostates with a shotgun blast of terms and illustrations and Old Testament examples.
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And you're going to see through this passage so many illustrations.
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So many lists.
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Every element here could be a sermon, right?
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And I did think briefly about having like a 30 week series on this section.
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But the problem with that is, that's sound kind of cool at first, but the problem with that is, if we did that, we'd miss the overall point, right?
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If we're so busy looking at each individual tree, we're missing the point of the whole forest kind of thing.
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And that's really what I want us to do, is to see His point.
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This is what apostates look like.
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This is how they act.
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Listen church, we need to be on our guard.
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And that's why I'm sharing this.
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This isn't an exercise in homiletics.
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This isn't an academic thing up here.
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This isn't just Bible knowledge.
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The reason I want to share this, this could happen here.
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It's subtle.
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You're not likely to get somebody standing up here preaching an anti-gospel message.
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But you are very likely in a church like ours to have somebody go to a small group and try to use their influence to teach something that's unbiblical.
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You're much more likely in a church like this for somebody to go to a Bible study.
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and just try to come alongside and be an assistant with the idea of sort of hijacking the thing to teach what they want taught. That's much more likely here.
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And it happens. And honestly, attempts have been made here for these types of things to happen, right Mark? We've seen this here. That's why we have to be on our guard against this. Because it is so potentially dangerous for the church to let these things happen. Right? So if we're going to contend for the faith we need to be aware of, we need to know the enemies of the truth. We need to be on the lookout here. So that's why this whole section, like I said, there's a lot of stuff we're going to get through it together, but the heading on your outline "Know the Enemy" the dossier on apostates. All right here's everything you need to know about the enemies of the truth that are creeping into churches, could creep into this church. Number one, right this time, he starts here, "They've been warned." They have been warned.
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Now you're going to see with these illustrations that Jude uses, he doesn't go into a lot of detail and I think because his audience was probably Jewish and they were familiar with these stories, so he didn't like give a whole Sunday school lesson on every one of these.
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So picking up where we left off in verse 5, he says, "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." Stop there for a second.
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First of all, he talks about Israel.
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Talking about Israel specifically from Exodus to Deuteronomy.
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Remember Moses led Israel out of Egypt?
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And in Numbers chapter 13, he sent 12 spies to check out the land that God had promised.
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And 10 of the 12 came back, and I'm paraphrasing here, okay?
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But 10 of the 12 came back and they're like, "We're doomed!
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We're like grasshoppers and they're like monsters and we're all gonna die!" And like, everybody in the camp, it was so contagious.
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They got everybody freaking out.
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"Oh, we're gonna die!
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We're never gonna do it!" Like everybody was...
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They didn't trust God.
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God says, "This is yours.
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I'm taking it to you.
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I'm gonna give it to you, I'm gonna fight your battles, go.
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And the bottom line is this, they just didn't trust God.
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They just didn't believe Him.
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So God, Jesus, destroyed them, it says.
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Look at verse six.
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He says, "And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
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Okay, so now he's talking about angels, fallen angels.
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Genesis 6 calls them the sons of God.
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They committed some terrible sin.
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It's going to take a long time to explain.
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Jude doesn't do it.
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We're not going to touch on that, but here's what we are going to talk about.
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Very specifically, he points out that they were imprisoned.
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These angels who sinned were imprisoned.
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Like, in prison where?
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Well, this prison is also known as the abyss.
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It's in Luke 8, 1 Peter 3, 2 Peter 2.
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And then we saw in our study in Revelation, they are let out during the tribulation in Revelation 9.
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But apparently there is this prison for demons.
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And that's what Jude is talking about here.
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And then verse 7, he says, "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual morality and pursued unnatural desire, Serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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So his next example is Sodom and Gomorrah.
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You probably heard that story, Genesis chapter 19.
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It was a city so perverse, so steeped in sexual sin, specifically homosexuality, that God burned them off the map.
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And that is a preview, that is a picture of them forever being punished.
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But the key phrase here with these illustrations of Israel and angels and Sodom and Gomorrah, key phrase here, he says, "These serve as an example." These serve as an example of what?
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You see what Jude's saying?
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He goes, "Look, do you notice a common denominator here?
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God has this track record.
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When somebody refuses to believe, when somebody refuses to obey, he goes, 'What do we always see God doing?' God brings the hammer down.
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God brings punishment on those who won't obey.
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It's not going to end well for them.
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And somehow sin has a way of keeping people locked into the here and now.
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Sin has a way of having us not consider the endgame.
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Sin has a way of causing us to not even consider eternity.
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Right?
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That's how sin is.
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It's what's going to make me happy now?
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What's going to please me now?
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What's best for me now?
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And it's just like a dog.
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Just like, what's going to make me happy in this moment?
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And there's no thought for the consequences that my selfish actions might bring on others.
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What about on me, on my eternity?
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It's just...
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And that's why Jude starts here, "Hey, I'm going to tell you about apostates, but the "Well, first thing I need to tell you, because it's about to get really hairy here." He says, "But this is a warning.
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Jews in Israel, Gentiles in Sodom and Gomorrah, even the angels who disobeyed, you've got to know, judgment is certain, and it's terrible." That's where Jude starts.
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So first of all, there's a warning.
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Number two, they are irreverent.
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So they've been warned.
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you need to know about these anti-gospel teachers that creep into churches and cause so much problems.
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He goes, "Mark this, they are irreverent." Look at verse eight.
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He says, "Yet in like manner, these people also," first of all, he says, "relying on their dreams." What does that mean?
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That means they're not getting their material from God's word.
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relying on their dreams.
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There's some people that that's the authority.
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They get up and they say, "Listen, I got a message for you, church.
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"This is from the Lord.
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"He showed up in my dream last night.
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"And this is what he told me in my dream "that I need to share with you." Listen, if I ever get up here and say something like that, or anybody else gets up here and says, we should have a giant hook, like in the cartoons, right?
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Yank them right off of the stage.
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We're not here to preach our dreams, okay?
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We're here to preach the word of God.
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But that's what it says, they rely on their dreams.
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And that's how a lot of these cult leaders or these apostates, that's how they get their influence because it sounds so spiritual.
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Like God told me something directly and specific and they get up and we were at a conference at Big Harvest one time where a guy did that.
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He got up and preached the whole time about this dream he had about the devil.
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And remember this Aaron, the devil Jesus were fighting over his soul and it was in this little cage, and Jesus won, shocker.
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And he did this whole thing about this dream that he had.
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And when he was done, we were like, "What the heck was that?" We came here to hear the word of God.
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And this guy just preached for like 50 minutes about some goofy dream that he had because he probably had too much ice cream before bed or something.
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Like, "What is this dream that you had?" He says, "You gotta watch out for that person The Bible isn't their authority.
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It's let me tell you something private that God revealed to me.
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We don't care.
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Okay?
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We don't care the private thing God told you.
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We care the public thing that God wrote down for all of us.
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Because when you're the authority, it's easy to excuse your sin.
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Look at the next phrase.
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He says, "These people rely on their dreams, defile the flesh." They defile the flesh.
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It's, you excuse your sin, right?
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I have this authority.
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I have this in with God.
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It's okay for me to live how I want to live.
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And when you live that way, nobody tells you what to do, right?
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Look at the next phrase.
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It says they reject authority.
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Relying on their dreams to follow the flesh, reject authority.
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You've got to watch out for that guy.
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tells me what to do. Reject authority. Then lastly, on this list, kind of sums it all up, they're irreverent. They're irreverent. Look at this, it says, "They blaspheme the glorious ones." You're like, "Whoa, okay. I was kind of with you on the verbiage here, but what do you mean blaspheme the glorious ones? What does that mean?" Well, he explains what that means in the very next verse.
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Look at verse nine.
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He says, "But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.'" There, does that clear that up?
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I know I have other questions, like what is going on here?
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Well, first of all, this account is actually from the Apocrypha.
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From a book called "The Assumption of Moses." Now Jude here is not saying the whole book is true, but under inspiration, Jude is telling us this part of the story absolutely is true.
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Alright?
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So it says that Michael the archangel was contending with the devil about Moses' body.
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What in the world does that mean?
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The Bible doesn't really explain that.
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But here's my best understanding.
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You see, when Israel was wandering through the wilderness about to enter the Promised Land, as we mentioned, remember Moses, because of sin on his part, he was not allowed to enter, and he died.
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before he could enter into the Promised Land.
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And do you remember what happened to his body?
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The Bible says that God buried it in an unknown location.
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That's Deuteronomy 34, verses 5-6.
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And why did God do that?
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I believe it's because, also if you look at the history of Israel, they had this really bad habit of worshipping things they shouldn't worship.
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Right? You remember the fiery serpents were biting them and God was like, "Put the bronze serpent on a pole and when you look to that, it was a picture of Christ.
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Look and believe and be saved." And you know what Israel ended up doing with that bronze serpent?
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Like, "Let's worship that." No, Israel just had this bad habit of worshiping all these things they shouldn't worship.
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So I believe that the reason God wanted Moses' body hidden was what do you think Israel would have done if they would have had Moses' body?
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They would have set up a shrine and an altar, and, "Hey, we're going to worship.
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Let's go bow before our mighty leader Moses." And I think that's what was going on here.
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And that's exactly what Satan would have wanted, right?
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"Let's put his body front and center.
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That'll get Israel off track." And Michael was contending with him about that.
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But Michael was like, "You know what? The Lord rebuked you." So what's the point?
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The point is this.
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Even Michael was more careful in dealing with supernatural powers than these arrogant fools that creep into churches.
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If Michael had such an attitude towards the devil, why don't apostates have any reverence?
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Something we've got to watch, church. I've heard people say it.
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I rebuke you, Satan! Satan, I bind you, Satan!" That is not your place. That is not your place.
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What does the Bible say we should do? Resist the devil. Right?
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We run to our Father, and we seek the spiritual power that comes from His Holy Spirit.
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We resist the devil, but we are not commanded to rebuke the devil.
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And here we have very clear teaching of Michael, who wouldn't even do that.
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He's like, "The Lord rebuked you. He handed this over to God." I think there's a lesson for all of us there.
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But you see, it's reverence. It's reverence.
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And that's an overarching theme in the lives of people who don't know Jesus.
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There's no reverence. There's no respect for God.
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There's no fear of the Lord.
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There's no regard for His sovereignty.
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There's no place for His Word in their lives.
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There's no reverence.
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And when you have such people discipling others in the church to be just like them, suddenly you have a horrible cancer in the church of more and more people with less and less regard for the holiness of God.
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No regard for spiritual things.
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Thinking that they're some kind of authority themselves.
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They're irreverent.
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You've got to watch out for those people, Jude tells us.
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Right?
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So they've been warned and they're irreverent.
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And the third thing he says is they've always been around.
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In other words, don't be alarmed.
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There's nothing new under the sun.
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These kind of people have been around literally forever.
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Look at three Old Testament examples.
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He goes into another list, verse 11.
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He says, "Woe to them!
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For they walked in the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's heir, and perished in Korah's rebellion." His point here is, look, this isn't anything new, church.
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These people have always been around.
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Three quick examples. First of all, he says, "They walked in the way of Cain." You know the story of Cain, right? He was one of Adam and Eve's sons.
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Genesis 4, he thought he could come to God his own way.
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On his own terms. He ignored God's commandment.
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And the Bible tells us that faith without works is dead.
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But works without faith is called religion.
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And this is how religion works, the way of Cain.
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It's like, "I know what God said, but I'm going to worship my own way." That's not faith.
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And Jude says, "There's nothing new. These false teachers still do that.
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I'm going to do it my way." Secondly, he talks about Balaam.
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He's from Numbers 22-25.
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I could tell you a whole lot about Balaam, but here's the bottom line with him.
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Balaam thought ministry was a way to make money.
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We're just going to shorten his whole story to just that.
27:59-28:04
Balaam thought ministry is a great way to make money.
28:05-28:07
And Jews are like, "Watch out for people with that attitude.
28:08-28:21
They see you as a bunch of suckers, and I can say the right words and say it the right way, and you're going to give me everything I want, you're going to give me everything that I need." That's Balaam.
28:22-28:23
Nothing new there, right?
28:25-28:29
Have you ever seen an example, ladies and gentlemen, of somebody using the ministry as a way to make money?
28:30-28:31
Have you ever seen such a thing?
28:33-28:34
I'll take that laugh as a yes.
28:36-28:38
Then he talks about Korah.
28:39-28:40
He's from number 16.
28:41-28:43
Remember God's like, "Hey, Moses is in charge.
28:44-29:10
Moses is my man here." And Korah comes along, again I'm paraphrasing, He's like, "Why is Moses going to be in charge?" Korah's like, "I think I got some pretty good ideas. I should be in charge." "Hey everybody, I should be in charge!" And God's like, "Everybody step away from Korah." But the point is, no regard for authority, right?
29:11-29:14
Like we already said, God established authority in Israel.
29:14-29:20
And listen, God established authority in the church And some people come along and assume authority that isn't theirs.
29:23-29:26
We've seen that here. We've seen attempts on that here.
29:29-29:32
It's almost laughable if it wasn't so dangerous.
29:33-29:35
People come in and assume authority that's not theirs.
29:35-29:39
I remember one person visited the church, and they were like, "Yeah, I'm going to redo your kids' ministry.
29:40-29:44
I've got some ideas. I'm going to overhaul and redo the whole thing." I'm like, "I'm sorry, who are you?
29:45-29:54
You're going to hijack the most important ministry of our church, the discipleship of our little ones, and we provide a distraction-free environment for people to get God's Word here?
29:54-29:55
You're here to take over?
29:58-29:59
They didn't stick around.
30:02-30:08
But you've got to watch out, because these people and people like that are going to come back around.
30:10-30:22
They're going to come back around because God's people have always had to deal with Cain's, God's people have always had to deal with Balaam's, God's people have always had to deal with Korah's in their camp, we've gotta be on alert, right?
30:24-30:25
Know the enemy.
30:27-30:32
They've been warned, watch out for the people that are irreverent and then he reminds us they've always been around.
30:32-30:35
Homestretch here, he says they're dangerous.
30:36-30:38
They are dangerous.
30:39-30:50
And you see Jude here is trying to make sure that somebody doesn't get roped into this idea of, okay, so somebody believes a little bit differently than me.
30:50-30:52
You know what, live and let live.
30:52-30:54
He's like, no, these people are dangerous to the church.
30:55-30:56
Like, how dangerous are they?
30:56-31:00
Well, verses 12 and 13, again, another shotgun blast.
31:01-31:03
He tells us how dangerous they are.
31:03-31:04
I'm gonna go through these quickly.
31:05-31:11
He says, "They are hidden reefs at your love feast, as they feast with you without fear.
31:12-31:14
The low feast was the meal the early church had.
31:14-31:17
They had meal together and then they had communion together.
31:17-31:19
And he says, these people come and they feast without fear.
31:19-31:20
They're brazen.
31:21-31:22
They're just brazen.
31:23-31:24
He says, they're reefs.
31:26-31:28
Those are the rocks that are just under the surface of water.
31:28-31:29
Do you see the picture?
31:30-31:31
The church is like this boat.
31:31-31:34
We're cruising along, we're happy, and everything's great.
31:34-31:35
It's smooth sailing.
31:35-31:43
And then all of a sudden, we hit the reef and it rips the boat apart, and now we're in trouble." He says that's what these people were like.
31:44-31:48
Just under the surface, subtle, hidden, destructive.
31:50-31:59
He goes on, verse 12, he says, "Shepherds feeding themselves." Who is the shepherd supposed to feed?
32:01-32:09
The sheep, right? That was what I had in my notes, but these people, we already talked about this, They use the flock for themselves. You've got to watch out for that.
32:10-32:17
Like, "How can I use you for my advantage?" They're shepherds feeding themselves.
32:17-32:20
He goes on, these next two pictures kind of go together.
32:20-32:29
He says, "Waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees, and laid on them, twice dead, uprooted." Both of these have the same point.
32:30-32:34
The clouds and the trees, these are things that promise something that they don't deliver, right?
32:35-32:45
Waterless cloud, it looks like, "Oh, it looks like we're gonna get the rain that we need." "Not here, we've had plenty." "Oh, it looks like we're gonna get the rain that we need." "Then it doesn't rain." Like, well, that cloud was a joke, right?
32:46-32:49
Or a tree that's not bearing fruit, you're like, "Well, that tree's no good.
32:49-32:53
It's not doing what it's supposed to do." He says, "That's what these false teachers are like.
32:53-32:55
They're promising you spirituality.
32:56-33:01
They're promising you getting closer to God, but like that waterless cloud, they leave the church dry.
33:02-33:04
And like these dead trees, they bear no fruit.
33:05-33:05
They're hopeless.
33:07-33:21
A couple more pictures, verse 13, he says, "Wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame." Wild waves, unmanageable, destructive, dangerous.
33:21-33:27
The only fruitfulness that they have is the foam of their own shame.
33:29-33:40
And then the last one in verse 13, last illustration, He says, "Wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever." It's a picture of a shooting star.
33:41-33:45
It flashes across the sky, and then it's in the darkness gone forever, right?
33:47-33:53
Now, before GPS, you're like, "There were garments," right?
33:53-33:57
Now, even before that, you're like, "There were maps," right?
33:57-34:02
Even before that, If you go back far enough, they navigated with the stars.
34:04-34:04
Right?
34:06-34:14
So, what's going to happen if you're navigating, following a wandering star?
34:17-34:18
You're going to get lost into the darkness with it.
34:21-34:24
And that's why Jude says you have to contend for the faith.
34:25-34:29
Jude says, "Look, this has to be the hill that you die on." Yes, it's hard.
34:29-34:30
We talked about this last week.
34:31-34:31
It is hard.
34:32-34:35
It's hard to confront people and say, "No, look, what you're saying is wrong.
34:35-34:37
What you're doing is unbiblical.
34:37-34:45
It's wrong and we don't prefer to do that." But failure to do so results in spiritual casualties.
34:47-34:57
He says, "Hey, to a church that is striving to be faithful to God, these people are dangerous." So we've got to be on alert.
34:59-35:00
Number five, they are doomed.
35:01-35:01
They are doomed.
35:02-35:04
Look at verses 14 and 15.
35:05-35:23
He says, "It was about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way.
35:24-35:34
And of all the harsh things, the ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Quoting from the apocryphal book Enoch.
35:34-35:40
Again, he's not confirming the whole book, but by the Holy Spirit he's affirming this part's true for sure.
35:40-35:43
It's a prophecy that God wanted preserved and it's not just here.
35:43-35:44
We've been talking about it.
35:45-35:46
But judgment is coming.
35:46-35:47
You can deny it.
35:48-35:51
You can ignore it, but this is one appointment that you are not going to reschedule.
35:52-36:31
judgment is coming. And in this prophecy that he quotes from Enoch, there's two words that stand out. And it's the word ungodly, and it's the word all. In other words, all this stuff he's saying isn't for just... this judgment isn't for some weird fringe teacher that is causing problems in the church. He's like, "Look, if the shoe fits, right? Anyone who's who has abandoned God's truth, lives a life of ungodly deeds, speaks contrary to God's Word, God is going to execute judgment.
36:33-36:40
And I have to wonder if the reason he mentioned Enoch was Enoch is sort of like the Old Testament picture of the rapture, right?
36:41-36:43
Enoch walked with God, then he was no more.
36:43-36:52
I'm wondering if this is an allusion to the fact that after the church is gone, It's going to be worldwide apostasy.
36:54-36:55
I could be hinting at that.
36:57-36:58
The point is this, they're doomed.
36:59-37:00
They're doomed.
37:02-37:05
And then number six, they are self-focused.
37:08-37:09
They are self-focused.
37:10-37:11
Is it hot in here?
37:14-37:52
That's a shame, because that was only an introduction, this part here is the real sermon. You laugh like I'm kidding. I think we're kind of sold on the problem here, right? But here, another list in verse 16, but write this down, they are self-focused. Because at this point in going through Jude, you're like, "Man, these people sound dangerous, man, like how do we recognize Another list, but there's one common denominator in this list, and this is what you've got to look for.
37:53-37:57
Look for the people that shine the spotlight on themselves.
38:01-38:03
That's what he's talking about in verse 16.
38:03-38:15
He says, "These are grumblers, malcontents." In other words, they're outspoken fault finders.
38:16-38:19
Church, we have to mark the people who are always complaining.
38:20-38:22
Some people think that that is their spiritual gift.
38:23-38:24
It's not on the list.
38:25-38:28
Some people think that's their ministry is to criticize everything.
38:28-38:29
That's not legitimate.
38:30-38:34
But you've got to watch the people that are always complaining about everything.
38:34-38:43
"I don't really like the music at this church." "I don't really like the sermons at this church." I don't really like the kids ministry at this church.
38:43-38:45
I don't like the website of this church.
38:45-38:47
I don't like the way this church does small groups.
38:47-38:51
I don't like what color gray the chairs are in this church.
38:52-38:54
And that's not how I do it.
38:55-38:57
If I was in charge, I'd do things differently.
38:57-39:02
And here's a better way to do it, because listen, everything should be exactly how I like it.
39:02-39:12
And this church is, there's a lot of things here that just aren't good about this church that I could certainly fix, Because - watch out for those people.
39:14-39:16
He says they're grumblers and malcontents.
39:17-39:18
Just not happy about anything.
39:19-39:23
Just constantly bellyaching and whining and complaining about everything.
39:24-39:24
Ah!
39:27-39:32
Secondly, look, he says, following their own sinful desires.
39:32-39:33
He already talked about that.
39:34-39:36
They're not pursuing Jesus, they're pursuing their sin.
39:37-39:38
That's what he's saying.
39:38-39:48
people's conduct, even outside of church. What do they do outside of church? How do they spend their time? What do they talk about? How do they talk about those things?
39:51-39:59
Watch for the people that are putting all their time, effort, and energy and attention on sin, not Jesus, right? Which is all of them putting the spotlight on themselves.
40:01-40:09
Oh, and speaking of talking, it says next, "They are loudmouth boasters." They are loudmouth They are loudmouth boasters.
40:10-40:11
It's all about them.
40:12-40:12
Right?
40:12-40:12
They're boasters.
40:15-40:16
The people that are like, "Hey, look at what I did.
40:18-40:19
Look at what I did.
40:19-40:24
Do you know, do you know this church would fold without me?
40:24-40:24
Did you know that?
40:25-40:28
This church would have to close its doors if it wasn't for me.
40:28-40:30
Do you know how many people were at this church because of me?
40:32-40:33
Do you know how many people I brought to this church?
40:35-40:37
Do you realize how important I am to this church?
40:39-40:41
Look at what I built here.
40:41-40:43
Look at what I built here, people.
40:43-40:44
See, here's the problem.
40:44-40:46
Somebody's gonna edit that out of the video.
40:49-40:51
And that's going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
40:55-40:57
I mean, everybody here really looks up to me.
40:58-41:02
And you really need to consider everything that I've done for this church.
41:05-41:08
You realize I don't mean a word of any of that, but there are some people that do.
41:09-41:10
There are some people that do.
41:11-41:14
Loud mouth boasters, always bragging about how awesome they are.
41:16-41:25
I couldn't help but think when I was working on this, there was a guy, this weekly appointment we used to take our kids to, where you wait with other parents.
41:25-41:34
And I just remember this one guy every week, just like loudly name dropping every week.
41:34-41:35
And we're sitting there and I'm trying to read.
41:35-42:38
air and shaking her head, sitting there trying to read, just kind of mind my own business, and this guy was like, he must have been a contractor or something, but he was like, "Yeah, I was doing work at Ben Roethlisberger's house, and Big Ben came out, and Ben said this, and you know, I'm like, well, you know, I'm at Ben Roethlisberger's house, and then my friend called me on the phone, and I'm like, yeah, I can't really talk right now, I'm doing a job for Ben Roethlisberger, and I'm like, "Ah, like, just, I mean," and then he's like, "But enough about that, let me tell you about the time "I was at Brett Kiesel's house." I'm like, "Oh, stop, loudmouth boasters." It's just like, I'm so awesome and the spotlight's on me, right, and then finally, showing favoritism They don't serve people, they use people.
42:41-42:43
And they use favoritism to gain advantage, right?
42:44-42:45
That's easy enough to do.
42:46-42:53
Little flattery here, little gift there, get a little following, right?
42:57-43:10
I really feel like you're the most spiritual person in this church, and I really value you, and I think you should come alongside me in this thing that I'm doing, because I really think that God's equipping you for this.
43:10-43:17
And we just use all these flattery and flattery, and it's to gain advantage.
43:18-43:21
They revel in the influence that they have over people.
43:23-43:27
And this is a clue as to why they're so influential because they're not making disciples of Jesus.
43:28-43:31
They're making disciples of themselves.
43:33-43:36
So make note of those in the church that are so proud of themselves.
43:37-43:40
Make note of the people in the church and everything's about them.
43:42-43:43
They're self-focused.
43:46-43:47
Church, we've got to be on guard.
43:47-43:54
Like I said, we've dealt with these things in the past and we would be so naive to think that those days are behind us.
43:56-43:58
These people are creeping into churches.
43:59-44:00
We've got to be on guard.
44:00-44:05
And the first thing Jude does here is he tells us how to clearly identify these people.
44:06-44:08
These are the kind of people we need to be looking for.
44:08-44:12
You're like, "Okay, got it Jeff, got it." So what do we do then?
44:12-44:15
Once we identify the person, what do we do about it?
44:15-44:21
What does God want us to do if somebody like this comes into Harvest Bible Chapel?
44:22-44:51
are we supposed to do? And I'll tell you next week. Right? Oh, you want me to tell you now? Like, oh heavens no. I'll tell you next week. Today, we just wanted to simply evaluate the dossier. Because if we're going to contend for the faith, we We need a clear description of those who are against the truth, right?
44:52-44:53
Know the enemy.
44:54-44:54
Let's pray.
44:56-45:24
Our Father in heaven, this is admittedly a very dense passage because you've given us - you are so urgently passionate about your church being protected that you've given us such a list of things that we need to be aware of, and knowing, and watching for, and on guard against.
45:25-45:30
And I know this is a lot of material, God, but I just pray that You would help us to look at the big picture.
45:32-45:40
That there are people who don't love Jesus, that want to use Your church for selfish reasons.
45:42-45:45
Yes, we've had attempts on this church in the past.
45:46-45:48
Those people have come and gone, but there are going to be more coming.
45:50-45:54
And who knows if somebody's watching this stream now, or somebody's sitting here right now.
45:56-45:59
It just hasn't been identified as such yet.
46:00-46:03
God, I pray for the wisdom and discernment and discretion of the leadership of this church.
46:07-46:10
that Jesus Christ would be front and center in all things.
46:12-46:16
And that we are able to identify those who would stand against that.
46:18-46:28
So Father, just now we are about to stand and we are about to let You know what we think about You, how we feel about You, through this gift of music that You've given us.
46:28-46:43
So Father, I pray that as we just worshiped You, According to the truth of Your Word, Father, let us worship You in truth with our very spirits.
46:46-46:47
We thank You, Father, for the glorious Gospel.
46:48-46:52
We ask for Your strength, Your power, that we keep it pure.
46:53-46:55
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Jude 1:5-16

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why do you think Jude used so many illustrations in this section? Which one stuck out to you?
Define “apostate”. Give specific reasons why they are so dangerous to the church. How do you think HBC should respond if we see a potential apostate?
Name some ways you can tell someone is “irreverent” (Jude 1:8-10).
What are some ways apostates are self-focused (Jude 1:16)? How have you seen this tendency to be self-focused in your life?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

May 8, 2022

The Hill to Die On

The Call to Arms

Jeff Miller

May 8, 2022

The Hill to Die On

  
    Introduction:

The Call to Arms: Your Battle Brief (Jude 1:1-4)
You will be Secure . (Jude 1:1b)
    
You will be Equipped . (Jude 1:2)
    
You must understand the Urgency . (Jude 1:3)

You must understand the Enemy . (Jude 1:4)
Titus 2:11-12 - For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age...

Matthew 7:15-16 - Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:50-00:52
Open up your Bibles to the book of Jude.
00:52-00:56
It is next to last in your Bible.
00:56-01:03
Right before the book of Revelation, all the way in the very back of your Bibles.
01:03-01:12
The sun is out, and as Stacy pointed out, but there's something else, though.
01:13-01:14
Can you feel it?
01:16-01:17
Can you feel the love in the air right now?
01:20-01:25
I mean we just celebrated three weddings in our church family.
01:26-01:27
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
01:28-01:29
We'll get you a problem at once, alright?
01:32-01:39
We had Dan and Hannah got married, what like ten days or eight days ago, like last week sometime.
01:40-01:46
And then a couple of days ago we had Ava and Brayden got married and Rick and Doreen got married.
01:46-01:47
Okay, now cheer for that.
01:49-01:50
(Applause)
01:50-01:53
So, love is in the air.
01:53-01:59
And last week, I celebrated my 20th wedding anniversary.
02:01-02:01
(Applause)
02:02-02:07
And big applause for Aaron for putting up with me that long.
02:09-02:09
(Applause)
02:10-02:11
You have no idea.
02:13-02:44
Well with all this love in the air and anniversaries and weddings, you know, I do a lot of counseling premarital counseling nearly postmarital counseling I've written two books on marriage and I hear a lot of things I read a lot of things but I'm gonna share with you one of the best piece of it pieces Of advice I've ever received if you're married This is gold and I heard this at a conference out in Chicago many years ago And I can't even remember the name of the guy putting on this particular workshop.
02:44-02:49
I can't even remember what the subject of the workshop was, but I remember this piece of advice and always stuck with me.
02:50-03:11
And he said this, "Sometimes you got to take the pitch." He said, "Here's what I mean by that." He goes, "You know, baseball, there are some batters that get up to bat and they have zero intention on swinging at that first pitch. They're not going to do it." Why?
03:11-03:12
They're watching the pitcher.
03:12-03:14
They're watching his movements, his mechanics.
03:14-03:15
They're watching the movement of the ball.
03:16-03:22
All they want to do with that first pitch is just watch it go by, and they're just going to let it go, and they're not going to take a swing at it.
03:22-03:27
And he said if you're married, that's good advice for you, because sometimes you need to just take the pitch.
03:27-03:30
You don't have to swing at everything.
03:32-03:33
Do you know what I'm talking about?
03:34-03:36
Do you know what I'm talking about?
03:38-03:39
Some of you look confused.
03:42-03:44
And your husband will explain it to you on the way home.
03:46-03:47
You get hit by a pitch, yeah.
03:49-03:52
Yeah, you might get hit by that pitch, Alex, you're right.
03:54-03:58
Some people, though, some people like to fight about everything.
03:59-04:00
Do you know anybody like that?
04:03-04:04
Do you know anybody like that?
04:04-04:05
They like to fight about everything.
04:07-04:12
You know, you pass them in the hall, you're like, "Hey, how are you doing?" Like, "What's that supposed to mean?
04:14-04:17
Are you implying that I shouldn't be doing great?
04:18-04:21
No, I just wondered. I knew you had a hard week last week.
04:21-04:25
What's that supposed to mean?" Whoa, whoa.
04:26-04:28
Let's switch to decaf, pal.
04:28-04:29
But some people want to fight about everything.
04:31-04:34
But then you have people on the other end of the spectrum and they won't fight about anything.
04:35-04:35
You know what I mean?
04:36-04:38
They won't fight about anything.
04:39-04:45
They're not passionate enough to care enough to fight about anything.
04:48-04:53
But as we approach Jude for the next four weeks, this is what we're going to be talking about.
04:53-04:58
There are some things that are absolutely worth fighting for.
04:59-05:01
And you know what we call those types of things?
05:02-05:04
It's the hill to die on, right?
05:05-05:44
Mixing metaphors here, but you know sometimes I'll take the pitch Don't get a swing at that, but there are some things I Will not compromise I will die on this hill So look at Jude you're there now right verse 1 Introduction he says Jude a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James stop there Jude was You're like, "What do you mean by half-brothers?" Well, Matthew 13, verse 55, tells us that Mary and Joseph had other kids after Jesus was born.
05:45-05:54
Okay, so these kids would have been born to Mary and Joseph, and Jesus, the oldest, would have been born to Mary, but conceived by the Holy Spirit.
05:54-05:55
Remember that story?
05:55-05:59
So they weren't full brothers, they were half -brothers.
06:01-06:04
James, as mentioned here, was another half-brother.
06:04-06:37
He was a leader in the early church. You can read about him in Acts chapter 15 Galatians 1 I believe also talks about him But Jesus half-brothers didn't believe in Jesus Until after he resurrected according to Acts 1 14 So this half-brother that wrote This particular little teeny tiny letter that we're going to be looking at over the next four weeks His name is Jude at least that's the name he went by because The Hebrew version of his name would be Judah.
06:39-06:45
And unfortunately, the Greek translation of his name would be Judas.
06:46-06:49
So, do I have to explain to you why he went by Jude?
06:51-06:57
Like, kind of a bummer having the same name as the guy that betrayed our Lord.
06:58-07:06
He's like, "No, you can just call me Jude." But I love this, he describes himself as a servant of Jesus.
07:07-07:08
You see some humility there.
07:08-07:10
He could have name dropped here, right?
07:10-07:12
Like, hey, do you know who my brother is?
07:13-07:14
My brother is God.
07:15-07:16
He didn't do that though.
07:16-07:18
He said, I'm a servant of Jesus.
07:19-07:25
And that speaks to his relationship with the exalted Christ, right?
07:25-07:46
Well, the first four verses, the verses we're looking at today, and you gotta get this down because quite honestly, if you don't understand, and for some reason you tune out or you don't track with me, over the next half hour or so, the rest of the month isn't going to make much sense to you.
07:46-07:51
Because these verses we're looking at today gives us the thesis of the letter.
07:51-08:00
He's like, this is why I'm writing to you, and he's going to tell us in verse three, we'll look at here in a second, is to contend for the faith.
08:01-08:05
He's making an appeal to the church to fight for the truth.
08:08-08:11
Listen, you are being called to war.
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You're like, "Well, I don't feel like fighting, thank you very much." Well, that's the problem.
08:18-08:22
It's too many people do not want to contend for the truth.
08:23-08:27
Too many people do not want to correct unbiblical teaching.
08:27-08:31
Too many people don't want to correct unbiblical beliefs.
08:31-08:36
Too many people don't understand what's at stake to allow someone to believe error.
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Because too many people don't want to risk the relationship.
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So too many people refuse to hold any line when it comes to the truth of God's Word.
08:50-08:57
But you have to know in this church, this is the hill that I will die on.
08:58-09:00
you have to get that conviction yourself.
09:01-09:14
A lot of you might not realize this, but when this stage was being constructed, the plywood underneath, many people from our church that were involved in the work wrote Scripture verses all over the stage.
09:14-09:15
Some of you remember that.
09:16-09:19
And I love that because you know what that means?
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That means when somebody is standing up here, whether it's me or Rich or whoever, We are literally standing on the Word of God in this position.
09:36-09:38
You have to die on this hill.
09:38-09:41
And this is why Jude wrote this letter.
09:42-09:44
He says this is an appeal, verse 3.
09:44-09:46
This is a call to arms.
09:47-09:48
This is rallying the troops.
09:49-09:51
This is firing up the troops for the battle ahead.
09:52-09:53
That's what we're looking at today.
09:55-09:59
I had to ask Rich for the correct army terminology here.
10:00-10:05
Like, what do you call it when you're about to send your troops into battle and you give them that pep talk?
10:05-10:07
Because they probably don't call it a pep talk.
10:07-10:17
So anyways, that's why it says, "The call to arms, your battle brief." Rich says battle brief is a good way to describe this type of speech, so we're going with that.
10:17-10:19
The call to arms, this is your battle brief.
10:19-10:28
So listen, I gotta tell you some things up front as we talk about contending for the faith because some of these things that I'm going to share with you are going to be hard to hear.
10:30-10:31
And Jude certainly knew that.
10:32-10:34
And that's why we have the introduction that we have.
10:35-10:37
All right, so please tune in.
10:38-10:39
This is your call to arms.
10:39-10:42
Number one, I gotta tell you this ahead of time, you will be secure.
10:42-10:51
Now we're gonna be dealing with people teaching wrong doctrine, we're gonna be dealing with people believing some false teaching, but look at the rest of verse one.
10:51-11:00
He says, "To those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ." He answers some questions ahead of time.
11:01-11:02
Again, we're going to be getting into some hard stuff.
11:03-11:17
And it might be easier or tempting for us in the midst of this to be like, "Oh my goodness, with all these false teachings and all this bad doctrine, is it possible that there are some true believers in the church that are going to get kind of drawn into this and lose their salvation?" and no.
11:18-11:20
That's why he starts by talking about security.
11:21-11:21
Alright?
11:22-11:29
If you're a true, born-again believer in Jesus Christ, if you are, then nothing can change that.
11:30-11:32
And that's why he uses the words that he uses.
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I'm going to go through this quickly.
11:33-11:41
First of all, he says "called." That means "chosen." That means if you're a born-again believer in Christ, it is because God chose you.
11:42-11:46
And you're like, "Oh, Pastor Jeff, can you explain that?" No! I can't!
11:48-11:49
You know why I can't explain that?
11:49-11:52
Because He is God and I am not!
11:53-11:53
I am not!
11:54-12:10
Somehow, God chooses and God calls through the gospel and we respond by faith and God made the choice and we are responsible to respond and this is a mystery on how it all works and it makes sense to God, but it doesn't make sense to me because I am so not God.
12:11-12:15
But you see, with the doctrine of election, There's one thing for sure.
12:16-12:18
We don't want to miss the forest for the trees here.
12:19-12:21
This teaches security, right?
12:23-12:24
Salvation is all God's doing.
12:25-12:26
And you should take great security in that.
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Because if it was up to me to get saved, I wouldn't.
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I couldn't.
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And if it was up to me to keep my salvation, I couldn't do that either.
12:40-12:41
So he says, "You're called.
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Rest assured that if you are a believer in Christ, it's because God chose you.
12:46-12:46
That's security.
12:47-12:52
Next he says, "Beloved, beloved, salvation is an act of love.
12:53-12:55
It's settled, it's decided, it cannot change.
12:55-12:57
I love this." And this could be a whole other sermon series.
12:58-13:01
But the truth is, salvation is motivated by God's love.
13:03-13:18
But he says, last phrase there, you see, "kept for Jesus Christ." Some translations say, "kept by Jesus Christ." And that's actually a better term, "kept by Jesus Christ," because this is actually a military term.
13:20-13:20
Kept.
13:21-13:27
It's a military term when a soldier was commissioned to guard something.
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He was to guard it literally with his life.
13:33-13:40
Meaning, if you lose what is entrusted to you, you will die.
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Literally.
13:43-13:43
That's what this word means.
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So when that soldier kept that thing, how close do you think he kept it? Right?
13:51-13:56
So, this is glorious.
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that if you belong to Jesus Christ, He's guarding you with His life.
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Jesus is literally guarding you.
14:06-14:13
Many years ago, when Owen was much smaller, he's bigger than me now, but Owen was much smaller, and we were living up in Prospect.
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We were going for a walk, it was me and it was Owen, and it was our boxer Gordy, rest his soul, across the rainbow bridge or whatever.
14:22-14:27
But we went for a walk, and I don't know why, Must be how I smell.
14:28-14:32
But every single time I go for a walk, I get attacked by dogs.
14:33-14:34
Does that happen to anybody else?
14:36-14:36
Nobody.
14:38-14:39
Just me.
14:39-14:40
Awesome.
14:41-14:45
I get attacked by dogs every time I go for-- to this day, I get attacked by dogs.
14:46-14:49
This particular day, Owen, like I said, he's real little.
14:49-14:55
And Gordy, who was-- he's a boxer, but I mean, just not a mean bone in his body.
14:55-15:00
So we're walking, and I see across the yard this enormous brown dog.
15:00-15:01
I don't even know what kind it was.
15:01-15:04
I think it was a grizzly bear retriever or something.
15:04-15:11
But it's like, [GROWLING] It's running at us, like growling and barking, and not like, oh, I'm friendly.
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I want pets.
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That wasn't the attitude that he was giving as he was coming.
15:16-15:24
So he's coming, and it was like, watching him run across the yard, time kind of slowed down, and my mind was racing.
15:24-15:25
What am I going to do?
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Because this dog is enormous.
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And this was my plan.
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I grabbed Owen under my arm, and I turned towards the dog.
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And this was my plan.
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That dog is going to eat me and be full before he gets to my son.
15:47-15:48
That was my plan.
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I didn't say it was a good plan.
15:50-15:51
I'm just saying that's the one that I went with.
15:53-15:58
Well, as the dog got closer, Gordy started jumping and dancing around, not growling, not barking.
15:59-16:00
He was just like juking and jiving.
16:00-16:05
He had some kind of Muhammad Ali thing going on, but without the punching, even though he's a boxer, so that's weird.
16:05-16:19
But he was all dancing around, and the dog, this big dog stopped in his tracks and just stared at Gordy like, "Dude, what are you?" Because Gordy's just all dancing and juking and jumping, and the dog just turned around and walked away.
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I've never seen anything like it.
16:23-16:31
But my point of that is, in that moment, I was guarding my son with my life.
16:31-16:36
I'm like, if you're going to get to him, you're gonna have to go through me.
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And that's the exact concept being used here for how Jesus keeps you.
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He says, no, no, no, no.
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You're gonna get one of my kids, pal.
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You're gonna have to go through me.
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That is awesome.
16:50-16:51
You're secure in your salvation.
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The only way, the only way you can be lost is if someone more powerful than Jesus comes along and takes you from his hand.
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That is awesome.
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So you will be secure, all right?
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Number two, you will be equipped.
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You will be equipped.
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Look at verse two.
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It says, "May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you." This is provision for the battle ahead.
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There are no guns or bombs or anything destructive because we are not called to fight like that.
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This is a spiritual war.
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And because this is a spiritual war that we are engaging in, it requires spiritual resources.
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And he tells you what the spiritual resources are right here - mercy, peace, and love.
17:44-18:02
Notice, because of the battle, God's not going to give you just enough And you have to understand, sometimes I think we can read through the Bible in kind of skim parts like this and not really understand the impact of why this is here.
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But mercy, peace, and love, the reason he starts with this is it sets the tone for the attitude that God's people need to carry in the context of the battle that he's about to present.
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Here's what I mean.
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when some people confront false teachers, or worse yet, when some people confront those who are affected by false teachers, who have been deceived by false teachers, some people go scorched earth on them.
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Do you know what I'm talking about?
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That you confronting the false teacher, this is the person that falls for some of the wrong teaching, it's just like, "How can you be so stupid?
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but you don't know what the Bible says?
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How can you be so dumb?
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And we're just gonna put them in their place, man.
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We're just gonna, we're gonna run them out with our Bible knowledge and we're gonna, yeah, I showed him, yeah, he came with his stupid little doctrine.
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I mean, I just like took my MacArthur study Bible and I slapped him across the head with it because you don't bring that in here.
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And we're so proud of ourselves for thumping people.
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And I think that's why Jude starts here.
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They're like, "Look, look, look, hey.
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Yeah, we're going to be dealing with some people that are messing with God's Word, but hey, hey, hey, mercy, peace, and love.
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These are the attitudes that we take into this, right?
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This has to be our approach, like Jesus, right?
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Like Jesus.
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Oh God, please, multiply and harvest Bible chapel, mercy, peace, and love.
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There's a battle and we're going to be equipped.
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God provides the resources.
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Number three, you must understand the urgency.
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This is your call to arms.
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You must understand the urgency because as soon as we introduce the subject, there's probably some people here, some people watching the stream that are like, "Throw away sermon, nothing important to see here." like you totally missed the urgency.
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Look at verse 3.
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This is how urgent it is.
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Look at this.
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"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." Do you see how urgent this is?
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This is so urgent.
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Here you have a man under inspiration of the Holy Spirit changed the course of his letter.
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He said, "I was going to talk to you about salvation, but something much more important came up that I need to address with you." Something more urgent.
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He said, "I was going to talk to you about our common salvation." Now when he says "common salvation," he doesn't mean common like it's plentiful and everywhere.
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He just means that no one has more of it than anybody else, right?
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I don't have more salvation than you.
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You don't have more salvation than me.
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He says, "We all have the same amount." But obviously Jude got news of a more urgent matter, the gospel truth is under attack.
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Changed the whole course of his letter.
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I want you to look at the wording here because it's very specific.
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First of all, it says, "Content for the faith." The faith.
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He's talking about specific contents.
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In other words, he's not saying, "Just encourage people to be spiritual, man." He says, "No, I'm talking about the specific content of the gospel message." You've got to fight for that.
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The truth of salvation in Jesus Christ.
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We can't mess with that.
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You know what the gospel teaches?
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The gospel teaches that God became a man.
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Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.
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and He dwelt among us, lived a sinless life, and He died on the cross, taking the penalty of our sins on Himself.
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He rose from the dead to give us the promise of eternal life.
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So what do we do with that?
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We respond by faith.
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We turn from our sin, say, "My way of living has been selfish, and self-destructive, and stupid, and I see what God has done for me in Christ.
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I'm turning from my sin, and I'm receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior." And the Bible says when you do, God's Holy Spirit comes and indwells you and empowers you to be the person that God has called you to be.
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That's the gospel message.
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And Jude says there's a problem because there's some people messing with that.
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He says it was once for all delivered to the saints.
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The Greek there literally means done for all time.
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In other words, there's no new faith.
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There's no new doctrine.
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There's no new revelation.
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There's no new spiritual insights that someday somebody's going to stand up here and say, "You know what, church? This has been good for a while, but God last week showed me some new stuff that I can't wait to share with you, and you don't need your Bibles for the next four weeks." That's not true.
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Once for all. That's so important. Once for all.
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This is the content. The gospel of Jesus Christ will not change.
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Jesus gave it to the apostles.
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who gave it to us.
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I just wonder sometimes, like in heaven, would we get a glimpse of that?
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Like to see the chain?
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Like Jesus preached the message to the apostles, He preached the message, and ultimately somebody shared the message with me, and I received it.
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But think of how the gospel message has been handed out over generations.
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The same message, transforming lives.
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The same message.
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Jesus preached it, Paul preached it, I'm standing up here preaching the same thing.
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It is not going to change.
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You're like, "Okay, Jeff, we get it. Why are you so adamant about this?" Because false teachers will come along and they're going to preach a way of salvation that sounds very close to the truth, but it's not the truth at all.
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We just did this series called Foundations and we just talked about this.
24:27-24:30
Satan showed up, you remember the lie?
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Did God say, did he really say that you're not allowed to eat up any of these trees?
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And when you read that you're like, well that kind of maybe sounds a little bit like, sort of kind of like what God said. No, that is not what God said.
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You see that's what false teachers do. They take the truth and you put a little twist here, you add this, you take this away, and here's the danger, people that don't know the truth eat it up like Skittles.
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Because if somebody shows up and they're like, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, false teaching Jesus.
25:04-25:10
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, false teaching Bible." It's like, well, they said Jesus in the Bible, so everything else they said must be true.
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That's what false teachers do.
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And you have to know how urgent this is.
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You realize, do you realize how much of your New Testament was written for the very purpose of correcting error?
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Did you know that?
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Do you know why the book of Galatians was written?
25:27-25:28
To fight legalism.
25:29-25:30
Do you know why the book of Hebrews was written?
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To fight people that were teaching you had to be a Jew in order to become a Christian.
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Right?
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Do you know why Colossians was written?
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To fight heresy.
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Do you know why 2 Thessalonians was written?
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You better, we just covered this.
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Do you know why 2 Thessalonians was written?
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Because there are people who were false teaching about the day of the Lord and they were all confused and all concerned.
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I could go on, but so much of your New Testament is written to correct error.
25:59-26:01
And this is the same until today.
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Because it's always Scripture plus some other authority.
26:13-26:20
For example, in the Roman Catholic Church, it is Scripture plus church tradition.
26:21-26:22
another authority.
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In the Christian science cult, it is Scripture plus science and health with key to the Scriptures.
26:32-26:42
In the Mormon cult, it is the Bible, Scripture, plus the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, three other books.
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And I could go on, but this is how it works.
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We take Scripture plus.
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We're adding other authority to the Word of God.
26:53-27:12
That's why Jude says, "Listen, church, we have to contend for the faith." The word "contend" literally means "agonize." It literally means "struggle." He's literally saying, "You have to fight for the truth because this is not going to be easy." And that's why very few contend for the faith because it is hard.
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And I think in our day more than ever, The highest virtue is tolerance, right?
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And we want to be tolerant.
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Oh, you believe spiritual things?
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Aw, me too.
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We're practically brothers.
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Now I gotta ask, doesn't truth matter?
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Does truth matter or not?
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Because I think in here we went and nodded our heads because we have a Bible on our laps, but when we're talking to that coworker tomorrow, all of a sudden truth might not matter as much to us.
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Listen, you are called to contend for the truth.
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Yes, with the right attitude, as we've discussed and as we will talk about.
27:56-27:58
But you have to contend for the truth.
27:59-28:12
You know, when your friend says to you, "Oh yeah, I go to this church that believes some really, "eh, they're nice people, but they believe "kind of some goofy things that you don't really see "in the Bible." Then you need to tell your friend, "Look, here's what I want you to do.
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"I want you to call up the pastor, "and I want you to have a meeting with him, I want you to sit down and say, "You need to repent, and you need to teach what the Bible says, and not all these other things.
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And if you're not willing to do that, then I'm looking for a new church." You have to contend for the faith.
28:29-28:38
"Well, we all believe in the same God. We all believe in the same Jesus." No, we do not. That's just not true. That is not objectively true.
28:39-28:52
Or you say, "Well, you know, okay, I go to this church, There might be a couple of unbiblical things that we believe and unbiblical things that we do, but to be honest with you, Pastor Jeff, most of their teaching is right.
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Most of it's right.
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Yeah, that may be true, but you know what else is true?
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Do you know rat poison is 99 .995 % cornmeal and wheat germ?
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Did you know that?
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In other words, 99.995% of rat poison is good food.
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Let me ask you a question.
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If you saw your kid, if you have kids, if you don't, you can pretend with me, right?
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If you saw your kid get up in the morning thinking she's pouring a bowl of cereal and she grabs the rat poison, and she's about to take a bite, what would you do?
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Would you say, "Well, you know what?
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It is 99.995% wheat germ and cornmeal." Is that what you'd do?
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Would you slap that spoon out of her hand?
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See there's urgency here.
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There's urgency because if God's Word is true, and I believe that it is, but if God's Word is true, there is one clear way to have your sins forgiven.
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One clear way for salvation.
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One clear way to get to heaven.
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And those who are messing with the message are messing with people's eternities.
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You've got to get that.
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This is serious.
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And that's why I look again at verse 3.
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See the very first word there?
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He says "beloved." Beloved.
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Do you know why he addresses them that way?
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Because people who expose error are often considered unloving.
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Over the years, I've talked a lot about the Roman Catholic Church, been asked a lot of questions about it.
30:44-30:48
I've had a lot of people come to this church from the Roman Catholic Church.
30:49-30:51
I've had to address some things.
30:52-30:55
Someone would say, "What are you going to say, Pastor Jeff?
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You say all Catholics are going to hell." I am not saying that at all.
30:58-31:00
I want you to hear what I'm saying, okay?
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Of course not.
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There are some Catholics who are saved in spite of the church's doctrine, but no one is saved because of it.
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Listen, I very much love my Catholic friends and family, and I have a lot of them.
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I am not attacking Catholic people, but I am addressing Catholic doctrine.
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Okay?
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By show of hands, how many people here have read the Catechism?
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How many people here?
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Some of you have?
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I have.
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At my old church I had a friend who had a copy of the Catechism.
31:36-31:39
It was a giant, green, hardbound book.
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I read the Catechism.
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And when you read the Catechism, I have to tell you the Catholic doctrine teaches a gospel that is contrary to the Bible in so many ways.
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The view of Mary, the purpose of the Eucharist, the way confession works, the method and purpose of baptism, doctrine of purgatory. I've had to confront these things and address what the Bible actually teaches regarding these matters and there's always a backlash to it. And right now people are squirming in their seats and sweating and oh I hope he shuts up and tells another dog story. It's a spiritual stronghold. Listen, Catholicism is a sacred cow that's off limits to expose.
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And as much as I love my Catholic family and friends, I have to tell you, the doctrine itself, what is written on the pages of their books, it's anti-gospel.
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And you see, the Bible calls us to urgency in addressing these matters, because if you really love somebody, you're going to warn them, right?
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You're going to slap the spoon of rat poison out of their hand.
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Contempting someone means, "Look, I care too much about you to let you believe in a message that's not going to save you." Like, well, okay, contend for the faith, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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How do we do that?
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We're going to be talking about that over the next four weeks, but I believe that it has to start right here.
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Right here.
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I believe it has to start with expository preaching.
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I'm not criticizing or condemning what any other church does.
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I can only speak to what this church does and what this church does is expository preaching why I can give you a whole lot Of reasons but in today's context, I'm going to give you one The reason we do expository preaching is knowing the truth equips you to recognize error. That's why we do this for other reasons too, but I Want you to be so familiar with what God's Word says that when you hear error Immediately you're like well, that's not right. That's not we just talked about that That can't be true because that's not what the Bible says.
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You've got to get your mind trained like that.
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What does the Bible say?
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What does it say?
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What does it say?
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I'll tell you what it says.
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The gospel truth and it appeals to us to contend for.
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The call to arms, this is your mission briefing.
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You will be secure.
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You will be equipped.
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Listen, you must understand the urgency.
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And then finally, you must understand the enemy.
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Must understand the enemy.
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And this subject is the whole next section next week.
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But Jude gives us a summary intro, right?
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Look at verse four.
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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.
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Certain people, false teachers, He says they crept in unnoticed.
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The Greek is literally they sneak in with bad intentions.
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They don't broadcast it, right?
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They just kind of slide in.
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They assimilate.
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They join the fellowship, but it's not for anything good.
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We've talked about this in past time, but the greatest danger to the church is not out there.
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The greatest danger to the church is right here, right?
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Like any army.
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What's the biggest danger to an army?
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Spies, traitors, defectors, the people that you think are on your side and they actually aren't on your side.
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Those are the dangerous people.
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Like, well, what possible motive would somebody have to go into a church and promote false teaching?
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I don't know.
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money, maybe power and influence.
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Maybe they're just deceived themselves.
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And even though we don't know what this particular false teaching was here in Jude, we do know two things about the false teachers.
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He says right here in the verse, he's like, "Here's what you need to know about them.
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First of all, where they're heading, and second of all, what they're like." Where are they're heading?
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Do you see that?
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He says they're designated for this condemnation.
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God already established what ultimately happens to these kind of people who mess with his message.
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But he focuses on what they're like, and he gives us three characteristics.
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We're gonna go through these quickly, because again, this is next week's message.
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But three characteristics.
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He's like, "Here's what these false teachers are like.
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"Here's what the people that are like, "the traitors in your midst, "here's what they're like, take note of them." He goes, "First of all, they're ungodly.
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"I don't care if they're teachers, "I don't care if they're in small group, "I don't care if they're standing behind a microphone.
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"They're ungodly.
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Look at their lifestyle. Look at the way they talk.
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Look at the things they're interested in.
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He says, "That's how you know." They live ungodly character.
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Secondly is their lifestyle.
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He says, "They pervert the grace of God into sensuality." Look at that.
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They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.
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What does that mean?
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That means they use grace as their excuse to live unrestrained lives.
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You see, there's one side is legalism, right?
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Legalism says if you want God to be happy, if you want to be righteous, these are the things that you have to do.
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You have to dress this way, and you can't eat this, and you can't drink that, and you have to do this, and you have to do that, and you're not allowed to do this.
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And when you do these things, God is happy. That's legalism.
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But there's the other side of the spectrum, and that's license.
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And that's like, "There's no rules! Jesus died so I'm free, and all my sins are forgiven so I can do whatever I want.
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I can say what I want, I can smoke what I want, I can drink what I want, I can..." Whatever, it doesn't matter, because I'm under grace, man.
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I'm not under Old Testament law, I'm under grace.
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So I can do whatever I want to do.
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And these are the people that he's talking about here.
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They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.
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That is not biblical.
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Titus 2, verses 11 and 12. Look at this.
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This is just one of a dozen examples that I could give you off the top of my head.
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But look at this.
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"For the grace of God has appeared." You're like, "Woohoo, grace! Bringing salvation for all people." Yes! Oh, look at the next line.
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"Training us to what?" renounce ungodliness.
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Does that sound like license to do whatever the heck you want to do?
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To renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.
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God's grace is meant to change you.
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To conform you into the character of His Son.
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Not like, "Oh, you're saved, you got your ticket to heaven, go have fun." That is not biblical.
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The last thing he tells you about them, he talks about their authority.
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He says they deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
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They do not live under the Lordship of Jesus, which is also part of that unrestrained type living, right?
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But Jude introduces himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, and like, not these people.
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Like, no.
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Jesus isn't my Master.
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Not my Lord.
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don't say that out loud. He says that's how they live.
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Jude doesn't describe their false teaching. Instead he focuses on their lives. And you're gonna see that next week. You're like, "Why?" Like if they're teaching wrong things, why doesn't Jude just say, "Hey, they're gonna come and say XYZ and I just want you to know that that's not true, so don't believe it." Why doesn't he just tell us what their false teaching is. Here's why. Because heresies come and go. Heresies change. And I think if Jude would have said this is the false teaching, we would have limited our application and understanding to that one thing and missed the bigger point of what he's trying to say.
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While heresies come and go and change, there's one common denominator. False teachers are always ungodly at the core.
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Why?
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Because only Jesus Christ can transform someone, right?
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Only Jesus Christ can make someone born again.
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So false teachers show their true colors by the way they live.
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And that's why Jesus in his very first sermon, He didn't say, "You'll recognize them by their doctrine." What did He say?
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He said, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Here's what He said, "You will recognize them by their fruits." Because what you really believe determines how you really live, for good or for bad.
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you believe, what you really believe, shows up in how you live.
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So this is Jude's introduction. This is the call to arms.
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We were given, we were given this truth, and it is so precious, and it is so powerful, It is so eternally important.
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We, church, are called to fight to keep it.
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All right, let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we live in a day that truth just isn't even a concept people are willing to reckon with.
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We argue about how many genders there are.
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And then we come to your word and all kinds of doubt being cast upon it.
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But God, you have called us as a church to contend for the truth, contend for the faith.
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And it's not easy.
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And we have to say some hard things, and we have to say some uncomfortable things, and we have to have some uncomfortable conversations.
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But God, I pray that you would give us a conviction that your truth matters.
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Your Word says that you have exalted Your Word even above Your name.
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So Father, I pray that we as Your church would embrace that attitude, that truth matters, and it's worth contending for.
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And Fathers, we're about to worship Your holy name.
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I just want to pray for Harvest Bible Chapel, that You would multiply mercy, peace, and love.
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that we don't become these...
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God, please don't let us become these jerks, these arrogant...
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We have a couple of Bible verses memorized and we think we're awesome, and we just want to whip people into place.
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When we have to confront error, Father, let it be done with humility.
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Father, please multiply mercy in our hearts, multiply peace in our hearts, and Father, multiply love in our hearts so that we can approach this subject in a way like Jesus Christ and in a way that glorifies Your name.
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So Father, now we're about to stand up and tell You what we think about You, so that we pray that our worship is a beautiful sound in Your ear.
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Through the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read Jude 1:1-4

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why do we have an “appeal to contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3)? What exactly does that mean?
What are specific ways we can contend for the faith? Why do you think this is difficult for some people?
What do you think motivates false teachers to “creep in unnoticed” into churches (Jude 1:4)?
Why doesn’t Jude just tell us what the wrong teaching is so we can avoid it? Why does he instead describe the characteristics of the false teachers themselves?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Victory Celebration

Introduction:

It Is Impossible to Lose Your Salvation: (Jude 1:24-25)

5 Descriptions of How Thoroughly God Dealt with Your Sin:

Stand Your Ground

Introduction:

How to Deal with Apostates at HBC: (Jude 1:17-23)

Know the Enemy

Introduction:

Know the Enemy: The Dossier on Apostates (Jude 1:5-16)

The Call to Arms

Introduction:

The Call to Arms: Your Battle Brief (Jude 1:1-4)

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

It Is Impossible to Lose Your Salvation: (Jude 1:24-25)

5 Descriptions of How Thoroughly God Dealt with Your Sin:

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

How to Deal with Apostates at HBC: (Jude 1:17-23)

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Know the Enemy: The Dossier on Apostates (Jude 1:5-16)

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

The Call to Arms: Your Battle Brief (Jude 1:1-4)

Audio Transcript