God's Willingness to Judge

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn to the book of Jude.
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Small little letter of Jude.
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Tonight we are going to be focusing our attention on verses 5 to 7.
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However, because it is so short, we're going to read more than just that.
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We're not going to read the whole book, but we are going to read verses 1 to 7, because I want to remind us of some of the things that we learned last time.
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So let us do that.
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Let us begin at verse one.
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Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God, the father and kept for Jesus Christ.
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May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
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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.
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For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
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Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
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Now, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed those who did not believe.
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And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling.
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He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
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Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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Let us pray.
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Our Father and our God, as we examine tonight, three short verses, Lord, that have so much to tell us.
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I pray, Lord, first and foremost, that you would keep me from error.
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Lord, I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error and I don't want to.
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And I say that, Lord, so many times, but Lord, let it never be a trite word to escape my lips.
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But Lord, let it be the truth that my desire never be to preach what your word does not say.
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And I pray, O God, also that not only would I preach correctly, but that the ears of those who hear would be opened.
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And Lord, that the message of the word of God would reach not only the ear, but the heart and that it would dive deep within the heart, Lord, and Lord, change the heart.
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Lord, as it has been so rightly said, if we are not changed by the word of God, we have not truly understood it.
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So Lord, help us today to understand what your word has to say.
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And I pray all of this in Jesus name and for his sake.
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Amen.
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Well, the title of tonight's portion of the lesson is remembering God's judgment, remembering God's judgment.
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I am convinced that we live in a day where the judgment of God is not only seen by some as being an unlikelihood, but they see it as being an impossibility.
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I've told this story before, so I won't tell the whole story, but some of you may remember what happened to me years ago when I handed a gospel tract to a young woman and she gave it back to me because she told me that her goddess would not judge anyone.
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And I'll never forget that story.
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Jennifer was with me.
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You remember we were in Kmart buying shoes.
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Gives you a little idea of our economic situation, but we were in Kmart buying shoes.
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There's a long time ago when there was a Kmart and the lady worked there.
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I handed her the tract and I walked away.
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A few minutes later, she found me.
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She went on break so she could come and find me and hand me the tract back.
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My goddess will not judge.
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And I said, you're right, because your goddess does not exist.
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You're worshiping a God of your own imagination.
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And it's true that your goddess will not judge because she can't.
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But understand, this woman was not peculiar.
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This woman was quite regular in our world today.
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In fact, I have a term that I like to use and it was actually coined by the late Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul.
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You're all familiar with the term universalism, I'm sure.
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And we normally think of universalism as everyone is saved.
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That's universal salvation.
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But the way that Dr.
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Sproul described universalism was like this.
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He said, we believe in justification by faith.
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Universalists believe in justification by death.
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Because we believe that one believes and is saved.
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And the universalist says, no, one dies and they go to heaven.
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It's literally justification by death.
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And we've all been there.
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We've all been to funerals where you knew the person in the casket was not a believer.
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And yet, everyone has the desire to affirm them in some form or fashion because they want them to be saved.
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And I understand the natural emotional inclination.
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So don't get me wrong, I get the feeling.
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But the idea that everybody is going to go to heaven, everybody is going to experience eternal justification because all you have to do ultimately to be justified of your sins is die.
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And it's not justification by faith.
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It's not even justification by works.
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And by the way, that's the three.
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If you want to break it down, there's actually three of these isms.
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There's universalism, which is justification by death.
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There's legalism, which is justification by works.
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And there's sacerdotalism or sacralism, which is the idea of justification through the sacraments of the church, like you're justified because you were baptized or whatever.
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So there's actually different isms, but they all come to the wrong understanding of how you get saved.
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But the number one that we deal with today is not so much sacramentalism and not so much even justification by works, but it's just simply justification by death.
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Everyone's going to be saved.
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And it really doesn't matter what we've done in life.
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It doesn't matter what we have believed.
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I don't know if you guys remember this or not.
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I'm sure Brother Andy probably has heard this before, being in the ministry so long.
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You ever heard somebody say it doesn't matter what somebody believes as long as they're sincere? You've heard that? Well, understand, people don't even say that anymore.
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People don't even care about that.
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Because I remember when I was younger, we would talk about things like Buddhism and we would talk about things like Hinduism and all these other religions.
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And I remember very specifically someone who I respected and I loved, who I believed was a Christian, but they had a very sort of loosey-goosey view of who's saved and who's not and how you get saved.
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And I remember her saying, yes, well, a Hindu can be saved as long as they're a sincere Hindu.
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Or a Muslim can be saved as long as they're a sincere Muslim.
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Because at that point it was justification by sincerity.
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It was justification by faith.
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It just didn't matter what your faith was in, as long as your faith was in something.
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As long as you sincerely had faith in something, that's all that mattered.
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So it was justification by faith and faith doesn't have an object.
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But again, all that's gone now.
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We live in a time where people are very unwilling to believe that God will judge, but yet they are very willing to judge themselves.
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What do you think the whole cancel culture movement is? Cancel culture is the culture of judgment.
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If a person says something I don't like, it's not enough that I can turn the television off.
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If somebody says something I don't like, it's not enough that I can close the magazine or close the book and put it down.
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I want the book burned, I want the magazine company fined, and I want the television person fired.
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So we're willing to judge, but we're not willing to have a God who judges.
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We're willing to be judgmental to the point of ad nauseum.
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Think about the whole, and don't get mad, we're all adults, think about the whole mass thing.
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There are videos after videos after videos of people who judge other people for whether or not they choose to wear a mask.
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And you can find online just people who are shouting at other people in grocery stores.
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You're trying to kill me by not wearing that mask.
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And again, you're judging their intentions, you're judging their heart, you're judging their motivation, and we're all so willing to do that.
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Somebody cuts us off in traffic, that guy's a jerk, because we know his heart.
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We're willing to say, that guy, oh that guy.
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Right? Because we are so willing to judge, but we're not willing to believe in a God who judges.
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And honestly, here's the thing that really scares me, is most of what I'm talking about tonight is not in the world as much as it is in the church.
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There are pastors.
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I use that term loosely.
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There are men who hold the title pastor, who will say, I never discuss sin or judgment, because I don't like to dwell on the negative.
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But I want to talk about God's positive attributes, His love, His mercy, and His grace.
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And I say, well to do that, you certainly are not an expositor, because you can't go through very few verses of the Bible before you run into God's willingness to judge.
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His capacity to judge.
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And in fact, we are seeing His judgment all around us.
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The Bible says, the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
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By the way, that term, the wrath of God, is being revealed.
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Which means you can look around and see it.
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It's not something that's coming, it's something that's here.
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We see the wrath of God every day when unbelievers die.
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They're entering into God's wrath.
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Not the eternal, but they're entering into that state whereby they're waiting for that eternal state, which they're going to enter into the final judgment.
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What we're seeing them enter into death, which is, and I do believe it's conscious after death, don't think I'm saying they're asleep or anything, but they're conscious after death awaiting that place, which I think is the Luke 16 picture, where they're waiting for judgment.
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Luke 16, they're there, punished, but they're not yet in the full-orbed punishment.
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We'll get into eschatology later.
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But the point of this is, we are seeing the wrath of God all the time.
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In fact, Paul talks about in Romans 1, when we see God give people over to a debased mind, that's an exercise of God's abandonment of them, which is a form of His judgment.
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When God turns someone over to a debased mind, look around.
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Look around the world.
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Do we see debased minds? Do we see whole cities and whole communities given over to debased minds? And this is an example of God turning people over to that.
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And then we say, but God doesn't judge.
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That is judgment.
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It's being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.
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It's being done now.
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So with that all in mind, in Jude verse 5, there's obviously only one chapter, so Jude 1, 5.
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Jude says this.
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He says, now I want to remind you.
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And by the way, when he says, I want you to remind you, it brings into our mind the idea that this is something that they already know.
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In fact, he goes on to say that.
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He says, although you once fully knew it, I'm bringing something to your remembrance that you already know.
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And he gives three accounts of God's willingness to judge one after the other in quick succession.
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Now, I mentioned this two weeks ago.
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Jude is obviously a Baptist preacher because he loves to put things in threes.
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And so earlier he talked about us being called beloved and kept.
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He talked about God's mercy, peace and love.
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He talked about us contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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He likes to put things in those threefold successions.
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He talked about those who are designated for this condemnation, who pervert the grace of God and essentiality, who deny their only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
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And so now he gives us a threefold succession of judgments.
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And these are reminders.
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He's saying, you know, these things.
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And here's the thing.
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You may or may not know them because he is going to reference the Bible.
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And one thing I have come to understand is that people don't always know their Bible.
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But Jude expects them to.
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But he is also going to reference a very particular interpretation of a specific passage.
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And we're going to talk about that when we get to the second part, which involves potentially the use of what we would call extra biblical literature or apocryphal literature.
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And so he is going to reference three times where God has brought judgment.
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And he's going to use this as a reminder to us of God's willingness to judge.
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So let's look at the first one.
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The first one is.
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In verse five, and he says this, he says, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
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Now, I want to very briefly make a quick textual note in some of your Bibles.
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It will say that the Lord saved the people out of Egypt.
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The word Lord is the word Kodios.
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And some of your Bibles will say Jesus.
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And that is Jesus.
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So this is not one of those times when the translators are simply translating the same word differently.
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And this is a very important distinction, because sometimes when you're reading, say, the King James or the New King James, or you're reading the New American Standard Bible in the New International Version, sometimes when you read and there's a difference, it's simply a translational difference.
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But sometimes what we are seeing is we're seeing a distinction in the underlying manuscripts that are being used for both translations.
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Now, I have done extensive teaching.
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Many of you were not here for it because it's been a lot of years ago.
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But I have done extensive teaching on the distinction between what is known as the critical text apparatus and the Textus Receptus, which are two different Greek manuscripts based on two different textual families.
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We have the Textus Receptus, which is based on the Erasmian text, and we have the critical text, which is based on certainly a different set of manuscripts, what we would call the Byzantine family of manuscripts and the Alexandrian family of manuscripts.
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And so you have two different textual families.
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And the vast majority of these manuscripts don't differ at all.
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Whether you're talking about the Alexandrian or the Byzantine, the vast majority do not differ at all.
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And where they do differ, there is almost always an obvious answer as to which one is right.
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Whether it is the...
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Because sometimes it's simply spelling errors or word order changes or things, things that just don't matter, right? When you're talking about handwritten copies, we have over 5,000 handwritten copies, and when you're looking at handwritten copies, some of those things don't matter.
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But there are times where the specific text that's in view does matter because either it's not there, such as the Longer Ending of Mark or the Percipae Adulterae or the Kamiohonium.
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Those are the three probably the most intensive textual variants that exist, and all of those have much more time than I can get into tonight.
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But when we talk about this, we are talking about two different manuscript traditions.
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We're talking about Corias, which falls in the Alexandria...
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I'm sorry, the Byzantine tradition, and Iasis, which would be in the Alexandrian tradition.
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At least, that's an oversimplification, but that's it.
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But let me just read to you very quickly.
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This is from the New English Translations Textual Apparatus.
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This is a set of documents that go with that book, and this is what it says.
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The reading Iasis, the reading Jesus, is deemed too hard for several scholars since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation of Israel.
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However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses, but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, so they seemed to change to Corias or to Theos, and in light of the progress of Revelation, they...
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I'm sorry, I lost my place.
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In light of the progress of Revelation, it is wholly appropriate that the text now should read Iasis.
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It should read Jesus.
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Ultimately, I have a lot more in my notes for that.
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If you want to read afterwards, I'll be happy to show you.
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I do think, based upon the textual evidence, that it should say Jesus, and here's a very simple answer as to why.
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Jesus is the harder reading, and when you see textual variation in the manuscripts, the harder reading is normally the correct one, because you don't go from the simple to the hard.
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You go from the hard to the simple because people have a tendency to simplify things, not make them harder.
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So I do believe Jude wrote the word Jesus, and by the way, the whole idea of textual variation, the whole idea of trying to discern textual variation in manuscripts is not whether or not the King James is right or whether or not the New American Standard Bible is right or not whether the ESV is right.
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The question is, what did Jude write? That's the question, and that's all I care about.
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I don't have an allegiance to the ESV.
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I'm not ESV only.
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I'm not NIV only, and I'm not King James only.
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I want to know what Jude wrote.
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So I'm going to look at all of the evidence and all of the manuscripts that we have available to see, and based upon what I've looked at, I do think Jesus is the correct word here, and I want you to think, and you might say, well, that seems weird that Jude would say, Jesus saved the people out of Egypt, because wasn't it God who saved the people out of Egypt? Yes, it was God.
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But who is Jesus? Jesus is God, the son, and Jesus is the one who we believe, and I've said this many times in Genesis.
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Jesus is the one who was revealing himself.
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John tells us this.
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He is the one who exegetes the father.
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He's the one who reveals the father, and therefore to say that Jesus was the one who led them out of Egypt as the Shekinah Gloria and as the one who led them out as the one who was the angel of the Lord in the fiery bush, all of those things represent to me Christ, and so you say, well, why does this matter? Here's why it matters.
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People don't believe Jesus has the capacity to judge.
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Think about even as far back as the second century.
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There was a man named Marcion.
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You know what Marcion believed? The God of the Old Testament was evil.
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Jesus is good, so we need to get rid of the Old Testament, and we need to believe in Jesus.
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That's still around.
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People who think the God of the Old Testament was mean, and he was cranky and easily angered and very jealous, but Jesus, oh, he's nice, and he's the one that we go to because he's the one full of grace and truth.
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Jesus is just as willing to judge as the father.
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Get it? Jude is pointing out the fact that Jesus is the one who saved them, and he's the one who judged them.
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He was the one who brought them out of Egypt, and he was willing to bring judgment upon them.
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Let me ask you a question.
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What was the judgment that happened? No one, 20 years old or older, would experience what? The promised land.
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Real quick, I have the text up here.
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Real quick, turn in your Bibles to the book of Numbers, and go to Numbers 24.
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I'm sorry, Numbers 14.
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Verse 26, Numbers 14, 26.
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And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I've heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me.
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Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you.
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Your dead body shall fall in the wilderness.
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And of all your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore I would make you dwell, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun.
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But your little ones who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they will know the land that you have rejected.
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But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in the wilderness.
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And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.
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According to the number of days in which you spied out the land, 40 days, a year for each day, you shall know my displeasure.
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I, the Lord, have spoken.
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Surely this I will do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me in this wilderness.
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They shall come to a full end and there they shall die.
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Turn over to Deuteronomy.
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Chapter one and verse 34.
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Now, Deuteronomy is after those deaths.
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And the Lord heard the words and was anger, and he swore not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land.
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And I that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.
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He shall see it into him and to his children.
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I will give the land on which he was trodden because he was wholly followed, because he has wholly followed the Lord.
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Even with me, the Lord was angry on your account and said, you also shall not go in there.
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Joshua, the son of none who stands before me, he shall enter, encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.
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And as for your little ones who you said would become a prey and your children who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there.
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And to them, I will give it and they shall possess it.
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But as for you, turn and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.
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So we have here two passages, both promising the same thing.
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God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has brought these people out of Egypt.
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He has brought them out with his mighty hand.
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He has applied the blood of the lamb to the doorpost, protecting them from the death angel.
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He has sent 10 plagues to weaken Pharaoh and allow for them to leave.
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He has led them as fire by night and by as a cloud by day.
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He has, as the apostle Paul says, baptized them in the Red Sea.
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You know, Paul equates going through the Red Sea with baptism.
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And so they have experienced the application of blood on the doorposts.
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They have experienced the leading of God and they have experienced the form of baptism.
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And now they have gone into this wilderness where they have not been faithful.
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And so God has brought judgment upon them.
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And what was the judgment? You are going to die in the wilderness.
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And what is the death for? The death is for unbelief.
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Notice again, going back to Jude.
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What does it say? He destroyed those who did not believe.
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You say, now, wait a minute.
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They followed Moses.
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They obviously believed.
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I'll be honest with you.
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I find I do find this difficult because it seems as if there was at least a willingness to go after him.
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But true and genuine faith, Jude says.
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Was not present.
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And we can find many areas where that's true.
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Making the golden calf was a good example of where their faith really lied.
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We say, what's Jude? What's Jude's point? Here's the point.
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And I think it's very simple.
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There are people who do come in.
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And who look like us and who talk like us and who walk like us, but are not of us.
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And 1 John chapter 2 says this.
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They went out from us because they were not of us.
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For if they would have been with us, they would have stayed with us.
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Or if they would have been of us, they would have stayed with us.
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But they went out to demonstrate what? That they are not of us.
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And so this is the picture.
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You have people who are in the land of Egypt who go out of the land of Egypt.
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In a sense, they're saved.
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And I say saved.
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And I don't mean to put air quotes to make that like I'm being sarcastic.
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They're delivered out of Egypt.
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But they do not have the faith to enter the promised land.
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There are people in the church who are sitting among us.
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Who have the words of faith.
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But not the heart of faith.
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Is that not what James says? Does not James tell us that there are those who say that they believe.
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But it's just empty words.
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He says, you say you believe.
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Well, good for you.
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Even demons believe and shudder.
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So the first point that we have from Jude.
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Is really this empty profession of faith.
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The people who are going through this religious activity.
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And the willingness of God to bring judgment on them.
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And this honestly this should be a wake up call.
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And I know this is the Wednesday night crowd is the uber sanctified crowd.
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So I have to be careful.
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I don't want you guys to think.
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You guys are the super saved.
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The people who come on Sunday morning love the church.
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People who come on Wednesday night love Jesus.
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That's what we say.
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So this is the super sanctified group.
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But the reality is there are people who go to Wednesday night church.
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There are people who go to church every time the doors are open and are not saved.
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You say, why would somebody do that? Maybe because they believe in justification by works.
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Like we talked about earlier.
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Maybe because they believe that somehow some way.
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They are applying the works necessary to bring about their own salvation.
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Do you realize the most attended church in the world is the Jehovah Witnesses? They go multiple times per week.
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And in their times that they go.
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They are there for serious training.
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If you've never been to a Jehovah Witness.
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They don't go in there and sing Kumbaya.
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They go in there and for hours study the Watchtower Bible and tract books.
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So that they can go out and share those books with people.
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It's an absolute cult.
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But I tell you what.
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When your cult is based on the principle of justification by works.
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Well you get people in the door.
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Because they think it's a have to situation.
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You know they have people that come to the Jehovah Witnesses Kingdom Hall.
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Who aren't even in the community.
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Because they've been kicked out.
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But they come in and sit in a little room.
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Hoping they'll be welcomed back in.
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They have been literally removed.
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They have been excommunicated because of some gross sin.
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But they're so afraid.
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That they'll come.
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Imagine we had a room.
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Like a cry room.
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And we said okay tonight Stephen.
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I heard what you did.
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And you don't get to come in here with us good sanctified people.
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You got to go sit in the cry room until we tell you it's okay to come out.
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Now I might be exaggerating a little.
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But they have that.
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If you are excommunicated.
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You still got to come.
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See that's what justification by works.
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That's the kind of thing that a cult will do.
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It so entangles the heart.
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Jesus did save a people out of Egypt.
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But he was willing to judge them because of their unbelief.
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And I will say this.
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There are people in the church.
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Who sing praise Jesus.
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Who the Bible says on that day.
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They will say Lord, Lord.
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Did we not do this? Did we not do that? And he will say depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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He didn't say I knew you for a time.
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He says I never knew you.
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So that's the first picture of judgment.
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The second picture of judgment.
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I want to say is the most enigmatic.
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Because it says this.
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It says in the angels.
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Who did not stay within their own position of authority.
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But left their proper dwelling.
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He has kept in eternal change under gloomy darkness.
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Until the judgment of the great day.
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Okay.
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What is he talking about here? Well.
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Let's just examine the text.
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Right.
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Let's take Dr.
33:02
Hendricks' approach.
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You observe.
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And then you interpret.
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So let's observe what the text says.
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One.
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It says there were angels.
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Who did not stay in their own position of authority.
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Okay.
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So right away we are talking about angels.
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Who did not keep the position God had put them in.
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They somehow fell.
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Right.
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So we can say right there.
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Fallen angels.
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We can extrapolate that.
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They left their proper dwelling.
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Okay.
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And they are now kept.
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Under gloomy.
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Excuse me.
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Under eternal change of gloomy darkness.
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Until the judgment of the great day.
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So these particular angels.
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Are in a special form of judgment.
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So they were in a position of authority.
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They fell from that position of authority.
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And as a result of that.
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They are now in a particular form of judgment.
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Okay.
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So let's now begin the process of interpretation.
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The first way that people interpret this.
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Is that they will use this.
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And connect this to Genesis chapter 6.
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Where the Bible says the sons of God.
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Saw that the women.
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Or the daughters of men were beautiful.
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And they came and they married them.
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And they produced children from them.
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Now.
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The belief among many.
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Is that the sons of God refers to angels.
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And that term is used to refer to angels.
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In the Bible at certain parts.
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And that the sons of God.
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Angels came down and married.
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Human women.
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Had intercourse and produced.
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A hybrid race.
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Which some people refer to as the Nephilim.
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Now.
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That may be.
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What Jude is referring to here.
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And the reason why I say it may be.
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Is because even if that is not the proper interpretation of Genesis 6.
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And if you were here when I taught through Genesis 6.
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You'll remember I said I didn't agree with that.
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But that's one interpretation.
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I take a different interpretation.
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But that is one interpretation.
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That's fine.
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Depending on where you're at on that.
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That's certainly not a hill to die on.
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That's a difficult text.
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But.
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Jude is not only referencing the Bible.
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Jude is referencing apocryphal extra-biblical literature.
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He references the book of Enoch.
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Later.
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He does that.
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We're going to see that next week.
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In the book of Enoch.
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Those stories are in there.
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So it could be that he is referencing.
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The stories from popular Jewish belief.
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So.
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You have to ask yourself.
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Does that change how I interpret Genesis 6? Well it may.
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I'll leave that to you to judge.
35:58
But.
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If you think.
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That he's talking about Genesis 6.
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Then these would be the angels.
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Who came down.
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Intermarried with the women.
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And God has put them under a special form of judgment.
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Because of their.
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Hybrid.
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Producing of.
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The giants.
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Which were the Nephilim.
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Okay.
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That's one interpretation.
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The second interpretation.
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Which I think may be a little easier.
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Is that he's referring to the fact.
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That there were.
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Angels that fell when Satan fell.
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And that those angels are under condemnation.
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Even now.
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As demons.
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And I think that's a simpler way of seeing it.
36:38
But.
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Understanding where Jude.
36:41
Is getting some of his material.
36:43
I can see where the first one might.
36:45
Be the answer.
36:46
But the second one is also a viable option.
36:49
He may just be talking about the angels that fell when Satan fell.
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They are in the sense they are bound.
36:54
Because they are demons.
36:55
And they are under gloomy darkness.
36:56
In the sense.
36:57
They are in the judgment of God right now.
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And that's the second interpretation.
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The third is that we just don't know.
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We don't know who.
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Which angels he's talking about.
37:08
And that may be very unsatisfying to you.
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And I'm willing to leave you unsatisfied.
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Because it doesn't matter.
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I will tell you.
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I don't know for certain.
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The angels that he's referring to.
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But I will say this.
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I'm going to show you next week.
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Beginning at verse 8.
37:23
He's going to talk about the doxas.
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The doxas is the Greek word for the glorious ones.
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And everybody thinks he's talking about angels at that point.
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That's verse 8.
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And I'm not certain that he is.
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In fact, I'm going to show you next week.
37:36
How John Gill makes the argument.
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That he's actually talking about the apostles.
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So not every reference to angels.
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In this book.
37:44
Or every time we see it translated.
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Is what we think of as angels.
37:47
So just to point that out.
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Now this of course is talking about angels.
37:51
But my point is.
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Don't take everything at face value.
37:54
And say well this is what it means to me.
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Therefore this is what it has to mean.
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Understand this is a difficult passage.
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I would put verse 6 into the difficult category.
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Alright.
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Now verse 7.
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Verse 7 is the passage that we all know.
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Most of us were familiar with the exodus.
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Many of us were familiar with Genesis 6.
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And that situation.
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But verse 7.
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He talks about Sodom.
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And Gomorrah.
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And he says this.
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Just as Sodom and Gomorrah.
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And the surrounding cities.
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Which likewise indulged in sexual immorality.
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And pursued unnatural desire.
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Serve as an example.
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By undergoing a punishment.
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Of eternal fire.
38:42
Now.
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Those of you who have been here for Genesis.
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You know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
38:47
Even if you hadn't been.
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The word Sodom is pretty ubiquitous.
38:52
We all know it.
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Even people who don't go to church.
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You hear the terms Sodom and Gomorrah.
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You understand you are talking about an evil place.
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In fact the word Sodom.
39:06
Is.
39:08
Has become a verb.
39:12
Because we talk about people who practice.
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Sodomy.
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Sodomy being a form of.
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Sexual perversion.
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Right and we use that term.
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Why do we use that term for that? Because the men of Sodom.
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Wanted to.
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Rape the angels.
39:30
Who they thought were men.
39:31
Who had come into the city.
39:33
Now understand this.
39:35
And there is something big on the horizon.
39:37
Now I want to mention this.
39:39
When I say something big that sounds weird.
39:41
Let me clarify.
39:45
You may not know this.
39:46
You may.
39:49
But in the last 20 years.
39:50
There has been a huge push.
39:51
To try to remove everything from the Bible.
39:53
Or try to reinterpret everything in the Bible.
39:55
That deals with homosexuality.
39:57
There is actually a film coming out.
39:59
That is going to try to make the argument.
40:02
That all of us have misunderstood.
40:04
What the Bible says about homosexuality.
40:06
In fact I am watching it.
40:08
When it is going to come out.
40:09
Because I want to respond to it.
40:10
I want to be ready to give a response.
40:13
Because it is going to make the argument.
40:14
That the word homosexual.
40:16
Did not even show up in the Bible until 1946.
40:19
Therefore homosexuality was not a sin until 1946.
40:21
Because we are stupid.
40:22
Because nobody knew what it was until 1946.
40:24
Because we are stupid.
40:26
Sorry I did not mean to get ugly.
40:27
But that is the idea.
40:29
All of this.
40:32
All of this push that you see all around you.
40:34
To accept homosexuality.
40:37
Homosexuality is not just happening in the world.
40:40
It is happening in the pulpits.
40:46
You go on TikTok.
40:48
Or maybe you should not.
40:49
Let me just say this.
40:50
You type in things like gay Christian.
40:52
You will have people like Matthew Vines.
40:55
Who has written entire books on this subject.
40:57
Who will come and argue.
41:00
That we have gotten it wrong.
41:02
And that homosexuality is not a sin.
41:05
That it is not a perversion.
41:07
That we have misread Paul.
41:09
We have misread Moses.
41:11
We have misread Jesus.
41:15
And all we have done.
41:16
Is shown ourselves to be out of touch.
41:19
With what history really says.
41:21
About the all benevolent.
41:23
And all truistic.
41:25
Homosexual community.
41:31
But I want you to see what Jude says.
41:34
Because Jude says this.
41:36
He says Sodom and Gomorrah.
41:38
And the surrounding cities.
41:39
Indulged in sexual immorality.
41:45
Sexual immorality.
41:46
By the way.
41:48
There are those who would say.
41:50
The sin of Sodom wasn't sexual.
41:52
The sin of Sodom was that they were inhospitable.
41:56
Well yeah.
41:56
Offering to rape the guys was pretty inhospitable.
41:59
I get that.
42:00
You are not wrong.
42:02
But you are ridiculous.
42:03
By saying it was just inhospitability.
42:05
And we have it here.
42:09
In the book of Jude.
42:11
That Sodom and Gomorrah engaged in sexual immorality.
42:15
Not just any form of immorality.
42:18
But particularly sexual immorality.
42:20
And pursued unnatural desire.
42:25
Understand this.
42:26
This is so key.
42:30
There is a natural desire.
42:35
Which exists from man to woman.
42:37
And woman to man.
42:40
Now here is the thing.
42:42
50 years ago.
42:44
I didn't have to say that.
42:47
100 years ago.
42:48
Everybody would be looking at me cross eyed.
42:50
Because they would be like.
42:51
Why would you even say that? Of course there is a natural desire.
42:56
From man to woman.
42:58
And woman to man.
43:00
Now can that desire become perverted? Yes.
43:03
When men overindulge in lust.
43:05
Or when women overindulge in their lust.
43:07
Can that become perverted? Yes.
43:10
But even then it is still a desire.
43:14
Which is part of the way God created us.
43:16
God created men to desire women.
43:19
God created women to desire men.
43:23
And so if a man desires another man.
43:27
That is an unnatural desire.
43:31
I am not getting any amens.
43:32
I am assuming you are agreeing.
43:34
But understand this.
43:35
That very statement.
43:37
Right now.
43:41
Is illegal to say in Canada.
43:44
Because what is being done in Canada.
43:48
Is that if you try to preach homosexuality as a sin.
43:53
They consider that a form of conversion therapy.
43:56
That you are trying to convert the homosexual into a heterosexual.
44:01
And conversion therapy is illegal.
44:08
So the world has accepted.
44:10
This perversion.
44:15
But Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for this perversion.
44:21
You say how does this fit into the whole thing? Think of it like this.
44:25
He is giving three examples.
44:27
Three examples of what? God's willingness to judge.
44:32
He is willing to judge unbelief.
44:35
That is number one.
44:37
If you do not believe.
44:38
If you do not trust the Lord.
44:40
You are under the wrath of God.
44:41
And it abides upon you.
44:43
So flee from unbelief.
44:45
Flee from your unbelief.
44:46
And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
44:48
And you will be saved.
44:49
That is what the first thing is telling us.
44:52
The second.
44:54
Is that people in authority.
44:58
And that is what the angels were.
45:00
Remember they left their position of authority.
45:03
The people that are in authority.
45:05
Have to consider the fact.
45:08
That they can become under the judgment of God as well.
45:11
You have heard people say.
45:12
I am a pastor.
45:13
You cannot say touch not the Lord's anointed.
45:15
Be careful.
45:17
You know Benny Hinn likes to spit that nonsense out.
45:20
Touch not the Lord's anointed.
45:21
Let me tell you something.
45:23
Unless he repents.
45:24
The hand of God's judgment is going to crush him like an egg.
45:29
Because he is a false teacher.
45:32
And a dangerous man.
45:35
So we have unbelief.
45:38
We have those in authority.
45:40
Who are dangerous.
45:41
And then finally we have those who engage in immorality.
45:46
You understand there are people in the church who say I believe.
45:51
And yet their life is a life of consistent immorality.
45:56
They see no problem.
45:58
I can continue to live in sin.
46:00
So that grace will abound.
46:04
I have told that story before.
46:06
My best friend from high school.
46:09
After he left high school.
46:10
He was staying in an apartment with a man.
46:14
They had shared the apartment together.
46:16
And this was in the early ages of the internet.
46:19
Yes children there was a time when there was not an internet in the house.
46:21
So this was like the first time the internet was in the house.
46:25
And it was you know the early 2000's.
46:27
Where people were first starting to really have the internet pretty common in their home.
46:30
And this man would get on the internet.
46:32
And he would connect with women through the internet.
46:34
And he would go and have interludes with them.
46:39
But he was also a person who enjoyed watching TVN.
46:44
And so he would watch these television preachers.
46:48
And my best friend from high school tells this story.
46:51
He says the man would go and he would make these liaisons with these women.
46:56
And on his way out the door.
46:59
He would proclaim.
47:00
I am going to sin.
47:03
So that grace can abound.
47:08
God forbid.
47:09
And that's exactly what Paul says.
47:11
Shall we continue in sin.
47:13
So that grace should abound.
47:17
May God forbid.
47:20
So this is the reminder.
47:23
That God will judge.
47:26
I forget who it was.
47:27
But it may have been John Gill.
47:28
But I may be misquoting him.
47:31
But it was one of the writers of his era said this.
47:35
He said most men.
47:38
Even if they believe in hell.
47:41
Fancy themselves.
47:42
That they will escape it.
47:45
Even if they believe in hell.
47:47
They fancy themselves.
47:49
That they will escape it.
47:53
Jude is telling us there is no escape.
47:56
If you are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ tonight.
47:58
There is no escape.
48:00
God is willing to judge.
48:04
He has proved it.
48:05
Over and over.
48:08
So flee from the wrath to come.
48:13
And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
48:17
Let's pray.
48:18
Father I thank you for your word.
48:21
And I pray that you would use it Lord.
48:22
To sanctify us tonight.
48:24
In Jesus name.
48:26
Amen.