Jude - Last Days Message to Christians — Martin Geehan

Jude as a Prophetic Message for the Last Days

If you will turn with me over to the epistle of Jude, I would like to speak to you further from this tremendous epistle, a short epistle, 25 verses, that's a total, but set prophetically in God's Word just before the last book of the New Testament, before Revelation, and has tremendous things to say to our hearts.

As you know, I'm dealing with the last days, those days in which this generation is now living and seeing the fulfillment day by day of prophetic utterances, both in the Old and the New Testament. So these are very portentous days, they are fraught with dangers, fraught with peril to the unsaved, and as the time grows short, they're filled with expectancy for the saved.

So that the days themselves, as the Lord says, in the last days, the days would be evil, and we see that all around us. But if we're ready and waiting for Jesus and faithful to Him, then we will not stand ashamed at His judgment seat.

Jude is a prophetic book. It has a great kinship to 2 Peter, and together, if it were necessary, it would put a double verification upon much that is said in these epistles as to the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Holy Jealousy and Guarding the Fellowship

I pray you'll forgive my holy jealousy for you. Paul says, I am jealous for you with a holy jealousy. It's very important that I say what I have to say. I never intend to mince words, and I believe if the New Testament has said certain things, that it is meant to be said in the congregation.

There's a portion in Scripture which says, while the servants slept, the enemy, Satan, came in and sowed the tares amongst the wheat. And so there has to be a holy jealousy on my part to keep the fellowship here at that place that God would like us to keep it, at least by my preaching of the Word, by my faithfulness to the Bible, even though you may not often be able to understand some things if you first come and you first hear me speak.

The Transformative Power of Faithful Bible Study

I always remember that when Donald Gray Barnhouse was speaking, I'll never forget how he said to me, well, I wasn't pastor then. I got to know him after the first few times I'd gone to his classes, and someone introduced me to him, and he said to me, Martin, he said, will you promise me something?

And I said, yes. He said, promise me that you'll come for three months without stopping, because I'm going to say something that will be hard to be understood. But I can guarantee you that if you'll come faithfully for three solid months, at the end of that time, you'll never want to quit the class.

And so it was. That's why Donald Gray Barnhouse had a thousand people every Monday night, studying in New York City as long as he lived. For years and years, they would pile in to hear the teaching of the Word of God.

And so it is here. I mean, as we are together, that we realize that there is the need for constancy of attendance, that to miss a message, you may miss that which will be the very means of being a blessing to your own heart.

Jude Speaks Primarily to Believers

Now if you'll notice in this book of Jude, that 17th and 19th verses, again, I read that first because it lets us know of the prophetic side that this epistle has to bear to us. But beloved, naturally, he's speaking to the church.

The epistles always speak to the church, remember. They don't speak to unbelievers, essentially. Unbelievers may be saved through the use of the epistles, and they are. But actually, in truth, the epistles are for the church, for the believers.

For instance, you may be saved through hearing Romans' glorious epistle of salvation. But actually, the message in John is the message of the gospel for salvation, you see. And then the epistles become the means of growth so that you understand what happened to you in John, where Jesus said, To as many as receive me, to them I give the power to be the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

I don't have to go down through all the ones in the gospel of John. You know all the great salvation messages in the gospel of John, or in the book of Acts, the Acts of the Apostles. Here is salvation, you see.

You can go to any of the gospels and the Acts. When you get to the epistles, it's supposed to be the opening up for the children of God of all that your redemption means, so that the book of Romans is very hard to be understood except certain portions which might say, For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. These are there, but these are there really to let the Christian understand fully this redemption that we have in Jesus Christ.

Peter says, Paul, our brother, hath written many things that are hard to be understood, and many wrestle with unto their damnation. In other words, they've started in the wrong place many times. They haven't started with the gospel message, that which will redeem the soul, and then come through the Holy Spirit now indwelling to understand the word of God.

The Holy Spirit and Understanding the Word of God

You can't understand the word of God except by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. It's not possible. If anyone here is reading their Bible without the Holy Spirit, there's nothing. The Christian scientist reads his Bible every day.

In unity, they read the Bible every day. They sometimes put Christians to shame in the amount of time spent in reading the Bible, but they always have it in reference to science and health with key to the scriptures.

You read this portion and read science and health with key to the scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy so that you can understand it because Mary Baker Eddy is the Holy Spirit. That's what they tell you. You can't know unless you listen to Mary Baker Eddy, you see.

But we are to understand that when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, and only then can we fully understand the word of God. When we're saved, the Holy Spirit, what, baptizes us into one body, into the body of Jesus Christ.

That's salvation. That's not water baptism. That's the baptism of the Spirit into the body of Jesus Christ so that we're redeemed once the Holy Spirit comes in, we understand the word of God. Not possible otherwise.

God makes it so clear. He says no man knoweth the things of God except the Spirit of God. And so he gives us his Spirit so that we may know the things of God. It's not possible otherwise, you see. So here is this glorious indwelling that comes to us through this simple faith in Jesus Christ.

So Jude is for believers. Beloved, in the seventeenth verse, remember ye the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

These be they who separate themselves, sensual, notice, having not the Spirit, all right? There are going to be a lot of false teachers in the last time. That we know. May I say this? If there's an inclination upon your part right now to separate yourself from the church and from the fellowship of the church and from the fellowship of Christians or from the church as the center of your family life, from those who are deeply in love with Jesus Christ, and you're beginning to seek out Christians who very seldom talk about Jesus.

All their fellowship is in the social level. They have very little to say. Their conversations are frothy, frilly. No, nothing real. Everything's about the temporal things. Nothing in the spiritual level.

And you find yourself separating yourself, in a sense, from the spiritual, from that which is spiritual in the church. Then be careful. Watch yourself. Because this is the beginnings of declension. It's unconscious.

We don't realize what's happening. It's unconscious deterioration. And it always leads, it seems, precipitously into sin, finally. Because the conversations begin to get into areas they shouldn't get into.

And there are flippant little jokes here and there that have double tones and double meanings. And that Christians should not be engaged in that. No, listen, let me say this. No Christian should ever crack a sexy joke.

God deliver you. How could you do this? Wherein does the Spirit of God dwell in you? But the temple of God can entertain the living Christ. And still, God has no place for double tongues. He speaks of that.

There are double-tongued men, he said. Out of the same mouth, he said, they try to get blessing and also there's cursing. Because we actually curse God when we do these kind of things. We take the deepest dignities and the holinesses of life and we debase them and degrade them.

Our sexuality is the purest and most lovely, beautiful thing God ever gave to mankind. And we debase it and degrade it and make it dirty and filthy. Because we have not understood what God has given to man.

The glorious privileges he's given us. The joys. The communions. And this is what Paul speaks of so often in his word. That we have debased these things. Oh, we're to be so careful. He says they're sensual.

Be careful of them. He said, if they are sensual, forget it. They do not have the Holy Spirit. Now, that's why I say be careful. Watch yourself. God does not expect the soul that has the Holy Spirit to be sensual.

Now, may I say this? In a sense, we are all sensual creatures. Let me say this well. We are all sensual creatures in that we have sensual desires. But God is speaking here of that sensuality which is outside the divine command and outside of his divine desires for mankind.

And so there is to be a purity of life. And there is to be that divine holding back. Notice he says, separating themselves, sensual, ungodly lust, having not the Spirit. This doesn't mean you're not going to have a great conflict in your mind.

But Paul says if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill those lusts of the flesh. They will be present. Young people, I want to tell you this. We're not trying to cover this up. I'm not trying to tell you some pie-in-the-sky religion.

I'm telling you that if you're a Christian, born again, you've still got the same old flesh. And you'll have to war against it and win the battle. And what I say for the young, I say for the old. Or older.

Maybe I should be careful. We're to be careful here. He says there are going to be mockers who will walk after their own ungodly lusts. There will be those who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

Judgment on Privilege, Sin, and Rebellion

Now let me go back to the 8th verse again, all right? I want to go over that message last week, because that had a lot to say. I trust that you took it all in. God here speaks about those who defile the flesh.

May I say this? Last week I just brought out that no special privileges entitle people to feeling that they're going to escape the judgment of God. First he picks Israel. He said, they are my earthly people, but I want to remind you that I drew them out of the land of Egypt, and yet those that did not believe perished.

In other words, because you're a fellow traveler with Franklin Avenue Baptist Church does not save your soul, all right? I'm glad you're here, but that doesn't save your soul. It's faith in Jesus Christ.

He goes further. He takes the angelic creation. He says, here is my divine creation, special privilege, walked in the house of God, occupied the heavenly places, but those that followed Lucifer, the archangel, who became Satan, and followed him are chained in darkness, reserved under destruction.

Don't you think that special privilege means you're going to get into the kingdom of heaven? You came from a nice family, all right? Sons or daughters, you still need Christ on your own. Mother's faith can never save you, nor father's.

Oh, they may help you. They may lead you, but they'll never save you. Thirdly, Sodom and Gomorrah were as it says in Genesis, were as the garden of Eden. It says, when Lot looked out upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the plains thereof, he said, it is like unto the garden of the Lord, beautiful place, productive, blessed so wonderfully.

God says it doesn't make any difference. He says, do you think because, listen to me, because the United States is a great nation and productive and God has blessed this land and done all these things for this land, he says that that preserves you as a nation.

I would remind you that Sodom and Gomorrah and the plains thereof were the most lush place for production and for everything else, but because of sin, I judge them. And then it says in that last part of the seventh verse, they suffer in a light sense the vengeance of eternal fire.

Eternal Judgment and the Conscience

May I say this about eternal fire so that I get this straight too? There is a portion over in Mark, I'm not going to turn you to it, but there's a portion over in Mark where it says concerning that judgment, when God shall separate those who have not belief from himself, that they, he says, they will go unto a place where their worm dieth not and where there shall be eternal fire.

May I want to say this and make this clear? Where the worm dieth not is referring to the conscience, which it does in other places. The conscience will not die and the eternal fire indicates the divine judgment of God.

Nothing worse to be separated from God for all eternity. The Puritan fathers preached this with great power. The conscience and eternal judgment, the lake of fire, death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

And all those that were not found written in the Lamb's book of life, that which is Christ's salvation, the blood of Christ cleansing from sin, were cast into the lake of fire. Fire speaks of God's judgment.

And in those days when they spoke of eternal fire, it immediately spoke to the pagans who burned all the bodies of their dead in temple fires. And they felt that by the burning with temple fires, they would cleanse them from sin.

God says, don't fool yourself. My judgment is eternal. So the worm dieth not, the conscience. I can't think of anything more terrible. Can you? To be separated from God and then to have the conscience of the past plague you first, you look to the past and you remember the pleasures you had.

And then all the opportunities you had to come to Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and you brush them off and all the grief and all the world can't seem to do anything for you as you look back and you think of the days you sat in Franklin Avenue Baptist Church and you heard Pastor Gein preach the gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, that the blood of Christ cleansed you from all sin, that by the mere act of faith and believing you could be redeemed for eternity and he could give you a meaningful life of which you had none except a grave and a coffin.

Your conscience there, looking at the past life, reminds me, you know, of Dickens, you know, Christmas Carol, you know? That's the thought, you know, in the Christmas Carol. Judgment. You see? Judgment.

The past. You look at the past and you think of all the opportunities you had for salvation and you refuse them. You turn them aside. Why? Why? Because the temporal pleasures were too nice and you were enjoying it.

You were having a ball. But I want to tell you, hell is no ball and man decides here where he'll spend eternity. Then there's another area of conscience and that's the present condition. And here are people, now that he's speaking of eternal fire, they shall suffer the eternal fire, the vengeance of eternal fire.

And he says, then there is a present conscience where the worm dieth not. They look around them presently and here they are in this place and that conscience is there. The desires for sin are there still with no capacity to fulfill them.

And when you're on earth, if your conscience bothered you a little bit, you could get yourself involved in that sin that you love so much and you could enjoy it with temporal pleasures for it tells us in the scripture that sin is a pleasure and you can enjoy it.

But now it's past and you get the same plaguings of the conscience and there's nothing you can do, anything more terrible than that, nothing to take away or to assuage it. Sometimes when the conscience may have bothered you or you were frustrated, maybe you were in some wrong relationship with someone and you could call them up and you could get together and then somehow in the sin you could forget everything.

And God says, you'll have that conscience of what happened then and with no ability to fulfill it then and all you will have will be the blight and the sorrow and the tragedy that when you are on earth, you did nothing with Jesus Christ.

And then I can't think of anything worse than the conscience of the future. Oh God, deliver anybody here from that, to be in that place separated from God for eternity and then to look to the foreboding future and see nothing but turn it from God.

Don't talk to me about fire, maybe you'd be better off if fire would just burn you. Tell me the worm dieth not, the conscience dieth not for eternity and I can't think of anything more terrible than looking to the past and thinking of the failures in the present in my incapacity now in hell to fulfill anything that I desire as I have, having nothing but the sorrow and the worm dying not within me and then to look to the future and see a blank wall with nothing, nothing, nothing.

Moral Decline and National Judgment

Notice that eighth verse, likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil of dignity. They shall suffer the same judgments. This is the last days. They despise dominion, they despise, notice, dominion.

God what a world we're living in, the despising of the law, the despising of the dominion, the despising of our government. Do you know that the trend of the United States downward morally began when the Bible was removed from the schools and the present young people in college are the product of the Bible as public schools.

You can no longer read the scriptures. When I think, beloved, of all the things that have happened in our schools, would to God would have a little taste of our puritanical fathers today. Let me tell you something, you read that word puritanical, it doesn't mean they were pure every wit.

If you ever read any of the puritanical writers, you'll recognize one thing, they dealt with sin and they didn't mince words. When we think of this nation we love so much. It's hard for me to conceive of what's happening in this country I love so much.

I look at the ads and the papers on sadly the big stores, many of them slowly are beginning to open. God has put in his word that that nation will be accursed that doesn't honor the Sabbath. There'll be no blessings upon it.

One by one the stores are opening up for commerce on Sunday, business as usual, a nation where right here in St. Albans a girl can refuse to salute the flag of the United States and she's allowed to leave the room so she doesn't have to salute it.

A nation where if you don't wish to sing the Star Spangled Banner or a man can leave the classroom, you don't have to sing it. And I want to tell you something, where the magistrates of a nation begin to step away from God, the nation starts to step away from God.

A nation where we have no respect for the things of God, what a tragedy. How I love this nation that's given me the freedom to preach this gospel of the good news of salvation to you all. This nation that has given us what we have.

Christian Love, Racial Unity, and the Gospel

Beloved, I am against any kind of a freedom that allows the expression of violence no matter what it is. And I care not whether it's white violence or black violence or any kind of violence. I am just as much against the white racist and the Ku Klux Klan as I am against black power because both are a violation of God's Word.

And you never can legalize love. You cannot make laws to make people love other people because the unregenerate nature can never love as God wants love between the races and the colors and the peoples of the earth so that we might proclaim Christ in all power.

Oh, beloved, we would realize just as a church that God's message is so clear that Paul speaks continually of this great message of God's love. And he says, henceforth, I do not know any man according to the color of his flesh.

Yea, henceforth, he says, I know not Christ according to his flesh, but according to his. This is how we look at people. Oh, to God that this nation would see what's happening all around us. Listen, boy, I got a time is gone.

I want to say that, you know, I cut this year out. You'd probably like to see that. You can't read it back there. It says on here, use the flag as a doormat. The national flag in any Christian church belongs near the door as a doormat, said Reverend Albert Vanden Heuvel, director of communications for the World Council of Churches.

It's reprinted right from the Tulsa world where they had their convention. Can you believe it? Let me tell you, when God warns you there are perilous times, teachers are going to come in, all kind of terrible teachers of heresy and all kinds of doctrines that are contrary to the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

Drawing Close to Christ in the Last Days

Oh, beloved, come close to Jesus, will you please come close to Christ in these last days, really live and breathe. You know, we say we live and we breathe and we have our being in him. Well, let's begin to show it.

Each one, let's begin to show it. Oh, I have much more to say, much more. But time flies. So let us bow for prayer together. Father, we thank thee for our precious savior, for thy blessing upon this people.

Prayer for Faithfulness, Salvation, and Witness

Lord, I will never shy away from thy word. And I pray that this people will not, that they will listen, learn thou hast said, take my yoke upon you and come, learn of me. Father, we pray that we will study to make ourselves servants well approved of God, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Now, Father, we pray, if any have come in without Jesus Christ this morning, that they might think of the plague of the worm dying, not the conscience and that eternal separation from God. Lord, grant that no one would leave here without Jesus in their heart to save you.

How I pray that, simply so. Lord, when someone comes to Christ here, it's no credit to me. I don't expect any. All I ask is that they come. That's all. Maybe while your head's about, someone would like to say, Pastor, please pray for me.

I want to believe with all my heart. Here's my hand. Just pray for me. Every head bow. Every head bow. Just put your hand up. Say, Pastor, pray for me. I won't call you forward. I will not call you forward.

Anyone at all, just put your hand up. Pastor, pray for me. Yes. Yes. Anybody else? Just say, Pastor, pray for me. Just put it up and then take it down. Let me see it. Anywhere? Mother, dad, grandmother, grandfather, boy or girl.

Quickly. It's God speaking to you. Put it up till I see it and then take it down. Anywhere else? Just put it up high. Say, Pastor, pray for me. No one looking around. No one looking around. Just your hand up.

Pastor, pray for me. I'll not call you down to the front. Anybody? Just put it up. Pastor, pray for me. Lord, we thank thee for thy love for us this morning. We would pray, Father, for Annie and for this one who have not yet made a decision for Christ.

Lord, let them not go until they come to thee. We're thankful that thou hast made it so clear that no man comes to the Father but by thee. So, we pray that faith may reveal in everyone's heart this morning.

God, help us to live that life on that plane where we can bear a witness to our loved ones, to our neighbors and to the nation we love. That we believe that it is only as Christ comes into the heart that true love can be expressed.

And that love has to be ministered not to just one type heart, not to just white hearts or black hearts or red hearts, but to all hearts. That they might truly know Christ. Once we see the Christ in the other man, there's fellowship.

Lord, bless us. Keep us. And give us a good life to be lived for Jesus Christ. Safe from sin, living for thee, in Christ's name, amen.