7 Snapshots of Judgment Part 2

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek preaches from his series,

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Short Letters, Big Stuff, a study in 2nd and 3rd John and also Jude. Let's listen in.

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Well, good morning, Recast Church. Welcome back to the YouTube channel here. Not exactly, again, the same scenario, not ideal, but I miss you very much, and I mean that sincerely.

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And by the way, what I really miss the most is the gathering together of God's people.

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And this is gonna sound weird. You take it however you want to. I actually miss it more than I thought I would.

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And so, I love you guys, I love being together, but I kinda thought, oh, it's novel, it's different. I kinda like change,

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I kinda like things to be different. And at the same time, this is wearing me down. I'm sure it's wearing you down, too. I just,

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I long for the gathering together of God's people. I personally need more than some recorded sermon from the

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Word each week. I need more than some recorded songs to sing along with every week.

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And I say this often, Recast, but we are made for community. We're designed in the very core of who we are.

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And I know we joke around about introverts and extroverts, especially during connection time here, and how the introverts are trying to avoid the extroverts, and the extroverts are just kinda pushing everybody and all that, but the fact of the matter is, even the most introverted among us still is designed for a relationship.

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Sure, they might be more selective and more choosy about the way that they engage others and that they need to recharge their batteries alone and all of that, but at the end of the day, all of us are designed to need community.

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We have been given flesh and blood, so that we have hands to serve one another.

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We have arms to hug those who are hurting and grieving. We have been given faces to express all of the nonverbal signs of emotion that include both grief and elation, but both of those components in our faces, that we wear those, and we've been given mouths, mouths that can eat donuts and drink coffee together, that can sit down and have meals together, and I miss seeing the kids lined up in the back over there, right over there, right there.

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I miss seeing the kids lined up for their sugar buzz every Sunday morning, seeing those kids in there, digging into those donuts.

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It might be weeks and weeks before we get to have donuts together again, but I look forward to that day. Let this time increase your anticipation, and we will once again praise him in the assembly.

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That's the promise recast, that's a true promise. We will once again praise him in the assembly, and you go, well, how can you promise that,

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Don? Well, one way or another, his church will indeed be gathered together to praise him for eternity as his redeemed people.

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I can promise that, because all who belong to him will indeed gather together in glory to sing his praises, and whether that's here in this building, or that's in the glorious temple in heaven, we will praise him.

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But as we who are the church can take deep solace in the reality of an eternity for us, a reality that has been purchased for us by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ to cover our sins, we take comfort in that.

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We take some kind of hope in knowing that we will be gathered together, that there's a new heaven and a new earth that's being prepared for us, and that we will sing his praises in our flesh again someday.

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But our text this morning is calling all of us, once again, to truly consider where we stand in relationship to Jesus Christ, and where those that we love stand in relationship to Jesus Christ.

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All of us, from those who have been in the church for decades to those who are brand new and fresh and trying this thing out for the first time, all of us need times of assessment.

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All of us need to be brought back to check up on ourselves and see where we really stand.

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And so the name Recast is an acronym for our core values of replication, community, authenticity, simplicity, and truth.

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And the core value of truth is the last one, but it wraps all of those others up in the conviction that God's word is valuable for teaching.

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It is valuable for training, for reproof, for correction, for setting us straight.

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We think things that are wrong, and God's word changes that. And so Jude is indeed a book that focuses on the corrective side of that more than anything.

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There's encouragement found in here, there's some challenge, there's definitely teaching, there's some training in there, but the bulk of this book, this short letter, is correction.

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And I wanna point out that Jude is not concerned for the people out there. He's not primarily concerned with correcting the world and their notions out there.

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You know, that there would be people out in the media that would teach falsehood, or people in politics that would state things that are not true, or that even other religions would lead people astray.

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That's not what he's tackling here. There's some truth to that, but that's not what he's talking about here in this book. He is concerned that false notions may have strong defenders here in the church.

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He was concerned for the church in his times, Jude was. But this has been preserved for us in Holy Scripture here in the book of Jude, to pass down through the ages to where we stand right now, very concerned for the truth in our times.

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It has been preserved that that concern that Jude had in his heart when he sat down with a pen and parchment and sat down to write it, that that would be translated through the ages to where we live.

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That we would also be a people of deep concern for truth, contending, as he said at the start of this letter, contending for the truth.

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And in our text this morning, we're gonna see the last four snapshots of sin and judgment that we started the week before Easter.

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And Jude will not pull any punches in this text. He will give all kinds of metaphors for these false teachers.

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And he will take us to four more historical settings to encourage all of us to open our eyes to the

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God who has proven himself to be holy and just in his dealings with humanity, and significantly stern in his dealings with sin.

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And whether that's stern, as we thought about last Good Friday, stern in terms of the punishment that was meted out on his son on our behalf, or stern towards each individual who bears their own sins on that final day.

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And so let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Jude chapter 11, Jude verses 11 through 16.

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There's only one chapter in Jude. And so even when we number it, sometimes you just see Jude 11 through 16. Those are not chapters, those are verses.

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And way at the end of the Bible is Jude. Hopefully, if you need to, you can pause this to go grab your Bible or whatever. But I do love it when people have their

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Bibles so you can follow along. Remembering that this message really went from Jude 5 through 16, seven snapshots of judgment.

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But we're only looking now at the last four together. We looked at the first three two weeks ago.

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You can go pick that up, really part one of a two -part sermon here, and we're wrapping it up.

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Jude 11 through 16. A recast God's precious and holy word. This is what he desires to communicate to us.

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Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain into Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

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These are hidden reefs at your love feasts as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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It was also about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, behold, the Lord comes with 10 ,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires.

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They are loudmouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage.

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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in the opportunity that I have, even in this empty room, to convey your word.

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I have trust and hope that this word is gonna go out into living rooms and family rooms all around this area and,

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Father, that your word will not return void and that's the promise that I hold to. I pray that you would speak through me with accuracy, that nothing that I say would not be true this morning and that you would speak through me with clarity, that you would allow distractions to fall away, whatever that might be.

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Even the media could be a distraction, but, Father, that you would allow the word to be clearly conveyed through all of us into the lives of people that would be transforming them and that,

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Father, you would allow your zeal for your word to flow through me, that I would be passionate only in as much as this is your word,

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Father, and that's the cause for passion and for zeal and for joy and delight. Even in a word that is about judgment,

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Father, I pray that you would speak clearly to your people and to those who are not yet your people through this word today, in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, well, I encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to Jude 11 through 16 and go ahead and get a cup of coffee or whatever you need.

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I love it that you, there's something that's good about you being able to pause this at any time and I encourage you to do so if there's distractions or things that kind of get in the way or kids kind of start to lose interest or whatever.

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You can come back to this later or whatever. I think that's a good thing and I encourage that, but the problem for this entire letter was revealed for us back in verses three and four and I want to give you, set a little bit of the stage because we had

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Easter in the middle and then we might have lost the flow of thought and it's a short letter.

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You could probably pause it and read it together in just a minute or two, but he's urging the church, here's the central command of the letter, he's urging the church to contend, fight, battle, like as in a sporting contest, contend for the faith.

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And here's the reason why, because ungodly people came into that early church that Jude is writing to preaching that you can live however you want to live.

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That's what they were saying. And at the end of the day, they were basing it upon grace. They were saying God's gracious. They were basically saying

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God doesn't care what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom. God doesn't care what you do anymore because it's all been covered by Jesus.

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But further, the strange thing is, these false teachers in that early church, one of the biggest false teachings that the

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New Testament addresses that shows us what kind of false teaching was going around during that time, sure, they were twisting grace and saying sure, you're covered by grace, you're covered by the blood of Jesus, so therefore you can do whatever you want, live however you choose.

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I mean, God's a God of grace, God's a God of love. He wouldn't command you to do things different.

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But they were saying things like Jesus was just a good moral teacher. And he certainly isn't our master or our

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Lord. In other words, what they were really getting at is that God doesn't have the right to call the shots. Jesus doesn't have the right to be master or ruler over you.

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He doesn't have the authority in your life. He's a good guy, certainly follow his teachings, certainly accept and embrace his sacrifice for you.

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But aside from that, no. And the fact of the matter is we just talked about Easter last week because we serve a risen

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Lord, we serve a risen King, the resurrection is vital to our understanding of being owned by Jesus.

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He has the right to call the shots. He is the living Lord over all who sits at the right hand of the throne on high, right now.

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And so two weeks ago, we took in three visions of sin and judgment that Jude wanted us to relate to this type of false teaching, to teaching that would say live however you want.

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Jesus doesn't really matter in your day -to -day life because at the end of the day, he doesn't have any right to call the shots.

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And those kinds of people were sneaking into the church. So Jude says, here's some visions that you need to have in mind when you think about how

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God feels about this kind of sin. People who would mislead the church, people who would guide into false teaching, people who would abuse grace.

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He took us to the Exodus where God judged his own people who grumbled against his authority.

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We saw that two weeks ago. He took us to angels who thought that they knew better than God and left their roles in heaven and rebelled against him and went their own way.

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And then he took us to Sodom and Gomorrah, a stereotypical place of symbolizing judgment but a real historical account.

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He took us to Sodom and Gomorrah to show us the outcome for those who denied that God had anything to say about their daily lives and particularly regarding their sexuality.

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So now we come to verse 11 and it starts out with a very direct pronouncement in verse 11.

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Woe to them, woe to them. Now I doubt that you've ever pronounced, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say,

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I doubt that anybody listening to this has ever literally pronounced woe on somebody else.

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Now we use woe like as in holding the reins and whoa there, Nelly, like slow the horse down, right?

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But that's not what this, this woe is different. That's W -H -O -A. I've seen it spelled a bunch of different ways.

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This is W -O -E. This is a pronouncement of doom on someone. This is prophetic in its nature.

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Woe to them, doom upon them. Woe is a stern pronouncement of judgment.

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It is an exclamation in the face of horror or dire judgment. This is a prophetic cry of doom that is coming for anyone who would remain in this state of leading the church or leading others away from the truth that Jesus Christ is

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Lord. Woe to any who would say Jesus Christ has no claim on his followers.

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Woe to anybody who would twist grace into a license to sin. Do whatever you want, you're free now.

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Woe to anybody who would think that way and proclaim that false teaching.

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But now we come to, now we come to verse 11 and it starts off with that. It's this prophetic cry and in this first verse we see three of our four remaining snapshots of judgment.

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Woe to them because of these three historical pictures they have followed the way of Cain.

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And now a note about each of these three snapshots. Each one is an extremely terse, extremely short glimpse that opens up wide for those who are students of the

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Old Testament. If you have very little understanding or very little knowledge of the Old Testament then these three metaphors are not gonna impact you the way that they're supposed to and so it needs a little bit of historical connection.

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So when I mention Cain, I think many of you that are listening have a fairly decent understanding about some of the story of Cain but you certainly have some things missing in it.

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Oh, what we know is that Cain was the first murderer. You probably already knew that. Cain was jealous of his brother

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Abel and then you might have some fuzzy notions about some sacrifices. One acceptable, one not and that kind of stuff and it starts to get cloudy and it starts to get strange but what is the way of Cain?

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Well, remind you that Cain was marked and sent judgment wise or part of the picture of the judgment here.

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Cain was marked and sent into a dark and cold and lonely world. That was his judgment. Cain forged a life for himself.

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Cain who, here's the point, let sin have its way with him.

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And when we stop here and we peer into the snapshot of the way of Cain and as we do so,

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I think it's good to go back into Genesis and remember that God came to Cain before the murder of his brother.

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Now, whatever manifestation that looked like God came to Cain and talked with him. Now, we know that jealousy had already set in because Abel, it says in the text, brought an acceptable sacrifice from his heart while the indication seems to be that Cain brought a half -hearted sacrifice or something like that and I've heard some kind of strange notions over the course of time.

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I gathered some in my childhood that the idea or the notion was that Cain brought vegetables.

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He was a farmer, so he brought vegetables as a sacrifice to God, but Abel, his brother, was a shepherd and he had sheep and so he brought a lamb and so the lamb being the acceptable sacrifice and the vegetables being unacceptable because they don't have blood in them and the blood is necessary to atone for sin and all of that stuff.

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All of that is a complete misunderstanding. At the end of the day, the text doesn't say God rejected it because he brought vegetables.

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As a matter of fact, in the Old Testament covenant, in the sacrifices of the temple, they would bring grain. In the sacrifices of the temple, they would bring wine and pour it out on the altar.

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So the sacrificial system included vegetables and meat. It was both and so that's not likely what the case is and the text of Genesis does not seem to be interested in telling us why one was acceptable and one wasn't.

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The fact of the way of Cain, what you really need to understand is that God came to Cain.

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Here's the way of Cain. God came to him and told him he will be acceptable if he does well, straight from the mouth of God.

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If you listen to what I'm about to tell you, Cain, you're gonna be fine and this is what he said. He said,

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Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is to master you but you must overcome it.

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Keep the door shut, Cain. I am warning you right now that I know what's going on in your heart.

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I know the jealousy that is riling up against your brother right now. Don't let sin in the door.

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But rather than follow God's face -to -face direct instructions, the way of Cain, he rose up in the field and struck his brother in jealous rage and killed him.

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He let sin win over his heart. He opened the door and sin was eager to pounce on him and owned him.

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That is the way of Cain. To have God definitively warn you to not let sin in and then to go your own way and open the door to sin instead.

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Cain's punishment was exile in a broken world without much community.

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There are some in the church who, though they might not murder their brother, they readily open the door to sin and even encourage it.

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There are some, according to Jude, who will sneak in and even assume a role in the body of Christ while walking in the way of Cain.

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These are people who will not seek to subdue sin and really see no value in subduing sin.

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And even when confronted directly by God regarding their sin, they choose their sin. And they will open the doors and let sin in at any time.

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And they allow it to ravage themselves and the church willingly.

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Even when confronted, they still would choose their sin. The way of Cain.

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Our fifth snapshot of judgment in Jude is Balaam's error. This is a more obscure story.

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Probably not as many people know much about Balaam, but if you know anything about Balaam, it's likely from a childhood Sunday school story about his talking donkey.

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But there are much more serious and mature lessons that you can get than the talking donkey. Perhaps they are less sensational than a talking donkey, but there's a lot that can come out of the life of Balaam that's more than just the fact that God can even speak through a donkey.

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A donkey. Balaam was a pagan prophet.

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He was a pagan prophet who was hired by the king of Moab to curse the Israelites as they were coming out of Egypt during the exodus.

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But every, these three different times, so he's called by the king of Moab.

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Moab, the king of Moab, he's not a big fan of the Israelites. Huge mass of people traveling towards the land of promise right by his land and he's concerned that they're gonna try to conquer him and so he hires this pagan.

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And three different times, Balaam tried to prophesy curses against Israel and when he opened up his mouth, instead of curses, out came blessings.

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He could not get his tongue to curse Israel. And these three times after God told

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Balaam explicitly to not curse the people, but he went to curse them anyway.

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Three times. God, three times he went and tried and failed.

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And it says in the book of Numbers that he did so out of greed.

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But later, we don't get the full picture in Numbers because later in the book of Revelation and actually a little bit later in Numbers as well, we see

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Balaam mentioned again, in Revelation 2 .14, he's mentioned in the setting of the church. Again, the context in which

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Jude is talking and so this demonstrates again further John, the writer of Revelation, it demonstrates his understanding a contemporary of Jude and it describes what he understood to be

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Balaam's error. And there, his sin is shown to be one of leading the people of Israel away into idolatry and sexual immorality.

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You see, in this sense, Balaam serves as a good example. Balaam's error is a good example for modern false teachers because he was motivated by both greed and willing to give the people whatever they wanted even if it led them astray.

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You see, there's a part of the story that didn't make it into the Sunday school stories about Balaam. Balaam, after trying to curse the people to no avail and the king was frustrated because he's paying this guy.

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Balak, the king of Moab, is paying Balaam, the prophet, to curse Israel and he can't do it and he's getting angry.

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And so, Balaam comes up with another plot and he encourages the king of Moab. He says, you really wanna get to him then?

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I can't seem to curse them. Everything that I say comes out blessing, that good things are gonna happen to them. I can't seem to say bad things are gonna happen to them, but here, do this.

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Entice Israel into idolatry through sexual immorality and through seduction of your women.

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And so, at a place called Peor, the Moabite women seduced the men of Israel and a pestilence broke out there among Israel.

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And as far as the end of the story for Balaam, it's recorded for us in Numbers 13 that he was slain by the sword in battle against Israel.

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Now, there are some in the church, what this is getting at is there are some in the church who would abandon what they know to be right for the sake of gain, says

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Jude. Like Balaam, they will teach even things that they know to be wrong and they will lead people astray as long as it means that their pockets are full, as long as their wallet and their bank accounts are padded, and as long as they've got jets to fly and good things, then they're all good, even if they know that what they're teaching is wrong.

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In Balaam's era, we are being challenged in regard to our motivation. Would we reject great material gain in order to remain true?

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Or would we sacrifice truth on the altar of great gain? It has been said by many down through the years that everybody has a price, and may this not be true of us, recast.

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May this not be true of you. That for a price, you would forsake the truth of God.

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That is Balaam's error. The sixth snapshot of sin and judgment is

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Korah's rebellion. Korah's rebellion. Korah led a rebellion against the leadership of Moses during the

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Exodus. Again, I think that we're getting down to lesser -known stories.

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Most people know the story of Cain and Abel. Maybe some people know about Balaam, and then much fewer would recognize the name

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Korah. But his fundamental question in that era, in that time of the

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Exodus, a contemporary of Moses, his fundamental question was why do we need to follow Moses?

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Who made him in charge? The account is found in number 16, and Korah was able to muster 250 leaders among Israel to his side, 250 people in opposition and rebellion against Moses' leadership under God, and saying, you know what?

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We should be able to lead, too. And I find it interesting that this was a direct, frontal assault on hierarchy and authority among God's people.

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We are a culture. How many of you gathered this yet, recast? We are a culture that hates authority. It's going on right now in our state and in our communities.

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We despise any authority. Now certainly, we don't want authoritarianism either, but it's all over.

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And so the criticism from Korah to Moses might actually gain some good traction in our anti -establishment world today.

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See, this is the logic, this was the thought of Korah. He had good reasons.

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He had logic. He said, aren't we all holy? Aren't we all holy? This is literally what he said according to Numbers.

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Isn't the Lord's spirit with all of us? Why do we need to go to Moses and listen to him when the spirit of God is alive in all of us?

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Why do we need you, said Korah to Moses? Why are you exalting yourself above the people, said

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Korah? But God has clearly placed

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Moses in authority through the book of Exodus and Numbers.

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And he proved by the end of the story, he proved that God had placed

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Moses in authority. Even as by the end of this chapter, by the end of chapter 16 of the book of Numbers, Moses prayed and said this, hereby, this is a quote,

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Numbers 16, 28 to 29. Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works and that it has not been of my own accord if these men die as all men die or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind.

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In other words, if they die a normal death, then the Lord has not sent me, says Moses. And then verses 31 through 33 of Numbers 16.

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And as soon as he had finished speaking, all these words, the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their households and all the people who belong to Korah and all of their goods.

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So they and all their belongings, all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol, that is the grave, and the earth closed over them and they perished from the midst of the assembly.

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I warned you a couple of weeks ago that keep your arms and hands in the ride at all times because the ground would be swallowing people up by the end of this text.

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I read this section, more from this section in Numbers to show from Scripture that God takes leadership among his people seriously.

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I think that's a notion and that's a real application of the book of Numbers chapter 16, but also to show that God is creative in his judgments, which

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I think is what Jude wants to tie us into here. Notice that the primary thing that Jude highlights in his text about this text is the perishing and therefore the manner of the perishing of Korah and his people, that the ground would open up and swallow them whole and they would go to the grave directly.

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But I think it is indeed a side note for the church and a reason that Jude uses Korah because indeed there is a rebellious nature to these false teachers, a rebellion against authority, a rebellion against Jude, a rebellion as we saw in second and third

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John, even against John, and diatrophies, who hated John, a false teacher who hated

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John. So there are some in the church who would seek leadership for the wrong reasons,

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I think we all know that, but they would turn leading God's people into a competition. Well, why do you get to lead?

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Why don't I get to lead? And then there's this power play that happens often in churches and God is willing to judge anyone who would lead a rebellion like Korah.

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Now, a quick caveat here, as a pastor, this seems like a strange message. Don't you dare disagree with church authority of which

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I happen to be one. It doesn't mean that there's never a time for a leader to be removed, it doesn't mean that you don't have the spirit of God, it doesn't mean that you don't check up on me, that you don't have the right to come and challenge some of the things that I say or the stuff, but be careful, and here's the thing, it ought to be rare and clear and done with the utmost humility when a leader is removed from their position.

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So now, we come again to a long pause in the ride.

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We've had a chance to ride, to ride by the way of Cain, and our ride has taken a journey through Balaam's error, and the ride has come through Korah's rebellion down into the crack of the earth that closed over them.

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And now we come to another pause in the ride, this comes to a slow down and the lights come up and the spotlight is on us and Judah's taking us through a tour of those

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Old Testament sins and judgments and now he brings us back to our contemporary issues. The lights come up and we in the ride have an opportunity to review ourselves, and in describing what we need to watch out for here, church, he identifies dangerous false teachers using picturesque metaphors in verses 12 and 13.

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He says, they are hidden reefs, reef like as in old coral deposits immediately beneath the surface, they are hidden reefs at our love feasts.

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A hidden reef is danger unseen, hidden and ready to gash a hole in the church and sink her in a moment's notice, all while they attend the potlucks, all while they, by implication, by the words used here, all while they participate with us in the

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Lord's supper and come to his table and eat together and mock fellowship with us.

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They schmooze the potlucks and they schmooze communion. They are not just hidden reefs, they are shepherds who eat the fodder.

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They are shepherds who eat the grass. They are shepherds who eat the silage and give none to the sheep.

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Now, obviously, this is a joke. You know, I mean, shepherds don't go around mowing down the grass with their teeth, but imagine a shepherd who feeds himself at the exclusion of the sheep.

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That's the image that's going on here. His job is to tend to the flock. His job is to lead them to water.

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His job is to lead them to good pastures, and instead, he takes it all for himself, tending to his own needs and not to theirs.

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They are waterless clouds, he says. In a desert land, clouds brought the hope and promise of rain, but these are clouds that don't make good on their promises.

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You see them coming up over, the farmer sees them coming up over the skyline and they rejoice and they're glad, but they never produce what they promised.

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And as much as hype, as much enthusiasm as they might muster, they produce nothing at the end that is of benefit or value.

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And further, the image is not just merely that they're waterless, but they're also driven along by winds. Well, what is

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Jude getting at there? I believe that what he's getting at is an unpredictability riding on the winds, driven by other things, driven by other motivations, driven by every new fad and new theological fad and whatever might sell and whatever might preach well.

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Like waterless clouds, they're also likened to fruitless trees in late autumn. And I love that he describes that because here, we live in an area here in West Michigan where there's lots of fruit.

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And so when you go down to Schultz's and it would be terrible to show up there to pick apples and find that they don't have any apples on the trees and you walk up and down the roads and you're like, all these are dead and there's no leaves on them and they're all fallen and it would be terrible.

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But much worse would be that you show up there and they don't have any donuts. Right, that would be the worst.

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Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about and some of you this next fall need to figure out what I'm talking about. They have the best donuts around, but you go to these orchards and you expect to see apples, to have an opportunity to pick them and eat them, to make pies with them and cobblers with them.

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The phrase twice dead is likely meant to give the image of double dead. This is not talking about physical and spiritual death,

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I think that's a bit of a stretch in the, it's really to stretch the language here. But they are not just mostly dead is the image, but they are dead dead, like super dead, like clearly dead.

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Miracle Max can't bring these guys back, they are not mostly dead, they are all dead. Miracle Max can't bring them back and neither could

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Miracle Girl. They are rootless, they have no foundation is the image here.

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They've been cut up by the roots, no connection to the meat, no connection to the substance, no connection to terra firma from which they can obtain sustenance and actually gain something in themselves that they can then in turn give to others.

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And in this sense, man, what a metaphor for us to be connected to God's word so that we have something to offer. My goodness, don't be an advisor to people that you work with.

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Don't be out there posting stuff online if you are not being fed by God's word first.

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Let his word be saturating you, coming up through the roots of your life to be an overflow to you.

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None of that's in my notes here, but I feel like we needed to hear that because right now everybody is talking.

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Everybody is scrambling for their voice to be heard because we're all lonely, we're all in our homes, we're all connected but not connected.

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And so we are in a stage right now of danger in terms of what we can and can't communicate. Recast, please be a people of grace.

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Please be a people who are being saturated by the word through the roots, brought up into your life to produce much fruit.

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These have no foundation. They're like wild waves, all crash and bluster.

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But the only thing that their thrashing produces is their own shame.

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Now, I hope you've had a chance on some of these really windy days. Maybe not recently, but sometime on a windy day you get a chance to go over to South Haven or over to Silver Beach and just watch the waves come in and crash against the pier.

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It can be really powerful, especially in the winter time. You see some of these just massive waves coming in and you see the white foam at the top and they grab your attention, right?

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If you see a really impressive wave crash into rocks, it grabs your attention. It's impressive when the waves are completely sweeping all the way over the pier, up on the lighthouse and sometimes over the metal structure there in South Haven and it can be super impressive and it grabs your attention.

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But the only thing that these waves actually grab attention for is drawing attention to their own shame.

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They're thrashing about, fighting to get attention, fighting, look at me, look at me, look at me. But as they thrash, the only thing that bubbles to the surface is their shame.

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They are, lastly, wandering stars. Interestingly, our word planet directly comes over from the

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Greek language, from this Greek word for wandering that's right here in our text. The ancients, by the way, when they looked up at the night sky, they noticed and they started to follow the pattern and they noticed that the stars primarily do the same thing night after night from the same vantage point.

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They're able to find the North Star, everything revolves around that because our Earth is spinning. They didn't necessarily understand all the mechanics of that.

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But one thing that they did notice is that a handful of those stars wander. They move around throughout.

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And those became certainly attention grabbing because they became a metaphor for fallen and waywardness.

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You see, these were stars that refused to snap into the pattern but instead went their own way.

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So you can understand how they would be a metaphor, wandering away from the pattern or the order of the way that things were designed as the imagery.

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And that is a metaphor for these teachers, wandering away from the way that God has designed things and they are doomed to the gloom of utter darkness.

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So everything so far has been a past snapshot of judgment, warning from history, the Old Testament, that these are all meant to show us, all of us, that God is indeed not soft on sin.

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I hope that you've been gathering that from these first six, two weeks ago, the first three, and then these three here today.

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But the last snapshot is not like the others. It is a past prophecy.

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The seventh one is a past prophecy that's credited to Enoch but looking forward to a final judgment.

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In verses 14 through 15, Jude is quoting a strange resource called the book of 1 Enoch. It is not in the

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Bible but here Jude chooses to bring it into the body of Scripture, showing that this section is useful by the

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Spirit and worthy of our attention as revealed by God. Not the whole book of 1 Enoch brought into the canon of the

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Scripture but this short section, yes. And he says this, the Lord, this quote, the

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Lord will come with myriads of his holy ones. The ESV translates that 10 ,000.

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10 ,000 is not necessarily a specific number but a way of saying zillions or bajillions. It's a lot and he will come in the end to execute judgment and here it is, to execute judgment and to convict the ungodly of all of their ungodly deeds that they committed in such an ungodly way and all the harsh words that the ungodly have thrown and hurled at God.

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He will convict them based on their harsh words and he will come with his host of angels and his saints in the end to bring about a final judgment.

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The use of the word ungodly here is intentional and over the top. It's used four times in these two verses and I wanna remind us that the whole argument of the book of Romans that we spent the last year going through showed us that the problem of humanity is that the wrath of God is being poured out on all ungodliness and unrighteousness and Paul in Romans makes a strong case that all of us are ungodly to a person.

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So here in Jude 15, he gives us a triple whammy. First, he categorizes people as ungodly.

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You are ungodly. We are not free, recast, to let people off the hook by acting like humans are good people who make mistakes.

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Just this week, I watched really within the last couple of weeks, I don't think it was this week, I think it was two weeks ago, but I watched a message from a person who literally said that people have good hearts, people are basically good.

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They just make mistakes from time to time. But people primarily have good hearts.

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No, ungodly is a description of the human condition.

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But because people are ungodly, because they are ungodly, because that's their nature, then they go on to do ungodly deeds, ungodly actions.

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Both our nature, how we're made, how we're put together, due to Adam's fall into sin and our actions in choosing to sin are ungodly.

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And then to add the icing on the cake, not only are we ungodly, not only do we choose to do ungodly things, but he says people even do ungodly things in ungodly ways.

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He speaks to character, you are ungodly. He speaks to action, you do ungodly deeds.

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And he speaks to methodology, you do it, you do ungodly things in an ungodly way.

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We are ungodly, we do ungodly things, and we do these things, these ungodly things in ungodly ways, and why would

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I be indicting us? Why would I be talking about us? Why wouldn't I be talking about them, those false teachers?

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Isn't Jude just speaking only of false teachers here? But whenever we encounter sin, we must remember that such were we before we were washed, before we were cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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So let us not forget what Colossians 2, 13 declares of us. And you, church, speaking to you, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us.

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With its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

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Dealing with it. All of us were ungodly by nature. All of us were ungodly in action.

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And all of us were ungodly in methodology. But for those who are in Christ, our debt has been paid by Jesus on the cross.

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And our debt has been canceled. Nailed to the cross and done away with.

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Praise God. But in the case of these false teachers, they are convicted by their nature, by their deeds, by the way they commit those deeds, and also by their own mouths.

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He concludes this final judgment by a final characterization of these false teachers that he was dealing with.

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They are grumblers and malcontents, like Korah. They follow their own sinful desires, like Cain.

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They are loudmouthed, doing whatever they can to gain advantage, like Balaam. You see the conclusion wraps up nicely there in verse 16.

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Jude wasn't pulling any punches in this indictment. Because God doesn't pull any punches when he judges sin.

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That's why the cross of Christ was so bloody. That's why the cross is the place of sacrifice and pain and suffering.

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That's why when we look to the cross, we have a hard time looking there. We have a hard time taking in the vision.

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I watched The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday, and it is hard to watch. I have never watched that movie without being moved emotionally.

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Certainly parts of it that I don't necessarily resonate with, and at the same time, man, powerful to think that he endured that for my sins.

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God didn't pull any punches on his son there, but let him have the full force of the wrath that the ungodliness deserves.

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And without a humble repentance, we will all likewise perish. Without a turn from our sin and a turn to God for salvation through Jesus Christ, we will be left to the way of Cain.

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We will fall into Balaam's error, and we will perish like Korah's rebellion. Who does this passage apply to?

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You might be confused right now. Does it apply to the world out there? Recast, let judgment first start with the house of God, says

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Paul. Judge today, recast, if you are in a relationship with Jesus Christ by faith.

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He will rescue any and all who run to him for forgiveness and mercy. Nobody, regardless of what you have done, is out of the reach of his love and forgiveness.

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But you must turn to him by faith. Admit you are an ungodly sinner who has committed acts of ungodliness in ungodly ways, and ask him to save you based on the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

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And then finally, trust in his victorious resurrection from the dead. God proved

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Jesus to be the mighty king and the mighty Lord through the vindication of the resurrection, and he reigns, he reigns over his forgiven people for eternity with love and with mercy and with hope and with kindness.

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So please consider what this message means for you, church. If you assess yourself and you come up short, if you're listening to this message and you say,

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I don't think I'm in. I don't think I have that kind of relationship with Jesus Christ. I don't think I've thrown myself over on him.

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I haven't recognized myself as ungodly. I thought I made some mistakes once in a while, but you're telling me, Don, I'm ungodly?

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Yes, I'm saying the scriptures are saying that you are ungodly. And the scriptures are going beyond that.

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They're not just saying that you do some bad things from time to time. You are ungodly. You do ungodly things in ungodly ways.

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And so if you assess yourself and you say, I don't think I'm in, then this is the day for you.

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Ask Jesus Christ to save you and then spread this message of hope to any and all who would listen.

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Say just simply, you could pray right now and just say, Jesus Christ, I ask you to come into my life and to forgive me of my ungodliness.

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I have acted in such terrible ways. I've broken my own rules. I've broken your rules.

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I'm an ungodly person who's done ungodly things in ungodly ways. Please forgive me and set me free by the blood of Jesus Christ.

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Let his sacrifice cover my sins, and he will. And he will bring you into his family I would love.

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If you decide that today is the day and you pray a prayer like that and you ask Jesus to save you, would you please just reach out and let me know?

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But if you assess yourself and you are confident that you are indeed forgiven, that you are washed and brought into the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Jesus Christ, God's only son, then share this message to the world that desperately needs this message, just this gospel, this good news.

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Share it, share it, share it. I know that's hard to do, but man, we're sharing all kinds of messages right now.

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We're sharing pictures of the snow outside. We're sharing what we ate for dinner last night. We're sharing a ton of stuff.

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Make sure that the gospel, from the roots, you're gaining sustenance and it's coming out of your life in fruit to others.

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God has rescued his people. While we were walking in the way of Cain, he rescued us.

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God showed mercy on those who were caught up in Balaam's error. God has protected from wrath, we who were once caught up in Korah's rebellion, destined for a fissure to open up in the earth and swallow us whole.

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And we have not been rescued because we got our act together but because his spirit graciously opened our eyes to our sin.

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And he granted us faith in the good news of his son. So Recast, please rejoice in that salvation.

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If you're in, then rejoice in that salvation that shields us from the much deserved wrath of our holy

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God. Let's pray. Father, I ask that you would, that you would press this message, not my message, not my words, but the words of your word.

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Press it down into people's lives. I know many people's testimony is that they came to faith in Christ through fear, and that's not unreasonable.

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May it be a fear that's based on your holiness, a fear that is based on our ungodliness, but then also a recognition that you are the only one who could provide a way out for us and you have through your son,

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Jesus Christ. So Father, I pray that fear and delight would mingle and that people would be saved as a result of this message and that those who are saved would spread this word.

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They would be moved in their hearts to rejoice at what a salvation has been granted us. We who did not deserve it have been given it by your son,

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Jesus Christ. I pray for my church. You'd help them to be strong in these days of isolation, strong in these days of difficulty economically, fear for our health, all of those things,

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Father, that you would help us to be strong and fed from the roots and that you would produce good things in our lives in Jesus' name, amen.