Seven Snapshots of Judgment - Part 1

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack 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, hello, Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here. And I'm so grateful that people are able to tune in with this

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YouTube channel. And again, I've said this every week for the last few weeks, but I'm so thankful for technology, the chance that we have to hear together from God's Word.

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I can hardly wait for this building to be full again right now. I'm actually, you guys know it, and just getting it out on the floor,

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I'm preaching to an empty room right now, except Spencer sitting behind the camera. But aside from that, we're just looking forward to the time when this place is full and we can have a celebration together.

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I'm actually thinking, maybe we can actually just really literally have a celebration. We can have a

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Sunday evening service or whatever, we actually get back into it and just make it a big celebration.

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But I miss you guys, and I know that you miss each other as well, but I want to encourage you,

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I've just been hearing really great things about the way that you're loving each other, continuing to reach out to one another, and just ask that you continue to do that.

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Some of you may be aware that a few other pastors throughout the United States have continued to have services during this time, and even in the news this past week.

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I know the news changes so quickly that this might be sold totally last week, but they're There were even a couple of pastors that were arrested by state local authorities for continuing to have services.

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And I want to be clear that I personally believe that it's tragic for the church to appear uncaring and unloving during this time of pandemic and tragedy around us.

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To love our neighbor as ourself during this time looks like doing our best to prevent the virus from spreading through us.

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We do not want to be the cause of other people's suffering. And so I think the church looks poor and we make

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Christ look poor when we demand our rights and stand on this kind of ground where we are running the risk of putting other people in our community at risk.

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And so please work hard to love others this week by reaching out through technology. God has given us this ability to remain moderately connected and virtually connected through technology.

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So continue to reach out and use some of the old forms. Grab the phone. And I personally don't love phone conversations, but man,

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I've talked on the phone a lot more in the last couple of weeks. And so use the phone, use technology.

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But also I encourage all of us to heed the stay home, stay safe policies of our leadership and just continue to hunker down and do that as long as we need to, to see this thing through.

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And now as we're going to turn our attention to the text this week, I recommend that you strap on your safety harness because this is going to be a really bumpy ride.

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Jude is going to be taking us on a lengthy tour of judgment. And I want to start off by saying at the outset that I planned on preaching from Jude verse 5 all the way through Jude 16.

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And this is one of the only times in the history of our church, in the history of my preaching, that I literally was sitting down writing this and decided to just cut it in half.

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So this is going to be a two -part series called Seven Snapshots of Judgment. We're going to take the first three and then we're going to take four next week.

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And we're going to be really looking at Jude 5 through 10 this morning. But I thought a lot about this week.

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I thought about standing up here and being beamed through the interwebs to your devices and standing up here and giving a message that amounts really to a hard core declaration of God's just judgments of people down through the ages.

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He is just. He is holy. He is righteous in his wrath towards sin.

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And I studied this text that really at the end of the day explains the rebellious nature of sinful people apart from God.

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And then his just judgment of them. So this message will strike you.

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I think that really two different kinds of people are going to have two different kinds of reactions to this. And I think it's going to be pretty radical reactions to this message.

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I think there's a group of people that this will strike as tone deaf in our current situation.

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God, how can you be talking about judgment at a time like this? How can you not be giving an encouraging, up -building message during this time?

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Imagine how tone deaf of you to not recognize what the world needs around us right now.

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The world just needs a positive message. God's got you. He's holding on to you. He's going to take care of this.

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Or, you're going to find this imminently necessary. You're going to see the value of looking at God as he is, as he's revealed himself in scripture.

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And imagine that there's going to be very few of you that are going to listen to this message and go, man, I think he could have tweaked the introduction just a little bit.

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Point two was a little off, and I think he could have corrected that a little bit. I think that this is a message for a radical response and a radical sense of feeling.

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And my hope here is not to preach to inform you. It's to preach to motivate you.

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That's really the goal of every time that I preach. I want the word of God to transform and to change lives, not just merely to give you some knowledge so that you can win at Bible trivia.

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It's so that you actually are moved in yourself. So that's my prayer this morning, is that you are moved by the message of God's word by seeing him as he's revealed himself in the pages of scripture and recognizing that that has an impact on where we live here in this current context.

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And so this text of Jude is highlighting for us why it is so important that the church gets the message right.

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We need to get the message right. And I believe that now more than ever, we are at risk of getting the message wrong.

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I think that at times of crisis, our hearts are divided, and it's very easy for us to give our hearts over to sloppy theology and sloppy thoughts of God.

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I believe that the majority of the message that's going out from churches right now, well -meaning churches, is that God's got this, and he does.

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That's not a false message. That's not completely wrong. But there's more to it than that. The message that I hear out in our culture and online is, trust him, trust him, and then he will protect you.

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Do something, and then he's got you. Come to Jesus, and no COVID -19 will touch your house.

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You see, what I think we lean over into and the risk that this text is going to address for us is the idea of a vending machine

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God or a genie in a bottle. You know, there's this vending machine of miracles called

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God, and if you just put the right coin in, obedience, faith, or God forbid that even someone preached that it's literal money you put in the vending machine.

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You sow your seed of $1 ,000 and pick your miracle. I'll choose A2, no

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COVID. And that's the kind of mindset that is out there today. I'm hearing it.

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I saw a video, and yes, I'll name a name. I saw a video online of Kenneth Copeland this week. Shouting down COVID -19.

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Shouting down Satan and rebuking him. And even demanding from God. Does he use the word demand?

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I'm not putting words in his mouth. I demand, I demand, I demand a cure, he says, to the almighty

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God. Putting in his coins and saying, you give me what

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I pay for. You give me what I'm saying you owe us, God. But our text, the text we're going to be looking at today, moves us back into the ground of the reality of judgment.

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And it even, I would say by the end of this message, it's going to demonstrate to us that there's a very thin line, and I would call that thin line between the judge and the redeemed.

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And it is a line of repentance. You see, when we come into contact with this text, it's a terrifying text.

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Because I read the sins of the people that are condemned in this text, and I see my own sins. I am just as worthy of anybody that we're going to talk about being judged today,

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I'm just as worthy of them as judgment. The only difference is a faith and a repentance that has been given to me by the almighty

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God. And so, our text is going to give us that reality of a

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God who is right and just to judge. Now let me be direct, church.

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I'm talking to you. I do not know if COVID -19 is a judgment by God. I can't say yes or no to that.

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I don't have that kind of information. But what I can tell you, what I can tell you from the pages of scripture, is that it is not unlike our

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God to send judgment. It is not unlike our

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God to use pestilence. It is not unlike our God to use earthquakes and wars and famines.

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It is not unlike him to do all that he can to shape us awake to his holiness, to his righteousness, to his majesty and back away from the things that comfort us to the things that force us to lean on him and to see him as highest, to see him as the one who is lifted up.

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It's not unlike our God to send judgment. And further, COVID -19 isn't a monster that's raging throughout the world that caught

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God off guard. He was taking a nap and all of a sudden he woke up and he's like, what's this crisis? Oh my goodness. I better scramble and try to get a cure.

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I better hurry up and get a vaccine. He's just a little bit behind, but he'll get there, right? No, he is sovereign.

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And he is free. And that's where the vending machine idea breaks down. Is that God is free.

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He's not a machine that you put input in and get the same input out. He is a person who has will and desire.

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He is the most free one. So in moment by moment is able and free to do as he sees fit to bring about the best ends possible.

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You see, when some people came to Jesus during a tragedy, there was a tower that fell on a bunch of people in Jerusalem and some people in the crowd came to him and the assumption on their part was that these people who had this tower fall on them and apparently it was a big news headline news in Jerusalem of the day and so this tower fell.

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And the implication and the assumption on the part of the people asking Jesus questions was that those people who had the tower fall were worse sinners than all.

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It'd be like somebody coming up to a religious leader today and saying, well, aren't those who are dying of COVID? They must be really bad sinners, right?

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And Jesus rather turned it on his head and told the crowds listening to him that they ought to consider themselves.

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When you see tragedy, when you see devastation, when your culture is turned on its head, don't look out to the other sinners, look to your own heart and call them to repent.

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What is repentance? Repentance is turning away from our sin, turning to God and turning away from our sin.

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Take an honest assessment regarding your own relationship to sin and then confess it to God and fight.

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And that's what we're looking at in our text this morning. Jude is telling us, church, take sin seriously.

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He is answering the charge that some of us might put to him after the introduction. Come on, Jude, it really can't be that bad.

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Really, it's not that bad in the church. Remember, he's addressing the church here. It's like somebody might ask

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Jude, why are you using this kind of language to contend for the faith? As if this is a battle or something.

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We get up in the morning, have our coffee, sit down, read the Bible and move on our day. It's really not that bad,

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Jude. You're overreacting. So what if a few people in the church are leading people with false teaching, leading them into sin, whatever.

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You know, life goes on. The world just keeps spinning. Recast here in character.

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Our God is a consuming fighter, full of mercy and full of grace to any who would repent of their sin and run to him for rescue but consigning anyone to the flames and outer darkness who remain in rebellion against him.

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That is our God as revealed in Scripture. You can invent one that makes you more comfortable than that if you'd like, but not uphold to all the pages of Scripture.

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I want to suggest to you that and I'm being honest about this, this is not a message I would have chosen for this season, but I think it's exactly the message recast that we need to hear this morning.

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So open your Bibles if you're not already there to Jude verses 5 and I'm going to go ahead and read the entire thing both weeks just so you see where things are flowing and you get the whole flow of the whole paragraph and a couple of paragraphs even though we're going to be only looking primarily at Jude 5 through 10 but again if you need to pause this to get a

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Bible so that you can follow along let's read Jude 5 through 16 together recast and this is

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God's holy word a word that is describing him a word that is explaining him to us a word that is meant to transform and change us

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Jude 5 through 16 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 and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality in pursuit of natural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire yet in like manner these people also relying on their dreams defile the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones but when the archangel

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Michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment but said the

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Lord rebuked you but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand and they are destroyed by all that they like unreasoning animals understand instinctively woe to them for they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of Cain to Balaam's heir and perished in Korah's rebellion these are hidden reefs at your love feast and 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 it was also about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying behold the

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Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him these are grumblers malcontents following their own simple desires they are loud mouth boasters showing their racism to gain advantage let's pray probably this is a heavy text and it indicts us certainly it indicts false teachers it indicts a specific subset of the church in Jude's time where he was identifying that these are the kind of people who were creeping around the church

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I don't doubt that it's the same way today so father

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I pray that you would open our eyes and open our ears to the reality of who you are that we would allow your word to dictate and to direct us in terms of your character confess that I have had lower thoughts of you than what is true of you

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I pray that you would open our eyes to your majesty to your glory to your just judgment that you would put us in our place today and as we think about what we're going through as a culture and what we're going through as a society and this

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COVID -19 I ask that you would help us to think rightly about you in the midst of this I confess to thinking a lot of thoughts about me a lot of thoughts about the church a lot of thoughts about people that I love but I pray that you would even now be turning our minds and our hearts to you and what you desire to change in us as a result of coming in contact with this very stern and very severe world

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I ask this in Jesus name alright well buckle up as we take a tour of some of the past judgments of God you might want to get some coffee or settle in here for a little bit but again

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I'm just going to remind you to put on your seatbelts it's going to be a bumpy ride our tour today is a two part tour this week then there's going to be

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Easter Spencer's going to be preaching next week and he's going to have an opportunity to bring the word so we basically have a judgment with resurrection sandwich so it's a serious text on judgment text about the resurrection and celebrating

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Easter together another text about judgment and I think that that's good because we need the full picture of what

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God is doing and is moving towards here in our world so we have seven snapshots we're going to get a close view of seven snapshots of really human rebellions that resulted in judgment and I encourage you to keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times there's going to be fire there's going to be brimstone there will be the earth opening up and swallowing people whole by the end of this text and so it's a tough ride yeah keep your arms in remember that last week how

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Jude started and I think it's really good for us to go back there for just a moment because remember that this is a very short letter it's very easy you can sit down and you can read it in one sitting but Jude started with encouragement he reminded the church that we are the called that we are beloved in the

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Father and we are those who are kept held securely by the hands of God kept for Jesus Christ he needs to remind the church of this because of what he's about to say about judgment for those who are not all in with Jesus because the flames will get hot and the images in this text look very lifelike if you put yourself in those shoes of the people that lived these accounts you see when

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I get close to these stories I begin to tremble I begin to quake because I realize how my sin deserves this treatment this is not a far removed judgment for me because the sins that he's spelling out are sins that my heart is just as prone to dive into so we need to be reminded that we are those who are called by God called out from this judgment placed into the love of the

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Father and kept by the Father for the Son kept in his love kept in the place of security kept in the place because as we read these texts our hearts are going to be quick to shed the gospel and fear but remember that also in Jude verse 3 he encourages us to contend for the faith to contend for the gospel and now he's going to really through this text it's an extended explanation of why we should contend for the faith and it is this simply stated judgment is real never is there a time that the church needs this message more than in a crisis right now we need to be brought back to the basics of our faith basics like humanity is a rebellious lot all of us we have all rejected

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God's authority but he has called us back to himself by the love of his Son Jesus Christ so that anybody by faith putting their trust in Jesus can have our punishment and our judgment placed over on the

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Son so that we yes get to go free because he has accepted our punishment on his own shoulders there in the cross but Jude wants to remind the church wants to remind us in this text exactly what was

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Jesus bearing for us what does sin cost and he also wants to remind us that when it comes to judgment

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Jesus ain't playing he's not playing around with us so in verse 5 we're buckled in we're moving down the track let's have our first stop and we'll get our first snapshot and Jude takes us to the exodus real people real lives real history

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God's people were slaves in Egypt and God saw their plight and through Moses and a bunch of plagues he led them out of Egypt with his strong arm of salvation he led them through the

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Red Sea on dry ground he proved himself to them time and time again giving them water from the rock and manna from the sky and quail and just constantly being their

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God giving them victory over Amalekites and constantly bringing them progressively towards that length that he was promising to them we even here find out in our text that amazingly and I can't get into a lot of detail but Jesus himself had a hand in that exodus according to the text but the people refused to believe that God would give them the land of promise they got right up to the border and sent some spies in when the spies came back ten of them gave a terrible report we were like grasshoppers they're giants they've got these fortified cities there is absolutely no way that a people like us can conquer a land like that was the report and so they said

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God you're not big enough God there is no way that you can conquer this land through us they said no we got to turn around and head back to Egypt and so God said you want to head back after we've done all this after I've proven myself to you time and time again so what did he do he let an entire generation die off in the wilderness he said you will not see the land of promise because you did not trust you didn't believe him and the point being here in the book of Jude and to bring it to the church

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God didn't protect even the very people he had let out during the Exodus from judgment they didn't trust him by faith they were not all in with God by the way

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I want to be clear about that it says right in the text they didn't believe him they enjoyed his benefits they enjoyed his manna and you notice that throughout the text of the

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Exodus you'll notice that when things were going good they were okay but the moment that the food ran out the moment that any little thing that inconvenienced them and they were right back at God's throat right back at grumbling right back at complaining right back at forging gold and cash to bow down to and rebel against to as soon as they thought

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God wasn't watching they were quick to rebel against him and he did not let them see the land of promise because of their lack of faith we'll move on down the tracks and our second stop is found in verse 6 it's a strange stop that would have been familiar to the ears of the

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Jews during Jude's time but certainly not to ours it's not something that we relate to very well they had some traditions that were built up around angels and here what

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Jude is doing is literally saying some of those traditions are actually true they were based in fact there were angels who rejected the high positions that they had been given by God and instead of accepting the role that God gave to them they left heaven to come down to earth he said

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God you don't know what you're doing putting us here we're going down there and even these angels as high as they were are not exempt from the judgment of God and I just want to point out the context of this is kind of strange some people go back to Genesis chapter 6 where the sons of God intermarry with the daughters of Eve and all this stuff

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Jude is not explicit about that and it very well may be that context but I don't think that it's helpful for us to get into all of that all of the nuances of that what the text here is really indicting them for is leaving their place of authority and leaving the position that God had given to them and going their own way and what is the fate of those angels?

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I don't know all the context and all the ins and outs of this but what is clear is that they are currently being kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness where they're in a holding cell of sorts until the great and final day of judgment when their judgment will be final the point being in the second stop

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God's judgment is real toward those who would rebel against his authority regardless of how high they're standing even the angels themselves are not above the judgment of the almighty

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God. Our third stop down the trail further an uncomfortable place a place of proverbial judgment a byword of the era down through the ages of Judaism and even down into our modern time when you mentioned

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Sodom and Gomorrah it's proverbial as a place of judgment in history and I want to just tell you real quick just a side note if you have young children and you don't want to answer some funny questions then you might just decide to skip this point and come back later now

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I've got all the kids attention because they're paying attention to me but technology is great so you can pause this you can come back and listen to this section later you can get your kids occupied with something else or whatever but I'm not gonna be overly graphic in what

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I say here or anything but my hunch is that you would end up with a couple of questions from younger elementary students and I leave that to the parents and so I don't want to be teaching your kids about anything so give me just a second you can pause it hopefully you found the remote control and then they are

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Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities the text is very clear indulged in, the word is indulged in sexual immorality and further it goes on to say they pursued unnatural desires according to the text in Genesis we know exactly what that means they demanded sexual relations with men now they didn't know they were angels you'll hear all kinds of attempts to explain away the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah they were just inhospitable well there's text that talk about their inhospitable inhospitable -ness inhospitality they weren't very kind to strangers so there was something going on there but there is all kinds of indication that the fundamental to this in other texts and even ancient

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Jewish texts that identify the sexual nature of this sin and the fact that they didn't know that these men visiting

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Lot were angels demonstrate that their sin could not have been merely pursuing sexual relations with an angel but really at the end of the day we know very clearly from Old Testament law that homosexual actions were a sin to behave even that way to act that out was a sin and so it's interesting that both the sexual acts here in Jude and the pursuit of those desires are mentioned here in the text both indulging in sexual immorality and unnatural desires and I want to point out that the delineation between indulging and pursuing in verse 7 highlights the reality hear me carefully church this is not a very popular message in our culture but that fueling lust for things that are forbidden by God is also a sin enticing ourselves toward sexual prohibitions by God is itself sin so that entertaining pornography or entertaining extramarital fantasies even in our minds or even fueling and pursuing homosexual desires even despite indulging in them are in themselves sin the lusts of our mind are sin but let me be careful to also give this caveat we cannot remove our desires

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God can we can pray for that but at the end of the day it's not so clear that the goal is to remove the desire but we can and must seek to subdue them and seek to squelch illicit desire and all of us know this to be true it's just that sexuality becomes so charged in our culture and so we all know for example that if you're driving down the road and somebody comes in real fast and cuts you off that your urge to pull up beside them and run them off the road is not a godly desire now that desire might come in or even just to drag past them and fly number one you might be tempted to do all kinds of things in that situation but you know fully that you ought to subdue that illicit desire we do it all the time

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I hope you do I hope you don't say every word that comes into your mind and every thought that crosses your mind you know that there are things that you ought not to entertain in your heart and further when a person cuts you off we ought to be moving towards a place where we go

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I bet they're in a hurry I've been in a hurry before I have probably cut people off in the same way that they just did because I knew

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I was in a hurry and I cut myself some slack so maybe I could be gracious to them so that even the desire the rage that can come into our hearts at times even that must be dealt with and continually warred against I believe that everybody listening to this right now knows the difference between having an illicit desire that pops into your mind and pursuing that illicit desire running around, meditating on it playing on it, thinking about it and even further we certainly know the difference between having an illicit desire pop up into our mind and indulging in sexual immorality vast differences between them these cities served as an example by undergoing punishment to fire eternal fire a terrifying thought can you feel the heat from those flames as the cars roll past this judgment the picture is one of condemnation and eternal punishment recast the judgment of God is real and sin is not to be trifled with it is not something to be played with so now as we come into verse 8 it's a good time to let you know that occasionally in this tour the lights come up, the car, the ride comes to a stop and we get a little hiatus, we get a chance to pause and check on our status like I said it's a type of hiatus from this grueling tour but these breaks are not easy because when the lights come up the focus goes off of the judgment and off of those sinners out there and the lights come up and the spotlight comes to us comes to us church, remember that Paul that Paul, Jude is writing this to the church, he's writing this to us he's saying that people like this are in us, they're among us he wants us to consider

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Jude, is it me? am I the one that you're warning? am

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I the one that you're drawing into this? and he wants us to think about this they're not easy breaks because they serve as a chance to bring this judgment home

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Jude says that those who have crept into the church are known as promoting immorality that those who have crept into the church rejecting

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Jesus and his authority and abusing grace as he mentioned earlier in verse 4 they are similar to these first three snapshots yet in the like manner these people he says in verse 8 he goes on in verse 8 to describe them as their dreamers what does it mean that they're dreamers?

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well they claim authority from their own visions rather than checking in with God's word and checking in with God's prophets and his apostles they are authorities in and of themselves they lead people into sexual sin through their abuse of grace saying things like, it doesn't matter what you do

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God's grace will cover you you sin today, just ask for forgiveness tomorrow, it's no big deal and what they do is they kid -bluff sin they make sin look like no big deal

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Jesus already died it's okay in some cases in our culture people who bear the title

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Christian even are in the process of making sin a virtue further he goes on to describe them as they reject authority they don't recognize and stay in their lanes, but they eventually get off into boosting their own authority way above where it belongs and this is shown through a strange phrase at the end of verse 8 you need to look at the text because this gets crazy between the end of verse 8 and verse 9 it's a crazy story they blaspheme, it says in the text they blaspheme glorious ones, and glorious ones there's really no way around it in context that glorious ones means angels, so they blaspheme angels, and how in the world does a person blaspheme an angel, like what in the world do people do that, is that a real thing?

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well I'm glad you asked, said Jude look at verse 9 for his answer he's going to answer it you can read verse 9 probably a few times and you're still probably not any closer to an answer, because it's a really confusing text, it's really bizarre so let me explain the picture that Jude is painting,

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Jude is painting let's back up for just a second and remember who he's talking about, in verse 8 he's painting a picture of a type of person and this is a type of person who is very very crazy self confident, they reject all other authorities they don't even like hierarchy except the notion that maybe they're on top, they're rebellious against God and they trust in their own words and here, what he's getting at is they even place themselves higher than angels so Jude tells a story that's not found in the

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Old Testament in verse 9 about the burial of the body of Moses now we have a valley is named in Deuteronomy where the body of Moses is buried but it says in that context nobody knows, nobody knows where how does nobody know, doesn't the guy who buried him know?

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well the fact of the matter is nobody buried him, God himself took care of that, and apparently he did so through meteors

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Michael the archangel was the one who was responsible according to this text to bury the body of Moses strange, bizarre, but I believe true, some people look back to the text that they assume that Jude is quoting here cast aspersions on that text but this is scripture, this is revealed

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I believe that it's true so we have Moses there, and according to tradition, now this is where it gets a little off, and it doesn't deal with the text but I just want to be clear about why in the world would

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Satan and the archangel Michael be fighting over the body of Moses, one possibility according to Jewish tradition, and this is well documented is that Satan was contending with Michael over the body of Moses primarily because Moses was a murderer and as a murderer he did not deserve an honorable burial, and so in that context,

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Satan is saying no, he's mine and Michael is just following the big guys orders

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God has told me, I'm going to do this but the main point that Jude is driving for, all that craziness aside, and we can get our minds kind of confused

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I hope you have enough information to at least squelch some of the curiosity in your mind that would remove the main point, because here is the main point, in this dispute

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Michael the archangel would not revile or rebuke or blaspheme

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Satan to his face, but instead said the Lord, the

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Lord would rebuke you, but he wouldn't do it himself, he would say on my authority as Michael the archangel,

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I rebuke you Satan, in other words here's what we have a picture of and this is how it comes into contact with real people's lives we have a very high and powerful angel, here in the text who stayed in his lane and refused to take upon himself to rebuke to blaspheme, to revile another angel, even who was fallen, who could rightly be rebuked, but he refused to because that angel was much more powerful than himself so in practicality it seems like a stretch, okay, what's that got to do with me, interesting story girl, let's move on, right, but let me tell you that just this week

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I watched a video of a man, again Kenneth Copeland, same video I watched him revile and rebuke

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Satan himself as if he has the power to do so a televangelist

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I was watching on a YouTube clip spoke to Satan directly, rebuking him recording an address to the evil one and commanding him or what we have in our text is

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Michael the archangel unwilling to do so by the way this is not just an isolated thing

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I've experienced this a couple of times in my ministry one particular time was back years ago, probably going on 20 years ago 17 years ago

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I was on campus ministering to international students we had a, on campus

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I say, Western Michigan University campus we had a leadership meeting where we were all gathered together with various ministries to pray and pray specifically for the various ministries that were on campus and suddenly one of the men in the group began to pray and it made me uncomfortable from the very beginning, he began to pray against the spirit of sexual immorality on campus, and I was like there is not just one bro if there is a spirit of sexual immorality he either divides himself or he's got a bunch of friends, because it's going on all over the place, right?

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sexual immorality on campus, he's praying against and eventually, during the course of his prayer, he begins to address

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Satan, and this is what the prayer goes like, he prays Satan you have no power here

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Satan you have no right to rule in this place, we reject and rebuke your work on this campus, and he went on for several minutes and on and on he went, and I increasingly got chills because I was increasingly pressed with the reality that we had turned a corner in this prayer meeting this man was no longer praying to God who was he addressing?

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who was he talking to? who was he rebuking? someone who will address

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Satan directly is not a person who understands their role, is not a person who understands their place is a person who doesn't understand their function in this world what they are made to do, and what they're capable of it is a person who is adopting for themselves a position that God has not given them, and that goes for that goes for contemporary

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Christian music, there's a couple of songs that over the course of the years I had to turn off because they're literally directly addressing

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Satan, and I said no, I'm not going to listen to that on the basis of this text, and another one over in 2

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Peter, but even the Archangel Michael respected, hear me carefully, this is a weird word, but the

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Archangel Michael respected Satan enough to leave the rebuke up to God, because he knew who

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Satan is he knew where he stood he knew where Satan stood, and he knew who was the one that could rebuke, but these people are only guided according to verse 10, they're only guided by their inner instinct, they blaspheme and revile things that they don't even understand, the images that they don't necessarily even want to understand here in verse 10 they are, look at verse 10 with me for just a second, go ahead and look down at it, but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they like unreasoning animals understand instinctively now this isn't saying that they're wild animals just like foaming at the mouth and running around and biting people and clawing at them and stuff like that that's not the image that we have here the image is that they're driven by instinct much like a wild animal, what is the instinct of a wild animal?

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well a bear smells honey, he goes for it right? I mean squirrels gather nuts that's what they do, spiders build webs birds build nests there's an instinct that we see in the animal world that is just a gut level common sense kind of drive that these animals have they just do the things that their species does, that's the way that they interact that's the way that they work and what

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I want to point out, and this is where I want to camp towards the end of this message is that there are really three things that I think are derived from this type of instinctive understanding what does instinctive understanding look like in terms of false teachers and poor theology and people that are worthy of judgment and here's what

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I think of some of the instinctual things going on in our culture the first is armchair theology armchair theology

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I would just define as, I just pull up my armchair sit on my throne and dispense words of wisdom I'm just going to get up and tell you the common sensical kinds of things that I've experienced in the way that I view

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God and you've got your armchair theology and I've got mine, but man, is mine great and I would love to share it with you and I fear that way too much of preaching that isn't connected to God's word is simply defined by armchair theology sit down, shoot from the hip

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I think this, I think that I think Oprah over the years has been a great example of armchair theology just her telling you what she thinks and primarily based on her experiences and so much of us we can fall into this, be just as guilty as this, somebody asks us advice in our workplace, or a family member asks our advice, and we just shoot from the hip rather than saying, hold on,

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I'll get back with you let me dig into God's word, see what he says about that, we're just going to go with our common sense, natural instinct kind of answers the second area is pop psychology right?

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pop psychology is just the feel good -ism, and the it's all about you -ism centered on the way that we think about things, again, deriving itself from inner instinct and common sense kind of stuff take care of yourself first kind of mindset and that ties into the third thing, and that's what

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I would call a therapeutic pragmatism again, therapy being that drive towards fixing things we're fixers, we want a solution something to a bone, a salve to cover the pain and a pragmatism just simply means what works?

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well if it works, then it's good theology, I just saw recently on a blog post the proof is in the pudding well that's really nice in natural instinct but I don't know where that's at in the bible

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I don't find that to be a theologically informed position the proof is in the pudding, meaning if it tastes good, then who cares how it was made and that's what we're dealing with in our culture, in our society today our understanding of God is often driven by these three things, armchair theology, pop psychology therapeutic pragmatism and Jude is here literally trying to tackle common sense common sense teachings that sound ever so good on the surface, but they are not driven by the truth of God's word man, have

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I seen a lot of this in the last few weeks online it is everywhere armchair theology says things like this

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God would never, and really it usually starts with my God, my God would never bring COVID -19 as judgment, my loving

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God would never do something like that, not my Jesus not my Jesus pop psychology says you have everything you need in yourself to make it through this crisis, you've got this just dig deeper, organize more, do more, girls just wash your face, watch more

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Netflix, meditate more whatever it takes, but you've got this just dig inside pragmatism says, church you need to look out for yourself right now our primary goal must be to speak words of healing and hope, there's no way that a word about judgment, a word about the severity and sternness of God could ever grow a church during this time, write it out church write it out church and just be kind just be loving and be really tame and don't be risky in your message, never let a negative word be said during this time of fear and doubt

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God's word says in Romans 3 10 -18 this little nugget that you will never get if you are depending on armchair theology, you will never get to the meat of a text like this with pop psychology you will never find this solution and this answer to our problem in therapeutic pragmatism this is what

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God's word says God is righteous no not one no one understands no one did you hear that?

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no one seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one their throat is an open grave they use their tongues to deceive the venom of vipers is under their lips their mouth is full of curses and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood and in their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known there is no fear of God before their eyes message church what message do we bring to a nation that is predicting 100 to 200 ,000 deaths in the next 5 months 100 to 200 ,000 people from our neighborhoods from our communities, from our nation will slip into eternity in the next 2 months it is time church for us to shift our focus from making sure our online videos are crisp and neat it is time to broaden our communication from just checking in on our church friends and families it is time to move past anxiety for our wife or our kids or our own health to move towards the souls of those who will face this

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God who is indeed a God of judgment, what are we doing church? unless you want to turn a blind eye to Jew maybe your armchair theology maybe your pop psychology maybe your therapeutic pragmatism has no room for Jew and I see it as you have 2 options right now you take this seriously or rip it out just take this section of scripture out pull it out and move on but I don't see another option to see that God is a

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God of judgment he's writing it to his church saying even those who would creep in the unbelievers in our midst who would seek to lead people astray in the midst of the church how much more is the devastation of those outside of the church who do not know so yes

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I'm preaching this message to us recasts, we need to check ourselves but we also need to check up on our neighbors, we need to check up on our friends we need to check up even on strangers in a time like this people are thinking about their mortality they're thinking about what's coming, here's what

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Jew is saying to us during this opening to a 2 part tour of judgment like his people in the desert without faith in him there will be no reward like the angels who rejected

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God's role for them and went their own way, there is an imprisonment coming for all who would not accept him as lord and master like Sodom and Gomorrah, all are locked into the future wrath of God if they will not repent from their sins and turn to God for mercy and accept the punishment for our sins that was laid on him so let me be clear as we wrap up this message, two lines of application there's all different kinds of ways

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I'm going to give you the general application but there's specifics within this that I want to encourage you to even now ask the

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Holy Spirit to guide you and to direct you into specific action from these general principles the first overarching thing that I want to say that all of us need to do is check yourself first go ahead and check yourself there's nothing shameful about this that sounds a little bit borderline like the pop psychology of make sure that you're healthy first but there is something that's true about this if you are not in the faith and you have no ability to share that faith with others and so put the oxygen mask on yourself first, make sure that it's firmly affixed before you help others are you safe church?

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I wish I could look around and see your faces right now, whoever's listening are you safe? Jesus, have you been saved by his sacrifice on the cross?

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to a person this gospel is for us yeah you might have been in the faith for 50 years, you might be a brand new

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Christian, you might be here listening just try to figure it out for yourself for the first time start here, this goes for all of us confess your sin ask for his forgiveness and his grace invite

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Jesus Christ to be your master and lord he will save anyone who comes to him for forgiveness and for salvation he will be your master he will be your lord and you will find that over the course of our relationship with him you want to obey him you see, it's very interesting but for all of us, all of us regardless of whether we've been embraced by the gospel and we've come to understand what

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Jesus Christ has done and we believe him and put our trust in him and ask him to be our lord Jude draws lines in this text lines that we all need to wrestle with the people who were brought out of Egypt didn't really trust in God by faith, in other words there are those who trust in God by faith and there are those who don't the line is drew, these people were grumblers and complainers, they didn't like God they didn't love him they didn't really have faith then the angels that rebelled against God kicked against his authority there are those who kick against his authority and hate his authority, despise that he gets to call the shots and there are those who love him and recognize the goodness of his plan for us you see these angels, they left their place of assignment to do things their own way, do you see the line the people of Sodom and Gomorrah believed that they knew better than God they rejected his strict sexual instructions in exchange for their own pleasures and their own plan and all of these faced his judgment for their rebellion against him, lines in the sand and all of us have equally been worthy of his judgment those who trusted his son by faith are forgiven of all the mess that we've made, praise

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God mine's a pretty big mess unlike the Israelites in the desert we have trusted in him unlike the fallen angels we accept his rule over us and we trust by faith that he has placed us in the right place at the right time and unlike Sodom and Gomorrah we now honor his instructions for our lives because we trust that his ways are his plans for our lives are only our ways, do you trust him do you believe he's put you in the right lane do you desire to honor him with your life check to see if these things are yours for Jude he was speaking to a church and he was confident that that church had people in it that would not pass these tests and I would be a fool to think that there are not some who are listening to this video right now who need to start back at the beginning asking

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Jesus to save them and asking Jesus to be their master check on yourself a lot in there and then the second and last application is to check on others once you're confident of where you are at and that Jesus is your lord and he's your master and you want him to call the shots and you long and hunger for his righteousness and you are thankful and grateful that he paid for your sins on the cross then check on others tragedy in a crisis is a great time to remember that a final judgment is coming already up against our mortality people are thinking about it is this cough for one am

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I going to be hospitalized am I going to be put on a ventilator what about the people that I love what about my family what about people I can't contact the world is not the way it is meant to be it is broken and it is warped by sin and the world is feeling feeling that right now so this time of COVID -19 is a time to enter into the deeper discussion with people around us to bring the gospel to a friend to bring the gospel to a family member or even to bring the gospel to a stranger online sure we're not able to connect as closely with one another during this time of isolation and social distancing but don't give up don't give in to the notion that we cannot proclaim the good news to the world around us right now the good news by the way only makes sense when it's set in the backdrop of this really bad news of judgment there is a divine eternal judgment coming for any who rejects his truth in exchange for their dreams and their wishful thinking and their instincts he will judge all who stand in defilement of immorality without his forgiveness that he clearly offers it will not go well for anyone who rejects his right to call the shots in their lives so recast let the light of the gospel shine through you to a dark world that is under the grip of judgment this is a wake up call church this is our time if we do not bring the light father

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I pray that you would motivate us that you would move us in this chance to look at some snapshots of judgment and to see the way that you have worked in history a way that makes us uncomfortable a way that is like whoa that's heavy that's pretty deep a way that strikes us at the core of where we're at as a culture and a society right now looking at this and no

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I'm not confident of what you're doing here in COVID -19 I'm not confident that this is a particular judgment against a particular people that there's specific sins involved in this or anything like that but I do know that it's an opportunity for us seriously to shake us awake for the reality of our mortality for the reality of the punishment and devastation that sin brings father

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I pray that you would help us to check up on ourselves and father for those in our midst who maybe there's a resonating in the darkness here there's a something that seems consistent with their character this instinctual following of their guts of digging into your word without a commitment to your righteousness maybe somehow or even just kind of ground them in the wrong direction and rub their fur the wrong way to hear a message about judgment at a time like that for anybody who's not in faith that they might have a right to judge those opportunities help us to be attentive help us to even be a people who pray morning by morning for chances to share the good news with others father

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I know that it's limited I know that it's a little bit awkward when you can't put your arm around somebody when you can't sit across the table over a cup of coffee and chat in a cordial kind of way we don't want to be those people who are out there on the internet just blazing every chat group with Jesus bombs everywhere and at the same time father