Jude 8-16

The Shepherd's Church

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Father God, I pray that as we look at these words that Lord you would write them on our hearts

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That word you would cause us to see the truths that are in there Lord For us 2 ,000 years removed from Jude This is a hard book

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Times it seems like a complicated book It's a book that we don't

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Devote to memory. It's a book that we often neglect to read But Lord God, we stand on the truth that every single word in your scripture is your word and that Lord that you authored these passages and That Lord you have something to say to us today in these passages

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So Lord, I pray that By your Holy Spirit you would speak to us you would reveal to us the things that you would have us learn

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Lord, I pray that That what I would say would be from you Lord, I pray that if there's anything

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I've written down on these pages that is not from you that you would let it fall Completely out of my memory and out of the delivery and Lord If there's something that I have not prepared that you want me to say

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Lord, I pray I would say it Lord bless this time. It's in Christ's name.

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We pray. Amen. So last week we Tackled two verses which was somewhat of a miracle

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Given our trajectory so far this week. We're gonna go through eight we're gonna go through verses 8 through 16 and The reason for that is because I think

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Jude combines them as a unit now if you remember last week We talked about Jude's two -part just doctrine of destruction

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He goes verses 5 through 7 and he talks about essentially that Christ is not only the

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Lord of Salvation but he's also the Lord of condemnation meaning that he is sovereign over the

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Salvation of men and he's also just and good and righteous when sinners are convicted that is essentially what verses 5 through 7 were about and we talked about the doctrine of hell because the doctrine of hell although not a popular doctrine in the modern world is the fuel for evangelism if we don't understand that hell is real and that hell is

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Is awful Then we have no reason to share the gospel, but if we understand what hell is and that it's eternal and permanent

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Consequence for being separated from Jesus Christ Then all those who are our neighbors and our friends and our family who are not in Christ We may be the very means by which

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God brings salvation to those people So we tell them the gospel because we understand the reality of it

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We understand that hell does not have to be faced by any who are in Christ. So we preach the gospel

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Let's say the doctrine of hell is a great Motivator for evangelism

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But to water down the doctrine of hell is one of the most unloving things that we could ever do.

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I Tell you an example. It would be like the CDC. That's the Center for Disease Control imagine that they put out a bulletin that a mild strain of the flu was impacting our area of the country, but Imagine that it really wasn't the flu.

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It was the bubonic plague for instance to just come up with something Drastic, but they didn't want to tell anybody because they didn't want to offend anybody

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They didn't want anyone's to be worried or be fearful So they put out this bulletin that there's this stomach flu that's happening because they didn't want to hurt people's feelings

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They didn't want to offend them. But yet they they didn't prepare them Now we would think if that actually happened that the leadership of the

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CDC would be fired at the very least That the whole organization would be prosecuted.

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It would be one of the most unloving things that anyone could ever do But yet we allow that in the church

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We allow that for the last 30 40 50 years the doctrine of hell has gone out of popularity when it comes to preaching because we don't want to hurt people's

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Feelings we want to make church filled full of people and we never want to challenge and we never want to talk about Death and destruction, but this is in the

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Bible and again, like I said last week We don't want to preach hell every single week if the

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Bible doesn't talk about it But if the Bible talks about it, we've got to talk about it. And it's the one of the most loving things that we can do

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Again, Jude does this because it is loving to do that. Jude does this also to offer hope

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In the midst of being attacked This is a little church that was being attacked by false teachers and by wolves in the midst of that He's trying to communicate to them that these false teachers will not ultimately win that God is not blind that God is going to bring about judgment and Even if the

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Lord tarries the Lord will bring judgment on these Wicked people who are attacking Jude's church and that's relevant to us today because we live in a culture that is radically

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Abandoning the gospel. We live in a culture that is moving further and further and further away from God And it's easy to be discouraged and it's easy to doubt and it's easy to look up and say

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God. Where are you? Jude writes these things to offer us hope Whenever we struggle we become incredibly short -sighted

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We have normally 20 -20 vision, but when pain happens, it's much much more narrow It's much more short -sighted.

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It's much more close range We end up dwelling on our circumstances and we can't see how that God is gonna move and how

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God is gonna work We lose hope Jude is writing to elevate our gaze

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Jude is writing to people to say in the midst of trial in the midst of suffering you can have hope

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Because the Lord is good and the Lord will bring to justice the things that are occurring

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I Think the third reason that Jude is so stark with these things is because he wants to call them out publicly

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Now I'll be honest with you. This is one of the things that I had the most difficulty with when coming to this book

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I've never until this book called out another teacher publicly

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I've never done that I always looked at pastors who called out false teachers and false prophets and I've thought about well, that's in poor taste

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Maybe that's not nice. How could that be loving? But Jude does this

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Jude calls out the false teachers in his church, and I think he does it for a very good reason I think he does it to be loving

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Because we live in an era in a time period where it doesn't just affect where you go to church

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It affects who you listen to in your commute. It affects who you listen to on YouTube. It affects who you

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Whose books you read? If you go on YouTube Error abounds

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All kinds of false teachers are on there And if no one is telling you who is faithful and who is not faithful if no one is examining their lives against Holy Scripture Then how will you know?

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One of the most loving things that we can do is that we can prepare the church. I believe that God Has given me a burden for this because of this book

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I believe that God has called the office of the pastor to care for and protect the sheep

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All of us in the church have a role to play One of the roles that I will stand before the Lord on is did

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I protect this church from error and from false teachers? And I had to repent of my cowardice in some ways when it comes to this and I had to wrestle with the way that Jude does this

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He does it humbly. He does it meekly. He does it lovingly. He does it wisely He doesn't he's not just the guy who's pinned the tail on the wolf every single time.

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He talks Jude is a loving pastor So what I had to understand is that there is a reason that we do this and we do it with fear and trembling

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We do it with prayer and We understand that we don't call someone a wolf lightly.

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There are wolves in our society There are false teachers in the church, but we don't do that lightly or flippantly

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Now that's kind of a overview of verses 1 through 7 this week again We're gonna be going through 8 verses and you're like, how is this possible?

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Just trust me. It's gonna happen verses 8 through 16 are Like a court case

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Okay, the book of Jude actually in some sense You could compare it metaphorically to a court case that God is the ultimate judge the triune

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God is going to be the one who judges he's sitting on the throne and The angels that we're gonna see today are kind of like the jury.

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They're the witnesses of what God has done Jude is like the prosecuting attorney Jude is bringing up charges against these wolves

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The wolves are the defendant who are now on the trial with no advocate and that will be important The church is the offended party the plaintiff the one who has been hurt and we today

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We get to come to this 2 ,000 year old book And we get to sit in the audience and watch

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And we get to see what is going to take place now verses 8 through 16 are kind of like Jude's case

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It's his evidence He's gonna bring forward four I'm sorry three unique accusations

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Against these false prophets. He's gonna bring them up one after the next and they represent the totality of the case

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Against the false teachers all 8 through 16 and we're gonna see them together because Jude includes them together in a unit

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So if you will turn with me as we see Jude's case against the false teachers in verses 8

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We'll start with 8 through 10. All right it says in The same way these men also by dreaming defile the flesh and they reject authority and they revile angelic majesties

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But we'll skip verse 9 for right now But these men revile the things which they do not understand and the things which they know by instinct like Unreasoning animals and by these things they are destroyed

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Jude's first accusation in the courtroom of this case is that these men hate

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God's Word These men hate God's Word and you might be thinking to yourself.

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I don't see any of that in there It says that they reject authority and they revile angelic majesties.

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What does this mean? Well, we have to understand that Jude is writing to a thoroughly

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Jewish audience and they would have understood some things that we don't understand So I want to take some time to unpack this because I want to show you that when they reject authority

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They're not just rejecting generic authority. And then when they revile angelic majesties, they're not just they're not just having a battle with angels

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We need to understand what Jude is saying here The first thing I would say is when they reject authority they're rejecting the

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Lord's Jesus is unique and special authority Jude is not describing a generic authority problem that they have

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He's saying that they have a problem with Christ and with Christ's authority And now again, you may say that's not what the text says.

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It just says authority It just says it in general But the the translators of this text are doing the very best that they can to unpack something that's actually going on here

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The word that Jude uses for authority is not the common word for authority There's generic words in the

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Greek that mean generic authority. That's not what he's doing here Jude is using the word for Lord kurios

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The word that applies to Jesus Christ in all the New Testament He's using this word and it's using it instead of kurios.

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He's saying kuriotos What does that mean it means Christ unique authority it means

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Christ lordship It means that these men reject the lordship of Jesus Christ. John 1 1 says that he is the word

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So they reject him the true word of God They reject Christ and his most perfect authority in his holy scriptures

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Now you may say well, I see that that it means Christ's authority, but it doesn't say his authority in Scripture So, how do you get to that conclusion?

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Well, we understand what he means by these accusations He's saying that they hate the word of God I'm going to unpack four

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Evidences that show you that they he is leveling a charge against these men that they hate

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God's Word and they refuse to submit to God's authority. The first one is that they replace

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Logic with dreaming it says that they that they lean into their subjective Experiences instead of the objective truth of God when it says that they defile their flesh by their dreaming

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We are meant to compare and contrast what he means by that instead of subjective experience

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Which is what they're basing truth on we are supposed to say now Wait a minute. He's saying that because what they should have been doing is basing it in Objective truth that is written down in Scripture these men we know from history are

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Trying to usurp Jude's authority in the church and they do not meet biblical qualifications

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But instead they said God gave me a word God gave me a dream

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God gave me a message and I'm here to be the pastor of this church of Jude's church

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Because God told me to do it and guess what if he told me to do it and you don't follow me you're disobeying

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That was what was happening They were leaning into their subjective experience instead of the objective truth of God they could have went to the

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Bible They could have seen that they were disqualified Jude says in verse 4 that they were acting licentiously

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They didn't have the moral character to be leaders in this church But they had their subjective experience and Jude says by their subjective experience.

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They are defiled They're not basing Truth on the revealed Word of God.

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They're basing it on their subjective Experience now,

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I wish that I could say that this This had been weeded out of the church in the last 2 ,000 years

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We know that God's Word is the words of life We know that God's Word is true. But yet how many times in today's culture our entire ministries built on dreams?

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entire ministries built on prophetic words that aren't in Scripture Christianity today documented how

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Bill Johnson in California Proclaimed himself to be an apostle The Bible didn't tell him that The Bible has criteria for what it means to be an apostle which means that you have seen the resurrected

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Christ. That's one of the criteria Bill Johnson in a dream proclaimed himself to be an apostle and now his church is

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Multi -thousand members his music that that church is putting out is into many different churches

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They're producing movies or producing all kinds of content and the reason we don't sing Bethel is because Bill Johnson By his own dreams and not through the authority of scriptures proclaimed himself to be an apostle.

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That is not what the Bible says That's just one example and it's not just Bethel Self -proclaimed prophets apostles pastors teachers are abounding in the church.

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We no longer care if we meet biblical qualifications We just care if we've had a dream That's what was going on Jude's church and it's going on in our church

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Not shepherds, but in the American Church The second example

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I would cite is Paula White Paula White recently if you don't know who she is, she's a three -time divorced woman with no repentance she heard a dream from the

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Lord that she was going to be a pastor and she didn't look in biblical qualifications to see if that was so and Now she is being appointed to the

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White House to be on the president's religious cabinet of thinkers she Often cites word of faith teaching where if you give more money to her in her ministry

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Then God will bless you that if you just have enough faith God will heal you This theology has damaged so many

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Christians and it's not based on the truth of God's Word It's based on feelings experience emotionalism this woman is classified as a heretic and yet The Lord told her to do this.

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So therefore God must endorse her ministry How can God violate his word in order to endorse someone who violates it?

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That doesn't make any sense. I Third example of this

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I ran into a man One time a couple years back and he said, you know, God wants me to divorce my wife and I said really

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God wants you to do that. And he said he said yes He said I made a mistake God didn't want me to marry this woman.

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I made a mistake She wasn't the right person for me to marry I found the right person and I'm sleeping with her now and cheating on my wife and she's cheating on her husband and there's multiple

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Families that are gonna be blown up by this but God told me to do it No, sir.

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God did not tell you to do that This is what I mean Jude is saying that when you elevate your experience and your emotions above the truth of the

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Word of God It's dangerous and you get into massive error. That's what was happening in his church and Again, I believe that happens all the time in the

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American Church We don't like absolute authority as Americans We're people who want to make our own way

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We're people who want to by our own effort pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, even though I've never seen a bootstrap

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I don't even really know what that means But that's who we are as Americans. We're independent fiercely independent

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Why do I want a God to tell me what my standard of righteousness is? I'll do my best and if he doesn't like it, well, then he can reject me

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That is foolishness These men and many today reject

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Christ unique authority which was revealed in the Word of God That's the first evidence that they hate

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God's Word. The second evidence is that they revile angelic majesties. Well, what does that mean? that seems like a very confusing thought to us because While we're we understand that Christ is the

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Word and that his Holy Spirit inspired the Word and that God is glorified by the Word What do we do with angels?

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It's a very confusing topic. I remember growing up. My grandma watched the Lifetime show touched by an angel

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Thoroughly confused me. I had no idea what was going on in that show. I Was also eight so maybe that's probably why but what

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I want us to see here is that angels play a part in the transmission of the Word of God It's interesting.

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I didn't know this until this week Deuteronomy 33 to a Very important text to a

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Jewish person says the Lord came from Sinai That's where God gave the Word of God.

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He gave the law He gave the Ten Commandments and all of the rest of it It says that he came from Sinai and dawned on them from seer he shone forth from Mount Peron and he came from the midst of ten thousand holy ones and His right hand there were flashing lightning before him.

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What is happening here is that? God at Mount Sinai is stepping out of the midst of ten thousand angels who are there to praise him for his delivering of the

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Word I Imagine in heaven they're saying God is going to come down among that group of sinful people and he's going to give them his word

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I've got to come see it. I've got to come witness it I bet the angels in heaven were were blown away at the grace of God when he did this and they're there 10 ,000 witnesses

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So think about this what Jude is saying is that if you reject God's Word, you're not just rejecting

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God you're rejecting 10 ,000 eyewitnesses who were there and they saw it and they saw the grace of God when he gave his word in The Old Testament it takes two witnesses to establish a case

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Jude gives 10 ,000 Why? Because to reject God's Word Means that there is no case.

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There's no justification case closed Says in Psalm 68 17

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This is another passage where David says the chariots of God are myriad Thousands upon thousands and the

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Lord is among them at Sinai He's among the angels when he delivered the word one of the earliest

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Christian martyrs. This is New Testament. This isn't just Old Testament Stephen a man who was killed for his faith some of the last words out of his mouth were in Acts chapter 7

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He's talking to the people who killed him He said you men are stiff -necked and Uncircumcised in heart and ears and you're always resisting the

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Holy Spirit you were doing just as your fathers did Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one

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Whose betrayers and murderers you have now become? You who received the law as ordained by angels?

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Where was that when I read the Bible the last time? but yet it's there and Stephen says you did not keep it.

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They killed him for that statement the man who presided over his murder Paul Repented and believed the gospel and he said the exact same thing in Galatians 319

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I think the clearest statement of the angelic involvement in the transmission of the Word of God is

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Hebrews 2 1 through 2 and it says for this reason we must pay closer Attention to what we have heard.

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That's the Bible. We must pay close attention to it So that we do not drift away from it.

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That's a sermon in and of itself You have to hold tight to the Word of God so you don't drift from the

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Word of God But if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable and Every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty.

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How will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? What Hebrews what Peter or what

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Paul what Stephen what David what Moses what all of them are saying is that Not only did

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God graciously give the word to his people. He did it with witnesses and There's no justification for denying his word or turning from it

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Jude is saying they hate God's Word and for it they are condemned That's the second

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Reason that they hate God's Word that Jude provides The third is that they revel in their emotions like unreasoning animals as we saw with their dreams

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They're following their hearts instead of their heads. They're doing what feels right and not what is right they're following their passions instead of their convictions and Because of that They will be sentenced

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It will be condemned This is what Jude is saying all of this that they reject the triune author that that they go against the 10 ,000 witnesses that they in their dreaming and in their emotions reject the

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Word of God They will be condemned. That is the first Indictment that Jude brings into the courtroom is that they hate

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God's Word and because of that they will be condemned Now the second indictment that Jude brings is not only do they hate

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God's Word, but they hate God's people And in the first indictment Jude shows us his his

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Bible study ability. He goes back into the Old Testament and he does Exegetical work and he shows us that this is the biblical case in this indictment

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Just in case we missed it He uses metaphor. He uses images.

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He uses examples Which I think is absolutely beautiful look at verses 12 through 13 as we see how do these people hate

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God's people? It says these are the men who are hidden reefs Of course, they're not really hidden reefs.

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This is metaphor They're hidden reefs in your love feast when they feast with you without fear caring for themselves.

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They're clouds without water Carried along by the winds they are autumn trees without fruit doubly dead and uprooted

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They are wild waves of the sea casting up their shame like foam They're wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever

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Jude again is making a four -part Argument here that they hate God's people like hidden reefs like clouds without water like autumn trees

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And I want us to start with the hidden reefs. What does he mean by that? What does it mean that they're hidden reefs?

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within the love feast well a love feast Much like our communion meal that we do once a month is where the people of God gathered together to have a meal together and where they gathered together to celebrate what

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Christ had done on the cross and Instead of us thinking about them just as a family

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What I really want us to see is that the church was more than a family when they met together

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Families are connected by the blood of moms and dads the church in the New Testament gathered together

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Connected by the better blood of Jesus Christ They were sewn together in the bonds of unity and love of Jesus that he won for them on Calvary That propelled him to the cross out of love for them

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They are more than a family and it's supposed to be more than safe to meet with the family of God if you've ever known twins who grew up together have this

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Authentic relationship where they can where they can finish each other's sentences the family of God is supposed to be better than that safer than That more secure than that But in the book of Jude they were being attacked and it wasn't safe like that Jude says that they were hidden reefs in the middle of their love feast in the moment where the gospel was supposed to shine the

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Brightest in their meal together. There was danger What does he mean by hidden reefs?

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when the ancient world Before they had nautical technology Boats were in great danger when coming to port

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If you think about winger chic beach here in Massachusetts massive rocks and You think about when the tide is high and some of those rocks are just below the surface of the water if you're not

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Careful, and if you're not paying attention, you'll shipwreck Your boat will be ripped apart by these jagged rocks

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Maybe your life will even be lost so what would happen is that the the sailor who was wise would put a man on the on the edge of the boat and They would stare out as they come to port looking for evidence of hidden reefs

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Why because if they don't they could be destroyed? Judas saying that if this church is not careful, they're gonna be totally shipwrecked because the character of the men who have infiltrated their church is

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That they're hidden reefs. They're hiding in their midst only hoping to destroy

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Judas saying that they need to be careful and they need to watch out They need to wake up Now for us today, it's it's hard for these passages to seem relevant.

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I was thinking about this today. We're a brand new church we all love each other and Where there's no wolves at least not yet and you you look at something like this and you think

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Wow, this is really stern But as I was thinking about it What would happen if men and women started coming here hearing the gospel and gave their life to Christ?

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What would happen if baptism started occurring here? What would happen if we became offensive to the kingdom of darkness if we had a target on our back?

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Don't think for one minute that the enemy wouldn't send a wolf in here to try to try to turn things up and mess things

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Up in some ways when wolves are in the church. It's validating That you're on the right track that you're preaching the gospel so while we are safe Currently do not think that that will remain forever.

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Satan hates the church Satan is always sending wolves into the church That's why

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Jude says to be on watch their hidden reefs. The second metaphor that he uses is That there are clouds without water and their autumn trees without fruit.

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What he's trying to say is that they disappoint the people of God They make promises that they can't actually deliver upon think about it like this if you're a farmer and you're living in a time when there's no rain and you're scanning the horizon hoping for a cumulus cloud to come billowing over the edge of the horizon and imagine the excitement that you see when that beautiful rain cloud appears on the on the edge of the horizon and you're excited because your crops are dying and the cloud in a sense is making promises to you that that vitality and life and health are coming to the crops and Imagine if the whole sky fills with clouds, but not a drop of rain.

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That's what Jude is saying These men are they've made promises that their teaching and their ministry was going to bring health and life and vitality to the church

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But it can't because they don't have anything in them. They don't have a drop of God's grace within them

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They don't have a drop of goodness in them They make promises that they're gonna do all of these things, but they can't do anything but disappoint

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They're like autumn trees with no fruit. I grew up in North Carolina a

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Beautiful persimmon tree in my backyard if you've ever had persimmons, they're really good unless they're not ripe and then they're awful

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But imagine the disappointment when we lay the tarp out and there's no fruit

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The tree is supposed to produce fruit in the autumn and it doesn't It's because the men in this church that he's referring to that he's striking up these metaphors.

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He's saying they have dead roots Jesus said that a good tree produces good fruit and he also says that he didn't come to produce meager fruit

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He came to produce fruit abundantly in the lives of his disciples So if these men have no fruit, it means they have no root in Jesus That's what

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Jude is saying that they're making promises to God's people that they cannot ultimately deliver upon Modern examples abound in this area

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Men who say that you need to send a thousand dollars to their ministry and then God is gonna bless you that's a tree without fruit a more

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Popular example would be a man like Joel Osteen in Texas Joel Osteen in his book the power of I am

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Said that you can be more beautiful if you just think it you can be more successful if you just wish it and That whatever you declare you can have because of the power of this

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New Age mystical Narcissistic New Age belief that is not in Scripture.

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The Bible never says that you can have whatever you want just by declaring it If that's the case it wouldn't even apply to Jesus Joel Osteen says you can have your best life now.

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How is it possible to have your best life now if you're going to heaven? The only way that's possible is if you're going to hell that you can have whatever you want here in this life

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Because wow, the next one is really gonna be eternally awful. How can this be possible?

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How can Jesus didn't have his best life now when he was murdered? Paul didn't have his best life now when he was beaten multiple times for his faith

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Multiple of the of the New Testament apostles were murdered for their faith. They didn't have their best life now men and women who gather in secrecy in China and Somalia in in North Korea, they're not having their best life now this false gospel only works in America where we're rich Where we can have whatever we want by hard work.

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It doesn't work in Kenya It doesn't work in Nigeria. It doesn't work in Islamic countries where you're killed for your faith

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This is a this is deceitful This kind of gospel is being pumped into the countries of Africa and I've talked to a pastor in Africa He said it's destroying us

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Because people whose baby dies in their arms are wondering why is my best life now not happening?

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I thought I had enough faith This is not biblical and after all the smiles and fist pumps and egocentric ism

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People die and go to hell under that kind of gospel because it's no gospel at all His message and messages of men like him are doubly dead and need to be uprooted from the

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American Church We want to see revival. We need to go back to the Bible Not this self -help positives pop psychology jargon that we're hearing and I say that angrily because it it bothers me

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It bothers me that the church is being infiltrated by these types of people We either stand on the

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Word of God alone or we're gonna stand on psychology and anthropology and everything else But I would rather get to heaven and tell the

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Lord that I took his word too seriously Than to stand before him in shame to know that I never trusted him

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I think the American Church needs to return to the Bible and stop listening to start contending for the faith instead of Being entertained with the feather of Satan tippling their ears and You ask yourself.

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Why is this happening in the American Church? Well It's satanic and I don't say that lightly when you see things that look like Satan You know that Satan is their root.

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He doesn't come with a pitchfork and red skinny jeans Satan is subtle Satan is the best deceiver because he comes as an angel of light

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Satan Almost always I can't think of an example where he doesn't he always quotes scripture in the

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Bible Satan quotes scripture more than most of the biblical heroes do but he twists it and he turns it and he doesn't in a way that You can't even notice it.

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So when these men preach these false Gospels, they're really close to being true but they twist tiny things and Make them untrue

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And it's not the real gospel That's the third Metaphor or the third evidence for the fact that they hate the people of God.

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The next one is they're like wild waves at the sea I'm gonna go through this one quickly

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It just means that they disorient the people of God Jude comes back to the boat nautical metaphor because they didn't have

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GPS's They didn't have navigational systems So when you got into a storm on the sea and the clouds were so dark, you couldn't see the

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Sun You have no idea where you are Judah's saying a steady diet of false teachers will disorient you it will destroy you and it will leave you with no purpose in your

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Life you can read books like the purpose -driven life or you can read the Bible and you can find your purpose That is what

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Judah's saying that a steady diet of false teaching will leave you disoriented with no direction

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The next one is that they will eventually disappear from the people of God He compares them to a shooting star and I love this example

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Jude says that they're like wandering stars for which a pitch -black darkness is reserved. Have you ever went outside and seen a

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Comet or a meteor or a shooting star? It's beautiful to look at But did you know that when that star is its brightest and most beautiful is when it's the closest to its destruction

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Like us who are looking up at the sky and who want to follow the stars It goes Jude's saying do not follow these men because you're following them into peril the supernova that Explodes implodes upon itself into a pitch black hole of darkness to where nothing can escape

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Scientists have even shown that the black hole is inescapable. It is matter at its most extreme

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So what Jude even two thousand years ago was saying that if you are like these men and you follow these men you'll end up in darkness

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They will destroy your walk with God like hidden reefs They will disorient you like wild waves they will disappoint you like cloudless or waterless clouds and they will

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Disappear from the people of God because they will be destroyed like a shooting star This is what

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Jude is describing here That's his second accusation. They hate God's Word and they hate

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God's people the third accusation that he brings against these people is That they're rebellious at heart

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Let's look at verses 11 and then 14 through 16 Jude here switches strategies

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He's used his rhetorical skills. He's used his His analogies and metaphors now, he's gonna call witnesses to the stand

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He says woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam And they have perished in the rebellion of Korah And it was about these men that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying behold the

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Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all Jude is bringing four character witnesses to the stand and he starts with Cain Do you remember

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Cain from Genesis 3 and 4? Cain was the firstborn son of Adam He was the brother of the righteous

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Abel and we learn that in verse or in chapter 4 Abel offers his best to God That's a key in that text.

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He offers his best. What does it say about Cain? It says that he offered some it doesn't say he offered his best so when

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Cain saw that the Lord was pleased with Abel because Abel brought a Acceptable sacrifice

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Cain was angry Cain was Frustrated it to the point of murder What Cain is essentially doing is he wanted

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God to act like he is not holy He wanted God to act like you could bring a pitiful offering to him

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And he would just accept it because you gave it because God is just looking for you to do something

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The the whole purpose of the Bible is crescendoing to Jesus Christ that God will not accept a secondary sacrifice

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That God only will accept a perfect sacrifice and Abel foreshadows that that he gave a good sacrifice and Cain is

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Cursed because he didn't and in his anger and his jealousy. He murdered his brother now

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Jude brings him to the character as a character witness He brings him to the witness stand to show that these men are just like him

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We learn from history that these men were violent that they were angry and that they Because they knew in their consciences that God did not accept their sinful lifestyles.

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They were punishing this church Judas saying that these men are under a curse like Cain Judas saying that these men's anger is not because of God.

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It's because of a debased and sinful mind That's the first witness that he calls The second witness that he calls is

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Balaam. Do you remember Balaam in the talking donkey from numbers? fascinating story essentially

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Israel comes out of Egypt and they go towards the promised land and they reject

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God But God in his grace allowed them to wander for 40 years in their wandering they interact with a people called

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Moab and Moab had heard the stories of God and his power Moab knew that God delivered them from Egypt and Egypt was the greatest power of that day

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So what would happen to Moab? So the king of Moab hires a man named Balaam and he tells him to stand up on the cliffs

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That overlook the people and to curse them You think about a witch doctor in Haiti?

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Similar type of person to what Balaam was? he's trying to put a spell on the people of God and if you remember in numbers, it says three times he tried and Three times

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God prevented him Why because God would not allow this man to curse his people with them unaware of what was happening.

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They were defenseless But what I want us to see is that Balaam actually ended up cursing the people of Israel Not on the cliffs

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He did something else he sent women into the camp from Midian women who were idolaters women who were

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Believers in false gods women who sacrificed and murdered their children on altars. He sent them into Israel's camp face to face there's no longer a

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Weird man with bones in his ears looking down on to the people and cursing them their face to face

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They have a choice on whether they're gonna accept God or they're gonna reject God and Balaam ended up Causing the people of Israel to be cursed it says in Numbers Chapter 24 and then continuing on to chapter 25 then

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Balaam arose This is after he was denied three times of cursing them and he departed and returned to his place and Balak That's the

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Moabite King. He also went his way chapter 25 Not even a day later

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While Israel remained at Shittim the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab for they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods and The people ate and bowed down to their gods

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So Israel joined themselves to Baal and the Lord was angry Moab Balaam Ended up cursing the people of Israel through this not even a day after God dramatically saved them

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They ended up doing something awful and wretched in his sight. They they bowed down to other gods

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They denied his own existence by doing this It says in Numbers 33

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That Balaam, although the people were responsible for their actions and they did experience a plague because of their actions

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It blames Balaam more than anybody. It says in verse 7 of chapter 33.

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So they made war against Midian Just as the Lord had commanded Moses and killed every male they killed the kings of Midian along with the rest of the slain

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They also killed Balaam. He shows back up in the narrative the son of Beor with the sword why verse 16

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Behold, he calls the sons of Israel through the council of Balaam to trespass against the

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Lord He's the one who was ultimately responsible Now why I bring this up not to go deep into a

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Old Testament history lesson on the book of Numbers Jude is bringing this up because Balaam was relentless God prohibited him three times from cursing the people and he did not give up.

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He stayed at it He relentlessly sought to curse the people of God and Jude is saying not only do these false teachers have character of anger

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But they are relentless and they will not stop until they curse God's people Wolves and false teachers are relentless.

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They have an endless supply of energy to bring suffering to the Church of Jesus Christ That's why he brings up Balaam It's his second character witness.

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The third is a man named Korah even less known by Modern audiences, but very important to Jewish people

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Korah was a Levite Now if you remember in the Old Testament in the time of Exodus all of these examples come from that era

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There were 12 tribes of Israel and each of them had their own piece of land, but not the

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Levites the Levites were Glorified they were honored by the fact that they got to serve the

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Lord as priest and as workers in the temple Now what

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I learned this week is that there are five divisions of the Levites and each of them had their own jobs

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Each of them had their own roles There was the Kohanene clan which were the ones who were working inside the temple not as priests

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But they were laborers you had the Kohathite clan which were like the facilities team They took care of the furniture

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You had the Gershonite clan who was like the interior Decorators who who worked with the art and who did the mending and the sewing and the fabric and embroidery work

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You had the Mirarite clan who's like the ancient day Yuhal they packed up the temple whenever it needed to be transported the tabernacle

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I mean and they they transported it. Well, the fifth you had was the sons of Aaron Aaron technically was a part of the

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Gershonite clan But Aaron was given the honor of him and his sons being priest

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No one else was biblically qualified to be priest but his clan now, here's what happened with Cora Cora was jealous

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Cora was angry Cora was a Kohathite which meant that he dealt with the furniture

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He didn't like that job. He wanted to be the pastor. He wanted to be the guy who who? Sacrificed the lambs on Yom Kippur.

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He wanted to be important So he had a showdown with Moses in number 16, and this is what we read happen

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This is Moses speaking here. Now you sons of Levi Is it not enough for you that the

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God of Israel has? Separated you from the rest of the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself to do the service of the tabernacle of the

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Lord And to stand before the congregation and to minister to them. Was that not enough and that he has brought you near Cora and all your brothers sons of Levi with you and You are seeking the priesthood also and He spoke to the congregation saying depart now from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing that belongs to them or you will

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Be swept away in all their sin Moses said by this you shall know that the

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Lord has sent me to do all these deeds and this is not my doing if These men die the deaths of a normal person meaning they reach old age or if they suffer the make the normal fate of men

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Then the Lord has not sent me but if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground itself opens its mouth and Swallows them up and everything that is theirs and they descend alive

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Into the depths then you will understand that these men have spurned the

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Lord as He finished speaking all these words the ground that was under them split open and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up in their households and all the men who belong to Cora with their possessions so that So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to the depths and the earth closed over them and they perished in the midst of the assembly

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So Jude is called three character witnesses He's called Cain to show that these men are angry rebellious and they are cursed

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He's called Balaam to show that they are aggressively Going after the people of God and they will not relent from that purpose and he's called

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Cora to show that their power hungry and that they are Bypassing scripture in order to be something significant

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They're saying Jude. You're not the real pastor of this church We're gonna take it from you and Jude is saying like Cora and his followers you will be punished

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That's the three witnesses that Jude calls thus far Jude also calls a final witness which will transition to us to the end of the message

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He's given us an indictment that they hate the Word of God. He's given us an indictment. They hate God's people He's brought three wicked men as examples

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The last example he brings is one of the most righteous men in all of the Old Testament. His name is

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Enoch Enoch was a man who walked with God said he lived 365 days and some scholars believe that that's to represent every day of a year

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So that like Enoch we're supposed to walk with God every day every moment every hour every minute

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Now whether that's true or not, this man was a righteous man and He was taken up to heaven.

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He was so righteous living in an unrighteous society that God took him before his natural death

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Now every time that someone dies in the Old Testament in a strange way

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Jewish people a thousand years later wrote a book about it Enoch had the book of Enoch written because his death was kind of a mystery

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Moses We'll talk about in just a second had a book written about him because his death was kind of mysterious and in the book of Enoch Jude uses this as an example to show that the righteous

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Enoch will indict these men He quotes Enoch in verse 14 through 15 is saying it was about these men it's about these kinds of men

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That Enoch said in the seventh generation from Adam behold The Lord will with many thousands of his holy ones execute judgment upon all

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Judas saying all this time I've been building this case to show that God is not blind that God is not

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Deaf that God has seen the wickedness and that he will respond by judging all of them according to their deeds

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That he will pronounce judgment So he's called for witnesses.

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The final one is the nail in the coffin God will judge everyone who is in their sins

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Now to close we skipped a verse verse 9 verse 9 to me is probably the most interesting verse in this entire book and I want to show it with you for two reasons.

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I Want to show you that these people who are condemned what's going to happen to them? And I want to show you why they're condemned and I want to show you how we as Christians can have hope

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That's where I want us to close Verse 9 is a strange verse listen to it as I read it

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But Michael the archangel when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses did not dare

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Pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said the Lord rebuke you This is only in the book of Jude.

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We have no other Biblical account of this event where Satan and Michael are arguing over the body of Moses remember

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I said earlier when someone dies a mysterious death in the Old Testament a fictional writer

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Writes a cool book about it. We know that around 300 BC a book called the testimony of Moses was written and it was written to finish the story

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It is not biblical. This book is not a part of the New Testament not a part of the Old Testament It is a fictional story, but Jude quotes it because he wants us to see something really really important He quotes it because he wants us to know that after most died

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Satan came ready to claim the body and Satan came in the testimony of Moses in this book

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It says Satan said Moses is a sinner Moses is a murderer Moses murdered a man in Egypt.

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I'm going to take his body Moses has sins in his life that he cannot stand before a holy

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God and he has to be taken to hell with me That's what he was saying and the angel

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Michael in this story Does not argue with him in the Greek of Jude It literally says that he does not call him a slanderer because what

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Satan was saying about Moses was right Moses was a murderer Moses did deserve hell

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Moses did deserve to be taken by Satan at the end of his life in this story but what

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I love about it is That the angel doesn't say

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Just that he says the Lord rebuke you and This is the point that Jude's getting at Anyone who is who dies without Christ dies without an advocate?

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Just like these men who have no one to represent them anyone who dies without Christ has no one to advocate for them when

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Satan comes and Reminds you of all of your sins and tells you everything that you've ever done there is no one to represent you and these wolves and these false teachers in this church did not have an

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Advocate and they died in their sins and they died facing a holy God Condemned and yes, they went to hell

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But we don't stand in that position and that's where I want us to end and neither did Moses the angel said

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I'm not gonna rebuke you because you're telling the truth, but the Lord rebuke you Why would he say that?

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Because the body of Moses would not go to the enemy When Jesus Christ died on the cross

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He died for every sin that Moses ever committed so that the angel could look at Satan and say you can't have

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Moses And he can look at Satan. He could say you can't have that Christian on the cross of Jesus Christ every

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Accusation that Satan could ever level at you was buried in Christ Jesus's death

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Yes, you have sinned. Yes, you've fallen short of the glory of God Yes, you have done things that that should condemn you to hell

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But you have an advocate unlike these wolves you have no one to represent them You have the faithfulness of Jesus Christ to represent you so that when you stand before God Even though you don't deserve to be there

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Even though you have massive amounts of sin in your life Satan cannot come and he cannot claim you because Jesus said no he is mine

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She is mine. You have an advocate in Jesus Christ That is why Jude is building all of this case because for two reasons if you're a

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Christian do not fear Do not fear when the enemy comes do not fear when life happens.

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Do not fear when circumstances Attack you when wolves come into the church because you are Christ possession.

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He has claimed you as his own He loves you like his own and he will rescue you from the day of judgment

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And the second reason as we mentioned earlier is that this life is not permanent

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The situations we face are not permanent. We deserve like the wolves and like everyone else to go to hell but Christ has spared us because of his own blood his own body and Yet he will also