Latest / The Week in Bible Prophecy / Jude in Today's Headlines? | Matt Freeman

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Jude in Today's Headlines? | Matt Freeman · The Week in Bible Prophecy

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Speaker 1: The Week in Bible. Prophecy, a Prophecy Watchers podcast.
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Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Gary Steerman of Prophecy Watchers. With me is
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Speaker 2: Matt Freeman, and he pastors a church. The church is
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Speaker 2: called New City Church, and I want you to tell
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Speaker 2: us all about it, what you're doing, and then we're
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Speaker 2: going to talk about what you've been teaching now for
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Speaker 2: quite a while.
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Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, so New City Church here in Oklahoma City, Gary,
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Speaker 1: we go through the Bible verse by verse and do
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Speaker 1: an exhaustive study through different books of the Bible. Right now,
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Speaker 1: we're in the Book of Jude and studying how to
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Speaker 1: contend for the faith in the days which we live.
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Speaker 1: But we try to look through the Bible and find
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Speaker 1: the Lord on every single page, find Jesus on every page.
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Speaker 2: As he declared, Now, you've been teaching of a Book
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Speaker 2: of Jude twenty five verses. And I think someone who
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Speaker 2: hasn't really been looking at Jude, let's say twenty five verses,
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Speaker 2: it doesn't sound too important. It's one of the lesser
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Speaker 2: books of the Bible. But the importance of Jude to
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Speaker 2: me is amazing. And I've reviewed it, you know, knowing
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Speaker 2: I was going to sit down and talk with you.
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Speaker 2: I've reviewed the Book of Jude, and I am so
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Speaker 2: impressed by what it tells us and what it urges
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Speaker 2: us to do. It's amazing, it is.
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Speaker 1: It's an incredible book. It's I like to think of
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Speaker 1: it as a great prelude, prelude to the Book of Revelation,
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Speaker 1: and it's all about it. It puts the stamp at
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Speaker 1: the end of the of the New Testament, as we
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Speaker 1: were talking about before we went on here. But Jude
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Speaker 1: is all about contending for the faith and how to
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Speaker 1: spot apocesey in the time in which we live, which
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Speaker 1: there's enough of that going around glorality. And the Book
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Speaker 1: of Acts opens up the church Age with the acts
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Speaker 1: of the Apostles, and the Book of Jude closes the
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Speaker 1: church Age with the acts of the Apostates, and so
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Speaker 1: you have these bookends with the church Age. And what
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Speaker 1: I love about Jude, Gary, it's probably the most the
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Speaker 1: second most avoided book in the entire New Testament, next
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Speaker 1: to the Book of Revelation, because as you said, but
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Speaker 1: it has so many mysteries revealed out of the Old
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Speaker 1: Testament and deep lessons for us as God's people today
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Speaker 1: in the Church Age.
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Speaker 2: And it talks about apostasy. It is, in fact, if
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Speaker 2: you really want a I think a broad scale definition
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Speaker 2: of apostasy and the behavior of apostates. Jude is marvelous study.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, and I love you know. The Lord stirred
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Speaker 1: within Jude to change what he was writing. He set
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Speaker 1: out in verse three even said, I set out to
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Speaker 1: write about the Common Salvation, but it was needful for me,
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Speaker 1: and in the Greek that means it was impressed on
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Speaker 1: me supernaturally. The Holy Spirit stirred in me to write
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Speaker 1: unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend
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Speaker 1: for the faith.
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Speaker 2: Before we get into Jude too deeply, now, I'm going
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Speaker 2: to ask you to kind of extole for a moment
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Speaker 2: upon the idea of the common Salvation? What is that?
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Speaker 2: How do you define the common Salvation?
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Speaker 1: Well, there's so many epistles in the New Testament about
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Speaker 1: how to get saved, what to do with it, how
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Speaker 1: to the common salvation in terms of becoming born again,
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Speaker 1: and then how to walk according to the Lord. There
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Speaker 1: really aren't many books in the New Testament about what
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Speaker 1: you shouldn't do, how using examples of apostasy so that
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Speaker 1: you don't run astray from the Lord. And I love
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Speaker 1: that Jude as one of the four half brothers of Jesus,
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Speaker 1: which apparently didn't believe on him until after the resurrection,
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Speaker 1: as we learn in the New Testament. But that he
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Speaker 1: writes this, as you said, this short epistle to close
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Speaker 1: the Church Age, of how to how to spot an
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Speaker 1: apostate and not apostize in the last days.
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Speaker 2: Now, this assumes that there will be apostates of various sights.
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Speaker 2: And of course, if you look at the history of
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Speaker 2: the Church, that's what you see. You see the Church
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Speaker 2: constantly swerving to the right or to the left, and
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Speaker 2: the falling under the disfavor of various kinds, of odd teachers,
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Speaker 2: of a pseudo gospel of some sort or other. And
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Speaker 2: this happens over and over again down through the Church age,
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Speaker 2: and it becomes incumbent upon us to kind of steer
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Speaker 2: a straight course, and which is not as easy as
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Speaker 2: it sounds.
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Speaker 1: You're right, it's not. Remember what the Lord wrote through
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Speaker 1: Paul to the Church of Ephesus. Remember he said, when
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Speaker 1: I leave, grievous wolves will enter into your congregation. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and when then you get to Revelation, the Seven Letters
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Speaker 1: to the seven churches, and Jesus writes the first letter
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Speaker 1: to the Church of Ephesus, the Ephesians, and he tells
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Speaker 1: them in that letter that you did write. You spotted
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Speaker 1: the false teachers and false prophets in your midst and
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Speaker 1: you remove them from your congregation. And so they listen
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Speaker 1: to what the Holy Spirit had told them before, which
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Speaker 1: is incredible. And so here you have Jude. Let's just
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Speaker 1: look at how the letter even opens up Gary Jude,
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Speaker 1: the servant of Jesus Christ. That word in the Greek
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Speaker 1: is Dulos, the Dulos of Jesus Christ, the bond slave
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Speaker 1: of Jesus, and that is who the letter the Book
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Speaker 1: of Revelation is written to. When you turn the page
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Speaker 1: in your Bible and you get to Revelation one, it's
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Speaker 1: the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him
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Speaker 1: to show unto his Dulos, to his bond slaves, those
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Speaker 1: that are actively following the Lord.
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Speaker 2: Now he says this speaking as a half brother, yes
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Speaker 2: of Jesus, Yes, from Jesus family, and yet all of
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Speaker 2: the familial aspects of his life, the fact that he
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Speaker 2: is a half brother of Jesus, He's not going around. Hey,
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Speaker 2: do you know I'm a half brother of Jesus Christ.
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Speaker 2: That's not his attitude at all. He says, I am
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Speaker 2: a bond servant of Jesus Christ. That really strikes me.
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Speaker 1: He put himself in our position despite, like you said,
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Speaker 1: being a half brother. And it's amazing when you go
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Speaker 1: back to this idea of a bond slave. It comes
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Speaker 1: from the Old Testament. When a slave was set free,
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Speaker 1: he had a choice. He could indenture himself to the
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Speaker 1: household of the Master for his life if he chose
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Speaker 1: to become adulos, a bond slave, and he marked it
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Speaker 1: by you remember the ritual. What they would do is
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Speaker 1: they would pierce their ear. They put an all through
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Speaker 1: the ear of the servant and he would wear an
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Speaker 1: ear ring for the rest of his life, showing he's chosen,
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Speaker 1: despite being set free, to be a bond slave to
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Speaker 1: the Master. And that's the thing with our Christian walk, Gary,
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Speaker 1: a lot of people have been set free, but they
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Speaker 1: don't choose to become a bond slave at that point,
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Speaker 1: they don't serve the Lord, they don't indenture themselves to
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Speaker 1: the house of the Master for their life. They walk
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Speaker 1: in freedom, they're saved, They have their fire insurance, so
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Speaker 1: to speak. But then they do whatever they want with
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Speaker 1: their life.
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Speaker 2: Now, he writes, in the present tense here verse four,
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Speaker 2: And I want to let you comment on this, for
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Speaker 2: there are certain men crept in unawares. There are certain
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Speaker 2: you know, present tense for him, as he writes this,
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Speaker 2: even at that time, early early in the church age,
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Speaker 2: the church was being undermined, And which is striking to me.
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Speaker 2: You would think that close to the life of Jesus
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Speaker 2: and things being what they were at that time time,
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Speaker 2: this would be unusual or strange, But apparently it was common.
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Speaker 1: It was. It was common, and Satan as soon as
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Speaker 1: the church was founded, the church was hidden the Old Testament,
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Speaker 1: but as soon as it was revealed. Satan's plan has
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Speaker 1: always been to corrupt it from within, because he knows
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Speaker 1: he can't attack it from the outside. It'll just grow.
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Speaker 1: It always grows through persecution. But if he can get
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Speaker 1: in on the inside and let it fall from within,
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Speaker 1: just like how the Roman Empire fell, if he can
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Speaker 1: get it to fall from within, then he can wins
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Speaker 1: in some way, so he thinks. And that word in
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Speaker 1: the Greek in verse four there gary, for there are
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Speaker 1: certain men crept in unawares. It literally means those who
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Speaker 1: came in and settled down amongst you, they set down comfortably,
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Speaker 1: They were welcomed. The apostates were welcomed in the door. Now,
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Speaker 1: if that doesn't sound like today, here we are too,
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Speaker 1: almost two thousand years later, and we're facing the same issue.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And it's amazing when you look at when you
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Speaker 1: look at how the church age closes, the church age
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Speaker 1: does not end very well. When you look at scripture
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Speaker 1: and its totality. There will be pockets that do end well.
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Speaker 1: But the church Age, Aposta see, is a characteristic of
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Speaker 1: the end times. It's not something that just happens all
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Speaker 1: of a sudden, and you see that in a lot
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Speaker 1: of Versus. You know, look at tewond Thessalonians two three.
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Speaker 1: Let no man deceive you by any means, for that
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Speaker 1: day shall not come except they're come a falling away,
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Speaker 1: And Aposta see of first and that man of sin
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Speaker 1: be revealed the son of Perdition. So this apostasy and
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Speaker 1: that may have to do with the Jews, you know,
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Speaker 1: as we've been discussing some here at Prophecy watchers, that
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Speaker 1: may have to do with the Church that may have
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Speaker 1: to do with the world, but there's an apostasy at
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Speaker 1: the end times. When you look at first Timothy four
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Speaker 1: to one, for example, Gary, now the Spirit speak at
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Speaker 1: that expressly that in the latter times some shall depart
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Speaker 1: from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines
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Speaker 1: of devils. And that's where we are. We're in the
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Speaker 1: latter times. And if you look just across the board
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Speaker 1: at how many people who are self proclaiming Christians and
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Speaker 1: in churches all over the world that are teaching things
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Speaker 1: that are abominabaled to Almighty God, that go against His
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Speaker 1: plan for marriage, his plan for Israel, his plan for
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Speaker 1: your identity in Christ, his plan for raising a family,
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Speaker 1: his plan for children, all of it. It is they
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Speaker 1: are literally giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.
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Speaker 1: And it's very it's difficult in this time that we're
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Speaker 1: in to find places of refuge that are just sticking
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Speaker 1: to the Bible, to what God said, and not wavering
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Speaker 1: from it despite what the world throws at us.
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Speaker 2: One of the things about jud that is so amazing
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Speaker 2: to me is the way that he calls upon the
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Speaker 2: Book of Enoch, Yes and of course, Enoch is in
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Speaker 2: the early genealogy, back in Genesis, and he talks about
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Speaker 2: the angels that came down and corrupted humanity before the flood,
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Speaker 2: and he uses them, I think sort of as an
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Speaker 2: example of what happened before. Yes, and now all it's
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Speaker 2: happening over again. Yes, but we wouldn't have made that
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Speaker 2: connection had it not been for Jude.
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Speaker 1: Jude draws upon when you get past verse four that
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Speaker 1: we just kind of talked about. The Lord goes into
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Speaker 1: six examples of apostates, and he has three corporate examples
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Speaker 1: and then three individual examples, and he covers the three
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Speaker 1: corporate examples are Israel in the wilderness, the angels that sinned,
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Speaker 1: and then Sodom and Gomorrah. And what's amazing, the order
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Speaker 1: in which the Lord lists these in Jude is not
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Speaker 1: the order in which they occurred in the Bible, in
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament. But it lays out a pattern, which
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Speaker 1: is why the Lord listed it this way, that the
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Speaker 1: children of Israel, they didn't listen to God in the wilderness,
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Speaker 1: and so their faith was never built built upon the
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Speaker 1: word of God. Remember when the Lord came down on
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Speaker 1: Mount Sinai and he wanted to speak to the entire
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Speaker 1: congregation of Israel, all two plus million of them. They
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Speaker 1: and they were terrified because of the standard and the
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Speaker 1: word of God. And so they all went to Moses, remember,
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Speaker 1: and then they said, hey, Moses, from now on, you
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Speaker 1: go talk to God and tell us what he says.
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Speaker 1: We don't want to hear from him directly. And from
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Speaker 1: that point on, Gary was abysmal failure for the children
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Speaker 1: of Israel, because they wanted someone else to tell them
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Speaker 1: what God says instead of just picking up the word
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Speaker 1: themselves and following it. And so through that they started
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Speaker 1: to become disobedient, which led to the second corporate group
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Speaker 1: of apostates, the lord uses, which are the angels in
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Speaker 1: verse six, which kept not their first estate, but left
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Speaker 1: their own habitation. Now, these angels that rebelled, they didn't
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Speaker 1: keep this is there's only two places that God uses
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Speaker 1: this Greek word. They're Oktyrian. They left their first a saint,
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Speaker 1: but left their own Okatyrian, their habitation. They disrobed themselves
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Speaker 1: of the glory that's reserved for you and I and
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Speaker 1: our resurrected bodies. It's the same word. When we get
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Speaker 1: our resurrected body, we look to our Okatyrian, and that's
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Speaker 1: amazing the house upon that God's going to clothe us with.
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Speaker 1: And then you get to Sodom and Gomorah. So these
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Speaker 1: angels that rebelled and then it ultimately led to destruction
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Speaker 1: as Sodom and Gomorrah. You know, there's a lot of
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Speaker 1: examples out of Sodom and go Morrigary that are so
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Speaker 1: applicable to us today. Here you have Lot, who the
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Speaker 1: New Testament says was a righteous soul, and when you
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Speaker 1: go read the story, it doesn't seem like he was
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Speaker 1: a very righteous man. I mean, he tried to give
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Speaker 1: his daughters over to the people in Sodom. Lot said
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Speaker 1: in the city gate of Sodom. He was likely a
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Speaker 1: high up city official in Sodom when you study that
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Speaker 1: process of even how he ended up there. He broke
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Speaker 1: fellowship with Abraham. He didn't go where he was supposed
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Speaker 1: to with him. He wanted to live in the world,
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Speaker 1: so to speak.
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Speaker 2: Now, the odd thing that comes out I think in
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Speaker 2: this book, or maybe we should call it the unique
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Speaker 2: thing that comes out, is the way that he weaves
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Speaker 2: the concept of sensuality into the concept of the gospel
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Speaker 2: and or opposition to the Gospel, and you know, it's shocking.
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Speaker 2: And I think, and I remember the first time I
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Speaker 2: ever heard this years ago, about the angels who left
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Speaker 2: their first estate, the angels who came down and took
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Speaker 2: Earth women as their own wives and totally rebelled against
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Speaker 2: everything that God had ordained up to that point. And
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Speaker 2: I'm thinking to myself, why why would they do that?
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Speaker 2: Because they were in a perfect position. They were in
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Speaker 2: a position to be close to the Creator, and they lived,
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Speaker 2: from what we know, wonderful lives, lives of power and
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Speaker 2: enjoyment and you know, maybe relaxation. We don't really know
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Speaker 2: how they lived, but they threw all that away to rebel.
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Speaker 2: And that theme runs entirely through the Bible, not necessarily
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Speaker 2: with angels, but later on with human beings and leaders
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Speaker 2: of men, you know, Emperor. And that whole theme of
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Speaker 2: abandoning your own power structure and leaping on God's power
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Speaker 2: structure and trying to corrupt it for your own uses
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Speaker 2: is really one of those central themes in the whole Bible.
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Speaker 1: That's right, it's the draw of the world, right, it's
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Speaker 1: the temptation. It's the same temptation that Satan gave Jesus
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Speaker 1: in the wilderness, absolutely, and he showed him all the
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Speaker 1: kingdoms of the earth and promised the Lord, I'll give
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Speaker 1: these to you if you just bow to me. In
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Speaker 1: other words, don't go to the cross, I'll just give
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Speaker 1: this to you, And which was a temptation to Jesus.
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Speaker 1: But Jesus, using the word of God, combated the evil one,
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Speaker 1: the enemy Satan himself. And when you get down, Gary,
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Speaker 1: we talked about the three corporate groups of apostates, then
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Speaker 1: you get into right after those corporate groups, you get
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Speaker 1: into the way that we are to war. When Michael
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Speaker 1: the archangel in verse None, contending with the Devil, he
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Speaker 1: disputed about the body of Moses, and he didn't bring
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Speaker 1: against him a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee.
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Speaker 1: And what's amazing about that is that when you are
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Speaker 1: doing spiritual warfare with the enemy, you don't have to
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Speaker 1: bring about an accusation. You just have to use the
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Speaker 1: word of God. The Lord rebuke you. And I love
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Speaker 1: that promise.
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Speaker 2: Now, and which brings up a kind of a side point.
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Speaker 2: But I'd like to for you to comment on this
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Speaker 2: body of Moses idea. Nobody knows where Moses was buried,
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Speaker 2: total mystery. You know, people have well, his tomb is
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Speaker 2: over here, and it's got to be on this mountain.
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Speaker 2: And you've heard probably a lot of those arguments. Yes,
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Speaker 2: but this is very special. There's something very special about Moses,
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Speaker 2: the lawgiver, the man of whom God chose to bring
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Speaker 2: the law to humanity. And and then he goes off
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Speaker 2: and we don't hear from him anymore. But here's a
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Speaker 2: little side note. There's something valuable about his body. That
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Speaker 2: is what's going on here.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing because you don't this is an event. And
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Speaker 1: like we said at the beginning, there's so much in
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Speaker 1: the Old Testament that Jude covers that you don't learn
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Speaker 1: in the Old Testament, right, and this is one of
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Speaker 1: those things that the Holy Spirit tucks in here in
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Speaker 1: verse nine, that he puts it in here is this
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Speaker 1: as if you and I should have remembered this event
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Speaker 1: of Michael fighting with Satan over the body of Moses.
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Speaker 1: And it's just amazing because it's nowhere in the Old Testament.
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Speaker 2: Two angels wrestling super angels, super angels, a good one
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Speaker 2: and a bad one wrestling over the body of a man.
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Speaker 2: And there's something. Well, let's put it this way. I
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Speaker 2: can't wait to learn what this was really all about.
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Speaker 2: And I don't think we'll know until after we're home
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Speaker 2: with the Lord.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you can, you can theorize. And I'm going to
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Speaker 1: actually talk about this a little bit at our Branson
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Speaker 1: conference here coming up. But there are over there are
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Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of references to Moses in the Old Testament,
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Speaker 1: but only one about his body. And it's when when
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Speaker 1: the Lord decides to end his ministry and bring him home.
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Speaker 1: And we all remember the story, right, Moses in a
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Speaker 1: sense ended up at the end of his life apostasizing
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Speaker 1: in a way because he struck the rock twice and
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Speaker 1: he was not supposed to, and as a result, his
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Speaker 1: ministry was ended by the Lord. Remember the first time
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Speaker 1: he struck the rock, so they had water. The chillin
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Speaker 1: Israel kept complaining and murmuring, which the Lord talks about
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Speaker 1: in Jude here in a minute. And so Moses struck
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Speaker 1: the rock again, but the Lord said, no, speak to
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Speaker 1: the right and I'll give them water. See Gary, He
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Speaker 1: was supposed to model the first and second coming of Christ,
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Speaker 1: the first where the rock was struck for you and
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Speaker 1: I and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the second
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Speaker 1: where the Rock of Ages shows up and speaks to
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Speaker 1: give us life, which he speaks and wipes out his
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Speaker 1: enemies at Armageddon. And when Moses struck at the second time,
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Speaker 1: God basically said, that's it. Your ministry is finished. You're
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Speaker 1: going to see the promised Lamb, which you will never
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Speaker 1: enter into it in the flesh at least. And so
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Speaker 1: the Lord takes it upon himself when he brings Moses
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Speaker 1: home to bury his body at the foot of Mount Nebo.
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Speaker 1: And that is fascinating. So you have across the Jordan
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Speaker 1: to the east Mount Nebo in somewhere. The Lord even
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Speaker 1: said in the Old Testament he told nobody where the
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Speaker 1: body was buried, so he knew for some reason Satan
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Speaker 1: wanted that body, and which gets into a whole discussion
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Speaker 1: of why would Satan want a human body? And the
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Speaker 1: other ministry that's cut short in the Old Testament is Elijah.
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Speaker 1: And Elijah did the same thing. Remember he was in
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Speaker 1: the cave after battling Jezebel and the spirits of Bail
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Speaker 1: and the occultic black magic witchcraft sorcerers you know that
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Speaker 1: were following Jezebel the prophets of bail and he's in
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Speaker 1: the cave. Remember, the Lord comes to him Gary and says,
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Speaker 1: what are you doing here? And he said, I'm alone.
21:32
Speaker 1: It's just me. It's all me. Now, I'm all alone. Lord.
21:35
Speaker 1: And he says, Elijah, there are seven thousand that you
21:38
Speaker 1: don't even know about that are still carrying this torch.
21:42
Speaker 1: And at that moment Elijah's ministry ended, and he had
21:46
Speaker 1: to pass it on to Elisha. But his ministry ended
21:50
Speaker 1: from murmuring and complaining and backbiting his sense and thinking
21:56
Speaker 1: that he was in this by himself, and he was
21:58
Speaker 1: complaining to the Lord about it, which leads into these apostates.
22:04
Speaker 1: When you look at past the body of Moses and
22:08
Speaker 1: you look at how God describes these apostates, they're raging
22:14
Speaker 1: waves of the sea, foaming out of their own shame.
22:16
Speaker 1: They're clouds without water, tossed by the wind. You know
22:20
Speaker 1: there's spots in your feasts of love or charity. Yeah,
22:24
Speaker 1: they are murmurers and complainers, they're backbiters, and that's in
22:30
Speaker 1: a sense what they were doing.
22:32
Speaker 2: Well in verse ten, there's there's something I'd like for
22:35
Speaker 2: you to comment on.
22:36
Speaker 3: Because these people speaking evil of those things which they
22:43
Speaker 3: really don't understand, are described as brute beasts.
22:47
Speaker 2: Now, when you think of a brute beast, you know,
22:49
Speaker 2: you just think like an ox or maybe a bear,
22:52
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe a lion. But that beast is
22:57
Speaker 2: something you don't want to get in the way of.
22:59
Speaker 2: It's a power creature, and yet it's it doesn't know
23:03
Speaker 2: very much.
23:04
Speaker 1: It's an untrained beast. It's a wild animal. It's an
23:08
Speaker 1: animal that you that you have to tame somehow.
23:12
Speaker 2: And and this is the description given to these apostates.
23:18
Speaker 1: That's right, isn't that amazing? So these are these are
23:21
Speaker 1: apostates that are in the church that are running amok,
23:26
Speaker 1: so to speak, they're causing distress. They don't have anything
23:31
Speaker 1: orderly that they're about. They're only about disorder. And when
23:36
Speaker 1: you look at then what he does after after calling
23:39
Speaker 1: them that, he then gives the three individual examples of apostates,
23:44
Speaker 1: the way of Cain, the error of Balam, and the
23:47
Speaker 1: gainsaying of Cora. So let's talk about those three guys.
23:51
Speaker 2: Here.
23:51
Speaker 1: You have Cain. We all know the story of Cain.
23:55
Speaker 1: Here's a man who the son of Adam. He walked
24:00
Speaker 1: with the Lord. He had fellowship with the Lord. He
24:03
Speaker 1: knew that the Lord demanded an offering, and you have
24:06
Speaker 1: his brother Abel the same thing. But what the Lord
24:09
Speaker 1: wanted was an offering from the flock, something that was
24:12
Speaker 1: not the work of your hands, something you had nothing
24:15
Speaker 1: to do with that you brought it to the altar.
24:19
Speaker 1: It's a chef Christ exactly. There's no pride in it
24:22
Speaker 1: because you had nothing to do with it. It's a
24:24
Speaker 1: it's a typology of what Jesus did for us in advance.
24:30
Speaker 1: But Cain didn't like that. He wanted his way to God. Remember,
24:34
Speaker 1: he was a tiller of the soil. He worked the farmland,
24:37
Speaker 1: so to speak. He brought an offering of his crop.
24:41
Speaker 1: So Cain brought an offering of what he did with
24:45
Speaker 1: his hands. He was trying to get to God through works.
24:49
Speaker 1: He was trying to have fellowship with the Lord through
24:52
Speaker 1: the works of his hands. And that's not what God wanted.
24:55
Speaker 1: And so it's amazing you have. You see that a
24:58
Speaker 1: lot in apostates. They try to get to God through
25:02
Speaker 1: manufactured works, and it just doesn't You can't do that,
25:07
Speaker 1: and then you have the error of Balam. So here's
25:09
Speaker 1: a gentile prophet. He's one of the most incredible guys
25:15
Speaker 1: in the Old Testament actually when you study him, because
25:18
Speaker 1: he's a gentile prophet that talked to the Lord. And
25:21
Speaker 1: here he is trying to curse God's people Israel. So
25:24
Speaker 1: he's a part of God's family, but yet he's cursing
25:28
Speaker 1: the Jewish state, so to speak. That sounds familiar today
25:34
Speaker 1: all across the church.
25:35
Speaker 2: Like in his opinion, yes, these Jews had to go. Yeah.
25:41
Speaker 1: Well, remember he sold his gift to Baylik, and because
25:46
Speaker 1: he was a true prophet, and Baylik saw that the
25:49
Speaker 1: children of Israel were wiping out every nation they were
25:51
Speaker 1: fighting against. Well, they're coming to his kingdom, and he
25:55
Speaker 1: didn't want that, and so he hired Balam. That's why
25:59
Speaker 1: it says in Versa there that Balem they ran greedily.
26:04
Speaker 1: These apostates run greedily after the error of Balem for reward.
26:09
Speaker 1: They're trying to sell their gifts from the Lord.
26:12
Speaker 2: There's money in it.
26:14
Speaker 1: There's money in it, that's right. And you see that
26:16
Speaker 1: a lot in different churches that if you make this donation,
26:20
Speaker 1: I'll pray for you, or I'll heal you of cancer
26:24
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. That's the error of Balem and
26:28
Speaker 1: what I love about when you go and study Balem
26:30
Speaker 1: and Baylick Gary, that Balem kept going despite the Lord
26:35
Speaker 1: standing in his way constantly. And you remember when he
26:39
Speaker 1: went to God and God said, no, you can't curse them.
26:42
Speaker 1: And Balem went back to Baylik and said, I can't
26:44
Speaker 1: do that. The Lord forbids it. Well, he did that
26:47
Speaker 1: three times, and then finally the Lord cannot subvert your
26:52
Speaker 1: free will, and so Memory finally said, okay, you may,
26:56
Speaker 1: but you're not going to prosper in it. And sure
26:58
Speaker 1: enough he went. He couldn't prophesied curse them. So what
27:03
Speaker 1: he told Bailik to do was, well, get all of
27:06
Speaker 1: your moabiit women and put them around the camp, and
27:09
Speaker 1: the men of Israel will sin and commit adultery with them,
27:12
Speaker 1: and then God will judge them. Well, he did that
27:16
Speaker 1: and it worked, and then you know, years later Joshua
27:20
Speaker 1: enters the Promised Land and even find out in Joshua
27:23
Speaker 1: he kills Baalim and he gets what the path he
27:27
Speaker 1: went down is judged ultimately.
27:29
Speaker 2: You know, I just have to say something. At this point,
27:33
Speaker 2: we're talking about the Book of Jude twenty five verses.
27:37
Speaker 2: You can pick up your Bible tonight wherever you are,
27:41
Speaker 2: and you can read this in less than fifteen minutes,
27:45
Speaker 2: but you can talk about it for hours, for days,
27:48
Speaker 2: for a lifetime. There is so much that is woven
27:53
Speaker 2: into this narrative. It's amazing.
27:56
Speaker 1: It is it's so many deep lessons for us in
27:58
Speaker 1: the church, which is why the led me to go
28:01
Speaker 1: through this book next at New City. So we just
28:05
Speaker 1: finished last Sunday, We just finished verse sixteen, and we've
28:08
Speaker 1: been taking them one to two verses a week or so.
28:12
Speaker 1: But the message for all of us today is that
28:16
Speaker 1: we are in an era at the last of the
28:19
Speaker 1: last church age, the last of the last days, so
28:23
Speaker 1: to speak, and God is calling the same thing for
28:27
Speaker 1: us today, to stand up and to contend for the faith.
28:32
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you're contentious about it. It doesn't
28:36
Speaker 1: mean that you try to be little other people about it.
28:39
Speaker 1: But contending means you don't back down when the world
28:43
Speaker 1: says to back down. You stand on the rock of ages,
28:47
Speaker 1: that is Jesus Christ.
28:49
Speaker 2: Now Here in verse thirteen, we sort of close this
28:55
Speaker 2: introductory thinking, raging waves of the sea, these falseatures are
29:00
Speaker 2: called they're foaming out their own shame, wandering stars. When
29:04
Speaker 2: I think of wandering stars. I think maybe of comets
29:07
Speaker 2: that come and go, or meteorites. I don't know what,
29:11
Speaker 2: but they're out of control. Here they go and then
29:15
Speaker 2: they're gone. Yeah, and that's one of the descriptions given
29:20
Speaker 2: to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Now,
29:24
Speaker 2: those words are.
29:27
Speaker 3: Very heavy.
29:28
Speaker 1: That's a good they're weighty. They are weighty words.
29:33
Speaker 2: And then we go into it to verse fourteen where
29:36
Speaker 2: we talk about Enoch. Enoch the seventh from Adam is
29:44
Speaker 2: plays a very, very big part in the Old Testament
29:49
Speaker 2: because he introduces an apostasy of the First Magnitude, when
29:55
Speaker 2: the sons of God came down and took the daughters
29:58
Speaker 2: of men, and then they're the implications of that are
30:03
Speaker 2: still in the world today. It was a horrific event,
30:07
Speaker 2: and so when you really look deeply into Jude, it
30:12
Speaker 2: opens your thinking absolutely. It's amazing to me.
30:16
Speaker 1: And Enoch, you learn very little about him in the
30:19
Speaker 1: Old Testament, and yet he as a human prophet, has
30:25
Speaker 1: the first prophecy spoken in the Bible, but it's not
30:28
Speaker 1: quoted until the end of the Church age in Jude.
30:32
Speaker 1: And for our time today, I should say, but here
30:35
Speaker 1: you have in verse fourteen. And Enoch also the seventh
30:37
Speaker 1: from Adam propheside of these propheside of who these apostates,
30:43
Speaker 1: these corporate groups and individual groups of apostates. And what
30:48
Speaker 1: did he say? This was the prophecy that Enoch had
30:51
Speaker 1: before the flood of Noah. And he said, behold, the
30:54
Speaker 1: Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. And in
30:57
Speaker 1: verse fifteen, why is the Lord coming to execute judgment
31:01
Speaker 1: upon all? And to convince all that are ungodly among
31:05
Speaker 1: them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed,
31:09
Speaker 1: and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have
31:12
Speaker 1: spoken against him, against Jesus Christ. And this is amazing
31:18
Speaker 1: to me, Gary, because you have Enoch's prophecy in Jude
31:23
Speaker 1: uttered before the flood of Noah is about the second
31:27
Speaker 1: return of Jesus to the earth to judge all of humanity.
31:31
Speaker 2: And that's incredible when you stop and think about it,
31:35
Speaker 2: it's staggering.
31:36
Speaker 1: And he's coming back with his saints, and that's us,
31:41
Speaker 1: that's the Church. We come back with the Lord. In
31:44
Speaker 1: Revelation nineteen, so Enoch prophesiede of Us before the flood
31:49
Speaker 1: of Noah and that's an amazing promise because the second
31:56
Speaker 1: return of Christ to rule and reign on the earth
32:00
Speaker 1: is the honestly the predominant issue in the Bible, from
32:03
Speaker 1: cover to cover. How does God save humanity? Creation? The
32:09
Speaker 1: purpose of Jesus. But you can find a promise about
32:12
Speaker 1: the Lord returning in almost every book of the Bible,
32:16
Speaker 1: and it takes up the majority of what God talks
32:22
Speaker 1: about when you're sensitive to it and you see it.
32:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the idea here of the Lord coming back
32:30
Speaker 2: with ten thousands, a countless number of his saints, that
32:34
Speaker 2: would be us. I plan to be in that number.
32:38
Speaker 1: We all do, hopefully.
32:42
Speaker 2: To execute judgment upon all that day is in the future,
32:48
Speaker 2: in our future. We're going to participate in it, and
32:53
Speaker 2: it's going to be an unbelievably powerful event. We will
33:00
Speaker 2: get to see that. Even to participate, and that is
33:04
Speaker 2: that staggers the mind. And Jude just rolls that out like, well,
33:09
Speaker 2: everybody knows this. Oh wait a minute.
33:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And not only does everybody knew it,
33:16
Speaker 1: Enoch knew it exactly before the flood of Noah. And
33:20
Speaker 1: the thing I love about Enoch is there's so little
33:24
Speaker 1: attributed to him in the Old Testament. But here's a
33:27
Speaker 1: man that had a powerful walk with the Lord. Because
33:31
Speaker 1: he walked, he came to know the Lord. And from
33:34
Speaker 1: the time he knew the Lord, he walked with God
33:36
Speaker 1: for three hundred years before. As the Bible says in
33:40
Speaker 1: Genesis five, for the Lord took him. Enoch walked with God,
33:44
Speaker 1: and he was not for the Lord took him. The
33:47
Speaker 1: Lord raptured him. He took him out of the earth
33:51
Speaker 1: before the judgment upon the entire planet. With the flood
33:55
Speaker 1: of Noah. Enoch is a is a type or a
33:58
Speaker 1: foreshadowing of us the Church being removed before the judgment.
34:03
Speaker 1: So you have the same three groups of people in
34:05
Speaker 1: the flood of Noah, Gary. You have those removed prior
34:08
Speaker 1: to the flood, those preserved through the flood, and those
34:12
Speaker 1: that perished during the flood. It's the same three groups
34:15
Speaker 1: of people in the tribulation we're going to remove prior
34:17
Speaker 1: to there's people preserved during it, and then there's people
34:21
Speaker 1: that perish in the tribulation.
34:24
Speaker 2: Now, up to this point, Jude has informed us of
34:28
Speaker 2: certain things we should know. He closes, by the way,
34:32
Speaker 2: it's such and I can't get over this. Such a
34:35
Speaker 2: short little book and then you go through it and
34:37
Speaker 2: you say, wait a minute, I need to go through
34:39
Speaker 2: this book again. There's much, much, much here that I'm missing.
34:43
Speaker 2: And you go through it again and you say, wait
34:45
Speaker 2: a minute, I've got to go through this book again.
34:48
Speaker 1: It's almost exhaustible, and it's so short.
34:51
Speaker 2: And in verse seventeen here he writes, beloved, remembering the
34:56
Speaker 2: words which were spoken before of the apostle of our
35:00
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, now we're getting ready to hear something.
35:05
Speaker 2: And the close is a sort of a defense against
35:11
Speaker 2: false teaching as we find it today, and we are.
35:16
Speaker 2: What we're doing here is being awakened to the reality
35:20
Speaker 2: of false teaching. Yes, that's right, and then how to
35:23
Speaker 2: deal with it.
35:24
Speaker 1: That's right, and how to spot it and how to
35:26
Speaker 1: avoid it. And when you look at verse eighteen that
35:31
Speaker 1: they told you there should be mockers in the last time,
35:34
Speaker 1: that sounds a lot like two Peter three.
35:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does, doesn't it.
35:39
Speaker 1: And it sounds like exactly what the Lord said. And
35:42
Speaker 1: Jude verse eighteen here, who should walk after their ungodly
35:47
Speaker 1: luss well in the last days? And second Peter three,
35:50
Speaker 1: in the last days there shall be scoffers saying, where
35:53
Speaker 1: is the promise of his coming? For since the Father
35:55
Speaker 1: shall sleep always remain the same since the beginning of creation,
35:59
Speaker 1: and God even go on to call them saying that
36:01
Speaker 1: same thing. These are people who are walking after their
36:05
Speaker 1: own Luss in the flesh. See the people, I'm convinced Gary,
36:10
Speaker 1: the people in the church that despise the rapture. They
36:16
Speaker 1: despise it. There's a lot of reasons, but they hate
36:19
Speaker 1: it because they're very comfortable here and they are walking
36:22
Speaker 1: after the luss of the world in their own flesh.
36:25
Speaker 1: They're feeding their flesh. They're living for the world, so
36:28
Speaker 1: to speak. And the idea that at any moment you
36:33
Speaker 1: will be taken away and caught up to meet your
36:36
Speaker 1: Messiah in the air where you're judge according to First
36:39
Speaker 1: to Corinthians three, at the Bema seed of Christ. The
36:43
Speaker 1: day of Christ different than the day of the Lord,
36:46
Speaker 1: but the day of Christ that doesn't appeal to them,
36:49
Speaker 1: because they like their kingdom here. They're comfortable here. They
36:54
Speaker 1: haven't really studied to see where am I going from here?
36:58
Speaker 1: And if you will take the blinders off and think
37:01
Speaker 1: about what the Lord has for you for all eternity,
37:04
Speaker 1: and what he has set up for you from John fourteen.
37:07
Speaker 1: Remember I go to prepare a place for you.
37:09
Speaker 2: Jesus said, yeah.
37:11
Speaker 1: Then that will make you excited and you won't want
37:14
Speaker 1: to live in the world. Right here, I.
37:17
Speaker 2: Want you to comment on verse twenty one. It's where
37:19
Speaker 2: it's judas he's winding up. Actually, what he's doing is
37:25
Speaker 2: getting ready to tell us. Now go back to the
37:27
Speaker 2: beginning of this book and read it again. But verse
37:30
Speaker 2: twenty one says keep yourself in the love of God,
37:34
Speaker 2: looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto
37:37
Speaker 2: eternal life. And your first reaction is, of course, I
37:43
Speaker 2: do that. And then you say, wait a minute, do
37:46
Speaker 2: I really do that? Upon examining myself, I wonder if
37:52
Speaker 2: I really live up to what Jude is asking me
37:56
Speaker 2: to do here. This book, I think, is built around
37:59
Speaker 2: the idea of looking at what has happened and then
38:03
Speaker 2: examining yourself in the light of all of these things
38:07
Speaker 2: that went wrong.
38:08
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. We have to examine ourselves. And when
38:13
Speaker 1: you look at verse twenty one, as you said, Gary,
38:15
Speaker 1: and look at just before it in verse twenty building
38:18
Speaker 1: up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the
38:22
Speaker 1: Holy ghost keep yourselves. It's a comma there at the
38:25
Speaker 1: end of verse twenty. So the continuing thought is keep
38:28
Speaker 1: yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy
38:32
Speaker 1: of our Lord Jesus Christ under eternal life. There's only
38:35
Speaker 1: one way to build up your most holy faith as
38:38
Speaker 1: a believer, and that's Romans ten seventeen. Faith comes by hearing,
38:42
Speaker 1: hearing by the word of God. And we know from
38:45
Speaker 1: Hebrews eleven six that without faith it's impossible to please Him.
38:49
Speaker 1: And so you need to know how to go get
38:51
Speaker 1: your faith and to build your faith, which is there's
38:53
Speaker 1: only one way. It's in the written word of God.
38:57
Speaker 1: That's the only way you can build your faith is
38:59
Speaker 1: to be in God's word. To let him refine your life.
39:03
Speaker 1: Let him surgically remove everything in your life that doesn't
39:08
Speaker 1: belong and he will cut it out. And he is
39:11
Speaker 1: a refining fire. And so when you're in the Word
39:14
Speaker 1: of God, he will refine you. You'll find things gary
39:18
Speaker 1: in your life that you never even knew you needed
39:20
Speaker 1: to get rid of. If you'll just give him the
39:23
Speaker 1: opportunity and allow him to examine your life with you,
39:29
Speaker 1: and be honest, Lord, what is not pleasing to you
39:32
Speaker 1: in my life. How can I walk according to your
39:35
Speaker 1: purpose and your will from my life? And if you
39:39
Speaker 1: will yield your life to him? And in verse twenty one,
39:43
Speaker 1: as you said, the onus is then on you to
39:46
Speaker 1: keep yourself, to keep yourselves there in the presence of
39:50
Speaker 1: Almighty God. There's a something, there's an active verb on
39:56
Speaker 1: your part. Remember all through the New Testament, the Lord says,
40:00
Speaker 1: don't just be a hearer of the word, but a doer.
40:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to.
40:04
Speaker 1: That's that's an active part. Well.
40:06
Speaker 2: I believe in the word keep here could be guard yourself.
40:12
Speaker 2: I think in the Greek it has something to do
40:15
Speaker 2: with learn to build up defenses, keep yourself, keep yourself
40:19
Speaker 2: guarded against these.
40:22
Speaker 1: Things, becoming an apostate, yeah, and being led astray by
40:26
Speaker 1: false teachers. That's right.
40:29
Speaker 2: So the Book of Jude is an astounding a little
40:34
Speaker 2: it may be the greatest short book ever written. I mean,
40:39
Speaker 2: it's because it has so many elements. And what I'm
40:44
Speaker 2: feeling like right now as we come to the end
40:46
Speaker 2: of this is to go right back to a verse
40:48
Speaker 2: one again and go through the whole thing. And you know,
40:50
Speaker 2: the next time we went through it, we talk about
40:53
Speaker 2: an entirely different set of parameters.
40:55
Speaker 1: Exactly. The Word of God is inexhaustible. That's all. It
40:59
Speaker 1: always does that, no, it does, it's living and active
41:03
Speaker 1: in your life.
41:04
Speaker 2: And then he says in verse twenty three, and I
41:07
Speaker 2: want you to comment on this, and others save with
41:11
Speaker 2: fear pulling them out of the fire. Now, you as
41:17
Speaker 2: a pastor are very well aware of that idea. Look,
41:24
Speaker 2: and I think it's interesting that the Jude closes on
41:27
Speaker 2: that idea.
41:28
Speaker 1: He does, and it really bookends how the letter opens
41:32
Speaker 1: to Gary, because a a lot of the letters in
41:34
Speaker 1: the New Testament open up with grace to you. Yeah,
41:38
Speaker 1: Jude opens up with mercy to you. And grace and
41:42
Speaker 1: mercy are not the same thing. Grace is getting something
41:45
Speaker 1: that you don't deserve, right, Mercy is not getting something
41:50
Speaker 1: you do deserve. And so an apostate. That's why the
41:54
Speaker 1: Lord opens Jude with that, is he's saying, mercy to
41:57
Speaker 1: these apostates that you don't get what you deserve. And
42:02
Speaker 1: when you go to that to your verse right there,
42:05
Speaker 1: verse twenty three, and others save with fear pulling them
42:10
Speaker 1: out of the fire, Mercy pull them out. Now if
42:15
Speaker 1: you look at verse twenty two and twenty three. Together
42:18
Speaker 1: the Lord gives you a clue on how to save
42:21
Speaker 1: certain people, because some people come to know the Lord
42:25
Speaker 1: through the compassion and the love of Christ and knowing
42:29
Speaker 1: what they're getting when they come to him, eternal life, salvation,
42:35
Speaker 1: born again.
42:36
Speaker 2: You know, I'm pulled. This idea of pulling them out
42:39
Speaker 2: of fire is a very current idea. We see the
42:42
Speaker 2: night demonstrations with garbage cans burning and people marching in
42:46
Speaker 2: the street. We see the daytime marches that have been
42:51
Speaker 2: taking place lately, and have your heart just goes out
42:55
Speaker 2: to those people are marching in the street and you say,
42:58
Speaker 2: they're so wrong? What can I do? And the idea though,
43:04
Speaker 2: is to pull him out of the fire. That is,
43:06
Speaker 2: if there's any way possible.
43:09
Speaker 1: Pull them out, that's right. And a lot of people appeal.
43:13
Speaker 1: The appeal to them of Jesus is what they're getting
43:16
Speaker 1: some people, as verse twenty three says, pulling them out
43:19
Speaker 1: of the fire, the appeal and what draws in the
43:21
Speaker 1: God is what then they're not getting, which is the
43:24
Speaker 1: eternal separation from Him, eternal punishment in hell, being forever
43:28
Speaker 1: separated from the Lord. It's amazing some people respond to
43:33
Speaker 1: the Gospel that way. It's kind of the fire and
43:36
Speaker 1: Brimstone gospel of the last hundred years and some of
43:39
Speaker 1: the old Southern churches right that brimstone and eternal punishment.
43:44
Speaker 1: And some people respond to that, I don't want to
43:48
Speaker 1: go there. That doesn't sound very fun, right, And so
43:50
Speaker 1: I'll give my life to Jesus and the others. A
43:53
Speaker 1: lot of people come to the Lord through what they're getting.
43:56
Speaker 1: And so I just love how the Lord bookends, as
43:59
Speaker 1: you're saying here this Book of Jude with closing with
44:03
Speaker 1: that point that there's some people that you're going to
44:06
Speaker 1: appeal to by preaching on mercy what they're not getting
44:11
Speaker 1: that they do deserve.
44:12
Speaker 2: Now to close this thought that we're having right now.
44:19
Speaker 2: And of course, evangelism is written in large letters all
44:23
Speaker 2: the way through this little book because it gives a
44:26
Speaker 2: history of how people rebelled against God. The contrasting that,
44:31
Speaker 2: of course, is how to come to God, what God
44:34
Speaker 2: really wants humanity to do. And I have a question
44:37
Speaker 2: for you, why did God arrange things this way? Why
44:42
Speaker 2: couldn't he have just taken us to heaven. No struggles
44:47
Speaker 2: on earth, you know, no backsliding, Everything's just fine. You're
44:52
Speaker 2: born and you too good to others, and you go
44:57
Speaker 2: to heaven. But no, we're in a world that requires
45:02
Speaker 2: a little bit of concentration. Yes, contending for the faith contending.
45:08
Speaker 1: And God is sovereign and he created us in his image,
45:14
Speaker 1: and that means we have free will, and God can't
45:17
Speaker 1: usurp your free will. Part of what the Lord did
45:20
Speaker 1: from the very beginning Gary with creating the angels. We
45:23
Speaker 1: know the angels were created before Genesis won one because
45:26
Speaker 1: in job we learned that they cheered when the earth
45:29
Speaker 1: was created in verse one. God always wanted a family,
45:34
Speaker 1: and when you look at that, he created the angels
45:38
Speaker 1: in a full glorified body, in his eternal presence, and
45:42
Speaker 1: even then they rebelled against him. That has to be
45:48
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to the Lord Satan. We learned from Isaiah fourteen
45:52
Speaker 1: and Ezekiel twenty eight that he was Jesus's personal angel
45:56
Speaker 1: that covered his throne, the anointed cherub that covered God's throne,
46:02
Speaker 1: the one that was closest to the Messiah, our savior,
46:06
Speaker 1: the ruler of the universe, was the one that rebelled
46:08
Speaker 1: against him. That had to be heartbreaking for God. But
46:13
Speaker 1: He's always wanted a family, and so in Psalm's eight,
46:18
Speaker 1: we learned that the Lord had revealed to Satan that
46:22
Speaker 1: the man was coming. And Psalms eight is an amazing
46:26
Speaker 1: scene of discourse in the court room of heaven, so
46:29
Speaker 1: to speak, between Satan and God. And Satan goes, who
46:33
Speaker 1: is this man that you're mindful of him, that you
46:37
Speaker 1: crown him with glory? So God, in his sovereignty decide, well, okay,
46:41
Speaker 1: i can't have my family with these angels. They're all
46:44
Speaker 1: rebelled against me. I'm going to create man in my
46:46
Speaker 1: image and try to have my family there. And well
46:49
Speaker 1: then what happened rebellion the same thing. But God did
46:54
Speaker 1: it anyway, and knowing that by creating man, the only
46:58
Speaker 1: way to reconcile them to himself will be the death
47:00
Speaker 1: of God himself, and he went through with it, and
47:03
Speaker 1: that's an incredible story. But he did it because he
47:06
Speaker 1: wants a family. That's why in the Bible Gary he
47:10
Speaker 1: calls us we are his inheritance for all eternity.
47:15
Speaker 2: Well, our savior battle the greatest battle as far as
47:19
Speaker 2: we know, in the history of the universe, when he
47:21
Speaker 2: came to earth and when he was treated in a
47:26
Speaker 2: way that no other human being has ever been treated,
47:29
Speaker 2: and he fought the good fight. I think as an
47:32
Speaker 2: example to us. We're privileged to be able to fight
47:36
Speaker 2: that good fight.
47:38
Speaker 1: Right, that's right. And you know we're sitting here. This
47:41
Speaker 1: is Thursday, November the seventh, and we're two days after
47:45
Speaker 1: the election here in the United States, and we've been
47:49
Speaker 1: given a reprieve and a chance, a stay of execution,
47:53
Speaker 1: so to speak, for our nation, which means we, as
47:57
Speaker 1: the Church are we are going to remain free to
48:01
Speaker 1: be about the Lord's business in the United States at
48:04
Speaker 1: least for some foreseeable future, which means we have to
48:07
Speaker 1: contend even harder now for the faith to not let
48:12
Speaker 1: this nation go back to apostasy as we were heading.
48:16
Speaker 1: And there's still a lot of apostacy in the nation.
48:19
Speaker 1: But we're given a chance. Gary is God's remnant to
48:24
Speaker 1: That's right.
48:24
Speaker 2: Pastor Matt Freeman is teaching on Jude in his church
48:30
Speaker 2: right now. How long have you been teaching it so far?
48:33
Speaker 1: Well, we, like I said, this past Sunday, we just
48:35
Speaker 1: finished verse sixteen, and I think we've been going for gosh,
48:40
Speaker 1: maybe twelve weeks now or so, maybe three months.
48:43
Speaker 2: You have quite a few more weeks, we do all
48:47
Speaker 2: of this in a twenty five verse epistle from Jude.
48:53
Speaker 2: What an experience, and I appreciate talking with you. They
48:56
Speaker 2: we're all out of time, but we've got to do
48:59
Speaker 2: this again.
49:00
Speaker 1: Let's do that, Gary, Let's continue to contend for the faith.
49:03
Speaker 2: Matt Freeman. I'm Gary Steermann. You keep watching. We are