Latest / HBCWestminster / Jude 4-16 Condemned Part 1 10.20.19

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Jude 4-16 Condemned Part 1 10.20.19 · HBCWestminster

• 0:00
  Well, if you guys have your Bibles open to Jude, verse 4, that's going to be our text. I'll read verses 4 to 16 this morning. I would ask if you're able to stand in honor of God's Word, we'll read it and then pray. Beginning in verse 4. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you.
• 0:32
  Although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels, who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
• 1:01
  Yet in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain.
• 1:31
  and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear. Shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
• 1:58
  It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouthed boasters showing favoritism to gain.
• 2:27
  advantage. And Lord, we ask that you would feed us now as we open your holy word. Spirit of God, give us the nourishment that our souls daily need. And may your soul food strengthen us to outstrip the fears which tie so many in knots and which would hinder your gospel's free flow. Give us today your spiritual bread. Strengthen our minds to understand and gird up our hearts to obey. Give us joy eternal, O God.
• 3:02
  so that we may be fulfilled in a way which the world will never understand. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen? Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. You guys may recall from last week that apostasy was rampant in the first century church. People who had once professed belief were abandoning their faiths due to persecution and false teaching, and they began turning to a different gospel, which Galatians chapter 1 says is really no gospel at all.
• 3:31
  And Jude, the half-brother of Jesus and full-brother of James, wrote this short letter as a warning to all genuine believers in the church who ran the risk of becoming casualties of war. And although his intention was to write what possibly would have been a fifth gospel, he felt it necessary instead to write about their common faith delivered once for all. The message of Jude we said last week is a warning to the church.
• 3:59
  that despite appearances, there are spiritual pretenders. The question posed to its readers is this, are you a contender or are you a pretender? Are you striving, fighting, agonizing for the faith? Are you, as 2 Timothy 2 says, doing your best to present yourself as one approved, a workman who needs not be ashamed? And by way of introduction, let me just ask a simple question. How big a deal?
• 4:31
  is the Bible to you? You think about your response for just a minute. How big a deal is the Bible to you? If I stopped preaching it, what would you do? I hope. If I got up here on a Sunday morning and said, listen, this book has been good and all, we're going to move on. There's another book we're going to begin to preach from. What would happen? I hope and prayer is, earnest prayer is that we would shut our doors before we shut the word.
• 5:09
  You know, the major problem in this morning's passage is boiled down to one phrase, and it's a phrase in verse eight. It says, yet in like manner, these people. Now, these people refers back to the same people in verse four for certain people. It's those people. It's the same people as verse 14. It was also about these, these people that Enoch prophesied. These people are the apostate people of last week. They are the ones who at one time held to the Christian truth.
• 5:37
  but eventually abandoned the faith, shipwrecked their faith. They were apostate believers. And it says in verse eight, yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams, relying on their dreams. These people had one major flaw. They had rejected the word of God as authoritative because they had, they no longer had their feet on solid ground.
• 6:07
  Their ultimate authority became their own dreams. Their rejection of God's word left a void which was quickly filled with personal experience. Does that make sense? They became the authority in their own lives. And like rust on metal, so is lack of authority to the church. You take the Bible away, you take God's word away, and the church will eventually disintegrate.
• 6:36
  Left unchecked, this rejection is like a cancer that spreads through the doctrine and practice of the church until there are no healthy cells remaining. In the passage before us this morning, Jude gives a vivid description of the characters of apostate believers. He talks about the leavening effect that they will have on the church if left to themselves. It's similar to the description given by Paul in Colossians 2 when he says, let no one disqualify you.
• 7:07
  insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by sensuous minds and not holding fast to the head. That is the key. Going on in detail about visions that they've had, puffed up without reason, without thinking minds, no longer holding fast to the head. You know the problem with being cut off from the head?
• 7:37
  is not only that the head is Christ, but the head contains the brains. And it is not hard to find, and I say this to our shame, it is not hard to find brainless Christians. Isn't that true? People who profess the faith but have no idea what they're talking about. They don't think like Christ. They don't act like Christ. They don't live like Christ.
• 8:10
  Because in reality, I think they don't know Christ. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14 says this, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. He's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. In other words, the person who is outside the faith, who does not have the Holy Spirit of God living in them, cannot understand the gospel. It makes no sense to them because spiritual things are only understood by spiritual people. Spiritual things...
• 8:40
  are spiritually discerned. A couple of verses later, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 16 says, but we, referring to believers, we have the mind of Christ. Now this is incredible. Not only does God's word say that when you believe, when you put your faith and trust and hope in Jesus Christ, and you become one of his kids, you are called out of darkness and into that glorious light. When that happens,
• 9:06
  Not only does the Spirit of Christ live in you from that moment forward, the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, but also you from that moment forward receive the mind of Christ. You can understand and discern spiritual things. There are really only two categories of people, but those categories should not be misunderstood to be those who believe in God and those who don't.
• 9:40
  theists, and atheists. Because as we've all experienced, not all theists are created equal. Not all theists are the same, right? There are all kinds of people who say that they believe in God, but don't believe in the same God that we preach. We have to qualify our belief in God by saying that we believe in God as he is revealed in the scriptures. This God, the God of this book.
• 10:12
  and no other. J.C. Ryle has said this, different churches give different answers, even to the most important questions about the Christian faith. How can anybody find the truth when things are so confusing? That's a good question. You know, that question was written 150 years ago. Like, man, it's even worse now, it seems. How can anybody figure out what's going on? Things seem to be so confusing. He continues, there is only one answer.
• 10:38
  The Bible is the only standard by which all questions about doctrine or Christian duty can be deduced. Our title this morning is condemned. Again, it's straight from the text. It comes from verse four. Certain people, he says, have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, the condemnation that God has poured out, the condemnation that God will pour out on ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God.
• 11:06
  into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our culture, I believe, is adrift. Maybe even the church culture is adrift. We have very few agreed upon values. We are unified on very few issues. And this due to the fact that, in my opinion, we have no agreed upon authority. When you reject authority,
• 11:35
  When you reject anything that may govern our thoughts or attitudes and actions, we have no point of reference. We've become like the people of judges, everyone doing what is right in our own eyes. And we Christians, honestly, we may be more subtle about it than those who don't claim Christ, right? But even we, in the secret place, in the privacy of our own minds, even we will tend to shake our fists at God and assume that he will look the other way.
• 12:10
  Forgiven, yes. The grace of God poured out on us, yes. But not heeding the warning to walk in holiness. We act, I think, sometimes as if God is bluffing when he warns that wickedness will be punished, that his way is actually the right and only way to live. We're tempted to call God's bluff. You know, my dad, whom very few of you ever got to meet, he has...
• 12:40
  Gone to be with the Lord 12 years ago, prostate cancer. My dad was the guy. He was the dad with the video camera at every event. That was my dad. And now listen, this was the 1980s, okay? I grew up in the 80s. I was born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s. Rough fashion, but great music. I mean, that is the 1980s. And my dad was the guy who, you know, when I was a kid, had that...
• 13:06
  Video camera at everything, everything, baseball games, birthday parties, every family holiday, every recital, everything has been well documented. And what's funny about my dad, for you guys who are under 30 years old, video cameras didn't used to be this big. You know, they didn't used to be able to fit in your pocket. So like, what's the big deal? We video everything now. When I was a kid, my dad had the video camera that had the VCR.
• 13:31
  So there was a VCR. You actually had to carry the actual VCR, that whole big box thing. And you carry it with a strap. And then there was a separate video camera that was videoing onto that VHS tape. It was ginormous. It was huge. My dad walked around with that thing everywhere. He videoed everything. It was mildly embarrassing. I'm still a little bit embarrassed by it. But my parents decided that they were going to take us. We grew up in Southern California. They were going to take us to Disneyland.
• 13:59
  My sister and I, who are great friends now, did not get along when we were younger. We bickered constantly. We were at each other's throats. And by the time I got into junior high, we were both kind of that sixth to eighth grade age. Things were bad between my sister and I. My parents were just fed up with it. But one day, my parents decided they were going to take our family to Disneyland, the four of us. And they warned us. They warned us going in that we better get along, okay? My dad videoed.
• 14:28
  My dad videoed our day at Disneyland. And what's funny about it is it's one of my favorite home videos he ever took because there was a portion of the video that he didn't realize the video camera was still on. He thought he had turned it off, but the part that he accidentally videoed is one of my favorite things he has ever filmed. We've got hours and hours and hours of things that will never be watched, but I liked this.
• 14:52
  particular few moments, because throughout the day, you can hear them threatening us. Keep your hands to yourself. Danny, stop sticking your tongue out at your sister. Jenny, keep your hands to yourself. Stop poking your brother. You know, it's no reason he's annoyed by, you know, all these things on and on and on. Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off, knock it off. And they began to threaten. If you guys don't stop, we'll leave. Now, listen, your kids know how much money you paid to get them into Disneyland. They know there is no way dad's going to pay all that money.
• 15:22
  and we're going to leave halfway through. You don't get a refund. My kids can't get along. Give me my money back. There's no refund. You leave. You're gone. There is no way he's doing it. And we were at that part in the park. Even if you've never been there, you know this part. There is this main street. As soon as you come in, the big entrance, whatever, there's this main street. It goes for several hundred yards. At the end of the street, there's that castle thing, right? The Tinkerbell Castle or the Cinderella Castle or the Pocahontas Castle. What is it?
• 15:51
  Sleeping Beauty Castle. The Sleeping Beauty Castle is at the end of the road. And so as you're walking down Main Street, you get closer and closer and closer to the big reveal. There's the castle, you know, the Disney Castle. We were there and my dad finally in the video just says, that's it, we're out of here. I'm turning this thing off. He slung the thing down. He didn't realize he didn't actually turn it off. The film goes upside down. We're leaving.
• 16:16
  At which point, Jenny and I get all upset. We start crying because we know now we've pushed him beyond the limit. We're leaving Disneyland. He holds it upside down, facing backward. As we are walking back down Main Street, you can see the Sleeping Beauty Castle getting smaller and smaller and smaller into the distance. Then you hear the turnstiles, clack, clack, clack, clack. We're now out in the parking lot, rows of cars. Daddy, please. Daddy, please. I've had it. I've had it.
• 16:46
  No more. Get in the car. Oh, wait, this thing's been on the whole time. You know, and then the thing shuts off. You know, one of Satan's most often used, and I think effective lies, is that we will get away with our sin. We'll get away with it. It's not a big deal. Our Heavenly Father is bluffing. This morning's message is for those who, like me, flirt with sin. Maybe dangling it in front of your face, reaching out to touch it, all the while holding it at arm's distance.
• 17:20
  It's for those who think they'll get away with it. It's a reminder to those who truly love God that God is not bluffing. And that when we get caught up in sin, we pay an enormous price. There are four examples that show that God doesn't bluff. Four examples in our passage. We'll only look at the first two this morning. Notice verse 5, the example of the wilderness. The example of the wilderness. He says in verse 5, Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it,
• 17:47
  That Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. You guys will recall the story. An entire generation of Jews that were living in bondage and slavery in Egypt. God sending the plagues one after the next. Moses going into Pharaoh's presence. Let my people go. Him saying yes and then no and then yes and then no. And all the plagues and then finally get thee out. The people of Israel pack up their things hastily.
• 18:17
  And Baal, they get out of there. They come to the Red Sea. The Red Sea parts. The people of God walk across on dry ground out into the wilderness. Pharaoh's army tries to chase, gives chase. The sea crashes back down on Pharaoh and his army. And all of the people on the other side rejoice. Right? Miriam even leading them in worship of God who would destroy the horse and his rider.
• 18:44
  And you guys may remember the story that all of those people then, just a few months later, passed into, crossed into the promised land. All of them got to enjoy it. Not one of them was lost in the desert. Right? No. People of God instead went all the way up to the border of the promised land, saw that there were giants in the land.
• 19:13
  that we look like grasshoppers compared to them. And I know that our God can part seas, but certainly he can't destroy giants. Right, David? Yeah. Our God can't destroy giants. We look like grasshoppers to them. We're not going in. And so what did God do? You're allowed to talk. What did he do? He sent them back. He punished them, right? He sends them back, back out into the wilderness for 38 more years.
• 19:45
  And that entire generation of people died in the desert with the exception of two guys, right? Remember who they were? Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies. They sent in 12, 10 said no, two said yes. Joshua and Caleb got to live. But all the rest of them died in the desert. Can I ask an honest question? You guys, I don't know. People speculate, historians, Bible scholars try to guess at how many Jews left Egypt and wandered in the desert.
• 20:16
  Can we guess at the number that most guys land between one and two million people? One and two million were out there wandering around. Two of them, two of the one and a half million people got to go into the promised land. Not even Moses got to go. The guy who got him out of there to begin with, not even he got to go. Two of the million and a half were all 1.5 million people rebellious.
• 20:49
  unbelieving apostates. Do you think all one and a half million of them were shaking their fists at God? Or do you think it's possible that some of them were probably pretty good folks, but who got caught up in and were influenced by evil and rebellious people who were vocal and convincing, and those faithful people allowed the fear to take over, and so they made a bad decision.
• 21:19
  Do you think there could be some like that? You guys, honestly, I think most were probably like that. They were probably good people who really did genuinely believe. But by the time they get all the way up to Numbers 13 and Kadesh Barnea and all of that, suddenly now it's, no, we don't want to go. We fear them more than we fear God. And in that moment, it cost them a tremendous amount because they refused to take a stand.
• 21:49
  They refused to influence others instead of being influenced. The Bible says that we, the children of God, are meant to be the influencers. That's us. We are salt and light. It's not the other way around. We are the ones who are supposed to be taking stands. We are the ones walking in righteousness. We are the ones holding firmly to the truth, to the trustworthy word as taught. Right? We are the ones who are meant to go out and make disciples.
• 22:19
  But I find in my own life, and I observe it in others, as many of us go out, rather than us making disciples of them, they make disciples of us. Compromise, lack of backbone, there's cowardice, there's lack of courage. As soon as we leave our little huddle here, we go out there and fear takes over. It's the same kind of fear, I think, that destroyed a generation at Kadesh Barnea. And here the author says, don't forget.
• 22:53
  He saved an entire nation out of the land of Egypt, but then afterward destroyed those who didn't believe. These people, the example of the wilderness, serves as an example that it is possible to have a saved soul, but a lost life.
• 23:13
  It's possible to know Jesus and genuinely be saved and you will genuinely enjoy eternal life. It is possible to know Jesus and yet throw your earthly life away. They paid an enormous price. Notice second, verse six, and what this will be done. He says in verse six, and the angels, the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority.
• 23:42
  But left their proper dwelling. So these are obviously, he's talking in verse 6 about fallen angels, demons, right? He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Now, no doubt, as some of you guys were reading the letter to Jude, you were reading some of the things we're going to look at this week and next. Angels being kept in utter darkness. Michael fighting with...
• 24:07
  The devil about the body of Moses, blaspheming and all these other, there are some crazy things. Korah's rebellion talked about in there. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, the man who walked with God and then was no more. There are some crazy things in this text. And verse six is no exception. The example of the demonic. The scripture says that in some time in an unspecified past, Lucifer, the devil, Satan himself, the son of the morning.
• 24:37
  lifted his eyes to the throne of God, and then lifted his heart in pride. The Bible says that he led a rebellion against God that resulted in a third of the angels being thrown down to earth. You know, the Bible never says that the angels, the demons, were thrown into hell. It never says that. It says that they were thrown down to earth. This is where they live and dwell.
• 25:01
  This is where the devil is seeking to advance his own kingdom rather than the kingdom of God. He lives here. He is not in charge of hell. In fact, he does not want to go to hell. There will be a day, the Bible says, when Jesus will put him there, but he doesn't want to go there. From that time until now, Satan has taken a very vested interest in our planet. He and his demons seek to kill, steal, and destroy God's crowning creation. That's what Jesus says in John chapter 10. However,
• 25:34
  However, demons, even after falling from heaven down to earth, demons were apparently given some restrictions in regard to human interaction. Now, this is going to get a little heady here and a little bit demonology theological for just a minute, okay? But apparently, even after they were thrown out of heaven and down to earth, there were still some rules, some rules that they had to abide by. You may recall in Job chapter 2, Satan showing up and asking God for permission.
• 26:02
  to tempt and all of, you know, cause this tremendous suffering of Job. And Satan, although he is called the God of this world, is a God with a little G, not a big G. Okay? He is a God, yes, in that he is worshipped, but he is still under the sovereign control of our Lord, who controls all things. Amen? I mean, he is not his own entity. Everything he does, he only has permission to do. Okay? But...
• 26:30
  even after throwing them out of heaven, losing their place there, being dislodged and thrown down to earth, there were still some things demons were not allowed to do. And those lines in the sand were violated on at least two occasions. And I'll give you one. One is from Genesis chapter 6. Genesis chapter 6, that's the flood account. It says that the sons of God...
• 26:59
  which was a common phrase for angels or demons in the Old Testament. The sons of God, demons, married the daughters of man, humans, and from them spawned this group called the Nephilim. Nephilim is just the Hebrew word for giants. Men of renown. These giants show up. And it is remarkable how many times in the Old Testament, giants...
• 27:28
  The Nephilim are used by Satan to discourage and destroy the people of God. We saw it again at Kadesh Barnea, Numbers 13. They're giants. It's the word Nephilim. David eventually fights one of them, the Philistine, right? The man from Gath, whose name was Goliath. Atta boy, Goliath, right? Goliath was one of the sons of Anak.
• 27:56
  The Anakim are the Nephilim. They're the giants. It's crazy how many times this happened. The Bible doesn't specify how many times this happened. But one time in Genesis chapter six, God said, you know what? There is a genuine threat. There is a genuine threat to humanity because of this going on. The earth is filled with violence. The devil was trying to exterminate mankind through this crazy giant race of people. God grabs Noah, a blameless man. He grabs his wife. He grabs their three sons and their wives. He puts them on a boat.
• 28:28
  and he wipes everybody else out. He hits restart, right? And like I said, it doesn't say how many times this happens, but Nephilim is used multiple times throughout the Old Testament where there's a demonic attempt to subvert the Messiah from being able to come. Does that all make sense? Anybody follow? I know it's a little weird. You're like, man, that's not a normal Sunday school message. There's no flannel graph for that one, okay? And for good reason, probably. The penalty for this infraction.
• 29:00
  from Genesis chapter 6, was loss of the relative freedom that these demons had enjoyed to that point. They could roam freely on the earth. But from that point, they could no longer do that because they had violated God's decree for them on earth. They were instead bound in the darkest parts of hell. And it is these demons, I believe, that this is making reference to in verse 6, kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great...
• 29:30
  day. It was to this place that the demons of Jesus's time begged him not to send them. You remember, we are legion. We are many. He's going to cast them out and they say, please don't send us to the abyss. Do you remember this? Send us to the pigs instead. They'd heard of this place. We don't want to go. It was to these imprisoned demons that if you fast forward, first Peter chapter three says that Christ went to in hell and preached a message of victory.
• 30:00
  In the days when his body lay in the tomb, while his body was entombed, his spirit goes into hell and preaches. It says in 1 Peter 3 to the demons who had been imprisoned there since the time of Noah. It says that it's 1 Peter 3. You go back to like, well, those were what they were doing. Those were those demons. It is these imprisoned demons that I believe this varies depending on your eschatology. If you're curious about it, come to the next three hour ordination meeting. They will ask you all about it.
• 30:31
  But it is these imprisoned demons that I believe God will release one day to torment mankind during the great tribulation. That's Revelation 9. And makes reference to it again here in verse 6. He will keep an eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. I believe that's the tribulation that is to come. One page later in the book of Revelation, I think that they are released for a time to torment mankind. There were angels who one day rebelled. And then there were demons who one day rebelled.
• 31:01
  thought they would get away with it. We find here they paid an enormous price. You know, our God does not bluff. In fact, scripture says that he cannot be mocked. When sin entices you and you're tempted to flirt with it, I would encourage you to recall the example of those who died in the wilderness. Recall those angels who made the wrong choice. Remember that upside down home video.
• 31:34
  of little kids crying and crying in the magic kingdom, disappearing eventually into the background. We pray, God, thank you for your word this morning. Lord, we look forward to next Sunday where we'll pick up with two more examples. God, may we not presume upon your grace. May we be recipients of it gladly, God, but may we never presume. May we never presume that we will get away with anything. God, you are a gracious and forgiving God. Absolutely.
• 32:05
  You want all people to be known by you. Absolutely. You don't want anybody to perish, but all to come to repentance. But God, you have said in your word that you will by no means clear the guilty. Lord, I pray that we'd be reminded of that when tempted to sin, when tempted to rebel against you, when tempted to shake our hands against you, shake our fists and expect you to look the other way. God, thank you for your grace and mercy toward us. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and sing together.