[MUSIC PLAYING] Push, push, push. Good. Good morning. So glad you are with us. Hey, would you
turn in your Bibles to the Book of Jude, also
known as "Hey, Jude?" That was a joke. Yeah, the Book of Jude. I'm really glad to be back in
a New Testament book, a verse by verse study. Albeit a short book,
I'm really glad that we can be going through
this incredible section of Scripture. Just kind of a forewarning. This message today
is a call to arms. It is a summons to fight. And I know you're
thinking, well, I didn't come to church
to learn how to fight. Skip. I came to church
to be encouraged. I understand that. When I was a kid, I never
liked getting into a fight. That's not to say I
didn't get into a fight, because I did from occasion
to occasion, time to time. But I didn't like it. I tried to avoid it, even though
I had friends, or at least acquaintances, in
school who didn't mind, even looked for
getting into a fight. I think we all know
kids like that in school who are like that. But I wasn't that kid. And as a Christian, I don't
necessarily like to fight. Most Christians would agree
that fighting is not what we are called to, primarily. We follow a Savior who said, I
am gentle and lowly in heart. The problem is we may think
He was always like that. We might think that Jesus never
raised His voice, that Jesus would never embarrass
anyone, that He would never call anybody out, that He
just sort of stood there with a smile on His face,
His hand on the head of little kids, maybe healing
birds from time to time, and just speaking in a
gentle, soft, loving voice. I've even noticed that
great artists in history have depicted Jesus
sort of that way. They, for the most
part, picture and paint a Jesus who is wistful,
weak, even effeminate. However, there was a side of
Jesus that was contentious, the Jesus that took
tables in the temple and overturned them
and took out a whip and drove people
out of the temple. Yeah, that Jesus. The one who said,
brood of vipers, translated you bunch
of slimy snakes. That Jesus. The one who said to his
detractors, whitewashed tombs filled with dead men's
bones and all corruption. The one who said, you are
of your father, the devil, and his deeds you do. The same Jesus who said
to the religious leaders, when you win a convert,
you make him twice as much child of
hell as yourselves. It is that Jesus
that the Book of Jude brings in to the forefront. It is Jesus with a backbone. Now, Jude is a small book. There's only 25 verses
in it, only 613 words. But though it's a
small book, it's a small book that
packs a big punch. I look at the Book of Jude
sort of as a fighter's manual for the believer. It was not Jude's
intention, originally, to write this letter. As you will discover,
Jude sat down to write a sweet, little
note of encouragement, but he ended up writing
about false teachers that had come in the church. And what this book reminds
us of, at just first blush, just looking over the book,
is that Christians are not on a playground, but we are on
a battleground, a battlefield. We are called to that. In fact, the whole atmosphere
of the Book of Jude has sort of a military tone
to it, even a militant tone, from the language that
is used, the grammar, the brevity of the commands, the
sort of bullet point directives that Jude gives
throughout this book. In fact, in verse 3, he
uses the term "exhorting." This is what I am doing,
he said, I'm exhorting you. And that's a word that describes
a general giving orders to an army. So let's read the first
four verses of Jude. This is our summons to
war, our call to arms. "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus
Christ and brother of James, to those who are called,
sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love
be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was
very diligent to write to you concerning
our common salvation, I found it necessary to write
to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which
was once, for all, delivered to the saints, for certain
men have crept in unnoticed, who, long ago, were marked
out for this condemnation-- ungodly men who turn the
grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ." Did you know that Jude is
one of the most neglected books in the New Testament? Most preachers don't touch it. They don't preach
sermon series from it. It's filled with all these
kind of Old Testament analogies and references,
and there's a lot of judgment and condemnation
and warning in this book. I've even noticed that it's
hard to find a good commentary on the book of Jude. I've collected a few of
them, but most commentators-- those who write books on
the books of the Bible-- don't have a lot of stuff
on the book of Jude. Most Christians know it's
there, but they don't really know what it's about,
and certainly they don't quote much from it. I dare you to find
somebody who will say, my life verse is found
in the book of Jude. About all that we
really know about it is probably the favorite
verse of Christians, which is verse 24. It's the benediction at
the end of the book, where he says, "Now unto Him, who is
able to keep you from stumbling and present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." It's a great benediction. But that's about it. But the book of Jude was
written about apostacy. Ever heard that term, apostacy? To apostatize or
an apostate, it's a word that means those
who defect from truth. They defect from the true
faith, or they never really had the true faith but they
pretended to be a part of it. You could call them
nominal Christians, Christians in name only, who
slip in, as you will see, unnoticed. Now you might ask, well,
what's the big deal about that? I mean, why write a whole
book, or a little letter even, about that? Well, that is the question
we're going to answer in the next few weeks. And today, I want to show you
four components to this call to battle. We're going to look at the army,
the hostility, the artillery, and the enemy. Let's consider those
four components. First of all, the army. And we find that
in verse 1 and 2. "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus
Christ and brother of James, to those who are called,
sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy peace and love
be multiplied to you." That's the army. It includes Jude, the author;
Jesus Christ, the commander; and us, the troops. So let's just begin with Jude. I'm going to call Jude
the ADC, the aide-de-camp in military parlance. He is the assistant
to the commander. He is the one who is
going to give the command of the commander to the troops. He is the one
writing the letter. He is bringing the
summons, calling us to war. Now, he is called Jude in
our English translations, but here's what
you may not know. English translations
have altered the original name of Jude-- for obvious reasons, as
you will see momentarily-- and given him the nickname,
not really the name that is written in Greek. In the Greek translation,
it doesn't say Jude. It says, in Greek, Judas,
which is the name Judas. Judas. There's lots of different
people in the New Testament by the name Judas, but
there's only one we remember, and that's Judas the
traitor, Judas Iscariot. It is not that Judas that
wrote this book, however. But that's a name that,
for obvious reasons-- instead of saying, hey,
here's the book of Judas-- because people are
going to go, whoa, I don't want to read that book. I don't want to find out
about how to be a traitor. So they've softened
the name Jude. People don't name
their kids Judas. Have you noticed that? Have you ever met
a Judas before? We'll name our kids Paul,
Peter, other biblical names, but not that one. You won't name your dog Judas. But the Jude, or Judas,
that wrote this book is a different one
than Judas Iscariot. By the way, let's
just throw that out. Isn't it ironic that the only
book in the New Testament that speaks about falling away from
the faith, defecting apostates, is called the Book of Judas? It's just an interesting
thing to note. But the Jude that
wrote, notice who he is. He's a bondservant
of Jesus Christ and the brother of James. So that narrows it down. Of all the people named Jude
or Judas in the New Testament, there's only one that we know
about whose brother was named James, and that is Jude,
the half brother of Jesus, literally related
to Jesus Christ. Both James and Jude,
Judas, in this case were related
physically to Jesus. That is, Joseph and Mary were
his parents, Jude's parents, and James, whereas Jesus
had Mary as his mother but was conceived in the
womb by the Holy Spirit. A half brother of Jesus. We meet them in
Matthew chapter 13. The text says, "Coming to his
hometown"-- that's Nazareth-- "He began teaching the
people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. Where did this man
get this wisdom and these miraculous
powers, they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary? And aren't his brothers James,
Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" That's who we believe wrote
the book of Jude, Jude the half brother of Jesus. So verse 1 then speaks
of a transformation that happened in Jude's
life, for he says, Jude, a bondservant
of Jesus Christ. He wasn't always a
bondservant of Jesus Christ. In fact, did you know
that Jude and James, and the other brothers,
half brothers, did not believe in
Jesus while Jesus went through his ministry,
3 and 1/2 year ministry, on the earth? They thought Jesus was nuts. They thought he was delusional. They thought the lights
were on but nobody's home. They thought he
was one taco short of a combo plate,
whatever delusional metaphor you want to use. They thought that about Jesus. We're told as much
in Mark chapter 3. "As the crowds gathered in
Capernaum and Jesus," it says, "was unable to eat. When his family
heard about this, they went to take charge
of him, for they said, He is out of his mind." They thought he was bonkers. They didn't believe in Him. Now, I'm bringing this up,
and I'm underscoring it, because I want those of you
with unbelieving family members to be encouraged by this. Even Jesus Christ had family
members who were unbelievers. So the question is, well,
what happened to Jude to make him a believer? And isn't it interesting? He doesn't say Jude, the
half brother of Jesus. He says, Jude, a
bondslave of Jesus. What happened? What transformed him
from an unbeliever to a bondslave of Jesus? A very profound event
known as the Resurrection. See, when your half brother dies
and then gets up from the dead, that'll do it. That's enough. And when that happened,
he became a believer. So we find him in the
book of Acts chapter 1. It says "They all met together,
that is, in the upper room, continually for prayer,
along with Mary, the mother of Jesus,
several other women, and the brothers of Jesus." Jude was in that upper room. The Resurrection is what
brought him to faith. S remember this, never
give up on those you love. Never quit praying for
your family members. Never stop having hope for
that unbelieving family member. You never know when the grace
of God is going to break through and grab that heart,
have something happen, and there'll be
a transformation. So that's Jude. Jude is the ADC,
aid-de-camp in this army. The commander is Jesus. Jude, a bondservant
of Jesus Christ. Now, I call him a
commander because that is how he is depicted in
Revelation chapter 19. That's His second coming. He is depicted as a commander. He comes on a white horse. John, who wrote the
book, said He comes with the armies of heaven. He pictures Him with a
sword to strike the nations. So He's battle-ready. John further says He
judges and makes war. He even has the blood stains
of His enemies on His uniform. So this is not gentle
Jesus, meek and mild. This is giant Jesus,
mighty and riled. This is the warrior Christ. This is the second coming. So He is the commander
of this army. And the troops
were the recipients of this letter, and
by proxy, us today, for he says in verse 1,
"to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father"-- sanctified means set
apart, and I like this, "preserved in Jesus Christ." So God called us to Himself. He set us apart for Himself. And He will protect
us by Himself. You are preserved. Just latch on to that
word for a moment. Preserved in Jesus Christ. It means to carefully
guard or protect. I'll tell you what,
it's nice to know before you're going
into battle that you're going to be preserved. It's like, OK, you're
calling me to fight here, but then the
commander says, yeah, but I want you to know the
odds are so in our favor. We are so going to
win this battle. Hands down, the ultimate
victory is already ours. You're going to be preserved. Now, there's going
to be skirmishes along the way, hence the book
of Jude, but you will be kept. You will be preserved. And notice in God's
army, there are some great military benefits-- mercy, peace, and
love multiplied. So (SINGING) you're
in the army now. The question is not,
will I be a soldier? The question is, will
you be a good soldier? Will you be a faithful soldier? Will you be a loyal soldier? You and I are part of this army. So that's the army. Let's look at the
second component to this battle, the hostility. That really takes us to verse 3. That's the heart of
this whole introduction. "Beloved," I like that
it begins that way-- "loved ones, people
that I love." Because he's going to
talk about some really heavy, hard-hitting things,
so he wants them to know they are deeply loved by him. "Beloved or beloved,
while I was very diligent to write
to you concerning our common salvation, I found
it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to
contend earnestly for the faith, which was
once, for all, delivered to the saints." There's something I
think you need to know. The first few verses
of this letter are the nicest part
of this letter. So just remember
that, because it's going to sort of go
downhill from here, as far as niceness is concerned. It's going to go uphill,
in terms of revelation, but the first few verses
are the nicest part. "Beloved." And then the very
end of the book is going to get nice again. There's that benediction. But you just kind
of hold on to that. So what he's saying
is this, verse 3. I originally sat down to write
you a letter of encouragement about our common salvation,
following Jesus, celebrating being saved. But it didn't come out that way. I'm giving you, rather, a call
to arms, to get into a fight. Warren Wiersbe wrote,
"the Holy Spirit led him to put down his harp
and to sound the trumpet." Now, I can relate to Jude. Jude is saying, I'd much rather
tell you about something else. I'd rather write
to you something really sweet and encouraging. I didn't, but I'd rather. I mean, I relate to that. I'd much rather preach
encouraging sermons. I would much rather
talk about heaven. I'd much rather do a series
on family relationships and love within
that relationship. I would much rather do another
series on give peace a chance and talk about the peace of God. I love all those subjects. Nobody likes to
talk about fighting. I'd much rather do a series
on the acts of the apostles than on the acts
of the apostates. But he said I
found it necessary. Notice that, I found
it necessary to write to you, exhorting. The word necessary
literally means pressured. It means to compress
or to squeeze. The idea is to have
pressure come upon you. So the idea that I
get is he sat down to write something really
sweet, but the Holy Spirit kept applying the pressure
until he wrote this. And what is this? What is he calling
us to exactly? Well, he tells us in verse
3, to contend earnestly, or vigorously, for the faith. What does that mean? You know what contend means. It means to fight. He's saying put up a
good fight for the faith. The New Living Translation puts
it this way, defend the truth. The JB Phillips translation
translates it, put up a real fight for the faith. The New English Bible
says, join the struggle in the defense of the faith. The Message translation,
by Eugene Peterson, puts it, fight with
everything you have in you. So you get the picture. You get the idea. He's calling us to fight. I'll give you one more
translation, the NSV. Ever heard of the NSV,
the New Skip Version? [LAUGHTER] I'll put it this way. Put on your boxing gloves. Get in the ring. Don't be afraid
of your opponent. Let's take it to task. Let's do this. Let's get involved in the fight. [APPLAUSE] Now, the word contend happens
to be an athletic term. An athletic term. Now, I'm going to
say the Greek word and you're going to try to
listen really carefully and see what that sounds like. So the Greek term is agonizomai. Let me do it again,
agonizomai Agony. Agonize. We get the English
term agonize from that. So picture an athlete, since
it's an athletic term, running the Olympic whatever he's
running or she's running in, and just straining with the
muscle, to the point of agony, to win. That's the idea of contend
vigorously or earnestly. You'll never fight God's
battles from a sofa. You'll never contend
for what really matters, to the point of victory,
by just cruising in your La-Z-Boy all day. You're going to have to decide
to get up as part of the house and join the fight. You say, wait, wait, wait. What are we fighting for? What's this all about? Well, he tells you that. Put up a good fight for,
or contend earnestly for, the faith. What is that? The faith is a term, a
construction, a term in the New Testament that refers to
the body of Christian truth, as given in the New Testament. The body of Christian truth. It's not some nebulous
believe whatever you want to believe thing. Faith, have faith. It's the faith. And the faith has a synonym,
the Apostles' Doctrine. They gave themselves, Acts
2:42, to the Apostles' Doctrine. That is, the truth the
apostles passed on. They gave themselves to
the Apostles' Doctrine, breaking of bread,
fellowship, and prayer. The term "the
faith" is often used throughout the New Testament. Here's a sampling,
2 Corinthians 12. "Examine yourselves whether
you are in the faith." The faith. Paul said to Timothy, "the
Spirit expressly says"-- this is 1 Timothy chapter 4-- "the Spirit expressly says
that in the latter time, some will depart
from the faith." That's what we're seeing
in Jude, apostasy. Some will depart from
the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and
doctrines taught by demons. At the end of Paul's life,
he wrote to Timothy again, 2 Timothy, and he said,
I've run the race. I've fought the fight. I've kept the faith. So that's the faith. The faith is the complete
New Testament teaching concerning Jesus Christ--
who God is, who Jesus is, how a person gets saved. Fight for that. Fight for the faith. Something else, go
back to verse 3. Because he says
contend earnestly for the faith, which
was once for what? Help the preacher out here. What does it say? All. Once for all, or better,
once for all time. The truth, the faith
that we're talking about, was once, for all time,
deposited, or delivered to, the saints. Now, that's a very
important truth, because what that
means to me is-- I can't tell you exactly when
the book of Jude was written, but it tells me this. Let's say AD 100, because that's
like the Book of Revelation. By AD 100, all that
God ever wanted to say, in terms of Scripture, was done. There is no more revelation. He said once, for all time,
delivered to the saints. So it's not like God later
on said, you know what? I left out a few things. Here's the Koran. Oh, I forgot some other stuff. Here's the Book of Mormon. No, no. It's once, for all times,
delivered to the saints. [APPLAUSE] Revelation from God is over. Another caveat. Let me give a little
nuance to this. It says we are to contend. It does not give us permission
to be a contentious person. So you can fight with a smile. You can contend and put
up a good fight for, but you can be nice. You don't have to be mean. You don't have to
get really raunchy. You can just fight the
good fight of faith. In fact, in 1 Peter
chapter 3, verse 15, he said, "be ready to
give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason
for the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear," or "gentleness and
respect" the NIV puts it. Gentleness and respect. Fight the fight, but
do it with gentleness and do it with respect. So you and I are called
to build the truth. We are called to fight
for the truth, the faith. Here's an illustration
that might help. In the Book of
Nehemiah, remember they came back to Jerusalem
to rebuild the city? The city had been broken
down, the walls and the gates burned with fire. Nehemiah comes back. He assembles a group. They start building the walls. The enemies on the outside
try to sneak on the inside. They try to subvert the
whole building process. They lob accusations at them. You know the story probably. In chapter 4, here's
the illustration. They were on the wall building. In one hand, they had a trowel. In the other hand,
they had a sword. So they're building,
putting cement in the cracks of
the stones, but they got a sword in the other
hand because you never know when that enemy is going
to try to jump over this wall and sneak in. So it was the sword
and the trowel. So on one front, we
build up the church. On the other front, we defend
the faith against those who are trying to destroy it. And that is a calling for every
believer, every volunteer, every staff member, every
worship leader, every pastor-- to fight the fight. Martin Luther said
this, "a preacher must be both a soldier
and a shepherd. He must nourish and
teach and defend. He must have teeth in his
mouth and be able to bite." Jude is not afraid to bite. Jesus was not afraid to bite. In fact, I think that's what
made him such a good shepherd. Remember what David
said, Psalm 23? You know this. Your rod and your staff, they? Comfort me. Comfort me. Why would a rod and
staff comfort a sheep? Well, a staff is to guide sheep,
but you know what a rod is? It's a club. Think of it as a bat. So a shepherd would
carry a rod to direct his sheep on pasturelands,
but a club, or a rod, to beat off the enemy. The wolves coming. I'm going to just
smack them down. And if I'm a sheep, I'm
going, I'm comforted by that. I don't have a shepherd
who just wants to guide me. He's going to fight for me. He's going to battle. That's the hostility. So we have the
army, the hostility. Let's look at a third component
in this battle, the artillery. I'm just going to touch
on this, the artillery. So back to verse 3, exhorting
you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once
for all-- now, get this-- delivered, or deposited
or handed over or put under our
care to steward, that's the idea,
delivered to the saints. Do you know that God has given
us the most powerful weapon in the world? It's called truth. Truth. It's called the Word of God. We have truth. We have His word. So not only do we fight for the
faith, we fight with the faith. We don't just fight
for the truth. We fight with the truth. We combat error with truth. We don't have to yell. We don't have to slander. We don't have to malign. We don't have to send
really nasty tweets. We don't have to lob ad
hominem attacks on people. All we have to do
is hold up truth. Confront them with the truth. Preach the truth. Declare the truth. It's exactly what Jesus did
when Satan came against Him in the wilderness to tempt Him. I love how Jesus handled it. Satan comes. Jesus doesn't say,
you idiot devil. You know what he says? He says, it is written. It is written. It was the Word of God. It was the Scripture. He confronted error with truth. And He did that to
the religious leaders who also contended with Him. He didn't tussle with them. He just said,
you're in error, not knowing the Scriptures,
nor the power of God. And that's why we spend
most of every service we have here in the Word. That's why when we
have a worship service, we spend 45 minutes
in the Bible. On Wednesday night, a full
hour, sometimes an hour and five or 10, in the Word. It's simply me giving
you ammunition. It's you reloading. And the expectation is you'll
go out into enemy territory and inflict damage
by declaring truth. That's the artillery. Let me take you to the fourth
and final component here. That's the enemy. What are we fighting against? Who are we fighting against? Who are these people? Well, there is a
description in verse 4 that is sort of the introduction
to the bulk of the Epistle going forward. Let's look at
verse 4, and notice some of the characteristics
of these apostates. He says "for certain men
have crept in unnoticed, who, long ago, were marked out
for this condemnation-- ungodly men, who turned the grace
of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God
and our Lord Jesus Christ." So we notice a few
things about them. Number 1, they're deceitful. He says they crept in unnoticed. That is, they slip in secretly. They don't announce themselves. They're sort of undercover. They're nothing more than
Satan's undercover agents. They pretend to be Christians. They sit next to Christians. They'll even sing some of
the songs up on the screen. But they're not. They slip in unnoticed. Now, Jesus warned
that they were coming. Paul warned that
they were coming. Peter warned that
they were coming. Jude says they've arrived. They're here. They're in our midst. They have crept in unnoticed. So they're deceitful. Here's the second
characteristic. They're ungodly. That's in verse 4. "Certain men have
crept in unnoticed, who, long ago, were marked out
for this condemnation-- ungodly men." Now, let me just say
that, for some reason, Jude really liked this word,
because he used it a lot. He liked this description. You'll see what I mean. Go down to verse 14. "but Enoch, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied about these men,
also saying, behold, the Lord comes with
10,000 of the saints to execute judgment
on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them
of all their ungodly deeds, which they have committed
in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things
which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Wow. I get it. They're ungodly, right? Verse 18, "how they told
you that there would be mockers in the last
days or the last time, who would walk according
to their own ungodly lust." Now, I counted six
times in 25 verses Jude uses the word ungodly. What is ungodly? It means unGod-like. UnGod-like. It's a person who
claims to belong to God, but they are not like
God in their thinking. They are not like
God in their living. That's ungodly. They are, to use Paul's
description, 2 Timothy chapter 3, having a
form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. From such turn away. They are Christians in name
only, nominal Christians. Oh, yeah. I've always been a Christian. My parents,
grandparents, the church. Now, you say, well, so what? I mean, why are
they so dangerous? Why do they merit
a whole letter? Well, there's a principle that
Paul said in the New Testament. He said a little leaven
will leaven the whole lump. You get enough people slipping
in who are ungodly people and do not hold
to godly beliefs, and they're not
only going to taint, but they're going to influence
a lot of other people. There's another part
to this description. Not only are they deceitful,
not only are they ungodly, they are manipulators of grace. Verse 4, "who turn the grace
of our God into lewdness." You know what lewdness is? You know what a lewd person is? You know what a lewd person is. It's an immoral person. Lewd means immoral. It's somebody who lives for,
and really only thinks about, satisfying his or her own
passions, desires, lust. That's a lewd person. Their mantra is
you're saved by grace, so live any way you want to. You can do whatever you want,
because God is so good and so loving and so tolerant. He'll just let you
do anything you want. Just say you're a Christian. They turned the grace
of God into lewdness. They'll even use the Scripture
to promote that belief system. They want everybody to
agree with their immorality. They want everybody to
agree with their definition of morality. They want the church to say it's
OK to practice homosexuality. They want the church to say
it's OK to abort babies. They want the church to say
it's OK to identify as a female even though you're
a biological male. They want the church
to say you can select any pronoun you want in
the world to identify yourself. And if you don't, we want
to shut that church down. If you don't agree with us,
we will bring the full force of even government,
if need be, to say that you are
hate-mongering and it's hate speech, because
you don't agree with our definition of morality. I could give you thousands
of examples of that. I'm just going to give you one,
but we could give you so many. And I'm giving you this
one because it's so recent. It just happened really a
month ago, six weeks ago. There is an organization that
goes under the name Bethany Christian Services. You may have read articles
about this in the news. Bethany Christian
Services has been one of the nation's
largest, most successful evangelical Christian adoption
and foster placement agencies. I think it is
headquartered in Michigan. But Bethany Christian
services once held a very high
biblical standard that marriage was between
one man and one woman. It was a biblical
definition of marriage. And they sought
to place children in homes that were
Christian homes. But all of that
changed March 1st. It changed because Bethany
Christian Services finally caved in to the LGBTQ community
so that now they, too, can adopt children
into their homes, because that community
cannot procreate. So now Bethany
Christian Services provides children to be
placed in those homes. Now listen to the change. In 2007, Bethany
Christian Services said-- this is from their own words-- God's design for the
family is a covenant and a lifelong marriage
of one man and one woman. That's as biblical
as you can get. [APPLAUSE] That was 2007. Now the applause should
die, because March 1st they abandoned that, and they are
now redefining what a woman is, redefining what a man is,
redefining what marriage is, redefining what the family is. What you have is this. They have turned the grace
of God into lewdness. Now, Jude is saying
this 2,000 years ago, and here we are today,
this far down the road. So it shouldn't surprise
us because we find it in the Scripture. Every generation faces it. Charles Spurgeon had his
issues during his day over 100 years ago, but I
want to throw up what he said. He once said this,
"the new views are not the old truth in better dress,
but deadly errors with which we can have no fellowship." In other words, you know what? At some point you draw a
line, and you say, love means telling truth to people. That's what love means. I love you enough to
tell you the truth. [APPLAUSE] And I'll accept
the consequences. But here here's the
final description. Not only are they
deceitful or ungodly, not only do they manipulate
grace, but they deny Christ. For he says in verse 4,
"they turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only
Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ." Now, I know in reading that, it
sounds like Jude is referring to two different persons,
God the Father and then Jesus Christ. The Greek construction
makes it refer to one person, the same person. A better translation is this,
"they denied our only God and Lord, Jesus Christ." But that's the point. They want to name
the name of Christ-- Oh, yeah, I'm a Christian. I go to a church. I'm a believer. They just don't want to live
under the authority of Christ. They want to name
His name, but they don't want to do what He says. And I kind of remember
Jesus talking about that, in Matthew chapter 7. "Not everyone who
says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the
kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the
will of my Father in heaven." I remember Jesus saying
in Luke chapter 6, "why do you call me Lord, Lord,
but you don't do what I say?" So fight the fight. You ready to step into the ring? I am. I kind of look at it this way. You know, we've
had quite a year, and I've watched
what's happening. And I listen. I have my ear to the ground. I listen to what
the world is saying and I listen to what
politicians are saying. And it doesn't look
favorable for us, in terms of how the world
is going to treat us in the coming few years. And I kind of look
at it this way. I've had a good life. I've had a good run. I've had a good ministry. Maybe the Lord wants me
to have a jail ministry. [LAUGHTER] And it could come to that,
that if you speak the truth and you stand up against
this crazy immorality, they'll put you in jail. So send me notes
if I end up there. [LAUGHTER] You'll be there with me? Good. We'll be cellmates. [APPLAUSE] Hey, I just want to
close by saying I hope you know my heart in this. It's a heart of love. I mean, I'd rather talk
about peace and encouragement and Jesus coming back. I'd love to do all
that, and we do. But we think, I think, I believe
that this is a series for such a time as this. Let's pray. Father, thank You
that you love us. Thank You that Jesus came and
took our sin upon Himself, that we have all sinned and
fallen short of God's glory, and Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left its crimson stain. He washed me white as snow. Thank You for that act that
makes us Your children. Thank You that you love us. Thank You that that love and
peace is multiplied to us. Thank You that You preserve
us so that, ultimately, You'll see us through. You have our back. You're calling us
to this battle. The ultimate outcome
has already won. Give us a backbone. Give us courage, during the time
in which we live, to love well, which means to speak
the truth in love. In Jesus' name, amen. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email us at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder, you can
support this ministry with a financial gift at
calvarynm.church/give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church. [MUSIC PLAYING]
