[CHEERS] [ALARM] [MUSIC PLAYING] Good morning. Great to see you this morning. A few weeks ago I was so
happy to see school buses driving down the street. I made a-- I made just a little
announcement on Wednesday night. I said, yeah, I've never
been excited to see school buses before. I always go, oh,
it's school time. I got to slow down. I got to-- it's going
to take more time. But to see school buses up
and running was so good, and I've always thought
they should have been opened all along and not closed down. And I just want to say this. If you are a teacher
in our public school system or private school,
thank you for what you do. At the same time, I'm
a little frustrated with the educational
system and how it would seem the
government tries to foist upon young children
a sexual identity decision and a number of
other things, and so it just sort of struck
me a few weeks ago when all this was going on
that what if we could have a school that taught kids
the truth about science, the truth about history, the
truth about social studies, that we could form the
character of a child as well as provide a
high academic threshold and really train and
equip kids for the future. I don't honestly
think they're going to get it in public
school system as readily. I think the challenges
are much higher. So I say this, because a
few years ago we attempted of doing some kind of a school. And there many fine Christian
schools in the community. I think there should
be oodles more. And so I just
thought, well, what if we could help with that. And we tried to start
one at one time. There wasn't that
interest, but I just feel like we've
hit critical mass, and we should move
ahead with it. So we're having an
interest meeting over in the hub following this
service at 1 o'clock. If you are interested,
if you have ideas for it, if you have questions about
it, Brian Dixon will be there. Dr. Nixon will be
there answering questions and kind of showing
you where we plan to go. We've had a lot of
interest, and it looks good, but wanted to
invite you to be a part of that. Now would you turn in
your Bibles please, to the book of Jude also
known as, hey, Jude. Turn to the book of Jude. Just find the book
of Revelation. Go left one block, and you will
find a little book of Jude. So after last
week's message, I've gotten lots of feedback,
positive feedback, lots of notes and cards and
emails and texts thanking me for the message. And it's funny, because
I thought, well, gosh, the feistier I am,
the more they like it. So buckle your seat
belt for number two. We're going to be in
Jude verses 5 through 11. Matthew Henry-- I'm going to
throw this up on the screen. Matthew Henry, a
Bible commentator, said hypocrisy is to do the
devil's work in God's uniform. So just think about that,
doing the devil's work in God's uniform. You dress the part, but
it's not who you are. Apostasy, which is the
subject of the Book of Jude, is related to hypocrisy,
except if hypocrisy is doing the devil's
work in God's uniform, apostasy is where you just
take the uniform off and let people see who you really
are and have been all along. So if hypocrisy is
putting on a show, then apostasy is leaving
the theater altogether. And people can wear God's
uniform for a long time until for whatever
reason either they have their own crisis of faith
or they come to a point where they just don't believe anymore
or they never have believed can happen. One of the outspoken critics
of Christianity over decades has been a guy by the
name of Ted Turner. Ted Turner is a media mogul. He's the founder
of CNN and a number of other like
portals and outlets, but he has criticized
Christianity. He went on record in
an Atlanta newspaper saying Jesus probably would
be sick to his stomach over the way his ideas
have been twisted. Now I read that,
and I thought, well, that's a little arrogant, right. It's almost like
saying nobody has gotten it right in the
past, but now I do. I understand what
Jesus really meant. Everybody else, they've twisted
it, but that's what he said. He said that he had a
strict Christian upbringing, and at one time considered
becoming a missionary. I don't know. I have a hard time thinking
of Ted Turner as a missionary, but I'll go with it. He said-- and he said
this mockingly said, I've been saved
seven or eight times, but then he said he became
disenchanted with Christianity after his sister died
despite all of his prayers. But here's his closing
remark the more I strayed from the faith,
the better I felt. The more I strayed from the
faith, the better I felt. He just framed apostasy. Don't be surprised when you hear
of Christian leaders who say I don't believe that anymore. Don't be too shocked
when you read of or hear of a Christian
influencer who goes on social media and
renounces his or her faith. Don't be too astonished
when a theologian starts deconstructing the truth. That's their term,
deconstructing. And that has the idea of
revisiting truth and rethinking beliefs that were once
held as valid or true. That's not new. It's as old as the hills
and twice as dusty. I mean, it's been
going on a long time. It's not novel. It's not new. According to Jude, it's been
going on at least 2,000 years, and according to Jude's
writing in this letter, it's been going on
for about 4,000 years. It goes all the way back. So it's not new. It's not novel, but
it is noteworthy, because Jesus predicted that
there would be a period of time before his second
coming that would be marked by Spiritual deception. In fact, you remember he
gave a parable, the parable of the tears in the wheat. He said wheat was sown,
but somebody came in through in tears. The tear is a weed,
and the word he used, the [NON-ENGLISH] is a weed that
even a seasoned farmer cannot tell the difference between
the weed and the wheat until it ripens. And he has to get really
close to mark the difference. But the idea is you can
have them growing together, one looks just as real as
the other but it's fake. It's not real. It is apostate. And then the most
haunting question I think I've ever heard
from the lips of Jesus is when Jesus said
when the Son of Man comes will he find
faith on the earth. It's a scary question
for Jesus to ask. When the Son of Man comes, will
he find faith on the earth? Move forward to the
book of Revelation, Jesus gives seven letters to
seven churches in Revelation 3 one of the little
postcards he writes to the Church of Laodicea. The entire church is
filled with apostates. Jesus isn't even in that church. He's on the outside
knocking to get in. That's where we get the text,
behold, I stand at the door and knock. He's knocking on the
door of the church, because he's outside of it. In fact, there are no
believers in that church except a few
precious overcomers. Jesus gives them that name. Paul predicted that,
as we saw last week. He said in the end times,
there will be a falling away. That's apostasy. He said many will depart
from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits
and doctrines of demons. In fact, did you know this
every single New Testament book except for one, the
book of Philemon, has warnings against
false teachings. So the whole New Testament says
this is coming down the pike. The book of Jude
has as its theme that word I brought out last
week, the theme of apostasy. The Greek word apostasia, a
departure, a falling away. The renowned New Testament
scholar Gerhard Kittle will define that as
a rebellion, a rebel. He said it's someone who
rebels against the faith they once claimed to believe. Now that can happen
as an individual. It can happen as a group. You can have a person
who is an apostate. You can have a
church assembly that by their statement
of faith is apostate. You can have an entire
denominational structure that is apostate. And here's the thing. You can't like tell. Nobody carries a badge that
says, hi, I'm an apostate. How can I help you? People don't put bumper
stickers on their car. Honk if you're an apostate. Nobody does that. So the similarity is
not going to be outward, but I remind you of what Paul
wrote in 2 Corinthians 11. Satan disguises himself
as an angel of light. It's no big deal if his
ministers disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. New Testament
scholar RC Leonski-- I've always loved his books-- said the worst
forms of wickedness consist in perversions
of the truth. So what I want to do is look at
Jude verse 5 through verse 11 this morning, this
paragraph, and I want to show you three
basic lessons as we step into the ring and put up
a good fight for the faith, defend earnestly the
faith that was once delivered to the Saints. So the first truth is this
is that truth needs a memory. Truth needs a memory. Let me take you to verse 5
and let me show you this. But I want to remind you,
though, you once knew this-- and then he reaches back
to the Old Testament that he supposes they
knew that the Lord having saved the people
out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those
who did not believe. Jude is appealing
to their memory. He's appealing to what they
already learned presumably because it was a
Jewish audience. I'm guessing Jude
lived in Jerusalem, was writing to the
Jerusalem church. He's writing to
Jewish believers who heard and knew all of these
stories from there growing up, all of these stories
of the Old Testament, and Jude is going to bring
out several Old Testament examples that they would
have been familiar with. And he goes, I want
to remind you of this. I know you already know it,
but I want to remind you. And here's the principal. Truth needs a memory. Lessons must be recalled for
those lessons to be active. For truth to have an
impact in the present, we must remember the past. OK, this happens in
a number of levels. Every September 11th
for almost the last 20 years at Ground Zero in
Manhattan, New York City, at Ground Zero the
names of those people who died in the World Trade
towers are read publicly. Why every year? Why every-- why go through that? So no one forgets that, so
they'd never forget that. Also it's the same with December
7th every year in Hawaii because of what happened in
1941, the famous words of FDR. Yesterday, December
7, 1941, a day which will live in infamy the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. So every year in Pearl
Harbor the names of the dead are recited. There's a commemoration. Relatives come so that
America never forgets. If you go with us
to Israel, we'll take you to Yad Vashem
the Holocaust Memorial where you will see
evidence of the Nazis decimating, killing six
million Jews in the 1940s, and you walk out with
such a heavy heart having seen the evidence but
the overwhelming thought is I must never forget what
has happened in recent history. And so he writes to them and
he says I want to remind you, though you once knew this. Truth needs a memory. That, by the way, is
the goal of preaching. It's why we preach. Matthew Henry, again,
said, "Preaching is not designed to teach us
something new in every sermon, but to put us in remembrance, to
call to mind things forgotten" So didn't God do this a lot
with the children of Israel? Deuteronomy, chapter
8, he said this. "You shall remember all the
way the Lord your God led you these past 40 years. That's a commandment. I want you to remember it." And what a God give to them
so they could remember it? Passover. Every year, the Jews were
to meet in their homes, have a Passover celebration. It's still commemorated
to this day. It's to keep the memory alive. Truth needs a memory. Jesus took the Passover and
used that to tell his disciples to do that. He said, "Do this in
remembrance of me." when you take these
elements, it's going to speak of my
death, my suffering, and my subsequent resurrection. Truth needs a memory. Paul wrote to the
Romans, and said, "I have written to you
quite boldly on some points, as if to remind
you of them again." Peter did the same thing. Second Peter, chapter 1-- "So I will always remind
you of these things, even though you know them
and are firmly established in the truth you now have. Yes, I think it is
right, as long as I'm in this tent, this body, to
stir you up by reminding you. You know, it's a funny thing. I have taught the Bible
almost my entire adult life. I've had the
opportunity to teach every verse of every chapter
of every book of the Bible a few different times,
all the way through. And I even wrote a book called
The Bible from 30,000 feet. So you think, this guy
probably like knows the Bible. You know, every time
I read the Bible, you know what
thought I'm struck? With how much I have
forgotten since the last time I read that. Now, this came to my mind
because I just finished this little Bible plan that
I was a part of for 90 days, reading through the entire
Bible, Genesis to Revelation, in 90 days. That's about 15 chapters a day. So I did it. And every time I'd
go through, I'd go, I forgot that was there. I forgot that was there. It's so good. But I've forgotten about it. And it was so rewarding. I thought, after I finished
it, I'm going to do it again. So now, I'm on round two. And I don't know if
I'll keep this up. But if I did, I suppose I could
go through the entire Bible four times a year. But the point is, truth
needs to be reinforced, reinstilled,
reintroduced, recalled, repeated for every generation. Because we forget stuff, right? Good teachers, like Jesus,
often repeated themselves. I remember when I first
read the New Testament. Cracked it open. It was just a New Testament. And the first book I came
to was the Book of Matthew. That's the first book
in the New Testament. Start reading through it. I go wow. This is awesome. I'm really learning
about this Jesus. Then I finished Matthew,
and I started reading the second book, which is Mark. And my thought
going through Mark is, didn't I just read this? Isn't this like the
Book right before it? And so I finished that. It was the same story,
but a little bit shorter. Then I am in the third book,
and it's the Gospel of Luke. And it's like, he's--
they're doing it again. They just like to
tell the same story, over and over and over again. And I went to the
Gospel of John. A little bit different,
but same basic story. And I just remember,
as a young believer, going why is this
thing repeated? And there's a number of reasons. But one great reason is that
some stories are so important, you need to hear them
over and over again. And one of the grand reasons
is because what I just said. We forget stuff. One development and journal
and training journal I found said people will retain
25% of what they hear. That's at best. And that statistic is so
discouraging to a teacher. It means that no matter how
much I prepare and pour into and spend hours getting
ready for this sermon or this teaching in a classroom, my
students, if they're engaged and not reading their
cell phones, and tuned in, and taking notes, are
going to retain 25%. So, I want to remind, you
though you once knew this. It's the same truths
they grew up hearing. We don't need new truths. We don't need novel truths. We need never changing truth. We need-- we need noble truth. And that's what we have here. So truth needs a memory. The second lesson we
come to in stepping into the ring for this battle
is that judgment has a history. Now watch what Jude does. He goes back and gives them
a few different examples from the past. Verse 5, I want to remind you,
though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved
the people out of the land of Egypt-- that is, the people
of Israel, the Jewish people, the children of Israel-- having saved them out
of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who
did not believe. And the angels-- so that's one. Here's the second example. The angels, who did not
keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the
judgment of the great day, and then there's
a third example. Verse 7, as Sodom and Gomorrah
and the cities around them, in a similar manner to these,
having given themselves over to sexual immorality,
and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Three examples from the past
to warn them of this truth-- God is not afraid
to judge even those in the most favored positions. First on the list,
nation of Israel. We know the story. They were in Egypt. God delivered them miraculously
through the wilderness. He opened up the Red Sea. That's one miracle. Sent plagues on the Egyptians. That's another miracle. Fed them with manna
that came from heaven. Gave them water out of the rock. Followed them around with
a cloud by day, right? So that's important
in the Sinai Desert. Think of Phoenix in
summertime, with a cloud cover over it, permanently. So that's a nice
feature to have. God did that for 40 years. Not only that, but at night,
it was a pillar of fire. So he tucked them in bed with
a nightlight for 40 years. And he preserved
them for 40 years. But at the same time,
it says God destroyed those who did not believe. God destroyed the
entire generation of the children of Israel aged
20 and above, except for two people. Joshua and Caleb were the only
survivors of the original group that came out of Egypt. Everybody else died. You go, well why
did God do that? Because of apostasy. They kept turning away. They kept rebelling--
not once, not twice, over and over and over again. One of the things they said
is take us back to Egypt. Can you imagine being a slave,
and be set free, and then you want to go back to slavery? And they even cried this out. This is one thing they
cried out in the wilderness. They said oh, that we had
died in the wilderness! And God said, OK, I'll
answer that prayer. If that's what you want,
I'll let you do that. And so for the next 40 years,
it was a funeral march. One person tried
to figure it out. He figured there were at
least 1.2 million people who died in the wilderness,
given what we know in the historical record. That means there were
approximately 85 funerals a day, or seven per waking hour. So they were reminded, day
by day, as another person was buried, and another person,
that God will judge those who turn away and do not believe. And by the way, notice,
these are unbelievers. He destroyed those
who do not believe. It was their unbelief that
led to their destruction. God wasn't going to let
unbelieving apostates into the promised land. And Jude's point is that
the deliverer of Israel became the destroyer of Israel,
that the Savior can also be the judge, that the God of
love is also a God of wrath, that both of those go together. So that's the first example,
the nation of Israel. The second example
are the angels of God. The angels, verse 6, who did
not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the
judgment of the great day. There's a dispute, a debate,
about the interpretation of this. Some feel this is a
reference to Genesis chapter 6, that fallen
angels somehow cohabitate with human women to produce
this odd race of giants known in Genesis six as
nephilim in the Hebrew. And that's what
brought the flood. Others don't think that's
what he is referring to. Others think it refers to
the original fall of Satan from heaven with the third
of the angelic beings in that rebellion spoken
about in Isaiah chapter 14. And the reason for the debate
is the angels mentioned here are chained and reserved
for future judgment, which seem to be different
from fallen angels that are Satan's agents, demons,
that are at work in the world and are free to roam around. I'm not here to solve that,
because that is not the point. The point Jude is
making is simply this. Even angels, God judged, not
just the nation of Israel. God judge specially
created beings, made by God, who fell away,
who withdrew, who departed, who rebelled from him. They had, once, a
position of privilege and authority and
blessing and opportunity. But even angels don't get
a hall pass poor judgment. So the nation of Israel,
the angels of God-- and then, the third example
is Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plain. Now, everybody knows
about Sodom and Gomorrah. After it is recorded
what happened there, the Old Testament and the
New Testament give comment. So we have a body of
historical evidence that know how people
throughout history interpreted the events
of Sodom and Gomorrah. And you wonder, well, why does
he bring Sodom and Gomorrah up? Because one of the marks,
remember in verse 4-- one of the marks
of false teachers is they turned the grace
of God into lewdness. They turn the grace of
God into lasciviousness. They turned the grace
of God into immorality. They say God loves us we. Can do anything we want. God is a God who will certainly
tolerate any type of behavior. So he mentions
Sodom and Gomorrah. Because false teachers evidently
felt the freedom either to endorse or practice
immoral sexual autonomy. You know what I mean by that? Immoral sexual autonomy is look,
I can love who I want to love. And you can't say that's wrong. It is my prerogative. Who are you to say my behavior,
or my predilections, are wrong? Well, notice that Jude calls
this sexual immorality. The Greek word that he
uses is [NO SPEECH].. It's a compound
word that suggests a sexual deviancy--
that is, a departure from the original intent. And then he also uses
the phrase strange flesh, a term that speaks of sexual
activity outside of God's originally ordained intention. Because he's using the
case of Sodom and Gomorrah, we know that was, in that
case, the sin of homosexuality. It's always been
interpreted that way. It has throughout history
been interpreted that way, until like the last decade. It has been challenged
as to its interpretation. But we know the story,
how the men of Sodom wanted to have homosexual
relationships with two ambassadors that God
sent to that town, and God judged that town. Here's what's interesting. Amidst all of the mail
that I got this week, after last week's message,
one of the emails I got was from somebody
I highly respect. Because he is a
scientist, a historian, and the chief archeologist
of the ancient city of Sodom. He is digging up, in the last
decade, over the last decade, he has been digging
up the city of Sodom in the country of Jordan. So he wrote me an email,
and I wanted you just to see a part of that. He said Skip, in listening
to your teaching today, which was excellent, by the
way, I had a thought. As an archeologist
and a historian, I think there is something
that current apostate church leaders, be they
theologians or ministers, have completely missed, of
which they are either factually or willfully ignorant. Their attack on
embracing LGBTQ lifestyle always goes something like this. The Bible was written in
ancient cultural milieus, and got accommodated himself to
the people of those cultures. That is to say we
must therefore adapt to make scripture relevant
to our evolving culture, realizing that the New Testament
writers spoke to their day. Similarly, we must adjust
for and speak to our day. While this may sound
logical, even reasonable, it is categorically
wrong and entirely lacking in an
understanding of history. Old Testament Revelation
came at a time when sexuality was
fluid, unfettered, and wives were kept for-- were for keeping households and
having and raising children. The sexual lives
of men and women were often, if not usually,
of a same sex nature, especially in military context. This is what archeology
reveals, and what the Old Testament presents
as the ancient pagan reality. As Christianity eventually
washed over the Roman world, Western culture shifted
toward biblical morality. Judaism and Christianity
were never accommodating to sexual perversion,
but were clearly corrective to bring
humankind in line with God's creative design. Now that the Western culture
is moving away from the Bible, society is returning to what
had been the old norms of sex without bounds. God's Old Testament and
New Testament revelation were prescriptive
and corrective. To bend or
reinterpret Revelation to accommodate
meandering sexual norms not only ignores why it was
given in the first place, but also strips Revelation
of its power to keep humanity from destructive perversion. The LGBTQ movement
is nothing more or less than the norms
of ancient sexual license and perversion rising up in
the guise of evolving morality, as if that is something noble. It is not. Take away the corrective, the
scripture, and humans readily return to their old vomit. [APPLAUSE] The point Jude is
making is that we need to remember--
truth needs a memory. We need to remember
that God has never been afraid to judge even his
own people called out of Egypt, even angels that he
created, and even, in this case, whole cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding region. So truth needs a memory. Judgment has a history. And then, the third basic lesson
that comes from this paragraph is that corruption
brings apostasy. Go down to verse 8. Likewise-- now, what he's doing
is taking the past lessons bringing it into the
present situation that he is dealing with. Likewise, also, these
dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and
speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the Archangel,
in contending with the devil, when he disputed over
the body of Moses, dared not bring against
him a reviling accusation, but said the Lord rebuke you. But these-- that is,
these false teachers-- speak evil of whatever
they do not know and whatever they know
naturally, like brute beasts. In these things, they
corrupt themselves. Woe to them. Never a good word to hear. Woe to them. For they have gone
the way of Cain. They have run greedily in the
error of Balaam for profit and perished in the
rebellion of Korah. Notice again, he's reaching
back into the Old Testament for examples. He again appeals
to their memory. Now, he is speaking
of the false teachers that he is dealing with in the
congregation he is speaking to. And he speaks of their
corrupt character, their corrupt thinking,
their corrupt practices. That's verse 10. In these things, they
corrupt themselves. So corruption leads to apostasy. Now, I don't have time
to unravel everything in these verses,
because of time. But I want you to
notice a few things as I untangle some of these verses. First of all, notice
their authority. What was their authority? Now, I ask that
because everybody has an authority base. Why do you do what you do? If you were to ask me, Skip,
what is your authority, it's not my mom anymore, right? She's in heaven. It's not my dad anymore. Both gone. My authority is the scripture. I'm not always perfect at doing
it, keeping it, learning it. I still forget a lot of it. But my aim in life
is to be brought under the authority of the
prescriptive, the corrective, the revelation of God. That's my authority. What was the authority
of the false teachers? Notice in verse 8,
these dreamers-- most every commentator
will tell you, it probably refers to the
fact that these false teachers use their own dream life as
being of divine authority. God spoke to me in a
dream, and my dream says-- that was
their authority base. A lot of times
people will say gosh, I've had this weird dream. And I say, I always
have weird dreams. Say I've been having
this recurring dream. Do you think God might
be speaking to me? Well, maybe. God can do anything he wants. But if you're going to live your
life based on your dream life, you're going to be whacked. I mean, my dreams are
so weird and disjointed. I'm flying. I'm a winged creature, flying
into a Volkswagen, driven by a dog, right? Doesn't make any sense. So translate that
into real life. It can be quite dangerous. Somebody once said, dreaming
permits each and every one of us to be quietly
and safely insane every night of our lives. So keep the insanity
in the dream world. Their authority is
that they got dreams which superseded any authority
that the church offered, that the elders offered,
that the pastors offered, or that the scripture offered. That was their authority. Something else--
notice their vanity. He said they reject authority
and speak evil of dignitaries. I don't exactly know
what he's referring to. I'll take a stab
at it in a minute. But to sum it up, he's saying,
whoever these people are and whatever they're
speaking against, they are arrogant
in their speech. They reject authority and
speak evil of dignitaries. So we don't know if they
were-- and commentators are very different in
how they interpret it. Some think it's speaking against
church leaders, the established authority within the church. People are mouthing off
about church leadership. Others think it's people who are
against governmental authority. Be careful what you say
about governmental authority. Because Paul said in Romans,
it's all ordained by God. So it could be that they feel
the hubris and pride and vanity to be able to do that. Others think that
they're mouthing off against Spirit beings,
angels or demons. Or it could be all the above. I'll tell you this. Arrogant preachers love
to stir up the pot. Arrogant preachers are
equal opportunity haters. They just like to stir it up. They're angry at
everything and everyone. But here's his point. Even Michael the Archangel, the
most powerful archangel around, did not dare reproach
Satan personally. He at least respected
the authority structure, even though Satan was a fallen
angel and has hell forever. Michael seemed to respect that,
and said the Lord rebuke you. Now, I'll tell you why
this is important to me. I've been to enough
Christian meetings where people talk to the devil. Satan, we bind you, and
we want you to know-- I say whoa! Why are you praying to
the devil right now? Why are you talking
to the devil? The Bible says resist,
the devil-- not carry on long conversations
with the devil, not invite him to Starbucks for
a nice latte and talk it out. Don't talk to him at all. You can talk to God about him. But don't talk to him. By the way, just so you know,
Satan is not scared of you. You do not intimidate him. It's not like, ooh, Skip
walked into the room. Now the devil's--
he didn't care. None of us intimidate Satan. He is not scared of us. But he is scared of
the God inside of us. And never forget
this little quip. Satan trembles when he sees the
weakest saint upon his knees. That's where you
fight the battle. Get on your knees and talk
to God about your enemy. [APPLAUSE] But these false
prophets, they have dreams for their authority. They have vanity for
their arrogance, speech. And notice their similarity. Verse 11, woe to them, for
they've gone the way of Cain. They've run greedily in the
error of Balaam for profit, and they have perished in
the rebellion of Korah. I'm going to presuppose
you know those stories from the Old Testament
and just touch on them. The way of Cain is religion
without saving faith. That's the way of Cain. Cain brought his
own little offering that he thought God should
respect, and God did not. It is the way of pride
in one's own works. I'm working hard. I produced this. I do my best. I attend. I give. I, I, I-- it is religion
without saving faith. That's the way of Cain. The error of Balaam-- you know the story
Balaam, right? He was a prophet in
the Old Testament. Very gifted orator. The King of Moab hired him to
curse the children of Israel. He ended up blessing them. Some of the most beautiful
words in the Bible come from the lips of
Balaam, the prophet. But he was money hungry, and
he had a position of status. And he figured out
a way that he could tell Balak, the enemy
of the Israelites, how to watch God judge Israel. He said listen, I don't
need to curse them. Let's do this. Let's entice the young Moabite
women, the prostitutes, to go into the camp
of Israel, seduce the young men to have sexual
relations with these women. And then they can bring
out their little gods or little idols during that act. And that's idolatry. God will judge his
people for that idolatry. So listen, here is
the error of Balaam. He leveraged his influence
as a faith leader to lead other people astray. That's the error of Balaam. He leveraged his own
influence as a faith leader. Today, he would have gone
on Instagram or Twitter and announce to his followers
who follow him and respect him or her why they should
leave the Christian faith. That's the error of Balaam. Then there's the
rebellion of Korah. And Korah rebelled
against God's authority by rebelling against the
authority of Moses and Aaron, he and a few other people. I'm going to throw this. And this is very interesting. I thought you'd love
to hear a tidbit. William Barclay, the
New Testament scholar, said there was a sect of
Gnostics in the early church, when Jude was writing. There was a sect of Gnostics
called the Orphites who regarded Cain, Balaam, and
Korah as great heroes, the three bad actors of the
Old Testament, one that on every list of good
people, they're not on. And a group comes up and says,
oh, these three bad actors, they're heroes. And that caught my attention,
that you take people like that and say, they're my heroes. And I say that
because that is a word I'm hearing more often when
there's aberrant behavior. The trans community will say
Caitlyn Jenner is a hero. Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn
Jenner, is a hero. I think it was Newsweek Magazine
that even said the new hero. And why? Because they've never taken
the courage to make a stand. That is not a hero. A hero is somebody
who puts their life on the line for somebody else. That's a hero. A firefighter is a hero. A police officer is a hero. A soldier who fights
for our freedom on the battlefield--
that's a hero. [APPLAUSE] Not Cain, not
Korah, not Caitlyn. Not Balaam, not BLM-- those aren't heroes. So what are we to do? What should we do? I'm going to give
you a few take away practical things to maintain
purity in the church. Number one, be aware. Just know. Know the word of God. Let your life be
shaped by the truth. Get some Bible plan going,
where you are exposed and have the truth repeated over
and over and over again, so your mindset, your worldview,
is a scriptural worldview. Be aware. Number two, be watchful. Jesus said, watch and pray. The enemy is already among us. We need to not go to sleep. We need to watch and pray. Be aware. Be very discerning when
we hear things, and not just go yeah, whatever, right? So be watchful. Number three, be careful. Be careful which
ministry you support. Be careful which ministry
you send money to. Be careful which
candidate you support. One politician said
the church needs to change what they teach to
agree with the modern age. The church needs to
change what they teach to agree with the modern age. Ain't going to happen. Ain't going to happen. [APPLAUSE] We don't need to
change what we teach to agree with the modern age. We're here to change
the modern age. I love what Billy Sunday said. Billy Sunday was a baseball
player turned evangelist, and he was pretty spicy. And he got up in
the pulpit one day. And said, you know, they tell
me I rub the fur the wrong way. Let the cat turn
around, he said. So be aware. Be watchful. Be careful. Then, finally, be courageous. Know what you believe. Say what you believe. Don't apologize for
what you believe in. Stand up for it. Defend the faith, once for
all, delivered to the saints. It's going to take courage. It's going to take
some backbone. It's going to take some
bravery to maintain biblical separation. So though Ted Turner said, the
more I strayed from the faith, the better I felt, I say the
more I stick to the faith, the better I feel. [APPLAUSE] Father, thank you for
the faith, the truth, once for all delivered
to the saints. Thank you for the
Lord Jesus Christ, who came out of love to
save a world that could not be saved any other way. Thank you that he
said, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the
Father but by me. I pray, Lord, that many will
come, not by our compromise, not by accommodation, but by us
loving and speaking the truth, and always setting forth
the Gospel of a God who loves people enough
to let his own son pay the ultimate
penalty for their sin, so that he could shower them,
and protect them, and preserve them in his love, all the
way from Earth to heaven. 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.
