Chapter 4 - The Deathless Man And His Deathless Message. 26

Chapter 5 - The Apostate's Final Fall 32

Chapter 6 - The Great Escape. 39

Chapter 7 - Rescue The Falling. 46

Appendix A: Why God Used D.L. Moody. 53

Appendix B: Learn To Discern. 66

David Legge studied at the Irish Baptist College, Belfast, Northern Ireland. He served as Assistant Pastor at Portadown Baptist Church before receiving a call to the pastorate of the Iron Hall Assembly. He now serves as pastor-teacher of the Iron Hall, and resides in Belfast with his wife Barbara and their daughter Lydia.

The audio for this series is available free of charge either on our website (www.preachtheword.co.uk) or by request from info@preachtheword.co.uk

All material by Pastor Legge is copyrighted. However, these materials may be freely copied and distributed unaltered for the purpose of study and teaching, so long as they are made available to others free of charge, and the copyright is included. These materials may not, in any manner, be sold or used to solicit "donations" from others, nor may they be included in anything you intend to copyright, sell, or offer for a fee. This copyright is exercised to keep these materials freely available to all.

Jude - The Acts Of The Apostates - Chapter 1

"The Unintentional Letter"

by Pastor David Legge

I want to begin a new series with you, it's a short series, just looking at the shortest book of the Bible, or the New Testament - I beg your pardon - the little book of Jude. I feel that Jude has a great deal to say to us in these days.

Now we're turning in our Bibles, first of all, to the Acts of the Apostles and chapter 20 - and as I said to you earlier, we want to begin a study in the book of Jude today, perhaps four studies, possibly five, and I want to entitle it: 'The Acts Of The Apostates'. The Acts of the Apostates, and we're going to look this morning at our first study, which I've entitled: 'The Letter That Jude Didn't Intend To Write' - the letter that Jude didn't intend to write.

But we're reading, first of all, from Acts chapter 20 and verse 28 - now as you read here, in this chapter, cutting into the middle of it, Paul is on his travels and he has called for the Ephesian elders to come to him, for he wants to warn them of something that was beginning to happen at that moment, and was going to come into more fruition in the future. We're going to read from verse 28, and Paul tells them: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers". Now, he has called the elders to himself and he tells them that the Holy Ghost has made them overseers over the flock - now there's a lot of confusion in these days about who are overseers. Are deacons? Are elders? What is an overseer? Is it a committee member? It's clearly stated, here in this verse, that an overseer is an elder, and an elder is not appointed by men, but appointed by God. Look at the verse: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears".

Now keep your finger in that passage of scripture, and turn with me to the little book of Jude - it's the penultimate book of the New Testament, just before the book of the Revelation. One of the smallest books in the Bible and, indeed, the New Testament - not quite the smallest, but only 25 verses - and we're going to take the first four verses this morning as our meditation. Beginning at verse 1: "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified" - that word literally means, or is better translated 'beloved' - "by God the Father, and preserved", or kept, "in Jesus Christ, and called: Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men" - now look at the familiarity of this verse, with what we read in Acts 20 - "there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ".

We'll not read the whole book, we'll be looking at more verses in the days that lie ahead - but let's just come before the Lord and ask His help as we come to His word, and let's all pray together that God will speak to us in a real and living way. Our Father, we thank Thee for the word of God. We do not know what we would do without it, it is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our pathway - and when we forget it, we forget God. Lord, this is Thy revelation of who Thou art, of Thy directives to Thy church and Thy people - and Lord, it behoves us to study it, and to dig deep, and to find out what the Lord God Almighty is saying to us. Help us today, Lord, we want to be spoken to by the Holy Ghost. We are trusting, we are praying in the Holy Ghost, and we ask in Jesus name, that He would come and illumine these pages - that He would fill the preacher, and the listener alike - and that we may know that today we have met with the living God. For we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.

This little letter is, perhaps, one of the most unpopular letters in the New Testament. It's important that we note as we look at it, first of all, that it is a letter - just as we would write a letter to someone we love, or know, an acquaintance far away, Jude was writing this little letter to the church of Jesus Christ. What is it about? As you read the first four verses of the book - and if you take time when you go home today, or at least in the week that lies ahead, to read all 25 verses - you could sum it all up with one word: Jude is shouting, 'Beware! Beware!'. There is something that the apostle here wants these people to know! He wants them to know that Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness, the Angel of Light, is alive and well! Now, that is a frightening thing. It is a frightening thing, when we think that this little book is so neglected within the church of Jesus Christ today. Indeed, this little book - perhaps you could use as strong a word to say - is hated by many. What is it? It is a call to arms! As you read the book, and read the language, the language is strong, it is harsh, it is scalding, it is severe - and perhaps that's why it's not popular because, in the politically correct age in which we live, strong language is not palatable. People don't like it, people don't like straight talking - we live in the age of 'spin' and 'spin doctors', moulding and being 'economic' with the truth. Something that is black-and-white, something that is absolute, something that is strong and harsh and scalding and severe is not popular! And in a 'mamby-pamby' church of Jesus Christ today, a cry for militant Christianity that we find within this book is not popular!

Now, of course, I'm not calling upon you all to go onto the streets and to throw stones and to shoot - that's not what militant Christianity is, that's not the call to arms that Jude is giving here. For our weapons of warfare, as the word of God says, are not carnal - we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. And we, as those who wrestle in that realm - and, may I say it, as the only ones in the world today who can wrestle in that realm! - Jude is a cry, a call to arms. Get up! Get doing! Be militant! Get fighting! Now why is Jude using such strong, severe and rousing language? Well, it's simple: the themes that Jude is taking within this book are issues of life and death. As you read the book, and as we study it in the next few weeks, you will see that what Jude is lambasting in this book is, first of all: a dishonouring attitude of Christ. Secondly: it is the deceiving of souls. I vouch to say, that there are no more things, in the eyes of God, in this day that we live more heinous than those two things. A dishonouring attitude, or regard, or view of the Lord Jesus Christ - and men and women, churches and movements around our world that are deceiving souls by the millions and leading them into an eternal hell!

We have the sentiment that Jude is expressing in Ephesians 5, if you want to turn to it - if you don't, listen as I read it. Ephesians 5:14, where he says to the Ephesians: 'Wherefore...Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light'. Waken up church! That's what Jude is saying! It's time to get your arms, it's time to get back to basics, it's time to start fighting again as the people of God. It's a bit like what Paul was saying in the book of Galatians chapter 3 and verse 1, where he exclaimed: 'O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?' - and the meaning there is, 'You would nearly think someone had cast a spell over you! I can't believe what I'm seeing, and what I'm hearing from your [lips]!' - 'that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?'. 'You've seen Christ crucified! You've been to Calvary, you've gazed on the altar and seen the blood, you've been born again by the Spirit of God - and as I am looking at you, as you spiritual father, Paul - I can't believe what's happening to you!'. Like today, Satan is loose in the church.

A few months ago there was a computer virus that went across almost the whole world, I think. I think, if memory serves me right, it started in Cuba, or somewhere around there - and it was called the 'I Love You' virus. (Now, some of you young people have that anyway - but this was on the computer!). And what happened was, when you go into it (now, I know nothing about this) but I'm told when you go into your computer, and you look at the e-mail that you have, there was a little sign that said 'I love you'. And everybody that was single, or maybe wanting a new boy- or girl-friend, switched on to it - and it was enticing, and it was a message, it was a virus and it went right throughout the whole computer, and anything that you had on the computer was probably messed up because of it. And it went right across Europe, right across the world and created havoc! Now that is the sense of what Jude is speaking about here: havoc caused! And it might be appealing at the first glance, it might be something that is wooing and attracting, but it spells trouble!

The thoughts of many Christian leaders today are that there are certain things that are evident, and observed, that are very troubling. Within the church of Jesus Christ - and I would agree with these - first of all: there is a lack of serious theology. Serious theology, and a lack of serious exegetical - that means verse by verse, word by word - study of the living God's word. There is a lack of it! And what inevitably comes from a lack of theology, and a lack of an understanding, systematic, book by book, verse by verse knowledge of the word of God is that, after a period of time, the church will be in problems! That's the first problem. The second problem is the condition of the church. Now I'm not talking about what's happening within the church. In the last century we have seen the rise of many para-church organisations - and I do not despise them, because I'm involved within some of them - but because of the failure of the church, the local church, that organism that God created and that we've been studying about in the book of Ephesians - because it has failed, in a number of fronts, to reach the lost, to go to the mission field and so forth - these little para-church organisations have sprung up, and many people have thrown all their money, all their energies, all their time into those organisations. That is the second problem of the church of Jesus Christ, because we can see clearly, from Ephesians as we've been studying it, that the church of Jesus Christ is God's ordained means to take the Gospel to the world. Young person, put the best that you have into your church, put the best time that you have into your church, put your money into the church - that doesn't mean you can't give your money elsewhere - but come to this place, because this is the way God has ordained that the Gospel should be spread to this town and this country.

That's the first thing: lack of serious theology. Secondly: the condition of the local church. Thirdly: a lack of general vigilance at the rise and the spread of apostasy. Now even to mention that word today sends the little hairs up our neck - isn't that right? Because we live in a tolerant age, we live in an age that does not use harsh words - except for those in Christ of course. Apostasy is a word that has been misused, misrepresented but a word, perhaps today more than ever, that is not used at all! Now turn with me to Acts 20 that we read, I want you to see this, because we must be men and women of the word of God, and we need to see the blueprint that the apostle used as he exhorted these elders and overseers in this church: 'Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood', verse 31, 'Therefore watch' - that is the third failure: not seeing the apostasy. Watch, secondly: remember - a lack of knowledge, exegetically, of the word of God, not knowing the things that have happened in the past. 'Three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears' - I think if I did that for three years I would get the baggage, I'd get thrown out the door, 'Long-playing record, has he not another message?'. Night and day! Day, after day, after day, night after night he warned them with tears, with tears, with tears! He was trying to impress upon them the need for them to be warned! The trouble there was ahead, if they were not vigilant about the false teaching, and doctrines, and the false pressures of everything around them that's said to come from the church of Jesus Christ. Do we do that? Do we warn night and day?

Now notice, there is a lot of censoriousness about, in other words legalism - and I hate legalism! Because God hates legalism! And this awareness of apostasy is not a bitter awareness - you see that Paul wasn't standing up lambasting these other people, and these other places in a critical, legalistic spirit, but he was doing it with tears, because he loved the church so much that he hated to see what was happening to it. That is the way we must see it, with tears, with a soft heart - but nevertheless, although it was with tears, it was constant: day and night, day and night. Now I want you to notice, look at this book Jude - first four verses, and especially verse 4, as you read it you will see that Jude is not talking about the evils of the world, this is not 1 John: 'Love not the world. If any man sin he is not of God'. This is not 1 John, this is Jude - he's not talking about those evils, but he is speaking about those who are in the church and claiming to be of Christ. It's not like Corinthians, it's not speaking of church discipline, it's not talking about reprimanding a person and disciplining them to bring them back into the church - as far as Jude is concerned, these people aren't even in the church. They're there, but they shouldn't be there, they are false brethren, they are apostates, they are the tares among the wheat, the weeds among God's people, they are the infiltrators of the church - distinct from true Christians, yet taking and claiming the name of Christ. They are seeking to destroy! Imposters! Synthetic, cosmetic Christians! People dressed up in 'Gospel-garb' that is only skin deep!

You see it, don't you? Superficial believers. Apostates! The great pretenders of the church of Jesus Christ today. The ministers, the movements, the denominations that contain abomination! People, places, things wearing the name of Christ! - and Christ hasn't anything in them. Believer, we are in a battle, and that is what the book of Jude is about - a battle cry. That great old modern puritan, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was once interviewed in Westminster Theological Seminary, in America, about his life. And he quoted another great old divine who said - this is what he said, listen: 'My life's work, but now in blood and battles was my youth, and full of blood and battles is my age, and I shall never end this life of blood' - hear it again - 'Now in blood and battles was my youth, and full of blood and battles is my age, and I shall never end this life of blood'! His life was a battle for the Bible, his life was a crusade for the cross, for the Gospel, for Christ and His words - and we, if we are true to the word of God and true to the Gospel deposit as it has been trusted to us by the word of God and our forefathers, we will have a fight on our hands, and it will be a permanent lifetime task. Our youth, our middle-age, our old-age, you will never be free from this life of blood! That's why Paul warned them with tears, night and day.

This was the truth for Jude's time, this was a tract for his times - indeed, Moffat says: 'It was a fiery cross to rouse the churches'. A banner - come on! And perhaps that's why some New Testament scholars today don't even believe it should be in the New Testament - they don't like it! It doesn't fit in with their mindset and their philosophy. These apostates that Jude is speaking of were probably the Gnostics. The Gnostics were a group of people - 'gnosis' is the Greek word for knowledge - who believed that you knew God by a special knowledge, in other words there was this 'elite' type of people, that when they got to a certain sphere of knowledge and intelligence, and able to grasp the great things of eternity and life, God would reveal Himself to them. Gnostics - the people of knowledge. They believed antinomianism - the word 'Deuteronomy' has that little word in it 'nomi' (sp?), it's the Latin word for law - antinomianism, anti-law-ism. In other words they said: 'We are people of the grace of God. We have the grace of God, we've been set free, therefore we don't need to obey any laws at all, we can do what we like and go where we like'.

Antinomianism, it's about with us today. That's what Jude means in verse 4, they turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. They said, 'Because we are saved, and God has wiped the slate clean I can do as I please'. They denied the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ, they denied that He was God, and some of them denied that He was human - He was like a ghost. Verse 4 says they denied Him not only in their words, but in their actions and in their theological viewpoints. They also, as we begin to read this book, [we] find out that they had an arrogant attitude to supernaturalism - they just didn't believe it any more! I find that among Christians today, and as J. B. Phillips put it in his title of his book: 'Your God Is Too Small' - isn't that right? For so many of us, we just can't grasp - we live in a rational age - we can't grasp that God could do the things that He said He did in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and we find it absolutely impossible to believe that God can do it again!

Now let's look at this letter as a letter. If you were looking at a letter, you would look at who's writing to you - most of us look at the bottom of the page before the top, to see who the letter's from. And if you were looking at this as a letter you would find, first of all - this is my first point: the writer. And the writer is found in verse 1, look at it: 'Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called'. Jude: now what was Jude, and who was he? The first thing that Jude was, was a sibling, a brother - 'Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James'. Now that's right, but if you go to Mark chapter 6 and verse 3 you find that James was the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ - the half-brother, the same mother. So if James was the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, that makes Jude the brother of the Lord Jesus also. If you go to John 7 and verse 5 you find that none of his brothers, 'His brethren did not believe in him' - now think of that! Jesus coming from this family, and the family, His siblings, brothers and sisters perhaps, did not believe He was who He said He was. James and Jude will be included in that - and therefore, you follow the story further and you find that after the resurrection these two were converted to the Lord Jesus Christ. You find them among the company, who were there and saw the Lord Jesus Christ. Then you find in Acts chapter 1 and verse 14, that they're in the Upper Room and they're part of the company, the apostles, kneeling on the ground and waiting, and waiting, and waiting until the Holy Ghost who was promised them by Jesus would come to them - they were among that number. They are called in 1 Corinthians 9 verse 5, 'The brethren of the Lord'.

Now let me ask you a question: if you were the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, how would you begin this letter? 'David, the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ'? Isn't that what we would do? He says: 'Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James' - why does he do that? Well, if you listen to his half-brother, the Lord Jesus, in the Gospels, He was the one who said, 'These are my sisters and my brothers, my mother and my father' - who was He talking about? He was talking about His brothers and sisters in Christ. Isn't it wonderful to think that the Lord had that idea that we have in the word of God, and spawned that idea, that that bond of the blood of Christ is greater than any blood bond that we can have in a family.

He is the sibling, but secondly he describes himself as a slave: 'the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James'. Someone has rightly said, 'Few things tell more of a man than the way he speaks about himself'. Jude, I love this in the New Testament, Jude - see the simplicity of it? Just 'Jude', not the 'Reverend Jude', not 'Pastor Jude', not 'Jude B.D. N.T.H. PhD', not 'Professor Jude' - just 'Jude'! To quote one man today, 'The church is being destroyed by degrees'. There's no pomp, there's no ceremony, there's nothing special about the way he tarts his name up - it's not a clergy or laity system - just 'Jude'! And the surprising thing about it is this: do you know what Jude is? It's the same name as 'Judas'! Huh! I wonder does the Lord have a sense of humour? Who was the greatest apostate of all time? Judas. And who does the Lord pick to write a treatise on apostasy? A 'Judas' - isn't that lovely? He is able - and you read this little book and you will find in verse 1, look at the verse, that he refers to himself as the brother of James. He's talking about himself - not 'the brother of Jesus', he doesn't believe in name-dropping, he avoids all familiarity and irreverence towards the Lord Jesus Christ! - sadly absent today. He speaks of himself as the servant, and it literally means the 'bondservant' - it's the same word in Exodus 21, the 'bond slave'. He didn't look at the Lord Jesus Christ, primarily, as his half-brother - he looked at Him as his Lord! And you remember when the Lord Jesus Christ said to His disciples, 'Ye call me Master and Lord' - did He refute it? - 'Ye say well, for so I am'.

He goes further, and I go further today, being the half-brother of Jesus Christ the Son of God didn't save him. Think about that - it didn't save him! He had to have a personal experience of salvation in his life, as you do! Young person, born in a Christian home, brought up in the church, taught the word of God - and perhaps you've gone along all your life, just blown along by your experience and your family history - and if you look back today, was there an experience with God? For you need it. For he needed it.

But secondly, if you were looking at a letter, you see the writer and then, because this isn't a letter that was primarily sent to us, we have to look to see who the reader is. It was sent to these first century Christians, and if you look at it you find something about the reader in the second half of verse 1, they're described as - as I've said - not sanctified by God, but 'beloved of God the Father, and kept in Jesus Christ and called', they were called of Jesus Christ. They had a wonderful relationship to Christ! Now as you look through this epistle, you will find that Jude is fond of threes - he clubs these clusters together in three: called, loved, kept. Now that word 'called' simply means 'an official summons'. We were thinking about it last week, where you are walking along life's pathway dead in trespasses and in sins, and then God's Holy Spirit comes and makes you unhappy in your sin. And then He gets you to such a low point in your sin, that He begins to take you to places, and crosses your path with people who are able to reveal to you the remedy for sin - the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified - and He enables you, by faith, to cry upon the name of the Lord and you're saved. You're called - isn't that what the church is? 'Ecclesia', the 'called-out-ones'. He calls them the loved, the beloved as it says - sanctified here - and you're not called because you look well, or because you talk well, or because you think Christian things well, or because you're good living, or because your parents were Christians - we all know that, that we're called because we're loved. Loved of God! 'For God so loved the world that He gave' - we are precious in His eyes. Now, I think this is lovely, we are loved of God the Father - we live in an age of a world of insecurity, a world where children are born into homes without a mother or without a father. And there are children that grow up with a complex, because they don't have a Daddy and all those at school do have a Daddy - but what a great delight to be able to sit down with those people, with the open word of God, and to show them that they have an eternal love of an Eternal Father!

You see, this book is enough for all. We're called, we're loved - and this is the seal on it - we're kept. 'Preserved', look at the verse, 'in Jesus Christ' - He hasn't bought us with His own blood to leave us, or to lose us. And I say, God help those who believe that you can be saved at this moment, and damned the next! But can you see the context of it, how relevant in the midst of apostasy - and he's talking about falling away - that he first of all reassures these believers: 'We're talking about those around you that are falling away. Those within you that are falling away, but if you're of God, if you're called, loved - you're kept! Because He is able to save to the uttermost!'.

And then - there's the writer, the reader - and then there's the request that he has for them, and it's found in verse 2. He prays to God that they would know mercy, that they would know peace and that they would know love. Now I'm not going to spend much time on that, just to say that his prayer is that they would know that more and more, in abundance in their lives. It is ours, by right in Jesus Christ, to know the mercy of God, to know the peace of God in our mind and in our heart, and to have the love of God multiplied in us, toward us - and us [enabled] to multiply it to those around us.

And then fourthly, he talks about the reason why he wrote. Look at verse 3: 'Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation [but]', I'll put that little word 'but', 'it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith'. I've called this study, 'The Letter That Jude Didn't Intend to Write'. He calls them beloved, that's the voice of a shepherd, an overseer, one who cares and loves the flock - but notice, that love for the flock [wasn't] a spineless love, it wasn't a sentimental love that wouldn't say any harsh words or anything strong towards them that needed to be said. It was not a love that sees a child with a serpent wielding its way around them, ready to crush them and says nothing! This was a love that was willing to warn them.

Now I want you to see what this is like, I don't know where Jude was when he was writing this little book - but imagine him, perhaps, in Joseph's carpenter's shop, or in his own home, upstairs, or wherever, maybe outside, and he's sitting with his little parchment. And there he has his quill, and he probably has a copy of the second epistle of Peter, because it mirrors that little book, and perhaps some of Paul's letters that were around at this time - and he's thinking about those who have just come to Christ. Babes in Christ, the called, the loved, the kept - and he thinks, 'What ought I to write unto them?'. And he's just about to write, put pen to paper, about the great things that God has done in salvation, and God says, 'No! That's not what I want you to write'. Indeed the sense of what it says here, that he was compelled - it was needful for me to write unto you. It literally means, 'I got necessity! I got necessity to write to you! I was compelled by God to write about something different!'.

Now can I say this to preachers, and Sunday school teachers, and children's workers here today: we need men and women that can feel the touch of God. We need people that are conscious that God is speaking to them, are able to change their walk and their ways, are being led and guided by the Holy Ghost of God, who are able to say, 'I got necessity! I was going to do this, but God pointed me in this direction!'. Now, what does he tell them? What does he write to them? Look at the verse: 'I got necessity to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend', vigorously defend, 'for the faith'. The sense of 'earnestly contending' is of agonising, of battling, of raging, of fighting for - it's a strong word, but what's it talking about? 'Fighting for the faith', what's that? You'll know that faith is believing, believing, having faith - you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and you were saved. But 'the faith' is the thing believed, it is the truth of what God has revealed to us, that we have believed in. Jude calls it, in verse three, 'the faith once delivered to the saints' - it literally means, 'once and for all delivered to the saints'. It's something that can't be added to, something that can't be taken away from, it is the Christian faith - Old Testament and New Testament revealed - and it cannot be changed! If you change it, or you tamper [with] it, you're guilty of theft - it's not yours to change! It's not mine to change! It is God's infallible word - once and for all delivered, not to be added to or taken away from.

You see, that's the problem with many cults and religions in our world today. A cult - one of the biggest signs of a cult - is that they have a 'prophet', someone who they say adds to the revelation of who God is. 'We have a special knowledge', like the Gnostics in this book, 'We know God in a better way than all the rest of you, because our prophet has revealed to [us]'. The charismatic movement is the same, the Roman Catholic church - they have to have the priest. The Muslims have Mohammed - and they all have their prophet that adds to the word of God. Now let me say this: theology, within the word of God, may evolve - it can evolve, for theology is our understanding of the word of God - but the word of God, itself, never changes! It is sealed in its contents, it is sealed in its Authorship, it is sealed in its historical setting, because in the fullness of time God sent forth His own Son - and whether an angel, a prophet, a priest or a patriarch preaches another gospel unto you, let him be anathema!

It's easy to be pleasant and tolerant, in small matters, in the day in which we live in this age - but do you know what toleration of wrong leads to? Its establishment. If you tolerate wrong, it will become established. As Harry Ironside said: 'Had men stood faithfully for the truth of the Gospel, the Dark Ages would never have been known'. My prayer for us today, as we close - I've more to say - but as we close here today, this is my prayer - grasp this, and in the week that lies ahead get to grips with this little book! Do you know what John Wesley said? 'God, make me a man of this book!'. Do you contend for the faith? Do you know the faith? Do you take your stand for the Lord and His word? For my friend today, if we don't know it we'll fall for anything.

May God bless His word to our hearts. Let us bow in prayer - and as we bow in prayer, let us consider the word of God. Do we neglect the word of God in our private lives? Do we read it, do we study it? Do we contend for it, no matter the cost? Standing up for Jesus, as soldiers of the cross. Our Father, help us to know deep in our souls that Thou art the one who is able to keep us from falling. Thou art the one who is able to shelter us from the avalanche of apostasy that we see around us in our world. And Lord, we pray in Jesus name, that we as Thy people - not in a legalistic way, but in a knowledgeable way - may be aware of the pitfalls and the strongholds of the evil one. And, as the Lord has taught us to pray, we pray: deliver us from the evil one, lead us not into temptation and help us in these awful days to stand for truth, to stand for right and to stand for Christ like those of old who shed their blood, because what their Lord did for them, they would not refuse for Him. Hear us Lord, and bless this word to our hearts and take us home in safety, in Jesus name. Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - September 2000

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Jude - The Acts Of The Apostates - Chapter 2

"The Creepers"

by Pastor David Legge

Now turn with me in your Bibles to that little epistle that we've been looking at, the epistle of Jude, and we looked at the first three to four verses last Lord's day morning. You'll remember that we looked at 'The letter that Jude did not intend to write' - and we'll read from verse 1 to get the context of our study this morning.

Verse 1 of Jude: "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God' - and you'll remember we saw that that word 'sanctified' would be better translated 'beloved of God' - 'the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me [rather] to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for', or vigorously defend, 'the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage".

Let's take a moment's prayer, as we seek God's face, and as we come to His word this morning: Our Father, Lord Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, who inspired these pages, we ask Thee - the Triune God - that Thou wilt come right now to our hearts by Thy word and minister to us. We live in terrible days, our Father, Thy word tells us that - we have been warned about it - and we ought not [to] be taken unawares by these things. We pray Thy help now, Lord, give us grace to understand - and more so, Lord, to put it into the practice of our lives - that we may live as He lived, and as He intended us to live, by His sacrificial death at Calvary. Fill me with the Holy Ghost, I pray, and meet us now in Jesus name, Amen.

Last week we looked at verses 1 to 3 and this week we're going to look at verses 4 to 16 - and we're going to probably take two weeks looking at these verses, and I'm not going to take them in the order that they're found, perhaps, in the book of Jude as you see it written down there in the chronological order of the verses. We'll be skipping through the verses one-by-one and skipping over some of them. Last week we looked at the title: 'The Letter that Jude didn't intend to write' - we saw how from verse 3, if you look at it, he didn't intend to write a letter about apostates. He said, 'I wanted to write to you about the common salvation', and you'll remember I put that little word 'but' in there: '[but] it was needful for me rather to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith'. You can see Jude - the half-brother, as we saw, of the Lord Jesus Christ - now a leader in the church of Jesus Christ, and sitting perhaps with a body of new lambs in the faith around him, and thinking of those who had just come to Christ across his whoke county, if you like, across the land, and he thought to himself 'What could I include in a letter to write unto them, to encourage them? Surely it would be the great salvation that we all have, the common salvation that has brought us into the faith, the death of the Lord Jesus that makes us sit where we are sitting?'. And that's what we feel like, isn't it? We were sitting around the table this morning - and if you weren't there, why were you not there? - we were sitting there, thinking of the common salvation, how the Bible says Christ died for our sins. And what we were doing was obeying Him, to remember Him in His death, thinking of the common salvation - and you know, those who are thrilled with that salvation could sit for hours, and hours, and in every meeting thinking of the common salvation! That's why Jude wanted to write to believers about it - he was so thrilled by Christ and His gospel, that he wanted to talk about it and write about it all the time!

But, you know, God's Holy Spirit had something else in mind. Because that - although so important and intrinsic, and although they would do it week by week, Lord's Day, as they would remember the Lord in His death, and thinking of that common salvation - the Holy Ghost came to Jude and, you'll remember, impressed him: 'Jude, that's not what you're going to write about. It is needful...', or as we translated it last week, Jude 'got necessity' to write about apostasy. It's a scathing book, isn't it? You've read those words, and they're hard to digest for many of us - strong words, harsh words, words of condemnation, judgemental words. And as we read this book, such condemnatory language raises the question about what Christians are to do about judging. We're told today, over and over again, 'The Lord Jesus Christ said, Judge not that ye be not judged', and that is what He said. And as we read His words in the Gospels, and look at these words of Jude, it seems to be contradictory - the Lord Jesus, apparently, is telling us 'You're not allowed to judge anyone', but here Jude, His half-brother, is condemning those who are diluting the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in language that could not be stronger! So is it right, or is it wrong for Christians to judge? What do we do about this awkward verse, 'Judge not that ye be not judged'? And then we see the Lord, in another place, also said, 'But judge righteous judgement', He also said 'Cast not your pearls before swine'. Now that presupposes, that in order to know the swine, you have to make a psychological judgement about who are the sheep, who are the goats, who are the swine and who are true believers in God. There is a process of mental and, perhaps, spiritual judgement there - to know who is the genuine article.

Now I believe it is evident as you go through the whole New Testament, and indeed the Old Testament Scriptures, that when the Lord Jesus said 'Judge not that ye be not judged', He did not - categorically did not! - say, 'Do not judge between truth and error'. Indeed, when He speaks in Matthew chapter 7, 'Judge not that ye be not judged', He is speaking of those things - and look at the context - that we as human beings cannot judge, things that only God can judge - motives not actions. Do you understand what I'm saying? You can judge a man's actions - when you see a man lying drunk in the gutter, you know that he has been overwhelmed by the sin of drunkenness, but you as a human being cannot discern the motive that drove that man to do that. You can say an action is wrong, but you cannot discern or judge in your mind, or even condemn, what has driven a person to do a certain thing. But the Lord does say to 'judge righteous judgement' - you look at the book of Jude, you look at the first [chapter] of second Peter that mirrors the book of Jude in many ways, and there is such scathing language used concerning these things. You look in the Old Testament, look at the book of Deuteronomy, and Moses there says that you're not to exhort a false prophet, he doesn't say that you're to rebuke a false prophet, or admonish a false prophet - he said that you are to stone a false prophet! Now we are not in the business of stoning false prophets today - but you can understand how strong God's prophet, and God at that moment, felt about such false prophecy. You go into the New Testament, and the forerunner of the Lord Jesus, the one who prepared the way of the Lord is standing, and he is speaking, 'Generation of vipers! Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?'. What language!

But I think it must be 'Gentle Jesus, meek and mild' who utters the strongest condemnatory language that you will find in the whole of the word of God - now we don't want take too much time to go into all of this, but let's look for a moment at Matthew chapter 23. And it baffles me, you know, how men and women read the word of God in these days and have such a mamby-pamby, softness towards false doctrine if they are reading about the Lord Jesus Christ - there's so much He says here, that we can't even take time to read it all. But in verse 13, we read this: 'But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in' - 'You're not saved, but you won't even preach the real way to be saved. You're shutting up heaven! You're leading men to hell!' - 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves'. Verse 27: 'Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are whited sepulchres, appear beautiful on the outside, but within - in the depths of who you really are - you're full of dead men's bones, and uncleanness' - and He goes on, and on, and on as you see, 'Woe unto you! Woe unto you! Woe unto you!'. And this, perhaps, is the greatest outpouring of anger against falsehood that we find in the whole of the word of God - and who is it from? The Lord Jesus Christ. Why does He speak in such scathing terms? Look at Jude.

We looked at the writer of the book last week, and we looked at the readers, we looked at the reason why he wrote - and the reason why he wrote were the rascals that you find in verse 4. 'For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ'. I hear the cry today, and always, 'Let's get back to the New Testament church!' - do you really want to? Do you want to get back to Corinthians, where there was incest in the church of Jesus Christ? Do you want to get back to it? All the problems that they had, because the early church was far from perfect! And from Simon Magis right to today, there is a cancer - and always will be, until we get to glory - be a cancer, just there, ready to awake and destroy. Where does it come from? Well, the verse tells us, '...certain men crept in unawares...', infiltrators, someone has called them the active members of the Senate of Satan. Men and women who hide under the cloak of Christianity, but deep down in their souls are godless! They are good on the outside, they're maybe even - in a worldly term - godly and god-like on the outside, but within the inside they are as black as tar - dead! The frightening thing that hits me, is that outwardly many of these people - in a religious sense - get everything right. They follow the practices, they walk the walk outwardly speaking, and talk the talk - but they had sneaked into the church, and were servants of Satan himself. Like the alligator, you see it - and they're going down the river, on the TV, in the boat - and all of a sudden you see this part of the green at the side of the river that's a bit darker, and then it starts to move - and very slowly, it just creeps in underneath. That's the sense that Jude is using here of these people, 'crept in unawares', they sneaked into the church of Jesus Christ - another translation says, 'they wormed their way in'!

Outwardly they are members of the church, inwardly they are strangers to Jesus Christ - I have called them, and entitled this message this morning, "The Creepers". The creepers, who creep their way into the church! It's the perfect description, here in Jude, of a spy. I'm led to believe that in the Cold War between Russia and America, indeed Russia and the whole of the West, there were Soviet spies in the highest echelons of British and American government. People right at the top who were spies! They had crept their way in. Now what does Jude say about these people? Look at verse 4, they are marked out by God, '...before of old ordained to this condemnation...' - that could be translated: 'long ago, beforehand they were marked out', or another translation says, 'their doom has been predicted long ago'. We shouldn't be surprised by all this stuff that's happening in the church today - why? Because not only Jude, but men before Jude - the Lord Jesus Christ Himself warned His own disciples, even in the Old Testament there are prophecies that indicate that these men are ordained for condemnation. That doesn't mean God didn't give these men a chance, or He had them marked for this one purpose, but it means this: that long ago they were prophesied to do such things - and of course, as always, God's word comes true. God had marked them out.

There are two features that show us these rascals. The first thing about them is: they lived lives of licence. '[They turned]', it says [in] verse 4, 'the grace of our God into lasciviousness' - there was an absence, in their personal walk and life, of moral restraints in their behaviour - they abused the liberty that they had in Christ. God had wiped the slate clean of their past, their present, and their future - and they thought that the slate wiped clean of their future was like a blank cheque, that they could fill in with sin for whatever they wanted. 'God's forgiven me! I can do what I like! I can live as I like! I can say what I like or go where like!' - but, of course, as Paul says 'Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?'. That's not what the grace of God is all about, the grace of God is not just forgiveness, the grace of God is a change of a person, where their heart is changed, their life is changed, their desires are changed - everything about them is changed, so much so that Paul says they become 'new creatures, a new creation in Christ Jesus'. And therefore the implication is that no man can have forgiveness if he lives a life of licence. These men had no shame, they were carnal, they flaunted their sin in a spirit of arrogance - and today we see people who take the name of Christ, churches and church leaders, who are sinning openly, and encouraging sin in the world around us. And what, perhaps, began with them as a lack of reverence for the word of God - they just didn't obey it - is now becoming an interpretation of Scripture that they take, that turns the word of God on its head and legitimises and legalises their sin. Oh, there are men who can get anything out of the word of God - using the word of God to justify their sinful lifestyle. And they were apostates that Jude is talking about - a man who thinks he's saved, but is not saved! The life of God is not in his soul, the grace of God has never reached his spirit or his conscience, and therefore Jude concludes that there is no place for such a man or a woman in the church of Jesus Christ. Oh, there are many confused, there are many who are true believers but they belong [to] churches that teach apostasy. And there is confusion about what they ought to do - 'Should I stay there and try and build the place up? Should I try and bring light into that place?' - and that is a very worthy, and noble motive. But, my friend, that is not what the word of God instructs of us, and indeed - I stand to be corrected - but I believe, studying church history, that there has been no church yet - no denomination now, I am talking about, or movement - that has ever apostasized [and then come] back, never. Martin Luther wanted to change the Roman Catholic Church from within, he didn't want to split - the word Reformation means 're-forming the church as it was' - he didn't want to leave, but he was driven out because of the truth of God! So the Holy Spirit gives us our instructions in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 5 - this is the word of God - from such turn away! 'Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away'.

Living lives of licence - and then the second thing that you see about their character is that they lived denying their Lord. 'Turning the grace of our God', verse 4, 'into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ' - their so-called Master and Messiah, they were denying Him by their actions! It could be said of many in the church of Jesus Christ today, as the Lord Jesus said, that the last state of the man is worse than the first. There are many who started out well, and showed promise. One man, Bishop Pike (sp?), was the leading light of his denomination in an evangelical sense - for the first few years he was preaching the doctrines of grace and salvation, but in his end years he began to talk about the Trinity, the Godhead, as - listen - 'excess baggage'. His famous quote was when he cried for 'more belief and fewer beliefs' - it doesn't matter what you believe, it's the fact that you have this sort of 'Father Christmas, fairytale' belief! My friends, there are those who have ceased praying in the Unitarians - do you know why? Because they began to pray to God, and then they realised that there wasn't a God; and then they began to pray to truth - because they believed, at least, in truth - and then they realised that truth wasn't a person, it was an ideal; so they stopped praying to truth, and they ceased praying at all, and now just have 'aspirations'! There are those who name the name of Christ today, and don't know if there really is a God, there are those who name the name of Christ, and don't really know if the Son of God was the Son of God, if there is life after death, if miracles really happen, if infidels really can be saved! There is one quite famous theologian who said, 'A corpse cannot come to life and climb out of the grave'. My friend, as one man put it, they have gone through the Bible and taken out its records; they have gone through the Nativity and taken out the virgin birth; they have gone through Christ's temptation and taken away His purity; they have gone through the miracles and taken out the miraculous; they have gone through Calvary and taken out the blood, they have gone through the tomb and taken away the bodily, literal resurrection; they have gone through heaven and taken out its riches; and they have gone through hell and taken out its fire!...and there is nothing left.

One of the greatest downfalls that has brought this within the church is that Christians forget to remember. You remember, when Peter was talking about these same things in his little epistle, he continually told those believers there, 'Finally...' - I beg your pardon, in Philippians 3 and verse 1, Paul - '...Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you', not something new, not some concocted new thing that God had revealed to them - it's better to say something true than something new! 'It's not grievous for me to write this unto you, but for you it is safe'. My friends, never get weary of hearing sound doctrine, never say 'Och, we've heard all that before', or, 'We know all that', or, 'We're sick hearing that' - because the moment you stop hearing it, and the moment you ignore error, as we said last week, that error and falsehood will become established! The Scripture teaches that there is no new thing under the sun, and these apostates weren't new, and their behaviour and their character weren't new at all - they haven't changed, in essence, from that day, in Jude's day, 'til today.

Now let's look, for a few moments, in more detail at their character. Verse 8 says this, 'Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities'. They rejected, first all, God's authority - they rejected God's authority to set up their own authority. We see it in the home, where the wife rejects the man's authority; we see it in the home, where the child rejects the parent's authority; we see it in the state, where loyalists reject the government's authority - doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but they reject the authority; we see it in the church, where members reject the oversight's authority - and the word of God teaches that that is a sign of apostasy. That is a sign of the age, and the spirit of the age, and this thing that the devil has dreamed up from all times, and we can see it in verse 8 that he calls them, literally, 'filthy dreamers'. They've been dreaming about themselves, to take away all God's ordained authorities and to set on the throne of their life: themselves! Isn't that it? It's the old lie of the devil right from the beginning - what did he say? 'Adam and Eve, come here...God didn't say that - ye shall be as gods!'.

Strange how we always get back to this problem of pride, isn't it? It's at the root of nearly every sin - in fact it's the greatest sin that God hates, if there is one - it is the mother of all sins because it was the one that spawned sin in the beginning! 'I shall be as God!', Lucifer said, and God tumbled him down! God will tumble down every man or woman that says, 'I shall be as God, I will rule my life, I will not let Him be Lord of my life, I will not be told what to do by the word of God or by those that believe it!'. As he will end in hell, so will you my friend, if you reject the authority of God's word and His salvation.

They rejected God's authority, they were physically immoral, as you see from verse 8. It says, 'filthy dreamers defiling the flesh', they lived lives of licence, they were ignorant people - look at verse 10: 'But these speak evil of those things which they know not' - they looked as if they knew everything, and they didn't know a thing! Ignorant, not knowing what they were talking about. 'What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves', they don't use their minds, but they use their bodies, their natural instincts push them and drive them. Rather than using their minds, their feelings rule, rather than their facts. Oh, my friends, you can see it - can't you? I don't need to name anyone, I don't need to name any churches, or organisations, or practices - although there's so many that I would name, and we would be here all day. Those that let the feelings rule, rather than the facts. They let their mind run away with them and, as one said, 'Their conscience is seared and they wallow in a sewer of their selves'. 'I want to be richer! Health, wealth and prosperity! Me, me, me! I want to have perfect health! I want to do miracles! I want to see miracles!' - and they wallow in the well, and the hole, of their own self!

'Brute beasts' describes the people of today, doesn't it? The people in our world, dead in trespasses and in sins, driven by natural affections rather than the mind and the spirit - sex mad, as someone has said, today there is a 'sexplosion'. Rules are made to be broken, the media and the entertainment are full of humour about the things of God, and things that they should be showing reverence towards. That's why Jude says that they have no respect for dignities, no respect for dominion - they despise dominion - it is an intellectual arrogance, 'I know better than that! You're not going to tell me there's a God, and He made the world, and there was Adam and Eve and they took a bit of fruit down, and sin came upon all men and death by sin? I don't want that! I've a degree, I'm a managing director in a company. I've no time for fairytales such as that!' - is that you my friend? If you have no time for that, God has no time for you, I'm afraid. Because the word of God is the truth of God revealed through the Christ of God - and we have among young people today in our society, it has now been etched in stone, a disrespect for authority and dominion - so much so that everything that is serious must have fun poked at it! There must be a joke about it, they've got to put it on the television set and make fun of it. Blasphemy, cynicism, no respect for God's appointed leaders, irreverence, and a lack of respect for dignities. Don't think that Jude is talking about the King or Queen when he talks about dignities - the word in verse 8, at the end of the verse, 'dignities' is the word for principalities and powers. It means those spiritual beings, angels and fallen angels, those authorities in the heavenly places. Listen to what Jude is saying here: that the church of Jesus Christ with the apostates in it, and those in the world who have the spirit of the age within them, don't believe in them! You know the people that go through heaven and say, 'Well, we can't believe all the measurements here', or, 'We don't know whether that's really going to be there', or, 'We're not sure about that, what that actually means'; and then they go through the miracles and they say, 'Well, Jonah couldn't be swallowed by a whale. And the Lord Jesus couldn't turn the water into wine, and He couldn't - with all those five loaves and two fishes - make all that big feed for everyone. That's not possible!'. Beware, my friend, of unbelief - because it is the spirit of apostasy.

There is so much that we could say upon this: how the angels are learning their theology from us here today, by our submission, by our headship of Jesus Christ as our Head and none other - how they are looking down, and seeing it, and learning the grace of God. And then in verse 9, look at it, he describes, he gives an illustration of what happened, how we can learn to respect these dignities, 'Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses' - now where is that? Well, you'll not find it in your Bible, because that story's not found in the Bible. And Jude obviously was reading another book as well - and it's alright to read other books, as long as you don't take them as the word of God. What was he reading about? It may have been the book "The Assumption Of Moses", but whether that book is true or not, I do not know - I have not read it - but I know this much, that this part of it is true, because God's Holy Spirit has put it into our word of God. And here it is: that when Moses died - and Deuteronomy tells us that no one knew were he was buried - when he died, obviously the devil, for some reason, I don't know what it was - it could have been to make some kind of a worshipful shrine, or high place to worship another god from - that's what he likes to do with truth, make it into something idolatrous. And that could be what he was doing - but whatever it was, it says here, verse 9, that even Michael the archangel, dared not to throw a railing accusation at the devil himself. Now that does not mean that he didn't know he was wrong - he judged him, yes, he judged him, he had discernment, but he knew it was not in his power to throw anything at the devil, but he simply said, 'The Lord rebuke thee'. Oh, we have so much in our world today, and in the church of Jesus Christ, there are those who believe that if they could face Satan, face-on, fisticuffs, they would beat him. My friends, beware of him, be sober, be vigilant for your adversary the devil is a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour, whom resist steadfast in the faith - and you could put that 'in Christ'!

You also see from their character that they adopted sinful hypocrisy - and we need to look at this in a week that is later, because we don't have time really. But let me look very quickly at these descriptions that are given in verse 12, 13 and 16 - Jude calls them, first of all, 'filthy spots'. You know, ladies, how you're maybe going out in the morning to church, maybe the roast is sitting out and you accidentally hit it as you're going out the door, and there's a filthy spot - and what does it do? It destroys the whole garment, wrecks it! Jude says that's what they're like in the church, they're wrecking it - it's like Judas at the Passover, there was one among them who would betray Him, a filthy spot. Some scholars say that that is better translated, not 'filthy spots', but 'hidden rocks' - and you know what hidden rocks do, you know what a hidden ice-rock did to the Titanic, don't you? Then it says they're 'selfish shepherds' - selfish shepherds exploiting God's people to look after number one - you could put it like this 'good living for a living'! You can see it in the United States, in many places - men who are in it for the money! You can see it here - the unconverted clergy, those standing in the pulpits talking of Christ and His word and the Gospel, and they don't know Him, they've never met Him, they've never been converted to Him! Even Ezekiel, the prophet, way back then said, 'Son of Man, prophesy against those shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?'.

Thirdly, Jude calls them 'empty clouds' - what's an empty cloud? Well, you can see them up there, they look as if they're going to rain, but they're not raining. These men have the promise of giving you something, but they've nothing to give. They're all words - all picture, but no sound! They don't have the life of God in them to impart it to your soul, or anyone else - as Proverbs says: 'Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like the clouds and the wind without rain' - they claim, but they can't produce! 'Dead trees', he says - he says 'twice dead', what does that mean? Well, he talks about them being fruitless, they have no fruit - but Jesus says 'By their fruit ye shall know them'. But how are they twice dead? They're dead at the roots as well! It's not simply that they can't produce fruit, but they don't even have life in their roots. 'Raging waves', the noise of raging waves, proud arrogant speech - and then, finally, he says they're like 'falling stars'. You've seen a falling star, haven't you? It's not a planet that goes round in its orbit, that's not what a falling star is - it's not even a comet. It's something that you see just for a moment, and then it vanishes. I'm sure many of you know a pulpit beacon that has become a falling star.

I will finish, but just to give you two illustrations of this fact. I read, and it was very impressive upon my life, the little book by R.A. Torrey "Why God Used D.L. Moody" - and it actually was a sermon* of his put into print. And under the chapter 'Humility' (which was one of the reasons why God used him) he says this, and I have it printed at the front of my Bible, listen: 'The entire shore of the history of Christian workers is strewn with the wrecks of gallant vessels that were full of promise a few years ago, but these men became puffed up and were driven on the rocks by the wild winds of their own raging self-esteem'. Oh, we can see it around us.

*See Appendix A

Charles Berry (sp?) was a liberal minister, and he was called to go to the home of a woman who was dying. And she pleaded with him, 'Reverend, tell me - lead me - to salvation!'. He said, 'You've lived a good life. You've done well, you've been a church member' - and that's what people are going to hell hearing today. She said, 'Sir, that won't do! Lead me to salvation', and he was at his wits end, he didn't know what to do, because he had nothing. So he wrecked his brains to try and remember a song that his mother had taught him at her knee, and he found the words:

'There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel's veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood,

Lose all their guilty stains.'

And she said, 'That's it!'. The next Sunday he got up to his pulpit and he related that story - and do you know what he said? 'I had nothing to give that woman, and as I recited 'There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel's veins' - she got in, and so did I!'. My friend, there's nothing else, this is the faith that we ought to contend for. Let us go and do it in the power of the Lord.

Now let us pray together, let's bow our heads and we'll finish our meeting now. But I'm conscious that some of you here may not know that true Gospel that we've been preaching about: that Christ died for the ungodly and it is only faith in Him that can save a man from hell. It's time for you to get saved, my friend, while you hear His voice - harden not your heart, but believe in Him now, and have everlasting life. Backslider, it's time to give up the spirit of apostasy, and turn to Christ again for the restoration of the joy of your salvation.

Our Father, we thank Thee for this time. We thank Thee for the truth of God that was delivered to us by holy men as they were moved and inspired of God. We pray in these days, as the Iron Hall, that we will not move nor be shifted but stand steadfastly in the faith - not in men's tradition - but in the faith, once and for all delivered to the saints. Help us in these days to fight for it and defend it, for we remember the words of the one who said to those believers, 'Ye have not resisted unto blood, yet'. Bless us now, we pray, in Jesus name, Amen.

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Transcribed by Andrew Watkins, Preach The Word - September 2000

www.preachtheword.co.uk

info@preachtheword.co.uk

Jude - The Acts Of The Apostates - Chapter 3

"Remember, Remember"

by Pastor David Legge

Now we're turning again to the little book of Jude, and this is our third study in this little letter of the apostle, and we've entitled our study today 'Remember, Remember'. We're going to begin by reading from verse 1 right down to verse 16.

"Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James, to them that are sanctified" - we saw that means beloved - "by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: Mercy unto you, and peace and love, be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once and for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares", and we saw about them last week, the creepers, "who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of that great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying" - or the rebellion - "of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever", and we'll finish our reading at verse 13.

Let's take a moment in prayer: Our Father, we ask that as we come to Thy word now in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that Thou wilt help us to understand and to hear the word of God to our hearts. Speak with us, we pray now, and be present by Thy Holy Spirit. In Jesus name we ask it, Amen.

You all know the rhyme: 'Remember, remember the 5th of November'. 'Remember, remember' is the topic that we see down before us from Jude the apostle. Many dates are remembered over the years, and Jack reminded us of some of them today, and we know all about dates here in Northern Ireland, it's either remember 1690 or remember 1916, depending on your persuasion. And why is [there that] call to remembrance of a date, or a time, or something that happened? Usually it is because, not of the year, or the number, or even the date, but of the occasion that took place and probably the principles that were set in motion, or set in concrete, for history and for the rest of time. Jude is asking these Christians to remember. We remember the Titanic, and ship builders from then on have remembered the Titanic, and they now remember to have enough lifeboats for those that are onboard. Something in the past has made them remember to do something important. And here in the book of Jude we see that the believers were about to commit the danger of forgetting to remember. Forgetting to remember!

It could be said that public enemy number one in the church of Jesus Christ today is apathy - forgetting to remember. Take for example the Lord's Supper: the Lord has asked us: 'Remember Me' - and on the first day of the week we are called as believers to remember Him. Yet that room up there is nothing [like] the size of the room down here as we were already hearing today, yet half of you are not there - you're apathetic, you're not too fussed about the Lord's Supper. And on this occasion in the book of Jude, the apathy was concerning the apostates, those who we read of in this epistle, verse 4, those who: 'Certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained'. These creepers - almost 'spies' - of Satan, that had wormed their way - you remember we saw that word means 'worming their way into the church of Jesus Christ' - and the believers were in danger of being apathetic towards the whole thing. 'Don't get too fussed about it! It's nothing to be worried about, they're in the minority! We believe the truth, they don't believe it, so there's no fear of any danger' - and Jude was warning them, you remember we saw that it's a trumpet call to arms to the church of Jesus Christ.

Now it's easy in everyday life, in the spheres that we live in, and in the political correctness that we have to listen to everyday, to opt for the statement: 'Let's go for the quiet life, let's not rock the boat, let's keep the status quo'. But we have to remember that, although we are the church of Jesus Christ and we believe in peace, we believe in love, we are also in a battle. And it is a spiritual battle, not with flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, and therefore our weapons are not carnal but they are spiritual. Can you imagine what General Montgomery, what a reaction he would have got from his battalions, if he had went out to the battle and he had shouted: 'Let's not rock the boat, let's not worry about the enemy, let's opt for surrender, for the quiet life, for the status quo, let's give them the ground that they have and not worry about it' - what would have happened? We probably, today, would have been enshrined in fascism.

My friends, it is the job of the church of Jesus Christ to teach Christians to know and to understand the Gospel. And once it is known and understood, it is our job to exhort you continually, over and over again, to remember what the Gospel is and not to budge an inch from it!

Jude knew his readers had a knowledge of the Old Testament. That's why some of the verses that we read together this morning, he is quoting from the Old Testament stories and incidents that he wants this people to remember. He wants them to see these aren't simply Sunday School stories that you tell to the children, this is something that is meaningful to you. The principles, the standards, what God was trying to tell His people in the Old Testament, there are lessons there for you and for me. We saw last week how in Philippians chapter 3, Paul told those believers: 'Remember! It is not grievous for you to remember, it is safe for you to remember' - why? Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. We saw how Paul, to the elders in Ephesus in chapter 20 of Acts and verse 28 on, continually told them: 'Take heed therefore unto yourselves, to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. For after my departing, shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember!'.

Do you remember? The prophet told us that there is nothing new under the sun - and that is why apostates today are the same as apostates ever have been. They have the same characteristics, the same makeup and even the same beliefs - and in essence, Satan is not very original in his battle plans. He dresses them up in new ways, but they are old untruths.

The first thing I want you to see this morning are the comparisons that Jude makes of the apostates with those in the Old Testament, who were effectively Old Testament apostates. And the first thing that he shows us, from verses 5 to 7, are three apostates populations. Three apostates populations, and then we see further on in those verses, verse 11 on, three apostate people. So first of all, and we saw that Jude is fond of threes, there are groups of threes right throughout his little book. But first of all he shows us a group of people, three of them that were apostates. And then, to narrow it in to individuals and to your personal experience, he brings before us three individuals who are apostates. Now let's look at the first of the three apostate populations, look at verse 5: 'I will therefore put you in remembrance,' circle that, 'though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not'.

Israel is the first apostate population. What is Jude getting at? You'll remember that Israel, as Jude said, were released and delivered - we read about it in the book of Exodus - from the slavery in Egypt and they sang the praises of God with Moses for their deliverance. And if you want to liken that to our salvation as believers, we have been freed from the slave market of sin, we're set free from the chains of our flesh, the world, and the devil - and the day we get saved we are rejoicing in the freedom that we have! But you know that for forty years the children of Israel wandered around in the wilderness. And I'm led to believe that the area, I don't know the exact calculations, but the area of the wilderness that they wandered around was extremely small, and they could have got across it in a matter of days perhaps, but they wandered round and round in circles for one reason: unbelief! They would not believe God. They wouldn't believe God that there was a promised land for them, they wouldn't believe His word that there was a place flowing with milk and honey, that He was going to defeat the enemies in the conquests. All the Amalekites, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites were going to be cleared out of the land, and there would be made a land for the people of God to dwell in, and worship God, and follow God - they would not believe Him! - and they rebelled against God's word. We see that in our nearer day, in the New Testament period, where their Messiah came to them and they did not recognize Him - and if they did recognize Him, they didn't want to recognize Him. They didn't want Him! 'He came unto His own, and His own received Him not'. With every privilege that we are given as believers, there are responsibilities that are required of God, and they had been given the privileges but they failed to meet the responsibilities. And Jude was warning these Christians: 'You have been given many privileges of receiving the truth, but if you follow and listen to false teachers there will be consequences for you to pay!'

What a warning that is to us in these days. We have not time to go through the myriad of false doctrine, and false teaching, that we find in so-called Christendom today. But my friend, if you are unstable and double-minded in all your ways, the chances are that you are blown about in the wind with every false doctrine because you are not rooted and grounded in the truth. And when you hear something you think: 'Well I wonder is that right? I wonder is there an element of truth in that? They seem so sincere, they seem to be so loving and the truth seems to be in them' - but because you are not grounded in the promises of God, and the word of God, you're deceived.

The second apostate population are the angels in verse 6: 'And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he' - God - 'hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of that great day'. Jude is talking about angels that despised their rank, they wilfully rebelled against God's divine claims upon their powers. They chose to opt out of God's divine plan for their life!

Why do we have people in the pulpit that can't preach? Why do we have missionaries on the mission field that aren't really missionaries? Because many people want to opt out of the plan that God has for them: 'I want to be a preacher. I want to be this, I want to be in the front line, I want to be in the lime light, I want to do this, I want to do that'. And it's all 'I want, I want!', and they don't get before the face of God on their faces, and seek God for His way, for His divine plan!

Jude is speaking of what we read in Genesis 6 and verses 1 to 5, I'll read it to you quickly: 'It came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually' - and in a few chapters time we read of the flood, God wipes them all out. What happened? The angels kept not their first estate, they weren't happy with their own environment, they had to come down to our environment - fallen angels, cast out of heaven - but they came among men. And the book of Genesis chapter 6 says that they saw the daughters of men, and reading between the lines, they slept with them. And they bore up these monster children, that we read of within the word of God: 'Giants were in the land', they kept not to their own ground, they kept not to their own kind, but they caused this abomination in the earth.

Now look at verse 7 of the book of Jude, we looked at this verse last week. It says that they: '[gave] themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh', and they're, 'set forth for an example' - and then we read about Sodom and Gomorrah, at the start of that verse. And what God is doing here by His Holy Spirit, is saying: 'Do you see the way the angels came down from heaven, and they slept with the daughters of men and created an abomination unto God? It's just like what Sodom and Gomorrah did in My face'. Just like, look at verse 7, the fornication that they give themselves to, going after strange flesh. Now you might look at that and say, 'What was the strange flesh that the people in Sodom and Gomorrah went after?', and you might say, 'Well, it was their own kind. Man went with man, woman went with woman, homosexuality, sodomy' - but that's not what I believe it means. 'They went after strange flesh', and you remember how Lot had those angels come to his door, and those men of that evil city - Sodom and Gomorrah - came to his door and would have plundered the house down to get their hands on those angels' flesh, to know them! They'd got dissatisfied with their own kind, the man slept with the woman and got fed up with her, so he slept with a man and he got fed up with him, and he wanted angels now.

It's all in the word of God my friend, it speaks of the dissatisfaction of sin - how you cannot satisfy that yearning. That's why he says in verse 8: 'Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities'. Verse 10b says: 'but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves'. And Jude is saying this: that the characteristic of an apostate is that - sensually speaking, and sexually speaking - they are perverse! It's an interesting link, that on the one hand they are very religious, in the middle category they despise dominion - in other words, they rebel against all authority on land, assembly, everywhere - and on the other hand they're messing about sexually. I would say, on the authority of the word of God, that if you are despising dominion in any way the chances are you're messing about, you're messing about with sin. And the characteristics - we see it in our land today, we see it in the ecclesiastical system, men in garb claiming to be the men of God and they are perverts! They hide perversion, they move them to a different parish! Is the word of God not true? Is it not crystal clear what we see here?

The first population is Israel not believing God, the second is, are the angels who kept not their first estate, the third is Sodom and Gomorrah that we've been thinking about, they went after animal-like sin, Romans 1:28 says: 'And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient'!

I was listening, in the last fortnight, to 909 Medium Wave BBC Radio News and Sport, and there was a psychologist on speaking of the tragic death of Sarah Payne. Do you know what he said about human nature? Listen to this very carefully now, he is not a believer, but he says this: 'Man with no restraints upon him, and left to himself, is base and vile'. In someone's house yesterday I lifted Saturday's edition of 'The Daily Mail', and the front headline was this: 'Sex can be shown on TV at any time'. The sub-heading was 'New rules clear the way for explicit scenes when children are watching'. And the story is that the ITC, the Independent Television Commission, has practically scrubbed out the nine o'clock watershed for children. Now the sexual scenes will be able to be shown in the daytime and in the morning and, even though parents think there's too much filth on the television at the moment, they continue to do this - why? They are brute beasts! Satisfying their own lusts, and God's word proclaims this judgement upon them: that they are set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire! My friend, you note: eternal fire - and we have been exposed in recent days to what is called 'annihilationism', that when you die you're punished, and then when your punishment's done you're puffed out, like a cigarette, and that's the end of your existence. Listen to the word of God! Why will men not listen to the word of God? Eternal fire!

The book of Revelation, that speaks more about this subject, says that the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever. And it warns us, as believers, against apostasy by saying at the end of that book of Revelation, 'I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book'. Do you know what Jude's trying to say to us? Listen very carefully believers: for Israel who just didn't believe the promises, for the angels who didn't believe God's will and accept it for their life, and thirdly for Sodom and Gomorrah that followed a way of sensuality, he's saying this: 'You can't sin and win'. Do you know that the believer is not to sin? Oh we excuse it don't we? 'If I do it God's going to forgive me. If I do it I have the blood to plead', and I know that's all true my friend, but there's something seriously wrong in your mentality if that's the way you think before you sin. You can't sin and win! You can't sin and see your father saved! You can't sin and see your children brought up in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. God is a holy God!

And so he moves from three apostate populations to three apostate peoples, and I'm going to take time this morning to go through them. Verse 11 we see it: 'Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core' - and he brings three individual people from the Old Testament to our faces, why does he do that? He does it to shake us and to shock us!

You know how a depressed person with a nervous problem goes to the psychiatrist and psychologist, and they activate upon them shock treatment. It shocks them! - and shocks them out of the state that they are in, and this is what Jude is wanting to do for us today. Waken up! Get out of the apathy! Realize the danger that we are all in. Don't beat around the bush, don't pussyfoot around or dodge the issue. Oh God, give us unambiguous, clear men! That's what we need. Men who will preach the word of God, not dilute it, just preach it as it is. Just tell it as God tells it! Is there a better way than God's way? Is there a better word than God's word?

He tells us of three men, Cain a farmer, Balaam a prophet, and Korah a prince. Cain a working class man, a working class apostate, Balaam an ecclesiastical apostate, Korah a royal, rich apostate - and apostasy, like all disease and just like sin, is no respecter of persons. He speaks of Cain, you all know the story of Cain, that Cain offered of the fruit of the ground - he was a farmer, he tilled the ground and he brought to God that sacrifice of his vegetables and his fruit - and Abel brought the sacrifice of a little unblemished lamb, and shed its blood and gave a burnt offering to God. But to put it bluntly: Abel was true faith and God's faith, and Cain was man's faith, the faith of the flesh, the work of the flesh. The religion of mankind, the product of man's mind, the product of rationalism, where he said in the depths of his being, whether he was conscious or admitting it or not, 'My way is better and more acceptable than God's way'! And I suspect that the Holy Spirit was whispering down on planet earth, 'There is a way that seemeth right unto man, but the way therefore is the way of death'. And Cain was grieved that God wouldn't accept his sacrifice - that's the same today isn't it? When you preach [that] there's one way to heaven and it's through the cross, the blood of the cross, people get upset. That's why men aren't preaching it today, when you tell them that if you don't accept God's way the alternative is hell, there's no inbetween, no limbo, that's the way it is and the hairs on their neck go up, their backs get up and they're all antagonistic - why? Because no-one likes to be told that 'Your way is no good'. My friend that was Cain's problem, he rejected God's way for his own way. But the major difference between his sacrifice and Abel's sacrifice was blood. Have you got it? Cain's religion was a bloodless religion and do you know w