Open—David So
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Turn with me to the book of Jude.
We were enjoying the blessings, the heavenly blessings in the book of Ephesians.
And I, my thought digress a little bit to the book of Jude, because we talk about hindrances sometimes in this world to hinder us from those enjoyment.
And thought this book is quite appropriate because it speaks in many way.
The time before our Blessed Lord come back for us. In fact, sometimes I look at the Book of Jude. I like to liken it to be an introduction to the Book of Revelation, because Book of Jude tell us how we ought to walk in this present evil world, and then it tells us how wicked it is. Especially Enoch would describe the condition of this world, how he preached to the ungodly, and then not the subject this afternoon.
The Book of Revelation would.
Speak of the churches, the seven churches, as if it were the judgment begins at the House of God, and then the world will face God's judgment. So I thought. I trust that it may be an encouragement as we read this because.
It's so similar to the conditions were in today.
So let's just read a few verses to begin with, the book of Jude, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserve in Jesus Christ and called a 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 exalt you, that you should earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered unto the Saints.
For there are for there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of all ordained to this condemnation, Ungodly man, turning the grace of God, of turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. We'll just stop there for a moment. In there it is.
A short chapter.
But I thought this is not my desire to expand verse by verse nor do I profess I know the chapter that well. But just a few thoughts here that why one of the thought I had was the fact that why did Jude write such book?
Is short is almost to the point.
Sometimes we there are people like me that.
Hinting doesn't work. You have to be get hit with a baseball bat as if it were over the head and would go, oh, now I get it, so Jude get to the point there's no fancy words beating around the Bush as if it were, and it's nice to see that he start off by saying he's a servant.
Servant of Jesus Christ.
I thought, it's so nice. Are we not all servants of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we serve our blessed Savior? And he's the one. Now then it's interesting too to see here, he said. He said he's the brother of James.
And he stopped short of saying up the brother of the Lord Jesus. He didn't brag about that, did he? He just said, I'm the brother of James. And we know that the book of James is most likely written by his brother, the Lord's brother James. But he just asked if I'm just like you guys. I'm one of you, right? I'm thinking of the portion where talk about aquifers, he said He's one of us. And I like to think that way, Jude, he's really in a sense, one of us.
So he want to encourage us that he wanted verse three was his purpose, I believe. Let's just read verse 3 again, he said Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation.
It was needful for me to write unto you, and exalt you, that you should earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered unto the sinks.
00:05:05
The faith We know what Christianity is known for. Three things.
Faith, hope and love.
That's what characterized Christianity. Well, we know that from the book that John wrote to the Ephesians in the Book of Revelation, he said to them, thou has left.
My first love, he said. I have somewhat against thee, actually from what I understand, that's not even the proper translation because the word somewhat sort of soften that as if you're really upset as someone and you say, David, there's something I'm really upset about. No, I am upset about something. So Can you imagine? You take the word somewhat out. I have against it. Oh, I think that's a stronger language.
For thou hast left thy first love.
Faith, hope and love the Ephesians.
They left the first love, and then we know it's not the thought again this afternoon, but we know and see that degradation. From there on they have left the first love they have toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We find the Thessalonians. If you were to look at the first chapter, the apostle commended them on the work.
And the faith.
But then in the second epistle, we find that something was missing.
They have faith. They have love.
He didn't mention about hope, so in a sense perhaps they have given up hope. But here as if the apostle saying to us, don't give up the faith.
Don't give up the faith. So he said he want to that you should earnestly, earnestly content for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints.
Oh, it's if almost sounded like perhaps.
It is on a downward slope already, but don't give it up.
How many of us here?
A challenge by perhaps either one of these three that Have you lost sight of hope?
Have you lost sight of love?
Or perhaps in this case.
Faith. But it's interesting. It's hard to know what faith is. I know there are many definition of it, but I rather think of the verse that say faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Could we look at it and say perhaps I stopped listening, Perhaps I stopped reading the word of God.
And because of that.
Our faith failed.
So here to content his word is to encourage us not to lose sight of faith.
Verse five that read just a few more verses. Verse 5 to verse 10 he gave some example of what happened in the past, although is not quite chronological. And as we read it we'll see that the main problem in these five or six verses is the fact that.
Unbelief comes in, so let's see as we as we're reading it, if we would notice that verse five. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt.
Afterward destroy them that believe not.
And the angels which kept nod their first estate, but left their own habitation, he had reserved in everlasting change unto darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Then next story, verse 7, even as Sodom and Gomorrah.
And the cities above them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flush, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal life. Likewise also these filthy dreamers.
Defile the flesh.
Despise dominion and speak evil of dignitaries.
Yet Michael the art Angel, 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 knew not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves.
00:10:24
Again, not my desire to spend too much time out there. As we read this, I believe many of these are self-explanatory. We find Egypt.
Or rather, they left Egypt.
We know Egypt, often in scripture, is a picture of the world. We are saved and delivered. We were on the way as if it was through Canaan. And of course we know the conflicts along the way.
But unbelief sets in. Have we questioned ourselves?
Is unbelief and issues with some of us, or perhaps even most of us.
So we find that those who left Egypt we find in verse 7 the I'm sorry, verse 6. So unbelief comes in verse 6, the angels I like to sub. You sum that up with one word really is rebellions of the so-called angels. We don't know exactly what had happened, but they rebelled.
It's unbelievable, a problem with our lives.
Is rebellion against the authority of God's Word part of our lives?
Do we need to make a point to prove that we are right to declare our right in this world or?
Have we been reminded in the last meeting that there is one that we need to do his will and walk according to his will and then that's rebellions. And then we see in verse 7 Sodom and Gomorrah immorality set in even someone like Lot scripture can say this righteous man, he vex his righteous soul.
Has that have we become someone like a lot too? That we may say that is terrible, but I guess that's the way it is.
Do we stand?
And what the word of God would like us to do, You know, sometimes it could be simple thing. I find there are times that we're even afraid or perhaps ashamed to give things in public places. You may say, well, it's no big deal, it's only giving thanks. But I believe that's still a testimony.
Is it OK to give thanks when there are other people in there? Why would you not be able to become a testimony? In a sense, we have been in cases where I say the waitress is coming. Now the waitress can wait and we seen that she'll walk up and start saying things and they go oh oops, and they'll wait until the giving of thanks is completed.
Right. I'm not saying you have to make a scene at the restaurant. I've heard a story and I think it was only a story saying certain brother would say, folks, quiet down for a minute, please, as we're going to give thanks. Well, I think that's pushing that a little bit. But to stand up and quietly or not quietly, audibly giving things with a group you're in, I believe as small as a testimony that may be in a Dark World that we're in for immorality sins.
Disobedience. Unbelief. We can go on and on with those description.
I believe is a bright testimony.
Because we are to be the light of this world.
You see, well, we're not much of A light.
Well, if there's bright sunshine out there, you can bring a very strong, powerful flashlight and it's not going to do much.
But have you ever bring a small light in a dark place? Because light is not the opposite of darkness.
Darkness cannot control light, but light would dispel darkness. I'll digress so slightly. We were in a cave one time with the children and remember the tour guys said blow out your candle. But there wasn't flashlight. It was just a candle and total darkness. You couldn't see your fingers in front of your eyeball.
And then she lit a match to light her match. Just the light from the from the lighting of her match, the whole room lit up. It wasn't much of A light, but in a dark place it could be a very bright testimony. So the darker the world is.
Even though it's more testimony, I believe is still a bright testimony that can be seen.
00:15:01
So here we got various conditions. They have rebellion against God, They have.
Immoralities. They have unbelief. That's the condition that's true. Rd. is it that much different than what we face today? I know often we use the expressions that.
This world is getting worse.
And it is compared to a few years back. But is it that much worse than when it was years ago? Here we're only around 66 AD is less than 30 years after the Lord's death.
It wasn't that long after Pentecost, and we see darkness crepping in. Even Paul himself said to the Ephesian elders. He said upon my departure. What happened?
Grievous wolves are going to come in not sparing the flock. Now, I'm not trying to justify that this world is better. I'm saying do not be discouraged because we have one who is greater than this world. We have one who's who's a judge standing right just outside that door. We have one who is going to come and she's going to rule this world in righteousness.
But at the meantime, we are waiting for the patience and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, verse 11. We're going to read verse 11 to verse 13.
We just read how bad the conditions of this world.
Are, excuse me, are in. And now we read as if it's going to still get a bit worse, especially in the religious world, not just the world as a whole.
Verse 11 Woe unto them, For they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the era of Balaam, for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Cory.
These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you feeding themselves without fear.
Clouds they are without water carried about the winds, Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea forming out of their own shame. Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness.
Of the darkness forever.
Oh, it's sad to see. And it's not just the darkness and the wickedness of this world. We see now the religious system, as if it were in verse 11. It speaks up, perhaps three classes of religious people. So he begins by saying, Woe unto the for they have gone the way of Cain.
That's the first group, isn't it? What did Cain do?
Kane went and decided that he has a better way to worship God.
His way without blood.
That's the system of man, isn't it? We can choose a man to be our minister. We can choose a man to be our leader. We can choose a man to decide things for us, so we can communicate with God. We can choose a man so we can control God.
Is that the way of Cain? That's the religious system, isn't it?
Woe unto them that have gone the way of Cain, man's way of approaching God.
Then the second group is they ran greedily after the era of Balaam. What did Balaam do?
He would curse Israel for money. He would do things religiously for money. Isn't it sad?
And Cora rebellions against the people of God.
Religious system, isn't it that either for gain of money doing it man's way, a rebel against the proper godly order that God has set out. And we read those verses of God's condemnation toward them. So I'm just looking at time here to leave room for others. Let me just finish it quickly. Verse 14.
It's refreshing to see that among those dark days God always have a testimony for Himself. Verse 14, and Enoch also the 7th from Adam, prophecies of these saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his sayings to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them.
00:20:11
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 mouths speaketh grace, swelling words, having man's person in admiration because of a vantage.
Oh, you know, we got as if kept it silent. We don't know much about Enoch in the Old Testament. We know he walked with God and God took him.
But here we find out not only did he walk with God, he preached as that preacher of righteousness, and it wasn't soft.
Politically, politically correct speeches, he warned of the people back then. This is very early days, and that even tells us he's the 7th from Adam from the very early on that he preached that God.
Is going to come and execute judgment against this world.
We didn't read of it, but we read off that preaching as if went on to his grandson Noah, also known as the Preacher of righteousness.
Noah preached a long time too. And what was the result?
Did this powerful preaching between Enoch and Noah save souls?
Well, suppose you can say yes, there were a souls that were saved, Noah, his three sons, and the wives.
But interesting, just a sigh remark. What is Noah's wife's name?
What are the son's wives name?
What was Adams first made?
That was me for Him's name before Sin came into being. It's interesting to see this mother's.
Of our our.
These mothers of mankind, when they first came in, did not have a name Eve. Didn't Adam name Eve after the Fall, and we don't know of Noah's wife's name or their son's name. I'll leave you that as some thoughts on there. So he preached.
I think that's a good lesson for us too, that we may not see any result in our preaching, but nevertheless we are to preach as God have commanded us and want us to do that. We can preach today the gospel of God's grace.
Verse 17 I'm almost done here. We talk a lot of negative things, a lot of things. That doesn't sound pleasant. But verse 17. Now Jew is going to encourage us. But beloved. We spoke of sayings earlier on here, Beloved.
But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. How that they told you there should be markers in the last time who should walk after the own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves sensually, having not the Spirit. But ye, let me just stop there, so we know that this world hasn't gotten better.
And I'll add a comment to this too that the Lord Jesus, when he was in this world, didn't receive a good treatment from the world. They set away with him, crucified him.
If we seek to be a follower of our Savior, I do not believe the world would give us a treatment that's any different than they did give our Master and Savior. So when we present Christ, we too will be rejected for the Gospel's sake, But the word of God tell us to carry on. So these these enemies, as if it were, will still reject the word of God. But we are to continue on.
Verse 20 Oh, this is the part I meant to say, the encouragement, but ye beloved.
Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.
Praying in the Holy Ghost.
Keep yourselves in the love of God.
00:25:02
Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Unto eternal life. I don't think we need to expand on that that we Yes, beloved.
Is the love of God before you, or we occupied with the difficulties we have?
Is the Lords soon return fresh in your hearts?
Verse 24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever.
Amen.