Jude

Address—W.J. Prost
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I'd like to turn this afternoon to what would normally be thought of as a rather negative book in the Word of God, The Epistle of Jude. The Epistle of Jude, right at the end of the Bible.
And yet at the same time.
With all the negative comments that Jude is compelled to make, we do find tremendous encouragement.
And I would like to share with you what brought this epistle before me.
Between two and three weeks ago.
There was a rather interesting and what I felt was a perceptive article that appeared in a leading newspaper in Canada called the National Post.
I suppose Canada probably has.
To what would be called national newspapers. One is the National Post, the other is the Globe and Mail. And in Canada they hold about the same status as we'll say the New York Times or the Washington Post would here in the United States.
Both of them come out of Toronto ON, but they are national newspapers and are distributed across the country.
The National Post tends to be conservative in its outlook and, in spite of the day in which we live, tends to uphold, at least in a large measure, good moral values and uprightness and good principles.
I don't have a subscription to the newspaper, but now and then I stumble across an article that has come out of that newspaper.
And on September the 21St, there was one that caught my eye and it was on the Internet.
And what was interesting was that the author of that article, a man by the name of Edward Crowley.
To start off, his article actually quoted from the word of God.
We won't turn to the passage. You'll recognize it from First Corinthians 13.
He quoted this verse.
When I was a child.
I spake as a child.
I thought as a child, I understood as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.
And then he likened Canada, and ultimately much of the Western world.
To a child with a mentality.
That went ahead and did things without stopping to think perhaps of the long term consequences of their actions.
I won't say a lot about the article.
But one thing that he said.
Was rather interesting and it rung true with me.
He said since the Second World War.
We have enjoyed an unprecedented era.
Of peace and prosperity.
Probably founded on what might be called the world order that was generated after the last war.
Probably LED mostly by the United States, with other countries joining in.
Which imposed a world order that generally led to peace and prosperity in the world.
And he said, unfortunately we have in our childishness assumed that this is the way the world is and no matter what we do.
It's going to continue.
And then he went on to say that we have.
Insouciantly thought we could nibble away at the moral principles and uprightness that undergirded this peace and prosperity, thinking that we could do that doing away with the constraints that were upon us, and that the peace and prosperity and everything that we had would just continue.
The adjective insouciant or the adverb insouciantly is not one we use commonly, is it?
But the word simply means to do something.
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Usually something wrong.
With a casual indifference.
As to what the consequences will be.
And you and I.
That that is what has happened and what is happening in the Western world today.
At first it was only in thinking and perhaps in actions by individuals.
Now those same wrong things are being enshrined into law.
So that anyone who speaks against it is.
In many cases considered to be breaking the law and can be prosecuted for it.
And you and I are seeing things in the world today, especially the Western world.
That people, at least in my generation, never thought.
Where possible.
I spoke a little bit about my late father-in-law, Albert Hayhoe.
It was not that particular address to which I referred when he gave out the hymn that we just sung.
But it was at another address to young people.
Back in the 1970s.
And he said to the young people at that time, he said, young people take a good, long, hard look at yourselves.
Because you have to realize that you have already lived more than half of your life. The Lord's coming is that close.
Well, he was wrong, wasn't he?
Those young people, for the most part, are now grandparents, and they're still around many of them, and the Lord has not come.
God is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish.
And you and I are living in a world.
That we never thought we would live to see.
Some here will remember our late brother, Norman Berry Of Montreal.
He made this comment to us once, he said.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, he said. Morally, I thought the Western world was in the cellar.
And we could not get much worse.
But in the 1990s, he said. It seems to me this was as a much older man, of course, when he was in his 80s, he said. In the 1990s, it seems to me as if the seller has given way, the floor has given way to reveal a yawning pit, the bottom of which we have not seen yet.
I don't know what he would have said today because Norman Berry has been with the Lord for more than 20 years.
Well, so much for all of that.
Did the Lord know all that long ago? Indeed he did.
And here in the epistle of Jude, we find Jude.
And what does he say? We aren't going to read through the whole epistle, but just to mention a few things he says in verse 3.
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 once delivered unto the Saints.
Who was this Jude, anyway?
I believe this was actually a natural half, brother, if we could put it that way, of the Lord Jesus.
It says brother of James. I believe that refers to the James who wrote the book of James.
And he was, I believe, the Lord's brother. It was in the apostle James who was beheaded by Herod.
With the sword, it wasn't James, the son of Alphaeus.
It was James the Lord's brother and Judas or Jude was another brother of the Lord.
And what is remarkable about those two men was that all through their growing up years.
They together with at least two other brothers.
Of the Lord Jesus.
Did not believe on him.
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And it shows us that the brightest light that God can give to man.
Has no effect unless God works in the heart to implant new life.
And it doesn't seem that any of those brothers really had faith until after the Lord Jesus was crucified, was buried, and rose again.
We know that James was one of the pillars in the early church. Evidently Jude was a prominent man too. We don't hear much about the other two brothers. I'd like to think that they too were the Lords, and I base that we don't need to turn to it. But it's in the first chapter of Acts where it tells us that Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus, continued with the disciples there in Jerusalem.
And with his brethren, I'd like to think that it includes all four of those brothers.
I can't prove it, but I'd like to think that.
So here was Jude, who as a young man.
Did not believe on the Lord Jesus and probably came to know the Lord Jesus.
After he rose from the dead.
Sometimes the Lord doesn't begin with our lives early on, even if we are raised.
In Christian homes, sometimes those who are raised in Christian homes don't get saved when they're very young. It's wonderful if they do, but it doesn't always happen that way.
And so here is a young man.
Who came to know the Lord Jesus?
As a.
But he didn't really come to know him until he was in adulthood.
And he wants to right now to the believers about the common salvation.
But he's writing a little later than most of the apostles, later than Paul, later than Peter, and so on He writes a little later on.
And he wants to write about something positive. And that's good, isn't it?
We should always dwell on that which is positive if we can.
And I have said this before, but it bears repeating.
Never let what we witness against.
Assume such proportions that it eclipses what we witness for.
Yes, warnings are needed and we get them in the word of God many times.
But warnings do not feed our souls.
Warnings by themselves do not.
Save souls. They may bring a soul to the point where he wants to be saved.
They may make a soul realize the peril of his position if he is not, or she is not saved.
But what saves is the Word of God applied by the Spirit of God.
And what encourages your heart and mind is that which is positive.
But then he goes on here with some very solemn warnings and we are not going to dwell on them.
Except to point out.
That if we look back in human history, we find that all down through the ages.
God has given warnings.
Right from the get go.
The flood of Noah, for example.
What a voice to mankind.
And in many civilizations of this world.
Maybe those who don't acknowledge the Lord, but in many cases there are legends that go back all the way to the flood of Noah.
And man may attempt to deny it.
But the fact remains that it happened.
And there is no real denying of it.
So what do we read here? Verse four. 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. Lasciviousness is just another word for.
Uncontrolled lust. Uncontrolled lust.
That's what we see in the world today, don't we?
I don't want to be crude, but I saw a bumper sticker the other day.
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How can it be so bad when it feels so good?
Referring to wrong things that men want to do and women too.
Unbridled, uncontrolled lust.
And it says, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude is directed at those who have heard the word of God, who know the gospel, who know the truth of Christianity, and who have given it up.
How serious an outward show but no inward reality.
And that's what we are seeing around us today. And that is the worst state of things for a man to be in. It's easier to preach the gospel to a heathen world than it is to try and get through the souls who are self satisfied.
In the way they are.
Some of you are well aware. Well, some of you. That's a ridiculous statement. All of you are well aware.
That Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth the 2nd.
Passed away.
Last month.
Little less than a month ago.
I personally think she was the Lord's.
But then someone.
Thought they could paint a picture.
And depict what it was like for her to meet up.
With her.
Ex daughter-in-law, Princess Diana in heaven.
I don't want to call anyone as to their eternal destiny, but I very much doubt of Princess Diana knew the Lord, no evidence of it at all in her life.
And yet.
At her funeral. Princess Diana's funeral.
She was blatantly and publicly referred to in the funeral service as our Sister in Christ.
Our sister in Christ. Of course. That funeral was a good many years ago now, more than 20 years ago.
The point is, the Christian world relies on outward profession without inward reality.
It refers back here to the Israelites who came out of Egypt in verse 5.
And it says.
The Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Then it goes back even further.
Than the flood of Noah.
Verse 6 To the angels which kept not their first estate, they took upon themselves the bodies of men.
And came down into this world and corrupted themselves. You can read about it in Genesis chapter 6.
They are reserved in everlasting chains, it says.
Sodom and Gomorrah, another witness of God's warning to this world.
And so on.
We don't need to go on in all of this because we want to dwell on what is positive.
But I want to make one comment which is important here.
Verse 9.
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. Here is an important principle for us, because there is a movement extent in Christendom today that you and I have the right and the power to rebuke the devil.
And we find here a warning in Jude's ministry.
Concerning even Michael, the Archangel and angels are greater in power than might, greater than we are. And I suppose Michael the Archangel might have considered that in as much as he was an Angel, and one of the chiefest of them. And Satan was an Angel too, admittedly a fallen one, that they were.
Roughly equal in status before God. And so that Michael might have we say it with all reverence. Figured that he had the right.
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To rebuke the devil.
Evidently there was some dispute about the body of Moses, because you will remember that when God told Moses.
That it was time for him to die. Moses climbed up there, up Mount Nebo.
It's quite a climb too, 2300 feet high above sea level.
120 years of age. It would have been a good climb, but we recognize as Moses himself.
It says in Deuteronomy at 120, as I was not dim nor his natural force abated, so he climbed it probably as he would have 80 years before when the young man.
Anyway, up the top of the mountain he went, and we know that the Lord buried him, very likely so that his.
Burial and his tomb would not become a shrine that Israel would get taken up with.
But evidently, somehow the devil got into the mix and there was an argument.
But Michael, the Archangel, says, the Lord rebuked thee, and you and I.
Can have power through the name of the Lord Jesus to cast out demons.
Very definitely.
But we do not.
Have power against Satan in ourselves, and so let's not assume we have power to rebuke the devil.
Michael the Archangel wouldn't do it. Neither should we.
One other thing here before we go on to something positive.
Notice verse 14.
I love this.
And Enoch also the 7th from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10 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.
Enoch was a remarkable man. He was the 7th from Adam.
And by the standards of the day, even though he lived.
What was it, 365 years of age? And it tells us that he walked with God for 300 years.
And yet, as far as his contemporaries were concerned, he was taken away as a relatively young man.
But I love that because it's a picture of the church being caught up when the Lord comes, and I believe that many will be caught up as young people and as children. Isn't that wonderful?
I don't know whether that'll be my situation or not. Some of us are getting on in years.
And in some cases.
I have to say that it's going to be very difficult and we'll get into that in a few minutes.
For those that are here, but how wonderful it will be to be taken away without having to go through death, and Enoch enjoyed that special privilege.
But he didn't know what you and I know.
Did he know how all this would pan out? How this judgment would come about, when it would come about how everything would take place? I don't believe he did.
All he knew was that there was the Lord giving him that prophecy.
That all the evil that he must have been very conversant with, as he saw it all around him.
Was not going to be left unjudged.
Now the flood of Noah, which came after Enoch, was, of course a solemn reminder to this world that God would judge it.
But it is not the fulfillment of Enochs prophecy.
No, God did not come with His Saints in the time of Noah that waits a future day. When you and I come with the Lord in judgment on this world, and you and I now have the full revelation of how it is all going to happen.
Well, so much for what is negative.
What is the encouragement that the Lord gives us? Let's go down to verse.
20.
And we want to dwell on these things for a few minutes.
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But ye beloved.
Formerly, in the earlier part of the epistle, he is largely speaking about those.
Who have an outward profession without inward reality.
It's rather common today.
Our next door neighbor recently moved away.
A very good neighbor man with whom I got along very well.
Bit younger than I, maybe 10 years younger than I.
Successful good business.
Excellent neighbor, morally upright. Good church goer in every way.
I'd like to think he's the Lord's. I'm not sure.
But when we were over in his home once, my wife and myself, they invited us over for dessert and coffee.
And we had a chance to share the gospel with them.
And afterward, he said well.
That sounds very good.
But we don't ever hear anything like that in our church.
Hmm, very sad. But he listened.
And you know.
About a year ago, his wife suddenly took.
Very, very sick and when they went to the doctor and had some tests done.
They shook their heads and they said to her, You have?
Cats are all through your body.
And there is no point in our trying to play around with it.
Chemotherapy isn't going to do much good. It'll only make you sick.
We'll make you as comfortable as possible.
But you don't have long to live.
And she passed away about three months ago.
I don't know whether she knew the Lord or not. We had a good opportunity to bring Christ before her again.
As I say, I'd like to think that her husband truly knows the Lord in a limited way. He doesn't know a lot, but he responds well when I speak of Christ.
But what a world we live in, when here are those who faithfully go to a Christian place of worship. And yet when you present the gospel to them, they say I never hear anything like that.
But, ye beloved, oh, what a beautiful word that is.
But what does it say, building yourselves up on your most holy faith?
Now these things are positive, but may I say.
That each one.
To some extent involves spiritual effort and spiritual energy.
God doesn't if I can use a common phrase.
Expect you and me as Christians to be what are commonly known as couch potatoes.
You know what that term means, don't you? Or is that a Canadian term? Never heard it before? Sure, you know what it means. Or you can guess. Couch potatoes.
Sitting and relaxing and justice.
Well, I know I'm saved. I know the Lord is my savior and I'm going to heaven at the end. That's good.
It is good, and I'm very thankful for that, but God leaves you and me here.
To be living witnesses for Christ to further his interests in this world.
And it says here your most holy faith.
You know, in the beginning in verse three we read about contending or contending We Sometimes that perhaps is not the best word, because contention sometimes tends to embody the thought of fighting with someone about something, and that is not the thought. But earnestly contending means that that precious truth.
Because the faith I.
In this context, is not referring to personal belief, but rather to the whole body of revealed truth, the faith.
Contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints, and it's the same thought in verse 20.
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It is so precious to us that we can't bear to let any of it go. We can't bear to lose any part of it.
I can contend for the truth in one of two ways.
You know, I can contend for it with the spirit that I'm right and you're wrong, and I'm going to prove you wrong if it's the last thing I ever do.
That spirit is not good.
No, we get the best spirit in Second Timothy Four. We don't need to turn to it in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves.
If per adventure, your able presentation of the truth will give them repentance and so on.
Did I quote that right? No, I did not, did I?
If peradventure, God will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.
You and I.
By the grace of God.
Are called in humility.
To present.
The precious things of Christ, not merely the truth of salvation.
But all that has been given to us in the preciousness.
That is connected with.
True Christianity, the precious truth of the one body, all the things that God gave the Apostle Paul from a risen Christ in glory.
All those precious things.
That, Paul says, completed the word of God.
But then it says your most holy faith, and I don't know of any expression like that elsewhere in the word of God.
Why does he say your most holy faith?
Because the tendency is and I say it.
Very carefully.
Because when I say the word Christendom, it's not as if you and I are not part of Christendom. We are. We're part of the great House and we cannot get out of it unless of course, we renounce things and become Muslims or Hindus or something like that. But if you and I are believers in the Lord Jesus and hold the name of Christ, we're in the Great House.
But our most holy faith? That implies just what our brother Bruce was bringing before us. And our brother Bob too, yesterday.
There is a Christian character and a Christian walk.
Which is in keeping with the truth that we know. And that's why the Apostle Paul preached earnestly the Kingdom of God.
Not merely the gospel of the grace of God, but the things concerning the Kingdom of God.
Notice he didn't say the Kingdom of heaven and we don't have time to go into the difference this afternoon. The Kingdom of heaven has a limited meaning, It will not mean much in eternity, but the Kingdom of God will mean everything in a coming eternity.
Building yourselves up. But building takes energy. Building takes effort.
It means effort to read the word of God. It means effort to read the good written ministry that God has given us.
And it takes spiritual energy and effort to live it out in this world.
Building very necessary.
You will remember a king in the Old Testament by the name of ASA.
He was a godly king, and when he became king, God gave him, you'll remember, 10 years of peace.
But ASA knew that that peace would not last. He knew that there would be a time when the enemy would come against him.
And so he spent those years not just in relaxing and enjoying himself. No, He fortified Israel. He fortified Judah. He built fortifications and got himself ready, had his army ready, so that when the enemy came, he was ready for them.
Did he rely on his army, though?
He couldn't really. If I remember the figures rightly, ASA had a pretty good army for that day and age.
580,000 men.
Pretty good army.
But who came against him? The Ethiopians. How many did they have?
A million men.
A million men.
Can you imagine?
In those days, an army on foot of a million men.
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And yet he relied on the Lord.
And the Lord gave him the victory.
And as far as I can tell, it is the greatest slaughter.
Of the enemy ever recorded in the Old Testament.
It's not as clear in our King James translation, but if you read it in the Derby translation, it appears that not one of those, a million men, survived the battle.
Unbelievable.
I can't imagine.
And yet the Lord gave ace of the victory. Why?
Because he relied on the Lord, indeed, but also because he used his time profitably before the enemy got him.
He was ready.
Let's go on.
Praying in the Holy Ghost. Oh how necessary.
Some here that are a little older will remember our late brother Clifford Brown, originally from Des Moines, IA and later lived in Burbank, CA for the last perhaps.
13 years of his life, something like that. I knew him fairly well.
But.
He used to tell us a prayerless life is a powerless life.
And it is Why?
Because prayer expresses our dependence upon the Lord.
And it's needed.
And the Lord Jesus himself, as the perfect dependent man prayed.
And I have often thought how that when the Lord Jesus wanted time to pray, it was hard to get.
Because all day long he was interacting with people besieged by crowds from all sides.
Everyone's different in this world.
I've never been afraid of crowds, but I don't like them.
And to be in the middle of a crowd and be jostled around this way and that way and have somebody.
Talking to you or trying to get your attention every moment of the day.
Is not something that appeals to me.
Now there are.
Other people, and I hope it's not out of the way, but I have relatives of mine who.
They don't mind a crowd, and the more the merrier they they work a crowd. They'll go from this person to that person. They love it.
Be that as it may, the Lord Jesus, when he wanted to pray, he scarcely had time.
What did he have to do?
At night, go to the Mount of Olives. Can you imagine?
To pray, and I have no doubt that more than once he spent the night out there out under the stars, if we could use that term.
It's been very seldom in my life that I have slept under the stars.
I've done wilderness camping a few times with some people that are here in this room. Very enjoyable, but we always had a tent over our heads.
The Lord Jesus no doubt was out in the Mount of Olives. Why he needed that time with his Father.
And you get that in the 21St of Luke.
The last verse of the chapter, we might turn to it. 21St of Luke, I think it is.
Yes, verse 37.
Luke 2137 and in the daytime he was teaching in the Temple.
And at night he went out and abode that in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives.
I say to each one here we need that, but it says praying in the Holy Ghost.
Oh, shouldn't we always pray in the Holy Ghost? Indeed we should.
But all of us know that what we get in Romans 8.
Is the case sometimes in our lives where we know not what we should pray for as we are.
And we can be thankful that he would search at the hearts N what is the mind of the Spirit? Because he that is the Spirit of God, maketh intercession according to the will of God.
Our prayers, if they're not right, go up not according to our poor apprehension or understanding of what we need.
But according to God's perfect understanding through the Spirit, that's wonderful.
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But you know, it's a blessed thing to be walking with the Lord so that we can have a sense in our souls.
That what we are praying is according to the mind of God.
And that we can expect to have the answer. Brother Sam referred to that a little bit when he was speaking to us and now that we can have confidence in prayer.
If we pray in the Holy Ghost.
Reminds me of a story.
A man whose faith was exemplary. George Mueller.
Who was on a sailing ship to Canada back in his day in the 1800s.
And they were in what is called the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, where the Saint Lawrence River flows out into the Atlantic Ocean.
And that is an area where the Gulf Stream comes up from the South on the Eastern Shore of the United States.
And Arctic currents come down from the north from northern Canada, and they meet one another.
And the result is frequent, heavy what we call in Canada pea, soup, fog.
Very dense fog and in the days of sailing vessels you did not dare try and go anywhere with that fog.
Well, George Mueller.
Was on that sailing vessel and for two full days they were in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, not daring to move.
And finally he went up to the captain whom he knew was a Christian and said captain, I have an engagement in Quebec City.
In less than 24 hours.
I need to get there.
Well, the captain, understandably, was a little bit as we would say, ticked off at this.
Landlubber trying to tell him what to do and he he said. And Mr. Mueller, we also happen to have some fog around us that we can't sail in.
Well, Mr. Mueller said. Do you think let's let's kneel down and pray about it?
Well, what could you say to that? So they knelt down in the captain's cabin and Mr. Mueller prayed earnestly that the Lord would lift the fog.
And then he said, Now captain, you pray, but before the captain would open his mouth, he said on second thought, don't bother.
He said. Because I can tell that you don't think it's going to work.
You said as far as I'm concerned, it's already working. Let's get up there and get going.
You know, the captain said. It changed his life.
Because he went up on the.
And he said it was just as if someone had taken the crank and was raising the curtain on the stage and the fog was just.
Lifting like that.
George Mueller kept his appointment in Quebec City.
Well, I don't like to tell that kind of a story because I've never had that experience. But I just, well, I don't. That's not fair. I have, but I won't tell stories on myself. But I did have that experience a few times. But anyway, never mind that The point is praying in the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is still here.
Verse 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God.
We don't need to say too much about that.
Her brother read to us.
That verse in John 15.
As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.
Continue ye in my love.
My wife's late grandfather, Harry Hayhoe, whom some will remember here. You have to be pretty old to remember him because he went to be with the Lord 60 years ago this year.
But he used to tell us, and I can't say that I've done it, but he used to tell us. Memorize that verse and say it over to yourself every day of your life.
Why? Because it is important to remember that no matter what your circumstances and mine are.
God's love never changes.
And he will not suffer us according to what Paul told the Corinthians in chapter one Corinthians 10. He will not suffer us to be tempted or tested above that which we are able.
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And that is true.
And if God in his love has allowed very hard circumstances in your life and mine.
Let us remember that in His love he is going to bring blessing out of it that will last for all eternity.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. Now what does that mean? Does the Lord's love ever stop? No, it doesn't.
But we all know what it's like.
To be in a place where.
And sometimes we're glad of it on a hot day to be in the shade, but on other days when it gets cool, as it is now.
It's a wonderful thing to enjoy the sunshine.
Most of you know that I live up in Canada and we get some pretty cold winters up my way.
And 25 below 0 would not be an unusual temperature on a winter day.
And some of us don't mind the crunch of the snow under our feet and the freshness of the air under those circumstances.
Other people say you can have it more and more more power to you, and I understand that too.
But the point is.
Keep yourselves in the love of God means that I do not allow anything in my life to come between myself and the Lord, because the moment I allow something.
The moment I allow something in my life that feeds the old nature.
And it's easy to do.
And don't think it gets any easier as we get older. If you want to know that, ask any of us that are in my generation here. If it gets easier, I know they'll all say the same thing. If anything it gets harder because the more you want to live for the Lord, the harder the old nature fights to get up there and get the ascendancy, and the more the devil attacks.
You want to build yourself up on your most holy faith.
Every aspect of, or every new truth.
That God seeks to bring before you by His Spirit will find its corresponding antagonist in some aspect of your old sinful self and mine.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. A brother that's sitting here today made a remark at a Bible conference a long time ago. But I enjoyed it.
He said.
One minute is 60 seconds too long to feed a dead man.
Yeah, who's a dead man? Or should be the dead man. What we are as children of Adam. Don't feed that dead man, even for 60 seconds. Keep yourselves in the love of God.
And finally.
Looking for the And this is an unusual expression to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
That refers to the Lord's coming.
And Jude foreknew by the Spirit of God that things would get so difficult in this world.
And he saw the beginning of it in his day.
That it would be a real mercy when the Lord came and called us home now. It would always be a real mercy at any time in the Church's history.
But particularly.
As the days get darker.
A sister in my own home assembly.
She's a lot younger than I, young enough to be my daughter, she said to me the other day. She said, Bill, the glad you live and the generation you live in.
I think she was referring to the fact that if the Lord doesn't come.
I'm going to be.
Out of this world.
And I won't live to see, perhaps, some of the moral darkness that may come upon us.
I hope the Lord doesn't allow things to get a lot worse.
But he may.
Why? Because he is long-suffering and not willing that any should perish.
But the point is.
That if you and I lose sight of the Lord's coming.
Then we are going to cave in. We're going to give up.
I learned an unusual expression the other day.
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And it's a French proverb.
But I wouldn't have known about it except, and I don't think he'd mind my referring to it. Our brother Sager from India and his wife Sophie are visiting in Canada right now, and he had an address in Montreal, Canada.
A week ago today.
And he referred to what he saw in the Montreal airport when he landed in Canada because they flew direct from New Delhi, India to Montreal and that was their portal of entry to Canada.
He referred to a proverb he saw up on the wall of the airport.
And translated from the French, it read Never let go of the potato.
And I'd never quite heard that put that way before. But underneath in English, it said never give up.
Never give up.
Well, the world says that. Never give up, never give up.
But the trouble is, humanly speaking, we can give up.
If things look hopeless. If things get too difficult.
Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here the expression eternal life refers to the full realization of it.
Transferred into a scene where that eternal life will be right at home, having a glorified body suited to that eternal life which we now possess.
That's what it means here.
One more comment.
On the last part of the chapter, we've had four things that are important to us.
But in the last part of the chapter there's an exhortation and I'd like to speak for one moment on it and it'll just be a moment given the time we have left.
Because it's a little unclear in our King James translation.
In fact, it was even unclear to some of our well taught brethren of past generations.
An even excellent Greek scholars like JN Darby and William Kelly.
Did not totally agree.
On the meaning of the Greek construction of what we have here.
If I may, let me give you what I feel to be a simplified version of it.
If you really want to delve into it, you can read what William Kelly says about it and what Darby says about it.
It's not the same, but anyway, that's fine.
There are, I believe, at least two groups of people here. William Kelly thinks there are three, but we'll talk just in terms of two.
Of some have compassion, making a difference.
The thought there is not so much of compassion.
But of conviction?
And some convict.
Those who oppose convict.
There is a place to speak.
In a solemn warning with conviction to those who oppose the Word of God.
God is glorified in the preaching of the gospel, even if men and women are not saved.
There is a place to point out very clearly to the mockers and scoffers about which Jude is referring or to whom he is referring. Here there is a place.
To bring before them the truth of God's Word, the warnings of coming judgment.
And what the word of God has to say?
There's even in the word we said yesterday, a place sometimes for Christian apologetics to make men see the foolishness of some of the things that they are trying to bring out.
It's very interesting to me.
That the man that wrote that original article in the National Post to which I referred.
And this will appeal to some of the young people here who have studied science and physics. He even referred to the second law of thermodynamics.
Now the two laws of thermodynamics in simple terms, are the first law of thermodynamics says you can't win, the second law says you can't even break even. Is that is that fair? Bruce does that. Does that encapsulate it?
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And he referred to the second law of thermodynamics to say that the general.
Average course of things in this world is from order to disorder.
Not from disorder, up to order.
He said any effort at order or any attempt at order requires effort and energy to do so, because the trend of things in this world according to the second law of thermodynamics is always the other way around, from order to disorder.
To me, that one law of thermodynamics smashes the theory of evolution right at the roots. It will never work. I don't care how many billions of years you say it will take disorder.
Without any other thing applied to, it never progresses up to order.
Anyway.
You can bring that before people sometimes and occasionally someone. Oh, that's right. Yeah, that sets me thinking.
But then what does it say in verse 23 And others save?
And it could read pulling them out of a fire with fear.
Hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
That's the way it's going to be with people that get saved just kind of pulled out of the fire as if the house is about to fall down. It's on fire and they're just saved at the last minute before everything caves in.
But it's a wonderful thing to be able to save someone like that.
And then I'll just read this 24th verse, because our time is gone.
Know unto him that is able to keep you.
And that word falling is a good word. But Darby, I think, uses the word stumbling.
Can we be kept from stumbling? Yes, we can.
And to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
He's not here now, but our brother Michael brought before us the meaning of that word. Hail, meaning rejoice. Same word here.
Exceeding joy.
Joy.
The Lord will have that exceeding joy in a coming day when he presents you and me faultless before him.
But he's beginning that work down here.
And he can complete it.