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Have Mercy On Me

 


 

 

 "22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting; 23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. 24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
 

Good Morning my beloved,

 

We welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord. Thank you for joining us today, we're glad to have you here. We are especially grateful for those of you who have been sharing the ministry website with all of your family and friends. Your faithfulness to share God's Word with others continues to bring about tremendous results. We are grateful to each of you. And through your sharing, God has brought a number of people to Christ. Praise God! May He continue to use you and this ministry mightily to effect change in even more lives.
 
We live in a world that re-imagines truth to be whatever you or I claim that which is "my truth. Our society claims there is no absolute truth. Yet, water still boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and the last I checked, it still freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It appears to me that the Law of Thermodynamics still prevails, regardless of what anyone thinks! North is still north, and south is still south. Yet, in so many areas of life, we imagine that the truth is flexible, able to be twisted and turned to fit our feelings at any given time.
 
I believe that the world would be far more inclined to enter into dialogue with Christians, if we were amenable to changing our understanding of truth.  
 
I believe that we are living in an age, where we may be getting the best possible insight into this book. The world has been around a long, long time, yet at no time in the history of the world have people understood terrorism the way we understand it today. Because of the development of modern technology, weapons of mass destruction, bombs, explosives, drones have made terrorism possible in ways never before seen.
 
We live in the most sensitized period in the history of the world. It has changed our world more dramatically than anything I've ever experienced in my lifetime. I believe what makes terrorism so frightening today, is the terrorists are literally everywhere. They’re in our country, they’re in our neighborhoods, they're in our places of work, and our schools. They're on airplanes and buses. Planning and plotting our destruction. Life as we know it, has been redefined by the threat of terrorists. And, as long as it’s not difficult for them to get into our country, to embed themselves in our neighborhoods, we are faced with a very difficult challenge.
 
Like our nation, the church likes openness, it likes acceptance. As Christians, we do not have the inclination to stop spiritual terrorists before they enter the doors. Because we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t want to be accused of spiritual profiling. Spiritual terrorists are planning the destruction of the church, and we’re doing absolutely nothing to restrain them. They’re in our schools, our colleges, our churches and our seminaries. Like it or not, we are engaged in a war of spiritual terrorism.
 
Because Jude understands that they are in the church, he has been profiling these spiritual terrorists. Through his epistle, he tells us they can be identified by licentiousness, lawlessness, and insubordination. They are corrupt, defiled, rebellious, mercenary, and greedy. They are lustful, self-centered, self-promoting, shameless and proud. They are void of the Holy Spirit, denying the Lord by their actions and their twisted, perverted theology. The church can no longer afford to be gullible, allowing these spiritual terrorists to drag people to hell with their spiritual destruction!

Jude's letter was written to call us into reality. The grace of God does not cancel out the need for believers to exert all their energy to protect the truth. We are engaged in a battle against spiritual terrorists! As Christians, we need to fact check all that we hear, especially from the pulpit, not with Google, but with the very words of God Himself.
 
Let us pray
 
Heavenly Father,
 
Father, we thank You for Your Word. So rich, so powerful. Lord, penetrate the hearts of those who are being deceived by these wolves in sheep's' clothing, these spiritual terrorists, who are working to pervert the gospel and destroy Your church. We pray that You would mightily and powerfully use this message to reach those that are lost, those who are confused, and those who are deceived, those who are the convinced, and even those who are the committed, that they would be converted to the truth. Lord, we pray that You would be exalted in Your church as we faithfully fight this war on spiritual terrorism for Christ's sake and for Your glory.
In Jesus' precious name we ask and pray
Amen
 
Today's Message: Have Mercy On Me
 
Without Jesus Christ, the world is eternally doomed to the fires of Hell. W e need to be discerning and on high alert so that we not allow them to mislead or tricked by anyone concerning the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is our duty, our responsibility, it is our calling to faithfully warn those who are destined for hell. Understanding that we cannot change the entire world, but we can sure make a difference in our families, and our communities.

I’m sure we all remember what happened on that dreadful day in September in 2001, when terrorists attacked the twin towers. The day our nation went on high alert. Tragically, many lives were lost. Sadly, I do not believe that we are any safer as a nation then we were on that fateful day in 2001.
 
I say this because our government, our political leaders are more concerned with being tolerant, about being accepting than they are about actually protecting the innocent. We have spent millions and millions of dollars monitoring phone lines, internet activity, buying the newest equipment for airline screeners, and making sure that farmers aren’t buying too much ammonium nitrate. Yet, we allow thousands upon thousands to enter our country unvetted, fearful of being accused of racial profiling. To be clear, I am not saying that all people from other countries are terrorists, I know many wonderful, faithful Christians, who I have the utmost love and respect for, who came from countries that are known for terrorism. I'm simply saying we must be diligent to be cautious.

I’m not trying to get political here, but I see in this an analogy in the church. As long as we don’t have a system in place to stop terrorists before they arrive, or to throw them out once they’ve come, then we are left with trying to stop the attack . The same is true in the church, we seem to lack the willingness, the discernment to do what is necessary, to put a viable system in place to stop these spiritual terrorists from entering into the church. We are called to be alert, to be watchful, not to be on the defensive, or so that we can just sit and wait for the attacks to come, if we are only reactionary then all we end up doing is damage control. We are called to be preemptive against spiritual attacks!

Gates and walls are a defensive structure. In Matthew 16, Jesus said that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. W hen the Church is moving forward, all the powers of hell cannot stop it. However, if we do not have the same Word, we loose our first love. The Lord said to the church in Ephesus, in Revelation 2, that if they would not repent and return to their first love, He would remove their lamp stand. And, that is exactly what happened. The temple was later destroyed and never rebuilt.

Open with me your Bibles to the book of Jude. In our ongoing study of the epistle of Jude, we come to the final four verses. As we have noted previously, this is a book of warning. False teachers, apostates are not only outside the church, they are embedded in the church. They are standing in the pulpits, they are sitting in the pews of Christ's church! This letter then, is a call to the reality that we’re going to have to deal with spiritual terrorists.


I invite you to follow along with me as I read to you these final four verses 22 through 25, to set the text in our minds, as we prepare our hearts for what the Spirit is saying to each of us. Jude 1:22-25.
 
"And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
 
Show me a church where people are constantly growing in the Word, who are committed to Holy Spirit, who are directed through prayer, who are living faithfully in obedience to God’s commands, that are living in the light of the glory of heaven, and I’ll show you a church that nearly impossible for spiritual terrorists to survive.
 
Not only do we have to expose the terrorists, we are to defend ourselves against these terrorists and stop them at the door, before they can ever infiltrate the church. We are given a double task, we have a responsibility to stop the enemy, and we have the responsibility of converting the enemy to Christ. We are called to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and that includes those people who are the greatest threat to the church.

So, Jude calls us to make a distinction, by categorizing three types of people that need to be saved.There are three kinds of people that threaten the church that we have to reach. We could say that they are the terrorists, the terrorists in training, or the potential terrorists. Obviously, the terrorists, are the apostates, the false teachers, who have infiltrated the church. We've been told how to recognize them. That's what Jude has been teaching us in our previous lessons.

Then, there are the confused, those people who are in the church that are being confused by the false teachers. They are listening to the heresies, the error and the false doctrine that is being taught. Those that mentioned in verse 22, which says " And have mercy on some, who are doubting."
 
To have mercy on them means to show them kindness; and to be clear, this is the kindness of giving them the truth. We are to give them the truth of God’s Word, present it to them faithfully. Pray for them, asking God to remove the scales from their eyes, so that they might see the truth, and to pray that they might be more discerning. These are people who are being led astray, they are starting to drift the wrong direction. They are the confused.
 
We don't kick them out of the church, as might be our first inclination, to protect the church, we need to be merciful to them, by first giving them the truth. In spite of their potentially being a threat to the church, we have an obligation to feel compassion, to feel sympathy, to feel concern for someone who is doubting. To have a responsibility to have mercy on those who are confused, by giving them the truth. Allow me to just remind you of the meaning mercy, mercy means something they don’t really deserve and they haven’t earned. Just as our God has shown His mercy upon you, we are to show mercy to others. Because f alse teachers always go after people who are spiritually weak. So we need to try and reach them.

The Bible makes a distinction here with the understanding that we will not reach everyone. Allow me to point out, there is a difference between one who is caught up in heresies and those that are pushing heresies. While we are to rescue some, we must avoid all the trappings of the evil environment. So while we are to have mercy on them, we are not to withhold the truth either. There may be some of you here with us today, who is a believer who is, at this very time, being led astray by false teaching. Perhaps in the form a book, a radio program, a television preacher, and you are beginning to question the gospel, you're not sure what the truth is, maybe you're not a Christian, but you're open to it. 

These people are not anti-Christ, they're are not anti-gospel, they're confused. These are the people we need to help, we need to give them the truth, that's why they're here. To receive God's truth. The strategy of false teachers, apostates and liars, is to prey on the doubting, by creating confusion. We have a responsibility to reach out to these people who are confused. We don't just write them off!
 
Verse 23 says we need to "save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh."
 
This group of people are a far greater challenge, because they have already bought into the lies. That's why Jude's language here is very graphic. Because we are being called to go beyond having mercy to a rescue operation. To be clear here, we cannot "save" anybody, it is God Who does the saving. We are merely partnering with Him, we are being used as His tool.
 
Everybody who strays from the truth is in the fire, they are being singed by the fires of hell. The implication is that they’re already in the fire of false belief. So, we are to " save others, snatching them out of the fire." God is in the business of saving the lost, He uses us to help Him with that, they need to be rescued from false teaching and error.
 
In James 5:20, James tells us "let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." The word "snatch," is the Greek verb "harpázō," it means to literally take by force. The imagery here is being borrowed from the Old Testament.
 
It says in Amos chapter 4, "I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord." God snatching Israel out of the flames of annihilation and destruction. When see the same language in Zechariah chapter 3. "The Lord said to Satan, "The Lordrebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lordwho has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?"
 
So, when you meet someone is deceived, they've bought into the lies, you don't turn your back on them, you snatch them out of the fire! You don’t just accept them, embracing them as a part of the true fellowship, you confront them in a rescuing mission, with very severe warnings. 
 
This is exactly what Jesus Himself did with the Pharisees in Luke 11, "But woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market places. Woe to you! For you are like concealed tombs, and the people who walk over them are unaware of it." 
 
 Paul says in II Corinthians 10,  "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."
 
And the, at the end of verse 23, we have the third group. "And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.
 
These are the convinced. When we go after the terrorists, we have to protect ourselves against them, when we get close to these hardcore souls, who are committed to their deceptions, we’re in danger. They have most often been well trained, to articulate their false system of belief. They are, in other words, subtle and satanic missionaries of error. They are deeply and profoundly deceived,  they are ready to defend their views. You need to understand the danger you're in, it's like walking through undetonated landmines! They are willing to blow themselves and you right into hell. Just like these natural terrorists. 
 
The church at Pergamos allowed false teachers into their church, the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans and it destroyed the church in Pergamos. It destroyed the church at Thyatira, because they tolerated the woman Jezebel who taught the people to commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
 
As a footnote, there are two words basically for the clothing that people wore in that day: the first is chitōna and the other is himation. Himation was the outer garment, the outer tunic. And, chitōna was the under garment, or your underwear. Jude uses the Greek verb, "spilóō," meaning soiled, or stained. 

To refrain from being too graphic, Jude is saying you wouldn't pick up someone's filthy underwear, stained by bodily a function, so you have to treat these people in the same manner. 

Another example we find in Isaiah 64:6, "For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment." That is the Hebrew word for menstrual cloth. False doctrine and the wickedness of those who teach it stains the soul.
 
Jude is saying that the fear is, because they are so evil that we, if we get too close, we might be corrupted. These are Satan's most highly skilled agents of deception in the kingdom of darkness. "Hating even the garment polluted by the flesh." The word Jude uses here is the Greek verb "miséō ," which means to detest, this the same word Jesus used in Luke 14, when He said "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
 
The point here is, as Christians need to avoid all that is unclean and unholy, even as we try to reach those are lost, caught up in their sin.   
 
Now, we come to Jude's doxology in verses 24 and 25. "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." 
 
I have been asked many times, "Why doesn't Christ just come back now?" Because God is patient towards His people, not wanting anyone to perish. God does not want us to stumble. Jude uses the word "phulassō," in Greek, it means to guard, to watch over. That's different than the word keep.
 
I know that some people have taken this to mean that God wants the whole world to come to repentance. You need to know this is said in the context of Judgement, so that is not possible. II Peter 3:7 says "But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."
 
You need to understand that the reason God is so patient is not for the ungodly that are going to be destroyed to repent, but for His own, those who were foreknown, chosen before the foundation of the world to be gathered to Him. God is not willing that any of His own perish but that all come to repentance. 
 
Fear should never be the reason not to evangelize the lost, because if you’re a true believer in Christ, you’re in no danger of fatal corruption, you are in no danger of damnation. Our God is more than able to keep us from stumbling. You know something, the road to heaven, humanly speaking is a dangerous path. It's filled with temptation, iniquities, transgression, we even encounter Satan and his demons along the way. However, spiritually speaking, it is a safe place to be because we are protected by God, who stands guard over us, He watches over us. He keeps His own from becoming an apostate. The One who chose us and saved us will surely guard us and watch over us. 
 
Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith, that we have eternal security in Christ, that we are being sanctified in Christ, and that if we are in Christ we will be with Him in eternity. Nobody falls through the cracks. Right now, we stand in grace, soon, we will stand in glory. This is the perseverance of the saints. 
 
In verse 25, "To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
 
There is only One true God. There is only One God, who is our Savior through Jesus Christ. The only God who is our Savior through Jesus Christ who is our Lord. To Him be all glory, majesty, dominion, and authority. 
 
In Closing..
 
That’s why we give Him All glory, honor, dominion, worship, and praise!
 
May it be so.. 
 
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

Now and forever, in Jesus' name

Amen
 
 
 
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