"8 Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. 9 But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10 But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah."
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 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. May He continue to use this ministry mightily
to effect change in even more lives.
There has been a dramatic shift in our country over the past several
decades. America, historically stood for the right to express ones
opinion. Any opinion. In fact, our constitution guarantees our right to freedom of speech. Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who actually authored the quote famously attributed to Voltaire, said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I
will defend to the death your right to say it." The quote actually occurred in Hall’s 1906 biography of the French writer and philosopher originally published under Hall’s pseudonym S.G. Tallentyre, entitled "The Friends of Voltaire." In a letter written in 1939, she later clarified the though in quotation marks, the phrase was actually her own expression.
We used to
believe that you should tolerate my views, even or though you may disagree, even when they were false, now, however, we have determined that it is wrong to call anybody’s views’ false.
The Word of God speaks into our age of tolerance by building
fences, separating truth from lies. Tolerance must has its limits. Tolerance does its limits
especially inside Christ’s church. Embracing a lie as the truth can not only hurt you, it can be deadly. Our beliefs are the building blocks, the foundation of your faith. Your behavior is the direct result of your beliefs. Embracing the wrong beliefs can send a person to hell.
I have often heard "God forgives sin, and since He forgives our sin, then there’s no longer a penalty for our sin." God's grace is not a license to do anything you want, or live any way you want. Especially, if God, in His Word calls it sin. Anyone who has truly experienced grace knows exactly how costly it is. Should anyone believe grace is a license to do anything that God condemns, it is safe to assume, they are not a Christian. That is a perversion of the grace of our God! Of course, those are typically also the ones whose lives have never been profoundly changed.
While our culture many faces many new challenges, biblical theology never needs revision. It is as Jude clearly states, "Once for all."
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word, so rich. Thank You for the consistency of Your truth, relevant for every generation. Lord, when we think about the people in our lives we care about, people we love, people who have been to church, who have professed Christ, who’ve drifted away, it's frightening to consider these things. We pray that You will awaken the hearts, that they may come to embrace forgiveness through Jesus Christ, our Savior.
Lord, my heart grieves over the insubordination by those who claim to love and represent You, who have prostituted the gospel. Convict them, call them unto repentance and free them from those things that keep them from effectively serving You. Lord, we know that Your Spirit will not always strive with man. Help us to take our commitment to You personal. We understand how important Your Word is in this world today. Make us faithful contenders for the faith. We love You and gladly serve You.
In Christ's name we pray
Amen
Today's Message: The Fight Of My Faith
Jude has just given us a graphic remembrance of the situation in Sodom and Gomorrah, and how their lives were uncontrolled in their fleshly appetites. R ebellious towards the things of God. Rebellion has become so much a part of this society it has become difficult to recognize. I would have to say that the doctrine of rebellion has been fueled literally every area of our lives. God is very clear as to his sentiments about rebellion.
I Samuel 15 says "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you."
Rebellion is very dangerous. It is open resistance to authority. I have witnessed even Christian
rise up in the name of righteousness and affirm their rights over the government, while giving no thought to the laws of God. There is a spiritual war being waged in terrorist type fashion. The enemy has infiltrated the church with the objective of blowing it to bits.
If it is important for us to fight politically, socially, culturally, than it is far more important for us to fight spiritually and contend for the faith. Yet, we are living in a time when evangelical preaching is very soft and Christians are very unconcerned and even indifferent to what is occurring on in the church. The few of us who are true believers have been called to earnestly contend for the faith, and battle to protect the church against these spiritual terrorists.
Again, Jude uses very strong language, as he is unmasking these apostate false teachers. Allow me to remind you that apostasy means defecting from the faith, having heard the true faith, knowing the true gospel, hearing the true gospel, even professing to believe the true gospel, and then abandoning it.It is the most horrific of all evils, for which the hottest hell, the most severe place of eternal torment, is reserved.
Open with me your Bibles to the book of Jude. Our text today presents a dramatic picture of the consequences of sin and rebellion. It has become blatantly obvious that we live in a culture that it not in line with biblical sexual morals. Pornography, adultery, fornication, every conceivable form of sexual immorality is not only destroying marriages and families, but souls. What is terribly disturbing to me, is that it has surprisingly become common in the church. A clear indication that these false teachers are running rampant within the church. I can assure you, that if you are involved in sexual sin, you can expect the discipline or judgment of God on your life.
Ecclesiastes 8:11 says
"Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil."
I invite you to follow along with me as I read to you verses 8 through 11, to set the text in our minds, as we prepare our hearts for what the Spirit is saying to each of us. Jude 1:8-11.
"Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah ."
I have known a number of preachers that have set themselves up as absolute authority outside the parameters of the Word of God. In most cases, they attempt to recruit others to follow after them. This is the manner in which cults are given birth. Just look at the Catholic church. Because God is not swift in His judgment , many have fallen into the deceptive trap of believing that they are right with God. When they're attitudes and actions are more in line with rebellion against God. Outwardly, they appear to live a righteous life. However, their lives are nothing more than superficial.
We now come to verse 8, this one of those verses where many preachers go out to lunch. They preach on verse 8 and then seem to take a nap, or a break and start again at verse 10. I believe that verses 5 through eleven in particular, is a remarkable portion of Scripture. The unmasking of the spiritual enemies, that dictates such sharp, stinging language and severe condemnation.
He begins with "Yet in the same way these men," in speaking about those who crept in unnoticed, those who are marked out for condemnation, those ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and those who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. These men against which you must contend for the faith. The phrase is the same way, is the Greek verb " homoiós," meaning likewise or equally. It’s an interpretive word, which unlocks the understanding.
Sodom and Gomorrah were insubordinate to the truth of God. The truth that had been told to them by Lot. The truth that had been written on their hearts. Yet, they engaged in immorality, even to rape holy angels who had taken on human form. They were driven by their uncontrolled lusts of the flesh and sexual immorality. So, Jude, in his description of "these men," says they likewise defile the flesh, reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. They are apostates are like the immoral, irreverent, insubordinate Israel, angels, Sodom and Gomorrah. For those are the telling signs of an apostate, their morality, their disobedience to God's Word and their rejection of the truth.
Then, in verse 9, he says "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
Because is included in the
canon of Scripture, we can rest assured that this is a true story. When Israel said they did not know where
Moses was, when he was on the mountain, and they built a golden cow, what kind
of object of worship do you imagine they would have built had they
known where to build it. I won't belabor the point, because that is another message in itself. By the way, honoring the dead is Catholic
tradition, not a Bible one. Jude is helping us to gain perspective on the horror of apostasy, false teachers do not hesitate to indulge their flesh, reject lordship, and even revile holy angels. Let me tell you, reviling holy angels is something you better be very cautious about, it's very serious. Jude makes a very powerful statement regarding Michael, who is himself a holy angel, the archangel, would not even revile Satan, who is a fallen angel. Yet, these false teachers will revile and blaspheme the holy angels. The word "But," opens us up to the contrast. Michael, an archangel, a chief leader among the angelic spirits, the highest level of angelic order. By the way, his name means "Who is like God?" A reminder that there is no one like God! He is mentioned in Daniel 10 and 12, and Revelation chapter 12. He is a very important, very powerful heavenly, holy angel. Even though Michael is a powerful, holy angel,he has respect for the angelic enemies of God. Apostates blaspheme holy angels by their disregard of God’s holy law, which the angels ordain, guard and protect. Jesus, in His incarnation as part of His humiliation for the time He was on earth, only did and said what the Father told Him, the same is true for holy angels, except they do it eternally, as they are under divine authority. In a demonstration of their holiness, they are committed to do only that which God tells them to do. Yet, I hear so many Christians pronouncing judgment on Satan. Claiming to binding him, ordering to to and fro, that is outside our authority. If they will battle Michael, the archangel, who do you think you are? You don’t know what God is doing with demons who do His will and accomplish His purposes. God sent Satan to Job, He turned Peter over to Satan. Michael's response was "The Lord rebuke you!" Very different from what we hear from Christians today. Many people get caught up in running our
mouths, speaking out of pride, especially to those who have dominion or authority over
us. There a number of so called pastors who have made
great deal of money and have accumulated for themselves quite a following by telling people to rebuke Satan. We find evidence of this in Acts 19, "God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out. But also some of the Jewish
exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those
who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure
you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" Verse 10, "But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed." "Theses men," are spiritually ignorant, they blaspheme where they have no knowledge. They cannot understand the Word of God because they are in darkness. They can't discern it. They are excluded from the life that God approves of because of their ignorance. They are darkened in their understanding. The natural man cannot discern the things of God. They just can’t get it. As a consequence of their rebellion, they believe in
their heart they are promoting themselves instead of corrupting themselves. That's why Jude says in verse 11, "Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah." Throughout his epistle, Jude has been giving us three historic apostate judgments: Israel, angels, and Sodom and
Gomorrah; then, he gave us three characteristics of apostate nature: immorality,
insubordination, and irreverence; and now, he gives us three connections to apostate
examples, which are Cain, Balaam, and Korah. I'd like you to notice there is a progression here. They have gone the way of Cain, they have rushed into the error of Balaam, and they have perished in the rebellion of Korah. There is an escalation. First, they start out in the way, then they go into the error, and they perish. These would have been three very familiar examples to Jewish readers. That's why Jude only refers to them briefly because he knows that they are familiar. Now, the simplicity of the story of Cain is he defied God. He knew God required, and he wasn't interested in the way of God. He was only interested in the way of Cain. There are many standing in the pulpits today, who have an appearance of religion, but they are nothing more than spiritual terrorists. They are blowing themselves up with their deceptive teaching and lies, telling people what they’re doing is fine, as if God approves of their sin, tragically, they are taking other people to hell with them. Look, you can’t just invent your own Jesus! They are too ignorant to understand that their licentiousness is leading to death. For the second example he says, "and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam." They have their own self-styled religion and they do it for pay. They are prophets for hire, and they are getting very wealthy, I might add! Joel Osteen purchased a house in a wealthy suburb known as River Oaks, with a $10.5 million dollar price tag! And, his wife reportedly owns a second home, worth $2.9 million. Like Balaam, you give him the money, you get the prophecy you want. Sadly, they do not seem to recognize how far pride has
taken them. The closer we live to
the Lord, the less we will desire the things of the world. Salvation separates the true child of God from Satan. I'll just leave it at that! If you want to read more on the story of Balaam, you can find it in Numbers chapter 22, 23, 24, 25 and 31. Now, we come to the end of verse 11, "and perished in the rebellion of Korah." Although his story took place before Balaam, the
story of Korah, a Levite, centers on rebellion against authority. Specifically against
God’s man. Do you see the progression here, Cain disobeyed God’s Word. Balaam opposed God’s Word. Korah leads an open rebellion. He was a cousin of Moses, he had been excluded from the priesthood and he resented it. He got a couple of friends together, Dathan and Abiram, and he was disputing the idea that they needed someone, chosen by God. So, he accuses Aaron and Moses of taking responsibilities meant for others and claims they were doing these things for their own glory. "We don’t have to listen to Moses." I love this, Moses did not try to answer any of the charges.
He simply prayed and said the Lord would settle it. Even though this was a blatant attempt to overthrow what God was wanting to accomplish, Moses exhibited kindness. We know how it ended, fifteen thousand people died in a subsequent plague. Korah took apostasy to a grand scale, engulfing fifteen thousand people
and bringing about a rebellion that literally attempted to overthrow
all that God had established by way of authority among His people. Korah invented his own self-styled religion, and fifteen thousand people died because they followed his lies.
In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." So I close with these final words... As I was preparing for this message, I began to think of all the people in the Catholic Church, all the people in the Mormon Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Muslim religion, Buddhism and Hinduism, they’re all being promised something and they are going to perish going in the way of rebellion, because they have followed a lie. My heart grieves for all of them because they have an anti-God religion.
You have heard the truth, salvation through Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father. If you won’t listen to Scripture, you will not be persuaded.
Nothing is more important than divine truth! I pray that you will receive it, before it's too late.
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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