20 August, 2000

Christianity In The Last Days, Part 5

Today we are in part five of our study on messages given by the Apostles to the church, teaching the church about the Last Days.
Today we will finish the 2nd half of the book of Jude.
If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to the book of Jude, verse 12, we will pick up where we left off last week.

Jude has been warning the believers that there will be false teachers coming into the church, unbelievers, and they will attack the church by attempting to seduce Christians into immorality.
Their game plan is to teach that the Grace of God allows loose living.
Jude uses the phrase; "turning the grace of God into lasciviousness;" they teach that the grace of God allows believers to engage in sexual immorality, such as adultery, pornography, homosexuality.
Jude points out that anyone who believes or teaches such a thing denies the Lordship of Christ, and he compares such teachers with Sodom and Gomorrha, and with the angels that rebelled against God, recorded in Genesis 6.

He compares these false teachers to three notable apostates of history; Cain, Balaam, and Korah.
Cain sinned and rebelled against God by offering a sacrifice and offering of his own choosing, a bloodless sacrifice, and not what God required.
He was the first example of those religious people that want to worship God their own way, make up their own religion, and not worship according to what God tells us. Cain was the first person to invent his own religion.

Balaam was an example of someone that wanted to use the things of God for his own benefit.
He didn't care what God wanted, He didn't care what God's will was, all he could see was that religion was a means to an end, and he was willing to use it for personal gain.

Korah denied that God had chosen Moses and Aaron for a particular office, he denied that God spoke especially through Moses, and therefore God's Word, as given through Moses, was not inspired any more than what anybody else had to say.
He was typical of those that deny the inspired Word of God, and set themselves up as authorities over against it.

Jude says that those that come into the church and attempt to corrupt it will have something in common with those three individuals in the way they behave, teach, or in their doctrines.
If we had someone come into the assembly that wanted to act, or teach or imitate one of those three, we couldn't allow it.
If you were to visit another assembly where the leaders did those kinds of things, or promoted that sort of thing, you would be stupid to go back.
I think that pretty well summarizes what we covered last week, so let's continue today at verse 12;

"These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
:13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever."

Jude really unloads on them here, he uses a lot of figurative language, but I think it is also spiritual and practical language.
When he says; "spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear," what does he mean by that?

Something that the early churches did, was to have a meal every Sunday when they had communion, and these were called love feasts, or feasts of charity, because those who were better off would bring extra food for those poor Christians who didn't have anything to bring.
In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul rebukes those who were selfish, and ate before the poor could even get there, or before the slaves who had to work late, and then there wasn't anything left for them to eat.
And in the process, they ended up dividing them selves into the "haves" and the "have nots", and it damaged their fellowship and their communion with each other.

The point was not supposed to be just the eating, it was also the love for each other expressed in the shared meal, and the fellowship and communion that went along with it. The unity of the Body of Christ.
The important thing at our meal later today is not just the food, it is a chance to spend time with friends, fellow believers, talk about things that are important to us, and get to know each other better.
Anyway; just as the Corinthian church had problems, Jude writes that there is a potentially even more serious problem.

The phrase "feeding themselves" in Jude verse 12; in the Greek that means; "pasturing themselves."
Instead of feeding the flock of God, these false teachers used the church, and it's feasts, as a way to feed themselves.
Just like Balaam; God's church, His people, were a means to an end, instead of pasturing the flock, they would pasture Number One.
Eventually a priestly class grew up in the church, the fellowship was divided into clergy and laity, and by the time of the dark ages, you had the rich clerics who lived in luxury and ease, while the majority of the people in the churches were dirt poor.
Eventually you had a whole priestly class of people who had no fear of God, mostly they were unsaved, the clergy was just a cushy job.
The dark ages got it's name because of the immoralities and sins committed by the heathen clergy that was in power in the church.
Jude, by the Holy Spirit, warns about it ahead of time. Jude says they are just a spot, a blotch, a stain. Leeches with no fear of God.

They are useless, frustrating; he calls them clouds without rain, carried about by the wind.
In that part of the world, rain is not as common as it is around here, and the rainy season is a big deal.
Imagine how disappointing it is to be needing rain, expecting rain, praying for rain, and the clouds appear, and then they just keep right on going, nothing falls out of them, and things just keep on drying up.
An unsaved teacher has nothing to give. An unsaved pastor or preacher has no rain to give, just a cloud, but nothing good comes out of it.
Just carried about by the wind. One day the wind blows one way, tomorrow it will blow the other way; an unsaved teacher has no foundation to work from, which ever way the wind is blowing, that's how they will go.
"Carried about by every wind of doctrine." That's the opposite of being rooted and grounded in faith.
When He was speaking of John the Baptist, Jesus asked the crowd; "What did you go out to see, a reed blowing in the wind?" No.
False teachers; clouds without rain, carried about by the winds.

Then Jude says they are like "trees whose fruit withers, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots."
The phrase here; "trees whose fruit withers," that is from a Greek word that means; "trees in late autumn."
When you pick fruit off a tree, like an apple tree, when do you pick it? Right now? Late summer, early fall, right?
If you don't pick it in the fall, and it stays on the tree, what does it look like in November? Withered, bad, useless, corrupt.

Probably all of you in here have heard the term; "apostate."
An apostate is someone that apparently became a follower of Jesus Christ, but only in appearance, and then they fell away.
They seemed to come to Christianity, and they kind of hung in there for a while, maybe for years, but it was all just a head game. No regeneration of the Holy Spirit. No being "Born Again."
After a while, the novelty wears off, the old sinful flesh sings it's song, and they start to go off on their own direction.
They start to fall away, they get interested in something else, and where they once could carry on a conversation about the things of God, and make it sound fairly convincing, now they start to show their true colors.
Instead of consenting that the Bible is the textbook for what a Christian ought to be and to do, they start to come up with their own game plan, or they take up with somebody else's game plan.
Eventually they will start to deny the things of genuine Christianity, they will have various other doctrines and teachings that they prefer.
The day will eventually come, that wether they still call themselves Christian or not, the things they believe and teach will be contrary to the Bible and Christianity. That's apostasy. They have fallen away.

We are not talking here about being saved and then lost, that doesn't happen; we are talking about someone that came to Christianity, got involved enough to know the score, and then turned and went off in another direction.
The Bible strongly teaches that those who do this are at the greatest possible risk.
When a person comes to Christ, when a person is awakened by the Holy Spirit to see their need, to see the excellency of Jesus Christ, and that person gets close enough to see, and feel, and touch, when they get right up against the faith, and then turn and go off another way; rejecting Christ: what more can God do?

Apostasy is a terrible situation, and Jude is using this picture of a fruit tree to describe a person who is an apostate.
At first, it looks like there is going to be some fruit, but fall came and went, and the fruit never ripened, it never got picked.
Now it's winter, the tree has lost it's leaves, it looks dead, and what should have been fruit is withered. It's bad, corrupt, useless.
Finally, the next season comes along, and now it's evident that the tree really is dead, and soon it is pulled up and cast down, there is no more hope.
Twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Hopeless. They came to the truth, walked alongside it for a time without ever becoming part of it, then they turn and walk away. Hopeless.

Jude also refers to these unsaved teachers as "waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame."
Jude is probably thinking of Isaiah 57:20 which says; " But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

Finally, he compares these people to "wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."
Normal stars are very predictable, but a wandering star, just like a comet or meteor, it appears for a brief time, attracts a little attention, and then it disappears again into the blackness of space.
This verse makes me suspect that hell is even worse than many people imagine.
In Revelation chapter 20, it says that at the great white throne judgement, death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire.
It is commonly assumed that people in hell will be able to see what's going on around them, probably in various shades of red; but based on this verse, probably not. The blackness of darkness forever.
Blackness, total darkness, forever; is that what the lake of fire is like? It would certainly make a terrible future even worse.

Verse 14; "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints."
A lot of Bible scholars have been bent out of shape over the years by this verse in Jude, because the Bible does not have any "Book of Enoch."
There are at least three different so-called "Books of Enoch" available to us today, the oldest one dates back to about 350 years before Christ, all of them are different from each other, and none of them have ever been recognized by the church.
All of them have a lot of stuff in them which is very different from what the Bible teaches, and none of them agree each other.

Quite certainly none of them was actually written by Enoch. They may possibly contain something that Enoch said or did.
Possibly part of one of them is true, or possibly nothing in any of them is true, we don't know.
Did Jude use one of these books, or was he referring to something that he knew about Enoch that is lost to us today? We don't know that either.

Back in verse 9, the reference to Michael the archangel contending with the devil about the body of Moses? That is found in another old book known as "The Assumption of Moses."
That book is not scriptural or inspired, and the part that Jude refers to in that book is lost to us today, we only have part of the book in fragments.

What would happen if some Indiana Jones sort of person were to find some really old scrolls or manuscripts, so that we could find out what Jude was really talking about.? Would that be good? Maybe. Probably not.
Something we need to remember, before we get wondering what we might learn from these old books; the truth and reliability factor.
Jude was moved by the Holy Spirit to write what he did, and in the process, the Holy Spirit would have given Jude the wisdom and discernment to know what part of early history was true, and what was just somebody's imagination.
We don't have that ability. No matter what kind of old books we might find, or whose name is on them, we have no guarantee that they are true, and I don't believe anybody today has the discernment to separate the truth from somebody's imagination.

I have a lot of copies of old books from back then, and some of them are sort of interesting, but there is almost nothing useful that I have ever got out of any of them, except Josephus, and that's because he's a good historian.
I would recommend Josephus as a reference book, but for the rest of them, unless you just like reading old stuff, none of them are worth much.

The main thing is not to get off on a rabbit trail wondering about various old books, because the important part of this verse tells us; "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints."
The important part is, that within a few generations from Adam, they already knew, way back then, that one day the Lord would come to the earth in power and glory, and He would bring His followers with Him.
What's important is that the coming of the Lord to the earth, to rule and reign was known back before the flood.

They also knew- back then- that the coming of the Lord to the earth to rule would be a time of judgement.
Verse 15; "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."
You don't reckon those people were ungodly do you? Kind of hard to miss when Jude uses the term "ungodly" here four times in one sentence.

The fourth time, "ungodly sinners", in the Greek, it means people that despise God, those that speak against Him because they hate Him.
It's not just that people are carnal or irreligious, but they actually despise and hate God, and they reject His Son, they reject His salvation, they reject His gift of love to them.
When people speak against the church, have you ever thought that they do it because they hate Jesus Christ?
People who dislike the church actually dispise God, did you know that?
When people dislike you because you are a Christian, and they speak against you, they are really speaking against God. They are despisers of God.
That is why Cain killed Abel; Cain despised God but he couldn't get at Him. Abel was a"target of opportunity."
Abel was righteous, accepted and approved of God, so Cain killed him instead.
Those that despise God will also despise those that love God. Plan on it, some things don't change. Those that hate God will find fault with those of us that love Jesus. Expect it, don't worry about it. Love them back in return.

Verse 16; "These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage."
They will find fault with Christians, with the church, but they will be real good at schmoozing up those that they think will do them some good.
They will brag on people they admire. They will flock around people that are famous.
It's important to them who they know. The more famous or powerful a person they know, the more important they think they are.
Once you know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, why would it be a big deal about knowing whoever else? "I know So-And-So." Ok...
Why should we care? "I don't care. Do you care?" "No man, I don't care, I know Jesus Christ, why should I care about some goober?"

Verse 17; "But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;
:18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts."
When the Bible speaks of the Last Time, what all does that include?
>From the time of the apostles until Jesus comes back to take the church away at the rapture, right? That's the last time.

Now at the same time, it also teaches that as this time period draws to a close, as it gets right down to the tail end, things will go downhill, even though we don't know when that will be.
We are kind of like actors in a play, we know how the first act went, we know how the second act went, we know we are in the third act, but we don't know when the play is going to be over.
All we know is that we have to play our parts real well, and suddenly the curtain will come down, the house lights will come up, the Author will walk out on stage, and everyone will applaud and cheer, but until the play is over, we don't know how long it will last.
We do know that the last act has a lot of bad stuff in it, even worse than the first two acts, and we need to play our parts real well. Real well; because we're not acting; and it's not a play.

Verse 19; "These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit."
During that last act, there will be a special problem with those that are preoccupied with their own selfish interests, who draw off followers with them, into their own selfish little worlds.
Jim Jones, David Koresh, pulling Christians and would be Christians out of the mainstream truth of Christianity to go off and follow some selfish, dead end, rabbit trail of a cult. It will get worse before it gets better.

Jude gives us the antidote to that kind of spiritual poison in verse 20; "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."
If we are truly saved in Christ, born again, we didn't get saved by our works, and we don't keep our selves saved by our works,
but we can make a big difference in the effectiveness of our Christian walk by what we do, and how we do it.

One of the trademarks of these false teachers is that they try to promote their own little brand of Christianity; "Our Jesus is better than your Jesus."
True Christians are true Christians, and we need to stay in fellowship and close relation ships with other Christians, and encourage Christians in other churches that hold the same like precious faith that we have.
We need to make a special habit of getting to know each other in this assembly, pray for each other, encourage each other.
We need to make a practice of leaning on each other, those in our assembly when we have times of need, and we need to be quick to help each other when we are called on.

You take a hot coal out of a fire, put it off by itself, it cools off real quick, but if you keep it tucked in with the rest of the hot coals, it stays hot.
Are we staying close to the other believers here? Are we staying in the Word?
Are we spending time with the Lord in prayer? Are we meditating and thinking about all the good things that God has done for us, and will continue to do for us?
Are we looking forward to the glorious salvation that Jesus Christ has already prepared for us?
Or are we thinking about all the junk that the world has to offer instead? What have we set our hearts on? What's important to us?

Verse 22; "And of some have compassion, making a difference:
:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh."
Jude doesn't waste any words here, and some phrases have changed over the years, so let me amplify this a little bit:
Jude is talking about how we can use different ways of helping people escape from error, and come to salvation.
Some people will try and argue with you, they have been led astray, they have some false ideas, and you will probably be inclined to just shake you head and give up.
Don't do it; Jude says to have compassion on them and make a difference: work and explain to them the things they are in error about.

That's what that phrase "make a difference" means. You have a difference of opinion, they are having trouble seeing the truth, be patient and compassionate toward them, and don't argue, don't fight, but show them the difference between the truth and error, and let God do His work on them.
Make a difference, show them the difference between right and wrong.
Others save with fear. Show them what the Bible has to say about holiness and righteous living and contrast that with what these false teachers are saying, and the doom that awaits them.
I know people that have been saved by learning about the love and the kindness of God, and I know others that have been saved because they learned the reality of an endless hell, and fled to Jesus for safety.

Sometimes you have to get real close to the flames to rescue some people.
In Zechariah chapter 3, the Angel of the Lord refers to Joshua the High Priest as a brand plucked from the fire, and sometimes we need to try and rescue by the gospel those that are already getting singed by the flames.
I don't remember who said it, but one of the great evangelists of the 1800's said that he wanted to build a rescue mission at the gates of hell.
Preach the gospel to the perishing, don't ever give up. But be careful.

The phrase; "hating even the garment spotted by the flesh", doesn't make sense to us, but it would make perfect sense to an Old Testament Jew.
In Leviticus 15, there are a number of verses about how to behave around lepers.
Leprosy is used frequently in the Bible as a type or object lesson of sin, and if you were around a leper, and even touched a part of that leper's garment, then you had to go and bathe, wash yourself, and be unclean until that evening.
Even touching that garment would defile you, it would make you unclean. You didn't want that garment to touch you.
Jude is saying to us that we need to be compassionate, we need to be faithful and diligent to rescue those that are slipping away to hell, but there is a danger involved.
There is danger that we will be defiled and become unclean ourselves, fall into sin, a real possibility that we will get ourselves dirty in the process.
God can cleanse us, God can keep us pure, God can wash us as often as we get dirty, but we need to be aware that working in close company in that kind of situation can take it's toll on us, and not to get casual about it.
We need to not get complacent about being around sin all the time. Try not to let the leper's garment, so to speak, lay up against us.

If we make friends with people that are in gross sin, whatever it is, it is easy to learn to relate, sympathize, understand, and maybe end up doing or going where we never wanted to be.
Be compassionate, pull others out, but be mindful of the danger, Jesus loved sinners enough to die for us, but He kept Himself pure. We need to be careful to be the same way.
You need to rescue the sinner, but you don't need to put on his clothes.

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,
:25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

After hearing Jude warn us about all these dangers and risks, all these false teachers and problems that would last for the whole age of the church, it would be easy to get discouraged and think that maybe things were going to be all bad.
Not a chance; if you belong to Jesus, He will keep you from falling. If you belong to Jesus, He will keep you right where He wants you to be, and He will make you a present to Himself that is exactly what He wants to have.
Maybe you don't feel too faultless right now; you will then. Maybe you don't feel too secure right now, He won't let you slip.
And when the day comes; it will not be a day of embarrassment or shame, you won't be hanging you head, it will be a day of exceeding joy.

How much joy is exceeding joy? I don't know; a bunch. On any other occasion, it would seem too much, excessive, over the top, but not here.
It is way too much joy, and it is just the right amount. It is Jesus' joy in you, and your joy in Him.
The Bible describes the Lord Jesus as a Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief, but on that day, He will be full of joy.
And if He is full of joy at us, you can imagine how things will be for us, I expect everybody in here to be positively silly with joy.
I even expect everyone on the back row to sing the loudest, and the rest of us to say; "See, I knew they could do it!"

This last verse is all reassurances; God is able to keep you from falling.
He is able to present you faultless before the glory of His presence.
He is able to make it the most joyous occasion possible.
He has all wisdom, and He can make it happen.
He is our Savior, it is His business, that is His plan, He will bring it to pass.
He is glorious and full of majesty, and our salvation glorifies Him.
He has all dominion and power, and none of these problems in the church are too hard for Him to deal with.
He was able back then, He is able now, and He will be able forever.

The church will have problems. The church will have false teachers.
As we go further into the last days, the church will get worse before it gets better, but none of those problems will affect our salvation, and none of them will affect our standing before God.
The reason that none of those problems can affect our standing before God is that we are in Jesus, united with Him, seated in Him next to the Father. He is our righteousness, and He is perfect.

At the same time, the Holy Spirit is working in us to bring forth the same life in us that He had.
His Word teaches us; "Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
Don't ever set your sights too low, aim for a very high level of personal holiness.
Our proper target is perfection, and the Holy Spirit is making it His business to get us on target and keep us there.
No matter what the world does, no matter anybody else thinks, God has plans to present us faultless; faultless before His presence with exceeding joy; make His plans your plans, and then get on with the plan.