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you all right good morning please stand with me as we begin our time of worship together you're the lion of judah the lamb who was all men will be fixed on the lamborghini [Music] and the angels will [Music] in power and the earth will reply you shall reign as the king of all kings [Music] there's a shield in our hand and a sword at our side there's a fire in our spirits [Applause] [Applause] [Music] and the angels were [Music] who is the earth will reply you shall reign [Music] as the king of all kings and the lord of hosts and the angels [Music] who is playing for the world and the earth will reply amen please join me in prayer lord we love you and we are so thankful that we are here today and you brought us here safely just thank you for that lord thank you for our bereans that are watching online we love them too and can't wait to see them and worship with them again here and lord we invite you to this service today to be with us to guide us to have your presence felt to bless all that we do to bless our singing to bless the word as it goes forth from tarry lord we love you lord and i ask today if there is someone here that does not know you that this may be the day this may be the day lord that they bow their knee to you we love you and we pray in your son's name amen amen well good morning welcome to berean i'm really excited to be in the house of god here to worship together with each of you uh today pastor jerry is out today as his family was is quarantining due to a potential covet exposure so far no symptoms so we'll be praying for them i know he would appreciate it but i get the opportunity to lead and i'm excited for that pastor terry though we'll be back so you'll have your normal preacher so at least some normalcy in terms of that uh in terms of our midweek ministries revere and recharge youth group children's ministries we'll be starting this week in as well as men's ministry and women's ministry bible studies so be sure to mark your calendar for those i really hope to see many of you out there to enjoy these ministries that will be having our time together also on one other note i had a brief conversation with kathy zener this morning and we've been praying for her brother-in-law paul and this morning actually he's having a pretty serious surgery so i know they would really appreciate the family would appreciate your prayers if you'd be able to remember them as you go before the lord so now as we continue our time of worship i'd like to turn our attention to just one verse in isaiah verse 33 chapter 33 verse 2. i'll begin and then you can all join me on the second part of that it says oh lord be gracious to us we wait for you be our arm every morning our salvation in the time of trouble [Music] amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me i once was lost [Music] that taught my heart to fear and grace my fears really how precious did [Music] my chains are gone i've been set free my god my savior [Music] is unending love amazing grace the lord has promised god to me his word my as long as i is [Music] my chains are gone i've been set free my god my savior [Music] is his mercy reigns on ending love amazing embrace the earth shall soon dissolve like snow the sun for bear to shine but god who calls we'll be forever you are forever [Music] amen [Music] out of the depths i cry to you in darkest places i will call incline your ear to me anew and hear my cry for mercy [Music] [Laughter] yet for forgiveness [Music] i will wait for you i [Music] surely wait for you till my soul is satisfied [Music] so put your hope in god completely and forever one by christ emerging from the grain i will wait for you i will wait for you [Music] till my song is satisfied and god himself has paid the price that all who trust in him today find healing in his sacrifice i surely wait for you until my soul is surely wait for you for your life amen you may be seated michiganders this beautiful morning uh before we go to the lord in prayer let's take a a few minutes to just reflect on this past week all the goodness that the lord has done for us and if there's anything we need to bring before him before we pray let's take time to do that as well our father and our god you are the alpha and omega the beginning and the end you are the christ the son of the living god you are the holy spirit our counselor who guides us daily you are the godhead three in one there is none other like you you are god over all we praise you for drawing near to us this morning as we draw near to you you are our great high priest who intercedes for us lifting our prayers before the holy throne of god you are our heavenly father and the father of the fatherless how great is your faithfulness god day in and day out you love us with an everlasting love and promise to never leave us or forsake us you are spirit but we see you with eyes of faith you are jehovah god you are jehovah jireh the one who provides for all our needs we praise you as our jehovah rapha our god who heals and for being jehovah ra our faithful shepherd you are not just king but you are king of kings and lord of lords you are jesus the name above all names with our whole heart we praise you you are messiah the son and the soon and coming king you are omniscient knowing all things you are omnipresent everywhere at all times each day of our lives is written in your book in each chapter a witness of your goodness to your people you are our peace our protector and the high priest who became a redeemer you died to set us free you rose again and gave us victory over death no longer are we enslaved in sin your salvation you are our salvation our rescuer and our refuge you give us hope within when darkness is all about we praise you because you are trustworthy and true you are the way the truth and the life and there is no other name in heaven or on earth by which we can be saved lord we love that you delight in us that you rejoice over us with singing you know the number of hairs on our head and you are always mindful of our every circumstance and even now you are preparing a place for us so that one day we will live with you forever oh how we yearn for that day when we will be able to praise you and glorify your name seeing you face to face how we long to hear you say on that day well done my good and faithful servant knowing of this love you have for us father we bring our berean family before your throne jonathan brown victoria clay regender and joffee cotapaca gwen sams and our deacon brett lanbach and his wife ann and our pastor jerry dorman and his wife colette father bring these dear ones your comfort peace and assurance of your love for them as they face the challenges before them encourage them as they serve this church with their time talent and treasure storing up rewards in heaven that will bring eternal reward help us father to be the hands at the end of your loving arms that will bring a spirit of love and fellowship to these dear brothers and sisters we pray for our sister church harvest bible church in westland and their pastor dan mcgee father we know this pastor and his love for you and his people we ask that you would place a hedge of protection around his church protect his ministry from the evil one and make this ministry a shining gospel light in a day that is shadowed by the effects of sin and our fallen nature we pray for our missionaries and what a joy it is to be able to support them they work tirelessly in an area where christians are few and friends are far between bring them many new believers father and make the harvest bountiful that you would be glorified and they would see the fruit of their labor now father we pray for our preacher as he brings your word to us give his words power to move all your children to love you more for those who are with us that do not know you as their lord and savior we ask that your holy spirit would move this morning open their eyes that they would hear your gospel and be saved amen well turn if you will to the book of jude this has been quite a year right this pandemic thing uh it has affected everything it's affected how you do family it's affected how you work it's it's affected how you recreate it certainly has affected how we have tried to do church we're still trying to navigate the best way to deal with all of the myriad factors that go in to trying to do the best we can in this in this environment well even as the pandemic has affected everything else it's affected my preaching schedule right because uh things i went on vacation in november i preached november 8th and i went on vacation in november and then the next sunday back i was sick and then aaron preached and for his candidacy and then i we had the holidays and then i had the covet thing and it's like i've been out of the pulpit more than in the pulpit for the past uh three months but today i want to get back to this series postcards from the new testament the last book that we're examining is jude the last time we started jude october the last sunday in october and the last time we were in jude was november 8th but we want to return there today and i want to turn our attention to jude chapter well actually the only chapter uh but verse 5 uh on down through verse 10 this morning for our scripture reading now i want to remind you although you once fully knew it that jesus who saved a people out of the land of egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day just as sodomy gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued a natural desire even as an example serve that is as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire yet in like manner these people also relying on their dreams defile the flesh reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones but when the arch arch arch angel michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of moses he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment but said the lord rebuke you but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand and they are destroyed by all that they like unreasoning animals understand instinctively well so we're continuing here in jude and the theme of jude as we have seen in the past is contending for the faith verse 3 fighting for the faith if you will each one of us as believers has the obligation to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints now this was not a message that jude wanted to deliver he wanted to to preach on lofty themes of their common salvation inspiring themes hopeful themes that that that we all can agree upon and under which we can all rejoice right that's what he wanted to do but through the through the movement of the holy spirit and pressing upon him the need that was in the churches at that moment that is the fact that apostates were working their way false teachers working their way into the churches to whom he was writing he rather had to write this epistle he'd write this book he had to abandon the lofty themes if you will the hopeful themes the friendly themes the good feeling themes to preach this message of contending for the faith listen who doesn't want to do that who doesn't want to always preach positive inspiring uplifting affirming messages right that i mean who wants to preach on apostasy who wants to preach on false teachers who wants to preach on judgment who wants to preach on all of these things what we just and that's what many eventual angelical churches have done today and that's why sequential exposition the theory of preaching that we call sequential exposition is so important because when you do sequential exposition you can't dodge any part of the message if you don't do sequential exposition you can just preach on this positive aspect of the book skip over the hard stuff and go to another positive aspect skip over the hearts and and so on and so forth there and so you can always preach a good positive uplifting message if you do that but if you preach the whole counsel of god's word and you preach expositionally through the scriptures you can't dodge anything and god's the one who's setting the agenda not the preacher and so that was that was jude's you know he wanted to preach on his posit but it was more necessary to be able to do this and if we don't do that do you know what happens if we don't contend for the faith you know what happens those lofty themes of redemption and grace and forgiveness and so forth they become skewed with error and eventually those lofty themes are no longer in concert with the the apostolic doctrine which in effect skews those lofty themes and soon becomes no longer a common salvation at some point it becomes no salvation at all for example it's very popular today to teach on forgiveness right and part of the teaching of forgiveness is you have to forgive people even whether or not they admit their sin whether or not they ask for forgiveness whether or not they identify an offense against you you have to forgive them for your own sake how many times have you heard that you need to free yourself by forgiving these people this is what this is what i call therapeutic forgiveness rather than theological forgiveness there is no forgiveness theologically without confession of sin there is no forgiveness without identification of sin there is no there is no forgiveness without confession of sin theologically therapeutically however we can take the the teaching of forgiveness in the bible and we can morph it we can skew it to teach it's a therapeutic thing this is for your sake you need to forgive it doesn't matter what they say do don't do you just need to do this as if we can auto as if we can bypass the theological truths of forgiveness well that's what happens if you don't contend for the faith grace becomes permission to to live a happy life and to enjoy all the things of life grace means it it's a grace is a yes doctrine it allows you to do things therapeutic christianity well jude is willing to preach the hard message the necessary message that will ultimately protect all those other loftily themed messages but if we're going to contend for the faith we will have to take up three admonitions unfolded in this book and this is what we are examining these this is one message in in jude delivered in several installments if you will but the first admonition that we examined was to embrace in the sense of taking up or accepting the appeal to contend with apostates in verses one through four this admonition was couched in terms of who jude was he was a servant of jesus christ a slave of jesus christ and a sibling of james that is one of the half-brothers of the lord jesus christ and he targeted his appeal to those who were called and when we looked at this we understood that this was not simply an invitation this was a powerful sovereign call and drawing of us to salvation and then he talks about those who are loved by god the ones to whom he is speaking are those who are loved by god and finally those who are kept by god they're not they're not god never loses them god never lets go of his grip on them well the second admonition was to embrace god's judgment of apostates and this is where we left off back in november 8th god's judgment of apostates in verses 5 through 7 just as there is a reluctance to embrace the idea of contending with apostates which he encourages us to do in verses one through four there is also reluctance to embrace the idea of their judgment but jude divides his teaching on the judgment of apostates into two categories the first category are the three historical examples of god's judgment of apostates he gives three historical examples the first is the israelites of the exodus who refused to go in to the promised land verse 5. and then he cites the fallen angels that sinned in verse 6 we linked this back to genesis chapter 6 verses 1 through 4. and this is exactly where we left off the last time now we want to know a third historical example of god's judgment and that is the people of sodom and gomorrah in verse 7. the account of the destruction of sodom and gomorrah is one of the quintessential texts concerning the sin of homosexuality today homosexual sin and other sexual aberrations are the new acceptable sins du jour not only in the world but in much of professing christendom homosexual practice which was the predominant sin for which sodom was destroyed has always been condemned for millennia by god and the scriptures and stands condemned today regardless of attempts at revisionist teaching and changing cultural norms it is condemned by god well so much could be said about this and we have said about this many many times because it's such an issue today but this text is not meant to be a treatise on the sin of homosexuality you see jude did not feel it necessary to make a protracted case against israel in verse 5 or the fallen angels in verse 6 because these were universally known and universally condemned sins among those to whom he is writing in the same way he does not write a treatise against homosexuality here he is using it as an example of god's judgment against those who have left natural affections to pursue unnatural desires and at this point for the purposes of this book he doesn't have to make the case for it this is a universally condemned universally known sin the point of all three of these examples is that god judges unbelieving apostates in the same way he judged israel he judged fallen angels and he judged the sodomites and the point is that if we will contend for the faith we will have to embrace this concept of judgment we must embrace that a holy god is a god who will judge all personal and corporate unrighteousness he will either do that and folks please understand that nobody's getting away with anything i know it seems like it sometimes i know it seems like the world just goes on and all of these wicked people and all of the evil things go on and they're just as happy as they can be and it seems like they're living the high life and everything's wonderful of course david had the same problem with this when he saw the wicked and the prosperity of the wicked other psalms uh indicate the same other part uh uh writers in scripture same thing had a difficulty with that but folks nobody's getting away with anything we are not getting away with anything the world is not getting away with anything because every single unrighteousness will be judged now the difference is this all our unrighteousnesses if we are in christ were judged at the cross of calvary but god judged them he dealt with it didn't ignore him he didn't sweep him under the rug he dealt with him so will god will either deal with every unrighteousness at the cross of calvary or he will deal with it in in an internal destruction in hell but he will deal with every single unrighteousness that's because he is a god of holiness and that's because he's a god of judgment the more unwilling we are to embrace this aspect of the character of god the more we fail to contend for the faith we will change the faith we will change the doctrine we will give it a theological spin so as to nullify the judgment of god i mean we can see contemporary examples of this of changing doctrine for instance there are those that like to legitimize or justify homosexuality by maintaining that homosexuality was not the sin for which sodom was destroyed now these are evangelical people these are people that write books these are people that have followings and they have said that it was it was simply the sin of wanting to force themselves upon the men who had come to stay with lot had had the men ostensibly been willing participants in their sexual desires there would have been no problem so they imply that homosexuality is not being condemned here it was that forcible you know type of thing to take them against their will this is simply theological spin to bring the bible into cultural conformity and acceptability in the current climate in which we live never never has homosexuality ever been taught as anything but sinful behavior either in the old testament or in the new testament the church for millennial has condemned it as the sin that it is but these days as we have done with divorce as we have done with cohabitation as we have done with the roles of men and women as we have done with psychologizing the church we now want to redefine we want to spin the sin into some kind of legitimacy within christianity so this is the first category of teaching on the judgment of apostates that is god shows us the historical judgments of god now note the second category into which jew divides this judgment of apostates it is the application of this judgment to these false teachers this begins in verse 8 and runs through verse 16. when you take the judgment out of sin you take the sin out of sin sin becomes almost a non-category and we become like those in genesis 11 where where they're building the tower of babel and god says this they have done now nothing will be impossible to them if they'll do this they'll do anything and that's where we are today if we can allow this if we can accept this we're liable to accept anything and that was genesis chapter 11. this is the precipice to which many who cannot embrace this idea of the judgment of god upon sin is where we've come if there is no judgment then there's really no sin if there's no judgment then christ died in vain and accordingly there is no need to contend for the apostolic faith once delivered sin has become by so many not a big deal why is it not a big deal because we have not embraced the truth of god's judgment upon unrepentant sin do you think that people even professing christians who cohabit outside of marriage and purposefully have children outside of marriage believe they will be judged for that of course they don't if they really believed they would be judged for that by an eternal hell they would not do it but they don't believe in a god who judges they don't believe in a god who would ever do that i remember michelle and i took a young couple out to dinner who were new to the church visiting the church and we tried to get to know them they told us the story about their former church somewhere up in the thumb area i believe they had moved down here and they talked about the the problem that they had with their former church up in the thumb because they had a youth pastor who was cohabiting with his girlfriend outside of marriage and the church didn't say boo about it they didn't address it whatsoever they obviously did not embrace that god was going to judge that sin and if that is the case it is real is it really sin anyway if there's no judgment is it really sin should we really have to worry about it note the designation that begins in verse 8 and runs all the way to verse 16 of these people you'll note in the text it'll talk about they and them and these in the text running all the way to verse 16. and the remind the remainder of this section is going to deal with these apostates right let's notice two insights to this application of judgment god is applying judgment now what are two insights about this application of judgment first of all their judgment is applied because their authority is based in themselves verse 8 running through 10b what is descriptive of these false teachers well the primary description of them is that they are relying on their dreams that is to say they are self-authenticating apostates are those who derive their authority from themselves either in dreams or private mis interpretations of scripture or impressions or feelings or their own common sense but they self-authenticate if their self-authentication in some way agrees with scripture fine wonderful but where their self authenticating disagrees with scripture the scripture must be rejected that is apostasy they derive their authority from themselves there is nothing i would say there is nothing that apostates hate more than the exposition of god's word because what that does is to expose the folly of their subjective authority whether it be dreams or feelings or impressions or what they call common sense christianity is become more and more subjective and experienced based it's it's widespread that the experiences that i have are authenticating when i was uh starting the church in wall lake back in 1988 we used a program called the phones for you it's kind of a telemarketing thing now telemarketing was not as notorious as it is today i'm not sure that you could use that program today but in that day the program indicated that if you would make 20 000 phone calls to people in the area that would yield you a list of about 2 000 people who would show some interest in the beginning of a new church in their community and would allow you to send them information well that's exact just about exactly we did 20 000 plus calls and we got a list of about 2 000 people and we sent out a uh seven weeks of sequential uh pieces of literature and information about our kickoff sunday now they said if you would do this that would yield that would yield 200 people at your first service and i'm telling you it worked i mean that we had 220 people in our first service but what this also provided to me was a list of some 2000 people who had indicated some interest right even though they didn't come on the first sunday uh or the second sunday even but they showed an interest in a new church so they gave me the opportunity to continue to mail to them and i would put out a monthly newsletter if you will and in the monthly newsletter there was a little article what we might call a blog today right dealing with certain subjects and i remember one subject that i dealt with was the the the this very thing of self-authentication and experience based truth and how and i mentioned particularly that many segments of the charismatic movement are those who like to to do this they have continuing revelation they don't have a back cover on their bible so to speak what have you well one guy wrote back and he was very incensed and he was upset with what i had written and i remember what he wrote he said this you may have some scripture verses but i have experience and i know my experiences are true and you can't argue with my experience you see that's the trump card that was that was to put an end to all discussion i don't care what scriptures you have i don't care what the teaching is i have experience and my experience trumps all that now if my experience agrees with scripture wonderful but if it disagrees with scripture it has the same authority of scripture and it modifies scripture well this is this is self authenticating and more and more in christendom in professing christianity in evangelical christianity are basing what they believe on their personal experience and subjective insights bible studies where people share their collective scriptural ignorance by saying well this is this is this is what this passage means to me listen who cares what it means to you we want to know what it means what god intends for it to mean and you can find that don't be fooled by well there's so many interpretations okay you really can't find it of course you can't there's a perpescuity of scripture the clarity of scripture we know what god is teaching we might have certain disagreements about secondary doctrines but we know essentially what god is is saying and what he is speaking to so to do that to to be in a bible study and says well this is what it means to me that's apostate ish not saying you're an apostate if you've ever done that okay don't misunderstand me but it is apostate-ish it is apostate-like to do that because that reveals some level of self-authentication that you are getting your direction you are getting your understanding of scripture from right here from your insights and your feelings and your impressions and your common sense well the the participle translated here dreamers governs our understanding of what jews says next jude marks three results of this self-authority what are three results all related to this subjective basis for authority first of all they are given to defiling the flesh verse 8b their subjective way dreams in this case of determining their own truth leads them to any kind of sinful activity in the flesh haven't we seen this clearly and cult leaders like jim jones and david koresh who took you know all uh the young girls and took all the wives that they wanted to take and and had relations with them because they were the prophet right now not every apostate becomes defiled in this way all apostates do not necessarily embody every one of these characteristics but defiling the flesh can include any number of inappropriate employments it may it may be talking about self-sexual expression it may be talking about gluttony or inordinate sensual pleasure including materialism and the pleasurable things that can come from it might talk about drunkenness or drug use there are many ways of abusing the flesh of defiling the flesh but legitimizing sexual immorality is a key indicator of apostasy it is apostate-ish if you can somehow legitimize sexual expressions that are otherwise prohibited by scripture if you can do that if you can support the transgender movement if you can support polyamory if you can support any of these aberrations of sexual immorality that's apostate-ish i'm not saying that you're apostate if you've been fooled into that kind of thinking but it is apostate-ish it is apostate-like and it leads you down a road to apostasy they are given to the defiling of the flesh the second result of self-authority is they reject legitimate authority uh verse eight letter c god has ordained authority structures in the home in the church in society in government god has ordained the establishment of human authority for the good of his creation there probably has never been a time in our society in which authority in general is more disdained whether it's the authority of parents or whether it's the authority of teachers or police officers or church leaders or coaches or mentors or government officials of course the greatest authority they reject is god remember in the old testament when israel would rebel and many times they would they would uh they would speak against moses and they would rise up against moses and and and on several occasions god said moses they're they're not rebelling against you they're rebelling against me if you are rejecting legitimate god ordained authority your issue is not without authority your issue is with god you're not rebelling against that authority kids if if you're rebelling against your parents you're not rebelling against your parents you're rebelling against god if there is any any rebellion against any uh dismissal of god-ordained authority your problems with god but this is what apostates do they reject legitimate authority notice a third result of their dream-based self-authority they blaspheme glorious ones verse 8 d through 10 a now two words or phrases here need some definition blaspheme this english word comes as a transliteration from the greek blasphemo which can be translated in any number of ways various translations translated differently speak evil of revile speak against heap abuse scoff at the power of slander the word carries the meaning of all these translations to to blaspheme is to speak ill to scoff at to talk down to slander this is this is what we do when we blaspheme god we talk god down we talk his truth down we scoff at his truth we we slander his truth and his person that's what blasphemy is well the word carries the meaning of all these translations and to do and this is how apostates speak of the glorious ones now who are the glorious ones here well with the context of verse 9 this is clearly speaking of some kind of angelic being now now some have suggested that here in verse 8 good angels are the glorious ones rather than the fallen angels in this view the false teacher would thus be guilty of irreverence toward god's messengers the angels just just as the men of sodom had been toward the angels who visited them on the other hand in context with verse 9 it would suggest the view that evil angels are meant here evil spiritual beings the point being that as michael did not slander the prince of evil though sorely provoked so they should not flippantly despise and denigrate the angelic powers of evil i think this is supported by second peter chapter two we've mentioned before that second peter and jude are like companion volumes there are areas where there's great similarity between these two books and that's found again in verse 8 of 2nd peter chapter 2 verse 10 i should say it reads and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority sounds familiar bold and willful they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones whereas and i have added good angels though greater in might and power than we are do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them that is the glorious ones before the lord i think that's how you have to understand those verses so given given that verse 9 speaks of the archangel michael's dispute with the devil over the body of moses and the fact that he would not speak blasphemously against the devil but rather said the lord rebuke you it seems the glorious ones here are referring to fallen angels who while ultimately sinful and demonic were nonetheless glorious creatures wielding great power now where does this disputing of the body of moses come in because it's not found in the pentateuch it's not found in the bible but it is found in the apocryphal book the assumption of moses jude also quotes a few verses later in verse 14 from the apocryphal book of first enoch now is that a problem that that jude would quote from a non-canonical and uninspired book when john macarthur says this about that jude does quote from non-canonical sources such as first enoch verse 14 and the assumption of moses verse 9 to support his points was this acceptable well since jude was writing under the inspiration of the holy spirit and included material that was accurate and true in its affirmations he did know differently than paul for instance when paul was on mars hill and quoted one of their authors or first corinthians 15 33 or titus chapter 1 and verse 12. jude seems to indicate that the gloriousness so to speak of these fallen angelic beings was bound up in their great power so much so that michael would not personally challenge that power well apostates ignore that power they scoff at such things they often don't even admit to such spiritual beings as angels either fallen or good liberal theology rejects the miraculous and the supernatural this is apostate-ish to disregard and flippantly dismiss or think we can go to battle with demonic angelic beings michael the archangel would not do it and we are on shaky ground to think we can engage with demons and that we can accept this idea of binding satan i'm not going to get in a pitched battle with the powers of darkness those are glorious and powerful beings if michael was no match for the devil how in the world would i ever think that i am now this idea i think there's an important connection here this idea of binding satan and wrestling with demons is is largely in our society largely coming from sources that i would place into the apostate camp like kenneth copeland like t.d jakes like benny hen and others they blaspheme they revile they scoff at they slander they disregard the power of these supernatural beings and they do so to their own peril we cannot allow ourselves to be tricked or goaded into some kind of engagement with satan are his minions they are far superior in power to us we should not flippantly dabble into dark spiritual places like ouija boards or tarot cards fortune tellers or psychics to do so is to take on the characteristic of an apostate well we need to stop here pick it up next time remember again jude one message laid out in several installments but let's let's put a point on what jude has said to us today three of them particularly first of all to abolish judgment is to abolish sin and deny christ there's a concerted movement toward a non-judgmental god that is so forgiving and so loving and so compassionate that he simply could not judge people with eternal damnation this is where this movement in evangelicalism is coming from to try to unhook from the old testament we've got to leave the old testament behind that that was that that's not the iteration of god that we want to accept we want to look at jesus we want to look at the meek and mild savior the compassionate one the loving one the healing one you know the weeping one if you will and so we have got to separate jesus from the god of the old testament that's where this is coming from i believe there is a connection between the no judgment god theory and the decline of morals in the church our goal our standard our model is still the pristine and holy son of god jesus christ if we are to be pursuing the image of christ then we must embrace this teaching on judgment who do you think is going to do all the judgment at the end time it's jesus christ it is jesus christ who is going to cast the wicked into eternal perdition jesus is going to do that now that's they don't like to hear that because that doesn't fit their scheme of who jesus is and that's the problem they've created their own jesus they've made up their own jesus they've made up their own god and it's like we've put them on a on a shelf and we worship this iteration of god that has come from our own thinking that jesus is an idol that jesus is an idol not the jesus of the bible the jesus of the bible will judge all men and everyone who is ever cast into eternal destruction is cast there is placed there based on the judgment of jesus christ all judgment is given to the son but who needs christ and what he did to pay the penalty of sin if indeed there's no penalty there's no penalty there's no judgment if there's no penalty how can there really be any sin sooner or later that attitude of abandoning judgment leads to apostasy this is why it is so necessary that we embrace the reality of a gods a god who judges a no judgment christianity leads to an apostate christianity second point would be this immorality in defiling the flesh is it's apostate like disregarding the holiness disregarding the mortification of the flesh disregarding the control of your fleshly desires that is apostate like it is what apostates profoundly do and as we do it we trend more toward apostates than we do to christ jesus was undefiled separate from sinners he was and is the very holy of holies to be christ like is to strive in partnership with the holy spirit to live holy lives now we we cannot do this in and of ourselves we still maintain the presence of sin within us the sin principle it still exists within us so we we cannot do this on our own but through the power of the holy spirit and the work of christ we can lead more and more tend more and more toward christ's likeness this is called progressive sanctification and god is glorified in the striving for that god is glorified and his work is helped when individuals want to be christ-like and as we more and more fix our gaze on jesus we are changed to be more and more like him according to second corinthians 3 18. well finally self-authority is a dangerous game it's a dangerous game more and more professing christians today are buying into the lie that you know what i'm my own boss i have the authority to live as i please i have the authority to believe as i please i have the authority to think as i please now this is all very american at least for the moment this is all very american this is not biblical few of us would actually say out loud my authority is in myself so we are not literal apostates what we can be is practical apostates a practical apostate is one who professes christ but believes what he wants and does what he wants and behaves as he wants because his authority is really not christ in the bible his authority is himself or herself it's just like a a a professing christian can't really be an atheist right that's a contradiction in terms but they can live practically as atheists well the same is true of apostasy you you might not be an apostate right now you you just live like one in your self authority your defilement of the flesh and the rejection of god ordained authority live that way long enough and you very well may prove yourself to be an apostate what a tragedy what a tragedy to hear messages like this to sit under teaching like this week after week month after month year after year and never come to a saving knowledge of jesus christ what a tragedy to fall under the judgment of god like israel like fallen angels like sodom and gomorrah what a shame to despise the blood of christ shed on calvary for the salvation of your soul what is the remedy today repent repent turn in faith to jesus christ today submit yourself to the authority of god in his word today turn from the defilement of your flesh and the rejection of the gospel by faith today believe the gospel and be saved please stand with me and receive this benediction god grant today that as your children we will depart this place in hope in the hope of judgment in the hope that such judgment would lead us to repentance in the hope that jesus christ came to take the judgment of all who would believe in him so to that end lord send us out in hope that christ has for the believer overcome sin and judgment amen and amen we are dismissed so you