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All right, amen. Numbers chapter number 14. We're gonna talk tonight about contending for the faith, but more specifically God's attitude towards them that believe not, okay? And by them that believe not, I'm not talking about your person that's just unsaved, that just hasn't made up their mind yet, okay? And that's not the type of person I'm talking about. I'm talking about the person who's just straight up like, I reject that, that is not true, okay? And we're gonna talk about that specifically tonight. And so with that being said, we're gonna spend most of the night in Jude. So every year I look for an excuse to go through the book of Jude and I found it. So we're gonna do that. But before we do, let's get started here real quickly, just by reading a few more verses here in Numbers chapter 14, because this story here that we're about to read is mentioned in Jude. And there's something very specific about these people that I want you to see here, okay? So Numbers chapter number 14, look at verse 26. So the Bible says, and the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron saying, how long shall I bear with this evil? Okay, and so God's asking Moses and Aaron, hey, there's an evil going on around here. There's some wickedness going on here. And how long am I gonna put up with this? Okay, so he says, how long shall I bear with this evil congregation? Which is what he's talking about here, cause there's a mixed multitude here. Yeah, there's some people that are for God and some people that are murmuring. Look what he says, says which murmur against me, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. And you're gonna see how this breaks down here in a second. Verse 28, say unto them, as truly as I live saith the Lord, as you have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you. Verse 29, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. Okay, and so I titled the sermon, their carcasses shall fall. Okay, now who's the there? Okay, T-H-E-I-R, who is the there? Well, you're gonna see it's them that believe not, those people that reject the truth, okay? So he says, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that were numbered of you according to your whole number. And then he's gonna give you this breakdown here, from 20 years old and upward, which have murmured against me. Okay, so that is a, actually that's a lot of people, okay? That's probably the majority of what you got here. Obviously Caleb, Joshua, not part of this. Obviously their children are not part of this. God says he's gonna bring their children into the promised land. Look at this here in verse 30, he says, doubtless you shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein. Save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh and Joshua, the son of Nun. Okay, so you read this here and you think, okay, well, yeah, that's just Old Testament, how it was. But what you have to understand here, now go to the book of Jude, okay? Right before Revelation, go to Jude. Is that this is a picture of Christianity today. This is a picture of the body of Christ today. If you know the Bible and you've been around a while, you'll know the parable which Jesus spoke in which he taught us that as we exist, okay? As we exist, as we go do what we do, we preach the gospel, we stand up for the truth, there has to be terrors among us. There has to be terrors among the wheat. It's gonna be like this until the very end. And that's really what we're gonna be talking about again this evening. Jude writes this short epistle here, initially with the purpose to just make a treatise about the common salvation, okay? That was his original intent. That's what he's gonna start off telling you. And then he has to digress and remind us of a few things regarding contending for the faith. And so basically his message is this, when we fail to contend, we give the enemy permission to pretend, okay? That's what you're gonna find when you really study this out. When we fail to contend, we give the enemy permission to pretend. There's a lot of pretenders out there. A lot of people pretending to be saved, pretending to be among us, so on and so forth. So let's get started here in verse number one. So the Bible says, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. So if you're saved, you're born again, you're called, okay? Because you answered the call. You answered the phone, so to speak. Now, who is Jude? Okay, why does he give this introduction? Well, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. Who is this James? Well, this would be the James in Acts chapter 15, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, but he's also the half brother, what we say the half brother of Jesus. Go look up Matthew chapter number 13, Mark chapter number six on your own time. And that's what you're gonna see there. So he's giving us credentials. Now, if you've been like me and you've read this a few times and you're wondering, well, who's the audience here? You know the Corinthians. Okay, well, yeah, that's the Corinthians, but of course it applies to us. Ephesians and so on and so forth. Why doesn't Jude list a specific group of people? And I think the reason why God chose to leave that out and write it the way that it is, is because again, he's addressing something that would exist until he comes back. So obviously this is for us in every single age, every single time. When you read this, this brings up and stirs up things that often happen in local churches and so on and so forth. So that's a quick background there on Jude. Now look at what he says here in verse number two. Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. So again, he's not starting off coming out of the gate with this blast of condemnation. No, it's not what he's doing. He's exhorting them. But he is going to call them out for something and we're gonna get to that. Now look at verse three. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. So there it is. That was his original intent in writing this epistle. He wanted to just sit down like so many of us do and just write some stuff about salvation, how free it is, how great it is, how everlasting it is, so on and so forth. But obviously you could tell by the way this is written, the things that he's seeing need to be addressed, okay? Because the common salvation is under attack. So look what he says next. He says, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Oftentimes when I get hit up with a Pentecostal guy, he was like, oh, you know, God talks to me and he's still revealing information. I go to a church that's full gospel, F-U-L-L. I always try to make it a point to insert two O's there, full gospel, okay? And like, well, our church, we get continuing revelation from God. And you know, I go to that church, the full gospel church over there on coal and victory. And you know, we were filled with the spirit. We've got the power. I like to bring them here, okay? Because the faith was once delivered unto the saints. You ever run into a dispensationalist that says, oh, people got saved this way. People got saved that way in the Old Testament and people are getting saved now by grace and faith, but in the millennium or before the millennium, rather in the tribulation, they're gonna get saved a different way. They gotta go back to works. You bring them right back here. Faith which was once delivered unto the saints, okay? The saints, okay? Who were those who believed in God in the Old Testament and died? The saints. Who are the people that believe in God now and die and go to heaven? Who are they? The saints, okay? People in the tribulation that lose their life because they refuse to take the mark, so on and so forth. What happens to them? What are they called? They're saints. If you're saved, no matter what year it is on this earth, you are a saint. And that means that this faith, this common salvation has always been the same and always will be the same. And that is what is under attack, okay? So you're saying, what does he mean contend for the faith? Well, the faith is that common salvation, okay? Our salvation is common. It's not hidden. It's not given to just a few select people here and only they've got it. And you gotta do enough handshakes, give enough money and feed enough malt o' meal to the people downtown in order to get in, okay? That is wrong. That is not right. Again, Jude's point here is when we fail to contend, we give the enemy permission to pretend. You get in life what you tolerate. You get in life what you tolerate. And when you look at a church and they tolerate certain behaviors and they tolerate certain things, you're gonna get a lot more of that, okay? And that is what he's trying to get us to understand here. Now look at verse number four. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation. The ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's stop right here and kind of talk about this for a second. So he says, there's certain men that are crept in. Now, what I wanna start off by saying here is that I don't think that like in every single season of our church that somebody's crept in, okay? But in the body of Christ collectively, there are people that are crept in among us, okay? There are people that are next to us. There are people that are on Facebook that are in these groups and they're not saved. And they have one goal. And that goal is to somehow deny the Lord Jesus Christ, to take away from what he accomplished, okay? Which is why he starts this off so strong, talking about the saints, which are what? Preserved in Jesus Christ, okay? Who's doing the preservation? It is Christ. It is not you. It is not us. It is him that is conducting the preservation. And so right out of the gate here, verse four, he says there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this kind of nation. So this thing has been going on for a very long time. You go read through the Old Testament and you will see this time and time again that people are always trying to underhand God and do all of this crazy stuff to get people off track. He calls them ungodly men. And what do they do? They turn something. They pervert something. They invert something. So they turn the grace of God into something. What is it? Well, first of all, you have to understand what the grace of God is. What does grace mean? It means unmerited favor. Okay, that's basically what it means. Unmerited favor, favor we don't deserve, mercy. All of those things are synonyms to grace. Okay, so again, going back to the common salvation, we are not good enough to earn salvation. It was given to us. It's a free gift. Okay, so what do they do about that grace? Well, they take that grace and here's how most people read this. Okay, most people say, most people read this and say, okay, what false prophets do is they take the grace that God's given us and they turn it into a license to sin. Okay, that's what they'll say. No, and they'll say, that's kind of what lasciviousness looks like, huh? You know, if you read it real quick, it looks like license to sin. No, I don't read like that. Reads like lasciviousness. Okay, say, well, what's lasciviousness? You look this word up in the Bible, you're gonna find most of the time, some things next to it, which is lewd conduct. Okay, perversion, things, fornication, different things of that nature. But the word can also mean and is also used in the Bible as wantonness. What does wantonness means? It means lacking. It means untrained. Basically stupid in another way to put it. So what these people are literally doing is they're taking the grace that God has given us and saying it's not sufficient. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, because look at the rest of the verse. Okay, they turn the grace, the unmerited favor that God gives us who are saved, they take that grace of our God, right? And they turn it into lasciviousness. They turn it into something lacking, something wanton, okay, something lewd. And by doing that, they deny the only true God. They deny Jesus Christ. They say, well, what you did on the cross was great. No one else could have done that. But now the ball is in your court. And if you don't play well, guess what? There's gonna be some consequences for that. Now, what I think is very funny here is I was just in the office just doing my normal stuff. And I just got this urge, I need to check Facebook, which isn't too often that I do that, but I do check it from time to time. And the first thing I see is this Kent Hovind video. And I look at the comments and people are like, this dude's not even saved. I'm like, all right, I'll buy it. I gotta see what this is about real quick. So I click on it. And he, Kent Hovind, he's got this guy named Joey Faust. Does anybody know who Joey Faust is? Okay, Joey Faust is a guy who wrote a book. And he teaches this doctrine that believers, if you don't do enough works for God, that you're gonna spend the millennium in hell. Okay, and so I'm looking at these comments and they're like, yeah, Kent Hovind's not even saved. I don't know, I mean, I couldn't tell just by the quick blerp that I saw if that's what Kent Hovind believes. I guess maybe he does. You know, I'm not here to debate his salvation, but that guy, okay, I listened to him talk for about 10 minutes before I almost threw the laptop out of the window. I was like, okay, this is coming off right now. I don't believe that guy's saved because that guy is taking the grace of God, that unmerited favor. Look at the last verse here. I'm sorry, let me just digress for a second, okay? Go to verse 24 real quick. Jude, verse 20, and you know what's ironic? This guy was actually teaching in front of like a monitor and he's got these verses that I'm going over for you today on that screen. And he's going through these things, teaching that if you don't do enough work for God, that you're gonna spend the millennium in hell. Okay, talk about limited atonement. Talk about blasphemy because that's exactly what that is. Look at verse 24. Now unto him, who's that him there? Hero, oh, it's Jesus Christ. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you what? What does that say? Huh, what does that say? That says faultless, doesn't it? Faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. How can you read that? And then turn around and tell people that they're gonna spend the millennium in hell. Oh, I know how you could do that because you're not saved. You don't have the spirit. You're attacking what Jesus did on the cross. That's what you're doing. But how many people today are so blind and such respecters of persons that they can't see it? Because that's what you have today. That's what's going on and it's disgusting and somebody needs to stand up and contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints, once, one time only. And you know what happens when we don't contend, what happens? We automatically give these types of people permission to keep spreading their lies. Somebody messaged me earlier today and said, oh, check out this interview that Pastor Shelley did. It was great, but Pastor Anderson was a little harsh, okay? He was a little harsh on Kent. I don't think he was being harsh at all. If anything, I think he was being pretty darn kind. You know, because look, this stuff here sends people to hell is what it does. This type of stuff here causes Christians to derail and stop serving God. That's what it does. It's disgusting, it's blasphemous and people need to call it out. And we need to get away from this bleeding heart attitude. You know, this, oh, we gotta start being nice. You know, you wanna be nice to people that knock what Jesus did on the cross and deny him and take that away? Are you nuts? Are you crazy? No, these people need to be put on blast is what it is, okay? And so, no, I don't agree with you. I don't think he was being harsh on Kent Hovind. I think it was just fine. I think it was just right. So with that rant out of the way, let's move on here to verse number five. So then verse number five is gonna start a section. So from verses five to seven, you're gonna see the doom of these people, okay? You're gonna see their doom. Now, look what he says next, okay? So right after he tells you about these certain men that are crept in unaware, okay? That take the grace of God and they pervert it, okay? They deny Christ, they deny what he did. Look what he says. He says, I will therefore, so for that reason, put you in remembrance. So it's like they forgot. It's like they knew this, but they lost their zeal a little bit. So he says, I will therefore put you in remembrance though ye once knew this, okay? And that's why I think it's important to go through this book as often as possible because it's easy for us to just get caught up with other things and to not maybe see stuff like this that could perhaps be going on. So he says, how that the Lord, having saved the people of the land of Egypt afterward, destroyed them that believe not. And that's what I wanted you to see by reading those passages in numbers, okay? Is that those people, it wasn't just that they were bad and God's like, okay, you're not gonna get to the goal of the promise and I'm just gonna kill you and bring you to heaven, which I've heard by the way, okay? No, that's not what he's saying. Those people did not believe God, okay? They don't believe his word, they don't believe his promises, but yet they're there for all the freebies and miracles, aren't they, okay? That is what we need to be made aware of, okay? These people come in, they learn how to pretend. That is what they do. But you can always recognize it because they have a goal. They have a goal to take and detract from the cross. They have a goal to gather people unto themselves and you guys know the story very well. So what does it say here in verse five? What is their doom? Well, we know that God has made a record of doing this to people. He destroys them. So he destroyed them that believe not. Now, I'll be honest, one thing that really inspired me to write this or even just to preach this was yesterday. So we got a call, not a call, we got an email to go and visit somebody from somebody in another state. I'm not gonna use specific details because I didn't get their permission. But basically the email was that their relative is dying of a brain tumor, has two to three weeks left live. It is on hospice, gave us the address. So we said, cool, we're doing soul winning every day. We might as well just go to this part of town and do our soul winning there. Just, oh, by chance, here we are, okay? So we get to this door and a young woman opens up the door. And you could see the oxygen sign on the window and you could tell that hospice is there. And try to invite her to church and do the normal routine. And she goes, we are anti-theist in this house. And she wasn't being rude, but a little arrogant, but she's, we're anti-theist in this house. And keep in mind, I'm thinking here, somebody is gonna listen. Somebody is at least gonna hear us out. So she said that, I looked at Kinley, I was like, what? Like, I'm like, wait, what did you just say? Like, anti-what? And then as she's trying to explain it to me, then finally the words like sink in. I'm like, oh, you're telling me you're anti-God. You just don't believe at all. She's like, yeah, no one in this house does. I'm like, are you sure? Like nobody in this house believes. Like nobody in this house wants to hear this, needs to hear this. Could even, I mean, I'm like, are you sure? She's like, nobody wants to hear this. We don't wanna hear anything God has to say. Thank you very much. And I'm like, wow, that was a silent ride home from Garden City. How sad is that? And then it got me thinking, because all of us have people in our families like this that just straight out reject the gospel, don't wanna hear it, okay? You know what you need to understand about contending for the faith? Is you need to understand how God views those people. Because guess what? When you get into eternity, there's gonna come a time where those tears are gonna be wiped away, completely gone. In fact, you go read the last book of Isaiah, and you know what you're gonna wind up doing? You're gonna wind up actually hating those people. That's what's gonna happen. So we need to change our viewpoint. And I don't ever wanna see anybody get so overwhelmed by this sorrow for these people. Obviously we ought to have sorrow, but look, they have free will. They made their decision. We have to learn to let go. We just have to learn to say, you know what? You made your choice. And now you're gonna pay the price. Your carcass will fall. You don't get special privileges because God is not a respecter of persons. And I think when we look at this and we realize that what Jude is trying to tell us here, he's saying, hey, don't forget that God destroyed those people that did not believe. And he's made a habit of doing this, okay? And he's going to continue to make this a habit and continue to do this. It sinks in and it's like, okay, you know what? I can just let this go. This is between them and God. I did what I'm supposed to do. I went there, the person whose family member was, I mean, that person reached out, did what they could. And God has sold, got two soul owners to their door. They rejected it. It's sad. It hurt us on the way home or just quiet the whole time. You know, and I was thinking about this, like, man, it does bother you and it's always gonna bother you. But, you know, how do we not let it bother us for months and years? How do we drive on? How do we keep going on? Well, you do that by adopting the mindset that God has. And when a person is like that, you just let them go and you let God deal with them because the Bible is telling you that he is going to destroy them. Look what he says next here in verse number six. And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Now, is anybody in this probably another crazy one that only I've heard? I don't know. Has anybody ever heard this preached and taught that? Well, this here was the angels or the Nephilim in Genesis chapter six. They're down there right now burning in hell, but the other fallen angels are still roaming around. You wanna talk about injecting into the Bible, okay? That's what you have going on there. That is not what he means here. Look at the verse closely. In the angels which kept not their what? First estate. What was their first estate? Well, not fallen, right? It was right there worshiping God, okay? Unadulterated. So it says in the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation. The moment that they decided, you know what Satan? That's a pretty good idea. Yeah, it's a pretty good idea. I think you can be just like God. We're on your side. That moment they left their first estate, they left that habitation. And at that moment there was a sentence rendered for a certain day after that comma. He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness onto when? Onto the judgment of the great day, okay? Because this can confuse people because people could be like, oh, why does it say that all the angels are bound in hell right now in chains? But then we saw them in Matthew. Does that mean that at the cross Jesus went down to hell, preached the gospel to those in Abraham's bosom and then locked up all the angels that were down there or all the fallen angels that were down there? Okay, you see, that's how people think. That's how people interpret the Bible, okay? But no, when you compare scripture with scripture, you realize, okay, this is a certain day. That's why, what was it? Allegiance, you know, hey, have you come to destroy us before the appointed time? Because they know when their day is. They know when they're gonna get their sentencing and it's on the great day, okay? So now that we've got that out of the way, what's the point of Jude bringing this up? He's bringing this up to teach us, hey, guess what? You rebel against God, there are consequences. You say you don't believe him or you wanna challenge him, guess what? He didn't spare the angels. He's definitely not gonna spare a man. He's not gonna be like, okay, well, you served Buddha your whole life and you completely rejected me. You told soul owners to go to hell when they came to your door, no soliciting, okay? But I'm gonna give you another chance because I think you deserve it because you were a pretty good dude. Okay, your malto ministry was on point, man. So guess what? You're gonna get a freebie. No, that's not what this says, that's not what this means and that's Jude's point. And then of course we love verse seven, don't we? Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example. Suffering present tense, notice the difference here. Suffering, what are they suffering right now this very moment? Well, the vengeance of eternal fire. So you know what God does? God gets vengeance on those who hate him, on those who reject him, okay? So verses five through seven, explain the doom to the there, okay? Their carcasses shall fall. Now let's look at the denunciation here, okay? Look at verse number eight. So verse number eight, he says, likewise also these filthy dreamers, okay? Because, and look, in today's day and age, you automatically know what this means. These people are always dreaming up new laws and new statutes and things that aren't even in existence, okay? And trying to dream up ways to make their filth just out in the open even more. So he says, likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion and speak evil of dignities. You know, that's why nobody in here was surprised to learn the true foundings of BLM, okay? Of course, that's what they do. This is BLM here, okay? What do they do? They despise dominion or their anarchy, anti-government, anti all this stuff here, okay? But their goal was to what? Defile the flesh and to promote that filthiness. That's the whole point of that organization. Look at verse number nine and many others like it. It says, yet Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said the Lord rebuke thee. And so he wants us to see this different attitude, okay? There's a certain attitude that these types of people, these wicked people have and you will from time to time see that seeping out of them. And so that's a lesson in the discernment for us, okay? Where he's like, hey, look, you know, Michael, he didn't act like that, okay? Even when Satan himself challenged about the body of Moses, he said, you know what? It's the Lord that rebukes you. And so that ought to be our attitude as well. Verse 10, but he says, but these, okay? But these speak evil of those things, which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts in those things, they corrupt themselves, okay? Now, what I'm not saying is I'm not saying that every single person who has just open-heartedly, just just rejected Christ as a sodomite, though they have opened the door to eventually go down that road, okay? That I will definitely say that's not what the sermon's about tonight. We'll hit that another time, but look at verse number 11. So from verse 11 to verse 16, you have the description. So five through seven, what do you have? Okay, regarding these people that God destroyed, basically. These people that reject Christ, that are against Christ. Well, you've got their doom. Can you see their doom, what they're getting? And then he gives us their description. And so really the idea here is honestly for us to read these things and to meditate on them so that you can increase your discernment level, okay? And then now you get the description here in verse number 11, he says, Woe unto them for they have gone in the way of Cain and ran greedily after the heir of Balaam for reward and perished in the game saying of Corey. Verse 12, these are spots, look what he says here, okay? These, so these types of people here, they're spots or blemishes is what he's saying here. They're spots in your feasts of charity. When they feast with you, you notice that you there? So a lot of times we can get this idea. Well, we're Baptist, we got the right gospel we do. We got the right views on a lot of things and we're good to go. That, well, only the new evangelicals have to deal with this. But the problem with that is that like the vast majority of those people aren't even saved. So where are those people going to go? Well, it's like my dad told me when I was a kid, he said, you know where kids wanna go? I said, where? Toys R Us, why? Because the kids, all the toys are there, of course. And then this is what he told me. And he said, you know, so where do homos wanna go? I was like, I don't know. He's like in locker rooms. That's basically the wisdom he gave me. And that's what you see here, okay? These people who want to creep in, who want to take away from God any way, shape or form that they can, they want to find us. They want to find the body of Christ. They wanna find people that are saved so that they can do it. You know, I was telling the guys this last week, I don't think that you're gonna find a lot of pastors that are gonna basically come into this movement and, you know, be false like this. It's usually gonna be a guy who comes in, sits down, comes to church, you know, a few times a week or three times a week and just pretend. I think that's gonna be the majority of your false teachers, you know, because there's just right, at least right now, like in any one of these churches, if you wanna be a pastor, you're being tried. Whether you know it or not, you're being tested, you're being watched because nobody wants to send somebody out that's not saved, right? I mean, that's what Paul taught Timothy. We take that very seriously. So let's move on here. So verse 12 again, he says, these are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. So these people look, they're not even afraid of what they're doing. And we have had these people in this church, okay? We know them very well, we've had them. And it's like they leave, they get bitter, they get mad. And all of a sudden, the things and the links that they will go to to try to hurt people is absolutely crazy. It's mind boggling the stuff that they will do. And it's like, how are you not afraid to say stuff like that? How are you not afraid to lie like that? And then I always go back to you, oh, that make perfect sense, that's why. Because you crept in from the beginning, you're trying to feast on us, that's what they do, okay? So feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, right? And that's really what, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna expose you, I'm gonna cause you to go bankrupt, I'm gonna shut your church down, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And then what happens? God protects us, God's got our back. And they look stupid every time. Carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by the roots. It's a guy that used to sit right back there under that snowflake sign that I'm thinking of right now. Verse 13, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Okay, so the description here. Again, I can't do this justice in one sermon. You gotta sit down and you've gotta read these things and you gotta meditate on them. Read this in the morning, think about it. Read this at night and think about it until it clicks and makes sense. And then just do some recollection, just start recalling things in your own life. People who have, and I'm not trying to turn this into a witch hunt, I'm just trying to turn this into an exercise, you know? If you've had people you've seen try to split churches or come in and cause all this trouble, okay? The better you understand this, the better you're gonna be able to see this happen as it's going on. And again, not trying to promote a witch hunt or anything like that here. Okay, just being honest. These people don't care what they do, okay? Verse 14, and Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints. Why? 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. And so again, you know, this is another reason why I hear that we don't like to debate people, okay? When people call me, debate me. You know, I preached a sermon a couple years ago and it was something about the nation of Islam. I'm gonna do it again in the future, just because, you know? And this radio station just kept calling, debate me, debate me, white boy. Debate me, white boy. Every hour they were just calling and saying this stuff and it's just like, no. You know, I'm not gonna debate you because the reason for that is there are people out there, okay, that sharpen their tongues with iniquity and they have very hard speeches and they're very good at saying things without saying them and winning people over. And I don't wanna give them that opportunity because I'm not that good at doing it. I just get, you know, this is what it is. I'm more of an auditor. I'm like, this is what this says. You're out of compliance. Have a nice day. Okay, that's just kind of how I do things. And I believe that's just the way God made me. It is what it is. Still works out good though, okay? But you see the point here, okay? Look at Jude's anger here. He keeps bringing up these people, they're ungodly, ungodly, right? Look, you hear the frustration in his voice to execute judgment on 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. So again, you know, what's the automatic principle here that's gonna take place if we don't contend for the faith? You're gonna need to allow more pretenders to come in and, you know, next thing you know, you got Treasure Valley Baptist Church over there off the freeway. That's basically what you're gonna wind up with, okay? 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. Okay, I brought this up earlier. This is a hallmark, this is a very good description of these types of people, okay? Look at this again. These are murmurers. Now I've complained, everybody complains from time to time. We gotta give each other some grace on that one, okay? But when it's consistent and it's every single time, it's just always something wrong, okay? These are murmurers, complainers. Well, what are they complaining about? Well, they're trying to, look what they're trying to do. They're walking after their own lusts, okay? After their own lust. Usually it's like materialistic. Usually it's like, you know, like, oh, hey brother, you know, I just, I need more. You know, I just need more and more and more. And if it wasn't for this pastor trying to keep us down here, you know, I'd be able to do more. And, you know, next thing you know, people are like, yeah, you're right, man. I should have more. Why should I have to go to church? It's like, when did I become the police, man? Like, you know, if you don't, you know, when people don't show up for a while and then they come in, I'm not like, oh dude, let me get the book out here. All right, you know? We don't do that, we're just glad to see, okay? Hopefully everybody here by now knows that. You know, but usually, you know, what's going on there. It's their own conscience is starting to smite them and they're just gotta blame somebody and it's always gonna be this guy. And maybe Evan and Josh, I don't know. But one could hope. But these are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaketh great swelling words. So they'll say things and it just gets in your head and it just starts to grow and it's just like, wow, man, this dude's brilliant. This guy is smart. I'm still thinking about what he said, you know, last Sunday. Yeah, the pastor is really doing that. He really is trying to shut his church down so he can move to New York. Yeah, that's a real good one, are you right? I'm bringing that up because that actually happened. And here we are over a year later, by the way. So, great swelling words, having men's persons and admiration because of advantage. So listen to this Joey Foust guy, you know? And he's holding up all these different books and here's people that agree with me and it's just like, so that's what we're doing now. That's how we're proving doctrine. Oh, because this guy agrees with me over here and he has a doctorate. Okay, he's got a doctorate, he graduated, he did all of this stuff and he even wrote a book. Is that what I need to do to get people saved at the door? You know, by the way, I wrote a book. That ain't gonna work. So why do they get a free pass, man? You know what I mean? But it goes back to using our own cognition. You know, it really does. It goes back to what I said a few weeks ago. Most people will make a decision, some kind of a judgment based off of a position that somebody holds rather than using their own cognition. So they'll say like, wow, Joey Foust's got all these podcasts, new books he's written and oh, Kent Hovind bought his book. Oh man, okay, I'm gonna give this guy some credit. Okay, we need to be the opposite of that. We need to be like, hold on, wait a second here. Okay, let's have the Berean brain. Let's go to the Bible and see what the Bible says and then we'll have a discussion or we'll just shut you down one or the other, okay? But he's saying, you know, these people, that's what they'll do. If you listen to them, they're always gonna put man or some kind of man above God in some way, shape or form. They're gonna cloak it and they're gonna make it look all pretty and that's how they operate, okay? So verses 11 through 16, okay, the description. Now we get to move on to the exhortation. You're looking at verse 17, I mean. He says, but beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. It's easy to see with like, oh man, what's this guy's name? It's a guy's name with a crazy eyes that had the jet that got in the reporter's face. Copeland, yes, thank you. Kenneth Copeland, right? I should have remembered that, Copeland Cheesecake Factory. You know, that's the easy stuff. You know, that's the stuff even a guy who's not saved is gonna see, you know? I mean, even the unsaved media is like, yeah, this guy is a false prophet. Even people that don't believe in God are like, yeah, he's a false prophet, okay? But you're Kent Hovinds, you're Joel Osteen's, you know these, you're T.D. Jakes. You know, you're Rich Guys, you're Steven Furtick's. Those people are easy, okay? But those guys are just mostly, I mean, they have their purpose. They do destroy a lot of lives, okay? They do make merchandise out of a lot of people. They keep people out of the kingdom of God. For sure they do that, you know? But the devil uses them in another way to affect us. And what he does though, that's what a false prophet looks like. So those guys will come and whisper in your ears, that's just what a false prophet looks like. It ain't the guy sitting next to you trying to take you out of church and turn you against the pastor and do all this other stuff. No, no, no, no. He cares about you. He's just got your interests at heart, okay? So you need to make that distinction, okay? And just solidify these things in your heart and just know that when someone's trying to take you for themselves, okay, you gotta be like, wait a second here, you know? What does the Bible say about this? What does the pastor even know about these things? And start having these honest discussions, okay? And have that guy's feelings put on the back burner because if you start to become a person who just cares what people think about you, oh, if I have to say this, the person's gonna come back at me, you know you're gonna get what you tolerate. Again, that's just the way that it is, okay? Verse 18 again. So he says, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own godly lusts, okay? So these people, what do they do? They mock. But it's not like how the atheists mock, okay? It's more clever than that, you know? You're not gonna have people come in here and be like, yeah, Jesus isn't Christ. No, they're not gonna do that. They're gonna come about it a different way, okay? They're gonna come about it more subtly. Verse 19. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit. Okay, so they're trying to appeal to your senses. And of course, a great example is always gonna be, you know, these other skinny jeans type preachers that are out there. They're sensual, that's how they draw people in through the senses, right? Oh, well, we've got the best band. My wife and I are co-pastors of this church and we're equally in charge and you're welcome. All are welcome. Okay, you know what they're doing there. They're trying to play you. But those same types of people do make their way into the body of Christ and their terrors among the wheat and they do damage. Verse 20. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves, so this is the key here. This is what we do. We build up ourselves instead of tearing people down, tearing each other down. Okay, we build up ourselves. How do we do that? Well, you do that on your most holy faith. Learning, okay, getting in depth, studying faith, studying that common salvation, really learning it and really understanding the cross and all that goes into that. The better you understand that whole thing, the easier it will be for you to pick these types of people out. He says, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Then of course they go wild there, right? So you gotta keep yourself. You better keep yourself. Look, you can get out of fellowship with God very easy by quenching the spirit. Okay, what's gonna happen to you when you do that? Chastisement is going to happen. Chastisement is a tool that God uses to correct our behavior. He's not up there like trying to whip you and like, I'm gonna beat you down, you know, just do all this crazy stuff. No, he wants you in his will. He wants you to be an ambassador like we talked about on Sunday night. That's what he wants. How do we do that? Well, we decide, you know what, we're gonna put God first. Okay, we know we're gonna make mistakes because we got the old man. We know we're not gonna always get it right. We get that, we understand that. However, can you just put God first? If you do that, he will work everything else out for you. It won't be a guessing game. Okay, and that's his whole point here. Verse 22, it says, and of some and some and of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Okay, and I think that's kind of how our churches are. You know, we hate that, you know, and so we're like, hey, we're gonna go out there. We're gonna like literally go to your door and try to get you saved. And then after that, we wanna say, hey, look, man, you should serve God. That's your reasonable service. That's what you should be doing. You know, it really is disheartening to see people just take the grace of God and just not do anything. It's frustrating, I understand that. But you know what? You're not gonna go to hell for the millennium. I'll tell you that. That is not biblical whatsoever. Everybody knows that except for some of those clowns. But verse 24 backs up what I've been saying. It says, 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. How can this be? Because that is how powerful the cross of Christ is. That is what it did. We've talked a lot about this lately. We gotta move on, verse 25. He says, to the only wise God, our savior, okay? Our savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. So again, when we fail to contend, we give the enemy permission to pretend. And so what we do is we study these things. We remember these things in detail, okay? We remember God's attitude towards those that have rejected the gospel. It's not your fault. It's not our fault, okay? We're here, we're serving God. We're doing what we can to get people saved, okay? So don't ever let those people take your joy. Don't ever let those people, as close as they are to you, don't ever let them steal your joy for any length of time because there is nothing you can do to get that person saved. If they have made up their minds, we're anti-theists, we don't care. We don't care if we drop dead tonight. We don't want you at our door. Get lost, get out of here. Oh, well, you made your choice because guess what? The Bible says, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all nations that forget God, okay? So these people that have chosen to forget God, they're gonna get turned into hell, okay? And guess what? Our savior is gonna do that. He takes vengeance on those people. Now, what I'm not saying is like, you have to just quit talking to these people, quit sending them a birthday card or whatever, okay? Live peaceably among men, okay? Learn how to balance those things out. That's okay. But do not let that old man heart start being like, okay, I'll tone it down a little bit, you know, and I'll kind of try to meet you in the middle because all they're gonna do is corrupt your good manners and take you out of the fight. And then we're having to pick up your slack and it's hard. We don't have the time and we certainly don't have the resources to be doing that. And so that's the point. Remember, their carcasses will fall. And if we fail to contend, we're automatically giving people permission to pretend and that's how churches go awry. That's how you wind up with the Laodicean-type church and that mentality and that whole thing, not good at all whatsoever. So we're gonna stop it there. Let's go ahead and bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you again, Lord, for this church, for everything that you do for us. I just pray that you bless the fellowship after the service, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen.