Books of James & Jude - Consequences of God's judgement - Jude 1:14-16

Well today we're going to cover Jude 14-16 and I thought what I wanted to do was kind of go back and kind of review where it came from and actually I presented this earlier and this is an outline from Macaulay. which I thought was quite good. It looked a little bit different than the outline from Constable. Actually, both Jim and JD presented the outline from Constable. This is a little bit different one, so I'll show why I like this. So basically, he just talks about... Actually, Monty's coming. Yay! Oh, come on in. You can sit up front, right? So we're live here.

So the theme of the book of Jude is contending for the faith, and the idea of this word contend is to fight, basically. And that first Timothy verse is fight fight the good fight of faith, basically. So there is a conflict involved because the false teachers want us to believe that their perversion of God's word is truthful and they're presenting their case. And so our part is to contend or fight for the faith. So there's really two questions addressed in Jude. One is, why contend for the faith?

That's in verses 4 through 16. And then two is how to contend for the faith. Well, today we're going to come to the end of this first section, through verse 16, why contend for the faith. And then next week we're going to start with this last little section, which will take us to the end of the year, about how to contend for the faith. So why contend for the faith? So this is what we've been covering the last several weeks here.

Basically, God always judges apostasy or the false teachers. We have the example of Israel, the angels, and Solomon Gomorrah, how they were all judged for their apostasy. We had what Macaulay calls the signs of the apostasy. where the archangel wouldn't rebuke Satan. So the apostates don't have any problem with rejecting authority. That's kind of where they come from. That's kind of their lifestyle. And we have the example of Cain and Balaam and Korah, all their issues.

And then later on, Macaulay divides it a little bit differently than we have taught it. Then we talked about the names for the apostates. They're called hidden reefs or clouds without water. And then today, we're going to talk about kind of an ominous thing, the doom. Or actually, I titled it the consequences of God's judgment. We're going to talk about God's judgment for basically, it's basically, in the larger sense, it's all unbelievers.

We're going to see that as we go through. In Jude, we have a... a prophecy that appears no place else in scripture. And we're going to study that. And then in the following weeks, we're going to talk about how to contend for the faith. 17-19 next week, we'll talk about recalling God's word.

Hey, hey Pat. Come on in. The handout's over there. Recalling God's Word. I'm going to talk about keeping yourself in the love of God. And thirdly, rescue who you can. And then at the very end, there's that benediction that everybody quotes to him who's able to keep us from stumbling, to present us faultless for the last two verses of Jude. And actually, Bob's going to finish it up at the end of the year and cover that. So next week, we'll talk about Recalling God's Word.

So I'm just kind of going through and kind of reviewing a little bit here, Pat. This might be about it for an overview. I don't know. All right, so any questions about the overview? Pat just walked in. So basically I just went through and looked at basically the purpose of Jude, contending for the faith, and the two questions that we've been asking about why contend for the faith, and how to contend for the faith. This part we'll get to starting next week, but we're going to cover the very last part. We're going to talk about this prophecy of Enoch, which is very interesting.

OK, so actually, what I'd like to do now is, and on your handout, this is probably kind of hard to read. As we used to call it, it's the eye chart. You have to straighten your eyes. People always say at our work, this is an eye chart. But this is just to kind of remind us that the focus here, I've underlined in blue here, The fact that Jude refers to these false teachers or apostates with pronouns.

These men, also by dreaming, but these men revile the things which they do not understand. Woe to them. These men are the hidden wreaths in your love feast. And now we're getting down to the bottom part, verses 14 through 16, which are going to cover these men. It was about these men that Enoch and the seventh generation prophesied and so on. So let's just go ahead and go to the verses for today. So Ingrid, could you read those for us? Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men.

See the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These men are grumblers and fault finders. They follow their own evil desires. They boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. Thank you.

OK, so basically this is what I call the consequences of God's judgment. So this is what we're going to be looking at today. So the first verse, verse 14, actually has the beginning of this prophecy, which is in quotation marks. So basically the first part, it was about these men, and that big long eye chart I had, It refers back to, it focuses, we're talking about these men, the apostates. That's what this prophecy is about.

But even though the prophecy is going to have a larger meaning, as we'll see. It was in the seventh generation from Adam. So one of the interesting things was, you know, verifying just for my own, you know, how do we know it's the seventh generation? Let's find out about the seventh generation from Adam.

So let's turn to Luke chapter 3. Luke chapter 3. And let me just talk about it first here. Luke chapter 3. Toward the middle of Luke chapter 3, starting at verse 23, we have the genealogy of Christ. And basically, in verse 23, it says, he began his ministry, Jesus himself, was about 30 years of age, being supposedly the son of Joseph, the son of Eli.

So if you go through, I'm not going to read all this, but if you go down to the very end, go down to verses 37 and 38, which I have on the overhead here too. So 37 and 38 basically said, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahiel, the son of Cana, the son of Enosh, the son of Zeth, the son of Adam.

Well, if you count back, 1, Adam is 1, 2 is Zeth, 3 is Enosh, 4, Canaan, Malio, Jared, Enoch is the 7th. It does match, and actually it appears other places in the scripture. He's what's called in here the 7th from Adam. So Enoch is the 7th from Adam. So let's spend a little time thinking about Let's turn to Genesis chapter 5. There's quite a bit of information about Enoch in Genesis chapter 5. Vani, could you read starting in verse 21 through 27.

Enoch lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.

Methuselah lived 187 years and became the father of Lamech. Then Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died. Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son.

Now he called his name Noah, saying, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed." Okay, so what I wanted to kind of show is the lineage after Enoch, basically it goes This doesn't show it all here, unfortunately. Basically, it goes Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah. So basically, the generations following Enoch are Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah.

And what's interesting is I didn't do the math, but I've been led to believe. You need to check me out, make sure. Supposedly, Enoch lived until the flood began. So there's a line of thinking that says that this prophecy, which we're going to study here very shortly about the judgment of the apostates and ungodly, there was a partial fulfillment in in the fact that the flood came and destroyed everyone except Noah and his family. It wiped out everyone. We'll get to that later. We'll get to that thought later. Let's just continue on with Noah. It's interesting that it says, Enoch walked with God for 30 years and he was not. Enoch walked with God and he was not. He's a not person.

If you look in Hebrews chapter 5, it says God took him. So let's look at Hebrews chapter 5. A little more comforting. It says he was not. Of course it says God took him. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 5. I'll just go ahead and read this. Hebrews 11 5 it says, By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. He was not found because God took him up. For he obtained a witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And in that verse we always quote, without faith it's impossible to please God, and so on. So Enoch was a righteous man. He walked in God's ways.

So now we're going to look at this prophecy. So God chose Enoch to give forth his message about his judgment here. So it starts at the last half of this verse. It was also about these men, Enoch and the seventh generation. We've covered that from Adam.

Prophesied, say. So prophesied is the idea to, Enoch prophesied. He's prophesied with respect to these men. And the word prophesied is to foretell, prophesied is to foretell things to come. And you know, in scripture, a true prophet of God had to be, he couldn't be right on a percentage basis, right? I mean, he wasn't right 100% of the time, he wasn't a prophet of God.

That was basically, that was kind of an interesting thing. So a few of these verses here just kind of talk about the fact that how the word is used in other places in Matthew. Let's look at Matthew 15, verse 7. This is basically Christ talking here. This is right after he talks about honoring your father and your mother. He says, You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you say, and this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts is far away from me." So a prophet is basically foretelling the things to come. And if it comes from God, it's 100% correct.

And these other verses here in John have similar kind of situations where things are prophesied. I think I'll just skip those for right now. So let's just go on. OK, so now we're going to start the text of this prophecy. So basically, Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesies saying, behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones.

And this actually is a quotation from the apocryphal Apocrypha. Well, apocryphal book. That's the other two. Yes. Apocrypha. Thank you. Everybody keeps me straight here. Book of Enoch. We don't have a book of Enoch in our Bibles. But I'm not sure if this is in the Catholic one or not. I'm uncertain. There actually are more apocryphal books than you might think. I did a search on the internet and there's actually quite a few. So what's interesting is this quotes a section of that apocryphal book which is not in the canon of scripture.

But it seems like God in his wisdom wanted these words, these words were correct from what Enoch said about these people. So we can count upon this quotation as being God's desire for us to know, and it's the body of scripture. But it doesn't mean that the book of Enoch is necessarily inspired. People have debated about the book of Enoch. Because a section has been quoted in the canon of scripture, does that validate the book of Enoch? It doesn't, just because it would be like, you know, we have historical facts in scripture, you know, that doesn't validate man's history books, right?

It doesn't make man's history books scripture. It just says that section is correct, and God is using that to inform us. Okay, actually what's interesting here, if you look at the way it's stated here, it states it as if it's already happened, and that's not unusual for scripture.

It says, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones. Well, as we're going to see, that hasn't happened yet. But the way it's stated is, it's already happened. So in God's view of time, he will state things that, as if it already happened. We would say, will come. We've said, Behold, the Lord will come with many thousands of his holy ones. We're going to see who they are in a second here. But this is stated, and it's stated in this Aorist tense, The verb views the action as a past point fact. It's already occurred. It's history. It's for sure.

And just to kind of get you on that page here, we have other scriptures that do the same thing. Can someone read for me? Turn to Isaiah 53 and read verse 6. Isaiah 53 and verse 6. It's a very similar one where something is stated, but it hasn't happened as of the authorship of that or the reading of that prophecy. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Okay, so it says the Lord has laid.

I mean, when that was written, had that happened? It hadn't happened, right? See, it's stated in the sense that it's already happened. So God looks at, you know, the big, he looks at the big picture. He looks at, you know, he's able to look at time, you know, kind of the aerial view, he can look at time and it's happened now. So he looks at Christ's death, when Isaiah prophesied about it, he said it as if it had happened. So this is the same with this prophecy. Behold the Lord came, with his many thousands.

We're going to see some wonderful verses about that. And that's us, the holy ones, that's the church. Any thoughts to this point or questions? So you're saying that when the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones, are you saying the church is the holy ones? I'll show you a bunch of verses that will hopefully convince you of that. If you haven't gone down this path before, And you could argue also that could include the angels and the church.

But the church is, I think, included in that prophecy. This is talking about the Lord's second coming. Given that, the next part is to execute judgment. Are you saying the church is executing judgment? Think about this. Where is the church? We've got to think about the timeline of things, right? What's the next event on the biblical calendar, so to speak, right? I'm talking about the rapture. Yes, right, okay. Is this the rapture? I'm asking this rhetorically. Well, yeah, no. No, good, okay. Okay, so this isn't the rapture. So this is what's called Christ's second coming. I'm just referring to that.

And also another aspect of this, I was thinking of this too, it says he's going to execute his judgment, well that judgment is not going to occur until the great white throne judgment. So he's going to come But there are parts of this prophecy. Scripture is amazing. It will state a prophecy, but only certain parts will be fulfilled at this time period, and that time period, and that time period. So the judgment of the ungodly is not going to occur until the Great White Throne Judgment, until the end of the Millennial Kingdom. So the full fulfillment of that He comes with his holy ones, and his plan is to execute judgment.

And what you're saying is, are we executing judgment? Well, we're with him. We're the body of Christ. We're with him, so he's going to be executing. He's the one that's going to judge We'll be viewers. There's another scripture that comes to mind. It's a strange one. It says, we'll judge angels. Yes, I know that. That's interesting. We actually have a part in that. I know. Actually, why I was asking is that good angels or bad angels? I thought, well, the bad angels have already been judged, right? They're already So why do the good angels need to be judged? They don't understand about grace, right?

Salvation. So anyway, that's one of those interesting ones. How do we exactly judge them? Is that judgment a positive judgment? Like you might say, I might judge my kids to help them out. Say, well, it's better if you do this than that. I had a look at the word judging. Another thought along those lines is you'll hear people say, my guardian angel was was looking after me, and that says you're judging the angels, and maybe we'll find out some of the great things that they did.

And that's true. And apparently they're going to learn from us. They're going to learn from the church, not from me personally. In Christ, they have something to learn from me. Otherwise, they have nothing to learn from me. As we're in Christ, as we are the body of Christ, and we present who He is and what He's done, I think the angels can learn from that. That's what scripture says. It seems like from the beginning of this, he's warning people about those that snuck in, which is like, this is a today issue. And yet you bring in this, and it looks like it's...

Well, actually I want to show you the two-fold part here in a second. Enoch is prophesying here, and it seems like there was a short-term judgment that was going to happen at the flood. That was sort of the immediate, immediate dream, a thousand years. There was a time period in there where, prior to the flood, it seems like part of what Enoch was telling them is that judgment is coming. There's a judgment that's coming when Christ comes again. But there's also an aspect of this where the ungodly are going to be judged at the flood, and only Noah's family is going to survive. So anyway, so let's hold some of those thoughts and we'll answer all. We'll carry on with that.

So actually, what's interesting, this word many thousands is this word. It denotes 10,000. I noticed that when Ingrid read it, yours said 10,000, I think, right? When you read that verse. Thousands upon thousands. Oh, thousands upon thousands. Well, basically, it denotes 10,000. It's basically a numberless number. It's without bound, basically. And I'm not quite sure why A thousand might have been a big number back at some time period. I don't know. It's not a very small number today.

So I have some verses up there that talk of the usage of this word. Ingrid, could you read Hebrews 12, 22? But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly. Now, mine has myriad. Mine has, which you have come to the Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels. And then Revelation 5 is a very similar one. And the number of them was myriads upon myriads. That's Revelation 5, 11. Okay, so this is a large number. A numberless number, as Vine says.

OK, so now what's interesting is this judgment is Hebrew poetry. And actually, Hebert in Hissing on Jude kind of went through and kind of dissected it a little bit. So the first statement is, to execute judgment upon all. And that's all in the sense of this all the ungodly. Because the next one says, and to convict all the ungodly, Roger?

Yeah, go ahead. Just another. Sure, sure. Okay, that's all right. It was also about these men. So when you say also, it sounds like he's talking about two different groups. Let's see, where... In 14. Okay, 14. It was also about these men. Okay, just a second here. Yes, yes. Well, he says... Okay, remember I have that eye chart, the one that has the... Don't you think that's referring... These men kind of traces up through all the, you know, we have all these pronouns, certain men, certain men prep in. He's grouping those men as the ones that are going to be judged as ungodly, right?

Right. So they also is, there's two things, right? So one is that, I guess, that Enoch prophesied about maybe the You have a good point. Enoch's prophecy is wider than just apostates. It's bigger. It's all the ungodly. His prophecy says that to execute judgment upon all including the apostates, and you're absolutely right. I kind of came from a different direction. It's all the ungodly, right? Because we're going to see ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. We have the class of all the ungodly, some are apostates. So what he's doing here is he's saying these apostates that I've been talking about in Jude, they're going to be judged with the class of the ungodly.

And that's really good. Thanks, Pat, for clarifying. You're absolutely right. Because the more you read, you say, wait a minute, this is, an ungodly person is an unbeliever. I mean, basically, it comes down to that. I mean, it's not because he's in and of himself, we're not any better than anyone else. It's because we put our faith and trust and we've moved from the ungodly to the godly by doing that.

His judgment is upon all the ungodly, which includes the apostates. So in this poetry pattern here, and it's supposed to rhyme in meaning, but I'm not into Hebrew poetry. I had a hard time seeing that this kind of rhymed in meaning. It is similar in meaning to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in ungodly ways. and then, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." So what I found interesting here was that it looks like there's at least three kinds of issues that the ungodly have.

They have their deeds, they've done ungodly deeds, right? That's going to be judged. And they have ungodly ways and they have ungodly speech, because it says, of all the harsh things, and it names who they are, the ungodly sinners, they have spoken against him. So men are going to be judged upon their deeds, their ways, and their speech. That was kind of interesting, kind of clarified. And some have said, well, maybe the, and this is, scripture doesn't really address this, maybe the degree, does this kind of say that when men are judged, not everyone there'll be degrees of judgment. I don't know.

So was that written in Hebrew, that part? Say again? Why is it called the Hebrew Parallelism? Well, it's just because, and I'm not a, you know, it's because, it's because, you know, this is, yeah, and this actually is a New Testament, so you know. Yeah, it's Greek. I know. It's because it's a quote from, that's a good point. Why is it called Hebrew Parallelism? I kind of took that at face value. I didn't think much about that.

But actually, obviously this is not in Hebrew. This is in Greek. But it has this poetic pattern that the Old Testament has, and there's other examples. You go through the Psalms, and you can kind of, you know, it will say... I was thinking maybe there's a play on that word ungodly. It seems a little awkward in the English, but maybe in the Greek it's...

Basically, the meaning of ungodly is without reverence for God. That's the core meaning. Ungodly is without reverence for God, literally. That's what it means. Actually, what's interesting is this word convict. This is kind of interesting. God is gracious.

That word convict, you know the passage in John 16.8 says, when he the spirit comes he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. That word convict could also be translated convince. So God's going to, this is amazing, here we have the ungodly. He's just not going to say here's a sentence, boom. He's going to convince them.

I mean, I believe, and we kind of see that in the Luke passage about the rich man Lazarus. The ungodly are going to agree with God, because he's going to show them this is it, and they're going to agree with him. I mean, it sounds kind of amazing, but God is so gracious, and they're going to agree. Yes, you're right. That's what I am.

And I, you know, ungodly deeds, ungodly ways, They are going to agree with that because he is going to convince them of that. I like convince better because I think it brings across the idea better. God's desire in John 16a is that he convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

I don't know who it was that went to heaven, one of the prophets. Well, Paul was called from the third heaven. No, it was the one who said, my lips are unclean, and a cold came and touched his... No, it's Isaiah, right? No, Isaiah. Well, I think he's the one who said, my lips are unclean.

But just being in the presence of God, convicted him. Exactly. Without God saying anything. I know. And that's exactly what I think you're right. I think, man, all the pretense is gone. You may be a good manipulator down here. I can really deal. But in the presence of God, it says every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. There will be no pretense. All the charades and whatever, it will all be open. And you'll say, you're right. You're right, Lord. That's absolutely right. So he's going to convince them of their ways.

Well, I wonder if it isn't maybe even more than that, because the Jews, it didn't work with the Jews when they had the flame on the cloud, you know, on the sea party. I know, I know. It still didn't convince them. Well, how about people that walk with Jesus, with the Lord? I mean, you know, many of them, We will not have this man to rule over us. They fought him. How about the Pharisees? He's cutting into our territory. We can't have this man to be here. Pretty soon they'll all be worshiping him. We'll be out of business. Maybe that's the point. There is no other territory in the end. He's got all of it. That's right.

So I don't know, this Hebrew parallelism, Hebrew poetry, I don't know. This is hard to see. There's some examples in the Psalms which seem to make more sense, or in the Proverbs, where we'll state a fact, and then we'll state the opposite to the fact. This seems a little bit tougher. I couldn't really see a pattern there, other than the fact that there are at least three things, or deeds, or ways in their speech, which I thought was kind of interesting.

So that's the judgment. That's a judgment on the ungodly. And so let's just kind of, another couple of thoughts here. And I've kind of, you know, what time period is spoken of here? So without, you know, it seems like that there's a partial fulfillment in the judgment of the flood. So let's just look at a couple of verses here. I actually have more than just this one.

So let's look at 2 Peter, because I want to read 2 Peter verses 4 and 5. 2 Peter. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment, if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others. Okay, I think that kind of stops there. What I thought was interesting here, if you look down in verse 5, it says that he did not spare the ancient world. but preserved Noah.

I think that is really referring to the world that Noah lived in, right? Everything was destroyed. Man, beast, everything except was in the ark. He destroyed everything. So that was a judgment. That was a judgment on the ungodly. And actually to see that, let's look at Genesis. See how bad it was. How bad was it in Noah's time? It was pretty bad. So let's look at Genesis 6. And let's see. Devonick, can I talk you into reading now? Yes, sure. This has some pretty amazing verses in here. We'll fearlessly read these. Genesis chapter 6, verses 5 through 8.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.

From man to animals, to creeping things, and to birds of the sky. For I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So you're going to ask me, I know what you're going to ask me. How can God be sorry that he made man? You're going to make a mistake. You're going to make an oops. Explain that to someone.

Well, all I can say is, It shows me that he cared for man. And in that sense, obviously, he knew this was going to happen beforehand. Actually, it says that he provided Christ, you know, before eternity passed, there was an agreement between the Father and the Son that the Son would lay down his life. So he knew this was going to happen. I think it just shows his deep sorrow for man that just rejects him. I think it just shows the depths of his sorrow and depths of his love for us.

Anyway, I didn't say much more than that. But verse 5, it was bad. The ungodly were reigning. And I think, boy, today it seems like we're heading toward that just at rocket speed. So you think, well, So that's why some, you know, that's why some believe, not everybody believe, you know, and there's another thing. I'm just jumping around here, I apologize.

The name of Enoch's son, Methuselah, is an interesting name in the Hebrew. It's a compound word. Methuselah means death. The first part is death or to die. Plus the second part is to send. So, Some have said, he dies and it sends death, is what Methuselah means. He dies and it sends death, is what Methuselah's name means.

One thought process is, and we don't have, scripture doesn't talk about this, but if names mean a lot in the Old Testament, was that known by the general public? I don't know. Here's a person, Enoch makes this prophecy. Prophecies were big things in those days. He makes this prophecy about the ungodly are going to be judged, and then his son is named. He dies and sends death. So you think about the generations. Here is Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. And with Noah, judgment comes and everything is destroyed. So that's one thought process about that. So that's kind of what some would call the partial fulfillment.

But I think the real focus is Christ's second coming. I want to look at a chart here. I think the real focus of this, because it talks about, behold the Lord came, remember this is God's view, it already has happened, with many thousands of his holy ones. So let's look at that aspect. So actually I pulled a chart that we've done for major Bible themes. We talked about the facts about his second coming. So remember, this is his second coming, Christ. The church will return with Christ at his second coming.

So one of the verses here is, then the Lord, my God, will come, and all his holy ones with him. And his holy ones, basically, when we go to be with the Lord, we are holy. We no longer have a sin nature. And then we have our verse, we just, behold the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones. They kind of match up here. At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. And then lastly, the armies which are in heaven clothed with fine linen were following him. So the picture is, the picture of the church is that we're his holy ones, we're saints, and we're clothed in fine linen. So that's the picture of the church. coming with the Lord Jesus.

And then the last part here, I didn't really want to talk much about that, it was just kind of extra stuff in there, I didn't delete it, I left it in there, just talking about the fact that we see a picture, actually we saw it in these verses both in the Old and New Testament about that. Okay, so then verse 16, So. So it wasn't bad enough. Here are some additional salient facts about the apostates and false teachers. OK. They are. This is a this is a present condition of the the false teachers and their grumblers.

That's actually the idea, to murmur, undertone, to kind of savor your voice. Have you ever been around people that you'll be sitting with them sometimes, and it's not a very pleasant thing, and they'll be carrying on a dialogue and commenting about maybe a speaker? I always feel uncomfortable with that. Of course, I've done it sometimes too, so I shouldn't feel funny. I'll get an elbow in the ribs about that, and it'll be great. That's probably not a good thing. Well, the false teachers, that's kind of their lifestyle.

And basically in John 6.41, it says the Jews were grumbling about him because he said, I am the bread that comes down out of heaven. So it's that murmuring, grumbling kind of thing. That's one characteristic.

Fault finding. I was thinking maybe they're just trying to stir up dissatisfaction with everything. I agree. So it's kind of like, not just, you know, occasionally maybe they'll say something about something. That's a good point. Maybe on a regular basis, they're just constantly undermining whatever.

People will get up to speak and it's a big crowd and people will start making comments about what the guy is saying and pretty soon the whole crowd will just go crazy and jump the guy or who knows what. Also, finding fault is one who complains. It's the idea of, they're basically discontent. They complain, they find fault, they blame their lot in life.

And they follow after their own lusts, or actually better, own desires. And it's literally ordering their course of conduct in accordance with their own passionate cravings. And basically, the source of our passionate cravings is our sin nature. And these verses kind of talk about that a little bit. That when we come to know Christ as our Savior, we've crucified the flesh with his passionate desires. So that's the first part of this verse is the false teachers or apostates are grumblers, fault finders, falling after their own desires. And then the last part of this is they speak, and that's in the present tense, they speak arrogantly, swollen, boastful, big-headed.

And actually in 2 Peter 2.18 it says, out of arrogant words of vanity enticed by fleshly desires.

And we see this in our world today. And this last one's interesting. Flattering people for the sake of gaining advantage. Boy, this one really hit home. I guess because I've come across some people recently that did that. I was studying this first, and then somebody did that, and there's like a light went on in my head. That's just, you know, not to say that I may not have done that at some point.

Sorry to say. Their mouths speak immoderate, extravagant things catering to personalities for the sake of gaining advantage. Just like, and we see this in our, you know, but the false teachers and false prophets, I mean apostates are, you know, that's their lifestyle.

I'd like to read what's coming up here, the next verses that we're going to study next week here. Going back to Jude here for a second. We're going to switch gears. When we pick up next week, we're going to move into the section. This is talking about the characteristics of the apostates or why are they so bad. But then we're going to switch over to our part in this, and what are we to do about that? Are we to get a mob together and go after them?

It's quite a bit different. It says, verse 17 of Jude. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were saying to you, in the last times there shall come mockers following after their own ungodly lusts." There's our ungodly word again. They are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. And then we're going to continue on.

But you, beloved brethren, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. have mercy on some who are doubting, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garments polluted by their flesh. And then the very last verses, this is the one, the doxology. Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless, with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, authority before all time, now and forevermore.

So actually we have about three lessons to go. So we're going to cover the part that talks about what's our view. We've been presented with all the information about these false teachers and false prophets. What's our view to be? And there's actually some really interesting verses down there where it talks about have mercy on some, snatching them out of the fire, and then also having mercy with fear, hating the garments polluted by their flesh. So there are some actions for us to take.

These people are not the apostates. These are people that have been influenced by the apostates. The apostates, their doom is sealed. But these are people that have been influenced by them, and there's a chance that you may turn them around. It talks about interacting with them. When we've been praying recently, we've been thinking about snatching them out of the fire. We've been thinking about people, this and that.

Snatching them out. Relatives. Relatives. Before the Lord comes. Snatching them out of the fire. What does that involve? Kind of encouraging us there. Well, thanks guys, even though we're small, it was good. And the sun's coming out. We'll pray for tonight that it will really improve. We'll have balmy weather tonight.

Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day, Father, for the blessings we have. We're so fortunate, Lord, to know you and to be able to study your word and see the glorious truths about our Savior and what He's done, Lord. And we thank you for that. We just pray for this evening, Lord. Pray that weather would improve and that people would be able to come out to the Christmas program, Father. In Christ's name, Amen.