Introduction

Now I want to move to and shift our focus to the preaching of God’s word this morning.
I want to turn you to a short little letter in the New Testament written by the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ by the name of Jude. And our passage this morning will actually be from verses 17-23.

But First a Question…

But before we read there, and just to help align our thoughts as to what Jude is actually saying in this passage, I want to ask a perhaps a thought-provoking question first…

The Churches Today

And that question is that if you had to look around you, I don’t know about Witbank, but I know in Middleburg, which is smaller than Witbank, we have no less than 98 institutions that call themselves churches – 98 of them.
>>And I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe10%, maybe even 5% of those churches preach the truth of the gospel.
>And I want to ask you, if you had to look around you at what’s happening in many churches today, what do you see?
What do they do?

 

And I have to be careful that I don’t become righteously angry when I start thinking about what’s happening in other churches today, because I believe what we see there in many churches today is nothing less than a lot of worthless garbage. Worthless garbage that certain churches have now passed off as sound doctrine. And along with that, they pass off also sincerely unbiblical practice as normative, in other words, things that should be happening in churches today.

Unbiblical Practices

When I speak about these unbiblical practices, I speak, of course, let’s just name a few of the more important and the more well-known ones.

Unbiblical Teaching

Practices like speaking in tongues as a show of the Holy Spirit’s second blessing. Or practices like prophesying in this church age, in this time where we’re living in, where the Bible clearly teaches that the revelatory gift of prophecy has ceased with the establishment of the canon of Scripture. Practices like the unbiblical teaching that believers need to undergo and regularly go for things like spiritual deliverance to get rid of demons that are inside of them even though we know what Scripture says about those things.

Direct Revelation

The idea, lastly, of direct revelation. I don’t need to read my Bible because God speaks to me audibly and directly. And I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to open my Bible in order to be biblical and to hear what God says.
And it’s within this spiritual climate that we as sincere believers come and we have to function, don’t we?
We don’t live in a bubble.

Interperet Scriptures Correctly

We need to be real about the fact that if we aren’t firmly grounded in what the Scriptures rightly interpreted and apply says, then we are those who are going to find ourselves quite easily deceived. Deceived into these unbiblical practices and deceived into thinking that these things should actually be happening in my church.
And what we do in the process of doing that is we veer off into what Paul calls there in Galatians 1 as a different gospel. It’s within that framework that Jude writes this letter.

You see, in this letter, Jude acknowledges that he wanted to write to them about what he calls their common salvation.

The Holy Spirit

But something, or rather someone, as we’ll read in a moment, that someone being the Holy Spirit, intercepted Jude’s pen and changed his mind about what he wanted to write to them about.
And so just by way of bringing you into the context, maybe reminding of you of the context.

Some Background on the Passage

Before we actually read that passage in verse 17 and 23, Jude starts the content of his letter there in verse 3, where he says, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. You see, something came to Jude’s attention.

And that was there were people infiltrating the churches, teaching things that were contrary to sound apostolic doctrine.

And we know that is the case because he tells us the reason for writing to them about contending for the faith there in verse 4.
He says, for because, in other words, certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

And then, Jude sort of goes into, he proceeds into this passage of informing the believers of the sure and impending judgment of God. He gives us a very good theology of judgment.

They Crept In!

In other words, in Genesis chapter 6

And thirdly, he reminded them of the judgment that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah in the time of Abraham because of their sexual perversion and homosexual immorality.

These are among other things, things that he speaks about regarding the judgment that is coming upon the apostate. If you don’t know what an apostate is, an apostate is someone who has veered away from the truth of scripture into something else.

A Different Gospel…

It still has an air of being biblical, of speaking about the Bible, but it really has veered away into what Paul says is a different gospel in Galatians chapter 1.
There’s a lot that Jude says in these first 16 verses, and much of it is about judgment, if you agree with me. And if he were to end his letter there, I think you’d all agree with me that we would be very well…maybe left with a sense of paralysis or even despair.Because we will realize if we ended the letter there, we are the ones who have to face these enemies of the faith.

 

Subtle

And not only do we have to face them, the fact of the matter is that they are subtle.

They don’t break down the door and say, here I am, an apostate. I’m here to teach you guys other things.
No! They are subtle.

How to Stop Them

And if they are so subtle and it’s so difficult to perceive them, and if judgment is going to be so fierce, and if the stakes are so high, how does a common believer, and I say that with much respect, survive in this life?

How do we keep from being shipwrecked on these hidden reefs that he speaks about in verse 12?

A Strategy For Survival

And this is where our text this morning becomes crucially important for our walk in faith. You see, in verses Jude shifts. And he shifts from the woe pronounced on the apostates who have veered away from the truth of Scripture to the work of the believer.
He moves from the vulture’s eye view of judgment to the soldier’s boot on the ground. And then in that he does give us a strategy for survival.

Maintain Your Spiritual Health

And so, this passage teaches us that believers are to proactively maintain their spiritual health and extend gospel ministry and mercy while remaining vigilant, you know, looking out against the corrupting influences of apostasy in the church and in our spiritual lives.

The True Gospel

Jude is showing us that the best defense against a false gospel is not to have a loud argument or to speak louder than the other one.
No, it’s a robust, living, and merciful application of the true gospel.

 

Proposition Survival Guide

1. Through the Preparation of the Mind – vv17-19
2. Guard Ourselves to the Preservation of Our Souls
   1.  Keep Yourselves in the Love of God – Jude 20
   2. Pray in the Holy Spirit
   3. Waiting Anxiously for the Mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ
3. The Practice of the Mission – vv22-23

 

Groups of People Who are in Different Stages of Danger:

1. Doubters
2. Those Who Are Endangered
3. Show Mercy with Fear

<strong>Scripture References:</strong>

Galatians 1

Jude 3

Jude 4

Jude 5-16

Genesis 6

Jude 1-16

Jude 12

1 Corinthians 2: 14

Jude 1

 

is this what Martin Luther said in that council when he said, this is where I stand.

I can do no other. This is what my conscience dictates. If I do this and I go against my conscience, I sin.

See also these Sermons:

Warning: False Prophets Ahead

The Acts of False Teachers and their Judgements