Living Waters of Grace 09.08.25

This is living. Waters of Grace, the teaching

ministry of Lewis Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary

Chapel of Westmoreland County in Greensburg, PA.

Now here's Pastor Lewis as he continues teaching through God's

Word. They're not making up stories.

They're not trying to figure out what they're going to teach.

It's here. They teach what's here, and they

expound on the scriptures. And this is what we need in this

day. We need truth, not stories, not

fables, not entertainment. I don't need to come up here and

make you laugh and entertain you.

We need the word of God. That is what changes us.

That's what transforms us. Have you ever attended a church

service where the pastor's message didn't come from a

biblical passage? Today, many Internet preachers

focus on few good sermons offering seven steps to success

or reminding you that you are the victor, not the victim.

But today Pastor Lewis emphasizes that genuine time

with God should be rooted in His Word.

True guidance and strength are not found in 2 minutes sermon

clips and prosperity teachings, but by reading and spending time

with God in His Word, the Bible. Now here's Pastor Lewis in the

book of Jude chapter 1 as he begins his message apostates

Jude 1 · chapter mention

described. Please turn in your Bibles with

me, please, to the book of Jude. We're going to plug through this

and we're going to finish it eventually.

I promise you, eventually we will finish Jude.

We'll go to the 12th verse. I'm going to go ahead and read,

first of all, the verses that I plan to cover.

And I have to admit, because of the content of the verses, it's

not like it's going to be a whole lot of verses, but I

believe that the Lord has some things to say to us in these

verses that will be beneficial to all of us in our Christian

walk. But starting at verse 12, he

says this. These are spots in your love

feasts while they feast with you without fear, serving only

themselves. They are clouds without water,

carried about by the winds. They're late autumn trees

without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots, raging

waves of the sea foaming up their own shame, wandering

stars, for whom has reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Now Enoch the 7th from Adam prophesied about these men also

saying, Behold, the Lord comes with 10 thousands of his Saints

to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly

among them, all their ungodly deeds which they have committed

in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly

sinners have spoken against him. So once again we see here that

this book of Jude, which he gives us small book, but he

gives us right before the book of Revelations and he, he gives

us his book because of what's going on in his culture at that

particular time. People were walking away from

the faith, people were absconding from the faith,

people were defecting from the faith, people were turning from

the faith. And some of these were teachers

who were teaching ungodly things to the Christians.

And you found it necessary, He found it necessary to put this,

this letter out as a warning to the people to let them know.

Be careful, watch out, make sure you are alert, make sure your

eyes are open, you're sober. Make sure that you understand

truth and that you're not deceived.

And this morning, my heart is echoing what it is that Jude is

saying. And the reason why is because

I'm seeing as I'm reading some things and I'm watching and I'm

looking, I'm seeing that people are walking away from the

church. People are walking away from the

church. People are leaving the church.

People are, are, are defecting from the Word of God.

Pastors are leaving their pulpits and leaving the faith.

Not just leaving their pulpits, they're leaving the faith.

But it brings to light the things that Paul said back in

the book of first Timothy. And I'm going to read it because

it's I think it's important that we hear this before we go into

talking about the description of these false teachers.

But there's two things I want to read before I get into the text.

First, first, first Timothy, chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

You've read it before, but I think it's appropriate here.

First Timothy chapter 4, verse one, it says this.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

Now the spirit expressly says that in the latter times some

will depart from the faith. Why?

Because they're giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines

of demons. Verse 2 says speaking lies in

hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot

iron. Now I want you to go to Second

Timothy, and in Second Timothy, there's a couple things I'm

going to read. First, we're going to start with

start at chapter 4, First chapter 4, looking at verse 3,

it says for the time will come when they will not endure sound

doctrine, but according to their own desires.

That's so important. Listen to that.

But according to their own desires, because they have

itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers and

verse 4 says, and they will turn their ears away from the truth,

away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

And then I'm going to read one more back over in Second Timothy

again here in Second Timothy, but chapter 3, starting at verse

one, it says, but know this, that in the later that in the

last days perilous times will come.

And then it describes how it will impact certain men.

It says for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,

boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents,

unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without

self-control, brutal, despisers of good traitors, headstrong,

haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having

a form of godliness but denying its power.

And from such people turn away. So we have Paul giving this

advice to Timothy, his young son in the faith who was a young

pastor and he's saying, listen, understand something.

And the latter times these things are going to happen.

And it's also appropriate for us today.

Back in I read something recently, I read that said back

in 19, I think it was 1972, like 90% of the United States were

Christian. Now it's less than 64% people

walking away from the faith and a lot of the reasons why people

are giving from walking away from the faith is is because

they have differences with the Word of God.

Now times have changed, the culture has changed, and the

Word of God needs to change. No, it doesn't.

Cultural differences. I want to live this way and the

Word of God says I got to live that way.

I'm not in agreement with it, so I'm walking away from it.

These people I spoke to because they have been in some

legalistic situations or in some legalistic church, religious

kind of churches where you know, it was works based, was put

condemnation on people instead of teaching both truth and

grace. These people left because they

feel like they just can't stand up to the standard of what their

authority was trying to make them live up to.

They can't stand up to it, so they want to walk away from it.

It's easier for me not to be under any authority if I got to

be under authority that I can't stand up to.

So I'll just become an atheist and won't believe anything.

Therefore, I don't have to worry about feeling condemned or

feeling convicted about anything.

I don't have to worry about it because I don't believe it.

It doesn't matter whether we believe it or not.

It doesn't make it not true. Truth is truth.

Truth is truth, and just because I don't believe it doesn't make

it so. I used to say, look, God said

it, I believe it, and that settles it.

No, God settled. God said it, that settles it.

It doesn't matter whether I believe it or not.

It's not settled because I believe it.

It's not settled because you believe it.

It's settled because God said it.

The word of God is. It's to us.

It is an aroma of life to those of us who believe.

To those who don't believe is the aroma of death leading to

death. But unfortunately, people are

losing faith in the Word of God. They're losing faith in the word

of God. They're losing, they're losing

faith in the promises of God. And the reason why is because

they don't know God. So they think that this God

that's in the body, they think this God should be this way or

he should be that way. God shouldn't 'cause people to

suffer or let people suffer. They don't know God, that some

of the best work he does in us is in our suffering.

God is supposed to love everybody.

He's supposed to love everybody, and everybody's supposed to love

everybody. Yes, He does love, but there is

some things that we are not to love, in some ways that we are

not to love. They don't know God.

And I've learned recently that you can know the Word of God and

not know the God of the Word. We can quote Scripture, we can

remember Scripture, We can do all those things.

But if we don't know the God of the Scripture, those Scriptures

doesn't mean anything. We got people sitting in

seminaries who know the word of God.

They know it, they've studied it, they get degrees in it, but

they don't know the God of the Bible.

And because of that, there's no change in their lives.

And unfortunately, a lot of the lot of these men and are walking

away from the faith at certain points.

No Holy Spirit, no relationship, just a head knowledge of what's

in here. Our hearts for you as pastors

and anyone who comes up here and teach, Pastor Clark and myself,

when we teach, we want to have the Word living in your hearts

and in your lives and in our hearts and in our lives.

We pray for the Word to live in us that we have a relationship

with the God of the Word. We pray for your spiritual

growth, that the knowledge of his will, that you would have

the knowledge of his will inside of you.

You understand it and spiritual understanding and and

discernment, the knowledge of His will.

We have teachers that come in, out and I'm going to say it

again on Wednesday night. We have 5 teachers that come in

here and they teach and they're teaching Old Testament.

They're teaching Old Testament right now.

We're going through the book of Psalms, but on Wednesday night

we have Tom Brubaker, we got Will Thomas, we got Steve

Eichelberger, Dave Trout, John Morris, and these guys are

really bringing forth the scriptures, the truth.

They're not making up stories. They're not trying to figure out

what they're going to teach. It's here.

They teach what's here, and they expound on the scriptures.

And this is what we need in this day.

We need truth, not stories, not fables, not entertainment.

I don't need to come up here and make you laugh and entertain

you. We need the Word of God.

That is what changes us. That's what transforms us.

That's what makes us look more and more like Jesus is the word

of God. And we can't lose faith in the

Word of God because the Bible says he's faithful even when

we're not. It's the same word that brought

forth the earth. It's the same word that said,

let there be light in this bed. Light.

Ever since no one's been able to put the light out.

It's the same word that created you and me.

It's the same word that we that we live by.

We it says that certain things are going to happen and it has

happened. It's the same word that says

that we would need a savior and we did.

It's the same word that says I'm going to give you a savior, and

he did. Same word that says that every

He would suffer on the cross and die, and he did.

It's the same word that says that he would get up out of that

grave, and he did. It's the same word that says

He's coming back and He is. It's the same word, same word

that saved our souls. It's the same word that brought

us from darkness into light. The same word that brought us

out of death and into his, the Kingdom of his dear Son.

The same word, the same word that redeemed you and me, the

same word by which we have forgiveness of sins.

It's the same word. The same word.

Let's not lose faith in this. This Bible and the one that you

hold. This doesn't contain the word of

God. It is the word of God and we

have to believe that and trust it.

Why am I saying that? Because what Jude is talking

about here are people who walked away from the truth, who turned

away from the truth, and they announced teaching things and

saying things to try to get people to come after them.

They're Antichrist, which means that they want people to follow

them instead of Christ. They want to teach their own

truth instead of the truth that is truth.

The Bible says that. In fact if you look on your the

title of this it probably say my says apostates deprived and

doomed for a second. I just want to give a difference

between apostates and the word backsliders We see both in the

Bible. Well, one of the things that we

know is that a backslider is a temporary condition.

It's a lapse of of faith. It's a drifting away at some

point where Christians will have a lapse in faith.

And it may be because of something that happened, you

know, maybe someone died that when you were very close to.

So you get angry with God and for a while you stop going to

church or stop praying or stop reading your Bible.

These things happens. Sometimes temptation gets a hold

of you and you start going back and reverting back, you know, to

your old lifestyle. Sometimes those things happen,

but at some point or another, because of the Holy Spirit

that's in you and because God, the God that that saved you

won't let you go but so far. And then the Spirit that's in

you will bring you back. You won't walk away totally.

But then there's a apostasy. Apostasy is more of a deliberate

rejection of the Christian faith.

It's a, it's a deliberate defection and, and, and, and,

and, and you reject the truth. Truth is, in fact, you never

really believed it in the first place.

You professed it. I'm going to give you a

definition of an apostate. An apostate is not, and this is

from where this one warns where it's being.

I kind of like this definition. It says an apostate is not a

true believer who has abandoned his salvation.

You know, people try to say, hey, look, if you're an

apostate, then isn't that proof that, you know, salvation is not

necessarily eternal? You know, I mean that you can

lose your salvation. No, no.

When words you say that an apostate is not a true believer

who has abandoned his salvation. He is a person who has professed

to accept the truth and trust the Savior, then turns from the

faith. Bible says, how are we saved?

Yeah, we are saved when we confess with our mouths the Lord

Jesus Christ, but also believe in our hearts that God has

raised him from the dead. That's got to be there as well.

So an apostate is more of a deliberate and it's more of a

final situation because these, you know, the apostate never

really believed, never truly believed.

And this is who Jude is talking about here, these men who came

into the church crepin to the church.

I mean, looks like just like like any meios that's sitting

here could be a person sitting beside you.

We have no idea. Look like us, talk like us, act

like us. You know us.

If we hear somebody say hey, blessed and all be favored, you

know, maybe that means that they truly believe.

If they can hold those conversations and say those

slang words, may that means that they you know, the gospel slang

words may that means that they truly believe, but not

necessarily. But only God can see the heart.

We can't. Only God can see the heart.

God knows the heart. So this is who he's talking

about. Those who have walked away from

the faith and decided that they want to try to bring people to

themselves because they don't want to be under the authority

of Jesus Christ. So he says here that these are

spots in your love feasts while they feast with you without

fear, serving only themselves. Spots in your love feast now at

first mention, you know, you can almost imagine like you know, a

shirt, for example, white shirt. You know what I mean?

If I came up here with a white shirt on and and the whole shirt

is clean except for one spot And if you catch me after eating,

sometimes you might catch me with a spot on my shirt.

You know, I tend to get something on me all the time.

I don't know why how that happens.

No comments there. My poor wife has to always try

to get these spots out after I get finished.

But anyway, you would think it's like a a white shirt or

something though. And then also you see a spot on

it. Your eye goes directly to the

spot. So it's like a spot in your love

fees. But that's not what Jude is

talking about here. What Jude is talking about here

when he says is there spots in your love fees, he means that

these are in the Greek. It means hidden reefs.

Whole different meaning. Spots, hidden reefs.

It's a nautical term, hidden reefs or hidden rocks.

These are things that lie under the surface of the water that

you can't see, and you won't even know that they're there

until they've already done damage to the bottom of your

ship. Captains try to be aware of

these. They try to watch out for these

with their ships when they're going into certain waters, but

you can't see them because they're below the surface and

they cause damage. And before you even realize that

they're there is too late. They've already caused damage.

They're already put a hole with the bottom of your ship and you

starting to sink. But the same thing happens in

the church with false teachers. Sometimes before people even

realize that this is a false teacher, that this is someone

who doesn't believe what we believe is sometimes too late.

They've already done damage. They've always.

They've already caused some people to stumble.

They've already rebelled against leadership.

They've already started to divide the church.

They've already caused damage. We have to remember what brought

down the Titanic. It wasn't the iceberg that they

saw on top. It was a damage that they

couldn't see underneath the jagged edges of the iceberg that

was underneath that did the damage that brought that ship

down. And that's what Jude is saying

here. We got to be aware because these

false teachers can sometimes be just like hidden reefs, hidden

rocks, and we don't know that they're there until they've

already done damage. It's a sad thing when you have

that kind of situation arise where you just don't know.

We don't know. We don't know until we see the

effects of it. Then we realize that something

has happened. We've already been the, the,

we've been the victims of something that was trying to

divide and, and tear up the church.

I pray, I pray that here in Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland,

that we have so much love here and that we have so much an

awareness of the Word of God. It's going to be really hard for

someone to come in and try to deceive you guys because there's

so many of you who study the word of God.

You don't just study the Word of God when you come here.

It's not when you just hear me, Clark or any of the teachers on

Wednesday night that you guys are hearing the word of God.

You guys are always reading and studying the Word of God.

That's why we had a conversations that we have with

one another because you're always in the Word.

It's going to be very difficult for someone to come in here and

to try to teach something that is ungodly in here.

The ears would hear it. I would pray that our ears would

hear it immediately and we'd be able to stop it before we cause

any damage underneath the surface spots in our love

feasts. And and then the Bible says, and

they do it without fear. And just to go ahead and, and

follow up on the word love feast.

We have agape feast. And that's exactly what these

love feasts are. We have agape feast that we have

every now and then potlucks or whatever you want to call them,

where people come and bring their food.

Everybody loves those, Everybody loves those.

But what Jude is saying is that these false teachers will go in

to these love feasts and they would socialize with everybody

like everything is fine and talk like we all believe the same

thing. Meanwhile, they have motives

that are ungodly. This has been Living Waters of

Grace, a ministry of Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland in

Greensburg, PA Pastor Lewis Harrell has been teaching

through the book of Jude. This is a book of warning as the

audience that Jude was writing to was coming under attack from

false teachers. Even in the early days of the

church, there were teachers who claimed to have a unique

revelation from God that superseded Scripture.

Pastor Lewis wants you to be sure to be on your guard against

those teachers today as they will try to distract you from

following the way of Jesus. By focusing on what God's Word

says, you can call out false teachers for what they are and

stay on the good path. Do you want to hear more

teaching from Living Waters of Grace?

You can do so by visiting our website at

calvarychapelonline.com. There you will find an archive

of past teachings from Pastor Lewis and Pastor Clark.

Find a link to our mobile app or even give to support the

ministry of Living Waters of Grace.

Your gifts can help support the work of Grace FM, spreading the

gospel to people in our community who are in need of the

presence of God in their lives. If you're in Westmoreland

County, we'd love to invite you to one of our Sunday services.

We meet at 10:30 AM at 207 Hudson St. in Greensburg.

It'd be a privilege to get to meet you in person and learn how

we can be praying for you and helping you grow in your walk

with Jesus. And if you're in Greensburg, be

sure to listen to us on the news station for Grace FM at 91.7.

Spread the word to others so they can benefit from these

solid Bible teachings as well. You've been listening to Living

Waters of Grace.