Jude - Part 2: On Those Infiltrating False Teachers

We are in the book of Jude today. If you want to find the book of Jude, as I said last week, simply go to the book of Revelation, the very last book of the Bible, and then come back one, and you will find the book of Jude.

We are in our one-chapter series, and we're going to find that this book, the book of Jude, just one chapter, but it is absolutely jam-packed with content.

It's going to require several weeks of our attention, I think about four, and today's week two. Let me also remind you that we do have recordings of these services, and so if you miss one in the series, or if you're not able to keep up with some of the content, today's going to be a lot of content,

please feel free to check that online on our YouTube channel, and you can catch up and hopefully not miss any installments. And I don't know about you, but I think this is probably a series where I'm actually glad we don't have the journals,

because I don't think the one page they give you for the notes is going to be enough if you want to take notes. There's a lot of content. So last week we started with the first four verses, and we immediately learned that while Jude intended to write a different letter,

a much more happy letter, a much more friendly letter, that's not the one that we have in our Bible, because there is a problem, an alarming problem.

Jude says that certain people have crept in unnoticed, and they are taking the good grace of God and perverting it into sensuality. Certain false teachers, Jude says, have infiltrated your church,

and they're telling you that you can indulge in all of your physical appetites and lusts, and you need to combat that, Jude warns them in verse 3.

You need to contend for the faith. Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. And today we're ready to pick up in verse 5.

We're just going to take about six verses this morning. So beginning in verse 5, let me read for us as you follow along, and we will finish today in verse 10.

And here's what the writer Jude himself writes. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

And the angels who did not stay within their position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Yet in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses,

he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

Will you pray with me once again?

Heavenly Father, as Matt prayed a moment ago, we're going to implant the seed of your word in our hearts this morning. And so, Father, we simply commit this task to you.

We pray that you would help us, help this seed to sprout and grow and produce the crop that it is intended to produce. And we pray this in your name, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, if you get the sense this morning that Jude is not holding back, you're right. He's not. And if you also get the sense this morning that Jude is kind of assuming some knowledge of the Bible, you're right about that too.

He is. And he's also tapping into some extra-biblical Jewish literature of the day, which makes its way into this book and also into another letter in the New Testament, the second letter of Peter.

We've got some strange stuff here about angels, about a little dust-up, apparently, between the archangel Michael and Lucifer the devil. So, let's explain these things and try to untangle some of the background.

Starting out in verse 5, Jude presumes that they know the Old Testament, but he says, Now, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, which seems to suggest that maybe you've kind of forgotten a little bit of what you should know.

And he goes back to the story of the Israelites when they were rescued originally out of slavery in the Exodus. Surprisingly, though, notice how he says it was Jesus.

Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt. That's interesting. I've read Exodus. I've never seen the name Jesus in that book. Now, there are a couple of variant manuscript readings here.

Actually, some manuscripts say the Lord, and others say Jesus, but the ESV rightly goes with Jesus because it's there. And honestly, it really shouldn't surprise us or be a big deal anyway because we believe in a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And we know that they are eternally existent as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that means that all of them were involved back in creation and really in all the events of the Old Testament.

It's not like Jesus popped up in the first century and somehow he had to get up to speed on, oh, what happened in the Old Testament? He knew he was there.

Well, this isn't even Jude's focus to mention Jesus. His focus isn't even on the saving event as wonderful as it was. His focus is on what? Verse 5.

What happened afterward? Afterward, he says, he, Jesus, destroyed those who did not believe. And actually, this takes us back to about 16 months after the Red Sea crossing.

If you're familiar with this history, it's a moment recounted for us in the book of Numbers, chapter 13. You might remember the 12 spies. 12 men, each representing one tribe of Israel, sent out to do some recon in the promised land.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

And they came back with a report, right? They came back and they said, hey, this land is all that we could have hoped for, all that we've heard, and more.

There's just one big problem. And that's the land's inhabitants. They are absolutely huge and intimidating. And 10 of the 12 spies end up dissuading the people of Israel from believing in God,

and they end up disobeying God's instructions to go in and claim the land. And this would turn out to be a very formative moment in Israel's history, wouldn't it?

People disobeying God's instruction. People being judged for this. What ends up happening is that God says this whole adult generation of Israelites, they will not go in.

And what happens is they spend the next 38 years wandering around the wilderness until they all die off. This is Jude's first warning example.

And then we get to verse 6. We come to a second one. And this one's all about angels. Verse 6. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness

until the judgment of the great day. I told you things were going to get weird. And here's where they begin to get a little bit weird, right?

With Jude. He's actually referring to an account in the book of Genesis chapter 6. I've got it on the screen behind me. Listen to what happens in Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention Genesis 6 · chapter mention

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose.

Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man, and they bore children to them.

These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of Renon. Sons of God. There is a little bit of debate, I should tell you, in the scholarly literature about who they are, what's their identity.

A few people think maybe these are the noble princes of the earth. Others say it's the descendants of the godly line of Seth, but most are convinced, including, I would point out, all the early Jewish exegetes, most of the church fathers, that these sons of God

are in fact angels. Sons of God, as in angels, and these angels are behaving badly. If you've noticed, in the next verse, verse 7, Jude goes on to describe bad behavior, and he says that Sodom and Gomorrah, likewise,

indulged in sexual immorality, and that kind of cements it for us, that, yeah, in verse 6, he's referring to Genesis 6. These angels were engaging in this unnatural, boundary-breaking sexual sin.

Yes, they failed to stay within their own position of authority, and left their proper dwelling. What he's saying is that they overstepped by taking human wives.

But in addition to this, we also have some material outside the Bible, and some of it, Jude appears to be using, and even later, we'll quote from it.

You see, Jews back in the day where Jude lived, he himself is a Jew, and we know from history that they were really into their mystical writings.

And this ended up being a bit of a problem in early Christianity for Christians, too. There began to be an obsession with certain writers, mystical writers.

Some people in Jude's day were absorbed in the recent apocalyptic literature.

And you had books like The Wisdom of Sirach was one, or another one called The Damascus Document, or The Testament of Naphtali. All of these books spoke about this ancient time before the flood, right before the flood, in Genesis, where the angelic realm had mingled with the human realm sexually,

and produced offspring that were unusual, apparently of great size. Giants, mighty men of old. You say, are we still talking about the Bible?

Yeah, we are. And you add into this fact that even in ancient Greek mythology, if you're familiar with any of that, that the gods came down, they're said to have come down and mingled with human women and produced offspring so that you have these half-gods or demigods.

You probably have read about them in school. People like Perseus or Hercules or Achilles. Now those are myths. Those are Greek myths and legends.

They're not true. But they are probably based on a pattern of events that at one time in biblical history actually happened. So yeah, Hercules and Achilles might not be real, but the Nephilim are or were real because the Bible speaks of them.

And here, Jude is relying on one particular book. It's called the book of Enoch. You say, Enoch, isn't that a character in the Bible? Yeah, back in Genesis.

Genesis chapter 5. But the problem is that this book of Enoch could not have been written by the real Enoch because he had been dead a couple thousand years.

Genesis 5 · chapter mention

Actually, he was just taken from this life so he had been gone, we could say, from this planet for a couple thousand years. And so what that means is that Enoch is a book that we put into a category that we call pseudepigrapha.

Pseudepigrapha, which is a fancy word for falsely attributed writing. Meaning that it's a book that somebody else or somebody else wrote and to give it a pretense of interest and authority puts somebody else's name on it.

It'd be like if I wrote a book called The Memoirs of Abraham Lincoln. I am not Abraham Lincoln. He's been dead a while. But if I write that and I put that title on the book and maybe try to doctor it so that it looks real, looks authentic, it might get a few reads.

And that's exactly what was happening back in this day. Now you might find that a little unsettling that a biblical author is quoting someone that is writing a book that's falsely attributed.

And we need to understand that Jude is not necessarily saying that everything in this book happened or it's all accurate. You can actually go find the book of Enoch online.

You can read it. It's pretty crazy. Pretty wild. But he is pulling some select material from this book. And when a biblical author does that, that means that it really happened.

Back to Jude's point. And he does have a point in mentioning this. He is pinpointing the source of these angels' transgression. And the source of their transgression are these twin sins of pride and lust.

Lust after those women and pride in that they would dare break God's boundaries. So what we have here is a boundary-breaking sexual sin. And what's the Lord's response to this boundary-breaking sexual sin?

Well, Jude says at the end of verse 6 that he has kept them, these angels that did this, in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

So you could say that it was an immediate judgment upon them. They're imprisoned somehow, somewhere. And yet there is still a final judgment yet to come up ahead.

Again, the book of Enoch is kind of interesting. It talks about this and actually describes a place in the desert where the Lord opened up a hole and put these fallen angels in and covered them with darkness and jagged rocks and stuff like that and then locked them in there.

Again, I don't know if that part's true. But what Jude is saying is that the final judgment of these fallen angels, it might be delayed, but these angels are not going to escape it.

They are not going to get away with it. And again, inasmuch as Jude's readers would have been familiar with these traditions that went into far greater detail, Jude brings it up.

And why does he bring it up? Because he's got one eye locked on those infiltrating false teachers who have crept in among them. It's like he's saying, hey, if those angels that sinned in this way couldn't get away with what they did, what makes you think that you as a human are going to have any chance?

So, first example, disobedient, disbelieving Israel. Second example, boundary-breaking sexual sin of these fallen angels. And now he comes to a third example in verse 7 to a notorious example of sexual deviance.

Verse 7, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. Now again, a lot of us may have read this account in Genesis.

This is the Genesis account of Abraham and his nephew Lot. We know from that book that Lot chose as a place to live this wicked place called Sodom.

A terrible place that throughout the Bible, various prophets, Ezekiel condemned the city of Sodom for its pride, excess of food, prosperous, easy living, but complete apathy toward outsiders.

outsiders. But he also specifically condemned them for their abomination in doing what he called evil things. And this is the particular sin that Jude now focuses in on.

The one sin that they were made infamous for and were destroyed for. It's what the Lord Himself in Genesis 18 calls a very great sin. The account tells us that the Lord actually came to visit Abraham, brought two angels along with him,

came to Abraham's tent in Genesis 18, came to tell him that he intended to destroy these cities, one of which was where his nephew Lot lived.

And what goes on at the end of that chapter is Abraham goes into this well-known engagement in trying to bargain with the Lord, to negotiate with the Lord.

Starting out, if there are only a hundred good men in that city, will you spare it? And getting all the way down to ten, if there were just ten righteous people, can you withhold your judgment?

Which the Lord actually agrees He would. But as it turns out, there are not even ten. And so as these two angels leave the Lord, what they do is they proceed to walk down into the valley of Sodom that night.

And they're met not just by Lot, Abraham's nephew, but by a massive rabble of very wicked men from all over the city. We read in Genesis 19 of how they storm Lot's house after dark.

They come banging on his door, demanding that he send out his two visitors for them to sexually abuse them. Very disturbing. Men demanding to have sex with other men.

They didn't know they were angels. Jude describes this as the pursuit of unnatural desire. Literally going after other flesh. It's a terribly disturbing story.

Which of course, the angels escaped. Dragging Lot and some of his family along with them. But what's Jude's point in mentioning this? His point is to say it was the same two twin vices.

Pride and lust. His point is to say these were sexual sins that they committed out of their arrogance. And it really makes us wonder at this point like what kinds of sexual sins are these infiltrating false teachers advocating and justifying?

Does it include homosexual acts? Maybe. But the point is God's boundaries. The point is that when the twin sins of lust and pride take over, they lead into more and more sins where God's boundaries are broken and cast aside.

And Jude knows that his audience knows what happened to those cities. How they were destroyed by the fire that God rained down on them. We don't know how that happened.

If it was just a miracle of the Lord or a volcano that just happened to erupt when Lot was leaving. But here's how it went down in Genesis 19 verse 24.

Genesis 19:24

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And notice how Jude says not that they served past tense as an example.

No. He says that they serve as an example. And as a matter of fact here it is more than 2,000 years removed and even in Jude's day in the first century this exact area this valley where this happened was still known as a desolate place.

Experts scholars say that the Jewish historian Josephus actually said it still stunk it still reeked of sulfur and nothing would grow in this land.

And that's what Jude means when he says they still serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Now as we get ready to turn our attention to verse 8 take a look because now Jude has these false teachers in his bullseye.

Realize what he's doing. Jude is building up with this crescendo of escalating judgments right? Escalating judgments on these escalating sins from unbelief that led to physical death for a generation of Israelites to boundary breaking sexual sin leading to

the imprisonment of these angels to indulging in sexual sin and pursuing unnatural desire leading to total and eternal destruction. What Jude is doing is he's taking these examples of notorious groups of notorious sinners and he's identifying them with these

infiltrating false teachers because he wants them to wake up the church. Wake up and contend and the gloves come off in verse 8 too don't they?

Verse 8 yet in like manner he says these people that I've been talking about who have crept in who have infiltrated these people also and Jude goes on to explain the M.O.

of these false teachers first he reveals what they're basing their heresies on and it's not of course the normative teaching of the faith once delivered to the saints it's not the sacred deposit entrusted to the churches and in the teaching of the apostles that we now know as the New Testament

no it's not scripture that they rely on look at what they rely on they rely on their dreams their dreams throughout the Old Testament we know that dreams and visions were fairly common ways for people to receive messages from the Lord you might remember

from last week we talked about a passage like Deuteronomy chapter 13 where there is a warning to the people about dreams and prophecies and basically it's that if a prophecy does not come to pass or if somebody has a dream and encourages you to break other commands that God's given you you're to

Deuteronomy 13 · chapter mention

literally kill the messenger apparently these infiltrating false teachers were basing their new morality which was really immorality on these kinds of revelatory dreams and visions they were claiming to have received a word from the Lord a personal

revelation that was telling them to do these things that were clearly against scripture can you imagine what that sounds like someone in the church saying the Lord's given me a word he appeared to me in a dream and said I feel called and they were not weighing

or testing these personal revelations against the authority of scripture and Jude very bluntly calls it out for what it is he says make no mistake what they're doing they defile the flesh they defile the flesh by promoting immorality which pollutes

the temple of God's body the body that God has given you it pollutes the temple with sexual sin and of course part of what got them here is a big part of what got those angels headed down that road to rejection of authority they defile the flesh and they reject authority

again rooted in pride they were literally rejecting lordship that's the word that's used here the lordship of Christ yes but also his delegated authority laid upon their church leaders and the apostles

and the pride and arrogance didn't stop here either because Jude says that they even blasphemed the glorious ones here we go again who are the glorious ones well we're totally certain that it's a term for angels again

the only question that some scholars have is it is it good angels that they're blaspheming or is it the fallen angels the bad ones and some people think that because of where Jude goes next in verse 9 in this story about Michael and the devil some think that it's the bad angels but I don't think so and in fact

most of the scholars that I've studied this week believe that it's the good angels that they're blaspheming and it makes you wonder why would a false teacher want to slander and revile good angels what did the angels ever do to them well we need to remember what one of the primary roles of an

angel is primary role of an angel is to be a messenger that's what the word angelos means messenger in fact although the Old Testament describes the Lord as meeting with Moses upon Mount Sinai to give him the law that's a big message did you know that actually the New Testament is a

lot more specific about what happened upon Mount Sinai check this out in Galatians chapter 3 verse 19 Paul says in Galatians that the law was put in place through angels by an intermediary over in Hebrews Hebrews chapter 2 verse 2 the writer says that

Galatians 3:19 Hebrews 2:2

the message was declared by angels since the message declared by angels proved reliable and you might even remember the speech that Stephen gave before the Sanhedrin just before they executed him martyred him and in that speech in Acts 7 verse 38 Stephen said this he said this is the

Acts 7:38

one he's talking about Moses who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers and he received living oracles to give us the law messages from God his word it was declared

and put in place by angels literally Moses had an angel with him up on Mount Sinai so when Jude well step back when Jude hears that these false teachers are slandering angels one plausible theory and the one that I'm convinced of is that

they're actually blaming the angels for the morality codes in scripture they're blaming the angels and accusing them of overstepping which ironically Jude says oh no no when they actually overstepped was in Genesis 6 with the women but it appears that the false

teachers are saying that the angels overstepped that the angels were too legalistic too prudish too worried about the flesh the body and that's not what God wanted and so what you have and the commands of God about the body about sexual immorality that's not really what God gave that came from these beings these angels

that went too far and that is certainly a way to slander the angels how dare an angel do that to give anything other than the message that the Lord has given in so far as angels were mediators of God's word when these false teachers reject obedience

to God's word or question the accuracy of God's word by suggesting that it was overly prudish overly legalistic angels that messed it up yeah they're slandering the glorious ones over in the apostle Peter's letter his second letter he talks about false

teachers there we think with a similar kind of heresy in view and he says that they promote sexual immorality and when they do that they're actually slandering something he says it this way in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 2 many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be

2 Peter 2:2

blasphemed they blaspheme the glorious ones the givers of the truth Jude says Peter simply says they blaspheme the truth itself but verse 9 but I want you to know that when the archangel Michael was contending with the devil

disputing about the body of Moses even he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment but said the Lord rebuke you I don't know about you but when I read a verse like that one I'm immediately thinking did I miss something in the Old Testament was there

some point in the law or in Deuteronomy where the devil popped up and had it out with Michael over Moses body because I don't remember that and in point of fact this is all that Deuteronomy says about the death of Moses I want to read it for you Deuteronomy 34 verses 5 and 6 so Moses the servant of the Lord

Deuteronomy 34:5

died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord we know he died as a judgment because of his his anger in how he performed a miracle that God wanted him to perform and that God buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor you say well where is he buried no one knows the place of his

burial to this day you see sometimes when the Old Testament left doors open like that this was a place where the Jewish intertestamental literature the mystical stuff they would get all into that where's the body where's the body well apparently Jude is relying on one of these extra biblical sources this one we don't

even have the full book it's

references this strange story he speaks of it as if it really happened this would not be news to his original audience they're very familiar with this tale and Jude now speaks of it as if it actually did happen and again let me just stress it doesn't mean that everything in the assumption of

Moses happened it only means that this part did but apparently here's how it went down Moses died Michael the archangel gets dispatched by the Lord to go bury the body and then Satan shows up to challenge him he proceeds to slander Moses

most likely because Moses had committed murder so we just see this image of Satan showing up and saying you can't honorably bury that body I claim it because he's a murderer and he belongs to me but Jude says that Michael the archangel rather than clap back with

this fellow archangel fallen archangel which is what Lucifer was instead even though he's provoked by him he doesn't respond with harsh words he doesn't say oh you dirty rat you're such an accuser he doesn't even protest that hey you can't say that God forgave him he simply utters

these words the Lord rebuke you the same words actually that we find in another book of the Bible in

the

sins of God's people and what happens next is someone pops up the accuser Satan to accuse this high priest Joshua and what do we hear in Zechariah chapter 3 verse 2 the Lord rebuke you Satan the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you

Zechariah 3:2

and it's like we hear this now the Lord rebuke you Satan the Lord who has chosen Moses rebuke you what's Jude's point his point is very simple those infiltrating false teachers have no shame they are so arrogant that they will slander

good and faithful angels and yet I want you to know that not even the top angel Michael the archangel himself much higher and more superior than any of us not even he would slander the very worst of the fallen angels Satan himself he left it to the Lord

but in contrast verse 10 but these people these false teachers blaspheme all that they do not understand and they are destroyed by all that they like unreasoning animals understand only instinctively

yeah when faced with teaching that they don't understand or really you could say more like don't want to understand because they understand they want to claim that that teaching has been corrupted in transmission maybe by angels they blaspheme the teaching they blaspheme the way of truth

like the once saved people of Israel these false teachers disbelieve and disobey and try to get others to follow them like the angels of old these false teachers cross God's proper boundaries and like the men of Sodom they do it to indulge in

sexual immorality and even pursue unnatural desire Jude concludes by telling us that what they really do is they behave animalistically like unreasoning animals they they they may claim they have a higher and more progressive

understanding but at the end of it all they're only doing what they do to satisfy the basest lust that they have they are so engrossed in their lusts and in their instinctual cravings that they don't and won't recognize the truth right in front of them

and they will be destroyed for it, Jude says. Destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

Boy, I'm glad it's not Mother's Day or something, right? This would not have been a good VBS day. Because this is heavy stuff, isn't it? But before we finish, I want to leave you with some application.

I want to give you a few takeaways. I see four applicational takeaways. If we learn anything from Jude's warning to this church about these infiltrating false teachers with these powerful, sobering examples that he brings up, I think we at least learn these four things.

Number one, first thing we learn is that we must persist in believing. We must persist in believing. I'm talking about you and I. We, the people of God now.

A people not saved through the Passover lamb blood on a door, but the people saved through the blood of Christ. We must persist in believing.

Please understand that Jude's whole point with the first example is to say, hey, this was a people, the Israelites. They experienced redemption from slavery.

They were God's people, but they did not persist in believing, and it led them to disobey God's commands. Listen, Moses never asked the people how they felt about the promised land.

I've read the accounts. There's nowhere in the Old Testament where you find Moses rebuking the people because they have a few fears, or maybe inside they're a little intimidated.

I mean, who wouldn't be? You're going to go in and fight giants. Who wouldn't have some doubts in their mind or in their heart? But that doesn't, that's not what gets rebuked in this moment in numbers.

What gets rebuked is their disbelief that leads them to disobey. Action. And I would suggest to us this morning that it's very much the same for us.

In the Christian life, you may have some fears. You may struggle. You may struggle with some doubts. You may not be so sure about some things.

You may not have all the answers. But what I'm telling you is that you simply need to persist in believing, and believing, you show that you believe by obeying.

So even if you don't have all the answers for everything in Scripture, I certainly do not. I know enough of what I'm called to do. And I need to obey.

You say, well, what does that look like? Well, it's very simple. It means that we do things like we keep gathering as the people of God because that's a pretty straightforward command in Scripture.

And again, all the more when times are tough. It means that you and I, we keep praying, especially when the Lord seems distant or we're confused.

Why? Because we're called. We're commanded to do that, to pray without ceasing. It means that you and I keep trusting. We keep walking the walk.

We keep moving forward. We keep getting out of bed every day as a Christian, making it our intention to walk a good walk. That's how we persist in believing.

Because emotions and feelings and thoughts and doubts and struggles, they come and go. And we may not have control over how we feel. But our rescue, our great salvation remains firm and fixed.

And we're called to believe and to walk in obedience. So that's the first takeaway I would give you is that we must persist in believing. Here's the second one.

Number two. We must fight for purity and stay within God's proper boundaries, especially His moral boundaries.

Because the angels transgressed those, didn't they? So did the men of Sodom.

These beings gave full vent to their cravings and lusts and attractions. They behaved, as Jude says at the end, animalistically. And we say, well, what are God's boundaries for us?

Well, they're different. I mean, the angels were crossing a boundary. They weren't supposed to co-mingle with humans at all. But God has given us as human beings the gift of marriage.

And so in terms of sexual activity, the boundaries that He's given us are that we are to celebrate that exclusively in a covenant of marriage with one man born a man and one woman born a woman.

And our world is messing a lot of stuff up right now, isn't it? Do I have to tell you that? Have you noticed? Let's just start with the way that sex has been commodified.

It's now a marketing tool. Hookup culture. All kinds of ways to be sexually immoral. The pornography industry. All kinds of variations. And there's going to be more variations of sexual immorality.

And honestly, probably more letters will get added to the LGBTQIA+. The plus is telling us more letters are there and more are coming. But the Apostle Paul in Scripture warns us about people who give themselves over to their lusts.

He says what happens is they develop a depraved mind. A depraved mind is able to put out all kinds of justifications. There's a system in place.

Even, and I don't have to tell you, even a system of reinterpreting Scripture. To the point that we suggest that some of God's messengers have gone too far.

They're too prudish.

Dishonorable passions, Paul describes them. They're destructive to our bodies. We see that. We read about how people, even in Paul's day, were exchanging natural, divinely ordered relations for those that are unnatural.

Paul even says that the debased mind will, and this is a quote, invent new ways of doing evil. New ways of doing evil. But God has created us.

Right? And that means we're His. And He has designed our bodies. And He knows what they're meant for. And He's given us our gender and our sexuality.

And He's very clear in how we are to honor Him with our bodies. Ladies and gentlemen, this could be a whole other sermon, right? But for now, let's just remind ourselves to fight here.

To contend for purity. To stay within God's boundaries. And to be on the watch for anyone that would infiltrate our churches and try to tell us this is okay.

Or who would slander God's messengers in saying they've gone too far. Because they've given us something that they think is too prudish or overly restrictive.

Watch out. And contend. And that leads us to a third takeaway, number three. Third takeaway is this. We must be cautious about personal revelations.

Cautious about personal revelations. Always, always, always testing them against Scripture.

Again, where does Jude tell us that these infiltrating false teachers got their ideas? Where do they get their ideas? Did they go to some other book?

Ancient book of writings? Did they try to take a Scripture verse out of context from the Old Testament? No. He says that they claim new revelations.

Personal revelations. Relying on their dreams. Verse 8. Dreamers who either cook things up out of their own psyche or have a bona fide spirit speaking to them.

You know, spirits do still speak to people. You do realize that. And whether it's sometimes just our own carnal flesh that's talking to us or maybe a genuine spiritual impression that someone feels, someone receives.

We must be cautious about all of our personal revelations and impressions. I've heard stories of married people who left their spouses for other people because they felt God was leading them to do it.

Got a word from the Lord. I married wrong. I married the wrong person. I missed God's will. I mean, nowadays you hear things like, I am the wrong person because I'm gay.

I'm lesbian. I'm trans. We must be very cautious about personal feelings and intuitions and even personal revelations. And we must always test them against scripture.

Today we see a very real danger in what can happen when people justify their conduct on the basis of a personal revelation. This is why the apostles write what they do.

Here's John. 1 John 1.4. He says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit. That suggests spirits are still talking to people. Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world. And over in 1 Corinthians 14, we see the apostle Paul talking about this, saying, Hey, even in the church, if someone claims to have a revelation, it must be tested.

Let others with spiritual discernment. Let others with spiritual discernment who know scripture, who can bring that scriptural knowledge to bear on what's being said.

Let them weigh it. Let them test it. Because you will never find God contradicting himself. No revelation from him will contradict his written word.

Finally, a fourth takeaway, number four. Running right along these lines. Number four. We must submit to authority and revere God's word. Submit to authority and revere God's word.

I'm going to let you in on a secret about people that you might not know. But people do not like submitting. I do not like submitting. It does not come natural to me.

But God says submitting to authority is good for us. Starting with his. It's for our good. And when we do, when we willingly submit ourselves to the lordship of our savior.

And to the extensions of that authority. Whether in the written word of God. Or in people who are trying to handle the word of God. And oversee your souls in a local church.

It's a good thing. It's a good thing.

And we should be careful how we speak against God's word. Jude says here that even Michael was careful with how he spoke to Satan. And how much more with how we speak when it's a message of truth.

How much more when it is in fact God's word. We must submit to authority and revere God's word.

We're going to pick up where we left off here in another week. Because there's more. There's a whole lot more in this letter. We're going to hear some woe being pronounced.

We're going to hear some warnings from Jude. We're going to see Jude equip us with ways specifically for how to contend. How to deal with these problems.

Because we need to contend. To contend for this faith that was once for all delivered to us. And so let me ask you if you would just stand with me now as we get ready to close for this morning.

We're going to pray. We're going to have the team come. Will you stand with me as we bow our hearts.

Heavenly Father we just sober ourselves this morning Lord with your word. We're just so aware of how far when we go outside the church Lord.

How far our world is tumbling. And Lord we know you are on the throne. We know that you have good people in this city. As you once told your ancient peoples about Babylon.

And our Babylon today seems pretty messed up. And yet Lord while we are in exiles. Living as exiles here. You tell us to settle in. And live for the good of the city.

And to be faithful evangelists and witnesses. And that's what we want to do Father. You tell us to have our families Lord. And to plant and settle for this time.

And to be a witness Lord of your truth. And that's what we want to do. But Lord this morning this letter tells us to be on guard. To be cautious about what we allow inside the church.

Church. And so Lord open our eyes. Father let us not be so arrogant to think. That if it happened in the ancient world. With your people back then.

Oh it can't happen today. Because it very much can. And Lord we know that it is. And so we pray for our church. We pray for our leadership. For our elders.

For our pastors. Father we pray for our denomination. That we would stay the course Lord. We pray for other churches in our cities. That you would Father purify your people.

Reveal where false teaching has crept in unnoticed. And help us to contend Lord. To contend for this faith that you have delivered to us. That you have deposited into us Lord.

And we will thank you. And we will praise you Lord. And we will make every attempt to live faithfully. With your spirit's help. We pray this together.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.