Jude 1:22-25 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. We're wrapping up the Book of Jude this morning Lord will. We've been in Jude for a few weeks now, several weeks actually.

[0:16] We'll be wrapping up hopefully the Lord's help the last few verses. Just a real quick recap from last week, the beginning of the passage that we'll be finishing this morning.

[0:31] I hate to stop the passage halfway through, but we do what we have to. But last week we started in verse 17, and Jude begins it talking about the beloved.

[0:46] Now you'll remember from pretty much the get-go of this letter, Jude's referring to the certain men that have crept in unawares into the assembly.

[0:57] And they're spreading false doctrine, spreading false teaching. And that seemed to be Jude's main focus and his main point throughout this entire letter.

[1:09] And then we got to verse 17 last week and he says, but beloved, and he exhorts the beloved, the brethren, those days writing this letter to the believers in Jesus Christ, the church.

[1:24] He's telling them, you remember the words that the Apostles of Jesus Christ said. And he says, remember they told you that these men would be here. They told you that people like this would come into the assemblies.

[1:36] And that's how last week kind of started out. And he gives a few other short descriptions of these people and none of the descriptions that he's given of them have been very pretty through this whole study through the book of Jude.

[1:53] But these last few verses that we get to today, this is the salvation part of the book of Jude. Y'all have heard me say before that it doesn't matter how dark and gloomy, that a book may seem in Scripture, even the book of Obadiah, even that book, there's salvation to be found in that book.

[2:19] There's salvation found in every book, all the 66 books, there's salvation somewhere, somehow, for God's people. And this is our part of this book.

[2:32] This is the shiny part of this book if you want to phrase it like that. So we'll pick up in verse 22 of the book of Jude. Verse 22 says, and of some have compassion making a difference.

[2:47] Jude kind of, you know, picking up here where we left off last week. I remember that last week he said, we talked for a while about it, about Jude saying to building up yourselves and to keep yourselves in the love of God.

[3:05] There's a lot of people don't like those two verses because it lays something on us. And I'm not teaching a works-based salvation in the least.

[3:17] You or I, neither one of us can merit ourselves to heaven. None of us are good enough to get there on our own. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God according to Romans 3 and 23.

[3:30] And we're all well aware of that and if you're not, you should be well aware that we're all sinners and we cannot inherit the kingdom of God on our own.

[3:41] It takes Jesus Christ to save us. It'll take Jesus Christ to keep us and it'll take Jesus Christ to get us home. And so this is coming out of those verses.

[3:52] And Jude says, and of some have compassion making a difference. Now, who is this some? I look at it in the grand picture, in the grand scheme of things, in the big picture.

[4:04] I think that Jude is talking pretty much the world over, the known world at Jude's time when he says of some. Some people, and there's a lot of commentators on Scripture out there and a lot of Bible teachers and a lot of Bible preachers that will try and put that some that we just read about within the pages of Jude.

[4:25] Whether he's talking about some of the false teachers or some of the brethren. But I look at it in the grand picture of things of some have compassion.

[4:36] Jude has given us really two different ways to present the gospel here if you'd like to phrase it like that. He says of some have compassion.

[4:47] He says making a difference or making a distinction. In other words, we've got to use our own discernment that the good Lord has given us.

[4:58] When we're presenting the gospel to someone, is this someone who needs compassion? All of us need compassion and the world over needs compassion.

[5:09] Y'all have heard me teach and y'all have heard me preach that Jesus Christ was the most compassionate person that ever walked the face in the planet. Although he was brutal sometimes with his compassion and he was brutal sometimes when he would call people out in their sin the same way that Paul was and the same way that Peter was and the same way that so many of the other apostles was.

[5:33] They were brutal sometimes in doing it yet they were showing compassion in doing so. A lot of people don't want to hear about hell. They don't want to hear about eternal torment.

[5:44] They don't want to hear about the judgment of God. They want to think that God is the king of lollipops and unicorns and all these other things. They don't want to hear about the fury of Almighty God but folks the wrath of God is a real thing and the fury of God is a real thing.

[6:01] The judgment and the sentencing of God is a real thing and a lot of people don't want to hear about that. But sometimes we have to use that approach in rescuing people out of the flames of hell.

[6:14] Not that we can rescue them ourselves but in that way in presenting the gospel of some we can have compassion but we have to make a distinction. We have to make it we have to determine the difference.

[6:27] We have to make a difference and we have to determine with our own discernment that the good Lord has given us of how exactly it is that we go about presenting the gospel.

[6:39] When we go out in evangelize on the streets we don't know who we're preaching to. We don't know who we're witnessing to and therefore you have to present both ways in doing so.

[6:51] You have to present the compassionate way but you also have to warn people about hell. You have to warn people as Brother Verne read this morning. You have to warn them what road their lasciviousness is going to take them down.

[7:04] What road their drunkenness is going to take them down. What road their emulations is going to take them down. All of these things that we found in the scriptures we have to warn them of that.

[7:16] We have to warn them about hell because hell is a real place where people will spend a real eternity. I'm glad I don't have to go there anyway. But he says if some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.

[7:36] Others save with fear. This is kind of the second thing I got on off on a little tangent about there. Others save with fear. Some people that's the only approach that you can take with them.

[7:47] And these are the people that say well you can't scare me into heaven or you can't scare me into believing. I've had people say it to me. You may have had people say that to you. And you know I said that to people when I was lost. When I was without Jesus Christ.

[8:04] So you can't scare me into heaven. But some people that's the only approach that you can take with them. Compassion doesn't work because their heart is so hard that the only thing you've got left to work with is fear.

[8:19] And it's nothing in what we do. I mean we can witness. We can tell them about the gospel. We can tell them about the goodness of Jesus Christ. We can expound the death of burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[8:33] We can talk about his eternal state of making mediation and being our advocate forever and ever at the right hand of glory. We can talk about all these things all we want to.

[8:46] But some people the only thing that's going to work with them is fear. The only thing that's going to work with them is you're going to hell. And I don't know how you felt when I got saved.

[8:58] But I know when I realized how wrong I've been. And for how long I had been wrong about the things I was wrong about. That was one of the first thoughts that popped in my mind was I'm going to hell. I'm going to hell.

[9:12] And that was a fearful thing for me. I'd heard about hell all my life. I'd heard people talk about it. I'd heard it preached about. I'd heard it talked about it. I'd heard my mama talk about it. I'd heard other people talk about it.

[9:25] And never had any fear about it until the good Lord brought it to my attention and convicted my heart of sin and showed me just who he was.

[9:36] That's when I realized I'm on my way to that place. And that was a fearful thing. It was a fearful thing for me. Some have compassion and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

[9:49] You and I cannot spiritually pull anyone out of the fire. Only God can do that. The Judean is saying some save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

[10:03] The words that we use and the descriptions that we use, the way that we witness the gospel to these people, the way that we explain the gospel to these people. This is what God will use to pull them out of the fire.

[10:21] We cannot save anyone. That's not what Jude is getting at here. He wasn't getting that 2,000 years ago. And I'm getting at it now that I can save anyone. I've heard preacher say before, I saved this one 20 or 30 years ago.

[10:35] And preacher didn't save anybody. God does the saving. God is the only one that is able to save God. And salvation is of God. Period. But Jude here says, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, hating everything about that person, not the person themselves. You keep that in mind.

[11:02] Now listen, I understand, I don't remember if it was R.C. Sproul or John MacArthur, one of those two men, have a pretty famous quote, if you follow either one of them, I'm almost positive it was R.C. Sproul.

[11:14] But he said that there's a famous saying amongst Christians and amongst the churches that says God hates the sinner, the sin but loves the sinner.

[11:25] And he says, you be careful with that statement because it's not the sin that he sends to hell, it's the sinner. We need to be careful with that thought. We need to be careful. And people will say that, I've heard, I've had lost people tell me that, well the Bible says that God loves me and I praise God for John 3.16, that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son.

[11:48] I thank God for that verse of Scripture and many other verses that we find within the pages of Scripture, that God is holy and God is just and God is righteous.

[12:00] And because he is holy and just and righteous, he must punish sin. He has to punish sin because he is those things. And he punished sin on a cross at Calvary 2,000 years ago.

[12:15] The Bible says that Jesus Christ became sin for us. It says that he was cursed when he hung upon that tree because the Bible said that cursed is any man or every man that hangeth upon a tree.

[12:28] He became sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God, that we could become holy, that we could become sanctified. The very people that Jude writes about in the very first verse of this book that we've been studying the last few weeks, the sanctified, the called, those that are preserved in Jesus Christ.

[12:48] That's me and that's you if you're born again and praise God for that. But when these people are rescued out of these flames, when they're rescued out of the fire, when they're using this other approach with the gospel, or when we've used this other approach with the gospel to do our part in their rescue, once again, not that we can save them, not that we have salvation, that we can impart to them.

[13:17] Only God can do that. We can tell them all about the salvation and the goodness of God, but only God can do the saving. But when we present that, we hate even the garments spotted by the flesh.

[13:30] We hate the sin. I hate the sin of my own life. If you don't hate the sin in your own life, you need to get right with God, period. Every Christian, every born again believer should hate the sin in their life and we've all got it. We all sin.

[13:47] None of us perfect just yet. I promise the perfect body and a glorified body in one of these days, but as of right now, I'm still walking around in this endemic body that I've had since I was born.

[14:00] And we will have this until the day that we die. And as long as we are walking around in this flesh that we have, we will walk around in the sin that we have. God saved my soul. He didn't save my flesh. This flesh is still sinful. The muscles in your body, the bones in your body, the marrow in your body, the blood, everything about you is sinful according to what I read in the Scriptures.

[14:26] Everything about you except for that inward man that God placed on the inside of you when he saved your unworthy soul from hell. Praise God for it. But we need to, but we need to despise. We need to hate. We need to abhor, really, the garments spotted by the flesh.

[14:46] Now, unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

[15:04] Now, unto him that is able to keep you from falling. What's that? Tell me just that one little line. I'm unable to keep me from falling. Under him that is able to keep you from falling.

[15:17] Under who? Under Jesus Christ. He is the only one that is capable of keeping me from falling. As I've already said this morning, it took him to save me. It takes him to keep me and it takes him to keep me home. I cannot do it. I can't stand when I hear a Christian say, I'm just working my way home.

[15:35] No, you're not because that's impossible to do. Amen. We cannot work ourselves home. God will get us home. We sing about it all the time. We sing, "'Tis grace that brought me, saved us far and great." And grace will leave me home, but do we really believe it? Yes, I believe it. It's grace that will get me there. It's God's grace that will get me there. And that's all that will get me there. It's the grace of Almighty God.

[15:59] It took his grace to save me and it will take his grace to get me home after a while. I ain't saying go out here and live however you want to. It's not a license to sin. The grace of God is not a license to sin.

[16:11] It's a license to sin. Any born-again believer that gets that thought in their head, that's a direct abuse of the grace of God to have that thought in your head.

[16:22] But to him that is able to keep you from falling down. I shouldn't neglect to say that some translations of the Bible or our KJV doesn't have this translation, but some translations say, down to him that has to keep them from falling or to keep us.

[16:37] I don't know where they get that misinterpretation of it, but regardless, Jesus Christ is the one that is able to keep us from falling and he's the only one.

[16:52] But unto him, to keep us from falling, that is able to keep us from falling, or me from falling, you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

[17:05] Now get this, we'll read the whole verse one more time. To him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, unto him that is able to keep you from falling, unto him he's keeping us from falling and he's presenting us faultless before the presence of his own glory.

[17:32] He's doing that for us lowly sinners, people that don't deserve it. Once again, folks, we didn't merit it. I don't care how good you think you've been in your life.

[17:43] I don't care how few sins you think that you've committed. You don't deserve it. And I don't either. None of us do. But unto him that is able to keep us and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

[18:04] My goodness, it will be exceeding joy. It is exceeding joy right now. Can you imagine though in the future what exceeding joy we're going to be? We're not faultless yet. We're not faultless yet. And we're still as far as our bodies are concerned. We are still in a fallen state, but God has redeemed us.

[18:24] As far as our flesh is concerned, yes, we're still walking around in our fallen flesh. But I praise God that this flesh ain't what's going up yonder after a while. He saved my soul. He saved my spirit and I promised a glorified body, locking and fashioned unto the Son of Man one day after a while.

[18:44] I don't know when. And to be quite honest with you, I don't know how, but I know that God can do it and I know that He will do it because that's what the Scriptures say that He's going to do.

[18:56] Right now, we're not faultless though, but Jesus Christ is able to present us faultless. He's able to present us faultless regardless of how dirty we've been.

[19:08] Praise the Lord. Regardless how wicked we've been. Regardless of how rebellious we've been against God, against our families, against our fellow human beings, but mainly against God.

[19:20] Regardless of how wicked, evil, mean, nasty, black, dirty, filthy we have been, Jesus Christ and His blood is able to wash away our sins and present us faultless in the presence of His glory.

[19:36] I can't comprehend that, but I believe it. I believe it. I believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is that powerful. And He's going to present us faultless in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. I believe that exceeding joy is going to be on both sides of the court.

[19:57] I believe it'll be on Jesus' side and I believe it'll be on our side. It'll be exceeding joy because I'm going to be faultless at that time. I'll be presented before my Maker and before my Master, before the One that gave His life for me. I'll be presented before Him faultless.

[20:17] Praise God. And that will produce an exceeding joy that I don't think I could stand in this body that I have right now, but then I will be able to stand it.

[20:28] And I'll be able to stand it for all eternity, the exceeding joy that you've been talking about here. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.

[20:41] To the only wise God, our Savior, to the only wise God, our Savior. God is our Savior. Jesus Christ is our Savior. Jesus Christ is God.

[20:52] He came here, robed Him flesh. We need to keep that in mind. We need to keep that in mind. I'm not teaching a Jesus only doctrine here and saying that God is God. Jesus is God.

[21:09] You've got God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are taught in the Scriptures and all three are present in the Scriptures and three different persons. Not three different things, not three different gifts.

[21:22] They are three different persons in the Scripture that all comprise what we refer to as the Godhead and what Paul referred to as the Godhead. He said that while Jesus Christ ministered here on this earth, in Him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead. So I'm not teaching a Jesus only doctrine there at all.

[21:41] I don't want you all to misunderstand that. But to the only wise God, our Savior. Folks, Jude is presenting God just as he is to the only wise God, our Savior. He's the only one that was wise enough to develop this plan of salvation that we've been talking about.

[22:03] He was the only one wise enough to develop a gospel, the good news that we know about. And He's the only one wise enough that is able to keep us from falling. He's the only one wise enough that is able to present us faultless in the presence of His own glory.

[22:23] You and I would mess up a plan like that. I know I would and you would too. All of us would but God, He is the only wise God. And He is our Savior. And I praise God that the only wise God is my Savior. I'm not dependent on a God that's made of wood or of metal or of anything else.

[22:44] I'm not depending on a God that's dead. I'm not depending on a God that I've created in my own mind that lets me live my life however I want to. I'm not depending on a God that I've created in my own mind that lets me live my life however I want to. I'm not depending on a God that I've created in my own mind that lets me live my life however I want to.

[23:12] That's who I'm depending on. To the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. Folks, the glory and the majesty is God's and the dominion and the power it is God's. God owns it all. That's the dominion, the power. God has all the power.

[23:32] As Christ said right before His ascension, all power is given unto me on heaven and on earth. All power was given unto Him in heaven and on earth.

[23:44] To the only wise God be glory and majesty. Folks, it's His glory. I believe it was the last time that I preached here.

[23:55] The glory is God's. Whether we want to give it to Him or not, it's God's. And if we don't give it to Him now, if we got any type of glory, if we got any backpats from our fellow man that we're not giving to God, one of these days He's going to get it because it's His.

[24:12] It is His. You can hang on to it all your life if you want to. But when you're dead and gone and everybody on planet earth has forgotten your name, God will have His glory. God will have His glory. It all belongs to Him and all the majesty belongs to Him. I don't care how pretty a dwelling is. We might live in. I don't care what calluses that kings or queens may live in or castles or anything else.

[24:38] All the majesty belongs unto God for He is majesty. He is majesty personified in Himself. He is glory personified in Himself. He is all of these things. And this is the God that condescended here to earth to become a low life human being like us.

[25:01] Yet He was without sin. He could sink no further, no further than to become a human. And He condescended from upon high, upon power, upon majesty. I ain't saying that He lost any of His power when He came here. He was still God.

[25:20] He was every big God laying there in that manger as He was sitting on the throne in the heavens above. But He condescended to our level. He came down to where we are. He came down why?

[25:33] Because God wished to tabernacle with His people. He had wished that at least from the days of Exodus that we can find in the scripture. He wished to tabernacle. He wished to dwell among His people. That's why He did it. And He came here to offer Himself up as a sacrifice to make a way that we wretched sinners and wretched man could be reconciled back to Him.

[25:59] A lot of the lost worlds don't understand they are cast off from God. They are cast out from God. Why? Because they're not in communion with God. Therefore they're cast out and they have to be reconciled. There has to be a reconciliation there.

[26:18] Two people argue and they turn their noses up at each other, turn their backs on each other for a week or a month or a year at a time. Then all of a sudden at a family reunion or something along those lines, all of a sudden they're hugging, they're kissing, snotting all over each other.

[26:38] They're like, what's happened? They've reconciled. That's what happens when a saved sinner or when a lost sinner comes to God and gets saved. There's a reconciliation that is taking place because that man or that woman or that child has rebelled against God their entire lives and God has cast them out.

[26:57] God has cast them off and they've been reconciled back to their maker. That's what we've got to get into the minds of lost people. They're estranged from God. He doesn't recognize them as a child. He doesn't recognize them as an adopted child.

[27:19] He recognizes them as a stranger, as a stranger, someone that he doesn't know. He knows all about them, but they're not in communion with God yet. I thank God that I'm in communion with Him.

[27:32] To the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. Jude isn't saying, well, God hasn't had these things, but we need to give Him to Him now. This is just a doxology that Jude is giving and closing his letter, trying to exhort the brethren, trying to exhort those that he was addressing in verse 1 when he said, Jude, deserving of Jesus Christ and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. He's trying to exhort them. You worship God. You worship Him because He, the one that has all majesty and all power, the one that has all the dominion, the one that is the creator of the universe and the creator of you and the creator of me and the creator and the author and the finisher of our faith.

[28:22] This God is whom has preserved you in Jesus Christ. This is the God that saved you. This is the God that sanctified you. He set you apart for His service. You worship Him. You worship the one with all power and dominion. You worship Him.

[28:38] This is what Jude is exhorting the brethren to do, and he ends it with a very appropriate amen. So be it, is what he's saying here. That wraps up the book of Jude just a few minutes early. Anybody got any questions or comments?