Jude 1:5-7 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. Back in the Book of Jude this morning. Last week we didn't get very far.

[0:12] To be quite honest, I don't think we're going to get very far today. We'll just wait and see. We covered the first four verses of the Book of Jude last week and when we ended it, Jude was addressing the problem of certain men that crept in unawares in verse 4.

[0:36] Spreading false doctrine, what it basically amounted to, but keeping that in consideration about how these men had crept in, he says certain men had crept in unawares and they were spreading their false doctrine. They turned the grace of God into the civillessness and denied the only Lord God.

[1:08] As we get into these next few verses here, we need to keep verse 4 in mind as we read these. So Jude in verse 5 says, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

[1:32] So he begins this verse with, I will therefore put you in remembrance. In other words, I'm going to remind you of this. He says though you once knew this, in other words what he's saying is I'm going to remind you, even though you already know what happened. So this kind of tells me that Jude is addressing mainly Jewish audience when he makes this statement here. He says, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, even though you already know, he says how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. So he says I'm reminding you of this. Why was he reminding them of this? Now this wouldn't have meant a whole lot of gentiles, remember gentiles, they wouldn't have been nearly as if at all familiar with the account of the exodus of the nation Israel out of Egypt.

[2:32] So that's why I think that this was addressed towards a mainly Jewish audience, maybe not 100%, but mainly Jewish audience. But he says, the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

[2:48] And this was apparently one of the things that the certain men that ecrypt in unawares in verse four, this is possibly one of the things that they were addressing or one of the things they were teaching falsely about. But manry says this is to give them warning, the people that are reading this short little letter that Jude's writing, giving them warning that even though God rescued them, even though God released them out of the bondage of Egypt and brought them up out of that slavery that they were in, even though he did that and they, and that showed the favoritism that they had of God toward that people, toward the Jewish people.

[3:32] Now I understand the Bible says God's no respecter of persons, but God chose Israel, God chose Abram when he brought him out of the land of Her and Abram was the father of the Jewish nation and that was God's business. That was God's business whom he looked down upon this earth and chose to be the father of his chosen people of this nation.

[3:56] But even though they had such a high ranking, we would see it as humans with our finite minds, even though they had such a high ranking with God, it says that God destroyed some of them.

[4:08] God destroyed some of the very people that he brought up out of Egypt, that he brought out of that bondage of Egypt. So the very people that walked through the Red Sea after God parted it, God destroyed some of them people and it wasn't because of anything other than their unbelief and that's per scripture.

[4:32] It's their unbelief as to why God did that. Now if you know the accounts from the Old Testament, you know that when the Israelites, they chatted against Moses, they chatted against God, they murmured, they complained, they done it over and over and over and there's an account in the Old Testament where God probably just had enough of it. He said, I'm finished with you all.

[4:56] Your carcasses will rot in this wilderness is what God told the Israelites and from the age of 20 years and back, 20 years and younger, those were the ones that were allowed to cross into the Promised Land.

[5:12] But anyone that was over that 20 year mark, they're the ones that died in the wilderness. Now God took care of them while they were out there. God and scripture makes that very plain. If you look at Deuteronomy, it makes it very plain that God didn't let their garments rot, God didn't let their feet get blisters on them. God took care of his people while they were out there but nevertheless they were destroyed. They were not allowed to walk into the Promised Land and that's something that we need to take into consideration even now.

[5:48] Regardless of how long we've been saved, regardless of how high of a ranking that we might think that we have with God, we need to be careful. Bible says, take heed lest you fall. Take heed, you be cautious in things like that. You be cautious getting high minded like that because God can and God will destroy us if he sees fit. God will allow us to die out there in the wilderness just like he did these Israelites that he brought up out of Egypt and it's something to consider and if it's nothing for the church to consider, and I've actually heard that said if it's nothing for the church to consider that, why is Jude writing to a bunch of professing believers in Jesus Christ about that very thing? It applies to us 2,000 years later just as it applied to the people that he was writing to here and he wasn't writing to a bunch of unbelievers obviously. He was writing to people that had professed their faith in Christ.

[6:56] But remember he says, I'm telling you this, I'm putting this in your remembrance even though you already know it. I've heard people say over and over, I don't go to church because I never hear anything new. And Jude here says, I'm telling you this even though you already know it. Folks, we need to be reminded of the gospel over and over and over again. We need to be reminded of the same scriptures. We need to be reminded of John 3.16.

[7:24] We need to be reminded that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I need to be reminded of that. Why? Because it'll get on the back burner in my own life. I'll set it in the back seat. I won't pay attention to it. But if I'm reminded daily daily that a man died for me, that God himself, my Creator, died for me. If I'm reminded of that, it will humble me and it'll keep me in the position that God wants me to be in. We need to be reminded of the gospel. And like I said, Jude here says, I'm telling you this even though you already know it. And remember, up there in verse 3 where he said that he was going to write to him of the common salvation. He said, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered under the same. He said, I was going to write to you about the common salvation, but something has spurred me to tell you about these other things instead. And this is one of the other things that he was wanting to tell them about. And it all has to do with common salvation, yes. I mean, when the

[8:36] Israelites, when God delivered them out of Egypt, that was salvation for the Israelites. That was salvation. That was redemption. That was putting them on the road to the promised land. If that's not salvation, I don't know what is. But he tells me, I'm telling you this even though you already know it folks. And when you hear the Gospel over and over and over again, praise God for you. Praise God that there's somebody standing and teaching and preaching the Gospel. Even if they use the same verses over and over, even if the message really doesn't change, folks, there is nothing new under the sun as per scripture. There is nothing new here on earth. I can't teach you anything in this book that hasn't been taught by somebody in the past 2000 years. I can't do it. There is nothing new under the sun that I can teach you about Jesus. And I can teach you about salvation. And if you ever grow weary, if you ever grow tired of hearing about the Gospel, I check up on my relationship with Jesus Christ, if that's the case, because I never grow tired of the Gospel. And I never grow tired of telling people about the

[9:44] Gospel. People might grow weary in it. Lost folks grow especially weary in hearing about the Gospel because it convicts them. It convicts them of their sin. But I never grow weary of it, thinking what I was and what God brought me out of. Somebody put that in my remembrance all day long and I'll thank them for it.

[10:04] Verse 6, And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, hith reserved and everlasting change under darkness under the judgment of the great day. So here we have a second part to this little bit of writing that Jude's got. He just told him about the Israel that's being delivered out of Egypt. And he says, And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, there's two or three different popular takes on what Jude is actually referring to here. One of the most ridiculous takes me personally on this is that angels basically abandoned the spiritual realm and became humans. Folks, angels can't become something else at their own whim.

[11:00] They can't do that. They're not omnipotent. They're not omniscient. They're not omnipresent. Only God is that and God created them angels, period. So if they were angels at creation, they're angels now. So for an angel to just sit and think one day I'd rather be a human. That's not going to happen.

[11:20] That's not going to happen. It don't happen like that with anything. I can't sit here and think I want to be a turtle and I'm just going to turn into a turtle. It doesn't happen. God created me a human being and I am a human being. It's like transgenderism. Men think that they're women. Women think that they're men. They try and turn themselves into something that God never designed them to be. God didn't design a woman to be a man and God didn't design a man to be a woman. And I don't care how long a man grows his hair, how much makeup he puts on his face, how pretty he makes himself smell. He will never change his DNA.

[11:56] He will never change his bone structure and these are the ways that God designed women to be and man cannot change that. I don't care how much a man says he's a woman. God says he's a man and the same goes vice versa. It says they left their original, their own habitation. Left their own habitation. What does this mean? It doesn't mean that they just decided to become human.

[12:24] They left the posts that God put them. They left what God originally made them to do regardless of what it was. Whether it was a door reader or whatever the case was, whatever job God gave them to do, they left that. They left their, they abandoned the position that Almighty God had given them.

[12:48] They rebelled against God and that's exactly what these folks nowadays do, they try and turn themselves into something that they're not. They're abandoning a job or a classification or a post that God put them into. They're abandoning that and that is outright rebellion against the maker. It is rebellion against God to do that. The angels which kept not their first estate, their first estate was to work for God. It was to serve God.

[13:20] It was to do God's wills to minister unto God. They left that estate but my goodness, what a privilege that is to serve God and they left that.

[13:32] They rebelled against that and they left their own habitation. Unfortunately, unfortunately there's a lot of ministers, there's deacons. If a deacon is a true blue deacon not just hanging around a church with a title, if he's actually doing the job of a deacon, Sunday school teachers, there's all kinds of people that are leaving their first estate, they're abandoning their first estate, they're abandoning their habitation that God intended them for and why is that? It's for all kinds of different reasons. Sometimes it's pressure, sometimes it's, I mean there's all kinds of things. The list would be a mile long if I say here or stood here and listed it all to you.

[14:16] This is the application this would have to us 2,000 years later. If God designed us for specific position, we have no business abandoning that. No business abandoning that.

[14:32] And there is destruction to one point, to one extent or another for those that do that because that is rebellion against God. No less than what the angels did here. No less than these, we know them to be fallen angels. But no less than what they did here. If we abandoned the post, we abandoned the guard that God has put us in. Whether it be minister, whether it be father, whether it be mother, husband, son, wife, neighbor, whatever it is, if we abandon that position, it is direct rebellion against God. You're in the family that you're in because God puts you there. I can promise you if God's got power over the world powers over every president and king and queen on planet earth, if he has power to put those people in their positions and he does, as per the scripture, he had power for you to be born into the family that you're in. And if we abandoned that, if we abandoned that, it is rebellion against

[15:40] God. It's rebellion against his plan. It's rebellion against everything that God is if we abandon that. The angels was kept up their first estate but left their own habitation. He hath reserved their last change under darkness and the judgment of the great day.

[15:56] A lot of people blow this up into something that it's not. A lot of people blow this up and say, well, God cast all the fallen angels. First of all, I've heard God cast all the fallen angels into hell. Those they ain't a demon or nymph that's in her hell yet.

[16:12] None of them have. None of them. Where are they? They're all running around here on earth. They're all tormenting the people of the church. None of them have entered into hell yet. But that's what some people say. Then other people say, well, God cast them down here to earth but they're, but God's got them chained up and they're in the spiritual realm so we just can't see them. Well, if they're chained up, why are they bothering me? Am I getting that close to where they're chained to? If that's the case, I need to walk a little bit closer to God.

[16:48] But I don't think that's what it is either. I don't think that God's got them bound with literal or spiritual change to where they can't move around here. He says, he hath reserved and everlasting change under darkness, under the judgment of the Great Day. What change are they under? What change are they bound with? They are bound with the decree of God that they have a judgment in the future and that judgment is not good for them.

[17:20] That judgment is no good for them. That judgment is burning forever in hell one day when that judgment falls and that sentencing takes place. There is nothing that can overturn that. There is nothing that can rebuke that. God has said it and therefore it will be. And this is the change, this is the change that they're bound under. They're bound under their own sin.

[17:44] They're bound under their own rebellion against God and they're bound under the decree that God has made when he cast them out of heaven. These are the change that they are bound under and it is no different than a human being that is walking around here on planet earth. They are bound underneath the same change of sin.

[18:04] They're bound under the same bondage that these angels are. They're bound. God has decreed that if we do not trust Jesus Christ as our Savior and we do not repent of our sins, we will go to the same place that these fallen angels will go to one day. And it's the same change and it's for the same reason simply because God has said it.

[18:28] Thus say it the word of God. Thus say it the word of the Lord. And if the Lord said it, if it hasn't come to pass yet, it will. I promise you. These are the change they're bound and they're bound in darkness. What kind of darkness? What do you think of when you think of darkness? Can't see. That's what I think of. They can't see. Why do you think? And we've all heard it.

[18:52] We've probably, if you've been in church most or all of your life, we've all heard it. If you've been in church for a year, you've probably heard it. Well, this world's subblinded. Devils got them all blinded. The devils themselves are blinded. They're in darkness according to what I just read in Scripture. The fallen angels are in darkness.

[19:12] What kind of darkness though? Can they not see where we're at? Do they not know where we're at? Do they not know our thoughts? No, they don't know our thoughts. They know our intentions because we let them know. We let them know the hidden sands of our heart. We let them know our desires. We let them know our lust. They're not omnipotent. They're not omnipotent. And I'll repeat it. They're not omnipotent.

[19:40] They're not all knowing like God is. They're certainly not omnipresent like God is. And be careful when you say the devil has been trailing me. The devil has been chasing me because the person sitting next to you say, oh, I know he's been on me all week. Y'all are giving Satan himself a position or a title of being omnipresent when you say that. And that is putting him at the same level as Almighty God. Satan is not only present.

[20:08] Satan was a created being created for the service of God just like these angels that we're talking about here. He cannot be in two places at once in other words. But we put him up on that. And what does Satan want more than anything to be like or above God? And when we say things like that we're helping boost his ego. We're helping the world to think that he is just like God.

[20:36] If not better, if not higher than God when we say things like that. These devils are in darkness. These angels, these fallen angels are in darkness. Just like the lost centers of the world are in darkness. It's the same darkness and it's for the same reason that God as far as the humans go, as far as our race goes, God will lift those blinders off. God will bring us out of that darkness and to lie. The difference between us and the fallen angels is there is no hope for them. There's no repentance for them. And I've actually heard it preached or actually I've heard it taught. I shouldn't say preached but I have heard it taught that if those angels had just repent, God would save them. I can't find that in scripture and people will say, well God's a God of love. God offers repentance to everyone and everything and so on and so forth.

[21:32] You read the book of Obadiah sometime. That's one of the saddest books in scripture. It is a sad, sad book. Why? Because there is no chance of repentance offered in that book. There's salvation in that book. There's salvation for God's chosen people, the Jews, the Israelites, the children of Jacob.

[21:56] There's salvation for them. But those that came against them, those that cheered on their enemies, they came in to raise their cities and to raise their land to take them prisoner, take them captive.

[22:12] There was no chance, there was no offer of repentance to those people. It's a sad, sad book and it's only one chapter long just like the book of Judah we're reading now. Read that sometime. In my opinion, that's one of, if not these, saddest books in scripture. It's not that God never gave them a chance to repent, but God drew a line with them. He drew a line with Jacob's brother. He drew a line with these people and he offered them no chance to repent. All he offered them was the destruction that God saw that they duly deserved.

[22:48] These fallen angels, they have no chance of repentance. They have no chance of repentance. They rebelled against God. They were in a perfect situation.

[23:00] They were made by a perfect God for a perfect service and they rebelled against that. Ain't no different than what you see in the book of Revelation. You're reading in Revelation and you read that Satan's thrown into a pit and bound for a thousand years and this would be what we refer to as the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and all is peaceful, all is well, all is happy and rainbows and lollipops and unicorns here on earth. Everybody's happy.

[23:28] Ain't nothing bad going on and yet people rebelled. People rebelled against a perfect situation that shows the heart of man.

[23:40] It shows the evil that is in the heart of man and it shows how easily man can be deceived. That's exactly what Jesus is writing about here. He's writing about how easily we can be deceived if we're not on guard. That's why I told them to earnestly contend for the faith, contend for the faith, fight for the faith, stand strong for the faith, stand real ground for the faith.

[24:04] That's why he's writing to them. But they're in darkness under the judgment of the great day. What is the great day? That's the great day of Almighty God.

[24:16] That's the day of the Lord. That's the day when sentencing, judgment's already been passed. Sentencing is going to take place one of these days. That's what I've had to tell several people over the years and brother Burns probably had the same conversation when you go out on the street and you evangelize and people say, you can't judge me. They're absolutely right.

[24:40] I can't but I tell people you're already judged just as I am already judged. This book judges us. Almighty God has already judged and he's already warned us of the sentencing to take place but he's given us the way out. He's given us the open door. He's given us the blood of Jesus Christ to escape that judgment and to escape that sentencing. They're absolutely right. I can't judge them. No more than you all can judge me as far as salvation go.

[25:12] I can't judge me for that God has already done it and there is no higher authority than Almighty God. But they're the reserved to that day of judgment.

[25:24] Verse 7, even the Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in lock manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

[25:40] There's an important line in that verse and it also applies to the previous two verses that we've read. That line is our set forth for an example. I'm not saying that God destroyed those cities just to make an example out of them. God destroyed them because they were evil and they were wicked and there were more cities than the Sodom and Gomorrah that God destroyed. You read about those in the book of Genesis in that same account.

[26:16] But it says even the Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in lock manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. They're set forth for an example. What kind of example if we fulfill our own love? Now listen, I've heard it before. The Sodom and Gomorrah and those other cities strictly for the sin of homosexuality and I don't believe that for one second. That might have been the main sin that people were involved in. That's the sin that's brought up in scripture. Yes. The folks I don't feel there's a whole lot more going on in Sodom and Gomorrah than that.

[27:00] The people will look at that scripture over there in Genesis. You know, God never gave them people a chance to repent. God never gave them people a chance to turn to Him.

[27:10] God just threw fire and brimstone down out of the sky and burned them up. And that's just like saying that God should have given the people of Noah's day one more chance to repent.

[27:22] Noah preached for 120 years. You'll never convince me if he had preached for 120 years plus another day or another week that somebody would have repented. 120 years, God gave those people.

[27:36] With a preacher of righteousness according to the scripture. And I'm sure he preached nothing but God's righteousness, but nobody repented. Folks, Solomon Gamora, as damn as Lot's Lot must have been, they still had a lot because the Bible calls him just.

[27:53] The Bible calls Lot righteous. He was the lot, even if it was just a damn little flicker, he was the lot of that city and nobody paid attention to it.

[28:05] Why was that? It was so dark. What's so special about that? The Bible says men love darkness rather than light. They love the darkness.

[28:16] Why? Because the darkness hides their sin. What does Lot do? What does the gospel do? The gospel lot, it exposes that sin.

[28:26] It exposes it to me, it exposes it to you. Anyone that's heard true gospel preaching has been exposed to the light of Jesus Christ. If it's been true and the Holy Spirit's been doing his work and his job, they have that light has exposed those sins that are in those deep dark crevices of the heart.

[28:48] And that's what gets people uncomfortable about the gospel. The Solomon Gamora were destroyed here, it says, for an example. For example, of what?

[29:00] It says, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. That's the example of what's gonna happen to people that give in to their own desires and people that give in to their own lust.

[29:11] And I've stated it before here and I'll state it again. Lust doesn't necessarily mean sexual desire. Lust is anything that you're following after, anything that you're chasing after.

[29:23] It could be men, it could be women, it could be a number of things though, that it could also be automobiles, it could also be money, it could be a position within the church God forbid.

[29:35] It could be all kinds of things that you're lusting over. It's not necessarily something that's sexual, but that's what we normally equate it with. But it's anything that we're chasing after, more so than we're chasing after God.

[29:52] That we could suffer the same thing here that these cities of the plain suffered. It says that they were given as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

[30:06] It's vengeance. What does the Bible say about vengeance? It says vengeance is the Lord. God says I will recompense, I will repay. It's not in our hands.

[30:18] This is vengeance of God on unrepentant, unregenerate sinners that have denied the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross.

[30:31] And if anybody has any reason to be vengeful about anything, it is God for that reason. If we trample the blood of Jesus Christ, if we deny the work of Jesus Christ, if we deny God's work and God's plan, we're denying everything about God.

[30:50] God has made a way that we could be saved and that way is through and only through Jesus Christ. And if we deny that, if we deny his suffering, if we deny his sacrifice, if we deny the blood that he shed, God should take vengeance on us.

[31:07] Because that work was completely, utterly, and totally of God. I don't have to depend on myself to do anything. I'm depending on God to save my soul.

[31:19] I'm depending on God to keep my soul. And I'm depending on God to take me home. God has every right to be vengeful to people that reject that.

[31:30] But yet people will look at God. The world will look at God. They'll look at scripture. They'll hear the preacher. They'll say, I just don't think that God would do that.

[31:40] Why wouldn't he? He's flooded the whole earth once. He bombed the cities of the plain with fire and brimstone. He opened up the ground and swallowed the cara.

[31:52] God can do whatever he wants to. And he does it justly and he does it righteously. And he doesn't need your permission to do it. Nor does he need mine. He is God.

[32:03] And yet people will look at these scriptures and they'll say, God's not right in doing that. There's nothing wrong about God. There is nothing wrong about God.

[32:19] I hate to cut it off, but I think I'm going to. Because this is a whole other section. And I won't stop if I get into it. Does anybody have any questions or comments on what we do, three verses?

[32:33] If you have any questions or comments on that.