Sermon: Life Worth Judgement

We're gonna turn open to the Bible. Now, Jude, uh, we are working our way through that book. That is what we normally do here, uh, at University Reform Church as we work our way through books of the Bible. And so we have been in Jude for a couple of weeks and we will finish it next week and then we'll return back to the book of Hebrews that we had taken a break from over the summer and Lord William will finish that sometime in the

next 10 years. Uh, but this morning, uh, we have the book of Jude and we're going to look at this morning verses five through 16. But let me pray for us or pray for the reading and preaching of the word.

Our Father, we even as we have just sung in prayer, so we say in prayer, you are a holy God and we're thankful that you a holy God, have given us your holy word.

We're thankful that you and the Holy Son have sent the Holy Spirit this world to teach us and to apply this word to us. Pray this morning, but is a very hard text that we find that our ears are open, our minds are receptive, our hearts are fertile soil, the planting of your word that we would know these next minutes that we have encountered indeed a holy God, that we would return to you with praise and with thanksgiving,

the adoration that is do your name and we pray all of us in the strong name of Christ Jesus. Amen. Jude verses five through 16, this is the holy iner sufficient word of God. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people outta the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling.

He has kept an eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day, just a Sodom and Gomorrah in the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, served as an example by undergoing a punishment eternal fire. Yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams be filed. 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're destroyed by all that they like. Unreasoning animals understand instinctively woe to them where they walked in the way of cane and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to bail the air and perished and Cora's rebellion. These are hidden reefs.

Set your love feasts as they feast with you without fear shepherds feeding themselves waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead uprooted wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever was also about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied saying, behold the Lord comes with 10 thousands of his holy ones to

execute judgment on all, to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds, of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way. And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him, their grumbler malcontent following their own sinful desires. They're loud mouth boster showing favoritism to gain advantage. The grass withers and the flower faiths word of God is forever and speak to God. Amen.

I am blessed, uh, in many ways I'm blessed with an incredible family. My wife and I've been married this summer 25 years. Uh, we have two wonderful children and both of our children are adopted. And so that means that in our house it's like they get to celebrate two birthdays every year. Every kid is jealous, I understand this, but on their birthday we give presents on their adoption day. We don't, uh, instead what we do is we allow them to choose what restaurant they want to go to

and then we go out to eat together as a family and on that car drive to the restaurant or when we sit down at the table and have ordered our food and I'm waiting for our food, I, I do the same thing. I tell a story better, maybe stated I I a retell story. Now the response from my family is interesting. As I retell this story, uh, I tell their adoption story and I talked to them about how we longed for children. And then that day when we got the referral picture in the mail,

how we would just stare at it for what felt like hours and then how we packed our bags and how we scheduled air flights and the day that we got on the plane and we flew all the way over the Pacific Ocean to land in Taiwan and what it was like to get out at the airport and to grab a taxi and to drive to the orphanage and then what it was like to to walk into that orphanage, the people that were there, what we saw. And then I'd tell them though finally what it was like,

see them for the first time, hold them for the first time. So squeeze their chubby cheeks for the first time. They're no longer chubby.

When I tell this story, our tradition, well maybe it's better stated, it's my tradition, uh, because when I tell it, uh, there are certain members of my family that begin to roll their eyes. In fact, all of them begin to roll their eyes

and I hear, oh dad, we know, we know you've told us they are, but I'm telling you again and I'm telling you again because I want you to know how much we long for you and how much, how excited we were to finally have you to bring you home, how much we love you and will forever love you. They know it, they've been told, but they need to be reminded that they need to remember. This is how Jude begins our passage this morning.

He says, I want to remind you hi, his children in the faith, they're forgetting and we all have a tendency towards spiritual amnesia. We forget what it is that God has told us about himself and what it is that he has told us that he is going to do. And so there needs to be this continual reminder. So much of the life of faith is simply remembering what we know. So Jude begins by telling them old stories. He's going to help them remember who God is and what God has promised

to do by telling them four Old Testament stories and then he is going to point to three Old Testament individuals to four stories. And then he is quickly going to point to three Old Testament individuals and I want to take a look at that this morning. He begins by recalling to his spiritual children, these four old stories you remember from the last two weeks, those are the you that are here, that there are false teachers,

there are heretics in the midst of this church or churches that are pointing people away from God and what he has taught, what the gospel message is. And these old stories recall the danger that all of these people are in. And so the first story that he tells is of the people of Israel being let out of Egypt in verse five, this is the epic event of the old covenant, the very thing that spoke to the nation, that God is indeed our God and we are his people by adoption.

He's ours and were his. And interestingly Jude says Jesus led them out of Egypt. He makes it clear that it was the second person of the triune godhead. Now this isn't so foreign because Paul will do this in one Corinthians 10 when he says that it was Jesus who was with them in the wilderness, Jesus delivered them. But as Jude notes in verse five afterward he says, afterward Jesus destroyed those who did not believe.

Remember the Israelites though everything they had seen in Egypt, they had seen the Lord were great miracles to deliver them outta the hands of the Egyptians. And then it all culminated in that day when they saw the Red Sea part and they walked across some dry, dry ground and Pharaoh's army and all the Egyptians were drowned in the midst of the Red Sea. Though they had seen all of that when they got to the borders of the land of

Canaan, they did not believe in trusting God enough to go into the land. So God sends that generation to wander in the desert for 40 years and what happened to them, as Jude says in verse five, they were destroyed. This is the same Jesus he delivers and he destroys same Jesus and Jude's reminding them to two stark different experiences in Egypt delivered in the wilderness, destroyed. What's, what's the difference? Why? Why the difference?

What is the fundamental difference that results in these two very different outcomes? What Jude tells you? Verse five, Israel was judged for refusing to believe

the warning to the recipients of this letter. And frankly the warning to Wass this morning is do not presume upon God's grace, don't presume upon his grace. The same Jesus who saves is the same Jesus who judges he has both deliver and he is destroyer lack of belief in Israel's day and Jude's day and we could say in our day it results in the same outcome destruction instead of deliverance.

The second story he calls to the remembrances in verse six and it's the odd account from Genesis six. There we're told that the sons of God saw the daughters of humans and had relations with them and it's difficult to untangle Genesis six. We don't have the time to do all that this morning, but I believe that those are fallen angels, often sons of God as a reference to angels in the scriptures and these fallen angels took on human form as we often see angels do

in the scriptures and as they took on human form, they then had relations with human women. But Jude's purpose isn't to sort through the details of Genesis six. His point is that the angels did not, he says in verse six, quote, stay within their own position of authority and he uses a play on words here. These angels could not keep within their position of authority being driven by lust. So they have been kept in eternal chains under darkness until judgment.

What he's doing is he's just pressing further home. His main point to us don't presume upon God's grace if there was no hope of escaping for fallen angels. So there is no hope for ungodly people unless you repent. Believe.

The third story, verse seven is Sodom and gaura. Most of you know this account lot. Abraham's nephew has two visitors and the people of the city surround the house demanding to have intercourse with these visitors who happen to be angels in human form. And God destroyed the cities. The people of those cities were not judged as some argue because of Inhospitality. No, Jude makes it clear. They pursued, he says an unnatural desire.

It's not not an unnatural desire as some claim that because they were lusting after angels, the people of Sodom Goor did not know these to be angels. No, these were men who wanted to be with men. They were pursuing this, they were indulging in this. They were refusing to repent, they were refusing to believe. So God destroyed

many churches and Christians won't talk about Jesus this way,

won't talk about the fact that he is both the deliverer and destroyer, that he's both savior and that he's judge.

That's how the Bible speaks about him. It isn't a popular message,

probably not why you're here this morning. Definitely not my favorite kind of passage to preach,

but we have to speak of it like Jude so that we don't presume upon God's grace,

the only safe place to hide ourselves is in him. He delivers from destruction. We only have to believe

that's the difference between being delivered or destroyed. Belief.

Faith comes from hearing or hearing what, how do you, how do you know what you are to believe? There are so many voices out there. How? How do you know what it is that you are to believe if belief is the way that you are delivered? Well, faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of God, the Bible. This is how you know what to believe. He's spoken to us. He's told us these false teachers, they were diverting and they were discouraging, right?

Belief by their own made up teaching no notice, verse eight and following these false teachers appealed to dreams as confirmation that God approved of their behaviors and their teaching. They trusted dreams rather than the explicit commands and teaching of God. Listen, it doesn't matter how much confirmation you have inwardly that this is a right thing, if it is in contradiction to the word of God, it's wrong. It doesn't matter what you feel. It's wrong

if I am out with a friend or say you are out with a friend and you're hockey, you're hiking around in Rocky Mountain National Park and you've been hiking for days and all of a sudden you got lost and you have no cell phone coverage and you've been out there for days, you're running outta food and it has been now three days and you're lost. And along comes the path, comes a park ranger and the park ranger stops and says, oh, are you lost? You say, yeah,

we we've been lost. And he says, well, all you have to do is follow this trail. There's gonna be two branches of this trail. You take the one to the right and that will lead you right out his park ranger. It's his park. He knows it.

This is God's world. He created it. It's his. If he says this is the way, it's the way. If you're walking with your friend down that path and you get to the junction there and you say, well, park ranger said go right and your friend says, you know what? I have an inner feeling. I feel like we should go left. I really feel good about going left. You'll still go right.

He's spoken into the midst of our darkness with a clear, authoritative, commanding eternal voice. This is right believe

it's heard you and I hear the scriptures. If we're listening to a voice from within that is contrary to his word, it is not his voice. Yours and my feelings, yours and my thoughts, yours and my dreams are not determiners of truth. He is, he is. Our culture is not a determiner of truth. He is your professors. Your mom and dad are not determiners of truth. He is the latest philosophers, not a determiner of truth. He is these false teachers were relying on dreams.

He says they were arguing that Jesus would not come in judgment. One can live any way they want because God is a god of grace. They said and he is, oh my goodness. He is, you've sung up at this morning where to scream that from the rooftops our God is a god of grace and he's a god of justice saying it. He is a holy God

and he will uphold righteousness judges. He alone judges

like a good preacher. Jude moves to his four, uh, his four uh, story in verse nine to illustrate this. He, he references a non-biblical book. He does this twice in our passage. Now this bothers some. How could a biblical writer quote or refer to a non-canonical, a non-biblical book and quote it as if it is true? Doesn't that mean we're missing some inspired writings in our Bible or doesn't this mean that maybe Jude himself isn't inspired? No and no.

Um, almost every preacher I've ever met quote see us loose at some time. The Chronicles in Narnia though are not inspired. It

may be one of the best pictures out there where Lucy is with Mr. Beaver and and Mr. Beaver has been explaining about Aslan the lion, the Christ figure in the Chronicles an Arnie and Lucy asked that question, is he safe? Beaver responds. Have you been listening to anything that I've said? Of course not. He isn't safe but he's good.

Maybe the the best just short, concise, beautiful imagery and summary of the person of Christ or the fact that he is not safe but he's good, that there is

bro is narnie aren't inspired and you don't believe they're inspired. When I quote it Jude quotes from a book called The Assumption of Moses. It's not inspired. It can state something that's true though it's not canonical and it has an account of the Archangel Michael contending with the devil for Moses' body. And Satan accuses Moses of being a murderer and says, because he is a murderer, he has no right to go to heaven.

And so Michael, the archangel is contending with him. Jude tells us that Michael quote did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment upon Satan. You see, Satan is attempting to judge Moses. He is taking the very prerogative and domain of God by seeking to declare whether Moses can go to heaven or not. He's seeking to judge him. But Jude's point is this, look at Michael, the archangel Michael. The archangel knows that judgment is the prerogative of God.

And so even though he is combating with Satan, he doesn't even take that judgment upon Satan. He wouldn't dare go outside his bounds and take the prerogative of God. And so as he's continuing with Satan, he calls for God to rebuke Satan. He doesn't even exercise judgment on Satan.

It's God's prerogative to judge and he will judge

God is a God of grace.

Once you're screaming that everywhere you can as you talk to people, he is a God of grace.

He's a god of justice. In fact, that's why you need grace.

These heretical teachers, they have overstepped the very boundaries of God. Stu concludes in verse 10. These people blaspheme all that they do not understand and they're destroyed by all that. They like. Unreasoning animals understand instinctively they simply don't understand or they don't want to understand so that they just want to live according to the passions of their flesh, their inclinations, what they feel on the inside,

what they're pulled to. They apparently could not or did not want to reconcile that a Christian is free from the law and yet a Christian is to live in accordance with the law that boggled their mind. And so it was simpler for them to dismiss the law live any way they wanted to, but that smacks of unbelief.

Yes, Christians, as Christians we are set free from the burden of the law and yet we are called to a life of obedience according to the word of the law by grace

and not to earn his favor, you've been set free from the burden of the law but rather because it becomes a delight because you love him and you want to be more like the one you love and this glorifies him and you want to present your body as a living sacrifice to him. You want to live a life of thanksgiving to him. So it becomes a delight by his grace.

But these post teachers, they refuse to stop and think. Jude warns that when we become like that we become like animals like beast who take no time to understand but simply are moved with our inclinations. If you take a bowl and you put ground hamburger in it and there's a dog sitting there and you tell the dog and your best reasoning voice, you say, listen, I'm going to set down this bowl of ground hamburger. Don't eat it. And if you don't eat it,

I have three other bowls of ground hamburger back here that you can have in an hour. What happens when you put the bowl down? Their face is in it. I don't even know why. Because they eat it so fast. It's not like it touches their taste buds. It just goes that are beast just driven by their inclinations, driven by their passions. We are not unreasoning animals. Judas we're to be driven by our understanding of who God is and what he desires from

us. And as he has told us in his word

and we know, know that he's returning in judgment

and we know that he will be a rewarder of those secret after him in faith know

He's told us in his word. We don't just do what our body tells us. We don't just do what we feel. We listen to him and live accordingly. We know that delayed gratification is a good thing.

Jude. Then in verse 11 and following, he's given these four stories. He then gives three individuals, individuals as illustrations. He compares these false teachers to Cain and Balam and chora all who led rebellions against God and against his people. And we don't have time to go through each of them this morning, but each of them rejected God's word and each of them was destroyed. Judas clear these types of teachers and these types of preachers that would

point you away from the word of God because they have thought of something better or have had a dream or some inward inclination. Anything that is contrary to this, you are to run no matter how pleasing they are to the ears, no matter how affable they are, no matter how much you just like them as a person, no matter how funny they are, you run,

he presents them in verses 12 and 13 in some of the most poetic writing I think in scripture. He says they're like hidden reefs at their love feasts. Christians must steer the ship of their lives away from them or they will break upon them. These false teachers, he says, are shepherds feeding themselves getting rich and fat instead of feeding the sheep. They're waterless clouds in a dry region When you would see a cloud on the

horizon like Israel that had promise in it, but then if it comes in it has no rain. It doesn't provide what it promises. They're like fruitless trees, promising nourishment but provide no sustenance, sub sustenance. They're like wild waves of the sea. Chaotic instead of calming, they're wandering stars. And in the old world wouldn't, you would navigate at night, you would look up at a fixed star. That fixed star could take you to the right destination.

But if it's a wandering star that you fixed upon, it just leads to darkness and destruction

again. Jude is forthright. In verse 13, the gloom of utter darkness he says has been reserved forever for such people.

This text has given me fits this week. Uh, maybe unlike any text I've ever preached before.

'cause there's so much in it

and it's such a heavy text. So after I got done reading, some of you had like your eyes were bugged outta your head. Haven't heard that part of the Bible. Yeah, heavy. The other is that it just fires so many questions. How do I know that the Bible is reliable and true? It's quoting from other books. What about this? Hell, he refers to it as fire and darkness. Is it really real?

What about homosexuality and Christianity? Sodom and Gamora mentioned that How? How? How can a good God be a God of justice? Damn people destroy people.

Yes. Ask all of those questions and more. Really Some of them went through your head as Reddit and gone through it. They're good questions. They're right questions. So here's a teaser. Two weeks on Sunday night we're gonna start a series 10 hard questions for Christianity and all those questions will be answered. You have to come back.

Can't deal with them all tonight. But that's a good one to invite people to, to invite fellow students to. There's a church that's wrestling through the hard things of what Christians believe,

but don't get distracted this morning. Jude wants to be clear. Destruction is coming is judgment is coming and judgment is coming because Christ is coming.

Verse 14, behold the Lord comes with 10 thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment the same. Jesus brings deliverance and destruction.

Notice the scope of his judgment. Jude employs the word all four times in verse 15 and 16. He will execute judgment on all to quote, convict all of quote all their deeds of ungodliness and quote of all the harsh things spoken. That's the scope all and the cause. He uses the same word four times as will the word ungodly. He will convict all the ungodly of all their deeds, of ungodliness that they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things

that the ungodly sinners have spoken. Destruction is coming because judgment is coming and judgment is coming because Jesus is coming. Sin will not go unpunished.

He can't allow that to happen because he's holy. Those weren't empty words you were singing this morning. That's who he is.

And Jude wants him to know that both of these are true destruction and deliverance. Don't miss this. It's either destruction or deliverance and Jesus is coming.

He's coming.

But you think back with me just in closing what you think about this. You think about that great event that's referenced here in the Old Testament, the Passover and the Jews for generations upon generations ever since that Passover day millennia ago, they've celebrated the Passover each year and they do so with feasting and they do so with singing and they do so with rejoicing and rightfully so because God on that night passed over their houses and destroyed the

Egyptians and they were delivered. So they rejoice.

Now what if Egyptians

had been celebrating each year for millennia, that same event of the Passover.

There wouldn't be rejoicing, there wouldn't be feasting, there wouldn't be singing. Same event,

one delivered, one destroyed.

Think about many of the books that I've read of American POWs, uh, during World War II that were held on Japanese islands and that moment, uh, they've been there for months and some of them for years and their emaciated bodies and lack of food and often beat. And then that day when that P 51 Mustang flew over where they for the first time saw one of those B 20 nines going over

and there was rejoicing, dancing, laughter, and the Japanese soldiers that were with them,

silence. Bowness beer, same event,

deliverance, destruction.

Jesus is coming,

Judah's screaming it to you as loud as he possibly can. Jesus is coming. Don't presume upon his grace at the end

here to believe now

he could come today, he could come this hour. You are to believe now

don't presume upon his grace and when he comes, there will be tears for some tears of surpassing joy and peace for other tears of surpassing sorrow and dread. Same event, same person. He is the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the earth. That is also the lion of the tribe of Judah. He is the good shepherd in John 10 that goes out and he gathers his sheep in his arms and he carries them to safety into refuge.

And he is also the rider on the white horse in Revelation 19 that a sword comes out of his mouth and he slays the nations and he rules them with a rod of iron. Same event, same Christ.

Destruction, deliverance

cause of the difference in experience. Look, every single person that has lived on the face of this earth, every single one of you that sit in this room this morning, surely the one that stands here this morning, every single one of us is ungodly. You have been ungodly and you are ungodly. You're ungodly. I'm ungodly. Satan was was absolutely right. Moses was a murderer.

Go back to Jude's point. What's the difference again? Go back to verse five. God destroyed these Israelites because they quote did not believe. Don't get to the last day and just presume God will be a God of grace to you. Warning us. Believe today

differences. Belief

Moses though is sinner through and through. A man who committed murder went to heaven by belief. God gives grace, but that grace is received by faith. You have to believe Moses did not deserve heaven. Satan was right, but he believed he had to deliver. As a writer of Hebrews says in that great chapter, Moses considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth in the treasures of Egypt. For he was looking to the reward by faith,

he left Egypt by faith, he kept the Passover. By faith, the people crossed the Red Sea on dry land by faith, the walls of Jericho fell by faith Rahab. The prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient by faith.

I beg you don't leave this room without having cast yourself at the foot of the cross and look at Jesus in faith. I say, that's my savior.

He comes to judge and destroy and he offers deliverance from the judgment and the destruction.

Same Christ. I love how Paul says it, where he says, he who knew no sin was made sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God

who knew no sin. Godly became ungodly for us. The weight and the guilt of your sin, the penalty for your sin upon the cross. So that why, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

He was destroyed. If we can say it that way on the cross so that you might be delivered.

Jesus said in John five, truly, truly, I say to you, you whoever hears my word and believes him, who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment

this past death, the life.

That's a promise.

I pray it's true for you this morning. Pray

our Father, we bow before you this morning, thankful that you are a holy God.

I'm thankful that you are a merciful God. We

would be lost apart from your mercy. Our Father pray for every soul in this room. They would know the comfort of a savior who is a deliverer. They would know what a joy it is to serve a God who upholds justice and righteousness forevermore. We pray this in the strong name of Christ. Amen.