Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said with all your hearts, Amen. So today we are going to look at what is one of the most loaded passages of the Bible. Loaded that is with references and quotes that spark a lot of confusion, debate and speculation. And not only that, but it's loaded because it addresses a very, very unpopular topic,

God's judgment.

Welcome to week two of our sermon series on the book of Jude. Now, Jude wrote this letter, it's a letter in the Bible, and we call it a book, but it's actually a letter that he wrote to some Christians, and the main thrust of this letter

is a call for Christians to contend, to fight, to stand firm for the faith, to have conviction, and to show in every area of our lives. Jude is a brother of Jesus Christ. Now, Jude once was noted to not believe that his brother was the Messiah. But we now see that Jude not only believes, but Jude is a primary advocate for the faith in the early church, even going so far as to write, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, a letter that we get to

read and be challenged and encouraged by 2000 years later. Today, we're going to see that we're called to contend. Now last week, last week, we looked at how the fight is now. It's not later. The fight is now. It's not a passive call.

It's what we are to do with our lives every moment to always be pressing forward. We are to contend. And today, we're going to look at this one notion here. That we are going to contend because the judgment is real. Last week we looked at how the fight is now. Today, the judgment is real. So please, this is going to be a sermon where you're really going to want to have your Bibles open. Turn to the book of Jude.

Quick reference, it's the second to the very last book of the Bible. If you want to use the Bibles we provided, that's on page 1308. Happy for you to do that. Otherwise, if you need to, quickly download the Bible app. This is a passage. We're really going to want it in front of you today.

Now, I already told you it's going

to be the longest section we're going

to tackle in this sermon series. We're going to look at verses 5 to 16 today. Now, let me just say one thing real quick before we read our passage. We typically stand for the reading of God's word, but it is a longer section.

So if you're not able to do that, then just stand with us in spirits, but I would say to the rest of us, if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word? 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 own positions 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 indulge

in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desires, served as an example by undergoing the 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 blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, for they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain and abandon themselves for the sake of gain to

Balaam's error and perish in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs that your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear. Shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by the 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. It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with his ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of their deeds of ungodliness

that have been committed in such an ungodly way. In all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him, these are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loud mouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

This is God's word.

Let's pray, if you would remain standing, let's pray and we will continue. Father in heaven above, we come before you on this day, glorifying and praising your name, because you are our holy God. Please continue to send the spirit

that we might know your word and your will. Father, please guard me from saying things that are untrue and unhelpful. For we pray these things in the name of our only savior, Jesus Christ. And everyone said it with all your hearts, amen, amen.

Go ahead, have a seat.

Let's just say it now.

The truth is, far too many churches are afraid to announce what we're going to talk about here today. Here's the other truth. Far too many Christians will leave a church if it announces the things we're going to preach here today. And it's primarily this, that we must contend for the faith because the judgment is real. It's an odd thing. It's an odd thing that on one hand We want justice. We long for justice. You know what justice is?

Justice is when everything is made right when everything is made as it should be we long and we want for justice. But there's no justice without judgment. So on the one hand we want justice, but on the other hand, we don't want God's judgment. Listen to me. Just like how you cannot have God's will without God's timing,

you cannot have God's justice without God's judgments. My friends, and the judgment is real. If you believe there's a real standard, if you have a hope that one day things will be as they should be, if you believe in a hope of justice,

then you must understand that it will come via judgment. That there is a God in heaven who keeps the standard and he will restore all things. And we long for that. But we have to understand the path towards that is through God's judgment.

But make no mistake about who the judge is, my friends. The judge himself is Jesus Christ. Jesus says this, he says in John 5, 22, that the Father, God the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son, to Jesus. Jude even reminds us of this in this letter.

But here is the loving call out specifically to Peace Church. As one of your pastors, in love, I wanna pass to you for just a moment and give you a loving call out. I know that in this passage, there are people in here

who are more interested about what I have to say about Enoch than you are concerned about God's judgment. And that needs to get called out and recognized. You are missing the point of this passage if this is your most interested part about what we're gonna say today.

Make no mistake, we will address Enoch. But we'll put Enoch in his rightful place, that writing of Enoch in his rightful place. It's under the banner of the overarching notion that God had Jude write this letter for, and that's to announce that judgment is coming, but within that there is a great hope. And so, we're going to examine a few things about judgment, and then, Christians, then we'll talk about Enoch.

But first and foremost, there's three things I want to talk about. And the first one is this, that the judgment is real upon all creation. Judgment is real upon all creation. Bibles open, if you can, please. I've only got 30 minutes and we're burning daylights. Let's get through this.

In our opening section, three verses, verses five to seven, we see important things that we need to take note of because Jude is painting a pretty grim picture here, but understand it's also a very powerful picture. This is incredible. So the first thing we noticed is that Jude ascribes the actions of the God of the Old Testament to Jesus Thereby helping us to know and to remember and to see that Jesus is the God of both the Old and the

New Testament The actions of the God of the Old Testament are the actions of Christ, namely salvation and judgment. So in verse 5, we see that how God's people were destroyed after they were saved out of Egypt. That God saves the people out of Egypt, but the unbelieving Hebrews were destroyed. This verse 5 is referencing Numbers chapter 14.

That's verse 5.

Verse 6, we see that God's angels are judged because of their pride. These are members of the angelic host who were cast from heaven. That's verse 6. Now verse 7, we see that God punishes the world because of its sin.

We see this in the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah, when people went against God's decrees for holy sexuality. So verse 5, God judges his own people. Verse 6, God judges the angels. Verse 7, God judges the world. All face judgment because God's judgment is real

upon all creation. And the unifying peace among all three of those is simply this, they rejected God and his plan. And with that, they pursued their own personal desires which always leads to sin in God because he is a good and righteous and just God,

he will judge sin. And that makes him a good God. He judges sin, whether it's his people, whether it's his angels, or upon the world, he judges and brings judgment because he's just. It's a good and righteous God who holds sin to account.

Now, let's take a breather. I know that was a lot. Let's take a breather and just have a heart to heart. Listen, I know that we are just in week three of this awesome new space that God has provided for us. And this is probably not the message

that many of us want to hear. But I'm here to tell you, the greatest news to be found can be found and is found in this very passage. If we are willing to wade through some of the hard to hear truths, you'll hear

the greatest possible news. So let's be patient and let's sift through what God has revealed, because we're going to see not just hard truth, but good news. So the first thing we realize is that God judges upon, His judgment is upon all creation, which leads to the second part, that God's judgment is real, so be on guard. If you missed last week, let me catch up to speed.

If you were here, let me remind you. This whole letter of Jude is written in response to a group of people who had become part of the church, but who were now using God's love and grace as a license to continue in their sin. They were part of the church, and some of them probably were even teachers. And Jude said that judgment is coming for them.

And Jude shows us that God's judgment has already come because he's already showed throughout the pages of scripture that it's come upon God's people, God's angels, and God's world. And so Jude's presenting this argument and now it's going to come upon them. He says this in verse 8, Yet in a like manner these people, the ones he's talking about in this letter, these false Christians. These people also relying on their dreams,

defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. It almost seems like he's speaking to us here and now. He's saying, what he's basically saying is that these people are spiritual people, but they're not godly people.

And I don't know if you are aware of this, but spiritualism and the occult is massively on the rise. Thanks to the internet and social media and things feeling like they're safe, people are exploring spiritualism, but it's not godliness. And let me just tell you,

spiritualism apart from Christ is incredibly dangerous. It's wicked and it's evil and you're playing with demons. And we're gonna see how this argument has continued to be made. So he's saying they're spiritual, but they're not godly. They seek out dreams rather than God's word. They engage in sinful

behavior thereby rejecting God's authority and probably locally they're rejecting the authority of their own elders. And then Jude says this quote, let's hang on this one for a second. He says this quote, they blaspheme the glorious ones. Now what's that? What are the glorious ones? Now one might think that Judah speaking about angels and he might be, but Peter uses this very same language in second Peter to clearly speak of demons, meaning these people are playing spiritual, but they're playing with demons, which by the way, spirituality apart from Christ

is always demonic, but these people were blaspheming. What is more powerful than them without the covering of Christ. And Jude says, this is wrong and dangerous and he does so and he presents his argument by addressing a section that many of us have been waiting for me to comment on so to announce how dangerous it is what these people are doing this is what Jude says verse 9 says 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. Okay, so where's that story in the Bible? Didn't cover that Sunday school, because that story is not in the Bible.

That Jude, what Jude is doing here, he's quoting from a text that the Jews would have been very familiar with during this time. It was a writing called the Testament of Moses, or also called the Assumption of Moses. And what it was, it was like a story-like writing

about the life of Moses. And the Jews would have been very familiar with it at that time. But listen to me, they did not see it as scripture, nor did they see it as God's word. Now, that does not mean it was not helpful or formative.

We will often use narratives that are inspired by faith to help us understand God's word and his will. We do this when I geek out and quote things like the Lord of the Rings. I can pull, or the Princess Bride, yeah. I can pull stories with godly themes to help us better understand and better relate to what's being taught in Scripture. So what's Jude doing here? Here's kind of how I understand it.

It's like Judah saying, guys, we do not come to demons on our own. We can only engage them under God's authority. Remember that story from the Testament of Moses? Even the archangel Michael didn't even blaspheme the devil, but simply relied upon the Lord. That's kind of how I understand what's happening here. Now, for sake of time, I'd love to spend more time on verse 10, but let me just kind of summarize verse 10 for you so we can continue. Here what Judah is doing in verse 10 is Judah is talking about how we can

recognize false Christians because they are carnal people who follow the cravings of their flesh rather than the will of God's spirit. And it's going to bring their destruction because God will judge them for their sinful acts. Because what they're doing is they're following their own desires rather than God's decrees. And Jude says this in verse 11, Woe to them. Tell you what, if there's three words in the Bible you do not want directed at you,

it is woe to them. Woe to them. But then in verses 12 and 13, Jude goes on to list actual other proper Bible stories of people going against God's commandment and receiving God's judgment. If you're taking notes, you can write this down. He cites Cain from Genesis 4.

He cites Balaam from Numbers 22. And he cites Korah from Numbers 16. There's your Bible study for later if you want to hear more about God judging people's sin. But Jude warns his audience, and by extension, the Holy Spirit is warning us to be aware of these people

because they are not just headed for destruction themselves, but what's happening is that they are corrupting the good things that are happening within the church. Listen to what he calls them, and just imagine you being called out like this. This is what he says about these people.

He says, they are hidden reefs, shepherds who only feed themselves, waterless clouds, fruitless trees.

Ouch.

Do you understand what he's basically saying? He's saying they're dangerous, selfish, and useless. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This does not certainly sound like the everybody's welcome vibe we get from modern day churches, now does it? He's basically saying they're dangerous, selfish, and useless.

But listen to me. If you think that's harsh, you have to understand a couple things. First thing is this. As we said last week, these are people who are calling themselves Christians,

maybe even teachers, who are not truly following Christ. What they're doing is harming the church, and that cannot be tolerated. But not only that, but secondly, as you'll see in the coming weeks, Jude actually says some incredibly patient and compassionate things towards unbelievers and how Christians are to engage in unbelieving

world. You have to come back next week to hear more about that. But the warning is this judgment is coming for people who will use God's love and God's grace as a license to sin. And this, first and foremost, above anything else, this is a call out for you to look in the mirror

to make sure you're not doing that first. If you are so discerning to be able to root that out in yourself, then you can help be part of the conversation to make sure that's not happening amongst God's church and Jesus' bride. This is a call to be discerning and a call to be on guard

first and foremost for your own heart, but then also zealous and be passionate for Jesus' bride, which is the church. And so, be on guard, but also the third thing we see is this, the judgment is real because so is justice. And finally, we'll get to the book of Enoch.

So in speaking about these false or fake Christians, Jude says this, verse 14. He says, it was about these, these fake Christians, that Enoch, the seven from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the Lord comes with his 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly

of 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. How many times can you say ungodly in one sentence?

Goodness. So what's going on here?

So here's what's happening. Jude is quoting from the book of Enoch, particularly 1 Enoch chapter one. In case you didn't know, there's actually three books of Enoch in ancient literature. But the point he's making is simple.

He's saying the fact that these people are in the church should come at no surprise. It's long been foretold that false believers will arise. And likewise, it should be of no surprise that these people are headed for condemnation based on God's abundant history

of bringing judgment upon the sinful, which we've already looked at. So we get the point, Jude. Judgment is coming. Jude, you've clearly made this point. But that still leaves many of us with the question,

what about the book of Enoch? Well, first off, here's what you need to know. Both the Old Testament Jews and the New Testament Christians neither believe this book or any of the books called Enoch to be canon worthy and included in the Bible. Just like the testimony of Moses, you need to understand these books were not hidden away, they were not kept secret, they were universally seen and known and believed to be helpful in faith, but they were not authoritatively inspired by God. In fact, the book Enoch does a lot of quoting of the Old Testament, thus

proving Enoch did not write it. But here's a fair question. Does the fact that the Bible quotes Enoch and the assumption of Moses, does that mean therefore they should be in the Bible? The answer is no. The Bible at times quotes writings outside of itself, but it does not mean that those writings

themselves were inspired in their original writing. Rather, it means that God chose to use those words as he inspired the writers of the Bible to compose the scriptures. No one is hiding these books. Go buy them on Amazon if you're so interested. There's no conspiracy theory. They're available if you want to go use them, if you want to go look at them. But you might say Jude seems very specific here. Jude says Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied.

Pastor, that seems very specific. Yes, because he's quoting from the book. It's like if I were to quote Aslan, the son of the emperor beyond the sea, I'm not thereby bestowing personhood upon Aslan, I'm simply quoting the Chronicles of Narnia to help us understand God's truth all the more.

There's no conspiracy, so let's recap. No, Enoch should not be in the Bible. No, Enoch is not God's word. Yes, Enoch is a helpful book that the early Jews used. No, you don't have to use it. No, there's no conspiracy to keep it out of the Bible.

Yes, God can use the writings of Enoch to reveal true things. No, I haven't read it. Yes, you can buy on Amazon. No, I won't buy it for you. And finally, yes, we currently are woefully off topic right now. The topic, my friends, is God's judgments. And we need to focus on the message of Enoch. Jude is warning us that God will set things right, that yes, his justice is coming, the restoration of all things is before us. The universe will not fizzle out into oblivion. God will come and restore

things to how they should be. There is a glorious end that we long for. Justice is coming, my friends, but it's coming through judgment, judging the wicked. And if you think I'm not that wicked, I don't play with demons, I'm fairly safe. I would just ask you to listen how Jude goes on to describe these people in the very last verse

that we'll look at right now. In verse 16, Jude says this, listen to this list. "'These are grumblers, malcontents, "'following their own sinful desires. They're loud mouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

Let's flesh this out real quick. Grumblers, aka gossips and complainers. Social media.

They're malcontents.

You know what the word is we use nowadays?

Curmudgeons.

These are the curmudgeons. If something's going good, they always think it's happening for the wrong reason. They're never happy. There's always something wrong. They're always looking for something to be wrong.

They're malcontent. They're not happy. Also says that they're following their own sinful desires, aka modern Americans. The fourth thing he says, they're loud mouth boasters. They're prideful people.

They celebrate themselves. Then he says that they show favoritism to gain advantage. Now the old term would be apple polishers, and if you understood that reference, you got gray hair. Jude is painting a picture with these descriptions, and it's this, that these people are self-serving rather than selfless. And that should be a distinguishing mark between Christians and the rest of the world.

The rest of the world should be the self-serving, selfish ones. We should be the selfless ones, knowing that all we have, God has given to us so that we might use it for his glory in this world. He's saying they're the opinionated ones,

we should be the grateful ones. They're the spiritual and prideful people. We should be the humble and godly people. Jude is saying God's judgment is coming because God's justice is real. Justice will reign, but it will come on the heels of judgments. So if you think that you can look at your life and you're not guilty of any of the things

that we're talking about here, I'm telling you, you are blind to your own sin. But I think most people will be honest enough to look at these passages and see remnants of themselves, if not actually feeling like they're looking at a mirror.

And what that means is,

God's judgment is rightly coming for you. And that means that you should be rightly terrified about this. This is the hard truth. But you must remember in Jesus Christ we have not just hard truth, but we have good news. And that's what we're here to celebrate.

And the good news was found in the very first verse we read today. Verse five. Verse five declares that Jesus saves. He is the Savior of the Old Testament. He is the Savior of the New Testament. Jesus is the God in the flesh who lived without sin, making him the perfect sacrifice for sin, that was able to pay our debts, to take our penalty with his death on the cross. And his death led to his resurrection, which is proof that Jesus is who he said he is. And it's proof that through him we cannot just have eternal life as good as that is, but we can have eternal life in the presence of God.

That through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are welcomed to God's own table. That there is a seat prepared for us there by the blood of Jesus. It's only through the gospel that you can be saved.

In fact, at the end of your life,

you need to know that you bring nothing before God except your sin and your shame, and you will stand there naked unless and here's the good news unless you've called upon the name Jesus Christ at which point you're not standing there naked in your sin and shame you're standing there clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and God when he looks upon you he does not see

the sin of the world he sees the righteousness of his own son and this is the good news that we can be that can be found in the pages of scripture that Jesus saves. So hear me, if you are a person who's only plain Christian, then leave that life behind right now. Find new and eternal life that can only be found

through the love of God in Christ Jesus. If you are a Christian who's contending for the faith, then let me ask you, have you gotten comfortable? If you have, wake up, oh sleeper. The fight is now. Judgment is coming.

We need all of the church on the front lines. And one of the ways that we do that is standing shoulder to shoulder. Even in rows, we stand spiritually shoulder to shoulder as we sing praises to God. Because when we lift up our praises to God,

we are declaring before the Lord and before the world who is king. And his name is Jesus Christ. You bring nothing before God except all the reasons you should be condemned. So that's why we say, and that's why we're about to sing, that all you have is Christ. You will bring nothing with you from this world.

All that you can bring is your faith in Jesus Christ. Christ is all that you have. The thanks be to God, He's all that you need. And that's what we get to worship here, that's what we get to declare to each other and to the world. This is how we contend for the faith, by lifting up the name of Jesus. Amen? So let's stand is how we contend for the faith, by lifting up the name of Jesus. Amen? So let's stand

and do that now.