And you think if I lean on and
you think, well, it must be Paul's epistle
to Jude.
But no, this is Jude's own epistle.
And as it tells us, Jude was a
brother of James and has written here a
tremendous epistle just preceding the book of Revelation.
And last week, in connection with our expanded
studies in Hebrews and Revelation and Jude and
the Second Coming, I exposited on the third
and fourth verses of this short epistle.
But the seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth verses
are really the key in this epistle.
It's just one chapter.
And that says, But beloved, remember ye the
words which were spoken before the apostles of
our Lord Jesus how that they told you
there should be mockers in the last time.
You shouldn't be concerned about this.
It's a tragedy that minds can be so
deluded of Satan that they become mockers.
But it should not disturb the born-again
Christian, because he's been warned by God in
his word that precisely these conditions would prevail.
And this is a very important thing for
believers to understand.
God has told us there will be a
falling away first, before the Lord comes.
God has told us that violence will fill
the earth before the Lord comes.
So when we see this word violence thrown
all over the newspapers, it should say to
you, the Lord is coming.
Violence, it said, should fill the earth.
It's not confined to the United States.
It's happening all over the world.
You can go to practically any nation and
find violence is prevalent, whether it's in conflicts
of war or whether it's in its internal
affairs.
So that these things will prevail in the
last days, and there will be a falling
away.
And here we're told.
Jude says, remember, you were told so that
you won't have any problems.
This is important for the believer.
Otherwise your faith is going to be swayed
by what you see.
And faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen.
If what you see sways your faith, it's
not faith, because it's not the things that
are seen.
Faith goes way beyond this, you see.
Faith is believing God at his word without
any reservations.
And that when God says here, now remember
ye the words which were spoken before of
the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how
that they told you, or warned you, that
there should be mockers in the last time
who should walk after their own ungodly lusts,
who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
And as the third verse says over here,
that they are, or the fourth verse, that
they are lascivious.
These people right within the church, preachers in
the pulpit, theologians, new form of theology, freedom,
sensuality.
Isn't it, isn't it tremendous how God places
it before our eyes?
And I want to say this, and yet
the human mind and the mind of the
flesh is of such a character, the carnal
mind, that even when God says it, they
question that old mind there.
Even Paul, you know, when he talks about
it in Romans 7, he says, the mind
of the flesh battles against the mind of
the spirit.
There's a continual war in my members, the
flesh against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh.
The old flesh cries out and tries to
bring you into bondage.
It's the last days, let's have a good
time.
It's a lot of philosophy around like that
today, isn't it?
What do you think the philosophy of a
lot of youth is today?
War, conflict, everything's going to end, have a
ball.
Right?
Have a ball.
Enjoy it to the fullest.
Well, that's exactly what God is trying to
warn the Christian of, you see.
He says, remember, mockers are going to come.
They will be within the church organized.
You will hear it from pulpits.
And because of your carnal nature, we're still
flesh, whether you're redeemed or no, you've still
got the same kind of flesh.
And he says that since you have a
nature that is bent towards sin, be careful
that you don't follow some preacher who allows
you license for your sin.
There are all kinds of false teachers abroad.
All you'd have to do is, as I've
said so many times, is read your newspapers.
Someone just gave me this as I walked
into the church today and said, better not
read it before your message.
It'll probably shock you.
I said, nothing shocks me anymore.
Oh, these here, you know, I was thinking
of false teachers.
There are the kind of false teachers you
ought to be able to be conscious of
without me even talking.
When I was in New York a few
weeks ago, in one block's time, you know,
these people give out those things, you know,
to you.
They aren't tracts.
But in one block from 59th to 60th
Street on Lexington Avenue, I was walking along
there, and in one block I saw them
giving out these things so inquisitive, you know,
I figured I'm going to see what they
say.
Most people, you know, brush it off.
I want to see what they've got to
say.
So I went over and I took one,
and then I took the next.
I thought, well, maybe they're the same thing,
but they're not the same thing.
This one here says, Mrs. Russell, gifted reader
and advisor, phrenology, card readings, guarantees results in
three days, gives never-failing advice on all
the affairs of life, helps on matters such
as love, business, marriage, etc.
All readings are private and strictly confidential, offers
hours 9 to 9.30, Sunday by appointments,
located in her private apartment at, I won't
give you the address, parlor floor, phone number.
This one here is Sister Lisa and Pauline,
healer, reader, advisor.
Listen, you know, I'd laugh at this, except
that I happen to know that some of
the biggest financiers go to these people to
know how to play the stock market.
Dreadful to say.
Have you read some of the men who
go to these people?
Their names would amaze you.
Some of the men high in government are
going to these palm readers to know what
to do next.
Boy, we're in good hands.
Says, will not only tell you, but will
help you solve your problems.
Don't classify her with others.
She succeeds where others fail.
She's been given power by God to heal
the sick and the ailing by prayer.
She can and will help you as no
other can.
She's helped thousands from all walks of life.
You've read about her in the papers.
I never have, but I mean, they say
you have.
Now located in this area for the first
time.
Don't fail to see it.
Listen to this.
Will advise on love, marriage, business, health, wills,
lawsuits, luck, alcoholics, happiness, spells, success, and evil
influences of all kinds.
Tell all your friends, because it tells you
who your friends are and who your enemies
are.
Why suffer?
Now this kind of thing, I don't suppose,
you know, it stands a laugh from us.
But if we knew the names of some
of the people who went to these for
advice, our hearts would be very shocked.
But this was given to me as I
came in.
40 seminarians here to revolutionize the approach to
theology.
This is out of New York Times.
This is Catholics and Protestants together.
Sister Kathleen Daly, Catholic sister, gives her order.
Mary Knoll, dressed in a light gray jumper
and a turquoise sweater, sat sipping beer at
Clancy's.
This is where they meet.
Here's the picture, see?
Here they are, all the theologians.
All gathered around the beer cake, going to
decide now what theology we're going to have
next.
She philosophizes about what she and her friends
are going to do to theology.
We're reversing the whole process, she said.
We're starting with life itself and man.
You might say we're going to create truth.
That's a job.
Methodists and Mennonite students at Union Theological Seminary,
Mary Knoll seminaries, seminarians from Arsening, 31-year
-old nun from the Religious of the Sacred
Heart, completing a college degree in history, are
going to discuss ecumenical education.
Students from both traditions contend that the content
of religious belief must be redefined on a
basis that has little relation to any denominations.
The day has passed, the Catholic nun said,
when the rule of the pope or the
bishop is simply to make decisions and lay
out the absolutes for us.
They have to become listeners and learners like
the rest of us.
They ought to be charismatic types who see
their job as turning us on, turning us
on and supporting us in doing our own
things.
And this is the theology that we're going
to have.
There shall be mockers in the last times,
mockers in the last times.
Now, beloved, we could repeat that over and
over again.
The lasciviousness, the tremendous war against marriage, if
I can say, of which there's a tremendous
war, that marriage should be cast out.
Even though Timothy warns of this in his
epistle, Timothy says, the Spirit speaks expressly that
in the last times some shall depart from
the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and
the doctrines of devils, speaking lies and hypocrisy,
having their conscience seared with a hot iron,
forbidding to marry.
So you pick up the newspapers, here it
is, case against marriage.
This from some of the theological experts.
Marriage should be abolished on the grounds that
it fails to meet the needs of modern
society.
There are now 22.5 illegitimate births in
every 1,000.
There is a tendency of youth in general
to subscribe to the theory that you don't
have to get married to engage in any
marriage relationships.
For centuries we've been forcing men and women,
they said, to conform to the mold of
marriage, when what we should be doing is
changing marriage to suit the convenience and the
happinesses of all people.
How shall we do this, he said?
He proposed that marriage becomes a non-legal
voluntary association between a man and a woman,
and that you have a test for five
years, and if it doesn't work, forget it.
Children born during that five years would be
given over to the state.
Now I don't think you have to go
far, do you?
How to find this kind of thing?
And here the scripture is very clear that
in the latter days these would be the
very things that we would be facing.
Now notice, he says here, the fourth verse,
there are certain men crept in unawares that
were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, turning the grace of our God
into lasciviousness.
That's what they're doing.
Throw out the grace of God.
A brand new theology.
Get rid of this grace.
This is not our concern.
A new theology.
A theology in which man decides what man
is going to do.
And denying by doing this, notice this, if
you engage in this process of lasciviousness, of
all of these freedoms that man is crying
out for, you do by this deny the
Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.
That's what it says.
They engage in this, and by doing it,
they deny that Christ is personal Savior.
May I say this to any individual?
If any are engaging in any lascivious relationship,
you are denying that you're saved.
You cannot live in it.
Oh, as I've said, you may have your
failure and your fall, but you will bounce
back so fast because you're a child of
God that it will be absolutely tremendous, that
comeback, because of the great weight in your
heart over the depth of your sin.
But to live in it, notice what it
says.
Don't escape the Word of God.
Don't try to beat around the bush.
I'm sick of people trying to find loopholes
in the Word of God for what to
do.
There are no loopholes.
It says if you engage in lasciviousness, you're
lost.
Let me be clear.
It says precisely that.
You say by doing it, you are denying
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, then he follows with four verses that
are tremendous.
And in these verses, he does something that
might escape us unless we're very, very careful.
He tells us about these people, who they
are.
Watch out, he says, they creep in unawares
into the fellowship.
You don't recognize it.
You may not see them.
Like the parable of the wheat and the
tares, there's an admixture.
In every congregation, there are those who are
engaging in some sin.
There's no congregation that is completely pure.
Because of who we are, what we are,
you can be sure that there is some
defiling sin somewhere.
And that sin is what has held the
church down over the centuries, that it has
not been the great dynamic and the power.
It should be before man, for God.
And so he sets down a certain principle.
He says, I want you to notice that
these men who creep in unawares and who
preach these damnable heresies, who preach that free
love is all right, that the marriage covenant
we should cast out.
He says, remember, the apostles of Jesus Christ
warned you about these things, so you're not
ever going to be put before my judgment
seat and claim ignorance.
You know it.
The preacher in the pulpit told you time
and time again.
He warned you that this was going to
happen.
And you saw it all around you.
And I warned you that in the last
time, let me say, this never happened as
it is in this day before.
Oh, the pagan nations have worshipped sex and
sin and all the rest.
And the gods of the pagan nations had
great followings because of what they worshipped.
They worshipped the flesh.
But the church of Jesus Christ at this
time is being defiled by preachers who say
that this is perfectly all right, in high
places, in high authority, in the hierarchy of
the church, proclaiming that it is perfectly all
right.
If you were to look to the Archbishop
of London, if you were to look to
the men in the United States, some of
the bishops in the churches, if you were
to look to these men and read their
statements, you would have to say the word
of God is clear.
These are the last days, and we'd better
be careful.
We'd better begin to discern what's right, what's
wrong.
And you have that discernment, and the word
of God is right before you.
It's clear.
Now, notice what he says in these verses.
Concerning these men, he says, there are certain
men crept in unawares who will be foreordained
of this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness and denying the
only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now notice, I will therefore put you in
remembrance.
I was going to do something tremendous here
that might escape us.
I therefore would put you in remembrance.
And then he puts, and I put parentheses
around it, though ye once knew this, you
once understood, but you seem to have forgotten,
how that the Lord, having saved the people
out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed
them that believed not.
And the angels which kept not their first
estate, but left their own habitation, he hath
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the
judgment of the great day.
Then he says, even as, and he makes
a comparison, even as Sodom and Gomorrah and
the cities about them in like manner, giving
themselves over to fornication, he compares them with
the pagans, giving themselves over to fornication and
going after strange flesh outside the marriage covenants,
outside the covenant of Israel.
These are those in the marriage covenant, defiling
the marriage covenant.
Remember in Hebrews, it says, keep the marriage
bed undefiled.
This is the verdict.
This is the judgment of God.
The marriage bed is the marriage bed.
And that's it.
It's complete.
There's nothing else.
Keep it undefiled.
It's only meant for the man and the
wife.
That's all.
And he says here, he's very clear, notice,
he says that as Sodom and Gomorrah in
like manner gave themselves over to fornication and
went after strange flesh, sometimes the nation of
Israel got involved with and married wrongly, going
after strange flesh, are set forth as an
example to you, suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire.
Likewise, these that he's just mentioned, these teachers,
these filthy dreamers, boy, you can see them
all around, defile the flesh, despise dominion and
speak evil of dignity.
Now, what is he saying?
Number one, he's saying, I want to give
you an example, lest you get mixed up
here and have an idea you're saved and
you're living in your sin.
You're not.
If you can habitually sin and it doesn't
bother you in the least, forget it, he
says.
Notice what he does.
He does two things.
He takes an earthly people.
He takes here, first of all, Israel.
Here's the earthly people of God.
Here are those who traveled along with Israel.
There was an apparent relationship to God because
they traveled with Israel.
Remember Paul saying, all that say they're of
Israel are not Israel, but those which have
the faith of Abraham.
What was Abraham's faith?
Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto
him for righteousness.
And so he takes the nation of Israel
and he says, remember now, they were delivered
out of the land of Egypt.
And the travelers who went along with them
looked like Israel, the people of God.
They were Jews.
Here's Franklin Avenue.
We all look the same.
Here's the parable of the New Testament, the
wheat and the tale.
God says, I want to remind you of
something.
They're in your fellowship and they feast with
you at the Lord's table.
That's what he's going to say in this
epistle.
They feast with you at the Lord's table,
but I want to warn you of something.
Just because you go to Franklin Avenue or
just because you're classed in with a fundamental
church doesn't save your soul.
He says, I remind you that they went
along with Israel.
They traveled with them.
They received the blessings of God.
There was a shekinah glory.
There was a cloud by day, pillar of
fire by night.
They saw it all.
But what does it say?
He saved the people out of the land
of Egypt, all the deliverances.
But what?
And afterward he destroyed them.
Because what?
They didn't believe.
Here was the deliverance of God.
He says, here's the people had an earthly
relationship.
I want to warn you.
He says, even so, don't get any misconceptions.
Those that live in lasciviousness are denying the
Lord Jesus as Savior.
I want no misconceptions.
I'm going to give you an example.
Israel went as a body.
And if you'd have looked at them, you
couldn't have told which was saved and which
was not.
I took them out of the land of
Egypt and I delivered them.
And then I destroyed those that did not
believe.
Just the fact that we travel with the
cloud that's in the church doesn't mean that
we're saved.
Because saved is a personal matter.
Number two.
He says, I want to tell you some
more.
He says, I'm going to take you to
a higher strain so that you have no
misconception.
The very angels of God, whom God created
and made and formed and allowed to be
part of his creation and who are to
respond to him in worship.
These who had a relationship to God by
creation, and that's what the world says today,
there's a great cry today.
Oh, let me tell you, beloved, you're going
to hear some fundamental men saying things that
are going to amaze you.
There are fundamental preachers today who are preaching
from their pulpits universalism.
Salvation is for all.
Christ died for all and everybody's going to
be saved regardless.
And it's coming from some mighty good pulpits
throughout this land.
And the reason for it is that when
they were in the Billy Grain Conference over
in Berlin, some of these men came in,
contrary to Billy's wishes, and preached this thing.
And the reason they preached it was this.
They said the Chinese nation, which will soon
be one billion people, you'll never convert them
because they worship their ancestors.
And if you tell them their ancestors are
lost, forget it.
So tell them their ancestors are saved and
you can come in.
Faith in Christ is not necessary.
Universalism.
All are saved regardless.
So first he takes the nation of Israel,
earthly people.
He says, I want you to notice they
all travel together, but only those that believe
were saved.
Those that would believe not were destroyed.
I want you to notice, secondly, that in
my own economy with angels, here's what I
did.
I had an angelic creation before you were
ever thought of or created.
I didn't consider you at that moment.
I knew what was coming.
I knew the failure of Satan, Lucifer, the
chosen archangel of God.
I knew what would happen.
I knew he would deceive my angelic creation
and would sweep out, as the scripture says,
a third of all that angelic creation.
And he says, knowing that, I want you
to notice that these very ones who occupied
heaven's pavilions itself, when they fell and followed
him, they did not believe me.
And I have reserved them in chains for
eternal destruction.
He says, lest you get any foolish idea
that my judgment is not true.
It's true.
And then he says, after he says it
to them, he says, even as Sodom and
Gomorrah, this is exactly it's going to be.
He says, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, I
want to remind you of that too, he
says.
Sodom and Gomorrah, with all of its sin,
remember that the only ones redeemed were his
wife even wasn't redeemed.
He says, I even divide families.
Just because you're in the same family doesn't
mean a thing.
So, he takes a nation, Israel, he says,
now don't think that you're, you know, this
United States, godly country.
You're in the United States because you're in
the United States or because you're some part
of some church or somebody or you're a
fundamentalist or all the rest.
He says, I want to tell you something.
Those who engage in lasciviousness and live it
are those who are the mockers who are
coming in the last time.
They'll teach you damnable things.
I want to tell you their verdict is
just.
Don't let them fool you because you remember
Israel were my people.
Do you think they got away with it?
You know what it says in the Old
Testament?
In one day he slew twenty and three
thousand men for their sin.
They didn't get away with it.
He said, I destroyed them and I want
you to notice the angels too.
They thought they could get away with it
and I want to tell you they're chained
for eternal fire.
Even so, Sodom and Gomorrah, they also, then
what does he say in the next verse?
Likewise, also these filthy dreamers who have some
idea.
In other words, you can live in this
free society.
You can do as you please.
You ignore the law of God completely.
You say that, well, we can do anything
we please.
It's a new generation.
It's a new approach.
Everything's new now.
And he warns, he says, now, likewise, I
want to tell you that these filthy dreamers
defile the flesh.
They despise dominion and they speak evil of
dignities.
Defile the flesh.
I've said enough about that.
Despise the dominion of God.
Well, you can say God is dead or
what difference does it make?
Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we
die.
So they despise dominion and they speak evil
of dignities.
Oh, listen, the greatest dignity of life, if
I can say so, is the glorious privilege
God has given a man and a woman
of procreation.
This is the deepest, holiest dignity of life.
Every time I remember down through the years
when I labored in an office, every time,
and this was before I was saved, I
would hear a dirty story, a double-tongued
story I'd have in my mind because I'd
been taught there was a God by my
parents.
And I had that thought, how can you
talk about this privilege God has given man?
The holiest dignity of all life is this
fact that God has given us.
Anybody who cracks dirty jokes about sex doesn't
know what sex is.
Sex is a glorious privilege God has given
to man.
Why did he give this to us?
Because he loved us and gave us an
appetite that was holy and pure and wonderful,
only that we should have it guided by
the Lord Jesus Christ into a glorious marriage
relationship which would so picture to our hearts
Christ's love for his church, for that's what
it's supposed to do in all of its
glory.
And he gave it to us for that
purpose because it says in the scriptures, you
can read it in Ephesians, the fifth chapter,
that marriage is a picture of Christ and
his church.
And then they speak evil of the dignities
of the world today.
You listen to men speak.
It amazes me when I read the newspapers
and I see the four-letter curse words.
I have no feelings for the police of
Chicago, but when I heard some of the
things those men shouted at them and called
their mothers and fathers to try to anger
them, you see, it really is a burden
to hear evil spoken and shouted out.
And even today, listen, from the time I
was at Boyle now, the approach even to
the President of the United States is different.
We say things about his family and his
wife and we fool and we kid and
we don't give them the place of dignity
God called upon us to give in our
government.
When we begin to get back to those
things that God wants us to be, where
he says, don't defile the flesh, number one,
and don't you despise my dominion and don't
speak evil of dignities and live the life
that God wants you to live on a
holy plain, then we'll begin to see things
happen in this nation.
Oh yes, there'll be mockers in the last
time.
And God here says very clearly, I want
to tell you something.
Just as Israel traveled together, and a lot
of them, remember, are destroyed and lost forever
because they did not believe me.
Even as the angels, my own creation, I
had to cast out from heaven and they
reserved in chains for everlasting darkness.
Even like Sodom and Gomorrah, where only one
man in a family was served because he
believed and his wife was not, so shall
it be.
Likewise, these men who preach to you liberty
of license are going the same place.
Tremendous lesson, but I have to say this.
God warns that in the last days, he
says, if it were possible, even the elect
would be deceived.
He says it's going to be so terrible
with these vile teachers coming in in their
clerical robes, in their clerical collars, or like
myself, preaching from pulpits, preaching damnable heresies to
you.
He says if some of the elect were
to get under that kind of teaching, it's
nearly possible that they would be deceived.
He says it's not possible their hearts will
finally understand that what they're hearing is a
lie.
But oh, I warn you, beloved, this old
carnal flesh loves to get a hold of
something, either a man or something that will
give them liberty to do what they want.
That's the flesh.
Recognize it.
Don't try to deny it.
Recognize your flesh and say, I understand it,
God.
I understand its yearnings.
He says, in my flesh there dwells no
good thing.
Oh, if we'd only see this, then we'd
understand the temptations, the trials, the burdens, and
we'd cry out to God.
We'd say we see ourselves for what we
are.
We realize the bent of our nature.
We realize that we could be torn into
shreds by what the devil wants to do.
He's going about like a roaring lion, devouring
whomever he will.
But by the grace of God, here we
stand.
And we cannot be moved.
Oh, I hope you can say that.
Cannot be moved.
I think that portion's glorious.
Why?
Only because I'm saved.
I want to say something.
If I wasn't saved, I think I'd be
shuddering in my shoes.
I really would.
And if I was saved and having any
inclinations toward liberty that is license, I would
flee unto the Lord Jesus Christ immediately and
get straight down.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank thee for thy word this
morning.
Lord, you've made it so clear that we
can't escape.
You give us such examples.
It's hard for us to believe that your
own angels, which didn't keep their first estate,
that estate of purity and wonderful fellowship with
thee, that you've reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
And you're just warning us to watch it,
watch ourselves, that a lascivious life means we
have had a false experience with Christ, that
it hasn't been a true one, that lasciviousness
means a continual living after the flesh and
enjoying your sin.
The meaning of the word, Father, we know
is wantonness or lewdness.
And oh, our God, how we pray this
morning that hearts might be touched for Christ.
Lord, as I preach thy word in all
of us, truth and power, we have to
deal with what we deal with because it's
in the word.
We don't want to miss anything.
We want to take it at its value
of exactly what it says, and we don't
want to try to throw it out.
We know there are a lot of theologians
today who want to throw out the book
of Jude.
They're trying to say, well, maybe the book
wasn't written to be in this whole canon
setup here of New Testament, but they're doing
that too with Hebrews and many others.
So, of course, Lord, we recognize that this
is also part of the work of the
devil.
But this word in Jude is obstetrical for
this day, and there are lots of theologians
and preachers who would like to get rid
of it because it says that God knew
before and ordained them to condemnation.
It's a terrible word.
Now, Father, give this people discernment, how I
pray that wherever they go, whether they're in
this fellowship or in any other church or
whether they go away on a vacation, they'll
be able to discern very quickly whether the
word of God is being preached in all
its power and its purity.
Touch our hearts together.
God, help us to be clean.
Give us clean minds, clean imaginations.
That's where the devil works.
Imaginations keep us from not looking at anything
that might defile us, defile the flesh, because
we still have the old bent for sin.
We have that in us which it appeals
to.
And lest we be careful, we can be
swept up.
Lord, undertake for this people, place thy love
and thy seal upon them by giving them
power in the Holy Spirit, as Paul says,
to crucify the lusts of the flesh.
Then he continues, for if we walk in
the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lusts
of the flesh.
He doesn't say they don't exist.
He admits to their existence, but he says
victory is yours because the Holy Spirit dwells
in you.
Now, Father, with thy blessing upon us, in
Christ's name, amen.