Beware of the Drift Away from Truth

Transcript

GR 2296
07/19/2020
Beware of the Drift Away from Truth
Jude 8-11
Gil Rugh

We’re in the book of Jude together. So if you want to turn in your Bibles to that little one chapter book just before the book of Revelation. We’re going to be looking at some other passages along with Jude. Jude writes presuming a rather clear understanding of the Old Testament. He’ll refer to Old Testament events almost in passing, they’re just mentioned. He’ll talk about Cain in our study today, Balaam, Korah, and sometimes we have to think, well, I’ve got to refresh my mind. Assuming that people are familiar with this material. His basic concern is about the spiritual condition of the church. That the church may be being infiltrated with false believers, with those who have acted like they’re believers, who are pretending to be believers, but whether they know it or not, they are not truly saved people.

If you’ve got Jude, if you just want to leave a marker there and back up to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, just an example of what Paul wrote. And this permeates Old and New Testament alike, the concern for the corruption of the people of God and their being infiltrated and moved by teachers and teaching and lifestyle that is not biblical. Chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, “I wish that you would bear with me,” verse 1, “in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.” Now note, “But I am afraid, that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your mind will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear with this beautifully.” And over a relatively short time the church has become more open, more broad, more accepting in a bad sense. Come down to verse 13, after he defends his position as an apostle and the truth that he has brought, he says concerning these individuals, verse 13, “for such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” This is the same thing Jude is addressing.

On your way back to Jude stop at 2 Peter, 2 Peter, then you have the epistles of John, 1, 2, and 3 John, then you have Jude so it’s just a little bit before you get back to Jude. The epistles of John there, those three smaller letters, two really small. 2 Peter chapter 2, note what Peter says, verse 1 “But false prophets also arose among the people” referring to Israel, to their history, “just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them,” and their end will be destruction. And very similar to what we have in Jude. Verse 2, “Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words,” and judgment and destruction are what awaits them. 2 Peter chapter 2, as you are aware, is very similar to the epistle of Jude.

Come to Jude. We could go to the Old Testament and this is characteristic of the writings of the Old Testament prophets, you remember, every time a prophet comes on the scene in Israel, it’s a sign there is a spiritual decay taking place, that there is sin that needs to be addressed. That’s why sometimes we find the prophets difficult, they talk about sin and judgment because it is a repeated pattern in Israel, that false teaching, corrupt living was constantly being promoted. In Jude verse 3 we noted that Jude is writing “appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith.” And there’s a finality to this faith, it was “once for all handed down,” it doesn’t change, it is a stable truth. The faith is in the content of what we believe, the word of God. “Certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were (foreordained).” People with this kind of lifestyle, this kind of teaching, practice, they were determined to destruction long ago, these kind of people have always been appointed for destruction. They turned “the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” They have a corrupt lifestyle and they have a corrupt salvation. They won’t submit to God, they won’t submit to Christ. And as hard as we read this, we say, well, if they were those kind of people promoting immoral, ungodly living and denying Christ as the sovereign Lord we would recognize that right away. But remember what we read in 2 Corinthians, Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Now he is an angel who dwelt in the very presence of God who is light, he was the anointed cherub who covered the throne of God, he knows what the light is like, what it means to be in the light. At one time he lived in the light so when he creates counterfeits masquerading as children of light, children of God, servants of God, he does very good counterfeits. That’s why the Bible is filled with the Old Testament prophets warning, with New Testament writers warning, Jesus during His earthly life warning, not everyone who says to Me Lord, Lord are going to be part of My kingdom. People can be deluded, deceived and we as a church can be deluded. So he’s writing for believers to step up and do battle against error, that means you must have a firm grasp on truth.

One of the ways the devil works is to weaken our grasp on the truth, make us more shallow in our understanding of the truth so that we are more susceptible to error, because if you don’t know what is genuine how are you going to recognize what is truth? As I’ve mentioned before, many years ago I was in a job that required exchanging of money, it was in a store but we cashed checks and we did those kind of things. And when there was some counterfeit money, we went through a period of time when counterfeit money was showing up in the area. What they did was train us how to recognize the difference between with a genuine bill, here’s a genuine bill, now note all these characteristics. Now here’s what you look for in a counterfeit. The better the counterfeit the sharper you had to be in your observation to compare it to the genuine. But if you didn’t have a good view of the genuine you just look at it and say, ‘oh, it looks pretty good.’ It’s not good enough, that’s what happens to the church pretty soon if we’re not careful. Here we’re still in the lifetime of the half-brother of Jesus Christ, Jude and he is having to write that this is going on. And you’re letting down your guard. And sometimes the church is so happy to have new people, we always want new people. We even want unbelievers to come and visit our services and attend and hear the truth. We want to be careful we don’t just accept them as fellow believers, involve them, and pretty soon their influence begins to become part of what is going on. And then we say, well, you know, we think they are good people. And they have wormed their way in.

He gave examples in verses 5 to 7. You have to understand how serious this is to God. So he gave examples of first Israel, God saved them out of Egypt but when they persisted in not believing and rebellion against Him, He destroyed them. Then he gave examples of the angels, they served in the presence of God. Satan was Lucifer, the anointed cherub that covered the throne of God. We looked at Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, God cast him out and doomed him to hell. Then he used Sodom and Gomorrah, seemed like a place of refuge for Lot but they were destroyed by fire coming from heaven which is an example of what awaits the unbeliever because it’s a picture of eternal fire. So that destroying fire that consumed them was just the beginning of what is an eternal fire, the fires of hell.

I was reading an evangelical writer in one of the commentaries he did. He was explaining why you don’t have to believe that hell is eternal fire, there are other ways to look at this. And he’s well accepted as an evangelical in his writing. Reading another person, he’s a professor at an evangelical seminary. He was saying I personally hold to the inerrancy of the word of God. God gave it without error when He originally gave it but I don’t think it’s necessary for other people to hold that, I think you can be a professor in our evangelical school and you don’t have to hold that. Now wait a minute, if you believe the Bible teaches that it was given without error, who gives you the right to say it’s alright for people to teach and be accepted in your seminary who say that’s not true? So we begin to teach contradictory things and accept it but when you say, well, we want to be broad enough to be more accepting. We want to be as broad as scripture and as narrow as scripture is. And scripture is narrow, and we understand in the world today that’s the most unacceptable thing. You’re narrow! You’re bigoted! That means you’re unloving. But the world’s view is that means you disagree with us. We want to be inclusive but you’re too narrow to be included. Well, that gets pretty exclusive. But we get taken up and we get sensitive, well, they think we’re narrow, they think we’re bigoted, they think we’re unloving. What’s the surprise, what did you think they would think?

As they view us we are. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” Do we believe that? Well, yeah, I believe it, but I want to be careful I don’t offend the Hindu, I don’t offend the Muslim, I don’t offend a… and we go on and we get closer to home. Wait a minute, is it truth or is it not? Let’s be careful, Jude says let’s remember we are in a war and you have to be fighting, you have to contend, you have to agonize intently, as we looked at. So the examples he gave are examples of God dealing firmly, it’s a warning to the church. Remember what Jesus said to the church at Laodicea? What had happened to them? They had become lukewarm, He said it’s disgusting to Me. What is this indifference? I am going to spit you out of My mouth, I will disown you. It doesn’t mean believers lose their salvation, but what happens is the mixture gets to be such… What happened to our major denominations? They preaching the gospel anymore? They holding to the truth of the Word of God? What happened? Well, you know, you become lukewarm, you’re not for this so much, you’re a little bit of everything. Doesn’t mean we as a church can’t drift that way if we’re not careful. God didn’t put all this in His word, all those prophetic writings, Jesus’ warnings in the gospel telling the religious leaders of His day you’re like whitewashed tombs, from the outside you look all cleaned up but on the inside you’re filled full of dead men’s bones, you’re a defiling presence.

So Jude, he’s gave them three examples, the children of Israel, the angels, and some Gentile cities. Now let me tie that to these teachers that have crept in unnoticed among you is what he tells his readers. Yet in the same way, these men, these men who have crept in unnoticed, those men marked out for condemnation. So he’s drawing a comparison, I didn’t just tell you these stories because they’re interesting stories, I want you to realize this is an impact for today. In the same way these men that you’ve accepted among you as believers… also by dreaming. So what happened? These people come in, they’re not committed to the truth of the word of God, the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. You know, they begin to erode it.

Well, opening chapters of Genesis… There’s good people, I think they’re believers, I think there are scholars that don’t take that as a creation account, the literal creation account, the opening chapters of Genesis. You know there’s people that don’t believe. I was reading, and you wonder what I read, but I read the error to find out where it is. It was saying those who take the opening chapters of Genesis literally as how it happened end up taking the book of Revelation as how everything is going to end up, and that was his argument of why it’s foolish to do that. And yet he’s accepted in the evangelical world, showing what happens to you when you have that strict interpretation of the Bible. You’ll end up saying the opening chapters of Genesis are telling how He created everything, and before you know it, you end up taking the book of Revelation telling you how it’s all going to end up. Now when they destroy the beginning and they destroy the ending what’s going to happen to the middle? I mean, you talk about salvation, where did it come from? Why was it necessary? Well, we have to go back to the opening chapters of Genesis. Well, you have to understand, they’re really not… and if it’s not going to end up how God said it is in Revelation, how is it going to end up? That’s why they’re called dreamers in verse 8, they’ve come up with their own view of things, their own ideas, and yet, they claim so firmly to believe the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And this one evangelical writer was challenged, if you don’t believe the literal, historical account of the creation and Adam’s sin, how do you believe the literal resurrection of Christ as an historical event? His only answer is, well, somethings we still have to believe literally. How long will he hold onto that? So, they are dreamers, they defile the flesh. We looked at this verse just as it transitions to the next area, they “defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.” How is evangelicalism come to be more accepting?

Reading a review in a theological journal, it tells you how believers ought to be working with those who are homosexual. So there ought to be a welcoming and an accepting and we realize there’s going to be differences. These ‘different’ perspectives within evangelicalism, we’re all evangelicals, we just have different views on things instead of hammering it out. What does the word of God say? Well, yes, I agree with you, that’s what the word of God says. But they don’t agree, but they are evangelical so that’s where you end up with what we have today. And what has happened to so many churches? What happens to countries? You begin to disintegrate from within. Even unbelievers looking about where our country crossed the line, where it just disintegrates from within. Well, we can see that happening biblically, couldn’t you? The rebellion just begins to eat you up and God turns you over to your sin. That happens to churches more and more, they’re corrupted and soon what I preach here at Indian Hills would not be acceptable in many ‘evangelical’ churches anymore. I’m not saying all.

So this is what Jude is concerned about, these men dreaming, they defile the flesh, they reject authority, they revile angelic majesties. So then he’s going to give examples of how they do this since they don’t really know anything beyond the physical. Look at verse 10, “These men revile the things which they do not understand.” They don’t have any knowledge about anything outside the realm of their own physical thinking and observation. They come up with their own, “these men revile things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.” This is one of the offensive things about scripture, it is direct and blunt! That’s why Jesus had to ask the people of the day, which of the prophets did you not persecute, pertaining to Israel. Jeremiah is not called the weeping prophet for nothing. People couldn’t take it, the truth of God, they didn’t want it, their own people.

Come back to Jeremiah, since I’m talking about Jeremiah, using him as an example, Jeremiah chapter 4 or 5, in there, look at Jeremiah chapter 4. You have to be careful here, we may not get out of Jeremiah. Look at Jeremiah 4:22, “For My people are foolish.” Now, he’s not talking about these unbelieving nations around, no, this is what’s happened to Israel. “My people are foolish, they know me not; they are stupid children and have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, but to do good they do not know.” How did this happen? He’s addressing Israel, the people who God entered into a covenant relationship with, the people that God gave His word to. He says, these stupid children, they have no understanding. Look in chapter 5:3, “O Lord, do not Your eyes look for truth? You have smitten them, but they did not weaken; You have consumed them, but they refused to take correction.” You know, they become more stubborn, this is what happened, more closed to truth, more closed to rebuke. “They have made their faces harder than rock; they gave refused to repent.” Verse 12 of chapter 5, “They have lied about the Lord and said, ‘Not He; misfortune will not come on us; and we will not see sword or famine. And the prophets are as wind, and the word is not in them. Thus it will be done to them!’ Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, ‘Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making My words in your mouth fire and this people wood, and it will consume them.’ ” Down to verse 30 of chapter 5, “An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?” Come over to chapter 6:10, the last couple of lines, “Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reproach to them; they have no delight in it.” Isn’t that a terrible thing, that the people of God would no longer have any delight in the word of God?

That’s what Jude is concerned about. You have to contend earnestly for the faith. There are those who do not delight in the word of God and have infiltrated among you, if you’re not careful, pretty soon that disease of sin and rejection will spread. Come down to verse 13 of chapter 6, since you’re here we might as well read it, “For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for gain, and from the prophet even to the priest everyone deals falsely. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.” Down to verse 15, the second line, “They were not even ashamed at all; They did not even know how to blush,” on it goes.

Come back to Jude. You see, nothing changes. The example of Israel should have been impressive, but here we are 2,000 years, and we have not only the Old Testament scriptures but the New Testament. Why did God put all this here? Because the devil continues to work the same plan over and over and over again. It is hard to stay on track. That’s why he said when he said ‘contend,’ to earnestly agonize. We noted that word ‘contend,’ you agonize strenuously. This is a battle, this is a war, the enemy keeps coming at you, coming at you, coming at you. And you just can’t lay down your Bible and turn away and run. You have to hold your ground and battle back. These men are undermining basic biblical truths. So we come to verse 9, “Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.” So he gives an example from the heavenly realm and this is something, new revelation, we didn’t know this. Some writers take this that Jude took it from an apocryphal writing that had similar stuff, I’m not a great avid supporter of that kind of stuff, but Jude, however he got it. I don’t doubt that some of the apocryphal writings have truth in them. Most every false religion has some truth in it. The devil masquerades as an angel of light and the more light that’s present the more he masquerades with more light, the less light that’s present the less light.

But its truth here because the Spirit of God directed him to write it. Michael the archangel, he’s one of the chief angels, he’s not the only one but he’s the only one we have named by name. But in the book of Daniel he’s called one of the chief angels who came to exercise authority. You can read Daniel 10 on your own time but this is my time so you can’t go there now. But verse 9, he disputed with Moses. Now this is an account from Deuteronomy 34, Moses was taken up on the mountain to die. Remember Moses isn’t going into the Promise Land, he sinned and rebelled. He’s a believer but there’s still consequences for his sin here on earth, he won’t be going into the Promise Land with Israel. But we will see him in glory, we will see him in the kingdom. But he died on the mountain and all Deuteronomy 34 verse 4 and 5 say is that God buried Moses and nobody knows where. Now here we’re told there was a spiritual battle that went on. We get insight into the angelic world and you can only get that from the Bible.

Now I realize there are dreamers out there today, they claim they get revelation, they claim that angels speak to them, they tell you what happens and so in the spirit world. Just a recent example we had, she was an actress, I don’t know whether in the movies or on television, I didn’t know her. But she was in a boat on a lake with I think her young son and she drowned in the lake and he was in the boat, got rescued. And then these people, this lady who was a friend brought the team of people who worked with her, they stood on the side of the lake to call her body back. And you know what she said? Yah, we called her body back, that’s why they found her body, they couldn’t find it, but we stood on the lake and called her body back. If you don’t believe that look at the evidence, they found her body. A dreamer, that’s all, people like this they come with things, they revile things they don’t understand.

Now note here, Michael the archangel, one of the chief angels, when he got into a dispute with the devil, did not say you are a fallen being going to hell, I don’t have to do battle with you. Wait a minute, he shows what? He didn’t dare pronounce a railing accusation. I’d say people in television programs talking about the devil and telling him to do things and rebuking him, I think, wait a minute, that reveals where they are. Michael the archangel didn’t do that, he said the Lord rebuke you, the Lord rebuke you. What he is doing here is that genuine believers get their information from scripture and show respect to the authority that God has put in place. Even when it deals with fallen beings, now listen to this, even when it deals with fallen beings.

This gets into what we talk about with our government, we may not agree with the directives they give. If we would go back to Romans 13, we’ll get there in our study if the Lord doesn’t come. You can read it in Peter’s writings, his first letter, I believe its chapter 2 there, but you show respect to governing authorities, you give them honor, so we obey them the best we can. Obviously if they go in direct conflict with the Word… But remember the test of authority is when you disagree. Parents and children, children are to obey their parents, parents are to require their children to obey them. We begin to get our instructions from the witch doctors, the psychologists, on how to raise children, we abandon the word of God in that area. We can’t do that. Husbands are to lead their wives in love, wives are to submit to their husbands, we abandon that, we claim we’re still biblical. Churches have governing authorities, we’re suppose to do that. We have governing authorities in the world around us. We just read you instructions for next week, you sitting that way today, because governing… Oh, they’re taking away our liberty. Well, no, God is taking away our liberty, because He put them in position. As much as possible we have fire instruction we have to obey and they come to check our building for it. When you are coming to church on Sunday, if you come 95 mph down 84th Street you’ll probably get a ticket. You can’t say I’m going to church, you have no authority over me, I only obey God and I have to get there on time. Well, wait a minute… so where does it stop? We ought to be careful, we begin to devise ways and you see it starts out.

Who thought our country would come to where it is with rebellion in the streets and governing authorities supporting it. I didn’t think we would get here like this, seemed like it happened rather quickly. But what happens we erode the foundations, that’s what happens in the church. How did the church rollover like that? Well, the foundations got eaten away, then the structure begins to just cave in on itself, that’s what Jude is concerned about. Michael the archangel, he recognized that Satan was created with authority. Michael the archangel didn’t live under his authority but he respected him and showed him respect. Come back to Zechariah chapter 3, the next to the last book of the Old Testament. Every time you get into these smaller prophets you have to stop and think and recite them, but Zechariah is easy because its next to the last book of the Old Testament.

We’re going to chapter 3, and here you have a picture you could only get revealed by God, you get those spiritual insights, verse 1, “Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him,” this is what Satan does. Remember Revelation chapter 12? He’s the accuser of the brethren, he accuses them night and day before the Lord. He still has access to heaven even though he has lost his position. But you’ll note, “The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke You! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’ “ And so on. You see here, even there Satan is given respect. We are to give respect, when we don’t then we are denying what the word of God says. I want to respect governing authorities, I want to be careful that my speech is reflective of that, it doesn’t mean I can’t talk about things I disagree, but I want to be careful about getting on and attacking their motives and they’re not making good decisions. I’m still here teaching the Word, we’re still meeting, we won’t stop that.

It helped me when I was in China many years ago, I keep using it as an example but they were living under a communist rule and they were very careful, some of them had spent years in prison. We will not go to prison for political activity but we will go to prison for the truth of the word of God, you have to make a distinction. They tell me to wear a mask. Is that keeping me from doing what God says? Well, lets see, I know there’s a verse here that says don’t allow people to make you wear a mask. Well, then I guess they can tell me to wear a mask. Do I like it? I’m not going to tell you, next week you’ll know. I don’t have to wear one by the rules, the speaker doesn’t have to. So since I’m not under it I’m going to tell all you have to obey. But we want to be careful, these little things come in and then pretty soon it spreads. Well, I have an unbelieving husband. I don’t have to obey him. But 1 Peter 3 says yes, you do, you have to call him ‘lord’ like Abraham’s wife did. These things, it’s the little ways. They don’t just storm in and say we don’t’ believe the word of God, they have other ways of taking it. But it tells you where it’s going. That’s it.

So Michael, the archangel, come back to Jude, there was respect there, he showed respect to Satan. I’m not going to speak to him, you’re despicable, I wouldn’t give you respect, you rebelled. Now wait a minute, he still has authority. These governing authorities, even the worst, have been appointed by God, in fact Romans 13 says, remember, there is no authority that God hasn’t appointed. And some He has appointed because He’s turning people over to their own sinful desires, so He gives them rulers that will help lead them in that direction because He’s determined their destruction. We want to be careful, we can be respectful all along the way.

So Michael is the first example and he was respectful, “The Lord rebuke you.” I don’t puff myself up as some important person. But these men, they revile things they do not understand. Once you’ve rejected the word of God in an area where do you get your information? This has been the trap of the devil. When the church… I just read of a man who’s taken leadership in evangelical seminary and one of the things he’s noted for was establishing biblical counseling programs, whatever that is, we’ve been through the whole psychology issue. Where is that going to go? You know, we moved away from a biblical understanding of raising children, of marriage, because we turned that over to those who had extra-biblical information. Maybe some of them were believers that started that but once you open it up, and one of those evangelicals admitted, I take the best of what the world has, the best of the word of God, and then I put it together in a discerning way. I want to be careful there, we’ve turned it around. We have people are more familiar with the words and fearful about raising kids. They wouldn’t physically discipline their kids because they may hurt their personality. They need to be hurt a little bit but not in their personality. But we take the teaching from the world and then scripture is undermined. And it happens in husband and wife, it happens in sexual morals.

I’ve looked on to check a church in another state. They said their board had lifted their board of elders and their board of elders is a mixture of men and women. I said, what does the Bible say about elders? This man graduated from a well-known evangelical seminary. And they also didn’t have much to say about their doctrine and their teaching but they told you about how they are part of the community and we want the community to be involved here and the community is welcomed to use the facilities and we have significant social program. I’m going through everything I can find about their church on the internet. What do they say about their doctrine? What do they say about the importance of truth? In some way you can see it’s a mixture. They still would believe the gospel from what I can tell but you could see more and more of the word of God gets pushed away. Let’s just keep it down to this until we have nothing. We’re just preaching what men think.

They revile the things they don’t understand, the things which they don’t know, by instinct they’re like unreasoning animals. We think, well that’s, that’s pretty harsh. It tells you God’s view. Do we believe that this is the truth, it’s the faith we believe? The unbeliever has no more spiritual insight than an animal, it doesn’t reason, an animal thinks right here, what’s going on, what’s happening, it’s all in the realm of his own actions. And they’re going the way to destruction. You can’t soften this, once you start to soften one area everything is going to get weakened. You remember that. False teachers… this bothers me, people writing commentaries and there’s been a change in my lifetime. (I don’t do change well.) But commentaries now, to be scholarly, they have to quote everybody. I see all these people they’re quoting, and they’re unbelieving scholars. There was a day, many years ago, in my lifetime, when the only time they got quoted was an example of false teaching. Now they find these areas of what they write and bring it in and this is something to learn from them. And they think they are smart enough to merge it all. That’s why the word of God is written for common, ordinary people. They don’t have any idea, that’s why they dream, they make it up as they go, and pretty soon we get to they’re authorities.

Why do Christians go to psychologists to find out how to live life? How to deal with pain, how to face sorrow, how to raise kids, how to have a family? Well, the Bible doesn’t tell us everything, the Bible doesn’t tell us how to do a lot of things. That’s right! But the Bible does tell us about a lot of things, and I better be careful I stay with the Bible when it does tell me. We use that as an excuse. And they say, well, they’re being scientific. They are not! That’s a lie! What do they say? It has to be observable, you know, you have these scientific things. That’s a hoax! Psychiatrists don’t have a clue, now medical doctor, they can demonstrate things, but so much for science.

They say the opening chapters of Genesis are not science. There’s as much science as they have, and it fits more reality than what they do. But we can’t test it and prove it, we’ve talked about that. They don’t even know what a male and female is. Let’s be scientific, one professor said, show me the chromosome pattern, I keep telling you, I’ll tell you what a male is, no matter what you do to them they’ll have the same chromosome pattern when they die, that tells you what a male and female is. You can put a three-year-old up here, put two naked people up here, a male and female, and ask them what’s the boy and girl. I don’t know. Ask them, they’d know. What happened to science? That’s just an excuse we use to do away with scripture and Christians keep falling for it. I’m not saying there are some things. I take… I left here to get a pill, I appreciate medicine, I appreciate some of the benefits. But that’s not an excuse then for everything that someone claims to be science I set aside the Bible and say, okay, I’ll learn to re-interpret the Bible so it’s more in line with… Now I’ve moved into the realm of dreaming, so that’s where they are.

There’s one other example here, I’ll mention it and we’ll pick up here, “Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.” These are three examples from the Old Testament. You know Cain, you go all the way back to the opening chapters of Genesis. Well, you know, from extra-biblical literature we know that kind of writing is not literal. So now we’re off track. Adam and Eve had two kids, two boys that are named. They also had girls but they are not named but we know they had girls because they had families. Aye-yi-yi. They had two boys, Cain and Abel. Now here you are, sin has just entered the world in chapter 3. Chapter 4, now we’ve moved along enough that we have Adam and Eve and two sons. You know what? One of those sons kills the others. What does sin do? Here he says that they have gone the way of Cain. He is a consistent example in scripture of an ungodly, unbelieving, rebellious sinner, that’s what he is.

Come back to Genesis 4 in case you haven’t read that recently, you probably are well familiar with it. This is why it’s so important we teach our kids the biblical accounts of the Old Testament. We’ve got great teachers working with our kids, from the youngest age up, pounding these truths into their minds so as they get older they can be truth that the Spirit uses to work in their lives. Look at the example, chapter 4 opens up, “The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain,” she acknowledges God gave her the ability. Life has been created, so to speak, in this relationship between the man and the woman. Then she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now the difference was Abel watched the flocks, Cain took care of the grounds, the produce, and stuff like that. In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground, seems to make sense, that’s where he worked, that’s what he does, so he’ll bring from where his areas are. Abel, on his part, brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering.

Well, that’s not nice. Here you have Cain bringing, he worked hard, didn’t say he brought rotten fruit, didn’t say he brought the fruit that was not much use, he just brought his fruit. But there’s an indication here that God has given revelation. Remember when Adam and Eve had sinned? They covered themselves with leaves, they were aware of their nakedness. What did God do? He clothed them with animal skins. What does that tell you? Animals had to give their life to cover Adam and Eve. So here Abel brings it, not just out of the flock, but the fat portions. There is an indication of what is acceptable to God, “the Lord had regard.” We don’t want to imply that some places religion is not acceptable. Well, God did at the beginning. Obviously, there was two brothers, sin has entered the world, there’s competition. Maybe God could have softened it and said Cain, Abel’s… you know, both of you could do better. I’m sure they could.

God says one person’s worship is acceptable and this is not. Well, you know where Cain is, when God says he doesn’t accept what he does Cain doesn’t say, Lord I want to do better, I want to do what is pleasing to You. That’s not what happened, “But for Cain and for his offering, He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.” Try it out, the descendants of Cain are evident. Tell someone, oh you went there? Well, you know, you can’t worship God like that. See if they say thank you, explain to me how I can. They’ll be angry with you, starts out with Cain, he’s angry. “The Lord said to Cain,” now note here, this becomes key in seeing what can happen, God talks to Cain! He’s an unbeliever, he’s in rebellion against God, God’s patience and mercy. God said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and it’s desire is for you, but you must master it.” How would that happen? Lord, I bow recognizing Your authority, I believe in You and what You say, I will do it Your way. Cain is the originator of the song ‘I Did it My Way’ and we think that was a more recent, maybe Cain hadn’t put it to that music but that’s what he’s telling God. And it doesn’t matter what You say God, I’ll do it my way. And if Abel is the one acceptable, I’ll do away with Abel and then there’ll only be me, so if you’re going to get worship you’ll get it from me, my way, or you won’t get it. What’s going on here? We’re just starting with the human race, it’s only the common grace of God that has kept us from disintegrating. We had the flood when God said the rebellion of man got so bad He had to wipe out the race. But He has persisted in patience down to our day. So Cain kills his brother.

Come over to the book of Hebrews on your way back to Jude, Hebrews chapter 11 and again under the inspiration of the scripture we get further insight here, elaboration. Chapter 11 begins of Hebrews, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval,” it’s always been that case. How are you approved by God? By faith! You go back to the beginning, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made.” You see what’s the problem with those who don’t believe the opening chapters of Genesis? They don’t believe God. And I can’t tell you where you cross the line, how confused can a person who is a believer really be. Well, you can get pretty messed up because God said in 1 Corinthians 11 He’s taken the lives of some believers because they got too far out of line, so I want to be careful. I’m not saying that everyone who gets off track is an unbeliever. That’s why Paul wrote like he did to the Corinthians, like Jude is writing but Paul had to tell the Corinthians examine yourself to see if you are really in the faith. Because when you get off track and you continue that path it becomes questionable whether you are really on the right path to begin with. So it’s by faith.

We pick up with verse 4, “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain,” it was better because it was what God wanted, what God required, he offered it in faith. “Through which he obtained a testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts.” Note, “and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks,” he did it in faith. Cain decided he would do it his way, there’s God’s way and there’s every other way. That’s where faith and obedience are inseparable, they bring out different truths but they cannot be separated from one another. Jesus said if you love Me you will keep My commandments, so you put love in there with it because love involves obedience. It involves faith, Abel came with faith.

Come back to Jude, we’ve run out of time, we’ll pick up here next time because we want to talk about Balaam and Korah. You see he’s bringing these examples, old examples, we’re all the way back in Genesis 4 with Cain. You understand this is not new information, but God’s people keep going adrift and, you know, it’s just hard to keep it on track. That’s why we had a speaker here, S. Lewis Johnson, who was a professor at Dallas Seminary at the time, he spoke many years ago, a very godly man. He said, every school, every church goes liberal. Whoa! Why? But you look at the drift. You know, it’s like we’re swimming up current. You know what happens when you stop swimming up current? You get carried away with the current. I was swimming in the ocean many years ago, when I could swim and you know, I got one of these tides going out and I got carried out. You know, it’s hard, then pretty soon it’s overwhelming, and the lifeguard is standing up on his stand, you know, and everybody on the beach is watching. Is this guy drowning out there? Look at the lifeguard, and I’m giving him the okay signal because I didn’t want to be embarrassed but you have to stop being carried by that current. Best way there is to go sideways, as you are aware, but you’ve got to get out of that current. If you allow that to go on in the church it gets stronger and stronger and pretty soon you’re not fighting against it anymore, you’re getting carried along with it, then it takes you where it’s going to take you, that’s the concern for the church. Then you end up with a Laodicean church that Christ says I have no use for you, you’re repulsive to Me. He’s speaking that to a professing church, it’s one of the seven churches of Asia, it’s in the same geographical area as the other churches. And here Christ is saying to them “I have no use for you, you’re repulsive, I want to vomit you out of My mouth. You make Me sick, that tells you you better make a change. So we don’t want to get carried to that point, that’s why we ought to be sure we are checking ourselves, correcting. If we don’t stand for the truth… Look at this world around us, it doesn’t know which side is up, it doesn’t know right from wrong in the most basic of things anymore. Will it come back? I don’t know, I know God is sovereign, what’s happening is what God has planned to happen. But if we as a church don’t stand for the truth, even as things get more difficult, where will the truth come from? Not from the dreamers.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for Your word, thank you that it is a clear Word given for our understanding. Thank you for the Spirit of God. Your grace opened our eyes that we might see and believe. Lord we want to hold it, this truth, precious, we want to be faithful to it in our personal lives, it’s where it begins, our own settled faith in You and the salvation You have provided, the commitment to keep our walk faithful to the truth. We pray for our church as we come together as Your people that we are bound together in the truth, committed to be faithful to the truth, to live lives consistent with the Word, to teach truth as it is given. Bless the day before us, bless the week before us, and as truth is ministered to the kids (Vacation Bible School). We pray in Christ’s name, amen.