 Okay, good morning and welcome. We will continue with study of the books that have been assigned for this course. We have completed the book of Hebrews and we recently completed James. We will now go to Jude. It's just one so I thought why not do Jude today and then we will do 1st and 2nd Peter in the coming weeks. So that's the book for us. We will pray and get started. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word Lord as we look at the different scriptures Lord. For today we pray Holy Spirit that you will speak to our hearts Lord. We know that your word is living and active oh God, sharper than any two-edged sword. Father we pray that it will impact our lives and help us oh God to always live Lord according to your word and your purposes. For us Father we ask for your blessings upon. Thank you once again in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's turn to the book of Jude. One of us can read the whole chapter. It's just one chapter so we'll go through the whole thing and then I'll go ahead and explain the way we did yesterday. Jude chapter 1 verse 1. You can hear me faster. The whole chapter. Jude chapter 1 verse 1. Jude a born servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. To those who are called sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, when I was very diligent to write to you concerning your concerning our common salvation I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to content earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have kept an unnoticed who long ago were marked out of this condemnation and godly men who turn the grace of God into learness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. But I want to remind you though you once knew this that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt after were destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own above he has reserved in everlasting chains and the darkness for the judgment of the great day. I saw them in Gomorrah and the cities around them the similar manner to this having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh or set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire likewise also these dreamers defiled the flesh with a authority and speak evil of dignitaries yet Michael the archangel in confronting with the devil and he disputed about the body of Moses dare not bring against him a rivaling accusation but said the Lord Rebecu but these speak evil of whatever they do not know and whatever they know naturally like fruit, beast in these things they corrupt themselves both of them for they have gone into the way of Cain have run greedily in the error of for profit and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots in your love feast while they feast with you without fear serving only themselves they are clouds without water carried about by the heavens laid atom trees without fruit twice dead pulled up by the roots raging waves of the sea foaming up their own shame when wandering starts for whom is reserved a blackness of darkness forever now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also saying behold the Lord comes with ten thousand office things to execute judgment on all to convert to convict all who are ungodly among them all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which godly sinners have spoken against him these are grumblers complainers walking according to their own lust and their mouth great swelling words flattering people to gain advantage but you beloved remember the words which was spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lust these are sensual persons who cause divisions not having the spirit but you beloved building yourself upon your most holy faith praying in the Holy Spirit keep yourself in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life and on some have compassion making a distinction but others save with fear pulling them out of the fire having eaten the garment defiled by the flesh now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to God our Savior who alone is wise be glory and majesty dominion and power both now and forever Amen thank you Jeffy now very very long passage there but thankfully Jude is only one chapter so you completed reading the whole book of Jude and we'll now try to learn from what Jude is speaking about so yeah I'll try to summarize it for us now Jude is a letter written to the believers by Judas the full name is actually Judas the half brother of Jesus so James was a half brother of Jesus Judas is a half brother of Jesus it's nice to see the transformation that his brothers had and we saw earlier when we talked about James that they did not believe initially but after the resurrection the brothers believed so what a life transformation they now have put their trust in Jesus not because he's a family member but look at Jude also he says born servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James he could have just said brother of James and Jesus but no he's putting himself in submission to the authority of Christ he knows that this is the Messiah so born servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James actually they both are brothers okay so it's wonderful to see a transformed life and he's speaking to the believers how do we know that to those who are called sanctified by God and the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ so they are believers and it begins with blessings and he speaks mercy peace love be multiplied to you so he takes the authority as one of the people in leadership and you know he is releasing blessings upon God's people and he starts his letter he says look beloved that's the way to address God's people okay they are they are loved by God and they are the beloved even to the brethren so beloved while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation I found it necessary to write to you exorting you to content honestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints now the point he's making is when he picked up his pen or whatever he used those days he actually wanted to speak regarding salvation and the usual matters related to salvation and how to you know live one's Christian life but it's as if the Holy Spirit changed the theme of his writing that's what he means he says I felt like the Holy Spirit is giving me another theme so he heard from the Lord and he is going to address a matter what is this matter Paul writes about this matter in Acts chapter 20 where he wants the Ephesian church and he says look there will come a time okay where there will be people rising up within you who are evil so you've got to watch out for yourselves watch out for your own lives and he also commands the shepherds to take care of the flock because there will be people among the congregation who will come into the congregation and Paul calls them savage wolves okay savage wolves that's pretty strong what do wolves do you know they attack and they you know destroy the sheep and that will be the result of the deeds of these savage wolves and our congregation or the people of God should not become prey to savage wolves so even Paul warned us about these matters and said commit yourself to the word of God because the word of God will build you up and be careful because there will come a time and such people will rise up now in the book of Ephesians you know when we notice what he actually wrote to them so in the book of Acts we saw the warning and in the book of Ephesians he writes to them he says that we all need to grow up to maturity because unless we are mature we will be people who are tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine meaning when these people come these wrong teachers and false prophets and they bring their kind of teaching unless a believer is strong what can happen to the believer you know he is like being carried by the wind wind is flowing to the north okay let's move to the north wind is blowing to the south let's move to the south there's no stability there's no firmness there's no steadfastness because the believer is still immature the believer is not strong in the word believer is not able to identify what is the truth and what is not so there is an emphasis on the maturing of the believer so that the believer can identify when there are false teachings when there is evil being propagated so you know Paul talks about all these things in Ephesians chapter 4 and he says that sometimes there is a trickery of men okay the cunning craftiness and deceitfulness plotting of men but when a believer becomes mature he or she would be able to identify so maturity is the antidote for all the believers as we are maturing we can overcome even if such false teachers arise so now we are understanding that God gave Jude or Judas a theme and that theme was a warning against people who are preaching wrong things and living an ungodly life so he continues further to talk about all all such people so let's go ahead from verses 5 to 7 you know he says that the people of God right first they were brought out of the land of Egypt but then what happened to them they were still destroyed what was the issue what was the issue so he's pointing out different issues in in the kind of faith that people carried unbelief later on they entertained unbelief because of which they were destroyed now he's referring in verse 6 to angels who did not keep their proper domain even they God has you know reserved in everlasting chains for the day of judgment so he's pointing out to unbelief and disobedience which is not acceptable by God so these angels who are these angels these angels we can refer back to Genesis chapter 19 okay who we know they engaged in unnatural sexual union with human beings and these are all things that are not right because God gave them their sphere of functioning and their authority and instructions but they left their proper domain they did not follow the authority of God the instructions of God and they did whatever they wanted so they were rebellious what did we see earlier unbelief now rebellion now this has led to them being reserved for the day of judgment so those are the angels that we are talking about now he's also referring to in verse 7 Sodom and Gomorrah Sodom and Gomorrah we know it was a very sinful you know twin city where again you know people were practicing sexual immorality and that God was angry with them and you know fire was the consequence of their disobedience to God so these are all bad examples of unbelief of rebellion of disobedience and it's as if Jude is putting it out for the believer to see and say look these things are not good for us give me better stay away from these things because we know the consequences of the people who engaged in this manner and it's a warning to be warned look at these examples and be warned because the consequences are destruction now let's read on from verse 8 he goes ahead and he sort of explains in more detail what these ungodly people are like and he you know he gives that characteristics so we'll go ahead and we will read them he says they these dreamers defile the flesh they reject authority they speak evil of dignitaries so these are the characteristics what what what are features that we can see again we can see pride we can see rebellion we can see a disregard for authority you know lack of submission we can see that you know they they don't have reverence like they just speak evil and it says over here speak evil of dignitaries dignitaries could refer to the authority structures of God right and even like let's say heavenly beings but when it comes to these people who are ungodly they don't mind they don't mind speaking against anything anyone even if they are heavenly hosts so you know they are fine to do that and that's not good and in verse 9 you know he goes on to elaborating on this speaking evil of dignitaries he says yet Michael the archangel in contending with the devil when he disputed about the body of Moses dared not bring against him a reviling accusation but said the Lord rebuke you so we understand that there is a you know that there is something about contending regarding the body of Moses now people ask the question what is this about you know Moses like all other prophets died and he was buried what is this contending for the body of Moses see we don't have much clarity there are certain themes in the book of Jude we will again see it'll talk about Enoch okay Enoch prophesied and we don't have too much information about Enoch Enoch walked with the Lord in the book of Genesis that is there and now we're reading that Enoch prophesied so we've got to work with the information that we have we don't have to go into the details of finding out because sometimes what happens people try to look way too much in extra biblical content and they they get unnecessarily obsessed right on on things that the Bible is unclear about so if we don't have too much information there's no need to go searching for information that cannot be validated so regarding this body of Moses regarding Enoch we don't have much information actually but I know there are people in the Christian circle who write a lot about these matters but then how do we validate because scriptures are not giving us more light but yeah there is some incident in which there is a dispute regarding the body of Moses but the point we have to understand here is the angel archangel Michael who is who is fighting with the devil respects God's order or authority structure so he does not speak an accusation carelessly against the devil right so there is a structure there is a way there are authority gateways there are many things that we have to consider and the main idea is submission to authority respecting the authority that God has put in place so that's the main point that even Michael respected the structure he did not just speak an accusation against Satan but what did he do he said let the Lord rebuke you because the Lord has the authority to do that something which he did not have the authority to do he did not do okay so that is regarding this now however the ungodly people they do that they don't care what authority they have or they don't have they'll just be ready to speak about anyone and everyone however they like but that's not good and then he goes on he says more characteristics of these people they speak evil of whatever they do not know whatever they know naturally like brute beasts in these things they corrupt themselves so speaking accusations about anyone everyone he says what to them for they have gone in the way of Cain have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit and perished in the rebellion of Korah again the same matters that he spoke of earlier what was the sin of Cain unbelief he did make an offering to God but we studied in the book of Hebrews that able sacrifice was accepted because there was faith in that sacrifice Cain rejected because of unbelief that is the problem with Cain the way of Cain and what did that lead to it led to a lot many other sins he went from unbelief to hatred and eventually what does hatred do why should we not keep hatred or the root of bitterness in our spirit because it will lead to murder and that's what happened in the case of Cain where unforgiveness hatred bitterness and before you know it Cain has murdered his brother able today maybe people don't murder like literally murder but with our words we can hurt we can even kill isn't it with our words we can damage somebody's reputation with the words that we speak we call that slander and that is not good so unforgiveness bitterness can lead to all these things and so we have to be careful that is the way of Cain unbelief leading to other sins and then he talks about Balaam what about Balaam Balaam had his own priority he did not have God's priority yes he was a prophet but he wanted profit okay a profit for profit and that was not good he was ready to do anything ready to prophesy anything to get that is evil and Jude points that out to have personal agenda and you know wanting one's own benefit above the purposes of God that is Balaam's problem and Kora what was the rebellion of Kora you know we read about Kora in the times of Moses the sin of Kora was that in numbers 22 to be exact that's where we oh sorry number 16 that's where we read about Kora so his issue was he resented God given authority he knew Moses and Eren were in charge but he was not content with what God called him to do and he was not ready to submit to Godly authority over his life and you know he rejected he rejected the authority of Moses and God was very upset with him so that is the rebellion of Kora who is not ready to respect Godly authority so when these things happen Jude is just pointing out look unbelief rebellion personal agenda these form the heart of these ungodly people and they are ready to talk about anyone anything and by these matters we can understand you know who they are now moving on to verse 12 he says there are spots in your love feasts while they feast with you without fear serving only themselves so you know it's quite a self-explanatory ungodly people they are living for themselves they may be part of the fellowship but they have their own you know they they have their own focus and we must be careful and he also says they are clouds without water carried about by the winds late autumn trees without fruit twice dead pulled up by the roots it simply goes against what Jesus taught us in John 15 Jesus said that the branches must bear fruit but he says these ungodly people there's no fruit there's all the talk but when we examine the lives there's no results which can only come by genuine faith power of the word power of the spirit right so as believers discerning you know discerning by the features the characteristics the attitudes the behavior and the fruit of certain people who are disrupting the work of God Jude is presenting a warning he's saying if you see these things be warned be careful identify such people don't go with their teachings okay the way Paul said they are wolves he says so it'll destroy going with them following their teaching will destroy our faith so initially he said content for the faith meaning the genuine faith which has been given to us we carry a responsibility to preserve it make it grow and hand it over to the next generation okay so that they can take it to the next level so that is the responsibility which we all carry and that's the point that Jude is trying to make with this letter to the believers content for the faith identify the son if there are people who are capable of corrupting that faith okay so let's read on uh so he says yeah they don't have any fruit and he goes on uh from verse 14 talks about uh you know okay let's let's just read he says now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also saying behold the Lord comes with ten thousands of his a of his saints to execute judgment on all to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him so he is just saying he's using the example of Enoch prophesying but what is the point the point is he's saying there is a judgment so for the wrongdoing there is going to be consequences God himself will judge the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints what is this it's talking about the uh end times isn't it when the Lord will return uh with his people and there will be a time when the Lord Jesus is going to judge and notice he says ungodly sinners have spoken against him end of verse 15 so the evil that has not just been spoken against uh the truth not just been spoken against godly people but also the evil that has been spoken against God himself what are the consequences God will judge it will not go unnoticed so there is going to be a consequence for such sin okay and we must remember that it's not like God is letting it all go and yeah nothing will happen see they are still thriving no there is going to be a judgment and consequence for evil now once again he moves into explaining more of the characteristics of the ungodly he says from verse 16 they are grumblers complainers walking around to their own lusts and they mouth great swelling words flattering people to gain advantage so you know we can think of someone who's really disrupting the body of believers and disturbing the body of believers but they may have a nice uh aura to them because it says flattering people to gain advantage looking like someone who's good looking like someone who's wanting to do nice things but what exactly is going on they are damaging with their attitudes with their behavior with their words okay so these are the characteristics of ungodly people now this is what ungodly people are like right not submitting to authority rebellious no faith sinful not careful about words so many things grumblers complainers they are part of the the fellowship they are flattering people and yet you know they are evil before the Lord God will judge them and we must discern them so this was all about ungodly people now he starts to speak to the believers so from verse 17 he says but you beloved remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ yes there will be such people but you you what should you do we must remember God's word we must remember God's instruction even in the last days and verse 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lust so he's saying also remember that you were already told by Paul okay he says apostles you were told by Paul and we are going to study the book of 2nd Peter shortly and even Peter talks about false prophets he talks about ungodly people and the consequences of their sin so the apostles Paul told us Peter told us it's not a surprise when in the last day such people rise up ungodly people so remember their words we knew these people are going to come and they are going to try to damage the faith but you be warned of these things okay verse 19 again he says these are sensual persons who cause divisions not having the spirit so by their actions we can understand you know what what they are doing and they're not carrying the spirit of God in them right it's selfishness and pride with which they are working now one is you beloved you need to know these things don't get shocked because we have already been told second what we should do verse 20 he says but you beloved building yourself up on your most holy faith praying in the Holy Spirit verse 21 keeping yourselves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life so he's saying yes these things will happen but you just make yourself strong how to make oneself strong praying in the spirit okay keeping ourselves in the love of God and seeking God seeking God for his mercy unto eternal life so here are our responsibilities now we can't change if these things happen around us but we can definitely take responsibility of our faith and be strong in God so that is what we can do and then he goes on he says and on some have compassion making a distinction but others save with fear pulling them out of the fire hating even the garment defiled by the flesh so he says when we see people wandering away from God what should we do we must try to bring them back remember even James said that someone who's wandering away you're saving a soul if you try to bring them back so on some we can we can work with them we can have compassion and we can help them out for some we may have to be little firm and strict so he says say others save with fear so we are being a little strict but what is the result of that we are just trying to help them okay so that must be the outcome and while doing that okay another very important thing for us to be careful about now we work with people who may get into sin and they may go far away from the Lord and we are here trying to correct them pray for them you know counsel them bring them out but we have to be careful for ourselves so he says hating even the garment defiled by the flesh so we have to be very clear to protect ourselves know what is right what is wrong and we should not also put ourselves in a vulnerable position so that there is a danger there also so we must really hate what is wrong hate the sin not the sinner okay and be very clear about that and be careful while we are correcting them when can that happen when we know for sure you know what is right what is wrong what is acceptable and what is not and finally you know he closes off with a blessing and and he says now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to God our Savior who alone is wise be glory and majesty dominion and power both now and forever amen so he says i'm warning you about these matters but we have a God who is strong we have a God who can help we have a God who can give grace okay and he is able to keep us from stumbling so we don't have to fall into all these sins that we just discussed because if you rely on the Lord if you keep walking towards maturity our God is able to keep us from stumbling and or even on the last day you know ultimately he we need to hold on till the end isn't it that's what Jesus said so how to hold on till the end God will help us he will present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy okay so that is so beautiful and getting to the finish line right and having joy i'm sure your batch knows it because you're coming to the finish line of your course this year victoriously and just i think in along the same lines when we reach heaven when we reach that spot when we are finally before the heavenly Father having uh fulfilled God's purpose and having held on to the faith before his present presence of his glory with exceeding joy can you think with me that as much as we are happy God is also happy in that moment how will that be so we'll be in the presence of God we'll be filled with joy God will be filled with joy now here is a child here is a son here is a daughter they finish the race they kept the faith they were strong in it and you know there is rejoicing in heaven and that is the moment that you know we are hungry for that's the moment that we are all waiting for and we hear the words of our heavenly Father say you know well done a good and faithful servant and so Jude is blessing he's saying even if such things happen around us you keep yourself strong and look to that finish line that one day we can stand there and verse 25 to God our savior who alone is wise be glory and majesty dominion and power both now and forever amen so exalting God as he closes this if there are any more thoughts any any other things that we want to talk about so far we can do you think it's relevant for Jude to warn us like this yeah yes we we can you know see that because during his times you know maybe there there were there were things that were going on which he was not happy about there there could have been issues now if we study church history we do see that there have been compromises you know time and again there have been things that that took place in the church that really tried to affect the faith which was handed over by the early church like if you go back to the time when you know the church and state separation happened you know Constantine I think it has to do with AD 306 337 around that time we know they separated church and state okay and the state started dictating a lot of things for the church so whatever the state said is what people were doing and then there was this whole distinction between clergy lady and then eventually you know we we see at the time of Martin Luther we see there were practices in the church which were not at all they did not have any basis biblically and so you know Martin Luther he comes and he contends in the 17th century so there there were battles to go back to the actual faith which was handed over by the apostles so it has happened in history even today you know we do run the risk of seeing this faith diluted and we must not let that happen you must not let that happen by anyone else or by ourselves also so firstly this is a very personal thing we must determine to be strong in the word and keep ourselves true to the word and when we do that you know we become those channels who are keeping that faith and also if there are others you know discerning if there are others who are having these qualities that we are talking about over here then we should be warned and if we can save some wonderful but then if they are not willing to listen then at least we must protect the faith and you know keep it pure so just some additional thoughts anything else that you may want to discuss we can talk about so when we do 2nd Peter it will be like a repetition of Judas because he'll say almost the same things that Judas is saying all right I think we've got an idea of what Judas is stating in this book and you can use David Kozik's commentary to study further we also did a sermon not so far away just last year December and it's quite elaborate it's called content for the faith and you can download it from apcw.org it'll be very helpful to study the book of Jude as well so let's pray and close then I want to request one of us to please go ahead and pray yes pray father in heaven we thank you for this wonderful lesson we've had about our little brother Jude we know that the the book was so brief but it is filled with a lot of knowledge wisdom and understanding so let us know that it was written for those who were there those days and those of us who are here in the present Lord let us try to put everything that we've learned into practice so that we can see how we can get against the work of the devil I do pray the name of the father son the horse brings whatever blesses amen amen amen thank you thank you uh lupeka thank you everyone god bless you uh we shall meet uh after the Easter weekend so uh have a blessed time of worship and uh yeah we'll come back together and learn more from the books of first and second Peter thank you and bye for now