In Robert Bosley's sermon titled 'The Canon and the Fate of False Teachers,' he delves into the epistle of Jude, focusing on verses 14 to 19. Bosley discusses the importance of understanding the biblical canon, clarifying the difference between canonical and non-canonical texts, such as the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses, which Jude references. He argues that quoting non-canonical texts does not render them inspired or part of the Bible. The sermon highlights the characteristics and fate of false teachers, emphasizing their ungodly behavior and the coming judgment they will face. Bosley outlines the traits of false teachers as grumblers, complainers, and divisive individuals lacking the Spirit. He urges believers to prepare for the presence of false teachers and the eventual return of Christ, stressing the importance of maintaining unity and standing firm in the faith. The sermon concludes with a call to repentance and salvation, reminding the congregation that the door to salvation remains open.

Well, good afternoon. As was said, we are back in the book of Jude, in the epistle of Jude, towards the end of the Old Testament, or the New Testament, not Old Testament, sorry. I've studied, I promise. As we've done every time, and I know I've said this over and over again, but it's always good practice to read as much scripture as possible so we can understand the context, understand the flow of the argument. So once again, I'm going to read the entire letter and we will focus our time though today on verses 14 to 19.

So the epistle of Jude. Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation—ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness 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 afterward, destroyed those who did not believe.

And the angels, who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these dreamers defiled the flesh, reject authority and speak evil of dignitaries. 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. But these speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.

Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds, late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." Now, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands 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. These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were 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 lusts.

These are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves 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, hating even 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, power and dominion both now and forever. Amen.

Let's pray. Father we come before you again and we ask Lord that you would help us as we again open your word and we look through these these verses. God may you open blinded eyes, May you open deaf ears and soften hardened hearts, Lord. May you take what is said here this afternoon and use it, Lord, for the good of your people and the glory of your name and in Christ's name we pray amen now in the last time that we were in the book of Jude a few weeks ago We were in the earlier part where Jude refers to an account of Michael and the devil disputing over the body of Moses. And now in this section that we're looking at today, starting in verse 14, we have a prophecy from Enoch, as he calls it, the seventh from Adam.

So we're going to start out talking about this. So this is kind of going to be a hybrid session this afternoon. The first 20 minutes or so is going to be more akin to a lecture almost and then more of a expositional sermon afterwards because there are serious questions I've had several people ask me and say they're looking forward to hearing, what do we do with this? Because these are not things that are found in our Old Testament. So what do we do with these things?

So I'm going to take about 20 minutes, hopefully, depending on how many rabbits I chase, And we'll go through this quickly and feel free to ask any questions at the end, but I'm going to try and work through this quickly. So as we read through the book of Jude, we come to these places and Most people realize, well these stories aren't in our Old Testament. Where are these coming from? Where does the devil and Michael have an argument about the body of Moses? That doesn't happen.

All that we read about in the Old Testament is that Moses dies and God buries him. That's all we read about. Enoch, the seventh of Adam, I mean he gets like two verses in Genesis and that's it. I mean he's literally taken off the stage. He's assumed into heaven bodily.

So where is this coming from? Now if you read most commentaries they will tell you that these are quotes from books, one book called the Assumption of Moses and another book called the Book of Enoch or First Enoch. These are what are called non-canonical books. And oftentimes when people find out that the Bible quotes these non-canonical books, they will then jump to the conclusion, well, therefore those books have to be part of the canon. They have to be included in the Bible.

The Bible quotes them, therefore they must be good. We must have them in the scriptures. Some will even go further and say that all the apocryphal books on the basis of these two verses, or four verses really, should be considered scripture. Well, I want us to take a minute and look at a few problems here with those theories. There are a few problems, major problems with these conclusions.

First of all, Jude is not the only book that quotes non-canonical books or refers to non-canonical books. That is the first problem. Second, just because something is quoted, even if it's quoted as containing truth, that does not therefore mean it's necessarily inspired. That is an important factor to remember. That is not a logical argument to say if part of it is quoted as being true, then the whole book is inspired.

That does not logically follow. Third, it's not entirely clear that Jude is actually quoting either of these books. And fourth, neither book is actually called scripture, if he is quoting these books. So let's go through these one at a time very quickly, but first let's preface this. What do I mean when I say the canon?

When I call our Bible the canon of scripture and I call these other works non-canonical, what am I talking about? Well sorry to disappoint the young boys, but this is a canon with only two N's, not three. This is C-A-N-O-N, not C-A-N-N-O-N. This canon does not go boom, sorry. This Canon rather means a rule or a standard.

In this case, it is a collection of books that are used to establish a certain standard and that are accepted as genuine, that are accepted as being authentic. And canon isn't a uniquely Bible word. We can have canons of other writings. Anytime you have a body of literature that is accepted to be from a single author that tells a cohesive story or at least works together cohesively and is unusually high quality, all these things are considered the canon of that author's works. So for instance, Manor of Truth sells the 16 volumes of the works of John Owen.

That would be the canon of John Owen. This would be what he has written. And you can have canons of things beyond books even. You can have canons of stories, canons of movies. For instance, in my opinion, the Star Wars canon is three movies and that's it.

I don't care what anyone says. And with that illustration you see it's not only Christians who argue about canonicity. So the basic idea of a canon is a collection of works with a single author with a cohesiveness tying them all together and of a uniquely high quality. Now that definition is nuanced slightly when we get to the Bible and we're talking about biblical canonicity. In this instance, we are talking about a collection of books that are inspired.

They have one divine author, despite numerous human authors. So there is one author in that God has breathed out and given his spirit to men who were moved along by that spirit to write the very words God intended his people to have. So there is in that sense one author. There is a cohesive unity among the canon of scripture. It has continuity among all these various books telling the one plan of God to redeem sinners for his own eternal glory.

And they are of all uniquely high quality because God does all things well. And so in contrast to this when we are calling a book non-canonical We generally are focusing on the first aspect of biblical canadesty, that of inspiration. When we say something is non-canonical, we're generally saying it's not inspired. God's spirit did not move that author to write those words. That's what we are saying.

So even if other works by a particular author are inspired, that does not therefore mean that all of that man's writings are inspired. You follow? Paul wrote at least one, if not two other letters to the Corinthian church, but only two are inspired. Paul probably wrote many, many, many other letters, but only the ones in our New Testament are inspired. And I believe even if we found one of those other Corinthian epistles today or say another book by Moses And we knew without question it was authentic.

I do not believe we should accept it as canon because it seems unreasonable that God would allow part of his canon to be lost for 2, 000 plus years suddenly to be brought back. It does not seem reasonable that that would meet the requirements of canonicity, and particularly when you talk more about canonicity, about the recognition of the body. If something has been lost, clearly it was not in use. Secondly, when we talk about something being non-canonical, we often will talk about books that are contradictory to the accepted canon. And this would be that second element of canonicity.

It's not cohesive. It does not have continuity with the rest of scripture. If something contradicts the canon, we know it is therefore not canon. It is not part of the canon. And therefore we can also conclude again going back to the first point, it's not inspired because God does not contradict himself.

So that is canon. Hopefully that is clear. Another word that you will hear used is apocryphal. Now this can be very confusing because there are two basic definitions that are used with this word. There's a technical and a non-technical definition.

When we talk about the apocrypha, it's a noun, the apocrypha, this is a list of books that are accepted by Rome, for instance, as being canon sort of. They call it the deuterocannon or the second canon. It's a slight step down from the rest of scripture, but they still believe it's inspired. Now, all Protestants reject these books, and Historically the Jews also rejected these books. They were never laid up in the temple along with the rest of the other, where the rest of the Old Testament scriptures were kept.

So that is the Apocrypha. Now neither of the books in question here when we're talking about Jude, the assumption of Moses or first Enoch, neither of these are part of the Apocrypha, neither one is in that list. But they are Apocryphal. Now This is not a noun, it's an adjective. It's apocryphal because the adjective apocryphal simply means a book or a story that is of questionable authenticity but sometimes accepted as true.

These books were considered by some in the early church to be true. A handful of people accepted these books, partly because of their citation in Jude. But that does not mean the whole church did. Most of the church never did. But that is what it means that something is apocryphal.

It's of questionable authenticity and sometimes accepted as true. To give you an idea more of what this means, think, for instance, probably many of us learned that in the Middle Ages, people thought the world was flat. That's actually not true. The world's on two levels. First of all, the world's not flat.

We all understand that. So that's not true. But also the idea that the people in the Middle Ages believe the world was flat. That's not true either. They didn't think that.

That is an apocryphal claim. It's a claim that's not true, but it's believed by many people, that people in the Middle Ages believed the world was flat. They knew it was round. Know it was round since the Greeks. So, hopefully that gives you a little bit of clarity on what we're saying when something is apocryphal.

It's not true but sometimes believed to be accepted as true. It's not clear that it's authentic but it's sometimes accepted as authentic. That's what we're saying when something is apocryphal. So don't get confused. The assumption of Moses and Enoch are apocryphal, but they are not part of the apocrypha.

Hopefully that's clear. Clear as mud, I'm sure. So that is the canon. That's canonicity. Let's look at the four reasons I listed earlier, why Jude does not then force us to accept these books or other apocryphal books as canon.

First, Jude is not the only book of the Bible to quote non-canonical books. The claim often goes that if a part of the canon refers to a non-canonical book, therefore that book it's quoting must be canon. Now some do argue in the opposite. If a book claims, or if a book quotes a non-canonical source, it can't be canon. Jerome, who famously translated the Bible into Latin in the late 300s, he actually argued Jude was probably not canonical.

But most people take it the other way. They want to expand the canon. But if we accept this line of thinking, we have to add a lot more than these two books. There are quite a few non-canonical works that are referred to or even quoted in our Bibles. To give you an idea, we have the Book of Jasher mentioned in Joshua 10 13, the Book of the Wars of the Lord mentioned in Numbers 21 14, the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel and the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah mentioned in Kings and Chronicles, The Acts of Solomon referenced in 1 Kings 1141 and there are about a dozen other historical books that are referred to throughout the Old Testament, most of which we've lost and we have no idea what their contents are.

In the New Testament, Paul, when he names the two magicians that opposed Moses in Acts 7, he names them as Janus and Jambres. He's pulling that information from a couple different sources, either a book called the Apocryphon of Janus and Jambres or a book called the Testament of Solomon, or any number of Jewish targums, commentary by various rabbis. Would we conclude that all these things should be canonized because he uses these names as if they are the true names of the magicians that opposed Moses. And Paul not only quotes Jewish rabbis, he quotes Greek philosophers. 1 Corinthians 15 33, do not be deceived, bad company, corrupts good morals.

That didn't originate with Paul. That's a quote from the Greek philosopher and poet Menander. Titus 1, 12 through 13, Paul cites a prophet of their own when he is criticizing the character of the people of Crete, he quotes the philosopher poet Epimenides. And then in Acts 17 28, Paul says he joins two quotations together, for in him we live and move and have our being. That's one.

As some of your own prophets have said, we are all his offspring. The first is another quote from Epimenides, and then the second is from a philosopher, Erratus. Paul freely quoted these men as telling things that are true. Does that mean that we then accept pagan philosophers into the canon of scripture? Of course not.

So Jude is not unique in quoting non-canonical sources. The extent of the citation, especially compared to the shortness of the book of Jude, is unique, but the simple quotation of non-inspired writings is not something unique to Jude. It is something we see over and over throughout Scripture. This should not cause a problem for us. We should recognize that men of God are free to quote non-inspired works if it serves to make their point and God is free to use these quotes to make his point through his servants.

It's as if in well I'm getting ahead of myself here. Second, just because a book is quoted even as containing truth, that does not mean it is inspired. This should be an easy concept to grasp. If something is quoted, That does not mean an author is giving 100% credibility or fully endorsing everything that author said. Just because Paul quoted Menander does not mean that Paul thought Menander was right on parts of religion or ethics.

He simply was making a point and was using Menander's phrase, his line. He is simply affirming the truthfulness of the statement, bad company corrupts good morals. Now it becomes inspired when it is quoted by an inspired author of scripture, but that then does not lead or extend inspiration backwards to Menander's writings himself. That phrase, in and of itself, from Menander's pen, was not inspired. When Paul wrote it in Scripture under the inspiration of the Spirit, that is inspired because it is contained in the rest of inspired Scripture.

And we should be able to get this during a sermon or a teaching lesson. A pastor may quote something or a teacher may quote something to get you to think about what he's saying. Or it's something that is in the culture. It's a culturally accepted idiom or a phrase that many people might recognize. He's using that to communicate truth.

So if I'm talking about Jesus, and I quote from the Chronicles of Narnia, Of course he's not safe, but he's good. That doesn't mean I'm endorsing everything C.S. Lewis ever said or taught. It means that that line is true. Same thing with our New Testament authors.

Hopefully that's clear and understandable. Thirdly, it's not entirely clear that Jude is actually quoting either the assumption of Moses or first Enoch. Now most commentaries will actually just brush through this and say yes, these are quotations from these books and move on. Unfortunately the facts aren't quite that clear. Now, it may be quotations, but we're not certain.

Let's start with the story of Michael and the devil fighting about the body of Moses. This is supposed to be from a apocryphal book called the Assumption of Moses. And three early church fathers tell us that it is from that book, the Assumption of Moses. This is Clement of Alexandria, Deutimus the Blind, and Origen all assign this to the assumption of Moses. The problem is none of the manuscripts we have of the assumption of Moses contain the story.

Now most say it's probably because our manuscripts are fragmentary. Most scholars are agreed that the last third of the book is lost. We have no idea what is actually in it, but that's probably where this story was. Okay, maybe. We don't know.

We don't have any proof. It's also possible that Jude is simply pulling from an oral tradition that he grew up hearing in Second Temple Judaism. Second Temple Judaism was filled with stories about angels and interactions between angels and men and angels with other angels that the Bible never actually contains. So it's possible it's simply an oral tradition. Now the book of Enoch.

Jude seems to be quoting from 1 Enoch verse 9, or chapter 1 verse 9. But the problem here, the quotation in Jude only matches about 75% of what is actually there in 1st Enoch 1.9. And similarly to the assumption of Moses, the book of Enoch was lost for centuries, though it was mentioned by early fathers as being useful, it was only recovered in the 18th century. We have one manuscript of the whole book. We have fragments of parts of the rest of it.

We have one manuscript and it's in Ethiopic, the language of Ethiopia. It's the old language of Ethiopia, in fact. There are fragments in Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin, but they, it's incomplete. This book is lost except for this one copy in Ethiopian. And so again, possibly Jude is quoting another line of transmission, possibly he's quoting more directly from the Hebrew, possibly he's quoting from the Greek.

The Ethiopian version we have is only about 75% similar to what Jude says. Maybe again, he was quoting oral tradition, we don't know. So let's not jump on the bandwagon immediately and say, yes, Jude is absolutely quoting these books. He might not be. And so we should be even more hesitant to ever say that therefore these books should be considered canon.

That's crazy. Fourth, neither is actually cited as scripture. Now this is not necessarily definitive but it's an important point to make. Often, though not always, but often when New Testament writers quote the Old Testament they refer to it as scripture. They will use the word as the scriptures say or as it is written or as the prophets say.

Now granted Jude does say Enoch prophesied, but that's not the same as saying the prophet Enoch said in the more formulaic quote in how men quote Isaiah or the minor prophets. So what do we do with all of this? What is the conclusion? Well, I think as we look through these four points, it should be clear that there is a compelling case made against any theory that says Jude is accepting these books as canonical and therefore there is no good reason that we should accept these books as canonical. So these are books that have come down in some form or fashion, along with the other apocryphal writings.

They may be of some limited use as mere human writings, But they're not inspired. We should not expand our Bible to include the Book of Enoch. Okay, so why does he quote these works? Or why does he refer to tradition if he's not actually quoting them? Well, First, I think it is because he is simply quoting what they may have been familiar with.

Again, Second Temple Judaism was filled with these kinds of stories. Maybe he was using these as a connecting point, Just like Paul quoted Greek philosophers to Greek speakers. Maybe that's what's happening here. Also, Dr. Peter Gentry, professor of Old Testament at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, as they like to point out, he argues that the false teachers Jude is arguing against are likely a libertine sect of Judaizers that find their roots in Second Temple Judaism.

And So he theorizes that what is happening here is Jude is using these works because the false teachers accepted these works. And he's using these works to even point out that the false teachers don't live up to what their own Scripture says. Quoting Dr. Gentry, he says, it seems that the function of Jude's reference to the Enoch tradition is to demonstrate and emphasize That evil in our present world is due to human rebellion against God and cannot be blamed on angels, which was a common claim in Second Temple Judaism. Jude then uses the Enoch tradition against those who follow it.

And again, Dr. Gendry, Jude refers to this work, The Assumption of Moses, to show that the greatest angel of all did not have authority to rebuke the devil, but committed the issue to God himself. Hence, all appeal to angelic authority is worthless, which again is what would often have happened in Second Temple Judaism. They had this idea that we must in many instances even worship angels but Jude turns it on its head and shows that even their own works, even their own books, the books that they themselves accept refute their positions. So hopefully this has been a helpful look at these things and if there are any questions feel free to ask at the end.

With that aside, let's move on and look at the text verses 14 through 19. Now Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied about these men also saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, and 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. These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were 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 lusts. These are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the Spirit." not having the Spirit.

Now Enoch is said to have prophesied these words in verses 14 and 15 And Jude tells us that this prophecy applies to these men, these men that he is writing against, these men that he has described as being those who are perverting the grace of God for immorality, these men who are seeking to promote themselves and usurp God-ordained authority. They despise the authorities that God has put in their life and they are trying to take that mantle upon themselves. And so Jude says that this prophecy about God's judgment against the wicked applies to these men. Those who have lived in such flagrant disregard For God's ways and God's laws, Jude says they will face the judge of all the earth on that great day. They will stand before the God whom they have blasphemed, and it will be a fearful thing.

When the Lord Jesus returns, and that is who the Lord, the word kurios here in Jude refers to consistently, it's always talking about Jesus, When Jesus returns These men will stand before him and As we heard this morning the Lord will turn all his enemies into his footstool He will bring judgment against these men And I forgot to give you my points. I've broken up this section into Four quick points. The first is a prophecy of judgment. The second is the first indictment against the heretics. Second a prophecy of the coming of heretics and then the second indictment against the heretics.

So there's a pattern here. Prophecy, indictment, prophecy, indictment. So we're talking about the first prophecy now the prophecy of judgment a Day of judgment is coming that is Jude's point There will be a day when men will give an account for all they have done and all they have said. And these false teachers will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ whom they have blasphemed. For the church, That will be a wonderful day.

When Jesus returns, we will see him face to face. We will see the lover of our souls and we will be with him. It will be a glorious, wonderful day when Christ comes to gather his people back to himself. But for the rest of mankind, they will not enjoy that day. It is a day of judgment and wrath.

Jude tells us that when Jesus comes he is coming to execute judgment and to convict the ungodly now We use the word convict in two senses First when our sin has been revealed to us and it leads us to sorrow and repentance We we say we feel convicted for our sin that was the piercing to the heart in Acts 2 a conviction over sin that is not what Jude is talking about here this is the other conviction this is the pronouncement of guilty this is the conviction in court This is the gavel crashing down and saying, no, you're guilty. The ungodly will be convicted of all their sin on that day. Think about those words. To convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds and of all the harsh things that men have said against him. Do you realize how damning that is?

All your ungodly deeds? All your ungodly deeds? What would happen if every sin you ever committed was held against you? If you, oh Lord, should mark iniquities, who could stand? Now that's a rhetorical question.

The answer obviously is no one. No one could stand. David is right. No one could stand. If the Lord marks out and holds our iniquity against us, no one can stand.

Humanity, mankind, and its fallen nature, we drink iniquity like water. We sin as naturally as we breathe. Our very best works apart from Christ only serve to damn us more. That is the state of the natural man. And on that day, if you stand before Christ apart from trusting in him, everything will be held against you.

And it's not only works, but words, all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him, every complaint against God, every gripe about the appointed lot God has given to you, All of that will be held against the sinner on that last day. These false teachers, every sin, every blasphemy will be made known and it will be held against them on the day of Christ's coming. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, Paul tells us that the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day To be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe. Two purposes for coming.

To be glorified and admired by those who believe. Punish the wicked. Those who refuse to believe. And I want to be perfectly clear. Yes, this applies to false teachers, those who are knowingly perverting the grace of God for immorality, those who openly and intentionally walk in rebellion to God's law.

This applies to them, but this does not only apply to them. It is not only the Hitler's of the world that will be judged. This applies to you here today if you are not in Christ on that final day. Little children, this applies to you. If you grow up and you live your life and you do not come to him, this applies to you.

You will face what we will read in Revelation, the wrath of the Lamb. The Lamb that took away the sin of the world, he will return in wrath and that will fall on all who refuse to repent and believe. When you stand before Jesus on that final day, If you have not trusted in him for the salvation of your souls, he will judge you, he will convict you, and he will condemn you because of all your ungodly works, every single one. Many of your sins may escape human notice. They may escape human justice, but they will not escape divine justice.

God sees it all. God knows it all. The God who fills heaven and earth, he is not ignorant of what you have done in secret. And if you stand before him without Christ, there will be nothing to hold back his judgment against you. All will be punished.

God will have his day of vengeance. But there is great hope, as we heard this morning. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Be saved from this perverse generation.

There is a day of judgment coming but there is an open door of salvation today. Run to Christ." So the prophecy of judgment Next, the first indictment against the false teachers in verse 16. These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. Now what does he mean? Grumblers and complainers or grumblers and fault-finders.

They're malcontents. They are complaining About their life all while following after their own lust Their grumblers and complainers following their own lust walking according to their own desires These are the kind of men who cannot be satisfied They follow their own ungodly passions and desires, despising God's authority and His law, and yet they complain about how their life is going. They grumble like Israel in the wilderness and they complained against God and what God had done for them. These men, these false teachers, as we've seen, they despise authority, they are trying to usurp the role of the elders. They complain against the elders of the church, I would imagine, as part of Jude's point here.

They complain the pastor doesn't preach like I would preach. The elder doesn't exactly dot every I and cross every T how I would. And they complain and they grumble about the rest of the congregation. They dive headlong into immorality, all the while complaining about the lack of spirituality in the rest of the church. They cannot be satisfied.

They grumble, they complain, all while seeking to satisfy their own desires. And what else are they doing? He says, they mouth great swelling words. I like the ESV's rendering. They are loud mouth boasters.

And they flatter people to gain advantage, or they show partiality to gain advantage. On the one hand they show off and talk a good game. They build themselves up in the sight of those who can be led astray easily by someone giving an impressive show. They mouth great swelling words. On the other hand, they flatter.

They show partiality. They, in modern parlance, they're suck-ups. They do whatever it takes to get you on their team. They're shepherding only themselves, we heard last time. They are gathering disciples after themselves.

Whatever it takes to get ahead, they'll do it. Whatever they have to say to anyone in the church to get them on their team, they will do it and say it. They take Paul's statement, I became all things to all men that by all means I might gain some, and they perverted into I become all things to all men that by all means I can become something. Everything is centered on themselves and how they can get ahead. Be on the lookout for men who have this kind of mentality and be on the lookout for it in yourself.

None of us is immune to this. Next, the second prophecy, a prophecy of the coming of these false teachers, verses 17 and 18. But you, beloved, remember the words which were 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 lusts. Now this prophecy is attributed generally to the apostles. For that reason there's no direct quotation in scripture, there's no specific text in mind here.

Some translations will put this in quotation marks. The New King James thankfully does not because I don't believe it should be considered a direct quotation. This is more of a summary of teaching, if you will. If you will. The idea here is this was the warning of the apostles.

In the last times, in the last days, as we heard about earlier, there will be men like this. And note that it says, he says, how they told you that there would be mockers. Now some versions I think render this a little bit better as they were telling you. There's a nuance of Greek grammar here which we will not get into, but the idea here is this was something that was repetitive or continuous. This was not an occasional thing that they only once in a while or once in a blue moon mentioned that there would be false teachers.

It was a common refrain of the teaching of the Apostles that there will be false teachers among the church. Just as there were false prophets among Israel, there will be false teachers among you, Peter says in his epistle. And we know this is what Paul taught and we Because why would they teach us? Jesus taught it. And this was a common refrain.

They taught it over and over. It's not a passing remark. It was something that they taught on regularly. There will be false teachers. There will be wolves in sheep's clothing.

And so while regular reminders about the reality of heresy, false teaching, and apostasy is not fun, it's apostolic. It's the apostolic example to warn the flock against those who would cause damage to the flock. And God uses these warnings for two purposes. First he uses it to teach the flock how to recognize the wolves. That has been one of the main things that Jude is, I believe, one of the main points of his letter.

How do we recognize these men who have secretly come in? They don't come in the front door declaring their heresy, But you can often spot it because there are these consistent marks of those who are false teachers, those who are apostates leading the people of God astray. Be on the lookout for these men. So that's the first thing, to teach the flock how to recognize the wolves. Secondly, I believe it is to comfort the flock.

Now this may seem counterintuitive, what comfort is there in being told that, yeah, they're going to be heretics and they're going to ravage the church and it's going to be like that way until Jesus comes back. That on its face that doesn't seem to be very comforting. But we should be comforted because none of this should be a surprise. God has told us beforehand. He has told us what will come so that we can be prepared, that we can know what is going to happen and how to deal with it.

This is the comfort. We've been warned ahead of time and so we can prepare for the day of battle. A sneak attack can devastate an army. But if intelligence warns ahead of time that there's an attack coming, The soldiers can prepare for battle. And that's what we have in the warnings about false teachers.

You have the first warnings being told there will be dangers. There will be false teachers. There will be men who come in and are trying to corrupt the gospel itself. You have to be ready to fight them. Fight them with the truth.

And specifically, we are warned here that in the last days there will be mockers. Mockers in the last times who will walk according to their own ungodly lusts. Now, mockers is a pretty general term. We don't know exactly what they mock. The parallel in 2 Peter 3 indicates that they mock the idea of Jesus returning.

That might be what Jude has in mind here. I'm inclined more to think it's that they mock the idea that they're accountable to God. That's been the consistent theme throughout Jude's letter. The false teachers are marked by rebellion against God-ordained authority. And they mock that authority.

I believe that's probably what he's getting at here. But regardless, they mock spiritual things. They mock the things of God. They mock God's law, they mock God's commands. Whatever it is they mock, they are mockers, that is what characterizes them.

They do not take things with the seriousness and the gravity it requires. And they are mocking while walking according to their own ungodly lusts. He had just described them as walking after their own desires. Now the idea of lust in English generally causes us to think of sexual sin, but again I think this is broader here. I think he has in view a general idea of self-centeredness and pride.

Their own desires. They are focused, they are walking a path of their own desires. They want to fulfill what they want to do. They want to fill any inclination, any sinful desire that pops into their head. They're walking a pathway that is utterly opposed to God's law, God's ways, all so that they can do what they want to do in their own sinful minds.

That's the idea. They look at God's law as a cage restricting them from the greener pastures of pleasure outside. And they do not realize that in reality God's law is a guardrail keeping them from driving off the cliff. So that was the prophecy of coming false teachers. And then lastly, the second indictment, the second indictment against the heretics.

Verse 19, these are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the spirit. So the New King James puts sensual persons first, which is Interesting. It's actually second in Greek. But the idea that they are sensuous, or sensual, not again in the sexual immorality idea, but they are sensual in that Everything that they do is connected to their senses. They are worldly, they are natural.

Everything they do is bound up in the natural realm. They have no connection to real spiritual life. They are worldly, other translations render it. They are worldly minded. Everything is connected with this life because this life is the only hope they have.

They have no hope of eternal life. Everything is tied up in this present age. So they are sensual persons or worldly persons who cause division. Now it is true that division is not always a bad thing. There are necessary divisions between the church and the world.

We understand that, I hope. But this is about divisions in the church. These men create divisions among God's people. The false teachers, they are seeking to promote themselves and draw disciples away after themselves. They are causing divisions.

They split churches. They split denominations. Their heresy corrupts. When Christ Church is called to be one, they say, no, I'm going to have my group. I will take authority and I will go and do my own thing.

They cause divisions. They bring a sword of division to the church. Heresy divides. And we are called to be one. So what do we do with that?

Does that mean that we then sacrifice truth for the sake of unity? God forbid. Never. We do not sacrifice truth in order to maintain unity. We fight for the truth as Jude said earlier.

Contend earnestly for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints. The fault of division is laid at the feet of the heretics, not those defending the truth. So when people criticize you, criticize us of taking strong doctrinal stances and pointing out false teaching, and they say, well, you're just being divisive. No, the heretic is being divisive because they refuse to submit to the truth. Is the heretic who is at fault?

Not the one seeking to defend the honor of Christ. They bring division. And he ends with the most aggressive condemnation against the false teachers of all. They do these things not having the Spirit or because they do not have the Spirit. We heard much about the Spirit this morning.

The giving of the Spirit was an amazing gift to Christ Church on the day of Pentecost. The giving of the Spirit to the individual believer, their conversion, is a marvelous gift to the believer. You have the third person of the Godhead within you, transforming you from the inside out. What a marvelous grace of God to have the Spirit at work in your soul. These men have no idea what any of that means.

They do not have the Spirit. They are strangers to grace Because the Spirit has not come to open their eyes or give them a new heart They may say the right words at certain points. We saw last time they are in the church They're taking part in the Lord's Supper But they do not know God The Spirit of God has no place within them. So these men are ungodly, Mocking boasters. They care only for themselves and satisfying their own sinful desires Because that is the nature of every person apart from a work of the Spirit of God If you have not been born again, that still describes you today.

That nature that these men are being found guilty of, that nature is in every person who does not have the Spirit. That is how powerful the Spirit is and how much we should marvel at God's gift of the spirit to his people as a marvelous treasure. So what does this mean for us? As far as application, I want to bring two simple points of application corresponding to the two prophecies mentioned. Prophecy is intended to teach us to see what's ahead and prepare for it.

So in light of that, two points of application. First, prepare for the false teachers. They will come. You can turn on your TV and you can see many of them any day of the week or just get on Facebook YouTube whatever they're all over the place but be prepared to face false teachers scripture is clear the church throughout the last days which we are in as we have heard has been and will continue to be ravaged by heretics and apostates. And we are to stand firm and fight for the truth of scripture.

And so we must not stick our heads in the sand and say, no, that can't happen here. No that can't happen to the people I know. We have to prepare, we have to know and be ready to give a defense for the gospel. Secondly, prepare for that great and awesome day of the Lord. Christ will come.

It could be soon. It could be a thousand years from now. We do not know. What we do know, He will come. We do know that.

Christ will come. And on that day, there will only be two classes of people. There will be the sheep and the goats. They're redeemed and the wicked. Those who will enter into the joy of their Lord and those who will go away into everlasting fire and darkness.

What side of the division will you be on? Prepare for that day. If you are not in Christ, run to Him. There is still time. But we do not know how much time.

Run to Him while the door of salvation is open. Please pray with me. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, God, that you have been so kind to us to give us the scriptures that We can learn so much from them We thank you Lord that you care for your church We thank you Lord that you have warned us of what is to come And we thank you Lord that you have given us your spirit to equip us and to prepare us and to make us one body. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to stand against all division and we would stand for the truth.

Lord, we pray that in all things, you would be glorified. We pray, Lord, that we would be a church known for our unity and for our love, for our love of the truth and for our defense of it. We pray, Lord, above all, that we would be a church that has your favor and your blessing, and a church that seeks to have one goal in mind, the glory of Jesus Christ. In His name we pray, Amen.