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I appreciate your patience with my throat condition, although some people say you don't sound much different than usual.

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I don't know if that's a compliment or not.

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To me, I sound like old Dr. M.R. DeHaan.

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If you remember him, if I could teach half as well as he did, I wouldn't mind my voice sounding like this all the time.

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His voice had something of the quality of a frog.

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Occasionally you'll hear him on the radio still as they replay old tapes of his teaching ministry on the radio Bible class.

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We're looking in the book of Jude, and we're discovering there that Jude has some things to say to us regarding a condition that we face today called apostasy.

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Jude intended to write a treatise on the subject of salvation, its glories and its wonders.

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And yet as he started to write that, he was impressed with the Spirit of God that he needed to write to his brothers and sisters in the faith

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to contend earnestly for that body of doctrine called the faith, which had been once for all delivered to them.

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There are a lot of things happening these days under the umbrella of Christendom, and I choose that word carefully

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because it is the most general word that I know to use describing those who claim in some way to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth.

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Christendom is a broad term embracing very much.

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An example is found in an illustration I read a few weeks ago in the January Reader's Digest.

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It's an article written by Raelle Jean Isaac, who's working on her, who rather has her Ph.D. in sociology.

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She's done some research into a group called the National Council of Churches, which some of you may be familiar with.

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This is what she writes, in 1977, Linda and David Jessup began sending their children to the Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church

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in their Silver Spring, Maryland neighborhood.

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When the children came home from Sunday school with rice bags, the family was to fill with money to be used to buy wheat for Vietnam.

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Linda Jessup thought it odd.

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She had read that Vietnam's communist government was using food as a means of forcing compliance with this oppressive regime.

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David Jessup, who works for the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education, found that the money was to go to Vietnam via Church World Service,

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the relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches.

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Moreover, he discovered and documented that over a two-year period, $442,000 in Methodist churchgoers' money alone

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had been sent to a number of political organizations, among them, in Jessup's words, groups supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization,

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the governments of Cuba and Vietnam, the pro-Soviet totalitarian movements of Latin America, Asia, and Africa,

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and several violence-prone fringe groups in the United States.

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Now, you might think that what the Jessups discovered was a rare thing, that it was the exception rather than the rule,

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and yet that is hardly the case, as the article in January's edition goes on to point out.

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She goes on to say later in the article,

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a number of dissatisfied churchgoers have first become aware that something was wrong through reading National Council of Churches literature.

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Laura Hathaway, 61, of Spikard, Missouri, a Methodist since she was 12, bought material at a United Methodist Women's School of Missions she attended.

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Mrs. Hathaway says, quote,

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There was a play set in Mozambique with an American woman and a woman from Mozambique discussing the celebration of Mozambique's freedom.

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At the end of the play, the American woman says that in the United States, everything is so complicated and immense

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that many Americans don't know where to begin a revolution.

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I know, says the woman from Mozambique, but perhaps you will learn from our struggle. There are ways.

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Then the American woman says, yes, there must be.

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Again, she quotes Methodist evangelist Edmund Robb, who heads the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

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He says in one very short statement,

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The National Council of Churches has substituted revolution for religion.

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A few months ago, the same magazine, the same periodical, wrote an article exposing the World Council of Churches

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and its use of monies to support Marxist revolutions around the world, particularly in Africa.

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All of that is going on under the umbrella of Christendom.

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There is the teaching of liberation theology, which says that the gospel is really the relief of oppressed peoples

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from political domination and that we preach the gospel to them when we declare Marxist dogma in Christian terms

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and enable them to overthrow their oppressors, in other words, create a revolution.

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That is a legitimate theology in some circles called liberation theology.

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A lot is going on under the umbrella of Christendom, and we are to expect that.

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In Matthew 13, Jesus gave a number of parables.

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Those parables outline for us what we are to expect within the visible kingdom during this age.

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He gives to us there a number of events that take place within the professing church,

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and I am going to use the term again, within Christendom.

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One of the parables, one of the illustrations he uses is that of a mustard seed,

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which is a very small seed, but which, when planted, grows rapidly in one growing season,

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so that it is a large shrub and could be described even as a small tree.

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He says, the birds of the air come and live in its branches.

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It is a strange parable.

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Why is it that Jesus is trying to communicate in that illustration?

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Most conservative Bible scholars say that that mustard seed he is comparing to the kingdom,

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and he says it will experience an unusual, even a monstrous kind of growth in this age,

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and that in the end the birds of the air will lodge in its branches.

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Just previously in that same chapter, Jesus describes the birds of the air as being demonic spirits.

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This ties together with what the Apostle Paul warns us, that in the last days men will depart from the faith,

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they will fall away from it, and will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.

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In other words, we are to expect that in the last days of this age,

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after this rapid growth has taken place within the professing church, within Christendom,

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so that it could be described as a large tree, after all that has taken place,

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there will come forth out of the professing church doctrines that are absolutely contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

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They could be described as doctrines of demons, teachings of demonic spirits.

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I believe that we live in that day.

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There is a great deal going on under the umbrella of Christendom,

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and that is why the little epistle of Jude is so very relevant to us.

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I am going to invite you to open your Bible to the book of Jude, if you haven't already,

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and let's read again the first four verses that we looked at three weeks ago.

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Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called,

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beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ,

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may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you, beloved,

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while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation.

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I felt the necessity to write to you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith,

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which was once for all delivered to the saints.

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Why is this appeal necessary to contend earnestly for the faith?

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Well, he says, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed,

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those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation,

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ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness

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and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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He warns that there are certain men masquerading who have sneaked into their fellowships,

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these men who, because of their false teaching, are under God's condemnation from long ago.

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He calls them ungodly men, and he cites two areas of problems with them.

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In the first place, he says, they are turning the grace of God to licentiousness.

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That is, they encouraged immoral living, saying that because God is gracious,

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He will forgive, and we are free to live any way that we want to live.

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That kind of teaching is still around today.

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A student in a local college told me recently that one of his professors essentially said that very thing.

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You are saved by grace, Christian students. Go out and live any way you want to live.

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That is the same kind of teaching that Jude fought against 2,000 years ago.

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And not only do they encourage immoral living, but he says they also deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

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In other words, there are doctrinal problems.

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He says they deny the deity, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.

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He describes Him as our Lord, kurios, the most common word for Lord, and our Master.

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That is the more unusual word, sometimes translated Lord in the King James Version.

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It means despot, the absolute authority, the ruler, the one the slaves look to for their orders.

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He says that these people who are false teachers deny that Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority.

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He may be an authority. He may be a good teacher, but they deny that He is the Master and Lord.

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He goes on to say,

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In those last three verses that we have read, Jude gives us three examples of God's wrath,

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God's judgment upon apostasy or rebellion.

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Each group here was noted for its rebellion against the Lord and the resultant judgment of God that came upon it.

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These are apostates.

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I would like to make it clear that no person who is genuinely saved can ever become an apostate.

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A genuine Christian can get involved in false teaching,

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but I believe that one of three things will happen when a Christian, one of God's children, becomes involved in some way with false teaching.

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Number one, he may be brought back to the truth by the Word of God as he studies it.

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I believe that God by His Spirit seeks to instruct His children and to bring them to the truth when they stray.

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Or number two, he may be brought back to the truth through more severe chastisement in his life as God seeks to get his attention to turn him around.

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Or three, if he is a genuine Christian and refuses the teaching of the Holy Spirit and the chastisement of his Heavenly Father,

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I believe he will be taken to heaven through an untimely death.

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And there are examples of even that severe way of God dealing with his children who get involved in false teaching.

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Just in passing, let me mention that I think technically a heretic is different than an apostate.

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A heretic is one who gets involved in a secondary teaching, a secondary matter, not a fundamental doctrine,

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and who begins to take that secondary teaching to such an extreme that he seeks to divide Christians.

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A heretic is one who tries to force a choice upon Christians.

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He says, it's me or them. He brings division and dissension.

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In a biblical sense, that's what a heretic is.

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A heretic can be a genuine Christian who goes off on a tangent in some direction that is secondary.

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But an apostate is one who begins to teach something that is fundamentally different in a basic doctrine than what the Bible teaches.

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And it is that group that Jude particularly deals with.

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If you want to look about heretics, look up Titus 310 or 1 Corinthians 11, verses 18 and 19, and Galatians 520.

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And there you'll find information about heretics.

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But tonight we're looking at the matter of apostate, those who are false teachers who deny the faith, with whom we are to engage in warfare.

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We are to earnestly contend for the faith that God has delivered to us.

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The three examples now of God's wrath upon apostasy.

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In verse 5, the example, the tragic example of ancient Israel.

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Jude reminds us that after saving the people out of the land of Egypt, God subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

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Of what does Jude speak?

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He is reminding us here of what happened to Israel after she was delivered from Egyptian bondage.

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After receiving the law at Mount Sinai, God led his people to a place called Kadesh Barnea.

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It was the very southern end, tip, of the promised land.

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It was God's plan that his people go forth from that point and conquer the land, enter into it, possess it.

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But the people instead sent a party of twelve spies to see what was in the land.

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It was a reconnaissance mission so that they would know what they were up against.

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The twelve spies returned.

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The majority report was very pessimistic.

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Only two men were willing to stand up and say, we believe that God will give us the land. Let's go in right now and claim it by faith.

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They, of course, were Caleb and Joshua.

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But the congregation of Israel accepted the majority report.

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That's not the last time the majority was wrong.

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The majority report was, brethren, the people, well they said first the land is flowing with milk and honey.

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In other words, it's a very fruitful land. They brought back examples of the produce.

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But they said, men, women, the people of the land are giants.

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We are like grasshoppers compared to them.

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In other words, they were saying, there's no way.

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We can't take the land.

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And even though God had promised to give the land to them, they disbelieved God.

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And because of that unbelief, God condemned that generation.

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And for forty years they wandered in the wilderness until every person except two, Caleb and Joshua,

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who was above twenty years of age at that time, died.

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Someone has said that that was the world's longest funeral procession.

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Because every day as they marched, people died and they were buried in the wilderness until that generation died off.

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And when that had happened, then a new generation was on the scene and Joshua led them in victory into the land.

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But Jude points out the fact that even though those people from Egypt had been delivered from bondage,

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they in unbelief rebelled against God and God shut the door in their face and judged them.

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And of course, the implication is, if God did that to His Old Testament people, Israel,

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then we too need to be on guard against apostasy.

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In verse six, he comes to another example of apostasy and warns us of judgment upon those who take that route.

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Here he speaks about angels.

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He says, And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode,

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He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

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And so we have a group of angels brought to our attention.

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What did they do? Well, according to Jude, they did not keep their own domain.

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To keep here means to guard or to maintain.

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And so he says, they did not maintain their first estate, their own domain.

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That is, that original position that was given to them.

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The place of authority and dignity, that high position and rule, the assigned realm.

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In other words, he says that these angels did not maintain the assignment that God gave to them in His order of creation.

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That's the first thing he says about them.

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And then he says, they abandoned their proper abode.

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In other words, in a once-for-all act, they left behind their dwelling place, their habitation.

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And there is a special sense in which heaven is the habitation of angels.

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He calls it their own proper abode, that is, the one that is uniquely theirs, their personal habitation.

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They once-for-all, he says, left it behind.

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That's as much as he says to us about this.

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And there are those who believe that Jude is speaking about the angels who followed Lucifer in his proud rebellion against God.

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And they say that these angels that followed Lucifer are chained and kept in darkness, as Jude suggests to us, waiting their judgment.

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Now the problem I have with that interpretation is that if that's the case, then why was not Lucifer chained as well as their leader?

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And why are there still some angels that we call demons who followed Lucifer who are still free?

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It seems to me that if they were going to be chained in darkness, then all of them would have been chained in darkness and not a select few of them.

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So he seems to talk about a group of angels who did something more than what that mass of rebellious angels did.

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In other words, I think he's talking about a group of angels who did something in addition to following Lucifer in their rebellion against God.

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Perhaps we have another hint at this in 2 Peter.

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Will you turn back a few pages only to 2 Peter?

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Again, Peter warns about false teachers who will come and even who were among the people in that day.

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And he says about them likewise that they deny the master and their ways are sensual, that is, immoral, bent on pleasure.

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In verse 4, he warns about judgment and he says in 2 Peter 2, 4,

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For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment.

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And then he goes on to point out another example of judgment in the world in the days of Noah.

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But notice that Peter 2 points to a group of angels that he says sinned and for that they were cast into hell.

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And that is a particular word that we'll talk about in a moment.

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He says they are committed there in the pits of darkness being reserved for judgment.

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But again, Peter does not point back with clearness, with clarity as to what act is involved for which these angels were judged.

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There are those who say that these are angels, as I said, who fell with Satan.

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But I believe that there is a better example, a better explanation of who these angels are and what they did.

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Would you turn back please to Genesis chapter 6.

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In Genesis 6 we have the record of the flood.

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In verse 1 the chapter begins, Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land.

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And daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful.

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And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.

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Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh.

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Nevertheless, his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.

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In other words, God says one hundred and twenty years before judgment.

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The Nephilim were on the earth in those days.

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And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.

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These were the mighty men, who were of old, men of renown.

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Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth,

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that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and so on.

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Now there is a record here, described as the sons of God, cohabiting with the daughters of men,

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producing men who are called mighty men of renown.

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Some commentators say that means men who are renowned for their wickedness,

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a wickedness that God saw in verse 5, and for which judgment was promised.

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I personally believe that the best explanation of this passage is that it ties together

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with what both Peter and Jude were talking about.

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And that the angels who sinned are those that are called here the sons of God.

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I believe that a very rare, unusual thing happened in those days before the flood.

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So that certain of the fallen angels did exactly what Jude said.

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They left their first estate, their own habitation, and entered into the realm of humanity.

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Now there are those who say that angels don't have bodies.

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It is true that angels are spirits, but angels also may assume human form.

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It is true that in Matthew Jesus says that in the coming resurrection

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we will be like the angels who are neither married nor given in marriage.

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But that does not necessarily mean that angels might not, or at least certain of the angels,

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might not have the capacity to procreate.

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I personally believe that what happened in those days was that angels entered in,

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cohabited with women, and produced an unusual progeny,

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a race of people that might be described, though not very accurately,

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as half-demon and half-human.

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Men that are called giants, men renowned for their wickedness.

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And I believe that it was because of that horrendous sin against God's order of things

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that these specific angels were at that moment judged by God, that is the moment of the flood,

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that they were cast into a place that Peter calls Tartarus.

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That's the technical word there in 2 Peter 2 for hell.

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It's the only place found in the New Testament.

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I believe that these angels were at that time cast into this place called Tartarus,

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and yet today remain there chained in darkness, awaiting their final judgment,

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which will come at the great white throne described for us in Revelation chapter 20.

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What both Jude and Peter point out to us is a terrible example of rebellion

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in God's creation in His order of things.

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Now, I believe that that is the correct interpretation of verse 6,

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because what is said as we go on now in verse 7 of Jude, so I'll turn back there with me.

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We have to watch the language very closely here.

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Another illustration, a third example of God's judgment upon rebellion and apostasy,

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is found in what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah.

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But Jude does not entirely separate verses 6 and 7.

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He ties them together with a conjunction, just as or even as,

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indicating that what he is about to talk about in verse 7 is similar to what happened in verse 6.

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There are some similarities here, Jude is saying, and notice what he says,

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even as or just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them,

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that is those cities of the plain, Zohar and the others, since they in the same way,

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and again he underscores the fact, in a very similar way to what happened in verse 6,

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these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh

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and are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

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In other words, Jude is saying that what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah

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is similar to what happened when the angels sinned.

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What happened in Sodom and Gomorrah?

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And he says, these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh.

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The word strange means of a different kind, other than was divinely intended.

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And he says they indulged in it, they gave themselves over to it.

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The picture is of glutting oneself, going all out,

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being satisfied in one's lusts completely, in going after strange flesh,

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indulging in gross immorality.

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Now what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?

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Still today, that sin carries the name of sodomy.

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Sodom and Gomorrah were judged in part, and I think I can say primarily,

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because of the gross sin of homosexuality, of sodomy.

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It was the accepted way of life.

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And that is never more clear than what happens when God sends the two angels

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to warn Lot and his family to leave.

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It says that when the two angels came into the city,

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and went into Lot's house, they mobbed King to Lot's house

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because they wanted to know the two angels.

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And that word know is a very specific Hebrew word,

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which refers to the marriage act.

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In other words, this mob came to Lot's house,

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seeking to have homosexual relations with those two men

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who had just arrived in the city, not knowing that they were angels.

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And the men were smitten with blindness, the mob was,

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and the angels led Lot and his wife out of the city, along with his daughters.

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And the rest of the story.

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It was such a gross perversion of what God intended.

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It is strange flesh, different than what God had ordained.

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And because they glutted themselves on that sin,

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openly boasting about it, they were judged by God.

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They rebelled, you see, against God's order.

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They apostatized, they fell away from what God intended.

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And for that, they suffered what is called the punishment of eternal fire.

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Now when it says that, it's not talking about the city still burning.

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I believe that if excavation were to be done, could be done,

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around the Dead Sea that we would find these cities or the plains.

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In fact, there has been some excavation done by archaeologists.

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And what is described in Genesis fits perfectly

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what the archaeologists have discovered to be true.

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But it's not talking here about the cities themselves undergoing eternal fire.

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It's talking about the citizens of those cities undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

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And he says that is an example.

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There is a warning to every apostate, everyone who rebels against God's order of things.

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He says these are an example of God's everlasting wrath upon apostates.

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And so you see, I believe because immorality is the sin of Solomon Gomorrah in verse 7,

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that there is that connection with what the angels did in verse 6.

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And so we have three terrible examples before us here of what God will do to false teachers

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and those who apostatize from the faith.

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You do not have to read very far or listen to many talk programs on television

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before you hear examples of those who at one time professed to be Christians

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and who today still claim to be Christians, but who are far from the faith.

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They have fallen away from what they once professed.

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And I think particularly of one man that I heard on a show some time ago

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who was a close associate of Billy Graham in the early days, helping him in his crusades,

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who has now even penned a book condemning evangelical Christianity

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and doing it yet under the name of being religious.

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Dear people, this is a warning to us to stay away from apostates.

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It is a warning to us as well, even though we are kept secure,

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even though His grace will keep us from falling into apostasy, as we sang earlier

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and as Jude promises in the latter part of this epistle,

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even though His grace will keep us from falling, we have a responsibility

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to watch out for false teaching and to contend for the faith

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that has been once for all delivered to us,

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and to do that in such a way that we do not become contentious and nasty

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and bickering and unspiritual in the way that we do it,

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but in love and yet with firmness, because love is firm, isn't it?

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With deep conviction and yet with compassion for those who are even caught up in false teaching,

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we are to declare the truth, to do more than just to defend it,

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but to declare it, to take the offense.

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We have even a more modern example of God's judgment upon apostasy.

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A number of years ago on the island of Martinique,

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a prominent citizen on that island crucified a pig

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and carried that squealing animal through the streets of Saint Pierre in a religious festival.

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And underneath the cross was a title that said, The Holy Jesus.

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This citizen was also the editor of the newspaper in that day.

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In his writings he ridiculed Christ and dared God to show himself alive and real.

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And nothing happened and the public laughed.

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No one objected even to this blasphemous act when he carried the crucified pig through the city,

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calling it the Holy Christ.

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And yet it was within a week, as I recall,

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that Mount Pele erupted and absolutely destroyed the city of Saint Pierre along with its citizenry.

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Make no mistake about it, it is a serious thing to rebel against God.

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Not only do we Christians rebel against God, not in the ultimate and terrible sense of apostasizing,

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but we can rebel against His Lordship in our lives.

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How tragic when we do that.

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How much better for us that we recognize and gladly yield to His Lordship

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so that He is able to establish His rule, His Kingdom in our lives,

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and to pour out His blessing upon us.

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How sad when, like Israel of old, we come to a challenge of faith

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and instead of entering in and claiming by faith what God has promised to us,

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we turn the other way and say, well, that's too great a challenge for me.

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It is faith that God blesses.

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If you want to read more about that whole analogy, read the early chapters of Hebrews.

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We are entering into a year when as a church we are going to need great faith.

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We have before us some challenges, and they are exciting.

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It is God's blessing that has brought us to these challenges, but they are challenges nonetheless to us.

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And we are going to need to trust God as we have never trusted God before in many areas.

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And I want to be the kind of a man that can trust God, and I know you want to be that kind of a person,

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who will trust God and not in unbelief turn away at our Kadesh Barnea.

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Rather, we will claim the promises of God, and even though we seem like grasshoppers to some of the problems and some of the challenges,

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we nonetheless say by the grace of God, because of His promises, because of what He has commanded us to do,

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we will trust Him and enter in and claim the blessing.

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And when we do that, God will pour out His blessing, perhaps as never before in our lives.

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May that be our experience this year.

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Let's bow together in prayer.

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Father, we recognize that we are in a battle, a battle for the faith.

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All around us these days are those who in subtle, deceitful ways are undermining the truth,

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fearing exposure, working in hidden ways under darkness, and yet continually attacking, undermining the faith.

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Father, I pray that you will give us as your children and as soldiers of the faith

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the kind of courage, the kind of conviction that we need so that we might earnestly contend for the faith that you have once for all delivered.

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May we be true to the Bible and true to our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And may we be true in the right spirit.

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And then as we think about faith in a general way, we recognize that unbelief attacks us as your people.

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Satan hurls his darts of doubt, and we pray that we may have the shield of faith always ready to soak up those darts.

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And that we by faith, even this year as a church, may enter into the land that you promised us.

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That we to this year may know victories.

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I pray that we will be people of great conviction, of great faith, that we may know your great blessing.

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In Jesus' name that I pray this. Amen.