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Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Kept for Jesus Christ
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Sunday Morning, August 9, 2026
Given by Dr. Kevin DeYoung | Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church
Kept for Jesus Christ
Jude
As we come to the book of Jude this morning, let's ask for the Lord's help.
We come, oh Lord, to ask for your help because we are needy people. It is very easy for a sermon to go out of a mouth into an ear and do nothing else. That's our fault, not yours. So, we ask that you would speak loudly, clearly, spiritually to our spirits, you would plant this Word deep into our hearts for those who need to be encouraged, reminded to keep going, and some perhaps who are in absolute grave danger. So, give us ears to hear. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Next week, Lord willing, back in Romans. This Sunday, finishing this five-week series over the summer on these books of the Bible that are only one chapter long. Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude. Jude is the longest of these five. My wife had a great idea. She said, "You've been gone for five weeks. Maybe you should put five sermons into one for this book." I said, "No, no, no." But there is a lot in this little book of Jude. Not only is it the longest of these one-chapter books, but I think it's safe to say it's the most intricate, it's the most complicated, and it's true – normally, I would probably do five or six sermons on this, but it's good to sometimes move through books and get the big picture in one fell swoop, which we hope to do this morning.
There is a lot that's going on in this book, some of it strange and confusing. What I want you to notice before I read through the 25 verses – I want you to be on the lookout for one word. One word that occurs several times in the book of Jude, and I think it is the organizing principle for this book: I want you to be on the lookout for the word “keep.” Look at verse 1, “To those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.” Look at verse 21, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Look at the doxology in verse 24, “To him who is able to keep you.” Kept. Keep yourself. God is able to keep you. You could summarize the book with that word “keep.” You are. You must. By God's grace, you will be kept. The word “keep” in verse 21, just to be fair, is a different Greek word – or rather the one in verse 24 – but it's rightly translated as “keep,” and there's actually two other keeps in verse 6. The angels who did not stay – that's the same word from verse 1 and 21 – you could translate, “who did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling, he has kept.” There's that word again. So, the word I want you to be on the lookout, especially verse 1, we're kept; verse 21, keep yourselves; and then verse 24, God will keep us. He is able to.
I want you to be on the lookout for those three words, that organizing principle, because that one word “keep” tells us that the Christian life is a dangerous journey. Some of you have that big book. It's the kids’ version of Pilgrim's Progress. It's a wonderful book to read to your kids. If we don't have them now, we've had them before in the Book Nook, and it describes so well the Christian life. It is tempting to think – and the devil wants you to think – that your experience, because you live in Charlotte, North Carolina, that your experience as a Christian is a very safe one. Cruise control. Just coast. Keep going. I get the dangerous journey, maybe, if you're a missionary, maybe if you live in some violent neighborhood, not in the Bible Belt. That's what the devil would like you to think. The devil can fool us anyplace, and he would love for you to think that being a Christian in a place like this is smooth sailing, easy going, and to forget the lines of the hymn that most of us know, “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” On this journey to our heavenly home, there are spiritual cyclopses, witches, sirens, monsters. It's why Jude is saying you are kept. God is able to keep you. But the bulk of the book there in the middle, reaching its crescendo in verse 21 with that command, is you're kept; he'll keep you; you need to keep yourself in the love of God. You say, "How does that work? I thought once saved, always saved. I thought we believed in the perseverance of the saints." Of course, we do. Once you're justified, you will be glorified. You are in present possession of eternal life. But here's one of the ways that it works is God causes his true children – his elect, the truly born again – causes you to persevere by commandments like we find in the book of Jude, that when you really do believe in Christ, you will hear a sermon like this. Instead of saying, “Once saved, always saved. I prayed a prayer. I joined a church. I'm good to go. See you in heaven,” you will instead receive it and say, "Oh God, let me not make shipwreck of my faith." Because there's plenty of examples of that in the Scripture. We're going to see them here in Jude in a moment. But you say, "Oh God, keep me. Keep me." That's what the Christian is going to hear in this sermon and pray and then trust that God will hear it and will keep you from wandering from the path. Let me read this book.
“Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Yet, in like manner, these people, also relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you." But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loudmouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, ‘In the last time, there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
I told you there could be five sermons in here. There is a lot going on. Some of it is strange and confusing. It's enough to make you want to scream out, "Hey, Jude!" Okay, there's the obligatory – got that out of the way. No more Jude Bellingham. St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Jude Law. Jude the Obscure. No more Jude. Scholars recognize that Jude is an excellent writer. There's lots of allusions. You saw them. Some of them you probably knew. Others you weren't sure what was going on. There's lots of examples piled up on top of each other. And there's lots of items. It's full of examples – three of this, four of that, five descriptive phrases, three different groups, four different attributes. The best way to explain the whole book is to simply try to explain it paragraph by paragraph and summarize at the end with this big-picture idea: keep. So, you are kept. That's the very beginning. God is able to keep you. That's the end. And most of the letter there in the middle is to say, here's what you need to do to keep yourselves in the love of God. And I think that love of God, it could be both the love we have for God or God's love for us. Keep yourselves as Christians. Keep yourselves in God. Here's what to be on the lookout for, and here's what you need to do. So, let's try to move through this quickly.
Jude is the author, short for Judas, shortened from Judas to Jude for obvious reasons. After Judas Iscariot, if you got the name Judas, you go by Jude. It's likely why it's here called Jude. A brother of James – important leader in the early church – and the half-brother of Jesus. So, this Jude is the half-brother of Jesus. He doesn't introduce himself like that. That's sort of pulling rank, but that's who he is. We don't know anything about the original audience, but they seem to be Jewish Christians because of all the Old Testament and other Jewish literature that's referenced. We don't know the time it was written, except if 2 Peter chapter 2, which is very similar to the book of Jude – if 2 Peter has some dependence on Jude, and Peter's going to die in the mid-60s, then maybe this letter was written sometime in the mid-60s, or it might have been earlier than that. There's lots of things we don't know. We see in verse 3, he wanted – he sat down to these Christians, wherever exactly they are, and he wanted to write one kind of letter. This is instructive for us. He's eager to talk about the things they have in common. He had in his mind, “This is going to be good. I'm going to write to these Christians here, and I'm going to exalt in our common salvation. This is going to be a great letter about Jesus and the gospel and our salvation. It's going to be just one big doxology.” He said that's what I wanted to write to you about, but I now find it necessary to write – verse 3 – appealing to you to contend for the faith. So, this is instructive just in general, I hope your first instinct is not, “You know what I love to do? I love to get into fights. I love to argue with people. I love to mix it up with other Christians. I just love to debate things.” No, you have to do that, and Jude is willing to do it, but he says, you know what I love to do? Know what I wanted to do, first of all? I wanted to exalt in all that we have in common. That's what I wanted to do, but now I need to write a different kind of letter to contend for the faith.
And notice how it's described. This is not the faith subjectively – the belief, the resting in Christ that we have – but rather, this is the faith objectively that is passed down and received. And it's very important how it's described: “Contend for the faith (verse 3) that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Now, what does that mean? It means that this gospel message was not something that needed further evolution. Now, there's traditions, and there's other doctrines that will have to be clarified, but it means that this gospel deposit was something firm, fixed, passed down. Here it is. What I received, I now give to you. It's a deposit. You're to protect it. You're to guard it. That's what the truth is. We believe in a foundation that is not to be torn down, is not to be repeated. This is a truth that is fixed, firm, handed down, not evolving. Faith. Certain people, he says – here's the problem (verse 4) – they've crept in. So, these were not people that came originally from their midst but stealthily like, and he says they've crept in. So that says something about how they're getting an ear, and I'm afraid, Jude says, that you're going to listen to them, and some of you are being led astray by these false teachers. Now you say, how exactly did they creep in? Did they just, you know, they sort of sat in the back? Now all of you back dwellers are feeling self-conscious. They sort of crept in the back, and then afterward, you know, people leave, they're just passing out tracts or something.
How did they creep in to the church? Well, likely we have the answer to that in the two books that you just saw the last two weeks, 2 John and 3 John. So, go over one page to 3 John. Here is likely how false teachers would creep into a church. So, you look at 3 John, which is a great letter about hospitality among other things. Look at verse 5, “Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers – strangers as they are – testify to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. They have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.” So, you have this Christian community, which is spread around the Mediterranean world, and you have a number of itinerant teachers, preachers. Sometimes in the literature they're called prophets, and they would come by. Well, you can't do a Google search on them. You don't know who they are. That's why Paul in some of his letters writes about letters of commendation. You could come and they say, "We've never seen you before in our life. How do we know?" Well, here the Apostle Paul has sent me. So, these people are coming, and 3 John says, "You will do the gospel a great favor if, when these good gospel teachers come, these noble ones, these truthful ones, you welcome them into your home. You take care of them. You let them teach in your fellowship. You have a little mini-conference here with these itinerant teachers. These are the good guys.” And so, they come, and you need to discern, are these good guys, or are they bad guys? So, 3 John says, good for you. You welcome the good guys.
But go back to 2 John because he says, "Be careful not to let in the bad guys." Look at 2 John, verse 7, “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.” So, there's one test. Their Christology is bad. They don't have the same Jesus. Such a one is the deceiver, the antichrist. “Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what you have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.” You see? The exact opposite in 2 John. These traveling teachers throughout the world come and they say, "Here, we're in town. We're here to bless your church with some good gospel teaching.” John says, "You need to ask some questions. What do they believe about Jesus? Who are they? Why are they doing it? Are they trying to line their pockets?" You need to be discerning because if you welcome in the ones who are really the good guys, then bless you. That's what you ought to do. Hospitality is critical. It's one of the qualifications of being an elder. But you got to do the hard thing. If these are not guys on our team, and they're not teaching what is true, don't say, "Well, you know what? It'd be nice. Let's just let's just welcome them in." Nope. Say, "Sorry, can't stay with us." Well, shouldn't we just hear them? Shouldn't we just dialogue? Nope. They don't get a hearing at the church.
So, likely – go back to Jude – this is the cultural context, how it works. These traveling teachers come through, and Jude is saying, "There are some who have crept in, and now they have a hearing in your fellowship." Now, in our context that's likely not to happen. Somebody just knocks on your door and says, "I'm from out of town looking for a place to stay." Okay. Honey, 911 now! We don't do that. But people creep into churches all the time. Websites, books, conferences, podcasts, reels, Tik Tok, X, influencers. You need to be discerning. Not that you can't ever listen to somebody that you disagree with, but a lot of you go to church 90 minutes out of the week. If you’d like to make that two and a half hours, come back this evening. But if you go to church 90 minutes a week, let's say you read your Bible five minutes a day, half hour a week, you got two hours. And it's not at all an exaggeration to say that for many of us, scrolling, podcasts, TV, influencers are coming at us 40, 50, 60 hours a week. You don't think that's going to have an impact on what you think and how you feel and what seems normal? So, there's lots of ways for bad teaching to creep in to the church. These teachers that Jude has in mind, these are not good Christians with whom you have an honest disagreement. They're not coming to say, "Well, I'm not sure we agree on baptism, or I'm not sure we agree on the millennium." No, these are ungodly reprobates. You see that language? It's very strong. Long ago, verse 4, designated for condemnation. They were predestined to this condemnation. They're ungodly. And then, notice two chief errors. Part of what Jude is going to do, and I'll summarize it when we get to the very end, is he's telling us who we are, he's going to tell us who God is, and he's going to give us a lot of indications of what false teachers are like. You say, "Well, how do I know?" Here are two chief errors of these false teachers. And you know what? These may be the two chief errors still today.
So, what do false teachers do? Not just “good Christians and we disagree on some things,” false teachers. They're ungodly people. Number one: they pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. So these are people – this is why you have to be discerning – they talk about grace. They may talk only about grace. You say, well we can't talk about grace too much, can we? No, we can't, but we can talk about it in the wrong way. These people will approve things that have never in the history of the church until five minutes ago been approved: adultery, sex before marriage, homosexuality, pornography, masturbation. These are teachers coming in, and they're talking about how gracious God is, how much God loves us or what an indulgent Father he is, and what they're doing – notice the word – they pervert it. They're twisting it. They're taking something that's true and wonderful and glorious, that God is gracious, and then they're corrupting it and turning it into sensuality. There are so many teachers – there are whole denominations that have this perversion. Jude calls it out – he did 2,000 years ago – to say this is what will happen with false teachers. They'll talk about God is great, and he loves you, and he's gracious, and they'll pervert that and say therefore you can do whatever you want. The other thing they do – so that's an antinomian danger. Come back tonight, we'll talk more about that. They're antinomian – that means anti-law. So, people that say commands, obedience – if you're a Christian and you talk about obedience, you're a legalist. Now, there is such a thing as legalists and legalism, but often the definition of legalism is simply someone who takes holiness more seriously than I do. That's a legalist. So, they will say, "What are you talking about obedience? That's performative." Wait a minute. This is where you know your Bibles. You've been in church, a lot of you, a long time. You know the great commission: “And teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Okay, that's not a bad word. Obey. So, they pervert that, and right along with that, they deny our master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now those words are deliberate. They may not deny Jesus as a savior. They deny him as Lord and master. They may even talk about Jesus the friend of sinners, Jesus who lifts up the downcast, Jesus who helps the poor, Jesus who comes alongside the weak – all of which are true and wonderful scriptural truths. But they will not talk about Jesus as a master to be obeyed or a Lord before whom we must bow. And you need to ask yourself that question: do you have a Jesus who can ever tell you that you're wrong? If not, he's not a master and he's not a Lord. He says, "I need to remind you, although you once fully knew it" – verse 5. This is what we often have to do in the church. This is what you often have to do in your families. You remind people of things. You say, "Well, they already know this." Yes, remind. Because we have we have leaky spiritual tanks, and we forget a lot of things, and we need to be reminded. People who say, “Well yeah, I'm a Christian. Stop being so judgmental. Don't tell me how to live my life. Don't put God in a box. Being a Christian is about freedom, right?”
Well Jude's going to give, in rapid succession, three examples from in the Old Testament of how God judged the people. So, lest someone says, "Well, why do you have such a judgy God?" Well, we have a God in the Old Testament who judges sinners. Egypt – and notice the language here. It's striking. Jesus saved the people out of the land of Egypt. Afterward, Jesus destroyed those who did not believe. It says that Jesus Christ was the agent effecting the Exodus and then judging the people. The second example are angels in heaven. This is a little bit more confusing. Seems to be a reference to the “sons of God” – that strange passage in Genesis chapter 6 that some of the sons of God came and had relations with the daughters of men. So, these are angels who left their place of privilege. Come down. These are mysterious things for us. Left their proper dwelling, and therefore God has kept them. He judged these angels for their deliberate rebellion. And then the third example – more familiar, verse 7 – Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice the sin of Sodom is not simply that they were inhospitable. That's one of the sins. Ezekiel tells us that. But some liberal scholars will say that's the only sin, when clearly Jude doesn't agree. Their sin was to indulge in sexual immorality and to pursue – it’s translated in the ESV – “unnatural desire.” You can see the footnote, literally in the Greek: “other flesh, different flesh.” Men pursued flesh sexually that they should not have pursued. They are the classic example of judgment. Jude continues with his argument. What else do we see about these false teachers? Verse 8, “In like manner” – he rattles off four things. So, you can see there's lots of this. He's got three Old Testament examples. Now he says four things – “They rely on their dreams.” Again, you probably don't meet many people who rely on their dreams for their authority, though certain branches of the church have that more common. That's sort of self- selecting, not in the Presbyterian branch as much, and yet – let's not kid ourselves, this is true everywhere – this is a way of saying their authority was based upon their own subjective experience. They relied on their dreams. Do you see the contrast? A faith in objective truth, once for all delivered for the saints, that doesn't change, doesn't evolve, it's there, objective. Their authority is something subjective: “I had a word from the Lord. Let me tell you about my dream, or let me tell you how the God I worship. Let me tell you what I feel. Let me tell you about my experience.” All of that is rooted in the self. It's a subjective authority. You see how relevant this is? They defile the flesh. Again, they reject authority – Christ's authority over them, ultimately – but it may even be the church's derivative authority. They're not accountable to anyone. That's what you have to look at with the people that you listen to, the spiritual gurus. You really have to ask yourself, does this person – do they have anyone who can hold them accountable? Is there really a board? Do they really have functioning elders? Do they belong to a presbytery or whatever may be the same kind of thing in a different denomination? You don't want to listen to people who just fire up their own ministries, their own hot takes, their own intemperate rants, and they have no real accountability.
Then – here's the strange one – he says they blaspheme the glorious ones. Now, the main point is here, but it's very easy to get lost in this argument about Michael the angel disputing over Moses’ body. Blaspheming the glorious ones. So, let's start with the big picture here. What does this mean? Apparently, these false teachers, part of what they did to kind of put on a spiritual show or to seem impressive is they rebuked spiritual beings, who were in fact demons. Maybe these itinerant prophets came in and impressed people and said, "You got a demon of anxiety. You got a demon of drunkenness," and they went in, and they started rebuking demons. That's what he says – “blaspheming glorious ones.” These are not the good guys, but they're still glorious – that is, they're spiritually impressive beings. So that's the problem. They come in, and they put on a good show like they're spiritual demon slayers. And Jude is going to make the point, now, wait a minute. Michael didn't even rebuke the devil in his dispute over Moses’ body. You say, "Where was this? I don't remember this in Sunday school." Most scholars think that this allusion comes from a book – first century Jewish book – called The Assumption of Moses. And it represents a Jewish tradition about what happened to Moses’ body. He dies outside the Promised Land. In Jewish tradition, Michael and the devil argued over who had the right to his body. Now, it's not in the Bible. It's not in the Jewish scriptures. That book, The Assumption of Moses, no one thought it was part of the Jewish scriptures. You say, "Well, why does Jude cite it here?" Well, don't be too troubled. Remember Paul in Acts 17 at the Areopagus, he will quote some of the Greek poets. Luke cites unnamed sources. So, there's nothing that says an inspired biblical author can't cite someone else's work. Now, Jude seems to think that the story is true, that it is relaying some reliable tradition, but it's also possible that he's citing it as a literary reference, saying, "Well, we all know about this story,” whether Jude himself believes there's historical veracity or not. Just to remind you, there are two named angels in the Bible. Michael is called an archangel. We usually refer to Gabriel as the other archangel. They have very distinctive functions. Gabriel is the messenger angel. So, he's there in the nativity scene. He's the one who gives messages to God's people. And Michael is the one who fights for God's people. Gabriel gives messages to God's people. Michael is the one in the heavenly realm who's the champion to fight on behalf of God's people. In Daniel 10 and 12, he's called the great prince. In Revelation 12, it’s said that Michael battles dragon, so there's another Michael versus Satan. The line here – this is important – “The Lord rebuke you,” that comes from Zechariah chapter 3, a story that many of you will recall, where Joshua the high priest is there in filthy robes and Satan stands to accuse him, and then the Lord says to Satan, "I rebuke you. The Lord rebukes you,” because he's going to take off those dirty clothes. He's going to give him clean linen. It's a beautiful picture of our justification by an alien righteousness from another. The point that Jude is trying to make is to say these false teachers come in showboating. They don't understand spiritual warfare. They start talking about demons, rebuking demons. And his point is to say, look in Zechariah or this story that we're familiar with Michael, even in those examples, they don't go in and “I rebuke you.” They will only dare to say, "The Lord rebuke you." He quickly gives more Old Testament examples. He says in verse 10, "These people, they blaspheme what they don't understand, and they're going to be destroyed by it. They're like animals, understanding instinctively. They're just chasing after animal impulses – sexually, fame, money. Woe to them." He says, "They walked in the way of Cain, who went the wrong way; Balaam, who was motivated by money; and then Korah, who rejected authority. So, three quick word pictures from the Old Testament (allusions).
Now he's going to give five quick word pictures from nature. Told you there's lots of lists here. So, notice what he does. Next time you read Jude, you'll remember some of this and say, "Ah, this seemed confusing, but I see Jude is doing something very deliberate.” He gives five nature metaphors. He says these false teachers are like hidden reefs – that is, hard, stony coral that you can't see. That's why you say, you know, don't dive off of the end of the pier. You don't know what's there. You don't know how deep this goes. You don't know what sort of stones and boulders may be below the surface. He says that's what these false teachers are like. You see the surface of the ocean, and it looks safe, and you go dive in headlong, and you're hitting your head on these hidden reefs. They're like shepherds who feed themselves instead of the sheep. There's another warning of false teachers. Are they very intent on how they themselves can be fed, rather than the sheep? So, they're hidden reefs. They're waterless clouds. Now these are written – some of us, you know, say, “No more rain. Are you happy, Brad Panovich? We've had enough.” But these are desert people, so it's almost always good news when there's rain. They're saying, "These false teachers look like, ‘Hey, hey, get your neighbors. Get your family. Rain's coming. This is going to be good,’" and then it never rains. They look big and impressive. They bring nothing. Fruitless trees: again, spreading branches, but you come to the time where you are going to get the fruit from the tree, and there's nothing there. They're just uprooted. They're dead. Nothing makes me feel more manly than when there's a completely dead tree in my yard. It's all rotten out, and, “Kids, watch this!” and you just throw a shoulder, and it just shatters. It falls down. Just He-Man-like. Minus the outfit. But it's dead. There's no fruit. Wild waves of the sea – that is, unpredictable, out of control, foaming. Think of when the big waves come in, and you see the white caps, Jude says that's like their shame. They should be embarrassed. Everyone can see it. Wandering stars. These are people who've lost the plot. They're off the path. They're destined for destruction.
We have to hurry on. I told you there was a lot here, but there's at least one more very strange thing. He quotes from Enoch, verse 14: “It was about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam” – so there's a genealogy in the book of Genesis, and we know that the seventh from Adam is Enoch. And it’s said that Enoch lived, and then he was translated. It's the old language. He went up to heaven. He didn't die. Enoch didn't die. So given that he's this mysterious person who was brought up into heaven without death – the only other one there is Elijah – a lot of traditions were built up, and lots of thoughts about, well, who is this Enoch, and what word might he have? During the intertestamental period, a few hundred years before this, there was a book written called First Enoch. It's not considered part of the Bible by Jews or Protestants or Catholics. Nobody thinks this is a part of the Bible. It contains information about why angels fell, about the Nephilim, about words of judgment. So, it's clear that some of the concepts in this book are in Jude's mind as he writes. Now notice, even though he is going to quote – just like Paul can quote from Greek poets, he can quote from this Jewish work – he never uses the formula “as Scripture says” or “as it is written.” So, he's not confused, and we shouldn't be confused. This is not a part of our Bible that we've been missing. He references Enoch, seventh from Adam. May not mean that Jude thought the book was written by Enoch. Nobody really thought the book was written by Enoch. It may be that Jude is simply referencing the book as it was known, because in the book it refers to “Enoch, seventh from Adam,” this may just be a way, you know, “As it is written in the book Enoch Seventh from Adam,” or it's possible that Jude did understand that there were some things in this book that did capture true sentiments from the historical Enoch. I think, most likely, he's citing the book simply as a piece of literature and good spiritual information with which they're all familiar. And he quotes again this line, “The Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment.” The point is about judgment. He says more about these false teachers and their ungodliness, and they’re harsh things, they’re grumblers. Look at verse 16: malcontents, follow their own desires, they’re boasters. They cozy up to the rich to just try to line their own pockets. One of the abiding characteristics of false teachers is it is all about them. They are the point. More attention to them. Jude here is contending. He's correcting. He's rebuking. You notice, however, he does cite these false teachers. All they have are harsh things to say. They're malcontents. They're grumblers. And here's a warning for us, too. Though we have to contend for the faith, as Jude does, you should really be on your guard before you start following someone whose entire “ministry,” and I put that in scare quotes intentionally, entire ministry is built on critiquing other people, that if they didn't have somebody else to tear down, they wouldn't have anything else to say. Those are not people that you should be listening to. He says they're scoffers. They follow their own passions. They cause divisions. You see the next paragraph: worldly people devoid of the Spirit. And then he finishes verse 24 and 25 with this glorious doxology.
So where does that leave us, besides four more sermons we could do? Well, just think of that word we started with: keep. We're kept. We're kept. So, part of what Jude is doing is he's reminding us who we are. These things are true of us. If you're a Christian, you're called, you're beloved, you're kept. So, he wants to remind you who you are. Then most of the book is about the “keep.” So, if the “kept” is to remind you who you are, the “keep yourselves” section is mainly to help you see who they are. That is what are these false teachers like? Put it all together, and it's quite a composite. They rely on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, blaspheme the glorious ones. They speak boldly about things they don't understand. They’re hidden reefs, waterless clouds, fruitless trees, wild waves, wandering stars. They're grumblers, malcontents. They follow their own sinful desires. They’re loudmouth boasters, scoffers. They follow their own passions. They cause divisions. They're worldly. They're devoid of the Spirit. That's why he says, "Keep yourself. Don't listen to these teachers. They've crept in. Some of you have welcomed them into your home. Some of you have downloaded them. Some of you are regularly streaming them. Don't. Keep yourself in the love of God." You see that command there in verse 21, and did you notice right around there there's three stages of how you lose your grip on the truth? And you have to deal with each one differently.
So, he says, "Have mercy on those who doubt." So that's stage one. There are doubters. He says, I want you to be patient with them. I want you to deal gently, that's verse 22. I want you to bring them along. So, you need to have discernment to know with your kids, with people in the church, with your friends. Okay? This is someone who's doubting. They got questions, but I need to be gentle. I need to have mercy on them. Bring them along. Second, he says, "Snatch those who are about to be burned." So, there are some, they're past the point of doubting, verse 23, they are about to make shipwreck. They're about to set themselves on fire. They need to be warned. They need to be rescued. They need not just a gentle “come walk with me,” they need an alarm clock ringing in their ears. And then there are those – you see the end of verse 23 – now, they've already fallen, but these ones seem to be coming back. That's why it says show mercy with fear. So, this third group, I think, are those who have fallen, they've committed some egregious sins. Don't you ever wonder this? Okay, what do you do? Someone commits a real, real, horrible sin. And we know we're supposed to be forgiving people. We know we're supposed to be merciful. It doesn't always remove the consequences, but we don't want to just say, "Hey, I love you. Give me a hug. No big deal." How do we do this? How do we be forgiving people, but we don't say “no big deal”? Jude tells us, "Show mercy with fear.” They ought to be afraid. You ought to be afraid. Oh God, there but by the grace of God go I. May I not do it. May you not do it again. So, have mercy with fear. There ought to be a holy fear in that person who's come back after almost making shipwreck of their faith. And then this part is key, you hate – not them – but you hate even the garment stained by the flesh. If you're going to make true repentance after falling away, like Jude envisions, it better come back with a real hatred – “I have stained the name of Christ.” Now, by his grace, it can be blotted out by the blood of the Lamb. But I hate what I have done. And that's part of the mercy. God tells us to have mercy on you, brother. Praise God, you've come back, but I'm afraid. Are you a little afraid? Do you hate the sin you've committed? Because I hate sin. Give you a hug, and I hate what you've done.
What can we do then to keep ourselves in the love of God? He gives us another one of these threes. You see verse 20: build yourselves up in the most holy faith, number one. Praying in the Holy Spirit. And then keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that's what you can do. You can build yourself up, keep reading your Bible, keep attending the means of grace, keep having fellowship. Keep coming. Keep learning. Be an ever-impressive spiritual structure so that these wicked people can't sneak into your spiritual house. Build yourselves up. Pray in the Spirit. Keep praying. And then keep the end in view. You're waiting for the mercy of Christ. Know who you are. Know who those false teachers are, and then know who God is, who is able to keep you from falling. You notice the trinitarian shape. Pray in the Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God the Father, and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, know God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Know him as the only God, as Lord and master. Know him, as we read in the doxology, as glorious and majestic, as the one who has all dominion and authority.
So, here's the question I leave you with. If you were one of these people, somewhere on this dangerous journey, and you've taken maybe a half step off the path or maybe you have run headlong in the wrong direction, how would God correct you? And would you have ears to hear it? Because this is what's really dangerous, and I hope this isn't you, but it might be, and it might be some people that you know and that you love. People get to a point, they are beyond correction. Husband says something – “I know what he's really like.” Wife says something – “No, she has no ground to stand on. I know what she's really like.” Kids try to say things – "How dare you? You're my kids." Parents try to say something – “You don't know anything. You're my parents.” A coach says something – “Wrong.” Teacher says something – “They're out of date.” Church says something – “You know what the problem is? The church is the problem. Church is so full of hypocrites. Church is so abusive.” A book tries to say something – “Well, I don't need to listen to this book.” Everyone who says something to you – you can hardly be in a more dangerous spot if in your spiritual life the only people you ever listen to are the people who tell you that everything you're doing right now is good. Really, Lord, save me, save all of us from that, because none of us are going to live a straight line from here to eternity and not need correction. Do you have ears to hear? Does a sermon ever say, "Lord, help me. I've been off track.” Does a parent with the Bible or a kid with the Bible or a friend with the Bible or a book or – does anything ever get through to you? If not, then Jesus is not your Lord and Master. You are. You only listen to you. You say, "I listen to all sorts of people.” Yeah. You listen to people who say what you want them to say, and you alienate people in your life who don't say what you want them to say, and you're left with just the people who have learned that I can stay in your good graces by saying what you always want to hear. You've become your own Lord, your own master.
There's a God who can and will, because he loves you, speak into your life life through this book, through a sermon, through a good Christian book, through good Christian friends, through this gathering of corporate worship, most importantly, to keep you from stumbling, to present you blameless, and – don't miss that last part of good news – to bring you there with great joy. Did I just sound like John Piper for a minute? Joy! It's right here in the Bible. God wants you to be happy. He wants you to get to the end. He's not hiding good things from you. He's not trying to make your life miserable. He's trying to keep you from falling so you can have joy in this life and forever. It is a dangerous journey. You got to keep an eye on your surroundings. Isn't that what they say if you're in a new city or a dangerous part – just, you know, kind of have your eyes about you. It's a dangerous journey, and you and I need help. We need to fight. We need to contend. We need to work. We need to build. We need to pray, and God is more than able to help us. And it will be worth it. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we give thanks for your holy and inspired Word. For many of us, it is a good reminder. For some, this is exactly what we need to hear. May we not just listen for someone else, but would you save us, snatch us, bring us back. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.