Can we then return to Jude, and I want to focus upon verses one to seven with you this evening. Seeking the Lord's blessing, we want to meditate upon this general epistle of Jude for one or two Wednesdays in the future. This short epistle of Jude was written to the early Christians that they might know that apostates have inflicted the church and how they were to respond accordingly. And the title I want to give, therefore, to the sermon this evening is, Be on Your Guard. Be on Your Guard. Jude is, in some sense, connected with 2 Peter, particularly 2 Peter chapter 3, chapter 2 of 2 Peter, because there Peter outlines false teachers and apostates. And this is what Jude is highlighting here also. And Jude also does mention the second coming of the Lord Jesus, again another theme that 2 Peter dwells upon. So they are linked in some sense. And what Peter prophesied in his second epistle is a reality in Jude's general epistle. And from what I could gather from my reading, Jude is addressing his epistle basically to the same audience or the same people as was Peter in second Peter. So Jude is telling them that the apostates that Peter prophesied about are actually there. The prophecy has been fulfilled. They are having an impact upon the infant Christian church. In my introduction here, we have Jude, and he's describing his readers. Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. In other words, therefore, he was a half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's how he describes the Christian. And if this is you tonight, then this is your description. This is how the word of God describes you, Christian. To them that are sanctified, by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Wonderful description of the Christian. The Christian in the world is hated and despised, but he is sanctified by God the Father, set apart, wonderfully set apart from the world and called, that doesn't simply mean called Christians, no. What he's talking about there is to be effectually called. In other words, these people heard the gospel being proclaimed. How many times they heard it, we don't know. But one day they heard the gospel being proclaimed, and that gospel came with effectual power. These people were brought to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They were effectually called. God did something wonderful in their hearts and lives. And it says here too, preserved in Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has suffered and died on Calvary's tree for his people. He is their righteousness. He has done all that was required of him in order that he might satisfy divine justice and pay the penalty for their sins. And no one can add to that, and no one can take away from that. That's something that Jesus alone has done. But the Christian is one who is preserved in Christ. The Christian will have ups and downs. He'll be hot and cold. He'll be lukewarm on occasions. He'll have many doubts, many problems. It won't be an easy journey for him, but he's preserved in Jesus Christ to that great day. And what a testimony this is to the Savior. He is the Savior. That's his role, that's his job, and we say that reverently. This is what he wants to be known as. He's not a part-time Savior, or he's not a Savior who saves for a year, for a decade, or for even a lifetime. He's a Savior who saves for eternity, absolute eternity, and you are preserved in Jesus Christ. And therefore, friends, this is to encourage us. This is to, again, to count our blessings. Very often we don't count our blessings, but we should. And this is one of the blessings, to be preserved in Jesus Christ, because we could never save ourselves. Adam, we're looking at him to some extent in Genesis, created sinless, pure, innocent. The devil comes. He couldn't withstand temptation. He fell. But Christians are preserved. That doesn't mean to say they won't fall or backslide. We're not saying that for one moment. But ultimately, they shall be preserved because Jesus Christ is the Savior to the uttermost. And he is really warning, therefore, his readers about these people, these apostates. Now, we need to be clear, an apostate, a real apostate, is not a genuine Christian who has turned his back upon his profession. Let me repeat that. He's not a genuine Christian who has turned his back upon his profession. An apostate is someone who was a professing Christian and who walked with the Christians, was part of a Christian community, church, or congregation for a time and for a season. But the root of the matter was never in him. He never knew that new birth. He never had that new start. And he went back on his profession. And most likely, apostates are ones who, maybe they were full of fire and zeal and zest for the gospel, but when they turn their back upon their profession, they become outspoken advocates against Christianity. But they were never real Christians. Now a real Christian can fall, can backslide, can fall into sin, but ultimately that Christian will be restored because what have we just said? The Christian is preserved in Jesus Christ. Therefore, an apostate was never a genuine Christian. He made a profession, yes, but The root of the matter was not in him. And Jude, therefore, is warning his readers against individuals like that. Well, I have one or two things that I would like to say, three things from these verses for our time tonight. Verses one and two, then, I put it to you. outline what we might say is the army, is the army. Here we have a description of the Christians, and we have to be reminded that we are indeed in warfare. We are soldiers. We're on enemy territory. We're under the kingship and the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're part of his kingdom. And the devil is out to get Christians. He walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And therefore it would not be wrong to call Christians soldiers. And therefore, we have a description here, the army, in verses one to two. Saints, set apart ones, sanctified, again, set apart, called, in that they have been effectually called. They've heard the gospel, but it's come with a power that doesn't come from any preacher, or any teacher, or any person. It comes exclusively by the inward working of God the Holy Spirit. And he's reminding them here in verse three, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. Common salvation. In what sense is our salvation common? Well, it's not common in the sense that it's ordinary. But it's common in the sense that it belongs to all true Christians and all true believers. There's only one church. Even as you go back into the Old Testament, there's only one people of God. There's only one flock. There's only one shepherd. And there's only one people of God. In the New Testament times, they're known as the church, the Christian church. But in Old Testament times, they were known as the people of God. And they all enjoyed this common salvation because the Old Testament people, the Old Testament believers, they were ultimately looking forward to that day. when God's Messiah would come and that he would undertake all that was required for him in order to save his people. Here in New Testament times, some 2,000 years after the crucifixion, what do Christians do? Well, we look back. We look back to Calvary's tree and we have much greater knowledge because we have what we find in the Scriptures. We have all of that, plus we have church history. We have a wonderful amount of knowledge and information available to us in order that we might know more of the great plan of redemption. But, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, all the Old Testament heroes, the prophets, Elijah, Elisha, all of them, they were all looking forward to that day when the Messiah would come and they're enjoying the common salvation because we're all saved by the Lord Jesus Christ and him alone. There is no other savior. Isn't it wonderful, friends, to think that we all have this one Savior? And is it not marvelous that we share that salvation with heroes like the Apostle Paul, like Matthew and his gospel, like the thief and the cross? save moments from before he went into eternity? In that sense, it's common. There's only one Savior. There's only one salvation. There's only one way to get right with God. And these people in Jude's day were sharing in that common salvation. And it's true for us. We can identify with them. All the believers in the Bible, we are all one in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And what do we find here? Verse 3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, someone commented or said, it's as if Jude was seeking to write some kind of letter, an epistle to these people, and he had in mind that he was going to writes some kind of devotional towards the people that he might encourage them. But it just seems as if he was writing down or thinking or meditating upon what he would write, it seems as if he changed course. When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith." It's as if he went off in a different direction. What he originally was going to do events, or we might say inspiration, took over and said, no Jude, you're going to write this. This is far more important, and he was going to exhort them to earnestly contend for the faith. This is a This word, exhort, is a word used by a general for giving orders. And that's why I've entitled this heading here, the army. Jude is giving them their orders as a general. He is telling them that they should earnestly contend for the faith. Why? Because the apostates would seek to overturn the faith. And the faith, what we have here is the whole body of revealed truth. We're blessed in the day that we live in because we have God's complete and final revelation. Here we have God's will for the church, for his people. It's in here, and we are to earnestly contend for it. That does not mean that we're going to all agree in every little thing. We're not going to do that. And we're not to be contentious over little things, but the important things of the faith The principles, the things that really matter, well, of course, everything matters in one sense, no one's going to deny that, but some things are more important than others, and that's what Jude is impressing upon them, that for these things, the very fundamentals of the faith, the Christian is to contend for them. There will be secondary issues. There will be third-rate issues. Yes, they have their importance, but there are some things that are prime, and they cannot be tampered with. And if they are tampered with, well, terrible consequences will result. I don't know if it's to this congregation I mentioned it to, or maybe was it to another one, but when I went to my first minister, Many years ago, when I wasn't long converted, and I said to him, I feel called to the ministry. Well, he said one or two things, and I can't honestly remember all that he said, but one or two things I do remember. And one thing he said to me, get your doctrine of God correct. Get your doctrine of God right. Because if you don't have your doctrine of God correct, you will go off, because that's absolutely fundamental, that's basic, and how true that is. If we are skewed off as far as the doctrine of God is concerned, then our whole theology will be affected, because what is theology? It is the study of God. That's what it's about. And if we don't have this doctrine right, then we will be wayward. And we could say the same about the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is one of the things that the apostates were failing. What is essential about the Lord Jesus? Well, what is absolutely essential, and we cannot deviate from this for one moment, is that he is God and man. God and man. He is the God-man. He is the only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And that's important because you will meet with the cults, and there are plenty of them. The Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons, they'll speak of Jesus. They'll use his name. The Mormons, the Muslims, they will use his name, Jesus. They will recognize Jesus in inverted commas. But these groups that I've mentioned, they don't recognize the Jesus of the Bible. It's a Jesus of their own imagination. And if you go through the cults, you will find that this is where they all err. It's about the person and the work of the Lord Jesus, and they will all basically deny his divinity. And just because they might use words that we are familiar with, It doesn't mean to say that the words that they use have the same meaning as we use or as the Bible use. And therefore, for things like that, we are to earnestly contend for the faith. And this was what Jude was writing to his army, to his soldiers, to his privates. that they are to be ones who will earnestly contend for these fundamentals and these basics of the Christian faith. Well, if we've got an army, secondly, we've got the enemy. And he outlines them here, and he will develop this later on in the epistle, and we shall look at it. But briefly here, The enemy is described for us in various ways. They're ungodly. You notice, as we went through this epistle, how much the word ungodly is used. He speaks a lot of it. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ungodly men. Ungodly men. In other words, they never ever knew salvation. Every one of us, before we came to the Lord Jesus, we were truly ungodly. But salvation transforms us. It changes us. It changes our behavior. It changes our speech, and it depends on each individual to how much they are changed. But these men or women that they're talking about here, ungodly men, they're living ungodly lives. They may well be Bible teachers, they may well be preachers, and they may be able to articulate things and understand things in an intellectual sense, but when they leave the pulpit or when they leave the pew and when they go out of the church door and they go into the world, they are living ungodly lives. They can see it. It can be seen in their practice. It can be seen in their speech. And therefore, they are ungodly. Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. Well, we're saved by grace. That's what they say. We're saved by grace. And how true that is. And we rejoice in the grace of God. They're turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. The grace of God will tell us to deny our lusts. These people were indulging in their lusts. They were going on and doing the things that they used to do before. And indeed, they might plunge into greater acts of sin because, well, we're saved by grace. We're going to be saved. We believe the doctrine, once saved, always saved. So do we. But we don't believe the doctrine, once professing faith, that we'll always be saved by professing faith. No, we don't. And they were deceitful, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. The grace of God doesn't tell us to indulge in sin. The grace of God will teach us to turn from sin. And these are the ones who have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. You see, real Christianity is powerful. It changes lives. like nothing else. Man can introduce laws, but God, by his grace, will change lives far better, far easier than any law of man. Well, these people there were deceitful, and they were enemies of God's grace. Goes on, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Denying Him. Well, I do believe that's an indication. They were denying His uniqueness. They were denying His deity. They were denying that He was the only mediator from God, the one who has come down from heaven, the eternally begotten Son. They were denying all this. denying God's truth, and they were ordained to judgment. That's a very brief description of these apostates, of the enemies of the people, and they were to watch over them. Well, thirdly, we would notice here in these opening verses, we would notice the victory, the victory God was going to have his victory because he gives examples of people in the past who have, in some sense, turned their backs against God and his way. Verse five, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this. That's a very interesting thing to say. He wants them to remember things they already know. Sometimes we might be, we might come to services like this and we're always looking for something new. Well, of course, there should be something new in what we seek to say, but very often we need to remember the things that we actually already know. And we need to bring them back to a remembrance. And this is what Jude does here. How that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. The first illustration he gives is the people of Israel. They had been in bondage in Egypt. Moses had taken them out. They were in the wilderness. That generation, apart from two, died in the desert. Why? Because of unbelief. taken out of Egypt, but died in the wilderness. There's an example. They turned their backs upon the living God. They refused to be obedient. And God, in his judgment, brought them all to death, apart from two. The sin of Israel was rebellious unbelief, as we are reminded in the New Testament. Hebrews 4, let us therefore fear lest a promise been left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. Short of it, like those who came out of Egypt, delivered but not delivered into the promised land because of unbelief. He goes on. In verse 6, and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of the great day. Do we notice in verse 1, the Christians are preserved in Jesus Christ? Well, the fallen angels, they are reserved and everlasting chains. We're not to think that this is talking literally about chains, the angels, or spirits. But what we're meant to gather from this is they are bound. They are in fetters in some sense. They cannot move. They cannot do anything. They're under darkness until the judgment of that great day. The angels, they were pure when they were created. It seems as if they fell into pride. They weren't happy with the estate that God had created them in, and they rebelled against the God of heaven who was on the throne. They wanted to be like him. They were not happy to serve him. Full of pride, they rebelled. Well, God has them bound, ready for that day. They cannot be saved. There's no gospel for the angels, these fallen angels who are now demons. There's no hope for them. It's a fearful day that they're awaiting. And the other illustration is given in the last verse that we're going to look at is Sodom and Gomorrah. And we believe there's five cities in total were destroyed with fire and brimstone. Why were they destroyed? Because of their sensual lifestyle, fornication. They were bisexual, going after strange flesh. And even after the intercession of Abraham, fire and brimstone fell upon them. God punished these people because they turned away from the only hope before them. Well, that's the lesson. That's the lesson. The army of Christians are to realize that they have enemies, apostates, and they find and wriggle their way into congregations. And they're out to cause havoc. And they're to be aware of them. And the Christian is to realize that God will have that final, complete, victory. As he did in the Old Testament times, these three examples are enough for us. He will overcome. His cause cannot be thwarted. But in the meantime, Jude is telling them, you are to be on your guard. How can we possibly be on our guard? Well, we are to know the word of God. We are to be ones who ask that he might reveal things to us, ask that we might be built up in our most holy faith, that we might be diligent about these matters, and that we would stick close to the Lord Jesus Christ. and that we would know in our own experience what it is to be preserved in Jesus Christ. And what is drawing our attention to here is the conclusion is obvious. The apostates will be judged. They will be. they cannot escape. As the people who came out of Egypt didn't escape, as the fallen angels didn't escape, and as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah didn't escape either. Well there, the army, the enemy, and the victory. Let us therefore be on our guard. Amen. May God bless his word to us. Let us pray together.