All right, Jude. It does not, in fact, start with Hay. It just starts with Jude. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and cat of Jesus Christ. May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who do not believe, or did not believe, and angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, he is kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since They, in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same manner, these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh and reject authority and revile angelic majesties. But Michael, the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, the Lord rebuked you. But these men revile the things which they do not understand, the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals. By these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain. For pay, they are brushed headlong into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korra. These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, carrying for themselves clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. And about those, these also Enoch and the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts. They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, in the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are doubting, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Now to him who was able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless 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. This is the word of the Lord. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for bringing us here again today. Thank you for blessing us with your presence this day. Lord, we just pray that you would be pleased by what we do here and that you would grant us the blessing of being pleased with you. We pray, Lord, as well, that you would open our ears to hear, open our hearts to receive, and open my mouth to speak your truth. In Jesus' name, amen. so we are in a series of things where i'm going through the What i'm calling the one chapter wonders because i'm a giant dork and one hit wonders sounds cool only they're one chapter wonders so Take that for what it is. So who is this jude guy? All right, so in the Greek, and I look this up, again, I don't speak Greek, but I can read the words, right? Like I know the alphabet, and I can sound it out. In Greek, this is not Jude, it's actually Judas. It's Judas, right? So that would be Judas. And he says that he is Judas, brother of James. Well, The only place in the Bible where you find the Judas brother of James is actually in Matthew 13, 55. And it came about that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed from there. And coming to his hometown, he began teaching them in their synagogue so that they became astonished and said, where did this man get his wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And his brothers, James and Joseph, Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? And when they did, this man get all these things. His brothers, James and Judas. So this man who is writing this book is the half brother of Jesus Christ himself. And he doesn't name drop that. Like this guy doesn't name drop, by the way, I grew up with Jesus, right? He doesn't. It's not like he doesn't name drop. According to history, and of course, according to the Bible, James, who in Spanish is Santiago, like how they got that, I have no idea, but in Acts 15, Okay, you got the Council of Jerusalem, right? So, and some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had a great dissension and debate within them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue. Therefore, being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. And when they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But certain ones from the sect of the Pharisees, who believed, stood up, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them, and to direct them to observe the law of Moses. And the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe, and God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? but we believe that we are saved through grace of Lord Jesus in the same way also, or as they also are. And the magnitude kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul, and they were relating what signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles. So now, if you believe the Catholics, you would believe that Saint Peter had spoken, therefore it was done. However, verse 13, And after they had stopped speaking, James, this is the same James, answered, saying, Brethren, listen to me. uh, had related how God first concerned himself about taking from among the Gentiles people for his name. And with this, the word of the prophets agreed, just as it is written after these things, I will return and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins and I will restore it in order that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who were called by my name. So the Lord who makes these things know from old, therefore it is my judgment, that we do not trouble those who are turning from God among the Gentiles, but we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood." James pronounced the judgment. According to the book of Acts, and according to historians of the early church, and I'm talking about like Eusebius who wrote in the fourth century, right? James was actually the head of the church. He was the head of the council of Jerusalem, which included such notable people as Peter, John, and the other disciples, or the other apostles who were still alive. But Peter and John were below James. It was James, when he spoke, that the church decided. So, like I said, it's not like Jude is above name-dropping famous people. The interesting thing is he doesn't name-drop his brothers. In fact, he calls himself, instead, the bond-servant of Jesus Christ. Bond-servant. That word in Greek is doulos. That word means slave. It doesn't mean servant. It means slave. Right? So he is saying that I am in fact a slave of Christ. And every time you see in the Bible the word servant of Christ, understand that this is doulos of Jesus. You are the slave of Christ. When Nietzsche complained that Christianity was the religion of slaves, he was right. We are the religion of slaves. and that is what we are called to. It says that we are the slaves of sin beforehand, and he says that Christ redeemed us from that slavery, but then he made us free to be his slave. So the brother of Jesus Christ says, I, the brother of James, just so that we know who we are, but also the slave of Christ. And in doing that, he identifies with his audience, right? He's not saying, I am above you because I grew up with Jesus. I know him better than you. He's saying, no, as a fellow slave of Christ, I write these things to you. Which is kind of nice, really. So he wrote these things. Now, when did he write these things? This is always an important question to ask. When did this book get written? Now, it doesn't necessarily matter except to be able to put some of the things in order. But in this particular case, it does. So this book was written sometime between 60 AD and 80 AD. We're not really sure, but it's sometime around then. Now, the reason why that's significant is because those are the same dates as the Book of Revelation. Sometime between 60 and 80. But those dates are significant because it's sometime 10 years before the destruction of the temple, or 10 years after the destruction of the temple. And unfortunately in this case, It does affect your interpretation of this book because it's like in Revelation. If Revelation was written after the destruction of the temple, then that means that everything in the book of Revelation was written after, or is talking about sometime in the future. Right? That's, and that's what a lot of people think nowadays when they read Revelation. It also means that everything in this here is written, is talking about the future. However, if it was written before the temple was destroyed, then a lot of things in Revelation are talking about the destruction of the temple and not about future events. Not all, but definitely some. And it has to be interpreted that way. And the same thing in the book of Jude. There are some things in here which, if they were written before the destruction of the temple, are talking about things that were about to happen 10 years in the future. So, fortunately, there is no real specific prophecies within this book, so it doesn't really affect it too much, but that's something to remember when you're reading the book of Revelation, the book of Jude, and some of these other books, is that if they're written before the destruction of the temple, then they're probably talking about the destruction of the temple, because remember, that was what Jesus made his prophecy about, was that within this generation, the temple will be destroyed. So these guys were repeating that a lot. And also this book is fun. I like this book, like a lot. It's a book that nobody reads. Nobody pays attention to you. Everyone forgets that it's in the Bible, but it's actually got a lot of really cool things in here. Like for instance, you've got, In verses six through nine, you've got one of the rare, rare, and I mean rare, peeks behind the curtain into the heavenly realm. The Bible very rarely speaks about angels or how angels and demons and heaven work. And I know that's all anybody focuses on, They're like, well, this is how, all they can think about is angels and demons and the war in heaven and just ad nauseam. But the fact of the matter is that the Bible spends very little time talking about it. There's a lot we don't know about what heaven looks like or how the war in the spiritual realm is handled. However, in six through nine, we get to see about angels and demons and what's going on behind the curtain, right? That's cool. We'll get to that. And then you've got, uh, this actually contains a quote from the book of Enoch, uh, which is not in the Bible, but it was a very, it's a very Jewish text that if you have a book, a Catholic book, you'll have the book of Enoch is one of the apocrypha and it's kind of in there. It's a fun, fun book. That book is all about what's happening in the heavenly realms and Jude actually quotes from it, which I think is cool because that means that that book might actually be more true than just some random book that's fun to read because it has angels and demons in it. Because Jude here quotes from it to talk to his readers about it and quotes it as script, you know, well, it doesn't quote it as scripture, but it's in scripture. So that's cool. We'll get to that. And then One of the, you got some stuff about like, he compares the people who are like the charismatics, uh, and the, you know, I rebuke these Satan kind of people, like the people on TV nowadays, he compares them to Cain, which is cool. And then he talks about, uh, he talks about an interesting thing about like how the division, the divisive ones in church, the people who are causing divisions, are not the people who nowadays are being called that. Like if you stand for scripture nowadays and you say, look, gay marriage is wrong. then the rest of the church will tell you, why do you have to stand on the Word of God? You're dividing the church. You're making people feel uncomfortable. You should stop that. Well, according to the Book of Jude, the people who need to stop are the ones who are going against the Bible, and that they're the ones causing the division. So that'll be interesting to get into. And so you can see how, like, there's So much going on in this book that we cannot possibly do it. Well, I guess we could possibly do it all in one go, but I mean, I don't want to keep you here all day. I can't. I am incapable of talking about all of these things in any sort of quick fashion, as is evidenced by the fact that I haven't even gotten to the book and I've still talked for 30 minutes. Anyway, so, you may be thinking to yourself, oh goodness, here we go again. Now, Ben has a dog bone in which he can chew on. We've got all sorts of contentious things, and he's saying, contend earnestly for the faith, and then he goes through a whole bunch of stuff, and it's all of my pet peeves right? It's the prophecy only people, the guy who's, you know, the guys who focus on angels and demons. It's talking about the people who are trying to, uh, you know, trying to divide the church. All of these guys, you're like, Oh, good, great. Cause we haven't got enough fire and brimstone. And then these last few months as we're gone through the book of Hebrews and James or, and John. So what are we going to do here? Well, This, as I said in the beginning, the Lord preaches to me from this book as well. James does not, or sorry, Jude does not preach these things in a spirit of hatred or anger. He is preaching it in the terms of, guys, we're together in this. Remember, Christ taught us both. and we need to love each other, and this is how we love each other. So hopefully I'll be able to do that. And to get to the excellent happy, happy message of here, just a reminder that this is addressed to those who are called and beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. To the called, to the beloved, to the kept. Remember, he calls himself the bondservant of Christ, putting himself in that category with them. And he says, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. See, Jude starts this way in his letter, and so does John in the two letters that we wrote. And even in 1 John, he writes that. And oddly enough, even Paul, who normally does not start off, Paul seems to kind of start off kind of annoyed, like from the beginning. He doesn't really mince a lot of words. He's just like, yeah, hi, hi, hi, whatever. Okay, guys, for real, stop, right? He does seem to have that kind of contentiousness. But in the book of Philemon, he does not start that way. He actually says, my beloved brother, And so in all of these one chapter wonders, we see kindness. And he even says to you, mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Now, he doesn't say be added to you, which a lot of other people does, he says multiply. Now think about this, multiply, right? Now, if you take two, the number two, and you double it, right? Just times 2. We're not talking about times 10. We're not talking about times forever, you know, right? We're talking about 2. Take 2 times 2, and it's 4. But then you double that, and it's 8. Double that, it's 16. Double that, and it's 32. If you keep doing that, you only have to do it 8 times before you're up to 256. We're making a nation. Right? And that's it. Just times 2. If you do that 16 times, you're already at 65,000. If you do it 10 times, you're at 1,024. So this is what he's talking about. He's saying peace and mercy and love be multiplied to you. And this is an interesting way to put this book. We read it, the whole thing, you could see what he was talking about, and he wants everyone's peace and mercy to be multiplied, and he reminds us of who we are. to those who are called. In Hollywood, right, if you're going to be working on movies, there's this concept that they had, right, where once you kind of get your foot in the door, right, and they like you, what they'll do is they'll call you for other projects that are going on. So if you get on a movie set and everyone likes you there, then the next time another big movie is going on, you get called up to come in and do it. This is how the lighting guys and the set guys and the stuntmen get hired on these things. It's not like some agent is just like, he's like, oh yeah, we like that guy. Give him a call, see if he's available. And so you get a call and you're invited, right? And that's the idea that we're talking about. the called. You are the ones who were invited, specifically called in to the faith and accepted and are part of the group, specifically called by Jesus Christ himself. He says to those who have been called, the special ones, the ones who accepted the invitation, the ones who are part of the group, of the heavenly ones, the saints, if you will, those who are called. And to the Beloved, and not just Beloved, but Beloved of God the Father. The one that everyone says he's looking down on the earth with judgment. He is the father, the heavenly father, but also the me, me, me, me, me guy, right? Everybody hates the father. He's the one who's all judgy. We don't like him, but it says that we are beloved of God, the father. What says beloved is that the, he is not just putting up with us. He's not just accepting us because of some other reason. And it's not just some intellectual endeavor. Right? It's not just some abstract version of a God thing in the heavens, or that we, this, this God thing is just a thought, and he thinks about us, and he wants us to be part of him. No, this is beloved. This is an emotion. God the Father loves us. And to the kept. There's a hymn that I really like. The last verse says, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Bind my heart, Lord, like a fetter. Bind me to thy precious love. It's the idea, and there's another musical called Painter Wagon, where the guy talks about like, if I get to heaven, tie me to a tree, because then I'll get to wandering, and then you know where I will be, right? It's this idea that if this Christian thing were up to us, we'd be duped. Right? Like how many times have you just despaired and walked away? How many times have you just, you know, outright sinned and just went, Oh, well, screw it. No. How many times do you think that you, how, by your own strength, do you think you could be good enough or smart enough or, um, I guess pretty enough to get in to heaven all by yourself? No, instead it says you are kept, and kept by who? Kept by Jesus Christ. So Jesus Christ is keeping you a church. So he's the one who, so there's another song that I really quite like. It's that if, you know, when Satan tempts me to despair, and shows me all the sin within. Upward I look and see him there, who made an end to all my sin. And so these are the people to whom he is writing, and these are us, if we are in Christ. And so as I'm going through this, this book here, I need to remind myself of this, and feel free to remind me of it as well. I have a wife who will probably take care of that for you. However, you can keep this in mind, that in verse 22, at the end, the entire purpose of this book is to have mercy on some who are doubting, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some, mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. The whole purpose of this book, the whole purpose of correcting people, the whole purpose of contending for the faith once delivered by the apostles, is to save, to have mercy, and to snatch them out of the fire. And so maybe you're wondering, Are you one of these people that James or Jude is writing to? Right? Are you one of the called? Are you one of the beloved? Are you one of those who are kept? Well, let's start with the first one. Have you been called? Well, I have this thing. If you're here and you're listening to me, you've at least heard the invitation. Whether or not you've accepted, is on your own heart, but you've heard it. And maybe you find yourself burdened with a sin or a life or something that you just can't bear. Maybe, maybe you should be, and you're not, And you should be because if you looked inside yourself, really examined it, and you found out what kind of person that you really are, maybe you should be burdened by this. Maybe in your head you think you're okay when you're really not. But either way, Jesus calls you from the cross. He said to you, he who is burdened and heavily laden, come to me and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus calls out from the cross and says, though you are sinners, though you are not worthy to be called beloved of God, come to me. were on that cross, he died. And he died for you. Yeah, your sins put him up there. I keep reading this stuff online where he talks about how the Jews killed Christ. I mean, they did, but guess what? So did you. If you were a good person, he wouldn't have to have died for you. You killed the Son of God just as much as everyone else did, as much as I did, honestly. And there, from the cross, he calls out to those who were sinners, to those who were burdened under the weight of themselves, and he says to them, come to me, for I bring you salvation. For on that cross, he made peace between man and God the Father. On that cross, He paid for all of your sins, all of them, even the ones you haven't committed yet. So it is by Him that you are kept on that cross. Mercy and peace and love will be multiplied to you. So if you hear His voice, today, do not harden your heart. If you hear His call, come and accept the invitation. The Lord is for you and for all. And for those of us who have accepted the call, if you're having trouble just even getting through today, just remember, on that cross, grace, mercy, peace, and and love will be multiplied through you.