Let us once again bow our head in prayer. O Lord, we come before you tonight asking, Lord, that you will indeed speak, that your Holy Spirit, Lord, may be at work in our lives as your Word is preached through imperfect means, Lord, and yet you are able, even in our weakness, even in our condition, Lord. We pray that You will enlighten our eyes tonight to understand this obscure at times passage of Scripture. May You guide us. May You give us attentive ears. May You give us hearts that are not made of stone, but hearts made of flesh to understand and to apply the Word of God in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Please be seated. Tom Ascol, the member of the Founders Ministries, said in one of his recent articles as he was dealing with the difficult last days, our difficult last days, said this. And I quote, sometimes Christians must live and minister through unusually difficult seasons, but occasionally the challenges that we face are particularly exacerbated by a degenerating society. Such is the nature of living in the last days. Until that day arrives, we should expect to see difficult times, when blatant godlessness predominates in society, and religious hypocrisy characterizes many in the Church. It is a bad day. It is a perilous season. Because we have been warned, we should not be caught off guard when such seasons come. Rather, we should respond with resolve and hope. So with this thought, let us now turn to the letter of the Apostle Jude, found in your Bible just before the Book of Revelation, the Epistle of Jude. We started last week going through this letter, and we saw the first part of the letter, the first 11 verses. We looked at the shift that Jude had to go through from just proclaiming a message of salvation, although this is important and crucial that we keep that message, Now, Jude has to shift, has to operate a necessary shift to contend for the faith, contend for the faith on top of the Gospel message. We looked at the old heresies, the ancient examples in the Old Testaments and biblical, extra-biblical literature. We looked at Cain and Israel in the wilderness as examples of great arrogance and We looked at the angels and their rebellions and the Korah rebellion in the Old Testament as example of insubordination. And we also looked at Sodom, Gomorrah, and Balaam as examples of covetousness. And all these three then apply to the reality of false teachers entering into the church. As you remember, we spoke about a letter that was addressed to a church that was facing a wave of immoral heretics who are slipped in unnoticed. And the emphasis is that there will be a judgment for these false teachers that is coming upon their apostasy. So now let's pick up our verse. We start on verse 12. that we start to see another attention from here on. We continue to pick up on the description of the false teachers, and in particularly how we can identify them by their immoral character. And then from there we move on. Verse 12. These, that is speaking of the false teachers, are spots in your love feasts. While they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves, they are clouds without water, carried about by the winds, late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, Words flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time, who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons who cause division, not having the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. So this is the second part as we are going through the letter of Jude very rapidly. And we are looking again in this central description of the false teachers we are picking up. And there's a first impression that one gets as we face this letter that we saw last week was one of the most neglected letter of the New Testament. The impression is that it's an essentially negative message. Very hard words are spoken in this text. Yet, Jude, as we will see today, does much more than that. He is not writing, remember, to the false teachers. He is writing to beloved believers. To guide them, to instruct them, and give them a reassurance, now to a positive response. That is, that Christians, in the midst of a corrupt and falling society, should stand out. for their love and unwavering hope of heaven, as well as an unwavering hope of hell for the false teachers. And so we're going to look at the troublesome times that are described in this text. We're looking first at our challenge in these troublesome times. We will then look at our response in troublesome times. And then we will end up with an assurance for us in troublesome times. The first, we have to look at the challenge that we proceed, as we started last week, looking at the false teachers. And in particular, we are looking now at the actions of apostasy of false teachers. Verse 12 to 13. Jude is continuing this discussion on the false teacher. And this time, he lists vivid pictures characterizing false teachers. And he gives some figures. He speaks of a banquet. Imagine a scene of rude people. without manners, entering into a banquet, a festive gala dinner, which these false teachers are coming into the church and they have this, they look like stains, blemishes. that which soils or discolors, spots and stains. You know how it is when you are going and invited to an important dinner and you have a white shirt and now you have a black spot because some food fell on your shirt. That is not nice. That is noticeable. It doesn't fit and it gives a very bad impression for those who are observing. And so what Jude is saying is that in the midst of this food fellowships of believers, there were these false teachers who, without fear, came in politely in the midst of them, because they wanted to get their stomach full, but also because they wanted to feed themselves. It is interesting that the word used here is the same word for shepherding. They are only shepherding themselves. So they pretend to be leaders, but they only care for their own stomach. Second analogy given to us from nature, from the banquet to the nature, we see they are compared to clouds without water. Not only they have nothing to offer, but they cannot even deliver what they promise, like those clouds which do not bring rain. empty, not only spiritually, but also they are carried, as clouds, carried about by the winds. And that wind reminds us of Timothy. They're carried about by every wind of doctrine, and so they are unstable. This is expressing their message as unstable, their continuous change of opinion, and mostly look at also the trees described there, fruitless trees. Autumn trees, not only you find no fruit in them, but they are about to lose any life as the winter approach and die. You look at the leaves and you think that there's life, but they're about to die. And Jude intensifies this analogy by declaring them twice dead, for sure, doubly dead. You can be sure that they are spiritually dead, and that is the reason of their lack of fruit. because the root of their tree, the foundation, has been pulled up by God Himself. Proverbs 2.22 says, But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. Every plant that the Heavenly Father has not planted, says Jesus Christ, shall be rooted up. That means God has already judged these false teachers. They have no source of life. They are like fierce waves of the sea, verse 13. They made a lot of noise. They have no rest. Isaiah 57 verse 20 describes, The wicked are like a tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt. They cast up fawn on the seashore. Now here in Virginia, I don't need to explain to you how it is to go to the beach sometimes. And you're accustomed to see that polluted brown fawn on the beach. And that is not nice. You don't want to go and swim in it. The people that pass by just want to pass by and that farm dirt here, it's a warning for the believers. The shame and the corruption that they allow and they spring out of their restlessness like the wave. They're also falling stars. Like the angels that we saw last week, they are reserved to black darkness. the most obscure judgment. So that is the deeds of apostasy, the actions of apostasy. But now we look at the words of apostasy of this false teacher in verse 16. Murmurs, complainer. This was last week in Israel in the wilderness. They kept complaining in the wilderness. All of this is meant to fit their lifestyle of lust. They use great words, swelling words, that are of excessive weight. They make grandiose claims about spiritual reality. We looked at mysterious, lofty words last week concerning angels and forbidden knowledge. And they're puffed up. They are haughty. They flatter to get gain. I like what Psalm says in Psalm 12, describing times Dark times as these, it says, lamenting of a context where the behavior and the tongue has become the norm. Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone, for the faithful have vanished from among the children of men. Everyone utter lies to his neighbor, with flattering lips and double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boast, who say without tongue we will prevail, and our lips are with us. Who is master over us? And that was the problem of the false teachers. And so verse 18 speaks of, you know this. Paul, Peter, 2 Timothy predicted that in the last days there will be scoffers that mock God and they mock the moral requirements of God and despise the idea that Christ is coming back this time to judge and to damn. Why? Because they're walking according to their lusts. Their entire lifestyle. They are sensual. They cause division. They do not have the spirits. And yet they boast of great spiritual knowledge. But lastly, again, the judgment of apostasy for their actions and for their words is the same. We saw this last week. But we see it repeated in verse 14 and 15. And verse 14 introduces the book Enoch. Enoch is described in Genesis as the father of Methuselah. He is in the line of the righteous Noah. And as Scripture says, he did not die, but the Lord took him. That's as far as we can go from the Bible. He's described as the seventh generation from Adam. And it's interesting, for our discussion of last week, that his genealogy appears right before Genesis 6. And he prophesied, what is interesting here, about these false teachers coming into the church. How did he prophesize? By looking at the Last Judgment. The Lord comes with 10,000 of His holy angels. This is clearly describing the Second Coming of Christ. And so last week we introduced this verse 6 of Jude. And we saw that Jude was quoting an apocryphal book, the Testament of Moses, or the Ascension of Moses. What is an apocryphal book? I recognized that last week. We went quite fast. But apocryphal, essentially, are books that are excluded from the list of the authoritative books recognized as scripture, and therefore divinely inspired. So these books are not inspired. And here, in verse 14, we find an indisputable quote from an apocryphal book, the Book of Enoch, 1 Enoch 1.9. And how do we deal with Jude quoting that type of literature? As we briefly saw last week, quotation of a passage does not mean inspiration. Just as Paul, the Apostle, could quote non-canonical, non-inspired books. An example of that is in Acts, the Apostle is citing pagan poets to make a point. And yet, the fact that it is quoted is significant for us, because it bears how we see, as we looked at last time, verse 6, which could frame in the Book of Enoch describing angelic beings. You remember that there was a Genesis 6 describing the sons of God having sexual relations with the daughters of men. And so, again, This is a very mysterious passage, and perhaps due to, as we saw last week, the secular mindset in which we are living, perhaps our own tradition, it is hard to tackle with this obscure passage. But again, either position you take, whether Genesis 6 is speaking of union of believers and unbelievers, or whether Genesis 6 is indeed speaking of angelic beings, and therefore verse 6 of Jude, fallen angel entertaining with women, The point is, this is a less than secondary issue, and we must keep in mind the central reason why Jude brings that to our attention. And that is that regardless of the source of the book, the point is that the fate of the faithless is certain. Those who are false teachers will have the same destiny. And why that destiny should trouble them? Because the coming of Christ will be a judgment. Verse 15, Christ this time is not coming anymore to save, but to convict and to judge everyone, especially the ungodly ones. And I want you to notice in that verse, it repeats four times the word ungodly. It points to a lack of reverence for God that is displayed in the sacrilegious acts and words of false teachers. And so, how do we see this summary of the challenge coming for apostasy? Is that the fruits coming from apostasy, the fruits, that is, words and deeds coming from them, out of increasing apostates from Christianity today in North America, clearly witness to the fact that these people are not saved, and that there is an impending judgment upon them unless they repent. This is the nature of the mixed fruits of many, many that you will encounter in your path in these last days. I'm definitely not arguing that there is any false teacher in our church today. That is not what we see. Yet there still are lessons from us as we go through this dark description of the false teachers. that we might not be false teachers. But the question is, are we indirectly maybe playing their games at times? Maybe, and I speak here in general terms, not that this is necessarily our trouble, but that false teachers need to be called out. And sometimes you will see believers who are not willing to do that for the sake of unity. And that might be a problem, especially as we see the Day of the Lord approaching. because that is playing their game. The risk is not speaking up, because we are afraid to offend people. And again, people now cannot tell the difference. And they look at Christianity, and they see this great mass of immorality. And therefore there's no separation, no, as we saw last week, church discipline, no attention to contend for the faith. And that is why we have to test those fruits. We must guard ourselves against any skepticism about the future. And when I say that, I mean denying that there is a coming Last Judgment, denying that Christ now says He will come to gather in His baskets, and good fruits will be gathered, and bad rotten fruits will be gathered, one to be cast away, one to eternal life. Christ says that we must remember that the axe is at the bottom of the true fruit or the false fruit to test. And those who are not bearing fruit will be cut off. Thorns and thistles have one end, the fire. And I'm afraid that many, many expressions of Christianity are like that barren tree which the farmer goes and wants to find fruit and nothing comes. And perhaps I'll fertilize it again. I'll give it another chance. And then finally cut it down. They need to repent. We need to go back to Christ. Because Christ also prunes us as believers. Not for judgment ultimate, but so that we might, as we look at our next, abide in His love. What is our response, therefore, to these troublesome times? We looked at this challenge today and last Sunday, but how do we respond as Christians in the midst of all this moral and theological chaos? Well, we are called, in verse 17, to persist in the truth. Verse 17, in direct contrast with the apostates which are driven by a wind of doctrine, we as beloved true believers are commanded to remember the words of the true apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. And here is quoting 2 Peter 3, verse 3. The letter of Peter we looked at last time mirrors Jude's letter very much. But he predicted and foretold that in the last days, this will take place, a great apostasy in the church. And this should not take us with and by surprise. Secondly, we are to persist not only in truth, but in love. Verse 20 and 23 speaks of this. In contrast to the sensual, divisive, unspirited apostates, as believers we are called to build ourselves up, to edify ourselves in the foundation of our most holy faith. You remember from last time that faith here is not trust, but is the body of knowledge and of truth that we have to build ourselves upon strongly. so that it's holy because it's firm and it relied upon, and it will never be shaken if we also pray by the Holy Spirit. Because this is the way of perseverance in days and times such as these. The prayer, the Spirit helps us and intercedes for us. And it also commends us then, verse 21, chiefly, to keep ourselves in the love of God. You will keep yourself from the harm of false teachers by abiding in the love of God. Because we are beloved and we wait anxiously, our text says in verse 21, to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the wicked, the coming of Christ is only an element of terror. But for the faithful, it means mercy. It means actually mercy in the sense of help. coming to help in our distress, because it will be distressing times. Jesus Christ describing the last days says in Luke, Shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though He bears long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. In Luke 18, verse 7, He is speaking about the coming, the second coming. And so the mercy of having mercy upon us afflicted believers who are going through this temptation in these times of apostasy, then we will be rushed into eternal life. And in this stage, therefore, we are to keep the love of God in view. In verse 22, to have compassion. on those who doubt. Compassion of those who are doubting, because they may be prey of false teachers, but unlike the false teachers, we must have pity on them. And so we warn clearly the false teachers, but we have compassion of those who are driven away and we, as we see here, snatch them out of that prison. Verse 23, again, In opposition to the compassion, however, there is also some other people that we must save. Not that we save anyone, but that as we proclaim the gospel to them, we are indirectly pulling them out of the fire. Drastically. Immediately. This is an urgent matter. Taking them out of the fire of hell. And see, the issue, as we saw last time, is not that contending for the faith is opposite to preaching the gospel. The issue is that if you're not going to contend for the faith, you're going to lose that gospel too. And both of them will be lost. And so we must address people's errors in the church. And therefore we must save them with fear, says our text, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. You might have read these words in the past. What does this mean? Defiled by the flesh. Well, we saw last week, you remember, if you were there, that the new clothes of these false teachers are only repeating false heresies. And they dress themselves out with all this immorality. They use freedom as a cloth, a cover up for their evil. And Judas here, warning us of the great danger as we deal with these false teachers. Caution is required. Just like Michael the Archangel had caution as he was dealing with the body of Moses in Mount Nebo, debating with the devil. And so we must have caution. We know about that, don't we? Now in this time of the virus, we're so cautious about touching anyone, getting too close to anyone. This text speaks of the garment defiled by the flesh. That means that Jude does not want true believers to partake in the iniquity that these immoral teachers are spreading. Jude is not suggesting, therefore, that the remedy to error is a law of false teachers. No. We have to be loving in our nature unlike the false teachers, but we still have to do that with fear. But we have to do that abiding in love, so that the difference between us and them will be clear. And so let's look lastly at our assurance in the midst of troublesome times. We looked at the challenge of apostasy, we looked at the... response and now we look at the assurance in times of apostasy and that is verse 24 and 25 that beautiful climax what is our assurance believers is that God will keep us even in the midst of this present apostasy verse 24 says As a summation of this whole dark discussion, which could cause some of us to feel shaken and scared, Jude leaves us in God's hands now, and he sends us off with assurance that what we know is the greatest doxology in the New Testament. Doxology means bring glory to God. Perhaps it was a song that was sang in the early church. And what we see in these two verses is a celebration of the status and the character of God. But it's not divorced from our discussion that we went through. God is assuring us, if you're a true believer in Christ, that He is able to keep you, believer, from falling, from stumbling. God will protect you from external attacks. While we were called to persevere in verse 21 and keep ourselves in that love of God, God grants us here the grace to do so. And it doesn't mean that from a time to time you may slip, you may have a fall. But what Jude is saying is that the Lord will look at His believer and the believer will never experience the ultimate irreversible fall into an everlasting judgment. that the false teachers will experience. God is also able to present you blameless, spotless. That sanctification which started the letter in verse 1, sanctified by God the Father, says the text in verse 1. That is now will one day, despite the present rampant immorality, around us, that one day will be completed. We will be standing in the presence of His glory and we will be clothed in white. No more sin. No more church discipline needed in the church. No more having to deal with apostasy. We will stand no more with a spot of the immorality. of the false teachers. That's what is promising to the believers that Jude is speaking. And that should cause, shouldn't it, an exceeding joy in us. Should even the thought of a complete freedom from sin. What a joy! What a joy! While the wicked will be in terror, As he looked approaching at the coming judgment, he's trying to get it off his mind. The believer looks with joy, absolute joy. Why? Secondly, not only because God will keep us now in this present apostasy, but also because God reigns over this present apostasy. Verse 25. God is described as the only wise God. For those who were able, last Tuesday, we were going through the characters of God in our Sunday School through Zoom, and we looked at the wisdom of God. And we quoted this text. That means that that unsearchable wisdom and those unsearchable secrets of hidden knowledge belong only to God. And that is a clear response to the false teachers, if you remember last Sunday, who boasted of a forbidden and secret knowledge, just like the devil. wanted Eve and all of us to believe in the Garden. So God is our only wise Savior. Now, maybe you have other texts which also mention through Jesus Christ our Lord. I personally embrace an understanding as I look at the different manuscripts that are brought together, that the understanding of the Church for centuries has been to see God as the only wise God. This verse referring to that. our Savior, and to Him be all the glory. To Him alone be glory, not to the angels, not to a man and false teachers, together with the majesty that He will show at the appearance when He comes at His second coming. And the dominion belongs to Christ. That means that He has a total authority Contrary with the insubordination that we saw among the false teachers, the contests and the rebellion of angels, to God belongs that dominion. To God belongs the power, believer, to keep you. God has the total power over the entire world and therefore He is powerful to keep you as you rest in His mighty hands without limit of time. You see, salvation doesn't end For now and forever. Amen. So, how do we counteract apostates? By abiding in the love of God. As we hold on to the unfailing hope of Scripture. The hope of His coming. So, we counteract this prevailing apostasy with love. In troublesome times, as many are enticing us into apostasy. As the love of many becomes cold, genuine, divine love becomes what will guard your life, believer. The Christian life, you could say, has two axis. In one axis, there is the axis of truth. And in the other axis, there is the axis of love. So in one axis, in the truth, we find the law of God, we find the justice of God, we find the knowledge of God. And on the other axis of love, we find acceptance, comfort, the relationship that God offers. And so, leaning toward one or the other always has a risk. If you lean too much on the truth axis, you become definite, dogmatic, exclusive. And on the other hand, what is the biggest trouble of our times is leaning toward the axis of love, you become warm, accepting, and undiscriminating. And again, truth has lost any place. And so that's why, as Christians, Jude is telling us that these two axes must be kept in balance. And I fear, of course, in our case, that as Reformed people, we definitely lean on the truth axis, don't we? And Jude, as he describes the church in the face of a growth in morality, heresy and apostasy, he sends us a lesson for us, that our response to all of this wickedness, must not be trapped by their own behavior. That we do not imitate their own behavior. That we be loving. You see, all the devices of Satan can be overcome by such a simple thing as love for God and for our neighbor. And all the infinite sources that will be available to us, if only we pray by the Holy Spirit, as our text says. If we, by our love, show to the world that they will know that we are Christians. And there's a certain dose, therefore, of sympathy that we should show toward those who are doubting, because they are surrounded. And you might have people in your mind now, in the midst of all this virus and cautions and chaos, we must keep the love of God the center, even between us. And there's that social distancing that may not cold our hearts toward one another. But we also counteract with truth, as we saw. At this time of love, we must remind ourselves, and some of you might remember, that last summer I was here, and we went through John 17, and one of the things that Jesus prayed there is that they might be one. And yet, we saw there that Christian unity must always be based on the Word of God. Unity and love cannot come at the price of sacrificing the truth on the altar. We unite in love as we pursue the truth, as we keep the apostolic teaching that Jude wants us to see. Love and faith are connected with the truth. And so, this is, in fact, the most loving thing to do sometimes, is to actually warn people who are in great danger of hell, and to tell them. It would be unloving for me not to rescue apostates from the impending judgments. And also we counteract with confidence. God has the ultimate authority and victory over any forces of evil. You might have been going through this letter this week or last week and a little bit scared about all these demonic powers described and at work around us, even within the church apparently. But God is Lord over that to bring Him glory, to Him be dominion and majesty and power, because of who God is, we as believers have the greatest assurance ever, even in the midst of such challenging times. God will keep us called, as we saw last week, will allow us to a lasting perseverance. The perseverance of the saints. Persevering till the end. So, no matter how much apostasy we will witness in these last days, and perhaps that is actually a good thing. To show, like 1 John says, they went out of us, they were not among us. So, no matter how much, God will complete what He started in us. And so be persuaded of this, like Paul was persuaded. God is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to us, says Paul. He will save us to the uttermost. But also we counteract not only with love, with truth, and with confidence, yes, but also with discernment. God will keep true believers till the end. And yet there is still a responsibility, isn't there? We have to keep ourselves in His love, We have to build ourselves in the faith. We are called in the churches of Revelation, He who overcomes, to Him I will grant him to eat from the tree of life. That means that the question still remains for you. Are you a true believer? Because God keeps till the end those who are true believers. Are you making ready to appear blameless before His presence with great joy? Or should the day of His coming cause dread in you and something terrifying? And so I tell you, just because it was the religion of your parents, just because you have made a profession of faith, make sure today to come to the bottom of what Christianity really is. Christianity is all about not just playing with the high and lofty things of God, like this false teacher are doing, using great terms, using great theological and angeological terms, and they have no substance of godliness. and they might be found down the road a few years from now no longer believing in God. I remember there was a son of a friend in the previous church that we were in Michigan who went down to school after being raised in a very devout family and he apostatized for the faith. Where will our children be once they grow up? And they might have heard over and over again, but has this become reality in our life? Because if it's not, Christianity is not about being a good boy. Christianity is about, I am depraved and I am lost. And I rely with all my heart in the truth of the Word of God. And I give to God my entire life. And so, no matter the dark times that might be ahead for you, for your children, and who knows what comes, in the midst of such troublesome times, it would be impossible for any of us to be able to stand, was it not for the power of God, which effectively keeps His church, even in the midst of complete rampant apostasy. Because God is powerful. God is loving. we will never fall away. He's able to preserve us through this dark time. But at the same time, it's crucial to recognize for us in this troublesome times that the church must do more than just stand back. The mark of the faithful are to stand in bold contrast with the unfaithful generation. That's what it means to build ourselves in the Holy Faith. That's what it means to denounce evil, and grow in discernment of the times, to get off any remaining of the clothes, of the system of thoughts, of these ancient heresies that are coming back into the church, watching over ravenous worlds, and looking at the Word of God as our light, watchful in prayer, depending on the Holy Spirit, remaining in the sphere of the love of God. A love that, as we know, is shown by our obedience to Christ. A love that keeps us from becoming overly critical and suspicious over the darkness that we see around us. Filtering, however, those influences from the world that are denying the reality that there is a coming judgment upon all flesh. That there is indeed a human responsibility for our sin that we must indeed contend for the faith, as we looked last week. And contending, again, doesn't just mean fighting against heretics to preserve the truth, but also fighting against our own weaknesses, and making sure to keep and have love as the central, so that we might not fall into temptations. While Christ keeps us till the end, we are commanded to keep ourselves in His love. Why? Because no matter how dark it may get in the days ahead, Paul the Apostle is persuaded of this in Romans 8, that neither angels, and we saw angels in this letter, neither principalities, at work and rebelling against, neither things present, neither things to come, can separate us from the love of Christ. And so with this thought, let us Let us pray. Oh Lord, I pray that indeed we will respond to the challenge coming from apostasy with love, with keeping the truth and love in balance in our lives, and that they will know that we are Christians by our love, a true love, not just sentimental worldly love, but a love that rejoices in the truth, is patience that is peaceful, that does not envy, does not boast, is not rude, do not seek his own. Lord, I pray that this will be true in us and also that you will grant us assurance in the midst of such troubling times, Lord, where we see indeed so many things going against us. So many people, even in our family, Lord, outwardly and blatantly denying how they were raised up. And I pray that our witness will not be a stumbling block to many that apostatize because they see bad Christian witness. They see hypocrisy. They see things spoken of but not done. Lord, guard us from that. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.