This is living. Waters of Grace, the teaching
ministry of Lewis Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary
Chapel of Westmoreland County in Greensburg, PA.
Now here's Pastor Lewis as he continues teaching through God's
Word. God gives grace to the humble,
not the proud, not someone that says I'm going to just do what I
want to do and live my life the way I want to live it.
No, the Bible says that God resists the proud.
He resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble, to
that one who will say yes, Lord, I blew it, I was wrong, I
sinned, please forgive me. That grace is there for us.
That's grace. Imagine what it's like to be in
a relationship with someone who constantly betrays us, speaks
negatively about us, and does so much more.
Would we really choose to stay with someone who treats us that
way? That's the difference between US
and God. While we struggle to fully
understand the depth of God's love for his creation, we can
reflect on how he continues to love us unconditionally
yesterday, today, and forever. So today, Pastor Lewis invites
you to open your heart and let God into your life so you can
experience his love. Now.
Here's Pastor Lewis in the Book of Jude, chapter one with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
So if we go back to the third verse of Jude, it just simply
says, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you
concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to you
exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which
was once for all delivered to the Saints.
So as we said last week that Jews sat down with his pen and
paper and had the intention to write about our common
salvation. Maybe we want to write about
justification. Maybe he wanted to write about
just the gospel itself. Maybe he wanted to share some
truths about the gospel, about sanctification or some things of
that nature, or just to rejoice and encourage his readers in the
gospel, this common salvation that we have, which brings us
and binds us all together. But instead, the Holy Spirit
directed him to write concerning or exhorting them to contend
earnestly for the faith. Now when we talk about
contending for the faith, we're talking about this, this word
that basically means to strive or to agonize for the faith.
And not only just to contend for the faith, but to do it
earnestly, to do it earnestly, to do it fervently, intensely,
sincerely, to contend for the faith, which is what you and I
should be doing every day. Every day we go into the Word of
God and we read the Word of God and we fill ourselves with its
truth. It gives us the strength, it
gives us the the confidence in Jesus to stand on his word and
to be able to contend for it. And we're not talking about
quarreling and fighting with people over it.
The Bible says that the man of God should not quarrel and
should not strive, but we should stand for truth and not waver
from the truth and not allow ourselves to be deceived by
things that are not true concerning the Word of God.
That we would not be deceived to add on to it or not be deceived
to take away from it, but to take the Word of God the way
it's given to us as it was given to the apostles through Jesus
Christ. This is the truth, and we talked
about that last week, but we did.
We are to seriously and fervently strive, contend
earnestly for this truth. So you might ask the question,
well, why did he bring that up? Then why is God asking him to do
this? And he tells us in verse four,
he said because certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago
were marked out for this condemnation.
Ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and
deny the only Lord God, God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have it down here saying that creeps crept in, They crept in.
So this crep in means that they came in subtly.
They came in deceptively, came in through the side door to the
back door. You know then, and what that
means is that they didn't just come through the front door and
say, you know what? I'm a false teacher and I'm
about to destroy everything that God is trying to build in this
place. They don't come in with that.
They don't come in here saying that I have a doctrine that I'm
going to bring in that's going to be totally contrary to
everything you guys have been listening to.
They don't come in that way either, but they come in subtly
and deceptively. They actually come in looking
and sounding like us. And as I go through this, I
don't want this to be a, a, a, a word of condemnation against
anybody. It's not that God is giving us
these words so that we are warned, just like he gave it to
them to warn them. These are tricks of the devil.
These are deceptive ways of the evil 1 And unfortunately, he
uses people. He uses people that sound like
us, that look like us, that act like us, to try to deceive us,
to try to get us to step away or to turn away from the truth.
That's just the way the enemy is.
And Jude is saying here that I want you to be aware of it.
But Jude wasn't the only one who tried to warn us or who did warn
us about this. Jesus warned us about it.
He said back in, in, in, in Matthew 7 and 15.
He said they're going to come in like wolves coming in wearing
sheep's clothing. That sheep's clothing just
simply mean that they're going to all look like sheep.
We're all going to look like sheep together.
We're sitting beside another person that looks like a sheep,
but inwardly, inwardly they're wolves that has an intention to
destroy what's being built here. Paul also talked to us and
warned us in the book of Acts. In chapter 20.
He said men were coming from among you.
They're going to rise up from among you, not sparing the flock
and speaking perverse things, perverse things, things that are
totally perverted from the gospel truth.
And then Peter in second Peter 2 and 1, he says false teachers
will come in secretly bringing in destructive heresies,
bringing in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord
who bought them, denying the Lord Jesus Christ who bought
them, bought them. Then it goes when he said that
these are ungodly men who turn the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ into something lewdness, into something lewd, into
something indecent, ungodly men. That means that these men really
aren't even saved. Their ungodly, their thoughts
are ungodly and impure. Their ways are ungodly, but they
come in looking like us. Verse 19 says over in the later
part of Jude, it says that they don't even have the Spirit.
And of course, Paul himself said that if any man doesn't have the
Spirit of God, that he's none of his.
They turn the grace of our God into lewdness, into something
immoral and decent. You know, grace is something
that has been really misused and abused in the church,
unfortunately. You know, grace is a wonderful
thing. Jesus came full of grace and
truth. It's a wonderful thing, but when
you get someone who can pervert it or will pervert the enemy,
will try to pervert anything, even the grace of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ in this situation, because they are
Gnostics and they believe that the body is evil.
But the mind or the spirit, I'm sorry, is, is, is what's
righteous. And that's the only thing that's
important is the spirit. But your body, you can do
anything you want to do with that, anything you want to do
with the body, go and sin as much as you want.
This is what they were convincing people.
And of course, part of their worship was sexual immorality
was, you know, sex, full sex, sex acts.
That was part of the Pagan worship.
So they were convincing the people, these false teachers
will come in and convincing the people that it's OK not to use
your body to do anything you want to do with it.
Well, you know what stood out to me a couple weeks ago when Clark
was teaching on on 1st Corinthians and he talked about
the fact that our bodies are not our own.
Our bodies are not our own and we're not to use the grace of
God to try to cover up our sin. I just want to go back to Romans
for a second. Romans chapter 5, Paul talks
about this grace. He, he, he, he corrects this
false thinking about this grace over in the book of Romans
chapter chapter 5 and verse 20. He says, moreover, the law
entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abound,
grace abound much more. So that is so that as sin
reigned in death, Even so grace might reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
So now we're asking the question, So that means I can
just sin then, because we got grace, that will abound anymore.
And Paul answered that question, didn't he?
Look at verse 1 of chapter 6. He says, what shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
No, he says, certainly not. How shall we who die to sin live
any longer in it? How should we who die to sin
live any longer in it? In First Corinthians 619 and 20.
Clark eloquently taught about this a couple weeks ago, where
he says we are bought with a price.
Our bodies are not ours to do anything we want to do with it.
And I still remember the example he gave of the of a parking lot,
you know, full of cars and they all got the keys in it.
And you take somebody who just want to take something that
doesn't belong to them and go out in the parking lot, choose
the car that they want, go in, take the car, which is called
stealing the car and drive it and do what they want to do with
it. Because it's because it looks
like a sports car. I'll drive it fast because it
looks like a luxury car. I'll just lean in it so
everybody can see me. Oh, come on, you guys remember
to lean. You guys remember the lien, All
right? But it's not my car.
But I'll still take it to do what I want to do with it.
And he talked about the fact that the police will come and
they'll arrest them and ask the question, What made you think
that you could take someone else's property and do what you
want to do with it? What a good illustration of us
with the Lord Jesus Christ. This body now belongs to him.
He died on the cross for it. He purchased it with his own
blood first. Peter 118 and 19.
He says, you know, we weren't redeemed, you know, with, with
with things like gold and silver, but we were redeemed
with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
You can't put a price on that. There's no price we can put on
that. But yet scripture says over here
in Jude that they deny the only Lord God, they deny him and even
over in second Peter and I want to take a look at that one too
because it even talks about how they deny the Lord who bought
them in second Peter. He says this.
I got pages that are actually falling out of my Bible.
It's time to get a new one. Second Peter chapter 2 and verse
one, it says, but there we're also false prophets among the
people, even as there will be false teachers among you who
will secretly bring in destructive heresies and denying
the Lord who bought them and will bring upon themselves swift
destruction. You know, we have to really
understand what it means that we now belong to Lord Jesus Christ.
We now belong to Him. We are the slaves.
Jude himself said I'm a bond slave, which actually means that
I am a slave. I'm a bond servant.
I'm a slave of Jesus Christ, a willing slave.
We're not forced to be slaves to Jesus Christ.
We are willing slaves. We give ourselves to Him, to be
slaves to him. Lord, remember when I got saved
and when I finally realized and looked back on my life and
looked at how much time I wasted?
I remember saying, Lord, I don't know how much time I got left.
I've wasted so much of my life doing what I wanted to do, so
much of my life looking for my own will, expressing my own will
and not surrendering to His will.
Lord, I don't know how much time I got left, but whatever I have,
Lord, I want to give it to you. Whatever I have left, I want to
commit it to you, submit it to you.
And we're not perfect in this walk.
We blow it. There's still times when I still
do what I want to do. I've shared those with you
before. But because of the Holy Spirit
who's in us, we can be convicted of those things, and we turn our
hearts and our minds back to Jesus Christ in repentance.
Lord, I'm sorry I sinned once again.
I blew it. Please forgive me.
That's the grace that we have in Jesus Christ when we humble
ourselves and admit our sin and confess our sin.
He is gracious and He's good and He is faithful to forgive us of
our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
That's the grace that we have in Jesus Christ.
God gives grace to the humble, not the proud, not someone that
says I'm going to just do what I want to do and live my life the
way I want to live it. No hit.
The Bible says that God resists the proud.
He resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble, to
that one who will say, yes, Lord, I blew it, I was wrong, I
sinned, please forgive me. That grace is there for us.
That's grace. That's grace.
And then in verse 5, he goes on and he says, but I want to
remind you that once you that that you know, they want to
remind you though you once knew this and we talked before about
how Peter even talked about always reminding, you know, we
do. That's why we come here every
every Sunday because we want to be reminded of what the word of
God says, you know, and, and that's why I love coming to a
church like this, because you guys come every Sunday and you
bring your Bibles, which means that you intentionally come to
hear the word of God and to read the word of God and to study the
word of God, to understand the word of God intentionally.
You do. And that's why you bring your
Bibles. That's why you bring them.
But this is remind you when, when, when Pastor Clark stands
up here so many times and I hear him teaching the word of God, It
reminds me of things I may have read a while ago and haven't
read in a while. And I make a mental note to
myself and I go back and I look at those things again because he
reminded me. He reminded me.
Or when you're in a study, a men's study in the morning, or
you women in your women's study on your Bible class, you know,
your Bible studies that you do the men's studies from time to
time. You'll hear a scripture that
maybe you haven't read in a long time and it reminds you and you
go back and you read that Scripture again.
But this is what Judah saying. Judah said.
Look, I know that you know this. I'm not saying this to you
because I don't think that you know it, but I'm saying it to
you because I want to remind you.
And when he's reminding them of his, as he said, though you once
knew this, that the Lord having saved the people out of the land
of Egypt. Now I want to go back here for a
second. He's going to give 3 examples of
those who through self will, pride, rejection of authority,
rejection of God, have sinned. Cosmopostates, they sin, and
because of their sin there was judgement.
Sometimes it's really good to go back and see the historical
record because the Old Testament does give us a good picture of
the righteousness of God, a righteousness that we can't live
up to ourselves, which is why Jesus came.
But I'll get to that in a minute.
But he says here, I'm going, he says my first example I'm going
to use is going to be the people who God delivered.
He saved them out of the land of Egypt.
You guys know the story because of Joseph being, you know, sold
by his brothers and he end up going into Egypt, ending up in
Egypt and and when he ended up in Egypt because of God's favor,
he ended up being like second in command in Egypt.
I don't want to go through the go through the whole story.
You guys know the story. But he end up being second in
command because God's favor was upon him because he was a
righteous man. But while he was there, after he
died, the Bible says there arose a new Pharaoh who knew not
Joseph. You know, there was a new boss
in town and he didn't know anything about Joseph and didn't
know anything about these people When and all of a sudden the
people of Israel became a, a thorn in that guy on in on the
new Pharaoh's side. And he oppressed them and he put
them into slavery and he oppressed them for for many
years, many, many years. And then he sent a deliverer.
And it was Moses who he he sent, who delivered these people.
He used to deliver the people from Egypt and, and, and he, but
he delivered them all. This is the point of this
example. He delivered them all, all of
them. And they all went into the
wilderness on their way going to the promised land.
They all did. But while they were in the
wilderness, he destroyed those who did not believe because of
unbelief. They were judged and they were
destroyed and because of their, and it came in a lot of
different ways. It came in rejection, it came in
rebellion, it came in sexual immorality, all kind of ways of
just not trusting the those Caleb and and Joshua, when they
went in to spy out the land. And when they went to spy out
the land, they came back and gave a report and said, look, we
can go in and take it. The other people that was there
said no, we can't take it because they're too much for us.
And because of their unbelief, they didn't go in.
So the first generation of that group in Egypt, none of them
went in besides Joshua and Caleb.
It was their children who ended up going into the promised land.
Their children. None of them went in because
they were judged because of unbelief.
Let's not have unbelief in our hearts to miss what it is God
wants to do for us. Even as the the centurion said
one day, he said, look, I believe, but help my unbelief.
And we all have some areas of unbelief, if we're honest with
ourselves. And you find out those areas of
unbelief whenever adversity hits US and it hits US hard sometimes
and it's hard for us to believe that God will pull us out of
this or even can pull us out of this like, oh, I'm doomed.
This is not going to end right? And we take our eyes off of him
and we started looking at people who can help me with this.
What can I do for myself to pull myself out of this?
Let's not be caught in unbelief. And then the next example he
uses, he uses the example of the angels.
And he said then the angels who did not keep their proper domain
but left their own abode. He has reserved an everlasting
chains under darkness. So you went from the children of
Israel to now he and, and how they were judged because of
their unbelief. And now he goes to the angels,
these angels and, and, and what we have to understand is that
angels have free will. Angels have free will and, and
Satan himself have free will and he chose to rebel against God,
to rebelled against God. And because of that, he and the
angels who rebelled with him, which was 1/3 the Bible tells us
we're cast out of heaven. We're cast out of heaven.
They decided that they wanted their will and not God's will.
They wanted to do what they wanted to do and not do what God
wanted them to do. Oh, they had a proper domain.
They had a place in heaven. They were there, but they turned
away from them, turned away from God to follow their own will, to
follow their own heart. And the Bible says as a result
of that, He now has done reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
Just think about that. Because they were looking to
have a life of freedom to do what they wanted to do, to live
their own free will and not surrender to the will of God.
They still end up in bondage. They still don't have any
freedom. They're in the darkness chain
darkness because of their decisions to live their own life
the way they want to live it. But you know what?
That's no different than what we have and where we are.
You've been listening to Living Waters of Grace with Pastor
Lewis Harrell at Calvary Chapel Westmoreland in Greensburg, PA.
As Pastor Lewis continues to preach through the book of Jude,
he wants you to realize that you can't be a part time Christian.
If you're going to follow Jesus, he is going to ask for your
undivided loyalty. If you try to serve your own
interests while following Jesus, you find that you can't do
either one successfully. But if you run after Jesus with
everything you have, you'll be amazed at how He provides for
you and sustains you on the journey, even when you have no
idea of where your provision will come from.
If today's message has encouraged you, we'd love to
hear your feedback. You can visit
ourwebsite@calvarychapelonline.com where you'll find our contact
information as well as links to our social media pages.
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