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The More We Dig. The More We Find.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 0 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody , welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon.
Today, jude chapter, and onlychapter one, and today's title
is Contending for the Faith.
Contending for the Faith.
And I'm going to tell yousomething.
This is one of my favoritebooks in the entire New
Testament and this is a shoutout to anybody who's a little
(00:23):
passionate, a little fiery.
If you kind of have a littlebit of a quick temper, you are
going to love the book of Judebecause he kind of comes off to
me as a guy that you don't wantto mess with, because he got
something for you if you messwith him a little bit.
But he's also one of the mostsurprising people that you may
find in the entire New Testament.
So I hope that's got youexcited to learn more about him
(00:44):
and so, if you have your Bibles,want to open up with me to the
book of Jude.
While you're doing that, makesure you take just a moment and
like, share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast
.
Make sure you're leaving us afive-star review on the podcast.
It really does help us get theword out.
It doesn't cost you anything.
As well, you're going to theBible Breakdown discussion on
Facebook.
It's an amazing group of peopledoing a wonderful job over
(01:05):
there, and the more we dig, themore we find, and if you're not
careful, jews gonna find you.
This joke is gonna cut you,yeah.
So before we jump into this, Iwant to ask you a question, and
that is this have you ever beenin an environment where you are?
You are, you're talking tosomebody and man you are, you've
just got something on your mindand you start off talking about
(01:26):
the weather and before you knowit, you're talking about
politics, or you're talkingabout something going on in
Australia or just whatever it is, and you can almost see the
look on the person's face ofwait a minute, I thought we were
talking about the weather.
How did we get from the weatherto talking about who's going to
win the next election?
How did we?
But it just kind of happensthat way, and that looks like
(01:47):
that is what happens in the bookof Jude.
It's like he starts talkingabout one thing but then he's
like no, no, no, I got somethingelse I need to tell you people,
and he just jumps in and does afiery job, and so we're going
to jump into this.
And for anybody who's everchased a squirrel, or you get a
little fiery.
This book is for you, so let'sdive into it.
The overall idea, once again, isit's contending for the faith,
(02:09):
and so it is an apologeticdefense of the faith book, and
it was written by a guy namedJude.
Now, what some people may notknow is Jude is the Greek way to
say his name.
The Hebrew way to say this nameof this very Hebrew guy is
Judah, and so if you ever readlike a messianic Jewish
rendition of the New Testament,then you may have trouble
(02:31):
finding the book of Jude,because you're not going to find
it.
You're going to find the bookof Judah, and so actually, what
was very interesting is he wasnamed after the tribe he was
part of, because his dad's namewas Yosef, joseph, but there's
no J in Hebrew, there's just a Y, and so his name would be
actually Yehudah, so Yehudah benYosef of Yehudah.
(02:52):
So that's kind of what his namewould have been.
And if you recognize the nameJoseph, it's because Jude, or
Judah, was the half-brother, thebiological half-brother, of
Jesus.
So the way that works is Marywas with child by the Holy
Spirit, supernaturally by theHoly Spirit, and Jesus was born,
(03:14):
and then, after that, don'tlisten to the Catholics.
God love you and I love you ifyou're Catholic.
But after that, mary and Josephhad sexual relations, after
Jesus was born, and they had aflock of kids, because the Bible
says they did.
One of them was a guy namedJude, and so he became the
half-brother of Jesus.
So same mother, differentfathers.
(03:35):
And what I love about this,though, is he doesn't use that.
Can I just go ahead and tellyou, if I was the half-brother
of Jesus, I would have somebusiness cards made up, and
they'd have one thing on itBrandon, half-brother of Jesus.
I would have some businesscards made up, and they'd have
one thing on it Brandon,half-brother of Jesus.
And every time I go to therestaurant, I just put that card
down.
I go to the grocery store, Iput that card down.
Whatever it is, before I say aword to you, I'm going to hand
(03:55):
you my business card, just incase you're wondering.
Buddy, I'm the half-brother ofJesus, but you know what?
Jude doesn't do that.
As a matter of fact, he callshimself the servant of Jesus in
this letter, so that's alreadyawesome about him.
Now, where was this written?
We don't know.
We're not entirely sure wherethis was written, but because of
the idea that it was written tothe overall church, we are
(04:18):
assuming that it was writtenprobably where he lived, which
was probably somewhere near oraround the area of Jerusalem.
Now, to whom it was written andwhen it was written to the
overall church, because he isgoing to be talking about a
heresy, a false teaching that iscoming into the church, called
Gnosticism, and we'll get tothat in just a moment.
(04:39):
So he's telling everybody to becareful of these fools that are
coming in.
And it was written most likelybetween 65 and 70 AD, so this is
right before the destruction ofthe temple in 70 AD, which is
kind of a big deal for theJewish community, and so it
really kind of is a marker ofthis happened before and this
happened afterward.
Now the big idea of Jude is thisbook shows that the early
(05:03):
church dealt with heresy,hedonism or, excuse me, heresy
head on.
Hedonism is another thing, andso they did not look at anything
else other than this is heresy.
So we're going to hit it, andso the idea of we're going to
love our neighbors is very true,but one of the ways we're going
to love our neighbors is tospeak truth, and they just went
ahead and hit this idea ofGnosticism.
(05:25):
Now the overall idea as well isthat God's truth must be
defended and his people mustremain faithful even when false
teaching and moral decay arerising within the church.
Now the reason why Jude isimportant for us to read is it
warns us of internal threatssuch as false teachers.
I think that that is somethingthat we, on one end, assume, but
(05:47):
on the other end, we don'tassume.
I've talked to so many peoplewho are absolutely shocked and
surprised when the church peopleare not perfect and we say,
well, yeah, they're people.
Well, yeah, but they go tochurch.
Well, what in the worlddifference does that make?
That just means they're headedtoward Jesus, but they still got
stuff and things like the restof us Like, don't you?
Well, yeah, well, you go to ourchurch.
So Jude is saying, hey, there'sfools up in here, so we need to
(06:12):
keep our eyes on Jesus, allright.
Then the next one is Judereminds us that truth matters
and that grace is not a licensefor sin.
And also, this book offers theclearest call for spiritual
vigilance and it encourages usto stand firm while relying on
God's power.
Now the background of what'sgoing on in the world.
This is what's so veryinteresting about the book of
Jude, and there are some thingsthat are unique to the book of
(06:34):
Jude.
So I want you to hear thisFirst of all is remember this is
before the destruction of thetemple, so Nero would have been
the emperor, and there isgrowing Christian persecution,
like more than just we don'tlike you, you're not invited to
our party, but people are beingput to death at this point.
Also, the early church isspreading, but so is the heresy
(06:55):
of Gnosticism, and theGnosticism is the idea of
overplaying spirituality, evento the point where they tried to
say that Jesus didn't come in ahuman form, he was just a
spirit kind of floating aroundand I know that's like stupid
and stuff, but at the same time,this was a heresy that was
going around and they had torefute it.
Also, there are tensionsbetween the Jewish and Gentile
believers.
That is still being worked out,and Peter and Paul have
(07:18):
possibly been killed.
So, if you think about thecontext, jude is one of the
final main guys at this point,because between 60 and 70 AD, a
lot of the early church leadersthat we would think of and we
would know were put to death.
Paul was put to death, peterwas put to death, a lot of these
other ones were put to death,and so you have one of these
(07:40):
guys who is toward the end ofthat era, who is still alive,
but he is fighting the goodfight.
And so you see him just sayinghey guys, listen, I know some of
these patriarchs have died, butman, the new generation is
coming up and we got to makesure they know how to fight
against these bad guys, and so Isee this as him just investing
in the next generation.
(08:00):
Now a couple of interestingfacts, and we're going to dive
right in.
First of all, jude was thebiological half-brother of Jesus
.
We covered a non-book of theBible as a reference point, and
it's a lot of controversy.
As a matter of fact, I woulddare say that some of you have
probably clicked on this book ofthe Bible just to hear me talk
(08:22):
about this.
So we're going to talk aboutthis.
But he quotes from 1 John,verse 14, in the idea of talking
about the idea of kind of whathappens to, or what happened to
the different angels that fellback in Genesis, chapter 6.
And he is citing this extrabiblical Jewish literature.
We're going to get into that injust a moment.
He also references the disputeover Moses' body.
(08:44):
That is not mentioned anywhereelse in Scripture, and he
actually is going to be talkingabout an extra biblical source
to talk about that.
And he wanted to write a letterof encouragement but was
divinely redirected to writeabout that.
And he wanted to write a letterof encouragement but was
divinely redirected to writeabout a warning.
So, in other words, that's whatI'm talking about the idea of
him saying hey, listen, I hadthis idea.
We was going to talk aboutencouraging you, but listen, I
(09:04):
got to tell you about something.
The best way I can encourageyou is to warn you.
And so that's where he's goingto go.
With us, we're going to diveinto this very interesting book
of the Bible and we'll stopalong the way and see what God's
Word says to us.
Okay, so if you're ready, jude,chapter 1, verse 1, says this
this is the letter from Jude, aslave of Jesus Christ and a
brother of James.
Pause.
So once again, remember he isthe half brother of Jesus, but
(09:27):
he doesn't claim it.
He just says I'm a slave ofJesus and then a brother of
James.
Remember who James is.
James is likely the firstleader of the church in
Jerusalem and probably one ofthe preeminent leaders of the
Christian movement.
At this time.
We don't really hear about hima whole lot, but if you look in
the book of Acts you can see howhe is leading some of these
(09:50):
different councils.
And James was also thehalf-brother of Jesus.
All right, let's keep going.
He says I am writing to all whohave been called by God, the
Father, and who loves you andwho keeps you safe in the care
of Jesus Christ.
May God give you more and moremercy, peace and love.
Dear friends, I have beeneagerly planning to write to you
(10:13):
about the salvation we allshare, but this is where he
shifts.
So, in other words, he's sayingGod gave us his word, it's up
to us to defend it.
(10:33):
Verse 4,.
I say this because some ungodlypeople have wormed their way
into your churches, saying thatGod's marvelous grace allows us
to live immoral lives.
The condemnation of such peoplewas recorded long ago, for they
have denied our only master andLord, jesus Christ.
So I want to remind you thoughyou already know these things
(10:56):
that Jesus first rescued thenation of Israel from Egypt, but
later he destroyed those whodid not remain faithful.
And I remind you of the angelswho did not stay within the
limits of their authority thatGod gave them, but left the
place where they belonged.
God kept them securely chainedin prisons of darkness, waiting
for the day of judgment.
(11:17):
That's where he's quoting fromthe book of Enoch We'll get into
that in just a moment and don'tforget Sodom and Gomorrah.
He's going to quote from itagain.
By the way, don't forget Sodomand Gomorrah and their
neighboring towns, which werefilled with immorality and every
kind of sexual perversion,towns which were filled with
immorality and every kind ofsexual perversion.
Those cities were destroyed byfire and serve as a warning of
(11:38):
the eternal fire of God'sjudgment.
In the same way, these peoplewho claim authority from their
dreams live immoral lives, defyauthority and scoff at
supernatural beings.
But even Michael, one of themightiest of the angels, did not
dare to accuse the devil ofblasphemy, but simply said the
(11:58):
Lord rebuke you.
This took place when Micah wasarguing with the devil over
Moses' body.
That's where he talks aboutthat, verse 10,.
But these people scoff atthings they do not understand.
Like unthinking animals, theydo whatever their instincts tell
them, and so they bring abouttheir own destruction.
What sorrow awaits them, forthey follow in the footsteps of
(12:19):
Cain, who killed his brother.
Like Balaam, they deceivepeople for money and, like Korah
, they perish in their rebellion.
When these people eat with youin fellowship meals
(12:45):
commemorating the Lord's love,they are like and excuse me dead
, and they bear no fruit andhave been pulled up by the roots
.
They are like wild waves of thesea, churning up the foam of
their shameful deeds, and theyare like wandering stars, doomed
forever to blackest darkness.
Here he goes.
Enoch, who lived in the seventhgeneration after Adam,
(13:26):
prophesied about these people.
He said but do so with greatcaution, hating the sin that
contaminates their lives.
Now, all glory to God, who isable to keep you from falling
away and will bring you withgreat joy into his glorious
presence without a single fault.
All glory to him, who is Godalone, our Savior, through Jesus
(13:50):
Christ, our Lord.
All glory, majesty, power andauthority are his before all
time and in the present and inbeyond all time.
Amen, wow.
So let's talk about the overallidea.
I'll tell you about the book ofEnoch and then what we can take
away from it.
So what's happening is is Judeis talking about the fact that
(14:12):
there are these false teacherswho are coming in and are saying
you don't have to follow anykind of law, you don't have to
follow any kind of moral code,you just be free and do whatever
it is you want to do, don'tworry about anything, it's all
okay, it's all all right.
And so I'm curious about howmany of you have been in those
kind of environments whereyou've heard the same thing.
It doesn't matter, it's allfree grace, it's all good what
(14:34):
you would say.
Be very, very careful aboutthese things, because these
people are perverting the truthand they're taking away all of
the good things that God hassaid.
He's put boundaries in ourlives for a reason, and so the
overall goal here is is makesure we're sticking close to
scripture not sticking close towhat we want to be true about
Scripture and then he also saysto not even give them a place,
(14:55):
but to be very, very careful.
So if they are not abiding bywhat God's Word says, keep a
wide boundary in place so thatyou are not seduced by their
very, very sneaky teaching,which is why we do this.
We read God's Word every day,so we know what God's Word says,
and then we know what to do,know what God's word says, and
then we know what to do withwhat God's word says.
(15:15):
And so that is the overall viewof the book of Jude.
And it so burdened him that hesaid I was going to write to you
something different.
But, man, it just broke my heartwhen I realized that this is
not so easy for a lot of people.
So I got to tell you noteverybody that calls themselves
Christians is your friend.
You've got to make sure thatyou go to God's word first and
then after that you listen towhat someone has to say.
(15:37):
But you always have an openBible.
Whenever you're talking tosomeone, you're listening to
someone.
I've told people in our localcongregation that never feel bad
about asking me for my sourcesif I preach something to you on
Sunday and you're not entirelysure you agree with it.
Because if I can't back up whatI say, you need to hold me to
account for that, because it hasalways got to line up with
(15:57):
God's word, and I think that'simportant for us to do.
Always God's word is the finalauthority, not your local
minister, no matter how much youlove them.
Right?
But then also some of thecontroversy in the book of Jude
has to do with this scripture,so I'm gonna go back to it real
quick.
When he says this, and thenwe'll finish up, and that is he
says in verse 14, he says Enoch,who lived in the seventh
(16:17):
generation after Adam,prophesied about these things,
saying listen, the Lord iscoming with countless thousands
of his holy ones to executejudgment on the people of the
world and he will convict everyperson and I do realize now I
skipped a couple of scripturesright there so he will convict
every person.
And I do realize now I skippeda couple scriptures right there
so he will convict every personof their sin is basically what
he's talking about right there.
(16:38):
Well, some people have gottenmixed up about this.
When it said now, wait a minute, if he is quoting the book of
Enoch, does that mean that thebook of Enoch is divinely
inspired?
And then is he saying it'sinspired?
Because he is saying, okay, notjust any Enoch.
Okay, now I'm confused becausemy Old Testament doesn't have
(17:00):
the book of Enoch, but he'ssaying that it was a seventh
from Adam, which means it's notjust any rando, it's the guy in
the book of Genesis.
Is this divinely inspired?
Well, here's the thing.
No, it's not divinely inspired.
First of all, the book of Enochwas a book that was written
between the time of the book ofMalachi and the time of Matthew.
It was about 400 years.
(17:21):
We call it the 400 years ofsilence because there was no
prophetic voice, but it was verymuch not silent.
There was a lot of people whowere doing a lot of research, a
lot of study, a lot of things,and they were writing a lot of
things.
It's just none of it wasconsidered divinely inspired,
and so one of them was writtenby a guy who called himself, in
this book, enoch.
And there's actually fourEnochs first, second, third,
(17:43):
fourth Enoch, but the one thateverybody really talks about is
first Enoch, and so he is simplyquoting, because he's saying
that this makes sense of whatwas going to happen.
Well, what about him sayingwell, it's the seven from Adam?
Well, in the book of Enoch,that's what he refers to himself
as.
So he's not saying this is theguy from Genesis who wrote this.
(18:04):
He is actually saying youremember that book of Enoch
that's going around?
Okay, that book says this, andso he's simply referring to the
way the guy who wrote itreferred to himself, if that
makes sense.
And so the fact that the NewTestament authors would quote
from other sources doesn't meanthose other sources are inspired
.
For instance, in the book ofActs, paul goes to a place
(18:29):
called Mars Hill and he isdiscussing with Greek
philosophers the idea of Jesusbeing raised from the dead, and
he actually quotes a philosopherthat they would have been
familiar with.
In doing that, he is not sayingthat that philosopher was
divinely inspired.
He is simply using a quote tomake a point.
And what Jude is doing is he'susing a quote that would have
been familiar to this audienceto make a point that it has been
(18:50):
known for a while that the Lordis coming and that he is going
to judge the ungodly.
So that's all that.
That is in the idea of lookingat what this is.
So there actually is nocontroversy.
The book of 1 Enoch is notintended to be in.
The text of Scripture is notintended to be inspired.
The reason why he sayssomething from Adam is that's
(19:11):
what Enoch says of himself inthe letter.
Probably part of the reason whysome of your TikTok people have
gotten confused is they'venever actually read the book of
1 Enoch.
That's why they have no ideawhat they're talking about,
which actually is an amazingpoint, because it gets us back
to the reason why Jude wrotethis letter.
He wrote this letter becausepeople were not going by
scripture, they were going bytheir opinions and they were
(19:34):
just saying what other peoplehad said.
And so, therefore, they arelooking at these different
things and they're making upthis strange doctrine and
confusing people.
And so Jude is very muchtalking to those people and he's
saying you have got to becareful to not fall into the
slippery slope of Gnosticism andheresy.
You've got to make sure thatyou keep your eyes on Jesus.
(19:58):
That's why the overall idea iscontending for the faith, and I
want to say this as we get readyto close our time together
today More than ever, there arepeople who are trying to
manipulate, and there are morepeople who are trying to pervert
the gospel.
You've got people on the outsideof the church who are saying
God doesn't exist.
You have people who I think areon the outside of the church,
(20:18):
called progressive Christians,who are trying to reinterpret
scripture and, because so manyof us don't know the Bible, we
don't know when it's true andwhen it's not.
Then you have people who go toofar in the other direction and
they're trying to say that theBible says something it doesn't
say at all.
And so many people come to meas pastor and they say pastor,
how in the world do I find outwhat the Bible actually says?
(20:39):
And they even say I'm justgoing to listen to you.
You just tell me I'm going tolisten to you and I tell them
don't do that.
Now I'm going to do my verybest to tell you what the Bible
actually says, but what if I getit wrong?
And so you see the look intheir eyes going well, I don't
even know what to do.
And here's what you do, exactlywhat you'd said Contend for the
true faith.
Know God's word for yourself.
I'm not saying you need tobecome a Bible scholar, even
(21:01):
though that would be my dreamand my hope for all of us but
you can read it.
Well, pastor, there's so much Idon't understand.
Well, how about focus first onthe things you do understand?
That'll give us enough trouble,right?
You know, it's not the passagesI don't understand that bother
me, it's the ones I dounderstand, that bother me.
And so what if you start withthe ones you do understand?
Read God's word with me everysingle day.
We're slowly unpacking it andit takes time.
(21:23):
It takes a lifetime to buildthat personal theology of
contending for the faith.
And then, when you come up witha question you don't have the
answer for, do your research.
Don't go to chat GPT, don't goto Google by itself, but start
going to Bible references, biblecommentaries, all this stuff.
Well, pastor, I don't have thatkind of time.
Respectfully, can I say, say,if you have time to get on
(21:44):
YouTube and Netflix and TikTokand social media, then you have
a little bit of time to knowsomething of eternal value.
And that's not me just as apastor, but that's saying, if
this has to do with your eternalsoul, if it has to do with the
salvation of those around you,can you skip one Netflix show to
dig a little bit deeper?
I think you can, because Ithink that you have the
capability of doing it.
(22:05):
And as you grow and as I growand as we grow together, we'll
do what Jude says, and that is,we will contend for the faith,
we'll know what's true andwhat's not true and we'll get in
the right direction and we willhelp not only ourselves but
we'll also help others as wegrow together.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today, thank you for your word, thank
(22:26):
you that it's true, it isactive, it is alive, and that,
god, we can know your word andwe can know when the enemy's
coming against us, when it'stime to fight, when it's time to
learn and it's always this timeto grow.
I pray, holy Spirit, you'llopen our eyes to see your word.
(22:46):
I pray you'll give us asupernatural hunger to know your
word, because your word istruth and where your truth is,
you set people free.
You, jesus said you are the way, you are the truth and you are
the life, and it's in yourpresence that we find fullness
of joy.
And god, your word leads us toyou.
That's why we study it Is westudy it with our, with smiles
on our faces and our hearts open, because we know that it leads
us straight to your presence.
We're thankful for your wordand we're thankful for how you
(23:08):
lead us every day.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
And what God's word says inJude 1, verse 3, I urge you to
defend the faith that God hasentrusted once for all time to
his holy people.
That's our job.
God has given us his word.
Now it's our job to know it andto defend it so that other
people can come to know Jesusthe way we have.
(23:29):
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for thenext part of the Bible breakdown
podcast.
Well, hello everybody , welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon.
Today, jude chapter, and onlychapter one, and today's title
is Contending for the Faith.
Contending for the Faith.
And I'm going to tell yousomething.
This is one of my favoritebooks in the entire New
Testament and this is a shoutout to anybody who's a little
(00:23):
passionate, a little fiery.
If you kind of have a littlebit of a quick temper, you are
going to love the book of Judebecause he kind of comes off to
me as a guy that you don't wantto mess with, because he got
something for you if you messwith him a little bit.
But he's also one of the mostsurprising people that you may
find in the entire New Testament.
So I hope that's got youexcited to learn more about him
(00:44):
and so, if you have your Bibles,want to open up with me to the
book of Jude.
While you're doing that, makesure you take just a moment and
like, share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast
.
Make sure you're leaving us afive-star review on the podcast.
It really does help us get theword out.
It doesn't cost you anything.
As well, you're going to theBible Breakdown discussion on
Facebook.
It's an amazing group of peopledoing a wonderful job over
(01:05):
there, and the more we dig, themore we find, and if you're not
careful, jews gonna find you.
This joke is gonna cut you,yeah.
So before we jump into this, Iwant to ask you a question, and
that is this have you ever beenin an environment where you are?
You are, you're talking tosomebody and man you are, you've
just got something on your mindand you start off talking about
(01:26):
the weather and before you knowit, you're talking about
politics, or you're talkingabout something going on in
Australia or just whatever it is, and you can almost see the
look on the person's face ofwait a minute, I thought we were
talking about the weather.
How did we get from the weatherto talking about who's going to
win the next election?
How did we?
But it just kind of happensthat way, and that looks like
(01:47):
that is what happens in the bookof Jude.
It's like he starts talkingabout one thing but then he's
like no, no, no, I got somethingelse I need to tell you people,
and he just jumps in and does afiery job, and so we're going
to jump into this.
And for anybody who's everchased a squirrel, or you get a
little fiery.
This book is for you, so let'sdive into it.
The overall idea, once again, isit's contending for the faith,
(02:09):
and so it is an apologeticdefense of the faith book, and
it was written by a guy namedJude.
Now, what some people may notknow is Jude is the Greek way to
say his name.
The Hebrew way to say this nameof this very Hebrew guy is
Judah, and so if you ever readlike a messianic Jewish
rendition of the New Testament,then you may have trouble
(02:31):
finding the book of Jude,because you're not going to find
it.
You're going to find the bookof Judah, and so actually, what
was very interesting is he wasnamed after the tribe he was
part of, because his dad's namewas Yosef, joseph, but there's
no J in Hebrew, there's just a Y, and so his name would be
actually Yehudah, so Yehudah benYosef of Yehudah.
(02:52):
So that's kind of what his namewould have been.
And if you recognize the nameJoseph, it's because Jude, or
Judah, was the half-brother, thebiological half-brother, of
Jesus.
So the way that works is Marywas with child by the Holy
Spirit, supernaturally by theHoly Spirit, and Jesus was born,
(03:14):
and then, after that, don'tlisten to the Catholics.
God love you and I love you ifyou're Catholic.
But after that, mary and Josephhad sexual relations, after
Jesus was born, and they had aflock of kids, because the Bible
says they did.
One of them was a guy namedJude, and so he became the
half-brother of Jesus.
So same mother, differentfathers.
(03:35):
And what I love about this,though, is he doesn't use that.
Can I just go ahead and tellyou, if I was the half-brother
of Jesus, I would have somebusiness cards made up, and
they'd have one thing on itBrandon, half-brother of Jesus.
I would have some businesscards made up, and they'd have
one thing on it Brandon,half-brother of Jesus.
And every time I go to therestaurant, I just put that card
down.
I go to the grocery store, Iput that card down.
Whatever it is, before I say aword to you, I'm going to hand
(03:55):
you my business card, just incase you're wondering.
Buddy, I'm the half-brother ofJesus, but you know what?
Jude doesn't do that.
As a matter of fact, he callshimself the servant of Jesus in
this letter, so that's alreadyawesome about him.
Now, where was this written?
We don't know.
We're not entirely sure wherethis was written, but because of
the idea that it was written tothe overall church, we are
(04:18):
assuming that it was writtenprobably where he lived, which
was probably somewhere near oraround the area of Jerusalem.
Now, to whom it was written andwhen it was written to the
overall church, because he isgoing to be talking about a
heresy, a false teaching that iscoming into the church, called
Gnosticism, and we'll get tothat in just a moment.
(04:39):
So he's telling everybody to becareful of these fools that are
coming in.
And it was written most likelybetween 65 and 70 AD, so this is
right before the destruction ofthe temple in 70 AD, which is
kind of a big deal for theJewish community, and so it
really kind of is a marker ofthis happened before and this
happened afterward.
Now the big idea of Jude is thisbook shows that the early
(05:03):
church dealt with heresy,hedonism or, excuse me, heresy
head on.
Hedonism is another thing, andso they did not look at anything
else other than this is heresy.
So we're going to hit it, andso the idea of we're going to
love our neighbors is very true,but one of the ways we're going
to love our neighbors is tospeak truth, and they just went
ahead and hit this idea ofGnosticism.
(05:25):
Now the overall idea as well isthat God's truth must be
defended and his people mustremain faithful even when false
teaching and moral decay arerising within the church.
Now the reason why Jude isimportant for us to read is it
warns us of internal threatssuch as false teachers.
I think that that is somethingthat we, on one end, assume, but
(05:47):
on the other end, we don'tassume.
I've talked to so many peoplewho are absolutely shocked and
surprised when the church peopleare not perfect and we say,
well, yeah, they're people.
Well, yeah, but they go tochurch.
Well, what in the worlddifference does that make?
That just means they're headedtoward Jesus, but they still got
stuff and things like the restof us Like, don't you?
Well, yeah, well, you go to ourchurch.
So Jude is saying, hey, there'sfools up in here, so we need to
(06:12):
keep our eyes on Jesus, allright.
Then the next one is Judereminds us that truth matters
and that grace is not a licensefor sin.
And also, this book offers theclearest call for spiritual
vigilance and it encourages usto stand firm while relying on
God's power.
Now the background of what'sgoing on in the world.
This is what's so veryinteresting about the book of
Jude, and there are some thingsthat are unique to the book of
(06:34):
Jude.
So I want you to hear thisFirst of all is remember this is
before the destruction of thetemple, so Nero would have been
the emperor, and there isgrowing Christian persecution,
like more than just we don'tlike you, you're not invited to
our party, but people are beingput to death at this point.
Also, the early church isspreading, but so is the heresy
(06:55):
of Gnosticism, and theGnosticism is the idea of
overplaying spirituality, evento the point where they tried to
say that Jesus didn't come in ahuman form, he was just a
spirit kind of floating aroundand I know that's like stupid
and stuff, but at the same time,this was a heresy that was
going around and they had torefute it.
Also, there are tensionsbetween the Jewish and Gentile
believers.
That is still being worked out,and Peter and Paul have
(07:18):
possibly been killed.
So, if you think about thecontext, jude is one of the
final main guys at this point,because between 60 and 70 AD, a
lot of the early church leadersthat we would think of and we
would know were put to death.
Paul was put to death, peterwas put to death, a lot of these
other ones were put to death,and so you have one of these
(07:40):
guys who is toward the end ofthat era, who is still alive,
but he is fighting the goodfight.
And so you see him just sayinghey guys, listen, I know some of
these patriarchs have died, butman, the new generation is
coming up and we got to makesure they know how to fight
against these bad guys, and so Isee this as him just investing
in the next generation.
(08:00):
Now a couple of interestingfacts, and we're going to dive
right in.
First of all, jude was thebiological half-brother of Jesus
.
We covered a non-book of theBible as a reference point, and
it's a lot of controversy.
As a matter of fact, I woulddare say that some of you have
probably clicked on this book ofthe Bible just to hear me talk
(08:22):
about this.
So we're going to talk aboutthis.
But he quotes from 1 John,verse 14, in the idea of talking
about the idea of kind of whathappens to, or what happened to
the different angels that fellback in Genesis, chapter 6.
And he is citing this extrabiblical Jewish literature.
We're going to get into that injust a moment.
He also references the disputeover Moses' body.
(08:44):
That is not mentioned anywhereelse in Scripture, and he
actually is going to be talkingabout an extra biblical source
to talk about that.
And he wanted to write a letterof encouragement but was
divinely redirected to writeabout that.
And he wanted to write a letterof encouragement but was
divinely redirected to writeabout a warning.
So, in other words, that's whatI'm talking about the idea of
him saying hey, listen, I hadthis idea.
We was going to talk aboutencouraging you, but listen, I
(09:04):
got to tell you about something.
The best way I can encourageyou is to warn you.
And so that's where he's goingto go.
With us, we're going to diveinto this very interesting book
of the Bible and we'll stopalong the way and see what God's
Word says to us.
Okay, so if you're ready, jude,chapter 1, verse 1, says this
this is the letter from Jude, aslave of Jesus Christ and a
brother of James.
Pause.
So once again, remember he isthe half brother of Jesus, but
(09:27):
he doesn't claim it.
He just says I'm a slave ofJesus and then a brother of
James.
Remember who James is.
James is likely the firstleader of the church in
Jerusalem and probably one ofthe preeminent leaders of the
Christian movement.
At this time.
We don't really hear about hima whole lot, but if you look in
the book of Acts you can see howhe is leading some of these
(09:50):
different councils.
And James was also thehalf-brother of Jesus.
All right, let's keep going.
He says I am writing to all whohave been called by God, the
Father, and who loves you andwho keeps you safe in the care
of Jesus Christ.
May God give you more and moremercy, peace and love.
Dear friends, I have beeneagerly planning to write to you
(10:13):
about the salvation we allshare, but this is where he
shifts.
So, in other words, he's sayingGod gave us his word, it's up
to us to defend it.
(10:33):
Verse 4,.
I say this because some ungodlypeople have wormed their way
into your churches, saying thatGod's marvelous grace allows us
to live immoral lives.
The condemnation of such peoplewas recorded long ago, for they
have denied our only master andLord, jesus Christ.
So I want to remind you thoughyou already know these things
(10:56):
that Jesus first rescued thenation of Israel from Egypt, but
later he destroyed those whodid not remain faithful.
And I remind you of the angelswho did not stay within the
limits of their authority thatGod gave them, but left the
place where they belonged.
God kept them securely chainedin prisons of darkness, waiting
for the day of judgment.
(11:17):
That's where he's quoting fromthe book of Enoch We'll get into
that in just a moment and don'tforget Sodom and Gomorrah.
He's going to quote from itagain.
By the way, don't forget Sodomand Gomorrah and their
neighboring towns, which werefilled with immorality and every
kind of sexual perversion,towns which were filled with
immorality and every kind ofsexual perversion.
Those cities were destroyed byfire and serve as a warning of
(11:38):
the eternal fire of God'sjudgment.
In the same way, these peoplewho claim authority from their
dreams live immoral lives, defyauthority and scoff at
supernatural beings.
But even Michael, one of themightiest of the angels, did not
dare to accuse the devil ofblasphemy, but simply said the
(11:58):
Lord rebuke you.
This took place when Micah wasarguing with the devil over
Moses' body.
That's where he talks aboutthat, verse 10,.
But these people scoff atthings they do not understand.
Like unthinking animals, theydo whatever their instincts tell
them, and so they bring abouttheir own destruction.
What sorrow awaits them, forthey follow in the footsteps of
(12:19):
Cain, who killed his brother.
Like Balaam, they deceivepeople for money and, like Korah
, they perish in their rebellion.
When these people eat with youin fellowship meals
(12:45):
commemorating the Lord's love,they are like and excuse me dead
, and they bear no fruit andhave been pulled up by the roots
.
They are like wild waves of thesea, churning up the foam of
their shameful deeds, and theyare like wandering stars, doomed
forever to blackest darkness.
Here he goes.
Enoch, who lived in the seventhgeneration after Adam,
(13:26):
prophesied about these people.
He said but do so with greatcaution, hating the sin that
contaminates their lives.
Now, all glory to God, who isable to keep you from falling
away and will bring you withgreat joy into his glorious
presence without a single fault.
All glory to him, who is Godalone, our Savior, through Jesus
(13:50):
Christ, our Lord.
All glory, majesty, power andauthority are his before all
time and in the present and inbeyond all time.
Amen, wow.
So let's talk about the overallidea.
I'll tell you about the book ofEnoch and then what we can take
away from it.
So what's happening is is Judeis talking about the fact that
(14:12):
there are these false teacherswho are coming in and are saying
you don't have to follow anykind of law, you don't have to
follow any kind of moral code,you just be free and do whatever
it is you want to do, don'tworry about anything, it's all
okay, it's all all right.
And so I'm curious about howmany of you have been in those
kind of environments whereyou've heard the same thing.
It doesn't matter, it's allfree grace, it's all good what
(14:34):
you would say.
Be very, very careful aboutthese things, because these
people are perverting the truthand they're taking away all of
the good things that God hassaid.
He's put boundaries in ourlives for a reason, and so the
overall goal here is is makesure we're sticking close to
scripture not sticking close towhat we want to be true about
Scripture and then he also saysto not even give them a place,
(14:55):
but to be very, very careful.
So if they are not abiding bywhat God's Word says, keep a
wide boundary in place so thatyou are not seduced by their
very, very sneaky teaching,which is why we do this.
We read God's Word every day,so we know what God's Word says,
and then we know what to do,know what God's word says, and
then we know what to do withwhat God's word says.
(15:15):
And so that is the overall viewof the book of Jude.
And it so burdened him that hesaid I was going to write to you
something different.
But, man, it just broke my heartwhen I realized that this is
not so easy for a lot of people.
So I got to tell you noteverybody that calls themselves
Christians is your friend.
You've got to make sure thatyou go to God's word first and
then after that you listen towhat someone has to say.
(15:37):
But you always have an openBible.
Whenever you're talking tosomeone, you're listening to
someone.
I've told people in our localcongregation that never feel bad
about asking me for my sourcesif I preach something to you on
Sunday and you're not entirelysure you agree with it.
Because if I can't back up whatI say, you need to hold me to
account for that, because it hasalways got to line up with
(15:57):
God's word, and I think that'simportant for us to do.
Always God's word is the finalauthority, not your local
minister, no matter how much youlove them.
Right?
But then also some of thecontroversy in the book of Jude
has to do with this scripture,so I'm gonna go back to it real
quick.
When he says this, and thenwe'll finish up, and that is he
says in verse 14, he says Enoch,who lived in the seventh
(16:17):
generation after Adam,prophesied about these things,
saying listen, the Lord iscoming with countless thousands
of his holy ones to executejudgment on the people of the
world and he will convict everyperson and I do realize now I
skipped a couple of scripturesright there so he will convict
every person.
And I do realize now I skippeda couple scriptures right there
so he will convict every personof their sin is basically what
he's talking about right there.
(16:38):
Well, some people have gottenmixed up about this.
When it said now, wait a minute, if he is quoting the book of
Enoch, does that mean that thebook of Enoch is divinely
inspired?
And then is he saying it'sinspired?
Because he is saying, okay, notjust any Enoch.
Okay, now I'm confused becausemy Old Testament doesn't have
(17:00):
the book of Enoch, but he'ssaying that it was a seventh
from Adam, which means it's notjust any rando, it's the guy in
the book of Genesis.
Is this divinely inspired?
Well, here's the thing.
No, it's not divinely inspired.
First of all, the book of Enochwas a book that was written
between the time of the book ofMalachi and the time of Matthew.
It was about 400 years.
(17:21):
We call it the 400 years ofsilence because there was no
prophetic voice, but it was verymuch not silent.
There was a lot of people whowere doing a lot of research, a
lot of study, a lot of things,and they were writing a lot of
things.
It's just none of it wasconsidered divinely inspired,
and so one of them was writtenby a guy who called himself, in
this book, enoch.
And there's actually fourEnochs first, second, third,
(17:43):
fourth Enoch, but the one thateverybody really talks about is
first Enoch, and so he is simplyquoting, because he's saying
that this makes sense of whatwas going to happen.
Well, what about him sayingwell, it's the seven from Adam?
Well, in the book of Enoch,that's what he refers to himself
as.
So he's not saying this is theguy from Genesis who wrote this.
(18:04):
He is actually saying youremember that book of Enoch
that's going around?
Okay, that book says this, andso he's simply referring to the
way the guy who wrote itreferred to himself, if that
makes sense.
And so the fact that the NewTestament authors would quote
from other sources doesn't meanthose other sources are inspired
.
For instance, in the book ofActs, paul goes to a place
(18:29):
called Mars Hill and he isdiscussing with Greek
philosophers the idea of Jesusbeing raised from the dead, and
he actually quotes a philosopherthat they would have been
familiar with.
In doing that, he is not sayingthat that philosopher was
divinely inspired.
He is simply using a quote tomake a point.
And what Jude is doing is he'susing a quote that would have
been familiar to this audienceto make a point that it has been
(18:50):
known for a while that the Lordis coming and that he is going
to judge the ungodly.
So that's all that.
That is in the idea of lookingat what this is.
So there actually is nocontroversy.
The book of 1 Enoch is notintended to be in.
The text of Scripture is notintended to be inspired.
The reason why he sayssomething from Adam is that's
(19:11):
what Enoch says of himself inthe letter.
Probably part of the reason whysome of your TikTok people have
gotten confused is they'venever actually read the book of
1 Enoch.
That's why they have no ideawhat they're talking about,
which actually is an amazingpoint, because it gets us back
to the reason why Jude wrotethis letter.
He wrote this letter becausepeople were not going by
scripture, they were going bytheir opinions and they were
(19:34):
just saying what other peoplehad said.
And so, therefore, they arelooking at these different
things and they're making upthis strange doctrine and
confusing people.
And so Jude is very muchtalking to those people and he's
saying you have got to becareful to not fall into the
slippery slope of Gnosticism andheresy.
You've got to make sure thatyou keep your eyes on Jesus.
(19:58):
That's why the overall idea iscontending for the faith, and I
want to say this as we get readyto close our time together
today More than ever, there arepeople who are trying to
manipulate, and there are morepeople who are trying to pervert
the gospel.
You've got people on the outsideof the church who are saying
God doesn't exist.
You have people who I think areon the outside of the church,
(20:18):
called progressive Christians,who are trying to reinterpret
scripture and, because so manyof us don't know the Bible, we
don't know when it's true andwhen it's not.
Then you have people who go toofar in the other direction and
they're trying to say that theBible says something it doesn't
say at all.
And so many people come to meas pastor and they say pastor,
how in the world do I find outwhat the Bible actually says?
(20:39):
And they even say I'm justgoing to listen to you.
You just tell me I'm going tolisten to you and I tell them
don't do that.
Now I'm going to do my verybest to tell you what the Bible
actually says, but what if I getit wrong?
And so you see the look intheir eyes going well, I don't
even know what to do.
And here's what you do, exactlywhat you'd said Contend for the
true faith.
Know God's word for yourself.
I'm not saying you need tobecome a Bible scholar, even
(21:01):
though that would be my dreamand my hope for all of us but
you can read it.
Well, pastor, there's so much Idon't understand.
Well, how about focus first onthe things you do understand?
That'll give us enough trouble,right?
You know, it's not the passagesI don't understand that bother
me, it's the ones I dounderstand, that bother me.
And so what if you start withthe ones you do understand?
Read God's word with me everysingle day.
We're slowly unpacking it andit takes time.
(21:23):
It takes a lifetime to buildthat personal theology of
contending for the faith.
And then, when you come up witha question you don't have the
answer for, do your research.
Don't go to chat GPT, don't goto Google by itself, but start
going to Bible references, biblecommentaries, all this stuff.
Well, pastor, I don't have thatkind of time.
Respectfully, can I say, say,if you have time to get on
(21:44):
YouTube and Netflix and TikTokand social media, then you have
a little bit of time to knowsomething of eternal value.
And that's not me just as apastor, but that's saying, if
this has to do with your eternalsoul, if it has to do with the
salvation of those around you,can you skip one Netflix show to
dig a little bit deeper?
I think you can, because Ithink that you have the
capability of doing it.
(22:05):
And as you grow and as I growand as we grow together, we'll
do what Jude says, and that is,we will contend for the faith,
we'll know what's true andwhat's not true and we'll get in
the right direction and we willhelp not only ourselves but
we'll also help others as wegrow together.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today, thank you for your word, thank
(22:26):
you that it's true, it isactive, it is alive, and that,
god, we can know your word andwe can know when the enemy's
coming against us, when it'stime to fight, when it's time to
learn and it's always this timeto grow.
I pray, holy Spirit, you'llopen our eyes to see your word.
(22:46):
I pray you'll give us asupernatural hunger to know your
word, because your word istruth and where your truth is,
you set people free.
You, jesus said you are the way, you are the truth and you are
the life, and it's in yourpresence that we find fullness
of joy.
And god, your word leads us toyou.
That's why we study it Is westudy it with our, with smiles
on our faces and our hearts open, because we know that it leads
us straight to your presence.
We're thankful for your wordand we're thankful for how you
(23:08):
lead us every day.
In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
And what God's word says inJude 1, verse 3, I urge you to
defend the faith that God hasentrusted once for all time to
his holy people.
That's our job.
God has given us his word.
Now it's our job to know it andto defend it so that other
people can come to know Jesusthe way we have.
(23:29):
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow for thenext part of the Bible breakdown
podcast.
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