-Only God can judge me- is the popular slogan of our day. True, and he will. Daniel chapter 7-9-10- -As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat- his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool- his throne was fiery flames- its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him- a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him- the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.- Is this really what we want- To stand in the court of heaven before the throne of this holy God, the Ancient of Days in our own righteousness- Oh friends, Christ was judged in our place on Calvary so that wouldn't have to stand before the dreadful throne of God in judgment. So turn away from yourself. Turn away from your sin and trust in Christ today.

If the church wasn't at risk from false teachers, Jude wouldn't have needed to write this letter, and neither would have Jesus or the other Apostles needed to warn us about apostates. The threat is real, and there are among us even when we think they are not. The 17th century Puritan John Flavel said this, -By entertaining of strange persons, men sometimes entertain angels unawares- but by entertaining of strange doctrines, many have entertained devils unawares.- There comes a point in every believer's life when we need to acknowledge where we have been influenced by false teaching, and the only way out is to ask God to make Christ so gloriously beautiful to us that we are no longer under the spell of these false teachers. The influence of apostates is powerful, and only the awakening grace of the Holy Spirit can move us from error to truth, and the only path to this awakening grace is through the cross of Christ. So friends trust in him today.

Apostates have a spirit of rebellion. Everything Jude has been saying in these verses point to that reality- they have only themselves as authority -their dreams-. They determine their own morality -by defiling the flesh-. They believe themselves superior to the power and influence of evil spirits -by blaspheming the glorious ones-. Friends, we need to be careful to pray for the grace of the Holy Spirit to probe our own hearts for these tendencies- of pride, sexual immorality, self-righteousness, greed, and rebellion. No professing believer is beyond apostasy. None of us are beyond falling away.

There was an unbelieving people among the believing people in Israel, and there still is today in the church. there are always those among the believing people of God who depart from the believing people of God in unbelief. You see church, it is possible to be a member of the people of God externally and yet not be a member of Christ. You can walk the aisle, say the prayer, be baptized, go through all the motions, and even appear for a time to be genuine, but true heart transformation has not taken place. This is the danger of false conversion which manifests itself in apostasy.

It seems that a sort of lordship controversy was very much alive and well even in the first century A.D. as these false teachers--these -certain people- that had crept into the church--were denying the Lordship of Christ by not only the lack of a transformed life, but by the continued pursuit of a sinful life. J.I. Packer says, -It is not possible to be in Christ and at the same time to embrace sin as a way of life.- The most basic Christian profession of faith is centered not merely on belief in Jesus Christ, but on submission to his lordship. Romans 10-9 says, -If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.- To say -Jesus is Lord- is to say I submit to his lordship - he is my Master- what he says, I will do.

Caleb said -we are well able- - and friends that's my message to you this morning. We are well able, not because of anything in us, but because of our faith in God's power and firm conviction that he has a future for this church. God always preserves a remnant from which to rebuild. Of the 1st generation of the Israelites out of Egypt, that remnant was Caleb and Joshua - the only 2 of the original wilderness generation who believed God and finally made it to the promised land, and this text is about to get sweet because here is where we see the scarlet thread weave into this episode- Caleb was from the tribe of Judah - the same tribe that Jesus was from. The Hebrew name Joshua is where we get the name Jesus, and it means -the Lord saves.- Friends Caleb and Joshua are in this text to point us to Christ and he is the only hope for not only our church, but he's the only hope for any of us.

In verse 2 we see the second triad in this short letter - -May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.- These are -daily graces- - the blessings of salvation for every true believer which we need every day to live for Christ in this fallen world. This is Jude's prayer for the Christians he is writing to because he knows that during stressful times in the church's life, mercy, peace, and love are what we need most. We're living right now in a world filled with the very opposite of mercy, peace, and love- judgment, conflict, and hate. Which is your life characterized by- Do you respond to others with the same mercy, peace, and love that God has extended to you in Christ- We need mercy, peace, and love more than ever, and this kind of life only comes through genuinely knowing Christ - through true repentance and authentic faith in the person and work of Christ who died so that our sins could be forgiven and we could be reconciled to God.

-In his poem, 'Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day,' American poet Delmore Schwartz writes, 'Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.' Do you feel the fire of time burning away at your life this morning- I do. Every second we live we will never get back, and like the constant hold of gravity, time is pulling us toward that one last breath when our time is up. What we need is the one who is sovereign over time. We need the Alpha and the Omega- the beginning and the end. The one who was, and is, and who is to come. We need the eternal one who stepped into time and split it in half. We need a Savior. We need the Lord Jesus Christ.-

-This scarlet thread of redemption is the central story arc of Scripture because it traces the messianic promise all the way from the fall into sin to the very last verse of the Bible. The person and work of Jesus Christ is the living breathing heartbeat of Scripture, and if we miss this or minimize it in any way, then the Bible becomes no more than a collection of Sunday School stories aimed at making us -good- people instead of the grand plan of redemption aimed at making wrath-deserving sinners righteous before a holy God, and all for his glory--

-In Scripture, Babylon is a historical city-state and one of Israel's greatest enemies, but it's also a spiritual image for human pride and idolatry and all that sets itself against God, and the Tower of Babel is such a monument. But it is not a tower of the glory and fame of human progress and achievement, but of ruins and dirt, and friends this is what becomes of our prideful human accomplishment. God brings it to ruin.-