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RJ Rushdoony (00:02):
Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Let us pray.

RJ Rushdoony (00:25):
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou has promised thy blessings to all who trust in thee. Oh Lord our God, increase our faith, give us a day by day total trust and reliance on thee, that in all things we may learn to commit ourselves totally into thy keeping, to take hands off our lives in the confidence that what thou has begun, thou will accomplish. Bless us this day, and by thy word and by thy spirit, speak to us the word that we need, empower us for thy service. In Christ’s name, Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (01:28):
Our scripture is Jude 17 through 25. Our subject, the battle.

RJ Rushdoony (01:45):
“But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever. Amen.”

RJ Rushdoony (03:22):
Faced by false teachers, many in the church have been, and are today easily discouraged. Some leave large denominations that are clearly astray, only to find that there are problems in smaller and reform-minded churches and groups. Their despairing attitude becomes, “what’s the use?” Jude now warns against this danger. What can they expect? Will the enemy lie down and die because they have come to the truth? Will he not in fact rage all the more?

RJ Rushdoony (04:23):
In verses 17 through 20 Jude reminds his readers that the apostles predicted such a development. Jesus Christ has created a new human race by his atoning death and resurrection, and by his regenerating power. They are involved in the great war of the ages, and it will not be settled at once, nor in their lifetime, nor in ours. Therefore, Jude says, “Remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” In verse 18 he refers to the last days, meaning thereby, as does every such reference, the time from Christ’s resurrection to the general resurrection at the end of time, these are the last times in which all Christians live. These last times are marked, Jude says, by mockers. Their purpose is to put down Christ, his disciples, and is people by mockery.

RJ Rushdoony (06:00):
In verse 15, the word ungodly is used four times to describe Christ’s enemies. It is used here again in verse 18, history now sees that mockery, a savage contempt and hostility to Christ and his people. Holiness is a separation to God, but the ungodly have their own form of separation to unholiness, “These unholy people,” verse 19 says, “having not the spirit, separate themselves to a purely sensual or physical existence.” Meaning for them is radically personal, not cosmic, man centered and not God centered. Jude tells his readers God is against this, “They must grow and build themselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,” he says in verse 20, “as against the self righteousness of their enemies, they grow by prayer.” Prayer is a recognition of our needs and of our dependence on the triune God. “Knowing our sins and shortcomings, we keep ourselves,” verse 21, “in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ and eternal life.”

RJ Rushdoony (07:48):
Our salvation is an act of mercy and grace on Christ’s part, and Jude reminds Christians of this fact. They must not presume on the Lord’s grace by assuming once saved, that they are now a member of a deserving group. From start to finish they are entirely dependent on the Lord’s grace and mercy. In verse 22, Jude having spoken very plainly about the heretics of false teachers, the troublemakers, now makes a distinction, “Some are not of the same sort as the others, but are rather redeemable, have compassion and make a difference between them.” This does not mean being less clear about their errors and sins. Like fireman, pull them out of the fire, as we do so we must be fearful of the contagion of sin. “Thus our kindliness to them is not our indifference to their sin, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.”

RJ Rushdoony (09:16):
Verse 23 refers to the care of someone with a contagious disease. Jude speaks of sin as a contagious disease. Our concern for their recovery does not blind us to the need of care lest we be infected. In verses 24 and 25 we have a superb benediction, much used over the generations. It tells us first that God preserves his own, he keeps us from falling. This is the doctrine of the preservation of the saints. Second, God shall present us in time to the very fullness of his glory with exceeding joy. Therefore, third, we must ascribe to “The only wise God our Savior, glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and ever. Amen,” verse 25 concludes.

RJ Rushdoony (10:31):
For all eternity, God will be joyfully praised. God is our infinite, almighty and omniscient resource, and his praise is a wellspring of life and joy. In verse three Jude spoke of our common salvation that is the same for all. The Gnostics had an elitist faith, one reserved for intellectuals who could follow their scientific and philosophical thinking, and to strange byways. Antinomianism marked them because their faith was metaphysical and not ethical.

RJ Rushdoony (11:21):
Isn’t it interesting to this day the errors of the Gnostics stress metaphysics, not ethics, not morality? For Marcien, God being superior, meant that he did not judge. Interesting how the superior religiously in our time feel that they’re above us bible believers, they don’t judge, except judging us of course. How constant the strains of heresy are. Way back then with the Gnostics, who had the love babies, who loved everybody except those who disagreed with them and called attention to their errors.

RJ Rushdoony (12:19):
Well, we can see why Jude’s condemnation, inspired by the Holy Spirit is so sharp. We can also understand contemporary Gnosticism, whether called new age thinking, theosophy, Aquarian age ideas, or anything else, because all seek to live beyond good and evil, and beyond morality, they are metaphysical, they are a superior.

RJ Rushdoony (12:55):
As against contemporary faiths, which bypass morality as the Bible defines it, or a worship of life and nature, Jude’s brief letter is a devastating indictment, a more wretched and beggarly faith than Gnosticism is hard to imagine, and yet in each new form over the centuries, in fact, generation, after generation, after generation, it’s followers have been legion. Their position is for anything but the truth, and anyone other than Jesus Christ. Those who love the truth will be hated by all who love and believe in a lie and such people are now very, very many. The direction of antinomianism is a religion without morality. It is another spiritual Gnosticism.

RJ Rushdoony (14:13):
Let us pray. Our father, we give thanks unto thee for Jude’s letter and for his warning. Indeed we see the same evil all around us and we thank thee that by thy grace and mercy we have been summoned, not because of our good sense, but because of thy grace, and thy truth. Make us strong therein. Grant the day by day, our total reliances on thee and thy word that we may serve thee with all our heart, mind and being. In Christ’s name, Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (15:10):
Are there any questions now about our lesson?

Speaker 2 (15:20):
You actually talked about the necessity of working to redeem those who have not totally lost their time, would you comment on the Anabaptist spirit, which demands perfection in the church and well, separate from any church that is not absolutely perfect or doesn’t meet up to its own standard?

RJ Rushdoony (15:41):
Yes. The Anabaptist spirit is very much with us. We have the openly Anabaptist groups and some likely Amish and the Mennonites, the Hutterites and other such groups. The Quakers too, but it’s broader than that.

RJ Rushdoony (16:09):
It is very much present in antinomianism. You have to realize that the purists among the Anabaptist would go so far as to insist that the Sermon on the Mount was their religion. They didn’t go beyond that and they could openly say that a capital punishment was evil because it was not referred to in the sermon on the Mount or that they should never fight or go to war because there was no mention of that in a sermon on the Mount. The Anabaptists usually wind up in a works’ salvation. They go back to some of the medieval sex and they spread with the reformation, but they are really not a part of the reformation or a part of the medieval order. They were dissenters against both.

RJ Rushdoony (17:29):
Anabaptism now has pretty much infected vast sections of fundamentalism and they have wound up like the Anabaptist with a very little Bible. Their dispensationalism has to that tendency, so Anabaptist thinking is very, very much with us, vaguely at the reformation. While not an Anabaptist outwardly was in his thinking, somewhat on their side.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
[inaudible 00:18:18] Music in the church and so forth.

RJ Rushdoony (18:23):
Which meant that he paid no attention to the Old Testament and the much of the New.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Curious, comparing the markers of Christianity in Jewish time to St. Hollywood today, that box Christianity new element has been added, I think unless you’ve been correct me from historical background. Why do we pay them to do it, in huge sums of money to do it? Why does Christian society pay Hollywood huge sums of money to create this mockery?

RJ Rushdoony (19:11):
Well, I don’t know but they do. Prior to television fundamentalism boycotted movies, but with television, they started to watch on television the whole movies that they had refused to go to a theater and see, and since then television has broken down a great deal of the character of the old fashioned fundamentalism. The sad fact is, but although the Legion of Decency held the line until, I believe the ‘60s at that time, the whole movement to keep the films in line fell apart.

RJ Rushdoony (20:20):
Strangely enough, the people responsible for it were the Methodists, the most liberal of any of the groups in that coalition. They began to turn very strongly anti-Catholic and created problems for the Catholic element and the Legion of decency, and that had been a powerful element. Well with that, every group pulled out. The Catholics said, “if that’s the way they feel about us, we’re not going to stay.”

RJ Rushdoony (21:01):
And so the best means of keeping films somewhat in line was destroyed by the most liberal of the Protestant groups and no attempt has been made since then to re-establish anything of similar character. And none of the churches, Protestant or Catholic, have any strong sentiment in favor of doing so.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
The argument that the mockers use nowadays is, it’s their civil right because of the constitutional guarantee of free speech that they don’t have to defend themselves on moral grounds anymore. The constitution, supposedly gives them the, the power just to mock Christianity with impunity.

RJ Rushdoony (21:52):
Well before that time, we were successful in the courts, but after that there was a collapse and there is no concerted effort to go back and fight on moral issues, and so the morality of Hollywood and of humanism largely prevails today. They’re making money but not as they once did because it’s inflated dollars now. The audience went from in the early sixties 75 million a week, at the last count, and we haven’t had a reliable report for some years, 14 million a week attending films.

RJ Rushdoony (22:52):
Are there … Yes?

Speaker 4 (22:53):
You know, on that same point, what I find as interesting is Disney, one of the biggest offenders has cloaked themselves in this children’s sort of work, good for the children and there are very few, I think Christian, real Christian families that will stand up to their children and say, we’re not going to Disneyland, we’re not seeing the Lion King, etc. I think that they’d like a battering ram hidden behind this cloak of children with all the smoke behind it and it’s-

RJ Rushdoony (23:27):
It is said that 40% of the male employees of the Disney Studios are homosexual. They do slant everything they produce in terms of their basic humanistic faith and their immoral lifestyle. Now there are a few groups that are beginning to take a stand on this. Hopefully more will do so.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
I should mention that there are rush and few good Christian film organizations that are generating some good wholesome films these days. They’re in the minority of course but American Portrait Films and Cleveland, and there are some and out here in the west but, for the most part, the major film industry is a PA state. We know that.

RJ Rushdoony (24:21):
Any other questions or comments, if not, let us conclude with prayer.

RJ Rushdoony (24:29):
Our father, we thank thee that thy truth shall prevail. That thy word is truth, and thy people have been called, go ahead and conquer in the name of Christ, the truth. Make us strong in our resolve. Constant in our faith, bold in thy service, that we may be more than conquerors in all things.
RJ Rushdoony (25:00):
And now go in peace. God the father, God the son, and God the Holy ghost, guide and bless you Protect and watch over you this day and always. Amen.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder

The post The Battle appeared first on Rushdoony Radio.

RJ Rushdoony (00:03):
Let us worship God. The Lord is nigh onto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him. He also will hear their cry and will save them. Oh, thou that hearest prayer, onto thee shall all flesh come.

RJ Rushdoony (00:29):
Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we come onto thee, mindful of the greatness of our need. We do need thee every hour. We pray, our Father, that thou wouldst work in us that which thou pleasest, and give us grace to rejoice in thee even though thy will confounds our will. Make us joyful in thy word, that by thy Spirit we may behold wondrous things out of thy law. Guide us all the days of our life, and to faithfulness, and to joyful service, and to communion and community in Christ. In his name we pray. Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (01:42):
Our scripture this morning is Jude verses 8 through 16. Our subject, righteous judgment. Jude 8 through 16. “Likewise, also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the Archangel when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke thee.’ But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute creatures, in those things they corrupt themselves.”

RJ Rushdoony (02:48):
“Woe onto them, for they have gone the way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. These are spots in your feasts of charity. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”

RJ Rushdoony (03:42):
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouth speak great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.”

RJ Rushdoony (04:43):
Irreverence is the scene Jude now sites as basic to the ungodly. In fact, in particular the sin of those who pretend to be true believers and are not. In verse 8, the Authorized Version reads, “Filthy dreamers,” and filthy is italicized, which means it is not in the Greek original. But the word as used here implies a loss of reality of a sinful nature. Their dreaming or false imagination, a fallen imagination leads to first a contempt of the flesh or of man’s humanity. They want to see man as far more than man.

RJ Rushdoony (05:48):
Second, they despise dominion. Dominion, kyriotes, from the word Lord, kurios in the Greek, refers to angelic offices in a number of passages such as Ephesians 1:21, Colossians 1:16, and 2 Peter 2:10. These alien peoples in the church want authorities other than the God-given ones.

RJ Rushdoony (06:24):
Third, dignities refers to other authorities in the biblical scheme of things, and they are despised by these enemies of the faith who speak evil of them.

RJ Rushdoony (06:42):
In verses 9 and 10, we find a clear statement about the use of language which ties in very clearly with what James had to say about the tongue. When the Archangel Michael was contending with the devil about the body of Moses, and we know nothing about that episode, he did not dare make a railing accusation against the devil simply saying, “The Lord rebuke thee.”

RJ Rushdoony (07:18):
Judgment is the prerogative of God. Where God empowers us and requires us to render judgments, then we can do so. Otherwise, like Michael, we leave it to God. Very clearly, judgment is to be exercised only as God permits it. Michael’s restraint here is very telling and instructive.

RJ Rushdoony (07:58):
It is a bit shocking for us in the namby-pamby 20th century to go back to the end of the first century and the beginning of the second at the time when the second generation of Christians and some of the first comprised the church. What we find was required at the communion service would make it virtually impossible for church members now to take communion, because they were plainly told that if you dislike anyone here in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and you think ill of them or you are critical of them, you cannot take communion. For God will bring his judgment upon you if you do.

RJ Rushdoony (09:10):
Now, that’s how strongly what Jude is talking about here was practiced by the early church. Not even Michael the Archangel could criticize Satan. It was God’s prerogative. God can condemn, and anyone whom God appoints through law abiding channels to give judgment has a right to give judgment, but no one else. Well, the Gnostic element in the church was especially discernible, because they were the fastest on the draw with a judgment about someone else.

RJ Rushdoony (10:04):
In verses 9 and 10, we find a clear statement about the use of language, which ties in clearly with what James had to say about the tongue. Michael’s restraint in these verses is very telling, very instructive.

RJ Rushdoony (10:36):
The enemies of Christ who are within the church are very ready to speak evil of those things which they know not. Their only source of knowledge is like that of animals, simply a physical one. They have no religious insight, and in their judgment on others they corrupt themselves. Quite a statement.

RJ Rushdoony (11:11):
We are all sinners saved by grace. But if we judge one another, what do we do? We corrupt ourselves Jude says, which is quite a statement. In verse 11, Jude says that such people run frantically and wildly and the very ways of Cain, Balaam, and Core. These three are examples of men who should have known the truth clearly, but were totally wedded to error by their sin. Cain is a type of unrighteousness, Balaam of deceit and covetousness, and Core of rebellion against godly authority. Such people are against all godly authority because they refuse to acknowledge any authority except their own.

RJ Rushdoony (12:18):
Can you imagine what would happen to most Bible believing churches today if they applied this standard or the standard of the early church and the generation after the apostles? You cannot partake if you harbor judgment and ill will towards anyone else and the fellowship of Jesus Christ.

RJ Rushdoony (12:55):
Well, all such are a blight on the church scene. Their presence at the church love feasts or dinners is an ugly one. Apparently they fed themselves gluttonously, although unwilling to help. They were clearly like clouds without water. They were unfit to be regarded as at all giving nourishment. They were like a drought in the church. They were also, verse 12 tells us, dead trees without fruit, twice dead because rootless. The reference defeating themselves without fear is to Ezekiel 34 versus 2 and 8. As pretended leaders, they were to feed the flock, not to be parasites on it, which they were. In their self-importance, they felt entitled to whatever they wanted.

RJ Rushdoony (14:19):
I’m reminded, one man I knew when I was a student at the university who later went into the ministry of a very prestigious church. One of the first things he did was to have his secretary pass out to all the members a list of the things he wanted for Christmas. Before purchasing, they were to check with the church secretary and make sure that no one else had reserved that as their presence. I’m happy to say that his misconduct in time put him out of the priesthood.
RJ Rushdoony (15:21):
In verse 13, Jude continues his description of these pretenders to the faith and their false claims to wisdom. They are comparable to raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. They are thus a troublesome hindrance to the church. They are also like wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. The reference is to dead heavenly bodies, lifeless and barren, which are visible in the sky but useless.

RJ Rushdoony (16:10):
That’s an interesting verse to me, because it tells you a great deal about the ability at observation of people at that time. There are not too many people now who can identify the planets and the stars at night, but in those days people could identify all the planets and hundreds upon hundreds of stars. They could even discern, and this is what the verse refers to, that here and there it had to be some kind of dead asteroid or a star that was hurtling through space. Of course there were no urban lights at night to cut the night vision and in summertime people slept the flat roof tops, and it was easy to learn the sky at night.

RJ Rushdoony (17:30):
Then in verses 14 and 15, Jude refers to a statement by Enoch, the seventh from Adam, who prophesied of these saying, “Behold, the Lord cometh with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

RJ Rushdoony (18:15):
At this point, it is important to call attention to the fact that in verse 9 we have a reference to Michael, which appears only in an apocryphal work, The Assumption of Moses. Here in verses 14 and 15 a reference to Enoch, which appears in the book of Enoch, both apocryphal books. Was Jude quoting from them, or rather was not Jude citing two historical statements which were well known and used by apocryphal writers also? We know that the apocryphal so-called gospels did quote from the legitimate ones. Jude was citing a source used by others as well.

RJ Rushdoony (19:06):
Jude then summarizes his views of these heretics. “These are murmurers,” he says in verse 16, “Complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having man’s persons in admiration because of advantage.” Their priorities are all man centered.

RJ Rushdoony (19:40):
One scholar, J.E. Huther, noted that Jude depicts these intruders as teachers of the worst sort and as destructive in nature. To quote him, “These words indicate their emptiness and the fact that being thus empty, they are born long anywither and consequently are unsafe to follow,” unquote. Interesting that quotation because of the use of a word we no longer use, anywither. Anywhere we would say. But at any rate, these are men whose goal is personal advantage.

RJ Rushdoony (20:37):
At this point, it is important to contrast what Jude says here with what Michael said to Satan in verses 9 and 10. Michael says to Satan simply, “The Lord rebuke thee,” whereas Jude very bluntly condemns the false teachers with strong language. We must recognize that Jude could do this, because Jude by inspiration is speaking for God. God himself is rebuking these Gnostic teachers. Jude’s words are more than his own. We even more than Michael must watch our tongue.

RJ Rushdoony (21:35):
Jude calls attention to the evil character of these false leaders. First they are grumblers, complainers whose pretends to greater holiness is based upon their supposed sensitivity. Nothing pleases them against themselves.

RJ Rushdoony (21:59):
If you were to go back and read the surviving writings of these Gnostics, both those in the church and outside the church, and they both sounded the same, you would be amazed at their pretentiousness and their stupidity. They were deluging everyone with super scientific, super philosophical terminology that very few would ever be able to follow and overwhelming them with their supposed wisdom.

RJ Rushdoony (22:43):
Second, then these false leaders are malcontents whom nothing pleases, because they believe nothing and they are determined to bring down the truth, to bring down the faith. Third, their soul guide is there a passionate love of advantage. We must conclude then righteous judgment as our Lord said in John 7:24 is necessary. It must be exercised by the leaders of a community and only upon due occasion by the members also.

RJ Rushdoony (23:44):
Let us pray. Our Father, we give thanks unto thee for thy words through thy servant Jude. We would pray that thou wouldst burn these words upon our hearts, mind, and being. That our speech may be godly speech, that our tongue may be controlled by our faith. Guide us in the way that we should go, speak to us the word that we need, and make us strong in thy truth. In Christ’s name. Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (24:47):
Are there any questions now about our lesson? One of the curious things by the way about our text is that verse 15 is often cited by those who have a Rapture perspective, although the whole point is judgment upon those whose speech is ungodly and judgmental in unbiblical ways.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
What are the biblical ways? What are the biblical ways of that judgment?

RJ Rushdoony (25:40):
Of judgment? Yes. It has to be substantive, not personal. Too much of our judgment is because we don’t like people. One of the problems for example within many churches is that they are stratified along class lines, and you don’t fit in if you are not in the proper social situation.

RJ Rushdoony (26:25):
I recall, I’ve mentioned it once before I think, this pastor who earlier in this century in one of the major cities of the East, in New York in fact, found a lot of slum kids playing in the streets. The church was only a few blocks away, of course in a wealthy neighborhood. He rounded them all up and told them they could hear some fine stories, wonderful stories if they followed him. He took them to Sunday school, and the kids loved it. They’d never been inside a church before. He invited them to stay for church and hear him, and there’d be a story or two in his sermon, and so they stayed very happily.

RJ Rushdoony (27:32):
Afterwards, one matron told the pastor indignantly, and the man told me this story about 60-some years ago, that from where she was sitting very near the front, she could smell a distinct odor, which was true. The pastor said, “Indeed, yes. I could up there too. It was the odor of sanctity.” That type of thing has been too prevalent in the history of the church.

RJ Rushdoony (28:25):
Well, if there are no questions further, let us conclude with prayer. Our Father, we give thanks unto thee for this, thy word. Speak to us the word that we need. Give us grace to hear it and to grow in thy grace and in thy nurture. Guide us all the days of our life. Grant that we daily seek separation from our sins and shortcomings and growth in thee. Now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder

The post Righteous Judgment appeared first on Rushdoony Radio.

RJ Rushdoony (00:01):
Let us worship God. Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honor dwelleth. I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we thank thee that we are privileged to be thy people, to be members of thy family, the household of faith. Teach us day by day to walk as thy faithful children, to know that thy hand is upon us for good, and in everything to give thanks unto thee. This morning again, oh Lord, we come to submit ourselves to thy word for thy word is truth. [inaudible 00:01:06] by thy word we see our place, our time, and our duty in terms of thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (01:23):
Our scripture this morning is Jude verses five through seven. Jude is the brief letter just before Revelation, written by our Lord’s brother, our subject examples of apostasy. Jude five through seven. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed them, that believed not. And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

RJ Rushdoony (02:49):
Jude’s concern in his brief letter is with the influx of alien faiths and influences into Christianity and to the church. Because we have today as over the centuries false and evil doctrines and religions masquerading as true Christianity, what Jude has to say is very important for us.

RJ Rushdoony (03:23):
Paul not only denounced all heresies, he also called attention to their errors. Jude’s approach is different. He tells his readers you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once declared unto the saints. Before Jude, the other men like Paul and John had sharply and clearly defined the line between the faith and heresies. Now Jude says, “You have the truth. Fight for it and defend its priority.”

RJ Rushdoony (04:10):
In verse five, Jude grimly reminds them that Israel had been miraculously delivered out of the land of Egypt. Israel’s deliverance was a spectacular one, far more notable than was their own redemption as Christians. All the same, because Israel showed ingratitude and rebelliousness, God destroyed almost the whole nation. One miracle revealed another in Israel’s years in the wilderness, but God still destroyed a carefully protected people because of their unbelief. Why should He spare the early church? They were equally, if not more, blessed.

RJ Rushdoony (05:17):
Obviously this letter was written before the fall of Jerusalem, or else Jude would certainly have cited that as a great example of God’s judgment on unbelief. His phrase, “Though you once knew this,” is more accurately to be translated those… Though you know all things, once and for all, they cannot plead ignorance in other words. It was a temptation to say of the Hebrews who left Egypt that they were slaves, not as enlightened as the present generation. The problem, however, was not an intellectual one, but a moral one. We always want to shift the nature of the problem onto ignorance or inability to learn somehow or not as learned, anything but to say it’s a moral problem. Anyone can understand that.

RJ Rushdoony (06:47):
It was a temptation to plead ignorance to say of the Hebrews who left Egypt that they were slaves and not as enlightened as the present generation, but they could not do that. It was a moral failure. The people of the Exodus, like the present generation, trusted more in their own understanding than in the Lord. The new teachers who had entered the church in Jude’s day, the Gnostics stressed intellectual understanding and denigrated moral issues as simplistic. They never saw a moral problem, rather intellectual ones, educational ones, ignorance of certain premises supposedly.

RJ Rushdoony (07:49):
Their writings in fact lacked moral content and were more metaphysical than ethical. The Lord had saved the people out of the land of Egypt and this Israel had conveniently chosen to neglect or to treat as their due because they were the chosen people.

RJ Rushdoony (08:17):
It is all too easy for Christians to see themselves as a chosen people who therefore deserve only the best from God, when the calling of the elect is to serve God in the war against the city of man, the current tower of Babel. Instead of realizing how much we owe God, we tend to think more of what God should give to us, thus we become whiners instead of moral forces.

RJ Rushdoony (08:57):
Jude’s first example of ingratitude and apostasy is Israel after its deliverance from Egypt. Jude’s second example is the company of the fallen angels. They refuse to keep their first estate or principality created by God for a high and holy place. They sought apparently more power. The reference in Romans 8:38 and Ephesians 1:21 are to angelic spheres of authority, to angelic spheres of service and this dignity they forsook. In rebelling against God they lost all their privileged status. The fallen angels did not remain in their proper place or office, and they left their proper habitation. As a result, they are now in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

RJ Rushdoony (10:21):
The emphasis here, however, is not on the fallen angels, but on Christians who may go astray. They are a more privileged group than were the Hebrews of the Exodus and even the fallen angels. Jude is saying in effect if these things can happen to them, why not to you? You are the most privileged people because of Jesus Christ.

RJ Rushdoony (10:54):
Jude’s third example is Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plains. They were privileged to have so rich and fertile an area, well watered and with a lush growth. These are set forth by God as examples of His judgment, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, Jude says. Two sins in particular are sighted, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh. The word fornication in the original Greek covers more than sexual acts, although this is a part of the meaning. It means lasciviousness, blasphemous attitudes, and more. Strange flesh has reference to homosexuality. The cities were wealthy, proud, and arrogant. It has been said of urban life that men there see more of man’s work than God’s work and they accordingly become too prone to seeing man and independence from God, and with such a perspective they become ungrateful and apostate.

RJ Rushdoony (12:25):
The Gnostics saw themselves as men who addressed the faith and advanced it because they were in harmony with the philosophy and science of their age. They were living, it was felt, in a golden era of mankind with government, philosophy, science, technology, and human thought generally at its highest. For man to resist merging their simple biblical faith into the highest of man’s wisdom was for them absurd. Their thinking was like that of our time.

RJ Rushdoony (13:16):
Jude’s requirement is simple. You should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. The thinkers of the city of man are contemptuous then, as they are now, of God’s revelation. They have their own word of truth. The great scholar on Gnostic literature, Dr. Hans Jonas, not a Christian, wrote of the resemblance between Gnostic myth and the myth of Neo Darwinian biology. So our science in Dr. Jonas’s eyes is simply a form of Gnosticism. The mythology of Darwin has great prestige as against the Bible. This will help us to understand what the early church faced, the whole array of science, philosophy, technology, this whole world of thoughts said you have to reinterpret everything you believe in terms of this body of knowledge or you will be fools. The wisdom of that era found the Christian revelation to be wanting. Time has disposed of the wisdom of that era. But we face a new generation of self styled wise men. This is why the letter of Jude is so timely. It gets to a problem that has plagued the church age after age and is especially prevalent today.

RJ Rushdoony (15:28):
Let us pray. Father, we thank thee for the words of Jude. We pray they may open our eyes to the foolishness of the world’s wisdom around us when it seeks to erect itself above thee and thy word. Make us faithful adherence to Jesus Christ and to thine inscriptured word. Teach us so to walk day by day that guided by thy word and by thy spirit, we are in all things more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. In His name we pray, Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (16:30):
Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Rush, even among supposed conservatives and evangelicals, there is a growing toleration today for homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality. To what do you attribute that?

RJ Rushdoony (16:50):
Well, Romans 1 defines homosexuality, male and female, as the ultimate form of rebellion against God, and out of it flow Romans 1 tells us all these evil attitudes from the family on out into all of society, and therefore it is seen as the ultimate act of rebellion against God, and as a burning out of man. We are told that they burned in lust one towards another. The literal meaning there is they burned out in lust, so it’s seen as a burning out of man.

RJ Rushdoony (17:46):
So it’s an exceedingly serious matter. It seeks an unnatural order. It is a rebellion not only against God, but against the world of nature. Humanism went from a faith in God when it turned away from the Lord to a worship of nature, but they found nature too restrictive. And so the most recent attitude of the avant garde homosexuals is that an artificial world is a kind of world we must have, because then we are indebted to neither God nor to nature. We have created our own sphere. And so they seek a totally artificial world.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Evangelical conservatives being largely antinomian today don’t have a means of really opposing it effectively, I presume.

RJ Rushdoony (18:58):
If you’re an antinomian, how can you oppose it? Yes.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
It’s interesting often… Often you hear in many modernist churches as Andrew was kind of alluding to, you really see the failure of systematic theology. When you look at verse seven, it couldn’t be more clear in the New Testament about God’s word as to homosexuality, but they just choose to ignore what even the New Testament teaches about homosexuality.

RJ Rushdoony (19:30):
They choose to ignore it and they have a standard rule that unless something is repeated in the New Testament, it’s okay. Well, the law against bestiality is not repeated in the New Testament. Does that make it okay? That’s the absurdity of that position. In their antinomianism, they leave themselves without any pudding with regard to theology. What is the meaning of the atonement if you had wiped out the law? What is the purpose of regeneration if it is not to make us righteous or just in our keeping of the law? So when they start throwing out the law, they wind up losing almost everything because scripture is a seamless garment. Yes?

Speaker 4 (20:34):
In verse seven, it says-

RJ Rushdoony (20:36):
Could you speak up?

Speaker 4 (20:37):
It says in verse seven talking about Sodom and Gomorrah, they were obviously consumed rather instantly, but at the end he says undergoing the vengeance of everlasting fire. Could you discuss that? Is he referring to Hell there, and is he referring that the citizens of those cities are burning in Hell today? Was this a very small manifestation of Hell or could you just elaborate on that?

RJ Rushdoony (21:07):
Well, that’s a good question if I understood it correctly. The wicked have for the time being something in the way of Hell, but the fullness of Hell they will have after the judgment and the resurrection of the body. There is in one of C.S. Lewis’s books, The Great Divorce, an interesting bit of imagery in that Hell is there depicted as a place of semi-darkness where you can barely see, and the people of Hell convinced themselves that it is the dawn that is ahead instead of total darkness. They see themselves as righteous, and therefore this is the dusk that precedes the morning and the dawn. So they are, according to C.S. Lewis’s perspective, self-deluded, even in Hell.

RJ Rushdoony (22:39):
And of course Sartre wrote No Exit, also about Hell, in which the people of Hell sit around in the room wondering whether the door is locked or open and nobody tries it and they’re all just talking to themselves. No communication, each is his own world.

RJ Rushdoony (23:12):
Any other questions or comments? Well, if not, let us conclude with prayer. Our Father, we thank thee for the majesty and the truth of thy word. We thank thee that thou hast made us thy people and has commanded us to do those things to establish thy kingdom upon earth. Make us zealous in thy service, joyful in our calling. Now go in peace. God, the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder

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RJ Rushdoony (00:00):
Let us worship God. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High: To shew forth, thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. Let us pray, our Father, we give thanks on to thee, thy faithfulness and thy loving kindness as ever been manifested toward us. Thou art good to us who so often cannot be good to ourselves. Teach us to trust in thee, give us grace day by day to walk in the confidence, that because our times are in thy hands who doest all things well, the beginning and the ending are thine ordination and thy mercy and grace on to us. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of thy word. In Christ’s name, Amen.

RJ Rushdoony (01:30):
Our scripture is from the epistle of Jude verses one through four, our subject, the Enemy. Jude one through four, Jude is the very short book just before a revelation. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James, them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called: mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. The epistle of Jude is a general letter by a man who identifies himself as the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.

RJ Rushdoony (03:17):
Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3, identify a Jude together with James as brothers of Jesus. A scholar, J.E Huther said, and I quote, “that the Jude or Judas, it’s the same name, wrote this epistle, was one of the four brothers and not cousins of Jesus is probable.” In fact, Huther went on to say, “It is beyond any considerable doubt.” So as with James, we have here one of the four brothers of our Lord writing a letter.

RJ Rushdoony (04:13):
This is a brief and an obscure letter that is, it’s not widely known or studied but it’s purpose is an important one. False teachers were perverting the faith and Jude of necessity spoke out by identifying himself as Jude, the brother of James, he indirectly notifies the reader that he writes with authority as the brother of James and Jesus. He does this not to gain personal prestige, but to stress the urgency of his message. Those whom he addresses are, the sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. These are the elect of God, persons who will heed Jude’s warning. They have been made holy by God’s grace and preserved from falling away by Jesus Christ because they are the call of God.

RJ Rushdoony (05:32):
He greets them thus “mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied.” This triple benediction is very biblical, we encounter it throughout the Bible. In verse one, the triple description is sanctified, preserved, and called. Jude not only wants this rich blessing on the saints, but he wants it multiplied. We must not take this benediction as a merely formal and courteous one, the churches was facing a very serious problem of infiltration by alien groups who saw in the success of Christianity an opportunity to capture a vigorous faith for they’re very different purposes. True it was a persecuted group, but they intended to make it respectable. It was regarded as beneath one’s dignity intellectually, they were going to make it respectable intellectually. Throughout church history, infiltration has been a common problem to Christianity. Very early as here, it was Gnosticism, later Albigensianism, Hellenic philosophies, Humanism, Modernism and much, much more. These alien faiths have had in common the desire to merge into Christianity with a facade of agreement, while working to remake the faith into a radically alien one.

RJ Rushdoony (07:29):
Jude felt an urgent necessity to alert Christians everywhere against this threat to the common salvation. Very often the infiltrating groups maintain a facade that is very close to Christian. After all Barthianism or Neo-orthodoxy as it has been called, seemed to be saying the same thing as Christians have over the centuries and as the Bible teaches, but they did not mean the same thing by it and wherever they succeeded, they ate out the heart and the meaning of the faith. The common salvation Jude says, “must be defended.” The common or a general salvation is one known to all, Jesus Christ, God incarnate had made atonement for the sins of his people. This they all knew, but now men were promoting supposedly new insights into the faith and higher truths. Therefore, he says “it was needful for me to write onto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Men we’re determined to improve on the faith and modernize Jesus, to conform to contemporary science and philosophy. This an effort, was the Gnostic movement and it sought to take over Christianity, lock, stock, and barrel.

RJ Rushdoony (09:30):
Gnosticism represented the new and higher learning of its day, it is now almost in comprehensible and one can only marvel at the credulity of learned men. Contemporary philosophy and evolutionary science, bears a strong resemblance to ancient Gnosticism and perhaps in a century or so, people will wonder that anyone could believe so absurd and complex a system. A Christian faith needs no improving, no new revelations, it is complete one sin for all time delivered unto the saints. We must earnestly contend, Jude says, to defend and preserve that faith for there are certain men crept in unawares he says, they have insinuated their way into the church as supposed leaders and wise men who in reality want to pervert the faith. These are men who in God’s predestination, were ordained to this evil purpose and to condemnation.

RJ Rushdoony (11:04):
They are ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness says Jude, and this can only be done by antinomianism, by abandoning the law of God and this mocked the old and Gnosticism and also the new. It is the beginning of every great apostasy from the faith. This lasciviousness is identified for us in first Peter 4:3 and second Peter 2 verse 19, it was simply a contempt of the law and the name of a higher spirituality and this claim to a higher spirituality then marked Gnosticism as it does now. The faith is not an evolving matter, it was delivered under the saints, Jude says, in it’s full and final form with Jesus Christ. The growth of the faith is in application, not in content, the faith doesn’t grow because we get new revelations it grows because we apply the full and finished revelation to our lives and to our world. In application the believer obeys and serves his Lord, he does not develop or alter the content of the fate. Such men are denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ, Jude says.

RJ Rushdoony (13:07):
The Gnostics saw themselves as the truly enlightened ones, as more spiritual than they whose faith was simply to believe and to obey. The Gnostics were very good at confusing people, by pretentious form of learning. If I were to pass out the text of some of the Gnostic writings, after two or three sentences we would probably give up. It isn’t worth the effort to try to make sense of what they’re saying, but they were good at bewildering people who didn’t have their learning and their background professionally. Gnosticism so thoroughly adapted itself to the thought of its age, that had died with it and it’s then existing form. We still have it all around us, in new age thinking and a great many other varieties. Then as now, Orthodox Christianity, Biblical Christianity has been thoroughly out of tune with the wisdom of its day. This has been usually true over the centuries and it is true now. The faithful believer has commonly been seen as an impediment to the progress of the faith and he has commonly been treated with contempt.

RJ Rushdoony (15:01):
Jude’s letter is a general warning against all attempts to improve upon Christianity by making it more palatable to the modern man. Jude’s warning thus has relevance to more than a passing movement of his day. The fallen world order hates Jesus Christ and his people, it has always done whatever is possible to capture and revise biblical faith. Jude’s letter is a warning against this enemy, an enemy he faced then and which generation after generation is faced again and one form after another.

RJ Rushdoony (16:01):
Let us pray, our Lord and our God we thank thee that… we have been warned against these false and higher spiritualties. We thank thee that thy word… is written so that he who runs can read. Give us grace to give heed to thy word, to know that thy law word is binding always. That it is thy righteousness, thy justice, that it gives to us the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, of his atonement and his grace and mercy. Make us joyful in thy word, in Christ’s name, Amen… Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Could you speak more about the fact that James and Jude even though they were brothers of Christ, never referred to themselves that way, they always refer to themselves as servants.

RJ Rushdoony (17:31):
I’m glad you asked that question because it is an important one. They could have gained a great deal of prestige by simply saying the brother of Jesus, but they never did. They did not want any authority that did not come out of their message. They were giving us the word of God, The Holy spirit was inspiring them. This was enough apparently in their estimation or anyone else. Their brother, their Lord had spoken fully, completely and sufficiently. They had no intention of riding on his coat-tails. They were following him, not claiming to be one with him.

RJ Rushdoony (18:34):
So the evidence from the beginning was quite clear that James and Jude were our Lords brothers. Now the knowledge of that was quite general, but as far as they were concerned, they were the servant of Jesus Christ. And the word servant there can also be translated as slave, in other words, we are in no way independent. We’re totally subject to his word, to his authority and they could not have said that if they were claiming some kind of relationship that put them on a parity with him. So this in itself is a very telling bit of evidence. Very commonly in the Bible men identify themselves as the son of someone. Simon Bar-jona, Simon, son of Jonas, but this is not done here. So it’s a very remarkable thing that James and Jude fully inspired of the spirit will not say, “we are the brother of Jesus Christ.” They had been his brother during his days on earth, now he is the Lord, the second person of the trinity fully revealed. Any other questions or comments? Yes.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
[inaudible 00:20:38] grace and mercy are referred to here could you distinguish between mercy and grace.

RJ Rushdoony (20:45):
Yes, it’s mercy and peace and love, but there is a distinction between mercy and grace. Grace conveys more than mercy. Where mercy is granted, it is a release from some kind of penalty, from some kind of judgment but with grace there is a gift. A gift of a relationship to God, a great status of standing in God’s presence, innocent and cleared of all charges, however guilty we were… So you see there is a progression, mercy, peace and love… there’s a progression also of sorts in the first verse, sanctified, preserved, called… Are there any other questions or comments? Well, if not, we’ll continue next week with Jude and as you shall see Jude does have some things to say which have led peoples only interest is in the last things to look to the letter of Jude, but his purpose is really apostasy, infiltration and this is what he is concerned with from beginning to end.

RJ Rushdoony (23:00):
Let us conclude with prayer. Our Father, we thank thee that thy mercy, peace and love have been multiplied unto us. We thank thee that through thy word, thou hast warned us against the perils of our time and of every time and those who would improve on the faith, limit it, prune it, make it mean what they want… Teach us to stand against those who insinuate their way into thy kingdom and to be more than conquerors in Christ. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always, Amen.

Learn more about R.J. Rushdoony by visiting: https://chalcedon.edu/founder

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