In this sermon, the speaker begins by discussing the inappropriate use of advertisements and flowery introductions in the church. He recommends a book called "Harvest" that provides insight into the traditional ways versus the Lord's ways in the Christian walk. The sermon then shifts to the topic of judgment, stating that the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son, Jesus Christ. The speaker references Romans 2 to explain that God's judgment is based on truth and deeds.

We got last time down to verse 13, did we not? The five word pictures. And that brought us to 14. Verse 14 in the book of Jude, And Enoch, also the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, of whom? And there's a pronoun, these. Antecedent is these apostates. All these people that are twice dead and all those things, right? And raging waves. All these idioms that we talked about in verses 12, in fact the whole book up till now. But certainly the last few verses were focusing on the apostates. These false teachers. These that would have you go astray. It says anyway, verse 14, And Enoch, also the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints. That's the King James. We'll come back to that. To execute judgment upon all and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed. You get the feeling he's emphasizing something there. And of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. What is it? How many five times there? Anyway, a bunch. Okay, that's the passage we're going to start with and focus on tonight. This is a prophecy. It's probably the earliest recorded prophecy of a prophet. I'm saying it that way because Genesis chapter 3, verse 15 is a prophecy uttered by none other than the Lord himself as he declares war on Satan in Genesis 3.15. But the earliest recorded words of a prophet are these words of Enoch. And we're going to get into it. If it were not for Jude, the epistle written by the Lord's brother, we would not, you and I would know practically nothing about prophecy before the flood. We know all about cities, cattle raising, fine arts, education, manufacturing, all those things show up in Genesis chapter 4. But prophecy doesn't. And Enoch is the only prophet whose words have been preserved for us. Now, as I mentioned, the words similar to verses 14 and 15 appear in the book of Enoch, an apocryphal book. There are some differences, but I'll highlight the differences later and they will speak for themselves. But the book of Enoch is a patchwork of fanciful, unscriptural material. I don't think it will profit us to go further than that because there's so much substance that we can really get into. Now, one of the things that we've talked about before and I'd like to just review with you are examples in the scripture where allusions are to us new. Where the writer is making reference to something that his readers knew but you and I don't. In Jude, of course, we had that occur with Michael's dispute with Satan over the body of Moses. He makes reference to that like we knew all about it. And for you and I, we say, wait a minute. You know, we dropped our pencil during that. We missed that lesson. And so we encountered that. And the same thing occurs here with the book of Enoch. Peter did the same thing, if you recall. 2 Peter 2.55 describes Noah as a preacher of righteousness. Now, if it wasn't for Peter, we wouldn't know that. You really have to read into that, count in Genesis, to get that. We understand Noah and his mission and all that. The fact that he was a preacher, we would not know but for Peter's letter. A couple of things in the letters of Paul. Paul names the two magicians in Egypt. You all remember the story where Moses had his staff, which turned into a serpent, eat the two serpents of the two magicians, right? Well, they're names, Janice and Jambres. We're not in the Old Testament. Yet Paul tells us the names of those in 2 Timothy, in his letter to 2 Timothy, chapter 3. Something else, there are words of our Lord Jesus Christ, quoted, that are not in the gospel. We all know it's more blessed to give than receive. Well, he doesn't say that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. He says that in Acts 20. You can dig into that if you like. And also, the other brother of Christ that wrote an epistle, namely James, pointed out that Elijah's stopping the rain for three and a half years was linked, the drought was linked to the prayers of the prophet Ahab's reign. The drought is mentioned by none other than the Lord in Luke 4, but the linking to the drought, to Elijah's prayers, we're indebted to James for that insight. So those are just examples. There are lots of others. A whole bunch of things out of Acts 7 from Stephen and so on. So, first of all, don't get uncomfortable with this idea that the Holy Spirit has preserved this truth even though the form of it is an allusion to something that the writer presumes you know. Okay? That's a figure of speech. There are all kinds of figures of speech. There's actually a list in one biblical source I have of I think 83 different figures of speech. I mean similes, allegory. You can make a list. There's 83 different things. This is one. This is a figure of speech. It's an allusion. But anyway, as far as we're concerned, it's an insight. Now, it starts out and says Enoch also, the seventh from Adam. Now, why does he mention that it's the seventh from Adam? It was Adam, Seth, Enos, Cain, Mahalil, Jared, and Enoch. Why does he say the seventh from Adam? Because there's another Enoch that was of the line of Cain. Bad Apple. You know? Bad guy. And so this distinguishes this Enoch from the other Enoch which does surface in Genesis 4. So that's that main idea. Now, I'd like, before we get into Genesis 5, it's going to be useful to focus on Genesis 4. The last verse of Genesis 4 has a misunderstanding in it. One of the things that makes Genesis an important study is there are many things in the book that we suffer from the translations we've had. And sometime we'll take on the whole subject of the serpent in Genesis 3. What that really was. It wasn't a serpent. That's just, that's another whole story. But let's take Genesis 4, verse 20, well, to give you the flavor of it, we have in Genesis 4 we have the descendants of Cain. That takes you down about verse 24. Then we get to, and by the way, there's lots of these names that are repeated. In other words, there's a Lamech also under Cain. That's a different Lamech than the one we're going to get into later. So recognize some of those names are probably common names of the time, to some extent. And then in chapter 4 verse 25 we have the birth of Seth. Then we get to verse 26. And to Seth there also that Cain was born a son and he called his name Enosh. Right? Then, it says, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Doesn't that sound great? Well, that's so you say, if you're reading that, you're sort of puzzled because you got the impression that Abel and Adam and there's a whole bunch that called on the name of the Lord. What happened here in verse 26 to this descent to the first son of Seth? The tragedy is it's slightly mistranslated. What it really says is then men began to profane the name of the Lord. And by the way, I would say 19 commentaries out of 20 don't bring this out. So you say, well wait a minute Chuck, are you sure you're right? See what it really says in the Hebrew is they called something by the name of the Lord. And if you translate it casually, it sounds like they called upon the name of the Lord. If you look carefully at the Hebrew, it implies they called something else the name of the Lord. So they're profaning the name of the Lord. Now, the Targum of Ancalus, which is one of these ancient texts, says that they desisted from praying in the name of the Lord. The Targum of Jonathan says they surnamed their idols in the name of the Lord. Kimchi, Rashi, and other ancient Jewish commentators all agree with this. And Jerome, one of the classic historians, also indicates that this view was widely held in the Jews of his day. Maimonides, in his commentary on the Mishnah, which is a constituent part of the Talmud, published in about 1168, also ascribes the origin of idolatry to the days of Enos. Now, this isn't a big deal, except to get the tone of chapter 5. If you're just reading through Genesis and you stumble over verse 26, you wouldn't pick up the fact that there's a problem. Now, one of the things to get in perspective, we have, and I don't want to derail this whole evening on a recap of Genesis, but Adam, we have a very myopic, naive view of the period before Genesis 6. We have many misconceptions about Adam and Eve and their descendants. To give you one perception, Adam lived to see, probably, we're guessing, but probably, 5 million people that were his offspring. Also, what's worth your doing when you get home sometime when you're in the mood to do this, is take the genealogies and their ages and when they gave birth, and make a chart. Oh, you can find them in a study bible, that's cheating. Do it yourself. Take Adam, and how old he was when certain births were taking place, and how long he lived, do a little chart, and lay out these lifetimes. Recognize, first of all, that long longevity, there's no reason not to take it literally. We can get into a whole reason why they lived so long, that's not important tonight. But they did. But they also overlapped. There's a period of time that we're getting into here, in the time of Noah and so forth, there were probably 5 or 6, 7 key people still alive. Shem, the son of Noah, lives beyond Abram's birth by 54 years. So you get a whole different perspective of these early era, because these extremely long longevities. But in any case, when we get to the end of chapter 4, we have apostasy, if I can use that term, or rebellion, maybe it's more precise, against the name of God. Now something else, that again, I don't want to get into too much tonight, because it's off the subject, sort of, but you need to recognize that Adam and Eve and their forebears lived outside the garden, but not far away. As these things start to grow, that we start to get distance and other things, and when Cain lives in the land of Nod and all of that, so, there's a whole perspective, I don't want to get in, I can't build tonight, it's not on the subject, but at the same time, be aware of the fact that we jump to a lot of conclusions, because the record that we have is such a summary. But we get here now, oh, to Enosh, a couple of other things you should be sensitive to, there are four Hebrew words for man, in the Scripture, very commonly used. First one is Adam, Ish, Geber, and Enosh. Adam speaks of his origin, made from the dust of Adamah, the ground. Ish, used for man, is man in the sense of his sex, male as opposed to female. Geber is used of strength, a mighty man. Enosh is a word used for man over 500 times in the Scripture. It always means infirmities. If it's used physical sense, it implies mortality. If it's used in a character sense, the word means incurable. So that feeling for the four words for man, when you speak of his name was Enosh, if you have a linguistic background, you recognize right away that's a tip-off that Enosh is a loser. And it's in his days that men began to call, or that is profane I should say, the name of the Lord. And when you understand that, that gives rise then to the raising of a prophet. And that's what Enoch is all about. Incidentally, Enosh is the third from Adam. He's Adam's grandson, right? Adam, Seth, Enosh, right? It's interesting that the third from Moses, Moses' grandson was Jonathan, the first idolatrous priest in Israel. No big deal, but it's interesting that these patterns seem to be there. Now one small point that I can't resist pointing out, when we were talking about the angels that sinned, because in Genesis 6 you know, the B'nai Elohim entered into the daughters of men, one of the theories that we attempted to dispute at the time was this idea that the line of Seth, which are the good guys, and the line of that they intermarried and all that, that's a common but erroneous idea. If the line of Seth is so good, let's take a look at his first son. That was Enosh. See, that whole theory is based on a misunderstanding of verse 26. But again, that was the previous lesson. We will move on. We have then some genealogies here, which I'll just skip over, and we'll pick this up about verse 21, Genesis 5, verse 21. And Enoch lived 60, it goes through whole genealogy, we're skipping over that, but then it gets to verse 21, Enoch lived 65 years and begot Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he begot Methuselah 300 years and begot sons and daughters, and all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Simple little phrase, it causes all this wonderment. What on earth is this all about? By the way, as you recall, I gave you your assignment last time in the form of a little trivia riddle. You know, Methuselah is the oldest man in the Bible, yet he died before his father. And that's a great, you know, dinner table conversation thing to have people once you realize Enoch, most people don't realize that Enoch was Methuselah's father. Once you know it's Enoch was his father, that's right, Enoch didn't die, that's great. And by the way, this is it for Enoch in Genesis 5, what we just read. We have a commentary on it, but keep your finger here because we'll come back, but Hebrews chapter 11, you all know the great faith chapter of the scripture, the hall of faith, Hebrews 11, we've been in it before, and we're going to pick up verse 5 of Hebrews 11. In this chronicle, the summary of all the great faithful, Enoch gets his place there. And in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 5 it reads, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. Boy, wouldn't you like to have that testimony? I mean, what else would you want? I mean, in terms of wanting to aspire to something, that you please God. Verse 6 explains what's required. For without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must a. Believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Very important verse, verse 6, worth memorizing. But verse 5 summarizes what we've just read in Genesis. We didn't misread it. There isn't a translation problem. The writer to Hebrews amplifies the fact that this, what this says is that Enoch did not die. He was translated. Now if you were translating to the English from the Latin, you might use the word rapturo. That's the Latin from which we get this concept of the rapture. You all hear the word rapture. Doesn't appear in the Bible. It appears in the, it's a corruption of the Vulgate translating 1 Thessalonians, etc. Speaking of the, we'd be caught up together and so forth. Speaking of the rapture of the church, that word rapture comes from the, it means to be caught up, it comes from the Latin rapturo. But the same idea is there. He didn't see death. He was, he was translated. Now, there are two people to whom that happens. Enoch is one of them, and Elijah is the other one. We spoke about him before. It's interesting that Enoch is translated about midway between Adam and Abraham. Elijah was translated about midway between Abraham and Christ. I don't know what you're going to do with that piece of information, but I just... There's also a, I love to throw this one out, there's also a difference between Enoch and Elijah. Elijah was Jewish. Enoch was not. And we'll come back to what that might mean in a little, little bit. Okay, now, one thing before we leave this idea, Enoch walked with God. We hear that expressed. That was not a casual stroll. It shows up in verse 22, Enoch walked with God, and it shows up in verse 24. And if you've done your arithmetic, there are 300 years between verse 22 and verse 24. Now, that's a walk. You know, it's easy to die for Christ, but are you willing to live for him? That's a lot tougher. Enoch walked with God for over 300 years. And that involved several things. It involved agreement. Amos 3.3 says, how can two walk together if they're not in agreement? Scripture tells that. When Abraham took Isaac up the hill as an offering, they walked in agreement. That concept emerges in the Hebrew. So they walked in agreement. There was a concept of surrender. And what it leads to is a witness, because Enoch's words testify even today. In fact, that's what we're doing in Jude 14. Now, the thought that I'd leave you with in the margin of your notes is this idea of walking is available to you today. Maybe we should take the time to do this. Let's turn to Colossians chapter 2, verse 6. Enoch walked with God, right? Well, Colossians 2.6 says, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. And I submit to you that your walk can avail itself probably of resources that may not have been available to Enoch. If you take a look at Galatians 5.25 again, we talk about walking. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. And 2 Corinthians 5.7 uses the same phrase about walking in faith. So I'll leave you with that as your challenge tonight, and we'll keep moving on. But there's another aspect about Enoch's prophecy and that the words that you hear, Jude quote, were not Enoch's first prophecy. Now, if you've been paying attention, you're going to wonder, how on earth, Chuck, do you come up with that one? We're not even so comfortable that Enoch spoke those words that Jude said. I mean, that's sort of maybe a new thought. Those are the only words we've got from Enoch. And yet, I'm telling you, those are not his first prophetic utterance. In fact, his most interesting prophetic utterance was the name of his son. Apparently, to put the whole thing together for you, rather than tease you along, Enoch had a revelation, had a son, and then walked with God, the result of which was his prophecy. Now, how do you put all that together? Enoch's son, his name is Methuselah. He turns out to be Noah's grandfather. Now, you'll read many commentaries that speculate about what Methuselah means, but let me express to you what it really means. The root meth means to die. It occurs over a hundred times in the Old Testament. And it occurs eight times right here in Genesis 5. That Hebrew word. The root word. The root meth. The word shalach means to send forth. It is used over sixty times in the Old Testament, and it always sends forth judgment on the earth, the plagues of Egypt, famine, fire, the pestilence of the prophets, that sort of thing. Shalach is to send forth, but in the sense of sending forth judgment. And meth shalach is the roots that make up the word Methuselah. Now, in those days, by the way, names tended to have meaning. Eve meant the life giver, mother of all living. Remember Genesis 3? And by the way, the mother of all living doesn't mean that all her descendants came from her. That's your first thought. But if you see the way Adam names her, it's actually a response to the promise of the Christ. By the way, Cain means acquired, Seth means appointed, Abraham means the father of many nations, Enoch means teaching, initiation, or commencement. Well, Methuselah means when he dies, it shall be sent. When he dies, it shall be sent. Now I'm going to lean on tradition, not the Scripture. We know, if you go, oh by the way, one of the things you should do is lay out in this little chart that I suggested, you know, make a little chart and figure out when they were born and when they died and when they gave birth and all this. If you lay that all out, you'll discover that Methuselah, the year that Methuselah dies, what do you think happens? The flood came. You bet. Now, Jewish tradition says that he died seven days before the flood. Not just Jewish tradition. How long was Noah in the ark? Seven days before the flood came. And that may be why the Jewish, you know, those things may link so that doesn't prove anything, but I'll just share it with you for what it's worth. So, interesting situation. Visualize Enoch now who had obviously a vision. He didn't make that up. He named it in response to a revelation that God gave him. Can you imagine bringing up that kid every time he caught a cold? Can you imagine the apprehension? As long as he's alive, it's okay. Now, I assume that this insight would be confined to a small in-group because the rest of the world probably thought, you know, this family was nuts. But it's interesting that Methuselah thus becomes, as he lives, he becomes, Levitically speaking, or idiomatically speaking, a model of grace. Because as long as he is alive, God is sparing his judgment or mercy. That's why it's not accidental that his lifetime is deemed by the Holy Spirit to be the longest lifetime in the Bible. Methuselah of 969 years. The longest lifetime. Because there is, you know, God's grace abounds. Where sin is abound, grace will even more abound. But it also is finite. There's a time at which the plug is pulled. Yeah, bad metaphor, isn't it? Okay. So Enoch walked with God, we hear those phrases, it says he walked with God after he begot Methuselah. Something happened prior to Methuselah, don't know if it was just before or long before, when Methuselah is born, Enoch apparently names him in response to a revelation and it's after his, Methuselah's birth that Enoch walks with God and as 300 years go by, Enoch finally dies. He gave birth at 65 to Methuselah and he lives to 365. So for those 300 years, Enoch walked with God. And he's translated. I have a question for your notepad. To ponder on your way driving home tonight. Is your incentive any different than Enoch's? The revelation that Enoch had, is it any less than the revelation you have? You've got the whole thing. So I'll leave you with that. Okay. Okay. Methuselah becomes the oldest man in the Bible, and the verse you might offset that with is 2 Peter 3.8.9 that God is not willing that any should perish. Okay. Now we're going to get into Enoch's prophecy, specifically as quoted by Jude, and we're going to learn forth, by the way, it's interesting that the prophecy is of the Lord's second coming. Not his first. We're not dealing in Enoch's prophecy with the cross directly, the suffering servant, and all of that. We're talking about his second coming, as we call it. And we're going to learn four things. We know the Lord's coming is sure. We know who will accompany him. We know the purpose of his coming, and we know the result of his coming. All this out of Jude's quoting of Enoch's prophecy. Enoch, also the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold the Lord cometh with his holy myriads. That's what it says. I'd like to say saints, but that's not what it really says. With his holy myriads. The first thing is, let me get ahead of myself, we know that the Lord's coming is sure, and the reason we do is because this prophecy is expressed in the past tense. We see that all the time. The book of Revelation, John, describes these wild things in the past tense. Or present perfect. It's done. I mean, it's behind. The idiom that the Lord uses, the Holy Spirit uses, is to write it as history. Yes, it's history written in advance, but it has something very similar to history. And that is you can't change it. You can't change the Civil War, the Declaration of Independence. That's past. It's history. These prophecies are written the same way. These aren't contingent. Hey, you guys, if you do this, I'll do this. This isn't the preaching of Jonah to Nineveh, 40 days and comes destruction. And, of course, Nineveh repents, and Jonah pouts because he didn't want to repent. This is not a conditional thing. It is a certainty. And this shows up in the linguistic structure of it. Nothing can change it. And Philippians 3.21 highlights this. He's able to subdue all things to himself, and that's what's going on here. So that's Adam and Eve. We know it's sure. The next thing is who's going to accompany him? We have a lot of confusion about that. If you quote Jude saying, gee, that Jude says that when the Lord comes, he comes with 10,000 of his saints, you're on shaky ground. Because what it really says is that he will come with his holy myriads. Myriads. That's a bunch. Okay? Now, we will find passages, I won't take the time right now, but Zechariah 14.5, Revelation 19.14, and Daniel 7.10 says the same thing. His myriads. Now, Moses describes 10,000 of his holy ones in Deuteronomy 33.2, and we know from Acts 7.53 and Galatians 3.19 that those references include angels. So, we know that he's coming with myriads of something, and we know for sure that they include his holy angels. And also, Matthew 25.31 describes Christ returning with all the holy angels. So, Zechariah, Revelation, Daniel, Deuteronomy, Galatians, Acts 7, Matthew 25, they all demonstrate that when he returns he's coming with a bunch of angels. However, Colossians 3.4 and 1 Thessalonians 3.13 are the two main authorities which point out that we're with him. So, it's going to be quite a group. You might want to look at that. Colossians 3.4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. And 1 Thessalonians 3.13 To the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God even our Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. 1 Thessalonians 3.13 Now, we rank above the angels. If you recall 1 Corinthians 6.2 and 3, we shall judge angels. So, you can run with that. So, we know he's coming. Lots of angels and his saints together. Both. Now, the next thing is what's the purpose of his coming? It's interesting that the first and the last prophecy given through man focuses on the second coming in judgment. The first prophecy by Enoch and the last prophecy in the book of Revelation 22.20 focuses on the second coming. Coming in judgment. He will come to bring judgment. The word in the Greek is crisis. Now, turn to Hebrews 9.26-28 Hebrews 9 starting at verse 26. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world, but now once in the end of the ages, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. Coming to bring appointed unto man once to die, and after this the crisis in the Greek. Now, that word crisis is used of Sodom in Luke 10.14. We all know what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. That's crisis. Hebrews 10.27 a certain fearful looking for crisis. And 2 Peter 3.7 speaks the day of crisis of ungodly men. So the point I want to get, the use of that word is the judgment of the unsaved. Okay? Now, why am I making a big thing of this? I'd like you to turn to John 5. Up till now we've been talking about the word crisis meaning this kind of judgment, right? John chapter 5 Jesus says verily, verily I say unto you. When the Lord wanted to emphasize something, he said I say unto you. When he wanted to double underline it, he'd say verily I say unto you. This one he says verily, verily I say unto you. He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life. It doesn't say you're going to get it. It isn't awarded to you after death at the pretty gates. You have it now. Hath everlasting life. And shall not come into crisis. Into judgment, but the Greek word is crisis. But it's passed from death unto life. Okay? So the believer, no believer will ever come into crisis. Lots of authorities. I'll use John 5.24 specifically. Are we together so far? Now you say, wait a minute, Chuck. There's Romans 14 and 2 Corinthians 5 where the believers before the judgment seat of Christ, right? Different word. That's the Bema seat of Christ. The Bema seat. The judgment seat, the crisis, I think we've got a flavor for. The Bema seat was that judge's seat at the end of a race that passes out the rewards. In the Greek, it's a different word. It's a judgment seat like you go up to get your silver, bronze, gold, metal, whatever. In the Olympic idiom, if I may. The word in the Greek, the Bema seat, is a term that I believe comes out of the athletic community. It's getting rewards for your deeds. And when in Romans 14.10 and 2 Corinthians 5.10 and so on, the word there is the Bema seat. Different deal. In the English it both say judgment. Different kind of judgment. That's an unfortunate term because we lump them together. Now, why am I making a big thing of this? For two reasons. Because of John 5.24, which is a compulsory required memory verse. There will be a quiz. But also because you need to know that as a believer, you do not come into crisis. In the book of Enoch, the apocryphal book, it quotes Enoch as saying that he comes with myriads of his saints to execute judgment on them. If you understand the scripture, you know that's not true. It's fraud. It's false. The book of Enoch was written by a false prophet. That's not what Enoch prophesied because God is not going to contradict himself. So it's a simple, I love these things because they save you acres of paperwork in a library wandering through the apocrypha. And I've shared with you, I'm so endeared to John for chapter 12, where he points out that Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 53 were written by the same Isaiah. Do you have any idea of the money I spent on commentaries and the derailment of my Christian walk on the Deutero-Isaiah thing? I could have saved years of my life and a lot of agony. If I just read John 12 carefully, you don't have to worry about two Isaiahs. There were no two Isaiahs. That's... Yes, I'm trying to think of a word I can use here. Balderdash is probably a little more polite than what I was thinking of. Thank you. Vocabulary is so important. Okay. Now, who's going to be judged? It says all, right? It says they're all going to be judged. Okay. We know He cometh to judge the earth. That's from Psalm 96, verse 13. We know He comes to judge all nations. That's Joel 3, verse 12, and Matthew 25, 32. He comes to judge all nations with their cities. That's Matthew 11, 22. And Matthew 12, 41. I'm not looking these up because I think this is familiar ground. If not, it ought to be. He comes to judge every man living or dead. 2 Timothy 4, 1 and 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 7, 8 and 9. He comes to judge the fallen angels. We're not unfamiliar with that because we just studied it, but the authority is Isaiah 24, verse 21. And He also comes to judge the demons, Matthew 8, 29. So you can build a list. It just includes about everything. It expressly includes about everything you can think of. Now the next question is, who's going to be the judge? Who is going to be the judge? Well, back to John 5, verse 22. A couple of verses before, the one I had you memorize. Alright, yeah. For the Father judgeth no man. Really? But hath committed all judgment unto the Son. So the Lord Jesus Christ has that burden. What's He going to judge them by? How are they judged? Let's turn to Romans 2. Truth, deeds, and my gospel will be the summary of this. Romans chapter 2, verse 2. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them who commit such things. And it goes on to elaborate on this and gets down to verse 6. Who will render to every man according to his deeds. You want to be judged by works? You'll get your chance. Exactly. No thank yous, right on. Down to verse 16. In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. By the way, verses 7 through 15 is a parenthetical remark. So if you have trouble with Paul, it's one of the reasons he really he does it. Now, what's the result of the Lord's coming? All the ungodly will be convicted of all their works of ungodliness. You know, that's where even in the English it seems kind of you know, Jude is hammering away he's putting a lot of nails into this coffin, he's saying. To execute judgment upon all and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which the ungodly sinners have spoken against them. We could concatenate a whole bunch of the judgment passages here. Matthew 25 where the Lord says, depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire. Revelation 20 where the books are opened and they're all judged according to their works. And in 2 Peter 3, 7 where the heavens and earth are reserved for fire. Those are all passages we have looked at before which they have, and it's interesting here the ungodly are the category all of them have their ungodly deeds in which they've ungodly committed the deeds and the way they did them are both ungodly. What makes them ungodly is the intent. God looks at the heart, we all know that, right? How do we know that? How do we know that God looks at the heart? What's our authority? 1 Samuel 16.7 I'm always intrigued that you have to reach to Samuel to nail that one down. And he's also going to judge the hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. It's interesting to me that of all the things all the ungodly deeds that this particular one is also singled out for special mention. And that's consistent with the other things all the way through Jude in terms of their speaking against. Speaking against, railing, etc. Big issue. A big issue. Matthew 12.36 reminds us that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Boy, am I glad that I'm not going to be at the judgment. I cling to Matthew 5.24. The idle words. Don't ever ask my wife. She'd give you a list. I have many things, but that's one of the ones that I'm sure would be that I'm sure took some extra scrubbing, you know. Every idle word that men shall speak. Now, the contrary to that, the opposite of that, so to speak, what is the characteristic identity of the Antichrist in Scripture? Big mouth. Yeah, if I wasn't going to call him Antichrist, that isn't really a scriptural label for him. I call him Mr. Big Mouth. We have him in Revelation 13. We have him in Daniel 8. Every place you see him in Old and New Testament, he's always uttering preposterous things against the Most High. He is always shooting off his mouth. Of all the things he must do, and I'm sure what he does, there's a long list of acts, offensive acts that he does. But it's interesting that the Scripture highlights that one as idiomatic of him. Okay, well, that's a large part of Enoch, but let me mention some other things about Enoch, or at least his role in prophecy, since we're all here really students of prophecy in one way or another. Much is said about Noah and the ark. If we talk about Noah's ark, and I want to just summarize, refresh your memory and summarize some things about Noah to make some other points, so just bear with me a little bit. Noah is called by God to build this barge, with which eight people are going to be saved. And I won't take the time now to get into why Noah and why that eight, but there's a very specific reason in terms of having an unblemished genealogy and so forth. God chooses out of his grace. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So God commissions him to do this barge, and God has miraculously then preserved Noah, his sons, and their four wives. By the way, don't for a minute think that Noah only had three sons. We have no reason to believe he just had three sons. Those are memorialized because they came with him. So they make this barge, and as you all know the story, the flood comes, they're miraculously preserved through the flood, and they continue man at the end of the flood. Now, a couple of interesting things. If you and I were writing the story of Noah, the flood comes and wipes out everything else, and then the flood subsides, where would you land that barge? You're a God that provides every detail as ordained, right? So it's not going to land anywhere by accident, is it? Wherever it lands, it's on purpose. You and I would have a tendency, the world's a mess, you're going to have to make a new start, you'd land it somewhere where they could cannibalize the structure for housing, etc. They have needs, right? The barge is deposited on one of the highest mountains in the geologically unstable area at an altitude so high they have to migrate down to live. God seems to have put the barge in a place where it was nigh impossible for them to use it, take it apart, make housing. They had to leave it to go down to lower altitudes. It's at 14,000 plus on Ararat. There are a lot of conditions there that make it, even today with our technology, difficult to get at. So you wonder, that can't be there by accident. It's frozen most of the time. It's in a place that's uniquely ready to be preserved. Now you go back and you read Genesis 6, you discover when God tells Noah to build the ark, he asks him to pitch it within and without. Now you pitch a boat to make it watertight, but you don't do it inside and outside. Now why would you do it inside and outside? To preserve it. So it's designed to be preserved, it's deposited to be preserved. There's a hypothesis I'm coming to and that is I personally believe, I'll phrase it that way, I can't prove this, it's just one of my idiosyncratic notions, that the ark's role prophetically is not over. It was a testimony to an unbelieving world of a coming judgment back then and it will be again. That's why it's sort of held in abeyance, the time will come when they finally get there and they cut through the ice and they bring back more physical remnants of it. It will be a testimony to the reality of Genesis 6, the reality of Noah and that whole thing and what it implies. It implies all kinds of things. It implies not just validity to the Genesis account. It says there is a God that intervenes in the lives of men that will hold them accountable. And on and on, all kinds of implications. Now there's something else about Noah's ark that I'm getting at. The word pitch, within and without, that occurs in Genesis 6 occurs all throughout the scripture, but it's translated pitch only in that chapter. Every place else it appears in the Old Testament, it is translated atonement. There is a gigantic pun here. These eight people were preserved by atonement and you can get into a whole thing, a typological study, that the ark is a type of whom? Of Jesus Christ, exactly. Preserving these through the judgment to become a new beginning at the end. Now again, I don't want to take the time tonight to go through all of that, but let me leave you with one interesting one. The ark, when it comes to rest, when they leave the ark and it's all neat, the Holy Spirit tells us it was the 17th day of the 7th month. Well, that's terrific. You really have to dig to get this one put together. In the book of Exodus, which comes obviously much, much later, nine plagues have gone by, the 10th one's coming, the death of the firstborn, we have the Passover, and that big event, in fact what's regarded as the birth of the nation Israel, and at that time, he makes when the Passover is instituted in the book of Exodus, he makes that month the first of the month. So now, when is Passover, the 14th of Nisan, which is to them the first, okay, which in Genesis is the 7th. Now, if Jesus Christ is crucified on the 14th of Nisan, what happens three days later? His resurrection. Will you tell me that God let Noah leave the Ark on the third day after the 14th on the anniversary, thousands of years in advance, of the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Absolutely. It's just mind-blowing how the Lord orchestrates all of this. Now, what am I getting at? Well, people say, gee, is the Ark a type of the believer? In a sense, it is, but there's also a sense, I'm not saying that it isn't, but there's another view that bears some merit. The Ark was not removed from the judgment, it was preserved through the judgment. There's a difference between it and the Church. In 1 Thessalonians, he says, I have not appointed you unto wrath, but unto salvation. In Revelation chapter 3, verse 20, the Church is promised, I will keep you from the time of the tribulation. Not just from the tribulation, from the time of the tribulation. They're removed. Now, from that modeling, many scholars believe that Noah and the Ark is not a type of the Church of Israel, being preserved through the tribulation, the believing remnant. Then where is the Church? Answer? Church is non-Jewish. And I'm not saying Noah is, but in the type he would be. What is the type of the Church? Enoch. Enoch was translated, did not see death. Enoch was removed from the scene before this was played out. Okay? Now, that's one example. Another example I'm fond of using is we all remember the famous story of the Fiery Furnace, Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace. And we had Azariah, Hananiah, and Mishael. I'm sorry, you know Babylonian names. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Right. The secular world has preserved their secular names for us. Nebuchadnezzar and his ragtime band says, hey, when the music starts, you all bow down. You bow or burn. Right? And these three guys say, no thanks. They don't. You all know the story out of Daniel chapter 3. To give you the context, the chapter, chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar, the young man takes over. His father dies. He's general of the army, but while he's sieging Jerusalem, he finds out his father died. He's now king of Babylon. So he goes back. He inherits all these old timers that are the staff. The soothsayers and wise men and stuff. So he has this troubled dream and he wants to find out if these guys can cut the mustard. So he says, hey guys, I want you to interpret my dream, but by the way, this is a fine print. I won't tell you. Tell me what the dream is and what it means. And they say, hey, no man on earth can do that. He's just trying to put him to tell you. Then he explains his professional development system. He's going to cut them limb from limb and make their houses a dunghill. If they don't, they can't. So the word goes out, the order is given. But that includes the whole job description. Daniel and his friends were in that job description. He said, hey, why so hasty? And they petitioned and get the audience of the king. And as you all know, Daniel interprets the dream and Nebuchadnezzar is blown away, quite impressed and rewards them. Now from chapter 2, you can get an idea how popular Daniel and his three friends were among the old palace guard. And the old palace guard rig up this thing to get Nebuchadnezzar on his ego trip, so that whoever doesn't bow down to the music is going to get slaughtered, knowing full well that these faithful Jews will not do that. So, you all know the story. They refuse. And Nebuchadnezzar gives them a second chance. They say, our God can preserve us, but even if he won't, up yours, oh king. And so, they get thrown in the fiery furnace. You all know the story. Nebuchadnezzar builds an image, what? 66 cubits high, 6 cubits wide. What's Nebuchadnezzar a type of? The Antichrist. And he forces his worship at the pain of death. So he's what? The Antichrist. What are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego a type of? Israel. They're in the fiery furnace. Fire is an idiom of the tribulation in the Old Testament. They are preserved through the fire. They're not kept out of the fire. They're preserved in the fire. No harm comes to them. By whom? Right. Nebuchadnezzar sees them down there. Okay, so Nebuchadnezzar is a type of the Antichrist. We have the three Jewish young men in the fiery furnace as a type, if you will, of Israel preserved, the remnant, if you will, preserved through tribulation. Question, where's Daniel? He's not there. Many, many people read that story, hear that story, see it in Sunday school books, never occurs to you, what happened to Daniel? Several possibilities. One is that he bowed down. Don't think so. If you know anything about Daniel, that's not likely. Was it that he bowed down? He refused to bow down, but he was not accused. That's also not very likely. If he was there, he either bowed down, which is not true, or he didn't bow down. He would not have refused and not been accused, clearly, which means he wasn't there. Now, where was he? We don't know. The record's silent on that. Our guess is, since he was a very high official, he was probably on the other end of state. And his enemies used that opportunity to attack his second string. That's a guess. But biblically, or I should say, typologically speaking, Daniel's absent from the scene. And I personally think that that's significant, typologically. We're getting into typology here, and that's a whole other thing. The other thing that we have seen when we explored Lot and Sodom, it was clear, as Abraham was interceding for Lot, that the Lord made it clear that if there's one righteous, the judgment would have been spared. And in fact, there was one righteous, namely Lot, despite his being out of fellowship. And these two angels get Lot out of there, and in fact, as we read the text carefully, not only did they get him out as a favor to him, they point out to Lot that they cannot accomplish the mission until they get him out of there. It's a prerequisite condition for these angels to bring the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, to get Lot out of there. Basic principle being laid out for us there. Another issue, I'm just throwing a bunch of stuff out because I keep getting the question after, why do I think and why do I believe there's a pre-trib rapture? And this is, there's a whole bunch of reasons that are not doctrinal proofs. I'm responding to the questions, why do I personally see a pre-trib rapture? And these are all, I'm adding up to that. Daniel chapter 9, the famous 70 weeks of Daniel, highlights clearly, and it's too technical to get into tonight, if you know what I'm talking about, you'll follow me. If not, I recommend you get the tapes. But in the 70 week prophecy of Daniel, we clearly have, well, there's four verses. There's a scope verse to begin with, we have a period of time of 69 weeks, and a period of time of 7 weeks after that. We have a scope verse, we have a detailed description of the 69 weeks, then we have a verse that describes the events that occur between the 69th and 70th week, before the 70th week starts, and then the last verse of the 70th week. The point is, there is a gap. 69 contiguous weeks, a parenthesis, and a last week. That parenthesis is one of the things that's paramount to understanding the 70 week prophecy of Daniel. This concept of a gap may seem strange to you. When you get to Revelation chapter 12, verses 5 and 6, the woman and the man child, and Satan and all that, again between verses 5 and 6, the same gap occurs. It was interesting to me to discover that this gap occurs in Psalm 22, between verses 21 and 22. It occurs in Psalm 118, in the middle of verse 22. It occurs in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, that we quoted Christmas, but we quoted up to, but not to the last part, which is the second coming issue. We have Isaiah 53 and verse 10, the same thing. In Isaiah chapter 61, we have two verses. The same gap occurs, and none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in Luke 4, when reading that, opening his ministry, he reads from Isaiah 61, and he stops at a comma, closes the book, sets it down, and says, this day is that prophecy fulfilled in your ears. Now that comma has lasted 1900 years. We can go on to Lamentations chapter 4 verse 21, 22. I mentioned Daniel 9, 26, and 27. You have to write these down, but I'll just go through this so you follow where I'm headed. Daniel 11, it occurs. Hosea 2, Hosea 3, Amos 9, Micah 5, Habakkuk 2, Zephaniah 3, Zechariah 9, Matthew 10, Matthew 12, Luke 1, Luke 4, as I just mentioned, Luke 21, the middle is verse 24, John 1, verses 5 and 6, 1 Peter 1, and Revelation 12. Now why did I go through this list? There are 24 of them. And if you're a mystic like I am, I think that's very, very interesting, relative to the 24 elders in Revelation. As a Kabbalistic allusion to what I believe is the church. It's interesting to me that in all of those, God's dispensation, if you will, or dealing with Israel, and his dealing with the church, are mutually exclusive. You can get a whole study of the Gospels, and it's when Israel rejects Hermessiah the positioning of the church is established. And the whole age of grace as this dispensation is like to call this period that we live in, from that time and I won't quarrel for the moment exactly when it starts that's a whole other issue, up until the rapture, is clearly a parenthesis in which God's focus is the Gentiles, in the sense of the church. Now, are all believers in the church? No. Are there believers prior? Are there believers in the Old Testament? Are they part of the church? No, they're believers. Are there believers in the New Testament prior to the church? Sure. The apostles were sent to Israel, two by two. Specific missions set up there. If you can get technical Gospels, you study that very carefully. And yet, there is an era that we enjoy, we take it all for granted. Very peculiar things are bound to us, that were not true then, and they're just unique to us. So, that's the church. Now, there will be a time when that's over. God will accomplish his purpose. And when that is completed, he will again choose to deal to the world through Israel. Not because they deserve it, just because he chooses to do that. When you understand that, and you see the prophecy, you'll discover, clearly, the prophecies are focusing on one or the other. And the insight to unraveling the whole book of Revelation is to recognize its Jewishness. Chapters 4 to the end are Jewish. Israel, 144,000, etc. He goes to great lengths to make that clear. There's a parenthesis in there of 7 letters, 7 churches that are a different issue. This is all a springboard from Enoch, if you will, the two witnesses issue of Enoch and Elijah. I mentioned that before that I personally, this is my own crazy notion that I think the two witnesses in Revelation 11 are Moses and Elijah, because they're both Jewish. You know my question. If you're really mystical, you know about Ruth and Boaz. Naomi is Israel, in the book of Ruth. Boaz is the kinsman redeemer. Ruth is the Gentile bride. Where is Ruth during the thrashing floor scene? At Boaz's feet. And if you really get into the typology and really want to go out in left field, that's a possibility. And of course there are two models, at least, in the Old Testament of the rapture. One of them my wife pointed out to me originally, which is in Isaiah 26. I have to digress on prophecy because I don't want to be on apostates all evening long. What's fun to do just before reading this is to read 1 Thessalonians 4 about the dead in Christ shall rise first and all this. And then you come to Isaiah chapter 26 and read verse 19 where Isaiah says thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise. Here's that resurrection concept. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust for thy dew is like the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead. Then we get to verse 20. Come. Interesting word. That introduces Revelation chapter 4 verse 1. It's also the word that introduces each of the seals, etc. Come and see. The NC is not in the Hebrew, in the original. That's in the English. Come. Here it says, come my people. Enter thou into thy chambers. What chambers? In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. What's he going to prepare? Chambers. And shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment. For how long? Until the indignation is passed. This favored group of people whoever they are, are going to be spared. They're hidden in chambers until the indignation is passed. I can almost historically imagine being in the home in Israel in Egypt. We put the blood on the lintel, locked the door, waited for the death angel to pass by. Same psychology as I would mentally visualize this. Verse 21. For behold the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth shall also disclose her blood and shall no more cover her slain. Interesting passage in the book of Isaiah. I personally believe this is elusive of the rapture. And then I've got Zephaniah chapter 2 verse 3 here. It might be fun to take a quick peek at. Zephaniah chapter 2 verse 3. Seek the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness, seek meekness. Why? It may be ye shall be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Isn't that interesting? You know, the Old Testament prophets are just full of these little nuggets that Chuck showed me one today. Unrelated, but I have to show you. He shared this with me today. And I just have to share it with you. It blew me away. Amos. Amos chapter 8 verse 9 and 10. Amos says in chapter 8 verse 9, it says It shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. There are all these passages where the sun's going to go dark. We always allude to this, but then we read the next verse. And I will turn your feasts in the morning and all your songs into lamentation. I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head, and I will make it like the morning for an only sun, and the end of it like a bitter day. What's he talking about? Crucifixion. When did the sun go down at noon? When Christ was crucified. And there's morning for what? An only sun. Isn't that wild? Never saw that before. Chuck shared that with me. How interesting. Anyway. Yeah, we can make it. I've been dallying here. Let's get back to Jude chapter 1. Okay. We've got verse 16. Continuing the thought about these guys that Jude is talking about, that Enoch prophesied against. Prophesied of these saying, behold, and so on. Who are these? Verse 16 amplifies this. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouths speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. This is how you recognize an apostate. And by the way, the church will be without excuse if it fails to recognize the apostates because of the epistle of Jude. We looked at verse 8, verse 10, verse 12 and 13 so far. Those are descriptive. Now we get another one, verse 16. They're murmurers, complainers, and walking after their own lusts. Now these are idiomatically reflexive on the things we've just read because the murmurers, remember the people of Israel back in verse 5? And the complainers, remember the angels dissatisfaction with their assigned place? And the walking after their own lusts, Sodom and Gomorrah. See, those same things he used to open the epistle are here summarized in practical everyday terms for you and I. Murmuring, complaining, and walking after their own lusts. Murmurers. Do you know this as a noun is found nowhere else in the New Testament? The verb is, but not as a noun. In John chapter 6, verse 41, the Jews murmured at Jesus Christ when he spoke of being the bread of life. The disciples murmured in John 6 and also in Ephesians 2 are mentioned. Disciples murmured and then they walked no more with him. Those that did. Murmuring is a sin of no minor importance. It is a hallmark of apostasy. We find that in Psalm 106, verses 24, 25, and 26, and 1 Corinthians 10, which we looked at earlier. Murmurers. Okay, that's one group. They murmured. Anyone want to murmur? Read this carefully before you do. Next one, complainers. This as a noun appears nowhere else in the New Testament, only in Jews. The Pharisees found fault. They held their traditions higher. That's in Mark 7. Okay. Making the word of God of no effect because of traditions is a form of apostasy, wherever it is found. Now, fault finding may mark a professing Christian as one who has turned his back upon the truth. Complainers may be apostates. We saw that in verse 8 and 10. It's by way of review. It's amplified in 2 Corinthians 11 and 1 Corinthians 5. Complainers displeased the Lord in the days of Moses. We looked at that in Numbers 11 if you recall. It also displeased the Lord in Mark 7 when the disciples were doing it. Is there any reason to believe it doesn't displease Him today? Displeased Him in the days of Moses? Displeased Him in the days of our Lord in Mark 7? In the book of Jude there's one group of people that were dissatisfied with their assigned place. And we saw what happened to them. They were the angels in verse 6. Chained. They were kept until the day of salvation. They were kept until the day of judgment. And Paul contrasts that with he's learned to be satisfied in whatever state he finds himself. In Philippians 4.11. Okay, we've got murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lusts, it says. And we've talked about that before. It's the same word the Lord uses in the parable of the sower by the way. In Mark 4, verse 18 and 19. And we've read 2 Peter 3 about the scoffers walking after their own lusts at the end times. So we've got murmurs, complainers, and the lusting occurring in Numbers 14.11 and also Numbers 11, the history of Israel. This is all by way of review, that's why I'm going this rather quickly. Now again we have, it's interesting, we have the murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lusts and again we have singled out this other attribute. Their mouth speaketh great swelling words. Isn't that strange? Who does that typify? The Antichrist. Their mouth speaking great swelling words. Just to show you why this leaps out at me, if you look at 2 Peter 2, 2 Peter 2.15 For when they speak great swelling words of vanity they allure through the lusts of the flesh much wantonness of those that are just escaping from them. The whole passage from 15 through 21 deals with this great swelling words thing. And we've talked about the identifier of the last leader on the face of the earth, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which speaks of the Antichrist, Revelation 13 verses 5 and 6. Basic hallmarks of this. I resist the temptation to get into 2 Thessalonians 2 tonight or Revelation 13 verses 5 and 6, you've been there. We've been through that a lot and we'll be getting into it again in other studies, so I'll pass that for now. But I'd like to focus on something else here in Jude. It mentions these gross sins, and then focuses on their mouth that speaketh great swelling words. And then it has another thing. Having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. What a subtle thing. You think from all these heinous sins the fact that they're overly impressed in a pride thing seems so small. But what he's talking about is apostasy in the church and one of its warning signs is when professionalism replaces the call of the Holy Spirit. How often we see advertisements, flowery introductions of some great person that may be appropriate in the secular world, it's highly inappropriate in the church. By the way, I'm reading a book just read a book that I have to commend to you if you have not picked up a copy of Harvest, you need to pick it up and read it. I think as a Christian walk in modern times, it gives you an incredible contrast with traditional ways versus the Lord's ways. As participants in this particular body, it's must reading because it's just incredible. Summary, a quick digest of over 30 years of ministerial insight. What works, what doesn't and why. Most precious, precious book anything to do with the harvest that chronicles the origin and what's happened at Calvary Chapel over the last couple of decades. Incredible summary. Very readable, very anecdotal but right to where the rubber meets the road. Terrific, terrific thing. Very much in contrast with the passages that we've just read. Now the next block is verses 17 through 19 which is the upbeat. I think what we're going to do next time is finish the book of Jude because we'll take it from verse 17 through the end and we will get very specific a few more warnings some very specific encouragement and directions unlike the passages up till now which reach deeply into the Old Testament. So I've always sort of rubbed my tongue in my cheek, I've assigned you homework for next time. In this case I don't have a specific passage for homework next time but I will commend to you another book. I'm going to commend to you two books tonight. The book Harvest I've just mentioned, that's sort of underscore, that's must reading. If you don't read that you've missed the assigned reading. I'll give you an optional book that may not be for everybody but it's if you have an intellectual turn of mind, if you have a interest in sharpening your perceptions of intellectual life in America there is a book that is heralded by many to become the book of the decade called The Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom. It's not a theological book, it's not a Christian book, it's a book though that is incredibly perceptive in a secular sense very lucid, very articulate, very profound in explaining the tragedy of the last several decades of education in America and what it means to you and I. Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind. The reason I bring it up is that here is a brilliant secular professor with an incredibly distinguished career in history with a deep passion for his students University of Chicago and half a dozen other major universities taught all over the world very bright, well established person great credentials, who has come to the conclusion that relativism is bankrupt that our value system in America is non-existent I'm not suggesting you agree with everything he says, I'm not sure you won't agree with his implied remedy but it's a profound insight into our culture, our music, our attitudes our values, it's a scathing indictment of higher education over the last 30 years in America and what the result has been if you're of that turn of mind I commend to you that book, you probably have and you will hear much said about it but next time we'll pick up verse 17 and finish the book of Jude and we'll also announce where we're going from there next time okay? let's stand for a closing word of prayer Father we just praise you for the privilege of hearing your word, we thank you Father for this epistle of Jude we thank you that you have provided here some gleanings of the past some perspective of what's coming we thank you Father that you've cared so much as to instruct us that we might grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior that we might through all these things walk with you Father we would just ask you to increase in us an appetite for all these things increase in us a hunger for your word and a clearer perception of the surrender and the commitment that a walk with you implies and indeed demands and Father we also thank you for the prophecy of Enoch that indeed the coming of our Lord is sure unequivocal, unconditional it is coming we thank you Father that you have through your grace called us and sanctified us in Jesus Christ in whose name we pray Amen