Well, I think this should be our last session in the book of Jude, just to finish it up a bit. Short one-chapter book written by our Lord's brother, brother of James. We have two books in the New Testament written by those that apparently were the brothers of our Lord and Savior in a human sense. And as we have reviewed these last seven times, Jude is intensely focusing on apostasy, and it's a very appropriate introduction, the vestibule, if you will, of the book of Revelation.

Last time we got through this business of Enoch, we looked at prophecy before the flood. And we carry it down through verse 16, I believe. I'll overlap 16 to flow us into 17, 18, and 19. 17, 18, and 19 are the verses that wrap up the major body of the epistle, verses 5 through 19.

But we'll figure out about verse 16, which I realize is a review, I believe. Speaking of these that Enoch prophesied against, Jude continues, These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts. Their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.

It doesn't sound great, but bear in mind what Jude is talking about here are apostates. And we're going to shortly ask the question, are apostates saved? We'll deal with that by the time we get down to verse 19.

How do we recognize an apostate? Well, they're murmurers, complainers, and walking after their own lusts. Murmurers. That's kind of rough. Now, we've seen earlier in Jude's epistle, he focused on the murmurers, specifically the people of Israel and their sin of murmuring.

We covered that earlier. And he covered complainers. And you and I sort of, I think, would sort of wink at that, saying, gee, we all have our bad days, and we sort of moan and groan and complain.

But Jude's point is the angels that were dissatisfied with their assignment are now kept in a special place. Their main sin was initially that of being dissatisfied with their assignment. And, of course, they took it in their own hands and got themselves in deep trouble.

We read about those earlier. And also walking after our own lusts. The Old Testament example that Jude called upon earlier was, of course, Sodom and Gomorrah.

But now Jude is applying this practically to a personal walk. He has shifted from these sweeping Old Testament corporate examples. He's also drawn in verse 11 of three individual examples, Cain, Balaam, and Korah.

He's going to shift and get right where you and I live. First of all, these are murmurers. This word is a noun. It's not found anywhere else in the New Testament. And we find murmuring by the Jews against Christ in John 6.

The disciples murmured and then walked with them no more. Those that did in John 6. And it's not a sin of any minor importance to murmur. It's a hallmark of apostasy. First step.

And complainers. Here again is a noun that's not found elsewhere in the New Testament. And complainers, we find the Pharisees finding fault in Mark 7.

We covered, I think, all this last time. Fault finding can be the mark of a Christian who's turned his back on the truth. So complainers may be apostates. These are signs. These are symptoms. These are indications.

Now, complainers displeased the Lord in the days of Moses. We saw in Numbers 11. And also it displeased the Lord Jesus Christ in Mark 7.

Can any of you find a verse that says his attitude is shifted between then and today? I don't think so. So that's something we should pay attention to.

This will lead us to a verse, you know, I think I've told you many, many times that we know that St. Paul, not Jude, no, I'm talking about St. Paul, we know that he was a Southerner, right?

Because he always says grace and peace to you all, right? Did you? Yes, you know, I hadn't heard that.

Did you know that he's not a Texan? Did you know that Paul was a southerner but not a Texan? You didn't know that. Because he said he's learned in whatever state he finds himself therein to be content.

See? All right. And, you know, that's obviously a very, very... A childish little quip that we've used from time to time, but it does make reference to Philippians 4.11 where he does say that, and of course he's saying it in a very serious sense, that he's learned as a Christian that whatever state he finds himself, whatever conditions he finds himself, therein to be content.

And that's the contrast, that's the New Testament contrast between the complainer and the proper walk. Murmurs, complainers, walking after their own lusts. I think we understand that term, walking after their own lusts.

The same words used there, by the way, that the Lord uses in the parable of the sower in Mark 4. But I think we know what that means.

And 2 Peter 3, which we looked at several times throughout the study, where at the end time there will be scoffers coming, walking after their own lusts. And we'll look at that again shortly for some reasons.

Okay, murmurs, complainers, and those that fell a lusting. Old Testament parallel, Jude hammered it in verse 16. But then he adds, of course, another hallmark of apostasy, their mouth speaketh great swelling words.

And I think we talked about that. It's the same expression that Peter uses in the second letter in chapter 2. We looked at that last time.

And, of course, it's also an identifier, not just of apostasy generally. But of the great rebeller, the leader of the rebellion, the Antichrist himself is identified in Revelation 13 and Daniel 8, Daniel 9, you name it, as Mr. Big Mouth, having great swelling words.

We talked about that last time. This is just by way of sort of review.

And then we have this last phrase that I think we also highlighted in the posse, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. Clumsy king James language for really saying where people position themselves through their publicity through their flowery resumes whatever to gain advantage.

You know there's a place for that in business but in the church we should be appalled when professionalism takes the place of the call of the holy spirit. And when you start seeing that, that's the time to have the caution flying.

Verse 17 then, Jude here is going to shift gears now and talk positively. I mean, up until now we've been hitting apostasy, all these bad guys and all the grim things that are going to happen to them, both in the past and prophecies against them.

Now Jude is going to shift gears here. He says, but beloved. So he's shifting now from apostates to the believer. But beloved.

Remember ye the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the watchword. Remember the word, collectively, or plural here is words, which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, it's interesting that Jude opened his letter with quotes from the Old Testament references, and he concludes, of course, with, in effect, the New Testament apostles.

You say, gee, Chuck, we've been talking about apostasy here and apostasy there. What's your protection against it? What's your protection against apostasy if you feel it's a threat?

We've been talking now for seven weeks on apostasy. What's your protection against it? Right here, verse 17. Remember ye the words.

Now that implies you know the words. That implies you've read the words. So what you cling to is the word of God.

Those of you taking notes can, and I won't take the time to go through all of these because it would be cumbersome perhaps, but Proverbs 35, 30, colon 5, Psalm 119, 162.

We should rejoice in the word. Those that find great spoil. In fact, you can take Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, and every verse is about one subject. The word of God.

Remember the word. That's your main armament.

Verse 17. But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

These are they who separate themselves sensual, having not the spirit.

Jude is speaking in a tactical or local sense. When we read that, we can read it in a broader sense, that our refuge is the word.

And the whole issue of the word of God, of course, is that it's not man's wisdom, but it's by the Holy Spirit.

And you turn to 1 Corinthians 2.13. 1 Corinthians 2.13, which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

Also, the classical passage for this same idea, same similar idea, is 2 Peter 1.21. For prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

Those of you that have spent some time with us know that that's been my primary passion or interest.

We go through the scripture from Genesis through... the major prophets through the New Testament gospels and epistles here and there, and obviously the book of Revelation from end to end.

And there's much that we've touched on, much that we've talked about, but the primary mission that I personally would espouse or aspire to or what have you would be to instill in you an excitement, an interest, enthusiasm, a passion for God's word.

That's really the beginning and the ending of it all as far as these gatherings are concerned.

As we go, we've learned a lot, but that's the real thing that I hope you've carried away.

Now, these apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ warned of this very thing that Jude is concerned about, namely apostasy, and let's take a look at Acts 20.

To one of the famous passages. Paul in Acts 20 is talking to one of his many churches that he both started and shepherded as he went around.

In Acts chapter 20, in verse 17 on, he is dealing with the Ephesian elders.

But I'd like to pick it up about verse 28. Verse 28 says, Take heed therefore unto yourselves.

He's speaking to the leadership of the Ephesian church. Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit hath made you overseers to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Verse 29, For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you.

Not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.

And on he goes, warning the Ephesian church that when he leaves, they're going to be the victims of attempts to get them off track.

It's very interesting to see these strange Christian cults, extremists of one shape or another. They don't convert off the street.

They proselyze in our parking lot here. They don't go after unsaved. They focus on the body.

And many of them are built around some basic truth slightly exaggerated. And all of them have in that characteristic a failing in embracing the whole counsel of God, a balance.

But Paul here anyway in Acts is warning the Ephesian church that they would be victims, if you will, of wolves and so forth.

It's interesting to note that the Lord Jesus Christ authored seven epistles in the New Testament. They are gathered together in what we call Revelation chapter 2 and 3.

And the first of these seven letters is to none other than the church at Ephesus.

And it might be provocative to take a read. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ picks seven churches, very interesting seven churches, not the most important, not the biggest, but seven churches which served, they were literal churches at the time, but they also served to model all spiritual conditions of the church, individually and collectively.

It also happens to also chronicle the church history from that time on. But the first church... Clearly identified as what you might call the apostolic church, that first century era.

Jesus himself says in Revelation 2, verse 1, unto the angel of the church at Ephesus write, These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands.

These are identifying phrases extracted from chapter 1. The book of Revelation is in code, if you will, in graphic idioms, and these are reflexive to chapter 1.

Verse 3 says, I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them who are evil.

And thou has tried them who say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars and has borne and has patience for my name's sake, has labored and has not fainted.

Very interesting. The Ephesian church, both literally in terms of the church at Ephesus, but also generically for that era, was diligent in terms of doctrine.

You would think, apparently, that they responded to Paul's admonition in Acts 20. Because he warned them there would be these wolves coming to give them deviations.

And apparently, so far, you would get the impression that the Ephesian church did well on that. Except as we read on, verse 4, the report card isn't finished.

The Lord says, nevertheless, painful word, painful word, nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Remember, therefore, where thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy lampstand out of its place, except thou repent.

It's interesting that the Ephesian church here characterized was doctrinally sound, but was missing something that's very, very important. What were they missing? Love. That first love. That passion for the Lord.

Could be said they were so busy about the king's business, they had no time for the king. And so that's what he warns them. And he says, in fact, if they don't return to that position, he will remove their lampstand. That is, remove their witness.

How many of you ever attended a church in Ephesus? It's gone, right? Well, we'll badger that one.

But anyway, okay. So the apostolic warnings. There's an example that we can springboard from Jude in terms of this was spoken of before by the Apostle Lord Jesus Christ.

And he told them that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk after their own ungodly lusts. Same phrase that Peter uses in his second letter, chapter 3.

In fact, we've looked at it before, but this is probably the... Worth taking another quick look at it.

2 Peter chapter 3, the second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of our Lord and Savior.

See, in other words, this is a common theme. Something not unique to Jude. Paul mentioned it in Acts 20. Peter here is talking about it.

Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming?

In other words, they deny the second coming of Jesus Christ. But another interesting link. Verse four is very provocative. For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

In other words, they're also mocking at this concept of creationism. They're espousing uniformitarianism. Darwin didn't invent that idea. It was mentioned here by Peter, verse 4.

You say, well, gee, that seems like a non sequitur. What does the second coming have to do with creation? You see, they're linked. They both are based on the premise that there's a God who intervenes in history.

The fact that God created us, he overtly, specifically acted with a purpose. And that purpose will be climaxed in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

The concept of the creation and the concept of the second coming of Christ are here linked. A disbelief in one leads to a disbelief in the other.

So you may wonder, gee, all this business. I don't know if you happen to get into this evolution, creation thing. You say, well, gee, that's history. It's Genesis. Who cares?

Well, partly, it's very, very basic. Because you either accept what God says or you don't.

And the same premise that underlies both presentations, that there is a God who does what he says he's going to do, who did for a purpose, cares about the result, and involves himself in the history of men.

So it's interesting that verse 4, it's not obvious that those things fall until you think it through.

The word for scoffers, by the way, is unique to both Peter and Jude. Scoffers and mockers are the same. It's nowhere else in the Bible, by the way.

Getting back to Jude, verse 19 says, These are they who separate themselves, if that's what your King James says.

More precisely, they are those who make separations. Luther translated this, those who make factions. Those who bring about divisions because of borderlines or limits.

Now, when you get that far, you also can easily assume that what they're talking about are ecclesiastical doctrines.

That actually is not what it's talking about. The limits they're talking about, the limits of sin, the sense of the law. And that's what's actually underlining that phrase.

It's not obvious from the way it's translated in the English.

The neglect of God's word will lead to heterodox teaching, and it ultimately will lead to, hopefully, a reformation.

That was the context of Luther's life and since.

Now, there is a reverse of that idea, the positive side of it. In 1 Corinthians 11, verse 19, you might want to mark.

1 Corinthians, you always used to wonder, why is it that in general you find a minister who's right on in everything but one thing?

Everyone knows that? I don't know if you've run into ministers that seem to read right on, but there's always something that you don't quite, you may stumble on.

Well, 1 Corinthians 11, 19 deals with that because Paul tells us there must be also heresies among you. Oh, really? Why must there be heresies among you?

That they who

Here is the cleaned and formatted sermon transcription:

Ude or just unique to sometime. It's intrinsic in the whole business of building the body. Now, before we leave this, Jude has an example. If you're in your epistle of Jude, turn back one page. There's an example or an illustration of what Jude's talking about in 3 John. That's the book just preceding Jude. The illustration occurs in verses 9 and 10.

John is writing here, and he says, "I wrote unto the church, but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not." Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds, which he doeth, pratting against us with malicious words, and not content with that. Neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and he forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

This guy's a bad apple. But he's active in the church. So he had a following. He had a presentability, apparently. Caused division in the church, refused to receive John, and he loved his own preeminence. That's why, you know, pride and this preeminence is always a symptom of something to give us caution.

Christ is to have preeminence. In Philippians 2:3, we're each to esteem the other better than themselves and so forth. So here we have an apostate who spoke evil of John, used malicious words, refused to receive the brethren, forbid others who would have done so, and even casting them out of the church.

And John goes on to summarize this in verse 11: "Beloved, follow not that which is evil. But that which is good, he that doeth good is of God, and he that doeth evil hath not seen God."

Now, in verse 19, we're down to verse 19 in Jude, it also says the word sensual. Now, all of us, I'm sure, if we took a written quiz, believe we know what the word sensual means. If I offer you a quiz to have you write that, you'd probably discover, if we were very strict, that your presumption about what he's talking about here happens to be incorrect.

He's not talking sensual like lasciviousness. That's not the concept here. The word sensual here in the Greek is psychos. It means soulish, soulish. That is in the realm of the senses, but not in the senses in the sense that it's lascivious or extreme. It's just what they are here is they are soulish, okay?

Now, this gets to 1 Thessalonians 5:23. There's a concept that emerges here from Paul that's very important to us. And this is one of the places it shows up. Paul says, "In the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

We use those words so glibly. Well, body we think we understand, but soul and spirit. Often in the scripture, it speaks of soul in one case or spirit in another, meaning man. How many souls were saved? You know, that kind of thing.

The words are sometimes used generically. It's a synecdoche if you're in rhetoric, where you take the general for the specific of the specific of the general. But the soul and the spirit are not the same thing. How do I know?

The word of God is quick and powerful, dividing us under what? Right.

So the point is, this is one of those places where we have an insight that there are at least three parts to that which is you. Body, you understand that. Soul, we sort of understand that. The study of the soul would be psychology, same Greek root.

The study of the spirit would be pneumatology. Pneuma is the Greek for the spirit. The word for wind, ruach in the Hebrew, pneuma in the Greek, is the same word that we use for the word for spirit.

So there are three elements here, at least. And it's interesting. What's the great commandment? Remember, they asked the Lord what was the great commandment, and he quoted the Shema. Deuteronomy 6: verse 5. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 6.

I got too many blank stares on that one. Okay. Pick it up. Yeah, pick up verse 4 to take it right. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And then verse 5. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might.

Right? What's the difference between your heart and your soul? Can't be the same thing. They're different here, huh?

And with all your might, right? Now, I forgot to write down where the Lord quotes this. Anyone know where he quotes the great commandment?

Matthew 22:37. Is that right? Mark 12:30. That sounds more comfortable somehow. Mark 12.

I forgot to dig this out. I should have. I'm sorry. Mark 12:30. And verse 29.

And Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord."

How often we skip that part, right?

But that's the Shema, okay? If you go in any Jewish home, what's on the doorpost? Messusa, right? And what's in it? A piece of scripture, but typically it's the Shema.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. He adds something. That's not the way it is in the Torah. He added a phrase. Where do you get that authority?

Good, good.

It turns out that my wife got interested in this about five years ago because she wanted to know how to keep the first commandment, the greatest commandment. And she noticed there was, first of all, what is the heart, what is the soul, what is the mind? We use those words all the time.

And so she embarked on a word study that's taken about five years. Every word that's translated in any of those things, in Hebrew and in Greek, she tracked down every place it appears and turns out the mind.

See, you and I, when we think mind, we think brain, don't we? That's what the Scripture uses.

Scripture has a different idea when it says mind. It means something else.

And what is the heart? The organ that pumps the blood? No, course not. It's idiomatically used.

But what is the heart? What is the mind? What is the soul? Your assignment.

It turns out that you are the temple of God. Right?

You've all heard that expression from Paul?

It turns out the structure that's implied by the Old and New Testament is the same structure that's in the temple. And there are some differences in the temple between the temple and the tabernacle.

The body, soul, and spirit is a tabernacle model. There's something else added in the temple. And when you go into all that, and it takes a long time, so I won't take it tonight, but I'm just teasing enough so you do some digging.

You discover that there's something in the temple that's not the tabernacle and relates to the mind. And what is the mind?

It turns out every detail of Solomon's temple has a spiritual relationship, just like the tabernacle doesn't. The study of the tabernacle is the obvious one. We've done that several times.

Go back to Exodus, study the tabernacle. Every detail of the tabernacle obviously refers to Jesus Christ.

The temple is an expansion of that. But also there's an intrinsic architecture that's in our very makeup that underlies all of this. It's a hypothesis for you to test in the scripture.

And it would be grossly unfair of me to deny you the discovery of those things. So I will leave that with you.

But getting back here, when we say sensual here in Jude, we're saying soulish, not sensual in a sense that's lascivious. Sometimes the word sensual means that. Sensual in the bad sense.

Here, the word sensual is meant in a neutral sense, but that makes it even more telling.

Body, soul, and spirit. We look at 1 Thessalonians 5. What is the spirit? I'm going to suggest just as a working concept for tonight. It's worth much more study.

The difference between the soul and the spirit. The soul is one's self-consciousness. Personality, emotions, will, those are all in the domain of the soul, at least as we would loosely use the term. That's the field of psychology, if you will.

What's the spirit? The God consciousness?

That's the highest, that's the element of communication with him and so forth. So that is very clumsy and imperfect and warrants much attention, but I'll leave you with that for now.

Well, if that's the case, what's the best English equivalent for the soulish man? We find it in 1 Corinthians 2:14.

In fact, let's repeat verse 13 so you get the context. 1 Corinthians 2:13. We read it a little while ago.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Spirit teacheth. Comparing spiritual things with spiritual. That's the realm in which the Holy Spirit illuminates.

The spiritual things. But Paul goes on to explain to the Corinthians why that requires supernatural agency. Because, verse 14, the natural man, the soulish man, okay, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Okay? It wouldn't be a Chuck Missler Bible study if I stayed on the subject. How many of you here have ever seen a hologram?

Okay, this is wonderful. See, I have a wonderful analogy, but it only works to physicists or people who are in optics. Because to use my analogy, you have to understand what a hologram is.

Analogies fail if I have to explain what it is before I do the comparison. But you all know what photographs are. Photographs are images that are in the space-time domain. It's a plane that if you have a photograph, you have a spatial representation of something that you saw.

A hologram is a Fourier transform of a spatial image. It actually is a three-dimensional image. If I had one here and held it up, a piece of film, in this light, it would look like a darkroom mistake. It would be fogged. I'm not using those different kinds. I'm not looking at Master Charger right now.

But a basic hologram, what it really does, it carries just the interference patterns. But if you saw, it looks gray.

Now, the way I do a hologram is I take an object, I illuminate it with a laser light. Laser is light that is very organized. It's very coherent, both in terms of parallelism and in terms of time.

And so I illuminate the object with a laser and I let the light also hit the film. And what the film actually records is the interference of the light waves from the laser directly and for the reflections of the object. And it has just the interference bands.

If I look at in natural light, it looks fogged. If, however, I illuminate this plane, this film, with a laser that created the picture in the first place, you get an image.

What makes it dramatic and provocative is the image is three-dimensional. If you move your eye, you can look around things. For example, I have a tie on. If I held my Bible up like this and you took a picture with a camera, in the picture you could not tell what kind of tie I'm wearing because there are not Bibles in the way, right?

If you took a hologram, you had a hologram of that, you could move your eye over this way and look around the Bible and see my tie.

He says that's what they mean by a three-dimensional image. As you move, it actually has, it appears to have substance.

Now, it turns out if you take the mathematical properties of lasers, they have an analogy to light. The first direct quote of God in the Bible is, let light be, and you can, I'll spare you all that tonight to keep as little.

But what's interesting is, is that if you take this book and hold it up in natural light, It looks like a collection of old legends and stories and quaint ideas. It has no form or comeliness that we should desire it.

If I hold up a hologram without illuminate by the laser, it looks meaningless in natural light. It has no form nor comeliness that we would desire it.

If I illuminate the hologram with the laser that created in the first place, you get an image. If I take this book, and have it illuminated by the light that wrote it in the first place, you get an image, the image of Jesus Christ.

Now, something interesting about a hologram, if I had one here, and I cut out one square inch of it, if I did that to a photograph, you've lost one square inch of the photograph. If I do it to a hologram, you haven't lost anything. Because whatever that square inch was covering, you can look around.

You have a hologram here that wants to say 10 by 10 inches and a square inch cut out of it. You can look around that hole.

What you lose is resolution because the whole image is not quite as precise. If I take this scripture, the 66 books, and I reach in there and I tear out a chapter or two, what have you lost? You haven't lost the perception of Jesus Christ.

His destiny, his mission, the benefits. There is no chapter in the scripture on any doctrine. There isn't a chapter on baptism. There isn't a chapter on salvation. Everything's diffused.

Okay?

That's exactly what a communication engineer does if he anticipates sending a message down a channel in anticipation of hostile jamming.

You diffuse the message over the available bandwidth. That's exactly what God has done. He explains that in Isaiah chapter 28.

I established my truth line upon line, precept on precept, here a little, there a little. It's distributed the same way that you would do with a hologram. It has certain properties.

The properties, if I bored you with a physics lecture on the properties of a hologram, you discover they all have a spiritual analogy with the scripture.

The natural man. cannot perceive the truth of God without the agency of the Holy Spirit, which put this together in the first place.

So whenever you get into a debate, intellectually, I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, the reason you should do it, but don't expect that to convert somebody.

Because there's only one way that someone gets converted to a belief in Jesus Christ. And that's by the agency of the Holy Spirit.

That's the way you came, whether you know it or not.

That's the only way anyone else will.

So that doesn't mean there's not an appropriate place for what we call apologetics. It's the classic name for giving a reason of the hope that is within you.

But you need to understand that what really you're hoping to do is something only the Holy Spirit can do.

And that's to give him the insights, the perception. Don't ignore the fact the Holy Spirit might be using that discussion for some effect.

It typically is not his immediate.

Gee, I didn't realize that and roll up the sleeves and, you know, life isn't that simple.

But recognize that what we're dealing with here is a supernatural situation.

That's why, getting back to Jude, the word sensual here means soulish. Okay?

There are places Jude has talked about lusts and lasciviousness and so forth. This isn't one of them.

He's talking here. Just a soulish man. These guys are soulish.

Having not the spirit, it says in verse 19. See, that's the distinction. It isn't that they're, you know, doing pornographic magazines. It's not that kind of sensual.

I mean, do something wrong. It's just that they're sensual. They're natural. They're limited. They have not the spirit.

Now that raises the question, is an apostate saved?

Told you right there.

They have not the spirit. Can you be saved without the spirit? No.

Believers are spiritual if they're obedient to the word of God. They may be carnal, they may stumble, they may be babes.

1 Corinthians 2:15, 1 Corinthians 3:1, there's a number of verses there.

But believers in the scripture are never said to be sensual or natural men. They're believers, they're born in the spirit.

Uncomfortable though it may seem, philosophically, the world is in two camps. Two camps, there's no gray area. Either born of the spirit or they're not.

And whoever you have, no matter how noble, how giving of themselves, however high a plane they might be on in a natural sense, that doesn't mean they're saved. They're only saved by one thing, Jesus Christ.

And the only way they come to an awareness of Jesus Christ is through the Holy Spirit.

There's no passage of the scripture which could be made the basis for the concept that a natural man ever was anything else but an unsaved man.

Unsaved are natural men dominated by the senses or the self. They're dominated by the psyche. They receive not the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness.

And that's what 1 Corinthians, the whole second chapter, is all about.

And if you would like to explore that more, take it up on yourselves to read 1 Corinthians 2 in depth.

What is the foolishness of God? God goes out of His way in His whole plan of salvation. From beginning to end, God has gone out of His way to do things in a way that you and I would never think of going to save eight people by a barge.

You know, you can go through the scripture and just take item by item by item.

And God goes out of his way to do things in a way that's going to seem bizarre. Whether it's the jawbone of an ass one place or name in the Syrian bathing in the muddy river or another.

The whole scenario is strange.

What Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 2 is the whole idea that the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

And the ultimate foolishness, the most ridiculous idea to man, that the entire universe is redeemed by the death of a carpenter's son on a Roman cross in Judea a little over 1900 years ago, that that's going to be the pivotal fulcrum of all the history of the universe, before and after.

That's foolish. That's exactly what the Bible says.

The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.

But unto us

Here is the cleaned-up version of the sermon transcription:

To this group. If that's foreign to you, time to do some homework, gang. See me after the hour. And, of course, apostate knows none of those things.

Okay, we made it, believe it or not, to verse 20. So now we shift to another four verses, and we're going to be talking here about, well, the first couple of verses about building, praying, keeping, and looking. Four verbs, or participles, or whatever.

Verse 20. 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.

Gee, doesn't that sound easy?

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves. That's a little uncomfortable. I thought we just sort of sat back and let him do the whole job. Well, he does do the whole job. That is in terms of your salvation. What's our side of that? We bear the responsibility for our self-development.

Building here is a present participle which implies it's a lifelong task. It's never done. You're not, you know, you're not through.

Now, when we talk about building, we could from here go to a lot of different places. We could talk about building the church from Matthew 16, on the foundation of apostles, prophets, and so forth, Christ the chief cornerstone.

But here we're talking really we as living stones build a part of a spiritual house, 1 Peter 2.5, for those of you who want to trace that down.

Now there are actually nine steps. Those of you that have come from the Bill Gothard kind of style of teaching, you want numbers and outlines and things. 2 Peter 1 will give you something you can make charts out of when you get home, should you choose to. 2 Peter 1, 5 through 7.

There's nine steps here, we'll see.

2 Peter 1, verse 5. Beside all this, giving all diligence, that's step one, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

So there's your steps.

Now, that sounds good. How do we do this? How do you build up your faith? Faith cometh by what?

Hearing. Okay, Romans 10.17. In hearing by the Word of God.

The way you build up your faith is to get in the Word.

How do you cleanse from sin? Well, we've had that in Ephesians 5.26, John 17.17.

Now you're clean through the Word, which, you know, I've spoken unto you.

Jude, after assigning us the responsibility, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith.

Then he talks about praying in the Holy Spirit. What are our references there? Ephesians 6.18 and Romans 8.26 and 27. I don't think I have to amplify that for this audience.

Praying in the Spirit. Here's your admonition to do so.

Verse 21. Keep yourselves in the love of God.

Well, that's a little strange. Keeping yourselves. We are kept for Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 1.5 tells us. And the same word there is the same kept as the angels that are kept in darkness, the angels that sin.

Remember in Jude 6, we went through all that.

But the thing that you can trip here is, this does not say keep on loving God. What does it say? We didn't care if it's important, otherwise we'll misunderstand what he's saying here.

Keep yourselves in the love of God. It's not our love of God that's in view here. It's his love for us.

But you say, well, gee, if he loves him, then what's my responsibility? I'll suggest that we review, when you get home, Luke 15 and the story of the prodigal son.

Remember the prodigal son? He removed himself from a place where he could enjoy the benefits of his father's love. Right?

That is to the father's love to the fullest. He did not keep himself in his father's love. Did the father stop loving the prodigal son? No.

But did the prodigal son organize his life so as to take the maximum fullest extent of his father's love? No.

See, so what I'm speaking by analogy here, that's really what he's saying.

Keep yourselves in the love of God. Now, how do you do that?

Listen to his call for obedience. John 15.10 and 1 John 3.23 will be your marching orders for those of you that would like to know how to keep yourselves in the love of God.

John 15, 10 and 1 John 3, 23.

And your first assignment will be to go dig it out.

So I'll move on.

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

The word looking for, the word in the Greek, is translated four times waiting for and four times looking for.

An example of the waiting for is in Luke 12, 36, and the looking for in Titus 2, 13. But it's looking for in the sense of awaiting, expecting, anticipating.

And most of us, I think, in this group that are prophecy-oriented in the first place are, I think, sensitive to that that is what the Lord would have us do.

And this progressive concept here, faith, love, and blessed hope, which is the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son, if you want to partition that and make something of that.

But we're going to move on to verse 22, because I am determined to finish Jude tonight.

Okay, now verse 22.

He goes on, he says, 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, what he's doing here, the structure of this is that he has exhortations here for us to grow, right?

By building yourselves up in the faith, praying in the spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God and looking for.

What's our response to all of that? And that's our sacred duty, that is to be a witness.

And he's here giving you advice about having a witness of some have compassion. Now, there are some translational differences here.

Some manuscripts have a phrase in here and some refute while they dispute.

That's a third category.

Here, if you look at your translation of the King James, you'll probably find two groups.

Some manuscripts have a third group.

But the main idea is that on some, he says, have compassionate understanding. Some people have sincere doubts.

It's our mission to deal with those doubts.

The word mercy in verse 21 is first mentioned in the New Testament.

Blessed are the merciful, Matthew 5, 7.

It's last mentioned is here in Jude.

The first mention of the word doubt is where Peter is sinking in the sea. The Lord told him to come with him, and when he looked down, it's that doubt in Matthew 14 where the word doubt first shows up.

He's saying here, have compassion on such.

And what I have prepared here, some remarks, for those of you in your Bibles, you may have a phrase, and some refute while they dispute.

I think we've dealt with that.

And others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

Now, save with fear is a strange phrase. What's sort of carried on that is, on the one hand, recognize the unsaved person you're dealing with is in peril.

And your diligence and effectiveness at what God may have called you to do at that opportunity may save them from an eternity of punishment.

That's one idea.

It's obviously very clearly here.

This eternal fire is first mentioned in Matthew 3. It's clearly the unquenchable fire.

The last mention is Revelation 21.8.

And the same idea is all through the scripture.

Lot and his daughters, we went through all of that.

It was in Genesis 19. They were extracted from the fire.

But incidentally, always by intercession. Even Lot was saved by the intercession of Abraham.

And why do I emphasize that? Because all of us have problems in the family.

A son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a father, a grandfather. How do you witness in the family?

Tough.

What can you do best?

Intercede.

That is, pray.

God is in the miracle business.

And spouting off a favorite Bible verse or arguing some doctrinal point is not likely to yield a commitment to the Lord.

I'm not saying it won't because the Lord can use many things.

But the point is, one of the most agonizing things I hear, if you have an unsaved person in the family, what can you do?

It's my own personal experience that the Lord will usually respond to a prayer and have somebody else reach that person, some event.

Sometimes you have the opportunity.

Sometimes there will be some other factor that will bring it to the moment of decision.

But it's interesting.

I don't think anyone is ever saved without intercession.

I have to tell you one story.

I'm not sure I can prove this clearly, but from this passage and others that I just mentioned, I've had this view that the only way you can get saved is to be prayed for.

I had an associate in a business venture that was saved. Beautiful, beautiful Christian guy.

But he challenged me on that view because I mentioned it once at one of our home Bible studies and he felt that that sounds good, but he didn't think it was true because in his own background, he highlighted to me that he came from an entirely unsaved family background.

Went in the Navy and...

for a while.

But the point is he could very rhetorically eliminate anyone in his family background having prayed for him as a kid.

In his service career there was no spiritual dimension to that at all.

And the circumstance under which he finally did meet the Lord and come to an acknowledgement of his sin and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation was a situation that was very local to him.

And he used to argue with me on that and I had no rebuttal.

I didn't know his life.

But he got married to a beautiful gal, but found out, and he shared with us years later, that the girl that he married had a thing she did as a small child.

When she was a little girl, her mother taught her that she didn't know who her husband was, but God did.

And so she used to pray almost every day for her husband.

Is that wild?

And when Chris heard that, he just came to tears because he shared that with me.

It blew him away that he'd been prayed for for 20 years or some period of time.

It was a long period of time.

Even though she didn't know who he was, they figured, Lord knows when I'm going to meet him.

So that's kind of interesting, guys and gals.

An idea, because God knows who you're going to marry, and you can pray.

She used to say, I don't know where my husband is, but God, you know where he is, and you know where his needs, and she used to just go through that, like you girls do with a pen pal or something.

She had a prayer partner, so to speak, somebody that she dealt with,

So I thought that was kind of neat.

Okay, there's another tone in verse 23 that also probably should be mentioned.

It says, and others say with fear.

There is a caution involved. You can get into a ministry situation where you're exposed to, and you need to be aware of that.

There are circumstances that you can get into that can endanger yourself too. I mean spiritually.

So that caution is here.

But save others with fear, pulling them out of the fire,

And then hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Strange phrase.

We're dealing here with English from very difficult Greek.

But what this seems to point to is the spotted garment in Joshua 7. Remember Achan?

And the Babylonian garment,

And it's the desires of this world spotting a life.

We need to have not just a distrust, but a hatred of those things that can interfere with the walk.

Incidentally, if you are a soul winner, it's amazing how many verses of support come out of not the New Testament, but the book of Proverbs.

This whole idea that we are at risk, that we should mingle zeal with godly fear is mentioned in Proverbs 1.7, Proverbs 9.10, Proverbs 14.16, and also Proverbs 4.14 and 15.

We also should not be tempted to tone down the gospel.

How easy it is sometimes to be a little less offensive.

I'm guilty that often. I shouldn't be in certain contexts.

And Proverbs 19.27 and 28.4 warn us against doing that.

Those are Jude's final admonitions.

And then he comes to the last two verses of his epistle, which are famous.

They're called by some a doxology.

They're called by some the grand benediction.

The two verses of Jude are,

They really are fabulous.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling.

Gee, what comfort there is in that word.

He that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

He goes on.

Psalm 37. Much of this has all been penned before in the Old Testament.

And it's kind of fun to find those ideas in the Old Testament.

But if you haven't discovered Psalm 37, you want to, you know, obviously learn the whole Psalm.

It's great.

You obviously know verses 4 and 5. I'm sure most of you memorize those.

Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee desires of thine heart.

Commit thy way unto the Lord, and trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.

What a comfort that is.

So if you haven't memorized verses 4 and 5, you ought to take a look at that.

And verse 7 is a summary of the book of Hebrews.

Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him.

Verse 11, I think a friend of yours quoted in one of his sermons.

But the meek shall inherit the earth.

That idea.

The Lord wrote that down here long before he addressed it on the mountain.

The verse we're going for is verse 24.

23 and 24, if you like.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.

Verse 24 is an important verse. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.

And I kind of like that because it highlights the fact that it doesn't mean you won't trip from time to time.

It doesn't mean in our own obstinacy that God won't let us get our faces dirty by falling flat on them now and then.

But what really says is He won't let us utterly be cast down.

This is one of those places where you talk about, you can just get into a whole thing about the walk.

Proverbs 3, 19-23 talks about the Christian walk. There's over 30 places that I listed from the New Testament.

The good news, I'll spare you all that. I'll let you use your own resources.

That's one approach.

Turn to Hebrews 12. Paul didn't seem to be concerned about a Christian walk. He always said run.

So he's my kind of guy.

See, he says in Hebrews 12, 1, Wherefore, seeing we are also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and sat down at the right hand of God.

He's talking about running.

And it's interesting.

We find that in Proverbs 4, 10, and 12.

But the interesting place that perhaps puts us in a better perspective yet is Isaiah 40. You've all seen Isaiah 40.

That's the second Isaiah to the unlearned.

And, of course, I'm being facetious.

No one who's read John 12 carefully should have any doubt that there's one Isaiah, not two, despite many Presbyterian commentaries to the contrary.

Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31.

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Sounds great.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.

Terrific comfort.

You find that quoted a great deal.

Here is the cleaned-up sermon transcription with proper punctuation, capitalization, and natural paragraphs:

But I want to highlight something to you. It's in climactic order. It sounds backwards, doesn't it? See, they'll run and not be weary. That's fine. But then what happens? They shall also walk and not faint. You see, that's the ultimate test. Finishing it all the way out.

They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31. Okay, let's get back to Judah. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless. To present you faultless. Greek, amalos. Without blemish.

Okay, what does that mean? Ephesians 5 deals with this very subject. Ephesians 5: Verse 25 speaks that Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. Verse 26, that he might sanctify it and cleanse it by the washing of the water by the word. Verse 27, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Because the church did such a good job? No. Uh-uh. But that he can impute to it his righteousness. That's his goal. That's his mission. 1 John 3:2 says, gives us a very important physics insight. 1 John 3:2, Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.

But we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. You've just entered hyperspace. His body, is not limited to three dimensions like we think of. We have four walls, a ceiling, and a floor, and for us to leave this room without passing through the floor or ceiling of four walls to us is impossible because we are limited to three-dimensional thinking.

And I usually build this up. If you're mathematically inclined, read the Flatland papers, that sort of thing. They're very provocative. Now, if you have a fourth dimension, it can be time, it can be something else. But if you have a higher dimension, then there are accesses in and out of this three-dimensional space that do not pass through one of the bounding planes.

And we use this in engineering all the time. You deal with multi-dimensional spaces. Because many mathematical engineering problems lend themselves to analysis by those tools. Now, God is obviously not limited to three dimensions. The body of Jesus Christ, his resurrection body, was not limited to three dimensions. It was tangible. Handle me and see, a spirit has not flesh and bone, he said.

Remember? So he's tangible, don't get me wrong. But he's not limited to three dimensions. Here, John tells us that we shall be like him. Why? How does he know? Because we shall see him as he is. We can only fully apprehend him if you're in the same dimensionality.

And this makes more sense if we build up from one dimension to two-dimensional beings. We did that once in one of the studies. But incidentally, there's a Hilbert space which has an infinite number of dimensions. That to me sounds like God would be, right? It wouldn't be limited to three or n. It would be infinite.

So Hilbert space, those of you that have mathematical background can chase that down with a spiritual insight that Hilbert probably never guessed. Okay. Now, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. What's he like? 1 Peter 1:19 says, But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

He's the Passover lamb, right? And what is the requirement of the Passover lamb? Not spotted. That's in a tactical, mechanical sense, but it speaks of a spiritual truth much broader. He... being the Passover, was without blemish, without spot.

1 John says, We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Therefore, we must be of the same attributes. Not by anything we do, but by his completed work to impute those to us. Without blemish, Jude says. I do believe that's exactly what Jude had in mind.

He's present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Well, boy, you can study joy in the scripture. That's kind of fun. You see in 1 Peter 1:6, the joy is in the contemplation of our inheritance. That gives us joy.

Another several passages, anticipation of Christ's return gives us joy. 1 Peter 1:8, Revelation 19, and so forth. Verse 25, Jude continues. To the only wise God, our Savior. It seems like a strange tying together, but it's in 1 Timothy 2:5 you have the same thing.

And by the way, believing in God is not enough. Believing in God is insufficient. The devils also believe in trouble. Just because you believe in God, that's great. Where do you go from there? The cross is essential. John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me. 4:12, there's others. No other name given among men under heaven, whereby we must be saved. Now we have a few last words. Jude says, Now unto him who 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 forever. Glib phrases. We can prattle that very easily. What do they mean? What do they really mean? Glory, majesty, dominion, and power. There's only two places in the New Testament, here and in Hebrews 1:3, that all four of these things are wrapped up in one verse.

What is glory? Well, most of us, I think, would define glory as the defined radiance that shines. We see it visually. Luke 2:9 mentions that. We see the glory blinding in Acts 22:11. The glory is so bright that it is protected by smoke in Revelation 15:8.

So we think of the Shekinah, either in its unleashed form or if it's sheathed, if you will, in smoke. Glory, we can sort of relate to that word. What does majesty mean? We use that word. What do you mean by majesty?

This occurs only here and in Hebrews 1:3 and in Hebrews 8:1, three places. Majesty. One suggestion is that it's the incomparable, ineffable, regal presence of the ruler of the universe. Incomparable. That's a glib word, but it means there's nothing else to compare it with, so how do you talk about it? Ineffable. Impossible to describe.

But it's his presence. It also suggests the omniscience of God upon his throne. Knows everything. His majesty. Next word is dominion. That word probably a little easier to deal with. Dominion, in this case, it's the infinite extent of his rule throughout the universe.

We find in Hebrews 1:3, upholdeth all things by the word of his power. Remember Colossians 2, we went through all that then. His kingdom rules over all, Psalm 103 says. It suggests omnipresence of his majesty throughout the universe.

Then we got this last word, power. Irresistible divine authority and might. Omnipotence. So we've got omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience in the last three of the four, I think. That's one suggestion.

One thing you do get the feeling is that Jude has run out of words. He has come across what we have to call the poverty of our language. David ran into the same problem. 1 Chronicles 29: In David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29, and we'll pick it up about... Verse 10, I guess.

Wherefore David blessed the Lord before all the congregation, and David said, Blessed be thou, Lord God of Israel, our Father, forever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine.

Thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all. And in thy hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great and to give strength unto all.

By the way, when you pray, I don't know how many of you use the Acts, A-C-T-S. Some people have suggested it as, well, you know, adoration, right? What's the first word adoration? Confession, right? Thanksgiving and then supplication. But when you pray, it's worthwhile taking some time and just adore them and try in your own words to communicate what Jude here is summarized so succinctly in these two.

So here's Jude. He's comprehended his glorious brightness. He's comprehended the unutterable regal being of the one on the throne. He has contemplated the limitless extent of his rule and the unlimited strength of his might. So he's all through. He can write no more. He says both now and forever.

You know it's business of time as you can tell because a lot of reasons that's that's one of my preoccupations whole concept of time both in the dimensionality what have you and I think I mentioned this to you the other day, but I've been Messing out a telescope interview how many of you are amateur astronomers, but you look through a telescope and you can see not only Millions of stars in our galaxy, but you can see other galaxies and you start measuring distances you deal in light years.

The nearest star is four and a half light years away, and the next one, 45, and I forget. They quickly get very, very large, so that means that the light that came from that star that you're looking through on the telescope started before we were born, started before our nation was founded.

And you can get stars that are a long way away. And that light started a long time ago. And yet before that star's light started on its way here, the Lord knew you before the foundations of the world was laid, he tells us in Ephesians. That's when you were saved. That's when he foreordained you. That's when he had you on his mind by name.

That's when he knew how many hairs of your head there are before the foundation of the world was laid. That's Now he exists forever, infinitely the other direction. You and I have no grasp on the past. You and I have no capacity to even relate to the future. The only part of that time domain that we relate to is the word now. Right now.

We'll stand shortly, have a closing prayer, you'll be driving home. And that's now. Your eternity is in your hands in terms of how you react now. If you're in the Lord's hands, your eternity is secure. If you haven't committed yourself to the Lord, he won't violate your sovereignty.

He has given you, out of the entire domain of history, past or history-future, he's given you a segment that's entirely in your control, the now. And the reason he puts you in a time domain is that's the only way. He can put you in a situation to make a decision. That's really what it's all about.

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 forever.

And the only way we can end this is with an amen. Let's stand for a closing word. If there's anyone here who doesn't have certainty that he is in the Lord's hands, that he is saved, that he is numbered by the Lord among his own, then that can be remedied tonight while we bar our heads.

By simply committing your way into his hands. He'll take care of the whole job. He has made all the arrangements and he'll do the whole job. But for a commitment, the now in our life right now. Father, we just praise you for this time together. We thank you, Father, for this epistle of Jude.

We thank you for those insights that you have provided here for our learning. And Father, we would just ask that you would increase in us an appetite for your word, that we might grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior.

We'd ask you too, Father, that there are anyone here that isn't committed to the Lord Jesus Christ, that you would give him no peace until he indeed rests in him. We just thank you, Father, for this time. We thank you, Father, for your spirit to enlighten us.

We would ask you just to put a hedge about us as we go forth, help us to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.