Jude and the Love Feast

The speaker discusses their experience with movie filming in their area and mentions the excitement and buzz it created. They also talk about the book of Jude and how the author addresses controversial topics and false leaders within the church. The speaker emphasizes the importance of staying true to Christian values and not using God's grace as an excuse for immoral behavior. They criticize pastors who seek attention and popularity and highlight the need for sincere prayer and repentance. The speaker then moves on to the topic of rituals and rules within the church, specifically referencing fellowship meals and how some individuals misuse these gatherings for their own gain. They conclude by stating that such behavior is a stain on the faith. Yeah, so we had the movie folks were here Thursday, they were here until like 2.45am and it was just, it was kind of neat being in here, you know, cause every room was used, there was 80 something people in here, maybe 90, just everybody everywhere and they were all dressed up for their parts and all made up for their parts, you know, and then they had the road blocked out front and, you know, like about a block each way and there was all kinds of, it was just real exciting, they even had a drone with a camera on the drone and that was, it was pretty cool stuff and so they said they were going to put our name in the credits. I'm hoping we get a lucky swipe past our building maybe even with a camera, you know, who knows, I mean they're filming out there right in front of us, they even had a bunch of dancers here, they asked me to dance, you know, but I told them, I gave that up, you know, I gave that up, when I, you know, showgirl, that was a bad place to work, I gave that up, yeah, the paper cuts from the dollars, yeah, in fact it was bad, so I told them I'd give up that, but they did, they had like 25 or 30 dancers here and it was pretty, it was really neat when it showed, we came in a couple of times, you know, and just looked around the making of the movie, you know, all that goes into it and that was just one day, that was just one day too and a long day, but yeah, so we are still in the book of Jude and Jude is still picking fights and stirring the pot, I mean just one controversial subject after another, he jammed into one chapter, I can't believe I, we've been in that five or six weeks now and he just keeps bringing controversy up and so we've got some more of that today, but we had to kind of end early last time and we ended with this picture and said, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven and I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land, boy, that's a prayer we just really need to be saying a lot here in this land, we have a real force of evil that's working on us, before we go into the study anymore, we always do like to pray, so let's do that, dear Jesus, we come to you again, Lord, humbled by your love for us and we know that our sinful natures are working hard in us and we give in a lot and we sin against you and we know that it's hard for you to teach us when there's sin on our account and we ask that you would please forgive us of that, restore fellowship with us, Lord, we ask this in your holy name, amen. So Jude, when we kind of got cut off last week, he started talking about church leaders that were causing problems, hypocrites, false leaders, pastors that like to water down the word and it's kind of funny, they like to water down the word but then they like to make up new things too, things they have more control over, they were saying basically the common phrase is a license to sin, saying that since God's grace covers all our sin and it does, that these pastors were teaching, well, what the heck, you know, God's grace covers it so let's just have some fun, right? And so Jude's kind of dealing with how that's a horrible way to think of it, Jude 1, 4, we're going to jump back where he made that comment, he said, I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. And that word immoral is pornea, which is specifically sexual immorality. So they forgot though that as a Christian, once you become a Christian, you stay a Christian, you know, once you're born again, you can't be unborn, right, I mean, even in this life, but you can be disciplined and they forget that when you try to take advantage of God's grace, it never works for you, you're going to have a rotten life, you're going to have a lot of trouble and if you realize you're being disciplined, then you can say, okay, I need to change. You know, James even said, you know, don't listen to the word or read the word or listen to a sermon or a Bible study, hear something that contradicts how you're living and then just turn around and walk away and don't change yourself. He said, that's, he said, that's crazy to just God to point out what you need to work on and not do it. But these pastors were more about attention, they were more about approval, they wanted respect, they wanted popularity, they wanted to be honored and they did everything they could for that to happen. Luke 20, 46, Jesus tells us a little bit about this. He said, beware of these teachers of religious law, for they like to parade around in flowing robes and love to receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplaces and how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and at the head of tables at banquets. And it's great. I think we have a picture of some of the way they dress. You guys might have seen that, seen this picture before. You know, it says, you know, yeah, mawage. Yeah. So anyway, but they still dress like that. I mean, there's still these bishops and stuff that still dress like that. And I'm thinking, man, how do you read that verse and then and then dress like that and do the things that they do? And and also, you know, we've got a couple of denominations that use the term father, you know, you know, like instead of pastor and scripture specifically says not to have anyone call you that. And I'm thinking, man, you know, do they even read Luke 20, 47? He says yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public. You ever go to a place? I know my brother one time did a big, long prayer over a meal. And when he got done and said, amen, he never even asked God to bless the food. You know, everything else got blessed with the food. It says because of this, they will be severely punished. Money-grubbing heretics, he's talking about. We have quite a few of them on TV. These people like this next guy. Remember my church in your will. He says Kenneth Copeland and Joel Osteen, you've got all those guys. I mean, they don't even want your money now when you're alive. They want your money when you're dead, too, you know. And but there's plenty of that to go around. Now, Jude brings up a new subject now that he's kind of smacked around the pastor that's loose that's loose with his doctrine. He brings up a new subject, which includes rituals and rules. So it still ties to the verse we just read. He said, these people eat with you in your fellowship meals and commemorating the Lord's love. Now, so we're going to stop before we end that verse because we're like, OK, what are they talking about? What is this fellowship meal commemorating the love? So what is that activity? And so we look at the Greek word. It's syneochio, syneochio. That sounds like an Indian, doesn't it? I could see an Indian naming this kid syneochio, right? And it means to entertain together or to feast with. That's what the word means. It's like a carry in dinner. It's what the word means to come together and to eat together. It does sound a lot like an Indian name. I heard a story once about a guy, this Indian was walking down the road and a guy pulls up in this really nice sports car. And the Indian, you know, was walking to go get his horse. The guy says, hey, Indian. He said, you want to ride? What do you think of this car? He said, I got it for my wife. And the Indian said, good trade. And then he said, you want to ride? And he says, yeah, I would like to ride. My horse is, you know, a couple of miles away. So the guy gets him in there and he's thinking, you know what? I'm going to give this Indian a ride. So he just starts hitting the gas hard and going through the gears. And the Indian, every now and then, the Indian would look over him and say, you're going to burn it up. And he said, no, no, no. He says, the faster I go, the cooler it gets. Then he jams the gears more and he's going even faster, slamming around. And the Indian looked at him again and said, you're going to burn it up. He said, no, Indian, the faster I go, the cooler it gets. And this went on the whole ride. So then the Indian got out and there was his horse. He gets on his horse and he started thinking, hmm, the faster I go, the cooler it gets. So he jumps on the horse and just starts beating on that horse, you know, getting into the, the faster I go, the cooler it gets. The faster I go, the cooler it gets. And the horse is just going faster and faster and faster. Finally, the horse fell over dead. From a heart attack. And the Indian fell off the horse and rolled around. He got up and said, hmm, must have froze to death. OK, we'll move past that. Sinaochio, Sinaochio, I think was his name. Now, if you look at that word in the NASB, the NASB is the most literally accurate version of the Bible. There's lots of good versions. I'm not a version snob. The NASB is the most accurate. But when you read it, it's kind of choppy sometimes, you know, it doesn't read real smooth. And so I like the New Living most of the time. But the NASB is the most accurate. So I go there whenever I have a doubt. And then I go to the Greek if I have to. And the NASB, it does fit the Greek better. It says, these are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feast. So instead of using that fellowship meal thing, they use the word love feast. And if you look, sure enough, the word for feast and the word for agape are in there. And so he's saying that these people love to be at your fellowship things, too. They like to be... And Peter also talked about that same feast. Peter said, they are a disgrace and a stain among you. I like the way he worded that. They're a stain among you. You think about it. People watch those TV preachers are always gouging you for money and always, you know, trying to promise you what you're going to get if you give. It is a stain on our faith, isn't it? It's a stain because people judge us by that. So they delight in deception, even as they eat with you in your fellowship meals. And sure enough, when we went to the Greek, I went back and Sinaiochio, there it is again. So it's the same same word that Peter used that Jude used, Sinaiochio, they entertain together to feast with. So I had to ask myself, how often do they have these love feasts? That's what, you know, that was the most accurate way to call them, fellowship meals or love feasts. Who started the tradition? You know, we never really saw that early in the Bible. Not that it's a bad thing. That's always fun to get together and eat, isn't it? That's a good thing. Did God tell them to do that? Because the scripture doesn't say he did. Should we still be doing them? And I know we do sometimes have fellowship nights in the summers. And, you know, and because, you know, Jesus loves fellowship, not just for church fellowship. But, you know, it says in Hebrews, you remember, let us consider how we may spur one another towards love and good deeds, meaning that's the purpose of us fellowshiping. Let us not give up meeting together, but let us encourage one another. And all the more as you see the days approaching or the days drawing near, some versions say. So we know he definitely loves us to eat together and be together. That's, there's a special, the Bible has eating with someone as a special thing. You know, to the point that the scripture even in one verse says, if someone's really serious in sin, I'm talking, you know, somebody's cheating on their wife or somebody seriously in sin. The scripture even says, if that's a fellow brother doing that, don't even eat with them. Don't even reward them with your fellowship, because that kind of says you agree with him. When you eat with someone, it's almost like you're saying we're good. The two of us agree with each other. We approve of each other's lifestyles. And so we see that a lot in the scripture. So the Corinthians had referred to this in two ways. The Corinthian church, and this is the only place in the Bible, the Corinthian church not only considered it a love feast, but they also gave it a new title, one you may have heard before. A supper belonging to the Lord was what they called it, a supper belonging to the Lord. So other passages throughout the scripture will say that they broke bread, they broke bread together, but that has no religious significance. You look in the Greek and it literally means breaking the bread. They would take the bread and break pieces off and hand it around. That term means that we just ate a meal. No religious significance, just we ate a meal together. So that has nothing to do with it. But this supper belonging to the Lord was only one place in the scripture that that was mentioned. So we're going to go there, too, because out of the four places that it's mentioned, we want to go there, too. So they were having a love feast. They gave it that new title, supper belonging to the Lord. And 1 Corinthians 11, 17, it says, Paul tells this church, but in the following instructions, I cannot praise you, for it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. There's that word again, sanitaria, except this is a little shorter, but it's the same word, same root word. So when you meet together, same word as Jude, same word as Peter. First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church. Now, he used the word ecclesia here, which means it means an assembly that was planned for a specific time. That's what it is. So that's what ecclesia means. It used to be used of like council meetings and things like that in Rome. An ecclesia isn't a happenstance meeting like, oh, I ran into you and we're going to talk about the streets. An ecclesia means, OK, we're going to meet at seven o'clock on Tuesday night. We're going to talk about the streets. That's an ecclesia. And that's the word they got church from. So it says when you meet as a church, an ecclesia, and to some extent, I believe it, meaning he believes there are divisions. Now, Paul said that they were not honoring God in this meal. He said it would have been better. He says, you know, more harm than good is happening. So we'll learn more about the details later. It sickened him that they gave it that title. They gave it the title of supper belonging to the Lord. And that ticked him off because the stuff that was going in that meal was not godly things. They started forming cliques. You see that a lot, especially in bigger churches when there's a lot more people. So you can't hardly know each other anyway. They start forming cliques, you know, people hanging out only with people that are of their status for money or whatever it is. Sometimes cliques are based on hobbies. You see a lot of times musicians will click off. You see that in a lot of times, you know, because they really are interested in it or whatever it is. But they started dividing over things that weren't good. Now, God's all for dividing over things like doctrine, poor doctrine, you know, dividing over that. He's all for dividing if someone has really poor behavior. He's OK with you clicking off from those people. But he doesn't want you clicking off for any other reason. He wants the richest to the poorest to the most popular, the least popular. He wants everybody to be of one family, just like you do in your natural family. First Corinthians 11, he said, but of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God's approval will be recognized. So that let's agree to disagree thing, not biblical. You don't agree to disagree on something that's important and something that's biblical. You don't do that. It sounds all Christian-y, doesn't it? Let's agree to disagree and let's have peace. It sounds all Christian-y, but God says, no, there's a time to divide. There's not over things that don't matter, not over little things, the color of the carpet, little things that, you know, that don't really matter or groups that really don't matter. Shoot, I'll eat with a Packers fan even, you know, I mean, I'll even eat with one of them. I'll eat with a biker even, you know, I just got to make sure you get what you want first because they're going to take it pretty quick. But things that don't make a difference or things you can't prove, you know, like there's a lot of eschatology arguments, you know, what's going to happen in the final days. There's a lot of it you can prove and there's a lot of it you just can't prove. God didn't want us to know, you know, we're not on the planning committee, you know what I mean? He didn't want us to know every single detail of how things are going to happen because it might make us force it to happen before it should. You know, even Daniel in the scripture, Daniel wasn't given, wasn't allowed to write everything God told him. John in the book of Revelation wasn't allowed to write everything God showed him because sometimes he doesn't want you to know everything. So there's no reason to divide over the little things that don't matter. But there are things like the security of the believer. Once you become a Christian, is God's promise good or not? See, that's something to divide over. That's actually why we started Grace originally back in 1997, because there was a very few churches that taught the security of the believer. Once, you know, once you become a Christian, that can't change. You can be disciplined, even to the point of death disciplined, but God doesn't break his promise because we break ours. The Trinity, you know, the Holy Trinity, that's something to divide over. The virgin birth of Christ, that's something to divide over. There's some things worth dividing over, but just not as many things as you think. Because when truth enters, it just automatically falsehoods scatter. And like when you turn a light on in a super dark room, I mean, immediately there's a division there, isn't there? You can see that light from anywhere in the room. You guys ever take your Dawn dishwashing liquid and drip it into a sink that's greasy and watch that grease just shoot to the edges? You ever see that? It's like, it's kind of like that. It's like if you take a pair of work boots and throw it to a democratic convention, just watch them scatter. They just go everywhere. And if you want to starve them to death, you hide their food stamps under the work boots. But it is a biblical divide over sound doctrine. It is biblical to divide over sinful behavior. And God said, again, not even to eat with someone who claims to be a Christian that is really in serious sin. All of us are in sin every day, but I'm talking serious sin, you know, something that they know they're doing wrong. They're living in it. It's not just a mistake. If they made a conscious decision to turn against God, that kind of a person, God wants you to pull back from them so that he can have some time with them by himself. And so that he can discipline them so that he can, you know, then eventually when the person comes back to their senses, he wants you to take that person in even more than you did before to kind of help them heal. So Jesus knew his truth would divide people. As a matter of fact, he even said in Luke 12, he said, do you think I came to bring peace on earth? He said, no, I tell you, but division. He came to bring division. So Paul's going to get to the motives of these Corinthians who were having this love feast that they decided to give a second name to, Supper Belonging to the Lord. He says, when you meet together, he said, it is not really the Lord's Supper that you eat. The motive didn't match the title. Now, the Last Supper, a whole different story, right? The Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples. And that was quite a bit different. So when Paul's scolding them about how they're behaving, he's going to compare their behavior to what happened that night at the Last Supper. He's going to compare the two. Now, the Last Supper was totally different than what they were doing. For one, it was part of the Passover festivities. It was kind of like when it's Thanksgiving time and you might have Thanksgiving with grandmas and then you're going to have Thanksgiving again, you know, with both sides of the family and things like that. So they were doing their own little meal that night as one of their Passovers, because Jesus knew on the real Passover day, when the big Passover meal was, he was going to be on the cross that day because he was the Passover lamb. The whole reason for the Passover back in Egypt was to point to Christ. And so they were having like a Passover festival meal kind of thing. It was also done very sincerely and very righteously, unlike what the Corinthians were doing. It was done only with his closest friends, which was something different. It was not done at the church because there weren't any churches. Church hadn't even been formed yet. It was done in an upper room that they had rented for Passover festivities. At the end of it, Jesus washed their feet. After supper, he washed their feet to teach them about humility. They'd been kind of arguing a little bit about who is most important and they didn't think he knew, but he did. And so he washed their feet and made the point, I, you know, I'm your God and I'm washing your feet and you should do the same for one another. So after church, if somebody would like to volunteer on my feet, could use a good washing. But no, no volunteers, no, it was the humility part. The humility part, it's not necessarily the act of washing someone's feet. It's the act of humbling yourself to help somebody else, whether that be helping them put a roof on their house or helping them shovel their snow or helping them move or things like that. Something like that. And sadly, too, about this meal, that famous meal on that last supper meal, Satan entered Judas that night. That was the night that Satan indwelled Judas and then Judas began to betray Christ. So the only common thing about that night and what was going on in Corinth was it was a full meal. It was a totally full meal. They ate just like they normally would eat. There were a few rules they had to follow because it was Passover week. They weren't allowed to have yeast and all this kind of things, but it was still a full meal. Had a little picture of them. And if you notice in the picture, the table isn't like the tables we eat at. It was usually low to the ground. They usually sat on the ground. When Bryce and I were in India, people sat like this all the time. They would squat, like squat all the way down. Even really old people would squat and like their butts would almost be touching the ground while their feet were on the ground. I couldn't do it, man. I got cramped every time I tried. I said, OK, guys, we're going to find a chair somewhere. But Jesus did make some changes, though, in the Passover liturgy. You know, instead of saying, you know, like, you know, like in the Passover, they would say certain things before they would eat certain things. So he changed a few things. Now, there's no mention in Corinthians or Jude or Peter, 2nd Peter, there's no mention that they said these things that Jesus is about to say. The scripture doesn't share that with us, that they said that we don't think we don't know if they said anything. We only see that these things happened in the Last Supper. So Paul commanded them that, you know, to just not even just don't even do it if you if you're if you're being, you know, doing it wrong. But he said, you know, he so he said, basically, you call this a supper belonging to the Lord. Let me tell you about a supper belonging to the Lord that does match your new title. So Jesus changed some Passover things. Instead of remembering, you know, they would hold the wine up and they'd say, this represents the sweetness of our release from Egypt. Well, he didn't say that. Instead of saying this is my he said, this is my blood. Instead of talking about about the death angel passing over the Jewish people's homes, you know, because they painted blood around the door and the death angel came through, which could have been Christ himself, pre-incarnate. And when they saw the blood on the door, everybody behind that door got to live, you know, because the first son was supposed to die. But if there was blood over that door, he passed over. That's why it's called Passover. And then if someone didn't have blood on the door, then the first born male of that home would die. You know, it could be there could be generations of that. Even even the first born male of the animals died and everything. It was it was it was a way for God to point to himself. He mentioned his blood instead of the Passover blood. Also, he talked about when his blood is painted over our doorpost, our spirits or whatever, however you want to think of that, you know, symbolically that we have eternal life. Meaning that when God looks at us as Christians, he sees the blood of Christ painted on us and he knows that we don't have to face eternal death because we trusted Jesus Christ with our eternal life. It's an easy transaction. Basically, you grab the eternity within you and you say, I want you to have my eternal life, Lord. I trust you with my eternal life. I want you to be in control of my destiny. And when you when you believe that when you believe in Jesus in that way, then you become a Christian and you have the blood applied to you. Then so you won't have to ever face eternal death. The bread represented his body and the breaking it and eating it represented us becoming one with him and the father, the son, the Holy Spirit and us. So that represented that. Now, he used that same analogy. You remember when he said the thousands of people with the fish and bread, you know, the little boy gave him his lunch and he he blessed the fish and bread. And then after that meal was over, Jesus got up and started speaking. And he told the people, you must eat of my flesh. You must drink of my blood. And it freaked them all out, you know, because they thought, what is he, a cannibal? And it freaked them out. And they left. They they turned around and just left him. And then he looked at his twelve and said, are you going to leave me, too? And they and Peter said, where would we go? Only you have the words of eternal life is a beautiful time in Scripture. So you see, he's used this analogy before. But we only have the one record of him actually saying those things or anyone actually saying those things. And they were eating. Matthew 26, 26 says, as they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. He broke it into pieces and gave it to the disciples saying, take this and eat it, for this is my body. He used the word STO in this case, which means to eat a meal related to the other words in some way, just just means to eat. So whether the love feast or the last supper, it was always a full meal. Jude, 2nd Peter, 1st Corinthians and in Matthew at the last supper, he goes on and says, and he took a cup. Now, the New Living says, and he took the cup of wine. That's why I put that in brackets and gave thanks to God for it. But when you, but I went back to the actual Greek text and in the Greek text, it says, and he took a cup. It doesn't say of wine, it just says he took a cup and gave thanks to God for it. And the NASB also says he took a cup. He gave it to them and said, each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Then in verse 29, he said, mark my words, I will not drink. And again, in a lot of versions, it says I will not drink wine, but in the Greek, it says, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the day I drink it new with your father and your mother. Father's kingdom. And they sang a hymn and they went out to the Mount of Olives. Now, as you know, the scripture does not condemn a person from drinking wine or drinking, you know, an alcoholic beverage. There's no condemnation as long as you are not doing so to get drunk. There's no condemnation in that. So, but it is curious that, I guess I missed it a lot of years, that they didn't use, they actually could have used wine, but the word for wine is not in here. It's fruit of the vine. Now, certainly the Jewish tradition says it was wine, if you look back in Jewish tradition. But the words in the Bible say fruit of the vine, which is kind of curious to me that they didn't say wine. So, you know, maybe that's telling us we should be using grape juices as a wine only. I don't know. But, you know, you can refer to wine as fruit of the vine also. So it's kind of tricky. But they had this big meal, you know, I think we have a picture of the meal they had. They had ready whip there. They had all kinds of stuff there. Yeah, it was a really good, I don't know if ready whip is kosher or not, but they had all kinds of good stuff. And so I thought, OK, I'm going to look at the early church history, since I can't really answer this question as to what did they say at those love feasts? You know, did they have a ritual? So I went back to the early church history and I couldn't find them saying anything till about somewhere between 100 and 150 AD before I could find any church saying anything. They were just having these love feasts and they were eating together. Some of them called it a meal of thanksgiving, not like Thanksgiving like we think of Thanksgiving, but just giving thanks. So I couldn't find any certain words they said at this love feast, you know, so we just don't know what they said or if they said anything. We don't know if they repeated the words that Christ said on that last supper. We just don't know because there's no record of anyone saying anything in the Bible and there's no record of anyone said anything in early church history until finally, about 150 AD, they started kind of developing what to say at the end of that meal. It could have been that they were afraid to say the words of Christ because they were a lot more touchy in those days. Like they didn't even like saying the name for God. They felt like they weren't, that their mouths weren't holy enough to mention God's name out loud. And even in our early country, my grandma, she's been passed away for some time and she lived to be in her 90s. She said that it was kind of like that in the United States. She said that you dare not wear red, white and blue together. When she was a young girl, she said they would put you in jail and fine you if you wore red, white and blue together because they felt like that was disrespecting the flag. The fact that you would put it on your body, they felt like that was disrespectful of our flag. So she said nobody wore red, white and blue together. You know, you didn't even by accident do it because you could be fined and spend a day in jail for doing that. And so the Jews were a lot like that, too. They felt like they weren't worthy enough to say the word God, you know, L-O-M. They would use other, you notice how all the little buzzwords they have for God in the Bible, you know, Rose of Sharon, Bright and Morning Star. They would use the word Lord, but they wouldn't use his given name, you know, the I-M, because they felt like they weren't. So it could have been, maybe that's why they didn't want to repeat the words of Christ at these love feasts. They might have thought they weren't holy enough to do that. But we look at the word in the Greek as kyrakosa dapnon, where they got their supper belonging to the Lord. Dapnon means a supper or a feast and kyrakosa means belonging to the Lord. And they put those two together and they came up with that term, a supper belonging to the Lord. So Paul goes on, he said, for some of you hurry to eat your own meal. This was what was happening in their meal in Corinth. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry and others get drunk. What? Do you have your own or don't you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God's church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this. So it's funny that the church grabbed that title for the last supper meal because he just scolded the heck out of them for that. It's funny that the early church decided to use that title, at least by 150 AD. Then he goes on and tells them about the Lord's Supper, which we just read part of, that that supper was worthy to be called a supper belonging to the Lord. But he did not appreciate the fact that they called their meal that and they were the only ones in the whole Bible that called their meal that. And that's why we like, just to keep ourselves biblically sound, we like to do what we call a last supper communion. So what we do is we try to more or less reenact what happened the night we meet together in the upper room. And we do it on Good Friday and we eat a full meal. And at the end of the meal, we do the bread and grape juice or bread and wine tradition, you know, try to stay as close as we can to the scripture. That's why we do it that way instead of doing it in church and passing things around because we find no example in scripture or history where they did that for at least the first 150 years. So anyway, Jude continued his description of these hypocrites, these preachers and these leaders who were corrupt, the ones who were prepping the church. He says they are like dangerous wreaths that can shipwreck you. They are like shameless shepherds who care only for themselves. They are like clouds blowing over a land without giving any rain. They're like trees in autumn that are doubly dead and they bear no fruit and they have been pulled up by the roots. So he's painting this really clear picture about these false teachers and these hypocrites, pastors, that they're unproductive and even destructive. They're not only unproductive, they're also destructive because bad doctrine is poison to a church and not teaching doctrine is just as bad as bad doctrine because that's the theme today is not teaching doctrine. You go to a lot of the churches today and it's all gimmicks, big non-biblical gimmicks. By non-biblical, I don't mean un-biblical always. Un-biblical means it teaches something opposite of what the church teaches and there's some of that too. But non-biblical means there's no Bible for the tradition that they've picked up. But they like to have these big gimmicky things that churches are doing, fun things that aren't mentioned in the Bible. And at the same time, they're not teaching the doctrine that God did tell them. So they're doing the things they're not told to do and they're not doing the things that they are told to do. Now this started in the megachurches, the really big 2000 on up churches. But then it didn't take long for it to become popular and then you got the wannabe small churches who want to be the big church. They started doing that stuff too. Entertainment programs, concerts, clubs, you never can have a big enough building or a fancy enough building in their minds. Even if the building that you have is fitting your needs, they still want a fancier one, a prettier one, a more expensive one. They started that movement so that they would look successful to the world. But the Bible says friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God. James told us that. All while not teaching sound rock and just more gimmicks, more programs, more tricks, more giveaways, all that stuff. Partaking in all that stuff. And then I like this picture. It says, if your church doesn't have an elaborate system of wires to make your pastor fly, is it really even a church? And there's some of that going on right in Fort Wayne, you know, the fog machines and pastors coming up out of the floor on like hydraulics. I mean, there's stuff like that going on even in Fort Wayne is amazing. But they're not teaching the truth because they don't want to divide. You see, they know that if they get in the pulpit and make a bold statement about abortion or about homosexuality or about those hot topics, they know that they're going to tick somebody off. Because everybody has a relative who had an abortion and everybody has a relative who's gay. And they know that, you know, the enemy is whispering in your ear the whole time you're at church anyway, telling you that you're wasting your time. And you could be out fishing right now or you could be out hunting right now or you could be mowing your grass or whatever. The enemy is already trying to get you out of here. And so when a pastor stands up and preaches the truth, that just gives the enemy another way to tempt you to leave. Timothy wrote or Paul wrote this to Timothy. For there will be a period of time when they will not put up with wholesome teaching, but according to their own desires, they will surround themselves with teachers to have their ears tickled. That time has long been here. Charles Spurgeon from a couple of hundred years ago felt like it was already there then when he was when he was preaching. But many seek the leadership positions for the wrong reasons. Money, you know, and you guys know here they double our pay every year. So that's that might be a thing here. Double point zero times two, you know, fame. Believe it or not, some people find that glory, attention, or sometimes they're just simply in there to do evil. Notice that these corrupt leaders had to always join in on everything. They wanted part of every festival, all those love feasts and all that, all those trendy activities, always asking for money, always asking for money. This picture is the guy who says, sow your seed of one thousand dollars with expectation of a harvest. They are prosperity teachers, Joel Osteen types, Benny Hinn types, Kenneth Copeland types. They're always trying to tell you that give a lot and God will absolutely make sure that you get a lot back. Now, God absolutely does reward you when you do anything for him, whether it be give or work or whatever. But he doesn't promise you that it's going to be monetary. He doesn't promise you that if you give a thousand dollars, you're going to have a check for two thousand dollars coming in the mail tomorrow. He doesn't make that. You know, he just promises that in the end you're going to be rewarded for everything good you do as long as you do it with good motives. But the prosperity teachers, man, they make a lot of money. That's why they're the main ones on TV. TV time is very expensive, but they get these a lot of these shut ins, you know, these older people that can't get out and go to church. All they can do is watch it on TV. And a lot of them have money. You know, a lot of them, you know, are at the end of their lives and they they have money and they get so rich by conning those people out of their money. They are filthy. They get filthy rich. They have private jets, mansions that they live in, private jets, BMWs. They think they're they think they're too good even to face the congregation. They'll come in the back door and show up like a rock star and leave the back door. Nobody ever even gets to meet them. And they live very wealthy lives still going on today. Jude said they are like wild waves of the sea churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars doomed forever to the blackest darkness. He says Enoch, who lived in the seventh generation after Adam, can still remember that, prophesied about these people. He said, listen, the Lord is coming with countless thousands of his holy ones. Now, here's Jude stirring the pot again. The book of Enoch, people say, oh, the book of Enoch should be a biblical book because there's tons of apocryphal books, hundreds of them. And so the book of Enoch is one that is really popular because it really gets mysterious. It talks about angels breeding with women. It talks about it gives the names of like 70 angels where the Bible only gives the name of four, two evil ones and two good ones. And it has all these really science fiction kind of stories going on in there. So there's a lot of attention paid to the book of Enoch. So we take a look at the book of Enoch. But the thing is, Jude didn't say the book of Enoch, did he? He said Enoch prophesied that things were going to get really bad. And that was true. But it didn't say the book of Enoch. It just said Enoch prophesied. He told us exactly which Enoch it was, seven generations after after Adam. So we don't have to guess which one it was. Very specific about that. Well, seven generations after Adam would be 3300 B.C. The book of Enoch dates somewhere between 200 and 400 B.C. So Enoch could not have been involved in the writing of that book. There was a big giant flood in between about 1500 A.D. So it's very, very unlikely that this book had anything to do with the Enoch of seven generations after Adam. Now, there was copies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran of the book of Enoch, the one that they like. But it wasn't with the other scriptures. It was that that was a library. A little boy seen a hole in the wall. And you know, you guys know when we're little boys and there's a hole in the wall of a cave or something. What do you do? Throw a rock in there. Yeah, that's what you do. You throw a rock in there. And so this little boy threw a rock in there and he heard something breaking. So he goes home, tells his dad, hey, I threw a rock in a wall, in a cave wall, and I heard something break. So his dad comes, they get in the cave and they find it's a big, humongous library with clay pots with all kinds of scrolls in them. John the Baptist might have been part of that community in Qumran. And they find every single Bible Old Testament book represented, except there was one that wasn't represented. I can't remember the name of it now. But so they find lots of copies of Isaiah. I mean, it was it was really a big boost for Christianity. But it also had lots of other books that were not biblical books. They were just books of the time, historical books, fiction, everything. And they found Enoch in that Dead Sea Scroll find. That's how they could date it. But it was not with the rest of the scriptures. It was with the non-scripture areas. So there are some things in the book of Enoch that are valid. But the thing is, they had the Old Testament at their disposal. So when they wrote the book of Enoch, whoever wrote it, all they had to do is read a passage in the Old Testament and put it in their book. And then it gave it a little validity, kind of. But even if it was just even if there was a book of Enoch back then, just quoting one quote out of a book doesn't mean the book should be biblical. We see that Paul quoted out of Epimenes and Titus, who was a poet. He also quoted some unnamed poets in the New Testament. The book of Chronicles quoted Gad the Seer, which was a book, a historical book. And the book of Numbers quoted Book of the Wars of the Lords, which was another non-biblical book that was quoted. First Kings quoted the Acts of Rehoboam and also First Kings quoted the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. All of those were actual books that existed. They just were not biblical books. So just because somebody takes one line out of a book doesn't mean the whole book should be put in the Bible. So again, Jude's stirring the pot here. And again, some parts were accurate and there are many parts, though, were not accurate. A lot of parts were easily contradicted to scripture. So anyway, if someone else did write it, they probably just plagiarized a little bit out of the Old Testament to give it validity. OK, so that was another big rabbit run, wasn't it? So likely that book of Enoch has nothing to do with the scripture. Jude 1.15 says, and he will come to execute judgment on the people of the world. He will convict every person of the ungodly things they have done. And for all the insults, the ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And these people, he said, are grumblers and complainers living only to satisfy their own desires. They brag loudly about themselves and they flatter others to get what they want. Flattery causes a lot of problems. I mentioned before, I used to work for a lady and she was anyone who flattered got their way. They always got the best money. They got the best everything if they would just, you know, just constantly be brown nosing. And that's a sickening way to get ahead. Psalms 12.1 says, help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing. The faithful have vanished from the earth. Neighbors lie to each other, speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts. May the Lord cut off their flattering lips and silent their boastful tongues. So they say, we will lie to our heart's content. Our lips are our own. Who can stop us? The Lord replies, I have seen violence done to the helpless and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them and they have longed as they have longed for me to do. The Lord's promises are pure like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times over. Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed, preserving them forever from this lying generation, even though the wicked strut about and the evil is praised throughout the land. I thought that really was really fitting for our time right now, because there's just so many lies out there right now. Everywhere you look, there's lies going on. Politicians, musicians and they get all they get all the attention, you know, I mean, just even the Super Bowl. Look at the Super Bowl. You had, you know, you couldn't watch a couple of plays without having to see Taylor Swift and then her little satanic friend behind her making satanic motions with her hands. And they seem like they're winning, but they're not winning. They're losing. It's just that God's patient. And when it comes judgment time, they're going to face it. But in the meantime, we need to stay away from the flatterers and like Solomon said, faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. But yeah, so that's that in that section of Judy.