[0:00] Now, seeking God's blessing, we'll turn back to his word there in the letter of Jude. We can read again, excuse me, the last two verses, 24 and 25.
[0:18] Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever.
[0:41] Someone has said, and I think it's true, though you don't want to put one part of the Bible against another to say which is better. Someone has said that this closing doxology or this ascription of praise or this concluding benediction is one of the most glorious in all of the New Testament.
[1:04] It seems to reach such heights and give expression to such truths with such an emphasis that really makes it stand on its own. And it's interesting that such a wonderful benediction or doxology comes after such serious warning.
[1:22] And these two maybe seem to be at odds with each other. How can the writer Jude, led as he is by the Holy Spirit, deal with such serious, negative, gloomy, heavy truths, and then move in the next step, in the next breath, to such heavenly heights?
[1:41] They seem to be at odds with each other. We tend to be either in one state of mind or another. We tend maybe not to shift so easily between them. But I think in order to appreciate what Jude is saying, we must take it in light of the rest of this one chapter epistle or letter.
[2:01] It's addressed to Christians in general by this Jude. He is, verse 1, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.
[2:11] A wonderful way he puts this. This author is the half-brother of Jesus. Notice he doesn't say the half-brother of Jesus, but the servant of Jesus.
[2:23] You go back to John 7 and you're told that at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus' brothers didn't believe in him, his half-brothers. They were kind of mocking and prodding him and saying, look, if you really are who you say you are, then now's your chance.
[2:37] Go and tell the world who you are. Jesus said, my hour hasn't yet come. His brothers, we're told by John, didn't believe. But when you come to the book of Acts, chapter 1, you find reference made to the Lord's brothers, who at that point, being among the company of Christians, had become believers themselves.
[2:58] It must have been something for them to be half-brothers of Jesus, to believe in him and trust in him as their personal Lord and Savior. Judah's very humble in how he puts it across.
[3:10] But look firstly at Christians in general. How does he describe us? Verse 1 in the middle. Those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.
[3:22] We want to come back to that word kept as we move on. But the wonderful status we have as Christians, we are those who have been loved by God. Those who have been called by God and those who are preserved by God.
[3:40] From the very beginning to the present and for the future, we are the people of God. We cannot lose that status or position. It's one that we haven't brought ourselves into.
[3:52] And as such, it's one we cannot remove ourselves from. It is a wonderful blessing. Once saved, forever saved. You cannot lose your salvation, nor can I.
[4:03] We can fail. Excuse me. We can come short. We can slip up. We can make a mess. But we can never become unsaved. The Christian is in a great position.
[4:17] But the Christian is given a charge because we live in a world that is hostile, in an environment that is anti-Christian. You don't need sometimes to go past your own family, your work colleagues, people you know, people you used to know, people you used to live in the world with.
[4:33] Look at you now as a Christian and see you're not like them anymore. And as Peter tells us, that can be a source of aggravation for them. And they mock and ridicule and make a joke of you and make your life difficult because you're not like them anymore.
[4:48] But it goes beyond that because living in the world as we do and leaving a communion weekend as we do, people often think of it as a mountain top experience. And I hope it's been like that for yourselves and it would be wonderful if that's how it was.
[5:02] Leaving the communion weekend, if it is like a mountain, means you've got to go down, in a sense, from the place that you've been. And going down, we can often meet difficulties.
[5:13] If you have blessing from God, you can be sure that you're going to find attacks from Satan following hot on its heels. He doesn't want us to be in a position where we can live in the joy of the Lord.
[5:27] In fact, you know that on the Mount of Transfiguration, where Jesus in all his splendor and glory was unveiled to Peter, James and John, the next day we're told, they come down from the mountain to enter a combat and a conflict with someone who was possessed by demons.
[5:48] That's how it often is. We go from these heights back into the valley and back into the battleground. And one of the areas of battle that Jude was addressing was that of false teaching.
[6:01] Now, we're maybe isolated largely and thankfully from that, but it's relevant nonetheless. Because in whatever position we are as Christians, in our home, our family, in our workplace, you know that you have to contend.
[6:14] You know that you have to stand on what you believe and you need to assert what you believe. We are, as verse 3 says, to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
[6:26] If we love the Lord, if we love his word, if we love as far as we understand his word, and we see it opposed or ridiculed or challenged or undermined, we'll want to defend it.
[6:38] Not that God's word needs our defending, but it is our privilege and it is our duty to contend for it. Not to let it slip away and not to let it be undermined.
[6:50] The charge then is for you and for me leaving this weekend to contend for the faith, to contend for the teaching of the Bible, to be witnesses. It doesn't mean that we go out and start fights.
[7:02] It doesn't mean we look for people and start arguments just for the sake of arguments. Some people are brilliant at that. You just take the opportunity and it doesn't matter where you are.
[7:12] You just pounce on people and you start arguing about the Bible and, you know, we can say the right thing the wrong way. We can do the wrong thing and we can do the right thing, but do it the wrong way.
[7:25] With the best will in the world, we want to stand for the Lord and speak for the Lord and witness for the Lord and we can make a terrible mistake because it's not the Lord people get. It's us and our fiery, passionate, maybe unwise, overzealous approach.
[7:43] Contending in the right spirit, a wonderful thing. Having a zeal that is according to knowledge. But there's a challenge in all of this. Not only are we in general to contend for the faith, Jude brings before us a number of very sad and very solemn challenges because there are certain groups of people, verse four, certain people have crept in unnoticed.
[8:08] This is into the church. This is Satan's tactic, creeping in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
[8:24] Jude is saying, look, people crept into your church who give the impression that they're Christians, that they're genuine believers, but they're not. Their intention is to spread a form of teaching that will lead you into sin of different kinds.
[8:40] They're trying to take the standard of God down somewhat and to deaden and numb and anesthetize your conscience with teaching so that you feel that you can do what they say.
[8:53] I mean, what are they doing? Well, what they're doing is perverting the grace of God into sensuality where we should be pure and where we should be godly and holy and upright in every part of our lives with God's help.
[9:05] These people are saying, look, you don't need to be like that at all. Just do what you want. You're saved anyway. Grace equals license to sin. That's basically what they're saying.
[9:16] And Judah's saying, look, don't listen to them. They're perverting the grace of God and in doing so, they're denying our only master and Lord. Notice, savior isn't referred to. It's implied in the rest of the chapter and clearly expressed.
[9:30] But when we hear that these people are denying our only master and Lord, that means the one we are to yield ourselves to, the one we are to follow and obey. The teaching of these people is basically saying, don't listen to Jesus.
[9:45] Listen to yourself. Listen to your body. Listen to your sinful heart. You're saved anyway. Just do what you want. You're going to heaven. You're not going to be lost or judged for this in the end.
[9:57] Feel free. You can see the tactic of Satan slithering into the church. We often think the early church must have been wonderful to live in the days of Pentecost. Revival and awakening and passion and zeal and everything else.
[10:12] Preaching so powerful and conversions on every side. But see what was happening in the first century. Problems. I don't think we can say the church ever had an ideal state.
[10:25] Ideal in the sense of being free from problems. It will one day. We're going to come back to that at the end. How does he illustrate this? How does he compare these false teachers, those certain people who have crept in unnoticed?
[10:41] Well, he does it by way of reminding of history. One of the best things we can do is remember the past. Not to live in the past, reawaken the past.
[10:52] That's a dangerous thing sometimes. But if we can learn from the mistakes of the past and learn from the good examples of the past, it will help us in the present and shape us for the future.
[11:03] How does he do this? Well, he says, firstly, not everyone who was redeemed from Egypt saw the land of Canaan. This is the principle.
[11:13] People will say, look, I'm among the Israelites. I came out of the land of Egypt. I'm on my way through the promised land. But God intervened because of the way they were living and said, you won't see the promised land.
[11:23] Only two of them did. Joshua and Caleb. And Jude is saying, yeah, this is serious. This isn't maybe very uplifting, but it's true.
[11:35] Don't listen to these people who tell you you can live the way you want. Some people way back in history thought the same and they never saw the land of Canaan. Isn't that sad?
[11:46] They fell in the wilderness. It's a repeated lesson in the New Testament as a warning. But from the earthly level, Jude lifts us to the heavenly, referring to the angels.
[11:58] angels, that some of the angels, not all angels, remained in heaven. Now there's a mystery. Who's going to explain that one? How sinless, angelic beings in the glorious presence of God with everything they could ever need and more than they could ever want somehow decided they wanted to rebel against God's ordination and appointment of their position in heaven.
[12:27] The angels, verse 9, who did not stay within their own position of authority, left their proper dwelling. He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness till the judgment of the great day.
[12:41] What a height they've fallen from, these angels. You and I are born, fallen, sinful people who naturally go away from God. We never fell individually and personally from a position of holiness, a position of existence in the very presence of God, unveiled, majestic, indescribable.
[13:05] But these angels were in that place. But they left it. And what a place they've come down to. Chains, eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
[13:19] You know why Satan is furious and is partly so filled with hatred for individual Christians and for congregation and for the church and God and everything to do with God?
[13:30] It's because he knows what's coming to him. He hates you and he hates me with all the passion of his very being.
[13:41] Because he knows what he's lost and he knows where he's going. Doesn't the book of Revelation tell us the devil has come down with great wrath because he knows his time is short.
[13:55] Judah's warning them. Christians, look out for people who try and tell you that you can do what you want. Not all who left Egypt saw Canaan.
[14:06] Not all angels remained in heaven. He then goes on to say that not all in Sodom were spared. Sodom is a very vivid picture of God's judgment on sin and sexual immorality and unnatural desire and all the rest as it's brought before us here.
[14:21] It's a very vivid example. God doesn't like sin. Couldn't be more emphatic than it is in these words. Sin of certain kinds, especially repeatedly mentioned in the Bible.
[14:37] Some were spared in Sodom. We know that. But not everyone was. The vast majority weren't. It says here that they serve at the end of verse 7 as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
[14:53] I came across it in a commentary just earlier today and I can't prove it and I'm not going to say that it's true but it's referred to in some writings that aren't in the Bible that around the time of the first century that there was still smoke could be seen around where Sodom and Gomorrah existed.
[15:16] Now if that's the case what a picture that must have been. I'm not sure about it but it was pointed out in a reformed commentary and for that reason I thought it quite staggering.
[15:26] Well we're not there today to see it but were it the case? What an example. People would look and think this is what God has done. Whether that's the case or not the Bible tells us emphatically not all in Sodom were spared.
[15:42] And then he goes on in verse 8 to say in like manner these people and so on and so on they're following he says the same example. I'm sure you get the impression that Jude is very serious about teaching that it has to be true it has to be biblical it has to be faithful because teaching doesn't just inform it will transform.
[16:05] it's a fact that what we absorb in our minds will affect the way we live as we think and as we speak so we are and he's warning us to be on our guard.
[16:21] Now you're saying what a very negative thing to be thinking about on a Monday night of a communion weekend. Well maybe but it's the background to one of the highest and the most glorious of conclusions in any letter of the New Testament because as he comes along from the warnings and the challenges he brings before us our duties and with great emphasis you notice that he tells us verse 22 build yourselves up in your most holy faith.
[16:52] The question we have is after communion what can I do? How does God want me to live? Okay there I know what he's telling me not to do and not to be. Well that's maybe easier than because it's not something in a sense you put into practice.
[17:06] By not being and not doing and not accepting certain things you're just refusing them putting it away from you. But what do I take to myself? What do I have to take into my life?
[17:19] Well he says build yourselves up in your most holy faith. How do you do that? How do you build yourself up in your most holy faith?
[17:31] Well obviously it is something that we are to be active in. I'm not going to try and explain all of this but really to mention it for your own reflection as you leave the weekend building yourself up.
[17:43] Faith is grace. It is a spiritual quality. It is a characteristic. It is that about us that connects us savingly with the Lord.
[17:53] But it is something that can grow. Something that must be developed. And the challenge for you and for me is to build ourselves up in it.
[18:05] Have stronger faith. Did you feel your faith weak in coming to communion? Were you feeling filled with doubts? Maybe wracked with fears? Or beset with struggles of one kind or another?
[18:16] Build yourselves up in your most holy faith. Here's another one. Pray in the Holy Spirit. When did you last pray in the Holy Spirit?
[18:29] When did I last pray in the Holy Spirit? What does that actually mean? Prayer in the Spirit. You've maybe been in the place where you're trying to pray and you arrive at the place where you can pray.
[18:51] I think there's a difference between trying to pray and actually praying. You get on your knees or whatever position you have or wherever you are when you're praying and you're praying and you're praying and you're getting nowhere and all of a sudden you start praying.
[19:08] And you're led in prayer. You're given thoughts, words, desires. I think it's the Romans 8 experience of the Spirit interceding for us with unutterable groans.
[19:21] You don't even need to say a single word. It can all be on the inside given expression to with a massive yearning of your whole inner self that goes up to God.
[19:32] That God understands and receives. Let's leave the weekend building ourselves up in our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit.
[19:42] Lord, teach us to pray in the Holy Spirit with that dynamic about our prayers. Keep yourselves in the love of God.
[19:52] Notice in all of these imperatives and all of these commands and instructions, the negative is possible. It's possible the very fact that we're told to do it, not to do it.
[20:05] not to build ourselves up, not to pray in the Holy Spirit, not to keep ourselves in the love of God. That conscious, that increasing awareness, rejoicing in and experience of the love of God.
[20:26] Waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. when we have communion and when the warrant is read as it usually is, the words in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul emphasizes that as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you do so, proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.
[20:50] So there is a backward look to Calvary to remember him and there's a forward look to his second coming where we anticipate him.
[21:02] Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Are you waiting for him? Are you looking for him?
[21:13] Are you anticipating him? How does the prospect make you feel his arrival, his coming, whether it's before his actual second coming, how the very thought of meeting him for yourself?
[21:28] Is it a waiting as Jude has it, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ? You're Christians, notice. He's talking to Christians. Those who in the beginning are called and loved and preserved by God.
[21:41] So the mercy they're waiting for isn't the mercy that leads into a state and position of salvation. They have that already. So it has to be a culminating, consummating experience and disclosure of that mercy, that ultimate deliverance.
[21:56] Paul, I think, in writing to the Corinthians speaks about God as the one who has delivered, who does deliver, and in whom we trust will deliver.
[22:08] There are these three dimensions, past, present, future, about salvation. And the future one has to involve that ultimate and that final glorious change that will come upon us.
[22:23] are we waiting for it? Are we looking for it? Well, that's about us. Jude is saying, this is what you've got to do as far as you're concerned yourself.
[22:33] But he also speaks about others. What are we to do in relation to others? Verse 22, have mercy on those who doubt. You know what it's like when someone is racked with doubts and fears and they talk to you and they always go on about it?
[22:47] You can get impatient. People might say, well, if I'm ever saved, if I ever have faith, have I got enough of this or the next thing? If you're someone who stands in a place of assurance, maybe, and he hears someone talk like that, it can be, it can frustrate you sometimes because he can bring all the teaching of the Bible to bear on their situation and it doesn't change them.
[23:14] People who doubt, sometimes, maybe often, rely on how they feel rather than on what they know. I don't feel I have enough faith.
[23:26] I don't feel assured. I don't feel, well, that's true. Maybe you don't. But what we have to do is not live by or rest on how we feel but live by and rest on what we know because if we're going to heaven looking at and leaning on ourselves and what we feel, we're going to live miserable lives but if our focus and attention is on him, that'll be so much different.
[23:55] Maybe you didn't get anything this weekend, I don't know. What were you looking for this weekend? What is it that you were, maybe to feel something. That's not always bad. Feelings are real, powerful parts of Christian experience but feelings as an end in themselves as things to rest on are very unsafe.
[24:19] We often come to church to receive. You know, ministers here will admit completely the pressure of facing a congregation who are here to get something.
[24:32] Did you get anything tonight? Did you receive anything tonight? Well, the minister can say, did you give anything tonight? Because really, while it seems there's a speaker here and an audience there, there are worshippers here and one audience who we cannot see.
[24:51] And it's not so much to receive from him only, but to give to him. Or let's put it another way, in receiving from him, we are to give back to him a response to the word.
[25:08] Have mercy on those who doubt. Be patient with each other, he's saying. Don't be irritated with people who haven't got the same Christian experience as you do and those who may be weaker in that way.
[25:20] But others, he's saying, save others by snatching them out of the fire. You're seeing people involved in sin, people who are maybe unconverted, others who may be unconverted, but are staring so close to the fire you can see they're in grave danger.
[25:38] Don't just think about it. Don't just talk about it. Get your hands on them and pull them out of the fire. We're to be firefighters in one sense, in pulling people out of danger.
[25:57] What a position to be in as Christians, leaving communion what did we get? Did we get blessing? Did we enjoy the company of Christians, the company of God and being under his word and partaking of the sacrament?
[26:10] What about people who have no connection with any of these things? Maybe others who did in days gone by, but now where are they? They might even have been at the table with us.
[26:22] And we realise they're close to that, not the fire of God's judgment that is eternal and everlasting, but maybe in the sense here that you can see there's people in danger.
[26:33] They're living in a dangerous path. They're living in a dangerous course of action. We've got to get them out of that path. Well, Jude says, if you know someone like that, it's your job to fix it.
[26:47] The worst thing we can do is leave someone who we see is in a bad way, backsliding, rebelling, unconverted people. Yes, we pray for them before everything, but if you think you can be of any use in the erring Christian's life or the unbeliever's life, then it's for you and for me to be active and get a hold of the situation.
[27:13] Because you might see and know things that others don't, and if we let it slip, we're responsible. We're responsible because we're told to do it in these words.
[27:27] So as we leave communion, yes, let's be active in looking out for other people. Save others by snatching them out of the fire.
[27:38] Others show it to, others show mercy with fear. Be afraid, he's saying. Hating the garment, even the garment stained by the flesh.
[27:49] Love the person, he's saying, but hate what they're doing. If we look at someone and see them doing wrong, but we're doing the same thing, can we help them?
[28:02] How can we fear and hate the garment spotted by the flesh if our garments are spotted by the same flesh too? We've got to be clean. We've got to be living in fear.
[28:15] We've got to be watching. We've got to be on edge all the time in some ways as Christians. Always on the alert. Not living in panic, I don't mean that, but very, very cautious and pulling people out of the fire with fear, having mercy and hating sin.
[28:34] There's a question. Do you hate sin more now than you did a year ago? Not do you love sin more than you did then, but do you hate it less or do you hate it more?
[28:55] Do you have an increasing hatred for what you know God hates? It'll affect the way we view other people.
[29:05] It'll affect the way we look at ourselves. Amazingly, as we come to conclude, Jude leaps from this plane to a very high level.
[29:20] In that regard, he's very like Paul. You may notice as you read the letters of Paul, he often, as he, I think it's through to say that Paul speaks about his own letters as being written down by someone else.
[29:34] There's one, I think it's in Galatians, that he signs, as it were, with his own hand at the end of it, implying that he would dictate or recite and someone else would write it down.
[29:45] What you find with Paul very often is he starts on maybe a low level or a deep level of teaching and theology and then before you know it, he starts a sentence and then he takes a detour and doesn't sometimes finish the sentence.
[29:59] Or when he comes back, he's kind of set loads in between. What you find happening with Paul is when the truth gets a hold of him, he would be sitting down speaking or communicating what God gave him and then before you know it, he's at the edge of his seat and then he's standing up on his feet and he just can't contain.
[30:18] This is what's happening with Jude. Because as these letters would have been circulated in the early church, read publicly like we did tonight, some people would be bowing their heads, some people would be broken in their hearts thinking, if this is what the Christian life is all about, it's so tough, I'm such a failure, can I actually carry on with it?
[30:49] Well, Jude moves on and concludes, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Are you aware as a Christian tonight of your own weakness?
[31:02] Your vulnerability, your exposure constantly to falling? It's a healthy way to feel.
[31:18] He is able to keep us though. God is able to sustain and uphold you and me personally from falling. Do you believe that?
[31:32] Someone doubts and fears, what if I fall? there's the antidote to that potential. God's keeping of yourself.
[31:43] So if you're afraid, if I'm afraid, as we should be, leaving this weekend, Lord, what have I made? I've enjoyed so much, maybe, or I just feel worse now than I did beforehand because I know there's a potential in me to sin or maybe you're so aware of all of these things and what can I do?
[32:02] God is able to keep you from stumbling. Take that with you. Hold on to it. Turn it over to him in prayer. Take his word and you maybe feel I've got nothing to say.
[32:14] Try and talk to God. I've got nothing to say to him. Take his word and turn it over into prayer and bring it before him. The psalmist, Psalm 16, Lord, keep me.
[32:25] Psalm 121, the Lord keeps you. Jude 24, before the Lord is able to keep you. Rest in him. Stay close to him.
[32:37] You're afraid of maybe stumbling in a certain area. Stay away from everything that could lead you to falling in that area. You don't want to get burnt.
[32:50] Stay away from the fire. Don't even take a match out of a box. Leave it where it is. And if we're honest, we know areas in our lives, processes of thought, that's all it might be.
[33:04] Think in certain ways. It is possible for us to say, I am not going to think these thoughts. But if we put ourselves in a position where these thoughts and environments where these thoughts are going to start spiraling, then it's our fault.
[33:20] We can't say, Lord, keep me and then go to the place or go to the thing, whatever it is. We're actually provoking God in doing that. But if we keep ourselves where we should and plead with God to keep us, we'll be safe.
[33:37] We'll be safe. He's able to keep you from stumbling in the here and now on your way to heaven. He's able to uphold you. But listen to this. Isn't this great?
[33:50] He's able to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. Every one of these words is emphatic.
[34:06] He is able to present, to bring you personally and introduce you personally, blamelessly, before the presence of his glory.
[34:24] Could you explain to me tonight what is the glory of God? What does that mean? Well, it must involve the sheer Godness of God.
[34:45] in all its unveiled fullness. We're not any closer to it, are we? He is glorious. The glory of God is such that as we are here tonight, should he appear in the room unveiled, it would kill us all.
[35:08] Moses said, show me your glory. God said, no one can see me and live. But here, not only are we to be presented in the presence of that glory, which in itself would be too overwhelming for our present mortal bodies, it would kill us.
[35:31] On that day and at that time, he will give to our frames, our bodies, our spirits, our minds, the ability to be in that presence.
[35:42] the presence of his glory. You know, Paul speaks in writing to the Corinthians in his second letter about his light affliction, which is so temporary, it's for a moment, works for us, he says, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
[36:04] Glory is heavy. There's an immensity about it. simply being in the presence of God is massive.
[36:18] I know he's going to present you there, he says. Who? The one who's able to keep you from stumbling is the one who will present you blameless.
[36:34] Can you believe that? You know your sin, I know my sin, we know our weaknesses, temptations, our failures in our Christian lives, we know them. We can't forgive ourselves for them at times.
[36:52] But not only will you be forgiven, you will be blameless. God himself will see nothing in you that he would say is wrong.
[37:14] How will you feel then? How does it feel to think you will stand in the presence of the glory of God? It can be a terrifying thought.
[37:26] Even for a Christian. That day, that time, and forever, will be a state where you and I will have great joy.
[37:43] To be in the presence of the glory of God, completely unveiled, and you will be happier than you've ever imagined it is possible to be.
[37:58] Great joy doesn't do it justice. This is absolute, sheer, overwhelming, and indescribable delight. Your life might be hard.
[38:12] Your trials may be heavy. Your experience is burdensome. They'll all be gone then. And feeling heavy will be gone forever.
[38:25] there will be a joy that we have never imagined in being in that very presence of God. He finishes as we hope to finish right now by saying to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.
[38:53] I find it interesting, I don't know what you think, but he wants God to have glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time.
[39:04] An interesting set of words because that's already been. May you have what you've already got and already had. It seems, I think, that Jude here is not losing himself but being carried away.
[39:21] at giving expression to language in such a way he's wanting God to be so glorious and majestic and authoritative and powerful and loved and magnified in such a degree and to such an extent that he's using language that cannot even begin to express how much he loves God.
[39:45] Paul is just the same. It would have been greater being in the company of these two men. All of the apostles, you hear them talk to, you know what it's like to be in company with Christians who have a good grasp of things and they can talk about parts of the Bible or Christian experience and maybe some of them are no longer with us and you remember times where you could suggest something and they would be able to give such definitions and emphasis and when they got going, it's wonderful.
[40:16] Do you know what it feels like yourself to be in a place where you can't describe how good it is to be a Christian? Maybe you've been in a position, you're listening to a sermon.
[40:30] I remember what a very disconcerting experience in the Free North and Inverness which kind of illustrates the point and there was a man, the Free North pulpit is as high as the roof here basically and you're looking way down on the congregation, there was a man right at the front and he was a young man and he was through the sermon just shaking his head, he was laughing and I thought this is, what's he laughing about?
[41:00] He's either not agreeing with me or he's trying to put me off or something and afterwards I met him, he was very newly converted, bad background, problems with addictions of various kinds and trouble and all the rest of it but he was so thrilled with the message of the Bible that he couldn't contain himself, it was too good, have you ever felt like that?
[41:29] There's a wonderful place where the truth has that effect like it did on Jude where you say things that you cannot, where you feel things that you cannot say or clothe with words, well I hope friends, you had a wonderful weekend and that it will go on from here to become even more wonderful because one day as we read, it will, it will be so good but let's be alive and let's be serious and zealous and passionate and everything Jude instructs us to be, can't do the book letter justice, please read it when you go home, study it in coming days and myself too and try and translate what it says into life, God grant it, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, let's pray, Lord our God as we come to your word we pray for the Holy Spirit to impress it on our hearts, change us by it we ask that we may live these dynamic, spirit empowered lives that cannot be mistaken, we pray to be delivered from sin, any compromise in our hearts or lives so that we would be able to live with clear consciences and committed hearts in such a way that you would be pleased to bless and use us in our families, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our communities, in our spheres of service, remember also
[42:52] Lord those who can't be here, we pray for them, bless them wherever they are, those especially in need, receive our thanks for this day, for this weekend, part us with your blessing for giving all of our sins, in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.