In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij begins examining Jude 22-23 and how believers must be rescuers of those caught up in false teaching. More specifically, Pastor Babij explains two of the the three ways that you as a believer must rescue the doubting, the duped, and the wandering:
A. To those that are doubting: mercy (v. 22)
B. To those who are already in the fire: snatch and save them (v. 23)
Full Transcript:
Let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Jude. A couple more messages left in Jude. And as we consider this on this Lord’s Day, we’re actually given further encouragement from this passage of Scripture on how to be strong in the faith in the midst of apostasy, in the midst of every wind of teaching that is out there, and there’s much of it. So four points of instruction for discernment and survival in the midst of confusing, aberrant apostasy have been given. We have examined two of the four points of instruction in order to remain strong in the faith in the midst of the winds of false teaching and false doctrine. And of course, the first one was in verses 17 through 19. Verse 17 is this,
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
So to recall the words of apostolic teaching, pretty much that means the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation, all right? What’s important here is that we must start here first. We must always go back to the Scripture. Everything has to be run through the grid of Scripture while we’re learning to accurately handle the Word of God. And why do we do that? So we don’t drift, so we don’t get duped by false teaching, so we don’t get caught in doubting all the time, so we don’t get caught wandering all the time, but we become stable.
It has been said, it is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before. And usually when it comes to the Bible, no one’s ever heard it. You go to the mall evangelism and you ask them, have you ever read the Bible? No. Do you care to read the Bible? No. It’s like not even on their radar, yet it is the most sold book every year in the world. So people are reading it, and you’re reading it. At least you ought to be reading it. So that’s where we start, always start with Scripture. We have to recall the words of apostolic teaching firstly.
Then last time, the second point of instruction was found in verses 20 and 21, to remain in the love of God:
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
Remember, it does not mean keep loving God, even though that will lead there, but to stay in the love of God. In other words, you’re already there as a believer. Stay there and don’t wander from there. That’s what false teaching will do, it will get people to wander away, and it’s very subtle when it happens. In verse number 20, where it uses the term, but you, beloved, really does underscore a difference between the false teachers and those who follow them, those who actually oppose the truth, even though they may say they don’t. And when they do that, they endanger the community of believers and against those who actually are seeking to know more of God and obey Him. So there’s a huge difference. And the difference carries with it a significant responsibility of those who do know the truth.
So if we are going to be people who follow the one command given, and what was that? To keep ourselves in the love of God. That’s the one command. We are to carry out the threefold responsibilities for ourselves underneath that one command. And what is that? First, we will keep ourselves in the love of God by continuing to build. In verse number 20, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. That means growing in the knowledge of God and His plan. Secondly, we keep ourselves in the love of God by continuing to pray. That’s the communing aspect of our faith, drawing close to the Lord every day in prayer, depending on Him in prayer, bringing our intercessions before Him in prayer, bringing our petitions before Him in prayer, begging before Him in prayer. That’s communing with God, and He listens to us and hears us. He bends down low to hear His children’s prayers. And then thirdly, we keep ourselves in the love of God by continuing to wait. All right, remember, we’re just passing through here. This is not our home. We’re heading to our home where we have citizenship in the kingdom of God, right? So we’re waiting, and while we’re waiting, though, notice what we’re waiting for. We’re looking forward to receiving our Lord’s mercy. But you, beloved, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. So that’s what we’re waiting for.
This is the basic strategy that should be carefully followed by all Christians. And why are we to follow that strategy? To keep us from drifting. To keep us from drifting. And don’t think that you cannot drift. All you got to do is close your Bible and put it on the shelf, right? And then one month goes by, two months goes by, a year goes by, a couple years go by, and you haven’t even picked it up. Then you stop coming to church. You stop fellowshipping with believers. And you start getting interested in good things, but not things that are going to benefit your spiritual health, right? And you drift. When that happens, if you’re really a believer, then God brings in His disciplining hand and disciplines you, right? Gets your attention, brings another believer into your life to kind of like, what are you doing? You need to get back to the means of grace that God’s given us to grow us.
So while we are building ourselves in the Word of God, and we ought to be doing that, and praying in the Holy Spirit, and waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ at His return, we all are called to do something. We are all called to do something. We move from the teaching part of Scripture to what they call the imperative part of Scripture. We go from, okay, now I understand what I’m supposed to do. Now I need to do it. So we go to the doing part. So you see, if you drift away from apostolic teaching and keeping yourself in the love of God, you cannot effectively carry out the primary task of the church. And you say, well, what is that? Evangelism and making disciples. That’s the primary task. That’s the heart of the Lord. So we are waiting for Christ to bring in the full harvest of souls. He uses His church to be the evangelist, to go out and speak to people the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if we keep ourselves in the love of God, we will develop a sense of responsibility, a sense of urgency, and a sense of passion for souls, for lost souls. See, God makes converts. We are to make disciples that God saves. We are to disciple them, bring them. Disciples are learners. They want to follow. They want to know what God wants them to do.
So how are we to respond to false teachers and those who follow them? That’s the question that Jude brings up. Are we to fight against false teachers? Are we to condemn them? Are we to hate them? Or are we just simply just to ignore them? Well, you would think that if we are to contend for the faith, fight for the faith once delivered to the saints, there would be a struggle, and there is. The struggle is between truth and error. However, we are not to fight, to hate, or to ignore them. Well, you ask again, and I’m thankful that you’re asking these questions. Then how are we to respond? And what posture are we to take with them? Well, we are actually to take a positive posture. And maybe more than I would have thought, or I would have expected, that we are to take this posture against false teaching, against those who follow propagate it and those who receive it.
It’s really similar to the approach that the archangel Michael had with the devil. If you look back to verse number 9, remember it said Michael, the archangel, when he disputed with the the devil and argued about the body of Moses, what did he do? It says in the rest of the verse, he did not dare to pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said the Lord rebuke you. Now that’s the attitude we ought to take. Now who was he? He was a good and holy angel and he showed respect, he showed restraint, he showed reverence. And why did he do that? Because he knew his place. Judgment is God’s department, not fallen angel’s department and not even good angel’s department, it’s not our department. Judgment is God’s department. See, good angels do not bring a railing accusation against bad angels.
So what we learn from Michael’s response is how he sees himself. He was not the judge, he was not the creator, he’s not his own authority, he is not a lawmaker. He’s a created angel and he is a servant of the Lord and a minister on behalf of his creator. His respectful attitude shows that he knew his boundaries, that he sees himself exactly how he was created and what he was created to do, and hence he knows his mission in God’s economy. There’s no pride or arrogance found in this character.
So we are to take a similar stance, in other words, when we deal with false teachers and those who follow them. We are to take a stance as a rescuer. That’s what we are. We’re a rescuer. We rescue people. We are not the judge. We are not their creator. We are not our own authority. We are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ and we are sojourners. We are salt, we are light in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation, bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are in darkness.
And a rescuer is like a a QRF force. You say, well, what’s that? Well, that’s a military force that is called a quick reactionary force. And the QRF force really is comprised of a group of highly skilled soldiers who are called in when some soldier or unit of soldiers or personnel are in some kind of trouble and they need to be extracted quickly. Who do they call? They call the QRF and they come to rescue. So in a similar way, that’s who we are to those who come under false teachers. Because why? They’re in serious trouble. They don’t even know that. And we’re talking about teachers that have infiltrated evangelicalism. They have a corner of the market and they usually have a large corner and a very influential corner. So what are we supposed to do? We bump into people all the time who are involved and steeped in certain teachings and doctrines that are not biblical. Their thinking is not biblical. Their actions are not biblical. Some do realize they’re in danger. Most do not. As rescuers, we are to discern those who we are charged to rescue. Because each of the three groups Jude is gonna mentioned in our text are groups that are at different levels of intensity as far as danger is concerned. So caution must be taken by the rescuers, lest we find ourselves in danger also.
This morning, I don’t know if I’ll get through all three groups, but we’ll try for two this morning. So the pursuit of the Christian experience in this age while we’re awaiting the next age is introduced by three activities of responsibility by means of the verbal form of the imperative. That means it is commanded for us to do it, it is important for us to do it. It also brings with it a commanding instruction. This is what you’re to do. This is your job. As you’re not drifting, but you’re staying stable, now you are the ones who are the healthy ones who are to go out and now talk with people, find out where they’re at, and be able to now rescue them. So we have to recall the words of the apostolic teaching, we have to remain in the love of God, and now the third point of instruction is in order to remain strong in the midst of every wind of teaching, along with it comes with a threefold active responsibility now towards others. The other responsibility was toward ourselves, now it’s towards others.
What is the third point of instruction? The third point of instruction is to rescue the doubting, the duped, and the wandering. Rescue them. In saying that, this is how the true church really opposes false teachers. those who are attracted and those who are attracted to their persona, and many of them are attracted because of the persona of the ministry. It’s very engaging, it’s very high-tech, it draws people in. We oppose them by rescuing those who have come under their various levels of influence. That’s how we really oppose them.
The first active responsibility for believers is found, look in your Bibles, in verse number 22. It says this, and have mercy on some who are doubting. Here’s the first group. Those who are doubting, what do we do? We’re to have mercy on them. Mercy to those who doubt. Now this first term that needs to be explained is really the term doubting, because you may say, well what does that mean? It’s used here for someone who’s trying to evaluate the difference from one teaching to another. They’re, in other words, undecided about what’s being taught. They’re wavering, but they don’t know what to do about it. It means here that the argument is going on in their mind, inside of them. It’s an inner conflict or doubt. We all have been there. We all doubted things. We all struggled in our mind about things. That becomes something that we’re going to run into people that are doubting. We’re going to run into people in the church that are doubting, right? These people right here are still in some way connected to the church, and so they are doubting, and they’re kind of debating the issue, but they don’t really know what to do about it. They have an inner conflict. Like I said, we’ve all been there when concerning difficult biblical subjects. We’re not sure who’s right and are uncertain about the truth. That’s why we need to continue to build ourselves up in the faith.
Now let me just mention just a few examples. One of them would be possibly the teaching of tongues, right? Some come under the teaching that which is false, such as that coming forth from some evangelical teachers, especially in their Pentecostal persuasion, who say that in order to know you are saved, you must speak in tongues. It is kind of a proof that you’re saved. So they kind of remain in doubt because they have never received the rest of what the Bible says about it, and they probably never will. They never really get to the place where they’re confronted with all the apostolic doctrine that is going to show them that maybe what they’re thinking is all wrong, or what the teacher is saying is not all what the Bible says. So they really never hear the complete message, in other words, from Scripture concerning the person of the Holy Spirit, that God the Holy Spirit is sovereign in bestowing all His gifts for the perfecting of the saints. And speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, in gifts of miracles and gifts of healings, were given in the beginning days of the church for purpose of pointing to the judgment of the unbelieving nation of Israel, the Gentiles being included in the gospel offer where we see in the book of Acts that it’s used three times, that God was doing a new thing, and then also authenticating the apostles as revealers of truth. That was the main reason for this revelation, this gift given to the church. And so we have now cessationists who believe that this is no longer in operation today, I am one of them, and then you have continuationists who believe different levels and aspects of how this could be used. But when you come to Scripture, you find that God did use it. And then when the full revelation of God came in, we had the whole word of God come together, that these gifts very quickly after the apostle John began to kind of like wear out and wane off the scene until they were no longer used. Not until really our modern day do you see them come up again, and usually they are coming up again by people who are not necessarily handling the word of God correctly. So that could be one. They could be doubting in that. It’s not good to stay in a mindset of doubt. We have to be clear on what we believe. We have to know that what we believe in and we have to know that we’re saved. God wants us to know those things.
One thing that happened to me, and I wanted to share that with you, is on the doctrine of election is the next one. I received false teaching on the doctrine of election when I first became a believer. I had incomplete information on this critical biblical subject, and I was in deep inner conflict on this subject for some time, until I was confronted with the biblical texts. It opened my eyes to the truth. In that time in my life, I was really struggling, wondering even, you know, are you really saved? Are you one of the elect? Are you not? What does the Bible teach on all that stuff? Now, at the same time, I was doing a paper on the foreknowledge of God given to me by a professor named Dr. Baker, and that teaching led me into the teaching of predestination and the teaching of election. At the same time, I was reading Charles Haddon Spurgeon, where he said his first message in his church in London was, I am not ashamed to be a Baptist, and I am not ashamed to be a Calvinist. So I was reading him, he was a very strong Calvinist, and it came through in his writings. And then, along with that, I was reading the Puritans. For the most part, they held to a Calvinistic tradition. And I began to see that there is a very, very long line of faithful pastors and teachers and missionaries and evangelists, all throughout history, that held to a Calvinistic position. But at that point, I did not. I held to a strong Arminian position. Somebody gave me a tract once, are you a Biblicist or a Calvinist? Of course, the track was against Calvinism. And I was confronted head-on with apostolic doctrine when I began to preach the book of Ephesians right here at Calvary in 1986 and 87. I came to Ephesians and was stopped in my tracks when I read Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5, and it says:
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
When I read that, and now I had to go preach it, I said to myself, I remember where I was, I was in the bedroom, I had no office in the back then, and I said, Lord, if this is what you’ve done, if this is how you did it, I believe that. And I began to preach that. And then I saw it everywhere in Scripture. You notice when that happens? When you get to a place and you see it everywhere in Scripture? But I tell you, that day was the day that a weight was lifted off of me. And a freedom was given to me as far as my relationship with God, about the Word of God, about ministering, all kinds of things I was freed up to do because of that and all the doubts that I had about election, I found out was not false teaching, but it was apostolic doctrine. And I began to understand that election is the act of God by which before the foundation of the world he chose in Christ those whom he graciously regenerates and saves and sanctifies. Then I went on to understand that sovereign election does not contradict or negate the responsibility of man to repent and to trust in Christ as his Lord and Savior. That’s all part of God’s plan. That sovereign election will result in what God determines according to the good pleasure of His will. See, those kind of things, when you understand them and see them in Scripture, it lifts up the doubts and you’re set free. So I was convinced by apostolic doctrines and then my doubts were dispelled and I went on.
Yes, I have to mention that I also realized that some people will take the doctrine too far. They call them hyper-Calvinist, who conclude, for the most part, if God elects all those to be saved, then there’s really no purpose to witness. Well, that’s not true because the Bible teaches that as well. Go into all Jerusalem, and to the uttermost part of the world and preach the gospel. That’s God’s will. That’s God’s will. And so they both go together. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are like train tracks. They don’t come together down here, but they meet in heaven, right? They meet in heaven and so that frees you up, frees you from your doubts.
Then there was another subject that came up and it’s one that you hear a lot about, that people have a lot of doubt about, and it’s that of sanctification. I struggled in the beginning with the once saved, always saved message, even when there’s no evidence of a holy life or a desire to follow Christ. I was in a church where every Sunday there was a gospel invitation and the same people would come up almost all the time. And I’m saying, you already know that. You ought to be doing this. And so I was wondering, what’s going on? There’s got to be something going on here. I began to study the Word of God and then the Word of God again solved that. And of course, specifically, I was thinking, can someone make a profession of faith in Christ and never bear fruit of the Spirit and evidence of a new life? Especially when you become a believer, you get the Spirit living in you. Is the Spirit living in you or not? If the Spirit is living in you and it is the Spirit of God living in you and you have the power of resurrection life to overcome sin, how come there’s no evidence? See, that was in my mind and I was thinking, man. False teachers promote teaching that says that God accepts us even if we live like the devil and live after the world and live after the flesh. That these teachers say that faith exists without producing fruit, that a person can believe in Jesus without repenting, without changing his life, without separating from the world, without denying and controlling the flesh, without following Christ. False teachers ultimately say that God’s love and grace are so inexhaustible and they are, but not in this sense, that a person is free to sin just so because they believed in Jesus.
Then I came to the Scriptures and I learned that every believer is sanctified or set apart unto God by justification and therefore they are declared to be holy and identified as a saint. Positional sanctification, that’s called, right? But then I learned that there is also another kind of sanctification, because God doesn’t take us to heaven as soon as He saves us, right? He leaves us here. So the Spirit of God now produces in us progressive sanctification, that we agree with God with. Justification is God doing the saving. Sanctification is I am agreeing with God and following God as I follow His Word to be set apart. So sanctification takes place by which, the state of the believer is brought closer to a standing the believer positionally enjoys through being justified by God through faith in Christ Jesus. And through obedience to the Word of God and the empowering of the Holy Spirit of God, the believer is able to live a life of increasing holiness in conformity to the prescriptive will of God, becoming more and more like our Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what the Bible teaches, right?
So when you meet people and you ask them, oh, you’re a believer? Yeah, I’m a believer. I believe. I profess Christ 10 years ago. Oh, so what church do you go to? Oh, I don’t go to church. Well, when’s the last time you went to church? I haven’t gone to church in 10 years. And the person is holding on to that. That is a very dangerous place to be because if they have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is either going to bring chastisement in their life and bring them back, or they’re not going to come back because they were never saved in the first place. Unfortunately, you hear a lot of this and see a lot of this today. Oh, I once was a Christian. Or I was brought up in a Christian family, but when I got to college and when I got to leave the home, I realized I didn’t really hold to what my parents held to. And so they go on living in a different way. And yet they think, because my parents were Christians, that somehow I’m connected to them and maybe I’m covered. And that’s a damning truth.
But we do know that when we do become Christians and we do have the Spirit of God, there is still a struggle with sin, right? The Bible teaches that also. Sin is not eradicated when you become a believer. But I tell you what, when you become a believer and you grow in Christ, you do sin less and you don’t sin the sins you used to sin. Now you realize as a believer, your sins are way more complicated than you thought they were in your thinking, in your imagination, and things you never thought that you should be judging and taking care of in your life. That your thought life, wait a minute, I thought that’s my own thing. No, we’re living before the eyes of God every single day and God knows your thoughts. From afar, He knows them, right? The Word of God tells us that too. So there’s a struggle with sin, but what is good is the Holy Spirit provides the power to have victory over your sin and to say no to it, and you stop listening to your rebel voice that you used to listen to, and the Spirit of God’s voice gets stronger and stronger, and you barely hear the old rebel voice, but you hear the Spirit of God’s voice loud.
So what I’m saying here this morning is that apostolic teaching will solve the issue of doubt. And for sure, people are going to have different points of views on different points of theology. Often the struggle comes because we were introduced to false teaching, which caused doubt in some but not in all. So the doubting must be settled by the truth of Scripture. A person will remain spiritually unstable until they have those doubts cleared up. It’s like what James said in his epistle when it came to praying. He says, but he must ask in faith without what? Doubting. And why? This is what he says about a doubting person – the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. The Apostle Paul brings that up in Ephesians 4:14, which we read this morning. He says:
As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
That’s what is behind it. You know what’s behind false teaching? Satan. And Satan wants to deceive people, and he uses people that are false Christians to do it, and he does a good job at it. So if we’re not aware of those things, we can get pulled into those things.
So how are we as Christians to respond to those who have inner conflict and is not sure who’s right? How does Scripture tell us to respond to those with inner turmoil? Well, it says here in our passage of Scripture in Jude, in verse 22, it says, have mercy. Have mercy. Now, where does that bring us? You know what that brings us? Remember, the word mercy is also the word compassion. Have compassion on them. The same mercy, the same mercy that was wished to the believer in Jude 1:2, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. And also, the same mercy the Christian is expecting to receive from Jesus at his return, waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ, this same mercy, we are presently commanded to give those who are doubting, to show mercy by moving toward them in their need and by coming alongside of them with the Scripture to convince them what the Bible says about the struggle they are having with what they’re doubting, and to make it clear by the Word of God. And why do we do that? So that the person who is doubting, their doubts are dispelled and that they are brought in line with the truth, and when you are brought in line with the truth, this is how you feel, free. I feel free. Even Jesus said to those Jews that thought they were part of the church or part of being in the kingdom of God, he said to them, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. They were not believing in the Son, Jesus Christ, and they were not free. They were under bondage.
So this first group, and I call these sincere doubters, these are people who are genuinely, sincerely doubting, is to rescue them from fence straddling by a compassionate person who is remaining in the love of God, who is continuing to build upon the Word of God, continuing to commune with God in Spirit-led prayer, and continuing to wait expectantly for the mercy of Jesus in providing full redemption to us. And how do we do that? We use the Word of God to dispel doubt. Now that’s the first responsibility that Jude gives to somebody who is strong in the faith to those who are weak and need to be taught. That’s what he gives us.
Now the question has to be asked, are you there? Are you able to do that? Do you know your Bible well enough to be able to go to passages of Scripture, not that you have everything memorized, but to go to the Bible and be able to take it out and show people what the Bible teaches about tongues in the various places or about the security of the believer in salvation and about the Gospel. Can you define the Gospel and know what it really is? See, if we can’t do that, we have to go back to the drawing board, get back into Scripture and start learning those things, get back into learning doctrine and truth. begin to think through those things so we are able, so we are strong in the faith. That’s who he’s talking to – people who are going to contend for the faith, right? Fight for it because you know what you believe. And as you do that, you don’t overwhelm people. You come with them with compassion. You come with them with mercy because what mercy actually does, mercy relieves the consequences of sin in the lives of others, both sinners and those who are sinned against. Mercy is really getting down on your hands and knees and doing what you can to restore the dignity to someone whose life has been broken by sin or that they’re so steeped in doubt they don’t know what to believe and maybe they don’t even have the ability to know how to get there. But you do. You come alongside them and help them. See, mercy doesn’t hide. Mercy meets the need. Mercy actually lays aside the reasons that would cause a person not to help.
I think we live in a society where we’re too much security conscience and our security consciousness prevents us from talking and meeting with people. And this COVID mindset has not helped. You go places and people don’t even talk to you anymore. What’s going on here? Say hi to people, you know, like what? This is crazy. We need to be out there. Let’s get back out there. Let’s get back speaking to people and show them the truth.
So this first group, these sincere doubters are to be rescued from their doubting by the word of God, by people who are merciful. Now that brings me to the second group, and I may do part of this group. Let’s go back to Jude, look at verse 23. And it says in this second group, this is what I call the endangered naive professor. The endangered naive professor. They need to be rescued from their wandering away from the truth because they were being led by false teachers who had already given up the truth and wandered from it and have replaced the truth with their own dreams and visions. So the second activity of responsibility is that to those who are already in the fire, snatch and save them. Look at verse 23. It says, save others, snatching them out of the fire. And it looks like that this next group has already gotten involved in the lifestyle and in the practices of these false teachers. This group has been influenced by the pride and the godlessness and the false teaching and their practices. They’ve already come to the place where they’re rejecting authority. They’re relying on dreams and the wicked, lustful imaginations that they have and not the word of God. And in these dreams, they give permission to people to participate in all kinds of immoral acts and defilement of the flesh. So in other words, their dreams overrule biblical teaching. So the Bible’s kind of set aside. Oh yeah, we still all believe the Bible, but we don’t necessarily teach the Bible. We don’t necessarily read the Bible. We don’t necessarily use the Bible in any way, shape or form, but we do believe it.
So the judgment for these false teachers who do not repent is the judgment of eternal fire. We saw that in verse number seven. It says, are exhibited as an example in undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. The judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah is a reminder of God’s view of sexual sins and the proper understanding of sexual relationships, that divine judgment fell on Sodom and Gomorrah, teaching that unbridled sin leads to ruin. And God finally reduced them to ashes. That’s what he did. So the judgment that came upon Sodom and Gomorrah should be a warning against those who end up scoffing at God and disregarding His word. Those today who hear the gospel and willingly reject it will face a greater judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah. And so these who have come under the influence of false teachers are already in the lifestyle.
So Jude wants us to picture them as having their foot in the fire already. And of course, the fire in scripture is often used as judgment. Like it says in Matthew 3:10, the ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. But here in our text, the judgment referred to is final judgment. And the concern that the rescuer has is for those who are tottering at the edge of hell. They’re tottering at the edge of hell, that the final judgment will catch them unprepared so that the approach of the rescuer to those who go astray may take several forms.
Now you say, what forms would they take? If the scripture is going to inform this group of people, how would we do it? Well, the Bible already lays all that out all through scripture. One of them, if the person’s in the church, is Matthew 18. Right, Matthew 18, right? What’s Matthew 18 going to do? It’s going to teach the people of the church that, listen, if you see someone who is sinning, go to that person. Show them that they’re sinning. Of course, you want to do that in a humble way. You want to do that examining your own heart first. And you go and show them. The Bible says if they listen to you, we’re done, right? You help them, come alongside of them, encourage them, pray with them and see how they’re doing and then let them grow, keep growing. Then if they don’t listen to you, bring two more, make sure all the truth is established based on the Old Testament. And if they listen to you, good, you’re done. But if they don’t listen to you, bring it to the church and let the church go get them. And if the church goes and gets them and they still won’t listen, that’s when you have the authority from God to say, listen, we’re going to look at you as a Gentile and a tax collector, as a non-believer, because you’re not producing a repentant heart. You’re digging in against it, and put them out of the church with the desire, with the prayer to bring them back and reconcile them and bringing them back and reinstate them in a sense. We know that once we put them out there, if they’re really a believer, the Spirit of God is going to come and He’s going to deal with them in their sin and He’s going to convict them of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and He’s going to bring them back. And they’re going to come back and they’re going to repent and they’re going to be restored to the body. That’s what we’re looking for. But those who don’t come back shows that they were never believers. They have no care of wanting to listen to that. So that’s one way you rescue them.
Then there’s another way in scripture, in Galatians 6, verses 1 and 2, you don’t have to turn there, that we need to really repair and restore to a former condition where it says in that passage, it says, brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, now it’s indicating not anybody could do this, but a person who’s growing in their faith, who is strong in the faith, they can do it because they know the word of God, restore such one in the spirit of gentleness. There it is again. It’s that compassionate, gentle heart. And it says each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. You’re really aware when you’re helping other people with their sin, you don’t get caught in that sin, right? We’re cautious of that. Why? Because we understand, as we’re growing Christians, how powerful sin is, how deceitful it is, how it will bring destruction in our life if we give ourselves into it. So we’re fighting that and we’re being very cautious when those things take place. So that’s another way to rescue them.
And then 1 Timothy brings out another way and that’s sometimes public rebuke, where Paul told Timothy, those who continue to sin, rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. So if somebody continues to sin and you go through the process and they will not stop and they still come, they still end up being in groups of believers, you publicly rebuke them and you put them out. Hopefully they come back.
And then, of course, Titus brings another one up. And he brings up in Titus 3:10, reject a factious man after the first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned. And I’ve met people just like this who thought they knew better than everybody else and that they were the teacher in the room when they were never called to teach. See, that’s a very dangerous person. That’s a factious person. That’s a person who causes division in the body. See, those are the things that the elders have to deal with in the church and say, listen, you need to stop what you’re doing, and grow. Some day maybe you will be a teacher, but right now you’re not.
I remember one time we had people come to a membership class, and they were a group of a couple families. They came in, and we gave out our doctrinal statement, and we got our doctrinal statement back. I don’t know if Dwayne remembers this. And it was more red on the doctrinal statement than black print because they want to come in and correct all the things that they thought we were wrong about. And we said, you know what, we think you guys should start your own church. And so they did, and they lasted not too long, and it disbanded. They were the Harold Camping-ites. I don’t know if you remember them, you know, proclaiming that the Lord’s coming. I don’t know how many times they predicted the Lord’s coming. But they were very aggressive, but they were factious. They didn’t want to come under the leadership and the eldership of a particular congregation. They wanted to spin their own teaching. You have to take care of people like that. Those are unpleasant things, but you’ve got to take care of it.
Then, of course, there’s the last one. I’d like everybody to turn to this one, and I think I’ll close with this one this morning. And that’s this James chapter 5, and I want you to notice what it says in James 5:19-20. It says this:
My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Isn’t that great? He’s actually saying the same thing Jude’s saying. So this second group, this endangered, naive professor group, needs to be rescued from the error of their way by a compassionate, spiritually minded, biblically knowledgeable person who knows how to handle the Scripture and uses Scripture correctly to rescue them from wandering away from the truth and/or a profession short of saving faith, so that those tottering on the edge of hell will not be caught unprepared at the final judgment. You see, the motive here to our second responsibility to the misguided is to correct their error with Scripture. Amen? That’s what we ought to be doing. So really, James is really laying the responsibility on the church and says it’s your job to do this. And I believe as we do that, we are going to be rescuing sinners from the error of their way. Then as you rescue them, they are freed up by truth and they’re set free to go on and grow and serve the Lord. So let me just close there this morning. I pray that you could use these texts. I’ll come back next week with this.
Let’s pray. Father, we thank You, Lord, for Your guidance in Scripture. We see in the Word of God the clear responsibility You’ve given the church. Lord, the thing is, I pray You would make us people that are able to carry out this responsibility, not just people that know about it and don’t do anything, or people that know about it and don’t say anything. I pray, Lord, that we would be those compassionate people that come alongside others who we recognize are thinking all wrong, not only in the areas I’ve mentioned but many other areas, and be able to come alongside of them, pray with them, bring the Word of God out to them, show them from Scripture, and let Scripture be unleashed to them and do its work in someone’s heart. And, Lord, I pray as we do that, we would rescue people from the error of their way. We would rescue them from false teaching, false thinking. We would rescue them from possibly even a profession that is not true, and give them the truth of the Gospel, and You would save them. Please do that. Use us to do that. And I pray this in Christ’s most holy name. Amen.