Scoffers in the last days

The speaker is discussing the book of Jude and how it is filled with controversial ideas. They mention that Jude mentions some topics that will also be discussed in Revelation. They then talk about the concept of natural vs. evil, explaining that when humans fell from God, they gained another nature. They mention that Christians have two natures, the Holy Spirit and their old fallen nature. The speaker also discusses scoffers in the last days, saying that people still question the existence of Jesus. They mention the Canopy Theory, which suggests the existence of another layer of the atmosphere. They talk about how this theory aligns with certain biblical passages and the idea that people lived longer in the early days of the Bible. The speaker also mentions that the present heavens and earth are being kept for judgment. They discuss the concept of time and how it relates to the existence of God. They mention a video called "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" that explains the complexity Yeah, as you know, we are still in the book of Jude, which is one chapter, I can't believe it's taken so long, but here we are. But I have concluded that Jude is definitely a troublemaker because there's been a lot of controversial things. I'm trying to get my computer up here as I stall. So after Jude, we will be going to Revelation, but Jude actually is mentioning some of the things that we'll be talking about in Revelation. So some of it will be repeats. Okay, there we go. Finally, it came up. So before we go any further, though, we always like to go to the Lord in prayer and get ready, so let's do that. Dear Jesus, again we come to you with your holy word in front of us, and we want to know it. We want to let it change our lives, but you've told us that when there is sin in our lives, it makes it a little hard for us to connect with you, because we know that you never look on sin favorably. But you told us in 1 John that if we would bring our sins to you, that you would cleanse us and bring us back into fellowship. That's what we're asking for this morning, and we ask it in your name, and amen. Okay, shoot, it did it to me again. These computers have a mind of their own. And I just updated this morning, and after you update, you know how that is? It's like it wants you to see the new things. I'm like, I don't want to see the new things. I just want to get back to my... There we go. So he's talking this morning about scoffers, scoffers in the last days. And it's kind of a theme that we have seen before, scoffers in the last days. And so we go to Jude 1.10. We've only got through ten verses, and that's amazing, five weeks, ten verses. It said, So here we're talking a lot about the natural, what's natural. We always think of natural as good, right? You know, here people say, well, that's natural to love your children. And that's a good thing, right? You know, it's natural when a mother has a baby, how she just knows what to do. You know, there's a lot of beauty in nature. But also, there's a lot of evil in nature. And that's because when we fell as a race, when human beings fell from God, they got another nature. So you have two natures. If you're a Christian, you have two natures. If you're not a Christian, you have one nature. And then you really have trouble. But as a Christian, the Holy Spirit moves in you, and you have that nature. And then you still have your old, fallen nature, too. And so just because something may seem natural and feel natural doesn't make it good. You can't let those two things be the same thing. You have to analyze. Scripture says, for the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit. Notice that's a capital S, so that's the Holy Spirit. The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit. And the Spirit, what is contrary to the flesh, they are in conflict with each other so that you are not able to do whatever you want. So when you go by that natural feeling of what you should do, you have to really analyze it. Now, Peter mentioned this as well, 2 Peter 3.3. He said, And we still hear stuff like that today, don't we? People still today will say things like that. You know, where's Jesus? I don't see a Jesus. Who says He's coming back? But God said this, You know, just like kids. You know, when you're trying to make a decision about where to work or where to vacation or where to live. You know, the kids, they don't understand things like you understand things. You know the financial situation. You know the situation in the family. You know where you're working at, who you want to live close to. And so their opinions aren't very helpful at all. All their opinions are going to be is what they want, you know. But they can't really analyze it good. And it's the same way here. God knows all the details. He knows everything that's coming, everything that's happened already. He knows your weaknesses, your strengths. And so you can't just go by how you feel. 2 Peter 3.5 says, I like that. You know, when you really look at the verse tightly. That God made the heavens by the word of His mouth or by the word of His command. And He brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. Now just think about that. Just think, I mean so many times we read through a verse and don't even really look at it. That He brought the earth out of the water and surrounded it with water. And so that kind of brings us to this. There's a theory from about somewhere in the late 1800s. From Isaac Vale called the Canopy Theory. And in that theory, based on not just the scripture we just read. But based on some scriptures in Genesis and some other passages throughout the Bible. There appears to be another layer of the atmosphere that we don't see today. There appears to be another layer of the atmosphere. And He says here, He brought it out of the water and surrounded it with water. This would kind of fit this theory that Isaac Vale came up with. And I think Kent Hoven, we are actually studying him in Sunday School right now. Kent Hoven talks a lot about this. There's books you can read on this. Basically saying that they believed there was a layer of water vapor in space. That would act as a filter from filtering out the sun's harmful rays. Also magnifying the sun's growing abilities. They've done some experiments where they have created this environment in like a greenhouse situation. And like the cherry tomatoes will grow like apples. And they'll get way more, like hundreds of times more crops out of one plant. Especially the plants they used were cherry tomatoes. And they got like five or six times the yield on every single plant. Hundreds of times more tomatoes. And they looked at how even nuclear fallout can't get through a certain amount of water vapor. It can't make it through. That's why, you know, you're going underwater so many feet. And you could survive a nuclear blast just by being underwater so many feet. Which would lend to his theory that that's why people live so much longer in the early days of the Bible. And then when the flood came, when it said that God released the waters from below and from above. At that moment, according to this theory, when God released the waters and allowed them to become rain. And then kept them in the cycle from then on. It stayed in our cycle instead of going back to space. That would make sense because right after Noah's flood, the lifespans just immediately started clicking down. Not right away because it would have taken a while for the environment to adjust. But right away we start seeing people living less and less and less. And they finally settled somewhere around 100 years old being an old man. It finally settled. You know, even by Moses' time there were still some people living decently old. But pretty much it's gone now. I mean that makes a lot of sense from that verse. It says, then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. Which ties into that theory that he goes right there after telling us about that. It says, and by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. Kind of separating the present heavens and earth with past heavens and earth. Which makes sense too for that theory because the heavens and earth would both be different after that flood. They're being kept for the day of judgment when ungodly people will be destroyed. So that's interesting. I mean it's an interesting way to decide why all of a sudden we see the life spans start clicking down. This picture says, but beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing. That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. Trying to answer their question. Why? God says he's coming back. Where is he? I haven't seen him. Because they're just looking at just their lifetime. They're putting way too much stock in their own life. That they forget that God exists outside of time because he created time. Hovind has a really good explanation. I've heard other scientists talk about time, space, and matter. How time, space, and matter had to be put into place all at the same time. If you don't put time, space, and matter into place all in one movement, in one motion, then none of it can exist. It's totally dependent on itself. It's just like when a baby is being formed in its mother's womb. There's a great video called Fearfully and Wonderfully Made that they put out at the Answers in Genesis. It's in their library. It's hard to find online because when you put in Fearfully and Wonderfully Made in line, that brings up a zillion different... So you have to go to the Answers in Genesis. This doctor, he's actually a professor who teaches doctors. He teaches them about how babies are created when they're in medical school. He explains how many things, when a baby is being formed, how many things have to happen exactly at the same time. One try, one chance. If that doesn't happen, the baby doesn't continue in the mother's womb. I mean, that happens over and over and over again in the mother's womb. And so there's no room for evolution, you see, because you can't evolve when ten things have to happen simultaneously. You can't wait for them to evolve. They have to already be in place, just like time, space, and matter. And so it's really a good faith builder to understand that science absolutely agrees with creation. The only logical answer is there has to be a designer. And the designer has to be eternal. Even evolution requires eternity both ways. Because how could something evolve if there's nothing to evolve from? So eternity backwards and eternity forwards, especially eternity backwards, is a given, no matter what you believe. But God's not limited to the things he created. He's not limited by time. He's not limited by space. He's not limited by matter. It's just like, do you guys remember the old alarm clocks? Some of these kids are going to say, what the heck are you talking about? It's kind of like God wound the clock. Remember, guys, we had to take those clocks and you had to wind them. And if you didn't wind them, they would stop and then the time would stop. So when God set the time, it was like he was winding an alarm clock and he was setting this gap and he created a beginning and he created an end. And he knows the beginning and the end and none of the rest of us do. It reminds me, when I was in high school, we had a librarian. Oh my gosh, she was so depressing. Her life was just trying to find something wrong you did. Nobody liked going to the library because this lady was just a grumpy old woman. And so when it got near the end of school, a bunch of the seniors bought a bunch of these old wind up alarm clocks. And they set all the times different on them, like five minutes different, two minutes different. And they wound them up and they hid them behind the books. They pulled out like three or four books and slid the alarm clock in and pushed the books back. And then they just waited in there for those alarm clocks to start going off because she was a big stickler about noise. She's running all over the library trying to find them and she finally finds one and then the other one goes off and she's running around the library. It was really funny. I wish I would have been there when it happened. I just got to hear the stories. But those kids, they kind of did what God did. See, they created a span of time. They created its beginning when they wound the clocks and they created its end. At any time, they could have reset the clock. They could have rewound the clock. It was totally that time span was their creation. Just like when you set the clock for the morning, you create that time span, except for snooze, when you keep banging the snooze. And that's what God did. He set that time span. And everything that was created within it also He did. So through Him, and this passage is referring to Jesus Christ, through Him all things were made. Without Him, nothing was made. So Jesus Christ is the creator of the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. God the Son was the creator. We always got that mixed up as kids. Of course, the whole Godhead works in unity on everything, but it was God the Son who was given credit for the creation. Yet they talked about the scoffers and how these scoffers who just dismiss God and dismiss all that, they have this false confidence. And so not only do they have false confidence in lies like evolution and things like that, but they also are being used by Satan. They're being used by evil. They should have shirts that say, They should wear those shirts because that's what they're doing. Jude says, See, now Judas strikes again. Now Judas, he always is opening cans of worms that we have to go chase down, and that's what he did again. His one chapter said so much. So we're going to have to go back and take a look at a couple of those things. But we can't get through all three of those today. But 1 John 3.12, we see John's talking about this. It says, Which is interesting. Another thing you want to pick out of that verse, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. So don't be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. Because if you exercise your faith in the way that God teaches us to exercise our faith, hate's coming. Hate's coming at you somewhere. Maybe at work, maybe at home. From some way, hate's coming. If you compromise what God has taught us, told us to stick up for and told us to do, then we're probably going to get along just fine with the world. The problem is you can't please God and the world both. You can't do both. You have to choose. Jesus said this to his men that were following him in his ministry. He said, If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, then the world will love you, because it loves its own. But because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. So Cain, in that Cain and Abel story, Cain represented the world. He represented the world. Scripture even said that he belonged to the evil one. Abel represented God. And Abel lost his life. And sometimes that happens. Sometimes only the good die young. They say sometimes when you stand for God, you lose. You lose here on earth. You lose maybe a job. Maybe you're dating someone that you're considering marrying, and then you find out that that person does not share your faith. That person's an atheist, maybe, whatever. And you have to give up that relationship. And you feel like you lost. You feel like you got beat. But you never lose whenever you choose God over something else. So many stories. You probably have some of your own where you made decisions that honored your God but hurt you financially. I know when we first started Grace back in 97, I ended up having to give up a job. I went from $48,000 a year, which in the 90s was a lot of money, down to $22,000 a year, because there was just no time. The job I had was a good job, but I just lived there, and there was just no time. So we made a big sacrifice, but the thing is, it didn't even feel like a big sacrifice, because God never lets you lose. When you do the right things, you may not win in the way you thought you would win, but you're going to win when he does that. So these people, they want God's blessings, but they just don't want to obey God. Even Christians, even people who have eternal life, who one day will be in heaven, even a lot of Christians want God's blessings, but they don't want to do what God says to do. And these people who are not Christians, deep down, they know God. They know who God is deep down. Romans 1.18 tells us, God showed his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. Notice, it said they suppress the truth, meaning that they have it. They substitute the truth with something else, some other philosophy perhaps, like evolution, which is simply another religion. We were listening this morning in Sunday school that when the Marxists and the Communists would take over a country, the first thing they would do in schools was not to go in and set up classes on Marxism or on Communism. The very first thing they would do was go up and make sure that the schools were teaching evolution. That was their first move, because you have to believe in evolution to, you know, that walks right into the philosophy of Communism. The Nazis were known for that. And then the next thing they do, they surround themselves with validators. You know, whenever you choose something over God, whether it be a sport, whether it be a hobby, a job, a person, the first thing you've got to do is you've got to make sure that you have other people that agree with you. So they surround themselves with validators. And then they get a lot of them all in a big group, and then they feel like they must be right, because there's so many of us, you know. Look how many of us there are. I know in Catholicism a lot of times they will say, well, how could we be wrong? There's millions of us, way more than anybody else. How could we be wrong? And that's when I say, well, let's just all eat garbage, because a trillion maggots can't be wrong, right? It's kind of the same thing. When you get in a big group, and you're in the majority, oftentimes that's a sign that you're on the wrong side, oftentimes. You know, whenever you see that. Just like with this, when this whole Ukraine conflict broke out, right away I noticed one thing. All of the big news channels supported them right away. I mean right out of the gates. NBC, ABC, all the alphabet news. So immediately I thought, okay, they're not telling us something. Because when all of those people agree with something, then I know there's truth being buried under that garbage that they're dealing out. And sure enough, when you start studying it, and if you get a chance, Tucker Carlson actually interviewed Putin last week. It's a two-hour interview. Totally worth watching. Because he finally gets to tell his side of the story. And it turns out, it's no different than with us in Cuba, when they started bringing missiles into Cuba. We didn't stand for that, right? We're not letting you put missiles within reach of our country. That ain't happening. We're going to go over there and kick some butt, you know? That's basically what was happening over there, too. You have to watch that interview. That's pretty good. In any case, there's no substitute for God. And there's no substitute for His church. And I know I'm a dear hunter. I love, love, love being out in the woods. I mean, it's just a wonderful thing. But a lot of my friends that are dear hunters, they'll say, I don't go to church. The woods is my church. They'll say, the woods is my God. Or people that have other hobbies, you know. Like, I know this is funny, but there are a few biker Christians, and they always say, I know, I know, there's not very many, but there's a few out there. And they're always like, that's my religion, being out on the open road. And any hobby, you can do that with any hobby. Sports, I'll tell you what, sports is the biggest religion there is in the United States. Probably the world. Sports is the biggest religion, you know. Because what do you do with a religion? You support it. You put your money towards it. You give it your time. You give it your worship. You give it your honor and your glory. I always say, people, you know, they stick up for their quarterbacks, and that guy wouldn't write a $5 check to save your kid's life. Chances are, that guy wouldn't write a $5 check out of his billions, or millions, they're getting close to billions now. Wouldn't do anything for you. Doesn't care all about you, yet you'll get in a big fight over him. This just amazes me. But when all goes wrong, all those things that people put above God, when all goes wrong, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters. I heard somebody say that out there. That had to be Mike. Who you gonna call? Yeah, you're not gonna call Ghostbusters. And I can tell you, you're not gonna call those people that pull you away from God, those people that are into your hobby with you, those people who validate you. You know what? You're no fun anymore, because you're sick, you're on your deathbed. You might get a token visit or something. When you die, their life just goes right on. They might tell a funny story or something stupid you did at one time, but they're not gonna lose much sleep over you going away. But your God who loves you and died for you, He's the one you're gonna turn to. They always say there's no atheist in hell, and that's for sure. So, if you want God to bless those things, my dear honey, my beekeeping, whatever your hobby is, if you want God to bless those things, He can bless those things if you put Him before those things. If you put God before those things, that like christens them. You know, whatever hobby it is, that you're into, then you can actually pray for those things. Lord, give me a good harvest this year on my crops. Lord, give me a good harvest on my honey. Help me out in the field that I could kill a nice deer this year. You can actually pray to God like that. Give me a good safe ride when we're going on a trip. You can pray like that when God knows that He's first. See, He can bless the things you like to do, but if you put Him behind them, you're doomed to fail at the things you do. You can pray honestly when He's first because He does want you to have a good life here on earth. He knows that heaven is a billion times better than what you have here. He knows that, but He also knows that we can't really wrap our arms around that. So He wants us to have a good life here too. He says, I have come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. He wants us to have a good life here. He's all for us doing enjoyable things as long as He's first. As soon as you start justifying, and start putting other things before Him, as soon as you start that, and you get all your validators around you saying it's okay, the woods is our church, and all those things, I can tell you blessings are going to start going away and discipline might even step in. Revelations 1.80 says, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. So it says that the world suppresses that truth, right? Meaning that the truth comes to them, they suppress it. They substitute it with all those hobbies. I think we have the picture with all those things you can choose. Guitar, music, you know, chess. Imagine that, chess. That takes thinking. I was in Virginia one time and this old hillbilly, it was actually West Virginia, this old hillbilly got him a new chess set for Christmas. It was beautiful. He said, hey, do you know how to play chess? And I said, yeah, I can play chess. I said, I don't really much care for it, but I could play it. He said, did you teach me how to play? He said, I got this new chess set for Christmas and I would like to know how to play. Sure. I was down there visiting my brother-in-law and he brings out this chess set. Oh my gosh, this thing's gorgeous. I mean, it opens up this case. I mean, it's every piece. I said, man, your parents probably should have started a little cheaper than this, you know. And I go through and I explain the whole game to him and I kind of show him how to play. He goes, let's play a game. And he beat me in three moves. See, he was like actually a professional chess player. He'd won the state championship in his age bracket. I don't forget how many times. I'm like, you suckered me. Imagine why I'm explaining it. Well, he's probably just laughing inside. But anyway, any of those things can be put before God. Our enemy is so stinking clever. He can make you love anything more than God. He doesn't care what it is. You know, and he just doesn't care. Putting anything before him is sin. He goes on in Romans. He says, they know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. So that's an important statement in Scripture. That people do know there's a God. They know. Why? Because he made it known to them. Some versions word it that way. Because he made it known to them. They know. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and the sky through everything that God made. This is a cool passage. They can clearly see, not just see, they can clearly see his invisible qualities, his eternal power, and his divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. So that tells me something. If just God's creation, his nature, if just his creation takes away your excuse, then inversely, his creation must be able to convince you to believe. Otherwise that would be unfair. But he says right here that that takes away their excuse. So just imagine you've never met a preacher your whole life. You've never read a Bible your whole life. Maybe you live in the deepest jungles of the Congo. Maybe you've never met a missionary. You've never seen a Bible. But you've seen the trees, and you've seen the stars, and you've heard the birds singing. Just like the animals just instinctively know how to reproduce and know how to take care of the babies, and even humans. In that same way, when God's nature talks to you, you just know it. And one of the Psalms says, I think it's 119, the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. This is beautiful. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. So God's word is an amazing way to learn about him. But don't forget, he created the word. In fact, he said, I am the word. He created the word. So doesn't it stand to reason that the other things he created also speak of him? And that's just not a guess. The scripture just told us that. So that guy that lives in the deepest jungles of Africa, he has no disadvantage over you. You can read, but God's not going to make someone's eternal life dependent on their ability to read or not, or their ability to live in a western nation. It's really arrogant to think that we're so much better, that God placed us in this land and placed them over there, and then they have to perish because they can't read. You think God would do that? No, he's too just for that. He's too fair for that. He held nothing back, not even his son. If he was going to hold anything back, he would have held back his son. And once you give up your son, everything else suffers by comparison. So don't give his praise to some quarterback somewhere. Don't give his praise to somebody that's big in whatever hobby that you're into. Don't give his praise to some person or to some thing. God made you have that desire to praise something, him. But we take that same desire, that same itch to praise, and we give it away to some quarterback or to some football team or to some basketball team or to some hobby or some item. We give away the praise that he put in us that's supposed to go back to him, and we give it to something else. He needs to be praised. Scripture says when he was talking to the Pharisees and they were trying to keep people from praising him, he says, I tell you, he replied, Jesus, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out to me. The stones will cry out. It means God deserves praise and his creation is going to praise him. That man in the deepest jungles of Africa, God created that man, and he's going to talk to him in any way he can talk to him, through anything that man looks at, any part of nature. But I thought you had to read the Word, people say. Don't you have to read the Word? He is the Word. Scripture says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is the Word. Anything he created is a reflection of him. He created the written Word, he created the spoken Word, and he created nature that can speak to him also. The next slide says, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as the one begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. And like all of his creation, his Word can lead you to him. It's a great way, but so can anything else that he made. And not only lead you to him, but draw you closer to him. And any of you that love nature know that, that when you're out, just you and God, looking at the stars, or up in the deer stand, or riding your bike, or on a vacation just looking out the window, the nature just speaks to you and just enriches you and makes you love him even more because the whole time it's praising him. Romans 121 says, yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. How many times have you heard people say, well, I think God's this, or I think God loves everybody, so he's not going to make sure nobody goes to hell, or God's not going to, or they make up this Santa Claus God. As a result, their minds become dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. Boy, is that ever Congress in a nutshell there, right, professing to be wise. When Sarah went to college, I remember she went to Ball State, and I told her, I said, do you want to go somewhere where there's adults who've never done anything in life and think they know everything and know nothing, and there's kids who've never done anything in life and think they know everything but know nothing? Go to a college. That will give you both those people. You've got the blind leading the blind, and then they both fall into the ditch. Seventy-five percent of Christians turn from their faith after attending a four-year college. Isn't that a shame? Seventy-five percent. It's their pulpit, and we have given them too much respect. We've given that glory that belongs to God to professors. When you hear the word professor, you're like, Professor, oh my gosh, he's a professor. He must be so smart. No, he just, in a lot of cases, just didn't want to get into life. He had a failure to launch, so he just stayed in college until he finally got enough credits. A lot of times that's what you get in those people. You know what they say a BS degree means, right? You know what that BS stands for? A PhD means piled higher and deeper. You know what that means, yeah. And so they worship their God of evolution. They teach that in the schools. The nothing God. The nothing God that was created from nothing. Ray Comfort, I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He does a lot of youth ministry especially. He says, Now what sounds more like a fairy tale to you? Nothing making something? Or a creator? So Jude says, watch out, scoffers. But they love to laugh at us, don't they? They love to laugh at our faith. Scripture says, Turn your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Because one day they will have to face an almighty God. Jude goes on, he says, Now Cain killed his brother because evil hates good. He wanted God's benefits without putting God first. And we face the same dilemma today. Isaiah said this, And so the Lord says, These people say that they are mine, that they honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules, learning by rote. Which means, rote means like something you just blindly learn like repetitious, like a repetitious prayer. You know, you have the churches like in Catholicism where they just repeat things all the time. They don't mean anything to them. They just repeat words. And just blindly, and that's the way that the Pharisees and Sadducees often were like that too. So what did Balaam do that made him so bad for all the mentions we see in the Scripture against him? Well, God kind of summarized that to Joshua. Joshua 24 9. Keep in mind God is talking. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, started a war against Israel, and he summoned Balaam, son of Beor, to curse you. And this, talking to Joshua. But I would not listen to him. Instead, I made Balaam bless you, and so I rescued you from Balak. I think we have a little picture there. If you remember in that story, which we do a topical every now and then on that one, so I'm not going to go real deep into it, where the donkey could see God, the son with his sword, and he would stop, and Balaam couldn't see God. And so he would beat his donkey, and then the donkey actually spoke. God allowed the donkey to speak. It's a really good story. Just a few minutes ago, we talked about how, with Ryder coming to us, how babies can see things that we can't see, just like that donkey could see the angel of the Lord. And that's why I told the Spielmans whenever I talk to a baby, I have to hold my hands up here so my halo doesn't hurt their eyes. Because they can see that. Okay. So we all know that story, but today we're going to talk about the why on that story. If God would have cursed Israel, that would have been the end of him. God curses you, you're done. But instead he blessed him. So they were offering Balaam big money to curse him. I mean, a Balak was offering him big money. Boy, I tell you what, that's something that will test a person's faith. So when God wouldn't let him curse Israel, and he would have in a heartbeat if God would have let him, so Balaam had to figure out another way to help Balak so he could make some of that money. And he knew one thing about God. Balaam knew one thing about God. He cannot stand for sin. He can't stand for people who are especially serious sin. And so he didn't really even need God to curse them. He just had to teach Balak's people how to tempt them. How to tempt God's people so that they would lose God's protection. See, that's what happens when you do choose something over God, your hobbies or whatever, a person, even your children. There's people that choose their children over God. They think that's a good thing. That's a bad thing. You put God first and you're going to have more love than you could ever have had. Your children are going to win so big if the giver of love is first in your life. So he had to learn how to tempt them so that he knew God would withdraw his protection and even administer discipline. So the enemy uses this tool every day still to this day. In Moab, he uses sexual perversion and idolatry. But he can use anything. And what made it even uglier is he did it for money. He did it for money. Scripture says, For the love of money, not money, but the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. And they don't even see it. That's what's sad. So many times someone's under the disciplining hand of God and they don't even see it because they have drifted from God so far they can't even notice when his hand is on them. Now Jesus also spoke of this Balaam guy in the book of Revelation when he wrote to the church of Pergamum. And this is what Jesus said. But I have a few complaints against you. Talking to the church. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. So we're going to take a little closer look at what resulted from those actions when they started going to the women of Moab when he told them specifically not to. Numbers 25-1. He said, While the Israelites were cramped Oh, can't cramped. Yeah, they had a cramp right in their leg. While the Israelites were cramped at Acacia Grove that reminds me of Roger. My buddy Roger when he was talking about people being what was it? Frogs. Yeah, instead of what was the word he was looking for? Frogs. Frogs. He's talking about and then they frogged everybody. And I'm like, Frogged everybody? No, no, I meant flogged. I just did the same thing. While the Israelites were camped at Acacia Grove some of the men defiled themselves by having sexual relations with the local Moabite women. You notice there's always a woman behind every sin. You notice that? And the women invited him to attend sacrifices to their gods. Notice that's a little g because there's no such thing as another god only in their minds. So the Israelites feasted with them and worshiped the gods of Moab. Beautiful women have a way of causing men's brains to go crazy. So then this way Israel joined in the worship of Baal of Peor which is one of the most evil religions there ever was. Even today it's active. Causing the Lord's anger to blaze against his people. So they ticked him off. The Lord issued the following command to Moses. Seize all the ringleaders because he always goes for the leaders first when it comes to judgment time. And execute them before the Lord in broad daylight. People say does God believe in capital punishment? Absolutely. Old and New Testament alike. For one, the person who committed the capital crime is dead and can't do it again. So that's one great deterrent right there. And for two, when you watch a guy hanging from the highest tree for doing a crime you probably don't want to do that crime. So his fierce anger will turn away from the people of Israel. He's saying I want you to execute the people who are doing this so that my anger will turn against them. So Balaam knew that God couldn't accept evil. Habakkuk 1.13 says Your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So Moses ordered Israel's judges. Each of you must put to death the men under your authority who have joined in worshiping Balaam of Peor. Just then, one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman into his tent right before the eyes of Moses and all the people as everyone was weeping at the entrance of the tabernacle. I like this caption. Good timing is invisible. Bad timing sticks out a mile. Isn't that true? If you do everything right and you're everywhere on time nobody even notices. Man, the minute that you're late they notice then. So the rebellion started kind of small. It always is the same thing. If you look back in the 60's and 70's television shows, every now and then you go to those channels that have the old shows. Notice even then they were already starting. Just innuendo. The homosexual character was always funny and wealthy and always had a quick sense of humor. But they didn't make a big deal out of it. They just had him in the sitcom. And then as time went on they slowly take more ground. They make it more acceptable. They take more ground. They seek suckers to back them. People who don't even believe in what they're doing but that makes them look good to be oh, I'm so understanding. And then they seek acceptance. Everywhere they can seek acceptance no matter what sin it is. And then next thing you know it becomes bold and then more bold and then flagrant. This caption said since once tolerated seeks to be accepted. And sin once accepted seeks to be celebrated. Isn't that true? That movement has done that. Then we have this picture of the library story time. The transvestite story time. You ever see that? I know it's hard to believe that's Dane behind that makeup. I know it's hard. But you know that even happened on some of our military bases. You believe that Craig? On some of our military bases. Some of those weasley generals who went to West Point and never fired a shot. Some of those guys allowed these guys on their bases teaching the children of their soldiers. And I watched when Congress was drilling these guys for this. I mean this was actually on I know you don't see it you have to look for it but they do record all those congressional meetings and I watched that one. And then probably the biggest rebellion of all is the 63 million babies that have been killed in this country since Roe v. Wade. 63 million babies. You know how many people died in this country due to war? Total? 3 million. 63 million died by the hand of a doctor and parents that allowed it. 62 million. About a third of our deaths happened in the Civil War. About a third of them. When we were killing each other of course it doubled the count. And it was a brutal, brutal war. And they go out and they march and hold their signs up. Nasty women marching for the right to kill their babies. Weak men. Weak, leaderless men supporting them. Just like in MOAB you see they do whatever it takes to make the women happy. That's what they do. Even supporting the killing of their own children. Imagine that. And the mothers who have taken their daughters to kill their own grandchildren. That happens all the time. A young girl gets pregnant and the mothers and the fathers take them to an abortion clinic and kill their grandchildren. Imagine facing God with that on your record. That's just horrible. We're thankful that Roe v. Wade was overturned but that just put it back to the states is all. So the states still can make it legal. I mean it's still legal in most of the country. Marching right into God's judgment. Right into God's hands. They're going to be so regretful. That's what Jude's talking about. That same spirit of rebellion that we saw with Balaam. Jewish men bringing Moabite women to the camp and the women coached by Balaam which was a person who knew God to tempt them to betray him. Then comes this stupid guy after they're just discussing what they're going to do. God's telling them and here comes this dumb guy with this woman in tow right to his tent. So when Phineas not Phineas and Ferb not that one but when Phineas son of Eliezer and the grandson of Aaron and the priest saw this he jumped up and left the assembly. Hey where'd Phineas go? He went and got his spear. He took the spear he rushed after the man in his tent Phineas thrust the spear all the way through the man's body and into the woman's stomach. So the plague against the Israelites was stopped but not before 24,000 people died. God's discipline came down hard on those people. 24,000 he took their lives because they got involved themselves in this worship of the false god. Scripture says do not be deceived God is not mocked for whatever a man sows that he will also reap. Then he says in mayhem the Lord is slow to anger and he is. He really lets you mess up a long time hoping that you will hear his gentle calls just like with your kids you know you first you try to gently tell them now don't do that that's not a good thing to do and then after a while you can't the gentle stuff has to go away. So the Lord is slow to anger and great in power. The Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and the storm and the clouds are the dust beneath his feet. So God is a forgiving God he's a loving God but he's also a God he's got his limits and we can never let culture we can never let culture be our conscience. We have to program our conscience with God's word. He's the God of the second chance but that doesn't mean you don't have to pay. Second Chronicle says 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 from heaven and I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land. We brought that passage up last week too because it's a good time for that passage. Now remember Jude is still talking about these hypocrites in the church that wormed their way in I think it says in Jude some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches they say that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives the condemnation of such people was recognized long ago for they had denied our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. So now he brings up a new subject but we are out of time so I am going to roll that into next week's message because Jude he just keeps stirring the pot. He's something else. Okay so I do have a few announcements let me stop this real quick. I've got to be a techie anymore.