The Fight: Ancient and Modern - Part B

The way of Cain is religion without saving faith. That's the way of Cain.

Cain brought his own little offering that he thought God should respect and God did not. It is the way of pride in one's own works. I'm working hard. I've produced this. I do my best. I attend.

I give. I, I, I. It is religion without saving faith. That's the way of Cain. Cain went through the motions but never had faith that saved.

And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip cautions against religion Cain's way. That's all about works and pride and earning God's favor. But first, we want to tell you about a resource that helps develop true faith as you gain a clear vision of God's love and purposes for you. What is the purpose that God created man for? Listen to this from Skip Heitzig about God's ultimate purpose. God's creation of man was so that his reflection would be in man but the ultimate purpose is that God might interact with man and woman. Fellowship. Intimacy.

To be conversant with, at ease with, to interact with. Fulfilling purpose requires clarity of vision. You'll want to order our vision resource package for this month which also includes a full color magazine about the vision that drives Skip's ministry. You'll also receive an audio copy of Skip clearly outlining his philosophy of ministry in the past, present, and future. Receive your vision package when you make a donation of $50 or more to Connect with Skip. Give your gift by calling 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com.

That's 1-800-922-1888 or online at connectwithskip.com. Now we're going to be in Jude 1 as we check in with Skip today. Second example are the angels of God. The angels, verse 6, who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode.

He is reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. There's a dispute, a debate about the interpretation of this. Some feel this is a reference to Genesis chapter 6, that fallen angels somehow cohabitated with human women to produce this odd race of giants known in Genesis 6 as Nephilim in the Hebrew, and that's what brought the flood.

Others don't think that's what he is referring to. Others think it refers to the original fall of Satan from heaven with the third of the angelic beings in that rebellion spoken about in Isaiah chapter 14. And the reason for the debate is the angels mentioned here are chained and reserved for future judgment, which seem to be different from fallen angels that are Satan's agents, demons that are at work in the world and are free to roam around.

I'm not here to solve that because that is not the point. The point Jude is making is simply this. Even angels God judged, not just the nation of Israel. God judged specially created beings made by God who fell away, who withdrew, who departed, who rebelled from Him.

They had once a position of privilege and authority and blessing and opportunity, but even angels don't get a hall pass for judgment. So the nation of Israel, the angels of God, and then the third example is Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities of the plain. Now everybody knows about Sodom and Gomorrah.

After it is recorded what happened there, the Old Testament and the New Testament give comment. So we have a body of historical evidence that know how people throughout history interpreted the events of Sodom and Gomorrah. And you wonder, well, why does he bring Sodom and Gomorrah? Because one of the marks, remember in verse four, one of the marks of false teachers is they turn the grace of God into lewdness. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. They turn the grace of God into immorality. They say, God loves us.

We can do anything we want. God is a God who will certainly tolerate any type of behavior. So he mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah because false teachers evidently felt the freedom either to endorse or practice immoral sexual autonomy.

You know what I mean by that? Immoral sexual autonomy is, look, I can love who I want to love and you can't say that's wrong. It is my prerogative.

Who are you to say my behavior or my predilections are wrong? Well, notice that Jude calls this sexual immorality. The Greek word that he uses is ek pornuo. It's a compound word that suggests a sexual deviancy, that is, a departure from the original intent. And then he also uses the phrase strange flesh, a term that speaks of sexual activity outside of God's originally ordained intention. Because he's using the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, we know that was, in that case, the sin of homosexuality. It's always been interpreted that way. It has throughout history been interpreted that way until like the last decade.

It has been challenged as to its interpretation. But we know the story how the men of Sodom wanted to have homosexual relationships with two ambassadors that God sent to that town and God judged that town. Here's what's interesting. Amidst all of the mail that I got this week after last week's message, one of the emails I got was from somebody I highly respect because he is a scientist, a historian, and the chief archivist of the ancient city of Sodom. He is digging up, in the last decade, over the last decade, he has been digging up the city of Sodom in the country of Jordan.

So he wrote me an email and I wanted you just to see a part of that. He said, Skip, in listening to your teaching today, which was excellent, by the way, I had a thought. As an archaeologist and a historian, I think there is something that current apostate church leaders, be they theologians or ministers, have completely missed, of which they are either factually or willfully ignorant. Their tack on embracing LGBTQ lifestyle always goes something like this. The Bible was written in ancient cultural milieus and God accommodated it in the Old Testament. In ancient cultural milieus and God accommodated himself to the people of those cultures. That is to say, we must therefore adapt to make scripture relevant to our evolving culture, realizing that the New Testament writers spoke to their day.

Similarly, we must adjust for and speak to our day. While this may sound logical, even reasonable, it is categorically wrong and fairly lacking in an understanding of history. Old Testament revelation came at a time when sexuality was fluid, unfettered, and wives were kept for, were for keeping households and having and raising children. The sexual lives of men and women were often, if not usually, of a same sex nature, especially in military context. This is what archaeology, archaeology reveals the Old Testament presents as the ancient pagan reality. As Christianity eventually washed over the Roman world, Western culture shifted toward biblical morality. Judaism and Christianity were never accommodating to sexual perversion, but were clearly corrective to bring humankind in line with God's creative design. Now that the Western culture is moving away from the Bible, society is returning to what had been the old norms of sex without bounds. God's Old Testament and New Testament revelation were prescriptive and corrective. To bend or reinterpret revelation to accommodate meandering sexual norms not only ignores why it was given in the first place, but also strips revelation of its power to keep humanity from destructive perversion. The LGBTQ movement is nothing more or less than the norms of ancient sexual license and perversion rising up in the guise of evolving morality as if that is something noble.

It is not. Take away the corrective, the Scripture, and humans readily return to their old vomit. The point Jude is making is that we need to remember, truth needs a memory, we need to remember that God has never been afraid to judge even His own people called out of Egypt, even angels that He created, and even in this case whole cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding region.

So truth needs a memory. Judgment has a history. And then the third basic lesson that comes from this paragraph is that corruption brings apostasy. Go down to verse 8.

Likewise. Now what he's doing, he's taking the past lessons, bringing it into the present situation that he is dealing with. Likewise, also, these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel in contending with the devil when he disputed over the body of Moses dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these, that is these false teachers, speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them.

Never a good word to hear. Woe to them. For they have gone the way of Cain, they have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. Notice again, he's reaching back into the Old Testament for examples.

He again appeals to their memory. Now, he is speaking of the false teachers that he is dealing with in the congregation he is speaking to, and he speaks of their corrupt character, their corrupt thinking, their corrupt practices. That's verse 10. In these things, they corrupt themselves. So, corruption leads to apostasy.

Now, I don't have time to unravel everything in these verses because of time, but I want you to notice a few things as I entangle some of these verses. First of all, notice their authority. What was their authority? Now, I ask that because everybody has an authority base.

Why do you do what you do? If you were to ask me, skip, what is your authority? It's not my mom anymore, right? She's in heaven. It's not my dad anymore. It's not my dad anymore.

Both gone. My authority is the scripture. I'm not always perfect at doing it, keeping it, learning it. I still forget a lot of it, but my aim in life is to be brought under the authority of the prescriptive, the corrective, the revelation of God. That's my authority. What was the authority of the false teachers? Notice in verse eight, these dreamers, most every commentator will tell you it probably refers to the fact that these false teachers use their own dream life as being of divine authority. God spoke to me in a dream and my dream says that was their authority base. A lot of times people will say, gosh, I've had this weird dream. And I say, I always have weird dreams. See, I keep having this recurring dream. Do you think God might be speaking to me?

Well, maybe God can do anything he wants, but if you're going to live your life based on your dream life, you're going to be whacked. I mean, my dreams are so weird and disjointed. I'm flying.

I'm a winged creature flying into a Volkswagen driven by a dog, right? Doesn't make any sense. So translate that into real life.

It can be quite dangerous. Somebody once said, dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. So keep the insanity in the dream world. Their authority is that they got dreams which superseded any authority that the church offered, that the elders offered, that the pastors offered, or that the scripture offered. That was their authority.

Something else, notice their vanity. He said, they reject authority and speak evil of dignitaries. I don't exactly know what he's referring to.

I'll take a stab at it in a minute. But to sum it up, he's saying, whoever these people are and whatever they're speaking against, they are arrogant in their speech. They reject authority and speak evil of dignitaries.

So we don't know if they were, and commentators are very different in how they interpret it. Some think it's speaking against church leaders, the established authority within the church. People are mouthing off about church leadership. Others think it's people who are against governmental authority.

You know, be careful what you say about governmental authority because Paul said in Romans, it's all ordained by God. So it could be that they feel the hubris and pride and vanity to be able to do that. Others think that they're mouthing off against spirit beings, angels, or demons, or it could be all the above. I'll tell you this, arrogant preachers love to stir up the pot. Arrogant preachers are equal opportunity haters. They just like to stir it up.

They're angry at everything and everyone. But here's this point, even Michael, the archangel, the most powerful archangel around did not dare reproach Satan personally. He at least respected the authority structure, even though Satan was a fallen angel and has hell forever. Michael seemed to respect that and said, the Lord rebuke you.

Now I'll tell you why this is important to me. I've been to enough Christian meetings where people talk to the devil. Satan, we bind you and we want you to know. I say, whoa, wait, why are you praying to the devil right now? Why are you talking to the devil? The Bible says resist the devil, not carry on long conversations with the devil, not invite him to Starbucks for a nice latte and talk it out.

Don't talk to him at all. You can talk to God about him, but don't talk to him. By the way, just so you know, Satan is not scared of you. You do not intimidate him.

It's not like, ooh, Skip walked into the room. Now the devil's, he didn't care. None of us intimidates Satan. He is not scared of us, but he is scared of the God inside of us. He is scared of the God inside of us.

And never forget this little quip. Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Saint upon his knees. That's where you fight the battle. Get on your knees and talk to God about your enemy. But these false prophets, they have dreams for their authority.

They have vanity for their arrogance, speech, and notice their similarity. Verse 11, woe to them, for they've gone the way of Cain. They've run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and they have perished in the rebellion of Korah. I'm going to presuppose you know those stories from the Old Testament and just touch on them. The way of Cain is religion without saving faith. That's the way of Cain.

Cain brought his own little offering that he thought God should respect, and God did not. It is the way of pride in one's own works. I'm working hard. I produce this. I do my best. I attend.

I give. I, I, I. It is religion without saving faith. That's the way of Cain. The error of Balaam, you know the story of Balaam, right? He was a prophet in the Old Testament, very gifted order. The king of Moab hired him to curse the children of Israel. He ended up blessing them. Some of the most beautiful words in the Bible come from the lips of Balaam, the prophet. But he was money hungry, and he had a position of status, and he figured out a way that he could tell Balak, the enemy of the Israelites, how to watch God judge Israel. He said, listen, I don't need to curse them.

Let's do this. Let's entice the young Moabite women, the prostitutes, to go into the camp of Israel, seduce the young men to have sexual relations with these women, and then they can bring out their little gods, their little idols during that act, and that's idolatry. God will judge his people for that idolatry. So, listen, here is the error of Balaam. He leveraged his influence as a faith leader to lead other people astray. That's the error of Balaam. He leveraged his own influence as a faith leader.

Today, he would have gone on Instagram or Twitter and announced to his followers who follow him and respect him or her why they should leave the Christian faith. That's the error of Balaam. Then there's the rebellion of Korah, and Korah rebelled against God's authority by rebelling against the authority of Moses and Aaron, he and a few other people. I'm going to throw this in. This is very interesting.

I thought you'd love to hear a tidbit. William Barclay, the New Testament scholar, said there was a sect of Gnostics in the early church when Jude was writing. There was a sect of Gnostics called the Orphites who regarded Cain, Balaam, and Korah as great heroes, like the three bad actors of the Old Testament, one that on every list of good people they're not on. And a group comes along and says, oh, these three bad actors, they're heroes. And that caught my attention, that you take people like that and say, they're my heroes.

And I say that because that is a word I'm hearing more often when there's aberrant behavior. The trans community will say Caitlyn Jenner is a hero. Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn Jenner, is a hero. I think it was Newsweek magazine that even said the new hero.

And why? Because they've taken the courage to make a stand. That is not a hero. A hero is somebody who puts their life on the line for somebody else. That's a hero. A firefighter is a hero. A police officer is a hero. A soldier who fights for our freedom on the battlefield, that's a hero. Not Cain, not Korah, not Caitlyn, not Balaam, not BLM.

Those aren't heroes. So what are we to do? What should we do? I'm going to give you a few takeaway practical things to maintain purity in the church. Number one, be aware. Just know, know the Word of God. Let your life be shaped by the truth. Get some Bible plan going where you are exposed and have the truth repeated over and over and over again.

So your mindset, your worldview is a scriptural worldview. Be aware. Number two, be watchful. Jesus said watch and pray. The enemy is already among us.

We need to not go to sleep. We need to watch and pray. Be aware. Be very discerning when we hear things and not just go, yeah, I go, whatever.

Right? So be watchful. Number three, be careful. Be careful which ministry you support. Be careful which ministry you send money to.

Be careful which candidate you support. One politician said the church needs to change what they teach to agree with the modern age. The church needs to change what they teach to agree with the modern age. Ain't going to happen.

Ain't going to happen. We don't need to change what we teach to agree with the modern age. We're here to change the modern age. I love what Billy Sunday said. Billy Sunday was a baseball player turned evangelist, and he was pretty spicy. And he got up in the pulpit one day and said, you know, they tell me I rub the fur the wrong way.

Let the cat turn around, he said. So be aware. Be watchful.

Be careful. Then finally be courageous. Know what you believe.

Say what you believe. Don't apologize for what you believe in. Stand up for it. Defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It's going to take courage.

It's going to take some backbone. It's going to take some bravery to maintain biblical separation. So though Ted Turner said the more I strayed from the faith, the better I felt, I say the more I stick to the faith, the better I feel. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Fight for the House. Find the full message as well as books, booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now here's Skip to share how you can connect you and many others with the truth of God's word with a gift to keep these messages going out around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. I believe the Bible has something to say about absolutely every experience in life.

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