The High Cost of Neglect — Jude 1

0:00 Hi. It's great to be here. Again, I appreciate the opportunity and it's not even snowing. It's amazing because we were coming back from Florida to see it was a week two weeks ago, Tuesday, this upcoming Tuesday. That morning it snowed four inches where we live.

0:28 And I think my son wanted to kill himself. Just getting a little tired. You go from 75 to 85 degrees to four inches of snow on the ground. It gets gets to you, I guess. But thank you for allowing me to come.

0:47 I appreciate it. It's actually... The grass is getting green here, not in our neck of the woods. We're a little more north, and it's still looking pretty wintery. We don't have snow on the ground though.

1:01 Praise God for that. You know, a number of years ago, had a situation that took place in Texas. Yeah, I know the Gonzales' love Texas. And this took place in Texas as where they had, not the Gonzales', they're not related to this in any way, shape or form, but they had a 911 call coming into a Texas dispatcher, a 911. An ambulance was to be dispatched, and the ambulance dispatcher took the call.

1:37 It was life and death for the individual. And as they took the call, the dispatcher took the call but neglected to send an ambulance, and that person died. That person just didn't make it because of the negligence of the dispatcher. I'd say that's pretty serious. I'd say that that's there's a high cost for that negligence.

2:11 I don't know if you know what came up of that, you know if there was any suits or you know lawsuits or anything like that. You'd want to have them. You'd say, are you kidding me? And the action was no, they weren't kidding and that didn't happen and that person died from neglect for sure. The title of our little discussion today is called The High Cost of Neglect.

2:42 The High Cost of Neglect. And the passage I'd like us to look at, there's two passages we're going to look at, and the first one is Jude, and and we're gonna look at another passage after that. Jude, and it's only one chapter. So if you're going chapter two or three or one, it's just only one chapter in this in in Jude. It's right before the book of Revelation.

3:09 If you're having a hard time finding where that is, it's a little little epistle. It's written by a... The half brother of our lord Jesus Christ and the and the brother of James. So he is the half brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, he is Jude, this fellow named Jude.

3:29 And he is a sibling of of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not trust in Christ until after the resurrection of our Lord and Savior and his half brother and so you look at this, you look at Jude here and he is it's an interesting interesting study the epistle to Jude or of Jude And you look at this this epistle and he is really... Somebody calls him the the apostle of defense. Somebody have called him the apostle of defense, and it's really an interesting thing. A number of years ago, I was I had which I thought was some I had some discomfort in my thoracic cavity.

4:19 Let me tell you, I thought I was having a heart attack. That's what I thought. Young man, I was in California. I thought I was in I was visiting some friends in San Diego. We were living in the San Fernando Valley and we were visiting them in San Diego.

4:35 We went to Coronado over in the bluffs to look at the ships coming in and all that kind of stuff at the big Navy base in Coronado. We... I just... All of sudden, I felt some discomfort. I took Tums.

4:49 I took all this kind of stuff. And it got worse. In fact, I I couldn't lay down. I couldn't lay. We stayed the night at our friend's house, and I couldn't lay down.

5:01 And I had to sleep at his desk, so I put some pillows, and I sat at the desk and just hugged the pillows, and that's what it was. And we decided to dispense with the sightseeing and just go home the next day because I just was in agony. Every little rib in the road, put my whole chest cavity into spasm, and I was screaming. So I went to a friend of mine, he's a chiropractor, and he took some x rays, and he said, you need to go to a regular doctor on this one. So I went to a regular doctor, and he took x rays and all that kind of stuff again.

5:41 And he said, and it's really, really weird because he said, you've got, you have inflammation of the lining of the heart and the lung, The lungs, inflammation of the lining of the heart and the lungs. You want to know how painful that is? You're thinking you're having a heart attack every time you move. That's what you're thinking. It is so painful.

6:03 It's unbelievable. I for over three weeks, I couldn't lay down. I remember the first time I laid down with that. It was just incredible. So now the doctor tells me, he gives me antibiotics, but it's a viral infection, so it's not going to really do much.

6:18 So he he just does it, and I've just got to tough this out. Doctor calls me, doctor's office calls me, it's a nurse, doctor wants to talk with you. So when you get a call like that, it's not one of those calls you really I mean, you appreciate it, but you wish you'd never get one of those calls. The doctor says to me, Chris, I just wanted to let you know you have a spot on the lung, and we don't know what that is. And you either have old x rays or we're going have to do a needle biopsy through the chest.

7:04 And I'm going, man, I hope I got old x rays somewhere. Know, Barb, get me... Get the flashlight, Barb. We'll do them. We'll do them here.

7:13 You know? And so I called the... We had moved from New Jersey to California, so I called a physician friend of mine who had taken x rays of my chest and he had them. We sent them and I had it was an old lymph node or something. I don't know what it was, but they said, Oh, you're all right.

7:32 Everything's cool. Man, I thought that too. I thought that way too. I thought that's cool because... But can you imagine me getting to that guy and the guy calling me up and saying to me, hey, Chris.

7:46 We got a... You have a real severe problem. How dare you talk to me that way? I'm not going to listen to one word you're gonna say because why... What do you know?

7:59 You're just a doctor. And I just... You know, I'm not... Forget it. Right?

8:27 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James, and that, like as previously said, this is James This is James, the lord's brother and this is Jude, the lord's brother. James, to them that are sanctified by god the father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of our god into lasciviousness and denying the only lord god and our lord Jesus Christ.

9:22 We'll stop there. We look at this passage and we're going to look at another passage that's going to look at talk to us but when we look at this passage and the other one that we're going to look at, god demands of us for recognitions. We need not, we need to recognize some things here. Four recognitions by us Christians, if we're going to make an impact in this world. Now, I was talking to my friend, John Gorman, the other day.

9:53 When John John led me to Christ, well, tried to lead me to Christ. It was one of the contributing factors of that which was terrific, know, just terrific. I remember years ago, he asking or telling me this, well actually, it's a question statement, if you can say it that way. He said, Chris, I just want to ask you a question. I said, what's that, John?

10:13 He said, what could be more important? What could be more important in this world than leading somebody to Christ? What could be more important than that? From death unto life. And we were talking regarding his parents, his aging parents.

10:34 His parents are both in their nineties. And what could be more important than leading somebody to Christ? Telling somebody about Jesus Christ and leading them to saving knowledge of our lord Jesus Christ. Of course, you can't make somebody believe but what would be more important for us than for us to to tell somebody? What...

10:57 I mean, what what could it be that can be more important than that? And, you know, we look at the four recognitions. And so when we look at this passage and the other one I'm going to give to you in a few moments, we're gonna... We need the four recognitions of of... We need to we need to make these four recognitions and we need to recognize or make recognition of the call to Christ.

11:23 We see that in verses one and two of Jude. And also the commission from Christ, verse three. And then the combatant against Christ, verse four. And then we're going to look at the condemnation by Christ. And that would be Revelation chapter 20.

11:44 And we look at this, look at these four recognitions. We must make recognition of the call to Christ. Everyone that has trusted Christ as their personal savior has been called by Christ. And it's the beautiful thing I love about being a Christian is he has a task for me and a task for you to do. And we recognize this.

12:08 We must make recognition of this because first of all, it's a it's a call It's a call to Christ in terms of servanthood. In terms of servanthood. Notice what he says, you know, in verse one a, the servant of Jesus Christ. Now, we've talked about James. We've talked about what it means to be a bond servant.

12:29 We've talked about and I remember going over to this door and you know, know, the a bond servant, a servant would put his ear to the door. They would take a big like spike, drive it through, and then they would put a little tag on there and that just means you're the property of. And isn't that exactly what we are to the Lord Jesus? We're servants. We're his property to do whatever he wants with us.

12:55 Whatever he wants with us. I think sometimes we forget this. We think that we're free... We are free moral agents for sure. But when you trust Christ as your personal savior, you're not your own.

13:09 We can say, oh yeah, I can do whatever I want to do but we really can't. In reality and biblically, we cannot do that. Paul writes to the cringings, what? Know you not that your temple is the you're the temple of the holy spirit in whom you have of god and you are not your own? You've been bought with a price?

13:29 Therefore, glorify god in your body and in your spirit which are god's god's property. Now, the King James and the New King James reflect that you're God's property. Other translations omit that because of the the family of of the family of scripture, the family of manuscripts, etcetera. But I believe that that should be included in there because it's in the majority text and that you are God's property. You're God's property.

13:58 You're not your own. You have no right to say to God, I wanna do what I wanna do. You have no right before God. None. So, what are my rights?

14:10 My rights are to bow my knee and my heart to him to do whatever he wants. This is biblical theology. We say we really wanna know Bible theology. Well, let me tell you something right now. I mean, we can talk about the hypostatic union of Christ, eschatology, all that kind of stuff but one of the great biblical theological issues of mankind, those who have trusted Christ as their personal savior is, I am his.

14:38 For him to do whatever he wants with my life. And to say to him, I yield to you. Moment by moment, once for all, however you want to explain it, but that your heart and you're saying whatever you want. Whatever you want, God, I'll give it. You say to me, go, I'm gonna go.

15:04 You say to me, you know, how the people say, oh, yeah, they really got you wrapped around your finger. They say jump and you say how high. That's exactly what God has for us. That's exactly... God...

15:16 Does God have me wrapped around his finger? You betcha. And it was his blood that did it. When I trusted Christ as my personal savior, I stopped being who I am, and I became a new person to do whatever he wants with my life. It's a call to servanthood.

15:34 That's what slave means. That's exactly what slave means. When I'm a slave of God, a servant of God, I am to do whatever he wants with my life. I am to do that. There is no no substitute.

15:51 I mean, all I can say, I can say, oh, yeah. I'll do whatever I want. I'm gonna do whatever I want. No problem. I'm going to go and do this and do that without consulting god, without consulting the scriptures, without trying and praying and saying, what is your will for my life?

16:08 I can do whatever I want like that. I I can. I can do that But will it be pleasing to God? Will it count for eternity? No.

16:17 And you might even have a tremendous impact in in the general public, etcetera. But will it count for God? Remember this little poem, Only one life 'twill soon be past. Only what we do for Jesus will last. It will not matter, houses or land or bank accounts or anything else.

16:38 It will not matter if we're not doing what God would have us to do. And so the call, it's a call. And we can't neglect that call. We cannot neglect. We must make recognition of the call to Christ, the call to servanthood.

17:19 It doesn't mean you walk around and you float and you don't eat and all that kind of stuff and you don't laugh and you don't giggle because you're saying divide and you know, this all is this just You know how it is. You don't like even being around those kind of people. They just, they walk like they're really, how's it going? How are you? You know, oh, come on.

17:40 You know, get real. Sanctification is not your, you know, the way you look with your lips. It is your heart's desire for whatever he wants with your life. I've been bought with a price. So I'm a slave, I've been sanctified, and that's that's exactly what he is.

18:03 So it's a call to servanthood, to sanctification. And one of the cool things about being a Christian, I love this because I used to not believe this but it is security from Christ. When I first got saved, I didn't wasn't secure. I believed you could lose your salvation but notice what this verse says. It says, sanctified by god the father and preserved in Jesus Christ.

18:29 I'm safe. I am safe. We had one of our our ladies in our chapel miscarried two nights ago. It's, you know, people say, I I just want to take a pie and and smack it right in their face. When people say, oh, you already have a child and and and you can have another one.

18:52 You can have another one. This child that you just miscarried, I don't care if it's five weeks, I don't care if it's three weeks. She miscarried the child and still bothered her, still really got to her. And it's a human being who's now in heaven. And I say, you know, and there's, you know, so you you just wrap your arms around the person, you say, I just wanna tell you I'm with you.

19:21 I'm here for you. And you know, what can you say to that except they're safe. When a person trusts in Jesus Christ as their personal savior, you're safe. Ain't that fantastic? There's no wonderment, am I going to lose my salvation?

19:40 No, there's none of that at all. I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. You're preserved. You're preserved. And you...

19:51 The moment you trust in Christ as your savior is the moment you have eternal life. And it never ends or it wouldn't be eternal life. Right? Does that make sense? I think it makes tremendous sense.

20:05 And it's also a call to strength. Look at verse two. Look at verse two because he says, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Mercy has the idea of need on the person who has need... He has need of the...

20:24 Of tremendous need. And mercy also has inherent in the word the idea that there is adequate resources to supply every need. Mercy. Mercy. That's what I want.

20:39 I don't want justice. I want mercy. I don't want... I would... Lord, I...

20:43 I'm nothing. I'm a I'm a wicked individual. You've given me mercy and with that, you, the peace and then notice what else and by the way, you'll never see these reversed. You'll never see these reversed. You'll never see grace than peace.

21:00 You'll never see peace than grace ever in the New Testament. But you'll see as first the objective truth of grace and mercy and then you'll see the subjective result in terms of peace. I have peace with God. Ain't that fantastic? Hey, isn't there a lot to worry about?

21:25 We look at we look at our world today. We look at our, you know, you can think of Heather's about to have a child, you know, twenty seven weeks on into the into the pregnancy and, you know, I bet you bro, I bet you, you're thinking, oh man, what's happening here? We gotta do this and I'm wondering if this and all that. And and the and the the doctors really don't help you in this because when Barb was pregnant with JC, I mean, I was 37. I was 37 years of age.

21:56 Barb was 36, you know. So they do the AFP test, right? And they said, we just want you to know. It's a blood test. We just want you to know your son is low normal.

22:11 Yeah, low normal. Well, he could be a Down syndrome or he could have spinal bifida. Would you like to consider aborting this child? They actually said that to us. I said, no, we really don't want to even consider it.

22:36 But does that like, you know, jazz up in terms of your heart going, oh, what's child going to be? You know, what's it going to, you know, the doctor said, all that kind of stuff. But with the Lord, there's peace. There's peace and we look at those things and we say, we just have to trust god in that and god will do those things. God will minister and I know that JC is not normal but just kidding And but my grandbaby, he's normal, man.

23:09 I'm telling you. Okay. So, you know, you look mercy unto you and peace and then love. And notice what he says here in Jude verse two. Be multiplied.

23:21 It's just it's just like what John wrote. It's just like what John wrote in chapter three. Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of god and it's that word bestowed. You know, one translation rendered it lavished upon us. It's just not, oh, you've got the love of god and it's fire insurance.

23:43 It is lavishing, lavished on us. He just over an abundance of his love. We see his love all the time. We see, isn't that right? We see his love all the time.

23:54 We see it ever so, it just multiplied. Over and over and that's what it is and I look at this and they saw, I, you know, the question I have to ask us is, will we answer this call from the lord? Will we make recognition of this? Or will we neglect it? There's a high cost to neglecting.

24:50 Or can you find that this is just for for the professional Christian minister? Can you see find it never... If you can find it, will you let me know? Because I don't see it at all. This is to every Christian and notice what he writes in verse three.

25:07 He said, beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you the common salvation and he wanted to do that. Jude wanted to do that but he had read second Peter and changed his whole, he shifted his whole emphasis because he knew there were apostates and heretics coming in, gnostics specifically, coming into the flock and trying to destroy the flock. And so what he did was he shifted his under the inspiration of the spirit of God, shifted his whole emphasis. And notice what he says, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, to write unto you, and to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which once delivered unto the saints. And so he shifted his emphasis because it's a commission.

26:00 He giving, he's giving the saints, us, the Christian, a commission to be dead earnest. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you that you should what? Earnestly contend for the faith. Earnestly contend for the faith. Well, I'm not a, you know, I'm not I'm not a real great English guy.

26:29 You know, I'm really not. I'm not... You know, I try to know it. I I say antecedent. I thought it was like a relative.

26:37 And, you know, I didn't... That's supposed to be a grammar joke. Anyway... And I I I I look at this and I say a a pronoun. I got a noun and a pronoun and a...

26:48 What's a pronoun? It's a noun that lost its amateur status. And, you know, I look at all that kind of stuff and I say, you know, what's the big deal? But I look at earnestly and I think this is an adverb modifying the verb contend, which literally means in the Greek to fight. Now, isn't that a kicker?

27:12 Oh, no, you're supposed to be loving. You are never to get angry. Never. No. No.

27:23 Well, wasn't the Lord angry? It said, you can be angry, but don't sin. Don't punch their lights out or something like that. But we're to earnestly fight. We're to earnestly contend.

27:36 How are we to fight? How are we to contend? Earnestly. It's not like blase with hands in the pocket and laid back and all that kind of stuff. No.

27:49 We're to earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered. Why does why does he say this to us? Because of the influx of heresy that was coming in. So, you gotta stop. Peter writes about this too in second Peter chapter two and chapter three.

28:13 Talks about the apostates. He talks about these guys that are coming in, specifically the Gnostics who are coming in and trying to destroy the faith of those individuals. And he's saying, you can't do this. You can't allow this. You've gotta contend.

28:27 And it's the faith. The article is there in the Greek. The faith which was once delivered unto the saints, which means one thing. And I want you to know this. You grandmas and future grandmas, and you you grandpas and future grandpas, and you parents and you Christians.

28:52 We need to know what the faith is. We need to know what the Bible teaches. And if there was ever a time to know what the Bible teaches, it's now. With this age of tolerance, with this age of, you know, you can't say anything bad about anybody unless... And then they'll call it a hate crime.

29:18 Wrong. Wrong. That's not at all what I'm reading in this passage. How about you? When you when you look at that passage, how do you interpret it?

29:28 How do you look at it? Do you look at it as a command from God or just a suggestion? And for us, we need to look at it and take it as a recognition of it because let me tell you something. If you think you're safe in the sense of this assembly being safe without air coming into this assembly to destroy it, you can think again. I've seen it.

29:56 I've seen it in assemblies, established assemblies where you have somebody come in, they are accepted, and they start ever so slowly feeding you poison. You've got to you've got to be on guard. The elders have to be on guard. I'm an elder in our assembly. One of the jobs I think of an elder is to be on guard to protect the flock, doctrinally speaking.

30:24 And if you don't do that, what good are you in terms of as being under shepherds with the chief shepherd? And the chief shepherd is giving us the the command here. So we need to be in dead earnest. We need to defend or contend for the faith. This is not the only verse that talks about that.

30:42 Peter talks about that in first Peter five three five fifteen, but sanctify the lord god in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that ask you the reason of the hope that's that's within you with meekness and fear. Be ready to give it. We see this example. We see this example in Acts chapter 17. He says, when they when they disputed with the Greeks at Mars, a Mars Hill area, they just, he disputed with the Greeks.

31:10 He argued with the Greeks. That's what it literally means. And then he writes to the Ephesian... He doesn't write. He visits with them and Luke writes this, records it.

31:22 He tells them, he said, look it. You know the grievous wolves will come into the church. By the way, this is the church at Ephesus. You had the Apostle John and the Apostle Paul. Spent three years there.

31:36 John went... Was there, went to Patmos, came back and died there. Right? It's a great assembly. It's no longer in existence.

31:50 It's no longer in existence. There's no assembly in Ephesus or the region that's right there. There's none. And we can talk and read... Look at Revelation two two and three of the seven churches.

32:03 We can look at that. But I'm telling you something. This is so dangerous. This is so... We must make recognition of this.

32:11 And if we don't make recognition of this, it's not fun. You think this is fun and crazy. You think it's great and fun to go up to a person and say, think your doctrine is really weird and we want to discuss this with you in a private level, and it's no fun at all. It's very difficult. And that's the the saints.

32:37 And and Paul writes to Timothy in second Timothy three ten. He says, you've known my manner of life, my doctrine. You've known my doctrine. We need to be students of the word. We need to know what the word of God has to say and how to apply it correctly.

32:57 We need to do this. This is true of every one of us. Not just the professional, not for the person who's got the time. We need to take the time. I remember the story of a black bishop.

33:16 He was, from Alexandria, Egypt. He's about about this tall. He's a black man. His name was Anastasius. And in that time, Arius and his doctrine that Jesus was a created being was predominant throughout the Christian region.

33:37 And Anastasias held against it. And somebody came to Anastasias and said, Anastasias, the whole world is against you. The whole world is against you because of this, know, the same doctrine that Jehovah's Witnesses hold regarding Jesus. And you know what Anastasia's response was that? No, Anastasia is against the whole world.

34:04 And he stood his ground. And then they had the Council of Nicaea, which they condemned Arius and condemned Sabellius and Paul of Samoseda and got what the doctrine and codified exactly what the Bible has been teaching all along. That he was not a creative being, he's God in the flesh. He's always been, he's the same yesterday, today and forever. And then he's eternal.

34:35 Will we receive this commission from the Lord? What are we going to do with this? See, every week we come, you do, I go to mine, but you come to the chapel and you listen to whoever is preaching here and that's great, that's fantastic. But what are we doing with what we're hearing? I had a prophet Moody Bible Institute tell us about preaching.

35:05 He said, a sermon is not a sermon unless you make application. What's the application of this in our lives? I don't want to lecture. Do you want to hear a lecture? No.

35:19 I don't... We don't need lecture. What we need is to take the word of God, listen to it, obey it, And that's your responsibility, that's my responsibility. We've been going through homiletics and and Tepsy, and we have 14 students this year. Praise God for that.

35:38 But you know what that means in terms of having them preach? It takes forever to have them go through. So we had to truncate it from twenty to fifteen minutes and all this kind of stuff. And one of our students got up and he preached and it was really powerful because they were ministering to each other with the word. They just weren't doing this class.

36:05 They were actually ministering to each other. And I went and I saw one of our students and I... He wasn't preaching that day and and I said, hey, Benio, what's up? You're looking bad. He goes he goes just like this.

36:20 He goes, what Tommy preached on. Just killed me. I'm really... I need to really pray about it because I'm convicted. I thought that's that's exactly what needs to happen.

36:41 We need to take these... What God is telling us, not what Chris Schroeder's telling us or anybody else is telling us, but what God is telling us in his word. What he is telling us and take and say, god, what do you want from me? I want to do this. I want to be obedient to you and not only must we make recognition to the call to Christ and the commission from Christ but also the combatant against Christ.

37:41 And this is exactly what Judah is saying. If a person comes in and I'm I'm... It doesn't take me to live a great holy life in order to be saved. But if I am saved, if I know Jesus Christ as my personal savior, he's going to change my life. He's going to change my life and if I see somebody and they're living a very super loose life and promoting sexual promoting sexual immorality and promoting these kinds of things.

38:17 I'm asking myself the question, what are they preaching and what are they teaching? I wanna ask that. It doesn't... You don't have to live this Christian life in order to be saved. Nobody can live the Christian life in order to be saved.

38:34 But once you trust in Jesus Christ, you pass from death unto life. Now, he needs to be Lord of our lives. I hope you would agree with that. Because now, we look at this and we see false teachers. False teachers, and you know, that's by your fruit, you shall know them.

38:54 You ever heard that verse? By your fruit, you shall know them. That's talking about these false teachers. And what we need to do is we need to creep creep in unawares and they just sit among us and we need to be not always checking, you know, how how creepy are you type of thing. No, but we need to be very astute and very in tune with what's happening.

39:28 Folks, I just got to tell you something. There is so much false doctrine out there, so much garbage out there, it's unbelievable. And it's being published by the big publishing houses, it's being foisted on us like you can't believe. And if you don't believe this stuff, what's wrong with you? And it becomes very political.

39:52 It becomes very political if you say, no, I don't believe that. They're stealth, they come in. And Paul Paul is mixes no words when he says this. He says, and such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ and and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works.

40:23 We need to be aware of what's taking place today. We need to stand for the truth no matter what it costs us like Anastasia did. And they're condemned. They are condemned combatants. They are already condemned.

40:43 This is that the old... Or before of of old or or ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men. They're condemned. And they are also very perverted, lasciviousness, and apostate. They're apostate, denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

41:05 Folks, there... I don't know if you're aware of this. There are doctrines out there. There are people out there that we would respect to say, you don't have to believe in Jesus Christ that he rose again from the dead. You don't have to believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, that he died on the cross.

41:19 You don't have to believe that. You just gotta believe that Jesus is real. And you're saved. If you believe that Jesus is real and is a guarantee of eternal life, you're born again. I wanna tell you right now, that's heretical doctrine.

41:37 That's heresy. You must believe that he is God in the flesh. You must believe that he died on that cross as my... As your substitute. You must believe that he rose...

41:49 Died on that cross, shed his blood. You must believe that he rose again physically from the dead. And then you must have a change of mind about yourself and your sin and turn to him and believe on him as your own personal savior. And that's exactly what Jesus said. And that's exactly what Paul said.

42:09 But there are people out there, you'd say, wow, who could those possibly... Zane Hodges teaches that or he taught that. A guy from Dallas Seminary, he taught those very things. I got them in print. And I would say to myself, okay, I appreciate what Zane Hodges had to say about that, but that's not the gospel of the Bible.

42:28 Sorry about that, Zane. I don't care who you are. I don't care what letters you have after your name. It does not matter. What does the Bible teach?

42:41 And they're coming around and telling people, and then people are doing that. I'm thinking to myself, you know, go in the open air too. I go into the into the tough neighborhoods. I go into neighborhoods that you've never even wanna drive through and talk to those children. What am I gonna tell that child in Harlem or in Week Wake Park, that little black little kid that has probably got got so abused that by the age of six, when am I going to tell that child and how he passes from death on to life?

43:10 Just believe that he's real and he's a guarantee of eternal life, you're alright. No. No. But yet this is creeping in. It's creeping in and people are just, they come across as nice and everything is hunky dory.

43:28 I want you to know it's not hunky dory and it doesn't square with the word. It's not right. And we have to be very, very, very careful because we have a combatant on this. And then we see that this is the... You know, we we talked about it.

43:53 And I I'm gonna ask a question again. What could be more important than leading somebody to Jesus Christ? The real Jesus, because there are false Jesuses out there. Paul writes to the Corinthians in his second epistle, But I fear less by any means as a serpent beguiled Eve through his craftiness so your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For he that cometh and preacheth another Jesus or another spirit, you might well bear with him.

44:26 So there are other Jesuses out there being preached. There are other gospels out there being preached. We need to know the difference. The Jesus of the Mormons, he's the spirit brother of Lucifer. The Jesus of the JWs, he is Michael the Archangel.

44:43 The Jesus of Christian Science, he's not a person, he's a principal. And I ask myself the question when people say, well, these guys are okay, everything's great because they, you know, because they have the same wording. But in those words, different definitions. And I ask myself this question, okay, what am I telling people about Christ? I better be right.

45:07 I better know what I'm talking about and better be right about this. Because the the final on this one is this. Look at Revelation chapter 20. And the devil and the the devil and the the deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. And I saw the light that I saw the great white throne and him that sat on and whose face the earth and heaven fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great stand before god and the books were open and another book was open which is the book of life and the deaden were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works and the sea gave up the dead and the dead were that were in it and death and Hades were delivered up the dead that were in them and they were judged every man according to their works And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.

46:06 This is a literal lake of fire. This is not imagery. This is not imagery. This is literal. Jesus spoke more on hell than he did any other subject in the Bible.

46:22 And then ought to bother us that people without Jesus Christ... So when you go to the restaurant today, when you go get gas, when you pay something, when you interact with your neighbors, if they do not have Jesus as their personal savior, they will die and go to hell and burn forever. And as Paul writes to the Thessalonians in second Thessalonians one nine, everlasting destruction, ever being consumed but never being destroyed. That's why he died. He died to save us from hell.

46:56 And that ought to bother us. I've been redeemed from that, from that second death. And don't you think that if that's true in my life, and don't you think of it so precious that I've been redeemed from that debt? And I could tell somebody about it too, so they could be redeemed. You don't have to be an evangelist for this one.

47:28 It's one beggar telling another beggar where to enamored with that message. So straight up with that message that he didn't care if he rebuked Peter for Peter getting it wrong. We see that in Galatians. The great apostle Peter shifted his, you know, the way he was working, the way he was doing it. And Paul called him out on it right on the spot.

47:54 Why? Because this is the most important thing. It's the most important. No political gamesmanship. He said, I withstood him to his face before all.

48:12 What could be more important? What could be more important than this? We're built for eternity, folks. This is going be like a dream when we get there. Our lives will be like a dream.

49:08 In Texas, they caught the person. They they found out who the person was, that dispatcher. And they were just vilifying that person in newscasts. Can you believe this has happened here in Texas? That that person didn't send an ambulance and that person died?

49:36 And as they were airing, no joke, as they were airing this, a call came in to 911 to that same dispatcher that was not put on administrative leave at all or anything, and that dispatcher again failed to send an ambulance to the death of the person needing it. Two people died. The high cost of neglect. What are we doing? Just want to ask myself that question.

50:25 Because when we... Let me put it this way. Aren't you glad somebody told you? And aren't you glad somebody got it straight and then told You to say, I've been delivered and I've been redeemed and I thank God for whomever. We need to be this way and we can't neglect this.

51:01 We're not our own. We have to do what he wants us to do no matter what the cost. Politically speaking, with our lives, The totality of our lives is his to do whatever he wants. What do you say right now, we give it to him? What do you say?

51:29 And that we would do and give the gospel out. Even though we're clam... You know, our hands are clammy, cotton in the mouth, nervous as all get out. We just do it anyway. Father, I just pray that you would help us in this.

51:50 We ask you to forgive us when we have been selfish in holding back. Not only our lives, but in telling others. And we ask you that you would just renew a right spirit within us and that we would do your bidding. And you have already bidded us. You have already told us what to do.

52:20 Help us to be faithful. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.