Stay In The Way — Jude 1

0:03 Okay, please turn your Bibles to the book of Jude. Be looking at the book of Jude today. Alright, let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, we thank you that you've provided your word to us that we may be instructed Lord, that we may have confidence in this life, That we may know you, oh Lord. God I I pray as we go to your word and consider the book of Jude.

0:53 I pray would your spirit speak clearly to our hearts. We pray Lord, would we see the Lord Jesus in him alone? God, prepare our hearts Lord to receive your word. We want to be open. We want to come with open hands knowing that Lord you want to help us.

1:14 You want to give. You want to provide. So Lord we want hearts that are expectant with hope that they may be filled, oh Lord. So please be with us now and bless your word. In Jesus name, Amen.

1:34 So today we'll be considering the book of Jude and if all goes according to plan we'll be spending most of our time in verses 20 to 25 but, we'll be doing a little bit of an overview of the book. So starting in verse one it says, Jude, a bond servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the father and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation.

2:35 Ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. What I would like you to consider today is what we believe to be true, what we hold fast as true affects everything. It affects every part of our being. What we believe to be true, the bible says is very important. So I want us to consider why that's the case.

3:09 Why must we know what is true, believe it to be true? Why is that of any significance to us? Why do we need to hold on to this? Why is Jude calling this church to contend for the faith? Contend for what they believe to be true about the Lord Jesus.

3:28 For one reason, it affects everything. What we believe passes beyond our mind, passes beyond our hearts and touches every aspect of our life. It affects our relationship with God. It it affects our fellowship with him. It affects our relationships with others.

3:50 Our relationships within the church, the body of Christ. Relationships with those who don't know the Lord. It affects our testimony, our witness for God while we're alive here. It even affects our eternity as well. So I want us to be able to stand confidently on what we believe to be true and Jude is commending this church to stand on what they believe to be true, to hold fast to it.

4:19 But if you don't know why, I don't think it's gonna compel us. At least for me, I like to have reasons. I like to know what's the purpose of this. So for one thing we see it touches everything. And for another thing, not only are we contending for the truth, but we're being bombarded with lies as well.

5:08 The enemy is trying to deceive us. And we have lies that we will be encountering on a daily basis. Jude is seeing this. He says in verse three, that he wanted to speak about the common salvation. He wanted to proclaim that.

5:28 And we wanna proclaim that. It's a joyful message we want to proclaim. But he's he's saying to this church that there is a necessity, he felt compelled by the holy spirit to tell them stand firm. And why? Because we're being attacked.

5:45 We're not on neutral ground right now. While we're on this side of eternity, we are living in this world and the God of this age is the enemy, the evil one, the devil. And what he's trying to do is steal, kill, and destroy. He's seeking to ruin us. But take heart.

6:12 Take heart. We have the Lord Jesus. We have his word. Our God is for us. Our God is for us so take heart.

6:21 But we must learn how to stand firm and we see the importance of it. So Jude is contending with this church and we see this church is is an unaddressed and unspecified church. It doesn't say who this body of believers is, what this assembly is. So we want to to take this and see, okay, this message is for us. Not only is is this church being deceived by by teachers that are coming in and spreading falsehood, but we ourselves, this message is for us to hear.

6:58 Deception is coming after us. Coming after the people in this church. So we must know what is true, stand on what is true and contend for what is true. And Jude tells us what that looks like. We also see the effects of believing what is false.

7:22 Jude describes these these false teachers that that come into the church and they're looking to draw people away, to turn their eyes from what they've received. And remember this, what they've received was delivered once for all to the saints. Jesus is the final revelation of God. The express image of his person. So any truth that says we have something to add on to Jesus.

7:52 We have something more than what Jesus offers is deception. It's of the enemy. Jesus says in in John eight, believe it's verse 44 that that the pharisees were accusing him of being his messengers of demons. He was being compelled by by the devil and Jesus was was saying to these men that that they're of their father. They're of the devil because they don't believe the word that they're receiving from Jesus.

8:20 They didn't believe his word. So we see these these false teachers that Jesus was encountering in that time were of their father the devil and they were filled with deceit. Their father being the father of lies. So those who come into the church and and spread false teaching about the Lord Jesus and what I wanna say, the deceit that might be coming into our minds, the thoughts that we have that come contrary to the word of God is lies from the devil. Lies that seek to steal our hearts and ruin our lives from what we have received from the Lord.

9:01 But take heart. We'll get to why you can take heart. It will be an encouraging message I trust. So last time during prayer meeting while I went through this book we talked about false teachers, the character of them, and we're not gonna be walking through all that today. But what I'd like to summarize is that these false teachers not only is what they say ungodly, but it's evidenced in how they live.

10:15 Just as what we do bears witness to what we believe. So Jude is is calling these Christians to see, to see the lives of the false teachers and test. Okay. Does their lives match up to what we see the word of God calling good? Calling righteous, calling holy.

10:37 Because if their lives do not match up to what the word of God calls for his people, that's a big problem. That's compromise. And we see in the end of the book of Jude, Jude is contending the Christian contending for the Christians to have instructions on how to hold fast to the faith. On how to to stand firm on what they believe and not be deceived. I want us to consider a couple examples from from the bible.

11:13 And what we'll ask is, how do their beliefs affect affect their actions and affect their lives? We look at Adam and Eve in the garden. I think a pivotal question that the devil asks is, did God really say? Did God really say? And I want us to consider how often does temptation come and just call for a little twist of what God says is good.

11:39 A little compromise. A little, you know what, just a little deviation. And the enemy was presenting this to Adam and Eve. Did God really say? Because what what the Lord offered was all the blessings, the richness of the garden, but most of all intimacy with God that they had.

11:58 And the devil said, look at this one thing that God called you to obedience to to turn away from and he said, did God really mean that? Can you trust his word? Can you trust that he's that he's for you? That what he calls is good for your life that that indeed is good? And then Adam and Eve were deceived and what were the consequences?

12:21 All of mankind fell into sin. All of man fell. Because they didn't trust the word of God to be good. They didn't rest in the word of God and say, because God said this I believe him. And it's the same for us today when when we hear the word of God, we we we see what the Lord says and man our hearts just like, I don't know.

12:50 I feel like I need to do it my way or it it just doesn't fit this situation. Or I don't know if maybe I'll just you know, try to obey that later. Like these kind of thoughts are little compromises that have consequences for our whole life. And we see we see Abraham. And we see we see a pattern of obedience in Abraham.

13:20 God comes to him and says, I want you to offer up your son Isaac, your only son whom you love. And what do we read in the book of Hebrew, in Hebrews? Abraham responded with faith in that moment. He he reckoned that God could even raise Isaac from the dead having there been no resurrection of the dead to that point. So he obeyed the word of the Lord trusting God.

13:52 Those choices are before us today. The lies that are coming against us are calling us in those very moments where, you know what, the word of the Lord is hard. I don't know if I can do it. It doesn't it doesn't seem right. And the lies are telling us to deviate, to move.

14:17 Don't look at God. You gotta you gotta do it yourself. You gotta figure it out yourself. There's gotta be another way. But Abraham says, I trust the Lord.

14:26 He will provide. He's a God of miracles. He's a God that that loves. He can even resurrect Isaac from the dead. Having not even seen that before.

15:05 Go after the good things in his life. See what he does. And God says, he doesn't tempt Job. He tests his faith. That's a key point.

15:16 The devil looked to ruin Job. Not just ruin his life, but ruin his his relationship with God. Do you think do you think the devil really cared that much about you know, wrecking the good life of what Job had? What he was after was two things, to separate and cause division between the heart of Job and the Lord God. And also he was coming after the glory of God.

15:48 He was coming after the glory of God and Job being a testimony to the glory of God. And listen, his life wasn't just a testimony to the abundant blessings of God, but that God indeed is good. No matter what life looks like. That's what that's what the devil was coming against and that's what he's coming against in our own lives. That God isn't good.

16:17 He isn't for us. We can't trust him. We gotta figure out our own ways. A little deviation, a little compromise. Ephesians five, it tells us that we war against the principalities and powers of the air.

16:35 We don't war against flesh and blood. What we're dealing with, these this fight, this contention is with deception coming from from demons. Though the thoughts that we're coming from, that's, it's not we're not worrying against what we're seeing right before us. Because our our our minds and our eyes can can accept and understand what's right before our eyes. But what God says is, there is spiritual warfare that we don't understand that's coming all around us and this is the war that we find ourselves in.

17:07 This is what this is what the adversary is contending against. Contending against the testimony of the glory of God amongst his people. He's trying to ruin the glory of God. We see this in the book of Job as well. So we see those examples in the old testament.

17:27 We see man, what we believe affects everything, but also it has a cost. It cost Job. What he believed cost him. There was suffering that came with believing you know God is good, but he held fast to what God said. He didn't he didn't listen to the lies and and even the lies coming from his friends.

17:49 He said, I'll trust the Lord even though I can't see it. I'll trust the Lord. And God met him. And think about this, he showed Job more of himself. Job was able to see the glory of God.

18:03 In a way he he wouldn't have been able to, I'd even say appreciate before. In Christian, this, it might seem like these are man, big stories in the bible, big examples. But these examples bear forth in our own lives. We're fighting on a scale of this same magnitude And more so because we've received a better revelation. The gospel of the Lord Jesus.

18:36 The final revelation of God. The patriarchs in the old testament were looking forward to this truth. What we contend for is of greater consequence. It's the savior we love. The one who loved us, that's the one we're contending that's the one we're contending for today.

19:33 This is what the word of God says. Verse 20 it says, but you beloved. I want us to see there's a distinction. There's a distinction here. Jude was describing the conduct in the lives of those that were ungodly, these people spreading deceit.

19:54 But then he says, but you, who are you? Do you know the Lord? If you know him, you can have confidence. Take heart. It says in verse 19, not having the spirit.

20:12 Verse 20 we see, we have the spirit of God. We have the Lord Jesus. The gospel delivered to the saints once for all was delivered to us. It's ours. It's ours.

20:26 We see a distinction. And hold onto this, believe it. It says, but you beloved. Joad's... Joad.

20:40 Jude starts off the passage saying, to those who are called, sanctified by God the father. Some translation says, loved by God the father and preserved or kept in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, brothers and sisters it's yours. Loved by God.

21:04 You were loved by God. Would you hold on to it? Would you see that the the love that God has for you and say, I'll trust him. I'll hold fast to it. Because listen, the enemy is gonna try to bring that into question.

21:22 The love of God for you. That you are beloved, accepted in the beloved, not by works of righteousness, but by the righteousness of Christ accepted in the beloved. Don't be discouraged and think when you stumble in sin that, man I gotta wait before I go to God. Or man I think this was one strike too much or I gotta wait. I gotta hold back.

21:54 God's love is for you. It's yours. He's given it to you. Ephesians it says, accepted in the beloved. Brothers and sisters, God does not change his mind about you.

22:08 If you know the Lord, he loves you. You're his. You're his. Hold on to it. Hold on to it.

22:16 This is just the address, it gets better. Now we see building yourselves up on your most holy faith. Building yourselves up on your most holy faith. Now what does this mean? I think if we could imagine this, we got some construction over here, I'm not gonna pay attention to that, it's kinda distracting.

22:34 We have a foundation here and we're trying to build on that foundation. So what is the foundation we have? The rock is Christ. Our faith in Christ, that's what we stand on. That's that's what we build ourselves up on.

22:48 So listen, any any thought, any truth that is not built on the foundation of Christ, we don't, we reject it. Second Corinthians tells us to to take every thought captive. And it's almost this picture bringing before the Lord Jesus and saying, is this of you? It says taking it captive to the Lord Jesus. Because listen, we belong to him.

23:13 So when when thoughts or deceptions come to our minds, we want to say Lord is this of you? Is this building on what I have received on on the faith delivered once of all... Once for all to the saints? Is this true? If it if it doesn't build on the gospel of Lord Jesus, if it doesn't build on who Jesus is, it doesn't edify us.

23:35 It doesn't build us up. It it tears us down. It doesn't help us stand up to the enemy, but it weakens us. It weakens us towards him and it brings ruin. I also would like to draw another distinction.

23:54 What is what is the difference between building ourselves up in the faith and being puffed up with knowledge? Maybe this isn't a question for you, but it was for me. Trying to figure out and wrestle with this. What does what does that mean? God is looking to transform us.

24:16 The word of God is meant to transform us. If if our approach to the word of God is is simply having more ideas in our mind. Having more more thoughts in our head but it it doesn't change our affections for God. Our love for God, our love for others. It doesn't build us up.

24:42 It might puff us up with knowledge like, I know some more stuff. But if it doesn't transform our lives, if it doesn't transform our hearts, it's meaningless. It's nothing. It's it's vanity. We see in first Corinthians where it says that knowledge puffs up.

25:02 People were were were learning about the gospel and they were seeing the grace that that we can have in the gospel and they were saying, okay, now I can just do whatever. Or like other people were saying, oh I I know all this stuff about what we have in Jesus and they were puffed up with it. And the Corinthian church had giftings and knowledge and they were they were described as people that that had spiritual blessing of knowledge, but but they were conceited. We see did it did it influence how they acted towards one another in the body of Christ. There was there was, they were called fleshly.

25:37 There was divisions. There was contention. It simply puffed them up, but did it edify them? Did it build them up? No.

25:48 The word of God calls us to be transformed. Be transformed by what we receive. So our approach to the word of God, our our approach to our time with the Lord is, God, I want to know you. Take a hold of my life. Take a hold of my heart.

26:07 Whatever that would be if we're not surrendering ourselves before God and his truth. It doesn't build us up. It doesn't edify us. We want to know the Lord. Be known by him and that that knowledge of God.

26:25 Man, you can't even... I I would even say you can't even call the knowledge of God if it doesn't change you. Can you say you know the Lord if and you you see his glory, who he's revealed himself to be and it doesn't change you? I I wouldn't call that the knowledge of God. We see Isaiah and Ezekiel seeing visions of the glory of God and and falling to their faces.

26:49 And Ezekiel not even, the Lord said, get up. And Ezekiel's like, I can't get up. And the Lord used his spirit to get him up and we see Isaiah Isaiah saying, woe is me for I'm a sinful man. If we see the word of God and doesn't do any, if it doesn't move us, if it doesn't move us to change, if it doesn't transform and inform our relationships, our lives, our dealings in the church and amongst our family. Meaningless.

27:19 Meaningless. And God desires for his children to be built up in the faith. Do you know your heavenly father desires for you to grow and mature in the faith? And why? To know him.

27:34 To walk with him. That you would know his love for you. That you'd experience his love in the body of Christ. That's his desire. So we see the end.

28:07 And another question I was asking is, why does Jude bring this up? Why why is this so important? How does this help us contend in our faith? Because we're seeing Jude is giving us instructions on how to stand firm, on how to hold fast to the Lord God. So we want to know what what purpose does this have?

28:30 But first, what does it mean to pray in the Holy Spirit? When we pray we want a spirit of being surrendered before God. We want our hearts to be bare before him and just as as we're trying to be edified, edified by God and transformed by him, that should be evidenced in our prayer. Praying in the spirit and even praying as Jesus prayed is is saying not my will but yours. It's it's taking our desires.

29:03 What's in our heart and saying, God put your desires in my heart. It's the spirit of God working in our soul and taking the heart of God and putting that in her own heart. Praying in the Holy Spirit. Does our our prayer lives, is it... And I don't mean this as condemning because man, I can't I can't talk.

29:29 But does our prayer lives look like, man, if I am to pray I need the power of God. If I am to bring these requests before God, man, I need his strength. This type of dependence on the Lord. This type of, this type of, I need your I need your strength Lord to pray in your spirit. This is what the Lord is looking for.

30:00 He wants our hearts. He wants our hearts. He wants faith filled requests. We can't do that apart from the spirit. Requests that are that are God sized.

30:11 Saying that Lord only you can do this. And hearts that say, I trust he can. I know he can do it. I know the Lord. We need the Holy Spirit to do that.

30:22 So practically, I I'd ask you, before your time in prayer, ask the Lord. Lord, I I I want to pray in the spirit. I want I want to be filled with your spirit and I want to be surrendered to your spirit now. I want your heart to be my heart. Your desires to be my desires.

30:42 The life of Christ, my life. It's this aligning, aligning to the heart of God. How does this affect or help us contend for the faith? Man, we need it. We need prayer.

30:56 We need prayer. We see in edifying that we're we're built up. We're able to stand firm. In prayer, we're able to turn our eyes to the glory of God revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and say, God I need you, trust you. And it it reveals in our hearts the lies.

31:17 It reveals in our hearts the deceptions and turns our heart to the Lord God to fulfill our need. It provides intimacy with God. It points us to the Lord. It points us to the Lord. And now, keep yourselves in the love of God.

31:42 Keep yourselves in the love of God. This is the pivotal verse. If you could say what's what's the main instruction? What does everything come into? It's it's keeping ourselves in love of God.

31:57 Judy says, but you beloved, and the address is keep yourselves in love of God. The other three instructions show us how to do this. But Jude, he's he's saying, what's the message? How do we how do we stand? How can we stand fast to the lies that are coming against us?

32:17 Keep yourselves in love of God. Are you surprised by that? I sure was. Man, our God is so good. Our God is good.

32:30 And he loves us. His love is ours. His love is ours to own. Is his love fickle? Why why does Jude instruct us to keep ourselves in his love?

32:48 What is, what do we have to do? Is it, is there something that we need to like, man God your love isn't here and I need to like grab for it or something? This bears forth in our human relationships that love can be offered, but it must be received. And think about what the Lord God is saying. His love is ours.

33:16 He's reaching out his hands to us. He did it in the Lord Jesus. He's put, he shed abroad his love in our hearts by the by the Holy Spirit. His love is ours. And Jude, through the Holy Spirit is pleading with us, receive it.

33:35 Keep yourselves in his love. Would you accept it? Would you accept it now? Man, I know my heart doubts the love of God. It doubts the love of God so much.

33:55 Can it be? Can it be? But the word of God, the spirit of God is patient with us. Is gentle with us in our weakness, in our doubting. Our weariness, the wavering of our flesh and his love is constant for us.

34:16 And he says to keep ourselves. And in the word in the Greek it's it's tareo and it means to guard ourselves in his love. His love is ours. Would you hear the word of the Lord saying to you? To step into it, to abide in it, to receive it.

34:42 That's what the Lord desires for us. That not only we would hear that he would love us, but that we would experience and walk in his love. That keeps us from deception. The enemy is trying to deceive us and say, you know the Lord is changing. That that his heart for us changes.

35:05 That his opinion of us changes. Brothers and sisters, if you're in the Lord Jesus, if you've received him, the opinion of your father in heaven never changes. He has made up his mind on your account. We've been reckoned righteous before him. He's received us as children.

35:26 He's brought us to his table and he says, take eat. It's yours. It's yours. Would we then respond with hearts and say, I don't know. God I don't I don't...

35:40 Is that for me? Brothers and sisters, you're at his table if you know him. You're at his table. He's put a feast of love before you and says, take eat, it's yours. The Lord Jesus bought it with his blood.

36:00 We're accepted in him. The love of the father for the son. That's the love that we have. It's ours. The Lord God, he's saying just take of it.

36:42 That he'll come back and there should be anticipation in our hearts. And I think I'm young. I'm thinking, man, there's a lot of things in life that I'd like to do or a lot of plans and things like that, but but man, the early church had an expectation that the Lord's coming back. That he's coming back to to bring us home to be with him. And I found that the more I spent in the presence of God, how sweeter that seems.

37:12 How how lovelier it seems that man, we will be in the presence of our God, our savior. Without sin, without suffering, no doubting there, no crying there, but a surety. Why? Because we can see his face. This is so sweet that when we see him, what we have is mercy.

37:49 What we have is mercy when we're brought up to be with the Lord. We have the mercy of the Lord Jesus. That when we'll be in his presence for eternity, what we have to look forward to. That we can stand before him redeemed with confidence because we have received the mercy of God. Another aspect of his mercy is that the sin and the suffering and and even this the deceit that we...

38:25 That's coming for our hearts now. We'll be free from that. The mercy of God. That we'd be free from that and there won't be any condemnation. We won't have any judgment but we'll stand before him with mercy.

38:41 We'll have his mercy and we'll talk about that some more. In verses twenty two and twenty three, because of time, I'll just make a quick note that I think something to see in this book is that the scope, the scope is is pretty specific. Judah is saying, when he's calling this church to contend, it almost seems like he's saying, your individual walk with God. He's pointing to our individual walks with God. And even in these verses, it's it's really specific.

39:15 Like he's saying to these people that are struggling with deceit, people that are struggling with deception, we kind of seem like, man ourselves it's easy to be deceived. It's easy to fall into error. We want to be a help to others but we see the scope is pretty limited because honestly we just can't we can't affect a lot of this stuff outside of our circle. So I mean the people that God has put in our lives, we want to be a witness for the truth. And I think sometimes at least for me the temptation can be man, all this other stuff, all this all the other lies I'm hearing are like, all all the stuff that's going on in the world that I can't control.

39:51 The word of God gives us an encouragement and and tells us that those that are inner influence, we want to be a witness for the truth. It says on some have compassion and I think what we would see here is that those that are being deceived, falling into deception, but are lacking maturity or or simply just not understanding what the truth is. Have mercy on them. The Lord God has mercy on them. So we want our response to them to be one filled with with mercy, with love, with compassion.

40:27 And it says those that are falling into that deception and guess you could say drinking the kool aid, but what we see here is it says that their the garments are defiled by the flesh. So we see it's bearing forth in their conduct, in their actions. The Lord God is is saying to contend with with fear. We see in Galatians that when a brother falls into sin that when we restore them, we must remember we ourselves, we have a sin nature in us. So beware, be careful, be careful.

41:04 So when we're approaching them to know we ourselves are capable in the flesh of being deceived. And we want to show love to them, but never be accepting of what God says is wrong. When God says, sin is sin. We want to believe his word. We want to believe his word.

41:57 How to keep ourselves from deceit. But I think what we see here is there's almost like a song breaking forth from the book. It's almost like light shining out in the end that God is saying, we are being held fast by the Lord. We hold fast to him, but our God is holding us fast as we were remembering in the first meeting that we're in his hands. We're in his hands.

42:25 So when we we come against deceit, when we come against the lies of the enemy, when we're tempted to disobey and not trust God, and our faith it fails, we hold fast. But I'd say most of all, we know that we are held fast by God. We are held fast by God. An image that this book is called Gentle and Lowly and an image that it gives in that book is a little child coming into the waters with their father and the water's, you know, not not too high so the child's having a little fun playing. Get a little bit deeper and then, oh, the child can't really stand too well in the waters, starting to lift up a little bit, then you're going where you can't really touch the ground at all, The child grips on to the father.

43:14 But what you see that whole time is the father is holding the child. The father's with the child. The hand of the father never leaves the child. So we hold fast. We hold fast to the Lord Jesus.

43:30 But I want you to stand with confidence knowing that his grip on you, his grip on you will never fail. That our God is holding us fast. That we are held fast to that day. We're held fast by our God. And I see this is like the the picture that's breaking through to the text.

43:54 We see in in verse one, That we're called, sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ. It's almost like this is the message coming out. That we're held fast by our God and contending for our faith, we hold fast to what's true. But our God is holding us. That's our hope.

44:10 That's our trust. And we see this has present implication that when we think, I don't know if I can stand against this sin. Our God, he has power. He has power to keep us from stumbling. And we see looking forward to eternity, it says to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

44:36 Think about the image here. When we're before God, our savior, and we see him in his splendor and glory, his radiance, and we're able to have joy at that moment. It says, exceeding joy To see the face of our father beaming with radiance towards us and to be able to respond with joy in our hearts. How can it be? How can it be?

45:02 Only the Lord Jesus. That's all we have. That's all we need. The Lord Jesus holds us and he holds us to that day. He holds us to that day.

45:15 And now we see in verse 25. And I was confused, what's this doing here? But I think that Jude, his heart is compelled by the glory of God and we see in verse 25, to God our savior who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. Amen. This, it's like the light shining through the text.

45:40 We see God. He's ours. We're his. This is our hope. We hold fast to what is true.

45:47 We see his glory. We believe him. He's holding us fast. This is what we trust. This is our God.

45:57 We see Satan is tempting Adam and Eve to confuse and to turn their eyes from the glory of God. To turn turn their hearts away from his word. To not trust him. And what do we see? We see the glory of God.

46:41 When the walk is hard, when your heart fails, turn your eyes to him, to the Lord Jesus. Seek his face. It's towards you. It's radiant towards you. His heart is towards you.

46:58 His glory, seek his glory. We are... We hold fast but we are held fast by our glorious God who has the power to keep us from stumbling and present us before his presence with exceeding joy. And we can have a taste of that joy today. Even in the body of the Lord Jesus, have a taste of that joy today.

47:24 Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you oh Lord for the encouragement of your words towards us. God, teach our hearts to cling to your promises. When we say amen that your words are as sweet as honey. That when we receive it they bring soundness to us Lord.

47:53 I pray teach us to live by your promises to us and to hold fast to them Lord, knowing that you were for us, that you belong to us and we belong to you. We praise your holy name today. In Jesus name, amen.