Love Worth Finding

Announcer: Can you recognize someone marked by apostasy? Listen to Adrian Rogers.

Adrian Rogers: Now here God has given us a picture of a spiritual felon, a spiritual criminal, somebody who is dangerous, and someone that you ought to be able to recognize. And so God has described him, and here you have his picture. God gives us the marks of an apostate so that we can recognize an apostate when we see an apostate.

Announcer: Welcome to Love Worth Finding, featuring the dynamic teaching and insights of Pastor Adrian Rogers. This month, we're taking a closer look at the book of Jude, which is our handbook for survival. As believers in Jesus, we must be firm in our understanding of biblical doctrine and beware of those who would deface it. Jude 12 and 13 paints a gruesome portrait of an apostate so that we can recognize those who bring harm to the church. If you have your Bible, turn now to Jude verse 12 as Adrian Rogers paints the portrait of an apostate.

Adrian Rogers: I want you to take your Bibles, please, and turn to the book of Jude. It's the next to the last book in the Bible, easy to find. Find the book of Revelation and turn left, and you'll come to it. It's the next to the last book in the Bible. We're preaching through the book of Jude, which deals with apostasy, and we're talking about the apostasy of the last days. And we've come to verses 12 and 13, and here we have a picture of an apostate. A picture of an apostate. I mean, how are you going to recognize an apostate? I heard of a man who went into a bank, wrote a note, and shoved it to the teller, and the note said, this is a hold up, put all the money in a bag and send it back to me.

And the teller picked up a pen and wrote him a note and shoved it back to him. It said, straighten your tie, stupid, they're making your picture. Now, why do they want the picture of a bank robber? So they can put it in a post office and you can say, this man is armed, dangerous, beware, let us know if you see him. You need to be able to recognize a criminal, and so if they can possibly do it, they want a picture of him made. Now here, God has given us a picture of a spiritual felon, a spiritual criminal, somebody who is dangerous, and someone that you ought to be able to recognize. And so God has described him, and here you have his picture beginning in verse 12.

These are spots in your feast of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And here in five clear graphic word pictures, God gives us the marks of an apostate so that we can recognize an apostate when we see an apostate. Now, dear friend, do not think that what I'm saying today is not relevant. It is vitally relevant.

You're going to find out that the devil is not against religion. The devil is immersed in religion, and the devil uses religion. As a matter of fact, it was a religious crowd that crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, and most Americans don't need religion. They need to turn from religion to Jesus Christ. But when I preach, there will be some people who will resent it and take umbrage against it and say, you ought not to preach that way. Somehow, when we preach about earnestly contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, as Jude says that we're to contend for, there are people who call that narrow and bigoted.

And dear friend, we're somehow all un-American if we don't just put our arms around everybody else and say, your religion is just as good as mine. In most cases, that is true because they're all no good. But dear friend, I want to tell you something. There is a faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. That's not what I'm saying. It is what God is saying here in his word. But once great churches and once great denominations and once great schools have been honeycombed with apostasy and liberalism, and it is a heartbreak indeed. As a matter of fact, in Miami, Florida, there was a council that met, the National Council of Churches.

They had an assembly, a general assembly in Miami Beach. A survey was made of 521 laymen and clergy, not just clergy, but laymen and clergy who were attending this conference as to their beliefs. And I want to tell you what the heartbreaking results were. A little more than half of them believed that Jesus was divine. Just over 50% believed in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm talking now about preachers of the gospel or supposed preachers of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. More than one-third declared that the devil definitely doesn't exist. Only 62% of them look forward with complete assurance of some kind of existence after death.

Only 25% of them believe the miracles in the Bible. Only 25. And I'm talking to you, dear friend, not about those outside the church. I am talking about leadership. Who was it that said, if the gold rusts, what shall the iron do? I mean, these are the so-called spiritual leaders. They are apostates. But there's something about an apostate that will not let him just go away from an orthodox church and start his own church. What he does is he comes back into that orthodox church. What he does, he comes back into that orthodox denomination. As Jude says, they have crept in. That word means literally they've come in through the side door, and they undermine the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the church.

Now you need to understand, dear friend, that Jude says that we are to earnestly contend for the faith. Earnestly contend. That word earnestly contend has in it the word that we get our English word agonize from. We're to agonize for the faith. There is to be a battle for the Bible. And dear friend, there are 6 areas of truth that you need to get burning in your heart and in your soul. Not only do you need to learn how to recognize an apostate, but you also need to know what the great battle for the Bible is and what those areas of truth that are under attack are today. And I want to just list them for you before I even give you the portrait of an apostate, the picture of an apostate.

Truth number one is the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he was born of a virgin, Isaiah chapter 7 and verse 14. Somebody says, well, what difference does that make? Your eternal destiny hinges on the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ was not born of a virgin, he was sinful as you are. If he was sinful as you are, there could be no blood atonement because a holy God would not accept an unholy sacrifice. No blood atonement, no salvation, no salvation, no regeneration, no regeneration, no heaven for you. And my dear friend, without the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're lost without hope.

Not only the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, but his full deity. There are those today who do not accept the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to tell you, dear friend, Jesus was not just a great leader, not just some religious figure, not just some prophet. He was God of very God. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. That's what the Bible says. The Word was made flesh and dwelt with us, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. I want to tell you the third area of truth that is under attack today is the blood atonement, the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.

The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son, cleanses us from all sin. The liberal and the apostate does not like the preaching of the blood of Jesus Christ. Especially repugnant and abhorrent to him is the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, blood atonement. Another area of truth is the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he came literally out of that grave. Now there are those liberals and apostates who talk about the deathless spirit of Christ that goes marching on and all of that. Oh, my friend, I want to tell you that the faith that we preach and believe in is the faith of an empty tomb, and never ever minimize the resurrection of Jesus Christ and then his visible return.

Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth, literally, actually, bodily, physically, Jesus Christ is coming back to this earth again. And then the last thing is the inerrancy, the infallibility, the immutability, the impeccability, the authority of the Word of God, that this book is God's inerrant, infallible Word. Now, apostates do not like those truths that I've just mentioned to you today. And so, dear friend, not only do you need to recognize an apostate when you see one, but you also need to know what the great fundamentals of the faith are. Now, these indeed are not all of the things that we believe, nor are they indeed all of the fundamentals of the faith, but I can guarantee you, if you take those six things and pretty well have a checklist when you meet one of them to know really what apostasy is.

Now let's look at these five word pictures, this portrait of an apostate, this picture of an apostate that Jude gives us so that we might hang it in the gallery of our mind and say, beware, beware. He mentions five graphic descriptions of apostasy. Number one, the apostate is dangerous like a sunken rock. Look, if you will, in verse 12. These are spots in your feasts of charity. Now, what does the word spot mean there? this is a word that is used only one time in the Bible, so far as I can find, one time, and actually a better translation, or the literal meaning of the word is a sunken rock. A sunken rock.

They're like a hidden rock beneath the surface. And you see, a rock that's out of the water is not nearly so dangerous. You can see that. It can be put on a chart. You can say, hey, there's a rock, be careful. But a rock just beneath the surface. Any of you ever been out in a boat when that boat has gone aground? I have. You know, you're so happy, you're going out fishing, or you're going out to sightsee, you're going out sailing, you're just having a wonderful time, you're just skimming along, and all of the sudden there's a horrible sound and a lurch, and you look down and your feet are getting wet and water is coming in.

You've gone aground and a rock has ripped the belly out of that boat. Now, why does, why does Jude say that they are rocks in your feast of love? The word here is the agape feast. You see, the early church did it many, many times. They would get together for a great feast. They called it the Agape Feast. And here they're having a wonderful time, and God's love boat is just sailing along, and everybody is so happy. What wonderful fellowship, what love, and everything seems to be so blessed. And then suddenly everything seems to come to a grinding halt, and there's a horrible rending sound, and the old ship of Zion is wounded in her side.

What has happened? Some devilish apostate has become a rock in the river of love and has divided that he might destroy the fellowship of God. How dangerous is apostasy. How dangerous is apostasy. It causes division. The thing that holds us together is our love for the Lord Jesus Christ, our unity in the full deity of Christ, the word of God and the great truths that we preach. Destroy that, dear friend, and you have destroyed this church. And that is the reason that we must earnestly contend for the faith, because apostasy, apostasy is dangerous to the fellowship of a church. It is dangerous like a hidden rock.

Now, the second thing about apostasy, not only is it dangerous like a hidden rock, but it is deceptive like a waterless cloud. Look again, if you will, in verse 12. The Bible says, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. Now, what is a cloud without water? You have to remember that Jude is writing from the Middle East, and rain is vitally, vitally important. And the rainy season only comes for a very short interval, and when it comes, it is so very important. Can you imagine a farmer in a time of drought? He's been praying and asking God for rain, and he looks and he sees a cloud on the horizon, and it's just boiling and coming, a dark cloud, and he says, oh, look, we're going to have rain.

Thank God, mother. Look, God has sent rain. And then that cloud, just driven by the wind, just passes right over, and not one drop of rain. What a disappointment, a cloud without water. Now God says that apostates are that way. I hate to tell you this, folks, but when God said that they creep in, you remember that over here in verse 4, certain men crept in unawares. Well, liberals are creeps, but now he says they're bags of wind. They're a cloud just driven by the wind, a pompous windbag. They promise much, but they produce little. Put in your margin Proverbs 25, verse 14. Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like a cloud and wind without rain.

How terrible it is to see a cloud and expect rain and not get it. B. H. Carroll told of a drought in Texas. He's one of our Baptist forefathers. what he said was so graphic, I copied it down years ago. I want to share it with you today. He said this, I have witnessed a drought in Texas. The earth was iron and the heavens brass. Dust clouded the thoroughfares and choked the travelers. Watercourses ran dry. The grass was scorched and crackled. Leaves twisted and wilted. Stock died around the last waterholes. The ground cracked and fissures opened up, and the song of birds died in their parched throats.

Men despaired. The whole earth prayed, rain, rain, rain. Oh God, send rain. Suddenly, a cloud rises above the horizon and floats into vision like an angel of hope. It spreads a cool shade over the burning, glowing earth. Expectation gives life to desire. The lowing herds look up. The shriveled flowers open their tiny cups. The leaves untwist and rustle with gladness. And just when all trusting, suffering life opens her confiding heart to the promise of relief, the cloud, the cheating cloud, like a heartless flirt, gathers her drapery about her and floats scornfully away, leaving the angry sun free to dart his fires of death into the open heart of all suffering life.

God says, dear friend, that an apostate is like that. People come to apostate churches, and the tragedy of it is that this Sunday, literally millions of people will go sit in an apostate church and hear an apostate preacher, a pompous religious windbag, a cloud without water. They will look up and still go away thirsty for the water of life. Oh, they have their clouds, all right, Sunday schools and church services and radio programs and Bible conferences and magazines and books and tracts and mission societies, but every one of them is a cloud without water. And they come to these churches, and they will go away without the water of life.

Now, that service may be dull and boring, or it may be set on fire with satanic zeal, but I'll tell you, there'll be no Holy Spirit there. There'll be no Bible truth there. There'll be no conversion there. There'll be no joy there. There'll be no victory in Jesus there. And the sad thing is that so many of the people will not even know what it is they have missed. Apostasy, apostasy, clouds without water. The apostate, my friend, is dangerous. He's like a sunken rock. The apostate is deceptive. He's like a waterless cloud. Thirdly, the apostate is dead. He's like a fruitless tree. Look again in verse 12.

Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. You see, a Christian, Psalm 1 tells us, is to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in a season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. But an apostate is a tree. He takes up space. He's in the garden, he's in the grove, but he's a dead tree. Now, there are a lot of things you can do with a dead tree. You can transplant it, but it's still dead. An apostate can move from one church to another or one denomination to another, but he's still dead. Tell you something else you can do with an apost- with a dead tree, you can prune it.

And that is, you can try reformation and turning over a new leaf and try to get rid of all these bad things in your life, but what good is it to prune a dead tree? I'll tell you something else you can do. You can cultivate it. You can water it and fertilize it, but if it's dead, it's not going to grow. And I want to tell you, dear friend, an apostate is not going to be helped by Bible study and by prayer and by good deeds and church attendance and everything else as long as he's dead in trespasses and sin. No good to cultivate a dead tree. You can rename it. You can say, well, now you're a live tree.

Renaming the tree is not going to change the tree if the tree is dead. One lady told a pastor, she said, you know, said, she was a Methodist. She said, I just believe I'm going to become a Baptist. She told her pastor that. He said, well, I guess it'd be all right. Won't hurt to change the label on an empty bottle. And I don't mean to infer by that, that either Baptists and Methodists or Methodists, either one are apostate as such. Apostates are found in every denomination, in every denomination. You can decorate the tree. You can tie fruit onto it. There are a lot of things you can do with a dead tree.

But I'll tell you, dear friend, ultimately, about the best thing to do with it is to burn it. That's what God is going to do. He speaks of these trees that are plucked up by the roots because they're twice dead. Number one, they're dead and don't produce any fruit, but there's a second death when they're plucked up by the roots and thrown into that fire. And the Bible says the lake of fire is indeed, dear friend, the second death. And if you're not born twice, you're going to die twice. You're going to be twice dead. You're going to die physically in your sins, and then you're going to die eternally in hell.

There's one thing that you cannot get from a dead tree, and that is fruit. And Jesus said, you have not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain. And the Bible says in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, long suffering, temperance, mercy. Against such there is no law. This fruit, dear friend, we do not produce, we bear fruit. But there's one thing about an apostate, an apostate can imitate Christianity, but he cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit.

And there can be no fruitfulness in the life of an apostate. Jesus said, every tree which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up. Matthew chapter 15 and verse 13. What is an apostate? Listen to me. An apostate is dangerous like a sunken rock. What is an apostate? An apostate is deceptive like a waterless cloud. What is an apostate? An apostate is dead like a fruitless tree. Now, fourthly, I want you to see that an apostate is disturbed like the raging sea. Look again, if you will, in verse 13. Now, raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame. Now, an apostate is a seething sea of discontent.

There is never an apostate that has peace in his heart, and he's not at peace with himself. He's not at peace with God, and when he comes into a church or into a denomination, he'll be a troublemaker. Isaiah 57, put it in your margin, verses 20 and 21. The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Raging waves of the sea, spewing out their own foam and shame. Now that's what Jude is saying about an apostate. He's like a raging wave, spewing out its own form, leaving it on the beach of humanity.

Announcer: And coming up tomorrow, we'll hear part 2 of this important message, but if you have questions about who Jesus is or what he means to you, if you want to know how to begin a relationship with God through Christ, go to our Find God's Love page at lwf.org/radio. There you'll find resources and materials that will answer questions you may have about your faith.

Kerry Vaughn: Hi, this is Kerry Vaughn, and this program has been brought to you by Love Worth Finding, a nonprofit ministry showcasing the powerful preaching and teaching of Pastor Adrian Rogers. We operate solely through the generous gifts of individual supporters just like you. To give a gift today, call 1-877-LoveGod, that's 1-877-LoveGod, or write to us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38-600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. You can also connect with us online by going to lwf.org/radio. There we offer helpful resources inspired by the timeless teachings of Pastor Adrian Rogers. Additionally, you can sign up for daily emails, donate to the ministry, and learn more about how to become an ambassador of the word.

Thank you so much for listening today. Be sure to join us next time for more profound truth simply stated right here on Love Worth Finding.

Announcer: Have you thanked God for anything today? Listen to Adrian Rogers.

Unidentified Speaker: The Bible says that God daily loadeth us with benefits. He loads us down with benefits, and sometimes we don't have the eyes to see or the ears to hear or the fingertips to touch God's blessing until we stop and think about it.

Announcer: Adrian Rogers preached messages of thankfulness and gratitude every year during the Thanksgiving season. At Love Worth Finding, we've taken six of his most powerful messages on these subjects and turned them into a new 30-day devotional guide that we're calling Thanksgiving Grace. And for your gift to the ministry during this season, we'd love to send you a copy. Ask for Thanksgiving Grace when you call with your gift at 1-877-Love God, or give online at lwf.org/radio.