From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Hey, how are we to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly age? We live in an ungodly age, but God has called us to come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. You shall be holy, for I am holy. We want to hear at the end of life, "well done, my good and faithful slave. You were faithful in a few things, I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master." We don't want to displease our master. We want to please Him. So how do we do it?

Guest (Male): You and I live in an ungodly age, but as believers, God has called us to stand steadfast in our faith amidst deception and spiritual compromise. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. In today's message, he shares how Christians can stay rooted in the truth of God's Word, shine for Jesus, and share the gospel to a lost and a hurting world.

The lesson is from Pastor Jeff's new six-message series, "Faith Under Fire: A Study of Jude." And it's our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount to From His Heart. You can get yours in the format of your choice: USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an immediate MP3 download of all six lessons. That's for your gift today. Go to fromhisheart.org to make that secure gift today. But don't do it now. First, open your Bible to the book of Jude as Pastor Jeff begins the message "Godly Living in an Ungodly Age."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: We've noted that the theme of Jude is not a secret. The theme is right there right in the beginning, verse 3, as Jude said, "I wanted to write to you talking about our common salvation, but I felt the necessity to write to you imploring you to earnestly contend, to fight with all your might for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints."

And then he goes on to talk about these false teachers, these apostates. But then in verse 20, he shifts gears and he stops talking about these men and starts talking about the believers. "But you, beloved," he says in verse 20, "building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life."

Hey, how are we to live a godly life in the midst of an ungodly age? We live in an ungodly age. Jude was talking about an ungodly age. You remember that's one of his favorite words in the book of Jude. He uses it over and over and over again. Ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. These false teachers, these apostates, are ungodly people. And we live in an ungodly age.

But God has called us to come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. "You shall be holy, for I am holy." And so how do we do that? We want to hear at the end of life, "well done, my good and faithful slave. You were faithful in a few things, I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master." We don't want to displease our master. We want to please Him. So how do we do it? Well, three essentials. If you're going to live a life that receives a "well done," three essentials.

Essential number one: you can be mindful of the warnings. Mindful of the warnings. Jude is a warning. Jude is sounding the alarm. Red alert. "Hey, I wanted to talk to you about wonderful things, but I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith." We need to be mindful of the warnings.

Some people say, "Well, with all the false teachers, all the apostates, that just makes me think that all this stuff, all this Christianity stuff, I guess it just must not be true because the water is so muddied that maybe you just throw it all out." No. Apostates don't weaken our trust in the Lord. It strengthens our trust in the Lord. Why? Because the Lord said this was going to happen.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Beware, be on guard. Be careful with these people. Be on red alert because not everybody talking about heaven is going there. And Jude says this in verse 17: "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you in the last time there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the spirit."

So we need to be aware they are out there, and the Lord told us they would be out there. So what does that say to you and to me today? The rise of false teachers demands discernment. You have to be discerning as a Christian. You can't be gullible. You can't just say, "Well, so-and-so, I saw so-and-so on TV. He opened up his Bible and he's at so-and-so church or such-and-such a place, and so he must be giving me good stuff." Don't be gullible like that.

John said this, 1 John chapter 4, verse 1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world." It says in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 13, that the devil never ceases to make crooked the straight paths of the Lord. He is going to attack the gospel at every turn because if he can pollute the gospel, if he can turn the grace of God into licentiousness, into sexual immorality, into a license to sin, and he can somehow poison the gospel and put cyanide in the Tylenol, so to speak, well then there's nothing to hand down to the next generation because it gets thwarted at that point and the gospel gets polluted.

And so we have to be discerning. Who is true and who is false? Now I had somebody that was not very pleased with my sermon last week and wrote this. Didn't sign it, but anyway, if you're out there, I love you, even though you're upset with me. "Criticism of ministers is not something Christ would do, so Pastor Jeff, don't do it." I don't know if they've been listening to the book of Jude, but criticism of ministers is something that the Bible does.

Criticism of the false teachers, that's like saying, "Hey, shepherds, when you see a wolf, don't tell the sheep about it because how do you know that that's really a wolf?" Well, it's like Little Red Riding Hood. "What big eyes you have, Grandma." You can see, and Jude is telling us: these are the wolves. You want to be able to point people to the truth and say, "Listen, this is the truth and this is false." And these people are out here and they're typically sexually perverted and they're going to be in it for the money. And money is going to be a huge part of what they do.

Now, remember this. We have what's called the prosperity gospel. I've talked about the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is not the true gospel. Look what it says in verse 19: "These are the ones who cause division, worldly-minded." That literally comes from—that "worldly-minded" is *psuchikos* from the Greek, which means the soul. They're preaching things to the soul. They're not preaching the things of the spirit. They're preaching things of the soul. They're devoid of the spirit. They don't have the Holy Spirit.

Warren Wiersbe said it's sad, but so many Christians can't tell the difference between a spirit ministry and a soul ministry. Between the true that are speaking the words of the spirit that exalt Jesus and those who are of the world that are speaking to the things of the soul that exalt man. You have to be able to tell the difference. You know, in Leviticus chapter 10, Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, they were just consecrated as the priests of the Lord.

Aaron the High Priest and these are his sons to be the priests, and right off the bat, they burned strange fire before the Lord that the Lord hadn't commanded them to do. And they brought their strange fire and God brought His fire and boom, they were dead. They died right there on the spot because they burned strange fire before the Lord. We have to be able to tell the difference between true fire, God's fire, and strange fire. So it takes discernment to do that.

The prosperity gospel: God wants you healthy, God wants you wealthy, God wants you promoted, God wants all these good things to happen to you in this life materially. God wants you to be rich. That's the prosperity gospel. That's not the true gospel. Read in Hebrews chapter 11, the hall of fame, and see what and the others that had all the terrible things happen to them. Read what happened to Isaiah. He's put in a hollow log and cut in half. These people that have died for their faith.

If you preach a gospel that doesn't make any sense to somebody incarcerated in China for his faith and you're telling them, "Hey, your promotion is coming. This is a new day," and they are being beaten for their faith? That doesn't compute in their minds and in their hearts. But if you tell them what the scripture says: "Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. God is going to use this for good. Be faithful unto death, and the Lord will give you the crown of life."

Guest (Male): What a challenging thing to share with someone who is in the most difficult time of their life. But the Bible also says in Mark chapter 8, verses 34 and 35: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel will save it."

That is our continued promise from God who gives us courage and fearlessness to surrender to godly living in an ungodly age. That's also the name of today's message from Pastor Jeff, and he'll be back with more in just a moment, discrediting the distortions that some teachers offer to their flocks. Pastor Jeff wants you to know that the battle for truth is real.

Your special gifts this month help From His Heart continue to proclaim the unchanging truth of God's Word to people who are searching for answers and hope and spiritual stability in an increasingly hostile culture. In a culture filled with confusion and compromise and competing voices, believers need confidence in God's truth more than ever.

And in his powerful six-message series we're in now, "Faith Under Fire: A Study of Jude," you'll discover how to recognize spiritual deception, how to stand firm in biblical truth, and contend earnestly for the faith in a challenging time. To get your copy of this series, make a gift this month of any amount to From His Heart when you go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. Thank you. God bless you for standing with us. Now let's get back to part one of the message, "Godly Living in an Ungodly Age."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Listen, the prosperity gospel is not the true gospel. The hyper-grace gospel is not the true gospel. It's a distortion of the gospel. That does exactly what Jude says: it turns the grace of God into a license to sin. The works-based salvation that we see so often in churches, that's not the true gospel. That's a perversion of the gospel.

Now how about this one? You probably haven't heard of this one because it doesn't go by this name. Somebody gave it this name, but it is so true for today, especially with younger people: moralistic therapeutic deism. That's the thinking that takes the gospel and turns it into just, "well, we're just going to do good things and we all believe in the same God. You might call Him Allah, or you call Him something else, we call Him Jesus, but it's all the same. We just blur all the lines. Everybody's good, just do good things and build habitats for humanity."

Not that that's a bad thing, but if that becomes the sole purpose of your gospel, you have another gospel. And just be good, be nice. The goal is to be happy and feel good about yourself. That is moralistic therapeutic deism. Well, about not calling people out: if you read Matthew chapter 23, there are eight woes that Jesus gives. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" And then He starts to just rail against them.

He calls them blind guides of the blind. He said, "You travel over land and sea to make one proselyte, and when you do, you make him twice the son of hell as yourself. You are serpents. You are whitewashed tombs." He said that to their faces. They didn't like that sermon. They didn't want to say, "Hey, can we get the CD of that? Can we get that on MP3?" They didn't want that. They hated Him.

Ask yourself the question, how did Jesus get so out of whack with the religious leaders of His day? Because He called them out. And He said the emperor has no clothes. And what these guys are doing, they are exalting the traditions of men. "These people honor me with their lips," He said, "but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." They hated Him because He called them out. Why? Because they were leading the people astray. And He said, "Watch out for these people."

Now, being discerning. Don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For those who distort the gospel, this is what Paul had to say, Galatians chapter 1, beginning in verse 6: "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another. Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ."

Remember what does the devil do? He never ceases to make crooked the straight paths of the Lord. He wants to put cyanide in the Tylenol. He wants to put sewage in the pure water. Distort the gospel of Christ. "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, he is to be accursed, eternally condemned. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you've received, he is to be accursed. He is to be anathema. He is to go to hell."

That person should be condemned to hell. That's exactly what Paul is saying. It's serious business. And hell's hottest flame is for the false prophet, for those wolves in sheep's clothing. How are you going to live godly in an ungodly age? Well, you can be mindful of the warnings and you can test the spirits. Secondly, second essential: you can be diligent with your resources. Diligent with your resources.

Now God has given us everything we need to be the people He wants us to be. Verse 20 again: "But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life." What do the false teachers do? What do the false prophets do? What do the apostates do? They cause division. They tear down.

What are we to do and what are the true ministers of God to do? Build up. We're to build ourselves up. A pastor is to build up the body and build up the sheep. And you do that in these various ways, using these resources that he talked about. See, we build ourselves up, first of all, through the Word. Through the Word of God. How are you going to build yourself up? You're going to do it through the Bible because the Bible is God's Word to His children.

And the Bible says of itself, it's soul food. It's food for the inner man. It's food for the spiritual side of us. It is likened to milk. "Long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow with respect to salvation." Peter said that in 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 2. It's bread. Jesus said it was bread. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." He likens it to bread.

It's also likened in Psalm 119 to honey. "The words of your mouth are sweeter than honey." And then it's called meat or solid food. Solid food, meat, is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. It is critical that you spend time in the Word of God as a believer. Just like it is that you eat. If you don't eat, I don't care what else you do, if you stop eating, you're not going to live long.

We have people that as they get older and they're sick and they have surgery or whatever, and the doctor will say, "Listen..." I still remember a dear saint in our church who's in heaven now, but he wasn't eating. And the doctor said to him, "If you don't start eating, you're not going to make it because you can't get your strength going unless you are eating." Listen, if you don't take in the Word of God on a regular basis, you're not going to make it. You're not going to build yourself up on your most holy faith.

2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth." You have to study. You have to be diligent. You have to get into the Word of God and read it. Watchman Nee, the great Chinese evangelist and Christian leader, he read through the New Testament every month. That's a pretty good pace.

Reading through the New Testament every month. But he says, "Hey, this is the New Covenant. I want to know it inside and out." They had a statement with the Chinese Christians, and as they would grow people up in the Lord, they would say, "No Bible, no breakfast." You have your Bible, your quiet time, before we're going to feed you because it's that important. Now, he says, "building yourselves up on your most holy faith."

If you want to grow in faith, Romans 10:17: "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." You can't be a person of faith unless you're taking in the Word, unless you're reading it, unless you're meditating on it, unless you're memorizing it. And let me tell you all you who are 25 and younger, now's the time to memorize the Word of God because your brain is solid and it's sticky. And when you get older, you're like a Post-it note that you've stuck too many times. Things don't stick in there like they used to.

Now I memorized lots of scripture when I first became a believer and I was challenged to get those little InterVarsity—they used to have little scripture cards. And we would get a pack of these cards and you'd memorize all sorts of different scriptures and you'd just have that card with you and you could just go over your scripture memory verses. I still remember Howard Hendricks. He was talking to a group one time and he said, "You remember when we used to get those cards and study the scripture and memorize the scripture?" And everybody's like, "Yeah!"

And he goes, "Why'd you stop?" Oh. Yeah, I did that when I was younger, I don't do that now in my older years. Listen, even though I'm at the young age of 63 and I still look really young—I dye my beard gray just so I'd get people thinking that I'm older and wiser. It'd be dark if I didn't. But I have to start pushing myself to do that so that the Word can be in our heart so that it's ready to go so we're studying to show ourselves approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed.

We ought to know the Word of God. Now you have to keep learning. You have to keep growing. And here's the sad reality, and listen, I'm just—this isn't directed in any one person, I'm just talking to you all, not talking to you personally. But if some of you are—you don't know any more today—you've been a Christian for decades and you know no more today about the Bible and about doctrine and spiritual things than you did ten years ago?

Well, if you were working for a company, you'd get fired. Now God doesn't fire you, but He does want to light a fire under you that says, "Hey, spend time in the Word because that's how you grow in faith." We build ourselves up through the Word.

Guest (Male): Well, we're going to have to stop right there on From His Heart, but we'll continue to explore the truth that we're hearing today with Pastor Jeff when he returns for the conclusion of the message entitled "Godly Living in an Ungodly Age." Make sure that you're with us then. And also remember that this series is our gift of thanks to you for your support to From His Heart this month of any amount. The series is called "Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude."

Just go to fromhisheart.org for more. Thank you for being with us today. Remember that From His Heart is a listener-supported broadcast ministry from Dr. Jeff Schreve, whose driving ambition is to speak the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Be here next time when he'll continue part two of the lesson, "Godly Living in an Ungodly Age." Here's part of what's to come.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now I want to ask you: how are you doing building yourself up on your most holy faith? Are you moving forward in your Christian life? Are you growing? Do you love Jesus more now than you did last month, last year, five years ago, ten years ago? If not—and I'm speaking to myself—you've regressed. Join us this weekend and on Monday when he'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.