Leading The Way

Guest (Male): Welcome to Leading the Way with best-selling author and international Bible teacher and passionate voice for the gospel, Dr. Michael Youssef. Through God's incredible faithfulness, Leading the Way has declared the truth of God's word all around the world for more than 35 years and looking forward to the next 35 years. Thank you for being a part.

Now, in the last verses of the epistle of Jude, several tools are revealed for Christians to use in effectively contending for the faith. Up next on this episode of Leading the Way, Dr. Youssef expounds on those tools and what you can do to experience victory in 2026 as you contend for the faith. If your situation allows you to, open with us to the short book of Jude, that way you can follow Dr. Youssef in today's Leading the Way.

Dr. Michael Youssef: Turn with me to Jude verses 17 to 25. Jude basically tells us two things, two very important wonderful truths, two very uplifting truths for all the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said because of these scoffers, because of these deceivers, we must therefore know these two facts. First, he said in verses 17 to 23, be aware of some things that we the believers must do. Secondly, in verses 24 and 25, he said be aware of what God does to the believers and for the believers. Let's look at these very quickly.

First, we need to know what we as believers must do. Look at verses 17 to 23 again. Because of these deceivers and misleaders, three things we must do. Now here's the summary of these three things. First of all, he said be informed. Secondly, he said be insulated. Thirdly, he said be involved. I need to unpack these for you because they kind of look as if they're contradictory, but they're really not.

Verse 19, whenever you see someone causing division or confusion regarding the Word of God, whenever someone departs or denies the authority of the Word of God, whenever you see anyone bringing false teaching and dividing the body of Christ, be on your guard by being informed. Verse 19 again: these people who cause division are not only worldly people, but they are devoid of the spirit. Jude is saying we must be informed, we must be discerning, we must be alert.

Don't be taken in by the smooth-talking deceivers. Do not fall in their setting of themselves above the Word of God and sitting on judgment on the Word of God. Question: what does this being involved all about? What does it look like? Very simple: test everything by the Word of God. Listen, test everything I say by the Word of God, everything I say.

You may say, "Okay, well I understand being informed, but what is this insulating thing?" Well, verse 20: he said build yourself up in your most holy faith. How? By praying in the spirit, by staying in God's love, by waiting patiently, here's that convicting word, patiently on the Lord. You say, "Michael, how do I do this?" By not removing yourself from the protective shield of the love of God. Praying in the spirit means that you pray as the spirit leads.

Whenever the spirit leads, pray. Because beloved, I want to tell you, whenever I do not spend time praying in the spirit, when I do not spend specific time each day in intimacy with God and His Word, whenever I allow other things, including ministry by the way, to crowd my time with the Lord out, I find myself not only spiritually dry but missing out on the blessings of that protective shield that comes from my time with the Lord.

Think about it this way: when the prodigal left his father's house, did this change the father's love for him? No, the father's love did not change. The son is the one who was the loser. The son was the one who suffered. The son is the one who missed out on the blessings of being home with the father. The son is the one who forfeited the joy of reveling in the father's love.

Please listen to me. I have seen with those two eyes when believers get taken in by one of those deceivers, the first thing that happens is that they do not spend time with God. Then they become spiritually brittle and defensive, and soon they lose the joy of their salvation. I'm not talking about salvation now, that's not my place.

Hear me right on this one. You cannot build yourself up in your most holy faith without spending time reading, believing, and obeying His most holy Word. If you just rely on Sunday sermons, or some Bible study in the middle of the week, or just reading Christian authors, wonderful as all these things are, and you know I do all of that, but that is insufficient for yourself to build yourself up in your most holy faith. You have to spend time in the Word.

Biblically informed, spiritually insulated from being spiritually dried up, and thirdly, being involved. You say, "Involved in what?" I'm going to tell you in a minute. Others may wonder if being insulated and being involved are contradictory terms. No, not when you know the answer. I want to explain this. You see, you insulate yourself from the scoffers, from the deceivers, from the false teachers and the false preachers and the false Christians. Insulate yourself from wandering away from the Word of God. Insulate yourself from distractions.

Ah, but get involved in the life of non-believers. Are you with me? Verse 22: be merciful to those who are in doubt. When it comes to the scoffers, we land on the side of the truth and stay away from them. But when it comes to the non-believers, we absolutely must be kind, merciful, and compassionate with them. You know that the Apostle Paul makes the same argument in the Galatian epistle and in the two Corinthian epistles. He makes the same argument.

With non-believers, we must never come across as angry or unloving. Otherwise, they're going to look at you and say, "Who wants that?" Remember, they don't know anything. All they're going to know about Christianity is from you and the way you communicate it to them, and the way your life communicates it to them. While we must be uncompromising with those who knew the truth and turned their back on the truth, we must be very kind, merciful, thoughtful with those who do not know the truth.

That is why only spending time in intimacy with the Lord and His Word will give you the wisdom to know the difference. Wisdom to hold the balance between mercy and kindness to the non-believer and standing firm against the deceiver. That is why only intimacy with God on a daily basis helps us to speak the truth in love. To be uncompromising on the one hand and yet feel anguish and sorrow for sinners on the other hand. To be firm on the truth of the Word of God and yet deeply loving and longing for the lost to come to Christ.

That, my beloved, can only come when you are praying in the spirit. That can only come when you are discerning the will of the spirit and the mind of the spirit. That can only come from daily intimacy with the Father and the Holy Spirit. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was asked once by one of his officers, who he had started training in evangelism and reaching the lost. Booth was a godly man who was an amazing human being and amazing servant of God. This officer came to him he said, "General Booth, I have not been able to lead a single person to Christ. I've not led anyone to be converted to Christ." You can see that this man genuinely wanted to know what to do.

Here's what the old wise man said: "Try tears. Try tears." He did not give him the four spiritual laws. He did not give him a formula for evangelism. He did not give him 10 steps for salvation. No, he told him try tears. Oh beloved, in these last days, we need to weep tears over the lost. On another occasion, William Booth said that I wish part of my training of my officers for evangelism would be that they be required to spend a few moments in hell. He said that will give them more compassion for the lost than anything else.

Jude tells us here that the non-believers need to be treated patiently and mercifully. Why? Because he sees those non-believers to be at the edge of the flames of hell and they need to be snatched. In fact, the Apostle Paul himself makes the same argument in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13. He tells us to turn away from the apostates, the false believers, and the false teachers. But to love sinners and the unsaved. Stay away from the apostates because they can mess with your head, but befriend the unsaved and the non-believers and patiently explain to them biblical truth.

This is all part of staying informed, insulated, and involved. I come to the second part, the most exciting part in the whole Bible for me. And that is what God does to keep us safe and secure in our salvation. It's the most important thing I'm going to share with you and I pray to God that you would not forget it in a hurry. Verses 24 and 25: to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

You know that I am immensely grateful for salvation in Christ alone. I am beyond ecstatic for my redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ alone. I am beyond thrilled about my justification by faith alone. I'm a grateful dude for being eternally saved by grace alone. I cannot wait for my glorification. But when I focus my attention on the fact that the very God who saved me also sustains me, oh my goodness, I'm over the moon.

Now I need to tell you this, my understanding and my comprehending and believing this biblical truth about the security of the believer did not come until about eight or nine years after I gave my life to Christ. For eight or nine years I'm walking with Christ without understanding and comprehending this biblical truth because I grew up in a church where it says you can lose your salvation. "It's up to you to stay saved." I can tell you that is why my Christian walk in those eight or nine years was joyless.

My walk was a drudgery. My Christian life was marked by feelings of sense of duty and performance. I was filled with fear. My Christian life was up and down. One day I'm high on a kite, the next day I'm down in the dumps. Then God in His amazing grace and mercy placed me under godly Bible teachers and scholars. I began to comprehend the teaching of the Word of God. I began to understand the unity of the scripture.

If you haven't read my book, How to Read the Bible as if Your Life Depends on It, that is the summary of what I learned from these godly men that transformed my life, transformed my ministry, transformed my walk with the Lord. And that is why Jude said: to him who is able to keep you from falling. Did you get this? He's able to keep you from falling. That means beloved, the true believers can never, never, never fall out of the grace of God. This is overwhelming and humbling when I became aware of this biblical truth.

He did not say God was able. He did not say God will be able. He said God is able because God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Because of that, he was able in the past, he will be able in the future, and he's able now. Go ahead and give God glory. It's okay. You praising God for being able, that's fine by me. Please listen to what I'm going to tell you. Some of you here will understand and maybe identify what I'm going to tell you, or have identified with it in the past as I have.

You might try to run away from the Lord, or you may try to wiggle your way out from walking with the Lord. You may try to get out of His protective cover, you may try to wiggle out of His protective shield. But he is able. He's able to pull you back. He's able to convict you and bring you to repentance. He is able. Listen to me. You're going to cause yourself a lot of pain when you try to wiggle out. You'll experience the scorching heat of the sun of the desert of running away from him.

You will scar yourself with the fire of rebellion. You will agonize under the consequences of your rebellion, but he is able. And he's speaking to you even now. At this moment he's speaking to you. He's compelling you even now, at this very moment. He's welcoming you back. Come home. Come home. He is gently pulling on your heartstrings. The quicker you respond, the better off you are.

No wonder the Apostle Paul could say, "I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing could separate me from the love of God through Jesus Christ." He will keep you in His protective custody until he takes you home, until he presents you to His Father without blemish. That's overwhelming.

The concept of Jesus presenting us to the Father in the last day comes from the concept of a Jewish wedding. That imagery of a Jewish wedding. In the Jewish wedding, there are several stages. The parents come to agreement first, and then the groom makes a trip to his future bride. He goes from his house to her father's house. And he gives her a very sacrificial gift, we call it a dowry, but really it is a very sacrificial gift he hands to her or to her father.

At that point, they are betrothed to each other. Now the bride belongs to the groom. Now the bride is exclusively the groom's. Once they're betrothed, they're able to drink the wine of the covenant together, the covenant of betrothal. And then the groom goes home. He leaves the home of her father and goes to his father's house. And there, he builds an addition to his father's house, an extra room for his bride to come in so they can live together in his father's house.

That's where Jesus said, "I go to the Father and prepare a room for you." Now, when that is finished and ready, he comes back to her father's house. But the people in the village would be crying in the streets when they see him coming and say, "The groom is coming! The groom is coming! The groom is coming!" I'm getting ready to shout because I know what I'm going to say.

This is a picture of our bridegroom Jesus, who left his Father's house in what we celebrate at Christmas. He came from his Father's house to our father's house, the devil. And he paid the heftiest price: his own precious blood as a dowry. He paid off the ransom to our father the devil to whom we belonged. Thank God, at that point he drank the wine of the covenant. At that moment we remember the covenant that he made. He said, "When you drink this, remember me, remember my shed blood on the cross."

Then he went back to his Father's house where he is now in heaven. But before leaving, he promised us. He said, "When I prepare the room and the room is ready for you, I'm going to come and take you into my Father's house. And when it is ready, I will receive you and present you to my Father." Beloved, faithful preachers and faithful teachers and faithful believers have been saying for 2,000 years: the groom is coming, the groom is coming, the groom is coming.

On that appointed day, the groom is going to come with the shout of the archangel. Then our groom Jesus will present us to his Father without blemish, without spot, without a wrinkle. And he's going to say, "Father, these are the redeemed. This is my bride, the church, for whom I died on the cross." Oh beloved, I can tell you experientially: there are some things I know because the Word of God said it and I lived it to experience it. If you keep your eye on this incredible future for you, you will be encouraged no matter how discouragement is filling your atmosphere. You will be lifted up from the dumps in which you find yourself. You will be able to persevere no matter how dark the hour. You will make all of life's sufferings feel easy. This will give you joy on a toilsome journey.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining listeners in this neighborhood and in neighborhoods throughout six continents for the final episode in Dr. Michael Youssef's passionate series, Contend for the Faith, on Leading the Way.

Dr. Michael Youssef: My dearest of friends, I am feeling the urgency of the hour. In my knowledge of history, I have never seen a more urgent time for the preaching and the proclamation of the gospel in our nation as I do now. Because the gospel is the answer. A great awakening is the answer. And so I am dedicating my time and my life to Leading the Way, and I'm going to be on the road, on television, on radio, urging my friends to join with me. So together, we can have an impact in these last days.

Guest (Male): You're invited to stand with Dr. Youssef and the worldwide Leading the Way ministry team so that more people can experience the transformational power of the gospel. Won't you consider participating in this month's giving challenge? Know that your generosity equips Leading the Way with the tools to deliver the gospel to a lost and dying world while there's still time. So get details when you call and speak with a ministry representative at 866-626-4356 or ltw.org. That's ltw.org. This program is brought to you by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect further with audio and video content at ltw.org.