Judging Others, Pt. 4

Ronald Weinland

September 28, 2019

We have been covering a series entitled Judging Others and today is Part 4. I’m not sure if this is going to be the last of this particular series or not so we’re just going to plunge into it and see where it leads us and if we can get to the end we will be there then I’ll know it and I’ll tell you.

So in this particular series here there is no need to at this point review anything. We’re just going to jump right ahead from where we left off last time. Sometimes there is a need to review a little bit at least; this time here we’re just going to move forward.

So we’ve been focusing on how we are to learn to judge according to God’s ways, not our own, and striving to keep God’s purpose for us and for others in our mind as we do that, because that’s the hard part, keeping in mind and being reminded that as we think about situations when they come up. What is God’s will? Because that’s how we want to judge, what is God’s purpose? Understanding God’s will is understanding God’s purpose for everyone within the Body. This series is primarily geared toward our own fellowship, not toward the world. Because there is basically one principle that you have to apply there and that is an understanding that they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have an ability to see things like you do and so you have to be able to deal with that accordingly.

Christ set that example. Stephen gave us that example. Basically, it is to have an attitude of forgiving them. Forgiving them, they don’t know what they do. They don’t understand what’s taking place. They don’t have the ability to grasp what you grasp, what you see. We can’t expect that of them, so we have to deal with them in a different manner and strive to use wisdom, obviously. But again, that’s a different kind of judgment.

The judgment we’re talking about in this particular series has to do with our fellowship within the Church, as a whole, and how we judge others within the Body. Because it is a natural tendency of the human mind to do that and that’s why we have been going through this. As we grow in this, as we understand it better we’ll become a stronger Body, we’ll become a better family, we’ll become much more closely knitted together in that respect, in a harmony and a unity that God desires us to have. That’s what it’s all about. This is all about family. Elohim is all about God’s family. We are to grow more and more and get to the point where we’re just closer to Him, especially when we consider the timing we’re in, where we are at the end of this age, at a time when Joshua is going to return, God’s government is going to be established. Again, more is given to us and more is expected. So we’re to constantly be changing and growing.

So I’m excited about what God gives to us. I’m excited that we can go back and review various things in our lives. Because we’ve talked about judgment before at different times. We talk about a lot of things over and over again throughout scripture. But as we do that God’s continually revealing more and more as well. And not only that, not only is God revealing more and giving more to us to understand on a spiritual plane, but we’re growing. Prayerfully, we’re all growing.

That’s the goal, isn’t it? I want to grow. You want to grow, so if we’re growing indeed we’re going to see things that we weren’t able to see before. We can go back and listen to a sermon (even on this particular subject, ever how far back it is) and pull up certain things that were discussed at that time. Much of it will be similar; much of it will be the same in the sense of context because there is a particular subject matter of how we have to address it. But as God adds a little bit more to us as we grow, we can actually go back and listen to something a long time ago when more hadn’t been revealed to this point and we can learn more from it because we’re growing.

I’m inspired by that when I hear people talk about, make comment about how they went back and have listened to something and they didn’t pick up on a certain thing and now they did. Well, to me that’s exciting because it reflects growth. We’re always growing. There are just some things when we hear it, we can’t hear everything. We don’t see everything. It takes time.

It’s just like in the process of understanding this end-time and all that God has given to us in it. In writing of this book, as I’ve talked about, there are things that I see so much more clearly today than I did a few years ago or in the writing of each one of the books. That’s why every once in a while, I go back and think, well, if there was a portion I could use here... But I realize that it all needs to be updated. There are things in there that need to bring brought up to date. To me that process is exciting because in that means, as well, that God has been giving us more, that we can see more.

Just like this morning working on some things about Europe and what’s taking place there and the ten toes. That’s all so inspiring! The more that God gives to us the clearer He helps us to be able to understand it—it’s clearer to us—and that’s always exciting.

So the same thing is true in a subject like this, how to engage in judging and how to not engage in judging. Because that’s the hard part. Because our natural human tendency is not good and it’s just the way we are. Our natural first carnal reaction in life generally tends to be carnal, physical by nature because of who we are, and if it is then that isn’t good, unless it just happens to agree with God, see? The more we grow there are times that happens, where we have gone through certain things and our first reaction can be one that has been transformed because we agree with God. That’s good. That’s what we want.

But so often we really have to keep on guard to our thinking, to how we’re thinking about others and how we’re judging a matter, how we’re dealing with someone, what we’re saying to someone. We always have to be on guard in these things. Again, that’s all about family.

Let’s turn over to Jude. There are things addressed in here about judgment that we need to examine and to look at and to grow in. Always remember as we go through this that judgment is for the purpose of saving. It’s not for the purpose of condemnation. I love those verses about Christ. He didn’t come to condemn the world, he came to save it. He came to bring understanding of what we can go through in our life to become transformed, to be changed, to be able to be forgiven of sin, to be able to have a relationship with God and in time to become a part of Elohim.

We have to keep that focus and to understand that when God calls people within the Body as long as we are in unity and oneness with God and striving to grow and desiring fellowship, coming together on the Sabbath and the holy days, then we need to deal with each other in a very specific way. When you look at others to be able to say, “They’re God’s children.” They’re God’s children. “God gave them of His holy spirit. They are set apart by God. I have to be very careful in how I work with them and deal with them.” Each one of us need to think that way. Because if we don’t do it right, we’re judged. We are judged. That kind of judgment isn’t good.

God expects us, desires us, wants us, tells us to judge in specific ways. If we have that kind of a mind, that kind of thinking – and really, that’s a great way to grow in thinking – to see each other as God’s begotten children. If that’s really at the forefront of our thinking and of our mind, self won’t get in the way very much. It really won’t. Because you’re dealing with God, see? We’re dealing with His Son and with God in how we’re thinking and so we have to be very careful about that because it has everything to do with our attitude and our mind toward everything that God’s been teaching us and telling us. It’s toward God first, it really is.

Jude:3—Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you regarding our common salvation... So we’re all in this together. God has brought us together. God has given us this fellowship. Any time that people have been called into God’s Church at any era of time they’ve been called into   a unique fellowship.

He said, I find it necessary to write to you exhorting, or the word means to be encouraging you to contend earnestly... Now, this is from a compound word, one meaning “to struggle.” So it means that it takes work here. You have to struggle. You have to work at this. It doesn’t just come naturally. Our carnal nature is natural but doing things God’s way is not natural. It’s not the first thing we do, as a whole, unless, again, like I said, we’ve come to unity and oneness with God in that particular matter of thinking.

So again here, he said I’m encouraging you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered... Means to be handed over or to be entrusted. So when God calls us He gives us His word and He entrusts us to it. He wants us to use it His way. He’s given us something that’s far more precious and powerful than what we can grasp and we even grow in understanding of that through time in the Church, to understand how awesome it is that we have in us, that we have been blessed to see, that we have been blessed to possess, to have, to be in control of (because we have to make choices in this) of the words of God, the very mind and being of God that He’s sharing with us. He entrusts that to us.

I think of all the people through time—we haven’t known them all but we know what happened. Ever since you’ve been in the Church you know of those that this has happened to. In your experience you have known of individuals who have been entrusted with God’s word, God’s way of life, who haven’t been faithful to it, who have not used it in the way that God desired or told or commanded us to. We see the results of that kind of thing then in people’s lives.

So again here, it’s an awesome responsibility, but an awesome opportunity, an incredible thing, and great wealth in it if we grasp that. Far greater than anything we can have on a physical plane in life.

So he said here to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to all of us. We’re reminded of those kinds of things on a regular basis. That’s God’s desire for us, to be on guard, to work at, to struggle. Because it’s not easy. To struggle means more than just a casual kind of work, going to work. It means there’s going to be some rough times in all this. It means it’s not going to be easy. You have to struggle. When you struggle, you’re wrestling with things, you truly are. You’re wrestling, first of all, with self, and that’s a battle in itself. Then on and on it goes. To be on guard on a continuing basis in life is not a simple thing. That’s why on a daily basis we have to cry out to God for help, for His mind, for His spirit to be in us because we know what we will do without His help. At least we’d better know that.

It says here, For certain ones have crept in unnoticed, who before were marked out... It means, basically here, written about before. They’ve been written about before. So through scripture John wrote about some of those things, Paul wrote it. They all wrote about some of these things, about different ones who have come into the Body, and in time because of choices and decisions begun to go off course.

Now, we’ve been very blessed to this point in time now in the last few years because of what God’s been doing since, candidly, after 2012 and beginning in 2013 especially then and the measuring of the temple that is still ongoing and all that that means, helping us to become stronger, and yet dealing with situations that are pulling behind, that are not doing what should be done. Because the Body is to be cleansed, it’s to be cleaned up before Christ’s coming, before he returns. That’s an awesome thing to understand, what God is going to do. He’s going to do it, period.

So again here, For certain ones have crept in unnoticed, who were written about before for this condemnation. It means judgment. It’s a word here about judgment. Sometimes it is a matter, if people’s choices are wrong, that God’s going to deal with them. God is the one who judges and deals with those situations. Sometimes that means within the Church, within the authority that He’s given, whatever that entails.

It says here, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into promiscuousness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. I couldn’t help but my wife and I were driving yesterday. We just drove past this one area where the Embassy Suites is off the side of I-4 out here going toward Tampa, and all the memories of certain things began flooding in. I thought of one person in particular and what he did, his choices, of stuff he was already starting to do back then that wasn’t good. I thought, what a horrible thing. Then we were driving up toward Sand or Sandy Lake Rd, whatever it is. A bunch of other things started flooding back because when we started first coming down to this area – I think it was in the beginning – looking for a place to have a Feast site down here brought together the different elders within the Church at that time. I specifically told them, “Do not go north of that road,” because we had to divide up into a couple teams.

So we went out contacting some different ones. They went out looking for some different ones and they went north of that road and were all excited about a place they had found that was indeed less expensive than others, as a whole, but I knew why. Now, it may not have the same reputation now, but it did back then and it wasn’t good. It was more of a crime ridden area and run down at that point in time. Now, as things grow, things change a lot, but back then it didn’t have a good reputation so that’s why I gave that guideline, that instruction.

That was only the beginning of some rumbling at that time. Some of them had come to a point where they decided, “Why did you spend all this money to bring all of us down here to do this? That’s just a waste of money.” They didn’t understand, which I let them know later what had happened, what had transpired, that “Yes, it was. You don’t grasp the greater purpose of all this. It’s about our coming together, our fellowship, our spending time together as those whom God is using at this point in time to serve His Church, and it can help bind us then closer together in sharing. So what kind of money do you want to spend on that or not spend on that? Are you going to tell God that’s just too much money to spend on bringing His ministry together to have such an opportunity to be able to go out and do some of these things for God’s Church?” On and on it goes. So I got a little riled up inside because I know where that comes from.

Again, certain things you do at times that bring all these things back into your memory. That’s why I don’t like going to Pasadena or Big Sandy, to be honest with you, because memories come back that aren’t so good. Because I think of the ones who abandoned God’s truth. Because it hurts. I think of the ones who plunged the knife into my back and twisted it, over and over again in some cases, and how they treated God’s Church poorly. Those things rile me up but they hurt still. I hope and pray there’s a time when they’ll be able to repent of those things and come back, or given the opportunity, going to be in the Great White Throne, because most of that’s going to be in the Great White Throne.

Because to be awakened, to have an opportunity to be called is an awesome thing, but to fall asleep, to be spewed out of God’s mouth, to have an opportunity to be awakened from that, and then to spit upon that? To turn your back on God on that is a very heinous thing to do. But those things have happened. So when you read something like this those things have happened.

And you know what? Some of the grumbling that happens sometimes, because some of that grumbling that even happened here was carried back. When someone else is grumbled to, “He did this. He did that,” whatever it is, and people don’t understand what you’re saying. I think back to times when I’ve known of people grumbling and complaining about ministers, but when I heard them grumbling and complaining about Mr. Armstrong I thought, “You don’t know what you’re doing! You don’t grasp the severity of such a thing, how evil that truly is.” That of all things we’re to grasp and comprehend is God’s government, number four. Four, the first one attributed to Mr. Armstrong to re-establish within the Church. You have to have that. If you don’t have that there is no sense in building, there is no sense in working with a body, with the Church. There is no sense in trying to because you’re not going to be able to do it right. It’s not going to work. God has to be in the forefront. Christ is the head of the Church and then to understand the process that goes on from there.

For certain ones have crept in unnoticed... So they were. I think of that Feast site. I think of different ones, two of them who were over at the pool one day, both of them gone, and at that time knowing that there were some things that weren’t good, that needed to be addressed in their lives and hoping that they would. But they didn’t. It got worse and worse. What a horrible thing to have to experience in God’s Church, but we do.

We’re reminded in all this that we have a struggle on our hands. We have to struggle for the faith. You can’t just take it for granted because there are others who let down. You can’t afford to let down. You can’t do that. You can’t allow that to happen in your life. You’ve got to stay on guard. You’ve got to be close to God. You’ve got to cry out to God constantly for the help of His holy spirit in your life to change you, to transform you, to ask for help to be able to see self for what it is, to be able to see human nature as soon as it pops up it’s ugly, ugly, ugly head.

Just like those little things, I can’t even think what they’re called, but those little moles or gophers, anyway, you take this little thing and you beat them on the head as fast as they come up. It’s a fun game. To do that to ourselves can be a little more challenging because we’re slow to react. Yeah, that head’s been up for a long time. Knock it down. Hit yourself on the head.

Anyway, so we have to be on guard because of our human nature. We should be fearful of that, that we don’t want to be separated from God, that we don’t want to get to a point where we’re slowly drifting away or falling asleep. We’ve gone through a period of time that shows the damage and the disaster that comes with falling asleep over time. We’re blessed to be able to see these things and work on these things, but we’re continually having to be reminded of them so we can grow even more.

...ungodly, who turn the grace of our God into promiscuous and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Joshua the Christ. So again here, if we don’t use God’s spirit in our life, if we’re not crying out for forgiveness of our sins then what we’re truly doing on a spiritual plane is we’re denying Christ, we’re denying God. If we don’t yield ourselves and cry out for God’s spirit to dwell within us, to change us, and we’re yielding to whatever physical things in life that cause us to drift or let down or not be struggling... If we’re not struggling and we begin to let down then we begin to deny Christ to dwell in us. And he died, he suffered, he was beaten so you couldn’t even recognize him when it was done before he was ever nailed to a pole, so he went through those things so that we can have an opportunity to be forgiven of sin, so that he and His Father can dwell in us. That’s why I love John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, on through there. Because that’s what it reveals. On the very night he was dying, or going to die, on the day he was going to die, on the very night before he did he revealed to the Church the reason for His death, the reason why he was dying, the reason he was going to spill his blood to the earth is so that he and the Father could dwell in us. They’re beautiful scriptures, awesome scriptures that the Church, basically, has only known in a period of a remnant, period, exclamation mark.

But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the LORD, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Didn’t believe what He told them. This is the story that happens through time, happens in God’s Church. All that were a part of God’s Church at one time and look at where we are now. We’re only here by the grace of God.

Verse 6—And the angels who did not keep their first dominion, what was given to them in the beginning, in other words; whatever God had given to them to do there were those who rebelled against that. They wanted more. Satan wanted more. Third of the angelic realm wanted something different, wanted more, what they thought looked better, what they thought was better, what they thought they deserved. Where does that mind come from? Those things we have to learn and see in ourselves.

...but left their own dwelling place, he was reserved in everlasting confinement under darkness unto the judgment of the great day; even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to fornication and going after flesh, are set forth as an example... So in other words, we sometimes have to learn from the most base of things of human thinking, of the human mind, so that we can grasp things on a spiritual plane.

I think about writing about that in the book, as I’ve written. You have to write when you’re telling people about various things in this world that there are those things that God calls idolatry, spiritual fornication. There are certain things that are hard for the human mind to grasp and comprehend when that word is used in scripture like this. All they can see, basically, is something physical, but God wants us to see something far, far, far beyond that and it has to do with the thinking of mingling religion.

I think you’re going to find that exciting, too, when you read part of the book. I enjoyed this. God just gives us more and more ability to see and understand things that happened within the early Roman Empire, things that happened from the time of its onset around 31 B.C. on up to the time of Constantine in 325, and all these things that took place over a long period of time. It’s really incredible the things that took place and how these things mixed together in time to have what we have today, and that being spiritual adultery, fornication. God gives these examples that are very physical so we can learn something beyond that for ourselves.

...they are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of everlasting fire. So what does that mean? That they have no hope? That they have no chance? No. This kind of expression is an awkward, poor, in some cases, translation from scripture, but it makes something very clear as well, that there is fire that’s going to consume totally until there is nothing left to consume. That’s when a fire goes out. When it’s all gone, it’s all consumed, Sodom and Gomorrah, ashes on the ground, it’s done. It’s not still going on. No one is still suffering. See, that happened quickly. It’s over with; dust, ashes, if you will. The same thing is true in life. We receive God’s way of life or we’re gone.

Likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority. Government. It’s amazing how much that pops up in life. Because we have to understand it. Because, you see, that’s something that Satan and the demonic world abandon. God created them. God. There’s only one God and He’s telling us this is what we’re to do and this is how we’re to do it. Who are we to think we know better? And yet look at human beings. We know better. Everything that God has said, basically, we know better, we know something different. “And that couldn’t have been true anyway. That can’t happen that way. There couldn’t have been a flood. People couldn’t have lived for several hundreds of years. I mean, are you crazy?” On and on it goes. Human reasoning. We think our way is better. That’s happened a lot in God’s Church through time because that nature, that mind is still there.

It’s kind of a puny mind when we really understand it. Compared to God it’s a puny... It’s a puny little thing and it’s kind of worthless – except for God and that God has a plan. Otherwise it’s pretty puny and worthless. The only thing that gives it value is God’s purpose and God’s plan, that He wants to work with that to transform it, to change it, to give it His mind, His thinking if we choose that, if we come into agreement and unity with that. Our own choice.

Likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh, do things that are not right, do things that God commanded them not to do, get involved in things they shouldn’t get involved in. You know, the farther you drift away from God in life, I think of this age especially (it’s been this way all through ages though), people drift. When they drift away they start doing things that are just bad in life. They start doing things that are very carnal, “lust of the flesh,” becomes stronger, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes,” which make up, “the pride of life,” that they justify themselves somehow that they can do these things and get by with it. Nobody gets by with anything. It goes against God’s way of life once they’ve been called to this way of life.

...they reject authority. “Don’t go north of that line. Don’t go up there.” I didn’t have to explain why. I didn’t have to go into the details of why it wouldn’t be good to have the Church meeting up there at a Feast of Tabernacles at that time. Is God left out of the question in that, that God gave that ability to perceive, to know that this wasn’t a wise thing to do, that He didn’t want it there? No, that wasn’t even a thought. That wasn’t even in the mind or the car would never have gone north across that line. That’s how simple that is, truly.

So I bring those things up because I’m in Orlando and I can’t help but think about certain things that have happened in history in the Church that we’ve gone through that are valuable to learn from, about valuable lessons.

...they reject authority. Now, they didn’t think they were. Well, you know what, they just really didn’t think about it in those terms. Authority was never a part of the issue. “That’s just Ron. That’s Ron. He said not to.” When they went up there I don’t even know who made the decision. Maybe they didn’t see the street. Someone did.

...and speak evil of... this version has dignitaries. It’s not a word for that. It’s a word that literally means “glory.” Those of glory are the saints because it comes from God. It’s those who have God’s spirit in them. Now, when it comes to government that should be even something that one would want to watch even more closely. But, see, we’re to do this with the Body, how we see one another. They’re God’s. They’re God’s children. It’s not me to judge them unless I have the responsibility and the need to do so at a particular time. Then when I do I want to make sure that this is in harmony and unity with God’s will and with my responsibility. Otherwise, I need to back off, see, back away, and don’t—What’s the term?—don’t insert myself into something that is none of my responsibility, business, whatever.

“And speak evil of those of glory,” is really what would be a better translation, those who have the impregnation of God’s holy spirit. That’s what happens. There are people then, it doesn’t take long, when they begin to drift farther and farther away, begin to find more and more fault with others, of what someone else is doing and how they’re doing it, and it gives them a greater ability to leave this Body and go somewhere else, or just leave altogether and not have anything anymore because “Look! They can’t be God’s people.”

Well, you know what? Surprise, surprise, surprise, we do all have human nature. Sure we do. We have weaknesses. We have faults, and the longer we’ve known each other sometimes we encounter those weaknesses and faults of others. I have them. You have them. None of us are perfect, see. None of us are perfect. Some time you’re going to see someone do something, say something that, well, it was a moment, a time of weakness. Are they not God’s people? Does that disqualify them? Can they not right then at that moment or some moment later on pray to God Almighty and say, “Father, forgive me for what I did, for what I said, for my action,” whatever it might be, and they be forgiven? But yet we don’t forgive them because somewhere up the line, two or three or four or five years up the road we still remember and we think and we judge and say, “Well, man, look at this group of people.”

One of the things that used to frost the tar out of me, when I’d hear people talk about and make comment when they would leave, when they’re in the process of leaving and they’d say, “You know, it’s just the Church... the Church just doesn’t have love. It’s not showing me a lot of love. I don’t get invited to ‘this’ or ‘that,’ or something...” And I’d think, “Well, when did you ever? When did you ever do that to someone else? Because I know you!” I didn’t say that to them but I knew where that spirit came from. Think, “What are you practicing? What have you been living? What kind of a light, what kind of an example have you been? If you could just see yourself in the mirror you wouldn’t be so quick to judge someone else.” But they did. That’s happened over and over and over again in God’s Church, where people look to someone else to justify their own actions. “They just don’t have a lot of love.” I think, “You just judged Almighty God and don’t even know it. You just condemned Joshua the Christ.”

What an incredible thing then if we could just see ourselves and see others for who they are. God is in them. Christ is in them. He’s the one who forgives. It’s through Christ that we’re able to be forgiven of our sins. Who are we to judge? So like I said, there’s a balance in this. There is a soundness of mind that comes from God because sometimes you have a responsibility to judge certain matters and to go to your brother alone or even go to the ministry, whatever it might be.

It goes on to say in verse 9—Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil... This word here, “contending” means “distinguishing in judgment.” Literally means that in the Greek language. That’s what it means. Awesome! ...in contending, distinguishing in judgment. That’s where the word comes from in the Greek language, with the devil... So he practiced things in a right way. He did things in a right way, in a right mind within the angelic realm, even when he had a responsibility to do certain things here toward this being.

...when he addressed or reasoned... It wasn’t a dispute. He wasn’t disputing. Whatever Satan was doing is another matter. People who are doing things the right way in a sound mind with God’s help, with God’s favor, in the sense of that angelic being he was taught and he was faithful, in that respect, as far as an angelic being, to what he’d been told. He didn’t have the holy spirit but making that distinction as well. But he was certain to do things God’s way. He had witnessed we don’t know how long, perhaps millions of years already to this point in time, this being and what he was like, and those who followed him, what they were like. He saw a difference between those who obey God and those who didn’t. He knew.

You know, they’ve grown in things as well through time, in conviction of God’s way of life. That’s not something you just have automatically in life. It’s something you can grow in. Those angelic beings grew in that while others made choices and went a different direction. Anyway, awesome to understand some of those things.

But it says here, when he addressed or reasoned about the body of Moses, he dared not bring against him a reviling, means slanderous accusation. So he didn’t do it in a wrong way. He didn’t get worked up about it. He didn’t do what we do as human beings sometime when there is a confrontation, which we all have, which I have done, which we all do in life when something doesn’t go our way and we want something else done in a certain way. So we have to be careful of how we speak and what we do. ...but said, The Lord rebukes you! Said, this is what he was given to do, to tell him this. “It’s not me, it’s God; He rebukes you.” So that’s the authority and that’s what he told him, just a simple matter of fact, this is the way it’s going to be.

But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, carnally or physically. See, God’s not in the picture. The point through all this is it’s about judgment and we want to strive to make sure we do it God’s way. We want to make certain we’re doing it God’s way not our way. But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally (carnally, physically), like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. They destroy themselves. What a horrible thing. But the reason we’re going through this is because this has happened to large numbers of people in God’s Church, who were in God’s Church at one time. When I say that I say it a little loosely because as soon as they started doing these things they were no longer in God’s Church. They’d already cut themselves off from God’s spirit. But they can be around sometimes for weeks, months, and even years. That’s existed. That’s happened.

I think of what happened with the Apostasy and what started to happen years and years before with some of the leadership, the primary leadership, the main leadership and how they started doing things back in the seventies. Back in the seventies! Some actually started way before that.

It says, Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and they have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit. In other words, it’s about self, “What I can get out of this.” It doesn’t mean something as far as money is concerned. That’s not what it’s talking about. “What profits me; what am I going to get out of this?” Well, self has a lot of things it likes to get in life. It likes to get its own way. Then when we do we feel like we have indeed profited from that. That’s what we’re striving to receive. That’s what’s of value to us.

Isn’t that an amazing thing? What is of value to us as human beings is to get our own way. Selfishness. That’s why it’s such an ugly, ugly, ugly thing to get our own way.

...and perished or were destroyed in the rebellion of Korah. So all these different examples of those who refuse to judge according to God’s will and what God has said here. So again here, the importance of being able to see those physical things and those physical examples and understand them on a spiritual plane and what it is that God desires of us.

These are spots in your feasts... So is it talking about the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost? It can. I mean, it’s when we’re gathered together. It’s literally a description, some translate this “feast of charity,” or “love feasts,” but the word, it’s not “feasts” at all here. That’s not what the subject matter is here. It’s not about Feast times. It’s not about holy days and so forth, though it can be an occasion.

So again here, these are spots in your gathering, and the word is about agape. It’s with/of love. So in your gatherings. It’s about coming together. When we’re in fellowship together God’s spirit should be in each one of us, and therefore, we’re going to have a uniqueness of exercising, because we’re living God’s way of life, because of our thinking toward one another, God’s love. If God’s love is involved in our thinking, in our ways, then we’re going to be closer together. There’s going to be a unity and a oneness there that can’t be achieved in family on a physical plane apart from God.

This is our family. This is where God is. That power, that kind of mind, that kind of love is far greater than any physical love in the world, far, far beyond that. There is no comparison in the two because carnal love, human love, philia is still a selfish love. It’s to our profit, to our benefit, what we get out of it. God’s love is far, far, far beyond that. It can’t be compared with it. It’s a genuine care and concern for others.

So when it comes to judgment shouldn’t that be at the forefront of our mind, saving, what can help? Not just to get our own way of how we think something should be, you know? “I want my way in this matter.”

Sometimes we just can’t help our nature of wanting to control things because we want to control the things around us. I’m that way. Are you that way? Maybe you’re not that way. Maybe you’re unique. But if we understand that we really want to control our environment around. We want to feel good. You know, we just want to feel comfortable all the time. Isn’t that how we would like to be? “Likes to be comfortable all the time. That means I get my way.” Because that’s how we are comfortable all the time. Then sometimes things happen and things are going our way and we’re still not fulfilled. We want something else and we don’t even know what it is so we’re unhappy, we’re grumpy, we’re whatever. Is it coffee we need? What is it? Did we not eat? What’s going on?

The point being is as human beings that’s just the way we are. Some of us have that tendency, sometimes, just because of our genes, of our background of our nationality, whatever it might be, of this thing to control things in a certain way. If it doesn’t work that way we just can’t function as well, you know. We’re human beings. We have to learn how to do that in God’s Church.

But you know what? I’ve always been amazed by the vast variety of people in God’s Church. We are not all alike. We wouldn’t naturally gravitate to each other in the world. We just wouldn’t. That’s a reality. And I think it’s a beautiful thing, if you understand it, what God does. He does it on purpose. All kinds of backgrounds and we’re to learn from that. We’re to grow in understanding of that, of learning to value others, of learning to see what God sees. There is a lot of beauty in that. That’s why I love certain scriptures that talk about that word that has to do with this, what it means to allow for the differences and to savor them, to learn from that. There are a lot of differences in people.

But in the world when there are differences you know what? There’s a lot of evil. There is a lot of hatred. There are situations that have happened, there has been genocide over that kind of thing because people were just different. I think of the Belgians and what they did down in Rwanda, that region of the world, where because of a certain shape of a head or whatever, that one race was pitted against the other. Of people, same race but different tribes or backgrounds, but pitted one as being superior and the other wasn’t as superior. There have been those who have tried to eradicate others because of that. Horrible, horrible things that have taken place because of such stupidity of thinking and of reasoning.

This is the way it’s been around the world, of how people treat one another, how people look upon each other, how people see differences. I think of the Millennium. I think of sermons that I’ve heard in times past where different ones have talked about some of the aspects of different cultures, whether it be the oriental, the Assyrian (German), Ephraim, Manasseh, Israel. There is just different ways we think. There are different talents and abilities within the midst of that. But in today’s world most of the time those are seen offensively or inferior. Because that’s how human beings tend to look. I hope you understand what I’m saying here.

Because there are awesome things if it’s brought together in unity and cooperation, but this world is one of competition. This world is one that fights against each other, pits people against each other. It’s evil. Corporations that fight against each other and do some of the most atrocious things sometimes to be ahead, to be ahead of others. There are some nasty things. Governments that do the same thing. There are some nasty, nasty, evil and killing, things that go on in this world to get our way. So it doesn’t matter whether it be individually, because you know what? That just grows. One company against another. One nation against another. That’s the way we are. One race against another. Think, what a horrible thing.

What a beautiful thing God’s way is to bring that together, to embrace, to find those things, the uniqueness’s and to love them. It’s a different thinking. That’s a different mind. So in God’s Church we have that opportunity because God calls people from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of thinking, and He gives every one of us the opportunity to change the bad part of self, which we all have, a big, bad part, and to begin to see what God sees, what God is saving, what God is going to deliver, what God is going to use powerfully and mightily, unique abilities.

We don’t all have the same abilities. We don’t all have the same make-up. God uses that in a powerful way to bind us together. That’s why we don’t all fit in the temple in the same area. We’re not all being prepared for the same things in the temple, otherwise it’d just be all lopsided and the same. What a horrible thing, to all be the same. I get upset at myself enough without seeing a lot of myself, see. God? That’s another matter. A lot of variety. We see it in creation, what God has done. He’s done that in His creation of us in an awesome way.

...your gatherings with God’s love, because God’s involved, because God’s there in how we should think about, treat one another, while they gather together with you without fear, because they don’t think the same way, because they don’t cherish the same things, because they don’t see God in the picture. I have experienced so much of this in the past. In some ways I’ve hated it and hate thinking about it, but other ways I’m very thankful because otherwise I wouldn’t be where I am, I wouldn’t have learned the things I have learned, I wouldn’t cherish the things I cherish to the degree I do now, and especially within the Body.

We learn through this process and we make a lot of mistakes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, a lot of mistakes. I’ve done a lot of stupid things along the way. But we all have a part to be whatever that part is and God has mercy upon us, each one of us, thank God, and we’re still here fighting, struggling, working at self, changing self. But there are those who have been without fear, do some horrible, horrible things. When it comes to judging we’d better fear that we don’t do it our way but that we do it God’s way. Because that’s what this is talking about.

...while they gather together with you without fear serving only themselves. Seen a lot of that. Can’t do that. We can’t just serve ourselves and expect self to be served, what we can get out of this, what we can have from this. “They just don’t have the kind of love that they should have, that I feel like I used to have, or that they had a long time ago. It’s just not around God’s Church anymore.” Okay.

They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame. But people can’t see themselves when they’re in this state. But I’ve seen a lot of this and I’ve seen a lot of disastrous things take place to people’s minds. ...wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. Known some of them, too, that are likely going to be in that area. Not of angelic beings, not of spirit beings. Because you see, there’s a time when life just comes to an end so an expression is given here of something that we’re to learn from, of what the mind is like. The only thing that gives us stability, the only thing that gives us foundation is God, God’s truth, God’s Family, God’s way of life. Otherwise it would be like these kinds of things described here, without purpose, without direction, without fullness of life.

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints. This is the beginning of a primary prophecy that John later was given to magnify more when he said 144,000 in the beginning. The Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints. So it’s a prophecy about the ruling government of God under Christ. That’s what it’s about specifically.

...to execute judgment on all, to convict, a word that means “to reprove or expose.” That’s why when we read scriptures it’s not about a condemnation, it’s about a saving first and foremost. So we can look at various things and one scripture that comes to mind is what was said to all in the Church, is said to all, “Judgment now is upon the House of God.” The rest of the world hasn’t come under that but we are because we enter into it as we begin to learn the process of judging ourselves, when we begin to judge about God’s way of life and the truth He gives. We have to make constant decisions in our life from the moment we begin to see the truth and whether or not we’re going to come to baptism, after baptism, what we do with what God has given to us in the impregnation of His holy spirit, and on and on it goes throughout the rest of our life within the Body, within the Church.

Again, these kinds of things, that’s what we have to understand about judgment. It’s in us. It’s about us. It’s about what God is working... What is it? Tens of thousands, ten thousand of His saints, and then we come to learn later on in the Church, because of what John wrote, it’s 144,000 for the beginning of that process.

...to execute judgment on all, to convict, a word that means “to reprove and expose.” So that’s what happens in our life. God begins to expose—and it means both in the Greek language—to expose things as far as our ability to see them in our life around us and we have to decide what we’re going to do. If we’re using and utilizing God’s spirit in our life we become convicted that His way is right and our way is wrong. We’re making choices all the time.

So first of all error, that which is false has to be exposed – Christmas, Easter, Sunday – and so it begins with some very clear physical things around us. Then we begin a more refining process with God’s spirit as we grow within the Church in making those kinds of decisions. So it’s a constant process here. God is exposing to us constantly in our life.

I see things in my human nature now to a plane and a level and a degree of refinement that I couldn’t have seen five, ten years ago. It’s just the way we are as we grow. Things that we can come to spot more quickly. Things that we can come to recognize in our nature, in the mind and how the mind works, each one of us. God’s continually refining us. That’s a continual refining process. He’s exposing and reproving, if you will, for the purpose of becoming convicted, yes.

To me the most beautiful thing of all in all this process is that process when it’s all said and done, is conviction. Because just doing something because God says it isn’t enough. Just obeying the Sabbath because God says it isn’t enough. There are people that do that in the world. There are people who believe in the seventh day Sabbath, see, but they’re not convicted of God’s truth, of God’s word and God’s way because they don’t have God’s spirit yet and they don’t see those kinds of things. We do.

To me the most beautiful thing of all is in this process of refinement when we become convicted about any matter, certain matters of life, God is right, God is right and you love what He’s shown you. The point being when you come to that conviction you will never stray from it. With God’s spirit in you, you will not go from you. It’s in you. It’s set. How many of you would ever conceive of, think, believe that you would ever go working out here on a Friday or a Sabbath, Saturday during the day in a job? How many would even...? Because your conviction is so deep about God’s Sabbath and the truth? A holy day, a high day, how could that ever be a temptation? No matter what happens to you in life, you know. That’s a matter of conviction. And when that kind of conviction is there nobody can take that from you. You’re at one with God in the matter. That’s how we desire, that should be our desire for all of God’s way of life, to be at one, convicted of God’s truth. Not just doing it because He says it. We should want, we should do that because He says it, but it’s through the doing in time that you become convicted. You repeat it over and in time it becomes a part of your thinking. So does judgment.

...to execute judgment on all, to reprove, to expose all who are ungodly, and that means in us too, all that’s ungodly in us. We all have things that are ungodly in us. Our human nature is not godly. It’s just nasty selfishness. That’s why the more you can see it’s not godly, it’s not of God, it’s against God, it works against God. “The carnal mind is at enmity with God.” That’s what you’re dealing with. The carnal, natural human mind, “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life,” which summarizes what we are without God’s spirit. Thank God we have His spirit so we can battle those things, so we can fight against those things. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a chance.

...to convict all who are ungodly, not in God’s ways. So do we have any of that in us? I do. We all do. That’s what refining is all about. That’s why it’s not a hard thing for me to look at the books and to realize there are things in there that I’m really embarrassed about. But I couldn’t help at the time. You know, if Mr. Armstrong were resurrected and he saw things in there, knew and saw, he wouldn’t be in a state of being embarrassed because he’ll be a spirit being, but to look at that and think, “Man, I wish I had known that. I wish I’d never written that.” But he didn’t know the trinity wasn’t fully addressed in the book. Only a part of it. To think that Christ had eternally existed and that was still a part, he couldn’t. That wasn’t in his power, that was in God’s. Until God gives something we don’t know. We can’t see until God gives it.

That’s why I think of all the things God has given us now in where we are. I’m more excited now for something that can be there. I thought about just not even putting the other three on the websites but I’m not going to do that. Because once somebody reads something that is up to date, that is of the present truth, and sees things as clearly as they can to that point in time with what is given there then they’ll be able to go back and find other information that will enhance their ability to perceive certain things and see other things that are stressed and expressed that, well, that didn’t agree because we weren’t there yet. You can learn from that. We can learn from how God has worked through us within the Church from Philadelphia on, from Ephesus on, and we do. It’s a beautiful thing.  God’s in control. God’s in charge not us.

So we should, above all people, be able to say, yes, my nature apart from God sucks. It’s evil. It’s sick. It’s selfish. Yes, it wants it own way and then we’re happy. No, we’re not. No, we’re not. To me that’s an amazing thing. So to be able to laugh at our own nature, yes, that’s good. Hear some chuckles out there. We can see ourselves. We know what we’re like. We’re all like that.

So we have to be careful in how we judge each other, more careful, because you’re going to see error, you’re going to see mistakes. You can’t see perfection; you can’t see what we’re striving to be or become is a better word here. We’re just not there yet. Mistakes? Absolutely. We all have them. Admitting them though sometimes is so hard for human beings to do. It’s so hard to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong.” “I’m sorry. I didn’t handle that right.” “I’m sorry,” whatever it might be. Because it’s just so hard for us. It’s hard for a parent to tell their child, “I was wrong.” Because, after all, we are the parent. Yeah. A boss on a job. Because we understand sometimes how that’s misused by others. We understand by that kind of knowledge sometimes how human beings can misuse that kind of thing and see it as a weakness. It’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. Anyway, that’s something we grow in. If others misuse it, that’s their life. Look forward to the time that they’ll be able to grasp that and understand it.

...to convict all who are ungodly, not in God’s ways, among them of all their ungodly deeds, their work, their doing, their way of doing things which is always selfish, which they have ungodly committed, because we do it, we do it. Pretty much every day there’s going to be something of selfishness that just comes right out of you in your thinking, if not in your words or your actions. You can’t help it. It doesn’t justify it, doesn’t make it right. On the contrary. Repent of those things when God shows them because that which isn’t God’s way, well, if it’s wrong what is that? It’s sin. It’s evil. It’s ugly. Though it might be in a refined way it’s still ugly. We have got to come to a point in time, which we will when we’re given the spirit mind and the spirit life, I mean, everything is spirit, composed of spirit. But until then we’re to struggle and there’s always going to be something in there that just isn’t right.

...which they have ungodly committed, and of all their harsh, hard or hardened things or ways... See, sometimes we can become even hard in what we do and how we think of others. That’s something I’ve really fought against in life because I see it is a horrible thing, to become hardened, calloused about certain things. You don’t want that to happen. You don’t want that to happen in your life in dealing with various kinds of things, to become calloused or hardened. Because that’s a tendency of human beings when you deal with a lot of things. You can kind of become, if you’re not careful, a little removed from it. I don’t know how to describe this even, but it’s something we all need to grasp and comprehend in life, and when we’re dealing with other people or other situations in life that you don’t want something like that to happen. On the contrary. You want to become filled with more of the mind, the love of God.

But if you’re not careful you’re going to see something else in there in your human mind and what it’s dealing with because it tries to protect itself. It tries to protect itself from hurt and pain and suffering. That’s what it does, and so in doing so, like a doctor in a hospital, as an example, you can kind of get to a point where you’re dealing with sickness and death so much that you can kind of pull back and not be as close to a patient or people as you might otherwise be. I think of people that work with children in hospitals and cancer especially and some of those kinds of things that happen in life and how horrible that kind of thing is. That’s a tough, tough thing. But sometimes to protect self, be it from hurt because you see so much of that, it’s hard to deal with in life, to see human suffering on a plane like that, when you see death and I think of those who deal with certain things by what they’ve seen in war and they can’t. They try to protect the mind and something happens to the mind sometimes where people can’t even deal with things in life anymore. They have a hard struggle in dealing with people. They have a hard struggle dealing with anything. They have a hard time dealing with getting up in the morning, because there are things that can happen to the mind, and so the ability to protect the mind, it’s amazing what hold it’ll climb into to protect something that’s still there that they don’t know how to deal with.

So human life is not easy, human life is hard. But in God’s Church, as we grow, there’s still this process of those things that we still have to deal with even in that area of life, to have a desire especially to do things God’s way and according to God’s will is to let nothing get in the way of God’s love, to have that desire that that mind work in us toward everyone in the Body and in the world, because God’s love is, “It’s not their time yet, they don’t know what they’re doing.” We can’t have expectations of them. God doesn’t have expectations of them above what they’re able to do. They don’t have the ability to deal with things on a spiritual plane.

...and of all the harsh, harder, hardened things or ways which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. So we can learn from these things that are very physical and carnal in life and learn spiritually from them. That’s why this is given, so we can learn things spiritually from God.

It goes on to say, These are grumblers, murmurers. It comes from the word “to mutter.” When is the last time you muttered? I hate to tell you. It just happens too much in life sometimes. It happens to me when I get in a car. When I get out here on a road driving down the freeway in Orlando, “What are they doing? What. Are. They. Doing? Where did they learn to drive?!” Some of my muttering sometimes I can’t help, it just flows out of my mouth and then I look at myself and think, “The reason you can see it so clearly is because you’re the same way! That’s why you know what they’re doing oftentimes. You know what they’re doing when they’re speeding up and they’re kind of staying right there to the side and there’s a car up there. You know, you know, you know they’re looking for that moment of your weakness when you’re going to back off another half a car length and then they’re going to pull in. You just know it! Why? Because that’s the way I sometimes have driven.” Probably yesterday.

It’s hard to change in certain things that are in us, deeply in us, and we have to watch those things. That’s why we can see things and understand things. Especially in God’s Church, you know what? We really get to understand human nature because God lets us, He let us see it in self. That’s a good thing because then we can work on it. Otherwise we’re just going to do it without knowledge and we’re going to be as obnoxious as everybody else out there driving and doing everything. So I do mutter too much. Do I mutter? She did not hesitate. It’s the truth. I know what I’m like. Do you know what you’re like? Maybe you don’t address things in exactly that way.

I was thinking yesterday it’s a big A, type A personality. It’s big. It’s hard. It’s difficult. It’s a huge battle. Of course anybody who has the rest of those personalities have battles in their hands too, they’re just different. But you have to see what yours is. What is it? Aggressive? Passive-aggressive? Passive? What is it? Because we all have different personalities and there is our battle, because over all it still has the same kind of nature that we have to fight. We have to be careful in using that in how we judge each other within the Body – to be merciful, to be patient, especially when you’re dealing with your own personality.

I’m joking a little bit there but I’ll tell you what, certain people if they have a passive personality and there’s another passive person, oh, it’s like a little bit of sandpaper there. Aggressive – aggressive? Whoo-wee! Who’s going to win out on this one? Who’s going to back down first? That’s the way we are. Now, the others, sometimes it’s just a little bit easier dealing with each other but the judgment isn’t always very good in those either. “Man, he’s a type A.” Then we feel better about whatever we are. That’s just the way we are as human beings. It’s a tough thing. It’s not easy is it? It’s a struggle!

So these are grumblers. So we can look at the world and we can see certain things of how that can be carried out to an extreme where it’s exceedingly harmful, where it’s exceedingly evil. If we can see it in the little bits of our mind, in the little areas, in the more refined areas of our life, because we’re talking about more refined areas of our life where we can see our motivation, our carnality quickly, and that thinking quickly. Not in exaggerated forms of what are being spoken of here, to extremes, to how far the mind goes in these. So we can learn from that and realize these are all things that are deeply embedded in the human mind that exist in us and we need to be able to see them and ask God for help to get rid of them because all of these cause hurt and harm to others, especially when it comes to judging.

These are grumblers, complainers... Guilty! Every time I murmur, mutter about some of these things I am complaining. You know why? Because there are too many cars on the road and I don’t like it. See? So does that make my life happier? Does it make my wife’s life happier? I feel sorry for her sometimes. She’s riding with this who’s driving. We won’t talk about her driving. It’s not aggressive and I have a hard time with that because sometimes I want to be more aggressive. See, isn’t that amazing what we’re like? “You’re too cautious. You’re too cautious.” A lot safer! So that’s the way we are as human beings. We all think differently. We all do things differently.

Complainers. So not to this degree that it’s being discussed here, but if you see some in your life that pops up from day to day every day then deal with it, fight it, ask God for help to refine it even more to where it happens less. I just wish it was all gone, period, but I realize at 70, some of these things are so deeply embedded in me by this age sometimes the battles even become harder. What is that? Grumpy old men? Different expression like that in life? I know where they’re coming from. I know what can happen if people don’t fight and work on those kinds of things, there are certain things that just will come to pass. That’s what you’ll turn into. I don’t want to be a grumpy old man so I’m fighting. “Whether you notice it or not, honey, I’m fighting this.”

So the point is we’ve got to be able to see ourselves, and even be able to laugh about self. But it’s not a funny thing; it’s really bad. It really is ugly. We don’t want to be that way and we don’t want to judge others harshly, wrongly, of how they are that’s different from us, or even the same as us. Sometimes we’re harder on those.

...these are grumblers, complainers, walking around to their own desire, passionate longing, if you will; and they mouth (speak) great swelling words. So we have to be careful as human beings. We can see these things in an exaggerated form, but we need to see where it starts. That’s what God has brought the Church to see, I’m excited about in the last several years, is a refining of what comes out of the mind. To be able to deal with it when it’s still in the mind, that’s the key. That’s the beauty of it. To be able to grasp it quickly, to be able to see it quickly, to understand motivation, the motive, where it starts? That’s a beautiful thing.

I think of what God has given to Wayne to talk about in that area. He’s been able to delve into that with God’s help, to be able to bring things out in a way that is very good for the Church. The ability we have then to be able to grasp some of those things, where they begin, that’s where we have to go, see, where it all starts. It all starts in this matter thing up in here, in the mind. It’s a nasty thing, it really is, and God blesses us to work with it and to change.

Think about this word here when it talks about this mouth, “to speak great swelling words.” It’s an expression from the Greek that is about excessive weight, to put excessive weight on something. So I think of judgment when I think of that, to make something bigger than what it is. Everything is up here – drama, drama, drama type of thing, you know. It can be a small thing. It can really be a small thing in life but you know what our tendency sometimes is to do? We want to put it... There’s a whiskey. Isn’t there some they call “Top Shelf?” That’s what you need sometimes, just a little drink, relax, back off, take it easy, chill. Everything isn’t up here in life and yet sometimes that’s how we deal with things.

Everything is big to us. It’s up there on the top shelf. I can’t reach any higher. I can’t make it more important than up there! This needs to be dealt with right now, you know, in our thinking. We have to be careful in how we deal with certain things in our life and not make big things sometimes that are really small. We have to be able to judge. We have to judge God’s way, God’s law, God’s truths, things in life, things within the Body, things within the Church, things within fellowship, and things in the world constantly. That’s what we’re learning, how to judge. We have to put the little things here and the big things up here in how we deal with them. That’s a tough job.

So again, I love the way some of this is brought out, some of the things that sometimes come out as we read various things and it just adds that much more to it.

So again, excessive weight. Sometimes when we’re speaking something that we put more weight on it than what we should. Well, do we do that? Do we make something more important than what it really is?

Okay. How far can we go? Good news. I have another sermon I’m going to give. Do I want to stop there in Jude or do I want to go just a little bit more. Let’s tackle a little bit more of Jude because there’s really a lot more to this subject than what I realize. But let’s go on in Jude so we can just finished Jude here.

Verse 17— But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Joshua the Christ, and how they told you that there would be mockers, those who would ridicule is what it’s about here, in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. In other words, meaning here, without God in their desires. God’s not in the picture.

So we’ve seen that. We’ve experienced that before the Apostasy, during the Apostasy, and especially afterward for quite a long time, even in the environment in God’s Church. These kinds of things we have lived, we have experienced. Prayerfully, we’ve learned from them in a very powerful way just like we talked about earlier about the angelic realm. They have seen things that Satan and the demonic world have done through time and because of that they have learned from that process and become even more deeply convicted in their being, in their minds of God’s way, and to see the evil and the pain and suffering that’s been caused by the other.

Well, we in like manner in the Church. We are to grow, to battle this carnal human mind, and we’re to grow as we see these kinds of things happen around us that we experience in the environment in the Church. That’s what’s being discussed here. Jude is talking about things that have happened in the Church and what we’re to learn, what we’re to take from that.

So though they be hard to observe, to see, to watch, it should make us more convicted then to loathe the things, to hate the things that are evil that hurt others, that cause pain and suffering, because we want to be the opposite of that. We don’t want to see pain and suffering and we don’t want to be a part of it. That’s a part of learning this.

Judgment has a lot to do with it because you know what? How we judge is how we treat people. How we judge is how we think toward them and we’re going to treat them in a certain way because of the way we think toward them. We need to see God in the picture. We need to see His Son in the picture. We need to see Family. We need to see the purpose of why we’re in the Body of Christ, why we’re in the Church of God – to love one another, to care for one another, to desire one another.

Verse 19—These are people who are sensual, natural, meaning here to be of the world, or worldly carnal. In other words, really not looking. That’s the lesson over and over again in this, where is God in the picture? Do we see God in the picture? Because if God’s not in it then we’re going to miss it. If we see human beings, if we see mistakes and errors of others and faults and weaknesses of others and we judge accordingly and we’re failing to keep God in the picture and keep God at the forefront –God’s people, God’s spirit begotten children, if that isn’t in our thinking, at the forefront of our mind—then we’re not going to react and respond properly. That has to be at the forefront. So over and over again here this is being hit.

These are people who are sensual, carnal, who cause divisions, not having the spirit. So again here, God has to be in the picture. We want to make sure that God is in the picture, that we have indeed or are yielding to God’s spirit.

But you, beloved, basically here it’s saying, be about building yourselves up on your most holy faith. That’s what we’re to be about. That’s what we’re to be doing, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. In other words, with the truth that God has given to you to utilize what we’re learning in sermons year by year, what we’re learning as we’re being refined, and on and on it goes here, this process of what God is taking us. Then we have to do, we have to be engaged in the building. God is building, He’s given us all the tools, all the ability to do what needs to be done, all the knowledge that’s needed there. We have to be involved in doing the work of it, to be responding to God in the right way. Most of that includes repenting and then changing and then wanting to do it God’s way, becoming more convicted of God’s way.

...building yourselves up on your most holy faith, by what God has given you to believe, living what you’ve been given to believe, to see, to know that’s true, praying in the holy spirit. Do you pray on a regular basis continually to God? How much is it in your mind that you want to fight against this? That should be a part of a major prayer in our life, to be able to be brought to repentance and to be able to see things that we need to repent of, to ask God for help in that so that He will continue, and His Son, to dwell in us through the power of the holy spirit so we have more ability to see things quicker, more clearly, to be able to be on guard to those things that we need to be on guard to because God will help us to see those things. He’ll help magnify them for us because it’s a spiritual thing.

Seeing what takes place in the mind is of the spirit. It’s not just about the carnality; it’s about the spirit, what spirit we are. The spirit of the natural carnal mind is not a good thing. That’s why God desires to change it, to transform it, to make it something different that’s in unity by choice and oneness with Him.

...praying in the holy spirit. How do you do that? Well, first you repent of sin. Then you cry out for help that He dwell in you. “Praying in the holy spirit.” That’s the right kind of prayer to have. Because if you’re harboring something, holding on to something, not repenting of something, not addressing certain things in your life then where is God? Is God’s spirit being quenched somewhere and we don’t even see it? Those are the things you have to be on top of, to be on guard against.

...and keeping yourselves in the love of God. That’s what’s beautiful about it. So when it comes to how we think about one another in judging, you need to keep yourselves in the love of God. God must be in the thinking, what is God’s will, praying that we do it right, praying that we think right. If we’re addressing something, dealing with something, a situation with someone else in their life we need to be praying about it that we do it God’s way.

...looking for the mercy of our Lord Joshua the Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction. So sometimes there are things when things have to be done, when things have to be addressed, when things have gone too far. So that’s a part of the story where some things have to be dealt with and they’re not comfortable, they’re not easy to do. But to ignore it or not do it is bad as well. So to not do it the right way is wrong, to not do it at all is wrong. We’re to do things according to God’s will, whatever God says. If we have a responsibility in it we better do it and then strive to do it the right way.

...in some have compassion. So there are some situations even in judgment. Isn’t that something we want to have? Wouldn’t you rather err on the side of mercy, on the side of compassion? But don’t go too far because sometimes it’s more a matter of carnality and just not wanting to deal with it at all because it’s uncomfortable, because it’s not easy. But that’s not what this is talking about. This is talking about there are some situations that yes, need to be addressed or need to be worked with. I think of the Church and the ministry sometimes. But also in your own life in your own dealings one toward another there are some things you have to make judgments and ask God how to deal with or what to deal with and make sure you’re not dealing with something up here on the top shelf. It may not be that big. It may be really something pretty puny when it’s all said and done in the scheme of things. Sometimes we just tend to make things big.

...on some have compassion, making a distinction. In other words, to distinguish through right judgment, to make a distinction in this that there are times to be compassionate. There are times to deal with a thing in a different way than what we tend to do by nature.

...but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. So even in this it brings it down to a conclusion here of something; of all that you go through in life sometimes there is a need to be involved, there is a need to try to help save someone, because if they continue in a certain course do it compassionately, do it mercifully understanding your own weaknesses, not in a haughty spirit, not in a condemning spirit. But you know how we approach people and work with certain things in life makes a big difference oftentimes, obviously, if we can do it this way. But we don’t always do it this way. But if we can do this more and more then that’s better and better, isn’t it?

...but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you without blemish before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy... So a lot said there. Looking to God, keeping God in the picture, seeking to do things God’s way. We’re always having to judge. We’re always having to judge. You’re making judgments all the time. As soon as services are over you’re going to be judging various things in your relationships and your fellowship with one another. Be sure. Strive to do it the way God wants it done, that we be a closer knit Body, a stronger Body. We are in this together. We go through much together but we need to see that in that light, see God in the picture.

To the only wise God, our Savior, is glory and majesty. So again, it’s about God. God is the one who saves us. Judgment is all about saving. If we understand it it’s all about what we can do when we judge matters and how we deal with matters because God’s objective is that we be part of Elohim. If that’s in our thinking we’re going to work with each other in a unique way and we’re going to see something unique and special in each other.

So again, To the only wise God, our Savior, is glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

1. Chapter 1