Well, um, I have such a privilege of bringing you something from God's word here tonight.
So, if you would, please open up your Bibles to the book of Jude. Jude, that's the book right before the book of Revelation. So just go to the book of Revelation and turn left to the book of Jude. It's easy to pass over because it's one of those one-chapter wonders in the New Testament—just one chapter, that's all it is, the book of Jude.
I've had the privilege today, and I'll do it tomorrow as well, of lecturing all through the morning with the students at Calvary Bible Institute. By the way, what a wonderful program you guys have going on there! Praise the Lord for that. What a marvelous thing that God has raised up here, and I just pray for God's blessing on it in the future over and over again.
But anyway, it's been my privilege to be able to lecture to the students this morning. I just thought what we would do together this morning was walk through the book of Jude just carefully together, discussing it, talking about it, digging it apart, and tearing with it. Would you believe that this morning, over three hours, we only got through ten verses? That's it! So where did we end? We ended at verse 11.
I told the students tonight we're going to talk about verse 11, and that's what we're going to do now. I got to say, in the next 30-40 minutes—now, you told me about 40 minutes, but when does that start? This has all been like introductory material. No? Okay, they're here anyway. I mean, why not?
Okay, so what we're going to talk about here tonight is verse 11—just one verse from the book of Jude—but I think you'll see that it has just amazing application to our life today.
Father, would you bless your word to us here this evening? Lord, I'm so grateful for the work you're doing here in this valley, in this community. Lord, I'm so grateful for the work you're doing through Calvary Bible Institute. Lord, multiply it, and we believe that you're a big enough God to not only do your work in all these other areas, you're big enough here tonight to bring us a blessing in and through your word. So, Lord, speak through your word by your Spirit right here, right now. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Jude, verse 11: "Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah."
Now, I need to bring you up to speed because it's always sort of a dangerous thing to sort of parachute down into the middle of a book of the Bible and just take one verse. I mean, you know, the Bible isn't like a collection of fortune cookies where you just draw one thing out and look at it, and each verse stands by itself. Some portions of the Bible are like that; the book of Proverbs is kind of like that. But with the exception of Proverbs and maybe just a few other isolated sections of Scripture, it's very important to know the flow, the context of Scripture, so we know what it's saying sort of in its bigger, fuller meaning.
You could say that Jude was the letter that didn't want to be written. This man Jude, who was actually the half-brother of Jesus Himself, said that he wanted to write a different kind of letter to his listeners, to his readers. He said that he wanted to write the kind of letter that would encourage them. Look at what it says in verse 3: "Beloved, while I was diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation..." That's what I just want to write you about—our common salvation, he says.
Then I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. In other words, Jude has a light turn. I want to write just a general letter of encouragement to you, but something told me it's too dangerous out there. There's a warfare going on. I need to encourage God's people to, if you look at the phrase in verse 3, contend earnestly for the faith—the truth that which was once for all delivered to the saints.
So the book of Jude is all about helping us to contend earnestly for biblical truth. So how does he do that? How does he talk about that? Well, what he wants to do is he tells us about why this is such a danger. This is in verse 4. He says, "For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation—ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ."
See, to get the picture here, Jude sees certain men who have crept in unnoticed among believers. These are like stealth deceivers. They've got whatever it is that they've brought in, their presentation, in their words, in the slickness of their manner—they're going undetected among believers. But these are bad men; they're corrupt men. Notice how he describes them there in verse 4: he says they're ungodly; they turn the grace of our God into lewdness; they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These are bad men, and that's why Jude said, "I gotta stop and instruct you how to contend earnestly for the faith."
Before I go any further, I got to tell you something: throughout this morning's lectures, I kept saying James instead of Jude. Did I already do it here tonight once? All right, well, I'm going to do it. I'm just telling you, so when I say James and it should be Jude, you just mentally correct it in your mind, then I don't have to worry about it. All right?
Okay, so notice what James says in verse 5. No, that one was just kidding. Now, starting in verse 5, Jude starts giving us examples of the certainty of God's judgment. We don't need to get into those examples right now, but he's saying, "Listen, I told you that these certain men God had them marked out for condemnation a long time ago. They may be stealth deceivers among Christians, but God knows their number, and God will deal with them as He has dealt with these three examples in the past."
Then at verse 8, he goes back to describing the errors and the sins of these certain men, which brings us to verse 11, where in verse 11, he's talking about these deceivers in a general sense.
Let me read the verse to you again with that in mind: "Woe to them!" In other words, woe to these certain men! "Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and have perished in the rebellion of Korah."
Now really, it's pretty simple. What I have for you tonight is just a three-part message. I want to talk to you about the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the rebellion of Korah. That's the warning right there, isn't it? The way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the rebellion of Korah.
But the first thing I want to do is sort of ask you to think about something that, to me, is a little bit mind-blowing. Jude wrote this letter to everyday Christians, to congregations. He didn't write this letter to Bible scholars. The people who received this letter from Jude—well, let me ask this question. Just you can mentally answer; you don't have to shout it out. Who has more Bibles that you can read now? Back then, it would have been a scroll, so I'm not going to say printed Bibles, but who has more Bibles or copies of the Scriptures that you can read—you today or Jude's original readers? Can't even compare it, can you?
We've got Bibles coming out of our ears. Many of you probably have 20 Bibles at home, and that's how you count what's on your phone and your iPad and all the rest of it. We've got Bibles all over the place. Yet Jude mentions Cain, Balaam, and Korah in a way that assumes we all know what he's talking about.
Can I just say, if I said, "Oh, well, what's the way of Cain? What's the error of Balaam? What's the rebellion of Korah?" a lot of us would have a hard time answering. Now, I don't say that to condemn anybody in this room, but I say it to bring an exhortation to you that I think I want to start finding a way to bring more and more.
Please, brothers and sisters, believe me, with all my heart, I'm saying this without an ounce of condemnation. I'm not here to condemn anybody in this room here tonight for what I'm about to say—no condemnation. But I do want to give you an encouragement. You ready for this? Read your Bibles! Please read your Bibles.
I have reason to believe that, generally speaking, among Christians today, there is much less Bible reading than there used to be. Christians aren't reading their Bibles. Now, you rightfully appreciate the fact that you come to a Bible-believing and Bible-preaching church. Praise God for that! You know Pastor Gerald and the staff here, the people who stand up in this pulpit—they bring you the truth line upon line, precept upon precept, and you are grateful for that.
But can I tell you something? That does not replace your own Bible reading. You need to read your Bibles. It's getting astounding, the lack of Bible reading and Bible education among common Christians today. I feel hesitant saying that because I don't want to sound like a nag, like a scold: "Read your Bible more! Read your Bible more!"—like I'm going to guilt you into it. I just want to stir your heart up and say this is a precious heritage that's been delivered to you and me. We need to read our Bibles, and we need to read it thinkingly—not just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We need to read it and think about it.
Jude assumed that there would be a certain level of biblical literacy on the part of his readers, and many of us, we would have no idea what Jude was talking about. Jude rattles off three things in one verse, and we're like, "Whatever, William Cain, whatever, error of Balaam, I don't know, rebellion of Korah."
Okay, you see, we need to know our Bibles. Now, there is a large institutional church in the Western world, in the world at large, I should just say, that has existed for centuries. Up until just a few decades ago, the commonly heard teaching in that institutional church was this—and some of you guys are going to know exactly what I'm talking about because you heard this when you were young—they would say this to you: "Don't you read the Bible; the priest will read the Bible and tell you what it says."
Anybody in this room ever hear that when you were young? Yeah? "Don't you read the Bible; the priest will read the Bible and tell you what it says." Now, you and I, as good Protestants, we hear that, and that makes us want to fight, right? Come on, man! Don't you tell me not to read my Bible! Come on, don't you take that!
But let me tell you something: in our churches, we're doing that by default because you are just trusting, "Because I go to a Bible-preaching and Bible-loving church, that's enough." It's not enough! You need to not just let Pastor Gerald and the other pastors here—you can't just say, "Well, I'll listen to what they teach, and that's good enough." No, no! You're doing by your own will what the church did to others for centuries by force.
Don't allow it to happen! Be committed to reading your Bible. And you say, "Well, David, how much should I—what do you tell me? I need to read my Bible for an hour every day or whatever?" Well, listen, if you had the opportunity, it would be good. But let me just—how much should you read your Bible? More! How about that? Whatever you're doing right now, find a way to do a little bit more.
If it's like zero right now, it would benefit you to start with five minutes a day reading. Now, I think you should do more than that, but it would be better to do five minutes, ten minutes a day than zero. And if you're doing 15 minutes, get a little bold and lengthen it out to 20. Whatever you're doing right now, find a way to do more. We Christians need to get back to reading our Bibles.
There was—I’ve been preaching right in the midst of a sermon right here. Okay, let's get back to the text. Verse 11 of Jude chapter 1—it's the only chapter. He begins, "Woe to them! Woe to these certain men," the men he mentioned in verse 3, "for they have gone in the way of Cain."
Now, do you know where the story of Cain is found? It's found in Genesis chapter 4. We find that Adam and Eve had two sons, and they each brought an offering to God. Cain was a farmer, and he brought an offering to God from his harvest. Abel was a shepherd, and he brought an offering to God from his flocks. God accepted Abel's offering, the lamb that he brought; God did not accept Cain's offering, which was grain or vegetation or fruit or produce of some kind.
Now, many people assume that the reason God accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's sacrifice was because Abel's sacrifice was a blood sacrifice and Cain's sacrifice was not a blood sacrifice. It was, you know, grain and vegetable produce of the ground. I don't think that's it, and I'll tell you why. Because in the Old Testament sacrificial system, grain offerings were common. God received grain offerings all the time.
Now, if the offering was to be made for the atonement of sin, it had to have blood in it. But God accepted fellowship offerings, peace offerings, consecration offerings that were bloodless offerings. No, I don't think that the problem between the two sacrifices was that one had blood and the other had none. I think that the problem is given to us by the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 11:4 says this: "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." Not by blood, but by faith.
The problem wasn't blood sacrifice versus non-blood sacrifice; the problem was sacrifice made with faith and sacrifice made without faith. In other words, Abel truly trusted God as he brought his offering; Cain was just going through the motions.
Now, Cain's sacrifice was probably more pleasing to the senses than the carcass of a dead lamb, but Cain's sacrifice was made without faith, and therefore it was absolutely unacceptable to God. Listen, you can give to God, whoever you are, whatever you are. God is not looking just for the high and mighty, nor is He only looking for the low and the down and out. God is looking for each and every man and woman to surrender their life to Him.
But this is what He says: when you do it, you got to do it in faith. You've got to do it trusting in who God is and what He's done for us.
Now, what did Cain do after his sacrifice was rejected? Cain became so angry. Verse 5 of Genesis chapter 4 says that his countenance fell. He became angry because he knew God rejected his offering, and in a fit of anger, Cain murdered Abel. And then he lied about it to God. Check that out! The son of Adam and Eve became a murderer.
By the way, that just fascinates me how fast and how hard the human race fell. Now, we all know that the fall of the human race had to do because Adam and Eve—particularly Adam—directly disobeyed God by taking the fruit that they were told not to take. The sin that was responsible for the fall of the human race was the rebellion, the disobedience in eating something from the tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree that God told them not to eat from. That was the sin that resulted in the fall of the human race.
Now, eating something that you shouldn't eat is bad; it's sin, especially if God specifically tells you. But eating something that we're not supposed to eat—look, that's most of us in this room, isn't it? I mean, at some time or another. Now, I'm not trying to make light of Adam and Eve's sin; it was direct disobedience to God. It was bad; I'm not trying to make light of it. But wouldn't you agree that murdering your own brother is a lot worse?
Do you see how far the human race fell? One sin—disobeying God by eating what they shouldn't eat. The next sin—Cain is murdering Abel, his brother. Ladies and gentlemen, when the human race fell in the garden of Eden, they just kept falling and falling and falling. It's a terrible scene.
Now, Jude warns us—look back at verse 11—about the way of Cain. Jude says that Cain typifies a way that the certain men that he warned about followed in. What is this way? Let me suggest to you that the way of Cain is the way of unbelief and empty religion. Unbelief and empty religion often lead to jealousy and dissatisfaction and anger against the truly godly.
Brothers and sisters, let me tell you something: there is no greater curse upon this world than empty religion. Second Timothy chapter 3, verse 5 says this: "There are those who have a form of godliness but deny its power." Paul said, "You turn away from such people." Empty, vain religion is a terrible thing on this earth, and the way of Cain is the way of empty and dead religion.
The way of Cain is responsible for a lot of evil in this world, both now and in its history. Sometimes we look back over the history of Christianity, and we see that horrific things have been done in the name of Jesus. It turns my stomach sometimes to read about those. It turns my stomach to read that for many centuries, the worst persecutor of the Jewish people was the Christian church. Isn't that awful? The ones who should be loving the covenant descendants of Abraham—the ones who should be doing everything they could to bless them in the name of the Lord—they were cursing God's covenant people.
Now, friends, that's an embarrassment. Let me tell you what's responsible for it: it's the way of Cain. It's the way of empty, dead religion. And that's why Jude says he warns them about the way of Cain. There's nothing more practical than building your life on a true relationship with Jesus Christ and doing everything you can to avoid the way of Cain.
Before I go on to the next point and talk about the error of Balaam, let me just say this one last thing about the way of Cain. If you're pretending with this church thing, please, in the name of our Savior, I exhort you—would you be honest about it with a pastor or with some trusted person you could talk to in this church? Do not keep—I'm glad you're here! Good heavens, you guys are the ones here on a Thursday night, a special service. But isn't it possible that even on a special service night, on a Thursday night, it could be that there's someone here you're just pretending?
Now, if you are pretending, I want you to know I'm glad you're here. I am! You should be in church; you should be around the people of God. But I plead with you in Jesus' name: find time to speak with a pastor, to speak with someone in leadership here, with someone trusted you can speak to, and you be honest with them about your fears, your doubts, your struggles. Don't come to church just pretending; you're going to end up on the way of Cain, and it'll be absolutely devastating.
That's the way of Cain. Next, look at verse 11 again. He says that they have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit. Well, what's the error of Balaam? Cain had his way; what's the error of Balaam? Balaam's story is in Numbers chapters 22 through 25, and then it comes back to Balaam in Numbers chapter 31.
During the time of the Exodus, Israel advanced to the land of Moab after defeating the Amorites. When the Israelites came near to the land of Moab, King Balak of the Moabites sought the help of a prophet named Balaam. Now, when I say Balaam, what do you think of? Talking donkey! All right, that's part of the story, but don't get tripped out on the talking donkey.
The Moabite King Balak sent a delegation to the Hebrew prophet Balaam, and before Balak came to him, God spoke to Balaam and He said, "Balaam, have nothing to do with this guy." Those were God's initial words to Balaam. Matter of fact, these were the words from God. Can I read them to you from Numbers chapter 22? "You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed."
So what did Balaam do? He said, "Go away; God told me I can't go with you." What did King Balak do? He sent another delegation to the prophet Balaam, and this time he came with great riches and offers of large standing prestige. "I'll give you very prestigious positions and a lot of money; just curse the people of Israel for me."
What did Balaam do then? He said, "I'll go." By the way, what did God tell Balaam at the very beginning? "Don't go." But when Balaam saw the money, when he saw the prestige, he said, "I'll go."
Now, when he went, that's when you had the whole talking donkey incident. That's when he had that whole problem because an angel was in the middle of the road blocking the donkey, and Balaam starts whooping on the donkey, and God gives the donkey the ability to speak and say, "Why are you beating on me?"
Anyway, I want you to notice that even though God sent Balaam an angel to block the road, and even though God sent Balaam a donkey that spoke—see, I just need to say "speak" instead of "talk"—a donkey that spoke, what happened? Balaam was still determined to go. Why? Because he wanted the money.
So he went. For Balaam, it was all about the money. Balaam knew that he had done something wrong. He said to God, "God, I have sinned; therefore, if it displeases you, I'll turn back." But he didn't turn back; he continued on.
Balaam was the kind of guy who said this: "Okay, Lord, I know what I'm doing is wrong, and if you want to stop me, go ahead and stop me." "Oh, you're not stopping me? Okay, I'll do it." That's the kind of guy Balaam was.
And he went to the king of Moab, Balak, and Balak said, "Okay, Balaam, now I want you to curse the people of God." So Balaam stands up on this hill overlooking the people of God, and he gets the inspiration, the spirit, and he goes, "Okay, now I'm going to curse the people of God." And what happens? He speaks, and what does he do? He blesses them!
And Balak goes, "No, Balaam, you don't understand; that's not what I'm paying you to do! Try again!" "Okay, I really want the money, King. Okay, here's it—okay, I'll do it again." And what does he do a second time? He blesses them. And I think for the third time he did it, and he blessed them a third time. Finally, Balak gives up. He goes, "Go home! No money for me; that's it."
Now, you think the story would end there, but it doesn't end there. We find out from Numbers chapter 31 that Balaam was so desperate for the money and prestige that King Balak of the Moabites could give him that this is what he said: "Listen, Balak, I can't curse these people because God has blessed them, and when I speak as a prophet of God, all I'm going to do is speak blessing over these people because God has blessed them. I can't curse them no matter how much money you give me."
But he said, "King Balak, I'll tell you how to bring a curse upon the people of Israel." Balaam goes, "Well, great! Tell me how to do it." So this is what I want you to do: "I want you to get your finest young women. I want you to get them all dressed up seductively, send them down to the camp of Israel, and to meet up with the men and to say simply this: 'Yes, let's have sex together, but before we do, let's worship my Moabite idols.'"
So not only would there be sexual immorality, but there would also be idolatry combined. By that, Balak—Balaam said to Balak, "If you do this to Israel, God will curse them because of their disobedience." Balak followed Balaam's advice, and it brought a tremendous plague upon Israel. There was a judgment upon Israel that killed 24,000 people.
And in all of this, Balaam was guilty of the greatest of sins: he deliberately led other people into sin. That is a sin I want to warn you against—deliberately leading other people into sin. Sometimes I've known believers that have a backslidden season in their life, and they don't think too much. They're like, "Well, listen, if I want to go out and do my thing for a while, hey, whatever! I'll just come back to the Lord when I want to."
But here's the thing: when they backslid, they drew others with them, and they came back to the Lord, but the others, they didn't. That's a heavy thing to live with the rest of your life. And Jesus warned us about the great penalty of stumbling even the least of these.
Listen, worst of all, Balaam did that sin just for the sake of money. The greedy error of Balaam was that he was willing to compromise everything for the sake of money.
Listen, there are many Christians who would never deny Jesus under persecution, but honestly, I mean, if this was no fooling around—"All right, I'll give you a million dollars to never read your Bible again or never go to church again." How many people would start running the equation? "Well, you know, I can be a believer without actually reading. I've got a lot of the word hidden in my heart, and you know the church isn't a building; it's the people of God. So as long as I see a Christian across the street, that's kind of like going to church."
You know, isn't it true? There are so many people who start doing that calculation. Why? Because if they could, they'd sell out God for money. Their career choices, their life choices, everything they do—it's all about money.
Brothers and sisters, this is our warning. It's not just for somebody else; we have to avoid the greedy error of Balaam, and we cannot sell out the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to say, "Lord, even though we live in tough economic times, even though it's hard to make a living and sometimes it's hard to get enough for the money to live and all that, Lord, you show me how to put you first."
When I was a very young Christian, I don't know if I heard it in a sermon; I don't know if I read it in my Bible; I don't know what brought it to me, but that verse that Jesus spoke in the Gospel of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount—you remember that? Matthew 5:31: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you."
When we put God in the proper place, He says, "Don't worry about it; I'll take care of you." That doesn't mean you're not going to have to work a job; it doesn't mean you're not going to have to be honest and smart about how you handle your money, but it'll keep you from the greedy error of Balaam.
Right, we've seen the way of Cain, the error of Balaam. What's the last one he mentions? Look at it there at the end of verse 11: "And they perished in the rebellion of Korah."
You know where Korah's story is found? Korah's story is found in Numbers chapter 16. Korah was a prominent man in Israel, and one day he came to Moses, and this is what he said—I'm reading from Numbers chapter 16: "You take too much upon yourself, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourself above the congregation of the Lord?"
Korah and his followers resented the authority that God gave to Moses and Aaron. Brothers and sisters, there are people who from time to time resent the fact that there is an order of authority in God's church. Now, it's just true: God has established gifted offices in His church. He's given churches pastors; He's given churches other forms of spiritual leadership. God has an order of authority in His church, and there are some people who resent that.
They don't like that idea. They're like Korah. They're like, "Hey, why can't we all just be the same? Why does anybody have to have any more authority than anybody else?"
Now, when Korah said this to Moses, do you know what Moses did? Moses did not answer back to Korah, "Thou wicked man, perish thou from the earth!" He didn't say anything like that. Moses fell on his face before God because he knew God's judgment was soon going to come upon Korah.
Then Moses proposed a test. Each side took censers. Do you know what a censer is? A censer is like a metal pot that you put—or it could be even a plate. It has burning coals in it, and you put incense upon it so smoke comes out of a censer—the smoke of incense. It smells nice. Well, some incense smells nice.
So he said, "Let's bring these censers full of this kind of thing that a priest would do. Let's take censers for burning incense and come before the Lord, and the Lord Himself will choose which man He wanted to represent Him—Moses or Korah."
You say, "I shouldn't be in authority; you say you're the guy." Okay, Korah, then let's decide this. You come before the Lord; I'll come before the Lord, and let's let the Lord decide.
And when they both came before the Lord, do you know what the Lord said? This is heavy! God spoke from heaven. He said, "Moses, move away." "Okay, why do you want me to move away?" "Don't ask; just move away." Moses moved away, and then the ground opened up and swallowed Korah and all of his followers. After that, fire came down from heaven and burned up the rest of his supporters. They all perished.
You see what Jude says? "And perished in the rebellion of Korah." Do you want to know the irony of it? Do you know who Korah was? Korah was a Levite. He was a man who had his own God-appointed sphere of ministry, yet he wasn't content with it. He looked at Moses and he said, "I want your ministry; I want your calling."
Even though God had given him a ministry, God had given him a role, but Korah would not be content with that role, and so he rebelled against it. He needed to learn an important lesson. Here's the important lesson: we should work hard to fulfill everything God has called us to be, but at the same time, we should never try to be what God has not called us to be.
Do you know that sometimes there's tremendous liberty in knowing what you're not called to? And Korah didn't get this. Korah demanded a calling that God didn't really have for his life.
And here is the question for each and every one of us: can you submit to God-established authority? And look, I know this isn't a popular thing to talk about in the church today. I'll tell you, church leaders sometimes have a difficulty, and the difficulty is people say, "Pastor, I'm with you; I'm fully behind you." Or maybe it's somebody else in leadership in the church. It doesn't necessarily have to be the pastor, but sometimes it is somebody in leadership in the church.
Let's just say, "Pastor, I'm with you until you do something I don't like." Until you tell me no. You got to ask yourself: that person who is in spiritual authority over you, can they tell you no, and you'll still stick in and trust him? That's how it should be. That's what it means to be under spiritual authority.
Now, look, I know that there are times when authority becomes abusive. I know there are times when authority itself sins, and God needs to deal with it. But let me tell you something: God will deal with disobedient authority. He has a way of doing that. Sometimes it takes a long time, but believe me, God will deal with disobedient authority.
But each and every one of us need to learn how to submit to God-established authority. But there's one other way I want you to think about this. Korah rejected God's appointed mediator because Moses functioned as a mediator between the people and God.
How do people reject God's appointed mediator today? Because I'm here to tell you, the pastor is not your mediator between you and God. The worship leader is not your mediator between you and God. Who's your mediator between you and God?
All right, I'm glad nobody said Mary. It's Jesus! It's Jesus! There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
And one other way to look at the rebellion of Korah is it's a rejection of God's appointed mediator. No, we need to put Jesus in His rightful place in our life and in our congregations.
Brothers and sisters, this is a very serious thing. We need to think about the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, and the rebellion of Korah. The way of Cain—don't get trapped by empty religion. The error of Balaam—don't let greed and materialism seduce you. And the rebellion of Korah—don't be deceived into rejecting God's appointed authority.
So, three points here: number one—and this goes back to the very beginning—we should know our Bibles well enough to be familiar with such stories. I would be super blessed if what I shared with you tonight, you're like...
on Jan 25, 2024
