1.     This will be our last preaching service for the year 2005 and so I would like to preach about the brand new year that awaits us. 

2.     I rejoice over the souls that have been saved this year and I am asking the Lord to save many more in the new year.

3.     My message is entitled, “Making a Difference in 2006” (Jude 22) and this should be our theme for the new year.

4.     The book of Jude is a warning regarding apostasy.  But there is a shift starting in verse 20 – “But ye, beloved…”

I.    MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN GROWTH (vs. 20a).

1.     The key word here is “building” (vs. 20).  If our church is going to grow, we must grow – spiritually – in our “most holy faith.”

2.     A church may grow numerically, but if the individual members are not growing spiritually the church will be weak and carnal.

3.     Some people are impressed with big crowds.  I am not knocking big crowds.  Any preacher (if he is honest) will tell you he’d rather to preach to people than to empty chairs.  But a big crowd without the presence of God is not what we want.

4.     Jude 20 says, “Building up yourselves on your most holy faith.”  Faith must be the foundation.  “Without faith it is impossible to please” God (Hebrews 11:6).

5.     If faith is the foundation, what is added to the building?  (Cf. II Peter 1:5-8).  Notice “charity” (or “love”) is the capstone

6.     First Corinthians 13:13 says, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

7.     Getting back to our text, note that “building” (Jude 20) is a present participle.  This means we are to be continually building.  Let’s not slack off in 2006.  Let us pray that 2006 will be far more fruitful than 2005.

8.     When contractors start to build, they always have a set of plans to follow.  The Lord has given us our plans – the Holy Bible.

9.     Since this is the last day of the year, let me encourage you to read the Scriptures more in the coming new year (cf. Acts 20:32) – “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up…”

II.    MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH PRAYER (vs. 20b).

1.     “Praying in the Holy Ghost” (vs. 20).  Ephesians 6:18 says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”

2.     Prayer in the Holy Spirit is prayer which comes from a heart indwelt and controlled by the Holy Spirit.  This speaks of close communion with the Lord.

3.     One cannot pray in the Holy Spirit until he is firs regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and until he walks in the Spirit.

4.     When you pray in the Spirit you are praying according to the will of God (cf. Rom. 8:26, 27).  Let us determine to pray more this year.

III.    MAKING A DIFFERENCE BY BEING COMPASSIONATE (vss. 22, 23).

1.     The theme of the little book of Jude is found in verse 3 – “that ye should earnestly contend for the faith.”

2.    Like the second chapter of Peter’s second epistle, this book deals with the problem of apostasy (cf. vs. 4).

3.    Notice these men “crept in unawares” (vs. 4), i.e., they have crept into the churches.  They profess to be Christian.

4.    Verse 12 says they are “spots in your feasts of charity,” meaning they have infiltrated the churches.

5.    Jude describes them as filthy and immoral (vss. 7, 8); “brute beasts” and “corrupt” (vs. 10); clouds without water…“to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (vss. 12, 13).

6.    These apostates are ungodly (vs. 15); murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts (vs. 16), and mockers (vs. 18).

7.    Then after all these stern warnings, Jude says, “And of some have compassion, making a difference” (vs. 22).

8.    How are we to be compassionate when faced with such an evil attack on our most holy faith?  How can we be compassionate toward those who viciously attack the Word of God, and who malign and slander our blessed Lord Jesus Christ?

9.    This is the way I see it: we are to be compassionate toward those who have been misled and deceived by these false teachers.

10.  There are millions of lost souls who have been taught false doctrines since they were babies.  Many of them can be reached with the true Gospel but we must have compassion.

11.  It has been said, “People don’t care what you know till they know that you care.”  We can make a difference.

12.  Many have been brainwashed by false cults and false teachers. We must be patient.  We must be kind.  We must be compassionate (cf. Psalm 126:5, 6).

13.   We must understand where people are coming from.  The teachings of the RCC, the JW’s, the Mormons, Islam, etc. seem very strange to us.  That is because we are saved and we know the Bible.  But some people do not understand the Bible and they have been taught these teachings since they were small children (cf. vs. 22).

14.  When I first got saved I used to argue with lost people.  Then the Lord showed me that I was winning arguments but I wasn’t winning many souls (cf. vs. 22).

15.“Others” (vs. 23) are to be saved “with fear.”  We must have a healthy fear of the dangers and consequences of sin.  A few years ago, the sodomites invented a new word: “homophobic.”  You will not find this word in the old dictionaries.  It is of recent origin.  “Homo” is short for “homosexual,” and “phobia” means fear, therefore “homophobia” means a fear of homosexuality.

16.We do not fear homosexuality but we are fearful of the dangers associated with it.  It is a detestable sin, which has serious consequences – contagious diseases, including AIDS, which has killed millions of people.  In fact, they have even invented a new word: “AIDS-phobia,” as if it were irrational to fear contracting a deadly disease (cf. Jude 23).

17.Proverbs 14:16 says, “A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil.”

18.“And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire…” (vs. 23).   This is the third reference to the fires of hell in this little epistle (cf. vss. 7, 13).

19.“And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire…”  This reminds us of how the angels had to literally drag Lot out of Sodom.  Genesis 19:15 says, “the angels hastened Lot.”

20.“…hating even the garment spotted (defiled or contaminated) by the flesh” (vs. 23b).  Oftentimes the sinners’ clothing is polluted by sin.  It stinks of cigarette smoke and beer and vomit.  It is stained from nights of debauchery.

21.Many men are in prison now because the police proved their crime by examining their spotted garments in the laboratory.  Their DNA proved they were guilty.

22.This can be looked at in two ways.  Literally, it means we must hate even garments stained with sin.   Furthermore, it is a warning not to get too close to certain sinners.  They can drag us down to their level if we are not careful.

23.Let me go further and say that the principle found here is that we are to hate the environment of the sinner and the atmosphere of the sinner – the taverns, the nightclubs, the gambling joints, the dope dens, and so on.

24.These places seem attractive to the carnally-minded, but the child of God must avoid them like the plague (vs. 23).

CONCLUSION:

1.     Commenting on Jude 23, Bible teacher S. Maxwell Coder, writes, “This should encourage us to hope that some of those who now seem hopelessly lost in sin may become useful servants of Christ, if we heed the Scriptures and pluck them out.  No case should be regarded as hopeless.  The history of soul-winning is filled with the records of men and women so far gone in sin that it seemed as though the fames of Hell were about to receive them, when some messenger of the cross snatched them out of the fire, and they became outstanding evangelists and personal workers afterward” (Jude, The Acts of the Apostates, p. 117).

2.     Let us make a difference in 2006!