Christian Faith and Old Time Religion - Jude 3-5 Sermon

The importance of old time religion in today's generation.

Why we don't need a new religion, but rather a return to the old ways.

The story of the speaker's grandfather and his transformation through old time religion.

The relevance of Jude 3-5 in today's generation and the need to contend for the faith.

Music There's a beautiful song that says, give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me, right? And that is something that we're missing in this generation, I think, a lot. We've lost the old time religion. We kind of feel like a new age calls for a new religion. A new age calls for a new beginning, a new kind of thing. And you know what? Just because we are living in a new age and a different age doesn't mean that God changes. God doesn't change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He always stays the same. And His Word always stays the same. So why do we have to have a new religion? Why do we have to have something different? I think the old-time religion that worked for my dad, for my ancestors, my grandma, I'll say that. Because my grandpa and my grandma on my dad's side were not really what you call really religious people or whatever. But my grandma, my mom's mom, was quite the Christian. She was amazing. When I look at her and I think of her, I think of, wow, what a person, what an example of what a Christian should be. In fact, of a woman that loved God no matter what. She had a husband that thankfully got saved. But while they were first married for most of their married lives, he made it very difficult for her. Very difficult for her. And the fact that Grandpa was a drunk. I mean, that's what he did. He drank very heavily. Very much so. And my mom would tell me stories. And this is not to embarrass her or embarrass my grandpa. but it's to show what a difference God can do. In the fact that my grandpa would get so drunk that he would sit in the trunk of the car and sing Hank Williams songs, and the whole neighborhood would hear it. And grandma would say, go get your dad and pull him in the house before they call the cops on us. Now, that can be very discouraging for kids to see their parent like that. And my grandpa was not the easiest person to live with sometimes. In the fact that if he didn't get what he wanted, he got very mean. But what a difference God made. In the fact that my mom, my grandma's prayers for her husband and a little preacher that wouldn't give up. That preacher came to the house every single week. every single week inviting Robert, my grandpa to church every single week and I told this story but it's true my grandpa got so mad at the preacher one time he threw him off the porch threw him off of his porch touch not my anointing do my servant no harm my grandpa grabbed the preacher and threw him off the porch into the yard I think that's doing the servant harm, personally. But you know what happened to that preacher after he got thrown off that porch? The next two weeks, he was back knocking on the door and inviting Robert back to church again. And you know what? Persistence paid off. Because eventually my grandpa, just to shut the preacher up, just to give the shut up, went to church. he finally said I'll go to church if it's going to just shut you up and get you off of my back my grandpa went into church that Sunday with a defiant heart but God broke down that defiant wall and my grandpa got saved and what a change happened alcohol stopped in an instant And he never picked up another alcohol bottle ever again. The cigarettes, that was a little more difficult. But eventually one day he sat there, he took the cigarette and was going to light it up. And he threw it down and he said, Lord, if you want me to stop, you're going to have to do something. Because I can't do this in my own strength. And he threw that cigarette down. And God said, you know what? If you're willing, I'm willing. And at that moment, he took away the desire for cigarettes out of my grandpa's heart. And he never picked up another cigarette again. And my grandma, if she was here, could tell you that that was some of the best times they ever had in their lives, was after my grandpa got saved. But what did it take? It took what? Old time religion. It took the old ways. But see, we're in a new generation now So we need new things That's what we all say That's what all the churches say Well, we've got to have a new thing I say, why do we have to have a new thing? If it worked back in the day, why can't it work now? It can work now The reason it doesn't work now Is because we have changed our mindset That says, oh, we've got to be more lenient about other things God was pretty clear in His Word what He expected. And yet we want to change God's Word to make it fit us. It doesn't work that way. Oh, we can change it. We can preach it from the pulpit. We can have churches saying, well, we're going to do it this way, but that doesn't mean God's pleased with it. I love what it says in Jude. We're going to skip down to verse 3 here, but I do suggest reading the whole chapter, the whole book here. It's just one basic chapter, but it's really, really great. But I do want to just pick out a couple verses here. Starting in verse 3, it says this from Jude. It says, Beloved. I love that. Beloved. That is what we are to one another. We are one another's beloved. We love one another. The church of the living God should love one another. Like brothers and sisters in Christ, we are family. Beloved. I love what he says here. When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for your faith. Jude here, when he began to write his idea was to write something along the lines of Romans the great book that Paul wrote the letter to the church at Rome that was what his first idea was I'm going to write something about salvation but then God changed his mind It has been a blessing because several weeks there I was amazed I came prepared with a message for several weeks a few weeks back Several weeks, a few weeks back. Three weeks to be exact. In a row, I came in the door with my message prepared. I sat in the back and listened in Sunday school And God began to change my mind For three weeks in a row And you think for a preacher That is prepared To be thrown into the fire And say hey now you're going to do something different And you're like well Lord but we didn't go over this That's not difficult It's very difficult But the interesting thing is I have never been more blessed than those three times Those three weeks were amazing to me And the interesting thing is that because it was all about God, it wasn't about me. I had a thought of what I wanted to do, but when we let God lead, it becomes something very special. It really does. And see, Jude had the same experience. He said, I want to write about salvation. But God said, no, I want you to write about something else. I want you to write about old time religion. I want you to write about what we need, what my church needs. And that's what he says here. He says, I am writing to exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith. What does it mean to contend for the faith? It means to fight for it. You know, sometimes we look at that and we think, fight for faith? What does it mean to fight for faith? Well, in this generation, it means a lot. Because right now in this generation, we are seeing churches that are beginning to compromise God's holy word. We're seeing churches that are changing God's word to fit the needs of the world instead of exhorting the Christians to get better with God. That's what we're seeing. And that's a bad, bad thing that we're seeing in this generation. And that's why Jude here, this is why this book is so, so relevant in this generation especially. Because right now we are seeing it. We true old time religion believe in people need to stand up against the evils of this world. We're seeing churches that are just saying, you know what, we've got to make the masses happy. Instead of trying to make God happy. I don't want to be a preacher that says, you know what, I'm going to have to try to appease the world. I'm not here to appease the world. I am here to please Him. That's what I'm here to do. If I'm not pleasing God, let's be honest, when I stand before God, if I haven't pleased Him, pleasing that world ain't going to mean nothing. This world is not going to save me. The people of this world is not going to save me. When I stand before God and I'm giving an account of all the things that I preach, I'm going to give an account for that. I'm not going to give an account whether the world loves me. because the world may love me, but if God is not pleased with me, then you know where I'm heading. And that's the point. I don't want to be one that appeases the world. This world will not save me. He says that we need to earnestly contend or fight for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. This was done way back in the day. Go back to all the prophets All the prophets You can go back to all the prophets Through the Old Testament Through the New Testament You can see it Prophets all the way through Go to all of them Moses leading the Israeli people When you talk about frustration You ever get frustrated with this world sometimes? Wow You know, I get frustrated with this world sometimes. When I see so much, you know, stuff going on. Such bad stuff. Stuff that goes against God's word. It bothers me. It really does. And the thing is, that when I see all this happening, my spirit wants to rise up and say, This is wrong. This is wrong. and see, we're living in a generation where we don't want to say what's wrong. We want to just, you know, whatever. Let's just, you know, let people be what they want to be. Well, what does it say in verse 4 here? It says, for there are certain men crept in unawares. Where were the men creeping into the church? That's what that means. And see, we're reading this from a man from the New Testament way many years ago. And this literally sounds like 2021 to me. It really does. It does. Because I look at it and I see, wow, this is our world right now. We're seeing churches that are letting leaders, preachers, stand before the pulpit, stand before the people, and preach things that are against God's word. And why are they doing it? As I read this, as I studied this, and as I prayed about it, it felt really like to me like God was saying, The reason preachers are doing this is because they're too worried about attendance and money instead of worrying about people's souls. And that's the point. You look at most preachers, and not most preachers, but a lot of these preachers, you will see that that's what they worry about. Well, you know, if my attendance goes down, well then the money goes down, and then I don't get what? Pay. so where is their mindset their mindset is in their back pocket instead of their hearts for man and for people's souls that's what it comes down to you know I mean would I love to see a house of you know 5,000 people of course that would be amazing but probably wouldn't be able to see them all in your house Let's be honest. But I would love to have that. But I'm not worrying about that. I want to make sure what we have here in our church are ready to go. That's what my main goal is. It not about how many people that we squeeze in the church It about whether you ready to go and see the most of the majority of these churches these huge churches they worried more about you know making you feel like you loved And I want you to feel like you're loved. That's not what I'm saying. But their main goal, and I'm going to, oh, Lord, you're going to get me in trouble here. I'm starting to, you're starting to tell me to call out people. I don't want to do that. But there are a lot of these preachers that you get on TV and you listen to them. And they will, you listen to their message. It's all about love. God loves you. God cares for you. But you very, very, very rarely will you ever hear them speaking about you have got to line up with what God says. You very rarely hear that. Why? because they're worried about offending somebody. That's what we're doing in this generation. We're too worried about somebody being offended and then calling us out on social media or calling us out or whatever or getting on the phone or whatever or Facebook or something and sitting here saying, you know what, this is what I saw, this is what I heard. You know what, if I say something that offends you, Look in here first. If it says in here, don't get mad at me, get mad at the author. And then I'll say this, don't get mad at the author because you don't want to do that. But that's the point. I'm just a messenger. I didn't write the book. I'm just preaching the book. I didn't write the book. I'm just telling you what the book says. More often than not, we in this generation are trying to eliminate one thing from the gospel of salvation brought by Jesus. And you know that one thing we're trying to eliminate? The blood. We try to eliminate the blood. We don't want to talk about the blood that Jesus bled on Tauvary's cross from his feet, his hands, from his head, from his side. We don't want to talk about that because that's a scary thing. We'll offend the kids. The kids will get scared. Let me tell you something. I heard about the blood my whole life. Ever since I was a child, I heard about the blood sacrifice of Jesus. It didn't scare me. It didn't change me. It didn't make me into a psychotic killer or whatever. It didn't do anything like that. It made me realize that eventually, when I got past my rebellious time, that that was my only way to get through. But let's eliminate talking about the blood because we don't want to do that because that will offend. Don't talk about the blood. It's going to offend somebody. Well, I'll talk about the blood. Because without the blood, there is no remission of sin. There is no forgiveness of sin without the blood covering. That was the whole purpose. Jesus came and died. He was the perfect lamb brought to slaughter for us. Because if you go back to the Old Testament, you look at the Old Testament law, they had to sacrifice a perfect lamb to have that blood covering. Jesus became the blood covering for the entire world. But let's not talk about that because it offends. Well, when we don't talk about it, when we eliminate that, there is no salvation. There's no salvation. you eliminate Jesus' sacrifice you eliminate salvation I'm a type of person I love science fiction films so you go and I always love these time travel films but the idea of this is if you go back in time and you change something then the whole future changes and that's the idea we're trying to eliminate the past of Jesus' sacrifice Well, if we eliminate Jesus' pass of his sacrifice, then there is no remission of sins, and then we can't get saved. That was the bridge to heaven and home. The cross of Calvary was the bridge to heaven and home, and without that, we can't get home. We can't get home without Jesus. But let's eliminate him. Let's eliminate his sacrifice, because it's too offensive. Give me that old-time religion any day. Give me that old-time religion any day. For there are certain men crept into unawares, for where before of old ordained to the condemnation ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness. these men have crept into the church and I'll even go a step further it's not even so much even creeping into the church men that were good Bible believing people have allowed Satan to creep into them and change them now we have some that are coming in bringing that with them but I believe in my heart of hearts There are men that have stood behind the pulpit that believed in the holy scriptures of God, but they have changed because Satan has changed them. They've been listening to the world, they've been listening to other people, and they've allowed things to change. Several years ago, our denomination, and I usually don't call out this, but I'm just amazed about it, and I'm thankful it didn't go through. But there was a point in one of our times in conference a few years ago when it came forth that we need to talk about whether we want to allow gay marriage and gay preachers and all this to be a part of our denomination. Tell me what it says in this word. Does it say it's okay? You can find in here where it says that that is okay. I'll change my mind. If you can show it to me, I'll change my mind. It does not say it there. That shouldn't even have to even be brought up. Should not even have to be brought up in my opinion. Thankfully it was cast aside. But it shouldn't even have to even be brought up in my opinion. and that's the problem I think with our world we're seeing this and I look and I say maybe eventually down the line it's going to be brought up again and maybe next time it will pass and when it passes This one quits I do not agree with it I will not agree with it God's word is pretty clear of it I am an old time I may not look at When you look at me You look at preachers And you see them with the ties And the suits And the whole nine yards And you look at them And you go wow I am an old time preacher I am not that but I preach this way all the time. My dad brought me up that way and that's the way I'm going to die. I'm going to die an all-time preacher. But we're seeing this. We're seeing it change. Preachers changing to try to fit the needs of the people instead of trying to change the hearts of people through God's Word. They're changing God's Word into lasciviousness, lewdness, dirtiness, disgusting stuff. Allowing stuff like that. And denying the only Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the final verse that we want to talk about is verse 5 and we're just going to talk very shortly with just reading it. It says, I will therefore put you in remembrance. I like that. I'm going to help you remember this. though you once knew this how the Lord having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards destroyed them who believed not that is rough words what Jude is informing us here is of something very very interesting that I think God is doing right now in this generation I believe right now in this generation in which we are living We are seeing God separating true believers from false teachers And false believers That's why we are seeing churches diminishing And that's why we're seeing this Because true believers are coming back to old time religion And the true Bible and the ones that are false believers and false teachers are falling by the wayside and they're doing their thing and some churches are not having people coming back because COVID concerns and all this type of stuff and that's what's going on. Maybe. You know, people don't like to think of it this way. But the more I see it happening, the more I wonder. Look at what God used back in Old Testament times. God would use plagues, diseases, famines, all kinds of stuff to get down to what he wanted. Think about it this way. Do you ever think that maybe COVID-19 and the variants is God's way of trying to weed out the wheat from the chaff and trying to get down to the true believers? Those that truly believe in God? that's what I'm wondering sometimes the more I see it happening the more I wonder those ones that will say you know what I'll be safe but I'm going to church no matter what those ones that say you know what I'll do my part but I am not going to let health concerns or this keep me from God is God weeding out I really think that's what's happening I think that's really what's going on I think God is showing us that there is old time religion and we need that old time religion I want to share with you one final thing and that is simply this John Wesley he said this one time once delivered to the saints this old time religion delivered by the Holy by the Spirit of God to our hearts know your disease know your cure what is the cure to man's disease to his sickness it's old time religion it's not the new stuff it goes back to the cross of Calvary it goes back to Jesus' sacrifice that's the way that's the way that we need to go and that's the only way we get where we need to be let's bow our heads before the Lord this morning Father God you know we need that old time religion, sometimes in this generation the old time religion is not popular thing to talk about. It really is. And sometimes we sit there and we say old time religion and people say, well that's outdated. Or well that's offense. But Father God, I don't want to offend people. I don't want to offend people just to offend them. That's not what I'm here to do. But I'm here to pray for people. I'm here to help them know the truth. For if we know the truth, the truth will set us free. and that's the only way we won't get free is through the truth Father God I'm praying for our people here today in this house I'm praying for those that are watching on this video this morning or this afternoon or whatever time of day they're watching Father God I pray for these people that are watching Father God I pray for all these ones that say as they heard this message I want the old time religion if they're saying that in their hearts Father God, I pray, Father God, you will weed out all the old, the new stuff that's going on in their lives, that's going on in this world. Weed it out and planted the seeds of old time religion deep down in our hearts. That it will sprout up like a strong plant. And it will take root in our hearts. And we will know that Jesus and his sacrifice is the only way to blessing and healing and hope. And all the good things of life. That we've got to have that, Father God. May that be the case. That we plant that old time religion in our hearts. Father God, I pray that today in Jesus' name. Father God, I don't want new ideas. Because I want old time religion. Father God, may it be true for me. May it be true for everyone that's asking it right now. Ask it in your hearts right now. Father God, plant the old time religion deep in my heart right now. In Jesus' name. Thank you.

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