8/29/99, Pastor McDearmon

4.  Titus at Corinth
He is a man of selfless concern committed to the welfare of this church.  Titus was a man of initiative acting for his own accord.  3John:14  "I have no greater joy than this, but to hear my children walking in the truth."  Strive for an exemplary Christian life.  Come to Christ while you are young. 
2 Cor. 8; 1 Cor. 16:1-3; Rom. 15:25-28

5.  Titus at Crete
Titus' job at Crete would notbe an easy one.  What lesson arises for us? 

• Titus is plainly a pastor here:  We need young men in the ministry.  Would you not consider it?
• Living the Christian life is full of trials.  Consider it all joy to bear them!

1 Thess. 3:3

6.  Titus at Dalmatia
Here is our last glimpse of Titus.  We can assume that Titus has gone to Dalmatia for the cause of the gospel.  Here we learn the necessity of persevering.  He had pressed on for 20 years.  We, too, must hold fast until the end.  We have need of endurance.

8/22/99, PM, Pastor McDearmon

Portraits of Manhood: Titus

He is referred to by name 13 times in the New Testament.  Paul clearly regarded Titus as a very capable and honest co-worker.  He appears to be much more aggressive than Timothy.  It is believed by some that, due to the absence of his name in the book of Acts, Titus was Luke's brother who authored the book of Acts and omitted both names due to family modesty.
"Titus, my brother" - Paul - "my partner," etc.   2 Cor. 2:13; Tit. 2:5; Gal. 2; Acts 15

I.  Titus at Syrian Antioch
Paul submitted his message to the scrutiny of the Jerusalem elders.  Peter and James are among the leaders in the Jerusalem church.  We can conclude that Titus was a very young man when he came to Christ.  Why?  He was a member of the church of Antioch, then 20 years later he is still designated by Paul [as] a "young man."  It is logical to think that he came to Christ in his teenage years.  Titus could say with David, "Thou art my confidence from my youth."  May he have a posterity of eminent disciples of Christ here. 
Acts 11:19

II.  Titus at Jerusalem
The gospel of grace plus nothing is what will save us.  They selected Titus because they knew he was converted and trustworthy.  They knew they could count on him.  Titus had made early significant progress in his walk with Christ. 
1 Tim. 4:2; 2 Cor. 8

III.  Titus at Ephesus
Titus was not merely on a trip in Ephesus, but was an active part of preaching the word.  His life at Jerusalem bids you to live for Christ.

8/15/99, PM, Mr. Maiella

Psalm 15
IV.  A second negative couplet

1. He does not put our his money at usury.  Usury, which means interest, basically, in the original is a very strong word meaning to bite.  This does not apply to business.  It means going beyond the rate of interest in the law.  We must deal honestly and equitably with all men.  
2. Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.  Bribe or bribery is a present given to one to avert punishment or pervert justice.  The taking of a bribe was often prohibited in the Bible.  Our pastor has to make many judgments.  But what about us?  We can get bribed in school, by family members, or we can even bribe them.  Don't do it!  

He who does these things will never be moved.

Matt. 25:27; Ex. 22:25; Deut. 23:19; Lev. 25:35-37; Ez. 18; Neh. 5; Gal. 6:10; Prov. 3:27; Ex. 23:8; Deut. 27:25; Prov. 17:23; Deut. 16:18; 1 Sam. 12:1-5; Prov. 15:27

END OF BOOK II!

2/22/98, AM, Pastor McDearmon

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
Who wrote this book?  Solomon most probably.  Because:

1. The author calls himself the son of David, king over Jerusalem in Israel.  He was the best qualified son of David to write this book, anyway.
2. The description of the author's experiences with pleasure, wealth, women and wisdom are just like Solomon's.
3. there is an obvious similarity between the proverbial sayings of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs.

So it was Solomon, and he wrote it late in his lifetime.  We'll be studying Solomon's life in 1 Kings and 1&2 Chronicles.  3 purposes:

1.  To acquaint us with the facts of Solomon's life
2.  -
3.  To point out why it was Solomon [who wrote Ecclesiastes]

I.  Rise of Solomon
    A.  His beginnings
    B.  His ascension to the throne
    C.  David's charge to and prayer for Solomon

II.  Reign of Solomon
III.  Decline of Solomon
IV.  Duality of Solomon

2/22/98, SS, Pastor McDearmon

Love by Nature

A.  It is self-giving
B.  It is a realistic love
C.  It is purposeful
D.  It is an exclusive love - Christ loves the church as He does not love the world, sot he husband loves her better than anyone else on the earth.
E.  It is a nourishing and cherishing love.

IV.  The antithesis of this command
A.  The relationship of the prohibition to verse 19a.
While she needs his love, she often gets his bitterness.

B.  The exposition of the command
What exactly is bitterness?  Pointed, sharp, caustic or stinging.  Words or actions that are meant to hurt someone.  Prov. 27:7; Ps. 64:3; Matt. 26:75; Acts 8:23; Rom. 3:14; Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15; James 3:11,14, etc.

C.  How do husbands express such bitterness?

1. With words
• sarcasm
• course joking
• direct insults, accusations, and profanity
2. By their silence
3. In rudeness
4. By their domineering tyrannical ways
5. By refusing to help with the little chores
6. By their ingratitude
7. By grudge-bearing, not forgiving
8. By physical assaults on their wives

2/15/98, PM, Pastor McDearmon

I.  The object of this waiting:  the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Mercy is not getting what you deserved.  Grace is getting what you don't deserve.  Justice is getting what you deserve.  The King will have mercy to those on His right.  Those who slight Christ now can only expect justice then.

II.  The nature of this waiting - what kind?  It is an eager, expectant, excited waiting.  Waiting anxiously.  The wicked wish this day would never come.  They don't want to hear it or talk about it.  Some even scoff about it.  2 Pet. 3:10 "We are looking for a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells."  (:13)

III.  The end of this waiting - to eternal life
This is primarily qualitative.  The worship of God is a primary quality of which eternal life consists.  Eternal life consists of a fulness of joy.  "He who hears my words and believes in Me, has eternal life."

IV.  The effects this waiting ought to have on us
    A.  Purging out sin
    B.  Quickening our zeal
    C.  It puts in proper perspective this world and our things on earth
    D.  It reminds us there is more to come

2/8/98, PM, Pastor McDearmon

A husband's love for his wife should be:
I.  A self-expending love
II.  A realistic love
III.  A purposeful love
IV.  An exclusive love
V.  A solicitous love

Eph. 2:4-5, 3:18-19, 4:2, 15, 5:1, 25; Heb. 2

I.  How did Christ love the church?  By means of humbling Himself to take on flesh and blood, and become human.  He was without sin.  He loved her by His patient teaching of dull, hardened sinners unwilling to learn, like ourselves.  Above all was His laying down His own sinless life for the church.  Like Christ's love for the church, the husband's love for his wife ought to be tender and self-sacrificing. 
"Love does not seek its own."

A.  No man can understand this duty, or practice it, if he is ignorant of and a stranger to Christ's love for the church.
B.  This self-giving love is exercised from a position of headship

II.  Not a dreamy-eyed infatuation.  It sees the faults and ugliness of his wife, and loves her anyway.  He loved His bride ("He" being Christ) in spite of her corruption and wickedness.

III.  The love of Jesus Christ for teh church had in view the total maturation and sanctification of His ugly bride.

IV.  The husband is to love no other human being on earth as he loves his wife.  He (Christ) loves the church in a way that is different from the way He loves the rest of the world.

V.  This is to be an intensely solicitous, nourishing and cherishing love.

2/8/98, AM, Pastor McDearmon

Verses 22 and 23 remind us

1. Of the possibility of brethren in the church declining or falling away in teh faith
2. They remind us of the accountability of church membership, not only to the office-bearers, but also member to member.
3. They remind us of the lure, or seduction of antinomianism.

Heresy is not the same as a mistake; it will damn your soul.  Antinomianism is a heresy.

The greatest peril on this side of heaven is being left to yourself, without anyone to warn you.  This triple description in the NASB fits Jude's style, as he often describes people in groups of three.  3 groups that need dealings:
I.  Those who need to be dealt with compassionately
II.  Those who need to be dealt with urgently
III.  Those who need to be dealt with cautiously

Everyone is not at the same place on the road to apostasy.  All three groups are at different places.  The first group is doubting, not in their life yet, but in their heart.  "But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating was not in faith."  Apostasy is in its very beginning stages, but it must be checked.  Have mercy on them; you too had questions in the past.  Peace, gentleness, being reasonable.  These are associated with mercy, and be so to those beginning on the road to apostasy.  Those that raise questions on our given standards on church-life are not necessarily departing from the faith.  Have mercy on them.

II.  "Save others, snatching them out of the fire."  In other words, take them by force.  Amos 4:11 ; Gen. 19:16

III.  Those who need to be dealt with very cautiously.  "And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh."  Have mercy on them (for you are likely disgusted with them) but with fear, for their sin is just like leaven.  Do not associate with immoral people.  So while you warn the impure, keep them at a distance, lest you be put under temptation to do the same.

1. We must discern the ways of declining brethren and approach them accordingly
2. We must remember that there is no sin in their lives but what is in us by nature
3. the duty of receiving and giving rebuke, admonition and warning

"Let the righteous smite me in kindness and reprove me.  It is oil upon my head.  Do not let my head refuse it."

1/25/98, PM, Pastor Christianson

Isaiah 58:1-12
Judah was the only place in the whole world where there was salt and light.  We see here an essence of humbleness.  the world in which we live today is "5th Avenue" in New York City.  This is the post-modern age, and it is the day in which you are living.  What is our self-evaluation this evening?  Do we see ourselves as the most doctrinal literates?  Are we viewing ourselves as the most sincere worshipers of Jehovah on the earth?  Do we pray and labor to see Christ's name exalted above all other names in the world?  Have you shed tears over the church, nation, and ourselves?  Are you a profitable servant or an unprofitable servant?  god's faithful few.  God is saying, in a sense, "If you want to see revival come, then God has a few things to say to us all--correction!"  How do Reformed people see themselves? 

Sins of the Judeans

1. Self-righteousness not pleasing to God
2. Unjustly treating others
3. Sin of thinking the buyer gets too good a deal
4. Sin of letting too many needy people go without help

All of us in the reformed faith are extremely obscure.  God doesn't want our good works to be so sanitary.  Do we ever teach our children about service to the unlovely?  Do you realize how unlovely you once were in the eyes of God?  How do you spend time with the poor?  Maybe it doesn't take a long time to write the list out.  You don't have to be an elder or a deacon to find a poor person.

1/25/98, AM, Pastor Christianson

Matthew 5:1-16

Those who are persecuted are those described as peacemakers.  Those who are persecuted are not withdrawn from society.  Why would anyone persecute a peacemaker?  What lasting good can poor, meek, mourners, merciful, peacemakers do?  They are the salt of the earth and light of the world.  It is you who are the salt of the earth.  If the Pharisees had been present, they probably would have been offended, because the Jewish Rabbis were often referred to as "The lights of the world."  Christians are the lights.

I.  Two metaphors:  salt, light
II.  There is a caution
III.  Two observations.

I.  Metaphors are used to clarify.  He was talking to the peasants and fishermen.
    A.  Salt
Probably 2000 years ago, salt would have jumped into our minds as a preservative
    B.  Light   does 2 things

1. It exposes the darkness for what it really is
2. It exposes that which the darkness conceals.

Metaphors are meant to clarify and not complicate.

II.  Cautions
    A.  Salt without saltiness
Can salt lose its saltiness?  No - Jesus is showing the ridiculousness of salt losing what it is - salty.  You can only ruin salt by mixing it with something else.  Then it must be thrown away, or out in the streets as people did then, to be walked on.
    B.  Light which is hidden from view
What constitutes light?  Good works.  Not good words.  "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."  People will respond to your salvation with unkind words.  If the world is confused, what they're going to notice is salt and light.  How can one be the light of the world and not let their life shine?  Many camouflage their identity to fit right in.  If you are a Christian, you must let your light shine.

III. 
   A.  The Christian life is not some mystical thing. 
There is nothing so useless as a merely formal Christian.
    B.  The bearing of the people of God in the real world is not as a hostile force bent upon the overthrow of existing structures.  Paradise will never be restored.  The church is not a sub-culture speaking "Christianese" no one else can understand.  Neither is the church to be an army.  It is not swords and gunpowder.  America was not and is not a Christian nation.  The idea of a "christened" society has absolutely no power.  World evangelism is not a world conquest.

1/25/98, SS, Pastor McDearmon

Psalm 139:13-18
We must understand that man is an image-bearer of God.  "And God created man in his own image."

1. Man's rationality - capacity to think
2. Man's morality - conscience
3. Man's spirituality - never dying soul

Bring up your child in the instruction of the Lord.  You answer to your child's spirituality by answering to his soul.  By evangelizing.

1 Sam. 16:6-7; Gen. 5:1, 9:6; Gen. 2:19,20; Eph. 4:17-19, 24; Col. 3:10

C.  Man is created by God as male and female.  Teach your sons and daughters to be content with their manhood and womanhood.

II.  A child's accurate self-assessment is dependent on what a child represents to the Lord.  We can develop a sense in that child by using his/her name, developing eye contact, etc.

1/18/98, PM, Pastor Christianson

Eph. 6:5-20
I.  What faith shields
II.  How faith shields
III.  Why faith shields

II.  7 directions
A.  When faith is active, it enables the believer to see things as they really are.  [It helps you to] fight or flee. 
B.  Perceiving God's faithfulness
D.  True saving faith is the shield which manages well the true promises of God
E.  When the shield of faith is rightly handled, it rightly handles the Word of God

1.  To realize that...
2.  To believe that...
3.  To exercise that...
4.  You must see your need for that...
"all things work together for the good of those who believe, and those who are called according to His purpose."

III.  Because it is the one-sided eternal faith that takes care of the believers feet.  You must keep that shield up by the grace of God.  Grace is the reason that faith shields.  the smile of God will and must incur the frown of man.  We must not have a soft religion that shuns opposition.  Rather, we must take out the shield of faith and be salt and light.  "Take care that you return with your shield or upon it."

1/18/98, AM, Pastor Christianson

I.  The apostle's alarm
II.  The apostle's precision
III.  The apostle's boldness
IV.  The apostle's discipline

I. A. By the fact of their removal
Who are they removing themselves from?

1. From Jesus Christ
2. From Paul
3. From God the Father

B.  By the swiftness of their removal
The things that show us how:
"quickly" in Greek "taca hoss"[sp?!]

C.  By the agency of their removal
D.  Three observations

1. How susceptible men are to change
2. We are so enamored with participation that we will participate in our own salvation even if it will mean no grace
3. How fragile is the true church to the world.

II.  A. Those who want to "get back to the red letters" except the semantics or "we probably agree, it's just the semantics."
"Anathema" means accursed, and Paul meant for those men to be placed before God for judgment. 

1. Paul is intolerant
2. Paul was equally intolerant of himself
3. Paul was consistently intolerant, and all this is good.

IV.  He says if he was pleasing men, he would not be a child of God.
A.  That which is most characteristic of churches in America is "If men are pleased, God is pleased."  Many have decided that people are more important than truth.

1/18/98, SS, Pastor McDearmon

2 Dangers of Self-Assessment  Rom. 12:3
1.  Pride  Gal. 6:3-4
2.  Sinfully and faithlessly underestimating your self-ability or worth  Ex. 4:10-17; Jer. 1:4

Parental Agency in Cultivating a Child's Accurate Self-Assessment:
I.  Noting that a child's accurate self-assessment is founded on his creatureliness.  "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves."
What are the aspects of this relationship between God and man that must be used for a child to understand his/her accurate self-assessment?
    A.  Man is the workmanship of God
We must be content with and grateful for the native features of our physiology.  We must beware of fostering such quarreling with God by manifesting the world's view.

1/11/98, PM, Pastor McDearmon

Jude:21

C.  By eagerly anticipating the return of Christ and the blessings which shall attend His return

How does such an eager anticipation go with anxiously waiting?  This assures the believer that the Father has even more to give His children.  The love of the Father has more good things yet to come.

D.  By keeping ourselves in evangelical obedience. 
[This] is dutiful, careful obedience toward the God who has loved me adn saved me.

E.  By maintaining the spiritual sense that God does love me when I love the brethren. 
"No man has seen God at any time" but we know God loves us when we love the brethren.

F.  By spending time with God.
What are we waiting for but the mercy of Jesus Christ?  "Mercy" is withholding what is deserved.  eph. 2:3  The nature of this waiting -- anxiously -- that of an earnest expectation. 

The end or goal of this waiting--to eternal life.  the effects this kind of waiting ought to have upon us:  it will quicken our zeal for the things of God.  It will help draw our hearts from this world, etc.

1/11/98, AM, Pastor McDearmon

Phil. 2:12-13 "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

One way to keep yourself in the love of god is to maintain a vital prayer life.  Another is to maintain a forward look.

1. What Jude means by "The Love of God"
2. What Jude means by "Keep Yourselves"
3. Practical considerations of [those phrases]

1.  Many say [it is] your love for God.  But is it God's love for me?  4 considerations

1. Understanding it is God's love for me is consistent with Jude:1
2. In this verse is a symmetry with reference to the love of God and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ which is broken when looked at as God's love for me
3. The light of several parallel texts:  2 Thess. 3:5; 2 Cor. 5:14; John 15:10
4. It fits the prepositional phrase "in" the Love of God

 2.  1 John 5:3 Avoid all that would diminish a keen consciousness of God's love for me, and to enhance a keen consciousness of God's love for me.  John 15:10  "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love."  The parent's love is instinctive. Prov. 3:32  Pay close attention to yourself, especially when it comes to God's law.

3.  How do we keep ourselves in the love of God?
    A.  By Christ-like character building.  Why?  When He appears, we shall be like Him.
    B.  By praying in the Holy Spirit  Galatians 4:6  Praying with awareness that we can, as children of God, draw near to God with faith.

1/4/98, PM, Pastor McDearmon

"There is nothing a natural man hates more than prayer."  "Prayer is the sweat of the soul."
Prayer is a work too hard for us without the Holy Spirit.  Praying in the Holy Spirit involves praying with direction from the Holy Spirit as to the substance or matter of our prayers.  Rom. 8:26  We pray, but the Spirit helps our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we should.  2 Cor. 12:7-9 Beware of praying rashly.  Pray with an open Bible.  It is the matter of praying with confidence wrought by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is eminently the spirit of prayer.

1/4/98, AM, Pastor McDearmon

I.  Praying is what Jude commands
II.  The manner of doing our praying

I.  A.  What is prayer?
It is not the display of someone's religious vocabulary in the setting of worship.  James 4:3
It is the believing, intelligent, and heart-felt outpouring of the soul to God through God the Son, aided by God the Spirit.  It is the lifting up of the heart to God.  "Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out fo teh soul to God through Christ in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit." - John Bunyan
Prayer largely consists of praise and gratitude.  Prayer includes our adoring confession of His affection and works.  Prayer takes the form of thanksgiving.  Phil. 4:6  The needs of the people of God are to be on the minds and hearts of other people of God.  All of this is done in true faith.  "All things you ask in prayer, believing, you may receive."

II.  "In the Holy Spirit"
our prayer is to be prompted by the Holy Spirit.  In view of our settled aversion to true prayer, and it being perhaps the most wearisome labor of the soul, praying in the Holy Spirit is a manner of prayer for tearing up that aversion.  Prayer requires us to come out of the world.  It is a labor to think upon our shameful sins.  It is a labor to think of the needs of others.  The Spirit of God has come to move us to overcome our sinful aversion and to get on with our supplication.  It is our duty to pray without ceasing.

1/4/98, SS, Pastor Johnston

IV.  Will the believer's sins be unveiled on that day?
     A.  The day of judgment should stir believers to godly fear.  Matt. 10:28  This is not just a reverent fear, but an afraid fear.
     B.  The day of judgment should stir believers to godly joy and eagerness.  1 Kings 15:4-5

The godly do not have to fear exposure of sins on the day of judgment:

1. Because in Christ, God has justly and mercifully blotted out forever the sins of His people
2. Because it is their deeds of righteousness which will be publicly revealed Matt. 12:36-37
3. Because that will be a day of divine praise for the righteous
4. Because that will be a day of reward for the believers
5. Because God will praise and reward His people according to the just assessment and usefulness of each one

12/28/97, PM, Pastor McDearmon

3rd building block:  self control
This is the condition wherein our several passions are subject to knowledge and reason.  1 Cor. 9:25  "Everyone who competes in the games exercises self control in all things."  "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience . . . self control."  Gal. 5:25  "He who restrains his lips has knowledge, adn he who has a cool spirit, understanding."  Mark 13:13; Tit. 2:1, 5, 6, 12.  "Like a city that is broken into, and without walls, i s aman who has no control over his spirit."  Prov. 25:28  Self control is one of the first and primary characteristics of a converted person. 

4th:  perseverance
"The one who endures tot eh end, he shall be saved."  James 1:3 "Knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience."  Tribulation, to some degree, will be our lot in life.  This is not a utopia. 

5th:  godliness - a fundamental God-centeredness in life.  The moral excellence is not moralism.  A man who is out of control cannot have a supreme love for God.

These building blocks have social dimensions, and the first concerns the family of God.

6th:  brotherly kindness.  "philadelphia"  "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love."

7th:  love or sometimes "Christian love."  This is different from brotherly kindness in that it is indiscriminative, love to brethren, and love to neighbor, converted or not.  Not originating in what we like about object loved, but originating in the lover.  "Love one another, just as Christ also loved us, and gave Himself up for us."

12/28/97, AM, Pastor McDearmon

"Supply" or contribute generously.  2 Peter 1:5-7
"Keep yourselves in the love of God."  Jude: 20,21
[These] can be done by 1.  "building yourself up in your most holy faith" and more to follow.  Heb. 12:1

I.  The foundation
II.  The building up upon this foundation
now --> the manner of our building on this foundation.  Jude intends that we add to this foundation the Christ-like virtues of moral excellence, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, kindness and love.  Why might one link 2 Pet. 1:5-7  to Jude 20?  There is a close relation between 2 Peter and Jude.  Jude was written after Peter's prophecy had been fulfilled.  The sense of Jude:20 and 2 Peter 1:5 is the same.  The Christian, by means of grace, is a wealthy man, and ought to expend himself energetically.  Jude is not advocating a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps salvation.  Jude probably had 2 Peter 1:5 in his mind because both verses begin with faith.  Faith is the sure, solid, and stable foundation on which all our lives are built.  A faith that does not produce moral passion born out of love for God and His law is a poor counterfeit.  We need to be aware of the numbing, dulling effect of the world.  We might find ourselves going along to get along with the world which would be utter and absolute opposite of moral excellence.  We gain knowledge by studying God's Word in our closets.

12/28/97, SS, Pastor Johnston

III.  He will judge our works
    A.  What works will bej udged
    B.  How will our works be judged
    C.  Why will our works be judged

A.  1.  Generally
           a.  In terms of the extent of our sinfulness or our faithfulness
           b. In terms of the extent of our influence upon others
           c.  In light of what we have not done
      2.  Particularly
           a.  Our words will be judged
           b.  Our response to the gospel
           c.  Our loyalties, allegiances
           d.  Our practical love or the absence thereof to the people of God
           e.  Our thoughts and motives

C.  Why?
Because our works define who we really are.  Faith can never live alone; it is always accompanied by love of Christ, His laws, and His people.

Prov. 24:12; Matt. 16:27; Rom. 2:6; 1 Pet. 1:17; Rev. 20:12, 13; Matt. 18:6-7, 12:35-37, 10:28; 2 Thess. 1:6-8; 2 Tim. 2:12; Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 4:5; Matt. 7

12/21/97, PM, Pastor McDearmon

Zechariah 6:9-15; Ezra 4,5; Isaiah 4:2, 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5, 33:13; Matt. 16:18

I.  This actual historic event
II.  The meaning of this event
III.  The whole Christ

II.  What was the significance of putting a crown on a priest?  Joshua would surely be perplexed at this coronation.  Why BRANCH?  "Branch" refers to, and this is a prophecy of the coming Christ.  The temple is the church.  Christ would be a priest on His throne.  What no other man ever was, a priest and a king.  The Messiah.  "Even those who are far away shall come and build the temple of the Lord" means His salvation includes Gentiles like us.

III.  A.  Christ as priest
Our high priest is no man or class of men, but the Messiah Himself, and He now appears in the presence of God for us.  "Christ died once for all delivered to the saints.  The just for the unjust . . . "

B.  The whole Christ as king
He pardons as a priest but also rules as a king.  He does not forgive those who buck under His government.  We bow to a king, not a priest.  "Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."

C.  He is a prophet
John the Baptist was the last Old Covenant prophet, but Christ does not keep silent.  Acts 3:22 - "The Lord God shall raise up for you a prophet like me, from your brethren.  Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you."  To this prophet we must come if we would know the truth.

12/21/97, AM, Pastor McDearmon

Jude:20
I.  The foundation
II.  The building up upon this foundation

The foundation is "your most holy faith."  In what sense are we to understand "faith?"  Maybe subjectively, personal faith, or objectively, the Christian faith.  This signifies faith objectively, the Christian faith.  This is equivalent to what Paul says, "The word of His grace which is able to build you up."  What is true of the church, believers collectively, is true of every member of that household.  By this faith a man is justified and sanctified.  Everyone is building a life, and on something.  There are only two kinds of foundations, that which is man-made, and that which is God-made.

12/21/97, SS, Pastor Johnston

I.  The particulars of the judgment
    A.  Who will judge?
          1.  It is most appropriate that Christ shoudl judge because
               a.  He made us
               b.  He redeemed His people
               c.  He humbled Himself
               d.  He obeyed even unto death on the cross
          2.  God the Father will judge
          3.  The angels will help judge
          4.  Saints will help, too
    B.  When will the judgment take place?
          1.  It is unknown
          2.  It is delayed
          3.  It is near  James 5:8
    C.  Who will be judged?
          1.  Fallen angels
          2.  Humans
    D.  According to what standard will God judge?
          1.  According to their knowledge of God
          2.  According to their conscience
   E.  All will be revealed
   F.  What will be the outcome of that day?
         1.  People will go into everlasting punishment or
         2.  Everlasting life

II.  The Purpose
The ultimate purpose of the day of judgment is to publicly display the glory of God. 
Our attention will be drawn to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.
The motivational purpose of the day of judgment for the unconverted is to warn them of what is about to happen.

12/14/97, PM, Pastor McDearmon

These divisions were being effected by carnal loyalties.  These happen when the people would separate into personality sects of "Paul," "Apollos," "Cephas," and Christ.  Does this mean that a church should not benefit from the different personalities of the diverse preachers?  No.  God has gifted each man, and they are all His servants.  A church can be divided by sinful partiality.  Partiality means favoring one party over another.  Sinful partiality implies not all partialities are sinful; [in] many instances fairness is evil.  But sinful partiality was directed in Jude's day, to the rich.  James 2:1-8.  Divisions are effected by fractured personal relationships.  Divisions are effected by an undisciplined tongue.  "Where there are many words, transgression is unavoidable."  Why do these men divide churches?  Because they are worldly minded.  Unity of the church is a heart-deep church.  may we, as Christ prayed of His disciples, be perfected in unity.