"All Roads Do Not Lead To Rome"

Introduction

1. Illus...”Go forth and Sin” by Lynn Vincent from ‘World’,

August 2, 2003.

“When officials announced the vote tally on June 8, thunderous

applause showered the crowd at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in

Concord, N.H. The occasion: Episcopalians in the diocese of New

Hampshire had just elected the first openly homosexual bishop

anywhere in the worldwide Anglican Communion. As joyous

clergy and delegates leapt to their feet, the new bishop, the Rev.

Canon V. Gene Robinson, ambled forward, stood before the altar,

and embraced his grown children and his male lover.

On May 23 in Nashville, officials of Glendale Baptist

Church met with officials of the Tennessee Baptist Convention

(TBC). The issue: Glendale had in 2002 hired as its associate

pastor April Baker, a practicing lesbian, a fact the TBC did not

learn until January 2003. TBC officials felt Ms. Baler’s sexuality

violated Scripture. Glendale officials believed otherwise, and asked

the TBC to quietly vote them out.

In October, 2002, about 300 Presbyterian Church (USA)

members from Northeastern churches gathered at South

Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. There they nailed to a

church door dissents and demands that included calls for the

reversal of PCUSA laws against ordaining noncelebate

homosexuals and marrying same-sex couples. During an ensuing

two-hour worship service, church members hoisted the door atop

sawhorses and converted it into a communion table where gay

ministers and elders blessed bread and wine, then served it to

worshippers,

A growing number of churches in some denominations are

stepping beyond the acceptance of repenting homosexuals as

members, and instead loving both sinner and sin. Denominations

that for decades have ordained pastors who reject such essential

doctrines of Christianity as Christ’s deity and His resurrection are

now also on the verge of affirming homosexuality as biblical.

Conservative Christians who remain in those bodies are fighting for

the scriptural view of sexual morality that has stood for millennia.”

Trans... Some of the conservative members of the 2.3

million-member denomination known as the ’Anglicans’

worldwide, will be meeting to decide whether or not to walk

out of the denomination over this issue. One has to ask oneself

why it took them so long to recognize their own apostasy? The

book of Jude has some answers for us and we will find that

‘Not All Roads Lead to Rome’.

I. Not All Roads Lead to Rome

A. The Time Factor

Jude was exhorting the church to ‘contend for the faith’ while

the church is still the church.

The word contend is descriptive of the strain to which a

contestant is put. It might be compared to an athletic event

when the contestants strain (rise) to the challenge of the event.

I am told there used to be a time when ‘Argumentation and

Logic’ was taught as one of the seven classical arts in

Universities. Argumentation did not have the negative

connotation to it that it has today. It was fashionable to be able

to present your position in a positive and logical manner.

Today any kind of conflict is looked upon as ungodly. Maybe

that is why we are afraid to ‘contend for the faith’.

The false teachers were identifiable because they turn “the grace

of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and

Lord Jesus Christ”.

The false teachers had departed from the ‘teachings of the

Apostles’, which we call the New Testament.

Left unchallenged over a period of time their teaching would

have spread like gangrene, or like yeast that rises in dough!

How many members of the 2.3 million member denomination

went down the road presented to them because of the false

teaching of their leaders? Where are the contenders for the

faith?

The time element is an essential factor.

Trans...Not all roads lead to Rome....

B. The Growth Factor

Vs 20, Jude writes to the church: “But you, beloved, building

yourself up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit;

keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the

mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.”

The true road to Rome (Heaven) is a high road and it is holy.

Trying to deceive people into believing that we are now living

in an advanced enlightened age that professes to have

relationship with a Holy God and live in community with the

Holy Spirit and yet be divorced from His Holy Word has to be

the epitome of deception!

What for thousands of years (since the creation of the world)

has been an abomination to God is now portrayed as being

perfectly acceptable in a community of so-called Spirit-filled

believers.

This is not spiritual growth but spiritual apostasy!

These are the ones Jude writes about in verse 19: “These are

the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the

Spirit”.

Jude places the responsibility for the spiritual growth of our