You, beloved, ought to remember

Jude from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

The Warnings of History to the Ungodly

Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,

To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: ² May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.

³ Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. ⁴ For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, ⁷ just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. ⁹ But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰ But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. ¹¹ Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. ¹² These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴ It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, ¹⁵ to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” ¹⁶ These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

¹⁷ But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁸ that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” ¹⁹ These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. ²⁰ But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. ²² And have mercy on some, who are doubting; ²³ save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

²⁴ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, ²⁵ to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

This often overlooked letter from Jude certainly has a timely message to the church today. It begins saying:   Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.   Licentiousness is defined as promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters. It is degenerate, depraved, immoral; sinful.   Certainly in our culture and our society, even in much of the church there is this idea that because of the grace of God, because Jesus paid the price for sin, once for all, on the cross, sin no longer matters. We need to understand that to continue in sin under the guise of the grace of God is not walking in grace, but rather as Jude says it is to deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:8 says:  By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.    Our salvation, our redemption from and forgiveness for sin is a free gift from God, by His grace.  God’s grace to and for us is indeed free, but it was not without cost. If we will truly look and see, know the price Jesus paid for our redemption, all the pain and suffering of the cross, we will see that to choose to continue in sin is not using the gift of grace, but rather trampling on it. James 4:17 says:  To one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.     On the cross Jesus said:  “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”(Luke 23:34)  The grace of God forgives even the sins we do not know, but we should not turn the grace of God into licentiousness by continuing in what we know is not right.

Some today say that Jesus coming as a man and living a life of love and compassion toward sinners and outcasts is the full and perfect revelation of the character of God’s love. Jude points to history saying: I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.    God is eternal and unchanging. He revealed His plan for redemption in the beginning, when man first sinned. In Genesis 3:14-15 it says:  The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He (Jesus) shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”    God already planned to forgive sin by grace because of His love. Yet because of His righteousness and justice, He still judged and judges sin. Jesus Himself says:   “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:17-20)   Jesus did not do away with God’s judgment against sin. By grace He, on the cross, paid the price for God’s gift to us.

Jude concludes saying:  But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves 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. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.    We cannot choose to continue in sin and claim to be those who are walking in God’s love and grace. If we follow after ungodly lusts we are mockers of Christ, not partakers of His grace. We are to have mercy on those who are doubting. We are to snatch others from the fire. Seeing those who are in danger, it is not a demonstration of love and grace to watch them burn, but rather we are to lead them to safety. We are to hate even the garment polluted by the flesh. 1 John 2:15 says:  Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.     James 4:4 says:  You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.    Jesus says:  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments…“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. (John 14:15;24)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Amen.