JUDE (Letter 65, Larry Crabb’s 66 Love Letters)

Keep Ourself in His Love as We Wait for His Party

When hardships plagued the Israelites they stopped believing, they refused to wait.
The citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah abandoned themselves to corrupt desires; they refused to wait for God’s self-control.
Perverse pleasure loves company. Sinning together numbs the conscience. But the misery that follows can find no company. There is no fellowship in hell.
False teachers offer short-term pleasure and long-term loss.
We may not feel God working or experience His presence, but He is always providing the power to keep us walking the narrow road, and when we slip off, to get back on.To be completed

JUDE: From Ray Stedman

Click here for entire Bible Summary from Ray Stedman

JUDE: Contending for the Faith

He writes to them to “contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
There are some striking things about that instruction. That says:

1. First, that our faith is not something that anybody has manufactured; it was delivered to us. It is not fabricated, or worked up by a collection of individuals. It is one body of facts that is consistently delivered by authoritative persons, the apostles. It has come to us through them.
2. Furthermore, Jude says that it was once for all delivered. It was only given at one time in the history of the world. It does not need any additions.
3. The third thing is that it needs to be proclaimed, or contended for. As Charles Spurgeon used to put it: “The truth is like a lion. Whoever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose and it will defend itself.”

What bothered Jude was that there were those who had arisen within the church and were doing two things:
– First, they were teaching basically that you could indulge the body to the full, since it was no good anyhow; it was the spirit that counted.
– Second, they were saying that the grace of God is so broad that God will forgive anything you do; therefore, the more you sin, the more grace, so go to it. If you love someone, they say, it does not make any difference what you do with them. Love justifies anything.
Let us look briefly at how Jude handles this problem. First he points out that God will not ignore this kind of thing; the judgment of this kind of person is certain. That is Jude’s theme and he supplies three Biblical examples to support it:

1. To begin with, he reminds the people that when God brought the people out of Egypt, he did a great thing. But, out of all the multitude that left Egypt, only two men entered into the land – Joshua and Caleb. The rest all perished in the wilderness. Their children entered in, but this was God’s way of saying that he has a way of handling those who refuse to act by faith.
2. In the second example, he reminds us of the angels who did not keep their first position. His point is that even angels are not excluded from judgment, when they fall through pride and lust. And pride and lust characterized these men that Jude was talking about.
3. Third, Jude reminds them of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. When the angels visited Lot, the men of the city surrounded his house and ordered Lot to bring those men out so that they might have their way with them. For this, God judged that city.

Jude reminds us that God does not take these things lightly. There is a judgment provided for it. It may be sudden, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. It may be long-delayed as in the case of the angels; or it may come about in the natural course of events, as in the case of those who came out of Egypt. God is not going to ignore it

Reading further, we see what was wrong with these men:

1. First, Jude takes the reviling of the glorious ones, and refers to an incident that is not recorded in our Bible. It comes from a book
   called The Assumption of Moses which was familiar to the readers of the 1st century. Many have been troubled by this because they
   think Jude is referring to a book that has perhaps been lost from the Bible. It has not been lost; we still have it. It, and other so-called
   “lost books” can be read in any reputable theological seminary library. But they are a mixture of truth and error, and what these New
   Testament writers sometimes do is refer back to them for some recorded instance that is true, so that what is recorded here is perfectly true, but not everything in The Assumption of Moses is. A little further on in Jude’s letter, there is a quotation from the Book of Enoch, another book we do not find in our Bible, but which is also available today. The quotation Jude uses is truth; the entire book from which it was taken is not. What happened is that when Moses died, Michael, the great archangel, the highest of the angels, had disputed with the devil over the body of Moses. The claim of the devil was twofold; he said he had a right to the body of Moses, first, because Moses was a murderer – he had slain an Egyptian. Second, the devil said the body of Moses belonged to him because it was in the realm of material things over which he was lord. But Michael disputed this. He claimed the body for the Lord, just as the whole of Scripture claims that our bodies are important to God. God has a plan for them as well as for the spirit. The point he is making here is that even the archangel Michael did not speak directly to Satan when he confronted him face to face, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.” Jude’s argument is, if archangels, who have so much power and knowledge of truth, are careful to respect the God-given dignity of a fallen angel, then why should we, mere men, speak contemptuously of the principalities and the powers in high places? It is a thing to think about, isn’t it, when certain people today just sneer at the idea that the Scriptures present the existence of demons or Satan.
2. Now the second matter he takes up is that of rejecting authority: He personifies rebellion with three Biblical men: Cain, Balaam and Korah: He speaks of “the way of Cain,” which was essentially selfishness. Jude says that is the first step on the way to ultimate rebellion – selfishness. The second thing was the “error of Balaam.” The error of Balaam is to teach someone else to sin which is far worse than sinning yourself. Jesus said, “it would be better for him [by whom temptations come] if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin,” {Luke 17:2 RSV}. And the development from selfishness, through teaching someone else to sin, ends finally in the defiant rebellion of Korah: Korah openly and blatantly challenged the God-given authority of Moses and Aaron. God caused the ground to suddenly open up beneath Korah and his group and they went down alive into the pit {see Num16:20-35}; God’s remarkably dramatic way of saying that defiance of God-given authority represents ultimate sin.
3. He now tackles the third matter, “defiling the flesh.” He says these people are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly caroused together. But then people began to divide into cliques, and soon there was division; people began looking after themselves. That is the mark of this kind of a person.

to be completed

Then he quotes Enoch. He says that these are exactly the kind of men that were before the flood, and finally, he describes them as grumblers, malcontents, following their own passions, loud-mouthed boasters, flattering people to gain advantage.

So what are you going to do about it?

• Study your Bible; learn what the truth is.
• Pray according to his teaching, and in his power, depending upon God.
• If you walk in the light, you will experience God’s love. That is what it means to “keep yourselves in the love ofGod.”

JUDE – David Jeremiah (Understanding the 66 Books of the Bible)

Key thought: God’s people must defend the doctrines of the faith by preserving biblical truth, battling heresy, and humbly standing up for the Good News.

Key Verse: But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Jude 1:20-21

Key Action: Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Jude 1:3