Wednesday Bible Study: The End of all things: Jude

Once again we are in a meaty chapter- the only chapter, in fact, of Jude- and instead of working the whole, I want to work a few points that hit me.

Point one: The battle

Jud 1:3  Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 

Now of course, I copied from the one version (ESV) that doesn't do as the original language does and 'punch up' the word contend here; most versions add 'earnestly' to contend;  one makes it 'fight hard'; the Young's Literal turns it to 'agonize'.  Jude is telling them, guys, I can't send you another powderpuff letter- you have to dig in and fight to keep your faith correct.  Once again, liars and false prophets are attacking this church- whoever it was, and there's no way to tell, which means it applies to US- because they had yet another Diotrephes in it.    As Jude goes on, he discusses not only the nature of the criminals and the battle needing waged.


Point two: Crime and punishment

This could almost be another stairstep deal like last time.  First, he hits the sinners of the past, and their punishment:

Jud 1:5  Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
Jud 1:6  And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day--
Jud 1:7  just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.


Three sinners, the Egyptians and others who didn't believe; Fallen Angels who abandoned the place God had for them; and Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sexual sins became an example.  Jude makes a lot of use in this letter of what we call the Apocrypha, which is a big temptation for me to go bunny-hunting.  Let me just say that, with the angels, he is referencing Genesis 6, where angels (sons of God) apparently came down, 'to teach things to men' according to some sources, and were corrupted by 'the daughters of man'.  He later goes on to bring up the Book of Enoch.  The early Jews rejected Enoch  for the same reason they rejected Jude, I am told- they simply couldn't accept that angels had an ability to do wrong as we did.  Jude- and his half-brother Jesus- both testify that they did have, and they did do.

Then Jude connects this to the sinners infecting the church of his day and ours:

Jud 1:11  Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.


Wait, you say, this connects them how?  Because it connects ancient crime to modern crime, and crime to punishment.  Korah's sin was pride, doing things his way rather than God's (Moses's) way- same as Sodom.  Balaam's error was seeking treasure instead of God, and that was the same as the angels, abandoning 'their place' to chase after mortal treasure; and the way of Cain was pride laced with anger, which was a good descriptor of Pharaoh and his lot.  How did they end up?  Not well.


He actually finishes by linking them in the middle to one crime in particular...

Jud 1:8  Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
Jud 1:9  But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you."
Jud 1:10  But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 


Verse 10 by itself could be labelled, 'secular learning.'  Mocking the concept of God, which they don't understand (though they'll claim they do), and go on doing their own 'thing' to their eventual destruction.


Point three:  The cure

Jud 1:17  But you, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Jud 1:18  because they told you that at the last time there will be mockers according to their lusts, leading ungodly lives.
Jud 1:19  These are those setting themselves apart, animal-like ones, not having the Spirit.
Jud 1:20  But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
Jud 1:21  keep yourselves in the love of God, eagerly awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to everlasting life.

But you, beloved- this phrase bullet-points the two things they had to do to keep uncorrupted:  First, they had to remember that Jude was not the first to warn them of these evil ones.  The Apostles (of whom Jude was not one, only receiving faith after the Resurrection) had come in their turns and warned them the same thing- especially John, who did so in all three of his letters which we looked at earlier.  This meant they needed to listen to this- and that Jude felt he had to write this letter in particular shows they needed the reminding.

Second, they had to put the work into prayer.  It was and is the only way to build up one's faith, so that it was/is proof against those who- well, who aren't going to have a good end.

We have a lot of such false profits these days.  Preachers who play the 'name it and claim it game' with material things; denominations who fall for political correctness and seeming love both sinner AND sin; those who claim one kind of faith is just as good as another.  Those things simply aren't among the things Christ taught, and those who think they are refuse to know the Truth of the matter, whether out of ignorance of it, are willingly defiant of it, or think themselves the most important thing.


With the issues of 2020 before us, I daresay there is a dividing line developing.  There are those who are using this year to re-examine what putting others above themselves means, and those who just want to feel persecuted.  I firmly believe this year was allowed by God to get us all to examine this in ourselves in ways we never thought to before, both through our attitudes about politics and about race- and those of us who refuse to do it might end up like those Jude warned us about:

Jud 1:12  These are sunken rocks in your love feasts, feasting together with you; feeding themselves without fear; waterless clouds being carried about by winds; fruitless autumn trees, having died twice, having been plucked up by the roots;
Jud 1:13  wild waves of the sea foaming up their shames; wandering stars for whom blackness of darkness has been kept forever.