Our Enemy (Jude 3-4)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 05-31-04

 

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  Our Enemy

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference: Jude 3-4

 

            Message of the verse:  “3 Dearly loved friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the truth of the Good News. God gave this unchanging truth once for all time to his holy people.  4 I say this because some godless people have wormed their way in among you, saying that God’s forgiveness allows us to live immoral lives. The fate of such people was determined long ago, for they have turned against our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  (NLT)

            “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 delivered 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.”  (NASB) 

            Jude packed a lot of truth in these two verses, truth that all believer need to get hold of and to stand up for.  The first part of verse three Jude tells his readers what he had hoped to write about to them, and that was about salvation, however he felt it necessary to write to them about false teachers, the enemy of God.  He describes the enemy in these two verses so that those who read this letter will know what they are up against.  He writes to his readers as if they are an army ready to do battle with God’s enemy, defending for the Truth.  The words he uses in the original Greek language were used for athletes who would strain every muscle and nerve in an attempt to compete successfully. 

            Jude goes on in verse three to say that this Truth was unchanging and was given for all time to His holy people.  Paul writes about this to his son in the faith Timothy, as he told Timothy that he would pass on to him the truths of the faith and he in turn was to pass it on to others that he knew would pass it on to others, and so on until it has reached this generation that we live in know.  All generations who know these truths are responsible to pass it on to the next generation.  There have been many saints down through the years that have paid with their lives to tell others the good news of Jesus Christ.  It is fitting that I am doing this lesson when we in our country commemorate those who have gave up their life for this country in order to protect our way of life.

            Jude goes on to talk about these apostates in verse four and says that they have crept in unnoticed into the church assembly in order to try and pass on false doctrine to those in the church.  He writes that their punishment is ordained for them, as told by God long ago.  They are denying the Lord Jesus Christ, which means that they are denying His Deity, saying He is not God who came in the flesh. 

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is good again to be reminded that I am in the Lord’s army, and that there is a real battle going on that I am to be involved in, and that I am to fight the good fight.  It is also good to be reminded that it is part of my responsibility, as a believer in Jesus Christ; to pass on the Truth to the next generation, and as this is being done to urge them to pass it on to the next generation.

 

The Word of God was a great encouragement to my heart as I read it this morning, and it was also a very big challenge.

 

My Steps of Faith Today:  To continue to trust the Lord with what is going on in Canada with our investments, and to continue to trust the Lord with the possible opportunity to work in S. America.  To trust the Lord with the opportunities of ministry that He has given me to do, that I will rely upon Him to do what He has given me to do.

 

 

 

 

 

Memory verses for the week:  1Cor. 13:1-3

 

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it prophets me nothing.