The Apostates are Hypocrites (Jude 12-13, 16)

SPIRITUALL DIARY FOR 06-03-04

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus:  The apostates are hypocrites

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                         Reference:  Jude 12, 13, & 16

 

            Message of the verse:  “12 These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13 They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved for ever…16 These men are grumblers and fault-finders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”  (NIV)

            Jude uses some very descriptive language to describe the hypocrisy of the false teachers in these three verses.  The first thing he says is that they are blemishes at your love feasts, and that means that they should not even be there because they are not true believers, and all they will do is disrupt the love feast for others who are true believers.  The love feast was a meal that the early Church would have before taking the Lord’s Supper, and it was suppose to be a time of fellowship and preparation for the Lord’s Supper.

            Jude next describes them as false shepherds only looking out for themselves.  True shepherds are doing the Lord’s bidding and looking out for His interest, and for the interest of His children, but false shepherds are like the hiring that Jesus spoke of in John’s Gospel who only looks out for themselves and not the sheep.

            He next says that they are clouds without rain in them.  When a farmer needs rain and he looks up in the sky and gets excited because there are clouds blowing in, he then can become really frustrated when they have no rain to drop for his crops.  These clouds are not helping him at all, just as the false teachers are not helping anyone at all either.

            Next the description is of autumn trees that not only do not have fruit on them, but they also have been uprooted and thus are doubly dead.  Psalm 1:3 says, “and he will be like a tree firmly standing by streams of water, which yields it’s fruit in it’s season, and it’s leafs never wither.”  This is just the opposite of the false teachers.

            He next says that they are wild waves that can only bring up the useless refuge from the sea, and can only accomplish destruction, just like the apostates.

            Jude next compares them to falling stars or meteors, which are useless if you are trying to use them as a fixed point because they are moving.  In the same way you these apostates are not someone you can trust to get good solid doctrine from.

            Verse sixteen says that they are grumblers and faultfinders.  There is quite a difference between a faultfinder and a fact finder.   Fact finders do not find someone to blame, but speak the truth in love.  These apostates follow their own evil desires so that they can have their own way as they are only looking out for themselves. 

            Jude concludes by writing that these false teachers only boast about themselves and flatter people only to get their own way.  Flattery is being nice to someone to get you own way with them, even though it is probably no the truth being spoken.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I have been reading and studying about false teachers and apostates over these last few weeks I am learning that some of the things that they do, I do at times, and I am also learning how to recognize them when I would come in contact with them.

 

The Word of God has been both informative and challenging to me as I have read it and studied it this morning.

 

My Steps of Faith Today:  Trust the Lord to convict me when I start showing some of the characteristics of the apostates.  To trust the Lord with the “job” situation, and also to trust the Lord with our investment situation, and to trust the Lord to keep Kim safe and faithful to Him as she travels with the 8^th grade in Washington DC.

 

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 prophesy, 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 profits me nothing.