1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of
James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus
Christ, and called: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
Jesus had four half brothers and at least two half
sisters. His was a typically large
family where Joseph would have taught all his sons the carpenter trade. We know that Judas (Jude) was not the one who
betrayed him. This Judas was the fourth
son of Joseph. Tradition says that
Joseph was a Rabbi as well as a carpenter.
We know that he would have trained all his sons in scripture and the
law. The author of the book of James is
also a half brother of our Lord. We know
they often struggled with this aspect of Jesus’ life and we ought to consider
that they did not know Him from the time of the wedding in Cana of Galilee, but
as little children growing up, living and playing with their big brother. There were occasions where they appeared to
want to calm him down (Matthew 12:47; Mark 3:32; Luke 8:20) and even times when
they did not believe in Him (John 7:1-5).
I keep seeing them struggle with this brother who by all
tradition ought to have taken over the family business when His father died but
who seemed to choose another path instead. Scripture does not say when Joseph died though
we know he taught his children the trade and know he was alive when Jesus was
twelve (Luke 2:41). I’d like you to
consider what could possibly have happened to make Judas, the brother of Jesus
say, “Judas, the servant of Jesus Christ, the brother of James.” We know it didn’t happen while Jesus traveled
with his disciples. The one life
changing event that brought Jude and his brother James to where they could
accept their big brother Jesus as Lord and Savior was the Resurrection.
I believe that in their hearts and minds, when their brother
died, God was reborn. A little brother
might respect or even fear his big brother, but I can’t think of one who
worshipped the kid who taught him to catch a ball or talk to a girl. The Resurrection buried their dead brother
and raised up the Savior of Life. This
was not a cute story in an old book;
this was an event in the life of a grown man in his late twenties who had his
universe turned upside down. He must
have sat with his wife in the house and thought, “My brother is GOD.” Even at that, he didn’t put on airs or behave
arrogantly, but called himself a servant of his brother, the Lord God.
I have known some who would have said, “Hey Jesus, what’s up
bro?” For those of us who see Jesus as
our friend and buddy, consider that his own brother in the flesh considered him
to be Lord and MASTER. We need to be
careful how we talk to our Lord. He may
have given us great and precious promises and love us, but He is still Almighty
God and has created Heaven and Earth and all that are in them with just a
word. Every knee shall bow…
I love his greeting. You
who are SANCTIFIED by the Father… You
who are PRESERVED in Jesus Christ…and CALLED…
Mercy to you. I don’t know about
you but I need that mercy. Peace and
Love be MULTIPLIED. James, the brother
of Jesus prayed that prayer. I know with
all my heart that it is just as powerful a prayer today as it was almost two
thousand years ago. Read it to yourself
again. Accept it for yourself. Rejoice in the fulfillment of it. Say to yourself, “My PEACE and LOVE are
multiplied.” Now, what does that mean to
you?
Peace, eirene,
means many things and we ought to embrace each of them in our lives. It means becoming one, no longer at odds with
another whether that other is another saint, a sinner, or even God
Himself. Your peace can draw a sinner to
God for comfort and heal a rift between yourself and other saints. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you (when I
go to be with my Father.) MY peace I
give unto you (John 14:27).” Peace also
means security, safety and prosperity because prosperity comes when people do
not walk in fear. If you walk in this
PEACE of God you no longer struggle to receive God’s blessings because the
torment of fear has ceased. You believe
God’s blessings abide in you and no longer walk in failure.
Love, agape, breathes
faith and without faith it is impossible to please God. A multiplication of love means you have no
fear. It means you love the sinner and
the saint. Love is God’s more excellent
way in 1 Corinthians 13.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says:
“Love endures long
after most would give up and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor
boils over with jealousy, it is not boastful and does not seek it’s own
promotion, does not display itself haughtily.
Love is not conceited,
arrogant and inflated with pride; it is not rude or unmannerly and does not act
unbecomingly.
Love…God’s love in us…does
not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self- seeking; it is
not touchy or fretful or resentful; it does not take notes or keep an account
of the evil done to it; love doesn’t even keep track of suffered wrongs.
Love does not rejoice
at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth
prevail.
Love bears up under
anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every
person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures
everything without weakening.
Love never fails, never
fades out, never becomes obsolete or comes to an end.”
God Is Love. If my
peace and love are multiplied then God is multiplied in me and the power and
anointing of God are also multiplied in me.
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of
the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you
that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints.
Jude is saying, “After diligently writing about the basics
of obtaining salvation, I felt it was of utmost importance to write and as if I
were the Holy Spirit Himself, to run alongside you with my words to encourage
you to contend and even fight the good spiritual fight (1 Timothy 6:12) for the
faith which was delivered to God’s saints.”
He says that every time we stand beside a brother or a sister, take hold
of their hand or arm and help them up or steady them to continue on, we do the
work of God’s Holy Spirit, our paraclete,
and God honors that work of faith.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were
before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of
our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus
Christ.
And now, this is the reason for our walk of faith and
service. Just as we are foreordained to
love, serve and walk before God, there are others, ‘wells without water’ who
were ordained to be vessels of dishonor (2 Timothy 2:20). These men come into our assemblies subtly,
like a jackal or a serpent, weaving through the fields of wheat that is the
body of Christ. These are the small
foxes who nibble at the vine of our family tree and lead us astray. Their words may be smooth and gracious but
their teeth are sharp, their eyes full of innocent blood and their hearts are a
darkened stone.
These men no longer feel the gentle whisper of God’s touch
or the soft voice of His love song. They
are moved by passion only; by the thrill of the hunt and their words are the
words of understanding while their goal is degradation and the emotional rush
of a stumbling saint. Thoughtful words
of doubt whisper from their mouths, “But…did God really say that? It doesn’t take all that. God understands how difficult it is. Doesn’t He want you to be happy.” With these words filled with honey they
beckon, a cliff of destruction hidden by flattering words and sweet promises.
As they orchestrate your fall and turn away you can almost
hear them whisper, “Fool. Believers in
fantasy. You needed this wakeup
call.” The only hope after this would be
to run back to the sheltering place of peace and love, but pride has been
awakened and it is not so easy to admit your mistakes as you look up the cliff
to the place of safety far above. Your
mind is full of confusion, your heart broken by shame and you can’t even
imagine a path that leads back to where you were. Even now your road back would be simple, just
repent, but the demons which came when you opened yourself up for this sin in
the first place are not afraid of you.
They are only afraid of the Christ in you. He is faithful and just to forgive you your
sins but they will hardly give you a moment of peace to pray.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once
knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed them that believed not.
God’s plan is for you to succeed. If we would allow it God would choose to save
every human soul on this planet. Our pride
and willfulness fight against every good thing God has planned. God did not fail the Israelites who fell in
the desert after He led them out of Egypt.
They failed God. Moses himself
allowed the anger over what he perceived as a failure of the people to cause
him to miss the Promised Land.
Professional ministers of the gospel and lay members as well
ought to remember his sin and beware. It
is extraordinarily easy to fall in to the sin of pride and
self-righteousness. When I was a young
man I would look at the unsaved around me and say, “You people need to get your
lives cleaned up. I hate all these
people wallowing in their sins.” My
father, who may or may not have been saved at the time overheard me. “I thought you were supposed to be one of
those preachers who show the people how to serve God?” His comment absolutely silenced me coming as
it did from my father who never left me without a life lesson. I was becoming the self-righteous saint I had
always abhorred.
It is important to follow God faithfully and not with an eye
to obeying the absolute minimum of God’s laws you can and still get in; but it
is equally important to remember that without God’s unction and Holy Spirit and
Grace and gifts and love and faith and peace and encouragement and fellow
saints, you cannot live this life at all.
If I see my brother in a fault that I too have, I can’t help him because
I am not spiritual but carnal. I must be
mature enough that my lessons come as one who walks hand in hand with God or
the cry of ‘hypocrite’ will follow me wherever I go. I have often heard the old adage that God
gave us two eyes to see and two ears to hear but only one mouth to speak. Let’s follow the Lord with our eyes upraised
and our ears full of His Word before we speak into someone else’s life.
If you raised your eyes and asked God into your heart years
ago, He is not honored by your slipping and sliding in sin or dipping your life
into carnal pleasures. He expects you to
walk as one who has only one goal in life, to please His Lord and His God. Those who walk on the fence may be blown
either backward or forward. They are
unstable and have no anchor to keep them safe.
Beware beloved.
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Angels are ancient.
They were created even before the universe we live in. We don’t know what the process of creation
was like for angels because that is their story and not ours. We do know that a third of them fell with
their leader Lucifer (Revelation 12:9; 20:2).
Many are so powerful that God has them chained even now, all will be
chained after Judgment day. There are
many men who take after the example of these fallen ones and have made it their
goal in life to lead the children of the Lord into damnation.
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them
in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange
flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Sodom and Gomorrha were cities of great sin. The men practiced sodomy and
homosexuality. The word we use for
sodomy came from the name of this city.
Notice how it says they went after strange flesh. God considers homosexuality to be strange
flesh and in an entire city of thousands of men, women and children He could
not even find ten righteous souls. God
chose to make those cities an example of what any who live this lifestyle might
expect in the hereafter. God is not
interested in anyone’s rampant illicit passions. He does not call them love. Love is a pure and noble experience and it is
not found in carnal relationships between two men or two women even if you put
a ring on it and call it marriage. Love
has rules and those rules come straight from God.
8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh,
despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Most people believe that God makes His rules to ruin their
fun or to make their lives boring. Those
who do not believe in Him figure it’s just Jews and Christians who are
deliberately trying to make them miserable.
The absolute truth is that God wants each of us to have the most
fulfilling and abundant life possible.
We fight His will so much and allow our minds to wander in the back
alley ways of Satan’s design to the point that we have lost sight of WHY God
made these rules in the first place. In
other words, we have forgotten that God came that we might have life and have
it more abundantly, more gloriously, more fruitfully.
Perhaps you think all this is foolish and there really is no
master plan for our lives and actions. Today
I read an article about marriage and pre-marital sex. The article explained how every hormone and
chemical produced in your brain and body is designed to bond you to the
individual you have sex with. More than
just the act of sex, it works together through holding one another and cuddling
together in love and passion to create a chemical neural bond between man and
woman that focuses sexual impulses toward your marriage partner.
A woman’s brain produces hormones that along with touch,
will bond her to her husband and even more strongly to her child and is largely
responsible for a woman’s willingness to fight to the death to protect her
child. It explains why some women who
have poisoned their minds with addictive illegal drugs can allow their children
to be molested by boyfriends or others.
They have destroyed the very neurochemical bond of motherhood by filling
their minds with powerful man-made neurotransmitters that use the pleasure
centers of the brain to strip them of godly responsibilities and passions.
This goes for men as well since we are far more likely to be
enticed by a visibly attractive woman.
In the man there are similar hormonal triggers at work. If we have spent time with our mates holding
one another and breathing in their scent, especially when engaged in intimacy,
the need we feel for sex at the sight of another attractive woman (even one who
deliberately dresses to inspire that need), will trigger a thought in our minds,
“Where is my wife?”
I have heard from wives that there were occasions where
their husband came in the house, led them into the bedroom and took them with
hardly any words or conversation. It was
a primal physical need and the women wisely understood the need and further
solidified that vital bond between them and their husbands by responding with a
willing heart. I know other men who were
met at home by silent refusal or even anger.
Whether they felt their personhood was not respected or their husband
needed to respect them more as a person; when they married that man they
promised to do everything in their power to keep the union strong.
A woman who uses sex and intimacy for this kind of control
and in an effort to make her husband more submitted to her will discover that
she has produced the opposite effect.
Her husband has now been sufficiently rebuffed that any moments of
weakness on his part will no longer produce the need for his wife, but any
woman who is willing. One thing is
certain in this day and age; there are any number of women out there who are
willing. My late apostle’s wife warned
the wives of their congregation on many occasions that any woman who sends her
husband off on a business trip or receives him back home without curling his
toes with intimacy and passion is a fool who will soon have no husband to worry
about.
God says our bodies are not our own and we are to satisfy
our mates whether male or female,
husband or wife so long as it is in our power to do so and in keeping with
God’s Word. I suppose some of those
wives wondered years later what caused their husbands to stray, blaming it
solely on his faithlessness and never upon their own refusal to meet his need
for physical bonding. Scripture says those
who have a need must find someone to meet that need. Scripture does not call it a want but a need
and expects a man to find a wife who will fulfill that need and a wife to have
her needs met by a faithful man. It also
shows that the idea some churches teach, that sex is only for procreation, is
flawed. An equally important purpose of
sex and physical bonding is to create a strong and enduring union.
I didn’t write this to say that women need to be more
willing or that men should run home and jump their wives without so much as a
by your leave. We men need to be equally
cognizant of a woman’s need for romance, tenderness and of course the one some
men seem to dread, conversation. I wrote
this so we would understand that God ordained us for one partner and that our
partner should comprehend the bonding requirements of husband and wife just as
each of us should understand the bonding requirements of bride and Christ.
Without these chemical transmitters working in union with a
spirit filled mind to help us bond, our spirits must fight against our bodies
for every single step of our life in Christ.
Even doing everything the way God has ordained, it is difficult enough
to fight the spiritual warfare which tries to drag us down. How much easier would it be if by scriptural
obedience our passions automatically drove us to that one person who God placed
in our life to safely calm the fires of passion, and that person understanding
the need for that touch, responded willingly, even eagerly to the need. Whether you always ‘feel like it’ or not,
love itself ought to compel you to embrace the bond your commitment has forged
and make it stronger for God’s sake and yours as well.
Our responsibility to God is one of obedience to the creator
who is working to make our lives more fulfilling in ways that we don’t even
know or understand. I doubt one in a
thousand Christians really understands even most of the Creator’s commandments
for marriage and life. While I’m using
marriage as an example here, God has created rules and methods for every single
area of our lives and has done it all for our own pleasure and good. The very fact that most churches are
regularly afflicted by those who defy God in all things should make each of us
the more vigilant to the words and actions of those around us and to the needs
of those closest to us.
One mark of a defiant man would be someone who regularly
speaks evil of those in leadership or positions of power or
responsibility. It doesn’t matter if
they believe the person is a bad leader or not; God has ordained that we pray
for those in authority so we might have peace on the Earth. I believe many of these lost souls feel
powerless and their railing against those in power is comforting to them. We in Christ should never feel
powerless. The weapons of our warfare
are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong centers of
demonic power. In other words, in
prayer…we rule! Fear should never
motivate us to act foolishly.
9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the
devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a
railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
I want to jump up and down and point at this verse and the
one below it. Who is Michael? When the archangel Gabriel gets in trouble,
he calls Michael (Daniel 10:13). He is
one of God’s spiritual princes. It
doesn’t say that he didn’t want to speak accusations against Satan. It says he dared not bring railing
accusations against Satan. Why? Because of all God’s angels, Lucifer, Satan,
the Devil, is the strongest. That is how
he lured a third of the angels to follow him.
It’s bad enough when we talk about Satan like a dog while we hide behind
Jesus skirts, but the truth of the matter is, he could destroy us with little
effort except for God’s protection. We
have no power against this mighty angel, fallen or otherwise, without the power
and authority of God.
You might ask, “Why did you bring that up?” I’ll tell you why. If we, the spiritual children of God cannot dare
speak against our self appointed enemy without doing it in “Jesus Name” how
much more are these unsaved waterless wells in danger if they speak against God
Himself. Day by day they mock us, the
children of God, and curse His Holy Name, blaspheming in every possible way to
mock the God we love and serve. For a
moment of His time, while He tries to graciously offer them His love, God withholds
their just punishment. What they do not
understand is that He allows trials to come against them hoping they will cry
out to Him for forgiveness and salvation but they curse Him the more in their
pain. He has chosen to be their
protector and they refuse. He has chosen
to be their lover and they refuse. He
has chosen to be their provider and they refuse.
They have chosen to do it all their way like Russia,
Germany, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other kingdoms
and He has refused to accept their strange alternatives. He will not allow them to have honor and so
their kingdoms will fall. America, once
the land of Christianity, is now the land of bondage and godlessness. When we went to another country to act as
peacekeepers, we told our God fearing troops that they could not share their
faith in Jesus or be court martialed.
America has chosen to withhold the light from others and soon will not
allow Christians to speak of their faith even in our own country.
In previous lessons I have tried in some small way to
explain ‘honor.’ In God’s mind, honor
means you respect and reverence Him at all times and in all situations. He will not accept you when you give greater
honor to husbands or wives, employers or potentates. He didn’t accept Pharaoh or the king of
Babylon when they ignored His prophet’s words.
Those countries were torn down and stomped on in their arrogance.
10 But these speak evil of those things which they know
not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they
corrupt themselves.
Since they do not understand or comprehend the glory of the
grace and love of God they choose to celebrate and worship their own bodies
like animals. Whatever pleasure they
desire, they pass laws to grant to themselves.
God created man and woman to mesh together physically, emotionally,
chemically and spiritually. We have
denied this glorious blessing and now we seek to join men to men and women to
women in ways that the very animals of the earth look upon with confusion. In the Middle East we see men abusing women
and controlling them with brutality rather than the love and completion that
God ordained. The husbands rage against
the women as if it is their fault that they have gone astray rather than
engendering strong relationships with that one special mate God has given
them. How grievous to God to see abuses
of the very physical blessing He gave us and the insults we pour in His
direction by saying there is no God when they very cosmos tell of Him.
The sad truth is that ‘science’ has changed from the days of
Copernicus or Newton when scientists reveled in learning more of the glory of
God. The modern scientific community is
so anti-God these days that any scientist who believes and chooses to put those
beliefs to the test is ostracized and quite often driven out of colleges and
universities. Politicized science is the
order of the day now and if the proofs they report are far more theory than
fact, nobody seems to notice. The irony
is that God is not afraid of science and His scriptures will always stand the
test of scientific scrutiny. In the past,
a wise man would take a Biblical ‘truth’ and use it as a foundation for
study.
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain,
and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the
gainsaying of Core.
Cain, the brother of Abel and son of Adam was a farmer. On the day of atonement when all the children
of men brought their sacrifices to God, he chose to bring the produce he had
raised in his fields. God had already
taught mankind through Adam and Eve that forgiveness and a relationship with
God come only through the shedding of blood; a life for a life. Abel brought a lamb from his flocks and Cain,
who could have traded Abel a lamb for some produce, chose to present produce
instead. It was not accepted.
What it means is that like many in the world today (and many
in the church), he chose to do it his own way.
God did not accept the offering.
His anger toward God caused his rage toward his brother to blossom into
violence. Cain ‘surrendered’ to the basest
of emotions and in rage and jealousy killed Abel. It is worth noting that Cain did not feel
that God’s judgment was reasonable or accept responsibility for his brother’s
death. It seems that denial reared its
ugly head in mankind early on.
Baalam was a prophet who knew God’s voice and was not
pleased with the income he had received for that honor. He desperately wanted to be wealthy and would
do anything to accept the riches promised by Balak the king of Moab (Numbers 22). Try as he might however, he was unable to
prophesy falsely so he realized the only way to defeat righteous Israel was to
make them unrighteous. Through his
trickery in sending hundreds of immoral Moabite women into the camp of Israel
he caused them to sin and in that way was able to curse them though even he was
not able to defeat the plan of God. That
was his great sin and failing to recognize where God was headed he made himself
an enemy of God. Israel was punished for
a moment as a wayward child but he and Moab were destroyed.
Like many of us, Core or Korah (Genesis 16) had an
anointing. He had stood before God in
the Tabernacle and had burned incense.
In his pride he believed he was equal in stature to Moses and Aaron and
had spoken loudly and arrogantly against Moses.
Like Satan he chose to stand against Moses and began to lead the people
astray. As God had done with the angels
before time even began, Moses told the people to stand with him or with Korah.
There wasn’t even a fanfare. Once the
people had chosen a side the ground just opened up and received Korah’s
followers alive into the pit. All of
this could have been prevented with some humility on Korah’s part (Luke
14:10). God would have promoted him in
time but the truth is, Joshua was the one who inherited the leadership after
Moses died because he was always a servant and God honored him. Joshua had an anointing but he also had the
nod from God.
12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they
feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water,
carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead,
plucked up by the roots; 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own
shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
Feasts of love are supposed to be times where you share your
bounty with others. Instead of this,
they come and eat of your bounty and theirs, sharing nothing. Jude describes them as clouds that block the
sun but bring no life giving water to help others grow. They float from place to place, feast to feast
and yet their own fruits of righteousness starve to death and die until God
Himself plucks them out by the root so they no longer have access to His
everlasting provision. Once freed they
live for their own explosive shame, flaming passions consume them and they
dangle their perverted lives before all.
They have become bleak stars for fools to follow in the night, leading
others into the black darkness that they themselves have purchased for
themselves. They are blind leaders of
the blind and none may recover them from that terrible eternal ditch (Matthew
15:14).
14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of
these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15 To
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of
all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their
hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
Did you get that? Let’s
try the amplified and edited version.
It was of these useless
people that Enoch, who was the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied when he
said, “Behold, the Lord comes with His myriads of holy ones, ten thousands of
His saints (Daniel 7:10), to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the wicked
and unholy ones of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in such an
ungodly way, and of all the severe, abusive, violent things which ungodly
sinners have spoken against Him, Jesus our Lord.”
There you have it…perfectly clear. Think about this; all the souls who lived
before, are living now or will live in the future, who have chosen to blaspheme
against God and His children will one day be judged by our Lord when He
returns. We will accompany Him on His
return and when all these wicked ones stand individually before God they will
be reminded in startling clarity of the sin they have committed. How many thousands over the years have said
to themselves saying, “I got away with it.
Nobody knows.” How many have died
laughing at all the righteous souls they have walked on and abused? How many more have died saying, “There is no
God.”
You may have asked why you ought to forgive those who have
committed such terrible acts and what right do they have to your mercy. The reason is simple. Nobody gets away with anything…nobody. You yourself will be rewarded for your deeds
done and weep over your missed opportunities.
Have you looked over your past life to all YOUR transgressions or have
you given yourself a pass for grace sake?
There is a price to be paid for your failures as well as their
failures. In their case it is death and
eternal separation from God. They will
be the true undead, aware and suffering forever. In our case their blood may be on our hands
if we have failed to act in life as God directed.
Now I know we have grace and that the Love of God and the
Blood of Jesus cleanses us of all our sins but we have had opportunities to
reach out to them in life and minister to them in humility and love even when
they hated us. If we did so and warned
them of the punishment to come with grace and a lowly spirit then their blood
is on them. If we got mad and simply
said to ourselves, “You’ll get yours!”
Shame on us. I have noticed
something odd about the prayers God has allowed me to pray. He has often allowed me to pray that God
drive someone to the altar, even to bring hardship and trouble upon them to get
them to wake up; but He has never allowed me to pray against them in
anger. I have never been allowed to
pray, “Get’em God!” and hope He’ll beat them up. My prayers must be in love because the future
for them without God is too terrible to consider.
Revelation 20:8 Amplified and edited says, “But as for the cowards and the ignoble who
do not keep their word or fulfill promises, and the contemptible and the fearful,
lacking in courage and the cowardly submissive who KNOWINGLY follow others into
sin and use the words, “I was afraid” as an excuse, and as for the unbelieving
and faithless, and as for the depraved and defiled with abominations,
committing acts that even nature abhors, and as for murderers and the lewd and
sexually perverse, and adulterous and the witches, practicers of magic arts and
the idolaters who give supreme devotion to anyone or anything other than God,
and all liars who knowingly convey falsehoods by word or deed — all of these
shall have their part in the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone. This is the second death.”
Beloved, I cannot continue.
I cannot simply see the words above without my heart breaking and my
life feeling judged for these very same sins.
Perhaps beloved I have not performed witchcraft or committed murders but
there are sins of fear and others in the paragraph above that I have committed
WHILE IN CHRIST. I am in Christ. Yes beloved I have matured and the list of my
transgressions is much less than when I began this walk. Yes, I know those sins will be washed and my
future is secure, but I have committed them and how dare I look at the unsaved
and curse them or fail to stand in the gap for them and their eternity? How dare I fail to pray for them and put
forth every effort I can to win their souls?
How dare I be lackadaisical and slothful toward my witness and my duty
to Christ?
As I write this my heart is so torn, my own wounds for my
own faults, flaws and failures is so grave that I feel like Revelation 8 where
it says, “And the seventh seal was opened and there was silence in heaven for
about half an hour.”
[Silence]
All these judgments are coming indeed. The time for modern Christians to wink at our
own flaws and failures and not seek God’s forgiveness for them and strength to
overcome them is over and gone. In
truth, there was never that much time in the world. The time is one of self judgment (1
Corinthians 11:31-32) and holiness and obedience and faithfulness and courage
and power and victory!
16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their
own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons
in admiration because of advantage.
I would love to say I have not known these people in the
church but that would be a lie of great magnitude. These people absolutely abide in the church
todays as much as outside the church.
These wells without water bleed away every great miracle God would have
us perform. The only real reason they
accomplish anything at all in the body is so someone will see them and honor
them. They need that more than they want
to help save the lost.
17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken
before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; 18 How that they told you
there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own
ungodly lusts.
Remember, we are speaking about the church, about those who
name the name of Jesus, falsely perhaps, but do indeed call themselves
Christians. They fast not…unless it is
to be seen. They pray not…unless it is
publically and with great and noble sounding oratory. They fulfill their own lusts and make excuses
for why they do the things they do.
19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having
not the Spirit.
These troubled souls are not interested in embracing your
God and certainly will never chose the life of an ascetic who separates himself
in order to be more holy. These separate
themselves so your separateness, your unworldly holiness, will not prevent them
from their sensual pursuits. You will
fast and they will feast. You will give
and they will get. You will preach about
Jesus and they will patter about lofty sounding things like bird songs or the
wind whispering in their soul, pretty much anything without any real
spirituality.
20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most
holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God,
looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
In this particular verse the word building isn’t
specifically mentioned. The word translated ‘up’ is used to denote rearing up
a house on a previously established foundation.
One important point to consider is that you are not usually building
upon something YOU have established, nor merely building upon something God
through Christ has founded within you.
It leaves you with the sense of building upon the works of another as in
1 Corinthians 3:6-7 where Paul says, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God
has given the increase.” I have
mentioned in previous lessons how I received a portion of Apostle Sims’
anointing upon his passing just as Joshua surely received a portion of Moses’
anointing upon his.
These are the foundations we use to build ourselves up in
our most Holy faith. If we were diligent
and faithful throughout our generations we would consistently grow stronger and
more wise. Sadly, there are few
generations where we consistently add to the work of those who have come before
us and we fall into the trap warned of by Paul in Hebrews 5:12 where we need to
be fed with milk rather than meat. I
have been to churches where they do well to teach the first works of salvation
and others where they live (or try to) in the prophetic, but in truth, we ought
to grow from faith to faith until we are greater than Peter whose very shadow
healed the sick, or Paul, whose wisdom was so great he required a thorn in the
flesh to keep him from sailing away to the third heaven and never
returning.
In my case, my father and mother were not terribly diligent
serving the Lord. They had been badly
wounded by ‘church people’ and my mother did not begin to faithfully attend
church until after my father passed away.
I was blessed indeed to find a father in the Gospel who took me under
his wing and along with his natural sons, chose to make me a son also. I wonder if my own children will continue to
build upon what I have begun and exceed my knowledge of Biblical truths,
continuing what Apostle Sims and Apostle Bea have begun. The gift of my anointing awaits them but they
are required to press toward that mark where it will connect with them upon my
passing.
Some few who read my exegesis a few verses ago may feel I
was rather hard on some of our fellow Christians. I don’t believe so however. My belief is that we have allowed ourselves
far too much freedom to live how we choose and behave however we see fit. We begin to be like Israel during the time of
the Judges when it was said that every man did what was right in his own
eyes. I am equally hard on myself and
like you am dependent totally upon the grace of my Lord Jesus and the Mercy
which is renewed over my life daily.
That I say we depend upon His mercy too much does not change the fact
that I recognize we need it every day.
Our goal ought to be to live so perfectly before God in love that we do
not need His mercy and while I recognize the impossibility of that goal, we
ought to press toward it nonetheless.
22 And of some have compassion, making a difference: 23
And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the
garment spotted by the flesh.
Looking back toward those waterless wells or even the lost
and foolish youth among us, I again recognize the need for we the church to
reach out in merciful compassion and love to them. It doesn’t matter how badly they behave
toward us, it only matters that God is not willing that any should perish and
if we have trained ourselves to be powerful soul winners then we really will
make a difference. We cannot witness to
others while wallowing in sin ourselves.
When I was lost in sin a Christian used to spend time with me in the
hopes of winning my soul to the Lord. At
one time he even foolishly followed me into a theater to watch a movie in the
hopes of touching my soul for Christ.
The movie had several scenes that amounted to pornography and while I
took it in stride as an unsaved young man, it caused him a great deal of grief. To this day I remember the haunted expression
on his face as he stumbled out of the theater saying, “I need to pray.” There will be opportunities to speak into the
lives God has placed on your heart. Take
care you do not damage your witness (and your own soul) in an attempt to win
one.
24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling,
and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding
joy, 25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and
power, both now and ever. Amen.
Beloved, I pray you will keep your heart, head, hands and
hearth stayed upon Jesus and strive to grow in Him in all spiritual
blessings. He and He alone is able to
keep you from falling. He and He alone
is able to make you grow into the servant you need to be and in truth, want to
be. His hearts desire is to present you
without fault or sin to His Heavenly Father and we should do everything within
our power to make that possible. His joy
is our joy.
I give all honor and glory and majesty to Jesus. He holds all dominions, principalities,
powers and spiritual authority in this cosmos we hold so dear. His kingdom is without end and so will our
lives be if we trust in Him.
I pray you continue in this path and strive to attain the
prize of the heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.
