EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/30/2025 7:57 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 “Introduction to Jude 1-3”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jude 1-3
Message of the verses: “1 Jude, a
bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the
called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to
you. 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 handed down to the saints.”
Now before I get started on the introduction to
these first three verses in the epistle of Jude I want to say that this
afternoon while I was taking a walk to get my exercise I was listening to the
second of fifteen sermons by John MacArthur on this letter of Jude. I had listened to the first one a week or so
ago, and since I am studying this epistle I wanted to listen to the next one,
and I think that perhaps later on I will take a number of SD’s and quote that
entire sermon and put it onto my blog.
The reason is because he gives a great explanation about the sovereignty
of God, and explanation that is good to hear by all. In the meantime I will begin this
introduction to these first three verses which is what we will be looking at
for a while before I quote from MacArthur’s sermon.
I
have highlighted some words and phrases in the verses above, things that are
very important to understand as we begin to look at them in more detail as we
go through these verses.
If
I were to ask the question what do you think is the greatest threat to the
church is now and always has been? How
would you answer that question? If you think
that it would be the outside influence you would be wrong, but if you would say
that the greatest threat to the church comes from within the church you would
be right. In a nut shell that is why
Jude wrote this letter as we will see as we move through this letter. Now let me expand a little on this as one
thinks why would not the outside influences on the church be the greatest problem,
and they can be a great problem, things like persecution that has happened through
church history has been a great problem, but they can inflict only physical and
injuries which are only temporary. Now
as mentioned the deadliest false teaching comes not from deceptive,
non-Christian religions outside the church, but from spiritual pretenders that
are inside the church. And the resulting damage is far greater than
that caused by any external assault; the casualties are spiritual and the
consequences are eternal. It’s no
wonder, then, that Jesus warned His followers about the deadly dangers of
apostasy as seen in Matthew 7:15-20:
15 "Beware of the false prophets, who come
to you in sheep’s clothing,
but inwardly are ravenous
wolves. 16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered
from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 “So every good
tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 “A good tree cannot
produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19 “Every tree that
does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 “So then, you
will know them by their fruits.”
Now we want to look at Paul’s
exhortation to the Ephesian elders as he echoed the Lord’s admonition in Acts
20:29-31:
29 “I know that after my departure savage
wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your
own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples
after them. 31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a
period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”
I
will conclude this SD with a quotation from John MacArthur as he writes “The
rest of the New Testament records similar warnings, instructing believers to
guard themselves against the deceptive nature of false teaching masquerading as
Christian truth (Matt. 24:10-14; 2 Thess. 2:3-12; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; 2
Peter 2:1-3:7; 1 John 2:18-19; 4:1-3; 2 John 7-10; Rev. 2:6, 14-16, 20-23;
3:1-3, 14-18; cf. James 5:1-6).”
Lord
willing we will finish this introduction in tomorrow evening’s SD and then move
on to look more intensively to these verses.
6/30/2025 8:29 PM
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