EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2025 9:40 PM
Focus: PT-1 “Introduction
to Jude”
I will explain what I am about to do for those who have
been following my Spiritual Diaries on the letter written by Jude. I mentioned that I had ordered a commentary
on 2 Peter from John MacArthur’s website but at the time I did not realize that
along with 2 Peter there was also Jude in the commentary. I suppose that it was years ago that I went
through the letter by Jude using helps from Dr. Warren Wiersbe, and this year I
began another study using helps from his commentary.
As I thought about this I came to the conclusion that it
would be best to use John MacArthur’s commentary to help me through this
wonderful little letter written by Jude, and so this evening I will begin by
quoting MacArthur’s introduction to Jude.
Counting his introduction there are 77 pages in his study of Jude, and I
think that he had at least five sermons on Jude, which he uses to help write
his commentaries.
“Solomon’s admonition ‘By truth, and do not sell it’
(Prov. 23:23) reflects the fact that truth is a precious commodity in
Scripture. After all, God is the ‘God of
truth’ (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16), having magnified His word which is truth (Ps.
119:160; 138:2; John 17:17). The Lord
Jesus Christ, God inhuman flesh, is ‘full of grace and truth’ (John 14:6; cf.
Eph. 4:21). The Holy Spirit is the ‘Spirit
of truth’ (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6), sealing the salvation of
those who embrace ‘the message of truth’ (Eph. 1:13). And the church is the ‘pillar and support of
the truth’ (1 Tim. 3:15), protecting and proclaiming the truth of the gospel
(cf. Col. 1:5). In fact, it is by
believing the truth that people are set free from sin and death (John 8:32).
“Although God’s people sometimes forget the importance of
the truth, Satan never does. Ever since
the fall, the father of lies (Cf. John 8:44) has done everything in his power
to destroy, hide, and twist the truth—constantly attempting to replace it with
falsehood and deception. Ironically, his
deadliest attacks do not come from those who openly reject the truth, but
rather from those who profess to know and believe it, but lie. Satan’s most effective agents, like spiritual
terrorists, secretly infiltrate the church where they pass themselves off as
genuine shepherds and leaders. In
reality, however, they are imposters and defectors, apostates who claim to know
Christ, but in fact reject Him. They
verbally affirm their knowledge of His Word, but their actions indicate that
they are actually enemies of the truth.
“Like Simon Magus (Acts 8:9-24), Hymenaeus (1 Tim. 1:20;
2 Tim. 2:17), Alexander (1 Tim. 1:20; cf. 2 Tim. 4:14), and Diotrephes (3 John
9), these spiritual Benedict Arnolds ‘are slaves, not of our Lord Jesus Christ but
of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the
hearts of the unsuspecting ‘ (Rom. 16:18).
‘Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves
as apostles of Christ’ (2 Cor. 11:13), ‘men of depraved mind and deprived of
the truth’ (1 Tim. 6:5). They must be
vigorously opposed and rooted out, lest they entice unstable souls and lead
them to destruction (cf. 2 Pet 2:14).
“The New Testament repeatedly warns of the danger that
apostate false teachers pose to the church.
Both Jesus (Matt. 7:15) and Paul (Acts 20:29) likened their deceptive
savagery to the attacks of vicious wolves ‘Many false prophets will arise,’ Jesus
warned, ‘and will mislead many’ (Matt. 24:11).
Paul cautioned Timothy, ‘But the Spirit explicitly says that in later
times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits
and doctrines of demons’ (1 Tim. 4:1).
Peter and John also warned of these spiritual pretenders (2 Peter 2:3; 1
John 4:1-3; 2 John 7; Rev. 2:14-15, 20-24), as did Jude in his brief
one-chapter epistle.
“Jude concise letter is a forceful condemnation of the
false teachers who were infiltrating the church in his day, and, by extension,
all who were yet to come. In our
postmodern culture, in which truth is considered relative and tolerance is
prized above all else, Jude’s eloquent plea for doctrinal purity is
particularly applicable. As Thomas R.
Schreiner notes:
[Jude’s]
message of judgment is especially relevant to people today, for our churches
are prone to sentimentality, suffer from moral breakdown, and too often fail to
pronounce a definitive word of judgment because of an inadequate definition of
love. Jude’s letter reminds us that
errant teaching and dissolute living have dire consequences (1, 2 Peter, Jude, The New American
Commentary [Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003], 403-4)
“In the end, failure to heed Jude’s message results in compromising the very ‘faith which was once for all handed down to the saints’ (v. 3).”
It is my hope and prayer that all who read these
Spiritual Diaries on Jude will profit from them, and realize that the things
that Jude was writing almost 2000 years ago are relevant to today.
Most of the Spiritual Diaries that I will be writing are
from books that are close to the end of the Word of God, and therefore the
people who are writing them are writing the things that are upmost on their
hearts.
6/25/2025 10:22 PM
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