EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/04/2025 10:19 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Jude’s Audience”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Jude 1b-2
Message of the verses: “To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”
What I have for the “focus” part of this SD is actually
just the introduction to what we will be looking at as there is different
sub-section after this introduction. So
what I am saying is that this will be a very short SD, as Lord willing I will
begin to look at the first sub-section in my next SD. I think that the best thing I can do is to
quote this introduction from John MacArthur’s commentary so that we all will
get a better idea of what is to follow.
“Jude’s salutation clearly outlines that he was writing
to genuine believers. His greeting
emphasizes the reassuring truth that as believers contend with growing
apostasy, they remain safe and secure in the sovereign purpose of God. Like Peter, who confronted his readers with
two Old “Testament examples of God’s protection and deliverance (Noah and Lot),
Jude encouraged his audience to trust God even in the midst of intense
spiritual battle. In Fact, he listed
four reasons for believers to rest in God and not fear—namely, because they are
called, love, kept, and blessed by him.”
These are what we will be looking at as we go through this section, as
it is my desire to do these perhaps one a night as some are longer than
others. It is also my desire to, once we
get through these first three verses of Jude to then take some time to quote
from John MacArthur’s second sermon on Jude.
I mentioned that he actually has fifteen sermons on this short letter
written by Jude and that tells me that there are some very important things we
will be able to learn from this letter.
I have fond memories of going through this second to last
book of the Bible, and one of them comes from the first Pastor that I ever sat
under after becoming a believer. You
see, and I mentioned this in earlier SD’s that after I became a believer back
on January 26, 1974 that I did not attend a church for four years, and I
suppose the reason was that I did not receive Christ while in a church service,
but by listening to cassette tapes by Hal Lindsey while visiting a friend in
January of 1974. I guess that I thought
that there were no a lot of good churches around after I became a believer, but
I found out that I was wrong. After
becoming a believer in Florida the first thing that I did was visit a Christian
book store and I bought for $6.95 a Living Bible, which is a paraphrased
Bible. Later on while attending my first
church for 32 years a man whose mother had just died gave me her Living Bible,
and I still have it. I wore the first
one out.
So the first place when I got home to Cleveland Ohio was
to visit a Christian Book store and I met a man who owned it and we are still
friends for close to 50 years. I began a
Bible study in his store taught by tapes from Hal Lindsey, and it was a very
good time in my life. Four years later
after attending a Moody Bible Institute’s Founders Week in Chicago I came home
from that and I started to go to Grace Baptist Church in Westlake, Ohio where
we stayed for 32 years, and then moved on to First Baptist Church, Elyria,
Ohio, a church that is over 180 years old.
All I got to say is through it all God was leading me, and still does
each and every day, and for that I am thankful.
7/4/2025 10:43 PM
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