EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/14/2025 6:53 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 Intro
to Jude 4-7
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference:
Jude 4-7
Message of the verses: “4 For certain
persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for
this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into
licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Now I desire
to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after
saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did
not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned
their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the
judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around
them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went
after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment
of eternal fire.”
Now
as I begin this evening Spiritual Diary I am very saddened to find out that
John MacArthur is about to go into heaven to meet his Lord and Savior as
reports are that he will die very soon.
He has pneumonia and one of those on his staff at the church that he
preaches at said that he was told that if he did recover that he would not be
able to speak anymore and so I think that if he could not speak anymore then he
would not want to remain here on earth. I
certainly owe much to his preaching and teaching especially while studying the
New Testament as I have listened to many of his sermons and read many of his
commentaries in order to write my Spiritual Diaries each day as then the Holy
Spirit of God sends them around the world where sometime this year I believe that
there will be totaled of one million views, and for that I am thankful to the
Lord and also thankful to the teaching and preaching of both Dr. Warren W.
Wiersbe, and Dr. John MacArthur.
I
desire to just quote from the pages of John MacArthur’s commentary as I finish
this introduction of this introduction to verses 4-7 of Jude.
“In
the meantime, recognizing that Satan is still on the prowl (1 Peter 5:8),
Christians must be earnest and steadfast in contending for the faith (see
v.3). They must be proactive in pursuing
the truth, and also in confronting the resisting everything false. Such requires much wisdom, discernment,
fortitude, and endurance. The apostle
Paul exhorted Timothy, ‘Retain the standard of
sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in
Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy
Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you’ (2
Timothy 1:13-14; cf. 1 Tim. 6:20-21). Like Timothy, present-day
believers have a mandate to take the truth of the gospel seriously, doing all
they can to protect and preserve its purity.
This is especially crucial for pastors and elders. As those who are responsible for ‘the flock of God’ (1 Peter 5:2) they must be faithful to hold ‘fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the
teaching, so that [they] will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to
refute those who contradict’ (Titus 1:9).
They are responsible
to interpret Scripture accurately or be brought to shame (cf. 2 Tim. 2:15).
“Jude
certainly understood what was at stake; he knew that the church was being
infiltrated by its enemies. He
recognized that a battle was brewing—a conflict that marked Satan’s newest
campaign in his long war against the truth.
And that is why Jude wrote this letter: to alert his readers to the
doctrinal dangers they faced from Satan’s covert agents. Like a general briefing his troops about the
enemy, Jude profiles these apostate foes for his audience. Thus, in this section, he dealt with their
presence, prediction, portrayal, and perishing so that his readers might be
well-equipped to expose and disarm any such spiritual terrorists.”
With
that said, Lord willing we will begin looking at “The Presence of the
Apostates,” found in Jude 4a.
7/14/2025 7:12 PM
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