Monday, August 11, 2025

“Hidden Reefs” (Jude 13a)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/11/2025 7:26 PM

My Worship Time                                                                                        Focus: “Hidden Reefs”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                              Reference:  Jude 13a

            Message of the verse: “wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”

            This SD will be the last of these short ones, which have been a series of natural wonders that Jude was using to help him talk about the apostates that he has been writing about from almost the beginning of his letter.          

            One more thing I will mention is that today is the wedding anniversary of my wife and I as we were married 52 years ago today, and things were a lot different back when we got married in 1973 as neither of us were believers, but the Lord cared for that on the 26th of January, 1974, a story that I have written about in some of my Spiritual Diaries.  All I can say that I went to Florida to visit a high school friend who gave me some tapes to listen to by Hal Lindsey, the author who was rather famous for a book he wrote back in 1970 or 71 entitled “The Late Great Planet Earth.”  After beginning to listen to these tapes on the end times the Lord spoke to my heart and saved me.  My wife was saved in April of 1974. 

            Wandering stars does not refer to heavenly bodies that continuously shine and have fixed orbits, for most likely the expression signifies a what are meteor or what are called “shooting star” that one can see occasionally flash across the sky in an what is an uncontrolled moment of brilliance and right after that they disappear forever into the black darkness (cf. v. 6).  I think that you can understand where we are going here as apostates often appear for a short time on the stage of Christianity then disappear.  These apostates promise enduring spiritual light and direction but only deliver nothing but an erratic, aimless, worthless flash.  The utter blackness and darkness of hell have been reserved forever for them as we can look at 2 Peter. 2:4, 9, and 17 to help us understand this better.

            John MacArthur concludes this section and chapter.  “Jude’s striking descriptions, valid comparisons with the past, and graphic analogies to nature all paint a vivid portrait of apostates.  False teachers are hypocritical deceivers, immoral sinners, materialistic hedonists, and, as a result, spiritual terrorists.  They misrepresent the truth about the gospel of Christ and twist the teachings of Scripture. In contrast, true shepherds have an accurate understanding of the gospel (John 1:12-13; 3:16; Col. 2:9; cf. 1 Tim. 3:16).  The possess a humble, submissive attitude to Christ’s lordship (John 1:47-49; 20:27-28; Luke 5:8), and they understand the seriousness of the Lord’s declaration, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; not once comes to the Father but through Me’ (John 14:6).  False teachers, on the other hand, choose the way of Cain over the way of Christ, the error of Balaam over the truth of Christ, and the death of Korah over the life of Christ.  8/11/2025 7:54 PM  

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