EVENING
SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/29/2025 10:16 PM
My
Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “To
The Committed”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Jude 23b
Message of the verse: “and on some have mercy with fear, hating
even the garment polluted by the flesh.”
Now we have been
talking about how true believers can reach out to apostates, and from what we
have learned about apostates that task seems to be very difficult, but I have
to believe that God has used very committed believers to reach out to apostates
with the result of them being saved from their sins and have come into being a
true born-again believer. MacArthur
writes that “Such heretics are profoundly deceived individuals who are deeply
committed to their own deceptions.” This
certainly is true of most of these apostates, but the truth is that once one of
these apostates turn from their sins and trust the Lord Jesus Christ as their
Savior and Lord that they will look back on their old life and understand then
that it was all false, and then move onto their new life and begin to really do
things for the cause of Christ. It is
possible that in some cases before one of these apostates come to truly know
the Lord that they are even the articulators of heretical doctrine and the
leaders within the false system. So when
reaching out to such people, we who know the truth must proceed with utmost
caution and clearheadedness. The admonition on some have mercy with fear indicates the sobering, frightening
nature that outreach to such people entails. Fear stems from an awareness that getting too close to corrupt,
apostate error could result in somehow being tainted by those lies as compared
to Matt. 16:6, 12; 1 Cor. 5:6-7; 25:33; Gal. 5:7-9).
I
remember a long time ago when I was going to another Baptist church that there
was a lady who was single and getting a bit older began to date a person who
was Catholic and after a while they got married. Once this man married this lady he talked her
into joining the Catholic church that he had been going to, and so she left the
confines of being taught from the Word of God by a very wonderful Pastor and
went into a place where she would not be able to get fed from the Word of
God. I remember that our Pastor had said
that this kind of thing had never happened to him since he had become a Pastor,
and he was very upset about it with good reason.
I
will quote one paragraph from John MacArthur’s commentary and then will leave
the rest of this section for tomorrow evening.
“Jude
used extremely graphic, coarse language to highlight the degree of danger involved
in this type of outreach. Garment translates
chiton and refers to the clothing
that the people of that day wore under their tunics—it was their
underwear. The word translated polluted is a participial from the verb
spiloo, meaning ‘to stain,’ or ‘to
spot.’ To be polluted by the flesh means ‘to be stained by bodily function.’
Just as one wants to handle someone else’s dirty underwear and be defiled
physically, so we should be extremely wary of getting too close to the
spiritual defilement of those corrupted by false teachers. Even in bringing the gospel to committed
apostates, saints must exercise great caution and wisdom (cf. Matt. 10:16).”
“"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of
wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt. 20:16).
8/29/2025 10:39 PM
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