Book of Jude: Written for Our Times! Kelly Durant
2. This is a breakdown study of Jude and why focus on it? Because it is very relevant to our present times. Please keep your Bibles open to follow along and take notes. This book has references to the book of Enock, an extra canonical book that is valued by the Orthodox Church, and many other churches are currently taking a new look at it.
It speaks of the punishments God gave to the disobedient fallen angels and is a warning to all those who leave the faith or practice evil.
1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
This is a salutation but it is addressed only to us, the Christian believers. How do we know? Because of the phrase “to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ” You being a Salvationist understand that being sanctified is something which comes from living a sincere holy life with the Holy Spirit leading.
How do you and I get sanctified by God? By being preserved in Jesus, remaining obeying His teachings, which goes along with our doctrine number 9 to have ‘continuance’ in the faith for salvation. We are called to live and serve as Jesus did. What blessings do we get from God for this? Mercy, peace, and love!
3. 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
What does it mean to contend for the faith? The word, ‘contend’, sounds similar to the word ‘contentious’ but there is a big difference. We should never be contentious, that is desiring to get into a fight just to stir up trouble, but It is implying that we must speak up and fight, to defend what is true from the Word of God. If you don’t stand up for Jesus and the faith, you must ask yourself if you are really a believer or not!
In Christianity we can study how to do this through ‘apologetics’. I think more than ever you and I must prepare ourselves to be able to answer anyone who verbally attacks us, mocks us, or just seeks to counter you or me over our faith in Jesus. Our faith is under heavy attack from ungodly people in the schools, colleges, and workplace, in cyberspace, and also in movies, the daily news, and the music/imagery industry.
4. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
To begin, how many of you can observe that some churches of late seem to have quite a few people in them that seem to have lost the mission of Jesus? They seem to have a preoccupation with making the church conform to the society’s culture, or a preoccupation with their own entertainment, praise bands and modern preachers, who do not even use scripture as the message? When you hear a person pressing a certain dubious issue in the church, ask yourself, what are their fruits? What do they in their private lives for Jesus and others? Those seeking influence and money yet have no obedience to Christ are usually deceptive ones seeking to divide and conquer!
What is lasciviousness? Lasciviousness is a gross form of wickedness that has sexual overtones. It starts in a sinful heart (Mark 7:21-22), and manifests itself in fleshly (carnal) actions (Galatians 5:19), and can lead to a state of being “past feeling” (Ephesians 4:19). https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1123-what-is-lasciviousness People contaminated with this nature accept no correction or reasoning. Fake Christians follow their own philosophies and undermine the Bible.
These influences come from the condemned demons of old. Jude clarifies in verse 6 that the first fallen angels who came to rape and murder as they pleased have been captured and are waiting the judgment of hell, but what about the others after that? They are still here! Jesus cast out demons into pigs but the demon spirits of old are still with us usually possessing people in high places, possessing people of influence such as in actors and musicians, and they focus in on infiltrating churches so they can divide them and destroy them having them overcome by the trends of the world rewriting their doctrines to include their demonic activity! Apostacy is increasing year after year.
Here is a problem we face, Christians in the church are not being warned and educated on how demons operate. The world has conditioned us to accept that some people with their perverted aggressive and rude behavior speaking up to contradict righteous Christian leaders are just normal. Just accept how this generation is?! No!
So, can it be that in colleges, the workplace, and in some churches you as a discerning God honoring Christian are expected to just accept mayhem, blasphemy, and confusion, which is an abuse of the grace of Christ? How derogatory that this is the new push that we should just include them at all costs! (!?) Tolerance is a must?! A little leaven, leavens the whole bread! The faith is getting destroyed by these usurpers.
Those who speak up to justify their lascivious behaviors, if you question them on anything, will lash out at you with full force decrying that you are not a real Christian because you are not loving because you discriminate and you preach an embarrassing gospel of the old type that is causing young people to leave the church. They proclaim to all those nearby, we need to get rid of your old type! How twisted and manipulative! And would we not be fools condemning ourselves if we were to allow them to take over and run things as they please? It would be to ‘deny’ Christ totally! How sad that much of Christianity in our present world is being practiced without Christ as the foundation!
5.5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
What is the message here? It is a comparison of the past to what may happen in the present with any of us. We know that the Israelites after leaving Egypt, after being freed as slaves to go to the promised land (compared to heaven for the Christian), became bitter and angry at God for a lack of comforts and they wanted to go back and even worship Egypt’s false gods and even made a golden calf idol! So God allowed them to all die in the desert wandering 40 years lost! Unthankful complainers who want the perversions of this world above the mission of our faith condemn their selves to repeat this dry life desert tragedy.
If one is a Christian and a new creation in Christ, one who is presumed to be purified by the forgiveness with the blood of Jesus, and then wants to go back, as a dog who re-eats his vomit, to accommodate the sins of the world in one’s life, then this means inviting God’s punishment upon yourself as the non-believing, God insulting backsliders of the past. This is a powerful warning that a would be salvation could became God’s wrath for those who reject living in His holy path not living in “the way, the truth, and the life”.
6. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
This verse infers to the book of Enoch, a book which was respected by the Jews of old found in the Qumran Caves. It speaks of 200 watcher angels (but there may have been more) who degenerated their selves to abuse with humans, so God punished them by locking them out of the heavenly and earthly realm, and bound them up for judgement! Imagine how this is, you have an eternal spirit and cannot die, you are conscious of things nearby and you were a privileged angel living in heaven, and now you exist in the eternal now restrained in darkness! And then in the final judgment, as mentioned to come revealed by Jesus detailed in Revelation, you will be put into the lake of eternal fire! These beings were such evil abusers that God has saved the worst punishment for them!
These former angels became Satanic, and by all images of ancient worship, deductively created hybrid creatures of men and beasts to rule over men and to insult God’s creation! Their pleasure was to enslave and destroy the people that God created! They established a pyramid slave order out of mankind to build glorious cities and commanded men to worship their created beings and not the Creator (see Romans 1). The problem was they possessed much of God’s knowledge, of His supernatural mathematics and biology, and they exploited it to build mega structures to incite the worship of themselves. A total intolerable betrayal! After these first rebellious ones were enchained, the flood of Noah wiped out another portion of these fallen ones, but soon afterwards their evil resurfaced again as these disembodied demon spirits continued to possess rebellious people born later. And today these demons continue to oppress, rob, and murder from high places!
7. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. (Note: Strange flesh includes animals).
The judgments of God are clear here. The people of these cities demanded to have sex with the angels that went to Lot’s house as guests. Imagine this, Lot even offered his 2 virgin daughters to this crowd of evil men to ‘do as they please’ but they refused. Would you offer that?! He was in utter despair trying to stop this mob of men that were violently trying to break into the door of his house to rape these handsome angels.
But no one should, nor will get away with rape and murder, God’s wrath will come on them! These cities were destroyed by the fiery salt that rained from the sky. The people were so corrupt God did not spare anyone except Lot’s family who escaped. These destroyed cities have been un-earthed in Israel but few report it because the way of the world is to hide and cover up God’s judgements. However, there is no doubt, His judgements are real and we must heed the warning against these type of behavior.
8. 8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
Have you ever known anyone who is always talking degradingly about others always conflictive, often laughing at someone’s misfortune? Someone who is always boasting what they would like to do to hurt or kill someone? They are always gloating in their bad behavior or sex acts, and they mock the people of God and the authorities for being upholders of Godliness. These kinds are guilty evil condemned hypocrites! Their minds (filthy dreamers) are given over to continuous darkness, so their words and actions follow. They degrade their selves believing their own lies and seek to recruit others into the same filth and tear to pieces with words or violence those who challenge them.
They also have this characteristic in common, they are non-stop rebellious to any authority; they invent evil words to attack and mock the maintainers of order, such as the police, government leaders, or church leaders. The Holy Scriptures say to ‘submit to the authorities’ which are being allowed by God to govern (Romans 13) and even though some of these authorities are corrupt, in general they protect us from despots who would bring us down into total anarchy, enslavement, and death.
9. 9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
Why is this within these verses? For one, it reveals that Satan and his demons, until his judgement comes, are loose to temp, bother, and falsely accuse, in the presence of the angels and humankind, anyone of any kind of evil as he pleases. When the Lord Jesus returns Satan will be judged and pay for all his crimes against God and humanity, for deceiving, accusing, and condemning billions of lives which should have been God’s.
Why did Satan hate Moses and want to desecrate the remembrance of his body? Because Moses was the law bearer, the official voice of God to bring order and punishment to those who do evil deeds! Satan wanted to claim that Moses was his because Moses had failed God on a few occasions with anger issues. No one is perfect and Satan always wants to claim you as his own because you act out as he wanted at some time or another. But the blood of Jesus, defended by the high archangels in heaven, will not allow this to happen. We will be defended and justified as righteous through and by Jesus in the final judgment day.
One more thing, Here it is revealed that The Lord (Jesus) has all authority and Satan shrinks when you quote the Word of God to Him ‘in Jesus name’. You can rebuke Satan in Jesus name when he attacks you through someone, someone who may have a demon, and Jesus will win the battle. You may have to fast and pray, however, depending on the magnitude of the evil entity. Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
10.10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
If you are an obedient person of faith, you spiritually discern all things happening in the world and you understand the spirit world, moral laws, scientific knowledge, and government systems through the mind of Christ. It means you see through the repeated lies, fake news, and deceptions of the world. And for your possession of truth, ignorant or deceived people will hate you, attack you, and mock you when you speak the truth or the word of God to counter the poisonous lies they have swallowed.
If you speak up for your faith in Jesus, for moral decency, for Creationism, for a pro-life stance, for certain more righteous leaders in power, you will see you quickly you become a target of evil people who are morally corrupt, deceived by Satan on all issues, and they will be violent, vulgar, and vicious in their cruel harmful words against you acting you like a wild animal or brute beast which is out of control.
11. 11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
What was the way of Cain? Disobedience, anger, hate, & then murder! God wanted a sacrifice, a symbol which would in the future reflect upon Jesus as a blood sacrifice, one that comes with tears and pain. But Cain did not care about what God wanted, he only wanted to give God some little something as he pleased. God’s request was mocked by Cain and when God reacted that it was not pleasing, Cain was filled with rage! He could have simply redone his sacrifice but instead he murdered his own brother to get back at God and him! Look how many today live on this path!
Balaam was getting paid to go down and curse the people of God so they could be defeated in battle but his donkey started talking to him and revealed that God’s angels would not allow him to go do that! That scared him, he repented, and blessed them instead! Many people today think it gets the favor of the world to mock and curse good people and Christians, but their reward of temporary praise or cash comes with a curse on them. The mockers of the righteous always face God’s judgment for choosing the wrong side and often their demise comes quickly.
Core, or Korah, challenged Moses and Arron on how to worship God. (see Numbers 16) He was not a Levite, not a dedicated to God priest, so he was disqualified in any of his prideful endeavors to get people to follow his teachings. He was judged for inciting rebellion. Numbers 16:32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. I don’t doubt that many unusual supernatural occurrences have happened to many of the mockers of God’s people. Some heed God’s warnings, while others do not.
(Break, stop part 1, cont. part 2)
12. 12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
We don’t discriminate when we invite others to eat with us here in the church/Corps, all are welcome, so what is the teaching here? The word spot, which is the same word for sin in the Bible, is referring here to sinful people amongst us, being those who are unrepentant not having the loving nature of Jesus, these are deceivers claiming to be one of us but they are not. A feast of charity, or love, should not have to be spoiled by loud, obnoxious, contentious and boastful people who are unloving.
The shameless ugly and filthy people of the world who do not understand nor respect us as God honoring people have no fear to show how smart and confident they are amongst us. These are people who go along with the cultural winds of change to promote the most recent perversions, illogical stances, and dividing trends. Many youth and young in the Lord get deceived by these kinds of pretentious bold speakers.
So how do we discern who these false pretenders (spots) are? By their fruits we will know them! These false kinds have no fruit for the Lord, all they have to show in their private lives is the worship of self, with no sacrifice of time, treasure, or talent for God, just empty clouds. They can never win a soul to Jesus because they don’t really love Him or believe in Him! They are as the walking dead bringing nothing but death. Twice dead implies they will die in the flesh, and then die in the spirit because their roots are not connected to the life giver, Jesus Himself, the true vine.
13. 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
Where do we read here about the waves? James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. These are those who change from year to year to defend the trends of the world, of politicians, of sinful hypocritical leaders, or of famous people. Revelation 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. The waves of riots and attacks today are violent by the mega-millions of deceived people who display their selves as shameful vulgar hypocrites as they are stubbornly defending ungodly statutes.
Wandering stars? The earliest civilization, the Sumerians, created the astrological calendars attributing deities to the stars, as if the stars are connected to angelic beings and stories of old. Many cultures talk about how from ‘heaven to earth’ these beings came (the fallen angels), and they lost their place in the order of God’s cosmos. To wander is to be misplaced; these are the rebellious spirit beings incapable of fitting anywhere due to their sins and crimes against God and humanity so God has sent them deep into black space. There they cannot contact any human, angel, or demon by isolation. These are comparable to black hole suns, a destroyed compressed mass not producing light for life but rather existing as invisible beings, stuck in an eternal inescapable death cycle, recycling their own useless waste when at one time gave light.
14. 14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Here again we have reference to the Book of Enoch, and notice he was 7th from Adam. There were two Enochs, this one was holy and walked with God. Genesis 5:24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. However, there was another Enoch, the son of Cain, grandson of Adam, this one was very evil and perverted all the wisdom of God into systems of false sciences and deceptions, which still are actively worshipped and taught today as in secret societies and Gnosticism.
The Book of Enoch, found alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran Caves in Israel in 1947, is considered to be one of the oldest books ever recorded. From the beginning God has warned of His return and judgments on unrepentant evil humanity. Enoch revealed to us the revelation of Jesus return even before the flood of Noah!
Ten thousands is a number implying ten thousand multiplied times ten thousands, or in other words more realistically like millions who will be the resurrected saints! Jesus will have an army, and we will fight with him and we will defeat the Anti-Christ, Satan in the flesh, and all his followers. It will be a literal war, the final battle before the judgement.
15. 15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
One stumbling block many people have is the acceptance that God will judge and punish people in hell as they deserve. People who are deceived want God to be just a positive energy, just a light, just a Father of benevolence with love and forgiveness for all no matter how horrific and ungodly their deeds are. But God is just, and He has to allow evil people to reap what they have sewn when their spirit returns to come before Him.
For centuries mega millions of people have been maligned and murdered just because they were more meek and righteous, (the case of Cain and Abel repeating itself), were Christian, or were less prepared than the demonic armed invaders. And it all begins with hate speech, hard speeches, a demonizing of the people they want to destroy. Nero, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Gangis Khan, Hitler, and many evil ones have attacked God and his people verbally and the final product progresses on to massive murders.
A side note, those that wear Che Guevara (or any dictator) shirts and sympathize with those who did ‘hard speeches’, in my opinion, will be judged as murderers even though each of them may personally have not killed physically: the problem is this person is not worshipping our saving God of love offering forgiveness by Jesus and is idolizing a murderer instead! This is an unforgiveable idolatry promoting evil ideologies which incite evil deeds. On earth there is never justice so God has to sort it out in the final judgement. Even if the law condemns and executes a person for murder, if this person killed ten people, how can you kill them ten times? Those who mock and speak against God will not escape, they will pay for aliening their selves with the losing evil dark side committing unspeakable acts.
16.16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage.
As Christians we define how we live as walking in the spirit. This means that we, as Paul, are “content with any state we are in, prospered or abased.” Those in the world walk in the flesh, being carnal and they are never happy with anything always wanting more! In other words everything is always all about them and what they can get in life to feed their pocketbook or pride. These kinds have big mouths too.
In the workplace, and even in some churches, or everywhere you go there will always be vocal complainers, and no matter what you do for them, they will never be happy and always complain. Do you know people like this? Their lusts may not just be sexual perversions, it is more frequently power, money, and pride. To affirm their positions over others, they always degrade others verbally and do illegal tricks to gain a power advantage. These types create their own personality cult, and people admire them as they have a cool and smoothness. But the outer skin hiding the putridness inside!
By their outrageous and bold words, they deceive others to think that they are leaders and popular charismatic voices. These types of ungodly people in power positions get admirers by accusing others of what they are guilty of. They may say, “Hate…(fill in the blank who or what)…because these are evil one(s) wanting power” but when doing a reality check, these are the ones passionately lusting for power and money! They will say anything and do any crime to get what they want. It is pure hypocrisy and Jesus had no mercy on hypocrites!
Please, as Christians, wise up! Ask God for discernment and the Holy Spirit to free you from any and all of these evil influences from the spirit world or from the current world. The truth will set you free, but if you are not fully attached to the rock of Jesus, you will suffer as these evil powers are out to deceive and destroy and hook you into supporting them. Only Jesus can save us from the deception of these complainers.
17.17 But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.
Here we are reminded of many previous New Testament verses such those shared by Paul, John, and Peter. Jesus shared powerful messages concerning the condition of people when the end is near and those that have Jesus have the spirit of prophecy to keep reminding others of how it will be. Revelation 19:10 (b), and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
A person who mocks another is one that is prideful and malicious, one who seeks to discredit and tear down everything you or another may stand for, believe, or proclaim. There is nothing more annoying than a vulgar mocker! These are voices from Satan himself seeking always to attack and destroy what is good, fair, righteous, Godly, and Christlike. These people are the example of the epidemy of hypocrisy!
Mockers, comedians, activists, politicians and any loud bitter vocal source always have dark souls and hide many secrets concerning their own personal corruption which frequently is, amongst greed, pride and other things, a sexual perversion of some type. How many hundreds of times have we read about this in the news, how some abusive boastful mocker falls from stardom due to his or her ungodly perversions and lusts?
18. 19 ‘These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit’. What does it mean to separate yourself? It means you withdrawn from the main society, which usually functions with normal productive law abiding people just trying to survive, and create a separate class designed for the promotion of something sinful or prideful.
Since the 1960s in the U.S.A. we have seen lots of these types of movements of people who gather a few thousand people together who want to inordinately demand respect, acceptance, and promotion of something un-natural, something which contradicts the word of God. Demanding a unified acceptance making their selves separate from the average majority is preposterous! But splinter groups that seek to divide to conquer have always played an evil role since the beginning of time.
‘Sensual’ means of the flesh, when speaking of sensuality it includes excessive consumption of something or an obsession with something carnal, such as sex or any lust. People obsessed with anything block out their spiritual perceptions and are clueless on accepting, receiving, or understanding wisdom from God. They do not have God’s Spirit and they are blind. They are like a television with no antenna, capable of displaying nothing but worthless distortion. Separated groups, being elites, mafias, perverts, or whatever are in the end serving Satan’s purposes, so beware.
19. 20 ‘But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,’ The assumption here is that you are aware of all of the evil mentioned in the verses above, that you are on a reverse path into making yourselves faithful and holy.
The only hope for the world, or any of us, is to repent and undo all that is drowning out the voice of God in our lives. We must build day after day a new vessel concentrating on Jesus and the faith as our foundation to make spiritual progress towards become truly good so we are not overcome by our own lusts and sins as those of the world are.
You and I must constantly ask for the Holy Spirit to reveal to us our faults and allow the Spirit to burn away all the ugly binding chains of any evil controlling our lives because sin brings with it consequences including death due to its damage. Daily prayer is a must to connect with God’s Holy Spirit! Prayer and God’s word gives us discernment!
20.21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
This goes along with the doctrine of the Salvation Army and many other churches that we must “keep”, or maintain ourselves in the love of God, and only by faithfulness to the end can we keep salvation. How can you and I do that? By staying connected daily which is done by the study of His Word, prayer, fellowship, and by practicing our faith loving God and others as ourselves and getting out there in the community to ‘do something’!
And, “looking for the mercy of our Lord”, is a must for you and me, all the time! We are just human and it is so easy to make mistakes, to get prideful, carnal, lazy, or fall into something wrong. It is only by Jesus’ mercy that we can have a chance of changing ourselves into being like He is which is loving, holy, and merciful! Sad that many Christians become unloving, unholy, and unmerciful overtime (or they never were!) because they get overconfident and disconnected to Jesus. No Bible study and prayer time results in no acts of kindness to help those suffering, and this is a dead faith.
And as we daily ask the Lord to guide us and practice showing mercy on others as we want mercy on ourselves, we must continue on the path to eternal life. To have eternal life we must make a strong effort to remain connected to the source of this eternal life, which is Jesus. He is the eternal life giving trunk on the vine and we are the branches.
21. 22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Here is always the question, how do you and I know who we should have mercy on and who not to? I think it is better to always err on the side of too much compassion than too little. Christians and pastors face it all the time, we meet people who failed in their missions, people who fell back into their past sins, and we really have to pray to understand their motive for wanting to be back in our fellowships. Is it because they want another chance to do good, or is it they are just in need of something we have and they are good only while they get what they need?
When you give things time, the truth comes out! We can make a difference, and an exception, with some as they will do their best to start living like Jesus wants, and God does wants us all healed and restored. Those that deserve compassion are those that start producing good fruit: there comes to light evidence that they are conforming their lives according to God’s love and Jesus commands.
Fear does change us! I am reminded of a scene from the movie ‘Lean On me’ where the principle takes a student getting caught with drugs all the time up to the roof of the school building and he says to him, “Jump, just finish off your life!”. The kid is scared and confused and the principle goes on to explain that if he keeps up with the drugs he is going to die at any moment, so why not just kill yourself now? He made the point! Sometimes you and I need a near death experience to wake us up to repent so we see how evil our flesh is and get saved forcefully as out of a scorching fire surrounding us!
22. 24 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
One of my first fears when I started down this path of serving God was that of failing. Everyone gets attacked when they serve God! It comes in the form of discouragement, betrayal, weariness in well doing or being burnt out, a lack of being appreciated, and often a lack of love by those around you. I always thought, well if Jesus kept on being faithful anyway then I can trust in Him to keep me keeping on too!
In the end all the harsh, unfair, and abrasive things that rub upon us serve to polish us, as a stone gets shiny and polished, to be of more use to the Lord. Years of faithful service are not a vacation! They contain moments of extreme ups and downs, and by these we learn to trust in God and be closer to Him more perfected all the time.
The idea is we want to be faultless, perfected, and holy when we get graduated to heaven and we meet God. We don’t want to have to face God with shame, with some explaining to do over our bad behavior (in judgement time!), we want to face God with extreme joy because we made it to heaven with faithfulness and good works.
23. 25 To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
What a beautiful way to end this chapter! It’s recognizing God as the One who makes us wise, the One who saves us eternally, the One who deserves glory and majesty, rule and power for ever and ever!
It says, ‘Both now and ever’, which is significant because this implies all of these good things are a part of us as of ‘now’. We don’t have to wait for heaven to be praising and honoring God and Jesus! Already, learning of all of His wise teachings and warnings, just by studying His Word, we are in Him! His word seems harsh in parts, warning of how evil doers will reap back evil on themselves, but this confirms how God is good!
God’s desire is to liberate us from all evil and it will be that way one day after His return! Stay faithful day by day and in the end you will see that you had remained faithful until the end of your whole life! With joy beyond words we will live eternally with our loving Savior and friend who had been with us all the time!
