The Value of Reminders

Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all … Jude 5a

Isn’t that interesting? Jude knows that what he is about to say is known to his readers already. He knows they have it down pat. Perhaps they could write the next few sentences for him … so familiar are they with what he is about to say. And yet, in spite of that; and perhaps at the risk of having them say: ‘Here he goes again’ … Jude still says “I desire to remind you”!

Next week, Lord willing, we will take time to think out the things about which Jude wanted to remind them. But today let it suffice to notice that he wanted to remind them. I find it instructive that the great early church leader found it necessary to say some things twice, three times, and more. He found it necessary to re-go-over the same territory which he knew his listeners had heard umpteen times before. It did not bother him to remind them, again, of the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, or of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And the fact that he didn’t mind reminding them is, conveniently, a reminder to us!

Jude’s reminders are a reminder that reminders are not a bad thing! Did you get that? It’s not a bad thing for us to hear the same old Bible stories again and again; or to hear sermons on the same old themes again and again! Precisely because we are forgetful! That is not to say that we will easily forget the story, say, of David and Goliath. But we are very prone to forget to apply its truths to our lives, are we not? If we weren’t, we’d never fret when faced with difficulties, now would we?

Similarly, we will surely not soon forget how God delivered His people from slavery in Egypt. But we may forget that not all of them actually entered the Promised Land. And we may forget what that means for us: namely that we must press on in faith – not turning back; and not simply experiencing an initial exciting religious flourish!

And, of course, we will not forget that Jesus died for our sins. We won’t forget the cross, and the whips, and the thorns, and the tomb, and the resurrection! We won’t forget that Jesus died so that we might be forgiven and set right with God! But we may forget to apply those facts to our daily lives. That is to say that we may live, for many days, as though our relationship with God depended upon how well we’re doing this week; how often we read our Bible; how well we behaved, and so on. O, I know we know better. But we still sometimes carry on this way just the same. And, after a week of feeling defeated and discouraged and distant from God, how wonderful it can be to walk into church on Sunday morning and hear the same old story of Jesus, and of free grace, and of justification by faith and not by works of the law! How wonderful a reminder can be … even if we what we have forgotten was not necessarily the truth itself, but simply its daily application to our lives!

So remember this in days ahead, when your pastor seems to be re-covering the same ground, sometimes Sunday after Wednesday after Sunday after Wednesday. It’s not a bad thing. We all need reminding of the same old things sometimes … and especially of ‘the old, old story of Jesus and His love.’

Heretics and Heresies

The bulk of the book of Jude is a warning concerning heresies and heretics. But what do those words mean? Well, a heresy is a false theological belief that, if held, damns a person. And a heretic is the person who believes such a thing. For instance, if a person claims that there is more than one God; or that Jesus was only a mere man; or that we may be saved by our good works … that person is a heretic. Because what he or she believe means that he cannot possibly saved. That is a heresy. It’s not simply a matter of a person being wrong, say, on the mode of baptism, or on the unfolding of the end times, or even regarding spiritual gifts. A heresy is not just an incorrect belief. It’s an incorrect belief that damns a person; a belief that is in no way compatible with biblical Christianity. So Jehovah’s Witnesses are heretics, but some of the most wild-eyes charismatics (even with all their sad mistakes) are not. And we must be careful to make a distinction.

It’s a distinction that is important in the book of Jude. The men Jude has in mind, as he levels condemnations in the middle portion of the book, are not just men who have a few things out of place in their theology. They are men who, because of what they believe (or fail to believe) are going to hell. And they are men who are intent on dragging others there with them!

So what does Jude say about such heresies and heretics? Four things in Jude 4:

First, Jude says heretics and heresies often creep into the church “unnoticed”. In other words, it’s not simply that we have Mormons or Unitarians out there, but that often times heresies creep up inside the church, and rear their ugly heads before anyone realizes what is happening. Now, of course, that fact speaks to the cunning of the devil. But it also speaks to each local church’s need to be careful about who becomes a member, and who does the teaching. It’s why we have a process that all new members must go through. We want to have as few unnoticed heresies and heretics creep in as possible.

Second Jude says that heretics and heresies should be no surprise. God knew about them “long beforehand”. And Jude himself tells us that they will creep in. So we shouldn’t be naïve. Heretics and heresies will try and nestle into the membership of our church, and bring as many people to hell with them as they can. So we must be vigilant. And we must not think, ‘O, this could never happen in our church’ and thus turn a blind eye to what we know is false, because ‘it just can’t be. He surely doesn’t mean what it sounds like he means.’

Third, Jude informs us that heretics and heresies are licentious. Specifically, they “turn the grace of our God into licentiousness.” They say, in other words: ‘We’re saved by grace, not works. And so it doesn’t matter so much how we live. In fact, all this talk about living a holy life is just legalism!’ Heretics love that argument. And we must beware of it!

Finally, Jude tells us that heretics and heresies “deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” That is to say that most heresies (but not all!) stem from false beliefs about Jesus Himself. Some believe that He was just a mere man (as in the JW’s, and the liberal Protestants). Others, particularly in the ancient world, have argued that the Messiah was no man at all. Perhaps Jesus was a man, they say; but the Christ was someone different; a separate spirit that simply came upon the man Jesus, but was not a man itself. Still others, like the Mormons, call Jesus God … but believe that He is no more god than you and I may someday be; and certainly not one and equal with the Father.

There are many heresies in the world today. But so many begin with a failure to believe in the biblical Jesus. And so we must be all the more careful to know our theology; to understand the Trinity; to be students of the scriptures … lest we be carried away by a doctrine that we don’t even realize is damnable; lest we (perhaps even with good intentions) end up denying “our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ”!

Contention is Necessary

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. (Jude 3)

‘The reason I am not a Christian is because church folks always seem to be fussing and fighting about something.’ Ever heard anyone say that? Admittedly, it’s often just a cop-out. For, in many cases, the person who makes such a complaint has darkened the door of the church so few times that he has no idea on earth what church people are ‘always’ doing. And yet, for some folks, there is a real grain of truth in the complaint about church folks and their infighting. Sadly, many churches are blighted with this disease. They fight about the style of music, the color of carpet, who got elected to such-and-such an office, and who was left out. And the list could go on. But, rest assured, that is not what this article is about.

When I say (as I do above and below) that ‘contention is necessary’ in the church of Jesus Christ … I am not referring to the kind of nitpicky sparring that consumes so many churches and Christians. That kind of thing will kill a church (and I am so thankful that PRBC has been relatively free of it these last 6 years or so!). No, rather than looking for reasons to be contentious, brothers and sisters in Christ ought, like Jude, to “make every effort” to accentuate “our common salvation”; to emphasize our unity at the foot of the cross. And I find it refreshing to hear Jude say that what he really had hoped to do was to write an encouraging letter. He really did want to write his brothers and sisters about how the Lord was at work in their midst, and about what Christ had done for them all, and how God had been good to them as a church family. He really did want to write about their “common salvation”, not their causes for concern. And we will do well to always keep that desire in mind, and to “make every effort” to be like Jude ourselves.

And yet Jude also says that, in spite of his desire to be encouraging, and to bring people together … he has a fire welling up in his bones. He wants to write a nice, easy, comforting letter. But the Spirit won’t allow him. No, as he puts quill to parchment, Jude feels a “necessity” to warn his brothers and sisters in Christ; to put them on the lookout for potential problems in the church – both in the realm of proper beliefs, and of proper behavior.

And he doesn’t merely want these Christians to be aware of potential problems … but to “contend earnestly for the faith.” That is not to say he wants them to be contentious. But Jude (along the Holy Spirit who is driving his quill) wants this church (and every church) to fight for what is right – again, in belief and in behavior! He wants them to protect the church from wolves in sheep’s clothing; from dissenters who would destroy unity or lead people into false doctrine; and from so-called Christians who might destroy the church’s testimony with their unrepentant sin. And the rest of the book is largely an explanation of how and why they must fight these battles … and why we must fight them, too!

Jude really wanted to write a letter about “our common salvation”. But the Spirit constrained him, instead, to urge the church to fight for the truth; to contend for the faith. And both are necessary. Christians must be constantly reminding themselves to focus on their commonalities in Christ, to find equal footing beneath the cross, and to stop bickering over the church décor! But sometimes the commonalities that we share in Jesus force us to close ranks, to take up the sword of the Spirit, and to fend off enemies … both within and without. Sometimes, in order that we may protect the faith we all hold in common, contention is necessary. May God give us grace to know when it is, and when it isn’t. And may He give us grace to “contend for the faith” without being contentious.

Proverbial

That's what we have been lately. That is to say that we've mulling around in the book of Proverbs for a few Wednesdays in a row. Here are the fruits ...

Proverbs 14.30 - "A tranquil heart" - MP3
Proverbs 16.20 - "Attention to the word" - MP3
Proverbs 16.1-6 - Sovereignty, Searching, and Salvation - MP3

Hope you enjoy Solomon's wisdom ... and God's truth!

Mercy, Peace, and Love

May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you (Jude 2)

Now, admittedly, it may sound, in Jude 2, like our author is simply inserting a few religious clichés for lack of anything better to say. “Mercy”, “peace”, and “love” are words that are thrown around so meaninglessly in our day that we may think that Jude, too, is simply plugging them in here to fill a little space, or to buy himself some time until he can think of what he wants to say next. The same way we interject the same tired phrases into our prayers, time and again, for lack of anything more thoughtful to say: ‘Lead, guide, and direct us’; ‘Bless her in a special way’; ‘Bless the gift and the giver’; or, ‘Forgive us where we fail Thee’; and so on!

But surely, guided by the Holy Spirit, the half-brother of the Lord is not merely throwing away words, is he? Surely we can’t just skim over Jude 2, thinking to ourselves: ‘Mercy, peace, and love. Well, all the apostles say something like that at the beginning of their letters, so let’s just scuttle along to verse 3 to find out what Jude’s really on about in this letter.’ No. If Jude wishes us mercy, peace, and love … then we ought to receive it! And we ought to think about what each of those words mean!

What a blessing that Jude (and the Holy Spirit in back of him) wishes us “mercy.” What is mercy? Well, in definition form, it’s when someone does something for you that you cannot do for yourself. In picture form, it’s the Good Samaritan sliding off his donkey and onto his knees to bandage the wounds of the fallen traveler in Luke 10. It’s Boaz leaving out extra scraps of grain for poverty stricken Ruth to stumble across as she scavenges for food. And it is the Lord coming, in human flesh, to the earth ... to live a sinless life that we ourselves have not lived; to die in our place; and to rise from the dead so that we too might walk in newness of life. He has bent down to do for us what we could never do for ourselves – rescuing us from sin’s penalty, and it’s power. He has set us free from Satan’s bondage so that we, like Hosea’s wife Gomer, don’t have to go back to our prostitution. That’s “mercy”! And that’s not just a throw away word!

And then there is “peace”. And, O, all the things the Bible says to believers regarding peace! Most importantly, because Jesus bore God’s wrath in our place, we have peace with God. And, not only that, but in Christ we also have peace with God's people. By adopting us all into one big family, Christ broke down the wall between Jew and Gentile, black and white, slave and free. None of those categories matter a whit to us if we belong to one and the same Father! And then, of course, the gospel also offers us the peace of God … namely the contentment and tranquility that can be ours if we’ll just be child-like with the Lord; if we’ll just believe that He really will do what He says and provide all our needs according to His riches in glory. What a difference Christ makes. He settles us. He calms us. He, if we will simply take Him at His word and keep our hearts staid upon Him, puts our hearts in perfect peace!

And it’s all because of “love”. Why did God send His Son? Why is He so merciful? Why has He made peace with us by the blood of Jesus’ cross? Not because He is obligated! And certainly not because we deserve it. But simply because of His great love for us! What else could motivate Him to forgive all that He forgives … at the cost of His Son’s blood and tears? What else can we say but that this God must love us immensely? His affection for His people knows no explanation, and has no motivation, and comes from no other origin except that God, very simply, is love!

Do you know His love? Have you experienced the mercy of Christ? Do you have peace with God, and with His people, and with your circumstances? Jude prays that you would … in “multiplied” measure! And so do I!