Walking with the One who Keeps, Secures, and Sustains

Who are you Christian?  With a specific appeal to Christians threatened by the danger of an enemy who sought to use people in their lives to introduce what the Bible calls: “doctrines of demons,” intended to move those in the Church off course from the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3).  The devil and his demons are not threatened by those who claim to be Christian with their lips but deny Jesus as Master and Lord with their lives; the devil and his demons are threatened by those who are so convinced of who Jesus is that they can live no other way but to follow Him.  Jude is not the only place where we are warned of the dangers that threaten the Christian:

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” (Hebrews 3:12)

“You therefore, beloved… take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.” (2 Peter 3:17)

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons…” (1 Timothy 4:1)

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1 John 2:19)

In his parable of the four different ways people respond to the word of God as it relates to Jesus, only one type of person truly receives Jesus as Savior and Lord.  Some will hear about Jesus, but the devil, “…comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved (Luke 8:12).  Others hear about Jesus, but the “cares and riches and pleasures of life” choke out any faith they had in Jesus (Luke 8:14).  The third group Jesus described in his parable is what I believe motivated Jude to write his epistle; these people hear the truth about Jesus and receive it with joy, but because the roots of their faith do not go deep enough, “…they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away” (Luke 8:13). 

According to Jude, those who have crept into the Church unnoticed are false Christians who say they know Jesus but deny Him as Master and Lord.  Jude describes these people as ungodly people who have the appearance of religion but are rotten to the core.  They walk the way of Cain, abandon themselves for the sake of gain, and stand condemned before God.  On the outside, false teachers seem harmless, but under the surface they are deadly.  They present themselves as spiritual guides, but they are guided by their own greed.  They present themselves as alive in Jesus, but they are twice dead.  They posture themselves as holy, but they are stained by their own shame.  They say they know where they are going, but their moral and spiritual compass is broken.  Jude describes these people as “grumblers, malcontents, loud-mouthed boasters who follow their own desires” (v. 16). 

To add to this, the Church is surrounded by a culture that is anti-Christian because it is anti-Christ.  Jude’s epistle is filled with examples of how the culture of a fallen world is antagonistic towards God and His people.  To walk in such a world can be scary and intimidating, and we see this in the example Jude uses of the Hebrew people who were so intimidated by those who lived in the land God promised them, that they refused believe God and enter into the land because they bought into the lie that the threats that lived in Canaan were greater than the faithfulness of the God who promised that land to them. 

Leading up to the flood, Jude reminds us of the decline of human civilization into moral bankruptcy and unhinged violence from Cain’s murder of Abel to Lamech’s polygamy and disregard of the sanctity of life, to the harems of powerful men and their link to demonic possession and sexual deviancy.  Sometime before Noah and the catastrophic flood, we learn that Enoch walked with God.  Sometime after Enoch, Noah was born and grew up in a world and culture described in Genesis 6 as follows: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  Yet we are told that Noah was a, “a herald of righteousness…” (2 Pet. 2:5).

God’s people have been surrounded by cultures characterized by gross sexual immorality, violence, idolatry in the worst forms that often-involved child sacrifice, and the ridicule and mocking of anyone who stood apart from such evil since the days of Noah. Today, the world we find ourselves in is not all that dissimilar; the only difference is the dress being unique to the day, but underneath is the same evil. 

Today, in America, the Church finds Herself surrounded by a culture where sex is the primary god.  According to the website SexualDiversity.org, there are now 107 gender identities as of 2023.  In our world an estimated 27.6 million people are trafficked worldwide and the United States of America ranks the worst, with over half of the criminal trafficking cases in our country involving children, of whom many are sold as sex-slaves.  One of the main aggravators for child trafficking is the 97 billion-dollar Porn industry.  It is estimated that over 300,000 of America’s young population is considered at risk for sexual exploitation.[1] On top of the exploitation of America’s children is Planned Parenthood’s 2-billion-dollar abortion industry, whose main mission serves the termination of unborn babies in the United States alone.  People may not be placing their children in the red-hot arms of Molech over a fire to be sacrificed, but they are doing it in other ways!

As we have been warned by Jude, the evils of the world have a way of creeping into the community of God’s people.  Although statistically there is a difference between those who claim to be Christian and those who do not, more Christians divorce today than ever before, more approve of abortion, and more make life choices based on sexual preference then the prescription assigned by God Himself.  The dangers that faced the church in Jude’s day are the same dangers we face today, just under a different dress.  The message of Jude to the Christian is that although the dangers are real and great, the God who is greater: called us, loves us, keeps us, and protects us.  God loves us because He is our Father, God keeps us because Jesus is our Redeemer, and God protects us because the Holy Spirit seals and secures us. 

God is Keeping You

God is keeping you from something in your life, and that something is from stumbling after the false teachers.  According to the first verse in this amazing epistle, we are both “beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ…”. There are many dangers around us, but God is infinitely bigger than those dangers.  However, if you are honest with yourself, Jude’s warning to the Christians for whom his letter is addressed is frightening.  I can still see the faces of those who have been a part of my life who have fallen from the faith because they have bought into the lies of the enemy.  To think that you are immune is to demonstrate an ignorance of the examples provided to us in scripture, a foolishness that is blind to the reality of your own life. 

I read a story this week about the circus acrobat, Philippe Petit, who believed himself to be immune to failure and renowned for his walk on a tight rope between the two Word Trade Towers on August 7, 1974.  Five months later, while rehearsing for his act in St. Petersburg, Florida, he fell about thirty feet.  One witness who saw Petit fall, said that he rolled onto his stomach and began to bound the floor with his fists as he cried, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! I don’t ever fall.”^[2]  Petit suffered multiple broken bones and internal injuries that day.  Petit’s story reminds me of the hymn, Come Thou Fount, penned by Robert Robinson:

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
  Prone to leave the God I love:
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it
  With Thy Spirit from above.
Rescued thus from sin and danger,
  Purchased by the Savior’s blood,
May I walk on earth a stranger,
  As a son and heir of God.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all prone to fall, but there is one who will not allow us to fall to the point we are destroyed indefinitely.  This is what Jesus prayed for:

“And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (John 17:11–15, ESV)

God Will Finish His Work in You

God is doing something in you Christian.  He intends to present you blameless on that Day when you stand before Him.  Think about the significance of what Jude is saying here!  Job heard the voice of the Lord in response to all that he suffered, not understanding why he suffered so, we learn of his response in the final chapter of his story: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2-3, 5-6).  In response to the holiness of God, Habakkuk wrote: “I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me….” (Hab. 3:16).  On the day of judgement, we are given just a glimpse of the One who sits upon the throne recorded for us by the apostle John: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.  From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them” (Rev. 20:11).  

According to Jude, there will be one type of creature besides the heavenly hosts that will not need to recoil at His presence, and that creature will be men, women, and children redeemed by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.  Not only will we stand before the Holy One as blameless, but we will be presented before the One of whom the angels cry: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3)!  Timothy Keller said, “God invites us to come as we are, not to stay as we are.” On that day we will stand before Him fully aware that it was not by any power of our own that resulted in our presentation as blameless, but of One outside of ourselves who kept us for and by Jesus.

God is Delighting in You

Christian, as you stand before the One before whom all of heaven and earth flee, not only will you stand before Him blameless, but you will do so knowing that He delights in you!  The word that Jude chose to use to describe the joy that will be celebrated by the Almighty over every Christian literally means gladness, great joy, and exultation.  Quite literally, what Jude is saying that we will experience on that great Day that will be terrible for many, but not for us, is that God will exult over the redeemed! 

The kind of rejoicing we will experience from Yahweh is what is described by the prophet Zephaniah: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).  Christian, when you stand before God, he will not look upon you with disgust or disappointment!  He will look upon you as a Father and will exult over you with loud singing! 

Do not miss the irony in these verses in light of all that we have learned from Jude so far!  What is it that God will keep us from?  He will keep the true Christian from stumbling and falling in the manner that the false Christian and false teachers have fallen.  You will not fall because for you, Jesus is Master and Lord (v. 4).  You are kept, and the evidence that you are kept by God is because you are standing and building your life upon the Word of God, you are dependent upon the Holy Spirit, and you are eagerly waiting, “…for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life” (v. 21).  However, the one who rejects Jesus as Master and Lord, they have stumbled, and their fall has resulted in a condemnation that the prophet Daniel describes will stand before God on the day of judgment in, “…shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2).  The true Christian will not only stand before God blameless, but God, “…will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

God is Doing All Things Through Jesus

So, as an appropriate bookend to Jude’s epistle, he closes with verse 25.  Notice how he does this in light of the first two verses of his epistle.  Let me show what he does in these verses by contrasting Jude 2 with verse 24 and Jude 1 with verses 25:

Here is what we glean from Jude 2 and 25: God is keeping you because of His mercy.  God will present you blameless because you have been reconciled to Him and now have His shalom (peace).  God exults over because he loves you.  Now notice what he does in verse 1 and 25,

God called you, and because He called you, you are beloved in God the Father, and you are kept for and by Jesus Christ.  God has saved you through Jesus Christ our Lord, and what that means is simply this:  

1. God is keeping you through Jesus, and for Jesus, and by Jesus Christ.
2. God will finish His work in you through Jesus, for Jesus, and by Jesus Christ.
3. God delights in you through Jesus, for Jesus, and by Jesus Christ

This final verse is the equivalent to Jude performing a “mic drop.”  He then closes with virtues that can only be true of Yahweh and applies them also to the Son: “…glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.”  The apostle John does the same thing in Revelation 5.  If you ever question what it means to be “beloved in God the Father” you need not look any further than Revelation 5:9-13,

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” (Revelation 5:9–13)

Jude ends with the only word that feels and seems appropriate to conclude his glorious doxology and sunning epistle with, and that word is simply: “Amen.” 

[1] Andrew Keiper, Perry Chiaramonte; “Human trafficking in America among worst in world.” The Shelter for Abused Women & Children.

^[2] Helm, D. R. (2008). 1 & 2 Peter and Jude: sharing christ’s sufferings (p. 355). Crossway Books.