Jude, along with James are the half brothers of Jesus. They both didn't believe that their older brother was the Messiah, until they saw Him again after He was resurrected! That would make anyone believe!
Both served as leaders of the early Church. In fact, James was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem, and even Peter followed James' directives regarding church affairs.
The main purpose of the short, but impactful book, is to warn of the last days where apostasy or falling away is prevalent before the return of Christ.
Jude
(v.1) As I've noted in earlier books, there are three stages of salvation (Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification). Here, Jude shows us three aspects to our salvation:
Called ~ The Father chose us for Himself, and called us to Him John 15:16
Sanctified ~ Because the Son died for us, we are being purified, or sanctified to be like Him while on this earth. John 14:23
Preserved ~ Once we are saved, we are always saved! The Holy Spirit works in our lives and teaches us and guides us! Acts 12:5
(v.6) We go all the way back to Gen 6:4 where the fallen angels, the Nephilim, mated with the daughters of men, and made hybrid offspring. These end up being almost superhuman, and are giants who stand over 9 feet tall...Goliath was one.
The focus of this verse, is that the angels gave up their heavenly powers, and became earth-dwellers and mated with humans. This was against what God made them for, and they are damned to hell with Satan for it.
(v.7) As in Romans 1 we see that God considers homosexuality and other immoralities as sinful acts and lifestyles. Again, God loves the sinner, but hates the sin...we are to do the same. We should pray for those trapped in the destructive lifestyle of homosexuality, and give them love and support.
Remember, Sodom and Gomorrah's sin was the tolerance of vast homosexuality and perversion, which is contrary to the family unit. God wants us to live as families, raising children to know Him and serve Him. Homosexuality, divorce and other sins work against God's institution of marriage.
(v.8) This should hit all of us hard! We all speak ill of our leaders...whether at work or in politics. We are to pray for them, and when given the chance, vote them out if they don't govern according to God's Word.
(v.9) We are to let God take care of evil...we can stand up for good, but we should let God judge the evil doers. The high angels, the Archangels, are the most powerful of them all. We only know of three named Archangels in the Bible: Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer.
As we saw in Colossians 1:15 where Jesus was called the firstborn over all creation, the word used for firstborn is Arche. This word, in Greek, means architect or authority. So the Archangels have authority over all the other angels...just like Christ is the architect of all creation, and has the authority over all of it!
So even Michael, a mighty Archangel, didn't condemn or judge Lucifer...he lets God do that! We should learn from that and realize our limitations, and let God to the heavy lifting!
(v.11) Here are the three DON'TS of the Bible:
The Way of Cain ~ Jealousy and pride caused Cain to murder his own brother Gen 4:3-8
The Way of Baalam ~ Used deceit and the love of money to cause believers to stumble 2 Peter 2:15
The Way of Korah ~ Pride caused the people of Korah to rebel against Moses and Aaron. Num 16:1-3
(v.12) Twice dead is important here...if we accept Christ as our LORD and Savior, we are saved from the second death...spiritual death.
(v.14) This is regarded as the oldest prophecy by man, Enoch predicting the Church coming with Christ to rid the world of evil. Of course, Jesus does all the work, but we get to join Him!
(v.24) Thank you Jesus!!!
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