February 4, 2024: Jude 24-25 - To God our Savior be the Glory!

“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, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.” - Jude 24-25

In his concluding words of his brief but very powerful and prophetic book, the next to the last book of the Bible, which immediately precedes Revelation, the last book of the Bible, after having being compelled to warn us of what is to come in the latter times, the last time of humanity, when deceivers will secretly invade the church to deceive the willfully ignorant masses who remain in their congregations, Jude now turns his attention to Jesus. Jude acknowledges that it is only through the power of Jesus Christ that we as believers in Him, having put our faith and trust in Him to save us from our wretched sins, can keep us from falling, which I believe means to keep us from abandoning our faith in Him. If we truly are saved, we will not depart from the faith. The ones who will depart from the faith are those who are not truly saved, even though they may think they are saved. The fact is the ones who depart from the faith have not believed in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation of sins and had a false conversion. They may have “walked the aisle” during an altar call but did not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior. They may have been sitting in a church for years but never once put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone to save them from their sins. The only way that one can be redeemed of all of their sins is to be born again, as Jesus explained to a ruler of the Jews named Nicodemus:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles [signs] that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again [or from above] he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth [wishes], and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:1-8)

Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus meant and continued in his questioning of Jesus:

“Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master [teacher] of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that [what] we do know, and testify that [what] we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:10-18)

Every human being is made of flesh and is born of water. When we are in our mother’s womb, we are enclosed in a bag of waters, which breaks at some point prior to our being born. However, every human being is not saved from our sins because only those who have been born again, born of the Holy Spirit, are saved. We are only born of the Holy Spirit when we believe in Jesus Christ, whom God sent so that whomever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. From the moment we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we are filled with the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us from that point forward. Many people like to say we are all children of God. That is simply not true. What is true is that while we are all made in the image of God, only those who are saved by Jesus are called “children of God”:

“But as many as received him [Jesus], to them gave he power [the right] to become the sons [children] of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh [became flesh], and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:12-14)

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Romans 8:14-17)

Sadly, there are many people who go to church with the wrong motivations in their heart. They are not seeking to be saved from their sins but they want something else, something that feeds them temporarily but still leaves them empty. This is what happened to some of the 5,000 men and also women and children who, after having seen Him perform miracles and had healed people who had diseases, went to seek Jesus and found Him on a mountain. “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.” (Matthew 14:14) It was late in the day and Jesus’ disciples came to Him and said He should send the people away so they could get something to eat.

“But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. And they say unto Him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.” (Matthew 14:16-21)

Afterwards, Jesus went to pray by Himself and from there went to Capernaum. The people who had been fed went looking for Jesus and found Him. They asked Him why He had gone there:

“Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles [signs], but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat [food] which perisheth, but for that meat [food] which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” (John 6:27)

They then asked Jesus what work they must do and Jesus answered them:

“Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then [will you perform], that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” (John 6:28-33)

There is nothing we can do to be saved except to believe in our heart that Jesus is the Christ, the one whom God Himself sent. Notice in the Scripture above that Jesus told them it wasn’t Moses who had fed them the bread from heaven but God Himself who fed them, and it is He also who gives them the true bread from heaven: Jesus the Christ. How many people are seeking the true bread from heaven? How many of the same people 5,000+ people who witnessed Jesus perform miracles by healing sick people and feeding a large number of people from only five loaves of bread and two fish would later shout, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him” (John 19:15) before Jesus was taken to be crucified at Golgotha? How many of these people would lay at the feet of Jesus as He hung, nailed to the cross? Sadly, our world today is no different from them. Most people do not want the real Jesus. They do not want to hear that He is the only way to God the Father, that no one comes to Him except through Jesus. They do not want to be told that they must come out of their sinful lifestyles, just as Jesus told the woman caught in the act of adultery, “…go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11). They don’t want to hear the words of Jesus telling them, as He told the adulterous woman, to come out of the darkness and walk in the light:

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

No, they want to hear that God approves of their sin and it’s okay for them to remain in it, with some using as an excuse that they were born that way. In part, they are speaking the truth: we are all born with sin. However, God does not us to remain in sin, to continue to walk in darkness, but to know that we are all sinners in need of the Savior, to turn to Him and have His light guiding our life. That is true for all kinds of sin. When we walk in darkness, we are letting sin rule over us instead of having the light and saving power of Jesus rule over us. We must choose whether we will remain in sin, remain in darkness, letting it rule over us, or we will let the light of Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, rule in our life:

“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved [exposed]. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.” (Jesus Christ; John 3:19-21)

The Lord God knows that while we are still on earth in our fleshly bodies, we will sometimes sin. However, our lives should change overall when we have truly trusted in Jesus for our salvation. We should begin to sin less and less. When we do sin, we ask God to forgive us and to help us not to commit that same sin repeatedly in our lives. We learn to walk by the Spirit who dwells within us and not by our fleshly, lustful desires:

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Galatians 5:16-17)

Any pastor, preacher, teacher, reverend, etc., who knows the word of God and what it says absolutely should not tell us to submit to our lustful desires that we once did before we were saved by Jesus by believing in Him for our salvation but that we should put off those desires. However, the deceivers and imposters who have infiltrated many churches today are doing the exact opposite! They are telling people it’s okay to remain in them, to walk in their fleshly, lustful desires, and they are speaking lies from the Devil!

We all have something that is a stumbling block for us but we should not let it rule our lives, nor should we think that we can rewrite the Bible to accommodate our sin. Sadly, that is exactly what is happening in our world today. Deceivers and imposters have infiltrated and saturated the church and are deceiving many who are seeking a false God, one who approves of their sins. These deceivers and imposters have created a false God and a false Jesus and are leading many into the wide gate that leads to destruction. They are being led not by God but by Satan. The Bible tells us that Satan transforms himself in order to deceive and so do those deceivers who follow him:

“And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed [transforms himself] into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)

Jesus warned us about them:

“Enter ye in at the strait [narrow] gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening [ravenous] wolves.” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 7:13-15)

“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils [demons]? and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity [lawlessness].” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 7:21-23)

The apostle John wrote of them:

“Little children, it is the last time [hour]: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time [hour]. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. But ye have an unction [anointing] from the Holy One, and ye know all things. I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: [but] he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.” (1 John 1:18-23)

It is these people that the Bible describes as being part of a great apostasy that will occur before the final Antichrist, the man of sin is revealed:

“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing [deceiving] spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:1-4)

“Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

We who truly are in Christ, who know that we are sinners and who have put our faith and trust in Him alone to save us from our sins and who have been filled with His Holy Spirit, will remain in the faith and will not depart from it. That doesn’t mean our lives are easy. No, I would venture to say that for most of us, our lives became more difficult after we were saved because we are persecuted for our faith in Jesus Christ. But we persevere through the hard times by our faith in Jesus. We walk in the Spirit. We remember the words of Jesus. We remember the words of Paul, who was severely persecuted for his faith in Jesus, and we keep our attention on Jesus:

“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify [put to death] therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence [desire], and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: in the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” (Colossians 3:1-10)

We have come to the end of the book of Jude. This has been a challenge for me to write these devotionals because they seem to be filled with bad news about the church. However, we know that Jude and other prophets wrote about it so that we would be warned of what is to come in the latter times, that many false pastors and teachers will infiltrate the church and many professing Christians will depart from the faith. Because we know this truth, we must guard our hearts and our minds so that we are not deceived by the lies of Satan and by those who have chosen to follow him, the god of this world, instead of Jesus Christ, the one sent by God the Father, to save all who believe in Him. But there is good news - glorious news - for we who are born again by His precious blood: We will achieve victory over sin and death through Him! We will one day be with Him in all His glory, and oh, what a day that will be!

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record [testimony] that God gave of his Son. And this is the record [testimony], that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:4-13)

“Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons [children] of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons [children] of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” (1 John 3:1-3)

“According to his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love: in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:3-9)

“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17) ✝️