Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Mockers
Jude 1:3
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
As I have been writing this week a friend pressed me into reading the New Testament letter written by the apostle Jude. Jude, a very short letter, is a general letter to the church urging Christians to observe that the faith was under attack from the inside and that they needed to fight and defend it.
Read the entire letter of Jude in one go as you would a letter sent to you. What is immediately striking is that Jude placed the responsibility on the believers to contend for and defend the authentic faith that we have received.
In the prevailing culture, the body at large has surrendered the responsibility for authenticity to the preachers, and so when the preacher is in error or is deliberately misleading for their own ends many lives are shipwrecked as a result.
Dr Luke, in chronicling the engagements between the apostle Paul and the new believers on his missionary journeys, made a comment about the Berean believers that is now very common knowledge. “These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” Acts 17:10.
With Paul’s credentials and reputation, one would have assumed raw excitement, much clapping, and hallelujah shouting whenever Paul made a declaration under the anointing, and that all he said would have been simply accepted. However, not so in Berea. The believers were definitely open to the move of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of Paul, but they also wanted to be sure that they could, through the scriptures, verify that Paul was doctrinally sound. If they, to use a modern term, fact-checked Paul, who are the present ministers that we could just say what we like unchecked.
Paul himself regularly challenged the leaders under him to pay attention to sound doctrine, to Titus he wrote “in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.” Titus 2:7,8.
The Bereans, therefore, offer the best example for believers in the exercise of our individual and collective responsibility to keep our ministers and leaders in check. We must examine for ourselves, the word that is preached against the eternal word that is written.
Coming back to Jude, he lays down for us the reason why we have to be so diligent. People are creeping into the church with their own motives and agenda and are subverting the saints with their trickery. Jude draws examples from both biblical and extra-biblical history to demonstrate how prevalent this practice is so that we might remain on our guard against it.
Not so long ago I was sitting with a group of Christians who were hurting as a result of being misled, abused emotionally and sexually, robbed financially, and then discarded by their leader at whose feet they sat for years to be taught the scriptures and a life of fidelity to God.
I was surprised by how badly they had been abused because they are all intelligent people, many of them well educated and well placed professionally. But as they described the subtle grooming over the years it was clear that this enticement to sin was almost imperceptible. Later, though, it became obvious that the first deception that they were led to was that believing the man of God was all that was required. With that faith in him, he was able to twist the scripture, leading them into sin and his gratification as he went.
Here is what Jude wrote, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 1:4.
Jude, like the apostle Peter in his second letter, is challenging this development in the Church. It is amazing that all of this took place while the first apostles were still alive and active in ministry and church management. But it happened then and it is still happening now and we the body of believers have to be on guard against it and fight it whenever we see it raise its ugly head.
Titus told them that they were warned. “But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.” Titus 1:17. We, today, are warned too, and we have seen this happen over and over.
It may be useful to ask how this happens in the church today when we have all that is at our disposal. The answer to that question would be simple, these mockers are using the age-old techniques that bring down the gullible and the careless. They have the advantage now of cloaking those techniques in a veneer of digital sophistication. “These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.” Titus 1:16.
Think on these things:
- How diligent are you in checking sermons, especially from persons who are not your regular preachers, against the biblical texts?
- Do you have a good enough understanding of the basic beliefs you hold, and can you identify the biblical basis for these beliefs?
- How does your church choose which speakers to invite and is there ever a discussion of the things visiting speakers might have said during the meetings?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be more diligent in studying the scriptures for ourselves and not just accept preaching without testing.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
