“Our baptism service was amazing this morning” was the text I received last night from one of my Pastors. I know I will be blessed this morning by getting similar reports from other churches. God is good. The church as I see it is growing and is blessing the community around with the love of God. But we do face challenges and these are similar to the ones of 2,000 years ago as Jude writes his letter to the church. There are church leaders bowing to the pressure of the world and leading the people astray with an understanding of the gospel that was certainly not passed down to them. Beliefs have changed and as a result behaviour has changed all under the banner that God loves all. Jude speaks into this with a direct challenge to those who pervert the grace of God and deny the Lordship of Jesus by saying you will be punished. God delivers but He destroys (as the Wilderness years/Exodus shows us); God creates and He holds in chains for eternal damnation (as the fallen angels reveal); and now:-
“In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 7)
It’s not easy reading is it? Some don’t read it and some don’t believe it. That’s the easy option.
Jude tells it as it is about the God we worship.
If blessed as we are with what God has given us in this world abuse that blessing by demanding to be able to live our life as we please then we desecrate the goodness of God.
Sodom and Gomorrah were 2 cities that were great places to live because of the blessing of God but they took that blessing and used it for their own sinful purposes. They abandoned their Creator and turned their lives into self-service becoming masters of their own destiny. However their destiny ended with fire and punishment.
The Church need to heed these words. Especially those who stand behind the pulpits and peddle a gospel that wasn’t handed down to them. If these people do not stop twisting the truth to suit the demands of the created then they will face punishment, whether they believe in the punishment of eternal fire or not. That’s not only some creed but it is what Jude writes. It is the Bible.
Missions Paul 