Stay Faithful
Jude was clearly humble, but that's not the point of his letter. He wrote the letter to plead with the people of the church to stay faithful. In fact, most of us know the book in the Bible, the Acts of the Apostles, about the early church. But this letter of Jude has been described by someone as the act of the apostates.
An apostate is someone who professes to be a believer, seems to be one, but who turns away from the faith, showing that they were never true believers to begin with. And Judas is often used to illustrate an apostate.
He was going along with Jesus but turned away. Betrayed Jesus. People called the letter of Jude the act of the apostate because he ferociously warns against these people.
Warning Against Apostasy
Verse 4: “Certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ.” Verse 8: “These ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and heap abuse on celestial beings.” Verse 16: “These people are grumblers and fault finders. They follow their own evil desires and boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”
Have you seen this in the world today? The standard of morals has declined so drastically in the last 30 years. Even the modern church often says, “Well, if God loves you, you can just do what you like, be who you want to be.”
Jude spoke of people who pervert the grace of God as a license for immorality and follow their own desires. He was deeply concerned that the church—the people of God who were saved by Jesus—were being led astray by apostate teachers. And so he pleads with them: stay faithful, stay faithful. Live lives that honor God. Don't use grace as an excuse to do evil.
God's Grace Misused
That reminds me of a true story told by A.M. Hills, the great holiness preacher. Let me read it to you. Some years ago a man by the name of Sam Holmes committed a great crime. He had a friend, Mr. Young, who was also an intimate friend of the governor of Kentucky. One time Mr. Young went to the governor and said, “Can I ask you a favor just for my sake?” The governor said, “For you, anything. What is it?” He said, “I want you to pardon out of prison my friend Sam Holmes—for my sake.” The governor said, “For your sake I will give that pardon,” and he wrote the pardon for Sam Holmes.
Mr. Young took it and thanked him, and went to the state prison. He got to Sam Holmes' cell and had a talk with him, and in the course of the conversation he said, “What would you do if Governor Blackburn should pardon you?” His friend answered, “I would go straight to Lancaster and kill Judge Owlsley for sentencing me.” Mr. Young turned pale, said a few words, bade him goodbye, and then passed out of the cell. And as the cell door locked behind him, he turned and said, “Sam, here is a pardon from Governor Blackburn, but I cannot give it to you.” He tore it to pieces and left the prison.
Now do you see the application? When God grants us a pardon, it's not simply for our forgiveness so we can go back to our old lives of sin. Andy Stanley said, “Prayer is not about getting forgiveness for past sins so you can empty your sin bucket and go out and fill it up again.”
Jude was warning his people about this, saying: don’t use the grace of God for immorality, but instead, build yourselves up in the faith. Verses 20–21: “Keep yourselves in God’s love.”
Staying Faithful Daily
And so, friends, keep yourselves in God’s love. Read the Bible, be dedicated to your faith, pray much, have a passion for holiness, for goodness, for living lives that honor God.
Because we don’t want to be those who fall away from the faith and follow our own desires. We want to be those who are found to be faithful—even to the very end.
