JUDGMENT REMINDERS (PART 8)

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

Jude 1:17-19

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Over the past seven messages, we have found Jude, the half brother of Jesus, warning the first century Christian church about those who were ungodly in their midst, those who may be hanging out within the congregation but had no intent of surrendering their will to the way of the Lord. And as we have seen, Jude has called out many character traits of these ungodly people to make them easily identifiable to someone in Christ. He has also made it clear that the ungodly would face God’s judgment and punishment for rejecting and disrespecting Him.

Today, in the penultimate message of this series, we see that the plight of the ungodly would not stop in the early years of the Christian church but rather range all the way to the “last times”, those times preceding Jesus’ promised return to judge all creation, sending unbelievers to Hell while ushering His followers into the new Heaven and earth where they would abide with Him and His Father in the glory of a New Jerusalem. Let’s look again at these words found in verses 17 through 19:

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

Here, we find Jude reminding his “dear friends, his brothers and sisters in Christ about words spoken by Jesus’ apostles. They warned about future “scoffers” who would “follow their own ungodly desires” which is a sinful quality we have already read earlier in this letter. For the ungodly have no interest in carrying out the desires of God. This is because their wants are more important to them as well as more important to Satan who breeds this mindset within their hearts and minds.

Given this, I think we can see how the ungodly can divide a church because their self centered motivations run completely counter to the self sacrificing ways of Jesus, the ways that Christians adopt and model in their own lives.

Further, while the behavior of the ungodly is driven by their “mere natural instincts”, the Christian believer is led by the power of the Holy Spirit who conveys the way and will of God to them. This Spirit is obviously absent in the lives of the ungodly because to obtain it, one must believe in Jesus and that’s something that an unbeliever has refused to do.

In saying this, we do see a glimmer of hope found in this passage. For anyone who is ungodly sits on the brink of experiencing God’s grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love. They are right on the edge of a sure everlasting salvation that rescues them from the eternal damnation of Hell.

All they need to do is believe in Jesus as their Savior.

That’s it. The ungodly can become godly just like that.

If you’ve been reading this series and realized where you are in relation to your eternal destiny, holding a ticket to Hell by stonewalling God so you can satisfy your own whims (which are really the whims of the devil), then I urge you to change your future now because once you die, it’s too late and no one knows when their last day on earth will be.

Believe in Jesus, change your identity from being ungodly to being a Christian and child of God, and experience the peace and hope that comes in knowing you are saved and assured a place in Heaven.

This is my prayer for every single unbelieving person in our world today and I ask my brothers and sisters in Christ to join me in this prayer, not just today but every day after.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.