Jude 1:3-4 ESV
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Perverting God’s Grace
There are many people today who are ungodly, who are perverting
the grace of God into sensuality, and they are denying our only Master and
Lord, Jesus Christ. Who are they? Many of them are pastors and elders and Bible
teachers and evangelists. Some of them are politicians or sports figures or other
famous people or people of enormous influence.
And many of them are people just like you and me, just
common folk, many of whom are being deceived and who are following lies because
they sound like truth, for they are disguised as truth. Or they are following
the lies because the lies feed their flesh, and they permit them to continue
living in sin and for selfish and lustful desires while still claiming faith in
Jesus.
So, how are they doing this? Those who are promoting this
are the deceived and they are also deceivers. Many of them are “wolves in sheep’s
clothing” disguising themselves as servants of righteousness while they are
truly servants of the devil who are out to deceive the naïve and the foolish.
From the Top Down
I also believe that this deception has come from the top
down. For, there are evil people in this world in high up positions within the
government and within corporations and within the institutional church who have
willfully altered the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to deceive and to lead
people astray from pure devotion to our Lord Jesus.
And then this is passed down to our religious institutions
where future pastors are being trained, and then existing pastors are also
going through training in the modern way of doing church via church planting
and church growth seminars which are really like business seminars which teach
how to market their businesses to the world.
So, in order to market the church to the world, they have
been instructed that they must conform to the world, and that they must attract
large crowds of people from the world to their gatherings, and thus they must
change how they do church, and they must change the message of the gospel to
make it more appealing and acceptable to the people of the world.
Sin is like that. Some people make little compromises here
and there because they want this or that, and so they make compromises in order
to attain what they desire. And this has creeped into the church, largely
unnoticed, these little compromises, one at a time, which now have grown into a
large major compromise of truth and of righteousness.
The devil is very patient. For he knows if he throws too
much at us at once that we will see what he is up to if we are at all
discerning. So, he tosses in little lies here and there, and they are mixed in
with truth, and they are very subtle, and so they often go by unnoticed. If we
are not paying attention, and if we are not discerners of lies and truth, we
may not see them.
Lies Disguised as Truth
So, what are the lies that they are telling which they have
disguised to look like truth? Well, first off, they have altered the message of
the gospel by teaching that faith in Jesus Christ is a one-time event which
takes place in our lives which gives us forgiveness of sins and the hope of
eternal life with God, regardless of how we live our lives.
They are teaching or they are implying that we can believe
in Jesus Christ, have our sins forgiven, have heaven guaranteed us, but that we
don’t have to repent of our sins (turn away from them), and that we don’t have
to obey our Lord, and that we don’t have to submit to him as Lord
(owner-master) of our lives, for they say that is “works-based salvation” which
is wrong.
But the Scriptures teach our salvation as ongoing and as
something which won’t be complete until Jesus returns, and that there are
conditions we must meet in order for us to receive that salvation and eternal
life with God when he does return. For, God’s grace is not free license to
continue in sin. His grace delivers us from slavery to sin so we can live
righteously.
For, Jesus died on that cross that we might die with him to
sin and live to him and to his righteousness. He died that we might no longer
live for ourselves but for him who gave his life up for us. And he shed his
blood for us to buy us back for God so we would now honor God with our lives (1
Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15, 21; 1 Co 6:19-20).
We can’t live in self-indulgence, living for the flesh,
doing what our selfish will desires, doing what feels good even if it is wrong,
living in sin without conscience, following the passions of our flesh and our
lustful desires, regardless of consequence, and still have forgiveness of sins
and heaven as our eternal destiny (Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Gal 5:16-21; Gal
6:7-8).
For, the Scriptures teach that we must forsake our former
lives of living for sin and for self, that we must be crucified with Christ in
death to sin, that we must be transformed in heart and mind of the Spirit of
God, and that we must now walk (in conduct, in practice) no longer according to
the flesh but according to the Spirit if we want to be saved and to have eternal
life.
Broken
Cord
An
Original Work / August 29, 2018
Your bond is broken
With your Lord and Savior
And, your testimony is
Separate from Him.
Your words not matching
Your actions today.
Repent of your sin and
Bow down and pray.
Live what you testify
In truth always.
Purity’s lacking in
Your life and witness,
For you profess one thing,
But other you do.
Not moral, spiritual.
Still of the flesh.
Not living in truth to
What you confess.
Lying about it
Puts you in a mess.
Living a lie is your practice,
‘tis true of you.
Masquerade righteousness –
None of it true.
Your heart is not given
To your Lord God.
Because of how you live,
You are a fraud.
Turn from your sin and
Give your life to God.
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