Hidden Reefs at Your Love Feasts

Jude 1:7-13 ESV

“…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, …and blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 

“Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

So, how is this being realized in our lives and world and church today? In some ways, this is talking about the “Pharisees,” i.e. those who put on an outward display of righteousness but who are still living like the devil, full of wicked deeds, many of which they keep hidden from the public eye. Even though they are the addicted to sexual immorality of various kinds, they will perform outwardly, for others to see, as though they are walking in righteousness and as though they are serious students of the Scriptures.

But in reality, they are the self-indulgent, the vain and worthless, the lovers of intoxication to sin whose lives are filled with all kinds of self-indulgences and immoral behaviors and wickedness. These are people totally lacking in moral conscience, in integrity, in love for others, and in compassion for those they are sinning against. For they are the cruel, the callous, the remorseless, swaying back and forth between the show of righteousness on the outside and the sensual indulgences of the flesh which they keep hidden in secret.

Even though they profess Jesus Christ as Lord and as Savior of their lives, and they profess to be following him with their lives, they are severely lacking or totally absent of moral, just, and upright judgments and discernment. They are lacking totally or severely in good common sense, too, for they choose their sins over God and over spouse and children, and regardless of God and spouse and children and others, and on a cyclical and addictive pattern of behaviors which seems as though it will never end.

And this is not talking about just a handful of people. The number of people professing faith in Jesus Christ while living immoral and wicked lives is astounding! And this is largely because the church is giving them permission to keep sinning by teaching them a diluted and altered gospel which makes no demands at all for genuine repentance, walks of obedience to the Lord, and for holy and righteous living, in truth, in practice, and not in pretense. The adulterous church is opening the door wide for this to take place.

So, while the adulterous and market-driven “churches” of our day and time are coddling these “Pharisees” in their sinful lifestyles, they are also coming against and they are opposing the truly righteous in the sight of God who are living morally pure and upright lives in the power of God, and who are following Jesus Christ with their lives, and who are not walking in sin. And they are accusing them of being self-righteous and judgmental and legalistic and of teaching works salvation.

And in some cases, they are literally putting the truly righteous to death, or they are murdering them in their spirits by how they treat them. For much of the adulterous church today is coddling the sinful addicts in their sins while they are not supporting and not helping those who are being sinned against. And this while they are treating the truly righteous in God’s sight with contempt and with dishonor, and while they are even kicking some of them out of their gatherings because they regard them as the hyper-religious.

For they have no conscience about how they treat the Lord’s true servants and witnesses while they continue to cater to the ungodly of this world. They have no conscience about kicking us to the curb who are those of “strong convictions,” i.e. of biblical and moral and righteous and godly convictions of the Holy Spirit of God and of the Scriptures. For their “target audience” is the people of the world who are easily moldable to their image, and who they can deceive because they are the naïve regarding the Scriptures.

And so is it any surprise that the world we live in is massively living in moral decay? I just read today, if it is true, that several pharmacies are now allowed to sell abortion pills to teenagers. I have not researched this, but it doesn’t surprise me if it is true, for this is where our world is headed, to where the innocent, the defenseless, and the godly are being cast aside in favor of the wicked, the immoral, and the unrighteous of this world. Oh, how I pray for a revival before the end comes! So many people need Jesus!!

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

For Our Nation  

An Original Work / September 11, 2012

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Trust Him with your life today.

Make Him your Lord and your Savior.

Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.

He will forgive you of your sin;

Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.

On our knees to God we’re praying,

Seeking God to give us answers

That are only found in Him.

God is sovereign over all things.

Nothing from His mind escaping.

He has all things under His command,

And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling

You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing

In our Lord, and interceding

For our nation and its people

To obey their God today.

He is our hope for our future.

For our wounds He offers suture.

He is all we need for this life.

Trust Him with your life today.

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