This study on Jude vs 8-10 was given by pastor Barry on 21st February 21 as part of Calvary Chapel Portsmouth’s on-line family service.
Jude has been reminding his readers that it really does matter how you life your life as a Christian. Although your salvation is secure and guaranteed, your rewards and inheritance are not.
John says “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward”. (2 John vs 8).
Peter says that we should strive that we might have an ‘abundant entrance’ into Heaven (2 Peter :11).
Paul says that if we sow to the flesh, and spend our time and affections on worldly things (wood, hay and straw), we will still be saved (because Salivation is based solely on the completed work of Christ), but we ourselves will suffer loss when we stand before the Judgement seat of Christ (1 Cor 3:15 / Gal 6:7-8 / 2 Cor 5:10).
Jude has given us three examples to make his point:
- 1st Example
–Though saved from Egypt, those who did not believe all died in the wilderness and did not receive their inheritance
- 2nd Example
–The Angels who left their natural abode (though having been in the presence of God, became subject to His wrath and judgment
- 3rd Example
–The cities of Sodom & Gomorrah, though situated in the fertile plain of Jordan, ‘as beautiful as the Garden of Eden’ (Gen 13:10), were destroyed by God on account of their giving themselves over to immoral lusts.
The warning is given: those who give themselves over to the flesh will suffer loss.
In verses 8-10 Jude starts to detail just what those who are given over to worldly lust are really like.
The first characteristic is that they have no regard for authority, and even despise and mock those who are above them. The example Jude gives to illustrate this point however, must be one of the strangest remarks found in the Bible! In this study we explore what Jude was speaking of when he said: “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee”.
The conclusion and point Jude is making is clear. God takes the issue of authority (and the respect we should show toward it) very seriously. Whether it be order in a nation… – Romans 13:1
…order in the church – 1 Cor 14:40 / 1 Tim 3 / Titus 2 …order in the family – Titus 1:6 / Eph 6:1-4 or order in a marriage – 1 Cor 11 / Eph 5:23 / 1 Peter 3:1-7
May you be blessed and encouraged by this study.
