A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on February 11, 2024.
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen (Jude 17–25).[1]
In case you have forgotten, one of the general themes of Scripture is remembering. In the Garden of Eden, Adam forgot the goodness of enjoying God and chose to break his covenant instead (Gen. 2:15-17). Noah forgot the righteousness he preached before the flood and drank himself unconscious (Gen. 9:20-25). Abraham forgot God’s promise of a son and chose to propagate a lineage on his own (Gen. 16:1-6). Israel forgot God’s promise of his presence and complained of his perceived absence (Ex. 17:7). Is it no wonder then that when Israel was about to enter the land, God warned them repeatedly not to “forget” him in their settled prosperity (Deut. 4:9, 23; 6:12; 8:11, 14, 19; 9:7; 25:19; 26:13). But they did. In one generation, they forgot the Lord and what he had done to deliver them out of Egypt (Judg. 2:10).
We are a people prone to forget. As Moses said of Israel, we too forget the God who gave us life (Deut. 32:18). Given this propensity, we find commands throughout Scripture to remember God and what he has done for us. We are to “remember” our Creator in the days of our youth (Eccl. 12:1) and remember “the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” (Ps. 105:5). We are to bless the Lord and “forget not all his benefits” (Ps. 103:2).[2] There is much to be said for remembering the one who gives us life and breath and everything (Acts 17:25).
Thankfully, God has given us his Word, contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, that we may go to it and remember. In fact, this is one of the reasons why as Christians we must be in God’s Word daily, that we remember. And it is why Jude begins the conclusion of his epistle this way, “But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (17). He’s reminding the church then and today of something we already know but are prone to forget, a remembrance implying both caution and action. Through God’s Word we are given divinely inspired apostolic imperatives, like this, warning us of those creeping into the church unnoticed, perverting the grace of God, denying the authority of Christ, mocking the faith, and deceiving whom they may. We who are prone to forget, then, must go to God’s Word and remember that we must be guarded against the works of our enemy lest we forget and be deceived.
Remembering and Guarded
Summarizing the apostles’ predictions of deceivers to come, Jude explains that the prophesied time has come. The “last time” has come, the “last days” (Acts 2:17) are here, and so the devil is strategically at work, seeking to infiltrate the church with deception. These deceivers, Jude says, are “scoffers” or “mockers” (18 KJV), disparaging God in attitude, word, and deed. Rather than governed by the Word of God, these deceivers follow their subjective feelings, “propelled by their own ungodly desires” (18 NET). In a description that sounds like it was written this morning, the apostle Paul similarly warns Timothy,
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people (2 Tim. 3:1-5).
It’s a long list that surely includes those who secretly infiltrate the church to deceive and destroy.
Jude says that such deceivers eventually reveal themselves. Their presence brings not unity but strife. They “cause divisions” (19). Enslaved to their feelings and motived by selfish ambition, they have no regard for the peace and purity of the church. Where there should be humility, they are arrogant. Where there should be gentleness, they are unkind. Where they should exercise patience, they are impatient. Rather than “bearing with one another in love,” they consider only themselves. They are not “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:1-3), because they are “devoid of the Spirit” (19). They are “worldly people” (19), living a lie leading to deception.
It is a sad reality of these last days but we are not helpless victims without God-given knowledge and warning. God’s Word warns us of the problems of these last days, and so we remember and contend for the faith. But we do not contend in our own strength. Remember: “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4b KJV).
The presence of the Holy Spirit is a defining characteristic of the Christian. For, the self-same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead indwells every believer, as a temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19). Though deceivers in the church are “devoid of the Spirit,” we are not. And so, we build, pray, keep, and wait by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.
Knowing and Spirit-led
By his Word and Spirit, God has “granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3), and so Jude exhorts us to live accordingly. First, Jude exhorts us to build one another up in our “most holy faith” (20).The very faith that saves us builds us. Paul encouraged Timothy to “remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel” (2 Tim. 2:8). Likewise, we who are to preach the gospel to ourselves daily, likewise build one another up with the same gospel. This is one reason weekly Lord’s Day worship is so integral to the Christian faith. Together, we must remember that “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). We worship together based only on the truth that “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). We build one another up with the truth: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Though deceivers seek to divide us, we build one another up in “our most holy faith.”
Second, Jude exhorts us to pray “in the Holy Spirit.” Jude sets our prayers in contrast to those “devoid of the Spirit,” whose prayers are without the life-giving presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. A Christian’s prayers are not “devoid of” but “in the Holy Spirit.” In fact, our prayers are to our Father through his Son in the Spirit. And since our prayers are “in the Holy Spirit,” he “helps us in our weakness,” Paul explains. “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26-27). In this we know that he hears us in what we ask and answers according to his will (1 John 5:15).
Third, Jude exhorts us to keep ourselves “in the love of God” (21), which seems an odd exhortation since “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). But what Jude is describing is akin to diligence, fixing our focus on the love of God and living accordingly. Paul explains it this way, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). The Christian life is not lived in fear of punishment or the expectation of reward but in the reality of being loved by God, so much that he gave his only Son (John 3:16). The one who keeps himself in the love of God says to himself daily, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Beloved, let us keep ourselves in this way.
Fourth, Jude exhorts us to wait “for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life,” an expression referring to the eager anticipation we have for Christ’s second coming. Let us remember, “At the resurrection, believers, being raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment, and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity.”[3] He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion on that day, the final consummation of our salvation. Such “mercy” then is of course undeserved but promised to all who by God’s grace have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And since God’s mercy is undeserved and God’s grace unmerited, we wait for our Lord’s return in humility, living as conduits of God’s mercy and grace to others.
The mercy Jude specifically advocates is evangelistic. Deceivers in the church will prey upon the vulnerable and gullible, which is often those who have not yet believed the gospel. Though the believer can never be snatched out of the Father’s hand (John 10:29), deceivers seek out those who may. This calls not only for discernment on our part but also mercy. I am reminded of the meal Jesus shared with Simon the Pharisee, when as Jesus reclined at table, and his feet were washed not with water but the tears of a saved sinner, dried with her hair, and anointed with costly oil. The inhospitable, self-righteous Pharisee Simon looked on in disgust, without mercy, with no regard for her repentance. Distinguishing the two, Jesus said, “her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). We who have been forgiven much must likewise look in mercy upon those whom Christ would also forgive.
We must never lose sight of the fact that awaiting every unbeliever is judgment and eternal punishment, the eternal lake of fire, a place, according to Jesus, of “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42), a lake that the apostle John describes as burning “with fire and sulfur.” The unbeliever’s only hope of being snatched out of that fire is the gospel. And God has chosen to deliver the gospel through you and me.
Yes, it is the Holy Spirit who convinces us of our sin and misery, enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, renews our wills, and persuades and enables us to embrace Christ, but he does this through the free offer of the gospel.[4] Yes, but as Paul asks rhetorically, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone. preaching?” (Rom. 10:14). They will not hear, they will not believe, they will not be saved, they will not be snatched out of the eternal fire apart from the free offer of the gospel. So, if by God’s grace we are to serve as conduits of God’s mercy, the mercy that we undeservedly received, then we seek to save the lost by sharing the gospel.
Keeping and Kept
Jude concludes his epistle doxologically, pointing us not to the evil deceivers nor the turmoil that they cause in the church but to the Lord our God. Though the travails of this present darkness are real, we gain nothing by fixating on or obsessing over them. Rather, we look to him who keeps us “from all evil,” he who keeps our lives (Ps. 121:7). Though deceivers strategically seek our stumbling, though they would love to see us ensnared in sin, it is the Lord who preserves us, and it is in him that we persevere. For, we are truly children of God, not in our strength or merit but in Christ alone. By nature we are sinners and fall short of God’s glory, but by God’s grace through faith in Christ we are justified as righteous and will stand “blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (24), a joy of reconciliation and restoration. We will indeed enjoy God forever!
And all of this is in and through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom we ascribe “glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.” He alone we revere. He alone is preeminent. He alone subdues us to himself, rules and defends us, and restrains and conquers all his and our enemies.[5] He is “the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God,”[6] who became man, and so was, and continues to be, “God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”[7] He is our only Redeemer and Lord.
And so we lift up our praise to the Lord God who saves, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] I am grateful for and have drawn from Jonathan Gibson’s superb essay, “Remembering Jesus,” in his devotional O Sacred Head, Now Wounded: A Liturgy for Daily Worship from Pascha to Pentecost (Wheaton: Crossway, 2024), 23-31.
[3] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 38, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 378.
[4] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 31, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 374-375.
[5] Ibid. Q. 26, 372.
[6] “The Nicene Creed,” Trinity Hymnal, Revised Edition (Suwanee: Great Commission Publications, Inc., 1990), 846.
[7] “The Shorter Catechism” Q. 21, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 368-369.
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