Three Reminders about the life to come and our entrance into it Jude 5-7

 Jude 5-7  Three Loving Reminders or Warnings.

   Have you ever wished someone had given you a proper warning before you did something ?  When I was in support of the Haiti invasion in 1994,  I was deployed to Puerto Rico as the Chaplain .  There I happened on a Chaplain friend who had been with me in California.  We enjoyed getting reacquainted.  While there I was in San Juan, the capital, and bought some dried fish that was in the display window.  I got very sick after eating it and was put in our unit medical facility.  Later the Chaplain I knew said, " Oh, I could have told you , ' don't eat the dried fish.'"  After all my misery I wished he had told me before I ate it.

Jude says to remember.  2 Peter 1:12 the similar book to Jude says , " I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance ( of the steps in the Christian life)".  Even though Jude says, " you once knew this, how that the Lord , having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not." vs 5

1.  The 1st reminder .  Jude is reminding them what happened in Numbers 14, and ch 32. 

a. Unbelieving hearts

b. Egypt still appealed to them.

c. Idolatry ( lust) and immorality ( see I Cor 10:1-11) " let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall"  vs 11

d.Difficulty along the way

Jude is saying the same fate of apostate Israel could overtake "apostate" Christians.

Hebrews 3:12-19 " they could not enter in because of unbelief."

2.  " And the angels which kept not their first estate , but left their own habitation , he has reserved in everlasting chain unto darkness unto the judgment of the great day" Vs 6

The angels had many privileges on which they might have relied, and in many ways were like the false teachers.

Pride caused them to be cast out.   Isaiah 14 talks about Lucifer and his pride, " I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."

The evil angels had been too arrogant to keep their position. The message of vs 6 is clear.  Privileged position and full knowledge had not saved the angels whose faith had grown dim.

Pride. What is it?  Where does it come from?  What kind of people are most susceptible to it?  Discuss.

3. The Third Warning Reminder vs 7

" Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication , and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

 "The triumph of evil is not final. God's judgment , though it delay, will surely come. "Michael Green 

Sodom and Gomorrah are in many verses in the NT as well. Mt 10:15; Luke 10:12, " But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city."

Revelation as well talks about the eternal fire that is for the devil and his servants. Rev. 19:20 " And the false prophet...was cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." 20:10

  Jude has pulled out all the stops to remind the people in that day that were believing the false teaching of the ungodly men who were turning the grace of God into lasciviousness (4) and thereby denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Unbelief is possible even for those in the assembly.  God will judge the false teachers and their followers.

I wish my friend in Puerto Rico had told me about the dried fish in San Juan.  I wish I had not been so sick I was in the Army medical bay for 3 days , and it felt like death .  But I was healed.  We too can be healed by really trusting in the Lord and His Son Jesus Christ.  Without Him life is without meaning. With Him anything is possible in this life and the life to come!