Our teacher Jude has been sharing with us encouragement to “contend for the faith.” Those to whom he was writing years ago needed as we do today exhortation to be about the business of the gospel. There were false teachings and doctrines being promoted throughout the church world, and Jude knew there was a need to keep those who were the sanctified, preserved and called of Jesus Christ to stay on task. Ungodly men were turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and they were denying the only Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Today we find Jude calling his readers to remembrance, and he gives examples of those who were non-believers or apostates in these past examples. He wrote in Jude five:
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Notice first that Jude puts them in remembrance. Sometimes one of the best motivators for the future is to look to examples from the past. To be reminded of previous times when the Lord did a work, or when the Lord kept His promises is an assurance that God will indeed work in a similar manner again. Jude continues with “though you once knew this”. The example he was about to give was one they already knew. It does us good to be reminded of God's workings in our past. When we hear messages or sermons that we have heard before, rather than roll our eyes in repelling resistance, we should note them as reminders of the Lord's faithfulness. God has been involved before, and He will be involved again.
Next Jude uses when the children of Israel fled Egypt as an example of God's faithfulness . In the book of Exodus in chapter twelve and verses thirty and thirty one we read:
And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt; for [there was] not a house where [there was] not one dead. And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, [and] get you forth from among my people, both you and the children of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said.
The final plague that consisted of the death angel going throughout the camps of Egypt and killing all the first-born children and animals of the Egyptians was the last straw that convinced Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go into the wilderness to worship. God delivered them and intended that they travel directly to the promise land, and yet there were still unbelievers among those who were set free. Jude reminds his readers that those unbelievers were also “destroyed” because they did not believe. These apostate individuals had seen God work, watched God's miracles in their lives, been exposed to God intervening on their behalf in the past, however, they continued in their unbelief. Unbelief keeps a person from entering the Kingdom of God. Unbelief keeps a person from having a relationship with God, and like the children of Israel who were delivered from the bondage of Egypt, we can be standing at the boarder of the promise land and still not believe that God will bring us into it. Though God desired to have fellowship with these children of Israel, they resisted Him by not believing His promises.
One of the tricks of our enemy Satan is to cause unbelief in people. These itinerant false prophets were promoting ideas of unbelief, and Jude addresses their intentions by calling all his readers to remember. We must remember that God was with us in our past, He is with us now, and He will be with us in our futures. We must not fall prey to unbelief lest we too be destroyed like the children of Israel who did not believe.
Next time we shall look at another of Jude's examples as we continue our contending for the faith encouragement, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
Look for the new devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
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