Bible Prophecy and Inspiration

Jude 1:17:22 –¹⁷ But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. ²¹ Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

The first two days we went over the first two paragraphs and today we will wrap up the third.

The third paragraph is about caring and loving others.  Verse 22 tells us to be merciful to those who
doubt.  To doubt that Jesus is Lord has bad enough consequences already.  I believe as long as those who listen continue to do so, we need to plant or water seeds that may already be there.

Verse 23 I believe is telling us to take by the hand those who need it.  There are certain people that need to be snatched away from things that keep them from the Lord.  There is no forcing involved in what we are talking about but more persistence in their guidance.  As we know you can’t force anyone to love the
Lord or do what God wants if they don’t have it in their heart.

Mercy mixed with fear. I believe it is important to lovingly deliver the message of what happens to those that are not saved.  It’s not popular but if the Bible is constantly warning us, then we need to be motivated by it and share it along with the love message to others.

Last we need to hate sin.  We need to stay far away from it. One thing that kind of pops in my head reading the last of verse 23 is; I hate cigarette smoke.  However, if you have been around those who smoke a lot and in close proximity your clothes will wreak of smoke.   We need to hate even
the stuff that is linked to sin.

So in a recap Jude warns us in paragraph one of those who can lure believers away.  In paragraph
two we need to pray in the Spirit and stay strong until His return.   In paragraph three we need to care about others, love them even though they may doubt, try to reach them the best we can, and don’t follow them into sin.

Continue to stay focused and strong because He is coming soon.  Sooner today than yesterday.  The signs continue to keep moving forward concerning the second coming, which I believe brings the rapture that much closer.

Jude 1:17:22 –¹⁷ But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. ²¹ Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Yesterday we discussed the first paragraph.

Today we’ll discuss the second paragraph.

We need to pray in the Spirit of God.  It mentions it in Ephesians when talking about the full armor of God.

Ephesians 6:17-18 – ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. ¹⁸ And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

We need to pray in the Spirit when we pray.  Why?  Because there are a lot of people that pray for their selfish desires.  Not needs, but desires that are not of God.

Here’s an example of two prayers.

First prayer.  Lord please help me to reach others with your Word so they may find You and have a
relationship with You.

Second prayer.  Lord please give me more money that I can spend on some great things that I’ve
always wanted to buy.  I know if I could just have this I would really be fulfilled.

I tried to make it obvious in the two prayers by having them on each end of the spectrum.

One is for the Kingdom of the Lord and comes from the Spirit of God.  The other is not at all and is of
the world.  We need to pray in the Spirit so His thoughts can be more of our thoughts.

Once we get to the point of praying in the Holy Spirit for the things of God we need to stay there.
Verse 21 encourages us to keep ourselves in God’s love.

Tomorrow we will finish up with verses 22 & 23.

Jude 1:17:22 –¹⁷ But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. ²¹ Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Jude is not a large book, but he drives home towards the end of his one chapter things for us in the last days.

Today I am going to concentrate on the first paragraph.

Jude states remember what the apostles told you.  We read that similar comment in 2 Peter regarding
scoffers.

2 Peter 3:3-4 – ³ First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

Paul also in 2 Timothy speaks about the other portion in the last days that Jude appears to be referring to.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 – ¹ But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

I don’t know about you but I see both of these things happening.  Scoffers and lovers of themselves is very common in this country and very prevalent in the so called church.

We need to heed to these warnings and make sure we don’t fall into this trap ourselves. Paul also warns to have nothing to do with them.  I take that as pray for them, continually lovingly warn them, but don’t get sucked in.   Tomorrow we will continue with these passages.