Introduction: We learn of the beginning of the Church Age in the Bible's Acts of the Apostles. In Jude, which may be called the "Acts of the Apostates," we learn about the end of the Church Age. Jude, with its foreboding forewarning of end-time apostasy, serves as the vestibule to the book of Revelation. This short, one chapter epistle, written by the half-brother of Jesus and full brother of James, who was the head of the church in Jerusalem, was written, according to verse 1, to all who are called by God the Spirit, beloved by God the Father, and kept by God the Son.
Jude 1:1 — The eternal security of Christians is not dependent upon our hold on Christ, but upon Christ's hold on us. (see also verse 24)
Jude 1:2 — Christians must rely upon the multiplying of mercy, peace, and love.
Jude 1:3 — All Christians are called to contend for the Christian Faith, which was once and for all delivered to the saints, who serve as its sole stewards. If we fail as its custodians in its continuance it will be lost to our children.
Jude 1:4 — There are fifth columnists in the church, who are predestined to perdition and who promote ungodliness, by turning God's grace into license and by denying Christ's Lordship over their lives by living in disobedience to Him.
Jude 1:5-7 — If God did not spare Sodomites, angels, and His own people who sinned, how can today's smug and unrepentant sinners presume that they will be spared by such an unsparing God?
Jude 1:8 — Apostates are easily detected by their filthy dreams, their defiled flesh, and their denial of all human accountability to divine authority.
Jude 1:9 — If Michael, the Archangel of God, did not get flippant in his fight with the devil, we certainly shouldn't get to big for our britches when find ourselves embroiled in a battle with Beelzebub.
Jude 1:9 — The location of Moses' grave is unknown. If not, it would have become a shrine, where the Hebrews would have committed idolatry to an interred and idolized Moses. This explains the battle over Moses' body between the archangel Michael and the devil. (Deuteronomy 34:5-6)
Jude 1:10 — This fallen world is the sole reality to apostates, who not only are ruled over by their beastly instincts, but also run around in the ignorance of their spiritual blindness railing against anything otherworldly.
Jude 1:11 — Apostates go the way of Cain, believing God is appeased by the produce of their own hands.
Jude 1:11 — Apostates greedily follow the error of Balaam, believing they can serve God while seeking selfish gain rather than God's glory.
Jude 1:11 — Apostates will perish like the gainsayer Korah, suddenly in their superciliousness and sedition.
Jude 1:12 — Apostates are sores on the body of Christ. They are promising clouds without precipitation, blown about by every wind of false doctrines. And they are blossoming but barren trees, always flowery but never fruitful.
Jude 1:13 — Apostates are like foaming waves of the sea or wandering nighttime stars whose ignominy is found in their instability.
Jude 1:14-15 — Like Enoch, who was caught up to the Lord before He judged the prediluviane world with a flood, Christians should so walk with the Lord as to be caught up to Him before He judges the end-time world with fire. (see also Genesis 5:21-24; 2 Peter 3:3-7)
Jude 1:16 — Apostates are bellyachers, pleasure-seekers, braggarts, and bootlickers.
Jude 1:17-19 — End-time apostates will be sensualists who scoff at the Holy Scripture, spurn the Holy Spirit, and are enslaved by their sinful lusts.
Jude 1:20a — It is not in the strength of the Christian’s own personal faith that he is to build himself up, but on the solid foundation of the “holy” Christian faith. The strength of our faith is not built on its amount—its quantity—but on it’s object—its quality.
Jude 1:20b —For a Christian to be built up by his prayer life, he must not just pray periodically to God, but perpetually in the Spirit of God. There is no strength for the saint in a selfish prayer, but only in a Spirit-filled one!
Jude 1:20 — Our Christian faith, which was birthed with a prayer prayed under the Spirit’s conviction, is continually built up by prayers prayed under the Spirit’s compulsion.
Jude 1:21a — The Christian need not worry about keeping himself in love with God, as long as he keeps himself in the love of God. In other words, it is the knowledge of Christ’s incomprehensible love for the Christian that keeps the Christian indelibly in love with Christ!
Jude 1:21b — Eternal life cannot be sought on the basis of our merits, but only on the basis of Christ’s mercy. In other words, it’s given to us on the basis of Christ’s work for us, never on the basis of our works for Christ.
Jude 1:21-23 — While we look to Christ for our forgiveness, we are to keep ourselves in God's favor by being softhearted in our witness to the doubter and hard-nosed in our witness to the defiant.
Jude 1:24 — As Christians, our eternal security is not dependent upon our hold on Christ, but upon Christ's hold on us. It is Christ who keeps us from falling, who will present us faultless in glory, and who will assure us of fabulous and forever joy.
Jude 1:24-25 — The eternal security of Christians is not dependent upon our hold on Christ, but upon Christ's hold on us. (see also verse 1)
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