| | | | The Great Train Wreck - Jude 1:3-4 "The Collision of Grace and Obedience - Part 2"
Jude tells us these false teachers sneak in disguised as Christians, but how did they get in? The watchmen were asleep - hence Jude's letter! While these men may have been unnoticed by men, they weren't unnoticed by God, and their condemnation was marked out long ago. Now when Jude says they are "marked out for this condemnation" – he's not implying that God ordained them to be condemned; God didn't force them to become false teachers, they made their choice of their own will.
See there are two positions of false doctrine: - Those who are deceived (which we know how to protect ourselves from, KNOW YOUR BIBLE!),
- The second are those who know better, and choose to deceive others. And Jude tells us that once they've made their choice, their end is determined, their judgment is assured.
Jude says these men "turn the grace of our God into lewdness" – in other words, turning the grace of God into a "license to sin." The idea goes like this: God loves you just the way you are, so It really doesn't matter how you live.
We see this doctrine infiltrating the church today, especially with the gay movement within the church;
"God made me this way, and God doesn't make mistakes, therefore my 'lifestyle' is fine in God's eyes."
I'm not picking on the gay movement, because people apply this same faulty doctrine to other areas…
"I'm in love with my co-worker, and I've prayed about it, and God is OK with me leaving my wife and family..."
"My girlfriend and I love each other, we attend church, it's no big deal if we sleep together..."
True story - At an academic conference at the University of Cambridge last July, it was proclaimed that "pedophilia is "natural and normal for males." (This is not new, the early Greeks were fine with it as well...) This is what's called the "normalization of sin" – it's a worldly philosophy that's infiltrating the house of God. The tragedy with this type of "freedom" is that it actually leads to bondage.
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 2 Peter 2:19
Any Christian that's gone down this road can attest, going back to our old lifestyle of sin doesn't make us free, it enslaves us again.
I call this type of doctrine "a collision of grace and obedience." Picture two locomotives pushing a train; One represents the grace of God, who forgives sin. The other represents obedience, where God says "be holy, for I am holy." Just like the two locomotives, grace and obedience are designed to work together, supporting one another...
"God has forgiven my sin, and freed me from the bondage of sin, therefore my desire is to walk in obedience to Him to the best of my ability."
But when we use grace as an excuse to live in open immorality, it puts the two locomotives on the same track...
In other words it leads to a train wreck, and both grace and obedience are destroyed - along with the passengers!
So the point is this: Let's keep grace and obedience on the same track, going in the same direction, and avoid the train wreck!
Pastor Clay
(Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 3) | | | | | | | |
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