“Once delivered unto the saints”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Friday, December 8, 2023

Jude 1-16 (Forward, p. 40) CEV p. 1292

Jude, the brother of James, has some very strong and bracing words to say. It is about the ‘faith once delivered unto the saints.’ He suggests that it has come under attack, under attack in two ways. It has come under attack in terms of what certain persons are now preaching. They are saying that believers do not need to obey Jesus Christ as their only Master and Lord. And then, secondly, in terms of morality, they are saying that ‘anything goes’, given that God forgives everyone and everything. Because God treats us so much better than what we deserve, it is quite alright to be immoral in our behaviour.

Jude then marshals a whole slew of examples to illustrate what these people are like. From Hebrew history, he mentions:

-those who died in the Wilderness of Sinai: though they were freed from slavery

and delivered from Egypt, they did not have faith and so they perished there in

the desert;

-the angels (perhaps those mentioned in Genesis 6:2) who forsook their

rightful role and status and so lost their place in heaven;

-Sodom & Gomorrah, who acted wickedly and were punished with fire;

-those who reject authority and insult powers that they know nothing about;

-Cain, who murdered his own brother Abel;

-Balaam, who was tempted to betray his own people for monetary gain, and

while prevented in so doing, still managed to lead them astray;

In all these examples, they lost out, lost out big time, simply because of their immorality and lack of belief, lack of faith. These, indeed, are rather telling and vivid examples.

However, Jude then goes on to wax eloquent with images from nature that, to me at least, are even more telling and vivid:

-clouds, seemingly ‘loaded’ with rain, clouds that look good, but that never

produce anything but are simply blown along by every wind;

-uprooted, leafless, lifeless trees, useful for nothing, trees that had once been

full of promise, but now are basically nothing but scrap-wood;

-sea foam, blown up on the shore, full of froth, but with nary a bit of substance,

and often, in our modern experience, littered with micro-plastics and all sorts of

seaborne trash;

-asteroids or comets or shooting stars, which are seen but momentarily, but then

depart once again to the outer reaches of the universe;

What an image these present in describing those who are faithless and immoral. On the one hand—to harken back to the Biblical images—they describe people who have lost out on what might have been, for them, some great and remarkable privileges. And using the images from nature, it describes people who are superficial, useless, unproductive and totally transient and forgettable in terms of their time on the ‘world’s stage.’

Now, who, in their right mind, would ever wish this upon themselves?! And who would ever forget or neglect such solemn warnings as Jude gives us here? But then, how many there are these days who discard or underrate or adulterate the faith once received onto the saints? I’m afraid that there are far too many that do this. May we, you and I, never be among this group. Amen.

Forward notes: “But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct” (verse 10).

“The letter of Jude warns the young Christian church not to fall under the spell of false teachers, those who believe they will attain salvations even as they mock what they do not understand. I find that one of the hardest aspects of being a Christian in the fallen world is deciding how to respond when someone mocks me or my faith. How do I respond in a Christ-like manner when someone makes fun of a child or bullies others? What do I say to others whose cynicism colours every conversation?

“When a wave of such words rolls into a room, I need not stand in the creeping waters. I can step back, say something, and with God’s help, push against the tide.”

Moving Forward: “When you hear harsh words, how do you respond? Are there times when silence is a good choice? How do you discern your response?”