AUGUST 10 & 11, 2024
{BL 552-32}
DECLARATION
For [we are not] ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. { Rom 1:16-17 KJV}
HOLY SCRIPTURE
Sabbath Meditations : BEING PREPARED FOR CHANGE
Shabbat Chazon / Devarim
Deu 1:1-3:22, Isa 1:1-27, Mark 14:12-26
Sunday Message: JUDE'S WARNING TO THE CHURCH
Jude 1-25
OPENING PRAYER
Father of all creation, with great humility we thank-You for gathering us together to worship and grow on this Holy Weekend. Grant us open minds, hearts and souls to absorb the message revealed through Holy Scripture. grant us also wisdom, discernment, and courage to fully understand and implement Your will. We pray this in the name above all names, Jesus the Christ, AMEN.
MESSAGE
Jude was one of five boys born to Mary. Jesus was his older brother. Although a half brother, Jesus was the first born. The Bible is not clear if Jude was a middle kid or where he was birth-wise. Being a younger brother the oldest commands a special respect from his siblings. Even the girls. After spending years and years as a family, seeing and working with one another to one day find out that the senior brother is claimed to be THE MESSIAH! THE CHRIST! Common sense would indicate that there would have to be one or more family members who would have a serious time believing the claim. Jude was one who had problems in this regard. Finally he came around, and this is his published warning for the church of the First Born:
Jud 1:1-25 NKJV Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: (2) Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
In this his opening introduction, there is no hint of the familial relationship of he and JESUS --
Scriptural evidence supports the notion that this Jude as was James were half-brothers to our Lord. {Mar 6:2-4 KJV}: And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? (3) Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. (4) But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
More than one family member beside JUDE among Mary's Children found it difficult to believe that their half-brother Jesus was the Messiah. James was a late believer as well. Just as in Jude's greeting, he only identifies himself as a lowly bond-servant of the Christ! With great humility being subordinate to the familial connection.
Jude was convinced, through his direct witness of observed events and of a people who seemed to have ulterior motives --certainly not supportive in the least towards the Gospel and the New Church. Thus, his warning.
Jude Writes:
(3) Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
(4) For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
(5) But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
(6) And the angels—who did not keep their own position of authority but deserted their proper place—He has kept in everlasting shackles under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great Day. (7) In the same way as these angels, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them—having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after a different sort of flesh—are displayed as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. {Jud 1:6-7 TLV}
(8) Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. [The DREAMERS are those who claim to interpret dreams for the purpose to attack the Gospel, lead others away from Jesus, not toward Him. Likewise, they blaspheme the Heavenly Host, the angels and other Heavenly creatures.]
(9) Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" [Good angel vs. bad angel is expressed here; When Moses died on the mountain top, GOD himself buried the body of Moses in an undisclosed location, in a valley in the land of Moab. Scripture leads us that this might have been to prevent Moses becoming an Idol and therefore worshiped. Details in: Deu 34:1-12 ]
JUDE CONTINUES:
(10) But these {Dreamers} speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.
(11) Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
(12) These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;
(13) raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
(14) Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints,
(15) to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."
(16) These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. (17) But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ:
(18) how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.
(19) These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
SUMMARY/APPLICATION
(20) But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
(21) keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
(22) And on some have compassion, making a distinction;
(23) but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
For some in the earthly family of the Lord, true realization of the Deity of the Christ did not jell until after the Resurrection, and perhaps up to the day of Pentecost, perhaps beyond. All of this is part of the great and wondrous mystery that surrounds the thirty-three years of GOD in the FLESH. Perhaps in the Kingdom, all these mysteries will be fully revealed. What an exciting ETERNITY that will be. The more you know, the more you know that you don't know, and the cycle repeats---FOREVER!
CLOSING PRAYER
Thank-you Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit for bringing to life the truth of the Words of Holy scripture. Thank-You for revealing some of the tender moments and natural family interactions in a most extraordinary miracle--that of the incarnation of the very source of life into the tent of flesh and bring about the salvation promise for the world's created humans. Praise You Jesus, AMEN.
DOXOLOGY
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, Ye heav'n-ly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
Amen
BENEDICTION: Jude :24-25 KJV Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.
Christ go with you now...until we meet again
Christ go with you now...keep praying on till then
It really doesn't matter what the weather...
Just as long as we all are TOGETHER...
Christ go with you now...Till we meet again!
SUPPORTING SCRIPTURE (Sunday) Jude 1-25, Mar 6:2-4, Deu 34:1-12, Jude 24-25
SABBATH & SUNDAY WORSHIP MESSAGE
(Published every Friday evening)
CHRIST ETERNAL SENIOR MINISTRIES
HAVE YOU READ YOUR BIBLE TODAY?
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Amen. God bless 🙏🏻🙏🏻
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