The Epistle of Jude Brief Report of an Address Delivered by Rev. B. R. Miller at the Montrose Bible Conference. /EU Afr » 1L4 w ® HIS brief letter of only one chapter is full of timely teaching and contains much that is important for God's chil- IIM
second chapter of Second Peter is very similar to this book of Jude, though perhaps the latter draws a little darker picture. One is sin, the other is com- plete apostasy. Jude seems to be car- ried in the Spirit to these last days of the age in which we live, and hence his admonition is of supreme importance now. Let us consider, first, what should be the faith of a loyal Christian in such a time, and second, what should be the attitude: WHAT TO BELIEVE It is strikingly true that Jude either directly or indirectly refers in this short letter to the most important fundamen- tal articles of the true Christian faith. First. We are to be Trinitarians, not Unitarians, for we have God the Father (verse I), Jesus Christ the Son (sev- eral verses), the Holy Spirit (verse 20), all spoken of here. We may not be able to explain to human intellect the Trinity, but we can accept it as a re- vealed truth. We cannot tell how through the process of digestion and as- similation the food we eat is converted-' some of it into flesh, some into blood, some into bone and muscle, and a little into brains we trust, yet the fact re- mains. Nor how in the animal king- dom by the same process in the case of a cow the food makes hair, in the case of a sheep it makes wool, and in the case of a goose it makes feathers. The fact of God, one God, manifesting Him- self in three personalities is a plain revelation of the Word. Let us accept it without question. Second. We are to believe in the deity of Jesus, the Son of the Father. In a half dozen verses in this epistle He is called LORD. This is very vital. He is either that or an impostor. He made Himself equal with God. The soft talk of the times that makes him a mere man though withal a good man, a mere teacher or example, is deadly to the faith. Any organization, or lodge, or meeting or anything which requires us to leave the Lord Jesus out as the Only Begotten Son of God, equal with the Father, is to be surely and positively avoided by those who are contending earnestly for the faith.
dren to understand. It has been called "the picture of the last days," the "preface to the book of Revelation," and shows the drift of the apostasy which makes the terrible judgments of the lat- ter book necessary. The fact that there is to be a fearful apostasy is plainly pre- dicted: "For that day (the day of the Christ) shall not come except there come a falling away first." (II. Thess. 2:3.) The definite article is in this passage and it should read THE falling away, or the apostasy. The general trend of Scrip- ture teaching is in harmony with this fact. Jude seems to have been swept out of his purpose to write of the "com- mon salvation," and gives himself to a strong exhortation that the saints should "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, (verse 3). This verse and expression is the key to the epistle. The reason for the exhortation is found in tracing out the references to certain false ones who would creep in and seek to under- mine the faith. "Certain men crept in unawares," "these filthy dreamers, "these speak evil of those things which they know not," "woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, (a way of Godless civilization and blood- less religion in evidence all through Christendom today), "these are spots in your love feasts, "Enoch prophesied of these," "these are murmurers, complain- ers walking after their own lusts," etc. (See verses 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16.) In contrast to those thus referred to in the third pers6n, note the pronoun of the second person indicating the Lord's own people to whom the exhortation comes: "Mercy unto you," "I gave all diligence to write unto you," "but be- loved remember ye the words," "but ye beloved, building up yourselves," "unto Him who is able to keep you from fall- ing," etc. (Verses 2, 3, 17, 20, 24). The faith thus assailed by enemies and to be contended for by Christians is not the creed of any denomination but the fun- damental truths embodied in the scrip- tures for all the saints of God. The
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