The book of Jude is basically geared to and beamed at the people living in this present age. Although it ends with positive instructions, the entire book seems to be almost a lamentation, an exhortation and warning: “Get back to the faith! Get back to the faith! Be careful! The judgments are coming!” Finally, verse 20 outlines the steps leading toward the faith that was once delivered to the saints: “Building yourselves up on your holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit.” It continues with excellent guidelines to help a person get into a walk with God, especially in these days of pending judgments.
Verse 4 presents a picture of the subtle way in which Satan works against us. It deals with deception, perversion, diversion, and mutiny. It outlines Satan’s work within the Church and against the Church today. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
In the first place, note the deception; they crept in unnoticed. We have yet to realize the danger of the false Christs, the false prophets, and the deceptive miracles that will come in this end-time. How deadly they will be! God’s end-time move will be imitated more than anything that has ever come in the history of Christianity. Already many denominational church leaders preach from the publications of the living Word that is being brought forth through today’s move of God. Yet they absolutely deny any relationship to it; in fact, they condemn it, saying that those who are a part of it are false prophets. What hypocrisy! The First Principles has been taught in many different groups in South Africa, and tapes of the living Word have been used in some of their lending agencies; but when it was learned that New Testament churches were being established there, those people began to condemn them.
This is a time when you cannot pinpoint anything as being either wrong or right unless God gives you the discernment. Of necessity, many things will creep in unnoticed, and it will take divine revelation to discern whether or not they are right. That was even true of the antichrists that came in the first century. John warned in his epistle, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us. And they went out, in order that it might be manifested that they all were not of us” (1 John 2:19). The deception was so great that they could not even be detected until God had removed them from the Body. Then it became evident that they had not been a part of the true Church. However, that was undetected until the spirit of antichrist, with all of its deceptiveness, had been unveiled.
Do not think that deception will be a stranger to the people of the Lord in this day. In a vision which the Lord gave me of future years, I saw that one characteristic of those who came through victoriously was that they had revelation. They were a prophetic community, able to discern the enemy and to see where he lurked. This is very necessary. There will be times when charges will come against this move of God, sounding so reasonable that it will be very easy to believe them and be influenced by them against this move. Even those who know that the charges are false might have a question concerning them. The deception will be so amazing; it will sound so true in every detail. Remember that Satan is a lie and the father of it (John 8:44). Deception is the work of the enemy, by which he wars against the people of God, trying to deceive them and thus divide them.
Revelation, on the other hand, comes to bring unity, and it is very necessary. We stand together, not because it seems logical or appears to be right, but because we have a revelation about it. For this reason, unity in the Body of Christ is difficult to attain if the people have not had a revelation of the Lord or of Body ministry. Revelation produces unity; deception produces division. The two go hand in hand. In this day, the unity of the Church is not an accident. It comes about because people are open when the Word comes. It witnesses to their hearts, and they are drawn together in the unity.
The thing that is happening in this generation is not an accident. Verse 4 of Jude speaks of those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation.… Long ago God marked those who are going to come in the deceptive role in this age. Satan, the deceiver of the entire world, is raging against the inhabitants (Revelation 12:12). Why is he working against us? He labors to maintain the futility that is over the entire world: on the international scene, in governments, and in the stock market. He also works to create in the Body of Christ the illusion of prolonged futility. The futility is much less operative than it appears. Situations appear to be under futility that are not. Satan tries to maintain the illusion of futility in your circumstances, so that you will not accept your prerogative to take dominion over it.
As the firstfruits of this restoration, we must take definite steps now to begin to release ourselves from the futility, and then reach forth to the creation that is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, that it also may be loosed from futility. When the spirit of futility comes against you, simply rebuke it. What is the spirit of futility? It is Satan himself. The master deceiver tries to create in your life an illusion of futility, so that you will give up and despair.
Even those whom God is blessing, and bringing into a greater place spiritually than they have ever known, seem almost ready to drown in a sea of futility. It is all an illusion. In reality, they have never had such a good walk with God. But if they accept the futility, they will lose everything that God has wrought in their lives.
Those who creep in unnoticed, who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, are ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness. There is something subtle and undetected in those who are perverting the grace of God into licentiousness. First, Satan tries to deceive. If he cannot deceive you, he will try to pervert a revelation you have, or divert it in another direction. Pervert and divert—these are Satan’s tactics. You must be on your guard continually. If he cannot deceive you completely, then he will magnify the revelation you have until you take it out of proportion and it becomes distorted. Distortion is the best way to pervert what God has for you. This has happened repeatedly throughout the years. Someone would receive a beautiful revelation in the Word of a truth or an experience that had been neglected, and then set about to magnify that one truth or experience and build a denomination around it.
In this move of restoration, no experience has been distorted or perverted out of its place. One of the first revelations the Lord gave, which has been a constant guideline, was that of emphasis. The Lord has shown us where the emphasis is to go. When we place the emphasis where it should be, all the other factors fall into place as they should.
Churches that make a big point out of speaking in tongues position themselves in a place where their emphasis is no longer right. Those who emphasize divine healing neglect other truths and experiences. In some churches, the pastor preaches a salvation sermon every Sunday as though the church were full of people who need to be saved, when in reality he may be preaching only to Christians. Instead of letting the Spirit lead the service, he preaches a sermon for unbelievers, whether or not there are any present.
In today’s restored New Testament churches, there are hundreds of people who have been brought in and have experienced the grace of God and salvation with little more than a mention, in proper emphasis, of the way to believe for salvation. The Word comes to build up the saints to the work of ministry. When there is a proper emphasis, people are saved, filled with the Spirit, healed and delivered. They overcome problems. They move into ministries and into the gifts of the Spirit. When the emphasis is placed on only one experience, the church becomes eccentric, a little off center.
The wrong emphasis that exists everywhere in the church world is the work of Satan. If he cannot get you to turn away from a truth, he will get you to distort the importance of a particular segment of that truth. Satan does not mind if you are busy, busy, busy with good activities, as long as you miss the best.
The diverters of the grace of God give a good truth the kind of interpretation that is just extreme enough so that it is no longer the truth. Do not overstate the truth or give it a distorted emphasis. If anything, understate it. A sermon should open up so many areas to the people that other ministries are eager to say a bit more to make it complete. That is an art which the Spirit can teach you—to understate a little. When a statement is overstated and given undue emphasis, it is taken out of balance, as though it were the only truth in the Bible. It should always be related to other truths.
According to Jude, the doctrine of the grace of God can be overemphasized, and thus turned into an excuse for licentiousness. Paul wrote in Titus 2:11–12: For the grace of God hath appeared … instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. The grace of God does not teach us to overlook sin; it teaches us how to overcome sin.
There is a fine line by which the grace of God prevails. It does not give an occasion for legalistic judgment and condemnation of someone else. When someone stumbles and says he is sorry, pick him up. How many times should you forgive him? only seventy times seven? For those who want to serve God there is no end to it. Grace abounds to cover a multitude of failures in those who are really looking to the Lord.
On the other hand, grace never allows you to overlook something in yourself or to feel that it is no longer important to condemn it. I would not put anyone out of the church because he smokes or has other habits of that nature. However, I would talk to him and set before him the standards that God wants for his life, whereby his body, as a temple of the Holy Spirit, can be kept clean. Even when an individual has a habit that constitutes a more serious problem, it does not mean that he should be put out of the church. However, he must be open and understand that he is not to excuse or condone or justify that habit. Nor is he to be hypocritical about it and try to hide it.
If you are overtaken in a habit or a sin, do not make a hypocrite out of yourself by doing it where no one will see you. Be honest and admit that it is wrong. Be sorry and cry about it the entire time you are doing it. Recognize that you are actually a slave of that habit and you should not be doing it. Then God will never condemn you. The grace of God abounds when you are a weak person, and yet you must recognize the weakness and be honest about it. If you cover it over, there is no hope. But there is hope when you say, “Here it is. I hate it.”
If you have a temper, or some other problem that you cannot overcome, hate it. If you are overtaken in it, do not try to justify yourself, saying that the pressures caused you to lose your temper. Satan is always putting pressures on us to get us to stumble. There is no justification when God bears witness to your heart that it is wrong; neither is there any condemnation if you look to God and ask Him to forgive you. If you honestly want to be delivered, and you have God’s viewpoint concerning it, soon the grace of God will wipe it out for you. God will take care of it.
Do not turn the grace of God into licentiousness. The fact that God’s grace abounds and that you are in a movement which believes in the grace of God does not give you an excuse. It is true that we believe in the grace of God, but it is grace to overcome. The patience of long-suffering overthrows the legalism which judges, condemns, sets standards, and puts people out of the church. God looks upon us and sees us in various positions, but if our spirits are reaching to God, I do not think that He condemns us, whether we are spiritual babes or mature saints. He is looking to see if in your heart you are trusting Him and looking to Him for grace.
The grace of God is not an excuse. It is a means to overcome. Grace means that God is giving you favor. He is giving you help. He is reaching down to take the problem or habit out of your life. That is the best way to get rid of it. Do not rely on your own ability and your willpower to overcome the habit. You may think that you can conquer it by a strong willpower, until the day that you get discouraged. Then you will find that the root of it is still present, even though it has been lying dormant. That is when you will go back to it. Human willpower may deliver you, but you will return to it in a moment of discouragement. When the grace of God delivers you, you will never go back to it.
In Colossians 2:20–23, Paul warned against the legalistic approach. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch! (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence”.
When you submit to regulations, such as “Don’t touch, don’t taste, don’t handle,” you may have a regulated conduct and behavior, a conformity to a certain pattern of life or a certain life-style that is approved by a religious sect; but it is of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh. The nature is still there. When you push it down in one area, it pops up in another.
To illustrate, we could use the example of a church where much legalism was preached and many prayer meetings were held. The young people were asked to sign a covenant, promising that they would obey the rules and standards set down for them, and that they would never be seen in the camp of the enemy. There were about one hundred and fifty teenagers in that group, and all of them subscribed to the legalistic standards. However, in the course of three years’ time, thirty-seven girls had babies out of wedlock. Even though their lives were carefully regulated and they did not smoke or drink or go to movies, those standards were of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh. The flesh will come out one way or the other.
Legalism is not the answer; neither is grace that is turned into licentiousness the answer. When you are trying to attain real righteousness, you dare not excuse your behavior or pervert what God has set before you. A negative approach only eliminates problems, whereas the positive approach helps you acquire a holy nature and a righteousness before God.
When that emphasis exists in a church, there will not be any rules and regulations, saying, “Don’t do this. Don’t do that.” When rules and regulations are laid down, people accept that negative approach as being the standard that God wants. And that is not what He wants. He wants far more than that. He wants to see His own righteousness mirrored from your heart, the righteousness that has been imputed and imparted to you. He wants to see you become an overcomer by the grace of God, by the holy blood of Jesus Christ and the word of your testimony.
Jude tells us that the ungodly persons who are marked out for condemnation are those who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude saw that all of this came about when people denied the Lordship of Jesus Christ over their lives. We have only one Lord to please. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is the main point of emphasis in the restored New Testament churches in this day, just as it was in the early Church. We preach Jesus Christ as the Lord over your life. This means that when you become a Christian, you do not merely repent to see your sins washed away; you accept a new allegiance. Where you once served Satan and self, you now serve the Lord and His Body.
A man may become a Christian so that his sins will be washed away; but he must realize that he is still going to serve someone. In Fundamental churches, where the Lordship of Christ is not emphasized, many Christians become a law unto themselves. They do their own thing, at their own initiative, whether it is on a social level or in some other way. In their thinking, they are still the masters of their own destinies. Little do they realize how much they are serving the flesh and self. When you become a Christian, there must be the change of allegiance. You no longer serve Satan and the flesh; you serve the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your only Lord and Master.
What happens when the enemy is able to divert us from the real truth? This has happened, and for that reason apostles and prophets and true pastors and evangelists need to be restored to the Church. People without the foundational revelation find themselves picking up a little point of emphasis here and there, and the picture is not presented as it should be. Without the proper emphasis upon the Word of God, we find ourselves drawn to the extremity of the truth where we are vulnerable to satanic attack. When Satan can divert us, he can destroy us.
The fall of Babylon illustrates those tactics. The city was so well-fortified that it seemed impregnable. When the Medes and the Persians came to attack, they diverted the Euphrates River, which ran through the city, into another channel. Then the army could march into the city on the dry riverbed. Belshazzar was banqueting with a thousand of his lords when the handwriting appeared upon the wall, predicting his downfall. That night it happened as it was written (Daniel 5).
Satan is a master at diverting the people of the Lord. He comes to pervert, divert, or deceive you in some little way. He will try to divert the truth and rechannel it. You dare not even follow your own judgment. Open your heart to the Word. As God is restoring the Church, more and more you will have a safe guide. How we need more prophets in this day. How we need more of the discerning of spirits. How we need to analyze almost everything that comes along, so that it is not diverted or perverted before our eyes. Let us strive to walk in the true faith that was once delivered to the saints.