Hi, Zane.
Whew! We made it to Southern California. The 20-year-old care we just picked up has done well so far. It’s a 2002 Toyota Avalon. We’ll soon be going to my brother-in-law’s 90th birthday bash. Ray Alcorn. We had breakfast with him this morning, prepared by his daughter, Charla. Good time. Then tomorrow is the memorial service for Becki’s sister, Charlotte. We’re planning to head north again soon after that event.
I’d be interested to hear how things are going with your new job—if you’ve started it before now.
God bless you as you seek Him. Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
It seems to me that Jude’s primary objective in writing this letter was to warn the HELL out of his readers (that which disqualifies one for salvation) and to encourage them in practical heart-level holiness that most assuredly qualifies one for heaven (eternal life). He provides several cases of wrong responses to God’s grace and insists that, “They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (v. 7). That can mean nothing but HELL.
I’d like to give some attention to the idea of a license—say a driver’s license. It is an important document (or used to be) to hold if one is going to participate in the modern privilege of owning or operating a motorized vehicle on public roads. For good reason, the laws of every government impose rules and regulations to protect that right and prevent it from damaging the rights of others. So the possession of a driver’s license is not authorization to make one’s own roads through the fences and back yards of the neighborhood. It does not give one the right to drive into stores or on sidewalks or through all the landscaping of the city park. It is not a provision for disregarding red lights, speed limits, or right of ways. The license only grants permission to operate a vehicle within the parameters of the laws governing that permission. That makes sense to me.
Now consider carefully Jude’s words as he presents his primary concern in verses 3 and 4. Perhaps I will insert some of my own parenthetical comments along with the text. “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation (God’s ultimate objective in issuing the license of His grace) we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith (the proper and appropriate use of the license of salvation/God’s grace) that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men (though they claim to hold the same license as the saints), WHO CHANGE THE GRACE OF OUR GOD INTO A LICENSE FOR IMMORALITY and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord (failure to live in proper submission to the government and giver of the license).”
The grace of God has been issued to us ONLY as a license for holiness unto eternal life. Any use of it outside those parameters is unauthorized, unacceptable, and punishable.