BOOK BY BOOK BIBLE STUDY
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com
BIBLE STUDY LESSON
For the week beginning Sunday February 10, 2013
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LIVING WITH TROUBLEMAKERS (THE TARE)
(Beware of anti-CHRIST lifestyles, ideas, and methods)
Jude
Peter C. Craigie once wrote, “When people cease to care, then religion, morality, social customs, and values, all cease to function as mortar that holds together a society, and maintains ancient Faith”. In this terse epistle of Jude, the half-brother of JESUS challenges the people about their relationship and obedience to GOD in the Christian community. It is never an easy task to deal with indifference, or its consequences, or, with a gradual slide towards an unstructured existence, much like we live in today.
Since the dawn of Christianity, it has been a faith, at risk, of being contaminated by the evil forces of satan. And many professed Christian churches have failed, simply because its members failed to get to know the word of GOD well enough, so that they won’t be misled by the false teachers and preachers of their day. And even though Christianity must operate as a welcoming community, possessing the GODly fear necessary to allow us to love the sinner and hate the sin, we must also be able to avoid the pollution of those whom we are seeking to save by leading them to CHRIST.
In this difficult and often neglected letter of Jude, Christians everywhere are urged to stand firm against false teachers and their philosophies, and strive to build each other up in the “Most High Faith”. Jude gives examples of GOD’s judgment on those vile people, who, past and present, attempt to steer Christians away from their faith. He urges us to examine what people say, and, how they actually live their lives (in other words, judge them), so that we may be better able to determine the difference between what is real, and, what is fake. And in today’s society, if we are not really, really tuned in to the word of GOD, we will be fooled.
King David warned us long ago, that, “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest of men are exalted” (Psalm 12:8 – KJV). We, live in a nation, and world, where too many Christians continually exalt those men and women, who have even openly professed, to be anti-CHRIST in their doctrine and lifestyle. We buy their music for ourselves and our children, and we sing the lyrics of their anti-CHRIST Hip Hop doctrine and Neo-soul persuasion (five percenters). We buy their Hip Hop clothing lines, and dress our children in the “armor of satan” that they represent. Clothing that contains all sorts of demonic symbols as their logos, which are used to channel satanic spirits into our children, our homes, our churches, and, our own lives, all for the sake of them obtaining money and fame.
We spend billions of dollars each year going to, and or, sending our children to see their movies and attend their praise and worship concerts to satan. We buy their C.D.s, and make sure we never miss one of their award shows. We live in a nation where more people call in each week to vote for the next “American Idol”, than has ever voted in any presidential election in the history of the United States of America.
So-called gospel singing Christian artists are mixing with professed anti-CHRIST secular artist, creating a vehicle of music that allows satan to enter into the Christian church and become a part of the worship service that has been preserved for GOD, by GOD HIMSELF. The largest producer of secular music in the world (Sony) is also the largest producer of Gospel music in the world. And if the company that even Michael Jackson called “the devil” is producing music for the Church, well, I’m just saying. Don’t look now America, but we are no longer a Christian nation, and we haven’t been for a long, long, long time.
Jude’s powerful letter is directed at all of those whom GOD loves and has called to leadership, and, to all of those who are kept by the sacrifice of JESUS CHRIST. In other words, all professed Christians should take heed to keep themselves in the love of GOD by defending the gospel that was preached by CHRIST, and other men of GOD, building each other up in the Christian Faith, as we all wait on mercy from JESUS CHRIST, unto eternal life.
Jude may have started out wanting to write a positive treatise on salvation, but ultimately, he ended up writing, perhaps, the strongest condemnation of false teachers, and the most stern warnings against participating in perverted practices (mixing the holy with the profane), that can be found anywhere else, in all of New Testament scripture.
His quotations and analogies of past events, vividly describe a day of a coming judgment that has already been substantiated and assimilated in the pages of Old Testament literature. We in America have become “a community at risk” who are in danger of the same kind of judgment that was delivered upon the people of Sodom and Gomorrah in days of old.
False teachers, and all those who promote the anti-CHRIST agenda through their works and lifestyle, will all have to make an account for their deeds in the end. And ultimately, all will receive their just due, via the judgment of CHRIST JESUS, in the much anticipated “Day of the LORD”. And so too, the same grim fate awaits those, who, through their own ignorance of GOD’s word, choose to follow and exalt those who GOD says, are “the vilest of men and women”.
A Sunday school lesson by,
Larry D. Alexander
larrydalexanderbiblestudies.blogspot.com
LARRY D. ALEXANDER- Official Website
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