"What can we plain Christians do to bring back the departed glory? Acquaint thyself with God. To regain her lost power the Church must see heaven opened and have a transforming vision of God." So writes A. W. Tozer in his book, Knowledge of the Holy, written in 1961. He says, "we must break quietly and graciously with the lifeless textualism that prevails among the gospel church, and to protest the frivolous character of much that passes for Christianity among us." Jesus said, in John 12:48, that the word He spoke will be the judge on the last day. And as those leaders over me, say time and time again, we must get into the word of God. This is how we learn to discern the truth from error in all that claims Christianity.
Jude writes a short but necessarily potent letter to a Christian church in regard to those who claimed Christianity but were in fact perverting it. He instructs with great intensity and passion in order to warn true believers how to spot this error before it destroys utterly all that was suppose to be the building up of the bride of Christ. He gives examples of Old Testament men who rebelled against God's commands and did their own thing in the guise of seeking Him.
In speaking of this rebellion, the ESV's translation says, "abandoned themselves for the sake of gain". I was struck by this translation. I began thinking about the word "abandon" and the positives and negatives in regard to this word. Consider, "she ran with reckless abandon" in that she gave it everything she had. And then, "he abandoned his family for another woman" meaning the shirk of responsibility for frivolity and feelings. In Jude, I think it means they gave up all to do wrong, like my second example. However, the thought that came to me when I read it, had to do with personal destruction.
When man continues in sin, ignores the warning given time and again, self-destruction is inevitable. Even if all seems well as he lives through his life, eternity will be his final evidence. And as I read, "abandoned themselves", it hit me that in essence that is what man does when he ignores the warnings. He is in a sense walking away from himself and leaving himself defenseless against the coming wrath of God. I shudder in the thought. And as always, the word of God, has reminded and instructed me once again of our need to evangelize the lost and broken world running headlong into error.
Jude gives a brief rundown on how we are to do this in verse twenty-two. But a sentence I read in my study of the word, "abandon", says it very clearly as to how we approach the problem of sin and especially the sin in the church that threatens to "undo it": "He ran into the burning house with reckless abandon (without caring about the danger)." And I would add "with the love of Christ for the souls."
