Next they are like clouds blowing over the land without providing any rain. The land needs rain in order for things to grow. Correct doctrine contributes to our growth in God and leads to spiritual maturity. How important is this?
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. -- Galatians 1: 9-10 (NLT)
In order to know God better and better we must grow spiritually. We grow spiritually when we live our lives in a manner which pleases Him and honors Him, producing fruit for the furtherance of His kingdom. We achieve that by attaining knowledge of His complete will as well as gaining spiritual wisdom and knowledge. While growing spiritually draws us ever closer to our Lord, when we stagnate, we can actually push ourselves further and further from Him. This has often been described as backsliding but it can also happen unbeknownst to us and even in "church." That is why it is important to not only attend church but to attend the right church. Not all who say Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven! Discernment is critical and we start to lose that when the leaven works its way through the whole batch. When we have accepted so many little compromises that the big ones no longer appear to be that big a deal. When we have convinced ourselves that we need to change the Gospel in order to be relevant to a fallen culture.
I will close with the final three warnings from the key verses. They are like trees bearing no fruit and pulled up by their roots. They are like wild waves of the sea churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars -- doomed forever to the blackest darkness. Jude is warning us here that there are consequences. I know sometimes we get into the habit of playing church and we think that everything is all right, when the reality is much worse than that. We are supposed to bear fruit for the kingdom of God. Jesus did not save us to sit in a pew and play church games. There are too many people going to hell for that. There is a quick story in the Bible where Jesus actually curses a fig tree because when He examined it, there was no fruit. Jesus expects us to bear fruit as well and God forbid He comes to see and finds none being borne in our lives! They are like the sea churning up their shameful waves indicates the inevitable results of sin and false teaching. Again, we like to think we are more sophisticated than we really are. Our pride and the enemy convince us that we are strong enough to dwell in the enemy's land and not be defiled. It simply will not happen. We will be defiled if we insist on staying in the middle of apostasy. Just like the waves of the sea -- we cannot stop it. God saved us out of the darkness of this world yet as these key verses indicate; false teachers are like wandering stars doomed forever to the blackest darkness. We cannot play in that darkness and think we can avoid it. We would be doomed as well.
In the age of itching ears I understand that this is a difficult word. We would rather hear that love wins, there is no hell, and God's grace allows us to sin without worry. Those messages however are not from God. The time is running short and we are the chosen vehicle for God to reach the lost with the uncompromised Gospel of Jesus Christ. But the scourge of false teachers is real and God talks to us a lot about it in His Word. The key verses today go further though. They talk about our fellowshipping with what we know is not of God. For whatever rationale we use, it simply is a very dangerous practice. We can have the best of intentions but the enemy will use them against us. We need to be cognizant of where we are and where we hang our hat. We will be held to account for what we did with the salvation entrusted to us. Let us always be found bearing fruit when the Master comes look for us.
Reverend Anthony Wade -- August 7, 2012
