William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army spoke prophetically in his day about the challenges Christians would face in ours: “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.” His prediction has come true in many churches of our day.
Jude saw this before Booth did. In his own day he witnessed the infiltration of the church by those who perverted grace into a license for immorality. It is possible to mistake God’s grace and forgiveness as permission to continue sinning. Jude used the example of the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah to warn the believers of his day. Nothing about immorality is new. It has been the same sin for millennia.
How does the church face the challenge of a culture that wants forgiveness without repentance? Jude says, “Building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love.” Stay in love with God! We snatch others from the fire, loving sinners but hating their sin as we hate our own. As we do our part, we remember his promise: God is able to keep us from stumbling. He will present us to himself without fault and with great joy. Knowing he has done this for us compels us to praise him forever.
