Friday 29 May 2015

Creeps

For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. – Jude 1.4

Whenever I read this verse I think about a Bible teaching seminar where the teacher used Jude as an example of how to teach doctrine because it was such a short little book. I will never forget something he said off-handily. ‘Certain men have crept in unawares. We call them creeps.’

That was kind of funny and it sticks in my my mind after all these years.

And the truth is that sadly there are creeps in the church who want to shipwreck the cause of Christ. We must always be on guard because they are not going to walk in the front door boldly proclaiming their heresy. They sneak in while we are not looking.

There are three marks here that are more fully described over the next few verses.

They are ungodly
They turn God’s grace into lewdness
They are Christ deniers

There is a tempt to let down out guard in order to be inclusive and maybe even keep our numbers up. We have swallowed the line that size equals success. But in that rush to bring people in we need to be careful what we diligently watch for those who try to sneak error into our churches.

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