How many of you clean your house before you go on vacation? It is so nice to come back to a tidy abode after some time away, but this practice confused me as a kid. Like, who were we cleaning for? We’re not even going to be here. Are we expecting ghosts? Squatters? A surprise inspection? GRANDMA??

I remember feeling that having to clean my room before every trip was a real buzz kill. But my parents had a strong ethic of first things first, and work before play that I appreciate now that I am older.

Our letter from Jude today started out exactly like that. He intended to pen an epistle on salvation but had to “clean up” a few things first. There were godless people who had infiltrated their community and brought their immorality and ungodly desires with them. So Jude had to address first things first.

The name Jude is short for Judas, but as the canon was being developed it was deemed wise not to allow him to be confused with Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus. This Judas was in fact the half-brother of Jesus. Mary and Joseph’s son was humble in his position as sibling to the Lord. Rather than flaunt his position, Jude rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

The main issues he addressed in his letter had been addressed against the godless long before. Jude recounted what happened to those who survived the exodus from Egypt only to fall away from God. He went all the way back to Genesis to describe what happened to angels who fell from grace, as well as the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah who met a fiery fate due to their sins. These stories, contended Jude, should serve as a warning.

Jude 1:1-25

³ Dear friends, I wanted very much to write to you concerning the salvation we share. Instead, I must write to urge you to fight for the faith delivered once and for all to God’s holy people. ⁴ Godless people have slipped in among you. They turn the grace of our God into unrestrained immorality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Judgment was passed against them a long time ago.

⁵ I want to remind you of something you already know very well. The Lord, who once saved a people out of Egypt, later destroyed those who didn’t maintain their faith. ⁶ I remind you too of the angels who didn’t keep their position of authority but deserted their own home. The Lord has kept them in eternal chains in the underworld until the judgment of the great day. ⁷ In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and neighboring towns practiced immoral sexual relations and pursued other sexual urges. By undergoing the punishment of eternal fire, they serve as a warning.

⁸ Yet, even knowing this, these dreamers in the same way pollute themselves, reject authority, and slander the angels. ⁹ The archangel Michael, when he argued with the devil about Moses’ body, did not dare charge him with slander. Instead, he said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰ But these people slander whatever they don’t understand. They are destroyed by what they know instinctively, as though they were irrational animals.

The pressing issue in Jude’s time was the invasion of people into the faith community who rejected God’s authority and slandered things they did not understand. Jude warned that these people are like “jagged rocks just below the surface of the water waiting to snag you” (verse 12) and “wild waves of the sea foaming up their own shame” (verse 13). His use of imagery is striking! We can just imagine ourselves being pulled under and drowning in sin. Jude cautioned and counseled them to clean their house of these people. Judgment is coming.

¹¹ They are damned, for they follow in the footsteps of Cain. For profit they give themselves over to Balaam’s error. They are destroyed in the uprising of Korah. ¹² These people are like jagged rocks just below the surface of the water waiting to snag you when they join your love feasts. They feast with you without reverence. They care only for themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; fruitless autumn trees, twice dead, uprooted; ¹³ wild waves of the sea foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom the darkness of the underworld is reserved forever.

¹⁴ Enoch, who lived seven generations after Adam, prophesied about these people when he said, “See, the Lord comes with his countless holy ones,¹⁵ to execute judgment on everyone and to convict everyone about every ungodly deed they have committed in their ungodliness as well as all the harsh things that sinful ungodly people have said against him.” ¹⁶ These are faultfinding grumblers, living according to their own desires. They speak arrogant words and they show partiality to people when they want a favor in return.

Take a look around you. Are you listening to the faultfinding grumblers who speak arrogant words and reject God’s authority? If you are, clean out your room!

¹⁷ But you, dear friends, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the end time scoffers will come living according to their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These people create divisions. Since they don’t have the Spirit, they are worldly.

Jude leaves us with a beautiful word of encouragement to build each other up on the foundation of our good and holy faith while we protect ourselves from falling in with the wicked ones.

²⁰ But you, dear friends: build each other up on the foundation of your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep each other in the love of God, wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will give you eternal life. ²² Have mercy on those who doubt. ²³ Save some by snatching them from the fire. Fearing God, have mercy on some, hating even the clothing contaminated by their sinful urges.

Let us leave this devotional with the beautiful benediction and doxology of verses 24-25. Amen!

To the one who is able to protect you from falling,
        and to present you blameless and rejoicing before his glorious presence,
²⁵ to the only God our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
        belong glory, majesty, power, and authority,
            before all time, now and forever. Amen.

Glory, Majesty, and Power