Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

Today’s devotion comes from Jude 1:5-10.

“⁵ Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.  ⁶ And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, ⁷ just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.  ⁹ But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”  ¹⁰ But these men revile the things which they do not understand;  and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.”  Jude 1:5-10.

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Today’s Scripture provides plenty of warnings of the ways of the wicked and the certain eternal punishment.

“A wise man is cautious and turns away from evil, But a fool is arrogant and careless.”  Proverbs 14:16

Just in case, we only think today’s Scripture is just odd, here are further warnings.  Notice how similar the following 2 Peter 2:4-12 is to today’s Scripture.

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;  and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;  and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;  and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.  Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.  But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,”  2 Peter 2:4-12.

Let us “turn aside from the snares of death”.  Let us avoid the “way of the treacherous”.  Let us be “prudent”.  Let us flee from “folly”.

“¹⁴ The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,
To turn aside from the snares of death.
¹⁵ Good understanding produces favor,
But the way of the treacherous is hard.
¹⁶ Every prudent man acts with knowledge,
But a fool displays folly.”  Proverbs 13:14-16.

Let us pursue life.  Let us embrace godly living.  Let us fear the Lord.

“The path of life leads upward for the wise That he may keep away from Sheol below.”  Proverbs 15:24