Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

Today’s devotion comes from Deuteronomy 2:8-15.  Here is a link to this Scripture – https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%202&version=NASB1995

“Now the time that it took for us to come from Kadesh-barnea until we crossed over the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war perished from within the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.  Moreover the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from within the camp until they all perished.”  Deuteronomy 2:14-15.

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The Book of Jude is devoted as a warning about the ungodly.  As one example, the Book of Jude used the example of those “within the camp” of Israel who did not believe that the LORD would give them possession of Canaan, the Promised Land.    

“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.”  Jude 5.

Let us review the summary by Moses of their unbelief in the prior chapter, Deuteronomy chapter 1. 

“Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God;  and you grumbled in your tents and said, ‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us.  Where can we go up?  Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we;  the cities are large and fortified to heaven.  And besides, we saw the sons of the Anakim there.”’  Then I said to you, ‘Do not be shocked, nor fear them.  The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.’  But for all this, you did not trust the LORD your God,  who goes before you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go.”  Deuteronomy 1:26-33.

With that warning in mind, let us heed the exhortation in the Book of Jude.

“But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.”  These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.  But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.  And have mercy on some, who are doubting;  save others, snatching them out of the fire;  and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”  Jude 17-23.

But, there is hope as stated in the comforting conclusion in the Book of Jude!

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever.  Amen.”  Jude 24-25.