Grace Doesn't Cancel Judgment | Jude 5-7

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ESTHER: We will begin Esther next Monday. I have titled this one, FOR SUCH A TIME: Courage When God Seems Silent. Grab the Esther Journal now. If you are a Project23 donor giving $35/month or more, do not purchase one; we have already sent this to you in the mail.

Our text today is Jude 5-7

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. — Jude 5-7

One of the easiest lies to slip into is thinking that because God has already forgiven me, what I'm doing right now somehow doesn't matter as much. God has been patient with me. God has forgiven me before. God knows my heart.

All of that can be true—and still not change what I'm doing. Grace was never meant to sit quietly next to ongoing resistance to God.

Jude is writing to a church that's starting to lose that line. Some people were taking grace and stretching it into permission for whatever they wanted. So he pulls them back by pointing to three old stories everyone would've known: Israel in the wilderness, angels who stepped out of their place, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

He basically says, "You already know this—I'm just reminding you."

And that's the uncomfortable part. Most of the time, the problem isn't that we don't know. It's that what we know just doesn't feel as heavy anymore. Spiritual drift usually doesn't start with ignorance. It starts when something we already believe stops pressing on us. We know what God has said. We know where compromise leads. We know what obedience asks of us.

But knowing and actually living like it's true are two different things.

Jude starts with Israel. God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They saw the plagues, walked through the sea, ate what fell from heaven, lived under his care in a way you'd think they could never forget.

And still, Jude says, God later judged those who didn't believe.