The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Jude 1:3-4, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Did you ever start out to do something and experience a change of mind? A dear pastor-friend of mine sat down to write a letter of recommendation for me when he said, “The LORD stayed my hand. I simply could not physically write.”

Jude had a similar experience. He started to write a letter that would encourage other believers –a letter of their “common salvation” –salvation that was delivered by the Spirit, through the churches to which other believers belonged. But, as with my pastor-friend, the LORD stopped Jude’s hand –at least, He stopped Jude from writing about his intended subject.

“Certain persons,” Jude says, “crept in unnoticed” and were turning “the grace of our God into licentiousness (sensuality) and deny(ing) our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Barclay notes:

“The Greek word (pareisduein)…is a very expressive word. It is used of the specious and seductive words of a clever pleader seeping gradually into the minds of a judge and jury; it is used of an outlaw slipping secretly back into the country from which he has been expelled; it is used of the slow and subtle entry of innovations into the life of state, which in the end undermine and break down the ancestral laws. It always indicates a stealthy insinuation of something evil into a society or situation.

It would appear that some unsavery characters had infiltrated the church and were teaching that the Scriptures actually allowed blatant immorality (Greek aselgia), the loss of all decency and concern for anyone knowing of their sin. They taught that the more they sinned, the greater was God’s grace! Imagine! They had secretly infiltrated the church and were now twisting the grace of God into an acceptable reason for sinning.

Jesus Christ alone is our LORD and Savior! His Life was totally pure and without sin! If we are His followers, instead of trying to twist Scripture so as to excuse our sin, we should thoroughly expunge sin from our lives! Personal, verbal witnessing notwithstanding, the greatest witness is that of a pure life. Thanks, Jude, for reminding us! And may the LORD help us rid the church of evil teachers through our unswerving stand for Scriptural Truth!

We pray for you as you stand with Christ and His faithful ministers,

Nana & Dado III

(Rose Marie & Gene)

P. S. This link (https://www.nibib.nih.gov/science-education/science-topics/nuclear-medicine#pid-986)

will give you the information regarding Rose Marie’s Tuesday test. She is strong and prayerful in her

trust of the LORD.

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”