May 16th, 2009
It’s often been said that the book of Jude is one of the most practical books of the Bible with its doctrine being pretty straightforward. Consisting of only one chapter with 25 verses, it’s a quick read if you skim the surface, but there are deeper truths that lie beneath. Jude is a book written to believers: “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus and called…” (Jude 1). I’d like to take you to one of its verses and attempt to relate it to the family.
Jude 4 reads, “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Several points to consider before getting into the heart of the matter…
First, the term ungodly as found in verse 4 does not mean to be unsaved in this context. It is the Greek word ASEBES, which can mean to be irreverent toward God, but also means to act in contradictory ways to God’s demands. In other words, these men weren’t doing things God’s way. These men, mentioned in this verse, were teaching that God’s grace freed everyone from any kind of moral law, thus, in effect, denying the role of God the Father and Christ the Son have in our lives. They wrongly based their lives on a false premise and it led to something…lasciviousness.
Lasciviousness can be defined as shameless conduct. These men didn’t understand the teachings of the grace of God and thereby believed grace freed them to act any sort of way they wanted. Thus, when there are no morals to be wary of, the obvious thing to do is to live unholy lives…without shame. But the other wary point to lasciviousness is the fact that the line of what’s acceptable keeps changing, or blurring, or turning more and more gray. Whatever phrase you want to use, the idea is simply this…it’s a moral stand written on the sidewalk in chalk…as time goes on and rains come and the moral stand gets washed away, a new moral stand is written, only this time it’s slightly different than the one it replaced. Usually it’s a little more liberal.
Let’s go back and look at the importance God places on doing things His way. Scripture gives us three crystal clear examples depicting how important it is to do things the way God says they need to be done. The first example is found in Genesis 4. Cain and Abel had brought sacrifices to the Lord and only Abel had brought the sacrifice God had asked for. Previously in Genesis 3, God had provided and animal sacrifice to clothe Adam and Eve, and from then on, animal offerings were expected. Surely both Cain and Abel were taught these things by their parents. There is no reason to believe that only Abel was taught these things and Cain was left out of it. So we see Cain doing what he wanted and it led to God being displeased with his offering and that led to jealousy toward Abel, which eventually led fratricide.
Then there is the account of one of King David’s men, Uzza, who accompanied the Ark of the Covenant, which was on a cart for the trip to Jerusalem. Now the oxen had stumbled and the ark was ready to fall off the cart and Uzza put forth his hands to keep the Ark from falling to the ground. Now to most people, who don’t know the Scriptures, that sounds very noble. The problem is that God had commanded in Numbers 4:15 that NO ONE, not even the priests could touch the Ark. So, God killed Uzza right then and there for doing things not God’s way (1st Chronicles 13:9-10).
The last example I want to show you from God’s Word of someone acting ungodly is found in Numbers 20:6-12. God had meant for Moses to speak to a rock from which water would flow to give much needed drink to the congregation wandering in the wilderness. Moses, instead, smote the rock with his rod and water still flowed out, but because he didn’t do it God’s way, he was banned from leading the Israelites into the Promised Land.
Not doing things God’s way…Christians acting ungodly…carries with it consequences. We just saw a brother kill a brother; a well-meaning individual killed by God; and another gentlemen who wandered and led a people for 40 years all for naught. So don’t be fooled. God will still hold us just as accountable for the ways we do things in our lives and our families.
Back to the ungodly in Jude. Whether or not these men taught a wrong message of God’s grace intentionally or out of ignorance, the end result was the same…it led to lasciviousness. Shameless conduct. If we don’t strive to learn and understand God’s moral expectations of us as parents, spouses, siblings, and children, then we leave ourselves open to do things or get involved in things that aren’t edifying and glorifying to God. Not only that, but if we don’t believe in the morals and values of God being absolute, then we open ourselves up to watering down our convictions with each passing generation.
Most of us would agree that vulgarity is to be avoided as a Christian, but many of us would be comfortable using the word “crap” as an alternative expletive. Other words like “sucks” roll off Christian tongues. Try to imagine the old time preachers using those words in a sermon or in any conversation for that matter. See, as the years pass, the moral standards that were written in chalk on the sidewalk on a rainy day, disappear and are replaced with standards that are less convicting and easier to live with…allowing for shameless conduct.
Here’s one…the disciplining of children. There’s God’ way, the world’s way, and then there’s the Christian psychologist’s way. One way is right…one way is wrong…and one way has a mixture of right and wrong. If God’s absolute standards, which are taught in the Bible become ignored or mixed with worldly wisdom, then God’s expectations for us become blurred and grayed out. If we don’t know what we’re doing is wrong, we may parent the wrong way…guilt free. We may be as well meaning as Uzza was, and our family may be destroyed in the process. And, God will hold us accountable for the actions of our children the way He held Eli accountable in 1st Samuel 4:15-18.
How about children? If you have godly parents who are teaching and growing you in the Lord, according to the principals present in God’s Word, you should be thankful. But if you yourself don’t know the Bible and it’s expectations for you as a Christian, and you see your friend’s parents being more liberal in their dealings with their children, it won’t take much for you to become jaded toward your parent’s “old fashioned” and “out of touch” ways. Soon you’ll rebel and mirror your life after your friend because, after all, things are different today then when your parents were your age. So going to “R” rated movies will bring no feelings of guilt or convictions. Cain chose not to heed the teachings of his parents and it led to bad times later down the road.
With respect to the family, well, that is a sacred thing in the eyes of God. It was ordained by God in Genesis 2:21-24. God structured the home in Ephesians 5:22-33. God gave the home a purpose, and that is to bear children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). A godly home is to be a testimony to the power and goodness of God to a world that has difficulty seeing that God exists. But if you don’t appreciate the responsibility families have before the Lord, then you will suffer consequences, just like Moses. Speaking to the rock was to be a symbolic gesture through which God was going to reveal more of His Son to the Israelites, but Moses ruined it by not doing it God’s way and thus, the testimony of the Lord was not fully understood to the Israelites. Our Living God will appear dead to a world when our families are no different than the world’s families.
One major way our families can be different from the world’s families is in the area of lasciviousness. For the most part, lasciviousness has connotations of a sexual nature attached to it. It’s most commonly heard in police reports of people being arrested for lewd and lascivious acts. But the Greek word ASELGEIA has other descriptors attached. Among these are: doing things in excess, licentiousness, acting without restraint, and, of course, indecency.
It relates to us in this way. Just as these ungodly men in Jude twisted the concept of Christian liberty to mean freedom to do whatever we want whenever we want, without restraint (lasciviousness), so too is the temptation for us to take the absolute moral standards of the Bible and twist them to make concessions for the things we enjoy. For example, getting our kids involved in dance at an early age. Ballet may be one thing, but if they stay in dance long enough, and get exposed to other forms of dance, soon they may be interested in modern dance. This modern dance usually is accompanied by tight immodest clothing with sensuous gyrations. This could cause some other father in the crowd to lust after your daughter and thus the “liberty” you exercised in allowing your daughter to perform modern dance aided another man in committing mental adultery as described in Matthew 5:27-28. I’m sure it wasn’t a ballet dance that caused Herod to offer the daughter of Herodias anything she desired after having watched her dance (Mark 6:14-29).
Fifty years ago there would have been little quarrel about dance. Today, some schools are still trying to hold to moral absolutes and doing what they need to in order to keep their students safe. Baptist Bible College East, in Massachusetts, wouldn’t allow any outward signs of affection to be shown between romantically involved unmarried couples. No hugging. No kissing. Not even hand holding. Because they knew the slippery slope if compromises were made. But if we don’t take that same proactive approach with our children, our families will again be no different from the world when it comes to purity, modesty, and many other forms of morality that demonstrate a restraint that is a foreign concept to the world.
So, the Word of God has in it the correct way to do things. We can choose to live our lives and raise our children God’s way, or we can live our lives and raise our children according to what WE want the Bible to mean. This, as we have seen, will lead to shameless activities because we will have no sense of the morality of the situation because we have chosen to understand God’s Word in ways that suit us.
The Bible explains that the desire to act ungodly and with lasciviousness is bound up in us. “For from within, OUT OF THE HEART OF MEN, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, LASCIVIOUSNESS, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23). Galatians 5:19-21 reiterates the point made in the Gospel of Mark. In Ephesians 4:19 we see God having calloused the hearts of unbelievers because they traveled so far into sin, but since Christians are also able to succumb to lasciviousness (2nd Corinthians 12:21) eventually, God can turn us over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28). One Bible commentary suggests that if we want to eliminate God’s moral absolutes and His standards from our lives (acting ungodly), we will be turned over to reprobate minds. Otherwise, if “know that there is a God, then we are morally responsible to Him.”
And there we have it. If we are Christians, and we believe in the existence of God, we are morally bound to live our lives accordingly. If we do things God’s way, this will drastically reduce the likelihood of engaging in lascivious behaviors that stem from acting ungodly…and our families will be the better for it…
