"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep
yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal Me.
And of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out
of the fire:hating even the garment spotted by the flesh" (Jude 20-23).

Dark and gloomy as the scene is today, there is yet no cause for despair. "Upon this rock," said
Christ, "I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).
The final result is sure. Victory will rest on the blood-stained banner of the Prince of Peace. In
the hour of His triumph His faithful ones shall be the sharers of His glory. And in the present
moment of their trial and His rejection they have an abundant solace and cheer, however the
power of Satan may be manifested and error seem to be about to vanquish truth.

The saint of God needs to daily build himself up on his most holy faith. That faith has been once
for all revealed (Jude 3); on it the believer rests. Assured that it forms a foundation impregnable
to every attack by men or demons, he is now to build himself up upon it. This implies continual
feeding upon the Word that the soul may be nourished and the spirit edified.

But linked up with this we have prayer in the Holy Spirit:not perfunctory saying of prayers, but
spiritual communion with God, bringing to Him every need and every difficulty, assured that He
waits in grace to meet the one and to dissolve the other. Praying in the Holy Spirit can only result
from a walk in the Spirit. For if there be not self-judgment, prayer will be selfish. We shall ask
and receive not, because we seek to gratify our own lusts in our requests. But when Christ is
before the soul, and the heart is finding its delight in Him, the Holy Spirit Himself will dictate
those petitions that God delights to grant.

A definite command follows:"Keep yourselves in the love of God." Note, it is not, "Keep God
loving you." Such a thought is opposed to that glorious revelation of Him whose nature is love.
The cross has told out to the full all that He is. Daily the believer is given to prove this
lovingkindness. Nor does the apostle exhort us to keep loving God. The divine nature in every
believer rises up in love to Him whose grace has saved him. "We love Him because He first loved
us."

But here we are told to keep ourselves in the love of God. It is as though I say to my child, "Keep
in the sunshine." The sun shines whether we enjoy it or not. And so God’s love abides
unchanging. But we need to keep in the conscious enjoyment of it. Let nothing make the tried soul
doubt that love. Circumstances cannot alter it. Difficulties cannot strain it, nor can our own
failures. The soul needs to rely upon it, and thus be borne in triumph above the conflict and the
discouraging episodes incident to the life of faith.

Then we have a fourth exhortation, carrying the heart on to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are to await His mercy unto eternal Me. We have eternal life now, by faith in Him who is
Himself the life eternal. But we are going on to the scene where Me shall reign, where everything
will be suited to the Me already communicated to us by the Spirit. This is at the end of the way;

so the trusting soul looks up in hope and waits in patience for the return of the Lord.

The next verse tells us how to deal with bewildered souls, led astray by the wicked deceivers
against whom we have been warned in the early part of this epistle. A godly discrimination should
be used in dealing with persons taken by error. A hard and fast rule for treating all alike is
contrary to this verse, and to the tenor of all Scripture. Undoubtedly souls have been driven more
completely into evil systems by the rigor and harshness of well-meaning but unwise persons who
so dreaded contamination with the error that they did not seek, in a godly way, to recover and
clear the deceived one before refusing him their fellowship.

The tenth verse of the Second Epistle of John is decisive and simple as to a willful teacher of what
is opposed to the doctrine of Christ. Such are to be shunned, and even refused a common greeting.
But other methods apply to dealing with their dupes, often entrapped through ignorance; though
undoubtedly a perverse will has been at work or they would have been kept by divine power in
the truth. Often what is needed is to deal with the perverted one as to his ways, rather than the
teaching he has imbibed. When there is self-judgment, the Spirit can be depended on to do His
blessed work of guiding into all truth.

Others need to be snatched from the fire; energetic effort is made to warn and deliver before the
evil gets so firm a hold upon them that it will be too late to seek their blessing. But in every
instance, one needs to remember that unholy teaching is defiling and linked up with unholy living;
thus, care must be exercised lest, in seeking to aid another, one become himself besmirched by
the evil influence, and be thus made unfit to help others because his own fellowship with God in
the truth has become marred.

Truth is learned in the conscience; and only as one walks carefully and soberly before God is there
security from error. Because Hymenaeus and Alexander did not maintain a good conscience, they
made shipwreck of the faith_as have untold thousands besides (1 Tim. 1:18-20). This is the result
of the fact that enlightenment in divine things depends on the Holy Spirit’s activity in taking the
things of Christ and revealing them to His own. Where He is grieved by a careless demeanor and
loose ways He no longer establishes the soul in the truth, but His activity is manifested in bringing
home to the conscience the sin and failure that have dishonored the Lord. Therefore, if there
would be growth in the knowledge of His Word, there must be a walk in the power of the Spirit
ungrieved.

So, in seeking the recovery of those who have erred from the truth, this ministry to the conscience
must not be lost sight of. Otherwise there may be ability to overthrow the reasonings of one
astray, to meet all objections by direct Scripture, even to cause one to see that his position is
biblically and logically untenable, while yet the state of his soul is as wretched as ever.

But when the deceived one is dealt with in the fear of God, in holy faithfulness, his restoration to
communion will be the first step sought:then he will be in a state to appreciate the seriousness of
the evil teaching in which he has been taken as in a net when he wandered out of the right way.

(From An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude.)