A campaign called, “National Back To Church Sunday,” was recently promoted in the U.S. with the goal of inviting people back to church again. Another appeal regularly seen in the media is, “attend the church of your choice.”
While some might respond to these slogans, their actions would not improve their relationship with God, for their whole premise is founded on falsehood (compare Matthew 7:21-23). For the people who have truly been called by God and then have engaged themselves in compromise, there is a much more definitive and somber rallying cry given to members of the Church of God.
Jude puts it this way:
“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (verse 3).
Jude’s letter was written in the later decades of the first generation of the Church of God—a time of wholesale apostasy.
Jesus addressed those who had left their first love; who suffered great persecution; who embraced vile doctrines; who were letting the truth of God die; who had only a little strength; and who, filled with self-righteousness, had lost their zeal for obeying God. These warnings are found in Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, and all members of the Church of God are responsible to heed His admonitions.
Paul was inspired to address the way the truth of God would be rejected in our time—the “last days”:
“For the time will come when they will not endure SOUND DOCTRINE, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Do you embrace sound doctrines which can be clearly proven from the Word of God? When you listen to sermonettes or sermons, read booklets and articles, fellowship with brethren—is it all based on the doctrines of truth, those only found in the Bible? Or do you harbor a private interpretation—a pet theory which the Church of God does not teach?
With this Update, we are presenting the fifth and final installment of a series, “How Are We to Keep the Sabbath?” Just as Jude did, so are we “exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Knowledge of the weekly Sabbath and annual Holy Days must not be taken for granted—they ARE part of the faith. Keeping them as God has commanded IS sound doctrine, and if you aren’t, if you have become lax and permissive, don’t close your eyes and ears to God’s counsel:
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?–unless indeed you are disqualified” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
