Jude 4a

"For certain men, whose condemnation was written about long ago, have secretly slipped in among you."

Here's the problem: certain men. Jude knows who they are by the things they say, by the way they live, and by the manner in which they came to church. These "certain men" are described with chilling judgment--they were condemned a long time ago, before they were born. Another translation is, "marked for condemnation." This is the other side of the election coin. God marks some for election and others for condemnation (not by the toss of a coin, though--the analogy of the coin is for the two sides, not for the flippin :). But they don't know that and the Church doesn't know that until these men march onto the pages of history and open their mouths and live their lives. Then we can look at them and say that their judgment is with the wicked.

Jude, who loves mercy, does not counsel the church to confront them with love and try to correct them and bring them into the truth. It's more, "Don't waste your time with them--these deceivers have already chosen their path and are making it their mission to bring as many saints with them as possible." A real zeal for the truth. When Jesus drove out the moneychangers from doing business in the temple, it was said of Jesus, "Zeal for Thy house has consumed me." (John 2:17, quoting Psalm 69:9).

God has always been very zealous regarding worship. It is very important to God how we worship Him. We will see more of that in the next post.