Remember ye the words … spoken before of the apostles.
Words to be remembered
1.Great should be the care of the ministers of Christ to warn the Church of approaching evils, especially of seducers.
2. It is our duty to acknowledge and commend the gifts and graces of God bestowed upon others with respect.
3. The consent between the penmen of Scripture is sweet and harmonious; they were all breathed upon by the same Spirit, and breathed forth the same truth and holiness.
4. Scripture is the best preservative against seduction.
5. They who are forewarned should be forearmed. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)
Mockers in the last time.
Mockers
1.What is told to the Church in general, we must apprehend it as told to us. Paul telleth Timothy, and Peter telleth the distressed strangers, and Jude saith they told you. The Bible is a message sent from heaven to acquaint us with the mind of God; if we own the Divine authority of it, why do we regard it no more?
2. We should not be troubled at what is foretold; monsters expected are not wondered at; expectation forearmeth the mind against evil (Joh_16:4). We are the better prepared to entertain evils when we expect them before they come, and the evil to which the mind is accustomed seemeth the less. Again, we have an experience of God’s truth in the prediction. Finally, it assureth us that the Lord hath a hand and a counsel in all our troubles, for He told us of them before.
3. The Scriptures speak much of the evil of the latter times; there is more knowledge and yet more sin and error. The latter days are as the bottom and sink that receive the dregs of foregoing ages, and as the world groweth old it is much given to dreams and dotage.
4. Among other sins that are found in the latter times, there will be many scoffers, partly because in times of controversy men will lose all awe--when truths are made questionable assent is weakened; partly because in times of liberty men will give vent to their thoughts.
5. Mockers and scoffers are usually the worst of sinners. Scorning cometh from custom in sinning, and maketh way for freedom in sinning.
6. Those that cast off the awe of the Lord’s coming will certainly give up themselves to brutish lusts.
7. It argueth a state of wickedness to walk after our own lusts; that is, when sin and lust is our constant practice. (T. Manton.)
Mockers
Byscoffing at things sacred, and ridiculing the notion that there is any harm in licentiousness, or anything estimable in holiness, they created a moral atmosphere in which men sinned with a light heart, because sin was made to look as if it were a matter of no moment, a thing to be indulged in without anxiety or remorse. It would be more reasonable and less reprehensible to make a mock at carnage or pestilence, and teach men to go with a light heart into a desolating war or plague-stricken neighbourhood. In such cases experience of the manifest horrors would soon cure the light-heartedness. But the horrible nature of sin is not so manifest, and with regard to that, experience teaches its lesson more slowly. It is like a poisoning of the blood rather than a wound in the flesh, and may have done incalculable mischief before any serious pain is felt, or any grave alarm excited. Hence it is quite easy for many to “walk after their own ungodly lusts” and at the same time “mock at sin” and its consequences. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
