Among the twenty-seven precious books that comprise the eternal canon of the New Testament, there stands the epistle Jude next to the end. Although brief, its approximately six hundred words are of profound importance for the days in which we live. Of the New Testament’s four short epistles (Philemon, II and III John, Jude), Jude is the fullest in burden. Its providential placement in the biblical canon honorably makes it a “preface to the book of Revelation.” Appropriately, the message of this little book concerns the falling away of the institutional church on earth before the Second Coming of the Lord. It is the epistle that contrasts the Beloved of God and the Behated of God in history.

The previous article noted the Holy Spirit’s providential appointment of the epistle of Jude as a preface to the book of Revelation. Jude is the crucial book prophetically dealing with the falling away of the institutional church on earth throughout its history. By A.D. 45 this falling away had already commenced in the Church. Another Gospel, another Spirit, and another Jesus were being proclaimed by false Christs and false teachers already coming like wolves into the fold to spoil the flock.

Many heart-rending stories have arisen from the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis on its fatal voyage after leaving the little island of Tinian near Guam in the South Pacific. It was an overcast night, July 30, 1945, when a Japanese submarine took advantage of a momentary break in the clouds to locate and torpedo the Indianapolis. The ship was on its way to the Philippines when the fatal blow was struck. This was the last U.S. Naval vessel to be lost in World War II. Of the 1,198 crew members, including 39 marines, 317, including 9 marines, survived 5 days in shark-infested waters before finally being rescued; only 129 of the crew, as of August 1, 1995, are alive.

On August 16^th through the 19^th of this year, I was honored by invitation to be a part of the 12^th reunion of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis, which also was the 56^th Anniversary of the sinking of that same ship. This momentous occasion took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, with some 86 or 87 of the still living 110 survivors being present. Nearly 1,000 additional individuals attended who made up the survivors’ families and friends.

Tuesday morning, September 11th, our nation both heard and saw the staggering reality of the capabilities and powers of terrorism upon our country. A terrorist's purpose is to instill terror, to intensify fear upon a people. Terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce submission to a political belief or ideology. It is the hope to fill or overcome a people with terror, thus causing them to yield in absolute submission to the desire of the one who terrorized. It is built upon disruption and disintegration of life, to alter the life of a people by producing widespread fear through shocking acts of violence.

Although historians are still debating whether this country was truly "Christian" from its inception, America definitely was a righteous nation in its beginning. Proverbs 14:34 states that "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." This righteousness is not in reference to the righteousness found in Christ for salvation; rather, a natural righteousness to be found in a nation's morals and leadership. Because of America's respect for righteousness in its early years, God honored and exalted this nation.

Throughout the recent decades of American Christianity, there has been a growing trend of what has come to be known as the crossover. Not exclusive to our generation, this subtle tactic of the crossover has appeared at critical seasons throughout history. However, it has been the contemporary crossover that has grown into a subtle yet powerful trend seeking to pull down the public testimony of true Christianity.

How often we read in the Old Testament of God’s sending a prophet to a man or a woman. Examples include such cases as Nathan to David (II Samuel 11), an unnamed prophet to Jeroboam (I Kings 13), Elijah and Elisha to Ahab (I and II Kings), or Jehu the son of Hanani the seer to Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19). These men were God’s men, anointed men, the appointed mouthpiece of God to the people.

All over the world there is the problem of sin; and all over the Christian world there is the problem of love. We are beginning to see a breakdown between truth and love in our own relationships as Christians. In the midst of an erroneous claim of Neo-Ecumenicity and union, there is almost constant division among the true witness of Old Friends and unity. What is happening among the Neo-Friends does not at all surprise us. However, what is happening among the former Old Friends who were identified with the conservative, evangelical, and fundamental believers is really shocking and disappointing, to say the least.

Fundamentalism is now entering its fourth generation. The fourth generation in Church history has often been the generation to finalize the apostasy of a movement or organization. The first generation has been viewed as the Bible-based generation; the second generation tends towards neutrality; the third generation has strong tendencies towards compromise; and the fourth generation becomes the generation to produce the movement’s apostasy. This does not mean that every individual within that particular generation will be characterized by its master principle, but the generation itself will be so.

Fifty years ago, an unpretentious meeting took place on the outskirts of Dunn, North Carolina, in the home of Dr. O. Talmadge Spence. This meeting proved to have far-reaching importance for Dr. Spence, his family, and a remnant of individuals. The birth of the “Christian Purities Fellowship” was Dr. Spence’s last major attempt to call his fallen, spiritual mother denomination back to her legacy of the Fundamentals and separatist living.

Back in 1973 my dear father, Dr. O. Talmadge Spence (who went to be with the Lord in July 2000), began a publication entitled Straightway. He took this word from Mark 1:18 that reads, “And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.” In this context Mark’s commentary on two of the Lord’s disciples depicts the tonal quality of his book as a part of the harmonious quartet of the Gospels. Mark’s Gospel portrays Christ as “the Mighty Worker,” rather than “the Teacher” as depicted in the book of Matthew. Mark wrote his Gospel to the Romans, a busy people, always in a hurry, working for the cause of the Empire.

We call attention to three words: depths, doubts, and deep. Sin can take a man to the depths of Satan; Wisdom can take a man to the dissolving of doubts; and, the Holy Spirit can reveal to God's people deep things. It should be clearly understood: Satan has deep things; man has deep things; and, God has deep things.

In recent years we have been witnessing what could be termed Fundamenticide, the exterminating of biblical Fundamentals, biblical separation, and the historical identification of the Fundamentalist movement. Certain growing trends and proclivities today are foreshadowing this approaching death. God raised up a remnant of voices, which warned that when certain changes would begin to take place, inevitably a slow killing of Fundamentalism would result. Nevertheless, these voices were often quelled by the powers of ecclesiasticism and religious politics. We have witnessed in the past thirty years the public death of true Christianity in America; we are now witnessing the public death of historic Fundamentalism. Did we see it coming? Will it be part of the end-time apostasy?

Tucked away in the annals of Old Testament history is the sobering story of a syncretistic king and a noble layman—the story of Ahab and Naboth. This historical incident given by infallible record in I Kings 21 brings to the righteous reader a holy anger commingled with lamentation. It is a story not so removed in its nature and spiritual battlement from the late times in which we live. It is a story that must be told again and again to the Lord’s people in every generation in order to preserve their God-given legacy and to remind them of the powers that are ever present to seize and destroy that legacy.

When God made Adam from the “moist dirt” of the earth [Heb., adhama], a multitude of wondrous complexities were a part of that creation. As late as our present time in history, science is still discovering more wonders and mysteries that are part of the complexity of man. How could anyone believe in evolution and its promulgation that the human body came together by “chance,” when the body clearly and boldly announces that a God of law, order, design, purpose, and beauty brought forth this creature through omnipotence and wisdom? The very intricacies of veins, arteries, vessels, and capillaries, along with the seventy-eight organs, truly declare this body a miracle of wonder. Of these organs five are vital for life, but the most vital is the brain.

The powers of existentialism have saturated the global philosophy of Postmodernism. In this generation the reality of life and death seems more difficult to face. Increasingly, mankind has involved itself in the realm of drugs or anything that can bring an ease to the mind in living life and facing the reality of self. The “virtual” world is becoming more and more the “real” world to much of humanity.

The older I get, being an observer of both the age and myself, it seems that the most powerful entity we possess is our mind. The mind is the constant, natural voice that is a controlling factor of what we say and do. As noted in these articles, over a process of time, without the guardianship of God and His Word, the mind potentially can enter into overpowering realms of darkness. Such realms of depression and despair can eventually lead to a world where the “kingdom of darkness” is the lord over our thoughts and imaginations.

History has been defined as “all we know about everything man has ever done, or thought, or hoped or felt.” But if one believes in evolution, that chance is ultimate, and thus that the world has no meaning and life has no direction, then history really has no story to tell. It is merely an amalgamation of disconnected and empty events.

One of the great fallacies of interpreting history is the fragmenting and isolating of one history from another. Perhaps this is a real danger in any study. Collected facts and truths compartmentalized and studied apart from the whole of epistemology can result in distorted conclusions. This is especially true when it comes to history. There are so many history studies to which a person could give his life that he could never view them in the light of the whole of history. However, we must carefully note that history in the sight of God is a singular sight. All aspects of history, even those taking place simultaneously, are interwoven as one reality in God’s plan.