Jude—An Exhortation and Kind Rebuke

Scriptural Prefaces:

Deuteronomy 12:32:  “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it.”  (‘This is My body; this is My blood.”)

Deuteronomy 10:16:  “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

Jeremiah 4:4:  “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it.”

Jeremiah 6:10:  “Their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen.”

Christ:  “All sins will be forgiven man, except he who sins against the Holy Spirit.”  (The sin against the Holy Spirit is sheer stubbornness, a refusal to repent, and hardened unbelief; such as the kind all Protestants have concerning the clear Word of Christ—this is My body, this is My blood.)

II Peter 2:22:  “The dog turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow in the mire.”  (Thus our sacrament has become a work and we eat our own vomit again.)

Isaiah 66:2:  “But this is the man to whom I will look, he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.”

Deuteronomy 31:27:  “For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are; behold, while I am yet alive with you, today you have been rebellious against the Lord; how much more after my death!”

Psalm 34:17:  “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears their cry.”

Luke 18:8:  “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”

Matthew 24:35-39:  “Heaven and earth will pass away but My words will by no means pass away.  But of that day and hour no one knows, no, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.  But as the days of Noah were, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.  For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.”

Matthew 24:24:  “For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect.”  (Luther states the Elect will be deceived.)

I Timothy 4:1-3:  Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods.”  (This searing is an establishing of a conscience where no conscience is needed and the ignoring of a conscience where there should be one.  For example, those who have {false} “conscience” against drinking alcohol but who deny the truth about baptism and the Lord’s Supper.)

2 Timothy 3:1-5, 7:  “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come; for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power.  And from such people turn away!  They are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  (Myself and my family, by commandment of the Spirit, have turned away.  We meet in our own home around the Word and Sacrament.)

Hebrews 4:5-7:  “They shall not enter My rest.  Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, again He designates a certain day, saying in David, ‘Today,’ after such a long time, as it has been said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.’”  (Luther teaches on this passage that there will arise a generation of Christians whom the Lord abhors so much that He will not even give them a name.  This passage speaks of a future time just like the one in the wilderness and fits quite well with, “And I will spew you out of My mouth.”  We are that generation: will you not fear the Lord?)

Isaiah 61:1-2:  “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.”  (Christ delayed quoting the phrase about vengeance when He stood to read on the Sabbath.  It is now time for this segment of Scripture to be fulfilled.)

Romans 11:18-26:  “Do not boast against the branches.  But if you boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.’  Well said.  Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith.  Do not be haughty, but fear.  For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.  Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness.  Otherwise you also will be cut off.  And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.  For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, who are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?  For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that hardening in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”  (Do you not see that Paul implies how arrogant and smug Christians will become?  Does not the utter disarray of the church indicate that our fullness has come upon us Gentiles?)

Galatians 5:17:  “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another , so that you cannot do the things that you wish.”  (This one word “CANNOT” is a lost concept in the church.  Everyone is quite zealous and impressed with what they can do.  This one word should humble us; instead we go confidently along in our Christian walk.  We zealously search the Scriptures for what we should do or some new teaching, yet the whole of Scripture is a warning not to trust in what one does or to find some new doctrine.  As Luther said, when we look at what we do we have lost the name of Christ.)

I Corinthians 3:14-15:  “If anyone’s work which he has built on the foundation endures, he will receive a reward.  If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”  (You may indeed have faith, but just barely.  You cannot prove it by your works.  How can you assume your works are a display of your faith in the light of this verse?  Should you not fear?)

Romans 16:17-20:  “Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them.  For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.  For your obedience has become known to all.  Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil.  And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feel shortly.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.  Amen.”  (Our preachers are only serving their bellies.  May God have mercy on the simple, sincere people who would be led to the truth if given the opportunity.  Luther stated:  Everything is to be believed or nothing is to be believed.  How is it that we downplay the divisions and disagreements among us?)

John 12:46-50:  “I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness.  And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.  He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.  For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.  And I know that His command is everlasting life.  Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”

John 3:16-21:  “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.  He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.  For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”  (The only reason I have for the disdain of the church toward Luther is its aversion to truth.)

Isaiah 53:1, 4:  “Who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”  (It is the history of God’s people to despise Christ.  How do you KNOW you are not?  Luther:  God gave us baptism, the sacrament of his body and blood, and the keys for the ultimate purpose or final cause that we should hear his word in them and exercise our faith therein.  That is, he intends to be our God through them, and through them we are to be his people.  However, what did we do?  We proceeded to separate the word and faith from the sacrament—that is, from God and his ultimate purpose—and converted it into a mere human work of obedience or just a memorial service.  Yes, it is a hideous abomination in which we perverted God’s truth into lies and worshiped the veritable calf of Aaron.  Therefore God also delivered us into all sorts of terrible blindness and innumerable false doctrines, and, furthermore, he permitted Muhammad and the pope together with all the devilish sects to come upon us.  The people of Israel fared similarly.  They always divorced circumcision as their own work from the word of God and persecuted all the prophets through whom God wished to speak with them, according to the terms on which circumcision was instituted.  Yet despite this, they constantly and proudly boasted of being God’s people by virtue of their circumcision.  Thus they are in conflict with God, as we are.) (47/161)

Revelation 3:20-22:  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him, and he with Me.  To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”  (This verse teaches another concept virtually lost to the church; that is, the true Christian responds to HEARING, not guilt, works, or laws.  The only organs a Christian has is his ears.  If these ears have been touched by the Spirit of grace, works will follow, but never to the extent that we are focused on works.  As Luther said, “When we look at what we do we have lost the name of Christ.”  Because of the flesh, we must be reminded of responsibility, but true Christian responsibility begins with a passive, humble hearing by faith.  Indeed, some would emphasize “he who overcomes.”  Too bad.  This is where the mistake is made.  The overcoming is the result of proper hearing and not of human decision-making.  We have been under the wrath of God because we have not properly HEARD the promise of the Word in baptism and the Supper.  We have turned these promises of God into our own work, merit and pompus meditation.)

Luke 10:16:  “He who hears you hears Me, he who rejects you rejects Me, and he who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me.”  (Luther clearly taught that he spoke the plain truth regarding the Word, and I am telling you the same thing.  I know I am speaking the Word of God to you as well.  I know the Spirit has taught me the truth of the Word through Luther.)

I Samuel 15:23:  “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.  Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,  He also has rejected you.”  (This stubbornness is the cause of the licentiousness Jude will speak of.  The whole world has become stubborn in their own opinions about Scripture.  I ask, “If the Word means everything, does it really mean anything?”  Stubbornness is the source of the sin against the Holy Spirit.)

Psalm 18:26:  “With the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd.”  (We are not pure, therefore the Lord has shrewdly hid Himself from us, allowing us to sink deeper and deeper into our self-righteousness and doctrinal error, all the while allowing us to more and more ardently convince ourselves that we love Him all the more.)

Psalm 40:6:  “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.”  (Tell me, you Baptists who are so impressed with what you do and leave undone, and you Lutherans who want to be like them, does this verse not convict you?)

Luther:  “My friend, it is not a question of what you know or wish to know, but of what you ought to know, what you are obliged to know.”

Paul:  “Salvation is not due to man’s desire or effort.”

Exhortation

Timothy Vance, voice of all the prophets of our Lord Jesus Christ, especially of Martin Luther and Enoch, who was not for the LORD took him: to the simple and humble among this new and final wilderness of Satan, who are willing to be taught how to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.  Greetings and may peace be multiplied to you in these perilous and distressing days which we have thrust upon ourselves because of our disobedience, stubbornness, greed, and lukewarmness.

A sincere contemplation and meditation upon the above passages should be enough to enlighten any sincere believer in Christ and lover of His Word.  I understand why they are not; God has given us dullness of hearing and seeing in faith because of our unbelief and blasphemy.  May God have mercy on His Elect who have been deceived, but whom God wills to enlighten through the faithful voice of Jude, his humble servant.  May God grant hearing ears, seeing eyes, and trembling hearts-- and mercy.

I thank the Lord for counting me worthy, having called me out of idolatry as He did His servant Abraham, friend of God, to be the faithful voice of Enoch in this Last Day.  God has made my house faithful just as Abraham had his family in subjection to the truth of God, thereby influencing God to share with Abraham His secret counsel.  We all greet you and plead with you in the fear of God to humble yourselves to the Spirit of Truth:  For now is the accepted time, behold, now is the day of salvation.  The day is beyond being far spent and the time of our deliverance rushes upon us.  We must wake up!

It is urgent that you plead and cry out in a most humble way that the Spirit would instruct you in the things you do not understand, but presume to be expert in, that your spiritual eyes might be opened that you might be able to stand in this final hour, and having done all, to stand by His mercy and grace.  I urge this most humbly myself, for I was once arrogant above all arrogance in thinking I knew Christ and understood His Word more than most.  God has marvelously opened my eyes and translated me into the kingdom of His dear Son.  Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift and calling—to which I have been dedicated and submit myself most zealously for the sake of the Gospel.

Jude writes to those who are preserved in Christ, for God has always preserved His Remnant, the lamb’s ear rescued from the wolf’s mouth, through Christ, even when it seemed as if there was no one who sought God.  I am therefore not implying that you do not have true faith, only that your faith is not nearly so strong and pure as you perceive.  We have all been deceived by the great deceiver.  This itself is a blessing and will redound to the glory of God!  We have almost perished; truth has almost fallen to the ground, yet God has faithfully raised up a voice for the Truth.  I urge you not to be offended at my spiritual boasting, for I do not consider myself to be anything other than a testimony to voices from the past who are faithfully proclaiming the truth in the present.  It grieves my heart most terribly that our hearing is dulled because of our faithless preachers.

Jude, as did Enoch before him, urged his readers to remain within the common salvation—to stay on the right course.  It is the absolute history of the church to stray to the very edge of hell.  All of history, which is only the history of the church, teaches us the ebb and flow of the truth of God.  I proclaim to you that truth, in the human heart and mind, is at an all-time low, though in the midst of so much knowledge about the Bible.  We have violated the spiritual principle that to whom much is given much is also required.  Through Luther, the church was given much, but we took this treasure and buried it in the ground where we would not have to notice and contend with it.  For this we have been and will continue to be greatly punished.  The wrath of God has come upon us: our spiritual blindness is the very wrath of God.  There is no greater punishment than when God removes the hearing of His truth from us as He has done in these last days.

Enoch, of whom the world was not worthy, pleaded with the ungodly and warned them of the wrath to come.  They would not listen, but chose to be visited by the wrathful waters of the Flood.  Lot pleaded with those of Sodom, barely escaping with his family.  They thought he was drunk and stupid.  They presumed to be righteous enough and felt quite safe ignoring his pleadings, as Joseph’s brothers ignored his faithful pleadings—instead they hardened their hearts as Joseph was wounded and bruised by shackles.  God’s prophets are always crying from a pit, while the self-righteous stand on high ground praying, “I thank Thee, Lord, O merciful Father, that I am not as other men.”

I most sincerely plead with you by asking you, “What happened between the time that men began to call upon the name of the Lord and the time of the Flood?”  “What happened between the time the Lord mightily and with a strong arm led the children of Israel from Egypt toward the promised land and the time when only two possessed the land?”  Again, I ask you, “What happened between the time of the great ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah and the time when only a self-righteous, pharisaical religion reigned at the time of Christ?”  I plead with you, “What happened between the time of the great church counsels, especially Nicea, and the time when God had to raise up Luther to restore that which had been destroyed by the church itself?”  And finally, “What has happened between the time of Luther and today when we all know something is seriously wrong, but every man sets himself up as having the answer to our plight; and the answers put Luther nowhere in the equation?” 

Do you really find it so inconceivable that Christ Himself will spew us out of His mouth because we have fallen into unbelief just as the wilderness wanderers did?  Do you really think that our religious fervor, knowledge, and sincerity are a substitute for truth?  Do you really find it inconceivable that we have lost the meaning of the words “faith” and “gospel”?  Why are we so special that we do not have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling?  Why are we not concerned that the only thing we have in common within Christianity is division and disagreement?  What has happened to our common salvation?  Why are we not earnestly contending for the faith, which is proven by the fact that no one is concerned about that which I am concerned about?  Why are my concerns less important than those of others?  Why are my solutions so quickly dismissed?  Could it be that we have been deceived?  Why do the very ones who say they submit to Scripture so very unimpressed by Christ’s own words, “When the Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth?”  Why are even Lutherans unimpressed that Luther interpreted these words to mean that there would be essentially no faith on the earth?  Why are Lutherans unimpressed by the fact that Luther taught that the Elect would be deceived?  And why do so many Protestants quote Luther when he agrees with their prejudices but ignore him in the matters of the faith that meant most to him—Baptism, the Supper, and the Keys?

If Jude was complaining that certain men had crept in unnoticed with the intent of making the Gospel serve their bellies rather than serving God’s people, why would we presume that the situation was not far worse today, especially when we have the clear teaching that deceivers will grow worse and worse?  Do we all really believe that we are so unaffected by the greed of the last few hundred years that we are alert enough to catch all the deceivers? 

Do you know what the word “licentiousness” means?  It means to have no certain standard, to submit to no certain system of belief.  Scripture speaks of instruments which had no certain sound.  Is it really so arduous a task for you to perceive that the whole religious climate has no certain sound and is guilty of licentiousness?  Do all the divisions within Christianity not concern you to the point of terrifying fear and terror before the Lord—just in case these divisions are the fruit of His wrath among us, devouring us as the plagues devoured the people in the wilderness and the Flood devoured those who had a form of godliness, and the resurrection of Christ devoured the Pharisees?

Are you not concerned that you have abused the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer—the doctrine that Luther restored to the whole church?  Is it not possible that you are guilty of licentiousness, the very reason Jude was inspired by the Spirit to contribute to the Word?  How is it that you believe that you do not need to be concerned when you think you have the right to interpret Scripture in the confines of your own closet and conscience, without a THOROUGH investigation and apart from a unity with the rest of the church?  How can you possibly have a clear conscience when the Scriptures are mutilated by so many, while you yourself may also be guilty of this same heinous sin?  How can it be that you do not deeply, and with sobs, mourn this attack on Scripture?  You, who know how Satan attacks Scripture, do you think you are immune from his attacks and deception? 

I am plainly telling you that certain men, with Calvin at the helm, have put heresy along side Scripture.  (Do you believe it is just a coincidence that Satan planted the tares of Zwingli and Calvin immediately after God raise up the wheat of the Word through the fertile teaching of Luther?)  I am plainly telling you, lovingly and kindly, that we have a false meaning of sanctification, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, love, the cross, repentance, and even salvation itself.  Does this mean that you do not have faith?  No.  But it should cause you to exercise your faith by weeping and howling for the misery which is to come upon you to the end that your flesh might be destroyed and Scripture might again become pure and sound in your heart and mind.

Jude himself cites three examples of those who fell, which are a most severe warning for all of us.  How can we not take heed lest we fall when all but two perished in the wilderness under the mighty man of God, Moses?  Or the angels themselves who were led away by their pride and discontent with their calling?  Or Sodom who fell just a few short years after their encounter with faithful Abraham, who delivered their city by the power of God?  Are you really so secure and established in the faith that you do not need to consider most seriously your standing with the Lord?  Do you think the exhortations to examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith are said for no reason and are easy and quick examinations to do? 

There is a spiritual pride manifest among us that is astounding and frightening.  It has come to pass within the Christian community that when we see a word of the faith we assume we know all about that word.  I am thinking of a time when I shared  a page of comments Luther made on the subject of prayer.  These family members quickly read the page over stating, “O, we studied that last week in Bible Study.”  While this is possible, it seems more likely that their minds were already made up that I or Luther had nothing or little to offer them, saw the word “prayer,” and arrogantly assumed they knew about all there was to know on the subject. 

Every person has truly become a priest and scholar, yet my heart aches for such ignorance.  Yet we go around assuming we are humble, knowing that God resists the proud.  What is God to do with us?  How am I to respond to such arrogance?  Where is the person who will be rebuked?  Where is the person who will love the rebuker?  It terrifies my heart to see how our own families and friends have responded to our pleas to reconsider their faith.  How has it happened that such arrogance and smugness exists within the church?  Are you telling me that it is impossible that we have descended to unbelief just as the Israelites, the angels, and the Sodomites?  Even Christ uses the Sodomites as a warning to those who received more truth.  The irony here is that Christians today assume that if they are not homosexual or been divorced too many times, they must not be too bad.  We do not understand that these manifest and open sins are merely indications of unbelief, and that God does not consign all who disbelieve to fall into all sins.  A smug spirit is a thousand times worse than sodomy. Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones need to turn their judgment lights upon their own spirits.

Jude calls these pastors who are dissatisfied with our common salvation “dreamers.”  Enoch calls them ungodly.  Today, the whole world is full of them.  Our pastors have become nothing but dream factories intent on little more than filling the whole world with their perversions.  And just because there are a number of TV preachers whom God has allowed to fall further and to look more ridiculous than others, we seem to take this as a sign that our preacher isn’t quite that bad.  Truly, I am proclaiming to you that there is none righteous, not one.  They have all gone astray and are leading you further and further away from the truth. 

Upon the authority of Scripture and command from the Spirit, I release you from their influence, ministry and authority.  You should be as bold in believing this judgment as I am in making it; and you should be as humble in implementing this judgment as I am in making it.  They have all become common thugs who defile the flesh, reject authority, or revile God’s true servants.  If they do not understand something, they dismiss it, despise it, or mock it.  Our pastors have become brute beasts, irrational animals who are fit for nothing else than to be taken out and destroyed as mad animals.  Do you believe this is an easy thing for me to say?  Search the Scriptures.  Compare what Luther taught with what they have taught you; then you will be the one who will commend them to God for destruction.  Do you believe the Scripture says in vain, “Be not many teachers, brethren, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.”

“Well I don’t understand how Christ can be fully present with His body and blood… therefore I will despise His Word.”  Is this what the church has fallen to?  Or worse, when the Lutherans say, “We believe the truth about the Supper, but who are we as poor, fallible ministers to keep anyone from this holy table?”  May God have mercy on all of us.   Is it really such a surprise that the church has become so filthy, faithless, and fickle, and under the judgment of an angry God, because we have held in such low esteem the one spiritual food, ordinance, and sacrament to maintain our spirits and true faith!  Are you beginning to understand why He will spew us out of His mouth?  Are you beginning to understand why we should fear that there isn’t faith left on the earth?  Are you beginning to understand what Noah had to put up with as he preached for 120 years to a self-righteous, smug people, and then just barely got his own family aboard the ark?

An animal can be beaten or bribed to do certain things.  We act just like the animals we train and then boast in our pride that we understand what it is to be a Christian.  We make much of what we understand, but despise the true Gospel of Christ.  We understand law and responsibility, character and morality, and then set about to make these things the essence of Christianity under the banner of faith.  It does not take a Christian to be law-abiding, responsible, or to have strong character and morality.  There are many groups of people who far outshine Christians in these areas.  Our strength should be in the Gospel of Christ; yet our preachers from all walks have let us down by not teaching us and seeing to it that we practice the proper distinction between the law and the Gospel.  May God have mercy on us.

Look! at how far we have fallen.  Look at the excuses we make for our blindness.  Look at the money we pour into our churches, into our children, into our people, and still the church looks more and more like the world everyday.  We sacrifice to send our children to Christian schools and yet they come out looking and acting like the world.  They are disrespectful and rebellious and yet we excuse them and ourselves for such failures.  We are providing unsuitable citizens for either the community or heaven.  This does not seem to concern us.  Maybe you should look at some of the listings of sin in Scripture; being disrespectful to parents is not distinguished from homosexuality, but is as certain a sign of unbelief as any other sin.  And this does not even make us concerned.  This does not make us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of the Lord.  May God have mercy.

Our pastors have all gone after the way of Cain, Balaam, and Korah.  They are all either jealous that another is more righteous than themselves, out for pure greedy gain and temporal security, or rebels against authority—as they all rebel against the authority of Luther.  And the whole world, and especially the church, is being punished for despising this great gift to the church.  May God have mercy.

Our pastors have truly become our blemishes of shame who look only after themselves while professing and feigning godliness; and we are fooled by this.  And some are so sincere that, why, they are angels of light deceiving the Elect.  I did not set out to be this direct and stringent toward our pastors, but this direction is obvious to me and I know it is of the Spirit.  No mercy is to be had upon our pastors who have become salt that has lost its savor and effectiveness and is good for nothing other than to be taken out and strewn along the road for passers-by to walk on and spit upon.  They have led us away from the truth of Scripture and God will judge them most harshly.  It is most necessary that you come out from among them and be separate, thus says the Lord.

Our pastors have allowed themselves to become clouds driven by Satan’s winds of false doctrine; fruitless trees who are no different from any other tree and yet want to be regarded as Christian pastors; wild waves who work up the froth of shame among us and allow our shame to remain among ourselves; and wandering stars who will not follow a fixed course of ministry as prescribed by the Spirit and blueprinted by Luther.  It is no wonder that Enoch invected against them and raged against them for their ungodliness.  Most appropriately has Jude consigned them to darkness and hell.  They have led astray God’s heritage whom He loves and gave His Son.  May God have mercy!

It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly for all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 

Please notice that Enoch said the “Lord came.”  Enoch is clearly speaking of a future event—the Last Day.  This has given rise to the thought that Enoch would come again before the end of the world.  I hope Enoch does come back; I would love to see whether he could do anything more with these troublers of Israel than I have been able to do.  But it is clear in the Spirit that a voice must again be given to Enoch’s message--I am that voice.  I come to you, so that you are without excuse, telling you in Christian love, faithfulness, and sincerity, that our pastors are malcontents, followers of their own passions, loud-mouthed boasters, and flatterers of people so as to gain advantage.  Come out from among them so that you might be saved.  Whatever good and truth you think they are dispensing to you is so polluted with their dung that it is virtually useless.  And you, yourselves, must not think you are in any position to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff because you have had your spiritual bellies filled with the devil’s chaff.  May God grant wisdom, courage, and mercy.

If you allow yourself to be tricked by the masks these wolves wear, then your blood is upon your own head.  I have warned you and so have the apostles of Christ.  Their message of the Gospel is filled with warnings that the wolves would come in and destroy the flock.  I am telling you that they are all wolves; and in case there are some who are true and faithful ministers, you will know them by their willingness, zeal, and courage to submit to Luther.  There is no other way to know who is a true Christian, or a true Christian minister.  The foundations have been destroyed and all the righteous can do is entrust themselves to the ministry of Luther in hopes that the Spirit might take us again to Christ.

Surely you can see that the Christian community has become nothing but a mass of scoffers who follow nothing but their passions.  One has this opinion, another has that opinion; one has this dream and vision, another has that dream and vision; one has this method to improve the church, another has that method; and they all together have become unprofitable servants, for they add nothing more to the Kingdom of  God than any earthly corporate manager.  In fact, humanly speaking, our churches would be better served if we had some decent managers, but the profit motive is not strong enough in most churches.

Our pastors, despite the strong pleadings of Luther and the whole of Scripture, have done nothing other than set up divisions among us, and thereby have proven they are worldly people devoid of the Spirit.  They  bring in or allow to remain, destructive heresies, as Peter calls them.  These heresies have become so abundant that there is no way to catalogue them other than to say collectively they have made a heresy out of every teaching of Scripture.  They are not satisfied with the common Christian estate, in which one serves the other; but they set up their own ideas of ministry and pretend to serve God and us by doing so.  They are sensual and beastly people with no more spirit than a mule.  They go along in their natural understanding and carnal mind.  They have no Word of God by which they can be guided or live, even though they quote and preach the Word, which is not the true Word and is without the true meaning of the Spirit.

Jude, as did Enoch, makes much of judging and damning divisions and our desire to submit to no certain course of ministry and interpretation of Scripture.  To be divided in spirit and truth with the spirit of another man is sure evidence of apostasy, unbelief, and wickedness.  My family, by the grace and decree of God, is united in the true faith once for all delivered to the saints.  We invite you to join us in spirit and truth as we build ourselves up on this most holy faith as explained by Luther; as we pray in the Holy Spirit that He might preserve us steadfast to the end; and that we keep ourselves in the love of God. 

You must grow to understand that faith must kill all that the senses and reason experience.  Yes, faith will also raise these up again to serve true faith, but we must not be smug in thinking that just because we can spell faith we have it and understand it and allow ourselves to define faith according to our senses and unenlightened reason.  Faith, not love, is the foundation on which we build.  This building increases from day to day in the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ.  This is done through the Holy Spirit.  Now when we are built up in this way, we should not do a single work in order to merit anything by it or to be saved; but everything must be done for the benefit of our neighbor.  Here we must be concerned to remain in love and not to fall from it like the fools who set up special works and a special way of life and thus divert people from true love and faith.

Only Christ belongs in the conscience of a Christian.  If you would judge yourselves you would see that you have allowed, yea, have been taught, to have your conscience filled with everything but Christ.  If you are honest you will see your propensity to allow guilt to motivate you; to be ruled by the desire for gain, power, and reward or prestige.  You will reveal to yourself that fear moves you and that Christ is just barely with you.  This should terrify you.  The thought that someone, some fool such as myself, would have the audacity to even suggest these things to you should drive you to terror.

You may be stubborn and not agree with my ideas, but I believe you would be hard pressed to prove me insane, mentally diminished, or some lunatic who just cannot deal with modern society.  If my family was not behind me I might think these things about myself.  But as it is, I know from first-hand experience how Satan attacks with his question, “Do you think you are the only one, Tim?”  I take no pride in being the only one who is right; I only magnify my office and calling.  I proclaim to you the voice of the Spirit and the Word, the sermon of Enoch, the Epistle of Jude, the writings of Luther, and my own voice, and urge you to repent, for the time is at hand.  Again I say, Repent, for the time is at hand.  The Spirit says, “Come.”  The Word says, “Come.”  I beg you, in Christ’s stead, to come to the true living waters of the Word and the Spirit.

I know I have at times been harsh the last few years since God laid this ministry on my heart.  It has only been my intent to shock some into seeing the severity of our condition.  My greatest desire is to have compassion on some; save some; that is devote my life to showing mercy to those who are wretched, blind.  I do not take pleasure or delight in the condition of the hardened.  I will let them go, depart from them, and have nothing to do with them.  Others, however, whom I can snatch away, I save with fear.  I will deal in a friendly and gentle way with them, just as God has dealt with me.  I will not use force, nor be impetuous; but will treat the simple who desire to be converted to truth like people lying in the fire.  I will seek to pull them out and rescue them with all care, reason, and diligence.   If they refuse to be snatched from the fire, I will let them go and have compassion on them, as I trust you also will.

Again, I affirm Scripture when I say that it is time to come out from among them and be separate.  It is time to set yourself apart from their hypocrisy and religious sham.  It is time to flee to your homes, you who are true Israelites, and worship God in spirit and in truth with those of like precious faith.  If you do not have a minister who will wholeheartedly submit himself to Luther, then it is time to cease and desist from taking communion at his hand, but rather receive it from a monkey at the zoo instead, as long as you are sorry for your sins in a godly way, and believe the words of forgiveness by faith, “THIS IS MY BODY; THIS IS MY BLOOD.”

I submit you to your Lord, Christ, who will further this righteous and just cause.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Timothy Vance

www.askluther.com

April 25, 2001

Christ:  “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst.  In the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established.”

Chad Vance

Janet Vance

Timothy R. Vance