Grace Doesn’t Cancel Judgment | Jude 5-7

Welcome to The Daily.

ESTHER:

We will begin Esther next Monday. I have titled this one, FOR SUCH A TIME: Courage When God Seems Silent. Grab the Esther Journal now. If you are a Project23 donor giving $35/month or more, do not purchase one; we have already sent this to you in the mail.

Our text today is Jude 5-7

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. — Jude 5-7

One of the easiest lies to slip into is thinking that because God has already forgiven me, what I’m doing right now somehow doesn’t matter as much. God has been patient with me. God has forgiven me before. God knows my heart.

All of that can be true—and still not change what I’m doing. Grace was never meant to sit quietly next to ongoing resistance to God.

Jude is writing to a church that’s starting to lose that line. Some people were taking grace and stretching it into permission for whatever they wanted. So he pulls them back by pointing to three old stories everyone would’ve known: Israel in the wilderness, angels who stepped out of their place, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

He basically says, “You already know this—I’m just reminding you.”

And that’s the uncomfortable part. Most of the time, the problem isn’t that we don’t know. It’s that what we know just doesn’t feel as heavy anymore. Spiritual drift usually doesn’t start with ignorance. It starts when something we already believe stops pressing on us. We know what God has said. We know where compromise leads. We know what obedience asks of us.

But knowing and actually living like it’s true are two different things.

Jude starts with Israel. God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. They saw the plagues, walked through the sea, ate what fell from heaven, lived under his care in a way you’d think they could never forget.

And still, Jude says, God later judged those who didn’t believe.

That’s sobering. Being rescued didn’t cancel accountability.

A past answered prayer doesn’t cover present unbelief. Church background, Bible knowledge, ministry involvement—none of it makes ongoing resistance harmless. If anything, it makes it heavier.

Grace was never meant to make us casual. It was meant to keep us steady.

Then Jude moves to the angels who “did not stay within their own position.” They stepped outside what God had given them, reaching for something that wasn’t theirs.

At the root of it, it wasn’t curiosity—it was refusal. A refusal to stay under God’s ordering of things. And that’s where the illusion breaks: freedom without submission doesn’t expand life. It breaks it apart. They had knowledge. They had proximity. But none of that protected them when they rejected God’s authority.

So Jude presses it into three short lines we can’t really soften:

1. Knowledge doesn’t replace obedience.
2. Position doesn’t replace submission.
3. Privilege doesn’t cancel accountability.

Then he brings up Sodom and Gomorrah. Cities that stopped accepting limits and started treating desire like it was the final word. And once desire becomes the final word, everything eventually bends around it.

We still do this. We just use different language. If it feels right, if it feels true, if it feels like me—then it must be fine.

But Scripture doesn’t let desire sit on the throne. It puts it under something higher. We don’t decide truth by what we want. We learn what to want from the truth.

And yes—Jude is clear that sexual sin is part of this warning. But it’s not singled out as the only category. It’s an example of what happens when anything replaces God’s authority.

And still, grace is real. Jesus forgives. He restores. He doesn’t turn away the repentant. But grace doesn’t agree to rename sin so we can keep it. It calls us out.

So Jude lands the weight of it: God’s grace is not the opposite of God’s judgment. It’s the rescue from it.

The cross doesn’t make sin small. It shows how serious it is. Jesus stepped into the judgment we were headed toward, so we could be brought back to God.

But the same Jesus who saves is the one who will judge. That’s the tension we don’t get to erase. We can’t take him as Savior while ignoring him as Lord.

And if I’m honest, I don’t always want that tension. I want grace that comforts without confronting. Forgiveness without interruption. Mercy without change. But that version of grace doesn’t exist.

God’s warnings aren’t Him pulling away—they’re Him pulling me back. He warns so I’ll turn. He exposes so I’ll see. He confronts so I’ll come back. The danger is mixing up patience with permission. Or assuming that because God didn’t stop me yesterday, he’s fine with where I’m headed today. He isn’t.

Grace doesn’t leave you where it found you.
It doesn’t just pardon—it turns you around.

DO THIS:

Identify one clear command from God that you have been resisting, delaying, or explaining away. Write it down. Confess it specifically to God. Then take one measurable step of obedience before the day ends—end the conversation, remove the temptation, make the apology, tell the truth, or ask a mature believer for help.

ASK THIS:

1. Have you been relying on a past spiritual experience while resisting God in the present?
2. Which desire or area of your life are you most tempted to place above the authority of Scripture?
3. Is there a warning from God that you have mistaken for rejection instead of receiving it as mercy?

PRAY THIS:

Jesus, thank you for rescuing me from judgment, and give me the humility to receive your warnings, repent of rebellion, and live under your loving authority.

PLAY THIS:

His Mercy Is More