From the Editor’s Notebook
The Annual Meeting
Following my fourth year in a row to teach a course on 1 CORINTHIANS at Kawartha Lakes Bible School, I left Peterborough for Toronto early on the morning of November 12th to attend the Annual Meeting of Food for the Flock Inc. With sincere gratitude to the Christians of Don Valley Bible Chapel in Willowdale, we used for the third consecutive year the lower level facilities of the chapel in which to hold our meeting and luncheon. Three of our committee members were unable to be with us (Sidney Green, Graham Swales and Jay Walden) and, of course, we rightly reminisced a little about our beloved brother, the late Mr. James Gunn, and the fact that almost a full year had passed since his promotion to Glory. Like the previous year, his presence and counsel were missed, but with King Solomon of old we could say, “The memory of the just is blessed” (Prov. 10:7a), or as the New International Version translates it, “The memory of the righteous will be a blessing.” And indeed it is.
Once again it was unanimously agreed to continue publishing “Food for the Flock” magazine another year, and this, in dependence upon our Lord to meet our needs, both spiritual and material. While our present financial situation is somewhat precarious (the Nov.-Dec. ‘83 issue was held up because of a lack of funds), our confidence and trust are in our faithful God to see us through these days of economic crunch. We mention the foregoing with a view to enlisting your prayer fellowship.
From a practical standpoint, if a considerable number of our reader family would send a gift subscription to a friend or loved one, this would be a great encouragement to us and a key way to ensure the ongoing of this written avenue of ministry. It should be noted that no one, including the editor, receives any material remuneration for his or her services, although I would hasten to add that there are spiritual dividends upon which no price tag can be put. By God’s grace the magazine has now entered its thirtieth year of continuous publication, while I have embarked on my tenth year as editor-in-chief.
Please remember that all matters of an editorial nature should be sent to the Editor, 9257 Caprice Drive, Plymouth, Michigan 48170. All business matters, including change-of-address notices, should be sent to the Treasurer, Box 353, Etobicoke, Ontario M9C 4V3. Questions for “The Question Column” should be sent to Dr. James T. Naismith, 66 Morgandale Cresc., Scarborough, Ontario M1W 1S3.
The following is a current list of the committee members of Food for the Flock Inc. and their various functions:
Directors
W. Ross Rainey
Douglas R. Telfer
James T. Naismith
William Hamilton
Officers
President — Douglas R. Telfer
1st Vice-President — James T. Naismith
Treasurer — William Hamilton
Secretary — Lillian Telfer
2nd Vice-President — Joseph Cumming
Operational
Editor-in-Chief — W. Ross Rainey
Question Column Editor — James T. Naismith
Administrative Chairman — Douglas R. Telfer
Vice Chairman — William Burnett
Publication Committee — William Burnett (Chairman), Joseph Cumming, Russ Took, James T. Naismith, Douglas R. Telfer, W. Ross Rainey
Business Mgr. — Mrs. Joan Hamilton
Assist. Business Mgr. — Lillian Telfer
Circulation Mgr. (Canada) — Russ Took
Circulation Mgr. (U.S.A.) — Jay Walden
Additional committee members are: Ray Fox, Sydney Green and Donald K. Steele.
Journeying Through Jude (Part 11)
To the parallels between the apostate teachers and the outstanding representatives of evil conduct drawn from the Old Testament and to his own vivid portrayal of these false teachers, Jude now adds the quotation of a prophecy ascribed to Enoch.
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him (vv. 14-15)
That Enoch was “the seventh from Adam” is borne out in the genealogical order of Genesis 5:4-20, but his prophecy is not recorded in the Old Testament. Apart from Jude, then, we would never have known that Enoch was a prophet. Jude probably took this prophecy from the pre-Christian work entitled, The Book of Enoch. This does not mean that this apocryphal book is in any sense inspired by the Holy Spirit and thus worthy of a place in the canon of Scripture. Rather, God saw fit to preserve Enoch’s prophecy and later Jude was led by the Spirit of God to incorporate it into his letter, confirming the fact that the patriarch’s ancient utterance was divinely inspired. In similar fashion Jude probably quoted from the apocryphal book, The Assumption of Moses, from which he may have taken the information about Michael contending with Satan over the body of Moses (see v. 9; still another example of this kind of quotation is found in Tit. 1:12, where the Apostle Paul quotes the Cretan poet Epimenides).
As to the testimony of Enoch, A. C. Gaebelein has commented: “The Holy Spirit introduces quite abruptly Enoch, the seventh from Adam. There is a deep spiritual significance in this. Enoch lived as an age was about to close. Before the evil days of Noah, had come, with universal violence, corruption and wickedness, Enoch walked with God and bore a prophetic testimony of what was to come in the future. He suffered on account of the testimony he bore to that generation. The ungodly spoke against him, but he kept on in his walk with God and in his testimony, till the day came when he was suddenly removed from the earth. ‘By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him, for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God’ (Hebrews 11:5). Enoch represents prophetically the true church living at the close of the age, bearing witness to the coming of the Lord, and waiting in faith for the promised translation. The Spirit of God mentions Enoch for this purpose and for our encouragement.”1
It is noteworthy that the first prophecy given through a man and the last prophecy in the Bible both centre on the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His judgment (vv. 14-15 with Rev. 22:20). All through the Word of God the Holy Spirit has drawn attention to this important aspect of truth, desiring that men and women know about it and take heed to it.
Concerning Enoch’s prophecy, Jude states that the Lord Jesus “came” with thousands upon thousands of His “saints” or literally, “holy ones.” In view of passages like Matthew 25:31 and Colossians 3:4, it would appear that both God’s holy angels and redeemed people will come with Christ at His second advent. In the former reference our Lord states, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne,” while the Apostle Paul states in the latter text, “When Christ, who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”
Regarding this detail that Christ “came,” John F. MacArthur, Jr. has written, “The verb is a Greek past tense which we call a prophetic past or a future past. The past tense can sometimes be used to refer to a future event because when the Greeks needed to state something that was absolutely certain to happen and could not be changed, they stated it as if it had already taken place.”2
The fourfold repetition of “ungodly” in verse 15 fits in with Jude 4 and his description of these apostate teachers. Undoubtedly, Enoch’s prophecy had a partial fulfillment in the flood, but a large fulfillment awaits the second advent of Christ to the earth when Christendom’s cup of iniquity is full (see Zech. 14:5).
What is referred to here is something quite different from the happy expectation of the church (see John 14:1-3; 1 Cor. 15:51; 1 Thess. 4:13-18). Of this joyous event, generally referred to as the rapture, Enoch was a type in his translation to heaven, the translation of believers in this present age of grace being something that is possible at any moment and impossible at no moment.
The King James translation “to convince” is better rendered “to convict.” What a terrible day of judgment awaits these ungodly apostates! The present day conditions, including the widespread apostasy of our day, indicate that their arraignment is not far off (see Luke 17:26 & 30). In a sense, Jude’s letter is a commentary on the Lord Jesus Christ’s parable of the tares growing among the wheat (Matt. 3:24-30). This mixed condition will continue throughout this age. Thus today God’s people should take fresh courage, realizing that the end of the age is very near (Rom. 13:11-14). Midst the gloom and darkness of this world’s sin and misery, Christ Himself — “the Bright and Morning Star” (Rev. 22:16) — shall soon appear in the atmosphere above the earth for His Church. Then He shall come with his saints and holy angels—myriads of them (Jude 14)—as “the Sun of Righteousness” (Mal. 4:2).
S. Maxwell Coder cites four notable facts which are emphasized in Enoch’s prophecy. They are summarized as follows:
1. We know the Lord’s coming is sure — “Behold, the Lord came”!
2. We know who will accompany the Lord — holy angels and the redeemed people of earth.
3. We know the purpose of His coming — to execute judgment upon all the ungodly.
4. We know the result of the Lord’s coming — all the ungodly will be convicted of all their ungodly works which they have committed in an ungodly manner.3
1 A. C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible, The New Testament, IV, p. 182.
2 John F. MacArthur, Jr., Beware the Pretenders, p. 75.
3 S. Maxwell Coder, Jude: The Acts of the Apostates, pp. 89-93.