Study Desk

Yes, it would be better for them to have never known the right way than to know it and to turn away from the holy teaching that was given to them.

It is most important for you to understand what will happen in the last days. People will laugh at you. They will live doing the evil things they want to do.

And that same word of God is keeping heaven and earth that we now have in order to be destroyed by fire. They are being kept for the Judgment Day and the destruction of all who are against God.

as you wait for and look forward to the coming of the day of God. When that day comes, the skies will be destroyed with fire, and everything in them will melt with heat.

But God made a promise to us, and we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth where goodness lives.

Dear friends, since you are waiting for this to happen, do your best to be without sin and without fault. Try to be at peace with God.

The devil has been sinning since the beginning, so anyone who continues to sin belongs to the devil. The Son of God came for this purpose: to destroy the devil's work.

This is how we know what real love is: Jesus gave his life for us. So we should give our lives for our brothers and sisters.

And God gives us what we ask for because we obey God's commands and do what pleases him.

This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God's love for us. He sent his Son to die in our place to take away our sins.

And so we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love. God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

Loving God means obeying his commands. And God's commands are not too hard for us,

And this is the boldness we have in God's presence: that if we ask God for anything that agrees with what he wants, he hears us.

Be careful yourselves that you do not lose everything you have worked for, but that you receive your full reward.

So we should help such people; when we do, we share in their work for the truth.

Dear friends, I wanted very much to write you about the salvation we all share. But I felt the need to write you about something else: I want to encourage you to fight hard for the faith that was given the holy people of God once and for all time.

Some people have secretly entered your group. Long ago the prophets wrote about these people who will be judged guilty. They are against God and have changed the grace of our God into a reason for sexual sin. They also refuse to accept Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

Also remember the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other towns around them. In the same way they were full of sexual sin and people who desired sexual relations that God does not allow. They suffer the punishment of eternal fire, as an example for all to see.

It will be terrible for them. They have followed the way of Cain, and for money they have given themselves to doing the wrong that Balaam did. They have fought against God as Korah did, and like Korah, they surely will be destroyed.

They are like dirty spots in your special Christian meals you share. They eat with you and have no fear, caring only for themselves. They are clouds without rain, which the wind blows around. They are autumn trees without fruit that are pulled out of the ground. So they are twice dead.