Wanted - dogs that bark

" . . . . it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints," Jude 1:3.

The nation has been marking the 70th anniversary of victory against Nazi Germany. That victory ended 6 years of bitter warfare in Europe. The 6 years were marked by the sounding of warnings and alarms. Posters, air-raid sirens, radio broadcasts all issued forth their alarms against impending danger.

We are all familiar with alarms today though perhaps they don't produce the heart-chilling reaction that wartime alarms produced.

The Bible is a book of alarms! Its writers were often called "watchmen". Indeed, that title rightly belongs to every preacher and minister in the service of the gospel of Christ.

"Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind," 1 Peter 5:2.

Oversight means "Looking diligently", Hebrews 12:15. In Isaiah 56:10, we read these words. "His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber."

Here is God's analogy of the office of a prophet. He is as a watchdog, expected to bark at the approach of danger.

God's servants are to be ever diligently looking out for any threat to the flock of God.

That is what Jude was doing and which produced his epistle to the people of God everywhere.