God’s judgment on false teachers, Jude 11-16

We begin this section of scripture with Jude uttering the phrase, “Woe to them!”  It is a phrase that cannot be understood without the context of what came before it.  And so if we have not been here in the last couple of weeks, we must find out who is “them”.  Who is Jude talking about. 

We find the  answer to that question back in vs 4, “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”  

These certain, ungodly persons are the ones to whom Jude now exclaims, “Woe to them!” I believe Jude uses that phrase to remind us of when Jesus gave a scathing indictment on the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.  Jesus there proclaims 8 woes upon the scribes and Pharisees, because He said they shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for they do not enter in themselves, nor do they allow those who are entering to go in.  He gave eight such woes about these false teachers, blind guides He calls them, who devour widow’s houses, who pretentiously make long prayers, who go to great lengths to make disciples for themselves, who clean the outside of the cup so people think they are so righteous, yet inwardly they are full of corruption and uncleanness.

It’s the same sort of people that Jude calls certain persons. But Jude then shows that God will punish these certain persons, just as certainly as He punished rebellious Israel, just as He cast into hell the rebellious angels, and just as He destroyed by fire and brimstone the immoral Sodom and Gomorrah, as he reminded us of last week in our study.

But Jude is not done condemning them. You know the scriptures give their most severe criticism of false prophets.  They are guilty of a greater sin than that of murderers and adulterers and sorcerers. To change the truth of God for a lie and in so doing put a stumbling block before others is the greatest crime, worthy of the most severe punishment. And so he proclaims “Woe to them!” “For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”

Jude gives us three illustrations of people like these certain person, that abandoned the word of God, rebelled against the word of God, and in due time received the judgement from God. And in this reminder of these people’s sin of rebellion, we get insight into the nature of these apostates in the church.  Jude said in vs 4, that these certain persons had crept into the church, and their teachings had perverted the grace of God into licentiousness, and they denied the lordship of Jesus Christ, so that they were condemned to judgement.

Let’s look at the first illustration, that of Cain.  We find the story of Cain in Genesis chapter 4.  I won’t take the time to read it all, but I will try to summarize it.  Gen 4:3-5 “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering;  but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.”  

Well, I’m sure you remember the rest of the story.  Cain was angry at God for rejecting his offering, and he took out his anger on his brother and murdered him while they were working in the field. But what shouldn’t be overlooked in the story is this: Cain brought an unacceptable sacrifice. God did not accept his sacrifice, and God did accept the sacrifice of Abel. Now this presupposes that they knew what offering they were to bring. God required a blood sacrifice. But Cain didn’t think that was necessary.  He was a farmer, not a herdsman.  It would have been an extra expense to buy a lamb for the offering.  And so he rejected the word of God and offered what he thought should be acceptable. He would worship God according to his design.

And that provokes me to say something more about this idea of false worship.  The idea of worship as we understand it today in the modern church, is a relatively new phenomenon.  I grew up in the church, and had exposure to dozens and dozens of churches in my early life, and I can tell you that prior to the 90’s this idea of “worship” as it is expressed to today was not heard of.  We went to church, we sang songs, we had special music, we had preaching, all the components of what might be called worship, but we didn’t necessarily call it worship with the same understanding as it has today.  

Today, if you hear the word worship, you automatically think it is speaking of a prolonged time of music, usually conducted by a “worship team” or a praise and worship band.  The idea of worship today is virtually only concerned with music, and it’s usually contemporary music.  If you sing a classic hymn as a congregation such as we do on Sundays, that really isn’t what people think of as proper worship.  Worship has to be a time when you give yourself over to a emotional, repetitive, sentimental and moving musical score performed by more or less trained or professional musicians and singers in a concert style setting.  We somehow have come to believe that such is pleasing to God, that is worshipping God, and as such it satisfies our responsibility to God.

That, however, is not what the Bible calls worship. Jesus said in Matt 15:8 “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” A good principle of hermeneutics (Biblical interpretation) which I think is under utilized, is when you are considering a word or principle in the Bible, to find the first time it is mentioned, and in so doing you will gain a better understanding of the meaning of the word, or of the principle.  It’s called the principle of first mention.  

Now if you go to the first place that the word “worship”  is mentioned, you will find it in Genesis 22:5.  Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  What Abraham was talking about when he said worship is really insightful as we consider what is commonly considered worship today.  He was talking about going up on the mountain to offer up his son as an offering to God.  He was going to sacrifice his son to God. And he called that worship.

I would love to spend the rest of our time talking about this.  But I don’t have the time this morning.  However, please be sure that you understand that worship, in the Biblical context, involves a sacrifice. Worship is an offering, a sacrifice to God.  Additionally, worship is obedience to God.  Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice in obedience to what God required of him.

And that reveals that though the word worship is not used in the account of Cain and Abel, yet that is what they were doing.  They were coming to worship God.  Genesis 4 tells us that they came to make an offering to God. And very importantly, notice that God did not accept Cain’s offering, but He accepted Abel’s.  That tells us something important; that God is not obligated to accept just any kind of worship we offer Him.

But as Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  Obedience to the truth then is essential to worshipping God.  Romans 12 tells us that in chapter 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.” So part of worship is obedience to the will of God, the commandments of God, that our bodies may be in subjection to Him.  To be a living sacrifice is to die to the desires of the flesh, that we might live in the Spirit.

Cain showed that he did not believe God’s word. He offered his own offering to God as he thought was fitting.  And when God rejected his offering he became angry at God and killed his brother. His rebellion against God’s word killed his brother. He killed Able because he didn’t believe God’s word was true.  He didn’t fear judgment. But God did judge Cain.  He made him to be a fugitive and wanderer on earth.

These certain persons Jude is speaking of were like Cain in the sense that they did what they wanted with God’s word.  They turned it around and used it for their purposes, and for their advantage.  They thought it was acceptable to alter God’s word for their own benefit and in so doing, condemned not only themselves, but those who listened to them.

The next illustration Jude calls from Biblical history is that of Balaam.  This illustration answers the question as to why the false teachers do what they do. The story of Balaam illustrates is that they do it for money. He was a prophet for hire. And some of these false prophets we see on the Christian television networks are in effect prophets for hire, and they are getting very rich taking money from people who are duped by their charisma and their false promises.

The story of Balaam is found in Numbers chapters 22-25, and then again in ch.31. The story of Balaam is a story of how he turned against Israel, and tried to curse them for the sake of the reward from the king of Moab, a man named Balak. You might remember this story because there is the famous passage there which describes Balaam’s donkey speaking to Balaam because Balaam kept trying to force the donkey to go forward, when the angel of the Lord was blocking his way.  God put several blocks to stop Balaam from cursing Israel.  But in the end, Balaam found a way to work around God’s blockade.  

We find a summary of what he did in Revelation 2:14, in which the Lord says to the church at Pergamos,  “I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and commit acts of immorality.”  Balaam knew in getting the Israelites to commit fornication with the Moabites, and forsake God’s law concerning their diet, God would end up bringing judgment upon them, and accomplish what the king of Moab really wanted, which was the destruction of Israel. But what Balaam forgot to take into consideration, is that the same God who would judge Israel for their sin, would also judge him for his act of rebellion against the word of God. Numbers 31 tells us that Balaam was killed by the Lord’s army while he was living in the midst of a godless and sinful city in Moab.

Balaam then represents two things: the covetousness of the false teacher who loves money and the apostate who influences others to sin. The third illustration of apostate false teachers in the church is from the story of the rebellion of Korah. Korah was a Levite who led the rebellion against Moses.  He was a teacher.  But his error was his disdain for the authority which God had prescribed.  He wanted to be a priest, and to have authority over the people of God, but he could not.  

In Numbers chapter 16 we find the story of his rebellion. He gathered together other certain men, and went before Moses and assembled together before him. And he said, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

Korah took the word of God about the priesthood of all believers, and reinterpreted them in such a way as to remove any authority of the leadership that God had set over Israel. He was disputing the idea that they even needed a leader, that they even needed someone who was a  responsible shepherd, someone who spoke for God. He was disputing the idea that they even needed a teacher who gave them God’s truth. 

What he was advocating was that everyone was capable of determining God’s truth for themselves. That God could speak to them directly, and they didn’t need someone who would be in authority as their teacher/leader.  That is still a popular belief today.  Some people think they don’t need to go to church, they don’t need to listen to a preacher, they can worship God by themselves, and they can hear from God themselves, and they can interpret His word to suit themselves. Well, do you remember how the judgement of God fell upon Korah?  Numbers tells us that the ground opened up and swallowed him and his company whole into hell.

At this point in the text, Jude shifts gears.  He has shown from God’s word three separate incidents which illustrate how God’s judgment will fall upon any false teacher that rebells against God’s word, that loves money, or that is immoral, of desires authority that God hasn’t given him. A horrifying judgment awaits anyone who undermines the authority and truth of God’s word for personal gain and puts a stumbling block before others.

And so Jude shifts at this point in his sermon from historical illustrations of that fact, to five analogies from nature which describe these apostate teachers.  He describes them in lyrical form in vs 12 and 13.  “These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;  wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”

Let’s look at them briefly.  The first analogy is they are like hidden reefs in your love feasts.  Love feasts were not the Lord’s supper, but they were a meal that the church body would take together during their services at certain times.  Sort of like a potluck dinner, maybe.  There is something about eating a meal together that brings about a deeper fellowship with one another. And the early church used to practice it often.

Hidden reefs is a reference to a very dangerous situation when sailing.  It refers to unseen rock formations just under the surface which can rip open the hull of the boat and sink it. These certain men were like hidden reefs, unseen on the surface of the church gathering, but very dangerous because their false theology can sink a church.  It can cause people to shipwreck in their faith.

Notice Jude says they feast with you without fear, they have no fear of God, they are brazen in their sin, even flaunting it before the church, all while claiming to be covered by grace.  And it says also, “- caring for themselves.” That’s the exact opposite of loving one another.  It’s self love, a selfish love.  Immorality is selfish love.  It’s taking for yourself without really caring about the other person.

Secondly, he calls them clouds without water. Verse 12, they are “Clouds without water, carried along by winds.” Clouds bring the promise of rain to a thirsty land.  But a cloud that doesn’t rain is a picture of empty promises.  Our faith is founded on the promises of God. But if you are given a false promise, that means that it may sound good to you, it may sound enticing, but it’s not a promise that God will honor because it doesn’t come from him - it comes from these imposters. To give false promises is dishonoring to God, and causes men who believe them to lose faith in God. That’s one of the worst things about the name it and claim it doctrine which is so prevalent today.  It’s giving people hope in false promises, which when they fail, cause their faith to falter.

And thirdly he says these apostates are “like autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, and uprooted.” Autumn is season when you harvest the fruit.  But Jude says these trees have no fruit. I find it interesting that so many false teachers want to emphasize the gifts of the Spirit, but they show little of the fruits of the Spirit.  Jude says they are doubly dead, uprooted.  Dead in the sense that they are without fruit and dead in that they are not rooted in the truth.  Our faith is rooted in the word of God.  When you take that away, you are spiritually dead.

And then, fourthly, he calls them “wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam.”  I can’t help but think of Eph 4:14 “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”  

I think the winds of false doctrine cause these people to be driven this way and that way, to be thrown about by the devil’s deceit which instead of growing spiritually, causes them to indulge in shameful acts.  They are being driven by evil spirits to live unruly, ungodly lives.  As a surfer, I have learned that the wind is what causes waves.  But it takes consistent winds blowing over a long fetch to produce clean waves that we can actually surf.  Those waves travel hundreds of miles to reach the shore in long, clean, orderly lines.  But a northeast wind produces a short, choppy wave that doesn’t break consistently, it produces a washing machine affect that is almost impossible to surf, and it churns up  a lot of sea foam that washes up on the beach, which is usually pretty nasty stuff. I can imagine that this northeaster effect is what Jude is referring to, waves that have no pattern, that aren’t consistent, that aren’t orderly, and are unproductive.  That’s an picture of false teaching that is all over the place theologically, does not have any depth to it, and doesn’t produce sound doctrine, but instead lustful, shameful living.

And then a final picture of apostate teachers is in verse 13. They are like “wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”  Most commentators think that this reference to wandering stars is speaking of falling stars, or shooting stars.  They are not part of any constellation, and actually, are not stars at all, but asteroids that blaze across the sky and then fizzle out. And that may be what Jude is talking about. 

But I happen to think that this may be a reference to fallen angels.  Angels are often related to stars in the Bible. In Job we read that God asked Satan where he had come from.  And Satan answered, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”  To me, that sounds a lot like wandering around.  The fallen angels lost their place in heaven, they lost the position that they were designed for, and they lost their relationship with God.  And as a result of their disobedience, they are destined for the Lake of Fire.  It’s interesting that hell is described in the Bible as a place of fire, and yet a place of thick darkness at the same time.

So I think that as John said, we must test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  These false prophets are going to suffer the same fate as the evil spirits who drive them, who inform them, and who empower them.  Even now they are out of their proper place, they have lost their relationship with God, they have rebelled against the authority of God, and they work against the kingdom of God.

Jude gives one final illustration, and with this we will conclude our sermon today. He says in vs 14,” [It was] also about these men [that] Enoch, [in] the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” 

Some commentators tell us that the quotation here is not a biblical quotation, but from a text called 1 Enoch.  Jude was possibly referring to a book that was known to the church, but was not a part of the biblical canon, in order to provide an illustration.  The character is Enoch, whom we know from the scripture which reads.  “Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him.” That’s about all we know of Enoch.  But I’m not so sure that Jude quotes from this other book or not, but I am sure that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this quote from Enoch.  So I lean towards the Holy Spirit being the source of this quote, and not this pseudo historical book of Enoch which contains some truth and some fanciful information, and which was not accepted as a part of our Bible.  

But using this quote of Enoch, Jude wants us to see that God executes judgement against the ungodly.  No less than four times Enoch says “ungodly.”  The people are ungodly, their behavior is ungodly, and their ungodliness is carried out in ungodly ways. Most importantly, the ungodly have spoken against God.  They counter God’s word.  They defy God’s word. And as such the Lord will execute judgement against them.  But in bringing up Enoch, we are also given a positive example of a godly man living in an ungodly world.  It is possible to live a godly life in an ungodly world. And as we see in the case of the life of Enoch,  God will reward that behavior as certainly as He will judge ungodly behavior. 

Jude concludes this section with a short summary which tells us how to recognize the difference between the true teachers like Enoch, and the false teachers who are destined for destruction. He says, “These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their [own] lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of [gaining an] advantage.”  That’s a pretty succinct description of false teachers.  They find fault with God’s word, they find fault with God’s appointed shepherds, they are obsessed with the lusts of the flesh, sexual and otherwise, and the speak arrogantly, claiming to know the truth, claiming to have special insight from God that counters what God has already spoken, and finally they flatter people for the sake of gaining advantage, whether that be by money or popularity, or fame. They are prophets for hire, tickling the ears of their listeners to draw people after them.

Well, this is not a pleasant subject to have to consider this morning.  But it is the urgent message of the Holy Spirit, that we need to contend for the faith which is under attack from these apostate, false prophets who have crept into the church unawares.  By the examples given here, we ought to be able to expose those false prophets, and help ourselves and others to be more discerning, that we might be able to be sure we are of the truth, and that we worship God in truth. We must contend for the truth, so that the gospel is not watered down as to be ineffective, or that it is twisted to render it unable to save,  and people are not saved, and end up being deceived.  We can be sure that God will bring those false prophets to judgment in the last day.  But in this present hour, let us be discerning, able to distinguish between truth and error, and contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:24-25 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,  to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, [be] glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.  

Reminders from history, Jude 5-10

There are primarily two basic themes prevalent in theology in Christendom today.  But only one is correct theology, and the other one is incorrect, even though it is the most popular.  The most common theology, the most popular theology,  has as it’s premise that God exists to serve man.  They may not say it so crassly, but nevertheless, that is the basics of it.  That God serves man, God loves man, God gives things to man, God helps man.  God is not much more than a miracle working genie who exists to serve the needs of man. And so, of course, God doesn't judge man, He won't punish man, because He loves us too much. The other theology, the correct one, has as it’s premise, that man exists to serve God. Man was made for God, to love Him, to serve Him, to do His will, and to live for Him. He is Lord and Master, and we are to be subject to Him. 

And all of our attempts at understanding God we try to fit into one of those templates. You might even go so far as to say that all of religion is man’s efforts to control God.  Most of our preaching and teaching falls into that same error.  We try to interpret the Bible to fit our paradigm.  We try to create a message that fits our ideas of what is acceptable, what seems right to us.  We tend to think that if we can develop enough knowledge about God, then we can control God and control the outcome of our dealings with God.

And it is obvious that God allows us to have a go at it.  God suffers fools.  God doesn’t always stoop to answer man’s foolishness.  God doesn’t always immediately respond to our foolishness with judgment.  But as Jude shows us in this section of scripture, God promises to judge man’s disobedience, whether it is immediate or in the future.

Jude started off his letter by saying that he planned to write concerning their common salvation.  He was planning on writing about the truth they held in common in salvation.  There is truth that leads to salvation, and there is a false gospel that doesn’t produce salvation. But by the urging of the Holy Spirit, Jude felt the necessity to write about the need to contend for the faith. Because, as we will learn, the faith, the truth that leads to salvation, was under attack.  

Certain persons had crept into the church and sown seeds of bad theology, which served to give license to those who disobeyed the Lord and lived according to their lustful desires.  Particularly the lusts of a sexual nature, and the lusts for money.  Such people, Jude said, were already marked for condemnation because they turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

To turn the grace of God into licentiousness means that they disregarded the law of God, especially in the realm of promiscuity or immorality.  They said that they weren’t under law any more but under grace, and therefore what they did in the body does not really matter.  That’s the errant theology; God loves me, God forgives me, and God won’t punish or condemn me. 

The other thing Jude said they did was deny our Master and Lord Jesus Christ. That doesn’t mean that they denied His existence. But they denied His lordship.  They denied His right to reign in our lives.  Again, they had the theology that God exists to serve me, not the other way around.  I don’t have to serve the Lord with my life, my actions, my behavior.  I am captain of my ship.  I can exercise my freedom, my independence, in pursuit of my happiness, and the Lord is going to be ok with that because He just wants me to be happy.

Well, Jude disputes that type of theology.  He says we need to contend for the faith, that is, we need to fight for the true theology.  And furthermore, he says that those who have adopted the errant theology will be judged, and will receive condemnation from God, sooner or later.  Now to support that he is going to give three examples from history of those that rebelled against God’s truth, and ended up being condemned and punished by God.

In bringing up these history lessons from the past, Jude says that we need to be reminded of them, even though we already know them.  Vs 5, “Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all…”  The point being that as Christians, who know the truth, we nevertheless need to be reminded of the truth again and again, to keep the truth fresh before us. It is far too easy to become complacent about doctrines that once established our faith and now are taken for granted.  It’s like the doctrine of salvation; though we are saved by knowledge of the truth of the gospel, by believing it, yet it is necessary to never let the glories of the cross fade from our view.  In reminding ourselves, whether by song or by scripture, we are brought further along on our path of sanctification.

Such remembrance also serves to undergird us in the faith, and ensure that we do not make the same mistakes as those before us.  As Winston Churchill once wrote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

The first lesson from history that Jude reminds us of is that of the danger of apostasy. He says in vs 5, “Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.”

He is, of course, reminding us of the people of Israel, who were delivered from captivity in Egypt by many miracles of God.  God exhibited His power to them again and again.  He gave them His word, His promises, His law.  God dwelt among them.  But nevertheless, they did not believe His word. They were faithless again and again.  They rebelled against Moses. And ultimately, they did not believe that He was able to bring them into the Promised Land, and at the point of entry they rebelled and would not go into the land.

And so God pronounced condemnation upon them, that they would all be destroyed.  We find the record of God’s condemnation in Numbers14: 32, “But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness. Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer [for] your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness. According to the number of days which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall bear your guilt a year, [even] forty years, and you will know My opposition. I, the LORD, have spoken, surely this I will do to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. In this wilderness they shall be destroyed, and there they will die.”

This event is also remembered in the Psalms, in Psalm 95 it says, “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness, When your fathers tested Me, They tried Me, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed [that] generation, And said they are a people who err in their heart, And they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in My anger, Truly they shall not enter into My rest.” And the author of Hebrews, quoting that passage, adds, “they did not enter because of unbelief.”

In that passage, we see that disobedience and unbelief are related.  One happens because of the other.  That’s why we must remember that Jesus correlated belief and obedience.  He said if you love Me you will keep my commandments.  Again and again Jesus urged His hearers not only to believe in Him, but to follow Him.  Belief must be tied to obedience.  As John told us in his epistles, you can’t say you have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness.  You can’t say you believe in Christ and yet disobey Him. You can’t say you believe and yet rebel against His word. And the lesson we are reminded of in this example is that God punished Israel for their unbelief and disobedience.

The second illustration from history of those that received condemnation because of unbelief is found in vs 6.  “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.”  Jude is renowned for bringing up obscure facts in this little letter.  And this particular reference is such a one.

Jude is speaking of an incident regarding fallen angels which is mentioned in Genesis chapter 6. In that passage we read, “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,  that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose.  Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."  The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore [children] to them. Those were the mighty men who [were] of old, men of renown.”

There are a lot that of questions that have arisen in regards to these verses from which many commentators have offered purely conjecture.  But I think we can safely say that the sons of God refers to angels, which in this case are fallen angels, part of the demons in Satan’s realm, and they took on the form of man so that they could have sexual relations with the daughters of men.  This act was not only rebellion against God, but it also was an attack by Satan upon the object of God’s love, which was the human race, made in His likeness and made in His image.  Satan orchestrated this event to destroy the human race. Many theologians believe that this unholy union caused a half human half demonic offspring that was unredeemable and thus God decided to destroy the human race by a universal flood. 

Jude goes on to say that those angels who left their proper place, God has kept in eternal bonds or chains under darkness for the judgement of the great day.  The apostle Peter also references this event in 2Peter 2:4-5 saying, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;  and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.”  Because of the way Peter ties the sin of the angels to the flood is evidence that he is speaking of the same event as Jude.

Now there are a lot of rabbit trails that we could go down on this topic.  But let’s not lose sight of what Jude is trying to convey through this example.  The reminder is that of the sin of autonomy, of denying the lordship of Jesus Christ.  To disobey, to rebel is to deny the Lord's position of authority, to set ourselves up as the god of our own life, to decide what we think is right, or what we think should be ok, and in so doing, to set ourselves in rebellion against God and due for condemnation at the judgement.  If God did not spare angels when they sinned, neither will He spare us.  God put those angels that left their proper abode in eternal chains, in bondage, some believe that refers to a special section of hell, awaiting the final judgement.

In speaking of the angels sin, Jude segue’s into another form of rebellion, which is similar to that of the angels.  And he speaks of that in vs 7, “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” 

Notice than in referencing the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah Jude correlates it to the sin of the angels by saying, “just as.”  “In the same way as these…”  He is saying that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was like the sin of the angels, in the same way they were immoral and went after strange flesh.

I won’t take the time to read the account from Genesis 18 and 19 as I’m sure you are all familiar with the story.  But as Jude says, we need to be reminded.  The account says that the report of the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached the point where God was going to destroy the city.  He sent two angels who took on human form to speak to Lot and his family and take them out of the city, lest they be destroyed with them.  But that night the men of the city congregated at the door of Lot’s house, demanding that he let them come out that they might have sexual relations with them.

Jude says that they pursued unnatural desires.  The Bible teaches that homosexuality is an unnatural desire.  It is rejecting the authority and design of God.  It is rejecting the command of God. God said in Leviticus 18:22 'You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.”  It is a crime against God and man.

Peter spoke of this same event in the same passage we referenced while ago, 2Peter 2:6 “and [if] He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing [them] to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly [lives] thereafter.”   The point both Jude and Peter make is that God condemned the sin of those people, and brought about destruction upon them, as an example for those that come after them.  That we must not rebel against the command of God, lest we suffer the same condemnation.

Jude says they “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” God brought fire and brimstone down upon the city and destroyed every living thing.  But in the final judgement, the fire is eternal, it never goes out, and the soul must endure that punishment forever.

After offering these Biblical  examples of the sins of apostasy, autonomy and immorality, Jude says in vs8,  “Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.”  “ These men” refers to  those false prophets of his day, the objects of his letter, the certain persons who had crept in unnoticed into the church, and used the grace of God as a cover for licentiousness and denied the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He says these men are guilty of the same sins as those of the Israelites who refused to believe, as the angels before the flood, and as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah.  He says these men also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.  

I’m not sure what he means by his statement that they were dreaming.  I suppose it’s a reference to so called prophets who took their stand on visions that they had supposedly seen, which undermined, or over rode the scriptures.  That’s the danger of extra biblical revelation.  It’s not that God did not use visions at times in the past before the full canon of scripture had been given, to reveal truth to His prophets.  But the problem is that today dreams and visions are rarely subjected to scripture for authentication.  Let me say this, if your dream is not supported by scripture, then it’s not of God.  Dreams and visions will never go against the scriptures.  But far too often today people claim a dream that they had to validate something that they want to do, which is not aligned with scripture.  In Colossians 2:18 Paul warns against those that take their stand on visions that they have seen, and as such, defraud you of your prize.

Jude says they not only sin by dreaming, but they defile the flesh.  Defiling the flesh is probably a reference to immorality, which covers the gamut of sexual sins.  False doctrine is often used as a covering for immoral behavior.   Jude adds to that they reject authority.  Rejecting authority is tied directly to immoral behavior. But it goes further than just that.  It is rejecting the authority of the scriptures, it rejects the authority even of Jesus Christ, and sets itself up as it’s own authority.  

I can’t help but relate this to many of the mainstream denominations that claim to be Christian but for all intents and purposes have become apostate. They began by denying the authority and inspiration of all the scriptures.  They began by saying that some prohibitions were simply cultural and we live in a different culture, and so there is no compulsion for us to keep certain restrictions or morals that Paul or other writers spoke of.  So on that basis they have made the decision to allow women as pastors in the church even though it’s clearly prohibited in scripture, because that was just a  cultural thing and we’ve gotten so far beyond that today.

And then they took this gender ambivalence another step further and said that a homosexual lifestyle is not a sin, and that you can have full fellowship in the church irregardless of your  sex or sexual preferences. Then they took it a little further than that and said that since there was nothing wrong with homosexuality then there should be no restraint against ministers who are homosexual. That too should be allowed because we live in a different culture and a different time, and love is love, and God is love, and any scriptures saying otherwise are not to be taken literally.

The problem is that they have rejected the authority of the scriptures.  They have rejected the authority of Jesus Christ; it is His church, and He placed certain restrictions upon it.  And to reject His authority is to sin with the same terrible expectation of judgement that fell upon the Israelites, the angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah.  And if you are still in one of those churches, then I would suggest that you get out like Lot got out of Sodom, lest you end up being condemned along with them.

The third thing Jude says is a characteristic of these false prophets, is that they revile angelic majesties. However, in this case, Jude makes no distinction whether they be holy angels or fallen ones. But he gives us an illustration of reviling an angel, though in this case it is a fallen angel. In vs 9, Jude once again speaks of an event that is nowhere else mentioned in the scriptures.  He says, “But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

Its very interesting that Jude says that Michael is an archangel. An archangel, from what little we can discern from scripture, is the highest order of angels in the entire hosts of heaven. The Bible indicates there is a hierarchy of angels. I wish we could spend some time talking about angels and their positions, and look at the other references in scripture to Michael.  I don’t have the time to do that today, however.  But if you’re interested in further research you can look at Daniel 10:13, and 1 Thess. 4:16.  

But our purpose here today, and the purpose of Jude, is not to give a dissertation on angels, but to make the point that certain men in the churches were reviling angelic majesties of which they had no business doing, and did so to their own destruction.

As you probably know, Moses was not allowed to go into the Promised Land, however, God took him up on a high mountain that he might see it from a distance.  And then Moses died and the scripture says that God buried Moses in a place that no one knew.  We can read about that in Deut. 34:5-6 “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.  And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day.”  The indication from Jude, however, is that the devil attempted to claim the body of Moses.  We are not told why, but we might guess that he intended to use it to cause Israel to worship the body of Moses.

The point though that Jude wants to make, is even though Michael is an archangel of God, and has the full authority of that position and incredible power, yet he did not dare pronounce against the devil a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Michael relied upon the Lord’s authority, and not his own. 

Jude has told us that we are to contend, or fight for the faith. It is a spiritual battle.  And the manner of Michael’s fight is a model for spiritual warfare. First, we see that Michael was in a battle, such as we are when we contend for the faith. Secondly, we see that he battled in the Lord’s authority.  

Michael did not mock or accuse the devil. God hasn’t called us to judge the devil, to condemn the devil, to mock him or accuse him, but to battle against him in the name of the Lord. That doesn’t mean we go around claiming the blood of Jesus over every thing and every body. But that we contend by the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We defeat the devil by rescuing men and women from captivity to the kingdom of darkness. 

But in contrast to the example of Michael, who would not pronounce a railing judgement upon the devil, these certain men Judes speaks of spoke evil, especially when they rejected authority and reviled angelic majesties. Jude says in vs 10, “But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.”

I am reminded by this passage of the seven sons of Sceva, who were attempting to cast out demons by the name of Paul.  These were men that were in effect false prophets, who were trying to cash in on what they saw Paul doing, but which they had no authority to do.  And it says in Acts 19:13-16 “But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, ‘I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.  And the evil spirit answered and said to them, "I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”

Jude says these certain men revile things they don’t understand, and by those things they are destroyed.  I find it telling that so many false prophets claim to have authority to cast out demons and they love to proclaim judgements that make them seem like a great man of God, with great power over the spiritual realm, when in fact they are often being duped and even controlled by the very powers that they purport to have authority over.

Well, in this last illustration, Jude has given us an example of whom we are to emulate.  We certainly don’t want to emulate the examples of the rebellious Israelites, nor the fallen angels, nor the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the example given we should emulate is that of Michael the archangel.  We are to recognize and bow to the ultimate authority who is Jesus Christ the Lord.  We are to contend for the faith which is His gospel.  We are to obey HIs commands.  We are to fight in the strength that He supplies and rebuke sin and licentiousness in the name of the Lord.  And in that way of following Michael’s example, we will ensure that we do not fall into the same condemnation as those who rebelled and did not believe.