Intending to write a letter to the Church on the subject of
salvation, Jude was prompted instead to write about the false teachers
who were already infecting the Church with their lies. He was just
getting nicely wound up as we finished our first installment. Let’s
rejoin him now as he releases the full force of his torrent against
them. And as we saw last time, he wasn’t just writing about his times,
he was also writing about ours.
These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you
without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are
clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without
fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming
up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been
reserved forever. (Jude:12-13)
The phrase “love feast” refers to the early church’s practice of
eating together and sharing communion at their weekly gathering. It was
an adaptation of the Passover meal Jesus celebrated with His disciples.
Jude said the false teachers didn’t belong there because unlike
shepherds who understood their responsibility to “feed” their flock
(provide sound teaching), these people are only interested in feeding
themselves (filling their own stomachs).
Clouds without rain fail to fulfill their promise of bringing relief
from the drought. They get our hopes up but don’t bring us comfort.
Trees that don’t bear fruit are uprooted. Jude called them twice dead
because by bearing no fruit they produce no offspring and by being
uprooted their own life is ended. The wild waves of the sea come from
odd directions. Today, sailors call them rogue waves. They can knock a
boat off course or even cause it to capsize. Wandering stars are
unreliable and cannot be used for navigation. Anyone following them is
in danger of becoming lost.
These four analogies are all accurate descriptions of false teachers
and show that they are not just wrong, they’re dangerous. And they’re
most dangerous to those who are least able to defend themselves. Like
wolves, they feed off the weak and the stragglers. Jude said the
darkest blackness has been reserved for them forever, indicating they’re
not saved. John confirmed this when he wrote the following about them;
They went out from us but they did not really belong to us. For
if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their
going showed that none of them belonged to us. (1 John 2:19)
False teachers who deny the deity of Jesus or the sufficiency of His
sacrifice, who teach what they know to be false because it profits them,
and who rebel against the authority of Scripture are not just mistaken.
They know in their hearts they’re wrong, and John said by their words
and deeds they’re proving that they never belonged to us.
Paul said, “such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen,
masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself
masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his
servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what
their actions deserve.” (2 Cor. 11:13-15)
When you’re masquerading you’re pretending to be someone you know
you’re not. Just like Satan knows he’s not an angel of light, his
servants know they’re not servants of righteousness. These men are not
merely deluded, they are consciously deceptive.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See,
the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to
judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts
they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly
sinners have spoken against him.” These men are grumblers and
faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about
themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. (Jude: 14-16)
Some commentators use this passage to support their view that the
book of Enoch belongs in the Bible. But Jude was writing under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit and would have known that the book of
Enoch a) was not written by Enoch, and b) has a number of historical and
theological errors. Jude was very specific in identifying Enoch as
belonging to the seventh generation after Adam. The Book of Enoch wasn’t
written until several thousand years later.
Jude:14 is similar to 1 Enoch 1:9. But even if Jude
was quoting it, that wouldn’t indicate a blanket endorsement of the
book. Jude could have had confirmation from the Holy Spirit that the
original Enoch actually said what Jude had written. That would explain
why Jude attributed the statement to Enoch rather than the book by that
name. The important thing to remember here is that the Lord will come to
judge the false teachers for the way they’ve twisted and distorted the
truth of His word.
But you don’t have to depend on Jude’s quote from Enoch to verify the
judgments that await the godless false teachers. Peter said the same
thing.
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as
there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce
destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought
them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their
shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they
have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and
their destruction has not been sleeping (2 Peter 2:1-3).
In Old Testament times there were false prophets pretending to speak
for the Lord. Now we have false teachers who twist His word into
something it was never meant to be. What they teach denies the fact that
the Lord died for all our sins and just by receiving His free gift we
can live in eternity with Him. Instead they use their influence to
introduce destructive heresies that lead their followers astray. Peter
added his voice to Jude and John saying,
These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. (2 Peter 2:17)
And Jesus will seal the fate of these pretenders saying, “I never knew you. Away from me you evil doers.” (Matt. 7:23)
A Call to Persevere
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus
Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be
scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men
who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the
Spirit. (Jude:17-19)
Many scholars believe Peter used Jude’s letter as a resource for his
own writing, so it doesn’t surprise us to see similar ideas. Peter also
warned that there would be scoffers among us. “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation ( 2 Peter 3:4).
These advocates of evolution contend that things always have been and
always will be. They laugh when we talk about the 2nd Coming, as if
we’re being naive to think such thoughts.
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the
heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By
these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. (2 Peter 3:6)
It’s not that they never heard about how things began, or had no way
of discovering the truth about the creation. Paul wrote that God made
His authorship so clear that men are without excuse (Romans 1:18-20).
On the contrary, they’ve made a conscious decision to ignore what God
said about creating the Heavens and the Earth, and how he destroyed it
when men became evil. Against all the evidence they’ve decided to
believe that God doesn’t get involved in the workings of men and
therefore won’t be coming back, ever.
But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy
faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you
wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life (Jude:20-21).
Building faith is like building our muscles. It takes practice. Jude’s brother James said it this way.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of
many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops
perseverance. (James 1:2-3)
An athlete looks for chances to test himself and faces them joyfully
because it’s an opportunity to make himself bigger, faster, stronger. We
should be the same, thinking of the trials we face as opportunities to
build our faith. We know in advance that the outcome will be in our
favor, so we can consider these tests pure joy. They bring us closer to
the Lord and help us look to that day He’s promised will come.
Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and
save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the
clothing stained by corrupted flesh. (Jude:22-23)
Like the seasoned veteran encourages the rookie, we can reach out to
those who doubt while we wait for the Lord’s return. I believe Jude had Zechariah 3:1-10
in mind here. It was a vision, one of eight Zechariah had in the same
night. The Angel of the Lord was there, along with Joshua the High
Priest and Satan. When Satan began to accuse the High Priest, God said, “The
Lord rebuke you Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is
not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
Joshua was dressed in filthy (literally excrement bespattered) clothing. The Angel of the Lord said, “Take off his filthy clothes”,
and told Joshua He had taken away his sin. Then He had Joshua clothed
in rich garments and said he was symbolic of things to come. He was
referring to the day when the Lord would come to take away the filthy
garments of our own righteousness and clothe us in rich garments of His
righteousness.
“I will remove the sin of the people in a single day,” the
Angel said, thereby identifying Himself as Jesus. It’s an incredible
model I call the Gospel in Zechariah, and I think Jude was calling it to
our attention for a reason. We need to remember what we were before and
who we are now.
As we build our faith and wait for the Lord, we’ll become so heavenly
minded that our earthly life will remind us of the High Priest’s filthy
robes and we’ll long to be clothed with the heavenly garments of our
eternal life.
Doxology
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you
before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the
only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude:24-25)
Jude’s letter ends the way it began, with an assurance that Jesus will obey His father’s will and not lose even one of us (John 6:38-40), but is able to keep us from falling and to present us to Himself without fault, as though we’d never sinned at all.
At the beginning I said the Epistle of Jude could be called the Acts
of the Apostates. This is because of the author’s focus on the false
teachers. And remember they all claim to be part of the Church, even
though their teachings are far from the Gospel.
Some of them say Jesus is not the way at all. They deny His deity,
doubt the fact that He died for our sins and rose again, and dismiss His
claim that you have to be born again. Instead, they say you have to
find the way yourself, by living a good life, or learning secret
knowledge, or joining their group.
Others say He’s not the only way. They teach there are many ways to
God and as long as you’re sincere in what you believe you’ll find yours.
Still others say He’s not all the way. They say He made it possible
for you to begin your journey to God, but you have to complete it by
your own efforts, living a righteous life according to their standards.
These are all paths on the broad road with its wide gate. They lead
to destruction because in the final analysis they make you the author of
your own salvation. These are the acts of the apostates.
The Bible says Jesus is the the way, the only way, and He’s all the
way. Only by trusting exclusively in His completed work on the cross can
we hope to see the Kingdom. Faith in His substitutionary death is the
only thing we can do that isn’t counted as work, and it alone is
credited to us as righteousness (Romans 4:5) This is the narrow road with the small gate, because it makes Jesus the sole author of our salvation.
It’s exciting to be part of a big crowd all praising God and caught
up in the stimulation of a great musical production. There’s a feeling
of self satisfaction that comes from being seen by your peers as a
shining example of what it means to live a victorious life. And there’s
an unparalleled sense of fulfillment to be found in expressing the love
of the Lord to the less fortunate through missionary or social justice
programs.
But if you’re not also a born again believer, none of that will get
you even one step closer to the Kingdom. You’ll just be one more victim
of the acts of the apostates. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3).
To be born again is to admit you’re a sinner, and that Jesus died for
your sins and rose again. Are you born again? 05-31-14.
