Intending to write a letter to the Church on the subject of salvation, Jude was prompted instead to write about the false teachers that 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 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, these people are only interested in feeding themselves.

Clouds with out 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.  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 show that false teachers 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 blaspheme the creation and lend support to the murder of the preborn, who teach what they know to be false because it profits them, and who rebel against the authority of Scripture are not just mistaken.  Jude and Paul say 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)

Here Jude referred us once again to Peter who warned that these scoffers would taunt 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 how things began. 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.  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 clothes will remind us of the High Priest’s filthy robes and we’ll long to be clothed with our heavenly garments.

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.

Summary
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.  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.  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.  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 branches of the broad road with its wide gate. They lead to destruction because in the final analysis they make you the author of your 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. It’s what you believe in your heart that saves you, not how you behave in your life.

The Book of Acts is sometimes called the Acts of the Apostles because it’s a record of their experiences in building the early Church.  That being the case, the Book of Jude could be called Acts of the Apostates because it’s devoted to warning the Church of the false teachers who were coming.  This being the time of the Great Apostasy (2 Thes. 2:3) we should review Jude’s 1 chapter letter the the Church and see what it says to us today.

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:  Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance. (Jude:1-2)

The author identified himself as a servant of Jesus and a brother of James, who was head of the   Church in Jerusalem in the years between Pentecost and his death just prior to Jerusalem’s destruction.  Since James was a half brother of Jesus, Jude would also have been the Lord’s half brother.  Neither James nor Jude were believers until after the resurrection. (John 7:5)

Jude was clearly writing to the Church.  The Greek word translated “called” in verse 1 means sanctified (set apart) and is from the word for saint. The claim that we are loved by God and kept by Jesus Christ  combines John 3:16 (For God so loved the world) and John 6:39 (my father’s will is that I should lose none of all that He has given me) and confirms other passages that say once we’re saved the Lord takes responsibility for keeping us that way.

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude: 3-4)

Jude wanted to write about loftier things, but already the Church was being invaded by false teachers, something that continues to this day, and he felt the need to warn us about them.  Like it is today, these teachers were saying sin doesn’t matter, Jesus wasn’t really God in the flesh, and he’s not the only way to salvation.  Back then this was called the gnostic error, one teaching of which held that all Spirit is pure and all matter is evil, so what we do in the flesh is irrelevant to our spiritual life.

This same teaching held that God, being spirit, is pure and could never have dwelt in a physical body so Jesus could not have been divine.  They said  the Spirit of God came to be with Him for a time but departed before His crucifixion leaving Him to die a broken man.  Followers of gnosticism believed that salvation could not be attained through the death of a man, but by the acquisition of secret knowledge.  (The Greek word gnosis means to know.)  The New Age religions are modern examples that build on this kind of thinking.

The doctrine of inclusivism in liberal Christian theology teaches that Jesus is not the only way to salvation.  Different religious philosophies outline their own beliefs and as long as people are sincere in practicing the beliefs of their chosen religion, they can find the way to God.  They say it would be arrogant of Christians to insist that ours is the only way.

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.  In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.(Jude:5-7)

These people might think they’re smart, behaving like they do.  The way they intellectualize the Scriptures and emphasize their advanced degrees shows them to have a superior attitude, acting as if they’re the only ones who really understand.  But we should remember what happened to those who thought they were too smart for God in the past. Paul said, “Although they claimed to be wise they became fools” (Romans 1:22) and reminded us that God promised the wisdom of the wise will perish and the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish.  He was quoting Isaiah 29:14.  Having learned nothing from history these people who think they’re so smart will find themselves repeating it.

Even the angels had to learn this.  When some of them thought they could rebel and begin a new order, they took on human form without permission, chose human women as wives and produced a hybrid race of super humans (Genesis 6:4). Before long the human gene pool was almost entirely corrupted. But God brought the Great flood and destroyed them all, preserving only Noah and his family to begin again.  Those who led this rebellion have been chained in darkness for over 4,000 years, awaiting their judgment.   Peter also had this in mind when he wrote,

“God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment” (2 Peter 2:4)

Later, Satan tried to pull this same stunt again, infesting the land God promised to His people with giants to frighten the Israelites away.  It worked for a while, but God gave His people supernatural strength and courage to drive them out.

Some are convinced Satan will try this one more time, as the End of the Age approaches.  They say the  Nephilim of Genesis 6 are returning as extra-terrestrials to help Satan kick God off the planet for good.  I have no first hand evidence to prove or disprove this theory.  But this I know.  The Bible says it has happened before, and there are hints it could happen again. (For our complete study on the Nephilim go  to http://gracethrufaith.com/ikvot-hamashiach/the-nephilim)

And who could deny the current effort to re-create Sodom and Gomorrah in our midst?  Using the law of the land to force the acceptance of deviant behavior on the people pits human governments directly against the Word of God and will produce the same response that has followed every preceding attempt. Judgment.

In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.  But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”  Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them. (Jude:8-10)

The Gnostics of old felt comfortable indulging to excess in every form of perversity.  And if you think this kind of thing only happened long ago, just watch a few prime time TV shows. A short generation ago such behavior would have been scandalous, unfit even for public discussion.  Now it’s openly celebrated, and even admired.

In this passage we come closer than any other place in the Bible to understanding why God allows Satan into His presence. Satan is a dignitary, a celestial being at the top of the order.  Even Michael the Archangel,  occupying the second highest position in the angelic hierarchy can not speak disrespectfully to him. With all the harm Satan has done to the creation, at least for now he is still afforded the courtesy due his position.

But the false teachers of yesterday and today feel free to slander anybody, including God, who they don’t understand.  They even rebel against the things they intuitively know are right.  One of these is the indisputable fact that our world had to have been created. In Romans 1:18-19 Paul wrote,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,  since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

Scientists are intelligent enough to read the signs God has plainly shown them in the Creation. Their insistence upon believing the so-called theory of evolution is not due to the fact that they’ve proven it to be true. In fact a growing mountain of evidence is showing it to be false.  It’s due to the fact that they don’t want to believe the Biblical account which they intuitively know to be true, and so they suppress the truth by promoting a lie.

Another self-evident truth is when life begins.  There isn’t a person alive who doesn’t know deep in his or her heart that a pre-born child is a living being.  And yet these false teachers relentlessly spout theories that contradict their intuitive knowledge in a failed effort to justify their behavior.   These are the ones to whom God will one day shout, “What were you thinking?” as He shows them the millions of defenseless children they’ve murdered.

Now  don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m only talking about the secular world here.  Remember, Jude said these teachings would come into the Church. And so they have.  Today only a minority of those who call themselves Christian believe the Bible is true just as it’s written.

Speaking of these false teachers Peter said, “Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;  yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.  But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand.” (2 Peter 2:10-12)

And Jude continues, Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.(Jude:11)

The way of Cain is to offer the works of our hands as payment for our sins rather than accept the sacrifice of an innocent substitute (Genesis 4:3-4).  The Bible says Cain knew what was right, but refused to do what was right (Genesis 4:6).  Similarly some preachers today put their flocks in greater bondage than they were before they were saved by teaching that although Jesus died so we could be saved it’s up to us to earn the right to stay that way.

Balaam’s error was to offer false prophecies for a fee.  He loved the wages of wickedness (2 Peter 2:15) Today we would say, “He’s in it for the money.” Some of our most prominent televangelists teach things they know in their heart to be untrue just to get money from their gullible followers.

Korah rebelled against God’s chosen one (Moses) inciting the people to disobedience (Numbers 16).  Because of him many people refused to follow God’s constituted authority.  For the Church today, God’s constituted authority is His word.  But I get emails almost every day from people who can’t find a Bible believing church where they live.  Others write to bemoan the fact that the church they’ve grown up in is suddenly taking a dramatic turn away from the Bible into things its writers have  repeatedly warned us against doing.

So far it’s not looking good for the false teachers whether of Jude’s time or ours. But Jude is far from concluding his rant against them and before we’re finished Peter will have more to say too.  Better stay tuned.