This is a small but a weighty
book, and you'll see that as we read. Jude and the first seven
verses for our reading, then making reference to other parts
of it during the course of our study. Jude, the servant of Jesus
Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by
God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus and called. mercy unto you, and peace and
love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence
to write unto you of the common salvation, It was needful for
me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly
contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept
in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,
ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness
and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice 5, 6, and 7. I will
therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how
that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed them that believed not. and the angels,
which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation,
he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under
the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and
the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over
to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth
as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. There are two ways principally
that the enemies of God employ in their attempts to destroy
anything Christian or that goes by the name of Christian. Anything
they can use to destroy the gospel and to negate it and the person
of Christ the church, its function, and its mission, so that these
two means have been the chief means by which the devil has
sent his minions to use against the churches of the Lord and
against Christianity and the Gospel. Two things. Number one,
violent persecution. There has been violent persecution
that has been waged against the Church of the Lord. The sword
has been used at times against things Christian. This was the
method of Saul of Tarsus before he was gloriously converted by
the Lord, to kill and to maim and to murder the saints of God,
and to persecute them so violently that he scattered them out of
their place of worship. This has been one tactic, to
waste and to scatter, to drive them perhaps underground that
they might have to hide to preach the gospel and worship the Lord. Then there's a second way that
they have used against the church, and that is to infiltrate the
churches with heresy and with false teaching, to creep in unaware,
even to assume the character or the image of brethren. than
to win the confidence of the people by vain words, than to
draw them away from sound doctrine and the truth that it is in Jesus
Christ, and thereby pervert that faith that was once delivered
unto the saints of God." Thomas Manton said essentially the same
thing in the introduction to his commentary on this little
book of Jude. In fact, his exact words are,
and I quote, the people of God have ever been exercised with
two sorts of enemies, persecutors and sectarian, and he said, it
is hard to say which is the worst. Which has been the most successful
in perverting the things of God. So with that in mind, let's wade
in to this little powerful but weighty epistle lying near the
back of our Bible. Notice that it is addressed there
in verse 1, to the called, the sanctified, and them that are
preserved in Christ Jesus. Notice also in the second verse,
that He wishes them mercy, peace, and love in great abundance are
in measure. Then in verse 3 and verse 4,
I think the purpose of the epistle is set out here, that He intended
to write unto them of the common salvation. Not cheap salvation,
but the common salvation, that that we all have in common. The salvation had in common by
all of the saved, the children of God, and the saint. In that
all that are saved are saved in one and the same way. They're
saved by this great and common salvation, have a common faith,
and have a common Savior, one and the same. Now Jude, we can
see him here feeling a constraint and a necessity now of exhorting
them to earnestly contend for the faith, by which he does not
mean their personal faith or their belief in Jesus Christ,
but he refers to the body of truth or under Christian doctrine,
the doctrine of the faith of Christ and of the gospel to hold
fast. Not only hold it fast, but when
needful, also to contend for that body of truth which was
once and for all delivered unto the saints of God. Looking at
verse 4, He tells them why it is that He has exhorted them
to contend for the faith. Why the urgency in His writing
and in His letter? Why must they be diligent in
defending and holding fast unto the faith? Why must they guard
it and guard it carefully? And that is because He says,
there are certain heretics who came in unaware, or could we
use the term as stealth Christian, they crept in and they slipped
in almost unnoticed that they were heretics. and false teacher. They came as wolves in sheep's
clothing among the people of God and the churches." Now here
let us make a point and that is that Jude and the second epistle
of Peter and the second chapter are close parallels on these
matters. They mention many or most of
the same thing. and both of them giving a warning
against false teacher. Both of them warning of the danger
of false teachers entering in and reminding them of the judgment
that God had visited upon those false prophets in days of old. How God had dealt with apostates
in former or in earlier times. Now, verse 4 calls them ungodly
men, that is, godless men they are. We might say impious, without
the fear of God. They were not godly or God-fearing
men. And they had made grace a pretext
for licentiousness and for wantonness, turning the grace of God into
lasciviousness. And their sin rose higher and
higher, even denying our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Listen for a moment to 2 Peter
2 and verse 1. Even as there shall be false
teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies,
even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves
swift destruction." Now to sum up what has been said thus far
in verse 3, contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints. Verse 4 is the reason ungodly
men have crept in and injected the leaven of heresy in the body
of truth, perverting grace, denying the divinity and the Godhood
of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, verse 5, and beginning
at verse 5, the author puts his readers in remembrance, in remembrance
of the judgment which God visited upon apostates in former times
past. and the certainty of destruction
of such rebels against God as who defy the God of heaven, saying
to them, I will put you in remembrance. That is, I want to remind you
of something. I want to call to your mind what
you already know. I want to dredge it up again
in your memory afresh. I want you to recall what has
been written of old concerning these men and the judgment of
God against them. Now this does but confirm what
Brother Paul has said. In 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse
10 and verse 6, These things were our example. He also said in verse 11, all
these things happened to them for example and are written for
our admonition. He said in Romans 4, 15 and verse
4, what things were written aforetime were written for our learning. We need to learn from the things
that are written, from God's dealing and actings with certain
men. He blessed some, He judged others,
and we ought to remember that in our study. So that, in Jude
verse 7, they are set forth, as an example, suffering the
vengeance of eternal fire. 2 Peter 2 and verse 6, making
an example unto those that after should live ungodly. So the conclusion is this. Let
sinners beware of provoking God to His face and of committing
those sins that God has in time past severely punished in others. There are two, in my mind, excellent
commentaries on this little epistle of Jude, both of them very lengthy,
one by Thomas Manton and the other by William Jenkin. But
I will use the outline here of William Jenkin to get a hold
on what lies in the verses that are just ahead of us, down through
verse 16. Here are the divisions. First
of all, he said, in verse 5 through verse 7, the author cites examples
from the past of apostates and the severity with which they
were judged by God. Secondly, in verses 8 through
verse 10, he shows that those people in Jude's day who were
active then that Jude warns them against, were actually guilty
of the same sin that God had punished in men of old severely. We see this in verse 8. Likewise,
also these dreaming ones defiled the flesh, and so on. In verse
10, they speak evil of things which they do not understand,
acting with a reasoning of brute beasts, they corrupt themselves
before God. And then thirdly, in verse 11
through verse 16, Jude writes that modern apostates will do
the same sin as those of old and will meet the same judgment
that those of old did. Now, looking at the three examples
from the past, as well as the judgment of God in these three
examples that you use, Thomas Manton listed the three examples
like this. The first is taken from the murmuring
Israelite, the second from the apostate angel, and the third
is taken from the beastly Sodomites. And let it be noted here that
in 2 Peter chapter 2, the apostle also mentions two of these same
three things in that chapter, the angels that sin, the destruction
of Sodom, and brings the number back to three, including in his
account the destruction of the old world in Noah's day. Now let's consider the three
examples separately. What the sin was and how God
judged those particular sins. Well, A, Jude would have them
remember how that the Lord, having brought the people out of the
bondage in the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who did
not believe. Having delivered the people,
He destroyed those that believed not, that were guilty of unbelief. Even though God delivered them,
He delivered them by a mighty and an evident hand. God smote
the firstborn of Egypt to gain their freedom. He opened the
Red Sea. He drowned Pharaoh and his armies. destroying them in the Red Sea. He led them by a cloud and a
fire, clearly leading them in the way. What did they do? They
groaned by reason of the bondage in Egypt, Exodus 6 and 5. And God sent them a deliverer,
Moses, brought them out with a mighty hand, took them to Sinai,
made a covenant there with them, and they pledged their allegiance
unto God and unto His way. Now this delivers from Egyptian
bondage. It's one of the great works of
God in all of the Old Testament, one which He did on occasion
call to their memory that they might remember the great work
that God had done before them. Before he gave them the law,
he said, I'm the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt. Then he gave them the law. This
is a great type of the redemption worked out in Jesus Christ. Delivering us from the bondage
of sin. He delivered them. But afterward,
in the second place, he destroyed those not believing. Paul puts it like this. 1 Corinthians
10 and verse 5, with many of them God was not well pleased
for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Hebrews 3 and 4,
chapter 3 and 4, He swore in His wrath to them that they would
not enter into His rest. Being grieved with that generation
of people, their carcasses fell in the wilderness and they entered
not into the land of promise. Now we might ask ourselves, what
incident is it that Jude had in mind when God afterward destroyed
those that did not believe? Since there were several occasions
in their history when many died at one time in a plague or in
some kind of a judgment, such as the fiery serpents in Numbers
chapter 21. Many died. or the making of the
golden calf in Exodus chapter 32. Three thousand men died on
that occasion. The rebellion led by Korah in
Numbers chapter 16, and the earth opened up, the scripture said,
and swallowed up all of the house of Korah. Again in Numbers 25,
when Israel committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab, and
upward of 20,000 died, and their heads were hung in the daylight. That is where men could see. Still, methinks, it is best to
understand Jude to be referring to the incident in Numbers chapter
14, And verse 13 and 14, "...at last they had come to the border
of Canaan, at the report of the spies who went in to spy out
the land, that Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey,
It took two men to bring a cluster of grapes that they found in
that great land. It had abundant fruit, ah, but
there was a fly in the ointment. The people that dwelt there were
strong. The cities were walled with string
round about. And there were giants in that
land of Canaan at that time. And the heart of the people melted
within them like wax. And they murmured and said, Oh
my God, You brought us out here for us to perish in the wilderness. Even though God had promised
them the land of Canaan, it was His infallible promise that He
would bring them into that land. But they disbelieved even at
the very border. And the sentence of God was 40
years they would wander in the wilderness until everyone there
that day that disbelieved had fallen in the wilderness. Until
that generation perished in the wilderness. You can see this
in Hebrews 3 and 8 through 11, they shall not enter into my
rest. Secondly, we have another example,
that of the apostasy in verse 6 of the sin and fall of what
I call the non- elect angels of God and the punishment that
God visited upon them. Here are angels that had been
created by God. They were spiritual and incorporeal
beings once holy, once in heaven about the throne of God. Listen
to how Peter says it. 2 Peter 2 and verse 4, he calls
them the angels that sinned. And Jude says they kept not their
first estate, they left their habitation. Notwithstanding their
once being majestic beings and majestic creatures, when they
revolted against God, They were cast out forever and forever. And Jude says the Lord has reserved
them in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of
the great day. Peter adds, God cast them down
onto hell. Jenkin took their bound in chains
as a metaphor to describe a criminal who has been arrested and who
is chained in a dark dungeon until the time of their punishment
and of their execution. Also interesting that the word
hell in 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 4 is only used in this
one particular place in the New Testament. It is the word Tartaru. There are at least three words
that are translated hell in our English version of the scripture. Gehenna, Hades, and this word
Tartarus or Tartaru. One version has 2 Peter 2 and
verse 4, putting them in gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment. Now the point of emphasis is
this, even the angels, Even they apostatized away from their first
habitation, and even they were not spared. Was not their sentence
ameliorated in some way? How about that word, ameliorated?
Because of their once high estate? No, not at all. Because they
were angels in heaven gives them no relief at all. It does not
lighten their sentences in the least. In fact, we might make
the case, the higher the privilege, the greater will be the judgment
that God will inflict upon that apostate. Thus, the angels that
sinned are held in chains of darkness, reserved in judgment
until a great day. And then C, we have in verse
7, the third example, of apostasy and the severe judgment that
God visited upon it. That by the sin of sodomy and
the sodomites. The Bible calls it sodomy. It
is the sin that we know as the sin of homosexuality. And the verse opens with the
words, look at them, even as, in verse 7, or just as, or how,
how God did this great thing. Now the flow of thought is continued
by another example by which Jude would put them in memory. He says, just as the Israelites
who disbelieve or are shut out of Canaan, just as the angels
who left their first estate were cast out and reserved in chains
of darkness, even so, in the same way, the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah, giving themselves over to fornication and perversion,
did suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. Now, as you do already
know, this is written up in Genesis chapter 19. Their sin and their
shame is especially exposed in Genesis 19 and verses 4 through
verse 9. When on a certain night they
encompassed about the house of Lot, and they spewed out their
filth and their shame and their lust in a public demonstration
at Lot's front door. Kind of a get-to-know-your-neighbor
night or something or other. Here they all came. Now when
we merge the accounts of Peter and the account of Jude, we get
a good view of both their sin and of their judgment. 2 Peter
2 and verse 8 mentions their unlawful deeds, literally lawless
deeds. But Jude is more specific, giving
themselves over to fornication, going after strange flesh. committing fornication. This
word fornication regards all kind and all manner of sexual
lewdness and immorality. It is from the word pornea that
we might recognize, such as harlotry, adultery, incest, or bestiality,
or whatever. Jude uses the word here expornio,
which means to be Utterly, completely, totally unchaste. Not without
any virtue whatsoever. Totally unchaste. Void of any
goodness or any virtue. Implying excessive indulgence,
giving themselves over, abandoning all restraint. And Jude adds
something. going after strange flesh. Now let's look at that word just
a moment or so. It is the word hetheros, used
a few dozen times in the New Testament. Almost always you'll
find it translated either other or another, heteros, other than
that which God ordained, which is male and female. Homosexuality, therefore, is
apostasy from the natural order and is everywhere it is mentioned
in the Scripture condemned, and though moderns have tried their
best to remove the stigma by giving it a politically correct
name, gay, and most people have fallen in with that. This is
not anything to do with our study, I guess, but I read in the paper
the other day that a few apostate churches here in this area or
getting together, and they're going to have a bring-your-gay-teen-to-church-Sunday
so they can get to know and be able to mix and mingle with people. Now Jude begins to apply the
effects of apostasy to his own generation in verse 8 through
verse 10. Not only were ancient apostates
severely punished, but as Jenkins wrote, that those present-day
heretics in verse 4 were guilty of the same sin that God had
punished in those of days of old. Look at verse 8. Likewise,
these, these now that he's talking about in his day. Verse 10, these,
even verse 11, woe unto them. And even verse 12, these are
spots or blemishes in your love feast when they feast with you."
Now the adverb likewise here puts the apostates in Jude's
day in one and the same category as those examples in verse 5
through verse 7. Likewise. That is, they stand
in the same danger, committing the same sin. For they boldly,
without shame, imitate their apostate predecessors. As in verse 8, there is a trio
of their transgressions that are named. They defile the flesh,
They despise dominion or authority, and they speak evil of dignitaries. Sins reflected in verse 5 through
verse 7. The Israelites railed against
Moses' authority. The Sodomites defiled the flesh. The angels sinned against the
celestial being, even God. Verse 9 is difficult since there
is no mention of this in the Old Testament Scripture, though
the purpose of it is to aggravate the sins in verse 8. Filthy dreamers. despised dominion,
speak evil of celestial beings. Verse 9, yet Michael himself,
an archangel in a contention with the devil over the body
of Moses did not bring a railing accusation against the wicked
one but said unto him, in their contention, the Lord rebuke you."
He left it unto God. Remember what David said when
he could have killed his arch enemy Saul. Saul had been cast
under a deep sleep from God, he and all of his men. David
and his men walked all among them. They didn't even wake up.
They did not hear a thing. And David might have killed Saul
upon that occasion. He did not for this reason. 1 Samuel 24, 6 and 10. Because he said, Saul is the
Lord's anointed. Saul is the Lord's anointed. The Lord had had him anointed
as king. And David would not touch the
Lord's anointed even though at that time he had become wicked. But let's go back to Jude 10.
Though Michael would not slander the devil, Those apostate teachers
spoke evil things, things about which they were ignorant, corrupting
themselves to the reasoning level of nothing more or higher than
brute beast. Jude verse 11, Jude pronounces
woe upon such apostate, even as the Lord did the Pharisees
in Matthew 23. Now a woe, W-O-E, in Scripture
is some misery or some judgment either present or coming. He saith, they are gone in the
way of Cain. They have sought gain like Balaam,
and they have been as rebellious as Korah. And remember the end
of these three? Jude depicts them under several
metaphors. likening them here to clouds
without water. Clouds that have no water can
bring no rain. He likens them to trees whose
fruit is withered. Dead trees, dead roots, uprooted
and cast out twice dead. Verse 13, He likens them to raging
oceans foaming up its filth and its shame, wandering stars headed
for abject darkness forever and forever." Verse 16, he calls
them murmurers, complainers. walking after their own lusts
or devices, speaking ignorant things, arrogant things, showing
respect for the sake of advantage, if it will do them good. Verse
17 and verse 18, remember that the apostles warned, he said,
of such seducers and such mockers. Our Lord Jesus warned, false
Christ and false prophets shall appear among you. And he closes
the exhortation with verse 20 through verse 25. And I would
like to close this message with a consideration of the awful
state of gospel apostates. I say the state of the apostate
is the worst state to be in of all predicament. Worse than an
unbeliever who has never been religious. even worse than the
professing atheist or the agnostic, as these might be later enlightened
and called into salvation by the grace of God. But the gospel
apostate is one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and
trampled underfoot the way of salvation and the sacrifice and
the atonement of our Lord, turning away from Christ and the gospel. There is no other sacrifice for
sin. So it is impossible to renew
them again under repentance. Read that verse in Hebrews 6,
4 through 6. Impossible to renew them again. To preach Jesus to them is like
casting pearl before swine, our dear Savior said. And their judgment
will be harsh as they cannot escape the damnation of hell. Now, from this book we learn
the saints must be sound in doctrine, They must recognize false teachers,
and they must shun them, and they must judge teachers by their
doctrine, particularly by the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. We might ask them, What think
ye of Christ? What is their doctrine of Christ?
John said, Hereby ye may know Everyone that confesses that
Jesus has come is of God. Those who deny that Jesus has
come of God are not of God, but this is that spirit of Antichrist,
which before has been foretold. Apostates are everywhere, brethren.
There are apostate whole churches, whole denominations that are
apostate, though they march under the banner of Christianity. They
reject and hate our type of Christianity and are on the liberal side and
on the left and really have very little esteem for the birth,
death, shed blood of Christ and the great salvation. Apostates
are in a terrible state. I view them as irrecoverable. Once one has become a full-fledged
apostate, where he's repudiated the things of God and the Gospel
in Christ, he is locked up in his doom forever and forever. That's how I see an apostate
in the Scripture.