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. 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, 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."
It is important that we understand that apostasy is more than false teaching, it is false living. In other words, your actions, your attitudes, bear with witness to the lies that proceed out of your mouth. Claiming to be a Christian, when in truth you are not.
Our study of Jude is really quite sobering. It grieves my hearts and causes me weep to think of those I know who could very well fall into the category of being an apostate, those who proclaim the name of Christ, who lives and lifestyles deny His Lordship.
There is something else I'd like to draw to your attention to today, I believe it is very important. In moving toward the aspect of judgment, the perishing of the apostates and what is going to happen to them. You need to understand that apostates are the enemy of the true church. I want to warn you, this is a sobering passage.
Before we begin, allow me to remind you that these people whom Jude writes about were in the church, they were "religious people," and they
were most likely active in church, doing the right things, saying the right things, they may well
have even been members.Yet, they were ungodly people, who had turned the grace of God into lewdness, and denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
If we pause and think about this, if they are in the church, they were likely not denying God and Christ outright, they had claimed to be believers, servants of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Yet, their lives and lifestyles denied the Lord. They are those that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 15, when He said "This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’"
So often today we hear over and over, "Judge not lest ye be judged." However, in John 7:24 Jesus says that we are to, "…judge with righteous judgment." As I have stated many times before, you must allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. When we look at just one passage and build our entire belief system off
of that one passage, we are going to end up with a very skewed belief system. Jesus was not saying that Christians should not judge anything, in Matthew 7:15, He says that we will know false teachers by their fruit. Again, this presupposes making a judgment. While we are not to judge someone's motives. we can and should judge their actions and behavior, if it is in contrast to biblical teaching.
If we see someone who is intoxicated, we know he has engaged in the sin of drunkenness, however, we do not know the motive that drove him to it. That's why Paul says in First Corinthians 10:12, "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall."
In Matthew 23, Jesus condemned the Pharisees and Scribes, calling them hypocrites, He indicts them saying not only are they not saved, but that they don’t even preach the truth so that others can be saved. "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation."
Christians today, like to talk about the love of God, and how because Jesus loves us so much He went to the cross, however, they don’t like to mention that it was our sin that put Him on the cross, and the need to propitiate God’s wrath and justice. And how dare anyone who brings up repentance. I contend it’s better to hear the truth now, in love, than to hear it as you stand before God, in judgement!
Let us pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word for us, and for loving us enough to warn us. Though the truth is often difficult to hear, we thank You for holding nothing back. Thank You for giving us a glimpse of the reality of hell. May we by knowing the truth, turn away from anything that would send us there. May we stand firm and contend against the corruption of the truth. As we engage in the battle, may we be aware that the church is filled with those who in danger of being cast into hell. Lord, break our hearts for that which breaks Yours.
Lord, I pray that Your Spirit would work a great and mighty miracle in each heart receiving this message, using it to effect change in those whose lives are at risk.
In Jesus' name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message: The Hard Truth
According to the Word of God, there will always be assaults on the truth from inside the church. Those who have known the truth, who have professed the truth and who have departed from the faith. The Apostle Paul warned about this departure from the faith. The Apostle John went to great lengths to warn about departure from the faith. In his three epistles, John helps us discern our own true spiritual condition and recognize spirits that are not of God, but are rather spirits of error.
II Thessalonians 2, tells us the day of the Lord will not come, unless the apostasy comes first. II Timothy 3, tells us that in the last days, there will be those who "holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power."
We are certainly living in the last days. We seem to be fighting this battle on two front, one is a rising insidious eruption of rebellion from within the church, and the other is the vile assault on the truth from those who challenge God's authority and deny the Gospel because of moral reasons from outside of the church. There are those in the Church today, who deny the true God and have created their own version of god, who excuses their sin, with a wink and a nod, whom they call God.
Open with me your Bibles to the book of Jude. Previously, we learned that Jude appealed to his readers to contend for the faith, certainly against ungodly people that have crept into the fellowship of Christians. In the next several verses, he paints a picture of how these people behave, in order that followers of Christ might be able to recognize them. Jude is citing these examples to remind his readers that God is not slow to judge but will exact His wrath in due time. Perhaps, he is fearful of their certainty of the judgment of God. There have always been apostates, and they’ve been a part of the visible people of God.
There is a difference between the visible church and the invisible church. When the world looks at the congregation of the church, those who call themselves Christians, they cannot differentiate between the real church and those who are not. They are only able to see the visible church, not the invisible church, those who are true believers. If we have a difficult time sorting out the wheat from the tares, we can be sure that the world is unable to distinguish the difference.
That is in part, what makes being a Christian so difficult, especially today, trying to explain the things that the visible church does that the invisible church would never do. Behaviors that are not characteristic of the true Christian. The visible church live lives filled with ungodly lust, and do not submit to the Word of God, they do not submit to Christ's Lordship. So, we have those within the framework of Christianity, mingled within the visible church, the invisible church.
In his opening, Jude identifies the invisible church, the called, the loved, and the kept.
And to them he says, "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to
you." So, in verses 1 and 2, he affirms the true believers. Then, in verse 3, he speaks of his very important purpose for his letter, "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints."
In verse 4, he calls upon the invisible church, the true and living church, to go to war for the truth, because "certain persons have crept in unnoticed." They are inside the church. "They are ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."
There are a number of those ordained to the Christian ministry today, who are marked out for condemnation, because of their licentious, lascivious, ungodly behavior. Believing that they have been given grace by God; so they can live any way they want. They live lives that are absolutely disobedient to God's Word. Jude's entire letter, then, is not only written to call us all to war to defend the
faith, but to serve as the most direct warning to apostates who are sitting
in the church. As we will see in verses 5 through 7, Jude sees no sense in waiting till the end to get this warning out.
I invite you to follow along with me as I read to you verses 5 through 7, to set the text in our minds, as we prepare our hearts for what the Spirit is saying to each of us. Jude 5-7.
"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. 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, 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."
Jude selects three familiar incidents from history in verses 5 through 7, one involving the Jews, one involving the Gentiles, and one involving the angels. He begins by calling to mind the most well-known historical account of the Hebrew people: the Exodus. As you will recall, Exodus refers to God’s bringing of the Israelites out of the land of
Egypt and slavery. For four hundred years, the Israelites were slaves to
the Egyptians, and God delivered them out with many great miracles. Here you have three historic accounts of God dealing with apostasy. He does this, in order to demonstrate how God reacts to apostasy, no matter who it is! Jude's warning is very, very clear, apostates are doomed.
The Apostle Peter was writing of the same matter, in II Peter chapter 2, verses four through eight, "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; 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; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds).
Peter gives three illustrations, two of them are the same as Jude. God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, He didn’t spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, and He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes. Peter is saying the same thing Jude does, each giving three illustrations of God’s inevitable, inexorable judgment on apostasy. In both cases, the message is clear, there is a hell and if you defect from the faith, you will go there.
Far better to have never heard the gospel than to have heard it and rejected it. In verse 5, Jude begins by saying, "I desire to remind you, though you
know all things once for all." Notice that he doesn't go into a lot of
detail. It's because these are very familiar stories. We also know these stories well, we've all heard them before, however, when it comes to apostasy, we need to be reminded of its seriousness.
God delivering the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, is probably the most familiar of all stories in the Old Testament, especially to those who came from a Jewish background. " Now I desire to remind you," tells us they were familiar with the story of God’s redemption of His people out of Egyptian slavery and bondage was the greatest of all stories.
Again, listen to II Peter chapter 1:12, "Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of
these things, even though you already know them, and have been
established in the truth which is present with you. But I consider it
right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way
of reminder."
Every good teacher knows that because we are prone to forget, we need to be reminded, just jog the memory.If you'd like to read that story on your own, you can easily find it Exodus 6 through 14. It's a fascinating story. Allow me quickly point out the parallels to our Lord Jesus Christ. In Exodus, the first time He delivered them; the second time He destroyed them. Jesus, the first time He comes to save; the second time He comes to destroy.
Both situations illustrate people who are given spiritual opportunity, who are called to believe the
truth about God, to trust in God, to put their faith in God, who know
enough to do that, who see enough to do that and defect, will find the
same God that gave them that opportunity will be the same God who
destroys them. This is a very terrifying warning people, you need to understand that!
Another note worthy mention, notice that Jude says that Jesus was the one who led the people of Egypt
and destroyed the unbelieving. Studying this verse is difficult, because
there are many ancient manuscripts that read differently. Some read "Lord" and others read "God," however, the best of these read "Jesus." The New Testament writers obviously have a high Christology and view Jesus as eternally pre-existent.
In John 8, John writes of Jesus claiming the holy name of God for Himself. In I Corinthians 10, Paul even explicitly speaks of Jesus being with Israelites during the Exodus. Therefore, the idea of Jesus being present in the affairs of the Old Testament is very doctrinal. This should serve as a sharp reminder to all of us today, that Jesus is both Savior and Judge, full of grace and righteous anger!
At the end of verse 5, God "subsequently destroyed those who did not believe." Well over a million bodies died in the wilderness. They came all the way up to the edge but didn’t really believe. That's always the issue.
Let's look at Hebrews chapter 3, "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said,
"Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me.” For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?"
You will never enter heaven unless you believe, and you only have today. The book of Hebrews is filled with many such warnings. There is no way to escape the judgment of God
One more before we move forward, Hebrews chapter 2, "Every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"
Next, in verses 6-7, Jude brings up the account of the rebellious angels. "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, 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."
One of the defining characteristics of many apocryphal writings is the
heightened emphasis upon angelic beings; whereas, the Bible tends to
deal with such matters in a very frank and matter of fact manner.
Jesus said in John 3, "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed."
Let me put it another way, if you are holding onto your sin, you have the opportunity to take it all the way to hell with you! But, if you’re holding onto it under the hearing of the gospel, the punishment will be more severe, in proportion to your exposure to the truth. There is no stronger warning in Scripture!
As I continue to proclaim the true faith against the insidious error of false preaching, I am well aware
that there are people in the church who fall into the category of defecting, they are not dangerous to the church, but they are a danger to themselves, because of their exposure to the truth. If you have been exposed to the truth and you've come all the way to faith in Christ, the glory of heaven awaits you.
that there are people in the church who fall into the category of defecting, they are not dangerous to the church, but they are a danger to themselves, because of their exposure to the truth. If you have been exposed to the truth and you've come all the way to faith in Christ, the glory of heaven awaits you.
If you defect from the faith, and join the apostates, you need to understand what you're facing. Many people exposed to the gospel turn away from it, and some of these people that turn away remain in the church, as the instruments of Satan. Be warned, that all those persons who apostatize, those who rebel and those defect from the faith, all end up in eternal fire. While we may not know when they have passed the point of grace. But we know that when they do, they are doomed to eternal judgment in hell forever!.
The sin, in particular in verse 6, was that the angels didn't keep their domain. Rather than staying in the place of authority that God had given them, they moved out of that realm. Secondly, abandoned their proper abode, they didn’t stay in the lofty and exalted position as holy angels around His throne, where God had place them. Instead, they came down and indulged in "ekporneuó," gross immorality, compound fornication. God "has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day." Literally under blackness.
Similar to what took place in Sodom and Gomorrah, because it says, the angels, "since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after "heteros," strange flesh" Of course, we know the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were engaged homosexuality. The men of Sodom lusted after the angels; the angels lusted after men, the angels committed acts of lust with human flesh. When they did this, they brought themselves under judgment. Then he adds "are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire."
I love the way Jude ties it all together, in describing what the angels did, he uses the analogy of Sodom and Gomorrah. We don't have time to go into detail on that, but you can read the account in Genesis 18 and 19. It's a horrific story. And God incinerated them. You know, archeologists have said there is evidence of a great rupture in the earth’s strata in that place. They were undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. This is God’s final, everlasting judgment on sinners, particularly those who defect from the truth.
Revelation 21:8
says, "The cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers,
immoral persons, sorcerers, idolaters, all liars, their part will be in
the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." That’s where it all ends, in hell.
In Closing..
In Jude, God has given us this very serious, very sobering warning. It is a reminder to us of how important it is to contend for the faith. It is a warning to those on the edge of apostasy. It's a warning to those who have defected from His truth and stay in His church to corrupt it. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God, He will not forgive anyone who rejects His gospel, He will punish them with everlasting torment and fire. There will be no one in hell who didn't choose to go there!
God doesn't send people to hell, they choose it by their actions, He simply honors their decision. Many preachers today, don't want to ever talk about sin, repentance and hell. The church as a whole has comfortably distanced ourselves from that reality.
Our culture is so used to sinning, and we’ve become very comfortable with every imaginable sin, except pedophilia. Things that were once defined as sin are no longer considered to be sin. In fact, our society now celebrates sin. Lying, cheating, stealing, adultery, fornication, sexual immorality are all accepted as normal behavior. Even murder has become acceptable in many circumstances, except if its a child.
We have developed a warped sense of good and evil, a distorted sense of justice, which imposes no consequences. We need to tell people that every committed sin, every unforgiven sin will be justly punished by God forever in a place called hell.
We freely talk about salvation, a word that means rescue. But what are we being rescued from? You just cannot talk about salvation, and not talk about sin, repentance and hell. The gospel message is that salvation is a rescue from a place called hell. Our Lord Jesus believed in hell.
In Matthew 10:28, He said "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
In Revelation 14, He says "If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb."
If you're going to get rid of hell then you have to get rid of heaven. Hell is where He punishes those who refuse to give Him honor and glory. There are many roads to hell, but there is only one way to heaven.
Matthew chapter 7 Jesus says "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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