Dreadful Examples Series

“Certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgement of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” [1]

Those benighted souls who stand in opposition to the Faith do not often think of themselves as enemies of the Faith. They see themselves as enlightened, even a cut above the ordinary; they regard themselves as advanced thinkers, spiritual elite. To such individuals, living among us to this day, Jude issues a serious warning. Those who deviate from the Faith once for all entrusted to the saints will do well to heed the warning Jude delivers. And we who claim to walk in the Faith will do well to take these warnings to heart so that we will not be moved from our secure foundation.

That man is no enemy who warns us of certain destruction or warns us of harm if we persist in a destructive course of action. Jude is no enemy to grace or to the flock of God as he warns of the certainty of God's judgement on apostates. I am no enemy when I warn the advanced thinkers inhabiting our seminaries and schools that the Living God will hold them accountable for the evil they perpetuate. I am no enemy when I warn those who present themselves as spiritually elite who seek to direct the Lord's heritage into new paths our fathers did not know. I am no enemy when I warn the apostate against continuing in his destructive path. The apostate is in dire danger, his soul in eternal jeopardy. I warn any such individuals against presuming against the Lord Christ.

THE PERIL DEFINED — “Certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” [JUDE 4]. Did you ever eat an apple, and in the course of enjoying that fine fruit discover a worm inside? How does a worm get inside an apple? Perhaps you think the worm burrows in from the outside. No! Scientists have discovered that the worm comes from the inside. But how does it get in there? Simple! An insect lays an egg in the apple blossom. Some time later the worm hatches in the heart of the apple, then eats its way out. Thus it is with sin in the life of an individual, and with sin in the life of a church, or with sin in the life of a denomination. Sin begins innocuously, quietly growing from within until it is ready to gnaw its way out. In the process, the individual, the church, the denomination, is ruined by the sin expressing itself as that sin breaks forth.

In defining the peril the Church was then facing, and has faced ever since, Jude provides four characteristics of those who would destroy the work of God. It is perhaps fair to observe that those who are so designated would not consciously wreak havoc on the flock of God. In fact, many of these wicked souls would sincerely avow love for the people of God, stating that they desired only to open their eyes to new vistas. What they do not acknowledge is that they can rise no higher than the source of their inspiration. And because they know not God, however pious or religious they may appear, they cannot lead the people of God into the presence of God. These benighted souls are controlled by the spirit of this world, which provides a great show of tolerance for everything except the exactitude of the Faith, the strictness of the Gospel of Peace. Never forget, peace with God comes from our submission to God and to His will. Peace does not come from imposition of the will of fallen people on God.

The first characteristic of these people is that they act surreptitiously—they are spiritual termites hiding from the light which would expose their true beliefs. Jude writes, “They have secretly slipped in among you.” The word he uses describes the specious, seductive words of a clever pleader seeping gradually into the mind of a judge and jury. The word is used at other times to speak of an outlaw slipping secretly back into the country from which he has been expelled. It is used of the slow, subtle entry of innovations into the life of a state, and which in the end undermine and break down ancestral laws. The word chosen is always indicative of a stealthy insinuation of that which is evil into society or into a situation.