Scripture
The Letter of Jude deals with the subject of false teaching, which is the greatest danger to the Church of Jesus Christ today.
As we study Jude 8-10 today, I want you to notice the characteristics of false teachers. Let’s read Jude 8-10:
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. (Jude 8-10)
Introduction
In his commentary on Jude, John MacArthur mentions that terrorism has always existed in various forms. From political assassinations to high-profile kidnappings to guerrilla warfare, history is full of men who have tried to enact change through violence.
But on the watershed date of September 11, 2001, terrorism reached a new level, when Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four jetliners and used them as missiles. The resulting destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City and damage to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (along with the crash of the fourth plane in rural Pennsylvania), killed almost three thousand people and dealt a severe blow to the American economy, raising the threat of international terrorism to an unprecedented height. In response, strict security precautions were put in place, especially for airline travel, vital industries, and high-profile public events.
Prior to September 11, the United States seemed blissfully immune to a foreign terrorist attack. But after the incredible collapse of the twin towers, Americans gained firsthand knowledge of terrorism’s deadly tactics.
In contrast to conventional warfare, terrorism presents a serious threat for two primary reasons.
First, terrorists operate clandestinely. They are relatively few in number, remain hidden, and usually do not wear uniforms. Their plans stay secret until after they strike, making their attacks very difficult to counteract.
Second, terrorists are usually willing to die for their cause (even by suicide as they carry out their objectives). They are eager to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their mission. Thus the prospect of even the severest human punishment, such as the death penalty, does not deter them.
If they are to be thwarted, they must be unmasked and apprehended before they act. Otherwise it will be too late.
The same features that make political terrorists so dangerous in the world make false teachers even more dangerous in the church. Because they often come disguised as angels of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) or as wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), false teachers are difficult to identify. And, because of their own self-deception, they willingly (albeit unwittingly) embrace their own eternal ruin for the sake of their poisonous lies. In destroying souls, they themselves commit spiritual suicide.
It is important for freedom-loving nations to fight ideological terrorists. But, it is infinitely more important for Christians to fight spiritual terrorists. Political terrorists can inflict material damage and physical death, but false teachers disguised as genuine teachers can subvert God’s truth and entice people to believe damning lies.
Jude realized the immense danger that false teachers pose to divine truth. Therefore, he exhorted his readers to “contend for the faith” (v. 3), to keep battling for the pure doctrine of “our common salvation” against those who would undermine the gospel. But because the false teachers had “crept in unnoticed” (v. 4), the challenge came in recognizing and exposing them before they inflicted harm.
Lesson
So, with that in mind, Jude continued to describe false teachers. They were so ungodly and spiritually dangerous that Jude used vivid language to describe them. In today’s lesson, Jude described the characteristics of false teachers.
I. False Teachers Are Immoral (8a-b)
First, false teachers are immoral.
Jude said in verse 8a-b, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh. . . .”
Jude’s letter is a call to Christians to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (v. 3). He warned the Church that false teachers were invading the church (v. 4). He also described God’s attitude towards false teachers (vv. 5-7). He showed how God judged unbelieving individuals, rebellious angels, and sinful communities.
Now, continuing on with his theme, Jude said, “Yet, in like manner. . . .” Just as surely as God judged unbelieving individuals, rebellious angels, and sinful communities, he will also judge false teachers, whom Jude refers to as “these people also.”
Jude said that false teachers rely on their dreams. The New Testament normally uses the noun onar to refer to dreams (Matthew 1:20; 2:12, 13, 19, 22; 27:19), but Jude uses the verbal form of enupniazo (which is used in only one other place in the New Testament, in Acts 2:17).
False teachers often claim that their dreams are of divine origin, and are therefore authoritative. Such a claim allows the false teachers to substitute their own counterfeit authority for God’s authority, which is of course the only true authority. The false teachers’ hearers are often sucked in to believe what the false teachers are saying.
The dreams of the false teachers are often nothing more than their perverted imaginations. They dupe their hearers into doing that which profits the false teachers.
Earlier this week I was channel-surfing. I stopped at a Christian TV broadcast. The teacher was saying that God had revealed to him that 300 viewers were to give $1,000 each in 17 minutes to his ministry. I could hardly believe the bold, shameless, crassness of this TV preacher. I did not stay long enough to listen if he was able to dupe 300 people, but I suspect that he was able to do so.
In the Old Testament, the term “dreamer” was virtually synonymous with a false teacher, as in Moses’ warning in Deuteronomy 13:1-5:
1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.”
Jude described false teachers as immoral. He said that they defile the flesh. The word translated as defile (miaino) means “to stain with color as the staining of glass, to tinge, pollute, defile.” When it is linked with the word for flesh (sarx), the reference is to moral or physical defilement, or sexual sin.
And so false teachers are inevitably immoral. Their immorality may not be known publicly, but it is there.
Just yesterday the Episcopal Church in the United States of America ordained an openly gay woman to the office of bishop in California. You may recall that this happened for the first time in the United States in 2003, when the first openly gay person was ordained to the office of bishop. Clearly, this is what Jude warned against. This is not just a slip into sin, which happens even to believers. No, this is perverting the grace of our God and turning it into sensuality (v. 4). It is an attempt by false teachers to say that homosexuality is not a sin and, worse, that God approves of it.
So, false teachers are immoral.
II. False Teachers Are Insubordinate (8c)
Second, false teachers are insubordinate.
Jude said in verse 8c, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, . . . reject authority. . . .”
False teachers reject authority. The word reject (from the verb atheteo) means “to refuse to recognize the validity of something.” And the word authority (from the noun kyriotes) is related to the more familiar term kyrios (“lord”). Thus, false teachers refuse to recognize the validity of Christ’s lordship over their lives. They really are their own authority.
Jesus confronted false teachers in his ministry. They were the scribes and the Pharisees. On one occasion, he said of the scribes and the Pharisees, “For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27b-28).
About 20 years ago one of the TV preachers, who is part of the Word of Faith movement, said the following at one of his meetings:
Man, I feel revelation knowledge already coming on me here. Lift your hands. Something new is going to happen here today. I felt it just as I walked down here. Holy Spirit, take over in the name of Jesus. . . . God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person; and He is a triune being by Himself separate from the Son and the Holy Ghost. Say, what did you say? Hear it, hear it, hear it. See, God the Father is a person, God the Son is a person, God the Holy Spirit is a person. But each one of them is a triune being by Himself. If I can shock you—and maybe I should---there’s nine of them. Huh, what did you say? Let me explain: God the Father, ladies and gentlemen, is a person with his own personal spirit, with his own personal soul, and his own personal spirit-body. You say, Huh, I never heard of that. Well you think you’re in this church to hear things you’ve heard for the last 50 years? You can’t argue with the Word, can you? It’s all in the Word.
This teaching is a form of the heresy known as “tritheism”—the false belief in the existence of three gods. Except that this preacher has nine gods.
When questioned by Christianity Today about this heretical statement, the preacher said, “ That was a very dumb statement. . . . I told my church the very next week that the statement was wrong.
However, two years after he made the heretical statement (which he claimed, by the way, was from God himself), the preacher once again voiced virtually the same statement.
Even though Christianity Today has no direct authority over the ministry of this preacher, the fact is that false teachers reject all authority—except their own. They will not submit themselves and their teaching to the Word of God. When confronted with the truth, they balk and carry on under their own authority.
And so, false teachers are insubordinate.
III. False Teachers Are Irreverent (8d-10)
And third, false teachers are irreverent.
Jude said in verse 8d-10, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, . . . blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.”
False teachers are not only immoral and insubordinate; they are also irreverent. Jude said that they blaspheme the glorious ones. That is, they even blaspheme the angelic beings.
Jude highlighted the irreverence of the false teachers by comparing them with the archangel Michael. As God’s most powerful angel, Michael did not demonstrate irreverence while contending with the devil and was disputing about the body of Moses. Michael knew that God could give him victory over Satan. Yet he also knew that he was not to presume upon God and act beyond his authority. Out of respect for Satan’s status and power as the highest created being, Michael did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment as if he possessed ungranted power over Satan. He simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
Interestingly, this is the only place where Scripture mentions this incident between Michael and Satan regarding the body of Moses. The Old Testament is silent on the matter. We simply read in Deuteronomy 34:5-6, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.”
Apparently, God did not want anyone somehow to preserve Moses’ body and venerate it—like the Roman Catholic Church does with all of its relics today. So God gave Michael the responsibility of burying the body of Moses where no one—including Satan—could find it.
False teachers, however, exercise no such restraint but pretend to have personal power over Satan and angelic beings.
Jude said that these people (the false teachers) blaspheme all that they do not understand. Consequently, they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
And so, false teachers are irreverent.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to touch on a topic briefly that Jude has mentioned for the second time in his letter. And that is the topic of angels.
Do you know how many angels there are? The Bible says that there are myriads (Deuteronomy 33:2), which means that their number is countless. Angels have been created to serve God in classes, orders, and ranks. For example, Michael is one of the chief princes (Daniel 10:13; 12:1); others are cherubim (Genesis 3:24) and seraphs (Isaiah 6:2). Together the angels form powerful armies that oppose Satan’s forces (Psalm 103:20; Matthew 26:53; Revelation 12:7).
Do you know that angels have individual personalities? They have names (Luke 1:19), they rejoice over the salvation of a sinner (Luke 15:10), and they desire to learn about man’s salvation (1 Peter 1:12). Conversely, evil angels, which are known as demons, lie (John 8:44), have faith (James 2:19, “believe that there is one God”), and sin (1 John 3:8).
Do you know that human beings and angels differ in numerous ways? Here are some of the differences:
1. Human beings have a body and a soul, which together form a unit. The soul without the body is incomplete. On the other hand, an angel is a spirit without a body, yet is complete. He has no physical body, and therefore is an individual being who is unrelated to the other angels.
2. Whereas a person is related to fellow human beings by family ties, angels exist without families. Angels, then, do not marry (Matthew 22:30), are immortal (Luke 20:35–36), and are invisible (Colossians 1:16). Human beings belong to a human family and with their fellow human beings form humanity. But angels have no families and therefore are unable to form “angelity,” so to speak.
3. Man was formed from the dust of the earth (Genesis 2:7), crowned with glory and honor, and appointed to rule God’s creation (Genesis 1:28; Psalm 8:5–8; Hebrews 2:7–8). Angels are created spirits and are appointed to minister and serve (Hebrews 1:7, 14).
4. Adam fell into sin, but the second Adam has come to redeem him (Romans 5:12, 19; 1 Corinthians 15:45). Angels fell into sin but are not redeemed by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 2:16).
5. And do you know that human beings, but not the angels, are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27)? Angels are God’s messengers and his servants (Psalms 104:4; Hebrews 1:7). Conclusively, Scripture teaches that the difference between men and angels is profound.
Well, as we conclude this message, let me stress again that false teachers are immoral, insubordinate, and irreverent. That is one way to recognize false teaching.
May God help us to recognize false teachers. Amen.
