Jude 1:12-16 (Part 4)
Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
3-10-2024
Danger
I was playing basketball at the rec center in Pontiac on Friday afternoon back when I was a youth pastor.
As we were playing, students would walk around the court to go to another class and several would say hi to me.
In between a game, one of the guys asked me how I knew all these students. I said, “I’m their student pastor.”
Two girls, sophomores barely 15 years old, walked past us and he said, “Whoa! They are fine! Do you think you could introduce me to them?” By the way, he was 28!
I told him, “Absolutely not! One of my jobs as their youth pastor was to protect them from danger, like him!
Danger, Danger! Will Robinson.
When we were in the Dominican Republic, there were flags at the beach to warn us of dangers such as jellyfish and rip tides.
We teach our children “stranger danger” and to avoid the highway to the danger zone.
There are signs to tell us not to touch the wire, that the floor is slippery, and not to put our hands in the tiger cage. (Really?)
At CBC, we have background checks for anyone working with children. For one, it’s required by our insurance company. But more importantly, we know that there are dangerous people, called pedophiles, who want to have access to kids and we can’t let that happen.
Wouldn’t it be helpful if there were signs or flags outside of churches that warned us of dangerous false teachers and apostate leaders? That’s what Jude will try to do in the verses we will study this morning.
Review
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams, these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority, and heap abuse on celestial beings.
Last week, Jude tells us that these false teachers have taken the
way of Cain - they were self-righteous and arrogant
rushed for profit into Balaam’s error - they were characterized by greed
destroyed in Korah’s rebellion - they rebelled against God’s rule and God’s ways and led others to do so as well
Notice that they walked in the way of Cain, rushed into Balaam’s error, and were destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
Jesus said He is the way, the truth, and the life.
They traded the way of Jesus for the way of Cain. They traded the truth of Jesus for the error of Balaam. They traded life in Jesus for destruction like Korah.
Peter and Paul shout, “The false teachers are coming!”
"Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:28b-31)
Jude’s message is, “The false teachers are here!”
If you weren’t here last week, you can always watch the sermon on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and on our website. All the sermon manuscripts can be found on SermonCentral.com.
Please turn with me to Jude, starting in verse 12.
Prayer
Snapshots of an Apostate
Jude usually uses triplets but today he’s going to give us two sets of five, short snapshots of an apostate.
These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves.
Blemishes or Reefs
There is a difference of opinion about the translation of this Greek word. Your translation, like the NIV, that we use, translates this word as “blemishes or spots.”
If you get a stain on a shirt, you don’t want to wear it because it’s embarrassing. If you are a teenager and get a pimple right before the big dance, you may want to lock yourself in your room until you are twenty-one.
These teachers are blemishes or spots that stain the purity of the church’s fellowship.
But, this word literally means “hidden reefs or rocks.” Near the shore, the water may look calm but there are dangerous rocks that can tear the hull right off a ship.
On January 13, 2012, the cruise ship Costa Concordia deviated from its planned route and struck a reef off the shore of Tuscany. Thirty-three people died in the wreck. Eventually, five crew members went on trial for manslaughter.
These false teachers were present at the love feasts. On the Lord’s Day, the believers would gather together in someone’s house. They would sing a song, listen to the Word, sing another song, have a potluck, and then take communion together.
This potluck was a chance for poorer people and slaves to have at least one good meal a week. It was an opportunity for more well-off believers to share with those less fortunate.
It was a beautiful thing. But, as we learn from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the love feasts had gotten out of control:
“So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!” (I Cor 11:20-22)
These false teachers, and others, were showing up early and eating all the food and drinking all the wine, even becoming drunk. In Corinth at least, the love feast ended up being a drunken orgy!
This is one of the reasons why the “love feast” went out of style in the early church.
They don’t feel guilty about their behavior and they shepherd only themselves.
Peter writes of them:
“They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!” (2 Peter 2:13-14)
They are destructive, dishonest, bold hypocrites whose hidden agenda is to lead others astray.
A preacher held a revival and each night he paid a young boy to hold a dove in the rafters until he “called the Spirit down” and then the boy would let the dove go.
One night, the preacher called the Spirit down and no dove appeared. He called again and again and still no dove. Finally, he looked up at the boy. The boy yelled, “A yellow cat ate the Holy Spirit. Do you want me to throw the cat down?”
* Clouds without Water
They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind;
The other day, there were black clouds on the horizon to the west of us. Maxine asked me if it was going to rain. I checked the radar and there was no rain in sight. They were just winter clouds that produced no rain but made the day dreary.
The Middle East is a semi-arid region, much like the desert southwest in the US (think Arizona). Rain is incredibly important to the farmers for the crops to thrive. When clouds come and go without giving the life-giving rain, it is frustrating and disappointing.
Solomon wrote in Proverbs:
“Like clouds and wind without rain is one who boasts of gifts never given.” (Prov 25:14)
These false teachers are all hot air. They may have style but no substance. Their promises are empty.
I love musicals. One of my favorites is “The Music Man.” In this musical, a fast-talking traveling salesman, Harold Hill, cons the people of River City, Iowa, into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys' band that he vows to organize – this, even though he doesn’t have a musical bone in his body.
All of this is just a scam to make money off these people. And it works until he falls in love - till there was you.
Harold is a cloud without rain. There were no instruments, no band, and all his bragging was nothing but hot air.
I heard a story this week about a young preacher who visited a church and was said to “preach up a storm.” An older Native American man sitting in the back was asked what he thought of the sermon. He said, “High Wind. Big Thunder. No rain!”
Autumn Trees
autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead.
Autumn is the end of the growing season and if a tree didn’t have fruit on it there was something very wrong.
These trees are not just fruitless, they are “twice dead.” They are fruitless and rootless. These false teachers will die physically but also die spiritually for their apostasy.
Jesus said that believers will be known by our fruit:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matt 7:15-19)
When you look at these teachers’ lives closely, you notice that this is no fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is:
“…love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal 5:22-23)
Remember that we are not saved by good works but
“…we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10)
These false teachers are the opposite of the Psalm 1 person:
“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” (Psalm 1:1-3)
Wild Waves of the Sea
They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame;
When we lived in Florida, for five minutes, Maxine loved to go shelling after a storm. Storm waves would uncover shells or bring them to the beach. But these waves also brought debris, garbage, seaweed, and dirty foam that covered the beach.
Isaiah writes:
“But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.” (Isaiah 57:20)
The Greek goddess of desire Aphrodite was said to be born out of sea foam when Uranus’s son castrated him.
These teachers are unsettled, turbulent, arrogant, and raging.
Wandering Stars
wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
If you remember anything from astronomy, you might recall that stars don’t wander. Their positions are fixed and sailors would navigate by them. The “wandering stars” were planets.
But Jude is giving a word picture of a shooting star. When we see a shooting star, which isn’t a star at all but a piece of space junk, we ooh and aah. But it only lasts a second. It burns brightly but then it disappears into the darkness, much like M.C. Hammer.
That’s the fate of these false teachers.
“These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” (2 Pet 2:17-19)
They will be judged and experience complete darkness forever.
A Prophecy of Doom
Jude moves from gloom to doom.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
We read about Enoch in Genesis:
“Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” (Gen 5:24)
The writer of Hebrews tells us that:
“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” (Heb 11:5)
Enoch was a somewhat mysterious person who was faithful and didn’t die!
Then Jude quotes from the book of I Enoch. This is not a book of our Bible but it would have been a book that his readers were very familiar with.
Paul does this quite often. Three separate times he quotes pagan poets to make a point.
I do this as well. I often use quotes and examples from all kinds of sources to try to help you understand the Scriptures.
So here, he quotes from I Enoch. He is not saying that this is inspired but that his prophecy was true.
This prophecy speaks of Jesus’s second coming.
In Sunday school, we went through mark and dug into the Antichrist and the events of His coming.
The next thing to happen in God’s plans for the end is the rapture of the church. He will not return but do a fly-by and take us out of this world.
This will begin seven years of tribulation. At the halfway mark of three and half years, the antichrist, who has made a treaty with Israel, will break that promise and set himself up as god in the temple.
Then all hell will break loose. At the end of the seven years, Jesus will return, Satan will be bound, and He will set up a thousand-year reign of peace.
At the end of that 1,000 years, satan will be released and there will be a battle to end all battles called Armageddon. Satan and his hordes will be defeated and thrown to the lake of fire and unbelievers will be judged before the Great White Throne.
Enoch is giving us a picture of what Jesus’s second coming will look like.
Jesus will return with thousands upon thousands of holy ones. Is he talking about angels or us? Yes! Both!
“When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (Col 3:4)
The judgment will be universal (everyone) and will be fair. The word convict is better translated as “to convince.” No one will say “This isn’t fair.”
The reason they are judged is because of their ungodly (4 times) words and deeds.
The judgment will be forever.
Every day of your life, you are given a choice to let Jesus pay your way into heaven through His sacrificial death on the cross or choose to spend eternity in utter darkness, forever separated from God in a place the Bible calls hell.
Let me ask you who your spiritual defense attorney will be. I attended a trial this summer where the defendant attempted to defend himself. It was an unmitigated disaster.
The same will happen to you. You will stand before God and satan will remind the court of every sin you have ever committed. You will have nothing to stand on because it will all be true.
You will be found guilty but, if Jesus is your defense attorney, He will speak up and say, “Dad, this one is mine. He let me pay his penalty.
Are you ready for Jesus to come back?
In verse 16 we will see five more descriptions of these false teachers.
“These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”
Grumblers
The Greek word used here (gungusti) is not used anywhere else in the Bible. It means to mummer, to buzz like a bee, to insult God who gives us all things. This is an audible expression of unthankfulness.
It is what we saw a couple of weeks ago with the children of Israel in the desert as they grumbled and complained against Moses and God.
“Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe his promise. They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord. So he swore to them with uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the wilderness make their descendants fall among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands.” (Psalm 106:24-25)
There are Debbie Downers in every church but these people take it to another level.
Faultfinding
This word means to place the blame, always complaining, and it is NEVER their fault.
These are people whose spiritual gift is pointing out what you did wrong.
Many years ago, I preached my heart out and was in my office exhausted. One of these people poked their head and I thought that maybe they were going to say something positive about the sermon. He smiled and said, “You said 2 Peter when you meant 1 Peter. Just thought you should know.”
The false teachers were known for their complaining, especially about all the “rules” that God gave us.
They follow their own evil desires
In the end, the false teachers don’t care about the rules. They have freedom. Sin all you want and God will forgive you. They are characterized by sexual lust and greed.
They boast about themselves.
They are full of hot air. They are pompous, arrogant, and talk a lot.
"Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.” (Prov 10:19)
Caitlin Clark has broken record after record this year. When reporters interview her they are impressed and frustrated because all she wants to talk about is how well her teammates played. The harder they try to get her to boast about her accomplishments, the more she brags about Hannah Molly, Sydney, or Gabby.
They flatter others for their own advantage
This word means smooth. It comes from the French that means to stroke with the flat of the hand.
When I was in college, I sold very expensive purses like Louis Vuitton and Dooney and Bourke. I would have them try it on and then tell them how beautiful they looked. I broke records in that department!
Paul wrote to the church in Rome concerning false teachers:
“For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.” (Rom 16:18)
These teachers use flattery to con people out of money.
Our words can show off our love for God or they can show off our love of ourselves.
Evan Freeman is a freshman big man for Iowa’s basketball team. I watched a short video segment on him where his teammates talked about how they had never heard him cuss once. One teammate smiled and said, “I’ve really tried to get him to cuss but it’s just not in him.”
Evan was raised in a Christian home and his dad is a pastor, he feels like he represents God not only with the way he plays but the way he talks.
While this is what characterizes the apostate teachers, we can also find ourselves grumbling and complaining, boasting and flattering.
What’s the antidote? Worship.
A reporter for a paper in San Fransisco rode the same bus every day to his office. In the mornings, he was tired and grumpy. But he noticed that there was something different about the bus driver. She knew each person who got on her bus by name. She helped the elderly with their bags of groceries. She waited when people were running late.
He was so fascinated by her attitude that he asked his boss if he could interview her for a story. The boss said yes and he sat down with her and asked, “What’s the secret? It would be easy to complain about a million things as a bus driver but I’ve never heard you complain.
She said, “It all starts at 2:30 am when I get on my knees and thank God for making me a missionary to my bus people. I thank Him that it is not about a paycheck but about loving people the way Jesus loves them. It does come down to worship. That keeps me from complaining and gives me great joy on my route.
Applications
Be in the Word
The better we know the Word the more we are prepared to discern false teaching.
I have a friend who lost his mother-in-law. When she was sick, the family prayed and fasted for her healing. When she died, his brother-in-law told him, “You were the weak link. You didn’t have enough faith and because of that she died. It’s your fault.”
This crushed him. He didn’t know the Word well enough to know that this was heretical teaching straight from the pit of hell. God isn’t a vending machine that we press A-7 and He has to do what we tell Him to do.
For two years, he didn’t go to church and dealt with severe depression. It wasn’t until he got into a Bible-teaching church that he learned that it wasn’t his fault she died.
If he had known the Word better, he would have been saved from two years of heartache and pain.
We need to be Bereans. When Paul preached to the Bereans, they would go home and search the Scriptures to make sure what Paul was saying was right.
Be Discerning of Leaders
Just because someone attracts a big crowd and is cool and is a smooth communicator, doesn’t they are solid theologically.
I heard about two churches, Baptist and Methodist, that decided to do a joint Easter service. The Baptist worship team led the music part and the Methodist pastor got up and began the Easter sermon with these words, “We all know that Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. Easter is about new beginnings. The tomb wasn’t empty but is a word picture of how we can rise from the dead places in our lives.”
The person telling me this said that many of the Methodist people said, “Amen!” Many of the Baptists thought about walking out. My question for him was why didn’t they. He said they didn’t want to cause a scene.
Be courageous
Sometimes you have to be courageous, even if that means causing a scene.
Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church hosted the One World Religion Conference in 2015.
Pastor Bruce Pepper stood up in the middle of the service held his Bible above his head and then started sharing the Gospel and calling people to repent.
He was quoting Scripture as security escorted him out of the venue.
God may not call you to do something like that but we will have opportunities to share our faith and call out, in love and boldness, false teachers.
