Jude: A warning
Jude 1-25
How many of us have had some wild idea in the past that we have since come to regret.
I remember as a child becoming enamored with a conspiracy theory, led by a vocal and well spoken leader. When I heard him, he was talking about some conspiracies associated with Rock music and politics. Eventually, he predicted the overthrow of the government and the downfall of our culture. Long after I lost track of him, he started a survivalist commune somewhere in the Midwest, where his group hunkered down and waited for their day.
It never came. I don’t know what happened to them. Some still believe the conspirators changed their timing because they were discovered.
These days I look back and I am embarrassed that I was attracted by such an extremist. The man said all the right words and presented himself as a conservative Christian. I believe he was sincere. It is because of him that I finally read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and realized that he had read fiction as if it were fact. I should have listened to Jude:
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,
To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:
Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home — these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals — these are the very things that destroy them.
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. Jude 1:1 25 (NIV)
In a nutshell, here is Jude’s message
There are people trying to lead you astray, that are themselves headed for judgement. Be careful of them and help others be careful.
Jude is a prophet who truly understands his need for a good understanding of the past. There have been situations like this before, and in every case, God’s judgement has ruled the day. He uses example after example to illustrate his points:
• those who left Egypt but rebelled against God
• Angels who left their stations and fell
• Sodom and Gomorrah
• Michael the Archangel contending for Moses’ body
• Balaam’s error
• Korah’s rebellion
• The words of Enoch
Most of these stories are in the Bible; some are not. All of them illustrate how God judges sin. The sins range into a variety of subjects:
• Acting against God
• Spiritual arrogance
• Sexual license
• Homosexuality
• Speaking against God
Much of what he has to say is warnings against abuse of authority. Jude’s warning is against individuals. Think about it like this,
If somebody came here saying there is no such thing as sin, and living in sin to show an example of their lawlessness, we should watch them and not give in to their ways or their doctrine.
Interesting that the thing Paul warned against was living legalistically, bound by Moses’ law, unwilling to experience freedom in Christ. Jude writes about the opposite extreme. The false teachers that have prompted him to write have been making freedom in Christ into a license to sin. They promote the idea that the coming of Jesus makes anything ok.
That by the way is the message of Miranda, who is calling himself Christ ... hmm.
In this case, the false teachers have already arrived
Just as 2 John warns against false teachers who are likely to come along, Jude warns against false teachers who have already worked their way into the church. It can happen anywhere.
I have seen it happen. A person came into a church preaching a false doctrine of Salvation. Before you knew it, people had listened to him and were causing all kinds of unrest against the Pastor and the teachers who were faithful to the truth. The whole thing caused the church to split.
Be careful, the people Jude is warning against seem strong and supportive. They seem like a sea wall. In its strength, it holds back the sea and protects the coastline from erosion. It keeps the houses from being undermined by the powerful waves that would wash the earth right from beneath them.
The fact, though that this word in the original is quite similar to the word for "blemishes," shows us that Jude is warning about the negatives associated with these pillars of strength. A sea wall is great if you live in a house near the sea, but if you are a ship being drawn along by the tide and the current, it is treacherous. It will stand firm while your hull is battered on the hard stone and splinters till you sink.
Another aspect of their leadership, with a nautical twist is Jude’s reference to them as wandering stars. In the ancient world, the Earth was considered the center of the cosmos. This makes sense, since the Sun, moon and stars, have predictable courses through the skies. However, the planets presented an odd challenge. The did not seem to follow a logical path by that arrangement.
If you want to go North, you aim your ship toward the North Star and you will sail surely. If you know the time of night and the season of year, you can also use other familiar stars to guide your ship. However, if you mistakenly use a planet, you are in trouble. It will not follow the same path as a star. It will go its own way (ignorantly circling the Sun instead of the Earth, as it should do). When you take your next reading on the "wandering star" it will be in a weird place and you will not know it. You will move so far off course, you may be set back by days or weeks in your voyage.
In other words, a wandering star follows its own path and is not governed by the certainty of the stars. These leaders follow their own paths, and lead others astray in the direction they go.
But God has the last word
Verses 14-16 tell us that these people will be judged. Their rhetoric, and pride will cause God Himself to condemn them for their words and the direction they led His people.
The question is this: Were these false teachers ever believers to begin with?
The book of Jude does not answer this question directly, but it does answer it by analogy
• The people who left Egypt and abandoned God experienced the same salvation through the Red Sea as those who were faithful
• The angels who rebelled had the same station as those who remained faithful
• These people are twice dead
Though the book does not address the question directly, I think that Jude leaves little room for doubt. These people have been exposed to God’s mercy, just like the churches they work in. They have learned enough of the path to be accepted as competent leaders. There is no doubt, they know the truth.
To some degree it goes back to the question of when the Apostles became Christians. Peter, James and John were called several times, and each time they left to follow Jesus. When did they accept Him? It may not be so easy to pin down, we just know that ultimately they did.
It is certain that a person can become so ingrained with the truth as to make the authenticity of their salvation very difficult to discern. What Jude leaves without question, is that when a person knows the truth this well, and abandons it, they will be judged. Is their salvation authentic ... God knows.
The main truth of Jude is that the issue is a struggle for you and me
His initial advice is to contend for the faith
Resisting these false teachers and repairing the damage they do is a fight we are to engage in.
What does the struggle look like? Among the messages to be careful of false teachers are messages to remain faithful to God’s salvation and His place for you. Don’t be deceived by them:
• There are some false teachers who have slipped in among you
• They will be judged for their abandonment of the truth, just as everyone who abandoned the truth before them was judged
• Be very aware of them
Do not follow them, because following them leads you down the same path of destruction. If a person is not teaching the truth handed down from the Prophets and Apostles and leaders you have known, that teacher will be judged, why follow them?
Why share their path, if it just leads to destruction?
Instead, Jude says this:
build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit
Don’t give in to the sin that a false teacher tempts you toward. Instead steep yourself in the truth. Study the prophets and apostles (we call this the Bible). Listen to the teachers you have known all along to be faithful to this doctrine and learn from them.
Spend time in prayer, to resist temptation and to seek God’s grace in your need. These are godly practices that combat temptations to follow false teaching and lead you down a road to abandon the faith.
Keep yourselves in God’s love
Does this mean that God will not love us unless we work to stay close to Him? I like the wording of the Century English Version here:
keep in step with God’s love
• God loves you, so love Him back
• God loves you, so love others in the same way
• Be synchronized with His love
This love is not an end in itself, it is the way we operate toward a goal. The goal is the mercy we are waiting to receive from Jesus, when he finally fulfills the promise of eternal life.
Some people are hard to love. Sometimes God is hard to love, especially when we don’t understand what He is up to. That has to be part of the faith that we exercise. We love others, because one day we will see the full extent of God’s love for us, in the fulfillment of eternal life. We love God, because He has promised us that He will one day reveal to us the full extent of His love
We love Him because He first loved us.
Do not be harsh with people who are deceived by them
It is the leaders we should avoid. It is not our place to condemn those who are led astray. Jude tells us to treat them with mercy.
Our faith is not easy to understand. It is infused with the mystery of a Great God who is bigger than words can say or any single person’s experience can fully encompass. When a person is led down a wrong path, it is our responsibility to admit to the difficulty of knowing God.
However, we must remain faithful to what God said about Himself. We must remain faithful to the truth He revealed. So we mercifully help those who have strayed see what the gospel says and find their way to the truth before they abandon it.
Sometimes that is done with persuasion. Sometimes it is done with strength and passion, as Jude says, "snatch others from the fire and save them. Sometimes we should proceed with the caution that is appropriate to a trap laid by the enemy. We must remember that the ways of Satan are hard to detect. We must know that as we persuade someone to follow the truth they learn in Christ, that Satan wants to twist our thinking too.
Jude’s main message is not that your salvation is in danger
His main message is that there are those out there trying to place it in danger ... and you should be aware and careful. His instructions are
• to steep yourself in the truth
• to pray with intensity
• to practice love
• and to help others who are losing their way
The less time spent worrying about whether we will lose our faith, and the more time spent practicing it, is time well spent as we approach eternity.
