03 - Close Encounters Of The Demonic Kind - 2011 By Pastor Jeff Wickwire Notes

Last time as we studied Jude 3-5, Jude exhorts the church to “earnestly fight for the faith once delivered to the saints. And we saw that Jude uses three illustrations to highlight our battle with apostasy and heretical teachings—the pilgrim age (the Israelites in the wilderness), the primeval age (the time of Noah), and the patriarchal age (the decadence of Sodom and Gomorrah).

In the first illustration of the pilgrim age, we saw Jesus’ parable of the tares and the wheat played out in Technicolor. Two kinds of people left Egypt under Moses: those that were soundly saved, and those that were supposedly saved. The soundly saved had been saved by the blood of the slain lambs as God directed. The supposedly saved had basically hitched a ride with the Israelites as they left Egypt and crossed the Red Sea.

It was the supposedly saved, or the “mixed multitude” that murmured and complained, brought negative reports, sowed unbelief among the people, and ultimately perished in the barren wilderness desert having pulled the entire first generation of Israelites down with them.

APPLICATION: There is a reason we as believers are told to “not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.”—2 Cor. 6:14

Now this time will look at the next two illustrations, starting with the question of SATANIC INVASION IN THE PRIMEVAL AGE:

“And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day…”—vs. 6

The Apostle Peter wrote of this very same thing:

“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;”—2:4

Both Peter and Jude mention angels that are right now being “held in chains of darkness” awaiting the Judgment Day. Who are they? What did they do? They are not roaming the earth as are other demon spirits.

First, both Peter and Jude put their fall in the context of the sin of Sodom, which was the sin of “going after strange flesh.”

“…as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example...”—Jude 7

Many solid Bible scholars believe that this particular group of fallen angels lusted after human women. In pursuit of this unnatural desire, they violated the order of their being and, in consummating their craving, brought down upon their heads the wrath of God. Peter is pointing to the judgment that overtook these angels who fell not once, but twice.

Peter places this time of profound corruption during the time of Noah and the judgment of the flood:

“If he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;”—2:5

The angels that involved themselves in this unimaginable corruption, Peter says, were “thrust down to hell.”

Hell in this verse comes from the word “Tartarus” which is a Greek name for the under-world, especially the abode of the damned.

Tartarus is not the lake of fire (Gehenna), though that will be their final destination. Until the day they are delivered over to the lake of fire, these wretched beings are currently in detention in Tartarus, held by “chains of darkness.”

Moses describes their invasion of the human race in Gen. 6:1-2. “Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.”

Some argue that the phrase “the sons of God” is pointing to the godly line of Seth, and that these “sons of God” were Sethites. Aside from Adam being called a “son of God” in Luke 3:38, and born again believers being called sons of God (John 1:13; rom. 8:14; 1 John 3:1), angels are called sons of God in every other place where the expression is used in the O.T. (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Ps. 29:1; 89:6; Dan. 3:25).

These “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis, as fantastic as it may seem, appear to have been fallen angels taking on human form, just as we find them doing when they appeared to Abraham before Sodom’s destruction. They sat in Abraham’s tent and ate a meal. They walked into Sodom where the Sodomites clearly thought they were men. Yet in mere hours these same beings brought fiery wrath upon the cities.

They warned Lot to get out quickly, “For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”

The result of these fallen angel’s unnatural relations with women was the giants we read of in the O.T. Gen. 6:4-5,

“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. 5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Wickedness in vs.5 is “moral depravity.” This was a totally morally depraved culture that preceded the flood. The “giants” Moses mentions are what are known as the Nephilim, meaning “fallen ones.” They were people of giant size, strength, inventiveness, and iniquity. Their destruction was necessary for the continuation of the human race. The giants were also known as Anakim (Num. 13:33) and Rephaim (Deut.2:10: 20-21).

APPLICATION: If God did not hesitate to judge fallen angels, condemning them to “the blackness of darkness forever,” he will judge apostates and teachers of heresy who lead others into error and the possible damnation of their souls.

The third illustration Jude uses is from the patriarchal age:

“As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”—vs.7

Notice that 2 Peter and Jude are almost identical in their use of 3 illustrations to sound the alarm concerning coming judgment. Peter discusses fallen angels, the ancient world of Noah’s day, and the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jude points to the Israelites in the wilderness, the fallen angels in Noah’s day, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now as to Sodom and Gomorrah, God himself both condemned and judged the twin cities by burning them to ashes. Their lifestyle is deemed ungodly by Peter, and Jude calls it sexual immorality or fornication.

FORNICATION: porneuo (porn-yoo’-o) means utterly unchaste. This word is an umbrella word that covers all sexual sin, not just that sin between two unmarried people.

The Complete Word Study Dictionary says, “Used generally to refer to any sexual sin; thus it includes any form of "illicit sexual intercourse—adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, bestiality, etc." – Thayer

In Romans 1, the Holy Spirit expands specifically on homosexuality and lesbianism.

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:

25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly,”

Listen to the adjectives used by the Holy Spirit—unclean, lustful, dishonoring, a lie, vile, unseemly, unnatural; these are God’s descriptions of the homosexual lifestyle.

Scripture indicates that, like all other sexual sins, homosexuality is a choice. Paul writes three times in Romans 1 that an “exchange” had been made. They had exchanged the truth of God for a lie, exchanged the glory of God for something else, and exchanged the natural for the unnatural.

The word exchange is a verb implying a choice was made. Otherwise, God would be utterly unfair in judging it, which he did do in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jude, Peter and Paul all insinuate that this kind of degenerate behavior is the hallmark of apostasy. God will ultimately give the practitioners of this lifestyle over to their lusts. Three times it says they made and exchange. And three times we’re told that “God gave them up,” “God gave them up,” and “God gave them over” (Ro.1:24, 26, 28).

The same word is used to describe the Lord Jesus giving Himself up to death (Gal.2:20; Eph.5:2, 25). It is also used of Judas’s betraying Christ, giving Him over to His enemies (Matt.17:22). It is used of committing someone to prison (Acts 8:3). And the same word is used of the fallen angels’ being delivered into chains of darkness (2 Pet. 2:4).

The scriptures suggest that one must break through an inner barrier of God-given restraint to engage in this kind of sexual activity. Those who defy the very laws of nature are in danger of searing their conscience.

Jude takes us back, as did Peter, to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that we might see that apostasy and sodomy are twin horrors. Check out the rest of history. God habitually judges the society that has abandoned morality and decency to the point of condoning it.

In Sodom, the unnatural became the natural, the rule rather than the exception. Good became bad, and bad became good. The righteous (like Lot) were persecuted and resented.

The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah is an example. The twin overthrows of both the pornographic lifestyle of the antediluvians and the homosexual lifestyle of the men of Sodom stand side by side in Scripture.

How does this relate to us today? The Lord Jesus foretold that one mark of the end times would be that society once again would become as pornographic as it was in the days of Noah and as perverted as it was in the days of Lot.

Luke 17:26-30: “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 27 They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29 but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

In the last few decades, we have seen a massive erosion of all moral standards in our society, which was once known as a “Christian” society founded on the Judeo-Christian ethic. But the spread of secular humanism, atheism, liberalism, and Political Correctness has paved the way for a massive redefinition of moral norms.

We are personal witnesses to the rapid “defining of deviancy down” where wrong is now right, and right is labeled bigotry, racist, and unloving. We blink at things now that only decades ago would have made the least of us blush with shame. No doubt this is the deadly philosophy that had gripped Sodom.

In closing, how should the church respond?

“But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.”—vs.20