Setting an Example

Who are they?

“One hit wonders”. We’re all familiar with the phrase: A band or artist comes onto the music scene, and they drop one really stellar song and then fade away into cultural memory. Even though they did other things, and maybe their other music was quite good, they are only remembered by the culture for one song or at most two. Some of these include:

Tiny Tim

Ram Jam

Vanilla Ice

NSYNC

Backstreet Boys

Boys To Men

Thin Lizzy

All these groups produced more music than just what they are known for, but for people who came from their respective decades and following, most people will only know of probably one of their songs.

Similarly, sometimes we sort of remember people in the Bible for one specific thing that they did, whether right or wrong.

Elisha

Moses

Elijah

David

We may know more than one of their stories, but many people will only associate them with the one thing that they grew up hearing about.

I think perhaps Sodom and Gomorrah are that way as well. Here is what the Prophet Ezekiel had to say in reference to, at least, Sodom:

Ezekiel 16:49–50 CSB

Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable acts before me, so I removed them when I saw this.

Scripture says that they were arrogant and they neglected the poor and needy.

However, most notably is what they live on for: their sexual immorality.

*recap the Story*

Recalling the Wrong

Recall Jude’s purpose and occasion for writing:

Christians must stand firm and contend for the faith

There were false teachers who had seeped in, teaching that God’s grace was a license to indulge the flesh.

Jude 7 calls the reader to remember Sodom and Gomorrah, specifically that they were sexually perverse, lusting after that which was not meant for them and, judging by the Genesis story, more than willing to take it. Not only they, but their surrounding towns, too! The whole area was filled with horrible behavior. No one, apparently, except Lot sought to stop it — even his example is a bad one.

For them, it wasn’t enough to just commit certain sins. The Greek actually communicates that they went out of their way to pursue these things. Your translation may say they “pursued strange flesh,” which I think communicates what was actually happening in a better way.

The idea of pursuit is that one is chasing after what they want. Think of a cheetah chasing a gazelle or a policeman chasing after a running detainee (in hot pursuit, as they say). It could be said, in all honesty that, Sodom and Gomorrah together with the surrounding towns were in hot pursuit after their fleshly lusts.

A Look Around

Does this not sound familiar to us? I think the comparison between modernity and those cities is easily beaten to death, and usually beaten some more after that. However, without giving it too much time, it is worth noting that the culture around us is constantly in hot pursuit of the flesh. It always has been. What makes it even more sad, is as the days go on it is steadily seeping into God’s Church.

More and more are we finding it difficult to speak the truth to anyone who is lost in sin. Fewer folks still will do it in a loving and compassionate way. We trade away the narrow path where we walk side by side with the blessed Lord Jesus, and we give our souls to be devoured by the enemy in the name of being nice and non-judgmental.

The Wages of Sin...

At the end of the day, after they had chased after their own endless lusts and pleasures, Jude informs us of what we learn from their end.

They “serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire”.

One commentator replaces the word “punishment” for the word “vengeance” — the Greek word carries the force of the latter more because it implies that the punishment is righteous and even just, as God’s vengeance always is.

It is also noted that the cities are noted by Jude as an example of the vengeance of eternal fire. Seeing as the eternal fire is what is to come at the final judgment for those who die in their wickedness, the total and complete desolation of these areas is set for for us as an earthly example of what that destruction is akin to.

This is not to say that the soul is annihilated in hell, but that the soul in hell is completely and utterly removed from the presence of the Lord in any way.

2 Thessalonians 1:6–8 CSB

since it is just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to give relief to you who are afflicted, along with us. This will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels, when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

I’m, in a sense, reminded of Jesus speaking of the Pharisees. He said they looked for the approval of men instead of that of God, and they had already recieved their reward in full. What He meant was that they already received men’s approval, and that was all they were ever going to get (a hard warning for the Church today, lest we lose focus on pleasing God). The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah chased after the desires of their flesh, and at the end of the day, that was all they would get, because they wouldn’t get God.

They worked hard at their sin, and the wages of sin is death.

The men who had stolen in among the churches that Jude wrote to were just like this, and this was the behavior they were even encouraging.

Taking Inventory