Warnings From Days of Old

Jude 5-7 ESV

5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

At my former church in which I served and in the denomination that I, at that time belonged to, many of the doctrines to which they firmly held to were in complete opposition to those doctrines of the orthodox faith.

One of those unbiblical doctrines which they held to was the doctrine of “conditional perseverance”. What this unbiblical doctrine states is that certain legitimate believers will indeed persevere in the faith until the end, but only because they choose to do so. They also state that it is possible for legitimate believers, those who are truly saved, to walk away from the faith and reject and thus lose the salvation that they once possessed.

And the reason why this doctrine is not biblical is because the scriptures emphatically declare over and over again that as salvation was given to believers by God, so is the legitimate believer’s salvation kept by God. For as God provides everything necessary for salvation and applies it to His elect people, so does God provide everything that is necessary for the maintenance of the legitimate believer’s salvation and effectually apply it to them.

In this we are reminded of the old adage: “Once saved, always saved”.

Now, herein do we find the argument of those who believe that salvation is conditional on the part of the believer’s continued obedience. They say that such a doctrine leads to slothfulness and disobedience on the part of the believer.

They say, “If you tell someone that because they are saved, they will always be saved, that gives that person a license to live in open sin and direct disobedience to God and they will have no fear of being punished for their disobedience”.

That’s what those who Jude was writing about in our sermon last week were doing. They were telling those whom they had influence over that because they are saved by grace and kept saved by grace, they can and should live in a way that is pleasing to the flesh without fear of ever being held accountable for it.

But those of us who hold to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints don’t believe that someone who is legitimately saved would ever reason this way.

You see, the one who is legitimately saved, as has been said, is kept saved by the power of God. And part of the maintenance of the believer’s salvation requires the growing in sanctification and obedience, it requires coming to love God more and more as time goes on. And all of that is accomplished by God Himself on behalf of the legitimate believer.

In other words, a legitimate believer will not just live however he wants and be in constant opposition with God because God has given such a one a new heart, and that new heart is held captive by God, and the one who possesses that new heart does not want to live in opposition to God anymore.

Thus, we can safely conclude that those who do find salvation to be an opportunity to recklessly live in opposition to God aren’t really saved people.

So yes, these may prove to be lost people, but they were always lost people. It was only for a time that they appeared to be saved, though they never really possessed salvation.

And God, though He effectually and sovereignly maintains the salvation of His elect, He still, at times, is pleased to use secondary causes to accomplish His purposes.

For example, we speak of things like praying, reading the Bible, worshipping at church, and partaking of the sacraments as the “ordinary means of grace”. In other words, they assist us in our sanctification, our growing closer to God, but that is only because God uses these things for that purpose. These “ordinary means of grace” are just things, what makes them special is God choosing to use them.

And in the same way, God uses the warnings found in scripture, and the warnings which come from those who preach His gospel to cause those who are truly saved to remain in that state of salvation. Again, the words of the preacher have no power, but God often powerfully uses those words to incline the elect to persevere in his or her faith.

We see Jude doing just that as we look to our reading for today.

Now, as we begin the exposition of our text, we look first to Jude’s introduction of the subject matter that he will be setting forth here.

We look to his statement at the beginning of verse 5, where we read:

Jude 5a ESV

5a Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it,

In our sermon from last week, we had spoken of how Jude had encouraged the recipients of his epistle to “contend for the faith”. This means not only promoting the orthodox faith, but also remaining within the orthodox faith, even in the midst of temptations to do otherwise.

Indeed, as we have already said this morning, there are those who leave the faith, who prove themselves to be apostates, who reveal to all that they were never legitimate believers to begin with.

And one of the means of grace that God provides for the recipients of Jude’s epistle here are scriptural examples of the destruction of those who were exposed to the faith and did not remain in it.

At the introduction of all of this, the text that we just read, we see Jude saying, “I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it”.

Now, when Jude says this, he does not mean that the recipients of the epistle had forgotten the scriptural examples that he is about to speak on, but rather, what he says is that when they had first heard these scriptures, they understood them in a certain way, and now Jude is going to remind them of them and reveal them to them in a different context. Just as we learn something from scripture, and then later learn more about it from a different point of view.

And the first scriptural example that we see is found in the latter half of this fifth verse, where we read,

Jude 5b ESV

5b that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

The first thing that Jude wants to remind the recipients of this epistle of is the fact that Jesus, that’s right, Jesus saved a people out of the land of Egypt.

Some of your translations will say “Jesus” other translations will likely say “Lord”. Either way, what is being conveyed here is that the people who are being referred to here, the people, Israel, Jude says, were led out of Egypt, the land of slavery, and Who they were led by, he says, is identified as the Eternal Son.

This is a strikingly bold confession on the part of Jude concerning the divinity of Jesus, as of course, we know that it was God Who saved the people, Israel and led them out of Egypt. Thus, God manifest, God the Son had saved Israel from her slavery in Egypt.

But though that was the case, Jude goes on to tell his recipients that this same Jesus, that God the Son later destroyed those among Israel whom He had saved who did not believe.

This is in reference to that which is recorded for us in the book of Numbers, chapter 14 when the people, Israel, as they were traveling through the wilderness began to grumble and complain against the Lord as well as Moses and Aaron.

As they grumbled, they said, “Why did the Lord bring us up out of Egypt only to fall by the sword?! Oh, that we would have died in Egypt! Or even, in the wilderness!”

And to this, God said, “You shall get what you asked for! All of you who are over twenty years of age will die in the wilderness without ever getting to see the land of promise!”.

Thus, while the Lord had brought them out of Egypt, they had proven that they were not among the Lord’s elect seed, and as a result, the Lord brought judgment upon them.

This reveals to the recipients of this epistle and indeed to us today that those who prove themselves to be apostate and do not contend for the orthodox faith, faithfully holding to it will, like those from Israel, have God’s judgment come down upon us.

But Jude also, in verse six of our reading, brings forward another interesting scriptural example of those who proved themselves to be unfaithful to the orthodox position concerning the God of heaven and earth and the severe consequences that they paid for it, when we read:

Jude 6 ESV

6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

The first half of this verse references “the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling”.

These angels who are spoken of in this verse were angels who had, in great pride, risen up and rebelled against God. They would not remain in their God-appointed position of authority but left off from what God had appointed for them and sought to overthrow God.

And though these “left”, our reading tells us that God now “keeps” them in eternal chains under gloomy darkness. In this we are reminded of the words of Peter, where we read in second Peter, chapter two, verse four that:

2 Peter 2:4 ESV

4 …God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

These were angels who were at one time faithful to God, but now, having fallen away, they are under God’s curse. And what Jude tells the recipients of his epistle is that if God’s curse came upon angels who had fallen, then it will certainly come upon those who once heard, knew, and intellectually believed the gospel and then wandered away into foolishness.

Indeed, it becomes all the more frightening when Jude reminds his recipients of the fact that these angels who left off from their God-ordained positions will suffer eternal judgment on the day when the Lord Jesus returns to cast judgment upon His enemies.

We read of this judgment in Revelation, chapter 20, verses 7 through 10, where it speaks of the devil, his minions, and all non-believers being cast into the Lake of Fire.

And to show the certainty that this judgment will indeed take place, Jude brings forth one more biblical example in verse 7, the last verse of our reading for today, when he says:

Jude 7 ESV

7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Herein we are reminded of that biblical narrative that I am sure we are all very familiar with. That narrative wherein the men of the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah sought to commit abominable homosexual acts on two angels who were disguised as men.

We are reminded of the abominable nature of the desires of these men and of the acts themselves when Jude speaks of these men indulging in sexual immorality, showing that what they had done was indeed immoral, and in pursuing desire that is not natural. This desire was not natural, it was not given to them by God and was indeed an abomination in the sight of the Lord.

And because these cities persisted in their sins, persisted in their rebellion against God, they received the judgment of God. And that judgment consisted of fire from heaven raining down upon them.

That the fire came from heaven reveals that it came from God, and that it came from God reveals that the judgment was just, and that it rained down upon these particular cities on these particular people reveals that these people and these cities were deserving of God’s judgment.

And Jude declares that in a very similar way, but on a much grander scale will the judgment of the enemies of God be on that Day when the Lord Jesus returns in vengeance.

On that Day it will be manifest to all whom the Lord favors. That those whom He has elected to salvation are the special objects of His favor and their eternal bliss, while those who have maintained their enmity against God are manifested as the objects of God’s wrath when they receive the eternal judgment of God.

Friends, beloved brethren, because this is the case, let us take seriously the appeal of Jude when he tells us to maintain and contend for the faith delivered once and for all to the saints.

In this time of religious pluralism, sloth, and apathy, hold firmly to that precious faith!

Amen?