Pulling Back the Curtain

Jude 12-13 ESV

12 These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

Sometimes whenever I use an illustration in a sermon, I am not always 100% certain that what I will speak of will be known to everyone in attendance and so I try to give a little background to whatever it is that I use an illustration.

But the illustration that I will speak of to begin our message for today is well-known that I won’t go into great detail concerning it, because I am fairly confident that everyone here today has seen the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz.

Three things that I am positive every American has done by the time that they reach adulthood is eat apple pie, watch fireworks, and seen The Wizard of Oz.

Therefore, we are familiar with the plot of the movie. Dorothy finds herself in the Land of Oz and wants to get back home to Kansas and so she, and three friends who she meets along the way: the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion start down the yellow brick road on their way to the Emerald City that they might ask the great wizard to grant them specific favors.

And by the time that they arrive at the home of the wizard, they proceed forth to ask him to help them receive what they are seeking. But when they arrive, they come into a throne room of sorts where fire is blazing, and smoke is billowing with the wizard appearing in the form of a frightful green head.

The wizard is less than welcoming to the trio and appears to provide them with more harm than help. But then Toto, Dorothy’s faithful pup runs over to a strange green curtain by the fire and the smoke and pulls it back to reveal that the Wizard of Oz is actually just a helpless old man speaking into a microphone and pulling levers that produce the fire and smoke and special effects.

His true identity had been revealed, and once it had been revealed, suddenly, they weren’t so fearful of the “great wizard” anymore.

As we have been working through this series of messages from the epistle of Jude, in the last several sermons we have seen Jude, like Toto in The Wizard of Oz, pull back the curtain on who the false teachers who had crept into the Church really were. And today, as we continue our series, we will see Jude continue to do just that as he reveals that these teachers are not from God, and therefore, their teaching does not deserve one more minute of their attention.

And as Jude continues to pull the curtain back on these charlatans, he uses six different images to portray them.

As we look to the very beginning of verse 12 in our reading, we see the first way, the first image that Jude uses to describe them, when he says:

Jude 12a ESV

12a These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear,

Now, a reef, as I’m sure we all know is a ridge of rock or coral that lies beneath the surface of a natural body of water.

Sometimes these reefs extend above the water’s surface and can be seen from land. And also, sometimes the top of these reefs don’t extend very high and so unless you swim down and look with goggles, you won’t even see them. But then there are other times when the tops of these reefs lurk just below the surface of the water.

These are the kind of reefs that Jude refers to when speaking of the false teachers. And the reason why these reefs are damaging is because, being directly under the surface of the water, they are, as Jude describes them, hidden reefs. You don’t expect them. For this reason, if you’re out on a boat, you could possibly be sailing along and hit one of these hidden reefs and would never see it coming, because everything appeared to be just fine, but there was danger lurking below.

And Jude justifiably identifies these false teachers as hidden reefs because the treachery of these false teachers lies just below the surface. It lies just below the surface in that they have an appearance of godliness, that’s mainly what is seen, but like the hidden reefs, just below the surface of what appears to be godly is the reality that their teachings and their doctrines are treacherous and damning.

But Jude says specifically in this verse that these are hidden reefs “at your love feasts”. “Love feasts” refers to what we today call the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

And when Jude says that these are hidden reefs at the partaking of this sacrament he means that partaking of this sacrament as it is administered by these false teachers and partaking of this sacrament while holding to the damning doctrines of these false teachers is gravely dangerous.

And this danger, like hidden reefs, is unsuspecting as the false teachers freely eat at these love feasts, they freely administer the sacrament and partake in it themselves, showing no concern for their sinful lives or the destruction that they bring upon others.

Thus, they are all the more unsuspecting as they show an appearance of godliness by partaking in what only the godly have been ordained to partake in while also holding to and peddling heresy.

Jude also goes on in our reading to describe these false teachers as:

Jude 12b ESV

12b shepherds feeding themselves;

The duty of a shepherd is to care for sheep that are under his care. But imagine a shepherd who deprives his sheep of care and cares only for himself. He wouldn’t be much of a shepherd. In fact, he might as well not even go out and be among the sheep because he’s not caring for them anyway. Indeed, though it may appear that these sheep have a shepherd, they are truly sheep without a shepherd.

Well, in the same way, the churches that had been influenced by these false teachers may have appeared to have a shepherd among them in these false teachers. But a shepherd of a congregation is to protect God’s people in that particular congregation from heresy and be faithful to feed them the orthodox gospel.

But alas! These false teachers, far from protecting God’s people were the danger themselves! And rather than feeding them orthodoxy, they fed them heresy!

As Jude says here, the only ones being fed were these who masqueraded as shepherds as they continuously exploited those in orthodox circles to heretical teachings for their own benefit.

Jude then goes on in our reading to describe these false teachers as:

Jude 12c ESV

12c waterless clouds, swept along by winds;

Whenever we see heavy cloud cover in the sky, what do we typically expect to follow? Rain. But there are times when it’s just cloudy. So, there are times when it appears that it is going to rain due to the heavy cloud cover, but the lack of rainfall proves that these clouds didn’t possess anything of any real substance as after a few hours, the wind drives them along without ever producing any rain.

Well, in likening these false teachers to waterless clouds, Jude tells us that their presence and their deceptive behavior puts off the appearance of something good. But what they really offer has no orthodox substance.

And because there is no real orthodox substance in what they offer, they, like the clouds, are blown about aimlessly by the winds of their personal whims, attaching themselves to whatever seems most appealing to the flesh at the moment. And in the end, the only thing that is produced is doctrinal confusion and a further hardening to the truth.

Jude then, continues in our reading to identify these false teachers as:

Jude 12d ESV

fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

As we know, when Autumn comes, the leaves that are upon the trees begin to die. For this reason, by the time that Autumn comes around, it is that a tree would have grown something. They’ve had all Spring and Summer to grow and so, trees in late autumn would be expected to hold fruit. But these trees, Jude says, were fruitless, they bore no fruit. What this reveals is that the tree itself is dead.

It isn’t just that the branches are producing fruit and are therefore dead, but that tree itself, its very roots are dead. Thus, Jude identifies such a tree as “twice dead”. And because this is the case, the only use that such a tree could serve is to be uprooted and used as firewood.

Well these false teachers are compared to these twice dead trees in that they are already spiritually dead and because they remain in a state of spiritual death, they then lack any kind of spiritual fruit and thus, inevitably, when the Lord Jesus returns to “collect His fruit” so to speak, it will be revealed that these false teachers have not truly bore any fruit and thus they will be uprooted and experience the second death in the Lake of Fire.

As we then go on to the first part of the thirteenth verse, we see the fifth way that Jude identifies these false teachers, when he calls them:

Jude 13a ESV

13a wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame;

For anyone who has ever been at sea or been at a beach where there are waves, you know that at the tops of the waves are what is known as “whitecaps”. That’s the white part that appears at the top of a wave, especially during high winds. And what these “whitecaps” actually are is foam. And thus, the heavy winds cause this foam to appear at the top of waves, manifesting itself.

Well, the “wild waves” that Jude speaks of here likely portrays the volatile, uncontrolled immoral behavior of these false teachers, and the casting up of foam likely indicates that just as waves dredge filth from the bottom of the sea and toss it to the surface, so the ungodliness of the false teachers eventually overflows into public view.

And lastly, the sixth and final way in which Jude identifies these false teachers is found at the very end of our reading where he says that they are:

Jude 13b ESV

13b wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

Now this, is an interesting designation by Jude, but indeed, it is certainly a profound designation. And in order to understand what Jude is conveying to us here, we need to understand the opposite of what he is conveying.

In the prophecy of Daniel, chapter 12 and the beginning of verse 3, we read:

Daniel 12:3a ESV

3a And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above;

So, what is described here is those chosen to salvation by God shining like the brightness of the sky above in the resurrection, as they have remained steadfast in the orthodox faith.

But false teachers, Jude describes differently in our reading. In referring to the false teachers, Jude describes them as “wandering stars”. Unlike those who are of the orthodox faith, these have not remained steadfast, but instead have found themselves far from the orthodox faith, and because these have chosen to reject that orthodox faith, they therefore merit the judgment of God.

And as Daniel 12:3 describes believers as those who shine like the brightness of the sky, here Jude describes these false teachers and all other reprobates as those who have awaiting them “gloom of utter darkness”. That which they have awaiting them in condemnation in the Lake of Fire.

And this gloom of utter darkness, Jude tells us, has been reserved for them forever. This speaks emphatically and clearly of the doctrine of reprobation.

For if we look back to verse number one in this epistle, we see that those called and beloved in God the Father, the elect, are “kept for Jesus Christ” and in this thirteenth verse, we see that the reprobate are also kept by God, but for condemnation, ensuring that the judgment of God most certainly comes to pass.

The god of most modern pulpits is portrayed as a big cuddly teddy bear who is not offended by anything and who saves anyone and everyone. But as the seventh psalm tells us, God is angry with, feels indignation towards the wicked every day.

He is a righteous Judge, a jealous God Who abhors sin, and Who justifiably demands all of creation to worship Him in a way that is worthy of His holy name. And what He demands in adherence to the orthodox gospel.

Friends, flee from the wrath to come! And flee to the God of the Bible in the way that He prescribes!

Amen?