These Evil Men
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
so as we’ve been making our way through the book of Jude we have looked at alot of things and have established what Jude was writing about.
He was writing in regards to the common faith (v.3)
2.He then found it necessary to redirect his message
3.He found it necessary to address these evil men who had crept into the church unnoticed.
4.He describes these men as… Ungodly, they turned the grace of God into lewdness and they denied the Lord Jesus (v.4)
5.Paul would then spend the next few verses telling us of the sure judgement to come to these men by using (3) illustrations from the old testament
We saw the lack of faith in the Nation of Israel, we saw the lack of submitting to Authority in the lives of the Angels, then we saw the lack of holiness or lack of purity in the lives of the people in Sodom and Gorromah
6. So within these illustrations we saw the warning through the old testament stories, that just as these in the stories suffered judgement, so would the evil men. But it also served as a warning to the readers , and as an encouragement to fight and to contend against these things.
7.We looked at contending for the faith by having Endurance in our Faith, Contending for the faith by Submitting to God’s Authority, and last week we saw Contending for the faith by having purity.
Transition
and as we keep moving through the book of Jude we are going to continue with Jude’s assessment and the warning against these men. We will take a look at the character of these men and of the Direction of these men.
And as i was looking at this and studying i couldn’t but think of why he keeps addressing these men. And the thought that came to me was that Jude is writing and warning and exhorting the readers to contend for the faith, and basically is saying, to see these men and to go the opposite direction of them, to do the opposite things of these men.
see to understand we look at the context and history of the early church at this time. As the church was established there were many different things that created problems for the church and for young believers.
Problems for the early church
Persecution
this was a real thing that the early church dealt with. They were regularly persecuted for their faith, sometimes simply for identifying for their faith. You can read the book of Foxes book of Myrtars to see stories of this. You can watch movies like the Apostle Paul, where you will see Christians speared through and hung on the street and lite on fire as candles to illuminate the gardens of the Caesar
You can see the difficulties of indentifying with a group that might get you killed. And the temptations and the fear that could drive a person to hide their faith or to turn away from it.
2. False Teachings
in the early church you had people who would come into the churches and they would begin to add new teachings based on their understanding , based on their philosophies , based on their experiences… and individuals who did not fully know the truth, who were not root and grounded in the faith, could easily believe these teachings
3. People wanting to Establish themselves in Authority
as this new group of believers, this new religion as the world of the time viewed them as, people were entering in the church life, and some would try to establish themselves in positions of Authority,
They would want to be the ones in control of the people, in control of the teachings, beliefs and practices . Many at times with evil agendas. This would lead to the questioning of the authority of the Apostles, of the word of God, and of Jesus.
many of the believers could be mis lead or could be abused by the false authority of these men
4. The conflict of Old Religion
you had the conflict of many who were Jews, or who were pagans who had believed in certain things, and had practiced certain things, and now they had come to faith in Jesus. Well the battle was of bringing your old practices, our old beliefs and mixing it with biblical principles. And what you would get was compromising beliefs , a distorted and defiled religion.
Transition
and so as we can see these things that were present in the early church , we can see and understand why many of the Letters of the Apostles like Paul, Peter, James, John and here Jude..... why they were concerned, and why they taught against false teachers, false teachings , of putting off the old man, of the reality of who Jesus is.
And so the reason Jude addresses these men so much, and how he addresses our need to see what they are doing and to fight against doing the same things, is because of the danger of following people that will lead us in the wrong direction . The danger of following people that will lead us on the wrong path.
and there has to be a way of being able to identify someone who is not walking with God, someone who is not pleasing God, someone who is not walking in obedience to the word of God.
and so what we find Jude doing here is he Describes the character of these men, and he addresses the path that these men are on.
and so as we continue to look at Jude’s exhortation to contend, we look at who these evil men were and the path that they were in, by way of exhortation, to do the opposite that they are doing, and not to get caught up doing the things that they are doing.
I. The Character of these Evil Men (v. 8-10)
so as Jude continues on his train of thought, he says “ Likewise also these”...
and what Jude is doing is he is connecting the perversity of Sodom and Gomorrah who were evil and who indulged in the flesh , with these evil men in the church. SO he is continuing his description of these men by moving from the perversity of Sodom and Gomorrah and basically saying that these men are the same.
and he moves to describe what that looks like
A. Dreamers (v8a)
and what he is basically saying is that they are not thinking clearly. They are living in their own world. They are not living with the spiritual world and the spiritual understanding of the truth,
it’s like saying that someone is a day dreamer if you would, they are just not all there.
B. Defile the Flesh (v.8b)
That word “defile” - is to stain, or to pollute, to corrupt.
and the image we get here is that of pure water in a vessel, and the adding or mixing of other elements to it would pollute the pure water. it would change the original content, it would make it useless for it’s intended purpose.
that’s the picture we get when we talk about “ defile”
Here Jude uses the picture of Sodom and Gomorrah to reveals what defilement looks like. What it looks like to take a body , a heart, a mind , a soul that is designed and created to be pure and consumed by the things of God, and to pollute it, to mix different beliefs, different practices that are outside of God’s boundaries.
the image we are talking about here is the indulgence of sexual immorality. And Jay spent some time last week looking at this and talking about the dangers of allowing sexual immorality in our lives.
so i won’t spend too much time here . but i do want to say this. That God has established boundaries in our lives for our benefit. We talked about that when we talked about Authority. And to go outside of those boundaries , is to reject his Authority and his intended purpose for our lives.
Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
really quick here, we see that God’s boundaries for my life as my body is concerned is ....
1.My body doesn’t belong to me
Jesus bought my life with his blood. i belong to Him.
2. My Body is not meant for Sexual Immorality
my body is not for my own pleasure or for my own gratification , but it is for God. It is to Glorify God.
3. My body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit dwells and lives in me. And therefore i am to be watchful of the things i bring into my life, into my body , in my mind , through my eyes etc....
Transition
to go outside of these boundaries and to just do what i want sexually, is exactly what these evil men were doing, it was exactly what the people in Sodom and Gomorroh were doing. It was to go outside of the boundaries that God designed within our lives and to pervert it, to pollute it by bring foreign things that will change the intended purpose, it will pollute the original content of that vessel, making it useless.
C. Reject Authority (v.8c)
These men reject authority. And we spoke about this a few weeks ago. The fact that God has established Authority in our lives, including the people who have authority over us, like our parents , teachers, coaches, leaders....
God placed these people in our lives for our good. And we are to honor God, by honoring these authorities. Yet these men did not want to submit to authority, and we talked about the number 1 reason don’t submit to Authority.... Pride.
It was Pride that made these men want to be their own authority in their lives and would refuse to submit to God ordained authority.
D. Speak Evil of Dignitaries (v. 8-10)
and so Jude tells us that these men who reject authority in their lives, also makes them reject dignitaries, or those established by God. They reject them and they talk bad about them.
v. 10 tells us that they speak evil about what they don’t know. So these men have a way of speaking evil against the apostles and the leadership of the church. Things that they are not aware of doesn’t seem to bother them, they are more than happy to speak evil of all these things.
and the things that they do know, they act like wild beast he says, or saying that they have no self control , they just indulge in their thoughts and in their evil speech.
Transition
now in describing the wrong and the evil actions of these men he uses an illustration of the archangel Michael. In v. 9 he tells us of a story of when Moses died. That there was a battle between Satan and Michael over the body of Moses.
and in this story, Michael himself did not revile Satan or act upon his own ability or knowledge, but instead acted upon God’s strength as he rebuked Satan in the name of the Lord.
and the thought of this story is to show that even Michael who was in the position of Authority as an Archangel did not take it upon himself to go outside of his boundaries on his own accord. But he sought God to be his strength.
This is how men should act , not acting like this evil men speaking evil of people both of what they know and of what they don’t know .
Transition
now we don’t have this story anywhere in the bible. But it is believed that Jude was making reference to a story found in an apocrypha book that has since missing pages from the book.
but either way the thought is the same that these men were speaking evil.
now here Jude continues with these evil men and as he moves from telling us the character of these men, he now moves to tell us the direction that these guys are on, or the path that they are on.
III. The Direction of these Evil Men (v. 11)
and as he begins this thought he doesn’t hesitate to tell us the condemnation of this path that they are on, he says “ woe to them “
This word “ Woe” is an exclamation of grief.
and so it is obvious that this path that these men were on was not the path that God had designed for them or a path that God approved. It is a statement both of warning and of prophesy of what will come. Grief
and as we have seen before , Jude uses these triplets. We keep seeing him complete a thought in threes, He must have been an awesome pastor or preacher as he always had 3 points.
so he describes the path that these men are on by using 3 old testament stories to describe it.
A. The Lack of Faith of Cain (v. 11a)
he tells us that these men have gone in the way of Cain. And he is making reference to Gen. 4
the story goes like this. Able and Cain were brothers . Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep , a shepherd and Cain was a farmer.
and the day came when they brought offerings to the Lord.
Abel offered a firstborn sheep while Cain offered an offering from the ground. And we are told that Abel’s offering was accepted while Cain’s was not. And there is much that people say , whether one offering was accepted because of the blood and the other wasn’t
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
so Hebrews tells us that it was a matter of Faith. Abel offered the offering by faith. And the assumption then is that Cain did not. And as a result God was pleased with Abel’s offering and Cain’s was not.
as a result Cain was upset and angry and the bible tells us in Gen. 4 tells us that Cain rose up in anger and killed his brother.
There was a lack of faith , that led to sin coming to the door of Cain, and he ultimately gave in to that anger and sin and killed his brother .
Here the implacation of this story is that these men in the church had allowed themselves to lack in faith. And their lack of faith, or not having a real faith has lead to sin , that will ultimately lead to destruction.
B. The Greed and perversity of Balaam (v.11b)
the second story we get into is the story of Balaam found in Num. 22- 25
What we find in this story is that the children of Israel under the leadership of Moses come to the area of Moab , and the King of Moab, Balak, was afraid of them because he had seen what Israel had done to the Amorites.
and so he sent men with money to Balaam , a prophet. And the hope was that Balaam would curse the nation of Israel and therefore the Moabites would defeat them.
in a nutshell what we have is that the Lord does not allow Balaam to curse Israel, but he was told not to curse them or not to go with the men of Moab, and yet because of the greed of money , Balaam with the men.
at this point the anger of the Lord is aroused and you remember the story of the talking donkey that balaam was riding. The donkey kept riding against the wall trying to stop Balaam, and He was upset yet he did not know that the Angel of Lord was standing in front of him with a drawn sword.
But the whole point of this story is that Balaam could not curse Israel but he blessed them instead. Yet finally he told Balak how to destroy Israel. He told them to bring women from Moab into the land to marriage the men of Israel, to intermingle these women would turn their hearts, and be the down fall.
this is the same tactic that Satan uses today to destroy young men, Bring in sexual immorality and we will destroy their lives..
Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.
But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
the real issue was Balaam introduced sexual immorality to the children of Israel. He allowed the men to bring into their lives women that they were not supposed to , to do things that they were not supposed to.
this is the picture of Defiling the flesh that we talked about earlier. The adding or mixing of other things that bring pollution . going outside of God’s boundaries
its the lack of holiness or purity. These evil men were walking in the way of the nation of Israel under the counsel of Balaam,
Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
the introducing of sexual immorality into their lives lead to the worship of other things other than God. It lead to their destruction.
C. The Lack of Submission to Authority (v.11)
the story of Korah is found in Num. 16. And what we find is that Korah gathers 250 leaders to basically challenge the authority and leadership of Moses.
They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”
so they are basically saying we can all do what you do, why are you taking it upon yourselves to be over us. The Authority of Moses is challenged but more than that the authority of God is challenged as God had chosen Moses.
They would take up censors in their hands and the following day they would allow God to chose who was holy and who God had chosen.
and what we end up seeing is that the earth splits open and swallows up Korah and those who rebelled.
These evil men in the church were acting and walking in the path of Korah in the sense that they were rebelling against God’s Authority, and just like Korah, judgement would come.
transition
i want you to notice how Jude is making reference to the same characteristics of the 3 stories before.
A lack of Faith- as the nation of Israel so Cain- so these men
2. A lack of Purity - as Sodom and Gomorrah and Balaam’s counsel - as these men
3. A lack of submission to God’s Authority- as the angels and as Korah- so these men
The same Destructive path
Lack of faith- lead to sin and separation from God
2. Lack of Purity- created sexual immorality and allowed a foreign use of the body
3. Lack of Submission to god’s Authority - fed into pride and lead to being outside of God’s boundaries
conclusion
These all lead to being judged and being destroyed.
And so this is what Jude tells us to look for and to stay away and to do the opposite