Lessons From The Past
Notes
Transcript
Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. Please open your Bibles with me to the book of Jude, the book of Jude. We’re entering in to our fourth week in this little epistle and so far it has had much to say to us. Jude was eager to write a letter to these recipients regarding the glories of the salvation that they had in common and yet he felt compelled instead to write a letter exhorting his readers to contend for the faith.
The reason that he felt compelled, or one of the reasons, was the arrival of itinerant preachers at the churches that were practically denying the grace of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ through licentious living. Their denials were not through their words, rather their denials were through the of a practical nature - the way they lived out their lives and the example they set for the believers.
It has been said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And it has further been said that hindsight is twenty/twenty. This morning Jude is going to build on the condemnation that he heaped on to this group of teachers - we don’t know who they are because he chose to deepen their shadowy nature by not giving their names. Instead he simply calls them “those people” in a derogatory fashion that strips them of dignity much the same way that the phrases “useful idiots” or “basket of deplorables” have been used in political circles to cast a poor light on those referred to.
Jude is going to pick three incidents catalogued in the Old Testament record that point to the sure judgment and destruction of those who fall victim to the allure of the doctrines these false teachers are attempting to bring into the church. There is much in this passage that is applicable for us today in our context as there are those who are trying to turn the church’s eye from the Shepherd, from our majestic Savior and instead to focus on our own desires.
Read with me Jude 5-7.
Now I want to remind you, although you came to know all these things once and for all, that Jesus saved a people out of Egypt and later destroyed those who did not believe;
and the angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deep darkness for the judgment on the great day.
Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns committed sexual immorality and perversions, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
Before getting to the examples that he determined to use to demonstrate both the surety and the characteristics of the judgement that would befall the false teachers, Jude says “Now I want to remind you, although you came to know all these things once and for all.” This was a common manner of transition from the opening to the didactic or teaching portion of a letter. It was meant to ease the sting of the words that were about to come forth. It is a tone that implies an assumption of Jude’s part that his readers were truly knowledgable in all of the things that he was about to discuss and so his only desire is to bring these things to remembrance.
This is a tactic used several times in the New Testament by writers to both compliment their readers by commending their knowledge as well as to gently introduce a section of teaching or commentary on events. Peter begins his letter that is a significant parallel to Jude, dealing with many of the same topics, saying
Therefore I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you now have.
I think it is right, as long as I am in this bodily tent, to wake you up with a reminder,
It is no trouble for Peter, Jude or even Paul to remind their readers - nor should it ever appear tiresome to those who hear or read these words to have the reminders given to them. Paul writes the Philippians
In addition, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write to you again about this is no trouble for me and is a safeguard for you.
The gentle tone of these statements is a direct contrast to the tone that Paul takes with the Galatians
You foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell on you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?
There is a time for both types of speech - the firm and the gentle - the challenge is knowing which is appropriate. We have taken to exclusively relying on the gentle tone and the firm tone that is sometimes necessary has remained on the shelf because it can be viewed as unloving or harsh. In light of the current crisis of Biblical illiteracy that is rampant in our churches I wonder whether the writers of these epistles would still be commending us for our knowledge, seeking only to remind us or to bring to mind things we already know and are familiar with. Or would we be receiving the lashing that Paul unleashes onto the Galatians?
Jude also has another motive as he pens these words - that is to tie us back into the purpose statement for the entire epistle
Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.
Notice the repeated use of the phrase “once and for all” - hapax - that reminds the readers that not only did they come to the knowledge of all of these things but that they are meant to contend for the faith. Jude is reiterating and reinforcing the purpose statement of his letter as he enumerates these three examples right alongside the purpose of detailing the judgement that awaits the false teachers.
Jude is now going to provide three examples in which the severity of the judgement for the false teachers gets progressively worse and also share a common thread that is the key to avoiding becoming a victim to the licentious, grace presuming lifestyle espoused by the false teachers. The judgements will progress from physical death, to being chained in darkness until the great day of the Lord, to the promise of eternal torment and punishment. The common threads that run through all of these stories is that God is God and we are not. In the end that is what each of these situations will boil down to - the participants refused to acknowledge God for who He is and in so doing committed egregious sins. A.W. Tozer said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Edward Payson, an American preacher during the early 1800’s said “God. How much this title implies no tongue, human or angelic, can express. It is a volume of an infinite number of leaves and every leaf full of meaning. It will be read by saints and angels, through the ages of eternity, but they will never reach the last leaf, nor fully comprehend the meaning of a single page.”
Puritan Richard Sibbes said “How should finite comprehend infinite? We shall apprehend Him, but not comprehend Him.”
There is nothing more important in our lives - whether as believers or unbelievers - than to come to grips with this reality in our lives. Who God is and who we are. And it may take hard work for us to do that. A.W. Tozer said “Only after a painful ordeal of self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually think about God.”
As we look at these three examples that Jude gives let these serve as a warning to you that there may be hard work, there may be a painful ordeal that is necessary for you to undertake as you determine in your mind exactly who God is because the consequences for not having a right understanding of Him - as much as our finite mind can grasp - are deadly and eternal.
The Exodus
The Exodus
What event in your life most defines you? What time period do you look to to understand who you are or how you have come to be the person that you are today? The singular, most defining moment for the nation of Israel was the Exodus. Throughout the Old Testament and into the New Biblical writers seeking to highlight the goodness of God to the nation of Israel always pointed back to the Exodus. Consider these words from Psalm 136 “He struck the firstborn of the Egyptians and brought Israel out from among them with a strong hand and outstretched arm He divided the Red Sea and led Israel through, but hurled Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea. He led His people in the wilderness.” Of course each of those phrases is punctuated by the repeated refrain that His faithful love endures forever.
When Stephen faced the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 he pointed them to the exodus as an instance of God’s extreme kindness and redemptive act toward Israel sending them Moses to lead them out of the bondage of Egypt.
Jude recalls the exodus in a unique way for two reasons. He writes that Jesus saved a people out of Egypt and later destroyed those who did not believe. Some of your translations may say that the Lord did this. There is much debate among commentaries as to what the correct wording here should be. The identification of the deliverer of the Israelites with Christ is attractive as it would highlight the divine and preexistent nature of Christ thereby neutering one of the key doctrinal issues with the false teachers as they sought to challenge the sovereign Lordship and mastery of Christ. Jude has just referred to Christ by the title kurios, a title that throughout the Old Testament had been applied to God and so whether Jude is attempting to attribute the actions surrounding the Exodus to Christ in His role as the Son in the Trinity or to Jehovah God is really inconsequential as they are not only one in the same but also either way his point is to highlight what comes next in the text not specifically which person of the Godhead was instrumental in the salvation of Israel from Egypt.
Jude makes a hard statement that the God who called His people out of bondage in Egypt is the same God who destroyed those in the desert who did not believe. This is challenging for our sensibilities as this is now the third time in these five short verses that Jude has highlighted the sovereign nature of God in either the choosing or rejection of people. It is not simply challenging, it is downright offensive to our sensibilities. But I will reiterate what I had to say regarding this issue last week that it really is not our concern who is chosen and who is not. What is our concern is that we share the Gospel with everyone and allow the work that needs to happen between the Holy Spirit and them to take place. We can’t readily identify those who will believe from those who will not and so we share with all indiscriminately.
Paul tells us in Romans 9 that not all who are seemingly born of Israel are in fact Israel.
Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.
Jude is pointing here to a couple of events that take place during the exodus and that carry a theme tying those events that resulted in the judgement of the people of Israel with those that he will cite in his next two examples. The events during the exodus were the refusal of the Israelites to enter in to Canaan in Numbers 14. The spies returned from Canaan with a poor report, all but two of them saying that the nations were all too mighty for the people to hope to conquer. Only Joshua and Caleb stood firm in their resolve that they could conquer and that they should continue to have faith in the Lord. For that the people of Israel sought to stone them at the end of chapter 13. They deepen their rejection of God saying that it would have been better for them to have died in Egypt and that they wanted to go back there.
So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”
The Lord tells Moses that He is going to destroy the people and start over from Moses
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people despise me? How long will they not trust in me despite all the signs I have performed among them?
I will strike them with a plague and destroy them. Then I will make you into a greater and mightier nation than they are.”
Moses implores God not to do this and rather prevails on the patient nature of God, His holiness and His faithful love. God relents but pronounces this judgement
Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron:
“How long must I endure this evil community that keeps complaining about me? I have heard the Israelites’ complaints that they make against me.
Tell them: As I live—this is the Lord’s declaration—I will do to you exactly as I heard you say.
Your corpses will fall in this wilderness—all of you who were registered in the census, the entire number of you twenty years old or more—because you have complained about me.
I swear that none of you will enter the land I promised to settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
The other event during the exodus that ties in to the challenges being brought to the churches by these false teachers is found in Numbers 25. Paul highlights this event in 1 Corinthians 10 writing
Let us not test Christ as some of them did and were destroyed by snakes.
And don’t grumble as some of them did, and were killed by the destroyer.
These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
Israel is sojourning near Moab and they begin to prostitute themselves with the women of Moab contrary to God’s direction to remain separated from the people of those nations. Not only are the people of Israel sinning sexually against God but they begin to worship and bow down to the gods of Moab, sacrificing to them. The result of this rebellion is the death of all of the leaders of the people
The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord so that his burning anger may turn away from Israel.”
So Moses told Israel’s judges, “Kill each of the men who aligned themselves with Baal of Peor.”
Their sin continued to be flaunted as a man brought his Midianite mistress and paraded her through the camp in the sight of Moses and the whole Israelite community as they were mourning over the sins of the nation. Phineas, one of Aaron’s descendents, takes a spear and pins them both to the ground with it - catching them in a lewd act - and God relents from the plague that He had brought on the people. But not before twenty-four thousand of them were dead.
The sins of the people in the desert were a failure to rely on the faithful promises of God on their behalf. They betrayed Him and chose to go their own way resulting in pain and death. They presumed upon His goodness and took up with other nations gods following their own lusts and desires rather than the good and holy commands that He had given them and the end result was that God killed them as punishment. But there are punishments that are worse than death that await those who falsely worship God and presume upon His gracious nature.
Apostate Angels
Apostate Angels
Jude now turns to a difficult example as he cites the actions of angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their proper dwelling. The challenge is what exactly did these angels do and which angels does Jude have in mind? Commentators are divided on this as well. The overall consensus is that the angels that Jude has in mind are those referred to as “sons of God” in Genesis 6 that come down and marry the daughters of men spawning a race of giants. The challenge comes in when trying to identify who these angels were. Was this a second group of apostate angels or were these a part of the angels that fell with Satan?
I think it is most likely that they were a group of angels that fell with Satan. We know from Scriptural record that not all of the angels that fell with Satan are among this group because there is still demonic activity present in the world but it seems that a certain group of angels not only rebelled against God - abandoning their dwelling as His servants and instead sought to supplant Him on the throne - but also compounded their rebellion by taking wives from humans - not keeping their own position or, as the NASB translates this, not keeping to their own domain - and having children.
The sin here is that the angels did not keep to the realm assigned to them by God - the spiritual realm - but instead crossed over into the physical realm in order to take wives from among the humans. This is contrary to the divine purpose of angels and the idea that Christ tells us in Mark 12:25 that angels do not marry. Having determined within themselves to repudiate God’s sovereignty over them - and thus abandoning their proper dwelling in Heaven - they deepen their rebellion by having sexual relations with humans perverting the good and holy design that God had for them and cheapening it by doing something they were never intended to do.
The end result of this is that they were chained in darkness to await the day of judgement. But even this may offer some slim measure of hope that after eons on death row they might simply be destroyed. But this is not to be - either for these angels guilty of repudiating God’s sovereignty, for the generations of Israelites that fell in the desert or for those that Jude is about to use as an example next.
What Do You Expect from The World
What Do You Expect from The World
The nations of Sodom and Gomorrah are now synonymous with debauchery and sin. But it was not always that way. There was great prosperity surrounding those cities. They were pleasing and beautiful to the eye - at least on the surface. We are introduced to Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 13 as Abraham and Lot have both grown very prosperous and have large flocks and herds between them. A quarrel arises among their herdsmen because they were so plentiful that the land they were on could not support both of them. Abraham tells Lot to choose where he wanted to live and Lot looks out. Genesis tells us
Lot looked out and saw that the entire plain of the Jordan as far as Zoar was well watered everywhere like the Lord’s garden and the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)
So Lot chose the entire plain of the Jordan for himself. Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other.
Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and set up his tent near Sodom.
(Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the Lord.)
The plains were beautiful - well watered in an arid desert and comparable to the Garden of Eden. This would be like looking out today and seeing the financial opportunities available in the tech industry around Portland and Seattle. Even then though the men of Sodom were evil sinning immensely against the Lord.
Then later after those cities were conquered and carried off (Lot and his family were included) and God delivers them through the righteous hand of Abraham these cities still repudiate God and sin in egregious ways. Sodom has become so well known for sin that it spawned a word for the category of sin known as sodomy. It is to this sin that Jude refers when he writes that they engaged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh.
The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were not solely sexual. There were all manner of sins being committed in those cities - much the same as any city now. But the penultimate expression of rejection of God culminates in sexual sin because of the foundational characteristic of that aspect of the life that God created. Jude says that the men of Sodom “committed sexual immorality and perversions”. The NASB says that they were guilty of going after strange flesh. The record of Genesis tells us that the men came to Lot’s house seeking to have relations with the two angelic messengers.
The word for sexual immorality is a compound word ekporneuo suggesting that their perverse behaviors were especially deviant from the God-ordained design for human sexuality. Just as the angels in the previous example abandoned their proper realm by seeking to have sexual relations with human women, the men of Sodom abandoned their proper realm by seeking to have sexual relations with the angelic messengers.
The result of these actions was that the required ten righteous people could not be found within Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities were destroyed. Jude writes that they serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. This is the final judgement promised to those who would repudiate God and pervert His good design for human relations - death, darkness and ultimately eternal punishment.
What Does This Mean For Us?
What Does This Mean For Us?
When you repudiate God, when He is not in His proper place as sovereign and Lord, the promise is death, darkness and eternal punishment. Ultimately the sins of the people of Israel in the desert, of the fallen angels and of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were that they turned their backs on the faithfulness of God and chose to go their own way. They desired to be the gods of their own lives and would not submit to the sovereign Lord who created them. I will say this again - the penultimate expression of rejection of God culminates in sexual sin because of the foundational characteristic of that aspect of the life that God created.
Now what does that mean for us? John Flavel said “The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God.” First we must always seek to keep God in His proper place in our minds and hearts. For some of us that means enduring the painful ordeal of self-probing to know what we actually think about God right now. I would encourage you to do that with your Bible open and search the Scriptures because they are the greatest source of knowing who He is.
For others it is reaffirming in our hearts that God is sovereign and remaining faithful to submit to Him daily.
Now I also want to say something else clearly - because you could listen to this message and draw inferences from this passage that we are only concerned with sexual, and in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah homosexual, sin. That could not be further from the truth. We are a gay accepting church. Now before you convene the committee to have me removed let me explain that - we are also a liar accepting church. We are a gluttony accepting church. I could go on and on but my point is that we are a sinner accepting church.
What we are not is a sinner affirming church. The difference is that we want you to be here and to hear the great Gospel that Jesus died for your sins and that forgiveness is offered freely. That all of the burdens that you carry can be released at His feet and that the punishments that await those who repudiate God’s sovereign authority over His creation - death, darkness and eternal torment - are no longer applicable for those who have surrendered their lives to Christ.
But that doesn’t mean that you can go on living freely and openly in a sinful lifestyle that Scripture tells us is wrong. Whatever your sin is - Romans 6:1 doesn’t say that we can continue in some sins so that grace may abound but not other sins. It says that we should not continue in any sin - gossip, lying, theft, hatred and yes homosexuality are all sins that separate us from God. It is our prayer here that you would experience the true freedom from all of these sins that can only be found through the blood of Jesus Christ.