Jude 5-10

Introduction: There is a traditional saying for brides at weddings, They should have with them something old, something new something borrowed and something blue.

The idea is to cover all the bases of life together and the specific aspects of married life.

The saying hits every piece of the spectrum and leaves nothing to chance.

Jude has just got done exhorting his readers to contend for the faith in how they live or keep themselves in the faith because they are kept in God for Jesus.

He then tells them the occasion for the call to keep themselves.

False teachers are twisting the gospel and in doing so are kept for judgement.

Like the saying at weddings Jude is about to leave no piece of the spectrum to chance.

He is about to describe from every angle, evey genre of literature, past and present prophecies all he can what has happened to these types of teachers before.

Jude uses every piece of historical ammunition in his arsenal to detail who these people are and what awaits them.

We are going to see he uses 3 Events and the 3 Lies underneath them.

Lets read Jude and dive into this passage starting in verse 1

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James:

To those who are the called, loved by God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.

2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

3 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. 4 For some people, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

5 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; 6 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. 7 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.

8 In the same way these people ​— ​relying on their dreams ​— ​defile their flesh, reject authority, and slander glorious ones. 9 Yet when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in an argument about Moses’s body, he did not dare utter a slanderous condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you! ” 10 But these people blaspheme anything they do not understand. And what they do understand by instinct ​— ​like irrational animals ​— ​by these things they are destroyed.

First we See Three Events that describe the false teachers

Three Events (5-10)

5 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; 6 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. 7 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. 8 In the same way these people ​— ​relying on their dreams ​— ​defile their flesh, reject authority, and slander glorious ones. 9 Yet when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in an argument about Moses’s body, he did not dare utter a slanderous condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you! ” 10 But these people blaspheme anything they do not understand. And what they do understand by instinct ​— ​like irrational animals ​— ​by these things they are destroyed.

I can see Jude writing this letter. Remember from last week he said “These People” have snuck in. They smuggled themselves in and their fasle way of Christian life.

Imagine the readers hear this and think, but i know so and so and it doesn't seem that bad?

Jude is going into a long commentary of church and literary history to defend his firm warning that these people are here. So dont buy what they are selling

He opens with some of the most notorious moments in the Jewish faith and nation.

Jude shows us how to read our old testament ….Richard Bauckham says this so well:

“Like many jews and early christians Jude read the Old Testament history as pointing to the last days. Gods acts in the Old Testament history are types which point forward to and are surpassed by his final acts in Christ”

The Egyptian exodus was, and still is the greatest moment in Israel’s history. It was the greatest saving act of God in their history.

The Exodus was everything in their relationship with the God of the Old Testament.

And look what Jude does out of the gate….He turns the Exodus on its head….

Verse 5 : 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;

Exodus 13-14, Psalm 106, Jeremiah 31, and more define God of the Old Testament as the Lord who worked miraculous saving events to save His people.

To use the Exodus event and substitutte Jesus for Lord is an explosive comment on Jesus’ ability to radically save.

The saving ability only attributed to the God of the Old Testament is now given to Jesus.

Not only is he providing a commentary on the Old Testament and showing all of its fulfillment in Christ...He is showing what the saving from Egypt pointed too

Deuteronomy 13:5, Jeremiah 34:13, Micah 6:4 describe Egyot as a place of slavery,

Exodus 7:4 and 12:13 as a place destined for judgment and plague and destruction

What we see in Jude is that a worse bondage exists in our sin and the pain of this life our rebellion has brought.

Jude is saying that Jesus has saved His people from a worse bindage, a worse judgement, worse destruction.

What a salvation we have.

To show that the greatest saving work of God in History until Christ only pointed to our salvation is unimaginably beautiful

Who could know the depth of that bondage, know the saving Of Jesus from it and turn away?

Who could only want the saving and not love the God who saves?

Jude answers that question of who with those who turned away in the wilderness...he is saying we have seen these types of folks before... thats who these people remind him of

Jesus saved a people out of Egypt and later destroyed those who did not believe;

How a generation LIVED in light of the miracle of salvation led to their destruction.

Remember the danger of “These People” in Jude

They are saying the believers are free because of grace to live how they want seeking pleasure and ease of life in any relationships that make them happy.

Jude says we have seen this before and know how this ends...contend for the faith in how you live.

The generation destroyed in the wilderness complained, quarreled, gossiped, and were divisive, challenging the leading of God through Moses.

Ruth Anne Reese says: Their actions continually showed that although they has experienced salvation, AFTER ALL THEY WERE NO LONGER IN EGYPT!!!, they did not live in a way that manifested that salvation. They did not turn to God trusting that he would provide food, water, and protection from enemies.

Jude cannot speak in more bold terms about faith that is lived out in response to Jesus’ saving of us.

How we live matters.

Who turns the salvation of Christ that cost him infinitely more than we can imagine and makes it license to live how you want?

Unfortunately all of us until we repent but more than that those who have rejected the knowledge of the truth for their own rule and regin

This is all around us today. I saw a news story just last week where the SBC voted to remove a church from the convention who was voting on membership for couples in all kinds of relationships and lifestyles

That church has taken free grace and used it as an excuse to encourage people to live how they want despite how it tramples on the grace of God in saving us.

We should be the safest place for anyone struggling with sexaul sin. We should show nt just what God says but why it is so much better….but we cannot compromise on where we know life to be found

The reality is that God has saved us.

In that saving he has said this is how to live in that freedom.

Looking at pornography, being a gossip, sex outside of marriage regardless of oritentaion all do not lead to flourishing.

It is a lived out faith that denies the gospel and leads to pain and destruction as it did for israel in in the wilderness

Jude goes even further in to stories these believers would know to show more allusions and descriptions of “These People”

6 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.

This is taken from a book not found in the bible but was well known in the Jewish circles Jude was writing too.

It is called First Enoch. It was an extra biblical writing and was like a popular book that would have been on all the bookshelves of the day.

Again Jude is highlighting that the simple knowledge of God is not what God requires.

As with the generation in the wilderness...these angels suffered judgment because their knowledge of God did not lead to obedient lives.

This would have been a pop culture story they all knew so to apply this ending of the story to the people who have crept in to the church would have shook the crowd

These angels had privilege and a place in the presence of God.

They abandoned the place in the presence of God for the pleasures of relationships with human women on earth as the story goes.

The theme of being kept is all through this letter...he uses this play on words again here.

Since the angels did not keep themselves in love to God, God keeps them in chains waiting for judgement

Bauckam again says: “ The angels contrast with faithful Christians who should keep their position in God's love and whom God keeps safe, not for judgement but for salvation at the Last Day”

In this disobedience they suffered ultimate destruction.

Jude is shaking this church up……………...He is not done

He goes to the ultimate example of God’s wrath against disobedience...Sodom and Gomorah

7 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.

The familiar story of destruction again highlights the rejection of God’s placement of parameters on behavior so all people can flourish.

God is not some cosmic fun police he is the loving creator of your heart and longings and all you are. He knows you are only fulfilled in him.

Hes not unloving because he tells you joy isnt found playing in front of oncoming traffic.

His parameters are for our good but we dotn keep in the back yard with all the toys we insist on going out to play dodgeball in the road….

Sodom and Gomorah highlights for Jude’s readers the all out rejection of obedience to the God who saves in how you live ends horribly despite any pleasure in the moment.

He makes the connection his readers clear in verse 8:

8 In the same way these people ​— ​relying on their dreams ​— ​defile their flesh, reject authority, and slander glorious ones.

In the same way as all of these three events these people make a Gospel and God in their own image and wants.

They have dreams and desires that contradict the good design God has for life...and dreams that fly in the face of the LORD Jesus Christ.

These are the folks that God has given “a special word too”.

Rule of thumb...check all of those “words” with the WORD.

They want people to think they are so special and unique that the angels' messages to Gods people are not important but their words are the real message.

Jude is taking the “ten most wanted” of Israel and applying their behavior to those selling cheap grace to the people. This is shock and awe

He is showing the lies that we can believe that underlie this behavior and this is the next point for today

The Lies Underneath the Actions

Apostasy

Autonomy

Living how ever you want

He is telling us the same today.

Look at the apostasy of Israel. They were inside and walked away from God.

Look at the Angels who were inside and wanted autonomy not Gods rule and walked away making their own rules.

Look at Sodom and the complete rejection of God’s design for sex and how it ended.

The warning runs deep because these all had personal knowledge of God and openly rejected Him.

Remember back to verse 4: 4 For some people, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord. -- Jude 1:4 (CSB)

Verse 4 is the outline and these examples are Jude filling it in to show the full picture.

Reese shows what Jude is saying here : “The others like the three examples fail to act in accordance with their position. They assume too much freedom based on their understanding of the position they have in Christ they feel free to live lives characterized by sensuous freedom, rejection of authority, and speaking against the mystery and awe they dont understand”

The tendency is to distance ourselves from “Those People” this is them it couldn't happen to us? We would never…..

But this is the entire point of the call to contend in how you live for the faith

It is those sitting next to them as this was read who were inside, chosen, showed the lavish grace of God who chose to rebel….

Your quiet time yesterday does not transfer to today.

Your choice to not view pornography yesterdsy doesnt transfer to today.

Your choice to follow Christ is a daily work that takes effort.

Jude is saying there is no neutral in the Christian Life. You are contending in how you follow Him or you are drifting in the way of these examples in history.

Our Drift is Always Driven By Believing These Same 3 Lies: Apostasy (Did God really say), Autonomy (You will be like Him), live how you want (Gods Rules Just Keep you from Pleasure)

In ignorance and arrogance they walk away and talk about things they have no clue about as if they are experts…

So Jude in stylish form goes over the top with his example to make his point

9 Yet when Michael the archangel was disputing with the devil in an argument about Moses’s body, he did not dare utter a slanderous condemnation against him but said, “The Lord rebuke you! ”

If you just read that and are thinking back to sunday school and dont remember reading this one you are right...it comes from a book outside of the bible.

It is from a book called the Testament of Moses and the book tells this story...based off of a quote from Zechariah 3:2

It says 2 The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? ”

The text in Zechariah is a courtroom scene where the devil is labeling Joshua a sinner and accusing all of Gods people of guilt by association. Satan is in his familiar role of accuser.

The Testament of Moses takes up this same role of satan played out in scripture. The accuser of God’s people.

Deuteronomy 34 details that God buried Moses in a place no one knows.

In honor and love for His faithful servant...even as Moses’ sin kept him out of the promised land...God honored his friend

Jude is tying together the arrogance of the others with humility of those obedient to God...faithful angels

Angels were the keepers of the creations good and perfect order.

To speak against them showed how arrogant and out of place one would have fallen...

In this deeply held story Michael, who was one of the hall of fame of angels, took his place in obedience to God.

He handled the challenge in obedience in contrast to the foolish others…

With all the drama and non biblical stories here is the contrast Jude is making...foolishness verses wisdom.

In Michaels response, look at several things Jude is highlighting for us.

He recognizes the limits of his power...he knows who is the Judge and its not him

He doesn’t rely on his power but relies on God to handle what God alone can do

He doesn’t hold the devil in the same league as God...satan is not above rebuke

He knows the best way to flourish is not in autonomy but living in God’s design

Here is the emphatic point to see from Judes day to ours and this is all around

-- Proverbs 14:12-13 (CSB)

12 There is a way that seems right to a person,

but its end is the way to death.

These others claim to be super spiritual, they know better than the angels, but they prove themselves to be fools.

Richard Bauckam summarizes this so well: “Those who try to exceed their human place in creation usually plunge below it. But those who truly possess the Spirit live under the Lordship of Christ, which is the fulfillment of the moral order of creation and the restoration of the properly human place in creation”

There is so much for us here in this all to unpack.

We are seeing this before our very eyes.

The new way to answer lifes biggest questions, who am I?, why am I here?, How are things made right because something is wrong things arent how they are supposed to be?

The new way is to look inside ourselves, define ourselves by our own desires and emotions, then demand the world conform to affirm that internal definition of self.

It is the air we breathe, everyone under about 45 this is all we know…

Jude shows where this has gone everytime we have tried this ….we dont find new flourishing we become sub human...it is a complete deconstruction of God’s design.

It doesnt end well.

It cant !!!!.....and we should be heartbroken for those engulfed in this to the point they are amputating parts of their bodies to be who they are inside sexually.

But there are churches who affirm this. Lots of them.

And in more and more churches there will be attendees who affirm it and tell others too.

They know better than us.

Throw off the restrictions of this religion that is oppressive. God is love he made you this way be who you truly are. Don't take all this bible stuff literally. Dont let these bible thumpers keep you from being who you are”

See we are no different than Judes church.

How you live out your faith matters.

How you show the Love of God for what it truly is is how you contend, how you submit to the Lordship of Christ is how you contend, how you show the Christian sexual ethic is the way to sexual flourishing is how you contend.

Get after the beautiful and brutal life of obedience Jude is saying.

No matter how it looks it won't end well WHEN CREATION TELLS THE CREATOR WE KNOW BETTER AND CAST OFF THE PARAMETERS OF ORDER.

We dont become more human we lose our humanity we were made for when we are selfish, arrogant, abusive, backstabbing, sexually immoral, on and on.

Romans says God gives us over at some point. He says ok run with it and it gets really bad really quick.

It is like a ship who detached from its anchor. There is no way to control where or how fast the tossing and capsizing will eventually be. It is unhooked from the story of reality.

There are a couple of things I want us to hang out on this week in this passage.

The first is that I want to really show the cultural moment we are in and how Jude speaks to it.

Judes issues were new to the church, because the church itself was only a couple decades old.

But the issues were not new to us as people in a fallen world.

That is why Jude can show these momentous historical events fulfilled in his day thousands of years later.

The same is true of us. Apostasy, autonomy, and sexual freedom

A famous pastors son was just featured in the New York Times as a prominent member of the Ex-vangelical movement. Those finding freedom in life a part from the family faith they lived with

The article says

He is tapping into the growing appetite online for accounts of rejecting one’s evangelical upbringing. If the New Atheist movement of the early 2000s devoted itself to intellectual combat with the claims of Christianity, the more recent “exvangelical” movement elevates personal stories of people who have walked away.

Deconstruction, “fundie kinds”, and stories of those walking away from rigind christinanity are popular and growing more by the day…

the subject of the article has 1 million followers as he talks others through his pain with the church and why he walked away.

They truly were hurt i want to add and in some ways they were definitely not shown the gospel in lived out faith and i am heart broken a bad christian message is how they see the faith.

Apostasy is popular today. It trends on social media. Your children will see these stories on tik Tok.

Contend for the faith in how you live Jude says. THis is here in the church.

Autonomy, being in control is here as well just as the example Jude gave of the angels who rebelled.

Rejection of God’s design has been the curse since the garden we all want to be god, be in control, and not submit to anyone other than our own wants

Here we are in 2021 and here's the sentence. Who i feel i am is who i truly am.

External or biological fences on who i am or what i can be are oppressive to my power over existence.

Gender is the battle ground today. Think back a few years ago. Sex on a medical documnt was simply boy or girl. Its what you were at birth.

Now gender assigned at birth is a category but viewed as imposed by the outside not definitive.

The new line is gender identity as the real basis for who you are.

Dr. Deanna Adkins is the director of Duke University Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care. She said “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determination of sex is gender identity”. Not who you are at birth biologically but who you feel you are emotionally...this is autonomy in our day.

She goes on to say that the use of biology and hormones and chromosomes is BAD SCIENCE.

Again this is the air we breathe. Rejection of God’s design leads to the amputating of body parts to appease our feelings and the results are tragic. In the long run.

Think of your favorite new movie or show...the plot line played over again is the hero finding who THEY are and becoming their true self unconstrained by the oppression of the outside world.

God’s design for me is restrictive and outdated at best. It is hate speech and a civil rights oppression more accurately.

This is happening all around us and is on the phones of our kids and on our tvs and netflix binge series and on the news.

There are churches who exist to affirm this new definition of the self and new science to affirm its legitimacy so that we think like the others we are right

We have rejected God.

Autonomy is alive and well today….and churches exist to affirm it in the name of Love

The last example Jude gave was of immorality.

Immorality is a fancy word for pleasure seeking feel good lifestyle associated with sexual activity.

We live in a culture that believes the lie of hook up culture and a culture that has a pornography industry that is operating at a 97 billion dollar a year income rate.

We have detached sex from the emotional and sacred ties God embedded in it and created it for.

Hook up culture and pornography “destroys any notion that sex has significance beyond the act itself, and therefore it rejects any notion that it is emblematic of a sacred order” Carl Truman says

We may reject it but it is still there. The damage of sex outside of Gods design is immeasureable in is heartbreak, emptiness, and hollowing out of who we were made to be.

We have all sinned in all of these ways to one degree or another. We breathe the air of a fallen world.

That is why Jude is so loving and encouraging to remember how good the gospel is.

Live it out because that is where life is found.

Apostasy, autonomy, and sexual liberation are life taking not giving in the end.

They hollow you out leave you empty and guilty and destroyed from the inside out.

Thank GOd we have a GOspel that changes us right were we need it...from the inside out

So our hope as

Followers of Christ is in contending for the faith in how we love out the gospel right here and now.

Instead of a fatalistic view or negative outlook

We can look and ask, how is God working in this?

What story is gonna be told 5 years from now.

Jude isn’t worried or negative or nestalgic he knows Christ is risen and reigning and is lord.

Contend in how you live out our beautiful reality in submission to Christ and see these others and others gospel for the path to pain that they are.

That brings us to the last thing I wanted us to linger on that this passage brings up.

i want to speak to those who hear all this talk of judgement and think i knew this was all these christians talk about. Keep all these oppressive rules or you'll go to hell.

There are a lot of things like judgement in this section as Jude is defending his claim that other teachings have slipped in the church.

Jude’s posture and the posture he is commending the church to have is not one of arrogance or legalism...it is the posture of humility, love, and uncompromising on the truth.

D.T. Niles famously said “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.” - that is the attitude of Jude to his readers

If you hang in there and hear as we get later on he calls the listeners to love those even who disagree and love them back to flourishing.

Words like judgement and obedience may sound harsh to you and I get it. We see such poor examples of it all the time i don't take that lightly and maybe you've been hurt by it.

The way jude is saying this is not to keep the rules because those sinners are out there and going to hell don't be like them.

This is a letter to the christians saying we are all one step away from disaster. God loves us he made us and he knows how to best live.

I hope you will stick around the next couple of weeks and see where Jude is going with this and hopefully reach out and ask about the faith or issues you have with believing I would love to hear from you.

Look for where God is acting, contend for the faith in how you live, dont buy the lies that have always existed that a life free from God, in control of your destiny, to make sex what you want leads anywhere but pain.

Jude is cutting it strait. Like a good pastor does.

Lets Pray