Examples of Apostasy Pt. 1 "The Unbelief of Israel"
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Jude, like the Apostle Peter in 2 Peter 2, reaches back in the Old Testament and gives a number of examples of apostasy.
The church must learn from the past so that we can live for Jesus in the present. In the book of Jude we have learned that Apostates are real and they are dangerous. Jude tells the brethren that apostasy is nothing new. God had foretold that the apostates would come and seek to corrupt the faith.
Jude warned the brethren about the apostates that have crept into the church. The church has the responsibility to contend earnestly for the faith.
The church is to be alert about apostasy and active against apostasy.
Warren Wiersbe writes, “Every local church ought to be a Bible institute, and every Christian ought to be a Bible student. The pulpit needs to declare positive truth as well as denounce error.”
Jude was declaring the truth and denouncing error. Jude tells us to know the truth, live the truth, and defend the truth.
Because apostasy is nothing new, we must guard the truth and we must give ourselves to the truth and for the truth.
Ideally, every Christian would read these allusions to the Old Testament and say, “Yes Jude, I know exactly what you are talking about.” If we don’t know what Jude wrote about, it shows we need to deepen our understanding of the Bible.
The problem is, we all forget...
Spurgeon wrote, “As for the root facts, the fundamental doctrines, the primary truths of Scripture, we must from day to day insist upon them. We must never say of them, ‘Everybody knows them’; for, alas! everybody forgets them.”
Look at these examples we are given:
Israel rebelled against the provisions of God...
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Fallen angels rebelled against authority...
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Cain rebelled against the grace of God, Balaam rebelled against the people of God, and Core rebelled against the man of God...
11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
APOSTASY AND REBELLION ARE FIRST COUSINS.
As a result of Jude 5-7 we see three things.
Israel lost the victory...
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Angels lost their vocation...
6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Sodom lost its virtue...
7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Remember that the word apostasy means to depart, withdraw or go away from truth.
They had light, but not life.
We can see this in the life of Israel.
Remember, Jude is writing to remind us of some things, so let’s look at the illustration we are to remember - we find this illustration in two groups found in verse 5...
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
In these two groups, we will be able to see so much of what is going on in our churches today.
THE FIRST GROUP THAT CAME OUT OF EGYPT WERE THOSE WHO WERE GENUINELY SAVED AND BELIEVED.
THE FIRST GROUP THAT CAME OUT OF EGYPT WERE THOSE WHO WERE GENUINELY SAVED AND BELIEVED.
NOTE HOW THEY WERE SAVED.
By the blood of the Lamb (Exodus 12).
They were born in slavery, enslaved to Pharoah in deep bondage.
5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.
Purchased by God.
The Passover in Exodus 12 is a picture of the cross.
They looked forward to the cross. We look back to the cross.
He brought them out to bring them in.
After crossing the Red Sea in Exodus 14 they were not supposed to look back, but what we find in moving through Scripture is that after surveying the land flowing with milk and honey, the majority of the people said, it’s a great land, but there are giants there and we can’t take it!
Joshua and Caleb were the only ones that said, “We’re going with God - If He says we can take it, then we can take it!”
Sadly, Joshua and Caleb were outnumbered and out voted and the people of God voted against the will of God.
They began to complain and murmur and ridicule Moses and they would not believe God.
1 And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
IN THAT GROUP WAS A GROUP OF UNSAVED AND A MIXED MULTITUDE
IN THAT GROUP WAS A GROUP OF UNSAVED AND A MIXED MULTITUDE
38 And a mixed multitude went up also with them; and flocks, and herds, even very much cattle.
4 And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
SO, IT IS IN OUR CHURCHES TODAY.
This is where unbelief came in and this is where the trouble makers came in.
They departed Egypt, but they never reached the Promised Land because of unbelief.
THEY SHOULD HAVE WENT FROM BONDAGE TO BLESSINGS.
INSTEAD, THEY WENT FROM BONDAGE TO EVEN DEEPER BONDAGE BECAUSE OF UNBELIEF.
They came out of Egypt, but, sad to say, Egypt didn’t get out of them. Many of them turned back.
In Gideon’s day, 31,700 people turned back - You can find that by reading Judges 7 and doing some math.
Orpah turned back in Ruth 1.
Demas turned back in 2 Timothy 4.
In Jesus’ day, we read:
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
The destruction for Israel in turning back was that those 20 years old and above who doubted never entered into the Promised Land.
1 And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.
2 And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
3 And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt?
4 And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
29 Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me,
30 Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
31 But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.
For forty years Israel was reminded daily of the consequences of their rebellion and unbelief. It could be estimated based on a 12 hour day and for a period of 38.5 years that Israel would have had 85 funerals a day or 7 funerals an hour.
Jude’s purpose was not to remind the believers about God’s hand of deliverance, but of God’s hand of destruction.
Maxwell Coder wrote, “The Spirit’s object here is not to present the blessed truths of the slaying of the Passover Lamb and the sprinkling of its blood, or the miracles of the Red Sea and the preservation of a vast host in a howling wilderness; not the typology of the tabernacle, priesthood, and offerings. Whole books are given to these great truths. But Jude writes of Israel’s sin and punishment only as it relates to the central subject of his epistle, apostasy.”
Jude is making his point in reminding the church that unbelief demands God’s judgment. All of Israel went through the same type of experience, but not all of them were saved.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Rebelling against revealed truth is the ultimate example of apostasy!
Think of what God did for the people of Israel in this situation, and then how they responded to Him. They experienced God’s miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea.
They heard the very voice of God at Mount Sinai.
They received His daily care and provision of manna in the wilderness.
Yet they still lapsed into unbelief, and never entered into the place of blessing and rest God had for them.
The warning through Jude is clear. The people of Israel started out from Egypt well enough. They had many blessings from God along the way. But they did not endure to the end, because they did not believe God’s promise of power and protection.
This example gives two lessons.
First, it assures us that the certain men causing trouble will certainly be judged, even though they may have started out well in their walk with God. Jude says, “The certain men might have started out well. But so did the children of Israel, and God afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”
Secondly, it warns us that we also must follow Jesus to the end, and never be among those who did not believe. The final test of our Christianity is endurance. Some start the race but never finish it.
If you truly believe…You’ll finish the race.