Jude 1:11-13 (Teaching)

[0:00] Good morning. Back in the book of Jude again this morning. A little bit of on slowly through Jude, but that's okay.

[0:13] There's a whole lot of in Jude. Last week when we left off, I kind of left off hurriedly. And I hated to do that.

[0:25] I believe I told you all then that we might go back and touch on verse or two. Where we were leaving off last week. We'll begin at verse 11.

[0:37] I know I kind of sort of hit that last week, but not really in depth. As far as the application that Jude was trying to make with it.

[0:49] So thus far in Jude, I'm sure if you've been here for all or even some of the lessons that we've been having in Jude. Jude is a rough book to read.

[1:04] Not quite in my personal opinion as rough as the book of James is, but Jude is still, it's a rough ride. It is, but I thank God for that.

[1:15] I thank God that, you know, he'll call sin what it is. It's sin. It's rebellion against him. And I thank God that he's had men over the years, including Jude and including James and including Peter and Paul.

[1:31] So many of the others that they would do just that. They would call it what it was. And my opinion, we need men nowadays that will stand in the pulpit and preach against sin.

[1:46] And call sin what it is and don't try and sugarcoat it. Don't try and make it into something that it's not. At its core point, sin is rebellion against the maker.

[2:00] It is rebellion against Almighty God. And that needs to be called out to me folks in churches and congregations that, you know, pastors and even deacons and Sunday school teachers, they call them lootsies.

[2:16] They call them mistakes. They call and you know, I've been guilty of the same thing, calling them mistakes. And I have made mistakes and those mistakes have some of those mistakes have been sinful.

[2:28] But we need to call sin what it is, it's sin, it's rebellion against God. And Jude does an awesome job of calling sin what it is and calling sinners out for what they're doing.

[2:43] And he doesn't let up with these verses we're going to go over this morning. So we'll pick up in Jude verse 11 says, whoa, unto them, we'll stop right there.

[2:55] Three words in who is them? I believe we hit this last week. We may not have though. Who is the them that he's talking about? He's talking about the filthy dreamers that are in verse eight that he brings up.

[3:07] Well, who are the filthy dreamers? Well, if you go all the way back to verse four, you learn who the filthy dreamers are. Those are the certain men that have crept in unaware. So we're still on that subject.

[3:19] We're still talking about these certain men that have crept into the congregations, into the churches, into the assemblies of God's people. They've crept in unawares. And this is who he's saying, whoa, 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 game saying of Cora.

[3:41] And I know we briefly hit this last week, but he says that gone in the way of Cain. And I'll explain again what the way of Cain was when Cain brought his offering unto God.

[3:54] Granted, it was an offering and he was making it unto God, but it was unacceptable to God. God never accepted Cain's sacrifice. He was making, whereas in Genesis four where Abel brought his offering, then that one was accepted with God.

[4:13] And I told you all last week that so many people make the assumption that because one was a grain offering and one was an actual creature, an animal, it was a blood offering.

[4:25] In other words, that's the distinction that people make. The Bible makes it very clear in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 that by faith Abel offered up his sacrifice.

[4:36] By faith he done this thing. So it was the faith of Abel that made his sacrifice acceptable unto God. That tells me on the flip side of that same coin that Cain's was not offered in faith.

[4:50] So what is the application that Jude's trying to make here to these certain men that have crept in unawares? These people that he calls filthy dreamers, these people that he's pronouncing a woe to them here.

[5:03] The application is they don't have faith. When he's saying they're going in the way of Cain, they're bringing sacrifices. They're attending churches. They're going through all of the motions, through all the religiosity.

[5:15] They're going through everything that they know that they're supposed to do, but it's all for naught because they don't have faith. So that's the application that Jude would be trying to make here.

[5:26] He says that they ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward. What was the error of Balaam? I know I touched on this very briefly last week. Balaam was the prophet that Balaak, the king of Moab, solved after to pronounce a curse upon Israel.

[5:43] When Israel was making their way toward the promised land and God said, you all go on in, you all make your way there. I'm going to clear the way and God was doing just that. The king of Moab, Balaak, he got concerned about it when Israel started getting close to where he was at.

[6:01] So he said, I need something done about Israel. I need something done about this situation or they're going to take us over as well. They're going to smite us. So he seeks after this prophet, Balaam.

[6:13] And Balaam was a prophet for hire basically, no different than what I would say a preacher for money would be nowadays. He was a prophet for hire though.

[6:24] And he solved after me, sent some people there to ask Balaam about it. Balaam turned them down, I'm sure against his will. So there was another delegation of people that came along after that bringing greater riches and greater promises from Balaak, the king of Moab.

[6:41] And Balaam agrees to go with them for this. Now something you need to remember while we're going through all this here is God talked to Balaam. Even though Balaam was a false prophet, even though he was a prophet for hire, I should say, God still talked to Balaam.

[6:57] And Balaam still somewhat had communion with God in all of that. That's something that we need to remember when talking about this here.

[7:11] But long story short, Balaam gets Balaam there to pronounce a curse over Israel and he can't do it. The Lord won't let him do that. And in his attempts to pronounce these curses over Israel, he actually ends up blessing Israel.

[7:28] He couldn't curse something that God had already blessed. It was an impossibility. That's why whenever you're out on the street maybe evangelizing or you're witnessing to family and folks, I've had people say this to me.

[7:42] I've had people say they're going to cast a curse on me. I've had witches tell me that or self-proclaimed witches tell me such things. I ain't a bit worried about that. I've got God's blessing and their curses.

[7:54] I don't care how hard they try. I don't care what connotations they spit out or what demons they might conjure up. I ain't a bit worried about that because you cannot curse what God has blessed.

[8:07] It is an impossibility to do that. However, what did Balaam do? He couldn't curse him. He couldn't. God wouldn't let him. But he told Balaam what he could do to bring the curse on Israel.

[8:21] Not for Balaam to curse them, but for God to curse his own people. He told Balaam, he said, you need to draw them into the idolatry.

[8:32] You need to draw them into immorality. And he told them exactly how to do that. Knowing, good and well, knowing that that would draw the curse of God on the Israelites.

[8:43] And that's exactly what Balaam did. He sent his young women into the camp and that amounted to immorality, sexual immorality with the Israelites that led to defilement of the race that God had made in the Jews.

[9:01] I ain't saying that derogatory or anything along those lines. God did make a race of people called the Jews. And they were defiled at that point. But they defiled the camp of Israel.

[9:15] And not only that, but these women went into the camp and defiled them with immorality and then led them off into idolatry. And what does that do?

[9:26] Even for a child of God, what does that do? That brings the wrath of God down on us. It brings chastisement down on a child of God when we do that. When we turn our backs to God, even now here in 2022, even now, and what I'm talking about was 1,500 years before Jesus Christ was ever born.

[9:45] But even now in 2022, if we turn our back on God as a saved, born-again child of God, if we rebel against what God wants out of us, what God expects us to do, how God expects us to act, because we've got His instructions right here.

[10:02] If we're rebelling that, it will bring the chastisement of Almighty God on a child of God. It will do that in the Scripture backstabbed up. But I thank God for His chastising hand.

[10:14] When I was growing up, when I was a little boy, and I'd get in trouble, I'd disobey my parents, I wouldn't mind. They'd tell me not to do something, and I'd do it. They'd tell me to do something, and I wouldn't do it. All those have been there, and everyone else have done that.

[10:27] And I got the chastisement of my mama or my daddy. I didn't like it very much. And you didn't either. But as I've gotten older, I thank God that I have parents that would do that.

[10:39] I thank God that I have parents that would straighten me out when I needed it. That I wasn't afraid to use a belt on my rear end if I needed it. God ain't afraid to use one on you either. And He will do that.

[10:51] The Bible teaches that without chastisement, we're bastards and not sons. That means we don't have a father if that's the shape that we're in. But I'm a son. I'm a son, the most high king.

[11:04] I'm a son of the creator of the entire universe. I'm His son. So when He chastises me, if I get out of line, He chastises me. Instead of turning around and shaking my fist in God's face, I need to thank Him for doing it.

[11:19] And I need to praise God because that lets me know that I'm still one of His. But back to the story here. Balem couldn't pronounce the curse, so he tells Balak how to bring a curse on Israel.

[11:33] That's exactly what happened. But what prompted him to do it? Money. Money. Filthy Luke. Filthy Luke, Mammon, as the Scripture sometimes calls it.

[11:47] But it was money. It was riches that was promised to him. If he could come up with a way, preferably in pronouncing this curse that he couldn't pronounce, but if he could help Balak, King of Moab, to stop the Israelites' progression to where they couldn't do anything with Moab, then Balem, this prophet for hire, was promised riches.

[12:11] That tells me the application that Judah is making here, not only did they not have faith like Cain, were they offering things to God without faith like Cain, but they were in the entire ministry for nothing more than money.

[12:25] They were in there, they were trying to gain for themselves, just like Balem was doing. He didn't care what God's plan was for the Israelites. He didn't care that God had promised them this land, this land that was flowing with milk and honey, and it was plentiful and all these other things.

[12:43] He didn't care about God's plan. He didn't care anything about the Israelites. All he cared about was his self getting gained. And that tells me, because Jews making this application, that these certain men crypt in on a wearer, these filthy dreamers that he's addressing here, they're pronouncing this woe on them.

[13:03] They were in it for the same reasons, for money. Anyway, going up to the way of Cain, ran greedily after the error of Balem for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Kor.

[13:17] This Kor here is spelled differently than what we have it. In the Old Testament, it's Korah. In the Old Testament, you can find this account in the book of Numbers. In a nutshell, what happened here was Korah got a bunch of other people to follow him.

[13:33] He was upset that Moses was leaving. He wanted Moses' position, and he got it in his head, and in turn got it into other people's head, those about him that were all leaders of Israel.

[13:47] But he got it in all these other people's heads that Moses had too much authority. And he goes to Moses, him and these other folks, and he goes to Moses, and he says, who are you to set yourself above Israel?

[14:03] To set yourself over us, who are you to do that? First of all, Moses didn't put himself there, God put him there. God set Moses over Israel. We know from the Mount Sinai, from the burning Bush account, and God was telling Moses to go into Egypt and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.

[14:22] And he said, upon this mount you'll serve me. He said, you're going to take these children of mine, and you're going to lead them through the wilderness. Those leading means that you're over them. God set Moses in that position, but Korah refused to see that, and he convinced other people to not see it.

[14:40] They said, let us take some of this responsibility off of you, Moses. So Moses, knowing this was going to bring the judgment of God on them, Moses falls on his face in the Scriptures, but he tells them, he says, get your censors, and your censors that you burn incense with.

[14:58] Let's go before God. Let's see who he wants to be over his people. So they do this, and God basically tells Moses, get out the way. Something big about to happen.

[15:10] And Moses does just that, and the ground opens up and swallows Korah and these other leaders of Israel that were all round about him. Folks said that was the judgment of God coming down on them for what?

[15:24] It wasn't for money, and it wasn't because they didn't have faith. It was for their greed of power. So that tells me the application here would be the same.

[15:36] These people, these filthy draper, these certain men crept in unawares, they were in it, not only without faith, but they were in it for money and they were in it for power.

[15:48] They wanted power over the people, just like Korah did. And it got Korah in big trouble, not only Korah, but all these other leaders that went up there with him, then there was fire that came down and consumed another 250 people.

[16:02] After that, according to the Scriptures, there are numbers. But that's the account of Korah. And Jude here is locketing these certain men crept in unawares, two Korah and two came and two bailed.

[16:17] And he's doing it for those, we can rightfully assume for those reasons that I just said that they were doing it. Unfortunately, it's that way down.

[16:28] It's that way down. There are people that get in the ministry just because they want to rule over a church. They want to pastor a church and there's people that get in the ministry because they want a big megachurch and they want a six-figure income, if not a seven-figure income.

[16:46] And there's people that get in them and these people, they have no faith. These folks here that Jude just listed were going to read it here in just another few verses. They lacked faith.

[16:57] They didn't have faith at all. And I realized that was the first thing we covered with his comparison with them, with came, but they didn't have faith. And that's a sad state to be in.

[17:10] But what was something else that just occurred to him? Korah, going back to Korah for just a moment, what else did Korah do? He led other people into sin.

[17:22] He convinced other people that something was right that was wrong. He called good evil and evil good, in other words. And God says in the book of Isaiah, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil.

[17:37] Woe unto them that do that. And that's exactly what Korah did. He was leading other people into sin. It's bad enough, folks, when we sin. It's bad enough when we sin personally.

[17:49] Whether you saved or lost, it's bad enough when we do that, but when we convince other people to sin. When we draw other people into the mix with us.

[18:00] That's ultra bad in my opinion. That's horrible, convincing other people that what they're doing is right. And what God is wanting to do is wrong.

[18:12] And that's another thing that Korah was guilty of, was leading other people into sin. And so that's another application I believe that you would have been making here.

[18:23] It was these certain men who were corrupted and unaware. They were convincing other people that it was perfectly all right to sin. And there are pastors right now that convince people that it's perfectly all right to sin.

[18:35] You want to go out to the bars on Saturday night? That's fine. That's fine. God will let you do that. God's cool with that. You want to go out to the strip clubs. You want to go out to the casinos.

[18:47] You want to drink. You want to drug. It's all good. Having abortion. Having abortion? You want to do that? It's all good. And there's pastors that are pleading these cases for their congregants, for their parishioners.

[19:05] And they're saying that it's okay. They're saying Jesus has done paid for all those sins. And praise God he did. But Jesus didn't come out the wilderness saying, don't you worry about what you're doing.

[19:16] I'm going to pay the price. He came out the wilderness saying repent ye for the kingdom of heaven as at hand. Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven as at hand. Not go and live your life any way you want to.

[19:29] I'm paying the price here in just a little while. It was repent ye. And that's all throughout the scriptures. It's in the Old Testament and it's in the New Testament. Repent, repent, repent.

[19:41] And we ignore it. And there's pastors out there that are teaching entire congregations to ignore that cry of repentance that screams from the scriptures.

[19:55] John the Baptist preached it. Jesus Christ preached it. Peter preached it. Paul preached it. John preached it. All of them preached it. All of them had something to do with repentance in their writings.

[20:08] So you can't tell me that it's not needed. Yes, it's needed. Jesus Christ said it himself. And John said, though, there are pastors that are leading entire congregations into sin.

[20:19] What one of those pastors? What one of those people that do that? Verse 12, these are spots in your feasts of charity. What are these?

[20:31] These are those that he was pronouncing woes to in the preceding verse. The filthy dreamers, the certain man crept in unaware, were still fixed on these people that are doing this.

[20:42] These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear, clouds they are without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruit withered without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, watering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

[21:04] My goodness, that's an ugly description of people that Jude is giving. But that's exactly what it is. He is describing people, fellow human beings, fellow people that are made in the same image of God that I am and that you are in Jude is describing these people like this.

[21:24] It says there are spots in your feasts of charity. This would have been what we call a potluck nowadays, a potluck dinner. They called them agape feasts in the first century church, actually the first and the second century church, had these agape feasts where they would just gather, usually at least once a week, sometimes two or three times a week.

[21:44] And that was the feasts of charity. And this is what he told me, he says there are spots. There are spots, now there is a small debate as far as the Greek translation of that word for spots goes, and some people say that's not spots, it's hidden rocks.

[22:02] I think spots fits better myself. And basically there are blemish on that. There are spots on this dinner that you are having, this feast that you are having to celebrate brotherly and sisterly love that we have in Jesus Christ.

[22:20] He says you are gathering for this and they are blemishing that. But he says these are spots on your feasts of charity. When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear.

[22:31] I know I've talked a lot about pastors since I've been standing up here this morning. But this is something that pastors are guilty of right now, or so called pastors. They feed themselves without fear.

[22:44] They feed themselves but they are not feeding the flock, they are not feeding them the word of God, they are not feeding them the bread of life, that which will spiritually sustain the congregation that is sitting underneath them, they are not feeding them at all.

[22:57] And God has got some stern words for such pastors in the book of Ezekiel. He said, in short, in my own dialect, I guess I could say, God says fine, you won't lead my people, you won't shepherd them, you won't keep your flock, I'll do it.

[23:16] I'll do it and I'll hold it to your account. That's what God tells them in the book of Ezekiel. The shepherds that weren't shepherding Israel, that weren't doing as they knew that they should be doing.

[23:27] But he says, when they feast with you, so obviously they were, when they feast with you, he says that they are feeding themselves without fear. Without fear of what?

[23:38] Folks, if they have not faith, and like I said, we'll read that here in the next few verses if we get that for a day. But if they have not faith and they're doing all these wicked things, they can't be in duels with the spirit of God.

[23:51] And not, you know, have some kind of conviction about what they're doing. So they're without fear of God, they're without fear of repercussion from the people that are around them, because those people are just letting them in.

[24:05] I mean, my goodness, we got instructions in the Word of God about people that are about like what Jude is describing here, and Paul said, from such turn away.

[24:17] Don't associate with them, don't hang out with them, don't, you know, have these dinners with them. I ain't saying that we can't have lost people on them, we can't feed lost people, I ain't saying that at all.

[24:29] These lost people, I dare say, in every congregation, in every church that gathers every Lord's day that there is, I'm persuaded that there is at least one lost person in the bunch.

[24:41] And they might be persuaded that they're saved, but you'll never convince me that everybody goes to church on Sunday morning is saved. You'll never convince me of that. But these people here, these certain men crept in unawares, they were spots on the Feast of Charity, on these agape feasts that they would have, and they would feed themselves without fear.

[25:04] It says, clouds they are without water carried about of winds. Well, that don't sound too awfully harsh, but it is. The very harsh words from Jude describing these people, clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds.

[25:20] What good is a cloud if it doesn't have water? Well, we might say, well, it blocks out the sun so that we're not getting scorched, folks. We know nowadays they didn't know it back then.

[25:31] We know nowadays, though, that those UV rays can shoot right through a cloud, and those rays can still scorch your skin, no matter how overcast it is outside. I know that from firsthand experience.

[25:44] But regardless of any of that, a rainless or waterless cloud, it is useless. All it does is block out the sun, and we have to have the sun.

[25:57] We have to have the sun. We have to have light. Anybody who's spent any time in science class in elementary school has learned the term photosynthesis, and what that means and what that produces.

[26:09] It produces growth in plants. They've got to have light, they've got to have water, they've got to have air. That produces a plant. What does a plant produce? It produces fruit of some kind, whether we can eat it or not.

[26:20] You know, that doesn't matter, but it has a purpose that God put it here for, regardless of what that purpose is. But if it's a cloud without water, it's useless.

[26:31] And not only that, he adds, or clouds they are without water, carried about by the winds. In other words, they're just blowing around wherever they want to go. Any where the wind blows, that's where they're going to go.

[26:43] And these people here, these certain men crept in none of the words, that's exactly what they've done. They just blew around, and you all have heard me say it two or three times, in teaching James and teaching Jude, they had that rule or ruin attitude.

[27:01] And they would either rule the congregation or they would ruin the congregation, one or the other, or they would ruin it and then go find them another one to ruin it. But either way, they were useless as far as being clouds without water, and they were just blowing around.

[27:17] Wherever they wound up is where they wound up. Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. That's a ugly description of a human being as well.

[27:32] They say trees whose fruit withereth. In other words, even if they produce a little bit of fruit, it's worthless. If it withereth, it's worthless. It ain't worth eating.

[27:43] It's got a bad taste, probably got a bad smell. Ain't nobody going to want to buy until an apple is hanging wrinkled on a tree. Same goes for many other fruits that we could think of.

[27:57] They say they're fruit withereth or common without fruit, so either their fruit is bad or they're just without it, period.

[28:09] Twice dead and plucked up by the roots. Twice dead. Immediately, that makes me think of the second death. They're twice dead and plucked up by the roots.

[28:22] What happens when something gets plucked up by the roots? According to a couple of parables that we read in scripture, it gets cast into the fire. At that point, it's no good and you're getting it by the roots to throw it in that fire because you don't want those roots staying in the ground to produce another tree or another plant or another vine that's just like it.

[28:45] So they're plucked up by the roots, but they're twice dead. They're dead while they're here. Bible teaches in Ephesians chapter 2, we're dead in our trespasses and sin and there's another death coming for them.

[28:59] That's called the second death that we read about in the book of Revelation. These folks are twice dead that Jude is describing here. Raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, wondering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

[29:16] Raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame. We don't think of the sea like people 2,000 years ago thought of the sea. 2,000 years ago, yes, it was a way to make a living.

[29:28] Yes, it was a way to get food as far as fishing went. And yes, it was a way for people to travel decent distance between land masses where the case is, but people feared the sea.

[29:42] They feared the sea, they feared the water because it was so unpredictable what was going to happen at certain times or at any time really.

[29:53] And they feared the sea and here he's comparing them to the raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame.

[30:04] When I think of the sea and I think of sea foam, first thing that pops in my mind is the foam that you see at the tops of the waves. But that's not what I believe Jude was getting at here.

[30:18] What I think he's getting at is the sea after it's done crashing into the land and normally after the tide goes back out, you've got all this debris. You've got driftwood, you've got seaweed, you've got broken shells, worthless stuff in other words.

[30:36] Not to mention you've got this slime that the sea foam leaves behind on the seashores. And I don't know if there's an official name to that or not, I just call it slime. But you've got that up there as well.

[30:50] And I think that's what Jude is getting at here. He says they're like the raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame. He said this is what they're leaving behind. You know, they're raging waves of the sea, yes they cause turmoil and yes they cause fear and they cause distress and all these other things.

[31:10] He says foaming out their own shame and that's what they're leaving behind in their wake. He says, wondering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

[31:22] Wondering stars, there's debate here whether Jude was talking about comets or asteroids or meteors or if he was talking about the planets. Because the planets move around in the sky a lot more than the stars seem to, right?

[31:38] So, you know, and so in other words, a wandering star 2,000 years ago, that was used for navigation. I mean, just like, you know, we all know the Christmas account.

[31:50] There was a star that appeared and the wise men, the magi, they followed this star to where the savior was. And they used that star for navigation.

[32:02] But evidently it was a brand new lot that was in the sky because it amazed so many people. But they used the stars for navigation and nowadays we can still use those same stars in the same patterns for navigation if we want to.

[32:19] However, we were allowing our Garmins, we were allowing our Google GPS, we were allowing things along those lines, they didn't have that stuff back then though. But a wandering star was useless, it was useless to these people.

[32:32] And he says, Wondering stars to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever? That's the scary part of it. What is the blackness of darkness? I know what dark is and I know what black is.

[32:45] This is kind of what Jesus spoke about in one of the parables that he spoke of, casting people out into outer darkness. Honestly, I don't know what the blackness of darkness is. I know what outer darkness is and I know I don't want to know.

[32:58] I don't want any part of that and praise be to God through Jesus Christ, I won't have any part of outer darkness. And I won't be reserved to the blackness of darkness forever. I don't have to worry about those things, but these people, these people over talking about the certain men, kryptonian unwarters, the filthy dreamers, the ones that are spots in the feast days, the ones that Jews pronouncing these woes upon, they are reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

[33:27] And that's a scary thought and that should cause people to quake in their boots. Especially these pastors that we've been talking about, these church leaders that we've been talking about, that lead their congregations in the same way that Jews is describing these people here did in the Book of Jude.

[33:46] We've got about five minutes so I'm going to shut up now. Anybody got any questions or comments?