I appreciate your patience with my throat condition, although some people say you don't sound much different than usual. I don't know if that's a compliment or not. To me, I sound like old Dr. M.R. DeHaan. If you remember him, if I could teach half as well as he did, I wouldn't mind my voice sounding like this all the time. His voice had something of the quality of a frog. Occasionally you'll hear him on the radio still as they replay old tapes of his teaching ministry on the radio Bible class.
We're looking in the book of Jude, and we're discovering there that Jude has some things to say to us regarding a condition that we face today called apostasy. Jude intended to write a treatise on the subject of salvation, its glories and its wonders.
And yet as he started to write that, he was impressed with the Spirit of God that he needed to write to his brothers and sisters in the faith to contend earnestly for that body of doctrine called the faith, which had been once for all delivered to them. There are a lot of things happening these days under the umbrella of Christendom, and I choose that word carefully because it is the most general word that I know to use describing those who claim in some way to be followers of Jesus of Nazareth.
Christendom is a broad term embracing very much. An example is found in an illustration I read a few weeks ago in the January Reader's Digest. It's an article written by Raelle Jean Isaac, who's working on her, who rather has her Ph.D. in sociology. She's done some research into a group called the National Council of Churches, which some of you may be familiar with.
This is what she writes, in 1977, Linda and David Jessup began sending their children to the Marvin Memorial United Methodist Church in their Silver Spring, Maryland neighborhood. When the children came home from Sunday school with rice bags, the family was to fill with money to be used to buy wheat for Vietnam. Linda Jessup thought it odd. She had read that Vietnam's communist government was using food as a means of forcing compliance with this oppressive regime.
David Jessup, who works for the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education, found that the money was to go to Vietnam via Church World Service, the relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches.
Moreover, he discovered and documented that over a two-year period, $442,000 in Methodist churchgoers' money alone had been sent to a number of political organizations, among them, in Jessup's words, groups supporting the Palestine Liberation Organization, the governments of Cuba and Vietnam, the pro-Soviet totalitarian movements of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and several violence-prone fringe groups in the United States.
Now, you might think that what the Jessups discovered was a rare thing, that it was the exception rather than the rule, and yet that is hardly the case, as the article in January's edition goes on to point out. She goes on to say later in the article, a number of dissatisfied churchgoers have first become aware that something was wrong through reading National Council of Churches literature.
Laura Hathaway, 61, of Spikard, Missouri, a Methodist since she was 12, bought material at a United Methodist Women's School of Missions she attended. Mrs. Hathaway says, quote, There was a play set in Mozambique with an American woman and a woman from Mozambique discussing the celebration of Mozambique's freedom. At the end of the play, the American woman says that in the United States, everything is so complicated and immense that many Americans don't know where to begin a revolution.
I know, says the woman from Mozambique, but perhaps you will learn from our struggle. There are ways. Then the American woman says, yes, there must be. Again, she quotes Methodist evangelist Edmund Robb, who heads the Institute on Religion and Democracy. He says in one very short statement, The National Council of Churches has substituted revolution for religion.
A few months ago, the same magazine, the same periodical, wrote an article exposing the World Council of Churches and its use of monies to support Marxist revolutions around the world, particularly in Africa. All of that is going on under the umbrella of Christendom.
There is the teaching of liberation theology, which says that the gospel is really the relief of oppressed peoples from political domination and that we preach the gospel to them when we declare Marxist dogma in Christian terms and enable them to overthrow their oppressors, in other words, create a revolution. That is a legitimate theology in some circles called liberation theology. A lot is going on under the umbrella of Christendom, and we are to expect that.
In Matthew 13, Jesus gave a number of parables. Those parables outline for us what we are to expect within the visible kingdom during this age. He gives to us there a number of events that take place within the professing church, and I am going to use the term again, within Christendom.
One of the parables, one of the illustrations he uses is that of a mustard seed, which is a very small seed, but which, when planted, grows rapidly in one growing season, so that it is a large shrub and could be described even as a small tree. He says, the birds of the air come and live in its branches. It is a strange parable. Why is it that Jesus is trying to communicate in that illustration?
Most conservative Bible scholars say that that mustard seed he is comparing to the kingdom, and he says it will experience an unusual, even a monstrous kind of growth in this age, and that in the end the birds of the air will lodge in its branches. Just previously in that same chapter, Jesus describes the birds of the air as being demonic spirits.
This ties together with what the Apostle Paul warns us, that in the last days men will depart from the faith, they will fall away from it, and will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.
In other words, we are to expect that in the last days of this age, after this rapid growth has taken place within the professing church, within Christendom, so that it could be described as a large tree, after all that has taken place, there will come forth out of the professing church doctrines that are absolutely contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. They could be described as doctrines of demons, teachings of demonic spirits. I believe that we live in that day.
There is a great deal going on under the umbrella of Christendom, and that is why the little epistle of Jude is so very relevant to us. I am going to invite you to open your Bible to the book of Jude, if you haven't already, and let's read again the first four verses that we looked at three weeks ago.
Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you, beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation. I felt the necessity to write to you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. Why is this appeal necessary to contend earnestly for the faith?
Well, he says, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. He warns that there are certain men masquerading who have sneaked into their fellowships, these men who, because of their false teaching, are under God's condemnation from long ago. He calls them ungodly men, and he cites two areas of problems with them.
In the first place, he says, they are turning the grace of God to licentiousness. That is, they encouraged immoral living, saying that because God is gracious, He will forgive, and we are free to live any way that we want to live. That kind of teaching is still around today. A student in a local college told me recently that one of his professors essentially said that very thing. You are saved by grace, Christian students. Go out and live any way you want to live.
That is the same kind of teaching that Jude fought against 2,000 years ago. And not only do they encourage immoral living, but he says they also deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. In other words, there are doctrinal problems. He says they deny the deity, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. He describes Him as our Lord, kurios, the most common word for Lord, and our Master. That is the more unusual word, sometimes translated Lord in the King James Version.
It means despot, the absolute authority, the ruler, the one the slaves look to for their orders. He says that these people who are false teachers deny that Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority. He may be an authority. He may be a good teacher, but they deny that He is the Master and Lord. He goes on to say, In those last three verses that we have read, Jude gives us three examples of God's wrath, God's judgment upon apostasy or rebellion.
Each group here was noted for its rebellion against the Lord and the resultant judgment of God that came upon it. These are apostates. I would like to make it clear that no person who is genuinely saved can ever become an apostate. A genuine Christian can get involved in false teaching, but I believe that one of three things will happen when a Christian, one of God's children, becomes involved in some way with false teaching.
Number one, he may be brought back to the truth by the Word of God as he studies it. I believe that God by His Spirit seeks to instruct His children and to bring them to the truth when they stray. Or number two, he may be brought back to the truth through more severe chastisement in his life as God seeks to get his attention to turn him around.
Or three, if he is a genuine Christian and refuses the teaching of the Holy Spirit and the chastisement of his Heavenly Father, I believe he will be taken to heaven through an untimely death. And there are examples of even that severe way of God dealing with his children who get involved in false teaching. Just in passing, let me mention that I think technically a heretic is different than an apostate.
A heretic is one who gets involved in a secondary teaching, a secondary matter, not a fundamental doctrine, and who begins to take that secondary teaching to such an extreme that he seeks to divide Christians. A heretic is one who tries to force a choice upon Christians. He says, it's me or them. He brings division and dissension. In a biblical sense, that's what a heretic is. A heretic can be a genuine Christian who goes off on a tangent in some direction that is secondary.
But an apostate is one who begins to teach something that is fundamentally different in a basic doctrine than what the Bible teaches. And it is that group that Jude particularly deals with. If you want to look about heretics, look up Titus 310 or 1 Corinthians 11, verses 18 and 19, and Galatians 520. And there you'll find information about heretics. But tonight we're looking at the matter of apostate, those who are false teachers who deny the faith, with whom we are to engage in warfare.
We are to earnestly contend for the faith that God has delivered to us. The three examples now of God's wrath upon apostasy. In verse 5, the example, the tragic example of ancient Israel. Jude reminds us that after saving the people out of the land of Egypt, God subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. Of what does Jude speak? He is reminding us here of what happened to Israel after she was delivered from Egyptian bondage.
After receiving the law at Mount Sinai, God led his people to a place called Kadesh Barnea. It was the very southern end, tip, of the promised land. It was God's plan that his people go forth from that point and conquer the land, enter into it, possess it. But the people instead sent a party of twelve spies to see what was in the land. It was a reconnaissance mission so that they would know what they were up against. The twelve spies returned. The majority report was very pessimistic.
Only two men were willing to stand up and say, we believe that God will give us the land. Let's go in right now and claim it by faith. They, of course, were Caleb and Joshua. But the congregation of Israel accepted the majority report. That's not the last time the majority was wrong. The majority report was, brethren, the people, well they said first the land is flowing with milk and honey. In other words, it's a very fruitful land. They brought back examples of the produce.
But they said, men, women, the people of the land are giants. We are like grasshoppers compared to them. In other words, they were saying, there's no way. We can't take the land. And even though God had promised to give the land to them, they disbelieved God. And because of that unbelief, God condemned that generation. And for forty years they wandered in the wilderness until every person except two, Caleb and Joshua, who was above twenty years of age at that time, died.
Someone has said that that was the world's longest funeral procession. Because every day as they marched, people died and they were buried in the wilderness until that generation died off. And when that had happened, then a new generation was on the scene and Joshua led them in victory into the land. But Jude points out the fact that even though those people from Egypt had been delivered from bondage, they in unbelief rebelled against God and God shut the door in their face and judged them.
And of course, the implication is, if God did that to His Old Testament people, Israel, then we too need to be on guard against apostasy. In verse six, he comes to another example of apostasy and warns us of judgment upon those who take that route. Here he speaks about angels. He says, And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
And so we have a group of angels brought to our attention. What did they do? Well, according to Jude, they did not keep their own domain. To keep here means to guard or to maintain. And so he says, they did not maintain their first estate, their own domain. That is, that original position that was given to them. The place of authority and dignity, that high position and rule, the assigned realm.
In other words, he says that these angels did not maintain the assignment that God gave to them in His order of creation. That's the first thing he says about them. And then he says, they abandoned their proper abode. In other words, in a once-for-all act, they left behind their dwelling place, their habitation. And there is a special sense in which heaven is the habitation of angels. He calls it their own proper abode, that is, the one that is uniquely theirs, their personal habitation.
They once-for-all, he says, left it behind. That's as much as he says to us about this. And there are those who believe that Jude is speaking about the angels who followed Lucifer in his proud rebellion against God. And they say that these angels that followed Lucifer are chained and kept in darkness, as Jude suggests to us, waiting their judgment. Now the problem I have with that interpretation is that if that's the case, then why was not Lucifer chained as well as their leader?
And why are there still some angels that we call demons who followed Lucifer who are still free? It seems to me that if they were going to be chained in darkness, then all of them would have been chained in darkness and not a select few of them. So he seems to talk about a group of angels who did something more than what that mass of rebellious angels did.
In other words, I think he's talking about a group of angels who did something in addition to following Lucifer in their rebellion against God. Perhaps we have another hint at this in 2 Peter. Will you turn back a few pages only to 2 Peter? Again, Peter warns about false teachers who will come and even who were among the people in that day. And he says about them likewise that they deny the master and their ways are sensual, that is, immoral, bent on pleasure.
In verse 4, he warns about judgment and he says in 2 Peter 2, 4, For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. And then he goes on to point out another example of judgment in the world in the days of Noah. But notice that Peter 2 points to a group of angels that he says sinned and for that they were cast into hell. And that is a particular word that we'll talk about in a moment.
He says they are committed there in the pits of darkness being reserved for judgment. But again, Peter does not point back with clearness, with clarity as to what act is involved for which these angels were judged. There are those who say that these are angels, as I said, who fell with Satan. But I believe that there is a better example, a better explanation of who these angels are and what they did. Would you turn back please to Genesis chapter 6. In Genesis 6 we have the record of the flood.
In verse 1 the chapter begins, Now it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land. And daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. In other words, God says one hundred and twenty years before judgment.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men, who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and so on.
Now there is a record here, described as the sons of God, cohabiting with the daughters of men, producing men who are called mighty men of renown. Some commentators say that means men who are renowned for their wickedness, a wickedness that God saw in verse 5, and for which judgment was promised. I personally believe that the best explanation of this passage is that it ties together with what both Peter and Jude were talking about.
And that the angels who sinned are those that are called here the sons of God. I believe that a very rare, unusual thing happened in those days before the flood. So that certain of the fallen angels did exactly what Jude said. They left their first estate, their own habitation, and entered into the realm of humanity. Now there are those who say that angels don't have bodies. It is true that angels are spirits, but angels also may assume human form.
It is true that in Matthew Jesus says that in the coming resurrection we will be like the angels who are neither married nor given in marriage. But that does not necessarily mean that angels might not, or at least certain of the angels, might not have the capacity to procreate.
I personally believe that what happened in those days was that angels entered in, cohabited with women, and produced an unusual progeny, a race of people that might be described, though not very accurately, as half-demon and half-human. Men that are called giants, men renowned for their wickedness.
And I believe that it was because of that horrendous sin against God's order of things that these specific angels were at that moment judged by God, that is the moment of the flood, that they were cast into a place that Peter calls Tartarus. That's the technical word there in 2 Peter 2 for hell. It's the only place found in the New Testament.
I believe that these angels were at that time cast into this place called Tartarus, and yet today remain there chained in darkness, awaiting their final judgment, which will come at the great white throne described for us in Revelation chapter 20. What both Jude and Peter point out to us is a terrible example of rebellion in God's creation in His order of things.
Now, I believe that that is the correct interpretation of verse 6, because what is said as we go on now in verse 7 of Jude, so I'll turn back there with me. We have to watch the language very closely here. Another illustration, a third example of God's judgment upon rebellion and apostasy, is found in what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. But Jude does not entirely separate verses 6 and 7.
He ties them together with a conjunction, just as or even as, indicating that what he is about to talk about in verse 7 is similar to what happened in verse 6.
There are some similarities here, Jude is saying, and notice what he says, even as or just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, that is those cities of the plain, Zohar and the others, since they in the same way, and again he underscores the fact, in a very similar way to what happened in verse 6, these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh and are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
In other words, Jude is saying that what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah is similar to what happened when the angels sinned. What happened in Sodom and Gomorrah? And he says, these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. The word strange means of a different kind, other than was divinely intended. And he says they indulged in it, they gave themselves over to it.
The picture is of glutting oneself, going all out, being satisfied in one's lusts completely, in going after strange flesh, indulging in gross immorality. Now what was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Still today, that sin carries the name of sodomy. Sodom and Gomorrah were judged in part, and I think I can say primarily, because of the gross sin of homosexuality, of sodomy. It was the accepted way of life.
And that is never more clear than what happens when God sends the two angels to warn Lot and his family to leave. It says that when the two angels came into the city, and went into Lot's house, they mobbed King to Lot's house because they wanted to know the two angels. And that word know is a very specific Hebrew word, which refers to the marriage act.
In other words, this mob came to Lot's house, seeking to have homosexual relations with those two men who had just arrived in the city, not knowing that they were angels. And the men were smitten with blindness, the mob was, and the angels led Lot and his wife out of the city, along with his daughters. And the rest of the story. It was such a gross perversion of what God intended. It is strange flesh, different than what God had ordained.
And because they glutted themselves on that sin, openly boasting about it, they were judged by God. They rebelled, you see, against God's order. They apostatized, they fell away from what God intended. And for that, they suffered what is called the punishment of eternal fire. Now when it says that, it's not talking about the city still burning. I believe that if excavation were to be done, could be done, around the Dead Sea that we would find these cities or the plains.
In fact, there has been some excavation done by archaeologists. And what is described in Genesis fits perfectly what the archaeologists have discovered to be true. But it's not talking here about the cities themselves undergoing eternal fire. It's talking about the citizens of those cities undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. And he says that is an example. There is a warning to every apostate, everyone who rebels against God's order of things.
He says these are an example of God's everlasting wrath upon apostates. And so you see, I believe because immorality is the sin of Solomon Gomorrah in verse 7, that there is that connection with what the angels did in verse 6. And so we have three terrible examples before us here of what God will do to false teachers and those who apostatize from the faith.
You do not have to read very far or listen to many talk programs on television before you hear examples of those who at one time professed to be Christians and who today still claim to be Christians, but who are far from the faith. They have fallen away from what they once professed.
And I think particularly of one man that I heard on a show some time ago who was a close associate of Billy Graham in the early days, helping him in his crusades, who has now even penned a book condemning evangelical Christianity and doing it yet under the name of being religious. Dear people, this is a warning to us to stay away from apostates.
It is a warning to us as well, even though we are kept secure, even though His grace will keep us from falling into apostasy, as we sang earlier and as Jude promises in the latter part of this epistle, even though His grace will keep us from falling, we have a responsibility to watch out for false teaching and to contend for the faith that has been once for all delivered to us, and to do that in such a way that we do not become contentious and nasty
and bickering and unspiritual in the way that we do it, but in love and yet with firmness, because love is firm, isn't it? With deep conviction and yet with compassion for those who are even caught up in false teaching, we are to declare the truth, to do more than just to defend it, but to declare it, to take the offense. We have even a more modern example of God's judgment upon apostasy.
A number of years ago on the island of Martinique, a prominent citizen on that island crucified a pig and carried that squealing animal through the streets of Saint Pierre in a religious festival. And underneath the cross was a title that said, The Holy Jesus. This citizen was also the editor of the newspaper in that day. In his writings he ridiculed Christ and dared God to show himself alive and real. And nothing happened and the public laughed.
No one objected even to this blasphemous act when he carried the crucified pig through the city, calling it the Holy Christ. And yet it was within a week, as I recall, that Mount Pele erupted and absolutely destroyed the city of Saint Pierre along with its citizenry. Make no mistake about it, it is a serious thing to rebel against God. Not only do we Christians rebel against God, not in the ultimate and terrible sense of apostasizing, but we can rebel against His Lordship in our lives.
How tragic when we do that. How much better for us that we recognize and gladly yield to His Lordship so that He is able to establish His rule, His Kingdom in our lives, and to pour out His blessing upon us. How sad when, like Israel of old, we come to a challenge of faith and instead of entering in and claiming by faith what God has promised to us, we turn the other way and say, well, that's too great a challenge for me. It is faith that God blesses.
If you want to read more about that whole analogy, read the early chapters of Hebrews. We are entering into a year when as a church we are going to need great faith. We have before us some challenges, and they are exciting. It is God's blessing that has brought us to these challenges, but they are challenges nonetheless to us. And we are going to need to trust God as we have never trusted God before in many areas.
And I want to be the kind of a man that can trust God, and I know you want to be that kind of a person, who will trust God and not in unbelief turn away at our Kadesh Barnea. Rather, we will claim the promises of God, and even though we seem like grasshoppers to some of the problems and some of the challenges, we nonetheless say by the grace of God, because of His promises, because of what He has commanded us to do, we will trust Him and enter in and claim the blessing.
And when we do that, God will pour out His blessing, perhaps as never before in our lives. May that be our experience this year. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, we recognize that we are in a battle, a battle for the faith. All around us these days are those who in subtle, deceitful ways are undermining the truth, fearing exposure, working in hidden ways under darkness, and yet continually attacking, undermining the faith.
Father, I pray that you will give us as your children and as soldiers of the faith the kind of courage, the kind of conviction that we need so that we might earnestly contend for the faith that you have once for all delivered. May we be true to the Bible and true to our Lord Jesus Christ. And may we be true in the right spirit. And then as we think about faith in a general way, we recognize that unbelief attacks us as your people.
Satan hurls his darts of doubt, and we pray that we may have the shield of faith always ready to soak up those darts. And that we by faith, even this year as a church, may enter into the land that you promised us. That we to this year may know victories. I pray that we will be people of great conviction, of great faith, that we may know your great blessing. In Jesus' name that I pray this. Amen.