We begin this section of scripture with Jude uttering the phrase, “Woe to them!”  It is a phrase that cannot be understood without the context of what came before it.  And so if we have not been here in the last couple of weeks, we must find out who is “them”.  Who is Jude talking about. 

We find the summary answer to that question back in vs 4, “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.”  

These certain, ungodly persons are the ones to whom Jude now exclaims, “Woe to them!” I believe Jude uses that phrase to remind us of when Jesus gave a scathing indictment on the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23.  Jesus there proclaims 8 woes upon the scribes and Pharisees, because He said they shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for they do not enter in themselves, nor do they allow those who are entering to go in.  He gave eight such woes about these false teachers, blind guides He calls them, who devour widow’s houses, who pretentiously make long prayers, who go to great lengths to make disciples for themselves, who clean the outside of the cup so people think they are so righteous, yet inwardly they are full of corruption and uncleanness.

It’s the same sort of people that Jude calls certain persons. But Jude then shows that God will punish these certain persons, just as certainly as He punished rebellious Israel, as He cast into hell the rebellious angels, and as He destroyed by fire and brimstone the immoral Sodom and Gomorrah, as he reminded us of last week in our study.

But Jude is not done condemning them. You know the scriptures give their most severe criticism of false prophets.  They are guilty of a greater sin than that of murderers and adulterers and sorcerers. To change the truth of God for a lie and in so doing put a stumbling block before others is the greatest crime, worthy of the most severe punishment. And so he proclaims “Woe to them!” “For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.”

Jude gives us three illustrations of people like these certain person, that abandoned the word of God, rebelled against the word of God, and in due time received the judgement from God. And in this reminder of these people’s sin of rebellion, we get insight into the nature of these apostates in the church.  Jude said in vs 4, that these certain persons had crept into the church, and their teachings had perverted the grace of God into licentiousness, and they denied the lordship of Jesus Christ, so that they were condemned to judgement.

Let’s look at the first illustration, that of Cain.  We find the story of Cain in Genesis chapter 4.  I won’t take the time to read it all, but I will try to summarize it.  Gen 4:3-5 “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering;  but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.”  

Well, I’m sure you remember the rest of the story.  Cain was angry at God for rejecting his offering, and he took out his anger on his brother and murdered him while they were working in the field. But what shouldn’t be overlooked in the story is this: Cain brought an unacceptable sacrifice. God did not accept his sacrifice, and God did accept the sacrifice of Abel. Now this presupposes that they knew what offering they were to bring. God required a blood sacrifice. But Cain didn’t think that was necessary.  He was a farmer, not a herdsman.  It would have been an extra expense to buy a lamb for the offering.  And so he rejected the word of God and offered what he thought should be acceptable. He would worship God according to his design.

And that provokes me to say something more about this idea of false worship.  The idea of worship as we understand it today in the modern church, is a relatively new phenomenon.  I grew up in the church, and had exposure to dozens and dozens of churches in my early life, and I can tell you that prior to the 90’s this idea of “worship” as it is expressed to today was not heard of.  We went to church, we sang songs, we had special music, we had preaching, all the components of what might be called worship, but we didn’t necessarily call it worship with the same understanding as it has today.  

Today, if you hear the word worship, you automatically think it is speaking of a prolonged time of music, usually conducted by a “worship team” or a praise and worship band.  The idea of worship today is virtually only concerned with music, and it’s usually contemporary music.  If you sing a classic hymn as a congregation such as we do on Sundays, that really isn’t what people think of as proper worship.  Worship has to be a time when you give yourself over to a emotional, repetitive, sentimental and moving musical score performed by more or less trained or professional musicians and singers in a concert style setting.  We somehow have come to believe that such is pleasing to God, that is worshipping God, and as such it satisfies our responsibility to God.

That, however, is not what the Bible calls worship. Jesus said in Matt 15:8 “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” A good principle of hermeneutics (Biblical interpretation) which I think is under utilized, is when you are considering a word or principle in the Bible, to find the first time it is mentioned, and in so doing you will gain a better understanding of the meaning of the word, or of the principle.  It’s called the principle of first mention.  

Now if you go to the first place that the word “worship”  is mentioned, you will find it in Genesis 22:5.  Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  What Abraham was talking about when he said worship is really insightful as we consider what is commonly considered worship today.  He was talking about going up on the mountain to offer up his son as an offering to God.  He was going to sacrifice his son to God. And he called that worship.

I would love to spend the rest of our time talking about this.  But I don’t have the time this morning.  However, please be sure that you understand that worship, in the Biblical context, involves a sacrifice. Worship is an offering, a sacrifice to God.  Additionally, worship is obedience to God.  Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice in obedience to what God required of him.

And that reveals that though the word worship is not used in the account of Cain and Abel, yet that is what they were doing.  They were coming to worship God.  Genesis 4 tells us that they came to make an offering to God. And very importantly, notice that God did not accept Cain’s offering, but He accepted Abel’s.  That tells us something important; that God is not obligated to accept just any kind of worship we offer Him.

But as Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  Obedience to the truth then is essential to worshipping God.  Romans 12 tells us that in chapter 12:1-2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” So part of worship is obedience to the will of God, the commandments of God, that our bodies may be in subjection to Him.  To be a living sacrifice is to die to the desires of the flesh, that we might live in the Spirit.

Cain showed that he did not believe God’s word. He offered his own offering to God as he thought was fitting.  And he became angry at God and killed his brother. His rebellion against God’s word killed his brother. He killed Able because he didn’t believe God’s word was true.  He didn’t fear judgment. But God did judge Cain.  He made him to be a fugitive and wanderer on earth.

These certain persons Jude is speaking of were like Cain in the sense that they did what they wanted with God’s word.  They turned it around and used it for their purposes, and for their advantage.  They thought it was acceptable to alter God’s word for their own benefit and in so doing, condemned not only themselves, but those who listened to them.

The next illustration Jude calls from Biblical history is that of Balaam.  This illustration answers the question as to why the false teachers do what they do. The story of Balaam illustrates is that they do it for money. He was a prophet for hire. And some of these false prophets we see on the Christian television networks are in effect prophets for hire, and they are getting very wealthy taking money from people who are duped by their charisma and their false promises.

The story of Balaam is found in Numbers chapters 22-25, and then again in ch.31. The story of Balaam is a story of how he turned against Israel, and tried to curse them for the sake of the reward from the king of Moab, a man named Balak. You might remember this story because there is the famous passage there which describes Balaam’s donkey speaking to Balaam because Balaam kept trying to force the donkey to go forward, when the angel of the Lord was blocking his way.  God put several blocks to stop Balaam from cursing Israel.  But in the end, Balaam found a way to work around God’s blockade.  

We find a summary of what he did in Revelation 2:14, in which the Lord says to the church at Pergamos,  “I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and commit acts of immorality.”  Balaam knew in getting the Israelites to commit fornication with the Moabites, and forsake God’s law concerning their diet, God would end up bringing judgment upon them, and accomplish what the king of Moab really wanted, which was the destruction of Israel. But what Balaam forgot to take into consideration, is that the same God who would judge Israel for their sin, would also judge him for his act of rebellion against the word of God. Numbers 31 tells us that Balaam was killed by the Lord’s army while he was living in the midst of a godless and sinful city in Moab.

Balaam then represents two things: the covetousness of the false teacher who loves money and the apostate who influences others to sin. The third illustration of apostate false teachers in the church is from the story of the rebellion of Korah. Korah was a Levite who led the rebellion against Moses.  He was a teacher.  But his error was his disdain for the authority which God had prescribed.  He wanted to be a priest, and to have authority over the people of God, but he could not.  

In Numbers chapter 16 we find the story of his rebellion. He gathered together other certain men, and went before Moses and assembled together before him. And he said, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?”

Korah took the word of God about the priesthood of all believers, and reinterpreted them in such a way as to remove any authority of the leadership that God had set over Israel. He was disputing the idea that they even needed a leader, that they even needed someone who was responsible, someone who spoke for God. He was disputing the idea that they even needed a teacher who gave them God’s truth. 

What he was advocating was that everyone was capable of determining God’s truth for themselves. That God could speak to them directly, and they didn’t need someone who would be in authority as their teacher/leader.  That is still a popular belief today.  Some people think they don’t need to go to church, they don’t need to listen to a preacher, they can worship God by ourselves, and they can hear from God ourselves, and they can interpret His word to suit us. Well, do you remember how the judgement of God fell upon Korah?  Numbers tells us that the ground opened up and swallowed him and his company whole into hell.

At this point in the text, Jude shifts gears.  He has shown from God’s word three separate incidents which illustrate how God’s judgment will fall upon any false teacher that rebells against God’s word, that loves money, or that is immoral, of desires authority that God hasn’t given him. A horrifying judgment awaits anyone who undermines the authority and truth of God’s word for personal gain and puts a stumbling block before others.

And so Jude shifts at this point in his sermon from historical illustrations of that fact, to five analogies from nature which describe these apostate teachers.  He describes them in lyrical form in vs 12 and 13.  “These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;  wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”

Let’s look at them briefly.  The first analogy is they are like hidden reefs in your love feasts.  Love feasts were not the Lord’s supper, but they were a meal that the church body would take together during their services at certain times.  Sort of like a potluck dinner, maybe.  There is something about eating a meal together that brings about a deeper fellowship with one another. And the early church used to practice it often.

Hidden reefs is a reference to a very dangerous situation when sailing.  It refers to unseen rock formations just under the surface which can rip open the hull of the boat and sink it. These certain men were like hidden reefs, unseen on the surface of the church gathering, but very dangerous because their false theology can sink a church.  It can cause people to shipwreck in their faith.

Notice Jude says they feast with you without fear, they have no fear of God, they are brazen in their sin, even flaunting it before the church, all while claiming to be covered by grace.  And it says also, “- caring for themselves.” That’s the exact opposite of loving one another.  It’s self love, a selfish love.  Immorality is selfish love.  It’s taking for yourself without really caring about the other person.

Secondly, he calls them clouds without water. Verse 12, they are “Clouds without water, carried along by winds.” Clouds bring the promise of rain to a thirsty land, and Israel has an arid climate.  So a cloud that doesn’t rain is a picture of empty promises.  Our faith is founded on the promises of God. But if you are given a false promise, that means that it may sound good to you, it may sound enticing, but it’s not a promise that God will honor because it doesn’t come from him – it comes from these imposters. To give false promises is dishonoring to God, and causes men who believe them to lose faith in God.

And thirdly he says these apostates are “like autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, and uprooted.” Autumn is season when you harvest the fruit.  But Jude says these trees have no fruit. I find it interesting that so many false teachers want to emphasize the gifts of the Spirit, but they show little of the fruits of the Spirit.  Jude says they are doubly dead, uprooted.  Dead in the sense that they are without fruit and dead in that they are not rooted in the truth.  Our faith is rooted in the word of God.  When you take that away, you are spiritually dead.

And then, fourthly, he calls them “wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam.”  I can’t help but think of Eph 4:14 “As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming.”  

I think the winds of false doctrine cause these people to be driven this way and that way, to be thrown about by the devil’s deceit which instead of growing spiritually, causes them to indulge in shameful acts.  They are being driven by evil spirits to live unruly, ungodly lives.  As a surfer, I have learned that the wind is what causes waves.  But it takes consistent winds blowing over a long fetch to produce clean waves that we can actually surf.  Those waves travel hundreds of miles to reach the shore in long, clean, orderly lines.  But a northeast wind produces a short, choppy wave that doesn’t break consistently, it produces a washing machine affect that is impossible to surf, and it churns up  a lot of sea foam that washes up on the beach, which is usually pretty nasty stuff. I can imagine that this northeaster effect is what Jude is referring to, waves that have no pattern, that aren’t consistent, that aren’t orderly, and are unproductive.  That’s an analogy of false teaching that is all over the place theologically, does not have any depth to it, and doesn’t produce sound doctrine, but instead lustful, shameful living.

And then a final picture of apostate teachers is in verse 13. They are like “wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.”  Most commentators think that this reference to wandering stars is speaking of falling stars, or shooting stars.  They are not part of any constellation, and actually, are not stars at all, but asteroids that blaze across the sky and then fizzle out. And that may be what Jude is talking about. 

But I happen to think that this may be a reference to fallen angels.  Angels are often related to stars in the Bible. In Job we read that God asked Satan where he had come from.  And Satan answered, “From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it.”  To me, that sounds a lot like wandering around.  The fallen angels lost their place in heaven, they lost the position that they were designed for, and they lost their relationship with God.  And as a result of their disobedience, they are destined for the Lake of Fire.  It’s interesting that hell is described in the Bible as a place of fire, and yet a place of thick darkness at the same time.

So I think that as John said, we must test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  These false prophets are going to suffer the same fate as the evil spirits who drive them, who inform them, and who empower them.  Even now they are out of their proper place, they have lost their relationship with God, they have rebelled against the authority of God, and they work against the kingdom of God.

Jude gives one final illustration, and with this we will conclude our sermon today. He says in vs 14,” [It was] also about these men [that] Enoch, [in] the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” 

Theologians tell us that the quotation here is not a biblical quotation, but from a text called 1 Enoch.  Jude was possibly referring to a book that was known to the church, but was not a part of the biblical canon, in order to provide an illustration.  The character is Enoch, whom we know from the scripture which reads.  “Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him.” That’s about all we know of Enoch.  But I’m not so sure that Jude quotes from this other book or not, but I am sure that the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this quote from Enoch.  So I lean towards the Holy Spirit being the source of this quote, and not this historical book of Enoch which contains some truth and some fanciful information, and which was not accepted as a part of our Bible.  

So using this quote of Enoch, Jude wants us to see that God executes judgement against the ungodly.  No less than four times Enoch says “ungodly.”  The people are ungodly, their behavior is ungodly, and their ungodliness is carried out in ungodly ways. Most importantly, the ungodly have spoken against God.  They counter God’s word.  They defy God’s word. And as such the Lord will execute judgement against them.  But in bringing up Enoch, we are also given a positive example of a godly man living in an ungodly world.  It is possible to live a godly life in an ungodly world. And as we see in the case of the life of Enoch,  God will reward that behavior as certainly as He will judge ungodly behavior. 

Jude concludes this section with a short summary which tells us how to recognize the difference between the true teachers like Enoch, and the false teachers who are destined for destruction. He says, “These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their [own] lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of [gaining an] advantage.”  That’s a pretty succinct description of false teachers.  They find fault with God’s word,  they are obsessed with the lusts of the flesh, sexual and otherwise, and the speak arrogantly, claiming to know the truth, claiming to have special insight from God that counters what God has already spoken, and finally they flatter people for the sake of gaining advantage, whether that be by money or popularity, or fame. They are prophets for hire, tickling the ears of their listeners to draw people after them.

Well, this is not a pleasant subject to have to consider this morning.  But it is the urgent message of the Holy Spirit, that we need to contend for the faith which is under attack from these apostate, false prophets who have crept into the church unawares.  By the examples given here, we ought to be able to expose those false prophets, and help ourselves and others to be more discerning, that we might be able to be sure we are of the truth, and that we worship God in truth. We must contend for the truth, so that the gospel is not watered down as to be ineffective, and people are not saved, and end up being deceived.  We can be sure that God will bring those false prophets to judgment in the last day.  But in this present hour, let us be discerning, able to distinguish between truth and error, and contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:24-25 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,  to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, [be] glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.