There are three stories we need to get into that Jude references, to do that, I will forgo a formal introduction. What I will say to set up my message today is simply this: There is a very real and present danger that threatens Christians that has existed since Satan enticed Adam and Eve to sin in the Garden.
The same dangers that God’s people faced in the days of Noah are the same dangers Christians faced in the first century, and those same dangers are the ones we still face today. Those people who “crept in unnoticed…” that Jude warns us about, he also describes as, “hidden reefs, waterless clouds, fruitless trees, wild waves, and wandering stars…” (vv. 12-13). Paul describes these same dangerous people as “fierce wolves” (Acts 20:29) and Peter warns that such people will be among God’s people in individual local churches everywhere (2 Pet. 2:1). This was true in the Old Testament days, in the days of the New Testament period, throughout church history, and in our own day.
How are such people able to sneak in and live among Christians unnoticed? There are two ways that this can happen; the first way Warren Wiersbe suggests is due to the very nature of Satan who, “…is the “great imitator” (2 Cor. 11:13–15), and he has been hard at work ever since he deceived Eve in the Garden (Gen. 3:1–7; 2 Cor. 11:1–4). He has false Christians (Matt. 13:38; John 8:44), a false gospel (Gal. 1:6–9), and even a false righteousness (Rom. 9:30–10:4). One day, he will present to the world a false Christ (2 Thes. 2).”[1] The second way false teachers sneak in unnoticed is due to the ignorance of Christians who do not hold firmly unto the, “…faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). Jude provides us with three portraits that serve to warn us of the dangers that threaten those in the Church.
Do Not Forget God the Savior (v. 5)
Now this is a loaded verse that needs some explaining but permit me to first address the obvious. Long ago, God delivered the Hebrew people from the tyranny of slavery in Egypt. How did God deliver his people? He did it through Moses and Aaron, along with a series of supernatural and impossible to ignore plagues that everyone in Egypt witnessed and many suffered through. The last plague that forced Pharoah to finally release the Hebrew people was the infliction of death upon the firstborn son of every household whose doorpost was not marked by the blood of an unblemished lamb on the door posts of the home.
The way each family was to acquire blood from an unblemished lamb was to take the lamb into their home 14 days to dwell with them, which was long enough for the family to grow attached to the lamb. The lamb was to be killed at twilight, its blood applied to the doorposts, and the meat of the lamb fully consumed by all within the house which was marked by the blood of the lamb. God instructed them regarding the way they were to eat the lamb:
“In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 12:11–13)
This is exactly what happened, so Pharaoh agreed to let the Hebrew slaves go. God led his people by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night to the Red Sea. Pharaoh changed his mind about the Hebrew people, so he led his army to pursue them where God ultimately delivered His people once again by parting the sea long enough to cross through it and then brought the water down upon the Egyptian army and destroyed them. God promised all of the Hebrew people that he would honor the promise He made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Time and time again, the Hebrew people complained due to a lack of faith in God’s promises regardless of the ways they witnessed and experienced His power to deliver and to save. On one such occasion, twelve spies were sent into the land of Canaan to check out the land God promised them. Of the twelve spies, only two believe God’s promise while the rest of the spies convinced the rest of the people that God could not do what he promised. God judged that generation and swore that the entire generation 20 years of age and older would die in the wilderness. The Exodus, Passover, and refusal to believe God’s promise to deliver is what Jude is referring to. Psalm 95 and Numbers 14 recounts that fateful day that for Jude and the Church today serves as a reminder of the dangers of refusing to believe God; here is what He said to those who refused to believe:
“But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.” (Numbers 14:32–35)
For some, it did not matter what they had seen, experienced, and heard when it came to God’s power to deliver and to save. There are many examples of unbelief throughout Israel’s history, but it is the example of their disbelief on the boarders of the promised land that Jude reminds these Christians of. They were so close, but never entered.
Do Not Forget God the Creator (v. 6)
Jude gives us a second portrait that serves to warn of another type of evil that threatens the Church and that is the danger of forgetting that God is the Creator who established boundaries that must be honored and respected. It is a warning that serves to remind his readers that even though you have been in the presence of God, you can get to the place where what God has said, or thinks, does not matter. I believe the angels Jude is referring to are the ones we learn about in Genesis 6:1-4.
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (Genesis 6:1–4)
There are three groups of people in these verses: There are the sons of God, the daughters of man, and the Nephilim. There are also three main views that have served to explain who these three sets of people were, I will now share two that make sense to me:
- The “sons of God” are fallen angels who mascaraed as men while the daughters of men were human women. The fallen angels impregnated the women and they in turn gave birth to the infamous Nephilim who may have been very large men who were feared ferocious warriors. This has been one of the more popular views throughout Jewish and Christian history.
- Another popular view understands that the “sons of God” were kings over certain regions who were revered as gods by those they ruled over. Their attitude was that of Lamech who did as he pleased and took any woman as his wife as he wished. These kings practiced rampant polygamy by taking the “daughters of men” (common women) as their wives. The sons born to these common women were powerful princes who were regarded as, “mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
Based on what I know from the Bible, I personally do not believe angels have the capacity to procreate with humans for three simple reasons: 1. Angels are spirit beings (Heb. 1:14) and not human; 2. Angels do not share the same DNA with humans; 3. Only God has the ability to create out of nothing and He has uniquely designed men and women to ability to fill the earth with other humans.
So, what is it that the angels did that was so bad? Let me offer another hypothesis that makes the most sense to me and a scenario that is backed up with history and better fits the context of Genesis 3-6. By the time we get to Genesis 6, the culture of humankind had grown increasingly sexually promiscuous and exceedingly violent. There was little regard to the sanctity of life and God’s design for sex within the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.
When we come to Genesis 6, we are told that besides righteous Noah, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (v. 5). This is the context of Genesis 6:1-4.
Based on what I read in Jude and Genesis 6, in light of what we know about the religious practices of the ancient East and that fallen angels are capable of demonic possession of humans (see Mark 5:1-20 as an example), it is possible that the sons of God were regional kings who were so wicked that they welcomed the possession of demons they may have worshiped as gods (see Deut. 32:15-17; 1 Cor. 10:20). I suggest that, as demons possessed the regional rulers of Genesis 6, under the influence of those fallen angels, they took on a harem of women (the daughters of men). The regional kings of Genesis 6 opened themselves up to being demonized, and that fallen angles used their bodies to further pervert the sanctity of marriage as an institution created and sanctioned by God.
What is staggering about Jude’s example and Genesis 6:1-4 is that these angels had known and experienced life in the presence of God firsthand. Not only did these angels rebel against a good and holy God, but they demonstrated a hatred and total disregard for the created boundaries He created for the good of all creation, which included angels. The boundary they crossed was sexual in nature through the possession of humans in an effort to mock and pervert the human institution of marriage God designed as the Creator. What is the significance of the evil these fallen angels participated in? For starters, it escalated the devaluing of human life and perverted an institution that points to something far greater than sex.
The institution of marriage is a portrait of Christ’s relationship to the Church; the apostle Paul goes as far to say that the original design of the institution of marriage is Genesis 1:26-28 and 2:18-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (Ephesians 5:31–33).
Jude’s second warning is frightening and direct: The temptation to live as we please and to reject what God has called good is the attempt to declare autonomy from the Creator; to face the imminent danger of judgment where instead of being kept by Jesus, they may wind up being kept in utter darkness.
Do Not Forget the God Who is Holy (v. 7)
Related to his second warning, Jude’s third warning shows us how unrestrained sin and a life unchecked against the holiness of God can and will lead to a place where repentance becomes impossible. Sin always promises what it cannot deliver and leaves you wanting more of that which cannot satisfy and will only lead to death. Unlike the true Christian who is called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for and by Jesus, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached a place of unrestrained sin and perversion.
You can read about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18-19 but let me provide you with a brief summary of what happened. In Genesis 18 we are told in the very first verse: “And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.” Then in the very next verse we learn of how Abraham was approached by three men. Of the three men, one is referred to as Yahweh (see verse 13, 20, 26, and 33). The reason these men visit with Abraham is twofold: 1) To share with Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child within the next year, and 2) Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed because, “the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave…” (v. 20).[2]
So, the one Man who speaks as Yahweh stayed with Abraham (see v. 22) while the two angels who were with Him left for Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy the cities. Out of his concern for his nephew Lot who lived in the city, Abraham pleaded that if ten righteous people could be found in the city, that he spare the city. Not even ten righteous people could be found. We are then told that once word got around that Lot had two male guests in his home so every male in the city surrounded Lot’s home and demanded that the men (angels) be brought out to them. The ESV sanitizes the story a bit, so I want you to hear it from the NIV:
All the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. (Genesis 19:4–11, NIV)
The city had reached a point in their desire for sin, that there was no room for repentance and no alternative but the judgment of God. In Genesis 19:24 the inevitable happened: “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven”(Gen. 19:24). Jude’s warning is sobering, for with the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, we are reminded that not only is it possible for people to reach the place of unrestrained sin to the point when turning from such sin becomes near impossible, but a whole culture can do the same.
Conclusion
So let me point out a thread that is woven through each of the examples Jude shares. In verse five, there is something I want you to see. There is a reason that some of you have the word “Lord” in verse five and others of you see the name “Jesus” in your Bible. That is because older manuscripts that were discovered later use Jesus. The younger Greek manuscripts that use the word Lord (kurios) is not a contradiction, for both are in reference to Jesus Christ whom those who have “crept in unnoticed” deny as Master and Lord (kurios). In fact, every time kurios is used except in verse 10, it is in reference to Jesus. So, what does this mean?
What Jude does in these verses is amazing, in the Passover, he reminds his readers that it points to a greater Lamb who delivers from the tyranny and slavery of sin. Jude literally identifies the Yahweh of Exodus 12:51 with Jesus; Notice their similarities:
“And on that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their hosts.” (Exod. 12:51)
“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 5)
Now here is the thread I want you to see and then I will tie back to why Jude gives us these three examples.
- Who is our Passover Lamb? Jesus is our Passover Lamb and because He died in our place, we know that we are beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus (v. 1).
- What is marriage a portrait of? According to the apostle Paul it a picture of Christ’s relationship to the Church.
- Who is the Man that visits with Abraham and is identified as Yahweh who came to promise the seed of promise (Isaac) that would bless the nations and judge the cities of the nations like Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin? Here is a hint from John 1:14-18, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
So, what is the point? Jude’s point is simply this: Be careful, for the stakes are high if you reject Jesus as, “our only Master and Lord” (v. 4).
- If Jesus is truly Master and Lord, then you must obey what he has commanded trust that his promises are sure unlike the Hebrews who stood at the threshold of the promise of Yahweh but did not believe.
- If Jesus is truly Master and Lord, then do not presume that His mercy and grace is a license to sin against Him or that you will not be held accountable for going where He has told you not to go.
- If Jesus is truly Master and Lord who died on a cross as your Passover Lamb, and you chase after your sin with no regard of the great cost of your redemption, you will eventually reach the point where repentance becomes impossible.
The danger is real, and the stakes are high! I leave you with the words of our Savior and a warning from Hebrews that I believe will help you feel the weight of Jude 1:5-7 in conclusion:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)
“Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits. For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.” (Hebrews 6:1–8)
Let me leave you with a word of encouragement if you are struggling with sin and wondering if you have reached the point of no-return. If you are bothered by your sin, then you have not reached the point of no-return; for the evidence that the Holy Spirit dwells within you is that you are bothered by your sin (see Eph. 4:25-32), this is evidence that you belong to God. If you are a Christian, then you will not want to continue in your sin (1 John 3:1-10), but when you do sin… there is one who keeps you (Jude 1-2, 24-25; John 10:27-30).
[1] Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 446). Victor Books.
[2] The problem with this passage and one of the reasons I believe Jude uses it as his third example is how Yahweh can take the form of a man when the Bible says that he has no form and Jesus said that God is
