“These men are dangerous reefs at your love feasts, feasting without reverence, feeding only themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit – twice dead, uprooted; wild sea waves, spewing out the foam of their shame; wayward stars for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness have been reserved.

“Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, even prophesied of them, saying, “Look! The Lord is coming with thousands and thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict every person of all their thoroughly ungodly deeds that they have committed, and of all the harsh words that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These people are grumblers and fault-finders who go wherever their desires lead them, and they give bombastic speeches, enchanting folks for their own gain.” Jude 1:12-16 

The above is a severe description of apostates, those who have departed from the faith and now sit in a position of destruction within the church of Christ. Verse 13 makes clear that these folks are bound for hell. Contrary to popular belief, the Bible and Jesus in particular teach a great deal about hell. Those who prefer to think of Jesus as spouting flowery words of love and grace fail to realize that the loving Savior had more to say about hell than any other person in the Bible (Matthew 5:22, 30; Mt 7:19; Mt 8:12; Mark 9:43-45). Jesus described hell as a constantly burning fire of eternal torment and also as a place of isolation in darkness, where one experiences tormenting remorse. The New Testament teaches the reality of hell, and Jesus emphasized it more than any other teacher therein.

Hell is a reality. It is a place of torment, isolation, darkness, and remorse. The hottest part of hell is reserved for those who knew the most and rejected it (Hebrews 10:29). It would have been better if those who rejected the truth had never known it. That is the case with an apostate who knows the truth of God but willfully turns away from it. Apostasy is the most serious of all sins, and the severest punishment is reserved for it.

Apostasy fills me with mixed emotions; anger at the apostate, but anguish for the godless eternity that he will experience. Imagine going to church year after year and never coming to know Jesus Christ? Consider studying the Bible, even going to Bible college or seminary, yet turning into a false teacher? To come so close to the truth to live in torment for eternity is a sobering thought!

Apostate false teachers received an extra dose of condemnation from Jude as he described them in extremely vivid and negative language. I’m not a Greek scholar, but my friends who are tell me that Jude used extremely intense language in this passage. He understood the terrible future of an apostate. It must have made him very sad to contemplate it and to use these powerful metaphors to describe these deceived human beings.

Commentator S. Maxwell Coder said, "one is reminded by way of contrast with the Lord whom these men deny. He is the Rock of our salvation; they are hidden rocks threatening shipwreck to the faith. He comes with clouds to refresh His people forever; these are clouds which do not even bring temporary blessing. He is a tree of life; these are trees of death. He leads beside still waters; these are like the restless, troubled sea. He is the bright and morning Star heralding the coming day; these are wandering stars presaging a night of eternal darkness" (Jude: The Acts of the Apostates [Chicago: Moody Press, 1958] p. 76).

The major danger here was that all this was happening in the love feast. In the early church, the love feast was an exciting part of church life, bringing together the rich and the poor, the two dominant economic classes of the ancient world. The love feast allowed the rich to share what they possessed with the poor. It was held on the Lord's day, prior to sharing in communion. Everyone brought what they could afford and tangibly shared with others as a demonstration of their love. The New Testament shows us an example of its abuse in the church at Corinth. The Corinthian love feasts had deteriorated into a banquet of confusion marred with gluttony, drunkenness, and division. Some of the Corinthians would hoard their food rather than share it with others who had nothing at all (1Corinthians 11:17-22). In doing so, the church had destroyed the meaning of the love feast. Jude blamed the "hidden reefs," the apostate false teachers who twisted the love feast to their own ends. What should have been a time of choice fellowship, wicked men used to provoke immorality. The feast served as a cloak as they gratified their own lusts. With increasing abuse, it wasn't long until the practice of the love feast in the early church was totally abandoned.

Apostate false teachers have no sense of conviction, thus their conduct damages everybody else. They came to the love feasts for selfish purposes, often presenting themselves as pastors (shepherds of the flock). False shepherds make sure that they have everything they need; they care nothing about anybody else. There are many false teachers in this world who only shepherd themselves. They attempt to destroy the church by disrupting its morality and fellowship as they seek to gratify their own lusts.

Having experienced a pastor of this type, I can say from personal experience that apostates are truly waterless clouds. Clouds bring promise of rain in most parts of the world; in drought-stricken areas people depend on the rain that clouds bring. Jude compared apostate teachers to clouds without rain. Apostates profess to have answers, but they had absolutely nothing to offer. How many people have you met who go to a church where they receive no nourishment? The ministers of such churches can be like clouds without rain: it may look like something good is going to come, but it never does. People may think they're getting something of value--but they're not!

When autumn trees lose their leaves, they appear barren and dry. Similarly, apostates are devoid of spiritual life, unproductive and useless. They will be uprooted (Matthew 15:13), cut down (Luke 13:6-9)

The sea is a frequent metaphor in the Bible as a symbol of those who don't know God (Isaiah 57:20-21). Have you ever seen polluted water leave scum on the shore? As the waves of false prophecy roll in, one after another, they pile up the scum of their shameful deeds against God, and His Son, His truth, and His people. The scum is the expression of their religious prostitution.

Shooting stars fascinate me, but Jude likened apostate false teachers to the meteors that appear as stars transversing space. True stars don't wander like shooting stars; they move in an orderly progression and appear to shine continuously. Hence, the Bible refers to God's people as stars that will shine forever (Daniel 12:3). In contrast, false teachers make a big flash and then burn out, coming and going like shooting stars.

There are a lot of them flashing around today, but the ones that we see now are different than the ones we saw 10 years ago. False teachers appear for a little while, flashing erratically and rebelliously across man's sky just long enough to attract many who vanish with them into eternal darkness. Their destiny is the most intense, indescribable hell imaginable.

False teachers who say that God is something other than He revealed Himself to be, that Jesus Christ is not deity, that He was not born of a virgin, that the Bible is not the Word of God, that salvation is by works rather than grace--those are the individuals that Jude described. They are among the many apostates whom masquerade as Christians, but who have rejected the truth.

Taking the warnings of Jude to heart acts as preventative medicine, which is a lot better than trying to pick up the pieces after the damage is done. If you know somebody who knows the truth of Jesus Christ and is rejecting it, you better clarify what God has to say about apostasy. God will someday uproot apostate false teachers who have crept into the church with their empty promises and fruitless deeds, and cast them into outer darkness.

Billy Graham used to have a ministry partner in his early days who became a well-known atheist and wrote extensively against some of Billy Graham’s teachings. A friend of mine tells me that his ordination papers were signed by the pastor of a large Baptist Church who now denies the deity of Christ. As a professor at a large secular university, this man does everything he can to turn young people away from Christianity.

These men are apostates, the subject of Jude’s letter to the churches of Asia Minor. Apostasy is as common as it is terrible an God makes clear from Scripture that He condemns apostasy (Deuteronomy 32:15, 19; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Isaiah 1:28; Jeremiah 17:5; Ezekiel 18:24-26, 33:12-18; John 6:66, 15:6; Hebrews 6:4-6).

The evil of apostasy is compounded when a person is also a false teacher. There are a lot of people who have walked away from the truth. While tragic it is less damaging than propagating Satan’s lies (2Peter 2:1-3). God is going to judge false teachers. Nowhere in Scripture is there a more graphic description of apostasy than in Jude. The statements Jude fired out in verses 8-11 come without much background, because his readers already knew the background, allowing Jude to focus on the conduct, company, character and condemnation of the apostates.

Jude showed his readers that apostasy is nothing new; it's as old as the disobedience of the children of Israel in the wilderness (v. 5), the sin of the fallen angels (v. 6), and the immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah (v. 7). God has always judged apostasy and will continue to do so. From those three case histories, Jude applies God's attitude of judgment to present apostates.

“Yet these men, as a result of their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult the glorious ones. But even when Michael the archangel was arguing with the devil and debating with him concerning Moses’ body, he did not dare to bring a slanderous judgment, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. Woe to them! For they have traveled down Cain’s path, and because of greed have abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error; hence, they will certainly perish in Korah’s rebellion.” Jude 1:8-11

In the past, Israel’s first generation murmured against God; He destroyed them. There were angels who corrupted their nature and left their heavenly dwelling place to cohabit with women, producing the strange beings God had to destroy in the flood. Those fallen angels were bound and will remain that way until they are judged for their gross apostasy. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah departed from the truth that they had been exposed to from Abraham and Lot and sought homosexual relations with the angels who were staying with Lot. God destroyed them.

Similarly, when an apostate reaches the inevitable end of his apostasy, he defiles the flesh as Sodom and Gomorrah did, he despises authority like the sinning angels did, and he blasphemes God as the children of Israel did. Jude said that the things that were true about apostates in the past are true even today. It's amazing to realize that apostates continue to do what they do even though they know what the Bible says about apostasy (Amos 4:11). People persist in denying the truth by walking away from God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible.

Jude further explained that apostate false teachers teach what they teach because they are delusional. They do not see the truth. They think what they see is the truth because Satan has blinded their evil minds. Jude wrote of beguiled false teachers who dream false dreams. We've all had dreams that were so vivid that we thought we were seeing reality. False teachers are like dreamers with fantasies about the truth--they propagate the lies of Satan, which they think are the truth.

False teachers are often exposed by their immorality. They may hide for a time, but they aren’t able to conceal it forever. False teachers defile the flesh because only the Holy Spirit can control the fleshly desires. A man without the Spirit of God has no lasting control over his sinful human desires, even though He may try to carry on a moral front. Any man who is a captive of Satan and a teacher of false doctrine will eventually have some kind of moral impurity in his life. It may never become visible in some cases, but it usually does. False teachers are usually involved in sexual immorality. There may be an exception--an individual that Satan keeps morally clean in order to give him credibility--but that is rare. A person is going to have a difficult time dealing with his flesh if he doesn't have the Spirit of God within him. I think the reason the Bible tells us that false teachers are immoral is that we can sometimes be fooled by these people. For example, some of the people in cults seem very nice on the surface, but remember what Jude says about them.

Commentator Maxwell Coder says, "Jude 8 supplies a key to the otherwise inexplicable fact that apostate religious leaders are often found associated with subversive organizations which seek to overthrow the authority of the United States. Not until the tide of apostasy began to rise during the twentieth century was there any serious effort to set aside the dominion of the government which our fathers established. Yet it was written nineteen hundred years ago that apostates would follow such a course" (Jude: the Acts of the Apostates [Chicago: Moody Press, 1958], p. 54).

Apostates characteristically rebel because they are agents of Satan, who himself rebels against the government, the home, the church, and every divine authority that God has ever established. They rebel against the home by advocating the abuse of sex, against the government by supporting organizations that seek to overthrow it, and against the church by denying the Word of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Jude wrote that it is terrible to speak evil of a dignified individual who holds a glorious position. Even Michael, the super-angel, didn't dare to speak a word against Satan. What kind of a fool, then, would speak a word against God?

Physically, false teachers are immoral; intellectually, they are arrogant; spiritually, they are blasphemous. They inhabit a deluded dream world, void of truth. Furthermore, Jude wrote that apostate false teachers are characterized by criticizing what they don’t understand. They are confused about the truth, so trying to communicate with them is very difficult – somewhat like trying to talk to a sleepwalker. They can’t comprehend the things they are condemning (1 Corinthians 2:14; 2 Peter 2:12). Furthermore, they are corrupted by what they do understand. Commentator Michael Greene says, "If a man persistently is blind to spiritual values, deaf to the call of God, and rates self-determination as the highest good, then a time will come when he cannot hear the call he has spurned, but is left to the mercy of the turbulent instincts to which he once turned in search of freedom. And those instincts, given free reign, are merciless. Lust, when indulged, becomes a killer" (The Second Epistle General of Peter and the General Epistle of Jude, [Grand Rapids: Michigan, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1968], p. 171).

False teachers, Jude wrote, are nothing but ignorant animals whose only goal is to fulfill their physical desires. They are oblivious to the real world of God's truth; rather, they are plugged into a dream world of fantasy that results in their physical defilement. Their gospel is the gospel of the flesh.

Proverbial wisdom is that you can usually evaluate the quality of a person by the company he keeps. Birds of a feather flock together. Cain depicts the arrogance and false religion of apostates, Balaam depicts their greed and seductiveness, and Korah depicts their open rebellion in blaspheming God. Apostasy is a progression that leads with increasing pull toward hell.

God told Cain and his family what kind of sacrificial offering He required. Cain’s offering of vegetables showed that he didn't care about what God wanted. Although Cain knew that God wanted a blood sacrifice, he chose to reject that truth. Shortly thereafter he killed his brother. Evil behavior often accompanies false doctrine.

Like Cain who rejected God's requirement of a blood sacrifice, theological liberals today deny that the death of Christ was a substitutionary atonement for sin. They believe that Jesus was merely a martyr who gave His life for a cause as an example to follow. The musical Jesus Christ Superstar followed that reasoning.

Balaam (Numbers 22-25) is probably the only person in history who ever had his jackass rebuke him. When you've got to get your instructions from a donkey, you must be in trouble! The children of Israel were going to take over the land of Canaan. Balak, the king of Moab, didn't like that, so he hired Balaam, a prophet, to curse Israel. Balaam wasn't too sure he wanted to do that, for he had some fear of God in his soul. Since he was unable to put a curse on Israel, and desired Balak's money, Balaam persuaded the women of Moab and Midian to seduce the Israelites to commit idolatry and immorality (Numbers 31:16; Revelation 2:14). He might have believed that God would punish them, and that therefore Balak's purpose would be realized – or at least the invasion delayed. Unfortunately, the plan worked. When the interaction of the Israelites with the women of Moab and Midian threatened to weaken the nation of Israel, God brought punishment upon His people. Balak got his way, but God also punished those who had seduced His people.

Apostates are prophets for hire--open to the highest bidder. Most often they're in the ministry for financial profit. There are many spiritual leaders who constantly ask people to send money to their needy ministries. Some of them get wealthy as a result.

Whereas Cain ignored the God's command, and Balaam sought to circumvent it, Korah blatantly rebelled against it. Korah, a cousin of Moses, resented his exclusion from being a priest and envied Moses as God's mediator. Abiram, Dathan, and 250 others agreed with Korah and joined in his rebellion. According to Numbers 16:3, they believed that the entire congregation was holy and could enter into God's presence without having a mediating priesthood. As a result of that rebellion, God opened the ground so that the three leaders with all that belonged to them were swallowed up. He consumed their 250 followers with fire.

Korah was a classic example of somebody who doesn't think that sinful man needs a Savior to serve as a Mediator between himself and a holy God. He claims that all men are the sons of God and have access to Him apart from Christ. That false view asserts that Jesus didn't have to open the way of access, because God accepts everybody. They think that He is too "loving" to send anyone to hell. If there is such a thing as sin, they are sure that God is only too glad to overlook it.

God clearly showed His great displeasure with those ideas. Apostates who claim that they need no Savior may not be judged as immediately as Korah was, but God's judgment will certainly catch up with them.

Do you identify with those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who obey the Word of God? Or, do you identify with the apostates? Are you one who has heard the truth, but is going in the way of Cain, running greedily like Balaam for reward, and ready to perish in rebellion like Korah? I hope you are among those people of God who hear and obey the Word of God, and who love the Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting His blood sacrifice on our behalf. If you know the truth and have not responded to it by giving your life to Jesus Christ, then you are a potential apostate. That would be tragic!

As the end times come nearer, we will see the signs, one of which is an increase in apostasy. Jude wanted his readers to remember previous apostolic teachings on apostasy as well as to remember the fate of Israel, the angels and Sodom and Gomorrah. He had explained the characteristics of apostasy. He had strong historical examples to draw from.

“Now I desire to remind you (even though you have been fully informed of these facts  once for all) that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who did not believe.”  Jude 5

God delivered Israel from the land of Egypt by a series of miracles, freeing them from Pharaoh's hand. The young nation entered into the wilderness, having passed through the midst of the Red Sea; its waters had rolled back and then closed upon Pharaoh's army. On the way to the Promised Land, they were granted the law of God at the foot of Mt. Sinai. However, in the process of their journey, Israel turned their backs on God, becoming apostates. Therefore, God let them wander in the wilderness for 40 years until the older generation had died off so that they would not enter the Promised Land.

The churches of Asia Minor were majority Gentile churches, but they had interacted with Jewish Christians. When anyone wanted to talk about the history of the Israelites, they always included the deliverance from Egypt, which was the great account of God's redemptive love. Jude reminded his readers that God had miraculously delivered the Israelites and He destroyed some for apostasy.

In Numbers 13--14. God's mighty hand had delivered Israel and guided them safely across the desert to the borders of Canaan. At the door to Canaan at Kadesh-barnea, spies were sent out to spy the land before the final invasion was to take place. Ten came back and gave said there were giants in the land that could not be defeated, but two of them, Joshua and Caleb, came back and said, "They will be no problem; God's on our side. Let's go."

Unfortunately, the people believed the negative reports, so God condemned an entire generation from age 20 up, except Joshua and Caleb, to die without seeing the Promised Land. What an illustration! The Israelites had been delivered by miracles and set free from the land of Egypt to enter into the land that God had prepared for them in Canaan. They died in the wilderness and never entered the Promised Land because of unbelief. Jude showed that God deals sternly with those who turn their backs on what they know is true. They had every reason to believe God, for He had proven Himself time and again.

An apostate is somebody who knows the truth. Maybe he has been to church, or even read the Bible. He may know the gospel but never mixes that information with faith. The fact that God destroyed apostates shows how much He hates apostasy. It's inconceivable to me that somebody could know everything there was to know about Christianity and then reject it. Nevertheless, the New Testament lists several reasons that people apostatize.

Some people become apostates because they're not willing to pay the price. They know what it means to be a Christian, but they're not willing be counted for Christ.

False teachers also cause people to apostatize. One of Satan's strategies is to confuse a person who is on the verge of making a decision for Christ with false doctrine.

Some people can't handle temptation. They get to the place where they receive the gospel intellectually, but then Satan showers them with temptation and draws them away by their lusts. (Ephesians 2:2-3)

Worldliness makes apostates (2 Timothy 4:10).  Some people become apostates and step outside of God's grace and into His wrath simply because they neglect to make a decision (Hebrews 2:3).  There are other people who turn away because they harden their hearts as the Israelites did in the wilderness (Hebrews. 3:7-19).

Religion can be like a vaccination people often get to inoculate themselves against the real disease. Some people have just enough religion to immunize themselves from a full commitment to true religion (Hebrews 6:4-5). Although their involvement in Christianity has been external, it's usually enough to pacify them.

All of those elements are factors leading to apostasy. The Israelites fell to apostasy and God destroyed them. If you know the gospel of Jesus Christ and you turn your back without giving your heart to Him, then you are an apostate. There’s no evidence God has changed His attitude toward apostasy.

“You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept in eternal chains in utter  darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day.” Jude 6

Verse 6 is hard for people to grasp.  Unlike the Israelites who left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness, and died there because of their unbelief, the angels weren't wanderers. They had their own domain and their own habitation. At one time, they were in heaven with God Himself, but they turned their back on all of that and were banished.

There are people who get exercised because some people are going to hell. The fact of the matter is, if people don't want Jesus Christ, they choose to go to hell. There were angels in heaven, but they chose to leave and wound up in hell. That's essentially the same choice that a man makes. God isn't going to force a man to go to heaven who doesn't want to be there. He didn't force angels to stay when they didn't want to be there. They wanted more than they thought heaven could offer, so they joined in the prideful rebellion of Satan and were thrown out.

The angels left the habitation in heaven that God had designed for them. Having deliberately turned away from that which was consistent with their nature, the angels became apostates by also turning their backs on the place that God had assigned to them.

“So also Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire in a way similar to these angels, are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire.” Jude 7

We don’t know much about the angelic rebellion, but the verses seem to suggest that there was similarity with Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, they lived before Jesus, so how could they be apostate? Romans 1 says that every man has the knowledge of God and is without excuse. There's no reason to believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were ignorant. They rejected the truth and gave themselves over to indulging in a gross kind of sexual evil (Gr. ekporneuo) and in going after strange flesh (Genesis 19)  The sin of the Sodomites was that they lusted after a different kind of being: When two angelic visitors came to visit Sodom and ultimately rescue Lot, the Sodomites tried to engage in homosexual activity with them. For that reason, God judged Sodom and Gomorrah and their sister cities by wiping them off the face of the earth.

God has set before us in Jude three great historic illustrations of unbelief and apostasy. God hasn't changed--His reaction to apostasy today is the same as it's always been. God was severe in what He did to Israel, the angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

God is now dealing with apostasy more seriously than He ever has, because it is a rejection of Jesus Christ--the epitome of evil. There is nothing that ever happened in the Old Testament to compare with the severity of judgment for rejecting the revelation of Jesus Christ. God is no respecter of persons. He didn't respect His own people who were unbelieving; He destroyed them. He didn't respect His own angels who were apostate; He incarcerated them. He didn't respect the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah who knew the truth; He wiped them out. He will not respect anyone who refuses Jesus Christ (1Corinthians 16:22).

If we learn anything from Jude 5-7, it is that God hates sin and deals seriously with it. No doubt you have heard people say that God would never punish anyone because He is a God of love. Have you ever asked anyone who has said that if the God they are talking about is the same God that has revealed Himself in the Bible? You would be surprised at the people who say, "The Bible says...," but who have never read the Bible. If someone refuses to believe that God deals harshly with sin, what could you tell them about how He dealt with civilization before Noah in Genesis 6-7, with Egypt in Exodus 7-14, with Israel in Exodus 32, Numbers 14, and Jeremiah 44:2-6, with the early church in Acts 5:1-11, and with those who reject the gospel of Jesus Christ in 2Thessalonians 1:7-10? Don't be taken off guard by those who claim to know what the Bible says. Read and study it diligently for yourself so that the people you speak with might know that there are serious consequences for sin--and forgiveness in Jesus Christ.

Not so long ago, I read a debate on the Internet about the definition of apostasy. The debate had taken place some years ago and the site was no longer active, so I had no means to respond to it. However, I wanted to say that the whole issue might be dealt with simply by reading Jude’s letter because he defined apostasy in verses 3-4.

“Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you about our common salvation, I now feel compelled instead to write to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men have secretly slipped in among you – men who long ago were marked out for the condemnation I am about to describe – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Jude 3-4

Apostasy has been around since the beginning of time and can be defined as the abandonment of truth. Don’t confuse this with indifference to the Word or even doctrinal error. An apostate can acknowledge that certain doctrines are true, but fail to believe them in his heart. He can acknowledge Christ without accepting Him. On the other hand, a true Christian can fall into doctrinal error, but not become apostate. Apostates have known and accepted the written Word, but never met Christ, the Living Word. You probably know some people who match that description. Apostasy is a deliberate rejection of the truth after it is known (2 Thessalonians 2:10; Acts 8:14-14, 8-23). Like Simon the sorcerer, apostates are not Christians at all and their position in Christ is evidenced by their behavior.

Although the Greek word for apostasy (apostasia) is only used two times in the New Testament (Acts 21:21; 2 Thessalonians 2:3), the idea of apostasy appears often (for ex., John 6:66; 2 Peter 2:20-22; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 4:3). Paul warned Timothy of apostasy coming from the pulpit in the last days. There have always been false prophets and there will always be such as long as Satan is active.

Thus when people note that there seem to be an awful lot of churches denying the faith these days, we should recognize it as prophesied in Jude. Many churches today reject the inspiration of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, His literal resurrection, and/or His literal return. These are signs that the pastor and the members of his church are apostates, controlled by Satan. We can’t expect anything else from them.

Following the beautiful introduction about the believer’s eternal security in an apostate world, Jude abruptly changed his subject to the topic of apostasy. We should remember that Jude isn’t merely a human document, but is a product of divine revelation to the writer Jude. It comes from the sovereign overruling wisdom of God the Holy Spirit. Thus, Jude was inspired and led to change the topic.

Jude used the word “contend” which means "to fight for something with great strength, to strenuously defend something." As Christians, we are in a war against Satan for the purity of the faith. We have to fight to defend the faith and its purity because there are those who have crept in and are trying to destroy the faith. The word for “contend” is a present infinitive, meaning the fight continues today.

Sometimes I listen in frustration as different preachers on the radio and television present a confusing picture of what Christianity really is. There are so many who distort the Christian faith that every believer ought to desire to defend it. If we love Christ we should not tolerate any attack on the truth that He represents. We're in the midst of a battle, so we must earnestly contend for the faith from day to day with all the spiritual strength we possess.

Of course we need to define “faith”, because that is also a lost term in our day. Faith is not about churches or denominations. Those organizations differ, but the faith found within them does not. “Faith” is not describing a subjective act of religion; it's referring to the content of Christianity, the Word of God, the gospel, the whole body of doctrine that makes up God's revelation. This is what we are defending. The faith was delivered once for all time. There is nothing new to add to the faith. It was delivered to all the saints. Every cult claims new revelation from God, but there is no new revelation, because the body of truth was once for all delivered to the saints. The Christian faith is unchangeable. The Bible is complete.

Jude recognized that there were those trying to change the faith. Apostates worm their way into the church at all levels. They join seminaries (often as faculty), where they can produce apostates who ruin the churches they pastor. Apostates infiltrate local churches, teaching false doctrine. While persecution has often acted to strengthen the churches, apostasy has destroyed the church like a canker at its heart. Apostasy penetrates the very life and leadership of the church.

Apostates don’t come in announcing who they are. They’re more subtle than that. Apostates work within churches, pretending to believe while sowing lies about who Jesus Christ is. Apostasy sneaks into the church unless Christians work actively to contend for the truth. Jesus warned against it (Matthew 7:15; 16:6). Paul warned against it in letters to the Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians and some of the Asia Minor churches. Apostasy does not refer to a specific religious system or organized group. In Jude’s day apostasy hadn't become as sophisticated as it is today with the presence of so many cults. Whatever its form and level of sophistication, apostasy has always penetrated the church and corrupted its doctrine.

Jude characterized apostates as ungodly perverters of grace who deny Christ. Those qualities appear again in verse 11. Apostates lack reverence for God. They talk about Him a lot, but they have no room for Him or His word. They deny God the right to speak what He said. They might say they believe in God, but often will deny the validity of the Bible. The word “ungodly” indicates that apostates are totally without worship. According to the early church fathers, apostates can talk about God, even preach about Him from a pulpit, but they will in reality deny the true God. Their claim to be in the ministry of Jesus Christ is a deception, because their lives are marked by ungodliness.

This shows in their conduct. Apostates turn the grace of God into gross immorality. Lawlessness might be an example. A person can take the gracious forgiveness of Christ and twist it until he does what he wants without any regard for God's holy law. Such people seek God's free grace and forgiveness as a license to sin. Gnosticism comes down to us today in the attitude that Jesus had a loving attitude so we must accept everybody in the church. Jude said this was ungodly and is a characteristic of apostasy, which turns grace into the right to do whatever one desires and expects God's forgiveness.

Apostates always deny the deity of Christ, claiming He was merely a man or some lesser deity. The cults and the liberals that pervert that doctrine strike right at the core of Christianity and the character of God.  They will deny that Jesus is the absolute sovereign God of the universe. We’ve all heard it – “Jesus is divine, but not THE God.”  Apostates seek to bring Jesus down to human level in this manner. Some will go so far as to deny His deity altogether. Jesus is, for them, a mere human martyr and certainly not the Messiah. Yet the deity of Christ is the core of the Christian gospel.

Some wonder how Christians are to contend for the faith. We should support faithful pastors and teachers who honor the faith without compromise. We should give unswerving witness to the truth of the Bible in word and deed. Why should anyone believe what we say if they do not see it reproduced in your life? Don’t listen to falsehood, but defend the faith in your own life and make it possible for others to mature and defend it as well.

We do well to remember that the returning Israelites of Nehemiah’s day rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem with one hand while carrying a sword in the other, ready to fight. We can do no less in the 21^st Century church.

Yes, I am covering the same verses twice. There’s more than one lesson here and I couldn’t decide which one was the most important. Aurora

The book of Jude is probably one of the most neglected books in the Bible. I find that odd, because it’s a short book and easy to read. Conversely, it is an extremely important book. It is the only Biblical book completely devoted to discussing apostasy (departure from the faith). In the gospels, Jesus predicted that people using the title of Christian would turn their backs on the truth. Paul, Peter, and John, along with Jude and James explicitly stated or implied the reality of that apostasy. The Epistle of Jude to the churches of Asia Minor plays in important role in understanding that event and recognizing God’s attitude toward those who depart from the faith.

It must be noted that there is a current widespread denial of the Bible as God’s authoritative revelation. The Bible tells us this is a prelude to the final and terrible apostasy referred to by Jesus and the New Testament writers. The Epistle of Jude applies to our day when waves of apostasy keep rolling in higher and higher because it warns strongly against the moral and spiritual degeneracy of the professing church that departs from the truth.

As Jude began his epistle, he apparently got sidetracked from what he intended to say. He had intended this letter to be about salvation, but some news came that changed the topic. I think Jude heard about the apostasy that was beginning to affect the churches to which he was writing and so, he changed the focus of his letter.

The letter begins and ends with tremendous statements on security.

“From Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you!” Jude 1-2

The reality that is emphasized in those verses is the security of the Christian. A believer in Christ is one who has been called, beloved, kept, and blessed by God. The epistle also closes with that theme in verses 24-25. Jude surrounded his comments on apostasy with two great promises on the security of the child of God in Jesus Christ. When we see people rejecting Christianity, we sometimes fear that some Christians will be dragged away into apostasy. Jude answered resounded first to last -- "A Christian is kept by God."

Christians are called by God. That is the first great security of Christianity. Our salvation is not something we dream up on our own; it is an act of God. The Bible gives ample evidence that there is a general call to all of mankind (Matthew. 22:14; Isaiah 45:22; Isaiah 55:6; Ezekiel 33:11; Matthew 11:28; John 7:37-38; Revelation 22:17; Romans 10:17-18). This general, external call, whether given by a preacher, a prophet, or Jesus Himself, can be resisted (Luke 14:16-23). When Israel as a nation rejected God's call, God extended it to anybody who would come (Matthew 23:37; John 5:40; Acts 7:51).

Conversely, the call must be received. All people should hear and accept the call of God (Hebrews 12:25), but only some do. Those who receive that general call are then given a second call (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2, 23-24; 1 Peter 1:15). The people who respond to the second call are called the elect in the Bible because they have been chosen by God (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14). That is the efficacious, internal call that results in salvation and cannot be rejected.

God moves into a life that has accepted the general call and brings about salvation. According to the previous verse, the Father is the source of the call, and the Holy Spirit is the agency. There is also a human response. When God moves to change a life, we agree to the change (Revelation 17:14).  God chooses and calls, and we respond with faith (Romans 8:28-30).

An important note is that God does not change His mind and that, once you have responded to this second call, you are not free to change yours (Romans 11:29).

Charles Spurgeon, a famous English preacher of the 19th century, said, "The general call of the gospel is like the sheet lightning we sometimes see on a summer's evening--beautiful, grand--but whoever heard of anybody being struck by it? But the special call is the forked flash from heaven; it strikes somewhere. It is the arrow shot between the joints of the harness." When a person hears a general presentation of the gospel, he can accept it or reject it. When the Spirit of God moves in and transforms a life, the person responds to that efficacious call and becomes one of "the called." (Galatians 5:13).  The shackles of sin are broken; a person is set free when he receives the effectual, eternal call of God.

Spurgeon was once asked, "Why don't you just preach to the called, the ones who are elect?" He said, "If you will pull up everybody's shirttails so I can see if they have an E stamped on their back, I will." Only God knows if someone is called. But don't let that discourage you because in John 6:37 Jesus said, "Don't worry about whether you are called or not. If you want to come, I'll take you" (paraphrase). That's a beautiful truth that is hard to understand. I don't fully understand how my personal decision for Christ relates to His absolute divine sovereignty in the calling process. That is His problem and I leave it with Him. The paradoxes involved in predestination are not resolvable by limited human beings. God did not say "All of you that are called, please come." Instead, He said, "Anybody can come who wants to. I'll take care of how that works out in the sovereign decree. Don't worry about that--just come to Me" (paraphrase).

The called are beloved. The Greek construction there is amazing! Basically, it is saying that before I was ever born (before the universe was created, even) God loved me. I can’t imagine that sort of love, even as I stand in it. Herein lies the evidence for my first assertion. God loves us as much as He loves Jesus Christ, Who is a part of Himself. What can separate us from a God that loves us so much?

Absolutely nothing!

Christians are secure in the midst of apostasy. Heresy may come and go. False teachers may flood the world. Christians are secure because we are called, and whoever is called is justified and glorified. If the death of Christ could save us, then the life of Christ can surely keep us (Romans 5:10). If a dead Savior hanging on a cross could take away our sin, then imagine the power that a living One has!

Through His life we are kept, preserved like a cherished treasure (John 10:28-29; 2 Timothy 4:18). How does He do that? Through His mercy He keeps and preserves us. He takes care of our sin when we cannot stand against it. He gives us peace in the midst of doubt. If we seem to stop loving Him, He loves us all the more. Whatever we lack, He gives to us. We are secure in Christ because God makes us so. 

There is no doubt that a fearful apostasy is upon the church that grows worse every year.  Someday Satan's demons are going to flourish in the world and false teachers are going to load the churches with apostates denying the truth (2 Peter. 2:1). Therefore, we need to contend for the faith. We have nothing to fear as we are the called, the beloved, the kept, and the blessed. When the day comes that we all go to meet with Jesus Christ, every true believer will be there. God Himself will welcome us with arms wide open.

“From Jude,a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James,to those who are called, wrapped in the love of God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you!” Jude 1-2

I like how humble the early churchmen were. Jude identified himself as the brother of James and a servant/slave of Jesus Christ. He did not take advantage of the position of being Jesus’ brother. Of course, those of us who have read the Gospels know that the brothers of Jesus didn’t have a close relationship with our Lord in His lifetime, so their relationship with Him should bear no greater weight with us than Peter’s or Paul’s.

Regardless, it is a greater honor, I think, to be a faithful servant of Jesus Christ than to be His blood kin. Many of His physical ancestors perished from infidelity and stubbornness. By identifying himself as a mere slave of Christ, Jude established his bona fides. The apostles were servants before they were apostles and they remained servants even in their positions of leadership. They did not need pretensions to be ministers of Christ. The man who wrote this letter knew his place well in the kingdom of God.

As a Christian, he wrote to Christians – those who were “wrapped in the love” of God and set aside for Jesus’ work. As such, they were not sanctified by anything they had done, but because God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) had reached out to them. We humans know only corruption and pollution, but God sanctifies and renovates us through His grace. We would perish in our sins but for what He has done for us.

Having established to whom the letter was written and by whom, Jude presented an apostolic benediction similar to the ones Paul usually offered. From God’s mercy, peace and love flows all our real enjoyment in life and our hope of a better future. The mercy of God is the fountain of all we hope for, which is mercy for the miserable and guilty. Peace comes from the sense that we have obtained mercy by our reconciliation with God thorugh Jesus Christ. Having peace with God engenders love within us both toward God, for ourselves and for our fellow man.

“Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to youabout our common salvation, I now feel compelledinstead to write to encourageyou to contend earnestlyfor the faiththat was once for allentrusted to the saints.” Jude 3

Jude apparently started his letter with one purpose in mind, but changed it when he learned of more pressing matters. Jude had hoped to discuss the common Christian faith, but news had come from Asia Minor suggesting that he needed to encourage his readers to protect the faith rather than just enjoy it. Paul had already written explaining the gospel. These people knew what the gospel was for they were Christians. Jude recognized that they did not need to relearn basics, but that he needed to teach them to protect those basics.

This will be the subject of my subsequent lessons.

Some might wonder why it is important to look at heresy in the 1^st Century church. It is important because the 21^st Century church is no less in danger from heresy than the churches of Jude’s day. Like Jude, we might be tempted to grow comfortable with our shared faith, but we must always be on alert that the sunflowers don’t creep into the corn, as my grandfather the farmer would have said.

Jude is an interesting letter with a fascinating history. The early Church Fathers defended it as canonical, for the most part, and it is alluded to in Clement of Rome, Shepherd of Hermas, Barnabas, and Didache. Origen had some doubts about it, but I’m not a big fan of Origen’s theology myself, so that doesn’t concern me much. It was really only later in Church history that doubt was expressed about its authenticity and these primarily revolved around the use of apocryphal material within the letter.

The Syrian canon did not include Jude until the 6^th Century, which tells us only that the letter wasn’t written to a church in Syria.

The authorship of this little letter has traditionally been ascribed to Jude, the younger half-brother of Jesus (Mark 6:3). Although the letter says nothing directly about the date, origin, or destination of the letter, it is generally thought that the book was written later than A.D. 60 and earlier than A.D. 100. This is because the content of the faith is clearly fixed (v. 3) and the congregation is comprised of second-generation Christians (v. 17). The recipients were most likely Jewish and Gentile Christians in Syria, known to have been a likely place for the kind of heresy the letter addresses.

There is no reasonable doubt that Jude, the brother of the Lord, was the author of this epistle. Dating it is a bit more difficult, but scholars who have spent time with the actual text and correlated it with history feel confident that the letter dates from around AD 65-70. Paul and Peter were dead and the ministers they left behind were scrambling to unify the churches and assure those touched by persecution and false teaching that Christianity would continue even as the apostles left the scene. It might be assumed that Jude was a part of this effort. In attempting to assure Paul’s churches that they were not abandoned, Jude might have been eager to emphasize the common elements between Paul’s Christianity and that of the other apostles. 2 Peter anticipated false teachers creeping into the churches. Jude found that they were already there. Assuming that Jude used 2 Peter—and that in some way he wanted to indicate that the present false teachers were predicted by Peter, it is curious that their denial of the second coming of Christ is not mentioned in Jude. Perhaps these false teachers did not deny the second coming of Christ, but were licentious, a character of heretic teaching during the war between Jerusalem and Rome (66-70).

There is an ‘end-times’ urgency throughout the letter, indicated in apocalyptic imagery, perhaps spawned by a sense that the Lord’s return was at hand, encouraged by  the sudden rise of false teachers who would do what they could to deceive even the elect. There is the discussion of eternal condemnation of the wicked and eternal life of the righteous, which would fit well within a period during the Jewish War.

Daniel Wallace suggested that this letter was sent to a Gentile church on the coast of Asia Minor, possibly Ephesus, where John was in residence, though Jude might not have known that yet, since John moved there c. AD 65, contemporary with this letter. Jude would have wanted to write soon after Peter’s death, but perhaps did not accomplish the task until false teachers had infiltrated the church and after the Jewish War began, but before he knew that John was in residence at Ephesus. Just as Peter used some references from Paul’s writing to strengthen his own authority with Paul’s churches, Jude may have borrowed from Peter’s letter to boost his own authority and to show continuity from one generation of Christianity to the next.

There’s nothing in the letter that suggests a place of writing. There are some external clues, however. Jude was aware of Peter’s death, which had occurred in Rome, but not, apparently, of John’s recent relocation to Ephesus. This would indicate that Jude did not write from Jerusalem, where John had previously been in residence. This doesn’t mean Jude was in Rome, just that he wasn’t in Jerusalem. However, he knew the contents of 2 Peter, indicating that he’d either been in Rome or close to it at the time of the writing or in Asia Minor, the destination of 2 Peter. That he knew that the false teachers were actually there suggests he was in Asia Minor or somewhere that had excellent communication with Asia Minor. Hegesippus’ account of Jude’s grandsons indicated they lived in or near Rome in the AD 90s. Jude was an itinerant preacher (1Corinthians 9:5) who seems to have ministered among Jews; the letter has a Jewish nature to it, but is written in good Greek. All this indicates that the letter was probably written from somewhere in Italy, perhaps Rome, where Judas was working among Jewish Christians.

There’s little question that the letter was written to Asia Minor, but that was a racially mixed area, so scholars debate whether it was a Gentile or Jewish church. The evidence is scanty. Many scholars believe that Jude was addressing Jewish Christians because of Jude’s allusions to Jewish literature and traditions. Yet Peter wrote to Asia Minor, to Pauline churches, and used many Jewish allusions. It seems likely Jude was addressing a similar audience of Pauline churches, assuring them that they had not been abandoned in the wake of Paul’s and now Peter’s deaths. We know Paul used Jewish material in the instruction of Gentile converts. There is evidence that Jude, like Peter, was writing to a Gentile Christian community.

First, the false teachers don’t appear to have any of the characteristics found in Jewish Christianity, indicating they were Gentiles. Gentiles would have found it hard to influence Jewish Christians toward heresy. Judaizers had infiltrated predominantly Gentile congregations, but there is no Biblical evidence that Gentiles infiltrated Jewish congregations. This isn’t iron-clad proof, but it does indicate that Jude was written to a predominantly Gentile audience.

Ephesus had been the hub of Paul’s activity—so much so that this is where John went to minister to pick up where Paul had left off. Consequently, if Asia Minor is the destination for this, the most strategic church here would be the one in Ephesus. From here, the letter could be easily copied and dispersed throughout the region, to as many of Paul’s churches as possible.

It is entirely possible that Jude began his letter planning to write to Ephesus to encourage the church there to continue in the faith despite the deaths of Paul and Peter. While he was writing, he learned that the false teachers Peter had warned against had infiltrated the church at Ephesus. Now he felt a strong need to urge the church to stand against these heretics. He spoke forcefully for the finalized form of the faith as found in the writings of Paul and Peter because he wanted the Ephesian church to be able to discern between authentic Christian teaching and the ungodliness of the false teachers.

Yes, Jesus loves sinners and He forgives sin, but sinners must acknowledge their sin and stop sinning.

Nothing shows this more than one of the most beloved passage of Scripture – John Chapter 8 – in which Jesus confronts the Pharisees over a woman caught in adultery. We like to think of this as a picture of perfect forgiveness, but it is also a picture of accountability. 

I always wonder what happened to the man with whom she committed adultery. Why wasn’t he standing there too? It’s not my focus in this lesson, but I do wonder.

The Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus. Why? Well, they didn’t like Him or His message. Why did they chose this particular incident? I think they expected Jesus to ask – hey, where’s the man? Jewish law held men as accountable for adultery as women. However, if he were a prominent man (and I think he was), Jesus would receive a charge of causing trouble and that could go all the way up to a capital offense in Roman law. There was also the issue that the Jews were not allowed to stone people at that time. They had to get permission from the Romans for capital punishment. They could see Jesus charged as a ring leader if He agree to this woman’s stoning. So, it could have gone either way with this.

Jesus, you notice, didn’t deal directly with her sin at that point in time. Instead, He drew attention to everyone’s sin. Who knows what He wrote in the dirt – the name of her adulterous partner perhaps, or maybe the sins of which her accusers were guilty. We all have them. He knows them. It shouldn’t surprise us if He wrote those in the dirt. We aren’t told, so it must not really matter. He suggested that those who were without sin could throw stones at her and they quickly realized that they didn’t qualify.

“Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones,until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up straight and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She replied, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.” John 8:9-11

The older ones drifted away first, because older people not only have more sins, but they also tend to be more aware of them. Eventually Jesus was left alone with this woman. He stated the obvious – those who had accused her had not continued their condemnation. The one person in the world who met Jesus’ qualifications now said “I don’t condemn you either.”

We reach the point now where many people would simply like to stop. I would suggest it is heresy to stop. You make Jesus’ message only half when you turn aside before His last statement.

“Go and from now on do not sin any more.”

Jesus knew perfectly well that this woman was guilty of adultery. She may very well have been guilty of more sins than we know. Far from ignoring her sin, Jesus confronted it by telling her that she’d won a reprieve this time, but she best obey God from now on.

What would Jesus do when faced with adulterers and other sexually immoral folks today? We know! He has already responded. He confronted sin and He made it clear that once you become aware of your sin, you must stop sinning.

One of the primary examples of this is Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. Jews in general did not like Samaritans, considering them half-breeds and sinners because they had distorted the true faith of Israel for an amalgamation of Judaism and Canaanite Baal worship. They so disliked the Samitans that most Jews bound from Judea to Gallilee would cross into Syria rather than travel through Samaria. For whatever reason, Jesus chose to travel through Samaria.

First, a Jew was talking to her. That would have been uncommon in itself. A man was also talking to her. Men did not talk to women who were not relatives in that society, just as they still do not in Middle Eastern communities today. The most interesting feature of Jesus’ request was that He asked for a drink of water, requiring that He use a cup that was ritually unclean (Samaritans were worse than Gentiles with regards to ritual uncleanness).

Jesus and the woman talk about the metaphor of the water for quite some time. I’m going to skip that. It’s a wonderful lesson and I focused on it further back in the blog, but it is not my focus at the moment.

“The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to drawwater.”Hesaid to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.”The woman replied,“I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said,‘I have no husband,’for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living withnow is not your husband. This you said truthfully!” John 4:15-18

Jesus desired to give this woman the spiritual water (salvation) of which He spoke, but He dealt with her sin first. Why? Well, the simplest answer is often the best. He needed to deal with it before she could receive salvation.

Her sin was of a sexual nature. She’d had many husbands and the man she was living with at that time was not her husband. She was, in effect, a harlot. So much for Jesus not caring about our morality! He confronted her and she tried to change the subject. Some people think Jesus allowed the change of subject, but I disagree. He simply expanded the topic. It doesn’t matter if we worship one place or another because God sees our hearts and He goes with us wherever we go, into our church or into our bedroom.

“The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews.But a time is coming – and now is here  – when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers.God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.”Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” John 4:19-26

The woman, confronted of her sin and now aware that God could see her heart wherever she was, made a statement of faith in verse 25. She knew that the Messiah was coming. Jesus admitted that He is the Messiah.

Jesus’ disciples came back at that point (they’d been gone buying food in the village) and the woman left her water jar to go tell the town about the Man who had known her innermost soul. Curious, the people of the town came to meet Jesus and asked Him to stay so that He could teach them, which He did for three days. They came to believe what He had taught them.

What would Jesus do in our world today when confronted by those who live in sexual immorality, but desire salvation? We know what Jesus did do. He confronted the sin. He didn’t ignore it. The woman He witnessed to accepted Him fully aware of His condemnation of her sin. Her statement of faith indicates that she understood that her sin as standing in her way of the living water she sought. Her boldness in approaching her fellow townspeople showed her change of heart.

All sinners are welcome at the foot of the Cross, but only those sinners who recognize that they are sinners and are willing to set aside their treasured sins to pursue a relationship with the Savior. There is no gospel given that does not acknowledge sin as a primary barrier to a relationship with God. We come to Jesus and we give our sins to Him. We do not shed our sins before we come, for only He can wash away our sins, but we must be willing to drop them at the foot of the Cross to pursue a relationship with Him.

What would Jesus say to those living out-of-wedlock today? We know because He already said! What would Jesus say to those who live in other forms of sexual immorality? We have this as an example of what He probably would say. We imperil our own souls when we think that God will simply ignore OUR sin. He has not and He will not and we must always remember that we are not in change of Him, but He of us.

Again, what would Jesus do? What would Jesus say? What did Jesus say?

“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lampstand so that those who come in can see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing concealed that will not be made known and brought to light. So listen carefully, for whoever has will be given more, but whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him.” Luke 8:16-18

I think the passage is fairly self-explanatory. Christians are said elsewhere in the Gospels to have received the Light – salvation in Jesus. Jesus said here that no one lights a lamp and then covers it up so it cannot be seen. Christians are meant to shine light into the world. We can’t do that by hiding our faith. God is most displeased with us, I believe, for hiding our faith within church walls. By this, I am not saying we shouldn’t have churches in buildings, but that the walls of the churches should not contain our faith. Moreover, we should not allow the world to continually silence us with complaints that it’s rude to tell them about what we believe. We don’t have a choice!

A friend once noted upon reading this passage that if you put a lantern under a bed, you will soon have a much bigger light than you ever intended. Careful, world, with your wishes. It might just come true. If you force Christians into hiding, as has happened in China, for example, the flame of their faith becomes much bigger.

The story is told that at one point, Chinese Christians were rounded up and shipped off to a western province with poor soil in hopes they’d starve before they infected the rest of the country with their beliefs. Guards were set to keep them in. Not only did they survive and eke a living out of the reservation land they were forced to till, but the Christians also harvested a bumper crop of conversions. The guards set to keep them from infecting the rest of the country became Christians through the witness of their inmates and then went home to the rest of China, carrying the gospel with them. Christianity today is the fastest growing religion in China.

Christianity was never meant to be a private matter. Jesus didn’t conduct His life in private. His disciples did not practice their faith in private. Christians of the first three centuries died because they refused to live in hiding and kept making more like themselves. Christians in China witnessed to the only non-Christians around – their guards. Put a light under a bed and you’ll get a bonfire.

Someone on one of the threads one day insisted that Christians violated God’s law every time we focused on church and morality rather than on helping others. “Love your neighbor is the greatest commandment,” they wrote. I tried to deal with it in a 2000-character post, but the fact is that the poster was taking Jesus’ words out of context. This is all too common. People don’t really read the Bible; they simply learn it from others. They pick those verses they think sound good – God is love – Love thy neighbor – etc., without really looking at the context themselves.

The Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus in a misspeak, but that’s really immaterial to His answer. Jesus deftly avoided the error that He was being led to by synopsizing the 10 commandments into two general statements AND quoting the Shema, Israel’s great declaration of worship before God.

“Now one of the experts in the law came and heard them debating. When he saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The expert in the law said to him, “That is true, Teacher; you are right to say that he is one, and there is no one else besides him.  And to love him with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he had answered thoughtfully, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Then no one dared any longer to question him.

Mark 12:28-34

AH-HA! See, it’s right there! Love your neighbor!

Yes, but what is the order in which Jesus put the statement? It’s important and His words make it such. The MOST IMPORTANT is verse 29-30 – Love God with all of your being!  The SECOND is to love your neighbor.

Our first priority must be to love God as fully as we were designed to love Him, which is with all of our being. We were created to have fellowship with God. That is our highest purpose. When our relationship with God is right, then and only then, can we truly love our neighbor as we should. Why? We’re not really loving ourselves if we deny ourselves the relationship for which we were designed. How can you love others if you do not love yourself? We were designed to love God and in loving Him we love ourselves.

First, we love God. Then we love our neighbor.

I would note that when Jesus remarked that His questioner was not far from the kingdom of God (in other words, close to salvation in Jesus), the other experts in the Law got scared and were afraid to question Him further.

When we understand the proper priority of relationship in God’s system, we are the happiest that we can be and the people around us benefit from that.

If we try to love our neighbor while ignoring God, then we really have nothing inside of ourselves to give. We are like Judas Iscariot, able to give to the poor, but turn on God for a price and then turn on ourselves because we have no love within us.

We must remember that God created the universe to work a certain way. While we might wish it to work differently, we are not in charge and we do not tell Him how things should work. Does it not make more sense to take our instructions for Someone with a longer view than our own?

Once more, let’s look at what Jesus would do. In this particular case, I am looking at what Jesus instructed of this disciples. The reason I am focusing on this is that I’ve seen some recent comments that Jesus wouldn’t focus on moral issues, but on feeding the poor and healing the sick. If that were the case, then why did He instruct His disciples differently?

“Jesus sent out these twelve, instructing them as follows: “Do not go to Gentile regions and do not enter any Samaritan town. Go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near!’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give. Do not take gold, silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for the journey, or an extra tunic, or sandals or staff, for the worker deserves his provisions. Whenever you enter a town or village, find out who is worthy there and stay with them until you leave. As you enter the house, give it greetings. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.  And if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your message, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that house or that town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town!” Matthew 10:5-15

Jesus instructed His apostles in a very specific way to meet His mission parameters. They were not being sent to the whole world at this point. They were being sent to Israel. As they went, they were preach a message that the kingdom is coming. As a sign of their authority given through Christ, they were to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and cast out demons. They were to be generous in helping others, but they were not to carry any sort of provisions with them, relying instead on those they ministered among. They were to select a worthy candidate to stay with and stay there until they left that town. If they were not welcomed, they were to shake the dust off their feet as they left that home or town. Those who rejected the gospel message would wish they’d lived and died in Sodom and Gomorrah rather than that they had rejected the gospel.

Some would call this arrogant behavior. The apostles were following a careful set of instructions that narrowed their mission and treated those who didn’t accept their message with intolerance. Jesus wouldn’t do that, some people contend. Yet He did. Here in the Gospel of Matthew, who was one of the 12 who received the instructions, Jesus gave very narrow and intolerant instructions.

How could a loving Savior do such a thing? Perhaps it is because Jesus does love us and therefore seeks what is best for us even when we do not agree. We have a difficult time understanding this, but in reality, we’ve been given worldly examples. How many of us have children whose desire it is to play at something dangerous and who argue with us when we tell them no. We are setting limits in love, but they don’t feel particularly loved right then.

We are finite creatures. God is infinite. We live in time and space. God lives outside of both. Because of this, He can know what is good for us in the future, while we cannot know the future. Jesus chose the limitations of time and space for a period to understand us better, but we must always remember that He was/is God Incarnate. What He did is of great significance to what we ought to do.

Jesus was not always loving and accepting. Sometimes He was intolerant (by our standards). We must recognize this and accept it as instructive to Christians in the 21^st Century.

“Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. So a report about him spread throughout Syria. Peoplebrought to him all who suffered with various illnesses and afflictions, those who had seizures,paralytics, and those possessed by demons,and he healed them. And large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis,Jerusalem,Judea, and beyond the Jordan River.” Matthew 4:23-25

A lot of people get very excited reading about the healings that Jesus did, but it’s always best not to get the cart before the horse. Verse 23 says that Jesus taught in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. As an adjunct, he healed diseases. When people heard about this, they brought their sick to Him.

Thus the picture that Jesus went about healing and feeding people puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Jesus went about teaching the gospel and the healings accompanied that.

We’re entering the Sermon on the Mount, but I’m not going to focus on the teachings. I am still focused on what would Jesus do and attempting to answer the question by looking at what Jesus actually did.

“When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain.After he sat down his disciples came to him.” Matthew 5:1

The crowds were following Jesus everywhere, seeking healing. And, here we see that He was aware of the crowds, but he did not heal their sick. Instead, He went up on the mountain and began to teach.

“WhenJesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed by his teaching, because he taught them like one who had authority,not like their experts in the law.” Matthew 7:28-29

Jesus’ teachings were so powerful that the crowd sat through them (and it was quite a long sermon) and were amazed at His authority. Jesus did not present a gospel of “maybe, if you’d like”. He presented the gospel as “this is how it is.”

“After he came down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. And a leper approached, and bowed low before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” He stretched out his hand and touched him saying, “I am willing. Be clean!” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not speak to anyone, but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering that Moses commanded, ⁷  as a testimony to them.” Matthew 8:1-4

When Jesus came down from the mountain, the crowds continued to follow Him. Here in Matthew we have one example of someone who came to be healed by Jesus. After healing the leper, Jesus did not tell him to go out and celebrate. Instead, He told the healed man to go to the priest and offer the usual cleansing rituals “as a testimony” to the priests.

What would Jesus do? What Jesus did was focus on teaching the gospel. Healing was a subsidiary activity and sometimes He chose not to do it. Perhaps this was because He could tell who was going to receive the true Healing on a spiritual level and who was going to just accept the physical healing.

How does that translate into the 21^st Century? I’ve had conversations with those in the social work field who will insist that churches could be so much more helpful to people in need if they’d just “can the gospel” and focus on the “real” needs. The problem with that advice is that Jesus didn’t follow it. Jesus focused on the gospel message first. The healings were a means to display His authority, but they were never meant to be the focus on His ministry. Churches that run ministries like feeding the hungry or visiting in the hospitals or mentoring people in jail are not doing Jesus’ work if they focus on the “rice” ministries rather than on the gospel. The physical needs are of far lesser importance than the spiritual needs of those to whom we minister. Despite the world’s assessment that we are missing the mark, we must follow Christ’s example.

What would Jesus do? When seeing a crowd that had come to Him for healing, He went up on the mountain and preaching the gospel. Only after the gospel had been attended to did He heal one person who was then instructed to go minister to others – the temple priests.

Jesus put the gospel first. We who follow Him can do no less.

I need to make a confession. I ran many of these passages by a non-Christian friend of mine before I selected them. Why? Well, I wanted to see the reaction. It was instructive.

His reaction to this one was “What does John the Baptist have to do with Jesus?”

Therein lies the problem, I suppose. Most people who do not read the Bible really don’t recognize that Jesus did not live in isolation. Yes, He was God Almighty in the flesh, but he was also John the Baptist’s cousin and John the Apostle’s best friend.

John the Baptist was a 1^st Century prophet. Like many of the earlier prophets, he was not necessarily recognized as such by the people of his day nor was his message appreciated. John was, to put it mildly, an intolerant fellow by today’s standards. He had a simple and very offensive message – “Repent or you’re going to hell. And, no, you won’t be having a nice day unless you repent.” He gave this message to one and all, from beggars on the streets to Pharisees – even to King Herod.

“In those days John the Baptist came into the wilderness of Judea proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” For he is the one about whom Isaiah the prophet had spoken: “The voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’”  Matthew 3:1-3

Baptism had become a means for showing your repentance for sin. John the Baptist was not the only one baptizing. He was baptizing those who confessed their sins in the Jordan River. John’s focus was not so much on the baptizing as on the remission of sin. Therefore, when the Pharisees and Sadduccees came to him, his response was sharp and to the point.

“But when he saw many Phariseesand Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit that proves your repentance, and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:7-10

John the Baptist was an intolerant fellow. He did not mumble sweet platitudes to the sinners who came to him. If you weren’t interested in repenting of sin, don’t bother to follow the ritual that symbolized the repentance – baptism.

““I baptize you with water, for repentance, but the one coming after me is more powerful than I am – I am not worthy  to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.” Matthew 3:11-12 

According to John, Jesus was going to be even more intolerant than he. His baptism would not be just an outward symbol of an inward hope. It would be a spiritual baptism that would sear away all sin. There were some in John’s audience who simply would not qualify for this baptism – they would be like chaff burned in the furnace.

“Then Jesus came from Galilee to John to be baptized by him in the Jordan River. But John tried to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” So Jesus replied to him, “Let it happen now, for it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John yielded to him.” Matthew 3:13-15 

Jesus knew about John the Baptist’s style and message. He knew he was an intolerant man who looked sinners in the eye and said “God hates your sin.” Yet, Jesus came to John for baptism. Why?

The Bible teaches that Jesus was without sin. Being God incarnate meant He experienced the temptations of the human flesh, but He didn’t give into them. Therefore, He was the only human ever to live without sin. He did not come to John for the remission of sins. He came to John for the symbolic ritual, showing us how we who follow Him should conduct our Christian walk.

Yet, John was not the sort of man that many think is worthy of honor in this world. If a Christian evangelist were to conduct himself in the manner of John today, he’d be painted as an evil hate-monger. He’d be called intolerant, hater … how dare he challenge people to live their lives in holiness without hypocrisy. What did he know of their inward souls anyway? John was not God. He should not have judged the Pharisees and the Sadducees, many of whom lived far cleaner lives than John and had many admirers.

In today’s world, many would insist that Jesus would have detested John the Baptist and would have called him to task for his “holier-than-thou” attitude.

Yet, here in Matthew we see Jesus coming to the sold-out sin-hating Baptist.

What would Jesus do? Who would Jesus condemn? Well, we find no sign of Him condemning John the Baptist or his message. Instead, we see Jesus embracing it. Does Jesus hate those who condemn sin more than He dislikes sin itself?

Not according to Matthew Chapter 3.

Again, we’re looking at what would Jesus do in our society today by looking at what He did do in the society of the 1^st Century. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from each example that I’m focusing on. I don’t mean to diminish the time-honored teachings here, but simply to focus on something that has contemporary weight. What would Jesus do in the 21^st Century? Christians are tasked to ask that question of ourselves and I’m sure we’re all hearing what the world thinks Jesus should do in these times.

The point is that Jesus left us a record of His attitudes and actions.

“Now after some days, when he returned to Capernaum, the news spread that he was at home. So many gathered that there was no longer any room, not even by the door, and he preached the word to them. Some people came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. When they were not able to bring him in because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Jesus. Then, after tearing it out, they lowered the stretcher the paralytic was lying on. Then Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Now some of the experts in the law were sitting there, turning these things over in their minds:  “Why does this man speak this way? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Now immediately, when Jesus realized in his spirit that they were contemplating such thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up, take your stretcher, and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” – he said to the paralytic – 2:11 “I tell you, stand up, take your stretcher, and go home.”  2:12 And immediately the man stood up, took his stretcher, and went out in front of them all. They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”  Mark 2:1-12

Most of the time, the focus on this passage is based on the faith of the disabled man or the determination of his friends or the anger of the religious elites at Jesus’ actions. One uber-conservative friend notes that the man’s friends could perhaps represent taxpayers of today who are tired of “carrying” everyone. All are good topics of discussion. I am, however, interested in “what would Jesus do?”

The man needed help and his friends were determined to get it for him. Jesus had compassion on the man. We should note that Jesus addressed the man’s spiritual needs before his physical needs.

What would Jesus do?  He forgave sin BEFORE He healed. God was always first and foremost in Jesus’ interactions. When asked to identify the greatest commandment, He said “Love God with everything you have and, then, love other people as yourself.”

Being God, Jesus understood that the man’s immortal soul was of much greater importance than his paralysis.  The paralysis would no longer be a concern when the man died, but the sin would follow him into eternity if Jesus didn’t do something about it.

The healing came more or less as an adjunct to the forgiveness.  The experts in the law accused Jesus of blaspheming. I suspect they didn’t think He could forgive sins. They couldn’t see the outcome of a statement like “your sins are forgiven”. They also likely didn’t believe that He could heal paralysis either. Jesus understood that. So, as an answer to their challenge concerning His authority to forgive the man’s sin, Jesus healed the man of his paralysis.

The important issue for me, though, comes in verses 11-12. His sins forgiven and his paralysis healed, please note that Jesus did not adopt the man as His personal rescue project. Instead, He said “take up your stretcher and go home.” He didn’t instruct the man’s friends to carry the stretcher. Obviously, they could do so, but the man didn’t need them to do so any longer. The stretcher was his responsibility. What he needed was to get up off the stretcher and acknowledge his new state in Jesus. Now that he was able, Jesus expected him to work.

We live in a society where substantial minorities of voters believe that they are disabled from working for one reason or another. In the mental health profession where I work, we have clients who will tell you they retired at 21 because they have schizophrenia. Yeah, the new meds mean they can live pretty good lives now, but no, they can’t work. They’re disabled. From the Kennedy Administration to the Clinton Administration, single low-income mothers were told they shouldn’t have to work because they needed to raise their children. We devised a system where they received more money for every child they produced out-of-wedlock. Millions just sat around watching soap operas and having sex to produce more babies with men who took no responsibility for those children. When the Contract with America was being debated, I heard some of those women screaming that they couldn’t be expected to go out to get jobs. They were disabled.

The man Jesus healed had probably not been able to work for a long time. He was paralyzed. Jesus fixed that. He immediately then indicated to the man that he had work to do.

Jesus has a great deal of compassion for the sick and disabled in this country (or any other country). Yet, we cannot find in the Scripture examples where Jesus simply gave to the poor or healed the disabled and then continued to feed and care for them. He came in the business of providing a means of salvation for all mankind. Yes, He healed people. Yes, He fed people. These were adjunct activities to the real purpose of His life – His death, burial and resurrection.

What would Jesus do?  He’d say “Now that I have aided you, pick that up and get to work.”

What does that mean in our churches as we interact with the “disabled” of our day? Yes, we must help the poor and lame, but we must not help them to remain poor and lame. We must only give them care to the point where they are able to move into caring for themselves.

This is the danger of government assistance rather than church-based assistance. Government assistance says “As long as you are unable, we will provide.” Where is the incentive to become able? Church-based assistance is more like “Here’s some help, but you should know it’s not forever, so you really do need to be able sooner rather than later.” There is the incentive for becoming able, because someone is holding you accountable to become able. You’re using their resources in the transition, but we must remember that the resources belong to the one giving, not the one receiving.

Jesus was not a liberal. He was a very intolerant guy by today’s standards. He loved the poor, the lame, the prostitutes, but He did not provide the means for them to remain in their state of inability or sin.

We will continue looking at that in the next few articles.