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Part Two: Judgment is coming

© 2025 by C. O. Bishop

Jude 8-13

Introduction:

Last week we began exploring the book of Jude. We only got through the first seven verses. Jude exhorted the true believers to contend for the faith. Why? Specifically because he said there were certain false teachers who had infiltrated the church. Jude listed examples of Old Testament groups God judged for their behavior, connected with unbelief and deliberate disobedience.

Some were believers: Humans, who initially embraced God’s Promise. But they ultimately rejected His command to enter the promised land, and they denied the validity of His promise. They looked at “current events and circumstances,” and chose to reject the promise. So, He denied them the privilege of receiving His promise, and gave it to their children instead.

Some fallen angels, chose to “Go one step further:” They interbred with humans, according to Genesis 6:1-5. God judged these Angels uniquely: Unlike the rest of the fallen angels, their judgment has already fallen. They are in eternal chains, in darkness, awaiting final judgment in the lake of fire.

Some were unbelieving humans: who flagrantly despised both the truth of God, and His holiness. God destroyed them for their immorality and violence.

Jude goes on to describe the “current crop of false brethren.” He said, these likewise “defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Beginning A List of Examples

⁸ Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Once again, this is nothing new. Romans 1:21-32 describes the pattern of behavior and the continual deterioration of morality and faith, within the Human Race. The pattern hasn’t changed. Humans still follow this pattern! We wallow in our sin, and we proudly say things like, “Ain’t nobody tells me what to do!” I knew, a man, supposedly a believer, who told me those exact words. He angrily declared himself to be the only authority in his life.

People feel free to excuse or deny their own sins, saying they are just following their heart: they say, “God made me this way!”

Additionally, and even more common: We humans (including believers) feel pretty free to slander politicians we don’t like, as well as other people in authority. We make skits on television mocking the leaders of our country. We have zero respect for the office they hold, let alone the person in question.

Unbelievers even go so far as to mock the Lord himself. They mock His Word with impunity, and make gross allegations against Him, sometimes very publicly. They write books and movies depicting Jesus as a grossly sinful hypocrite.

Jude included examples from outside the Bible as well as from within scritpture.

Extra-biblical Examples

⁹ Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

This is a peculiar comment…it stands alone in scripture. There is no other reference to this event. All we know for certain about the body of Moses (other than this snippet) is that GOD buried the body of Moses, and no one has ever known where.

This quote is actually from an apocryphal text, claiming an argument regarding the burial of Moses’s body. The original text has no authority. Jude used it as an example of how we should treat high rank with respect. The military practices the same concept: The concept is, “we salute the rank, not the man.”

And, that is pretty much all we can use it for. We recognize and respect the authority of the badge, for example, even when the person wearing it is acting in an unrespectable manner.

But regarding this specific Biblical incident, please read Deuteronomy 34:5, 6. God says that He buried Moses’s body, and that no human knows where it is. Make of it what you will.

This is not a unique occurrence in scripture. Writers cited extrabiblical sources to support an argument in several other places. Paul did so in Acts 17:28 as well as in Titus 1:12.  We may be uncomfortable with that fact, but it remains a fact. (Jude does it again in verse 17.)

More Examples

¹⁰ But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Jude says, effectively, that these people are acting as though they are animals, without a consciousness of right or wrong: Without an awareness of a sovereign God’s authority over them. I once witnessed a male robin, fighting his own reflection in a shiny hubcap. It was funny to watch, but that bird was not playing. He was attacking something he could not understand.

Jude says, these people speak evil of things they know nothing about. People have defiantly declared to me that “The Bible is nothing but fairytales!”  I said, “You have not read it at all, so you don’t know what you’re talking about” They were angry, but they couldn’t respond. It was true! They did NOT know. It didn’t change their thinking, but it was the end of the argument.

I remember someone telling me the same thing, years earlier: but my response was to go home thinking, “Well, then! I’ll just read that book, and then I’ll show ‘em!” I would like to hope that the man I spoke to responded in similar fashion, but, so far as I know, he did not. God’s Word affected my life, even though I read it as an unbeliever, seeking only to argue against it. But eventually, it convicted me, and brought to me to the Cross.

¹¹ Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

Jude lists three examples in one verse:

Cain tried to circumvent his own guilt as a sinner: He avoided a blood sacrifice. He failed to satisfy God, with a bloodless sacrifice. Cain attacked Abel (whom God already accepted on the basis of that blood sacrifice,) and he killed him! This has been a pattern throughout history, as well. The people of the unbelieving world, especially the unbelieving religionists, hate the believers who follow Jesus.

God says Balaam was a real prophet, a real believer. But Balaam sold out and was killed. Today we only remember Balaam for betrayed Israel, in direct disobedience to God. He ran after money and fame and power, and was destroyed with the unbelieving enemies of Israel.

Core (Old Testament spelling “Korah”) in Numbers 16:1-35, defied Moses as the appointed authority, assuming that Moses was promoting himself as the leader, when in fact, God had not only appointed him, but He had proven it over and over, in supernatural ways.

It is Insanely Bad Judgment to Usurp Authority!

It is astonishing to me that Korah and his comrades could just assume that they could “take over,” and that God would empower them in similar fashion. Moses had already predicted the supply of manna from God: He had already brought water from the rock. He had already led them through the supernaturally parted Red Sea. But somehow Korah still thought he could usurp that authority, and gain the power and position: He led more than 250 others to do the same.

The Earth opened, and it swallowed Korah and his closest comrades, so that they fell alive into Hell, along with their families and all their belongings. And all those who followed Korah (the other 250 men) died supernaturally, as fire shot out from the LORD, from within the tabernacle, and burned them up where they stood! (Wow!)

And Jude likens the false teachers in the Church to those usurpers in the Old Testament.

The Character of these False Teachers, and False Christians

¹² These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

False believers have frequently infiltrated the church. They pretend to be one of the flock. They feed with the flock, amusing themselves that we can so easily be deceived. Jude says they are like a diseased spot among us…a cancer, perhaps.

2^nd Peter 2:13 says “¹³ And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

And we are easily deceived, because we want to believe the best of people. We want to think they are true brothers and sisters in Christ. But, they think it is fun…a game, to see how they can deceive Christians.

What Other Signs of False Teachers Can We See?

Jude says they are waterless clouds: they billow and show promise of rain, but they do not deliver. They simply blow around, attrracting attention, obscuring the sun, but not bringing rain. He says they are trees whose fruit withers before it becomes edible. They produce nothing of value. Such trees produce no fruit, specifically because there is no root. They are not rooted in Christ. Their “religion” is all a product of their own works, not Him working through them.

¹³ Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Some become quite vocal and public about their stance: John says they are like “raging waves of the sea”. Waves of that sort only cause damage: Storm waves are spectacular, to be sure, and people make special trips to the coast to watch the violence of the storm-driven waves. But such watchers usually know enough to stay out of the reach of those waves, for fear of their lives. People who get up close for a “special photo” often end up as casualties.

What Happens to the People They Mislead?

People who mistakenly join movements that are not of God eventually become part of the wreckage those movements bring. Even genuine believers who become distracted by the affairs of the world often become “shipwrecked,” unable to function as believers, because they have abandoned the path that God offered them. They have become judicially blind, and they are now unable to see His light. They were unintentionally working for the enemy, just as Samson was: He was physically blinded, and enslaved by the enemy, because of his own bad decisions.

There are deceitful leaders, who claim the mantle of “religion,” but who only use the church as a political platform. They start Social Reform movements, and Political Action Committees. In some cases, the activity may turn out well, but often, it turns out there was a hidden agenda, and the founder of the movement turns out to be “not as advertised.”

They sought money, power, or fame, and often had a “secret life” that gave the lie to everything they said they believed. Unfortunately, when they are exposed, they also give “ammunition” to those who claim that “all Christians are hypocrites.” They give unbelievers cause to feel more secure in their unbelief.

We are warned to stay out of the reach of such “waves” and movements. We are commanded to follow Jesus.

What are Wandering Stars?

The phrase “wandering stars” is actually in reference to “planets.” (The Greek phrase is “asteres planetai”) They look like bright stars, but they do not maintain a reliable position in the sky, and could not (at that time) be used for celestial navigation.

Today we have reliable predictions as to where in the sky a given planet should be at any given time, so, if a person wanted to use a planet for navigation, they could do so, but with great caution. But, at that time, though the planets looked like very bright stars, they were utterly unreliable for navigation, as they kept changing their relative positions in the sky.

Don’t get your directions in life from a false teacher! They might seem to be “shining lights,” but if they do not direct you straight back to the Word of God, they are unreliable guides.

False teachers are addressed quite sternly both here and in 2^nd Peter 2. Here, it says that, because they have rejected the light of God’s Word, and because they have taught others to do so, what awaits them is the blackness of darkness forever. What a grim, terrifying statement!

So, How Do We Learn to Spot a False Teacher?

By learning God’s Truth so intimately that any divergence from His word is immediately obvious! And the only way to do that is to deliberately, consistently, feed yourself on His word: Studying, in orderto root yourself securely in His truth. Allow His Holy Spirit to speak to you through the Word. Go to Him in Prayer, seeking His face, to learn His ways.

Then, when a false teacher opens his or her mouth, your spirit will receive the warning “nudge” of the Holy Spirit, alerting you to listen very carefully: there is something wrong!

Lord Jesus, please guard our hearts and teach us to walk with You, learning Your truth, absorbing Your Word, to protect us against the enemy of our souls. Make us lights in the dark world, faithfully reflecting Your Light, in our lives.

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