Three Truths Never to Forget

Jude 5-7

Main Idea: Learning from those who have rejected the Lord, Christians must continually run to and cling to the mercy of God available in Christ Jesus.

1. Remember the Danger of Unbelief (5).
   1. Do not trust in the security of a past experience.
   2. Do not doubt the power of God today.
2. Remember the Dishonor of Rebellion (6).
   1. Accept God’s plan for your life.
   2. Respect God’s power over your life.
3. Remember the Destiny of the Immoral (7).
   1. Sexual perversion can consume you.
   2. Eternal punishment can claim you.

With each passing day, it seems, our culture moves further and further away from the God revealed in the Bible. Unbelief, rebellion, and immorality (the three sins Jude highlights in vv. 5-7) characterize with greater intensity and influence our way of life. The evidence is so prevalent one hardly knows where to begin. Of course, as you would expect, the world of sex tops the charts.

Hollywood elites were giddy with praise several years ago over Brokeback Mountain, a gay-cowboy love story that shocked the sensibilities of many cultural conservatives. About the same time, Willie Nelson brought out a gay-cowboy love song he had written over twenty years ago entitled “Cowboys Are Secretly, Frequently Fond of Each Other.” More recently, pop culture is giving us more and more songs like Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl [and I Liked It]” and books like E. L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey. Same-sex marriage is now the law of the land; and to speak against it is to quickly be marked as bigoted, narrow, and intolerant. All of these developments work to subvert God’s good design for sexuality within the context of a one-man, one-woman lifelong marriage relationship.

But Hollywood isn’t the only perpetrator. The Los Angeles Times reported several years ago about “condom parties” or “glove affairs” that are being hosted by some middle schools (Hoder, “Sex Education”). At these parties students as young as twelve and thirteen years old receive gift bags with condoms, pamphlets on various sexual acts, and toy syphilis lesions.

We could look elsewhere for more examples, and our search would be unending. But the point has been made, and the evidence is clear: our culture has turned its back on God and his Word, shunned his standards, and mocked his character. And the culture is where it is today, in part, because the church is where it is. Unbelief, rebellion, and immorality run to and fro across the land and within the congregation of God’s people. So we must ask, What does God think about our current situation, and what will God do? Jude 5-7 provides the answer to these questions with three truths we ought never forget.

Remember the Danger of Unbelief

JUDE 5

Verses 5-7 flow directly from Jude’s warning in verse 4 about false teachers. Indeed, judgment opens and closes the literary unit of verses 5-16. The false teachers were marked out, designated for condemnation long ago because their sin resembles the sin of three well-known events in Old Testament history: God’s condemnation of Israel for unbelief, God’s condemnation of fallen angels for rebellion, and God’s condemnation of Sodom and Gomorrah for immorality.

Jude begins with Israel because they were God’s chosen people and because unbelief is at the heart of all sin. Jude says, “Now I want to remind you, although you came to know all these things once and for all.” This reading connects his reminder to the “faith that was delivered . . . once for all” of verse 3. These historical events are not “new news” to them anymore than the gospel was now “new news” to them. Still, in our human sinfulness we are prone to forget, to neglect lessons and truths from the past. This can be fatal, as Jude makes clear, so he sounds the call: “Remember!” Jude begins with his first of seven Old Testament references in this epistle.

Do Not Trust in the Security of a Past Experience

God saw the plight of his chosen people, and he “saved,” delivered, or rescued them out of Egypt. He sent plagues on Egypt, parted the Red Sea, destroyed Pharaoh’s army, and provided manna, quail, and water. He was their glory cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. So Israel had an amazing past, a marvelous legacy. The book of Exodus is a witness to God’s grace and salvation.

However, the issue for them and the issue for us is this: Are you trusting God today? Are you trusting God now? Not once does the Word of God tell us to look back to a past experience for our security. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves.”

Walking an aisle, praying a prayer, signing a card, going into water—these are not the avenues of assurance. Today, right now, are you looking to the cross? Are you trusting Christ? Do not trust in the security of a past experience.

Do Not Doubt the Power of God Today

Jude says “later” the Lord destroyed, wiped out, “those who did not believe.” Jude has in mind Numbers 14, when the twelve spies returned from their reconnaissance mission into the promised land. The majority report of ten said, “We can’t do this. They are giants, and we are grasshoppers.” The minority report of two (Joshua and Caleb) said, “No problem. After all, grasshoppers plus God can beat any giants!” However, the people, who had seen God do so much, now in unbelief said, “Well, he can’t do this.” The result: every person twenty years old and over died. All of them! They missed the promised land. They missed God’s best. Forgetting God’s grace and greatness, they dug their graves in the wilderness within sight of the land God had promised, saying, “God did it before, but I cannot trust him to do it again.”

Far too many in the church believe in their hearts and say with their lives, “He saved me in the past, and he’ll take me to heaven in the future, but right now I’m not so sure. I’ve got many issues: family, health, finances, ministry. Things are hard, and God is silent. If I don’t take care of things without him, then they won’t get done.”

Unbelief destroyed the Hebrew people, and unbelief in the providence and goodness of God describes the apostates in Jude. Remember the danger today of unbelief.

Remember the Dishonor of Rebellion

JUDE 6

JUDE 6 is one of the most difficult verses in the Bible to interpret. Who is Jude talking about? Who was Peter talking about in the parallel text in 2 Peter 2:4? Three views have been set forth:

1. An unknown fall of angels not recorded in Scripture
2. The original fall of Satan (typified in Isa 14 and Ezek 28)
3. The episode in Genesis 6 where fallen angels had sexual relations and cohabited with women and produced an evil race of men who brought God’s judgment on the world through the flood

In my opinion the third option is most convincing, though for many years I resisted it. Here are the reasons I changed my mind (Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, 447–51):

1. It is overwhelmingly the view of Jewish tradition.
2. A parallel passage in the apocryphal book of 1 Enoch is similar, and that passage clearly sees Genesis 6 as fallen angels cohabiting with women.
3. “Sons of God” in the Old Testament consistently refers to angelic beings (cf. Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7).
4. When angels appear in Scripture, they always appear in the male gender and can function like human persons.
5. Matthew 22:30 does not say angels do not have sexuality but that they do not marry or reproduce. Further, Jesus specifically speaks of angels “in heaven.” The Sons of God in Genesis 6 came to earth as fallen angels or demons.
6. The word “likewise” in verse 7 connects the sexual immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah with the angels of verse 6.
7. This best explains why some demons are bound and some are free. The heinous nature of their sin brought a more severe judgment in terms of time on these fallen angels.

While the interpretation of this text is obviously significant, we must not lose sight of the text’s plain meaning in terms of application. These fallen angels rejected at least two principles for life that we should learn to respect.

Accept God’s Plan for Your Life

These angels were not satisfied with God’s plan for them. They were convinced there was something better and God’s way was not the best way. First, they “did not keep their own position” (NIV, “positions of authority”). Second, they “abandoned their proper dwelling.” Their place and position in God’s plan was not enough. They wanted something more, a different position of prominence, a better place of activity. This sounds much like many ministers of the gospel today. Through self-deception men—like these angels—rationalize their lust for position, power, prestige, and possessions. With an inflated sense of self-worth and importance, they cannot trust in the providence of God and rest in his plan.

Respect God’s Power over You

Not content with heaven, these angels get hell instead. Think about what their rebellion cost them:

If revelation brings responsibility, their responsibility was greater than any. And because of God’s gracious revelation in Christ Jesus through his Spirit-inspired Scriptures, our responsibility is likewise great. God is God and we are not, and we must accept his plan for and power over our lives. As the demonic prisoners show, the Lord will receive his due respect one way or another.

Remember the Destiny of the Immoral

JUDE 7

No story impacted the people of God like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is referenced one way or another more than twenty times in the Bible. The devastation of these cities, along with Admah and Zeboiim (note “the surrounding towns”), was so horrific they stand as a perpetual reminder of God’s just condemnation of sin, especially sexual sin. Sodom and Gomorrah were known for their pride and disregard for the poor (Ezek 16:49), their arrogance, injustice, and bigotry. But their sexual perversion marked them most of all. Finally a time came when God said, “Enough!” Genesis 19 records the cataclysmic judgment as “out of the sky the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulfur from the Lord” (Gen 19:24). Jude is specific in his brief analysis of the judgment God brought.

Sexual Perversion Can Consume You

Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities acted in a manner similar to the fallen angels of verse 6. They committed sexual immorality (ekporneuo) and went after sarkos heteras. This reference to strange flesh is not the flesh of angels but the flesh of other men. Their sin was homosexuality. At this point I should make note of several things.

First, the Bible is clear in its treatment of homosexuality as sin. This is made plain in texts like Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. Second, the Bible is equally clear that any sexual activity, heterosexual or homosexual, outside the marriage covenant between a man and a woman is sin. Jesus himself said a man and woman in marriage become one flesh. Jesus was clear on the sex question. Third, those in slavery to sexual sin need to be loved, including those who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and any others. We do not hatefully bash them; we graciously speak the truth in love and reach out to them with grace, mercy, and kindness. And finally, rampant sexual sin is not the worst sin, but it is the clearest evidence of a society that has rejected God’s truth and has been given over to his judgment (Rom 1:24-28).

Eternal Punishment Can Claim You

The cities of the plains are a perpetual reminder that sin is serious to God and that God will judge it. The Bible tells us in Matthew 25:41 that hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. JUDE 6 backs this up. JUDE 7, however, affirms that unbelieving, rebellious, and immoral humans will also be there.

Hell is real, and hell is eternal. It is a place of suffering, sadness, and separation. It helps explain the necessity of the cross, and why, of the twelve times the word gehenna (hell) appears in the Bible, eleven are on the lips of Jesus. So terrible is its reality that Jesus said in Matthew 5:27-30 it would be better to enter the kingdom with only one eye or one hand than to have your whole body cast into hell.

Hell is a bad place. Eternity is a long time. The unbelieving, rebellious, and immoral will unfortunately find their destiny in this place.

Conclusion

Let me close on a positive note; it is found in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. If any New Testament city approached the wickedness and immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was Corinth. Idolatry, greed, pagan philosophy, and immorality filled the air. But Paul brought the gospel, determining “to know nothing among [them] except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). What was the result of his witness? Paul wrote the following later in his letter:

Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11)

Yes, God will condemn unbelievers, the rebellious, and the immoral. But he will also forgive them gladly if they are washed in the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Where do you see the increasing influence of unbelief, rebellion, and immorality in our culture? How can these attitudes creep into the church?
2. Why does Jude seem so preoccupied with judgment? How does it fit into the epistle?
3. Why do you think people tend to find assurance in past experiences? How can this be deceptive?
4. How would you help someone know what it means to examine themselves, to see if they are in the faith (cf. 1 Cor 13:5)?
5. Why do you think it’s so hard to trust God in the present and so easy to look forward to what God might do in the future?
6. Explain JUDE 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 in your own words. Why does Jude allude to this story?
7. Are you content with and confident that God knows what he is doing in your life? Or is your heart gripped by a spirit of rebellion, especially if you suspect what God has for you is not what you want for yourself?
8. Make a list of what Adam and Eve gave up and what they got in return for their own sin. What do you sacrifice when you go after sin?
9. How does sexual perversion consume us? How can we seek to be loving when confronting others who engage in sexual sin?
10. Why do you think Jesus spoke about hell so much? How should Christians speak about the doctrine of hell in a biblically faithful way? in a loving and compassionate way?