Jude pt 2 = Be Wise As A Serpent

Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ... I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed... But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains... As Sodom and Gomorrah... are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire... Yet Michael, the archangel, in contending with the devil when disputing about the body of Moses, did not bring against him a reviling accusation but said, "The Lord rebuke you."... Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.

How does God's grace and mercy join together with His justice? Jude answers with three sobering examples from the Old Testament.

Love and the Call to Contend

On the night He was betrayed, after washing His disciples' feet and instituting the Lord's Supper, Jesus told them, "They will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have one for another." The world should recognize the followers of Jesus by their love.

Jude echoes this in verse 2: "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you." I know I need God's mercy, peace, and love multiplied to me—but most certainly I need them multiplied through me. So do you, if you follow Jesus. Peter, at the close of his second epistle, says we are to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize how much we need to grow in grace—with those inside the church and those outside.

But then we come to passages like Jude. In the very same passage where Peter says "grow in grace," he also says to beware of those within the church who would subvert the grace of God. And Jude says we are to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Why?

Savage Wolves From Within

In his parting words to the elders of the church at Ephesus, recorded in Acts 20:29, Paul says, "For I know this, that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and also from among yourselves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves." Paul pleads: understand that after I leave, savage wolves will rise up from within you.

So how do we join these two things? "Grow in grace" and "they will know you by your love" on one side; "contend earnestly for the faith" and "beware of those who will not spare the flock" on the other. At face value they seem mutually exclusive. If mercy, peace, and love are to characterize the church, how is the church also to defend the faith and stand against ungodly false teachers?

I honestly say this is a fine line, and it is difficult. The church has tended to opt for one side or the other. At times it has grown so strict and unyielding that the grace of God is hardly seen at all. At other times it has grown so liberal with grace that anything goes, and the church looks just like the world. How do we maintain consistency on that fine line—gracious, yet recognizing the need for justice and a stance upon the holiness of God?

To this very issue, Jude presents three examples in which God—who is merciful, loving, gracious, patient, slow to anger, holding mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—is also just, by no means clearing the guilty.

First Example: Israel Destroyed in the Wilderness

Jude takes us back to Exodus. You may know the story from the Ten Commandments, The Prince of Egypt, or Christian Bale's depiction of Moses. God called Moses to tell Pharaoh, "Let my people go." Pharaoh was unyielding, and so God, in His mercy and grace, redeemed the children of Israel. But what was merciful and gracious to Israel looked like wrath and vengeance to Egypt. Two sides of the same coin: the merciful God redeemed His people, and the just God judged the Egyptians.

Yet that is not the example Jude zeroes in on. Verse 5 says, "The Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe." This is striking. God redeemed Israel by mercy and grace, brought them through the Red Sea, provided for them, gave them the law—and then, over the next forty years, every single one of that generation was destroyed in the wilderness. How can this be?

Hebrews 3 answers. "For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses?" Not a few—every single one, including Moses himself. "Now with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned?" God's anger is against sin. "And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?" Three things are charged to them: they rebelled, they sinned, and they did not obey. "So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief."

God's grace came to them first—they did not have to make themselves holy before they received it. But after receiving His grace, they did not repent. They did not turn from their old way of life, and in their unrepentance God judged them—His own people. The psalmist says in Psalm 106 that "they despised the pleasant land. They did not believe God's word... Therefore He raised up His hand in an oath against them to overthrow them in the wilderness."

God Is Gracious and Merciful, but He Is Also Just

These words are sobering—not so they make us afraid of God, but so they bring us to a proper reverence and fear of Him. God is gracious and He is merciful, but He is also just. We can never fail to remember this.

Consider Phinehas in Numbers 25. Israel had begun committing adultery and idolatry with the false gods around them, taking up a sexually immoral path. One man brought his immoral relationship right into the camp, and Phinehas, a priest, took a javelin and killed him. You look at that and wonder what is going on—yet Scripture, and Psalm 106, record that God accounted it to Phinehas as righteousness. He did a just thing before God.

Why point this out? Because Christian leaders are often reviled in the church for discipline, told, "Don't you realize you're supposed to be loving, compassionate, merciful, and gracious?" All true. Mercy and peace and love should be multiplied among us. And yet God in His very nature is the embodiment of love, peace, and mercy, and He is also just.

In Exodus 33, after Israel danced naked around the golden calf, Moses stands in awe that God had not destroyed them and asks, "Show me your glory." God says no man can see His face and live, but He will shield Moses in the cleft of the rock and let him see the glory that remains—like that grandma whose perfume lingers twenty minutes after she's gone. As God passes by in Exodus 34, He declares His name, which is synonymous with His nature: "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious... forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin"—and then, "by no means clearing the guilty." In God there is the intermixing of mercy, grace, justice, and holiness. So too in His church.

Second Example: Angels Who Left Their Domain

Verse 6: "And the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day." What is the proper domain of angels? Scripture describes them as ministering spirits, servants created to minister on God's behalf to His creation. They are not chubby figures with bows and arrows; Hebrews says we may even entertain angels unaware. Many people have told me of experiences they believe were angelic encounters.

So who are these angels who left their proper domain? There are two main interpretations. The first is that this describes the original fall of certain angels who rebelled against God, led by the one called Lucifer in Isaiah 14, whom we know as Satan. But that view seems insufficient, because Jude says these particular angels are kept in a prison awaiting future judgment.

The second view, which I admit is odd, comes from Genesis 6, where "the sons of God"—a title applied to angels throughout the Old Testament—came into the realm of humanity and took to themselves, in a twisted and immoral way, the daughters of men. More than a few people have come to me confused by Genesis 6. One interpretation is that these were angels who, by their will, left their proper estate, manifested on earth, and took human women in twisted sexual immorality. As a result, God has reserved them in chains of darkness for judgment.

Third Example: Sodom and Gomorrah

Verse 7: "As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." The story is in Genesis 19. These were five cities in what is now the desert south of Israel near the Dead Sea, but then a lush pastureland. The two chief cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, were wicked—including the sins of sexual immorality and going after strange flesh.

God sent two angels to inspect their wickedness. Just before, in Genesis 18, Abraham interceded: "Suppose there are fifty righteous people—will you spare the city?" God said He would. Abraham pressed down—forty, thirty, twenty—until God agreed to spare it for ten. Ultimately God rescued one righteous man, Lot, out of the judgment that fell. In His mercy He saved the righteous; in His justice He brought wrath upon the cities.

Some people, though they've probably never read the Bible, claim it is inconsistent—that the Old Testament God is like a punk teenager and the New Testament God finally matured and became nicer. But if you read Genesis through Malachi, you find that God's default is mercy, patience, and grace. Yet there is a time when He is just. Think of the flood, the plagues on Egypt, and the judgments on the Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrians, and Babylonians. His default is mercy, and yet there is a time for justice.

God Will Impartially Judge Unrepentant Sin

But the justice Jude describes is not justice against the world. We are not the sin police, going out to judge the world for its wickedness. The world is wicked and will always be wicked; the only thing that turns it around is the grace of God in salvation. When Jude, Paul, and Peter describe this justice, it is always within the context of sin within the church and those leading people toward sin within the church.

So point two: God will impartially judge unrepentant sin. He judged His own people brought out of Egypt; He judged angels created to be ministering servants; He judged the wicked of Sodom and Gomorrah. We tend to think God only judges the really wicked, but He would not even spare His own people for their unrepentant sin. All sin will be judged. The only way you and I escape the just judgment of a holy God is to put our faith in Christ Jesus, who bore the wrath and punishment for sin on the cross, taking our shame upon Himself, so that by faith we receive the grace of God. That is the good news.

Likewise These Dreamers

Verse 8: "Likewise also these dreamers." Who are they? We met them in verse 4—"certain men have crept in unnoticed... ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny our only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." In the same way God judged Israel, the angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah, He will judge these who defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.

First, they defile the flesh—they bring impurity into the body of Christ. This is why they are so dangerous: their character, teaching, and lifestyle infect other believers. As I said last week, the greatest danger to the church is not the wickedness outside it but the spiritual cancer that comes up from within—unnoticed until it reaches stage four, inoperable. Many local churches over the last 2,000 years have found themselves in spiritual cancer. This is exactly what Jesus, the great physician, addresses in Revelation 2 and 3, where the outside looks healthy but a cancer must be cut out.

Second, they reject authority. They despise the authority of God; they hate that He is over them and want to rule themselves. This is one of humanity's original sins—Eve saw the tree could make one wise like God, and she and Adam ate, wanting to remove God from His place of authority. The New Testament repeatedly calls us to submission—to God by submitting to the authorities He has set in place. Many honest atheists admit they don't want there to be a God because they want no moral accountability. Bertrand Russell, one of the twentieth century's greatest atheists, said essentially that: he didn't want a God because he wanted to live as he wished. This same carnality finds its way into the church and is deeply subversive.

Third, they speak evil of dignitaries—literally, they "blaspheme glory." They speak against the glory of God, just as Israel blasphemed God after their redemption, just as the fallen angels rejected His authority, just as Sodom defiled its flesh.

We Must Deal Decisively With Cancers in the Church

Point three: even while maintaining mercy and grace, we must deal decisively with these cancers in the church. That is what it means to contend earnestly for the faith. We identify them, as in verse 4 and here, by their carnality, their rebellious blasphemy, and their rejection of God's authority. This same desire not to submit must be removed within us, which is why Jesus said we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses daily, and follow Him.

In contrast to these dreamers, verse 9 gives us an example of how we ought to live: "Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when disputing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, 'The Lord rebuke you.'"

Jude refers to a concept not found in our Bibles. Scholars have speculated for years; perhaps Jude received it by divine inspiration, or, like some first-century writers, drew on a text called The Assumption of Moses, of which we have only fragments. There, when Moses died (Deuteronomy 34:5-6), a dispute arose over his body—a great angelic struggle between Michael and the devil. Why the devil would want Moses' body, I have no idea. But the point is not the details. The point is that these dreamers blaspheme glory, whereas Michael would not even blaspheme the blasphemer. Instead he said, "The Lord rebuke you."

Church Discipline Under God's Authority

Michael is presented as one who understands authority and sets himself under it. He did not say, "I rebuke you, devil"; he said, "The Lord rebuke you"—God in heaven is the authority, not me. And apparently that was effective.

Point four: decisive church discipline is always executed in God's authority and not ours. There is a time—perhaps a rare time—when church discipline is necessary, when someone must be removed from the church because they are defiling the body, rejecting God's authority, and speaking evil of His glory. This is commonly called excommunication. When it happens, churches are often called unmerciful and unloving. Yet it is merciful for a surgeon to do what seems destructive and painful in removing a cancer. But this discipline is never done because we are the authoritative leaders—it is done under God's authority, as He has commanded.

Verse 10: these "speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves." The New Living Translation helps: "These people scoff at things they do not understand, and like unthinking animals, they do whatever their instincts tell them, and so they bring about their own destruction." They pose as spokesmen for God but know nothing of His true nature; in their earthly wisdom they destroy themselves and those who follow them. Peter says the same in 2 Peter 2:10, written about the same time as Jude. So Jude warns: do not follow these individuals, for they will destroy both themselves and their followers.

Woe to Them: Cain, Balaam, and Korah

Verse 11: "Woe to them!" The word "woe" could be rendered, "What sorrow awaits them," or "Certain destruction will come." Why? "For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah."

They are like Cain, the first child of Adam and Eve, who murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4)—not because they are murderers, but because Cain's offering to God was unacceptable, and so is theirs.

They are like Balaam (Numbers 22-24), a prophet for hire—a prophet for profit—only in it for what he could get. God in His grace even used a donkey to speak to Balaam, yet he would not listen. These false teachers do what they do only for greedy gain.

They perish like the rebellion of Korah (Numbers 16), priests among the Levites who rebelled against the authority of God through Moses and were judged in a striking divine manner. These false teachers are practical atheists: though they pose as preachers of God, the way they live shows they do not believe God is real or just.

As Wise as Serpents

We who follow God must be on guard. Point five: as sheep among wolves, we must be as wise as serpents. Understand, as Paul said in Acts 20:29, that after his departure savage wolves would come in, not sparing the flock. The scary part is that these wolves too often masquerade as helpless sheep. But you will know them by their fruits. God help us.

Closing Prayer

Father, I ask that You would give us Your grace, that You would help us follow You by faith, and help us be aware that there are those within the church who will come in bringing seductive false teaching that destroys. God, I pray that we would be merciful, that we would be gracious, that we would be known by the love we have one for another. But may we also have Your wisdom, that we would be as wise as serpents—that though we are as gentle and as harmless as doves, we would be, as You said, as wise as serpents. God help us, that Your glory would be exalted and known among Your church. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.