God’s Judgment of Sin

Transcript

GR 2295
07/12/2020
God's Judgment of Sin
Jude 6-8, Genesis 6:1-5
Gil Rugh


We're going to the book of Jude in your Bibles, that little one-chapter letter written by Jude who is the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ and brother of James. Both share the same mother, but to course they all would share the same mother, but Jesus not the physical son of Joseph. But what would it have like to be raised in that family with the One who was not only man but God. And yet as we've talked about, those brothers did not become believers until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So for some 33 years, depending on their age because Christ was raised as the oldest in that family and they were born, but they did not come to believe in Him until after the resurrection. God's grace, never give up on the grace of God and His goodness.

And Jude is writing to encourage believers, and believers are to be fighters. When you placed your faith in Jesus Christ you came to do battle. You were a fighter before that, you were fighting against God, we were His enemies, we opposed God in obvious ways and less obvious ways until in His grace, in His time, we ended the rebellion and bowed and placed our faith in Him. But we didn't leave the war, we just were transferred to the family of God and to the army of God, if you will, on that side, battling now as those representing God. And we need to remember that as believers. We were not called so we could now be comfortable, relax, and enjoy life. Good to know that I have taken care of eternity, now I can just concentrate on enjoying everything until I get to glory. And we are to enjoy life, enjoy every day, but never lose sight of the fact that we represent the living God, the One to whom we belong.

And Jude is writing that believers will realize and be encouraged and challenged in verse 3 to “contend earnestly for the faith,” the truth of God, the revelation He has given. The pressure constantly is for us to settle down, to broaden out, loosen up, become more accepting of things that maybe should not be accepted. His problem is certain persons have come in among the believers, verse 4 he puts it, “certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation,” the ultimate judgment of God as those who were His enemies and would be separated from Him for eternity. They are ungodly persons yet they crept in unnoticed. We get down to verse 12, “these are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts, when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves,” they are selfish, self-centered, ungodly people. But somehow they just fit fine, you are just comfortable with that. That doesn't mean that unbelievers are not welcome to come and hear the truth and that we don't want any contact with them, but we ought not to ever lose sight of the difference. And when they come in as unbelievers and in the church and its fellowship, they are not to be accepted as those who are truly part of us.

They “turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” It doesn't get anymore serious than this, but somehow believers begin to look at it a little differently. It's not all that serious, we don't have to take everything that seriously. And that's where we get a weakening coming in. We've talked about we begin to accept certain things and let's adjust, our theology can be broader than that. We want to have as broad an acceptance. Remember when Jesus gave those final letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3? He didn't tell them how they ought to learn to work things out and they are all in the same geographical area so you ought to be working to work things together. Every church stands. Doesn't mean we don't appreciate other believers and the fellowship of believers, but we are responsible as a local church directly to the Lord, and the prime thing we are to be concerned about is faithfulness to His truth, not getting along with others. Because the further out you get, the more inclusive you have to be. It is a challenge to keep the local church on track, let alone trying to be responsible that everybody else is. We want them to be, we want to recognize and appreciate other churches committed to the truth, but we are responsible personally and individually.

How do people creep in? And he's going to give examples of how serious this is. He gives example from the Jewish history, he gives example from angelic history, he gives example from Gentile history. And we looked at those three verses, verses 5-7, and we were in that. Let me just remind you of what we overviewed. We did a slide on the main verbs in verses 5-7. If you mark your Bible, which is a good idea, no sense in keeping it pristine, I marked the verbs here – ‘destroyed’ in verse 5, ‘has kept’ in verse 6, and ‘are exhibited’ in verse 7. They are the key verses once he does the introductory statement in verse 5, “I desire to remind you, though you know all these things once for all.” They have a good grasp on the truth that has been given once for all that was referred to in verse 3, “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down.” Now you know this truth once for all. When he says ‘all things’ he's talking about the things that have been revealed in this truth but I want to remind you about it, then he gives these three examples. The first example from Israel when they didn't remain faithful to the truth, when they disobeyed God. When they did not believe God, God destroyed them so you have the context here; He saved the people out of Egypt, secondly, the second step was He destroyed them. They did not believe.

The second example we looked at was angels, they “did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode.” They were created to serve God in the glory of His presence in heaven. That was their domain, the realm and sphere in which they were to serve and operate and rule. That was their home, their ‘abode,’ a form of the word for house, where you live. And yet when they did not keep that realm they were disobedient. God has kept them in eternal bonds, awaiting judgment.

The third example, Sodom and Gomorrah and those cities in that area for their sin. We know God rained fire from heaven, they “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” So ‘destroyed’, is ‘kept,’ ‘exhibited.’ We put those in a little broader statement so that you could see the Lord destroyed the unbelieving. The important thing, and this is what I want you to follow, in these three examples there are all kinds of sins going to be covered. In these three here we have some specific sins, but through the rest of this letter he'll mention a variety of sins. The important thing here like in our three examples is not what specific son was done. They are all sins, they are all examples of unbelief, rebellion against God. What will be consistent is God punishes sin, no matter the guilty one, whether it is a Jew, whether it is an angel, whether it is a Gentile, whatever. Whatever relationship or relationship they have had or not had, sin will be punished, sinners will be punished. So the connection is the Lord destroyed the unbelieving, the Lord has kept angels for judgment, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities are exhibited as examples. You see the main verb; you have the subject, the verb, the object and everything else fits under that. The three main statements are the Lord destroyed the unbelieving, He kept angels for judgment (I've just given a little more so we can get the context), and Sodom and Gomorrah and those cities are exhibited as examples. And it all carries us to what God does in connection with judging them. Their sins are not going to be the same. Israel's sin in not believing God and disobeying Him and not going into the land, that is different than the angels' sin. They are not angels going into the land, but they didn't obey God and abandoned what God had planned for them.

I originally planned to just overview Jude here and leave out Genesis 6 because in the view I hold it doesn't have to be included in Genesis 6. But I know many of you are familiar with the issues involved in Jude here, particularly with verse 7 where “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” And the things here, we bring it to an eternal end. You'll note in verse 6, the angels “He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness.” And here Sodom and Gomorrah and those cities are exhibited, undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. The ultimate realization of God's judgment will be what is meted out at the Great White Throne in Revelation 20 and events surrounding that. There will be some cast into hell in connection with the return of Christ at the Great White Throne then where the final sentencing to hell occurs.

So that's the context we are in, judgment for sin. Because what happens we become more accepting because the seriousness of sin and the reality of the consequences gets pushed further and further into the background. We start talking about God's judgment, God's wrath, eternal hell. And they say, you're just going to turn people off, we're not saying it's not true, we just don't have to talk about it. Well, that's a dangerous thing. If God's judgment is not that serious, God's salvation is not that important. And pretty soon we begin to dismantle the truth that was once for all handed down to the saints. We can expect that the unbeliever is going to corrupt it. And when the unbeliever begins to be accepted among believers as one of us that corruption will start. It can start with something that seems small but you know how it is. We have diseases like that, cancers like that, other diseases, we say it started small but it wasn't dealt with and it continued to grow. We say if I had known I would have caught it sooner. People will say things I wish we had caught that sooner. That's the way God is warning us theologically—catch it early, correct it early. You have to do battle for the faith. If you are looking for ways not to do battle, you have lost the battle. If you are not going to oppose the error, the error will come in. You say I am for the truth, I just don't want to be fighting all the time. I want to fight in the right way. We have Christians and we fight among ourselves for the wrong things, but the truth is worth fighting for.

So these three examples. The angels I noted with you in verse 6, I think he is talking about the original fall of angels. We looked in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. And they are kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the great day of judgment, until that final sentencing. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels Jesus said in Matthew 25 so that's their ultimate destiny. They are free to rule and roam and to deceive people and so on. Satan is roaming about as a roaring lion seeking someone to devour Peter writes so he is not bound in that sense, but he is bound in the sense he is under God's judgment. He lives in realm of darkness. We looked in Ephesians 6, we don't do battle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies the world's spirit forces of darkness. That's the realm in which they live, in encouraging darkness so the light of the glory of the gospel doesn't shine in. We looked at those passages. So they are kept in eternal bonds, in other words it is done, they are kept there, their destiny is settled. Sodom and Gomorrah, their destruction there.

Now the connection comes, are we talking about the original fall of angels or are we talking about what happened in Genesis 6? And verse 7 even gets to be more of an issue, “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality.” And some will say he's talking about the angels indulged in immorality when they co-habited with women in Genesis 6. And there is a division, I won't go into all the details. Some hold the angels co-habited with women in Genesis 6, but they don't think that's what is in view in verse 6 but they do in verse 7. So to just keep it simple here, what are we talking about? Are we talking about the angels who committed immorality in Genesis 6?

So to deal with that we will have to go to Genesis 6. I had planned to leave this out, but if you use a study Bible you have notes on Jude, telling you this refers to the sin of angels in Genesis 6. And many of you are familiar with it. It's not particularly the view I hold so I'll give you the correct view. Let me just say before I begin that this won't change your theology in the broad sense so I don't want to make more of it than is true. There are many good men, expositors, teachers and so on that hold that angels are the ones in view. That fallen angels had sexual relationships with women in Genesis 6 in corrupting the race, and even they hold that was a unique situation, it will never be repeated. But those were the angels that God confined because of that sin. So it's not an ongoing theological issue, even for those who hold that they are angels. So I don't want you to say this is a big theological issue in the sense it makes a big difference in your theology over all because everyone is agreed, and by everyone I mean those who are biblical and committed to the truth of the word of God agree that it's not going on.

Let's read Genesis 6, just the opening verses. “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men.” And there's the issue, we'll talk about it in a moment, come back to it. Who are the sons of God? “And they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be 120 years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” So he is going to bring the flood upon the earth and wipe out mankind. God's judgments are serious. We think if we get a majority with us, that's good enough. Understand when all is said and done… I don't know what the population of the earth was by this time, it evidently was significant because they were living long lives, they would have numerous children. You can read some commentaries, some men will go into projecting what the estimate might be. But when you get all said and done there are going to be less individuals on the face of the earth than you can count with your two hands that are going to be considered righteous by God. So humanity in its entirety had almost been completely corrupted.

Now a question comes here as the verses open up, “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them.” So we have reading, ‘men’ begin to multiply, I take it that it means the human race multiplies. “And daughters were born to them.” I take it if men are multiplying, they are having male and female children. But it's talking about what is going on among humanity. “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves.” So let's talk about, there are two views here that the sons of God are angels, fallen angels, who took to themselves human bodies and so they were a combination of angel and humanity and they had sexual relations with these physical women and they produced a monster race, the Nephilim in verse 4. So that's the first view we're going to look at, that the sons of God refer to angels. So I'm going to give you the major points, there are others but I've tried just to narrow it down to basic support for it and not get into variations. And there are variations on this.

The first reason that those who hold the sons of God are angels is that the expression sons of God always refers to angels in the Old Testament. Now when we say it always refers to angels, it's not like there are dozens of references. Here are the four references to sons of God referring to angels, three of them are in the book of Job, we won't go there for time, you can look these up. But remember in Job 1 there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before God, and Satan came among them in Job 1. Obviously we're talking about angels. So you have it in the book of Job, it is also in Daniel. So that would be an argument that these are angels when he says the sons of God saw the daughters of men, well, the sons of God were angels.

The second point in support of that view, this would fit the New Testament, 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6. We haven't gone to 2 Peter 2 much but it is very similar to Jude. When we started out we noted some talk about one copying from the other, did Peter use Jude or Jude use Peter? We didn't get into that because both are inspired, but like where we are in Jude, they say that refers to this. When the angels sinned God bound them, they left their proper habitation which was to function as angels. I don't think… As we noted, that word abode was the realm, the place of their living, that would have been heaven. Now they are cut off, they can come back there and they are called back there at times, but just no longer their abode and the realm in which they operate.

The third support for this, the contrast between daughters of men and sons of God. Why do you say the sons of God saw the daughters of men? Doesn't indicate angels but there must be a reason he calls the sons of God saw the daughters of men. Were all the women good women? So here the angels saw the women were beautiful.

The fourth reason, the Nephilim were the result of this union. I mentioned that in verse 4, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days.” So people who hold the angel view see as a result of angels taking on themselves humanity so they are not fully human or not fully spirit, they are demonic beings. Some would just say they were just demonic indwelt individuals, but a form of that. But it says the Nephilim were also on the earth after that.

So that gets us to point 5, that the mythology that you have of the gods uniting with men, you could say this is where it came from because you read mythology of the gods and you have the god coming and cohabiting with a human woman and producing a god being and that kind. So they would say that is where it all came from, it has a root in when fallen angels tried to corrupt the human race and if you want to put an ultimate end to that, this was a satanic attempt to corrupt the race so that it could never produce the Messiah. But how could the Messiah be produced if the human race was totally corrupted as a combination of satanic… Those are some of the major points, could add to that, and you can go to commentaries if you want more points.

The second view is that we are dealing with two human lines here, and view two deals with what I call the Sethites. We'll pick that up with point 1, the immediate context of Genesis and we always want to go to that context. Back up to Genesis 4. Genesis 1 gave the general overall view of creation, Genesis 2-3 focus on Adam and Eve, you come to Genesis 4 and we start to deal with the children of Adam and Eve, particularly the sons. And the first two sons we have are Cain and Abel, and you know what happened there, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. And Cain is a godless man, we find that in the New Testament, and we'll get to that in Jude as we move along through this short letter, also the book of Hebrews. So you have Cain, and then Cain kills Abel and so then there is another son born. As you come down to verse 16, Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord. What they do, they have a second son, Seth, and she says now you have given me a replacement for Abel. So you have the family of Cain coming down, beginning in verse 16, here is his lineage. And you come down to Genesis 4:16 you see “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord,” you'll note that, “settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.”

And I've shared with you many years ago, early in my ministry one of those early faithful families, the man there, he is now with the Lord, he came up to me after the service one day. And said, does the Bible say that one of the Bible characters got his wife in the land of Nod? I said, no, the land of Nod is a fairytale, that's where your little baby goes when you put him to sleep, to the land of Nod. And I went on and I said that doesn't sound like a good answer. Then I went to Genesis and found out Cain got his wife in the land of Nod so I had to go back to him and tell him that was the one thing I didn't know in the Bible.

All right, verse 16 and following you have the history of Cain, his family line, his physical line. Verse 17, “Cain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch.” That's not a later Enoch, just like we have people who have the same names, here they do in the Bible. But you'll see Enoch had these children, he's going down through verse 24. Verse 25 now tells you they are going to have a son born, that I referred to, Seth, that's why I have called them the Sethites. “Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, ‘God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain had killed him.’ To Seth, to him also was born a son.” Now we are going to trace the line of Seth down that will go all the way through chapter 5, which brings us to verse 32, Noah and his line, because we are coming to the flood. So you see what the Bible has done to bring us to this point is go from Adam and Eve and develop the race as the line of two descendants from Adam and Eve -- Cain and Seth. And Cain, and we know from later as well as here he went out from the presence of the Lord, that is significant, he never did resolve his unbelieving relationship with the Lord, his unbelief which was manifest in the offering he gives. As Hebrews 11 says it was by faith that Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Cain was unwilling to do what God required, so he becomes the example of the unbeliever, as evidenced here in Genesis as we will see in Jude later, how he deals with God.
Now you have Seth and it is from him you are going to get the line of Noah, from which we have all descended. We are descendants of Adam through Noah because Noah is the only one left and his three sons. So all of us have descended from Noah through one of his three sons. So we go back to Adam. Then you have the line of Seth.

So that makes me think in the context when we come to chapter 6, and remember that there weren't any chapter or verse divisions, “It came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves.” So put up the next point, they took wives for themselves, this is the normal expression in the Old Testament for the marital union. It is used multiple times, take a wife, a marriage. It doesn't even refer to adultery or fornication, it's an actual biblical marriage. So what have we talked about? We've talked about the line of Cain and the line of Seth. Why would that be important, who cares? We could have just jumped to Genesis 6 as we have it, from Adam and Eve, they had children. And why do we say how their lines develop? We could have left it with Adam and Eve and she conceived again and bore Seth, and men began to multiply on the face of the earth. And we'd say, yes, from both. There is a development of lines here and I think what happens when you say when men began to multiply and daughters were born to them, not only daughters were born to them but you have children being born. The sons of God saw the daughters of men. And I think point 3, there is no reference, there is no development of angels' involvement in this, unless the sons of God is that reference. Verse 1 talked about men multiplying on the land and the daughters because this is how the race is going to continue to multiply. And they took wives. So there is no reference to angels unless you are going to say the sons of God has to refer to angels. But I think he is developing the two lines because Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord, but from Seth you are going to get the only righteous person left. What happens? These two lines get co-mingled.

So go to point 4, these are my points. Matthew indicates that angels don't marry, he said in the resurrection you won't marry but you will be like the angels in heaven. Now those who hold that we are talking about angels in Genesis 6 say, he said the angels in heaven don't marry but the fallen angels could. But I think that is a presupposition, there is no indication that angels multiply or that they could cross from being angels. There is a middle view that we are not going into, but some hold that these were demon-possessed men. But demon-possessed men, I don't know that they could pass on angelic characteristics of some kind. We get into a realm that we have to be speculating on so I personally wouldn't go there. So at least Matthew 22:30 would fit the fact that angels may not be in view here.

Look at point 5. They took “whomever they chose,” the end of verse 2, I think that may indicate that indiscriminate marriage between the lines. You have those who are descendants of Cain and like Cain, and those descendants of Seth and be more godly. This doesn't mean every single descendant of Cain and every single… But over time any distinction is lost, this is a problem. When God sets apart Israel later, this won't happen until Genesis 12 when He calls Abraham and then his descendants, but when you begin to intermingle, and that's what Ezra and Nehemiah are about, when the Israelites married with the ungodly nations around them, there is a corruption that sets in. It has to be very firmly and seriously dealt with. We get to the New Testament, believers can marry and Paul says, couldn't I get a wife like the other apostles and marry? But you can only marry in the Lord, that’s just like in 1 Corinthians 11. So in the Lord. But what you have, they did it with whomever they chose because they just picked who is beautiful, and spiritual requirements along the way get lost, they just get pushed into the background. And we realize that, that we have kids and kids and sometimes the spiritual situation can get pushed into the background. At least they married a good person and they seem to be doing all right and what happens is not as important at the spiritual. And I think that is what happens here because you up the whole race is corrupted, not just the Cainite line but the Seth line. Because when you get down to it, even in the line of Seth there are only eight people left, and this is a small family, Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. Out of the whole population of the earth, out of all the descendants of Cain, all the descendants of Seth, the spiritual corruption has become so thorough, so complete, and so open that God says it is time to bring it to an end.

The Nephilim, they were on the earth in those days and also afterward so they are not gone after the flood. So you would have to say the corruption continued on after the flood of this demonic and you wouldn't want to say that. But when we get to Numbers 13 and 14 remember when the spies went into the land in our last study? Brought back a bad report, what did they say? The Nephilim are in the land, they are giants, we are like grasshoppers compared to them. So I don't think it is necessarily pointing that a corruption of the race… They were there and they were there afterwards and it comes out of these times, the mighty men of old, men of renown.

And then note verse 5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth,” and that is point 6. It is man's actions, man is viewed as the guilty one here. I don't think there is any doubt that angels are more powerful than humans, I don't know that anybody would disagree with that. They don't have the restrictions we have, they can be present here and us not see them. They are not bound with restrictions of getting from here to heaven, how long will it take, they don't have those restrictions. They have great power to influence nations. In the book of Daniel we see angelic battle over control of a nation and ability to get in and out of a nation controlled by demons. But here these poor women, this powerful man came and wanted to have a sexual relation, what could they do? But you see the human race is held accountable for their condition here so I am uncomfortable reading angels into this. “Saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth,” nothing about man was now corrupted by demons. No doubt they were influenced by demons but I don't think I read it here. “Great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This is how the degeneration has come in, the sin of Adam and the disregard of God has spread. This is what Jude is warning about, it's not a light thing. And then you see marriage and that becomes part of it and the battle goes on. And then the church. And it is a corruption, you don't have to bring the demons into this. No doubt the devil is at work and unbelievers are the children of the devil, but do you know what? We will never be able to blame the devil for our sin, each of us will stand and give an account of it. Every unbeliever will stand to give an account of himself before God, won't be able to say, the devil made me do it, yep, if the demons weren't involved I know I would have…

And you'll note, I have underlined in my Bible ‘every’ at the end of verse 5, “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” That's the condition of man in his fallen state. And when those who were believers began to disregard that relationship with God, corruption spiritually set in. Just like Israel. When they began to disregard God then they began to intermarry with the nations. They began to adjust to the worship that was around them and God says the worship of Israel was just as corrupted as the worship of the pagans.

So a little bit of the summary. For those I want to say here, it is not that we disagree theologically on any of the major doctrines, just on the interpretation of this particular passage. So don't make more of it than it is, but I think it is important to be as clear as we can, man is responsible for his sin, the angels are responsible for their sin.

Come back to Jude and we want to make clear. So I don't think it's an issue that he is talking about. When you come to verse 7, we have to put this all together. When he said at the end of verse 6, “He has kept (these angels) in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,” I take that he is picturing the fall of angels and the judgment brought on them, anticipating the coming eternal judgment. There is no escape from the judgment that awaits them. And we talked about living in the realm of darkness and these are the spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenlies that we deal with, and working to keep men and women in darkness.

Now “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality, and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” Now you mark your Bibles so you connect the two, ‘eternal fire’ at the end of verse 7 and in verse 6 we had ‘eternal bonds.’ And remember the statement in verse 7 with the verb ‘are exhibited,’ Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities are exhibited as an example, not about immorality, an example of the punishment of eternal fire so it's the punishment that is the focus here.

Now the discussion comes, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them. We're going to have one more slide, this is going to be the slide on Jude 7 but let me explain it. Here is the way I would put verse 7, to put it together. “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in the same way as these,” referring to angels, “are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.” I've left out the intervening because remember we want to find the subject and the verb with the object and everything else modifies that. He's not saying that they did the same sin, Sodom and Gomorrah, the angels and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah both sinned morally. Sodom and Gomorrah by their immorality, and the angels by their immorality. That's why we went back and looked at the verses.

I think these most simply, and there are a number of grammatical sidetracks we could go on, but we'll just do this. In Greek, words can have gender, in other words, you can have a word that is masculine, a word that is feminine, or a word that is neuter. But it doesn't have anything to do with sexual characteristics, it's just a form of the word. But when you have a noun and you have a pronoun referring to that noun, they will agree. In other words, the reason I have put angels, these, ‘these’ is a pronoun. Way back in English, just as a reference. ‘These’ is a masculine pronoun, the only noun before this that is masculine is angels in verse 6 so it would be natural to think that ‘these,’ since it agrees in gender, would be referring back. Sodom is a neutral noun in its form, you can see it could get confusing, but it's a neuter noun. Gomorrah and cities, those two nouns, Gomorrah and cities, are feminine nouns. So you could see you have a city, Sodom, and it is a neuter noun, and you have Gomorrah and the word cities, they are feminine nouns, it can be confusing, but the endings, and some of you know other languages, Greek is like that. Form and these kinds of things help you connect. So they can have things out of order because you know where it belongs and what it is in the sentence because of the form. If it is the object, it will be an accusative, it has a form that tells you that's an accusative, it will be the object of the verb. So some of this goes on. That's why I have put it together and it seems to me this fits that “just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, in the same way as these angels are exhibited.” In other words, the comparison with the angels is the judgment they bear.

We are back to earth and we're now to Gentile cities. So we've moved from the Jews to angels to Gentiles to all kinds of people. The similarity that comes through, each of these groups is going to endure the judgment of God for their sin. The point is you don't escape God's judgment by being special in one way or another. Being a Jew that had even experienced the miracle power of God in being rescued from Egypt doesn't keep you from being destroyed by that same God for your rebellion and unbelief. Being an angel created to serve in the presence of God, to dwell in heaven, doesn't keep you from the judgment of God when you rebel against Him in unbelief. And the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their rebellion and disobedience doesn't keep them from judgment. But even as God spared some of the believers in Israel, He has spared Noah and his family, He has spared Lot and his family, but what a reminder in all this. Remember Jesus said the gate is narrow, the way is narrow that leads to life, and few there be that find it. I don't think sometimes we realize how few. We live in a day when big things count, big churches count, and we think as long as we do things to get more people into church… We want unbelievers to come and hear but they are not part of our church. And we are not going to make adjustments to our theology so more people… Use the example of the denomination that just changed their view of eschatology because they want to be more inclusive. Now wait a minute, I thought this was a matter of examining what the scripture says and that's where we stand. Well, you can have different views on that. I can't have a different view on anything the word of God speaks to, I am not God's editor. We don't have the Reader's Digest Bible, we don't pick out these are the four major doctrines, as long as you believe those nothing else matters. That's the way you begin to accept others and God tells us what they are like.

So these are examples of judgment, so that's the way I would put it. And the last point on that slide, the point is the judgment not the specific sin. We're going to see all kinds of judgment, you can list 15-20 of them. Some of you probably have notes on that, or you've read on it. I mean, there are all kinds of sin mentioned here, it's not this is the really serious sin or this is one of the bad sins, it's mentioned… You're going to have all kinds here, it's like Romans 1, he just brings out all these, they are all manifestations of the same thing. What? Rebellion against God, unbelief, the two go together. Unbelief is manifest in rebellion; rebellion indicates unbelief. At the end of verse 4 it was they “turn the grace of our God into licentiousness,” that's the immoral, ungodly behavior that is so pervasive. And they “deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ,” He will not be sovereign over me, I will not bow in obedience to Him. Those are the root things, it all goes together.

So we want to see the believers already in Jude's day, we're dealing with the half-brother of Jesus Christ, we're not very far along in the history of the church, and already he has to write, you have to do battle for the faith, the truth of God. How important is it for us today? Well, we're going to a church, I know the doctrine is not right, but I think in basic things we agree, but I know it is not… What do you mean, it's all right? It's all right to be disobedient to God in some things? It's all right to accept error that I know is error, but at least we agree on these? If that's the best that is there and is a fellowship of believers, do it, but error spreads, this is why we contend earnestly.

Go on down to the next verse, look at verse 8, he's going to talk about these men now, these men that are in among them. Verse 4, “Certain persons have crept in unnoticed,” they were “beforehand marked out for this condemnation,” the condemnation that comes to ungodly, rebellious people. We just examined, wherever it is, even when it occurred in heaven among angels, it got judged. So verse 8, “In the same way these men, also by dreaming.” Now that goes, remember up at the end of verse 3, I keep bringing you back, “you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” Here we have it, once for all handed all the way down to us. He is writing to people, verse 5, “I desire to remind you, though you know all these things once for all,” you know this once-for-all-delivered-down faith. But “these men,” verse 8, “also by dreaming, defile the flesh, reject authority, revile angelic majesties.” You see he brings in these various sins and manifestations of unbelief and rebellion against God. They get it by dreaming. Where did you get that, where did you come up with that? And it's all right for men to make it up. They think its so, a scholar said it, the church teaches it. What? They had a dream and now it seems we obey. Where did it come from? People think you are being unfair when you keep pushing them back. What does the scripture say? What does the scripture say? Well, it's not my view. Well, you didn't get it from scripture, where did you get it? You end up somebody thought it up. Did you ever have a dream and you wake up in the morning and say that dream was so…

I don't know whether the Lord was preparing me for this sermon but I had a dream last night, I don't know if I want to tell you too much about it. But I was in a church of another denomination, it wasn't in this city but it's one I am familiar with. They had me in to talk about a pastor and I'm interacting with these people. And I woke up, I'm looking around and I look at the clock and it's almost 4 o'clock in the morning. And you have to stop and think, your dream was so real, you were there, but you weren't. And for me now to get up and say I can't remember exactly when, but I remember the time when I was… Now I know some politicians make up things like that, some people in churches make up things. Where did you get that? Well, that's not what my Bible says. I'm reading some evangelicals and I don't want to push them all the way to where these men are because I don't know where… how far off track can you be and still be considered a believer, I don't know, only God knows a heart. All I know is I have to stand for truth. The ultimate determination of destiny will happen with God. But they were saying they have come to understand, this is called new creation theology, that the land promises to Israel were not permanent nor eternal. There is going to be a new creation but the land promises to Israel… And I've gone back, I got involved in this, I'm reading a whole book written on it, then I'm reading their commentary writings. And I say where do you get this? I almost think of this, by dreaming. And it's a serious matter. You reject the authority of the word of God, you claim to believe the inspiration of scripture but you reject it in this area. And it fits with scholarly theology so it enables you to be much broader and to be involved more broadly.

Talking with a scientist and he doesn't believe in the creation account of Genesis. I believe it is written in creation style, extra-biblical literature wrote those kinds of things, it wasn't meant to be taken literally. The earth is billions of years old. Well, that's just somebody dreaming. Well, scientists hold that. Well, scientists dream too, because you reject the word of God, They've rejected Your word, Jeremiah said, what kind of wisdom do they have? They don't have true wisdom, they are in a world of make-believe, they are dreamers.

They “defile the flesh,” that's back to they “turn the grace of our God into licentiousness.” In other words, in their dreaming they have come up with a way that immorality is okay. David sinned immorally but he never said it was okay. We all stumble in many ways, but these people begin to corrupt the scripture to fit their sinful desires. This was developed, Gnosticism, later than the New Testament, in the second century where you are going to make this fixed separation between physical and immaterial, spiritual. Pretty soon that begins to infiltrate the church and we accept the thinking of the church, like psychology has today. Then it becomes acceptable. I was reading an article this week, all missions want to give a psychological exam for anybody going to the mission field. Where do you get that in the Bible? You got it from the witch doctors' dreamings and they create it, but it is acceptable. And the seminaries teach it. How does that get into the church? Well, science, and all truth is God's truth. Why do you have to be so narrow? And you begin then to bring in and more and more the corruption replaces the church. “They defile the flesh.” So they find a way that sinful conduct is not sinful conduct and what really matters is the spirit not the body.

“They defile the flesh, and reject authority,” that's the root of it, it's God is the authority or not. Find all kinds of ways… we all do it. Jude says we all sin with our tongue, there is no exception, if you didn't sin with your tongue you would be perfect. And we all sin with our tongue, we say if they hadn't done that I wouldn't have said it, I shouldn't have said that, but… But what? If you shouldn't have said it, you shouldn't have said it. Let me tell you what happened. You don't have to tell me what happened, you sinned. Yes, but you haven't heard my excuse. We reject authority, God's authority and it has to be He is sovereign or He is not, He is Lord or He is not. All this rebellion goes back into little things. We talk about with government, government has been established by God, He appointed the authorities to keep order and to punish evildoers. What is happening to our society? When you reject God, at the foundation we reject Him, so pretty soon… the rejection sooner or later makes its way out. We'll depend on conservative congressmen, we'll depend on conservative senators, we'll depend on a conservative supreme court, we'll depend on a conservative president. When you are in rebellion against God, it will come out.

“You reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.” And the word is ‘glories,’ it is translated ‘angelic majesties’ here, ‘doxas,’ (Greek). In 2 Peter, used two times, it may refer to angels. I think the context points to angels because the next verse is “but Michael the archangel,” and he uses an example of showing respect to a greater angel. So it could be talking more than just angelic authority, but the example he gives in verse 9 is even in the angelic world. There is still a respect, which would have to do, we give respect to fallen men.

We'll have to leave it there, we'll pick up with some examples of even Satan being shown respect. That disrespect to angels and to others is a manifestation of the rejection of God. We don't require our children to show respect to us as parents, well, we have disregarded the Bible. Well, psychology has shown… There we go to the dreamers, they know more than God. Then we go in the home, the wife to the husband, but… Then we go, these governing leaders aren't… Scripture gets pushed further and further in the back until pretty soon what is left is not worth fighting for and we just give up. But we're to that pattern, we say the first generation fights for the word of God, for the truth; the second generation assumes the truth, and the third generation abandons the truth. The pattern, and that's what we are constantly fighting for, the purity of the word of God. My biggest concern today is that Christians may not care that much, it's just not that important. And as long as you are going to a church that says they believe the Bible, the details of that, there are all kinds of things we dis… Fine, I recognize other churches, they are composed of believers, they have different views on certain things, but every detail… No matter, we fight for the word of God. I'm not declaring them unbelievers just because they disagree with me on this point or that. Want to be very careful, once I decide the word of God is not worth fighting for, then I have decided to absent myself from the battle. Now I am in rebellion against God and don't trust Him. Now where does that get to be the place I have to ask myself, am I really a believer? Endurance is a characteristic of a believer, I've endured to this point. Well, it's he who endures to the end who will be saved, the characteristic of a true believer is he endures, and that's what we want to be.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for your Word. Lord, these truths given so long ago, some 2,000 years ago now, yet they are fresh and new and just as relevant as the day you spoke and guided Jude in the writing of this letter. Lord, we want to be a church that is faithful to you above all things, we want to be those who are willing to do battle for the truth when it is necessary, to stand against error, that this is too precious, too important. We cannot compromise, we cannot yield, we cannot be popular, we must be faithful. May that be true in our behavior as well as in our doctrine. We pray in Christ's name, amen.