PODCAST

Says Who? (Jude 5-10)

August 7, 2022 | Brandon Cooper

TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Good morning, you can go ahead, grab your Bibles open up to Jude, we’ll be in verses five to 10. This morning, Jude five to 10. As you’re turning, they’re very near the end of your Bibles. I think it would all agree with me quickly that no one really likes getting yelled at. No one likes to hear bad news. But sometimes that is important for us. Still, it makes us better. So didn’t appreciate your high school coach yelling at you to hustle back on defense next time out. But you can recognize that as a result of his yelling at you, you became a better basketball player than you would have been otherwise. Or hearing from a doctor, they come back into the room and looking down at the results going. This doesn’t look great. And save okay, like this is bad news. But as much as that’s bad news, maybe you’re even a little bit Glad to hear it because at last they figured out what’s going on exactly. And hopefully then there’s some way to fix it. They’re going to recommend a lifestyle, change some dietary changes so that you can actually get back to a place of health. Now I mentioned this because this is a bad news yelling sort of passage. If you read it in advance of this morning, and I hope you did, and that kind of make it yours idea that we have at the bottom are bullets and always this this is an intense passage, but that is good for us. If we’ll listen to it a little bit like you had to listen to the doctor when he gave you the dietary changes you needed to make otherwise it’s not good for you, right? So this will be good for us. If we listen, this is a warning encouraging us to look at our lives. And maybe remember some truths that we just kind of had forgotten about we got distracted about or maybe to hear them really for the first time. Either way, this will be good for us. So what exactly is this bad news that we’re hearing that the doctor is delivering to us? It has to do with authority? And a question of where we go? Do you listen to God? Or do you listen to yourself? Do you FOLLOW Him or follow your heart? Now one of the great authority questions that we ask, you probably asked it verbatim at some point in your life is says who? I’m sorry, sir. You can’t park it says who? Okay. And sometimes there’s a pretty clear answer, and then you move quickly, but says who is that question? You know, the doctor says, Uh, hey, you’re gonna have to cut out sugar or something like that. And you go, I want a second opinion. Right? Do you change doctors? We don’t like the diagnosis. Some of us would be tempted to do that. It’s especially true spiritually. Do you change Gods if you don’t like his precepts. Just water it down until you get a God who agrees with you all the time, which of course means your God. But that’s a separate issue. So you got no authority in your life, at least not really. And you end up with sort of a spiritual toddler syndrome. I don’t know if any of you your children have had this one of my many children. So this does not narrow it down much I used to say does not say any longer, but used to say when she was getting in trouble. I do what I do. That was her argument. Okay, I do what I do. And isn’t that kind of what we shout into the universe is sometimes, well, this is what I’m gonna do. Okay, that’s just how it’s gonna go. Because if there’s no authority, there’s no cop, well, then there’s no speed limit, I can drive as fast as I would like, but if there is a who, at the end of that says, who question well, that changes everything, doesn’t it? And that’s Jude’s point. Exactly. There is a who there is an authority. So our main idea today, what I’m gonna try and show us from the text is that you cannot go on rejecting authority forever. Eventually, you’re gonna get pulled over. Okay, you’re gonna see the red and blue lights flashing in your rear view mirror, you cannot go on rejecting authority forever for three reasons that we’ll look at as we go through the passage right now. So first reason is that judgment is inevitable can’t go on projecting authority forever, because judgment is inevitable. Let me read verses five to seven for us. You’ll notice that Jude here is he’s basically preaching a sermon. And so here’s his text for the week. He’s quoting some Old Testament passages at this point. Here’s what he has to say. Though you already know all this I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe and the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwellings. These he is kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment have eternal fire.
All right. As we start digging in here, let’s remember the structure from last week for the book as a whole, just so we know where we are, if you’re in your gear the first time this morning, we’ll locate you. Jude’s main point is we need to contend for the faith. What will why the urgency exactly because he says certain individuals condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. And they’re both perverting the grace of God into a license for immorality and denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ His sovereignty. Well, that’s a bold claim, isn’t it? And so he needs to substantiate it here. If I got up and we’re like, you know, certain people here in this room are undermining everything we’re trying to do as a church. You’d go,
Okay, help me out here. Like I need to know what you’re talking about. So that’s what’s happening here. He needs to substantiate he needs to show the seriousness of the error that’s being taught in this congregation. And that’s what he does with these three Old Testament story. These are stories that Jude’s readers know, you already know all this, he says, so they’re familiar with the Old Testament. They’re familiar with the Jewish writings of this day, as we’ll see in a moment, even, but they need to hear it again, probably true of many of us. So what are the three examples he gives here? First, he points to the wilderness generation, the wilderness generation, this is the group that came out of Egypt, think of the miracles, they had see, the plagues the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, quail flying into their camp. But then what happens numbers 14, they’re Campton, Kadesh Barnea. And they’re right there on the precipice of the Promised Land, and they look at the people and they go, Ah, those guys are huge. We can’t fight them will get squashed like grasshoppers. They don’t believe God. And so, as a result, they perish in the desert. That’s the whole book of Numbers right there. We might say it like this. They were saved from Egypt, but not saved to the promised land. And I think what Jude is hinting at here is, could that be true of Christians as well, that same sort of half salvation experience? Jesus seems to indicate as much also the parable of soils, for example, he says, there’s like a bunch of different soils that sprout a bit. Only one of them produces fruit though, the other two they wither in the sun, or they get choked out by wheat. In other words, don’t presume on your status. Well, I call myself a Christian, therefore, I must be good. And Jude, and Jesus, and numbers are all saying, hang on, hang on a bit. You know, that word kept that was so important to us. Last week were being kept for Jesus, we’re going to want to check some evidence in our lives and see if that’s actually true of us or not. We’ll keep talking about that second illustration that he gives the so called watchers of Genesis six, these were fallen angels called their sons of God’s sons of God phrase often refers to angels. So these were fallen angels who intermarried with the daughters of men, was the common understanding of that passage in Jude’s day, a lot of writing all about this. Okay, so the uniform interpretation of that story among Jude’s audience at this time, and so these angels and the daughters of men and they produce the offspring of giants, actually, and this is, you know, like Goliath kind of descendant from there and all that. But what’s the point in all this story? The point is that even the angels are disobeyed are judged when they disobey. Even the angels are judged when they disobey. In fact, that key word I told you last week, if you write in your Bible, you might want to circle that word kept because it can be so important. In the book of Jude, you notice it shows up two times right there in verse six. They did not keep themselves where they should. And so now they’re being kept for well, not Jesus, but kept for judgment. They’re like the negative example like film negative. You guys remember film? Anyone remember those days? Yeah, some of our Gary does. He’s the only one that’s fine. But it’s like the polar opposite, right? Instead of keeping themselves in God’s love and therefore being kept for Jesus. They didn’t keep themselves where they should, and so they’re being kept for judgment. instead. Third example he gives them is that of Sodom and Gomorrah, who are guilty of a host of sins. You read the prophets, they point back to Sodom and Gomorrah a lot. They’ve got sins of arrogance, a lack of hospitality, injustice and exploiting the poor. Of course, they’re quite famous for sexual immorality. allottee in particular, though, and in that there’s this tie to Jude’s opponents. Remember Jude’s opponents are saying there’s no authority not really they’re denying Christ’s authority and perverting the grace of God into a license for immorality. What kind of immorality? Well, the kind of immorality we all think of. When you hear of someone, you know, Pastor, somebody falling into moral failure, our heads go somewhere. Nobody thinks, gossip. Right? We all think the same thing. That’s what’s going on here as well. We’re almost certainly talking about sexual immorality. As a result of that, of course, they are destroyed spectacularly. It is a very visible judgment, meant to serve as an example of the coming judgment, which is important for us, because we need to remember that judgment is coming. Or else, we tend to get really apathetic about our behavior. I heard a pastor say once, if we were to, as we were getting ready for bed tonight, go outside, look up in the stars. And miraculously, the Lord had rearranged the stars so that they spelled out God is real. And even more miraculously, from every angle on Earth, you could read it in your language, we would all behave ourselves
for about a month. And then what would happen is people would start dipping their toe in the water of sin. And when they didn’t get zapped, instantly we’d go, Okay, we’ve got a permissive God, we can do whatever we’d like. That’s why we need this example of the coming judgment. Remember, judgment is real. In fact, that word example is key for us here. Jude is saying there’s a lesson to be learned from each of these three stories. Paul says the same thing actually says it of the wilderness generation two, talking to the Corinthians, who struggled with some of the same issues that we’re dealing with here. And this is what he says First Corinthians 10, verse six. Now these things occurred, although that wilderness generation story occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. So what’s the lesson that Jude’s readers need to learn here you cannot dismiss the word and disobey the Lord without consequence. You can’t go on rejecting authority forever. Why? Because judgment is inevitable, it will eventually catch up to you. We fool ourselves into thinking that no one’s watching. It doesn’t really matter what we do, but someone is watching. It matters greatly to him. So a couple of things that we should probably do in light of this number one is take sin seriously. Take your sin, seriously. We all stumble. Certainly, we all have the vestiges of sin still there in our hearts. And it comes out in all sorts of different ways. Okay, I understand that. But are you working to kill your sin or not? Puritan preacher John Owens said, either be killing sin or it will be killing you. Are you killing sin? Because what happens otherwise is you’re you’re walking with Jesus, ostensibly. And you realize five years, 10 years, 50 years has gone by and nothing much has changed. You still got that pride thing going? Maybe that pride has even led you into sort of a prideful isolation from other Christians, or you’re still grumbling, like that wilderness generation, or, Hey, let’s take what we talked about in the pulse just on Thursday, the devotional from the pulse on Thursday, we just don’t hold our tongues as often as we should. But if after 50 years, you’re gonna I still don’t hold my tongue ever. Like, that’s a question. Are you keeping yourself in God’s love, really, so that you’re kept for Jesus? Or are you not keeping yourself where you should, so that you will be kept for judgment. So we take our sin seriously. But the second thing to learn here is that we need to take the sin of others seriously to
so that we warn our brothers and sisters in Christ that will often look like rebuke. Something Jude will say at the end of this letter, even this is what we need to be doing with each other. This is why by the way, we have community groups and journey groups. And I cannot say it often or clearly enough, if you are not in a community group or not in a journey group, you will not grow in Christ as you should be. Because you’re just not going to have that engagement in your life. We’re just not going to have that conversation that we need to be having so that we are intentionally killing sin. We warn and rebuke our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we also warn and engage with the people around us who do not believe in Jesus Christ we take their sin seriously to because we remember that judgment is coming and that lends an urgency To our evangelism, I cannot imagine that you would look at people you love that you know are going to perish eternally and not care enough to speak the truth of the gospel to them. That is hatred, pure and simple. And there is no amount of fear that justifies that indifference. We take the sin of others seriously. Let me make a few comments to parents also here. Number one, I hope we caught that this is one reason why we teach our kids the whole Bible, the Old Testament stories to one reason, of course, because you can’t understand any of the story if you don’t understand all of the story. Like Jesus does not make sense apart from creation, and Adam and Eve and the fall into sin and Abraham and Moses and all the rest of it. But another part of this too, is that these stories serve as examples for us, like, we just want our kids to know all the stories. So some of you got little kids, I got kids at every stage, right? So some of you got little kids like I got kids at stage right now we’re going I just want you to learn names. That’s fine. That’s where you are right now. And that’s awesome. We teach them the Old Testament stories as we do it, though, we talk about judgment, at an age appropriate level, absolutely. Talk to your kids about judgment. This should be part of discipline even mean sin results in consequences. We explain that when we discipline our children. It is a very small example pointing forward to the end. But it’s also why they evangelize. Why they would talk to their friends about Jesus. Do you know why adults don’t evangelize? Hardly ever? Because kids don’t evangelize? If you don’t set habits as a kid, you’re not going to do them as an adult, almost ever. And some of you’re like, Oh, I came to Christ as an adult, okay, it’s harder to learn the habit, I get that. But we can help our kids out if they are growing up under the nurture and admonition of the Lord. To realize this is why it matters so much that you start talking today to your friends about Jesus. First reason is that judgment is unethical. Second reason we can’t go on rejecting authority forever is that revelation is complete. We read verses eight and nine here. In the very same way on the strength of their dreams, these ungodly people pollute their own bodies reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the Archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses did not himself dare to condemn Him for slander, but said, The Lord rebuke you. Okay, the first section was long, but very straightforward. The second section here much shorter, but there is so much to explain. Like this is the meat of Jude sermon, I need you to know this can be the meat of our sermon. Also, we’re gonna have to spend some time here because how many of you read this this week? And we’re like,
Thank you, Chrissy. I appreciate that. In the very same way. That’s how we start. So there he’s connecting the Old Testament texts to the current situation. He’s moving from illustration to application, like a good preacher. So by perverting the grace of God into a license for immorality and denying Christ’s lordship they are polluting their own bodies rejecting authority and heaping abuse on celestial beings. They’re really doing it in one fell swoop a lot like Saddam, because in practicing this sexual liberation, they are polluting their bodies, making themselves an authority and ignoring the law, which is what that phrase heaping abuse on celestial beings means really, obviously, right? I don’t need to explain that. Let me explain that for you. Heap abuse. By the way, the word there is slander. So it shows up three times in our brief passage here. They slander celestial beings, what does that have to do with the law because the belief current at this time, which I’m perfectly comfortable with, by the way, but the belief card at this time was that it was angels who delivered the law to Moses. So God is certainly speaking to Moses, but mediated through angels. You can see this in Stephens speech, for example, Steven, first Christian martyr, he’s killed in Acts chapter seven, right after he finishes his sort of biblical theology. This is what he says in Acts seven, verse 38. Moses was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, and he received living words to pass on to us. So it’s the angel speaking to him who gives him these words. Now, you can see how this is an issue of authority, isn’t it? Because the question Jude’s opponents are asking it says who? And if the answer to that question is just an angel, and not the Lord of hosts? Well, maybe we could ignore that. That’s the argument here. That’s how they’re slandering celestial beings. So if the living words that are being passed on to the law Are that God’s messengers, it’s all the word angel means by the way is messenger, the law of God’s Messenger delivered isn’t really an authority, well, then what would be an authority in their lives? It’s that odd little phrase on the strength of their dreams. The word used here is very precise refers to a mystical vision. So in other words, they are trusting in their own revelation, their own mystical or supernatural experience. The problem with this, then, is that their subjective experience supplants the objective truth of the Word of God. And that’s a dangerous place to be it is an ever present danger. By the way. I remember once, teaching through a hard truth in Scripture, Scripture is filled with hard truths, no doubt about that. And a woman raised her hand in the class and said, That’s not what I hear Jesus saying to me. Are you hearing Jesus say something to you that’s different than the Word of God? Because that is a dangerous place to be hear me clearly here. I’m not the first one to say this. But here, it’s so clearly, God told me must never replace the Bible says, because only one of those is objective, inspired, infallible. Why do I mention that there are two problems with subjective experience? First of all, your heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can understand it? And that, by the way, is not my opinion, that is the Lord speaking to you because of Jeremiah 17, verse nine, objective truth. So why would you trust your subjective experience, when you know that your heart is desperately wicked twisted in all sorts of ways that we’ll come back to in a moment even? The second reason is, you know, who would love to get you to listen to yourself? The enemy, Satan, that ancient serpent, what’s the first thing Satan says to humanity? Did God really say, let’s get rid of the objective word. And let’s let’s talk about our feelings instead, people? Maybe you heard him wrong. It’s just somebody else’s interpretation. Maybe he’s saying something new. Now, why would we listen to this dusty old book from 2000 years ago? What is? Isn’t God still speaking?
You heard that before, right? These are things people say all the time. You see how dangerous this is, especially because oftentimes today, as it was here, in Jude, all of this comes in Christian guys, this is not an atheist, saying, why would we listen to the Word of God? This is somebody saying, I’m a Christian, why would we listen to the Word of God? And so they’re perverting the grace of God into a license for sin. And they’re denying Jesus’s lordship how? By denying biblical authority, and perverting scripture, twisting scripture to suit their own ends. Look, there is no wicked deed that I couldn’t justify using scripture. I promise you, I could challenge me sometimes it’d be fun, provided two quick caveats. I can quote it out of context, and preferably in translation, then I can justify anything you’d like. Usually, for us, this just involves watering truth down, so that the hard truth sort of are diluted. You know, at a certain point, if you keep watering down lemonade, it’s not lemonade anymore. It’s water with the essence of lemon in it. That’s what we do to biblical truth. Just keep watering it down until the end of the day. It’s not biblical truth any longer. It’s something else entirely. We’ll settle on a phrase, which is a biblical phrase, by the way, God is love. What have we reduced 1500 pages of text to those three words, don’t push me on what any of them mean, okay. God was not defined love. Let’s not define that. In fact, let’s spin ourselves around in circles a few times that we keep proclaiming this message until eventually God has loved becomes love as God. And again, I don’t want to define what love means don’t push me there. But love is God and God is love. And Jesus loves me, we know that that just means he wants me to be happy, which means I can do whatever I want. I do what I do. Unless, unless the answer to that says who is God and not self. If we restore biblical authority, if that’s the case, then there are some things that we need to do, like love God’s word, for example, trust it, and put it into practice. This is the foundational discipline of the Christian life. You need to be in the Word of God. And for more than an hour on Sunday mornings, every day in the Word of God, even if you’re here. then you’re a skeptic. By the way, this is my advice to you. Read the Gospels start with Jesus. What is he saying? Listen, make sense of it. By the way, that should change how we, and that is not a pastoral plural. I’m including myself in this group, because not last week, but the four weeks previous, I sat where you are now should change how we come into the gathering. What are we here to hear? Like, are you here to get self help, self realization, self fulfillment, or to devote yourselves to the apostles teaching. This is a danger in churches to like I knew of a congregation once that was going through the book boundaries as their sermon series. Now boundaries, cloud and towns and classic work. It’s got some insight, I’ve got nothing against the book, it’s Christian pop psychology, but you know, it’s got some stuff in it. It is not the word of God. It’s not what we’re here to study together. Or I heard a comment recently, and I want to be so clear, it was not from someone in this congregation heard a comment recently, after there had been a guest preacher. Now, you know, why had to make that qualification there, after a great guest preacher. And this was a youth who was saying, I like the other guy better than the main guy who’s normally there. I like the other guy better, why is sermons are shorter, and he’s funnier. And he uses props. That’s devastating. That is a generation that will be lost, eternally, most likely,
we are in such danger. I mean, Caitlin read to us earlier about generations and what we pass on to the coming generation, we are in such danger of becoming a church that prefers entertainment, to the Word of God. And in so doing, we deny Jesus Christ are only sovereign and Lord and serve the sovereign self instead. So what’s the remedy is to become like those noble Bereans Acts, chapter 17. Who there listen to Paul speak. And remember, at this point, they don’t know that Paul is the apostle of Christ Jesus, who’s going to write a good chunk of the New Testament for us, they’re just hearing some random itinerant preacher preach a new message, what do they do? They tested it against the word of God. That’s what we do also. But we got to correct ourselves immediately from a danger, we hear that and we think so I go home, and I open up my personal leather bound copy of the Word of God, and see what I think it says, the Bereans did not have personal leather bound copies of the Word of God, they would have had one copy in the synagogue, which means they came together as a community, to do this together as a community. That’s important because it helps us guard against self deception, even as we read the Word of God. So then, as Bereans, testing everything by the word of God, we get really careful with what we read, and listen to, including Christian best sellers. And usually the best sellers are the ones you want to be the most nervous about. Not always, but often. Books, that on the strength of their dreams, not on the strength of the Word of God, are going to try and tell us what God is really thinking books like Jesus calling, which is like a cottage industry of a book right in its own self, or heaven is real. Or I could go on and on and on. Why do I mention these books where people are speaking as though they’ve got new revelation to offer us instead of revelation being complete, because think about how often in history someone hears God, and leads others astray. Throughout a couple of names Muhammad, Joseph Smith, David Koresh and every other cult leader, what is happening in every case, there’s a single individual on the strength of his dreams, teaching against the revelation of God, attested in history, by the way, like I love the fact that this book was not written by one individual that would make me so nervous. We have a book here written by more than 40 people in three languages across 1500 years, that tells a single story, more cohesive than the ramblings of one individual on the strength of their dreams, says who says who? The guy or gal who says God told me, or the faith once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. We can’t go on rejecting authority forever trusting and ignoring and supplanting the Word of God because revelation is complete, the cannon is closed. We know what God says. Whether through the angels or the apostles, God has given us His Word we turn there first. We read it well in community. Does the spirit still speak Today, yes, absolutely. Moments of guidance. We’re not talking like revelation we’re talking about. I should call it my friend that I haven’t talked to a little while. The spirit has laid that on my heart. And sure enough, that was just the person you need to talk to Absolutely. The spirit, that subjective impression will never contradict Revelation, we submit everything to the Word of God. Is there a precept? Is there a principle that will determine this? Well, God told me to leave my wife and marry someone else? No, not a chance. Don’t even need to think about that. No prayer required, Thou shalt not commit adultery done. We got it. Nailed it. Okay, sometimes more confusing, right? I think God is leading me to accept this new position. Okay, what principles in Scripture speak to that decision? To Scripture say anything about the love of money? does scripture say anything about our vocation? does scripture say anything about priorities? Alright, let’s sort through all of that, as we listen to the Spirit’s voice within us. That’s how we must learn to listen to everything that we hear. I saw back in June, for reasons that should be obvious. A post from a former youth, group member mine of a previous church, they posted this, a gay Christian is not an oxymoron, but a hateful Christian is. And what should our response be to that?
Says who? Okay, that’s a bold claim. Let’s pause. Let’s test it. What does the word of God say about sexuality? What does the word of God say about hatred, and the way we treat other people, there’s a lot to be said. It says who? Alright, that’s verse eight, by the way, then we come to verse nine, and it gets complicated. So this is an illustration to make his point here, the point being, we don’t have authority, and he references a well known story, when Satan and the Archangel Michael are disputing about the body of Moses who has died on top of a mountain. Y’all remember that story? Yeah, and now you’re all feeling guilty, right? Because you’re like, Cooper Tells us every week we’re supposed to read through the Bible all the time and stuff and remember this story. It’s okay. This one’s not in the Bible. This is from an extra biblical source known as the testament of Moses, widely read at this time, the fact that Jude references it does not make it an inspired book. It is not, it doesn’t even mean that the story is necessarily true. It could be it doesn’t really matter. It’s just a well known illustration, I will quote frequently, you can back me up on this can quote frequently from things like Pilgrims Progress, and the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. And you know, what I think isn’t real Aslan. Okay, so maybe that’s all that’s going on here. It doesn’t really matter. I will say that. But it’s an illustration, they would all know, we need a little background because we did not read the testament of Moses this week. So Moses is not buried by the people of Israel, probably because they will be in grave danger of making his grave pun totally unintended. But man, that was good. I wish I’d thought of that. A shrine. Like they had idolatry problems, the Israelites. So that’s probably why so God Himself takes care of Moses’s burial. Apparently, Satan shows up on the scene to say the body is mine, by the way, a lot like Chronicles of Narnia, because here’s the White Witch going admin belongs to me because he’s a traitor. So that’s what’s happening here. Moses is a murderer. He belongs to me. And Michael knows that’s not true. Because Moses was saved by grace through faith in the promises of a coming messiah, his sins like ours are forgiven in Christ Jesus, he’s been pardoned. So Michael knows that this is slander. But he also knows that he is not the one to call it slander. He can only ask God, who is the judge who has authority to condemn Satan for slander? And that’s actually coming from Zachariah. So what’s the point of this illustration? It isn’t that we should be polite, even to the devil. That is not the lesson to be learned here. Okay. The lesson is who gets the final say, not us, not dreams, the word of God. We are not a law to ourselves. We are not autonomous. When the law condemns our behavior, we can’t just dismiss it because it came from angels. Only God has authority. We cannot go on rejecting authority forever. Because we know what God has said. The book is closed. And so we’re not going to listen to our own dreams that justify our desires, which takes us to the last point By the way, because we will use subjective personal experiences like dreams to excuse where our twisted desires take us. That’s the third reason can’t go on rejecting authority forever because humanity is fallen, verse 10. Yet these people slander or whatever they do not understand the very things they do understand by instinct, as rational animals do, will destroy them.
So false teachers slander celestial beings on their own authority, even though even Michael won’t slander evil angels. So after this brief illustration, Jude resumes his central line of attack these people slander, what they don’t get the angels and the law, Angel, angels are merely messengers of God’s law. And so if that law condemns your evil behavior, you can’t just shoot the messenger, just what they’re trying to do. You don’t like bad news, you don’t like the doctor telling you you need to a lifestyle change what you do you just reject it. Show me your diploma Doc, what second rate medical school? Did you go to Northwestern? Have you seen their football team? I want a second opinion. That’s what is happening here. Interestingly, he’s almost certainly attacking these false teachers at their point of pride. Because what do they think they have a lot of understanding. So they’re claiming special understanding of the spiritual realm. Because of these visions that they’ve had. In reality, they don’t even understand that it was angels delivering God’s law to Moses, this is coming straight from God. And in this, by the way, very much like the men of Sodom who don’t recognize the angels that are standing there before them. But Jude says, let’s cut them some slack here, there is something they understand. There’s something they understand better than we do, maybe natural instincts, what we would call today probably euphemistically, base desires. So they think that got their heads in the heavenlies. When actually they’re buried in the ground. These false teachers are bent toward Earth, they’re being pulled down by their evil desires. And we’re dealing with sexual immorality. What they’re saying is because I peeked my head through the clouds into the heavenlies, God told me it’s okay for me to sleep with whomever commentator Richard Baucom says it well. He says in so doing these people who claim to be spiritual men, superior to the angels prove themselves to be living on the subhuman level of the beasts, like fallen angels, like the people of Sodom, like the wilderness generation, even we’ll see that next week. Those desires, twisted sexual desires will destroy them, judgment is inevitable, after all. And so, because they are like these Old Testament examples in their sin, they will be like them in their judgment to you cannot go on rejecting authority forever. Because if the answer to says who is just me, myself and I, we are in big trouble, because humanity is fallen, or messed up, like we need to reckon with our brokenness, left to ourselves, we will be selfish. And in our selfishness, we will hurt and exploit others, right you strip away authority you’re in a might makes right world. How does that go sexually speaking, that’s the whole me to movement, isn’t it? You put people in positions of power, they will abuse that authority, and hurt others deeply in the process, a spouse who thinks God just wants me to be happy, it will abandon family. And that’s a devastating blow. I’ve seen it many times you probably have to it is a devastating blow to the spouse has been left behind are the kids who are being left behind, or even just a person who thinks their own desires matter just a little bit more than everybody else’s love, their comfort, are going to blow up and anger over and over and over again, when they don’t get what they want. That’s in traffic, and that’s at work. And that’s at home. So we’re bent in ourselves, we can go on rejecting authority forever because we’re messed up. Humanity has fallen. God has spoken to us. He has revealed His will for us for our lives, unmistakeably, through men and angels in his spirit. We won’t always like what he has to say to us. The says who question will always be they’re going to want to go our own way and choose for our cells. And in this, this is a hard message today. Like that Doc, again, who’s saying look, this is a major surgery with a long recovery and a whole bunch of physical therapy afterwards. Like that’s bad news. But within the hard shell there is excess Was it goodness, it’s like cracking open the geode to see the sparkling crystals within. That doctor is not trying to make your life miserable. She’s trying to make it better.
She’s trying to bring healing because after all that the the surgery and the recovery and the therapy, you know what you can be able to walk or see or live, whatever it is. So it is here. But the point of this passage is not just flee from the judgment to come but to flee to the paradise of God’s love. This is a passage warning of judgment, yes, but pull back the curtains of judgment, and the room floods with the light of grace. God, we see it, it’s all over this past, right? God delivered his people out of Egypt. That’s grace, and He delivers us out of our bondage to sin. Jesus is the true and better Moses leading us in the true and better accidents. That’s great news. And you know how long it took for this judgment to happen. Even in these stories before the final judgement, like God is patient, no one gets destroyed immediately. We’re not getting zapped all the time, not patients, Paul tells us his kindness, that’s meant to lead us to repent, I’m gonna give you more time, so you can turn from your sin and turn to Jesus still. Have you ever asked yourself? Why isn’t God doing something? With all the suffering and hurt and evil in this world? There’s your answer. Because when he does something with it, that’s going to be judgment, there’ll be no more time to turn. So he’s patient, so that we can go out and share the Good News and people will turn to Jesus, and God reveals Himself to us. There’s some grace, like, despite our rebellion, and then immediately hiding ourselves from God, God comes, finds us and discloses himself to us in the Word of God, he makes a way for us to be saved, and then shows us that way to be saved. That is grace upon grace. Like there’s bad news. Absolutely. There is good news, too, right behind it. A doctor saying you can be healed, and Jesus saying you can be saved. We are not stuck with a moral free for all might makes right spiritual anarchy. There is an answer. For that question says who and his name is Jesus and He is good, and he is for us. You can’t go on rejecting authority forever. Because judgment is inevitable. And Revelation is complete and humanity has fallen. But why would you want to go on rejecting authority forever, when you could submit instead joyfully to Christ, our King who is unfailingly good. This is after all, the king who don’t forget these words from last week. They’re written like a banner over all of June, the king who calls us and loves us and keeps us free judgment. Sure, the fleet to Jesus, let’s pray. Lord, how grateful we are that you are on the throne. And we are not because we know how messed up we are. And we know how badly we’ve messed up the good world that you created. And so, Lord, we surrender even now, we don’t want a moral free for all. We want you to be in charge because your way is better because you know better because you are better. Lord, help us to bend the knee even in this moment. And to surrender to flee joyfully, willingly submit to our good King, Jesus, who loved us to the point of death, and made a way for us, to return to you. Help us to return even now and to live in light of that love. And in light of Your Lordship, we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.

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