However, we see here, in the case of Cain, it is a very fit and proper beginning of the woe that is coming on and the terrible sin that calls for the woe. Now the solemn thing is that it refers also to the present time. Evil never dies out, but gets darker and more opposed to God—becomes more hardened against God, without the least compunction of conscience.
Taking things out of mere historical order so as to make them exactly suit the truth, the next thing is the case of Balaam. The incident which brought out the nature of Balaam and the fact of his being a typical enemy of God is a further sample of what was to be in Christendom, that is, when he uttered these most glorious truths; and I suppose, they were the only truths which he had ever uttered in his life. Well, Balaam was drawn to curse Israel, and he was induced to do so by all the offers of gold and silver and honor of every kind. And I will even say that he tried to make it out that she did not care for money; he said he was entirely above such a paltry consideration. The sin of Balaam is a very solemn thing. He went out to sin, he went out to meet (as our translators have put it) Jehovah—to “meet the LORD,” but there is nothing of “the LORD” in it, the words being merely added. The fact is, he went to meet the devil, whom he had been accustomed to meet. He went out to seek enchantment, that is the devil, of course. Our translators have put in “the LORD” (Jehovah), but the fact is it was the enemy of the Lord, the source of all Balaam's wickedness and wicked power. Balaam knew that it was a divine power that compelled him to speak about what he had no thought of speaking about; but when he did so, his vast capacity for eloquence went along with his speaking.
God did not refuse to allow this man's mind to be displayed. That is the way in which God sometimes works by all the writers He employs. The man must be uncommonly dull not to see a difference of style in comparing the different books of the Bible. If it were merely the Spirit of God it would be the same style in all, but it is the Spirit of God causing a man to bring out the truth of God and to give it out with that style and feeling that should justly accompany it. So in the case of Balaam: although he was much moved by the thought of dying the death of the righteous, yet there was not one single working of his soul in communion with God. He was the enemy of God, and the one that came to curse the Israel of God, but he was compelled to give utterance to more glorious predictions. The wonderful effusions of this wicked prophet glorified the coming of the Lord Jesus. There is something of that kind now in Christendom. Sometimes the most wicked of men can preach eloquently and, what is extraordinary too, God has often used the words of unconverted men for the conversion of others. I have no doubt that that is the case at the present time, and it has always been so. Of course it is altogether one of the side features of ruin. The normal manner is for those that are saved to be the messengers of salvation to others.
The error of Balaam was that he was the willing instrument of the devil to destroy Israel, and as he could not curse them he did not give it up, but it was a vain attempt to do so. Jehovah turned it into a blessing. Balaam thought to employ the women of Moab to draw the Israelites after idolatry. He could not turn Jehovah away from Israel, so he tried to turn Israel away from Jehovah. I have no doubt a great many souls throughout Christendom have been converted by these utterances of Balaam. Balaam's eyes were fixed upon Israel—he wanted to damage them; they were the people he hated, they were the persons he wished to bring down, they were the persons he maligned and misrepresented with all his might, but he did not know that they were the people of Jehovah. But God knew.
Then with regard to Moses and Aaron—Moses represented God, and Aaron represented the intercession of the grace of God; but Korah would not submit to such a thing for a moment. In the case of Korah, what makes it more atrocious is that he had a very honorable place; he belonged to the highest rank of the Levites, he belonged to that half of the Levites to which Moses had belonged. Moses had first the call of God, who lifted him up beyond all question; but Korah belonged to the most honored of the three families of the Levites who were servants or ministers of the sanctuary, and, as I have said, Korah belonged to the highest of the Levites; but nothing satisfied him. Why? Because he hated that Moses should have a place that belonged to him beyond any other. Satan blinded his eyes, which he always does so that people may feel like this. Korah's object was to achieve what pertained only to Moses and Aaron. There are always many good reasons for bad things, and the reasons sound well, but they are words that strike at God and at Christ. There was a punishment not only of Korah but also of his family, other Levites and all their families. And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up in a way that had never happened on any other occasion since the world began. There may have been something resembling it, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, where it rained fire and brimstone and consumed the wicked, but the converse was the case here. The earth opened and swallowed them up. We find further a remarkable thing: the children of Korah were not consumed. He was the leader of the rebellion against Jehovah, but God in the midst of His judgment showed mercy to the sons. They did not perish through the plague that set in afterward amongst the congregation. These sons of Korah are referred to in the Psalms, for there is the fact recorded that there are “the sons of Korah,” and the right persons to sing such psalms. Well, all these things perish that do not depend upon the grace of God—things like the error of Korah, things that war against God, that cause all those uprisings of falsehood. I think all such things, such as the Oxford movement, are wrong. I do not mean the Ritualistic one, which is extremely vulgar. But what is the error of the Oxford movement? It is very nearly the same error as Korah's. Korah wanted to be priest as well as minister. That kind of thing is what men are doing now who maintain that they are sacrificing priests. It is true that the sacrifice is a perfect absurdity: the sacrifice is the bread and the wine. How could this be a sacrifice? If they called it an offering it would be a better term; but they not only call it a sacrifice, but they fully believe that Christ personally enters the bread and the wine. Therefore they are bound to worship the “elements,” as they call it. Such an idea is lower than heathenism, for the heathens never eat their God. These men are sanctimonious and exceedingly devoted to the poor. Yes, and they are most zealous in attending their churches and attending to their monstrous developments. This is of the same character as described with reference to Korah. But the only sense in which these men should preach is when they become really sons of God, redeemed Christians, because that is the only sense in which they will be received; but all this false doctrine of the Oxford School denies that all Christians are priests, and infringes and overthrows the real work of Christ and substitutes this continual sacrifice that is a sin. So that no wonder Jude says, “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.”
Then note the tremendous words that follow: “These are spots in your love-feasts.” Think of it. There were such men at that time in the church. Therefore we ought never to be surprised at anything evil that may break out in the world; the only thing is for believers to fight the good fight of faith. There is another rendering— “Hidden rocks in your love-feasts, feasting together, fearlessly pasturing themselves; clouds” they are, and it should be noted they are “without water,” without the real work of the Spirit of God, the rich refreshment of it— “carried along by winds.” As I said before, I will not deny that God may use any person in a solemn way which is thought to be a good deal of honor in the priesthood, but it is deadly work for themselves who preach. “Autumnal trees without fruit, twice dead, rooted up; raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shames; wandering stars for whom hath been reserved the gloom of darkness forever.”
May God preserve His saints, and may we by watchfulness and prayer be carried safely through such dangers as these.
(Vers. 14, 15)
“And Enoch, seventh from Adam, prophesied also as to these, saying, Behold, [the] Lord came amid his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all, and to convict all the ungodly [of them] of all their works of ungodliness which they ungodily wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners spoke against him” (vers. 14, 15).
This is a remarkable utterance, for which we can only account as the power of the Holy Ghost.
There is a traditional book of Enoch in the Ethiopic language, which appears to have been known in a Greek form now long lost. We have not got the Greek, but learned men have endeavored with all possible zeal to try and make out that Jude quotes from this uninspired book; for the book is evidently one of Jewish tradition, and from internal evidence it would seem that it was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. But there is another thing that appears, I think, to anyone that reads it with, not merely learning, but with spiritual understanding, and that is, that it differs essentially in this very verse that is supposed by some to be quoted from it, from what Jude has given us here by the Spirit of God.
But how Jude was enabled to quote the words of Enoch, who was taken up to heaven before the flood—and nothing can be plainer than that he does give it as Enoch's words— “Enoch prophesied,” he says. However, I think that to us who know the power of the Spirit of God there is no real difficulty in the matter. It is all the same to Him to record what took place three thousand years ago as it would be to record what took place at the time the apostles lived. It may be a little more difficult to those who doubt this power, if they do; but we are the last who ought to do so.
The fact is, that no tradition has any value beyond man, but a prophecy necessarily, if it is a true one, comes from God. We have no intimation that it was conveyed in any written form, and it was quite possible for the Holy Ghost to have given it again to Jude. I do not at all venture to say that it was so, we really do not know; but we do know, however Jude got it, that it is divine. We know that it is given with absolute certainty, and that it possesses God's authority.
There is a peculiarity when it says, “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam.” People have made somewhat of that because they don't understand it. But it is very simple. There was more than one Enoch.
There was an Enoch before this one—an Enoch the son of Cain. I do not see any ground to imagine something peculiar and mystical in this. At any rate, if there be such, I confess I do not know what it is. But I do know that there is a plain and sufficient sense to distinguish this Enoch, and to explain how he could prophesy. We should not look for prophecy in a son of Cain. But that Enoch taken up to heaven in a most remarkable way—more so than was the case with any other man in some respects; more so than Elijah, though that was a miracle of similar import and character—that he should be the medium of prophecy we can quite understand, for he walked with God, and was not. It was not that he died, but “he was not,” because he was taken up to God, yet before he left the world he prophesied. We can hardly doubt that he prophesied about the people that were there in his own day. Prophecy always takes its start from what is actually present. Prophecy has a hold in the consciences of those who live. The object was to warn of the terrible consequences of evil that was persisted in, and how the evil that then appeared would assuredly be judged of, God in due time. But the Spirit of God launches out to the end from the beginning. That is the common character of all prophecy. We find it throughout all the prophets at any rate. I do not, of course, say that it was always the case where the prediction might be about something of a merely present nature, but it was so in the cases of those moral pictures that are not bound to any particular time or person. We can quite understand these being made the vehicle for the Spirit of God to look down to the time when it would not be providential action of the Lord, such as the flood for instance, but much more than any acting after that figurative manner—His real personal coming in judgment.
Now, in that Ethiopic book which I have seen, and of which I have the text, and English translation by the late Archbishop Laurence, as well as a French version of the work by a very learned Romanist (perhaps a more excellent scholar than the Archbishop I have named, at any rate one more familiar with Oriental languages)—they both agree in what is totally different from what we have here; and what makes it more remarkable is, they agree in asserting an error which is almost universal now in Christendom.
You are aware that the general view of all Christians who derive their thoughts from traditions, creeds, or articles of faith, is that they think that everyone is going to be judged alike, and this falls in quite with the natural thought, particularly of the natural man. It seems to him a very offensive thing that those who are really sinners like themselves, but are believers unlike themselves—it seems nevertheless to those who think very little of believing, a very hard and unrighteous thing that believers should be exempted from a judgment to which others are fast hastening.
But why? Our Lord puts it in the clearest possible manner in John 5 He there describes Himself in two different lights—one as Son of God, the other as Son of man. As Son of God He gives life. And who are they who get life? Does He not tell us that he “that believes on him hath life eternal”? It is one of those remarkable short and pithy statements of the Gospel of John. In one form or another it runs through the entire Gospel—I might almost say from the first chapter, though we may not have the literal words, but the same fundamental, substantial sense. And it goes on to the twentieth chapter, certainly, if not the twenty-first. All through this Gospel, and the same great truth re-appears in his Epistle, say, the First Epistle of John; it is, that life belongs to him that believes on the Lord Jesus. Just as surely as we inherit death naturally from Adam, so now there is another man who is also God, and, being God as well as Man, He has entirely set aside the judgment of our sins for us by bearing it Himself. But that is not all. He gives us this new life which is proper to Himself that we might be able to bear fruit for God now. There must be a good life to bear good fruit. And there is no good life to bear fruit that God counts good except Christ's life, and all that are of faith have received that life—every Old Testament saint, as really as a New Testament saint. They had faith, they had life, they testified for God. Their ways were holy, which they could not have been had they not a life to produce this holiness, and so it is now.
Well, accordingly, those that believe on Him, the Son of God, receive life. If I reject His divine glory, that is, that He is the Son of God in this high and full sense, then I have not life; because He only gives it to those that believe. But do those who remain in unbelief therefore escape? No, He is Son of man; and that is just where their want of faith broke down. They could see that He was a man, and as they had no faith to see anything deeper, they only regarded Him as Son of man. In that very character the Lord will judge them. He will judge them as the Man whom they despised. They will behold Him as the Man of everlasting glory. Not merely a divine person, but a man; and in that very quality—as Son of man—He will judge them.