After having shown the two characters of the "ungodly," the forsaking of grace and the rejection of the Lord's authority, the Apostle passes over to the judgment of the evil; but he first establishes the fact that God withheld no resource from them. The history of the people of Israel is a witness to this. God had delivered them from Egypt through redemption. Why then was this people destroyed in the wilderness? It is because they believed not; lack of faith was the cause of their judgment, for there is no real blessing which is not the outflow of faith.
As it was with Israel, unbelief in professing Christendom is the cause for its judgment. But, first of all, the Apostle wants to characterize apostasy, consequence of this unbelief, and the judgments that overtake it. "God," says he, "hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day" "the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation." v. 6. Under whatever form it may be, the abandonment of our first estate is apostasy. The Apostle alludes to certain mysterious events referred to in Genesis, and which the Word leaves in obscurity, as the fallen angels who were the perpetrators of them. It does not behoove us to lift this veil, but what we do know is that the judgment of the great day shall overtake these corrupted spirits, even as the punishment of eternal fire has already overtaken the profane cities of Sodom and Gomorrah who had acted "in like manner with them" (v. 7; J.N.D. Trans.). We find here two kinds of judgments, one future, the other immediate and final; one under darkness, in chains, to await the sentence of the divine tribunal, the other actually by fire, which is a fire everlasting.
Jude now passes on to the wicked who lived in his time, and whose character shall grow worse and worse until the final judgment. "Yet in like manner these dreamers also defile the flesh, and despise lordship, and speak railingly against dignities." v. 8; J.N.D. Trans. He calls them dreamers, people who are guided not by the truth, but by an imagination that knows no rule. From the moment man forsakes the Word of God, he has no reason for not giving himself over to irrationalism and fables. These dreamers have two characters already mentioned in verse 4—they defile the flesh, despise lordship, and speak railingly against dignities. Contempt for the lordship of Christ has as fatal consequence an injurious attitude toward dignities, while the Christian, acknowledging the Lord's authority has no difficulty to submit himself to the authority of those appointed by Him. Should there be magistrates without morals, or sanguinary tyrants, the believer would submit himself to them except in the things wherein obedience to God is above that due to man. Even Michael the archangel (v. 9) dares not bring a railing accusation against Satan, who sought to take possession of the body of Moses, doubtlessly to seduce the people anew, leading them again into idolatry.
"But these," adds the Apostle, "speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves." v. 10. The word "these" occupies a very important place in this short epistle. It characterizes the men who lift up themselves against God, from the days of Jude through ours and unto the coming of the Lord in judgment. Hence, these men exist in our days. Peter in his second epistle styles them in the same way: "These, as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption." Chap. 2:12. In what contemptible terms the Spirit of God speaks of those who in their pride dare lift up themselves against God, boasting of their intelligence and lowering themselves to the level of brute beasts; for they suppose, fools that they are, that man without God can be intelligent!
The Apostle adds: "Woe unto them!" For on the one hand, they provide contempt for God, and on the other hand draw upon themselves His judgment. The Lord has pronounced woes upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the cities of Galilee, and all the prophets of the Old Testament, upon the Jewish people and upon the nations; but here, as in Rev. 8:1313And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! (Revelation 8:13), the woe is pronounced upon Christendom—woe more terrible than all because of the higher privileges accorded the Christian nations.
Dear friends, do you believe this? Have you felt the weight of the woe which hangs over the Christianized world in the midst of which you are called to live?
"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 Core." v. 11. We find in this verse three examples which describe to us the progress of evil from its inception to the apostasy, three steps of which bring men to the final revolt against God and against Christ.
The first case is that of Cain. Cain's religion admits not that God's curse hangs over man and the world because of sin. Cain presents himself before God with the illusion that a sinner can set himself right with Him by his own efforts; so he brings his best corn, fruit of his work and of his efforts, for a sacrifice to God. This natural religion, beginning of apostasy, differs not from the religion of the men of our days, for it is of "these" the Apostle speaks when he says, "They have gone in the way of Cain." Their religion consists in setting themselves right with God by their own works. In defiance of His express word, it turns away from the conscience the thought of our inevitable judgment. But the example of Cain has yet another meaning. Abel's faithful testimony to the justification by faith, becomes the occasion of Cain's hatred against his brother, picture of the world's hatred against the believers, picture too of the Jewish people's hatred against Christ. This hatred against what is born of God characterizes particularly the last times all through Revelation.
If Cain represents the state of the whole religious world, the case of Balaam has a more limited bearing. It is, if I may express myself thus, the ecclesiastic evil. You know what Balaam was—prophet—not a false prophet, for he had received his gifts from God, but he combined them with idolatrous practices. He went "to seek for enchantments." He who knew God's thoughts, knowingly and willingly taught the error, and with what object? For a reward! He was paid for this; he received a salary for his teaching designed to destroy God's people. That Satan had a hand in it mattered not to Balaam, provided he was enriched thereby. He "loved," says Peter, "the wages of unrighteousness." The book of Revelation reveals to us a second character of Balaam, necessary development of the first. It speaks of the "doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication." Rev. 2:1414But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication. (Revelation 2:14). It tells us what the book of Numbers is silent about, that Balaam seeing his reward slipping from him, gave counsel to Balak to seduce Israel through the daughters of Moab to bring them to bow down before Baal-peor (Numb. 25:1-41And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. 2And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. 3And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. 4And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. (Numbers 25:1‑4)).
Sad indeed it is, my dear friends, to have to admit it as a fact that the teaching of error for a reward is a trait of the apostasy and belongs to the Christianity of our days. One sees standing in the pulpits men who deny the most important truths of the faith, teaching the error concealed by words designed to deceive the simple by hiding the poison they contain. This error is not a future thing, for it began to manifest itself in the days of Jude. It exists today, and God's Word pronounces woe upon those who spread it.
We see in the case of Core a last step in the evil. They "perished in the gainsaying of Core." Core was a Levite who had the ambition to usurp the dignity of Aaron in the high priesthood. He wanted to lord it over the people of God by seizing upon an office assigned in his time to Moses' brother, and conferred now to Christ. Moreover, you read in the book of Numbers that he had associated himself with Dathan and Abiram, Reubenites who rose up against Moses and positively refused to obey him. Moses was in his time the true king in Israel (Deut. 33:55And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel were gathered together. (Deuteronomy 33:5)).
Today this true King is Christ to whom God has committed all authority. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram refuse him obedience. It is the type of the open rebellion against Christ, the last character of apostasy, future still in part. The day is near when Christendom shall want no more of Him, neither as Priest, King, or God. It shall deny the Father and the Son. This last character, the apostasy of Core, is the worst of all. One sees from the judgments that fell on these several persons what God thought of their acts. Cain, cursed of God, was a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth; Balaam fell by the sword of Israel with the kings of Midian; the earth swallowed up Core and his associates, and they went down alive into the sepulcher, precursors of their last representative, the antichrist who shall suffer the same fate in the lake of fire.
Such is, dear brethren, the development of the principles of evil. It is necessary that we all realize what the world is in its relationship with God, and what fate awaits it; and if we do, the knowledge of its future will fill us with a profound pity for it, and, as we shall see at the end of this epistle, an ardent zeal to save the souls who are in it. But, on the other hand, we cannot seek after its friendship at the time when judgment hangs over it. Moses said to the people at the time of Core's revolt, "Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan and Abiram" (Numb. 16:2424Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. (Numbers 16:24)). Would an Israelite have been obedient to the word of the Lord, had he gone to shake hands with them and declared himself as their friend? Would not this disobedience rather have exposed him to the danger of sharing their fate?
"These," adds the Apostle, "are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are
without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." vv. 12, 13.
All these references to the end, as uttered by Enoch the prophet, are made to "these"; that is to say, to the men of the last days, and those days are the days we are living in. The Apostle adds to his picture one more general trait, in which you will recognize the world of today—continual anxiety and endless restlessness. They are, says he, clouds without water, carried about by winds, raging waves of the sea. Isaiah expresses the same thought: "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." Chap. 57:20. If haply they seem to take root, they are "trees... twice dead, plucked up by the roots." Yes, the world of our day realizes the perpetual motion, and its course quickens more and more. It hastens on toward the abyss, fearing, it would seem, to pause for a moment in this maddening rush to find out where it is heading for and to seriously consider its future. Alas! like the wandering stars, it shall disappear in everlasting darkness. The Christian alone possesses rest in this world, because his rest is in Christ. His heart and his conscience are built upon the Rock of Ages, eternal foundation of the faith.
It is also of "these," men of the present time, that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied. "Behold," said he, "the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." vv. 14, 15. Enoch prophesied before the flood. Evidently, his prophetic eye could discern the judgment that centuries later would fall upon this world in the flood; but he looked much further on in the future. His prophecy, through thousands of years, reaches our days; for it speaks to us of Christ's coming in judgment with ten thousands of His saints. Enoch was looking not for the flood, through which he did not go, but for the Lord. And his hope was realized; he was taken up without going through death, and shall come again with Christ when He shall come accompanied by His armies to execute His vengeance upon the ungodly men of our days.