WWUTT 476 Waterless Clouds and Fruitless Trees?

Jude gives a series of metaphors to warn about false shepherds and the kind of damage they can do to the church if left unchecked.

In fact, you couldn't even really call them shepherds because they're walking paradoxes when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're continuing our study of the book of Jude and left off at a place where Jude is going through a series of metaphors describing false teachers to better help us understand what kind of damage that they can do even to the church.

And we'll come back to those metaphors again today starting in about verse 12. But first of all,

I want to jump back a little bit to verse 8 where Jude says, Yet in like manner these people, talking about false teachers, also relying on their dreams defile the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones.

Now I mentioned to you when we were in 2 Peter, this was, I don't know, a few months ago now, but 2

Peter 2 is very similar to some of the things that Jude says in his letter.

And in fact, Peter uses this same phrasing, blaspheming the glorious ones. 2 Peter 2 verse 10,

Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones. What does this mean to blaspheme the glorious ones?

Well, it is believing that the devil and his angels do not have the kind of power to influence me.

My will is stronger than theirs. I'm not so weak in my mind that the devil is going to fool me to do his bidding or get caught in his snare.

And when a person thinks that way, they've already been fooled by the devil to think that they're actually stronger than he is.

And so that kind of attitude, that kind of approach to to the devil and the kind of authority that he does have, which has been given to him by God to influence and manipulate those whose hearts are not with God.

This is something that God allows the devil to do. When a person believes that they're not going to be susceptible to the devil and his schemes, then they've already fallen victim to the devil and his schemes.

Jude has said something similar in Jude, verse eight. Yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams to file the flesh, reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones.

But when the archangel Michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said the

Lord rebuke you. My dad lives in the Atlanta area and he came across a church.

This is a new church startup, or at least they've just gained recognition,

I think, in the Atlanta area. And so he sent me a link to this particular church and said,

I know you like to keep up with this stuff. So what do you think of this? And so I watched it.

I watched the live stream of this particular church. They are a big mess. And so but there was one thing in particular in the in the stream that I watched,

I didn't watch much of it. Right when I started it, I was already hearing unbiblical content right from the get go.

But I, I grabbed this little clip out of something that the pastor does leading his congregation in a particular prayer.

I want you to listen to it here. If you're watching us by streaming, we have a little bit of a technical difficulty.

Our switcher just burned up. So you've got one camera instead of four. But we're glad you're watching us tonight.

And if anybody wants to sow a seed for a switcher, this is a wonderful night. Can I tell you the devil does not like this church.

Every time, every time we call a miracle service, something happens.

Something's confusing. Can I know that he's the prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2, 22. Do you know we're kings and priests?

And if I get a few kings and priests agreeing with us, I think we could have a switcher running without power.

We don't even need to plug up to the wall. Amen. Amen. Grab your neighbor by the hand and say, in Jesus name, devil, step away from the airwaves that Worship With Wonder's church is putting out.

God, you called us to be a tabernacle of praise for the city of Atlanta.

So right now, we go on assignment. I want you to stand to your feet.

Okay. And then from that point on, he just has everybody stand up and cheer. I'm not going to do that, but you notice any anything problematic with his prayer.

Who is he praying to the devil? This is this is something

I just don't think the word of faith preachers and this is absolutely word of faith.

I mean, you could hear him say if anybody wants to sow a seed for our switcher now would be a good time.

Right. That's a money pitch right there. If you sow a seed for us to get a new switcher, then, you know, you're you're going to produce that much more harvest.

God is going to give you even more money to do more with. That's that's the way the word of faith people do their pitch.

Make it think that because you give them money, you're going to get even more money. But first, he asked for them to sow a seed to get a new switcher.

And then he says, I think we can just all cheer and our cheering will allow our switcher to work without power.

And from what I could tell from the video feed, the switcher never did start working again. And the devil hates that church so much that he's going to make their switcher stop working so that they will start praying to him.

I really don't think that he was intimidated by anything going on there. And it just goes to show you that they believed they had the power in themselves to overcome

Satan. The reference that the pastor used there was incorrect. It's not Ephesians 222.

It's Ephesians 222. But, you know, I've made that mistake before, even used the wrong book in a reference that I was making.

But nonetheless, this effort of theirs to try to ward off Satan is a perfectly good example of blaspheming the glorious ones.

They do not have a power in and of themselves, not even acting as a kingdom of priests. A kingdom of priests goes and shares the gospel with those who have not heard.

They don't stand and do clap offerings, believing that it's going to make their switcher start working again.

They reject authority and blaspheme the glorious ones. When even the archangel Michael himself did not rebuke

Satan, but said, the Lord rebuke you. These people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

And so now we get to the metaphors that Jude uses through verse 13 here.

So I'm going to read through this. We'll come back to where we left off beginning in verse 12. These are hidden reefs at your love feast as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

So what we looked at last week in verse 12, where we left off on Wednesday, these are hidden reefs at your love feasts as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves.

So what is the purpose of these two metaphors that we've looked at thus far? It's that these false teachers are hidden and you're not going to notice them right away.

They're not going to come right out and say, hey, I'm a false teacher and I'm here to tell you lies.

They're never going to do that. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. So they're going to look like the rest of us.

And it takes discernment to know that what it is that they are saying is not of God, but of the flesh of the devil and not actually of Christ.

The apostle Paul, second Timothy three, five, they have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power.

And he explicitly says to his servant, Timothy, avoid such people. So even in the clip that we just played of this church that was gathering, it seems like they're a bunch of Christians that want to gather together and sing praises to God.

But they deny the power of godliness, did not actually worship

Christ and believe in his power or desire his righteousness. But instead, they believed in their own ability to rebuke the devil.

And then their switcher wouldn't start working, which didn't actually happen. So this is these are false teachers who are hidden among us.

They're hidden reefs at your love feast. They will make shipwreck of your faith while they sit at the same table dining with you.

Shepherds feeding themselves. The other metaphor that Jude uses there because they look like they belong to the flock.

They even look like leaders. They sound like teachers, but they're just there to feed themselves.

And so these first two metaphors that he's used, these first two word pictures have been to describe them as being secret and hidden among us, hidden reefs, shepherds feeding themselves.

Then we get to a section where he describes them in very paradoxical ways. They are waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead uprooted.

And perhaps you like like I reacted the first time when I read Jude 12 and I read

Waterless Clouds. I'm going, how do you have that? How do you have a waterless cloud?

That's pretty much what a cloud is. It's water vapor. So if you don't have water in the cloud, how can it be a cloud?

Well, that's precisely Jude's point. It's a paradox. They they cannot be true teachers of God.

He described them as shepherds feeding themselves. But the reality is they're not actually shepherds.

He described them as sitting at your love feast, but they don't actually have love.

So as they're they're dining with you, they're not actually with you. They are against you.

So they're waterless clouds. They are existing paradoxes. What it is they exist to do is totally contrary to Christ likeness and godliness.

They're not producing either. They are just there to benefit themselves. They are caught in the snare of the devil to do his will.

They are not doing the will of God. So this makes them waterless clouds.

This is the the name of Justin Peters presentation that he does on Word of Faith Heretics on Word Faith Heretics.

Clouds Without Water is the name of that presentation used to be called a call for discernment. But since he's updated it, it's now called

Clouds Without Water. Highly recommend that you watch it. Now, you can you can watch the first version of it on YouTube for free.

That's the call for discernment. The updated version, you have to go to Justin Peters ministry website and buy it.

But I have a copy. I have gladly contributed to Justin Peters ministry to pick up a copy of that DVD, which coming up pretty soon, we're going to be showing in our

Sunday night service at church. Right now, we're going through a series on the Protestant Reformation, which is very historical in nature, since this is the 500th year of the

Protestant Reformation, 500 years ago that Martin Luther nailed his ninety five thesis to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany.

So that's what we're doing on Sunday night. But once we finish that up, I want to go through clouds without water.

Justin Peters series so that we as Christians could be equipped to know what we are looking out for regarding these false teachers, these shepherds who feed themselves, these clouds without water.

They are walking paradoxes for the apostle Paul instructed that we speak the truth in love.

They're not loving. They just love themselves. So they don't speak the truth. Even if something comes out of their mouths that sounds somewhat biblical, it's still a paradox because they in their hearts are not trying to care for the people of God.

They're just out to benefit themselves. The apostle Paul, as he instructed the Ephesians in Ephesians 411, he says that God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love, according to the word of God, connected to Christ, a foundation on Christ as the cornerstone.

And that is the church. And the benefit of those teachers that have been given by God is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

And notice who the apostle starts with there. He gave the apostles and the prophets, those who wrote the

New Testament and the Old Testament, respectively. The evangelists, those who are going out and preaching the gospel in the streets, calling to repentance, the shepherds and the teachers, those who are in the church caring for the flock of God to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

So it is to benefit the body of Christ that we have been given the gifts and the calling that we have to go and call others to repentance and follow

Jesus Christ, who is the chief shepherd. This is the job of the shepherd.

What an under shepherd is supposed to do. But these shepherds who feed themselves are walking contradictions.

And so they are waterless clouds swept along by winds, as we just heard from Paul in Ephesians four, tossed to and fro by every shifting wind of doctrine.

If something comes along that proves these guys wrong, well, they'll just manipulate and tweak their doctrine just a little bit so that they can continue to lead the masses astray without sounding like the walking contradiction that they were before.

They are still a contradiction, but now they've just changed it a little bit. So it sounds like they've corrected the error that they previously made.

And boy, these word of faith guys do this all the time and people continue to be duped by them.

I think of Benny Hinn, one of the one of the most famous clips of Benny Hinn exposing his his heresy is a prophecy thing that he did on New Year's Eve in 1989 when he was prophesying about what was going to happen in the 90s.

And he goes into this trance and claims the Holy Spirit is giving him these visions of things that will happen in the 90s.

Virtually nothing that he predicted would happen in the 90s happened in the 90s, like Fidel Castro dying.

That just happened a few years ago. That wasn't that wasn't in the 90s. Devastating earthquakes that would wipe out like the

East and West Coast or something like that, that there would be a woman president, I think was one of them that God would utterly wipe out homosexuality from the

United States of America. Clearly, that didn't happen. So all of these prophecies that Benny Hinn goes through in 1989 that did not come true, that should have exposed him as the fraud that he was at the very least by the year 2000.

When people look back over the previous decade and see nothing that Benny Hinn predicted actually happened. So he should not even have any credibility anymore.

But he does. Others include Robert Tilton, famously known as the farting preacher, thanks to certain videos on YouTube.

He's that televangelist guy that would be on late at night telling you to sow a seed to send him some money and then

God is going to multiply it back to you. He's been exposed as a fraud and yet is making a comeback.

Peter Popoff is another one. I don't know if you remember Peter Popoff. I don't think he was as big as Tilton, but he used to do this thing where he'd fill up an arena of people just like Benny Hinn would do.

And he would have them fill out a card and and give it with their offering or something like that.

And then his wife would be in a trailer outside the arena with those cards and would read them to Peter Popoff in a little earpiece that he had.

And so it would sound like Popoff is getting some sort of revelation from the

Holy Spirit. I'm sensing there's a woman here named Debbie who's got lung cancer. And then there would be, oh, yeah, that's me.

And so he'd go over to her and and, you know, say something else based on the information that she put on the card that his wife is reading to him in his earpiece.

Well, there was there was a guy who exposed Popoff as a fraud by getting a radio receiver to intercept the signal that was going from his wife in the van back to the earpiece that he was that he was listening to in his ear and totally exposed the whole thing that Popoff was doing at these at these events.

And yet he is also making a comeback. Popoff still is out there doing stuff.

I think of how Lindsay and the stuff that he wrote with the late great planet Earth, all the prophecies that he claimed was going to happen, how

Lindsay even made a prediction as to exactly when Jesus was going to return and when Jesus didn't return them.

Well, how Lindsay just changed his date. So once again, you have this these waterless clouds swept along by winds.

And yet Lindsay is still consulted as some kind of prophecy expert. You'll see him come on TV and every once in a while.

And that's the that's the way they introduce him. How Lindsay prophecy expert. He's a fraud.

He's been exposed as a fraud. And he'll just kind of tweak his message a little bit to make it sound like he,

I don't know, still has his pulse on, still has his finger on the pulse of what God is doing, according to him.

So the other thing that a waterless cloud can't give you is water. They promise refreshing from the

Lord, but because they are a waterless cloud, they don't even have that refreshing to be able to give to you.

So then likewise, we get to fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead and uprooted.

They don't have any they don't have any fruit. They're not even rooted in anything to be able to give you fruit, nor are they even standing there for you to be able to point to and say, that's a tree.

That's a teacher of God. You can't because they're already twice dead and uprooted.

And this goes right back to statements that we've had made in Matthew, chapter three, verse 10, when

John the Baptist was talking about the coming of Christ, he said, even now the axes laid at the root of the trees, every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

And Jesus said it in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew seven, 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

So here we have these false teachers who have not even been given life in the spirit, in their hearts.

They are twice dead, uprooted, cast into the pile and are waiting for judgment unless by God's sovereign grace, they repent of their sin.

They cry out to the Lord for forgiveness and by his grace and the spirit of God upon their lives, they are granted repentance.

The apostle Paul instructed Timothy in Second Timothy, chapter two, to correct opponents with gentleness and God may perhaps grant them repentance.

So this is precisely the way that we need to engage even with a false teacher and that we correct them with gentleness.

God grants them repentance and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

God have mercy. Let us pray. Our Lord, as we consider these things that have been shared by your servant

Jude, may we recognize those who are false teachers and not be led astray by them, but also that you would give us an ability, a gentleness, a love and a yearning for the people of God that we would warn others about false teachers so they would not be led astray also.

And doing this with gentleness, because we know it is you who grants repentance.

We pray that you would give these teachers repentance so that they would not perish in the fire, but they would be branches of the vine producing the fruit that Christ has given us to produce.

For apart from you, we can do nothing. Fill us up with more of your spirit and desire to do your will.

And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book, 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean.

Available in paperback or for your Kindle, can be found at our website at www .utt .com.