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Reading Jude 10-11 and recognizing the false teachers who are like Cain, Balaam, and Korah and not to go after them. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
Beware false teachers who speak to you from their own subjective experiences instead of the objective Word of God. These false teachers not only exist today, we even have examples of them in the Bible when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. A blessing to be with you as we continue our study in the book of Jude. This week we are looking at the paragraph that goes from verses 8 through 13. So I'll begin reading in verse 8 where Jude writes,.
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile 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.
But 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.
These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, 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.
There's a lot of metaphor and word picture that's being used there, and as we expound on some of that and give application to it, so who would this be referring to by this particular metaphor? Might take us a little while, I'm not sure if we'll get all the way through this paragraph this week, or we might have to pick up some of it next week as well, but we'll see how far we get.
So let me go back to where we left off yesterday. Well, first of all, reading in verse 8, because Jude says, in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams. So their authority is themselves.
Their subjective visions or ideas or thoughts that they have, that they might even claim come from God, they might even think come from God. But it is darkness, because they do not come to the light of the word of God, but rather the darkness of their own sinful selves.
That's what it is that they're relying on. So they rely on their own dreams. Yet we have it commanded of us in Proverbs 3, to not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
So these who are like unreasoning animals, and they rely on what they understand instinctively. So Jude kind of puts this subjectivity another way in verse 10, where he says, these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
Now we've seen Jude use this word blaspheme in a couple of different ways. A lot of times when we hear the word blasphemy, we think of it just as speaking in vain about God, or using his name in vain, using his name improperly, or speaking about the things of God in an irreverent manner.
But blasphemy is to speak irreverently about anything that would be considered sacred. Not just God, but anything that God has made holy. Let's take, for example, something that Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Now even though Paul does not use the word blasphemy in that paragraph, he does mention ways that false teachers, those who devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, he does mention ways that they blaspheme, that which has been made sacred.
For example, they forbid marriage. Well, marriage is a sacred vow that has been given to us by God. It is a wonderful covenant that God has established and created. And when somebody forbids marriage, when they say that a person is forbidden from marriage, well, that's blasphemy.
That would be blaspheming something that God has made sacred. This is something that the Roman Catholic Church does, because they forbid their priests from marrying. They take out of context something that Paul said to the Corinthians, where he said it would be better for you to remain as I am.
But that is a personal conviction. That is a gift of singleness. That has nothing to do with forbidding marriage. Yet in order to be a Catholic priest, you are forbidden from being married. Well, that's blasphemy.
That's blaspheming something sacred that God has given to us to enjoy for His glory. And then likewise, another example that Paul gives is regarding food. Those who require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
So it's blasphemy. It is blaspheming something that is sacred when a person forbids you to eat a certain food that God has made to be good and is good for you if it is received with thanksgiving. Now, this is something the Hebrew Roots Movement people will do.
They claim in order to truly worship Christ the right way, you have to abide by all of these different Jewish customs, and among them are abstinence from certain foods. Still can't eat pork. Nope. You have to abide by the food laws that were laid down for the Jewish people in the book of Leviticus.
So if you're eating pork, yeah, that's unclean, and you are sinning before God. Well, that's blasphemy for them to do that, to forbid something that God has said can be eaten. There was a time and a place for the food laws that related to ceremonial cleanliness, but it is stated for us in the book of Mark that Jesus declared all foods clean.
And it's not just in that book, because that's one of those verses they'll attack and say, no, no, no, that's corrupted. You'll see that that reference is in parentheses, so it's something that the author added later.
But you have in Acts 10, Peter's vision. Peter went up on a housetop to pray, and he became hungry, and he wanted something to eat. And then while they were preparing the food, he fell into a trance, and he saw the heavens opened, and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth.
In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. But Peter said, By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.
And the voice came to him again a second time, What God has made clean, do not call common. And it says in Acts 10, 16, this happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven. And so this was the vision that Peter had by the declaration of God that all animals are clean.
And this is going back to something that God had said to Noah before we even got to the food laws in Leviticus. God said to Noah that I give you every moving thing for food. That's in Genesis 9, 3. So then came the Levitical laws for ceremonial cleanliness, which Jesus fulfilled by his coming and declared all foods clean.
We see that reiterated again in Acts 10, and Paul says it multiple times in his letters, Romans 14 being another one of those places. To not let anybody condemn you by what you eat. So a person that declares a food to be off limits or unholy blasphemes that which God has made sacred.
To call something unholy which God has made holy is a blasphemy. So here's an example of that in Paul's teaching in 1 Timothy 4, 1 -5. So coming back again to Jude and talking about those who blaspheme the glorious ones.
We have that mentioned in verse 8, and then we come to it again in verse 10. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
So they don't understand the Word of God. Instead, they go by what they know instinctively in their own sinful hearts. And one of the things that I think of also is something that Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2.
I'm attempting to turn there now. So Paul is talking about the natural person and the one who has received the Spirit of God. So 1 Corinthians 2, let me begin in verse 9. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
So notice here, the heart of man cannot imagine what God has prepared for us through Christ. Verse 10, these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
For who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is within him? So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So it is the Spirit of God that is within us, that has been given to us by Christ.
Everyone who is in Christ Jesus is entwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. You have the Holy Spirit living within you. And by that Spirit, we are able to understand the things of God, as we have them given to us in the Scriptures.
Who can know the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. And with the mind of Christ, we understand the Word of Christ. But those who do not have the mind of Christ, and are not trying to understand the words of Christ by the Spirit of God, they only are thinking and discerning things by their own dark spirit.
Those things that they understand instinctively by their own sinful nature. That's what we mean by their instinctive nature. It's their sinful nature. If they do not have the spiritual nature of the Holy Spirit of God, but are still acting according to the sinful nature, then they blaspheme all that they do not understand.
And they're destroyed by what they do instinctively, according to the sinful atom, the sinful flesh that they still inhabit. Not having been transformed by the Spirit of God, and to understand the things of God by the Spirit that dwells within them.
But still trying to reason things according to their own flesh. This is the naturally minded person. And the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They are folly to him. And he will perish by his own sinful nature if he does not repent of that.
And call upon the name of the Lord with a pure heart, desiring the things of the Spirit of God, to look with fresh eyes through the Holy Spirit, instead of according to the sinful nature. Woe to them, Jude says.
So back in Jude, verse 11, Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain. This is the very thing that Cain did. He understood instinctively, or rather he followed his own instincts, his own sinful instincts, rather than understanding what it is that God had commanded of him.
When Cain was jealous of his brother, hated his brother, because God showed him favoritism. Abel gave God his best. Cain did not. Didn't have to do with the substance of their sacrifices. It had to do with the heart by which these sacrifices were offered.
Abel gave God his best, and Cain gave his leftovers. And so God showed favor to Abel, but Cain did not earn that favor. And so Cain was jealous of Abel. He thought, hey, if I take Abel out of the picture, thinking maybe God's grading on a curve.
So if I take Abel out of the picture, that makes my sacrifice worthy. And what was God's word to Cain when this was the attitude in Cain's heart? He said to Cain, why are you angry and why is your face fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it. James says to us, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.
For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
And this is exactly what happened for Cain. Because sin arose in his heart to the point that he brought death upon his brother Abel. The first murder was committed. And we read about there in Genesis 4, the first murder in the history of man.
And so those who follow their own instincts, like Cain did, woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain. So there's the first example we get. The second one is, they abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error.
You remember Balaam, right? He was the guy who talked to a donkey. Or rather, he's the guy whose donkey talked to him. Balaam was not a godly man. And I think sometimes that's part of the confusion in the story, is that we'll use the story of Balaam and think that he was one of the Israelites.
So you just kind of take the story in a vacuum instead of reading it in the context that it's given in the book of Numbers. But Balaam was not among the Israelites. He was summoned by Balak, who was the king of the Moabites, to come and issue a curse upon the Israelites.
The Israelites who were occupying the southern region of the land of Canaan were being successful in the armies that they were fighting against. And some of the kings, including the king of the Moabites, was concerned about this and did not want to be wiped out by the god of these Hebrews.
And so he's having Balaam come and issue a curse upon the Israelite people so that any of the kings will be able to overthrow the Israelites. Because this is what Balaam does. He's a deliverer of oracles.
And so the Lord allows him to go to the king of the Moabites, but Balaam is doing this for selfish gain. He is going to curse God's people and profit from it. So while Balaam is on the way to do this, he sends an angel to strike Balaam down and kill him.
Well, the donkey sees the angel, and Balaam doesn't. Swerves out of the way, does this several times. Balaam is always berating the donkey and beating him for it. Or beating her, anyway. So eventually the donkey talks to Balaam and says, Why are you striking me?
And what Balaam didn't realize is the donkey sees this angel that has come to kill Balaam and has actually saved Balaam's life. So Balaam does make it to the Moabites, or the king of the Moabites. God allows Balaam to go there, but says to him, You can't say anything that I have not permitted you to say.
And so instead of issuing a curse against the Israelites, Balaam issues a blessing upon the Israelites. And the king of the Moabites is horrified. What are you doing? And Balaam says, Hey, I can't say anything that God will not allow me to say.
So the words that Balaam is saying has been put into his mouth by God. Eventually Balaam is destroyed when the Israelites come into the Promised Land and take Canaan. He's killed among the inhabitants of the land.
So Balaam was not a godly man. And he was off to curse the Israelites for his own selfish gain. And so Jude compares these false teachers to him because Balaam himself was a false teacher. They walk in the way of Cain.
They abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error. And they perished in Korah's rebellion. This is another story from the book of Numbers. I'm coming up on the close of my time here, so I'll give you the CliffsNotes version, but you can read the whole thing in Numbers 16.
There was a guy named Korah, along with some other men in the Israelite camp, 250 chiefs of the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron and said, everyone in the congregation is holy.
All of them. And the Lord is among us all. So why do you get to exalt yourselves in the assembly of the Lord? And by their pride, they brought condemnation on the people of Israel. And Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the Lord and said, spare the congregation.
But God said, move yourselves away from Korah and his men and their tents. And then the ground beneath them opened up and swallowed Korah and the 250 guys and all their families and all of their goods just swallowed them up.
And so anyway, that was Korah's rebellion. So everybody that was associated with Korah and that rebellion, not just against Moses and Aaron, but those whom God had appointed, all of them were destroyed.
And so those who set themselves against the teaching of God, they look at the apostles who gave us the New Testament. They look at the prophets who gave us the Old Testament and said, who are these guys and why are they so special?
I also have the word of the Lord that has come to my mind and into my heart. And so listen to what it is that I say, because remember, they rely on their dreams. They rely on that which they understand instinctively by their own sinful natures.
And these people who think and act this way, they will perish like those who perished in Korah's rebellion. So you do not have the word of God that is coming to you in these visions and dreams and special inner voices.
The word of God has been given to us by his prophets and apostles. It's already been laid down firmly in the Bible. And this is how we have the word of God. This is our authority, not your subjective voice or experience, but what is written down in God's word, the Bible.
I could not be more clear on that. God's word is not your inner voice. God's word is the Bible. And so let us submit ourselves to this authority and listen to no teacher who subverts that authority or claims that they have an authority that is equal to this or is added to this.
Let us pray. Our Lord, we thank you for the scriptures. We thank you for the Bible. And I pray that we would submit ourselves to it daily, be guided by it, the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path that David wrote about in the Psalms, that we do not rely upon our own way and our own thoughts guided by our own sinful hearts, but in all our ways we acknowledge you, knowing that you set straight our paths according to your word.
And we rejoice as David did in Psalm 119, Lord, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. So we have read the words of the Lord today. Let them fill up our mind and our heart and guide us throughout our day.
Lord, let them be our joy. Let nothing in our day snatch away from us the joy of the Lord, which is our strength. And so though there are so many different things in this world and even within our own sinful nature that are going to want to lead us astray from the salvation, the joy that we have in the salvation in Christ, let that be our joy as frontlets between our eyes, guiding our every step and everything that we look at and through.
We give joy to the Lord. Praise to our God who has saved us for his name's sake, from our sins into your eternal kingdom. And we pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.
Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word, when we understand the text.