A Daily Walk

Guest (Male): From Calvary South OC, this is A Daily Walk. Pastor John Randall will be along in just a second and we'll pick up where we left off in Jude. If you'll recall, the theme of this little letter is contending for the faith or truth. He's exposing false teachers and helping the church identify them. And as we'll see momentarily, he's going to describe the coming destruction of these false teachers.

John Randall: The Book of Jude, it's the second to last book of the Bible. If you weren't here last week, we had our first Bible study in the Book of Jude, and the theme of this small yet powerful epistle is contending for the faith, contending for the faith. I'd like to draw your attention to Jude chapter one, beginning in verse three, and it says:

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse five: But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

When Jude sat down to write this letter, it was his original intention to write on the subject of salvation. However, he was moved by the Holy Spirit to write about something that was needed for the church in that moment, and that was the exhortation to contend earnestly for the faith. And the reason this was so critical was because false teachers had stealthily crept into the church and they were undermining and redefining the faith. And these false teachers, they were living ungodly lives. They were teaching that the grace of God was really just a license to live an immoral life, and they were denying the deity of Jesus Christ.

And therefore, Jude took it upon himself to sound the spiritual alarm and he was warning God's people, the church, to wake up because these false teachers, they were leading people astray and leading them into apostasy, actually turning them away from the faith in Jesus Christ. And to prove his point, Jude looks back to the past as proof that this had happened before. And that is where we begin this evening in verse five with a reminder. He says in verse five, "I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, and afterward, he destroyed those who did not believe."

In verse five, we enter into a new section of the Book of Jude that opens with a reminder. Someone said that repetition is the best teacher. Although his readers were familiar with the truth that he had shared, Jude felt strongly that they needed to be reminded of it once again. Concerning biblical truth, I don't believe you can hear it enough. You can be reminded daily of the promises that God has made, of the warnings that God has given, and the future that he has guaranteed for us.

A reminder concerning the Word of God is important. I've come across people sometimes and ask them, "Hey, do you spend time reading your Bible?" "Oh, I read the Bible once. Yeah, I read it. It was a good book. It was great. It was awesome." Listen, it's inexhaustible. You can read it once and read it twice and read it a hundred times, and you will see something different. It's inexhaustible. It's living. It's powerful. It's active for the very moment, for the very circumstance that you're in, and we need to be reminded of it.

It was Paul that wrote to the Philippians, and he said in chapter three, verse one, he said, "Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things, this isn't tedious, but for you, it's safe." I'm not saying these things for the fact of just being redundant. I'm saying this because we easily forget and must be reminded of these things. I think of what Peter said in his epistle, Second Peter, chapter three and verse one, also coming against false teachers. He said, "Beloved, I'm writing this to you in this second epistle, in both which to stir up your pure minds by way of reminder."

You need to be reminded. I need to be reminded. It's actually the word "reminder" here is where we get our English word "memorial." It's a reminder. It's as if Jude is saying, "I know you know these things, but I want you to go back to those memorials. I want you to remember. Never forget this." That's how important it is. Now, in verse four, Jude did give us a description of the false teachers that were making their way into the church. And now he describes for us their coming destruction.

And to prove this point that these false teachers would one day be destroyed, what Jude does is he goes back to the Old Testament and he uses three separate illustrations from the Old Testament to prove his point. These are the illustrations. And can I just say to you that some of the best illustrations when teaching through the Word of God are found in the Word of God? And you will often hear me say, "In the Old Testament," when teaching through the New Testament or teaching through the Old Testament say, "You know, in the New Testament," because the Bible is the best commentary on the Bible.

And I want to encourage you. I could come up with some great story about something that you don't know if it happened or not. You have no idea. Neither do I. I read it somewhere. But when it's here, you know it's significant. And tying in scripture with scripture. I mentioned this to you to say that the pastor that I sat under all my life growing up and hearing the Word of God, he was a master at this. And the way I learned the Bible was because he taught the Bible.

He taught the Bible. Is that amazing or what? In a church, yes, in a church. And he would use scripture to illustrate scripture. So I have this understanding of how the Bible connected to the Bible and the ways in which it illustrated. So that's what Jude does here. Now, the first illustration as it relates to the destruction of false teachers, he reaches back to an example of the nation of Israel. Verse five: "Having saved people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe."

Now, if you have read through the Old Testament, you will be familiar with this particular passage. It's found in the Book of Exodus, chapter six through 14. We have a record of what Jude is referring to. Now, let me bring you up to speed. The nation of Israel was only a small group of people when they first began. They were dwelling in the land of Canaan. However, with just Jacob and his sons and his descendants, they were like 70 people total.

But then there was a famine and they were forced to go down where Joseph, they didn't know he was still alive. They sold him, but he became the second most powerful ruler. You might want to read about it. It's in Genesis. Super good story. But anyways, they were there and they had to go back. The Book of Genesis says they had to go back down to Egypt and while they were there, they ended up meeting Joseph and being provided for. The seven years of famine, that 70-member group of people, this small nation, grew into a massive group of people.

They were dwelling in the land of Goshen, but what happened is the Pharaoh, the new Pharaoh, didn't remember Joseph and he saw the expansion of this group of people who would become the nation of Israel, and he was concerned that they might overthrow them. And so what did he do? He made them slaves. And for the next 400 years, the nation of Israel served in Egypt in slavery. And during that time, they pleaded with God for a deliverer, and eventually, God raised up a deliverer from among them whose name was Moses.

Someone said he was a basket case because his mother put him in a basket. Anyways, if you don't know the story, you should check it out. But he wasn't. He was a godly, he had a godly heritage and eventually he was raised by Pharaoh's daughter and he grew up in an Egyptian home. But he had his Hebrew heritage and when he became of age, he went out and he saw his people being brutalized by the Egyptians. And so he looked this way, he looked that way, and he killed an Egyptian taskmaster and apparently he didn't hide it well enough because they found out that he had done it.

And so he fled for his life, spent 40 years in the wilderness shepherding sheep in the backside of the desert. And then the Lord appeared to him in a burning bush and said, "You need to go back and deliver those people." And Moses was reluctant, even though the Lord spoke to him in a bush. He said, "I can't do it. Send my brother, you know, he'll go. Here am I, send Aaron." And the Lord said, "I'm sending you." And so you know what happened to Moses. He goes back down and he takes the people. God, through ten severe plagues, loosened the grip of the Pharaoh to where he ended up just saying, "Just leave. Go. Get out of here."

And so they left. And they went out into the wilderness. And while they were on their way to the Promised Land, they came to the very border of the Promised Land. And when they arrived at the border, they decided to send in 12 spies, one for each tribe. 12 tribes of Israel. We're going to send one from each tribe, go and spy out the land. They go in and spy out the land and sure enough, the land was exactly as God said it was. Amazing. They came back with grapes the size of a man's fist. That's a massive grape. I mean, what did the oranges look like? Who knows? Watermelons were, I mean, the fruit was incredible.

But when they came back, ten of the spies said, "We can't go in because there's giants in the land. These people are massive. They're going to kill us all. So we should just stay here in the wilderness. What do you say? Manna forever?" No. Joshua and Caleb said, "We need to go in. They're our bread. We got this. We can take them. The Lord's on our side. Let's do this." And the people said, "No, we're going back to Egypt." And so because they did not believe, they wandered around. That generation wandered around for the next 40 years until they died, and only two people from that generation made it in. Joshua and Caleb, the only two that made it in.

The sad result of their rebellion and unbelief. Everybody from 20 years old and above would die over the next 40 years. Longest funeral march in history. Every day, could you imagine who died? Frank? Oh, my goodness. Next day. I mean, every day somebody died. That was a miserable time in the wilderness, all of them buried there. Now, you say, what's the connection? Here it is. The historical illustration from the Book of Exodus makes it clear. Jude is describing those who were, listen, outwardly identified with the people of God.

They were delivered from Egypt, but they didn't believe in God. They professed the knowledge of God. They showed some interest in him, but they abandoned their confidence in God. They abandoned their trust in God. They became unbelieving. Therefore, they were destroyed rather than entering into that place of blessing. And in the same way, here it is, in the same way, the false teachers sought to identify with the people of God, but they drew people away and they didn't actually follow God at all.

Their lifestyles of ungodliness, seeking to change the grace of God into lewdness, their denial of the deity of Jesus Christ made it obvious that they did not believe. Therefore, like the nation of Israel in the Book of Exodus and in the Book of Numbers, they were destroyed. They were judged. Listen, there are people today like the people in Israel of old. They come to the edge of what God wants to do in their life and they say, "I'm not going to, I don't believe that. I'm not doing that."

The evidence is there. It's obvious. The blood has been shed. The death has passed over. The lamb has been sacrificed. I still don't believe it. And they choose to reject it. They choose not to surrender to the Lord. And the tragedy is they will suffer the consequences for eternity. A very sober warning from Jude. Friend, I pray you've crossed over into the Promised Land. You're not wandering in the wilderness of unbelief. A decision must be made concerning Christ.

God, in his love, he wants to bring us into a glorious life of fellowship and relationship with him. Jesus said, "I have come to give you life and that more abundantly." The Lord wants to bring us into that abundant life. But listen, unbelief will rob us of the things that God desires to do in and through us. We are the people of faith. We need to believe because God is faithful. He cannot be anything but faithful. That's who he is.

So having looked at the example of Israel, okay, here's the second illustration. Follow along. Jude moves to a second illustration, this time, and this one's unique. Pay close attention to fallen angels. Verse six: "And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day." All right. Let me begin by saying verse six is a very unique passage of scripture that has some debate and some differing opinion attached to it. And I will do my very best to explain it to you and give you the main point of the passage.

Here it says there were angels who did not keep their proper domain. We only have really two places in the Bible where it speaks of angels sinning. But here are some options. Here you go. First of all, Jude could be referring to the original fall of angelic beings that fell with Satan. You say, "When did that happen?" Somewhere in eternity past. Revelation chapter 12, verse four writes about what took place in eternity past. Not a lot of details about how it all went down. Heaven's going to reveal some of this stuff.

But what we do know is that when Satan was removed from heaven, that with him, the Bible says that the dragon was cast out of heaven. That's a reference to Satan. And with him, with his tail, he drew one-third of the stars. The stars is reference to the angels. One-third of the angels fell with Satan, became and are demons. There you have it. And the connection that Jude could be making in this passage is that like the apostate false teachers, these fallen angels turned away and they will experience future judgment.

Thus, there are some who say that's what Jude is referring to. Oh, there's a second option, a second passage of scripture that many will look to, and that's found in the Book of Genesis chapter six. In Genesis chapter six, that's a, we went from Revelation to the Genesis. We're just all over. But here it is. This is what it says. Genesis chapter six, the Bible tells us there were the sins of the, quote, listen, "sons of God," the sons of God. This is during the time of Noah.

And again, a controversial passage with Bible-believing pastors and scholars on either side of the discussion. And one more preface if I can just give another one, and that is this. This isn't a salvation issue. Just mark that down, okay? This isn't a salvation issue or an essential doctrine to the Christian faith. In other words, where you stand on this particular passage does not determine whether you're saved or not. Many Bible scholars who are much smarter than me go back and forth on the subject and you can read it through for yourself, their opposite sides of the passage.

So it's not a salvific issue, but nonetheless, here it is. Genesis chapter six, verses one and two, it says this: "It came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, that daughters were born to them, that the sons of God," make a note of that, "saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves, all whom they chose." Now, the debate as to whether or not the sons of God represent angelic beings, fallen angelic beings. Followers of God, sons of God.

Were they angels or were they just people of noble birth? Again, you have people on opposite sides of the spectrum. But Jude helps us answer the question. He says this, and notice these words: "They did not keep their proper domain." That is to say that the angels did not stay within the limits of authority that God gave them. And the verb that is used expresses the act of watchful care. In other words, it's saying these angels did not fulfill their obligation guarding and maintaining their original position in which they were created, but they transgressed the limits to invade territory which was foreign to them, namely the human race.

And the idea is that certain angels acted improperly, went outside of the boundaries prescribed by God. It says they left their abode. The verb means to abandon. It refers to a once-for-all act. And this apostasy of these angels is that they did not stay where God placed them in a lofty, exalted position. They descended into a different sphere on the earth into foreign relationships with human race.

And Jude likens their sin, notice this, to that of Sodom and Gomorrah. He in verse seven, "is reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and have gone after strange flesh." Read it in its context here. These angels were removed, and it appears, although we're not given specific details on how this took place, Genesis chapter six seems to record that fallen angels had relationships with women in order to corrupt the entire human race.

More than likely, these fallen angels, leaving their proper abode, possessed the bodies of wicked men, impregnated women. Folks, the Bible says in Genesis that after that, that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. There was violence everywhere, every intention, every waking moment. And as a result of these relationships with the sons of God and the women, the daughters of men, there came giants into the land. That doesn't mean people that are tall. It means abnormal, giant-like people.

And what followed this wickedness that was on the earth? The flood. There was only one family, Noah's family, that found grace in the eyes of the Lord because the rest of the world had been so polluted and so corrupt by this pursuit of strange flesh and wickedness that it produced an unnatural human race of beings, as it were, and they began to fill the land. Violence filled the land and the thought of man's heart was evil continually. And so the Lord destroyed the earth with a flood, sparing one family, Noah's family. It took him 120 years to build the ark, by the way.

You say, "Well, what do you think, John?" I think God destroyed the world with a flood, and I think the angels sinned and they were removed. They were apostate. They turned away. They were fallen. Do you think that they actually had... I don't know. I lean that way in light of the context, in light of the verbiage, in light of the things that are said. But here's at the end of the day, here's what I know for absolute certainty. You ready for this? This is going to shock you. The angels sinned. That's what I know for sure.

They sinned. They were apostate. They turned away from God, and that's really the main point of the passage. The angels turned from God and as a result, they were judged. And some of them are reserved, it says here, in judgment for the final judgment. There's a place, there's a holding place where these particular angels are reserved for judgment. If you were here Sunday night, you remember when we were talking about the demon-possessed man.

And when he was demon-possessed, you remember the demons spoke and said, "Please do not send us to the abyss." The abyss was that place of judgment reserved for those angelic beings. Don't send us there yet. And so he sent them into the swine and you remember what happened after that. He says these particular angels, verse seven, "has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day." The bottom line is this is the point that Jude is making. Whether it was like the nation of Israel that turned their back on God and were judged, or it was like the fallen angels that turned their back on God and were judged.

That's what it's going to be like for these false teachers who are apostates. That's going to be the end result. That's what he's warning the church about. I hope you're seeing the connection. Jude points out one final example of apostasy that was similar to the fallen angels, and yet a little bit different, and that is with the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Another Old Testament reference, friends, there in the Book of Genesis. It says, "as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in similar manner to these, gave themselves over to sexual immorality, gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

Again, there in the Book of Genesis, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah did essentially the same thing, it seems, that the angels did, that they left their proper place of relationship in God's design for men and women, and they indulged in gross immorality. The Bible calls it here strange flesh. It means a different kind. It means unnatural. This wasn't God's design. This was an unnatural desire.

And in Genesis chapter 19, we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and these cities were completely given over to unnatural sexual immorality. And the main sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality. By the way, if you're unaware of this, that's not God's design. That's man pursuing strange flesh. Lesbianism, homosexuality, transgenderism, all of it. That is not God's design. God created man, God created women. There are not multiple genders out there. There are two that God created.

And man can seek to deny that and even try to change themselves, but they can't change what God created. We love them, we pray for them, but I'm going to tell you straight, it's sin. It needs to be repented of. It's not something to be applauded and welcomed and tolerated in the sense of like we should just embrace everybody, God understands. God does understand. That's why he sent Jesus to die for sin.

Guest (Male): That is Pastor John Randall on A Daily Walk. He's in the Book of Jude. Today's message is called "A Good Reminder." Did you join us late or maybe you want to share this message with a loved one? You can hear the program again at adailywalk.org and then share the content with friends and family. You can also hear John's messages through our free app. This is a great way to listen to current and past teachings from Pastor John. Just search for Calvary South OC.

Here's a question for you. Has this ministry blessed and encouraged you in your daily walk? If so, we'd like to know. You can email us at adailywalk@gmail.com. That's adailywalk@gmail.com. Let us know the station you're listening to as well. Here in the month of May, we picked out a resource we think moms will benefit a great deal from. It's "A Mom After God's Own Heart: 10 Ways to Love Your Children," authored by Elizabeth George.

She writes, "God has put you in a unique situation where you have tremendous influence in the lives of others. Be a mom after God's heart. Help your children, no matter what their ages, experience God's love, God's blessings, and God's provisions." We're making it available for the cost of $12. Ordering is really easy online at adailywalk.org or just call 877-242-0828.

Please remember us in your prayers and your giving to the Lord. We want to help as many people as possible in their daily walk through the teaching of God's Word, and you can help to make that possible through either a one-time gift or ongoing monthly support. Donations can be made online rather easily at adailywalk.org or call 877-242-0828. There is more to come in Jude. We'll have that for you tomorrow on A Daily Walk with Pastor John Randall. This program is made possible through your generosity and brought to you by Calvary South OC.