After exhorting us to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, Jude warns us in verses 11–19 about the ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into licentiousness and try to draw people away from that faith. “These men” are the plague of the ages. They are deadly to the spiritual life and faith of people who want to walk in faith and not in a deadly, empty tradition, who want a faith that is very much alive right now. “These men” creep in to take away that faith.
There had to be a reason why the early Church lost its power, why it did not perpetuate itself on the same spiritual level that it had when the apostles left it. It was because of the basic attitude of “these men.” In verse 11 Jude describes them by using the illustrations of Cain, Korah, and Balaam. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain. Cain was jealous of his brother and he killed him. When God asked him, “Where is your brother?” Cain answered, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He felt that his right to live for himself was being challenged. This is still the philosophy of the world today. The average person is concerned about taking care of himself, about being his own best friend. How does the way of Cain compare with what God is trying to teach the Body of Christ today? God is showing us that we are our brother’s keeper. We are absolutely required to take care of him. This is the basic principle of Body ministry. Everything must be done for edifying (1 Corinthians 14:26). In honor we are to prefer one another (Romans 12:10). Each one is to seek not his own, but the other’s welfare (1 Corinthians 10:24). The basis of all Body ministry is the subordination of every type of selfinterest to the interest of the Body.
The description of these men continues: And for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam. Balaam was once a mighty prophet of the Lord, and he had a marvelous gift from God. We read one of his prophecies in Numbers 23:19: God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
Every false prophet was once a true prophet; otherwise he could not have become a convincing false prophet. The son of perdition was first an apostle of the Lord. Balaam’s error, the sin that he fell prey to, was the fact that he put a price on his prophecy; he wanted to receive money for it. He even bargained for a price to prophesy against God’s people. Compare that with the fact that today unselfishness dominates God’s people. They hold nothing back. They give generously of their time and their money. It has become a way of life. So we see that the way of Cain and the error of Balaam are under direct attack by the Holy Spirit.
Many ministers want to sample today’s moving of God’s Spirit. They send for tapes and literature of God’s living Word. They seek a Word from the Lord for their personal lives, yet then they turn and speak against God’s moving in the earth. They do not want to become a part of it, for then they would lose their position and prestige, and it would not be to their advantage financially. Because they are afraid of persecution, many come like Nicodemus, by night, and talk about how hungry they are. We will see how hungry they are when they are willing to suffer reproach with the people of God as Moses did. He was willing to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward (Hebrews 11:25–26).
In Jude 11, “these men” are further described as having perished in the rebellion of Korah. This is the sin against divine order. Korah and his followers were saying, in effect, “Moses, we know the Word of God as well as you do. We are going to ignore the fact that God has made you our leader, and we are all going to be leaders. Regardless of what God has said, we are going to have our own order of things. Now you step out of the picture” (Numbers 16:3).
This is also one of the deadly sins in the end-time. While God is restoring divine order, there are people who follow the rebellion of Korah, saying that they have as important a ministry and they know the Word of God as well as anyone else. This is the rebellion that God sees among the people who are not contending for the faith that was once delivered to the saints. If they were, they would accept the divine order that the Lord is bringing.
The description of “these men” continues in verses 12–13: These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love-feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves. The love-feasts were very much a part of the New Testament Communion. Not only did the people partake of the Lord’s Supper, but they also held a lovefeast together. The Church was unaware that “these men” were hidden like rocks, below the surface, ready to capsize or destroy the ships (the churches) when they struck them.
Some people try to come into a walk with God, yet they are not truly in it. They are not willing to pay the price or dedicate themselves to attain to the genuineness of the experience. Because there seems to be so much about them that is sincere, they remain submerged, often undetected even by the ministries who have the gifts of revelation and the discerning of spirits. Sooner or later these hidden reefs will be a source of shipwreck unless they are dealt with. Prophecies speak of the end-time judgments when God will begin to deal with them. The judgment which begins at the house of the Lord will take care of the hidden reefs, the submerged rocks.
“These men” are clouds without water, carried along by winds. They appear to have the potential of truly moving in God, but they are like clouds without water. They promise something, but they never produce. There is no real fruit coming forth from their lives. They are carried along by the winds, by the moving of trends and situations around them. They have every appearance of being in motion and having a great potential, but we realize that there is not the reality below the surface.
“These men” are autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. It is difficult to evaluate a fruit tree, except at the time when the fruitfulness should be coming forth. Many believers are clinging to truths and teaching, but they are not bringing forth the fruit necessary at this important time in the history of the Church. This is the time that fruit should be coming forth, and not just an image or a lot of talking—not just a cloud without water. They should actually be producing the fruits of righteousness.
There is nothing that our country needs more right now than for the churches to seek God and rise up in the Spirit to truly be the force and channel of God’s righteousness in the earth. Instead, we find autumn trees, doubly dead, because they are uprooted. They are not alive to God, but neither are they alive to the community they are in. They are doubly dead.
“These men” are wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam. Notice the picture that is painted for you here. They are unrestrained and frustrated, like waves beating against the rocks, casting up their shame like foam. There is probably no characteristic in the Christian world as noticeable as their frustration. No one seems to know what to do. They do not know how to relate to the age. No matter what they do, all their efforts are like wild waves dashing against the rocks—frustrated, aimless, pointless. This is not to be confused with the frustration that is felt by those who are anxious to get into the will of God, who are yearning and hungering after righteousness, who find the desire for reality burning in their hearts.
The violence of spirit, with a determination to break through, must be very much under the direction of the Lord. We may be required to walk with God with faith for a long time but it is with a purpose. We know what is going to happen and what the Lord has for us, and so we press into it.
“These men” are wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. The illumination is gone. There is nothing constructive left. They are like wandering stars. They have lost their orbit. They are doing their own thing, and there is nothing but darkness and blackness for them.
God help us to be in divine order, to be where He wants us to be, to be set in the Body as it pleases Him (1 Corinthians 12:18). Some want to be set in a nice little niche. If the Lord is going to call them, they do not want it to be to Africa; they would rather go to Hawaii or Acapulco. They want to do what they want to do—when they want to do it, where they want to do it, and how they want to do it. They are like wandering stars doing their own thing, but they are out of God’s divine order. What a graphic picture of spiritual conditions, both negative and positive, comes out of this wonderful book of Jude.
“These men” are further described in Jude 14–16: And about these also Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.
Besides being ungodly, “these men” are grumblers and faultfinders. God is coming to judge those who find fault, who speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage, because they want leverage. Political investigations are carried on with an arrogance, trying to put people on the spot. There is nothing objective about it. But God is coming to judge that. When you see what the politicians in each political party do to their opposition, you must realize that they are among “these men” that Jude is talking about. God is coming with all His holy ones to judge them. When the Kingdom of God is set up, then we will see the positive sciences come forth instead of those which are negative. This is a time of illegal practices that are aimed at driving prices up, of huge combinations of companies selling this nation’s food supply. But do not worry—God is coming to judge. Trust God with all of your heart.
But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there shall be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded (merely natural or soulish men), devoid of the Spirit. Jude 17–19. The basic creation of God by a new birth is lacking in them, so that everything they do is religious and soulish.
These are the ones who cause divisions. Leagues are formed whose express purpose is to destroy. Much of the religious life and the enterprises in the Christian world today are being increasingly regimented by building departments and planning commissions. In most big cities in the United States, building plans are submitted to local ministerial associations which have a way of keeping out little independent churches that could come forth in a walk of restoration.
Jesus would not be able to minister today as He did long ago. The first time a crowd would gather to be healed, the authorities would be there to break it up, calling it an unlawful assembly. In the name of freedom, structures in our society have been created to persecute and harass, from little hassling ways of police harassment to the destruction of mind and will by brainwashing. Everything is devised to come against the people of the Lord.
Are you frightened? I am not. I believe that the Lord is able to do all things exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Set your heart upon the Lord. “These men” have made their appearance; they are in the earth. They have multiplied by the thousands upon thousands. Nevertheless, God has a remnant that will be the determining factor in the resolution of everything.