Counterfeit Christians Unmasked - 4

Well, we return today to our series in the short book of Jude, and we're taking up verses 8 through 10 as our text today, recalling that Jude tells us that he preferred to write an epistle about the common salvation, a happy epistle, one that would bring joy and encouragement and much rejoicing and celebration to the people of God.

But circumstances compelled him to write instead a very sobering epistle, a very searching one, in some ways a very alarming one. But the need of the hour necessitated that he do so because there were dangerous infiltrators that were already present in many of the churches, the Lord Jesus Christ, or across the Roman world of Jude's day, many of whom he himself had probably seen in his travels from church to church as an itinerant evangelist. And he recognized that they were there as messengers of Satan. They were counterfeit Christians.

They were not true sheep at all. They were wolves in sheep's clothing. They had not come in by the door to the sheepfold through the Lord Jesus Christ, but they had climbed up some other way and were thieves and robbers.

And their purpose for being there was to do damage, indeed, to destroy the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ if they could. And so Jude needs to warn God's people about this reality, and that's why this short epistle of Jude is so sober in its contents. Last week, we looked at the three historical examples of judgment that Jude cited for us, telling us, first of all, about the unbelieving Israelites that God saved out of the land of Egypt but destroyed because of their unbelief in the wilderness.

A sobering thought, to be sure. He secondly tells us about the unrestrained angels, mysterious as it is, but nevertheless, this record is here, that they were angels, once holy angels, but in some way unknown to us, were able to take upon themselves the bodies of human men and to have relationships with human women, out of which, the Bible tells us in Genesis, giants were born. And in this way, committing immorality of the most unnatural kind, and that brought upon the earth the judgment of the worldwide flood, destroying all of the inhabitants of the earth, save Noah. But it brought upon these angels a confinement in darkness awaiting the day of final judgment.

God does not toy with this kind of sin. And finally, he gave us, in verse 7, the example of the uninhibited Sodomites, completely controlled by their homosexual desires, who descended upon Lot and upon the men who visited Sodom to talk to Lot, to warn Lot. At least they thought they were men. They actually were angels as well.

But they were determined that they were going to have homosexual relationships with them. And that was the final straw of a long history of their sexual immorality, and God brought down the fire of judgment to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and other smaller cities around them, and set that forth as an example of eternal fire, the kind of judgment that awaits those who refuse to hear the gospel of Christ and to recognize their need for cleansing from sin. And Jude is telling us that similar judgments will fall upon the infiltrators in his day that have come into the churches if they do not repent, and we can certainly see similarities to what is going on in the world in which we live today. And so in verses 8, 9, and 10, we come to counterfeit Christians unmasked, the attitudes and actions of counterfeit Christians who infiltrate Christ's churches in order to destroy. In verse 8, we learn what they do. In verse 9, we learn what they should do. And in verse 10, we learn the consequences of their deeds.

What do they do? Verse 8, likewise also, these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Jude points us, first of all, to their similarity by those words, likewise also, in some Bibles translated like something like in the same manner, that he is connecting what he says in verses 8, 9, and 10 with what he already said in verses 5, 6, and 7. He's connecting these infiltrators of his day with the three examples of judgment that he has laid before us previously, the unbelieving Israelites in the wilderness, the unrestrained angels who left their domain, the uninhibited Sodomites who committed their immorality. And he says, likewise also, there is some similarity here.

There is some likeness here that we must make note of. Now in saying that, I'm quite confident Jude is not honing in on simply the sin of homosexuality, which is the most immediate one prior to verse 8, namely the Sodomites. And so he says in like manner that these ones have also committed sins, but he's not saying strictly that the one sin that he has in mind is their homosexual activity, though that may be included in what they're doing, but it's not necessary that all of them were involved in that. But he's saying more broadly, the infiltrators of his day are guilty of sins similar to those that were laid before us in verses 5, 6, and 7, the sin of unbelief, verse 5, the sin of refusing to live within God-ordained boundaries, verse 6, like the angels who left their heavenly domain to come to earth. And like gross immorality, as described in verse 7 with the Sodomites who were destroyed by God. But sins such as these are the ones that Jude has in mind, and he says that's the kinds of sins that you will find in the lives of these counterfeit Christians who profess to know the Lord and have become members of churches, but they are no true Christians at all. And they are guilty of a number of sins. And before he describes their sins, he tells us something of their rationale, how it is that they can claim to be Christians and yet indulge themselves in things which are obviously contrary to the Word of God. But he tells us how they do that by that reference to their dreaming. Did you see that in verse 8? Likewise also these dreamers, defile the flesh, reject authority, speak evil of dignitaries.

Now what does that refer to? Some have concluded that Jude is saying these people live in a dream world. In other words, they've lost touch with reality. They're living in a world of fancy.

They're living in a fairy tale world. They're not living according to reality at all, but that's not really what he's talking about. Some, on the basis of what is found in this passage of their lasciviousness, has concluded that their dreaming is in reference to their lascivious thought life, their sexual fantasies, that they are dreamers in that realm. But again, I'm convinced that's not what Jude is talking about either.

What is he talking about? Likewise also these dreamers, or some have translated this, likewise also by dreaming. And in the Greek, that phrase dreamers or by dreaming is grammatically attached to all of the next three things. By dreaming, they defile the flesh. By dreaming, they reject authority. By dreaming, they speak evil of dignities. But that still doesn't quite nail it down in our minds.

What are you talking about, Jude? And evidently what he's talking about is this. They claim divine revelation that they say has come to them by dreams. We do know that God spoke to his prophets through dreams and visions down throughout history. But we also know that false prophets also claim to have received similar dreams and visions from God, which was not true. They had not received visions of that kind.

But that was the claim. Let me read two passages, fairly extended passages, but I think it's important to nail this down in our thinking. Listen to these words in Deuteronomy 13, one through five. If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign, a wonder, in other words, he can perform a miracle, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you saying, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice. You shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away from you evil from your midst.

I hope you find that as sobering as I do. In a day when God was speaking to his prophets through dreams and visions, there were those who said, I'm a prophet, I have dreams, I have visions, and according to the vision I received from God, we should do this. And what this prophet is directing us to do is actually to move away from the worship of the one true God into some kind of false worship. And God said, if a prophet claims to have divine revelation, but tells you to do something that's contrary to the divine revelation you already have, he's a liar, he's a counterfeit. If a prophet even predicts something in the future, and it comes to pass, which would seem to certify that he is a true prophet, but what he says does not correspond to the revelation from God you've already received. He's a liar, he's a counterfeit.

Even Satan can give his messengers some ability to do things in a seemingly miraculous way, to perform signs and wonders and to predict the future at times. The real test of the truthfulness, the authenticity of one who claims to be a prophet, is does he speak according to what has been revealed from God, the already given revealed Word of God? If he does, listen to him. If he doesn't, get rid of him.

He deserves to be put to death. In Jeremiah 23 we read, I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesied lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which everyone tells his neighbor as their fathers forgot my name for Baal. And it goes on, I don't think I'll read anymore.

You get the point, I think. It's very clear. Now take that back to Jude, verse 8. Likewise also, these dreamers, the counterfeit Christians, the infiltrators, those who are actually messengers of Satan, who have been sent on a mission by Satan to infiltrate the churches and to turn people away from the truth of God, they are going to claim to be speaking from God. They are going to claim to have received revelation from God.

They are going to claim that they are prophets, that they are those to whom God speaks, and therefore they will tell us what God has said. God told me this. God showed me this.

God led me in this way. And how can you tell whether they are telling the truth or not? By comparing what they say with the Bible.

That's how. If what they say is contrary to the Bible, they are liars. They are counterfeits. If what they say comports with the Bible, the question is why do we need them now that we have a complete Bible and already have God's revelation? Why would God be sending dreams to people today if the Bible has now been completed as it claims that it has indeed? But in Jude's day, that was not true. The scriptures were not yet complete. Some were still receiving direct revelation from God so that the scriptures could be completed. They were prophets that God spoke to through dreams. But there were others who claimed to be prophets through whom God spoke by dreams, and they were counterfeits. They are liars.

And it is on the basis of these supposed divine revelations that they justify these things listed in verse 8. By dreaming, they defile the flesh. That is, they justify their immorality. They claim that it's okay. Oh, come on, don't be so straight-laced. It's okay.

This is love. How many of the cults that you have read about have leaders who have led people into immorality and usually themselves as the center of it? They claim for themselves the right to have a sexual relationship with all of the women that belong to the cult, and yet they claim to be holy leaders who have received revelation from God, and they regularly give to their people the word of God that they say they have received. But they are liars and they are destroyers, and they are justifying their lasciviousness, their immoral behavior by their supposed status as a prophet and their supposed dreams and revelations from God.

That's what Jude is talking about. Genuine revelation from God must conform to divine truth already given. But these false prophets support their sinful behavior by claiming to have special revelation which has come to them individually.

You don't have access to this. You can't find this in the Bible. But God told me, God led me, God said to me, and through that they support their behavior which is contrary to the Bible. They claim to have special personal revelation from God.

They are liars. And that brings us then still in verse 8 to their activity, three activities that characterize these imposters. Number one, immoral behavior. Number two, rebellious attitudes.

And number three, disrespectful speech. What do they do? Number one, they defile the flesh. They pollute the flesh. They deprave the flesh, and these are words that speak of sexual immorality.

Very similar to the language in the verse just prior, verse 7. As Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh. They have defiled the flesh, and they were destroyed by fire from heaven. These imposters defile the flesh. They are involved in sexual immorality as well. And that characterizes them.

What else? Number two, rebellious attitudes. They reject authority. They reject authority.

That word authority can be translated lordship or sovereignty. It speaks first and foremost of God's authority, and they reject God's authority. They reject the right of God to rule us, the right of God to command us, the right of God to restrain us, the right of God to tell us how we ought to live. God has that right, but they don't accept that right, though they often claim that they are agents of God and speaking according to His authority. But they actually reject the lordship of Christ in their lives. And because in the word of God, God by His authority gives limited authority to various human beings in certain situations, nobody but God has unlimited authority, but God has set up human governments and told us to be obedient to human government.

God has given us the family and told us about the family structure and how it is supposed to operate and told us how we are to arrange ourselves in relationship, wives to husbands and children to parents and so forth within the family. And to reject any of that is to reject what? The authority of God. He's the one who gave these things.

It wasn't my idea or yours or Paul's or somebody else's. It was God. It's God who set up the structure of the church with spiritual authority and tells us about the authority that He invests in spiritual leaders.

Again, not unlimited, not unrivaled. It must always be under the authority of God's word or it becomes another spiritual evil. But nevertheless, it is an authority that God has given to men in certain situations. And to reject that, to say I don't accept that, I don't submit to that, I don't follow that, is not simply rejecting the authority of men, proper authority, God-given authority, but is to reject the authority of God. Be careful.

Be careful in all of your relationships. Be careful, I'm thinking particularly now, about how you relate to human government. I know we all have political positions and ideas and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it's done in the right way. But be careful that you don't become like these counterfeit Christians in throwing off legitimate God-given human authority. God didn't say for us to submit to human authority when we agree with it. Well, who wouldn't submit to any authority when they agree with it? It's when we don't agree with it and we're tested as to whether we're going to obey God or not that the rubber really meets the road, right?

Right? But these have rebellious attitudes. They reject God's authority and God-ordained human authority.

And they're also characterized by disrespectful speech. They speak evil of dignitaries. Defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Speak evil of, literally the word there is glories.

It's a plural of the Greek word doxa, glory. Speak evil of glories or glorious beings. One translation translates it slander celestial beings.

That does seem to be the idea, particularly in the context. And so it's talking about slander toward God, the most glorious of all beings, and the angels whom God has created with majesty and glory. And he gives an example of that in the next verse, including, evidently, even fallen angels because the example of the next verse talks about how Michael, an archangel, a holy angel, is not willing to use slanderous accusations against the devil, the most wicked evil fallen angel there could be. But evidently, according to these words, even evil angels still retain a measure of their created glory. They are glories in the same way that fallen human beings still contain a measure of the image of God, though it's not complete as it was before the fall. It's hard to figure out how much of the image of God and exactly what that means.

But without knowing the details, we do know this. There are several references in the Bible to fallen humanity still being in the image of God. And so, therefore, that dictates how we relate to other human beings. We don't deprecate them. We don't slander them. We don't treat other human beings like dirt.

Why? They're created in the image of God, even in their fallen sinful state, even as the fallen angels are still glorious beings created by God, and we don't slander them if we are godly people. And so that takes us, therefore, from what these imposters do in verse 8 to what they should do in verse 9. And just one example is given here. I'm sure there are several that could be. But one application of this in verse 9, Yet Michael the archangel, or an illustration, I guess, of how this should be carried out in real life, Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he, that is the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

What are we dealing with? A majestic being, a glory, a glorious being, Michael, one of the highest ranking angels, the archangel. We only know by name of two archangels, Gabriel and Michael. Archangel means above. The archangel, apparently, are above all the other angels, and there are at least two of them.

And Michael is one of them. He's referred to in Daniel 10, 13, and Daniel 12, 1, and the Revelation 12, 7, and here, these times in the Bible. But he's one of the highest ranking angels, but now we learn something that we didn't know elsewhere, from elsewhere in the Bible, namely about what took place after Moses died on the mountain away from the people of Israel, and Michael was involved in that. He had been given an assignment by God, evidently, to bury the body of Moses. Now let me read what formerly has been given to us about this incident in Deuteronomy 34. Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is a cross from Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim of Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the south and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, that's Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar, that came up last week in the cities of the plain that God destroyed, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain, one of those was Zoar, which was spared by Lot's appeal.

The others were all utterly destroyed. And so up on the mountain, God showed Moses Zoar. It still was standing in his day. So this is a pretty big expanse that God is showing to Moses. Then the Lord said to him, This is the land which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there. This clearly is a supernatural ability for Moses to see all of this distance.

I don't care how high you get on a mountain. To be able to see all of this wouldn't be natural, but God enabled him to see it. He says that here. I have caused you to see it with your eyes. So Moses, a servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab. That's on the eastern side of the Jordan River before they crossed over to Jericho. He died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he, that is God, buried him in a valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor. But no one knows his grave to this day. Moses was buried by God.

But of course, when the Bible tells us that God does things, it often tells us when we are given more details that God sent messengers to carry those things out at his command. And now we learn that the archangel Michael was sent to bury the body of Moses and that Satan contested that burial. Satan claimed authority over the body of Moses and said, Michael, I'm not going to let you bury him. Now what Satan had in mind, what he wanted to do with the body of Moses, what is going on here, I have no idea. But there was a spiritual battle going on which Michael eventually won.

He claimed the body and he buried the body according to the assignment given to him. But this battle between Michael and the devil was going on. And in all of this, fighting, wrangling, I would presume we could say, arguing, Michael never spoke disrespectfully to the devil.

Never brought a railing accusation. But said, the Lord rebuke you. The Lord judges you. The Lord knows everything that's going on here, even the motives of your heart.

The Lord will bring you to final judgment. I leave it all to him. I just carry out my assignment from God and I do so respectfully.

That's the battle. And Michael displays an amazing, respectful attitude. He did not revile Satan. He committed judgment to God. And the point is, if Michael is this careful in how he speaks to the devil, we should be equally careful in how we speak to others and of others. Yes, even the devil.

You can't get any more wicked than that. There's no man on earth that's as wicked as the devil. Therefore, there's no man on earth that we can justify speaking disrespectfully to.

It probably would be appropriate right now to stop and have a time of prayer so that we could all confess our sins before we go on. But this is what the Bible is telling us here. Which brings us, number three, to the consequences of their deeds in verse 10. But these speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. In verse 10, we first of all have their behavior rehearsed.

Reference to what has already been given to us in verse 10 is reviewed, or given to us in verse 8 is reviewed in verse 10. And then in the last part of the verse, their destruction is declared. In rehearsing the behavior in verse 10, we have, once again, their disrespectful speech. We have added to that what I would call their ignorant pomposity.

And then thirdly, their base behavior that seems to be of a sexual nature. Their disrespectful speech. Though Michael would not bring a railing accusation against Satan, these, verse 10, speak evil of whatever they do not know. They speak evil. They blaspheme. They speak abusively of many things involving and including things that they do not know. They don't even understand them properly, or perfectly, or even thoroughly. But that doesn't keep them from mouthing their opinion in a very disrespectful and accusatory way. They are like brute beasts.

Their base behavior. They do not understand spiritual realities, but they think they do. They think they are very spiritual.

They only understand things physical, and not even those as well as they think they do, but oh, they sure do understand the baser side of physical things, the lascivious side. What I describe basically is being physically immoral, intellectually arrogant, and spiritually ignorant. And what is the consequence of that?

Verse 10. In these things, they corrupt themselves. Or by these things is another translation, they corrupt themselves. By what things? Well, by the things we saw previously. Defile the flesh, reject authority, speak evil of dignities.

By what things? By their disrespectful speech, by their ignorant pomposity, by their base behavior, they corrupt themselves. Or another translation, which might be closer to the original, is they are destroyed. By these base things, they are destroyed. They are destroyed, therefore, by their own sinful behavior, and they are destroyed for their own sinful behavior. They are destroyed by their own sinful behavior because it has consequences in life, and they will reap the consequences of their sinfulness. But they will also be destroyed for their sinful behavior because the consequences that are suffered in this life are only the beginning.

They've got far greater consequences that they will suffer in the life beyond the grave. Now, it's interesting how closely these words of Jude parallels words by Peter, and I'm going to read a section in 2 Peter, chapter 2, beginning in verse 9. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, whether angels, or whereas angels, rather, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of things they do not understand and will utterly perish in their own corruption and will receive wages of unrighteousness as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery that cannot cease from sin and enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children.

Peter's clearly talking about the same group of people in very similar language. Well, I've got a number of applications I hope I have time to close with. Let's get started and see what happens.

One, I've been wanting to insert at some point, and I guess I'll just insert it now. In this study, the book of Jude, I think we see something about the balance between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and I'm thinking particularly about this. There are some people who contend that you're not being true to the whole word of God unless you preach as much from the Old Testament as from the New.

I understand the reasoning. I don't reject it totally. I think sometimes the Old Testament is neglected. I think we should probably preach more from the Old Testament than perhaps we do. But here's something I can't help but notice, and that is when you're preaching through the New Testament, how many times do you have to go back to the Old Testament? How many times today did I read to you from the Old Testament in order to explain what was in the New Testament? When you're reading the Old Testament, you don't have any quotations from the New Testament.

You understand what I'm saying? You do have things that you can relate to later fulfillment in the New Testament. You can make a bridge, you can make a connection, but you'll not ever read a quotation, a statement in the Old Testament, which is a quotation from the New Testament, though the other way around we run into frequently, is statements in the New Testament that are quoted from the Old Testament and other references in the New Testament quoted from the Old Testament, which require us to go back to the Old Testament to explain the New Testament. So what I'm saying is I think there's more Old Testament included in appropriate expository New Testament preaching than the other way around. When you're preaching thoroughly from the New Testament, you are also preaching some pretty significant parts of the Old Testament as we did today about the burial of Moses and the false prophets, what God said to them from the Old Testament and Michael, the archangel and the book of Daniel and so forth and so on. You see what I'm saying? I just had to throw that in somewhere along the line and so today's the day.

There it is. But now, more particularly to the text before us, we learn something very important about the source of spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding. And we learn from this text that spiritual knowledge and understanding does not come from human reasoning or from human instinct. It is not sourced from within men. People don't have the knowledge of God innate within them, except the limit of the mouth that is described in Romans chapter 1.

Very limited. But that's not where clear spiritual understanding comes from, not from within the heart of man, not from within the mind of man, nor in special individual revelation that God gives to certain people. It doesn't come from there either, contrary to what some people think.

Where does it come from? The written word of God. That's where spiritual understanding comes from, the written word of God.

My heart is leaning on the word, the written word of God. Jude opened his epistle reminding us of that. 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 delivered to the saints.

Now, what is that talking about? What Jesus delivered to the apostles and the apostles delivered to others and has been panted down to us, and we have it in a book called the Bible. The faith once delivered unto the saints, you've got to contend for that. That's the source of spiritual knowledge. That's where men and women derive spiritual understanding from the source that is the Bible, not from their own hearts and minds and not from individuals in our day that have a special line to God.

That's nonsense. Well, that gives me time to mention some of the marks of spiritual understanding. How do you know if you have spiritual understanding? How do you know if other people have spiritual understanding? What will mark that out?

What will identify that? Well, evidently, according to this passage, there will be people who refuse to rail against Satan and demons and political enemies and so forth. Boy, that's going to cancel out a lot of people who claim to be speaking for God in our day. I remember going through this section. Remember, I told you I preached to the Book of Job in 1981.

Most of you weren't here, so I thought it was safe to do it again. But I remember how this struck me clear back in 1981 going through this, and I said, you know, I don't think we should be teaching our children to sing that little song about the devil. If I got the devil, I'd lock him in a box.

I'd do this, I'd do that, and so forth. It doesn't exactly, it isn't exactly a railing accusation, but it's sure disrespectful. I think that is getting very close to violating what we're taught here. We need to be more respectful of that, even with the devil. Oh, yeah, he's a wicked, vicious enemy.

We resist him, we oppose him, but we don't disrespect him. So we're talking about marks of spiritual understanding. If you have spiritual understanding, you know that. Why? Because you learned it in the Bible.

That's why. So that's a mark that you understand these things. What's another mark of spiritual understanding? Respectful speech in all situations. Show me somebody who's always on the edge with their speech, and I'll show you somebody who's not very spiritually minded. Show me somebody who makes defamatory statements on Facebook, and I'll show you somebody, though they may claim to be a Christian, is certainly not very mature. They don't have much spiritual understanding because the Bible teaches us not to do that.

Some people need to shut down their Facebook for about six months and then learn to use it in a godly way or not at all because Facebook is a great violator of what we have learned this morning. In fact, one mark of spiritual understanding is respectful application of God's Word, the Bible, to all areas of life. Well, what else do we learn from this passage? We learn some evidence as a spiritual hypocrisy. They are clearly, on the one hand, immoral behavior, including our thoughts, our secret activities, our allowing ourselves to or refusing to expose ourselves to pornography, for example. And evidence of spiritual hypocrisy is rejection of divine authority, rebellious attitudes towards the authority of God and to the authorities that He has given to us.

Wives that refuse to be in respectful relationship or submitted relationship to their husbands, children that refuse to be in respectful submitted relationship to their parents, citizens who refuse to be in respectful relationship to human government, church members who refuse to be in respectful relationship to the spiritual authorities that God has placed in the church. These are all evidences of spiritual hypocrisy. Salvation turns sinful rebellion to glad submission. Don't you understand that the reason we need to be saved is because of our innate rebellion? Ever since Adam fell and we've been born as sons and daughters of Adam, we've come into this world with an inborn rebellion against God and against godly authority. That's the source of our sinfulness and that's what's got to be changed. If we're going to be saved, we're going to be saved from that. Not that we won't wrestle with it, we'll continue to as with other sins throughout our lifetime until we are entirely sanctified. But there's going to be a fundamental change from general disrespect toward authority to instead general respect for authority. That'll be one of the clearest marks that God has changed a heart and the lack of that is a clear evidence that the heart evidently has not been changed.

That does not manifest the salvation that God works in human hearts. Disrespectful speech manifests ignorance, not courage nor intelligence. It makes you feel big, doesn't it, railing against all those people and things out there with your strong colorful language.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no. It's not making you look like what you think it is. It makes you look like an idiot who doesn't understand things very well at all. It makes you not look courageous.

It makes you look like an unintelligent person who's not able to quietly argue with facts and truth instead of railing with abusive speech. And the final lesson is just to remind us that destruction awaits those who ignore this warning given to us by Jude. Self-destruction in life if you go your own way, ignoring what Jude has told us about today, and eternal destruction beyond the grave if you do not repent of these things and come to the fountain of cleansing that Jesus Christ has given to us. Shall we pray? Father, we are sobered by this portion of your word. We are convicted by it for all of us, O Lord, have sinned against these instructions at times and maybe some are doing so regularly even now. Father, by your Spirit, bring repentance, bring conviction, bring acknowledgement of sin and confession of sins to every one of us today. And, O Lord, may we bring ourselves under the authority of your word may we bring ourselves in line with the instructions of your word and may we order our lives, our speech, our thoughts, our attitudes toward others to be in line with what your word tells us reflects a true child of God. We can only do this by divine help. Please give it to us today, we pray. In Christ's name, Amen.