False teachers often appear pleasant and likable, but as we'll hear today on Truth for Life, they can be dangerous. We are continuing our study in the New Testament book of Jude. Today we're introduced to an Old Testament character named Balaam, and here with some background is Alistair Begg beginning in the book of Numbers. I invite you to turn with me to Numbers and to chapter 16. As we return to our studies in Jude, we read this as part of a cross-reference that I hope will help us.
Numbers chapter 16, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and then the first five verses, and then from verse 25 to 35. Now Korah the son of Ishar son of Kohath son of Levi and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab and Owen the son of Peleth sons of Reuben took men. And they rose up before Moses with a number of the people of Israel.
Two hundred and fifty chiefs of the congregation chose from the assembly well-known men. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, You have gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD? When Moses heard it, he fell on his face, and he said to Korah and all his company, In the morning the LORD will show who is his and who is holy, and will bring him near to him.
The one whom he chooses he will bring near to him. I'm going to leave you to read the intervening verses as the day unfolds. Verse 25. Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. And he spoke to the congregation, saying, Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins. So they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, together with their wives, their sons, and their little ones. And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die, as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the LORD has not sent me. But if the LORD creates something new, and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the LORD. And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up!
And fire came out from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men offering the incense. This is the word of the Lord, and we thank God for it. I invite you to turn to Jude, second-last book of the Bible, and let me read verses 11 to 13. 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. Father, please help us to get to the Lord Jesus Christ in the study of this particular passage. For we ask it in his name.
Amen. Well, if you're visiting, we began studying Jude a few weeks ago. We had a brief time when we were not there, and now we are back at it in verse 11. I take it that the book of Jude follows, chronologically, 2 Peter. And so, when Peter writes—and you can do this as you follow it up on your own—at the beginning of chapter 2 in his letter, he's telling his readers what to expect. And he says, There will be false teachers among you who will subtly introduce destructive heresies. And then you turn to Jude, and you discover that what Peter said would happen, Jude says, has happened. And in verse 4, certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
They are ungodly people. And it is as a result of this reality that Jude, if you like, as a faithful pastor, writes to the churches under his care, writes to, if you like, Christians everywhere inasmuch as we are on the receiving end of the letter ourselves, his tone is not one of condemnation. It is rather a response of consternation, that he is deeply concerned about this, and he recognizes the challenge that is to be faced by those who are following Jesus.
And the entire letter really goes like this. In verses 1–4, he is encouraging them to be contending for the faith. In verses 5–16, he is encouraging them to be learning from history. And then in verses 17–25, he is urging them to keep on even as they're being kept. Now, Calvin, in his day—that is, the sixteenth century—commenting on Jude when he taught it to his congregation, said, If we consider what schemes the evil one employs to divert from the faith, what was a useful warning in the time of Jude is more necessary in our age. So if it was true, in the sixteenth century, a real need, then surely every generation needs to remain vigilant, needs to be prepared to contend for the faith that has been once delivered to the saints and to realize that this truth is unchanged, and it is unchanging.
History records the necessity of this. I mentioned Spurgeon and the boiler room for prayer. He got involved with the challenge in his day in something called the downgrade controversy, or controversy.
1887, you can Google it—not now, you can Google it—and you can find out all about it. And he's dealing with the fact that this is actually happening in his day, and he writes in his own characteristic style, These destroyers of our churches appear to be as content with their work as monkeys with their mischief, that which their fathers would have lamented they rejoice in. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as these preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith. Now, that kind of candor of expression is deemed inappropriate in many circles today, but the very pungency with which he writes is akin to what we discover here in the verses that we're now looking at. You will notice that he begins, verse 11, with a solemn judgment on these people. Woe, he says.
Woe. Jesus has that great section of woes in Matthew, in chapter 23, where he pronounces these woes on the Pharisees. On one occasion, Paul calls a woe on himself, if you like, when he says, Woe is me if I do not actually preach the gospel. What is the reason for this great concern and for this pronouncement? Because these individuals are tampering with the gospel.
They're tampering with the good news that has been delivered once for all to the saints. Previously, we noted the three examples from the Old Testament that he had provided from verses 5 to 7, dealing with the people and with the angels and with the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now he comes with three more Old Testament examples.
And I need to say this this morning to you in just all honesty. The challenge in coming to this—or one of the challenges in coming to this in terms of seeing to teach the Bible—is the pace with which one moves through it. And Jude would have been able to count, in large measure, on his initial readers being able to close the gap between his mention of Cain, of Balaam, and of Korah, in a way that I don't think I am necessarily able to assume of you. There is no judgment in that, because I had to make sure that I went back and understood exactly the reference itself. But I suppose, in the words of my old art teacher at Ilkley Grammar School, Tommy Walker, who used to assign our art homework—have you ever had art homework?
It seems crazy. But we had a book that was about this size. He'd put it together. And he would say, Go home and draw a glass of water. Or, go home and draw a chair and bring it back. And you brought it back, and you showed it to him, and he gave marks out of five.
Okay? So if you got a five, you were a genius. I regularly—and there's no… I'm not making this up. I used to get the thing given back to me, and on it it said, An eighth.
An eighth. And so I used to beg with him, I said, Mr. Walker, can you not help me with this stuff? And he used to say in his Yorkshire accent, Ladd, I'll get you started, but I'm not doing it for you. I'm gonna get you started, but I'm not doing it for you.
Okay? This demands homework. To follow these three examples from the Old Testament, first of all, he points out, the problem is that they walked in the way of Cain. Homework in Genesis chapter 4 and cross-reference in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 12, where John says, We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. You go back into that story there in Genesis chapter 4, and you realize that all that flows in that has to do with the fact that he was of the evil one. Of the evil one. His sacrifice was rejected by God. His heart was not in tune.
As strange, as difficult it is for us to handle. Nevertheless, the Scriptures record it accurately. The Jewish people, in reckoning on the opening chapters of the Old Testament, commented on Genesis chapter 4 and verse 8 in this way. They put on the lips of Cain—these people walked in the way of Cain. They put this on the lips of Cain. There is no judgment, no judge, no world to come, no reward will be given to the righteous, and there will be no destruction for the wicked.
He said, if we're going to understand what was going on with Cain, we need to realize that he had rejected the very idea of his accountability before the holy God about which we have just been singing. That's not a very ancient idea. That perspective on life is alive and well. Imagine there's no heaven.
It's easy if you try. No hell below us, above us, only sky. That is the way of the wicked. We make our own path through life.
We are unaccountable, certainly not to God, and in many cases not to anyone. Offering freedom, which is actually bondage, to pursue unnatural desire and to indulge in sensual immorality. That's what we're referencing in verse 7, isn't it?
That's what we saw. Sodom and Gomorrah indulged in this, pursued unnatural desire. The way of Cain. Secondly, the error of Balaam. The error of Balaam. Now, those of you who, like me, have been trying to get to the end of Numbers in the McShane Bible readings got to chapter 30 this morning, which I thought was a great achievement, and I have been rebuked this week in my study because I've sort of been bemoaning having to read through Numbers.
It's not nice to acknowledge that, but I'm telling you the truth. There's a lot of lists, there's a lot of names, and there's a lot of times where you want to go, I know that, when in point of fact we don't. But you have to go to Numbers chapter 22 to get to the error of Balaam. So I should have been ready for it. Actually, it's only tomorrow that in chapter 31 we're gonna get a key that opens the door. Because tomorrow in chapter 31 I know because I read ahead. Because tomorrow we discover that Balaam was the one who was behind the idolatry and behind the immorality with the Moabite woman.
Now, if you haven't been reading, you don't know anything about the Moabite woman, but that's homework again. Numbers chapter 22, you read that and you say, There must have been somebody behind this. You get to chapter 31, and it says it was Balaam that was behind this.
In the book of Revelation, he shows up. Revelation chapter 2, to the church at Pergamum, Jesus writes, I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols, and practice sexual immorality.
So when Jude says, The problem that you have in these characters is a really significant problem. Balaam was prevented from cursing the people which he wanted to do, but he managed somehow or another to make it work so that he could get Moab's king to seduce them into both sexual and spiritual adultery. And don't for a moment imagine that the word error there might be regarded as a little slip. You know, Balaam just made a little bit of a mistake.
No, it's not a casual mistake he made. It was deliberate, it was deceitful, and its objective was to bring about the downfall of the people of God. That's what he wanted to do. And Jude is saying, When these characters emerge, you should know that that's their objective. What in the way of Cain were involved in this reality in terms of Balaam, and then, of course, in the rebellion of Korah? You notice, I think, there is a progression here in the verbs, isn't there?
I don't know. Maybe, For they walked in the way of Cain. They began to think in that way. They abandoned themselves to the error that Balaam promulgated, and they perished in Korah's rebellion. Actually, the Korah's rebellion, the people who perished are the people that we just read about in the Old Testament. But he describes the end of these characters in the past tense as if they also have gone down in the rebellion with Korah.
In other words, it's a downward spiral. And I think what Jude is doing is alerting the congregation to the fact that here is a situation that he actually observes taking place amongst them. Remember how he began? I had intended to write to you, concerned at a wonder of salvation, but I felt compelled to write to you, because certain people have crept in long ago. And this is who they are, and this is what they're like. Ungodly individuals causing havoc among God's people. They walk, they rush, and they finally perish. No wonder he began, Whoa!
Whoa! It's a mixture of condemnation, consternation, regret, sadness. Now, taken together, these three examples highlight greed, rebellion, immorality, jealousy, selfish ambition. Dick Lucas, in his commentary, writes, As we reach this ghastly climax, it is worth remembering again that the people Jude describes here are not at all easy to spot. If they were, he would not have had to write this letter.
This poisonous infiltration or deadly hijack is going on under our noses. And if Jude had not warned us that the nice people who want us to do this are dangerous rebels, we simply wouldn't know. Do you know how many times people say, Oh, but he's a very nice person? I mean, do you ever see the pilot when you get on? I always look to see who she is or who he is. I'm not really concerned how nice they are.
I'm really concerned about getting there safely. Oh, he's such a nice man. He's a dangerous man. These people are. These people are. Verse 12. These people are what? Now he provides six pictures to leave us in no doubt as to how to recognize those who pervert God's grace—those who take the amazing news of God's grace about which we have sung, and they turn it into a license for sensuality. They use the wonderful gospel of the grace of God as an excuse for ungodly living. And in my notes, I just simply wrote Matthew 7.15 before I came to these descriptions, By their fruits you shall know them.
That's what Jesus said. You'll know them by their fruits. You won't necessarily know them by the things they say. They may be able to spin a good story. They may be able to intrigue you and excite you and do all kinds of things for you.
But it's their fruits. They're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. I know that so many of you enjoy learning from Alistair. Great news, you can now share his teaching with young children.
Alistair has just released his first children's book. It's titled, C is for Christian. Alistair gives a one-page reflection on 26 unique words, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet. For example, your child will learn that D is for dwelled in, because God's Holy Spirit lives or dwells in all who believe in him. And here is Alistair with a sneak peek of what E is for.
E is for example. An example is something that shows you what something else is like. When you look at a toy car, you can see what a real car is like. A Christian is someone who can help other people to see what Jesus is like.
Anyone can do this. Even young children like you, when you say things that are kind and true and helpful, when you act in ways that obey God, and when you say no to doing something that is wrong. It is not easy to live as an example of what Jesus is like. So Jesus gives us his Holy Spirit to help us live in this way. That is so good. And you can ask for your copy of the book C is for Christian and read it to your children. Donate today at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for studying the Bible with us today. How do we recognize false teachers if they are masters of disguise?
We'll find out on Monday. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
