Jude 1:5

The book of Jude, reading verses 5 through 7 with the focus tonight on verse 5. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward, destroyed them that believed not. And the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom Gimorrah in the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. May God bless to us the reading. of his sacred and holy word this evening. There are people who spend a considerable amount of time reading the newspaper, or perhaps the online news today, and they spend all this every day they have spent so much time reading it. And they can tell you about the comic strict characters. They can tell you about the state. of all the sport teams, whether it’s hockey or baseball or basketball or football, they can recite the advice columnist and her advice for that week or that day. They know all the inside political stories, the national headlines they’re familiar with. They know the weather prediction for the next five days. They know all the Hollywood gossip. and they have at least a grasp of the situation of Wall Street, whether we’re in a bear market or a bull market. They know the latest fashion trends being sold at the department store and perhaps can even tell you what’s on sale this week at the grocery store. All these things can be gathered by reading a newspaper or a paper that’s online. Sadly, while people are well informed on what we might classify many cases, the trivial things of life, when it comes to the great issues that affect life, ignorance prevails. The majority of people are certainly spiritually ignorant. The scripture provides you with insight regarding life. And what people consider ancient history is actually quite relevant to our own day and age, if it is considered in light of God’s overall dealings with man. Jude is writing to warn believers of the danger here of departing from the true faith, the faith that was once delivered under the saints, as he tells us. us in verse 3. This is the same type of problem facing the church today because there are false teachers. There are spiritual hypocrites that plague the church, just as they did creep in unaware in Jude’s day. They do the same today as verse 4 of this chapter tells us. At this point, Jude provides us with three past examples of defection from God’s truth. We have Israel and their unbelief in verse 5. The rebellious angels and verse 6 and Sodom Gamora and verse 7. You are reminded here that the past history concerning these things is important. Apostasy always and in judgment. And there is a lesson to be learned. So tonight I want to focus on verse 5 and talk about the sin of unbelief. Now let me begin by saying that you have an obligation to recall God’s past judgments. He says here in verse 5, I will therefore put you in remembrance. It would duty to be acquainted with the scripture. Jude presumes that these various histories that he is going to speak about are things that are known by the people of God, or at least should be known by the people of God. They’ve been provided in God’s word for a purpose. These histories are to be remembered. and applied to our own day and our own situation. Knowledge of the Word of God is vital in dispatching temptations, as we see with Christ in the temptation in the wilderness that he faced. And the Scripture tells us there is a danger of being ignorant of the Word of God, of being unskilful in the Word of righteousness, because, then it leaves you vulnerable. Colossians 316 says, Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom. If you are spiritually ignorant, you can’t help yourself, nor can you help others. How can you learn the lesson taught by the history of Israel if you don’t know it? Therefore, we have to be studying God’s law. The first five books of the Bible and take the light in the study of His Word. His law, what Jesus taught concerning error was, you err not knowing the scripture. So it’s important that we know the scripture and apply it to our day and age. Woody Allen once took a speed reading course by Evelyn Wood. And he commented sarcastically afterwards. I was able to read the Bible in 12 minutes. It was something about God. I think that’s the problem. with many people who read the Bible. They know it’s something about God, but when it comes down to the actual principles and doctrines in the Bible, they don’t seem to be able to extract them properly. We study the Word of God, that we may know the promises, that we may know the doctrines, that we may know the historical examples, and that they would be ready at hand. Now, good Christian books are beneficial, and I certainly have appreciated. the good Christian books that I have been able to read. But they in themselves should not keep you from reading the scriptures. They are not a substitute for the scriptures. We should always give the scriptures the priority in our reading. Whatever we supplement the Word of God with, that’s fine. But let’s not forget to read the Word of God itself and be familiar with the contents of the Word. Martin Luther once said that he could wish all his books forgotten and utterly laid aside rather than that they should keep men from reading the scriptures themselves. So read the scriptures to your children and your family devotions. Train up your children in the knowledge of God’s truths. Ask God to grant you an understanding of what you read. Do not simply read the Bible and fail to comprehend the implications of scripture for your life. Ask yourself, do I understand what I’m reading? There is spiritual profit to be gained in all of Scripture. Even the historical sections of Scripture, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable as 2 Timothy 316 says. It’s also true, if we ignore biblical history, we’re bound to repeat it. And so we ignore the lessons from Israel. evolved were likely to fall into the same category as they did in their various sins. They committed. I like 1 Corinthians chapter 10 if you read the first 12 verses. He says, you know, don’t commit adultery like they did and God judged him. You know, don’t get involved in fornication like they did and God judged them. Don’t have the Lord like they did. And we’re, you know, the fiery serpents came upon him. So he keeps saying, don’t do what they did to the church today in saying, look at their example and don’t do this. So you have a duty to be acquainted with the scripture. Known truths need to be repeated for your benefit. He says here, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this. When you were young, your parents led you about by the hand. They grabbed a hold of your hand. and you walked beside them. And when you were crossing the street, they repeated a little saying all the time. Look both ways before crossing the street. You probably heard that many times when you were growing up. Why? Why would your parents have to keep telling you the same thing repeatedly? Because you’d remember that little saying. So when you come to the street by yourself, when you’re a little bit older, you think automatically, look both ways before I cross the street. Repetition is an aid to memory. You know, parents drill home certain fundamental principles regarding safety in this way. You know, don’t play with matches. Look before you leap. Watch your step. Don’t run on the steps. You know, all these little things we tell our children. spiritually, even those truths, which you understand already, sometimes need to be pressed home again and again. Sometimes you don’t fully understand the truth. Sometimes you are a forgetful hearer and you forget about what you’ve heard. Sometimes the world crowds out the things of God. This is why Christ and his apostles are always repeating the same message. Now, Peter, you recall, was troubled when Christ asked him the third time about whether thou lovest me. Peter was troubled when he said the third time, do you love me? Three times in John chapter 21. Leaky vessels have to be filled again and again. And so sometimes, you know, we let things slip away from us. We have to keep filling them up with, uh, a vivid reminder of these truths. If God’s truth is not meditated upon enough or is not applied properly, then you need a fresh exposure to the same old truth, as you’ve heard in the past. You know, a lot of people always crave to hear something new. They want something they’ve never heard before when they come to church. However, we must realize that first you have to learn a truth. and then you have to meditate on it. There are things you may know, and you may know the story well, but you may not have applied that story to a particular situation. And that’s where the application of that text can be different for different people in different circumstances, and therefore just knowing the text allows us to make application to different circumstances in people’s lives. First you eat something and then you have to digest it. all, when it comes to the word of God, first you eat it, so to speak, by reading it, and then you have to digest it. And think about, meditate upon it. My children are not always still when we went over all the catechism questions. You know, we would go through like one of the little chapters each night. We had family devotions, and, you know, it’s a lot of repetition. But after a while, you know, they were able to give all the answers. And then they just kept going over those things. they would not forget. And they would remember those basic Bible doctrines and truths. Hopefully, they would understand it more fully later on in life. Maybe they didn’t understand it all at once. And then they would be able to apply it as well, hopefully. And therefore, we shouldn’t be disappointed at the repetition of biblical truth. This is what Jude is urging here. What you know about Israel in the Old Testament during the wilderness journey must be applied to the present situation about those departing from the faith. That’s what he’s doing. He’s taking an Old Testament story, and he’s saying this has application to the circumstances today. It’s not dry, you know, outdated history. but there’s something lively here, something beneficial to apply to the church. So you have an obligation to recall God’s past judgments. Now, secondly, you should pay careful attention to God’s past judgment of Israel. In the last part of verse 5, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Now, you and I know the great story of deliverance and how the Lord delivered the Israelites from Egyptian bondage in the book of Exodus. It’s a wonderful story, and he miraculously did this for them. Pharaoh had enslaved the Israelites. The Israelite male babies were being cast into the Nile River that they may be killed, and not be able to strengthen the nation. And the Bible tells us the Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter in bondage, in mortar and brick. And the Egyptians were cruel to the Israelites, forcing them to slave labor here, and also to murder their own children. terrible. And then God sends Moses to Pharaoh with the message, let my people go. At course, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. He will not let them go. And then we see the plagues of God being unleashed upon the land of Egypt. And God’s command, the waters are turning the blood. And we have the frogs, and we have the lice, and we have the flies, and we have the locusts and all that occurs, the elements of darkness and hail and thunder and so forth, fulfill God’s word so that the strength and the glory of Egypt is destroyed. And then as the final plague, the death angel comes along and strikes down the first born of Egypt. And this is the final blow. And finally, Pharaoh releases the Israel But his heart is hardened again. And he decides to reverse his decision after he has let the Israelites go. And they mounts up his chariot. He prepares his army. He goes after the Israelites to recapture them, to re-enslave them. And you remember how God opened the Red Sea, the Israelites crossed over as on dry ground. And the Egyptians attempting to do the same thing, facing after them, when they get in the middle of the sea, God closes the sea on them and drowns them. Then God guided the Israelites with a pillar of cloud and fire, fed them with manna from heaven, gave them water from the rock, prevented their shoes from even wearing out, defended the defeat the enemies that attacked them as they were going along. And we find that Israel celebrated the Exodus with the Passover. feast and they celebrated the wilderness journey with the Feast of the Tabernacles. So you know the great story of this deliverance of the Israelites. Now, you learn from this, though, that great privileges often precede judgments. Destroy them that believe not. Boy, that puts a negative, negative, spin on this whole deliverance, doesn’t it? That afterwards, they died in the wilderness. You would think that these highly privileged people, able to see all these miracles that God did, he displayed his power. Think about walking through the Red Sea. Think about all the plagues that fell upon the Egyptians. And you remember, after the first few plagues, God didn’t have them fall on the Israelites, Egyptians. So when it was dark in the whole land of Egypt, there was light in the land of Goshen where the Israelites were, things of that nature. God did grant them many benefits. But what happened to these individuals? They were destroyed by God in the wilderness, at least the majority of them were. The adult members of the nation never took possession of the promised land because they proved to be a proud and rebellious people. Their carcasses fell in the wilderness, that whole generation. And the lesson is that great privileges often precede judgments. Remember in John chapter 5, our Lord comes across this impotent man by the pull of Bethesda there in Jerusalem, who’s been lying there for a long period of time, 38 years, waiting for the angel that came once a year and stirred the waters, and whoever got in first, would be healed of their sickness. And so all these sick people were laying around the pool waiting for the stirring of the waters. And this man hoped to be made well by entering in the pool, but before he could get there, someone else that would enter in first. And he mentions this to Christ. Jesus, however, heals him. Rise, take up thy bed and walk. Later, our Lord found the man in the temple worshiping God. And he said to him this in John 514, Behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest the worst thing come upon me. We get the impressing that perhaps the reason he was impotent here for 38 years is he had sinned in some fashion, there was a judgment of God upon him. and Christ is saying here, learn the lesson from the past. Don’t go out and do what you’ve done. Don’t continue in sin. So this man had received a great deliverance and was made whole, but to go back. The sin as he once did would bring a more severe judgment from God. We should weigh our privileges because whatever privileges we enjoy, we should recognize that God may judge us more severely if we abuse those privileges. Great privileges often precede judgment. Now the great cause of destruction is your unbelief. Afterward destroyed them that believed not, the scripture says. There are many sins of the Israelites in the wilderness. We could list a ton of them that they’ve committed. There was murmur. against God, rebellion against God’s appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron. There was idolatry. There was fornication. There was a desire even to return to Egypt, or recall. And Jude denotes here, though, the source of all these sins. Why is it? They acted this way? Because they were in unbelief. They did not believe. They refused to be governed by God’s commands. They didn’t believe his word, his promises. They didn’t believe the gospel that was portrayed to them in the pictures and the signs of the things associated with the tabernacle. Unbelief is a terrible sin. You remember what 1. John 510 says, He that believeth not God hath made him a liar. That’s a blasphemous thing to do, isn’t it? What do the Israelites do? They called into God. question, the mercy, the power, the justice, the goodness, and the truthfulness of God. Someone has called unbelief the mother of all sins. We think back to the Garden of Eden. We think back to Adam’s fall. What led to his fall on belief of what God had told him, that day thou eatest thereof of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely die, and he believes Satan’s lie. You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. the Lord is holding you back here. you will be like him if you would eat off this tree. and so unbelief in that sense was a problem for him. a refusal to believe what God had said. now final unbelief is evidence of reprobation. but the Bible tells us you believe not because ye are not my sheep, John 1026, indicating to us that there are some who cannot believe, and it’s because they have been rejected by the Lord. That takes us back to verse four of this book of Jude. We talked about those ordained to condemnation. Now the warning here is the same that the writer of Hebrews gives, and for that reason I’ll direct your attention. The Hebrews just says. chapter 3. For Paul, of who I believe is the writer, lays out for us the implications of Israel’s unbelief. Hebrews chapter 3, verses 8 to 12, begin with. Harden out your hearts, as in the provocation in the day of temptation of the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works 40 years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation and said they do always err in their heart. they have not known my ways so I swore in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest take he brother lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief and departing from the living God then pick up with verse 17 but with whom was he grieved 40 years was it not with them that had sinned whose carcasses fell in the wilderness and to whom swear he that they should not enter into his rest but to them? that believe not. So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief. Let us therefore fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them not being mixed with faith, and them that hurt it. And the danger of course here is to be one who professes to be follower of the Lord, who seems to be enjoying the benefits of God, and yet be someone who is still an unbelief. And if that is the case, of course, that is a dangerous situation to be in, to be just a nominal professor and not be a true believer. the Bible says that the gospel was preached to them just as it’s preached to us today. He’s applying, he’s saying this same situation. They had the gospel. We have the gospel. The rest that we are seeking to enter into is the rest of heaven. Not the promised land, but let’s put it in capitalized, the promised land of heaven, than just the land of Canaan for sect. So we see that the rest, entering into the rest, here is an important thing that the people of God are desiring to do. But if we end up denying Christ, if we end up perverting the truth of God, if we end up pursuing sinful lust, then we shall not escape unscathed but endure the judgment of God. And this is the thing that he says about these false teachers. This is what he’s leading people. That’s what these people are being led astray into. These kind of sins. Don’t be fooled. Don’t turn away from the gospel of Christ that you’ve heard. No matter how many outward privileges you have, no matter what your religious profession will be, none of those things are going to shield you from divine vengeance if you’re in unbelief. If you’re not ruled by God’s word, then obviously you’re in danger of being destroyed. So God here gives us a warning. He says, look at the nation of Israel. Look what happened to the one generation in particular because of unbelief, even though they appeared to be the people that God has delivered, and so forth, ultimately they proved to be unbelievers and perished in their sin. You may go through this life and know all kinds of information about the world you live in. You may know about sports teams and political things and everything else. You read the newspaper and spend all your time doing that. But I suggest to you that we as Christians make sure that we read the Bible. Not that you can’t read the newspaper, but read the Bible, because in it, are the issues of life that we need to know so that we can conduct ourselves in a proper manner. So we’re not proved to be non-Israelites. We want to be proved to be true Israelites as ones who believe the message of the truth of the gospel. Let us close with a word. Thank you.