Sermons

            Discernment is a critical function in our spiritual progress.  We need to know how to tell one thing from another.  Discernment requires that we learn to hear with the ears and eyes of our hearts.  You may wonder how our hearts can hear or see, but they can.  The Apostle wrote to the church in Ephesus, “I pray also that the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the incomparably great power for us who believe.”   Evidently our hearts can spiritually see.  We can recognize on thing from another.                                                 

The Holy Spirit when He became the Presence of God in us is meant to be our teacher.  As the teacher of our text, Jude is writing truth to us.  Truth then is imported by the Holy Spirit and is meant to be conveyed to our spirits both individually and collectively.  Our discernment activity is to receive the truth from the Spirit.                                                                                           

Jude is teaching us how to recognize the way the false teachers, the godless ones can be discerned.  As concretely as he can Jude describes how these false teachers operate and how we can recognize them in our minds and in our spirits.  He is writing this short letter because of his concern for the well-being of the community.  Untruth damages communities of faith as well as individuals.                                                                                                                                     

Discernment is not judgment.  Judgment always includes condemnation, and condemnation is God’s work alone.  Discernment includes perceiving what is and how what is functions.  The concern is to present enough description to protect the whole of the church and each individual within the whole from getting sucked into dead-end living that leads to darkness.  Jude loves those who are in his audience, and he does not want any to be lost – he says so clearly.  So, let’s see what he says.

            “Speaking of these scoffers, they build their lives on their own fantasies, rejecting authority, speaking falsely about God’s chosen.  Micael, God’s lead angel was contending with Lucifer regarding the destiny of Moses calling on the authority of God, not his own authority.  These scoffers are caught up with themselves and speak falsely regarding what they know nothing about.  They are destroyed by their own ignorant instincts.  It is truly a sad day for them.                                                                                                                                                                    

They are like Cain in their jealousy.  They left all sensibility driven by the lust for power, possessions, and prestige and in the end will perish.  They act like reefs close to shore that ground ships on their way to a destination.  They think they are safe when they are not.  They are as repulsive as shepherds feeding their own bellies instead of the sheep.  They are as worthless as clouds without rain, wind blown, or fruit trees that produce no fruit, just sticks in the ground, like trees fallen over serving no purpose, like oceans roaring and foaming, or stars with no function, with the gloom of darkness promised forever.                                                                 

They were prophesied by Enoch long ago when he said, “The Lord will bring hordes of His angels to execute judgment on the ungodly for their sinful deeds and false teachings against God.                                                                                                                                                  

By nature, these scoffers constantly grumble, live outside the Word, do only what their flesh wants to do, boast about their freedoms, and seek to manipulate for their own benefit.”

            Jude helps his audience recognize both concretely and intuitively what experience with these false teachers is like.  See it and hear it and feel it in your gut so to speak.  To begin with they are like those God judged in Sodom and Gomorrah as they rely on their sexual fantasies, corrupting their own bodies with their “freedoms” they reject all moral authority and falsely accuse God’s faithful followers.                                                                                                                   

Jude uses Michael as his example that in the midst of genuine spiritual battles with evil the path to take is to call on God to confront the evil not calling on oneself to be the judge.  These scoffers take things into their own hands.  These people falsely accuse truths which they are ignorant of.  In the end they are destroyed by the fruit of their own instincts.                                    

It will not go well for them!  There is much to learn regarding God’s ways through the examples of those who have gone before them and us.  Cain is an example of jealousy.  Balaam is an example of greed.  Korah is an example of agitation and mutiny.  Do you remember the Korah story? In a battle with Moses for leadership, Korah and his household we swallowed up in an earthquake (Num. 16).                                                                                                            

The wicked infiltrators are exposed.  Taking advantage of the community they are like reefs that can shipwreck the faith of others, shepherds that feed only themselves, like clouds without rain – disappointing others hopes, like empty wind they are carried away with their own verbosity, spiritually dead without fruit, twice dead trees that farmers end up destroying.  Like wild ocean waves their foaming is to their shame.  They ae like wandering stars, they have wandered off course because of their rebellion against God.  Their destiny is settled…the blackest darkness has been reserved for them.                                                                                    

Our mentor summarizes Jude’s description, “They are as dangerous as reefs, as selfish as greedy shepherds, as deceptive as rainless clouds, as dead as barren trees, as polluted as the foaming seas.  They are as doomed as surely as the fallen angels” (p. 255).                                              

Quoting from an extrabiblical source, but one his audience was familiar with (Enoch prophesied about people like them [Gen. 5:22,24].  When the Day of the Lord arrives, the Lord will bring 10,000 angels to execute judgment on the ungodly.  What the ungodly have done and said will be part of the judgment.                                                                                                     

Recognize them as grumblers and faultfinders complaining against God’s way preferring their own way, but also blaming God for anything that goes wrong for them.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?   Rejecting divine authority they follow their own desires.  Professor Barclay assesses these false teachers when he writes, “To them self-discipline and self-control are nothing to them, the moral law is only a burden and a nuisance; honor and duty have no claim upon the; they have no desire to serve and no responsibility.  Their one value is pleasure, and their one dynamic is desire (Barclay, p. 198).                                                                                              

They are noisy, arrogant, manipulators for their own power, possessions, and prestige.  They engage in assertive speech in order to impress and impact.  The false teachers both bluster and fawn.                                                                                                                                           

False teachers are not just a first century phenomenon.  The church has always had to deal with them.  Our challenge is discernment.  Truth is important to God and should be to us.  Therefore, discernment is a necessary spiritual skill to develop.  Part of our growth is learning to partner with the Holy Spirit and then learning how to recognize what is of God and what is not.  You may find that you don’t want to learn that because it sounds like a lot of work, but the payout is worth it.  The most effective way to become spiritually fit is to immerse ourselves in learning God’s way and God’s Word and then practicing what we learn.                                      

Judgment is God’s business not ours!  Sometimes that is hard for us to remember as our bent is often toward judgment.  But like I have said, discernment is not judgment.  Judging is easy discerning requires more from us.  Jesus was keen on not judging when he said, “Judge not lest you be judged.”                                                                                                                  

The OT instructs us with how God deals with unrighteousness and over and over in the Word we are instructed to wait on the Lord.  It is a matter of trust; can I trust God to do what He says He will do?  God’s work is not my work, and my work is not His work.  By the way, the mindset of our common culture is hardly the place to look for truth since the motif is always relative, my truth/your truth.  We need to be careful in concluding that every natural disaster is a judgment by God.  Throughout the scriptures the expressions of God’s judgment are a lot more severe than the fruit of natural disasters.  Whatever happens is minor league compared to God’s judgment.