Book of Jude
Part 3
May 26, 2013
“Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 1:9). All angels were created to be holy beings. There are several classes of angels within the angelic establishment. There are archangels or warring angels like Michael, seraphim hover over God’s throne with two wings covering their eyes, for, “Man cannot see the glory of God and live,” and two wings covering their feet, for “man see the glory of the walk in which they are called. No one can follow their steps, and furthermore, neither can they be hindered,” (Elwin Roach) and cherubim who were posted as guards at the east gate of the Garden of Eden after God evicted Adam and Eve and their children, to name a few. Each group of angels was given different assignments and, apart from those who followed satan, they did and do a great job for the Lord and for man.
Jude here talks about two of classes of angels. The one class is those who are faithful to God. They are the ones who are sent here to earth by God to minister to those who will inherit salvation. (Hebrews 1:14) These are the angels God sent to remove Lot and his family from Sodom and who blinded the men who would have entered Lot’s house attack those angels. One was the messenger who came to Daniel when he prayed, and to Joseph to encourage him to take Mary as his bride, and later told Joseph when he should take Mary and the baby Jesus and flee Egypt. It was angels who led John through the visions in Revelation. These are the angels who have our best interest at heart.
The second class of angels Jude addressed were the angels that hooked their mules to satan and rode him out of Heaven. These are the ones who want nothing more than for no one to become a Christian re-born in Christ. But if they are born-again of the Spirit of God, his one objective becomes to render them useless to the kingdom. If people are wrapped up in sin, they can’t, and don’t shine like a light on a hill. Rather, they are exactly the opposite and have become as darkness. Everyone is drawn to light. Only sinful people are pulled in by darkness. That’s why all things demonic, like satan worship and prostitution, is done at night or in a dark place illuminated by candles. That’s also why those who serve satan do so in secret, for the most part.
Both classes of angels are around us all the time. You know the image of the good angel on your right shoulder and the bad one on your left shoulder? It’s not so far from reality as one might think. We are tempted to sin, and we are delivered from that sin if we will pray and turn our will over to God.
The controversy in verse 9 is, where did Jude glean this information from about the angelic confrontation over the body of Moses? There is no mention of this in Scripture, Old or New Testament apart from this. Commentators of the Bible give scads of suppositions, but no conclusive evidence that makes this event a true historic fact. Some say that it was an oral Jewish tradition, probably manufactured. Others think it came from a book that the apostles would have read called the Assumption of Moses. Still other commentators believe Jude had a revelation about this event since he speaks of it as certain truth. The last record of what happened to the body of Moses that is factual is, “So Moses, the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows the grave to this day” (Deuteronomy 34:5, 6).
What things commentators seem to agree about is that the devil most likely wanted Moses’ body to set it up as an “object of worship” to lead Israel into idol worship and away from God. They agree that God took the body of Moses and hid it from the people because he had future plans for Moses. David Guzik wrote, “It is more likely consider that the devil anticipated a purpose God had for Moses’ body, and he tried to defeat that plan. We know that after his death, Moses appeared in bodily form at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3) with Elijah (whose body was caught up to heaven in 2 Kings 2).
Notice this, though, how Michael handled this dispute. He didn’t stomp his foot and command the devil to leave. He didn’t take authority over this devil, although Michael had the authority given him by God. He quietly looked at the devil, and he said, “The LORD rebuke you.” This corrects any false teaching that this Michael is Jesus. Jesus fought the devil on His own authority.
Do you remember the story about the demon possessed boy in Matthew 17? This is the child the devil tossed into the fire or into the water. He’s the one the disciples could not deliver of the demon. Jesus took care of the boy Himself in Mathew 17:18. “And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.”
Lesson: When the devil comes against us in any way and we cry, rebuking him, telling him to depart, and telling him never to return, he laughs at us. Why? It’s because we don’t have the power in ourselves to rebuke anything. But! When we rebuke in the name of Jesus, now we’re talking with power and conviction. That’s when the devil must flee.
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“But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves” (verse 10). Ok, we now return to the false teachers among the church. “These” indicates to original topic. The false prophets and false teachers spoke then, and speak now against all things godly. They revile the pastors of the church, speak ill of the congregants, and they even mock the celebration of communion and other church functions. It isn’t that they don’t know God and know His Word. It’s that they are pride filled and, like Lucifer, want to be like God. These are people who abhor authority and will not submit to it in any way.
“John gave us an example of this in 3 John 9-10 in the person of Diotrephes who loved to have the preeminence in the church. Diotrephes took authority over the local congregation lording over it. He was the authority, not God.” (Abrams) The contradiction is, in 1 Peter 5:3 church leaders are given specific direction that they are to behave "Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock." Those in the church who want to have a voice MUST come under submission to God and to the authority He placed over each congregation.
“Jude 10 states the true condition of false teachers. They can run roughshod over the deity of Jesus Christ, the supernatural Being of our God and Creator, deny His works and word without a twinge of conscience. Spiritually false teachers are morally corrupt, dead, and intellectually blind. They are arrogant, disrespectful and blaspheme God's truth with a false sense of impunity.” (Abrams)
“How ironical that when men should claim to be knowledgeable, they should actually be ignorant; when they think themselves superior to the common man they should actually be on the same level as animals, and be corrupted by the very practices in which they seek liberty and self-expression.” (Green)
I cannot emphasize strongly enough how careful we must be about who we listen to. If your pastor, your teacher, or a Christian friend cannot defend their words scripturally, don’t buy it. An earmark of false teachers is that they make things up as they go, expect you to believe it, and turn nasty if you question it. “God is not man that He should lie.” The only one ever to be born human who never lied, and John 1:1 makes it plain who it is” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” If it’s not in the Word, it’s Not true!
These false teachers and prophets who spoke against dignitaries (church leaders) and false christs are those who will, if possible, “deceive the elect.” God’s Word is chuck-a-buck full of ways to protect ourselves from being among those deceived if we will just look for them. We have the Word of God which we can count on because, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). We have the full armor of God from Ephesians 6. We have the right and the power to do the things Jesus did while on earth. (John 14:12) And we have prayer, which is about the most powerful tool a Christian has in his or her arsenal. I won’t cite a particular verse here because the Bible is filled cover to cover with prayer and the power it has to defeat enemies, see people saved, see the dead raised, and the sick healed. You can’t read far in the Bible without coming on mention of prayer.
Jesus’ life was a lesson in prayer. He often rose before sunrise to go away by Himself to pray to God. If it was that important to Jesus, how much more imperative is prayer to us? Jesus’ disciples saw how important prayer was to Jesus and the power He derived from it, so they asked Him, “Master, teach us how to pray” (John 11:1).
False teachers don’t know spiritual truth. They know only the carnal, fleshly things of the world. They act like animals in that all they can think of it what satisfies their cravings and their bodies. Jude told us about these people because God wants us to be warned about what’s coming to the church. There have always been false teachers, but never have there been as many, and as visible as now. These are the men and women who are leading people down the paved road to hell.
“Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core” (verse 11). Jude now teaches them and us about false teachers using three other biblical characters, Abel, Cain, and Balaam.
One question people have is the difference between Abel’s and Cain’s sacrifice to God. Why did God approve of and even “testify” about Abel’s gift while rejecting Cain’s? It has nothing to do with the fact that Abel was a herdsman who offered the blood sacrifice of a lamb while Cain offered grain from his farm. It totally has to do with the condition of their hearts as they offered their sacrifices. Abel offered his gift to God by faith. Cain offered a sacrifice because he was commanded to. Cain’s envy of his brother led him to kill Abel. I John 3:12 tells us, “not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.” (NKJV) Abel’s sacrifice was righteous and given in faith. Two things Cain’s were not.
If you resent giving your tithes and offerings and do so with lack of faith and joy, keep it. God will not respect or accept such a sacrifice from anyone. Doing this would place you on the level with Cain and cause your offering to be rejected. David Guzik said, “Many Christians are afraid of secular humanism or atheism or the world (and nowadays, we could add Muslims). But dead religion is far more dangerous, and sends more people to hell than anything else. These certain men were in the way of Cain, the way of dead religion.”
False teachers will also lead many non-Christians to hell with their distortion of the Word and their false interpretations. These are the ones Jesus warned us about who will mislead and deceive Christians. They are the ones who will lead the church into apostasy. Our job is to make sure we are not among them.
