In his sermon 'The Denunciation of the Apostates', David Green discusses Jude 8-16, focusing on the characteristics and consequences of apostasy. Apostates are described as individuals who deny the gospel, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme against divine entities. Green highlights Old Testament examples like Cain, Balaam, and Korah to illustrate the grave errors and ultimate judgment awaiting such individuals. He emphasizes the importance of remaining grounded in the Word of God to avoid the pitfalls of apostasy and the dangers of introducing doctrines not based on scripture. He warns against those who preach from personal visions rather than biblical texts, citing that a drift from scripture can lead to apostasy. Green also discusses the prophecy of Enoch, asserting the certainty of divine judgment for the ungodly. The sermon concludes with a call to earnestly contend for the faith and to be vigilant against apostate influences within the church.

So if you have your copy of God's Word, let's go to Jude. And today we're going to look at beginning verses eight and going down to verse 16. Jude verses 8 through 16. It says, Yet in the same way these men also, by dreaming, defile the flesh and reject authority and blaspheme glorious ones. But Michael the archangel, when he, disputing with the devil, was arguing about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you.

But these men blaspheme the things which they do not understand and the things which they know by instinct like unreasoning animals by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain and for pay they have poured themselves into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear caring for themselves clouds without water carried along by winds autumn trees without fruit doubly dead uprooted wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. But Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam also prophesied about these men saying, behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers finding fault following after their own lusts and their mouth speaks arrogantly flattering people for the sake of their own benefit.

So reads the infallible, the inerrant, the all-sufficient Word of the living God. So the title of my sermon, this being the text, the title of the lesson this morning is the denunciation of the apostates. The denunciation of the apostates. And for those who have been here for the previous lessons, I'll ask you a question. Question from the previous lessons as a refresher here and that is what is an apostate?

What is the definition of an apostate? One who denies the gospel. Bingo. One who denies the gospel. Very simply that is what we're dealing with.

An apostate is one who denies the gospel. I think that's very important, very simple way of looking at it, because he's treating these fellows extremely harshly, as did John in his letter, that we've looked at previously, well in his three letters really he dealt with them somewhat. The way Peter deals with them in his writings, the way Paul deals with them in writing about them, These individuals are to be dealt with and considered much differently than a brother or sister who maybe you find that you differ with on, say, the timing of the rapture or the age of the earth, things of that nature. These are individuals who deny what is very foundational Christianity. So already in this series we've seen that Jude gave his introduction including a declaration of war against the apostates and included in there an encouragement.

Not only was Jude going off by himself to war against the apostates, but he encouraged his readers to join in with him by earnestly contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. We saw that in verse 3 of Jude. Once for all handed down to the saints. This was, there are truths we have in the Bible that don't come to us by tradition, they don't come to us by philosophy, the wisdom of words of men. These are biblical truths that have come from heaven above, given to us in the scriptures.

And he's telling his readers to earnestly contend for these things. Especially knowing, beloved, that there are certain persons in verse 4 that have crept in unnoticed long beforehand marked out for this condemnation ungodly persons who turn the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. We were reminded last week the terrible ending of the apostates. He did this by pulling from Old Testament examples. And so we saw in that sermon how that Jesus, having once saved the people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

That's in verse 5. In verse 6 we read about the angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode. They've been kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of that great day. And then of course we saw in verse 7 about Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them that they were indulged in the same way. These apostates in gross sexual immorality going after strange flesh with Sodom and Gomorrah, they were destroyed by fire, And that's what's coming for those who do not repent.

And so in our text he begins, yet in the same way these men also by dreaming defile the flesh and reject authority and blaspheme glorious ones." The Bible does not speak highly about those who who pull things from outside of scriptures and bring them into their theology, into their doctrinal teaching, and so on and so forth. And while it may be that there may be men out there who do this and they may not be apostates, The warning is clear. The apostates do this. They're bringing in their teaching from outside of scriptures. And so it is a very slippery slope.

If the preacher is not preaching the Word, if he's getting his sermons from dreams or visions or from somewhere outside of the Scriptures, he's on dangerous ground and in fact could very well soon drift into apostasy if he's not already there. We've got to be grounded in the Word of God. And that's what Jude is writing to these people to be watchful for. In fact, Milburn Cockrell wrote, and he said, the false prophets were those that had a dream, but God's true prophets were those that spoke the Lord's word faithfully. Let me read that again.

The false prophets were those that had a dream, But God's true prophets were those that spoke the Lord's word faithfully. And that's what we find to be true throughout the New Testament, even into the Old Testament. Even into the Old Testament. God would give them a word, yes, in times past, but it was always His word that they spoke. In our day, we have the complete Word of God.

God is not speaking to us directly to give us new words, new visions, new dreams, that sort of thing. And so what we have is here. So when somebody says, I've got a Word from God, if they don't have an open Bible be careful be careful in this text if you're reading from the King James Version you'll notice that it says filthy dreamers here in this verse. And that did intrigue me as I was studying as you look at this. And Albert Barnes in Barnes' notes had something to say here about that.

The word filthy he said has been supplied by our translator so the translators of the King James Version they added that word there But he said there is no good reason why it should have been introduced. The Greek word means to dream and it is applied to those persons as holding doctrines and opinions which sustain the same relation to truth which dreams do to good sense. And so they added it for emphasis is what they did in case you wonder what's going on there. But Jude goes on. Describing those apostates as dreamers who defile the flesh, a characteristic of gospel deniers as they will often be like those who were in Sodom and Gomorrah.

He says they get in the same way. That kind of points you back to the previous passage and he'd just been talking about Son of Gomorrah. Also by dreaming they defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme glorious ones. And blaspheme glorious ones. You got to figure any group, I don't care what they are, but any group of people who will go out and say, all right, we're Christians and we're going to excuse, encourage, or even go all encourage or even go all out for the same-sex movement, adultery or fornication of any sort.

What have they done? Well, what they've done is they have closed their Bibles and they've set it aside. They've ignored it. And don't think that it's just the Methodists or the Presbyterians or Presbyterians are filling the blank, whatever group that you've seen that have done this. And By the way, it's not all Methodists and it's not all Presbyterians.

And I thank God for that. But there are some out there who have done it. The reality is that there are some Baptist churches out there who have gone apostate. And what they have done is exactly what Jude is talking about. They have, They have, to quote him here, they have by dreaming, defiled the flesh, rejected authority, and they blaspheme glorious ones.

They rejected authority. They have rejected biblical authority. They've rejected pastoral authority, church authority. They've rejected governmental authority. Any kind of authority somewhere, somehow has been rejected.

A fall into apostasy doesn't happen overnight. The churches that are draping the rainbow flag, that are ordaining Queers and marrying homosexuals and all that sort of thing. They didn't just wake up one day after being good on those types of issues and say, of issues and say, you know what, today we're going to do this. It's a slippery downhill slope. What happened?

Well, apostates are gospel deniers. And a lot of times these churches become full of lost people. And what do lost people do? Well, they do what lost people do. It's not surprising to see lost people following after the things that got Sodom and Gomorrah into trouble.

It's not surprising to see those sorts of things happening. And so when entire churches fall that way, you understand that it's because there's a major mission field inside that church building. They're full of lost people. To deny, well, in verse 8 where he says to blaspheme glorious ones that's speaking about angelic beings. The King James translated that as speaking evil of dignities.

It's a word in the Greek. The LSB translates to glorious ones. The Greek word is doxas or doxas. I'm not sure how to pronounce it exactly, but it's a word that kind of brings out an idea of glory or glorious ones. It's a plural form.

This is a reference to angelic beings who are of more glory state than humans. Glory state than humans. You ever seen someone, so called charismatic movement? So-called charismatic movement. They get in there and they say that they're going to do battle with the devil.

And sometimes in some of the contemporary type music and sometimes in their preaching, they'll have on their stage the preacher get out and you'll have, do fist fights and stuff like that, with someone dressed up like supposedly the devil and all those sorts of things. Those kinds of churches and those kinds of groups, they have fallen into apostasy. We were warned about this sort of thing. In fact, he goes on and he says, he says to give an example of why this is a terrible idea, He says in verse 9, he says, but Michael the archangel, again he's pulling from an Old Testament example. This is something that's not referenced exactly in the Old Testament.

In fact, you won't find anything about this particular incident. But notice what he says in verse nine, but Michael the archangel, when he, disputing with the devil, was arguing about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. So now we have this example that Jude pulls out and he says, here's Michael the archangel, very powerful angel, created by God, He's in a dispute, an argument with the devil about the body of Moses. Very interesting situation going on back there. A lot of questions come up about this verse, about this situation actually.

One is, if you've read your Old Testament, you know that there's nothing written about this particular situation. And so the question comes up, where did Jude get this information? Well the answer is he got it by inspiration. These writers, even though this is a letter from Jude, this is of God. God inspired him to write, this is the God-breathed word of God.

Very simply, God revealed it to him. Now he does not do this in our day because the Word of God is complete. But he was doing that in those days while the Bible was being written. This is how we have the Bible. New information was being given, but once the ink dried on the Isle of Patmos, when revelation was complete, those days are done.

We have God's word. But he got it from God. God knows all things. This is his word. So that's how we answer that question.

But the second question is, what is it that's going on here? Why would Michael the archangel be in an argument with Satan over the body of Moses. Well, I believe if we go back to the Old Testament we can get a pretty good idea. So if you go with me to Deuteronomy chapter 34, Deuteronomy chapter 34 verses 5 through 8, The account of the death of Moses is written here. And it says, so Moses the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the command of Yahweh.

And he buried him, he meaning Yahweh, God, God buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-Pior. But, now watch this now, no man knows his burial place to this day. Now Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was not dim nor his vigor abated. So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days.

Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end. Now Moses was a great figure to the Israelites. The children of Israel absolutely loved and adored Moses. He dies. And even going all the way through to the New Testament you see that there's some adoration for Moses.

I can't be dogmatic about this but I believe, I believe, and by the way, to my knowledge, this is the only time that Yahweh God ever personally buried anyone. But it's my personal belief that the reason he did this and didn't let anybody else know where Moses was buried is the same reason why Satan and Michael got into an argument about his body and that is this the Jews would have made a shrine out of his tomb. If the Jewish people would have have known. If they would have known where Moses was buried all the way up to this day, pilgrimages would be made to his grave. In fact, it would be more of a religious spot than the Wailing Wall is in Israel.

Look at how prone the children of Israel were and are to relics and to religious sites, to idolatry. But not only that, look at how prone we are. And we're all prone to it. We're all prone to it. We've got things from our past, things that belong to our grandparents, to our great grandparents, things that we hold on to, took away somewhere.

Some of us don't even know where it's at, but we hold on to it because it belonged to great granddaddy or to daddy. And we don't even know why we hold onto it. A picture of it would suffice. Well, we hold onto that stuff. Because it means something.

It means something. And that's okay, memories are okay. But when you take it and elevate it above our God, then that's trouble. And what did the children of Israel do with the writings of Moses? They took and they read it and they read it and they re-read it and they added to it and they added to it and they added to it so much so that in all of their reading and all of their studying and all of it, they missed Christ.

And it would have been even worse if they would have known where he was buried. And so I believe That's the reason why that God buried Moses and didn't tell anybody where he was at. And so in my mind's eye, this is what I believe happened. Moses is dead. Satan has Moses is dead.

Satan has a victory. Ha ha! Now Moses is dead. What's Israel going to do? And then all of a sudden, where's the body of Moses?

Nobody knows except for God. And then all of a sudden, Satan and Michael and Michael was in a dispute over that body because God buried him where because God buried him where nobody knows, perhaps not even the devil. And if, Or if the devil knew, if the devil knew, he was bound to where he couldn't let it out. You see. However way this went down, that's the dispute over the body of Moses because you understand something y'all way God is Sovereign over all things Go and read go and read Job and understand whether in life or death God is sovereign over all.

And so that's what I believe is going on here, and what Jude is talking about. And so the nation of Israel was preserved from this terrible sin that they would have fallen into. Now people aren't always preserved from that. We see that happening with cultures and families and peoples all the time, but God prevented them from this in here. Now, but that's not the main point of this.

The main point of this text is this. That Michael the Archangel, as powerful as he was, and let me tell you something, the point here isn't who's more powerful, Michael or Satan. By default, Michael's the more powerful because guess whose side Michael's on? Michael is on the Lord's side. As long as you are on the Lord's side, it doesn't matter about Satan.

Satan is limited to what he can do. The point though is this. Here we are, we're made lower than the angels, And here's these two angels, one's fallen and the other's not. Satan being the fallen angel. And they're in this dispute, this argument, and they really are in a dispute, not in this pretend dispute that these apostates get into on stage that we see sometimes.

And Michael the Archangel did not dare pronounce against him a blasphemous judgment, but said the Lord rebuke you You see and we got these tough guys out there Sam well, I'm gonna beat the preach I'm gonna beat the not beat the preacher. Well, some people want to beat the preacher, but hey, hey, none of these tough guys acting like they're gonna beat the devil and all these sort of things. No, no, not even, not even Michael the archangel would do that. He said the Lord rebukes you. You see.

But Verse 10 he says, but these men blaspheme the things which they do not understand, the things which they know by instinct like unreasoning animals by these things they are destroyed. Rather than taking the word of God, these apostates will rail against things they do not understand. Again, making loud pronouncements against demons and against devils and things like that. Things they don't understand. And Jude says they're not any smarter than the dumb animals.

They draw a crowd. I mean, I suppose it's more interesting than a preacher who opens up the Bible and tries to teach out of it. Have a stage up there and somebody dressed up like the devil. We could probably draw a big crowd out here, but that's not what the point is. We need to be in the Word of God.

And he says they'll be destroyed. They'll be destroyed spiritually and morally. And it's true. It's true. There's so much corruption going on in the apostates with the apostates and so on and so forth it's terrible.

Verse 11, Jude says, woe to them for they have gone the way of Cain. For pay they have poured themselves into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah." Again, He's declaring the ultimate spiritual judgment on these apostates. And he brings up three examples from the Old Testament. We're not going to go back and look at all of these. You can jot them down and look at the cross references in your Bible.

But very briefly, we remember Cain rebelled against God's revealed will regarding sacrifice. In Genesis 4, for a large financial reward, Balaam devised a plan for Balak, king of Moab, to entice Israel into a compromising situation with idolatry and immorality, which would bring God's own judgment on His people, Israel. That's over in Numbers 31. Korah. Korah.

Man, we're going through Psalm, Psalm, and on Tuesday night, some of the Psalms were written by the sons of Korah. Talking about God's grace, because Korah is known for something terrible. Something terrible. But not the sons of Korah. That's a study that everyone ought to do and think about and consider.

God's grace is amazing all through the Bible, even in the Old Testament. Even in the Old Testament. Generationally, well, Korah, Korah plus 250 Jewish leaders, they rejected the God appointed leadership of Moses and Aaron in an attempt to impose his will upon God and the people. They were judged destroyed in number 16. Apostates will unquestionably meet the same end as Korah.

But, but, but, and, and, and Judah's bringing all these things out, but what I was bringing up about the sons of Korah is that God God can bless people out of those families in spite of what happens with their parents. You know, we see that even in our day. I'm sure we've all heard of Benny Hinn. He's an apostate. Denies the gospel of Jesus Christ and has done terrible things, preached terrible things.

But his son is doing a good job of trying to proclaim the gospel. It's just really neat to see those things happening. So we certainly do declare war on the apostates, and we proclaim the truth of God's Word, but we remember that God's grace is amazing. We certainly pray that God would store those who are in error and certainly think about the example of Korah and the sons of Korah. Those things.

Those things. But unless they repent, these have gone the way of Cain, the Arab Balam, perish, the rebellion of Korah. All Old Testament examples that his readers would have known about people and places that you can go back and you can read about in Numbers and in Genesis. Verses 12 and 13 says, These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when They feast with you without fear, caring for themselves. Clouds without water carried along by winds.

Autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. Wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. Jude paints quite the picture of the apostate here. When we were in Psalms, you remember it. I'm sure it's a very familiar Psalm.

But You remember as we looked at that very first Psalm, and he says, He says there in Psalm 1 and verse 3, talking about the blessed man, he will be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit and its season, his leaf does not wither, and whatsoever he does he prospers. The psalmist was painting a picture that his readers would understand as they sung that song. Jude takes and he paints a different picture. He's bringing about a picture that his readers will understand and even some 2000 years later you and I we understand what he's talking about as he brings this out. He says these are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear.

Hidden reefs, we live on the coast, we know what a hidden reef will do. To a ship that's on the water, a hidden reef will destroy the ship, it'll sink, it calls it to go down. He said these apostates these apostates that come in he said they're there in your love feasts you know, there's a question about what he's talking about when he says, love feast, that could be the Lord's Supper, it could be your fellowship suppers, whatever. They sit with you without fear. They pretend to be there as your friend.

But they're there to destroy just like the hidden reefs. He goes on. He says they're like clouds without water, carried along by wind, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. They have an appearance, but they're of no use. You know, the clouds roll in.

It looks like it's gonna rain, but there's no substance. The autumn tree, you expect it to give you fruit, but it doesn't. It's just there and it's dead. It's uprooted. It's no good, no real value.

Wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam. Again, we're by the ocean, we know how that is. The wild waves of the sea apostates, they're like that. They're always stirring something up, but it ends up being restlessness, instability, and foam. There's no rest, no peace, no joy.

Always on edge when you're around them. The wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. On a dark night you look up at the sky and you see it. It's Bright for a moment, goes across the sky and then it's out. What is it?

Falling star or comet. It's there for a few seconds. It's gone. Fades into the darkness. So it is with the apostate fizzling out, gone.

Going out, gone. This is what he has to say about the apostates. This is nothing new. He goes all the way back to Enoch, verses 14 and 15. He says, but can the seventh generation from Adam also prophesied about these men saying, behold the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

This passage is often brought up as a proof text. People bring this up and say, oh, look here. He's quoting from the Book of Enoch. The book of Enoch is a book that is not, you won't find it in your Bible because it's not part of the biblical canon. It's not inspired of God, it's not part of the Bible for a reason, but they bring it up, they say, they say, Jude quoted from it.

It's gained a lot of popularity lately because of the flat earthers, the flat earth fellows, they like to quote from this because they like to use the book of Enoch to try to prove that the earth is flat. But, and some of them will go so far as to say that the book of Enoch belongs in the Bible, but Barnes notes and other commentators have said there's no evidence that Jude quoted from any book extant at his time. There is indeed now an apocryphal writing called the Book of Enoch containing a prediction strongly resembling this, but there is no certain proof that it existed so early as the time of Jude, nor if it did it is absolutely certain. Is it absolutely certain that he quoted from it? Both Jude and the author of that book may have quoted a common tradition of their time, for there can be no doubt that the passage referred to was handed down by tradition.

This passage found in the book of Enoch is in these words, behold he comes with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon them, destroy the wicked, and reprove all the carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done have committed against him. If the book of Enoch was written after the time of Jude, it is natural to suppose that the prophecy referred to by him and handed down by tradition would be inserted in it. This book was discovered in 1821. So it's very possible that the Book of Jude may have been the source for the Book of Enoch because it came along after the book of Jude. No evidence indicating that was ever written by Enoch, the one that's around today.

However, we do know that Enoch did indeed prophesy, and Jude doesn't say he's quoting from a book, he's just saying that Enoch prophesied of this. But according to Jude, What he's telling us is that going all the way back so long ago, seventh from Adam, Enoch prophesied that these fellows would be judged. In fact, the Lord is coming with many thousands of His saints, His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all. So judgment is coming according to Jude. Though the men described in Jude 10 through 13 are wicked, dangerous, and self-confident, Enoch's prophecy going all the way back to that seventh generation from Adam confirms the certainty of God's righteous judgment reserved for all the ungodly, though they have spoken against God.

Verse 15, as he says there, his sentence was established against them from ancient days. So even in our day, we have people out there who speak against God, they speak against God's word, they say blasphemous things, and try to say things like, well, Jesus didn't say this, or God's word doesn't mean that. They try to discredit the gospel, and so on and so forth. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming.

And it's been coming for a long, long time. In fact, in verse 16, he said, These are grumblers finding fault, following after their own lusts. Their mouth speaks arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of their own benefit. The apostate is a grumbler, a murmurer, a complainer, one who finds fault. Fault with God's people, fault with the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, fault with God's plan, fault with God's purposes, fault with God's dealings even.

They're fault-finders. Now of course not every critic is an apostate. Understand that. But the apostates are fault-finders and that is characteristic. They're not grounded by the gospel, and so this is why they are like that.

They walk after own lusts, chasing after their own desires, and never finding satisfaction. Their mouth speaks arrogantly, they're full of pride, flattering people for their own benefit, rather than telling the Word of God plainly, The apostate will tell people what they want to hear. It's the type of stuff that when you hear it, you think, I hope it was a blast for them because it was blasphemy. The apostate, such a terrible group of people, individuals that though they sneak into churches, They come in unawares. They come in privately.

They come in in ways that are sneaky and all that sort of thing. Unnoticed often. They can do a lot of damage they creep in as he says there in verse 4 though they do that that's from the human side of things. They cause a lot of problems, but understand something, none of it takes our God by surprise. And so there is this truth of the fact that they can be called out that the Word of God sheds light on them.

They need to be called out because by their doctrine, by their teachings, by their actions, they deny the very gospel of Jesus Christ. And so I trust that this has been a blessing to you. As we think about this sometimes uncomfortable subject, but an encouraging and needful subject in our day. May God help us to always stand for the Word of God. And with that, we'll go ahead and...