Jude is writing this letter to a congregation and has a lot of stern things to say about a kind of people that creep into churches. They are false professors of the faith. They say they're Christian, they talk a Christian talk, but they're actually not Christian. And actually, it's not just that they're not saved, it's that they purport to be saved, and they purport to know better than you but they use their twisting of doctrine to just approve the immorality that they want to do in their lives. So Jude's warning, his warning, this letter is a warning, that there are people who profess to be Christian, but they twist doctrine to support their sinfulness. And in this way, they pose a danger to the church. It's a danger to the church. So it's not a letter that's warning you to be just judgy against people. It's to recognize that they poke holes in the boat, and if y'all don't wanna sink, you need to make sure you understand what's happening here. So, it's a warning for these kinds of people, but they're not obvious. They don't come in going, hey, I'm a heretic. Want to have lunch? They don't do that. They seem like they're Christian. They go to church. They don't hate church. They don't skip church. They get involved in church. They roll up their sleeves. and they serve, they love studying scripture and they quote it all the time and it's really easy to be intimidated by them and sort of defer to their opinion because you've never read Jeremiah before, this guy has the outline memorized, right? I don't have that many verses memorized and this guy's constantly quoting verses off the top of his head, amazing. In fact, they read scripture so much that they tend to run circles around sincere but less knowledgeable Christians. Therein lies the danger. So, if these people look like Christians and they talk like Christians and they go to Christian churches, how do we know them when we see them? That's what Jude is at pains to get down on paper for whatever this church is that he's writing to. How do you discern when these dangers are in a church? It's difficult, but it's not difficult. It's difficult because they're sneaky. That's the difficult part. But it's not that difficult because if a church is discerning and we stick to scripture, we'll be able to discern false teachers in the church. And that's what he's addressing. How can a church discern when false professors of the faith are among them? You can identify them by observing their behavior. So he's going to talk in this passage here. We're actually going to go a little farther than I initially intended. We're going to go through verse 16. But he's going to give us two identifiers. One he hits really briefly, and then the other one he hammers home at length. But two identifying marks that help you understand that's what this person is. They talk a Christian talk. They act like they're Christian. They talk about their Christian Christianity. They know a lot of Bible stuff, but these two identifiers are hallmarks of the kind of dangerous threat that Jude is talking about in a church. And the first one we're going to see in verses eight through 10, the first identifying mark of a false professor of the faith that is a danger to the church is that they do not rely on scripture as prime authority. And in this case, they end up ignorantly uttering blasphemies. They don't rely on scripture. They use scripture. They know scripture. They memorize scripture, perhaps. They even teach scripture, probably. But they don't rely on it as the ultimate authority. Other things supersede and superintend scripture, so scripture fits underneath something else that's an authority. In their case, dreams. Take a look at verse eight. He's still on his rank. He's still, we paused it last week. Verse eight is just continuing his rant against these false teachers. He says, yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams. defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. Jude likes to talk in triplets. Three examples, three results, three whatever. In this case, because they rely on their dreams as their authority, here are three things that happen. In their case, they defile the flesh, meaning we talked about the rampant sexual immorality. They twisted scripture to approve what they wanted to do, usually sexually. They reject authority. What authority? Apostolic authority? Scriptural authority? Church authority? Yes, yes, yes. Because it doesn't matter what Apostle Paul says. It doesn't matter what the Bible says. It doesn't matter what you think the Bible says. I had a dream. God gave it to me. So therefore, maybe that's there for other people, but this dream elevates my knowledge above everybody else. Did you have this dream? No, you didn't. All you have is scripture. I have scripture, but I also have this dream that helps me re-understand what scripture is really saying. Can you compete with that? When's the last time God gave you a dream? And then as a result of that rejection of authority, they of course continue defiling the flesh, they continue in their immorality, and they even go so far as blaspheming the glorious ones. Okay, this is gonna derail the sermon for a little bit because it's another weird one. What in the world is happening here? And then he says, what do you mean blaspheme the glorious ones? We're not sure. But then he goes on to say they shouldn't do that because when the verse nine, but when the archangel Michael contending with the devil was disputing about the body of Moses, huh? He did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. So let me just help you understand the outline so you can understand how this whole thing with Michael the archangel and the devil fits in here. The main point is they reject Scripture, and over Scripture they put their dreams. They put their dreams over church. Any authority that's scriptural authority, they put their dreams above it. As a result of relying on their dreams, they do three things, and the third thing, he just unpacks it longer. Okay? The three things is they defile the flesh, they reject authority, they blaspheme glorious ones, and then he goes into the Michael thing. So we're in a sub-point of a sub-point onto the main point. So don't lose the main point. Their dreams are more important to them than Scripture. That's the main point. Now what kind of wacky stuff would you get into if you put your dreams ahead of Scripture? I mean, what did you dream of last night? If any of you even remember your dream and imagine trying to interpret that with authority and going, that must, but that conflicts with scripture. Well, I'd rather twist scripture to fit what I dreamed about and make that the authority. What kind of wacky stuff would you end up with if you just use last night's dream? This is what they're doing. And that third example, he just unpacks it a little bit. And because it's confusing, I want to try and unpack it quickly for us. They blaspheme angels. The Greek for angels there is actually not the regular word, angelos, it's actually glorious ones. They blaspheme or they slander, that's another way to say it. They slander the glorious ones, which is understood as angels. Now it is debated whether they're slandering good angels or fallen angels. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, I don't know. And the reason, I don't think any of us truly know, we weren't there. He's using an example that's specific to their situation. They're gonna go, yeah, yeah, I remember when they said that about angels, but we don't have it recorded what they said. So we're left to some guesswork. That's okay, because the main point is not angels. What is the main point? Dreams above scripture. That's the main point. But we'll get into it just to see what the options are. Are they slandering good angels, glorious ones, or can glorious ones refer to fallen angels, even though they were glorious before they fell? And maybe they can still be referred to as glorious ones because that's what the reference is for angels, perhaps. Well maybe glorious ones refers to good angels and you could imagine perhaps they're slandering them because you know Paul taught in 1st Corinthians 6 that eventually in the end we Christians will judge angels. Did you know that? So Paul says, now maybe they take that as a sliver of truth and they go, we will judge angels. We can judge them now. And they, they enter a lane where they start rebuking angels. They had a dream that an angel's named is, you know, whatever name. And then they go, I'm going to rebuke that angel. Who knows? Who knows? It could be anything if they're relying on their dreams. It's made up stuff. And Jude doesn't even want to spill a bunch more ink explaining all the wacky stuff. He just wants to bring a correction. You can't slander angels. Not now. You don't know what you're talking about. What do we know about angels? We started in on this a little bit before when we talked about the Nephilim and all that weird stuff I mentioned to you before. Scripture pulls back the curtain. You see something about angels and then it closes it and just keep your eyes on center stage. You don't need to know everything that's behind the curtains. We don't see angels. We don't know what they're up to. We can bump into a ministering angel and not even know that we did bump into a ministering angel. Entertaining angels unaware. Scripture tells us. So we don't know the exact situation, but maybe they were, you know, just going off at the mouth, blaspheming good angels that aren't serving us well, that don't know what they're doing. I can't wait till we sit in the judgment seat and judge them, and he's saying, you slanderous person, you don't even know what you're talking about. Maybe they were slandering evil angels, even though it might be weird to think of them as glorious ones, but they were once glorious ones, and maybe that's what it means. But it's hard to see how you can slander an evil angel. Don't talk bad about evil angels. Maybe I don't know. But the reason why that could be a good option is because the example he gives is he's saying Michael didn't even slander the devil. Right. So he's saying these people blaspheme angels. Michael doesn't even blaspheme the chief of the evil angels. So how dare you step out of your lane and blaspheme an evil angel. I don't know how you blaspheme an evil angel in a way that how do you slander an evil angel in a way that I don't know. But obviously they were stepping out of their lane and that's the example he's using. Michael knows his lane and he doesn't step out of his lane. In the example, it says when the archangel Michael, so archangel probably means he's a boss angel, man. He's not one of the little guys, okay? He's a chieftain among the angels, perhaps. And he was contending with, arguing with, disputing with the devil about the body of Moses. I'll get into that in just a minute. But when he did that, he didn't tell the devil, hey, you, whatever, get out of my way. He instead said, the Lord rebuke you. In other words, I'm not disputing with you on the basis of my authority, I'm disputing with you on the basis of the Lord's authority. And what do the false teachers do? They reject the Lord's authority, they reject scripture, and they're going around rebuking good angels, bad angels, whatever they're doing, on the basis of their own authority driven by their own dreams. Does that make sense? Whatever they were doing, they were stepping out of their lane, rejecting authority, going outside of scripture and rebuking things that they don't even understand, they think they understand it because of their dreams, but it's not authoritative. Now, what is going on with the body of Moses? It's not the main point. But I just don't want you to feel like I didn't put in my homework this week and I'm just skipping it because I'm lazy. All right? What is happening here? Well, in Deuteronomy 34, we have a record of Moses' death. It's not super detailed. But Moses, if you remember, he's kept from crossing over into the promised land. It's time for Israel. The disobedient generation all passed away, except for Caleb and Joshua. They get to go in with the new generation. But Moses doesn't get to go in because he struck that rock in anger and misrepresented God. And so God is saying, you're not allowed to go in. But I'm going to let you look at it. So he takes him up a mountain and the mountain overlooks this distance and he can see Jericho from where he is. And God tells him, I'm going to let you see it with your eyes, even though you don't get to go in. And then after that, it says that Moses died there and he was buried. And he was not buried by Israel because Israel moved on. So who buried him? This is one of those times where, this happens often in the Old Testament especially, where you're given information by missing information. For instance, when Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves, and God said, basically, that's not a good covering. And what does he supply for them? Clothing made from skins. And then it moves on. Where did the skins come from? Well, it must have come from animals. They didn't skin other human beings. So you have there the first animal sacrifice. An innocent animal dies so that sinful man is covered. That's what the text says but in not so many words. Well here Israel moves on. Moses has taken up the mountain alone by himself. No wife no family no kids. They're going with Israel. And it says he was buried. So either God did it or God buried him by proxy of an angel. So, that's what happened to Moses, and according to scripture, that's all we know that happened to Moses, and the text tells us nobody knew where exactly Moses was buried. It was like in this area, but they don't know exactly where he was buried. They don't know where his bones are. But in that text, we don't have anything about bones, we don't have anything about Michael, an archangel, we don't have anything about the devil, and we certainly don't have anything about them disputing about Moses. Where's Jude getting this from? It's widely agreed that Jude is getting this from a book that we don't have access to anymore, but we know it exists because so many ancient authors refer to it. Does that make sense? It's called the Assumption of Moses. It's not a book we have anymore. But we know it exists because so many ancient authors quote the book, refer to the book, explain the book. And so we know it exists that at some point, and it's widely agreed that that's where Jude is getting this from. It's not a scriptural book. But obviously, like we talked about before, Jude is confirming that the book did hit on something correct. Here's how, uh, he says it better than I can. So I'm just going to give it to you in the form of a quote, which I don't normally do, but Peter David's a commentator. Here's how he put it. After the death of Moses, Michael came to bury his body. He's putting this together from all the authors that quote the assumption of Moses, and you take all those quotes and references, you can kind of recreate the story that must have been told in the assumption of Moses. So here's his putting the story together, putting the dots together, so to speak, connecting the dots. After the death of Moses, Michael came to bury his body. The devil came and argued that the body should be given to him for Moses had been a murderer. If you remember back in Exodus 2 Moses murdered an Egyptian. And so the devil comes to accuse Moses and say the body should not belong to the Lord the body should belong to me because he has no right to be with the Lord since he is a murderer. I never got resolved. And so therefore he's mine. When Michael argued back with him, he says, when Michael appealed to the judgment of God with the Lord rebuke you, the devil withdrew, knowing that God would decide in favor of Moses honor against his own slander. This is not that outlandish. The devil is an accuser. We know that from scripture. He wants man to belong to him. We know that from scripture. And he accuses based on man's failure to uphold faith and obedience in life. We know that from scripture. So we know all of that from the rest of scripture. It's a little weird about the bones, but I think this sheds light on the fact that Christians revere the bodies of our deceased brethren. Those bodies belong to God and the Lord will resurrect those bodies onto eternal life. Perhaps you've gotten into disputes with family members whether you can cremate a body or not. Those of you who believe you are free to cremate a body take it easy with those who just have a tough time with that because in their minds you want to keep the bones intact. Seems scriptural if we understand that God owns these bones, God owns this body, and he's gonna resurrect it. Now I'm not of that strict position. I think God can resurrect bones whether they've decayed, whether they're lost at sea, whether they blew up in an explosion, whether it's ashes. The Lord resurrects it, but there is something to understanding where that body is and knowing that body right there will come back. That's scriptural. Now, the point that Jude is making, just by way of reminder, is that Michael didn't presume to rebuke the devil on his own authority, even though he's an archangel, this powerful being in whom there's no sin. refers to the Lord to rebuke Satan, and that's what drives him away and undoes his accusation. God is the judge, not you, not me. He knows his lane. So, these false professors of the Christian faith love to talk about their dreams, they reject authority, and that means they become their own authority, And they have such a high view of their own authority that they'll even put angels in their place and pronounce judgments that are out of line. That's not in step with scripture, and it's not their lane. Even Michael, who was in the right, refused to step into God's lane. The devil was wrong, but God is the judge. Therefore, who are these guys to talk about what angels do, or how they failed to do this or that? The prescription is just stick to Scripture. Just stick to Scripture. And that's what they are not doing. That's the point. So it's really easy to get lost in the weeds there, whether they blaspheme good angels or bad angels. I think the point stays the same. It's their false sense of authority that brought them to step out of their lane in matters that they don't understand. So there's the first identifier. The first identifier. They use scripture, they talk scripture, they memorize scripture, but scripture is not the prime authority. I've been in a situation like this where I'm pressing someone on a doctrinal error, and we're quoting scripture back and forth, and it's almost like a chess match, and then finally I move that final piece, And not to my credit, it's just when scripture is clear, it's clear, checkmate. And the response is, well, I just don't think God would do that. My view of what God is like supersedes whatever scriptures you're throwing at me. And that's where I go, aha, that's your final authority. Your final authority is what you think God would be like, rather than letting scripture tell you what God is like, and then you surrendering to what scripture says he's like. Whether or not you had a dream, something else superintends your interpretation of scripture. That's identifying mark number one. Identifying mark number two. This is nothing new, but people who are like this, they fulfill patterns of rebels throughout all scripture. It's not new. They come in new clothing and new, they say things that sound new, but it's nothing, none of it's new. At the end of the day, the other identifying mark is sinfulness. They sin without remorse. They sin without repentance. They excuse it with their interpretations of scripture and they will not be corrected on it. They try to convince you that the sin that they're doing isn't actually sin, but the simplest of Christians understand that it's sin. Look at verse 11. Woe to them. Here come three examples again. Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain, and they abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, and they perished in Korah's rebellion. Three patterns of the Old Testament to go, they've always done it this way, they continue to do it this way, they'll always do it this way. You can identify these people just like you were able to identify Cain, just like you could have identified Balaam, just like you could have identified Korah. Three examples. So woe to them, it portends the doom that's sure for them. We saw that last time. And then he gives these other three examples. Cain was warned that something's creeping in his heart. Sin wants to take him over. Don't do it, Cain. You have to master it. It's called temptation. Remember that? God saw this whole thing coming and God pulls him aside and coaches him, warns him, tries to tell him, sin wants to have you, but you have to master it, take over it, or it's going to not go well with you. Cain doesn't listen and he murders his brother. Balaam lesser-known story we covered it when we were preaching when I was preaching through the book of numbers some time ago but Balaam was hired to curse Israel he's a false prophet and he was hired to curse Israel and he goes willingly because he wants to curse Israel and he's anti God's people and even though God warns him through the voice of his own donkey. And then when he was arguing with the donkey, suddenly he's able to see what the donkey sees, and it's the angel of the Lord, many believe a pre-incarnate Jesus. And then after that, he doesn't repent, he doesn't change, he continues to be anti-Israel. Third example, Korah staged a rebellion against Moses. And after he staged this rebellion, Moses confronts him and he's like, well, who are you? Who are you to be my authority? Why can't I be an equal authority with you? See, the problem is the authority. Cain didn't want to accept God's authority, Balaam didn't want to accept the angel of the Lord's authority, and Korah didn't want to accept Moses' authority. And they ended up being destroyed in the wilderness. He and his family stood in front of their tent, the earth was opened up, and they were swallowed, went straight down to Sheol, and then fire consumed the 250 other rebels in that passage. Now it seems that these three examples, they point to sort of aspects of rebellion. What rebellion is like in the congregation? They maybe didn't murder people in Jude. They could have been like, well, we're not Cain. Cain killed people. We're not murderers. Yeah, but you hate your brothers. You hate people that correct you. You just cut them out of your life. You call them haters. I can't surround myself with negative people. No, what you're doing is surrounding yourself with people who are cowards and won't tell you to your face when you're wrong. Those are not your friends. Like Balaam, they act like they're speaking on God's behalf, but they're not. And in fact, when it says Balaam was out for profit, he was. He was hired Paid to curse Israel. Oh, I'll prophesy anything you want. Show me the money Hmm Well, I'm not Balaam I'm not out there cursing the church Aren't you though? When people pull you aside and try to correct you and you tell them they're the ones that are confused you tell them They're the ones twisting scripture. You tell them they just got their head in the sand. They're stuck in traditional ways They need to progress And then like Korah, they refused to be corrected by authorities, the scriptural authority or authorities, leaders in the church. So he's telling them, beware, watch out for people like this. They probably didn't act like they hated their brothers, but when they spurned leadership, they're nice, they're nice to everybody else, but they're misleading people. And in that way, they hate their brothers. I think if these people were bullies in the congregation that were just abjectly mean to everybody, he probably wouldn't have to write all these verses helping them understand the danger. Nobody likes a bully. Nobody likes a mean person. It's when they're nice to you. And they helped you when your car ran out of gas. And they babysat your kids when you didn't have a date for three months in a row. And you're like, oh my goodness. But they're heretics. It doesn't matter how nice they act, they actually are not loving you because they're trying to deceive you, get your attention off of scripture and onto their sources of authority, be it dreams or their view of what God is like. This is why they need to be warned. They're not obvious on the surface. You have to actually watch the deeper behaviors and their view of scripture and how that results in sinfulness that will not go checked or corrected. false teachers look for gain, they want control of the church, or maybe they peddle their false doctrines for monetary support. And then when they're called out for their nonsense, they refuse to listen to authorities. Several pastors and I, not long ago, and I mentioned this before, I won't name the church, but several pastors and I signed a letter that went to the elders of a large church in the Chicagoland area. If I said the church, you'd know it, they're on the radio, popular. The pastor there doesn't teach falsehood, but he stays away from anything controversial or spicy. He teaches select truths. That church harbors a member who is a politician who every year, four years in a row, signs off on an LGBTQ pride proclamation for the community he serves, an active member of the church. So me and some other elders wrote a letter, sent it to the elders of that church. Brothers, can we meet? Can we talk about this? We were rejected. The denomination that they're a part of, to my knowledge, hasn't approached them. You don't want to touch one of your money makers, man. One of your big highlights of your denomination. Don't want to disrupt that. Just like the congregation doesn't want to disrupt their audience by bringing up controversial things. I'm not saying that that church exhibits everything that we see here in Jude, I'm just providing a modern day example of a church that will not be corrected by any other church or any other group of elders, no matter how many of us sign the letter, not even a discussion or a conversation. You guys are dumb, leave us alone, you dumb stupid little churches. That's the message I got. Now keep in mind, each of these three examples are examples of unrepentance. They're not examples of sin, because if it was just about sin, none of us would be here, guys. None of us would be here. We wouldn't be here. If the bar was, don't sin, never sin, none of us would be here. I certainly wouldn't be preaching to you. Those three examples are not examples of sin, they're examples of sin that couldn't be corrected. Sin that wouldn't be repented of, no matter who approached them. Cain had God himself, as his father and as his coach, pulling him aside. Didn't listen to God himself. Balaam had the angel of the Lord after the miraculous sign of the donkey speaking to him and he keeps talking to the donkey like this is a normal thing He's arguing back with the donkey instead of the humility to go. Whoa, if a donkey is talking Maybe I should actually listen. This is crazy. And he's like you stupid donkey. I want to kill you and Then he sees what the donkey sees and it's the angel of the Lord That's probably not Michael. That's probably Jesus. I And then he fumbles around and does what he has to do, but in the end, he still is an enemy of Israel. And then finally, Korah wouldn't listen to Moses, he wouldn't listen to Aaron, he wouldn't listen to anybody. And he stood there in front of his tent. Imagine this, Moses says, line up in front of your tent in the morning, and God is gonna decide which one of us is right. Korah's like, all right, stood in front of his tent. And up until the last moment, had every opportunity to go, you're right Moses, I'm sorry, I'm being dumb. Think of all the things he's seen already. God splits the Red Sea, God kills the Egyptians, God rains bread in the morning. He's seen miracles with his eyes and he has up until that moment to change his mind. But he stands there with his outfit and his family, the nerve to gather his family and swallow all of them up because of his rebellion. He refused to repent. That's the sign. The sign isn't sin. The sign is when somebody pulls you aside and corrects you on it, you are uncorrectable. or when you offer that to somebody else, no matter how merciful you're being, no matter how loving you're being, they just call you a judgy nag and they won't hear of it, these are the kinds of people that pose a danger to the church. Now, Jude goes a little further into those details of what these false teachers are like. They reject authority, that's the first one. They reject scripture as the prime authority. The second one is just their unabashed ungodliness and sinfulness, 12 to 16. These are, he says, 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. What do you really feel, Jude? Talk about laying it on thick. It was about these that Enoch VII from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. Contrast that with the preacher that refuses to ever preach anything tough. Maybe you're in here this morning, you're listening to a second tough one in a row, man. Like, wow, we're talking about this again? Can I get something encouraging? Let's let scripture speak. And Jude's not done yet. Jude's still ranting. And when we want to go, ah, he's like, shh. I'm still talking. I need you to understand the gravity here, the weight of this. He calls them hidden reefs at their love feasts, feeding themselves. These love feasts are meals, probably including the remembrance of the Lord's Supper. And they don't go there to serve other people, they go there to feed themselves, these supposed shepherds. They look like shepherds, they look like teachers, they know a lot of scripture, they seem to have stature, they look like they would be authority figures in the church, but he's saying they're just selfish, they're just there for themselves, they're not there for you at all. They go there to feed themselves. He says they're rocks, translated here as hidden reefs. It could be translated as stains or blemishes. When you read 2 Peter, Peter does call them blemishes or blots. But here, the word is actually rocks, and it fits with the theme of the fact that they're not obviously villainous on the surface. They don't look like villains. They're not the obvious black hat wearing bad guys in the movie. They're the guys that way at the end of the movie you go, oh my goodness, I thought he was a good guy the whole time. The traitor theme, the mole theme, that's what's happening here. This is why he's warning them. They're hidden reefs, it doesn't look like it. It looks like smooth sailing and then bang, something hit your boat. And you're like, what was that? I didn't see it. I'm trying to get you to look underneath the surface with this letter, Jude is saying. so that you don't get shipwrecked as a church. He provides four analogies from nature to describe them, breaking from his love for triplets. They're waterless clouds, they're fruitless trees, they're wild waves, they're wandering stars. Waterless clouds swept along by the winds, they look like they will produce something, but there's no rain in them. They don't offer any rain, they're just clouds. They're not fixed. They're not firm. They float around, carried by whatever winds, probably whatever they end up dreaming. They're fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. They look like trees, but there's nothing on the branch. They're wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their shame. They're wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. They look like bright shining stars. Wow, what a future. That guy should plant a church. Wow, what a future. That guy should be our next elder. Wow, what a future. That guy should lead a group. Wow, he knows so much scripture. It looks so bright. They're headed toward darkness. Be careful. So his plea is for them to not be fooled. There's this continuing theme of hiddenness, right? They look like shepherds, but they're not. They feed themselves. They look like clouds, but they don't function like clouds. They look like trees, but if you look closely, there's no fruit on the tree. They look like really bright stars, but actually, they're headed toward a big black hole. Don't be fooled by hidden reefs. These guys are the opposite of Jesus. Jesus is a shepherd who feeds not himself but others. And if that's true and Jesus is good, effective shepherd, that means that he is a cloud that gives off the rain that nourishes. That is the only place we find nourishment, is in Jesus Christ. He's not a fruitless tree. Jesus is what? John 15. He is the true vine. And out of that true vine, branches grow that do bear fruit, and the ones that don't bear fruit, He cuts them off, because Jesus effectively bears fruit through the people that are truly a part of Him. If someone is not bearing fruit, they're not a part of the vine. A fruitless tree will never belong to Christ. If someone belongs to Christ, they are a fruitful tree. Now, some of us might bear more fruit than others, But a completely stark, naked tree, no fruit, is a sign that they're not attached to the vine, because Jesus is the true vine who produces fruit. Jesus is the true morning star, and in him there is no darkness, no no darkness at all, John tells us in 1 John. So those who are truly a part of Jesus are a part of the light, and they don't walk in darkness, they don't love darkness, and they're not headed toward darkness. That means that Jesus transforms us so that we bear out godliness in our lives. And sometimes we go, look, we all live by grace, so we have no business looking at each other's lives and checking fruit and whatnot. Like, that's judgy. That's not judgy, it's called a health check. Right? It's called a health check. And we need that from each other. That's part of the benefit of community. And we're not looking for perfection. We don't look at each other and go, are you perfect? Are you perfect? Are you perfect? We'd all lose. We're looking for pursuit and progress. Not perfection, but pursuit and progress. Are you pursuing things of the Lord? Are you pursuing Scripture as your final authority? So if Scripture tells you do it, you do it. If Scripture says don't do it, that's what you're striving to do. When someone comes alongside you and says, hey, I see this in your life, but Scripture says this, how do you square that? Oh man, I don't square that. Thank you for the heads up. I missed that check engine light, thank you. Can you open the hood and help me out? That's the posture of the Christian. And the gospel is not complete without that, brothers and sisters. The gospel is not God forgives you, go do whatever you want. The gospel is God forgives you and transforms you and renews your mind to conform you to Christ, little by little, step by step. That's why I say progress, not perfection. And then Jude pulls this quote from 1 Enoch again I don't want to belabor Jude's ability, freedom to quote from books that are not scripture but here he's citing the book of 1 Enoch. He's not saying that this is scripture that we need to add it to the Bible. He's saying that Enoch got this part right. And I think he's referencing it because it's such a juicy quote, it perfectly fits what he's trying to communicate to his listeners. Remember I told you the first sign that there are false professors of the faith is how they treat scripture. It's not, it's an authority in their life, but it's not the top authority in their life. The second is ungodliness. Look at this quote. It was about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, remember the key word, ungodliness. Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all of the ungodly, to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against them. It's his last-ditch effort to drive the point home. Guys, when you see ungodliness in someone's life, and they won't repent over it, that's a problem, and it poses a danger to the church. You are in a dangerous church that never points out anything wrong in anybody's life ever, never points out false doctrine, never points out sin, never pulls anybody aside. Now, you could be in an unhealthy church that berates you for the music you listen to. shirt is too tight, that hair is too long, you shouldn't have a tattoo. Yes, there are abuses, right? But we're talking about where scripture is clear about adultery, let's say. Well, no, I mean grace. You should see all my Facebook friends stumbling over themselves defending the sacrilegious mockery of the Lord's Supper at the opening of the Olympics. Well, everyone's allowed to the Lord's table. Are they though? Which Bible are you reading? Let's not reinterpret scripture for the sake, and let's call a spade a spade, for the sake of approving ungodliness. That's the endgame. What's the endgame? What's in it for people to twist scripture and change things? It's because they don't want to be disapproved by God, but they also want to sin. Now people who could care less about God, they won't even be in church. They're not the hidden reefs he's talking about. I don't care about God. I do what I want. I don't think God exists, or if he does exist, I raised my fist at him. I don't care. I hate God. God does nothing good in my life. I don't like him. That's not who he's talking about. He's talking about people who go, God is on my side and you're a hypocritical judge. What would Jesus do? He wouldn't do what you're doing because you're judgy. That's who he's talking about. These are grumblers, malcontents, ugh, people get off me. You're trying to feed me scripture and I don't want to hear that. You're wrong, you're stuck in tradition. They're not content with how church is. They want to recraft church into something future oriented that is wider, more open, inclusive, tolerant, But the point at the end of the day, middle of verse 16, following their own sinful desires, that's what it's about. They're loud mouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. They don't love everybody, they're trying to position themselves in the church and in life. Jude isn't saying every person that we need to be warned about follows this exact lineup and this exact order, he's ranting about what they're like in their current situation. But we'd be mistaken to lock this down and go, okay, they have this and this, but oh, not that. That would be a mistake. We're seeing a profile that helps us identify what people are like when they abandon scripture as their ultimate authority, and the reason why they do that is to approve sinfulness in their lives. Even if they're not specifically talking about blaspheming angels, we're gonna go, oh, he never brought up angels. He gets a pass, he's not any of these other things. No, maybe he's just a grumbler. and just grumbles about the sermons because they're too negative, you know, something like that. They're discontented in their friendship with you because you keep bringing stuff up that they need to correct. Malcontents. These are telltale signs that there are dangers in the church that we need to be aware of. We need to be vigilant to make sure that we don't become these people, first of all, and then we need to be careful to recognize them when they appear. We warn them in love and in mercy. That's what next week's is about. The encouragement of how can we positively address these things in a church when they do come up. But for this passage, We acknowledge false professors of Christ as dangers to the church, and then we recognize them in their disregard for the prime authority of scripture and in their own approval of their ungodliness. That doesn't mean we villainize them. It means we approach them in a way where we recognize they're in danger, and if they won't be corrected, we need to protect the church from their threats. Let's pray.