Let's turn to Jude chapter one, our Bible study and consideration of the word of God. While we're traveling down to North Carolina this week, I wasn't doing the driving. So I took those reading and doing a little study and I was reading this little commentary on John's letters and Jude by William Barclay. And he said some things about the people that Jude was dealing with here, it was so well put, I thought I would, if you'll indulge me, read a little bit from this in our introduction. Remember that these errorists, these apostates, were antinomians against God's law, his moral law. Here's how first he defines antinomian. He's talking about, again, the people that Jude is dealing with. He says, antinomians have existed in every age of the church. Antinomians are people who pervert grace. The position of the antinomian is that the law is dead and that he's no, excuse me, the law is dead and that he is under grace. The prescriptions of the law are no longer valid. They may apply to other people, but they no longer apply to him. He can do precisely and absolutely what he likes. Grace is supreme. Grace can forgive any sin. The more the sin, the more the opportunities for grace to abound. Romans 6. The body is of no importance. What matters is the inward heart of man. All things belong to Christ and therefore all things are his. And therefore for him there's nothing forbidden. So these heretics and Jude turn the grace of God into an excuse for flagrant and blatant immorality. Verse four. They even practice nameless and shameless unnatural vices as the people of Sodom did. Verse seven. They defile the flesh and think it no sin. Verse eight. They allow their brute instincts to rule their lives. Verse 10. With their sensual ways, they are like to make shipwreck of the love feasts of the church, verse 12. It is by their own loss that they direct their lives, verse 16. These were men who argued that, since they were under grace, the law was irrelevant and its ethical demands no longer obligatory. They argued that they were so spiritual that sin for them had ceased to exist. They argued that if they love God with their hearts, they could do what they like with their bodies. And again, that's from William Barclay. Just a very well stated position. But then he goes on to give some historical examples of antinomianism, particularly the country that he lives in. Well, he doesn't live there anymore. He's with the Lord. But in England, he talks about the ranters who were people who troubled the church there in England around the time of John Bunyan and John Wesley. And he makes these comments in reference to these antinomians that troubled the church in those days. He talks about John Wesley and his dealings with them. Later, John Wesley was to have trouble with the antinomians. He talks of them preaching a gospel of flesh and blood. At Jenning Hall, he says, the antinomians had labored hard in the devil's service. At Birmingham, he says, that the fierce, unclean, brutish, blasphemous antinomians had utterly destroyed the spiritual life of the congregation. He tells of a certain Roger Ball, who had insinuated himself into the life of the congregation at Dublin. At first he had seemed to be so spiritually minded a man that the congregation had welcomed him as being preeminently suited for the service and the ministry of the church. He showed himself in time to be full of guile and of the most abominable errors and so on. But then here's what I thought one of the most interesting ones. He puts in his journal, that is Wesley does, a conversation he had with one of the antinomians at Birmingham. And here's what he recorded in his journal. Again, Barclay's quoting from the journal. Listen to this. Here's Wesley's first. Do you believe that you have nothing to do with the law of God? I have not. So there'll be the question, then the response. I have not. I am not under the law. I live by faith. So Wesley asks, have you, as living by faith, the right to everything in the world? I have. All is mine, since Christ is mine. Then Wesley asks again, may you then take anything you will anywhere, suppose out of a shop, without consent or knowledge of the owner? Here's his answer. I may, if I want to, for it is mine, only I will not give offense. Wesley then asks, have you right to all women in the world? The answer, yes, if they consent. Wesley says, and is this not sin? Is not that sin? The answer was, yes, to him that thinks it's sin, but not to me, whose heart is free. And that was the interview part he had there. So you can imagine what the church has dealt with. Jude has dealt with it. Every generation of Christians have dealt with antinomians. And we have many, many antinomians in the churches today. It's a constant battle. As we mentioned in one of our sermons, Satan is trying to get us either by antinomianism or by legalism. Turns religion into a license for sin or turns religions into a legal relationship with God. Both are errors. The devil's sowing those errors where he can and where he will. And there's much fertile ground in the world for antinomianism. It appeals to the flesh. even more so than legalism because it basically says I am free to do what I please because of grace. So with those thoughts in mind, filling in a little bit of the kind of errors that Jude is dealing with here, we'll go back now to our text. And for that, I hope you have your bulletin there with the outline on the back that helps us keep things in line and in order here. Last week we concluded our study of verses 5 through 7 where we looked at three characteristic examples of apostates of the past, that is apostates and their history that are recorded in the Old Testament. The first example that Jude gives in verse 5 is that of the generation that came out of Egypt, of the Israelites who came out of Egypt. and how after God had worked a great work of salvation, when they came to the border of the promised land, when the time of taking the inheritance actually came, they didn't do it because of fear. really they were fearful because of unbelief. And so we have the report of the spies that went into the land, the 12 spies, 10 of them, gave the majority report, yes, the land is wonderful, but there are giants in the land, their cities are strong and tall, it's absolutely impossible for us to conquer them, and that was their report. Joshua and Caleb said, everything they've said is true, except one thing they've said is very false, and that is God is with us, we can conquer him. But the people listened to the majority report, and they were filled with fear. And they said, oh, that we had remained in Egypt. Let us take counsel here, let us elect a new leader, and let's go back to Egypt. This is an example of the rejection of God's promises and his word. They didn't believe God could do it. Caleb and Joshua did believe, therefore they had courage. The rest of the people did not. And so what we have here in this example of being a characteristic of the apostates is they reject God's word. They don't believe it. They don't live in light of its promises or its doctrines. Unbelief. Apostates reject the word of God. Secondly, the second example was that of the angels, originally created perfect and holy, fell, that is some of them fell under the leadership of the great arch rebel Satan and they left their first estate, that is their first place of being servants of God and of God's people, but why did they fall because of their pride. They were lifted up with pride. That's one of the reasons why Paul says, don't put a young man or a novice as a Christian in the office of elder and give them authority because they might be lifted up with pride and fall into the sin of the devil, which was pride. And so these angels become proud. And they were not satisfied. They were not content with the place God had given to them. So they rebelled. But the rebellion was based in pride. And this is the second thing we see in apostates. They're filled with pride. And because of their pride, they think they know better. They do not respect the offices of authority that God has established in the world, particularly here in this context of Jude in the church, and therefore they rebel against church authority. God has given three governing institutions, the family, the church, and the state. Each one has officers God has appointed. and is part of true biblical Christianity that we recognize those orders of authority and give all due submission. And I say the word due submission because we are not, they do not, we're not required to give obedience to unlawful commands. But otherwise, we are to give due submission. Well, the second thing we see of heretics, apostates, of troublemakers in the church is they're filled with pride and reject authority. They're going to do it their way. They speak against the leaders and we're going to see that here today. The third example we studied last week in the terrible moral failure, the wickedness of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who went after strange flesh. And here we see the third characteristic of apostates, moral failure. Moral failure. They reject God's moral law. And the excellent introductory thoughts here that we gave from William Barclay help us see. They were antinomians. They were against God's law. Now with that in mind, let us look at the next, begin the next section of Jude, where he gives a description of the apostates of the present. That is the ones he's dealing with. Apostates in the church. We saw apostates in Israel, apostates among the angels, apostates among the peoples of the earth in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we're going to look at the description of the apostates there in the New Testament times when Jude was writing and these characteristics, just like he could take the characteristics of the Old Testament and say these are the kind of people we're dealing with. We can take his list here of the kind of people in the New Testament era that Jude was dealing with and say, that's the kind of people we're dealing with today when we deal with these people who are characterized here as antinomians. So we're gonna look at the description of the apostates of the present. Read with me here, follow along as I read verse eight. Likewise, there's our connecting word. Just like these examples I've just given, likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not or dared not bring against him a railing, a violent accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but which they know naturally, as brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves. 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 Korah. These are spots in your feasts of charity. when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds. Trees whose fruit withered. Without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And so in the outline there, we've prepared for verses 8 to 13, we note 11 aspects of this description. And notice each one we did begin here in the outline with the word like. It's like in verse 8, likewise. And he goes down and he uses analogies here to describe them. And this is really an amazing section where Jude shows his literary skill and the power of language and metaphor to depict these apostates that were operating in the churches to which he writes. Let's look at verse 8. Likewise, as I've already mentioned, this is a connecting word. In like manner, it means in a similar way. That is, in a similar way to these three examples from the Old Testament, The apostates that we are contending with, Jude says, are like them, very much like them. Likewise, also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. The first thing I want you to know with me here, he says they are like the people of Sodom, in that they defile the flesh. And so the first Parallel deals with Sodom and that's what he gave as the third example right before. So he just keeps that train of thought that he just put in their minds about the people of Sodom and goes then now right to talk about the fact how they are like them. But he begins by saying that they're dreamers. Notice the word filthy is in italics. That means, in the King James Version, it's an interpretive edition by the translators, and therefore it should be taken as such, and you can decide whether you think that's a good interpretation by just leaving it out, and say, likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh. Well, it sounds pretty close. They're pretty filthy. But that's the idea. But the thing I want to focus on, not the word filthy, because it's not in the original, but the word dreamer. Now the word literally meant to see something in your sleep, that is the Greek term. And therefore it was used and applied in biblical religion and also the religions of the day there to refer to a dream or vision that one saw when they were sleeping. And it had some kind of religious import. Or it could just refer to a plain dream, obviously. But this word is only used two times in the New Testament besides this. Note the context as I read these verses. Matthew 1.20. Matthew 1.20, what's that? Okay, that's Joseph. Yep, Joseph. But while he thought on these things, that is, Mary was with child, yet they hadn't been married yet. She was a virgin. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a, here's our word, dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. We see the word dream here is used in the sense of God revealing something very important to Joseph. The next passage is Acts 2.17, where this word appears. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, Acts 2, Peter's quoting the passage in his day of Pentecost sermon. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Dream dreams, there's our word. But notice again the context, prophesying, visions, and dreams. So it's use of some sort of revelatory event. Not just, what did you dream last night? No, no, not those kind of dreams. But dreams where revelation of some sort of a religious import is given. In light of that usage in the New Testament, it's significant that this word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, this word dreamers, of false prophets in Deuteronomy 13, which I've already read this passage to you in the past, but let me read it here again to you. Deuteronomy 13, beginning of verse one. If there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, And giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and let us serve them. Again, they have dreamed a dream, and they're using the dream as a basis to tell the people of Israel, let us go serve other gods. I received a vision and dream from Baal last night. And to prove to you that I had this, it would give them a prediction, and that prediction even came to pass. So here's somebody saying they had a dream that gave them revelation from a different God than Yahweh, the Lord, and they're using the dream as the basis to get people to leave the faith once delivered to the Old Testament saints. Well, what if that happens? God says through Moses, you shall not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God proveth or tests you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and cleave unto him And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death. Because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust you out of the way which the Lord thy commanded thee to walk in, so shalt thou put evil away from the midst of thee. end quote there from Deuteronomy chapter 13. And so in view of those two New Testament passages and this Deuteronomy passage where the same word is used in all three, I believe that in our passage here because of the context, the dreamers that are being spoken of here are indicating false teachers or prophets Christians who were claiming that they had received some revelation from God in their dreams and they were not communicating it to the church and using it as the basis of their appeal to basically say, let us go and serve other gods. Let us believe different doctrines than you're getting from Paul and John and Jude. And so they were claiming revelation through dreams. And that their teaching that was contrary to what the faith they had received before from Jude, for example, was wrong. And we have new and better sources, better information on doctrine, and so on. And so Jude calls them dreamers here in fierce condemnation. in the light of Deuteronomy 13, 1 to 5. He's basically saying they are the same kind of people that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 13. They're false prophets. They're false teachers. By the way, I hope whenever you hear anybody appeal to some dream or vision as guidance for their Christian life or for your Christian life, you get a huge red flag Massive red flag goes up. Don't listen to dreamers. And anybody that claims a dream as guidance and direction for the Christian doctrine and faith, I'm not saying that dreams don't have some kind of purpose in our lives. God gives us dreams, and I'm not sure what all the purposes are. But that's all the more reason you don't trust him to direct you in doctrine and practice. We don't know what kind of access the devil, for example, has to our thought life. There does seem to be suggestion in the New Testament that he does, in his temptations, plants thoughts in our lives. Well, who says he can't be involved in dreams, then, if God allows it? Furthermore, I know my own mind can spin out some pretty bizarre thoughts and dreams. You probably have to. But the point is that you can't trust dreams. And here we have this important New Testament passage is that these errorists were dreamers, claiming dreams as the basis of their direction. And you can hear people today in some of the movements that sadly the charismatic movement tends to give emphasis or at least credence to dreams and people can tell these amazing stories they had a dream and the next day the thing happened exactly like their dream and you can become very impressed. Don't become impressed at all because Deuteronomy 13 says if they have a dream and they tell you something is going to happen in a prediction or the sign comes to pass. The only reason that's happening is God put it there to test you whether you really love God and his word or you're more swayed by emotions and fantastic stories and claims, even signs and wonders. So look out when you hear a dreamer. He's giving some kind of revelation or direction from God. So that's how he characterizes these people. They're dreamers. And then he says, these dreamers defile the flesh. And those three simple words are his comparison, likewise, to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Likewise, they defile the flesh. In the same way the Sodomites defile the flesh, so these antinomians defile the flesh. the flesh. And after having read that little interview that we had with Wesley, with some people, how they were thinking, it's crazy. But this is the depths to which it can go. They were following the Sodomites in the name of Christ, in the name of God. They were in the church speaking these things. The second thing here in terms of comparison in this same verse is that like the angels that fell, these dreamers despise God's authority. So the word likewise also applies to the phrase despise, dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Now the word despise here means simply to set something aside in the sense of rejecting it, denying it, saying that's invalid. I nullify that. Here's a usage of that in the New Testament, the word despise, translated differently in a little bit of a different context, but both could be translated the same way in either context. For example, Mark 7, 9, and he said unto them, full well ye reject. There's our word translated reject, the Greek word translated here reject. It could say, for well you despise the commandment of God. that you may keep your own tradition. So they rejected God's law, they rejected God's commandments, so that they could keep their own creation. That is, their own traditions, their own religious traditions. So they despised God's authority. They rejected the authority of scripture, and in its place, they put tradition, their own tradition, the thing that they had spun out of their own minds. Now this is a despised dominion. That's our translation. It's from the Greek root, the same root as we get our word Lord. And the word here, translated dominion, means ruling power, lordship. Now that's an interesting one, that's an important one. You could translate then, they despise lordship. What does that mean? Whose lordship? Well I think we already know if we look back to verse 4. There are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. They were denying God's lordship. They were rejecting God's authority, but more specifically, I believe, it was the authority of God as exercised by Jesus Christ. And so it's saying here, I believe, in this interpretive decision, they despise the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They reject it. They nullify it. They say that's invalid. That has no claim over our lives. After all, we've had dreams. After all this, after all that, they despised the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which we're told in verse 4 they did. They denied Him, the Lord Christ. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is central to Christianity. He is our Lord. He is our God. And it's not just a mouthing of the word. The Lordship of Jesus Christ could be denied by people who call him Lord. What did Jesus say in Matthew 7? In the day of judgment, Lord, Lord, have we not done all these things in your name? And Jesus will say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. But the word Lord was on their lips. They called Jesus Lord. They publicly professed it. But they denied him by their works. With their mouth, they said Lord. With their works, they denied it. And so they reject the lordship of Jesus Christ. Now, they may have used the phrase, or they may have actually not used the phrase. Maybe these false teachers were actually denying that. Jesus, OK, he was a good man. He was the most religious man that ever walked the face of the earth, which is taught all over the place today, those kind of sayings. But he wasn't God. He wasn't our Lord. He was just a good example. They just denied the Lordship of Christ. The word Lord is used often, even today among antinomians, because it's a common phrase, just like the word, the name God is used when they could be a bale in people's minds, a bale type image that they've created in their own minds. But you know one thing I've noticed you do not hear much about in the antinomian circles and all these celebrity preachers and this and that, is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They don't speak like that. They'll say Jesus is our Lord, but the phrase Lordship, which is a translation of dominion here I'm saying. You could translate our word dominion by Lordship. They despise lordship. Well, the lordship of who? The lordship of Jesus Christ. The head of the church. And since they despise the lordship of Jesus Christ, they speak evil of his ministers. Because the word dignities here is a word that refers to ministers. People of authority appointed by Christ. But first let's look at the word evil. Speak evil of here, the Greek word is blaspheme. So you blaspheme men? Well, yeah, in the Greek sense, but not in our English sense. Our word blasphemy and blasphemy has come to exclusively refer to speech against God and his holy institutions, his holy book, and so on. But there is even there, though, a way in which the word blaspheme can apply to ministers of Christ, who hold office under Christ, by his appointment, according to his word, and they're legitimately in that position of authority. Just like a man who becomes the head of his home in marriage, he's legitimately in that position by lawful marriage. And so if they're ministers of Christ, to speak against the ministers is to speak against who? and therefore it is a form of blasphemy. But it's not the blasphemy of the man. You can't blaspheme the man in our English word, but you're blaspheming the one who appointed him and his whole system of authority. And so they speak evil though, because another way in which this word is used in the New Testament is in relation to other men, other people, other women. And there it means something like to revile or to defame or slander. And Paul uses this word numerous times. How he was slandered and blasphemed, again, is our Greek word, but we would translate it better into English, something like defame, slander, revile. He speaks of it in Romans 3.8, 1 Corinthians 4.13, 1 Corinthians 10.30. Throughout the New Testament, he talks about how he was spoken evil of. by the enemies of Christ. Here's a passage from Acts where this word is used. Acts 6.11. This is the use of Stephen. And it goes this way. suborned called men and they said we have heard him that is Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God and they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council and set up false witnesses which said this man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and this law we have heard him say that the Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and she'll change the customs which Moses delivered. Paul says this way in Romans 3.8, And not rather as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm, we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is just. So Paul says we were being slandered because it was reported that we were taking the doctrine of grace and saying, let's do evil. that good can come of it. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4.13, he says, being defamed as an apostle, we entreat, we are made as the filth of the world, and of the offscouring of all things into this day. I mean, they really were spoken evil of. They were compared here in being defamed as being men of the sewer, the public sewer. and all the filth and stench that you can imagine. That's what people call us. Paul, just like sewer, comes out of his mouth. But he persevered, persevered. And so the Greek word for dignities here indicates someone who is worthy of honor because they hold an office of authority. We talk about dignitaries today. They're people who are due to be shown dignity because of their office. And so this is an office holder. They reject the Lordship of Christ and the offices, the office holders of Christ. Meaning they reject the elders, the deacons, using the terms of Ephesians 4.11, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastor-teachers. They defame them. They reject their authority. And so here we see in this verse that just like the angels that fell, they despise God's authority and his ministers. Notice that the example of that we're looking at here is centered on pride. Proud people do not submit to legitimate authority. I mean, why should they? They know better. They should be the ones who are in authority, not the ones who are there. And therefore, they're rebellious in their spirit. They always know better. They always can do it better. So they think. We got to be careful about that because we tend to look at people in positions of authority and responsibility. So if I was there, I could do a better job. Oh, really? Do you know what goes with that job? We often think that way. I always remember the example because I did a lot of athletics when I was young and particularly when I was on the basketball team in my high school team. And I think it was John MacArthur was usually just an example. He was a lot in athletics. He said, the people who know how to play the game the best and would be the stars if only given a chance are the benchwarmers. And I can remember myself when you're being on the bench and you're, boy, if I was in, I wouldn't have thrown that bad pass. I would have hit that jump shot. And then the coach looks at you and he says, in the game, Einwechter. And you're, ooh. And you go out there and you make ten bad passes and shoot. Hey, it's not that easy out here as you think. Everybody's looking at you. They're cheering you and booing you. You've got officials who are running alongside you to make sure you do exactly right. You've got these bad guys called the opposing team that are trying to frustrate everything you do. It's not as easy as I thought from the bench. And you know the biggest, his point was the biggest critics in the church are those who aren't doing anything. They're just sitting there, but they're not only criticizing the pastor, they're criticizing anybody that's trying to do something. If I was the church janitor, the church would be cleaner. Whatever they want to criticize. So the best way to get away from criticism is get everybody busy. But these individuals, because they're proud, criticize and reject and despise the lawful authority in the church. If I was the pastor, Yeah, it'd be much better if I was a deacon, if I was this, if I was that. But these are the rebels that are troubling not only the church in Jude's day, but in our day. Now he goes to verse nine. Now this is an interesting verse. I think myself, my own interpretation of this is this is a parenthesis. to try to figure out how this fits in the flow here, after he's just given the example of angels who rebelled, likewise goes back to the angels who left their first estate because of their pride, so likewise these individuals don't keep their place in the church, they don't recognize authority structure, they despise the lordship of Jesus Christ, and they speak evil of his ministers. Yet, Michael the archangel, When contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, and he said rather, the Lord rebuke thee. Notice the example here is from a confrontation of angels. And the example that he was, the likewise example was of the angels that fell. This is not an easy verse to interpret. It's not an easy verse to understand in the sense of where did Jude get this information? And we'll look at that now. But my interpretation is based on the fact if you try to analyze the passage and find what the likewise is referring to. I think as I said, it's in a parenthesis where Jude is saying this, that as we contend with these insolent sinners, We must not bring upon them the railing accusations they're bringing upon us. They respect, they reject our authority, they defame us, and they so forth and so on. In their own authority, they do this because they're proud. But when we deal with such heretics and sinners in the church, Jude's saying we must not bring railing accusations against them in our own authority. just like they speak evil of God's ministers and the Lordship of Christ on their own authority. Instead, we, as we deal with false teachers, as we deal with apostates, we should be like Michael in dealing with the devil. How did Michael deal with the devil? He didn't say, I, as Michael the archangel, rebuke you. You're evil, devil. Gut thee hence. Is that what he did? Is that how he dealt with the troublesome evil being called Satan or the devil? He said no. Jude says no, he did not. He stood only in God's authority and said the Lord rebuke you. You see, the danger is when we deal with people who become so infuriating in their rebellion, in their unbelief, in their moral failure, that we begin to set ourselves up as the judge of them, and we're basically rebuking them in our own moral indignation, in our own wisdom, in our own doctrinal superiority, and we take our own authority into the conflict. And if we do, we make the problem worse. How should we deal with these folks that are defiling the flesh, that are speaking evil of Christ and His ministers? Should we turn around in our own authority and speak evil of them? Negate their persons? Reject them? No, we need to wait on the Lord and speak His word back to them and do it in the authority of Christ. That's what I think this verse is saying. I think it's a parenthesis. Don't be like them. It's so easy in church conflicts to get down to the level of your opponents who are troubling the church. To get angry, to get in the flesh, to start using your own authority, your own moral indignation in rebuking them. But Jude's reminding us As we deal with these fallen angels, not literally angels, but as Michael dealt with fallen angels, he didn't do it in his own power, his own wisdom, but he did it solely in God's power and on his authority. And it was because God had given him this office, he was able to say, the Lord rebuke you. So we, as we deal with these troublemakers, let us not do it in the flesh, but let us follow the example of Michael. And the authority is given us in the church, and ministers and elders who have that authority should operate only in that authority, according to his word, and to come to the sinners and say, the Lord rebuked you. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. That's how I understand it. You might see it differently. Now, that's fine, but that's how I see it working in this question. But really, the main question that people ask about the passage is not how it works, as it were, in the passage, but where did you get that? Get what? This incident. When Michael the archangel had this contention with the devil over a dispute about the body of Moses. Where did that come from? Well, maybe it comes from Deuteronomy 34. Let's look there. Last book of Moses, the final words recorded here are about Moses' death. That must be there. That must be where Jude got it. By the way, how did Moses write about his own death? Well, there's a couple of opinions on that. Number one, he was given this by inspiration, told to write down ahead of time. The other is that Joshua wrote it and appended it, and it's an appendix to the previous book, and Joshua was in a position to do it because he was an inspired man of God who just then went on to write his whole own book. So it's still all by the Holy Spirit, one way or the other. Okay, Deuteronomy 34. And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountains of Nebo to the top of Pisgah that is over against Jordan. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead and Dan, and all Naphtali, and all the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah unto the uttermost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, and the palm trees unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I swear unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine own eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. You remember why? Because of his outburst of anger and disrespect to God over the murmuring of the Israelites, which is a great example of what Jude's telling us not to do, but Moses did. Remember they're just constantly grumbling, constantly murmuring against the Lord and against Moses and why did we come out of Egypt we could go back there we had onions and leeks there and here we have all this lousy manna day after day and just going on and on and then they come to Moses oh we're starving to death we get you know to drink and they forgot about how God had provided drink before and it's going on and on and so what Moses did is he did exactly what Jude said you don't do he was so infuriated he was so exasperated by these rebels that he sinned in such a way that God said, you're not going into the land. What did he do? God said, go and speak to the rock and it will bring forth water. In other words, rock, please bring forth. But Moses went and he said, shall I fetch for you water, ye rebels? And he took the rod and he smote it three times against the rock in his anger. He did it in his own authority. Shall I give you water, you rebels? And he slammed. So that's what you'd say, don't fall to that when you deal with them. Say the Lord rebuked you. Moses didn't. And so he didn't go into the promised land. That's a little addition everything I was saying as to the context here, because it illustrates perfectly, I think. But what happened? He died. Verse five, so Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord and he buried him. He referring back to the Lord. He buried him in the valley of the land of Moab over against Beth Peor but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day. And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died and his eye was not dim and his natural force abated. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. So the days of weeping and mourning were ended. And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid hands upon him. And the children of Israel hearkened unto him as they did, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, who knew the Lord face to face, and all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and all the mighty hand, and all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of Israel." Wait a minute. We're just about Michael and the devil. It's not there. Well, it must be somewhere else. It is not. Nowhere in the Bible, until we get to this passage here, is anything said about that. So the big, you read a commentary and, you know, a few words are spoken, maybe about the previous verse and then, you know, page after page goes on about this here. Where did Jude get this information? Well, before we actually look at that question, which I think is an important question to consider, we need to remember as we look at this The words of R.C.H. Lenski, the Lutheran commentator in the early part of the 1900s, talking about the question of where did Jude get this information. He says, this is generally regarded as the main question, but it is of minor importance. The main question must be, is what Jude says true? That's the question. Not where he got it, but is what he says true? And what does that then raise for you and I? The doctrine of inspiration and the books of the New Testament considered as the inspired Word of God. In other words, if the book of Jude is part of the inspired Word of God, the canon of the New Testament, what does that mean? That means whatever Jude says is the infallible Word of God because he speaks under the direction of the Holy Spirit. So then what Jude says here must be true, even though it's not recorded in the Old Testament or anywhere in the New Testament for that matter. It must be true. Why? Because Jude wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In other words, this is what actually happened at the death and burial of Moses. Because this is what the Word of God says. Where he got the information is of interest, but it's not determinative. But I'm telling you, I'm trying to say this, you look at the discussions about this, that's what the big issue is. Where do you get it? What does this mean about this and that? And so forth. To be honest with you, the early church did struggle a little bit with that question. And Jude, some, Churches, church fathers rejected Jude as being the inspired word because of this addition here that is found nowhere else in the scripture of an Old Testament event. And yet, clearly Jude is the word of God and it came to be recognized universally and has not been doubted except by a few loose cannons here and there over the history of the church. Well, maybe the loose cannon is a little bit too strong of a word, but anyway. Well, let's go back to the question. Where did Jude get this? Well, I think there's four possible answers. First, he got it directly by revelation of the Holy Spirit. That is not what I just said in explaining the doctrine of inspiration, by the way. That's not what I was trying to say. And I'll explain that as I go. Nobody else ever knew of this. It was never known by anybody, never revealed to anybody until Jude came on the scene. That's what I mean. And God decided at this point in redemptive history to reveal this truth and to bring it to the world under Jude, and that might be the answer. But here's the challenge for us. There is a Jewish apocryphal book written before the time of Christ It was in circulation in the New Testament days called the Assumption or the Ascension of Moses. Apocryphal means that it was not considered by the Jews to be scripture. It was not considered by the believing Israelite people to be part of the inspired word of God, or the Old Testament church rejected this as scripture. But it was very popular. It was called the Assumption of Moses. We know about this through various sources, but believe it or not, there is no complete copy of that book in existence today, nor was there for centuries. What we do know about it, and particularly its relation to this statement in Jude, comes from three church fathers who had a copy of the whole book, The Assumption of Moses, and commented on it in their discussion of Jude and gave excerpts of exactly what the Assumption of Moses said about this question in Jude. Now it's important, they didn't say Jude copied it from the Assumption, they just compared the two and saw they were basically exactly alike. So here we have a a Jewish apocryphal book that existed before the time of the New Testament that has this story in it. And the fact that that story was in it is only known to us by secondary sources, because the actual book itself is only in fragments that people have today. That is, the scholars only have fragments, and the fragments we have don't have this story. but we do know about it through these church fathers. And according to Richard Baucom, a scholar in this area, a commentator on Jude, he says the story in the Assumption of Moses can be reconstructed in these words, and I'm quoting Baucom. Joshua, accompanied by Moses, accompanied Moses up to Mount Nebo, where God showed Moses the land of promise. Moses then sent Joshua back to the people to inform them of Moses' death, and Moses died. God sent the archangel Michael to remove the body of Moses to another burial place and to bury it there. But Samael, the devil, opposed him, disputing Moses' right to honorable burial because he had smote the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. But this accusation was not better than slander against Moses. And Michael, not tolerating the slander, said to the devil, may the Lord rebuke you, devil. At that, the devil took flight, and Michael removed the body to a place commanded by God, where he buried it with his own hands. Thus, no one saw the burial of Moses. And that's the quote from Bockham. in his research on that. Did you get the story then as this went? This is not in Jude, all that I read there. It's not anywhere. But this is what the assumption of Moses said. And the basis of the devil's dispute was Moses was a murderer. And therefore he wasn't entitled to a decent burial because he smote the Egyptian in his anger and hid him in the sand. But Michael, of course, saw that was a horrible slander against Moses and rebuked him Now we're not saying that, I'm gonna get off line here a minute, this is another issue. No one's saying that Moses was right in what he did there. But he'd long been forgiven and restored and his sins were remembered no more against him and he was a man of God. Just like Paul was a murderer, David was a murderer, but God forgives and uses his servants. So this was out of court. Moses is a redeemed man. His sin was under the blood. And so the Satan was just bringing past dirt, as it were, out of Moses' life to condemn him in the present. And Michael would not tolerate it, and under the Lord's authority said, you know, get thee hence. The Lord rebuke you, Satan. So that's the story here. Now, the contention is, and this is the scholarly opinion, 99, 90% is that he copied. Jude copied from the assumption of Moses. You see the problem. Here is an apocryphal false book claiming to be scripture and a scripture writer takes it and quotes it as authoritative and therefore some people derive all kinds of views on the authority of that book and other apocryphal literature. Take the Church of Rome. They have a whole list of books in their Old Testament that we don't have in our New Testament, and they're called the Apocrypha. And one of the arguments is, well, Michael used, I mean, not Michael, Jude used the Apocrypha, Jewish Apocrypha, and he gave a stamp of approval here. Well, did he? Is that what's going on here in the passage? Is he giving an approval of the entire work of the Assumption of Moses, or the details about this argument that because Moses had killed an Egyptian and so on and so forth. Is that what he's doing? Well, look at it. Does it say anything about that? It doesn't give us any details on that. So even if he's getting the story from there, he's rejecting under the Spirit's guidance this fanciful stuff. What was true is what he records, that there was this dispute between Michael and the devil and that is true and the Holy Spirit guides him to include that because it was true but it doesn't include all the other stuff because it wasn't true. But there's another possibility. Both Jude and the Assumption of Moses got their story from a similar source. In other words, Jude didn't get it from there. He got it from another source that we don't know of, the same way the writer of the Assumption got it from a source. And it's often thought this was a strong part of Jewish tradition that was passed down. So just because he has a story here, that's the same as the story line or the event, the fact that was in Apocryphal Book, doesn't mean he quoted from the Apocryphal Book. Maybe he got it from an entirely different source. In God's providence, this may have come to light in other ways. We don't know. My point is, Jude doesn't say he quoted from the Assumption of Moses, and so the very argument that then we can prove these questionable books because of what Jude did is ridiculous. He doesn't say that at all. He doesn't even mention the assumption of Moses. And it's just as much possible that Jude got it from a source that had nothing to do with an apocryphal book. The fourth possibility, and this is the true one, we don't know. I mean, did he get it by direct revelation in the sense that it had never been revealed to anybody in history? We don't know. Did he get it from the Apocryphal Book of Assumption of Moses and the Spirit guided him to correctly bring out what was true? We don't know. Did Jude and the Assumption author get it from a similar source, but they didn't get it from each other? We don't know. Oh, we know! It's in our Bible. It's in the Word of God. And here's what we stand on, John 16, 13. Jesus, in promising the New Testament that would come after His death, as the apostles would write scripture, He says, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you apostles into all truth. He'll guide you into all truth. The word guide is important. It doesn't necessarily mean he will reveal all new truth to you, but he will guide you in preserving the truth exactly as God wants it. There were many stories about the life of Christ that were around during the writing of the New Testament, particularly the Gospels, that even men like Luke said he did research. He interviewed people. He went in and would have interviewed Mary. He could get the story of the angel appearing from Mary herself. But maybe Mary forgot a little detail, humanly speaking. This person he interviewed didn't get quite the story of Pentecost quite right, but it doesn't matter. The Holy Spirit made sure, as he guided Luke in the actual writing of it, that he only put down what was precisely true in the word of God. And so however this story came to Jude is not the issue. The issue is the Holy Spirit has guided him into all truth, because we don't know how he got this story. But it's in the word of God. It's part of that. And the Holy Spirit showed him, and he included it under that guidance. So even if Judah knew the assumption of Moses, even if he liked it, enjoyed reading it, doesn't mean he considered it scripture. And what he drew from it, if he did draw it from there, was purely under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And so this usage in no way, shape, or form justifies or approves any apocryphal book, Certainly not the assumption of Moses. The question is, is it true? Yes. What was the dispute over? We don't know. We just know here that the point is, as Michael dealt with proud rebels, he didn't do it in his own anger or authority or indignation. He did it solely in the power of God. So as you deal with heretics, Antinomians, false teachers, false prophets today. Don't let your own indignation, your own anger, or your own sense of authority, if you hold an office, or you think you know the Bible better than that person, where you go off on your own power, your own strength, and say, I rebuke you for your false teaching. Don't do that. Jude says. Say, the Lord rebuke you. Stand on the word of God. Stand in God's authority. And as we mentioned, don't be like Moses who gets angry and says, shall I bring Vooder out of the rock, you rebels? He forgot that, and it brought down his exclusion from the promised land on his head. But we're not done with this question yet. I don't mean this verse. Look at verse 14. This is looking ahead. We're done here with our message today. He now quotes from another apocryphal book, it seems, the book of Enoch. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these things, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints. Where is that in the Old Testament? It's not there. Who's this Enoch, the seventh from Moses? Where's his writings who prophesied about these things? So here, Jude gives us another challenge. And there's these two aspects of Jude that have created quite a stir among scholars, unbelievers, and skeptics. But I think we've, have we answered it? Hopefully somewhat, at least in your mind, that this use of that, and when we get to the Enoch, we'll also revisit it in that, to look at that exact verses and how that deals with Jude's use here. Because it does appear here that he is quoting Enoch. And so it's actually the same type of problem, but even a little bit more difficult. So it's in the Book of Jude. It's what God, by the Holy Spirit, had preserved for us as truth, as truth. So sometimes if you're writing and you quote someone, I'm talking now like not writing a personal letter, but you're writing an essay, you're writing this and you're looking to make a point, and you go, oh, here's a very excellent, like I read this service to begin, I wasn't endorsing Barclay here in everything he says. In fact, Barclay's a little bit to the left in some of his theology, a little bit neo-orthodox, a little bit, you know, not quite, I wouldn't highly recommend this Barclay being your main diet. It's a very popular Bible study series of the previous generation. But why did I quote it? Because I judge that this is well said and it's true. And so by lifting out a quote from a book doesn't mean you endorse everything else that's in it. but you judge that as being well said and true. And so this is how we approach this question. This is part of this doctrine of defending the scripture, and that's why it took so much time on it. And to remember that in the end, it's our doctrine of inspiration that leads us against all attacks upon the infallibility of scripture. This is not a human document, where Jude just going along, oh, I like that story from there, I like that book, that's an important book, The Assumption of Moses, and so on. No. The Holy Spirit has guided him, this is here. Whether he got it from that Assumption of Moses, no one knows. But we do know that this is what happened. When Moses died, as Deuteronomy 34 says, but doesn't give us this information, there was a dispute. Obviously, Michael was sent by the Lord to bury Moses. And in that process, exactly what happened is the devil showed up and contended over the body of Moses. By the way, one of the suppositions why Deuteronomy has Moses go up alone, why God did it that way, and he dies and the Lord buries him, is what do you think Israel would do or what they were doing today if they knew the tomb of Moses? They'd build a temple over it. They would worship at it. And God made sure that the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, and there was no greater prophet, as we read this morning, until Jesus arose. They didn't know where he was buried. They might not make a shrine out of it. And so, that information about his burial And no one knew about it. Here in the New Testament, the Lord reveals this very fascinating piece of information about what actually happened when Michael came to do that burial. So here's the supposition. The devil wanted it so it could be buried in a very prominent place and he could make a new rival religion. Not because of the murder. The Jew didn't include that because that's some fancy of somebody. that is of the Egyptian and this hit in the sand, but because he wanted the body. This is very useful to me. We will make a new religion and we'll have his burial place well known and therefore there will be a shrine. And people can come, now this is incredible, I don't think they do it anymore, but you know one of the popes had died and when he was lying in state they had his feet sticking out through the end of the coffin so the worshiper could come by and kiss his feet. So if men would do that with a Pope, what would they do with Moses? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word and for its truth. And as we look at this passage today, and we see this evidence of the Holy Spirit's work, and we rest in it. We believe that the Bible is true from beginning to end. All its stories are all truth. infallible truth, verity, veritable truth. And so, Lord, we thank you that we could talk about this today and help us as we also have to defend the Bible against heretics, against dreamers, against those who despise the Lordship of Christ and speak evil of his ministers. May we, Lord, as we contend with them, remember this very important parenthesis here on how we should deal with those, not in our own authority, not in our own indignation, not bringing railing accusations according to our own feelings, but simply and powerfully standing in the position of Christ's servants, say the Lord, rebuke them. In Jesus' name, amen.