The Creepers

If you have your Bible, I hope you do, turn with me to the book of Jude. We are once again
continuing our ongoing study through this book. And it was on September 6th in 1993 that this
article appeared in the Toronto Star newspaper. It was a profile of a diaper delivery business that
was starting up in Toronto. It was run by Don Heathfield, who's the man that's in that photo.
except that the man in that photo is not really Don Heathfield. In fact,
nobody knew he wasn't Don Heathfield for the next 17 years. But 17 years later in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, Don and his partner Tracy Leanne Foley were both arrested and charged with
espionage. Turns out Don and Tracy were really Andrei Bezrikov and Elena Vivalova.
They had been born in Moscow. They had worked for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the
SVR. They were spies who had first lived in Canada and then in the U.S.
They were hiding in plain sight and they were taking secrets from military intelligence and passing
it on to the fatherland, to Russia. Nobody knew. Nobody had a clue. People were stunned when Don
and Tracy Ann, who were really Andre and... Elena,
were arrested. Now, if this sounds like the plot from a TV series or a movie,
it's because it is. Their story actually became the basis for a long-running show on the FX
channel called The Americans. And they were,
again, Soviet spies who were deported after having lived in the United States. I'm wondering if you
think there are... spies who are living and active in our country today.
Do you think there are? Well, as it turns out, the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.
says of the 700,000 people who live in the district, it is estimated that 10,000 of those 700
,000 are spies living undercover in Washington,
D.C.
This is a city filled with... contractors, military personnel, people who are actively working in
the U.S. government, and some of your co-workers, if you live there and work there, are selling
secrets or sending secrets to the homeland. By the way, the FBI agrees with that estimate of 10
,000 spies in Washington, D.C.
Now, that probably doesn't surprise you, especially if you grew up during the Cold War, because we
were all attuned to the fact that There were spies and that we were sending spies.
That's a part of how statecraft works. It's how things operate in the modern world.
But the question that that brings to mind for us this morning is, would it surprise you to know
that the Bible tells us that we should be on the lookout for men and women among us who are working
for foreign intelligence, working for a different king, who are purposefully and actively seeking
to undermine the ministry of the gospel? This is clear throughout Scripture,
this idea that there will be people in local churches whose intent will be to disrupt and destroy
the ministry of the gospel. If that's news to you, it shouldn't be news if you read your Bible.
The Bible's full of warnings to be alert, to be on guard, to expect to see wolves in sheep's
clothing. Jesus used that phrase in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, beware of false prophets who
come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will recognize them by their fruit. One commentator said,
and he's the only one I saw who said this, but he said it used to be that the rabbis would wear
wool as they would wear woolen robes. So a wolf in sheep's clothing dressed as a rabbi wearing the
clothing of sheep, the wool from sheep. But the metaphor is a good one. They look like sheep.
They're disguised.
Paul warned about false teachers coming in. In fact, in Acts chapter 20, after two plus years of
living in Ephesus, when he's getting ready to leave the Ephesian church to continue his church
planning efforts, he gathers the elders from Ephesus together and he gives a farewell address in
Acts chapter 20. And in that, he says this, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come
in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted
things to draw away the disciples after them. By the way,
it happened just as Paul said it would happen later when Paul wrote to Timothy,
who was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. He called out two men,
Hymenaeus and Philetus. who he said they have wandered from the truth. They say the resurrection
has already taken place and they destroy the faith of some. Paul said this is going to happen when
he was in Ephesus. And later he writes and says, it's happening to you now, Timothy.
He also calls out James and Jambres, men who he said opposed the truth, who men corrupted in mind
and disqualified regarding the faith. Now, That's Paul.
You read through 1 John and over and over again, John is warning people, I write to you because
there are some who deny the faith. They are not brothers. They're outside. If anyone says this,
he's not of Christ. I could go on and on, but you get the point. Over and over again in the New
Testament, there are warnings that we are to be on guard against the presence of false...
teachers who will come in among us, be in our midst. We should count on it. We're to expect it.
We're to confront them when it happens. That's what we're told to do. And that's what the book of
Jude that we're looking at is all about. It's teaching us to be alert to and prepared for and to
recognize and to rebuke false teachers, to see them for who they are. They are foreign agents
infiltrating churches. working, whether they realize it or not, in league with the enemy.
We looked last week at Jude's instruction that we are to contend for the faith earnestly. We're to
know it, we're to believe it, we're to live it, we're to tell others about it. This is Jude's
strategy for how we deal with false teachers. Ground yourself in the truth so that the presence of
false teachers, you'll be aware of it, you'll recognize it because you're so truth-saturated.
In the book of Acts, the Bereans are commended for testing everything that was said to them and
examining it according to the truth. That's what we're to do as well. And Jude says when false
teachers arise, you should not try to reason with them. You should not agree to disagree and
attempt to keep the peace on issues of the faith. And let me just point out, there is a difference
between a confused sheep and a wolf in sheep's clothing. So somebody comes along and they're
confused, they're not sure, they're questioning, I've always wondered about this, I'm not sure
about that, I've been thinking about this. If somebody is a confused sheep, then yes,
you deal gently with that bruised reed, but if somebody is teaching, if somebody is promoting to
others false doctrine, you don't try to rescue that person, you rebuke that person.
They are to be exposed and condemned. In fact, in the book of Galatians,
Paul says, there came a point where I had to publicly expose Peter because he was drifting from the
gospel of grace and was trying to add circumcision, was trying to find a middle way between the
Judaizers and those who were teaching the gospel. Paul says, I opposed him publicly to his face.
So this alarm that Jude is sounding in this book has been sounded throughout the history of God's
people. It's in the Old Testament. It's in the New Testament. There is an enemy, we need to
recognize, who is wholly committed to undermining whatever will bring glory to God.
One of the tactics that the father of lies uses is to raise up men and women.
who twist the truth, lead people away from the faith once for all committed to the saints.
Jude says, you need to know that it's coming, it's here, you need to know how to deal with it,
and you need to know what to look for. And you need to know that in the end, the gates of hell will
not prevail against the work of the church. The false teachers will be condemned and destroyed.
God will ultimately judge the false teachers.
We looked last Sunday at verse 3, and this morning we're going to look at verse 4. And for those of
you who are anxious, we're not going to do a verse every week, but just at this beginning, we're
kind of getting our footing as we head into this book. So I'm going to read verse 4.
Actually, I'll read verses 3 and 4 to set the stage for what we're going to talk about this
morning. Before I read this passage, let me pray for our time in God's Word. Father, we need you.
We need your Spirit to be at work in our hearts. We confess that our minds are often dull.
It's easy for us to get distracted. We can be thinking about other things.
Give us ears to hear and give us hearts to obey as we hear your word.
Teach us, we pray, this morning.
Amen. Jude, verses 3 and 4, you follow along as I read.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Beloved, although I was very eager,
to write you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend
for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who
long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God
into sensuality. and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word
of God stands forever. So verse four is all about what I'm calling the creepers,
okay? They are the creepers. They're creeping in unaware. These creepers have crept in.
Jude says this is no surprise to God that there are creepers in our midst. He also says their
outcome is certain. God will judge them. And he gives us in this verse four characteristics of
these creepers. What you will see when they come in. He says, first of all, they are ungodly.
Secondly, they presume upon the grace of God. Third, they follow in their own desires and
appetites. And fourth, they reject God's authority. Now,
before we look at those four characteristics, I want to back up and look at how creepers get into
the church. So Jude doesn't name names as he starts this. He's not saying,
I know who the false teachers are. He's saying certain people have crept in.
He apparently is alert to the fact that there are false teachers among the churches to whom he's
writing. He may know them by name, but he just refers to them as certain people. There's a little
hint of disdain. There's a little, yeah, certain people.
Verse 8, he talks about these people. He says that again in verse 10.
These people blaspheme. Verse 8, these people defile the flesh and reject authority. Verse 10,
they blaspheme. Verse 16, these people are grumblers, malcontents. They follow their own sinful
desires. They're loud mouth boasters. Verse 19, they cause division. They're worldly. They're
devoid of the spirit. In fact, the description of the certain people that he's talking about in
verse 4 is then unpacked for us in verses 5 through 19. 1 through 4 is kind of the introduction to
the letter. 5 through 19 is a long description of what the false teachers, what's going on in the
lives of these false teachers. And then there's a conclusion in verses 20 through 25. Now,
if you ask me, do I think that there are any of these people, any of these certain people at our
church, I would say, no, no, I don't think so. I don't see anybody. who I think fits this
description, and Jude would say, yeah, that's the point. They creep in unaware.
They don't come in with a hat that says, make false teaching great again,
okay? They're not people who advertise that they are false teachers.
They don't stand out. At first blush, the person that Jude is describing in this letter is somebody
who looks like he fits in.
They're hidden. The British pastor Dick Lewis says we should not be fooled. He said, those who have
wormed their way in with a different kind of Christianity do not represent a refreshing change or a
lost tradition. They come in as a serious danger. So one of the things,
and I think this quote from Lucas helps us, some people will come in and say, you know, there's a
new way of looking at these verses, a new way that has just come to light.
in recent years. It's kind of a new twist on the way the church has seen it for a long time. Your
antenna should go up when you hear that. Or things need to be updated.
I mean, this is 2023. We can't just be stuck in old traditional ways.
Now listen, when we're talking about tradition, that's one thing. But when we're talking about
deviating from what God's Word says, because it doesn't sync up with modern culture,
that's an antenna sign you're dealing with somebody who's a false teacher.
They're going to be subtle. Like I said, they're not going to advertise their false teachers.
And instead of just coming out with a declaration that everybody will recognize as false teaching,
a false teacher who creeps in unawares is the kind of person who says, you know, I've always
wondered if maybe, and then they say something that sounds a little off.
And it's not like they're saying, They're convinced with that. They're just raising the question.
Remember what the original false teacher did? Did God really say that?
He didn't say, God's a liar, because Adam and Eve might have gone, oh, no,
no, God's not a liar. But when he says, have you ever thought about it this way? Have you ever
wondered? Maybe this is true. That's how false teachers operate.
They interject half-truths. Things like, you know, God's a God of love.
Is that true? Yes. Is that the whole truth? Well, yes, but it has to be fully understood.
That's not his exclusive attribute. It is a defining attribute,
but when a half-truth masquerades as a whole truth,
it's an untruth. It's part of the technique that a false teacher will use.
So we should not expect that a false teacher at the beginning will use some dramatic words of
heresy. Rather than denying the truth outright, these apostates simply twist it a little bit.
Adjust it a little bit. Have you ever thought about it this way? Maybe this is true. We see this
happening all the time. In fact, I'm going to give you an example, a contemporary example, of how
we have seen this happening over the last several years. And let me just say here,
I'm going to be bringing up some names during this series, and I take no delight or pleasure in
that. In fact, I wrestled with... I leave it anonymous? Do I name names?
How do I do this? And then I read Jude and goes, it looks like you need to expose false teaching
when it's false teaching.
I'll just say, Jude says, contend earnestly for the faith. And some of you are like, yeah, let me
add it. There's an unhealthy desire to want to be a fighter for truth.
That can be an unhealthy carnal desire. There should always be. a little bit of a broken heart when
you're having to expose somebody who's a false teacher. But one of the people who's known in
Christian circles today who is demonstrating increasingly that he is a false teacher is leading
tens of thousands of people down the wrong path. And as I said, no joy for me 20 years ago,
I did a marriage event at his church.
But five years ago, Andy Stanley, who's the pastor at North Point Church in Alpharetta, Georgia,
released a book called Irresistible, reclaiming the new that Jesus unleashed for the world.
And part of what he was arguing in this book is that the idea that is a problem for Christianity in
our day is that we rely too much on the Old Testament in what we teach. Here's what he said.
He said,
our incessant habit of reaching back into the Old Covenant concepts, teachings, sayings,
and narratives. So he called church leaders, he said, would you consider unhitching your teaching
of what it means to follow Jesus from all things Old Covenant? This is necessary because when it
comes to stumbling blocks to the faith, the Old Testament is right up there at the top of the list.
Now hang on, time out. The Old Testament is a stumbling block too.
to the things of God?
I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time unpacking this argument, why it's flawed,
explaining what's false here. I hope it's self-evident. I'll just say that all you need to know to
answer the question about unhitching from the Old Testament is what Jesus said in the Sermon on the
Mount when he said, I did not come to abolish the law and the prophets.
I came to fulfill them. I did not come to unhitch you from The Old Testament,
I came to fulfill it. I am the culmination of it. To suggest that God's revelation to us needs to
be set aside because it's a stumbling block for the gospel,
that's false teaching. That's more than just an alternate viewpoint or a strategic approach to
ministry. And again, there's no delight in saying this or calling out Andy Stanley.
calling him a false teacher, but if I read Jude correctly, that's part of my job to call him out.
And there's more going on with Andy Stanley right now, which we're going to come to as we go
through this again, because you just need to be aware of it. He's one of dozens of examples.
I mean, as I thought about this, I said, it's not just Andy Stanley. I mean, I could tell you about
Serene Jones, who's a seminary president, who says she doesn't believe in miracles,
heaven, or the resurrection.
I could tell you about a popular megachurch pastor in Dallas, T.D. Jakes,
who does not believe in what the Bible says about the Trinity. I could tell you about a British
pastor named Steve Chalk, who's a Baptist pastor who said that the idea that God would somehow
punish his only son for our sins amounts to divine child abuse.
We could talk about Rob Bell or Brian McLaren or Nadia Bowles-Weber. There are lots of people I
could talk to you about who, in the life of the church today, have been pulling people away from
the truth we're to contend for, the truth once for all delivered to the saints.
And this is the reason, by the way, why God, in his divine wisdom,
said in local churches there need to be elders, undershepherds, whose job it is to guard the flock
through diligent oversight of the congregation.
These need to be men who have their antenna up, who are discerning, who know what to keep an eye
out for,
men for whom the truth of God is a priority, the truth of his word is a priority,
and a capable under-shepherd is somebody who does four things. He leads, feeds,
guards, and guides. That's what an elder is to do. lead people spiritually,
feed them spiritually, guard them spiritually, guide them spiritually. And if an elder in a local
church sees somebody he's concerned about, he confronts. He doesn't say, well, I'm sure they mean
well. No, he has sheep to protect. I'm grateful that in the 15 years that we've been a church,
God has given us faithful, wise, humble, godly men. to serve as elders,
men who take this responsibility seriously, men who, I think, know what are the right hills on
which to die, men who guard the trust. But a good under-shepherd has to stay alert.
Not paranoid, not heresy hunters, not looking around going, where's the false teacher? But always
on guard, always alert, because false teachers will creep in unaware.
Jude says, be sure, This will happen.
Beware of the certain people who creep in. He says, by the way, these certain people who creep in
have long ago been designated for condemnation. That word,
long ago designated, programma, programma,
annoy. I can't even say it. It can mean long ago foretold.
It can also mean foretold in writing. So some see Jude's statement here as a reference back to
something that Peter says in 2 Peter 2, where he says that their condemnation is from long ago,
it's not idle, their destruction is not asleep. He may be saying, Peter wrote this down and it's
happening now. But it could also mean long ago as in this has been God's...
declaration to his people since the beginning to be on guard against false teachers and that God
will pour out his wrath on false teachers. In fact, like we said, who is the first false teacher
you read about in the Bible? It's a serpent in the garden. He's the first false teacher. Comes
along and says, has God said? What was his strategy? Have Adam and Eve start to question whether
they could trust God and his word. That's the M.O. for false teachers. Erode confidence.
in God and in his word. The serpent, the devil, is the father of lies and false teachers are his
disciples. In fact, Jesus said that to the Pharisees. When he confronted them about their false
teaching, he said, you are blind guides, you're false teachers, you're a brood of vipers, you are
of your father, the devil.
And so what does God do to the serpent when the serpent is a false teacher.
He announces judgment. He announces a curse. Genesis 3.14, the Lord God said to the serpent,
because you've done this, cursed are you above all livestock, above all beasts of the field. On
your belly you will go, dust you will eat all the days of your life. So if that's what God did with
the first false teacher, the pattern is set. There will be judgment and condemnation for those who
engage in false teaching. False teachers are designated for condemnation.
Now, That may bring up the question here. Since I just identified Andy Stanley as a false teacher,
does this mean that I'm saying that he is designated for condemnation? The answer to that is I
would not presume to make that judgment because that's not my job to declare how God is going to
respond to Andy Stanley. That's between God and Andy Stanley. But I would say to Andy Stanley if he
was here, that he needs to be on guard, that the Bible says we who teach will be judged with a
greater strictness. He needs to be very careful in his teaching, and I see error in what he's doing
that's at a critical level, and he needs to guard his own soul.
And I'll say this too, by the way. I think a lot of times people whose passion it is to see men and
women come into the kingdom of God, come to faith in Christ, people who have that want to take down
whatever barriers they see that are keeping people from Jesus. I want people to come to know Jesus.
I'm going to remove whatever barriers are in the way so that they can come. That's a good impulse.
The problem is some of those barriers God has put in place for a purpose, you should not be taking
down barriers that God has established. with the goal of maybe I'll just get people to Jesus.
No, if you take down the barriers, some of these barriers, you're not bringing them to faith at
all.
I don't know Andy Stanley. I don't know his heart, his motives, but I'm looking at what he's
teaching. I'm confident Jude would tell us, you've got to watch out here.
We saw earlier Jude gives us this overview in verse 4 of the four characteristics, and I want to
spend a little time going through that. One of the characteristics of a false teacher is that he
is... Ungodly.
Asabes. Different forms of this word show up five times in this letter.
It's a word that means a lack of interest in the things of God and a behavior and lifestyle
consistent with that lack of interest. An ungodly person is somebody who just doesn't care about
God.
He's not on that person's radar.
His behavior and his lifestyle are then consistent with the fact that God is not an issue for him.
In simple terms, an ungodly person is choosing to live as if God does not exist,
and without regard for him, it means that I'm living as if God does not exist.
There is a moral component to this word of ungodliness. If I call somebody ungodly,
I say, this person is so ungodly, you're going to think that that person is demonstrating
immorality. And likely they are, as we'll see as we go through this. False teachers often indulge
in open immorality. But the immorality is a manifestation of a heart that says,
I don't care about God.
Their ungodliness at its root is not the moral response, it is the lack of regard for God.
That's why they're immoral, because they're not following God, they're following their own
appetites.
They're not interested in God, not worried about God. God's not on their radar, doesn't factor into
their thinking or their behavior. And that's what leads them into flagrant immorality. Now,
let me be clear here. Jude is telling us that what is ultimately true about false teachers,
but not what they would claim about themselves, certainly. A false teacher does not say, yes, I'm
an ungodly person. Yes, I don't have any interest in God. In fact, a false teacher will often say
the opposite.
People appear to have a love for Jesus and might even have moral character in what they're doing.
Remember, they creep in unaware. If they crept in wholly immoral and with no regard for God,
they'd stand out.
If you'd asked the people in Jesus' day, do you think that the Pharisees are ungodly? They would
have said, are you kidding? They're the most godly people we know. And yet Jesus comes along and
says, no, they're not. Their heart is far from God. Just because somebody is nice and kind and
gentle and says, I love Jesus, that doesn't mean that they are godly in their heart,
which is another question we need to ask in the midst of this. It's not just,
are they nice and kind and gentle, and do they say, I love Jesus? Does what they believe and what
they tell others line up with the faith once for all delivered to the saints? If it doesn't,
they have unplugged themselves from the authority of God's word and are following something else,
and that's what makes them
ungodly. As we'll see as we go through this, oftentimes there is immoral behavior that follows
that, but it's not always the case. They're ungodly. They don't care about God or His ways. They
also, according to this passage, presume upon the grace of God. Not only do they not care about God
and His ways, they pervert the grace of God. That's how Jude says it. Now, what does that mean?
This means that these people look at the the grace of God and assume that because God is gracious
and forgives our sins, then it's okay to sin at will. To abuse or pervert the grace of God is to
assume that you don't need to be pursuing godliness, righteousness, or holiness in your life.
You can live however you want and God will excuse it or forgive it. The term we use about people
today, the word we use when we talk about people who presume on the grace of God,
is the term antinomianism. Anti means against, nomos is the law.
They are against the law. So God's moral law in the Bible, things like the Ten Commandments,
they say, we're not under the law. We don't have to worry about the law. We're free from the law.
We live by grace. An antinomian sees obedience. to God's moral law as optional.
They think God has promised to forgive me, so it doesn't really matter how I live.
Now, is that true? Once you're saved, can you live however you want? Well, the question,
I've said this before, is not can I live however I want. The question is how do you want to live?
If you're somebody who says, well, I want to live in sin. I want to indulge the flesh.
I want to just go after whatever my appetites. I would say, time out. I thought... I thought you
were a Christian. I thought you were saying that God had changed your life and that God had given
you new desires, new affections, new passions. So why do you still want to pursue these things?
The person who says, I don't need to worry about sinning because God's forgive, that person is
presuming on or perverting God's grace.
And false teachers do this. They sin in secret with impunity.
They presume that they can sin. And they don't have to worry about it. So here's a question for all
of us. When you sin, and we all do, when that happens,
is your conscience pricked? Do you grieve that you have sinned?
Is there regret? You read David when he confesses his sin and you see the regret in Psalm 53,
Psalm 32, where David is confessing his sin and he's saying, I look at what I've done and I hate
what I've done. Paul said the same thing. There are things I hate I end up doing. Do you hate the
fact that you continue in sin? Or are you casual about that and go,
I don't need to worry about it. I'm under grace.
That's a key diagnostic question. If when you sin, if you're a true child of God,
the Holy Spirit who lives within you will bring the work of conviction to bring your conscience to
bear and will awaken your conscience. So that there will be grieving,
sorrow. There'll be a desire to confess and repent and to get right with God.
There will not be a no big deal response from the Holy Spirit. That's not what's there.
So if that's your response to your sin, not a big deal, I'm under grace.
I knew guys in college who would say, you know, I can get drunk on Saturday night and just go
confess it the next morning. That's how it works.
Time out.
You love getting drunk on Saturday night?
What do you think Jesus thinks about that?
False teachers will live without regard for God. They are ungodly.
They presume upon his grace. And then they are also led by their appetites.
That's the third thing. The word sensuality. So they pervert the grace of God for sensuality.
They are, it's a word that's typically tied to sexual pleasure and greed. Not only are false
teachers often consumed by a desire for money or power or lust, but these false teachers also teach
that there's no real problem with money or power or lust. You look at false teachers in our day,
one category of false teaching in the church today is what's called the prosperity gospel,
which is built on a foundation of greed. God wants you to be rich,
to prosper, to have all you want. He wants you to have material blessing. That's his promise to
you. You should want that too. That's a false gospel. That's false teaching.
It's built on greed and the appetites of the flesh, and it's not in line with what the Bible...
In fact, you want to know... God's view about how rich you should be. Look at the prayer in
Proverbs 30 where the prayer is, give me neither poverty nor riches. Don't give me so much that
I'll forget who you are. Don't give me so little I'll be tempted to steal.
God, provide for my needs. Give me what I need today. Seek first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness. What you need will be added unto you. Don't make that your focus.
So false teachers. For greed will sometimes pervert the gospel. There are other false teachers
among progressives and liberals in Christianity who have set aside what the Bible teaches about sex
being a gift from God for men and women in a monogamous marriage relationship to enjoy as part of
the covenant bond of marriage. And so now we have churches that... Endorse cohabitation.
Some churches that have ceremonies for cohabitation. Not married, but we're just blessing your
cohabitation. Same-sex unions being affirmed by churches. These are ways in which sensuality is
ruling the day. Whether it's lust for money, lust for power, lust for sex.
We'll see more of this as we go through Jude because it's one of the things that Jude calls out.
So ungodly people who pervert the grace of God, For sensuality, and then the last characteristic is
that they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now there are some questions here,
just as an interpretive issue, some questions from scholars here who are saying, does Jude have in
mind two persons of the Trinity, the Father and the Son, when he says they deny our only Master,
God the Father, and Lord Jesus Christ? Or is Jude calling Jesus Lord and Master?
And scholars will debate that. I think that Jude is using Master and Lord both to apply to Jesus,
his half-brother. The words are closely related in their meaning.
The word translated Master here is despotin. It means one who has sovereign supreme authority.
We get our word despot from despotin. So a despot is somebody whose authority cannot be challenged.
The word translated Lord is kurios. It's the word that means possessor or master or owner.
So despotin, when you see that word in the Bible, it most often refers to God the Father as the
sovereign one. And that's why some people will say, well, Jude is talking here about... people
denying God the Father and God the Son. But I think Jude is using a word commonly used to refer to
God the Father, despotin, the sovereign one, and saying this word belongs to Jesus too. He is equal
with the Father as despotin and kurios, Master and Lord.
And what the false teachers are guilty of here... according to David Helm,
is willful rebellion, refusing to submit to Jesus Christ, our only sovereign and Lord.
They are engaged in a reckless self-indulgence. These men have not grasped,
or they refuse to grasp, the extent of Jesus Christ's sovereignty, so they feel free to play fast
and loose with. loose with it. As Luther says, they consider not him as their Lord, but themselves
as their own Lord. That's the issue. These are anti-authoritarian. These are men and women who
say, I will not be under God's authority. I will exercise my own authority.
I will have no despotene over me.
So they deny the right of Jesus to rule and reign as master and Lord because they want to keep
their own ability. to be their own authority. There are two ways you can deny Jesus is Master and
Lord. One is to stand on the street corner and say, I deny Jesus is Master and Lord. You can do it
publicly. You can write your argument. You can say that. But there's another way to deny that Jesus
is your Master and Lord, and that's by living in such a way that you deny that Jesus is your Master
and Lord. The choices you make, the way you choose to live.
demonstrates that you do not come under, you do not submit yourself to the lordship of Christ.
So here are men who have crept into the church unaware. They are unlikely to be denying Jesus as
master and lord publicly.
It's showing up in how they live, in the choices they make. They are refusing to submit to his
authority in their life. When they are confronted with this is what the word of God says, they find
a way to wiggle out from under it. and thus deny the lordship of Christ.
By the way, this is at the crux of the issue for modern false teachers. They refuse to submit to
the authority of God's word. When they find parts of the Bible that they disagree with, they don't
want to submit themselves to, they come up with a fresh interpretation. They write a new book about
why there's a new way to think about this.
They bring it up to date. They bring it into the modern world. They use... exegetical and
hermeneutical tricks to try to bypass the parts of the Bible they don't like. They say things like,
you know, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and think that somehow that means it's
okay, that the other parts of the Bible we can dismiss if Jesus didn't say anything.
There are some people who call themselves red-letter Christians. Have you ever heard that phrase?
That means I give special emphasis to the red letters in my Bible, what Jesus said.
Well, The problem with that is Jesus gave special emphasis to the black letters.
So if you're going to give attention to what Jesus said, pay attention to what he said about the
black letters. And don't just be a red letter Christian.
Alistair Begg sums up the characteristics of these false teachers in verse 4, saying simply and
concisely this way, by perverting grace into sensuality, they show themselves to be ungodly,
and in doing so, they deny Jesus. That's what verse 4 is saying. By perverting grace into
sensuality, they come to show themselves as ungodly, and in doing so, they're denying Jesus. And
all of that sets us up for where we're headed as we dig deeper into the rest of this letter,
verses 5 through 19, where Jude is going to demonstrate that there have been disruptive false
teachers throughout the history of God's people. He's going to take us back and show us false
teachers through the Old Testament, and we'll start looking at that. next week. But here's what's
critical for us this morning as we look at this. Charles Spurgeon has rightly said, Satan knows
right well that one devil in the church can do far more than a thousand devils outside her bounds.
This is critical that we be on guard against the false sheep,
the ones who are wolves in sheep's clothing. You let a wolf into the sheep pen and sheep are going
to get eaten.
And I made this point last week, but I want to make sure we keep this in mind. As we defend the
faith, as we contend for the faith, as we're called to do here, we need to make sure that what
we're contending for is at the core, the essentials. We have to be careful that you don't brand
somebody as a false teacher or a heretic because they have a different understanding than you on
secondary issues. I see this on Twitter all the time. It's one reason not to go on Twitter.
It's because it's there all the time. It's people who are saying, this person's a false teacher
because their view on a secondary matter differs from mine. I could show you example after example.
These are people who are disrupting the God-designed unity of the church for things that are not
the core.
I copied down a quote years ago. I copied this down. I didn't note who it's from.
So I can't tell you who this is from, but I agree with it. So whoever said it, I agree. To reject
brethren who do not agree with us on incidentals is arrogance of the rankest sort.
It is an open defiance of Ephesians 4.3, which admonishes us to keep the unity of the spirit and
the bond of peace. It is a haughty spirit that teaches for doctrine the commandments of men.
It is an evil spirit that brands brethren as false teachers who do not agree with the party line.
At the same time that that's true, Jude tells us we are to expose and confront someone who is
indeed a false teacher, someone who departs from what Christians for centuries have believed and
taught on the fundamentals, issues like the resurrection, issues like the gospel, the deity of
Christ, the authority of God's word. To not expose those people is dangerous.
and disobedient. So you can see, you've got to be careful as you straddle this fence.
There may be people in your midst who know Greek that you don't know. They may have seminary
degrees. They may be polite and nice to children or nice to old ladies. But if they deny that Jesus
is God or salvation is by grace through faith alone, it doesn't matter how nice they are or how
much Greek they know, they are false teachers.
They're heretics.
And no one enjoys declaring that. If you get delight out of publicly exposing a false teacher,
you have a problem.
Those declarations should be made through tears.
But the church has to be warned it is the job of shepherds to guard the sheep. And it's the job of
every follower of Jesus to know his or her Bible. That's the only way you can be on guard against
false teachers. You've got to know your Bible. J.C. Ryle says, ignorance of the Bible is the root
of all error. For your own soul's sake, he says,
dare to make up your mind what you believe. Dare to have positive, distinct views of truth and
error. Never, yes, never be afraid to hold decided doctrinal opinions.
And let no fear of man... morbid dread of being thought party-spirited,
narrow, or controversial make you rest contented with a bloodless, boneless,
tasteless, colorless, lukewarm, undogmatic Christianity. I like that quote.
And I keep in mind that that call to robust dogmatism also needs to be a call to gentle dogmatism.
That's what Tozer said. Tozer said we need people who are gently dogmatic.
People who, Winston Churchill said the good thing about a bulldog is that he can keep his grip and
still breathe. You know, his nose is slanted back so he can maintain his grip while he's still
breathing. We need to be people who are gently dogmatic, who can still breathe while we hang on to
the truth.
So, do you know your Bible well enough? to spot a false teacher. If you don't, what are you going
to do about that? How are you going to grow in your knowledge and understanding of God's Word? This
is part of the answer to that, but this can't be the whole answer. Because you need more warning
than that. You've got to be in the Word on your own. You've got to know how to study the Bible on
your own. You've got to get other help around you. Listen to podcasts. Read books that will help
you. Get in small groups. Be with other believers. You need to be a diligent student of God's Word.
And here's an equally important question for us this morning. These characteristics of false
teachers we talked about?
Being unconcerned about God, that kind of ungodliness, presuming on God's grace, being led by your
own appetites and desires instead of being led by God's word, denying that Jesus is your Lord by
how you live. Does any of that sound like you?
Are you ever guilty of being unconcerned about God and his ways? Being ungodly that way?
Do you ever presume upon the grace of God and go, ah, not a big deal. God forgives.
Are you ever led by your own appetites and desires instead of being led by the Spirit, led by God's
Word?
Do you deny that Jesus is your Master and Lord by how you live your life at times?
Any of that sound like you? If so, the question is, have you really surrendered your life to Jesus?
A lot of people in a lot of churches these days who say, I love Jesus,
but they don't know what they're talking about.
God. is at work here this morning. The question is, is he working in your heart? Is he nudging you
to say, if you're honest with yourself, you have more in common with false teachers than you do
with committed followers of Christ. If that's the case, God wants you to turn to him,
turn away from that, follow him, repent,
call out to him, confess your sins, surrender, receive his gift of new life and salvation today.
We've been turning up the heat just so you could know what it'll feel like if you don't do that,
okay? I'm kidding. I just had to acknowledge that. I don't know yet. We'll see what we can do.
We just turned it back down again.