What Goes Around Comes Around
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
There is really nothing new under the sun. There are a lot of false gods and religions out there and a lot of heresies, but they are really the same old heresies that are repackaged over and over again.
When you go fishing, if a bait is working, why change your lure. Satan just keeps deceiving with the same old lies he’s always used.
To make matters worse, we tend to not teach our children these lies and warn them, so the next generation comes along and thinks they have a new way figured out to do things and they end up coming up with the same problems and shortcomings as the previous one, with maybe a little different window dressing on it.
That’s the message that Jude was trying to teach the church. He wanted them to know that “what goes around, comes around.”
1. False Teachers Rely on Subjective, Personal Experience Rather than God’s Objective Word (v.8)
1. False Teachers Rely on Subjective, Personal Experience Rather than God’s Objective Word (v.8)
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
A person can make an argument that they had a vision and a personal experience that validates that God has told them something.
This is nothing new. Even false teachers dream dreams and have visions. What God has always given as the litmus test and guide is the Word of God to prove if the vision or dream is true or not.
One of the largest religions in the world and at the heart of part of the problem in the middle east is Islam. It was founded by a man named Muhammed that claimed to have a vision from God where an angel visited him. Muhammed himself believed he was possessed.
Think about every other religion. I won’t just single out Islam. There are some heretical, so-called Christians groups that have had the same experience. David Koresh; Jim Jones; Ellen White. Any of those name ring a bell?
These people all claimed to have had a vision from God to guide them in the “real” truth. But all of them taught heresy.
In Jude’s day, gnosticism was taking root. It heavily promoted mysticism. The secret, personal revelations of the gnosis were what enlightened people and brought them closer to the divine.
This gnosticism, or mysticism is creeping into the church today.
Jen Johnson is one of the leading singers for Jesus Culture and out of Bethel Church in Redding, WA. She has said numerous times that she believes the Holy Spirit is like the genie from Aladdin and He’s blue and tricky. This comes straight out of Middle Eastern paganism.
There is the insistence of church members in using personality profiles and tests to get to know themselves more clearly. I don’t want to know the real me. I’m the chief of sinners.
These false teachers in Jude’s day were depending on these visions. Whether they really believed they had seen these things or not is irrelevant. Whether you truly believe your experience was true or not is irrelevant. The mind can play tricks on us. We can be deceived.
The only verifiable source that is absolutely true is God’s Word. It will never be subject to personal bias if we rightly divide the Word and we will have a testament that will last throughout the ages.
The Church is called to guard that truth and is a pillar and buttress of the truth.
2. They Defile the Flesh (v.8)
2. They Defile the Flesh (v.8)
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
Could be referring to insistence on asceticism and keeping the Law
Could also be referring to the promiscuity and sexual immorality of the false teachers.
Sometimes both can happen at the same time.
When Warren Jeffs was arrested, who was the leader of the FLDS cult in Utah and Arizona and Texas, he was wearing what he had banned in the community and was living what he called a Gentile lifestyle. He insisted on the women wearing a certain form of dress and a certain hairstyle.
These false teachers always insist on others following a different pattern than they are willing to follow themselves.
They may be at one extreme of the spectrum or the other. Either extreme legalism or extreme libertarianism.
3. They Reject Authority (v.8)
3. They Reject Authority (v.8)
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
The Bible tells us over and over again to respect the authority figures that God has placed over our lives.
Church Leaders
Employers
Husbands
Parents
Government
These false teachers believe themselves to be the ultimate authority. No one is allowed to challenge their opinion. They are right and everyone is wrong that disagrees.
It is the epitome of arrogance and is exactly the type of pride that Satan had when He fell from grace before the world was created.
4. They Follow the Examples from the Past (vv. 9-11)
4. They Follow the Examples from the Past (vv. 9-11)
9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
11 Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.
Examples:
-Michael and Satan - apocryphal reference to the Assumption of Moses
-Cain - murderous hate
-Balaam - greed
-Korah - disrespecting authority
Conclusion