Friday, February 15, 2019

The Letter Of Jude, The Lord's Brother. Day 4, False Prophets/The Good Example Of The Archangel Michael/The Ability Of Animals To Recognize Angels

In his denunciation of ungodly persons and false teachers, Jude gives us a good example to follow. The ungodly of his day (and of all eras) rejected the authority of God and had no qualms about saying horrible things of God's faithful angels whom He created to minister to mankind. Jude will show us that even the high-ranking archangel Michael didn't dare to speak out against the fallen angel Satan, but left Satan's judgment up to God. Jude will tell us that when we reject the authority of beings superior to us, we are making ourselves lower than even the least intelligent creature on the earth.

First Jude talks of the bad example of the ungodly who claim to have license to live immorally because of dreams or visions they've had. Then he rebukes them for despising authority. "In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings." (Jude 1:8) When he says "in the same way" he's referring back to the passages we studied over the past three days which make comparisons between the sexual immorality of his own day and the sexual immorality of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In claiming to have had dreams and visions from the Lord, these ungodly men are false prophets. They can't be true prophets of God, for God would never tell them it's alright to commit sexual immorality. We know they are indulging in sexual immorality because Jude tells us they are polluting their own bodies. The Apostle Paul refers to the same type of bodily pollution in 1 Corinthians 6:18, "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body." We don't often think about the possibility of sinning against ourselves. We know that when we disobey God's laws and commandments we are sinning against Him and against our fellow man. But when we sin sexually we are actually sinning against ourselves. We are doing a grave disservice to ourselves in a number of ways, for sexual sin affects our physical bodies along with our emotions, our minds, and our spirits. God has not given His blessing on any sexual union except the one that takes place within a monogamous marriage. Any other type of sexual activity has the potential to infect us with disease, to make us feel depressed and emotionally dissatisfied and disconnected, and to create a spiritual distance between us and our Creator due to living in opposition to His laws.

It's bad enough that these pretenders are polluting their own bodies and influencing others to do the same. But they are outspoken against anyone or anything that has a higher level of authority than they have. In their hearts they actually despise God and do not want to submit to His authority over them. Since they have little regard for Him, they have no regard for the ministering spirits (the angels) that He created. Jude says they "heap abuse on celestial beings". Some scholars interpret this as meaning they are being abusive to the apostles and leaders of the church. The reason they say this is because Jude uses the Greek word "doxa" which has been translated in the NIV as "celestial beings". This Greek word can mean "glory, honor, splendor, majesty". It can also mean "to accept a common belief". So we can see how some scholars believe Jude is saying that the ungodly reject the glory of God, refuse to give Him honor, do not stay true to the word of God and to the message of the gospel, and are abusive to those who are preaching the truth. While no doubt these things are true of the men whose character Jude laments, it appears that they do dare to speak out against God's angels. We know this because as we study verse 8 in context with verses 9 and 10 we will find Jude pointing out that even the archangel Michael, who holds a great deal of authority over the heavenly armies of God, did not even dare to do such a thing. Michael, as a faithful angel of God, may have had the right to verbally rebuke a fallen angel, but he did not.

"But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, 'The Lord rebuke you!'" (Jude 1:9) We don't know how Jude has been made aware of this altercation between Michael and Satan. There was an apocryphal book known as The Assumption Of Moses (also known as The Ascension Of Moses) which was in existence in Jude's day. Only fragments of the book remain, but it is believed Jude was very familiar with what it contained. In quoting from it, he treats the material as factual, thus granting it the status of inspired Scripture. I am very wary of all the apocryphal books of the first century AD, and there is good reason why most of them have not been included in the Bible, but in this case I can only assume that the Lord's brother Jude would not quote from an apocryphal book unless he knew that the dispute between Michael and Satan really took place.

In Deuteronomy 34:5-6 we read about the death of Moses, "And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is." We are told that the Lord buried Moses, but this doesn't have to mean that He buried him personally with His own hands. When someone in authority orders a subordinate to perform a task, it is the same as if the person in authority performed the task himself. Jude seems to be saying that God sent the archangel Michael to bury the body of Moses. While Michael was performing this task, Satan showed up to argue with him.

Why would Satan want to tangle with Michael over a dead man's body? A number of reasons have been suggested by scholars and theologians. The most prevalent theory is that that Satan wanted the location of Moses' body known so Israel would revere Moses as a god. Having so recently come from the idolatrous nation of Egypt, the danger was very real that Moses' body might have become an object of idolatry. There's nothing Satan wants more than to be worshiped himself, but if he can't achieve that, he thinks the next best thing is to persuade man to worship anyone or anything but God.

Even Michael, who was performing a task on the orders of God, did not personally heap accusations or words of condemnation on Satan. If someone of Michael's status didn't rebuke the wicked Satan, then man has no right to speak out against God's faithful angels, as apparently some were doing in Jude's day. Jude predicts a dire fate for them. "Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do not understand by instinct---as irrational animals do---will destroy them." (Jude 1:10) He says, "Even the animal kingdom recognizes and respects the spiritual realm, but these ungodly men have reduced themselves to a level lower than animals who possess less intelligence than man. They are living so far from their Creator that they have no respect for God's ministering spirits."

Tomorrow we will go further into the subject of what animals know of the unseen spiritual realm when Jude brings up the Old Testament character of Balaam. Balaam was supposed to be a prophet, but he had drifted so far from the Lord that he did not see the angel blocking the roadway. His donkey, however, did see the angel. This sight stopped the donkey in its tracks. God created man with a higher level of intelligence than any other creature on earth. He did this so we can commune with Him. When we refuse to use our intelligence to acknowledge Him and have fellowship with Him, we are lowering ourselves to a level lower than any animal, lower than even the simplest of creatures that possesses only the most basic of instincts. In Balaam's case, his donkey was smarter than he was, because Balaam in his greed had fallen far from God and had lost all spiritual discernment. Jude says that's what has happened to the ungodly men of his day.






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