Christian Killers

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CHRISTIAN KILLERS

Dr. Roger Barrier

Jude 16

If you are a first-time guest today, I want you to know that we are examining the book of Jude during our teaching time. The Bible predicts that a large-scale turning away from Christianity will occur immediately preceding the second coming of Christ. Jude is often called The Acts of the Apostates. As a result, it stands at the doorstep to Revelation as a fitting description and warning about men and women who start out as Christians and then turn their backs on Jesus.

In verse 16 Jude paints a further portrait of apostates and of how they behave. We must be careful lest hidden apostates irreparably damage churches and decimate individual Christian lives.

What does Jesus really look like?

Idolatry always begins in the mind of the artist—long before the idol is ever painted on paper or fashioned out of clay. When we make up a god out of our own imaginations—our picture is invariably flawed. Read Exodus 20:4 for God’s thoughts on this matter.

Our view of God must come from an understanding of God as He is unveiled in the Bible.

The essence of verse 16 is, “Apostates Don’t Like God So They Make Up A God They Can Like.”

Again, Jude sets before us several earmarks of the falling away which had begun in the early Church and continues on even until this day.

•These men are GRUMBLERS.

Grumblers are always a nuisance, but Jude has in mind a special Biblical category of people who do more than merely make a constant background noise of criticism. He is talking about the people who continued to complain about the way God was caring for them on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

Read Numbers 11:1, 4-5; 14:26-30; 21:4-9 (See John 3:14-16.).

The idea is that they think that they know better than God what is best. The idea is that they have a better plan than God does. God hates this attitude—this is a sign of apostasy.

The antidote to grumbling is To Recognize And Submit To God’s Hand At Work.

•These men are FAULT-FINDERS.

Whereas murmuring was directed against God, faultfinding was directed against His leaders. Read Numbers 12:1-15 to see how God treated Miriam and Aaron when they criticized Moses.

Faultfinders usually start with one but they soon recruit scores of others.

The antidote to faultfinding is To Encourage At Least One Person Every Day.

•These men FOLLOW THEIR OWN EVIL DESIRES.

Read about Korah in Numbers 16:1-50 and see how God treated him and his followers when he wanted to run “the show” his way!

The Greek word for “own evil desires” is the same word Jesus uses in the parable of the sower to describe what choked the life out of the seed of the Word. Read Mark 4:18,19.

The idea is that these people decided to follow their own inclinations instead of God’s. This is the natural result when we don’t like how God leads and treats us.

Becoming a Christian means that we change allegiance and decide to “follow the Lamb wherever He goes.” These people were going back on their initial commitments to Christ.

We Christians are far from immune from the arrogant presumption of making God fit our own expectations and needs. The history of the church reveals how often Christians in every age have tended to develop a God that fits into their own culture and/or desires.

Allow me to make three observations:

Once we cease to believe in the God of the Bible, we will feel free to design a god of our own choosing.

Once we think that we are free from God’s scrutiny, we will feel free to ignore His standards.

We cannot lower God’s standards in the hope that if the terms are easier, more people will come to Christ.

The antidote to following our own evil desires is To Believe In And Follow The God The Bible Reveals.

•These men BOAST ABOUT THEMSELVES.

They were not denying that God would come (which was a different error Peter had to answer in 2 Peter 3:3-13), but simply that when He came, it would mean trouble for them.

The opposite of boasting about ourselves is To See Ourselves From God’s Perspective.

•These men FLATTER OTHERS FOR THEIR OWN ADVANTAGE.

The most dangerous flatterer is the person who misleads about spiritual matters, and who tells lies about God because he wants the hearer on his side.

Study God’s descriptions of the priests in Ezekiel’s (34:1-31) and in Malachi’s (2:1-9) day.

The antidote to flattering others for our own advantage is To Be Honest In Every Relationship.