December 15, 2023: Jude 12-13 - Church, It is Time to Wake Up!
“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 withereth, 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 for ever." - Jude 12-13
Jude wrote this book, which though small in size, is packed with powerful words of warning to the church: deceivers have come in unnoticed and have corrupted the church. We are told in other books of the Bible that as we draw closer to the second coming of Jesus and the end of the age, there will be a great falling away, an apostasy of the church, when the church is offended by and abandons the truth and turns to deceivers instead:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 24:10-12)
When the apostles of Jesus asked him what would be the signs of his coming and of the end of the age, he answered them:
“Take heed that no man deceives you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 24:4-5)
These deceivers are preaching doctrines of devils that go against what God has written in His word and are leading many down the wide gate and broad road that leads to hell, eternal darkness and suffering, forever separated by God. These deceivers, who claim to be called by God, are not feeding their congregations the word of God and the whole counsel of God but feed them lies to keep the money coming in, and money is their God. They pretend to care about their flocks, those who attend their churches, but feed only themselves, in lavish abundance. How many mega churches have we read about that receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tithes and offerings, where instead of those donations being used to share God’s word around the world and to help those truly in need, are used to fund the extravagant lifestyles of the senior pastor, his family, and his staff? Sadly, many churches in America are simply money-making machines, where the pastors go to theological seminaries not to learn, preach, and teach on God’s word but instead learn how to grow the church by being “seeker-friendly” and preaching and teaching not what on people need to hear but what they want to hear to tickle their ears, to approve them in their sin. Many “churches” are no longer filled with light but have become darkened, looking like stages for rock concerts, complete with “worship” bands singing “worship” songs that could be about one’s boyfriend or girlfriend and are completely devoid of the name of Jesus and the message of salvation through faith in Him alone.
How many deceivers absolutely will not preach on anything that is considered offensive to our ever-changing society because they don’t want to lose their source of funding for their lavish and lascivious lifestyles? If anyone reads these devotional posts that I write, they might say that I write about this subject a lot. My answer to that comment is, why wouldn’t I? The prophets and apostles of God wrote about it and specifically included it as a warning to those of us living in the end times so that we would not fall prey to these deceivers and turn away from God. Our country is imploding, and I put part of the blame on the churches. Why have many of the seminaries abandoned the truth and caved to society, letting society dictate what is taught instead of preaching and teaching what is in the unchanging word of God? As the seminaries have drifted further and further away from God, the more our society has broken down. It is up to the churches to pushback unashamedly against corruption in society and to stand for God’s truth. Society should not alter the church; the church should alter society. However, the opposite has happened. The false pastors that have come out of the seminaries are the by-products of a nation that has left God and has embraced all that God calls evil and rejected all that God calls good. Don’t get me wrong, there is a market for these so-called pastors, with many false pastors thriving. It’s not just televangelists either; it’s in mainstream churches. It can also be very subtle. While they may preach on certain books of the Bible according to the word of God, they avoid preaching on anything that is considered controversial in society, such as abortion, all the various forms of sexual immorality in both heterosexual and homosexual lifestyles, and Bible prophecy. The absence of speaking the truth of God on these subjects speaks volumes as to where their priority lies, and it is not the one true God but the false god of money.
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily [secretly] shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious [destructive] ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned [deceptive] words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” (2 Peter 2:1-3)
Let’s look at what Jude wrote in verses 12 and 13 about these men. Jude calls them “spots” in their feasts of charity. A Greek interpretation uses “spilades,” which means “hidden reef,” and it does seem to coincide with the rest of verses 12 and 13. A hidden reef can pose a significant danger to ships on the sea, especially in the days of Jude when sonar technology did not exist. The reef, covered by the water of the sea, would only make itself known when it was too late: the ship would come upon the reef and strike it, sinking the ship to the bottom of the sea. Perhaps these men who had crept in unawares were like these hidden reefs, blending in, covered by the sea of the false church. These deceivers feed themselves extravagantly and without fear of being uncovered, for they are filled with pride and lust for the things of this world instead of the things of God. When those do not know the word of God listen to these deceivers and do not realize they are being deceived, like the ship that came upon the hidden reef, when they die in their sin, they are sunk to the deep darkness, forever separated by God and all that is good.
Next, Jude calls them clouds without water and carried about of winds. Oh, these false pastors and teachers know how to deliver great speeches and may be great orators, but they are like clouds that arise and deliver promises of nourishing rain to a dry and parched land. However, because the truth is not in them, they deliver nothing but their hot air and empty words, leaving their congregation even more thirsty for God and not realizing that only Jesus is the answer. The Bible tells us that only Jesus can quench our thirst and that is by truly believing in Him as our Savior:
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (Jesus Christ; John 4:14)
“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (Jesus Christ; John 7:37-38)
Jude then compares them to trees that try to produce fruit but before that fruit comes to bear, it withers up. In order to produce the fruit of God, one must be filled with the Holy Spirit, and in order to have the Holy Spirit in us, we must put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the only one who can save us. For these deceivers, because the Holy Spirit is not in them, they do not having the living water of God in them and cannot bear fruit. The apostle Paul wrote about what the works of the flesh that are produced by those who do not have the Spirit in them and compared them to those who do have the Holy Spirit and produce the fruit of the Spirit:
“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:16-26)
Paul was telling the people of Galatia not to let sin, the works of the flesh, rule over them, for he knows that if they do, it will destroy them and they will not inherit the kingdom of God. How many pastors in churches today are preaching Paul’s warning to their congregations? Given the state our world is in, I would venture to say not many.
Jesus Himself warned His disciples about false prophets and how to recognize them by their fruit:
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits yet shall know them.” (Jesus Christ; Matthew 7:15-20)
Instead striving to be more like Jesus and to separate ourselves from the world, the churches are trying to be more like the world; they are imitating it and not Christ. This is the exact opposite of what God’s word tells us we are to do:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2)
“I have given them [Jesus’ apostles and disciples] thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify [set apart] them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou has sent me.” (Jesus Christ; John 17:14-21)
These false pastors that produce no fruit will be plucked up by the roots and will be dead again. They may have had a false conversion of faith in Jesus Christ but are now once again, dead in their sins. Unlike believers in Christ who will die only one death and be resurrected to eternal life through Jesus, those who have not put their faith and trust in Him to save them from their sins will be resurrected to life after they die, will be judged by Jesus and found guilty in their sin, and will suffer a second death, which is to spend their eternity in hell, the lake of fire, forever separated from God.
Jude compared these deceivers to waves of the sea that during a storm, become larger and rage, and as a result, produce a foam. Having you ever heard Adolf Hitler speak? He would literally foam at the mouth as he delivered with great oratory power his evil speeches full of hate and deception, leading many people to blindly follow him and commit murder, particularly of the Jews. The same is happening now in the “church” pulpits that are being led by these deceivers. While they likely are not leading people to commit murder, they are leading people down the same road of deception that will result in their eternal destruction.
Jude wrote that these deceivers are “wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” Because they do not have the Holy Spirit within them, guiding them into all truth, these deceivers wander around, here and there, just like wandering stars in the sky that are not gravitationally tied to any one galaxy. When a true pastor is called by God to preach and teach His word and is filled with the Holy Spirit, he is tied to the truth, which never changes, and his path remains steadfast and straight, aligned with God. Just as the wandering stars in the sky will remain in the blackness of darkness for ever, so will these deceivers spend their eternity in the blackness of darkness forever, along with everyone who has followed wickedness and evil and rejected the light of God and redemption of sins offered to them by Jesus Christ.
About 700 years before Jesus came to earth at His first coming, the prophet Isaiah wrote Him in the Old Testament and that those who follow Christ will not follow darkness and the way of the crooked paths, as these deceivers do:
“And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things [places] straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see.” (Isaiah 42:16-18)
When we believe in Jesus, He is our light and He guides our way, and we follow Him. We do not turn to the left or the right but we keep our eyes fixed on Him. We read His word, not some of it but all of it, letting the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth. We do not stagger like a drunken man, shifting here and there as the norms of society change as often as the winds blow.
We are in a spiritual war with Satan and those who are allied with him. Satan hates the Jews and he also hates Christians. In reality, he hates all of mankind because we are the only beings created in God’s image. Satan hates the Jews because God’s only begotten Son Jesus Christ came from them, the people chosen by God from whom the Savior would come. Satan hates Christians because we follow Jesus and believe in Him as our Savior. Satan hates Jesus because he knows, based on the Bible, the word of God, that there is coming a time when Jesus will judge the world of its sin and this includes judging Satan, the coming antichrist and false prophet, and all who are allied with them. Ultimately, all who come against Jesus will be destroyed from this earth, resurrected to life and be judged by Jesus and found guilty. They will be cast into the everlasting lake of fire, for they rejected the gift of eternal life that Jesus offered them when He paid the payment for our sins with His precious blood, and chose instead to follow Satan, also known as the devil, because they wanted to remain in their sin. Isn’t it ironic that the only book in the Bible that offers a blessing to those who read it and hear its words and heeds them is one of the books least likely to be preached on by pastors? It is also the same book that foretells the end of Satan and all who follow him. Now, if you were one’s enemy, wouldn’t you do everything you can to keep this information from people, and instead tell them smooth-sounding lies? That is exactly what is happening and has been happening in churches worldwide, including and perhaps especially in America, for decades.
Other than directly attacking one’s enemy and killing them, such as done in wartime, how does one rid itself of its enemy? Well, one way is to disguise oneself as its foe and then take it down, and that is exactly what has happened in our churches. Men have been pretending to be called by God and became “pastors” of churches when in fact they have been called by Satan to destroy the church. Instead of feeding the word of God to their flocks, they are feeding them a corrupted version of the truth and are feeding themselves with the money their congregations donates to them because they enjoy hearing the lies that make them feel good in their sin. While they may preach some truths from the word of God at the beginning of their ministry, they begin to slip in some false doctrines now and then, after all, a little poison will kill just as much as a lot of poison. Then they begin to say things like, did God really say that sexual immorality is a sin? Did God really say there is only one way to heaven - don’t all roads lead to heaven? Did God really say that you must believe in Jesus as your Savior to be saved - Aren’t we all God’s children? Just as Satan did in the beginning with Eve when he put thoughts of doubt in her head when he asked her if God really said they must not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and lied when he told her they would not die if they ate from it, so too is Satan doing the same thing with these false pastors and teachers in churches today. Now churches are corrupted so much that they are having drag queens brought into the churches, promoting all sorts of sexually-deviant lifestyles as good, “blessing” abortion mills, preaching that God is finished with Israel and that the church has replaced it, and on and on it goes. Truly, the enemy has crept in unawares. For America, the foundation that this country was built on, which is belief in Jesus Christ as a Judea-Christian nation, is crumbling, and America as a nation is coming down quickly. We have forgotten that it is not we ourselves but God who raises up nations and He also brings them down:
“He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations, and straiteneth them again. He taketh away the heart [understanding] of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man.” (Job 12:23-25)
Many churches, including many in America, truly are groping in the dark without the light of God and are staggering like a drunken man because they have decided to follow the world, with its always-changing perception of the “truth,” rejecting the constant, never-changing truth of God. Because they have no firm foundation on which to stand, these false churches that are dens of thieves will come crumbling down. Because a majority of American churches have been infected by these false pastors and have abandoned the truth, which poisoned the nation, causing us to commit horrific abominations against Him, I absolutely believe that the hedge of protection that America once had has been removed by God Himself. Without His hedge of protection, America will fall, and I believe we are witnessing its demise as I write this devotional in December 2023.
“Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)
“For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:18-22)
Our only hope is Jesus Christ. It is only by His precious blood that we can be washed clean of all our sins, of all the spots that defile us, and made white as snow through His sinless sacrifice. When America’s fall is complete, when it comes crashing down, and it will, so will the other western nations. It is then that the final antichrist will arise to power and promise a false “peace and security” to the world, but in reality it will be a 7-year reign of terror. If you are still here when this happens and you haven’t turned to Jesus, to whom will you look for to give you hope, to save you from the nightmare that is about to befall the entire world? I pray that you will choose Jesus, that you will call upon Him to save you, a sinner, just like I did. He will.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (Jesus Christ; John 14:6)
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (Jesus Christ; John 8:12)
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (Jesus Christ; John 3:16-18) ✝️