Study in the Epistle of Jude # 25: Verse 6

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are going through the Epistle of Jude. We are now in the last half of verse 6, which speaks of the fallen angels who were “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day.” Verse 6 reads:

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

The final phrase in this verse speaks of “the judgment of the Great Day.” This kind of information is often overlooked, even though God writes an amazing amount about judgment in the Bible. We have heard so little about this topic coming from the pulpits or from our Sunday School classes or from those who are in authority in the churches. It is a topic that is not dealt with. It is overlooked, it is ignored, and it is sidestepped. If it is mentioned, it is mentioned in passing. “Let us quickly move on to the next verse,” is the idea that they have. “Let us go on to something more cheerful,” is what they say if they happen to be doing a verse-by-verse study. “Let us move on to something that is more positive and not as negative as Judgment Day.”

We find that Jude is mentioning the fact that the angels who sinned, and Satan himself, have been “reserved...unto the judgment of the Great Day.” We have to look at this Day, and we have to think about it as we are going through the Bible. We do not want to avoid anything. We read in Acts 20:26-27:

Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

“All the counsel of God,” this verse says. The word “shunned” is the same word that is found in Acts 20:20, where we read:

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you…

This word “shunned” is identical to the Greek word that is translated as “kept back” in verse 20. The true child of God, the pastor, the elder, and the deacon during the Church Age, were responsible for bringing the whole counsel of God. They were not permitted to pick and choose what they could teach. God does not send messengers and give them that kind of an option. God sends His messengers and simply tells them, “Speak the message that I have given you. Tell the people exactly what I have said to you.”

What God has said is in the Bible. The child of God, the messenger of God who is going into the world with the Gospel, is not permitted by God to keep anything back. We are not the ones to pick and choose which Gospel we are to present. We cannot decide which words in the Bible we are willing to share and which ones we will not speak of. That is beyond us and above us; we are just creatures, servants. God tells us to run with His Word, “to run the way of Thy commandments” (Psalm 119:32). As we read in the Psalms, “the Lord gave the Word,” and “great was the company of them that published it” (Psalm 68:11). We do not decide what that Word is. If we did so, we would be God, the creator, the supreme Governor, the authority.

We are not the authority, neither is the church or the pastor. How dare a church hold back what God has spoken in His Word! How dare a pastor shun to declare all the counsel of God! How dare he avoid it and ignore it, skim over it, and skirt around it to go on to happier things! Who gave the pastor the right to do that? Who gave the elders and deacons in the church the authority to teach all the good things of the Bible, all the positive things, all the wonderful things about God’s love, and to omit “the weightier matters of the Law” (Matthew 23:23)? Who has given such authority to those who are in the churches and congregations of the world? No one has; at least, that authority has not come from God Himself.

That was the condemnation that the Lord Jesus Christ brought upon the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23 in a long-running list of offenses. The Lord Jesus says there:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

They kept back the judgment of God. They did not behave themselves as the watchmen that they were bound to be. In Ezekiel 33, God is instructing His people that when the watchman (who is each child of God) sees the sword coming upon the land, he is to “blow the trumpet and warn the people.”

What profit is there if the watchmen are as dumb dogs that cannot bark (Isaiah 56:10)? What profit is there for the people who are under the hearing of those teachers and preachers in the churches if they are not being warned of the penalty for sin, and warned that they are under the wrath of God and subject to spend an eternity in Hell? It is no wonder that God is pouring out His wrath upon the churches of our day, just on this fact alone. The church has failed miserably to faithfully declare the Word of God. They keep back these all-important truths of the Word of God, the Bible. We do not want to overlook it when God speaks about the “judgment of the Great Day.”

Since we are going through the study of Jude, we need to think about that “judgment of the Great Day.” We need to see what else the Bible has to say about this Day of Judgment. As we do so, we might begin to shudder and fear, because God has a great deal to say about it. Not many have taken a concentrated look at the awful penalty for sin. Not many have stood still long enough in the presence of the Word of God to hear the terrible condemnation, the awful wrath, and the awful penalty that God is going to bring upon sinners as He casts them into Hell forevermore. This will take place on the “judgment of that Great Day.”

In 2 Corinthians 5:10 we read:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

We know that as God is giving this verse, He is warning us that the sins we commit are not light things. They are not innocent little iniquities—there is no such thing. God will bring every man into judgment. The believer has already stood before the judgment seat in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He paid the penalty for the believer’s sins (1 Peter 3:18).

However, the unsaved must appear before that seat on the Last Day, the “Great Day” of Judgment. There the sinner will be brought. On that Day, all those who have previously died throughout the history of the world will be resurrected unto judgment and equipped with a resurrected body that will be able to withstand (or just to stand, if we could put it that way) the eternity of judgment that they must face in Hell. They will be brought before the Almighty God, the Almighty Lord Jesus Christ, who is now revealing Himself in the fullness of His glory (Isaiah 40:5). He will not be the humble suffering servant seated upon that throne, but He will be the great “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Revelation 19:16). He will be the Almighty and all-powerful God showing forth the brilliance of His splendor and shining as the sun (Revelation 21:23).

Sinners on that Day must come unto this glorious Light; they must approach unto the holiness of God and the purity of His presence. The sinner will come fearfully trembling before God, knowing that he is guilty simply by being in the very presence of God. He will come knowing that he has offended and rebelled and transgressed at every point of his life, and that he is guilty and deserving of eternal damnation.

On that Day, every mouth will be stopped (Romans 3:19). All the mouths of man that are wagging each day throughout the world with their philosophies and their atheism and their other religions will be stopped. They are in actuality shaking their fists at God and pointing their puny fingers at Him and saying that the God of the Bible is unjust and unfair. This is the rebelliousness of man—to dare to usurp his place above the creator. This is the arrogance of the creature—to think that he with his puny little mind is above the mind of God (Isaiah 55:8-9).

As we find recorded in the Bible, this is what man has done. He thinks that he is the judge. He thinks that he is the one who will dictate to God what is truth. He thinks that he will dictate what is sin and what is not sin, what will get him into Heaven and what will keep him out. However, that is not so. God is God, and what God has declared will keep man out of Heaven. It is one sin. One little sin will cause someone to be subject to the breaking of the whole Law and to the wrath of God (James 2:10).

On that Day, all the haughtiness of man, all the arrogance and pride that he has lived his life with will be brought low, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). Each man will be brought before the judgment seat of the Lord Jesus Christ. What an awful time that will be! What an evil day the Great Day of the judgment of God will be! We read about this Day in Daniel 7:9-11. It says there:

I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake…

We see the Lord God, this terrible, frightful God, all in Light, because He is sitting upon that throne without sin. He is sitting there in all of His purity and holiness and justice and righteousness. He is the standard. He is the Word Himself that man must look into to see how he has failed to live up to the glory of God, which is now seated right before him on the throne of judgment.

Man will see that he has fallen far short. He will see that he is guilty and subject to spend an eternity in Hell. What an awful thing for someone to wake up to after they have died! Who knows what they thought would come after their lifetime, since man has been so greatly deceived. Many have died professing to be Christians, but they will be there also viewing the Lord Jesus Christ and having to give an account for their sins because they were never truly saved.

There will be a vast multitude of billions of people in the presence of God, each one being judged individually for their sins and being found guilty. Each one will be prepared for the final casting away, the final removal of the wicked from the presence of God forevermore. God will separate Himself from man eternally. God will forsake them in the pit of Hell, and that will be the end of man. As far as God is concerned, they will now descend into the depths of Hell, into “the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 1:13), and they will die the second death. What a terrible, horrible day the great Day of Judgment will be.

In Revelation 20:11-15, we see this Day in view. We read there:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

There is no escape for a sinner. There is nowhere to hide. If someone were to go to the depths of the ocean, God would find them. If they were to climb to the mountains and cry for the mountains to fall on them, God would find them (Revelation 6:16). No one can escape that Day.

All of man’s lifetime will be shown to be utter vanity. He spent his time living in pleasures and the lusts of the world, and now he must answer. He must pay the wages of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23), and he must go into Hell. He must be cast off to where there is no return. There is no coming back, there is no getting out, and there is no escape once the judgment has been cast and God has pronounced the penalty. Man will be thrown into the lake of fire.

All that we can do when we read this language is beseech individuals. We can beseech man because this Day is not yet here, and we can warn them as the watchman that we are obligated to be. We can beseech them on Christ’s behalf that they might be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20). We can plead with them that they might turn from their wicked ways and that they might cry out to God for mercy before this Day comes upon them and takes them unaware. We can pray for anyone who we know is not saved.

This is all that we can do. We cannot change anyone ourselves. We cannot convert the sinner from his ways—only God can do that. Only He can convince someone that these words are true and faithful. Only He can begin to cause a sinner to fear. Only He can put fear into the life of a hardhearted man or woman, a rebel, and only He can cause them to begin to cry out to Him for mercy before it is too late (Luke 18:13). This is the message that we bring as believers in this world.

In 2 Corinthians 5:10, we read that all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Then verse 11 says:

Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…

“We persuade men.” Only the believer knows the “terror of the Lord.” Only the believer knows that God cannot lie and that He is definitely going to bring these things to pass. Only the true child of God believes every word of the Bible. Therefore, we know that if people continue in the course that their lives are going in, they will end up in Hell.

This is a certainty. It is guaranteed that this is absolutely going to take place in the lives of over six billion people now living upon earth, and many other billions that have previously lived and died. We know, therefore, the “terror of the Lord.” It is a fearful thing, a frightful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God (Hebrews 10:31), especially a God who in His being is “a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). That fire has been kindled through God’s anger at sin, and it “shall burn unto the lowest Hell” (Deuteronomy 32:22).

We know this. We are aware of the terror of the Lord, so we bring the Gospel that is able to persuade men. We lay it out before them and do not hold anything back. We do not try to sugarcoat it or make it sweet and easy to be heard. We speak as God has given it. We reveal to men, “You can continue on in your way, you can keep going day upon day after your sin, and you can continue having your pleasures and doing what you want to do when you want to do it, but know that the Bible says this: there will be a Day of Judgment and there will be vengeance taken by God upon the sinner. It will be a punishment that is greater than any man can bear without being broken in both body and soul under the enormous weight of such an agony.”

We lay out the Gospel before them. We tell them that there is a way of escape, and that Way is in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6). No man can take Christ to himself or salvation to himself, but God does permit a sinner to come to Him humbly beseeching for mercy. It is all according to God’s good pleasure whether He will have mercy and save anyone. God is a merciful God, and with that knowledge, we are comforted. It could be that God might have mercy upon one who approaches Him.