Study in the Epistle of Jude # 27: Verse 7

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently going verse-by-verse through the book of Jude. As we have been reading through this book, we have been taking a careful look at each verse that God has placed there. We have come to Jude verse 7, which speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom, we saw, is a representation, a type, and a figure that God uses in the Bible to point to the corporate New Testament church. By corporate, I am referring to the external church that is in the world, the churches that can be seen on the street corners of the various cities of the world. This is not the eternal Church. The eternal Church is the Church that is composed exclusively of true believers. Each person whom God saves is immediately added to the eternal Church, which is referred to in the book of Revelation as the “New Jerusalem” (Revelation 3:12). That Church will endure forever; it will never have an end. The corporate church, on the other hand, is an outward manifestation, a representation of the Kingdom of God on earth. It has its time and it has its era. Therefore, God typifies the corporate church by the city of Sodom.

We have been looking at Sodom in Ezekiel 16. There, God speaks of this city in relationship to Israel and to Jerusalem. He identifies Sodom as Jerusalem and Israel’s sister. We read in verses 48-50:

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.

We are interested in why it was that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. In Jude 7, we read:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

Whom are Sodom and Gomorrah an example to? Why does God speak of Sodom and Gomorrah as an example? Sodom and Gomorrah typify the New Testament church. The destruction of those cities is a warning, and it is an example of what will come upon the New Testament churches and congregations if they fail to heed that warning. Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of eternal fire—that judgment of fire and brimstone pictures God’s wrath raining down upon Sodom. Likewise, it will come down upon the New Testament church if they continue in their rebellion against the Word of God.

We have been looking at Ezekiel 16:49, and as we see the list of sins that God identifies with Sodom, perhaps we can get some insight into why God will bring judgment upon the New Testament churches and congregations. The first sin that God lists in that verse is pride. Sodom was proud. This was the iniquity of Sodom—pride. She was a prideful city that exuded pride.

When most people in the world hear that, they say, “What is so bad about pride? What is so terrible about being proud? We should be proud. We should be proud of our country, and we should be proud of the city we live in—this is our identity. We should be proud of our race, whether we are black or white or anything else. We should be proud of our language and our heritage. We ought to be proud of the person we are in our reasoning and our intelligence. We should be proud that we are an athlete, or we should be proud of our beauty.” On and on it goes.

This is the ideal by which the world operates—pride. The world is full of it. In just about every area of the world, there is pride. It is no wonder that God says these words in 1 John 2:15-16:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

The world is full of pride. It is full of the pride of man’s whole existence here, the pride of life. Man has puffed himself up in his own understanding with his own reasoning and his own knowledge, and he thinks that he is something. Mankind thinks that they are something more than a creature, and that they have risen above that. As a matter of fact, they have done away with God with their reason and their wisdom. The world has concluded, “There is no God. We have figured it all out. We have understanding in our pride. We have developed a theory of evolution that is a very convenient theory—it does away with God, and God is our biggest problem. It is with God that we are held accountable for our sin. If there is no God, then there is no sin. There is no Law of God, so there is no transgression of the Law. If there is no transgression of the Law, then there is no wrath of God. Therefore, there is no Hell or Judgment Day, and we are free at last.” It is the pride of man when he has, so he thinks, done away with the problem of who his Creator is. He has supposedly done away with God, so that he is not subject as a creature to a Creator. There is no God, he thinks.

God says that it is in the heart of man where man is saying, “There is no God,” (Psalm 14:1) and words such as these. This is what they desperately want to believe. Therefore, they can concoct any number of wild schemes, and in their desperation, they will believe them. They will believe that the world evolved when there is much evidence that points to the contrary. They will believe that man came from a lower order of animal and has risen to his present state. In their desperation and in their desire to do away with God and His judgment, they will believe these things.

This is all a result of their pride. “There is no God,” they say, “so who is in charge? Who is the authority, the one who makes all the decisions and the laws?” It is man himself, they conclude. It is man’s mind; it is his thinking and his thoughts that are supreme. Man, they think, is the one who will dictate what is right and what is wrong. He is the one who will conclude what is proper and what is improper.

Man has now lifted himself up to the place of God, because he knows that there cannot be a vacuum; there necessarily must be someone who is supreme. Man knows that there must be a Supreme Being, and he has taken that spot. Man has taken that position that God once held. This is the sin of man.

We read that this is also the sin of Sodom—pride. However, Sodom typifies the church. How could pride enter into the church? Pride and the Gospel are antithetical; that is, they are contrary one to the other. God hates the proud heart (Psalm 101:5), and God abhors the pride of man, because this is the root of man’s rebellion against Him. The desire to be like God was the cause of the sin back in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:5), where the creature wanted to be lifted to a high and lofty place.

Yet we wonder, “How can pride find its way into the church? The church is where the Word of God is. It is where the Holy Spirit has been in the midst. It is where God is worshipped. How can pride be there?” This is why God lists pride as number one. The iniquity of Sodom, especially of the church of our day, is pride.

Let us turn to Obadiah chapter 1:1, which says:

The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning Edom…

We have to pause here for a second and understand what God is saying. Who is Edom? Edom is another name for Esau, who was Jacob’s twin brother. Jacob and Esau were born of the same mother and had the same father. God speaks of them in Romans 9:13, where He says, “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” These were two brothers, and the spiritual meaning of the number two often points to the church. Within the church, we have the saved, typified by Jacob, who are the elect. We also have the unsaved, typified by Esau or Edom, who are called but are never saved, never born again.

God is giving Obadiah a vision concerning Edom, concerning the unsaved in the churches and the corporate church itself. We go on to read in Obadiah 1:1-2:

…We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the heathen, Arise ye, and let us rise up against her in battle. Behold, I have made thee small among the heathen: thou art greatly despised.

Why does God say of Edom that He has made them small among the heathen? Let us think about it…who is Edom? Edom is a picture of the unsaved in the church. What is the reaction of the world often times to those who are a part of the church? They look upon them with pity. They look upon those in the congregations with mockery. They have no respect for those in the church. “Those are the weak ones,” they say, “who cannot get along in this life without some religious crutch,” which is what they think the Gospel is. Therefore, Edom is despised among the heathen, even though God says, “I have made thee small among the heathen,” because Edom is part of the heathen. They are not saved.

God is referring to those who are in the church but are not saved. They are still heathen in their heart, even though they might profess with their lips to be a child of God (Isaiah 29:13). Them you can almost pity. They have no place of stature in the world. Here they are in the church, and they do not really fit in with the world anymore, so they suffer reviling along with the true child of God.

However, there is no blessing in their situation because they are not experiencing the reviling as someone who is saved. As God speaks to the saved in 1 Peter 4:14, He encourages His people and comforts them saying, “Happy are ye if ye be reproached for the name of Christ.” These individuals in the church are likewise “reproached for the name of Christ,” but it cannot be said of them, “Happy (or blessed) are ye,” because they are not blessed by God.

God has made them small amongst the heathen. They are still within that group of the unsaved in the world. They are as unsaved as anyone else out there, but they are viewed by the world as a very little thing because they identify with the church. They are greatly despised.

Then Obadiah 1:3 says:

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee…

Here we see that God is speaking concerning Edom, who typifies the unsaved in the church, and again the pride of the heart is in view. The pride of Edom’s heart has deceived him. This is the case with all the unsaved in the church. God is pointing His finger at the condition of the heart of the one who is professing to be a Christian, and He is saying that the pride that dwells in their heart has deceived them.

How has it deceived them, and in what way? First of all, the heart of any unsaved person is “deceitful…and desperately wicked” as Jeremiah 17:9 tells us. Therefore, we are not surprised that the heart of an unsaved man can deceive him. But we wonder, “Why does God emphasize the ‘pride of thine heart’? What does pride have to do with it?”

Let us go to Luke 14:7-11 where we will get a better picture and have a better understanding of this. We read there:

And he put forth a parable to those which were bidden…

God speaks of the Gospel in several different ways. He speaks about many being called by the Gospel but few being chosen (Matthew 22:14). When you are called, whether it is to a feast or to a wedding or to respond to the Gospel message, you are bidden. That is what is in view here. We go on to read:

…when he marked how they chose out the chief rooms; saying unto them, When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him; And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

In this parable, God is telling us why He spoke of the pride of Edom’s heart deceiving him. In all probability, the Lord Jesus was making mention of a real occurrence. This is how they behaved themselves when they were bidden to some place. They thought that they were something, that they were men of stature and men of renown. They thought that they were worthy to take the highest room. When they would receive their invitation, they would stroll into the banqueting house and go right to the chief room, the highest room, the room where the most honorable of guests should be seated, and they would proudly sit down.

We can see the pride that is in view historically with these men in their long, flowing gowns. We know that Christ addresses the fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees were proud men. He speaks of how they loved to pray where men could see them, saying long and very wordy types of prayers so that they could be viewed by other men (Matthew 6:5). They cared about how they were esteemed by their fellowman. This is right in keeping with their proud character.

Yet, Jesus is saying that they had it all wrong. They should not have gone into that wedding feast and immediately taken the highest room. What if the one who bid them had come and said, “You cannot sit there—I have some very important friends coming, some very special and dear friends and family that I have reserved those seats for. You must take another seat. Here, there is a place down there for you. Go down to that lower room.”

We know how it is to be embarrassed. We know how it is when you have overstepped your bounds and you are called upon for it. For that reason, Christ says, “and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.” That is a very real possibility. They should not have behaved themselves that way by taking that chance. Yet Christ is saying that this happens all the time spiritually. This takes place all the time in the churches and congregations of the world.

How can that be? What is meant by that? God is bidding many to the wedding between the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride. Many are bidden, many are called, but few are chosen. If you have heard the Gospel, then you have received this invitation. If you have heard the Word of God preached or taught or read from the Bible, then you have received this invitation. God has called you to come forth, and He has commanded you to repent and turn from your wicked way and come to Him (Ezekiel 33:11). You have received the invitation of God to show yourself at the banquet, the wedding feast.

How do we respond, though, when we hear this Gospel, this Word of God? Do we immediately say, “Yes, yes, I will believe”? Do we say, “I will accept Christ—I will take Him to myself—I will walk down the aisle—I will say the sinner’s prayer, and I will save myself right now by taking this action”? Do we say that? Many do. Great multitudes have taken the “highest room” at the feast by believing that their work and their action have saved them and exalted them unto Heaven. They believe that they have exalted themselves to be seated in heavenly places in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that is what salvation is (Ephesians2:6). They have taken the highest room imaginable. Yet God is warning each and every one who professes the name of Christ, “Do not come to My feast in such a manner. Do not take the highest room at the wedding.”

How is someone really to respond? How ought someone to respond to the Gospel? The answer is that we come very humbly, broken by the Word of God. We come beseeching the Lord that He might save us and that we might be one of His elect. We come lowly, crawling on our knees to God, crying out to Him for mercy. We have heard the invitation, we have been bidden, but we know that God will only have mercy upon whom He will have mercy (Romans 9:15). He will exalt only those whom He desires to exalt. Therefore, we come and take the lowest room. We wait on the Lord (Lamentations 3:26).

And that is what happens in Luke 14:10. We read there:

But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

God is speaking of salvation. We do not exalt ourself—that is the point. It is the key to understanding what this parable is saying. This is where the pride of the church is seen in a very real way today. They have dared to exalt themselves to the highest seat and the highest room, to the very heavens themselves. Yet God warns in Obadiah that He will bring them down to Hell.

Lord willing, we will continue looking at the pride of the church in our next study.