Study in the Epistle of Jude # 33: Verse 7

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently going through the Epistle of Jude. We have been looking at verse 7, where God speaks about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Elsewhere in the Bible, God identifies a spiritual meaning with Sodom. He indicates that this city is a type and a picture of the corporate church, especially of the dead corporate church. In Revelation 11, He assigns the spiritual meaning of Sodom and Egypt to this church that is under the judgment of God, this church that the Lord has loosed Satan to destroy.

In Genesis 19, we read about the men of Sodom who were exceedingly wicked before the Lord. We can see the great wickedness of Sodom immediately as God entered into the city in the person, or form, of two angels, and the men of the city compassed Lot’s house. God had to smite the men of Sodom with blindness in order to protect Lot and his family. God then reveals to Lot that He will destroy the city. This is His plan, and this is the reason that He has come and visited the city. It is the time of their visitation. Yet this is a perfect example of how God forewarns His servants, the prophets. This is the Biblical principle that we read in Amos 3:7, where God tells us, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.”

This is the case that we see again and again in the Bible. Before God brought the flood in Noah’s day, He first told Noah to build the ark. Then He gave Noah warning that in seven days, He would destroy the earth with a flood (Genesis 7:4). Consequently, Noah had plenty of time, plenty of forewarning, to prepare for what was to come. Noah had the exact idea of what was going to happen to the world because God had revealed to him things that would take place in the future.

God also revealed to Lot that the city of Sodom would be destroyed, and that it was now time to leave the city. He said in Genesis 19:12:

… whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:

The Lord goes on to say that He will destroy this place. We read Lot’s response in verse 14, where it says:

And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place…

Lot is basically passing on the same information that God has given to him. That is what true believers do. They do not develop or come up with their own kind of gospel, but they learn what God says. Believers do this in our day by learning what the Bible teaches, and then declaring those things exactly as they find them. They do not add to them or take away from them (Revelation 22:18-19); they simply lay it out as God has laid it out in His Word.

God told Lot to leave Sodom because He was going to destroy the city. Lot takes that identical message to his sons-in-law and his married daughters, telling them to leave Sodom because the Lord is going destroy the city. He did not add anything to the message. He did not exaggerate it. Rather, he relayed the message exactly as it was given to him.

This is the character of a true child of God. Believers hear the message from God’s mouth and then declare it. We are messengers. We are nothing of any greater importance than servants. God says that when believers have done all that is commanded them to do, the only thing that they can say at the end of the day is, “We are unprofitable servants” (Luke 17:10).

Lot is a faithful child of God, and he declares the Gospel message, the Word of God as he has heard it, to his family. He says to them in verse 14:

…Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

Lot had this Gospel message. It was no theory. It was not something that was imagined, or some kind of chicanery or foolishness developed out of the minds of man. This was not a rumor of some kind being passed along from one person to another, getting bigger and bigger as it went. Rather, this came directly out of the mouth of God. Those two men were a representation of God Himself. God gave this Word to Lot.

Lot relayed this message to the men of Sodom. It is very significant how the Word of God is received by man, and by the church also, for we have to keep in mind that Sodom is typifying the church. God is revealing to us a very significant fact. He is instructing us and teaching us that once He decides to bring about the judgment of the church during the Great Tribulation (which, as a matter of fact, we are in now), we can expect God to forewarn His servants the prophets. He will give them information from the Word of God. It will not be some kind of additional revelation, because in the New Testament period God has finished writing the Bible (Revelation 22:18-19). Therefore, He will not speak to man in a dream or a vision or a tongue. He will warn His servants the prophets through the Word of God, the Bible.

God is letting us know that once this happens, we are not to expect a favorable reaction from those who are in the churches. Lot says:

…Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city…

Lot could not have conveyed God’s message more accurately to his family in Sodom. The Word of God could not have been declared more faithfully than Lot did to his daughters and his sons-in-law. We learn by this that God will bring a faithful declaration of His intention of judging the church to the ears of those who are in the churches and congregations. What is their reaction to this declaration? Let us look at the attitude of Lot’s own family. In verse 14, we read:

… But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

They did not believe him. As a matter of fact, they were probably laughing at him. How ridiculous it was to them and how foolish! “This is Lot,” they would think, “that man who sits at the gate, who came to sojourn among us, and now he thinks that he has received some kind of revelation from God. Now he thinks that God has given him a message that the city of Sodom will be destroyed. How ridiculous! Sodom has been around for as long as we can remember. Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain have been flourishing. Yes, it is true that there is wickedness, and there are wicked men in the city at this time, but that has also been the case in times past, and God has continued to provide His blessings. He has not brought judgment upon us in the past, so why now? Why would God destroy us now?”

If man has a mind to do so, he can ask a thousand questions. He can ponder the edict from God. He can consider the decree, the commandment of God and think about it a thousand different ways. He can pick it apart with his mind and with his reasoning. He can examine it and ridicule it and finally not obey it because he is not of a mind to obey the Word of God.

This is revealing the heart of these men, showing that they were not truly saved individuals (Psalm 101:4). They had no ears to hear or eyes to see (Ezekiel 12:2), for they were not born again as Lot was (John 3:7). They did not hear the Lord’s voice, for they could not discern the commandment of God from other sorts of commands that men make (John 10:27). They could not hear the Word of God, even though it was all around them.

The evidence was everywhere. All they needed to do was to look at the city and how it was crying up to the high heavens for judgment. Men were roaming the city in bands seeing what sort of evil deeds they could get involved with. It was not long after God visited Sodom in the form of two angels that the men of the city tried to do evil towards them. Why would Lot’s family be surprised at the command to leave? Why would it be such a laughing matter to Lot’s sons-in-law?

It could only be unbelief. It could only be that they did not truly believe that there is a God of the Bible who judges sin. Perhaps they heard the stories of the flood and the stories of the ancient men of old who lived to such great ages, but those were things in the past. They had not seen any evidence of a mighty God. Now, here comes Lot saying that the city will be destroyed, when the city had never been destroyed in such a manner before. Why should they believe him now?

They did not believe him because of unbelief. The word “mocked” here is translated as “laughed” in Genesis 17:15-17. It says there:

And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?

The word “laughed,” where God says that “Abraham fell upon his face and laughed,” is the word “mocked.” That was the reaction of Lot’s sons-in-law. God has spoken and said to Abraham, “I will bless her and give thee a son also of her,” and He will be born at the “set time” (Genesis 17:21). Abraham looked at the fact that he would be one hundred years old at the time that Isaac would be born, and Sarah would be ninety, and he could not help but laugh. “How could this be?” he thought. “It is not possible.”

This is man’s unbelief, his doubting of the Word of God. Sarah herself, when she heard this news, laughed also. We read in Genesis 18:13-15:

And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.

This word “laugh” is what the sons-in-law of Lot were doing. They laughed. Lot “seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.” “There is no way,” they thought. “In no way is this possible. It is out of the realm of possibility. It is unusual and out of the ordinary. How can you tell us that this city, which has continued on for such a long period of time, will now be destroyed?”

Let us go back and think about national Israel for a moment. We realize that God had chosen a certain point in the fullness of time when He would send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of His people (Galatians 4:4). At that point, the Lord would divorce national Israel from being the people of God. He would no longer be married to them (Isaiah 50:1), and they would no longer be blessed with the presence of God in their midst. At that point, God would forsake Israel.

That was exactly what happened. At that point in time, there was no longer any blessing of God upon Israel. They no longer were the caretakers of the Oracles of God. No longer did they have the blessing of God in their midst (Hosea 9:12). Once “the veil of the temple was rent in twain,” they were no longer the holy people, and Jerusalem was no longer the “Holy City” (Matthew 27:51).

The nation of Israel could not believe this, and they still cannot believe it in our present day. They do not believe that God visited them in judgment in a very real way and removed His blessing from them.

This is the point at which God established the New Testament church. They have continued as the people of God for nearly two thousand years, exactly as Israel was the Old Testament representation of the Kingdom of God on earth for about two thousand years. Now during the end times, the final stage of earth’s history known as the Great Tribulation, God’s plan is to likewise forsake the New Testament church for their apostasy and unfaithfulness, just as He did to Israel. “Judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17), and He will judge the church.

God visits His people. He sees the wickedness of “Sodom,” the corporate church of our day. He sees how terribly His Word has been forsaken and abandoned and disobeyed, and He forewarns His people, telling them, “Up, get you out of this place. Get out of the churches and congregations, for the Lord is going to destroy them. He is going to bundle up all those in the churches like tares for the burning” (Matthew 13:30). “Any who are left in the congregations at the end of the world will certainly remain for judgment and be under the wrath of God” (Matthew 13:40).

How is this news received? How do those in the churches of our present day receive this? It is coming directly from the Word of God. There has been no additional revelation, but God has simply opened up Scriptures that have long been sealed. What is the reaction? What is the response?

There is mockery, there is doubting, and there are cries of heresy. They refuse to accept this message as the Word of God. There is no obedience to the command, just as Lot’s sons-in-law did not take any effort towards obeying this command. They had no intention of getting out of the city. They stayed exactly where they were, and Lot’s own daughters remained with them. Two of his daughters who were unmarried virgins did leave the city with their father, but his married daughters stayed with their husbands. How sad and how terrible this was! It is no wonder that Lot lingered, as we read later on.

In verse Genesis 19:15 it says:

And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

This verse relates to what we read in Revelation 18, where God is speaking of “Babylon.” “Babylon” is a figure of the apostate church, just as Sodom is—they are synonyms for the same thing. Revelation 18:4-5 states:

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

This is exactly parallel to what we are reading regarding Sodom in Genesis 19. “Arise,” is the command from God, “and take those of your family who are willing. Take your wife and your two daughters that are here with you, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city. It is time to get out, and if you do not, you will be partakers of her sins and you will receive of her plagues and stand for judgment.”

The commandment of God during the days of the Great Tribulation is a commandment that God has designed to reveal who is trusting in His Word above all. Will those professing Christians trust what God has said in His Word? Will they believe the Bible as it is clearly opened up and shown to be declaring that the Church Age is over and the testimony of the two witnesses is finished? Will they believe that it is time to leave the church, or will they trust in their churches? Are they going to trust their pastors and the men of the church and the traditions of the church? Will they trust those of the city “Sodom” who remain and simply do not believe the warning?

God has arranged this end-time test, and it is a severe test. We can see Lot torn between staying for the sake of his family that is there and leaving as quickly as possible in order to be obedient to the command of God and to help the rest of his family escape.

In our next study, Lord willing, we will pick up here in Genesis 19:15, and we will see how this works itself out.