Study in the Epistle of Jude # 36: 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 book of Jude. We have come to verse 7, which discusses Sodom and Gomorrah. We have been studying the historical account of the destruction of these cities in Genesis 19. We have come to the point in this account where God has commanded Lot to flee the city and to escape to the mountain. He stresses to Lot that it is for the sake of his life, saying, “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.”

This is a desperate command; it is for one’s very life. The life that God has in view is not so much one’s physical life, but their spiritual life. In view is their eternal existence—where they will spend their eternity. “Escape for thy life; look not behind thee.” This is God’s command for the inhabitants of Sodom.

We have to keep the spiritual application of this command in view. This is God’s command for all that are in the church, which spiritually has become “Sodom” during this time of Great Tribulation. God is speaking to us, and He is insisting that we escape for our very lives and look not behind us as we come out of the church. We run out of the church as fast as we can. We get out of the congregation. We do not wait; we do not delay.

There are several ways in which we can approach the pastor. We can go to the pastor and say, “I am sorry, but the Bible is indicating that the Church Age is over. God has finished using the churches and it is time for us to leave.” We can give him a tract or a book that discusses these issues, or we can write him a letter. Then we leave the church. We take our families with us, if they are willing. However, as Genesis 19 goes on to show, we leave the church even if our families do not come with us. If some in our family are not willing to leave, we still must go.

It is an individual matter as to where someone will spend eternity, whether in Heaven with God or in the pit of Hell forevermore. God is speaking to each one of us as individuals. He is commanding each one, “Escape for your life. Get out of the church, and do not look behind you once you have gone.”

We might be a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, and maybe the rest of our family does not understand this. We can do as Lot did. We can declare to our family members what God has said. We can have a great concern for them. This might possibly even cause us to linger for a little while. However, ultimately and finally, we must get out of the church exactly as Lot got out of Sodom. He left behind his daughters. He left behind his sons-in-law. They never left, they never changed their minds, and they never ceased to mock God’s commandment that Sodom would be destroyed. What was their end result? They perished in the city. The fire and brimstone rained down upon them in their unbelief.

God is insisting that this is how it must be. Believers sadly, and perhaps having their souls vexed in so doing, must leave Sodom. They can leave Sodom tearfully and mournfully, but they must get out of the city and escape to the mountain before it is too late—before the city will be destroyed. God’s command is to leave the church and not to look behind us.

This is a very important part of coming out of the church. Even in our day, we have seen that some people have come out, and after a period of time, they go back or begin looking for another church. They have failed to obey God’s commandment, “Look not behind thee.”

This commandment is a familiar one in the Bible. In Luke 9:62, we read:

And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

This verse has to do with salvation. It has to do with someone who has come out of the world and is now beginning to live the Christian life.

What is the Christian life? It is not as many try to paint it. It is not a life in which everything is wonderful and you think positively all day long and try to keep a smile on your face.

The Christian life is truly a life of joy, but there is also much grief. There is affliction and persecution for the Word’s sake (Isaiah 66:5). There are struggles within because the flesh is contrary to the Spirit (Galatians 5:17). There is a battle within the individual. Likewise, there are struggles without. The world is contrary to the life of the child of God because he has been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13). There is a battle.

Therefore, as things go on, the temptation is to think, “How easy it was. What a life of ease I used to have. I used to live in my sin, and I remember how pleasurable certain sins were.” The sinner’s mind begins to wander. He begins to think of his past deeds—they were evil deeds, but they still had a certain sort of pleasure, as sin does. He sets his mind on these past sins, and it is not long before he is becoming more and more discontent and uneasy in the Christian life. What a struggle it is. How grievous it is. Suddenly, he turns and forsakes the Gospel. He forsakes the Lord Jesus Christ and turns back.

How did this all start? Besides the fact that this is an indication that this person was never truly saved, how did it all start? It started with the thought. It started by him setting his mind on that which was behind. God says that we are to press on toward the mark (Philippians 3:14). We are to press on to what is before us and to forget those things that are behind. We are not to look back.

This is a Biblical principle when it comes to the world. We are not to ponder over, dwell on, and cherish in our hearts the things of the world (1 John 2:15). If we do, it will not be too long before we will be so desirous of them, so lusting for them, that we will want to return to them.

In Hebrews 11, God speaks of Abraham’s mindset as he came out of Ur of the Chaldees. Before we look at that, though, let us turn to Genesis. In Genesis 11:31-32, we read:

And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

Now let us read Genesis 12:1-2. It says there:

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

Then verse 4 says:

So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him…

God came to Abram and commanded him, “Come out.” This is exactly the same issue as God is commanding believers today in the churches, “Come out of her, My people” (Revelation 18:4). God spoke to Abram, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee,” and God brought Abram forth.

Let us now look at Hebrews 11, the chapter that deals with faith and shows the wonderful happenings of the men of God as they lived out their lives by faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. We read in Hebrews 11:8:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

This is exactly the case in our day. God is calling people out, saying, “Come out of her, My people.” There are many people who do not know where they will go. They do not know what they are going to do with themselves on Sunday mornings. The picture in their minds can be rather bleak. They wonder, “What can I do? I know that the Bible is teaching that the Church Age is over, and I know that God is commanding me to come out, but I am fearful. I am anxious about this, because I do not know what the future holds. I do not know where I am going.” There are many that will be wondering what the Sundays to come will be like without church. They will be wondering what it will be like without the social activities and the organization of the church, without the pastor to call when they are in trouble, and without the elder to speak to.

Yet God is commanding His people as He did to Abraham, “Come out of her, My people.” He called Abraham out, and Abraham came. Abraham left his home and his acquaintances and he came out of that place—by faith, God says. We know that God greatly blessed Abraham, and we know that coming out of Ur of the Chaldees was a wonderful thing in Abraham’s life.

Let us look at the place from which Abraham came out. In Acts 7: 2-4, we read:

And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran [Haran], And said unto him, Get thee out of thy country…

Can you hear the bold declaration, the clear commandment of God? “Get thee out of thy country.” The passage continues:

…and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall shew thee. Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans…

From where did Abraham come out? From where did God call him out? The land of the Chaldaeans—what is that? The land of the Chaldaeans is the land of Babylon. The Babylonians and the Chaldaeans are one in the same. Abraham lived in the area of Babylon; he lived in the land of the Chaldees. He was a Chaldaean; he was associated with the Babylonians. God commanded him, “Get thee out of thy country.” This is exactly as God commands in Revelation 18, “Come out of her, My people.” This command is to God’s people who dwell in the spiritual Babylon that the church has become.

What is to be the response of the people of God who are dwelling in the land of the Chaldaeans? The same reaction is demanded of them by God as was expected of Abraham—to obey. Even if you do not know where you are going, even if you think that you are going to be sitting at home alone with a radio and your Bible and that is all that will remain of your social life or any kind of fellowship with your fellowman, you are to obey. This is God’s commandment.

Abraham knew not where he was going; he knew not what lay ahead as God commanded him to come out, yet he obeyed. By the grace of God, by God’s working in him, he obeyed. This was a tremendous act of obedience on Abraham’s part, and how greatly God blessed him! How greatly God blessed the descendants of Abraham! Yet it began with God calling him out of the land of the Chaldaeans, which Abraham obeyed.

What was the promise to Abraham? God promised him that He would make of him a great nation. Back in Genesis 12:2 we read:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

What is God saying to His people today? “Come out of her, My people.” We are not to be idle; rather, we are to minister the Gospel to the world. We are living in the time of the Great Tribulation in which God says that He will save a great multitude that no man can number (Revelation 7:9). This is the same promise that God gave to Abraham when He told him, “Look now toward Heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them…so shall thy seed be” (Genesis 15:5).

This blessing began with Abraham coming out of the land of the Chaldaeans. Likewise, the blessing begins in the days of Great Tribulation when God’s people come out of Babylon and leave the church. Now God will initiate His plan in earnest. He will save untold numbers of sinners all across the face of the earth. People will become saved all over the world as the believers are ministering the Gospel from outside the church.

As we read a bit further in Hebrews 11, we see something that relates to Genesis 19, where God commanded Lot to escape for his life and to not look behind him. In Hebrews 11:13-15, we read:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.

God, speaking of Abraham and the saints of old, says, “Truly, if they had been mindful of [if they had set their minds on] that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned.” God called Abraham out of the land of the Chaldaeans, out of Babylon. If Abraham had set his mind upon Babylon, God says that he “might have had opportunity to have returned.”

What a tragedy it would have been if these saints spoken of here had returned! What an awful loss it would have been for so many, especially for the saints themselves. Yet, by the way in which God has worded this language, He is indicating that they did not set their minds on the place that they came out of.

Abraham did not look back in his heart. He did not look back with his mind’s eye to Ur of the Chaldees. He did not look back to his family and friends with a longing heart and think, “Oh, if only I could return.” Even though there were times of wandering in Abraham’s life, even though he was a constant sojourner in the land that God had promised to give him and his seed, even though there were days of famine and struggles in his life, he did not look back with his mind, else he would have had opportunity to return. His mind was focused on another City, not an earthly city—not the church institution—but the eternal Church, the Kingdom of God in Heaven.

That is to be the focus of believers today. We are to look on things above. We are to look up and see that our redemption is drawing nigh (Luke 21:28). We are close to entering into the Celestial City, the Heavenly City, where God will dwell with us and live among us forever. Earthly cities pale in comparison to such splendor and beauty. This is where the mind of the child of God is focused.

This passage continues in verse 16, saying:

But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

This is the City that the people of God are longing for. We were sojourning and we were strangers in the city of the corporate church (1 Chronicles 29:15). That was not our home; it was only a temporal dwelling place for the believers. If that temporal dwelling place is removed, then so be it. That does not trouble a true child of God because we had never put our trust in that place, any more than Abraham would have placed his trust in any of the tents that he set up. He knew by the action of setting up a tent that he must move on.

In 2 Corinthians 5:1, it says:

For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved…

That word “dissolved” is the same word that is translated as “thrown down” in Matthew 24:2. Regarding the stones of the temple, Jesus states, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

The earthly house here typifies the corporate church. For we know that if our earthly house, the corporate church, of this tabernacle were dissolved, thrown down…then the verse continues:

…we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

We are part of the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City. This is where our citizenship is; this is where our heart lies.

We are grieved and troubled in some ways that the Church Age has come to an end because of our family and friends and so many others who cannot see these things or understand what God is saying. There is sadness; but when it comes to where our home is, we know that we are in the Kingdom of God. Our heart lies not in the corporate church—not in the once-outward manifestation of the Kingdom of God upon earth—not in the local church buildings. But our heart lies in God’s Kingdom with Christ Himself. That is a house not under the wrath of God, not perishing, and not being thrown down. It is eternal and will continue forevermore. That is where the believers will dwell.