Study in the Epistle of Jude # 48: Verse 11

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are going through the book of Jude. We have come to verse 11 in this short, one-chapter Epistle, which says:

Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain…

We have been looking at the account of Cain as we find it in Genesis 4. We have seen that as Cain and Abel bring their offerings to the Lord, they are a picture—a representation—of the church. Within the church, there will be saved and unsaved people. Cain is representing the unsaved, and Abel typifies the saved. “In process of time it came to pass” we read that this offering was given to the Lord.

It would be helpful for us to quickly go over what we have seen so far. We have seen that God gave them information regarding an offering, and that this offering was brought to God “in process of time” as it says in our English King James Bible (Genesis 4:3). We learned, however, that in the Hebrew it is better translated as “in the end of days it came to pass.” Right away, with that kind of language, God is letting us know that what is in view in this account of Cain and Abel spiritually points to the end of time. We have seen that this is dealing with the church, within which there are the saved and the unsaved. We have seen the similarity between this and the parable of the wheat and tares that we read about in Matthew 13, where God is separating the true believers from the unbelievers.

These offerings have been brought forth. God had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but He did not have respect unto Cain or to Cain’s offering. We have seen that this has to do with their salvation plan. We have seen that this points to the fact that Abel was trusting in Christ. Christ had saved him and his sins had been paid for by the work of Christ. That did not happen at that point in time, because Jesus would not come to fulfill the Scriptures, to fulfill God’s salvation plan, for many thousands of years. Yet, because God saved Abel, he was trusting in what Christ would do. He only trusted in what Christ would do because God had saved him to begin with. God saved him first and then gave him this understanding related to the truth. So we see that God has respect to Abel and to his offering, just as He does to each child of God.

Yet, God makes a distinction. He shows Cain that there is a difference between him and his offering and Abel and his offering. This is a source of great wrath on Cain’s part. He is furious that Abel’s offering has been accepted. He is jealous. He rises up and slays his brother Abel. Why is this? Because his works were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

Because this all takes place “in the end of days,” we can be sure that this historical parable is referring to the time of the Great Tribulation. It is during the Great Tribulation when these events will take place. There are the two brothers, the saved and the unsaved within the church, who have been dwelling side-by-side. It is during the Great Tribulation when the one brother, typified by Cain and those who go in the way of Cain, rises up and slays his other brother, just as Cain slew Abel. The unsaved slay the true believers by driving them out of the churches once the Great Tribulation gets underway (John 16:2). This situation has existed throughout history, but not to the degree that it will take place during the time of the Great Tribulation. At that point, it will be everywhere. In congregation after congregation, Cain will rise up to spiritually kill his brother Abel, and the elect will be driven out of the church.

This is the situation. Cain did rise up and slay Abel historically. He murdered his own brother. Then we read in verse 10:

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

The blood of Abel can be shown to relate to the blood of the souls of those believers who were slain “for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held” (Revelation 6:9). We have seen in Revelation 6 that these were crying out to God for vengeance upon their blood that had been spilled. Also in Psalm 79, as the dead bodies of the servants of God are lying in the street with none to bury them, we can see that the spiritual picture—without mistake—has to be of the Great Tribulation. This is because we find that language again in Revelation 11 regarding the two witnesses who are lying dead in the street for three and a half days and whose dead bodies are not suffered to be put into the ground.

The blood of Abel cries unto God, just as the blood of the true believers cries unto God for vengeance. God will bring judgment upon the unsaved within the churches, and He says to Cain in Genesis 4:11:

And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand;

God cursed Cain. This is the awful situation in our day as we speak of the end of the Church Age. We realize and understand from the Word of God that God is finished using the churches and congregations of the world. We say that there is no blessing of God upon the Word that is preached any longer within the church. We say that God’s Spirit has departed out of the midst so that there cannot be any blessing upon that Word (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and this therefore means that no one is becoming saved.

Yet, what if we said this in another way? If there is no blessing, what does that leave but a curse. Therefore, we could say that the church has been cursed as the Great Tribulation has gotten underway and as judgment begins at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).

The wrath of God is poured out upon the institution—the corporate body—of the church. This means that most definitely the church is cursed. It is cursed when you have Satan’s presence abiding as the spirit in the congregations instead of the Spirit of Christ—that is a cursed condition. It is cursed when you have cries of woe unto them who give suck in those days because there will be no blessing upon the Word of God to the hearts or the spiritual ears or eyes of the young people, the infants, and the children who remain in the corporate body (Luke 21:23). They are being raised for destruction—that is a curse that is come upon the church during the time of the Great Tribulation.

Cain was cursed because he slew Abel his brother. God exacted vengeance upon Cain for slaying his brother, just as God is avenging the death of his saints by bringing judgment upon an apostate church, an unfaithful church, a church that has gone astray from the truth of the Word of God. Certainly the church is cursed, for the reason that they have slain the righteous and allowed the wicked to live.

That is the language of Ezekiel 13, for one place. In that chapter, the focus is on the false prophets who are bringing a gospel of peace and a gospel of easy-believism, just like the freewill gospel of our day. Basically, in so doing, they have slain the righteous; they have killed them spiritually. We see this in Ezekiel 13:19 where God is speaking to those who bring other kinds of gospels. He says:

And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die…

The souls who should not die are the people of God. We should not die because we are of His elect. However, the gospels that these men bring do as such:

…and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?

They have a gospel whereby someone can bring salvation to themselves. In this gospel, it is supposed that these men have become saved. God is just using the language of their gospel as He says, “they save the souls alive.” Those who claim to be Christian, those who think that they are right with God because the preacher told them it would be so if they said the sinner’s prayer or walked down the aisle, they are the souls saved alive of sinners who should not live because they are not God’s elect. Their names have not been written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 21:27), and neither will they live. On the Last Day, the Lord Jesus Christ will say, “Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). They will perish finally in the pit of Hell forevermore.

That is what makes the sin of deceiving these poor souls into thinking that they are truly born again children of God so horrible. It is horrible to give such a lie to someone who then trusts in that lie and who has assurance in that lie up until the very day where it is shown to be a lie of the worst kind. At that point, there is no time for repentance. There is no possibility of mercy on the Day of Judgment. There is nothing but the casting off.

How horrible it is to be someone who brings a gospel that gives this false assurance to sinners! What they desperately need to hear is the true Gospel. They need to hear the message that they are sinners and that they are under the wrath of God. They need to hear that because of their sin, they are subject to spend an eternity in Hell.

Right about that point, they would like to hear something that they can do. They would desire to do some work of some kind so that they can become right with God. Yet it is at that point that the true Gospel of the Bible will let them know, “There is nothing you can do. In other words, you are a sinner. You are under the wrath of God, you are on your way to Hell, and you are powerless to save yourself. There is no action that you can take or words that you can say or prayer that you can offer up that in the next moment will guarantee that you will become a child of God. Salvation is completely out of your hands and it is entirely in the hands of God.”

What can a sinner do? This is where sinners begin to become desperate; here is where their eyes turn to God with fear. They learn that the thing God permits and allows a sinner to do is to cry out to Him for mercy and to beseech Him for salvation (Luke 18:13). This does not guarantee salvation nor can this prayer bring salvation to the person; but it is something that God permits the sinner to do. In the crying out and begging God for His salvation, the sinner is recognizing and reaffirming to himself that he is powerless and that he cannot save himself. Salvation is in God’s hands; it is all according to the will of God. It is according to His good pleasure whom He will save and have mercy upon. As we read in Romans 9:15, God says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” God will save the one whom He desires to save, and crying for mercy is confirming this truth in the sinner’s mind.

God allows and permits this. It could be that if someone comes to God on His terms, He might have mercy. “Who can tell,” the Ninevites said as they cried out to God for mercy (Jonah 3:9). “Who can tell if God might turn from the evil that He intends to pour out upon us.” They did not know that God would turn from the evil that He intended or from the destruction of Nineveh. They had no idea or knowledge that He would. Yet there was that possibility or else God would not have bothered to send the prophet Jonah. Why would He tell them “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,” unless there was the possibility that God might have mercy and save some of them?

God did save some of them, and so it is today—God could save the sinner. The sinner goes to God in God’s prescribed manner for a sinner to approach unto Him—humbly and beseeching Him for His salvation. However, this is not the gospel of many of the churches today. Multitudes of churches teach that you can save yourself, yet this is totally contrary to the Gospel of the Bible. Cain was cursed for slaying his brother, just as the church of our day is cursed for slaying the true children of God with their false teachings and for driving them out of the churches and congregations.

In Genesis 4:12-14, God, speaking to Cain, says:

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth…

God is saying to Cain that he had brought an offering from the ground—he was a tiller of the ground. Now God is saying, “When you till the ground, it will not henceforth yield unto thee her strength.” We have seen that this is pointing to fruit. It does not mean that Cain historically could not farm the land or that a crop would not be produced; rather, the intent here is the spiritual meaning of Cain’s tilling the ground and it not yielding her strength. This word “strength” is translated as “fruits” in only one place. In Job 31:39, we read:

If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money…

In this verse, the word “strength” is translated as “fruits.” In the context of Genesis 4:12, the word seems to point to the fruit that the ground yields; however, the overall meaning of this word “strength” is simply “strength” or “might” or “power.” It is often used in connection with God Himself, with the strength of God.

In addition, “the ground” or “the land” in the Bible, as far as the church is concerned, is a picture pointing to the Kingdom of God. The fruit of that ground or the strength of the Kingdom of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the picture here is that when Cain tills the ground, the ground will not bring forth fruit, spiritual fruit; it will not bring forth Christ Himself. Christ will not be found in the churches or congregations. There will be no fruit as a result; there will be no one becoming saved. That, I think, is the spiritual picture that is being drawn here.

Then it goes on in the last half of Genesis 4:12:

…a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

The word “fugitive” is translated as “wander” in Amos 8. Amos is significant because, in chapter 8 especially, God is again dealing with the Great Tribulation period. We read in verses 11-12:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

The word “wander” here is this word “fugitive”—they shall be as a fugitive from sea to sea. They will wander about, but there will be no blessing of the Word of God; there will be a famine of hearing the Word of the Lord. God is not going to bless the Word to the hearts of those in the congregations during the time of Great Tribulation. Therefore, Cain becomes a wanderer, or a vagabond, which is restating the same idea. He is a fugitive, a wanderer. “A vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”

This is the spiritual condition of many in the church today. They are seeking the Word of the Lord, so they say. They go from church to church and they try in a never-ending quest to find a faithful church, yet they will never find it because the church of our day is no longer faithful; God has forsaken the church. God is faithfulness (Revelation 19:11), and if God is not found in the congregation, then how can anyone say, “My church is faithful”? Christ is righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6), and if Christ’s presence is not found in the congregation, how can any church dare to claim, “My church is righteous”? No church today is faithful. We can make this absolute declaration because Christ, who is faithful, has departed out of the midst of the churches. This is what is meant in Isaiah 1:21, which says:

How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

Is that not a good question? “The faithful city” is a reference to Jerusalem, which typifies the corporate church. “How is the faithful city become a harlot?” Why is it that we find in Revelation 17 and 18 that God suddenly views the church as a harlot? It is because of its sin and because it has gone astray from the Word of God. Yet is it not true that the church had gone astray throughout the New Testament Church Age? Could not false doctrines always be found? Could not there always be spiritual high places that the church had set up and that ought to have brought about the judgment of God? That certainly was spiritual fornication—why was the church not called a harlot then? Why was it known as a faithful city during that time?

It was known as a faithful city because “righteousness lodged in it.” In 1 Corinthians 1:30, we read that Jesus is righteousness. Jesus, who is being spoken of here as the One who is righteousness Himself, lodged in the midst of the faithful city. That is what made the city faithful. “But now murderers,” it says, indicating that righteousness no longer lodges within the boundaries of the city. Indeed, Christ no longer does because He has left and forsaken the church. Immediately, at the point of His departure, the church is no longer a faithful city—but a harlot. Regardless of what doctrines a church might hold to or how diligently and franticly that they claim they are faithful to the Word of God, they are not faithful if Christ is not within the city. If Christ is not in the church, then every church is a harlot, spiritually speaking. This is exactly what the Bible teaches during this time of Great Tribulation.

We have come to then end of this study. Next time, Lord willing, we are going to finish looking at Cain in Genesis 4, and then we will move on to Balaam.