Study in the Epistle of Jude # 62: Verse 11

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We have been looking at the incense that was placed upon the burning coals of the censer. We have seen that God prescribed and detailed exactly how the anointing oil, which Exodus 25:6 indicates would also be used for incense, was to be prepared. We read in Exodus 25:6:

Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,

The spices were for both the anointing oil and the sweet incense that would be placed upon that burning censer, and we have seen that God prescribed exactly how that anointing oil was to be prepared.

We have seen that the incense laid upon the censer is a picture of Christ as He was laid upon the fires of Hell. Then the cloud of incense would cover the Mercy Seat; then the atonement would be made. As God looks at that incense, He sees Christ, the Word of God, the embodiment of the Gospel itself. Therefore, anyone offering strange fire or placing strange incense upon the fire and bringing that before the Lord would be someone involving themselves in another kind of Gospel.

We have seen in Isaiah 6 that as the fires of coal were taken from off the altar and applied to the lips of Isaiah, they purged and cleansed him from his iniquity. There we see what God has in view.

Let us also read Exodus 40:15, which says:

And thou shalt anoint them…

Let us remember they would be anointed with that holy anointing oil. The verse continues:

…as thou didst anoint their father…

This is speaking of the sons of Aaron. We continue:

…that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.

That compound, that mixture of spices, was applied to the priest himself as he was anointed with that holy oil especially designed by God. Of course, there was nothing holy about the ointment itself. It was only a mixture of various spices that are found on the earth, and there is nothing holy about that. God, rather, was using them to represent something holy. They were a picture of the salvation of God, which certainly is Holy.

That is why the priests would be anointed, as God says in Exodus 40:15, for an everlasting priesthood. The priesthood of all believers is in view. This is looking to the elect of God. Once they are anointed by the Gospel, once they are anointed by the Word of God as God applies that Word to their hearts, they become saved, they receive the gift of eternal life, and they become an everlasting priest. They become a priest after the order of Melchizedek; not after the order of Aaron, but of Christ. They become an everlasting priest. That is what that holy anointing oil or the sweet incense, as it is applied to the burning coals, represents.

We find a very strange verse, a terribly strange and unusual verse, in Ecclesiastes 10:1. It says there:

Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.

The recipe of God for the ointment of the apothecary, that holy oil, that sweet incense, was a very precise recipe. It was not to be tampered with it or changed; nothing was to be added to it or subtracted from it. This is exactly as it is with the Gospel. We are to bring the whole counsel of God, not to pick and choose what we will declare or teach; we are not to omit anything. The Pharisees, we remember, omitted the weightier matters of the law, the first one mentioned being judgment (Matthew 23:23). Many in the churches today also omit the judgment of God; they omit information regarding the wrath of God or eternal damnation or the judgment of God upon the churches. We are not to omit anything; we are not to add anything.

That is what Ecclesiastes 10:1 is speaking of. Here is that holy ointment of the apothecary, which ought to be a sweet-smelling savour unto God because it is picturing the Lord Jesus Christ, as Ephesians 5:2 says. However, now there is a fly flying around the room. As the Levite who is mixing these spices together is working in his apothecary and compounding this ointment, there is a fly flying around. Maybe it is smitten or for some reason it decides to take a plunge into the ointment, but there it dies. There is that fly now lying in the ointment of the apothecary, and it will cause that ointment to send forth a stinking savour.

Immediately, we think, “It is the dead fly that is the cause of the stinking savour,” but that is not so. The ointment was to be precisely mixed together with all the ingredients specified by God. If anything additional was added, it would send forth a stinking savour; if anything was subtracted, it would send forth a stinking savour. So it is with the Gospel of the Bible. As God indicates in Revelation 22:18-19, once the Bible was completed, nothing is to be added unto the words of this Book or subtracted from the words of this Book, lest you be subject to the plagues written herein. That ointment was a picture of Christ Himself, the Word of God. Any change, no matter how slight, even if it was a dead fly, would cause it to send forth a stinking savour.

That word “stinking” is the same word that we find in Isaiah 5:2 regarding a vineyard. This vineyard “brought forth wild grapes”—the word “wild grapes” is the word “stench.” The vineyard sent forth a stench because it did not produce the fruit that God was looking for; but rather, those who were unsaved in the congregations were being brought forth. Therefore, the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts sent forth this stinking savour, this stench.

That is the same idea as with the ointment of the apothecary. It is also the same idea as the strange fire that Nadab and Abihu offered before the Lord (Leviticus 10:1). That was something that God was not pleased with and could not be pleased with because it was not in accord with His commandments. It was not, therefore, faithful to the Gospel, so He struck them down with fire. They sought to offer fire unto the Lord, they sought to present this picture to God of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was an erroneous and wrong picture. It was a picture not of the true Gospel, the true death of Christ, but of another kind of a Gospel that man had polluted and perverted.

The fire does not then consume the incense—that is not the picture—but it consumes those who would dare to approach unto God with this type of offering. It consumes those who would dare come to God through some way other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who is the true incense and who has been placed upon those fires of Hell. If Christ is not placed upon the fires of Hell in their stead, then they themselves will be placed upon the fires of Hell. Nadab and Abihu are pictures of that.

This is very similar to what we will find as we go on reading the account of Korah in Numbers 16. In verses 12-17 we read:

And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab: which said, We will not come up: Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us? Moreover thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes of these men? we will not come up. And Moses was very wroth, and said unto the LORD, Respect not thou their offering: I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them. And Moses said unto Korah, Be thou and all thy company before the LORD, thou, and they, and Aaron, to morrow: And take every man his censer, and put incense in them, and bring ye before the LORD every man his censer, two hundred and fifty censers; thou also, and Aaron, each of you his censer.

This situation is continuing; it is progressing to the point where these 250 princes will bring their censers before the Lord. Before we get into that, though, let us just say that we stand amazed. It is hardly believable as we read these words coming out of the mouths of these men. We cannot believe it—how could they say such things? Were these the same Jews, the same Israelites, who were slaves in Egypt? Are they remembering the same land of cruel oppression that the Bible sets forth? How could it be that they would say something like we find in verse 13, which says:

Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness…

They are remembering Egypt. They are saying that Egypt was a land that flowed with milk and honey. Certainly that was true for the Egyptians. It was a land of great plenty for the people of Egypt. But could it be said that it was a land of milk and honey for the Jews? They suffered cruel bondage, yet it seems as if Dathan and Abiram and these princes of Israel had forgotten this. Let us turn to Exodus 1:11-14, which says:

Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour: And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in morter, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour.

This passage goes on to speak of how Pharaoh would slay the Israelite children. How terrible it was, how awful! The Israelites had their infants taken from them and slain right before their eyes. Yet these men, Dathan and Abiram and these princes, dared to call Egypt the “land that floweth with milk and honey.” They dared to despise the goodness of God in bringing them out of that horrible place. They dared to cast doubt upon God’s intentions. They go on to say in Numbers 16:14:

Moreover thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey…

They are despising everything that God has done; they are spitting upon it. They are disdaining the goodness and mercy of God in delivering them with such a great deliverance. How terrible, how forgetful, how awful it is for these men to look back upon their evil time in Egypt, their evil days of being a slave and suffering cruel bondage, and to look upon it as though it was a wonderful place, a land full of milk and honey. They are recollecting and remembering some of the good things, and they are certainly forgetting all the evil things that they suffered at the hands of the Egyptians. What a way to remember the misery that they suffered!

Amazingly, this is neither the first time this happened nor the first group of Jews who so despised God’s wonderful plan of salvation, historically speaking, as He delivered the Israelites out of that hard bondage of Egypt. Back in Numbers 11:4-6, we read:

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

They were being miraculously fed by God in the wilderness with the manna, yet they were not content; they did not appreciate God’s provision. In the day we live in where we have all kinds of foods, we can almost sympathize with them. We would feel so deprived and so underprivileged if we had to eat the same food every day like they had to eat this manna. “But come on now,” you might say. “That is just because we are so fat in our land. We have so much of everything, more than we could ever want or desire. That is the only reason we would feel this way.”

However, truthfully, as we look at it with the eyes of God, God provided food for these people in a wonderful way. He provided drink and food for them when they needed it with water out of a rock and manna from Heaven. Man ought to be content with God’s provision; but what do these Israelites do? They look back to Egypt. They cannot remember too many good things about Egypt, but they do remember the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks. They remembered that they had certain foods there.

This just tells you how bad it was if this is all they can remember that was good in Egypt—a certain few vegetables and a certain few foods. Yet they looked back upon Egypt fondly with a tender eye. They are looking back to Egypt, thinking, “Oh, if only I were there and had a cucumber.” Dathan and Abiram are looking back to Egypt as a land full of milk and honey.

We see how Egypt was magnified and grown in their mind’s eye as they were longing to return to it. That is ultimately what was going on in their hearts—they wanted to go back and return. This wilderness trek, this journeying here and there and sojourning in a wilderness, was too tough and too difficult. They wanted to return to what they knew.

The spiritual picture here is that Egypt represents the world. As God draws people out of the world, it is not a bed of roses as some pastors in the churches like to paint it. “Come,” they say, “join up with Christ. Be a child of God, and everything now will be wonderful.” That is nothing but a lie. Once someone becomes a child of God, God begins to test their faith and to try them. They begin to go in the way of Christ and of the true Gospel, which is to take up one’s cross, and they begin to suffer. It is a narrow way, a way of affliction and persecution (Matthew 7:14). It is a way where there are trials at every step of the path.

These individuals who are looking back to Egypt are like those who look back to the world. The world is a despicable place, as far as it treats men and women. It will swallow up individuals whole. Men are in bondage to their sins and to their iniquities; they are slaves of certain sins such as alcohol or tobacco or drugs. They must do the bidding of their lusts and they must serve their sins. All their days, their sins have dominion over them and reign in their lives as a king unto death. Then, sin has accomplished its purpose; it casts them away and discards them.

However some, as they hear the Gospel and are called out of the world, begin to journey along. At first, it is wonderful. They think, “I am free. I am free from sin. I am free from that bondage, just like the Israelites were freed from the literal bondage of being a slave.” However, the way then gets tough and the road becomes difficult. God applies the pressure and the test. “Oh,” they think, “this is too severe. Where is that land of milk and honey? Where are all those wonderful things that I heard about the Gospel and living the Christian life?” Now they begin to look back in their mind’s eye. They begin to look back at certain pleasures that they had.

There are not very many pleasures, really, as you would examine them. The world does offers a certain kind of pleasure. Yes, the drunkard can have a little time where his mind is off his troubles with a drink, but there is always the next day after the drinking. He has only added to his troubles; he has more trouble than ever because now he has done some things and said some things that have shamed him and caused him to feel disgrace. Now he is worse off than before.

When someone is away from the world, they are away from being burned by their sins for a period of time. Now they are looking at the wine in the cup and its redness. God warns against this in the Proverbs; He comes right out and says, “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red” (Proverbs 23:31). As it is in the cup, oh, it looks so inviting. It looks so tempting and tantalizing and satisfying. You take that cup of wine, but then you follow it with another and another and another. There is no satisfaction; the belly is not satisfied with drink. The lust of a sin is never satisfied; it only demands more sin. The passage in Proverbs 23:29-30 reads:

Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

That is the warning of God, and it is a warning against exactly what sin does. Sin advertises much. It promises much, but it delivers little or nothing. It bites like a serpent and stings like an adder, and we are in a worse situation than ever before.

Think for a moment of someone who has been associated with the Gospel. Then they begin to fondly remember the drink and they decide, “I am going to go back; I am going to turn.” They turn, and all the progress that they have made is done away with. Maybe they had secured a good job and a good family. Now they begin to drink, and they cannot stop drinking until they drink themselves out of a job and into a terrible predicament within their family. They are in trouble with their wife, and they are drinking themselves into ruin.

Yet the wine looks so red and inviting in the cup. That is how sin is—you could put any sin you want in that place. Sin promises and allures through the lust of the eyes. Man begins to look and he begins to want and he begins to desire. He turns and goes after it like an animal that is fallen into a snare.

So it is with these Israelites. They are lusting for the leeks and the cucumbers and the melons. They are lusting to return to Egypt and to get out of this affliction in the wilderness. They have had it with the way of the Gospel, the way of the Lord Jesus Christ. They want to return to Egypt, to spiritual bondage, because finally they say that they are happier there. They simply cannot stand the way that they are going.

This is also spoken of a little further on in Numbers. In Numbers 21:4, we read:

And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.

We remember that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). These Israelites are a picture representing those who are professing Christians in the churches. When those in the churches go the right way, when they follow the way of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are discouraged because it is so difficult. It is a way that is plain; it is full of this manna. It is the same Gospel day after day. There is no change, no excitement, no drama—it is the same plain, white bread falling from Heaven.

Let us look at Numbers 21:5, which says:

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

They hated that manna. We remember that Jesus related the manna to Himself in John 6:30-35; He is the bread from Heaven. They really hated the Lord Jesus Christ and the true Gospel of the Bible.

We have gotten a little bit off track here, but I think that it was important for us to realize that this rebellion of Dathan and Abiram is actually an ongoing situation, an ongoing rebellion of those who profess to be the people of God, yet are not.