Study in the Epistle of Jude # 64: Verse 11

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We have been in the book of Numbers looking at Korah and his rebellion. We are actually studying the book of Jude, where in verse 11, God says, “Woe unto them that perished in the gainsaying of Core.” Because of this verse, we have been looking at this rebellion of Korah. We have now come to the point in the account where the judgment of God has fallen.

First, God commanded everyone to depart from the tents of these wicked men. We have seen how this relates to the command that will be given by God as He opens up His Word, the Bible, during the time of Great Tribulation. The command is issued forth and sent to all the people of God—leave the church, come out of the congregation. In other words, depart from the tents of the wicked men who remain in the churches because God is about to destroy them. The destruction about to come is a major reason that God is commanding His people to come out of the churches in Revelation 18:4-5. We read there:

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 the purpose or the reason that God is calling His people out—so that they do not partake of the judgment to any greater degree. If they remain, that would be an indicator that they were not a true believer, a child of God, and they would experience the wrath of God. Yet before any kind of judgment, God forewarns His people, as we have seen in the Bible. He came to Abraham when He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham pleaded for the righteous of Sodom. Then God entered into Sodom and warned Lot and his family that the judgment was about to fall. It was not very long before the Word of God came to pass and fire and brimstone fell from Heaven. God always warns His people; He gives warning from His Word to His servants, the prophets (Amos 3:7).

In Numbers, He is warning anyone who is connected to Korah and Dathan and Abiram, or who is in some way near their tents, to depart from those tents. Those men will shortly face the judgment of God; they will shortly be destroyed. This is terrible. In Numbers 16:27, it says:

So they gat up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side…

This here is the mercy of God. God is indicating that there will be believers who do come out of the churches. It is the next part of the verse that is the terrible part. We read:

…and Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood in the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little children.

It is not just Dathan, Korah, and Abiram, it is not just these wicked men, but their families are with them. They have their wives, their older sons, their infant children, their daughters—the whole family is standing there with the father. He is the representative of the family, the one who leads the family. These fathers have led their children to the doors of these tents in total and complete rebellion against God Himself. There they are, standing in their pride and arrogance and rebellion. They have lifted themselves up against God and against the Word of God, and they have brought their wives and their children to stand with them there. That is the most horrible and terrible thing about the Great Tribulation. Churches are made up of families. As men and women have come together and by God’s creative act born children, they are now raising them in the church that has gone astray and has lost all blessing of God.

God commands His people, “Come out of the church. It is time to leave the congregation. It is time to worship the Lord outside the church. You may still read your Bible; you may still worship God and minister the Gospel—you can do all these things away from the tents of these wicked men. Get away from these congregations that usurp the authority over God with their doctrines and false teachings. Get away from these congregations that dare to add works unto the grace of God’s Gospel. Get away from the tents of these men.” God is beseeching and pleading through His Word that His people would remove themselves, yet these men stand there confident and assured that they are the people of God, the holy ones. As we remember, they rose up and spoke to Moses and Aaron in Numbers 16:3. We read there:

And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?

They are the people of God, so they think, and holy, every one of them. They stand there confidently as Israelites, Jews, who think that God is their God. They think that God will bless them and that He is with them and among them. They actually believe that God is in these tents, even though these are the tents of wicked men, by God’s own description.

Are they deceived? Yes, but so are the churches today. The churches today believe the exact same thing; they are just as blinded. They do not look at their own institution or at what they are teaching. How can they teach anything and everything under the sun, as they do in total rejection of the truth of God’s Word? How can they think that God is dwelling among them, that He is in their tents, and that He is with them and that they are the holy people of God? How can they believe that? They do, just as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram stood there defiantly staring at Moses and Aaron. “We will not come up,” they said. “We are holy; God is with us.” They were so confident of this that they had their children, even their little children, and their wives standing there with them. “Now what are you going to do,” is really what they are saying. “What are you going to do about it, Moses? What are you going to do about it, Aaron?” Sadly, we know what is going to happen. We read in Numbers 16:28-33:

And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the LORD hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the LORD hath not sent me. But if the LORD make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the LORD. And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them: And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.

All that appertained unto Korah perished as they went down alive into the pit. That is the warning of Jude verse 11—”Woe unto them that perish in the gainsaying of Core.” This going down into the pit, which we will look at a little more closely later, represents going down into Hell. Very clearly, that is the picture that is given here right before the final judgment. God commands his people to depart from the tents of these wicked men, and then Judgment Day is brought to pass. All who remained in those tents were destroyed; they perished in the gainsaying of Core. They perished by going down alive into the pit.

Likewise will perish all who remain in the church. Let us not forget that when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, it swallowed up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, but it also swallowed up their wives and their sons and their little children. It is no wonder what God says in Matthew 24, which is a chapter that answers the disciples question to the Lord Jesus Christ, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus, in His response, says in verse 19:

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

Woe unto them that perish in the gainsaying of Core. Woe unto them who are in the churches today with their families. Woe unto them as their families are perhaps multiplying. Maybe they would say that they are greatly blessed because they have three or four or six or eight or a dozen children. “Oh, how God has blessed us,” the husband and wife say to one another. Yet they remain in the tents of wickedness; they remain in the church that is under the judgment of God. They remain in the place where God is bundling tares for the burning (Matthew 13:30). They remain in the most dangerous place, spiritually, upon the face of the earth—the corporate body.

Furthermore, they have their dear children there, those blessings that God has blessed them with. They are taking their sons and their daughters there each Sunday. They are leading them into the congregation of which God’s Spirit has departed out of the midst (2 Thessalonians 2:7). They go in while God has gone out and Satan’s spirit has entered in. There they are, saying, “We are the people of God; we are the holy ones.” They insist, “All the congregation of the Lord is holy. God’s spirit is among us.” They will not even consider the possibility that the Spirit of God is not there.

It is there that they keep their children, yet they are raising them for the fires of Hell; they are raising them for destruction. Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days. Woe unto these people. Their poor children are following their parents, and they are following them right down into Hell.

God is very clear in His Word that all who have sinned against Him shall answer for their sins, whether they be an adult or a child. In many places in the Bible, God points out this truth; we see it with the destruction of Jericho, for example. As the walls of Jericho fell down, the command was to go forth unto the city that was now defenseless and slay man, woman, and child (Josh 6:17-21). The fall of Jericho was a picture of the fall of the world. In this picture, it is the end of the world and now all are to be slain—men, women, and children, all who have no Savior, all who have offended against God.

We see another picture of God’s judgment when princes and presidents plotted against Daniel and conspired to have him thrown in the lion’s den. The king was deceived into enacting a law that he could not change—anyone who would make a request of any other god besides the king himself should be cast into the den of lions. Daniel had always made supplication unto his God three times in the day. This was reported to the king; he sought to deliver Daniel, but he realized the treachery of these princes. He was true to his word, that word that could not be changed, and Daniel was cast into the den of lions. Of course, we know that God shut the lions’ mouths, miraculously rescuing Daniel from the mouths of these lions so that he came up out of the pit without any harm. However, in Daniel 6:22-24, we read:

My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt. Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.

God is no respecter of persons. He is a fearful God, a frightful God. Even a child must give account to God for the things done in his body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). Now we could say, “Oh, it is the father’s fault. It was the fault of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. They are the heads of the household, and they led their children into that terrible position where they were remaining in those tents when God’s anger was kindled against them. They are the ones responsible. God ought to have spared their children; He ought to have let the children live.” However, no, God is judging each one for their sins.

It is true that the father has the greater responsibility for how he leads his household, just as the pastor and the elder and the deacon likewise have the greater responsibility for how they lead their congregation. Even though they have the greater sin and the greater responsibility, the congregation cannot say, “I was led astray by the pastor. It is all the pastor’s fault; he never told me the truth.” Even though that might be the case, it is still the personal responsibility of the individual member of the congregation to obey the Word of God, the voice of God, as He is commanding them to come out. If they do not come out, their sin remains. Their sin is upon them, and they will be destroyed for their sin. Likewise, it is the individual responsibility of each family member in the church, of the children, the wife, and the husband, to obey the voice of the Lord. If they do not obey, they will perish. They will perish because they were never truly children of God, never born again. They will go down into the pit.

That is the frightening thing that we are learning as we are reading Numbers 16. God has given us a short season, a brief interlude, a brief period of time, before this pit of Hell will be created and the unsaved will be cast down into it.

Let us notice how quickly these events transpire in Numbers 16. God’s wrath is burning; His fury is heating up more and more against these men who think that they can do as they please. Then the command is given—”Depart from their tents.” Almost immediately following that command, their destruction comes. Their end comes as God opens up the earth itself and they are swallowed up, just as Jesus was swallowed up, spiritually speaking, as He spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:40).

God is very serious, extremely serious, regarding these truths that He is revealing to His people during this time. Out of His mercy and goodness, He has taken the time to forewarn each and every one of His elect people to remove themselves and to come out of the church.

Here we are—we know that we have progressed in the history of this world up until this very day where we are in the second half of the Great Tribulation. The next major event to take place will be the final judgment itself and the creation of that place called Hell and the casting off of all the ungodly into it.

In our next study, Lord willing, we are going to look at this pit a little more. We will also look at this language where these people were cast down alive into the pit, and why God emphasizes that they were alive as they went down into the pit. I hope that you will be with us for our next study, even though these things are not pleasant. They are very difficult to hear at times; nonetheless, it is a blessing.