Study in the Epistle of Jude # 68: Verse 12

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are in the book of Jude. We have been looking at verse 12 of this short Epistle, which appears right before Revelation. Verse 12 says:

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

We have been looking at how God identifies these men, these false prophets, these unbelievers who have entered into the congregations and churches, as spots. He typifies them by a spot or a blemish that would be upon a sacrificial animal and would indicate that it was not acceptable to be received for sacrifice. That is because the spotless lamb that the priests would look for to be the acceptable sacrifice was pointing towards the complete righteousness and perfection of Jesus Christ, who was without sin. It is the same idea here—these men are spots. They are in their sins; they are still under the wrath of God.

As the congregation would come together throughout the Church Age, God would look upon the hearts of the people who were professing to be Christians. He would see some that were pure and holy and just in His sight because they were true believers and God had truly saved them. Yet, He would look upon others in this feast of charity, this feast of love, as they were responding to the Gospel call to come to the supper prepared by God and to partake of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ spiritually. In this gathering together, in this feast, there would be many who had spots and who were not truly born again. Those are the individuals whom God is referring to here in Jude 12.

God goes on to say that they are “feeding themselves without fear.” We have seen that this refers to those who are pastors and elders and deacons and teachers of any kind. Actually, it filters down to every believer because every believer is to feed sheep. This is our occupation while we are in this world—we are to carry the Gospel, which is spiritual food, to those who are hungering and thirsting. That is how we should be busy; that is what our time ought to be occupied with. However, these are feeding themselves.

God has strong words of condemnation to pastors who ought to be feeding the flock but instead are feeding themselves of the flock, and furthermore, doing so without fear. There is no fear of God; if there were, then they would not teach the doctrines that they teach. They would not be so careless with the Word of God and with the Gospel. Yet as they read a verse, they do not check it out thoroughly. They do not see if that verse harmonizes with everything else that the Bible has to say. They do not allow God to do the interpreting, but they themselves reason with their own minds and say, “This is the meaning of this particular verse.” All of these things are an indicator that they do not fear God. They are not coming humbly to the Word of God; they are not submitting themselves under the mighty hand of God. Therefore, God says that they feed themselves without fear.

Then it goes on to say, “clouds they are without water.” We have seen that God does typify believers as being clouds. Hebrews 12:1 is a good reference verse for that, where God speaks of a great cloud of witnesses. That verse follows Hebrews 11, where God had just finished speaking about the saints of old from Noah to Abraham and all throughout the Old Testament—they were a great cloud of witnesses. They were a cloud, and the clouds typify believers as well as the judgment of God.

Yet here in Jude, it says that these ungodly men who have crept into the congregation unaware are clouds. That is, they give the appearance of being a child of God. They would say, “Yes, I am a Christian. I believe in Jesus.” They could be members of the church—even teachers or authorities within the church. They would definitely be the pastor or anyone who professes the name of Christ. Therefore, they are likened to a cloud.

A believer has indwelling within him rivers of living water, the Holy Spirit, that will move him and cause him to carry that Gospel water to those around him; yet these men have no Holy Spirit within. They have no Gospel water flowing out of their belly as rivers of living water, as John 7:38 refers to. Even though they give every outward appearance of being someone whom God has saved, they are not truly saved. Therefore, they have no water. They are without water; they are without the Holy Spirit Himself—He does not indwell them.

We are now going to look at the next part of the verse, which says:

…carried about of winds…

These men are carried about of winds. Let us keep in mind the picture that God has painted for us. They are clouds. Just get the image in your mind of clouds that are floating in the sky. Then along comes a wind, and the wind carries those clouds. It causes them to move to and fro. They begin to be carried quickly away; they are swept away—this is the picture that God is giving us regarding these men who were typified by Cain, Balaam, and Korah. They are clouds without water. When the wind comes, they are carried about of winds.

What does that wind typify? When God says that these men are clouds, and that the wind moves them all around, what is the spiritual meaning of the wind? As we have seen, when God writes this way, He has a spiritual meaning. There is a deeper spiritual meaning—we saw that with the spots in the feasts of charity and with the clouds that are without water—all that typified something. Now God is referring to the winds, and likening these men to being carried about of winds. If we go to Ephesians 4:13-14, I think we get the idea very clearly. We read there:

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind…

That is the same kind of idea and the same type of language that we have in Jude, where God says that these men were clouds carried about of winds. Here in Ephesians 4:14, the Lord is saying that “we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind…” Then He goes on to say:

…of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Now we get the idea. Now we understand much better. The wind is related to doctrine, and doctrine is any kind of teaching that someone derives from the Bible itself. When we study the Bible and we speak of election, election is a doctrine that is a teaching of the Bible. When we study the Bible and we learn of the Sunday Sabbath, that is a doctrine that comes right out of the Word of God. God is indicating here that we are to come to the knowledge of the Son of God, and once we do, “we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.”

We are starting to understand now that God is giving us information that helps us see what He means when He has raised, for instance, storms at sea. In Luke 8:22-25, we read:

Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.

This kind of account is found in every one of the Gospels. Jesus rebukes the wind; He causes the wind to cease. The wind was making the water rage. It was stirring up the waves of the water, which was making sailing dangerous and was posing a threat to the disciples who were within the ship.

All this is a spiritual picture. The ship is pointing to the voyage of the church. Christ was in the midst of that ship, and during the Church Age, the Spirit of God was present within the church. Yet from time to time throughout the history of the church, Satan would stir up trouble. He would come against the church with his emissaries, with men like Cain and Balaam and Korah. He would provoke them to develop doctrines and to come against the church with false teachings. This would stir up trouble in the churches and congregations, and the waters would be stirred by the winds of doctrine. These were false doctrines, not the true doctrines like election or the Sunday Sabbath, but false teachings.

There are many examples we could give of false teaching, such as the idea of accepting Christ or the idea that God is still speaking in tongues or bringing further revelation in dreams and visions. These kinds of doctrines stir up the water and seek to destroy the ship, yet as long as Jesus was in the midst of the ship, those on board were safe. He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased; there was a calm. In this manner, God protected the ship.

The false doctrines and gospels and teachings that would arise would seek to do damage to the church and seek to destroy the church during the Church Age. For awhile, maybe, they did their harm and their damage, but they never could completely overwhelm the church because Christ would arise and rebuke the wind. There would be calm once again and the ship would once again pick up on its voyage. It would begin its journey on the sea once again.

Those waters typify Hell. When individuals develop false teachings and doctrines and the wind stirs up the water, they are seeking to destroy the ship and to devour the souls who are onboard, that they might be caught in the trap, the snare, of these kinds of false doctrines and be led astray. Once they are, once they believe things that are not true of the Bible, once they begin to follow a doctrine that is a lie and not the truth, it leads them down to Hell. This is true especially as it affects the Gospel message itself. As some would begin to believe that God has added unto His Word or subtracted from it, they are destroyed by the waters of the sea.

Many individual congregations and churches were devoured in this fashion, yet the church as a whole was not, until we get to Acts 27. In Acts 27, we have the historical account of the Apostle Paul’s journey onboard a ship to Rome. That ship was completely and utterly destroyed, though all who were aboard were spared and made it to land. Acts 27 is telling us that during the time of Great Tribulation, the false prophets, the false teachers, the emissaries of Satan who come looking like Christ, are going to have the preeminence. They are going to arise and be victorious over the church as a whole. We do not read in Acts 27 that God stilled or stayed the waters at all, nor do we read that Jesus somehow caused the waves of that mighty storm Euroclydon to cease, but the wind was tempestuous. We read in verse Acts 27:14:

But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.

Earlier, in verse 4, it says:

And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under Cyprus, because the winds were contrary.

The winds were beating the waters into a furious rage. The waters were exceedingly fierce and coming against the ship, and they were tossing the ship, as it goes on to say in verse 18. We read:

And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship;

This is just as Ephesians 4:14 indicates. We read there:

That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine…

This is the true damage to the ship, the church of Christ—it is the false doctrines and teachings. The verse continues:

…by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

This is going on in our day in every church and congregation. The winds are contrary to the believers, as they would seek to bring the Gospel from the vantage point of being in the church. God has allowed Satan to arise out of the bottomless pit. He has been loosed; it is the time of Great Tribulation. Satan is behind all of these attacks and assaults against the church itself, until the church is utterly destroyed by the waves. Let us read Acts 27:39-41, which says:

And when it was day, they knew not the land: but they discovered a certain creek with a shore, into the which they were minded, if it were possible, to thrust in the ship. And when they had taken up the anchors, they committed themselves unto the sea, and loosed the rudder bands, and hoisted up the mainsail to the wind, and made toward shore. And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran the ship aground; and the forepart stuck fast, and remained unmoveable, but the hinder part was broken with the violence of the waves.

We are going to look at this a little later on in Jude, but let us read verse 13. Still speaking about these men who are as clouds without water carried about of winds, we read:

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame…

It is false prophets who are destroying the ship. It is the unbelievers within the congregations, the ungodly. They have never been truly born again, yet they have risen to large numbers within every church. They are in positions of authority in many churches, yet they are not truly saved. They have natural minds—they do not have spiritual minds, so they are contrary to the Spirit. The flesh is contrary to the Spirit (Galatians 5:17). They are assaulting and assailing the true doctrines of God, the truth of the Bible, until the church is completely destroyed. That is the teaching of Acts 27—there is no hope for that ship, no possibility of that ship being repaired or that men could once again sail that ship. It is only broken pieces of the ship that are left; it is completely shipwrecked.

God speaks of shipwreck in 1 Timothy 1:18-20. He says there:

This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare; Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck: Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

That is what it means to be shipwrecked. God typifies the church as a ship, and during the Great Tribulation, they have put away faith. They have denied the faith, who is Christ Himself, and they have therefore brought about the wreck of the ship. The church is now a desolation. It is a ruinous heap, a shipwreck upon the seas. It cannot safely set sail or carry any passengers to the promised land of Heaven any longer. Any onboard that ship would certainly drown in the depths of the sea, and the sea is picturing Hell itself.

Concerning any who desire to stay in the church of our day, we can only say that they would be as a foolish man who wanted to stay upon a shipwreck when the raging waves of the sea were beating upon the few broken pieces that were left of that ship. How could the board of a ship bring safety to anyone? There is no protection there at all. Satan can come against that pitiful shipwreck at will, from any direction. He stirs up the wind that raises the waves and brings them over again and again upon the ship, washing away its crew and any souls who would seek to find refuge in such a wreck.

God speaks of when faith has been made shipwreck, “of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander.” It is interesting that God is speaking of two men—He often uses the number two to typify the church. Jesus sent men out two by two with the Gospel (Mark 6:7). These two men here are representatives of the apostate church of the Great Tribulation. They are pictures of the unfaithful church that has become as a spiritual harlot, typified by Babylon in Revelation 17 and 18. God says, “I have delivered these men unto Satan,” just as the church has been delivered unto Satan for its destruction, and just as that ship in Acts 27 was completely destroyed. We see then with the wind of doctrine that the wind is used as a powerful force to bring havoc and destruction. That is exactly what God is getting at in Jude verse 12—these men are clouds without water carried about of winds.