Study in the Epistle of Jude # 71: Verses 12-13

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. I am glad that you are with us as we are studying this book of Jude. We have found that even in this short, one-chapter Epistle, God has given great amounts of information about His Gospel plan and especially about the New Testament Church Age and what can be expected by false prophets who would enter into the church.

In our last study, we were looking at verse 12. The last part of that verse speaks of these men, and since verse 4, the emphasis has been upon certain men crept in unawares. This relates to what we read in Galatians 2:4, which says:

And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:

“False brethren unawares”—there might be brethren; that is, those who say that they are a believer, a Christian, just like you and me and any other person who professes the name of Christ. However, when God adds this information that only He could know—that they are false brethren—He is telling us that, indeed, there are entered into the corporate church unsaved men.

These have not entered into the eternal church, and that distinction is something that many in the corporate churches are unaware of, something that they are unfamiliar with; therefore, they come to wrong conclusions. When God says in the Gospel of Matthew, “Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), those in the outward, visible churches and congregations take this to mean that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the church they are a part of, whether Lutheran or Baptist or Presbyterian or any other branch.

However, they are failing to realize that into those outward, visible churches, or to use a figure that the Bible uses, into that “Jerusalem which now is” (Galatians 4:25), have crept in unawares a great many individuals who are false brethren; they are not true believers. They are plants—they give the appearance of being a plant just like a child of God, to use that picture, yet they are without fruit. They are clouds without water, and on and on it goes with these analogies that God is giving us. They are under the wrath of God—that has not changed in their lives. Just because they are in attendance on Sunday morning does not mean that they are going to escape that wrath.

This church, this corporate body that is on every street corner, to use a figure of speech, has come under the wrath of God. There are a great many churches in our land and across the world, and all of them, at this period in time, have come under the judgment of God. The external, corporate church has now been faced with the judgment of God; it has come to that point in God’s plan, in His times and seasons, where judgment has begun upon the house of God (1 Peter 4:17). This does not mean that judgment is occurring upon the spiritual house of God, the eternal, invisible church that is composed only of true believers, the elect of God, those that have been born again—they are not experiencing the judgment of God. There could be a few who are in the churches and, therefore, will suffer to some degree, but it will be in no way near to what the unsaved in the churches are suffering by this Great Tribulation.

That is what God is saying in His Word when He is indicating that certain men have crept in unawares, and Jude is giving us a great deal of information about these men. Finally, we are coming to the point where God is saying that they will be “plucked up by the roots.”

We have looked at the parable in Matthew 13 that discusses the planting of the wheat and the tares. It is God who plants the wheat, but an enemy who plants the tares. We have seen how this relates to a verse such as Isaiah 61:3 where the Lord indicates that those whom He saves are “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.” We have seen also in Psalm 1 that the righteous, those who delight in the law of God, will be as a “tree planted by the rivers of water” whose fruit will not wither.

On the contrary, those who are planted by the devil, by the enemy Satan, will bear no fruit; they will not produce wheat. They are tares, and what is left for them is to be plucked up by the roots (Matthew 15:13). However—this is the important thing—they are not plucked up at just any time; they are not rooted out of that ground at just any point in God’s salvation plan. Rather, Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there is a season for everything. There is a time or a season to plant and there is a time and a season to pluck up that which has been planted.

That season comes during the days of the Great Tribulation when God begins that judgment process upon the corporate body. He is once again plucking up these false brethren by the roots, just as He did nearly two thousand years ago to national Israel. We read about this in Matthew 21:21, where Christ uses the language that the fig tree is to be plucked up and cast into the sea because He came to it and there were only leaves without fruit. Now it is a similar situation as God is performing this very intense and close examination on the corporate church. They are fruitless; they have not born fruit, so it is the season, the time, to be plucked up, bundled together as tares, and burned.

That is where we stopped last time. Let us go back to Matthew 13:28-30, where we read:

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this…

That is, an enemy has sown the tares among the wheat. The passage continues:

…The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

The question that is before us as we read this passage, this parable, is this: when is that time of harvest? It is in the time of harvest that God is saying to the reapers that the tares are to be bundled. In the explanation of this parable, in verses 37-40, we read:

He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world.

It appears as if the harvest is the end of the world, and that it comes on the very final day, the Last Day, the Judgment Day—that is the explanation of this parable. However, we have not done a thorough job of checking out this information. When God speaks of the end of the world, does that mean that it must be the Last Day? When He says, “The harvest is the end of the world,” is that speaking of the Last Day?

Let us go to Hebrews 9:26. This is speaking of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus as He must come to perform the atonement. It says:

For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

This is exactly the same language that we find in the parable in Matthew 13 when we read, “The harvest is the end of the world,” but this is saying that in the end of the world, Jesus came once to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We know that this was in the first century AD, yet the language of Hebrews 9:26 is that He appeared once in the end of the world. Therefore, God was viewing that period of time from the first century AD as the end of the world.

What does that mean? Does it mean that the harvest was in the first century AD? No, the Bible is not saying that, but it does mean that we have some leeway with this language, “the end of the world.” When we read that the enemy who sowed the tares is the devil and that the harvest is the end of the world, that does not have to be the Last Day. It could be that period of the end that Daniel talks about. “Shut up the words, and seal the book,” we read in Daniel 12:4, “even to the time of the end.” In that period of Great Tribulation, God is going to open up the Scriptures relating to end-time events that were sealed. He is calling that point “the time of the end” in Daniel, but it is not yet the end of the world.

Therefore, as we examine this parable, we begin to understand that this harvest is not occurring on Judgment Day, on the Last Day of this world’s existence, but very close to that time, during the time of Great Tribulation. It is then when God is plucking up from the roots that which was planted by the enemy, by Satan, and He is bundling them.

As God has designed things in His brilliance, He has designed a plan whereby He will open up the information found in the Bible relating to the end at the time of the end, very close to and right up against the end of the world. It will be so revealing that the people of God will understand that the abomination of desolation is standing in the holy place (Matthew 24:15), and they will flee to the mountains, as Matthew 24:16 instructs them. It will be so revealing that the people of God will understand that the man of sin has taken his seat in the temple (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4), and that the Holy Spirit has departed out of the midst (2 Thessalonians 2:7), and they will depart out of the midst of Jerusalem themselves; they will leave the churches and congregations of the world. God, in His incredible mind and in His tremendous wisdom, has developed an end-time plan that will come as a snare upon the inhabitants of the world so that they will be trapped into revealing their true character, the true nature of their hearts. He has developed the end-time scenario whereby the Word of God will have preeminence; the Word of God will be shown to be the final authority.

The people of God who have always been humbled under the mighty hand of God and have always had a desire to keep His commandments and to do things His way will be revealed because a very hard doctrine will be opened up. It is a difficult doctrine, whereby, after nearly two thousand years, God will be finished with the churches and congregations, and He will call His people out. He will use much figurative language; He will speak in parables and allegories. He will identify the church as Babylon and then issue forth commands such as, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4).

Only the people of God who have eyes to see, to whom God gives wisdom and understanding, will understand and obey. Only the people of God will be willing to obey such a command to leave the churches and congregations. It will be foolishness to those who are not truly born again. They will be faced with the Scriptures themselves, and they will be faced with a doctrine that absolutely demands some outward form of action. It is a doctrine that will, thereby, be revealing of the true spiritual character of their hearts, whether they are in subjection to the Word of God or not. As many will disobey and refuse to obey the Word of God, they will show forth their rebellious nature, and they will, thereby, show and give evidence of the fact that they are tares and that they are remaining in the churches for bundling to be burned at the end.

This does not mean, of course, that everyone in the church today is unsaved. There could be true believers still there, and God has His own timing regarding them; therefore, we are not to point the finger. We are not to judge and say, “Every single person in the church is unsaved,” but we can say that any who remain are giving evidence that they may not be a child of God. Certainly, we can say that if they remain there up until that Last Day, they will experience the judgment of God and be thrown into Hell.

God in His magnificent plan has saved the best for last; He has saved the best for the end of the world. He is showing forth in one broad stroke who the wheat are and who the tares are, and He is fulfilling His Word right before our very eyes. The harvest is the end of the world, and we are now living in that time of harvest. This is letting us know without any question that we are very close to the end of all things.

Let us turn to 2 Chronicles 7, and we will read some more information relating to being plucked up by the roots. It says in 2 Chronicles 7:17-22:

And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments; Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel. But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them.

Notice how God is indicating that when a people fail to keep His commandments, He will pluck them up by the roots “out of My land;” then He speaks of that house that will be made a proverb and a byword. This is that judgment which begins upon the house of God. At that time, God is fulfilling His Word. He has plucked up the New Testament church just as He plucked up the fig tree, national Israel, and He has judged them. He is judging them presently as the tares are now being plucked up. The wheat is being reserved for the barn, which is Heaven itself. God will gather in His elect from the four winds (Mark 13:27), and they will enter into the Kingdom of God eternally.

This is the day we are living in. We can see that as the Lord is speaking of these false prophets in the book of Jude, He has in mind the entire New Testament period. Finally, at the end, this will be their conclusion: they will be plucked up by the roots. They will no more trouble the people of God; they will no more trouble Israel with their doctrines and teachings that are contrary to the Word of God.

Verse 13 of Jude goes on to say:

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

We spoke a little earlier about the raging waves of the sea, and we saw how God in Ephesians 4:14 refers to every wind of doctrine. As the wind stirs up the waters of the sea so that they become raging, it is the false teachings of false prophets, false brethren brought in unawares, that cause the sea to rage.

Why is that important? The ships that sail upon the sea are pictures of the church, and when the sea is tumultuous and tempestuous, then sailing is made dangerous for the mariners; sailing is a hazardous thing (Acts 27). Spiritually, this is the picture. When these false prophets are operating in the churches, they are really bringing about great danger for all those members of the congregation. They are the danger; they are the ones who have to be watched out for because the waves can break the ship. Once the ship is broken, then the people onboard the ship go down into the sea, and the sea is picturing Hell itself. These men do not have the best interest of the congregation at heart, but they are set there for the destruction of the congregation. They will not be happy until they, the blind leaders of the blind (Matthew 15:14), have led their followers right down into Hell.

Lord willing, we will look more at verse 13 of Jude, as we get together in our next study.