Study in the Epistle of Jude # 79: Verses 14-15

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, and we have been carefully going through this one-chapter book. There are only 25 verses to it, but God has gotten into so many different Biblical topics within this little book that we have been carefully going through it verse-by-verse. When God brings up a historical event or a historical character, we have been going back to those verses and looking at them.

Currently, we have reached verse 14 and we have run across the mention of Enoch; therefore, we have been looking at the life of Enoch and how he ties in with God’s salvation plan. Enoch pleased God and God took him so that he never died. He was translated—God changed him and took him into Heaven. He lived about 9100 years ago, and he is quoted here by the writer of Jude, as God is moving him to write this short Epistle. It says in Jude verse 14:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these…

This was the preaching of Enoch; this was his declaration. He was a prophet, just like all true believers are prophets. We are all commissioned by God to bring the message of the Gospel to the world.

Now we are very curious as to what Enoch prophesied of so long ago. We know that since the Cross, the Gospel message has been that we are sinners under the wrath of God and subject to spend an eternity in Hell; Christ is the only Savior and He is coming again some day to destroy this world and to bring about Judgment Day. What was Enoch’s message? Was it a different message? He lived in a different dispensation, did he not? He lived in the Old Testament under the old covenant; he lived many thousands of years even before the nation of Israel was founded. Certainly, he preached a different message, did he not? No, let us read Jude verses 14-15. We read:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

This was the message of Enoch, and what a fierce message it was! What a message that encompasses the judgment of God! You could not find a more fire-and-brimstone type of preacher today than Enoch was. He was a man of God who brought the message that we are all sinners and that Christ the Lord is coming. Enoch would have known that God was coming. He might not have known some of the particulars, but he would have known that the Lord was coming with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon the sinners, upon all that are ungodly, upon all who are breaking the Law of God and rebelling against God and sinning against His commandments.

This is the message of Enoch that he prophesied nine thousand or more years before our present day. We stand amazed and shocked at how faithful a prophet he was. He brought the whole counsel of God; he had the whole message there. He did not leave anything out. He spoke of man’s sin and the fact that this brings the wrath of God. He spoke of how God will not leave the sinner guiltless, but is coming to avenge and to execute judgment.

This is a big part of the Gospel. It is much like the prophet Jonah when he went into the city of Nineveh and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). It was all judgment; it was all the wrath of God, and the people of Nineveh knew it. They knew that they were sinners and that they deserved the judgment of God, from the king on down. Therefore, the king issued a decree—let everyone sit in sackcloth and ashes and cry mightily unto God, if possibly He might turn from His evil intentions (Jonah 3:7-9), and God did turn.

Jonah brought a message of judgment. We do not read of Jonah speaking to the people of Nineveh regarding God’s love or the peace of God or how Christ is the Savior—we do not read that. Rather, Jonah preached Hell and judgment, just as Enoch preached of Judgment Day. Yet, the people of Nineveh knew that what was implied within Jonah’s message was the mercy of God, or else God would not have even bothered to warn them or to tell them before destroying them. God would have simply come in judgment and wiped them all away. Yet, He did send the prophet Jonah, and He did give them time to repent when He said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

So it was with Enoch. As he prophesied of Judgment Day and of God coming with His saints to execute judgment, implied in that message is the mercy of a caring and loving God. Implied is the message of a God who has taken the time and diligence to send His servants the prophets to warn these sinners that they cannot live as they please in total disregard of the commandments of God and expect to get away without any penalty to pay. In warning these people, God is letting them know that there is the possibility of mercy.

There is, even today as we are in the time of Great Tribulation, the real possibility that God might turn and repent of the intended evil against you, dear sinner, if you are still in your sins and if you are still rebelling against God and going your own way. This is God’s plan—to have a Judgment Day to execute judgment upon all and to certainly convince all that are ungodly among them of their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed. This will be accomplished on that Day of Judgment.

However, we are not there yet. We are very close; we are about as close as you could possibly be. We are right up against the very end of the world. We are leaning on that door, and the Judge is behind it; He is ready to come through and judge the world. The Lord Jesus Christ is ready to take His seat upon that judgment throne. Yet, we are not quite there. There is still time today. God is beseeching sinners; He is beseeching you if you are in your sins and He is beseeching anyone who is in their sin, “Be ye reconciled to God. Be ye turned from your wicked way that is leading down to Hell and be turned unto the Lord. He is a God of compassion and mercy, but He is also a God of judgment. Be forewarned, therefore, that if you do not turn, you will certainly face the judge.” Enoch prophesied of this—”Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints.”

Back in Zechariah, we have a similar statement. In the first few verses of Zechariah 14, Zechariah begins describing God’s judgment upon Jerusalem, which is a figure of the judgment upon the churches during the Great Tribulation. Therefore, the context of Zechariah 14 is the time of the end, beginning with the Great Tribulation and transitioning into the final judgment of mankind. Zechariah 14:4-5 says:

And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.

First, there is the language of judgment on Jerusalem, then it is time to flee to the mountains. This relates, by the way, to God’s command in Matthew 24:15-16, “when you see the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place…flee to the mountains.” It is that command, once again. We are seeing once again in the Bible the command to get out of the church and to leave it during the second half of the Great Tribulation.

Following that we find, “the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.” It is Judgment Day; it is the end of the world. It is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to end this world’s existence, to destroy the world and the universe, to bring in, to usher in, eternity—eternal damnation for the ungodly, the unsaved, and eternal life for the people of God.

By the way, let us notice that in Zechariah it says, “The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.” In Jude 14, we find that the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints. This is verification for the fact that numbers have spiritual meanings. When it comes to the number ten or multiples of ten, such as one thousand or thousands, it points to the completeness of whatever is in view. Zechariah 14:5 verifies this fact because we do not read that ten thousands of saints are coming, but that all the saints are coming with the Lord. This is the completeness of whatever is in view. The ten thousands represent all of the believers whom God has saved—those who have gone to be with Him in Heaven and also those who are upon earth.

It is the time for the resurrection of the dead. It is the time for those who are alive and remain to be caught up with the Lord in Heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:17), and it is the time for Jesus Christ to judge the world.

Are we speaking of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who came meek and lowly and riding upon an ass (Zechariah 9:9)? Are we speaking of the same Christ? Yes we are, except that now He is coming in His glory and in the fullness of His power as Almighty God. He is coming in brilliance and splendor, and He is coming to be seated. All are going to be brought before Him; everyone must bow the knee and every tongue must confess that He is Lord (Romans 14:11). He will execute judgment, and the saints will judge the world with Him. We read this in 1 Corinthians 6:2-3, which says:

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

When God speaks of the saints, He is not talking about those few individuals who have been canonized by a certain church. A saint is simply anyone who has become saved. Whether they did great works, great deeds of mercy, or whether they were a child or an adult, if they have become saved then they are a saint.

God does not look upon the work of men—the work of men is nothing special with God; it earns nothing with Him. God is the One, first of all, who moves His people to perform good works. He has ordained them to walk in good works (Ephesians 2:10), just as He has ordained them to salvation, and He moves in them to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). First of all, therefore, they cannot take credit for anything that they would do.

Secondly, God is not looking for the super holy. He is not looking for the super people who keep His commandments so that He can lift them up to sainthood, because there are none. We are all sinners, we have all fallen short of the glory of God, and we have all sinned, all of us (Romans 3:23). Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in God’s sight (Isaiah 64:6). Who is there then, if we were looking at our works, who could be canonized and lifted up to sainthood? The answer is that there are none; there is no one who would be qualified for that kind of sainthood. We realize, therefore, that a saint is simply a person whom God has saved. God has done all the work in their salvation and in making them holy. He has taken their sins upon Himself and paid for those sins, thereby cleansing those sins away by the fires of Hell. That is what makes a saint. Therefore, every one of God’s elect is a saint, and we, God indicates, judge the world with Him.

A good way of looking at this is that Christ is the Judge, and we will be judging with Him. We will be there somewhere on Judgment Day. It is possibly like a judge and a jury, but unlike juries of our day who meet together to pass the verdict, it will be God Himself who will pronounce the fact that mankind is guilty. He will pronounce the penalty of Hell. It will not be the saints—we will just be there giving our ascent and agreement with the verdict and with the judgment of God; but nonetheless, we will be there, and God says that we will be judging the world with Him. This is what Enoch prophesied of.

We notice that in Jude 14, it says that the Lord cometh with the saints to execute judgment. Let us go back to John 5:26-27, where we read:

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.

Then God goes on to discuss the resurrection. Some, we read, will be resurrected unto damnation. God has given the Son authority to execute judgment; the Father gives this to the Son. Therefore, Christ is exercising that authority. He is coming now; it is the Last Day. There is no more delay or waiting or longsuffering of God. The whole plan of salvation has been completed, the last of the elect has been saved, and there is no longer any purpose whatsoever for this world once God has saved each one whom He had determined before to save, each one whom He had obligated Himself to save.

Do you think that He will then allow the world to continue on so that the world can fulfill its lustful desires? Is God going to allow the world to continue so that individuals, even though they care nothing for God, can have their retirements and sit back and watch all the TV that they please with their legs kicked up? Is God going to allow the world to continue so that children can grow up and get their college degrees and enter into the work force in their professions, even though they do not give a thought to God or to pleasing Him, even though they desire to do their own will and not the will of God? Is God going to permit this world to continue to operate and function with the sun, moon, and stars keeping time on and on without end, as this world continues in its rebellion against God?

The answer is absolutely not. God is going to come at the precise time, in the fullness of time, when that last sinner whom God has determined to save will become saved. Then it will be Judgment Day; it will be time for Christ to exercise authority in judgment. They will be found guilty and they will be cast off into Hell.

This is a very tragic end to this world; it is a tragic end to so many lives. There are more than six billion people in this world, yet the great majority of them are unsaved and will be standing before Christ for judgment. Tragically, they must give account for their sins. Tragically, they will have no answers for God, and they will be found guilty. More than tragically, they will be cast into Hell forevermore.

Yet God warns us often, time and time again. He is warning the sinner that today is still the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2). Approach unto God while it is yet today, while He is near (Isaiah 55:6), while we have the Bible in our hands, while God still is willing to be merciful. There will be no mercy when He executes that judgment; but now, there is mercy. It is here, and He is a God who delights in mercy. We may not think that we are going to be the one whom He has mercy upon; we might be very convinced that He would never save us; but nonetheless, at least it is a possibility that God might have mercy today. When this Day of Judgment comes, that possibility will be removed. Could it be that some would cry out to God for mercy and beseech Him for mercy before this awful day arrives?