Study in the Epistle of Jude # 83: Verse 19

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are going through the book of Jude. We have been looking at verses 17 and 18, and then we moved into verse 19, where we will begin now. Verse 19 says:

These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

God has been discussing these individuals all through this book of Jude. To pick one verse, let us read verse 8, which says:

Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

Another reference is in verse 10, which says:

But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.

Here God is going back to that same idea, that same refrain that He has been sounding throughout this chapter—these ungodly, unsaved men who profess with their mouths to be children of God. If you would ask them, “Are you a Christian?” they would say, “Yes, I am a Christian. I go to church. I am a believer in Christ.” However, these men who never became born again are “they who separate themselves, sensual.” As verse 10 said, “these speak evil of those things which they know not” because they know them “naturally.”

“Natural” is a related word to “sensual.” This word “sensual” is found translated as “natural” in 1 Corinthians 2:12-14, which says:

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man…

That word “natural” is the word “sensual” from Jude. The passage continues:

…But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

God is giving us a great deal of information here. He is explaining to us exactly why it is that so many in the churches seem to be ignorant of the truth of the Bible. Why is it that in our day you can go into church after church and when you sit down and listen to what the pastor is preaching for any length of time, you find error after error presented before the congregation? There are lies and half-truths and erroneous doctrines that are so numerous you cannot even begin to describe it. Furthermore, this is not just one church or one denomination—this is all churches. There are so many false teachings and false gospels that it is as the waters of an ocean that are flooding and covering the land.

How did this come to be? We know that we are living in the End Time and that there has come a great falling away before the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2:3). What has happened is that in the churches, the unsaved have risen to places of authority. They have multiplied as they have been able to rule in the congregations, and they have been able to firmly establish their teachings that are contrary to the teachings of the Bible. Then more men, like-minded with themselves, natural men, flow into the church until it becomes totally overcome to the point that all that is left is natural-minded man teaching naturally-minded men. Everyone is happy and everyone is content. The only one who would be saddened by this situation would be the true child of God, if he would happen to be found in that kind of a congregation. Eventually, he would be driven out, and that is because the Spirit of Christ has already departed (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

The natural-minded man cannot discern; he cannot understand; he really cannot see the spiritual things of God because they must be spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14). That is the way to understand the Bible, yet all kinds of people do not understand the Bible. The way to understand the Bible is to have a spiritual mind, and we do have the spiritual mind that God has given. We compare spiritual things with spiritual; we compare the Bible with the Bible.

Let us look at that phrase—”spiritual things with spiritual.” What is that talking about? The natural-minded man would have no idea that this is God’s methodology, and immediately, right away, he is stuck. “What does that mean to compare spiritual with spiritual?” he wonders. “Does that mean that I compare what Calvin said about Romans to what Luther had written about that book?” That is how they do many of their Bible studies and how they present many of their teachings, but that is not what God is saying. He is saying that we must compare one verse of the Bible with everything else in the Bible that relates to it.

In Romans 7:14, we read:

For we know that the law is spiritual…

“The Law”—the Bible is a law book, and every word of God is part of that Law. The whole Bible is the Law of God. The Law is spiritual, and as God said in 1 Corinthians 2:13:

…the Holy Ghost teacheth…

This is how the Holy Ghost teacheth, by comparing spiritual things with spiritual. Is what Calvin said spiritual? No. Is what Luther or Knox said spiritual? No; they could have been spiritual men, they could have been saved, but their writings are not spiritual. Is what the church says in its confessions and creeds spiritual? No. Why then when a church holds onto a doctrine, is it because it is found in their confessions and creeds?

Let us just take the doctrine of the allowance for divorce, because it is found in the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is found in their creed; it is found in their confession. You come to them with the Bible and you say, “From studying the Bible, I see many verses that indicate that we are not to be divorced; and certainly after divorce, we are not to be remarried. It seems that the Bible teaches that once you are married, you are always married, and there is no possible exception, no allowance for divorce for any reason.” Yet they say, “Hold on a minute,” and they pull out the confession. “See, here in this certain article number it says…” and they relate to you what the reformers wrote down. They are comparing the spiritual Word with the word of man. Then to add insult to injury, not only are they using the wrong methodology, but they uphold the word of man, the word of the theologian. They trust the word of man over the Bible.

This is a total offense to God Himself. The natural man, though, cannot receive the things of God; they are foolishness unto him. He cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned. It all goes back to what we are reading in Jude. Here is the whole problem.

What is the problem with the church of our day? What is the problem with all these false doctrines and teachings? Why are there so many churches given over to tongues? Why are so many churches involved in falling over backwards? Why do some churches involve themselves in holy laughter? Why are other churches very involved in politics and others in social gospels, literally trying to feed and clothe the poor of this world rather than to feed and clothe them spiritually with the true Gospel of the Word of God? Why are there so many churches and doctrines that are given over to freewill gospels? We could go on for quite a long time with this kind of a list.

Jude 19 gives us the answer—they are sensual, they are natural, having not the Spirit. That is the whole problem. They may have the background—maybe they have the buildings and the money and the right book, the Bible. They may have all the outward appearance, all the activity, all the pomp and circumstances of holiness. They may have everything except for one detail—the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is sorrowful, but it is true, and this is the situation of our day. Many churches are packed to capacity and filled up. Many people still go to church in our day, yet they have everything but the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God warns against this in Romans 8:5-9, which says:

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

This is what it all comes down to—possessing in your heart the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. You might say, “I have a Bible and I read my Bible,” but do you have the Spirit of Christ? “I pray—I get up every morning and pray,” but do you have the Spirit of Christ? “I go to church regularly every Sunday. I sit in the pew, I sing hymns, and I enjoy it,” but do you have the Spirit of Christ? There are some who are even more involved. They give their money, a good amount of it, and they give their tithe to the Lord. They give their time and they get involved. Possibly, they share the Gospel somehow, maybe by giving out tracts. However, the question always comes back to this: you do these things—you give your time and your money—but do you have the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ within you?

“Could it be that I do these things,” someone might ask, “and not have the Spirit of Christ?” The answer is yes. Many have been deceived and fooled by their own selves, by their own hearts, into thinking that they are children of God when they are not, so we have to examine ourselves and ask the question (2 Corinthians 13:5). We have to realize that we cannot do a thorough search of our own heart (Jeremiah 17:9). We turn to God, therefore, and beseech Him for mercy. We beseech Him that He would search us and know our hearts and try us and make sure that we are going down the right road, the right path, that leads to eternal life (Psalm 139:23).

This is what we must make sure of; this is the salvation that we have to know that we have. The time that is left is so short, and not one of us is guaranteed of any further time than this very day. We have to know now that this is an urgent matter, a desperate matter. We must know that we are a child of God, and we must know that we have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ within us. We cannot be satisfied with things that we do, with our own works. It is not our spirit that testifies to ourself, but it is the Spirit of God that must give testimony and witness to our hearts and souls that we are children of God. His Spirit must witness to our Spirit (Romans 8:16). That is what this is saying—you must have the Spirit within. If the Spirit is within, that Spirit of Christ will make Himself known and will witness to our spirit that we are children of God. This is what we need to know.

Someone might go on, “Well, if doing all these things cannot guarantee that I have the Spirit of Christ, then how can I get the Spirit of Christ? I can see what you are saying. The Bible says that if I have not His Spirit, I am none of His, and this means that I am still in my sin and under God’s wrath and that I will go to Hell. How can I get that Spirit?” In the Gospel of Luke, we read some very encouraging words. In Luke 11:11, it says:

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Those of us who are fathers know what God is saying. We have a desire, of course, to please our children. We want to give them the very best; we want to give them their desires as much as we can; as much, of course, as their desire is a lawful desire. Therefore, if our son asks for bread, would we give him a stone? Of course, we would not. We would give bread to him. If he asks for one piece, we would ask if he wants a second. We would ask if he wants butter on his bread; we would give him all that he requests of us. Again, if he asks for a fish, would we give him a serpent? Would we take that natural desire to eat and to be fed with a fish and give him something terrible and horrible in its place, like a serpent? No, we would give him the fish, and we would make sure that it was well prepared and as tasty as it could be. Then we read in verse 12:

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

No, we would not. Again, he is asking for something that is necessary for his body. He needs to eat; he needs nourishment, and we have eggs in our possession. Of course, we will give him the egg that he desires. Then verse 13 says:

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Do we see the point that God is making? Those of us who are earthly fathers have this natural desire to feed and nourish and protect and give gifts to our children. This is only because God has given us this, for we are evil. We are sinful men; we have rebelled against God. We are still in the flesh; that is, even if we are saved, our flesh is seeing corruption. God makes this contrast: if we who have been so affected by sin and done evil deeds and are evil in God’s sight know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more shall your heavenly Father, who is perfect and just and holy and good, who is everything that is wonderful and true and just and right in this entire existence, who does all things well and perfectly, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.

This is not saying that God will instantaneously save anyone who goes to God and says with their mouth, “Father, give me the Holy Spirit.” We have to be careful against that. It is not saying that, but God is saying that He is the heavenly Father and He does have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit being eternal God Himself. God can send forth His Spirit into the heart of a sinner, and God can have mercy upon a sinner, if He so chooses. He does delight in mercy (Micah 7:18), although He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy (Romans 9:15). Therefore, it is very proper for a sinner, someone who is under the wrath of this same God and subject to spend an eternity in Hell, to approach unto God and beseech Him and cry out to Him, “Oh Father, could it be that You would have mercy upon me. Could it be that You would grant me Thy salvation and wash away my sins and cover me with the blood of Thy dear Son and give unto me Thy Holy Spirit.”

It could be, if God is moving one to approach unto Him in this way, that God would respond with the giving of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ would enter in and then we would be all of His. He would have bought us and purchased us; we would be one with the Father and one with the Son. We would have the Spirit of Christ within us. Then, we would have everything. We would have the gift of salvation, of eternal life, and we would not be a hypocrite or an imposter any longer.

This is how each sinner ought to come to God and cry out to Him—as a good and just and righteous Father. We ought to come to Him with the sincerity of a child who desires something from his Father and so says, “Father, can I have this? Could it be that I can have this?” We are not going arrogantly or proudly, but humbly as a child, and perhaps the Lord might grant that request.

We have ended here on an encouraging note, even though what we are reading in Jude is far from anything positive regarding these poor souls who are deceived by the fact that they have entered into the churches and congregations.