We must be careful. One time I wasn’t.
One night awhile back, the house was settled for the evening, kids were finally in bed, Annie was sitting up reading quietly in bed, and as I got settled myself, a fly buzzed my head. I don’t know about you but I take it personally. I flipped the covers and hopped out of bed to neutralize the annoyance. Now usually I pride myself in being able to catch a fly in mid-flight. Usually I am so precise that I can call out which leg I will catch it by. On my best days I can even call out which toe. But this fly needed to die by a good old fashioned rat tail. So I grabbed a dish towel and started hunting in the bedroom. Annie’s peaceful reading was punctuated with unsuccessful but loud “SNAP!”’s. Without looking up Annie calmly said while flipping a page, “Do not hit me.”
Have you ever been so focused on a task that you weren’t paying attention to anything else? It happened to me. I was tracking the fly and as it flew right by Annie I snapped the towel, certain that he was a goner. I’ve been rat-tailing my whole life, and I’ve never been able to make it CRACK so crisp and so loud as I did at that moment. But instead of the fly I hit Annie in the bare arm. Have you ever had something hurt so bad you couldn’t make sound come out of your mouth and you couldn’t get a breath? So as Annie sat there in pain, trying to breathe, unable to talk, the fly buzzed off. So I put my towel down, grabbed my pillow and followed the fly out to the couch.
I wasn’t careful. Sometimes we’re not careful in other ways, like with our words. Sometimes our words SNAP like a rat-tail as we recklessly run our mouths.
Today we move on to verse 10 in Jude. Our sermon title is “Slandering Angels, Part 2.” Last week we saw how Michael the Archangel refused to slander the devil. Jude pointed this out to show how righteous Michael was for his self control. Now in verse 10 Jude swings his attention back to the false teachers he’s been describing, and contrasts these wicked people with Michael. Michael didn’t slander the devil, yet these people slander, slander and slander some more. They slander “celestial beings” verse 8 says, they “blaspheme in matters they do not understand” 2 Peter 2:12 says, and in verse 10 Jude says, “they slander whatever they do not understand.” Perhaps this is what Jude is referring to again in verse 13 when he says, “they are waves of the sea foaming up their shame” and again maybe he has their slander in mind when he says in verse 15, “all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against [the Lord].”
Finally here now is the men who slander angels, in verse 10. READ. Lets also turn and read 2 Peter 2:10-12…. [READ]
I want us to see three points today regarding these false teachers: 1) their Ignorance, 2) their Instincts, and 3) their Corruption.
IGNORANCE
Notice Jude says that they “slander whatever they do not understand…” Second Peter 2:12 similarly says, “But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand…” Why is it that the most ignorant people are doing the most talking?
They are arrogant. Jude 16 says, “they boast about themselves.” Second Peter 2:10 says, “Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to heap abuse [slander/blaspheme] on celestial beings.” It is their arrogance that drives their ignorant slandering. It is their arrogance that makes them “not afraid.” But those who know the Lord fear the Lord. Those who fear the Lord are afraid to slander.
APPLICATION: Be humble. Be Moses – God said of Moses, “He is the most humble man on the face of the earth” (Numb 12:3). Hannah – the godly mother of the great prophet Samuel – gave a magnificent prayer of praise and in 1 Samuel 2 and in verse 3 she says, “Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance.” Jesus told us, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23:12).
They are like animals. The other reason these men slander what they do not understand it that while they are made in the image of God they act more like they were made in the image of animals. Rather than acting in the nobility of being a man, the highest creature on earth God created, nobly bearing God’s image, these men look more like King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4. There God disciplined the great king by forcing him to spend 7 years with the mind of an animal, roaming the forest, naked, eating grass, having his hair and nails grow out very long.
Here’s a life principle: if man, bearing God’s image, rejects God, then he will always begin to act like an animal. We were made to act “up” towards our Creator, not “down” towards creation. That’s why Romans 1 says, “They exchanged the truth about the Creator for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen!” In other words, rejecting God they no longer acted like God, but they turned to worship created things and so acted like created things.
This is what Jude is talking about as he describes the people he is warning about. They act like mere animals, acting on instincts, not spiritual intelligence. Professing themselves wise they are fools, full of worldly wisdom but empty of God’s wisdom.
APPLICATION: Act like men! Act like men made in God’s image. Which means act in the full capacity of your ability to know and worship and serve God that you were created with. Don’t ignore or let lay dormant that part of who you are. Don’t corrupt it by rejecting God. Don’t act like animals.
Psalm 32:9 says, “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, but must be controlled by bit and bridle, or they will not come to you.” I never understood why that verse was in a Psalm describing confession and repentance. It seems so out of left field. But it’s so very very fitting: we are men, higher than animals, created in God’s image to fellowship with the Creator on a level way above that of animals. But in rejecting God and in pursuing sin we become like animals. Animals need to be controlled because they have no understanding. But men can control themselves, and can “come toward God,” and walk with Him by their own volition. It’s part of the glory of man and what separates us from animals. The application is simple: Act like men!
INSTINCT
Then Jude says “and the very things they do understand by instinct – as irrational animals do…” This is interesting. Jude is saying these men are operating by mere instincts. This is not a complement. They are operating on an inferior level somehow.
The word in Jude for “instinct” is the word “physikos” and refers to what we know and sense by our instincts, our natural senses, or what is natural to this physical world.
It seems to indicate the idea that there’s no higher knowledge of the spiritual, no eyes to see or ears to hear, like Jesus said. Jude says in verse 19 that these men “follow mere natural instincts and do NOT have the Spirit.” Which would seem to help us understand verse 10, that these men don’t have spiritual understanding and insght that comes from the Spirit of God. They are earthly, understanding things from “this world.” Or like 1 Corinthians 1:21 says, “the world through its wisdom did not know God” so these men do not know God because they have rejected the wisdom of God’s revealed knowledge. Colossians 2:8 touches on this as well when it says, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”
Jude wants to keep pressing home that because they are ignorant of divine truth as God revealed it in Scripture and His Son, then therefore these men can only act on mere animal instincts. Notice how he says, “as irrational animals.” Second Peter 2:12 says the same thing, “They are like unreasoning animals ,creatures of instinct…”
The word for irrational is “alogos.” Which literally means “without a word.” Without a logos. This reminds us of John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word” – in the beginning was the Logos. In Greek thinking the Logos is the intelligence, the reason, the rational force behind the cosmos. It is the supreme Word, thinking you might even say. Here, however these men are “a-logos” meaning they are without any logos. They have no word. All of their speaking and thinking and behavior comes from a complete lack of any “word,” any logos. Meaning there is no proof of knowledge of God in their life and talk!
So it seems Jude is saying these men have no true spiritual knowledge, no true understanding, because they neither have Christ nor His Spirit. As a matter of fact, their ignorance is tied to their arrogance and their rebellion. In verse 4 they are said to “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” They live in arrogant rebellion against the highest authority, Jesus Christ, and they are arrogant towards everything else beneath Him as well. Their ignorance and arrogance are seen in their slanderous railing against angelic creatures in the heavenlies. They are the forerunners of the true and ultimate Antichrist.
APPLICATION: Prove your understanding by your life and words. Prove you are Christ’s by acting like you know more than mere human, fleshly, earthly instincts. Prove you know God by acting like you have the true knowledge of God that He has revealed. These men prove their ignorance by their life and words. But we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” James 1:26 says, “Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.” We prove our “religion” by our self-restraint – or as James says, “keeping a tight rein on our tongues.”
CORRUPTED
Notice at the end of the verse 10, “and the very things they do understand by instinct – as irrational animals do – will destroy them.”
Notice the cause and effect: they are going to be destroyed by the things they understand by instinct. Their instinctual knowledge will cause their destruction. What on earth does that mean?
The word destroy is used several other times in the NT. “Bad company CORRUPTS good character.” (1 Cor. 15:33). Bad company DESTROYS bad character. Ephesians 4:22 says, “put off your old self, which is being CORRUPTED/DESTROYED by its deceitful desires.” “God has condemned the great prostitute who CORRUPTED/DESTROYED the earth by her adulteries” Revelation 19:2 says. Speaking of our bodies as temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 3:17 says, “if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person, for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”
The idea is that something gets ruined. Whatever good thing it is supposed to be it is not – it is something ruined or destroyed. Think of paint being thrown on priceless pieces of art, or someone smashing a cake or turning a government by the people for the people into a government of lying, self-serving, tyrants. Or like when one of my kids builds something with their legos that took hours of painstaking work and a little sibling comes along and breaks it. Corrupted. Destroyed.
These people are like animals and what they know on an “animal level” will destroy/corrupt them. Their moral and spiritual condition as utterly ruined because they don’t live in any way in the knowledge of God. “The Father is Spirit and He is looking for worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and truth.” People who KNOW Him, and who because they know Him they SERVE Him because they KNOW He is worthy of being served and revered and obeyed and worshipped. They are not like Jude’s enemies here, who “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”
APPLICATION: Do not be corrupted by slanderous talk. Let me give two specifics:
First, do not slander angels. Have you ever heard or read a preacher calling the devil insults or derogatory names? Don’t ever do that. Don’t ever do that about a demon, the devil or any angelic creature.
Second, Do not slander human rulers. Paul repented when he realized he insulted the high priest (Acts 23:4-5). We are a political bunch here. Lets be very careful how we talk about politicians. Go and speak at commissioners meetings, at school board meetings; write letters to congressmen, attend protests and rallies; write blogs and articles. BUT, if we confess the name of Jesus with our mouth let us never allow our mouths to insult a politician. Let me get specific: no Christian should ever utter the words “Lets Go Brandon”; no Christian should have yard signs or bumper stickers that say, “My governor is an idiot” or some degrading statement like that. I’ve even heard someone wish for a President’s assassination. If we can’t “be political” without becoming derogatory and saying evil things then consider Proverb’s instruction carefully, “The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.” (17:27-28). “A man of wisdom uses words with restraint but a fool gushes folly.” (Prv 15:2).
The point is that we can be the most politically energetic people and not engage in insults. God will judge the politicians we don’t like. Be sure of that. But also be sure: He will also judge our speaking evil of them. Romans 12 says do not be overcome by evil, which does not mean to ensure evil doesn’t succeed. We ought to do all we can to make sure evil doesn’t succeed, BUT, that verse means that we ought not ourselves become evil in our response to evil. If we do, we will indeed have been overcome, or conquered by evil.