There is a way that seems to be right but in the end it leads to death. Proverbs 14:12
THE WAY of WOE
Their way is the way of woe. “Woe to them!” Jude exclaims. Woe is a common expression towards the wicked. Isaiah 3:9-11 says, “The look on their faces testifies against them. THey parade their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! THey have brought disaster on themselves. Woe to the wicked. Disaster is upon them, they will be repaid for what their hands have done.” (Isa 3:9, 11). Revelation 18 is one long chapter with denunciation after denunciation of Babylon: “Woe! Woe to you, great city! In one hour your doom has come!” Jesus had at least two famous strings of woes. In Matthew 11 Jesus rebuked a list of cities: “Woe to you Chorazin! Woe to you Bethsaida!”
APPLICATION: There will be greater woe for those who have been given more light but rejected it.
Turn to Matthew 23 and notice the 7 Woes Jesus pronounces….read 13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, and 29…then read 33-36.
APPLICATION: If you sin the same way as those who came before you then you will suffer woe the same way.
I want to connect something Jude said with something Jesus said. Jesus said, “Upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed upon the earth.” Jesus was speaking to the Jewish leaders and condemning them not only for their own sins but for all the same sins committed in the past by their ancestors. The leaders in Jesus’ day were carrying on the sins of their ancestors, and so the judgment on their ancestors is the same judgment on them.
Think about this when Jude said, “Certain individuals, whose condemnation was written about long ago, have slipped in among you.” Jude was saying that the condemnation of those men in his day was written down throughout Scripture in every instance where someone committed evil and suffered God’s punishment for it it is not merely a record of what happened to those people in that day – it is a record of what is going to happen to anyone at anytime who does the same things. Hence, that is why verse 5 through 19 Jude references so many historical examples: exodus unbelievers, rebellious angels, perverted Sodom, Michael’s refusal to slander the devil, Cain, Balaam, and Korah. All these historical examples belong to a category – it is the category of those who are under God’s judgment. The men in their midst Jude says belong to that same category. What befell those people long ago will befall the false teachers in their churches. Hence Jesus says, “So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead then and complete what your ancestors started! And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on the earth. Truly I tell you all this [blood of the righteous] will come down on this generation.”
Let’s look at the specific examples in Jude 11. These are the ways of ancient sinners that the false teachers were following.
THE WAY OF CAIN
First we see the way of Cain. “Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain…” Who has taken the way of Cain? The false teachers from verse 4 whom Jude is still describing and continuing to describe all the way to verse 19. These men belong with Cain – not Abel. These men are evil, not righteous. These men are condemned, not justified before God.
Who is Cain? Who doesn’t know Cain?! Cain is the firstborn human being in history, the first child born to Adam and Eve. Later he killed his younger brother Abel. As a brief recap: Both Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord in Genesis 4. God accepted Abel’s but rejected Cain’s. Cain was angry. God spoke to him about his anger and that “if he did what was right he would be accepted.” Rather than humbling himself and repenting, and rather than coming back and making his offering right before God, Cain channeled his anger into a hatred for Abel. The anger in Cain’s heart finally manifested in the murder of his own brother. Cain was like Satan, a murderer and a liar.
Yet we have some insight into that situation in the NT. Turn with me to 1 John 3:12…. Notice that Cain belonged to Satan. He offered worship to God all while he belonged to Satan. Let that sink in. A man “came before God” and “offered worship to God” even though the whole time he “belonged to the evil one.” Do we have people like that in here? There are people like that all throughout history. You see it in Jesus’ day. In John 8 Jesus told the Pharisees that they did not belong to God and that God was not their Father, but rather their father was the devil and they belonged to him. Yet, these were the religious leaders of Israel, studied the Scriptures, taught the Scriptures and the traditions of the elders, supposed to be guides for the people helping them serve God. But they were like Cain: giving religion to God but in reality belonging to Satan. Meaning they didn’t live like God said to but like Satan.
APPLICATION: Do we have people like that in here? Coming to church to go through the motions of religion but in reality they belong to the devil? And not to God? Is that you today?
Lets come back to 1 John 3:12 though and notice how the Apostle explains Cain’s actions: “Why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother Abel’s actions were righteous.” The evil hate the righteous. They just hate with every fiber of their being the righteous. “The bloodthirsty hate a person of integrity” Proverbs 29:10 says, “and they seek to kill the upright.”
APPLICATION: Do not expect applause for your righteousness. Do not expect applause for your righteousness from those who belong to Satan. I expect applause from those who belong to God. I expect approval from God. But I do not expect it from this godless world.
What does all this mean in Jude’s letter? How does Jude see a connection between Cain and the false teachers? First of all they don’t offer sincere worship of God like Cain. Second, they are like Cain in that they actually belong to Satan. Third, they are like Cain in that they are filled with murder. They may or may not murder with their hands, but they murder faith in people by their works. Fourth, they are like Cain in that they lie. Cain lied to Abel and to God, and these men lie to God and lie to true Christians around them – who like Abel may not suspect the true nature of these false shepherds. Fifth, they are like Cain in that they hate righteousness and hate those people who are righteous. Think about that when you realize these are people in shepherding positions in churches! As false shepherds they hate the true sheep they leading! Zechariah speaks to them, “Woe to the worthless shepherd!” They have taken the way of Cain. Woe to them.
THE WAY of BALAAM
Who is this Balaam? What is his error?
Balaam was a prophet in the OT. We read about him in Numbers 22-25 and 31. Balaam was hired by the king of Moab to put a curse on the Israelites so that he could defeat the Israelites. Balaam instead blessed the Israelites – which infuriated the king of Moab. But God had so terrified Balaam that Balaam was only going to say what God instructed him to say. Now he didn’t want the king of Moab to get nothing for his pay, so according to Numbers 31 Balaam advised the king of Moab of another way to destroy the Israelites – by seducing their men with idolatrous Moabite women. In the end, the Israelites pounded the Moabites and Balaam was killed.
These men in Jude’s letter were like Balaam.
First, like Balaam they lead God’s people into sexual immorality, as verse 4 says, “who pervert the grace of our God into a license for sexual immorality.” Beware of any pastor or spiritual leader who can effectively twist Scripture to make it look like sexual immorality and perversion are okay with God. They are condemned and so will be anyone who follows them.
Second, notice the way Jude phrases it, “They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error.” “They have rushed for profit…” The word “rushed” means “poured out” or “gushed” and even to “spill.” Imagine a big barrel of water being tipped over and water gushing out. That’s how these men move towards making a dishonest profit. They rush because they are EAGER to make a profit by following Balaam’s error.
What was Balaam’s error? Turning to 2 Peter 2:15 we read “They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness.” Now we have God’s Word revealing the man’s heart motivations: Balaam loved the wages of wickedness. Balaam was a man who loved getting paid, and would “rush for profit” as Jude says, if there was a buck to be made. But Balaam made his money by hiring himself out to curse and to bless. For pay he would help you get done what you needed – no matter if what you needed was wicked. He was greedy and immoral. He loved the wages of wickedness and rushed for the profit that could be made in his craft.
Yet these greedy, money-driven, willing to sell themselves out for pay, false shepherds were in the churches Jude was writing to. They only served for money. Jude says they are blemishes at their love feasts, eating with God’s people without the slightest qualm – nothing in their conscience condemning them. They lie and fake it with ease. THey are shepherds who feed only themselves. How opposite of what Jesus told Peter, “Do you love me Peter?” “Yes Lord, I do, you know it.” “Then feed my sheep!” Feed the sheep, shepherd, not yourself!
Perhaps the churches Jude wrote to weren’t doing their due diligence in examining those who would become their shepherds before allowing them to become their shepherds. “He must not be a lover of money” 1 Timothy 3:3 says. “He must not seek dishonest gain” Titus 1:7 says. First Peter 5:2 says about pastors, “They must serve eagerly, not for dishonest gain.”
The risk of not examining a man’s views of money and motivations for ministry means you put the flock at risk of hired hands, and worse yet, Satan’s imitation shepherds. These are the guys who 2 Peter 2:3 says, “In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories.” Jesus said you can’t serve God and money, these false shepherds serve money – not God. Since money is a root of all evil then in their evil ambition to exploit the flock of Jesus for money they commit evil for the sake of gain. They are like Balaam – they don’t care how they get paid, they just go wherever they’re going to get paid. Like Peter told Simon the sorcerer – “May their money perish with them.”
APPLICATION: Do not follow anyone who only follows money.
APPLICATION: Examine a man’s motives before letting him be your pastor.
APPLICATION: Do not follow anyone who leads you into sexual sin and justifies it with Scripture.
THE WAY OF KORAH
Finally, these false teachers follow the way of Korah’s rebellion. The only thing more famous than Korah’s rebellion was his death. The story of Korah’s rebellion is in Numbers 16. There Korah rallies 250 leaders within Israel against Moses. They say to him, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?” Then Moses says, “Now you are trying to get the priesthood too? Who is Aaron that you should grumble against him?” So Korah in his pride doesn’t his job and he thinks he should be higher up the ladder. He wants Aaron’s job. He doesn’t think Aaron should be the high priest above him and all the other average Levite priests.
So Moses instructs all 250 men to bring censors with incense and light them before the LORD and Aaron would do the same. Moses told them that God would show whom He selected and whom He approved and settle this once and for all. And man did He. The ground opened up and Korah and his family fell down alive into the realm of the dead it says. Then fire came down from heaven and burned up the 250 men who joined with Korah against Moses. The censors were repurposed to overlay the altar before the Lord, which was “to remind the Israelites that no one except a descendent of Aaron should come to burn incense before the LORD, or he would become like Korah and his followers.”
Korah’s rebellion is described as “insolent,” (v1) “banding against the LORD,” (11) “treating the LORD with contempt,” (30). The rebellion against Moses and Aaron was a rebellion against God. Those men Jude wrote about were like Korah – they were rebellious, insolent and banding against the Lord. Sure, like Korah they had a lot of confidence that God was on their side, but also like them they were gravely wrong. Arrogance blinds and religious-spiritual arrogance blinds very badly.
These are men who speak confidently with the Scriptures seeming to make a good argument for their perverted teachings. They seem to care but they don’t – they are exploiting people. They are rebellious against God to the core and it shows in how they oppose the true shepherds Christ has appointed over His Church. Turn to 2 Peter 2:1-3 with me and see the description the Apostle gives there…
They are false apostles who actually are sent by Satan, and as his servants they masquerade as apostles of righteousness. That’s what 2 Corinthians 11:15 says, and it finishes with this warning: “Their end will be what their actions deserve.”
CONCLUSION
So these men follow the way of woe, the way of Cain, the way of Balaam, and the way of Korah. And like them, these men will be destroyed for it. Right now even, the men Jude wrote about are being held by God in prisons for the last 2,000 years, being punished, and awaiting their final judgment. Their condemnation written about long ago is something they have been suffering ever since they died and left this world.
But those who heeded Jude’s words, and did not allow themselves to be led astray by those servants of Satan, are in blessed rest, enjoying their reward in the presence of Jesus Christ their Savior. Our Savior.