Have you ever heard someone say, “You can’t know what’s in a person’s heart?” Is that true? Are we entirely unable to know what is in someone’s heart? The only place that indicates the mystery of what’s in a person’s heart is Jeremiah 17:9. But even in that verse it shows the heart in a very negative light, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” So we can know that God Himself tells us that our hearts are above everything else deceitful. No amount of appealing to some hoped for good “deep down” compares to the chief trait of the human heart as deceitful. But Jesus expanded even more and said that by the outward actions we can discern the condition of the human heart. In Mark 7 he said, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”
Would you join me in Matthew 12:33-37 and follow along. By their fruit you will know them. By the fruit of their words and teachings, and by the fruit of their conduct.
Jude is saying we must not listen to false teachers. Now, on the one hand, we must listen to false teachers, but not so we follow them in their ways. Instead, we must listen so that we can find out if they are true or false; from Christ or from Satan. We must listen carefully so we can distinguish genuine shepherds from frauds. We want to be like the Ephesian church where Jesus praised them in Revelation 2, “I know you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and you have found them to be false.” We want to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who “examined the Scriptures everyday to see if what they heard was true.” We want to be mature, like Hebrews 5 says, “who by constant use [of the meat of God’s Word] have trained ourselves to distinguish good from evil.”
Jude is echoing Jesus. Jude is saying, “Do not follow the words of these people.” Actually you see from the letter Jude is urging his readers to follow the words of Enoch (v14-15), the Apostles (17), the Scriptures (4), and our Lord Jesus (v4)
The title of our sermon today is “All Ungodliness” and it actually comes from verse 15 where Jude speaks of the coming judgment of all the ungodliness of ungodly people – their ungodly actions as well as all their ungodly speech. Then verse 16 itemizes what ungodly speech is: grumbling, boasting and flattering. These are some of the “fruit” Jesus says by which you will be able to recognize who false teachers are. These are their words that are their “foaming shame” (v13)
GRUMBLERS
First, we see these people are grumblers. Jude says “These people are grumblers and fault finders…” Constant critical attitude, always finding fault with everyone and everything, habitual complaining (EBC). The word for fault finding literally means “to blame your lot.” A related word is used in 1 Corinthians 10:10, “And do not GRUMBLE as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel.”
Grumbling and faultfinding are serious sins. In verse five Jude referenced the Israelite generation that left Egypt and wandered in the wilderness. He said they were destroyed for their unbelief. One of the ways their unbelief manifested was in their non-stop complaining and criticism of Moses. If you read Exodus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and see the way they acted you will see all of their “grumbling and faultfinding.” Numbers 11:1 is typical, “Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when He heard them His anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.”
- In Exodus 14, at the Red Sea, in fear they freaked out and complained against Moses and God at the Red Sea
- In Exodus 15 they complained about not having any water and rather than seeking God they lamented again about not being safely back in Egypt. And God mercifully and miraculously provided for them.
- Then in Exodus 16 (and Numb 16) they longed for Egypt, and complained about not having anything to eat rather than humbly and with faith seeking Moses and God to provide food. Mercifully God provided Manna & Quail
- Then in Exodus 17 another incident of complaining and threats against Moses at Waters of Meribah (Numb 20 also).
- In Numbers 12 Miriam and Aaron oppose Moses and speak against him. God struck Miriam with leprosy
- In Numbers 14 the whole Israelite community refused to enter Promised Land and they spoke against Moses – they almost killed him.
- In Numbers 16 Korah’s Rebellion was the result of grumbling and complaining against Moses and the LORD.
- In Numbers 21 because the people spoke against Moses and God again, growing impatient it says, and so God killed them with poisonous snakes. This is the famous incident where a Bronze snake was made and lifted up on a pole and anyone who was bit by a snake could look at the snake and be healed.
- Moses Grumbled (Deut 1:26-34
Grumbling comes from impatience (Numb 21:4), unbelief, and arrogance (Numb 16:3, 7).
Grumbling and faultfinding lead to sinful criticism. They lead to idolatry, like the Golden Calf incident, when the people complained that Moses was taking too long up on the mountain with God so they turned away and made an idol to worship (Ex 32:1-24; Dt 9:7-29). The first steps on the pathway to idolatry are grumbling and faultfinding. Its because criticism of God leads to doubting God and doubting God leads to seeking something else to put your trust in.
This does not mean there is no place for making complaints. We see Job and the Psalms and Moses and all through out Scripture godly people complaining to God or to various leaders. But there is a difference between someone who raises a complaint and someone who is a complainer. One person wants to right a wrong, or meet a need. They are going to God to have something done about it. Their complaint is actually driven by their faith – their faith in God to be able to do something. Their complaint made from faith and in faith actually motivates their righteous conduct before God.
The other person complains out of unbelief and skepticism. It comes from their sinful flesh, and their act of complaining is not only itself sin but it leads them to commit other sins. It is one unrighteous act, born of unrighteous attitudes, that leads to more unrighteous acts. Like the Israelites complaining about being led into the wilderness constantly called into question God’s motives, saying he only wanted to kill them out in the desert, doubting his care and provision and promises.
SIDENOTE APPLICATION: A complainer (aka grumbler and faultfinder) can never show appreciation. They never remember all the blessings given to them. They only blame their lot all the time. Like the Israelites, they never remember all the ways God has been there for them, so they always look at each new difficulty as though God has never proven himself. They actually treat God like He has worked against them rather than for them, when the opposite is true.
Do you see it? Do you see the difference? When Moses complained to God it was out of faith. When the Israelites complained about the Red Sea, or water, or food, or their enemies, or Moses’ role, it was all done from unbelief and arrogance.
APPLICATION: How do we complain? Is it from faith? To right a wrong and meet a need? Or is it coming from our sinful flesh, our sinful attitude, our unbelief and our arrogance?
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: Complaining and grumbling are sins in the Bible that God takes very seriously.
Rather than grumbling, let us practice gratitude. Let us submit to God’s plans.
BOASTING
Another fruit of ungodly speech that Jude describes is “boasting.” Verse 16 says, “they follow their evil desires; they boast about themselves…” “They boast about themselves.” “They boast.”
Interesting word. It means to be over-swollen. Definitions talk about boasting as “immoderate and extravagant speech, a great swelling of words.” Or they “speak haughty and bombastic words” (EBC). The insolence is bulging in their words. They
This kind of overswelling speech comes out in two ways: self-exaltion and seduction. These false teachers puff themselves up. They are “big in their own eyes” as God said to King Saul, and they want to be big in everyone else’s eyes too. Pride is like the Pharisee in Luke 18 who walked confidently into the temple to pray telling God all the reason why God was lucky to have him. It says he walked away condemned. The antichrist “oppose and exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:4). Daniel 11:36 describes him this way: “He will exalt himself and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods.”
Satan, the proudest of all proud, has all his arrogance described for us in Isaiah 14:12-15. Look at all the self exaltation, “I will ascend..” “I will make myself…” “I will sit myself up upon…” I will raise my throne…” But look at the result of exalting himself: “But you are brought down” Just like in Ezekiel 28:11-19…
APPLICATION. Be humble, not proud. Be Moses, not Saul. God said of Moses, “He is the most humble man on the face of the earth.” God promises to walk with the lowly in spirit. And those who exalt themselves will be humbled but those who humble themselves will be exalted. Be John the Baptist, who’s example of godliness was a sharp contrast with Satan, when he said, “Christ must increase, I must decrease.” When we let pride in we start to inverse that, “I must increase, Christ must decrease.” Jesus said, “Not my will Father but your will be done.” Satan, and us, when we are filled with pride, will say the opposite: “Not your will Father, but my will be done.”
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: Don’t strive to be first, the greatest, or the center.
But their boasting also is seen in their seduction. Second Peter 2:18-19 says, “For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity….” The influence of these godless false teachers is not in appealing to righteousness but in appealing to people’s lustful desires of the flesh. The very things Christ leads them out of are the very things these teachers lead people into. They “appeal to” those evil desires that are resident in all of us. Titus 2 says grace teaches us to say “No to ungodlness” but these men teach people to say “Yes!”
Notice Peter says that these people promise freedom to people. Freedom from what? Freedom from the rule and Lordship of Jesus Christ over their lives. Freedom to live however they want, indulging whatever lustful desire they have, all without the judgment of God. That’s why Jude says “They are godless people who turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality AND deny Jesus Christ our only SOVEREIGN and LORD.” They promise freedom from the sovereignty and Lordship of Jesus Christ. How do they do that? By reinventing Jesus to fit their own desires – a Jesus who condones all that they do. Not a Jesus that condones their sexual immorality. Did you notice in verse 16 Jude says, “they follow their evil desires.” Freedom is freedom to follow your evil desires without any judgment for it. We come full circle to the first sin in the Garden of Eden: “You most certainly will not die if you eat from the tree!” Satan was promising them a freedom the limitations God set for them (“For God knows if you eat of it you will be like Him….”) and a freedom to do what God said not to do by promising them the consequences God warned of would not actually happen. The freedom Satan promises is a lie – and so is any freedom these false teachers offer.