Acts of the Apostates

by Steve McCranie | Sep 17, 2014

Hidden Reefs

Shipwrecked Faith from a Shipwrecked Church
Reflections on the book of Jude

Chapter Two
Acts of the Apostates

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.
Jude 1:16

If the Acts of the Apostles show how the Holy Spirit moved in the lives of the early church, then Jude can be aptly called the Acts of the Apostates, and for good reason.  Jude is a blunt, explicit warning against those who would burrow into the church unnoticed, under the radar, in stealth, masquerading as true believers and then slowly and deliberately lead the unsuspecting church astray.  The book of Jude serves as an “in-your-face” warning against the apostates in the days of the infant, early church, and even more so now.  Why now?  Because under the mantra of tolerance and cultural sensitivity the church today has let down its guard and opened the gate for any and all who give lip-service to Jesus.  And in doing so it has euthanized the watchmen on the wall (Eze. 3:17).

What is an Apostate?

Simply put, an apostate is one who willfully renounces or abandons Christian truth.  An apostate openly rejects the faith they once held dear.  Apostasy is, in a word, the rejection of Christ by one who had once claimed to be a Christian.  A pagan or heathen cannot, by definition, be an apostate.  That term is reserved for those who were once part of the body of Christ and drifted away, sometimes violently (1 John 2:19).  The term apostate is reserved for those who may have exercised faith in Jesus at one point, yet it was non-saving faith, and did not involve trust, dependence or the confession of Jesus as Lord (Rom 10:9).  Apostasy is the exact opposite of conversion.  It is, as some put it, a form of deconversion.

And apostates are everywhere in the church.  They seem to breed like rabbits.

For example, Judas was one of the Twelve, an Apostle, yet rejected Christ, turned his back on the truth, and betrayed the Lord (Matt. 26:14-16).  He was an apostate, actually much worse.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul speaks of Hymenaeus and Alexander “whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. 1:19-20).  They were members of the church yet had become apostates— and so much so Paul was to remove them from the congregation.

Paul writes to Titus about those who ” profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work (Titus 1:16).  This is a good definition of an apostate.

In 2 Timothy, Paul again instructs Timothy to “shun profane and idle babblings” (2 Tim. 2:16) because “their message will spread like cancer.  Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some” (2 Tim 2:17-18).  Note, they “strayed concerning the truth” and refused to return.  And, as you can see, one of the greatest dangers of an apostate is that their false teachings and sinful lifestyle will “overthrow the faith of some” (2 Tim. 2:18).  These are the ones Jude passionately warns about.

Demas

Probably the best New Testament example of an apostate is Demas.  We see him mentioned three times in Paul’s letters and he was obviously, for a time, a trusted friend and fellow minister with Paul.

In Colossians, at the close of the letter, Paul sends greetings from those who were with him, those who were his friends.  He sends greetings from Aristarchus, a fellow prisoner with Paul, Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, (Col. 4:10), Jesus, who is called Justus (Col. 4:11), Epaphras (Col. 4:12), and then from “Luke the beloved physician and Demas” (Col. 4:14).  This is a pretty impressive crowd that Demas found himself in— even if he was mentioned last.

By the time Paul writes to Philemon the order of names change.  Now we have “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow laborers” (Philemon 1:23-24).  Demas is now mentioned before Luke which might not, on the surface, indicate anything.  But it gives the impression that his status in the heart of Paul and in the eyes of the others may be increasing.

Much time passes and now Paul is facing certain death.  His second letter to Timothy is his most personal and reflective.  He begins to close the letter with a bold affirmation of how he spent his life for the Lord and the faith he had in the Lord.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing (2 Tim. 4:7-8).

He then speaks from his heart, expressing the personal sadness he feels during these last hours.  Paul is lonely and troubled.  He implores Timothy to “be diligent to come to me quickly” (2 Tim. 4:9).  Why?  “For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10).  Demas, one of the trusted faithful, had forsaken Paul!  The Greek word for forsaken means “to abandon, desert, leave in straits, leave helpless, leave in the lurch, let one down.”

Another word to describe what Demas did is apostatize.  And that makes Demas an apostate.

But why?  What compelled Demas to do such a thing?  Paul said it was because “he loved this present world” (2 Tim. 4:10).  The word for love means “to esteem, love, indicating a direction of the will and finding one’s joy in something or someone.”  Demas loved this fallen world more than he loved Christ.  His desire was to be a friend of this world and not a friend to Christ, Paul and others.  And, in doing so, he made himself an enemy of God— which is a frightening thing to do (James 4:4).

Current Apostates

We can see individuals, and churches, and entire denominations becoming apostate right before our eyes.  Take, for example, the move to change the Bible to suit gender-neutral wording.  This is a rejection of Biblical truth for the adulation and acceptance of the world.  Once orthodox and conservative denominations now reject Biblical truth and embrace homosexuality because it is politically correct and the darling issue of the media: the Presbyterian Church USA, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, just to name a few.

In addition to this, the airwaves are full of false pastors and teacher, apostates, who preach a prosperity gospel essentially reducing the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to nothing more than securing my right to health, wealth and a great parking place at the Mall.

But this should not take us by surprise.  Paul, in the last letter he wrote before offering his life to the Lord, said these things would be a sign of the end.  He said to Timothy, his spiritual son in the faith:

“Preach the word!  Be ready in season and out of season.  Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. (why)  For the time will come when they (the church) will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they (the church) will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Tim. 4:2-4).

After all, some of the largest churches in America fit this bill.

Acts of the Apostates

Finally, Jude presents the most chilling assessment of the apostate in all of Scripture.  Notice how he describes them:

Jude 1:4 – Ungodly men who are marked for condemnation and deny the Lord Jesus.  Apostates!

Jude 1:7 – Men who have given themselves over to sexual immorality and homosexuality.  Apostates!

Jude 1:8 – Men who defile themselves, are rebellious, and blaspheme those in heaven.  Apostates!

Jude 1:12-13 – “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves.  They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”  Apostates!

Jude 1:16 – “These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.”  Apostates!

Jude 1:19 – “These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.”  Apostates!

Keep You From Stumbling

The warnings of Jude are just as current today as they were when he penned his short, 25 verse letter.  And the encouragement from Jude is probably needed more today than at any other time in the history of the church.

Be encouraged as we dig deeper into the muck of past and present apostasy.  Why?  Because our Lord soon comes and our redemption draws nigh (Luke 21:28).

Keep looking up to Jesus who, as Jude says, “is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24).

Come Lord Jesus.

Coming next – Chapter Three:  The Hidden Structure of Jude

Who Was Jude?

by Steve McCranie | Aug 14, 2014

Hidden Reefs

Shipwrecked Faith from a Shipwrecked Church
Reflections on the book of Jude

Chapter One
Who was Jude?

Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,
To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:1

Who Was Jude?

That is a great question to ask at the start of this journey.   Just who is Jude?
Let me start by giving you what we know and what we don’t know about Jude.  Just the facts.  Academic.  Plain and sterile.

First, there are eight men named Judas, or Jude, in the New Testament.  Like Bob and Frank and Jim and Sam of the last generation or Liam and Noah and Ethan and Logan of this generation, Judas was an incredibly popular name during the first century.  Why?  Probably because of Judas Maccabee, the third son of Mattathias and the hero of the Maccabean Revolt of the Jews against their Syrian oppressors that resulted in the restoration of Temple worship and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem.  In fact, the rededication of the Temple, which occurred on the twenty-fifth day of the Hebrew month of Kislev in 165 BC, usually in December, is celebrated to this day during the Jewish festival of lights— Hanukah.

As we name our children in honor of others we admire, respect or highly esteem, so did the Jews at the time of Christ.

Second, just so you won’t get confused, the English form of the Greek word “Judas” is Jude.  In Hebrew, it is Judah.  Nothing strange in that.  My name, for example is Stephen— from the Greek, Stephanous, which means “crown” or “crowned one.”  Jude means “confessor of Jehovah” or “praise of Jehovah” and, for those of you who are interested, was the 162nd most popular baby name in the US in 2013.

It is also noteworthy that Jude, who obviously shared the same name as the greatest apostate who ever lived, Judas Iscariot— wrote the sharpest and most direct, point-blank, in your face, condemnation of apostates found in all of Scripture and he wrote that scathing condemnation in vivid, frightening, no-holds-barred language.  This may help to explain why most English versions of the New Testament use Jude and not his Greek name, Judas, as the title of the letter.  Don’t want to confuse the good with the bad— and aren’t we glad?

Third, Jude begins his letter by identifying himself as the “brother of James” (Jude 1:1).  So when we look at the eight people named Judas or Jude in the New Testament, only two of them are associated with anyone named James.

The first is Judas (or, Jude), the son of James, who was an Apostle, one of the Twelve (Luke 6:16, Acts 1:13) and was also known by his nickname as “Lebbaeus or Thaddaeus” (Matt. 10:3).  Don’t confuse this Judas with the one who went down in infamy for betraying the Lord for a bag of junk silver (John 6:71).  That was Judas Iscariot.

The other is Judas (or, Jude), the brother of James (Matt. 13:55; Mark 6:3) who was also the half-brother of Jesus (Gal. 1:19).

So we’ve now got two men named Judas (Jude) who were associated with a James: one is Judas the son of James and the other is Judas the brother of James.  It doesn’t take an IQ of 180 to see that our man Jude is not the Apostle, whose father is named James, but the brother of James who became the leader of the church at Jerusalem and who happens to be the half-brother of the Lord (Gal. 1:19) which, obviously, would make Jude the half-brother of the Lord also.  But, don’t worry, we will spend more time talking about James a couple of chapters from now.

Fourth, very little is known about Jude apart from the 25 short verses that bear his name.  We see that he, along with his other brothers: James, Joses and Simon (Matt. 13:55), did not believe Jesus’ claims about being the Messiah, the Promised One, the Son of God until sometime after the resurrection (John 7:5).  It is possible that during the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension Jesus personally appeared to Jude, as He did to his brother James, in one of His post-resurrection appearances (1 Cor. 15:7).  He may have said, much like He did to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side.  Do not be unbelieving, but believing” (John 20:25).

But even if He didn’t, by the time we see Jesus ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9), Jude, along with his mother and brothers, were now counted among the 120 who met in the upper room faithfully waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit that would give birth to the church (Acts 1:14).

And since he was part of the original 120, Jude was most likely with Peter when he preached his powerful, but short, twenty-two verse sermon, that resulted in over 3,000 people coming to faith in Christ (Acts 2:41).  Jude was probably one of those who “sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need” (Acts 2:45) and one “who continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people” (Acts 2:46-47).

For Jude, the long journey was over.  The eternal transaction had taken place.  Jude had now come full circle, from unbelieving skeptic to committed follower of Jesus.  Jesus was no longer his sibling, his older half-brother.

He was now his Lord and Master.

There is one last thing about Jude’s life that we can surmise from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  According to 1 Corinthians 9:5, it appears that Jude spent his time on earth serving the Lord as an itinerant evangelist.  The passage reads: “Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas (or Peter)?”

So, in the middle of a defense of his own apostleship, Paul cites the fact that Peter (Cephas), along with other unnamed apostles, and the “brothers of the Lord” can have their wives accompany them on their itinerant ministry.  And when Paul says “brothers of the Lord” there is no reason to assume that Jude was not included in that group.  So as the others were itinerant evangelists, so was Jude.

Finally, Jude was given some profound insight by the Holy Spirit not found anywhere else in Scripture, in either the Old or New Testament.  He was blessed with an insight that the likes of Paul and John were not.  Let me give you just one example of such hidden knowledge that was revealed to Jude, and to Jude alone.

Consider the following from Jude 1:14-15:

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

Whoa, where did that come from?  Jude tells us about the content of the sermons that Enoch preached in the days before the Flood.  How did he know that?

Plus, there’s not a whole lot written on the pages of Scripture about Enoch anyway, yet— he is a major prophetic type and figure.

To recap what we know: from Genesis 5 we learn that when Enoch was sixty-five years old something happened to him that caused him to “walk with God” for the rest of his life (Gen. 5:23).  What exactly happened?  Simply this, he had a son and prophetically named him Methuselah, which means, by the way, “his death shall bring.”  Really?  What will Methuselah’s death bring?  What will happen when he dies?  If you follow the timeline in Genesis 5, you will quickly see that the death of Methuselah brought on the Flood, the great judgment of God on all mankind.  And, just so you won’t miss the point, Methuselah lived longer than anyone else recorded in Scripture, an amazing 969 years (Gen. 5:27).  Why?  To show us the grace and mercy of God in the face of impending and certain judgment.  Seems like something we might want to think about today, doesn’t it?

In addition to this, after walking with God for 300 years the Lord decides to remove him from the earth, to rapture him, to snatch him away, to “translate him” without Enoch seeing physical death (Gen. 5:24).  Poof!  Here today, gone tomorrow.  Why?  What is God trying to teach us with this fact about Enoch?  Much.  But you will have to wait until later for us to look at all that is behind this move of God.

Genesis 5:24 states: “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”  Just like that, Enoch was gone.

It also says that Enoch was 365 years old when God took him.  That’s one year for every day in our calendar.  Do you think that’s a coincidence or could God be trying to tell us something else?  Something to think about, isn’t it?

But what was Enoch’s life like during the 300 years he walked hand in hand with the Lord?  What did he think?  What did he talk about?  What was the content of his life and the message of his sermons?

That is where the incredible revelations given to Jude come into play.  Go back and read Jude 1:14-15 again.  Do you see anything peculiar about the message of Enoch?

Jude tells us that Enoch preached about a time when the Lord would return with ten thousand of His saints (or, holy ones) to execute judgment on ungodly men for the ungodly things that they do.

When does that take place?  At the Second Coming of Christ!

So Jude has such a special relationship with Jesus that the Holy Spirit decided, in his short, 25 verse letter, to reveal to him, and to us, the fact that Enoch preached about the Second Coming of Christ even before the Flood of Noah, the call of Abraham, the Exodus from Egypt, the deportation to Babylon or the birth of the Church.  And it was Jude, and Jude alone, that received this prophetic message.

I don’t know about you, but I want to hang with a guy like Jude and learn all I can from Him.

Do you feel the same way?  Good.
Then let’s continue this journey together.

Coming next –  Chapter Two:  The Acts of the Apostates

On the Backside of the Bible

by Steve McCranie | Aug 14, 2014

Hidden Reefs

Shipwrecked Faith from a Shipwrecked Church
Reflections on the book of Jude

Introduction
On the Backside of the Bible

No one sets out to become an apostate, it’s never the result of one abrupt, drastic turn away from the Lord.  Instead, apostasy is most often the product of a pattern of sinful compromises that harden and gradually steer a professing believer away from the truth.
John MacArthur

It was actually years later that I discovered a book in the Bible by that very name.

Jude.

Ok, I knew it was there all the time.  I mean, who didn’t?  After growing up with Bible sword drills and verse memorizations every week in Sunday school, we all knew— everybody knew there was a book in the Bible named Jude.  We just didn’t know anything about it.

And why should we?

Our preachers never preached about it.  Our Sunday school teachers never talked about it.  And most of us got bogged down and quit our One Year Bible reading program back in the middle of the book of Numbers, in early March.  There was no way we would ever make it even close to the book of Jude, which began on December 8th.

Plus, it’s only one chapter long— just 25 short and confusing verses.  And I’m talking about some strange and confusing verses.

Think about it.  We’re usually pretty comfortable with verses that are easy to understand and easy to memorize.  I guess that’s why we’re naturally drawn to the short ones— the classics.

“Jesus wept.  Yep, got that one memorized.  It’s John 11:35”
“For God so loved the world, yada, yada, yada… yeah, I know that one too.”
“All things work together for good for those who are called according to…uh, to…er, to something.  I forgot how that one ends.”
“And God helps those who help themselves.”  Oh yeah, feelin’ pretty good, thumbs in suspenders, smirk on the face, chest puffed out.

Come to think of it, the only verse in Jude that is even included on Bible memorization cards is Jude 3.  And usually only the last half of the verse makes it past the censors.  It reads:

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

That verse isn’t for a novice, either.  You’ve got to be a Bible memory veteran to talk about anyone earnestly contending for anything in the church— unless it has to do with change, the pastor’s salary, King James, the way we did things before, hymns, choir robes, Easter cantatas, or the annual church budget meeting.  Then people will earnestly contend for their wants, opinions, rights and desires.

And they’ll contend for it to the death.

Usually yours.

Let’s face it, most in the church of today are so Biblically illiterate or apathetic in their understanding of Scripture that they don’t even know what the faith is that was handed down, once for all, to the saints.

“I didn’t think our church had saints?  Do we?  I thought that was just some sort of Catholic thing.  What does the word, saints, mean anyway?”

To make matters worse, Jude is located right at the end of the Bible, on the backside of the New Testament.  How important is a one chapter, backsided book in the Bible anyway?  What can 25 verses really say to us today?

No, that’s not exactly true.  I guess I’m going to have to reign in my poetic license a bit.  It’s not actually at the end of the Bible— but its pretty close.

Jude is the last book before we enter into the dark, mysterious waters of the Revelation.  Jude seems like nothing more than the flyleaf to the Revelation.  Just some blah, blah, blah print on the left side of the page.

Oh, and the Revelation.  Well, we were never to read the Revelation.  Never!

Why?

Because it’s mystical, cryptic, puzzling and kind of scary.  In fact, as kids we were all warned by our Sunday school teachers, an old, solemn man with a Vincent Price look about him, to never read the Revelation alone, or at night, or on the third Tuesday of May every other leap year.  If we did, we could go blind or crazy or even worse— we could end up watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island forever.

That thought still keeps me up late at night.

Play it Again, Sam

But, as to my nature, I disregarded the warnings of those who had my best interest at heart, and read the book of Jude anyway.

And, wow!  It was fantastic!
Can I say that again?  Only this time in all CAPS?
And WOW!  It was FANTASTIC!

We know that Luke penned his gospel account of the ministry of Jesus and then moved into what is known as the Acts of the Apostles in order to give us a clear, accurate and chronological account of the life of Jesus and the ministry of the early church.  If we call the fifth book of the New Testament the Acts of the Apostles, then we could probably call the next to the last book of the New Testament the Acts of the Apostates.  Why?  Because it deals almost entirely with those in the church who have defected from the true faith, are the “tares among wheat” Jesus warned about or are simply a Satanic terrorist cell grafted into the Body to wreak havoc, much like a cancer cell in the human body.

“What exactly is an apostate?” you ask.  Good question.

The formal, academic, dictionary definition is as follows:

One who has abandoned one’s religious faith, one’s principles, or a cause.  A disloyal person who betrays or deserts his cause or religion or political party or friend, etc.

But that doesn’t do the term justice for me.  An apostate is a loser with a capital L.  They are the scum of the earth, a modern day Judas, Benedict Arnold, OJ Simpson, or Bill Clinton with his, “I never had sexual relations with that woman.”  They are like Obama’s Press Secretary that will come out and lie to your face knowing full well that everyone in the room knows they are lying.

An apostate is one who will smile at your face, say “Amen” to your prayers, raise their hands with you during your praise and worship sets, and then, when you turn your back on them, like Brutus of old who led the assassination of Julius Caesar, they will sink their dagger deep between your shoulder blades, up to the hilt, twisting it, driving it deep, sneering all the while, longing to watch you die.  And they do it again and again and again.

“Et tu Brutus.”

One final thought before we jump right into the murky waters of the text.

You need to understand, before we go any further, that the apostates are everywhere— like kudzu.  They’re in your church.  They break bread with you whenever you come together to celebrate Communion with what you think are fellow believers.  They, like Judas at the Last Supper with Christ, are at the very table with you, taking from your hand the bread of fellowship.

They smile, they nod in agreement, they clasp hands with you in committed ministry— but they do so with malice and deceit.

They are the ones that are quick with gossip and always seem to be close to everything evil in your church.

They are the “wolves in sheep’s clothing” Jesus warned us about.  They are the Hymenaeus and Alexander that Paul warned Timothy about.  They have some of the largest churches in America and are seen more often on Christian television than reruns of The Andy Griffith Show.  They may sit next to you during choir practice.  They may serve with you as an Elder or a Deacon in your church.  They may be your Sunday school teacher, your Youth Pastor, your Discipleship Director.  They may even be the man behind the pulpit, the guy with the backwards collar, the supposed Man of God who serves a god with a little “g”.

Believe me, they are everywhere.  Jesus said we would know them by their fruits—and by nothing else.

But don’t take my word for it.

Listen, for just a moment, to what Jude says about them in just a couple verses:

Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.
But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.

Woe to them!  For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

hese are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit.

Sobering, isn’t it.

Well, are you ready?

Are you ready to begin a journey into one of the most neglected books of the Bible that deals specifically with what makes the church of today less than it was in the past— a mere shell of its former glory?

Well?  What sayeth ye?

Coming next – Chapter One:  Who Was Jude?