CMC 2009 Retreat, January 3, 2009
I remember watching Catch Me If You Can directed by Steve Spielberg that tells the true story of Frank Abagnale played by Leonardo Dicaprio. In 1960s Abagnale was so successful at his con work that he was able to forged and altered checks to nearly $4 million in five years. I guess he was the youngest man ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Not only was Frank a master in forging check, but he was incredibly good at forging lives as well. He impersonated an airline pilot, an FBI agent, a doctor, a lawyer, and a sociology professor. Good money, living a fantasy life eventually showed its limits as he felt lonely and unfulfilled. He even called the FBI agent Carl Hanratty every Christmas because he had no one else to talk with. His criminality destroys his romance. Carl Hanratty called the con game “living the lie” and told Frank repeatedly that “the house always wins,” which meant Frank would eventually have to pay for his sins. Well, in the end he got caught and later turned his life around by becoming an expert on beefing up security measures to prevent check forgery.
Today’s message is about spiritual disasters of the past brought on by the fakes, who distorted the grace of God into license to sin more and denied Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord.
With Christian confidence comes Christian responsibility to live out the faith; this is godly life responding to God’s grace that covers us from the past, now to the future with deep thankfulness and our love for God. When this Christian confidence falls into the hands of the godless people mentioned in Jude 3-4, instead of thankful and joyful obedience reaping spiritual fruits, they only produce disasters. The destructive impact was so great that although Jude wanted to write about the salvation we share, he felt he had to write and urge the readers to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3).
Jude responded to God’s amazing grace that covers eternity past, now and future of eternity by humbling himself, entrusting his life in God’s hands by serving God’s son. Jude was a servant of Jesus Christ. He loved Jesus Christ. As in John Piper’s latest email describing his love for Jesus, Jude admired Jesus Christ more than any other human or angelic being, enjoyed his ways and his words more than he enjoyed the ways and words of anyone else, wanted his approval more than he wanted the approval of anyone else, felt more grateful to him for what he had done for him than he did to anyone else…
trusted his words more fully than he trusted what anyone else said, and more glad in his exaltation than in the exaltation of anyone else.[1]
Unlike Jude, these godless men responded to God and his Son not with gratitude and humility, but by distorting God’s grace as license to sin more and by denying Jesus Christ. Jude calls you and me to fight for the faith against this distortion of God’s grace and denial of Jesus Christ. As we learned from Jude how to respond to God as servants of Jesus Christ last night, we can learn something this morning, as we take tour of the disaster sites caused by the fakers. Jude hopes that by exposing the con men that forged God’s grace into a license for immorality and denied Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord, we will get to avoid being fakers and cause spiritual disasters.
1. Historical disaster caused by spiritual fakers
Three specific events of spiritual disasters are mentioned in Jude 5-8.
· The first from Jude 5 involves the time of Exodus. The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. God patiently struck down the presumed gods of Egypt one by one through ten plagues and ultimately delivered all Israelites out of Egypt from the slavery. But, none of them except just the handful including Moses, Joshua and Caleb and their families got even close to the Promised Land because they did not believe. They saw God flexed his muscles in major ways. They not only saw but walked on the dry ground under Red Sea when God separated the water for them to pass through. They witnessed the Lord’s fire at nights and his cloud during days to lead them. Yet, when some men came back from exploring Canaan and saw the people living there, they reported, “the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large (Numbers 13:28)… We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them” (Numbers 13:33). Although God brought down Egypt to its knees to release the Israelites, the Israelites couldn’t believe that God could deal with the giants in Canaan.
Only Joshua and Caleb out of all the spies who scoped out Canaan were convinced that they could take the land. Caleb silenced the people before Moses and told them, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
Joshua and Caleb sought to convince the Israelites they could successfully fight to capture the Promised Land. They urged the Israelites not to rebel against God in unbelief. Eventually, the whole assembly turned against them and they tried to stone Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 14:8-9).
The consequence was that what could have been taken few weeks before they could move into the Promised Land, none of them were allowed into the Promised Land wondering in the desert for years. So, the whole generation that rebelled against God in disbelief died out in desert. This was the spiritual disaster brought on by their unbelief and rebellion.
· Jude’s second example from Jude 6 is about the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home. The detail is sketch as to what Jude is referring to. What is certain is these angels instead of being faithful to where God had placed them, they decided to take matters into their own hands; like the Israelites, they too rebelled in disbelief thinking that they had better things to do than where God positioned them.
They too were judged as God kept them in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day (Jude 6).
· Then there was the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns. The people living in these cities gave themselves into the sexual immorality and perversion so completely that when the angels came to visit them, instead of being struck with fear and awe, they tried to sexually violate them. You know how the story ends, right? The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24) and by the time when he was done all that Abraham could see was dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace (Genesis 19:28).
Jude 11 mentions another three figures from the Old Testament who also are like those who distort God’s grace and deny Jesus.
· Cain worked the soil while his brother Abel kept flocks. Both of them brought offering to the Lord. But, it says Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, while Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock (Genesis 4:2-4). Abel thoughtfully and carefully chosen the best from some of the firstborn of his flock to offer to God; it shows that Abel loved God. But, Cain just brought some fruits he could get his hands on instead of carefully picking the best firstfruits to offer God. God who searches and knows our hearts and our motives only accepted Abel’s offering with favor, while rejecting Cain’s offering.
This made Cain very angry. He could have acknowledged and confessed his sloppiness and lack of care in the way he offered to God; he could have confessed his unthankful heart to God. Instead of dealing with his sin, he decided to direct and unleash his anger to Abel. Cain was really angry at God. And, since he couldn’t do anything to God, he went after Abel and coldheartedly murdered him. This is what happens when we ignore sin in our lives. It gives birth to greater sins. God told Cain, “if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). Obviously, Cain didn’t care what God told him since he allowed his sin to dominate him and be slaved by it.
· Balaam… is a man from Numbers 22-24. He was a prophet who was hired by Balak to curse Israel, but God wouldn’t allow him to curse Israel, only to speak blessing over Israel. Throughout the narrative from Numbers, it appears as though Balaam was submitting to God’s rule over him.
But, later accounts show that he was nothing but a con man who only appeared to be a follower of God. Balaam later became a principle instigator who seduced Israel into sexual immorality by promoting the Canaanite practices of Baal full of sexual immorality.[2] Later he too was killed by God (Numbers 31:8, 16).
· Korah… from Number 16 was a potentially great leader but never got there because he was overcome by passion for power. God led Israel through Moses and Aaron as a high priest. Yet, hungered for power, Korah cut Moses and Aaron down and challenged their leadership. He didn’t oppose Moses and Aaron on his own. He led other 250 Israelites men with him to oppose God’s chosen leaders. And, he led them all to destruction along himself when God judged them. God’s judgment showed who true followers of God were. Moses and Aaron were, but Korah and his 250 other fakers weren’t.
2. The anatomy of the spiritual fakers
What are the common threads that connect these historical disasters? They involve men and angels who loved themselves in self engrossed way, they were selfish, they certainly didn’t love God or people; they were manipulative with very high opinions of themselves who only to answer to their own instincts.
They are known according to Jude 1:8 as dreamers who claimed to have special visions from their dreams and embraced them as truth even though dreams contradicted the way of God. In following their dreams, they became their own authority while denying Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord.
Even the chief angel Michael in dealing with the devil would not rebuke the devil with his own authority; instead Michael rebuked the devil by saying, “the Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). He positioned himself under the authority of God in order to fight the devil. But, the godless the fakers foolishly assume authority even over the angels.
They were also known for the way they were driven by their instinct, like unreasoning animals rather than subjecting themselves to God’s truth as their guide (Jude 10).
Their self engrossed ugliness is revealed for they are shepherds who feed only themselves. Shepherds’ job is to look out for the flock, to feed them, to take care of them. But, these cons, fakers only look out for themselves. They are shepherds who let the flock go hungry and become emaciated and left to perish.
More graphical illustrations are given in Jude 12 -13. They are like “clouds without rain blown along by the wind” and “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted-twice dead.” Jude is pressing the point; these are fakers. They have the appearance of Christianity, but has no substance when it comes to knowing and living in the kingdom of God, for the King of Kings and Lord of lords. As though they may appear to genuinely following God, like wild waves of the sea their shame foam up and giving away their true identity. They are like wandering stars that are no good for giving accurate directions.
Jude 16 sums it up. “These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own devil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” The single thread that runs through Jude 16’s description of spiritual faker is love for themselves that trumps everything else. Why do they grumble and finds faults in others? It is because the people irritate them; they get in their ways. They are overly gracious to their own faults and but get enraged by others’ faults. They love themselves and they pride in themselves. When they appear to speak good words to others, you find out they are only doing it to fatten themselves.
As it wasn’t clear Jude presses on to make his case, spiritual fakers, cons will have to respond to the house, for “the house always wins.” Looking forward on the dreadful day of the Lord’s coming, he will come and judge everyone. He will judge the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all that harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
Conclusion
Why did Jude go through all this trouble to talk about the spiritual forgery by these fakers? One purpose is for us to know how to spot spiritual forgery. The Carl Hanratty was single-mindedly devoted to exposing Frank Abagnale.
The call to fight for the faith against disasters must include self examination to root out spiritual forgery. The thing about spiritual forgery is that it is built on hearts that are deceptive. Being a Christian means witnessing the transformation of our deceptive hearts that are engrossed with ourselves into the new hearts that are most passionate for God, most in love with Jesus Christ, most in sensitive and obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Spiritual forgery thrives because Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord is not taken seriously. Spiritual forgery manifests in sensuality. Sensuality of all forms and shapes that loves self more than loving God and loving people.
[1] http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2008/3476_I_Love_Jesus_Christ/
[2] Allen, Ronald B. “(1) The involvement of Israel in the worship of Baal Peor (25:1-3)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 2. 915. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1990.
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