THE ANCIENT PROMISE

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on August 1, 2018 under AM Bible Study |

AM Bible Study Group: August 1, 2018 from Jude 14-15

Theme: God made the promise from long ago that He will come and judge apostasy.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

The Bible is a library. It contains 66 divinely inspired books that the Holy Spirit has preserved for our edification and guidance. But in the midst of those 66 books, mention is also made of many other books that are not in the ‘official library’.

These ‘others’ are books that are no longer known to exists. We are only aware of them because of a passing reference to them in the Scriptures. If you read through the Bible, you will encounter their titles—such books as The Chronicles of David (1 Chronicles 27:24), The Book of Jehu the Son of Hanani (2 Chronicles 20:34; see also 1 Kings 16:1, 7), The Book of Samuel the Seer, The Book of Gad the Seer and The Book of Nathan the Prophet (1 Chronicles 29:29, 2 Chronicles 9:29), The Annals of the Prophet Iddo (2 Chronicles 13:22), The Vision of Iddo the Seer (2 Chronicles 9:29), The Book of Jasher (2 Samuel 1:17-27), The Sayings of Hozai (2 Chronicles 33:19), a record of the acts of King Uzziah written by the prophet Isaiah (2 Chronicles 26:22), and The Book of the Wars of the LORD (Numbers 21:14).

We are none the poorer for not having these books today. We can be confident that the Holy Spirit has preserved for us, in the canon of Scripture, all that we need in order to know Jesus and obey Him pleasingly. We have a truly complete ‘sacred’ library. But it’s interesting that there are a couple of occasions in which the Bible actually quotes from a book that is not a part of the canon of Scripture. Some of them are books that, indeed, still exist; and when the Bible quotes from it, that quoted portion becomes a part of the Scriptural canon.

One such quote is found in Jude 14-15.

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This specific quote is taken from a book titled Enoch I; and is found in its first chapter. It is a strange and weird book; and if you were to read from it, you would come away with a clear sense that it is not of God. Somewhere along the way—probably in the third or fourth century before our Lord walked this earth—someone wrote some fanciful stories about the fallen angels and their interactions with human beings; and they falsely attached the name of Enoch to their speculations. But it would appear that included in that story was a true and genuine prophecy from the man Enoch himself—a prophecy that was passed on by oral history. It is a prophecy that the Holy Spirit affirms to us as genuine by the fact that His inspired servant Jude was led to include it in his tiny letter. This would not be to say that the book it was quoted from was inspired. Rather, it is best to say that a truly Spirit-inspired writer named Jude quoted a truly inspired prophecy from a non-inspired book in a genuinely Spirit-led and authoritative way.

And what is remarkable about this brief quote is that, because it is presented to us as a genuine prophetic utterance from the remarkable prediluvian (that is, ‘before the flood’) saint named Enoch, this could possibly be the oldest prophetic utterance from a God-inspired prophet in all of written human history. What a powerful utterance it is! In the tiny Book of Jude, the writer—the half-brother of our Lord named Jude—wrote about the apostates that troubled the church in his day, and said;

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” (Jude 14-15).

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Now; let’s stop and recall where this quote is found in the tiny book of Jude. The theme of his book is the call to all Christians to stand up against apostates—false teachers who have wandered from the faith—and “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). In his detailed description of these apostates, he gives us their ‘judgment (vv. 5-7), their rebelliousness (vv. 8-10), their character (vv. 11-15), and their practice (vv. 16-19). These are the ones Jude is speaking of when he writes that Enoch “prophesied about these men also”.

In affirming to us the sure and certain judgment of these apostates—who cause such terrible destruction to the true followers of Jesus and who distort the soul-saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ—Jude shows us that their eventual judgment will be the keeping of a very old and very foundational promise from God. To warn of judgment for apostasy from the truth is not a ‘new thing’ that excited Christian preachers came up with in the heat of the moment. It is, in fact, a promise from God that is almost as old as humanity itself.

Notice first how Jude writes of …

I. A PROMISE FROM OF OLD ABOUT APOSTATES.

In verse 14a, he writes, “Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also …”

Who is this man Enoch? The Book of Genesis tells us just a tiny bit about him;

Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:21-24).

Enoch lived in remarkable times. They were the days before the great flood. The lifespan of people was much longer than that it is today. If you add up the genealogies of the Old Testament, you find that this man Enoch lived between the 7th and the 10th centuries after the creation of humanity. And we’re told a remarkable thing about him. After his son, Methuselah, was born, and he himself then walked with God for another 300 years—in a way that is a mystery to us—he “was not, for God took him”. Enoch simply kept walking with God until God took him to live in Himself in His glorious dwelling place.

The writer of the New Testament Book of Hebrews also tells us something important about him. His name is recorded forever in the annals of faith—in the great ‘Hall of Faith’ in Hebrews 11—as an example of godly faith. Hebrews 11:5 tells us,

By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God (Hebrews 11:5).

What a remarkable man Enoch was in a remarkable time of terrible human sinfulness—just before God brought the terrible judgment of the great flood. What an example he was of holy faith and godliness—so pleasing to God that God simply took him to be with himself before the terrible outpouring of His wrath came. What godly authority he would have had! And as we learn even from Jude’s letter, he was a prophet of God; and that before he was taken, he uttered these remarkable words that have been recorded for us who live today—at the end of the ages.

These words come to us with stunning authority and relevance. They span human history. They are words that are truly ancient from one of the most remarkably godly men who ever walked upon the earth—a man so holy, he walked with God off the earth! And if you think about it, this prophetic utterance would have had to have been preserved by Noah and his family; because it would have only been through them—after the flood—that his words could have been passed on to us. (If you carefully examine the timelines of the genealogies of Genesis 5, you would find that Noah’s grandfather Methuselah and his father Lamech were sufficiently contemporary with Enoch to have been able to hear his prophecy firsthand, and to have been able to pass it on—word-for-word—to Noah. It would most likely be that Noah and his family wrote this prophecy down or committed it to memory, and thought much about it as they lived within the ark during the terrible judgment of the flood and as they repopulated the earth afterward.)

Enoch’s words, then, truly constitute a warning from God that is almost as old as humanity itself; and that would have been preserved by the Holy Spirit to make the transition from the old prediluvian world into the new antediluvian world—speaking in and to both eras of human history. And these words declare clearly the promised judgment of God at a time before a very terrible judgment came upon the world—and continue to declare it afterward.

What an astonishing and important word from God this is!

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But note carefully that the judgment that Enoch spoke of in his prophetic utterance was NOT the judgment of the flood. The seriousness of his words are certainly underscored and illustrated by the flood—but they are not fulfilled in the flood. They speak of a promise the fulfillment of which would be far distant in the future from the flood—and, in fact, which is yet still future to our own day today. Because of the fact that Jude says Enoch spoke “also” of the apostates that Jude himself was writing about, his words are meant to underscore the certainty of their future judgment.

Note then …

II. THE CONTENT OF THIS ANCIENT PROMISE.

Jude quotes Enoch as 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” (14b-15).

Note the three-fold nature of this promise:

First, note that the Lord will one day come. Jude records Enoch’s words that “Behold!” the Lord will come—making the promise of the Lord’s coming one of the oldest and most fundamental of all prophetic promises in Scripture.

These words would have been uttered at a time when humanity was still freshly reeling from the terrible sin of Adam and Eve. Humanity had fallen and had suffered a separation from God—a spiritual death. A Redeemer was needed; and God promised to give this Redeemer through the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15. The people who were born from Adam and Eve needed, from that time on, to act in faith and obedience upon that promise. Their son Cain, however, did not. He refused to offer a lamb in worship to God (a symbol of the provision of God’s atoning sacrifice through a Redeemer), but offered the works of his own hands instead. He murdered his brother (whose offering of a lamb of the flocks was accepted by God) and became an outcast from among men. He gave birth to many sons and daughters; and as a result, humanity became divided between those who apostatized from His promise of a Redeemer, and those who sought Him by faith in that promised Redeemer.

Apostasy caused division. But this ‘division’ would not go on forever. God would come in judgment. Indeed, in a sense, He did! By the third generation after Enoch—about 650 years after God had taken him—the flood came and destroyed all but eight members of the human family. This was not the judgment that Enoch spoke of; but it does underscore the certainty and trustworthiness of this ancient promise: Behold! The Lord comes!

Second, note that the Lord comes with His myriad of saints. The Lord knows how to make a distinction between those who are His and those who are not. As the apostle Peter has told us in 2 Peter 2;

For if God … did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly … —then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment (2 Peter 2:4-9).

Jude speaks of a myriad—or, as it has been translated, ‘ten thousands of His saints’. The idea is that of an innumerable host of God’s saints. And obviously, this great coming with the saints did not happen at the time of the flood. These words of Enoch, then, speak of another, yet-future coming. It speaks of the second coming of our Lord in judgment to this earth.

This promise was made back in Zechariah 14:5; “Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with You.” Paul wrote of it in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17;

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).

What a glorious picture of this great ‘coming the myriad’ we’re given in Revelation 19:11-14! There, it says;

Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses (Revelation 19:11-14).

But that leads us to the third part of this ancient promise; that the Lord comes to judge and convict the ungodly. Enoch said that the Lord comes “to execute judgment on all …” Clearly, the “all” who receive judgment does not refer to the saints that are with Him when He returns. Rather, this speaks of the terrible judgment that comes at the end of Revelation 19—the judgment of the Antichrist; the ultimate apostate—and of all who apostatize with him. As Revelation 19 goes on to say of our Lord;

Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (vv. 15-16).

Note that according to Enoch’s ancient prophecy, the Lord’s judgment will involve both actions and words. We’re told that He will come “to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way …” To act “ungodly” is to act in deliberate disregard of Him, or in irreverence toward His character, or to openly rebel against Him and against a knowledge of His will. The deeds that are committed in such a state of ungodliness are written down in the records, and they will—each one—receive the verdict of ‘guilty’. The world may think that this is not so—that it is a quaint old fable or a fiction concocted to terrify people and rob them of their freedom. But it is, in fact, one of the oldest—if not THE oldest—prophetic warning God has given in all the history of humanity. It MUST be heeded because it will be fulfilled! The flood is already evidence that this is so.

And this judgment will not just deal with ‘actions’. The great sin of apostates is that they dare to speak against the truth of God. Like Satan in the garden, they open their mouths against God’s holy character and His righteous motives. They dare to say that His word is not true. And so, Enoch warned that God would judge and convict them “of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” Every denial of the truth of God’s word; every distortion of God’s call to righteousness; every blasphemous word spoken against our Lord, and against His cross, and against His commandments, and against His faithful followers; every effort to deceive God’s people and replace the truth of the gospel with some diabolical lie, every campaign—as Jude puts it in verse 4—to “turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ”, will all suffer just judgment and conviction when our Lord comes.

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Now; because it is such few words in such an obscure New Testament letter, we might easily be tempted to pass by this brief quote in Jude 14-15. But we dare not! Upon examination, it constitutes one of the oldest promises from God the Holy Spirit to humanity that we have in the sacred record. What both a glorious and dreadful promise it is! What an ancient promise! What a motivation it should be to defend the soul-saving faith once for all time given to the saints! What a reason it gives us to cry out the warning to those who depart from the gospel!

And it is fitting that, in the light of this remarkable and ages-old promise, we should also remember what the apostle Peter said about the mercy of this great coming Judge;

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8-9).

EA