From Jude 1:4–10 we learn how the false teachers use God’s grace and love as an excuse to ignore his commandments and indulge their sinful desires. God is concerned for my happiness, therefore I have the right to divorce when things get difficult. God is a God of love. He looks beyond gender; therefore, I have the right to exercise and act upon my same-sex desires.
These are the kind of things these teachers were saying whilst mocking those who seek to follow God’s ways and live in obedience to him. Old-fashioned believers need to catch up and get with the times—life has moved on from where it was 2,000 years ago. Things must change if we are to reach a new generation.
But just like Israel of old, Sodom and Gomorrah, they will not escape judgment. God will punish them for their crimes. They will be destroyed by Jesus Christ.
In many ways Jude 1:11–19 seeks to teach us a similar message. Jude is repeating a lot of what he has already said. Presumably this need for repetition is necessary because there is something inherently attractive about the false gospel being taught by these heretics. The emphasis on God’s love and forgiveness, the freedom to sidestep those laws that make us uncomfortable, friendship with the world, non-Christians no longer thinking that we are weird and backward but embracing us with joy. Those are all things that appeal to us. It is understandable that many Christians would be drawn in and deceived by such reasoning. Therefore, in order to keep us from their lies, Jude (through his many examples) wants to make it very clear that we must be on our guard against them. No matter how sweet their words might sound, we must not be taken in by them because they lead people into sin, they face God’s judgment, and they do not have the Spirit.
5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.