Three Characteristics of Apostasy - Jude 8

JD08-01

Now Jude proceeds to give us three primary characteristics of apostasy. These are existing in our day, and they can be seen in our day. If you get hold of these three characteristics, you can take a look at the society in which you and I live, and you can see these things mounting in intensity as each year passes, and as each month goes by. In 2 Timothy 3:1, we read, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." These times shall be perilous to believers because of the apostasy that will be rising and reflecting these three characteristics that we're going to look at now. In verse 5, we read, "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." This is typical of Christendom today. We have churches after churches after churches and Christian after Christian after Christian which have the form of ritualism and of godliness and of "churchianity," but there is no living Holy Spirit godly power through the Word of God within it.

This is one of the problems that such a condition in an apostate age creates. It tempts believers, who don't understand what's missing, to reach out for something that they feel will warm their emotional natures in order to get near God. It is the rising tide of emotionalism that we are resisting and fighting as believers which is the result of the apostate condition of our society and of church people who are trying to reach out for something real. They don't understand that the real thing is in Bible doctrine, and they're never going to find an experience with God. They're never going to find an emotional stability and warmth within themselves until they find themselves under a teaching ministry that deals with the Word of God.

So we have this form of godliness, but the power of it is not there. What does the Bible tell you to do? It says to turn away from it. If you think we are knocking other churches, we are. The Word of God tells you exactly what to do with anybody who is not standing up and, in an authoritative manner, explaining what the Word of God has said. If you don't like that, then find yourself another church where you can be inspired and you can be hit with all the guff; all the tripe; all the gimmicks; and, all the things that will warm the cockles of your insane heart until you drift away into increasing nothingness and into increasing apostasy. That's exactly where you're going to go. You'll be the Exodus generation all over again, and you may even have a lot of knowledge about the Bible and the process of it.

It's time that Christians started standing up and sounding off against people who are striking against the thing that God says, "This is what I approve of." If you don't know what God approves of, then start getting into the Word until you find it, and then you hang onto it tooth and nail. From the rest, the Scriptures is clear, "from such turn away."

2 Timothy 3:13 says, "But evil men and seducers shall become worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." Remember that the "evil men" are not all unbelievers. Some of the most evil men are those who are believers and religious leaders. I remind you that situation ethics is the product of the ministry of a pastor. It is the product of a religious leader. It wasn't the product of some hippie commune that came up with that idea. 2 Timothy 4:3 says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lust they shall heap to themselves teachers." Why?

Because they've got "itching ears," meaning they want somebody who will scratch the thing they want scratched." They want someone to come up with some preconceived notions that are not structured on the Word of God and do not come from the Word of God. They say, "This is what I want in my religious experience." What they want is that which is contrary to what God has to offer, and to the realities of the Word. Verse 4 says, "They shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables."

Again I remind you that the people who are turning their ears away from the truth to fables based on their emotions are not aware that they're doing it. They become so subjective; so self-opinionated; and, so confident that they can evaluate what they're doing, that they lose the perspective of the Word of God. They are like the frog, who is put into a cool pan of water. Then the pan is put on a fire, and the water warms up gradually. Because he is cold-blooded and adapts to the environment around him, he just warms up with the water, and he's not aware of the fact the water is getting hotter. Pretty soon the stuff is bubbling all around him and before you know it, he wakes up dead.

That's exactly what's going to happen to you if you persist in following fables. The idea that you can get to God on your feelings, or that you can have some warm spiritual experience by getting together with a few folks and talking things over, that is a delusion that you better get over fast. Sometimes we are taught this in schools that ought to know better than to be putting out that kind of idea. The error of apostasy is a movement away from divine viewpoint that leads to frustration, and frustration always leads to experimenting with some kind of fulfillment, and ends up in perversion.

So we have a place for God's viewpoint in the matter of apostasy. Apostates operate on what we may call human viewpoint. Isaiah 55:7-9 tell us how God's thoughts are infinitely above our thoughts. God's ways of thinking are not man's ways of thinking. Man cannot achieve God's ways of thinking just by sitting down and meditating; by watching a sunset; or, by finding some other form of inspiration. The only way we are going to come to God's tremendous high thoughts, which are so far out of reach of our human thoughts, is through His Word. There is no other way. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that we are what we think. That's what explains an apostate. Why is he in the condition he's in? Because of what he thinks.

Jude 8

Jude is taking up these men that he has been talking about who constitute the slithering sneaky apostates who lead God's people astray. He picks that group back up in Jude 8. He says, "Also these (referring to these apostates, infiltrating with their human viewpoint) in like manner." He compares these apostates of Jude's day with the three illustrations that are used. "In like manner" goes back to Jude 5, 6, and 7. "In like manner" of Israel; "in like manner" of the angels; and, "in like manner" of Sodom and Gomorrah. These apostates in Jude's day have slipped in unnoticed with evil intent. The liberal preachers reject the Word of God in an insidious way. They encourage sensuality under the guise of grace; they deny the deity of Christ; they reject the sovereignty of God; they reject the authority of the Word of God; and they reject the inerrancy of the Word of God.

In the Greek, we have another word that's omitted here in your English translation. After the words "in like manner" comes the Greek word "mentoi." "Mentoi" means "nevertheless." This word is a contrast. Jude is saying, "In like manner, nevertheless." This means in spite of what historically the Bible indicates and reveals concerning God's judgment upon apostasy as revealed here in these historical examples in Jude 5, 6, and 7. In spite of this, "in like manner," nevertheless, these filthy dreamers move on with the three primary characteristics of apostates that we may recognize if we look closely enough. This is in spite of the fearful examples of God's wrath on these apostates through these three illustrations.

So we translate, "Nevertheless, in the same way also these." Now what we have here are what are called "dreamers." The word "dreamers" refers to what appears to one in his sleep. That's all it means. It refers to one who dreams. You will notice that the word filthy is in italics. The word "filthy" is not in the Greek. It was put in there in order to convey a certain concept which this word originally did connote. This word originally connoted to be beguiled with sensual images and carried away to an impious course of conduct--to have dreams of a sensual impious nature to result in immoral action. With this in the background of this word, the idea of sensuous dreaming is the reason that the word "filthy" was inserted here. It was in order to try to explain what kind of dreams these people dreamed.

These apostates don't have good dreams. The kind of dreams that they produce are human viewpoint that lead to immorality. The word is used of a delusion. So we may call this, perhaps, "these deluded dreamers." The word describes their human viewpoint. It is false and it is unrealistic because it does not fit life as it is. In other words, they live in a dream world. We may say to the apostates, "You are dreaming." This is in the present tense which means this is a constant characteristic of apostates to have dreams and to teach things that result in immorality. It is middle which means they impose it upon themselves. They receive these dreams by their own choice. They move in a dream world of human viewpoint rather than the real world of God's viewpoint. They move in delusion, and that's apostasy.

An unbeliever's mind will always be operating on human viewpoint. Most of the people in the society around us can operate on no other view than that. This, of course, means that their minds are taking in knowledge. They are learning things. That means that they have minds which pick up information. They have minds that can perceive things. They also have minds which can, consequently, direct them to actions--a directive and a perceptive quality. The mind stores information. That way we have a basis for judging things. Our conscience has information so we know what's right and what's wrong. We come up with a divine viewpoint or we come up with a human viewpoint according to the information. The higher your IQ is, the more information you're going to store for your decision-making mechanism.

The unsaved person takes in information, and then he uses it to direct what he does. That results in his actions. The human viewpoint mentality operating in this way will always move away from God when dealing with the problems in society which are created by the old sin nature. When men apply their attention to the problems that our society has, because of the expression of the old sin nature, they come up with answers that are human viewpoint and that are apostate answers.

For example, they will promote the social gospel to improve human conduct. They will come up with the concept of socialism in order to solve economic inequities. In order to bring people into a more realistic and closer human relationships, they come up with sensitivity training where they take liberties with each other and degrade each other. Communism is their answer for world peace. The emotion will dominate the soul, and this, as we pointed out in the previous session, creates effeminate men and masculine women. This is the hippie culture. The apostate response to human viewpoint would be just the same in the Christian as if he were an unbeliever. Both move toward social action solutions for the old sin nature, and these are all unrelated to God's point of view. It leads to delusions about the world we live in and about how to come to a world of peace.

On the other hand, the unbeliever is in a very difficult position. He has this problem. The Bible tells us that he's spiritually dead. That is, while he has a soul, of which his mind is a part, along with his will and his emotions, he does not have a human spirit. The human spirit is dead. Consequently, with this out of operation, he has no way of coming to anything that God can teach him. The only thing that he can receive is one bit of information where God the Holy Spirit will act in place of his dead human spirit and give him that information, and that's the gospel. He can hear the gospel; he can make a decision; he can believe it; and, he can be saved. Once he is saved, his human spirit is activated and comes alive, and now he's in a position to be able to receive the things of God.

So, 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us that the natural man, that is, the unbeliever, the non-Christian, cannot take in the viewpoint of God. This does not mean that it's merely hard for him to learn divine things. It means he cannot grasp the spiritual significance at all. He cannot enter into any spiritual phenomena whatsoever. He may learn certain facts through his learning capacities, but he will not be able to use this to direct his life, and he will not enter into the phenomena of spiritual things.

But the Christian also has a problem when it comes to this matter of looking at things the way God sees them. The Christian does have the Holy Spirit. He does have a living human spirit. So he has the two basic factors that he needs in order to learn God's point of view. If he is a carnal believer who is out of fellowship with the Father, so that God the Holy Spirit is grieved or quenched because of unconfessed sin, he is out of a learning situation. He's back in the same position as if he were an unbeliever. The carnal Christian cannot enter into God's viewpoint. He cannot receive things from the Holy Spirit. He has no spiritual understanding, and he will make no progress.

Remember that in the spiritual life, the spiritual maturity structure is described in terms of being a point of defense and a point of attack. This is either maintained and built-up, or like any building, it begins to fall apart. Your spiritual life either is maintained and moving forward such that you're improving the facility, or else you're going backward. The longer you stay out of fellowship, the more this thing is going to fall apart. A Christian who goes for a long time with perhaps something in his life that's the result of a root of bitterness or a reaction against God's point of view, with all the expressions that this will bring, that Christian goes for a long time out of fellowship. When finally he comes around and says, "I've had enough of this," and he comes back to the Lord and makes confession, he is surprised by how devastated his spiritual life has become. The whole spiritual maturity structure has deteriorated in the meantime.

That's why it's bad to stay out of fellowship very long. It's not only that you cannot take in doctrine and God's viewpoint to sustain this structure, but it also means that it falls apart while you're sitting around, making up your mind, and getting ready to get back into the swing of things with the Lord.

The Evils of Apostasy

1. Physical Immorality

   Number one, he produces physical immorality. This characteristic ties in with Jude 7 where you had the sexual perversion of the immorality in Sodom and Gomorrah. These three characteristics tie in with these three illustrations. The first one, physical immorality, ties in with Jude 7.

   So we read, "Defile the flesh." The flesh here is the human body. Defile means to corrupt. The word is "miaino." "Miaino" is a very descriptive word. It means to stain, to pollute, or to contaminate. In the Greek world, and in the ancient world, this word was used of being polluted and contaminated with sewage. In the ancient world, the streets were built. There was no system for the sewage. Chamber pots were the order of the day. Balconies overlooked the streets. So, at the proper time, the way to handle the sewage was simply to walk out on the balcony, get a good heave, and toss it over into the street.

   Here you are, and you finally got around to getting enough money to invite your favorite girl out for a date. You're walking down the street, and you've got your brand new white uniform on. You look like real Charlie Chan, the original. So you're walking along, and you have your young lady there, and all of a sudden somebody opens a door upstairs; steps out on the balcony; and, throws the sewage out in the street. Something happens to your nice white suit. It gets "miaino'd." It gets stained and contaminated. Where you had been walking down the street and nobody noticed you up until then, you notice people keep looking at you now. They are noticing you. There seems to be something fragrantly different about you than there was before. Now you have been "miaino'd." Get the feel of the word. It's a very very apt illustration of what an apostate will do to your body. It will make you stink in the sight of God when it comes to divine viewpoint.

   This word is used here of moral defilement which expresses itself in physical immorality. So the defilement that begins up here in the mentality of the soul (and that's where it starts--we get a defiled viewpoint through false doctrine), this results in physical contaminations of the body. This has certain psychosomatic effects. The word "psychosomatic" is made up of two Greek words. The word "psycho" comes from the Greek word for "soul" which is "psuche." And the word "somatic" comes from the Greek word for "body" which is "soma." So what this is saying is the "psuche" or "soul," particularly the mind, affecting the body. What is thought in the mind of the soul has effects on the physical body. These effects may be good or they may be bad. When they are bad, they result in producing psychotics; neurotics; dope addicts; alcoholics; and, the sexual perverts of the homosexuals, the lesbians, and the bestiality type that we have been reading about.

   So thinking human viewpoint will have adverse effects on your body because human viewpoint is a delusion, and it conflicts with the reality of your central nervous system. The results are disastrous for the body. Many people are walking around with symptoms of illnesses that don't really exist. The reason they have that is because their mind is acting upon the central nervous system, and that system is rebelling against human viewpoint which the mind is seeking to function on, and that's not reality. That's unrealistic, and a person cannot function on human viewpoint. So this is what he's speaking of here. He's saying that we have been defiled by the apostates physically. This is in the active voice. These dreamers with their human views do it themselves. It is in the present tense. They do it constantly. This morality is a pattern of their life. It's not a sometime thing. An apostate in time will follow his views to the same kind of physical environment that ended up in Sodom and Gomorrah.

   So that's why we say look at our society today. You say, "Do we live in an apostate society?" One of the things to ask yourself is what is the level of physical defilement? What is the level of physical immorality and perversion? To the extent that you see that level at a high point, you have an indication that apostasy has risen to a high point, and is deep seated in the society. Romans 8:4 tells us that the godly walk of a believer is free of the controls of the old sin nature. One segment of the fruit of the spirit is, as a matter of fact, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). When we are filled with the Spirit, this segment of self-control is evidenced. Human viewpoint depends on the flesh, and you can read about the disastrous results of that in Galatians 5:19-21. Physical defilement proceeds from a mental attitude from human viewpoint (Matthew 15:18).

   Therefore, apostasy today is attacking the moral standards upon which our society has been historically structured, and the attack is in the form of situation ethics; that is, that a thing is right and wrong depending upon a certain situation, and not depending upon whether God has spoken or whether there is a rule or whether there is a regulation. Alright, this is the first evil of apostasy--physical immorality.

2. Antagonism toward Authority

   There is a second evil that comes from apostasy, and that is antagonism toward authority. The next phrase is, "despise dominion." This characteristic ties in with Jude 6 of the historical examples where the angels rejected God's authority in respect to the separation of classes of creation. The word despise means to do away with something or to make ineffective. It means to do away with something that is established. The Greek word is "atheto." This word simply means to do away with something which is already established. In other words, it is anti-establishment. Apostasy is characterized by the quality of being anti-establishment. Literally, this means to displace or to set aside. It is in the present tense. They are constantly rejecting the authority of the establishment. It's active voice. They do so by deliberate choice. It's in the indicative mood which means a spiritual principle is being stated here.

   Authority

   An apostate will reflect his condition by the fact that he's against rules, regulations, and authority. That's what it means when it says, "despise dominion." The word "dominion" is the word "kuriotes." It means "lordship." It refers to constituted authority. Apostasy always supposes constituted authority. It despises what God sets up and says, "This is the way it is." This is used to describe God's plan. "Authority," the word "kuriotes" or "lordship" here is used to describe God's plan for the universe; that is, that the universe operates under certain regulations. The word means authority in the human race--not just natural laws.

   There are two Greek words for "authority" in the New Testament. Let me show you what those are. The first one is "hupakouo." "Hupakouo" means to obey or to submit. We have this in a number of Scriptures: Matthew 8:27; Luke 8:25; Romans 6:16; Colossians 3:20, 22; and, 1 Peter 3:6. This word is used again and again in the Word of God. It means "obey." You may search through those Scriptures and see a variety of situations and conditions where God says, "Obey. Submit. Do what you're told."

   There is a second major word for "authority" in the Scripture, and this is "hupotasso." "Hupotasso" is a military word. It means to line up; to fall in line; or, to put in subjection. We find this in Ephesians 5:21-22; Colossians 3:18; James 4:17; 1 Peter 5:5; Romans 8:20; and, 1 Corinthians 14:32. There is something I want you to notice. Both of these words begin with "hupo." This is a Greek preposition which means "under." It is a word of authority. These two keywords, along with this word "kuriotes," declare to us that it is the plan and the will of God that we should exist and operate under authority. Apostasy rejects that concept. This includes a variety of authorities. They begin with God's divine authority, and then it finds itself expressed in human authority in various institutions which God has established for us.

   Church Authority

   This includes the authority of the local church. There is within the local church established by God a line of authority. Lines of authority have to exist in any organization. These lines of authority move up to the pastor-teacher (Hebrews 13:7, 17, 1 Thessalonians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 16:15-16). The resistance and the objection to local church authority is reflected in the current attack on Bible doctrine teaching. There is an unbelievable amount of resistance. You may not be moving in circles where you discover resistance to simple doctrinal instruction from the Word of God. It comes in very subtle ways from people who should know better.

   Instead, what people want to do is to get together in little groups, and (as the word goes) to "rap" about things. They want to sit and exchange by and large their mutual ignorance under the guise that they're going to come to some great understandings and some great revelations from God. Those sessions usually prove to everybody who attends, if they know anything at all, that they all are mutually ignorant. The way you learn the Word of God and arrive at divine viewpoint is that you sit in a group with a teacher who can instruct you, and you concentrate, and you take the trouble to pay attention, maybe to jot a few notes, to think about it when you get home, and to act upon what you've learned. The result is development of your mentality to guide your life. That's the only way that God has made it possible for you to advance in your spiritual life.

   You better start cutting down anybody who stands up and implies in any degree whatsoever in the circle of your acquaintances that a pastor-teacher is not the key to the spiritual life of the believer. This is contrary to the Word of God. Don't be shattered and don't be awed because somebody may have some credentials of knowing something about the Word of God, because this is resisted for various reasons. This is especially true of somebody who doesn't think he can carry authority or who doesn't think he can be an administrator in a local church. He's scared stiff of this concept. He looks at Ephesians 4, and Ephesians 4 spells out how the pastor-teacher must be the instructor in order that the people of God may develop spiritually in order that they may go out and build up the body of Christ, and he throws his hands up in panic and says, "Man I can't do that. I can't carry authority. I couldn't stand up and face the crowd. I couldn't call the plays. I cannot be a quarterback in the local church, and take the ball and call the plays. That scares me stiff. I don't have that knack."

   Well, if you don't, then get out of the local church business. You better find yourself a seminary or a Bible College where you can teach, but don't try to be a pastor of a local church. A pastor has to be able to carry authority. He has to be able to administer. He has to have that gift as well as the gift of teaching. Otherwise, he's out of line, and it's the people of God who are devastated. Those are the preachers who move in with inspirational talk. Those are the preachers who move in with Bible teaching that doesn't put anybody downwind of himself and doesn't instruct anybody so that he can see himself as he really is. This is one of the lines of authority, and one of the primary ones, we are to respect. God has set up certain commands for every believer to obey. This is His plan. You find these throughout the Word (Deuteronomy 11:27, 1 Samuel 15:22, Jeremiah 7:23, 11:4, 7, Zechariah 6:15). If you're going to learn the commands of God, somebody has to teach them to you.

   This authority includes the freedom of your personal will. This is the freedom for you to make your own choices, and to live under the laws of the nation which preserves law and order. This is an inalienable right from God, that the nation is to provide certain provisions to protect your freedom and your free choice, and the free enterprise system. Communism obviously despises personal freedom, and it destroys the personal choice of the people by its intensive controls. Some Christians despise the right of other believers to exercise their own priesthood. They are forever putting their nose in, and they're eager to invade the privacy of other Christians and their priesthood. They're domineering; they're arbitrary; and they're out of line.

   I think you should know by now to refuse to let any Christian decide how to run your life for you relative to you and the Lord. You may get some advice, and you may seek some advice, but ultimately you are your own priest. Some people just refuse to let other people decide how they're going to treat them. They just will not live and let live. They view their own preferences as the ideal and the most desirable. When they are not permitted to invade the volition of other people, they go into a slow burn and they try to see how they can get around it to make people shape up to the way they think they should shape up. That's the authority within your free will--to exercise your priesthood.

   Authority in Marriage

   There is another authority which is to be recognized that apostates despise, and that's marriage (Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, 1 Peter 3:1, 6). This demands a permanency of fidelity and the headship of the husband. The radical left rejects the marriage concept altogether. Articles are being written asking what Americans think about marriage. Well, most of them, apparently, in recent articles this week, still think that the traditional marriage is the path to follow. But situation ethics says it doesn't matter. The human viewpoint of the apostate say that morality is ultimate freedom whereas divine viewpoint sees it as ultimate slavery and degradation.

   Parental Authority

   There is the authority of parents (Ephesians 6:1, Colossians 3:20). There is a chain-of-command principle. It is God's way of bringing a young person to maturity. Parents who fail to spank their children are parents who are playing the role of apostates. The radical left, interestingly enough, because they are apostates, attacks parents. As Jerry Rubin said, "Our first oppressors are our parents, and the first thing you should learn to do is to kill your parents. When you have learned that, you have come to liberty and freedom." Parents who let the kid decide what they will and what they will not do are despising God's viewpoint.

   I hope that you are wise enough parents that you will never let that child that you gave birth to stand up after you told him to do something and say to you, "Why?" The minute he says, "Why?" you should hang him out to dry fast so he will learn never to do it again. If you are a teacher in Berean Academy, and some kid stands up and says,"Why?" when you tell him to do something, you better squash him real fast so that he realizes that's one of the dirtiest words around here when you're a kid. This is authority that God has invested in parents. The trouble we're having on college campuses is because parents have not exercised this authority, and have put themselves in a position where they can carry on a debating society with some little kid that's going to challenge and argue them back to the wall.

   National Authority

   There is the authority of nations. God has said that society should exist as national entities in order to prevent universal suppression of free choice. At the Tower of Babel, Genesis 11:6-7 tells us that God confused the languages because God saw that man would not be restrained from anything he wanted to do until those languages were confused, because man was of one nation. He was of one tongue. As a matter of fact, I've had so much resistance on this that I just want to read it to you. There are certain circles where this concept is despised also--that God is in favor of nationalism, and that God is against international controls.

   Genesis 11:6: "And the Lord said, 'Behold, the people are one.'" That's the keyword. There is one nation. There is internationalism. "And they have all one language, and this they will begin to do, and now nothing will be withheld from them, which they have imagined to do." Because they were functioning on human viewpoint, what they were imagining was evil. It was the kind of evil that finally resulted in the flood to destroy the humanity and the half-breeds that existed at the time. There is nothing that will be restrained from their imaginations as long as they have international control over all people. "Come, let us go down, and there confounded their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." That established national entities.

   Acts 17:26 also tells you that God set up national boundaries and racial groupings. One-world internationalism is the pattern after Christ returns. But that's when He's ruling. Up until then, Satan is trying to create that internationalism, but it is God's will that authority rest in nations. Communism, the National Council of Churches, and the United Nations are apostate organizations who despise divinely constituted authority of nations.

   There is authority in business (Colossians 3:22, Ephesians 6:5) which is to be respected. Angels are subject to God's authority (Mark 1:27, 1 Peter 3:22). Nature is designed to obey God (Matthew 8:27, Mark 4:41, Luke 8:25). Christians should be the example of working within constituted authority rather than playing the role of apostates. This authority is expressed in home; church; business; school; politics; civic matters; social matters; and, right down the line.

3. Speaking Evil of Leaders

   There is one other thing that is characteristic of apostates. They not only create physical immorality, and they not only resist authority, but they speak evil of leaders. They despise leadership. Jude says, "And speak evil of dignities." The word here is the Greek word "blasphemeo" from which we get our English word blasphemy. These leaders express a spirit of maligning. Apostates malign; they revile; they libel; and, they scoff at leaders. This is present tense. They always do it. It's active. They deliberately choose to do it, and it's a principle of a way of life with them.

   Apostates from divine viewpoint are disassociated from reality in their human viewpoint, so they resist leadership which God has established. When they resist constituted authority, they eventually and inevitably come around to attacking the leaders. These leaders are called "dignities," and this is the Greek word "doxa." "Doxa" means glory. It is referring to glorious ones. It refers to those who are in places of leadership. It refers, as a matter of fact, to the leadership of the Trinity, for the apostates reject the authority of God's leadership. They malign the plan of God the Father; they belittle the work of the Son on the cross; and, they distort the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

   This also includes secular leaders. They speak in judgment of the motives of someone in a place of authority (Titus 3:2). They use the technique of false accusation, passing along rumors and casting doubts, and usually it is all done in a pious manner. You better recognize that this is apostasy. When someone who is in a position of leadership is attacked in your presence, you ought to go, in those cases, for the jugular vein. You should cut that person down immediately, or you are joining him in a very grievous sin. You are acting the role of an apostate. If you listen to the attacks rather than rebuking the one who makes them, you are joining them in what God condemns.

   It's no compliment when somebody comes along and starts badmouthing some Christian around here or somebody in a place of leadership. It is no compliment to you. There are some believers that some people would never badmouthed anybody to. The reason they will never go to that person and speak to them is because they know that if that person opens his mouth, they'll cut him down. They won't tolerate it. They won't join in his garbage. But there are people here, as always in the local church, that other believers know, "I can go to this person and I can say this to him. I can say this to her, and she'll join me. She'll pitch in with me with my garbage pitching." It is no honor to you.

   When somebody comes up and badmouths some other believer, you should feel humiliated. When you get on God's point of view, you will be humiliated. You will go to the Lord and say, "Lord, what in the world is wrong with me, that these people have the gall and the audacity to feel free to come and talk to me like that about another believer?" If you're on the stick with the Lord, I'll guarantee you they won't do that. They will know it because they'll do it once; they will learn their lesson; and, then they will stay away from you after that. That's exactly what you should do.

   If you think somebody needs some justice, remember that vengeance is the Lord's. If you think that somebody in leadership needs some dealing with, vengeance is the Lord's; He'll straighten it out; and, He'll straighten it out in a way that does it right. When we try to straighten it out, we get our grimy human viewpoint apostate hands on it, and we make more problems and create greater hardships and greater tragedies than were there in the first place. So it is important that you recognize that an apostate attacks dignities, heavenly personalities, the glorious ones, and the leadership. They assault the Word of God and they assault the men of God. This is a favorite technique, of course, of communism.

So we have read, "In a similar manner, nevertheless, those who are deluded dreamers pollute the body, reject constituted authority, and they malign leadership." Apostasy is indeed a cause for amazement. It's unbelievable that such folly can be pursued in the face of history. Israel reviled Moses and Aaron, and the whole lot of them died in the wilderness. Yet, the apostates today will revile God's leaders. Angels despised God's order and were cast into the darkness of Tartarus. Yet, apostates will despise constituted authority and think nothing of it. Sodom engaged in sexual violence and was destroyed. Yet, the apostates champion situation ethics.

So let you and me as believers take heed lest we reflect any of these qualities and characteristics of apostasy (1 Corinthians 10:11-12).

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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