When People Walk Away from God

Before you start todays devotional, ask the Lord to use it to grow you up in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

One of the most tragic things people and churches and movements do is walk away from God. That’s what it means to have apostasy from faith. Jude describes three groups of people who rejected the truth and three others who walked away from God.

Remember when Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years? The reason they never made it to the Promised Land was that they refused to believe God. They wouldn’t trust that God would bring them into the land and preferred to stay in the wilderness rather than believe Him. They departed from the faith and died and were buried in that hot sand.

The second group’s rebellion happened before the Bible’s timeline—when the celestial intelligences, angels, refused to worship God. God created angels with a free will and they refused God’s purpose for them. Their rebellion landed some of them in chains, and other fallen angels (demons, apparently) have freedom of movement and today are under Satan’s leadership. These spiritual beings will be judged someday, likely during the Millennium. And although we were created lower than the angels, someday we will have part in their judgment (see 2 Peter 2:4).

The third group Jude describes as departed from the faith were the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were given over to homosexuality or sodomy. God judged these cities definitively and completely because the people defiled their flesh. Today their ruins are buried beneath the Dead Sea. This is a clear and compassionate warning to our generation.

Those are the three groups of people who rejected the truth. Now Jude warns us of three people from the Old Testament who wouldn’t believe God.

Cain didn’t think faith was necessary to come to God. If you had a religion, that was enough. Balaam’s mistake was thinking sinners couldn’t be forgiven—that what God requires isn’t enough. That Jesus’ sacrifice isn’t enough. And Korah’s error was to assume an authority that wasn’t his. These are all examples of apostates.

Jude describes modern apostate teachers like a hidden reef that rips up the bottoms of ships. They’re like shepherds feeding themselves and not their sheep. They’re like clouds with no rain and trees with no fruit. They know how to spiritualize a text of Scripture and make it mean something entirely different than what God intended it to mean. They look like they’re filled with the Word of God, but they’re empty and dry—beautiful clouds that pass over. They’re like “wandering stars” through space, lawless, following no course whatsoever—in “the blackness of darkness forever,” like someday in eternal punishment. How frightful!

When you read “ungodly” apostates, think of people who just leave God out. They don’t have a reverential awe of Him. If they recognize God at all, they blame Him for everything bad that has happened to them. They walk after their own desires. They want what they want. They also talk with “great swelling words” that are like the waves of the ocean, lots of fizz and foam but no content. They compliment each other, applauding and saying a lot of things that are not true because they hope to get promoted and praised (see James 2:1-4).

This is how you can spot an apostate. They don’t look to God. They are more concerned with having the applause of the crowd. Now that you know what to look for, you’ll see them everywhere.

1. How can the knowledge that we have been preserved by God, and nothing will ever change that, change the way we think about ourselves?

2. If God loves us so much, why couldn’t He just let us into heaven? And what does your answer tell us about who God is?

3. If false teachers attempt to slip in unnoticed, part of what we should do as a community is keep our eyes open for one another. Who helps you watch for false teaching, and who do you help watch out for?

Additional Resources

Listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGees complete teachings on Jude 6, 7, Jude 8, 9, Jude 9—11, Jude 11—13, Jude 13—16.