Judgment is not a popular topic in today’s world. We like to talk about God’s love more than we like to talk about His just judgment and punishment of sin. But when it comes down to it, most people would find something to agree on as evil and deserving of punishment; everyone agrees that school shootings are evil. Because God is good, he must punish evil.

When we take stock of ourselves, we realize that means we deserve judgment too. But God has satisfied His just wrath and offered us grace in Christ; in Jesus, we have both a judge and justifier.

Yesterday Paul set up the warning of false teachers, saying that they pervert God’s grace into a license for sensuality and they deny Jesus Christ. He continues in our passage today to strongly demonstrate how the immoral have been judged in the past and will be judged through a series of biblical analogies.

Keep in mind the big picture in Jude is to call the church to contend for the faith, to hold fast to the truth of the Gospel. The condemnation of these false teachers is serious, because diluting the Gospel is serious: It not only takes away from God’s glory, but also leads the Church astray. God is zealous both for His name and for His Church.

[Jude 5-7]

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. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

[ WHAT ] is this passage saying and what is a key truth or thought that we learn?

+ What event in Israel’s history does Jude refer to? [v 5]

+ How can Jude say that Jesus acted in an Old Testament event? [v 5]

+ What does Jude say God has done to the angels that rebelled against God? [v 6]

+ Jude’s final analogy is the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. Why were they destroyed in fire? Why does Jude bring them up in the context of these false teachers? [v 7]

+ What do each of these analogies demonstrate about God’s character and power?

[ HOW ] is the Lord calling me to action/obedience?

+ Is there sin to confess or a next step to take? How has it gone since last time?

+ Am I holding to the Gospel alone or like the false teachers denying the significance of Christ’s work as the avenue to grace?

+ Do I overemphasize grace to the point of license at the expense of God’s just judgment?

[ WHO ] am I walking with and praying for to discover Jesus?

+ What is my next step?