Tag: Body

“Dreaming” in Jude – A Warning Against Immorality

“Yet in the same manner these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh,…” Jude 8

Welcome back as we continue our study of the false teachers in Jude:

3. Our opening scripture means they indulged in what we would call pornography.   “Dreaming” means metaphorically “to be beguiled with sensual images and carried away to an impious course of conduct” (Thayer). As a result they were defiling their physical bodies with acts of immorality.

The term “in the same manner” refers to verse 5 – 7 where it says:

Now I want to remind you, though you know everything once and for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling place, these He has kept in eternal restraints under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these angels indulged in sexual perversion and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Jude compares the false teachers to the fallen angels who left heaven and committed fornication with the wicked women of the earth (Genesis 6) and to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah who committed “gross immorality” (NASB) or “fornication” (KJV). God has the fallen angels in prison for their sin TODAY awaiting the final judgment and the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are still “undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” TODAY. Both are held up as an “example” which means “something held up to view as a warning” (Wuest). Jude holds both of these exhibits up to the brethren as a warning that God will not be mocked, He will not be “outwitted or evaded”. These examples are still a warning to us today.

These false teachers, while claiming to be God’s spokesman, were participating in fornication and adultery.  Not only them, but, as we will see,  the Lord’s bond servants they deceived.  God plainly reveals His will about sex outside of marriage and adultery in the New Testament:

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;…” (I Thessalonians 4:3-5)

May we heed His warning and keep ourselves from sexual immorality.

God bless you.

Carl

Absent From The Earthly Body

Oh! what a glorious thing it must be to get out of the body, — I mean, a body that has grown to be sixty years of age, and that has been stricken with paralysis, and that has been upon the verge of death for many a month, — what a joy it must be to be quite clear of it! We do not know what it is to be undressed of this body; but there must be a wonderful freshness to the unclothed spirit! And what must it be to be free from all doubts and fears, and all tendencies to sin of every sort, and to be absolutely perfect? And then, what must it be, in the midst of ten thousand times ten thousand kindred spirits, all joying and rejoicing in one common, glorious God, and in the Christ whose life shall be the light that shineth over all? I warrant you that five minutes in heaven is better than Methuselah’s life on earth, even if spent in the highest happiness that life here below can afford. Oh, how our brother Mills would chide us if he could look back, and see us weeping! How he would reprove us, and tell us that the best thing that could have happened to him had happened, and ask us wherefore we deplored it. —C.H. Spurgeon (from a sermon he preached at the funeral of Mr. Mills) Source: Berean Call

Apostle Paul was looking forward to this day when he wrote: “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.” (II Corinthians 5:8)

Earthly pilgrim, are you looking forward to that day? We are just passing through this old world on our way to the new heavenly Jerusalem where God, the holy angels and all the saints dwell. The precious blood of Jesus has made the Way for us.

We will arrive there on His schedule. The apostle John said “and everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (I John 3:3)

Let us be purifying ourselves in body and spirit.

Look forward to seeing you on that day.

Carl