Tag: Sodom

“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

Evidence of Sodom’s Destruction? A Cosmic Airburst in Middle East.

Archaeologist excavating the Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam reported in November at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research, their discovery of evidence of a “cosmic airburst event that obliterated civilization,” wiping out Middle Bronze Age cities and towns of the plains in Middle Ghor, north of the Dead Sea, about 3700 years ago.

Some researchers identify Tall el-Hammam as the former Sodom.

Genesis 19 describes how God “rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah destroying all the plain…and what grew on the ground.”

Meanwhile, the scientific team, which includes experts from the Comet Research Group, an international society of comet impact scientists, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world, said evidence points to an instantaneous devastation of an area “approximately 500 km2” that left only the “stone foundations” of mud brick walls, and destroyed the soil with “a super-heated brine of Dead Sea” salts.

The researchers estimated 40,000 to 65,000 people were killed instantly by the catastrophe.

(From Cultural News, Baptist Message December 13, 2018)

When Jesus Christ comes the second time to earth, everyone is going to believe the Bible is true ….but it will be too late then.

Blessed are those who order their lives according to the Holy Scriptures now.

“God is not a man, that He should lie…” Numbers 23:19

“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

The commandments of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

The judgement of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether.

They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;

Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them, Thy servant is warned; in keeping them is great reward.

Psalms 19: 7-11

God Bless,

Carl