Don’t Forget This!

And now, perhaps you will turn to the letter of Jude. If you’re visiting with us, we began a couple of weeks ago to look at this letter, and we have reached verses 5, 6, and 7, which I’ll read for us now. And Jude writes,

“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. 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—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.”

Father, we have sung our prayer, and we underscore it as we come to you, as it were, on bended knee, asking that you will help us to say what the Bible says, to say nothing more than it says and say nothing less. And help us to pay attention to its warnings and to trust its promises. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Last month, our friends at All Souls Church in London—that’s All Souls Langham Place, where John Stott was for many years the minister and where Rico Tice, who has been with us here on a couple of occasions, serves, at least for another few months, on the pastoral team—that congregation challenged the decision that had been made by the House of Bishops in the Anglican Communion, a decision that they took to bless couples in same-sex unions. The church said, “We do not feel that we can go along with this, because such blessings,” and I quote, “are a departure from Biblical Christianity and make clear that in doing these things, we’re abandoning confidence in the goodness and authority of God’s Word.”

Well, what were they actually doing? Well, in terms of Jude, they were “contend[ing] for the faith”—for the faith which Jude says has “once [and] for all”[1] been committed to those who belong to Christ. And they had every legitimate reason for doing so, because as part of that assembly of congregations within the framework of Anglicanism, they understood exactly what it was for people to be ordained as ministers or as presbyters or, in their structure, as bishops. And when the bishop is set to his responsibility, it is the archbishop who stands there—or sits there, initially—in the consecration, and certain questions are put to the person who’s going to exercise a leadership role in the church.

For example, they begin by asking him, “Do you believe that the Holy Scriptures point the way of salvation?” “I do.” “Are you ready with all faithful diligence to teach the Holy Scriptures, to banish and drive away from the church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word, and, both privately and publicly, to call upon others and encourage them to do the same?” Now, let’s just read that again: “Are you ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away from the church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word and, both privately and publicly, to call upon others and encourage them to do the same?” And the answer that is to be given by the newly appointed bishop: “I am ready, the Lord being my helper.”

So we might ask: Well, then, what has happened? What has happened? And it would appear, to quote from Jude, that “certain people have crept in unnoticed.”[2] These “certain people” that we’ve already been introduced to by Jude, who are troubling the congregations or the congregation to which he writes, he identifies them not by their names but by their characteristics. And they are there in verse 4: “ungodly people” who abuse the grace of God and use it as an opportunity for immorality—the kind of immorality that is represented, for example, in same-sex unions. And in doing so, they “deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”[3]

Now, Jude, you see, is not concerned, the way many contemporary pastors in our day are concerned, to find out “What are we going to do? What am I going to tell people that is new, that is novel? What strategy can we come up with in order to try and force back the tides of secularism in our world?” It’s interesting that none of the apostles, none of the Gospel writers have anything to say along those lines. Is that because we shouldn’t be thinking imaginatively and creatively? No, not at all. But Jude, in keeping with the rest, is not writing to introduce his readers to something that they have never known but is writing to remind them of something that they must never forget. And in short order, he’s saying to them, “You will never escape the judgment of God. God will always have the last word.” And he says, “And I’m going to show you that as we go through the letter.”

When the Bible calls us to remember, incidentally, it’s not suggesting that we should try our best not to forget certain things—which, of course, we should. But it is a call to our wills. It is a call to duty. It is a call to do something, to remember. In the same way, if we think about it in terms of marriage vows, “Remember your vows” doesn’t mean go in the bathroom and see if you can remember all the things you said. It means “Live in the light of those vows.”

Every so often, probably like me, you come across an Orthodox Jewish man, either in the airport or perhaps in a cafeteria or whatever it might be. And I have a very vivid picture of one in one of those little booths in what was the Continental Club in Hopkins. And I remember I heard the noise, first of all, and then I saw the person. And I saw that he had a Torah, and he was going through his prayers. And then I noticed that he had on not only his suit clothes for his business responsibilities, but his suit clothes were actually accompanied by his robe. And on his robe, there were those blue lines which attached to the tassels at the corners of his robe. And you stand there, and you say to yourself, “My, my! What is that all about?” And then you go to Numbers chapter 15, and the instruction is given to his people: “And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember … the commandments of the Lord, to do them, [and] not to follow after your own heart [or follow after] your own eyes, which you are inclined to [do].”[4]

Now, you have the same thing, don’t you, when we talk about it in Deuteronomy chapter 6? “These things are to be upon your heart. You shall teach them to your children when you walk along the road, when you rise, when you get up, when you’re going about your business. You shall…” But we didn’t read the part that goes on to say, “You shall bind them around your wrists. You shall fit them on your forehead.”[5] It’s a reference to these very expressions. They were given to the people in order that they would not go astray, in order that they might remember.

Jude is not writing to introduce his readers to something that they have never known but is writing to remind them of something that they must never forget.

And Jude here is reminding them that what is currently happening, which he’s referred to in verses 1–4, has always led to God’s judgment. “What is going on here,” he says, “and the reason that I’m writing to you, appealing to you to contend for the faith—you need to understand that this is not new. This has been written about long before. The condemnation that attaches to this and the judgment of God is written about through the entire Bible.” And then he says, “I’m going to give you a number of illustrations, or recollections, if you like.” And here in verses 5, 6, and 7, he provides three Old Testament warnings showing that rebellion against God is always met by judgment—a judgment that is entirely righteous and is entirely necessary.

Now, if you’ve been reading ahead this week, you’ve said, “Oh dear, this looks to get a little difficult here.” Yes. I think I said to my friends, “You know, verses 1–4 were okay, but now it falls off a cliff here at verse 5. What are we going to do?” Well, here we are.

The Exodus

First of all, “I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it…” You see? “You know this”: “that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” So in other words, he brings to them the reminder of the people who came out but who didn’t go in. The people who came out but didn’t go in. The going out, of course, is recorded for us in Exodus. “Remember this day,” Moses says to the people, “this day when the Lord by a strong hand brought you out. Remember this. This is a day that you must never forget.”[6]

And you will notice that Jesus here is the one who brought them out. You say, “But Jesus? We don’t have Jesus. Jesus—we have to wait for Christmas for Jesus.” Well, I’ll leave you to work through all these things on your own, but the second person of the Trinity is all through the Old Testament from the very beginning in preincarnate form, sometimes mysteriously, sometimes referred to as the angel, whatever it might be. But you can see this: that who could bring them out? Only the Savior. Who is the Savior? Who is the only Savior? Jesus. Who can execute the judgment? Only one person: Jesus. So, he says, out they came, and out they all arrived. And they were all excited about it for so long.

And then, when time came for them to go into Canaan, they started to grumble and complain. Now you’re in Numbers chapter 13 and 14. Make a note of it so you can read it on your own and see if that is there. And what we discover is, in the story that we all knew from Sunday school, if we had the benefit of a good Sunday school, here we are at “Twelve men went to spy in Canaan. Ten were bad; two were good.” Right? The ten said, “No, you can’t possibly go in there. It’s full of giants. It’s a bad spot. It’s not the kind of thing that we would like.” And they began to spill the beans amongst the congregation, beginning to create the murmuring to one another: “Oh, we should never have come out. What a bad idea this was. You said you would do this, but it doesn’t look like you’re doing this.” And so it goes on and runs all the way through. And so the word is as follows: “None of [those] who have seen my glory … and yet have put me to the test … shall [enter] the land.”[7] You must read it on your own at home and be clear about this: they did not believe that God would do what he promised he would do. They were unbelievers.

Now, this is so significant that not only does Jude make reference to it, but—for example, we read 2 Corinthians 11, but if we had gone, as I’m about to do now, to 1 Corinthians 10, you discover that this is the great warning that Paul issues: “I do[n’t] want you to be unaware, brothers,” or sisters, “that our fathers were all under the cloud, … all passed through the sea, … all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” He’s talking about the exodus. They “all drank [of] the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and [that] Rock was Christ.” That’s for your homework as well. “Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”[8]

Now, just one other reference, just so we’ve got this very clear that the writers of the New Testament make reference to this because it is so significant. Hebrews 3:12: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.” “Oh, I can’t fall away from the living God.” Who told you that? You got an evil, unbelieving heart; I’ve got an evil, unbelieving heart. There’s no saying where you’ll be by Tuesday—by six o’clock this evening.

Exhort one another every day, as long as it[’s] called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence … to the end. As it is said, …. For … those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all [of] those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom [God] was … provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, [and] whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Unbelief will keep you from Christ. Unbelief will keep you from heaven. That’s the point that he’s making. Being part of the visible people of God is no guarantee of eternal security unless it is combined with a living, personal faith in the Lord Jesus.

Now, that’s nothing other than Calvin says in his Institutes. He says all that Christ has done for us is of no value to us so long as we remain outside of Christ[9]—so long as we remain in our unbelief. We look back to the great deliverance of the cross; we look forward to the day when we stand before him. It is the very continuance that bears testimony to the reality of the work of Christ—a saving reality in our lives. That’s why Jude is about to go on and say, “Keep yoursel[f]…” “Keep yoursel[f] in the love of God.”[10] These people were in the crowd. They had come out. But they were not, actually—they were circumcised people, Jews, but they weren’t circumcised in their hearts. Their hearts were full of unbelief. They were rebels. They rebelled against God’s rule. They doubted God’s promises. They were reluctant to believe his promises. And so God determines that that should be their end.

The way in which we continue and keep ourselves in the love of God, in short order, is that we heed the warnings, and we trust the promises. And you must allow the warnings to be warnings. Every time you come across a warning, don’t say, “Well, that couldn’t possibly be me.” Of course it could! The warnings are there, and the promises are there. And when we neglect them, then we neglect the means that God has appointed in order to keep us all the way to the end of the journey, so we’re not like those who perished in the wilderness. People want to comment on whether they were lost eternally or whether they only died physically. Whichever way, it doesn’t really matter, in one sense, because Jude is applying it to the reality that is confronting them in the present time—namely, “Not all those who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord’… ‘Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not do this? Did I not preach all those sermons? Didn’t I do all this?’ And I will say to them, ‘Depart from me. I never even knew you.’”[11] Sober, isn’t it? Hm.

Well, that’s the first one. It gets worse from there.

The Angels

Now we go to the angels who didn’t stay in their place—the angels who jumped out of their angelic box, as it were. Verse [6]: “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling”—the “proper dwelling,” the place of God’s appointing; came out of their place, came out of the plan of God for them—he’s “kept” them now “in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.”

You see what he’s saying here? He’s saying, “Listen, all of this is in light of that. I appeal to you,” he says, “that you will not allow this kind of thing to take ahold within your congregation. Certain people have crept in unnoticed—flattering people, attractive people, undermining people, surreptitious people. And if the angels ended in this way, don’t you think you ought to pay attention?” That’s what he’s saying.

Being part of the visible people of God is no guarantee of eternal security unless it is combined with a living, personal faith in the Lord Jesus.

Now, Jude’s initial readers would be immediately okay with this. We find this particularly difficult—at least, I found it difficult. But his initial readers would get the point immediately, because they were aware not only of the material that is represented in the Holy Scriptures, but they were also aware of Jewish tradition. And, for example, he’ll come on later to talk about Enoch, and the book of Enoch, which is a noncanonical book, references many of these things.

And it seems absolutely clear, then, that what he’s referring to here is what took place in Genesis and chapter 6—and you may want just to turn there in case you’re unfamiliar with it: “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God…”[12] And I’m not going to delay on this. You can use a commentary, and you can follow this up on your own. But “the sons of God” you find, for example, in Job, at the beginning of Job, chapter 1 and chapter 2;[13] it’s a reference to the angelic throng. You find the same thing, for example, in Psalm 29.[14] So, trust me, and then do your homework. What happened?

The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’ [And] the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.[15]

So you have this crossbreeding, and you have these giants that are created, and these giants begin to exercise their influence, leading to what God does in the flood.

So, they left their proper place, their assigned spot, they crossed the divinely appointed boundaries, to engage in sexual immorality. Remember, he says, “The people that are in your thing now, they will take the grace of God, and they will corrupt it and make it a mechanism for all kinds of sexual deviance.” He says, “Remember what happened to the people who were left in the wilderness. And remember what happened to the sons of God, to the angels, who used their privileged position as a springboard for perverse activity.” Surely that was what was happening. Think about this. Think about the dreadful stuff that happens in local churches, where men—usually men—in God-given positions of authority use their position of authority, by a means of manipulation, to engage in that which runs entirely contrary to everything God has ordained. We don’t have to look far for these illustrations.

And what you’re dealing with here is something that really stretches our minds: preternatural, angelic beings; those who exist beyond the ordinary course of nature; these “sons of God,” who derive their existence from God, and yet they are given a rank and they’re given a place that is actually superhuman. It’d be very easy to get lost in this, but you know this, don’t you? When angels appear on earth, they almost inevitably appear in human form, and they’re almost exclusively male. Think, for example, later on in Genesis, when Abraham entertains the three angels.[16] They’re not all flapping around like this. He gives them the meal. They have the meal. They’re eating their thing. You say, “Well, I don’t know how that works.” Welcome to the club! I don’t know how it works either.

Remember Hamlet: he says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”[17] And there are. I have to be honest and tell you that one of my great heroes, John Murray, that I quote with frequency exegetes Genesis 6 saying that these “sons of God” are actually the sons of Seth and that they are not angelic beings. I shouldn’t really have told you that, but I did. And I love John Murray, but I don’t think that’s right.

And so I decided to go with two other men that I love. One is Derek Kidner, who’s gone, and the other is Alec Motyer, who’s also gone. And what they say is that what we have here is “an inruption of angelic beings, copulating with human [females],”[18] in such a way that it is, if you like, the ultimate expression now of human sin. It is a cosmic expression of how disrupted the universe is as a result of the fall of man in Genesis 3 that not only do you have the destruction of the family—brother killing brother and so on—but by the time you’ve got to Genesis chapter 6, you have a climax, if you like, to the decline that begins in Genesis 3.

And as bizarre as this actually may sound to us, we have to constantly—I have to constantly—guard against a kind of rationalistic worldview that says it’s not possible for these things to happen. Oh yeah, they happened. And you will notice what happened to them: the angels didn’t keep their assigned place, and now they in turn have been “kept”—notice that little pun, almost, there—“he has” now “kept” them “in eternal chains under gloomy darkness.” I don’t think we have to literalize that. I don’t think we have to think of angels somehow or another in a cave or in a dungeon somewhere. I think it’s perfectly okay to think of them living in spiritual darkness, unable to escape from the sentence of divine judgment. They cannot escape.

This, of course, raises all kinds of questions, doesn’t it, about “spiritual wickedness in [the heavenly] places,”[19] about the nature of not only angelic visitation but demonic realities? But that’s not for this morning. His point, again, is straightforward, isn’t it? Judgment is inescapable, and God’s patience is not unlimited. God’s Spirit will not always strive.

Sodom and Gomorrah

“So,” he says, “these certain ungodly people won’t ultimately get away with it.” And then he says, “And let me remind you, too, that”—verse 7—“just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise,” in the same way (this helps us to understand verse 6, what was going on there) “likewise indulged in sexual immorality … pursued unnatural desire,” they “serve as an example”—we might say they serve as a classic example—“by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Now, again, if you want to be students of the Bible, you’re going to have to do your own homework on this. And you can read some time in the week that follows Genesis and chapter 19, where we have the story of the rescue of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—the destruction of a city that was a beautiful city set in a beautiful place. Genesis 13 tells us that it “was well watered everywhere”; it was “like the garden of the Lord.”[20] You remember, Lot said, “That looks like a beautiful place. I think that’s where I would like to go. I’d like to go and dwell in the cities of the plain.” And that is where he went. His uncle, Abraham, goes off into the other territory.[21] And it is in that context that this event takes place.

Genesis 13 tells us that “the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.”[22] The fact that you have that statement there is in order to help us understand that while we understand that everybody is sinful, he’s saying that there was a peculiar sense of rebellion against God and endemic wickedness in the hearts of these people. Well, we learned that in chapter 13. In chapter 19, we then see it in evidence. And we can’t work our way all the way through it, but these “two angels came to Sodom in the evening,” where “Lot was sitting in the gate,” we’re told. And “when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth …, ‘My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet.’”[23] “Let me show you hospitality. Do come in.” “Oh, no,” they said, “we’d like to spend the night in the square.”[24] Back to chapter 13: the men of Sodom were peculiarly wicked. Lot knows that. Lot says to them, “No, no. Trust me. You don’t want to do that. You do not want to stay out in the square, not during the night. You come into my house so that I may care for you.”[25]

If you want to, just look at verse [4]: “Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city …—both young and old—surrounded the house. … ‘Where are the men… ?”—the angels. “Where are the men …? Bring them out … so that we can have sex with them.’”[26] In the King James: “[so] that we [might] know them.”[27] The people who have grown shaky on addressing the issues of sexuality in the Bible, that are taken care of in a very straightforward way, have succumbed, I think, more to the cultural pressure than they have to dutiful observance of the unfolding of the Scriptures. And so they say that when they said, “We want to know them,” they just want to come out and have time with them, and shake their hand, and have a coffee, and so on. I said, “Give me a break. Hang on a minute. Don’t let’s just be silly, shall we?” The answer to that is very clear. That’s not what it is, because you then have with Lot’s response, which is a staggering response: “No, I can’t send them out to you. But I got daughters. I could send my daughters out.”[28] “We’d like to know them, these men.” “Well, no; you could know them.” The men, you see, of the city have got a plan in mind, and that is just a homosexual gang rape. That’s what it is.

So you read on in the story, and “the Lord rained [down] on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire.”[29] The area had bitumen pits and so on. It was a perfect place for the thing to be dissolved in that way. And you’re left looking at a city—the well-watered city, the beautiful place, the place that Lot thought would be a fabulous setting for him. It’s now a smoldering ruin. And if you look carefully in your imagination, you can see Lot’s wife, captured in a single frame, a reminder of the fate of those who, in terms of Hebrews 10:38, shrink back and are destroyed. The writer of the Hebrews does this again and again: “We are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but we are those who continue and are saved.”[30] But those who shrink back will be destroyed.

And perhaps, you see, there were some in the congregation to whom Jude is writing—don’t let’s forget, moving all around the Bible like this, that Jude is writing to people—who have come in amongst them and who perhaps are saying, “You know, we’re free to do just about anything you want. No, we don’t have to live within the confines that God has ordained.” And it may well be that the perverting of God’s grace is so close to this incident that it would have sent shockwaves through the congregation. It should send shockwaves through the congregation.

And what Jude is doing in this is he is simply saying to his readers, “These things were a foretaste of a day that is yet to come.” And when we are brave enough to bow down to this, we will immediately hear the voices of people saying, “I don’t know why you would pay attention to that Old Testament stuff. We’ve never really liked that. We would be far better just paying attention to Jesus.” And, of course, if you want to listen to Jesus, listen to him:

Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.[31]

It brings us again, doesn’t it, to Romans 1 and what we looked at, and the fact that this moral license (or immoral license, better) that is prepared to endorse, to cultivate, to encourage the kind of dreadful rebellion against God’s beautiful plan and purpose in the giving of the world, in the creation of marriage, in the establishing of the boundaries… And yet, within short order, we’re liars. We’re cheats. We’re engaging in homosexual activity. We’re not obeying the Word of God—unless, in responding to the grace of God, we become part of the company to which Paul refers when he says, “And such were some of you. But you’ve been washed. You’ve been cleansed.”[32] Because Jesus is a friend of sinners.[33]

We don’t have time, but if you think about it: when Jesus says, “Woe to you, Capernaum…” Capernaum! “If the things that have been done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have stayed the course.”[34] “Woe to you with all of your Bibles and all of your conferences and all of your assurances—all of these benefits.” These are staggering words, aren’t they?

I quoted Manton last week, and I’ll end with Manton this week. He says, “The Angels had the blessings of Heaven, the Israelites of the Church, … Sodom of the World. But the Angels on their Apostasie lost Heaven; the murmuring Israelites were shut out of Canaan; and the Sodomites were together with their fruitful … land destroyed.”[35]

Now, what is a word to us this morning? Well, it’s a word of warning, for sure, but it ought to be at the same time a word of encouragement. We’re going to get to the point where he does say, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”[36] It’s the same thing that Paul says to Timothy when he writes to Timothy and he says to him, “Timothy, evil men and imposters will go on from bad to worse. But as for you, continue in what you have believed and have become convinced of, knowing those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.”[37]

How do you keep yourself in the love of God? Heed the warnings and trust the promises. Or, if you like, trust and obey. That’d be a good song to finish with, I think, maybe.

Let’s just have a moment of silence.

Father, how we bow down before you. We come as beggars to the food of your Word. We come as scratching the surface of the immensity of what you have left to us in the Bible. And we pray that you will help us to get the big story here—the warning that sounds out, the appeal that is made to “contend for the faith,” the reminder that the ground of our salvation is in the work of Christ. And the evidence that we are in Christ is that we continue to heed the warnings, continue to trust the promises—the very means that you have chosen to use in order to bring us safely to glory. So accomplish your purposes in us and through us, we pray. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

[1] Jude 3 (ESV).

[2] Jude 4 (ESV).

[3] Jude 4 (ESV).

[4] Numbers 15:39 (ESV).

[5] Deuteronomy 6:6–8 (paraphrased).

[6] Exodus 13:3 (paraphrased).

[7] Numbers 14:22–23 (ESV).

[8] 1 Corinthians 10:1–5 (ESV).

[9] John Calvin, Institutes 3.1.1.

[10] Jude 21 (ESV).

[11] Matthew 7:21–23 (paraphrased).

[12] Genesis 6:1–2 (ESV).

[13] See Job 1:6; 2:1.

[14] See Psalm 29:1.

[15] Genesis 6:2–4 (ESV).

[16] See Genesis 18:1–21.

[17] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.5.

[18] Alec Motyer, Look to the Rock: An Old Testament Background to Our Understanding of Christ (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996), 216.

[19] Ephesians 6:12 (KJV).

[20] Genesis 13:10 (ESV).

[21] See Genesis 13:11–12.

[22] Genesis 13:13 (ESV).

[23] Genesis 19:1–2 (ESV).

[24] Genesis 19:2 (paraphrased).

[25] See Genesis 19:3.

[26] Genesis 19:4–5 (NIV).

[27] Genesis 19:5 (KJV).

[28] Genesis 19:7–8 (paraphrased).

[29] Genesis 19:24 (ESV).

[30] Hebrews 10:39 (paraphrased).

[31] Matthew 18:7–9 (ESV).

[32] 1 Corinthians 6:11 (paraphrased).

[33] See Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34.

[34] Matthew 11:23 (paraphrased).

[35] Thomas Manton, A Practical Commentary, or an Exposition with Notes on the Epistle of Jude (London, 1658), 327.

[36] Jude 21 (ESV).

[37] 2 Timothy 3:13–15 (paraphrased).