Slides: Fear Eternal Fire (Jude)

Jude

• Fight for the Faith
• Fear Eternal Fire
• Keep Being Kept

³ Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. ⁴ For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Sin without fear

• Church leaders who defend immorality also distort doctrine.
• Preachers of grace without judgment don’t know the real God.
• Thus they deny Jesus by rejecting His authority, holiness, and return as Judge of the living and the dead.

⁵ The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe. (1:5) ⁶ And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ⁷ In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Privileged perish

• Israelites saw amazing miracles but were destroyed for unbelief.
• Angels enjoyed God’s presence but were punished for rebelling.
• Sodom was “like the garden of the Lord” but perished for vile immorality.

¹⁰ … what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain. (1:11)

You will be a restless wanderer on the earth. (Genesis 4:12)

They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error. (1:11)

The Israelites killed Balaam with the sword. (Numbers 31:8)

They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. (1:11)

They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. ¹³ They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴ Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵ to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

Fear God’s judgment

• Condemned
• Destroyed
• Bound
• Eternal fire
• No rest
• Swallowed up
• Twice dead
• Shame
• Utter darkness forever

Denying final punishment

• Naturalism: all die; no reward or punishment after death
• Pluralism: all paths lead to joy
• Liberalism: God won’t punish

Eternal fire

… bound with everlasting chains... Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt 25:41)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: fire purifies
• Conditionalism: fire destroys
• Traditionalism: fire torments

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Universalism

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. (John 12:32)

… the mystery of his will… which he purposed in Christ… to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Eph 1:10)

… to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:20)

God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:32)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Everlasting destruction

He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. (2 Thess 1:8-9)

 
Burned to ashes

He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. (2 Peter 2:6)

Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

Due anguish

It will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you… It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. (Matt 11:22, 24)

That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. (Luke 12:47-48)

According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes (Isaiah 59:18).

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19)

God will give to each person according to what he has done… for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. (Romans 2:6, 8)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Fire and weeping

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt 13:41-42)

This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:49-50)

Unending torment

He will drink of the wine of God's fury… the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast. (Rev 14:10-11)

… the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever… if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:10) 

Fear eternal fire

• False doctrine and wicked living lead to eternal fire.
• Hellfire is terrible and irreversible.
• Fight for the faith in order to be saved from eternal fire and to save others from eternal fire.