Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.

Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. (Jude 1:16)

One of my children’s favourite stories was the wolf and the seven kids. In the story, a mother goat tells her seven kids that she is going out, and they are not to open the door for anyone except her. The wolf comes along and asks to come in, but they hear it is not their mother’s voice and tell him to go away. He goes away and puts flour on his paws to make them look like a goat’s, and then he swallows chalk to make his voice soft. When he comes back, and they hear the soft voice and see the white paws, they open the doors, and the wolf comes in and gobbles them up. You’ll be glad to know the fairy tale ends well, with the mother finding the wolf asleep, cuts him open, rescues the still-alive kids from his stomach, puts rocks in their place, throws him in the river, where he drowns.

But in that tale, the kids only opened the door, when the voice sounded more recognisable. Jesus gave a similar illustration when He spoke about His people and false teachers. He said of Himself, the Good Shepherd:

“To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

“And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

“Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” (Jn. 10:3-5)

True Christians do not listen to the voices of false teachers. The Spirit within them, combined with growing discernment leads them to not open the door of the church, or of their minds to the voice of false teachers.

The weakness of false teachers, like the weakness of the wolf, is that they have to speak to try to gain access to the church. They have to teach, and when they teach, God’s people have the opportunity to recognise whether or not it is the voice of Christ coming through the teacher, or whether it is the voice of a false teacher. Jesus told us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, and when the heart, or the tree is good, you will see the good fruit in good and sound words. When the heart is evil, then expect the fruit of evil in the words.

As the book of Jude progresses, teaching us how to contend earnestly for the faith, Jude begins to point out the things false teachers say. He shows us the kinds of things they teach, the ways they teach. He is going to train us to recognise the voice of the wolf. He is more focused on giving us the way they speak, than the particular details of what they say. In verses 8 through 10, and verse 16, we will find three characteristics of the false teacher’s teaching.

I. Their Teaching is Based On Private Interpretations

Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.

First, notice the term Jude gives these men. He calls them ‘dreamers’. This doesn’t mean they are daydreamers, or people given to impossible goals. It means they source their teaching and claims in dreams and visions. They claim that God spoke to them in a dream or a vision, and that their message is special revelation from God.

Now besides describing people who received dreams, such as Jacob, Joseph, Pharaoh, Solomon, Nebchadnezzar, Pilate’s wife, Joseph husband of Mary, the Bible gives us no theology of dreams. It does not tell us to seek knowledge in dreams, to record our dreams, to write our dreams down, or to look to them for counsel. The most the Bible actually teaches about dreams is Ecclesiastes 5:3:

For a dream comes through much activity, (Eccl. 5:3)

which states what we know: dreams revolve around a day’s activities. Can God use dreams to speak to people? God can do whatever He wishes. In the post-apostolic era, He normally doesn’t. But when God does something extraordinary, then by definition, it is out of the ordinary, so you cannot try to develop some ordinary, routine way to do dream interpretation. If it is an exception to what God normally does, then that’s what it is, an exception.

But one of the marks of a false teacher is to tell you that he has received special revelation in a private message from God. “God told me”, says the false prophet, “God whispered in my ear”. Now how do you verify if God really spoke to that man? Well, of course you can’t, you have to take his word for it, or believe him because of the supposed signs and wonders that are around him.

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isa. 8:20)

Here’s the problem with people claiming new special revelation. If it is from God, then it will agree with His Word. But if it is already in His Word, then it is not new revelation. It is simply preaching.

When I preach, I do not say “God told me during this week.” But if it is genuinely new, then Scripture is not complete, the canon is not closed, and the last words of Revelation that forbid adding to the Word apparently don’t apply. Is the Bible complete or not? Is the New Testament, or the New Covenant, still in the process of being ministered to us by modern-day apostles, or is it true as Ephesians 2:20 says that the apostles and prophets were the foundation of the church, upon which evangelists and pastor-teachers now labour?

knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Pet. 1:20-2:1)

The false teacher says, “Trust me! I have a message no one else has.”

II. Their Teaching Is Motivated By Selfish Gain

Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh.

They are selfish, in that Jude says they defile or pollute the flesh. Later on, Jude is going to call them sensual. A sensual person is a selfish person. As Philippians puts it, his god is his belly. His appetites are his reason for living. This means that when it comes to their bodies, they sin with their bodies.

Look at verse 10.

But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.

All that these false teachers truly have knowledge of is what they know by mere physical instinct. They know that they get hungry, they can feel their bodies’ appetites, they know they have physical desires for comfort and pleasure. These are not evil things, they are good things, but if they are all you know, then the Bible calls you carnal, fleshly, worldly. That reduces you to the level of unreasoning beasts, animals, who have no reason, no imagination, no spiritual life. That’s what these men know, and so then they take even those things and defile themselves, pollute themselves with gluttony, immorality, laziness. Seldom will you find a false teacher of this kind who is moderate in his appetites.

False teaching and moral impurity go hand-in-hand. When your teaching is either explicitly or implicitly about greed, and pleasing self, that is going to eventually break the surface in a self-indulgent pleasing of self immorally. Look out when the Bible teacher’s conversation seems laced with the sensual, borderline innuendo in his jokes, in appropriate in his comments. Watch out – good trees bring forth good fruit, bad trees bring forth bad fruit.

Jesus told us why in Matthew 6.

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.

“But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matt. 6:21-24)

If the eye is like the window of the mind, Jesus is comparing our desires, our deepest loves, to be that to our whole lives. What you love and desire and value most affects everything you see. The false teachers desires are toward self-gratification, and so the whole person gets filled with that self-gratification. What follow is lusts of all kinds.

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts;

I don’t need to tell you of the sordid history of televangelists and scandals in terms of adultery, unbiblical divorce and remarriage, prostitution, pornography.

In the end, the false teacher’s motive is laid plain for us in verse 16.

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. (Jude 1:16)

The false teacher speaks those things that will stroke his hearers, and scratch them just where they want to be scratched, so he can secure their seat every Sunday, and secure their money. He appeals to those things that flatter human pride, or provoke lust. It’s the same formula that Hollywood uses to get you to watch their movies: a promise of glitz, glam, something forbidden. It’s the same formula advertisers use to get you to try and buy.

For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. (2 Pet. 2:18)

By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; (2 Pet. 2:3)

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. (2 Tim. 4:3-4)

You would think people would see through a man promising them health, wealth, power, love, fame when he’s the only one increasing in those things. But the truth is, people don’t mind if the casino owner is stinking-rich, they still think this time will be their turn.

How do I know if a man is motivated by selfish gain?

One of the safe-guards God gives his church is the public character and life of her teachers. God describes in 1 Timothy 3 the character qualities of one who shepherds the flock, and then implies that such a man’s life will be open and available for others to see. Paul and the apostles spoke often of how they had lived openly and commended themselves to every man’s conscience.

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Cor. 4:2)

Spurgeon said, “All false prophets have sought to keep their disciples at a distance, and to impress upon them, not merely a high estimation of their importance, but also a superstitious reverence for their person; ay, and sometimes altogether putting aside the thought of allowing any of their disciples to hold communion with them.” Look out for the Great Teacher who holds you at arm’s length, never has you in his home, does not let you see his marriage, his children.

Now we should respect one another’s privacy, but the one of the marks of the false teacher is not just privacy, but secrecy – until God eventually chooses to pull the covers off.

III. Their Teaching Is Characterised By An Arrogant Posture

By arrogant posture I mean their whole attitude toward God’s authority, towards people and beings in authority. Jude says they reject authority. They set aside, ignore, and regard as nothing authority.

The word for authority here is a word that is used by Paul to refer to an order of angelic beings.

far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. (Eph. 1:21)

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. (Col. 1:16)

When you are truly saved, your whole orientation towards authority changes. Salvation is when you surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, so once you come under Jesus, who humbled Himself to submit to all the authorities in His life, you have a whole new approach to authority.

This is why Peter tells believers:

Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. … Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.

Mark this: when someone is truly born again, one of the fruits you will see is a changed attitude to authority: to his parents, his teachers, to her husband, to her manager, to his civil government, to his pastors, to his Lord and Saviour. And mark this: the one who claims to be a Christian, but forever bristles against authority, questioning every request, complaining, murmuring, arguing, perhaps demonstrates that he or she is still very much under the authority of Self.

Look at verse 16.

These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts; and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage.

They are grumblers and complainers. They find fault and murmur. Who are the murmuring against? They murmur and mutter against God’s ways, against His sovereign rule over the world, against His Law. They hate authority. So they warp their theology to become some way in which to redress the world as it is. They don’t like the doctrine of providence, they don’t like the doctrine of suffering, so they reject that.

I once received an angry letter which said, “We are sick and tired of being sick and tired!” That was his theology – I despise the physical state I might be in, so I do not submit to God in contentment, I find a creative form of murmuring: “I do not receive this life of poverty” “I do not receive this sickness” “I am a king’s kid, and it is my birthright to have the life I want!”

At the heart of murmuring and complaining is the idea that I deserve a better lot than I am getting, and that God is not running the universe properly. Note in many false teachers teaching there is a lack of emphasis on the sovereignty of God. There is very little emphasis on suffering in the life of a believer, because suffering is not what they want. They walk according to their own lusts, their own desires, not God’s.

Jude suggests these false teachers have no concept of authority, neither in the heavenly realm, with its hierarchy, nor in the earthly realm. Look out for the teacher who never seems to submit to anyone else. He never submits his judgements to what other Christians in history have said. He never submits to counsel from men in his own church. He never shows deference and respect to his mentors and teachers. He shows little respect for other domains of authority – for civil rulers, for managers and owners, for leaders of other flocks, even for other men as husbands and fathers in their own homes.

Now we see how this arrogant posture manifests. Jude says they speak evil, literally, they blaspheme, dignitaries. Here the word is again a word used for angels, which means glorious ones. Jude is now going to demonstrate how their arrogant posture manifests in their speech. It seems the false teachers Jude had in mind would often speak evil of angelic beings. Now, our first thought would be that they would be speaking evil of the good and unfallen angels. After all, the word here is blaspheme, and surely glorious ones refers to the unfallen angels.

But surprisingly, that doesn’t seem to be the only thing in Jude’s line of thought. The authorities and dignitaries that Jude has in mind seem to be the fallen and unfallen angels. How do we know?

Because of the illustration Jude uses next.

Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Jude tells us of an incident involving Michael and Satan. We have no record of this in Scripture, or even in uninspired ancient literature. Some of the early church fathers said that is was contained in a book called The Assumption of Moses. We have only one manuscript copy of this book, and about a third of it is missing. But we don’t really need to know the source of it, because Jude, writing under the power of the Holy Spirit is going to write truth. God cannot lie, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and since Jude is Scripture, Jude must be referencing a strange but true event.

The event seems to be this, at some point, Michael was in a dispute with Satan concerning the body of Moses. We see in Daniel that there appear to be wrestlings and battles in the angelic realm of which we know little, and which God does not seem to want us to know much about. But here one instance is brought to our attention.

We read in Deuteronomy 34:6:

And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day.

Moses body was buried by God Himself in a spot unknown to man. Here a dispute breaks out for some kind of rights to the body of Moses. Why? We can only speculate, but we know what men do with the burial places of those they venerate. They turn them into shrines, and holy places, and places of pilgrimage, and they use them to make claims of miracles and make money out of them, and war over them. We can speculate that the Devil saw a great opportunity to create another idol for Israel to worship – the grave of Moses – the ultimate Law-Giver and prophet. Perhaps he desired to reveal the burial place to men, and perhaps Michael was there to oppose him.

We don’t know, and it is not really Jude’s main point. Jude’s main point from this illustration is how Michael treated Satan. Because, here’s the fascinating contrast with how false teachers treat authority. Here is perhaps the highest unfallen creature in the cosmos, in a dispute with the highest fallen being, and how did Michael treat Satan? The answer is, with respect. Jude says, he did not dare, he did not presume to bring against him a blasphemous judgement. He did not rail at him, insult him, speak in loud, bombastic, swaggering tones. Instead, the Bible says, he simply said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you.

What’s amazing is the mood of the verb ‘rebuke’ in the Greek is very rare in the New Testament. It’s something known as the optative mood, which means a wish, a hope that you are certain will be fulfilled. Michael, with all his power and authority, said to this evil authority, the Lord will punish you, the Lord, will censure you.

Now what a contrast. Here are false teachers, far below the lowest angel in power and might, but they speak defiantly and arrogantly against powers they know nothing about. But Michael, at the top of the creaturely ladder, did not dare speak so wildly to even a fallen and evil authority.

True believers recognise that there are many powers in the world. And while we do not seek to give glory to the Evil One, we are to know he has power. But consider how some people out there tell you to speak about, and to speak to Satan. “Satan, I bind you” “Satan, I bind and rebuke you”. Amazing. Michael the archangel only went as far as to say “May the Lord rebuke you”, but these people apparently have power in themselves to say “Satan, I rebuke you! I bind you!”

The Bible never tells you to have a conversation with the devil. The Bible never instructs you to directly address Satan or the demons. The Bible never tells you that you need to bind and rebuke them. Satan and his forces are defeated enemies, Christ having led captivity captive. If we war, it is with the weapons of a holy life, the Gospel, the shield of faith, the Sword of God’s Word. If Satan genuinely accuses you in your conscience, then I think Martin Luther’s advice is sound: “One does not gain much ground against the devil with a lengthy disputation but with brief words and replies, such as, “I am a Christian, of the same flesh and blood as is my Lord Christ, the Son of God. Settle your account with him.” Then the devil does not stay long.”

I remember as a boy listening to a testimony while a man went on to talk about “what a stupid guy Satan must be to have been kicked out of Heaven”. I thought to myself, that sounds like what Jude is condemning. I remember a foolish children’s song we used to sing “And if the Devil doesn’t like it, he can sit on his tail!” Not only are we teaching our children to trivialise a dark and malevolent Enemy, we are teaching them to be disrespectful of all authority.

Watch how false teachers will either put words in the mouths of angels, and claim an angel gave the a special message, or they’ll turn the name of evil angels into sock puppets for their own rebellious teaching.

The beginning of verse 10 summarises it: they speak evil of whatever they do not know. They are simply mouthing off about the spirit realm, not having the faintest idea about the true realities to which they flippantly refer.

Now and then, this kind of toying with realities you know nothing about can have deadly effects.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.

And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”

Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. (Acts 19:13-16)

They are like children, pretending to be dealing with cosmic powers, but they have no true understanding of what they speak. They have no spiritual insight, no spiritual wisdom. The false teacher is like the weavers in The Emperor’s new Clothes, telling you to believe in their mystical stories, which neither they nor you can see. The true Christian does not need the Bible to be mystical, because he knows the Bible is spiritual. It is full of spiritual truth, abounding in rich, nourishing truths, eternal realities, invisible verities, glorious and permanent substances.

and they mouth great swelling words,

This means that the kind of things they say are boastful, bombastic, exaggerated. Everything is hyped, swollen, inflated. Ever notice how false teachers have everyone on the edge of their seat with these outlandish claims, stories of power encounters, personal conversations with Jesus, prophecies of the future. Exaggerated promises of untold health and wealth. All of this is arrogance, rebellious posturing.

Sourced in self. Motivated by self. And characterised by a posture of self – arrogant rebellion.

The real faith, once for all delivered to the saints, is all the opposite of what we’ve looked at. Instead of being based on a private interpretation, it is rooted in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Instead of being motivated in selfish gain and preaching ourselves for our own benefit, it is about preaching Christ, His Gospel, for His glory. And instead of being characterised by an arrogant, rebellious posture, it submits to His authority, showing respect and submission to whom it is due.

Don’t let the wolf in. If you are His, then you know His voice. His voice is Scripture alone, Christ alone, for God’s glory alone.