tion of disobedience takes us even further back than the experience of the children of Israel. We now enter the council chambers of eternity past. The negative is very dark— it is hard to focus in on what might possibly have happened. But, notice the picture that is suggested in this verse. It is one which, inci dentally, many Bible teachers have interpreted in several different ways. The Apostle says, "And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habita tion, he has reserved in everlasting chains under the darkness unto the judgment of the great day." How black that curtain appears to veil the past and the future. Angels are given to be servants of God, carrying out His bidding. Evidentally, though, some time in the ages before man's creation, there were some angels who tried to overstep their natural boun daries. Because of that, God has placed them in chains, waiting the great day of the Lord. This final judgment on Satan and the angels who follow him occurs after the thousand years of Christ's reign and preceding the final judgment. There are two classes of fallen angels. The first is this group await ing judgment (II Peter 2:4). The second are fallen angels who are evidentally not bound but are now doing and will continue to perform Satan's bidding until their judg ment. Revelation 20:10 gives us some helpful light on this subject. An angel, which is a word meaning simply "messenger," had as the chief characteristic strength and wisdom. How sad to realize the high and lofty position in which these had been placed and from which they completely went away Page 39
ful truths which can guide us in the understanding of what the Holy Spirit is seeking to impart through His human instrument, Jude. In the fifth verse of chapter one, the Apostle writes, "I will there fore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the Land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that be lieved not." The first illustration we are given is of corporate dis obedience. Jude only points out one fact about these people of Is rael. The thing he underscores is their apostasy. The Lord saved them but they fell away from God's truth. The warning is clear to us as the Psalmist Asaph testifies, "Sure ly, thou did set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction" (Psalm 73:18). The problem we face today, con sidering the waywardness of these people, is the fact that there are some who know Jesus Christ as Saviour but who, unfortunately, have not really met Him as Lord. We have a tendency to complain about God's dealings in our lives. The Bible says, "Let him that think- eth he standeth take heed lest he fall." Here, I believe, we see judg ment of God on sin through phys ical death. This was experienced in the New Testament church as de scribed in such passages as I Cor inthians 5:5; 11:29, 30; I John 5:16; and also in the account of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. God saved the people out of the land of Egypt but because of their will ful disobedience, their failure to trust completely in Him, their fall ing away from His truth, those Is raelites ultimately were destroyed. The second corporate illustra
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