“These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever,” verses 12-13.

Jude here gives us a most wonderful five-fold description of the troublesome, empty and poisonous nature of these ‘creepers’! Today we will look at these divinely inspired pictures of these evil men. Here is how the Lord sees them! We should seek to see them as He does!

1. Spots in your feasts of charity. The word ‘spot’ refers to a rock or reef under waves that threatens ships! So these men threaten to destroy the work of God, even while they actively join in the fellowship of believers, promoting themselves as those who love the Lord and His truth and His people! They were gluttons who plundered the church with their greediness. There is no end to the bold and arrogant self-promotion of these men. Their whole ambition is to have themselves thought of as most holy! They were of the spirit of the Pharisee — Luke 18:11-12.

2. Clouds they are without water. Clouds - high above all, full of promise as the bearers of blessings! In a land where rainfall was absolutely vital, farmers would watch for clouds approaching. What a disappointment when they floated on by without any refreshing showers! These evil men were “carried about of winds”. The winds here refer to the deceitful doctrines that the devil promotes in order to destroy and wreck God’s work. “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive,” Ephesians 4:14. Many people here in Northern Ireland welcomed the preaching of men like these, when many years ago they began to depart from the Word of God. Men like Prof JE Davey, of the Presbyterian Church, were seen as the source of great teaching and blessing, when they were in fact empty of truth and grace and proved to be a curse to that church!

3. Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit. What these men promise to their hearers is comes to nothing. They look like fruit trees in Autumn - but their “fruit withereth” away and provides no benefits! They provide no fruit other than that which is rotten. They are “twice dead, plucked up by the roots”; that is utterly without that life which can produce beneficial and sweet fruit. They are utter shams!

4. Raging waves of the sea. At the shore we have all watched the waves racing up the beach. In some places they come in most fiercely. But you can stand at a point on the beach and for all their fierce raging, the wave cannot reach you. It dies away and stops! Jeremiah said this of the waves of the sea. “Fear ye not me? saith the LORD: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?” Jeremiah 5:22. 

That’s what these men are like. They seem so powerful BUT their energy soon comes to nothing! Instead, they foam “out their own shame”. Their claims and pronouncements are just ‘froth’, of no substance, noisy and blustering but producing nothing and petering out in utter weakness. 

What a vivid picture is here painted of the ‘nothingness’ of the false preacher!

5. Wandering stars. They appear to be as great shining lights like stars. But they are mere specks of dust! The ‘wandering star, or ‘shooting star’ as we call them today, are often no more than little pebbles which, entering our atmosphere at great speed, begin to glow white hot and appear as a star travelling through the sky. Sailors are guided by the stars. Out on the vastness of the ocean they can tell by the stars where they are and in what direction they should sail in. Stars are like the Word of God. It shows us where and what we are and where we should seek to steer if we would reach heaven! You cannot plot your course by a wandering star. It is moving and is therefore no use as a point of reference! 

Note what awaits these evil false teachers and deceivers! “To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” They who have lived to extinguish the light of God’s truth will spend eternity in “the blackness of darkness.” Peter spoke of this in these words: “to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.” Lost forever in the mist of God’s judgment and wrath! Heed these words of the Saviour. “But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 8:12.

“The children of the kingdom” are those who have been born into the privilege of hearing the gospel, children like you all here today! But they did not believe God’s Word and so were lost in eternal darkness.

Such is the eternity of those who heed the devil’s lie and reject the gospel. 

Girls and boys, take heed today what you do with God’s message of mercy and the Saviour Who is offered to you in the gospel.