False teaching has been around since the beginning of time as Jude brilliantly shows with multiple Old Testament references. With them, we are reminded that when God and His Word are not the ultimate authority the inevitable end is utter destruction and gloom. No false gospel has a chance when believers have clarity of the true gospel. Abiding with the Holy Spirit regularly as we study Scripture in the context of community enables us to bring and release the real lion who needs no defense.
Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
Additional passages: Deuteronomy 13:1-5, Jeremiah 23:16-17; 25-32, Daniel 10:21, Daniel 12:1, Revelation 12:7, Deuteronomy 34:1-12, Zechariah 3:2, Genesis 4, Numbers 22-24, Numbers 16, Ezekiel 34:1-8, Proverbs 25:14, Isaiah 5:5-7, Isaiah 57:20, Daniel 12:23, Hebrews 10:24-25, 2 Peter 2:10-13, 15, 17