Jude 8-13
The Four Red Flags of a False Teacher
August 17, 2025
Sermon Notes
Red Flag #1. They emphasize their experience over Scripture
Jude 8 – “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.”
“relying on their dreams,” Gk. ἐνυπνιάζομαι (enypniazomai), “dreamer of dreams”
Acts 2:17 [Joel 2:28]
2 Pet. 1:15
2 Pet. 1:21
2 Tim. 3:16
Genesis 2:24 – “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
Joseph Smith – “It is my will, that in time, you should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites…”
Red Flag #2. They emphasize their authority over God’s authority.
Jude 9-10 – “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.”
Deut. 34:5-6 – “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, 6 and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
Clement of Alexandria: The Assumption of Moses
Zech. 3:2
Deut. 34:6 [MT]: “He buried him”
Deut. 34:6 [LXX]: “They buried him”
Red Flag #3. They emphasize their own agenda over God’s agenda
Jude 11 – “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.”
a. The Way of Cain (Gen. 4)
b. Balaam’s Error (Num. 22-24)
c. Korah’s Rebellion (Num. 16)
Red Flag #4. They emphasize their outward appearance over their inward condition.
Jude 12-13 – “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; 13 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.”
Six Natural Objects:
1. Hidden reefs
2. Waterless clouds
3. Shepherds who feed themselves
4. Fruitless trees
5. Wild waves of the sea
6. Wandering stars
TAKEAWAYS
1. There is a difference between false teaching and false teachers.
2. Just because a false teacher gets some things right doesn’t mean they should be received.