Lookahead: …They were on their hands and knees trying to disarm each landmine one-at-a-time, at a torturously slow pace—when God sent a supernatural wind.  This wind removed ~20” layer of sand across the entire top of the field…and then disappeared.  Every single landmine was exposed, and the Israelis could now rapidly move out of Syrian range… 

These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.  Jude 1:12,13

When I read the term “hidden reef,” I think of deliberate sneak attacks by the enemy in which perps plant destructive land mines with an intentional goal of destruction. 

Have you ever been tempted/drawn into a gossip session, and then you get blamed?  I remember this happened to me as a tween.  I basically concurred with the ringleader’s judgmental remarks.  But when this ringleader then shared “my remarks” with our unfortunate target—under the guise of having tricked me to find out how I really felt—I was stuck.  Bottom line, I had bashed my friend and our friendship was never the same.  Probably the only good thing that came of this tragedy was that I never forgot that lesson. 

Later in life, my best friend—an on-fire Christian—got pulled into the same scenario.  But this time it was pastor-bashing in the sanctuary!!  My poor friend just finished giving her opinion, when she noticed furtive glances on the part of the listeners—and realized that the pastor was standing right behind her. 😦  I never forgot that lesson either…even though the pain and embarrassment were vicarious. 

I learned a lesson in these matters because I had a conscience.  If my conscience was being seared by life’s experiences, the lesson may have been lost as I embarked on retaliation and payback.  That was one of Jude’s concerns about the church members whom he was writing to.    

Jude uses some amazing metaphors to expose/describe the behavior of this “hidden-reef-perp” difficult person:  

1. Hidden reef is spilas in the Greek which translates….a ledge of rock (over which the sea dashes), a reef, a hidden rock, a flaw, stigma.  The main characteristic is that this danger is hidden. 
   • Perps who exhibit this behavior operate behind the scenes in stealth mode.
   • The major sin is deliberate subterfuge—they are definitely out to derail their victims’ spiritual walk.
2. Shamelessly feasting translates….
   • They have no shame and they wreak havoc in love feast settings—OK I’ll bite…What was and is a love feast? The root word for “love feast” is agape, that “God kind of love” Greek word. 
     • My aforementioned best friend was, at one time, the worship leader in a church which held monthly “Love Feasts.”  In that context, it was basically a huge covered dish meal after service. 🙂  Everybody tried to bring something delectable, to show their love; and people walked away from the meals with a few thousand extra calories to work off—after a nice Sunday afternoon nap. 
     • One Bible Hub definition elaborates on what they might have been back in the day:  feasts expressing and fostering mutual love which used to be held by Christians before the celebration of the Lord’s supper, and at which the poorer Christians mingled with the wealthier and partook in common with the rest of food provided at the expense of the wealthy. 
     • One Bible Hub commentator disassociated the love feasts from the communion tradition, “Others think Jude is speaking of the ancient love-suppers, which Tertullian…described, (Apol., chap. 39,) and which do not seem to have been accompanied with the eucharist. These were continued in the church to the middle of the fourth century, when they were prohibited to be kept in the churches…they were called love-feasts, or suppers, because the richer Christians brought in a variety of provisions to feed the poor, the fatherless, the widows, and strangers, and ate with them to show their love to them.” Joseph Benson
   • Whatever the love feasts were, the “difficult people” were ruining the love feasts for everyone else. They feasted with their victims but only “shepherded themselves.”
     • These perps act out of pride and envy.  They are takers who are more than willing to suck someone else dry; they are only out for number one.
     • Although they may come across as shepherds in the leader-like sense, when it comes to taking blame or responsibility for their adherents, they are out’a there.

Totally not fun having to deal with this type of difficult person…but now here come the tragic aspects:

3. They are clouds without water, optical illusion, frauds, and fakes—God is not fooled—and eventually the majority of people see the truth as well.  Kind of like those unproductive stratocumulus clouds, or wispy clouds that taunt people in the middle of a drought, they have no rain droplets.  They are all show, with no substance.  
4. Carried along by the wind—as Ephesians 4:13 says:  tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.  When the truth comes out, they get tossed out’a there. 
5. Fruitless trees in autumn, they never bear any kingdom fruit
   • Like Jesus’ cursed fig tree that had irrevocably passed the time of its fruit bearing in the proper season, they are now in the final stretch–on the verge of a curse.
6. Twice dead after being uprooted.
   • They have already died once spiritually, i.e., death #1
   • When they are plucked up at the end, and their body dies, this will constitute death #2. 
7. They are wild waves of the sea
   • They submit to no one, least of all God’s authority
   • They are wild with pride and arrogance. And God could not be less wild about that fact!
8. Foaming up their own shame
   • Shamelessly, they put on a fancy show; but it’s just ethereal foam with nothing behind it—a shameful sham—and no one is fooled…or impressed.  They are busted. 🙂
9. They are wandering stars—totally open loop, they are following their own path of trajectory into the uninhabited regions of outer universal darkness. 
   • In the end, God’s judgement happens and they are sentenced to live in their state of darkness forever.

These perps may be in stealth mode, but God will reveal the truth.  I was watching a movie about the Nation of Israel’s rebirth, called Against All Odds, last night.  It chronicled unexplainable miracles that happened in military conflicts—occurring after Israel became a nation in 1948.  In one scene, a group of Israeli soldiers were being hotly pursued by Syrians (during the Yom Kippur War) and they discovered,  to their utter dismay, that they had unknowingly entered a mine field.  They were on their hands and knees trying to disarm each landmine one-at-a-time, at a torturously slow pace—when God sent a supernatural wind.  This wind removed ~20” layer of sand across the entire top of the field…and then disappeared.  Every single landmine was exposed, and the Israelis could now rapidly move out of Syrian range. 

Bottom line, God’s got us.  He can easily reveal any hidden reef, as well as the total truth.  In the meantime, I believe that if we can think of a difficult person whom we know with the traits of (1) and (2)—and then picture their reality/doom in (3) through (9), it helps to reframe our personal pain that they’ve caused.  The 73rd Psalm speaks of the lightbulb moment that a man named Asaph had (The Passion Translation is amazing!). When we understand that these “reef peeps” are cruising for the ultimate bruising, it helps us to forgive them…and pray that they can escape their doom…