“These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 12-13).
Compressed into five vivid word pictures, Jude graphically describes the sobering perils false teachers/change agents are to themselves and others.
They sabotage good works and spiritual maturity: They are late autumn trees without fruit.
Fall is harvest time in an apple orchard. Imagine the barrenness an orchard would have in the autumn if every tree were dead from the roots up. Instead of fruit, all you could see would be branchy skeletons which need to be turned into firewood.
Because of the toxin of their false teaching, change agents kill off the root of spiritual growth. They destroy the fruits of obedience and good works which are essential to Christianity. Good soil has been poisoned.
Spiritual dreamers decimate spiritual growth.
excellent lesson from the epistle of Jude, brother. Keep up the good work.