Charles Spurgeon Commentary Jude 1:12

"These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn leaves without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;" — Jude 1:12 (ASV)

Trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit,

They seem to be bearing fruit, but it drops off before it ripens.

Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds.

They believe according to what is said to them by the last man who speaks to them; they are easily persuaded to this doctrine, and to that, and the other.

In your feasts of charity,

They spoil your love feasts at the communion table; they mar your fellowship when you gather together for worship.

When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear.

Some of the best Christians, who come to the Lord's table, come there in great fear and trembling; and I have known some, who have had an undoubted right to be there, half afraid to come. Yet those very persons who have a holy fear lest they should come unworthily, are those who really ought to come. Feeding themselves without fear is the mark of those who are farther off from God.

When they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear:

At the love feasts in the apostles' day, these ungodly men feasted without fear, just as some do at the communion table now.

The absence of holy fear is a damning mark in the souls of unholy professors. That religion which has no awe in it, which never makes us tremble before the Most High, is not the religion of genuine faith, for there is a fear which even perfect love does not cast out, but rather increases and deepens that holy fear which is the very essence of true piety.