Wandering Stars: What’s Guiding You?
“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 1:12–13
When I was a teenager back in the 90s, I was one of those angsty, emo-music-loving girls who thought herself terribly deep and darkly mysterious. One of my favorite bands that fit that bill was a British group called Portishead. If you were a teenager during that era, you might remember them too!
Portishead released a beautiful song in 1994 called Wandering Star. Like most of their songs, it was dreary, soulful, and heartbreakingly beautiful—the perfect anthem for a teenage girl convinced that nobody could possibly understand the depths of her complicated soul!
Years later, after becoming a Christian and beginning to study my Bible regularly, imagine my surprise when I discovered these familiar words in the little epistle of Jude- “Wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.”
Naturally, I became curious. I understood what a wandering star represented in the song: isolation and a sense of being lost. But what did those words mean in Scripture? What was the Holy Spirit communicating through Jude? As it turns out, Jude’s use of the phrase carried a far more sobering meaning…a dire warning about the spiritual danger of being led astray, and the eternal consequences of wandering away from God’s truth.
In the ancient world, travelers and sailors depended upon the stars for navigation. Their recognizable, dependable patterns provided direction through the darkness, helping travelers stay on course.
In contrast, Jude describes certain individuals as wandering stars, heavenly bodies that do not maintain a fixed position among the stars. He’s describing something that might appear to offer direction, but cannot be depended upon to guide us.
So who were these wandering stars? To understand, look back to verses 3 and 4, where Jude urges Christians to “contend for the faith.”Certain individuals had crept into the church, distorting God's grace and rejecting the authority of Jesus Christ. They went unnoticed among God's people at first, but their attitudes and actions revealed something altogether different. They looked like trustworthy guides, but they were leading people away from the truth.
Jude describes them as waterless clouds, fruitless trees, and raging waves. They offered promises without substance, influence without godliness, and the appearance of spiritual maturity without its fruit. Like wandering stars, they were unreliable guides.
As you’ve probably discovered in your own walk, not everyone who claims to be a knowledgeable Christian is leading us toward God. There will always be people who confidently proclaim religious teachings that sound reasonable or even biblical. Paul warned in 2 Corinthians 11:14 of Satan’s servants who “disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.” But if their message contradicts God's revealed Word, following them will take us in the wrong direction. Are they teaching the truth, or are they just teaching what sounds appealing?
When We Trust Our Own Direction
There's also another danger we need to consider within these verses. Sometimes the thing leading us away from God's course isn't another person, but our own fallible understanding. Notice how Jude describes these false teachers in verse 10: “But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.”
These people rejected what they didn't understand while allowing their instincts and desires to govern their behavior. It’s amazing how much this describes our own society. There is truly nothing new under the sun!
Our own culture increasingly treats personal feelings and understanding as the ultimate authority. If something doesn't make sense to us, we question its validity. If a biblical command conflicts with our desires, we search for a way around it. If God's Word challenges something we want to believe, we're tempted to reinterpret it until it becomes more comfortable.
However, our ability to understand something doesn't determine whether it's true! I don't understand the laws of thermodynamics, but that certainly doesn't make them invalid. Likewise, there are things revealed in Scripture that stretch far beyond our understanding. God's wisdom is infinitely greater than ours, and faith requires trusting Him even when we cannot fully comprehend His ways. (Isaiah 55:8-9).
Please understand, there is a huge difference between sincerely struggling to understand God's Word, and completely refusing to submit to what He has revealed. One is growth, and the other is sin. Jude gives several examples of the latter — people who rejected God's authority in favor of their own desires.
The Israelites who perished in the wilderness, the angels who abandoned their proper position, and the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then, in verse 11, he mentions Cain, Balaam, and Korah. These are all different people and different circumstances, but with one common problem: They chose their own way over God's way.
So often that’s how our own spiritual struggles begin. We know what God says, but we desire something different. We want to follow Christ, but we also want to follow our feelings. We want the blessings of belonging to Him without surrendering every part of ourselves to His authority.
When we begin trusting our own instincts more than God's instructions, we've made ourselves an unreliable guide, a “wandering star”. And all unreliable guides eventually lead us off course. Remember Jeremiah’s admonition in 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
So how do we keep ourselves from being led astray, whether by false teachers or by our own understanding? We must continually return to the one source of direction that never changes: God's Word.
Our feelings can easily affect our obedience, and when Scripture challenges us, how tempting it is to say, “Well, I just don't see it that way!”
But friends, God did not give us His Word and then ask us to vote on which parts we agree with. He gave us His Word because He loves us and knows what's best for us. His instructions are not arbitrary restrictions designed to rob us of happiness. They are directions from a loving Father who sees dangers we cannot see and understands consequences we cannot anticipate.
Jesus said: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” -John 8:31–32
Notice where Jesus places freedom. It’s not in following our instincts, or in redefining truth, or in doing whatever feels “right”. True and lasting freedom is found in abiding in His Word. Real freedom comes when we allow God's truth to transform our lives instead of trying to reshape His truth to accommodate our desires. Trusting God enough to follow Him, even when we cannot see the entire road ahead.
Jude's warning should cause us to examine what we're allowing to guide our lives; the stars by which we set our course. Are we following teachers because their message agrees with God's Word, or simply because it agrees with what we want to hear? Are we allowing our feelings to shape our understanding of Scripture, or are we allowing Scripture to shape our feelings? Are we trusting God's direction, or quietly charting a course of our own?
The mention of “wandering stars” ends with the sobering words, “for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” These false teachers weren't merely confused travelers. Their rebellion was leading toward eternal judgment. I think it’s safe to say that's a destination none of us wants to reach.
False teachers and the rest of the world encourage us to follow our hearts, trust our instincts, and define our own truth. But our hearts can deceive us, our instincts can mislead us, and truth has never depended upon personal opinions. Thankfully, we have something infinitely more reliable to guide us.
We have God's Word. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” -Psalm 119:105
Let us be careful which voices we follow, including our own. May we never set our course by “wandering stars” when God has already given us the light that will guide us safely home.