The following message was delivered
on Sunday evening, May 22nd, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist
Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who attend regularly
upon this ministry and have for some time know that it's been
my privilege over many years to minister the Word of God in
other places, both in pastors' conferences and evangelistic
and Bible teaching ministries at various conferences. And not
infrequently, what I bring in those outside ministries is reworked
material that has, first of all, been prepared for ministry in
this place. However, there are times when
I am asked to speak on subjects, themes, or portions of the Word
of God in conferences, and messages are prepared and preached in
that setting, many of which have never been preached here. And
in the light of the unusual pressures of this past week with our two-day
marathon elders meetings all day Friday and Saturday, and
not getting back from a marathon weekend of speaking some nine
times from last Friday to Sunday night, I simply did not have
the mental alertness to give myself to fresh preparation for
another simple signpost message. And what I have chosen to do
is to preach a message which I prepared for the ministry up
in Essex, Ontario, Canada. And I've chosen to preach this
message not only because the preparation was done and I could
responsibly handle the passage, But I felt in God's providence
it was a buttress message or a buttressing message to one
of the strands of emphasis given in the manifesto this morning.
And the passage to which I am referring is the third verse
of the epistle of Jude. And so I'm going to ask you to
turn with me to that one chapter letter that comes just before
the book of the Revelation. in which Jude, a servant of Jesus
Christ and brother of James, writes to a people saying, verse
3, Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you
of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you,
exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once
for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept
in privily, even they who were of old written of beforehand
unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God
into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ. Now, those of you who are here
this morning will remember, I trust, that in setting out two of the
principles with reference to how it is that we can and must
as a congregation seek to lay up a store of spiritual legacy
to generations to come, I emphasize the necessity of holding in an
uncompromising way to the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
here in the third verse of Jude in particular, that emphasis
is highlighted as Jude unburdens himself in a pastoral way to
his readers. And as we look at this text,
I want you to notice with me first of all the recipients of
this word of exhortation. Jude indicates that he was constrained
to give a particularly focused exhortation to this people. And we need to ask, who were
these people? To whom does this word of exhortation
come? Well, according to verse 1, the
recipients of this letter are described as those who are called,
beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Those of you who have either
an old authorized version or the new King James will have
in your text sanctified in God the Father and it's a matter
of some of the ancient text having a word that is translated beloved
and one sanctified and if you simply change three letters of
the Greek alphabet and put a rough breathing in front of the first
you get the difference between beloved and sanctified. And I am persuaded that the better
textual evidence, as you children who have a new King James will
see in the middle where it says NU, and there in the middle column
will indicate that the word is beloved. And so the people to
whom Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
writes, are described as called, beloved, and kept. Now this terminology, called,
beloved, and kept, is language used only of the true people
of God. When Jude indicates that he's
writing to a people who are called, he is using the word called in
its standard usage in the New Testament. We use the word call
primarily as a synonym for extending a verbal summons. Johnny comes
in from the yard and someone says, where are you going? He
says, well, I'm going home because my mother called me. That is, she articulated words
that in one way or another indicated she was summoning me home. Now
Johnny may have disobeyed his mother's call, she may have had
the call two or three times, but we use the word call as a
verbal summons. However, in the scriptures, with
but only probably two exceptions in the New Testament, the word
call never means a mere summons. It means the powerful, persuasive
work of God, not only summoning us to respond to the gospel,
but powerfully inclining us to embrace the offers of mercy and
salvation, and actually to come to the Lord Jesus. It would be
the difference between Johnny's mother, Mary, saying, Johnny,
time to come home for supper, and running out into the yard
where he is and taking him by the ear and bringing him into
the house. Well, God's call, though it is
not a physical, external force, is God taking us, as it were,
by the ear. by the secret yet powerful operation
of the Holy Spirit, not only summoning us to the blessings
of life and salvation, not only extending to us a gracious invitation
and a regal command to repent and to believe, but effectually
and powerfully working in our hearts, enabling us to obey that
summons. Therefore, when Paul writes to
the Corinthians, notice how this emphasis comes through very clearly
in his use of the word called. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse
9. God is faithful through whom
You were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord. He says of the Corinthians that
it is through the operation of God that they were not only summoned
to partake of the privileges that are in Christ, but they
were actually called into the koinonia, into the sharing of
the blessings of grace and salvation that are to be found in His Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 26 of the same chapter. For behold your calling, brethren,
that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many
noble are called, but God chose here calling and election. are used as parallel terms. Those who are called are those
who are chosen. Those who are chosen are eventually,
in God's time, actually called by Him into the fellowship of
His Son. And so those to whom Jude writes
are a people to whom the gospel has come, not only with its tones
falling upon the outer vestibule of the ear, causing vibrations
in the inner ear and signals to be sent by the auditory nerve
to the brain, and concepts registering on the brain, no, there was something
that went from the ear and the auditory nerve and the brain
that laid hold of natively God-hating, Christ-rejecting hearts and brought
those hearts most freely and willingly to embrace the Lord
Jesus and the offered salvation in Him. And you are not a Christian
unless you too have been called. All true believers are those
who, like these who receive the letter of Jude, have been called,
and then they are described as beloved in God the Father. Beloved in God the Father. Obviously then, speaking of something
far beyond God's general love for all of His creation and for
all of His creatures. They are beloved in union with,
in connection with, in the virtue of the relationship they sustain
to God, who is now their Father through the grace of adoption. They are within the orbit of
that love of which John speaks when he says, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called
sons of God and that doesn't mean that we should just be designated
sons of God but that we should be the called sons of the living
God and so he writes to them as not only those who are called
but be loved in God the Father and thirdly they are described
as kept for Jesus Christ a unique term with reference to God's
people not kept by Jesus Christ. That's a precious truth. He said
that his sheep were in his hand and none would be able to pluck
them out of his hand. And in that sense, the people
of God are indeed kept by Jesus Christ. But here we are told
the people of God are those who are kept for Jesus Christ. Teth, as part of His bride, to
be presented faultless before Him, even as Jude writes at the
end of his epistle, unto Him who is able to guard you from
stumbling, and to set you before the presence of His glory without
blemish in exceeding joy. And in the light of Ephesians
chapter 5, it is a presentation to Christ, the heavenly bridegroom,
as a bride perfected in which there will be found no spot or
blemish or any such thing. So obviously then Jude is writing
to those who have not only heard the message of the gospel but
by the grace of God have embraced it. They are called beloved in
God the Father and kept in Jesus Christ. They are true Christians
They are those who have heard and believed the gospel and known
its transforming power. Now consider, secondly, having
briefly looked at the recipients of this letter and exhortation,
the circumstances which surrounded this letter of truth. He tells
us in verse 3 that he had set himself to do something with
diligence but in the midst of it he changed his mind and therefore
altered his course. Beloved, while I was giving all
diligence and the Greek word for diligence means he was really
concentrating his faculties and energies upon what he was doing
while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common
salvation, our koiné salvation. That salvation which has come
in Jesus Christ to Jew and Greek alike, to bond or free, to the
educated and uneducated, that salvation in Christ that is the
same for all men to whom it comes. He says, I was giving all diligence
to write unto you concerning that salvation. And it would
appear that he had a pastoral desire to amplify some dimension
or aspects of that salvation which all believers have in common. Which all those who are called,
and they are called because they are beloved, and if called because
beloved, then kept, they have a glorious salvation. we can't
encompass it in one little booklet called the blessings of salvation
or ten lessons on what we have in Christ or what we are in Christ
and that's why God's given us a relatively large Bible because
there are so many glorious facets to that salvation both in its
preparation, in its procurement in the person and work of the
Lord Jesus, in its application, in its manifold and glorious
provisions. And Jude was apparently straining
his God-given faculties to write a pastoral letter that would
amplify, that would explicate, that would apply some dimensions
of this common salvation. as a man with a pastoral heart
and recognizing that God works by means, he does not say, I
was fasting and praying and hoping to get in a trance to get a word
from God. It's very interesting. Here the
very penman of the Holy Ghost says that God works by means. You find that with Luke. He makes
diligent historical search. And we have in our day those
who are not apostles, those who have no right to be claiming
direct revelation from God, and yet they do, and yet theirs comes
in a way that the writers of the New Testament don't claim
for themselves. Just a little interesting aside.
He was giving all diligence. He was bending his mental and
spiritual faculties to open up and to write concerning this
common salvation. But something happened in the
midst of the pursuit of that course, while, that's an adverb
of time, While I was giving all diligence to write unto you of
our common salvation, I was constrained, I came under a constraint to
change my course, and my new determined course was this, or
newly determined course was this, I was constrained to write unto
you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which
was once for all delivered to the saints. While he was purposing
and endeavoring diligently to expound some aspects of their
common salvation, he changes his direction and writes unto
these people, exhorting them to an activity that we shall
open up momentarily, described in the words, contending earnestly
for the faith. And why did he change his mind?
Why did he change his proposed course? Well, he tells us in
verse four. Four, there are certain men crept
in. He became aware that false teachers
had insinuated themselves into the midst of the people of God. and that these false teachers
were now propagating their heresies, false teachers, of whom God had
written beforehand, written of beforehand, and it could well
be that he here has reference to what we have in our Bibles
as 2 Peter, For there are many parallels with the book of Jude
and 2 Peter, and in 2 Peter, Peter had predicted chapter 2,
but there arose false prophets also among the people, as among
you also There shall be false teachers, that's a future, who
shall, future, privily bring in destructive heresies, denying
the master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift
destruction, and many shall follow their lascivious doings by reason
of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Peter had
war. Could it be that Jude is making
direct reference to Peter's words when he says, certain men crept
in privily, even they who were of old, written of beforehand
unto this condemnation ungodly men, turning the grace of God
into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord and Master, Jesus
Christ. So it was his awareness that
these false teachers had crept in they were propagating their
heresy it was beginning to take root among some of the people
and so Jude says I had to change my course and now focus my exhortation
upon this one great pastoral burden exhorting you to contend
earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints
Having looked at who the recipients of this letter are, the circumstances
that surrounded the letter, now consider with me thirdly the
heart of our message tonight, the focused burden of Jude's
pastoral letter. The focused burden of that letter. And the focused burden is in
these words, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all delivered unto the saints. Now as we look
at this part of the text, I want you to note with me four very
clear principles that are contained in it. First, there is an identifiable
body of truth called the faith. The whole exhortation terminates
on these words, contend earnestly for the faith. Contending earnestly is what
they're to do. The once for all delivered to
the saints describes this thing with which they're to do something.
But all parts of the verse terminate upon the little phrase, the faith. His burden has to do with the
faith. And the faith in this context
refers to an identifiable body of truth designated the faith. Now sometimes the word faith
refers obviously to the exercise of the faith of a believer. That
is the subjective spiritual grace of faith. But when you find the
little term, the faith, most often it is referring to that
which is the object of our faith, namely, the objective revelation
of the body of God's truth. Notice in verse 20 of this epistle
how it is used in this way. But you, beloved, building up
yourselves on your most holy faith. There you see he's not
saying build yourself up on your holy subjective exercise of faith,
but build yourself up on your most holy body of revealed truth. He uses the word faith in that
sense look at two other passages in which it is obvious that this
is the meaning of the phrase Galatians chapter 1 Galatians
chapter 1 Paul speaking of an aspect of his own history writing
to the churches of Galatia wrote in chapter 1 and verse 20, Now
touching the things which I write unto you, behold before God I
lie not. Then I came into the regions
of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by face unto the
churches of Judea which were in Christ, only they heard say,
He that once persecuted us now preaches the faith of which he
once made havoc, and they glorified God in me." When it says Paul
was preaching the faith of which he once made havoc, the meaning
is clear. He was preaching the body of
revealed truth, focusing in the identity of Jesus of Nazareth
as God's Messiah, focusing upon the proclamation of Christ and
Him crucified in the language of Acts 20, 21, calling all men
to repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,
the very faith, the body of truth which He had packed and was determined
to blot out from the face of the earth, lo and behold, He
is now preaching that faith. that identifiable body of truth
designated as the faith. One other example, Acts 6 and
verse 7. Acts 6 and verse 7, in which
Luke, recording the early triumphs of the gospel in Jerusalem, writes
that after the appointment of the seven, allowing the apostles
to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry
of the word, the word of God increased, and the number of
the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly, and a great company
of the priests were obedient to the faith. They became submissive
to the body of revealed truth that focused in the person and
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I don't want to beat the
thing thin at the edges, but I wanted to give you enough text
So that if anyone asks you, what does it mean when it says in
Jude 3 that believers are to contend for the faith, you would
be able to say the faith there refers to an identifiable, objective
body of truth. Oh it does? How do you know?
And prove it from the Word of God. Don't say, well I remember
a sermon in which our pastor showed us that was so. That won't
do. That's not giving a reason of
the hope that is in you. That's not becoming well grounded
in the scriptures on your own. And you see in our day, the very
concept that there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. We would call it dogma. There
is the notion that dogma is dirty. and that anything that thinks
in categories of truth and error, this is right and this is wrong,
is out of the orbit of the whole religious and social climate
of our day. but the word of God is true and
the word of God will not accommodate itself to any mindset of any
generation and as Jude hears that amongst those to whom he
writes certain false teachers have crept in he is able to identify
them because what they are saying and what they are propagating
does not line up with that objective fixed revelatory data. It doesn't line up and measure
up with that body of revealed truth called the faith. So there is an identifiable body
of truth called the faith. Our text clearly teaches it.
Secondly, our text teaches us, and I trust that you'll grasp
this principle. It is so crucial, particularly
in our day. The body of truth, this body
of truth was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the
age of the apostles. This body of truth was revealed
and deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles. Now where do you find that? Well
look at the text. I was constrained to write unto you, exhorting
you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for
all delivered unto the saints." Now, for the few of you who may
be sitting there with a Greek text, you will know that in the
order of the Greek structure, what we really have is this.
Jude says, I exhorting you to contend earnestly, and the words
the faith come at the end. And what you would have in English
is one long hyphenated description of that faith. It would read
like this. Exhorting you to contend earnestly for the once for all
delivered to the saints faith. All of those words are modifying
and qualifying what that thing is. What is that body of revealed
truth? It is the once-for-all delivered
to the saints faith. You want to know what it is?
It is the once-for-all delivered to the saints faith. Once-for-all, the Greek word
hapax. the word used to describe the
significance of the offering up of the Son of God on behalf
of sinners. He dying, the writer to Hebrews
says, once for all, offering one sacrifice forever, The legitimate
rendering of the Word is once for all, once never to be repeated. And this faith has been once
and for all already delivered. He doesn't say it's in the process
of being delivered and it will continually be delivered. No,
it was once for all delivered to whom? Unto the saints. unto the company of the people
of God in that apostolic generation. Now, dear people, if you can
get hold of that simple truth, it will save you from a thousand
errors. The body of truth which constitutes the Christian faith
in its purity was revealed, proclaimed, and permanently embodied in the
scriptures in the age of the apostles. So that when we come
to the last of those apostles, And when he closes that which
was given to him by way of divine revelation in the book of the
revelation, we have these words coming at the end of new covenant
revelation, parallel words to those that were given after the
revelation given through Moses in the book of the law and in
the Pentateuch. Revelation 2218, I testify unto
every man who hears the words of the prophecy of this book
in its context, referring explicitly and unquestionably to the book
of the Revelation. but surely arguing from the analogy
of scripture, coming as the last book in time, of the last living
apostle. In the light of Jesus' promise
to his apostles, the Spirit would be given to them and would guide
them into all of the truth. Not just some of it, not just
a part of it waiting for further revelation to come when Joe Smith
finds his special glasses to read his so-called Egyptian hieroglyphics
and get his new data. or when Mary Ellen White claims
to be a prophetess and speaks with the authority of God or
when the Council of Bishops or the Pope give at certain times
certain dogmas that can be dated with their councils and their
papal bulls and their pronouncements in which you have a faith to
which something is being continually added. No! Jude says I want you
to contend for that body of truth which was once for all delivered
to the saints. Some of it, at the time Jude
wrote, had yet to be inscripturated. But that apostolic tradition
that was being verbally proclaimed by the apostles and by degrees
was being inscripturated for the church for all ages, it is
a body of truth both revealed and deposited with the people
of God in the age of the apostles. And it is delivered to all the
people of God. The word saints, holy ones, set
apart ones, does not refer to people who have been sainted
by some decision of a bunch of clerics. It is the common name
for the common people of God. Colossians 1.1, God's people
are addressed as the saints in Colossae. In Acts 9, Paul is
said to be persecuting the saints of God, dragging men and women
and committing them to prison. Therefore, All individuals or
groups of individuals who claim to have authority to add to or
to subtract from the body of truth delivered to the saints
in the age of the apostles are to some degree false prophets. Without exception. Without exception. If anyone shall add unto these
words, God shall add unto him the plagues. If any shall take
away, God shall take away his part out of the book of life. The body of truth, which is saving
truth, which constitutes the faith, was already delivered
in the apostolic age, already delivered to the saints. And therefore, you and I immediately
can brush aside with absolute impunity anyone's claims to fresh,
new revelation. You don't need to be a theologian.
Just understand Jude 3. It is the once-for-all delivered
to the saints faith. And if it's been once for all
delivered as THE faith, then anything added to or subtracted
from under the name of revelation is error. It's fraud. It can only undermine the well-being
of our souls and attack the very pillars of the historic Christian
faith. And furthermore, this part of
our text teaches us that any view of the faith which says
that ordinary men and women, boys and girls cannot grasp and
understand the heart of it, believe it, be transformed by it, and
propagate it. It's an insult both to the faith
that God has given us and to the grace of the Holy Spirit
who illuminates us. God entrusts the faith to the
saints. It's the once for all delivered
to the saints faith. not just to the apostles, it's
delivered through the apostles. For they have a unique place
in bringing together that corpus of truth that constitutes the
faith as we saw this morning. The church is built on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
chief cornerstone that God propagates that faith to His saints, and
His saints who constitute His church are to be grounded in
that faith in the language of Ephesians, for they are not to
be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but they are
to be rooted and grounded in that faith. So we have seen from
our text that there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. How can you contend for something
that doesn't exist? You can't contend for shadows.
You can't contend for mirages or for something that is substantial. You can contend for it, contend
earnestly for the faith. Secondly, this body of truth
was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age
of the apostles. the once for all delivered to
the saints faith. Thirdly, this body of truth was
being assailed by those who were aggressively promoting error
while apostles were yet alive. Now that's very clear from our
passage. This body of truth was being assailed by those who were
aggressively promoting error even while apostles were alive. Think of it. Think of Paul's
experience. False apostles came to Corinth
and so hoodwinked the whole church that apparently the majority
were taken in by their teaching to the point where Paul had to
write the second letter and say, I speak as a fool again and again,
having to prove that he was a bona fide apostle. Think of He said
these super apostles, I come along in weakness. These people
come along bragging about their strength and their wisdom and
they fleece you and they slap you in the face. Paul uses strong
language and yet he has to demonstrate that he was indeed a true apostle,
their true spiritual father and their rightful spiritual guide.
Now what does that tell us? If Jude in the age of living
apostles had to write to the saints saying, you must contend
earnestly for the once for all delivered to the saints faith.
You must do it now and you must do it earnestly. Should it surprise
us that when the apostles had gone that there would be those
who would be even more aggressive in the propagation of error?
And the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter were both convinced
that this would be the case. We looked at some of the passages
from the writings of Paul this morning. When he's about to leave
the Ephesian elders, the great burden of his heart, the great
burden of his heart is the realization that these false teachers were
lurking, waiting till the chief honcho would flow out of town
for good And thinking there'd be men of lesser spiritual strength
and lesser moral fiber, they could come as wolves into the
flock, or as apparently loving shepherds within the flock. Look
at his language in Acts 20 again, and verse 29, I know that after
my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you. Why
did he say after my departing? He said, well, they got more
sense to try it while I'm here. You see, the super apostles didn't
mess around with the Corinthians while Paul was there. They waited
till he was out of town preaching somewhere else. They didn't want
to tangle with a tiger like Paul. They knew they were no match
for Paul in face-to-face confrontation. But he says, I know that after
my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not
sparing the flock, and from among your own selves. Does he mean
from among the Ephesian eldership? or among the Ephesian church?
Well you can't determine it exegetically but it would seem since he's
only speaking to the elders and generally a man's got to have
some position of higher profile than an ordinary church member
to have much influence I lean in the direction of believing
that Paul is saying from among your own selves that is within
your own ranks as elders shall men arise speaking perverse things
to draw away the disciples after that. he was concerned believing
this would happen after he left Peter gives the same warning
we looked at it in 2 Peter chapter 2 and now it has come to pass
and by the time we come to the seven letters of the seven churches
in Asia Minor written toward the end of the first century
when all of the apostles except John are dead there are only
two churches that do not receive a reproof from the Lord and there
are several where there are explicit reproofs concerning the toleration
of false teaching. And the history of the church
has taught us that the body of truth that was being assailed
by those who were aggressive in promoting error while they
are living apostles, that the devil is never lacked for men
whose minds may be very clever minds. And who may, with very
clever and specious and at times rather convincing treatment and
twisting of the Scriptures, as Peter says, the ignorant and
the unstable rest the Scriptures. The Greek word there is the word
you would use if you put a man on a torture rack. You put him
there, but then you begin to tighten the winches. He's still
a man, but all of his body is out of joint and out of its natural
configuration. They traffic in the Bible But
they stretch it and they pull it and they wrench it for their
own destruction and to the destruction of those who believe them. And
you remember we alluded to 2 Timothy chapter 4, the great burden of
Paul as he's about to leave the spiritual well-being of the church
at Ephesus in the hands of Timothy. He said, I'm about to leave.
I've finished my course. I've kept the faith. My job is
done. Now, Timothy, I'm telling you,
keep on preaching the word. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all longsuffering and teaching. Give them solid stuff, Timothy.
Why? Because the time will come. The
time will come when they'll turn away their ears from the truth,
and when they do, they'll be all the false teachers they want
to tickle their ears with their errors and soul-destructive and
damning lies. Dear people, we are naive if
we think that somehow we're immune from that in the 20th century.
We are not immune from it. And if Jude would have written
as he did in his day, When there were no printing presses to crank
out false teaching. When there were no tapes and
no videos and no newspapers. When there were no publishing
houses. Imagine what he would say were he living today! When
all of these things neutral in themselves and great handmaidens
to the faith when properly used, but powerful instruments in the
hands of the devil, when false teachers begin to use them to
propagate their error, we must not naively think that we can
be insensitive or indifferent to the reality that the body
of truth that was assailed by those who were aggressively promoting
error in the days that Jude wrote that there are such in our own
day and that brings us to the fourth principle that's in our
text. Look at it. I was constrained to write unto
you to do what? Now he uses a word found only
here in the New Testament. We have translated it with two
English words, most of the translations, exhorting you, encouraging you
to contend earnestly for the faith. Now the verb translated
contend earnestly is that word, you've heard about it before,
agonizomai. It's the word used of the athlete
in training in 1 Corinthians 9.25. The man who is striving
to win the gold is the man who exercises self-control in all
things. Every man that strives in the
games. Every man who is marshalling
all of his powers and all of his faculties to the end that
he might gain the gold. That man is agonizing. It's the
word used of our Lord when He went into the garden of Gethsemane
and being, it's a different form, but in the same family, and being
in a great agony. He sweat as it were great drops
of blood. And this word is used with a
prefix, epi, usually means upon. And so the picture seems to be
to contend upon or to contend with respect to or contend with
an intensified contending we are to earnestly contend or contend
earnestly for the faith. What's the principle? The principle
is this, the true people of God are under a solemn obligation
vigorously to defend this body of truth against all who would
tamper with it. The people of God are under a
solemn obligation vigorously to defend this body of truth
against all who would tamper with it. Remember who received
the exhortation, verse 3, it is the Beloved. It is the people
of God, all that are called, all that are beloved in God the
Father and kept for Jesus Christ, all of them. He doesn't say,
now you elders, there are portions in the Word of God addressed
just to elders, 1 Peter 5.1. There are portions in which various
groups are singled out, but here it is beloved, the people of
God in general, all of them without exception, are responsible to
contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the
saints. And in the light of what we considered
this morning, of our responsibility to the generations to come in
this spiritual family while I would not in any way seek to dilute
the force of that first heading and if I could I would preach
a series of sermons on it until by the grace of God and the power
of the Spirit every one of us was brought back to his first
love that love of passion for the person of Christ Without
seeking in any way to overshadow that, by emphasizing the second
principle, that we must, by the grace of God, have an uncompromising
commitment to the truth of God. Dear people, that is your responsibility
as an individual believer, yes? There is a peculiar responsibility
upon us who are your watchmen and your overseers and your shepherds
to protect you from error. Yes, there is a peculiar responsibility
upon us to teach and preach the truth. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12,
He gives pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints
unto service work that they may be no longer children tossed
to and fro. I know that, but look at our
text. You are the beloved of God. You
are the beloved in God the Father. You are the called. You are the
kept. And to you this word comes. You
must contend earnestly for the once for all delivered to the
saints faith. It's your task. You know the
old saying, everybody's job is nobody's job. If the concept,
the exhortation, floats over our heads and is just nailed
to the walls, no good has come from all of my effect. Until
sitting there, you are isolated with your part, and He, by His
Word and Spirit, is saying to you, John, George, Harry, He's
saying to you, Mary and Sally, and whatever your name may be,
you and you and you, You called? You beloved in God the Father?
Are you kept for Christ? Then you must contend earnestly
for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Now I believe
those four principles stand on the very surface of the text,
do they not? There is an identifiable body
of truth called the faith. Secondly, this body of truth
was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age
of the apostles. It's the once for all delivered
to the saints. Faith. Thirdly, this body of truth was
being assailed by those who were aggressively promoting error
in the very age of the apostles. There are certain men crept in.
These men, ungodly in their moral character, attacking the very
purpose for which the grace of God is revealed in Christ, namely,
to lead us to holiness, and they say it's to lead to license. They attack, if not, in theory
and practice, the lordship of Jesus Christ, denying our only
despot master and lord, Jesus Christ. And the fourth great
principle, you, the true people of God, are under a solemn obligation
vigorously to defend this body of truth against all who would
tamper with it. Now if these things are so, what
does it say to you and to me by way of application? Number
one, it says that the people of God must seek to have a Bible-based
spirit imparted intelligent understanding of the contents of the faith.
Isn't that implicit in the whole exhortation? If he says, I was
constrained to exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith,
how can you contend for that concerning which you are fundamentally
ignorant? How can you contend for that
which, when attacked, you don't know it's under attack? This
means that the people of God, the rank and file of the saints,
must seek to have a Bible-based, Spirit-imparted, intelligent
understanding of the contents of the faith. And my friends, there's no way
to get that. Spending more time on the sports page in front of
the television, reading novels, talking on the phone, and cracking
your Bible five minutes a day, and never reading a solid book
that will teach you. How do we know that the scriptures
are inspired? How do we know that we can trust
the biblical record of creation? How can we define the constitution
of our Lord Jesus. He is true God, true man. Well is he some mixture of God
and man? Or is he God and man, two distinct
natures in one person joined forever? The natures forever
eternally distinct, the person forever eternally joined? So
that if someone begins to say something that would indicate
He gave up a little bit of his Godhood and Godness when he took
to himself humanity. Can we catch it? Can we say,
oh wait a minute, that's not the faith that says, my Lord
and my God. There's nothing part God, semi-God,
three quarters God. He's either God than all that
God is or He's creature and all that creature is. Created, dependent,
not eternal, not omnipotent, not omniscient. Something in
the category of God is either exclusively God-ish or it is
non-God-ish. Do you know the difference? Can
your ear pick up the difference? You ought to be able to, but
you're not going to get it. By sitting back and letting some
of us sweat in the pulpit and seek to articulate things in
the pulpit and in the classroom, you, my brother and sister, have
got to do some radical altering of your priorities of your so-called
spare time. How can a man be said to be contendering
vigorously, earnestly, like an athlete going for gold? He's not willing to deny himself
anything to get a better grasp upon the faith. He does not spend
time pleading with God to grant the spirit of illumination. to
grant to him a Bible-based, Spirit-imparted, intelligent understanding of
the faith as it is in Jesus. It will not come without the
ministry of the Spirit. You'll be struck as you read
the prayers of Paul for the believers. Ephesians 1, he prays that God
would give him the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of himself. He prays in chapter 3 that the
eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, that they may
know. Colossians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1, his prayers to God
focus upon the impartation of spiritual knowledge and understanding. Knowledge and understanding given
only by the Spirit. But dear people, the Spirit does
not work apart from us, nor is He given to make us a bunch of
lazy bums. He is given to make our endeavors
effectual to the end for which we engage in them. So he says
to Timothy, Timothy, spoudazo, that's the word used here when
he said, I was giving diligence to write to you of our common
salvation. He says, Timothy, do your utmost
to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not
to be ashamed. Yet he had previously said in
that chapter, Timothy, think on these things and the Lord
will give you understanding. Yes, the Lord will give you understanding,
Timothy, but not when you shift your head into neutral and sit
back and let everything else rush over your brain and somehow
God will crowd in illumination. No, he says, think on these things,
bend your mental faculties and powers to wrestle with them and
the Lord shall give the understanding. Dear people of God, I beg you,
if you don't resist the pressure to become a junk food mind, you're
never going to be well grounded in the faith. There is so much
to bombard our minds with mental and intellectual junk food. And
just as no one becomes healthy and vigorous in his physical
constitution who's popping down Twinkies and candy bars and has
no sense of commitment to a nutritious, healthy, well-balanced diet,
no one is going to be well-grounded in the faith and be able earnestly
to contend for it unless he's willing to pay the price to have
a Bible-based spirit imparted, intelligent understanding of
the contents of the faith. And then secondly, it means for
us that the people of God must seek to cultivate a growing,
living faith in those truths which constitute the contents
of the faith. You see, it is not enough that
we have a spirit-wrought, Bible-based understanding of the contents
of the faith. We must add to that of growing,
living faith in those truths which constitute the contents
of the faith. This is exactly what Paul points
to in the life of Timothy. Look at 2 Timothy chapter 1 and
verse 13. Then I'll explain why this is
so crucial. Hold the pattern of sound words. What is the pattern of sound
words? It is the faith as articulated
by the apostle. And he said it was articulated
in propositional truth. It was a pattern of sound words. There are words that soundly
and rightly articulate the tenets of our faith. And we must hold
to that pattern. Timothy is to hold to it. But
now notice. Hold to the pattern of sound
words which thou hast heard from me. How are you to hold them,
Timothy? Not just with intellectual acumen
and intellectual perception, but, he says, hold to that pattern
in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. That's what I'm
saying. You see, each time the Spirit
of God, through the means of our study of the Word of God,
grants us a clearer grasp on some dimension of that which
constitutes the faith and there are fresh actings of faith that
is true heart belief in and acting upon that new understanding of
that new dimension of the faith we're not getting fresh revelation
it's the once for all delivered to the saints faith but we've
just had the veil pulled back concerning one aspect that we
never saw before but when that new understanding is fused to
our religious experience by faith and love then it becomes precious
to us it is life-giving truth And it's life-giving truth for
which people are ready to spend and be spent and if necessary
become martyrs. Men and women and boys and girls
never became martyrs simply because they had an intellectual grasp
upon the faith. It's when they believed with
all their hearts that the doctrine of Christ crucified for sinners
and the souls resting upon Christ alone as revealed in the gospel
brought a man into right relationship to God that even boys and girls
and men and women by the thousands were willing to go to the stake
rather than bow to some Romish superstition rather than to whittle
away one iota of the faith. Why? Because It was that faith,
that body of truth, which they firmly grasped in faith, that
was the very life of their souls. And they knew that men could
destroy the physical body, but could not take away the life
of their souls. Therefore they said to the state, to the guilty, to any instrument
of death you choose, But that faith which is the object of
living faith in the heart of the believer is that for which
people are prepared to spill their blood. Again look at chapter
3 and verse 14. Paul has told Timothy That all
who would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecutions,
evil men and impostors. There we are again. Evil men
and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being
deceived. But Timothy, abide in the things
which you have learned and been assured of. Abide in the things. Let your very life be immersed
in the things in which you have learned and been assured of.
Let them not be mere intellectual furniture that you shuffle around
and occasionally dust off and which you can describe to others.
Abide in these things. Let them be your very life. Sanctify
them, Jesus said, in the truth thy word is truth. And then finally, the people
of God must be committed to propagate, defend, to propagate and defend
the faith, even unto death. Revelation 2, 10 and 11, Be thou
faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. The only justification for martyrdom
is that God's truth is more precious than your life or mine. That's the justification for
martyrdom. What's more important, God's truth or my heartbeat and
my blood? God's truth. And if to maintain
that truth as the truth which I confess, my heart must stop
beating with the sharp, quick, piercing impact of a bullet And
by the slow, agonizing, torturous death conceived by heartless
men, it matters not. God's truth is more important
than my life. My friends, listen. Martyrs are
not made of people who spend all their spare time inundating
their receptors, eyes and ears, with the junk food of the modern
media. And if such a trial should come
upon us, and I don't claim to be giving a prophecy, but looking
at the direction in which our nation is going at breakneck
speed, with the erosion of common grace so quickly manifested in
my own generation, with the increasing outspoken hostility to those
who hold to the right angles of the faith once for all delivered
to the saints. There may be some sitting here
for whom martyrdom will not be something you read about in Fox's
Book of Martyrs or in the days of the Covenanters in the Highlands. And the crisis that would come
When your contending for the faith might mean contending at
the price of your blood, that crisis will not create anything
new. It will simply reveal what you've
been doing up until that moment of crisis. That's all. A crisis never creates a thing.
It only reveals what's there. And I frankly am deeply disturbed
by the patterns of indifference and carelessness that I trust
there's something wrong with my perception, but I don't believe
it's that skewed. I fear for altogether too many
of you, and I speak to you lovingly, that should God suddenly unloose
a concentrated way of such open opposition, that we would have
to pay for our fate by imprisonment, starvation, or death. I fear. I fear. How many of you might
renounce Christ? Why? Because you really have
not been committed to the propagation and defense of this faith in
the relatively easy circumstances in which we find ourselves now. And God says to the prophet,
if you run with the footmen, and they really do, how will
you contend with the horsemen and the swelling of Jordan? He
says to Jeremiah, you think it's rough now? What you're experiencing
now is just running alongside of some footmen and having some
encounters with foot soldiers. What will you do when you have
the cavalry come out against you? Jesus said, he that is faithful
in little is faithful in much. He that is unjust or unrighteous
in little is unjust in much. If we are unwilling to contend
for the faith in an uncontentious, gracious, but firm way with our
peers at school. with our work associates in the
shop and in the office and the neighbors over the back fence,
if we are unwilling to contend for the faith, when in the knowledge
that we are somewhat more religious than they, they try to say something
religious and out comes some foolish, innocuous religious
drivel, and we let it go unchallenged and do not graciously seek to
find a leading to speak of the truth of God. If we're not prepared
to contend earnestly for that faith, in that situation, what
makes us think we'd confess it when there was a rifle at our
forehead or a stake to which we were pointed, surrounded with
kindling wood and someone ready to tie us and burn us? Dear people,
may God help us to lay to heart this pastoral exhortation of
Jude. It's my great delight, and has
been over the years, to traverse many portions of the Word of
God that would fit what Jude was purposing to do, speaking
of our common salvation. as we preach the glorious doctrines
of justification and adoption and sanctification and glorification,
as we preach through large portions of the Word of God, such as Ephesians
1 and 2, that open up the wonders of God's salvation. But there
comes a time when we too must be exhorted to contend earnestly
for the once for all delivered to the saints faith. And I trust
you will take that exhortation to heart. And to you who are
not the children of God, what do I have to say to you? Well,
turn to the end of Jude's letter as we conclude our message tonight.
Listen to what Jude says we ought to seek to do for you. In the
face of false teachers and false teaching, the way we become equipped
to contend earnestly for the faith is given to the people
of God in verse 20, but you, beloved, Building up yourselves
on your most holy faith, become established upon that body of
revealed truth. Praying in the Holy Spirit, seeking
grace and light and enablement, keep yourselves in the love of
God, maintain the felt awareness of His love. The thing we emphasized
this morning, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life, that's having one eye to the clouds, the coming
glory, and his second advent. Then verse 22, And on some have
mercy who are in doubt, and some save, snatching them out of the
fire. And on some have mercy with fear,
hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. You who are unconverted,
boys, girls, men and women, we would seek to extend and be,
as it were, the mouthpiece of God's mercy. We would call upon
you this night, even though, as the marginal reading has,
you may be ready to dispute what is the faith. In your heart of
hearts, when you hear the word God, you know there's a God,
and you know you're going to meet Him when you die. And conscience
acts! You know you're accountable to
the God who implanted that consciousness of your accountability to Him.
You know it! Stop all of the smoke. When you
hear of Christ and His death for sinners and the call to repent
and believe the gospel, try as you may. You can't dismiss it
as all a bunch of religious hogwash. Dear people, we would have mercy
upon you and beg you, don't stifle the voice of God speaking in
the word, speaking in conscience through the word. Some say snatching
them out of the fire. Would to God we could physically
reach and snatch you from the fires of hell over which you
hang this moment in your We can only do that by pleading with
you to turn from your sins and to turn to Christ. Some have
mercy with fear. In other words, God says to the
beloved in God the Father, to the called and the kept for Jesus
Christ, while they build themselves up in their most holy faith,
pray in the Holy Spirit, keep themselves in the love of God
and look for the mercy that will come at the coming of Christ.
Don't forget the lost around you and make every effort to
win them. And my dear unconverted man, woman, boy or girl, as I've
thought about some of you even this week, for what will you
barter your soul? Ask yourself, is it worth a few
years of the smiles of my peers to go to hell forever? Is it
worth it? Let's set aside the glory of
God and the honor of God and the claims of God and let's come
down to the most self-centered element in all of this. Is it
worth it to go to eternal torments for a few smiles from a few friends
for a few short years in this life? Is it worth it for a few
pleasures at your nerve endings? wherever God's placed them, in
whatever capacity you have the ability to enjoy them. Is it
worth it to have a few more pleasures at nerve endings somewhere, anywhere? To have every nerve screaming
with the agonies of the fires of hell forever?
I ask you, is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it worth it? God have mercy on me. who are
yet out of Christ, that you may embrace the faith. And that faith
is summed up in a person who himself stands before you in
the gospel and says, come unto me. Not to my church, not to
my ministers, not to my ordinances, but come to me. I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn early. God enabled you
to go to Christ. Go to Christ is our plea. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you, we
praise you, for that once for all delivered to the saints'
faith. We thank you that we have not followed cunningly devised
fables, that we have this more sure word of prophecy embedded
in the very words of our Bibles. And we thank you that in spite
of all of the efforts of all the false teachers of all the
centuries, that faith remains alive in the hearts of millions
around the world today. Oh God, we thank you that our
Lord Jesus is fulfilling his own word of prophecy and promise
that he would build his church and the gates of hell should
not prevail against it. We ask that this word of exhortation
given by Jude to those of his own day would be written upon
our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost and that we as a people
may be committed to contend earnestly for this faith once for all delivered
to the saints. We pray for those who are outside
the orbit of the saving power of that faith. Grant, O Lord,
that the entreaties of this night will not fall to the ground.
Grant that the efforts to reason with sinners concerning the unreasonableness
of going on in their lostness, O Spirit of God, will you not
take them by the ear and bring them home? Lord God, bring them
home. We beg of you for their good
and for your glory. Seal your word to our hearts.
May your blessing rest upon us throughout the days of this week.
That each of us who names the name of Christ may, in his respected
sphere of influence and labor, oh may each glorify you. Contend earnestly for the faith.
and seek graciously and lovingly to rescue those who are outside
that faith. We ask these mercies through
the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.