I'd like us to turn to the epistle
of Jude that we read earlier, and to be particularly looking
in the third verse, and as it were, the words, or as it were, our heading, our
theme this morning are these, earnestly contend for the faith
once delivered to the saints. Earnestly contend for the faith. You may ask, first of all, who
is Jude? Funny name, who is Jude? Well,
if you look in your Greek Bibles, you'll see that he's actually
Judas. And who is this Judas? If you
read various books and commentaries, you might get a mix of opinions
as to who he is. But if you read the best conservative
people, the Gills and the Calvins, and so on, Matthew, Henry, Paul,
You'll be there quite clear as I think I'm quite clear. This
is the Apostle Jude. And he identifies himself as
the brother of James. Remember we have the two apostles
who were brothers. They were the sons of Alpheus
or Cleopas. Their mother was probably Mary.
And they were kinsmen, possibly cousins of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why they're called brother
of the Lord at times. There are those who say that
he's the that a brother of Jesus is the son of Mary and Joseph. There is no evidence at all in
the word of God that they were ever amongst the apostolic band,
ever amongst the leaders. We know from the Gospels that
his brethren were opposing him. We do read of them though in
the Acts when they gather for prayer, that big prayer meeting,
Mary and his brethren were listed as there. All the epistles, surely,
are written by apostles. Five different apostles penned
these epistles. That's part of the authority
of the Word of God. These were men ordained, trained,
appointed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, as we read, this epistle
is very powerful. These men were not ignorant,
unlearned men. Some of them may have been fishermen.
didn't mean they were not educated. Possibly someone like Peter was
a businessman and was clearly very capable. You read his epistles,
they are no less in their weight and content than the writings
of Paul. And so we see with Jude it's a very powerful epistle. We see there in Luke 6.16 that
the two brothers are listed in the list of the apostles of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's good to remind ourselves
of this. In chapter 6, I think it's verse
16, we read that Judas, the brother, It says of James, doesn't it?
Of James, the brother of James and Judas Iscariot. Now we don't
often focus on Jude because he's right, isn't he? He's at the
end of the list. We know when we read through
the Scriptures, we read of Peter, James, John and Andrew, don't
we? They are the prominent ones.
We read very little of the others, but that doesn't mean in any
way that their service, their knowledge of the truth was in
any way inferior. And how can I say that? Well,
when there was that dispute about Gentile Christians coming into
the church through the work of Paul and Barnabas and so on,
what was going to be done? How could they resolve this?
They held this council in Jerusalem. This is the context of Acts 15,
you probably know it very well. Who presided over that council? It was the Apostle James, wasn't
it? The brother of Jude. He presided over that, a council,
and he gave the judgment, he dictated the letter that was
to go out to these churches. It wasn't Peter, it wasn't John. Paul went to Jerusalem, he said
there were pillars in the church, they seemed to be Peter, James
and John. This was not James the brother
of John, he was slain, wasn't he, sadly, by Herod early in
the history of the church. But this is James, the son of
Alphaeus, of Judas is his brother. But these men were all trained. Think about this. I was sitting
and thinking yesterday and it was just getting very big in
my mind. Sometimes you sit and think about things, you think,
well perhaps I've never thought of that before, never really
put my mind to it. These men spent three years in
the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. God manifests in the
flesh. They were taught everything they
knew by Him. Think about that. Some of us
went to higher education for three years and we learnt quite
a lot and some of us are still going through the process of
learning and you learn a lot but to spend three intense years
with Christ. What were they taught? What truths? Does it not come forth? in the
epistles? Does that not have an impact?
Of course it does. And so here, and we see here
the force of truth really with this apostle. Now this is called
a general epistle, you know we like to label things don't we,
sometimes it helps or sometimes it doesn't. It's called general
in that it's not written to a person, it's not written to a church,
it's written to all the church and it's written to a church
in all time, it's written to us here this morning. Sometimes
called Catholic, I don't like using that word, but we can use
the word Catholic in the right sense. And of course it comes
with great authority, he's an apostle, it's always been in
the canons of scripture. This epistle was always owned.
Some parts of the scripture, like James, that are argued about,
not this. You go back and you read John
Gill, he'll tell you, quote, all the early fathers and authorities,
you owned this epistle as the canon of scripture. You have
every confidence in it. It is short, isn't it? That doesn't
mean it's not the word of God, it doesn't mean... One of the
dangers, isn't it, we read the long books, and we kind of give
them great weight. We must be careful that we don't
ignore some of the shorter books. Some of the shorter books are
very powerful, aren't they? telling, like the epistles of
John, like the book of Jonah and so on. You know the books.
Micah, the prophecy of Micah. They may not be as long as Isaiah
and so on, but they are the word of God. And so here we do take
note of this. It's very memorable, this epistle.
As we read through them, I'm sure there are parts of it you
remember. And they are very memorable parts of this epistle. It's powerful. It's emphatic. And when we bring
forth the word of truth, that's right, we need to be emphatic
about these truths, we want to put them over, we want to persuade
them. And I like the introduction here, it's gospel, right at the
start. I'm sure I've preached on this,
I couldn't find any notes on it, but I'm sure I've preached
on this first verse, because this contains the gospel, it's
so clear. He writes to those who are sanctified
by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ and called. And
you might say, well, is the Gospel there? Well, that sums up to
me the great truths of the Gospel. Firstly, they're not necessarily
the order here that Jude puts them over. We are called. That's
God's work. He calls people by grace. Christ
has come to seek and to save that which is lost and to call
them. And we are the called. It's not
a hit and miss thing, is it, the gospel? God is working out
his purpose. He is having a people for himself. He is building his church. He calls people to him. Therefore, the true believer
is one who has been called, not someone who has made a choice,
but one who has been called. And they are sanctified when
you are called in Christ. to be sanctified is not just
to be terribly holy and as the world would understand it is
to be set, the word really means to be set apart. We are set apart
for God. If you were a believer in the
Lord Jesus Christ, that's where you are. You may not think that
or feel that right now, but if God is with you, he's set you
apart for him. He's taken you out of the world.
This is what we learn in the gospel. And he's placed you in
his kingdom. You've been set apart. That's
what sanctification is. Then, how you live. That is that
process. Yes, we want to live, as it were,
holy lives. We want, by the grace of God, to do those things that
please Him. That is the Gospel. And I love
this. We have to say this as well.
We don't keep ourselves. You can go to some churches.
I went in my earlier days and they were always telling us about
falling away and you could lose your faith. It was quite worrying. I was very glad that from an
early stage in my Christian life, I came to know the doctrines
of grace and came to see that that wasn't the case. Because
I don't keep myself. If God has saved us, he will
keep us. He will preserve us. We believe
that. That's one of those five great
doctrines, all truths that we believe, the final preservation
of the saints. They are preserved by God. He
has saved them. He is going to keep them. We,
in our simple hearts, at times alas, will slip and slide and
fail. He will keep us. It is lovely
that right at the beginning of this epistle there is a clear
statement of who the Christians are. And then he's saying to
them at the beginning, I'm coming to you with a strong, emphatic
message. This is what God has laid on
my heart to give to you, so write it down that it will be kept.
I gave all diligence to write unto you, he said. All diligence. So that to me is the Apostle
saying, you've got to take, the whole church has got to take
notice now of what I'm writing to you. Due diligence. to write
of the common salvation. When we see the word common there,
we don't mean like ordinary, or it doesn't mean very much,
and sometimes we use the word common, and that's a very common
thing. No, it means general. It is that which is shared amongst
us, that which unites us in the faith, the faith once delivered
to the saints. That's what we have in in common. This is what I'm writing unto
you of the salvation that we've received from God. We read in
Titus 1.4 that it's a common faith and that I think is the
same thing, the common faith, the common salvation. He's saying
it's very, very needful to write to you. Now if somebody comes
up to somebody you know, stops you and says it's very needful,
I really need to talk to you, you know that, wow, this is quite
important, I need to stop now, I need to listen. This is what
the apostle is saying now to the church, to those reading
the letter, and we'll see why it is. And that he should write,
put this down, that you should be in no doubt, it's there, you
can refer to it. And there is one gospel, that's
also what he's saying, there's not any other gospel, In our
day there are lots of Gospels, lots of people purporting to
present the truth. We know there are all the terrible
cults and you can go to different churches and you can hear different
messages, different ways to salvation. People will be claiming all sorts
of different experiences. But this is what Paul says in
Galatians 1 verses 8 and 9. He says but though we are an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you let him be accursed as we said before so
I say I now so say I now again if any man preach any other gospel
unto you than that ye have received let him be accursed that's strong
isn't it that says to us you've got to hold to the gospel. What is the gospel? The gospel,
says Jude, is the faith once delivered to the saints. That's
what we hold to. We mustn't play faster. We'll
say, well, you hear people, don't you? I'm sure you've heard them
say, well, you know, all the churches, you know, they're all
basically ways to get to God, you know, so whether you're a
Roman Catholic or a Greek Orthodox or whatever you are, even a Christodelf,
you know, That's not the case, is it? That's why we discriminate. That's why people say to us,
at Salem Place, that's very cold and harsh there. Well, I don't
think we are cold and harsh, are we? But we're very firm about
this, that we're going to hold fast to the word of truth. That's what we are about here.
That's what distinguishes us. And people don't like that, do
they? They think you're narrow. And my answer is yes, I am narrow.
Because that's what the Lord said. It is a narrow way. The
way that leads to salvation is much narrower, really, than we
realize. We thank God for these things. To know the Gospel, to know the
truth, it's so important to us. He says it's needful to write
here. Now let me ask you, is it needful? for you to know these things,
to be reminded of them? Yes it is. For some it's more
needful than others. And more than that, says the
Apostle, it's quite necessary for me to exhort you. You can go to some places and
they will just talk very nicely to you. Some churches you would
go to, they would never say anything harsh to you, they wouldn't say
anything demanding to you, they would just be nice to you or
do stop for a coffee afterwards but if I'm ministering the word
of God and I'm sure it's true of the other brethren at this
place you hear them we've got to tell you what the scripture
says and we've got to exhort you not because we're trying
to pick on anyone I can assure you that everything I've been
through this morning I'm going to speak about I've had to examine
my own heart you can't stand in the pulpit and tell these
truths if you've not applied them and thought about them for
yourself because they're telling So this is, you can see how emphatic
this is all building up. We've got to know these truths
and they have to be set forth. And this is really where he comes
to, this is the, as he were, he's building up to what he's
now going to say, to those things that I said we would be looking
at as our central point this morning. This is what he's leading
to. That we should earnestly contend
for the faith. Now you can contend, but you
can earnestly contend. I trust you will see the difference
there. He's so emphatic. Not other agendas. This is what the church is about. This is what we want to be. I'm sure you're all here because
this is what we're about. We want to know the faith. One
Syllabus of the Saints. We don't come here because we've
got the bingo night or the sports club and all the rest of it.
I'm not speaking against people having social activities, but
that's not what we come here for. What is the attraction of
a Free Christ Church? Surely, for me, it's been this,
that we hear the Faith One Syllabus of the Saints. Remember the very
first time we came here, we come from a very different sort of
church. They had a godly and faithful pastor, I don't want
to speak against him, or the brethren who went there, but
I came here and Mr. MacLaren was speaking and I immediately
saw a difference. Immediately, we discussed it
amongst ourselves, we said, go there, this is what we want to
hear, we agree with it, this is the truth, this is what we
want, we should have come here earlier, we should have known
this church was here. We have to set forth these truths
and we trust that God will speak and make himself known. Now to
contend for the faith is not to be contentious. We need to
say that, don't we? I know people, I'm not going
to mention any names, you know some people, ever so contentious.
They love an argument, they love to debate minutiae, fine points
of the scripture, and there are certain denominations, again
you'll know, certain denominations, who love pointing out the errors
of everybody else's writing. And I'll tell you what, they
all write against the strict practice. They all write against
baptism. and so on. I can remember the
late pastor saying he'd done enough of them, he wasn't going
to contend with them any more. He was going to concentrate on
preaching the truth because he realised that we were in, to
be a strict practice, everybody would speak against you. We don't
mind. We're going to contend, but there
are ways of contending. We mustn't be contentious, we
mustn't be people who want to be argumentative and splitting
hairs all the time. We want to be positive, discontented,
but to be positive is to be how we go in our life. We live as
it were a life, we want to be positive, speaking about the
word of truth, not getting into endless contentions and arguments
with people. And these great truths, this
is what the Reformation was all about. The Reformation was to
rediscover the truth Justification. Salvation by faith. These great
truths that Luther came upon as he was taking his students
in Wittenberg. He's going through the epistle
of Rome with his students and God saved him. Opened all these
truths to him and said, I've got to leave this church. We have to contend for the faith,
but it's the faith once delivered to the saints. It's not anything
else. It's not an ism. It's not a denomination. So clear. Now can we know that? It's once delivered. I think,
you know, our pastor says every word that we have in our scriptures
is important. Every word. And you might find,
well, is that far fetched? Well, no. When it says the faith
once delivered to the saints, I think that's very important.
We have got that here. I thank God we have got the word
of truth. You go to the Church of Rome,
and they say, yes, there is the Bible, and the Bible is part
of the dominion of the Church of Rome. The Bible is under the
teaching and authority of the Church of Rome. And the Church
of Rome, its priests, particularly the Pope, their job is to open
up and expound the truth. It's not really for your private
reading and your private meditation. That's what they teach. And they
have added to it, and they say, well because the Bible is under
us, God reveals new things to us, and so we reveal these things,
and we have papal encyclicals, we have a thing called a papal
bull, and we could say foolish things about that title, and
they announce, through their history, these terrible errors,
particularly the ones about Mary, as though they're true, the truthful
they are, believe in the faith once delivered to the saints.
He's not delivered twice or three times. God doesn't say, oh I've
revealed this gospel of Jesus Christ but I didn't get it right
and we've got to improve on it, we've got to change on it, we
need to put this away and get the Book of Mormon out. Of course
we didn't. Wouldn't that be foolish? But
we've got the faith once delivered. We've got to know that. Why?
Because God has given it. How do we know God has given
it? He sent Christ That's how we know. These are the things
that Christ taught. We read here the things that
he taught his apostles. Jude was taught by the Lord Jesus
Christ. Isn't that wonderful? So we have
these things. Luther was crystal clear on this. No one could be clearer than
Martin Luther. Wonderful. What a man. I'm reading
one of his books at the moment. Not easy to read. All the mind,
the clarity of truth. Our pastor said recently, and
there's a lot in this, he said, you know, Luther was the Reformation.
And there's a lot to be said. We were looking at a picture
of John Knox this morning. In Scotland, really, he was the
Reformation in Scotland. He was so influential. But Luther,
because he knew Knox, of course, was so influential. The Scriptures,
I mean, he stood before the Holy Roman Emperor, the man appointed,
the theologian appointed by the church around this man Ecker
and hosts of people when he went to Worms and all his books piled
up and said if you can prove to me anything that I've said
in any of my books is not in the scriptures I will be the
first to burn them and they couldn't because that's what he wrote,
he wrote the truth we need to be as clear as that man to be
clear about our gospel. And we were just thinking actually
in the car coming down this morning, what is it we believe? We believe
in Jesus Christ and Him crucified and the other truths that come
from that. This is really Paul in the first
two chapters of 1 Corinthians, that great argument, debate about
the gospel and the truth and what is it the world go after
and where is the church? and where are we? he says for
that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God
it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe for the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after
wisdom but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are called
both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of
God. Well, that's where we want to
stand, isn't it? I trust by the grace of God this morning. Is
that not where you want to be? You want to know Christ and Him
crucified. That's your hope. That's what
you look for. You're not looking for any signs
or wonders beyond that. You need to be crystal clear.
We do not want the traditions of men. I have to say, I say
this carefully, that we're careful about the traditions of men.
Every denomination has its traditions. It says everything, everything. Again, our pastor says, by the
anvil of scripture, as it were, we hammer out the truth. Even
among strict practicists, alas, there can be errors, mistakes,
misunderstandings. I've found, alas, talking to
people, they don't quite understand certain things clearly, and therefore
when one is called upon to preach, you have to really make an effort
to be clear clear in your own mind first before you attempt
to bring that forth. There is a need even amongst
us, we don't know everything, we're not always right. We need
to bring everything to the scriptures. There's a constant battle. This is what the weight of this
epistle is about, isn't it? He's saying, you know, we've
got a battle round us. I don't think his day was different
from ours. People crept in unawares, come into time, persuade us.
There were those, even when they came out of Egypt, tried to rebel
against Moses. There were the angels, we know,
don't we? The angels who followed Satan, who left their first estate. And listen to this, verse 7.
If I go out in the streets and say this, the police would come
and arrest me. Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities
about them, that is set forth by God for all time and history
as a warning if you involve yourself in perverted behaviour you are
under the judgement of God there are parts of the so called Christian
Church giving in to all this now finding ways to accommodate
it, finding ways to bless it and all the rest of it this is
what the word of God says and you bring yourself, what is it
under? the vengeance of eternal fire this is a great wickedness
isn't it? But Sodom and Gomorrah is set
forth as a warning. If you behave that way then you
are under God's judgement. Alas for the people who have
already had one terrible illness come upon them. Who knows what
the judgement of God is going to be upon them and upon our
land because of what has happened. As we say the word of God is
relevant. to today, it's not an old book,
it's not looking backwards, it is for now, isn't it? It's for
the church age, it deals with things as they are, there are
these warnings and so they go on. We see woes and disputings
and people alas, perhaps who come into the church, who are
And in some churches they have that. They are some very difficult
people. Sometimes people, as you see pictures here, who are
like the raging waves of the sea, they are putting out their
own ideas, they are trying to corrupt people. And God is not
mocked by these people. We read in verse 18 that there
should be mockers in the last time. You read that in Peter
as well. In 2 Peter 3 and verse 3 you
read almost identical words to these. Now this is the day we're
in. Do not people mock the gospel? I've seen it, they do. They do
lampoon our saviour. I've seen them attempt to lampoon
the crucifixion. There are cartoons about it and
all the rest of it. that there should be mockers,
and they do. They indirectly mock, because when they start
talking about their science and evolution, they mock Christians,
they mock the fact that we believe in creation, which is a perfectly
scientific and reasonable view to take. All the evidence you
can find out there really points to a creation and a short life
of the universe in this world. We are not foolish. We believe
the truth. We are not believing in foolish
things. People who walk after their ungodly
lusts, who separate themselves sensually, having not the spirit
in some of these, stand up and profess to be Christians. It's
a sad, sad day. But rather, he encourages us. I like this here, at the end
of this. These are lovely words. Having said all that he has to
say, he says it as a warning. All these things are set forth
before us today as a warning. Do not be deceived about the
world you're in. This is the truth about the world
we're in. And as Christians we have to
stand. As Christians I trust we see the light, we know the
truth. We have God with us. But he says, by ye beloved, building
up yourselves on your most holy faith. Well that I trust is what
we're about today. We've come to hear the word of
God. I trust we're going to be reading
it ourselves in our own time. We've got to build ourselves
up. I think I've said before, you can't tread water as a Christian.
You've got to go on in the faith. You can't stand still. You've
got to build yourself up in your holy faith and praying in the
Holy Ghost. Oh, prayer. Isn't that so important?
There's so many things in this epistle. I haven't got time,
but isn't it so important to see the importance of prayer?
Oh, to look to God and Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for
the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Aren't they
lovely, comforting, strengthening words. What a clear response
to all these terrible things. We look to our faith, we look
to Christ, we look to our walk with Him, we look to the fellowship
of the saints, their support, their prayers, all that God has
given us. So, just finally, very quickly,
some implications for us, beyond those I've already mentioned. I've got six points here. Firstly,
are we in the faith? That's part of the challenge.
This is the gospel. It finds us out, doesn't it?
If you don't really understand what I'm saying, or you're not
sure about it, you need to be sure. And if God is working in
our hearts, we have a soul concern, that's a good thing. And therefore,
if we feel that, we should seek the Lord. I get accused of preaching
free will. I want you to know that I never
preach free will. I don't believe in free will.
But I do believe the word of God, that when a man, a woman's
heart is stirred towards God, then seek the Lord while he may
be found. Call upon him while he is near.
God is doing a sovereign work. Do believe that. And who do we
contend with? Who is it? I'm sure you know
that's some that you do come into contention with. Maybe it's
sometimes in church context, who knows? In society at large,
in your job, in your family. It can be most difficult when
it's within the family. But we contend for the truth.
We're not to be contentious, are we? Thirdly, we've got to
be earnest. in our Christian life, aren't
we? Have you got an earnestness about your life? Or are you just
plodding along as the days go by? How is it we conduct ourselves? Well, the Word of God says we
are to be earnest in our faith. Like Paul at Athens. See, Paul
contended with the most intelligent, clever men of his time. as it
were, set out to attack them and speak against them, he contended,
he tried to reason with them and they came back to listen
to him. Some thought he was a foolish man, didn't they? But there were
some who believed. He's a great example to us, the
Apostle, isn't he? Contending for the faith earnestly,
which means we have to speak it as we have opportunities,
isn't it? Fourth point, we speak it, we defend it. It doesn't
mean we're always on to people. I remember when I was at IBM,
we had a young chap from the evangelical church and he was
always on, always talking and badgering people and taking leaflets
around and so on and yet he didn't have a very clear view of the
faith and he just irritated people. was just at people. Oh, we've
got a missionary, a special missionary collection, would you like to
give to it? We banned everybody's desk every day and people would
see them coming and they would take off to the copy machine.
You know, we want to be honest but we want to be very wise and
careful in that and we want to speak it and to live it and to
be at peace with people. And the scriptures are quite
clear on that. There's two verses. This is Hebrews
12 and verse 14. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Follow peace.
Try and be peaceful with people. It may not be possible, but that
is the path we should tread. So we've got this challenge of
trying to live for the truth, speak for the truth, yet try
to be peaceful, to be diplomatic, to be kind. We want to persuade
people, we want them to know the truth, but we want God to
work in their lives. As Paul says in Romans, 12 and
verse 18 if it be possible as much as life in you live peaceably
with all men so you've got to put these truths together there's
the earnestly contending and there's the live peaceably I
trust you you can see that you can resolve this and fifthly
here beware of reinterpretation of the gospel I have mentioned
it which means you've got to know and be clear for yourself
what is the gospel We are in a day when people are revising,
reinterpreting. I've got a book at home, and
it's called, it's about the New Calvinists, and their various
theological names, some of which people here might know, in it.
And they are pretending to be Calvinistic, but they're not.
They're not really presenting the truths in the way that we
would present them here. They're calling it New Calvinism,
but it's actually compromising the Word of God, with the world,
taking a much more relaxed feel about certain things. I'm still
getting to grips with this. I felt I needed to understand
things like John Pipe, Don Carson, names you may have heard. They
are having a lot of influence. Be very wary. Everything has
to be tested by the anvil of scripture. Be very wary. Books
being produced, But we cannot be seduced by even something
that sounds like the Reformed faith, and it's not. And that's
one of the dangers of our day. We know this, the Charismatic,
many other people. There's all sorts of persuasions
available out there. And finally, the sixth point
has to be said, we can never be too comfortable with the world. You cannot be, I cannot be, in
the end. Here, says Paul, In Hebrews we
have no continuing city, we look for one that is atonement. I
feel perfectly at home here in the church. I say to Henry, very
often on Sunday morning when we are in there, I say this is
where I want to be. I want to be anywhere else in
this world. I want to be here at Salem Chapel,
on the Lord's Day morning, worshipping God. This is where I want to
be with these people. But we can never be entirely comfortable
in this world, can we? This world is a wicked world.
It lies in the grip of the evil one. It's a sinful world. It
will always be a battle. It will never be easy for the
believer. But it will be glorious in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because
we have to earnestly contend for the faith. That's what Judas
says. He's needful. that we are reminded. You might
think I'm laying it on this morning, but no. The Apostle gave all
diligence to write this letter, because it was needful to write
and needful to exhort. And so it is for all of us that
we should earnestly contend for the faith. Once delivered to
the saints, or if you feel a concern, you're not sure about these things,
or as I say, we seek him, we seek him that we might find him,
we might know these truths for ourselves. If we worry, there's
great comfort in the scripture, we need to know the portions
of the scripture, they're good to go back to, perhaps to yourself
have a list or a note of helpful scriptures, or even to have them
written out or printed out, and you go back to these scriptures,
and I go back to the end of Romans, chapter 8, I love that chapter,
I've preached on it, I think the last time I've preached here,
it's such a wonderful, wonderful chapter. And you have these words
at the end, which are such a comfort to us. Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ, of tribulation, of distress, of persecution,
of famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sore, as it is written, for
thy sake we are killed all the day long, we are accounted as
sheep for the slaughter, nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us for I am persuaded that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's our great hope. We're
in Christ. Then we shall be kept. We shall be, as the Apostle says
at the beginning, we shall be preserved. That is the great
truth. We thank God for his precious
word of truth. We thank him for this exhortation,
this epistle, that we should take note of this, that we should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints.