Now as Brother Jim just said,
I'm going to be preaching from the book of Jude, the second
to the last book of the Bible, right before Revelation. Last
week I gave you sort of a context of this book and how Jude, the
human writer of this book, this short letter, general letter
to the church in the last days, which we're living in today,
how he wrote this concerning perilous times in the last days. And so I want to just, I'm going
to major on verse three today, but just go back to verse one.
It starts off with Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, the
brother of James. And you know, there are several
men named Jude. The actual name was Judas. Of course, when you hear the
name Judas, you think of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of our
Lord, but this is not Judas Iscariot. This is another Judas, but sometimes
shortened to Jude. Some scholars believe this is
the Apostle Jude. Others believe it's not, and
I agree with them that this is the half-brother along with James
here, that he mentions, of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord had
half-brothers. Now, you have to understand that
now. You know, the Catholic Church
says that's not so, that Mary didn't have any other children,
but they did. We see several points in the
New Testament where she and her other sons came to talk with
Jesus her son by the miraculous birth, conception and birth of
the Holy Spirit. So Jesus, in his humanity, was
not born with the aid of man. He was conceived in the womb
of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit. And so he is perfect man, his
humanity. He is both God and man in one
person. And that's an amazing thing.
But that's the kind of person that it took to save his people
from their sins. Matthew 1 verse 21 speaks of
that where the angel told Joseph his name shall be called Jesus
the name Jesus means he shall save his people from their sins
and to assure Joseph that and us that he is capable of doing
that In verse 23, he says, his name shall be called Immanuel. And the word Immanuel, the name
Immanuel means God with us. So he is God with us. He's the
word made flesh dwelling among us. And so Joseph was not literally,
physically his father. Mary was his mother, but he was
conceived in the womb by the Holy Spirit. But Joseph and Mary
had other children. And this Judas, Jude, and this
James were two of them. And I believe that's who the
human writer. But the thing about it is, understand this, whenever
we talk about the human writers of these books of the Bible,
we need to understand that ultimately God is the author. God is the
author. This is the inspiration of God,
Paul told Timothy. That means God breathed. So who
wrote the book of Jude? God did. Jude was inspired by
the Spirit. These are inspired books. And
so Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ. Now, why didn't he call
himself the half-brother of Christ? Could you imagine what false
evangelists today would do with information like that? Well,
they'd put it on a billboard up here somewhere. I think about
John the Baptist, you know. Think about the credentials that
John the Baptist could have talked about to promote himself. But he didn't talk about any
of that. He just talked about Christ. And he said, I'm not
the Christ. I can't save you. I can't give
you life. I'm pointing you to the Lamb
of God, which bears away the sins of the world. He said, I'm
not even fit to tie his shoes. He said, I must decrease. He
must increase. Let's talk about Christ. Let's
not talk about the man behind the pulpit. I'm just the messenger. If you're drawn to me, you're
drawn to the wrong one. You need to be drawn to Christ.
And I love that passage in John 3 when it says they heard John
speak, John the Baptist, and they followed Jesus. That's the
prayer of any true God-sent minister. You hear me speak, but I don't
want you to follow me. I want you to follow Christ.
And so James, a Jew, identifies himself as the servant of Jesus
Christ. And the word servant there is
the word bondservant, bondslave. And I'm not gonna go into all
that today, I don't have time, but a bond slave is a slave,
a servant that served his master, not because he owed a debt, not
because he'd been kidnapped and put in chains, he serves his
master because he loves his master. And so what are we if we're believers,
if we're sinners saved by grace, if we're Christians? We are bond
servants of Christ. Our debt has been paid to God's
law. You know, a bondservant was one who owed a debt he couldn't
pay, and he sold himself out to the one to whom he owed the
debt, and he had to work so many years, I think it was seven,
and then the debt was paid. Well, our debt, if we're believers
now, our debt's been paid. Our debt to God's law and justice
has been fully paid by the blood of Christ. The redemption price
is what the scripture calls it. Redeemed, how I love to proclaim
it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And so that's what
Jude is saying, his brother James, he's writing to believers. He
says to them that are sanctified. Now in some translations that's
saying those who are the beloved of God. But those who are beloved
of God are sanctified. What does sanctified mean? That
means they've been set apart by God to be his children. They've been chosen by God before
the foundation of the world. Their names were written in the
Lamb's Book of Life before the foundation of the world. And
they were sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Jesus Christ,
kept. I love that. Because I know if
we weren't kept, we wouldn't be kept. That's preservation. That's why we talk about salvation
that cannot be lost. If you are saved by the grace
of God, you cannot lose it. Why? Because you're preserved
in Jesus Christ. Christ died for my sins. Christ
was raised again because of my justification. God cannot and
will not charge me with my sins. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn us? It's Christ that died, who is
raised from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father,
ever living to make intercession for right now. Think about it
if you're a child of God, if you're a believer. How do I know
that God sanctified me? How do I know that God loves
me? How do I know He chose me? Do you believe in Christ? The
Christ of the Bible? Not just any idea, you know,
everybody says they believe in Jesus, but there are other Jesuses.
There are false Christ. Read 2 Corinthians 11. I might
refer to that a little bit in just a moment. But there's one,
gee, that's why I had Jim read that Ephesians 4. One faith,
one baptism, one gospel, one God, one spirit, not many. You see, the world today, even
the false Christian world has fallen prey to the heresy of
plurality. Now what is that? Well, we all
just worship the same God, we're just going different ways, or
there are many different ways to God. That's not true. One God. One mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the God-man. He said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. Somebody will criticize you.
They'll say, well, you're being very narrow. Well, the Lord told
us in Matthew 7, it's a straight and narrow way. Few there be
that find it. Broad road leads to destruction.
So don't fall prey to plurality. and will do you no good. It may
seem loving and kind and compassionate to the world, but it's deadly,
deadly poison. Well, we're preserved in Jesus
Christ. How do I know that I'm sanctified
by the Father? Preserved in Jesus Christ. Well,
look at that last word, called. Have you been called? Now, that's
the effectual, invincible, powerful calling of the gospel by the
power of the spirit that always brings a sinner to believe in
Christ. I can tell you one thing about
yourself before you walk out that door today. If you don't
believe the gospel, if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
if you're not resting in his blood for your forgiveness and
his righteousness alone for all your salvation, truly, if you're
not hungry for his word and his gospel, You walk out that door,
you haven't been called. Isn't that right? To those who are called. This
is a holy calling, he calls it. That's how I know that I've been
chosen of God. That's how I know I've been sanctified. That's how I know I'm loved of
God. That's how I know I've been given
spiritual life from the dead. I've been called by the Spirit
under the gospel. The Bible says in Romans 1 16
and 17, Paul wrote, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it
is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth And
it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, to the Jew
first and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith, knowledge revealed by God through his word,
to faith, knowledge received, the gift of God. For it is written,
the just shall live by faith. What is the righteousness of
God? It's the merits, the value, the worthiness, the power of
the obedience unto death of Christ, As my surety who took my debt
upon himself and agreed to pay the price, to pay my debt in
full. As my substitute who came to
this earth and took my place on the cross and died for my
sins, was buried and arose again because of my justification.
He's my redeemer. He's my right, I stand before
God justified. What does that mean? It means
I'm forgiven of all my sins based on a just ground. What is that
just ground? The blood of Christ. It means
I stand before God declared legally, really, factually righteous in
God's sight based on a just ground. What is that? The imputed righteousness
of Christ. His righteousness charged, accounted
to me. If any of you don't know the
word imputation, just look at your charge cards. When you go
into a store and you charge it, that debt is imputed, charged
to you. Well, my friend, my debt was
charged to Christ before the foundation of the world. He was
set up as my surety. A surety is one who agrees to
pay your debt if you can't pay it. Well, let me tell you something. My sin debt, I've never been
able to pay it, never will be able to pay it. Christ paid it
all. Jesus paid it all, all the debt I owe. So that's how we
know. And then verse two, he says,
mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. That was
Jude's prayer for the church. Mercy, that's compassion. The
compassion of God towards his people, his church, his family,
his children. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I will. I'll be compassionate to whom I will. Peace, that's
peace with God based upon the cross. what Christ accomplished,
peace with one another in the gospel. We're together in the
gospel. We're not at odds. We may be
at odds in something else. You all may have been at odds
yesterday over which football team won, but that doesn't matter
in this. This is eternal. We're not at
odds over the gospel and over the ground of salvation. And
be, he says, and love. Brotherly love, not just general
love to everybody, but not just love to our neighbor, but that
love that binds believers together in the truth. And that's what
he's talking about. Now, he says in verse three,
look at this. He says, beloved, talking about
his brethren in Christ. When I gave all diligence to
write unto you of the common salvation. Now Jude, when he
started this letter, And I think this is interesting how the spirit
leads in the inspiration of the scripture. Jude had on his mind,
and this is a good thing, to write to them of the common salvation. Now what is that common salvation?
Well, hold on, I'll talk to you about that. But he says, it was
needful for me to write unto you and exhort you, that's encourage
you, teach you, correct you, that you should earnestly That
is seriously contend for the faith which was once delivered
unto the saints. Contending for the faith. That faith which was once delivered
unto you by the saints. That faith which is the Christian
message. The message of the gospel. Which
is under attack from false preachers. false teachers who are spreading
dangerous heresies. And the reason, here's what's
happening, Jude had in mind to speak of them of what they had
in common as believers concerning the doctrine, but he said the
Spirit has put something else on my mind. And here it is, look
at verse four. Now here's the reason he said
I've diverted to this contending in the faith, he said, there
are certain men crept in unawares. That means they sneaked into
the body of believers. Unaware. Who were before of old
ordained to this condemnation. Now I'm gonna deal with that
next week, but he said this is well within the purpose of God.
These guys, listen, they crept in unawares to the brethren,
but not unawares to God. God knew full well that this
was going to happen. He ordained it. It says that.
People say, well, I don't like that. Well, it doesn't matter
whether you like it or not. There it is. And I always tell
people, don't get mad at me over this. I didn't write this. God
did. And he says, ungodly men, turning
the grace of God into lasciviousness, And he says, and denying the
only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'll get to that
verse mainly next week. But first of all, I want to talk
about this contending for the faith. And the first thing we
have to understand if we're going to follow the Lord's commandment
here is to understand what the faith really is. Contending for
the faith. You can't contend. The word contend
means to struggle. It means to strive on behalf
of something here. That word that you read in Ephesians
4, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit. That's not the
same word, literally, but it's like that word. It means the
same thing, endeavoring. This is effort that he's talking
about. Contend for what? Now, you're
contending on behalf of something, not against, but on behalf of
the faith. Now that means we're gonna contend
against the lies that are being told. So somebody said, well,
I don't want to talk about what's wrong, I just want to talk about
what's right. Well, I would go along with you if that was biblical,
but it's not. The Lord exposes what's wrong
here, and we'll see that later on in detail. but contending
for the faith. So first of all, what is the
faith? Well, it's the doctrine of faith. That's what he's talking
about. The teachings of Christ. The teachings of the apostles.
The teachings of the word of God from Genesis to Revelation,
especially in the gospel. As I quoted, I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. That's the good news of Jesus
Christ. It's the good news of his person,
who he is. Who is Jesus Christ? Well, I've
already said it. He's God, manifest in the flesh. If He's not God, then there's
no salvation for us, for anybody. And if He's not man without sin,
there's no salvation. You understand that? Our only hope is to be found
before God in what the Bible calls, as I mentioned earlier,
the righteousness of God. The righteousness of man will
do us no good. Adam had that before he fell,
and he fell. But we who believe, we have the
righteousness of God charged to our account. What is that?
That's the righteousness of the God man. Now he had to be man
also in order to die, to pay our debt. The soul that sinneth
must surely die. He didn't sin, but we did. And
our sin debt was charged to him. The wages of sin is death. You've
heard that, haven't you? Romans 3.23, or Romans 6.23? All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Well, I've sinned. I'm a sinner. So are you. Christ is the perfect
God-man who took my sins to the cross. And he put them away. So it's the gospel of his glorious
person. There's only one like him. None
other like him. And it's the gospel of His finished
work on the cross where He put away the sins of His people and
brought forth an everlasting righteousness. There's only one
gospel. Paul spoke in Galatians chapter
1 when he was dealing with the Galatian churches who had been
infiltrated with false believers. Claiming to believe Christ, claiming
to be Christian, claiming to believe in grace, but who introduced
conditional salvation by keeping the law. You gotta do this, you
gotta be circumcised, you gotta keep the law. And Paul said that's
not the true gospel, that's another gospel of a different kind. And
he said if they come along preaching that kind of gospel, let them
be anathema, they're false preachers. That's what he said. There's
only one gospel. The one gospel is defined in
this word common salvation, our common salvation. Now the word
common can sometimes mean ordinary, something that's common. Well,
that's just an ordinary thing, nothing special about it. But
that's not what this word common means. This word common means
that it is common to everyone who believes. It is a fellowship
word, actually is what it is, in love and truth. Peter called
it like precious faith, it's the common faith. If we're saved
by the grace of God, we have the same faith, the same doctrine,
the same gospel, the same grace. This is the salvation that all
true believers have in common. You're not saved one way and
me another. We're all saved the same way. Now you say, well now
wait a minute, I came out of this culture and from this lifestyle,
you came out of another culture and from this, well that's not
the same, but the way God saved us is the same, it's by grace. If God saved you, he saved you
by his grace, not by your works. It was all conditioned on Christ.
None of it was conditioned on you. Grace reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. This grace is common
to all of us who are saved. It's by His mercy in Christ.
It's by the power of God unto salvation through the work of
the Holy Spirit who gives life to His people from Christ. And
he brings us to be, all of us, to be convinced of sin. What
does that mean? Because we believe not on him.
That's what John 16 says. That without Christ, it's all
sin in the sight of God. Did you know that? Think about
it. If you were dying, go to stand
before God without Christ, what would you say? God says
this, if you go before Him without Christ, without being washed
in His blood and clothed in His righteousness, it is all sin. You say, but wait a minute, I
tried to be a good boy or girl. It's all sin in God's sight without
Christ. That's why we need salvation.
That's why we need grace. He convicts us of righteousness,
John 16 says, because Christ went unto the Father. In other
words, I need a righteousness that I can't produce. Should
I try to be the best person that I can be on this earth? Yes.
But is that gonna make me righteous enough to pass the test of judgment? No, God's gonna judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained and that
he hath given assurance unto all men and that he hath raised
him from the dead. You say, well, I try to love
everybody. Well, at the risk of making you angry, I'm gonna
tell you, no, you really don't. No, you don't. And I could put
it to the test. I could give you some examples.
You say, well, I try to love my friends. Maybe most of them,
I don't know. But here's the thing about it.
Unless our love can equal Christ's love for his people, there's
no hope of salvation based upon our love. What do I need to be saved? I
need His righteousness charged to me in my place. That's the common salvation.
There's one Savior whom we all have in common, Jesus Christ.
There's one way of salvation by God's grace. How God justifies,
how He forgives and declares righteous an ungodly sinner like
me, there's only one way. Issues of righteousness and holiness.
Is salvation conditioned all on Christ, not on me? Christ
who fulfilled all the conditions and secured my salvation is a
salvation that measures up to God's righteousness in Christ
because it is his righteousness. You see that? You know, there's
two common things. I've got an article I think is
coming out in next week's bulletin. On that, we could talk about
a lot of different heresies in false religion, but there's two
things that all false religions have in common. One of them is,
at some stage, in some way, to some degree, they will always
condition salvation on the sinner. Always. Instead of on Christ
alone. And then secondly, they will
always measure righteousness and holiness on a sliding scale. Righteousness and holiness, by
the way of morality, has no sliding scale. If you want to see the
reality of righteousness and holiness, where are you going
to look? Christ. And as long as I don't measure
up to him in my obedience as far as righteousness and holiness
is concerned, what does that tell me? I'm a sinner in need
of God's grace. That's the common salvation.
We'll look here, now contending for the truth, contending for
the faith, he says. The faith in the sense of the
truth, the body of teaching, the body of doctrine, of the
gospel, which we find in the Bible. And I know people interpret
the Bible in different ways, but there are rules of interpretation,
but the main issue of understanding the Bible is God must reveal
it. He's got to reveal it to us. But this faith, this gospel,
this truth has been entrusted to us by God. The Bible says
the church, the true church of the Lord Jesus Christ is the
pillar and ground of truth. If you find a place on this earth,
and there are a lot of them, that calls themselves a church,
and you walk in there and you hear the man behind the pulpit
or whoever preach something that is not consistent with this gospel,
with this word here, it's not a true church. Now that may sound
harsh, but it's just true. The church, the true church,
is the pillar and ground of truth. And it's entrusted to us, and
we're to be good stewards of His grace and truth, we're to
learn from it, and learn it. We're to guard it. That's what
contend means. It means to struggle, to guard
it, to keep it pure. It's precious. We're to defend
it. I've heard preachers say the
truth needs no defending. Well, God says it does. We're to cherish it with our
lives. This truth is life. Did you know
that? Christ told His disciples, He
said, the truth will set you free. This truth is liberty and
freedom. To contend is to guard and defend
it against all attacks against it, all efforts to confuse it,
all efforts to ignore it. It's like being a soldier in
a war. That's why in Ephesians 6, he
talks about put on the whole armor of God. Why? That you may be a soldier in
the army of God, basically. He tells us that our weapon is
the word of God. That's why he tells us in 2 Timothy
2.15, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth
not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. He tells us
in 1 Peter 3, 15, to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and
be ready to give an answer to those who ask us for the reason
of the hope that we have. It's like training for the Olympics,
one person said. We're to strive to be skillful.
Paul said in Hebrews chapter five, to be skillful in the word
of righteousness that we might discern, that is, judge between
what is good and what is evil. The doctrine of Christ. That's
what this is called. Once for all handed down to the
saints cannot be changed. This truth does not change. That's
another error that people have fallen prey to. Not only pluralism,
but relativism. The truth is relative. In other
words, the truth is different for us than it was in Paul's
day or in Moses' day. Not the truth of salvation. The
Gospel is the same in Genesis 1-1 as it is in Revelation 22. It never changes. It doesn't
change with the culture, it doesn't change with the times. God saves
sinners the same way He's always saved sinners, and He'll never
do it any differently. Doctrine of Christ, when men
seek to add their ideas, their definitions, their opinions,
or when they seek to detract from it, they reveal themselves
to be false preachers and false professors. Look at 2 Corinthians
11, I mentioned this. Let's look at this passage. And think about what Paul's saying
here. 2 Corinthians 11, verse two. And you know what Paul's
doing here? He's contending for the faith. He says in verse 2 of 2 Corinthians
11, I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy. He says, for
I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste
virgin to Christ. Now that's spiritual language.
He's talking about Christ who is the husband and the church
who is his bride. And the church is to be loyal
to her husband. Her husband is loyal to her.
Christ is loyal. Her husband protects and loves
and guards her. She's to be loyal to Christ.
And he says in verse three, but I fear less by any means as the
serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. You remember Satan
appearing to Eve in the form of a serpent. So your mind should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. That's the
single message of salvation in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
That everything that we have by way of being right with God
is found complete and perfect by God's grace in Christ Jesus. Nowhere else. It's not by what
I do or what I don't do. Are there things I should do?
Yes. Are there things I should not do? Yes. But that does not
establish, form, and preserve my right relationship with God.
Only what Christ did. Everything's in Him. And when
I point to other ways, if I pointed to other ways, or somebody points
to other ways, or get your minds on yourself, they're corrupting
that singularity, that single message, that simplicity. and
they go into preaching heresy. Look at verse four. For if he
that cometh preaches another Jesus, you mean there's another
one? Oh yeah, there's a lot of false ones, whom we have not
preached. Or if you receive another spirit
which you have not received, or another gospel which you have
not accepted, you might well bear with, and the word him there
is in italics. He's not saying bear with these
false preachers, because later on he tells us plainly don't
bear with them. He's simply saying, I'm amazed
that you bear with someone like that. You've heard the gospel. You claim to believe the gospel,
and I'm amazed that you would bear with somebody like that. The doctrine of Christ. The Apostle Paul was very, very
caring for the church. And he warned them that false
preachers would come in, seeking to bring in damnable heresies. He told the Galatians, don't
listen to them, don't give them in, and he said in Galatians
5, one, stand fast, firm. immovable, in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made us free and don't be entangled with that yoke of
bondage, that burden that false preachers put on people that
you gotta do this, you gotta do that or else you're gonna
lose this or lose that or lose your salvation. Contend for the faith. Contend
properly and I'll talk about that next week more. My friend,
you know what? The gospel of Christ is the most
precious thing that we have. It's the greatest treasure. If
you have a bank account, you want to protect it, don't you?
You want to guard it. Well, that's going to go away
one day. You husbands, you want to protect and guard your wives.
You wives, you want to protect and guard your husbands. You
want to protect and guard your children. Hell yeah. Well, this
gospel is infinitely more precious than all those put together.
It really is. I contend for the faith. All
right.