Well, you can turn with me in your bottles to the book of Jude. Jude, the second to the last book in the New Testament. Our focus this morning, or evening rather, will be on Jude 3, but we'll have cause to reflect on much of the book of Jude this evening. So I'll read beginning in Jude at verse one.
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke you.
But these speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the air of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds, late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots, raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame, wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, complainers, walking according to their own lusts, and they mouth great swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage. But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time, who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. These are sensual persons who cause divisions, not having the Spirit.
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To God, our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Our gracious God, we thank you for this wonderful epistle. Though it's short and brief, it is packed, filled with good things for the Church in the 21st century.
We pray that you would give us ears to hear and hearts to receive these things. May we be watchful and prayerful and persevering, and may we seek by your grace to take seriously what verse 3 enjoins upon us, to contend earnestly for the faith, to do it in a loving and gracious but in a firm manner, for certainly there are attacks from without and from within the professing church. So grant us help and strength and grace to glorify you in this present evil age. And we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Introduction
Well, as we come to this particular passage, it's a passage that we have looked at before. Again, I thought this would be encouraging and helpful as we enter into a new year. Corporately, this is what we are to be about, sound doctrine, the truth of God's word. We're not different because we're better than persons.
We're not different because we're lawful and righteous. We're different because we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity certainly has an ethic or practical element involved, but first and foremost, it's faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
And that faith is not nebulous, it's not just sort of out there in some, you know, vacuous higher power, but it's about the Lord Jesus Christ, His life, His death, and resurrection. When we talk about the gospel, The gospel isn't a warm feeling, the gospel isn't an experience, the gospel isn't something that just makes me happy. The gospel is a revealed message. It is propositional revelation concerning the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is about the Word who became flesh, the Word who assumed our humanity with all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof and yet without sin. and that he lived a life of perfect obedience, he died as a sacrifice and a substitute, he was raised again the third day, such that all those who believe that gospel, that good news concerning him, will have everlasting life. So the church must be alert, the church must be awake, the church must be on guard, to protect, to propagate, to defend the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. J. Gressam Machen, a famous, wonderful theologian in the 20th century, made this observation.
He said, in the first place, a true Christian church, now as always, will be radically doctrinal. It will never say that doctrine is the expression of experience. It will never confuse the useful with the true, but will place truth at the basis of all its striving and all its life. Into the welter of changing human opinion, into the modern despair with regard to any knowledge of the meaning of life, it will come with a clear and imperious message. that message it will find in the Bible, which it will hold to contain not a record of man's religious experience, but a record of a revelation from God.
I say amen a thousandfold to Machen's words there, and I think that Jude, living in the 20th century, would have said the same thing. So as we look specifically at verse 3, as I said, we'll also look at passages connected to it and a little bit later in the epistle.
The Exhortation to Contend for the Faith
I want to look first at the exhortation to contend for the faith in verse 3. Secondly, the reason given to contend for the faith is in verse 4. And then the readiness of those who contend for the faith is in verses 17 and then 20 and 21. So Jude not only addresses the particular command, this you must do, contend earnestly for the faith, he gives the reason for it, because heretics have entered in.
Heretics are trying to distort the truth as it is in Jesus, but then he gives us practical help on how we're to face that. In other words, it's not mystical, it's not esoteric, we don't just sort of tune out and let them do their thing and then we come and clean up their mess. No, there's specific strategies involved for how the church is to resist heresy. But notice first, with reference to the exhortation to contend for the faith,
The Addressees: All the Beloved
notice the addressees. Verse 3, the very first part, beloved. He doesn't say pastors. He doesn't say doctors.
He doesn't say deacons. He doesn't say seminary students. He doesn't say those guys in the church that like to read. They're kind of weird.
They're kind of odd ducks. They always carry big theology books. No, he speaks to the beloved. Well, if we look back to verse one, we'll see who the beloved are.
Judah, bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. In other words, the beloved are the ones who are to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Again, it's not something confined to the doctors in the church.
It's not something confined to the reverends in the church. It's something that is the responsibility of every one of God's people. Turn back to 1 Peter 3. Notice specifically the same sort of an emphasis in 1 Peter 3 at verse 15.
Peter is writing to Christians. He is writing to churches. Verse 1 in chapter 1 tells us, "...to the pilgrims of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, the people that are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Those people are to whom Peter addresses verse 15 in chapter 3.
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Now, I understand that not everybody's going to be at the same level. Not everybody's going to have the same degree of competence. Not everybody's going to have the same degree of training.
There are those in the life and history of the church that God raised up for specific occasions. When the church was plagued by an Arius, God sent an Athanasius. When the church was plagued by Pelagianism, God sent an Augustine. When Ahab menaced the children of Israel, God sent Elijah the Tishbite to refute and reject that man.
So there are going to be those in a certain class that are very able, very faithful, and very competent. But at some level, the believer, the Christian, the person of God, needs to understand what they believe, why they believe it, and give at least a reasonable defense of that content. And so Jude addresses the church, he addresses the beloved. And then
The Specific Exhortation
notice the specific exhortation. He says, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation. So it seems that he was going to write something concerning Christian life, Christianity, perhaps 101. He says, I found it necessary to write to you.
In other words, I had a particular intention, but because of verse 4, because of these heretics, because of these apostates, because of these troublers of the New Covenant Israel, because of their infestation into the life of the Church, I found it necessary to rouse you to duty. I found it necessary to call you to warfare. I found it necessary to ring the bell, sound the alarm, and say, we've got to deal with these heretics. We've got to deal with these menaces.
We've got to deal with these people that are a plague to the life of Christ's church. So the particular necessity was verse 4, for certain men have crept in unnoticed. That's the rationale for verse 3. So let's go back to verse 3.
I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Just want to unpack this. Notice, first of all, his particular emphasis. I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you.
He's not just gently suggesting. He's not just giving you a recommendation. He's not saying, well, you know, in the midst of the church picnic, in, you know, the trips to the lake, the young people at the bowling alley, in the midst of all the ebb and flow of the Christian life, you know, if you think about it, if you can entertain some time, if you can allot a bit on your calendar, you know, maybe put it by the church workday, if you think about it, go ahead and contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. No, he's sounding the alarm.
He's sounding the alarm in Zion. He is calling upon them to engage in a particular task. The word that he uses here means to exert intense effort on behalf of something, to contend. John Gill says it denotes a conflict, a combat, or a fighting for it, a striving even to agony.
I'm sorry, that's the word that we have. What the author says is to urge strongly, appeal to, urge, exhort, encourage. So I found it necessary to write to exhorting you. And then he drops down to our responsibility to contend earnestly.
And there's that Gill statement. It denotes a conflict, a combat, or a fighting for it, a striving even to an agony. Again, it's not something you fit in after bowling night. Turn over to 1 Timothy 1. 1 Timothy 1, to see the emphasis by the Apostle Paul with reference to his young ministerial comrade. 1 Timothy 1, verse 18, he says, Now we know He is not actually sanctioning taking up arms.
He's not actually telling Timothy to go get himself a tank and an F-15 and a whole battalion of troops and go out there and gun down the rebel heretics in the city of Ephesus. That's not the emphasis, but he uses that language to liken the spiritual battle that we're engaged in with what happens amongst military troops. Wage the good warfare. Brethren, if we contemplate the seriousness of this, it makes perfect sense.
When a heretic comes in, when an apostate affects the people of God, when they sow the seeds of discord, when they preach heretical doctrine, it has the effect of damning souls. It has the effect of plunging souls into the depths of hell. We must believe the truth. We must believe what Scripture says.
We mustn't be led astray by distortions of that truth. So the manner in which we are to contend, it's to be earnestly. But then
The Object: The Faith, Not Your Faith
notice the object in verse 3. I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith. Not your faith, but the faith. What's the difference?
Your faith is subjective. My belief or my hold on Jesus. There's certainly something to that. The rest of the Bible tells us, or places in the Bible tell us, we must guard our faith.
We must guard our mindset. We must persevere. We must watch and pray. But that's not what he's saying here.
You contend earnestly for the faith, objectively, the propositional content of the Christian religion. We are to fight for it. It's not our subjective hold on Christ, but the doctrinal content of the Christian faith, God and His gospel. So I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith.
Manton says, faith is taken for sound doctrine, such as is necessary to be owned and believed unto salvation, which he presseth them to contend for, that they might preserve it safe and sound to future ages. We really need to see it in this light. We really need to see it like a relay race or a race where they pass the baton. The church is to pass the baton onto the next generation.
When we drop that baton, when we entertain heresy, when we engage in the eternal functional subordination of the Son of God or other like heresies, we are not passing the baton. We are dropping it. We are being derelict. We are not being faithful to contend earnestly for the faith.
Gordon Clark, rather, made the observation, Christianity is not a romantic religion where feeling and emotion suffice, nor is it an aesthetic religion where faith and sermons are unnecessary. Christianity is a definite faith. It includes the doctrines of the atonement and the resurrection, and it requires a knowledge of these doctrines, an intellectual assent to them, a faith that can and must be preached. So the manor, contend for it earnestly.
The object, the faith, but then
The Identity: Once for All Delivered
notice the identity of that faith. He says, which was once for all delivered to the saints. Again, Manton says it is given to be kept. It is not a thing invented, but given, not found out by us, but delivered by God himself and delivered to our custody that we may keep it for posterity.
Again, we're running the race with that baton. We pass it off to the next generation. Brethren, that is our responsibility as the people of God at the Free Grace Baptist Church, to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. They delivered it, or God delivered it, through the apostles back in the day.
The church then was faithful to proclaim it, to teach it, to catechize relative to it, and to pass that baton. It is our job to grab the baton and keep on running and pass it to the future generations. It's one of the reasons why we pray for additional elders. We pray for God to raise up people.
We pray that this church will be around for our children and our children's children, such that they can continue to run and pass the baton. That's the mandate, contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. Look at 2 Timothy 1. 2 Timothy 1, again, an emphasis very similar to what we find here. 2 Timothy 1 at verse 13. He says, hold fast that pattern of sound words which you have heard from me.
Brethren, in the final analysis, or not maybe final, but down toward the final analysis, that's our responsibility. It's not to be the church with all the bells and whistles. It's not to have the best band. It's not to have the best bowling night.
It's not to have the nicest pastor. It's rather to hold fast the pattern of sound words. It's to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. That's the mandate.
That's the job. That's what we've been called to do. and do it we must, and do it we get to. It is the greatest of privileges to be part of that tradition of passing on the baton of truth to the future. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
Now notice in verse 14, that good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Have you ever known somebody that had professed the faith? Somebody that had gave good evidence and demonstrable, you know, legitimacy of their faith, and then they let go? They stopped?
They didn't hold on to it anymore? It just passed through their fingers? It was no longer relevant to them? It was no longer their lifeblood?
How do you account for that? I would account for it by saying they never really grabbed it in the first place. They may have made a good showing. They may have made a good fakery of it.
They may have been hypocritical in past, but they never held it. 1st John, he says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. Because if they were of us, they would not have gone out from us. In other words, those conquered by the sovereign grace of Almighty God, those who take seriously the admonition to hold fast and to keep that thing or that holy deposit by the Spirit that dwells in you, those who contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints, they're not going to depart. I mean, they have their ebbs and flows, they have their ups and downs, they have their valleys and their mountaintops, or at least their hills, they have all that to be sure, But they don't apostatize.
They don't defect. They don't reject what they at one time confessed, because it's true for them. It's true in their hearts. And they take seriously the reality.
But then notice as well, we see the manner, contend earnestly. We see the object, contend earnestly for the faith. The identity, contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.
The Implicit Requirement: Know the Faith
But then notice the requirement. It's implicit. You're not going to find it there. But implicitly, what does it require?
It requires that you know the faith. It requires that you understand the truth. It requires that if somebody says, how do I get to have it? You can give.
Maybe not a Spurgeon sermon, but you can point them to that man who hung upon the cross, who died and was raised again the third day. That you can explain, at least at a bare minimum, justification by faith alone. You could, you know, take Edward Mote, that hymn we sang this morning, you know, nothing in my, or that's a, is it the same one? Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die.
See, the implication here is that the believer knows the faith. The believer understands the doctrine of justification. The believer understands the doctrine of sanctification. The believer understands he's headed to glorification.
Again, maybe not as articulate as a C.H. Spurgeon. The believer understands the fact that there is but one, only the living and true God. The believer understands that this God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that they are distinguished by the eternal relations of origin.
Maybe I'm getting a bit too far down the field, but you get the point. You need to understand the content of the Christian faith. Beloved, you are to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. How many times have there been, you know, people that have come to believers and said, well, you know, can you tell me what the Bible says?
Well, I don't really know. What does the Bible say about death penalty? I don't really know. Jesus says love each other.
I don't know about the death penalty. We need to start knowing these answers. We need to start being able to resist and reject those attackers on the scripture. We need to be able to spot men within our ranks that are heretics, men that would have been branded as the new Judas back in the day and sent out into exile.
It's interesting reading the church fathers, reading about the Cyrils and the Nestoriuses and the various persons. They got exiled when they were heretics. I don't mean, you know, get out of the manse and go live down the street. Go out to the wilderness, you new Judas, and just live out there.
Perhaps you'll learn not to deny the Trinity. That's when theology mattered. That's when people actually cared. That's when, I'm not necessarily advocating that, but I'm not necessarily against it either.
We could have a colony for heretics. They could just dwell amongst themselves and have sort of a survivor situation. I'm just kidding. But there is the sense where we need to understand what we believe.
And again, that 1 Peter 3 text, same sort of an emphasis there. And I love the way it's couched, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. Isn't that interesting? The hope that is in you.
It sort of presupposes that somebody might somewhere along the line come along to you and say, boy, I noticed you have hope. I noticed there's something different about you. I noticed you smile more than the rabble around us. Why are you so happy?
What's your hope about? Well, you sanctify the Lord God in your heart, you're always ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you, whether it's Sophie the wash woman or the PhD at UBC. You're ready to deal with them, you're ready to answer them. So back to Jude, the last sort of observation on the text is its necessity.
The necessity. Notice, again, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Not a recommendation, not a suggestion, not just this might be things to fit into your church calendar. In the language of Manton, the believer must own the profession of the truth, whatever it costs them.
I think it was in a Spurgeon sermon, he said, the Bible is a blood-stained book. The Bible is a blood-stained book. Martyrs, and missionaries, and pastors, and preachers, and evangelists, and faithful brethren, wherever they may find themselves, holding fast to the truth of God, no matter what it costs them. Brethren, that's the kind of thing we need to see in our own day.
Hold fast the pattern of sound words. Not hold it limp-wristedly, not hold it as if to let go of it, not hold it in such a way that it just falls out, but hold on to it. Hold fast. Keep that sacred deposit, which is in you by the Holy Spirit.
Contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. Don't drop it. Don't let go of it. Don't be derelict in your duty, but rather run the race with endurance, passing the baton to the next generation.
Listen to Samuel Miller. He says, the church has to fight for every inch of ground. And whenever she ceases to contend for the truth, she ceases to advance. We see that.
What happened to Christianity in the 20th century? We stopped preaching truth. We were neo-Orthodox liberals in the early part of the 20th century, and that's what Machen was fighting against. And then whatever happened in that center section, man, we just forgot all about truth.
We forgot all about the Trinity. We forgot all about, you know, the eternal generation of the sun. We forgot all about those things which our forefathers bled and died for to make sure they could pass on to us. So if we ask the question, why isn't the church doing so well?
That's a good question. I'm not suggesting we shouldn't ask it, but we should be prepared for a bit of introspection. Are we doing what God's called us to do? Are we contending earnestly for the faith?
Are we making disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and then teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you? Are people growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in spite of our churches, but because of our churches? I think that there's some introspection that needs to be had. What is the church doing to advance the cause of God and truth?
It's not experience sessions. It's not therapy. It's not a bunch of self-helpery that we need. We need the proclamation of Jesus Christ and his gospel.
We need the emphasis on the true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We need an emphasis on justification by faith alone. We need an emphasis on the truth as it is in Jesus. So back to Samuel Miller.
He says, the church has to fight for every inch of ground, and wherever she ceases to contend for the truth, she ceases to advance. She may contend with an improper spirit. That's certainly a potential. Right?
You ever been on Twitter or Facebook and got really upset and pounded on your keyboard to say nasty things? That's probably an improper spirit. Just spitballing here. You know, when you call somebody a heretic as an individual online, that's a church or an ecclesiastical pronouncement.
You don't have the right on Twitter to call people heretics. They are heretics. You go through the channels. Christ has ordained channels.
So back to Miller. She may contend with an improper spirit. Granted. I'm not saying, man, I'm sorry, Mr.
Worrywart has engaged in this attitude a few times as well. She may, this is quite a therapeutic day for me in disavow or emptying my soul of all my wretchedness. She may contend with an improper spirit. If she does this, it is her mistake and her sin.
So he calls that out. And then he says, but to contend no more is to disregard the command of her master in heaven and betray his cause to the enemy. Amen. Amen, brother.
Preach it, Samuel Miller. That's exactly spot on. And that's Jude's earnest exhortation. I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.
The Reason: Heretics Within the Church
Now notice, secondly, the reason given to contend for the faith. There's heretics that have plagued the church. So Jude's concern isn't the external threat. Well, the unbelieving Jews, they're really trying to get at us.
They might've been mingled amongst these people that are described here. He's not saying, the Roman Empire, they're out to get us. The civil state, they're going to chop off our heads. It wasn't the external threat that necessitated this particular exhortation.
It was an internal threat. It was those within the ranks. It was those who had creeped in unnoticed. It was those who began to deny the Trinity.
Those who began to deny justification by faith alone. those who started to tamper with the doctrine of grace alone through faith alone, that wanted to add or introduce some works or wanted to exalt the free will of man. So Jude is not dealing with the external threat, he's dealing with the internal threat. And look at how he describes these heretics.
Profile of the Heretic
First, he says they are sneaky. Notice in verse 4, for certain men have crept in unnoticed. Brethren, truth has nothing to hide. Truth has nothing to fear.
You don't have to creep in unnoticed when you're preaching Christ and Him crucified. When you do that, you've got the sanction of the Almighty behind you. Go and be bold with it. These, however, they creep in unnoticed.
In fact, look at Paul's description of the perilous times, the last days. It's not in our future, it's in our present. Notice in 2 Timothy 3, specifically at verse five, he describes these wretches. He indicates in verse 5 that they're religious.
It's an internal threat as well. It's not the external state, but it's internal, an internal problem. So they have a form of godliness, but they deny its power, and from such people turn away. Now notice in verse 6, 4, of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts. always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now, as Janus and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds disapprove concerning the faith, but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was." Brethren, truth has nothing to hide. But the heretics do, and according to Jude, they've crept in unnoticed. Notice as well, he calls them ungodly men.
Paul in 1 Timothy 6 tells us that godliness, or truth rather, accords with godliness. So what's the converse? What's the flip side? Falsehood accords with ungodliness, right?
If you preach heresy, you're probably not marked by a godly and sober and righteous life. You're probably marked by just the opposite. And so he says of these men, for certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men. Notice thirdly, they are perverters of the grace of God.
That seems to be a constant target for heretics. It's God's grace. It's God's mercy, it's God's kindness. I don't know why that bothers people.
Why would it bother people if we preached full free forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ and righteousness imputed to us and received by faith alone? Who wouldn't celebrate that? God-hating rebels, that's who, heretics, apostates, defectors, those who don't want the truth as it is in Jesus and will substitute their own way. They may do it for power, they may do it for prestige, they may do it for control.
Vis-a-vis Rome. I mean, you've got to subscribe to the seven sacraments, you've got to stay in the Roman Catholic Church. If you do all these things, you dot all your I's, you cross all your T's, then maybe, just maybe, you'll go to purgatory for about a million years, and then once your sins are purged, you can enter in through the pearly gates. Well, why do they do that?
Because they pervert the grace of God. Brethren, it shouldn't take you long reading the Bible to see that there are enemies to the grace of God. And he says that very specifically in verse four, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness. And then the fourth description is they deny Jesus Christ.
They deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Calvin comments on 2 John 9. He says, Christ is denied whenever those things which peculiarly belong to him are taken away from him. That's getting dangerously close to some of the online debates concerning Trinity and Christology today.
I'm not branding everybody who disagrees with our confession or the biblical reality as a heretic. But I'm saying they're dancing around heresy and getting close to heresy in a way that should give a great cause for concern to those of us who see them. And we should pray, and we should, as we have occasion, contend earnestly for the faith in righteous ways. So the reason given to contend for the faith is the heretics, verse four.
The Sure Judgment of the Heretics
But before we get to the final section, and we won't be here too much longer, just get it in your head that Judah's not a downer. Jude's not, you know, negative Nelly here. He's not, you know, I just want to rain on your parade. The church is filled with these bad guys.
It's just going to be a nightmare. No. He tells us that their judgment is sure. He tells us that they're not going to win.
He tells us that they may infect, they may molest, they may trouble, but they're not going to be victorious because remember Jesus Christ promised to build his church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. So notice what he says. He points to various examples in scripture to show that the apostates or the heretics are up against the same God as Israel of old, as the fallen angels, as Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice those examples.
He doesn't do this just to remind them so that, oh yeah, biblical history. He does it to remind them that as the heretics or as these others have been cut off by God and judged by them, so will the heretics. They're on a fool's errand. They can't stay the hand of God.
They can't stay the progress of the church. They can't stop the growth of Christianity. He speaks of the destruction of unbelieving Israel in verse five. He speaks of the destruction of the fallen angels in verse six.
He speaks of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah in verse seven. And he speaks of the heretics themselves in verse four. Notice, after he says, for certain men have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation. What does that indicate?
I don't want to get too far afield, but it indicates that these heretics haven't caught God by surprise. They didn't just show up, hey, surprise, God, hey, surprise. No, they were marked out from before. There's a reality that God does govern all those creatures and all their actions. 1 Corinthians 11 tells us there must be factions among us.
Why? So that those who are approved may be recognized. You mean God has a purpose for heresy in the church? Yeah.
God has a purpose for even the bad things in the church? Yeah. God has a purpose for all things, for those who love Him and for those who are the called according to His purpose.
Readiness of Those Who Contend
So let's then close it out with the readiness of those who contend for the faith.
Remember the Apostolic Warnings
Notice first in verse 17, they're supposed to remember. They're supposed to remember. We're supposed to remember. Notice in verse 17, but you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Don't be shocked. Don't be surprised. Don't be caught unawares. Don't be caught off guard.
Again, I don't think we should walk with an eyebrow raised for every new person that walks in the church. Is this going to be a heretic we have to deal with? You don't live like that. That's annoying.
That's just not godly. It's not righteous. Sorry for anybody who's visiting tonight for the first time. Yeah, they did look at me a bit odd.
They did look at me a bit weird. No, no, no, don't do that. We stop them at the door. We got the rubber hose.
We got the bright light. What do you believe? We don't do that. We need to be aware of the fact of the presence of persons that don't have altogether altruistic motives.
Persons that come in to try to destroy. The Apostle Paul in Galatians 1 says, there are those who want to distort the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are those who think that there is great gain with reference to religion. There are those whose motives are wrong.
There are those whose motives are driven by the devil himself. So we need to be aware of that. We need to be conscious of that reality. So remember the words of spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You can look at Acts chapter 20 verses 28 to 30, 1st Timothy 4 verse 1, 1st Timothy 6, 2nd Timothy 3 and 4, Titus 1. Jesus, beware of false prophets. How do false prophets come into the church? They come wearing sheep's clothing.
They don't come in looking like the devil himself. They mingle about. They get to know everybody. Hey, come over to my house.
We'll have a Bible study. And at that Bible study, they pervert the grace and glory of God most high. We have to understand this. The apostles have warned us to be on the lookout.
Keep Yourselves in the Love of God
But then secondly, we need to keep ourselves in the love of God. If you look at verses 20 and 21, I just want to speak a bit in terms of the grammar or the syntax, the connection with reference to the words and verses here. There is one main command, and that's verse 21 in the beginning. It says, keep yourselves in the love of God.
That's the command, keep yourselves in the love of God. We'll deal with that in just a moment. But that one command is surrounded by three other phrases. We call these participles or participial phrases.
Notice, you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit and looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. So the command is keep yourself in the love of God. The way that we comply with the command are those three participial phrases that surround it. So that's just the structure.
When these men wrote the Bible, they kind of knew language and how to put sentences together and words and, you know, make thoughts that were rational so persons could grab onto it and understand it and gain benefit from it. But let's look first at the command, keep yourselves in the love of God. Notice though, he says, verse 20, but you beloved keep yourselves in the love of God. He wants you to recognize that you have what the hymn writer would later write, prone to wander, prone to leave the God that we love.
We have a sort of a propensity, we have an inclination to remain in corruption. I'm sure that all of you have something you deal with on an ongoing basis. I don't want to start naming a bunch of sins. Okay, raise your hand.
No, we're not going to do that. But there's thought problems and tendencies. There's ways that the mind goes or gravitates toward other things that are not good. Manton says, we are born Pelagians, Libertines, and Papists.
We need to understand that. So he says, beloved, keep yourselves in the love of God. Now, the believer keeping himself as the object of God's love is not the way you're supposed to understand this. Be such a good guy or girl, be so faithful reading your Bible, be so faithful praying, be so faithful showing up at church, be so faithful with the sacrament that you keep yourself as the object of God's love.
That's not what the verse means. With reference to God's love, God is impassable. That means He doesn't increase in His love for us, but He doesn't diminish or decrease in His love for us either. It is the doctrine of divine impassibility that secures for us in our confession the statement that God is most loving.
See, if God could love more or could love less, He wouldn't be God. So it's not that we somehow do things in such a way as to keep ourselves the object of God's love. That's not what Jude is saying. He is rather saying the believer needs to continually recognize God's love for him.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. Keep your mind conscious of this reality. Keep your mind conscious of the fact that God is most loving toward you. Now this isn't the only place we see this.
Turn back to the book of Ephesians. We saw this several months ago. Notice in Ephesians chapter 3, Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus. three things in particular. Verse 14, for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.
And then notice, first of all, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. He wants you to be spiritually strong. Notice secondly, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. He wants you to be spiritually educated.
He's not wanting you to know how much love you have for Jesus. He wants you to know how much love Jesus has for you. That's the emphasis in Ephesians 3. That's the emphasis in Jude 21.
Keep yourselves in the love of God. Now, that begs the question, well, how does one do that? If it's not me keeping myself as the target of God's love by faithfulness and by prayerfulness and by coming to church and satisfying the requirements so God looks down approvingly and says, oh, how I love you. If it's rather understanding God's love for me, how do I do that?
Well, we look at those three surrounding participles. The first is the study of scripture. Notice in verse 20, but you beloved building yourselves up on your most holy faith. How does one build themselves up on their most holy faith?
Well, they open their Bibles and they read from it. They come to church and they listen to the proclamation of the truth. They go to sermon audio once in a while. They listen to Bible reading on the audio version.
Whatever floats your boat, get the scriptures into your mind. Why is that? Building yourself up in your most holy faith goes a long way to keeping yourself in the love of God. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4, specifically at verse 13, to see an emphasis on the public means or the corporate means of grace. 1 Timothy chapter 4, specifically at verse 12.
Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word and conduct, in love and spirit, in faith and purity. And he says, till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. He's not talking about Timothy's personal devotional life. He's not talking about Timothy's family time.
He's not talking about his quiet time. He's talking about his ministry in the church at Ephesus, and what is he supposed to give attention to as a minister in the church at Ephesus? Give attention to reading. Why would that be important?
Because they didn't have printed Bibles. This is their contact with the Word of God. When they came on the Sunday, when they sat under the minister's service, they would hear the scriptures. But he wasn't just only to read it, he was to exhort from it.
In other words, brethren, here's what it means for your life and how you're supposed to function. But he was also to teach it. Doctrine, here's what the doctrine of the Trinity looks like. Here's what the doctrine of justification by faith alone looks like.
Here's what scripture looks like. This is emphasized in the ministry of Timothy for the benefit of the people of God. So in Jude, when he says, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, it's a no brainer. Read your Bibles.
Secondly, prayer. He says, praying in the Holy Spirit. See, this kind of study that is prayer-less, not always, but it can lead in bad things. In other words, the prayerfulness of the student of God's word keeps him humble, keeps him dependent, keeps him close to God most high.
It's the posture or position to be in when we're studying the scripture. We pray through the word, we pray with the word, we pray by the word, we get it in our minds and hearts, we go to the Psalms, we see our experiences there played out by the psalmist, and we enter into those Psalms with the psalmist and pray them right back to God. There needs to be prayerfulness in our study of God's holy word. And then the third is looking, or rather the hope concerning the mercy of Christ.
The very end of verse 21, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. I think this is a future understanding, or rather an understanding of the future, the glory of Christ to come. I think a parallel as tight as 2.13, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ. As Gil says here on Jude 21, And there is the future mercy of Christ, which will be shown at death, in the grave, and at the resurrection, at the day of judgment, and in the merciful sentence He will pronounce on His people.
And this seems to be designed here. So, build yourselves up in your most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, and look forward to the coming of our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And all the while, contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
Application and Encouragement
I just want to end with the encouragement from Jude. I would suggest that Jude operates in the context of Matthew 16. He knows that Jesus has promised to build his church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. As well, Jude provides for us concrete illustrations that the enemies of God will be punished.
They will be decimated. Brethren, I'm not suggesting that we should have some, you know, sickened glee by that. There ought to be a sense where it resonates within our hearts that the enemies of Christ, He is going to lower His foot upon them. He is going to extinguish their flame.
He is going to decimate all who rise up against God and against His people. That ought to breathe into our hearts and into our lives a note not of triumphalism, but a reality of triumph. Christ will not be mocked. Christ will not be stopped.
Christ's church will be victorious. Again, don't get so proud or arrogant, but rather rejoice in the reality that there is judgment coming. I would suggest as well, the Lord provides earnest contenders to fight against his enemies. I already sort of alluded to it earlier.
Every age that hath yielded the poison hath also yielded the antidote, that the world might not be without a witness. If there hath been an Arius, there hath been an Athanasius. If a Pelagius, there is also an Augustine. I made the connection with 1 Kings chapter 17, on the heels of Ahab, that idolater, that man who co-opted Baal worship and brought it right into the northern kingdom.
In the midst of that, God sends Elijah the Tishbite. May the Lord vindicate his bride in our present age, and we have great cause for encouragement. There are some very faithful, competent men that are out there contending earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. That does not mitigate our responsibility.
It does not get us off the hook. We need to contend. We need to be faithful. We need to be trusting in our blessed Savior and ultimately understand the fight is God's and ultimately understand we are kept by His sovereign grace.
That's how the epistle ends. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. It's a good fight because it's God's fight.
It's a good fight and He will keep us and He will preserve us. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our blessed Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for the clarity of Jude 3 and its emphasis for us as the people of God. And we praise You that there is much to be encouraged about in this present age. There is much to be hopeful, concerning.
And yet, Father, we know that there is always these threats externally and internally. Help us to be watchful. Help us to be prayerful. Help us to be faithful.
Be with us in this coming year, grant us the grace and strength to continue to meet together on the Lord's days. Help us in our families, help us as individuals to be those lights shining in a crooked and perverse generation and give us boldness to hold forth your word of truth. And we pray this through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. We'll close with a brief time of meditation.