Earnestly Contend for the Faith

Introduction: The Occasion and Passage for the Sermon

0:03 The following message was delivered on Sunday evening, May 22nd, 1994, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now those of you who attend regularly upon this ministry and have for some time, know that it's been my privilege over many years to minister the Word of God in other places, both in pastors' conferences and evangelistic and Bible-teaching ministries at various conferences. And not infrequently, what I bring in those outside ministries is reworked material that has, first of all, been prepared for ministry in this place. However, there are times when I am asked to speak on subjects, themes, or portions of the Word of God in conferences. And messages are prepared and preached in that setting, many of which have never been preached here. And in the light of the unusual pressures of this past week with our two-day marathon elders' meetings all day, Friday and Saturday,

1:17 and not getting back from a marathon weekend of speaking some nine times from last Friday to Sunday night, I simply did not have the mental alertness. To give myself to fresh preparation for another simple signpost message. And what I have chosen to do is to preach a message which I prepared for the ministry up in Essex, Ontario, Canada. And I have chosen to preach this message not only because the preparation was done and I could responsibly handle the passage, but I felt in God's providence it was a buttress.

1:59 A message, or a buttressing message, to one of the strands of emphasis given in the manifesto this morning. And the passage to which I am referring is the third verse of the epistle of Jude. And so I'm going to ask you to turn with me to that one-chapter letter that comes just before the book of the Revelation, in which Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, writes to a people saying, verse 3, Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in privilege. Even they who were of old, written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, those of you who are here this morning will remember, I trust,

3:23 that in setting out two of the principles with reference to how it is that we can and must as a congregation seek to lay up a store of spiritual legacy to generations to come, I emphasize the necessity of holding in an uncompromising way to the truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. And here in the third verse of Jude in particular, that emphasis is highlighted as Jude, Jude, burdens himself in a pastoral way to his readers. And as we look at this text, I want you to notice with me, first of all, the recipients of this word of exhortation. Jude indicates that he was constrained to give a particularly focused exhortation to this people. And we need to ask, who were these people? To whom does this text refer?

The Recipients of Jude's Exhortation: The True People of God

4:29 Well, according to verse 1, the recipients of this letter are described as those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Those of you who have either an old authorized version or the New King James will have in your text sanctified in God the Father. And it's a matter of some of the ancient and some of the new ones. And it's a matter of some of the ancient and some of the new ones.

4:59 And it's a matter of some of the ancient and some of the new ones. There's a good book of ancient texts having a word that is translated beloved and one sanctified. And if you simply change three letters of the Greek alphabet and put a rough breathing in front of the first, you get the difference between beloved and sanctified. And I am persuaded that the better textual evidence, as you children who have a New King James will see in the middle, where it says NU and there, in the middle column, will indicate that the word is beloved.

5:34 And so the people to whom Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, writes, are described as called, beloved, and kept. Now this terminology, called, beloved, and kept, is language used only of the true people of God. When Jude indicates that he's writing to a people who are called, he is using the word called in its standard usage in the New Testament. We use the word call primarily as a synonym for extending a verbal summons.

6:18 Johnny comes in from the yard and someone says, where are you going? He says, well, I'm going home because my mother called me. That is. She articulated words that in one way or another indicated she was summoning me home.

6:34 Now Johnny may have disobeyed his mother's call. She may have had to call two or three times. But we use the word call as a verbal summons. However, in the scriptures, with but only probably two exceptions in the New Testament, the word call never means a mere summons.

6:54 It means the powerful, persuasive work. The work of God, not only summoning us to respond to the gospel, but powerfully inclining us to embrace the offers of mercy and salvation and actually to come to the Lord Jesus. It would be the difference between Johnny's mother merely saying, Johnny, time to come home for supper, and running out into the yard where he is and taking him by the ear and, bringing him into the house. Well, God's call, though it is not a physical, external force, is God taking us, as it were, by the ear. By the secret, yet powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, not only summoning us to the blessings of life and salvation, not only extending to us a gracious invitation and a regal command, a command to repent and to believe, but effectually and powerfully working in our hearts, enabling us to obey that summons. Therefore, when Paul writes to the Corinthians, notice how this emphasis comes through very clearly in his use of the word call.

8:19 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 9. God is faithful through whom, you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. He says of the Corinthians that it is through the operation of God that they were not only summoned to partake of the privileges that are in Christ, but they were actually called into the koinonia, into the sharing of the blessings of Christ, grace and salvation, that are to be found in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Verse 26 of the same chapter. For behold your calling, brethren, that not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God shows here calling and election are used parallel terms. Those who are called, are those who are chosen. Those who are chosen are eventually in God's time actually called by him into the fellowship of his Son.

9:41 And so those to whom Jude writes are a people to whom the gospel has come not only with its tones falling upon the outer vestibule of the ear, causing vibrations in the inner ear and, signals to be sent by the auditory nerve to the brain and concepts registering on the brain. No, there was something that went from the ear and the auditory nerve in the brain that laid hold of natively God-hating, Christ-rejecting hearts and brought those hearts most freely and willingly to embrace the Lord Jesus and the offered salvation in him. And you are not a Christian. You are not a Christian. Unless you too have been called.

10:32 All true believers are those who like these who receive the letter of Jude have been called. And then they are described as beloved in God the Father. Beloved in God the Father. Obviously then speaking of something far beyond God's general love for all of his creation.

10:59 And for all of his creatures. They are beloved in union with, in connection with, in the virtue of the relationship they sustain to God who is now their Father through the grace of adoption. They are within the orbit of that love of which John speaks when he says, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be loved. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called sons of God.

11:34 And that doesn't mean that we should just be designated sons of God but that we should be the called sons of the living God. And so he writes to them as not only those who are called but beloved in God the Father. And thirdly, they are described as kept for Jesus Christ. A unique term with reference to, not kept by Jesus Christ.

12:04 That's a precious truth. He said that his sheep were in his hand and none would be able to pluck them out of his hand. And in that sense the people of God are indeed kept by Jesus Christ. But here we are told the people of God are those who are kept for Jesus Christ.

12:25 Kept as part of his bride to be presented faultless before him. Even as Jude writes at the end of his epistle, unto him who is able to guard you from stumbling and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy. And in the light of Ephesians chapter 5, it is a presentation to Christ the heavenly bridegroom as a bride perfected in which there will be found no spot or blemish or any. Such thing.

13:03 So obviously then Jude is writing to those who have not only heard the message of the gospel but by the grace of God have embraced it. They are called, beloved in God the Father and kept in Jesus Christ. They are true Christians. They are those who have heard and believed the gospel and known its transformation.

The Circumstances Surrounding Jude's Letter: The Infiltration of False Teachers

13:31 Now consider secondly, having briefly looked at the recipients of this letter and exhortation, the circumstances which surrounded this letter of Jude. He tells us in verse 3 that he had set himself to do something with diligence but in the midst of it he changed his mind and therefore altered his course. Beloved, while I was giving, all diligence, and the Greek word for diligence means he was really concentrating his faculties and energies upon what he was doing. While I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, our koine salvation, that salvation which has come in Jesus Christ to Jew and Greek alike, to bond or free, to the educated and uneducated, that salvation in Christ that is the same for all men to whom it comes, he says I was giving all diligence to write unto you concerning that salvation. And it would appear that he had a pastoral desire to amplify some dimension or aspects

14:54 of that salvation which all believers have in common, which all those who are, and all those who are not called, and they are called because they are beloved, and if called because beloved, then kept, they have a glorious salvation. We can't encompass it in one little booklet called the blessings of salvation, or ten lessons on what we have in Christ, or what we are in Christ. And that's why God's given us a relatively large Bible, because there are so many glorious facets to that salvation, both in its presence, in its preparation, in its procurement, in the person and work of the Lord Jesus, in its application, in its manifold and glorious provisions. And Jude was apparently straining his God-given faculties to write a pastoral letter that would amplify, that would explicate, that would apply some dimensions of this common salvation. As a man with a pastoral heart, and recognizing that God works by means, he does not say, I was fasting and praying, and hoping to get in a trance to get a word from God. It's very interesting.

16:18 Here the very penman of the Holy Ghost is that God works by means. You find that with Luke. He makes diligent historical search. And we have in our day those who are not apostles, those who have no right to be claiming direct revelation from God, and yet they do, and yet theirs comes in a way that the writers of the New Testament don't claim for themselves.

16:46 Just a little interesting aside. He was giving all diligence. He was bending his mental and spiritual faculties to open up and to write concerning this common salvation. But something happened in the midst of the pursuit of that course.

17:04 While, that's an adverb of time, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained, I came under a constraint to change my course, and my new determined course was this, or newly determined course was this. I was constrained to write unto you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. While he was purposing and endeavoring diligently to expound some aspects of their common salvation, he changes his direction and writes unto these people, exhorting them to an activity that we shall open up momentarily, described in the words, contending earnestly for the faith. And why did he change his mind? Why did he change his proposed course? Well, he tells us in verse 4.

18:14 For there are certain men crept in. He became aware that false teachers had insinuated themselves into the midst of the people of God. And that these false teachers were now propagating their heresies. False teachers of whom God had written beforehand, written of beforehand, and it could well be that he here has reference to what we have in our Bibles as 2 Peter.

18:52 For there are many parallels with the book of Jude and 2 Peter. And in 2 Peter, Peter had predicted, chapter 2, but there arose false prophets also among the people, as among you also there shall be false teachers, that's a future, who shall, future, privily bring in destructive heresies, denying the master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many shall follow their lascivious doings by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Peter had war. Could it be that Jude is making direct reference to Peter's words when he says, certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old, written of beforehand, unto this condemnation on godly men, turning the grace of god into lasciviousness, and denying the only lord and master, Jesus Christ. So it was his awareness that these false teachers had crept in, they were propagating their heresy, it was beginning to take root among some of the people, and so Jude says,

The Focused Burden: Contending Earnestly for the Faith

20:19 I had to change my course, and now focus my exhortation upon this one, great pastoral burden exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Well having looked at who the recipients of this letter are, the circumstances that surrounded the letter, now consider with me thirdly the heart of our message tonight, the focused burden of Jude's pastoral letter, the focused burden of that letter. And the focused burden is in these words, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. Now as we look at this part of the text, I want you to note with me four very clear principles that are contained in it. First, there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. The whole exhortation terminates on these words, contend earnestly for the faith.

21:46 Contending earnestly is what they are to do. The once for all delivered to the saints describes this thing with which they are to do something. But all parts of the verse terminate upon the little phrase, the faith. His burden has to do with the faith.

22:04 And the faith in this context refers to an identifiable body of truth designated the faith. Now sometimes the word faith refers obviously to the exercise of the faith of a believer. That is the subjective spiritual grace of faith. But when you find the little term, the faith, most often it is referring to that which is the object of our faith, namely, the objective revelation of the body of God's truth.

22:44 Notice in verse 20 of this epistle how it is used in this way. But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith. There you see he is not saying build yourself up on your holy subjective exercise of faith, but build yourself up on your most holy body of revealed truth. He uses the word faith in that sense.

23:23 Look at two other passages in which it is obvious that this is the meaning of the phrase. Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1. Paul, speaking of an aspect of his own history, writing to the churches of Galatia, wrote in chapter 1 in verse 20, Now touching the things which I write unto you, behold, before God I lie not.

23:52 Then I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by faith, unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ. Only they heard say, He that once persecuted us now preaches the faith of which he once made havoc, and they glorified God in me. When it says Paul was preaching the faith of which he once made havoc, the meaning is clear. He was preaching the body of revealed truth focusing in the identity of Jesus of Nazareth as God's Messiah, focusing upon the proclamation of Christ and Him crucified in the language of Acts 20.21, calling all men to repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, the very faith, the body of truth which he attacked and was determined to blot out from the face of the earth. Lo and behold, he is now preaching that faith, that identifiable body of truth designated as the faith. One other example, Acts 6 and verse 7.

25:10 Acts 6 and verse 7, in which Luke, recording the early triumphs of the gospel in Jerusalem, writes that after the appointment of the seven, allowing the apostles to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word, the word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith. They became submissive to the body of revealed truth that focused in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I don't want to beat the thing thin at the edges, but I wanted to give you enough text so that if anyone asks you what does it mean when it says in Jude 3 that believers are to contend for the faith, you would be able to say the faith there refers to an identifiable, objective body of truth. Oh, it does? How do you know?

26:21 And prove it from the word of God. Don't say, well, I remember a sermon in which our pastor showed us that was so. That won't do. That's not giving a reason of the hope that is in you.

26:34 That's not becoming well grounded in the scriptures on your own. And you see in our day the very concept that there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. We would call it dogma. There is the notion that dogma is dirty and that anything that sinks in categories of truth and error, this is right and this is wrong, is out of the orbit of the whole religious and social climate of our day.

Principle 1: The Identifiable Body of Truth Called 'The Faith'

27:09 The word of God is true and the word of God will not accommodate itself to any mindset of any generation and as Jude hears that amongst those to whom he writes certain forms certain false teachers have crept in, he is able to identify them because what they are saying and what they are propagating does not line up with that objective fixed revelatory data. It doesn't line up and measure up with that body of revealed truth called the faith. So there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. Our text clearly teaches it. Secondly, our text teaches us and I trust that you will grasp this principle. It is so crucial particularly in our day. The body of truth, this body of truth was revealed deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles.

Principle 2: The Faith Was Once for All Delivered in the Apostolic Age

28:20 This body of truth was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles. Now where do you find that? Well look at the text. I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.

28:49 Now for the few of you who may be sitting there with a Greek text you will know that in the order of the Greek structure what we really have is this. Jude says by exhorting you to contend earnestly and the words the faith come at the end and what you would have in English is one long hyphenated description of that faith. It would read like this. Exhorting you to contend earnestly for the once for all delivered to the saints faith.

29:25 Those words are modifying and qualifying what that faith is. What is that body of revealed truth? It is the once for all delivered to the saints faith. Do you want to know what it is?

29:44 It is the once for all delivered to the saints faith. Now once for all the Greek word hapax the word used to describe the significance of the offering up of the Son of God to the half of sinners. He dying the writer to Hebrews says once for all offering one sacrifice forever. The legitimate rendering of the word is once for all once never to be repeated and this faith has been once and for all already delivered.

30:25 He doesn't say it is in the process of being delivered and it will continually be delivered. No it was once for all delivered to whom? Unto the saints unto the company of the people of God in that apostolic generation. Now dear people if you can get hold of that simple truth it will save you from a thousand errors.

30:54 The body of truth which constitutes the Christian faith in its purity was revealed proclaimed and permanently embodied in the scriptures in the age of the apostles. So that when we come to the last of those apostles and when he closes that which was given to him by way of divine revelation in the book of the revelation we have these words coming at the end of new covenant revelation parallel words to those that were given after the revelation given through Moses in the book of the law and in the Pentateuch. Revelation 22 18 I testify unto every man who hears the words of the prophecy of this book in its context referring explicitly and unquestionably to the book of the revelation but surely arguing from the analogy of scripture coming as the last book in time of the last living apostle in the light of Jesus' promise to his apostles the spirit would be given to them and would guide them into all of the truth not just some of it not just a part of it waiting for further revelation to come

32:23 when Joe Smith finds his special glasses to read his so-called Egyptian hieroglyphics and get his need for data or when Mary Ellen White claims to be a prophetess and speaks with the authority of God or when the council of bishops or the pope give at certain times certain dogmas that can be dated with their councils and their papal bulls and their pronouncements in which you have a faith to which something is being continually added no Jude says I want you to contend for that body of truth which was once for all delivered to the saints some of it at the time Jude wrote had yet to be inscripturated but that apostolic tradition that was being verbally proclaimed by the apostles and by degrees was being inscripturated for the church for all ages a body of truth both revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles and it is delivered to all the people of God the word saints holy ones set apart ones

33:52 does not refer to people who have been sainted by some decision of a bunch of clerics and they are called the saints and it is the same as the saints in Colossae in Acts 9 Paul is said to be persecuting the saints of God dragging men and women and committing them to prison therefore all individuals or groups of individuals who claim to have authority in the body of truth delivered to the saints in the age of the apostles are to some degree false prophets without exception without exception if anyone shall add unto these words God shall add unto him the plagues if any shall take away the truth which is saving truth which constitutes the faith was already delivered in the apostolic age already delivered to the saints and therefore you and I immediately

35:21 can brush aside with absolute impunity anyone's claims to fresh new revelation

35:36 to the saints to the saints faith and if it's been once for all delivered as the faith then anything added to or subtracted from under the name of revelation is error it's fraud it can only it can only undermine the well being of our souls and attack the very pillars of the historic world come what i can but you have to ask you for all the truth and to accept and come to the truth and it is to the grace of the holy spirit who illuminates us god entrust the faith to the saints it's the once for all delivered to the saints faith not just to the apostles. It's delivered through the apostles. For they have a unique place in bringing together that corpus of truth that constitutes the faith as we saw this morning. The church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the chief

36:58 cornerstone. But God propagates that faith to his saints and his saints who constitute his church are to be grounded in that faith in the language of Ephesians. For they are not to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but they are to be rooted and grounded in that faith. So we have seen from our text that there is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. How can you contend for something that doesn't exist? You can't contend for shadows. You can't contend for mirages or for something that doesn't exist. You can't contend for something that is substantial. You can contend for it. Contend earnestly for the faith. Secondly, this body of truth was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles. It's the once for all delivered to the saints faith. Thirdly, this body of truth was being assailed by those who were aggressively promoting error while the apostles were yet alive. Now that's very clear from our passage.

Principle 3: The Faith Was Assailed Even During the Apostles' Lives

38:12 This body of truth was being assailed by those who were aggressively promoting error even while apostles were alive. Think of it. Think of Paul's experience. False apostles came to Corinth and so hoodwinked the whole church that apparently the majority were taken in by their teaching to the point where Paul had to write the second letter and say, I speak as a fool again and again.

38:45 Having to prove that he was a bona fide apostle. Think of it. He said, these super apostles, I come along in weakness. These people come along bragging about their strength and their wisdom and they fleece you and they slap you in the face. Paul uses strong language and yet he has to demonstrate that he was indeed a true apostle, their true spiritual father and their rightful spiritual guide. Now what does that tell us? If Jude, in the age of living apostles, had to write to the saints saying, you must contend earnestly for the once for all delivered to the saints faith. You must do it now and you must do it earnestly. Should it surprise us that when the apostles had gone, that there

39:36 would be those who would be even more aggressive in the propagation of error? And the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter were both convinced. This would be the case. We looked at some of the passages from the writings of Paul this morning. When he's about to leave the Ephesian elders, the great burden of his heart, the great burden of his heart is the realization that these false teachers were lurking, waiting till the chief honcho would blow out of town for good and thinking there'd be men of lesser spiritual strength and lesser moral fiber. They could come as wolves into the flock. Or as apparently loving shepherds within the flock. Look at his language in Acts 20 again and verse 29, I know that after my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you.

40:31 Why did he say after my departing? He said, well, they got more sense to try it while I'm here. You see, the super apostles didn't mess around with the Corinthians while Paul was there. They waited till he was out of town preaching somewhere else. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. They didn't want to tangle with a tyrant. That's for Paul in face-to-face confrontation. But he says, I know that after my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock and from among your own selves. Does he mean from among the Ephesian eldership or among the Ephesian church? Well, you can't determine it exegetically, but it would seem since he's only speaking to the elders and generally a man's got to have some position in the of higher profile than an ordinary church member to have much influence, I lean in the direction of believing that Paul is saying from among your own selves, that is, within your own ranks as elders, shall men arise speaking perverse things

41:37 to draw away the disciples after them. He was concerned, believing this would happen after he left. Peter gives the same warning. We looked at it in 2 Peter chapter 2.

41:52 And now it has come to pass, and by the time we come to the seven letters of the seven churches in Asia Minor, written toward the end of the first century, when all of the apostles except John are dead, there are only two churches that do not receive a reproof from the Lord. And there are several where there are explicit reproofs concerning the toleration of false teaching. And the history of the church has taught us that the body of truth that was being assailed by those who were aggressive in promoting error while there are living apostles, that the devil is never lacked for men whose minds may be very clever minds, and who may, with very clever and specious and at times rather convincing treatment and twisting of the scriptures, as Peter says, the ignorant and the unstable rest the scriptures. The Greek word there is the word you would use, if you put a man on a torture rack, you put him there, but then you begin to tighten the winches, he's still a man, but all of his body is out of joint and out of its natural configuration. They traffic in the Bible, but they stretch it and they pull it and they wrench it.

43:09 ...destruction and to the destruction of those who believe them.

43:12 And you remember we alluded to 2 Timothy chapter 4, the great burden of Paul as he's about to leave the spiritual well-being of the church at Ephesus in the hands of Timothy, he said, I'm about to leave. I've finished my course. I've kept the faith. My job is done.

43:28 Now, Timothy, I'm telling you, keep on preaching the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. Give them solid stuff, Timothy. Why? Because the time will come, the time will come when they'll turn away their ears from the truth and when they do, they'll be all the false teachers they want to tickle their ears with their, their ears and soul-destructive and damning lies.

43:57 Dear people, we are naive if we think that somehow we're immune from that in the 20th century. We are not immune from it. And if Jude would have written as he did in his day, when there were no printing presses to crank out false teaching, when there were no tapes and no videos and no newspapers, when there were no publishing houses, imagine what he would say were he living today. When all of these things neutral in themselves and great handmaidens to the faith when properly used but powerful instruments in the hands of the devil, when false teachers begin to use them to propagate their error, we must not naively think that we can be insensitive or indifferent to the reality that the body of truth that was assailed by those who were aggressive or aggressively promoting error in the days that Jude wrote that there are such in our own day. And that brings us to the fourth principle that's in our text. Look at it. I was constrained to write unto you to do what?

Principle 4: All Believers Are Obligated to Vigorously Defend the Faith

45:13 Now he uses a word found only here in the New Testament. We have translated it with two English words, most of the translations, exhorting you, encouraging you to contend earnestly for the faith. Now the verb translated contend earnestly is that word you've heard about it before, agonizomai. It's the word used of the athlete in training in 1 Corinthians 9, 25.

45:49 The man who is striving to win the gold is the man who exercises self-control in all things. Every man that strives in the games, every man who is marshalling all of his powers and all of his faculties to the end that he might gain the gold, that man is agonizing. It's the word used of our Lord when he went into the garden of Gethsemane and being, it's a different form, but in the same family and being in a great agony. He sweat as it were great drops of blood.

46:27 And this word is used with a prefix, epi, epi usually means upon. And so the picture seems to be to contend upon or to contend with respect to or contend with an intensified contending. We are to earnestly contend or contend earnestly for the faith. What's the principle?

46:53 The principle is this, the true people of God are under a solemn obligation vigorously to defend this body of truth against all who would tamper. The people of God are under a solemn obligation vigorously to defend this body of truth against all who would tamper with it. Remember who received the exhortation. Verse three, it is the beloved.

47:23 It is the people of God, all that are called, all that are beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, all of them. He doesn't say, now, you elders, there are portions in the word of God addressed just to elders, first Peter five one. There are portions in which various groups are singled out, but here it is beloved, the people of God in general, all of them without exception are responsible to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And in the light of what we considered this morning of all responsibility to the generations to come in this spiritual family, while I would not in any way seek to dilute the force of that first heading, and if I could, I would preach a series of sermons on it until by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit, every one of us was brought back to his first love, that love. of a passion for the person of Christ, and without seeking in any way to overshadow that by emphasizing the second principle that we must, by the grace of God, have an uncompromising commitment to the truth of God.

48:48 Dear people, that is your responsibility as an individual believer, yes. There is a peculiar responsibility upon us who are your watchmen and your overseers and your shepherds to protect you from error. Yes, there is a peculiar responsibility upon us to teach and preach the truth. Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, he gives pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints unto service work that they may be no longer children tossed to and fro.

49:20 I know that. But look at our text. You are the beloved of God. You are the beloved in God the Father.

49:28 You are the cold. You are the caretaker. And to you this word comes. You must contend earnestly.

49:37 For the once for all delivered to the saints' faith. It's your time.

49:43 You know the old saying, everybody's job is nobody's job. If the concept, the exhortation, floats over our heads and is just nailed to the walls, no good has come from all of my effect until sitting there you are isolated with your God. And he, by his word and spirit, is saying to you, John, George, he's saying to you, Mary and Sally and whatever your name may be, you and you and you, you called, you beloved in God the Father,

50:21 contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered. Now I believe those four principles stand on the very surface of the text, do they not? There is an identifiable body of truth called the faith. Secondly, this body of truth was revealed and deposited with the people of God in the age of the apostles.

50:45 It's the once for all delivered to the saints. Faith. Thirdly, this body of truth was being assailed by those who were aggressively promoting error in the very age of the apostles. There are certain men crept in.

51:00 These men, ungodly in their moral character, attacking the very purpose for which the grace of God is revealed in Christ, namely, to lead us to holiness and they say it's to lead to license. They attack, if not in theory and practice, the lordship of Jesus Christ denying our only despot, master and lord, Jesus Christ. And the fourth great principle, you, the true people of God, are under a solemn obligation vigorously to defend this body of truth against all who would tamper with it. Now if these things are so, what does it say to you and to me by way of application?

Application 1: Cultivate an Intelligent Understanding of the Faith

51:47 Number one, it says that the people of God must seek to have a Bible-based, spirit-imparted, intelligent understanding of the contents of the faith.

52:04 Isn't that implicit in the whole exhortation? If he says, I was constrained to exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith, how? How can you contend for that concerning which you are fundamentally ignorant? How can you contend for that which when attacked, you don't know it's under attack?

52:28 This means that the people of God, the rank and file of the saints, must seek to have a Bible-based, spirit-imparted, intelligent understanding of the contents of the faith.

52:45 And my friends, there's no way to get that. Spending more time in sports baseball, in college, in front of the television, reading novels, talking on the phone, and cracking your Bible five minutes a day, and never reading a solid book that will teach you. How do we know that the Scriptures, how do we know that we can trust the biblical record of creation? How can we define the constitution of our Lord Jesus?

53:23 He is true God, true man. Well, is he some mixture of God and man? Or is he some mixture of God and man? Or is he some mixture of God and man?

53:28 Or is he some mixture of God and man? Or is he some mixture of God and man? Or is he some mixture Is he God and man, two distinct natures in one person joined forever? The natures forever eternally distinct, the person forever eternally joined?

53:42 So that if someone begins to say something that would indicate he gave up a little bit of his Godhood and Godness when he took to himself humanity, can we catch it? Can we say, oh, wait a minute, that's not the faith that's in the Bible. That says,

54:04 my Lord and my God. There's nothing part God, semi-God, three-quarters God. He's either God and all that God is or he's creature and all that creature. Created, dependent, not eternal, not omnipotent, not omniscient.

54:27 Something in the category of God is either exclusively of this or it is non-Godish. Do you know the difference? Can your ear pick up the difference?

54:42 You ought to be able to, but you're not going to get it. Sitting back and letting some of us sweat in the pulpit, things in the pulpit. You, my brother and sister, have got to do some radical altering of your priorities of your so-called spare time.

55:07 How can a man be said to be contendering vigorously, earnestly, like an athlete going for gold? He's not willing to deny himself, anyway, to get a better grasp upon the faith. He does not spend time pleading with God to grant the spirit of illumination, to grant to him a Bible-based, spirit-imparted, intelligent understanding of the faith as it is in Jesus. It will not come without the ministry of the Spirit.

55:44 You'll be struck as you read the prayers of Paul for the believers. Ephesians 1, he prays, that God would give him the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of himself. He prays in chapter 3 that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, that they may know. Colossians chapter 1, Philippians chapter 1, his prayers to God focus upon the impartation of spiritual knowledge and understanding.

56:13 Knowledge and understanding given only by the Spirit. But, dear people, the Spirit does not work apart from us, nor is he given to make us a bunch of lazy bums.

56:25 He is given to make our endeavors effectual to the end for which we engage in them. So he says to Timothy, Timothy, spoudazo, that's the word used here when he said, I was giving diligence to write to you of our common salvation. He says, Timothy, do your utmost to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed. Yet he had previously said in that chapter, Timothy, think on these things and the Lord will give you understanding.

56:56 Yes, the Lord will give you understanding, Timothy, but not when you shift your head into neutral and sit back and let everything else rush over your brain and somehow God will crowd in illumination. No, he says, these things bend your mental faculties and powers to wrestle with them and the Lord shall give the understanding.

57:18 Dear people of God, I beg you, if you don't resist to be called junk, food, mind, you're never going to be well-grounded in the faith. There is so much to bombard our minds with mental and intellectual junk food. And just as no one becomes healthy and vigorous in his physical constitution who's popping down Twinkies and candy bars and has no sense of commitment to a nutritious, healthy, well-balanced diet, no, no one is going to be well-grounded in the faith and be able earnestly to contend for it unless he's willing to pay the price to have a Bible-based, spirit-imparted, intelligent understanding of the contents of the faith. And then secondly, it means that the people of God must seek to cultivate a growing, living faith in those truths which come which constitute the contents of the faith. You see, it is not enough that we have a spirit-wrought, Bible-based understanding of the contents of the faith.

Application 2: Cultivate a Growing, Living Faith in the Truths

58:45 We must add to that a growing, living faith in those truths which constitute the contents. This is exactly what Paul points to in the life of Timothy. Look at 2 Timothy 1 and verse 13. And then I'll explain why this is so crucial.

59:07 Hold the pattern of sound words. What is the pattern of sound words? It is the faith as articulated by the apostle. And he said it was articulated in propositional truth.

59:24 It was a pattern of sound words. There are words that soundly and rightly articulate the tenets of our faith. And we must hold to that pattern. Timothy is to hold to it.

59:39 But now notice. Hold to the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me. How are you to hold them, Timothy? Not just with intellectual acumen and intellectual perception, but he says hold to that pattern in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

60:02 That's what I'm saying. You see, each time the Spirit of God through the means of our study of the world, the Word of God, grants us a clearer grasp on some dimension of that which constitutes the faith. And there are fresh actings of faith that is true heart belief in and acting upon that new understanding of that new dimension of the faith. We're not getting fresh revelation.

60:33 It's the once for all delivered to the saints faith. But we've just had the veil pulled back concerning one aspect that we never saw before. But when that new understanding is fused to our religious experience by faith and love, then it becomes precious to us. It is life giving truth and it's life giving truth for which people are ready to spend and be spent and if necessary become martyrs.

61:04 Men and women and boys and girls never became martyrs simply because they had an intellectual grasp upon the faith. It's when they believed with all their hearts that the doctrine of Christ crucified for sinners and the souls resting upon Christ alone as revealed in the gospel brought a man into right relationship to God that even boys and girls and men and women by the thousands were willing to go to the stake rather than bow to some romish superstition. Rather than to whittle away one iota of the faith. Why?

61:48 Because it was that faith, that body of truth which they firmly grasped that was the very life of their souls. And they knew that men could destroy the physical body but could not take away the life of their souls. Therefore they said to the stake, to any instrument of death you choose, but that faith, which is the object of living faith in the heart of the believer is that for which people are prepared to spill their blood. Again look at chapter 3 and verse 14. Paul has told Timothy that all who would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecutions, evil men and impostors, there we are again, evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, but Timothy abide in the things which you have learned and been assured of. Abide in the things. Let your very life be immersed in the things in which you have learned and been assured of.

63:13 Let them not be mere intellectual furniture that you shuffle around and occasionally dust off and which you can describe to others. Abide in the things which you have learned and which you have learned and which you can describe to others. Let them be your very life. Sanctify them, Jesus said, in the truth.

Application 3: Be Committed to Propagate and Defend the Faith Even Unto Death

63:36 Thy word is truth. And then finally, the people of God must be committed to propagate, defend, to propagate and defend the faith even unto death. Revelation 2, verse 10 and 11, Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. The only justification for martyrdom, is that God's truth is more precious than your life or mine.

64:05 Justification for martyrdom. What's more important, God's truth or my heartbeat in my blood?

64:20 And if to maintain that truth as the truth which I confess, my heart must stop beating with the sharp, quick, piercing impact of a bullet and by the slow, agonizing, torturous death conceived by heartless men, it matters not. In fact, God's truth is more important than my life.

64:44 My friends, listen. Martyrs are not made of people who spend all their spare time inundating their receptors, eyes and ears, with the junk food of the modern media.

65:02 And if such a trial should come upon us, and I don't claim to be giving a prophecy, but looking at the direction in which our nation is going at breakneck speed

65:16 and the erosion of common grace so quickly manifested in my own generation, with the increasing outspoken hostility to those who hold to the right angles of the faith once for all delivered to the saints, there may be some sitting here for whom martyrdom will not be something you read about in Foxe's Book of Martyrs or in the days of the Covenanters in the Highlands. And the crisis that would come when your contending for the faith, might mean contending that the price of your blood, that crisis, will not create anything new. It will simply reveal what you've been doing up until that moment of crisis.

66:00 A crisis never creates a thing, it only reveals what's there.

66:05 And I frankly am deeply disturbed.

66:10 Indifference and carelessness that I trust there's something wrong with my perception, but I don't believe it's that skewed. I fear for altogether too many of you and I speak to you lovingly that you may not be able to do it. Should God suddenly unloose a concentrated way of such open opposition, that we would have to pay for our faith by imprisonment, starvation or death, I fear, I fear how many of you might renounce Christ because you really have not been committed to the propagation and defense of this faith in the relatively easy circumstances in which we face. In the relatively easy circumstances in which we find ourselves now. And God says to the prophet, if you've run with the footmen and they've wearied you, how will you contend with the horsemen and the swelling of Jordan? He says to Jeremiah, you think it's rough now?

67:16 What you're experiencing now is just running alongside of some footmen and having some encounters with foot soldiers. What will you do when you have the cavalry come out against you? Jesus said, he that is faithful in little, is faithful in much. He that is unjust or unrighteous in little, is unjust in much.

67:39 If we are unwilling to contend for the faith in an uncontentious, gracious, but firm way with our peers at school, with our work associates in the shop and in the office, and the neighbors over the back fence, if we're unwilling to contend for the faith when in the knowledge that we're somewhat more religious than they, they try to say something religious, and out comes some foolish, innocuous, religious drivel, and we let it go unchallenged, and do not graciously seek to find a leading to speak of the truth of God, if we're not prepared to contend for that faith. In that situation, what makes us think we'd confess it when there was a rifle at our forehead, or a stake to which we were pointed, surrounded with kindling wood, and someone ready to tie us and burn us? Dear people, may God help us to lay to heart this pastoral exhortation of Jude. It's my great delight, and has been over the years, to traverse many portions of the Word of God that would fit what Jude was purposing to do, speaking of our common salvation, as we preach the glorious doctrines of justification

Concluding Exhortation to Believers and Unconverted

69:07 and adoption and sanctification and glorification, that we preach through large portions of the Word of God, such as Ephesians 1 and 2, that open up the wonders of God's salvation. But there comes a time when we too must be exhorted to contend earnestly for the wants for all delivered to the saints' faith, and I trust you will take that exhortation to heart. And to you who are not the children of God, what do I have to say to you? Well, turn to the end of Jude's letter as we conclude our message tonight.

69:44 Listen to what Jude says we ought to seek to do for you. In the face of false teachers and false teaching, the way we become equipped to contend earnestly for the faith is given to the people of God in verse 20. But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, become established upon that body of revealed truth, praying in the Holy Spirit, seeking grace and light and enablement. Keep yourselves in the love of God.

70:22 Maintain the felt awareness of His love. The thing we emphasized this morning, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, that's having one eye to the clouds, the coming glory at His second advent. Then verse 22, And on some have mercy who are in doubt, and some save, snatching them out of the fire. And on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh.

70:58 You who are unconverted, boys, girls, men and women, we would seek to extend and be as it were the mouth, the peace of God's mercy. We would call upon you this night, even though as the marginal reading has, you may be ready to dispute what is the faith. In your heart of hearts, when you hear the word God, you know there's a God, and you know you're going to meet Him when you die. In conscience acts, you know you're accountable to the God who implanted that consciousness of your accountability to Him.

71:36 You know it. Stop all of the smoke. When you hear of Christ and His death for sinners and the call to repent and believe the gospel prize you made, you can't dismiss it as all a bunch of religious hogwash. Dear people, we would have mercy upon you and beg you, don't stifle the voice of God speaking in the word, speaking in conscience through the word.

72:06 Some save, snatching them out of the fire. Would to God we could, physically, reach and snatch you from the fires of hell over which you hang this moment in your underwear. We can only do that by pleading with you to turn from your sin and to turn to Christ. Some have mercy with fear.

72:32 In other words, God says to the beloved in God the Father, to the called and the kept for Jesus Christ, while they build themselves up in their most holy faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep themselves in the love of God and look for the mercy that will come at the coming of Christ. Don't forget the lost around you and make every effort to win them. And my dear unconverted man, woman, boy or girl, as I've thought about some of you even this week, for what will you barter your soul? Ask yourself, is it worth a few years of the smiles of my peers to go to hell forever?

73:14 Is it worth it? Let's set aside the glory of God and the honor of God and the claims of God and let's come down to the most entered element in all of us to go to eternity for a few smiles from a few friends for a few short years. Is it worth it? For a few pleasures at your nerve endings, wherever God's placed them, in whatever capacity you have the ability to enjoy them, is it worth it to have a few more pleasures at nerve endings somewhere teeming with the agonies? Is it worth it? Is it worth it? God have mercy on you who are yet out of Christ that you may embrace and that faith is summed up in a person who himself stands before you in the Gospel and says, come unto me.

74:30 Not to my church, not to my ministers, not to my ordinances, but come to me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. And when you take it, I will give you rest.

74:43 And I will give you rest. I will give you rest. And I will give you rest. I will give you rest.

74:49 I will give you rest. I will give you rest. I will give you rest. So let us pray.

75:01 We thank you. We praise you for that once for all delivered to the Saint's faith. We thank you that we have not followed cunningly devised fables. That we have this more sure word of prophecy embedded in the very words of our Bibles.

75:20 that in spite of all of the efforts of all the false teachers of all the centuries that faith remains alive in the hearts of millions around the world today. Oh God we thank you that our Lord Jesus is fulfilling his own word of prophecy and promise that he would build his church and the gates of hell should not prevail against it. We ask that this word of exhortation given by Jude to those of his own day would be written upon our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost and that we as a people may be committed to contend earnestly for this faith once for all delivered to the saints. We pray for those who are outside the orbit of the saving power of that faith. Grant oh Lord that the entreaties of this night will not fall to the ground. Grant that the efforts to reason with sinners concerning the unreasonableness of going on in their lostness. Oh spirit

76:31 of God will you not take them by the ear and bring them home. Lord God bring them home. We beg of you for their good and for your glory. Seal your word to our hearts.

76:49 May your blessing rest upon us throughout the days of this week. Each of us who names the name of Christ may in his respective sphere of influence and labor. Oh may each glorify you. Contend earnestly for the faith and seek graciously and lovingly to rescue those who are outside that faith.

77:15 We ask these mercies through the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.