Why We Must Contend for the Faith

I'm thankful for the generosity and hospitality of the host pastors of this content conference.

And I'm happy to be here. If you have your copy of God's Word, please open once again to Jude.

I'm going to do something that is quite new to me this evening.

And that is to preach an entire letter in one sermon.

That would normally probably take us at the church from which I come dozens and dozens of weeks.

We're going to do it in one evening. And so we're going to cover some of the same ground that Matt has so wonderfully covered for us already this evening.

And we'll trust the Lord's providence that you'll hear it twice because you need to. And so as we move through this text, there are going to be times when we are moving rather quickly.

And it may present more as a commentary rather than a deep exegesis of the text which rubs against the grain of my soul.

But I believe and hope that it will be beneficial to you. Our goal in this next hour is a bit ambitious.

Along the way, I'm going to give you some examples, some clips of various false teachers that will serve for us as examples of what

Jude is describing in this text. My task is to speak to you about the necessity of contending.

You've already seen from verse 3 which is Jude's purpose statement for this epistle.

The necessity that he felt from the Holy Spirit to charge the church to contend.

Let's go ahead and read Jude's introduction which is the first four verses.

Let's hear it again. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the cold, beloved in God the

Father and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you, beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation,

I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank

You for Your Word. We thank You for the faith once delivered.

We thank You for the reminders in Your Word and the exhortations contained therein to our often weary, often distracted, often slow and apathetic souls to contend earnestly for that which

You have delivered to us through the inspired authors. Help us to recognize this evening,

Lord, the seriousness of the threat. I think,

Lord, that at moments tonight we will laugh. And that's okay, but Lord, help us to fear.

Help us to fear God. And love souls. And seek the glory of our

Savior. It's in His matchless name we pray. Amen.

For the introduction of the letter here, we need to note two things. Before we get to Jude's inspired purpose, we want to pause and consider, firstly,

Jude's warm affection. Jude's warm affection. Again, verse 1 and 2, he says he's a bondservant of Jesus Christ, a brother of James, and then he says, to those who are the culled.

Beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.

May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Notice Jude's warm affection for the church.

He says, you, beloved, you are culled. You are the culled. You are beloved, you are kept.

And he prays for you. Mercy and peace and love. Contending for the faith is necessary, as we have seen in part, and as we will see more this evening.

And what is also necessary, what we cannot miss, what we cannot forget, and what we must say here at the outset is that what is also necessary is godly affection for the true church and love for the saints.

The motive that I must have, that you must have, is

God's own love for His church. Our work will be hindered if we come away from this conference all fired up to call out false teaching for the purpose of gratifying our flesh, or stroking our egos, or indulging our anger.

As a pastor, as someone in the ministry, I must be fueled by care and concern for the health and purity of Christ's church to the glory of God, and so must you.

Jude calls the saints beloved four times in this epistle. When you contend for the faith once delivered, you will be accused of going after the body of Christ.

You will be accused of attacking fellow believers, of sowing discord in the church.

You will be slandered. People will tell lies about you. But you contend.

You call out false teaching, false teachers, with the Word of God, faithful to it because you love the true church.

And the church is defined by what she believes according to the faith once for all handed down to the saints.

So now let's consider Jude's inspired purpose. Verses 3 and 4. It says, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation,

I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turned the grace of our

God into licentiousness, and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. As someone who preaches in public, on street corners, sporting events, festivals, and other places,

I wish that I could only talk about the good news. I wish that I only needed to expound upon the grace and glory of our

Lord Jesus Christ as it is contained in the Gospel. But I know that it is necessary to do that which

I do not so much enjoy. I know that it is a necessity for me to speak about hell and death and judgment to come so that persons might come to recognize their need for a

Savior. Jude wishes to write about the spiritual blessings of our common salvation.

It would be far easier, it would be far more enjoyable, but necessity is laid upon him.

Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he must write otherwise. He says,

I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

The necessity that Jude felt to write is the necessity that we must also feel to contend.

The present tense of the verb does not limit the necessity to contend to the persons that Jude has immediately in mind.

The church is called to take up arms, to fortify her defenses, to man the guns, and to always be engaged in this work.

Now preoccupied by false teachers on the internet to the neglect of her other duties, let me make that clear, but nonetheless her struggle is continual until the

Lord returns. It is always necessary. And this is

Jude's appeal. The word appealing there is often translated in the New Testament as exhort.

This is Jude's exhortation. He is imploring the church. It is always necessary to contend earnestly for the faith.

Now this is, as we've heard, not my personal faith in the gospel, but it is the faith, the body of doctrine as delivered by the apostles contained in the pages of Scripture and pertaining to our salvation.

The other pastors hosting the conference and myself subscribe to the 1689

Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. It is a systematic summary of the apostolic body of doctrine.

The faith therefore is not progressing. It's not changing over time, nor is it changing with the times.

So many today seeking to make the faith once for all handed down palatable to the times act as though they are contending, but they are in fact compromising.

They are pretend contenders. And so when Christianity Today puts out an article that says we are all still figuring out gendered language, they are failing to contend for the faith that unquestionably and unapologetically affirms male and female created in God's image to God's glory.

It is once for all handed down and for it, it is continually necessary to contend.

Now, finishing his introduction in verse four, Jude gives the present reason as to why we must contend.

Jude four, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turned the grace of our

God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Some arguments against the public exposure of false teachers have come up.

They've been brought up to me suggesting that such practice is limited to the scope of one's local church and reserved for pastors alone.

While the theologically mature should be the only ones engaging in a formal way in public forums, in any formal capacity, it is most likely that the certain persons

Jude has in mind are not a part of his local congregation. But they were probably traveling teachers and self -proclaimed prophets and seers and apostles who were claiming to have some

God -given authority for their teaching and they would travel to different churches to spread their teaching and to gain followers.

They have crept in unnoticed. This phrase doesn't speak so much to the willful neglect of the church in allowing them to come in, but it means that they have slipped in stealthily.

With purpose, they have come in, they have snuck in. Now that is not to say that the neglect of the church towards the preservation of doctrinal purity does not contribute to the ease with which false teachers creep in.

It certainly does, but it is to say that these unreasoning animals, as Jude will later call them, have come in to do harm to the body of Christ.

Yet they are unnoticed for a time. Why is that?

We've heard it. It's because they say a lot of true things. Many things that are consistent in part with the faith once handed down.

On the surface, they look close enough to the real thing, and so they creep in.

Now he says that they were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Peter speaks similarly of false teachers.

In 2 Peter 2 .17, he said, they are those for whom the black darkness has been reserved.

1 Peter 2 .8, he speaks of others appointed to doom. And it is thought that Jude perhaps used 2

Peter as a source or vice versa. The point is that we are no doubt confronted with the sovereignty of God in regards to the destinies of these false teachers.

We are confronted time and time again in both Jude and 2 Peter. And the language here connects to the conclusion of the letter where the beloved are finally exhorted to remember the predictions of the apostles.

If you look in verse 18, he says, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.

And you can see how it corresponds with the end of the verse, the end of verse four, ungodly persons who pervert or turn the grace of God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

But between the introduction and the letter's conclusion, Jude moves through a pattern of severe, scathing denunciation of the false teachers coupled with lessons from history and prophecy, both about the judgment that awaits them and the present danger they are to the church.

Jude is using language that if you used this language, perhaps in any context, you would be labeled not very nice because he feels the necessity to warn them about the seriousness of the threat.

And this is our great obstacle today, my dear friends, so many professing Christians who do not understand the seriousness of the threat.

So before we begin to work our way through the body of this epistle, I want to point out the literary pattern to you, which is serving as the structure of the sermon.

Jude gives us three couplets, if you will. The first couplet is in verses five through 10.

Jude lists three examples of divine judgment on apostates. And in verse eight through 10, you'll notice he begins verse eight with yet in the same way these men.

Jude denounces the stupidity and the apostasy of the false teachers.

The second couplet is verses 11 through 13. In verse 11, Jude lists three more

Old Testament examples of rebellious men. And in verse 12 and 13, Jude denounces the danger of these false teachers who would lead others into such damnable rebellion.

The third and final couplet is contained in verses 14 through 16. In 14 and 15,

Jude cites Enoch's Old Testament prophecy, drawing from which it aligns doctrinally with several

Old Testament prophecies about the final judgment of the ungodly false teachers.

And in verse 16, Jude denounces the haughty, self -seeking spirit of the false teachers.

And then in verses 17 through 23, they consist of final exhortations that we will cover briefly.

And 24 and 25 in the letter with a concluding blessing and doxology.

So hopefully that outline will help you and create some thought pegs for you as we move through this text.

And we could state the proposition of the letter very simply. Because false teachers have crept in, you must contend.

First, we must contend against apostasy. In Jude five through seven, he gives three

Old Testament examples of apostasy. The first is unbelieving

Israel. Jude five. Says, now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the

Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

These Israelites had front row seats to the wonders of God.

They saw God miraculously deliver their people out of slavery in Egypt.

They saw the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. And they saw the Red Sea dry up so that they could pass through it.

And yet, their generation was marked by grumbling and doubting and longing for Egypt once again.

In other words, apostatizing from the promise of God that He would deliver them into the promised land.

That He would bring them there. They died in the wilderness. The second example of apostasy is the fallen angels in Jude six.

Says, in the angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode,

He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

This is simply speaking about Satan and all his demons being cast into the lake of fire along with the ungodly, as Revelation 20, 15 tells us.

Now, the third example of apostasy is an interesting one and it's Sodom and Gomorrah in Jude seven.

Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

We don't typically, I don't think, view Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of apostasy.

But we need to understand that they were destroyed only 100 years after Noah's death.

Who Peter tells us was a preacher of righteousness and whose righteous preaching was confirmed by a worldwide flood.

This message of righteousness would have been well known among the inhabitants of places like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Perhaps just like it was once well known in the United States. And they apostatized from that message of righteousness.

And so we have these three examples and no time to truly exegete them but I wanted to present them to you so that you may grasp

Jude's primary point. The point is about the fate of apostates.

The Israelite generation perished in the wilderness. Angels are kept for judgment for whom no redeemer exists.

Sodom and Gomorrah are burned, exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

And before we get to our first set of clips, I want you to look at the end of verse 10.

It says, by these things they are destroyed. That's the point.

Jude is impressing upon the mind of the reader. He is reminding the church about the fate of apostates that you might fear

God and understand the seriousness of the threat that these false teachers are.

Now Jude, having given us the examples from the Old Testament, will describe these false teachers and five times in this epistle,

Jude will say, these men, these are the men, these are the ones. He will use a variation of this phrase and he will do that using this identifying language so that you will know who they are.

He expects his readers to be able to identify these men. Many today think that it is virtuous to remain naive about false teaching and false teachers and to not worry about it because God will settle it.

God will deal with it. It is not virtuous, my dear friends, to remain naive about these things.

Instead, the church needs desperately to recover the lost virtue of narrow -mindedness.

We must be able to identify false teaching. Look at verse eight.

Yet in the same way, these men also by dreaming, stop there, the

ESV renders it relying on their dreams, the New King James, these dreamers.

Most likely the idea is that these men claim to receive revelation from God through visions and dreams that they proposed was authoritative.

We're going to deal with it more tomorrow, but I have read a book because I like pain,

I guess, and it's the book of a prominent deliverance minister, a supposed apostle named

Alexander Pagani, and the book is entitled The Secrets to Deliverance.

The book is riddled with unbridled Gnosticism, and Pagani claims to be an apostle set apart by God for this task, and so what

God reveals to him is authority, so he's an apostle, and the source of this book, and subsequently his whole deliverance ministry as it exists today is a dream, and you will now share in my sufferings.

This is from page two and three of his book.

He gives a testimony of he himself being delivered, and then he says, through the years

God had been showing me step by step how to help people get free, but my experience at our church that day, his deliverance, convinced me that there was even more to deliverance than I realized.

Christians could not only need deliverance, but demons could lodge themselves in hidden areas of our lives, both in our souls and in our body parts.

I knew the demon that caused me to feel such rage was literally residing in my chest, because after I was set free,

I felt a physical difference. I realized that if a demon could live in a body part, then

I needed to look further into where else an unclean spirit might hide, so that as a deliverance minister,

I could be more targeted and specific in my prayers. I began seeking God for answers, and a couple months later,

I had a dream. In it, I was approached by a well -known ministry leader who told me to open my hand.

When I did, this person gave me a little book with the title, The Secrets to Deliverance, in gold letters.

The minister then closed my hands, and I woke up. From that day until now, my spirit has been receiving download after download of insight into the realm of the human soul and the demonic.

This is Alexander Pagani's deliverance ministry today. Here's our first clip.

Come over here, devil. We're gonna embarrass you publicly. Come over here, bring, not her, we're gonna, oh, woman of God, we're gonna love on you publicly.

Oh, you're gonna get set free. Yeah, you're gonna go, you're gonna go. Leave, you know? Goodbye, goodbye.

Now, woman of God, I see you in there. Oh, I see you in there, see? See, now I'm looking at you, uh -huh. Demon, come back up.

Hey, baby, see, now I'm talking to you. Out, out. Now, out, now.

Every demon hiding in every room in her life. I open all the doors by the keys of the kingdom of God.

I open, I open the daughter room. I open, I open the sister room.

I open, I open, open all rooms by the keys of the kingdom. And I command every spirit, out, out, out, out, out.

Now, now, now, now. Jesus' name.

Shekatah bakatah rabakai. Shekatah bakatah rabakai.

What do you think? He had a dream.

And in his book, dozens upon dozens of time, Pagani will label these secrets he's received from the

Holy Spirit as revelation. This revelation, he will say.

And it is imperative that the reader receive this revelation from God through his apostle, this dreamer.

Now, perhaps you've begun to notice that Jude is fond of writing in triads, in groups or lists of three.

Looking back at verse eight, he writes, yet in the same way, these men also by dreaming, and then he lists three behaviors that these false teachers engage in, behaviors that are common among them, which their dreams and visions and downloads of revelation are supposed to justify.

They defile the flesh, they reject authority, and they revile angelic majesties.

Let's consider first the defiling of the flesh. This refers to immorality. And it is justified by dreams, visions, revelation that the false teachers receive from God by the authority of the teacher who is receiving visions from God.

These acts of immorality are justified, particularly it is speaking of sexual immorality.

And it is really astounding how many prominent figures in the charismatic movement during the last 124 years or so have been charged or found guilty of sexual misconduct.

It's not our purpose to go through them. But let me highlight two examples, one from the beginning of the charismatic movement and one that is happening today.

Tom Pennington notes in his book, A Biblical Case for Cessationism, the charismatic movement, quote, can be traced to the early days of Pentecostalism, which began at the turn of the 20th century in Topeka, Kansas.

There, Charles Fox Parham, a former Methodist holiness minister, founded a Bible college where he taught his students to pray earnestly to receive the baptism of the

Holy Spirit. He often organized and encouraged large gatherings to seek conversion and pursue the baptism in the

Spirit and miraculous healings. On January 1st, 1901, a group of Parham's students, including a woman named

Agnes Osman, began to pray that they would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Parham himself described what happened to Osman. Quote, I laid my hands upon her and prayed.

I had scarcely completed three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her. A halo seemed to surround her head and face and she began speaking the

Chinese language and was unable to speak English for three days. When she tried to write in English to tell us of her experience, she wrote in Chinese.

Spoiler alert, it was not Chinese. It was scribble.

Parham was later arrested and charged with soliciting sex from a teenage boy. I want you to consider our text again as we look at a modern example.

The false teachers used dreams to justify their sexual misconduct.

Mike Bickle has been the longtime leader of the International House of Prayer and the

International Church of God. He was born in Kansas City. He is the proponent of much false doctrine common to the charismatic movement, including dreams, visions, prophecies, tongues, et cetera.

A few weeks before the scandal broke out, Bickle announced that he had a vision that he was soon going to be targeted with slander and persecution.

What was recently disclosed is that Mike Bickle sexually abused multiple women over the past 40 years.

What does this have to do with Jude's words? Listen, the line that Mike Bickle would use with these young women, what he would say to them, who had come to IHOP sensing a call of God on their life and coming to be trained for the ministry in whatever capacity.

The line that he would give them was that God gave him a dream, that his wife was going to die and she, this young woman, was going to be his new wife.

Yet in the same way, these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh.

My friends, this describes the Mike Bickle situation exactly. This text is about him and it is about others like him.

The threat is serious. The threat is present. Now secondly, let's consider the rejection of authority.

There is much that could be said here, but for the sake of time, let me just say this. The thousands of false teachers today who dub themselves

Apostles of Christ with a capital A, they reject authority. And they reject authority by assuming authority that is not theirs.

By assuming authority that they have no claim on, they reject the authority reserved only for the

Apostles chosen by Christ. Whether it's Apostle Catherine Crick or Apostle Alexander Pagani or Apostle Bill Johnson or Apostle Chuck Pierce or whoever, by claiming to be

Apostles of Christ, they reject the authority of Christ to appoint his own Apostles.

Listen to this from Catherine Crick because assuming this apostolic authority, they speak madness.

We're not limited to the Bible, but God expands, everything aligns.

It's coming from the word. It's not isolated, some random teaching. It must align with the word.

But God wants to bring more. God wants to bring meat. God wants to bring mysteries. God wants to bring secrets of the kingdom.

That comes by taking the limits off of him and allowing him to expand upon scripture, bring revelation upon scripture that aligns with scripture.

Religious spirit doesn't like that, beware of that. They always will say, but it's not in the word of God.

Still speaking, he's doing a new thing. He's doing a new thing.

We can't shut off his voice here and now today and only just read the Bible and that's it.

We need his voice to breathe upon the word and bring more. Apostle Catherine Crick teaches that when she speaks, she speaks the word of God.

And she downplays, she slanders God's inspired and sufficient word.

They not only reject apostolic authority by saying that God is speaking through them in the same manner he spoke through the 12 and Paul, but they reject the authority of Christ who did not appoint them.

The same goes for these so -called prophets today. And they'll say, well, he did appoint me.

I had a dream and they are deceived and they are liars and they are false.

So again, Jude says here that they rely on dreams to justify the ungodly behavior of defiling the flesh and rejecting authority and thirdly, reviling angelic majesties.

Unbiblical views of spiritual warfare are the hallmark of modern false teachers of much of it and much of it consists in pretended hand -to -hand combat with the devil.

And Jude is going to demonstrate how foolish it is. Jim Osmond says this very helpfully in his book,

Truth or Territory, that biblical spiritual warfare is a truth war and it is fought with the truth, with the power of God that is the gospel of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And it is not about speculative tactics and downloads of secrets that we employ in order to fist fight the devil over territory, over spiritual territory.

Let's consider briefly just one such practice, the practice of binding Satan. Osmond writes, quote, it is believed that by binding

Satan, his activity is limited, hindered, or prohibited in the sphere in which he is bound.

For instance, a person might pray that Satan will be bound from blinding a person to whom they wish to present the gospel with the belief that this will improve the likelihood that the person will trust

Christ as their savior. Someone might pray that Satan would be bound from a certain event, a concert, a worship service, a conference or whatever it is, and thus be prohibited from having influence or power over that event.

Someone might pray that Satan be bound from a geographical location with the belief that uttering such prayer cripples

Satan's ability to interfere or enter. Now more often than not, however, binding

Satan is not practiced as a prayer to God, but as a direct address to Satan himself.

After I was converted, I was in a church, and it was common to include in prayer the phrase,

Satan, we bind you. And even then, I think it was a little shocking to me how casually that phrase was uttered.

The way in which Satan himself was directly addressed gave no pause, gave no fear to those who practiced this.

Listen to this from Robert Tilton's TV program back in the day.

If you don't know who Robert Tilton is, I actually have a clip for you to just familiarize yourself with Robert Tilton, the great

Robert Tilton, before we read this quote of his.

It's a beautiful day, got my Bible, I'm ready to go. I'm loaded, I'm pregnant with miracles.

Nope. This is Robert Tilton on his TV program.

Quote, Satan, you demonic spirits of AIDS and AIDS virus,

I bind you. You demon spirits of cancer, arthritis, infection, migraine, headaches, pain, come out of that body.

Come out of that child, come out of that man. Satan, I bind you. You foul demon spirits of sickness and disease, infirmities in the inner ear and the lungs and the back.

You demon spirits of arthritis, sickness and disease. You tormenting, infirm spirits in the stomach.

Satan, I bind you. You nicotine spirits, I bind you in the name of Jesus.

There's much that could be said about the association of bad habits with demons, and I think we'll talk more about that tomorrow in our deliverance, our session on deliverance.

But the point here is the direct reviling of angelic majesties.

Now, this is a silly example from Silly Man back in 1991, but it seems today that this practice is only growing in popularity.

Now, in verse nine, Judah's going to demonstrate the absurdity of shouting at demons.

We see deliverance ministers having full -on conversations supposedly with demons, and Judah's going to demonstrate the foolishness of it.

Jude nine, but Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, the

Lord rebuke you. Judah's taking an account from a pseudepigraphal work called

The Assumption of Moses, and he wants you to see the absurdity by pointing to an angel, an angel who is without sin and mighty.

But not just any mighty angel, the chief angel of God, Michael, with all his power and purity, did not dare pronounce against the devil a railing judgment.

Rather, what did he do? He deferred to the greater power of a sovereign

God. And so Jude's point is that if even the archangel would not address

Satan in a direct, bold, brash confrontation, then sinful men should likewise do no such thing.

We should not follow, or we should follow the example of Michael and defer to the

Lord to intervene on our behalf. In other words, Christians have no business yelling at the devil.

Now what does he say about these false teachers? Remember, he is illustrating the third behavior justified by dreams.

Jude 10, but these men revile the things which they do not understand in the things which they know by instinct like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.

These apostates are so puffed up with this dreamt up power and authority, especially those who deem themselves prophets and apostles and think they have the same authority as the

Lord Jesus that they actually have no understanding about the things they revile.

How terrifying. I think again of these so -called deliverance ministers, these demon slayers who make a show out of yelling at demons hiding in Christians.

Jude says that they are like unreasoning animals. They have no spiritual sense.

It is only pretended. John MacArthur puts it this way, in divine matters they are no brighter than the dumbest beasts.

Now remember that the point of these three examples Jude gave was the fate of the apostates and now he is going to conclude this thought, this section with this last phrase in verse 10, by these things they are destroyed.

And this clip is an example of a man who was in Lubbock, Texas recently, reviling angelic majesties.

This is Daniel Adams. You will speak.

What are you doing to her? Talk. You're gonna take her destiny. How did you get inside of her?

Her mom. What did her mom do? Shaman. Ah, you are a marine spirit, aren't you?

You all water spirits. They dedicated her? She's mine now.

No she's not. The kids are mine too now. Ah, no she's not. You demons are so funny.

What do you see? Son of God. Ah, she sees a son of God. Then you know what that means.

If you see me as a son of God, then you know what happens next, right? No, and we must keep her.

Listen, first of all, shut up. Second of all, come out of her. These people have a massive following and it's growing.

The threat is serious. So we must contend against apostasy.

We must contend also against the rebellious. And here we'll deal with 11 through 13.

Jude is going to give another three examples from the Old Testament and then apply it to the false teachers.

Read with me. He says, woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah.

These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts, when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

We're just going to walk through these words. These Old Testament examples.

The way of Cain. Do not think that Cain and Abel had no knowledge of God's will when it came to the offering of sacrifices.

As if they were both just guessing what God was going to find an acceptable sacrifice.

And Abel happened to guess correctly. And Cain drew the short stick with his offering.

Jude's point is that Cain rebelled against the revealed will of God. And he went so far in his rebellion that rather than shedding the blood of an animal in worship, he shed the blood of his own brother in rebellion.

That's the way of Cain. The error of Balaam. Balaam was not ignorant of the

Lord's revealed will either for his people. And yet for money, he devised a plan for Balak, king of Moab to tempt

Israel into a compromising situation with idolatry and immorality, which would bring upon the people of Israel the judgment of God.

He was a rebellious man against the revealed will of God. The third example

Jude gives is the rebellion of Korah. And Korah led 250 other Jewish leaders to seek to replace

Moses as the head, as the leader. And they rejected him as the

God -appointed man to lead the nation. The Lord caused the earth to open up and swallow every mutineer.

These are the examples Jude gives here. These false teachers rebel against the revealed will of God and lead others into compromise and ultimately to destruction.

And it's a serious threat. That's what Jude is getting at. These men will lead you to death.

And in light of the seriousness of the threat, Jude does not mince words.

These are the men. And he uses this identifying language. He wants you to know who these men are.

These are the men. Hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves.

They are among you and they are the embodiment of the cause of shipwreck. They are hidden reefs that they are that which will make shipwreck of your faith, and they are more devoted to their lies than to the well -being of your soul.

He says they are clouds without water carried along by winds. Autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted.

Here we have two pictures describing the same thing. These are these.

A rebelling, rebelling against the revealed will of God, and they are making promises of spiritual nourishment and well -being, but never deliver anything but emptiness and rottenness.

And Jude here is alluding to Proverbs 5, 25, 14, like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of his gifts falsely.

They do not bless their followers with spiritual life and nourishment. Instead, they curse them with death and lead them to hell by their false gospel.

They claim to lay before their followers a feast of spiritual nourishment, but they are starving.

Their followers are wasting away in famine. That's the reality of the situation.

These are the men who lead big, successful churches like Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an

Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. They promise much, but deliver nothing.

And if they are sheep in those churches, they are starving. And they have found themselves in a goat farm.

Goats will eat anything. Wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam.

They have powerful ministry. They have the lights and the props.

And as we saw up there, if you noticed with Alexander Pagani, they have the musicians that play the hype music as they start to shout during their sermons.

But wild waves wreak havoc upon everyone in their wake. That's the picture being drawn.

Says they are wandering stars. They're like a meteor streaking across the night sky.

They flash bright for a moment and then fade away into darkness. And like a meteor that has no discernible direction or destination, they, too, give no firm spiritual direction to those who follow them.

Again, John MacArthur quips, they deliver a brief, aimless, worthless flash.

And Jude says these are the men and then he described them because he wants you to be able to identify them so that you will be equipped to contend against them for the faith once for all handed down to the saints.

So let's identify one of these men. This is

Mike Todd. I want to end with if it's OK. Jesus never reached his potential.

Now, I know this is messed with a lot of people, theology. Because since I've been young, everybody's like,

Mike, you need to reach your potential, everything that God said and put inside of you. It needs to happen. But when

I study the scriptures, he never reached his potential. When he died upon the cross, he said three words.

He said it is finished. What was finished? Not his potential.

But he had the potential to overthrow Caesar. He had the potential to be a Roman guard. He had the potential to do all kinds of stuff.

The thing that was finished was his purpose. If you've been studying the scriptures and your conclusion is that Jesus never reached his potential to become a

Roman guard, you're doing it wrong. I think we can all agree on that.

Here's more from Mike Todd. See, a lot of people, especially religious people, they believe that crazy faith is just language.

I'm blessed. I've been in the law for 62 years and I'm blessed to go in and blessed coming out.

You're still on welfare. Blur out your shirt because you have a picture of your wife in a bathing suit on your shirt while you are preaching instead of as my brother and sister.

You look at the person who's walking into the gay nightclub as an enemy instead of your brother and sister, just because they're doing the wrong thing does not mean they're not in the family.

Here's another one. A couple of years ago he posts a video of himself twerking on Instagram.

Yeah, because the vision I'm about to give you. It might get nasty. Oh God, pastors don't say this because they want to be absolute.

Well, why did I don't freaking know? I know, honestly, I wish God would have made it so much simpler and it was like ABC or D like Frick.

No, I'm serious as a pastor. Like, what do you think about gay men? I don't know.

Clouds without water. Carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted.

Clowns entertaining goats, as Spurgeon put it. Now, so we must contend against apostasy.

We must contend against rebellion from the revealed word of will of God. Thirdly, we must contend against the ungodly.

This is verses 14 through 16, just as Jude uses the word beloved four times in this epistle.

So he uses the word ungodly in reference to the false teachers four times to their persons four times twice here in verses 14 through 16.

He says it was also about these men that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, behold, the

Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Jude's source here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is the book of Enoch. And the focus here is on the execution of judgment.

Enoch prophesies before the flood of coming judgment. Jude applies his prophecy to the wrath, which is to come upon the ungodly and the repetitive use of the word ungodly shed some pretty clear light on us.

What Jude considers to be the essence of the problem. These false teachers do not have

God. These false teachers do not fear God. For example, how could anyone who fears

God say something like this from Jesse Duplantis? I honestly believe this, that the reason why

Jesus hadn't come is because people are not giving the way God told him to give. You see what I'm saying?

I mean, when you understand you can speed up the time. I was on television. He said, I heard you was a millionaire.

I said, that's not right. That's not true. He said, yes, it is. I said, no, it's not multi.

Now add that to it. You'll be all right. Oh, he couldn't handle that. He'd like to have had a fit. And I said, you mess with me.

I buy this station. I'll fire you. Oh, he didn't like that. You know, that was a little fleshy, but it felt good.

Just did. So I realized that I will not move people emotionally to give.

Right. No, I'm going to have people move according to the word of God. What is God saying to you? And I really believe this.

If people would call this number and put this victory all over the world, on every available voice, every available outlet, the father, he would say,

Jesus, go get him. Yeah, because you see, he wants to see us as much as we want to see him. You see what

I'm saying? And so what is hindered all these things is it's because people are not doing in the financial realm because we live in an economic world.

What God's called them to do. You know, he's called us to do that. So I don't have a problem with giving. I don't have a problem receiving.

It doesn't make any difference because I just made up my mind. I want Jesus to come. They said, do you own a jet?

Yes, you can have it the day after the rapture is yours. The reason

Jesus hasn't come back is because you haven't given Jesse Duplantis enough money. And he pretends that he desires, he pretends, as Jude exhorts us, he pretends to wait anxiously for the mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. So that. He can buy more planes and Jude 16.

These are the grumblers finding fault, following after their own lust, they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage grumbling against the revealed will of God.

They find fault with sound doctrine and teach instead what will make them popular and rich.

We see such arrogant talk and flattery, often with proponents of the prosperity gospel, which

Pastor Mark is going to speak to us more about tomorrow.

But for now, watch this clip from Joyce Meyer. Man, you're awesome.

I wish you knew how awesome you are. You are just so awesome, so powerful, so amazing.

Who? Sin entered the world through one man,

Adam. And righteousness came in through one man, Jesus Christ.

It only takes one person that's goofy enough to believe they can change the world.

That is blasphemy. Jesus is not some goofy person who believes he can change the world.

He's our Lord and our Savior for these ungodly sinners.

Jude says the wrath of God is coming. But what about you?

Jude is going to list a series of applications now giving you instruction on how to contend for the faith once handed down to the saints.

And as we've said all along, you must be convinced of the seriousness of the threat illustrated by the severe judgment, which is to come upon false teachers.

And if they are not rescued, those who follow them first, he says, remember verse 17, you ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our

Lord Jesus Christ that they were saying to you in the last time there will be mockers following their own ungodly lusts.

Jude points not to an Old Testament example now, but to the words of the apostles who warned about this.

The apostles had much to say about the threat of false teachers. Matt already pointed out to us

Paul's words from Acts chapter 20 to the Ephesian elders that they would come in among the church.

When when someone says to you that you ought not to worry about those who teach wrongly, who teach false doctrine, who lead others into apostasy and rebel against the

Word of God and lead others down that path of apostasy and rebellion to destruction, you ought to remind them of the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our

Lord Jesus Christ. They were spoken so that you would not be caught off guard.

They were spoken so that you would be protected against the enemy's schemes.

They were spoken so that you would be. Able to rise and to meet the necessity of contending for the faith once delivered.

You ought to remind them that twenty six out of twenty seven of the books contained in this

New Testament written to the church warned the church about false teachers. And as we've seen from Jude, it's not just the

New Testament that warns us, but all of these examples from the Old Testament serve as a warning for the church today as well.

And someone says to you that marking false teachers, exposing their false doctrine and contending for the faith is divisive when they call you a sower of discord, you ought to remind them in the spirit of love and mercy that the

Bible teaches otherwise. Jude 19. This phrase again, these are the ones who cause divisions, worldly minded, devoid of the spirit, those who contend for the faith against apostates, against the rebellious, against the ungodly are not divisive.

It's the heretics that are divisive. According to Scripture, it's the false teacher who is divisive, not the one who contends for the faith.

And secondly, Jude exhorts you to keep yourselves in the love of God. Meaning that you, beloved, as opposed to the ungodly, keep walking in obedience to the truth.

We've heard from Matt as well that the text reveals three ways in which this is done.

First, in verse 20, this involves building yourself up in your most holy faith, a faith here again, just like in verse three, does not refer to your your personal faith in the

Lord Jesus, but the faith of the Lord Jesus. That is the doctrine handed down by the prophets and the apostles to build yourself up in this most holy faith and is done by giving yourselves to the study of God's word.

Visit many good books, Spurgeon said, but live in the Bible. This is how you keep yourselves in the love of God.

This is how by abiding in the truth. This is how you detect lies.

This is how you hone those those theological filters by which you are able to detect that which is false and damaging because, you know, the truth.

Second, you keep yourselves in the love of God by praying in the Holy Spirit. Verse 20, again, this does not mean speaking and praying in tongues, but it does mean praying in a manner that is consistent with the truth of God's word and in the power of the

Holy Spirit. As revealed in his word, praying consistently with the truth revealed in his word, a prayerless

Christian is not keeping himself in the love of God, and he is certainly more susceptible to deception and thus ill -equipped to contend.

And thirdly, you keep yourselves in the love of God by verse 21, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Just as Jude has given us a graphic portrayal of the judgment of false teachers, which is to take place at Christ's return.

So we, in contrast, look forward expectantly, anticipating, receiving eternal life from the

Lord, our Lord, who has had mercy on us. We are to live in view of this, namely that while destruction is reserved for false teachers, resurrection is ours by the mercy of Jesus Christ.

So Jude calls us to remember the words of the apostles to keep ourselves in the love of God and finally.

To rescue others. I am so over time and Matt has already wonderfully delivered an exposition of what those verses mean, and so let me skip ahead to Jude's doxology.

Jude's doxology, we contend because souls are at stake.

So let me let me offer a concluding thought from Jude's Jude's benediction, which is perhaps the most glorious in the

New Testament, he says in verse 24 and 25. Now, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless and with great joy.

To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, be glory, majesty and dominion and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen. I want you to recognize that you are not walking in the truth because you were just smarter than those who are deceived.

When you look at people who are deceived and when you deal with them, you want to as Jude just exhorted.

To have compassion on them, to show mercy to them, knowing there goes on, there goes

I, but for the grace of God. Their primary purpose and contending is not to win arguments, but to rescue souls.

And if this is not your primary purpose and you need to sit down, notice this finally.

He says to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Is him who is able to keep you from stumbling.

It's not in your own strength. It's not in your own effort. It is him who is able to make you stand in the presence of his glory and with great joy and save yourself.

You didn't come to the right doctrinal conclusion that you have come to by your own intellect and wisdom.

Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my father who is in heaven. Remember that it is him.

It is him that pray. Father in heaven, we. And we thank you for your gospel that has saved us.

For your glorious son, this Lord of glory condescended to take on human flesh and to live for us a life that we so utterly failed to live because we loved our sin while he loved the

Lord is God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and then laid down this perfect life of his on a

Roman cross voluntarily to take our sin on his own shoulders and to suffer the wrath of God that was otherwise reserved for us and justly so and to satisfy your justice against we undeserving sinners in his death and in the shedding of his meritorious blood, which has stored up merit and favor with God on believing sinners like us so that by faith alone in him, that righteousness of his which is demonstrated in his earthly life is credited to us so that we are justified in your sight and declared righteous, not because we were smarter,

Lord, not because we were good, but because Christ was good enough for us and is the only sufficient savior of our souls.

We thank you that you have been so kind to us. Equip us,

Lord, to contend faithfully for the faith. Once for all, handed down to the saints.