Why We Must Contend for the Faith

I'm thankful for the generosity and hospitality of the

host pastors of this content conference.

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, it's 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, verses 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 called, 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 called.

You are the called.

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 turn 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 4, Jude gives the present reason as to

why we must contend.

Jude 4, 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.

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 4, 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 5 through 10.

Jude lists three examples of divine judgment on apostates.

And in verse 8 through 10, you'll notice he begins verse 8 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.

Now first, we must contend against apostasy.

In Jude 5 through 7, he gives three Old Testament examples of apostasy.

The first is unbelieving Israel.

Jude 5.

It 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 6.

It says,.

And 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 7.

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 a hundred 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 8.

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 painting, 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.

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 2 and 3 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.

Not her.

Oh, woman of God, we're gonna love on you publicly.

Oh, you're gonna get set free.

You're gonna go.

You're gonna go.

Leave.

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.

Demon, come back up.

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.

Open the sister room.

I open.

I open.

Open all rooms by the keys of the kingdom.

And I command every spirit.

Out, Jesus

name.

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 8, 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 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 Osmond,

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

Parham himself described what happened to Osmond.

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.

This was essentially the birth of the charismatic movement.

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 long time leader of the International House of Prayer in

Kansas City.

He is a proponent of much false doctrine common to the charismatic movement including dreams, visions,

prophecies, tongues, etc.

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 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 twelve 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, 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.

It 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.

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.

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 9, Jude is going to demonstrate the absurdity of shouting at

demons.

We see deliverance ministers having full on conversations supposedly with demons and

Jude is going to demonstrate the foolishness of it, Jude 9.

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 rebuketh you.

Jude is 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, and 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 going to 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?

Ah, you all water spirits.

They dedicated her?

Yes.

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?

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.

Judah's 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 them

selves.

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.

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 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 and 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.

It says they are wandering stars.

They are 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 describes 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 okay, Jesus never reached his potential.

Now I know this is messing with a lot of people's 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 studied 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.

Because 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 Lord for 62.

Years, and I'm blessed to go in and bless 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.

Pastors don't say this because they want to be absolute.

Well, why did that?

I don't freaking know.

No, honestly, I wish God would have made it so much simpler and it was like A, B, C or

D, like frick.

As a pastor, 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.

So we must contend against apostasy.

We must contend against rebellion from the revealed 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 and 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 sheds 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 them 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 and you'll be alright.

Oh, he couldn't handle that.

He liked to have a fit.

And I said, you mess with me, I'll buy this station and I'll fire you.

Boy, he didn't like that.

He didn't like that.

That was a little fleshy, but it felt good.

It just did.

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

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.

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 has hindered all these things is because people are not doing in the financial

realm, because we live in an economic world, what God's called them to do.

He's called us to do that.

So I don't have a problem with giving.

I don't have a problem with receiving.

It doesn't make any difference.

I just made up my mind.

I want Jesus to come.

They say, do you own a jet?

Yes, you can have it the day after the rapture.

It's 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 more houses.

Jude 16.

These are the grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts.

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!

...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 in 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 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 26 out of 27 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.

When 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.

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.

Faith here again, just like in verse 3, does not refer to 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 offer a concluding thought from 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 in contending is not to win argument, but to rescue souls.

And if this is not your primary purpose, then 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.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we 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 we're all handed down to the saints.

Amen.