Fight Today's Battles (Book of Jude)

Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts. Morse Corner is a non-denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's word through the ministries of the local church.

If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message. But the main context here, Jude, we need to defend the faith in the church house. This is where it's the most critical because you're not really going to expect the faith to be upheld all these other places.

Contending for the Faith in the Church

We kind of know how that goes. Judgment starts in the house of God. So if the church isn't preaching and teaching the truth, then where are we at? What does Jude say in verse three? The letter that he wanted to write was about our common salvation.

In other words, Jude wanted to write a letter that, hey, you're saved. I'm saved. We have this common faith. We all believe in Jesus. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it great for us? Well, that's what he wanted to write, but he recognized the moment he was living it.

I really, I'm telling you the truth. I really want to preach positive sermons. You know, there's the preachers that are positive only and it's all positivity and flowers and rainbows and unicorns. I want to preach positive messages, but I believe or I understand that the times we're living in and what is required.

So Jude says, I wanted to write to you concerning our common salvation, but these men have crept in to the churches. So he writes this letter that's very different. So Jude is writing to Christians, instructing them, instructing us to what?

Contend earnestly for the faith. When you hear the word contend, what comes to mind? Fighting, right? Yep. So we need to fight for the faith. That's where this idea comes from. Contend earnestly. In other words, we need to fight for the faith because people have crept in and they're turning the grace of God into lewdness.

So that's what contend means. It means we need to, we need to fight. You need to be willing to take things on. You need to be willing to go to battle over certain things. Jude isn't saying that we should have a contentious spirit.

I'm sure you've known people throughout the years that they're just contentious people. Any little thing, they cop an attitude over nothing. They're just unhappy. If you cross their path, they're going to give you grief just because.

Obviously, as believers, we shouldn't be like that. I think we should be joyful fighters. We should fight joyfully. Is that a new idea? Have you ever heard that? We should. We should fight joyfully. Fighting sounds bad, has a negative connotation to it, but fighting is not bad.

It depends what you're fighting for or what you're fighting against. It's sort of like love. Love is not necessarily good. It's not necessarily bad. It depends on the object of your love. If you love God, that's good.

If you love your neighbor as yourself, that's good. If you love evil, that's bad. If you love Satan, that's bad. Love isn't good or bad. Fighting isn't good or bad. It depends on what you're fighting for.

In this life, you're going to fight for something. Some people are off fighting political battles. People are fighting their neighbors. They're fighting their spouse. Take that time and energy and fight for the faith.

Amen? Let's look at a couple things. We'll look at how we should fight. I would say, again, be a joyful fighter. We should look at how we are to fight. We'll look at when we should fight. But first, I want to reinforce this idea, the necessity of fighting, fighting for the faith.

Because a lot of people are going to try to convince you that Christians shouldn't fight at all. The scam is to try to get you to be loving and accepting of everything and everybody. That's what a Christian should be.

You should just accept everything and everybody. And yet, the people that talk about tolerance and acceptance the most, they're the first people to not tolerate certain things. Now, it's true, as followers of Jesus, we should be patient, we should be kind.

But nobody is accepting of everything. This is the devil's trick, though, to try to get you to roll over and play dead and accept everything. But the people who lecture us about acceptance, they're off fighting for their causes.

Are they not? Oh, yeah. They're fighting every day for their causes. We have a cause, too. And that is the cause of Christ. Preach the gospel to every creature. Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Teach them all things that Christ commanded. Support missions to bring this message all over the world. Promote godly worship and defend the faith. All right, back to the text. In verse 5, Jude gives some Old Testament examples, as well as some things the church was going through at the moment.

I don't know about you, but my Bible has this section titled Old and New Apostates. Who has that? Old and New Apostates. So he's talking about things that happened in the past in the Bible, Old Testament, and what's going on right now.

He says, but I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day, as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

So these are the two Old Testament examples that Jude gives. And these are examples of apostates, those who once professed to believe in God, but now they have turned away, they have turned aside. The first example was the Israelites, who left the worship of the Lord God, who delivered them out of the land of Egypt, and what did they do?

They turned away from the Lord, and they worshiped a golden calf. They got into idolatry. The second example are the holy angels, who followed Lucifer in the rebellion, and they, like him, they fell. So, if you know your Old Testament, you know that Moses and the righteous Israelites, what did they have to do?

What's the title of the message? Defending the faith. Moses had to defend the faith. Aaron and his son, and Joshua and Caleb, they had to defend the faith. Joshua had to fight. Joshua, you realize, Joshua is known as a warrior.

He's known as a fighter. And Joshua is the Old Testament equivalent, his name, to the New Testament name, Jesus. Do you realize Jesus is a fighter? I know he's portrayed as a long-haired hippie, but that's not the way Jesus is.

Jesus was a man's man. He was a fighter. So, Moses was a fighter. Joshua was a fighter. And they didn't fight only against the Egyptians or the Canaanite tribes. They had to fight, here's the thing, they had to fight against rebels within Israel.

So, what's the application? We need to fight against rebels within the visible church. You know, it's always been this way. There's the attacks from without. This is the atheists and the agnostics. But the attacks from within are much more deadly.

And just as Israel was a physical nation, therefore they fought physical battles. The church in 1 Peter 2 .9 is referred to as a spiritual nation. Therefore, we fight what? We fight spiritual battles.

One current battle we're fighting against is the godless ideology of secularism. You have Darwinism, Marxism, transgenderism, all types of different isms that are opposed to the God of heaven. And again, some would say, well, you know, just talk about things in the Bible.

I don't think you should talk about that stuff. That's the devil's trick. Don't talk about anything that's going on right now. Just talk about stuff that happened 3 ,000 years ago. You know, fight the battles that have already been won.

Don't fight now. That's what people want you to do. Don't fall for it. So this is the battle right now, secularism. So I've noticed that some well-meaning Christians, I think, they have this idea that, yeah, you should talk about Moses fighting the idolaters.

You can talk about the prophets preaching against the kings of Israel. But don't talk about anything that's happening right now. No. We're not buying into that. We can't do that. Verse 8. Why? Because Jude didn't do it.

Remember, old and new apostates. Jude was talking about things in the Bible in the past. He's also talking about things that are happening right then and there. This is what he says about the current situation.

He says, likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. And then he goes on to explain what he means, how even the archangel Michael did not dare bring a reviling accusation against the devil.

Watch out for preachers who are openly rebuking the devil and his demons. You would think that would be, aren't we supposed to do that? No, you're not. I remember in, I don't know, this must have been vacation Bible school.

I remember when I was a kid, there was a song. And if the devil doesn't like it, he can sit on a tack. Ouch. Sit on, right? Probably shouldn't do that. Who are you to rebuke the devil? What power do you or do we have over the devil and his demons?

Even the archangel Michael didn't dare bring an accusation against him. And yet there's preachers all over the place. They're binding and rebuking Satan as if they're able to do that. That is a red flag.

So, these are some of the things that are happening. That Jude is addressing false teachers. He compares them to Balaam. Verse 11, he says, they run greedily in the error of Balaam, the prophet. So, these are the types of false teachers that are obsessed with money, right?

They're driven by health and wealth and all these things that appeal to the flesh. They gain a following by telling people what they want to hear. 2 Timothy 4, 3 and 4. Paul talks about this. He says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires.

Because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers. So, if we need to defend the faith, we have to be willing to fight the battles that are going on now. And yes, even fight against people who profess the name of Jesus.

I realize that's not, we wish it wasn't that way. But it was that way then, it's that way right now. So, the title of the message, Defending the Faith. Are you willing to defend the faith? I hope you are.

If somebody is not willing to defend the faith, look at it this way. Let's say a man and his wife are walking down the road. And somebody says something about this man's wife, totally crude, inappropriate.

And it doesn't faze the guy at all. And he's not willing to say or do anything about it. Or day after day, people are attacking his wife, attacking his kids. And he doesn't even care. What does that tell you?

Does he love his wife? No, he doesn't. Does he love his kids? No, he doesn't. If he loves his family, he will defend his family. If a person is not willing to defend the faith, do they really love the faith?

So, this is kind of an important issue for me. Like I said, the first time I ever spoke publicly was at a men's breakfast about 15 years ago on this topic. Defending the faith. And I'm sure it was a lousy message.

I have no doubt about that. But I was willing to do it. And sometimes we feel like, well, I don't have the words. I don't know what to say. Say something. Say something. I was talking to one person about this topic.

And they said, well, does the faith really need to be defended? Does it really need to be defended? Well, because there's different types of apologetics. Some people use philosophy and logic and archaeology.

And that's fine. That has its place, I suppose. There's another approach to apologetics where you just tell people what the Bible says. Let the Bible speak for itself. You don't need to come up with 50 different clever arguments.

Just declare to the person what the scripture says. You know, I think that's the best approach. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, the word of God is like a lion. You don't need to defend a lion. All you need to do is let the lion loose.

And the lion will defend itself. Thanks for listening. I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or if you'd like more information about the ministry, visit our website, morriscornickchurch .com.

And we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.