James White Teaches About Contending for the Faith

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Hey everybody, I'm Pastor Jeff Durbin with Apologia Church. I want to thank you all so much for watching the content right here on Apologia Studios channel

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What you're about to watch is a sermon a message from Apologia Church's worship service

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Word of God So we thank you so much for partnering with us to send this out across the world I just wanted to say something before you actually watch this and that is that I'm not your pastor

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Though I'd love to be I am NOT your pastor and it's very important as you're watching this

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You know that it's God's design for individual Christians to be part of a local

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Local body of believers in your area. So thank you again so much for watching these and sharing them.

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God bless you Church Someone didn't pay me for all the mispronunciations

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I did on the program. So I figure I'm just gonna give up on that Thought that might be a really good source of income

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For those of you who may be visiting and are wondering what that's all about I've taught

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Greek for decades now and It's Let's just say that if you tried to read the

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New Testament by pronouncing every Good the way that that you pronounce apology.

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It would sound really weird. So That's really not how to pronounce it. But you know, it's okay we will we will we will let it slide and I can adjust

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I will I will try to to not be a pain and but it is fun, we've had some little debates and Jeff will not debate me on that subject.

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However, he's wise very wise man By the way, how many of you have ever been to Australia or New Zealand?

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Okay, not very many. Let me tell you something Depending on whether you're a compassionate people

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Or are not so compassionate people when they get back You need to realize

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I I don't know why I travel all around the world I've been going down to South Africa a lot There is no place tougher to go as far as jet lag than Australia and New Zealand The first time

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I went down there because you're 17 hours Well, which way is it?

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It's it's it's ahead but you're you're you're seven hours behind but a day ahead and and It is just a horrible feeling and the first time

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I went down there The folks just not wisely at all scheduled me to speak the day that I arrived and But you know when

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I got there I was all excited and this is great and a few hours later. I wasn't excited this wasn't great and I was speaking on atheism and the

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Sydney atheist showed up not the Sydney atheist They have more than one the

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Sydney atheist plural showed up I still have no idea what in the world I said in response to any of their questions because I was gone

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It was terrible. So the point is if you want to be compassionate and kind When they get back remember for a few days, you know

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You need to sort of lead them by the hand and be be nice to them and things like that But if you're not so compassionate, that's the time to get them

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They're not gonna have any idea what's going on. And so you can put anything over on them

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You know if you want to record Marcus if you want to get some cool video of them Just fumbling and stumbling and doing so that's the time to get it.

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So just I didn't tell you that are we recording this? Maybe live -streaming it even so just just keep that in mind, but it is great that they have a chance to be down there

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It's a tough place There are some good Christian people down there, but I predict resistance because Australians especially are this weird mixture

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They are not exactly sure who they are. Are they British? Are they American and What they'll tell you when they get back is

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The language that they use is a mixture right down the middle of our terminology and English terminology

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English as in England So in England you have satnav

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We have GPS In Australia's GPS, why isn't it satnav?

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I don't know here. We have elevators in England. They have lifts in Australia their lifts It's there's no rhyme or reason to it and They sense the fact that they sort of lack a really specific identity

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But they have enough English British in them That street ministry and public preaching and stuff like that It's gonna be a tough sell.

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There's just no two ways about it. It's gonna. There's gonna be some resistance to that So I just predict that right now

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I'm supposed to be getting back down there next year myself hopefully So we'll see But it's a it's a hard place.

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It's already that that's what shocked me that they had just now allowed abortion in Queensland Because it's a secular deeply secular nation and so it's

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It's one person at a time. It's it's a very very difficult place So pray for them while they're down there and then have fun with them when they get back

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Whatever whatever you want to do. I leave that I didn't tell you. I just simply told you what my experience was was there

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I myself am leaving first thing in the morning Via gonna go visit my grandkids and in Las Vegas.

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First of all Tomorrow is Janie's birthday for those of you who know Clementine and January and then

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I'm going straight from there to Frankfurt Germany and I'm gonna speak on some subjects there.

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So I've got a little bit of a traveling week ahead of me as well But it worked out that I was able to be here if you'll turn your

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Bibles, please as you know to the book of Jude And I don't know if it's just because I'm getting old because I am or if it's just gets really dried out

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People used to say do you know do you want some water and I would got you know, I never use it I do

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I use it now It's sort of necessary a necessary evil these days the book of Jude now what

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I want to do is I You know if we were gonna do the entire book or something like that, which is almost short enough to do in a survey context then we'd be looking at backgrounds and relationship to between Jude and second

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Peter and the Early context or the early church and and all those things that are important.

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They are vital When I was in in Bible College and seminary,

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I remember a lot of a lot of the students really found Those classes where you got the background information to be sort of boring and sort of sleep through them

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I never did because I was already involved in apologetics at that point And so I knew that that background information was so vital to doing a proper job of doing

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Exegesis and hermeneutics and I am I remain convinced and have never had anyone convinced me

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Otherwise that one of the greatest ways that we can honor God's Word is to handle it a right and it's not just it is the duty of those who preach and teach to do so in a in the fullest way and it is their duty to by example

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Teach all the rest of us to do that, but the reality is there is no Clergy in the

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New Testament the sense of some kind of sacramental priesthood or things like that to whom all these things have been

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Delivered each one of us as believers Should strive to honor God and how we deal with his word and how we understand his word and hence

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Not every one of us has the same opportunities of study and learning and education but what we can get hold of and there's

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There is more available to our generation today There is more available to you on that tablet or smartphone in your lab

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Than has ever been available to any generation before to anyone who wants to invest the time the information is there and So we can literally be the most biblically literate generation

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Now you have to be very careful I have often said the Christian bookstore is the most dangerous place for a

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Christian because you let your guard down there and you should always think especially walking down the commentary aisle that You're walking down between two rows of coiled snakes ready to strike at any any particular point in time

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There is a lot of bad stuff out there you need to have guidance and you need to have discernment, but the the fact is that we as Believers today have an incredible wealth of information available to us that earlier generations

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Would have loved to have had and yet as I have taught church history many times.

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I've mentioned more than once the fact that you look back at the men who wrote for us so long ago and It seems

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That they produced so much more because they weren't nearly as distracted as we are today So there is a balance to be found in in those things

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And so if we were doing Jude we would do an overview or something like that I actually just want to look at these specific verses and I want to look at them in a certain context

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Verses three and following beloved while I was making every effort to write to you

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About our our Common salvation. I'll give you a little more information on that in just a moment

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Our common salvation. I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the once for all delivered the

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Saints faith, that's not the That's not the smoothest rendering

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But that's that's what it says the once for all delivered to the Saints faith

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Why would they why would he need feel this need for certain persons have?

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Crept in unnoticed. So he's talking about the fellowship of the church Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation

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We'll have to think about the theology of that for a second Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

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God in the licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ now there are some other translations of that and there's some other renderings of that We'll look at that in a moment as well

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Now I desire to remind you he begins an illustration here now I desire to remind you though You know all things once for all that the

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Lord and some of you have a different translation of that You have a different word there that Jesus we will talk about that, too after saving a people out of the land of Egypt Subsequently destroyed those who did not believe and he's gonna go on from there to give further illustrations

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But as it is we're gonna have to hurry just to get through the information that's in just these three

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Verses and so this is what we're gonna be looking at. There isn't an overly unifying theme

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What I would like to try to do is basically illustrate the fact that If you ever find yourself

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Feeling like you've sort of arrived you pretty much know everything there is to know you've heard all the sermons

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May I suggest that probably means that you've only started to scratch the surface Because there is so much even in a little book like Jude There is so much that can bring our attention to things that we have never thought of before and Certainly in our day.

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We see how this is relevant. We see how the early church when you think about the context the early church struggling small despised little group being persecuted now by the

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Roman Empire And not only not only did you have that external persecution? But you would think with all that going on that everybody would be

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United and right with one another and we'd all believe the same things, right? A lot of people have the idea that well as long as the

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Apostles were around We just we just need to get back to the early church things were so great back then

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I Think if you asked Paul about the Judaizers in Galatia, I think if you asked

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John About the proto Gnostics that he had to deal with obviously

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Jude refers to Ungodly persons marked out for this condemnation long beforehand.

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That's not exactly The kindest terminology that you could use of somebody else the church in God's providence has always had to deal with heresy and error and every generation

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Every generation has been required to struggle for the faith

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To make the faith their own and If you like me had the great benefit of growing up in a

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Christian family, you know that there was a point in time when you had to transition from What had been handed down to you to where that?

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Beautiful deposit of faith became your own that you were specifically committed to that you were

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Specifically in love with that you had true faith in you may remember that that may have been a painful and difficult time

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But every generation is called to Contend earnestly for the faith as we will see here in a moment

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And so as we look at this we are reminded of the fact that there's a lot of parallels to where we are today Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were all just united together?

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perfectly But even when the Apostles walked the earth There were divisions and there were those who well as Paul warned the

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Ephesian elders They they want to come along and they want followers. They they want to grab the sheep and make make them their own followers they want religious authority over others and and folks people will give up money and Give up physical comfort

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As long as they can have religious authority and power over others They really will

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So don't be don't be fooled when you see it. It's it's one thing to see the folks that are you know

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Living living at high And live in the the massive mansion and living off of little old ladies

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Social -security checks to do that. That's that's pretty obvious But be careful about the people who you look at him and go wow there seem to be living a very

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Frugal and I don't see them driving around in the fancy cars and stuff like that.

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Well, that must mean that they're there They're solid careful Careful be very very careful about things like that.

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So we have similar situation today We have so much division within what calls itself

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Christianity and we have the external issues not just in places Like China or North Korea or in Pakistan?

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We we hear all about those situations But we are seeing more and more the hardening of the secular

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Mindset in the society around us which finds as a result the message of the gospel to be exceptionally offensive and in fact to be hate speech and We will be counting the cost

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We may have the freedom yet we may and we need to continue to fight for those freedoms But we will be counting the cost just as they did in the early church.

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And so Jude says Beloved I was making every effort to write you about our coin a

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Soterios now. Have you heard of coin a before coin a is the term that is used of the

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Greek language that? Existed in the first century. It's just simply means

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Common, it was the lingua franca. It had been spread across the what we would call the

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Mediterranean world by Alexander hundreds of years before and then the

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Romans had come along and the Romans just Frequently just borrowed stuff from from the

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Greeks in many ways Even their pantheon of gods was pretty much the same Greek pantheon just renamed and so that Greek language

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Remained the lingua franca. It was like English is you may know that in in the airline industry around the world

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English is the language that is used you have to be able to speak that language to be able to communicate with other pilots and Things like that, maybe not overly well, but you're supposed to be able to do that one way or the other well coin a

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Greek common Greek was the language that if a Roman soldier

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In one of the in in Capernaum Capernaum, I was there a few weeks ago and our guide kept reminding us about how we slaughter their words over there and so I just remind you if you ever go to go to Israel you can impress your

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Your Jewish guide if you say are we going to Capernaum today? They'll go. Well, that's very good at least he thought that was pretty good and Let's say you were in Capernaum in the first century and if that nasty

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Roman soldier over there wanted you to pick up his pack and carry it which you had to do for a certain distance if He demanded that you do that It would probably be in that language that coin a

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Greek that he would command you to do that And so it was good that you would know at least some of that language

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Even if you normally communicated in Aramaic with your with your family and and everyone else around you it was good to be somewhat

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Bilingual so, you know what that that Roman soldier is screaming at you about and so Common language here.

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It is our common salvation and so Jude wanted to write and he wanted to Probably I guess write a wonderful letter

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Extolling the gospel and celebrating the gospel and and isn't it wonderful what

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God has done for us in Christ Jesus and and isn't it beautiful that we have forgiveness of our sins and the unity that we have in him and and that righteousness that is ours and and the beauty of the empty tomb and There's so many things we could talk about and that's what he wanted to do

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He wanted to talk about our common salvation Not that he had a different kind of salvation or a higher kind of salvation.

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Well the greatest concerns Expressed in the New Testament is that there is one gospel.

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There is one body There is one church and that that gospel only produces one body

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In other words the Apostle really Apostle Paul really struggled hard against those who would

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Possibly even Peter's activities seemed to point toward this in in Antioch Would possibly result in a

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Jewish Christian Church and a Gentile Christian Church And if you keep that in mind when you read

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Romans when it says for all have sinned The primary context of that is Jew and Gentile When you read

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Galatians chapter 2 when you when you read Really all of Paul's discussions of these things.

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He's fighting against the idea that you could have different kinds of righteousness Because that would produce different churches and that cannot be

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What God has intended and so there is one Common gospel one common salvation, but he doesn't get to write the nice enjoyable letter

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He doesn't get to preach the nice enjoyable sermon There there are sermons that are easy to preach because you're talking about all the wonderful good things

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But if that's all you ever preach you're not really You're not really taking care of the sheep because if the sheep happen to live in a context where they are in grave

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Danger each and every day then you better be training them and teaching them to survive in the midst of those difficulties and when you know that the people there in your congregation are in danger from these ungodly persons who have crept in unnoticed and Paul talked about people who had crept into the fellowship.

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In other words, this is one of those really difficult sermons from Jude where he has to deal with problems inside what calls itself the fellowship of the church and In this context and in Paul's context in Galatians chapter 2 what he's saying is there are as he called them in Galatians chapter 2

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Suda Delphoi Suda pseudo false

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Adel Foy Brethren, they look like us. They talk like us. They claim to be us

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But they're not us and As John said when they go out from us, it was be demonstrated that they were not truly of us now

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I I've said many times that maybe I could design these these would sell like anything But wouldn't it be wonderful if I could put glasses on that made the elect glow green.

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I Mean that would be that would help so much in pastoral counseling

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In evangelism, I mean you could just pass by no oh, there we go, and you know, you could zero in on it would just be wonderful and In church conflicts and stuff like that.

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Oh, man Can you imagine if you've ever done any anything like that? You just walk in you got some marriage counseling to do and you just slip them on go.

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Mm -hmm. I See what's going on here, you know, wouldn't that be easy?

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Yeah, they'd sell great Unfortunately, you can't do that. That's our problem here in this life

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Not only that but these people have snuck in that mean that means they don't have the greatest motivations as Paul said they've snuck in to spy out our

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Liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus not only that but but Jude says

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That these individuals were marked out to do this that says a lot about who they were

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But before we get to that to write to you appealing that you do what? Contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the

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Saints now, you're probably aware. I mean you go to this church and I am certain that at some point in time brother

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Jeff brother Luke, whoever might be preaching has Explained to you the strong term that is used here.

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First of all when he says appealing In in English when you appeal to someone is sort of like Oh pretty pretty, please.

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Could you please? That's that's not really how I would I would see this because this is the same term if you if you're familiar with the term that is used describing the

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Holy Spirit as The parakletos the paraclete as we not overly accurately render it, but the the helper

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It's it's from the it's derived from the same the same terminology and it can just mean an appeal

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But it can also be a very strong appeal a bordering on command

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To very to exhort someone with great fervor and this is what

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Jude is doing He is exhorting them and I think that comes out especially in the verb that he uses.

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It's epagonism I know that don't just turn off the Greek for a moment. Listen to what I just said ep agonism

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I hear something in there Agony, that's where we get agony epagonism.

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I and So it means to to strive Diligently and even painfully to put out a tremendous amount of effort

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Not attend a Wednesday night class once every other year about talking to your Mormon friends

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That's a little bit epagonism. I is a little bit more Than than what

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I think a lot of evangelicals in the United States have have considered There needs to be and this is he's he's not addressing this simply

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To the elders of the church he's not addressing this to to just the people who are interested in quote -unquote defending the faith or Just arguing about the faith or the keyboard warriors who love taking everybody on on Facebook Or people who have learned to get a tremendous amount of truth into 280 characters

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You know, we have people like that too this is addressed to everyone and Everyone is being exhorted to epagonism.

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I to contend earnestly for what? well, I like the

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The rendering that I gave you at first because it's it's literal the once for all delivered to the

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Saints faith Because what what you could do in the Greek language which we don't do really well in English is you you can put the article the over here and then you can pack a bunch of neat stuff inside.

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It's sort of like a a grammatical sausage I've never really thought of it that way before but It's a little disgusting, but it's a grammatical

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Sausage and then you put the the word that the article is going with on this end and it creates this tube of Meaning a single phrase and that's exactly what it is there.

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So the once for all delivered to the Saints faith and the word does going with faith, which is down at the end of the line and So everything is put together so that you you know exactly what faith he's talking about now,

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I think that one of the most effective lies that the enemy of our souls has

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Managed to Promulgate in our day and that has become sadly central to The educational system and Bible colleges and seminaries across our land is that no one today can really know

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What faith Jude is talking about here? Maybe they knew it back then

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Maybe they had clarity back then but oh, there's just so much disagreement today there are so many different perspectives today and Then what you do is there is an appropriate

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What we might call epistemological humility. None of us can ever know it all and So it is right on one hand for us to know, you know

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I'm always going to be learning and I need to be open to learning from others and to hearing what others say and and and all of those things are true and so what you do is you take that and then you inculcate doubt of about the clarity of the

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Word of God or especially what you do is you teach people that Well, you know

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Did Paul and and and Peter really get along and what they were teaching and Paul and James ooh, you know that they seem to really disagree and and so can you can you really have faith that there is a once -for -all delivered to the

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Saints faith that it's it's still available to us today and Would it be found in Scripture?

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Is it found something outside of Scripture? All sorts of this type of stuff is just Central to what is being taught in the vast majority of theological education in the

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United States today that's The majority if you actually believe that we do know

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The once -for -all delivered to the Saints faith you are in the minority you need to recognize that you're in the minority and one of the things that concerns me is there are certain forms of apologetics that gets

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Christians into thinking that Well, we can use majority arguments. We can use authority arguments

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Well, the majority of scholars say X Y or Z Well, the problem is the majority of Christian scholars don't believe what you and I believe

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So you have to have a very very deeply rooted conviction that God has spoken and he has spoken in his word and he has preserved that word or you're going to be

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Tossed about by every wind of doctrine that comes along and that's what we're seeing in the evangelical church today

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That's what we're seeing and we're seeing it happening in seminaries that I could have recommended

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Only 10 to 15 years ago That's how quickly it's changing. It's how quickly it has taken place and so Jude's teaching is that there is a faith

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There is now obviously that term faith can be used in different ways We are exhorted to have faith

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But then you when you make it a substantive when you make it a noun it becomes the body of revealed truth and it is

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Delivered to the Saints it has been given to the Saints it's not something that's going to be continued to be delivered down through the generations and and that means there's gonna be all this evolution and stuff like that there has been a

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Once for all that's the same Greek term That the writer of the Hebrews uses when he talks about the death of Christ he uses hoppocks

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You're gonna be learning a few words today There's a great word and this this is a word

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You can really amaze your friends at church or at work tomorrow when you start talking to them about a hoppox legomena

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They're gonna go Wow you go to a pretty cool church Wow learning stuff in Greek That's great a hoppox legomena is a word that appears once in the text of Scripture Hoppox means once legomena means named

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It's actually a participle, but it means name so it's named only once so a hoppox legomena when you hear somebody saying well

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This is a hoppox a hoppox legomena. That means it's a word. That's only used one time in Scripture Hoppox means once and then you can make it even stronger by attaching a preposition to it

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F a pox One time once for all and that's what the writer of the Hebrews uses when he says

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Christ died once for all That is a temporal Phrase one time for all time.

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It's not once for all persons It's once for all time

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The Greek reader would not get confused between those two, but in English we go well, we

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We're just not quite as specific as they were in in in that at that language and so this faith was once for all delivered

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Jude has confidence that God can actually speak and communicate what he wants to communicate modern man does not have that confidence and Many who stand behind pulpits today do not have that confidence and the results

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Well, we see all around us so what Jude is exhorting us to is to contend earnestly agonize

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For that faith it was once for all delivered to the Saints they had to know what they were agonizing for This can't be some mysterious thing.

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And so if it's gone if we don't know anymore what that faith was Then these words really don't have any meaning for us any any longer because all we can do is contend earnestly for what well

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Whatever our personal opinions might be and that's exactly what most people coming out of seminaries in our land believe

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It's exactly what they believe that it's just Personal opinion and that's why they don't get involved apologetics because what are you gonna do debate your personal opinion?

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that's not gonna accomplish anything and So Jude is well aware of the fact that certain persons have crept in Unnoticed Unnoticed that's a dangerous concept and what that means obviously is

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That they did this purposely because look if someone if Two Mormon missionaries walked through the back door right now and said hey

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We've heard this is a great place to be we'd like to be members. It says elder so -and -so right there. We're gonna go

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Well, you know, there's some things we need to talk to you about first because there are some certain certain things we believe that you don't and there are certain things you believe that we don't and That means that we can tell when someone's coming in Sort of what they believe if they've gotten into the fellowship.

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That means they've probably dishonestly said they believed X Y & Z when they actually

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We're sort of twisting the words Because they have they have crept in they have snuck in and they weren't seen

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And once again, that's because I haven't designed those glasses and that's my fault.

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I will accept that that that right there, but The prototypes not working overly well either so and because I put them on and I didn't glow green.

37:47

So there you go That's a real real problem there. So I'm working on the working on the design right now

37:54

So they have crept in and you might say well weren't

38:03

Weren't the the elders Doing due diligence. Well, you know elders need to do due diligence

38:09

You need to ask the right questions and and but you know what you can ask the right questions and someone can lie to you or they can actually think that they believe but then

38:19

It's demonstrated at another point in time they don't or there's all sorts of issues like that but the reality is that What lies behind Jude's words here?

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Because when he refers these people says those who were long beforehand

38:38

Marked out for this condemnation. It's literally the ones of old and it when it says marked out

38:47

It's the word for writing and so marking as in marking something in the form of writing they were marked out

38:59

Unto this judgment and then just one word ungodly ungodly

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Now people sometimes struggle with the idea that God could foreordain

39:18

To not only allow but to actually bring Individuals into the church that would cause division and schism and The necessity that we all learn to contend earnestly for the faith

39:36

But the reality is If God isn't in charge of what's going on in this world if you want to buy into the

39:48

Popular perspectives that people have today of God doing the best he can but hey, you know, he's just Just got to do with deal with whatever's you know, the cards that have been dealt to him as one very well -known

39:59

Apologist has has put it Man that would destroy any confidence

40:06

I would have for the future. It really would The fact is that God does with his church what

40:14

God Intends to do with his church and that means when she goes through trials and she goes to tribulations

40:20

It's God's intention to make his people more like his son

40:26

By sovereignly leading them through those difficult times Now I'm gonna tell you something

40:33

It's tough on the leadership But Moses had it pretty tough, too

40:40

I think much of what they went through was was to make Moses into the man. He eventually did become

40:47

So we can take our some of our Guidance from that but you'll notice it says they're ungodly men.

40:54

Well, were they forced to be ungodly? Well, the only way you ever become godly is by the grace of God changing your hearts and so people struggle with this idea what

41:02

I just don't like this idea that they were they were marked out for this condemnation and Yet the reality is we've all fallen in Adam and as hard as it is for most people to understand

41:16

God can do with convicted criminals what he desires to do with convicted criminals justly because if you're still breathing his air and Drinking his water and eating his food and walking on his planet and he hasn't brought his wrath to bear upon you

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That's called the extension of undeserved mercy and grace And So the

41:39

Bible has revealed to us that God had God hardened Pharaoh's heart You might go.

41:47

Oh poor Pharaoh Man, we we do live in the age of snowflakes.

41:54

And so I can you imagine the snowflake reading of Romans 9 Oh, that's a disaster

41:59

Wow, I mean I can understand how Romans 9 would make a snowflake go.

42:05

Oh, I can't no Come on, I'm just never gonna worship a god like that I've had countless people tell me they would never worship a god like that but that means you don't recognize yourself in Pharaoh and that means you don't recognize

42:20

God's just condemnation of him and the fact that God intended to demonstrate his glory and his power in the

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Spoiling and destruction of the gods of Egypt in what happened there and he used

42:37

Pharaoh to do it and then he killed Pharaoh in the ocean in the sea and He was perfectly just yet because he could have done that way back then instead.

42:47

He used him to glorify himself that's where a lot of people go, I'm not sure that's constitutional and It might not be but God's not concerned really about about that particular

43:05

Aspect of things marked out for this condemnation ungodly persons and What do they do?

43:14

They twist They they they turn and it it could be to just twist something completely out of shape

43:24

So that you can't even recognize what it is anymore But it can also mean to just turn something just enough to where it's no longer functional, you know

43:33

I've got I've got a door at my house and one that I've got two locks on it

43:38

But I only use one of them because the other lock Can sometimes especially when during the monsoon when the when the wood expands because it actually gets moisture

43:48

Instead of being desiccated the rest of the time It can really get tight and if you ever had to turn so hard that you ended up bending the key and Now it's become worthless

43:59

That can be the idea to just twist it enough that it's no longer functioning

44:06

That's the same terminology that Paul used when he talked about the false teachers in the church and his letters to this twisting of The gospel this turning of the gospel and what they do is they turn the grace of our

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God into licentiousness and Then they deny and it's really interesting here the only and Most there's a textual variant here that I do not have time to get into though.

44:39

It's fascinating Let's let's go with the reading Master and Lord our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

44:48

Let's go with that. There's actually some some manuscripts that say God Which is interesting in light of the next verse, which

44:55

I do want to get to before we run out of time But The term for master is a term that you know

45:06

It's the term despot now in English Despot almost always has a negative connotation.

45:15

That's it. That's a that's a nasty word. He's a despot but the term simply means a ruler who has absolute power

45:30

Absolute power and there are good descriptions There are good Hebrew words used in the

45:35

Hebrew Old Testament to describe Yahweh God in this way Especially in in Deuteronomy and it's interesting that Jesus is here described as our only

45:49

Manas man on one our only despot and Kudios, that's the normal term for Lord that is used of Jesus they are denying the confession of faith of the early believers that they have a

46:07

Despot and Kudios a master and Lord named Jesus Christ They are substituting something else or someone else for that profession of faith in Jesus Christ now the only reason

46:24

I went to verse 5 is because I wanted to introduce you to something and I've already gone 35 minutes.

46:31

How much how much can you all survive? I mean,

46:39

I've I've heard that Jeff has been known to you know, sort of Lose track of this of the clock in the back, but I'm visiting so I I don't want things to one thing start flying up From the crowd then

46:51

I recognize I'm probably Running out of time Keep that phrase in mind.

46:58

Our only master and Lord Look at verse 5 now. I desire to remind you

47:05

Though you know all things once for all and again a same term hotbox and Don't have time to go into into making the connection here

47:17

Back to the once for all delivered the Saints faith, but I think that's where the connection needs to be made It's not that every single

47:23

Christian has every bit of knowledge you could ever have but that there has been a full revelation of that knowledge, but though, you know all things once for all and And then the examples given and the examples one we all know

47:38

You know that the Lord saved the people out of Egypt, but how many of them actually got into the promised land?

47:45

how many of their bodies ended up bleached under the Sun and so just because Someone comes along remember this is in the context of the fact that we've got people in the fellowship that really are not a part of us and God is going to reveal those things and there's going to be judgment this is a judgment passage and so it has to be taken very seriously and there's going to be a whole lot more about that in the rest of the epistle of Jude and So we know what the illustration is, but what

48:17

I want to do for a moment is point out to you something. That's Well, let me just complete revelation here

48:28

If you have how many of you have The current edition of the

48:33

English Standard Version That does not have the Lord saved to people out of Egypt, but has

48:38

Jesus saved to people out of Egypt Okay, how many of you have that's interesting that you would point at her.

48:46

Yes, it she does. She does look look she does She gave me the Apple. Yeah, I Just only noticed him because he's the only person to place the tie on so I was just sort of hmm little concern there

49:00

King James only maybe I'm not sure. Yeah, actually looks like a coogee tie. It's beautiful. It's is it a coogee tie?

49:07

Yes. I Have a bunch of coogee ties But could you imagine what a coogee tie would look like with this shirt that could cause nausea

49:15

So we don't want to do that Anyway, how many of you have the

49:20

Lord saved to people out of Egypt and how many of you did not even bother to answer?

49:26

My question. Yes. There you go. See there you go I get dissed all the time so There's a big difference between those two

49:37

I mean kudios and Greek does not look anything like Jesus and So There's two different words that are used there and the

49:50

Lord saved to people of Egypt that that would be a standard, you know Then the normal term that is used for Yahweh in the

49:59

Old Testament the The tech called the tetragrammaton the four letters yod. Hey, wow Hey the personal name of God normally in the

50:06

Greek translation of the Old Testament the term kudios is used in in that context and That's why it's also significant that Jesus is identified as our only despot and Lord in the preceding sentence

50:20

But if we use Lord there, then it's just a basic statement that yes

50:26

God delivered to people out of Egypt and then he he brought a judgment upon them. But what if it says

50:32

Jesus? What if the original reading is Jesus well that becomes a significant

50:42

Text first of all in regards to the deity of Christ I mean Minimally his pre -existence, but who delivered

50:50

I mean every Jewish person Knew who delivered the people of Israel of Egypt.

50:57

I mean, this was the great Soteriological Deliverance act of Yahweh himself and establishing the covenant with his people

51:06

So if you say Jesus Delivered a people out of Egypt.

51:13

You are saying directly That you believe in the deity of Christ But not only that since he now is the king of the church

51:26

What are you saying about Jesus? back in the old Covenant in the

51:32

Old Testament. He's the one that brought judgment Upon the people now see most most modern people are like Well, that's the difference between the

51:44

Old Testament the New Testament is the Old Testament God's a little bit on the cranky side, but then Jesus comes along in the

51:50

New Testament. He makes God a nice guy That is a gnostic view.

51:57

It is utterly untrue as popular as it might be and Here if the original reading is

52:06

Jesus You would have an assertion You know, maybe this is tied into That cryptic statement that Jesus made in John chapter 8.

52:16

Remember what he said Abraham saw my day and rejoiced You know, what day was it that how did how did

52:24

Abraham see? the the day of Jesus interesting question. We don't have time to get into today.

52:30

You can ask Jeff and he gets back especially while he's jet -lagged That'd be fun to watch that Could you could you record that please while you do that I'd sort of like to see that but anyway

52:44

Lots of things that you could you could dig into here, but the point is That Jesus as the

52:52

Lord was actively involved in judging even in the

52:57

Old Testament Got to keep that in mind so you don't end up with the ishy -squishy

53:05

Jesus that is so popular today that just carries little lamb knees around and knocks on doors you know very like that rather than the one described in the book of Revelation who

53:15

Has a sword coming out of his mouth and judges the nation rules them with a rod of iron there is a sort of a difference between the two and You have to have everything the

53:23

New Testament says the love of Christ is beyond comprehension But if you only have that and you don't have the rest of what the

53:29

New Testament says about Christ you end up with that A perversion of the biblical teaching you have to have all of it or you end up with nothing of it at all

53:39

But let me explain really quickly Why is there been a change because if you have an old

53:46

ESV? The old ESV read the original ESV says Lord not

53:53

Jesus So what changed? Well, what changed is the next thing?

53:59

Okay, you remember remember the word that you're supposed to amaze your friends with tomorrow at church You keep saying that at work unless you're going to church tomorrow.

54:07

That's fine, too. That's that's okay I'm sure where you'd be going. But what was what was the term?

54:14

Hop ox legomena hop ox legomena We have we're gonna have some very large men at the doors and you can't get out of the room until you can say the

54:23

Phrase hop ox legoma. That is the the key word to getting out of the of the room today is hop ox legomena

54:31

And that means a word that appears only one time In the text of scripture or it can also be used of any other body of literature or work whatever else it might be and you can also narrow it down to That's the only place where Paul uses that or John uses or something like that.

54:47

But but anyways, that's that's what it means Well, here's the next here's your second big cool thing

54:55

To to take away today You ready it's an acronym we're all big on acronyms, aren't we we all love acronyms these days

55:04

I don't know what half of a mean myself anymore, but everyone's big on them. So we need to have our own acronym

55:11

Here's our acronym for today. You ready? CBGM CBGM and If you learn what that is in the next five minutes, you'll know more than than most

55:26

New Testament scholars teaching today in United States and I'm not making that up Why does the

55:33

ESV have Jesus at Jude 5 because of CBGM? You're going okay.

55:40

We have our pens ready What does it mean? Well, you're gonna be disappointed when

55:45

I tell you what it means because it's not gonna really explain anything to you. It's called coherence based

55:52

Genealogical Method has nothing to do with Mormonism. Don't worry. It's okay. I know we're out here toward Mesa.

55:57

So you might Genealogical wait a minute. Don't worry about it has nothing to do with that coherence based genealogical method

56:07

I'll boil it down basically when you take all the manuscripts we have the book of Jude you digitize them and you give them to a computer and You ask the computer could you relate all these manuscripts to one another?

56:22

so that we know which manuscripts read the most like another manuscript which we assume means a close relationship and when you look at all the manuscripts that have

56:32

Jesus and all the manuscripts that have Lord the manuscripts that say

56:39

Jesus Have a higher coherence With one another than the manuscripts that say

56:47

Lord in other words When you look at how they're related to one another as to which one might be a parent or an ancestor of another

56:56

Amongst the ones that say Lord. They have a lot of ancestors that actually say Jesus but amongst the manuscripts that say

57:03

Jesus almost none of them have ancestors that said Lord and So what that tells us is people found it a little bit strange

57:13

Scribes found it strange to encounter the reading Jesus there. And so they more often

57:20

Rendered it as Lord because that was how they'd normally think of what happened the stories in the Old Testament It didn't go the other direction.

57:27

And so as a result The scholars who are working on what's called the

57:33

Odysseo critical or mayor it's the I don't how big this thing's gonna be but they've done acts and And the general pistols and So far, that's four or five six six or seven volumes just for that and they're huge ax alone is over $300 so once it's done it will be many many volumes multiple shelves thousands of dollars it is all available electronically too, but it will be the

58:06

Latest thing shall we say as far as the amount of information available the people working on that are using

58:13

CB GM that resulted in the Nestle all -in 28th edition of the

58:19

Greek New Testament to contain Jesus rather than Lord the ESV is translated from Initially the at Nestle all -in 27th, but when the 28th came out

58:28

They switched over to it use that and hence changed the reading in the text

58:34

Now I think if you'll look even electronically there's probably a note Next to the word Jesus that says some manuscripts say

58:42

Lord things like that It's not like they're trying to hide something or something along those lines the point is that We have known for a long time that eventually these gadgets that can see relationships between vast numbers of numbers

59:04

Would be used to see relationships between vast numbers of manuscripts Well, it's happening

59:11

It makes a lot of people uncomfortable makes people uncomfortable and it makes people uncomfortable because even though I have

59:19

Read on CB GM and I'm using CB GM and in a doctoral program right now

59:26

Even I'm uncomfortable with it It's not easy to explain and People don't want to just go well,

59:33

I'll just trust whoever runs the computer program. I get that I get that but at the same time

59:40

We have more manuscripts of New Testament than any other work of antiquity and no human mind

59:47

Can possibly remember all of the readings and see how they relate to one another?

59:54

But the computer can because it doesn't have anything else better to do it's not overly distracted and so Do we just simply go?

01:00:04

Okay, whatever you say. No, it's a tool It's a tool But are there still questions about it?

01:00:12

Yes I'm raising questions in my own doctoral work right now on this particular subject. I have some historical issues with it, but it is

01:00:19

Useful and we should be thankful for it. It's not being used yet on the

01:00:25

Old Testament, but there's no Conceptual reason why it couldn't be used. It just takes a lot of time a lot of money a lot of effort there are people doing that so When you run across differences like this

01:00:43

Don't you know don't don't just ignore them If you go to the elders and the elders aren't sure

01:00:54

Keep digging or they'll dig for you to find out. It's just been my experience a lot of people we see those little notes

01:01:02

Down at the bottom of the page or in the side column and we simply ignore them now

01:01:07

I ignore them today because I can't read them anymore. I Mean, they look like smudges after age 50, right?

01:01:14

Amen, amen. Everybody above 50 is going up. You're right. Can't anything below six point font is just simply a smudge

01:01:21

Can't get it off anymore. That's strange That's the the problem for a lot of folks, but for others we sort of looked at him and gone

01:01:30

Hmm That's interesting. Someday. I'll ask about that and then we just move on Unfortunately today people keep pointing us to those things to undercut our confidence in the scriptures

01:01:42

We can't just pass these things by and so you may be saying so which one should it be?

01:01:49

Here's here's my final word on that I don't depend upon Texts that have textual variance to try to prove something we want to utilize texts that have

01:02:06

Strong firm readings as our as our basis for establishing any type of dogma or or teaching but Having established that when you can then see in a text a consistency there is a consistency between the phraseology found in verse 4 our

01:02:26

Our master our only master in Lord Jesus Christ and only a few words later

01:02:32

Saying Jesus delivered to people out of out of Egypt. There is a consistency there That to me is very very important Do we need to be open about that and saying this is actually a minority reading as most manuscripts don't say that that's true but That's what what we can do today and digging into These these texts and utilizing what we have in front of us

01:02:59

So with that said how do I summarize this and move us into? the end of our time together

01:03:08

These inspired texts Will never you will never exhaust

01:03:18

Your longing to know them better to know them more deeply. No one has ever

01:03:25

Mastered everything in these inspired words and Anyone who thinks they have is a fool the more

01:03:36

I study the Word of God the more I'm challenged on the Word of God the more the beauty of the

01:03:44

Interconnectedness and the woven threads of beautiful truth come clear to me we live in a day of unbelief and Everyone around you will try to encourage you to be unbelieving

01:04:01

Stay firm in the faith contend for the once for all delivered to the Saints faith Recognize that we are just the current generation has been doing this

01:04:09

Christ has been building his church And when you think of how many men and women down through the ages in different languages in different Contexts have all confessed together

01:04:22

Those are the words of God. Don't forget them Don't forget them you stand in the midst of God's people when you believe what

01:04:32

God's Word says Let's pray together Indeed our

01:04:38

Heavenly Father we are So thankful for what you have done for us in giving us that once -for -all delivered to the

01:04:46

Saints faith and preserving that for us And Lord we do need to know how you've done that we do need to Do our homework these days because we live in a time when there are many attacks our great -grandparents did not have to concern themselves with so many of the things that we have to and yet You've drawn us together

01:05:09

You've made us a people who confess that Jesus Christ is Lord that we have only one master and Lord Jesus Christ You continue to build your church all around this world and the only way we can explain that is the work of the

01:05:26

Spirit of God amongst his people and So Lord, we thank you for that work. We ask that you would continue that work amongst us

01:05:34

You would ground us so we would not be blown about by every wind of doctrine you would ground us

01:05:40

So that we Can be those Who will be used of you in a very dark and wicked world?

01:05:49

To proclaim your truth and be used to Glorify the name of Jesus Christ. We thank you for this time and pray in Christ's name.