Jude 3-4: Contender or Pretender?

Once again, here now, God's inspired word. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God, the father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our

God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Now, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, I pray, Lord God, that my voice would fade away and we would hear the voice of your son,

Jesus. I pray, Lord God, that you would be magnified and honored in this preaching of your word.

I pray that it would do what it's intended to do to do in the hearts and minds of those who are here now.

So, Lord, once again, we ask for your help and we give you honor and glory in Jesus name. We pray.

Please be seated. Have you ever heard the phrase Athanasius Contramundum?

Yes, some of you have, some of you haven't. If you haven't, it's a Latin term that means

Athanasius against the world. Early on, as Christianity was growing and emerging in the

Roman Empire, its identity was being shaped by persecution and rampant heresy.

What has become orthodox Christian practice and belief today was not always common or in the majority.

Christianity was consistently under attack by false teachers. But then things dramatically changed for Christians in 313

A .D. with Constantine's Edict of Milan, in which the Roman Empire reversed its policy of hostility towards Christianity and accorded it full legal recognition in the state.

However, continual internal fighting, debates and arguments ensued inside the church over countless

Christian doctrines, causing many contentious church councils. The Christian church and its doctrine were progressively being developed through trial and turmoil.

Even the nature of God became the center of Christian controversy as a man named

Arius began teaching that Jesus was a created being, an exalted creature, an exalted human being, but not

God. The refrain, there was a time when Jesus was not, was spreading in the kingdom and even taking root in people's theology and belief system.

It was then that Bishop Alexander of Alexandria sent a letter to his fellow bishops condemning

Arius' teaching and the Council of Nicaea convened in 324 A .D.

And among those gathered to the council was a young man named Athanasius. Athanasius' writings helped properly define

God's nature as triune, with Jesus being co -equal, co -powerful and co -eternal with the

Father, not a created being. And so with his insight, the Council of Nicaea closed, ruling

Jesus was not a little God, but of the same essence as the Father. The church pressed on and advanced with the truth prevailing, but not without a good fight and much controversy, which brings us to our text this morning.

After Jude's initial greeting, he continues the letter by repeating and addressing them as beloved.

Verse three, once again, reminding them and cementing this idea in their minds that they are loved by God.

And he was intending very eagerly to write to them a letter about their common salvation, a kind of celebratory letter, a let's count our blessings letter.

Let's bask in the love of God and look what the God who loves us has done for us.

Look at who we are because of him, called, beloved and kept. Look at what we have. Mercy, peace and love.

Let's celebrate and praise the God who saved us. We are God's chosen children. We get to serve him.

All our sins have been paid for and we get to glorify and enjoy him for all eternity. But he doesn't get to say that something hits him that's even more urgent, more imperative, more imminent than celebrating their common salvation.

It's something that stirs him so much that the entire purpose for Jude's letter has to change.

It's something that he now considers necessary. Look at verse three, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,

I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

You see, the direction of Jude's letter goes from eager to share, to an appeal to fight, to guard, to contend.

This letter takes a hard left turn before it even gets going. It's because something clicks in Jude and he sees a problem and he needs to confront it.

He needs to contend for the faith and get other believers to contend also. This was the faith that was delivered or, as the net

Bible translates it, entrusted to the saints. And it's the faith that's once and for all been delivered.

The saints have not been trusted with a faith. They have been trusted, entrusted with the faith.

A pure faith that has already been clearly defined. The gospel has been clearly articulated so we know what the faith is.

Jesus is Lord and there is salvation in no one else. And that can never change and that must never be distorted.

And what has been entrusted to them by God has to be guarded by them. It has to be kept by them while they are also being kept by God.

They have to fight because they're playing for keeps. Spurgeon would say it like this.

We are put in trust with the gospel. We are trustees of a divine deposit of invaluable truth.

We must be true to our trust at all costs. It was necessary for Jude to write as he did.

And this issue becomes even more important to Jude than sharing the common faith and celebrating it with one another.

Having the faith, the gospel and not fighting for it, not guarding it and not protecting it isn't being faithful.

Faith trusts in its Lord. Faith listens to its Lord. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

It's the obedience that flows from faith. Faith results in action.

It fights. True faith will produce true faithful action.

So much so that he tells his readers to contend for the faith. Now, Paul says it a little bit more bluntly.

He says, wage good warfare, fight the good fight of faith. Faith is going to entail fighting.

And he uses this word contend. In the Greek, it's a paganism, which means to wrestle like an athlete.

And it sounds like the word agonize, a paganism, and it carries with it a sense of struggle.

It's the only time this word is used in all of the scriptures, so we have to take notice of it.

Jude is making a statement by using this particular word, and it's not used anywhere else. Now, that word contender,

I don't know about you, it makes me think of that movie on the waterfront. All right, with Marlon Brando, he's a boxer and he's regretting that he took a dive and threw a fight and he's in a car with a union mob guy.

And he says, I could have been a contender. He had the talent and the desire to be a champion boxer, but he gave in to corrupt union bosses that were pressuring him to lose the fight on purpose so that they could win their bets and make a profit.

That sounds a lot like a tactic that our adversary would use. Can you hear him ask this question?

Hey, listen, do you really have to fight? Take it easy. You guys are reformed.

You know, God's sovereign. He's going to win in the end. What are you worried about? Do you really have to contend?

But Jude is telling the church as Christians, I could have been a contender, should never leave your lips when it comes to the faith.

The forces against you and against us are deceptive and destructive, but nowhere near the strength of the

Holy Spirit inside of you and behind you, uplifting you. You are a saint of God set apart for this very purpose, to contend for the faith.

You must be a contender and contending for the faith. You are called, beloved and kept.

You have mercy, peace and love. Don't leave that check uncashed. Jude's also very familiar with the

Old Testament. He's read Ecclesiastes. He knows that there's a time to keep silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Now is the time for war. Now is the time to contend because we're playing for keeps.

The defense of the faith has been entrusted to the saints and it's necessary, Jude says, it must be defended by them.

They have been set apart. Jesus is Lord of their hearts. They are his bond servants. You're either a contender or a pretender.

Jude started off the letter by stating that he was a servant of the Lord Jesus, a servant is faithful to his master and will contend for him.

And then we get into verse four and we read, For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.

Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

And there again is that threefold cadence where he contrasts those who are called, beloved and kept against the creepers, perverters and deniers.

Here, certain people, those who have crept in, the creepers are secretly slipping in and disparaging

Jude's master, denying the master that saved Jude, denying the God who loves

Jude, denying the master who keeps Jude and he won't have it. These creepers are not bond servants of the

Lord, but they've slipped into the congregation and they need to be contended against. Jude's faithfulness to Jesus is going to result in ardent, spirit -led loyalty toward Jesus and a willingness to fight for him and contend against anything that opposes his lordship.

And he's encouraging others and exhorting others to do the same. So in verses one and two, we learn who the church is and what she has.

And now in verses three and four, we learn what the church has been entrusted with and what she's contending for.

She's fighting for keeps because of who stands behind her and who's keeping her. So who exactly are these certain people and how did they get in?

I love the fact that Jude doesn't even give him the satisfaction of naming who those people are. He calls them certain people, you know, them people.

You've used that term before, right? I have. Those people. Jude doesn't tell us exactly who they are in this epistle, but we can read another

New Testament letter and get an idea of what they're like. Jude's letter and second Peter chapter two are very similar.

And some people think that Jude used second Peter to write this letter and others think Peter borrowed from Jude to write his letter.

Now, I'm not here to settle that argument this morning. I'm just here to read this and show you how it applies to what

Jude is saying. In reading second Peter 2 .1, we get some insight. Peter tells us, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.

And in their greed, they will exploit you with their false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.

Now, you can see why scholars relate these two letters together as they share very similar language.

So here we have false prophets, false teachers, those guided by sensuality rather than the truth.

And then the greedy, the false prophets who are trying to turn a prophet. Doesn't sound much different than things in the church today, does it?

Sensuality, false teaching, greed is nothing new under the sun.

It continues on today. These certain people have existed from the inception of the early church and continue on.

The early church had its fair share of creepers. For example, early on in the church, you had the Judaizers who were teaching that you had to keep the entire law in addition to faith in order to be justified.

We hold you justified by faith alone. That's what the New Testament teaches. Then you have the Gnostics. They taught about secret knowledge and then all flesh was bad.

Another heresy. You had the Montanists who believed in ongoing prophetic revelation and ecstatic experiences of the

Holy Spirit, much like the modern day charismatics. You had the Dacitists who believed

Jesus didn't have a physical body. That's the Antichrist. Then a man named Marcion who taught that God, the

God of the Old Testament was evil. And then Manichaeism, a form of dualism with one

God of light and another of darkness, all in the formative stages of the early church.

The early church was fighting constantly. Do you see why Jude thinks it's necessary to contend for the faith?

The list goes on and on throughout church history. There was always been those certain people. You've probably heard of a man named

Sibelius or Arius or Pelagius. Sibelius gave rise to Sibelianism.

They believed that Jesus, God, isn't a trinity. Jesus is the father, is the son and is the Holy Spirit. A heresy that continues on today.

Arianism, what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, that Jesus is a little God. And then Pelagianism.

He believes that God, man, isn't depraved. There is no original sin and he could be righteous on his own, apart from the grace of God.

Heresies. Sad. But there is good news, as we read in Ezekiel this morning.

God says, behold, I am against the shepherds and I will require my sheep their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep.

No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them.

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I myself will make them lie down, declares the

Lord God. I will seek the lost. I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured.

I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong. I will destroy. That's God's promise saying he will do that.

So think about it. The God who bids you to contend is contending with you and for you.

We contend with the good shepherd and for the good shepherd. In fact, in every instance, through God's power, the church contended.

It fought the faith that was entrusted to the saints and it became stronger.

Consequently, we also get some of our historic Christian creeds arising out of these controversies.

They pushed us to further define and codify what's heresy and what is true doctrine. It's beneficial.

The church became stronger because the saints are contenders. They're set apart by God, called beloved and kept, and they will fight for the faith.

The saints will fight for their king. They will guard the faith and carry the faith forward. Certain people may have slipped in, but they need to be kicked out.

I think that's why Paul said the hand can't say to the foot, I don't need you. The foot needs to be used to kick these people out.

If you're a foot, let me know. We can use you. But seriously, listen to how serious this warning is.

We have a warning in the book of Revelation. Jesus says this, but I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman

Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her,

I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works and I will strike her head, her children dead.

This Jezebel slipped into the church and needed to be removed, but they tolerated her.

Isn't that a common buzzword today? Tolerance, right? Isn't that what some who secretly slipped in are telling the church they must do?

You must be tolerant, need to tolerate what other people believe. There's no room for tolerance of sin in the church of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is joining in with that type of sin is adultery. Some of those certain people, the creepers who slipped in.

Right, but how do they slip in unnoticed? If they're teaching these heresies already, wouldn't that settle an alarm off?

Wouldn't the leaders of the church not let them in to begin with? Of course not, but herein lies the problem.

They don't start off in error and teaching heresies. They don't announce, hey, here I am and I'm bringing a heresy with me.

No, they enter the church first quietly and then they begin to assail it from the inside.

Remember a little leaven will leaven the whole lump and the leaders of the church, the shepherds, have to guard the flock from the leaven of the

Pharisees. Any teaching that will lead someone astray from serving Jesus as Lord. The shepherds have to act as gatekeepers to keep the wolves out and the sheep in and that's what

God was condemning in Ezekiel 34. The shepherds allowed these people in. Unfortunately, many have not done their job and just like Ezekiel says,

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the

Lord God, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves. Should not shepherds feed the sheep?

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

Lord, have mercy on those shepherds who are fleecing the flock and telling you to send them in a thousand dollars and they're going to give you the hundredfold blessing.

Our story here in America is an interesting one, and I just have to go backwards and just do a little bit of history for us.

In the early to mid 1700s, we had something called the Great Awakening. It was a time when godly men began preaching undiluted, an undiluted

God -centered gospel from city to city. This is when we had 13 colonies. Men like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards would preach the gospel, focus on God, His holiness and His sovereignty, set in opposition to mankind and man's sinfulness and inherent depravity.

It was a God -centered gospel that brought conviction of sin and with it repentance.

It was based on Calvinistic convictions with God's election at the forefront, followed by justification by faith alone.

It was during this time that Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, that famous sermon, was penned and preached by Jonathan Edwards.

George Whitefield was drawing crowds in the tens of thousands. It was a time of great revival and growth for the church.

It wasn't without its issues, but these men were faithful to the gospel. It was formative to where we are today.

However, as time passed and things simmered down, we get into the early 1800s.

And then another revival takes place known as the Second Great Awakening. And here things take a turn for the worse.

It's here that an evangelistic pastor by the name of Charles Finney slips in and he begins to preach a man -centered gospel.

Now, I don't know if you know Michael Horton of the White Horse Inn, but he says, no single man is more responsible for the distortion of Christian truth in our age than Charles Finney.

His new measures created a framework for modern decision theology and evangelical revivalism.

Now, much of what I'm about to tell you comes directly from an article he wrote in Modern Reformation magazine.

He says, at this time, the evangelical movement became increasingly identified with political causes, from abolition of slavery and child labor legislation to women's rights and the prohibition of alcohol.

Evangelists like Finney pitched their American gospel in terms of practical usefulness to the individual and the nation.

Sound familiar? Gospel about social issues, issues, pragmatism.

This is why Finney became so popular. His moralistic gospel marked the shift from Reformation orthodoxy evident in the

Great Awakening under Edwards and Whitfield to the Arminian and even Pelagian revivalism, man -centeredness.

Reacting against the pervasive Calvinism of the Great Awakening, Finney and the successors of the First Great Awakening turned from centering on God to centering on man.

From preaching Christ and him crucified to the emphasis of getting a person to make a decision.

From the Great Awakening and Jonathan Edwards' Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, this movement was characterized by Finney's most popular sermon,

Sinners Bound to Change Their Own Hearts. If I could change my own heart,

I wouldn't need Jesus. This becomes his most popular sermon. Finney's new measures included the anxious bench, a precursor to what we know today as an altar call.

He used emotional tactics that led to fainting and weeping and other excitements, as Finney and his followers called them.

On top of that, Finney's theology was a train wreck. He believed that only full and complete obedience to God's law, basically sinlessness, is what justified someone before God.

Good luck. He denied original sin, man's depravity and inability, and justification by faith alone.

In addition, he said this, Christ could not have died for anyone else's sins other than his own. Jesus's obedience to the law and his perfect righteousness were sufficient to save him, but could not legally be accepted on behalf of others.

In other words, Christ died for a purpose, not a people. Finney also didn't hold to penal substitutionary atonement.

Horton would go on to say that Finney's new measures, like today's church growth movement, made human choices and emotions the center of the church's ministry.

Finney ridiculed theology. He replaced the preaching of Christ with the preaching of conversion.

However, Finney did get one thing absolutely correct. He said the gospel held by the reformers, whom he attacked directly, is another gospel in contrast to the one he proclaimed.

He's absolutely right. He couldn't be more correct. The gospel of the Reformation and the gospel proclaimed here in this church is

God -centered, not man -centered. We are not here preaching for decisions. We're preaching for the glory of God.

The rise of man -centered theology, where the person is the ultimate and deciding factor in salvation, has permeated the church in large due to Charles Finney's influence.

Why do I bring this up? Because I believe that this theology is the door by which people slip in.

Certain people think this decision is what determines their entry into the church.

And now we wonder why the church looks the way it does. They hold that man makes the decision whether or not he's in the church, not

God. Instead of falling to your knees and humbly, repentantly requesting the mercy and grace of God for your sins through Jesus, these people ask you to make

Jesus the Lord and Savior of your life. Church, you don't make Jesus anything.

He's Lord and Savior whether you like that, agree with that, or not. If you make

Jesus anything, it's probably mad. He's Lord and Savior whether you accept that or not.

He is sovereign over you, not the other way around. They turn our sovereign king into a beggar who hopes that you're going to choose him.

No! Our God is the sovereign king of the universe. He's the author and finisher of our faith.

He does whatever he pleases in heaven and on earth in the seas and all the deeps. Nebuchadnezzar said it like this,

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me.

And I blessed the most high and praised and honored him who lives forever. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And none can stay his hand and say to him, what have you done? Church, you stand in God's court.

He doesn't stand in yours. You don't judge him. He judges you. Entrance into his church is accomplished by Jesus who baptizes you with the

Holy Spirit into his body. His people are people who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.

Worse now, pastors want and need to see the church seats filled. So just like second

Peter warns us, their greed will exploit you with false words. Welcome to the family of God.

Welcome to the family of God. They announce if the person answers an altar call, recites a sinner's prayer, signs a decision card, asks

Jesus into their heart, or worse, makes him Lord and Savior. No call for repentance, no counting the cost, no exhortation to walk in obedience or holiness.

This is in large part the result of Charles Finney and has led the modern church into the seeker sensitive movement.

However, those churches are catering to the wrong seeker because man does not seek after God.

Listen, I'm all for the seeker sensitive movement when it's directed towards the right seeker. It's Jesus who came to seek and save the lost.

He's the seeker, not man. When you preach and advocate a message catering to the proper seeker, you are worshiping

God in spirit and truth and honoring him. When you target man, you target the wrong seeker.

You're aiming in the wrong direction and you will get the wrong result, the result of the modern church today.

You will get creepers, perverters, and deniers. Sadly, in today's day, these people haven't crept in unnoticed.

They've been gladly welcomed into the church with open arms, and now they're making shipwreck of any faith they may have had.

Nate Pikowitz says it like this, The reason we're seeing a tidal wave of deconversions is not due to any inadequacy with the biblical gospel, but because so many people have been binging on spiritual junk food for years and are suffering from heart failure.

Can you see now why Jude took a hard left turn, switched gears, and found it necessary for the church to contend for the faith?

Jude had to contend. The early church had to contend, and we have to contend.

We're playing for keeps. We're contending for the one who's keeping us right now. Verse 4 tells us that certain people who crept in unnoticed were long ago designated for this condemnation.

And that word designated long ago implies that it was written about in the past. It was prophesied. The future of those who infiltrate the church is certain condemnation, and it was foretold by the prophets and then the apostles.

Again, what Jude is doing is highlighting what characterizes the church, being kept by Jesus in the love of God over and against these creepers, perverters, and deniers.

They will be condemned for certain, and Jude will give us ample illustrations of that from the

Old Testament in verses 5 through 16. There's only two types of people Jude describes. The called and the condemned, and the called will contend.

While the creeper's end is condemnation, the contender's end is glorification.

The creeper's condemnation is as certain as the contender's commendation. Verse 4 goes on to say they are ungodly people, perverters of grace, and deniers of Jesus as Lord.

And that term ungodly in the Greek is the word asabes, which is the word used in the

Septuagint for wicked. It's a moral term. In fact, this is the word the psalmist uses and sings about in the very first psalm,

Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who does not sit in the counsel of the ungodly or the wicked. Psalm 1 goes on to use that word three more times.

The wicked are not so, they are like chaff. The ungodly, the wicked, will not stand in the judgment.

The wicked will perish. It's a word that describes a moral corruption.

Ungodly people are devoid of wisdom and sound judgment. And later in Jude, we'll see it's because they're devoid of the spirit.

It's no coincidence that God uses the same term asabes of the corrupt shepherds in Israel in the

Septuagint. Thus says the Lord God, woe to the foolish, the asabes, the ungodly prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing.

Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. And so we must contend for the faith.

We contend with the ungodly because the middle of the verse says the ungodly will pervert the grace of God.

Initially, these ungodly people pervert the grace of God. They actually use grace as a license to sin because hey, all of our sins are paid for, right?

Go on sinning. This is exactly what the apostle Paul warned us about. What should we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?

The very thing that we are saved by, grace, is the very thing they will use to give warrant for their sin.

They pervert it. And here the word pervert means to transfer to another use or purpose. It's a literal redefining of the meaning of the word.

Do we see that today? So many words the culture is trying to redefine and use to satisfy their own position.

They, the ungodly, will use the term grace to bless their sinful proclivities and behavior and redefine

God's purpose and meaning for creation. Because God wants me to be happy, right? Worse, the corrupt ungodly leaders of the church will capitulate to keep the seats filled so the money keeps coming in.

They will permit and even promote these behaviors to keep people coming under the guise of tolerance.

However, John Calvin nails it when he warns us, saying this, it is bad to live under a prince who permits nothing.

But it is much, much worse to live under one who permits everything. Tolerance.

And this will just highlight the fact that these creepers, perverters, and deniers are distinct from the called, beloved, and kept of God.

They are devoid of the spirit they've crept in, and now they will pervert. They are bent on changing and redefining what

God has already defined. They will pervert and distort grace into a permission for sin. But God doesn't give a lick about their happiness.

He's concerned about his church's holiness. Now, this perversion of grace in verse 4 leads into sensuality.

It will lead to all kinds of excuses for sexual deviancy and pleasures of the flesh. We'll see that later as Jude references

Sodom and Gomorrah. Sensuality is indulgence in sensual pleasures of the flesh unrestrained by morality.

This is the most prevailing issue in our culture today, and one of the most dangerous because it has crept into the church.

We have churches today who affirm same -sex mirage, transgenderism, and now most recently, cohabitation.

The affirmation of couples sleeping together without being married. This is what one church website actually says.

It recognizes that the love of God is present when people enter freely into some form of life -enhancing committed relationship, whether that be through informal cohabitation or a more formal commitment entered into publicly.

Life -enhancing? Some form? This same church also affirms that sexuality is

God's gift to all persons, and all persons may become members and live out their faith through their local church without respect to sexual orientation or practice.

They say that the love of God is present in those relationships, but the Bible says that love does not rejoice with wrongdoing.

It rejoices with the truth. How can the love of God be present and rejoicing when

God himself condemns this behavior as sinful? Their love is not love.

It's perversion. It's hate. They pervert grace and twist it into a license to sin for sensuality.

Listen to how many times the Bible addresses this. Ephesians 4 .19, They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy practice, and every kind of impurity.

Romans 13 .13, Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality or sensuality.

2 Corinthians 12 .21, I fear that when I come again, I may have to mourn over many of you who sinned early and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that you have practiced.

Galatians 5 .19, Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, and sensuality. Get the hint?

1 Corinthians 6 .18, Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

Ephesians 5 .3, But sexual immorality and impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among the saints.

That's just some of the verses. There's more. While the scriptures over and over and over condemn sensuality, you have evangelical pastors, or dare

I say, wolves, today saying that the Bible whispers about sexual sin.

Did that sound like a whisper to you? You know there's a problem when you can't tell the difference between a whisper and a scream.

The Bible screams against sexual immorality. Finally, it's this godlessness, this perversion and sensuality that gives full birth to the denial of Jesus as Lord and Master over them.

These creepers have redefined and perverted the love of God to include their own sinfulness and their own sensuality.

And what happens when you deny and redefine God's standard to suit your own desires? You become master and Lord of yourself.

It only seems fitting because that's what the pastor told you to do. Make Jesus Lord and Savior. Well, now I can make myself

Lord and Savior. They deny that Jesus has Lordship over them. James says it this way, then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

When you deny Jesus as Lord and Savior, you deny the only thing that can save you, and you end up embracing death.

Paul tells us to the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

Both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their deeds.

They're detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work. Someone says, blessed is the man that does not sit in the council of the ungodly.

But right now, some in the church are. We live in a day where wolves in sheep's clothing not only enter the church, but they rise into seats of leadership, running amok, and dragging the church into a sick and wicked condition.

These church leaders are very much like the shepherds of Israel, who elevated and fed themselves and began fleecing the flock like the

Pharisees, who devour widows' houses and make a pretense for long prayers. They will receive greater condemnation.

And we, the saints, need to contend against them and begin the process of sifting out the false teachers that have entered the church.

And in case you thought that this is just a liberal or charismatic Pentecostal problem, it's not.

The recently elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention has been caught plagiarizing whole sermons, multiple times, word for word.

And worse, he's not been immediately removed. There are actually pastors from good

Bible -believing churches in the SBC excusing his behavior and advocating for him to stay in office, even rallying behind him.

And don't forget, the Southern Baptist Convention had its roots in Calvinistic theology. We even had an issue with an association that we were members of, a

Reformed association. But we had to remove ourselves because of the issues that were taking place.

Why? Because sin is an interdenominational problem. It does not discriminate against ecclesiastical boundaries.

If you're a human being, you're prone to sin. Do not think anyone is above sin based on the church they attend.

We are all humans and prone to sin, and we must contend against it. We need to repent personally, locally, corporately, and globally.

And we need to contend. These creepers may have slipped in, but they need to be kicked out. They need to be called out.

These are all the consequences of a church that does not contend. The modern

American church in the U .S. has been exposed. It has waved its rainbow flags and displayed its true colors.

And that's not meant to be a pun. That's meant to be a punch. But I'm not the one who threw the first one.

They did, and I have to contend. When you defile and blaspheme the God -ordained institution of marriage, when you promote blatant sexual sin, which

God calls an abomination, and you're proud of it, when you try to redefine God's definition of a man or a woman, when you differentiate the saints and separate them by their skin color, or when you seek to murder children in their mother's womb, don't get upset when

I punch back or call me unloving. But this is not just a me thing.

It's not just a you thing. This is a we thing. Fighting back together is the proper response, the proper reaction of the saints.

This is the proper response of all of those who are called, beloved, and kept. The pastor's job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.

So if you're sitting here this morning and you're a Christian, you're a saint. If you're a saint, you're being equipped for the work of the ministry.

So welcome to the ministry. Some of you may not have known that you were in ministry, but you are.

And I'll let you know we fight back every Wednesday night in that building over there. Okay, if you're a member of this church, we expect you to be there.

This is how we fight back as a church. We need to punch back as a collective unit. Can't be a few people sprinkled here and there.

This is what the bond service of the Lord Jesus Christ are called to do. Love does not rejoice with wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love warns its neighbor and seeks what's best for them. Love honors the king and contends for the faith.

Now other churches are going to tell you that's not loving. That's not peaceful. But listen to what

Paul says at the end of Romans. And the God of peace, the God of peace will soon crush

Satan under your feet. Oh, the irony. The God of peace will crush his enemies.

The creepers, perverted and deniers cry, peace, peace, where there is no peace. But the saints cry, repent, because it's a godly and holy and righteous peace.

Not a worldly peace. Whoever is friends with the world is at enmity with God. God will use his people, the church, to crush

Satan and bring true godly peace to this world. Have I ever mentioned to you that Long Island's Christ Island?

Have I? Okay, just checking. And so if you're in this church, he's chosen you and I for this very task.

And if you find yourself not moved to punch back, if you're apathetic or sympathetic to the sinfulness of others, you need to test yourself to see whether you're in the faith.

Are you indifferent towards sin? Do you not hate sin like God does?

Maybe you've slipped in. Not necessarily teaching heresy, but not fighting against it either.

You're apathetic. But some will say, well, Jesus is my savior. Sure, Jesus is your savior.

But if he's just your savior and not your Lord, then he's neither. It's both.

It's all or nothing. You can't accept one part of him and not the other. You may be a denier.

Now, that may upset you. So I'm just going to read what Jude's conclusion to verses 3 and 4 is.

Verse 5, Jude says, now I want to remind you. And listen to me as your elder.

I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

Here's the bottom line. You have to come to Jesus on his terms. You don't get to make up your own.

As the criminal before the judge, you do not get to negotiate what you will and won't do.

I'm willing to receive my savior, but Lord, not so much. It's all or nothing.

Your life is not your own. You've been bought with a price. If you're like Jude, you're a bond servant, a slave.

You don't negotiate. You capitulate. And then you contend with us. And what went through my mind as I was putting this message together is, what if Jude never wrote this letter?

What would the church look like? But knowing God's sovereignty and by his providence that he did with these warnings, he gives us, what are you going to do with them?

Contender or pretender? Within a decade after the

Council of Nicaea in 325, the tables turned again. Emperor Constantine now reverses his previous decision and now reinstates

Arius, the heretic, into the church. And with that comes his, Jesus is a little God, a created being doctrine.

The truth was being assailed once again. Arius now seems victorious, especially in the eastern churches who embraced it.

Athanasius is in the minority. He fights against the assault and he even endures being exiled five times.

He's jailed for seven years. Repeatedly threatened with death and even accused of murder.

All for his refusal to readmit Arius and his followers, the creepers, back into the church.

For most of the remainder of Athanasius' life, it was Athanasius contra mundum.

Athanasius against the world. Though Athanasius later became the bishop of Alexandria and died in 373 with no victory in sight, his ideas continued on due to his extensive writings on the issue.

It was only years later, most likely in the 5th century, when the creed that bears his name was written, the

Athanasian Creed, as a full -orb defense of the divinity of Christ and the Trinity. Athanasius' long -delayed and long -awaited triumph finally arrived.

Only he wouldn't get to see it. He died before it finally happened. But the truth prevailed once again because he contended.

Athanasius fought for truth and the honor of the king and became one of the greatest heroes of the faith. He is one of the key defenders of orthodoxy as we know it.

He was a contender. In fact, you can thank Athanasius if you're not a Jehovah's Witness today. It was

Athanasius contra mundum. Athanasius against the world. Those are the very words engraved on his tombstone.

pray. Amen.