Contend for the Once for All Delivered Faith

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No, I'm going to go through the words.
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Don't worry about...
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We are going to be breaking down some of the Greek language tonight, but I only wrote it down so that I could show you points of reference.
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I'm not expecting you to understand everything that's up there.
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It's for the purpose of showing you a few important connections.
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We get really caught up often in how the English is translated.
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And I think sometimes in doing so, we forget that we are reading a translation of another language.
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And so, if we can find our points of reference in the original language and make some connections in our mind.
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You know, when I teach Greek vocabulary, that's what the whole purpose is.
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The majority of the New Testament is made up of about 200 Greek words.
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So if you learn those 200 Greek words, you know about 90% of the vocabulary of the New Testament in the Greek.
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The rest of it is words that are only used once or twice, but most of the words are used over and over and over.
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And so, I just wanted to point out to you a few things in the text, so I wrote it out early.
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Alright, but before we do that, we're going to begin our service tonight.
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We're going to do something a little bit different tonight.
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I'm going to ask Brother Andy, where he's sitting, to pray for us before we begin.
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And we're going to stand for that.
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He's going to pray.
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And as soon as he's done praying, if you'll have your hymnals open to page 24.
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I'm sorry, page 26.
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We're going to sing, Blessed Be Your Name.
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And then we're going to turn right over to page 24 and sing, Oh, Worship the King.
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So let's stand and Brother Andy will pray.
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Amen.
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So on page 26, it should be Blessed Be Your Name.
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Is that correct? Okay.
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Now this song does have a verse and a chorus, and that repeats.
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Actually, I'm sorry, a verse and a chorus, a second verse and a chorus, and then it has something called a bridge.
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The bridge is just an extension of the song, and it's on the second page of the hymnal.
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So, all right, we'll sing together.
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Blessed be your name.
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In a land that is plentiful.
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Where the streams of abundance flow.
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Blessed be your name.
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Blessed be your name.
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When I'm found in the desert place.
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Though I walk through the wilderness.
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Blessed be your name.
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Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise.
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When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your name.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your glorious name.
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Blessed be your name.
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When the sun is shining down on me.
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When the world is all as it should be.
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Blessed be your name.
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Blessed be your name.
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I will overcome with suffering.
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For those painted the author.
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Blessed be your name.
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Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise.
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When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your name.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your glorious name.
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Give and take away.
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Give and take away.
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My heart will choose to say.
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Lord, blessed be your name.
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Sing that part again.
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Give and take away.
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Give and take away.
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My heart will choose to say.
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Lord, blessed be your name.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your name.
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Blessed be the name of the Lord.
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Blessed be your glorious name.
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Now we're going to turn over two pages to O Worship the King.
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Sometimes when I print out my music, I remind myself, I go through and I actually type in some history for some of the hymns on some of my guitar music.
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And I want to read what I have written here.
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This hymn by Sir Robert Grant, 1780 to 1838, is a paraphrase of Psalm 104.
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Eric Routley, one of the most prominent hymnologists of the 20th century, said of this hymn, quote, For sheer literary grace and beauty, it may be one of the six finest hymns in the English language, end quote.
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While this hymn incorporates several images from the King James Version, the intent of the hymn writer seems to be to capture the majesty of the Psalms in paraphrase.
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So how many of you know this hymn? O Worship the King.
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Now, I may do it a little different than you might be used to.
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The words should be the same, even though I am looking at the guitar version.
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So if my words are slightly different, I try to get the same as the hymnal.
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But it is three, four time, which is a waltz.
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So, O worship the King, all glorious above, O gratefully sing his power and his love.
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Our shield and defender, the Ancient of Days, Revealed in splendor and girded with grace.
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O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, Whose robe is the light and canopy space, Whose chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, Dark is His path on the wings of the storm.
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Thy bountiful care, what tongue can recite? It breathes in the air, it shines in the light, It streams from the hills, it descends to the plain, It sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.
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Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail, In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail.
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Thy mercies, how tender, how firm to the end, Our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and go ahead and turn to the book of Jude.
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And we have been, over the last couple of months, we got broken up because of Christmas and stuff.
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We have been talking about Jude for quite a while because I did an introduction to all the little letters and then we had a little break.
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And so there has been a little bit of breakup, but I hopefully will remind you of some things tonight that I have mentioned before, such as who Jude is and things like that, because it comes out in the first verse.
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My goal tonight is to get through verse 7, which is not necessarily too terribly a lofty goal, but in the sense that Jude has a lot to say in a very short amount of time.
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As I said last time, it's like concentrated orange juice.
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There's just so much here.
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If I don't get through verse 7, then we may stop at verse 4, but I'm hoping to get all the way to verse 7.
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And as you notice on the board, what I have done is I did not write the text out in the Greek language, but I have put in a few important words and I wrote it in Greek because it really wouldn't have helped you if I wrote it in English anyway.
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So it wouldn't have mattered whether it's in the Greek letters or the English letters.
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And I did this because I'm going to be pointing out some very specific points in the text that I want us to deal with.
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Now, this is primarily verses 1 to 4.
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I have verses 1 to 3 here and verse 4 on the back.
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I'm not doing that for 5 to 7, and the reason is just because the text begins to tell a story and the narrative changes, and I'm going to look at that a little bit differently.
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But all of this up here is hopefully going to be for your benefit.
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What we're going to do is we're going to begin by reading in the English, of course, verses 1 through 7.
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So if you have your Bibles open, read along with me, and then I'm going to ask the Lord to bless our time.
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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.
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May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
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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 for all delivered to the saints.
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For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
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Ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
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And the angels, who did not stay within their own positions of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
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Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued a natural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I pray even now, Lord, that as we look at these verses, that you would first and foremost keep me from error.
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Lord, use this as a time of growth for all of us.
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Help us to understand what Jude is saying in the text.
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And Lord, help me to be accurate in what I have to say.
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And Lord, that it would be to the glory of your name and to the edification of your people.
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And Lord, even though it's a small group, Lord, if there's anyone here who doesn't know you, Lord, that we would be reminded of the promise of judgment for those who do not believe, as that's what Jude is reminding us in this text.
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And Lord, I pray even for those who may be listening at a later time, or maybe listening through the Internet.
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Lord, if there are those who do not know Jesus Christ, Father, let them know that there is no salvation outside of Him and draw them to yourself, Father, is our prayer.
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In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
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The original language of the New Testament is called Koine Greek.
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It was the common language of the day during the time of Jesus.
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It would have been the language of commerce.
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It had been introduced through Alexander the Great, who had gone through the ancient world and conquered.
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And by conquering, he conquered to not only have his name exalted and to have the power, but he also conquered to spread Greek culture and Greek philosophy into the ancient world.
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And if you'll remember when Paul was going to the different areas, he would often run into the Greek philosophers, such as at the Areopagus and different places because it had spread so far and wide.
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And even today, much of the Western world is influenced by Greek thought and Greek philosophy.
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Dr.
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R.C.
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Sproul wrote a book entitled The Consequences of Ideas, and it's probably one of the most important books that I read early on because it helped to show how influential different cultures had been in the development of Western thought.
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So having said all that, this is not what the original language would have looked like that Paul and John and Jude would have written in.
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I'm writing in a text that's called minuscule, and basically what that means is this is the Greek language with capital letters and lowercase letters, and that was not introduced until many centuries after the New Testament.
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The first New Testament books would have been written in what's called majuscule, or the unsealed text, and that is an all uppercase, no spaces between words, and no punctuation.
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So if you want to know what the original Bible would have looked like, go home tonight and take your book of Romans, open up your computer, and put your caps lock on and type out the first few verses, but don't use any spaces and don't use any punctuation.
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And that would be a facsimile of what they would have been looking at.
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So when I mention the language, understand this is not what it would have looked like exactly, but there are some things that we can learn, such as when we talk about the book of Jude, it's actually the book of Judas.
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The name of this person is Judas.
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This here, beginning with the Yoda, they don't have the J sound.
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It would actually be Judas, and so it would be the original language would have begun, just like Jesus doesn't start with a J, it starts with the Yoda, Jesus.
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And by the way, that's how you can always tell where words are from, often is by sounds.
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The Greek language didn't have that sound, and so if you hear a word with a J sound in it, it usually comes from German.
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That's a Germanic change.
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And so we have Judas.
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And why do you think we call the book the book of Jude rather than the book of Judas? Yeah, and I know that sounds like a simple answer.
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That really is.
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In English, it would be very confusing for us to have the epistle of Judas, because most people associate Judas with Judas Iscariot.
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And so we don't call it the epistle of Judas.
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We call it the epistle of Jude.
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In the same way that somebody named Robert might be called Rob or Bob, we shorten it to this shorter term.
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But the name Judas actually is used in the Gospels as the name of one of Jesus' brothers.
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And so it's why we do believe that Jude, and I am going to say Jude, I'm not going to call him Judas, just for clarity's sake.
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It's why we believe that this is actually one of Jesus' half-brothers.
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But that's not the only reason, because there are certainly many people called Judas.
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There was more than one Judas in Jesus' 12 followers, right? And there were many people called Judas.
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So we believe this is Jesus' half-brother because he calls himself by the same name as one of Jesus' half-brothers, but also he calls himself the Adelphos, and the word Adelphos is the word for brother.
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He says he is the Adelphos of Iacobu, and Iacobu is the Greek word for James.
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And so James is the brother of Judas.
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Well, who is James? He's the half-brother of Jesus.
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According to the book of Galatians, it tells us he's the half-brother of Jesus.
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And we know Jesus had brothers named James and Judas because if we go to the Gospels, when it lists out the names of Jesus' brothers, we know who these guys are.
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But you notice that doesn't look like James.
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It's actually the name Jacob.
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Our Bible book, James, the word is Iacobus, and so it's actually Jacob.
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It's just an interesting, it's just like Jesus and Joshua are the same name.
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Well, James and Jacob are the same name, Iacobus.
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And how many of you have ever heard of James Arminius? You know who Arminius was, the Arminians versus the Calvinists? Well, his name was actually Jacobus Arminius, but he was also called James Arminius.
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James and Jacob were names that sort of went together and were used interchangeably at times.
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And so he is the Adelphos de Iacobus, and the ending here is making it the, it puts it in the tense of saying of.
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So he's the Adelphos, the brother of Jacob or James.
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And because we know that guy's the half-brother of Jesus, we can surmise that Judas is also a half-brother of Jesus.
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So this first verse, when he's introducing himself, he says that he is the brother of James, but he also says something else about himself.
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What does he say in verse one? He says, I am the servant of Jesus.
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Now you notice he doesn't say I'm the brother of Jesus.
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And a lot of people make an issue about that.
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They said, well, if he truly was Jesus's half-brother, why doesn't he mention that he was Jesus's half-brother? Well, James doesn't mention he's Jesus's half-brother either.
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In fact, we learned that from other writers.
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Paul says James, the half-brother of Jesus, but in James' own letter of himself, he doesn't identify himself as Jesus's half-brother.
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And there's plenty of reasons why this could be, not the least of which could be an act of humility.
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He's not trying to show any type of equality with the Lord.
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He's not trying to show any place where he and the Lord are on the equal footing.
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You know, you talk about brothers, sometimes brothers can have a positional argument.
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You know, who's the greater, right? Even among the disciples, who's the greatest? Well, these men are showing that they are servants.
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And the word doulos, you've probably heard that word before.
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If you've done any Greek study at all, that's one of the more common vocabulary words.
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The word doulos does mean servant, but it can also mean slave.
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Now, in our modern context, the word slave has a very negative connotation because of slavery in America and slavery around the world.
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And most people think of slavery as a bad thing.
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However, just recently, John MacArthur wrote a book and the title of the book was called Slave.
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And it was trying to express the true humiliating nature of this term.
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The idea that this truly is a, and when I say humiliating, I don't mean humiliating as embarrassing.
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I mean, truly a stepping down of yourself.
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You know, the Bible says for Christ to increase, I must do what? Decrease, that's what John the Baptist said.
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So really this is a word that refers to the true nature of humility.
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I am not only the servant, I am the slave of my Lord.
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He commands and I obey.
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And so, and by the way, John MacArthur, they just produced a new Bible translation.
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Adam Martizoni posted a picture that he received his, and that new Bible translation, one of the things that it mentioned was that they were going to, on the word doulos, they were going to stop using the word servant and go back to using the word slave.
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Because they wanted to focus on that word, and because that word is so unpopular, it got some pushback as a result.
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But anyhow, so we see he is Judas, he is Jude, he is a servant of Jesus Christ, he is the brother of James, and he's identified, this is a very standard greeting in Greek literature, or Greek epistles rather, they would begin with who they are, Paul does this all the time, identifying who he is.
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And then they start by, it's different than our letters, we start by identifying our audience, you know, dear Daisy, I write you a letter, and I tell you all about what is in the letter, and then I say, in Christ, Keith.
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I finish with that ending.
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Well, they begin with who's writing, and then immediately to who the recipient is.
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And it kind of is almost like one of those things you get at work.
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I don't know if you have a job that sends out memos, the memo will begin with the recipient, and then the sender, and then the subject.
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And then you have the body, right? And so that's sort of the way the epistle is produced.
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Who's sending it, who's he sending it to, and then the next few verses are the theme, or the thesis of the work.
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And so we see in the second part of verse one, it says it has this threefold designation of who is receiving the letter.
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The threefold designation, those who are called, that's this word right here, keletos, or keletois, the endings change depending on how it's used in the sentence, to those who are called, beloved, agape minois is that word, and they are kept.
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That is this word.
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And this is teraminois, and that particular word there is the word I want to focus on in a minute, because that's the word for kept, is something we need to consider, because Jude uses this word twice.
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First he says you are kept, and then in verse 21 he says keep yourselves.
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And it's like, one is what God does, and one is what we do, and it's very interesting, because one's at the beginning, one's at the end, but it's the same word.
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It's the same idea of being kept.
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In one it says you are kept, and then keep yourselves.
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And so understanding that, and I may wait until we get to verse 21 to really flesh out the distinction, but understand there is a sense in which our salvation is to depend wholly upon God, it's God who saves us, and it's God who preserves us.
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But there is also the call to persevere, and that's why we, as Calvinists, we call it the perseverance of the saints, and we call it the preservation of the saints, because we know God is saving and working out our salvation, but we have the responsibility to, as Brother Andy so often says, press on in this most holy faith, right? That idea is there.
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And so it's interesting, we see this word at the beginning, and this word at the ending, and one is in relation to God keeping us, and I do think that's where we have to find our comfort, because often I don't feel like I'm doing a good job.
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You know, I can't trust in my own works at any time for my salvation.
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Even on the days that I do great, I can't say that's why I'm saved today, because on the days that I don't do great, those are going to be the days that I feel like I'm not saved.
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I have to trust that the Lord is the one who's keeping me, and yet at the same time, I am to press on in the most holy faith, I am to consider the idea that keep yourselves in this faith.
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Don't walk away.
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So as I said, I guess I kind of went over it, but that's that word right there.
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But the word beloved, agapomenoi, you probably hear it when I say it, but the root word is the word agape.
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Many people are familiar with it.
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That's one of the Greek words for love.
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That's one of the ones that we consider to be a very important word, because it's the way God loves us.
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It's considered to be a self-sacrificing love, or a love that is based on the work of the giver, not the receiver.
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Right? I love my children regardless, because my love for my children is based on my...
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It's not based on what they do.
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Now I can be frustrated with my kids, I can be angry with my children, I can send them to bed earlier, I can spank them or whatever, but none of that means I don't love them.
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In fact, if I don't spank my children, it means I don't love them, because the Bible says if you don't discipline your child, you don't love your child, right? So there has to be some discipline there, but my love is from me and not based upon them.
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My love for them doesn't go up or down based on what they do for the day.
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And so when this says beloved, it's that root word of God's love, that root word of agape.
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You are beloved, you are kept, and the word you are called.
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Now the word calling is...
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Again, I could camp out on any one of these.
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The word calling is hugely important because when we talk about calling, all men who hear the gospel receive what we would call the general call of the gospel.
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So for instance, on Sunday morning, we have a mixed multitude.
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What do I mean by that? On Sunday morning, we have...
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There's a ton of people here.
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It's been great.
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I mean, seats filled.
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And I know that there are people here who are believers, and I know that there are people here who are not yet believers, right? And so I think about that, and I think about every time they're here, I want them to hear the call of the gospel.
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That's the general call that goes out every time the gospel is preached.
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But there's also what we would talk about as the internal call or what in Calvinism we would say the effectual call of God.
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That is what changes the person's heart to actually receive the call.
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It gives them the ability to respond.
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It gives them the desire, that desire that wasn't there before, to respond.
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And so the word calling here is saying when the Bible says you're called, it's not talking about the universal or general call.
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It's talking about the effectual call.
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You're kept and you're beloved and you're called.
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So all of these are really addressing God's work in your life because God effectively called you.
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God did it because he loves you and God is going to keep you and see all of those.
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That's how those three things work together.
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And it's those three things that that's the recipient.
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How do I know this letter is written to me? Well, this letter wasn't written directly to me because this letter was written to an immediate audience in the first century.
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But if I'm a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, I am in a sense the object of this letter because I've been called.
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I am one of God's beloved and I am kept in Jesus Christ.
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And so in that this letter is for me and it's for you if you're in Christ.
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Now, as I said last week, Jude loves threefold ideas.
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So you notice there it was called beloved.
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Kept.
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Well, he's going to do that again in verse two.
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He goes, may mercy, grace, excuse me, may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
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Now, I did not go through mercy, peace and love on on the on the board up here.
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In fact, this is wrong.
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This is verse two.
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This is still verse one.
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Verse one is where we get called beloved and kept.
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Verse two says may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
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By the way, the word love there is the word agape and the word mercy is the Greek word for mercy and the word peace is the Greek word for peace.
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Just be clear.
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Not that there's anything important about them.
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I didn't write them up here.
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But those words are one of the things you have to understand.
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A lot of times the original language, it means the same thing that what we mean when we say those words.
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And that's why we translate into that particular word.
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So it is mercy, peace and love that Jude is giving a blessing to them.
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Essentially, this is like invoking the blessing of God.
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This is like when the elder or the pastor stands up before the people and he may may the Lord bless us as we go.
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We call that a benediction, right? That's a word of blessing as we go.
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Well, this there's also a word of invocation or invoking the blessings of God.
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That's what he's doing here is may mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
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He's he's he's he's calling on God to be to be these things to his audience.
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Now, verse three, beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation and I'll get that in a minute.
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Even though I was eager to write about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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Now, I want to ask for a favor, because I know that I have at least one brother in the room who has a King James Bible.
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Would you read verse three, Mike, loudly for us, please? OK, thank you.
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All right.
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This verse is the theme of the book.
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Remember, I said it was like a memo, right? So we've got the sender.
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We've got the recipients.
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And now this is the line saying what the book is about.
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And he says that what he wanted to do, what he was eager to do, was to write about our common salvation.
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Now, I'm going to just drag this over a little.
32:25
The word coinage here, it's the word coinage.
32:31
You're probably familiar with that.
32:33
To have things in common.
32:35
Right.
32:36
And a mole is our.
32:39
So it's it's the common to us or our common.
32:45
You just word order in Greek is not the same as it is in English.
32:47
So understand the coinage, a mole, and then soterios.
32:54
You've probably heard maybe if you've ever taken a systematic theology class, the term soteriology.
33:02
Soteriology is the study of salvation.
33:04
The Greek word sotso is the word for save or so tear to to be saved or salvation.
33:12
Right.
33:12
And so when we say soteriology, that's the the doctrine of salvation.
33:18
And that's this word.
33:19
So we have our common salvation.
33:22
This is what he wanted to talk about.
33:24
He wanted to talk about.
33:25
And by the way, this tells us again a little bit about the recipients.
33:29
He's talking to believers because we share something.
33:32
What do we share? We share a common salvation.
33:37
Belongs to all of us.
33:38
I want to tell you something.
33:40
It is a beautiful thing when you are in a room of people and you're there and there's that common salvation that you share and you know that that is one thing that binds you together.
33:53
You may not all like the same clothes.
33:55
You may not like all the same food.
33:57
You may not like all the same entertainment, but you love Jesus.
34:02
And even if it's not always and I want to be careful by saying this, even if it's not always your theological stripe.
34:12
You know, because there are people who may not share all of the same bits theologically that we share, but still love Jesus and still are and still have that common salvation.
34:24
And you know, it's it's an interesting thing when you go to a church that you've never been in, but you still feel at home.
34:30
What's that? That's right.
34:32
That fellowship in the gospel.
34:34
That's there.
34:35
It's that that salvation.
34:37
And it's a beautiful thing.
34:38
It's a wonderful thing.
34:39
Now, it's scary when you go to a church and that's not there because you're preaching a false gospel.
34:44
And we'll talk about that in a little while.
34:46
But but the reality is, you know.
34:50
I don't get to visit many churches because I'm here.
34:55
But every time my wife and I take a Sunday off, whether it's we go in on our vacation or whether, you know, I have to go to a conference or something.
35:04
I always enjoy going to find a church that we can go to so that I can experience that blessing of fellowship with other people who share in the same salvation and knowing that that that on on the Lord's Day at 1030, when we gather here and and we all begin singing that all around the world, maybe not at that very moment because of time change and things like that, but all around the world on that day, there's going to be Chinese voices that are lifting up their their their voices.
35:38
They're going to be voices in Africa that are lifting up their voices and they're all singing about that thing.
35:44
Our common salvation.
35:47
And so this is what Jude says he wanted to write about.
35:51
This is the good thing.
35:52
This is the positive.
35:54
This is the blessing.
35:57
But he says, I found it necessary instead to write to you, appealing to you to contend.
36:08
And that's the where we're going to start here.
36:13
Let me try that again.
36:15
I go, Nick, stop.
36:18
It's just the ending was different.
36:21
The root word here is the word for agonize.
36:26
All right, agonize.
36:27
So my middle part right here.
36:31
And so when he talks about contending, battling, striving, it's that it's that idea of this is a this is what we have to be doing.
36:46
We have to be contending.
36:52
We can enjoy the fact that we have a fellowship of mutual faith.
36:58
And when we're here, that we have our common salvation.
37:01
But as soon as we depart and we're back in the world, we are all we are.
37:05
We're entering the fight.
37:07
I think that's the one great thing about the Lord's Day.
37:09
It's like a respite.
37:11
To walk into the people of God and know that I that I I'm not going to have to battle.
37:17
I'm going to get to worship with other people who are worshipping, because as soon as you go out into the world and you begin to face the world again, you're right back into that contention.
37:28
And it may not be, you know, let me let me paint a picture for you.
37:32
Imagine imagine if you're a believer and maybe some of you are.
37:36
So I'm not talking about anybody specific.
37:38
This is just an analogy.
37:40
So if I if I if I paint a picture of you, it's not on purpose.
37:42
But imagine you are living with an unbeliever.
37:47
And so let's say you're married to an unbeliever, or let's say you're in a situation where you're still living at home with your mom and dad and they're unbelievers or something like that, like like like we have family members that are unbelievers.
38:00
And that's the that's that's what you go into.
38:03
You go into that feeling of contention.
38:07
And that's the battle.
38:10
What wonderful thing Sunday is, because Sunday you get to come and be with.
38:18
Your fellow believers, what a blessing that is.
38:22
But as Jude points out, we have a battle to fight, and the battle is that we're going to contend for something.
38:30
And the contending for something is the.
38:34
And this is this is kind of interesting because I asked you to read it because I wanted to sort of show.
38:41
The actual wording is the word once and it's once for all.
38:51
I do think that that is the concept there.
38:54
But in the King James, as you said, it was just the word once, right? Once delivered.
38:57
Well, the word is once.
39:00
But the idea is that it's that it's once one and done.
39:04
It's not something that continues.
39:06
Right.
39:06
Like if you get a battery once for your car, you have to get one again when that battery dies.
39:10
Right.
39:10
But there are things that you do once and it's done.
39:14
Well, this is the idea of one and done.
39:15
It's once for all.
39:17
Right.
39:17
Once for all time.
39:19
And then the next word.
39:21
Actually, I'm going to go.
39:22
I'm going to work my way up from the bottom.
39:23
This word is from the word which means faith.
39:29
The word saint.
39:30
So it's actually the same word for holy.
39:32
The word holy and saint are the same word in Greek.
39:34
So if you are a saint, you are holy.
39:36
Same thing.
39:37
And this word right here.
39:40
Herodotus say is the word which is that word that that is delivered.
39:47
Now, think of it like this.
39:50
This is the once delivered to the saints faith.
39:54
And I know that that's a weird way of saying it, but the idea is this is we are contending for something.
40:00
What are we contending for? The once delivered to the saints faith.
40:04
OK, that's a weird way of saying it, but let me explain.
40:08
We are not contending for our individual faith, even though that is part of our battle.
40:13
Right.
40:13
We have to maintain our faith.
40:16
But what Jude is saying we're contending for is we're contending for the faith, which means the body of belief that holds us all together.
40:27
It's not my belief and your belief and her belief.
40:30
It's the it's the all encompassing truth.
40:34
We're contending because that is what has been delivered to us.
40:39
And what was the what was the medium for that delivery? The word of God.
40:48
The Bible is the medium for the delivery of the once for all delivered to the faint delivered to the saints faith.
40:57
So in a sense, what Jude is saying? I don't think I'm taking this out of context.
41:05
What Jude is saying is to contend for the word of God.
41:09
Because that's the body of belief that we have been given.
41:13
That's the body of belief that we have been handed.
41:15
So that's the once for all delivered to the saints faith.
41:18
We contend for the word of God.
41:22
This week on my show, I'm going to be having my friend Matthew Hinson.
41:29
He's I call him my not yet Calvinist friend.
41:31
I'm working on chipping away every time we meet.
41:33
But he's a wonderfully intelligent young man.
41:36
And he is well read on N.T.
41:38
Wright.
41:38
And we're going to be talking about N.T.
41:40
Wright.
41:40
N.T.
41:40
Wright is a British scholar.
41:42
Now, N.T.
41:43
Wright has written some very wonderful things, but he's written some very difficult things.
41:46
And I would say some very incorrect things.
41:48
And the areas he's incorrect on are very serious things.
41:51
It's because he's dealing with things like justification.
41:54
Right? I think on the areas where he's wrong, he's very wrong.
41:58
But here's the thing that I heard N.T.
41:59
Wright out of his own mouth say.
42:01
He calls the inerrancy of Scripture that silly American doctrine.
42:08
So understand what he's saying.
42:10
The inerrancy of the Bible that your Bible is absolutely true and everything that it says is a silly American doctrine.
42:19
No, it's not good.
42:20
It's absolutely not good.
42:21
That's why I call him N.T.
42:22
wrong.
42:23
Actually, John MacArthur was the first one to say that.
42:25
I have to give that a little credit.
42:26
But he did.
42:27
He said, N.T.
42:27
Wright is N.T.
42:28
wrong on many things.
42:31
And on the...
42:33
Because when you begin to let that domino fall, that, yeah, there may be in the Bible, you know, myths, just like I talked about in the academy class last week.
42:47
I talked about that some people believe creation is a myth.
42:50
Remember that pastor who preached that? Once you begin to open that door, let me tell you something, you've stopped contending and you have started to acquiesce to the world.
43:03
And that is a dangerous thing.
43:05
So our call is to contend for the truth of God's Word, to contend for the ones for all delivered to the saints faith.
43:10
That is our calling to fight for the truth.
43:14
John MacArthur said this, the authors of the New Testament did not discover the truths of the Christian faith through mystical religious experiences.
43:23
Rather, God with finality and certainty delivered up His complete body of revelation in Scripture.
43:31
Any system that claims new revelation or new doctrine must be disregarded as false.
43:37
God's Word is all sufficient.
43:39
It is all that believers need as they contend for the faith and oppose apostasy within the church.
43:45
See, if we have the ones for all delivered to the saints faith, we don't need new revelation.
43:50
And when somebody comes up and says, I have a new word from God, say, I've got the old one and it works just fine.
43:55
And if what you're going to tell me disagrees with this, then it's not true.
44:00
And if what you're going to tell me agrees with it, I don't need it.
44:05
Because I have the ones for all delivered to the saints faith.
44:09
So now you understand why I wanted to point out that's what we have here in verse 3.
44:15
OK.
44:17
Now we're going to go to verse 4.
44:22
Page over.
44:24
And in verse 4, we are introduced to the concern.
44:27
What is the concern? There are those who are preaching a false faith.
44:34
They are pseudo Adelphi or false brothers.
44:40
And we see this in verse 4.
44:43
The word here is certain people.
44:45
It says for certain people have crept in unnoticed.
44:53
And then I have it.
44:54
I don't I don't know how many of you brought the handout I gave last time.
44:56
If you want one, there's a couple more down here.
44:59
The full color handout.
45:00
But I actually have it a B and C because it's a long ago they were designated for this kind of nation be ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God and essentiality and see they deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
45:13
Very interesting about the way the word order is.
45:16
As I said earlier, the word order in Greek is different than English.
45:19
Sometimes that's based upon how they do things called like nominatives, which are the subject and predicate of the sentence and things like that.
45:28
But also sometimes they front load important words like certain words will be put at the beginning so as to show that this is an important concept that's that's being and that isn't always translatable in English.
45:41
So in our English translation, it says for certain people have crept in unnoticed.
45:45
OK, that's that's how it reads.
45:48
But in the in the in the in the Greek language, the first word is this word.
45:55
And that word is the word for crept in.
46:00
So the idea is they've crept in unnoticed is the first thing he wants you to see.
46:06
It's the first thing he's pointing at.
46:08
The creeping in unnoticed of these certain people.
46:10
So that becomes an important an important word there.
46:17
So when we see that, it says that certain people have crept in unnoticed.
46:22
And just for a moment, let's let's think, why would he do that? Why would he make this word so important? Well.
46:29
Think about the idea of what it means to go unnoticed.
46:33
I mentioned last week a few false teachers or two weeks ago.
46:35
I mentioned a couple false teachers.
46:36
I mentioned the guy out in Texas with the big basketball.
46:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:41
Yeah.
46:41
And I don't mind mention his name.
46:42
Yeah, it was Joel Osteen.
46:43
Right.
46:44
Joel Osteen is a false teacher.
46:46
There are many people who are false teachers.
46:50
And in a sense, they go unnoticed because they have huge churches that are allowing them to preach and that are paying them to preach and that are promoting them.
46:57
But this also happens in other churches where the false brethren, the false teacher will creep in and nobody notices until he begins taking the church down the rabbit hole.
47:15
Until he begins to destroy the church with his false teaching.
47:20
And it's a scary thing, but it happens all the time.
47:25
And, you know, Brother Andy, Brother Mike and I talk about, you know, sort of our responsibility is as as it were, maybe this word is a little strong, but I'll use it.
47:35
And if I'm wrong, I'll apologize later.
47:38
But sort of like gatekeepers.
47:43
Because a gatekeeper, you know, our job is that we've been entrusted with shepherding the souls of the church that God has given to us.
47:55
And therefore, we have to be mindful of what's coming in and who's coming in.
48:01
And that doesn't mean that we're, you know, that we're overly picky and trying to pick people apart.
48:09
But as we listen to what people are saying and as we listen to what people are telling other people and instructing other people and we start to hear things that are dangerous, we want to address that immediately.
48:21
I remember I was standing right there.
48:25
This was probably 2007.
48:28
I was standing right in the middle, right there.
48:31
Lady had visited the church.
48:33
She joined the church after like two visits.
48:35
And after her second or third time being here, after her joining the church, that was before we had a new members class.
48:40
We were much different back then.
48:42
And she told me she was an apostle.
48:46
And she wanted to be called by the title apostle, which obviously was a problem.
48:53
But I remember I was standing right there when she came to me and she said, I was having a rough day.
48:59
I don't remember what it was.
48:59
I probably had a frown on my face.
49:00
And I don't have a poker face, just so you know.
49:03
If I'm not happy, you probably will know.
49:05
I just don't have that fake look.
49:07
I can't do it.
49:08
So I had some kind of a frown on my face.
49:11
And she, in her attempt to encourage my downtrodden appearance, walked up and she goes, Brother, I just want you to know that everything's going to be OK.
49:21
And just remember, you chose to be here because you were in heaven with God and you told Him you wanted to come to earth.
49:32
What in the world are you talking about? You see, what she was expressing was a false doctrine about human nature, which says that the human soul is ultimately eternal and that we existed in eternity past with God, that we came to earth and that we'll one day go back to that eternal state.
49:54
That's actually a cult teaching that is very common in pseudo-Christian religions.
50:00
But it is not the Christian faith.
50:03
And she's expressing it as if everybody believes this.
50:08
No, ma'am, you understand.
50:13
That happens.
50:16
All right.
50:17
Got a little off topic there.
50:18
People creep in unnoticed.
50:20
You won't know it sometimes until they're already behind the pulpit.
50:25
And you got to be like, somebody tackle him.
50:28
I'll go high, you go low.
50:31
Or cut the mic.
50:33
Cut the live feed.
50:36
It's dangerous.
50:38
But notice the three things that it says.
50:41
It says, one, these people were long ago designated for this condemnation.
50:46
The word designated here is actually an interesting phrase because it's this one.
50:51
It's pra-ge-gramenoi.
50:54
And the root of that is the word grama, the word for writing.
50:59
So we get the word grammar, right? So we talk about like the Tetragrammaton.
51:04
That's the four-letter name of God, right? So that word is right here in the middle.
51:08
And the idea is what these men are doing, God prophesied.
51:14
It was designated in the scriptures because God has prophesied these apostates.
51:23
And we could say Jude was referencing Old Testament.
51:28
We could say Jude was referencing even New Testament writers because remember what we talked about? The relationship between Peter and Jude.
51:37
We said we didn't know which one came first, but it seemed like they might have some reliance upon each other.
51:42
One of the things you'll notice if you look at 2 Peter and Jude together is it seems like 2 Peter is anticipating this and Jude is seeing it.
51:50
So it's almost like Jude is saying this is what Peter was writing about.
51:52
Now, I'm not saying that's exactly what this means, but the idea is this is designated.
51:56
This has been written about.
51:58
But then again, he does say long ago.
52:01
I think he's actually referring maybe to further back prophecies that would relate to false teachers in the church.
52:10
And he says these men have been written about.
52:12
Their condemnation has been designated.
52:18
They are ungodly people.
52:23
I listened to a lot of sermons.
52:25
I drive 30 minutes each way and so I get a lot of time in my truck.
52:30
I listen to Alistair Begg.
52:32
Oh, I love Alistair Begg.
52:33
And nothing better than his accent.
52:36
Well, Alistair Begg was addressing this text.
52:42
And he said, you know, Jude mentions ungodly people.
52:45
I can't do an impression, so I better not try.
52:47
He says, Jude mentions ungodly people.
52:50
He said, but in our church today, nobody wants to, and I hope I'm saying this exactly like he did, but I'm probably messing up a little bit.
53:00
But basically he said, we don't designate people as godly.
53:04
We don't say that anymore.
53:06
He said, because we've gotten so used to people being ungodly.
53:14
And I thought about that.
53:15
Who in your life would you say, now that's a godly man or that's a godly woman? You know, I think about that, like the men that I studied with when I was in seminary.
53:27
They didn't agree with everything I agree with theologically.
53:29
They were wrong on some things.
53:33
But they were godly men and they loved me and they taught me God's word and they taught me how to study and they did it at very little benefit to themselves.
53:45
They paid peanuts at the seminary I went to.
53:48
It wasn't for money.
53:49
It wasn't for fame.
53:51
It was just because they loved me and they loved the word of God.
53:55
Those are godly men.
53:57
And I tell you, there's a blessing in being surrounded by people who love the Lord and are living for the Lord.
54:04
And you can say, this man's a godly man in my life.
54:06
He's not perfect.
54:09
He's not without his failures and he knows those failures and that's part of what makes him a godly man is he knows where he fails.
54:18
But he's a godly man.
54:19
Like I said, I serve with the elders and the deacons here and they're godly men.
54:24
They're men I love and I appreciate and they call me to account and I get to call them to account and we're honest with one another and there's a certain blessing in that.
54:35
But the opposite is true too.
54:40
They're ungodly.
54:41
They're those who seem to have no desire for the things of God.
54:46
They seem to have no real want to see God's word change them.
54:55
What a sad thing.
54:57
But it's there.
54:57
I mean, it happens.
54:59
And notice what he says.
55:00
He says they're ungodly and this is what they do.
55:02
They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.
55:07
And that word sensuality is this word right here.
55:13
And that word is actually the root is actually from a city.
55:17
A city name.
55:18
And actually, I highlighted this because I wanted to read this to you.
55:24
The word eseljah is the root.
55:29
Do you know what an alpha privative is? An alpha privative is when you put an A on the beginning of a word to change it to the opposite.
55:37
So like if you say theist and atheist, right? An atheist doesn't believe in God.
55:40
So the alpha privative is putting the A at the beginning, right? And it changes it to the opposite.
55:46
Well, that's what this word is because you have the alpha here.
55:49
Seljah, that's a city name.
55:52
And it was a city in the ancient world where the people were known for having a very high moral standard.
55:57
They were like legalists and they had a very high moral standard for their life.
56:03
And this is the opposite.
56:06
These are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into what? Into that.
56:14
Into licentiousness.
56:16
Into sensuality.
56:18
What word is this? Lasciviousness.
56:20
Very good word.
56:21
Very good word.
56:22
And notice the word pervert.
56:25
They're perverting it.
56:26
They're changing it.
56:29
That is happening.
56:33
I mean, honestly, I have seen preachers online and I know I feel like I'm maybe just like always pointing.
56:41
I've seen this guy.
56:41
I see this all the time.
56:43
People send me videos.
56:43
I see videos.
56:45
And preachers who are promoting ungodliness.
56:51
You say, well, how are they doing that? They're promoting things like homosexual marriage.
56:57
They're promoting things like even something as new, but still very relevant.
57:03
So things like critical race theory and things like that, which are ungodly promotions within God's church.
57:07
And they're pushing it forward because it's growing them an audience and they're perverting the grace of God into sensuality.
57:18
Do you know what the Bible says in Romans chapter six, verse one? That we should not say, let us continue in sin so that grace can increase or abound.
57:31
That's what these guys are doing.
57:33
Let us continue in sin so that grace can increase.
57:38
Exactly, exactly.
57:40
Now we are going to end here at verse four because look at that.
57:46
I'm getting through that in two minutes and I want to spend.
57:50
I want to spend next time two weeks.
57:52
I want to spend on those three things.
57:55
And that's the judgments because that's what he gives us in verse five to seven.
57:58
He says, here's the judgments associated with what these guys are doing.
58:03
But let's finish with this.
58:04
They deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
58:10
This is the word here for deny.
58:15
And I love this.
58:16
This is an interesting construction here.
58:18
Mon on.
58:19
Think of the word like mono, like monotheism means one means only.
58:25
That's the word despot.
58:27
We usually think of the negative way.
58:28
But in this term, it's referring to Christ as he's our master and our courier, our despot and our courier, our master and Lord.
58:39
Now, where does this word take us back? He's the master.
58:47
And I'm the servant.
58:50
I'm the slave.
58:52
And these people are denying the only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
59:01
This is those who Jude is writing about.
59:05
Well, I pray that that was fruitful and encouraging to go through the text like this.
59:11
I don't often get to teach this way.
59:12
So I hope this was interesting for you all.
59:16
And I'm going to just close with a quick prayer.
59:18
And then Brother Andy is going to come and lead us to pray together.
59:23
You sure? Okay, well, let me finish then with the prayer.
59:28
Does anyone have anything for which they would like to pray? Yes, sir.
59:32
He's 80 years old.
01:00:00
How old is he? He's 80.
01:00:13
Yeah, still, that's a ton.
01:00:16
That's a ton to go through.
01:00:18
Okay.
01:00:21
Are there others? Well, you reminded me, brother, of someone in our church for whom we need to pray.
01:00:31
Charlotte Hillard has obviously been a member here for many years.
01:00:36
And we haven't announced this, but she was in a nursing home and about a week ago, I guess.
01:00:42
No, not even quite a week.
01:00:44
They called.
01:00:45
I got a call saying that they were having to move her to hospice, but it wasn't for palliative care.
01:00:50
It was just because she wasn't taking food and they wanted to try to help.
01:00:55
Well, they did.
01:00:55
And now she's doing better, but she's still very weak.
01:01:00
I went and saw her yesterday.
01:01:02
And I think she knew I was there.
01:01:04
She held my hand.
01:01:05
She squeezed my hand.
01:01:06
I prayed, but her eyes weren't, you know, kind of open and shut while I was there.
01:01:10
So I'm not quite sure if she would remember it.
01:01:14
But she has a nasty bruise where she took a fall on the side of her head.
01:01:18
So she's got quite a bit of health issues.
01:01:21
And obviously she is, you know, elderly and, you know, we never know when God is going to work that part of her life, which is the next of bringing her home.
01:01:33
So, you know, but we pray that while she's here, the Lord would give her comfort, strength, give her daughters and her sons-in-law wisdom and ministering to her.
01:01:43
And just, you know, to to be able to as a church come around them.
01:01:47
You know, I was her husband before he passed away, was one of the most sweet and loving men that I ever knew.
01:01:55
He was just one of the one of the greats.
01:01:58
He was a godly man.
01:02:00
I can say that.
01:02:01
And when I got to preach his funeral, it was a blessing in my life.
01:02:05
So I certainly want to pray for her.
01:02:07
So I'm going to give you guys a few seconds on your own to pray.
01:02:10
If anybody wants to pray out loud, please do.
01:02:12
And then I'll finish us with prayer.
01:02:34
Our father and our God, we are so grateful to get to be here tonight and to talk about your word.
01:02:41
What a joy it is to just talk about what your word says, what it means and how we can apply it to our lives.
01:02:50
And Lord, we do want to contend for this word that you have given to us for this scripture, for this for this body of faith that has been delivered to the saints.
01:03:01
And I pray, oh God, that we would understand that that battle is not always.
01:03:09
On the exterior, but often is on the interior.
01:03:13
Lord, your word tells us that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but is against principalities and powers, Lord, things that we cannot see.
01:03:22
So, Lord, I pray that you would, in your mercy, give us the strength to know when we're fighting spiritual battles and use spiritual means.
01:03:34
Lord, to take up the armor of God and most importantly, never set down the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
01:03:44
I pray, Lord, for Roger Gibson.
01:03:46
Lord, that you would be merciful to him in this time in his life where he's facing so many health concerns, so many issues, or be with him and with his family as they make decisions.
01:03:57
And Lord, that you would comfort him in his time of pain.
01:04:03
And Lord, I pray for Miss Charlotte.
01:04:06
Lord, I have been so encouraged by her over the years.
01:04:08
I remember, Lord, when she first came here on Wednesday night, sat in, and she had so many wonderful things to say to me.
01:04:14
Even that first evening, I was so blessed by her.
01:04:17
And then when I met her husband, Lord, just became such a blessing in my life.
01:04:21
And Lord, as she is weakened and her strength is fleeting, Lord, I pray that you would comfort her, protect her, and remind her of what we were reminded of tonight.
01:04:34
Lord, that those who are yours are called, beloved, and kept.
01:04:41
In Jesus' name, amen.