Hello and welcome to the broadcast ministry of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Darlington, Maryland, where Dr. John McKnight is the pastor. Today's message comes from the book of Jude, Earnestly Contend for the Faith, an appropriate message for Reformation Celebration Sunday at the Evangelical Methodist Church. Here is Dr. John McKnight. Will you turn with me once again to the Epistle of Jude, Jude, the next to the last book of the New Testament. And we find Jude issuing a warning here, which is the foundation of our Reformation celebration this year. It is a growing struggle for me to know what to preach. The more I look at the scripture, the more I realize that in a lifetime of preaching, I will do so little justice to really handling its content. It is rich, it is overflowing, like the God who gave it, it is infinite. And there is no way that a hundred humans and a hundred lifetimes could truly expound everything that is here. And yet, as it is committed to me by God to feed the flock of God, the matter of what should be placed on the table is of no small consequence. And it is an increasing struggle to know which way to go. as there are so many foes to truth, so many who would prey upon the human soul, and as I am commissioned of God not only to feed the flock of God, but to protect it also from false teachers, from wolves in sheep's clothing, from those who would come in to prey upon God's people, it is indeed a challenge to know what to preach. Sunday mornings I always want to go to a worshipful, Christ-exalting, behold the Lamb of God emphasis and trust that I might consistently do so for that is the very core of worship. Acknowledging and extolling the wonders and the glories of our great God and our Deliverer. And yet, there are issues facing God's people every day. New ones arising. Religious schemes and scams, isms, asms, and spasms, as you might, which would take away the flock of God. And there needs to be warning concerning them. And yet, if I spend all my time trying to warn concerning them, what do I do with preaching and exalting Christ and worshiping as we ought to? I hope that you can appreciate somewhat the dilemma that this represents. And this is why I have chosen to be the guest preacher this year for the Reformation meetings, as dull and unappealing as that may sound. Because when you have special meetings, you're supposed to have a special speaker, not the usual old cornbread. And so as a result, I am here, God willing, preaching tonight at six o'clock. and then tomorrow night, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 o'clock on issues for your own warning and understanding. Why are the people of the Evangelical Methodist Church of Dublin so strange and unusual? Why aren't they excited when Mel Gibson comes out with a film on the passion of Christ? Why aren't they all in applause with shouts of great and hallelujah when a men's movement arises that attracts thousands to stadiums to talk about religion? What is it about those stodgy evangelical Methodists which makes them the fly in the ointment of religious ease and prosperity of the land? Well, that's what I want to talk about this week. And I hope you'll be here, folks. Not because it's me by any stretch of the imagination. I get plenty of chances to preach and I'm not necessarily looking for more, but because there are matters we need to deal with and we need to understand and be instructed in with regard to what we ought to be. Let us never forget, Jesus warned, narrow is the road that leadeth unto life. and few there be that find it." That is a matter forgotten in most of evangelicalism today. But we dare not forget a word that our Lord has spoken. And we need to understand where the edges of that narrow road are, lest we be pulled into the ditch, or worse yet, into an exit that only takes us into error and destruction. We have read from Jude this morning where in the third verse he writes, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write to you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Now, I see three terms in that text that need some explanation, I believe. First of all, he says, I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. What is the common salvation? It is that salvation which is shared by, common to everyone who is saved. It is not suggesting that the salvation is a common, ordinary thing. Not at all. It is everything but that. But rather, We have in common this matter, that we believe in Jesus Christ. And just as we have a common citizenship if we are citizens of the United States, we have a common salvation. inasmuch as all who truly believe in Christ and are saved from their sins are made partakers of Christ and of all of the promises and graces which adhere in Him alone. And so Jude writes concerning the common salvation. That salvation by which everyone who ever will be saved from sin is saved. They all have it in common. It is theirs as one. He says he gave diligence to write of the common salvation, but continues, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith. Now what's he speaking of there when he speaks of the faith? The faith here should be understood not as an individual's act of believing, but as that body of truth by which we are saved. We are saved from sin by believing a body of truth which is here referred to as the faith. Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Was buried. The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. That is the simplest definition of the Gospel. And it is that Gospel by which we are saved and wherein we stand, Paul wrote to the Corinthians. And so that body of truth which comprises the Gospel of Christ, that body of truth which is revealed to us in the Scriptures, that is the faith. And so Jude writes to people who need to be warned regarding threats. to the common salvation which is made known in the faith, the body of truth. But it continues in verse three and describes it as the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. And that term once delivered could well be translated once for all delivered. That is the emphasis of the text. It is saying that the body of truth necessary for the salvation of the soul was once for all delivered. Now understand what that implies as Jude writes it. Jude is writing somewhere around 66 AD, the middle of the first century. And already at the time he is writing, He can proclaim that the gospel, the body of truth by which we are saved, has already been delivered once for all. In other words, there's nothing new to be added to it. We already have it. And although at the time of this writing, the New Testament was not complete, Yet what this is saying is that that which remained to be revealed of the New Testament would not add anything in content to the gospel which was already delivered. It had been once for all delivered to the saints. So that what he is saying to his reader is there's nothing now to be added. And this is a theme repeated by other writers of the scripture. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, who were suffering the deceptive onslaught of people that were saying that in addition to believing in Christ, you had to add obedience to the law, the Old Testament law. And he said to his reader, though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed. Language does not get stronger than that. And the Apostle Paul, so convinced of God that the gospel he was proclaiming was a complete gospel needing nothing added to it, proclaimed under the inspiration of the Spirit of God that those who preached any variation from that were in fact to be accursed. My friends, In American Christianity, both in liberal theology, which I trust this week we can expound more to you, and in many circles of evangelical theology, There is a condoning of those who preach another gospel in spite of the fact that Paul's word was let them be a curse. Now who do we side with? The Apostle Paul or popular modern religiosity? That is the issue. The faith was once for all delivered to the saints. The Apostle John joins in on that also by inspiration of the Spirit of God in Revelation 22 to affirm that if anybody adds to the things that are written in this book, to them shall be added the plagues of this book. In other words, we can say concerning the truth of God, this simple little saying, which if you will remember, will spare you from many an error. If it's new, It isn't true. If it's new, it isn't true. And if it's true, it isn't new. The gospel was once for all delivered to the saints. And when Jude wrote in the middle of the first century, he could make that proclamation. We need nothing more. We do not need the new revelations from a pope in Rome, the sacred traditions of a church, to be added to the holy scriptures which have been revealed. We do not need a Koran to add to what has been revealed the ideas of a prophet so-called named Mohammed. We do not need a book of Mormon which supplements the Word of God. We do not need exclusive publishing houses of various cultic organizations which proclaim to be the singular source of proper understanding of Scripture. We need only the Word of God taught to us by the Spirit of God. and faithfully, diligently examined. God has been pleased to reveal himself to us in a literary form. Therefore, we must apply ourselves to study the literature which God has given. Study is never the task of a sluggard. It is the practice of the diligent. and we are exhorted, he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Now, with the truth revealed to us, Jude warns of certain men crept in unawares. This is why he exhorts them and us to earnestly contend for the faith. Because there will be subtle, disguised deceivers. They crept in. They came in stealthily. No one noticed their coming in with error. For you see, error never shows up and announces its presence. You do not find a person standing up and saying, I am a false teacher and I am here to mislead you. Quite the opposite. Those who come with false teachings come generally, I believe sincerely, which only makes it more tragic and more deceptive. They really believe that they've come upon something new which supplements and expands the Scripture and which will expand the benefits of anyone who embraces what they are proclaiming. They do not come in broadcasting deceit or preying upon people openly. He says certain men crept in Unawares. Which tells us their coming was not with conspicuous revelation of what they were. And it tells us that people did not therefore perceive what they were. But they came in in this manner with deception. And therefore Jude writes to expose and to warn. Now look again at verse number three. He says that it was needful for me to write unto you and to exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith. Now, those are fighting words. There is a militarism attached to this. Militancy. And what he is saying, just as the Apostle Paul said in the text we cited from Galatians 1, just as John said in the text we cited from Revelation 22, what Jude is saying is that true biblical Christianity will always be characterized by a certain militancy. Truth is truth. Truth cannot be readjusted from what it is into something different. Truth is not relative as modern philosophers and theologians have tried to tell us. But there are always those who will come against the truth and therefore a guard must always be raised. And throughout the history of Christianity, There has been the necessity of militancy. For you see, the truth of God will always be counter-cultural. And contrary to the unwise actions in evangelicalism today, which seek to embrace the culture under the delusion that thereby we can win the culture, The Scripture has the Gospel of Christ and the truth of God always going counter to the culture. Thus, we are exhorted, love not the world, neither the things which are in the world. For if any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And whereas Christ was compassionate in dealing with the dishonest tax, collectors and with the harlots of his day, people whom the religious big shots scorned, was compassionate to reach out to them with the gospel. Yet the religious establishment of his day, which was the foremost expression of a religious culture, was directly contrary to what Christ represented and was doing. And so the response to Christ ultimately was to crucify him. That's how popular he was with the religious leaders of his day. And if that was the case with Christ, is it not expected to be repeated among his people throughout history? Because of this, and because of the deception that will be brought against God's people to take them away Jude writes, it was necessary for me to give diligence to write to you to earnestly contend for the faith. Wherever the apostles went preaching, generally great opposition arose quickly and riots ensued so that the apostles of Christ were eventually martyred for the gospel. And the early Christians of the first century after the Apostles had died likewise faced the great opposition not only of the Roman Empire, but of false teachers, deceivers. And there must ever be, therefore, the warning concerning false teachers. And we must ever stand against them Not yielding an inch to them. And earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Now, Jude gives two examples of the false teachers about whom he speaks there in verse four. He says this of them. Having crept in unawares, These are men who turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. Grace is God giving us what we do not deserve and cannot earn And in fact, what we would not even know is so had not God kindly given it to us. Grace is God saving us from sin with nothing contributed to our salvation by us. And when a soul is saved, it is all the grace of God. God informs the sinner that he has sinned by the conviction of the Spirit. God reveals Himself to that sinner. God grants to the sinner the capacity to comprehend that God is revealing Himself. God grants to the sinner the will to respond unto God's call. From beginning to end, the salvation of a soul is all of grace. And those who come to understand this truth rejoice and delight in the great, gracious saving of God. But in their midst, there are unbelievers who hear but don't hear, who believe but not with a saving belief that is simply a consent to the religious activities And among them throughout history there have been new ideas come about with regard to the gospel. And among them also have been those whose response has been of this nature. If it is all a free gift of God, if I do nothing to bring about my salvation, to win God's favor for myself, Well, then my sin really doesn't matter. And if God is gracious and forgiving, then I don't have to be governed by any standard or code of morality. I can pretty much do what I want to do. God's not going to stop me and God's not going to judge me because He's good and gracious. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. Lasciviousness is the shameless, the shameless exhibition of fleshly lusts. of being ruled by nothing but the base animal passions of our nature. Lasciviousness throws off all restraint and shamelessly parades in that which is most shameful. There is in our country today an organization of churches called the Metropolitan Church. which is a church for homosexuals, where they can gather with their lover, whatever he or she may be, and have their own church services. If we are going to adhere to the scripture, that is like having a church for practicing murderers and bandits and thieves. turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. But you don't have to go to such an extreme and radical expression of hostility toward God under the guise of religion to find it. You will find it throughout much of Christendom today. And so, I received a call from a man who works as a supervisor for a rather significant organization here in Harford County. And as a supervisor, he is faced with many proclaiming the need for special homosexual rights. And he is troubled by some of the demands they wish to make. And he knows that they are wrong. And yet he is counseled by a clergyman of this region. It doesn't matter. God loves everybody. And when it's all said and done, God's arms are open to accept everybody. And so you needn't get hung up on these kind of things. Many other contexts and instances can be given. by which the mainline denominations of our country are generally in support of abortion, daring not to speak out against abominations such as the homosexual culture of our age, Many of their ministers, in fact, engaged in those very things so that you have within the Methodist Church, within the Presbyterian Church, within the Episcopalian Church, and many others, actual lobbying groups of ministers who are advocating that the church change its governance to allow their particular sins. they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. And what Jude is saying is, these who do such, against them we must earnestly contend for the faith. Divine morality has not changed. God has made His truth very clear to anyone who is willing to see it. And that truth must be proclaimed against all of the newfangled values and ideas that are brought forth under the name of Christianity. That's one matter that verse 4 speaks to. They turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. A second, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas the first addresses conduct, the second addresses doctrine and belief. They deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And Jude's writing of this puts both of these, Lord God and Lord Jesus Christ together on the same plane as one. And he uses the word Lord to speak of each. which reveals to us Jude's understanding that Christ and God are one in the mysterious unity that we cannot fathom of one God making himself known as more than one being, father, more than one person, father and son. And he says concerning these against whom we must earnestly contend for the faith, that they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. In John's epistle, he writes concerning those who denied the humanity of Christ. For there was a growing sect, even as John wrote, which was reasoning God cannot come in touch with evil matter such as the earth is, and therefore God could not have become a man, and thus we deny that Jesus Christ was really a man, a human being. They denied the humanity of Christ. John cried out against that as being a mark of a false teacher. On the other hand, there would be those who, knowing that Jesus lived as a man among men, would deny His deity, deny that He is God, as Jude in fact here asserts that He is. And denying the deity of Christ would be to deny Christ's true identity. And though we cannot go into the theological substance of this matter Suffice it to say that if you deny Christ's deity or His humanity, you also deny His role as Savior, because the One who would be our Savior must be divine and human both. And so by denying the deity of Christ or the humanity of Christ, there was a denial of Christ Himself. And to deny Christ is to deny the whole body of truth of which He is the everlasting and glorious embodiment. And consequently, there would be those coming into the church, yea, even were in the days of Jude, who were advocating a lawlessness, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and were denying Christ. And he says you must earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. There must ever be that militancy of contending for the faith. 493 years ago today, when Martin Luther made his 95 theses known, he had been observing a church in which lasciviousness of varied degrees was the order of the day. There was Tetzel, the cellar of indulgences. An indulgence was something, a piece of paper, that the Roman Catholic Church would sell to sinners, which said to them, by buying this indulgence, your sins are pardoned. Or you get so many years out of purgatory if you buy this indulgence. And so drunkards and fornicators and gross sinners were buying the indulgence from Tetzel who had his little song that he would sing when the coin in the money box drops, a soul springs from hell. You could even buy an indulgence for your dead grandmother. And who wouldn't do that? And this was officially sanctioned by the Pope of Rome, who was endeavoring thereby to raise funds in order to build St. Peter's Cathedral, that enormous basilica that you see on the news today whenever the Pope is featured in Rome. And it was in fact an expression of lasciviousness, not simply on one Pope's part, but on the part of an entire church, which for gain would pretend to do that which it can never do. And Luther asked the question as one of his 95 theses, if the Pope has the power to deliver a soul from purgatory, why does he charge money to do it? Why doesn't he out of the sheer goodness of his heart set them all free? Valid question. He was earnestly contending for the faith. There was also in the Church of Rome, the teaching which persists to this day, that salvation comes by way of the church. rather than salvation being by grace and Christ alone. And so the system of Rome, which we will look at briefly this evening, proposes seven sacraments. No one can partake of all seven, but everybody's supposed to partake of six at least. beginning with baptism as an infant and then confirmation and confession of sin and receiving the mass, the wafer. And the teaching is that by going through those sacraments of the church, by that means one is saved. And if salvation is by keeping the sacraments of the church, then It cannot be by the sacrifice of Christ alone. And yet the scripture proclaims in Hebrews chapter 3 that when Christ had once purged our sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And repeatedly, the scripture affirms that when Christ died on the cross, then and there he spoiled principalities and powers, making a show of them openly. That when Christ was crucified, that was death, to any law keeping that is prescribed for our salvation. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. And if he redeemed us from the curse of the Old Testament law, which was inspired by God, surely also we are redeemed from the curse of any religious law made sense then. And so as Luther sees people partaking of the sacraments of the church, which the church would withhold if you didn't do the other things it told you to do, And poor superstitious, meta-evil peasants, unable to read, no Bible for them to read, know nothing except what the church tells them. And it tells them that if they do not do thus and so, then these sacraments will be withheld from them. One of those sacraments being the baptism of their baby, which they are sure is the only way that baby can go to heaven. And now the baby is sick and dying, but the priest won't baptize it. until he gets what he wants. And this kind of abuse repeated and heaped time and time again. All a denial of Christ. An expression of lasciviousness. And so the peck of the hammer as that robed priest and theologian nailed his 95 theses to the door was a peck that would be heard around the world, God be praised, bringing the Protestant Reformation to the fore. And it was an expression of what I proclaim today and what we must ever do. Beloved, we must earnestly contend for the faith. May we not be obnoxious, May we not be haughty, but may we with humble boldness stand without wavering upon the absolute truthfulness and inerrancy of the Word of God. This American Protestantism in large has not done. This American evangelicalism, as of the past half century, has increasingly declined to do until today. It makes no biblical witness whatsoever. Much religion, full of sound and fury, signifying only a departure from the Word of God. These are things we need to know. that we need to assess and discern biblically, which is why this evening and through Wednesday evening, we will be considering what we consider. And I implore you to be here with us as we look together at these important applications of God's word. Let us stand together as we pray. Our God and our Father, may we not forget that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places. May we understand that we are engaged in a spiritual warfare where the Prince of Darkness endeavors to dethrone the Prince of Light. May we, as followers of God, walk as children of light. May we not be unwise, following the whims and fancies of man-pleasing religion. But may we ever resort to the scripture regardless of how unpopular such resort may be. And may we seek from your word divine guidance for every step. And may we be delivered from the distracting fads that men invent. Delivered unto the steadfast and unfailing truth of your word. May we with humble boldness, with joyful sobriety, with reverent enthusiasm, go about the work of God, heeding your word alone. And will you reward our efforts of faithfulness with a faithful witness for thee. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. That was Dr. John McKnight preaching a message from Jude, earnestly contend for the faith. Thank you for listening to this, the broadcast ministry of the Evangelical Methodist Church. This is Don Nixon speaking.