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If you would turn with me to the letter of Jude, that's where we'll be this evening. It's a great joy. It's very humbling to be with you. I'm excited to dig into this letter. My goal this evening is not to introduce to you anything new. anything hopefully that you don't already know, but rather, as Peter says in his letter, to stir you up by way of reminder of the simplicity and the clarity and the power of God's truth. That really is all that is required in one sense to battle well for the truth, is to simply let the Word do the work, to let the truth captivate your own soul. And I thought and I prayed for weeks concerning the text or texts that I would go to for this prompt. The approach that I would take for this topic, it is a broad one, a battle for the truth. In one sense, it encompasses the entire Bible. We also see it everywhere in our world. It's an urgent topic. Where is a battle for the truth not taking place in our culture? I mean, obviously, I can't think of any areas. The very fabric of reality itself is under fire from those in our culture who would have us believe all sorts of ridiculous lies, not just evolutionary theory, but including that. All sorts of lies about God and His Word. Those who deny His creative work in the sciences. Those who attack His inspired Word in academia. Those who slander His image now and His male and female design. His gift of life in the womb. God and His Word are always and ever under incessant attack in every facet of our society. Satan breathes out lies continually. This is what he does. He's a father of lies. In every part of this world, he seeks to steal and kill and destroy, to undermine the sufficiency and authority of God's Word. And I do agree with Martin Luther's assessment when it comes to the battle of the truth. That it is our responsibility as Christians to engage all battles for God's truth as they come. Luther says, if I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point. And yet I think in many ways, all those battles that I've mentioned, all the battles for God's truth over satanic lies raging in our culture are ancillary. They are tributaries of a common source, what we could call the battle for the truth, the battle that has been raging ever since the fall at the garden. A battle that is not won or lost or fought primarily in the halls of Congress or the debate forum, not in the voting booth or the marketplace of ideas, not in the institutions of academia or culture, not on social media, but in the assembly of the saints. The battle for the truth of the word of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a battle that must be waged in the local church before it is ever engaged in the world. And such is the conviction of Jude. Jude in many ways lived in a very similar context culturally as we do. There's perhaps no time in the history of the world when Christianity was under greater political attack or cultural opposition, religious conflict. And yet Jude writes not about the battle for the truth in the world, though it was raging at that time, but the battle for the truth in the body. The battle for the truth is first fought within the church, and then it is fought by the local church. If the battle for the truth is to be waged faithfully in our day, it will not be accomplished by apologists or activists, not seminaries, not mission societies, not political parties. Our Lord has commissioned and will empower only His people in the local church to wage this war. He's given them the keys to the kingdom. It is the church of God that is the pillar and buttress, the support of the truth. The church is the one that confesses and defends the faith, and it is my hope to show you from Jude's letter his understanding of what the battle for the truth is. I plan to cover the entire letter. I'm gonna survey it. I'm not gonna exegete all of it, so we won't be here forever. We will be here long, I fear. But Jude shows us, I think, in a survey of his short epistle, firstly, the call to content, that we must battle for the truth. Secondly, the crisis, why we must battle, what we battle against for the sake of the truth. Thirdly, the campaign, how we must battle for the truth as Christians. And fourthly, the comfort, the promise of the one who wins the battle for the truth. And Jude is short. It can be read in under five minutes. The brevity of Jude is itself a sign of his urgency. It reads like a message quickly composed and sent to the front lines of a battlefield. And it gives us the basic intel. It gives us the enemy's position, the seriousness of the situation. It gives us identifying traits and tactics of this subtle and deceptive enemy which is creeping behind the very battle lines of truth drawn by our Lord. And it gives a brief battle plan and a word of encouragement before the conflict is begun and continued through all generations of the church. So I want to quickly read this letter in its entirety and then pull out those key observations so that we may be equipped and encouraged and informed for the battle of the truth in our outposts of the kingdom of God in the local church. So if you'll turn with me to Jude, starting in verse 1. He writes, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, He has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet, in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, and perished in Korah's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. If you'd bow with me. Father, I pray. Lord, I come to you in need and in weakness. I pray that you would humble me under your mighty hand. God, that according to the work of your son, you would give me grace for this moment, Lord, to preach in a way that exalts Christ, that you would, by your Holy Spirit, open the scriptures to us and open our minds and our hearts to believe and to obey, to rejoice in what we find there about your word and your gospel, about your truth, Jesus Christ. I pray that I would not speak anything that is not accurate, God, not Christ exalting, not Self-exalting Lord, I pray that you would help me in all things to set apart Christ as holy in my mind, Lord, so that others may be drawn into worship of our Lord and King. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. Firstly, we have the call to contend here in Jude. Jude shows us in his letter that we must battle for the truth. He opens after his introduction by saying, 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. Jude intended a positive message about salvation, not a polemic for the faith. His ultimate goal is to encourage and build up the saints in the gospel. His goal is the multiplication of of mercy and peace and love in the church. False teaching always brings division and distraction and interruption of those primary things. And so, therefore, Jude writes to remove any obstacle to mercy and peace and love by the Spirit and the Father for the glory of Christ. This is the goal of every valid contention, every valid battle for the truth, the preservation of the fellowship of the saints. and the witness of the church in the world and the glory of Christ in both. We are to contend. We're not to be contentious. We're not to be heresy hunters. We don't seek out conflict. We live at peace with all men so far as it depends on us. But as Jude shows us, we should also be prepared to engage in the battle for the truth whenever necessary. And Jude finds it necessary here. He is compelled by the problem of these false teachers to write a divine appeal for the congregation. It is urgently necessary for all believers, not just the shepherds and the saints, the teachers, to earnestly contend for the sake of the faith. The word truth and even the phrase the word, those are the words given in my prompt, they're not present here in Jude, but the faith includes them both. That is the doctrines of God's word, the contents of the gospel, the objective, unchanging truths about the nature and character of God, the condition of man and the way of salvation and reconciliation with God through Christ. The true doctrine of God and Jesus Christ that saves and justifies, sanctifies and promises that we will be glorified with Christ. The message entrusted to us is the church, the pillar and buttress of the truth. the steward of God's truth for all generations of saints that God will call to Himself. And this contention, this battle Jude shows us, is one that will be prolonged and intense, not only necessary. The word there is epagonizome, from the root word agon, it's struggle, it's agony. It has an intensifying or strengthening prefix, ep. It is excruciating. It is agonizing. It is difficult to contend for the faith, because God's truth will always be challenged with all the best efforts of the enemy to undermine its authority. It's a struggle in the present tense here in the Greek. There is no end in sight. As long as God tarries with the wicked in this life, it will always be necessary to contend for the faith. It is a battle that is always necessary because the body of the truth, the faith that God entrusts to the saints is one with universal, all-encompassing authority and application. And therefore it has opponents from every sphere of life. We who are to guard the good gospel deposit entrusted to us and hand it down in discipleship to others are likewise responsible to proclaim it in all areas of life and spheres of authority. Because this truth of God commands all men everywhere to repent and to believe the gospel. The battle for the truth is not merely defensive, it's offensive. We proclaim Christ, His authority, His command to repent, as well as His plea to be reconciled to God in the face of every error and every wicked deed to all sinners, both small and great. And God's truth in that proclamation in the person and work of Christ has destroyed the works of the devil time and time again across the planet as the enemy's heirs are exposed and taken captive, submitted to the word of Christ. And Christ has liberated his people time and time again from destruction through his righteous life and atoning death and victorious resurrection. Satan simply cannot stand in open combat with the truth. In the face of those who boldly proclaim Christ, he is disarmed. He is bound. His kingdom is being plundered by Christ, the strong man, who is leading a host of captives into glory through his truth. That's the current state of the battle for the truth. But in that old serpent's cunning, he has devised a strategy by which God's Word is not openly contradicted. He cannot meet us in open combat, but covertly corrupted. Satan cannot refute the truth, but by God's permission, he can work so that it may be blasphemed among men because of the evil conduct of those who claim to believe it. The worst form of evil is error, because it destroys souls. The worst error is hypocrisy, because it not only contradicts the truth that saves souls, it corrupts it from within. It smuggles the world's corruption from sinful desires back into the midst of those who escaped from it, as 2 Peter says. It causes this spiritual amnesia. It causes the saints to forget that they were cleansed from former sins. It entangles the weak. It deceives and destroys the lost. Jude tells us of the occasion for the battle in verse 4. He says, For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. These agents of the enemy have been predicted and expected throughout the New Testament up to this point. Jesus warns in Matthew 24, 11 that many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Paul repeats that warning in Acts 20 when he says that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. From among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves. Paul warns Timothy that some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits, doctrines of demons, through the insincerity of liars, of hypocrites, whose consciences are seared. In 2 Timothy, Paul warns again that the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, that having itching ears will turn away from listening to the truth. and wander off into myths. Paul again predicts a great falling away, a mass apostasy at the end times in 2 Thessalonians. 2 Peter says that those who orchestrate this will arise from within our midst, bringing in destructive heresies, denying the Lord who bought them, and many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of the truth will be blasphemed. How did they all know that false teachers and apostates will come? Because as Peter and Jude say, they have always been here. Pretenders fill the Old Testament. Jesus was not just predicting judgment on these apostates in his divine foreknowledge in Jude, but even recounting past experiences when he spoke of these false teachers. As Jude writes, Jesus destroyed some of these apostates in unbelieving Israel. And as R.C. Sproul notes, the most destructive threat to the people of God in the Old Testament was not the armies of Philistines, of Assyrians or Amalekites, but the false prophets within their gates. These are the enemies of the truth. What is notable about Jude's description is that he does not use the past or the future tense when he's talking about these apostates. Jesus says they are coming. Paul says they are coming. Peter says they will come. Jude says they are here. They are among us. And they have been among us since Jude's time, evil men and impostors, going on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, as Paul told Timothy they would do. And this dire situation that compelled Jude to command us to contend for the faith has not disappeared. In one sense, it has grown from bad to worse. John MacArthur observes there was no massive Roman Catholic system in Jude's day. There is little proliferation of so-called Christian cults or sects, no formal intellectual liberalism infecting Christian theology and education, no massive heresy corrupting the airwaves and the internet, no sea of nominal Christianity with an inadequate gospel, a domesticated man-centered Christ, and a swath of false converts with an emotional decision as their only evidence of salvation. The tides of apostasy have risen higher and higher and higher as the day of the Lord draws ever nearer. The greatest threat to the people of God today is not the armies of the enemies of God outside the church, but the secret enemies within, the false prophets who cry, peace, peace, where there is no peace, no repentance, no regeneration, no shame. Scratching itching ears, searing wicked consciences, soothing the unconverted in the church with their hellish lullabies. Jude says these apostates are here, and as we see, they have not gone away, but multiplied in number. In one sense, apostate Christianity fills the earth. We've exported it from America for decades. It covers the continent of Africa. It covers the continent of Australia. It covers Europe. It covers the Americas. It is all over the globe. In one sense, this is our enemy's most successful scheme. Satan has been allowed to construct an empire of false Christianity, predicated on the greed of their leaders, on the cheap grace of their false doctrine, on a false, weakened Christ in their devotion. The destructive heresies brought by the enemy's agents have infected everything from seminaries and institutions, literature and media, denominations and local church bodies. Pretenders are everywhere, and contenders are desperately needed. That's Jude's command. The call here in Jude is for every true Christian to take seriously the sacred responsibility of guarding the treasure of the gospel and all of God's word from error in the church so that it may be proclaimed clearly and confidently for the building up of the saints and the salvation of the lost. In order to do that, you have to know the truth. You have to test the truth, discerning it from error, and confront what contradicts the truth. both in teaching and in practice, which leads us to Jude's second emphasis, which is the crisis, what we battle against for the sake of the truth. Jude devotes most of his letter to descriptions of these agents of the enemy. We have a section that could really be called the Acts of the Apostates, the deadliest and most subtle of all of Satan's agents, those who claim to know and believe and obey the truth, but deny it in their lives. Jude never gives a summary of the false doctrines faced by his audience. The false teachings were likely very diverse, conflicting even, just as it is today. There are so many brands of false teaching. That's the problem with engaging heresy and deception in the church of the world. As soon as you face down one error, another takes its place. Jude doesn't play whack-a-mole with false teaching here. There's never an end to Satan's lies against the truth. And Jude doesn't have time to waste trying to untangle and respond to every lie. Instead of their doctrines, Jude just shows their character. He shows their lives. He unmasks these apostates, these hypocrites, these enemies of the truth by focusing on their fruit. This is how Jesus said we would identify these ravenous wolves, by their fruit. In verse four, Jude says these agents pervert the grace of our God and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. In verse five, they are like unbelieving Israel, destroyed in the wilderness. In verse six, they are like the angels who left their own positions of authority and are now imprisoned in gloomy darkness. In verse seven, they are like Sodom and Gomorrah, who abandoned God's proper order and pursued unnatural desires. In verse 8, Jude says that they, relying on their dreams, not on God's revelation, not on God's wisdom, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. Ultimately, blaspheming God is the only one who has that authority. In verses 10 through 11, they are like Cain, who traditionally is the archetypal sinner, the one who instructs others to sin. They are like Balaam, the prophet for hire, using their platform and pretense of godliness to gain this world and seduce others into error. They're like Korah, the rogue Levite, who challenged Moses as God's appointed authority. In verses 12-13, these apostates are hidden reefs at the saints' love feasts, feasting without fear, even gathering around the Lord's table with us, while making shipwreck of the love and unity of the church with their immorality. They are shepherds feeding themselves, saying what is necessary to get what they want. Waterless clouds swept along by winds. Fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. Wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame. Wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. In verses 15 and 16, Jude calls them grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. Loudmouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage. In verse 19, it is these who cause divisions. Worldly people devoid of the Spirit. Jude has more to say about these apostates than I have time. to cover, but Jude's most common description is simply the word ungodly. He uses that word six times in 25 verses. This is the essence of their error. The word in the Greek is simply impiety. No respect for God, or his word, or his holiness. No practice of the truth, regardless of what they say. They may very well affirm the truth verbally while they corrupt it totally with their lies, living in a way that perverts the grace and the gospel of God and teaches others to do the same, making a mockery of it in the world. This is a demonic discipleship. What it promotes is not holiness, but hypocrisy. Lip service to the truth, but hearts that are far from Christ. They may not even teach heresy audibly, but they live heresy visibly. encouraging others to rebel against Christ's authority in the name of His gracious liberty, using God's grace to abolish His law. They teach that God loves us. All I have to do is vote for Him, turn to Him, pray a prayer to Him. God loves me, I'm good. I don't need to do anything else. God's grace is greater than all my sin. It uses mercy to slander His holiness. They have a form of godliness, their profession, but they deny the truth in its saving, renewing, sanctifying power. They profess but do not possess. They affirm but undermine until eventually these apostates draw disciples away after themselves and leave the assembly of the saints a dead trunk, stripped of confidence in the Word and obedience to the truth of the gospel. Nothing makes the Word of God, nothing makes the truth sound more hollow and deceptive than hypocrisy in the church. Nothing strips the Word of God of its truth more than that. And these hypocrites are not temporary residents, Jude says. They are institutions in the church. They're embedded in the life of the body. Their perversion gets into the bloodstream of the church. Those who lack the conviction of the truth may have crept in secretly, but hypocrisy never stays secret. It spreads like gangrene in the body. Heresy in the church is always preceded by this hypocrisy. All the sophisticated intellectual and theological attacks which wreak havoc on the confidence that Christians have in the word of God are simply the outworking of apostates who want to identify as members of the body while rejecting the authority and the commands of the head. They want the glory of godliness before others, but the perverted pleasure of worldliness. And they consider themselves so clever, so enlightened, so full of grace, so mature that they think they're able to have both. They scoff at the coming destruction. They slander the shepherds and leaders who call them to account for their sin. They use God's grace as a cover for their perversion. A license to sin without consequences, playing upon the sinful desires of their unconverted followers, and abusing and gaslighting the malnourished saints who do recognize their error. And this can apply to a thousand doctrines. That's why Jude doesn't go after their doctrine here. Of course their doctrine is bad. That's a given. That's why they have to hide it. But Jude shows their lives and their conduct. He shows by that that they have not the truth, that they're perishing. And so all who follow them. Jude's whole critique basically centers on what John says in his first letter. If anyone says I know him, but does not keep his commandments, he is a liar and the truth is not in him. As Paul says to Titus, they profess to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for any good deed. And so it begins in every church in which error springs up. It begins with personal rebellion, personal disbelief of the word, then practical disobedience to the word, then discipleship of others into this deformation of Christian living. Then, if they have not been corrected and confronted by the faithful, open rebellion against the truth. And you see this illustration in Jude's illustrations, the way the way that he talks about it. He says he brings up Cain and Balaam and Korah. Cain sins as an individual. He rejects God's commands for himself, Balaam, for the sake of personal gain, incites others to sin with him, questioning God's word. Then after gathering his mutiny together, Cora leads open rebellion against God's authority. And in the case of all those examples, those who creep into the church to sow division, confusion, deception, disobedience, they are willing to kill and even be killed eternally for their cause. MacArthur says they are spiritual terrorists. They ultimately don't care what happens to them. They're agents of the enemy seeking to steal and kill and destroy at any cost. Blowing themselves up and all who follow them, leading a host of worldly captives into the gloom of utter darkness, choosing destruction rather than submission to Christ, swallowing an ocean of God's wrath for the sake of their past and pleasures. That situation might seem bleak, dear saints. So hasn't really been an encouraging sermon so far, has it? Very silent in here. Jude doesn't name names, but I'm sure you thought of some as I work through these descriptions. of apostate teachers in the church, whether so-called celebrity preachers and teachers or local men or sometimes women who lead churches, some within our own your own assemblies, maybe past and present. Their operations are not so different today. We are in the time that Paul predicted Timothy, when people will not endorse sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. Often, they don't even have to be physically present in your body to disrupt it. To wield this demonic influence, their online followings are massive. Their books are bestsellers. Their sermons are popular. Their conferences are well attended. They're what's in style. They're what's in demand for the crowd of itching ears. Their followers passionately defend them, more so than they defend the faith, against insults and attacks. Not knowing, or in their hardness of heart, not caring that such people are dragging them to hell. In that sense, these apostates and those who follow them not only will be judged by God, they are being judged by God. They're given over to this error, judged with hardness of heart. These teachers with their newfound popularity among the itching ears will come, Peter predicted, as scoffers following their own ungodly passions. They aren't hiding anymore. They're boasting in our culture. They're proud of what they've done. They don't fear judgment from man or from God. And Jude repeats this prediction from Peter and the rest of the apostles, not to commiserate with his audience, but actually to steady them, to comfort them, to sober them and spur them on. This is just a fulfillment, a sign of the last time that Christ is near, that Christ will come. And as we wait for the mercy of our Lord, we have the weapons he's given us to stand and endure for the sake of the faith, to counter those who contradict it with their lives and their lives. Which brings us to the summit of Jude's letter. What are we to do about these things? The mass apostasy in the visible church, the rampant unfaithfulness of those who are supposed to be shepherds of souls, stewards of the household of God. The blatant mockery of the world because of the open hypocrisy of those who say, Lord, Lord, but live in rebellion. How must we battle for the truth? What does spiritual warfare look like here? And Jude first, I think, puts our fight in perspective. He says in verse five, I want to remind you, He reminds them of apostasy and its end in redemptive history. And in verse 17, he says, remember the predictions of the apostles. The apostasy in Jude is a fulfillment of the words of Peter and Paul and really of the Lord Jesus. The word of God is so true that it is even confirmed by those who try to twist it and corrupt it and reject it. We're not to be surprised when error enters the church, when deception spreads, when apostasy happens, we're not to think that all has gone wrong. We're to take comfort. This was predicted, ordained in the pre-written history of God. This is not something new. This is not something that we should that should make a cynical about the church, but hopeful, not critical even, but competent and compassionate. These things mean Christ is coming, that he's coming soon. These things are even designed for the ultimate good of the church and the ultimate glory of Christ, even in the salvation of many who are currently under this spell of worldly Christianity. So I Jude next gives us a call to persevere in a plan of action in verses twenty to twenty three says, but you beloved. We've looked at these false teachers, but you beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life and have mercy on those who doubt save others by snatching them out of the fire to other show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. They can see four battle tactics laid out by Jude here, firstly, building up in and upon the faith, secondly, praying in the spirit of the truth, thirdly, persevering in the love of the truth and fourthly, reclaiming those who wander from the truth with the missional mercy of Christ. Notice, none of these things are by definition a defense or an apology for the faith. Apologetics has its place, as my pastor has said, it's important, but God's truth is not ultimately what needs defense. God's truth is not ultimately what needs to be defended because it is above the judgments and scrutinies of the world of the deceived. We contend for the faith, not by adapting God's truth or even defending the reasonableness of God's truth to its opponents. We don't have to find a more attractive or contextualized packaging for God's truth. It's always relevant, always germane to the situation. We're not competing with the theater of false Christianity for the attention of attendees. We're simply unleashing the truth in our lives from our mouths so that the undeniable power and wisdom of God is clearly seen in the people of God. Your great apologetic Christian in your battle for the truth is simply your spiritual integrity. Showing that God's word is true by its transformation and you, we contend for the faith by being conformed to it, by being changed by it. What the world and the wavering church member needs to see is that the truth of God is transformative. That the gospel is a life transforming reality, that God's words are not empty and powerless like the clever doctrines of counterfeit Christians. You don't have to be an apologist or a pastor, a commentator, an accomplished academic theologian to fight for the faith. You just need to be a faithful Christian. That's Jude's point here. If you can take comfort from anything I've said so far, take comfort from that. You need to grow in the faith, not your personal strength of belief, but the faith. the foundation of God's truth, it's simply study and application of the source of God's truth, the scriptures. You don't even have to know the ins and outs of the heresies that face the church, but you must know and learn and love the truth. You must know the truth of God's word so well that, so that even if you don't know exactly what a false teaching teachers or why specifically it's wrong, you can discern that it's not of God, that it does not offer clarity, but confusion. That it does not promote holiness, but hypocrisy, that it does not create humility of spirit, but arrogant boasting, that it does not lift up Christ, but some lesser thing, including you. You are a lesser thing to be lifted up in Christ. Testing everything to sermon in the Christian life must always have a rule, a standard by which to compare everything else. If you want to be able to discern error, you cannot start by knowing the error. You cannot be an expert in Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness theology or Roman Catholicism to truly fight for the faith. You must be built up in the truth. You must know the genuine by heart so that the counterfeit is obvious. Jew doesn't say to study the errors you face. He mentions them. He lists out their errors and he said he turns their attention, turns it to Christ, turns it to the truth. His concern is that you have two clear categories in your mind when it comes to doctrines and devotions, true and not true, Christ and not Christ, gospel and not gospel. You can distinguish all sorts of movements in that latter category, but if you cannot make that initial distinction, nothing else matters. That's the command here, the battle tactic to build yourselves up in or on the most holy faith, to build up on the holy faith, contrary to popular reform practice. I'm reformed so I can I can criticize that direction. True victory over error comes from building up, not tearing down. Critiquing false doctrine is not sufficient. You must build up on the word of the truth. To grow and mature and to aid in the growth of others up into salvation, and we do that by the ordinary means of grace, the same disciplines that God has already given for his people to know and grow in the faith. The same means once delivered for all the saints. the word and prayer. It is for lack of those basic disciplines that error enters the church to begin with. And this is so basic that it almost sounds wrong to our modern understanding of spiritual warfare, doesn't it? The modern idea of spiritual warfare is like something out of the movie The Exorcist, right? Someone's hovering up and spinning around. We got to quote something. There's strange phenomena, dramatic experiences, demonic possession, otherworldly events. Don't we need something extra to fight for the faith? Some secret weapon for secret heretics? Some glass that we break in case of emergency? There are no other means to fight for the faith. No other means for our spiritual development. No substitute or supplement for the pure spiritual milk of the word. That is what gives growth. Spiritual warfare ultimately is not a matter of what you feel or experience, but what you believe. And in believing it, how you live. Spiritual warfare can never be divorced from the regular intentional study of the word of God. And this is not study so that we can just intellectually refute false doctrine, false doctrine, excuse me, winning theological arguments is not the goal. Mere knowledge puffs up, love builds up. We study to adore. We learn Christ to love him and be like him. We build up in the truth by beholding the truth, Christ, and being transformed in that beholding from one degree of glory to another. To build on the faith is to build on the object of the faith, Christ, learning him and in that knowledge of him being renewed in the spirit of our minds, as Ephesians says, so that we may put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Reminded of a text, one of my other pastors quoted on Wednesday in Deuteronomy 11 verses 18 and 19 says, fix the words of the words of God on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, teach them to your children, talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise. A professing believer who neglects the word is little better for the church or the home of the society than an apostate who twists it. Has the word changed you? Has the word transformed you? There is no born again Christian who has truly come to know the truth, who is not radically transformed by it. And there is no heart more depraved, more wicked, more deceitful than the one that can hear the word preached week after week and not be changed by it. That's one of the marks of an apostate. They don't grow. They are fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. Holiness is the opposite of hypocrisy here. Building up in the truth is the opposite of apostasy. It exposes those who no longer obey the truth. It shows their unsteadiness so that they may be both marked and missionally engaged. If you want to draw a clear distinction between the faithful and the false, grow. Apostates can't build. They can't provide anything. They all they do is tear down fruitless trees, don't grow. Don't be content to know the truth generally or intellectually, the way hypocrites do. Grow in it personally the way hypocrites can't. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord into maturity in Christ. And this is a mutual building up. You have a responsibility as a Christian to set an example for the other saints in your own growth in Christ so that you might build others up in the face, that you might live a life that is worthy of imitation as you imitate Christ. so that the weak in faith not only have the negative example of the apostates, but so that they can see what truth looks like when it is lived. Jude simply commands you in the face of all that opposes the truth of God to know the truth, hold to the truth, and progress in the truth. And that happens in a naturally supernatural way, the daily transformative means of grace that God has given us in the Word and in prayer. Jude urges you not to only affirm the truth theoretically, to be an accomplished armchair theologian, Something I think conservative Christians are very good at. Some of you might now be sitting in the pews picking apart my exegesis, right? I want you to do that. If it's inaccurate, you can come up and talk to me later. But is that why you come to the word? Is that why you listen to the word preached? You're not called to be an armchair theologian, but a tested soldier of Christ to rely upon the truth practically as all sufficient. Inerrancy. The inerrancy of Scripture is a theoretical doctrine. The sufficiency of Scripture is a practical doctrine. You must believe it's inerrant, but you also must believe and you must show that it is sufficient for you. Spurgeon said in his time, all the errors of this present age have sprung from a non-reading of the Bible. I think we can add to that that for the professing church, a non-obeying of the Bible when it is read and affirmed. If you will be earnest in knowing what God has said, building on what God has said by living like what he has said is true, holding fast to what God has said, when anything appears to contradict it, there is no error or heresy of man that will ever deceive you. The focus cannot be the enemy in our spiritual warfare. I know that sounds counterproductive. I can't focus on the enemy that I'm fighting. Focus cannot be the enemy, but Christ. It doesn't mean we ignore error. I'm not saying that at all, but it does mean that we excel in what God has given us so that we distinguish between what is true and what is false. Be experts in the gospel, if you will, not the myriad errors of man. Know the cross of Christ best. Love the message of Christ and him crucified. What contradicts that message will be glaringly obvious to you. Secondly, as much as our battle for the truth is one that is founded on the word, it is also one that is controlled by the spirit in prayer. This is the second means of grace we have in the battle for the truth. We are to always be, as Jude says, praying in the Holy Spirit. What is praying in the spirit? It's a direct outflow of your building up in the faith. Prayer is often petitioning God. But in the praying, we are not seeking to change God's will, but to pray it to attune our will to him as revealed in his word. When we're praying by the spirit, the spirit is doing what he's promised to do. reminding us of and teaching us of all the things concerning Christ in the scriptures, interceding for our spiritual needs to the father, that we may be further sanctified in the truth and submitting our wills to Christ's lordship as he exalts him as holy in our minds. As William Gernal put it in his book on spiritual warfare, this prayer is the creature's act, but the spirit's gift. It truly is a means of grace. If we're praying in the Spirit, we're searching for the truths of God available in the Word, seeking to exalt the true Christ in our minds, submitting to Christ's Lordship and praying for what the Spirit wants us to pray. Praying in the Spirit is, like all other forms of spiritual warfare, is not mystical. It's not ecstatic. It might not even feel all that spiritual when you do it. In fact, it might feel more like groaning, like interceding, like desperate dependence upon God, because in it you acknowledge your weakness. Independence on God in the battle for the truth. The spirit causes your heart to ache over sin and confess it to him and others. The spirit works in you to plead for spiritual needs in you and others that you don't even have the wisdom to recognize the spirit in this prayer through you intercedes for the faith of the believing and the salvation of the lost with heartbreaking earnestness. Praying this way is the lifeblood of sanctification, which comes from meditation on the truth preached, applied and lived. Apostates can't pray this way. They can pray, but they're devoid of the Spirit. They can't pray in the Spirit. They cannot counteract this work. Thirdly, the building up of the saints and their praying in the Spirit are descriptions of how we keep ourselves in the love of God. This doesn't mean that we keep obeying so that God will keep loving us. I would also disagree with positions where it means that we keep obeying so that we feel God's love. In fact, if you're not feeling God's love, that's not a great indicator of where you're at in your spiritual life. Your spiritual status is based on God's truth, not on your emotions or perceptions. To those who are beloved in God, the father, with the love that was set on us before the foundation of the world and demonstrated for us while we were yet sinners, there can be no change in the love of God for us. God's love for us depends eternally, not on our obedience, not on our spiritual warfare, but on the obedience, the perfect obedience of Christ. Jude's command includes our responsibility to obey, but God's love is not conditioned on our obedience as Christians. It produces it. That's Jude's point. It is the wellspring from which all our efforts flow in sanctification, in discipleship, in prayer and contending for the truth. If we as Christians are to endure the agony of the war for truth in this present life, it must be a labor springing from the love of God. Keeping yourselves in the love of God is to remain, to keep, to guard yourself, your focus at all times on that reality of God's love for us in Christ. Building up yourselves in the faith that has this love is its central theme. Praying in the spirit of the things guaranteed to us because God has given us Christ in his love and having not spared his own son will also graciously give us all things in him. We fight a battle that was already decided, saints. That's the comfort here. And in knowing that, we may with confidence, with conviction, and even with compassion, contend for the faith that was once delivered for all the saints. The cross of Christ here is the antidote for every error and all hypocrisy. In one sense, I think that phrase at the very beginning, the faith once delivered for all, should already call our minds back to the atonement of Christ, who was given, sacrificed once for all. It is the great demonstration, the cross of Christ, of all of God's attributes. It's the center of his truths revealed in the word. God's wisdom and power and holiness and justice and wrath are seen at the cross as well as his love and his mercy and his compassion and his sovereign grace. It is the cross that silences legalism for what more can be given than Christ for sin. It is the cross that shames antinomianism because the father did not even spare his own son for the sake of sin upon the cross. The cross shops Christ's authority for he has disarmed the rulers and powers and authorities by his death. And he had the authority to lay down his life and to take it up again. And he's been exalted for his perfect obedience to the right hand of God, given all authority in heaven. and on earth. And by that death, he has ransomed the people for God from every tribe and tongue and nation and is alone worthy to open the scroll of history and the seals of judgment. The cross states Christ's efficiency. What more can be offered for sin than the spotless lamb, the perfect son of God? The cross destroys hypocrisy in the church for all those purchased with his blood are not their own. They were bought with a price so they may glorify God in their bodies. that they may no longer live for themselves, but live to God. Apostate teachers may preach that Christ died, but they will not preach the cross. Truly his true work upon the cross. They speak of it purchasing many things, happiness, abundance, wealth, health, power. But they will not say that it is what that that Christ purchased his people, body and soul slaves for a master despotess, that they might no longer live to themselves, but for God, dying to sin and living to him. what took place at the cross was not vague. It was not mysterious. In fact, it was the revealing of God's mystery, hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints, as Paul says in Colossians. The cross confronts all attempts to soften God's truth on sin and judgment, as well as all efforts to pervert the grace and authority of Christ. The clear message of the cross cannot be twisted by apostates. It can only be rejected. It cannot be co-opted for their own ends. It confronts the apostate and the unrepentant who operate in ambiguity, and it forces them into the light. The cross demands their response, submission or open rejection, what it does not allow for is compromise. Where the liars and hypocrites who twist God's truth put a question mark, has God said? The cross puts an exclamation point. God has spoken in Christ. If you find yourself struggling in the battle for the truth, you have nowhere better to run, nothing better to proclaim, no other argument to fall upon. than the open statement of Christ's victory at the cross. We have renounced underhanded ways to proclaim the truth. Saints, we don't need to depend on anything else but open statement of the truth. Get to the cross and the resurrection and the ascension. Stay there. And Satan's deadliest darts from outside the church and within will be extinguished. There are many battles raging over God's truth in our culture. But no matter the issue, no matter the opponents, what they are opposing and what they need, ultimately, is Christ and crucified. The clear proclamation of the gospel of God's love in Christ is not only what refutes the ungodly, it is what justifies the ungodly. The cross of Christ is the greatest weapon against the ungodly and the only hope of the ungodly. And that's Jude's final point. If the love of God in Christ is the source of your strength in the battle for the truth, you will be compelled to show his same missional mercy and compassion to those who wander in doubt. Those who pose the greatest threat to the church also constitute part of its mission field, MacArthur says. It is the love and mercy of Christ which neutralizes apostates and false teachers in this life. God's salvation can silence these mockers and replace their perverse words with praise. That's a comfort. Saints were comforted by the certainty of their destruction if they do not repent, but we're also comforted with the power of God unto salvation if they repent. Jude reminded us of the predictions of the apostles that we might not be surprised or dismayed when scoffers come, but that does not that does not mean that he intends for us to be unmoved. We don't get to ride off the people in the church who wander away from the truth is just a sign of the times. We don't get to be cynical in the church. We are called to go after them with mercy. The mercy is expressed in gentleness and in in confrontation, as the occasion calls for it. So those in Christ who waver in doubt, we speak the truth with humility and gentleness and patience, reminding them, as Jude does, that Christ is enough, that Christ is greater even than the doubts of those influenced by these apostates. We meet the doubting with the pastoral counsel of a great shepherd who is gentle and lowly at heart, able to sympathize with our weaknesses. We draw them back to the truth, not as cults do with manipulation or intimidation, not as false teachers do with clever arguments, flattery, deception. We draw them back simply with the goodness of Christ. A church body that lets any member reside on the fringe of their fellowship is one that is inviting wolves to prey upon the weak. The wandering of the weak in faith is not just a reflection on them, but on the church that allows those things to take place. Christ sought them, Christ served them, Christ gave his life for their ransom. Tell me why you have too much going on to do likewise, to seek them out, to serve them, to lay down your life in a sense for them. And in the verses directly following or directly preceding Paul's warning about the fierce wolves in Acts 20, he also charges us with this. Be alert, remembering that for three years now, I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among those who are sanctified. How did Paul admonish day and night without ceasing with tears? This is a charge to elders, but I think a principle here for all believers. Do you love your fellow saints as Christ does through Paul? Are you watchful for them? Are you patient with them, tender with their doubts? The greatest opportunity wolves have to pray upon the week is at the end of the patience of those who are strong in the church. Don't let your pride lead to another's destruction. Inconvenience yourself for the sake of your brother or sister soul. Show them Christ's faithful ministry through your friendship. Apply the balm of Christ to their soul wounds of doubt and desperation and depression. But there are times when we meet sin in our midst with an urgent confrontation and discipline. For those who are following apostates into into immorality and perversion, we are to save others by snatching them from the fire, showing the mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by the flesh. This is loving, but direct confrontation so that they may be convicted of their sin, their fights, their false ideologies, crushed their arguments, destroyed, even exposed the shameful sin of the things they do in secret to strip them of their false sense of security, to warn them of their impending destruction and command them to turn to Christ and live. This often takes the form of church discipline, which, again, does not begin and end only with the elders, but with the body seeking out those who are sinning, confronting them in their sin. All of God's enemies will one day be purged from the earth at the last day, but today is not that day. We don't get to release them to judgment. We don't get to condemn their souls. Doubting requires patience and counseling. Perversion requires confrontation. Both are extensions of Christ's mercy. Those who doubt or defy the truth of Christ may hate your message, hate your way of life, hate your words, hate you. But they should never be under any illusions that you hate them, that you do not deeply care for their souls. Hearts hardened in spiritual pride need to be lovingly seized with the confrontational truth that they are poor and wretched, pitiable, blind and naked. They need to be shown that Christ is also an impartial judge. And we do this with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. The image there is vivid in the Greek. It's like soiled underwear. This is why we don't partner with false prophets, why we don't fellowship with those who are going astray as as repentant brothers, as those who are in good fellowship. This is not shunning as a cult does, but this is distinguishing. We are called as Christians to abstain from what defiles. To stand between the living and the dead, like Aaron did, standing between those who perished by the fiery serpents and those who looked up in faith to deliverance of God. We don't fear the false teacher, we fear a holy God who demands this purity in our fellowship. Finally, in light of all the hard words and sobering statements in Jude, the author gives a final word of promise and praise. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. This is a beautiful end to this short letter, and I think at this time a welcome end to this short letter. But it's more than flowery prose or a nice reminder, this is a promise that is meant to be used in our battle for the truth. The spirit assures us here that the very truth we are to keep from corruption keeps us from stumbling. Because the truth is ultimately a person. The truth is Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ, all you are capable of is hypocrisy. All you are capable of is waywardness. All you are capable of is pettiness, not holiness or conviction of the truth, mercy for the doubting. But Jude reminds us that Christ is able to do what he has said he will do for every saint, weak or strong, weary or encouraged, doubting or firm in conviction. And as with Jude's opening, We are to let the truth that we are kept for Christ, kept by Christ, be a shield and a buckler in our contending for the faith. This is a promise that is meant to be believed and prayed and passed on to those who need it when their faith is assailed by the subtle arts of the enemy. Jude couples that promise with the doxology of Christ's triumph, his glory and majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. The battle for the truth is waged by Christ's grace, working through love in his people for his glory. Why were deception, apostasy, opposition to the truth predicted and predestined in God's redemptive plan? For Christ's glory. All things worked for the glory of Christ, for the good of his people. So the glory and supremacy of Christ and his word over all his enemies and in the hearts of his people would be most fully displayed. That the enemy would be continually conquered by the blood of the lamb and the faithful testimony of his people who love not their own lives, their own comfort even to death. By our words and our lives, we must consistently declare the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that he has defeated all enemies, even death, even falsehood itself. Death is swallowed up in victory. Falsehood is swallowed up in the truth of God. All things are submitted to the feet of Christ. Christ will never turn from his crushing of the works of Satan under his feet. In the culture, in the society, in the church, or in the heart of the saint, there is no uncertainty for us. I don't even know if the battle for the truth is ultimately an accurate title. You could say the parade of the truth, the victory parade of the truth down Main Street, exalting the Lord Jesus. There is no uncertainty for us. He will bring his people in. He will keep them unstained by the world. He will slay his enemies with judgment or with mercy. He will kill them at the cross of Christ. They will die in the death of Jesus Christ. Christ will keep you from stumbling into error and hypocrisy. You have only to look to him who has lifted up for sin and is now lifted up in glory. This is the battle for the truth in Jude. This is how we are to think of spiritual warfare, I think, to have those categories of thinking. This is how we are to live. These apostates deny the mastery of Jesus, the authority of Jesus. You who claim the authority of Jesus, the lordship of Jesus, live like it. Testify to the truth in your spiritual integrity, if you've got with me.
The Battle for the Truth
Series Spiritual Warfare Conference
Brother Caleb makes a strong defense of the sufficiency of Scripture and provides practical biblical guidance for recognizing and avoiding false teachers.
Sermon ID | 31623204359989 |
Duration | 55:50 |
Date | |
Category | Conference |
Bible Text | Jude |
Language | English |
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