Welcome to Bible Insights with Wayne Conrad. The psalmist says, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And also, that the unfolding of your words gives light. It imparts understanding to the simple. Today, I want us to consider how to contend for the faith against those within the churches that are teaching false doctrine and leading people astray. In other words, I want us to look at the admonition or even the command of Jude in his epistle and also of Peter in 2 Peter chapter two. And there are a lot of parallels between 2 Peter chapter two and Jude's letter. They are obviously influenced by each other and have similar things to say to the churches, to the assemblies to whom they're writing about a great danger that exists in the church in their day and also in ours. You know, Jude begins his letter with a desire to write about the common salvation, the common grace and mercy that God has shown to him and to other believers. He wants to extol God for being the great savior of his people. But he couldn't take that track. He couldn't write about it in detail as he wanted to because he's led by the Holy Spirit to warn, to sound an alarm to the churches, to the people to whom he's writing, that there are those in the midst of the churches that have sneaked in, they've slipped in, and they are now teaching things contrary to the faith and leading people astray. Listen to Jude as he writes, 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. Now, when he talks about contending for the faith, he is talking about the objective truths revealed about God, and especially God in Christ, and how God in Christ handles the great problem of man and his sin, rebellion against God, and the judgment that awaits them. And how God, as the great sovereign Lord of all, has intervened to save a people for his namesake, and he has given them to Christ, and they come to him through the proclamation of the gospel, and they grow in their understanding by the study of God's Word, by meditating upon those great things that God has done for us in Christ. Now, after giving the warning and illustrating it from the scriptures, Jude then again turns to his desire, but here he expresses it in terms of how do I contend for the faith? Listen to the reading of Jude 20 and 21. But you, beloved, by building yourself up in your most holy faith, By praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Now, when we look at this verse, this sentence, this long sentence, we can on the surface think that he's given us four things to do. But in reality, Jude is giving us one command and it's found in this verse when he says, dear friends, our beloved, keep yourselves in the love of God. That's the only verb in this passage. So the command is we must keep ourselves in the love of God. He then gives us three ways in which we keep ourselves in the love of God. He says, by building yourself up in your most holy faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit, and looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. So there is a present activity, two of them, that we do. Now a participle, is simply a verbal concept that's expressed in a noun-like form or an adjective-like form. It's used in a sentence as a noun or as an adjective that tells you how to implement a verb that's in that sentence. So that's what we're looking at in Jude 20 and 21. So he wants the beloved to contend for the faith. What faith? Well, it's a faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. And here he's talking about biblical faith that you find summaries of it in several places in the New Testament. Now, I won't be going over those today, but we will look at one briefly in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So, Keep yourselves, this is God's command through Judah, keep yourselves in the love of God. Well, how do I do that? Well, first of all, we need to read the Word of God. And we don't just need to read it superficially. We don't need to simply read a verse here and there like it's some kind of vitamin pill. What we need to do is rigorously read God's Word in its context, large sections at a time, and think about it as we're reading. Connect the ideas together. In other words, we need to study God's written revelation to us. In fact, this is a command that Paul gives us in his correspondence to Timothy. He says to him, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that does not need to be ashamed. Now, Workman, this is a shame. He's someone who doesn't take his tools seriously, and therefore he makes a lot of mistakes in his building project. And we can be talking about writing, that can be a building project, or we can be talking about building a building. It's the same thing. We're trying to build up something. And in building up something, we must have the right tool and we must employ the right tool. The right tool is a study of the faith that's once for all delivered to the saints. And how do I find that? Well, I find it in the New Testament, who unfolds the meaning that was there in the Old Testament. It brings it to its completion, to its fullness in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thankfully, There are a number of places in the New Testament where this faith, this pattern of sound words that needs to be communicated from one generation to another, from the teacher to the pupil, from the pastor to the pulpit, from the people within the families. We need to communicate the pattern of sound words that God has given us, and we find summaries of that in the correspondence in the New Testament. Paul gives us an example of that. In Timothy, he gives us another example of that. In Corinthians, and he gives us an example of that in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, which we'll look at momentarily. So, first of all, we need to keep ourselves in the love of God by building ourselves up on the revelation of God, especially the objective truths of the gospel concerning the person of God and the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation, in his death, burial, and resurrection, his coming again, and how that works, what all it means, and we must put faith in that person of the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that his work is sufficient to bring us to God, to cancel out all of our sins, and to give us the imputed righteousness of Christ. Secondly, we are to build ourselves up and keep ourselves in the love of God by praying in the Holy Spirit. Now, Jude does not explain what he means by this. So therefore, he's taking it for granted that the people to whom he's writing will have some understanding of it. I want to give you two scriptures that may help us in this area. In other words, what we need to do is to give a greater devotion to Spirit-guided, Spirit-filled praying. Romans 8.26 perhaps can help us. Paul writes, in the same way the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Now that's the spirit himself praying for us, but it's expressed in us when we are intensely in prayer before God, in groanings, in unutterable, we can't actually utter exactly what we're feeling, what we're thinking, but the spirit is at work and we are in tune with him. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We need to pray according to the will of God, and the Spirit will direct us in such, and so we also need to fill our prayers with the revelation of God's word, even praying God's word back to him, letting the word form the very words that we speak to God. In 1 Corinthians 14, 15, Paul writes, I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the mind also. I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also. So this is Paul's writings that can help us understand what Jude means when he says, by praying in the Holy Spirit, we keep ourselves in the love of God. And there's a third one. by looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Now, you know, as believers in Christ, we have eternal life now. When we believe in Christ, Jesus says, we pass out of the dominion of darkness into the dominion of light. We leave the kingdom under the rule of Satan and we enter into the kingdom of God ruled over by King Jesus. Our spirit is saved, our souls are being saved as we're sanctified by God, but our body also will be saved in the last day when Christ returns. It is absolutely crucial for the teaching of Christianity, the doctrine of the resurrection, the physical resurrection of the dead. They're being reconstituted, a full human being, body, soul, mind, and spirit. That will occur when Christ returns again. Now, let me turn from these to give us a couple of concrete examples about what I'm talking about. Paul helps us in his Corinthian correspondence. See the meaning of these words that we find in Jude 4, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. And 2 Peter also helps us. 2 Peter 2, beginning verse 1, but false prophets also arose among the people, talking about in the Old Testament, just as there will be false teachers among you. who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words." Now, wherever some words have been spoken by the apostles that are true before us today, these words are true. We hear false teaching on every hand, very popular, much of it. Why? Because it caters to man's own sensuality, and because it caters to man's desire for wealth and prosperity, and for man to simply be accepted for whatever he says or does before God equally, no matter what. But God, when he saves someone, regenerates them. That's how we are saved. And regeneration brings about a new nature with new desires that must be nurtured on the word of God. But certain people will slip in and have slipped in to our various assemblies and congregations. And they come in and they are secretly brought in. Now here, the apostle Paul himself talks about even false apostles. to Peter chapter two verses one through three. But false prophets also arose among the teacher, just as there will be false teachers among you who bring in destructive heresies. And also we read in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, for such men are false apostles deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise that his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, but their end will correspond to their deeds. These are warnings from the apostles, from Jude, a half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ and full brother of James, and from the Apostle Paul himself and the Apostle Peter himself. First Corinthians chapter five, there's an example of someone in the assembly openly living in an immoral state with his father's wife. And the congregation just permits it and overlooks it or even gives some approval to it. Oh, how loving God is. But this brings disrepute upon Christ and disrepute upon the truth of Christ. It undercuts the gospel. and such should not be allowed to openly continue, but must be confronted and removed. 1 Corinthians 15, there are those who deny the physical resurrection of Jesus and the physical resurrection of the dead in the last day. This is what Paul says in his writing to them. Now, if Christ is preached that he's been raised from the dead, how do some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain. Your faith also is vain. Moreover, we even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that He raised Christ whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For the dead are not raised, not even Christ Jesus has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins. Then those who also have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. We have hope in Christ in this life. Only we are of all people most to be pitied. We can also see examples of this false teaching coming into the churches in John's writing in the letters to the seven churches in which the Lord Jesus Christ himself speaks to two assemblies and specifically points out these sins among them. He writes to the Pergamum Church in verse 14 of Revelation 2, but I have a few things against you. This is Jesus speaking. Because you have there some who hold the teachings of Balaam, who keep teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality. So you also have some who in the same way hold the teachings of the Nicolaitans. And to the angel of the church of Theratyra write, but I have this against you, Jesus says, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray, so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to repent of her immorality. So these are the dangers, and they are present in our churches, and we must contend for our faith. How? We must do so by building ourselves up in our most holy faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit, and looking forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. In this way, we keep ourselves in the love of God. and we can overcome the false teachings that are there. It's interesting that Paul, when he begins his letter to the Corinthians and principally challenging this heresy that's before him, he begins by a great summary of the gospel. He says, in fact, that this is the gospel, the heart of the gospel that is preached to the people. So I'm reading from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, the first few verses. Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel, the good news I preach to you, which you received and in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preach to you. For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that's received from the other apostles and from Christ, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive when Paul's writing, though some have fallen astray. Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles, and last of all, to me. The least of all the apostles, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me." So he's appealing, you see, to the faith, the objective truth of the Christian faith. We must meet heresy with the truth of God's word. It doesn't pay to study all the counterfeit money and know all of its characteristics if you don't know the characteristic of the true money. The same is true with combating false teaching. To combat false teaching, you must be grounded and growing in the great objective truths of the gospel that's found in the New Testament. This has been Wayne Conrad with Bible Insights, giving you this command, keep yourselves in the love of God.