Jude 1:3-4 - Contend For The Faith

Good morning and welcome to a rainy Panhandle, praise the Lord. We will always take moister here. This morning we are going to look at how Jude changed his mind concerning this letter he was writing.

When concerts and other special events are held in large auditoriums or arena, “riggers” must work hundreds of feet above the floor hanging speakers and lights. Riggers will tell you they don't mind looking down hundreds of feet to the floor. What they don't like is working in buildings that have false ceilings made of acoustical tile hung just a few feet below the ceiling on rafters and beams. It gives them a false sense of security. They feel as though they are working just a few feet above the floor; but if they stepped onto the tile; they would crash through and fall to their death many feet below. They don't like the deceptive look. It, makes it easier to make mistakes.

Satan works that way. He makes dangerous things look safe. He gives us a sense of false security. He makes it easier for us to make mistakes. Satan tries not to scare us to death, but rather to make us think we face little danger of a spiritual fall.

This letter from Jude warns of the dangers of false teachers, whose end is destruction. We are told to be alert for them, to strengthen ourselves against spiritual deception, and to be ready to help vulnerable brothers and sisters in Christ. Christian friends must not be lulled into a false sense of security and take a disastrous spiritual fall. - David Walls and Max Anders

Nominal or shallow Christianity has always been the enemy of the church. Christ Jesus warned against a nominal kind of spiritual lifestyle when He quoted Isaiah in saying, “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Mark 7:6; Isaiah 29:13).

In 1981, P.A. Cedar was privileged to participate in a consultation on world evangelization held in Thailand. Hundreds of Christian leaders gathered from around the world to prayerfully plan a strategy to reach some twenty major categories of people groups throughout the world who had not yet been reached with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some of those unreached groups of people are more obvious than others. For example, there are millions of Chinese and millions of Muslims who have never been reached with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Pastor Cedar was assigned to the category of “nominal Christians.” And as he discovered, nominal Christians are among the most difficult people to reach with the gospel.

Jude 3-4

3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

1. The Desire of Jude (vs. 3)

The phrase used is pas spoudē (spoo-day) poieō (poy-eh'-o) which is a Greek idiom for being exceedingly intent upon a subject; that is taking it up seriously with determination to bring about good effect.

The meaning of the apostle seems to be this: "Beloved brethren, when I saw it necessary to write to you concerning the common salvation, my mind being deeply affected with the dangers to which the church is exposed from the false teachers that are gone out into the world, I found it extremely necessary to write and exhort you to hold fast the truth which you had received, and strenuously to contend for that only faith which, by our Lord and his apostles, has been delivered to the Christians." - (from Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)

Some think that Jude's preference was to write a pleasant and encouraging letter on the subject of their common salvation. And that he had at first planned to write to the church at large, on the nature and design of the Gospel.

the common salvation—made possible only through Jesus Christ. This is a community of faith, with the outcome of that faith, salvation. A salvation that was made possible by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This salvation is called common because it equally belongs to Jews and Gentiles. This common salvation is the saving grace of God which has been made available to every man, woman, and child through Jesus Christ. And it equally offers to every human being that redemption which is provided for the whole world. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; (Roman 10:12).

God is offering you salvation full and free this morning. It does not matter what your life has been like. All that matters is that you are willing to ask Jesus Christ to come into your life today?

Something happened. Jude got word that there was trouble in the churches. Because of this Jude had –

2. A Change of Heart (vs. 3)

Jude then changed the purpose of his letter. He admitted that he had hoped to write them to encourage them “concerning our common salvation “(v. 3). But when he heard of the dangers to which the churches were exposed, by false teachers who had crept in, he changed his mind. Instead Jude wrote pointedly against those false teachers and their false doctrines, exhorting his fellow saints strenuously to contend earnestly for the faith. In other word Jude was saying, “I urge you with all my might, stay strong in your faith which you have already placed in Jesus Christ.”

The Greek word used here means. it was needful for me—or really, “I felt it necessary to write now! At once!” This letter of warning could not wait. God had to have laid it on Jude's heart that it was imperative that his brothers and sisters in Christ hear this message. Jude, was going to write and remind his fellow Christians about their common salvation found only in Jesus Christ. But now not only does he change his message but he also changes the intensity of his message. No longer is he writing a heartwarming reminder, he now writes parakalteō (par-ak-al-eh'-o) appealing, exhorting, beseeching, entreating that they should contend for the faith against those evils. “For there are certain men crept in,” verse 4.

earnestly contend— Jude's exhortation, “strive together for the faith of the Gospel which was once for all delivered.” No other faith or revelation is to supersede the saving message of Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. This was Jude's strong argument for resisting heretical invaders (Jude vs. 4). 

 

the saints—Jude was not writing to the lost, he was writing to fellow believers, to all Christians who by their faith are set apart by God and are found in God. Have you been set apart, have you had your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life? If your answer is no, you can change that now, by asking Jesus Christ to become your Lord and Saviour.

A pastor was sitting in a local coffee shop reading his daily devotional when he overheard three older ladies discussing their grandchildren. One lady was upset that her granddaughter was moving in with a young man and not even contemplating marriage. The other lady said she was experiencing the same disgust with her grand children as well. The first lady to speak said what ever happened to morals? Then the lady who had been quiet for a while listening to her friends spoke up, “Ladies don’t you understand that’s the way it goes today!” She added, “Everyone does it that way today. Remember we live in a different time and that’s just how it is, so we just have to accept it!” The ladies got up shaking their heads and agreeing with their friend's thoughts on the subject of immorality. As they departed the pastor sat their thinking to himself, “How fooled many are becoming today to sin.” In essence they said, “Sin, what’s the big deal! Everyone is doing it that way today so just accept it!”

Many people these days are saying “Sin, what’s the big deal? That’s the way it is today!” I guess we should expect this from the people who do not claim to be Christians, but how sad that many who are saying this are also saying “I am a Christian!”

3. Godless Men (vs. 4)

Jude has two major concerns—that those he wrote to would not drift and that they would not be led astray by false teachers. He prayed that they would instead take the initiative and contend for the faith. Jude warned against nominal Christianity and against those false teachers who would divide the body of Christ and who would seek to destroy the faith of believers rather than to build it. These destructive men had crept into the church unnoticed and had “turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (v. 4). 

 

These godless men were not true believers. They were people whose condemnation was written about long ago. How long ago? Was Jude referring to 2 Peter 2:3, or maybe Acts 20:29-30. Some think Jude was referring to Jesus' teachings, such as in Matthew 7:15 or 13:24-25. Still others take it all the way back to the Old Testament. The truth is we don't know for sure. What we do know for sure is that they were condemned.

The godless people were charged by Jude with two serious sins. First they are charged with changing the grace of our God into a license for immorality. These godless people were the forerunners of the Gnostics, who believed the spirit was good (created by God) while the flesh was bad (not created by God). The spirit was not touched by the flesh, or it would be contaminated. Therefore, they assumed that they could indulge every fantasy of the flesh, since their spirit was not affected. This resulted in flagrant immorality and perversion. They twisted the grace of God, claiming that God would overlook any sin, because it was a product of the flesh. 

 

The second sin they were charged with is denying Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. They taught that because the flesh is bad, Jesus could not be the Son of God. In their view God could not assume human flesh without contaminating Himself. By denying the humanity of Christ they perverted the biblical truth of Jesus. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him.” (Titus 1:16). 

 

The Gnostics and people today seem to ignore what John wrote about Jesus Christ in the opening of his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-2, 14). Are you listening? Did you hear these words or have you already checked out? Jesus Christ was in the beginning with God and He is God, who came in the form of a man so that we could relate, repent, and receive.

Relate – Jesus Christ was God/man who walked this earth for 33 years experiencing everything we experience.

Repent – Jesus Christ has calls you to turn from your sins and follow Him.

Receive – You must ask Jesus Christ into your heart to be saved. Will you do this, today?