Fight for faith Move forward

Jude 1:17-23

How to fight for your faith? March forward

Jude 1:17-23, But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ: 18 how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts. 19 These are sensual persons, who cause divisions, not having the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. 22 And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

The first thing we learn is that you must remember, “Remember that the apostles said they would come.” Jude quotes from 2 Peter 3:3. Peter being an example of the apostle who predicted their coming.

First thing is to realize this: “This isn’t God having lost control, this isn’t the plan of God gone awry, this isn’t a surprise. This is prophesied. Nothing is happening that wasn’t predicted. You should expect it. You were warned about it, and there it is.”

The other side of that is, “Not only should you not be surprised by it, but you should anticipate the reality of it and wake up. If you have been told by a reliable source to expect the terrorists to come, then you would better be busy profiling them, discerning who they are, finding who they are, and exposing them before they do their damage.”

The first thing is to remember that you were told they were coming. You don’t have any excuse not to be vigilant. You don’t have any excuse not to be aware. You don’t have any excuse not to be alert. Expect false teachers to embed themselves in Christian institutions, Christian ministries, Christian schools, colleges, seminaries, and Christian denominations, those that bear the name of Christ.

That is exactly where Satan wants to send the terrorists to do their destruction. They hide themselves by professing Christ and professing to be representatives of God.

They hide themselves in priestly orders, and behind theological degrees as biblical scholars and experts, and they are terrorists. Secondly, to remain. V 20-21, But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Stay faithful to the truth and don’t waiver. 4 things here that are commanded of us. 1. Being built by the Word. 2. Praying in the Holy Spirit. 3. Be obedient to God. 4. Looking for Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to give an analogy of Terrorism.

We are all very highly sensitized to the dangers of terrorists. Certainly, in our lifetime, we have never really understood what terrorists we are as understand it now. Maybe at no time in the history of the world did people understand terrorists the way we understand them now.

Never has there been a time in human history when terrorists wielded the level of power that they wield today. Because of the development of science, weapons of mass destruction, explosives, bombs, and weaponry. Terrorism has changed our world. It has changed our world more dramatically in the sense of creating fear than anything in our lifetime.

• It is far more frightening than the threat of any natural disaster.
• It is far more threatening than the implications of atomic warfare because we have seen this unleashed.

The thing that makes terrorists so frightening to us is they are in our country, neighbourhoods, airplanes with us, on the bus, in school, at the market; and they are plotting our death, and destruction. Certainly, they are disrupting our lives, because now we have all this massive kind of security that we must go through when we want to travel. Our nation is involved in an unbelievable effort to try to protect us from terrorism.

All of life as we know it has been redefined by terrorists and their threat. We live every day under graded alert system.

Loads of officials doing an awful lot to try to stop these terrorists at the point of attack. Their focus is to stop the deadly attacks by terrorists at the very point of the potential attack. Where the point of attack, we lockdown that place and create a kind of security environment which cannot be breached or easily breached.

As long as we don’t have a system in place to stop terrorists before they arrive, we are left to try to stop the attack at the last point. This is a very cumbersome and very difficult approach. As long as it’s not difficult for them to get here to embed in the country we are faced with a very, very difficult challenge.

An analogy in the church. The church is very much like our nation.

• It likes its openness,
• it likes its tolerance,
• it likes its freedom,
• it likes its acceptance, and
• it does not have the will.

It does not have the inclination to stop spiritual terrorists where they must be stopped at its borders. We don’t want to do spiritual profiling. We don’t want to really identify those who terrorize the church. We don’t stop terrorists at the border.

• These spiritual terrorists are in our churches.
• They are in our seminaries
• They have taken over churches, and denominations.
• They are in our Christian colleges.
• They have written books are in our Christian bookstores.

These spiritual terrorists are planning the destruction of the church. Really, we are not doing anything to restrain them or expose them. They operate freely in an undiscerning, gullible, tolerant church environment. Jude is written to awaken us to the reality of their presence.

V 3, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

He had one subject in mind, that was our common salvation. But he felt the necessity to write about this. V 4, For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord [b]God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have inside the church terrorists embedded everywhere. V 12, These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; The Holy Spirit then through Jude is calling us to get involved in the war on spiritual terror.

Jude is a profiler of these spiritual terrorists. In this brief little letter, which is very parallel to 2 Peter 2 & 3 it is repeated because it’s so important. Jude profiles spiritual terrorists, because he understands that they are in the church, and they are going to blow up the church with their spiritual bombs.

Jude tells us through this epistle that they can be recognized by immorality, lawless, insubordinate, defiled, rebellious,

mercenary, greedy, materialistic, self-centred, shameless, proud, sensual, and void of the Holy Spirit. Their theology is bad. They deny the Lord in reality. Look at their theology. Look at their character. The church cannot be gullible, it cannot be witless, it cannot be accepting, it cannot be all-embracing without allowing the terrorists to come in and be destructive. We already live today in a time when spiritual terrorism has done its destructive work in our own country for years, for decades, even for centuries.

This letter is a call to the reality that we are going to have to deal with spiritual terrorists. There has been in every generation since this time an unwillingness on the part of many who call themselves Christians to profile these people and stop them at the borders of the church.

So they have infiltrated, and in many cases they have taken over, and they have blown people right into hell along with them with their spiritual destruction.

All the way down through verse 16 there is this profiling of these spiritual terrorists. V 17 there is a shift to explain to us how do we respond?

How do we react?

How do we survive? How do we win this war on spiritual terrorism? You just flow through the rest of the epistle, V 4, “Certain persons.” V 8, “These men.” V 10, “These men.” V 11, “They.” V 12, “These men.” V 14, “These.”

V 16, “These.” V 19, “These.” Contrast, V 17, “But you.” V 20, “But you.” In final section to the benediction in V 24& 25, the direction that Jude takes is to talk to us about what we do to win the war, what we do to survive in this war on spiritual terrorism.

What should be our response?

What should be our reaction? Jude says, “You must remember.” By being built up in the Word, by communing and faithful prayer in the power of the Spirit, by obeying the Word, and by living in the light of the future, living in hope.

These things make us strong. When a church is growing in the Word, that are committed to Holy Spirit-directed prayer, that are living in obedience to God’s commands, and that are living in the light of the glory of heaven, and it will be tough place for terrorists to survive, because that is a mature church; and maturity produces discernment.

Hebrews 5 says that. Maturity produces discernment.

Ephesians 4:14, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, So, remain faithful to the things you know to be true, and you will develop the sense of discernment that will help you recognize the terrorists when they are there.

March Forward.

The war is not only defensive, but it is offensive. We have this unique responsibility. Not only do we have to expose the terrorists and defend ourselves against the terrorists and stop them at the border before they can infiltrate the church.

Church discipline keeps heretics and the blatant, unrepentant out of the communion of the saints because you must stop them at the border, or they become leaven that leavens the lump. Not only we have to stop the enemy, but we also have the additional responsibility of winning over the enemy, which is a double challenge.

Those who are the greatest threat to us are also our mission field. Not only do we stop the enemy from destroying us, but we are called to convert the enemy.

• We must go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
• We must make disciples of all nations.

Our Great Commission commands us to do!

It even involves the people who are the greatest threat to the church. That’s what Jesus was trying to do at lunch with the Pharisees. Jesus had just pronounced curses on them, He was exposed their true condition to them so that they could be brought to a place where they would recognize the reality of their spiritual condition and turn from it.

Since the world is so dominated by false teachers and false religions, and we have a remarkable responsibility for evangelism. V 22-23, And on some have compassion, making a distinction; 23 but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

There are three kinds of people that threaten the church that we must reach. 1. Confused, 2. Convinced, 3. Committed.

1. Confused

There are people in the church that are being confused by the false teachers and the false doctrine that’s being taught. There are the people who are the confused. V 22, “And have mercy on some who are doubting.” (NASB) The first group of people that we must be concerned about is the confused, the doubting.

To have mercy means to show kindness. In kindness of giving them the truth. This mercy is the merciful presentation of the truth. When you come across someone who is confused, you might tend to say, “Get out of my life. Get rid of them. I want nothing to do with them. They are starting to drift the wrong direction.

We want to abandon them.” On the one hand, you want to protect the church. On the other hand, you must show mercy to those people. The mercy that they need is something they don’t really deserve and haven’t earned.

In spite of their threat to the church, we have this obligation to feel compassion and concern for someone who is doubting. Now the word “doubting” is, basically, “confused.” False teachers always go after people who are weak.

Paul says they want to lead silly women captive.

2 Timothy 3:6, For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,

They go after the weak,

• vulnerable,
• immature,
• not strong in doctrine,
• not strong in obedience, and
• not living in the light of the glory to come.

They could come to these people through lot of ways.

• These are not people who are anti-Christ,
• These are not people that are anti-gospel,
• These are just people who are confused,
• They are doubting, and
• They are not sure what the truth is.

There are many of these people in the church.

There may be some of you hearing me this evening bible study. You might even be a believer who is being led astray. You have come across some literature. You have come across some teaching, some cult, or some movement, and you are beginning to question the gospel that you were once attracted to.

You probably might be saying something like, “I am open to the truth.” If you are open to the truth, then you are also open to error. There are people in the church who are open.

Luke 11:23, He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Anybody who’s open to the truth is also open to error. If you want to get that thing closed as quickly as you can.

But false teachers and false doctrine and apostates and spiritual terrorists’ prey on the people who are not yet able to rise above their doubts.

Acts 20:28-30, Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to

shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

False teachers come in from the outside. They infiltrate the church. They creep in unnoticed. They are hidden reefs in your love feasts, and they begin to affect some people. They draw people to themselves, and then those people begin to speak perverse things and draw disciples after them as well.

It happens in the church. It happened in Corinth. Judaizing false teachers came in after Paul left, attacked the Apostle Paul. Corrupted the great doctrine of the resurrection. Paul had to write and plead with those people not to abandon him as the apostle of the gospel, and not to abandon the truth.

They came to Galatia and other cities in the Galatian region. He writes back to them, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel. I can’t believe how fast you have defected.”

How did it happen?

False teachers came in and preyed upon the doubting!

Galatians 1:8-9, But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Galatians 3:1-3, O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

2 Corinthians 11:1-4, Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!

There are people in the church who are weak. They may be believers, and they may be unbelievers who are just open. But they are really the first victims of false doctrine. This is the basic strategy of liars, to prey on the doubting, creating confusion.

Psalm 1:1-2, Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners, Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.

2 John 1:8-11, Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. 9 Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

They prey upon those that are open. We have a responsibility to get to these people who are the confused and have mercy on them.

We reach the doubters/confused and they are the most accessible because they are open. 2. Convinced. V 23, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. We come to a group that is already in the fire. This is a bigger challenge.

They have bought the lies. They have owned the lies. Very graphic language used. They are already being singed by hell. “Save others.” We have gone beyond having mercy to a rescue operation. We know we can’t save anybody.

V 25, “To the only God our Saviour.” God does the saving. Jude is not violating that. God is the ultimate source of salvation.

God is the primary cause of salvation. We are the secondary means. God does the saving. We partner with Him, not as a primary cause, but as a secondary means.

James 5:19-20, Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

The word “sinner” is always used to refer to someone who’s not saved. James is not saying that we are the primary cause of that salvation, we are rather the secondary means that God uses. We are in the business of saving, as God uses us to do that.

Somebody who strays from the truth, somebody who wanders away into error needs to be rescued. “Save others, snatching them out of the fire.” They are already in the fire of this false belief.

• They have been convinced and they are not just confused.
• They have bought the lie of liberal theology.

• They have bought the lie that Jesus isn’t God.
• They have bought the lie that salvation is part by grace and part by works.
• They have bought the lie that whatever form of apostate Christianity they are seduced by, and they are now in the fire.
• They are already being singed by the fires of hell, which will engulf them in the future.

The imagery is very vivid. “snatch them out of the fire,” The Greek word harpazō, means to “to take by force,” “to carry away,” “to attack.” The language is not gentle it is getting stronger.

Amos 4:11, “I overthrew some of you, As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, And you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning; Yet you have not returned to Me,” Says the Lord.

God says that to Israel. You would have been consumed long ago but I snatched you out of the fire. So that imagery comes from the Old Testament, God snatching Israel out of the flames of annihilation and destruction.

Joshua the high priest is standing before the angel of the Lord, Satan’s standing at His right hand to accuse him.

Zechariah 3:2, And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”

God having rescued His people and high priest from the fire. We must do sort of what God did and snatch people out of the fire. When you meet somebody who is convinced about their false system, who’s been convinced, you don’t turn your back on them.

You don’t embrace them as a part of the true fellowship. You remember they’re spiritual terrorists. But you go after them in a very serious rescue operation. Jesus did with the Pharisees. Very blunt and severe warnings, promises of judgment, devastation, and hell.

You come with force.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down

strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

People are basically victims of the ideas. They are imprisoned by the ideas, and Paul says we must smash those false ideologies. The only way to do that is to bring the truth to bear upon them, and smash down the fortresses of ideas, false and wrong ideas, and set the people free.

3. Committed. V 23, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Among the convinced is this other group. Some of these you have got to deal with fear. When we go after the terrorists, not only to protect ourselves from them, to profile them, to stop them at the borders. But we understand that we have the responsibility to reach and convert them, to bring them to salvation to be used by God to that end, we must get close to them.

When we go in for that kind of an attack, we are going to have to realize that when we get involved with the ones that are really committed and convinced, but the committed. When we get close to the hardcore souls committed to their deceptions, we are in danger.

We are in danger because these apostates are so profoundly deceived. They have been trained to articulate their system. They know how to give the answers. They are subtle and satanic. They are the missionaries of error. They are the teachers of their lies. When you get near them, it’s a dangerous place to be.

So, he says we must hate even the garment polluted by the flesh. The fear is that we might be corrupted by their evil. They are so evil that we, if we get too close, might be corrupted. You can’t get intimate and accepting with these people. They are the most adept enemies of the truth. They are the most highly skilled agents of the kingdom of darkness, and you don’t want to get anywhere near their corruption.

“hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”

There are two words basically for the clothing that people wore in that day. Himation was the outer tunic, Chitōna was your underwear. This is chitona, their underwear. Be very careful as you try to give mercy, the mercy of the truth to these people, despising even the underwear polluted.

Filthy underwear, stained by bodily function. You wouldn’t pick up somebody’s filthy, stained underwear. You wouldn’t do that because you wouldn’t want to be defiled by that physically. You must treat these false teachers the same way, because what comes out of them is a filthy pollution, and you are in danger if you get too close of being defiled by it.

Isaiah 64:6, But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. That was the Hebrew word for menstrual cloth.

Philippians 3:8, Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom

I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ Very coarse language. Just as filth comes out of your body to stain your undergarment, spiritual filth comes out of your fallen flesh to pollute your life, and it can get transmitted. That is the biblical view, that is the divine view of false religion.

Conclusion

How did that church die? Failure to confront spiritual terrorists destroyed the church at Pergamos.

Revelation 2:14-15, But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. 15 Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.

They allowed some who held the teaching of Balaam. They allowed some who held the teaching of the Nicolaitans. It destroyed the church.

It destroyed the church at Thyatira.

Revelation 2:20, Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

They tolerated the woman Jezebel who taught the people to commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

How did Sardis become a dead church?

Revelation 3:1, “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Revelation 3:4, You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. Everybody got filthy, because they were overexposed to the spiritual terrorists, and they were undiscerning. The result church died. False doctrine and the wickedness of those who teach it and believe it stains the soul. Evangelism is necessary.

Romans 16:17-18, Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. 18 For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. On the other hand, there was the church of Smyrna in Revelation ² that maintained its purity, and the church at Philadelphia that maintained its purity, and God promised them a blessing. Churches that stop spiritual terrorism at its border by profiling them, understanding who they are, protect themselves, and then face the incredible responsibility to give those same terrorists the gospel. To this we are called, to this great challenge. Somebody is going to say, “This could be scary. Does this mean that if I get involved in this, and I get myself soiled by this false doctrine, and I begin to question certain things, and I maybe get caught up in some of their sins, that I am going to lose my salvation?” Jude gives us wonderful benediction for those who fear.

Jude 1:24-25, Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, 25 To God our Saviour, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen. You are not going to lose your salvation. If you are engaged with these people, and you are not doing it with fear and great care there is a possibility that you will soil your garments. You may not lose your salvation, but the church will be the victim, and your own life polluted by the defilement.