A Call to Battle - Part A

Jude sat down to write a sweet little note of encouragement, but he ended up writing about false teachers that had come in the church. And what this book reminds us of at just first blush, just looking over the book, is that Christians are not on a playground, but we are on a battleground, a battlefield. We are called to that.

The church has always experienced opposition from the world and even corruption inside the church. That's why Jesus' brother Jude wrote an important letter about defending the faith. Connect with Skip Heitzig today as he begins a series called Fight for the House about how you can stand up for God's truth. Before we begin, we want to invite you to be a part of a life-changing journey. Lenya and I are taking a group to Israel in 2022, and we want to invite you to join us. We'll visit places like Nazareth, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and the Garden Tomb. And that's just a fly-by look at the itinerary.

Find out more about the trip at inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q. Thank you, Skip. Now, let's get into today's teaching. We're in the book of Jude as we begin our study with Skip Heitzig. Most Christians would agree that fighting is not what we are called to primarily. We follow a Savior who said, I am gentle and lowly in heart. The problem is, we may think He was always like that. We might think that Jesus never raised His voice, that Jesus would never embarrass anyone, that He would never call anybody out, that He just sort of stood there with a smile on His face, His hand on the head of little kids, maybe healing birds from time to time, just speaking in a gentle, soft, loving voice. I've even noticed that great artists in history have depicted Jesus sort of that way.

They, for the most part, picture and paint a Jesus who is wistful, weak, even effeminate. However, there was a side of Jesus that was contentious. The Jesus that took tables in the temple and overturned them and took out a whip and drove people out of the temple. Yeah, that Jesus. The one who said, brood of vipers.

Translated, you bunch of slimy snakes. That Jesus. The one who said to His detractors, whitewashed tombs filled with dead men's bones and all corruption. The one who said, you are of your father, the devil, and his deeds you do. The same Jesus who said to the religious leaders, when you win a convert, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. It is that Jesus that the book of Jude brings into the forefront.

It is Jesus with a backbone. Now, Jude is a small book. There's only 25 verses in it, only 613 words.

But, though it's a small book, it's a small book that packs a big punch. I look at the book of Jude sort of as a fighter's manual for the believer. It was not Jude's intention, originally, to write this letter. As you will discover, Jude sat down to write a sweet little note of encouragement, but he ended up writing about false teachers that had come in the church. And what this book reminds us of at just first blush, just looking over the book, is that Christians are not on a playground, but we are on a battleground, a battlefield.

We are called to that. In fact, the whole atmosphere of the book of Jude has sort of a military tone to it, even a militant tone from the language that is used, the grammar, the brevity of the commands, the sort of bullet point directives that Jude gives throughout this book. In fact, in verse 3, he uses the term exhorting.

This is what I am doing. He said, I'm exhorting you. And that's a word that describes a general giving orders to an army. So, let's read the first four verses of Jude. This is our summons to war, our call to arms. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. 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. 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 God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Did you know that Jude is one of the most neglected books in the New Testament? Most preachers don't touch it. They don't preach sermon series from it. It's filled with all these kind of Old Testament analogies and references and there's a lot of judgment and condemnation and warning in this book. And I've even noticed that it's hard to find a good commentary on the book of Jude. I've collected a few of them, but most commentators, those who write books on the books of the Bible, don't have a lot of stuff on the book of Jude. Most Christians know it's there, but they don't really know what it's about.

And certainly they don't quote much from it. I dare you to find somebody who will say, my life verse is found in the book of Jude. But all that we really know about it is probably the favorite verse of Christians, which is verse 24. It's the benediction at the end of the book where he says, now into him who is able to keep you from stumbling and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.

It's a great benediction, but that's about it. But the book of Jude was written about apostasy. Ever heard that term apostasy? To apostatize or an apostate. It's a word that means those who defect from truth. They defect from the true faith or they never really had the true faith, but they pretended to be a part of it.

You could call them nominal Christians, Christians in name only, who slip in as you will see unnoticed. Now you might ask, well, what's the big deal about that? I mean, why write a whole book or a little letter even about that? Well, that is the question we're going to answer in the next few weeks. And I want to show you four components to this call to battle. We're going to look at the army, the hostility, the artillery, and the enemy.

Let's consider those four components. First of all, the army. And we find that in verse one and two. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ.

Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. That's the army. It includes Jude, the author, Jesus Christ, the commander, and us, the troops.

So let's just begin with Jude. I'm going to call Jude the ADC, the aide-de-camp in military parlance. He is the assistant to the commander. He is the one who is going to give the command of the commander to the troops. He is the one writing the letter.

He is bringing the summons, calling us to war. Now, he is called Jude in our English translations, but here's what you may not know. English translations have altered the original name of Jude for obvious reasons, as you will see momentarily, and given him the nickname, not really the name that is written in Greek.

In the Greek translation, it doesn't say Jude. It says in Greek, Judas, which is the name Judas. Judas. There's lots of different people in the New Testament by the name Judas, but there's only one we remember, and that's Judas the traitor. Judas Iscariot. It is not that Judas that wrote this book, however, but that's a name that for obvious reasons, instead of saying, hey, here's the book of Judas, because people are going to go, whoa, I don't want to read that book.

I don't want to find out about how to be a traitor. So they've given him, softened the name Jude. People don't name their kids Judas.

Have you noticed that? Have you ever met a Judas before? We'll name our kids Paul, Peter, other biblical names, but not that one. You won't name your dog Judas. But the Jude or Judas that wrote this book is a different one than Judas Iscariot. By the way, let's just throw that out. Isn't it ironic that the only book in the New Testament that speaks about falling away from the faith, defecting, apostatizing, is called the book of Judas.

It's just an interesting thing to note. But the Jude that wrote, notice who he is. He's the bondservant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James.

So that narrows it down. Of all the people named Jude or Judas in the New Testament, there's only one that we know about whose brother was named James, and that is Jude, the half brother of Jesus, literally related to Jesus Christ. Both James and Jude, Judas in this case, were related physically to Jesus. That is Joseph and Mary were his parents, Jude's parents, and James.

Whereas Jesus had Mary as his mother but was conceived in the womb by the Holy Spirit, a half brother of Jesus. We meet them in Matthew chapter 13. The text says, coming to his hometown, that's Nazareth, he began teaching the people in their synagogue and they were amazed.

Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers, they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? That's who we believe wrote the book of Jude, Jude the half brother of Jesus. So verse one then speaks of a transformation that happened in Jude's life, for he says Jude a bondservant of Jesus Christ.

He wasn't always a bondservant of Jesus Christ. In fact, did you know that Jude and James and the other brothers, half brothers, did not believe in Jesus while Jesus went through his ministry, three and a half year ministry on the earth? They thought Jesus was nuts. They thought he was delusional.

They thought the lights were on but nobody's home. They thought he was one taco short of a combo plate, whatever delusional metaphor you want to use. They thought that about Jesus.

We're told as much in Mark chapter 3 as the crowds gathered in Capernaum and Jesus, it says, was unable to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him for they said he is out of his mind. They thought he was bonkers. They didn't believe in him. Now I'm bringing this up and I'm underscoring it because I want those of you with unbelieving family members to be encouraged by this.

Even Jesus Christ had family members who were unbelievers. So the question is, well what happened to Jude to make him a believer? And isn't it interesting he doesn't say Jude, the half brother of Jesus. He says Jude, a bond slave of Jesus.

What happened? What transformed him from an unbeliever to a bond slave of Jesus? A very profound event known as the resurrection. See when your half brother dies and then gets up from the dead, that'll do it.

That's enough. And when that happened, he became a believer so we find him in the book of Acts chapter 1. It says they all met together, that is in the upper room, continually for prayer along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus.

Jude was in that upper room. The resurrection is what brought him to faith. So remember this, never give up on those you love. Never quit praying for your family members. Never stop having hope for that unbelieving family member.

You never know when the grace of God is going to break through and grab that heart, have something happen, and there'll be a transformation. So that's Jude. Jude is the ADC, the aid to camp in this army. The commander is Jesus, Jude a bond servant of Jesus Christ. Now I call him a commander because that is how he is depicted in Revelation chapter 19. That's his second coming. He is depicted as a commander.

He comes on a white horse. John who wrote the book said he comes with the armies of heaven. He pictures him with a sword to strike the nation so he's battle ready. John further says he judges and makes war.

He even has the blood stains of his enemies on his uniform. So this is not gentle Jesus meek and mild. This is giant Jesus mighty and riled. This is the warrior Christ. This is the second coming. So he is the commander of this army.

And the troops were the recipients of this letter and by proxy us today. For he says in verse 1, to those who are called, sanctified by God the father. Sanctified means set apart. And I like this preserved in Jesus Christ. So God called us to himself. He set us apart for himself and he will protect us by himself. You are preserved. Just latch on to that word for a moment. Preserved in Jesus Christ.

It means to carefully guard or protect. I tell you what, it's nice to know before you're going into battle that you're going to be preserved. It's like okay you're calling me to fight here but then the commander says yeah but I want you to know the odds are so in our favor. We are so going to win this battle. Hands down the ultimate victory is already ours. You're going to be preserved.

Now there's going to be skirmishes along the way. Hence the book of Jude. But you will be kept. You will be preserved. And notice in God's army there are some great military benefits.

Mercy, peace and love multiplied. So you're in the army now. It's not a question is, the question is not will I be a soldier? The question is will you be a good soldier? Will you be a faithful soldier? Will you be a loyal soldier? You and I are part of this army.

So that's the army. Let's look at the second component to this battle. The hostility. That really takes us to verse three. That's the heart of this whole introduction. Beloved, I like that it begins that way. Loved ones. People that I love because he's going to talk about some really heavy hard-hitting things so he wants them to know they are deeply loved by him. Beloved or 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.

That's something I think you need to know. The first few verses of this letter are the nicest part of this letter. So just remember that because it's going to sort of go downhill from here as far as niceness is concerned. It's going to go uphill in terms of revelation but the first few verses are like the nicest part.

Beloved and then the very end of the book is going to get nice again. There's that benediction but you just kind of hold on to that. So what he's saying is this in verse three, I originally sat down to write you a letter of encouragement about our common salvation following Jesus and celebrating being saved but it didn't come out that way. I'm giving you rather a call to arms to get into a fight.

Warren Wiersbe wrote, the Holy Spirit led him to put down his harp and to sound the trumpet. Now I can relate to Jude. Jude is saying I'd much rather tell you about something else. I'd rather write to you something really sweet and encouraging. I didn't but I'd rather.

I mean I relate to that. I'd much rather preach encouraging sermons. I would much rather talk about heaven. I'd much rather do a series on family relationships and love within that relationship. I would much rather do another series on give peace a chance and talk about the peace of God. Love all those subjects.

Nobody likes to talk about fighting. I'd much rather do a series on the acts of the apostles than on the acts of the apostates. But he said I found it necessary. Notice that I found it necessary to write to you exhorting. The word necessary literally means pressured. It means to compress or to squeeze. The idea is to have pressure come upon you. So the idea that I get is he sat down to write something really sweet but the Holy Spirit kept applying the pressure until he wrote this.

And what is this? What is he calling us to exactly? Well he tells us in verse three to contend earnestly or vigorously for the faith. What does that mean?

You know what contend means. It means to fight. He's saying put up a good fight for the faith. The New Living Translation puts it this way. Defend the truth. The JB Phillips translation translates it put up a real fight for the faith. The New English Bible says join the struggle in the defense of the faith. The Message translation by Eugene Peterson puts it fight with everything you have in you. So you get the picture. You get the ideas. Calling us to fight. I'll give you one more translation. The NSV. Ever heard of the NSV?

The new Skip version. I'll put it this way. Put on your boxing gloves. Get in the ring.

Don't be afraid of your opponent. Let's take it to task. Let's do this.

Let's get involved in the fight. Now the word contend happens to be an athletic term. An athletic term. Now I'm going to say the Greek word and you're going to try to listen really carefully and see what that sounds like. So the Greek term is apagonizomai.

Let me do it again. Apagonizomai. Agony. Agonize. We get the English term agonize from that.

So picture an athlete, since it's an athletic term, running the Olympic whatever he's running or she's running in and just straining and just straining with the muscle to the point of agony to win. That's the idea of contend vigorously or earnestly. You'll never fight God's battles from a sofa. You'll never contend for what really matters to the point of victory by just cruising in your lazy boy all day. You're going to have to decide to get up as part of the house and join the fight. You say, wait, wait, wait, wait. What are we fighting for? What's this all about?

Well he tells you that. Put up a good fight for or contend earnestly for the faith. What is that? The faith is a term, a construction, a term in the New Testament that refers to the body of Christian truth as given in the New Testament. The body of Christian truth.

That's Skip Heitzig with a message from the series Fight for the House. Now here's a resource that will nourish your soul with God's amazing truths. Here's what Norm Geisler said about the book Tactics.

There is no better book to equip Christians to think clearly. Here's Skip Heitzig on the need to engage in active spiritual warfare. You'll never fight God's battles from a sofa.

You'll never contend for what really matters by just cruising in your lazy boy all day. You're going to have to decide to get up as part of the house and join the fight. Become a contender for biblical truth with Fight for the House, a six message series through the book of Jude with Skip Heitzig. This teaching series on CD equips you to get in the ring to defend the gospel and guard against false teachings. And it's our thanks when you give to connect more people to the truth of God's word. And when you give $35 or more today, we'll also send you the book Tactics by Gregory Kochel to help you speak the truth about Christianity with confidence and grace.

Call 800-922-1888 to give or visit connectwithskip.com. Now real quick, we want to invite you to follow Skip on social media to get important updates and biblical encouragement. Just follow Skip on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for all the latest from Skip and from this ministry. That's at Skip Heitzig at Skip, H-E-I-T-Z-I-G. And come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares about a powerful tool you have to fight for the faith. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.