The grace of God is to move you to live better, not okay you living worse. Dr. Tony Evans says grace isn't a path to stay where you are, but rather power to become who God calls you to be. Grace addresses wrong. Grace confronts wrong. Grace will forgive wrong.
But grace and power is right. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. In today's world, it's not always easy to tell what's true and what's not, especially when the lies come dressed in religious language. Today, Dr. Evans takes us to the book of Jude to show how spiritual lies can sound convincing, even godly, and why discernment is essential to avoid being misled.
Let's join him as he begins. The biblical writer Jude wants to make sure that we are being delivered from deception. There was a concern when the church began about the rise of false teachers who would infiltrate the church and deceive God's people. The reason I chose the book of Jude is because we are living in that day when the church is being infested and infiltrated with false teachers, teaching false doctrine and deceiving people in the name of God. And one of the jobs of the pastors in Scripture, according to the Apostle Paul in Acts 20, verse 28, he tells the leaders to be on guard. He says, be on guard because wolves were trying to sneak in and devour the saints. And so he wants you and me to discern, have a spirit of discernment so that we are not duped by deception of false teachers. We're introduced now to Jude.
First of all, the person. Verse 1, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. So Jude is a half-brother of Jesus. He also defines himself as a bondservant or a bondslave. To be a bondslave means to be a slave in shackles. Jude says, I am a bondslave of Jesus Christ. That is, his relationship with Jesus Christ is one who had radically submitted to Jesus' lordship. Paul uses this phrase about himself. He is a bondservant or bond...he's shackled by Jesus Christ.
He's owned by Jesus Christ. One of the problems today is that there is a large percentage of Christians who have not submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ. They're not bondservants.
They're not bondslaves. They may have accepted Christ as their personal Savior, but they're not yet following Christ as their Lord. They have not become his slave.
And to the degree that you're not a slave of Christ, only a son or daughter of Christ, to that degree you are more liable to deception. Because it's hard to go but so far if you're in chains. See, if you're in chains, you can't wander but so far, like having a dog on a leash.
A dog can't go but so far because you are holding it hostage. Well, this is the issue or the goal of God for every believer, and that is that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is master, if you will, and you are his servant or slave in the sense of yielding to his will. So, Jude tells us he's a bondservant. He now comes and he wishes a blessing on those who he is writing. This is called a general epistle. It floated around the churches so that it was read everywhere. It wasn't just written to the church at Ephesus or the church at Thessalonica or the church at Colossae. Those were specific letters to specific churches.
This is a general letter, so it circulated to all the churches. He says, mercy, peace, and love, verse 2, be multiplied to you. In other words, I want God to give you as much mercy, peace, and love as you can handle. That's his prayer, his request, his desire. It's a common one, that mercy, you not getting what you do deserve. Peace, that God's calm and tranquility will rule in your heart and life. Love, that you will experience God's best for you, because love is seeking the best in another person. And I don't just want God to give you more of it.
I want him to use the multiplication table. May it be multiplied to you. May you see more of it and more of it and more of it and more of it, and may there be exponential growth in your experience of God's reality. But remember, he's praying this, requesting this, as a bond slave. Make the connection. You are able to get this multiplied in your experience to the degree that God has shackles on your life, your heart, your mind, your soul, your will.
Okay? So that's the context of his introduction, and that's the man, Jude, the half-brother of Jesus. Now he comes in verses 3 and 4 and gives the reason why he is writing. He moves, we move from the person to the purpose of the book, or the letter.
Why is he writing this? Beloved, that's an intimate term of relationship. Beloved speaks of intimacy, a heart of concern. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, let me pause there. He says, I was planning to sit down and write to you about our common salvation, the great salvation that we have through faith in Jesus Christ. I was gonna write to you about…maybe he's gonna talk about…he doesn't go into it, but maybe he's gonna talk about justification or redemption or maybe he's gonna talk about salvation present, sanctification. Maybe he's gonna talk about propitiation. Maybe he's gonna talk about grace. Maybe he's gonna talk about faith. He was gonna talk to them about the great common salvation that we all share by faith in Christ. That's what he planned to do when he sat down, picked up his pen, and began to write. I plan to write to you about our common salvation.
I felt the necessity—I felt burdened in the way— to write to you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. In other words, he says, I switched. I sat down planning to write to you about one thing, then I got so overwhelmed by this other thing, I switched from the first thing and went to the other thing.
Okay? It's like me planning a sermon to preach on Sunday, and then when Sunday comes in, I switch because something has happened. Something has been seen. Something has been done.
There's something that's happened in society, maybe, that has now overwhelmed me and taken me from what I plan to do to what I'm now doing. And that's why you always—by the way, as a side note, there'll be a lot of side notes as we go through here, I'm sure—but the side note is you always have to be open to the Holy Spirit adjusting your plans. Now, that's what he does, because he can turn on a dime. You got Philip, holding an evangelistic crusade. The Holy Spirit comes, whips him up, and then takes him to talk to the Ethiopian eunuch out of nowhere.
It just switches the plan all of a sudden. That's why the Bible says, say, if the Lord wills, because you always give God the right to change the plan. And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in, and unfortunately, a lot of believers don't give God that freedom. Give God the freedom to switch the script, if the script needs to be flipped.
Okay? Give him that freedom, because that way he's leading you. He's guiding you, and you give him that permission, and he'll change something, change your mind, change the circumstance, bring somebody in your life.
He'll do something. You got to ask God, is this you? Are you making a turn here that I didn't plan on? So make your plans, just leave room for a switch.
So he gets a switch. I plan to talk about our common salvation, but when I sat down to write, I went another direction, and what I want to talk to you about, he says, and without a necessity—and that's one of the ways the Spirit does it—he puts a burden on you, you can't shake. It was not a necessity, I couldn't shake it, to write to you, appealing to you, begging you, insisting that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. He wants you to fight for the faith.
The word contend earnestly refers to an athlete striving with great intensity for victory. So he's calling for intensity of protecting the faith that has been once and for all delivered to the saints. What that means is the body of doctrinal truth that has been written in Scripture that is the guide for life and practice of the believer. That's what he means by the faith. He's talking about what was delivered. He says what was delivered, the faith that was delivered. He's talking about the body of truth that's written in Scripture that was delivered to the church, starting with the prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New Testament, bringing together 66 books of the Bible that is the basis of our faith through which life and practice is to be determined. So, Scripture is to be the deciding factor in decision-making.
That's the bottom line here. Scripture is to be the deciding factor in decision-making. What you're going to discover in a moment is what the false teachers want to do is dilute. Scripture's authority in the life of the believer. If he can shrink Scripture's authority in the life of the believer, in your life, in my life, he can dilute its effect and benefit to us. When Dr. Evans returns in a moment, he'll show how embracing Scripture for what it truly is can transform everything. First though, today's presentation is the opening message in a short but timely series from Tony called Jude Delivered from Deception.
In these three powerful lessons, you'll learn how to identify spiritual counterfeits, stand strong in the truth of God's Word, and live courageously in a culture that often compromises biblical values. If you'd like to experience the full-length version of these messages, they're available as instant digital downloads as well as on CD or a USB flash drive. They're our gift to you when you make a contribution to help keep the alternative on this station and others like it around the world. To learn more and request your copy of the Jude series, whether for yourself, a friend, or a small group, visit tonyevans.org. You'll find the offer featured right on the home page or speak with one of our friendly resource team members anytime day or night by calling 1-800-800-3222.
That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll share that contact information again after part two of today's teaching and this. It's beyond a Sunday sermon, a chance to really dig into the Bible and the kingdom in a new way, anytime and anywhere, because it's all online. The Tony Evans Training Center, in-depth courses on all kinds of topics, cultural transformation, intro to expository preaching, Jude, John, Hebrews, Old Testament, New Testament, and so much more. These aren't sermons. They're teaching courses to help you engage, understand Scripture, and not just to hear about, but to explore the kingdom of God on your own.
Find out more at tonyevanstraining.org, tonyevanstraining.org. Notice 1 Thessalonians 2-13. Let me just turn there and read that to you. For this reason, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the Word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the Word of man, but for what it really is, the Word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. He says, the Word of God works for people who accept it as the Word of God and not as the Word of men. Many times Christians want to know, why is the Word not working? Well, one reason the Word may not be working is that you're not receiving it as the Word from God, but the Word either of man or been convoluted by man. So he says, I want you to contend earnestly for the body of truth that has been delivered to the saints, which of course is the Word of God. We do not believe that the Bible is merely words about God. It is the Word of God in print. We are living in a day when people are bringing man's Word into the church, putting it alongside of God's Word, and wanting it to have transforming authority.
And it won't, okay? As Jesus said, you do nullify the Scriptures with the tradition of men. You can cancel out God's effective Word if you bring in man's Word and make it of equal authority, even when it contradicts God's Word. So I want this body of truth to be the standard that was once for all delivered to the saints. His purpose is further developed in verse 4.
Why are you telling us this? What's the big deal that you switched your writing, Jude? For certain persons—certain persons—have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long before marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turned the grace of our God into a lewdness. That's what that word means. It's a license.
You see the word license in there. It's a lucidiousness that is lewd in its nature and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. You see the bondservant theme again. Master Lord, okay? Because he's a bondservant, and he's writing to them as people who are to be bondservants or enslaved to the lordship or the rulership of Jesus Christ in their life, submission of his will. His concern is certain folk have snuck in the church, and guess what? They snuck in unaware. So folk don't know they're there, okay? They are like a thief who has snuck in through the side door, pulled up a window.
It's dark. You don't know they're there. So he introduces this danger of the creepers, okay?
They look like something they were not. So his concern is that they are not misguided by what he calls ungodly persons, and here's what they do. They turn the grace of God into a license. Now, let me show you Romans chapter 6. Chapter 6, verse 1 of Romans says, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? In other words, watch out for folks who take the word grace and use it to say it's okay to do wrong. That's what Paul says in Romans 6.1. He says, Shall we use grace so that sin can increase?
Okay. Shall we say, since God's gonna forgive you, it's okay. Do we justify our sin or the sin of others, or do others justify it for us to make us feel okay about evil because of the grace of God? Do they use grace to excuse evil? He says, if they use grace to excuse evil, they are evil. Because the whole point of grace is not to excuse us, it's to lift us out of it. That's what the rest of Romans 6 says, to lift us out of it.
He says, a meganoita is the Greek phrase that he uses in Romans 6, meaning God forbid, heavens no. You don't use grace to excuse sin. God does forgive sin, but the point of grace, Titus 2 11 says, the point of grace teaches us to deny ungodliness. Because grace is supposed to teach us to live better, not okay us living worse. Be sensitive to the misuse of grace to excuse wrong. That's grace does not do that. Grace addresses wrong. Grace confronts wrong. Grace will forgive wrong, but grace empowers right.
The grace of God is to move you to live better, not okay you living worse. That's why, in some cases, not all cases, people will flock to a church that will not deal with sin, because then they can go to worship and be comfortable. They know nobody's gonna mess with them. They know nobody's gonna say nothing. They know they're not gonna hear any strong sermons of conviction.
They know that's not gonna be an issue. I'm gonna feel good. I'm gonna be entertained. I'm gonna like the singing, like the preaching, you know.
I'm gonna shout. I'm gonna do all that, but I'm not going to be made to feel guilty. And what they didn't do at the end of the verse is they misused the grace of God and deny our only Master and Lord. In other words, see, if Jesus is Lord, He makes the final decisions. If He's Lord.
If you're a born slave, the Master tells you what to do. But Jesus does not make the final decisions because they deny Him that right and that role. Jesus is after lordship, yes. By faith in Him, He becomes your Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ becomes your Savior. But the Lord Jesus Christ becomes your Savior does not necessarily mean that you're functioning in recognition of that lordship. This leads Him then, after establishing what His concern is, certain men have snuck in. He says in verse five, Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.
He goes now to the penalty. He says, I want to give you a number of illustrations of, watch this, the penalty on false teachers and those who follow them. He says that even though you know this, the Lord saved the people out of the land of Egypt, so the Exodus, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. So the illustration number one is Israel dying in the wilderness.
That's illustration number one. Israel died in the wilderness after having been delivered or saved out of Egypt. So they were saved out of Egypt, but that generation did not get into the promised land.
The question is why? Well, number fourteen, God sends 12 spies into the land to spy out the land. Two come back and say, let's go. God promised, let's go take it.
Joshua and Caleb. Ten came back and said, there are giants in the land. Okay, so we had 12 leaders. Ten of the leaders said, I don't believe God. That's why you got to have leaders who believe God, okay, who believe God at His Word. Two of the leaders said, God is telling the truth. We can't let the circumstances dictate our actions.
Yeah, the giants are big, but God has already given it to us. Let's—remember the definition of faith? Let's act like God is telling the truth, okay?
Let's act like He's telling the truth in spite of how bad the circumstances look. Now, here's the point. Only Joshua and Caleb got into the promised land from that generation. The ten leaders didn't get in, but here's the point.
Neither did the two million people following them. They let—watch this—the unbelief of the leaders rub off on the congregation, because the leaders did not believe God and the congregation followed the wrong leadership. Don't let anybody lead you, okay?
Don't let anybody lead you. You have to be—you have to be serious about the Word of God, treating it as the Word of God. And so the leaders—the leaders took their unbelief and got the people to believe it. So the people took the ten words—the words of the ten men over God's Word.
And what he's saying is, don't subject yourself to false leaders. Dr. Tony Evans, on the importance of knowing and embracing God's Word. You know, here at The Alternative, our goal is to provide resources that strengthen your faith and equip you to live a life of purpose and impact, serving as a conduit of God's hope and love to a world in need of His healing presence. That's why you're encouraged to visit tonyevans.org and explore the wide range of tools available to support your spiritual growth.
Books, CDs, DVDs, Bibles, study guides, resources for teens and kids, and more. And be sure to check out the special offer I mentioned earlier, Tony's current three-part audio series, Jude Delivered from Deception. It's our gift to you in appreciation for your financial support of The Alternative. Visit tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222 to get your copy. That's 1-800-800-3222. Some of the most dangerous lies in the church sound spiritual on the surface, but as the saying goes, not all that glitters is gold. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans reveals how false teachers can twist grace into permission to sin, and why defending the truth is essential to fulfilling your destiny. Be sure to join us.
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