It's not uncommon for us as Christians to view what is happening in our culture as having a corrupting influence on the church. Today on Truth for Life, we'll find out that the greatest threat to faith often comes from inside the church. Alistair Begg is continuing our study in the book of Jude.
We're looking today at verses 3 and 4. One of the privileges and challenges of pastoral ministry is the opportunity to spend time in hospitals. I think probably pastors spend more time outside of those who are medical practitioners than any other people in the world. And no matter how many times I visit a hospital, I am always alarmed by hearing code blue. It usually just comes with some kind of warning sound, and then it identifies the location in the building, requiring an urgent response, acknowledging that there has now been a medical emergency. And every hospital, it would seem, has its own mechanism, its own policy, for making sure that a hasty response can be made—a hasty response to be made in hope that the patient will survive.
Someone has to be bold enough to sound the warning, breaking into the normal course of events, because of the gravity of the situation, because of the prospect of death. And the more I read Jude this week, the more I said to myself, you know, this transition here from two into three, from three into four, is in some ways a spiritual code blue. And what he's actually doing here is sounding a wake-up call to a church—or, if you like, to churches, we don't know the exact destination—to people who have half-asleep allowed people to creep in unnoticed into their congregation—not just certain people but ungodly people whom, Jude says, have an evil agenda. And so consequently, those to whom he writes this letter are facing a peculiar challenge that is not an external challenge but it is an internal challenge. In other words, it's not that they're on the ramparts, as it were, of the citadel looking out at those who are attacking them from the outside, but rather, Jude says, if you want to know how a church will collapse, it won't be as a result of what happens from the outside.
But it is because of an internal collapse. And it is that reason that he writes in this way. Now, he loves the people to whom he writes.
He's the shepherd of the sheep. And he realizes that those to whom he writes are going to need backbone if they're going to be able to heed this appeal. In fact, the word that he uses there—"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about this common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you"—is a word that we find frequently in our New Testament. Perhaps we would know it best in Romans chapter 12, and at the beginning of that verse, I beseech you, therefore, brethren. I beseech you, I urge you.
That's what he's saying here. I appeal to you. Appealing to you because you're going to have to contend for the faith. Now, that word again, that verb, is a very striking verb. It's a long word in Greek, but at the heart of it you would find agony. Agony. The verb, actually, is agonizomai. It comes in a different tense here. But he's saying there's going to be something that will really stretch you.
This is going to demand exertion. You're not going to be able to take this stand in a kind of willy-nilly fashion. You're going to have to be prepared to stand for the faith. Now, you'll notice, the faith. In other words, he's not talking there about the fact that they believe this faith subjectively. He's talking about the faith objectively—in other words, an objective body of truth that is unchanged and unchanging, that it has been expressed, settled once for all, and entrusted to these believers. The apostolic gospel, this once-for-all gospel, this faith isn't a loose association of ideas. It's not a concept that can be reimagined and can be reconfigured in relationship to the peculiar challenges of the day and of the time. There is only one gospel.
This is a matter that is absolutely crucial. It's the kind of thing that you get where Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, where we have the great chapter on the resurrection, that Jesus has triumphed over the grave. He's the only one that has done it. Muhammad didn't do it.
We would have to say that. Jesus was buried, but he could never find him, because he rose again. Neither that is part of the faith. Now, I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you, 1 Corinthians 15, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
That's striking! He's not actually just dispersing some vague notion about religiosity or spirituality or whatever it might be. Many of the sort of contemporary ways we look at these things.
No, it's very, very different from that. And the thing that makes it so striking is because of the relativism of our age. Because the immediate reaction of friends, understandably because of the way the last fifty years or so has gone, people will say, Well, surely that can't be the case. Aren't we agreed that all faiths are equally valid?
Aren't we happy to accommodate everyone and anyone? Surely, no one is going to claim once-for-all authority. Now, let me tell you something, and you can read history and find this out. The shift from the faith—the faith—to faith signals the beginning of the end of any church or any denomination or any intellectual institution. Read history. And realize that with some help from Scotland, I have to let you know that with some help from Scotland, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale once began, at the very core of it, with a training of ministers for the gospel—for the one gospel, the faith, once delivered to the saints, once for all. That's where they began.
Today, without being unkind in any way, they are far removed from their roots in historic orthodoxy. Now, this is what Jude is saying here. This is his appeal. I appeal to you. I beseech you that you will contend for these things, that you will be prepared to make a robust statement in the time in which you live.
Now, the attack that comes is multivarious but largely on two fronts. People would attack it by way of deletion. We don't have to be so bold. We don't have to be so firm. We believe in the resurrection, but we don't need everybody to believe in the resurrection. We believe in the purity of the Scriptures. But people have various ideas of the Scriptures, and so goes on. And any part of the overarching truth of the gospel that is embarrassing in a culture will, unless people are absolutely convinced and prepared to contend, will gradually slip away.
By addition, it is tampered with. Many of you come from a Roman Catholic background. I know that, because you tell me. And in conversation with our Roman Catholic friends—because people write to me all the time, because they listen to it on the radio.
And by and large, they write to say, you know, you're a fine fellow, beg, until we don't like you. Now, loved ones, we need to understand this, that Roman Catholicism has two foundations for authority—sacred Scripture and tradition. Both Scripture and tradition. And in their catechisms, they affirm that both Scripture and tradition must be honored and accepted with, quote, equal sentiments of devotion and reverence. Now, Luther. Luther then realized that he was going to have to choose between the teaching of the church and the teaching of the Scriptures. Because the Roman Catholic Church taught and teaches that only the church can interpret the Scriptures for the not-so-bright members of the congregation.
That's number one. Only the church can interpret it. And secondly, it believes that the Spirit still speaks through the church, thereby making the door open to ex cathedra statements by the pope, by the bishops, adding to the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. Where else do you think we get purgatory from?
There is no basis in the Bible for purgatory at all. What is happening? It is the tempering with the faith, either by addition or by deletion.
Are you still with me? Calvin says, if we consider what schemes the evil one employs to divert the faith, what was a useful warning in the time of Jude is more than necessary in our age. What age? The seventeenth century. Loved ones, you are sensible people. You have to read your Bibles.
You've got to think this stuff out. But I would wager that evangelicalism, of which we are a part, if there is such an ism, evangelicalism is probably more non-theological at this point in history than at any other point in history—more non-theological. So that you will even find those who are supposed to be the teachers of the faith in seminaries, teachers of the faith in churches, playing fast and loose with the very issues. It's one of the reasons that Jude is one of the most neglected books in the Bible.
Philemon only has about the same number of verses, but people are much keener on Philemon. It's cozier. This one is hard. This is uncomfortable.
This is a code blue. This is Jude saying, Contend for the faith. Well, that's the appeal in verse 3. Now we come to these certain people in verse 4. It's interesting, isn't it, that he just refers to them as certain people? Yeah, I'm sure he could have named them. For whatever reason, he chose not to.
Probably a good reminder to us. This is not a personality issue. And the men that we're about to meet in verse 4 will actually be very likeable people in our culture—very likeable people in an evangelicalism that has become non-theological.
A sort of happy time for the family—raise your teens, figure out your finances, and try your best to have a nice day and be as positive as you possibly can. But whatever you do, don't start into any of this stuff. No, no. No, they'll be very likeable. And in fact, if you're going to take the side of Jude here, then I need you to know that you're actually going to be unpopular. Unpopular. Which is a real challenge for some of us.
It's not a big challenge for me. I'm used to being unpopular. But the fact of the matter is that it is when push comes to shove. The Iron Lady is long gone. Speaking in political terms, not in spiritual terms—I wrote this down a long time ago—she said to people that she had met with, If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
If you simply set out to be liked, if being liked is the issue, then you're going to have to fudge on things, let go of that, agree to that, and enjoy being affirmed and recognize that actually you'll be accomplishing nothing. So the appeal is on the basis of the reason. Why are you making this appeal? Answer in verse 4.
Because of this internal opposition. Surreptitiously, crafty folks have crept in. They've crept in unnoticed. In other words, presumably these were itinerant preachers. These were people who had begun to make a name for themselves and would be able to be attractive to those who were seeking to follow the things of God. But these are infiltrators who have ingratiated themselves. By the time we get to verse 16, you get a flavor of that. It says that these are loudmouth boasters showing favoritism to gain their advantage.
Creeps. Oh, he's a very nice person. No, she's a lovely lady.
Oh, no. No, no, I think she would be very good for the Bible study. No, I think he'd be perfect.
Perhaps he should become an elder. Jude is issuing a really strong warning. He's not unique in this, and that's why I want to remind you of the second letter of John, where in the course of his letter he writes to his readers, If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching—that is, the teaching of the faith once delivered—do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting. For whoever greets him, takes part in his wicked works.
They'd be ingratiating themselves in such a way that people, blind people, will not understand the disguise. But, says Jude, you should know that this will not take God by surprise. That's the second phrase there in verse 4, isn't it? These people long ago were designated for this condemnation. Or in the NIV it says, This condemnation, or the results of this kind of activity, was written about long ago. And I think we're going to see something of what that means by the time we get, for example, to verse 11, where he's going back in time, and he says, Woe to them!
in contemporary terms. Because what they've done is walked in the way of Cain, and they've done this in relation to Balaam's error, and perished in Korah's rebellion. We'll have to unpack that later on when we come to it.
But for the time, what he's saying is, when this occurs, don't think for a moment that God, as it were, looks over the ramparts in heaven and says, Wow! How in the world? No. No, these certain persons are ungodly people. Their character will be revealed in their behavior, and their behavior will be an evidence of their beliefs.
What do they do? Well, they pervert the grace of God—the grace of our God—into sensuality, one, denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ, two. In other words, he says, beneath their pious skins, they are shameless characters. Their presentation will appeal to people who are happy to go to the broadest perspective possible on what it might mean to speak of a faith. But, he says, don't be deceived by it, because their strategy is to replace the grace of God with license.
With license. The issue, in technical terms, is antinomianism. Nomos is law, anti is against.
They are against any notion of the law of God. Now, the word that is used here for this sensuality is a graphic word. Aselgia it is, in Greek. And it covers the full range of things. It's not specific.
It's general. Sensuality, debauchery, sexual permissiveness, and so on. So what they actually do is they take the gospel call to sinners. What is the gospel call to sinners? Come as you are.
Right? Come as you are. You don't clean up and come.
You come dirty, I'll clean you up. Come as you are. And they change that to, you can stay as you are. You can stay as you are.
That's what they're saying. Oh, you can still sleep with the lady up the street. No, you can still do that.
Of course you can. I mean, it might be a little tricky for a while, but there's always forgiveness. They don't worry about that kind of thing.
That's what's involved here. The gospel perverted, changed, into a smokescreen for immorality. You see, what their message is, God loves us, everything goes. That's not the grace of God. When they ask the question, Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Romans 6, 1, the answer they give is, Yes.
And Jude says, You'd better be really careful here. Now, I'm not going to belabor it by going to contemporary illustrations. You can make the application yourself, and you will see how the moral and the doctrinal interface with one another. They pervert the grace of God into sensuality, they change the tune, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. In other words, they do what we're tempted to do, and that is change our view of God to fit our immoral choices. I mean, I, either confronted by the truth of God's Word, have to bow down underneath it and say, Jesus is my Master, and he is my Lord, and he's my King, and I don't have an option, or I have to reconfigure somehow or another.
I've got to go somewhere where somebody tells me, No, this is perfectly okay. You see, the great threat to the authority of Scripture comes not only by, you know, the addition of dogma in any form, but also probably the great challenge to the authority of the Scriptures in your life and mine is the authority of our experience. The bottom line is this, that we have no—and I'll have to come back to this—but we have no basis at all, if we're genuine Christians, we have no freedom to believe anything other than what Jesus taught. What Jesus taught, he then gave to his apostles. The apostles then wrote it down in the Scriptures.
They not only gave the revelation of who Jesus is and what he has done, but they gave the interpretation of that revelation—Christ died, revelation, for sins, interpretation, according to the gospel, explanation. We have no right to believe anything other than Jesus taught, and we have no freedom to behave in any other way than what he demands. How crazy would we be to step outside the borders of Christ's protective love?
It's because he loves us so much that he wants to hold us together in that way. Well, Jude the shepherd can't sit idly by and watch the invasion and destruction of the flock. He offers not helpful advice but a strong, striking, prophetic word from God through him to the saints, urging them to wake up and contend for the faith.
A necessary message, I think. Listening to Truth for Life—that is, Alistair Begg opening our eyes to the subtle and yet evil and destructive distortions that come from false teaching. As we heard today, it is vital for us to be declaring gospel truth to future generations. And with that in mind, we want to recommend to you books that will help you share God's love with your children and your grandchildren. And we're very excited about a book we have to recommend to you today. It's a brand new children's book that teaches what it means to be a Christian and to live under God's grace and blessing. The title of the book is C is for Christian, an A to Z treasury of who we are in Christ. And the book is written by Alistair. It's his first ever children's book. In the book, he offers 26 simple everyday illustrations to help young children understand the big ideas of the Bible, like what it means to be a new creation in Christ and how God qualifies us to be part of his perfect world forever. Ask for your copy of C is for Christian when you donate today to support the ministry of Truth for Life.
You can give online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Thanks for listening today. There are some who suggest God's rules are outdated and that Christians ought to be free from them. Is that true? We'll find out tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
