It is a great pleasure and privilege to be with you all today. My name is Anthony.
Today's scripture reading is from Jude 1, 1 through 4, page 1055 in the Bibles in
the back of the pews. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to
those who are called, loved by God the Father and kept for
Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Dear friends,
although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it
necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered
to the Saints once and for all. For some people who were designated for this
judgment long ago have come in by stealth. They are ungodly, turning the
grace of God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ our Lord and Master. This is
God's word. Amen. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Jude, chapter
1. We're gonna be spending the next few weeks in the book of Jude as we explore
the book under the heading or under the sermon series title, Hold the Line. I
want to start this morning by sharing a story. A gentleman named Hino Onoda,
it's Japanese so I'm butchering it I'm sure, but Hino Onoda was a second
lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Now he was
conscripted into the army at the age of 20 years old and he was trained as an
intelligence officer and part of his training was also in the art of guerrilla
warfare. December of 1944, which was less than a year before Japan would
ultimately surrender, Onoda was sent to the Philippine island of Lubang to
conduct guerrilla warfare and his particular objective was to destroy some
airfields and disrupt anything that the Allied forces were doing in the area be
at the US or the Philippine Commonwealth troops. He was given also two very
specific pieces of instruction. He was told number one you must not surrender
and number two you cannot take your own life. You must keep fighting. You must
keep fighting. Well come February 1945 US troops came and occupied the island and
in doing so they forced Hino and three other soldiers into the mountain
ranges and surviving on bananas and coconuts and stolen rice and anything
they could get their hands on they would occasionally come down from the mountains
and engage in local shootouts with locals as well as the police force on
the island. During their time in hiding they conducted all kinds of guerrilla
warfare campaigns and ended up over the time that they were there killing
something like 30 civilians whom they thought were actually guerrilla warriors
for the opposition for their enemy. They evaded the American and Filipino search
parties attacking the villages and engaging in their guerrilla warfare. Well
the first time Onoda, I just switched his name, Onoda, the first time his
group saw a leaflet fall from the sky announcing that Japan had surrendered in
the war was over was in October of 1945. There was another cell of Japanese
guerrillas who were on the island and they found another note that said the
war ended on the 15th of August come down from the mountains. Well they
concluded that this was allied propaganda. It must be. They're trying to dupe us and
so they would not come down and they did not believe that the war was over.
Toward the end of 1945 leaflets with a surrender order from the general of
Japanese 14th Army was dropped from the air. Onoda's group studied it very
closely they examined it to determine whether it was genuine and they decided
it was not. A couple of the gentlemen who were with him found their way separate
from the group and one surrendered and two of the other ones ended up dying in
a gun battle with local police.
1974 February. Onoda encounters a gentleman by the name of Nori Suzuki, a
Japanese adventurer who was on the island and he had told friends of this
myth that there was lieutenant Onoda on the island and he was going to find him.
He was going to find a panda and he was going to find the abominable snowman in
that order. 1974 he's hiking the mountains and he comes across Onoda
after four days of searching on Lubang and Onoda later describes that meeting
as this hippie boy Suzuki came to the island to listen to the feelings of an
old Japanese soldier. They became friends but Onoda still refused to
surrender telling Suzuki that he was waiting for orders from his commanding
officer. The name of his commanding officer was Yoshimi, Major Yoshimi and so
Suzuki made his way back to Japan with the photographs that he had taken of
Onoda and the government tracked down the major Yoshimi and together
they got hopped on a plane and flew to the island so that the major could stand
face to face with Onoda and tell him in accordance with Imperial command the
14th area army has ceased all combat activity. In accordance with military
headquarters command number A2003 the special squadron in the chief of staff's
headquarters is relieved of all military duties. Units and individuals under the
command of the special squadron are to cease military activity and operations
immediately and place themselves under the command of the nearest nearest
superior officer. When no officer can be found they are to communicate with the
American or Philippine forces and follow their directives. On March 10th of 1974
Onoda surrendered to the Philippine forces. Surrendered to them after ten
thousand four hundred and sixteen days, 28 years of holding his post on that
island until he heard otherwise. Pretty incredible story. What's even more
incredible is that he wasn't the longest. Only another private held out just a
little bit longer and surrendered in December. He was on an island in
Indonesia awaiting his orders. I got my papers all mixed up. What's incredible to
me about this story is it's a story of a man who took very seriously his orders
in his call. He took very seriously his orders of his commanding officer and he
was committed to not be deceived by the enemy even though it was misguided for
many many years. You can imagine a man who held the line no matter what the
cost was as his family got older. As the years ticked by and the decades ticked
by he held the line even if it meant nearly 30 years of isolated living on an
island. Well the book of Jude calls us to hold the line in a different way but I
think that there's some parallels in the man's determination and doggedness
to stay the course. Let's look at a little bit of background information on
the book of Jude. The book of Jude is small. It's only one chapter. It was
written in that standard first century form with a greeting at the beginning, a
body, and then a benediction at the end. The author identifies himself as Jude,
the brother of James. Jude is just another rendering of the names like
Judah or Judas which we see throughout the Bible. A very popular name at this
time. Early church fathers in the first century, Clement and Origen as well as
the second century to Tertullian all attributed authorship of Jude to the
brother of James, the half-brother of Jesus. This is Jesus's brother who's
writing the book. In the book of Mark chapter 6 verse 1 we hear, he left there
and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him. He's talking about
Jesus. When the Sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard
him were astonished. Where did this man get these things they said? What is the
wisdom that he has been given to him and how are these miracles performed by his
hands? Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joseph,
Judas, and Simon? And aren't his sisters here too? And so they were offended by
Jesus. As I said, Jude is another form of the word Judah or Judas and so you have
Jude, Judah, or Judas. Well one of Jesus's brothers, the third one listed in Mark
and the fourth one listed in Matthew, is Judas. Jesus's family actually didn't
believe him during his earthly ministry. We're told in John, the book of John. They
didn't believe in him. But after his resurrection they believed and we find
that James, his half-brother, the brother also of Jude, who was Jesus's half-brother
because Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit. You know, Mary and the Holy Spirit.
What? You didn't have the father, Joseph, and so his half-brothers are all those
who were born of Joseph or any other if Mary happened to remarry. And so his
half-brother James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. Jude, while he, we
don't know specifically where he ministered primarily, and most likely
would have been in that same area that Jesus ministered and in the region of
Judea. It's generally thought that this book was written sometime before the
temple was destroyed. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman
occupiers and so this would have been sometime before 70 AD. And we also know
that James, his brother, is believed to have been stoned to death by two outside
sources, Josephus one of them, that James was stoned to death around 62 AD and
that Paul was executed only two years later in 64 AD. So you can imagine the
times that they're in as this letter is being written. We're many years removed
from Jesus in his public ministry and his ascension and now we're into this
apostolic age where the Apostles are spreading the gospel and Jesus's own
brothers are participating in this ministry with James as a leader in the
church in Jerusalem and Jude who most likely was doing ministry in the region
of Judea, maybe an elder of some sort. But then James is stoned by the rulers
and Paul is executed in Rome. And so you can imagine the times in the church as
this fledgling little spark of this thing that Jesus started. The question
is, how's it going to go? Is it going to last? Is it going to take hold? Will it
spread? Will it become beyond the region that is in it or will it be isolated to
where it began? Paul, the Apostle Paul, knowing that he was on his way to his
death heading first to Jerusalem and then ultimately in his imprisonment, he
calls the elders of the Ephesus, one of the churches that he was a part of
and planted and loved dearly. He calls those elders to meet with him as he
makes his way to Jerusalem. And one of the things that he tells those elders
on his way that will ultimately land him in prison and death, he writes this to
the elders in Ephesus in the book of Acts chapter 20 verse 28. He says,
be on your guard or be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock of
which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers to shepherd the church of God
which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure, savage
wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Men will rise up even
from your own number and distort the truth to lure disciples to follow them.
Therefore, be alert. Remember that night and day for three years I never stopped
warning each one of you with tears. You can imagine at this time as these
leaders are finding the end of their life through martyrdom and being
executed and the words of Paul to the church in Ephesus, wolves are going to
come. They're gonna be among you. They're gonna rise up and they're gonna try to
lead astray disciples to teachings in ways that are not in line with Christ.
And you have to be watchful. You have to be like a shepherd beating back the
wolves. This is his instruction to the church in Ephesus. False teachers and
false teaching will worm its way into the church. I think you guys know that's true
even today. It doesn't take very long for you to peruse. Just look up in each
scripture, any passage, pop it into YouTube and begin to listen through all
of the messages preached and you'll hear some wild things being taught
by so-called Christian ministers. False teachers and false teaching will worm
its way in. And that's the occasion for this letter. Jude is going to challenge
you and I as we walk through this journey to hold the line and study the
book of Jude. Jude is challenging us even today. Are you ready? Are you prepared to
hold the line? Are you battle-ready? Do you have knowledge and faith that is
lived out in your life or are you one of those stealth Christians flying under
the radar? Only you and God know for sure.
I'll ask when human sexuality is distorted and it's made, remade as an
idol to our own independence and rejection of God, will you hold the line?
When Christian ministers teach a message that is contrary to the revelation of
God through his word, will you reject them or will you reject the Word of God?
When the world invites you to join, join with it in celebrating the prideful
rebellion of self-worship, will you join in or will you be his people even if
every other people on this planet rejects you, ridicules you, ostracizes you
and cancels you? Will you be his people?
So if you have your Bibles, let's jump into that verse. Verse one there. Verse
one begins. I'm really bad at this paper thing today. Luckily I put numbers on it.
Okay, there we go. I also can't hear out of this side of my ear so like I feel
like I'm leaning and not quite straight today but it's all good. Verse one.
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who are called,
to those who are the called, loved by God the Father and kept for Jesus. Verse one
actually gives us a the first of two triads that we're gonna get here in the
opening. The first triad and this addressed addresses the letter to those
who are the called, to those who are the called, the loved by God and the kept for
Jesus. Now the language of being called is what we kind of what we talked about
last week. To be God's people is to be called out, gathered up people. Those who
are called out of the world, called out of the way of the world and gathered up
around Christ and so to be one of those who are the called out ones is to be
someone who is separate and this always relates to holiness. To be called out is
to be invited into the presence of God and to be invited into the presence of
God is always an issue of holiness. In the same chapter that Bethany read earlier,
chapter 8 of Romans, you have a scripture Romans 8 28 that says this.
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who
are called according to his purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to
be conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among
many brothers and sisters and those he predestined he also called and those he
called he also justified and those he justified he also glorified. The calling
is not just a hey follow me around and be the same you. Hey you know invite
Jesus into your heart so that you can add him on to everything else that you
already do. It's a calling out in a way and a calling to Christ and that always
involves holiness. His whole calling is about conforming us to the image of his
son. Yes we are justified in Christ. Why are we justified? So that we might be
glorified. What is glorified except that we are made holy? And so Jude says this
letter is addressed to those who've been called. Those who've been called to a
place of holiness come out and be separate. He also says in that first triad
in verse 1 those who are called and those who are loved by God the Father
this is language of the beloved. His children who are beloved. Those that he
loves and cares for and holds dear to his heart. Called to be holy. Beloved
children. And finally kept for Jesus. The Greek word for kept can mean keep or
guard. Observe, watch over, maintain, preserve. If you are a believer in Jesus
Christ you can rest in the salvation that he has given to you. The Holy Spirit
who enters you at the moment of salvation is the promise that you will
be kept throughout this life and into eternity. Being kept means I am secure in
Christ. So why did Jude, if you've read the book of Jude, why did Jude open with
this? This first triad and then the next one that he gets into. Why did he open
with this when we're gonna get into all kinds of judgment and all kinds of crazy
talk in the middle of it? The rest of the book of Jude will talk about judgment
and that judgment that is reserved particularly for those who teach others
to live out a twisted and distorted lie in place of the gospel. But he contrasts
that with this opening that if you are called and you are beloved and you
are kept by Jesus for Jesus. That means mercy not judgment awaits you. That's why
he begins his second triad in verse 2 with the idea of mercy. Verse 2, may mercy,
peace, and love be multiplied to you. Mercy, peace, and love. The second triad is
mercy, peace, and love and it says be yours in abundance or multiplied to you.
Why mercy? Well mercy, there's nothing, nothing that daily we as believers don't
need more than a mercy, unmerited mercy. For only unmerited mercy can meet the
constant need of habitual sinners like you and me. Only the mercy of God day
after day and so we need mercy and we need peace. I talked about a little bit
earlier in worship but when a man knows himself or a woman knows herself to be
accepted with God undeserving though they may be this gives a person a deep
deep sense of peace in their life. It's not, peace is not, oh I'll be okay with
every situation. I'll be fine with it. If I have the peace of God I'm gonna look
at every situation and go no worries it's all good. Every pain, no, no, I
don't feel anything. That's not what peace means. Peace means I know he will
keep me through the pain. I know he will keep me through the disaster that's
before me. He will keep me, he will hold me fast. I can fall apart he will not.
That's actual peace. That's peace because without that peace we fall apart.
We fall to pieces. We reject core things about what we believe and how we view
the world when we get into dire situations. We do all kinds of terrible
things to people. The peace that he provides in Christ is this underlying
rock, the sense that though everything be falling apart and though I'm crying my
eyes out and life is terrible I will not be broken over this. I will not be
shattered to the point of oblivion. He will keep me to the end. Mercy, peace and
love in abundance. Abundance meaning be filled full. Do you pray for your
friends? Do you pray for your friends? Do you tell your friends what you pray for
them for? I know I was convicted this last week just kind of looking at my
prayer life and looking at the prayer life of the different groups that I'm in
and that we, well I'm a part of small groups in Bible studies and just
realizing how much of our prayer is about health. Pray for my health. Pray for
the health of others. Pray for the person who's dying. Pray for the family of the
person who's dying. Pray peace. Let's keep doing that. Let's keep doing
that but let's also pray for an abundance of mercy and peace and love on
our friends who aren't in pain, who aren't hurting, who aren't down. Just pray
blessing upon blessing that their life would overflow and they would be
drowning in the love of Christ. Let's make sure we include those in our
prayers too. It can be very easy just to default into it's not very, anyone have
any prayer requests? We're looking for specifically for health needs, pains in
your joints, whatever it is, right? Do you pray for your friends? Do you
tell them what you pray for? Verse three, dear friends, although I was eager to
write you about the salvation we found, we share, I found it necessary to write
appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the Saints
once for all. He says I found it necessary. He said I wanted to write to
you about this the salvation that we share. I wanted to glory and the awesome
truths of the gospel and I wanted to sit and talk to you on paper. I wanted to
write to you and tell you about the joys and the privileges of what it means to
be a son and daughter in Christ and and we really should be talking about that
but something compelled me and the word there that says I found it necessary
actually means something like I snatched my pen up. I snatched my pen up. I wanted
to write this but I snatched my pen up because I was compelled to write
something else. There was an urgency. I began to see something unveiling,
something before my eyes and I could not wait any longer. I had to write to you. I
am appealing to you he says. I'm urging now, now an urgency and what's the
urgency? What is he appealing? What did he snatch up his pen to make sure to
communicate to these people called, loved and kept in Christ? His message was
contend for the faith. Contend for the faith and the word contend means meet
effort with effort. Meet effort with effort. Strive against opposition. The
faith that was delivered to the saints once for all. Contend for the faith that
was delivered to the saints once for all. Delivered is more than just a messenger
service delivering a package. Delivered is the idea of entrusted. The faith which
was entrusted to the saints. The faith which was put in guardianship with the
saints. The faith which was given to the caretakers who are the saints. That's
what he's saying there when he says contend for the faith that was given or
entrusted. Put into guardianship.
You are to caretake the faith which is the authorized tradition handed down
from Christ to his apostles, his apostles to the rest of us. God has given
over to his people a recognizable body of teaching about the son Jesus. A body
of teaching that is not to be taken from or added to about Jesus has been
delivered to the saints, entrusted to the saints to guard it and to keep it and
he says contend for it. Meet effort for effort. There is an effort to undermine
it. Meet that effort with equal force.
In Acts 2 42 we're told about the first believers there at Pentecost and says
that they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching. The Apostles were
eyewitnesses to Christ's ministry here on earth. They were disciples who learned
from him about what it means to be citizens in the kingdom of heaven and
what was to come and so the Apostles teaching is what the early church and
believers devoted themselves to. It was the body of teaching that was entrusted
to the saints entrusted to you and me to keep. The original is authoritative in
the believers life. The original is authoritative in your life but here's the
catch for us today it's not always fashionable. It's not the fashionable
teaching of the day. Oftentimes it's far from it. Another Apostle, disciple John
in 2nd John 9 and 10 wrote everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the
teaching of Christ does not know God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both
the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching
do not receive him into your home or even give him any greeting. Give him no
greeting if he comes to you with a teaching that isn't the original. The
authoritative original handed to the Saints to entrust through the Apostles.
Don't greet him. Don't stick out your hand and say brother you've got something
that's not right. Don't bring that here. True progress in the faith is faithfulness
to the apostolic teaching about Christ. True progress. We don't move beyond. We
don't need new teaching. There was a movement I was at the Keswick movement
in I think was Scotland or England. It was this big movement right and it was
all about next-level Christianity right. There's all of you and then you could
get to next-level Christianity. You know if you just do these certain things you
get the secret knowledge you get this prophetic word spoken over you. You too
could be in the second or the higher class of Christians not among all those
peasant Christians and to that you would say no. Something's not right with
that. Something's not right.
The word that Jude uses to translate that we translate contend is this idea.
Defense of the faith will be continuous costly and agonizing. Defense of the
faith will be continuous costly and agonizing. You will be unfashionable. You
will be unfashionable if you stand on the truth of the faith. If you are faithful
to the faith and trusted to the Saints once for all you will be out of touch
with the world and the way of the world. You will be well you will not have a
place in the halls of even the liberal church in America.
You will be labeled by whatever the flavor of the day is bigot, phobic, hater.
You will be called unloving and what you will have is you will have distorted
debased devilish people quoting scripture back at you to call you out
and you will be tempted to believe that they are correctly judging you with
scripture and that you need to play nice, shrink back and be quiet. That's what
this world will look like if you truly contend for the faith. So are you
prepared? Jude is calling out are you prepared? Will you contend for the
faith once for all handed down? Have you devoted yourself to the Apostles
teaching so that you know the real deal when you face the counterfeit? See we
can get into this very devotional mindset where it's like I need to read
the Word of God a little bit every day for my good. No! You need the Word of God so you
know truth so you can sniff out the counterfeit and you can stand like a
rock against it. Who cares about you? Sorry. We are the people of God entrusted
with the Word of God through the Apostles to hold true to stand steady in
the face to be in the face of every effort to come and undermine it every
teaching and false teacher. People have died for this. Your brothers and sisters
in the past have died contending for the faith. They've died because people said
oh that's not very loving of you. I thought you were a Christian. They've
died because they stood their ground and would not bow their knee to whatever
cultural idol was that flavor of the day. They took the ridicule. Do you know that
you have brothers and sisters in the faith that you will meet one day in
heaven and you will walk the streets of gold and they can share with you stories
about how their business was shut down because they stood on Christ and refused
to bow. That they were no longer allowed to make a living in that city because
they would not bend. That they were no longer invited to the parties. You will
have brothers and sisters in heaven who can tell you stories about how the fact
that they would not go to the festivals in the city that they were labeled as
those who were bringing curses upon their village and they were hated
everywhere they were looked they were spit upon and despised. I don't know
where we got the idea that to be a Christian is to be this nicey nice pants
who just stays quiet and makes no enemies. That's not our history. Our
history is standing true. We don't make enemies for the sake of making enemies.
We stand upon truth and truth is either loved or hated. And this is the call that
we have and Jude is sitting wherever he's at and he said I was going to write
to you and I wanted to have a nicey nice devotion with you about salvation but I
couldn't help it. I snatched up the pen because I need you to know you've got to
contend for the faith. It's in danger. There are wolves in sheep's clothing
among you and they're bringing teaching. We're gonna get into what that teaching
is and it's no coincidence that for us today in this age that Jude we're mapping
it out in the month of June because it's very similar what he was contending
with and what we contend with in our day and age. If you don't know the month of
June is pride month in our nation and if you don't bow to that idol you may
well pick up a label and Jude is here saying you know what contend fight meet
effort with effort hold true to the apostolic teaching know it so well that
you can sniff out the counterfeit and stand firm. Don't be obnoxious. Don't be
hated because you should be hated. Be hated because you held to the truth
tight and would not budge. If you don't move beyond the squishy Jesus loves me
and has a wonderful plan for my life and yours to contend for the faith fight for
the truth. Understand your position in Christ. Understand that there is a
coming judgment to all of those who are outside of Christ. All who reject the
idea that there is a king and creator over their life. Wrath is coming and only
in the risen Son of Jesus Christ will they find mercy. Only in that arc can
they be saved from the waters. Wrath is coming. As you are prepared to contend
you will be shipwrecked as well as instead of snatching folks from the fire
you will politely smile. Stay in your lane as their own mind is darkened their
destruction is made certain and their eternal destination is secured. That's
not what God is calling his people to. God is calling his people to meet effort
with effort to contend for the faith to fight for the souls of the lost and to
stand up to and against false liars who use the very word of God to destroy
people. Yesterday was June 1st launch of what our society is called Pride Month.
If you if you're a social media person you can see it as every icon changes
every profile picture changes. What's really sad is when you see ministers
began to post one yesterday happy Pride Month. I hope you feel validated and
like you have an ally in me. That was just one minister out of multiple that I
saw on one platform vocalizing an agreement with and partnering with what
God is against and instead of saving people from the wrath that is to come
they are smiling politely minding their business as their friends and family and
folks around them as their mind is darkened. Their destruction is made
certain and their eternal destination is secured. May that not be who we are. May
we stand and contend for the faith. The question as we enter this series is will
you hold the line?