Series Title: Book of Jude (http://www.springvalleybiblechurch.org/pages/Jude.htm)
Series Sequence Number: 1
Lesson Title: Contend for faith not with faith (http://www.springvalleybiblechurch.org/Audio/Jude/m3u/20030805Jude1.m3u)
Date: 2003-08-05
Fellowship:
Received humorous article on "Seasonal Anxiety Disorder" SAD... Nuclear war, stock market, no jobs, global warming, thanksgiving dinner! It's too much.
Could use help with tape reproduction.
Presents a Letter of thanks for the Tape ministry from Betty Shoop: reference to Epistle of John teaching regarding Sheep, and lambs she bottle fed who long knew her voice.
Prayer Requests:
NOTES:
Currently also studying the Book of Revelation
The teaching of Balaam is mentioned in various passages previously discussed by included in full in the notes: Revelation 2:14 (NASB95) (Negative Diagnosis) 14 'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. [1]
Deuteronomy 23:3-5 (NASB95)
3 "No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of their descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall ever enter the assembly of the Lord,
4 because they did not meet you with food and water on the way when you came out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam the son of Beor from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you.
5 "Nevertheless, the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you. [1]
2 Peter 2:12-16 (NASB95)
12 But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,
13 suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you,
14 having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;
15 forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16 but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet. [1]
Jude 1:1 - Probably wasn't a preacher to be able to write such a small book. The book of Jude is often neglected; even in this church, though previously covered in part in the Survey class.
Jude wanted to write about the gospel of faith; but through the Spirit taught about false teachings. God's truth and Satan's lie sound very much alike. They use the same words with different meanings. That is where you have to stay sharp to tell the difference. People let their thoughts roam over their finances, their daily plans, their life, etc... Listening for the buzz words (Grace, Love, Faith), and then they assume the pastor / teacher has "gotten it".
If someone stood up and said they were teaching "Works" and "Doing for God", it wouldn't fool anyone. The mystery is about words and about the meaning of words, words that look the same on paper, but mean very different things in practice. This is why Paul says it is a devastating, deceitful evil. False teachers speak of salvation by grace, meaning: if you do what we tell you to do, then God will save you, and that's grace. False teachers define works as what everyone else is teaching. Salvation is by grace... All you got to do is Confess and Repent - That is NOT Grace; but, if you let them "slide" on this point, then the next step is going off down another path on another gospel that is not the Gospel of Christ.
President Bush recently got himself in political hot water with a comment about homosexuality. He is a political leader, not a spiritual leader. He needs our prayers. But this is a case in point: A priest who stands up and says "I am a homosexual, follow me in truth" is someone we would all know is a false teacher. Someone who stands up and condemns homosexuality, adultery, fornication, stealing, lying, gossip, maligning, slandering, etc sounds so good... But is really taking you down the road of Law (legalism).
We will not be exegeting this passage, rather going through this rather quickly.
Jude 1-3 (NASB95)
1 Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ:
2 May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.
3 Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. [1]
Discussion:
Jude 1:1
Jude and James are both half-brother's of Jesus Christ, called, and beloved, and kept secure for Jesus Christ 2 Until you know the flesh, mercy isn't a big deal, but once you come to know how awful we really are, mercy takes on a whole new meaning.
3 Beloved ( is who you are in Christ ). Jude was eager to write about "about our common salvation", but the sprit moved him to write about contentions for the true faith: False teaching about some sort of works.
Summary regarding the common salvation
1 Common salvation for Jew and gentile:
2 All who are saved are saved in a common way
3 Salvation does not always refer to salivation 1, but to all deliverances by God. Common deliverances. In "He that is Spiritual" by Lewis Sperry Chafer it says (paraphrase) "that all salvations are to be viewed as common salvations from God and should be properly viewed as a work of God and can only be received by Faith."
Jude 3 This book was written in the first century after Christ was born, but already there is false teaching. Even Cain was subject to false teaching. So this book is about the fight for the faith that was once given to us saints. There will always be false teachers coming, and sounding right, but teaching false. Christ taught about love, but Mattox is teaching about Faith, and that is because Faith is what is necessary to receive the Love of God. Faith is the only thing God can accept from Man. This was the whole issue with Cain, because Cain offered himself, his works. The Flesh is worthless. You need to understand that it is Faith only, and nothing else, and you need to know why. The false teachers are taking you away from faith. "Contend" is present middle infinitive meaning it is continuous action that is action needs to be repeatedly taken.
The sin nature is always present. It is waiting for a little thought to give it a moment of having the edge, to swoop in and take over your life. We need to be on guard when we are listening. Many pastors preach that you shouldn't read books from other people. The roman catholic church taught that the individual didn't need the bible, and shouldn't have it because the common person couldn't understand the bible. By keeping the bible out of peoples hands, Satan controlled the bible. So the battle for the truth of faith is continuous, constant, daily. When we listen to others, when we read others, we have to be aware. These others may be languages geniuses, but you have to be aware for contentions of faith.
We are in a battle. An invisible but real battle. Paul: we battle "against the powers and principalities of the air."
Ephesians 6:12 (NASB95)
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. [1]
How do we fight? How do we contend for the faith? There are imperatives in the bible to "be happy", but for our lives, our marriages, our work, our daily traffic battle... How? How do we fight for faith?
How we fight for faith:
1 See clearly the truth of the Gospel. Faith and only faith.
2 Guard yourself that you're not taken away from faith to any other performance gospel. We instinctively go to the Law (Jude 1:10, below). We know the Law by instinct, but the Law will kill (2 Corinthians 3:5-9, below). Psychology knows that children need appropriate clearly delineated rules and consequences in order to grow up healthy. We instinctively are attracted to Law. We know performance by instinct, but we don't know grace or love by instinct. Paul knew that Faith and faith alone was the truth, but throughout his ministry he sold out again and again. If you have faith in Christ, faith in God, faith in the Spirit, He will lead you in the doing of multiple of things that are the Christian life.
Jude 10-11 (NASB95)
10 But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.
11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. [1]
2 Corinthians 3:5-9 (NASB95)
5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God,
6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
7 But if the ministry of death, in letters engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, fading as it was,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory?
9 For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.[1]
Philippians 1:27-28 (NASB95)
27 Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
28 in no way alarmed by your opponents-which is a sign of destruction for them, but of salvation for you, and that too, from God. [1]
There are over 10 designations of the Gospel: of faith, of the kingdom, of peace, of your salvation, etc. Each of these has a slightly different emphasis.
How do you "conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ?" Conduct yourself by faith.
The presidents wife has been a great support to him, not drawing attention to herself. She has been seeking no political agenda. She has been there for him, supporting him in the privacy of their life. The president cares what Americans think, he cares what the rest of the world thinks, but he is not alarmed that they oppose him.
Jude 1:3 - Jude was probably very excited about what he might have written about, but he listened to the spirit and wrote about contending for the faith.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, the message is "Trust Me". Understanding that first, then a comment like this in Jude becomes clear.
What is the faith that Jude is referring to? This is a greatly debated theological point. If Faith in our text is "that which is believed or bible doctrine" it means one thing. If Faith in our text is "Trusting Him", it means quite another.
Faith is:
1 the body of doctrine that is believed
2 the act of believing: faith
3 the manner of living by faith
Word Biblical Commentary - (Buckman?):
"In the use of Pistis by Jude, there is no reason to suppose by Pistis anything other than the gospel. It need not refer to confessional doctrine that is the roman Catholicism that had already infiltrated the early church. Nor does Jude imply the idea that a defined body of orthodox doctrines which commentaries frequently attribute to Jude. Jude's readers need to contend not for some particular formulation of Christian belief but for the central Christian message of salvation through Jesus Christ, and that by faith."
4102 pistis { pis'-tis}
from 3982; TDNT - 6:174,849; n f
AV - faith 239, assurance 1, believe + 1537 1, belief 1, them that believe 1, fidelity 1; 244 GK - 4411 { ?????? }
1) conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, generally with the included idea of trust and holy fervour born of faith and joined with it
1a) relating to God
1a1) the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ
1b) relating to Christ
1b1) a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God
1c) the religious beliefs of Christians
1d) belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same
2) fidelity, faithfulness
2a) the character of one who can be relied on [2]
It took centuries to develop the doctrines, the theology, the massive teaching of truth we have today. What they had was "Salvation by Faith". A roman catholic scholar will use this same passage as a strong announcement of the confessional formula. This passage can be seen any way you want. The bible has likely been written this way on purpose. But if you understand the message from God to be "Trust me - I'm God - I'll do it" then you will understand the bible in a completely different way.
How do we live? We should live in the same manner by which we were saved. We live by faith, and not by performance. Living by faith we will perform, but when we perform, it is as a product of faith.
Jude explains it himself:
Jude 20-23 (NASB95)
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, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting;
23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. [1]
How do you pray in the Holy Spirit: Some don't teach how to do this, some do: Charismatics teach an experience: the Second Blessing; Others teach works: repent, confess, be baptised, be holy; but you have to ask yourself if maybe the right answer isn't simply "Trust Me".
How do keep yourself in the love of God? It is a Fruit of the Sprit, so go to the Sprit to get it. How? Perform? Do this? Do that? Or Trust Me?
Galatians 6:1 (NASB95)
1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. [1]
Closing prayer:
Thanks for the study: the fun of verse by verse and searching the scriptures. Prayer for the president and his wife Prayer for the assembly: encouragement, guidance in the spirit in this battle
[1] New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[2] Strong, J. The exhaustive concordance of the Bible : Showing every word of the test of the common English version of the canonical books, and every occurence of each word in regular order. (G4102). Ontario: Woodside Bible Fellowship.