Series Title: Book of Jude (http://www.springvalleybiblechurch.org/pages/Jude.htm)
Series Sequence Number: 4
Lesson Title: Contend for faith not with faith (http://www.springvalleybiblechurch.org/Audio/Jude/m3u/20030826Jude4.m3u)
Speaker:Herman Mattox
Date: 2003-08-26

Scripture List: Jude 1:1-7; Jude 1:17-18; Revelation 2:5; Revelation 3:3; Galatians 3:1; Hebrews 3:7-4:16

Fellowship:
Studying the church of Pergamum in the book of Revelation, which has taken the current series of lessons into the Book of Jude.

Herman expresses appreciation for his friends and congregation. Pastor Mattox's mother died this day. She is home with the Lord. This is a bitter sweet time, very sorrowful, very happy.

Opening Prayer:
What a wonderful God you are Heavenly Father that you have given us all the information that we need to fulfill our destiny and our purpose in being here: in the simplicity of just trusting you. False teachers have tried to confuse this simplicity, tried to distort it, tried to make it something far more exaggerated, making it law, making it works, making it performance. False teachers have done everything they can to this simple message. Yet, heavenly Father, it is there for those who desire to see. We thank you.

Father thank you for the assurance we have in regard to the death of those we love who are in Christ. Welcome home my mother tonight with her family, with her mother and dad, with her sisters, brothers, husband, even her children. Thank you so much for relieving her of the tension and the burden of this old body that withers away.

I pray that you will be with me, be with my family, with the assurance, the joy and the peace that you give. Thank you for taking her home. Thank you for loving her. Thank you for welcoming her in Heaven where she now will know no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain in reference to that body. Thank you for the assurance that I will see her, and we will all see each other, in a very short time.

I praise you Father in Christ's name. Amen.

Fellowship:
I don't know when the funeral will be. Be in prayer about that. Probably we will have a whole message... that's the priveledge you get as being a pastor... I'll do a tribute to my mother - mother's in general, in the next week or two. She was a great friend, a great woman, not only a mother, but a friend. The closest friend I've had for the longest time. Whether I was good, bad, or indifferent, she was always there, she never judged, she always loved. I'm going to miss her as a friend and mother.

I went to see her a few weeks ago. She was cognizant. We took off in the wheel chair. We went four blocks and we found a little Mexican restaurant. It was genuine Mexican food. We sat and ate. She just looked at me, she said "What is this about?".

We had discussed this before: "What is this about?" We had talked before about how she wanted to go home, be with God. But this time it was also more profound. She described herself and the seemingly pointless continuation of life beyond a certain point, vulgar, lacking physical activity. We had a good time.

No class Wednesday night.

Thank you again for being here tonight. I would rather be here than anywhere else.

Introduction:
Jude 1-7 (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 [not by performance, but by position in Christ], 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 [fight for] for the faith which was once for all handed down [delivered] to the saints.
4 For certain persons [false teachers] have crept in unnoticed, [infiltrated, not easy to detect] those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation [whose condemnation was written about long ago], ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5 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.
6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. [1]

Lesson Notes:
False teachers are therefore not those who teach obviously weird, horrible, non-biblical or ridiculous messages: he's not talking about the Mormans and the snake charmers. He is talking about those you listen to, and accept because their message, on the surface, sounds so well.

That "long ago" is very important because false teachers have been around all the way back to Cain, Job's three friends. Not easy to detect. They look good, they sound good.

Remember! This battle is over words. The false teacher will use the same words: grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, cross, Jesus, Christ, holy, sprit, all of this; the meanings will be entirely different when God uses them. The battle is over words, over wisdom.

We have seen before the spiritual warfare has three characteristics: One of those is that it is like a courtroom. What do you hear in a court room? What does it look like? Do you see/hear a fight? No. There are no boxing gloves, and sweat. Everyone is in a suit, and they get in there and they look nice and they talk. They both use the same words: justice, integrity, right, wrong, and the words of the Law. The difference is wisdom.

Who are the "ungodly"? Not just those in the beer joints, or the Bill Clintons of thee world, but those without the power of God, those who do not have the power of God by faith in the Holy Spirit. It is not those who act in certain ways that you consider ungodly, but those who act as you believe the godly act; but acting so without faith which is a condition you can NEVER detect. You will be deceived.

How do you lead a people into licentiousness? Do you stand before them and say "Hey lets all go be licentious tonight?" No! You teach LAW! Take your church your congregation under Law. Law, if you read the Bible, INCREASES sin.

You will never see it, unless you know what to look for. Very few preachers are teaching "faith". The solution most have is to get under law; but they do not realize they are only increasing the problem.

You know EVERYTHING you need to spot a false teacher. You know that you were saved by grace through faith. You KNOW That. If you always bear that in mind - If you hear a preacher say "Now to be filled with the Spirit... Now to be blessed of God... Now to be a mature believer... you've got to do..." you should have bells go off in your head. "NO! No! NO! Wait a Minute, that is not correct, that is not how God works, it has to be related to faith."

You have the model in you salvation: Grace and Faith!

Jude 17-18 (NASB95)
17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18 that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts." [1]

"Reminding" and "Remembering" are essential to seeing truth in a blurred world. These are essential to remaining true to truth: Truth is grounded in how God acts throughout history. Why god delivers throughout all history, what causes God to deliver throughout all history: it ALWAYS involves faith (though the blind and false will see performance and works). Don't only remember the events but also be reminded of the significance of those events, and stay within the context of false teachers all throughout history.

All of a sudden Jude goes off on an apparent tangent:
5 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.

What is he doing here? This is why the gospel is mentioned over and over in the epistles. It isn't to get them saved. You don't talk to believers about the gospel to get them saved; they already are saved. Why did they do that? To remind them how they are to live. To remind them how to be restored from sin; how they are going to be blessed of God.

Why "Egypt ... destroying those who did not believe" all of a sudden? Why the gospel? To remind them! All throughout the bible, from beginning to end there is one message that is never going to change: "I am God. Trust Me."

A false teachers says you have to "repent". There are pastors today, more and more often, who will say from the pulpit that God does not want your faith, but that God wants your "obedience of works". Seeing the truth we are seeing here, "To see faith as a pattern of how we are saved: that is intriguing, but it simply is not the case, God does not want your faith".

Yet Jude is compelled by the Spirit to write of false teachers, and to remind us of the destruction of those who did not believe, to remind us of our salvation. This is the point of communion, to remind us of faith, to remind us of grace. You have everything necessary not to be deceived by false teachers, IF you REMEMBER. Live in the same manner as you were saved: by faith!

Revelation 2:5 (NASB95)
5 'Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place-unless you repent. [1]

Emphasis has left their first love, and needs to "remember" and return to the beginning!

Revelation 3:3 (NASB95)
3 'So remember what [HOW] you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. [1]

They preach: "join the church", "repent", "confess", "feel sorry", "promise God", "yield", "make Him Lord! That's not what the bible says even though it's all there in the bible. Stop! Remember! Don't be fooled by the noise and clamor and beauty. All God is looking for from the creature is to trust him from beginning to end.

You can identify false teachers whenever someone is not teaching "faith". The issue is faith, for those who will see. "The issue of faith is especially prominent when encouraging believers to fight for faith. In the midst of such heretical deviations from the truth of the gospel that we have in America today. Where seminaries are saturated with things like Lordship Salvation, all kinds of things on how to be filled with the Spirit" [2]

America today is saturated by false teachers who are godless because they do not teach the truth of faith. America is in trouble, not because of the heathen; but because of the body of Christ joyfully accepting those who do not teach the truth. Just as in marriage, people have married those who look good and sound so good; but they discover that after the marriage ceremony there is little more than unhappiness.

Galatians 3:1 (NASB95)
1 You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? [1]

God the Father is Lord, Jesus Christ is Lord, The Holy Spirit is Lord. If you limit your focus to to simply Christ the you will miss out on all that the other's may bring to your relationship with God. If you insist that it is ONLY Christ, and I would broaden my faith to include the three, let this difference not prevent us from breaking bread together.

Look at things in terms of the Angelic Conflict with respect to faith and faith alone. Faith allows God to be Glorified. Think about it. "I confessed. I repented. I felt sorry." Do you see your emphasis? The angels are watching, and they observe you offering "whatever: your confession, sorrow, repentance", and your asking God to be so motivated by that offering to act in your behalf. The Angels observe if what you offered God was enough for God to act upon. You are the issue.

However; "Dear God, My hands are empty, I have nothing to offer you. I trust you." Who is at issue now? Is your faith enough for God? That is what Angels are watching. Cain gave his very best. Is your confession sincere enough? Is your sorrow sorrowful enough? In faith, the emphasis is God, and He alone is glorified because He alone is the issue. You have nothing, and offer that to God, and the Angels turn to God to see what He will do. His Love, His Mercy, His Grace are the issue and are demonstrated to the universe when you trust Him.

If you want to make Satan furious, "don't charge Hell with a bucket of water" [that is a joke]; simply "Trust God".

Hebrews 3:7-4:16 (NASB95)
7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness [Jude's reminder],
9 Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. [Do you remember how the Mana came? That's what kind of God He is.]
10 "Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, 'They always go astray in their heart, [we first sin in the soul, before Eve ever ate of the fruit, she had already departed; before Adam ate, he had stopped trusting.] And they did not know My ways' [faith] ;
11 As I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.' "
12 Take care, brethren, [believers] that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.
13 But encourage one another day after day, [your husband, wife, friends, need encouragement every day. It is so much more powerful when you encourage each other] as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. [walking by the law, hardened and walking by more and more law]
14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,
15 while it is said, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me."
16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned,[What sin?] whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient [disobedience defined in the next verse]?
19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. [disobedience is related to faith and no faith; it is nor related to the Law]
Hebrews 4:1-16 (NASB95)
1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise [Trust Me] remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.
2 For indeed we have had good news [Gospel: Trust Me] preached to us, just as they [The Jews] also ; but the word they heard did not profit them [Why?], because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
3 For we who have believed [faith] enter that rest [no work], just as He has said, "As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest," although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. [Believer's don't need to work because God finished all the work in eternity past]
4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works";
5 and again in this passage, "They shall not enter My rest."
6 Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news [gospel] preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, [cf. above, No Faith]
7 He again fixes a certain day, "Today," saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, "Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts."
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that.
9 So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.
10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.
11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience[lack of faith].
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword[the LAW kills both ways], and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens[ascension], Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. [1]

Closing prayer:
Heavenly father thank you for having made this so clear. You have always acted this way. You have never changed, you are immutable. You do all that is necessary. The false teachers have come, they are alive and active in America. We pray that you will help us see the truth, to fight for faith and stand firm on it. Take these and make them a reality in our lives, trusting you. We praise you father in your Son's name, AMen.

References:

[1] New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995. LaHabra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[2] quote from an unspecified source