Untitled Sermon (7)

The Enemy (Jude 3–4)

We have already noted that Jude set out to write an encouraging letter about “the common salvation.”

The name Jude (Judah) means “praise,” and he was anxious to praise God and rejoice in the salvation God gives in Jesus Christ.

But the Spirit of God changed his mind and led Jude to write about the battle against the forces of evil in the world. Why?

Because it was “needful” for the church.

I must confess that I sympathize with Jude. In my own ministry, I would much rather encourage the saints than declare war on the apostates.

But when the enemy is in the field, the watchmen dare not go to sleep.

The Christian life is a battleground, not a playground.

Jude wasted no time in identifying the enemy.

They were ungodly (v. 4b).

This is one of Jude’s favorite words.

While these men claimed to belong to God, they were, in fact, ungodly in their thinking and their living.

They might have “a form of godliness,” but they lacked the force of godliness that lives in the true Christian (2 Tim. 3:5).

They were deceitful (v. 4c). They “crept in unawares.”

The Greek word means “to slip in secretly, to steal in undercover.”

Sometimes Satan’s undercover agents are “brought in secretly” by those already on the inside (Gal. 2:4), but these men came in on their own.

Peter warned that these men were coming (2 Peter 2:1) and now they had arrived on the scene.

How could false brethren get into true assemblies of the saints?

The soldiers had gone to sleep at the post!

The spiritual leaders in the churches had grown complacent and careless.

This explains why Jude had to “blow the trumpet” to wake them up.

Our Lord and His Apostles all warned that false teachers would arise, yet the churches did not heed the warnings.

Sad to say, some churches are not heeding the warnings today.

They were enemies of God’s grace (v. 4d).

Why did they enter the churches?

To attempt to change the doctrine and “turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4).

The word lasciviousness simply means “wantonness, absence of moral restraint, indecency.”

A person who is lascivious thinks only of satisfying his lusts, and whatever he touches is stained by his base appetites.

Lasciviousness is one of the works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19) that proceeds from the evil heart of man (Mark 7:21–22).

Peter had already warned these people that the apostates would argue, “You have been saved by grace, so you are free to live as you please!”

They promised the people freedom, but it was the kind of freedom that led to terrible bondage (2 Peter 2:13–14, 19).

The readers both Peter and Jude addressed knew what Paul had written (2 Peter 3:15–16), so they should have been fortified with Romans 6 and 1 Corinthians 5–6.

The apostates, like the cultists today, use the Word of God to promote and defend their false doctrines.

They seduce young, immature Christians who have not yet been grounded in the Scriptures.

Every soldier of the Cross needs to go through “basic training” in a local church so that he knows how to use the weapons of spiritual warfare (2 Cor. 10:4–5).

They denied God’s truth (v. 4e). “Even denying the Lord that bought them,” Peter had warned (2 Peter 2:1). Jude was not writing about two different persons when he wrote “the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” for the Greek construction demands that these two names refer to one Person. In other words, Jude was affirming strongly the deity of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God!

But the apostates would deny this. They would agree that Jesus Christ was a good man and a great teacher, but not that He was eternal God come in human flesh. The first test of any religious teacher, as we have seen, is, “What do you think of Jesus Christ? Is He God come in the flesh?” Anyone who denies this cardinal doctrine is a false teacher no matter how correct he may be in other matters. If he denies the deity of Christ, something will always be missing in whatever he affirms.

They were ordained to judgment (v. 4a). Jude did not write that these men were ordained to become apostates, as though God were responsible for their sin. They became apostates because they willfully turned away from the truth. But God did ordain that such people would be judged and condemned. The Old Testament prophets denounced the false prophets of their day, and both Jesus Christ and His Apostles pronounced judgment on them.

Why should these men be judged by God? To begin with, they had denied His Son! That is reason enough for their condemnation! But they had also defiled God’s people by teaching them that God’s grace permitted them to practice sin. Furthermore, they derided the doctrine of Christ’s coming (2 Peter 3). “Where is the promise of His coming?” They mocked the very promise of Christ’s coming and the judgment He would bring against the ungodly.

Of course, they did all these things under the guise of religion, and this made their sin even greater. They deceived innocent people so that they might take their money and enjoy it in godless living. Jesus compared them to wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt. 7:15).

How, then, should the church respond to the presence of this insidious enemy? By earnestly contending for the faith.

“The faith” refers to that body of doctrine that was given by God through the Apostles to the church. The word doctrine is found at least sixteen times in the Pastoral Epistles alone. Paul admonished both Timothy and Titus to make sure the believers were being taught “sound doctrine,” which means “healthy doctrine,” doctrine that promotes the spiritual health of the local church. While individual teachers and preachers may disagree on the fine points of theology, there is a basic body of truth to which all true Christians are committed.

This body of truth was delivered (Jude 3) to the saints. The word means “to be entrusted with.” The church collectively, and each Christian personally, has a stewardship to fulfill. “But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak” (1 Thes. 2:4). God committed the truth to Paul (1 Tim. 1:11), and he shared it with others, such as Timothy (1 Tim. 6:20). He exhorted Timothy to entrust the Word to other faithful men (2 Tim. 2:2). You and I would not have the Word today were it not for faithful believers down through the ages who guarded this precious deposit and invested it in others.

The church is always one generation short of extinction. If our generation fails to guard the truth and entrust it to our children, then that will be the end! When you think of the saints and martyrs who suffered and died so that we might have God’s truth, it makes you want to take your place in God’s army and be faithful unto death.

What does it mean to “contend for the faith”? The Greek word is an athletic term that gives us our English word agonize. It is the picture of a devoted athlete, competing in the Greek games and stretching his nerves and muscles to do his very best to win. You never fight the Lord’s battles from a rocking chair or a soft bed! Both the soldier and the athlete must concentrate on doing their best and giving their all. There must also be teamwork, believers working together to attack and defeat the enemy.

Sometimes you hear well-meaning people say, “Well, it’s fine to contend for the faith, but don’t be so contentious!” While it is true that some of God’s soldiers have been the cause of quarrels and divisions, it is also true that some of them have paid a great price to defend the faith. As Christian soldiers, we must not fight each other or go around looking for trouble. But when the banner of Christ is in danger of being taken by the enemy, we cannot sit idly by, nor can we ever hope to win the victory by wearing kid gloves.

False doctrine is a deadly poison that must be identified, labeled, and avoided.

Spurgeon also said, “I cannot endure false doctrine, however neatly it may be put before me.

Would you have me eat poisoned meat because the dish is of the choicest ware?”

We must always speak the truth in love, and the weapons we use must be spiritual.

At the same time, we must dare to take our stand for “the faith” even if our stand offends some and upsets others.

We are not fighting personal enemies, but the enemies of the Lord.

It is the honor and glory of Jesus Christ that is at stake. “Fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim. 6:12).