Stay Alert!
Text: Jude vs. 1-4
By: Ken McKinley
(Read Text)
Now while we’re going over the BFM during our Sunday mornings, we are going to be looking through the book of Jude in our Sunday evening services. It’s one of the shortest books in the Bible, but if I’m not mistaken I think 2nd John has fewer words. But I believe that the message of Jude is very relevant to us today.
But before we get too far into this sermon I want you all to turn with me to Acts 20:28 (Read). Hold your place there because we’re going to be coming back to this soon.
Now we just finished our series in Ephesians and in this passage from Acts was Paul speaking to the Ephesians and he tells them, “… take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood.” Now Paul was specifically speaking to elders in this passage, pastors at the church in Ephesus. And the reason Paul is warning them is found in verses 29 – 31 (read). He says that after he leaves Ephesus savage wolves will come in among the believers, and also from among those who were in the church people would rise up and speak lies in order to draw church members away.
Now keep this in mind as we turn back to our text in Jude (Read Jude 1-4). Jude was writing to “them that are sanctified.” Some versions translate that word as “beloved.” And then he goes on to say that they are preserved by Jesus Christ. He goes on to write that “there are certain men who crept in unnoticed, who were long ago marked out for condemnation. They are ungodly men who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
What Jude is saying here is STAY ALERT! He’s saying, “You have an enemy out there and he is seeking whom he may devour!” And so this letter from Jude is a call to arms! As you read through its 25 verses you see that the language used here is strong, it’s harsh, it’s severe, and it’s politically incorrect. This is straight talk, black and white, and to the point. Maybe that’s why you hear so few sermons on this book. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually heard a sermon on Jude.
But what Jude is saying is for Christians to GET UP! GET GOING! BE ABOUT YOUR FATHERS BUSINESS! FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH! WAKE UP! He’s saying the same thing that Paul said in Ephesians 5:14 (Read).
But why is Jude using such strong language? Well… because he’s talking about life and death here.
Now recently we had our SBC convention in Kentucky. I didn’t get to go, but I watched a great deal of it online, and just the other night I watched a panel 21 discussion with a couple of well known Southern Baptist pastors, the president of the Lifeway Research, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lewisville KY, and the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. The thoughts of these Christian leaders are that there are certain things that are evident, observed, and very troubling within the Church and within the Southern Baptist Denomination, and they are working hard at trying to fix them. And I agree with them.
First of all there seems to be a lack of serious theology in our churches and from our pulpits, secondly there is a lack of serious expository preaching – that means verse by verse, in context preaching, and what that results in, after a period of time, are serious problems for the Church. One of those is in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The church is the way that God has ordained that the Gospel should spread to communities. And I think what these guys at that panel were saying is that we in the Southern Baptist denomination have a lot of things that worked really well in the 1950’s and we have a lot of things that worked really well in the 1980’s but they aren’t doing so good right now. And so while we’re glorying in our past success, we have a generation that is going to split hell wide open.
So first, lack of serious theology being taught from the pulpit; second, lack of serious expository preaching from the pulpit; third, a lack of desire to fulfill the Great Commission; fourthly – a lack of vigilance at the rise and spread of false teaching which is causing some to stay from the faith. What that means is that they are hearing false teaching and thus aren’t hearing the truth, and therefore are not being set free, and are not believing unto salvation.
Now I hope you kept your place in Acts 20 because I want you to look at that again. Paul tells them to “Take heed…” In other words “Be watchful!” “Stay Alert!” He goes on to say in vs. 31 that he warned them day and night about this. Now I don’t know, but I think that if I preached on the same subject for 3 years I would probably get the right foot of fellowship, right out the door. But Paul warned them day and night, day after day after day, week after week after week, for three years! Now turn back to our text in Jude…
Jude isn’t saying to his readers that when you go out witnessing you will encounter evil… he’s not saying watch out for the Buddhists or Jehovah’s Witnesses you will run into when you are out witnessing for the Lord. No! He’s warning them about people in the church. People claiming to be Christians. Judes talking about double agents, people who have infiltrated the church. The problem is that most of them don’t know that’s what they’re doing. They don’t know that they are preaching and teaching lies and false doctrine.
Now these false teachers that Jude was referring to were probably the Gnostics. The Gnostics were a group of people who believed that you could only know God by getting a ‘special knowledge.’ In other words, there was this elite group of people, and when they got to a certain sphere of knowledge or this certain level of knowledge, only then would God reveal Himself to them. The Gnostics also believe in antinomianism. Antinomianism literally means ant-law. Basically they used grace as a license to live however they wanted. That’s what Jude is referring to in verse 4 when he says, “They turned the grace of God into lewdness.” The Gnostics also denied that Jesus was God, and they denied that His resurrection was physical. Again vs. 4 says that they denied God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now I’ve said all that to kind of give you an idea of where Jude was coming from.
Now I want to look at the letter itself.
We know that it was written by Jude, but how many of you know who Jude was? Well he tells us right there, “Jude a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James.” Turn with me to Mark chapter 6:3 and you’ll see that James was the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Or I should say, the half brother. And so Jude was also a half brother of Jesus. If you go to John 7:5 you’ll see that at first, none of Jesus’ brothers believed Him initially. It wasn’t until later that James and Jude came to believe that their half brother Jesus Christ was who He said He was… probably at the resurrection. In 1st Cor.9:5 they are called “The brethren of the Lord.”
So it’s interesting that Jude says of himself that he is a servant… a bondservant of the Lord. So even though Jude grew up with Jesus, knew Him, he still considered himself a servant of the Lord. A slave of the Lord.
Secondly; the letter was sent to 1st Century Christians. They were 1st called, then sanctified, or beloved of God the Father and kept or preserved in Jesus Christ. That right there should stop all debate about someone loosing their salvation. But we’ll go over it closely so that there isn’t any doubt.
Let me try to explain it this way. They, just like anyone else who is a Christian, were walking through life, doing their own thing, dead in trespasses and sin, but then God’s Holy Spirit intervened and does something in their life… maybe makes them unhappy in their sin, and begins to convict them, and show them their state of being lost. Then He gets them to such a low point in their sin, that He begins to take them places and put people in their path who are able to tell them the remedy for their sin – the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and through the preaching of the word He enables them, by faith, to cry upon the name of the Lord and be saved. They were called. Isn’t that what the church is? The Greek word for church is Ecclesia it literally means the “called out ones”
And so God calls them and loves them and sanctifies them. He calls them not because of the way they looked, or not because of the way they talked, or not because they had good thoughts from time to time, or because of good living, or because their parents were Christian. It is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. While we were yet enemies of Christ and still in our sins He loved us. So if you are a Christian, then you are called and you are loved, and guess what? You’re kept or preserved in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so Jude reassures the believers that they are not in danger of falling away, but there are those in the Church that are not yet saved, there are those who need to hear the Gospel preached, Romans asks us, “For how shall the believe unless they do not hear?” And if those people are in the church and they are not hearing the true gospel of Jesus Christ, but a humanistic, man centered, self serving gospel… then they will believe that they are saved, but in reality be lost. And that’s a dangerous place to be… to believe that you’re saved and on your way to heaven, when in reality you are as lost as can be. Jesus put it this way, “Many will come to me in that day and say, Lord, Lord, Did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name and do many wonderful works in your name?” And then He will say to them, “Depart from me you workers of iniquity, I NEVER knew you.” And you notice that He says, He NEVER knew them, not that He knew them and they fell from grace.
In vs. 3 Jude begins to tell his readers why he wrote the letter.
I think it’s interesting that Jude originally wanted to write a letter concerning the common salvation of Christians; the Holy Spirit inspired him to write something else.
Instead of the common bond of salvation Jude was compelled to write a letter urging believers to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the Saints. In other words, it’s something that can’t be added to, something can’t be taken away form it. There’s no new doctrine. In-fact if someone comes up with a new teaching that has never before been taught from God’s word then you’re probably dealing with the kind of people Jude mentions in the next verse. Many cults start this way. The religion of Islam started this way. And so have many so-called ‘movements’ of God.
This is what Jude is warning against.
I’m going to close with this.
The toleration of wrong leads to its establishment.
Do you as a believer contend for the faith? Do you take your stand for the Lord and His word? There is a saying that goes, “If you don’t stand for something, then you’ll fall for anything.”
Let’s pray.
Closing and Invitation
