Introduction
1. Illus...”Go forth and Sin” by Lynn Vincent from ‘World’,
August 2, 2003.
“When officials announced the vote tally on June 8, thunderous
applause showered the crowd at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in
Concord, N.H. The occasion: Episcopalians in the diocese of New
Hampshire had just elected the first openly homosexual bishop
anywhere in the worldwide Anglican Communion. As joyous
clergy and delegates leapt to their feet, the new bishop, the Rev.
Canon V. Gene Robinson, ambled forward, stood before the altar,
and embraced his grown children and his male lover.
On May 23 in Nashville, officials of Glendale Baptist
Church met with officials of the Tennessee Baptist Convention
(TBC). The issue: Glendale had in 2002 hired as its associate
pastor April Baker, a practicing lesbian, a fact the TBC did not
learn until January 2003. TBC officials felt Ms. Baler’s sexuality
violated Scripture. Glendale officials believed otherwise, and asked
the TBC to quietly vote them out.
In October, 2002, about 300 Presbyterian Church (USA)
members from Northeastern churches gathered at South
Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. There they nailed to a
church door dissents and demands that included calls for the
reversal of PCUSA laws against ordaining noncelebate
homosexuals and marrying same-sex couples. During an ensuing
two-hour worship service, church members hoisted the door atop
sawhorses and converted it into a communion table where gay
ministers and elders blessed bread and wine, then served it to
worshippers,
A growing number of churches in some denominations are
stepping beyond the acceptance of repenting homosexuals as
members, and instead loving both sinner and sin. Denominations
that for decades have ordained pastors who reject such essential
doctrines of Christianity as Christ’s deity and His resurrection are
now also on the verge of affirming homosexuality as biblical.
Conservative Christians who remain in those bodies are fighting for
the scriptural view of sexual morality that has stood for millennia.”
Trans... Some of the conservative members of the 2.3
million-member denomination known as the ’Anglicans’
worldwide, will be meeting to decide whether or not to walk
out of the denomination over this issue. One has to ask oneself
why it took them so long to recognize their own apostasy? The
book of Jude has some answers for us and we will find that
‘Not All Roads Lead to Rome’.
I. Not All Roads Lead to Rome
A. The Time Factor
Jude was exhorting the church to ‘contend for the faith’ while
the church is still the church.
The word contend is descriptive of the strain to which a
contestant is put. It might be compared to an athletic event
when the contestants strain (rise) to the challenge of the event.
I am told there used to be a time when ‘Argumentation and
Logic’ was taught as one of the seven classical arts in
Universities. Argumentation did not have the negative
connotation to it that it has today. It was fashionable to be able
to present your position in a positive and logical manner.
Today any kind of conflict is looked upon as ungodly. Maybe
that is why we are afraid to ‘contend for the faith’.
The false teachers were identifiable because they turn “the grace
of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and
Lord Jesus Christ”.
The false teachers had departed from the ‘teachings of the
Apostles’, which we call the New Testament.
Left unchallenged over a period of time their teaching would
have spread like gangrene, or like yeast that rises in dough!
How many members of the 2.3 million member denomination
went down the road presented to them because of the false
teaching of their leaders? Where are the contenders for the
faith?
The time element is an essential factor.
Trans...Not all roads lead to Rome....
B. The Growth Factor
Vs 20, Jude writes to the church: “But you, beloved, building
yourself up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit;
keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the
mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.”
The true road to Rome (Heaven) is a high road and it is holy.
Trying to deceive people into believing that we are now living
in an advanced enlightened age that professes to have
relationship with a Holy God and live in community with the
Holy Spirit and yet be divorced from His Holy Word has to be
the epitome of deception!
What for thousands of years (since the creation of the world)
has been an abomination to God is now portrayed as being
perfectly acceptable in a community of so-called Spirit-filled
believers.
This is not spiritual growth but spiritual apostasy!
These are the ones Jude writes about in verse 19: “These are
the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the
Spirit”.
Jude places the responsibility for the spiritual growth of our
own lives upon us! You build yourself up on your most holy
faith. You keep yourselves in the love of God.
You do that by giving yourselves to the spiritual disciplines.
Prayer, Bible study, worship, service, fellowship & witnessing.
There is a reason why you need to grow and mature in holiness
that Jude mentions in vs 22 & 23.
Trans...I call it the mercy factor.
C. The Mercy Factor
“...have mercy on some who are doubting; save others,
snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with
fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.”
We need to contend with false teachers but we also need to
contend with those who have been influenced down the wrong
road. By contending I mean being persuasive with your
Christ-like lifestyle of actions, words, and whatever the Holy
Spirit places upon your heart to do to reach out then you need
to do it. Do it like an athlete contending at an event.
We need to hate sin but love the sinner. The same mercy God
extended to you, you also extend it to others.
God loved you enough to extend mercy by sending His Son
Jesus Christ to die on the cross for your sins.
His mercy was not play it safe and don’t become involved! I
want to live like an ostrich with my head in the sand.
He went to the cross to contend for your soul. That is what
mercy is like... contending for the faith ... contending for those
who are on the wrong road!
Trans...Its easy to sit back and say, how could they do such
things? But what about our road? Is it the road to Rome
(Heaven), or our we allowing divisive people to spread their
false teachings, and we have decided it is easier and safer not to
contend. And every day that passes the yeast just keeps rising!
Conclusion
1. Illus...Profile of a Shallow Lifestyle by Joey Nelson’s Sermon
“Final Instructions for the Troops on SermonCentral.com.
a. Get accepted with the faith community (vs 4) “crept in
unnoticed”
b. Teach absolute moral freedom (vs 4) “grace into license”
c. Engage in immorality rather than following the Spirit (vs 8)
“defiling the flesh”
d. Reject authority (vs 8)
e. Participate in fellowship times and communion (love-feasts) (vs
12) but contribute very little by way of service
f. Find fault (vs 16)
g. Divide the community (vs 19)
2. Illus...Too Smart For Hell from Jeff Strite on
SermonCentral.com
“According to U.S. News & World Report, 78% believed
in Heaven and believed they were going there. Only 60% believed
in hell, but only 4% believed they were going there
In the same article, the Rev. Mary Kraus observed ‘My
congregation would be stunned to hear a sermon on hell.’ Her
parishioners, she says, are ‘upper middle class, well-educated
critical thinkers’ who view God as ‘compassionate and loving, not
someone who’s going to push them into eternal damnation.”
