The writer of Psalm 11 presents us with a penetrating and probing question:
"If the foundations are destroyed what can the righteous do?" That is, what must believers do to prevent destruction of the foundation of their faith? The answer to the psalmist’s question is found in Jude 3. What will keep the foundations of our faith solid are believers who will take seriously Jude’s admonition to "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."
To accomplish that we must go beyond a knowledge of the state of the church and an ability to identify imposters. We must take appropriate and effective action to defend the faith from the destructive work of those imposters.
But how do we defend our faith? Jude, in his epistle, gives us the motivation and the mandate that provide us with the starting point for defending our faith in the face of apostasy.
Our Irresistible Motivation
Jude 3 is an interesting verse. At this point the writer changes topics midstream in his letter. Note Jude’s words, "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."
Jude had fully intended to write about "our common salvation." But a compulsion came over him and he changed the direction of his pen. That compulsion was the Holy Spirit moving him to change his message, and Jude was sensitive enough to the Spirit’s leading to do so. He was irresistibly motivated.
God’s people today need to catch that motivation. For example, the Bible is under attack in our land. We see our universities and seminaries support teachers who do not believe the historicity (e.g. that Adam and Eve were historical people). We make room for those who discount the miracles of the Bible. Rather than stepping out in defense of the faith we are too often content to ignore the problem or compromise with it. Where are God’s people today who sense an irresistible motivation to exhort others to "contend earnestly for the faith"?
Jude is speaking about apostasy in an apologetic sense here. Not apologetic as in apologizing, but apologetic in the sense of making a defense for the truth.
He is calling for believers to defend the faith that some are denying; to preserve the faith that some are corrupting. To contend for the faith means that we must take seriously the defense of our most holy faith in days when it is being so subtly undermined.
Why does it seem that so many are sounding the trumpet call today? Because many believers are responding to the irresistible motivation to contend for the faith. Often, we are accused of being intolerant and seeking to gain power when the truth is that we are motivated by an urgency to regain purity of the faith.
When, like Jude, we become aware of apostasy, we too will have a compulsion ... an irresistible motivation ... to contend for the faith.
Our Inescapable Mandate
The believer must take seriously the inescapable mandate given the church, which is enveloped in Jude’s words "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." An examination of the message of the book of Jude reveals the key aspects of this mandate.
The Content of the Mandate
What is "the faith"? Whereas "faith" denotes the act of believing, "the faith" is that which is believed. "The faith" is that body of Bible doctrine that makes up the complete revelation of truth. It is the full and final revelation of God contained in the Scriptures. It is the word of truth unfolded from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible. Our mandate is to contend for "the faith" and the content of the mandate is "the faith."
The Completeness of the Mandate
Jude says that the mandate is "once for all" delivered to the saints. It was not delivered merely once upon a time, but once for all time. (The Greek word for "once" is properly translated in the NKJV as "once for all). There can be no addition or subtraction. The Bible is a finished work. No wonder the last warning of the Bible sounds the alarm, "For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book; If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book" (Rev. 22:18-19).
The Bible is complete.
It is interesting to note that the same word used in Jude is used also in Hebrews 9:26-28 to describe our Savior’s finished work on the cross.
The writer of Hebrews said, "He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him he will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation."
Christ’s atonement is complete.
Jude uses the same word so that we might see that as the cross is a finished work, so is the Word of God.
The Bible is forever settled in heaven.
Someone observed that while astronomers might discover a new star, their discoveries never add to the universe. Before astronomers ever lifted their telescopes to the heavens God had already numbered the stars and named each one.
So it is with the Bible. It is ours to study. While we will learn more about it, we can never add to or take anything from it.
One of the clearest indications of apostasy is a distortion of the plain teaching of the Bible. Any claim to further revelation than what is revealed in this Book is evidence of apostasy. The Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormon Church) holds to a number of documents it claims are additional revelations from God. The faith which was once for all delivered to the saints does not need a Joseph Smith’s Golden Tablet added to it eighteen hundred years later.
Paul said, "But if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8).
There is not much difference in false believers adding to the Word of God and Christians adding to the Word of God. I have heard some Christians say they have received a "word of prophecy" at a meeting. That "word of prophecy" often directed them to do something diametrically opposed to what has already been revealed in the Word of God. The church has no need for any such "prophecy" today. In comparison, we read in the book of Acts of the New Testament church exercising the gift of prophecy only because it did not have a final, complete written revelation. But we have it today. It is the Bible.
We are living in a day when people add to (extremism) and take away from (liberalism) ... and both are wrong. The Bible says it is a clear indication of the last days. This Book of God is the truth, and if we love God we must contend for the faith as long as we have our breath.
The Custodians of the Mandate
Jude says the faith is delivered to the "saints." That is, to those who are genuine believers! We have in our care, in our custody, the Word of the living God. That is why we cannot stand idly by and watch this book being ridiculed and torn apart by liberal theologians and false prophets. God has called us to be guardians of His Word.
The word delivered in Jude 3 means to "be entrusted with." Paul exhorted young Timothy saying, "The things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). You and I would not have this Word of God today were it not for the faithful down through the centuries who guarded and passed on this precious treasure. When we think of those spiritual forefathers, many of whom gave their lives for this Book, we more clearly see our responsibility to earnestly contend for it today. Perhaps, Isaac Watts said it best when he penned these words:
Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the lamb,
And shall I fear to own his cause
Or blush to speak his name?
Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas?
Now the baton has been passed to us. We must hand down this faith to the next generation, uncorrupted and unperverted. That is why we must stand firm in the battle for the Bible today. It is "the Faith" ... "once for all delivered" ...
"to the saints." It was delivered to the saints, not discovered by the saints!
It comes from God and not from man, and our responsibility is to contend for it.
The Command to Contend for the Faith
We have been delivered a mandate. How are we to defend the faith? Let me suggest four way.
1) We must love the faith.
This where we begin our defense. We submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Apostates deny Him while Christians receive Him. One cannot contend for this faith without loving it in the sense of being saved. Contenders are born-again believers.
We cannot contend for something we do not love.
People fight for that which they love. They give their lives for that which they love. Americans have marched off by the hundreds of thousands to fight in wars and conflicts because of their love for liberty. In our fight against apostasy we must do the same. The first step in learning to contend for the faith is to love the Bible, the Word of God. The way to start loving the written Word is to fall in love with the Living Word .... Jesus Christ.
2) We must learn the faith.
It is a very difficult thing to defend something we know nothing about. One thing I learned in the business world. I want the meanest, toughest, and smartest lawyer representing me when I go into a court room. While I don’t know that much about the law, I do know that a lawyer would do a poor job of defending a case he had not studied. And yet there are many believers who say they love the faith and never learn the faith. They never study the Bible, the Word of God. There are others who study God’s Word, but never apply it to their own lives.
What do you suppose would happen if the typical preacher in the typical church next Sunday morning asked his people to turn the book of Hezekiah? Sadly, the majority would start looking for it. I trust you know there is no such book.
Bible illiteracy in the pulpit and in the pew is one of the tragedies of our day. God admonishes us in 2 Timothy 2:15 to study to "present ourselves approved to God." If we are students of the Word, we will not be ashamed, for we will be "rightly dividing the word of truth" (v. 15). We are convinced that the Bible is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness, that the man of God might be complete, thoroughly furnished to every good work (see 3:16). As believers, we should make certain we can give answer in the defense of our faith in three vital areas:
the inerrancy of Scripture;
the deity of Christ; and
salvation by grace through faith.
We can never contend for the faith until we learn the faith.
3) We must live the faith.
The final argument for the validity of our faith is not the argument of our lips but the argument of our lives. The greatest argument for Christianity is the life of the believer. Living faith involves standing unashamedly for the Bible.
Not everyone will like us for it. They will consider us narrow-minded.
They will accuse us of trying to break the fellowship. When we really live the faith, we should not expect this world, which so viciously crucified our Lord, to take us in with open arms.
All believers should be part of a church that stands for the faith. One way people live the faith today is by supporting Bible-believing, soul-saving, churches. In my early years, I used to tell new converts to attend the church of their choice. I no longer do that. Instead, I tell people to immerse their lives in a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching, soul-saving, disciple-making church.
A serious problem today is that a lot of good people are spinning their wheels in bad churches. How many times have we heard these loyal church members say, "I just hate to leave because our family has been here for so many years. Our children were baptized here thirty years ago. We were married here in the church. Mother’s funeral was in the church."
As a true believer you cannot contend for the faith in an apostate church that has left the truth. Apostate churches do not embrace the Word of God. It is easy to predict that apostate churches, left unchecked, will produce in the next generation a group of young adults who know little about Scripture. Interestingly, apostates are the only people about which the Bible says we should "turn away." I believe those who support the work of apostate churches will one day answer to God for it.
At this point it is important to add that in contending for the faith we must guard against being contentious. Paul admonishes us in Ephesians to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). We are to contend for the faith with a loving spirit. We will fail to contend for the faith if we employ a bitter, hateful, arrogant, or haughty spirit. Far too many Christians speak the truth but do not do so in love. Remember, we live the faith by being Christlike.
As ambassadors of Jesus Christ we speak the truth not only to prove imposters wrong and expose them, but to eventually win them over. The best way I know of winning over people is to speak the truth in love. If I know of someone whose view is contrary to Scripture, I must approach that person in love. Perhaps that person is a babe in Christ and holds a wrong view simply because he has yet to receive proper training, or he has been fooled by false teaching. In any case, you and I need to have a sense of compassion. The Bible says our Lord saw people "as sheep without a shepherd and had compassion on them." We must do no less.
4) We must loose the faith.
We must be about the business of sharing the faith. We often hear people say, "Keep the faith." To the contrary, we are to give it away. The late Paul Little said it best in his classic volume How to Give Away Your Faith ... if we are not giving our faith away, maybe we should give it up because it may not be real.
The Believer’s Responsibility
All true believers have a responsibility to contend for the faith. Like Jude we should have an irresistible motivation of the Holy Spirit welling up within us.
We have an inescapable mandate. How do we contend for the faith, the Word of God delivered to us? By:
loving the faith,
learning the faith, and
loosing the faith.
Unless we become motivated and take seriously this mandate, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
It really is worth fighting for.
