Our scripture reading tonight is from the letter of Jude, the letter of Jude, the second to last book in the New Testament, a brief but very important and valuable letter, and I want us to read the first four verses and then skip down to verse 17 to read to the end of the letter. So beginning at Jude 1, let us hear the Word of God. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God, the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God, into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. And then down to verse 17. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time, and now, and forever. Amen. This is a powerful little letter. It's a letter that contains any number of quite memorable statements and phrases that in various ways have directed and encouraged the church through the centuries. It's written by Jude, most likely the brother of our Lord Jesus. But you notice the humility of Jude at the beginning of this letter. He doesn't begin by saying, I am Jude, the brother of Jesus, listen to me. He says, I am Jude, a servant of Jesus. He's a humble man in his relationship to the churches. He mentions that he's a brother of James and maybe expected the recipients to know more about him. But he comes to these people as a humble teacher and yet a very knowledgeable teacher. This little letter abounds in references and allusions and quotations from the Old Testament. It's almost a summary of the Old Testament in a variety of ways. So he's humble, but he's very knowledgeable, and he's very passionate. He's very concerned about these people. He seems to know them. He doesn't specify with any great detail who they are or where they live, but he seems to have known them and to know something about them. And he knows that they needed him to write. They're in some trouble. Maybe he had just heard about this because he says he planned to write one kind of a letter and has had instead to change his mind and write a different kind of letter. Preachers sometimes find that with sermons. You kind of anticipate preaching one kind of sermon and then have to preach another kind of sermon because something comes up, something changes. That's true here with Jude. He's heard something about these people, and out of their need, he writes to them. But part of what is so powerful about Jude, and what is so valuable about Jude, is that what he saw that people need, to whom he originally wrote, he really sees as a recurring need and pattern in the life of the church. One can take the concerns of Jude and the passion of Jude and say there's hardly a time in the history of the church when his concerns, as expressed here, aren't needed in the church. And I think that's part of the reason that the church has turned again and again to this little letter. And what is that pattern? What is that teaching? What is that need that he wants to address for us and which he addresses so pointedly for us? And he makes three points. And the first point that he makes is that what we are called to is the faith that is taught. The faith that is taught. This letter emphasizes faith not so much as our believing, although that's implicit in this letter. He emphasizes faith in terms of what we believe. What is it that we believe? What is the content of our faith? That's what he is particularly addressing and emphasizing in this letter. He wants to remind us that faith certainly has ethical dimensions, moral dimensions, behavioral dimensions. And faith certainly has emotional dimensions. Feelings are important in faith. But he wants to say the primary thing in faith, the first thing in faith, is truth. We must know the truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free, Jesus said. And so he wants to emphasize what it is that we are to believe. Now he wrote that in the first place he had thought he could write about this faith taught just kind of generally and positively. He wrote, I had thought to write to you about our common salvation. the common salvation that we all share in. That's what he had intended to write about. You know, sometimes preachers are not entirely inspired about some particular topic. But Sunday still rolls around, and you have to find something to preach. And so sometimes you preach a kind of general topic. You may not think it's the most important thing that people need to hear. It may not be the most burning subject on your heart, but it's true, it's good, it's valuable. That's the kind of letter I get the feeling Jude originally intended to write about our common salvation. We share a salvation together. You know the salvation, I know the salvation. Let's talk about that. Let's be encouraged in that. Let's be positive about that. That seems to be the letter that he originally intended to write. And he gives us certain inklings still about that letter, that common salvation. I think he gives us a hint about that in the very opening of the letter when he addresses these people. Again, we don't know specifically who they are or where they are, but he calls them the people called. These are people who have been called by the Word and by the Spirit to come to Christ. These are the people beloved in God the Father. The Father's love has been placed upon them. And he says they are kept for Jesus Christ. It's really a beautiful Trinitarian kind of address to the congregation. You are those who are called by the Spirit, and loved by the Father, and kept by the Son. It's a beautiful picture of who we are. It's a beautiful picture of God and what He does. And it's a beautiful picture of our common salvation. And then when he goes on with the blessing, the apostolic salutation, very much like the one we begin every worship service with, He wishes for these people. He pronounces for these people mercy, peace, and love. This is our common salvation, isn't it? The mercy that comes to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. The peace that the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, knowing that we are reconciled to God. The love that we enjoy of the Father because of the work of the Son. Here is a wonderful summary. See how brief the summary is of that common salvation that is ours, what he may well have intended originally to expand upon. And he sums up that common salvation in a very remarkable statement there at the end of verse 3, the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. literally in Greek that reads, the once for all delivered to the saints' faith. The once for all delivered to the saints' faith. That's the faith he wants to emphasize and underscore. Delivered. Delivered by whom? Delivered by God himself, through his son and through his apostles. This is the faith that Jude is teaching. This is the faith that presumably Jude has been preaching. Certainly the faith that he's writing about. Delivered to the saints, that is to us, to the people of God. The called, the loved, the kept. And then that really important phrase. The once for all delivered to the saints' faith. This is one of the great, if I can put it this way, Protestant verses of Scripture. The faith, the true faith, the apostolic faith, the faith by which Christians are to live, in which Christians are to live, was entirely given in the days of the apostles. There was nothing that needed to be added to it. It was complete. Just as Jesus died once for all for sin on the cross, So the true faith was taught by the apostles once for all. It was complete. It was finished. It was full. It was perfect. Nothing needs to be added to it. And that is so crucial, I think, for us to bear in mind, for us to hold to. That faith is once for all, completely, finally, permanently delivered to the saints. And no later tradition, no later prophets may add to it. The apostles gave it to us complete, and that's the faith they taught. And that's the faith that we must keep before them, before God. For the upbuilding of ourselves, you notice how later in this epistle, verse 20, Jude writes, but you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. It's the faith that we have received that continues to help us to grow. As we study that faith, as we deepen our understanding and appreciation of that faith, it will build us up in our spiritual life. It is the faith that we need. So here's the, if you will, common salvation that he wanted to talk about, the faith taught by the apostles, the faith that Jude is teaching, the faith that he is calling on the church always to teach. But he wasn't able to develop that as fully and completely as he had originally intended because he became aware of a problem amongst those Christians to whom he was writing. Verse 3, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, appealing to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, for certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude is saying, we need the faith taught, but we also need the frauds caught. See, I've been working on this outline. There's not just a faith taught, there are frauds caught. People who've crept in, unnoticed, crept in where? Crept into the church. If we were doing a modern translation, we might translate this, there are sneaks who've crept into the church. That's the point here. They've come into the church all but unnoticed. They seem nice. They dress nicely. They smile over coffee. They bring homemade cookies. They're really nice people. They seem to entirely fit in. but Judah's alarmed because these people are not holding to the faith taught and where they are not holding to the faith taught the frauds have to be caught that's what he's saying here with a good deal of passion with a good deal of zeal and what he's saying here is really in a profound sense an application of what both Jesus had warned about and what Paul had warned the Ephesian elders about. You remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 24, Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect, Jesus said. He put us on notice. He warned us. And you know, in the whole history of the church, there has never been one teacher who stood up and said, I'm the false prophet. That never happens. That's what Jude is warning us about here. And Paul, when he took his departure from the Ephesian elders, he spoke to them so powerfully. He wrote, be careful, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. To care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace. How are we alert? By listening to the word. By judging those who've crept in according to the word. And one of the episodes in the history of the church is exactly what Jude was describing, namely what occasioned the calling of the Synod of Dort. Arminius was a learned man. Arminius was a powerful preacher. Arminius had been sent to university and to graduate school by Reformed churches in order to become a Reformed minister. And when he returned from studying in Geneva and in Basel, he was examined by the classes of Amsterdam as to his orthodoxy. And he passed the examination. And he was asked to subscribe to the confessions of the church, the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. And he signed the form of subscription. And later, when he was appointed a professor at the University of Leiden, he was examined again as to his orthodoxy, and he passed the examination. It seemed everything was fine. But after his death, they found in his study lengthy writings in which he had rejected the Reformed teachings on election and had rather savagely criticized his fellow ministers and professors. Now, today, a lot of people always want to have sympathy with the underdog. And that's okay if we're talking about American civil rights. But in the church, if you have promised that you believe something, and if you have promised to teach and preach something, and then you do the opposite, you're a fraud who has snuck in. And the calling of the church is to uncover that, to expose it, and to resist it. Not to be mean-spirited, but to preserve the truth of the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. That's what the Synod of Dort was doing. Because lies corrupt the life of God's people. Lies lead us astray from the path of truth and of holiness. The people that Jude is particularly criticizing are people who came along and said, well, if we're saved by grace, we can live any way we want. There's no need to pursue holiness. Let me make clear that was not at all what Arminius was saying. But there have been various voices in the history of the church who've said that. If we're saved by grace, it doesn't matter how we live. And Jude is attacking that ungodliness. He's attacking that sensuality, as he calls it. He says it is a denial of the master who bought us. And it's interesting that he calls Jesus master there, emphasizing that one of our responses to Jesus is to recognize him as the one who is in charge of our lives to direct us in holy living so that we honor him as his servants. That's part of why I think Jude introduced himself as the servant of Jesus Christ. We are all to be servants of Jesus Christ. We're all to be those who listen to the Master and who seek to follow after him. And the call that the fraud should be caught is a very necessary call. And one of the things we need to see here is that it is a call that has implications for every one of us. It's not just professors who have to guard the truth of the church. It's just not ministers and elders and deacons who have to guard the truth of the church. Jude is addressing every Christian. Now that's not to say that every Christian has to have exactly the same knowledge of the truth. But every Christian has a responsibility as they stand before God to listen to the Word of God and to evaluate the teachers that would teach them by that Word of God. It was interesting when Stephen was preaching before those who had accused him, as we find in Acts chapter 7, he quotes from Isaiah 66, that they had forgotten in all their defense of the temple that God cannot live in a temple built with hands, that heaven is his throne and earth his footstool. Has he not made all these things, and what could contain him? And Stephen doesn't quote it, but Isaiah goes right on to say, And God looks for those who are humble and contrite and tremble at his word. Tremble at his word. That has to be the characteristic of every Christian, that we so value the word of God, that we so honor the Word of God, that we are so eager to understand the Word of God, that we tremble before it and we judge all that we hear by it. So we all have to be involved in this calling, not only that the faith would be taught, but the frauds would be caught. And in order for that to happen, yes, you guessed it, the fight has to be fought. You got that? The faith taught, the frauds caught, the fight fought. Now James is not talking when he says contend or fight for the faith. He's not talking about a physical fight or an emotional fight. This is a spiritual warfare where truth confronts the lie. And that's what we're called to. That's an important part of what it is to be a Christian. It's not all that it is to be a Christian. It's not what we hope to spend most of our time doing as Christians. But it is a responsibility that is ours as Christians when error arises. We have to confront it. I saw the appeal in the bulletin for more catechists and Sunday school teachers. That's a crucial part of the life of the church, that the faith will be taught. But it's also true from time to time. We have to stand up and expose the sneaks who are undermining the truth. And that's why I wanted to read to you tonight that 14th article of the First Head of Doctrine from Dort, Because it really, I think, in a wonderful way shows us how it is we are supposed to fight the good fight. And that 14th article begins by saying the truth that we uphold, the faith that we teach, is the faith revealed by God. We're not holding up our own peculiarities, our own notions, our own elaborations. we are upholding the wise counsel of God whereby he has revealed his own truth. Here is the great Protestant principle of Scripture alone. We listen for the voice of God alone. So we uphold the truth as it's revealed by God and as this article says, as it was taught by the prophets, by Christ, and by the apostles in the New as in the Old Testament. This is a great claim, particularly here about the doctrine of election, but about all Christian truth. We want to teach the truth as it's revealed throughout the Bible. Deuteronomy 7, verse 6 wrote, The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Israel was chosen by God. Jesus said, Matthew 11, No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Matthew 24, Jesus says his angels will gather his elect from the four winds. John 6, 65, Jesus says, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. John 13, verse 18, Jesus says, I am not speaking of all of you. I know whom I have chosen. Or John 15, verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you. You see, Article 14 is exactly right. This is a teaching revealed throughout the Scriptures. And Paul, of course, gave classic expression to it in the first chapter of Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 6. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to his will. This is the teaching of the prophets and of Christ and of the apostles. It's a clear teaching. It's a repeated teaching. And as Article 14 reminds us, it is a teaching preserved for us in the Scripture. So if God revealed it, and the prophets and Christ and the apostles taught it, and it's preserved for us in the Scripture, how can it not be needful for us in the church? That's what Article 14 says. It is needed, but the article points out it has to be handled rightly. We don't talk about it all the time. We talk about it at the right time, and in the right place, and in the right way. We talk about it with a spirit, the canon says, of discretion. That is, we're thoughtful about who's listening, and what they can bear, and what they will understand. We don't go heavy-handedly about this, but we go gently and carefully. That's what we'll see when we look at the first articles of the first head of doctrine. How carefully they approach this. How thoughtfully, how tenderly they approach it. And it's never, the article says, to be a matter of curiosity. There are a lot of people who have approached predestination with questions about exactly what goes on in the mind of God. And exactly whose name is written in the Lamb's book of life. That curiosity is inappropriate, the canon says. Rather, we study the doctrine of predestination. Indeed, we study all Christian truth for two great aims. To glorify God. To see that he's the Lord of salvation. To see that he's the one who accomplishes all things and is glorified in that. And also, as the canon says, for the lively comfort, the living comfort of our souls. Christian truth always should be a comforting truth for us. And that's particularly true of the doctrine of election. If the doctrine of election makes you worry, you haven't understood it correctly. Or maybe your minister hasn't taught it very well. the doctrine of election should always be a comfort. God has known me from eternity. God has called me in time. God has given me the gifts that I need, and God has promised to preserve me. That's what the Synod of Dort teaches so gloriously, so clearly, so encouragingly for our comfort. And that's the faith. that we're called to contend for. That's the fight that needs to be fought on that doctrine and on every doctrine that is revealed in the Word of God. And indeed, that's the reason we have confessions, isn't it? Our confessions summarize for us what the Scripture teaches that we believe has to be preserved. There are certain teachings of Scripture we can disagree about. We can discuss. We can only come around later to agree with me. But there are some doctrines of Scripture so foundational, so critical, so important, that we believe we all have to believe them. It's what unites us. That's why we have what we call the three forms of unity. They are our statements of faith that unite us, they are the faith taught and they are the fight fought that we might uphold them. And the Synod of Dort encourages us to do that, to teach the faith, to fight the fight, but to do it gently, to do it responsibly, to do it sensitively, so that we might win those who disagree with us. But whether we win or lose, for God's honor and for God's glory, we must uphold the faith. The once-for-all, delivered-to-the-saints faith, which is always worth contending for. But even more, we hope most of the time that we can rejoice in as our common salvation. May God all give us that faith and that willingness to uphold his truth. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord, our God, how good you are to us and how kind and how we see that it's not always easy to uphold the faith and it's not always easy to fight the fight of faith. And we pray for wisdom and for grace, for gentleness, but also for discernment and for courage because the faith is the faith you have given us. And therefore, we know it is true and good and profitable. And may you be glorified, O Lord, as we embrace your truth, as we teach your truth, and as we defend your truth. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.