Are you a Pretender or a Contender for Christ?
Jude gives us an incredible warning on how we should deal with today's Apostates in the Church.
Are you a Pretender or a Contender for Christ? Are you willing to defend the faith at any cost? You don't have a choice if you claim to be a Disciple of Jesus. According to Webster's Dictionary, "contend" has three definitions. The first one refers to a struggle to overcome a difficulty or danger. The second one is about participating in a competition or campaign to win. The third definition is related to asserting something as a position in an argument.
The Book of Jude packs a powerful punch as it shows how ungodly men infiltrated the early church and twisted God's word to justify immorality, ultimately altering the course of the early church’s identity. Similarly, today, ungodly men can change Christians' thoughts and actions over time. It is crucial to remain vigilant against changes in theological doctrine within our church and lives.
Consider how the church has transformed over the past twenty or twenty-five years. For instance, the shifts in clothing or makeup choices? Has there been a more relaxed attitude towards divorce, pre-marital sex, and homosexuality? Has the style of worship or preaching changed? In the past, preachers were not hesitant to deliver a "fire and brimstone" message, but today, they must be mindful not to offend too many people. The bottom line is that if your Pastor does not preach on abortion, gay marriage, religious freedom, or gender changes because he says these are political issues. Then he is a gutless coward and has no place in the pulpit!
Jude's message is straightforward and warns against false teachers within the Church. This is still relevant today. The chapter is brief but powerful, serving as an incredible segway to the Book of Revelation. As followers of Christ, we cannot act like "Jerk-for-Jesuses.” Nonetheless, there is a time and place for speaking and a time for acting. Jude had the wisdom to understand the gravity of the situation. Similarly, we must also show this type of wisdom in the spirit of Christ in all we do.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. Jude 1:3
Today's dilemma, faced by many, is the balance between talking about Salvation and addressing the evil infiltrating the Church. This struggle is genuine for Pastors. It is essential to preach the Gospel and call out evil when necessary. These two aspects are not mutually exclusive, as preaching the Gospel involves convicting. In cases where evil actors infiltrate the Church—Disciples, and Pastors are responsible for calling it out. Remember what Paul said in Acts 20:27: for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
If you are going to preach about God’s love, then you can’t just gloss over sin or not address the infiltration of evil in the Church! Yes, the doctrine of the Bible will offend. Last week, a young Pastor was arrested in Wisconsin for preaching the Gospel outside a “Pride Event”! He was preaching in the Book of Galatians about God’s love. Similarly, in Canada, preaching against gay marriage and gender changes can get you charged with a “hate crime”! The Marxists are coming after the local Church; buckle up!
The problem is that we have been fed cotton candy, sweet tarts, and tootsie rolls in the pulpit for so long that we have made a generation of people feel good about sin, adultery, idolatry, and fornication, where good is evil and evil is good. A mother can’t spank her nine-year-old kid but can rip her baby out of her womb with a miniature chainsaw.
What does “contend for the faith that was once for all” really mean? Think about it. Here we are 2,000 years after the faith was first delivered to the church, and we are surrounded by hundreds of people, sects, and cults who claim to have a new word of revelation that now competes with God's word to mankind. Mohammed offered his Koran, Joseph Smith his Book of Mormon, Sun Moon Shu—His Divine Principle and who can forget Hoe Tie and Hinduism. We saw this with the Godless Resolution 9 that the Southern Baptist Convention passed in 2019, which stated that Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality would be used as an analytical tool in the SBC.
The Contemporary Pastors of the world are always trying to add or subtract to the Gospel! And you meet people daily who consider every contemporary intellectual trend a suitable replacement for the Bible. Russel Moore of Christianity Today is a great example: NYT columnist David French and Russell Moore are attending the Texas Tribune Platform Festival, which is a bastion of liberal progressives and is hosting a series of lectures platforming French and Moore. Why bash faithful Christians?
Moore, the former SBC ERLC head and current Editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, will be interviewed by French on his upcoming book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America”. The two will arrogantly lecture us on how “evangelicalism lost its way,” and in reality, they are the ones who lost their way! If Jude had two people in the modern day, he was thinking of when he wrote this text, it would be Moore and French! Pretenders to Contenders? You decide!
America is starving for Bible preaching. We don’t need man-made manipulation; we don’t need Tony Robbins and the power of positive thinking. We need the Bible preached like lightning and thunder. I don’t care if it's in Tin-Buck-Too, Tulsa, Thailand, in the back of a bar or a barn. We need people to stand up for Jesus and the faith a say; this is what the bible says. As Jude eloquently states, “contend for the faith”! Sometimes preaching the bible can be combative. This is not Nursery land. We’re fighting a living and breathing multi-domain enemy. This passive-aggressive tomfoolery that is overwhelming Churches and Pastors today will not cut it in the 21st Century. Why is it so essential to speak out? Jude nails the following premise:
For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Jude 4
Notice how Jude claims these men secretly “slipped in among you.” He is speaking not of Marxist Politicians, instead, he is speaking of ordained men. They became apostates because they willfully perverted the truth, and righteously they will be judged and condemned—Defile God’s teaching at your peril.
As Warren Wiersbe stated: “God is not looking for volunteers; He has already enlisted you!” The question is not, “Shall I become a soldier?” Instead, it is, “Will I be a loyal soldier?” Isaac Watts once preached a sermon on 1 Corinthians 16:13: Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you [act] like men, be strong. He added a poem when he published the sermon; we sing it today as one of our spiritual songs. 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.
The Church is built on the word of God because when we are long gone, the word of God will still stand in the Church. And when the world has gone crazy, which it has— the Bible is still the rock that the Church stands on. Are you a Pretender or a Contender for Christ? Go Bold Disciples!
Notes
https://www.newsweek.com/christians-arrested-preaching-gospel-wisconsin-video-lgbtq-pride-1816965
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/wiersbe-nt/jude-1.html