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. 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 1:3-4 (NIV)
It doesn’t take long for Satan to try throw a monkey-wrench into the well- oiled machine of the church. Everything can be going along just fine; God will be blessing; souls being saved; people rejoicing; and then BOOM; Satan puts it into someone’s mind that they have been mistreated or some attractive person slips in and says that some biblical teaching is false, etc., etc., etc.
It started just a short time after Pentecost when some Greek widows felt that they weren’t getting their fair share and then a husband and wife sold a piece of property and claimed that they gave all of the proceeds of the sale to the church but they had not. With Jude, just 33 years after the crucifixion of Christ, it was false teachers who infiltrated the church with heresies that said that because of the grace of God people could live as immoral as they pleased and they denied that Jesus Christ was the Sovereign Lord.
Jude said that we must never surrender in the defense of the gospel of Christ. Not only must we never surrender but we must speak out against false doctrine. We must defend the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Hey, we had Sunday to get spiritually refueled but today is Monday and today is when the rubber meets the road. We are going back to jobs, schools, etc., and it is time for us to be lights in a dark world, so, let the people know why you are the way you are. Tell them about Jesus, your Lord and Savior and never, ever back down from the faith whereby you are saved. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Amen!
