Alright, I'd just like to say thank you for being here again today at the Everlasting Truth broadcast. I want to tell you and let you know I appreciate you listening, as I always say every broadcast, and I hope you don't take it as me just saying that. I hope you know that I mean it. My desire is to be effective to you and help you in the Word of God, or rather help you with the Word of God through the power of the Word of God, and I can't do that unless you listen and you're here so I'm thankful that you've taken some time through whatever means it is that you're hearing this broadcast thank you for taking the time and listening and I hope the Lord will bless you with it and I believe he will and and I don't believe that God will bless you for listening because of any talent or inherent ability that I have I believe God will bless you because we're talking about his word and the Bible said his word is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword and so yeah I believe the Lord's able to help us people through his word. I want to go ahead and jump into the subject today. We have quite a bit ahead of us. This will probably take a few broadcasts to work through what I want to get through here, but it's needed. I've been praying about what to present this week and what God would have us to cover here at the broadcast, and the Lord laid this upon my heart. I started studying it at the beginning of the week, not necessarily sure why. And as the week unfolded and through much prayer, God began to reveal that this was, I believe, the direction that he'd have us go for the radio. And we're going to get into some things in this study that I'm not hearing preached, and that I'm not hearing anybody talking about, and some problems that I see taking place in the church. I mean, spreading like wildfire, that nobody is calling out. And so, those things will be to come as we work through the text verse by verse. Of course, we have to start at the beginning, and we will work our way there. But I want you to go ahead and open your Bible to the book of Jude, the general epistle of Jude. Now, Jude is one chapter long. It is the book just before the Revelation. However, chronologically, of course, that's not true. Revelation was written somewhere around 90 A.D. Jude is estimated to be written by the mid-60s A.D., so A.D. 66, somewhere in there, so a good 25 years or so before the book of Revelation. But Jude is the half-brother. or not the half-brother, he is the brother, I'm sorry, of James. And so Jude writes to us some very important words here for such a short book. This book is quoted quite frequently and we hear it preached all the time because the message in it is so valuable and it is just so true and so applicable. You see, Jude writes about the apostasy or the falling away that's going to happen in the church before the last days. Jude is prophesying about the things that are going to take place in the church, the entrance of false teachers, and I'll say this, it's twofold, because Jude is prophesying about what's going to come in the future, but at the same time, Jude is calling out that what is already going on, even in his time, If we were to read Jude and verse number four, it says, for there are certain men crept in unawares. There were people in Jude's time that were corrupting the doctrine in the church and were teaching things that were not so for filthy lucre and things of that nature. So false teaching. It's not something that's new that plagues the church. It's been going on forever, but the Bible does specifically talk about in the last days that that apostasy and that false teaching is going to get worse. And as a matter of fact, the Bible has a great deal to say about false teachers, and it's scary when we don't. You know, if it's something the Bible covers a lot, and we call ourselves Christians, it should be a pretty common theme of ours, I would think. But false teaching is something that a lot of people don't give any discernment to. They have no idea what a false teacher looks like. They're scared to death to call anybody a false teacher because they've heard the saying that David made of Saul taken out of context so many times, "'Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.'" And I understand that, and there should be a reverence, the Bible says, to not even receive the accusation of an elder without two or three witnesses. And so it is a serious thing. But we also have to be willing and understanding that there are false teachers out there, and that you and I do need to take the Scriptures and be able to discern them and let other people know who is a false teacher. That way they don't fall prey to them. The reason that a lot of people aren't calling false teachers out is because they don't think that the false teachers have any power to damage anybody. You see, they don't think it's really hurting anybody. They don't think that it's causing a problem for anyone. You know, well, just let them say what they want to say. The truth will defend itself, and it'll sort itself out, and all that kind of stuff. And that sounds great. The problem is, it's not Bible. The thing about it is, is that your doctrine most certainly does define behavior. And so what that means is damaged doctrine leads to damaged behavior, and bad doctrine leads to bad behavior. So it matters if people are preaching and teaching the truth. I'll remind you, Titus 2.1, the Apostle Paul told Titus, he said, but speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. He said, let your doctrine be right. And he said, here's why. Verse two, that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith and charity and impatience. And the list goes on. And what he says there is that teach things that are good doctrine so that your people will have good behavior. So when we allow false teachers to run around with false doctrine, guess what? We're going to have bad behavior in the church. And that's what we're seeing now. The behavior and the way that people handle themselves that claim they are Christians has went off the rails because the doctrines went off the rails. It's producing this in people's life. Bad doctrine hurts people, and bad doctrine causes people to make the wrong decisions and act the wrong way. And so Jude gives us a charge here of defending doctrine defending the gospel. And so I want to begin to unpack this here and let me make a precursor before we begin reading the text. I want you to know that the epistle of Jude is almost a almost a word-for-word copycat of 2 Peter 2. So what I mean by that is that Jude and 2 Peter are constantly alluding to one another. And as a matter of fact, both these letters, 2 Peter and Jude, are both attributed right around the same time period. So I can't tell you who's copying who, but I can tell you this, if you read Jude's words and you read Peter's words in 2 Peter 2, you're going to find out they're saying the exact same thing, and they are borrowing from one another. And so these passages go hand-in-hand, which means when you're reading them, you need to read them hand-in-hand, just like Revelation and Daniel go together. You need to read it that way. And so we will be kind of back and forth through some of these to get some more clarity, but I want to do the main digging out of Jude rather than 2 Peter. And so Let's do that. Let's begin. Jude, verse number one. The Bible said, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you, that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, I want to work our way right on down primarily through verse number 10, verse number 11 and so, but We're not going to have time to do that this broadcast, and so I think verse number four is going to give us plenty of meat to get off the bones just for this next broadcast, and maybe even the following one. We'll see how the Lord guides, because there's a lot here. But nonetheless, I want us to begin to examine what the Bible said here in verse number one. Or not verse number one, I'm sorry, but verse number three, rather. And I want you to notice who he's talking to. He begins verse number three, and he says this. He gives a charge, and he said, So he's writing to the church. He's writing to those that are beloved in Christ. He's writing to the brethren. I'll put it to you this way. He's writing to save people, and he's about to commission and charge saved people to do something. And so what that means is that if you're listening and you're reading, and you are saved, and you're a child of God, and you are the beloved of Christ, and you are one of the brethren or a sister in Christ, Then you need to pay attention and follow in this command because it's written to you. Now, he says, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith. So right here, he begins to tell us that we need to have some defense. Defense is what I have labeled the beginning of verse number three. He says that you and I should contend for the faith, and not just contend for it, but earnestly contend for the faith. That word contend It is comprised of two words, but the main word in it is agonizo. And agonizo is where we get the English word agony from. And it means to strive for something, to fight for something, to, as the English puts it in your King James Bible, to contend for something. That's exactly what it means. It means that you need to wrestle for some things. You need to fight for some things. Now, I want you to notice that Jude's first and primary desire and goal was not just to start all fighting about things, now was it? That's not what he wanted to do. And I will say this, that the Christian should not have a spirit in which he always just wants to fight and debate about things. And that wasn't Jude's heart. He says in verse number three, he says, I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. Jude said, I just wanted to write to you and talk to you about the simple grace of God in Jesus Christ. He said the common salvation, the gospel message. Jude said, I just wanted to preach Jesus to you and comfort you a little bit by the gospel. He says, however, the Holy Ghost has different plans. He says, I gave diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. He says, but. It was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith." Jude says, my main goal was I was just going to write to you about the gospel and encourage you, help you a little bit. He says, but the Holy Ghost has other plans and apparently it's needful for me to write unto you and exhort you and tell you that you need to be defending and contending for the faith. You know, there are a lot of people out there that don't want to fight and contend for nothing. They don't think that any doctrine is worth dying for. They don't think any doctrine is worth defending. You start talking about doctrine and serious things that the Bible teaches, and you start pointing out error in certain movements or groups or people or teachers or preachers, and they say things like, you know what, just preach Jesus and it'll all work out. You know, you just preach Jesus. You just preach the gospel and everything else will straighten itself out. Now, I am all for preaching the gospel, and I am all for preaching Jesus, But I want you to notice here in verse number three that that's what Jude wanted to do. He wanted to write of the common salvation, but the Holy Ghost said, no Jude, it's time to contend. He says there is a place for that, he said, but there's also a place for contending and defending. And the truth of the matter is, sometimes just preaching Jesus and hoping it's all just going to work out is not quite the case. Sometimes you're going to have to contend for some doctrinal things. And he says, I wanted to just write unto you of the common salvation. He said, but it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith. He said, you're going to have to fight for this. That's what that word contend means. You're going to have to fight for it. There are some doctrinal battlegrounds that you are going to have to fight on. I do know some things are secondary issues, but we have come to a place in the church today where we want to regard everything as a secondary issue. We've got some people who won't stand up for any kind of doctrine. Now, there are some heels that aren't worth dying on. I get that. But there are some that are. And not only are they worth dying for, not only are they worth contending for, but you and I are commanded to contend for them. And you say, what kind of heels are those? And I will get into it in just a moment, but I believe it's the heels that verse number four, that the false teachers are standing on and perverting. For example, they pervert the grace of God. They pervert the deity of Jesus Christ and all those kind of things. And I don't want to get ahead of myself, but that's one place where the church is losing battleground. We're no longer defending the deity of Jesus Christ. Hey, if Mormons want to believe that Jesus isn't God and Jehovah's Witnesses isn't God, we've come to a place now in the church where we say, well, that's not a big deal. We'll still watch their entertainment. We'll still listen to them. You know, they don't believe Jesus is God, but it's fine. We can still get some good from them. And by the way, some of you are thinking to yourself, well, I don't watch any Mormon programs or anything like that. If you watch The Chosen, you do. The Chosen was being produced by a company called Angel Studios. Guess who owns Angel Studios? A devout Mormon. The director, Dallas Jenkins, holds hands with Mormons and has made the statement that Mormons worship the same Jesus that you and I do. Jonathan Rumi, that plays Jesus, is a blazing Catholic who distorts the grace of God. Now, I'm not trying to make enemies, but what I am trying to let you know is that there are some things we need to contend for, and that means we can't entertain the enemy and let him entertain us while we are contending for the things that the enemy is fighting against. These people are openly against everything that the Bible-believing Christian stands for in the foundational doctrines that Jude said we're to contend for. Hey, if they deny that Jesus is God, they're not Christians. He said in 2 John, he that hath not the Son, hath not God. He said, he that abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, rather, hath not God. I was mixing 1 John and 2 John up. He says if they don't get the doctrine of who Jesus is right, they're not of God. Hey, if they mar the grace of God and preach a gospel that is a substitute for grace, and we're going to get into this in a little bit, but they mar the grace of God, they're not Christians. They're not saved. These are not sideline issues. And you and I have been called to defend these issues. We have been called to contend for them. Now let's move on a little bit. He talks about the defense. He said, it's needful for you to earnestly contend for the faith. So that's the defense, but notice the delivery, what he says in verse number three, moving on, he says, concerning that faith, he says that it was once delivered unto the saints. Here's why you need to contend for the faith. Here's why you need to defend it because it's only an already been delivered once. He says here, this word delivered. The faith, the gospel of Christ has been once delivered. The body of doctrine that makes up the believers set of beliefs has been delivered once. And that word delivered indicates something being handed into your hands and it indicates entrustment. It's been entrusted to you. And the reason that you have to contend for it is because you've been entrusted with it. You see, if somebody entrusts you with their child and you're watching their kid for them for any amount of time, they are entrusting you to take care of it. If they deliver that child to you and they drop that kid off and they place it in your hands, it is your responsibility until that mom and dad return to take care of that child. And what God has said is like a precious child, I have left the faith in your hands. I have entrusted it to you and you are to defend it. You are to protect it. You are to take care of it until I return. It's been entrusted, it's been delivered. Now, how many times has the faith been delivered? I want to make an important point about this. Verse number three, he says the faith has been once delivered unto the saints. Now, the word tense for that word once indicates once for all. It indicates the fact that yes, God has done it once and God will only do it once. In other words, here's what I'm saying. You and I must contend for the faith because it's the only one we have and it's the only one we're going to get. It's been delivered once for all. It's been delivered once unto the saints. It's like an example of this. Let's say my children want a toy and this toy is very expensive and maybe it's even rare to get your hands on. And I buy my kids this toy and it's very expensive and I say, you better take care of it because it's the only one you're going to get. I bought it for you once. I'm not buying it again. So you better take care of the one that you have. And God says that the faith should be like that to us. It is the only one that we're going to get. It is the only one that we have. And if we let this one get corrupted, if we let this one get distorted, if we let this one get perverted, then we're not going to get another one. We must hold the ground that we have. We must not let the doctrine slip because God's not going to give us an alternative. God's not going to say, okay, well you let that one get messed up. Let me give you another gospel. It is this one and this one alone. And if this one is lost to the waves and the onslaughts of hell and it's false teachers and men and women do not get to hear it, then God is not going to give another one and people will ultimately perish. We must hold on to the one that we have. Now let me just throw some more out there concerning some of these cults like Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. Joseph Smith is the father of Mormonism and Joseph Smith is part of, he formed Mormonism or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS or whatever you want to call it. He formed it as what they call a restoration movement, which means Joseph Smith said that Jesus Christ and the Father appeared unto him in a vision and told him that the faith had been lost. It had been corrupted. The gospel had been corrupted. The church had lost it. And so he gave him what we know as the Book of Mormon in order to restore it. And if you read the Book of Mormon, don't read it, but if you read the cover of it, it says the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ. What Joseph Smith says that the Book of Mormon is, is it is another installment of the faith. It's another testament. It's an addition to. It is a restoration and a recommissioning of what we've already lost. The problem with that is that God said we had to contend for the faith because it was once delivered unto the saints. God did not say that I'm going to give it to you one time. The church is going to lose it. And so then I'm going to call Joseph Smith to give him another one, another Testament, because you messed the first Testament up. No. It's been once delivered unto the saints. This puts Joseph Smith, or anybody for that matter, who claims they are restoring the faith from something that was lost, it immediately makes him a false teacher. Because it's been once delivered unto the saints. It has not been lost, and God has not sent somebody else to redo it. As a matter of fact, Joseph Smith said it was another testament of Jesus Christ, but the Bible said in Ephesians 4.4 that there is one faith. Only one of them. Let me give you another one that causes Mormons to be a false teacher. It said there's one faith, but Ephesians 4 also said there's one Lord. Mormonism believes there's multiple gods. But anyways, Jude 3 tells us that there is one faith and that for you and I, it was only delivered one time. And for this cause, we need to take care of it. We need to contend for it. I'm going to go on in explaining what this means in the next broadcast, but we're running out of time. We're about to wrap it up for today. But the main three false teachers you're going to find fitting in this passage, and there's false teachers that we're going to find out of this passage that you find in Protestantism all over the place. But the main places where you see this flying up are in the three big ones. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Catholicism. And yes, Catholic doctrine is not Christian doctrine. It is something completely different. But with that being said, you're going to see where a lot of what they teach labels them as false teachers. It labels them. And yet we've got so many people in the church claiming to be Christians, holding hands with Mormons, holding hands with Jehovah's Witnesses, holding hands with Catholics, and saying, oh, well, we all worship the same Jesus. Let's just love him and it'll all be fine. No, he said you're to contend for this faith, not hold hands with its distortion. Let me ask you, will you contend for it? Better yet, will you lovingly contend for it? When you see a Jehovah's Witness out handing out their Watchtower organization literature, will you go up to them and witness to them and give them the true gospel so they can be saved? because they're deceived. Or Mormons or Catholics, will you give them the true gospel? You see, we contend, but we can do it lovingly. We can do it for their betterment, for their good. We don't wish ill upon them. We want to see them saved, but it's only going to come when we uphold the truth and defend the truth against error. So, will you contend for the faith? Join us again. We'll pick up in the next broadcast and we'll move forward. God bless you, friends.