Well, in tonight's study of the tiny epistle of Jude, if you'll turn to the book of Jude, you'll find that the author moves from salutation to explanation. In other words, having identified himself and his audience in verse 1 and having extended to them in verse 2 the appropriate and traditional well-wishes of multiplied mercy, peace, and love, he says in verse 3, Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. Next Wednesday, Lord willing, we'll be looking at the actual event or the events that necessitated Jude's writing of this letter. But for now, I want us to stop and consider what he says about what he refers to as the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. First things first, Jude wanted his writers to know at the beginning that his intention was to write to them about our common salvation. And then he says, the more he thought about that, the more the thought came to mind that he should be engaged in what he's writing about now. In other words, the Holy Spirit obviously changed his mind from what he had intended to write about to what he has written about instead. This is actually, An exhortation that's not found only in Jude's writing, the exhortation here to be defenders of the faith, as it were, is common to a lot of the New Testament writers, namely the Apostle Paul. If you'll look, it's also common in John's teaching. First and second John actually are full of this same kind of teaching that we bear the responsibility as believers to ensure that rather than be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, as Paul told Timothy, we would do well to return as often as possible to home base. If you know what I'm... speaking about there. Return back to the rudimentary things. Remember the elementary principles. Remember the basics. In 1 John 1.1, we read that John said something very similar. He said, what was from the beginning? What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, we proclaim to you also. That little phrase, as we discussed, from the beginning is a reflection back on the most rudimentary truths that they had been taught the whole time. Right? In 1 John 2, 24, he says, as for you, let that abide in you, which you heard from the beginning. Again, it's an appeal to go back to home base, go back to the rudimentary elementary things of the faith. As I said, next week we're going to be learning why Jude makes this particular point, but it's most often made throughout the New Testament when the church is faced with newfangled ideas, the twisting, maligning of scripture, things that sound okay, but really aren't. How do you determine whether those things are okay or not? Well, you go back to the basics. Go back to what you heard from the beginning. In 2 John 1 5, John says, now I ask you lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have heard from the beginning, right? That we love one another. In verse six, he repeats himself saying, this is the commandment just as you've heard from the beginning that you should walk in it. Remember what the author of the Hebrews said in Hebrews 5 verse 12. when he's chastising his readers for not being more advanced in their understanding. He wants them to know that they should have been more mature in their ability to rightly divide the word of truth and their ability to recognize truth and separate that from error. He says to them, although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's word yet again. They needed to return back to the basics. They needed for someone to take them back to the beginning and start all over again with an understanding of those fundamental things. Now again, it's fairly clear that Jude's comments here in our text this evening are not so much a chastisement as they are a warning, right? The writer of the Hebrews, of the letters of the Hebrews is actually chastising the people he's writing to because they had failed so miserably. They had become dull of hearing and they were failing to apply that which he knew they knew. Here, Jude seems to be issuing a warning for them not to slip away from the fundamental things, not to go wildly astray from those rudimentary teachings. Again, we'll see that in our study next week, especially as it regards those who would slip into the church. unnoticed and begin sowing those tiny seeds of discord, those tiny seeds of doubt. For our study tonight, though, I want to make sure that we understand exactly what Jude is referring to when he says that we are to protect, defend the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints. It's important to understand that when Jude refers to faith in this way, he's not referring to saving faith, per se. He's referring to the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints. This is just another way of saying the doctrine, the teachings, those treasured, time-tested teachings that have existed from the very beginning. Hold on to those things. In other words, he's not making a plea for them to contend earnestly for God's work of grace in their lives. He's wanting them to contend earnestly for the sum and substance of what the Bible teaches. Those fundamental things again, those things that they had known from the beginning through divine inerrant and infallible revelation. Now it's true that at the time of Jude's writing, the New Testament was not complete and wouldn't be complete for quite some time. There was still much to be gleaned by way of the Apostle Paul's writings, by way of, I mean, 1 and 2 Peter were already in circulation at the time. Some of Paul's letters were in circulation at the time, but there was much more to be gleaned from those things, right? So even Jude recognized that, probably recognized that God was not done with the revelatory period of his ministry on earth. The canon had not yet been closed, but even before it had all been written down in due course, the same things had been taught to those early believers by Christ and the apostles And these things had been sovereignly and faithfully preserved and passed down again from the beginning. Paul would allude to this very thing in Philippians 4 and 9. Remember what he says there. Whatever you have learned and received and heard from me and seen in me, put these things into practice. So they didn't have the complete revelation of God, but they had enough to understand the fundamentals. Jesus, in about three and a half years, made sure that at least this group of 12, And as Daniel was saying, this group of 12, that became 11, that became 12 again, and plus Paul. Jesus ensured that they would understand these fundamentals, and that's how they were able to pass those down from what they had heard from Jesus to the people that they taught. And as Paul told Timothy, again, I'll mention this, what did he tell Timothy with regard to the perpetuity of this process? the things that I have entrusted to you, entrust these things to faithful men who will do likewise." And how long is that supposed to go on? Forever, forever, right? In short, what Jude is exhorting his readers to understand is that they were to contend earnestly for the truths that they'd been taught from the beginning. Now, what does it mean to contend earnestly? It's actually a single word in the Greek and it's, a very graphic concept. It was used to describe someone who saw something or someone being assaulted or assailed and moved quickly to literally stand over that thing and make sure that no further harm came to it. I remember when I was younger, Bruce Lee movies were all the rage and I remember after reading this it brought to mind a particular Bruce Lee movie I don't remember which one it was so don't test me afterwards but In this particular movie, there was a blind man who had fallen down in the street. He had dropped all of his possessions and these thugs, you know, the quintessential Bruce Lee thugs, came and started mocking him and making fun of him. And what does Bruce Lee do? He runs right there to the center stage and stands over the man and does his little, you know, bring it little gesture, right? And he proceeds to, knock about 50 men out before the rest realize it's futile and they end up running away, right? Yeah, Daniel. Yeah, it's early in the movie. But anyway, that's the same sense in which this word is interpreted in classical Greek. It just means to stand over and contend earnestly for that thing. This is how we're to be with regard to the scriptures. We're to stand over them to safeguard them. to ensure that nobody twists them up, nobody maligns them, nobody misrepresents them, and so on and so forth. Well, what kind of attacks are made on the Word of God? We have a wide range of attacks, actually, don't we? I mean, we have the blatant attacks, you know, from the atheists, from the people who say that the Bible is little more than a book full of fairy tales, that it can't be trusted. It's certainly not inerrant. It's certainly not infallible. It may contain a few nice little things, but by and large, it's not something that we can rely on. It's not something we should waste our time on. So on the one end of the spectrum, you've got these blatant attacks. I can handle those all day long. Those just come from unregenerate nutjobs who have nothing better to do then speak out against that which they don't believe is true anyway. So it begs the question, why speak out against it? But anyway, so you have that end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, though, we have something far more insidious, far more dangerous. And these are those people who make these subtle attacks on scripture. They might even do it and be lionized for doing it. They might actually become very popular teachers. They might actually have a tremendous following from those professing to be Christians. That's how subtle they are. That's how good they are at what they do. Again, the blatant attacks are easy to spot and easy to dismiss. But those on the other side of the spectrum, that's where the real danger comes in. One of Satan's most effective tactics begins by trying to convince others that what they've always believed about the faith once delivered to the saints is not true, or that it needs various tweaks. It needs various modifications in order to be more effective, in order to mean something more than what it seems to mean to a lot of people. Sadly, this is a mentality that can routinely be seen in churches all over the place today. Right? Let me give you just one example of what I'm talking about. If I were to ask you what is one of the most popular books on the market today as far as quote-unquote Christian books? What would that be? Oh, The Purpose Driven Life. Okay, that's like an oldie but not so goodie, right? The Shack. Nah, that's another oldie but not so goodie. Love wins and kind of a new and not so goody. Jesus Calling. Jesus Calling is one of the top sellers and has been since 2004 when it was initially released. It's published by Thomas Nelson Publishers. Once a very reputable publishing house. Now they can't be trusted as far as you can throw them. But there's all kinds of spinoffs from the book, right? Not only do they have Jesus Calling, they have Jesus Calling for Little Ones, Jesus Calling Bible Storybook, and Jesus Calling 365 Devotions for Kids. And then of course there are posters and coasters and coffee cups and you name it. All those things intended to peddle more copies of the book, right? Let me read to you the description of this book. And you probably know people who have this book. Some of you here might even have this book in your, good. Who's going to say, go home and throw it away if you do. Let me read to you the description of this book from the Thomas Nelson webpage. And you tell me if there's something not quite right going on here. Now remember, this is a book that Christians are flocking to. in droves. This is a book that professing believers all over this country are touting as one of the most important Christian works of the 21st century. Listen to the description on the website, Thomas Nelson website. After many years of writing her own words in her prayer journal, missionary Sarah Young decided to be more attentive to the Savior's voice and began listening for what he was saying. So with pen in hand, she embarked on a journey that forever changed her and many others around the world. In these powerful pages are the words and scriptures Jesus lovingly laid on her heart, words of reassurance, comfort, and hope, words that have made her increasingly aware of his presence and allowed her to enjoy his peace. Jesus is calling out to you in the same way. May you share the author's need for a great sense of God with you. Or perhaps Jesus seems distant without you knowing why. Or maybe you have wandered farther from him than you ever imagined you would. Here's a year's worth of daily readings from Young's journals to bring you closer to Christ and move your time with him from monologue to dialogue. Each day is written as if Jesus himself were speaking to you, because he is. Do you hear him calling? Right? If you're really not that astute, that might sound okay. Right? If you're really not paying attention and somebody reads that to you, you might say, okay, what's so bad about that? Listen to how the book came to be. And tell me if this doesn't peg the needle on your discernometer. This is from Sarah Young herself. She says, one night I found myself leaving the warmth of our cozy chalet to walk alone in the snowy mountains. I went into a deeply wooded area, feeling vulnerable and awed by cold, moonlit beauty. The air was crisp and dry, piercing to inhale. Suddenly, I felt as if a warm mist enveloped me. I became aware of a lovely presence, and my involuntary response was to whisper, sweet Jesus. This utterance was totally uncharacteristic of me, and I was shocked to hear myself speaking so tenderly to Jesus. As I pondered this brief communication, I realized it was the response of a converted heart. At that moment, I knew I belonged to Him. This was far more than the intellectual answers for which I had been searching. This was a relationship with the creator of the universe." End quote. I don't know if you picked up on that last bit. But one of the most successful tactics of false teachers is to attempt to downplay the importance of the intellect, right? Check your intellect at the door. It's all about feelings, don't you know? This is where the whole mantra doctrine divides comes into sharper focus. People feel that way because they can't really feel doctrine. And it's all about feelings these days, right? Satan knows full well that all he has to do to circumvent someone's train of thought is to get in the brain, right, where objective truth resides, and take what's there and make it all subjective according to feeling. Confuse the mind to where it's not enough that you know things, you must feel things as well. Now don't get me wrong, if you know the truth, of the Word of God, there will be accompanying feelings. It's exciting to read the Word of God. It's invigorating to read the Word of God. It's comforting to read the Word of God. The Word of God is the only thing that will make any man or woman or child cry, laugh, feel sorry, feel glad, feel happy, all in the same sitting, right? It has that unique ability to do that. Let me read to you what actually is behind the book that has become so popular. Sarah Young also goes on to report that in 1992, she received a copy of God Calling. If you've never heard of that book, God Calling, it's a devotional book written by two anonymous listeners. Yes, channelers. And these two anonymous listeners, women, practiced waiting quietly in God's presence, pencil and paper in hand, recording the messages they received from him. And the messages are written in the first person with I designating God. Of course, this led young, she says, to wonder if she too could receive messages during her times of communing with God. She says this, she says, I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly, I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day. I decided to listen to God with my pen in hand, writing down whatever I believe he was saying. You should have alarm bells going off in your head all over the place. Just that one statement alone. I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. That's a blatant disregard for the sufficiency of Scripture. Yeah, yeah, it's cultic. Absolutely. And this is a book, again, that has sold more than 20 million copies. And that's just thus far, and there's no slowdown in sight. And guess what, it's just one of many like it. How many of you have, don't be afraid, don't be shy, how many of you have read books written by the Southern Baptist Convention's patron saintress, Beth Moore? Now, why do I say that? It's not really a slam to the SBC. Well, it is. You go to the bookstore, Lifeway Bookstores, and go back to the Beth Moore store. And the biggest offender, strangely enough, is Southern Seminary. You go in there, and they've got her picture all over the place, posters and books. Somebody needs to talk to Al Mohler about that. Did you know that she writes most of her stuff based upon what she believes God is actually saying to her? What He has shown her in visions? In direct extra biblical revelation? And yet how many faithful followers does she have the world over who are convinced that what she's saying is perfectly in compliance with the Word of God? What she, Sarah Young, Scores of other contemporary Christian authors have done, or what they failed to do, is contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. There's no other way of putting it. They have joined in with the throng of people who seek to misalign, to twist, to actually speak against what should be the all-sufficient Word of God. Yeah? She's also joined Joyce Myers. Oh, delightful. They had her on a dinner party. What, she hires a bodyguard? You think I'm kidding? Have you seen Joyce Myers? I would invite her. No. No. She's a manly woman. Anyway, even what Joyce Myers does calls into question the sufficiency of the Word of God because she's right there in league with all of them. I mean, you could name tons of those people, couldn't you? I mean, talk about a cornucopia of deniers of the sufficiency of the Scriptures. These are just some of the more common names. James Montgomery Boyce once wrote that the greatest issue of our day would not be the authority of the Bible, but its sufficiency. That's true, right? Because if you can convince somebody that the Bible is insufficient, then it doesn't matter whether it's all authoritative. It doesn't matter whether it's inerrant and infallible. Whatever it is, there's not enough of it. And so it's insufficient to do what I need for it to do. It's happening all over the place, right before our very eyes. Of course, there are more subtle forms of this phenomenon, right? How many approach the scriptures with some sort of Gnostic bent? How many people insist that there are certain mysteries that can be understood only through the insight provided by their teaching, right? Or teachings of their favorite guru. This is popular among those who follow the writings of self-appointed mystics who really do more to confuse than to help. Let me just say it this way. The word of God that we have in our possession today is not only inerrant and infallible, it's all sufficient as well. Nothing need be added to the word of God because nothing can be added to the word of God. The faith once delivered unto all of God's saints is all we need. And one of the problems we face in the church, I believe at large today, is the fact that people have abandoned the Bible in favor of so many books written about the Bible. Now don't get me wrong, there are all kinds of great and wonderful books written by mere mortals that we can benefit greatly from. I've got bookshelves full of them at home. But guess what? Each one of those is subservient to the authority of the Bible. Now, here's the problem. We have a generation of people who have read more of that than they have of the scriptures. So what possibility is there that they'll ever understand whether or not what they're reading squares with scripture? This is what I was talking about in the very beginning of this message. We have to go back to the fundamentals, go back to the things we knew from the beginning and let that be our anchor point. Let that be our foundation. And that way, anything else that comes that way, we can detect a falsehood just like that because we're so well entrenched in the things that we should know. I always tell people, you know, don't worry about going through the latest and greatest book list by mere mortals unless and until you've become so familiar with the word of God that you're not prone to be distracted by error. It's a hard thing for young Christians because young Christians, they want to jump on the bandwagon and read what everybody else is reading. They want to know the famous preachers and the famous authors, and they want to jump on this young restless and reformed bandwagon where they know much more about Tim Keller and John Piper than they ever knew about Timothy and John, right? And what this creates is an anemic. Weak, feeble-minded body. We need to return back to those bedrock principles. Read your Bible. It's almost like those things are dessert. This is your meat and veggies. What did mom always tell you? You can have dessert, but finish your meat and vegetables, right? We've got to be rooted in something. Yeah, Mike. Yes, yes. Visit many good books. Visit them often. But live in the Bible. Yeah, that's a good quote. The question is, are you doing that? Are you contending earnestly for the faith once delivered for the saints? I mean, are you standing over it, watching to make sure that nobody twists and maligns it? To make sure that it's not misused, that it's not abused, that it's not wrongly divided, that people are handling it, cutting it straight? Are you becoming so steeped in the scriptures that you're actually able to stand over the word of God and defend it? And that begins by recognizing it yourself as what it is, as the all sufficient, inerrant, infallible rule for all faith and practice. And I ask the question often, and I hope it's not falling on deaf ears. I think it's not, but what are your daily reading habits? How much of the word of God are you taking in? People complain all the time, as I said last Lord's Day, about not being mature enough, or not being discerning enough, or not being kind of shaky in their faith. And I ask them, how much of the word of God are you taking in on a daily basis? And some people look at me like I've just landed from planet Pluto. Yes, it's a planet again. Are you living a life of principled obedience that reflects the fact that you're in the word? As Mike said, that you're living in the word. Sadly, there's a growing belief in this country, especially among the younger generation, that old things and old ways are suspect. And I might add old people, right? They insist that the old things aren't to be trusted. We need to progress beyond the old paths and chart a new course for what they see as, you know, a fresh new wave of humanity. You know, Solomon said it best when he said, there's nothing new under the sun. The people of God have been fighting these fights for centuries, millennia, right? But this can be seen, can it, in the worship services. Look at some of the worship services that have strayed so far from what used to be, what was a once treasured regulative principle of worship. Once again, I'm going to sound old here, but I remember going to various churches of friends as I was growing up. And, you know, one thing was common to all of them. At the time, they were all equally boring. Now, what do I mean by that? What I mean by that is to the casual observer who's unsaved at the time, you know, I go into the church and what do we do? We sing some hymns, somebody reads the word, somebody says some good things about announcements and things like that. We hear the preacher rant on and on for a while, and then we sing another hymn or two, and then we're gone. That was common in every place you went. Church was done the same way. Why? Because they still held on to that idea that the scriptures regulated our worship. This is how we worship. This is how it's done. You can even watch old movies and stuff about church services. You see the same thing, whether it's an Episcopal church, a Lutheran church, a Presbyterian church, Methodist church, Baptist church, they're all worshiping the same way. Now the guy might be wearing something funnier than the next guy, you know, the vestments and things like that. But that aside, everything was done pretty much the same way. You go into churches today and you don't know what you're going to get. You might get a rock concert. You might get 45 minutes worth of singing Kumbaya followed by a 10 minute sermon. You might get what's truly frozen chosen and it's liturgical to the hilt, right? You just never know. And that's because of this idea that the old paths, the old tried and true paths are no longer reliable because they no longer appeal to our senses. They no longer appeal to our felt needs of being entertained and so on and so forth. This is why preaching has morphed from weekly faithful exposition of the scriptures to messages designed to make churchgoers feel good about themselves and see the unlimited potential that God allegedly has in store for them. You younger folks need to hear me out on this. The faith once delivered under the saints is the only faith that God himself sanctions because it is from him and being from him, it is eternal. It's an abiding principle. The truths of scripture have no expiration date. They don't go out of vogue. They don't come in fads. The scripture is always relevant. It's always sufficient. And it always, as Isaiah said, it always accomplishes the purpose for which God has sent it. The scriptures don't need updating. They don't need upgrading. because they are the breathed out words of God himself. And since they're the breathed out words of God himself, they must be contended for earnestly. And you know, there are tremendous benefits to be gleaned from contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Contending earnestly for the faith will prove that Calvin was right and Arminius was wrong. You know, we as Calvinists are accused of being arrogant, overly intellectual, overly logical. We're branded as those who are, again, very prideful about what we believe. And a lot of people think that we believe what we believe because we're trying to be counter-cultural in the church. that we're trying to be intentionally problematic. Nothing could be further from the truth. Arminius is the new kid on the block. Calvin was just restating what was considered centuries worth of apostolic teaching. All Calvin did was clarify what the Bible teaches. And that can be demonstrated, can it not? It can be demonstrated by a faithful examination of the scriptures themselves. Something which Arminianism cannot stand up to. You cannot come out of the scriptures with an Arminian understanding of salvation unless you intentionally go into the scriptures to extract that meaning from them. You can't. And that's not an arrogant statement. It's my earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. Contending earnestly for the faith will also settle once and for all many of the ongoing controversies in the church that are easily clarified in God's word. The whole thing about 2 Peter 3.9 came up in a conversation again this week. You know, I should know better, but sometimes I just step into these things, right? There was a debate, or a little comment stream on Facebook that somebody said, well, you know, you Calvinists are wrong, and I can prove it in one passage. God is not slack concerning his promises, but is wishing, or what is it? God desires that all men be saved, right? And I gently pointed out, well, if you go back to the context, I mean, if you go to 2 Peter 3.1, you can see he's talking to the beloved. If you go back to 2 Peter 1.1, it's clear that he's talking to those of like precious faith, the elect of God. So when he says that God is not willing that any should perish, he means any of his elect. In fact, that verse says that. God is not slack concerning his promises us-ward. Who's us-ward? The elect. So it's really a wonderful statement of assurance. And the guy responded back, that's your interpretation. You're right. That's scripture. Contending earnestly for the faith will prove once and for all that the errors of dispensationalism, open theism, non-lordship salvation, all of these controversies that swirl in the church can be settled, any ism you can come up with can be settled by rightly dividing the word of God. It's there and it's not mysterious. Again, it's only mysterious if you're trying to twist it and make it say something that it doesn't say. This is not to say there aren't mysteries in the Word of God. We know that there are. There are tons of things we don't understand and never will understand. But most of the things that people have a difficult time understanding can be clarified by earnestly contending for the faith once delivered. It's there. It's been there for centuries. And really most of the errors that arise in the church, somebody name an error in the church. Gnosticism, okay, defeated in numerous councils on the basis of what? Scripture, rightly applying and rightly dividing the word of truth. So that one kind of went, by the way, said fairly easily, I might add. But I mean, contemporarily, what are some of the dangers? Infantrantizing. That's, yeah. Infant baptism, immediately obliterated by the scriptures. with very little trouble. Oh, the charismatic chaos. Yeah. Again, easily dismissed by both scripture and history, right? You know, if the Pentecostals are right and the Holy Spirit is doing his thing their way today, boy, there's sure a whole lot of churches left out of that. You would think there would be some commonality between us all, right? Yeah. Yeah, he can only work in charismatic churches. I would welcome the gifts. I would, right? Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you want to see a restoration of the gifts, healing gifts, and speaking in tongues? I mean, I'd love to see those manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Problem is, if you read Scripture faithfully, you find out that those things were formative and not normative. It's not opinion, that's just proven. It wasn't until 1906, Azusa Street. When was the earthquake? San Francisco. 1906, I think. 1908? Maybe. 678? Whatever. Somebody look it up. Anyway. Yeah, the early 1900s. Do you realize that, you know, especially in this country, the charismatic excess that we see in many charismatic Pentecostal churches today, you know, Azusa Street in San Francisco was the first occurrence of any of those types of gifts in the church at large in this country. And then of course it swept eastward and got into the chaotic position it is today. But again, things like that are easily addressed with a faithful defending and exegeting the word of God. Now, before I close, let me just say one more thing about this concept. of earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to all the saints. I gave the illustration to Bruce Lee a minute ago, but I don't want you thinking that I'm advocating that you actually go out and beat up people who disagree with you. That's never appropriate. Scripture is clear on how we're to do this. Look at 2 Timothy 2. Here we have Paul's advice to Timothy concerning how he was expected to behave in this regard. 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 through 26, Paul says, the Lord's bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition. If perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. We often have the tendency to whip out our Holy Spirit flamethrower, right? You know what I'm talking about. We pull that flamethrower out and we just roast people from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet. This is not what it means to contend earnestly for the faith. We are to approach those in opposition with kindness, with gentleness, with humility, in hopes that God might be pleased to save some. Remember what Paul said in Ephesians 4.15, he said, we are to be those who speak the truth in love. I don't know if you know this, I'm not sure how you would know it, unless you actually look at the original language, but if you look, the word speak is not in that passage. It's actually an insertion by the translators to help us understand what's being said that wouldn't otherwise be as understandable. It's a participle in the Greek, and what it actually says, literally, it says that we are to be truthing in love. That's not a concept that Makes sense to us, but to the Greek mind, they knew exactly what that meant. It meant not only speaking the truth, it meant both speaking the truth and being the truth. And it's one thing to say the truth. It's another thing entirely to live the truth. We are to be those who are truthing in love all the time. Don't just use words. Live lives that convey that truth as well. Now there will come a time when you have to shake the dust off your feet, right? That's unavoidable. There will be a time when you've had enough, shake the dust off your feet, go on your way. That's scriptural. But I would say, by and large, most people are content to hang around and be taught and grow. You just have to have the patience and the kindness and the self-sacrificial attitude to be able to minister to them, right? Remember, you too were once not so bright when it came to the fundamentals, right? And I'm so glad that there were men patient with me as I came up through the ranks, came up through the faith, you know, on my little path to sanctification. I'm so grateful for the men in my life who were able to pull me aside despite my stupidity, despite my I had a rather sarcastic, cynical view of things. I know it's hard to believe. But I thank God for those men who had that patience and kindness to love me and always redirect me back to the fundamentals. Back to the fundamentals. I was under the tutelage of one guy for seven years who every day was reminding me Go back to the scriptures. Go to the scriptures. What do the scriptures say? You know, I'd say, Hey, I've got an idea. Maybe it works like this. What do the scriptures say? His final appeal and mine now is what can be gleaned from the word of God. Well, in our next study, we're going to be moving on to discuss the particular concerns that Jude had for his readers in verses four and following. Until then, I would simply encourage you to seek to understand more what it means to contend earnestly for the faith.