CONTENDING EARNESTLY FOR THE FAITH – PART ONE

Beloved friends, permit me to welcome you again this New Year, which is the beginning of a new decade. My desire for you this year is that GOD will reveal HIMSELF to you and draw you closer to HIM as you also draw close to HIM.

For us in The Master’s Vessel Ministry we are committed to our assignment of bringing The Healing Words of The Master to you. We pray the messages we bring will cause spiritual, physical and emotional healing to you…in The Name of our LORD and Savior JESUS CHRIST.

I am taking my Bible reading from The Book of Jude 1-4.

Jude 1-4

¹ Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,

To those who are called,  sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ:

² Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

³ Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. ⁴ For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us pray.

PRAYER

Our Heavenly FATHER and The FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, it’s with great pleasure and thanksgiving that we give YOU glory for bringing us into a new year; and we are grateful that the award remains the same, unchangeable, as YOU are. We pray YOU, O GOD our FATHER, in this particular message, O GOD, to cause our people to hear; and as they hear they hear life, and faith will be borne in them, and YOUR Name will be glorified, as YOU produce effect – influence in our lives…in JESUS Mighty Name we pray. Amen.

I want address our friends on the issue of Contending Earnestly For The Faith.

CONTENDING EARNESTLY FOR THE FAITH

Our text is from The book of Jude. There are 25 verses; and they are structured in this way:  verses 1 – 2, you find greetings; verse 3 is the explanation of the purpose of writing. Jude explained the purpose of writing this book – in verse 3. Then in verses 4 – 6 is the exposure of false teachers: the exposure of false teachers. You find that in verses 4 – 6. Verse 17 to 23 is exhorting the saints to grow to maturity – exhorting the saints to grow to maturity. And verses 24 – 25 is the closing remarks: we normally call it.

Well, I intend to take this particular topic in two sections: contending earnestly for the faith – so this is the first one, and we will see how far we’ll go; then we finish up with the second.

So, let’s start.

In verses 1 – 2, you notice Jude said, “Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,

To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ:

² Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Invariably Jude was writing to The People of GOD – the people who know GOD. It has said, called and sanctified by GOD The Father and preserved in JESUS CHRIST. So these are no novices to Christianity. They are people who have known GOD. And that’s the first point I want to make: that we need to contend earnestly for the faith. In that greeting you noticed the humility of this servant of GOD. And if you compare it with what is prevalent – the prevalent attitude of some ministers today in our time you find a variation, you find an abnormality, you find that some of the people called servants of GOD are full of themselves: desiring attention, proud and arrogant; but not the servant of GOD.

Notice that Jude was half-brother of JESUS, yet he introduced himself as a bondservant – slave of JESUS and brother of James. Adopting right attitude that conforms to that of our LORD JESUS CHRIST is part and parcel of contending for the faith that was handed over to us by the apostles. What we are seeing today is an aberration, it is an abnormality. People of GOD, I call on you. One of the ways to contend for the original faith handed over to us is to adopt this lifestyle of humility. It is so lacking in our time.

Yet Apostle Paul calls us to this level of humility. He says, let this mind that was in CHRIST be in you. What was that mind that was in CHRIST? The mind of humility, they mind of not contesting with GOD or weighting himself with GOD. He humbled himself. He brought himself low.

Why are we deviating from the faith handed over to us? May we examine ourselves from this point of view and emulate Jude who though half-brother of JESUS CHRIST. But you do not see that in this his greeting. You don’t see him; rather, he prefers to identify himself as a slave – a bondservant of JESUS CHRIST.

That’s number one way to contend for the faith that was handed over to us.

Now let’s go to the next page. It’s explanation of purpose. You find that in verse 3, Jude writing to us, he said,

³ Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

So the purpose of writing is to encourage us to be ready to defend the faith as it was handed over to us.

Brethren, if we do not do this we will be in danger of handing over to the next generation – a faith that has been corrupted, a faith that is an aberration, a faith  that is not the same as we received from the Apostles.

So, it is our duty, as people of GOD, to defend the faith. We should not allow the children of the world to be wiser than us. They defend their own. Remember that in Acts 19:23-33…I’m not going to read it; it’s a little bit long. But you discover one silversmith called Demetrus. Demetrus was a silversmith that mobilized all the silversmiths, and opposed Apostle Paul, because of his selfish interest; because their arts were in danger. He said if they keep quiet that their source of livelihood will no longer be guaranteed. So he formed more or less a trade union, and mobilized; and for 3 hours they were shouting in the temple, Great is the Diana of Ephesus! Great is the Diana of Ephesus! What were they doing? They were defending their source of livelihood; they were defending the art of a molten shrines and selling and making shrines all over the land.

So in that comparison, GOD is calling us to also defend our own faith. Defend the original faith for which JESUS CHRIST died which is being corrupted, which today has fallen into the hands of charlatans. GOD is calling us to contend earnestly for the faith that was handed over to us.

Number three is exposure of false teachers. Part and parcel of defending our faith is to expose the false teachers of our time. And that portion of the bible – verses 4 – 16 list out the major issues that will enable us understand falsehood and false teachers, and contend with them. Look at it. It says, Godless men have secretly slipped in among you. Godless men: people who are not Godly. Their interest is not to serve GOD; their interest is not righteousness; their interest is not holiness; their interest is quite a different thing – they’re in merchandise; they have secretly slipped among you; they have opened churches; they have opened ministries – and they are thriving and peddling falsehood. Look at that. The bible says, they have changed grace into license for immorality. They have changed grace into license for immorality.

Do you not read in the papers everyday the happenings? It says,  pastor has done this, pastor has done this, pastor is in indecent relationship, pastor has embezzled money, pastor has done this – all over. Are these really pastors? Are they really servants of GOD? Do they really serve GOD? Do they know JESUS CHRIST? They have changed grace into license for immorality. They deny JESUS as sovereign and LORD. They deny JESUS as sovereign and LORD. Wherever you find any person who denies the sovereignty and Lordship of JESUS CHRIST, that person is a false teacher – that individual is a false teacher; they pollute their own bodies – they pollute their own bodies; they live in pollution – they live in pollution; they reject author – they reject authority. They slander Angels. This is what Jude is writing about, that even the Archangel was very reluctant to rebuke Satan; because they respect hierarchy. They respect hierarchy. But down here, people who say they’re people of GOD are so flippant: they slander angels; they speak evil – they do not have respect for their fellows and even their seniors. These are false teachers they speak abusively about what they do not understand. They falsely prophesy for profit. This is where we are today – falsely prophesying for profit, falsely seeing visions for profit, manipulating human beings, causing trouble in families, seeing what GOD has not revealed to them. They manipulate all kinds of things. These are all false teachers – false prophets who have even gone ahead to divide and disharmonize the peace in families. They falsely prophecy for profit. They hate and murder. They go to the length to murder. They rebel against authority. They abuse sacred right. They are unproductive and worthless. They are not enhancing the worship of CHRIST, rather they cause people to look down upon churches and their servants – because of these ones who are worthless, who are unproductive, and who are not in holy living and righteous living. They are grumblers and faultfinders.

All of these things you find in the passage in Jude verses 4 – 16. That’s where you find the exposure of false prophets.

The other things they do is, they are boastful flatterers. They’re boastful; they flatter; they follow their own evil desires – not the desires of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. They follow their own evil desire. They teach and prophesy in that line.

Of course I have mentioned that they cause division and strife. They cause division and strife: both the church in the society, in homes – they cause division and strife. And this is part of the things that sustained them. They cause division and strife, and they begin to prophesy, even begin to see visions accordingly, to sustain what they have already done.

Not only their teaching is dangerous but also their ungodly and wicked lifestyles which lead people astray.

Beloveth, this is where we will stop for today, that we need to contend for the original faith delivered to us. May The LORD help us to stand up to the faith which was delivered to us by The Apostles, lest we find our own generations – our own children following corruption – corrupted gospel.

May The LORD give us help in the name of JESUS CHRIST.

And if you are in such level of corruption: you are a false teacher, false prophet, it will pay you to have a change.

Let us pray.

PRAYER

Heavenly FATHER, we thank YOU that YOU have handed over to us the order to contend earnestly for the original Faith which was handed over to us. Enable us to identify the aberrations of today and keep away from them. And I pray for all those who have already been deceived. It is not late for them to find the true way of worshipping our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and come back to The Master: come back to JESUS. May YOUR SPIRIT begin to work in their lives and draw them back unto YOU…in The Name of the FATHER, in The Name of the SON and in The Name of the HOLY SPIRIT. Amen!