Jude 1-4 Introduction to Jude

Well, good morning.

Today we will be starting a new study in the New Testament, the letter of Jude.

In your Bibles, this letter is strategically placed right before the book of Revelation.

And today I will be doing an introductory sermon which will cover the first four verses of Jude.

Before reading any passage of Scripture, it's vital to ask the question: who wrote this and why?

In other words, who is the author?

Why is that relevant?

And what was the historical context?

And so this is a great hermeneutical practice that not only helps us understand the letter, but promotes the best method of interpretation, which allows God to speak for himself.

And so the first question we're going to ask this morning is: who is Jude?

Well, we are given a little insight in verse 1.

Says, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.

So most scholars identify this writer as the half-brother of Jesus.

In Matthew's gospel, he records the names of the brothers of Jesus as James and Jude.

So it's safe to assume that this indeed is the half-brother of Jesus Christ, which means Jude was not a believer during Jesus' earthly ministry.

I don't know if you guys remember, but during Jesus' public ministry, his family came to bring him home.

They said, Jesus, you're insane.

What are you doing?

You're acting crazy.

Come home.

And so Jude did not place his faith in Jesus until after the crucifixion and the resurrection.

Could you imagine how hard it would be to believe that your brother is God the Messiah?

This is your brother who you grew up with, your brother who was breastfed, who used the restroom, who tied his shoes the same way you did, and he is the son of God?

Yeah, right.

So right off the bat, we can observe a supernatural work of God in the life of Jude.

The brother who once said, Jesus, come home, you're insane, is now saying, I am a servant to the Lord Jesus.

In addition to all this, Jude could have used his relation to Jesus as a means of gain.

He could have opened this letter saying, Jude, my blood bro, whom I know better than all y'all.

But we don't see that, do we?

Jude introduces himself as a humble servant, literally a slave of Jesus Christ.

So the fact that Jude is a humble, transformed believer teaches us right off the bat that God can save anyone.

There's no barrier too great that God cannot break through to get a hold of someone.

Jude went from being ashamed of Jesus to someone who is now, as we will see, an aggressive defender of the faith.

And this brings us to the historical context.

Why did he write this letter?

Again, we have a little insight in verse 3.

Jude says, I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation.

In other words, Jude wanted to write a letter like the Ephesians, a letter that's outlining the eternal glories that we have in Christ, a letter that describes the beauty of salvation.

But as he put pen to paper, look at the verse, he found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once delivered to all the saints.

The Holy Spirit intervened and said, Jude, I know that you would love to write about those things, but I am going to inspire you differently.

Because the church needs to be warned about false teachers, and they need to be urged to contend for the faith.

And that brings us to our context.

It is assumed that Jude was written somewhere between AD 67 and 80.

The church at this point was a little developed, but still very much new and thus vulnerable.

So new things tend to attract big fish and small ponds.

Plus, the early church did not have thousands of years of church history to learn from, like we do.

So what had happened from the birth of the church in Acts chapter 2 up into this point is that false teachers had infiltrated the church.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Very bad people who claim to be Christian, who even walk and talk like a Christian, had wormed their way into the church, even gaining leadership positions, and they were wreaking havoc.

Which is why Jude's letter is so sharp, it's edgy, it's urgent.

So the meta-narrative of this entire letter is this false teachers are among us.

How do we identify them and how do we survive them?

To put this another way, false teachers are among us.

What is their ploy?

And how can we persevere?

This letter is a survival guide giving us a description of wolves, teaching us the enemy's tactics, and showing us as Christians how we can endure.

So Jude begins in verses one and two saying, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

What a powerful introduction to Christians who are facing wolves.

What an uplifting introduction statement to churches who are dealing with false teaching.

Imagine for a moment being faced with theological chaos.

People in your church are being led astray, false teachers are gaining a following and escorting church members out.

Could you imagine a church split happening because half the church has turned away from the gospel?

Naturally, you would think, am I next?

Like, is all hope lost?

Will I be deceived as well?

Is this how it's all going to play out that everyone becomes an apostate?

So Jude's introduction here is highly intentional.

He speaks right into their worries, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.

In the middle of doubt and confusion, how helpful is it to start off the conversation saying, before we jump in, let me remind you, church, that you are called, beloved, and kept.

Called means chosen.

You were summoned and commissioned, not based on your works or your achievements, but God called you out of the grave based on his goodwill and pleasure.

And his calling wasn't, you know, some kind of prevenient grace of, hey, would you like to be invited to the party?

Not at all.

His calling was the same calling we see in John 11.

When Jesus called Lazarus forth, God called your name, you became spiritually alive, and your dead bones came to life.

If you are a true believer in the room, it's because God has effectually called you.

And as Romans 11, 29 reminds us, the calling of God is irrevocable.

It's not our calling to God, but his calling on us that keeps us from waffling to any other calling.

The devil may call me, he's the world's certainly calling.

False teachers are calling, but it's God's calling on my life that will prevail.

Then there is beloved, not by anybody, but look at the verse.

By God the Father.

This is an unfailing love, a love based on God's choice, not your efforts.

It means that God is affectionate towards you.

He's concerned about you, and he highly regards you.

It is a love, as Romans 8 says, that we cannot be separated from.

It's important to remember that the reason God loves you isn't because you're so lovable.

It's because he has chosen you to be in Christ and you bear the righteousness of Christ.

In times of distress, especially when we see a max exodus of Christians leaving the faith, we're tempted to ponder does God love his people?

And we need to be reminded hey, you are deeply loved by God the Father.

And lastly, there's being kept for Jesus Christ.

If you are a true Christian, you are being kept for Jesus Christ.

Meaning you will continue to be retained, sustained, and guarded until the day you see Jesus face to face.

It's a done deal.

He who began a good work in you will complete it to the day of full redemption.

Nothing can snatch you out of God's hands.

It's determined.

From the day of your justification until the day of your glorification, there is no evil, no deception, no sin, no power, no false teacher or demon that can interrupt or stop that process.

Because your salvation is dependent upon God's faithfulness and his work, not yours.

I can let go of God all I want, but he will not let go of me.

And trust me, I've tried.

And after mentioning all this, Jude says, May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

Jude speaks a blessing over them that mercy, peace, and love would multiply in abundance.

The beautiful thing about the Christian life is that we never stop growing out of these things.

We never graduate these traits.

We continue for a lifetime to mature in our understanding of and experiencing to new degrees God's mercy, his peace, and his love.

What a beautiful introduction, a comforting one to Christians who are being attacked and spiritually fighting for truth.

In a world full of heresies, when we doubt our faith and evil seems to be winning, we need reminded, hey, let's not forget that you have been chosen, you are loved by your Creator, and you will be kept until you see Jesus face to face.

What a solid truth to stand on in theological, confusing times.

Next, Jude reveals the purpose of his letter in verse 3.

He says, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once delivered for all the saints.

Things pertaining to God's glorious salvation in Jesus Christ, but he was led otherwise.

He was compelled by the Spirit to instead write a letter of warning, a letter encouraging the saints to contend for the faith.

And so this verse has a few implications.

First, it implies that Christians are to contend for the faith.

This is a command.

Now, there are two great pitfalls here.

On one hand, we have Christians who are overly obsessed, almost paranoid, about false teachers and bad doctrine.

Their entire mission is to witch hunt all day long.

They just read articles, they just listen to preachers, they just can't wait to find a preacher to say something wrong so they can scream, heretic, blasphemy.

That is the meditation of their heart all day long.

In their mind, that's the greatest commandment to find bad doctrine.

They're like a drunk man at a bar looking for a fight.

Now, on the other extreme, there are Christians who don't care at all about bad doctrine.

They're afraid and intimid to expose bad doctrine.

They are passive.

They refuse to engage in any form of apologetics.

They don't contend at all.

They shy away from confrontation.

They equate confrontation or standing on truth as being too judgy or pharisaical.

They don't want to step on any toes.

And this attitude obviously goes against Jude's command here.

So what does this command mean?

It means that as born-again, bloodbought, redeemed children of God, we should, to some degree, contend for the faith when false teachers attack the gospel.

As a church, we are called both to promote and protect the gospel.

And trust me, we don't need typically to go looking for a fight.

The fight will come to us.

We are called to contend for the faith, and we are to do this graciously, lovingly, sternly, and truthfully.

Jesus is our perfect model for this.

Look at his ministry.

Most of his ministry was him making disciples, teaching God's word, loving on people.

But at times, opponents came and tried to undermine his ministry and attack his message.

And he would expose their error.

He would point out their poor interpretations of scripture, and he would call them out on their sin.

In Matthew 22, Jesus bluntly tells false teachers, he says, You are in error, and you know nothing about Scripture nor the power of God.

In the same way, we, as followers of Jesus, are called to do the same.

Especially in a world that is overconnected with technology.

We live in a world that is shouting from a megaphone, deceptions that directly attack the core of our faith.

And like the Apostle Paul, we need to reason with people, respond to our opponents, but also discern when it is time to dust off our shoes and move on.

If we truly believe that God's word is true, and that there is no other name under heaven by which humanity can be saved, the name of Jesus Christ, and that we have the message of a blessed salvation that solves all of our sin problem, then we need to know how to contend for it.

Because Satan is going to attack it.

His goal is to make God's message seem confusing, or worse, make it something that it was never meant to be.

So as ambassadors, we are to contend.

We contend for so many things.

Just think about it.

We contend for our favorite football team.

We aggressively contend for politics, we contend for relationships, but for some reason, when it comes to the most important thing in our lives, the gospel, you know, the message in all the universe that can save someone from hell, we tend to be laid back.

Passive about that.

And maybe it's because of bad examples.

Okay, for for example, you know, Westboro Baptist and you know, angry people on the town square with the Turner Burns signs, or people who are just outright they're mean and they're nasty in their contending.

But that doesn't mean that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.

It shouldn't discourage us from lovingly, graciously, and courageously defending God's message of salvation.

Certainly, there are people in your circle of influence that attack what you believe about the gospel.

And if not, they will come.

And you need to learn how to respond, you need to learn how to contend, and you need to learn how to do this in both truth and love.

And what exactly are we contending for?

Well, Jude says we are contending for the faith that was once delivered to all the saints.

Now, this is an interesting way of putting it.

He could have said, we're contending for Jesus or we're contending for truth.

But he intentionally says, we are contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

In case you didn't know, the Bible was not yet compiled during this time.

They had the Old Testament, but the New Testament was still in process.

So the faith is referring to that which was promised in Eden, it was prefigured in Abraham, and it was finalized in the death and resurrection of Christ.

It is the message that God has been shouting to sinful humanity since Genesis 3, that by grace through faith in God's provision for our sin, namely Christ, we can be reconciled to God.

We can be saved.

And this faith was finalized in Christ.

When Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead, he finalized and fulfilled and accomplished this perfect provision for our sin.

So the faith is established.

It has been once delivered by Christ, prophesied beforehand by the prophets, confirmed by the apostles, preached by through the church.

Although the Bible was still being written during this time, the faith was once delivered to all the saints, meaning it's established, it's unchanging, and it's undisputable.

Which implies that you cannot add or subtract from it.

You can bear witness to it, you can preach and teach it, you can rejoice and glory in it, but it's not up for debate.

God will never say, hey, never mind.

You know, the whole salvation by faith in Christ things, scratch that, I've got a different idea.

Saints have a solid, objective, trustworthy hope.

It's a done deal.

Our faith doesn't change or morph.

We have solid ground in the faith that we have in Jesus Christ.

This verse also condemns any attempt to establish a new or secondary faith.

False teachers say you know, God said this back then, but he's saying something new today.

The Bible is outdated.

God has evolved with humanity.

There's a new kind of Christianity available to us that's contrary to what God has said in the past.

No.

Jesus died once for sin.

He was resurrected once.

His gospel was established once.

There is one church.

There's one faith, one salvation, one baptism, one way, one truth, and it was delivered one time for all the saints.

This is very important for us to remember in a world that is trying to aggressively redefine Christianity.

Everything accomplished in the Son is an objective truth.

The moment it becomes subjective, we might as well join Pilate in his confusion.

What is truth?

So now that Jude has established his introduction and given us his purpose for writing the letter, he now warns these Christians about a horrible reality.

In verse 4, he says, For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

So before Jude goes into his long description of exposing false teachers, the first thing he wants them to know is that they're among you.

They snuck in.

There are false teachers in your midst, people who don't even know they're false teachers, who have divisive and destructive motives.

They are just looking for an opportune time to implement them.

And notice what he says.

They came in unnoticed.

Why didn't we notice them?

If they're so dangerous and evil, surely we would have seen it.

How did this happen?

It happened because false teachers are good at playing Christian.

They know Christian lingo, they know theological terms, they know how to dress, they know how to play church, they sing songs with us, they pray with us, they participate in Christian activities, they engage in fellowship.

It's like the wolf in the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

The wolf who's evil and just literally ate grandma has studied grandma for a very long time.

He puts on her clothes, he knows her personality, how she walked and how she talked.

He knows how to pretend and act.

He knows what little Red Riding Hood likes to hear.

What grandma would tell her.

But he's acting.

And the whole time the wolf has a heinous and evil motive.

In the same way, false teachers come in unnoticed.

They didn't come in here with a pitchfork and a Ouija board, screaming the Bible isn't true.

Okay, that's not a very good false teacher.

No, they come in here looking all fresh.

They're all attractive, they're likable people, they're great in social conversations.

They affirm a lot of what we're talking about.

They love to talk about Jesus.

They come, they're they're unnoticed because we just assume, wow, they're one of us.

Not knowing that they are incognito.

They are in fact sent here by Satan, trying to gain a following, trying to create division and deceive the gullible and the weak.

They build relationships, they gain trust, then slowly begin to introduce destructive heresies that will spread like gangrene and poison many of the minds of the church.

Now, how could this happen?

Or to put it more bluntly, why would God allow this?

Well, Jude answers that objection in the next sentence.

He says, they were designated for this destruction.

In other words, God allows it.

God's not startled, he's not surprised, God is not in heaven saying, Oh no, I didn't realize that Satan would send agents to my church.

What do we do?

Not at all.

God knew Satan would do this.

He knew this would be the enemy's ploy, because the quickest way to kill a church is not external persecution, it is internal heresy.

Therefore, their destruction has already been designated.

Justice will be served.

You know, it's one thing to not believe in God or to deny him, but it is a whole other thing to attack his nature and his message.

As 2 Peter 2 says, there is a special darkness reserved for false teachers in hell.

Contrary to modern thought, not all sin is equal.

All sin is equal in guilt, but not in severity.

Throughout the Old Testament, God always allowed false prophets to speak to Israel.

In fact, he uses them to purify his people, to weed out the genuine believers from the impostors.

In Deuteronomy 3, God tells Israel that he will let false prophets speak to them, to test them, and to find out whether they love him with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength.

God allows it to test and sanctify us.

Who will we listen to?

To God and his word?

Will we be a church that thinks that says, tickle my ears, tell me things that appeal to my flesh?

Or like Isaiah, will we be people who say, stop telling us truth, tell us pleasant lies?

God could take out all the false teachers by the snap of his fingers, but he doesn't.

He allows them to indict themselves, and at the same time, he uses them to purify his people.

So we need to be aware of their motives, what they preach and what they look like, which is what Jude describes in the next verse.

He says they are ungodly, and they pervert the grace of our God as a license to sin, thus denying Jesus.

After establishing their condemnation, he now transitions to their character and their trickery.

Their character, says Jude, is ungodly.

Ungodly means to live your life without regard to God.

Meaning, although they like to talk about God and quote Scripture, they are doing this for the purpose of being their own God and justifying their sinful desires.

To put this more bluntly, they are atheistic people who are trying to use the Christian religion as a means of personal pleasure and gain.

And how could they ever pull this off?

Well, they do this by perverting the grace of God.

There are many forms of false teaching.

In fact, if you look in your bulletins, I made a little list for you.

I hope you guys find that helpful.

But historically, there are two main heresies that could be categorized this way.

There's legalism, which means you're saved by works, and then there's licentiousness, meaning you are saved in works don't matter.

Here, Jude emphasizes the latter licentiousness or antinomianism, the belief that Christians are not required to obey any moral law.

You're free to live however you want.

What makes this teaching so attractively deceptive is because it attempts to give you the best of two worlds.

You get heaven and you get to pursue all of your pleasures.

You get God's love, plus you get to indulge in any activity or desire you want to.

You can have the blessing of God and the pleasures of this world.

And why this teaching is so deceptive is that it's full of half-truths.

Deception, by definition, is a whole lot of truth with just a little bit of error.

This false gospel typically goes like this.

Jesus died for my sins, they say.

There's nothing I can do to earn or lose my salvation, which is true, by the way.

However, where they go wrong is the application of these heavenly realities.

They say, therefore, I can cheat, I can party, I can love money, I can indulge in my flesh, I can listen and watch and do whatever I want to do.

None of it matters because nothing can separate me from the amazing love of God.

Do you see that?

They took a pearl and they crushed it.

They took the blood of Christ and they trampled it.

They took God's amazing grace, his immeasurable love, these precious and rich doctrines of mercy and forgiveness, and they said, Therefore I can live like the devil.

Bonhoeffer referred to this as cheap grace.

He says this cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Make no mistake, church.

Christ died for our sin, and his sacrifice is sufficient.

It covers all our sin, past, present, and future, and it is amazing.

It is deeper than we can comprehend, and it is abundant.

As the hymn goes, our sins they are many, but God's mercy is more.

But God's grace has another effect that is often neglected.

It transforms us.

His grace changes us.

When the Holy Spirit makes his home in us, he leads us into righteous living, in joyful obedience.

He gives us new appetites.

We hate the sin we once loved, and we love the God we once hated.

As John Piper once said, grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned.

Grace is the enabling gift and power of God not to sin.

Grace is power, not just pardon.

Tim Keller puts it this way: God sees us as we are, he loves us as we are, and he accepts us as we are, but by his grace, he does not leave us where we are.

Good works is evidence that we have received God's grace.

Good behavior is the fruit of salvation, not the root of it.

Therefore, if you claim to have received God's grace without any ounce of repentance or good fruit, or at the very least a hunger to be more like Christ, it can only mean one thing: that you have truly not received God's grace to begin with.

Because God's grace, which freely forgives, also transforms us and makes us new creatures.

Yes, grace can meet and find any sinner exactly where they are, but God's grace will not leave them there.

When we receive the Holy Spirit, we He will make us holy, not just legally or rhetorically, but practically and in reality.

Church, we are living in a time where this is the primary heresy.

Sure, we still fight against legalism or scholars who attempt to disprove the Bible, but the main false teaching we hear today, or at least I'll speak for myself, is God loves you.

People will even use God's word, the book of holiness, to justify sin.

People will say, it's okay that I can smoke weed all day long.

Genesis 1.

God made all the plants and he said that it was good.

It's okay to get drunk.

Jesus was at a party, he turned water into wine.

I can get drunk.

Oh, it's okay to get angry and violent towards people.

Jesus made a whip.

He went into the temple, he was overturning money changers.

It's okay to be unequally yoked to unbelievers because Jesus hung out with sinners.

It's okay to commit sin.

David did, Abraham did, and there was grace.

And then they put up kind of this defense wall saying, you can't correct me, you can't point out my sin, or talk about obedience to me because we're all just broken sinners.

And in all these cases, they blatantly misinterpret and misapply the word of God that was meant to conform us more into the image of Christ.

So not only do they promote things that God hates, but they use his word as a means to do so.

They twist, they distort, they pervert scripture to fit their desires and behaviors.

They take scripture out of context and they do not allow God to speak for himself.

And they manipulate Scripture in such a way to justify immoral behavior.

It's quite offensive to sin in the name of ignorance or atheism.

But how much more offensive is it to God to sin in the name of Jesus, to promote sin, the very thing that killed Christ, in the name of God's word.

That is a scary place to be.

Yes, God is love.

Amen.

But according to 1 Corinthians 13, love does not delight in evil.

Yes, God has given us grace.

It's amazing, isn't it?

But as Titus 2.11 says, that grace teaches us to what?

To deny ungodliness and worldliness.

Yes, as Romans 5 says, sin increased so that God's grace may abound.

Amen and amen.

But let us not forget what Paul says a few verses later.

What shall we say then?

Should we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

By no means.

Far be it from me, says Paul.

Yes, Jesus forgives us.

Look at that poor woman caught in adultery.

He freely, totally, abundantly forgave her, but let us not forget the purpose of his forgiveness when he told her, now go and sin no more.

This hyper grace movement is heresy.

It has been condemned for centuries by orthodoxy.

And it leads to theological suicide to justify what we want.

It leads to approaching God's word saying, How can I use this thing to justify my will?

The gospel message is neither legalistic nor is it licentious, nor is it a healthy balance between the two.

I've heard people talk like that.

The gospel is a totally different message given to us by God, accomplished in Christ, that we can be freely forgiven by believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ, that we can have complete forgiveness and freedom in Him.

And when we receive this great salvation, it will change us.

The Holy Spirit will enter us and he will convict us and we will become new creatures, not perfect creatures.

I still sin, we still make mistakes, but we have a new trajectory in life to glorify God and to walk in his will.

In the true gospel, we're not merely saved from the penalty of sin, but slowly saved from the power of it.

We're not saved by our works.

There's nothing you can do in the flesh to earn God's approval.

We are saved by the work of Christ.

But if we have truly received that, we will be transformed.

Good works will overflow, and our relationship with sin will change.

So, proclamation church, what's the point of all this?

If there are false teachers out there and we're vulnerable to deception, what do we do?

Well, first and foremost, are you contending for the faith?

Not are you arguing with people online, okay?

If that's where your mind goes, that's a problem, okay?

Contending for the faith is graciously reasoning with those who are trying to undermine, distort, or attack the faith that saves.

If you are aggressively or being harsh and mean and nasty about that, you need to check your pride and remind yourself of the fruits of the Spirit.

That's a whole separate issue.

But if you're not contending for the faith on some level, ask yourself why.

Why are you so afraid or ashamed or against contending for the one who literally saved you out of darkness?

If you're not fighting for something, then are you really for it to begin with?

Secondly, have you fallen into false teaching?

Review the handout that I gave out.

Just go through it.

Review and look and see if there's anything that you identify with.

We live in a day and age where everyone has a platform of influence.

Everyone has a voice and can create videos, self-publish books and commentaries, and share opinions on interpretations.

And by the way, I love technology.

I think it's great.

There is a wealth of good theologians and authors at our disposal.

But the downside to this is we are exposed daily to so many heresies.

If I wanted to find a Christian support group and get affirmation to beat my kids, I could find a whole Christian community online that would support me in that and tell me it's okay and biblical.

That I'm following God's will.

The internet can justify anything.

If the Spirit convicted you this morning on any matter or expose some bad teaching in your life, what a blessing that is.

Seriously, that is a blessing that you have the opportunity today, right now, to change your mind and to say, God, I am sorry.

I was thinking that way, but I'm going to start thinking your way.

Because your way is the best way.

Which leads me to my last point.

We must be humble people of the word.

We must be good students of the Bible, and we must must approach it without bias.

We must approach it humbly, reverently, consistently.

You recognize a fake dollar bill by studying a real one, right?

We've all heard that illustration before.

In the same way, if you're not feeding yourself with God's word and allowing God to speak for himself through it, then you will be, as Paul says in Ephesians, like a child, tossed around by the waves and blown by every wind of doctrine and by people's trickery and clever strategies that would lead us astray.

This is what Jesus did in the wilderness when Satan tried to attack him and tempt him, and he tried to twist scripture to tempt him, and Jesus used scripture right back at him in its proper context to rebuke Satan's deceitful misinterpretations and misapplications.

Satan, by the way, he can't change our position in Christ.

The devil cannot change our future.

According to 1 John 5, he can't even touch us.

But what he can do is tell us lies.

That is his primary ministry.

He can whisper lies in our ears.

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, it's against dark spiritual forces that cast ungodly imaginations and speculations into our minds.

And the solution then is to take down those imaginations and fantasies and speculations and to place them next to Christ in his word and to say, Jesus, is this imagination in line with you?

And if it's not, we throw it away.

This is why we must be a people of the book.

This is why we must be a church that loves one another well.

This is why we practice church membership.

This is why we encourage people to join and be connected to our church so that we all collectively agree on a right confession of faith, that we would all agree on what it means to be in a covenant relationship with one another, that we would all hold each other accountable, locking arms as a family, and be on the same page regarding gospel matters, because that kind of environment breeds unity and commitment.

And it is that much harder for a false teacher to squeeze their way in.

Church false teachers are all around us, perhaps among us, you know, don't be eyeballing people, get all paranoid.

But it should make us humble and draw closer to God.

So let us contend for the faith.

Let us take doctrine more seriously.

Let us take church life more seriously.

Let us seek theological counsel from the pastors more frequently.

And may we be a unified, gospel centered church in which the gates of hell will not prevail.

Because if we do not have the gospel, what do we have?

We have nothing without it.

Church, let us pray.