ONCE DELIVERED - JUDE

Sermon of the Week #200716 – April 15, 2007

The book of Jude is composed of only one chapter, but it contains some of the most scathing denunciation of false doctrine and false teachers found in the word of God. Jude says, “Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.” When he speaks of mercy, I have to say that this is the only way we can approach God. I have no other claim on God’s attention. I know a preacher in my previous generation who preached fifty years and estimated that he had preached 5,000 sermons. Because of the marvel of electronics, I may have preached over 20,000 sermons, and I cannot say, “Lord, look, I have served you for many years, preached multiplied-thousands of sermons all over the world; surely that is enough to get me into Heaven.” No, I have no such claim. My only approach to God in the matter of obtaining His attention is a cry for mercy.

I am the man Jesus talked about in Luke 17 when He said, “But who is there of you, having a servant plowing or keeping sheep, that will say unto him when he is come in from the field, Come straightway sit down to meat; and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded? Even so ye also, when ye have done all the things that were commanded of you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which it was our duty to do.” The reason we must continue to serve in the kingdom of God is because that is what we are supposed to do. Our only recourse is to pray, “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner. I have only done what I was supposed to do, and did a very poor job of it at that.”

Jude not only said, “Mercy”, but he said, “Mercy be multiplied.” I need mercy, and I need it to be multiplied. He not only said, “Mercy be unto you”, but he also said, “Peace be unto you.” The message of Christ is the message of peace. Paul said in Philippians chapter 3, “In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be known unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard your thoughts and your hearts in Christ Jesus.” That gives us the greatest peace there is. The same kind of peace old Simeon had in the temple when they brought the infant Jesus for circumcision. When Simeon realized who the baby was, he said, “Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” The Christian can have that same peace today because he has come face to face with the Lord in His salvation. Whatever happens, nothing can take away that peace.

Then he said, “And love be multiplied.” Paul identifies true love in First Corinthians thirteen when he says, “Love suffereth long, and is kind: love envieth not; vaunteth not itself, is not provoked, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, Love never faileth.” Now listen to this, “The stars shine down upon the land, the stars shine on the sea-The stars shine up on God above, the stars shine down on me-The stars may shine a million years, a million years and a day-But God and I will love and live, when the stars have passed away.” Now that is love.

Then after he identifies himself he has this to say, “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 contend earnestly for the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Why would he say, “With all diligence, I write unto you…”? He could say the same as Paul, “I received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you.” Sounds like Jude had to work hard to write this chapter. If an inspired man worked diligently, how much more should we who are uninspired be diligent in the preparation of a message of God’s word?

In Second Samuel 24, David was told, “Erect an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” David offered to pay Araunah, but Araunah said, “Take it and make your offering to the Lord.” But David refused to take it for nothing. He said, “I will not make an offering to the Lord on an altar that cost me nothing.”

A preacher of the gospel should never bring a message to you from the Lord that cost him nothing in many hours of preparation. Jude although inspired still put many hours in preparation into the gospel message.

Then he said, “Beloved while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered for all the saints.” He says it was needful or he was constrained to write to them about their common salvation.

We have a common salvation. It is not common in the sense of being ordinary; it is an extraordinary salvation. However there are many aspects as to why it is common. For one thing, it is the same for men as it is for women. A man wrote one time to say that the gospel that is preached on this broadcast is needed by all the sex in religion. I think he meant to say sects S.E.C.T.S. But he wrote S.E.X.; whichever he meant he was right in both cases. People in all religious sects need the gospel that is preached on this broadcast. But it is also needed by all the sex in religion. It is needed by every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every they, every them, every whom, every he, every she, every it, everybody.

Actually we are all on the same level regardless of our differences. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is on the same level as the local dogcatcher. The billionaire is on the same level as the person on minimum wage. The scholar in the University is on the same level as the grade-school dropout. We are all on the same level because we all have a common disease. It is something called sin. There is no such thing as a Christian nation, but there are such things as Christians in every nation.

He said, “I give diligence to write unto you concerning our common salvation.” It is common also because we have a common Savior. Jesus can be and must be the Savior of all mankind. There is no other. Jesus said, “No one cometh unto the Father but by Me.” And Peter said, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Unless Jesus was grossly mistaken, and unless Peter was completely bumfoozled, bewildered, mystified and freaked out by what the Holy Spirit told him, there is absolutely no other way for anybody in any generation, any place or any time to go to Heaven other than through Jesus Christ. I write unto you concerning our common salvation.

It is a common salvation also because we have a common plan of salvation. Peter tells us that common plan the day the Church began on the Day of Pentecost, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Now isn’t that refreshing? Peter not only told them this, but then he told them it was not only for them, but for their children, and he told them that it was not only for their descendents, but to all that were afar off, and not only for those who were afar off, but for all as many as the Lord would call unto Him. Truly we have a common salvation because one plan fits all. I write unto you concerning our common salvation.

Consider also it is a common salvation because we belong to a common Church. There is only one Church in the New Testament. Jesus said, “I will build My Church.” There is no other Church recognized by New Testament writers. I want to be sure I am a member of that Church. Is your denomination mentioned in the Bible? When you find it, let me know where it is; I would like to join it. I want to belong to any Church that is found in the Bible, whether it be one or a dozen. I would like to join every one of them, because I don’t want to miss out on anything. On the day the Church was born, the Lord added unto the Church in that day those that were saved. Jude said, “It was a common salvation.” It is common also because we have a common name.

Doesn’t it sound strange to read the New Testament and never find modern-day denominational names? Listen to these strange names from the New Testament, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. If any suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed.” Where did you ever read of Protestants or Catholic in the Bible? If there are Protestants and Catholics in the Bible, let me know what book, what chapter and what verse so states, and I want to join both groups. Ladies and Gentlemen, I don’t want to miss out on anything. But until then, why can’t we be satisfied to call ourselves Christians, or saints and nothing else? I write unto you concerning our common salvation. It is common also because we have a common message. This is the Bible and the Bible only. There is no other book or written communication of any kind that has been given to us by the inspiration of God. John tells us on the last page of the Bible, “For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”

These words on the last page of the Bible stand there like a red flag; a big flashing sign that says danger, a warning to all who would write or believe or teach any other document as the inspired word of God. I write unto you concerning our common salvation.

We must include also that the common salvation has a common home in eternity. Jesus said to the Apostles in John thirteen, “Yet a little while, and I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whether I go ye cannot come.”  Simon Peter saith unto Him, “Lord, whither goest Thou?” Jesus answered, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow afterwards.” Then in the next chapter Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am there may ye be also.” The Christian can say, “I know not the form of my mansion so fair-I know not the crown, that I there then shall wear-But I know that my Saviour will welcome me there-and that will be heaven for me.”

Now after speaking of our common salvation, Jude has something to say about contending for the faith, “I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.”

Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints. Man did not figure this faith out for himself; it was delivered. If a delegation of angels had come down to earth and sat in conference with Einstein and all the other leading minds on planet earth, there would be no equation they could come up with, that would equal out to salvation. Einstein would tell us that E=M.C.2. They say that only a few people understand this equation. I know a harder equation to understand than that. See if you can understand this, Acts 2:38 = remission. If you can figure that one out, you are a genius. I doubt that even Einstein ever figured that one out. I exhort you like Jude, “Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.” The faith was once delivered and it was delivered to the saints. It was not delivered to the United States government. We have a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Defense, a secretary of this and a secretary of that, but no secretary of the Bible. It was delivered to the saints, to the Church. It is the duty of the Church to send the word out to a world that lives in the suburbs of Hell.

Paul tells us in First Timothy that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth. The Bible has been deposited by God into the hands of the Church. The Church cannot change the message. The Church as the pillar and ground of truth must support the truth and hold it up to a lost world. The Church must deliver the message even as it was delivered to them. Paul said, “I received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you.” The big problem today is that while all Churches have the same Bible, they are not delivering what they have received; they deliver something else.

All Churches have the same Bible. You can go into some Church in the middle of the week when no one is present and open the pulpit Bible to Mark the sixteenth chapter, and it will say, “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” Go back on Sunday and if someone responds to the invitation he is informed that he is saved before he is baptized. If we are puzzled, the answer to the problem is that while they have received the same word as everybody else, they have not delivered what they have received. Paul said, “I received it and I delivered it. I did not deliver something else.”

Go to other Churches during the week when no one is present and open the Bible to the eighth chapter of the book of Acts and read where they went down into the water, both Philip and the Eunuch and he baptized him and then they came up out of the water. Go back on Sunday and someone responds to the invitation and he gets water sprinkled on him and they call it baptism. Again we may be puzzled at the difference and we may say, “Hey, your Bible says one thing and you do another.” The mystery is cleared up when we understand that they have received the same Bible as everybody else; they just haven’t delivered what they have received. Paul said, “I delivered unto you that which I also received.” He did not deliver something else.

Notice also that there has only been one delivery. It was once delivered unto the saints. There is only one delivery. The truth of God was not delivered twice, just once. The Bible is the only book where you can find the way to Heaven. There is no other. John said after the Resurrection that these things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing ye might have life in His name. There is just one delivery. So when someone tells you they have another book besides the Bible that is inspired of God, you know that you are talking to a false prophet. There is no other book. We do things now that would have been miraculous to people a few years ago. God will never say, “Well, it looks like I will have to invent a high-tech plan for this high-tech age. They need a high-tech Church and a high-tech gospel.” Ladies and Gentlemen, our high-tech age has produced high-tech sinners, who are headed for a high-tech Hell. God will not give these high-tech smart-alecks a customized plan of salvation. There will be no designer-Church or a designer-plan of salvation except the one designed in the New Testament.

Lord through the desert drear and wide; Our erring footsteps need a guide.

Keep us keep us by thy side; Help us not fall, Help us not fall.

We have a fear that we should lose, One whom eternal love could choose.

So we would ne’er this grace abuse, Help us not fall, help us not fall.

Lord we are blind and halt and lam; Our only stronghold is thy name.

Great is our fear to bring it shame, Help us not fall, Help us not fall.

Lord ever more thy face we seek, Tempted we are and poor and weak.

Keep us with lowly hearts and meek; Help us not fall, Help us not fall.

All thy good works in us complete, And set us daily at thy feet.

Thy love, works, name, how sweet; Help us not fall, Help us not fall.

Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.