CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH

v 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.”• Glimpse of inspiration?• “I found it necessary to write” shows urgency.• “Contend” is an athletic term which refers to an intense

effort in a wrestling match.

• This faith was “once for all delivered to the saints.”• When?• I think the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

• The point is: The gospel does not change.• “Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be

found a liar” (Prov 30:6).• “Even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel

to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal 1:8).

• Implications of the gospel’s unchanging nature:• Any modern revelation can be easily discounted.• Any recent doctrines can be easily discredited.• Faith was entrusted to the saints.• Greek term refers to teaching which is handed down

from one person to another.• Divine passive--God is doing the entrusting.• Faith was given to the saints, not the world at large.

CORRUPTING OF THE FAITH

v 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.”

• Deceivers have often come in among the church.• Christians must “no longer be children, tossed to and fro

and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Eph 4:14).• “Evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse,

deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim 3:13).

• Their condemnation was written about long ago.• Greek term literally means “to write beforehand.”• The Old Testament prophesied heretics would come.• “They have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people

slightly, Saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace” (Jer 8:11).• “They have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is

no peace--and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar” (Ezek 13:10).

• These heretics are ungodly men, they change the grace of God into lewdness, and they deny Jesus Christ.• They lived a grossly immoral life.• We cannot do that (Rom 6:1-2).

• They denied Jesus Christ, our only Sovereign and Lord.• “Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not

confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (2 John 7).

•What can we learn?• False teachers are real.• We need to live moral lives.• Are you living a Christian life?