When I was a kid, I didn’t like to get into fights. That’s not to say I never got into fights, because I did from time to time. But I tried to avoid it. As a Christian, I don’t necessarily like to fight, either. Most Christians would agree that fighting is not what we are primarily called to do.
At the same time, there was a side of our Savior that overturned tables and drove people out of the temple with a whip, that called the religious folks of his day a brood of vipers. And it’s this Jesus that Jude brought to the forefront in his book, which I see as a sort of call to arms. Today I want to look at four components to this call:
1. The army. “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.” (Jude 1:1-2). The army includes Jude, the author; Jesus Christ, the commander; and you and me, the troops. The real question in the Christian life is not will you be a soldier, but will you be a good, faithful, and loyal soldier, even when skirmishes come your way?
2. The hostility. “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 earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” (v. 3). Essentially, Jude was saying put up a good fight for the faith, the body of Christian truth as given in the New Testament. But that doesn’t give us permission to be contentious. In fact,ย 1 Peter 3:15ย tells us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.”
3. The artillery. Verse 3 tells us what it is: “The faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Do you know that God has given us the most powerful weapon in the world? It’s called truthโthe Word of God. Not only do we fight for the faith; we fight with the faith. We combat error with truth. This is exactly what Jesus did when Satan came against Him in the wilderness to tempt Him (seeย Matthew 4:1-11) and when the religious leaders contended with Him (seeย Matthew 22:29).
4. The enemy. Who are we fighting against? Apostatesโthose who have rejected the faith. “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (v. 4). These are folks who want to use the name of Jesus, but they don’t want to live under His authority (seeย Matthew 7:21;ย Luke 6:46).
Every generation faces the challenges of apostasy and attacks on the truth. None of this should surprise us, because we find it in Scripture. The question is, are you ready to step into the ring? God is calling us to this battle, and He will see us through it, for the final victory has already been won. I pray He would give us courage during this time in which we live to stand up and fight for the faith.
