Cults | Contend for the Faith: Why Doctrine Still Matters

0:00 Jude, this will be barring something crazy. Happening we always have the door we. Could our last episode in the series on the Colts? And really, I think it's like a punctuation. Episode. And it really comes. So you and I are both kind of studying up for at least one, maybe 15 episodes on presuppositions. Oh yeah, you're loving it. You are loving it, Michael. And so we were listening to this book called Only Believe. And it's very difficult for me listening to this book because there'll be times where I'm like, oh, yeah, that's 100% right. And then there'll be times like, this is the worst argument I've ever heard.

0:40 So like, I'm like, do I have my guard up? Am I listening? Am I like, you know, a critic or am I good? But he does talk about Jude and earnestly contending for the faith. And when I was teaching, I was a youth pastor at CBC, youth leader, probably, maybe not youth pastor, youth leader. And we went through the book of Jude, probably like a verse or two. Even memorized. It and we memorized all of it. Yeah. So it just called to mind. I was like, oh, you know, that kind of goes along with our cult things and why we did what we did and why we thought it was good for us to look at those areas because we are supposed to, as we've talked about, contending earnestly. Oh, that, that's so good.

1:24 It's like in the Christian life, you've got this balance. You want to be all things for all people for the gospel, but at the same time you've got to earnestly contend for the faith and that that's important. And I think, like you said, nice little punctuation capstone. It's not like we just want to pick fights. You know what? I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause there's a lot of stuff that we could pick it like. We did mention some things that not necessarily core like. Right. Yeah, but that. Are problematic like prayer to the the dead Saints or the Marian doctrines. We we find those problematic because it could end up edging into like a core issue, but yeah.

2:05 And what I like about this in reference to this book that we're listening to, So what some priests suppers will say when it comes to apologetics, another version of their apologetics, they will say they just use biblical apologetics, they use expository apologetics. So I like this because you're using exposition for your apologetic. You know that and and and you're probably not going to do the traditional precept route. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and this guy, he doesn't even call himself a young earth creationist some more. He calls himself a biblical. Creationist. When I, when I heard that, I was like, oh, this, this, that's when I was like, I'm sending this to Michael. This is good. What is his name? Paul Frank. Paul Taylor.

2:45 Paul Taylor. He's like a disciple of Sigh. Do you know this guy Psy? I see him all the time online. He's like he is big in the pre sub community. I need to find both these guys. The let me tell ya, sorry, we're shaving a little bit of rabbit trail. Zach and I are both listening to the audio book that's available on Amazon. I might buy the book to reference some stuff, but I think I'll be fine. But the narrator does this guy no favors 'cause he mispronounces words. And you? Yeah. What were some of them that were pretty? Cool Kalam. What the Kalam Cosmological argument? That's like one of the words you want to nail if you're an apologetics. Right. Yeah, yeah, there's a number that he gets wrong. And I had to remind myself, this is not the author speaking.

3:27 This is the narrator speaking. It doesn't make you know, 'cause you wanna, 'cause you think you, you kind of get where it's associated. The author is speaking to you and you're like, OK, the author probably knows how to pronounce Kalam, so we we won't attribute this to I. Love it. This guy's presuppositional young earth like worked in association with Ken Ham. I was like, this is this is the kind of thing I need to send Michael. This is the book for Michael, Yeah. Well, let's get let's get into Jude. Let's look at some. Background. Take it to the next level. Let's fire up that twangy music. From the hearts of the Low Country in South Carolina. It's the Take Two podcast where we take theology to the next level.

4:15 So the book, the author, Jude. Who's it written by? I think it's Jude, although it's weird to me that these things are controversial at some. But Jude, the brother of James, and you read it, he calls himself a bond servant of Christ. He doesn't even kind of use this familial privilege there. Yeah, that's interesting. Some of the key ideas of the book. It's a very short book, but it's an urgent call to defend Apostolic doctrine. A warning against false teachers. Emphasis on judgment, holiness and perseverance. Strong use of Old Testament and Jewish examples. Clay throwers, Spidey senses went off. Old Testament examples.

4:56 Are you? Yeah. It's great. Yeah. The book. Can be not similar to second Peter. We actually did a podcast. It's kind of a really just looking at the not going through Jude, but kind of looking at the similarity between Jude and second Peter 'cause they are striking and they're like in order. It seems like, you know, there's a lot of overlap on these things like false teachers, judgment, imagery, moral corruption, probably shared some, you know, dependence on the literary use or, or tradition. So anyway, we won't go through that. We'll cover some new, new material. Yeah. So verse one and two, we have a greeting. Verse 3 through 4, kind of the purpose shift we'll talk about. And then he's going to give some examples of judgement 5 through 7, description of false teachers 8 through 16, Exhortations 2, believers 17 through 23.

5:44 And then he's going to end up with two verses of doxology, so 25 verses total in the book so. What a great doxology have you? The only thing I've ever about Jude is like intend for the faith and the doxology. It's like, man, so good. All right, so why did he originally write it? Jude says. He wanted to, you know, write something about our shared salvation in verse 3. And maybe that would be something like what you'd imagine in the book of Ephesians is, you know, a general book, you know. But he says that he was compelled to write to encourage us to earnestly contend for the faith because he sees a threat to our church and this is an internal threat. No, I, I think, I think that's good too. I like that that's how it starts. It's like this shift because that's like the first impulse, you know, this common salvation.

6:39 But there are important things at hand that need addressed all. Right. So the breakdown of earnestly contend, the word contend earnestly comes from the root agonism may and we get our word agonize from that, but it means to fight or struggle. It does have this prefix EPI on it, which means to intensify that fight or struggle. So it is not a passive disagreement. It is active, intentional defense of the faith, and it is the faith that is that objective faith that has been handed down, rooted in Apostolic teaching, which we would find in our Scriptures, Jude says. It is once for all delivered.

7:24 Past tense. It's already delivered, kind of just like Paul says. Anyone else gives you a different gospel? Yeah, you see these themes. It's not like, hey, just be on the lookout for these new apostles, take what they're teaching. We don't, we don't see that at all. And you, I think you mentioned the term internal apologetics and that's good 'cause you might be like, we're connecting faith. What's the context, who we talking to? We're talking to the out people outside the church, inside the church. It's not really for these people that are outside the church. Yeah, it is specifically rooted at or focus at the folks inside the church that we could guard against false doctrine, because Jude's concern is that there are people inside the church who look like church members potentially who are distorting the gospel.

8:12 That's scary scary. So let's go through his concern, starting with a big one, denial of Christ. You would think you could like you would really sniff this out if like we had a church member like did not, you know? Yeah, but you see, you know, some of the the cults that we covered, you would see them, you know, having issues with their doctrine of Christ. So specifically Judah says the dying our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. We're not giving a lot of context to what Judah is actually talking about at his time. We have some guesses. It could be early proto Gnostics, you know, some of their just the the distortions that they give, perhaps the dial of Christ authority or of his divinity. Maybe just some moral rebellions framed as freedom within Christ. We don't exactly know.

9:00 But we do know that Christ was a central doctrine for Jude, big enough for him to write about it and call it out. And so application for today Christology is non negotiable. Yeah, that's good. It's not like it's like the kind of right, kind of wrong that it's like Trinity, Christ, like these things are very important. It's like it's one of those things it's like nice to. It's nice to reference some of those early creeds, Very helpful on this side of things. And you mentioned it. It's like some of these, you know, we look at LDS, we look at these things like you're drifting with the doctrine of Christ to get some wacky places. That's right. Second big point was on the nature of the gospel itself. So these folks deny their only Lord and Master of Jesus or turn the grace of our God into licentiousness. So we're giving a little bit more details for this one. Licentiousness means to have license and so there could be this brand of antinomianism, which means that you have grace and no moral restraint.

9:59 Basically. Remember Paul said, well, why don't we send more so that grace may bound. He's like, you know, may it never be. So those types of ideas, it's basically, hey, you've been saved, go live it up. Yeah, yeah, that's good. And it's like we talked about, you know, in our last episode on the cult series, like with Amish Mennonite, like, you know, maybe there's some legalism in there. And we talked about like fundamentalist background. It's like, you know, how much weight is, you know, legalism in any capacity is not good. But it's like, I mean, are you depending on these works for your salvation or on the other side of things, does obedience not matter at all? Does a pattern of life not honoring God matter at all? You know, some of this is like on a on a scale or like a little spectrum.

10:41 You know, we all are perfect in this, you know? Yeah, it's very good. So we have legalism on one side, licenses on the other side, both of them are distortions of the gospel. And so Jude is going to be like, Hey, we have to fight for the the correct gospel. And So what we would be right there with Jude. And that kind of gives Lynn Lynn to what we saw as especially because we started out, you know, the the series. I don't think we were as we're fine, but then as we did more of them, like, OK, we really need to hit these 4 over and over. The doctrine of God proper, your view of Christ, your view of salvation and your authority structure. And you see some of the stuff you know, repeated.

11:22 Jude's going to talk about Christ and the gospel. You know, maybe you know, for us Easter was just a few days ago our pastor preached out of First Corinthians 15. But if you read the beginning of First Corinthians 15, Paul's going to say now I make known to you brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and which you also stand by which you were saved. If you hold fast the word which I preach to you, unless you believed in vain. And now he's going to give what he said for I delivered to you as of first importance. These are the highest doctrines in in in Christianity. What I also received that Christ died for our sins according to Scripture that he was buried that he was raised on the third day according to Scriptures that he appeared to Cephas and others and and so he's going to go on.

12:10 But those are the those are the big some of the big buckets. So if you get that kind of stuff wrong, we do have to contend earnestly and say that that is not Christianity, that is not right, that is a false belief. So let's talk about these false believers within the church again, you know, you might, might read this and think he's thinking about, you know, these pagans and Pagan rituals. It's that's not what Jude's talking about. He's, he's looking at those that look like Christians. They, they operate within the church, but they're not part of the church. They they don't, you know, believe in to live out these key doctrines, but they're very closely connected in the church, like not like this person on the friend or on the outside, but actively involved. Yeah, and they could be sitting next to you. That's right.

12:53 They could hold leadership places, you know, so they could be named. You know, Zach, you never know if, who these people could be, but all right, so Jude is going to give some examples. And if you're, if it's your first time reading through Jude, you're like, what are you talking about? But I think the point is, just like these people who are in the church, they're not going to benefit from their proximity to church because God is going to judge false teaching and false, you know, leaders. The same way He's going to give us 3 examples of cloak proximity but being judged. No, that's, that's good. It's like you're getting the big picture. Like, I think it's easy to be like, let's get in the details and you kind of miss this big theme that that Jude's talking about. Yeah, so three folks who were close but no cigar, Israel's Jews out of Egypt, You know, the 10 bad spies came back. They gave a bad report.

13:50 God says, OK, all of you, you're never going to enter the promised land. So for 40 years they wander in the wilderness and all of that generation dies off. So that's an example of folks who they're God's chosen people. They had the revelation like God was leading them. It's like, oh, we just did not obey. We did not believe in what God was saying. So there was consequences, rebellious angels. So just because you're an Angel, does it mean you know that proximity to God? Yeah, that's a good one. There's folks, there's folks, there's angels who left their proper abode. Different discussions on what what we think that means. But the take away is they get some type of special early punishment and they're reserved in darkness for for that last day.

14:36 I know, and it doesn't say gloomy darkness. I like. I like or like whatever it says. That's great, man. And then lastly, Sodom, Gomorrah, they were close to Abraham, and, you know, Lot lived there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that didn't save them, like, because they still got judged and completely annihilated from the face of the earth, those towns, because of their sins. So proximity to the truth doesn't equal participation in salvation. Man, that, that, that's really good. Let's look at these false leaders in depth. Who talks about these in verse 8 through 16? And there, there are marks, there's signs, there's moral and spiritual corruption. Judy uses the phrase defiles the flesh, likely talking about sexual immorality.

15:21 They reject authority. We talked about authority a lot in our cult series. God's authority possibly mediated through Scripture and leadership. And then revile angelic majesties, likely. Maybe it's like arrogant speech about spiritual realities and maybe there's, you know, some Jewish tradition tied in here. You see a lot of people again, get get consumed with the details. Not saying that's bad, but it's like you're like, oh, Michael disputing with Satan. It's like a weird thing, you know, what's this mean? All these kind of things. All right. So those folks that we just talked to, Zach just talked about where are they headed? What's their trajectory? They're headed towards judgment. And again, he's going to give us some 3 old tests and examples of folks headed towards judgment.

16:02 He's going to basically talk about these unreasoning animals that are headed off to slaughter. They have no idea. They're just marching dumbly towards their demise. Balaam. Yeah. He's like whipping his donkey, like, go forward, go forward. But he was headed right towards destruction. And then Cora, this Levite who, you know, rebelled against Moses's leadership, that he was appointed by God. And of course, all of him and his ilk were like, swallowed up by the earth. That's wild. Yeah. So the the trajectory is not good. You know, we have the animals that are killed, Balaam, who was almost killed in Korra, who was swallowed up by the earth. Man that that that is good. So let's talk about why are they dangerous? Jude is does this very well by giving us these metaphors to think about hidden reefs.

16:49 You know, think of a reef, you don't see it on the surface. It's unseen destruction beneath A seemingly calm surface. Clouds without water. When you see clouds, you might be thinking it's gonna rain soon. But when you don't see the rain, it's like, oh, that's not what I thought. There's this promise of something, but but doesn't deliver autumn trees without fruits like we see other places in Scripture. If you know there's no spiritual yield from these false leaders, wild waves, there's a lot of chaos, no substance and wandering stars really talking about there's no stability, there's no permanence. There's wandering on to the next next big thing. Yeah. And I think the common theme in in across all those that that we read there is that there is probably a promise of something good that fails you in the end. And that's the that's the danger of false leaders is 'cause you think you're headed in the right direction. And not only were you not stay neutral, you're headed in the wrong direction.

17:43 All right, so we get a number of characteristics of these folks. Jude talks about them committing ungodly deeds, being grumblers, fault finders. So I think we all we're called to find faults to a degree. But you know, you've been around the people that they just pick everything that can never be satisfied, lust driven, arrogant speech, they flatter for selfish gain. They cause the visions among people. They're worldly minded and this says they are devoid of the spirit. That's a big deal because that means he's basically saying they're they're not saved, they're not true believers. What Jude does well is he paints this picture, paints these false teachers, but he also gives us the response, how do we act when we come across these false teachers?

18:31 Well, the first one, it's a really good one. Expect it. You know these things are going to happen. You look around the landscape today. You look around the cults we've talked about shouldn't be surprising predicted by Christ and the apostles. So not only should we expect it, but build yourself up. It's a good time to grow in doctrine to mature in Christ. You read Ephesians 6, the armor of God. You know, you're, you're leveling up and you're really getting ready, building stability, putting on this armor so you can face the Wiles of the devil. A prayer and the Holy Spirit depend on God. It's not just knowing a bunch of facts, assenting intellectually, but really truly experientially depending on God, in addition to maybe knowing some of these facts as well. And then last one of the last ones, I'll say, keep yourselves in the love of God.

19:21 And this might be like, what's this mean? It's kind of vague. Like what, what, how are we going to nail this down? Probably has to do with being obedient, being faithful, persevering. You come to a place like Charleston Bible Church, we're talking about Acts 242 all the time. That's good. Rails all. Those fundamental building blocks of the life of a Christian. And it's not like you're trying to keep yourself 'cause we know if you are in Christ, you are loved by God. So but you we, I think we experience a greater relationship and a greater growing with him. So we kind of. Remain in that. I think I have a note here.

20:02 Let me see how it's worded here. Yeah, it's not earning that a love, but it's truly abiding in that love. I think that's a good way of thinking about it. But yeah, all those disciplines, being in the Word, fellowship and other believers exalting Christ, whether that's in worship or whether you're evangelizing or edifying Saints. And obviously we said prayer there and then kind of good going along with our. Dovetails together. Our end times thing, but you know we have this hope in Christ. He is going to return. So that eschatology, our hope in the end times, even though we may not all agree on how it's going to work out, we do know it is going to work out. Christ is going to reign and that should give us hope. It exactly.

20:48 Let's talk about another response is how we minister toward others, show mercy to doubters. You don't have to just come in heavy-handed like you, you, you're you're so dumb. Shows a mercy, save others, participate in things like evangelism, proclaim the word of God and exercise caution with the deeply correct corrupted. There's a phrase in in Jude, either 22 or 23 that says hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. And so, you know, there there's a polluted garment. You're not going to want to, you know, put that on, be super close to that. All right. So connection to our cult series, we've already kind of mentioned it, but just to kind of tie it in formally, Jude provides A biblical justification for that series because we are looking to contend for these key doctrines, identifying internal distortions of those key doctrines and prioritizing the truth, our approach to Jude's priorities, we are focusing on those central doctrines, not peripheral oddities, although we did mention some that we thought could potentially affect key doctrines.

21:51 We wanted to evaluate those doctrines against Scripture's claims and recognize that false teaching often comes from within. Great, I love it. We're at the Doxology the final. Do you just want to read that bad boy do we have? It's like it's like you can't you can't do better than this Jude Doxology. And it'll be a great way as we kind of wind down towards the end of the episode here. Yeah, there we go says if I can Scroll down there now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you to stand and I I love this stand in the presence of his glory, to stand blameless and to stand with great joy. That's that's crazy to me.

22:35 To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Wow, and and the way you broke it up in the notes is so good. There's this promise that that God's the one that keep you from stumbling to make you stand in his presence, stand blameless with great joy. And then this huge focus on the eternal reign of Christ, like the the words around it, glory, majesty, dominion, authority before time and now and forever. It's kind of you're covering all your. Bases it's like it's it's all there. Yeah. So it's great. So I think that would preach. That that would preach maybe on 4/19, maybe not, I don't know.

23:16 Michael is preaching. Maybe when this comes out he's about he just finished preaching or about to preach or. Whatever you know. So that, that's good. I like that. Good way to just exclamation point the cool series that started out as like a few episodes and grew. But that's good. That's what that's what we we take feedback and adjust, you know? Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's good. Last take. Last take, I wonder how how are your girls? How are your older 2 girls enjoying spring break? Well, this one's not my oldest. Oh Dang, gotcha. Lydia's not here. How you get mixed up. There's too many. Too many. You got too many kids. How's soccer? Is this your soccer attire that you got?

24:01 It's not I I ended up I bought some other soccer attire because I ordered the wrong size apparently because the I don't understand the sizing makes no sense because this fits me like pretty. Well, and is that a small? This is a medium. Yeah. That's just medium, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is. So I initially got a small and it's like so small, like it's very very uncomfortably. Tight, Jayden. Probably could wear I'm like this is not like these things are I like them, but they do fit snug. You know, I just, I just need someone to tell me like this like I need like a sizing chart or something. I guess so. So last time we recorded, you'd got a new watch I think. I did got the old. Have you had to?

24:41 Have you had to charge it since we were recorded? I've I did charge it one time I charged it today, I think for a little bit, but I love it. You know, keep the battery going now I I I didn't know clay had one. So now we can, you know, have Garmin talk. He's he was like totally derailing our chat man and changing it to Garmin. I was kidding. It's good. I didn't I don't know half the things it can do. So let's go. I mainly just got it for the battery. So this will be fun. Be fun to investigate it more. It's crazy, like you, if you mainly got it for the battery, you, you could get a watch that you just like twist or, or that has a battery that lasts like three years or something in it. You know one of those. That's true, it wasn't just for the battery. That was very true. I like I priced it as last time Garmin. It tracks your body battery. Yeah.

25:22 You said you were wanting to see if it was just like, Yeah, yeah. So I still can't tell. I'll I'll tell you what my if you should guess what my body battery is right now. Out of the scale of what? 100% it's like a, it's like a, it's like your phone battery kind of. I would say it's probably telling you 42%. Wow, man, I must be glowing. Garmin's saying 28%. I need AI, need a charge and it'll tell me like my sleep was pretty good. I got like a 70% recharge or like terrible sleep, 40% recharge, not a good sleep. So we'll see how accurate it is. You know, compared to Apple stuff, I like the body battery. I don't really run so I don't use it for a lot of running stuff. Don't really lift. Don't I?

26:03 I don't I I do lift but not crazy. Thing I said in our chat, I don't think I've, you know, we talked about it, you know, all those stuff and I've been working out and then I don't know what happened. I couldn't get any of my daughter to go with me to work out. What the heck? I don't like working out by myself, but I think we are going to work out right after this. Oh, are you now? That was one of the reasons that she came out. So Charis is working to get her license. So she drove over here. And you were saying like, she like, hit like one person on the way. It was pretty nice. Yeah, yeah. So one is not that bad. So you. Know It was dark at night. It was in the alleyway. No one's gonna know. I won't say anything. Don't. Don't worry. Well, that's exciting. Chloe's gonna work out, too.

26:44 I don't think so. Chloe's. Chloe's trying to wrap up her senior portfolio, so that's what she's been focused on. That's so crazy. She graduate to May. Yes, God willing, Yeah. Wow. Chloe, I remember when she was knee high, you know, just a just a little. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Oh man. Well, that is exciting. That's probably a really busy time if it's trying to wrap up portfolio stuff. It's been very busy. Not stressful at all. Well, great, good. Anything else you got? That's all I got. All right, that's our take. Thanks for listening to Take Two. Find us wherever you find podcast and on YouTube for those who want to watch our video cast.