Jude 3 sounds an important alarm for all Christians today to take seriously in defending the Christian faith against any teaching that would hurt the church.

"Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."

Right at the very beginning of the body of his letter, Jude gets right to the point. He is not interested in giving a lengthy treatise. His letter will be short. In fact it is the fourth shortest in NT. The topic is urgent – so urgent, the alarm must be sounded immediately. At first he wanted to write a letter describing the common life we share in Christ. And Jude was all set to write about this, but his plans got interrupted. Jude says he felt constrained. He writes, "I felt the necessity... " This word indicates "to bear down upon" or "to compress." In other words, God pressured Jude to send out this alarm instead of what he was about to write. Somehow in his mind and in his soul God made the gravity of the entrance of false teaching into the church clear to Jude. And given the fact that he is writing at a time when most if not all the apostles have already died, he stands as a watchman at his post –who sees the approaching danger and then cries out in the city. Let the church be warned!

God does guide His church leaders this way. He can give them an overwhelming sense or perception about something that needs to be done to protect the flock. The Holy Spirit does drive along certain actions by making clear the application of the word of God in a particular setting or time of church history. This is what had happened to Jude. He had deep concern for the welfare of the saints. And he had a love for the purity of the gospel. And he sensed his responsibility to expose dangers in the church. And so he bellows forth this warning!

Jude is ready to defend the faith, but he is appealing that we would too. Notice again v. 3 "appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith… " He assumes we know the faith. He does not take time to present the faith in systematic form in this letter. The churches had already been taught the faith by the apostles. Now he just calls for a vigorous defense of it. "Contend earnestly for the faith!" It is hard to overstate the intensity of this charge. It comes from a combination of a word that means "to labor to the point of exhaustion" It means to be in agony joined with a prefix with the meaning "heaped upon" thus intensifying the word even further. And it is a present infinitive verb meaning that the struggle must be ongoing. So Jude is calling for nothing less than earnest zealous contention for something which is of utmost importance. He is summoning us to be a constant vigilant defender of the faith.

Some people think church is a place to relax, to sip a cup of coffee, and chat with a friend. Some view it as a place where everyone gets along and there is shelter from the hassles of real life. However, Jude says protecting the true gospel will take a fight! Many will try to erode parts of the gospel and whittle off important parts or twist the meaning of the gospel and change the meaning of Christ's life and work or flat out deny the gospel. So with all our energies, we must defend it.

What are you willing to fight for in life? Would you fight for your children? Good! Much more - fight for the faith! For without it your children and your children's children will be condemned along with the world. Would you fight for your job or house? That's fine! But a few years and those will be gone from your life. The gospel saves people for all eternity. It is the gospel God summons us to defend when devious men endanger the truth.

Look at v. 3 again, "contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints." We are not told here to fight to keep our faith in Jesus. We are told to contend for "The Faith" "The faith" is a synonym for the gospel. The actual content of what we place our faith in came to be called "The Faith" So it stands for the whole body of revealed truth given to the church in Christ. Referring to Paul's radical conversion, Gal 1:23 teaches, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy." Phil 1:27 refers to "striving together for the faith of the gospel." The gospel about Jesus Christ is the faith.

Next notice Jude calls it the delivered to the saints faith. The saints are us - all Christians, as Ephesians 1:1 and other verses teach. Think of the faith as a packaged gift from God containing all the treasures of the truth committed to the church to protect and defend. Jesus Christ came down from heaven, lived sinlessly to fulfill the Law, suffered on the cross and rose and ascended to the right hand of the Father, poured forth the Holy Spirit to empower and teach His church, sent His apostles throughout the world to proclaim the gospel, recorded it in writing in the pages of Scripture, sealed its truth with their blood as martyrs, and now it is our possession! Now it is our duty to defend it!

The new President of the United States stands up every four years and is sworn in by the Chief Justice and pledges to preserve, protect and defend The Constitution of the United States of America. Our job is to preserve, protect, and defend something far greater - the treasure of the gospel. We are to hold tenaciously to the faith. The gospel was not delivered to the apostles only - not to the bishops -- not to the pastors only - but to the whole church. It is a possession of all the church. It is your holy faith – as it says down in v. 20 - it builds you up! So it only makes sense you are responsible for defending it!

Notice next that this delivered faith is also The once for all delivered faith. The faith was not delivered partially. We are not waiting for another package from heaven. There was never intended to be a continuous dripping of prophetic utterances and divine truth, but a sudden and complete rush.

The same was true about the giving of the law in the OT on Mt. Sinai. It did not come in pieces throughout Israel's history, but all at once. Deut 4:2 warns, "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." The Law was delivered as a unit to Moses on Mount Sinai once for all of Israel. No one added to that law! David sang songs about the law. The prophets expounded the application of the law. Solomon showed the practical wisdom of the law. But the OT did not add to the law.

The same was true of the Revelation of the end times. Revelation 22:18, 19 "I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life." In a series of rapid fire revelations on the isle of Patmos, John received the full revelation of the end times. God said everything He wanted to say to the church about things that were to shortly take place. Not one word is to be added to it or taken away without the most severe consequences on that person.

Similarly, the Christian faith may have become more understood by the church throughout its history as the church developed in maturity, but nothing was ever to be added to the faith. No other truth then is to be received. No new prophet is to be received. To receive a man as a prophet or having the gift of prophecy bringing new truth in the church today is to deny that the faith was once for all delivered to the saints. The faith was fully and completely delivered to us – once for all. Just as sure as Hebrews 10:10 says Jesus offered His body as a sacrifice "once for all" and that is never to be repeated, and nothing needs to be added to it, so also the faith was "once for all" delivered to us. No new prophecy – No new truth! It's all been given!

Our job is now to defend it from all error! May God burden us, the way He burdened Jude, to defend it against all error and attack! Let's fight for the faith!