Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people.
Jude 1v3
What is “The Faith” that Jude was talking about? It is the teaching that the apostles had heard from Jesus and what they continued to preach after His ascension. What the apostles heard and taught was the “once and for all” truth. From the birth of the church until the present day, false teachers have come amongst God’s people and have either added to the Word of God, or taken away from it. We are called to earnestly hold onto and defend the Word of God against those who would try to pervert it.
The first attack on the Word of God was in the Garden of Eden. Satan posed the question “did God really say”, and he’s been asking the same question ever since.
In John 3v3, Jesus said to Nicodemus “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven”.
In Act 2v38 Peter preached to the crowd that had gathered “Each of you must repent of your sins, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”
In Ephesians 2v9 the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus “Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done”
He wrote the same thing to Titus. In Chapter 3v5 he writes “He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.”
Peter in his first letter writes “You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth”, chapter 1v22
Satan challenges these statements, suggesting to us that because God is all loving and all merciful, as long as our goodness exceeds our badness, we will be ok – God will not turn us away once He knows all the good things we have done.
When any church stops preaching repentance and salvation through the shed blood of Jesus, it is a corrupt church. It has turned away from the truth and His Present Presence will not be there.
