Contend for the Faith

Jude 1:3 says, “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 you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Jude is writing with a brokenness of spirit and a heart filled with devotion to his glorious Redeemer. He pleads with us to con-tend for the faith that was once delivered.

The faith, which is the body of Christian doctrine, does not change with the changing of times. It is not something that man has discovered or manufactured. It is the Spirit’s revelation.

The historic faith is the truth that clusters around the Person and works of Jesus Christ.

The fundamentals of the faith are:

1. The verbal inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.
2. The supernatural birth of Christ.
3. The sinless sovereign life of God manifested in the flesh.
4. Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross.
5. Christ’s physical resurrection from the dead and triumphant ascension to the Father.
6. The absolute necessity of the new birth by the Spirit.
7. The imminent return of the Lord to rapture His people home.

This is the faith we are to earnestly contend. The word contend means to agonize. It is the spirit of true agony which possesses one who is contending.

Agony of spirit and love for the Gospel should be in the heart of every believer. Contending means to fight while standing on the very thing being assaulted. It means to stand against all who undermine it.

We are living in a day of tolerance; a tolerance of false doctrines creeping their way into our churches today. Our churches are compromising with modernism in united efforts to increase church attendance, therefore undermining the historic faith of the early church.