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How did the wolves get in here?
Contending for the faith in an age of apathy, tolerance, and anti-nomianism
Jude 4
The city of indifference and the dying of the light
In 1951, Dylan Thomas penned one of the most well-known and beautiful villanelles you may
ever read. It’s his attempt to exhort the old in their fight against death. To battle the indifference.
To contest against the apathy that seems to grab hold of those in old age as they sink quietly into
death.
I won’t read the whole thing, but let me at least read the first verse
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Thomas screams out to us that we must not sit idly by and let the darkness take us. We must
contend, we must fight, we must rage, rage against the dying of the light.
This poem applies to far more than physical death. As I read it, I am immediately reminded of
the book of Jude as Jude screams out to the church, “Contend for the faith, once for all delivered
to the saints. Contend. Do not give in so easily.
Let me tell you a story about a young prince named Josiah and his journey into the
village of indifference.
Josiah, had once been a slave in the city of destruction but now was a resident in the
palace of the king. On one particular day, his faithful guide led him to the foot of a
mountain and into a small village. To Josiah’s surprise, the wall surrounding the city was
only about waist high and in bad need of repair. Weeds grew everywhere and stones lay
in heaps almost as if the masons had simply lost interest. As he continued into the city,
scraggly chickens ran past him dodging the huge holes in the cobblestone. Pigs rooted
through the refuse that lay in the street. The odor was foul, flies buzzed angrily, the
thatched roofs of the houses were caving in and shutters hung precariously from what
was left of the windows.
Josiah’s disgust was multiplied all the more when in his search for inhabitants he finally
noticed a lump over near a particular door. As he got closer he realized it was a man
sleeping in the sun. It was the middle of the day and man was of working age, but there
he slept. Then he saw others, more and more, sleeping under trees, in doorways, one
looked as if he fell over in a bush and was snoring peacefully.
It was then that Josiah noticed the landslide. A large piece of the mountain had broken off
and was careening towards the village. It looked as if the whole mountain might crash
down on the people. Josiah needed to warn someone. The reeve of the town was actually
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awake although tattered, unshaven and in need of a bath. Josiah dismounted and ran to
the Reeve. “Sir Neglect, Sir Neglect,” he screamed. The Reeve casually looked his way
as Josiah told him about the landslide and the need to warn the people. Sir Neglect looked
at him with lifeless eyes, “calm down, relax, it’s a great day for sailing.” Josiah tried with
all of his might to get the Reeve to hear him, but the Reeve who did see the landslide was
convinced that if the mountain did fall on them, some would doubtlessly survive.
It was then that Josiah heard the sound of a crowd, there was cheering and crying out. He
ran to the river and found hundreds of people screaming insults, fighting in the shallows
and cheering on what looked to be a toy boat race.
And that is what they were doing. Josiah was appalled as his guide explained that this
was all they did all day. They created little paper and reed boats and raced them to see
who had the fastest.
“But this is child’s play” yelled Josiah, “What does it matter who has the fastest boat?”
They should be building the wall, or fixing the roofs or at least running from the
landslide.” He called out to them that their children were in danger, that they needed to
quickly get to safety, but not even one looked in his direction.
His faithful guide explained, that they did not want to hear Josiah.
But what blew Josiah away was when Sir Faithful explained that these here once lived in
the Village of Dedication by the Castle of Faith. Apparently they had grown weary of
their service to their King. None had ever planned to be part of the village of indifference,
but one by one they came here and they have never left.
Indifference.
I have a fear. The fear is that we as Christians will not adequately contend for the faith. That we
will be so busy with sailing our boats (read this as going on vacations, making more money for
our houses, making a name for ourselves) that we forget what is our priority. That we will be so
indifferent and so passive that we will allow our doctrine to slowly be watered down until the
gospel is not good news at all.
I fear that we will not rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Now I know it isn’t really dying, but the light does die in some places. It gets smaller and smaller
and then flickers and eventually goes out. And the reason is because we compromise just a little
bit here and there until …
And for this reason, I once again pick up the book of Jude, so that his words to a church 2000
years ago can be heard today by this church with hopes that perhaps you would be inspired to
contend more earnestly, to not allow little heresies, for they will become big heresies. That
perhaps by hearing from Jude, and the Holy Spirit today you will not fall prey to the grievous
problems of his day.
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Jude writes to you, who are called, loved and kept and he calls you to contend for the faith, once
for all delivered to the saints. Why?
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For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped
in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for
immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jud 1:4 NIV)
Who are these “certain men?”
Who are these people?
Unnoticed
The first thing I notice here is this word “secret.” That tells us a lot. They just crept in, slipped in
with the church and no one even noticed.
Apparently there wasn’t a lot of fanfare. They didn’t ride up to the church on their Harley Road
King with a Powder Coated, 96 cubic inch, 1584cc, 6 speed, air cooled engine pushing well over
100 HP... Vance&Hines Long Shot pipes, a Screamin' Eagle Air Filter, 14 Inch Ape Hangers
(handle Bars), Extended Forward Controls, side mounted liscence plate (insert Tim The Tool
Man Taylor grunts).......
There was no leather and spiked hair and neck tats of horned demons with pitchforks and t-shirts
with anarchy emblazoned on them singing the antiphonal choreographed mantra “We hate God,
yes we do, we hate Jesus, how about you?” [By the way extra cool points for the first one of you
to bring to church someone with a neck tat-but no going to get one just for the extra cool
points—at least don’t beat me to doing it]
No, these people that Jude warns us about look just like you do. They came to church that first
week with a Lexus SUV with built in navigation system and dvd player so the kids could watch
veggie tales so they wouldn’t be bored for the trip to church. They don’t wear suits because
that’s stuffy, but they aren’t jeans people either, kind of business casual for them and their hair
does that floofy uneven thing that pretty much screams out that they are cool and they build
websites for a living on the technology corridor. And they know their Bible stuff too. They say
nice things about the pastor even when he isn’t around, and they cry when the grace of God is
mentioned and they set up chairs when it’s needed, and they have a small group ministry to men
suffering from pornography and they go to the work days and they listen humbly in classes on
predestination and sometimes say thoughtful things and everyone really respects them.
And they may have been outsiders for a few weeks, but not anymore. They are part of the group
and they took the membership classes and they were baptized and they signed the church
confession, but they have a secret.
See it’s not hard to infiltrate the church.
The look is easy to perfect, the service just requires a couple of hours a week to be seen as
exceptional, the lingo…use words like heart, and saved, an devotions (call it family worship and
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you get extra points) and discipleship, and glory and if you really want to impress you learn a
couple of technical words and discuss them with the elite of the church: Is expiation enough or is
propitiation essential as well? How does the New Perspective on Paul call into question Luther’s
understanding of justification? And you have these pained looks on your face, like you are really
trying to understand and you are just so sincere. You say nice little quips like “I kissed dating
goodbye” or “I am a Christian Hedonist” or “I listened to Mark Driscoll’s sermon on ‘Why
religion sucks’ the other day,” or “I would love to see Reepicheep kick some Tishroc tail.”
And once they are in and they seem sincere, that’s good enough for us, almost to the point that it
doesn’t matter what they teach or what they do. “Oh they might be wrong, but they are really
trying.” “Oh I know they are living in sin, but Christians always fight against sin.” And
eventually the church is in danger of splitting because the church is a huge bunch of tolerant
pansies not willing to fight for anything.
Now hopefully last week, I put to death the idea that Christians should be contentious. I will do
almost anything to protect the unity of the church and to prevent people fighting about inane
things (like carpet color that may be happening in the next few weeks) or even biblical things
(like predestination or eschatology). But I fear in our world of tolerance that we have become
indifferent to heresy. If people mention Jesus in the sentence then we must have a common
salvation. But Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses will mention Jesus even in positive light, but
he isn’t God. And the United Pentecostal church likes the Holy Spirit but he isn’t a third person
of the trinity. And pretty much every American that I have ever spoken with will speak
positively about God and they all pray and say “god bless you” and point to God when they score
touch downs and remind people of how much the gospel choir impacted their early prerapper/gangster days, but none of these things mean that we have a common salvation.
And as much as Jude wants to talk about our common salvation, he can’t because certain people
have crept in and they must be dealt with. Why? Because they are godless (vs 4), they were
predestined to condemnation (vs 4), they deny their only Sovereign and Lord.
Godless
Again, saying they are godless doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in God. They do, they just
don’t follow him. Its moral outrage towards God. Let me come back to that in a moment
Predestined to condemnation
Their condemnation is foreordained. Maybe this means it was written in heavenly books, maybe
Jude or someone else wrote about them, or more likely it was written about in Scripture itself in
the OT and in some other legends. In fact, over the next several weeks we will talk about how
these who crept in are equated with those in the OT who also denied the authority of Christ.
Anti-nomians
So they are godless, they are condemned and look at the specifics of the problem: They change
God’s grace into a license for immorality. They love the idea of grace. I do to. But, it’s cheap
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grace. It’s antinomian grace. They think that if they keep on sinning, then Grace can be shown
even more glorious. But let’s not forget what Paul says about this elsewhere: Should we keep on
sinning so that grace may abound?” He answers vehemently, “GOD FORBID!”
Deniers of Christ
And in doing all of this, in living unlike they are speaking, in not walking the talk, they are
denying their only Sovereign and Lord.
Here let me simplify this for you:
Rebellious __________________ have assented to an antinomian _____________
structure and penetrated at least the indifferent grass roots __________________
organization resulting in the ________________ of Jesus as self-determining and
master of all.
Rebellious libertines have assented to an antinomian noetic structure and penetrated at
least the indifferent grass roots ecclesiological organization resulting in the repudiation of
Jesus as self-determining and master of all.
Secretly, rebellious, antinomian = deniers of Christ.
And here we sit, amused by our toys and our decadence, breathing in the poisoned air of our
culture, and of the new church culture that is nothing more than therapeutic, deistic, moralism
and we think nothing of it.
Are you trapped in indifference?
What I mean is are you at all concerned for the faith once for all delivered to the saints? Because,
to contend for it means you have to know it. And you don’t know it by letting that Bible sit on
the shelf and not putting scripture in your heart. Did you start strong, you began building the wall
and trying hard to follow after God, but the wall remains half built, the shutters on the house are
barely holding on and the roof is caving in. Other things have your interest now.
Or let me ask you this question. Is there a landslide in your life? It’s coming down and you
barely even notice. Your kids don’t want to be around you, can’t wait to live their own life,
despise the things of God or maybe are just as apathetic as you. Your non-Christian friends have
no problem being around you because you look just like them and they are never left with the
feeling that they are missing something.
Have you reached a stage in your “Christian walk” that can fairly be defined as apathetic, as
indifferent?
Because if you look just like them than you are in essence denying your only Sovereign and
Lord. There can only be one master. For them it was Caesar and to say things like “Jesus is
Lord” meant for certain that Caesar is not. Do you say “Jesus is Lord,” but then continue to show
everyone around you that your real lord is the addition on the house, the feeling you get from
coaching or helping people, the new vehicle you purchased, the trophy wife, the PhD, the book
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deal, the band, the grandchildren, the Bible Study you teach, the job people think you are great
at, you name it…you know your idols.
But this is not the point of today’s message. We will have plenty of chances to compare
ourselves to those who were judged in the past. Today I want to emphasize the need for us to be
alert. The absolute necessity for us to build the wall around the village and understand the truth
well enough that when people compromise it, we know it.
Prophesying what will happen at the end
We should be ready. We have prophecy about the end times just as Jude’s people did.
2 Tim 4:1 says that people will follow seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons. In verse 2 he
calls them “hypocritical liars”—apparently they use religious language and talk about love but
they are really phonies. Verse 3 says “for the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine but, after their own lusts, shall heap to themselves false teachers. This is not the
preacher who has strayed (although it probably includes him for he leads the congregation), but
this is the people of the church who are believing the lies and find it too hard to fight against the
world. It’s so much easier to attend a church where they condone my actions. Fornication,
homosexuality, non-submissiveness, jealousy, (that’s what the examples will include) or
whatever else you include here.
Are you amused?
I wonder if you even think about these things. Are you even now a bit amused at how
impassioned I am about this? Please be careful. I do not rage against tolerance and indifference
because I don’t like people or have some vendetta against people who disagree with me. It is
because I love you, that I am compelled to call you to contend. And this is nothing new, this
amusement of contending.
Charles Simeon, the Anglican minister in Cambridge in the early 1800s was strong and
orthodox. He contended with passion and was scorned because of it by his Anglican
ministerial colleagues. But his church was strong and had a love for truth. But as time
went on, as it so often does, another minister took Simeon’s pulpit who did not contend
earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the Saints. E. S. Woods writes in his
autobiography about having one of his professors come preach for him who denied all the
glory of the history of redemption in Christ. But the story was not of this professor but of
the experience this pastor Woods had with an old Sunday School teacher the next day.
This teacher came to tender his resignation, having been unable to sleep all night long as
he thought about how Charles Simeon’s old pulpit had now contained one who so
belittled the historic truth of the gospel. Woods response: “I could scarcely control my
amusement.”
But this Sunday School teacher wasn’t there to amuse his pastor, he was trying to wake him up.
To call him to be alert and to recognize what was happening under his nose. He was rebuking
this and refusing to be a part of his church’s denial of their master and Lord.
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Easy-Believism
Grace vs. works
Friends, there is apostasy (A falling away) in the church. It is rampant in the Baptist church with
their understanding of easy-believism. This seems to be the major error dealt with in verse 4.
People love grace so much so that they ignore law. They say holy things like, “we were under the
law, now we are under grace.” “Christ fulfilled the law.” Both of these statements are true and
orthodox, but the action taken because of these is where the problem is. Christ’s fulfillment of
the law does not abrogate it altogether. Grace is what saves, not works of course, but show me a
man with no works, and I will show you a man without the grace of God in his life.
These people indulge, as we see here, sexually. The word is ἀσέλγειαν and is translated as
immorality in the NIV but could easily be translated as lasciviousness (KJV), licentiousness
(NAS), or debauchery and sensuality.
It’s just speculation, but if their culture looks anything like ours (which apparently it does), my
guess is that these “teachers” are publicly honoring the glory of God’s grace and saying that man
is free to sin as they will because God’s grace will cover it. In our Baptist churches we say things
like “well, he walked the aisle” or “He got baptized with tears in his eyes 17 years ago and if
God loved him then, then he still loves him today despite his living with his girlfriend.”
These aren’t people who are struggling to mortify sin and those who after they have fondled their
boyfriend throw themselves on the mercy of God; these are those who insist that this is actually
okay, because Jesus died to free you from this guilt.
Forgiveness vs. payment
Do you understand the difference that I am trying to get across?
This is emphasizing the fact that God forgives sin over the fact that God demands full payment
for every sin. As soon as this happens, it presumes upon God’s grace. As you see in this verse,
the basic point of the gospel is not that forgiveness is given, but that Jesus is Lord (see Romans
10:9 for more on this). Paul is clear that those who do not show repentance are not truly citizens
of the Kingdom (I Cor 6:9-11; Galatians 5:19-21).
Cheap vs. costly
You remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was led naked to the gallows and hanged at age 39
under order of the Fuhrer in the Flossenburg concentration camp. He understood the cost of
living as a Christian.
In his book the Cost of Discipleship he said,
 “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.”
(p. 45)
 “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism
without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal
confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace
without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” (p. 47)
 “The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who
has left all to follow Christ.” (p. 55)
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And again, here we sit, enjoying our cheap grace. Watching the church become more and more
like the world and thinking, well it’s not really that big of a deal.
The war we must fight is right here.
It’s a war against easy, everyday life that we have begun to believe is just normal.
Shooting the wolves
And I cry out to you as a shepherd who fears the wolves in sheep’s clothing. Paul, in Acts 20,
says “Be on guard for yourselves and all the flock.” Why? “Because after my departure, savage
wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock.” Then he continues with the real danger:
“From among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the
disciples after them and therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of
three years I didn’t cease to admonish each one with tears.”
There are wolves in the church and wolves need to be shot.
Did you hear that? They need to be shot.
What? That isn’t a very grace-filled response. It doesn’t seem to me that as a shepherd of the
church I need to be gracious to wolves. Grace is for sheep. Showing love and grace is even for
goats. But wolves are a different brand altogether. For people who sneak in and are pretending
and dragging others down with them, I as a shepherd of the flock of God, need to take aim
against them.
Of course, God can defend himself, but as John Calvin says,
“Even a dog barks when his master is attacked.”
Spurgeon was equally impassioned on our need to defend the truth at all cost.
“To part with truth to show charity is to betray our Lord with a kiss.”
Some questions to ponder
Christian brothers and sisters, do you find yourself unconcerned about the future of the church?
After all, all pastors are basically preaching the same message.
Do you assume that if people are sincere, they are okay?
This is a naïve view of the importance of orthodoxy. People can be sincere and sincerely
wrong.
Do you never think about theology?
You are a theologian whether you think you are or not.
I hope you are willing to contend for phrases like “Jesus is Lord
“…Jesus was born of a virgin”
“…Jesus will come to judge the quick (living) and the dead”
“...Jesus suffered and the third day he rose, and ascended in the heavens?”
All these from the Nicene Creed that unifies us in common salvation (verse 3)
Do you take seriously the call to study to show yourself approved of God?
Without study, you cannot contend faithfully.
Or are you indifferent?
If you do nothing, then the light will flicker and eventually go out. If you do not open
your mouth against those who have crept into the church, then we will go gently into that night.
If we do not put away our toy boats and care about the landslide crashing down on
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evangelicalism, if we do not rage rage against the dying of the light, if we do not shine our light
among men, if we do not say with the church of all time, this little light of mine, I AM going to
let it shine, and I realize that its shining means that other things that pretend to be lights need to
be blotted out, if we are indifferent towards the heresies and immorality in the Christian church,
then we are inadvertently standing with these things that will be judged.
Non-Christians, this isn’t aimed at you. It’s aimed at those who pretend one thing and do
another. Perhaps we all still have a little bit of this in us, but I refer to those that are trying to
undermine the gospel. If you are here and trying to figure all of this out, you are in a safe place.
We will not judge you, we will love you and help you on your journey.
Gospel
I hope, though, that you will see that we will not shrink from battle when the gospel is at stake.
We are not of those who like the truth, but in essence do nothing to defend it. I hope you watch
carefully how we deal with heresy and how we also treat people with mercy and grace and love.
Let me pray for us, that we will know the difference and that we will contend together for the
faith once for all delivered to the saints.