Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude 1:3–4, ESV
The Epistle of Jude is generally attributed to the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. In v. 3 we learn that his original intent was to write an epistle on salvation to his recipients. However, he was compelled to write a call to battle for the truth instead. Why? The church was being infiltrated by some apostate teachers. I hear from so many who attempt to say that God’s plan for the church does not include doing this.
I was told by one fellow once who was trying to stop me from exposing his favorite “emergent” leader that God had commanded that we should allow the tares and wheat to grow together in the church and let God sort them out as our Lord shared in the parable of the Wheat and Tares found in Matthew 13:24–30. However, Jesus interprets this parable for us in v. 38 telling us that the field containing the wheat and tares is the world, not the church, and those told to leave them be until the judgment are angels, not Christians (v. 39).