Well, if you have your Bible tonight, we're going to be in the book of Jude. We're looking at a

message entitled Fortify. Jude only has one chapter, so it shouldn't be too hard to find where we're at.

If you don't know, Jude is actually one of the shortest books in the Bible. It is the second to

last book, and so if you don't know where Jude is, you might know where the end of the book is,

the book of Revelation. Just turn one to the left and you'll be in the book of Jude.

We believe the author, Jude himself, is none other than the half-brother of Jesus Christ who

believed in him after the resurrection. Now, this letter is addressed to a rather wide audience.

If you notice in the very beginning of the book of Jude, we see that he's writing to those who are

called, sanctified, and preserved in Jesus, showing us a three-fold nature to our salvation.

The fact that we have been saved are being saved and one day will be saved. And very quickly on

in the letter, Jude is excited about talking about things regarding what he calls our common

salvation. And he comes to this point and I would hope that many of you are familiar with this

part because he says, I wanted to write to you regarding just the doctrines of God.

But I needed, it was necessary for me to write to you, for you to contend, or fight for, earnestly,

the faith. And so as a result, rather than getting into some exciting doctrines,

Jude finds it necessary to issue these warnings to some false teachers who had crept in unnoticed

and wreaking havoc within the church. These people had warmed themselves into these

early church gatherings called love feasts. They were apostates. Apostates are people who turned

away from Jesus Christ and the Word of God. The problem was they sought to stay within the church

and influence people away from Jesus. And so in order for his readers to contend and fight

back against these people, the bulk of Jude's letter is regarding who these people are,

what they do and what they are like. And so within this small letter, that's really the focus.

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