“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; 7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds), 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.”
FALSE TEACHERS WILL BE DEALT WITH
The church of Jesus Christ in our society and in the free world in general is at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to grasping the full impact of some of the things written to early believers.
Only people under severe persecution, living daily in danger of being mistreated for their faith, could really know the feelings and the fears that go with such an insecure immediate future.
They were being persecuted by the Romans because they belonged to what the government perceived as a cult that worshiped a deity other than Caesar. And although our democratic form of government is largely patterned after examples the Romans set for us, they were not guided by any obligation toward tolerance and fair play for those they saw as opposition.
So the commanders in the field with their troops often had free reign in their treatment of the cultures they oppressed.
In addition to having to live under fear of physical torment and unjust treatment from the military, these early believers were bombarded by the coming of false teachers, primarily in the form of the Judaizers who twisted the message of the Apostles and demanded adherence to the Mosaic Law as well as belief in the Messiah.
Going by the things said in the epistles, specifically here in 2 Peter and in Jude, there were others also; even Gentiles who, insinuating themselves into the church led people astray with the same sort of lies that false prophets of the Old Testament were guilty of spreading.
They claimed to speak from God, but were not sent by God. They were sneaky, heretical, deceptive, manipulative, and greedy, and they must have been a constant vexation to believers in the infant church who were trying to stay on track, but had so many voices around them sending mixed signals.
But God is able to protect His Word and His children. He speaks through His Apostles and other leaders of the true church, as He did with Peter here, who began by assuring Christians of their secure place in Christ, and then giving them another kind of assurance; that God is in control.
The people Peter wrote to needed to know that although it seemed like the wolves were getting fat on their prey, their destruction was nonetheless a sure thing, and in God’s timing would come on them swiftly.
This is an assurance that we need to hear today also, when the ever-increasing message falling on our ears as Christians is that we and our message are insignificant and that we need to just keep our gospel to ourselves.
There is the possibility of any of us occasionally getting a little down in the dumps when we see those who teach falsehood seemingly doing so with impunity and faring so well. But God’s Word is true and He does not change, and His view of the false teachers has not changed, and Peter is going on now to explain to us that God knows who are His and who are not His, and God deals justly.
EVIL ANGELS WERE DEALT WITH (The high)
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;” vs 4
“And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,” Jude 6
As we come to look at these three examples Peter gives of God’s judgment against rebellion and ungodliness, let’s keep in mind that he is giving these as substantiation of the claim that God is able to protect His own, and effectively deal with unrighteous men; specifically in this case, false teachers.
It doesn’t matter how high they are (angels) or how many they are (the ancient world) or even how low they are (perverts of Sodom).
Peter says God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness. Now without going into a long dry look at systematic theology let me just say that although the details of Satan’s rebellion and the fall of the angels is largely shrouded in mystery, the Bible gives us enough to understand that in that initial rebellion Lucifer and the angels that rebelled with him were cast out of Heaven to the earth, and there is no mention of them being incarcerated in pits of darkness.
We know that Paul said we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, that is people, but against spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places (Eph 6:12).
So if we take what Peter has said here and compare it with Jude 6 where he says, “…angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode…” we can take it to be a reference to Genesis 6:1-4, where certain powerful demons possessed men in order to cohabitate with human women, overstepping the boundaries God had created them for, and were thus ‘chained’ or otherwise confined in pits of darkness awaiting their final destruction, yet to come.
The thing I want to point out here, avoiding any empty speculation about things we are not told very clearly and getting down to the meat of the matter, is that the angels, in their original created state, are higher than humans and more powerful in every way.
The writer to the Hebrews quotes Psalm 8, saying in reference to man that God has made him a little lower than the angels. He is quoting that Psalm and applying it to the coming of the Son of God in the flesh and saying that He was made for a little while lower than the angels.
Of course this is not a claim that He was less than God in becoming man, but that according to the flesh only He had taken a state lower than the angels, who are spirit and do not struggle with the weaknesses of the flesh.
In other words, man, in his original created state, even Adam before he sinned, is lower than the angels, although as those who are raised up in Christ, when we are glorified and are made like Him will rule and reign over the angels. 1 Cor 6:3 Rev 5:9-10
So Peter’s point is that if God was powerful enough to crush the rebellion of Heaven and cast Satan and his minions out, and if He was powerful enough to commit the most evil, the most powerful of demons to a pit of darkness and keep them there until the time comes for their destruction, which He will also carry out with a word, how much more is He able to deal with rebellious men, specifically here, false teachers?
THE OLD WORLD WAS DEALT WITH (The many)
In the next two examples Peter demonstrates the power of God to destroy the wicked while preserving the righteous totally untouched.
The ancient world had become so absolutely wicked that God wiped out the entire population of earth except for Noah and his family of seven.
By the way, if you are ever tempted to complain that it is difficult to walk close to God in our society because it is so ungodly and avoiding sin is just near impossible, go and read the account of Noah.
For 120 years, while building the ark, Noah was a preacher of righteousness. He walked with God, unstained by the world, even though the entire world was filthy in sin.
They probably sent envoys out to where he and his sons were crafting wood and building the ark, to stand and laugh at his folly. “Look at this crazy old man! Building this monstrosity and telling us that water is going to rain from the sky and that God is going to destroy the world with a flood! What a fool! It has never rained water, and it never will!”
Jesus had this to say about the condition our world would be in at the time of His return:
“For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matt 24:37-39
In the past much of the teaching I have heard in reference to these statements has been based upon looking for the signs in society to mirror the evil of the pre-flood world. I don’t think that’s what Jesus meant.
I think He meant that people will be going about their worldly business giving no thought to righteousness or judgment, and it will come suddenly and unexpectedly. They won’t heed the warnings, they won’t understand, they will not believe that something that has never happened before can really happen, and they will be taken by surprise.
This is the case also with the false teachers. It stands to reason; they teach lies because they do not know the truth. They deceive because they first deceive themselves. They have the Bible. They can read all the things God has to say to the false prophets and the doom He predicts for them, but the false teachers think it will not happen to them just because they haven’t seen it happen. They will be taken by surprise.
Christian, the things the Bible says will come to pass will come to pass, and the fact that it has never happened is no criterion on which to base our belief or unbelief.
Y’know what? I just had a mental image of all of us being caught up to meet Jesus in the air, and a whole multitude of Southern Baptists saying in unison, “But we’ve never done it this way before!”
False teachers prey upon those they deem weak and gullible and ripe for the picking. They have no respect for God’s Word and His authority. In the end, God will deal justly with them and the Godly will remain on solid ground.
SODOM AND GOMORRAH WERE DEALT WITH (The low)
Sodom and Gomorrah were sister cites in the Jordan basin, located near the southeast corner of the Dead Sea.
At the time Abraham determined that he and his nephew Lot must divide their herds and graze separately, Lot chose this area for its fertile and ideal conditions for farming.
There is much that could be said about Lot’s poor judgments that led him into all sorts of trouble. But in keeping with God’s practice of revealing men’s sins and faults in the Old Testament but only exposing their faith in the New, we also will avoid talking about the mistakes that Lot made today, and stick to Peter’s description of him here in verses 7 and 8.
He was a righteous man whose soul was tormented day after day by the debauchery he witnessed in Sodom.
Imagine, if you will, an entire metropolis of people openly and publicly performing the most despicable of perverted acts, in broad daylight, spending their days trying to imagine something to do that will top what they did yesterday. Paul described them in Romans 1:26-32
“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; 32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”
So debauched were the people of Sodom that when Lot had visitors, in the eyes of these people amounting to nothing but new faces in town, they mobbed his house, demanding he toss his visitors out to the street so they could be raped.
Now God was willing to show mercy, even then, at the request of His friend Abraham. Gen 18:23-33
But the deal was that He would spare the cities if He could find 10 righteous people there. He could not.
God reduced the cities and the land itself in that valley to ashes. So complete was the destruction that no trace of them has ever been found.
Further, Jude 7 says “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh” referring to acts of homosexuality, “are exhibited as an example, in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire”
The indication would be that when their bodies were turned to ash their souls were immediately committed to eternal judgment.
But through it all He rescued righteous Lot, whose soul was oppressed by the ‘sensual conduct of unprincipled men’ (vs 7).
Do you remember what Peter said about false teachers in our previous installment; from chapter 2 verse 2?
“And many will follow their sensuality…”
If God would make these cities an ‘example to those who would live ungodly thereafter’ vs 6, then the false teachers, in their destructiveness and sensuality and greed ought to take warning. But they will not. They do not. And God is able to deal justly with them also.
Now before we go on to close let me address a modern issue that comes on the margin of these things.
We live in a time when tolerance is worshiped. Religious tolerance, tolerance of the so-called ‘alternate lifestyles’ of groups of people, and so forth.
The new rule is that we should not say anything against another religion because they have as much right as we to worship the way they see fit and believe what they choose to believe.
The rule is that we should not say anything against any group of people for their sexual preferences or their stand on abortion or other ‘controversial’ issues.
Here is the truth, Christians, and if I did not address the truth then I would be a false teacher.
We’re not supposed to deny the validity of other religions or tell people of other religions that they are misinformed. That sort of talk gets us censured these days.
The truth is, the only way anyone is going to see God is through faith in the shed blood and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That makes all other religions wrong, which means practitioners of those religions are going to spend eternity separated from God if they do not hear and believe the truth. As Christians, we are not being intolerant in rejecting their religion and telling them they must believe the gospel. We are trying to save them from hell.
If we dare speak against homosexuality we are called homophobic, as though we have a mental disorder because we disagree with their depravity. We are now the villains. Right becomes wrong and wrong is right and acceptable.
The Bible condemns homosexuality and it condemns murder, which is the taking of any life for convenience’s sake or out of hatred or malice. As Christians we cannot keep silent about those things, because those who practice those things, unrepentant, are committing evil acts and will suffer the judgment of God.
When so-called preachers of God’s Word, who call themselves Christians and tell you sweet little lies instead of preaching the whole counsel of God, misuse His Word to destroy and lure and deceive and steal, they are destined for destruction, and true preachers of the Word are duty bound to expose them for what they are.
If a preacher is wrong on a point of doctrine, I will chat with him. If he is unclear as to his stand on something the Bible addresses as one of the essential beliefs of Christianity, I will help him to work it through.
If he is deliberately misusing the Bible in order to get a following and get people to send him their money I will denounce him as a false teacher; I will name him, I will refute him, I will expose him if I can.
“There are times in which the only way to keep alive the non-vindictive, nonjudgmental, self-sacrificing witness of Jesus Christ is to stand with rude dogmatism on the rock that is Jesus Christ, condemning all compromise as the work of the Antichrist.” - Ronald Goetz
THE GODLY WILL STAND
Well, the good news in all this, which we have touched on, is that when we say God deals justly, we mean it in the positive sense as well as the negative.
He “…knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment”
We need to be encouraged, believers in Christ, that no matter how well the charlatans seem to do and how popular they are with the masses who are deceived by their ear candy, in the end it is those who take their stand on the solid Rock of God’s Word through Jesus Christ who will continue to stand.
Leaving our text for a moment, hear the words of the Apostle Paul, from prison, to the young minister, Timothy (2 Tim 1:8-12).
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, 9 who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, 10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, 11 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. 12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.”
Christians, we cannot waver, we cannot back down, we cannot indulge in soft soap and some pathetic, hypocritical cowardly silence under the noble label of ‘tolerance’, without dishonoring the memory of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter, and all the faithful Christians of the ages who have suffered and often died for speaking the pure truth of God’s Word.
The Lord knows how to save those who belong to Him, and the Lord knows how to keep the unrighteous under punishment. He is the one who makes the distinction.
The thing we need to hold on to as His children and His voice in the world, is that as long as we speak the truth in love, and as long as we rightly divide the word of truth, standing on the solid Rock and not shrinking back in the face of opposition or cowering before the voices that scream for silence, in the end God will vindicate us.
God is going to do things that ungodly men will not believe because they have never seen it.
Those who reap the benefit of those things He is going to do will be the ones who believed without seeing.
False teachers; true believers. God knows the difference, and God deals justly with each one.
