Daily Archive

We find that there are two things that now run as a consistent theme through 2 Peter chapter two. One is the depravity of false teachers. The problem is not just the doctrine they’re teaching, but the life they’re living and the life that their doctrine encourages because they are not teaching doctrine that accords with godliness. They are teaching doctrine that leads to ungodliness because they themselves are ungodly. We’ll learn more about that when we get to verse 10 and 11 especially. But looking at their depravity, we also see that they are doomed to destruction.

The second theme beyond their depravity is this theme of judgment. There is judgment that is going to come upon them. They are secretly bringing in destructive heresies. They are bringing upon themselves swift destruction. Many will follow their destructive ways because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed by covetousness. They will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Then he says in verses 4 through 10 of 2 Peter 2, ⁴ For if God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them into the pit and delivered them to chains of darkness, being kept 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 trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, ¹⁰ and especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority.

Now the verses in this text is one big, long, compound sentence. This is not the kind of sentence you want to examine in English literature. This thing goes on and on and on, and you’ve heard of if -then statements. It’s not just one if-then statement. There are multiple if -then statements. But the turning point, the focus is there in verse 9. So we’ll look at verse 9 and then we’ll go back to verses 4 through 8. “Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.” “The Lord knows,” speaking not only of His will, but of His power, of His ability.

This is a working experiential knowledge. It’s not just that God knows the facts, if I do this I can deliver them, it’s that God is actively delivering us from trials and temptations. And he also knows how to reserve the unjust under punishment for the Day of Judgment. To reserve them under punishment, some of the key phrases we’re going to look at here, reserve for judgment is one of them.

The “reserve for judgment” means that their judgment is sure and there is no escape. They are chained to that destiny and cannot get away. They cannot avoid judgment. Here’s how that plays out in day-to-day life as you talk to people. As you witness and you warn people about the judgment to come, some might say, “Well I know what I need to pray to be saved, but I don’t want Jesus to ruin my fun, I don’t want him to be a killjoy, I don’t want to listen to him now, but before I die…”

Now the presumption in that statement, “I know the prayer to pray to be saved. All I know is that before I die I just have to say these words and I can have lived however I wanted to live and I can go to heaven.” Not to discount the fact that God can save you moments from stepping into eternity, but if you think you are going to have time and an opportunity to pull that thing out and read that and mean it and understand it in that last moment of hope that maybe that will undo everything else that you’ve done in defiance of God, it’s an absolute misunderstanding of the character of God, of the wrath of God, and of the grace of the gospel. God has not given us a prayer to pray so the last minute we’ve been given an ejection button so we miss the fire and brimstone. That’s not how it works, that’s a presumption upon God because honestly you could drop dead in a second and be gone. We are not guaranteed tomorrow.

Peter here is warning about false teachers. He’s giving examples of judgment but he also gives examples of salvation and in the midst of it all he gives them of the worst examples you can imagine of God judging sinners and some of the most glorious examples of God saving and extending grace and in the we face What Lloyd -Jones said, and I’ve kind of paraphrased it, Peter does not say to the church that is suffering that it will be alright.

We tend to think in those terms, don’t we? Eventually the trial will end and it will be alright. Not till Jesus comes back will it be alright. There are times that the trial will lessen, there are times that there will be blessings, there are times that we’re so consumed with the trial, we miss the blessings that are there in the midst of the trial. But Peter doesn’t say it’s going to be alright. He doesn’t say that things are going to get better soon. He doesn’t tell them that there’s going to be a sudden change that’s going to make everything easier.

But what he does tell us is that God is in control and he knows how to deliver the godly out of trials and temptations. And he knows how to judge the ungodly and the false teachers. I think often times we do want God to judge and would rather see him judge than save. When we look at false teachers and when we look at the lost, there are times that we wish God would. We should err on the side of grace. Because if God can extend and will extend grace to sinners like us, do you understand what we deserved? Do you understand what we had earned? Do you understand the wages that we were due to be paid? By nature, born children of wrath. But God knows how to deliver the godly out of trials and temptations.

He talks here at first about those who are reserved for judgment. He says, if God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world. Speaking of the world at the time of the flood. And then he talks about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He begins talking about the fallen angels. You know, when the angels fell, there was no gracious plan of redemption for them. There was no mercy. When the third of the angels followed Lucifer, they fell, they sinned, they rebelled against God, and they were cast down. They have been delivered into the change of darkness to be reserved for judgment. That means they will be judged and there is no escape.

We know we don’t go preach the gospel to the fallen angels. God is not commanding that they repent. They believe! They know who He is. They confess that Jesus is who He says He is. You understand, you could take the confession of the modern demon, and it’s more orthodox than a lot of evangelical confessions in the church. They know exactly who Jesus is. They profess it and they proclaim it. But there is no hope for them. There is no escape for them. They are chained, and the word chained means they are restricted. They are bound. They are being held till the day of judgment.

When the angels sinned, God didn’t spare them. The judgment was sure, it was certain, and we know they will be judged. We know from the Scriptures that the final lake of fire is a place reserved for the devil, for the demons, and for the lost. It is a place of eternal torment. Jude, in fact, uses a paragraph that is very similar to what Peter has used here in Jude verses 5 through 7:

⁵ Now I want to remind you, though you know all things, that Jesus, having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ 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, ⁷ just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having indulged in the same way as these in gross sexual immorality and having gone after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Judgment is sure. The first example he gives are the fallen angels. They are being reserved, kept for judgment. There’s no escape for them. This is where, if you die now lost without Christ, your spirit will go. For the believer, to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord. For the lost, it is to be in hell. Hell is not permanent. Hell, in that understanding, is temporary, because hell and Hades, death and the grave, are going to be thrown finally into the lake of fire. And the lake of fire is that permanent place of suffering the punishment of God for all eternity.

There are those who say that if you are in hell or if you are in the lake of fire for all of eternity, that you have been separated from God. You understand. It is not a separation from God. It is being in the presence of God without a mediator. It is bearing up under the wrath of God and the holiness of God, paying the wages of sin for eternity. In Acts 2:27, Peter, on the day of Pentecost, quotes David about Christ, saying from the Psalms, “Because You will not forsake my soul to Hades, Nor give Your Holy One over to see corruption.”

He goes on and says, “he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither forsaken to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God has raised up, to which we are all witnesses.” Jesus’s body did not stay in the grave. He did not see decay or corruption. Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Revelation 1:18, “I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” It is Christ who owns death now because He has conquered it, and it is He who will call us out of our graves. And you understand both the saved and the lost are going to be resurrected, the saved unto glory and the lost unto judgment.

To be resurrected, to be judged at the great day of judgment, at the great white throne judgment and cast into the lake of fire. There in Revelation 20:10 we read, “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. 11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sits upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

To understand the concept of the second death, it is to be dying forever, but never finally dead. That is the description of judgment in the lake of fire. So Peter is confirming something. Judgment is certain, and we have illustrations and examples of judgments throughout history, but none of them compare to the final judgment. They are just an example that God is true to His word and that He will judge the wicked. He also talks about the ancient world, about the world during the time of Noah, during the time of the flood. Genesis 6:5 Then Yahweh saw that the evil of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And Yahweh regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7 And Yahweh said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh.”

In Genesis 6:11 Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”

At the time of the flood, as Noah was building the ark, you know as he was building, he was preaching. And you know how many converts he had? Only his family went with him into that ark. Only eight people were saved. The world heard a hundred years worth preaching and warning, and not a one. That’s not a very successful ministry. But what was he preaching? And I will tell you this, this is not what Noah was preaching. “Please, please, God wants you to get on the the ark, please make every effort to get on the ark, you’ve got to get on the ark.” No. You know what he was preaching? He was warning the wicked to flee the wrath to come, and you understand he had a timeline. God started the clock and he said in 120 years, the flood’s coming. He set the timeline. They knew there was a deadline, but they didn’t believe Noah. They didn’t listen to his preaching, and they were destroyed in the flood.

And then there was Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot is referred to here as righteous, and sometimes we lose sight of that because when we look at the debates between Lot’s men and Abraham’s men and when we look at the discussions about where do you want to go and where do I want to go, and Lot chose the plains down there with Sodom and Gomorrah there because it was more fruitful, he was being completely totally selfish, but understand it’s not that Lot was a good guy all the time, it’s that Lot was a fallen sinner like us, but in contrast to where he lived, he was being obedient to God and he was tormented.

The word literally here is that he was tortured by the way the people around him lived in that city. So he had chosen to live there and then regretted it because it was horrible. It wore him down. It was torture to his soul to see how the people there were living. When they told him to get out, he got out. When they said, don’t look back, go and flee, he argued with the angels, you know that. They were telling him, oh no, it’s not going to be that bad. Oh no, let us go here, not there. He tried to negotiate. There is no negotiating the wrath of God. He was warned and he went. His wife turned and looked and was instantly vaporized. You understand that the problem was not the direction of Lot’s wife’s eyes. It was the direction of her heart. She didn’t want to leave. Knowing what was coming, she yearned to stay there. In Genesis 18:32 Then he said, “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” 33 And as soon as He had finished speaking to Abraham, Yahweh departed, and Abraham returned to his place.

But once more, this is Abraham interceding for the city. I will speak once more. And you remember, he had started, God, if you can find 50 righteous and the countdown began and he gets down to God. If you can find 10, if you find 10 righteous people and God said, I will not destroy it for the sake of 10.

So the Lord went his way. As soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham and Abraham returned to his place and there were not in those great cities on the plane, there were not 10 righteous and the city cities were destroyed.

To Be Continued…