Still The Judge - [2 Peter 2:4-10]

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One of the least enjoyable aspects of being a police officer, something you might not think much about, is going to court because court always seemed inconvenient.
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And you know, probably the worst experience was to go on a traffic ticket because you just think, traffic ticket?
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I have to go to court, you know, drive 50, 60 miles to go to court, probably on my day off, that's usually how it happens.
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And I'm going to go to traffic court. And there were two judges who ran traffic court.
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One I dearly loved because that man would find anybody guilty, anyone at all.
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The other one didn't like so much because he would just find anybody innocent, you know, it was like one out of 10 guys would be found guilty in this court, didn't really care for that much.
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And I went into court one day for a traffic ticket and what had happened was,
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I'll never forget this one. I mean, you know, I don't remember too many traffic tickets, but this one was pretty special to me.
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I was driving down the road, and this is, which is how you get traffic tickets, but I'm driving down the road and it's three lanes both ways.
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It is a huge street. It goes under the Glendale Freeway, it's right next to a hospital, it is a big street.
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And I'm driving down the road and up in front of me, there are two cars, one's following the other one and they are driving in a circle across all six lanes of traffic.
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And you know, it's just kind of like, you know, did
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I see that? Did I really see it? So then I think to myself, two cars, I've never successfully pulled over two cars and I go, you know, this certainly isn't going to work.
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But I lit them up, hoping that they would both pull over and guess what? They both pulled over.
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And I'm thinking, whoo -hoo. So I write them a ticket, go to court, and one of them is contesting the ticket.
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And I, as the, you know, arresting officer, as the officer who wrote the ticket, I testify first.
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And so I tell the judge what happened and he says, okay, and then the man wants to present a defense. And I'm looking and I'm pretty impressed.
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He's got charts and he's drawn all these pictures and all this stuff and he, here's basically what he says on his testimony.
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He says, well, I was the second car, your honor, and I was following this guy and this is what we did.
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We drove around in circles and, you know, it was, I don't even remember what his purpose was, but we drove around in these circles, but I was only following this guy and went on for a couple of minutes and he showed the pictures and went through it step by step, everything that he did.
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And the judge looked at me and said, well, based on your testimony,
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I have no choice but to find you guilty. And the whole courtroom just erupted because he was so serious about it.
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And I thought, boy, if every case could just be like that where the, you know, defendant comes in and convicts himself,
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I could just stay home, that'd be marvelous. But when it comes to court, we expect our judges to be fair and impartial.
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We expect them to listen to all the evidence and to do the right thing. That doesn't always happen.
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But how much more do we depend on the divine judge to do what is right, to come to the right decisions, to do what needs to be done, to uphold justice?
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I want you to open your Bibles to 2 Peter chapter 2. We're going to be in chapter 2 and verses 4 to 10.
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Let me read that text. 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, and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved
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Noah, a preacher of righteousness with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, 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, and if he rescued
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Lot, righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men, 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.
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If he does all those things, verse 9 says, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.
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Just the first part of verse 10, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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So tonight, from our text, I want to draw your attention to four truths about God, the eternal judge, so that you will be encouraged, knowing that God will judge the wicked and preserve his chosen ones.
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We live in a world where it seems the wicked often prosper. In the case of false teachers, which
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Peter is specifically addressing, it seems sometimes that they've got it wired.
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They've got TV shows, they've got mansions, they've got ostentatious jewelry, beautiful expensive cars.
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They've got everything that it would seem to come with success.
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But God's judgment upon them, 2 Peter 2, verse 3 tells us, from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
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Peter tells us we don't have to wonder if they're going to get away with it. Believers must trust
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God to always do what is right, because he always has, and he always will.
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Peter gives us three reminders of justice, past, and one of justice, future, these four aspects of the justice of God.
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Now, just to review where we are in 2 Peter, he opens this epistle, primarily written to warn the church about false teachers that are coming, and with a reminder of the great blessings that are promised to every believer.
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Peter calls upon believers to examine their spiritual growth, to look at their lives, to see how they're progressing, and Peter extols
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Scripture even above the greatest experience in the history of the world, seeing the transfigured
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Christ. And finally, as we saw last time, Peter contrasted the faithfulness of the
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Old Testament prophets who yielded themselves to the Holy Spirit in writing Scripture, he contrasted them with the coming false teachers.
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We looked at 10 characteristics of false teachers, how they're stealthy, destructive, deniers of Christ, destroyers of souls, how they lack self -control, how they bring reproach upon Christ, that they're greedy, they're exploitative, they are deceivers, and they are oblivious and headed for oblivion.
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So then tonight, four aspects of the justice of God.
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First notice that God judged fallen angels, verse 4, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, in this case if, typically we think of, you know, to use computer jargon, if then else, if being a condition, but in this case, if is not a conditional word, it is a statement of historical reality.
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Angels fell, we know that from Scripture. They sinned and they were not spared.
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And there's a simple lesson here, no one, no one is above the law of God.
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Now from our perspective, from our human perspective, angels seem lofty. After all, they were created to dwell in the presence of God.
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They were given important tasks. But Jude tells us that there were angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode.
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What they should have done, they did not do. One thing
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I think it's important to note, and this was much to my dismay as I looked at it, because I'm teaching a class next year on angels, demons,
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Satan, all that kind of thing, but the Bible doesn't give us every detail involving angels.
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That's not its primary purpose. The Bible was not written to be a textbook on angels,
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A to Z. Everything you ever wanted to know about angels, that's not what the Bible is. We know something about some of the angels.
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We know the names of Gabriel and the Archangel Michael. We know what some of them have been assigned to do.
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We know that they're a cherubim, or cherubim for those who don't like the Hebrew pronunciation, that were assigned to prevent
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Adam and Eve and anyone from going back to the Garden of Eden. We know that some angels fell.
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We know that some fell when they followed Satan in rebelling against God. However, I don't believe that those are the angels that are in question here.
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Those who fell and followed Satan are still among us as demons. We know that unfallen angels, those who have not sinned, will return with the
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Lord when he returns. We know they rejoice, that angels rejoice when men receive
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Christ. And we know that angels are fascinated by the Gospel. Now, some of this is a little bit of speculation, but it seems likely that the sin described here is from Genesis 6, talking about the
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Nephilim. And I don't have time to go through all that in the time that we have this evening.
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But basically, they did not keep their own abode, that they invested themselves.
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They took over men, they took wives, and then they had children.
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And this was all outside of God's plan. But the phrasing that God did not spare them is interesting because it is precisely the phrase that is used in Romans 8, 32, where Paul tells us that God didn't spare his own son.
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The angels who fell were not spared. And the life of Jesus, God's own son was not spared.
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Now, how do those two things go together? Well, the life of Jesus could not be spared because mankind could not be redeemed any other way.
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The justice of God demanded that Christ be sacrificed. Demanded the life of Jesus.
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And the angels, in the same way, could not be spared. Who fell? They couldn't be spared the punishment of God because, again, the justice of God demanded it.
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I've written here, how about some angel tartar? I don't know if you know this about Pastor Mike, but he likes his steak pretty rare.
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So I was like, hey, how about some angel tartar? Look at verse 4b, second part of verse 4, but cast them.
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They were not spared, but God cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment.
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The four English words there, cast them into hell, is one Greek word.
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And it's Tartaro from the Greek, it comes from the Greek mythology where Tartarus was the underworld of underworlds.
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It was the lowest rung of hell. It was considered the ultimate place of punishment. Peter here is not endorsing
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Greek mythology. He's saying, listen, these angels who fell, they were cast into the lowest, the most torturous place of punishment.
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It is a horrible place and God is keeping them there. Some of your translations may read pits of darkness.
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Others may have chains of darkness. So let me ask you a hypothetical question.
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Would you prefer pits of darkness or chains of darkness if it applied to you? Would you rather be bound in chains of darkness or confined to pits of darkness?
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Yeah, no is the correct answer. It doesn't matter. They're both horrible. You are in the lowest place in hell if you're one of these angels.
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And it doesn't matter if it's pits or chains, because the idea is they are being kept in Tartarus in this lowest place of hell by the power of God to await his judgment and justice.
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Years go by. I mean, think about it. This was nearly the beginning of time.
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What, about 800 years into creation. Years go by. Decades go by.
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Centuries go by. Millennia go by. And you are still in this prison awaiting your destruction.
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No escape. There's no redemption for angels. There's no offering of the gospel.
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Jesus Christ did not die to redeem fallen angels. God judged the fallen angels.
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Secondly, God judged the antediluvian world. I just wanted to use that word.
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How often do you get to walk up to somebody and say, hi, what's antediluvian with you?
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You can't say that. You never get to use that word because it means we don't use it very often.
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It means before the flood. That's all it means. God judged the world before the flood. Verse 5.
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He did not spare the ancient world. We know from this verse, we're going to look at it, that the ancient world was all the people, every single person, and every single thing that existed at the time of Noah.
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The only things that escaped God's judgment. Noah's family and the creatures, the animals that went into the ark.
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Genesis 6 verses 5 to 7 tells us why God judged this ancient world.
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Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
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You know, I used to, we give that verse sometimes in terms of proving the fact that all men have sinned and that there's a great evil in the heart of man.
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And someone might say, well, yeah, but that's before the world, before the flood.
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Okay, look at it again, though. Every intent of the thoughts of his heart.
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This is the entire world. Are things so different now?
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Is man better now? Verse 6. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.
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The Lord 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 am sorry that I have made them.
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And in the flood, God didn't just release all the storehouses of water. He unleashed his fury.
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From perfection, when he looked at the world after he was done creating, he said, it is good, it is perfect.
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To destruction, to destroying it all. He was sorry that he'd made anything.
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How much does God hate sin? Enough to kill millions, billions of people.
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That's how much he hates sin. Note at the end of the verse that Peter writes back in 2
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Peter. Peter writes that God brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.
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Everyone was ungodly except for eight people. All others were ungodly.
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That's what he unleashed this flood upon, an ungodly world. They were impious. They refused to worship
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God. They were against him. They were his enemies. And he was out of patience with everyone but eight.
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Genesis 6 verse 8. But Noah found favor or grace. He was graced in the eyes of the
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Lord. Noah did not suffer the same fate as the rest. And it's pretty easy to see why.
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He was a sinner, but clearly not all of his thoughts were evil continually. Look at how
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Peter describes him in verse 5. But preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness.
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God preserved Noah. The verb means to protect by taking careful measures to guard.
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The grace of God preserved Noah, guarded Noah, protected him from being as sinful as the rest of the world.
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Only God can change a heart. But for the grace of God, Noah would be just like anyone else.
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God preserved Noah spiritually and then preserved him physically. Noah was a stranger in a strange land.
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For 120 years, he labored to build an ark in a place that had never experienced rain, had never seen anything remotely resembling a flood.
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For 120 years, one can only imagine he was the subject of constant gossip and ridicule.
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So what did he do in response? Plot his revenge, gossip back?
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No, he preached. He preached repentance. To be a preacher or a herald is what that word means, is to faithfully proclaim what
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God has commanded. One writer says, how could any good man keep quiet when he saw others going to ruin?
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No one knew what was coming. God had told him. How could he just stand there and say, hey, just working on this little project around the house, nothing big going on?
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No, not applying this.
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You should be hit between the eyes. If Noah surrounded by wickedness constantly, remember, everyone but his family was continually wicked always.
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If he was surrounded by wickedness constantly, and nevertheless, he responded by preaching repentance to those who had no interest in what he was saying.
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What's your excuse? We live in a world today that will be flooded, not by water, but by fire will be cleansed by fire.
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One day, every soul will be judged. Every single person will give an account for what they've done with Jesus Christ.
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Have you told them about, as it were, the living ark, the only refuge from which they can be saved from the wrath to come?
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The only protection from the justice of God. Noah wasn't practicing lifestyle evangelism.
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He was a preacher. Preachers preach. That's what they do. They tell the truth.
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And Peter tells us that Noah, it's interesting how it's phrased here, that he was saved with seven others in the
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English. This is just kind of a freebie, really isn't that critical, but I just thought it was interesting.
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The Greek would tell us that he was the eighth person saved. And the English translation is the seven with seven others.
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So it's just kind of an idiom. It means there were seven other people saved and he was the eighth.
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God saved eight people off the entire face of the earth.
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Just as the angels were judged without regard to their once lofty position. It didn't matter how high they were.
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It didn't matter what they were created for. They had fallen. So it wasn't a matter of position.
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Peter says it's also not a number of or a matter of numbers. There is no safety in numbers.
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Just because everybody else is sinning and hates God doesn't mean you'll be safe. The flood is evidence of that.
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Everyone kind of joined in. It was one big cinerama. God's judgment is sure.
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But so is his grace. He preserved Noah and his family.
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So far, two truths about God's judgments. Number one, God judged fallen angels.
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Number two, God judged the antediluvian world. Number three, God judged
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Sodom and Gomorrah. God judged Sodom and Gomorrah. God turned Sodom and Gomorrah into ash heaps.
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Look at verse six. And if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes.
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Again, the word if is not a suggestion that maybe it didn't happen.
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Maybe it did. Peter is citing historical precedents that his audience would know.
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He's citing historical precedents of the wrath of God. And what's his purpose?
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Why is he bringing up all this stuff in the midst of his letter about false teaching? How's he going to encourage them?
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What's encouraging about hearing about the wrath of God? Well, I think that knowing that God will not leave the guilty unpunished.
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That he will punish the guilty. Removes the burden that we might feel about the unfairness of life.
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Knowing that in the end, they will get what they have coming. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living
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God, is it not? I remember before I was saved.
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I think the only reason in my mind that God had to exist. Is because I knew that there were really bad people out there.
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Of course, I wasn't one of those really bad people. I knew that there were really bad people. I'd seen a lot of bad things.
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And in my mind, I thought there has to be a God for these people to get what they deserve. Knowing God.
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Knowing that he exists. Knowing that he has judged in the past. Should give all of us confidence that he will judge in the future.
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And when these false teachers came along and we look at them now.
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We think, well, they've got it pretty good. What about them? God will get to them.
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God will get to them. When it says here that he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
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It means to pronounce a sentence after determination of guilts. They were found guilty,
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Sodom and Gomorrah. And it wasn't for a lack of hospitality. And they were sentenced for their crime to destruction.
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Here's the first description of Sodom and Gomorrah in scripture. It's mentioned once before. But here's the first description of Sodom, actually.
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Genesis 13, 13. Just listen to this. Now, the men of Sodom were wicked exceedingly and sinners against the
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Lord. Welcome to Sodom, where we're exceedingly wicked and sinners against the
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Lord. Population 12 ,000. The imagery that Peter uses is fascinating.
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The word for destruction is the same from which we get catastrophe. They were sentenced to catastrophe.
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It is a condition of total destruction with the implication. Listen to this part of this definition.
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Definition with the implication that nothing is in its customary place or position.
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It was completely overturned. It was completely wiped out. Sodom and Gomorrah were no longer recognizable.
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If you visited there on Wednesday, destruction happened Wednesday night. Thursday morning, you wouldn't recognize the place.
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It's as if they never existed. It's as if Sodom and Gomorrah were completely wiped off the face of the earth.
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That is wrath. That is judgment. That is the justice of God.
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God had made Sodom and Gomorrah eternal examples. Look again at verse six.
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Having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter.
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Do a study on this sometime. The prophets of God frequently pronounced judgment on the enemies of God's people.
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The surrounding nations, you know, woe to Moab. Woe to this country and that country.
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And frequently they say, God is going to turn you, or he's going to do to you what he did to Sodom and Gomorrah.
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Several instances of that. Sodom and Gomorrah became known as basically a synonym for desolation, for destruction, for being wiped out.
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I don't know if there's a more cutting comment in all of scripture than when Jesus, the Lord, says of Capernaum, where he had performed many miracles, that judgment would be more tolerable for Sodom than for Capernaum.
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As for being an example, well, how did God judge Sodom and Gomorrah? Again, out of Genesis.
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Genesis 19, verses 24, 25, and 28. Then the
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Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
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And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
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Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley, and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land ascended like the smoke of a furnace.
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That's what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. Reduced to ashes, a smoldering heap, just smoke.
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That's all that was left. When I was growing up, my mom used to say things like, you know, if you do thus and such, you'll wind up just like, fill in the blank, you know, the name of some boy that she didn't particularly care for.
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I wonder if she said, you know, if you keep doing that, you're going to wind up like Sodom and Gomorrah. That might have been a little more scary.
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You'll be desolate. You'll be destroyed. You'll be laid waste like Sodom and Gomorrah.
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But God did not destroy all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah. Look at verse 7.
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And if he rescued righteous Lot. That just struck me.
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Righteous Lot. Really? Lot? Righteous? When Lot split with Abraham, he chose to go to Sodom.
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Because it was well watered and like a garden. Those were the days.
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And yet the reputation of the city could not have been a secret. I mean, I'm being facetious, obviously, when
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I say that there was a sign, welcome to Sodom, where we do this and that. But I don't think it was much of a secret.
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I mean, before he moved, did he check to see if there was a Bible teaching church in the area? The sentence construction there in 2
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Peter, is such that it emphasizes Lot was rescued by God's intervening, because of Abraham's pleading.
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He was rescued. It means that there was some kind of action by God because of some claim.
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Lot's claim on the term righteous is difficult to discern from his actions. I mean, this is the man who offered his daughters for less than God honoring purposes.
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And then after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, what did he do? Just say, wow, thank you, Lord. I praise you and I'm going to live for you the rest of my life.
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Or he got drunk and then committed incest. But that's not all our text says about Lot, thankfully, just that he was rescued.
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Again, verse 7, and if he rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men.
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Lot is pictured as worn down. Exhausted with toil. And deeply distressed and oppressed by the life of his fellow citizens.
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He hates the wickedness that surrounds him. Much like Noah, although he's not described as a preacher,
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Lot feels the weight it is pressing down on him. He feels the weight of all the sin that surrounds him in every direction.
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That term there, sensual conduct, that he's surrounded by, that he's engulfed by, is the word that describes behavior in which sexual debauchery is only one element among many.
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In other words, sexual misconduct, sexual sin is only one aspect of it. It is thus a comprehensive expression for evil and perversion.
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It is one of the vices that destroy an individual from within. The perversity of Sodom and Gomorrah consisted of it.
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Sensual conduct was a way of life. And this is, this term is used characteristically of godless paganism.
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That's how bad Sodom and Gomorrah were. The only human current,
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I guess that was human too, but the only current example I could think of, you know, that I'm familiar with is West Hollywood.
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We used to call it West Hollyweird. And it is the home of the Gay Pride Parade in Los Angeles.
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And really, it is a concentrated area where homosexuals live there in disproportionate numbers.
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And it's also a place that the Sheriff's Department polices. If a Christian were to work at West Hollywood station,
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I would think he would soon feel exactly how Lot felt. He would understand it completely.
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Because the weight of the sin there, it's just so oppressive. And whatever
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Lot sins, whatever his shortcomings, the level of godlessness and debauchery in Sodom would have been suffocating.
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It must have had a physical impact on him. All the sin, all the evil, all the godlessness surrounding him.
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In fact, our text tells us, look at verse 8, that he was tortured by what he experienced.
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Parenthetically, Peter writes, 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.
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And in extra biblical Greek literature, that word tormented literally means torture. That's what it's used for.
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It's used to describe torture. Lot was severely distressed by the actions of his neighbors.
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He had unwittingly moved his family into hell on earth, a place where God was hated.
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Everywhere he turned, all that he heard, all that he saw, afflicted his conscience.
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Lot was a saint, not perfect by any means, but a believer who was swimming in a sea of sin.
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He was literally a fish out of water. Still, he didn't lock himself inside his house and say, you know what, this world is so evil,
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I can't even go out there. Our text tells us that he lived among them.
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And then he was tormented day after day. If he just locked the door, closed the windows, us four no more, it wouldn't have bothered him.
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But he went out, and that's why he was tormented. That's why he felt the oppression. That's why the sin of Sodom weighed so heavenly on him.
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If Lot was not righteous, if he did not fear God, he would not have been disturbed by the sin that engulfed him.
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Think about it. Are unbelievers disturbed by sin sometimes? Are they as disturbed by it as believers are?
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I think about, there's this group shows up at the funerals of servicemen and women who die overseas, and they carry signs and say,
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God hates homosexuals. They're supposed to be Christians.
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Do they really hate what God hates and love what God loves? Do they have compassion for sinners?
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Do they think to themselves, but by the grace of God, there go I? No, not at all.
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Unbelievers have a different standard, an unbiblical standard. And most of the unbelievers
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I know are relatively undisturbed by sin. They may not approve of everything, but it's no big deal to them.
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I think polls would show that most Massachusetts residents object to homosexual marriage. I'm sure you're reading all the time about the hue and cry over it.
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The parades that are being held in the streets, people marching and objecting to it. There's none of that.
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They may not personally care for it, but it's no big deal. When you take a stand for righteousness sake at school or at work, maybe even at home, if you're in an unbelieving family, are the unbelievers grateful?
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Thank you for standing up for God. Thank you for standing up for the truth. Sometimes you might think, well, it never happens.
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It does sometimes. If a particular sin grates on one person's conscience. But by and large, they will be offended by you standing up for the truth.
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You'll hear things like, who do you think you are? What makes you better than me?
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Who made you the judge? Lot had a difficult life.
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He chose it for himself. He moved there. But God rescued
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Lot in spite of his failings, in spite of his sin. He delivered him from this oppressive, sin -filled city.
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So how is the rescue of Lot going to encourage Christians about the coming of false teachers?
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They're being guarded. They're told this is what false teachers are going to look like. How's this going to encourage them?
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Look at verse 9. If he rescued
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Lot in verse 8, verse 9, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation.
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Listen, he did all these other things. He judged historically. We know he judged and condemned the angels.
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We know he judged and condemned the entire world at the time of the flood. We know that he condemned
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Sodom and Gomorrah. But he rescued no one, his family.
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He rescued Lot and his family. He did not forget how to rescue his children from affliction.
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He was faithful to a man like Lot. Won't he be faithful to you too?
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God is able to deliver. He is the Lord. He is sovereign over all things.
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He can do it. He is able. It's interesting, the Greek preposition from is ek, meaning out of, not the preposition for away from.
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In other words, Peter is not promising a life free of trouble. But then in the midst of this trouble,
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God ultimately will deliver his people. He will deliver his saints.
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He will deliver even one as Lot. First, Peter was written to prepare the church for persecution.
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So it's not like Peter didn't believe in persecution. Second, Peter written to prepare the church for false teachers.
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Peter had no illusions about trials. When false teachers come into a church, you have a trial right away.
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You have a problem. When false doctrine is taught alongside the truth, there are going to be issues within a church.
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And he says, listen, ultimately, God will take care of these things. You do what is right.
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God will deliver you. In Lot's case, it would have been this idea of a temptation, specifically refers to an enticement to sin.
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And in Lot's case, it would have been sexual sin. That's what he was surrounded by. In the case of the church with regard to false teachers, the temptation would be what?
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What is the temptation with regard to false teachers? What should we fight against with false teachers?
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Well, I think obviously we wouldn't want to follow them. We wouldn't want to believe their teachings.
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But we also need to know that even in all cases, their teaching is going to lead to destruction.
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And God is able to deliver believers from such temptations. It may not happen in our timing, but his timing is always right.
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I remember when I first got saved, or I was thinking I was saved, my very first offering, the very first gift
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I gave to the Lord, went to a false teacher. What did
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I know? I was a dope. So far, three truths about God.
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God judged fallen angels. God judged the antediluvian world. And God judged
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Sodom and Gomorrah. And finally, fourth, God will judge false teachers.
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Again, look at verse 9. And to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.
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God is not only able to rescue the godly, but also to keep the unrighteous under punishment.
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In other words, no one who is unrighteous can ever escape the punishment due to them from God.
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Well, why do the wicked prosper? Why do they never seem to get what they deserve? They will, in God's time.
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They are preserved by the very power of God for that purpose and that time.
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If he is going to punish the unrighteous, how much more will
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God punish those who infiltrate, who stealthily, sneakily infiltrate the body of Christ and try to fleece the flock, who try to destroy souls?
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How much more will God judge those who distort Scripture, his own word for their benefit to satisfy their greed?
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How much more will God judge those false teachers who seek to satisfy their own sensual desires and who deny the
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Lordship of Christ? False teachers are specific objects of the wrath of God.
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Look at verse 10. And especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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Especially means to an unusual degree, most of all, above all, particularly.
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I can almost say that. Particularly. Now, let me reread that little bit of verse 10 with these definitions instead of the one that's in the, that was used by the translator.
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How about this? And to an unusual degree, those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority, they will be judged.
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And most of all, those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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And above all, those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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I think we get a pretty good idea of what Peter's trying to communicate. You absolutely do not want to be branded a false teacher on the day of judgment.
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Some other scriptures. Jesus says, whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him if with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.
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Jude writes, woe to them talking about false teachers, for they have gone the way of Cain.
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And for pay, they have rushed headlong into the air of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
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Not encouraging words. Jesus in Matthew 7. And then
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I will declare to them, these people who say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this in your name and that in your name?
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I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. You can't just put on some kind of show and expect
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God to judge the outside. He knows the heart.
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False teachers, above all, most of all, to an unusual degree, will suffer the judgment and wrath of God.
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There is no mercy for false teachers. Peter gives another summary of the character of false teachers.
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There are those in verse 10 who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority.
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When it says they indulge the flesh in corrupt desires, everything, that just means that everything they should fight against, they don't.
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Instead of not fighting it, they indulge in it. They are hedonists. Pleasure is their
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God. They worship at the altar of pleasure. They may well appear in public as holy men of God, but their doctrines are false and their lives are anything but holy.
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They revel in polluting their own souls and those who follow them.
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This is their delight. They are idolaters in every sense.
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They have created a God of their own desire. They have carved one out of wood, as it were, and fall down and worship him.
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They claim to honor Christ, but with their lives, they disown him and repudiate his teachings.
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It also says, Peter says, that they despise authority. Well, of course, false teachers hate authority.
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They are the authority in their own minds. They hate any authority over them, but they especially hate
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Christ, and that's the inference here. They are not saved.
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They have not been born again. What do they think of the lordship of Christ? What do they think of his rulership?
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They despise it. That word there means to look down on someone or something with contempt.
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With the implication that one considers the object of little value. That's how they view the authority, and that word authority is the same one from which we draw the word lord, lordship.
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Well, maybe we shouldn't be too harsh on these false teachers. After all, judge not.
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I mean, who are we to judge? Those who have contempt for the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have contempt for his lordship. Those who see him as of little value deserve no more, ultimately, and no less from us than anyone else would.
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A so -called Christian who is a false teacher must be called to repentance.
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Second Timothy, chapter two, verses 24 to 26, Paul writes this. The Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome, meaning we don't argue with people, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, who are in opposition to sound doctrine.
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If perhaps God may grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will, make no mistake about it.
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False teachers are the slaves of sin. They belong to Satan. They are his servants.
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But Paul tells us that we don't argue with them. We need to be mindful that but for the grace of God, that would be us.
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We would think like they do. We would even maybe listen to them, follow them. So what we do is we gently present the truth and we trust
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God. These men and women are the captives of the devil.
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So we've seen that God judged fallen angels. God judged the antediluvian world.
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God judged Sodom and Gomorrah. And God will judge false teachers and he will judge them more harshly, more harshly than others.
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Above all, particularly, we can depend on God to do what is right.
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He is the just judge. He is the judge that gets every decision right. He has always done what is right and he will always do what is right.
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This is a great comfort to his children, those who have trusted in him to fulfill all of his promises to them.
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God knows how and is able to punish evildoers, especially false teachers.
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God knows and is able to rescue those upon whom he has set his affections, whether it is
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Noah, whether it is Lot, or whether it is a church besieged by false teachers, under assault by false teachers.
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God is able and will deliver. Let's pray. Father, it is sobering to think that angels would fall.
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Angels from your presence would disobey you. Lord, it is sobering to think that millions or billions would perish because they would not repent before the flood.
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It is sobering to think about entire cities, Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed by your wrath, being transformed from lush garden -like areas into absolute wastelands where nothing grows.
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It is sobering to think about the future judgment that awaits those who trifle with your word, who distort it, who come into the church presenting themselves as something they're not.
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God, your judgment does not sleep. Fathers, your children, we are thankful.
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The same God who rescued Noah and his family, rescued
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Lot and his family. Father, that you are still able to deliver us from temptation.
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Father, would you keep us ever mindful that you are holy, that you are sovereign, that you are loving, and that you are just, that everything you do is good and right, and that we can always trust you.