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[0:00] Well, we are going to take a back door into Genesis 6. We'll be there in a few moments.

[0:13] Let me take you to Genesis 6 and read it to you. I promise that God willing, and I have breath for life, we're going to come to this section, and I'm just going to camp out here and move on through Genesis.

[0:25] But I want to give you some sober-minded stuff today that the New Testament offers us in clear terms in interpretation of this section of Scripture and how important it is to New Testament doctrine.

[0:38] I want you to see how the New Testament is using Old Testament truth to help us grip what happened back in this time and why this is such a critical, critical section of Scripture for us to understand.

[0:54] So in Genesis 6, beginning in verse 1, which is where I read last week, we have this. Now it happened when men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good in appearance.

[1:11] They were beautiful. They took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Now doesn't that seem strange that the sons of God or angels are taking wives, making wives out of human beings?

[1:23] I mean, how does that even work? Angels are spirits. They don't have physical bodies like we do. We're going to talk about all of that eventually, probably not today in full detail.

[1:37] Verse 3, Then Yahweh said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he indeed is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall be 120 years.

[1:49] The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God, there it is again, came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them.

[2:02] Those were the mighty men of old, men of renown. 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.

[2:16] And Yahweh regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. Yahweh said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things, even the birds of the sky, for I regret that I have made them.

[2:38] But Noah found favor in the eyes of Yahweh. So now I'm going to ask you, if you would, to turn over to 2 Peter.

[2:51] 2 Peter is where we're going to spend the rest of our time this morning, jumping in and out a little bit between a couple of other places. There we go.

[3:04] Rendering Judgment and Rescuing. That's the title of my message. You've heard me say much of this before, a while back. Rendering Judgment and Rescuing are the twin themes that we'll look at from this passage as we try and understand how the New Testament, here in 2 Peter, is helping us to properly interpret Genesis 6, 1 through down about 8 or so, 7 or 8.

[3:31] What is Peter saying here in this letter to what constitutes New Testament saints and us, this side of the cross? Why is he referencing Genesis 6 in this section of Scripture in 2 Peter, in this second letter that he's writing to the people?

[3:50] Before I read all of this in terms of the exposition, I want to remind you, no pun intended as you'll see, what Peter is wanting to do in this letter.

[4:03] So if you look at chapter 1 of 2 Peter, I'm just going to lay out just a little bit of the context here for what he's wanting to do. He says in chapter 1, verse 12, Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, that is the content of this letter, even though you already know them and have been strengthened in this truth which is present in you.

[4:32] So even though you know these truths, even though these truths are what you're being strengthened by in your spiritual life, he says in verse 13, I consider it right, as long as I'm in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder.

[4:47] So Peter is writing this letter to remind these Christians of what is true and why sound doctrine, why the words of Scripture are so important to spiritual life.

[4:59] He goes on to say this in verse 14, Knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is intimate, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has indicated to me, He says, I'm about to die.

[5:10] The Lord has made it clear to me that I'm about to be martyred. I'm going to be murdered. Verse 15, And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind.

[5:29] That's how important this is. This is one of the last things that I'm going to say to you as an apostle, as your brother in Christ. Now before I'm murdered, I want you to know these things and have them ringing in your heart.

[5:46] That's how important all of this is. If you look over in chapter 3, that's toward the end of chapter 1. Now look at chapter 3, verse 1.

[5:57] This is now, beloved, the second letter I'm writing to you, notice what he says, in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.

[6:22] The reason he's saying this is because in the last days, mockers are going to come. False teachers are going to come. Now isn't it interesting that he brackets at the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 3, he brackets chapter 2 with these testimonies of I want you to remember these things.

[6:44] I want you to hold these things in your heart as paramountly important. And what does he say in chapter 2? We're going to get there in just a minute.

[6:55] But in chapter 2, the entire chapter deals with false teachers and false doctrine. False teachers and false doctrine. So at the beginning of the chapter, he's wanting you to remember.

[7:10] At the beginning of chapter 3, he's wanting you to remember. Hold this stuff in your mind. It will serve you well. Now walking you into this, we'll read it in just a minute.

[7:20] Walking you into this, I want to ask a question as we begin. What is the goal? Since this is on Peter's mind, he's going to tie this to Genesis 6. What is the goal of all false teaching?

[7:35] Now, I'll read the rest of it in a second. Listen, when I talk about this, I want you to understand that when we're talking about false teachers and false doctrine, rarely is it the case that people who purport this, now we're going to be dealing mainly here with men because this is male leadership in the church and that's what is being addressed.

[7:57] But women can be false teachers too. Right? So whether they're men or women, they're putting themselves in position where they're teaching and instructing and saying things that are not based on the sound words of Scripture.

[8:11] false teachers but rarely do they just come out and tell lies that are easy for you to distinguish. False teachers are very skilled at hiding the lies in small amounts or doses of truth.

[8:27] It makes the medicine go down easier, put a little sugar in it kind of thing. That's what we're talking about. This wouldn't be a problem if these people just showed up and said, Jesus isn't the Savior.

[8:39] Everything Paul's told you is a bunch of bunk. Well, if somebody came in here to fill this pulpit in my place or Greg's place and stood up and one of the first things out of their mouth was everything Jeff and Greg have been teaching you from the Bible is a bunch of bunk, I hope all of you would just get up and walk out.

[9:01] At least do that. Right? Because we show you in the Scriptures what we're doing. Rarely do false teachers introduce themselves like that. This is why it's a problem.

[9:12] They're sneaky. Many of them believe what they teach. They're deceived. So this is all a very careful, orchestrated kind of spiritual warfare and behind it is Satan.

[9:28] So as we move through this material and we talk about this, please don't put yourself in the category of being immune to it. We put a premium on sound doctrine here at Grace but that does not mean that we cannot find ourselves vulnerable to false teaching.

[9:46] We have to be very alert to this and very careful. So Peter is writing this second letter as he's about to be murdered. He's going to be martyred for the Lord Jesus. Nero's going to whack his...

[9:58] Well, no, they said he was crucified. Paul was beheaded. Peter was crucified upside down according to tradition. The goal of all false teaching is to deceptively undermine the process of your personal holiness.

[10:15] That's the goal of you becoming increasingly like Jesus, of you loving the Lord from your heart. So false teachers are perfectly fine.

[10:26] Satan's perfectly fine with you worshiping. He just wants you worshiping idols. Look, Satan and false teachers are perfectly fine with you being a highly religious individual just as long as you don't make your religion about the person of the Lord Jesus.

[10:44] False teachers and Satan are very, very adept and very, very comfortable with you walking around talking about your faith as long as that faith is not grounded in love for Jesus Christ.

[10:59] Satan wants you to have Bible knowledge. Did you know that? And he wants Bible knowledge to become an idol in your life so that what you do with the Bible is weaponize it.

[11:11] So that it's not about forgiveness. It's not about love. It's not about gentleness and kindness and peace and patience and joy. It's about learning to use the Bible to out-argue people, demean people, put them in their place, make your point, get people to subscribe to your view.

[11:33] We turn it into something selfish. This is what's behind false teaching. This is what false teaching does to God's people.

[11:45] It's poisonous. Now, the goal of doing all of this, of being deceptively undermining in this whole process, they accomplish this by, first of all, appealing to your flesh.

[11:59] All of us are fighting the flesh as Christians. We have sensuality, pride, and a sense of entitlement. We're constantly warring against these things. I mean, we could just put up here and sum all of this up, I want my way.

[12:14] I want my way. We all fight this from the time we're born. This is something that we're dealing with. They do it by this way too, by attacking godly desires. Like humility, the list that we just read from Colossians.

[12:28] Humility, a teachable spirit. Anything to make you, for you to not have a teachable spirit. They don't want you receiving truth and repenting of untruth or receiving truth that helps refine and knock off the burrs of things that you've believed that aren't exactly sound.

[12:51] They have a ring to it, but there's still some stuff that needs to be dealt with there. No, they don't want you doing that. They don't want you involved in self-denial. They want you putting self first.

[13:04] They do this by preoccupying your mind with earthly things. This is what he said up in Colossians 3, verses 1 and 2. Don't set your mind on earthly things, but set your mind on Christ, on heavenly things.

[13:19] They keep you distracted with the matters of this life as if you can't trust Jesus. And then this one, creating idol worship.

[13:31] These are God replacements you depend on in your heart. They're very deceptive. These God replacements don't march in saying, I'm of Satan, take me into your heart. These are things that can start off legitimate and quickly turn into something that you're worshiping because you're willing to sin to get it or sin if you don't get it.

[13:51] This is a very, very deceptive process. Remember, deceptively undermine. Then also, by encouraging judging. That is, a judging spirit doesn't have to be something that you're walking around pointing fingers at everybody, telling them what's wrong with them.

[14:08] It can simply be an act of discontentment in your heart, a grumbling heart, a finding fault heart. You may never verbalize a lot of this, but you hold it in.

[14:20] You ruminate on it. You're just miserable. And you're going to make everybody around you miserable. Encouraging judging in you. They try to justify and rationalize you being that kind of person.

[14:35] Nobody understands me. Nobody gets me. So, you know, I'm justified in feeling like this. If people would just, then I could just.

[14:46] And you live like that. Directing your hope away from Jesus as Lord and Savior. Ultimately, that's how we wrap all this up. Directing your hope away from Jesus as Lord and Savior.

[14:57] Jesus can be a lot of things, but don't let Him be Lord and Savior. Now, I want to contrast this with you as I walk you into this. If you look at 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy, just compare with me now.

[15:12] Get you busy. I'm not going to do all the work up here. 1 Timothy chapter 1. And look at what Paul is saying to Timothy as he writes to tell Timothy how to pastor, how to shepherd the people at the church in Ephesus.

[15:35] Right out of the gate in 1 Timothy chapter 1, we get to verse 5, and what does he say? The goal of their commanding or teaching is and should be? The goal of our command, the goal of our teaching is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unhypocritical faith.

[15:55] I love that. Right? So don't stand up here and tell God's people how to live in love for one another and in love for Christ and not be something you're striving in, Jeff.

[16:08] Don't be that kind of guy. Don't bring hypocrisy into the pulpit. No. The goal of teaching in the church among God's people as we speak the truth in love to one another, the goal is always love.

[16:27] Sacrificial love. Setting myself aside in order to do what's best for you. And that comes from a pure heart.

[16:38] A heart of worship before the Lord. A good conscience. I don't have anything weighing on my conscience that I'm leaving undone in my spiritual walk with the Lord or in my relationships with my brothers and sisters or other people in my life.

[16:53] I'm not holding on to grudges. I have forgiveness in my heart toward people who've hurt me. So I have a clean conscience about my life.

[17:05] And then finally, an unhypocritical faith. I have a faith in the Lord that's genuine and I'm seeking to keep it clean before the Lord.

[17:16] In other words, I'm a repenter. I'm trying to be sensitive to sin in my life and be a repenter. Now you contrast that with what we're talking about in the way of false doctrine that we just listed.

[17:28] Look at the goal of sound teaching. Love from a pure heart, a clean conscience, and an unhypocritical faith. Let me show you a little bit about what this is doing.

[17:42] Goal here is the word telos. It literally means end. What is the end of all of our... And by the way, if your Bible in 1 Timothy 5 says instruction, actually it's literally the Greek word for commanding.

[18:00] What is the goal of our commanding? That's what we do when we preach and teach the truth of God's word. We're not up here making suggestions. We're up here teaching you the truth of the Lord and instructing you in what He commands for holy living.

[18:17] Telos then is end. What is the end? Here's the idea. It's the state of affairs that a plan is intended to achieve. Hence, goal. Goal. What is the result?

[18:28] End, outcome, or goal of all sound biblical instruction. And here it is. Look. Love. Agape. It's characterized as selfless, others centered and sacrificial.

[18:43] It flows from a pure heart, an undivided, loyal, true, and clean heart. It carries a good conscience. That is an upright, godly, honorable, moral center in your life.

[18:56] You are morally centered in the truth of God and in pleasing Jesus. That's how you make your decisions about right and wrong in life. It's not about circumstances and allowing circumstances to change your moral center.

[19:11] You are centered on Jesus. It's always about what pleases Him. It's always about what He says is right and wrong. That's how you live as a believer. A sincere faith, unhypocritical, genuine trust in Jesus.

[19:29] Now, false teachers deceptively mix the truth of God with their own unsound man-centered teachings to poison your heart and to draw it away from a genuine, pure, growing devotion to Jesus.

[19:42] Please, please, beloved, understand that the bottom line of all false teaching is aimed at Jesus Christ. How? It's aimed at pulling your heart away from Him.

[19:56] Dividing your loyalties. Fine, have a little bit of love for Jesus and a little bit of love for your hobby and a little bit of love for that and when Jesus gets in the way of a little bit of love for your hobby, that's okay.

[20:09] He understands. Go do your hobby. No. It doesn't work like that. That's the unhypocritical part. You don't want to be a hypocrite in that way.

[20:21] Now, Peter understands the devastating power of these deceptive lives being propagated by these false teachers. So, in chapter 2, he unmasks them.

[20:32] Boy, does he. The whole chapter is about that. Now, he begins with three foundational facts. I'll put it up here. Three foundational facts about false teachers, who they are, how they operate in their fight against God and his truth.

[20:50] So, if you look with me now at 2 Peter, and I'll start in verse 1, but false prophets also arose among the people.

[21:00] Do you see that, friends? From among the people. Just as there will also be false teachers among you. They were present in the time of the Lord Jesus.

[21:12] They're present with us now who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

[21:24] And many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

[21:36] Their judgment from long ago is not idle. and their destruction is not asleep. Ooh, that's interesting. At the end here, he's tying the judgment with something that happened long ago.

[21:50] So, they're standing in the line of judgment with people who were judged long ago. And this judgment is carrying forward and they're going to pay the same price. Oh, that's where we're going to go with this in just a moment.

[22:04] So, three foundational facts. The first is, and I'm just going to give you a highlight of this because this is not where I want to camp out. The first is, false teachers are among us. That was the first in my outline when I preached through this.

[22:17] False teachers are among us. These people come from within. So, what are we talking about? We're not just talking about people who are going to come from outside of our church and come in here for a one and done kind of thing.

[22:29] Greg and I try to guard against that. We don't invite people here to speak to you who aren't going to speak in like-minded ways. Here's what we're not doing. If we say that this passage teaches A and not B, we're not going to invite people who are going to come in here and teach you B as an alternative and let you make up your mind.

[22:47] Ah! I'm not doing that. We're bringing people in here where we're convinced that this is the truth and this is what we're teaching and we're standing before the Lord Jesus saying this is what we believe.

[22:59] We are prepared to die for this. Or it's not worth teaching. So, we're not about throwing out all these alternative ideas and you get to pick. Do you do that with your kids?

[23:12] Do you sit your kids down and say, well, if you want to embrace gender identity issues, you go ahead. If you want to identify as a grasshopper, we're good with that. What would you like for us to call you, sweetie?

[23:23] Jumpy? We'll call you jumpy from now on. We're not doing that! You don't do that with your kids, do you? Well, I'm not going to do it with God's kids. We're going to teach the truth.

[23:34] So, no wishy-washy stuff up here. False teachers are among us. These men are then coming from within. They're going to come in here, they're going to sit where you sit, they're going to talk like us, and they're going to look for opportunities to be raised up in what they say, and it'll start subtle.

[23:52] It'll start very subtle. This is why Greg and I keep a watchful eye on this kind of stuff. You know, we don't want you to be afraid. There's no reason to be afraid. The truth is going to win out as long as we put a premium on it.

[24:06] So, these are false teachers and they are among us. Look. They are the pseudo-false. They are the pseudo-prophetai.

[24:18] Prophetai. That's plural. False prophets. Prophetai. Prophets. Prophetas. Prophet. Prophet. These are the false prophets and the pseudo-didaskaloi.

[24:30] Again, plural. Loy. Pseudo-didaskaloi. False teachers. Who teach what is contrary to sound doctrine.

[24:41] These people are not teaching the truth. They're not writing the truth. They're not exegeting or taking apart the truth with skill.

[24:54] With an ability that allows them to stay in, out of the ditches and in the middle of the road, as it were, as they use a hermeneutic, the science of interpretation to help them understand what this means by what it says.

[25:07] They read stuff into it. They read modern stuff into the text of Scripture and try to make it say something that deals with what we're dealing with today as if that was what it was written for.

[25:20] No. Anachronism is not what we don't want this kind of stuff. Alright? Now notice too what the text says. I'm just going to move through this.

[25:31] Many people follow them in verse 2. And many, not a few, many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.

[25:44] What are false teachers always looking for? A following. False teachers are not going to teach you to follow Jesus. They're going to teach you to follow them. They're going to teach you to become dependent on them.

[25:58] So these men are masters at appealing to the flesh. False teachers are con men. False teachers learn how to push your buttons and tell you what they think you want to hear.

[26:11] They molly coddle you. In other words, if you're insecure and they determine, which most people are, if they can pick up on the fact that you have some insecurity about yourself, they're going to move right in and sidle up and they're going to start, what are they going to start doing?

[26:28] Pumping you up. That's right, brother. Pumping you up. Make you feel good about being around them. This is disingenuine, right? This is not genuine stuff. So they're flattering you.

[26:38] They're not affirming you. There's a difference. I don't have time to go into that right now. But this is what they do. And they're very, very good at it. If they, if, man, in a church of 5,000 people, I've seen this happen.

[26:53] This is a true story. In a church of 5,000 people, given on any given Sunday, 10,000 strong, but they have two services, these people will go and find the one, two, three, or four people who are disgruntled in that country.

[27:08] They find them. And then they glue themselves to them. They know what to listen for and to look for. And they attach themselves to people like that.

[27:21] Next thing you know, there's conversations going on about how they're dissatisfied with what's going on at the church right now, or blah, blah, blah. So these are men whose emphasis is on self-indulgence.

[27:34] And it often turns into various kinds of, hear me, sexual sin. But it isn't limited to that. Here's the bottom line. Their teaching supports an anti-authority, do-your-own-thing way of living.

[27:50] In other words, what they're doing is they're trying to give you license to pursue or chase your own desires. You should have what you want. Your opinion matters.

[28:01] You should be counted. Why are you being discounted? Yeah, I'm being discounted. No, you're not. In the process, look, many people are exploited.

[28:15] Many people are exploited. Because of them, the way of the truth will be maligned in their lives and in their testimony. Verse 3, and their greed, in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

[28:35] Their judgment from long ago is not idle. Their destruction is not asleep. Just because they're here now and they're being able to do this doesn't mean God isn't aware of it or that God isn't going to hold them accountable.

[28:48] They're going to answer for what they're doing. Makes me shake in my boots. When I think about standing in front of you and doing what I'm doing today, I don't want you to hear Jeff's opinions about this stuff.

[28:59] I want you to hear what this means by what it says. False teachers and their followers are driven by the greed of their hearts. Bottom line, greed is an insatiable desire for what God forbids.

[29:14] So these men plan and purpose to take advantage of people who are also inwardly craving autonomy and license. They hunt and find the people who are gravitating toward that.

[29:24] Now, look, even as Peter tells us at the end of verse 3, their judgment from long ago is not idle, their destruction is not asleep.

[29:36] His prophetic prediction of their presence and power among us is an unsettling one. They're going to get what is coming to them, but the fact that they're among us, that's unsettling.

[29:49] Again, don't be afraid. So you're right, I'm right, to be concerned and cautious. Peter's already warned us in his first letter, what did he say? Be of sober spirit, be on the alert, because your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a hungry lion looking for victims to devour.

[30:10] So even though that's true, don't be afraid, be aware. Be aware, don't be a simpleton about this. False teachers fancy themselves as an authority unto themselves.

[30:24] They mock God, they exploit his people, they deny future judgment, they deny that believers will be rescued by Jesus coming again. Ultimately, they're going to deny that.

[30:36] These false claims are what Peter is setting right in his letter. He tells us that these false teachers are deadly wrong, and that is a careful choice of words.

[30:48] They are deadly wrong because they're dealing with deadly stuff. God will hold them accountable. The ungodly will receive his wrath and judgment, and the godly will receive his mercy in Christ.

[31:00] Praise the Lord. So God is sovereign over all of this. His truth is going to prevail over liars, over their lies, over what's not sound.

[31:12] So we just need to keep looking unto Jesus, don't we, friends? We need to hold Jesus high and always ask the question, are we keeping the main thing, the main thing, the main thing is Jesus?

[31:24] Are we doing this for Jesus? Do we believe this in Jesus? Does my marriage, does my life, does my life and work as an employee, does every aspect of my lifestyle from the way that I'm married to the way that I work to the way that I raise my kids to the way I deal with other people, does all of that suggest to me and to other people that I'm making it about Jesus Christ?

[31:53] It's hard to go wrong like that. This is why Paul tells us in Colossians 3 in those few verses three times, with thankfulness in your heart. Thankfulness in your heart puts you in humility before Jesus, doesn't it?

[32:08] Rehearsing your blessings instead of grumbling and complaining and for looking for fault in other people. Gratitude goes a long, long way, friends. This is what we're being called to here.

[32:20] Look to your Savior. Now we're ready to read from verse four down through verse 10 a in second Peter two. Look at this. 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 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.

[32:51] 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 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, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority.

[33:39] Wow. And he's not through talking about these false teachers. We're just going to stop there. So, listen, verses four through nine that we just read, that's one long sentence in the Greek.

[33:54] The passage is styled in an if-then structure. Did you notice that? If, your translation may say since. That's good.

[34:04] That's fine. If or since clauses begin in verse four and go through verse eight, you'll see it. Verse four, for since or if God.

[34:17] Verse six, and if or since he condemned. Verse seven, and since or if he rescued. All the way now down to nine. Then. That's the literary flow of this particular passage as it builds on the grammar here.

[34:35] So, this structure helps us do this. It helps us see Peter's twin themes of judgment and then of redemption or rescuing. We have examples of him judging.

[34:48] That's the sense or the if. And then we have him coming to rescue or deliver. All right. So, in verses four through 10 A, here's what we're dealing with.

[34:59] I'm going to put it up here on the screen for you. Peter gives us three examples of God acting as sovereign judge. Two examples of God acting as sovereign redeemer. And each of them are based in the past.

[35:11] And he's actually going to take us back to Genesis six. To talk about all I think is fascinating. Here he is in a discussion about false teachers and he's going to reach back into Genesis six to talk about this.

[35:26] It's an amazing thing. All right. So, here's what we'll deal with then. God's sovereign response is righteous judge. And he's going to give us three examples of how he's going to judge these people.

[35:36] Begins in verse four. The first example that we're going to deal with is that of angelic arrogance. Angelic arrogance. 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.

[35:57] What are we to think of that? Obviously, Peter is referring here not to something mythical, but to an actual event in history involving demonic spirits.

[36:14] I'm going to show you that. Now, who were these spirits? Why did God choose to treat them in the way that he is? And what do they have to do with false teachers?

[36:24] The ones they're encountering in this text and the ones we would encounter today in the last days, this side of the cross. Well, these questions are important for us since a Peter is using these angels in his analogy about God's judgment against false teachers and be not all demonic spirits are imprisoned.

[36:48] Not all of them. Some of them. There are untold numbers of these demonic spirits, these fallen angels who do evil in our world every day on a spiritual level.

[36:59] But there's a contingent of them that are currently imprisoned and will remain so. Why? What's the difference? Well, Jude, Jude helps us substantiate the event that Peter is most likely referring to.

[37:16] And so I'll ask you to turn back. You got first, second and third John right after Peter and then you've got the book of Jude. Standing all by itself.

[37:26] Just one chapter. Jude is helping us understand what Peter is referencing here as he talks about these angels.

[37:39] So in Jude, let's just read from verse one and I'll throw you into the context there in verse six. Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are the called beloved in God, the father and kept for Jesus.

[37:54] That's man. That's just great. May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you exhorting that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints.

[38:12] So this faith is saving faith, isn't it, brothers, sisters? This is saving faith and it's the saving faith that we have written up for us in the word of God. For certain persons have crept in notice.

[38:25] Here's the problem they're facing. Sound familiar? Certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Doesn't that sound just like Peter?

[38:39] Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I want to remind you.

[38:50] Doesn't this sound like Peter? Now, I want to remind you, though you know all things, that Jesus, having once saved the people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who didn't believe.

[39:02] Remember that? And verse six angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode.

[39:12] He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having indulged in the same way as these in gross sexual immorality and have gone after strange flesh, exhibited as an example and undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

[39:39] Now, this is a reference back to Genesis six, one through four, where we're talking about these angels who looked on the daughters of men and thought thought them beautiful and then ended up being able to cohabit with these human women.

[39:55] How in the world did that happen? Well, listen, I'm just going to tell you straight off and then we'll do some more with this. God willing, next week when we jump more into it. All right. What does Genesis six, one through four mean?

[40:07] These fallen angels are demons. So we're talking about fallen angels in Genesis six, not angels that are worshiping God and coming down from heaven and just noticing that women are beautiful and want to have.

[40:24] Why would they do that? Why would angels who have been created to worship God and are in heaven with God do that? They wouldn't answer. They wouldn't. These are demons.

[40:35] These are fallen angels that we're dealing with in Genesis six. Long ago, a certain number of these fallen angels or these demons looked on and lusted after human women.

[40:47] So following that lust, they possessed human men. So that they could have relations with these women. You following me?

[41:00] So following their lust, they possessed the men. They went into these women. How did God view or deal with this violation? Well, in Jude seven, the verse begins with notice just as.

[41:15] Sodom and Gomorrah. The gross violation of the angels in the sight of God was just as. Notice a little bit further in verse seven in Jude in the same way as.

[41:28] So we have a comparison being made here with what these angels did. It's just as or in the same way as in the same vein as the gross sins of Sodom and Gomorrah in the sight of almighty God.

[41:43] That's how God viewed it. So this terrible act took even those demons far outside their realm. And for this reason, Peter and Jude tell us that God cast them into hell.

[41:55] They're in a special confinement in pits of utter darkness. This is reserved then for judgment. They're going to be brought out of that and judged in a final way at some point in the future.

[42:09] They are denied currently the freedom to roam and to tempt. We have a spiritual war going on around us where demons are constantly tempting us, constantly speaking toward our mind to draw us away from a sincere and pure devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

[42:28] These demons are in prison. They're not being allowed to do that. They're waiting their fate in thick blackness. And Peter says that since God did this, since he did this, then he moves on.

[42:41] Now we're going to do more with that later. He moves on to this. The second example is ancient apathy. What's the second example of this judgment that he's speaking of?

[42:52] I just want to keep moving through this with you. He says this. And since God did not spare the ancient world when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, that people of Noah's day are labeled by the Holy Spirit as ungodly.

[43:09] That is, they're destitute of reverential awe towards God. They condemn God. They're impious people. That's the truth about what this means.

[43:21] You see this in Genesis 5 all the way through the end of the chapter as the flood is announced and God says why he's going to do it. And he tells Noah to build an ark of gopher wood to deliver him and his immediate family.

[43:37] Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Did you hear that? Noah was preaching. He was a preacher of righteousness. But the people didn't want to hear or heed his message of God's impending judgment.

[43:53] They turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to Noah, constantly preaching the righteousness of God to them while he built the ark. We are also told that during this time, Enoch was a preacher of righteousness.

[44:06] He was also sharing the truth among the people. Jude tells us that. Let me see if I can... Verse 14 of Jude. But Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, also prophesied about these men, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they've done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against them.

[44:40] Are you getting the point? The reason that God is bringing the flood is because of ungodliness. That's why. These are not innocent people. All these women and children and babies and men, they're not innocent people.

[44:57] They're ungodly. And God's going to deal with them. For all the decades that it took for Noah to build the ark, as his sons worked on the ark with him, the people of Noah's day had that time to repent, to hear, to heed, to be convicted, and to repent.

[45:22] And they didn't. They didn't believe God, and they didn't believe His promised judgment. They laughed at it. They laughed at Noah, and they mocked him. The people of Noah's day, notice, the people of Noah's...

[45:36] Let me back up. The people of Noah's day are marked as ungodly. People destitute of any reverence for God.

[45:48] That definition comes from the ESL, the Enhanced Strong's Lexicon. So lacking reverential awe towards the Lord and not holding God in a high and holy reverence in their heart, that's what's bringing about God's judgment.

[46:10] Do you remember last week, for those of you who were here, I talked about a holy fear, a sanctified fear. Do you remember that last week? A sanctified fear? I spoke about that in my sermon.

[46:22] Seth, Enoch, Lamech, and Noah, all in the godly line, they are living in this holy fear toward God. That is, they are living in a high reverence for God as being a high and holy Lord.

[46:38] Their heart beats that way. To reverence God, to worship God, to hold Him up, to exalt Him above all things in their life, even themselves.

[46:49] They live like that. Everybody else is not living like that. They have no fear of God before their eyes. Now this is so important, folks, because you have people that will argue this with you and talk about how harsh God is and how cruel God is.

[47:06] He's not. This is the judgment of God on people who won't fear Him. Worship Him. Bow down to Him. Honor Him. Everybody.

[47:18] Irrespective of who you are, where you come from, or how important you think you are in life. We have people in our world right now that think they are very, very important. It's a don't-you-know-who-I-am kind of attitude toward life.

[47:32] One day they're going to answer to the judge of judges and they're going to find out none of that matters. And unfortunately for many of them, it's going to be too late.

[47:47] This is the high and holy reverence of God that is missing in their lives. This is why God is bringing the flood. The third example that He's going to draw on is that of ancient avarice.

[48:00] You know what avarice is. It's greed. It's greed. We see that in verse 6. And since He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example, that was supposed to stand as an example to whom?

[48:20] To those who would live ungodly lives thereafter. Everybody living a selfish, ungodly, chase-after-my-flesh kind of life should be heeding what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah because it's real.

[48:34] That judgment is the same judgment that's awaiting them if they don't repent. You chase your flesh. You chase yourself. You exalt yourself. This is what's waiting for you.

[48:45] That's scary, isn't it? And it should be. That's exactly what He means. The deep wickedness of the fallen angels was like that of Sodom and Gomorrah according to Jude 7.

[49:02] Just as. In the same way as. How? Well, the evil was expressed in sexual perversion. Now, I can only go so far with this, but as an adult, you should be able to run with it and understand.

[49:16] This evil that he's talking about here has its specificity in sexual perversion. Sodom and Gomorrah were led and characterized by the sensual conduct, the text says, of unprincipled men.

[49:31] These are men without any moral center. This is really bad, people. Life was a lawless romp of unbridled lust.

[49:42] There were no constraints. No law. Nothing to hold them back. God had removed His restraining grace and He had given these people over to what they most desired and worshipped.

[50:05] And that will happen. They had set their hearts so intently on these sickening things that God gave them over to them as their false gods. And it ruled their lives.

[50:20] He gave them over to their own appetites. Now, we see this in the account of the angels who visited Sodom. We're not going to do that today. God willing, we'll get there. But you remember the story about the two angels that came to Sodom and what they wanted to do with them?

[50:33] Send them out to us? Pretty sick stuff. Gross immorality combined with homosexuality, that's what He means by strange flesh.

[50:49] People are doing unnatural things. Things that God did not design for us to do. To want to do. And that brought the entire population of an entire valley of cities, not just Sodom and Gomorrah, down into a cesspit of vice.

[51:08] And it proved, here's the scary part, unredeemable. Now, learn from your word. Can a society get to the place where it's unredeemable?

[51:21] What's the answer according to the Bible? Wow. Wow. Wake up, America. So what happened?

[51:39] God burned them all to ash and cinder. And that's what He's saying. Don't miss it. We serve a God of wrath. And what does He say?

[51:56] If He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to all those who would live ungodly lives thereafter.

[52:07] We have a lot of people in our society that are, quote unquote, taking pride in displaying their pride.

[52:21] And God has a particular adherence to this kind of perversion. And the reason, I think, is because it flies in the face of how God made us and wired us as human beings.

[52:35] We are sexual people. What that means is, according to Scripture, is we are male and female. And that's at the heart of who we are. We can't get away from the fact that we're either male or female.

[52:49] And nothing, operations can't change that, can they? You are hardwired DNA, male or female. And nothing you do to your body, nothing you tell your mind is going to change the fact that you were either born a male or a female.

[53:05] And God takes great delight in what you are as a male or a female because He made you that way. There is something about that in the core of who we are in our humanity as the Scripture describes us as relating to God as either a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, that we are not supposed to mess with.

[53:27] Because when we do, it's like thumbing our nose at God and saying, I will make myself in what I want me to be, not what you want. And God hates that.

[53:42] Throughout the Scriptures, we see that He meets out justice quickly and in some horrific ways when we come across this kind of sin. And I don't want to skip over that and make it light.

[53:58] What should we do when we encounter people who are struggling with their sexuality in these ways, whether they're homosexuals or lesbians or whatever the alphabet list is of all these people, what are we supposed to do with them?

[54:13] Knowing that they stand under this kind of judgment, what would you do with them? Love them and plead with them. Beg them. That's what I've done. Beg them with tears.

[54:27] Humble yourself before them. Make a fool out of yourself. Beg them to flee from the judgment to come. Offer them the love and hope of Jesus. Tell them that their identity can be fixed and secured for all eternity in who God made them to be if they will turn to Jesus Christ.

[54:48] Because He's their only hope. You and I know why people do this kind of thing, don't we? They're running from the truth. They want to be their own God.

[55:00] So, in terms of why they do these things, it's the same reason that anybody chases sin in any area of life, right? Okay.

[55:13] So, these ungodly people are exhibited as an example of undergoing the punishment of eternal fire, according to Jude 7. They are being held out as an example of those who will be punished in this way.

[55:25] Okay. God's sovereign response as righteous redeemer.

[55:37] That was the third example, so here we go. 2.5 He didn't spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, preacher of righteousness, with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world.

[55:50] Here's the example of God sparing Noah. He preserved Noah, preacher of righteousness, and seven other people. So, we need to view this deliverance in the context of the violent destruction of the flood.

[56:01] Noah is being saved in the context of God's judgment. He's being pulled out of it. Saved from it. So, even the horrific violence that God will rain on the world as they knew at the time, even that could not prevent God from saving those who belong to Him.

[56:21] The violence was so great but it wasn't greater than God's grace, was it? His saving power prevailed in the life of Noah and his immediate family. God's punishment is swift, it's decisive, but His promise to save will always win the day and establish a future for His godly ones.

[56:43] Now, all I want to say here before I move on is this. Please keep in mind we have two lines of people, two lineages being traced in Scripture right now, don't we? One is the lineage of Cain and we understand that to be a depiction of all of us born under sin, rebelling against God and chasing our own lusts, our own desires, trying to be self-made people.

[57:07] That's this line. Then there is a line over here that is the line of Seth and that line is the line that Jesus will come from and God is going to preserve that line unbroken throughout the centuries until it comes to Jesus the Messiah.

[57:23] He said, I will preserve this line of people and I will raise up my deliverer from this line. Well, Satan is doing everything he can to corrupt this line of people, to corrupt and disrupt what's going on.

[57:36] That's what this is. Things have gotten so bad in the world right now through demonic activity, nothing short of fallen angels, demons, possessing men to cohabit with women to do what?

[57:51] To corrupt the line. To try and do anything it can to disrupt. This is all satanic. This is a satanic plan to get in on this line and disrupt it and corrupt it and make it impossible for Messiah to come along the promise of God.

[58:07] But what is God doing here? Preserving. You see, even in His judgment, God is more powerful to save. This is the message that we need to preach. Even as we preach to people that God will judge this in your life, you will have to stand to account.

[58:24] What do we want to do? We want to say, but we have a God who is loving and who has made salvation possible for you. Come to Christ. Come to Jesus and escape this.

[58:35] Because we have a God who loves and saves and has done that in a way where He gave His own Son to purchase us away from sin and make it possible for us to know Him.

[58:47] That's the greater message, isn't it? So now we're talking from the godly line that even though God is judging here, He has made possible salvation here.

[58:58] He's not just thumping everybody. He gave His own Son. God has skin in the game in a way we could never fathom. That's what we're dealing with as Peter talks to us here.

[59:14] The godly line of people that God will bring Jesus from will be protected and they will flourish under God's sovereign love. The second example that we have is Lot.

[59:27] Lot. In verses 7 and 8. And if He rescued righteous Lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men by what He saw and dealt with there in Sodom and Gomorrah tormented Him day and night as He watched their lawless deeds, then God knows how to rescue the godly from trial.

[59:48] The example of Lot. Peter said just enough to help the readers here recall what they already knew about this particular event in Lot's life.

[60:00] By God's mercy and power, Lot and his daughters were the only survivors when God literally rained down fire from heaven and burned up all these cities through that entire valley.

[60:12] Untold numbers of people were killed. And then finally, look. God's sovereign revelation to rescue us that I just read in verse 9. If or since God does all these acts of judgment and did not spare people who refuse to bow to Him, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

[60:38] He did it in the life of Noah. He did it in the life of Lot. And so these are ancient proofs of God's power to rescue us. God will always prove faithful in taking His children through the trials of life that He designs for them.

[60:57] Are you in a trial? What are you facing right now? What did you bring in when you came in here and sat down? Is it financial pressure? Is it something with your job?

[61:08] Is it a relationship issue you're having with another person? Is it a marriage issue? What is it in your life? Is it a health issue? Whatever trial you're going through, you need to see a good God designing those trials to help you grow in Christ Jesus.

[61:26] At the bare minimum, that's what's going on. We're also told in Scripture, He takes us through these trials so that as we go through them and come out on the other side as well, we can comfort others with the same comfort with which we've been comforted.

[61:40] So none of this is wasted. The words rescue, godly, and temptation in verse 9 tell you three significant things about God and His plan for you concerning false teachers and false doctrine.

[61:54] Remember, we're bringing it back to the content as I close here. He says that He knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. Rescue, deliver, keep free from. Godly, God-worshippers, those are the people who belong to the Lord.

[62:08] They're His kids. And then temptation. That's a test or a trial that you're in. It's a test to prove fault. God knows how to deliver you as His child from all those trials and temptations of this life.

[62:25] I won't read it, but I'll give you the reference. 1 Corinthians 10.13 is a very important verse for you at this point. If you're going through a trial, you need to read 1 Corinthians 10.13.

[62:40] Alright, so what we're seeing in verses 9 and 10 then is God working to rescue and to keep the unrighteous under punishment. Verse 10, especially, notice, especially those who go after the flesh in its corrupt lust and despise authority.

[62:59] God has especially reserved a judgment for these people. I don't know how to understand it any other way than that. But He's also got the life-giving promise.

[63:13] So it brings us back to the three theological themes from last Sunday as I close out. Faith, fear, and favor. That's what we're looking at to help us interpret these events in the flood.

[63:27] Faith, fear, and favor. And we're going to add a fourth, faithfulness. Faithfulness. So here's how it looks. Look to Jesus in faith.

[63:39] Learn the fear of the Lord. Live in the favor of the Lord. And enjoy God's faithfulness to you as His child. That's Noah's life. That's Noah's life.

[63:51] We're going to see that's Abraham's life. Anybody following in this godly line, that's their life. That's how it was characterized. And those whom God is going to judge, that's all absent.

[64:10] All right, let's pray together, beloved. Beloved. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for these words from the texts that we've looked into in Scripture.

[64:28] And we pray that You will help Your people to be humble, receptive, and teachable. To the degree that I've rightly divided the Word, I pray that it would bless their hearts and their souls so that they can live for Jesus and enjoy Him.

[64:45] I know that there are people in our congregation who are facing significant trials in their life right now, Lord, in one way or another. And so, our hearts are to pray that You will bind us together in a spirit of unity and help us bear the burdens of one another.

[65:02] That we won't hide these things from each other, but we'll seek out people that we can ask, will You pray for me? Will You just pray for me as I wrestle with this and as I strive to try and make it about Jesus and not about me?

[65:20] I'm tired and I'm so tempted. And I pray, God, that we will be found as a people coming alongside of each other and bearing these things together. That we will show the love of Jesus to each other and speak that love into each other's lives as we share the truth and the hope that we have in Him.

[65:40] Thank You for the privilege and the responsibility each of us bear to be this kind of people with each other. And thank You that Jesus has shown us the way and His kindness and tenderness toward us.

[65:53] We love You, Lord, and we love Your Gospel and we pray that You will help us to be on guard against the untruths that want to invade our own souls daily as we go through our lives.

[66:07]  We thank You for Jesus and we thank You for all that You are doing in our lives by Your grace and mercy. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.