Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20111211.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
2 Peter: Effective Christian Growth For Combating Spiritual Apostasy
Part V: Trusting God To Judge Apostates And Deliver The Godly
(2 Peter 2:4-9)
  1. Introduction
    1. We Christians who face a world full of great, influential apostasy can easily get discouraged by the greatness of that wickedness, wondering if we ourselves can effectively withstand it in our lives.
    2. The key to victory here is God, and 2 Peter 2:4-9 reveals this reality with encouraging direction for us:
  2. Trusting God To Judge Apostates And Deliver The Godly, 2 Peter 2:4-9.
    1. After writing that the false teachers who plague the Church have long had God's condemnation hanging over them, and that their destruction is sure and is not sleeping (2 Peter 2:3b NIV), Peter illustrated from Old Testament precedents in 2 Peter 2:4-8, 9 the reality of God's condemnation and judgment of apostates and the reality of God's deliverance of the upright from their apostasy influence.
    2. We view that passage for insight and edification (as follows):
      1. An extensive protasis, a series of "if" clauses in a long conditional sentence, occurs in 2 Peter 2:4-8 where Peter cited several Biblical precedents to establish the point in his "then" apodosis at 2 Peter 2:9.
      2. Thus, Peter wrote how God had produced a series of great judgments of very influential, very evil parties while also delivering the few, oppressed upright people, and we note them in 2 Peter 2:4-8:
        1. First, God did not spare the angels who sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in gloomy dungeons to be held for the final judgment, 2 Peter 2:4 NIV. Some teachers hold these were the Genesis 6:1-4 "sons of God", angels who married women and by them produced evil giants, but this conflicts with Matthew 22:30 that claims angels do not marry. (Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 36) Rather, Peter refers to the angels who fell when Satan sinned (Ezekiel 28:15), noting God is willing and able to punish any apostate human if He thus severely punished past lofty angels who sinned!
        2. Second, God did not spare the whole ancient world of apostate mankind when He brought the Noahic Flood on all its ungodly throngs people though He protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness along with just seven other people in his immediate family, 2 Peter 2:5 NIV.
        3. Third, God condemned the rabidly homosexual men of Sodom and Gomorrah to die by being burned to ashes as an example of eternal hell for the ungodly, 2 Peter 2:6 NIV; Jude 7. He did this while also delivering (relatively) upright Lot who was distressed at the sin of his neighbors. (2 Peter 2:7-8 with Gen. 19:4-7) [God also rescued Lot while killing his wife (Gen. 19:15-17, 24-26), so He is willing and able to rescue the upright from the unholy even within the family or the marital unit!]
      3. If God had done these things in the past, Peter wrote that He certainly knew how to deliver the godly today from any kind of trial they experience in facing apostates and their error, and to hold the ungodly apostates in a position of punishment until the day of judgment, 2 Peter 2:9 ESV.
    3. Peter's illustrations offer several principles of encouraging insight relative to facing potent apostasy now:
      1. If the angels that fell were once lofty, influential beings, but God confined them in punishment until the final judgment, we can trust God to control and judge very lofty, strong apostates now! (2 Peter 2:4, 9)
      2. If God judged a world to die in the Flood while saving only eight souls on the ark, we can trust God to judge all apostates, encouraging us to stay upright though we are in the vast minority, 2 Peter 2:5, 9.
      3. If God judged the oppressively vile people of Sodom and Gomorrah, spiritually rabid homosexuals, with severe fire and brimstone while delivering an oppressed Lot, and if God even slew Lot's unholy wife while saving him, we can trust God to deal out judgment on oppressively vile, unholy apostates wherever we face them while He delivers us from their oppression and unholiness, 2 Peter 2:6-8, 9.
Lesson: Via Biblical precedents, we can be sure God is willing and able to control and judge powerful apostates we face, to judge an entire world of apostates while delivering a few godly ones, to dish out severe judgment on all oppressively vile, unholy apostates while delivering and protecting the upright.

Application: May we be encouraged to keep on being upright under all circumstances, for God Who is Omnipotent and Righteous equips us to live uprightly amid great, extensive, influential aposta sy!