The Consequence of False Teaching and Resulting Judgments.

Okay, we're at 2 Peter 2, four through nine. It's the consequences of false teaching. And I put, I added in there and resulting judgments. I added that tag in there because those are important of what we're studying. But I wanna go back. I'm gonna wrap, I'm gonna take a big picture view here. instead of detailing it on four through nine and Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah, I'm wrapping it into the context of what Roger and Bob talked about the past couple of weeks of chapter one, verses 16 through chapter two. verse three.

So he begins, Peter begins chapter one, verse 16. For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses to his majesty. For when he received glory and honor from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made from him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were on the holy mountain.

So we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until, and keep this in your head, this little part, Pay attention as to a lamp shining in dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts. But know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation. And no prophecy was ever made by act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. chapter two, the first few verses, but, there's a but there, but false prophets have risen among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of the truth is maligned, and their greed, and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment, and this is key too, their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction, here, this is key too, is not asleep. So I'm wrapping up today's verses into that thought. And here's how I'm tying it in. Just a summary of what I just read.

So Peter's saying that our testimony, meaning Peter, James, and John's testimony is true. It's scripture, right? Their word, he's saying, and I'm speaking for him, our word, our account, and our gospel is confirmed by God himself. Myself and James and John, we all saw the glorified Christ and heard from God ourselves this to be true. All scripture is true, starting with the law and prophets. And you remember that Moses and Elijah were in attendance at the transfiguration. And Peter saying the current day, the current time and the age here that we're in is dark, but our words of scripture meaning Peter, James and John's are true and past prophecy lights the way. So their word and past prophecy lights the way and reveals a person and work of Christ and his things.

And specifically, as we look at today, his judgment. And then he says, false teachers and prophets are both here and active, denying Christ and his redemptive sacrifice on the cross. And that's that little, denying the master that bought them, that little phrase that ties it into that. And the cross bought us out of the slave market of sin and death, of course.

God will not let this stand indefinitely. all will be judged. Mora, 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 central conduct of unprincipled men for by what he saw and heard that righteous man while living among them felt his righteous soul tormented day and after day by their lawless deeds, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment.

And that's a lot of, that's a lot of, that's a lot of information, a lot of verses, but I'm gonna take it as a chunk this morning, instead of going in and where we would kind of go in word by word, you know, or phrase by phrase. I've been there. Okay, so we've got judgments in mind here. Four judgments. Judgment number one is, starting out in verse four there, is the judgment of angels. And they're confined to hell. That's a Greek word for Tartarus or Tartarau. Judgment two is in our passage today. Peter mentions the worldwide flood. Judgment three is Sodom and Gomorrah in verse six.

And then the fourth judgment, he brings up all in this one passage, these five verses, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, that's six verses, is the punishment of the unrighteous in the future, the day of the Lord, verse nine. And you could break out that fourth, what he says about punishing the unrighteous or that they're held for judgment for a future time. You can break that out to include the following. The trumpet judgments, also in the tribulation and the reference of where they are is there. The bold judgments of the revelation, Revelation 16.

And then at the end of the tribulation, he separates out the nations. a few weeks ago in the 10 a.m. class that either Roger or Mike covered it, about do you not know that you're gonna judge angels? And if you are going to judge angels, you can certainly judge small matters between yourselves, is what he's saying. I think it could tie into that. But that's just a thought or an observation on my part. So Andrew, can you hear me? That's Bob. Yeah, I can.

Doesn't the day of judgment pertain to one specific time? Yeah, but there's so many judgments And a day can be this, it can be the tribulation with the millennial kingdom, or it could mean just the great white throne judgment. It's just, I'm taking it as the day of the Lord, which begins at the rapture and ends when he brings in the new heavens and new earth. Because there's a lot of judgments wrapped up into this time period, right?

You can't take it. Wasn't the cross also a judgment? Good point, good point, Mike. Yes, yes it was. And I'm not covering that, just for the purposes of this class, I didn't wrap it in there because it's, And that could be a class or months in itself, right? That is certainly a judgment. I'm just dealing with these judgments, especially the great white throne judgment here. But here's our time. Oh, sorry, Gail, say again. I'm sorry. Okay.

So here's just a little, here's just a little, what we're dealing with today and when these judgments happen. And I'm taking, yeah, the day of judgment to be the day of the Lord. where he has, you know, he has the sheeps and goat judgment at his second coming. He has the great white throne judgment at the end of the millennial period, things like that. One of the things that might. Yeah, I don't know if you. Oh, go ahead. If you want another input.

I've been looking at Clarence Larkin's charts And he would put this at the end of the millennium, when all of the dead, those angels that are held in a temporary holding place, all of the dead during the tribulation, all of the dead are raised. And it is at that judgment that they are judged, the great white throne judgment. And one of the things that happens is, a new heaven and the newer then is created and in which righteousness exists. And the older is destroyed by fire. So that's a real big transition. And there's never any more in the new heaven and the newer.

And it lasts for a thousand generations. Isn't that something? Yeah, yeah. One of the things that Larkin does that really has helped here is that he says at the end of the thousand generations, the father and the son consummate everything that they had planned and he hands over the kingdom to the father. And then the eternal state goes in. And so that's quite a long period. A thousand generations would be like 40,000 years. That's a long time. Okay. Let me, yeah, let me get to the coming slides. Cause I think it's gonna tie that in here. Sorry about that. Oh yeah, no problem.

So first one, of our chapter one of verse 19, I'm going back to the topic Roger touched on, which says, so we have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention to as a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

So who is the morning star? And you probably have thought about this for a little while and Roger did bring this up and it is Jesus Christ himself. He says, I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star. And that's from Revelation 22, 16.

So he's the bright morning star. He arises in our hearts and Roger brought in 2 Corinthians 4, 6, which is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. So he's, since we have Christ in us and we're in Christ, we have this morning star, this hope, the blessed hope in our hearts. What follows the morning star? Anyone want to take a guess at that? The sun. Oh, thank you, Paula. Yeah, Jean is here. She said it. I called her Paula because I'm thinking of Dan Bongina. He has his wife off screen if you ever watch him. The sun, and it seems to be every morning.

So the Son of Righteousness in prophetic scripture is Christ, or it represents Christ. He is the Son of Righteousness. And this is important for our verses today. I have three prophetic scripture passages from the Old Testament, Psalm 19, Malachi 4 here, and Matthew 25. Psalm 19 is the very well-known one. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day into day it utters speech and night into night it reveals knowledge.

And it goes on, but I wanna skip down to verse five. which is like a bridegroom coming out of its chamber, meaning the sun. And then if you skip over to the middle, Malachi 4, and this is in the kingdom, the millennial kingdom, or it could be eternity future, but this is in the kingdom. For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant and all the evildoer will be like chaff. And the day that is coming will set them ablaze, saith the Lord of hosts. The sun, and I'll skip down, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And it's just talking about when Christ controls all things, I'm taking it as the millennial kingdom when he's here ruling on earth.

Skip over to Matthew 25, it's the parable of the 10 virgins. They all have lamps, five of them think ahead and bring enough oil, bring a sack of oil with their lamps. Five just bring their lamps, don't bring the oil. So they get locked out of the wedding reception And that's, of course, is meant to say that in the millennial kingdom, some people will be shut out, but the righteous will go in.

The sheep and goats judgment specifically is what that is. And just go down to verse five there. Now, why the bridegroom, that's Christ, was delaying they all got drowsy and began to sleep. So we have Christ as the bridegroom coming out of his chamber, the son of righteousness. So that's the purpose of these three prophetic verses of scripture I have there. Ties into what we're dealing with today. And here's what we're dealing with today.

2 Peter 2, four through nine. And verse four will begin, for if God did not spare angels when they send, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment. And then it goes on, but we'll just deal with that right now. And I've made the verse four, I made it big, made the rest of it small so that you can see what part we're on. But it's all one big thought. And that's what I say in this first bullet point.

Note that it's a one long six verse conditional clause. For if God did not spare angels, and if he did with Sodom and Gomorrah, and if Noah, and he just goes on. And then finally at verse nine, he says, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the righteous, unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. So a big, long conditional clause. Here we have, when he puts these angels in the, it says hell, but that Greek word is tartareo, I think, or Tartarus, verse four of second Peter. And it's a verse, it's the holding place of falling angels waiting for their appointed judgment in like the Millennial Kingdom, which Roy touched upon. And I don't know if it's part of the Great White Throne Judgment.

They're being held in, to be cast into the lake of fire. They're in a holding place. Contrast that to... with Sheol or Hades. Sheol is the Old Testament usage and Hades is the New Testament usage. And that's a holding place for the unsaved dead. men who never accepted Christ. It's a place, it's souls. And the grave is the physical evidence of Hades. And it's referred to as great. That's a good term. in Hades, just waiting to be resurrected. And a store was in Sheol.

So he was in this place. So God, that's what the reserve for, finally, I'm four through nine, but we'll just complete the thought and end it with the Lake of Fed also go there at the Great White Throne Judgment. And they go there in body, soul, and spirit.

It's a place, it's not a state of mind like some people think or a state. It can be a state, but it's also, it's gonna be a physical place of punishment, and that might punish people for discipline or for amendment of behavior. But there's no getting out of the, the lake of fire. Once you're there, it's permanent and not punishment. The lake of fire is a dislasting fire where the worm dieth not and the fire's not quenched. Other places, it's the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. It's a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. And this is, by the way, all Jesus Christ's own words in the verses that I've referenced there.

Furnace of fire. Some darkness. So how do we feel covering a somber subject today? This is for you to do some, question is, has the Lord prepared, created and prepared this lake of fire as it existed? It's now for future use. And you'll have to see the addendum that I attached to this lesson to find out what I say about that. And it appears, think about how the heavens are created. point is the doctrine of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah. And this is just something that I'm a touch upon. There's the readers who were reading this in Sodom and Gomorrah to be true.

The problem is to in this day and age, you know, foolishness, but And I just point out here that, you know, the Institute for Creation Research publishes geologic, actually they, study the May 1980 eruption looks that has all the hallmark and then they it some of that sediment on the bottom becomes potash and coal and then it ripped a can and that canyon, if you go there today, looks like it's been there millions of years. So evidence for flood. And then Sodom and Gomorrah, there's this gentleman, I think he's a doctor of geology or archeology in New Mexico. He's excavating or he has excavated this tall El Hamam in Jordan, right?

And he thinks this is where was, and he's digging down and finding this destruction blackened, so something happened at this tell, cleverness of Sodom and Gomorrah. And then I was just looking at things yesterday in Tunguska, Syria, a certain Netherlands of Russia. In 1908, there was an impact of a meteor. and it burst, spread rock and debris and heat, and it just scorched this forest. And this guy, they interviewed this guy up there who saw it, and it was just these fireballs raining down this forest.

So there's evidence for, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah, scientific evidence. So we do well to believe that these are literal things today. The reasons for the judgment is that the flood, God was left with no other option than to judge these men who were living in that time. As you see in Genesis 6, 5, It's pretty fatal and pretty final.

The Lord saw that the wicked intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. And then down at verse 11 and 12, now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.

So there's just no way out of that. And it's very clear why he sent the flood. Same with Sodom and Gomorrah. God lacked other options there. The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18, 23 is exceedingly grave. They have done entirely, if not, I will know. So bad things are going on there, above and beyond. So that these two judgments happened in the ancient world. But I wanna touch point four upon the, there's also forbearance that we'll take a look at that.

In the flood, God decided, as we just saw about the judgment to send the flood, and then he gave Noah a 120 year period that he took and built the ark way longer than he needed, or maybe he did an excess 120 years, and that was, and no one did, only Noah. And it says in our verse that Noah and seven of his family members were saved. In Sodom and Gomorrah, First, Christ came down physically and visited Abraham and Sarah, and he went up and he just looked over Sodom and Gomorrah to assess the situation for himself. So that was a little forbearance.

Then he gave attention and serious consideration when Abraham started to, really put in his mind a good argument about saving the cities. You know, he said, suppose there are 50 people, suppose there are 20 people, then suppose there are 10 people found there that are righteous. And, you know, Christ said, I will save it for... So he gave serious consideration to Abraham's points. Then not only did he stop there, he sent the two angels down and the lot invited them down there to see if they're treated well.

Well, how did that go? That did not go well. it went very badly, as we shall see in a minute. But my question is, and this is an opened-ended question, is did the existence of gross licentiousness on top of the homosexuality that was the base sin, but then on top of that, Top of that, because of the behavior of these were fired, is that why they were really punished? Now, if not, and then they would have stayed, and it would have been a peaceful night, these two strangers alone, you know, would have been a different story, is what I'm asking. I just think that hospitality in the ancient world, it was very established. I mean, when you invited a stranger into your house, Now that stranger is safe, you give them food, you give them shelter.

And if these men are trying to rip out these people out of their homes, is that what put God over the top with the judgment? The deliverance then, and we come to the deliverance because we come to verse nine and it says, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation or a fiery trial. In the flood, the deliverance was in an unbelievable fashion that Noah and seven others were saved from the deluge of the flood. And think of the miraculousness of that, in open waters, torrential rain, fissures opening in the earth, possibly tectonic and volcanic activity. And this boat is subject to all that, but through it all, they were saved.

And in Sodom and Gomorrah, there's four episodes of these angels saving Lot. First, they grabbed Lot and they dragged him back in the house and they got the door shut where all these men were trying to get in. And I don't know if supernatural strength was used there. I think it probably was, because there was a lot of the townsmen and just two angels. And then the angel struck the men with blindness at the doorway so they couldn't find the door. So they definitely use some supernatural strength there.

And then another time, save number three, Lot hesitated to leave. So the men grabbed him and forced him out of the city with his wife and his two daughters. And then finally, when it was up reigning brimstone and fire, he got to the city of the town of Zohar.

So there's a lot of saving going on there in that passage. So if the Lord is willing to rescue and is able to rescue, and I quote that famous hymn, Eternal Father Strong to Save. Okay, final thoughts. And then I have one more final thought after that.

But Christ, the morning star came to the earth to bring the light of salvation to mankind. He was rejected of men and his bringing about his kingdom was seemingly thwarted and he left the earth, he left the place of this rejection. But, what seems to be a failure on the part of not establishing an earthly kingdom was under the surface unseen by man, but known to God. He conquered death and Satan's power at the cross and redeemed the human race. And that's what really happened there.

And behind his coming as, and I kind of tie in to this morning star picture as his, first advent coming to earth, being born in Bethlehem, things like that. He soon will follow a second time as the Son of Righteousness in glorious light. And he'll have healing and this light, it will also be judgmental. And look back at Malachi 4 again to see that.

At this time, And this gets into Roy's thought at the beginning of the hour, is he puts down all rulers, thrones, principalities. He sends the angels and Satan and the resurrected dead to eternal judgment in Gehenna, in the Lake of Fire. And finally, and I don't know how this works, but he takes death and Hades itself, and he casts those into the Lake of Fire.

And we have the purpose of the pre-millennial judgments. So the judgments, the seal judgments, the trumpet judgments, the bull judgments, and the judgment of the sheep and the goats. The purpose of those are to gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and to separate the chaff from the wheat. Now the purpose of the judgments at the end of the thousand year kingdom is to get all those things, the same things out of the way, all the things that offend and do iniquity out of the way forever in order to usher in his final eternal kingdom. And that's when a lot of commentators and theologians put the angelic judgment and the great white throne judgment right before that, at the end of the thousand years, at the beginning of eternity.

And here is the final thought. The purpose is that God may be all in all, as it says in 1 Corinthians 15, 18, when all things are subjected to him, then the son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him. so that God may be all in all. And the final, final thought, final, final, is this is a picture I took right outside my house the other morning, and there's the bright morning star. It's actually Venus, but it looks like a star.

It's huge, by the way. And my question is to leave you with, did God create Did he make the creation to physically communicate and demonstrate prophetic scripture? And kind of had a eureka moment. Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. And the fact that we see this physically every morning without fail, and it others speech and reveals knowledge. does it utter speech and reveal knowledge about the things to come, you know?

So there you go. So think on that a little bit. And then see the addendum. I'll attach that when I send things out here about the Lake of Fire. How are we? Oh, we're over time. Yeah. That's good, Andrew. That's good. I wish I could have had your picture there for my- It's a big, oh yeah, yeah. It's a big subject. It is. And somber too. It is, it is, yeah. Yeah, Andrew, it's Bob. And speaking of, hi Bob.

Yeah, did you get a lot of snow last night? Two, about two inches, one and a half, two inches. How about you? I was just wondering, you were kind of breaking up at times. I was just wondering whether the weather had anything to do with that, so. Oh. So I had a question for you.

You know, going back and reviewing the whole story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah, what do you make of the fact that God had remembered what Abraham had said? What do you make of that? I mean, is that just, an exemplary passage that relates to our faith. So anyway, what are your thoughts about that? Oh, about what God, what Abraham said to Christ there?

Well, I mean, it was said, before the final end of the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the saving of Lot, It says, at least in my passage, that God remembered what Abraham had said. In other words, you can't spare, you know, can you spare 10, can you spare whatever, you know, that whole passage. Yeah, well, I kind of take that and see what you think that, yeah, he welcomed this input from Abraham, And if 10 people would have been found that were righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, would he have saved those city?

I think so. And that, could that mean that when you pray, that prayer is powerful? or when you ask some God a favor that, yeah, he listens. He listens to prayer, he listens to petition, because that is a petition that Abraham was offering. If, does that, do you agree with that or? Yeah, that's fine.

I think, you know, the interesting thing about the story of Lot is when you read Genesis, there's nothing righteous about this guy, basically. And it's not until you look at Peter's epistle that he calls Lot righteous or just. And, you know, it's just a whole interesting story that maybe, you know, it takes us into the church age where in fact, when we examine people's behavior, we really often don't know what their relationship is with the Lord. I mean, whether they're biblically saying. So no. And I read someone was saying that lot was. What's the word?

Carnal, a carnal man. And that's why he stayed in Sodom. He was carnal and he really shouldn't have been there, but he was, but he believed God. So he was a carnal Christian, not the best guy. And even, I didn't bring this up, but in that story, what does he do that's, really awful, terribly awful. The men are beating down the door.

He says, hey, men of Sodom, I've got two daughters who are, two young daughters. So he was willing to throw them out to the wolves. And that was, and That's not mentioned as an evil act. So the Sodom and Gomorrah, their evil was so great that God passed over that little statement. And these men in Sodom were like zombies. They had one thing on their mind and they wanted to break in and grab these two men out like zombies after brains. Just like, they were out of their minds, so yeah.

So I get to your question now, yeah. Night of the living dead. Yes, yes. But I think there's something there that because they were trying to, they should have been safe in this house and townspeople should recognize that because it's all over scripture that the rule of hospitality, the rule of peace and enjoyment in your own home, and they were right of personal property. So I think that was added to their wickedness, I think. There's a lot to think about there, yeah. Good job, Andrew.