"The Lord Will Rescue the Godly" Sermon: II Peter 2:1-10a

“The Lord Will Rescue the Godly”
[II Peter 2:1-10a]
July 6, 2008 Second Reformed Church

When all is said and done, will you be saved? It’s the most important thing to be sure of. The crowd on the day of Pentecost responded to Peter’s sermon by crying out, “What must we do to be saved?” “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:37b-38, ESV).

Peter wrote his second letter to Christians on the run from the Roman army. They were being hunted down and slaughtered. And Peter wrote them to remind them that there is salvation in Jesus Alone, and we are to respond to that salvation by doing good works. Peter said that being under a death sentence is not an excuse for unbelief and for not doing the good works we have been called to do.

Peter warned them that the false teachers were coming and were already there – persons who said that the apostles were wrong, that Jesus was not going to return to earth as Judge, so Christians are free to live and do whatever they want.

Peter warns them that this is a lie of the devil and tells them to believe the testimony of the apostles over the new – and false – teachers for two reasons: the apostles are eye-witnesses to Jesus’ Glory, and the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy is found in what the apostles have taught, not in what the false teachers are teaching.

And then we come to the second chapter of II Peter, and we find what the commentators say is, perhaps, the most terrifying and horrifying chapter of the entire Bible. There is, perhaps, no chapter in the Bible with more accusatory and damning language than this chapter that we begin today. It is rarely preached on. There is not a single hymn that directly relates to it in our hymnal. But it needs to be heard, and we shall hear it, if the Lord wills, over the next several weeks.

Peter reminded the Christians that the prophets of the Old Testament did not make up their prophecies based on their experiences, but they were given their prophecies by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit directed them to write their prophecies, just like a violent storm directs a ship on the ocean.

And so Peter beings chapter two by reminding them that just as there were prophets to whom God gave prophecy, and then the false prophets came, in the same way, teachers of the Truth – the True Gospel – came among them and the Church was born, so now, false teachers had come and were coming among them. In other words: nothing changes. When the Word of Truth is preached, false preachers come. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “That is the New Testament philosophy of history – as there were, even so there shall be. In other words, the world remains the same, and there is nothing so pathetic as the belief that because we are living in the twentieth century we are in a different world from the world inhabited by our forefathers. The answer of the Bible is that since the fall of man this world has remained exactly and precisely the same. Of course there are superficial changes, but they are irrelevant” (Expository Sermons on 2 Peter, 126).

Peter warns them that these false teachers come into the church secretly. They come in, seeming to believe and teach the historic faith, but they eventually suggest some things might be different, maybe the apostles misunderstood Jesus. “Maybe He’s not really going to return in the flesh. Maybe He meant that He would be in their hearts. Maybe the judgment is just against those who have not been forgiven. If Christians are forgiven, how can they be judged? Maybe that means we can do whatever we want.”

They will be subtle and sneaky, but their fangs are real and they seek to promote doubt and eventually outright rejection of the Gospel. Even, Peter says in verse one, “to denying the Master who brought them.” The false teachers are people, often, who were brought up in the church and eventually came to deny Jesus, but still like the structure and the power of the Church for their own evil ends. And Peter says that their destruction will be swift.

We can understand people who don’t want anything to do with Christianity because of the sins of the Church. We must admit that – the Church has sinned, we have sinned. But it is throwing the baby out with the bath-water to reject Christianity because of the sin of the Church. The Church is not a collection of people who of their own ability have perfected themselves. No, the Church is the collection of those who understand that down to our very nature, we are sinners, dead and hopeless, without a Savior to intervene and raise us and change us. Christians have been saved by the Savior, but the process of becoming holy – sanctification – is a life-long one that is not completed until Jesus brings us into glory.

And there is a difference between Truth and falsehood. There is a difference between the True Gospel of Jesus Christ and the lies of the devil – no matter how subtle they might be, and we must train ourselves to be able to know the difference between the two. Peter was urging the first century Christians to be on the lookout, to root out those who taught false doctrine in the Church.

Those that bring these destructive heresies into the Church, Peter tells us, seal their own doom. They will teach, in one form or another, that it is perfectly natural to follow after the lusts of the flesh – if it feels good, do it. They blaspheme the Name of the Lord in teaching what is contrary to the Scripture, and they are cut off because of it. Their real goal is to exploit, to fulfill their greed – to gain money, power, prestige – look at most of the TV preachers. Since God is sovereign over history, God has always known the false teachers and they have been damned from long ago, and though we may wonder why God doesn’t intercede now and take them out of the Church, God has promised their destruction is sure.

In verse four, Peter gives an example to prove his point – that God will punish the wicked – in His time. Peter goes back into the writing of the prophet Moses and tells us that the damnation of the false teachers is sure, because, “if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell [Peter actually uses the Greek name for hell, Tartarus] and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;” – if God did not spare them, as is the witness of the prophet – that they are being kept until the judgment, how much more sure is it that God will not tolerate humans who persist in false teaching and in misleading the Church. The day will come when they will be judged and damned, and it will be swift.

And we might imagine that the Christians of the first century would be glad to hear that God’s Justice will be upheld in the end, but we might also find them wondering about their own rescue – their salvation. Will they be saved – in this lifetime and the next? Is God going to intervene for them in this persecution?

In verses five through eight, Peter gives two examples to show that God will rescue the godly:

Again he turns to the prophet Moses and reminds the first century Christians of what happened. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animal and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry I made them.’ But Noah found favor with the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on earth. And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them from the earth’” (Genesis 6:5-13, ESV).

And Peter reminds the Christians, “If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly,” then God is able to rescue the godly. We remember what happened: Noah spent nearly one hundred years, with his sons, building the ark, and collecting animals, so when God had finished purging the earth, they could repopulate. During those hundred years, we can imagine that Noah’s neighbors mocked him and laughed at him when he told them that God’s judgment was coming upon them. But righteous Noah just kept following God.

Of course, when we talk about the godly and the righteous in this context, we are talking about relative godliness and righteousness, as well as the righteousness that is given to us by Jesus when we believe. No human being, except Jesus, has ever been perfectly righteous and godly on his own. But compared to the rest of the world, Noah was righteous, and, by faith in the Savior who was to come, Noah received the righteousness of Jesus, by which he is truly righteous.

Peter reminded these Christians in his first letter that Noah and God’s rescuing of him and his family is symbolic of our salvation: “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought to safety through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (I Peter 3:18-22, ESV).

Just as God saved righteous Noah through the water, while every other human being was drowned, so God saves His people through water, in the sense that baptism is symbolic of the death and resurrection of Jesus, through Who we have eternal salvation.

The second example from Moses reads, “Then the Lord said, ‘Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.’ ... And as morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘Up Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.’ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said,
‘Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away’” (Genesis 18:20-21; 19:15-17, ESV).

Peter reminds the Christians “if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard).”

Again, Lot is comparatively righteous and actually righteous through Jesus the Savior, but not of his own works. We remember when the people of the town wanted to sexually assault the men who were visiting with Lot, Lot tried to offer them his daughters – not a very righteous thing to do, but, through faith in the Savior who was to come, God rescued Lot from the fire that punished the ungodly.

And Peter, in his first letter, uses the imagery of being saved through fire as symbolic of our being purified in Christ: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, as was necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the testing of the genuineness of your faith – more precious that gold that perishes thought it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:3-7, ESV).

Just as God saved Lot through the fire, while every other human being in the cities was burned alive, so God rescues His people through the fire which purifies us and makes us a holy people for Him.

So, Peter concludes this section, “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” So they had the promise and we have the promise, that the Lord will rescue the godly – those who are righteous in Jesus, and God will punish the wicked – the ungodly – on the day of judgment – and they will especially be judged harshly who claim to be free to engaged in all types of sexual perversions and those who despise the authority of God and those God has put over them.

These promises would be a great encouragement to those who were being hunted down for their faith, and it should be a great encouragement to us. God will not lose us. If we belong to Him, we are forever His. And yet, we might have to ask, “Wait a minute, Peter, Christians are being killed – God is not rescuing everyone – you, yourself, will soon be crucified – God is not going to rescue you. What gives?”

The answer is this, as Jesus said, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28, ESV). The promise of rescue is not necessarily referring to rescue in this life. Some of those first century Christians were going to be put to death at the hands of Rome. Some Christians today are put to death for their faith. The promise of rescue is that of eternal rescue – that all those who believe in Jesus Alone for their salvation are rescued from the Wrath of God and the pit of
Hell. We may still suffer in this life; we may die for Jesus in this life, but He has neither forsaken us, nor forgotten us, but by His Work, He has rescued us, and will bring us safe unto the Father’s House. That is our hope, and the Promise of God.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You that You will not allow Your Justice to be compromised, but You will see that all sin is punished, by the ungodly suffering eternally, and, on behalf of those who believe, in Your Son suffering hell on the cross. We thank You that, not matter what we may suffer on this earth, we have the sure and confident promise and hope that we will be rescued, and on the other side of this veil, we shall be with Jesus in Paradise. For it is in His Name we pray, Amen.