2 Peter 2:1-9

[0:00] Good morning. Good morning. Be in the New Testament this morning, the book of 2 Peter.

[0:15] ! The second chapter of 2 Peter. God is good.

[0:33] I wore that patch for a long time. And my vision in that eye is still not perfect, but it's a whole lot better than what it was. And I praise God for that.

[0:45] I preached at a church Sunday night last week. And I told that congregation, told my wife.

[0:57] I said, it's nice to not have to get down on my Bible and lift up one side of my glasses so that I can see the Word. I can stand back here and see it fairly well.

[1:09] And that's awesome. And I praise God for that. But anyway, I enjoyed the Sunday school this morning. Brother, I'd like to encourage you to press on in Judges.

[1:22] Judges is a very much neglected book in the Scriptures. But as has already been said, there's much that can be gleaned from Judges for the modern day church, for the New Testament church.

[1:38] Judges is, in my personal opinion, the most political and the most violent book in all of Scripture. But there's much that can be gleaned from it as far as the depravity of mankind goes.

[1:54] And as far as has already been talked about this morning in Sunday school, the tendency of the people of God to walk home with God for a little while.

[2:06] And then walk on their own path for a little while. Then go back to God for a little while. And that is a tendency. And folks, we're constantly in a battle between the flesh and the Spirit.

[2:18] Every day, the Bible will back that up. Paul said, that which I would do, I do not. And that which I would not, that I do. And that was Paul, man, who wrote half of the New Testament said that.

[2:29] So if he can say it, and he can call himself a wretched man in the book of Romans, how much more so can we relate to that?

[2:39] So I would highly encourage you to press on in the book of Judges. There is much to be learned in that book. A lot of people say we should divorce ourselves from the Old Testament.

[2:51] And I say shame on the people that say that. That Old Testament is there for a reason. The New Testament corroborates why it's there. It says it's there for an example unto us, unto the believers in Jesus Christ, unto the church.

[3:06] So the Old Testament is there for a reason. The Old Testament points toward Jesus Christ. The New Testament looks back towards the cross of Jesus Christ. And leads us up to the cross of Jesus Christ.

[3:18] So it's all in here for a reason. It's all inspired by Almighty God. There is not one A, one The, one But, one And. There's none of these things that are in here in vain.

[3:31] God inspired it all. And I praise God for that. But anyway, in the book of 2 Peter, in the second chapter, leading up to the second chapter, in chapter 1 of 2 Peter, we see a doxology really that Peter gives.

[3:48] This being Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter that denied Christ three times. The Peter, though, that followed Christ from afar while others had scattered and went on their ways.

[3:59] It's the same Peter that wrote this. And in the first chapter of 2 Peter, we see Peter giving praise unto God and encouraging those that believe in Jesus Christ to press on in their faith.

[4:12] And he's telling them in the first chapter, in a very small nutshell, he's saying you've been supplied with everything that you need to live a godly life, to live a holy life, to live a life that is pleasing in the sight of Almighty God.

[4:28] He's encouraging the believers to go on in that life in the first chapter of 2 Peter, which naturally leads up to the second chapter of 2 Peter, where he switches gears a little bit.

[4:41] But it's not out of the blue that this happens. It's not just from out of nowhere that he begins the second chapter of 2 Peter. If we read the very last couple of verses of the first chapter, Peter says, Knowing this, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[5:11] So Peter here, again, throughout the first chapter of 2 Peter, he's encouraging folks to live godly lives and live holy lives. He's telling them that they've got everything that they need to do so.

[5:22] God has supplied that Himself. And He tells them that the things that the people of old, the people of the Old Testament Scriptures, remember folks, the New Testament had not been compiled at this point.

[5:35] Peter is writing part of the New Testament here, and didn't even realize that he was doing so. So what he is talking about here is the Old Testament Scriptures. And he says, These men of old were inspired by God.

[5:47] They were moved upon by God through the Holy Spirit of God to write the things that they did. And he says, For prophecy came not in old time by will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[6:02] And then we begin chapter 2. So we'll begin 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 1. He says, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

[6:26] And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

[6:46] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly, and delivered just lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.

[7:24] For that righteous man dwelling among them, and seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

[7:42] Back to verse 1 in the 2nd chapter of 2nd Peter, But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

[8:03] And folks, I hate to say it, I'm sure that you're well aware of this, but I'll make the point anyway that this absolutely pertains to the New Testament church here in the year 2025, that false teachers have made their way in, false teachers have made their way in, and remember, this is not the people coming in from the outside into the church, this is people within the church that have raised up in the church, and they are bringing damnable heresies into the church, into the heirs of the people of God, they are bringing things that are completely contrary to the Word of God within the sanctuaries and to the congregations of the people of God, and there's many people that are being led astray by these heresies that we're talking about here.

[8:56] There's many people that are being led astray by doctrines which are not biblical. There are many people being led away by theology that is not biblical, and folks, if it does not line up with what thus saith the Word of God, you need to get rid of it, you need to get rid of those thoughts out of your mind, get it out of your heart, if it has seeped in there, and you depend solely and only upon what is written in the Word of God.

[9:24] And again, the very last verse of the first chapter of 2 Peter, Peter says, For the prophecy came not in no time by the will of man, but of holy men, but the holy men of God's faith as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

[9:39] And folks, the entire New Testament, the entire Gospel account, the entire Old Testament, all the miracles that we read about in the Scripture, the birth of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth of our Savior, His perfect sinless life, the death that He suffered, the resurrection, His ascension to the side of the Father, and everything that we have in the epistles thereafter, it is all inspired by the Word of God.

[10:07] And if you hear some teacher or some preacher come into your midst that is preaching something that is against the Word of God, that is contrary to the Word of God, something that just don't feel right with you, or something that you can open up your Bible and prove that that man or that woman or that child is wrong, you get rid of that doctrine out of your midst.

[10:30] Folks, false doctrines have come into the church. And some of them that come in are very convincing if you hear them.

[10:41] Some of them are outright hilarious if you hear them, but some of them are very convincing. Some of them you know right off the bat as soon as you hear them. You know that that's wrong.

[10:52] But some people, they have a way of going about and teaching things. And they have a way of dragging Jesus in just enough to make their doctrine sound like it's believable.

[11:03] They have a way of dragging just enough Scripture into whatever it is that they're trying to teach or preach to make it seem believable. Folks, you line it up with the Word of God, one of the most common things that is taught today was brought up in Sunday school this morning.

[11:20] But one of the most common things that is taught in the church house today is that you can live any way that you want to. You can go anywhere that you want to. You can hang out with whoever you want to.

[11:32] You can do whatever you want to with those people at any time that you want to. And you will still go unto heaven, folks. That is contrary to what the Word of God says.

[11:43] For the Word of God says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things are passed away. And behold, all things are become new. If you are a new creature in Jesus Christ, you won't go to those same places.

[11:57] You won't hang out with those same people. You won't do the same things. You'll have a new walk. You'll have a new talk because you may be made new in Jesus Christ.

[12:09] That is contrary to the Word of God that you can do anything you want to. Live in the way you want to. Of course, we are called under righteous living or are we not?

[12:20] The people of God are called under righteous living. The entire world is called to it. And it's been that way from the beginning of this thing.

[12:31] Everyone's got a conscience. And everyone knows right from wrong. Everyone knows that it's wrong to kill someone. Everyone knows that adultery is wrong.

[12:41] Everyone knows that lying is wrong and that stealing is wrong. Everyone knows this. So we are all called to holy lives. But those that have been saved, those that have been saved, we have a special calling of God to live that holy life and we have a special means to be able to do so.

[12:59] Folks, the people that are out in the world right now that are killing and that are committing adultery, that are committing fornication, that are stealing, that are lying, that are habitual liars, that are habitual thieves, all of these things.

[13:12] The people that are constantly in sin and constantly doing those things, they don't have that special calling because they don't have the special means, the guidance of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Folks, pagans have always done what pagans do because that's all that they know to do.

[13:26] Heathens have always acted like heathens because that's all they know to do. But saved, born again, children of God that have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit.

[13:38] We have the one that Jesus Christ called another Comforter. We have indwelling on the inside of us and we have been guiding our steps and our actions and our speech in the ways of God.

[13:52] And if we get away from that, who's the one that got away? It wasn't God. It was us. If God's got us on the straight and narrow and we veer to the left or the right, God's not the one that took us down that path.

[14:08] God is not the one that veers us in those directions. God wants us to stay on that straight and narrow way. Folks, there's false doctrines all over the church of God.

[14:19] There's false doctrines all in the congregations, all in the sanctuaries. It's on the sidewalks. It's in the workplace. It's in the schoolhouse. And many of them sound very convincing.

[14:32] The rest of them, as I said earlier, are so outrageous that the people of God know them right off the bat. As soon as they hear them, we say, that's wrong.

[14:43] That's wrong. But somebody will get just enough Scripture sometimes to make it believable. And folks, that's where sin originally creeped in, is it not? In the garden with Adam and Eve.

[14:56] The serpent didn't tempt them to kill. The serpent didn't tempt them to steal. He didn't tempt them to lie. He didn't tempt them to do anything except for doubt what thus saith the Word of God was.

[15:12] God said, you can have it from any plant in here that you want. Any tree that you see, you can have the fruit of it. But stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Stay away from that one.

[15:23] And the serpent came in and caused them to doubt the Word of God. And the serpent has not changed his way. He hasn't changed his motive. He hasn't changed his modus operandi.

[15:36] He hasn't changed any of this since that happened. It's still the same. If he can cause us to doubt what the Word of God says, he's got us.

[15:47] He's got us. And he can start dragging us away from the church. He can start dragging us away from our prayer time. He can start dragging us away from our time in the Bible. He starts dragging us away from the things of God the moment that we start doubting what the Word of God says.

[16:04] That's why I encourage you to keep your nose in the Word of God. You study the Word of God daily. The Bible says to study to show thyself approved. Folks, that applies to men.

[16:14] That applies to women. That applies to children. That applies to everyone. Don't just breeze through the Word of God. You study the Word of God. Run your cross-references if you've got them in your Bible.

[16:26] Read some of the commentaries that go along with it. Don't depend upon those commentaries. But if you're having a hard time understanding what the Word of God says, find you a seasoned veteran in the Word of God to explain it to you or read someone that knew what they were talking about when they wrote it.

[16:44] I highly encourage these things. But be cautious of these false teachers. That come in, Peter says, they shall bring damnable heresies. Folks, we're not just talking about minor theological differences here.

[16:58] We're not talking about people that some people believe in a young earth and some people believe in an old earth. I believe that people that believe in an old earth, I can shake most of their hands and call them a brother or sister in Christ.

[17:10] Although I believe in a young earth. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about things that get away from the core of the truth of Scripture. From Jesus Christ and from His Gospel.

[17:23] From His death, burial, and resurrection. From Him being the way, the truth, and the life. So when things start getting out there, when things start getting away from those core truths, that's when it becomes heresy.

[17:38] That's when it becomes heresy. When people say, well, I believe Jesus was a good man. Folks, and there's quote unquote Christians out there that will say this. I believe He was a good man, but I don't believe He was perfect and sinless.

[17:52] I believe He was a good man, but I don't believe He was the Son of God. And there's people out there that say that they are Christians that believe these things. And if you ain't careful, they'll convince you of it too.

[18:04] Just as they have been convinced it's a damnable heresy. And folks, if the heresy is damnable, it will take someone else straight into damnation.

[18:16] If the heresy itself is damnable, it will lead someone else down the path of damnation. It says again in verse 1, even denying the Lord that bought them.

[18:29] Denying the Lord that bought them. Folks, Jesus Christ suffered, He bled, and He died on behalf of sinners. He died on behalf of all those sins that we brought up since I've been up here this morning.

[18:46] The liar, the thief, the murderer, the adulterer, the fornicator. He died for them all. He died for every prostitute. He died for every pill head.

[18:56] He died for every drunk. He died for them all. So when it says here, even denying the Lord that bought them, Jesus paid a price for all sinners.

[19:09] He paid a price for all sinners. But folks, when we, and listen, as far as creation, as far as Christ being the creator, and He is, as far as Christ being creator of this world and of this universe, and we being part of His creation, all people belong to God.

[19:30] But folks, the Bible verifies. The Bible verifies that we were bought with a price. I'm talking about the church of the living God. I'm talking about the bride of Christ.

[19:41] We were bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. So, yes, the entire world and everyone in it, sinners and saints alike, all belong to Christ because He created them.

[19:54] But there's a special belonging that we, the people of God, have because we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. We were bought. We were redeemed. We were grafted in from the wild.

[20:06] We were adoptive sons and adoptive daughters into the family of God. And it was all done by the blood of Jesus Christ.

[20:17] These people deny the very Lord that bought them. This term, this whole passage here, this whole line of this passage, it's speaking of the relationship between a slave and a master.

[20:33] they deny the Lord that bought them. Folks, you're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to Christ. There is no one on this planet and no one has ever been, no one is right now and no one ever will be that is not a slave to one side or the other.

[20:51] You are either a slave to sin and darkness and the devil or you are a slave to righteousness and to grace and to salvation and to Jesus Christ. There is no in between.

[21:02] There are no fence riders as far as that goes. You are a slave to one or you are a slave to the other. Even Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, He said that man could not serve God and mammon.

[21:14] He will either hate the one and love the other or whatever the case may be, but he will have one and not the other or have the other and not one. But you cannot have both in this world.

[21:27] I'm not saying people that are saved can't be blessed with money. There's plenty of folks out there who say got more money than I do and got more money than you do and they're just as saved as you and I are.

[21:38] I'm not saying that. But be careful because there's also false doctrines out there that teach and these are people claiming to be Christians. They teach that God wouldn't let His children run around in overalls or pants with holes in them or dirty shoes or no shoes.

[22:00] There's people out there that teach that. You must not be born again. You must not belong to God because God wouldn't let you run around like that. There's people out there that teach that and I've heard it myself.

[22:14] Go on, look it up on YouTube. You can find it yourself. You can find people in big churches right now that preach that very thing and they've got masses of people, masses of people that follow them.

[22:26] I don't believe that anymore that I believe a man has to wear a three-piece suit when he preaches. I just happened to do so this morning. Normally I don't. Shirt and tie? Yeah, sure, but I don't have to do that either.

[22:38] I promise you when Jesus was preaching the Sermon on the Mount, He didn't have on a three-piece suit and He wasn't wearing a necktie or a bowtie or a choker or anything else. He was dressed in the garb of His day.

[22:51] And I guarantee, I guarantee that was a powerful sermon that He preached even without a suit. But folks, be careful of the false doctrines that you hear.

[23:01] Many shall follow their pernicious ways. Boy, that ought to just kick us all on the shins right there. Many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way the truth shall be evil spoken of and through covetousness He nails the motive behind their false doctrine right here in verse 3.

[23:21] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. It's because of their greed. It's because of their selfishness. And it's because of their want of self-exaltation that they preach these damnable heresies to the people of God and inside the churches of God to the congregations of the people that have just gathered to hear the Word of God.

[23:47] It's because of their own selfishness and their own want of self-righteousness. Their own self-righteousness and them wanting other people to think that they are righteous.

[23:59] And there's plenty of folks like that out there in the world right now. Plenty of preachers and plenty of big churches. I'm talking congregations in the thousands. Plenty of preachers out there that are preaching damnable heresy and preaching false doctrine and people are eating it up.

[24:18] And that lifts that preacher up. He says, look at this congregation. And some of them have been fooled into thinking, I must be doing good. I must be doing right. God is blessing us.

[24:28] No, you're telling the world what they want to hear. You're telling the world that they can do whatever they want to and still be in right relationship with Almighty God. You're telling the world that if they want to go out to the bars and the dance club Saturday night and enter into the house of God Sunday morning, that's perfectly fine.

[24:48] And that's contrary to what the Scripture says. And it's contrary to what Scripture says. We're to live soberly. We're to live righteously. We're to be diligent in our faith, are we not?

[24:58] And we're to try the spirits to see if they be of God. I promise you, if you've got a spirit that's telling you it's alright to do those things and still go to church and raise your hand and praise to God, you might have a spirit, but it's not the spirit.

[25:13] You might have a spirit, but it is not the spirit of Almighty God that's telling you that that's okay. They shall make with feigned words make merchandise of you.

[25:24] Feigned. Feigned words. In other words, they're deceptive words that these people are speaking. They speak them now. They were speaking them in Peter's days. Peter was given the first century church warning that these things were going to come to pass.

[25:40] And folks, it was no different in the Old Testament days. The people had to worry about the false prophets. Now listen, I understand. Each person is responsible for their own individual sin.

[25:52] I get that. We are all responsible to God. We are all accountable to God for everything that we do in our lives. And one of these days, we must all stand at the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for what we have done in these bodies, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

[26:09] I get that. But the people of God knew the Word of God. They knew the miracles of God. I'm talking Old Testament now.

[26:21] The people of Israel were well aware of their ancestors being brought out of Egypt through the Red Sea. They were well aware that God had split the Red Sea.

[26:32] He had parted some of it over here and some of it over there and that the Israelites, their forefathers, had walked through on dry ground. It wasn't even muddy.

[26:43] It wasn't even squishy. God delivered them. They are well familiar with these miracles. They were familiar with the creation account that we find in Genesis 1 and 2.

[26:54] They're familiar with all of these things. They're familiar with how God works and whom God is. And yet, when Balaam comes in in the book of Numbers, he deceives them with feigned words and he deceives them into going after other gods and going after idols.

[27:19] Hananiah in the book of Jeremiah does the exact same thing in another false prophet. The Bible speaks in the Old Testament that God's Word speaks of people that would say, I've come in the name of God to say this and say that.

[27:31] And God would say, but I sent them not. There were false teachers everywhere. But the people would listen. They would listen to them. Going through Judges this morning in Sunday school.

[27:45] There's a wonderful example of why we need to keep our noses in the Scripture. The Ammonites came up against Israel to make war. Jephthah's brethren came to them after they'd done giving them the boot.

[27:58] They came to them. They said, we need you to lead us in this battle. We need you to lead us in this war against the Ammonites. The Ammonite king says, you all have our land, it's ours, and we want it back.

[28:11] He says, you took it from us. But Jephthah was a man that knew the Word of God. Jephthah says, we didn't take it. We didn't just walk in, pick it up, walk off with it.

[28:23] Let me tell you what happened. And there is verse upon verse upon verse upon verse upon verse of the history of Israel and what the Ammonites did to Israel, how they waged war back then. God delivered the Ammonites into the Israelites' hands and the Israelites done what every army did back then.

[28:40] They took the land of the Ammonites because they were victorious over the Ammonites. And God gave them that land. But if Jephthah had not been familiar with the Word of God, and this Ammonite king said, y'all took our land, we want it back, you took it wrongfully.

[28:58] Jephthah might have said, alright boys, let's give it back to them. But Jephthah knew the Word of God. Folks, it's important to know the Word of God. It's important to know the Word of God when these false teachers come in. That Ammonite king I was just talking about in the book of Judges, he was trying to be a false teacher.

[29:13] He was speaking deceptive words, speaking feigned words. But Jephthah knew better. Folks, we have got to know better. And the only way we will know better is not to depend on what the preacher just preaches on Sunday mornings or Sunday nights or Wednesday nights or whatever the case is.

[29:31] You study the Word of God on your own! Folks, we're without excuse. We're without excuse. We've all got our paper Bibles that are bound in leather, bound in fake leather, whatever your Bible is bound in.

[29:46] We've all got the internet. We've all got TV. We've all got the radio. We have some sort of access to the true Word of God!

[29:58] So you cannot stand before God and say, I didn't know any better. You cannot stand before God and say that. No more than people, no more than people that never heard of the name of Jesus Christ can stand before God and say, I didn't know there was a God.

[30:15] Folks, Romans 1 blows that out of the water when Paul teaches that nature itself testifies of a God. It testifies of a Creator and those people are left without excuse!

[30:29] The entire world is without excuse when the world itself testifies. When nature, when the earth, when plants and trees and planets and stars and moons and the sun and all of these other things that we know, when they testify of a Creator, we are all without excuse.

[30:47] You will stand before God one day and not have an excuse. Don't let your excuse be, well, they deceived me because you had access to the truth that won't hold water with God, folks.

[30:59] For if God spared not the angels that sin, that cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. If God spared not the angels, those that He created for the sheer and sole purpose to worship and serve Him, if He didn't spare them, what makes us think that He will spare us if we don't believe and if we don't worship, if we reject Him, if we rebel against Him?

[31:31] That's what the angels did, is it not? You read about in Revelation 12, you read about in the book of Ezekiel, you read about in the book of Isaiah, the angels rebelled against God and their rebellion is what got them cast out of heaven.

[31:49] Their rebellion against His authority. Their rebellion against His majesty. Their rebellion against Him because He was and is God and He can do whatever He wants to.

[32:03] But Lucifer wanted, as the New Testament puts it, wanted the preeminence. He wanted the worship. He wanted the exaltation. And Lucifer and a third of the angels lost their place with God in heaven.

[32:20] And it wasn't just temporary, folks. It wasn't just temporary. This verse here in 2 Peter 2 says, Cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment.

[32:33] And chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. That's where these angels are right now. Their true punishment hasn't even begun yet.

[32:44] They're being reserved. And folks, we live in a world right now, and I'm talking about human beings, some are being reserved unto judgment.

[32:56] But praise God, folks, the door of grace is still open. It's still open. Jesus Christ is the door into the fold. He is the door into the fold of God.

[33:08] I've already said this morning, He is the way, the truth, and the life. But you will not get to Him any time or any way that you please. He says, No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.

[33:21] He also says, No man comes unto Me except the Father draws him. You'll come on God's terms or you won't come at all. Verse 5, And spared not the old world but saved Noah and the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.

[33:44] He spared not the old world. And this is something else that these Jews would have been familiar with. They would have been familiar with the flood account. We have the flood account from Genesis 6 through Genesis 8.

[33:56] Really, Genesis 9. But we have that flood account. And we know that the world had become so corrupt. The world had become so sinful and so wicked and so evil.

[34:07] It repented God that He even made man. But He didn't just wipe it all out and start over. He wiped it all out and started it over with people that were already here.

[34:21] The Bible teaches that Noah found grace in the eyes of God. But folks, it wasn't because of Noah's righteousness. It wasn't because of Noah's prestige.

[34:32] It wasn't because of anything to do with whom Noah was. but it had to do with the grace and the mercy of Almighty God. Noah was just as sinful of a man as you and I are sinful creatures.

[34:47] The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We have all sinned and that includes Noah. But God in His mercy looked down. And He told Noah to build that boat.

[35:02] Build the ark and you build it the exact way that I do. I'm going to give you specifications. I'm going to give you types of wood to use. I'm going to give you where to pitch it. How to pitch it. I'm going to tell you how many levels.

[35:13] I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to tell you that. And I'm going to save you from the wrath that is to come. And folks, there's an ark now called Jesus Christ. He's the ark of safety.

[35:25] And there is wrath that is coming. It has been preached for over 2,000 years now that the wrath of Almighty God is on the horizon. I remember seeing billboards when I was a kid saying Jesus is coming soon.

[35:38] And I remember thinking how long have people been saying that? On into my teens I said the same thing. How long have people been saying that Jesus Christ is coming soon?

[35:48] And folks, I was a lost teenager. I was lost on into my 20s and on into my 30s before Almighty God saved my soul. But it does not negate the fact that Jesus is still soon coming.

[36:04] And His judgment is coming with Him one of these days. He said, Behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me to give unto every man according to His works.

[36:17] Not according to my grace. Not according to my mercy. Read it yourself in Revelation 22. He's going to give unto every man according to His works.

[36:29] If you're saved, if you are righteous, if God has bought you with the blood of Jesus Christ, your works will be righteous. And that's what we'll be rewarded with if we're not born again.

[36:40] If we're not saved, our works will be unrighteous. Folks, it's that plain and simple. It's that plain. A new creature in Christ will have good works for Jesus Christ.

[36:51] We are created unto His workmanship according to what Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians in chapter 2. Verse number 6, Turn the cities of Solomon and Gomorrah into ashes, condemn them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.

[37:08] Now there's many in the church world, especially in this particular area, this particular region, the southeastern part of the United States that think that Solomon and Gomorrah was overthrown and was burnt to the ground and was made an ash heap for one reason and one reason alone and it was because of the reason of sexual immorality.

[37:26] But folks, I'm telling you now, there was pride in Sodom and Gomorrah and that was the center of it all. Yes, there was sexual immorality. Yes, there was homosexuality. Yes, there was all these other things, but pride began it all.

[37:39] These people thought that they were sufficient enough to take care of themselves. They thought that they didn't need God. They thought that they could ignore God from their nose at God and God showed them exactly who He is.

[37:53] And people will say everybody in that city was guilty of that. Not according to what I read in 2 Peter. It calls Lot a righteous man. The Bible calls Lot just in the eyes of God.

[38:08] And the man was shining a light of some kind because if you flip back over to Genesis, you'll read that he had two virgin daughters in a city that was so morally corrupt and so full of sexual sin.

[38:26] But the man had virgin daughters. He was shining a light of some kind in a society and a culture like that. He was shining a light. He was teaching some people the things of God.

[38:38] Why do you think his wife is the one that was turned to a pillar of salt? She's the one that turned around and looked. She's the one that wanted to go back. She's the one that didn't truly repent. But Lot and his daughters escaped. Now I know how the rest of that story goes.

[38:52] And that's a whole other sermon in and of itself. But nevertheless, God delivered them. God delivered them. Lot and his daughters. It says, And turning the cities of Solomon and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example, making the cities of Solomon and Gomorrah.

[39:09] And it wasn't just them. There were three other cities of the plain that were burned down with them. That is mentioned in the book of Genesis. But making the cities of Solomon and Gomorrah an example. Unto who?

[39:20] Unto all who should live ungodly after them. After Solomon and Gomorrah. Anyone that lives ungodly. And I'm not just talking about sexual immorality. I'm talking about ungodliness.

[39:31] I'm talking about sinfulness. I'm talking about people that live like there is no God. They live like they're not accountable to anyone for anything. They will be destroyed one day.

[39:43] And that is per the scripture of God. These cities are an example unto those people. You go to where Sodom and Gomorrah. I've never been there, but I've seen videos of it and seen plenty of pictures of it and atlases I've got at the house.

[39:57] You go to where they once stood. A few little columns here and there. But it is. It's ash. And you can dig down a little bit and find sulfur. You can find little sulfur balls that rain down from the sky and people will still deny that there is a God.

[40:12] They will deny the biblical account of God destroying those cities. Although that evidence exists. But folks, we live by faith and not by sight, do we not? I don't need to see that to know that God is real.

[40:25] I don't need to see the pictures. I don't need to go to the place. Folks, I don't need to be, I don't need to step foot in the tomb that Jesus Christ was buried in and see that it's empty to know that He is risen and that He forever sits at the right hand of the Father and make an intercession for all those that have repented of their sins and placed their faith and their trust and all their hope in Him and His gospel.

[40:46] I don't need to see anything to believe that because the Word of God says so. The Word of God says so. And delivered just Lot.

[40:56] He's not talking about only Lot because I've already brought up He delivered Lot and two of His daughters. He's talking about Lot was just in the eyes of God. Folks, we live in a sin-cursed world.

[41:08] We live in a fallen world and we have sin all around us. We have sinful people all around us. If you still work, you go to work, there's sin everywhere that you look and there's people that talk filthy, there's people that act filthy, people trying to drag you into doing filthy things with them, people that will make fun of you, people that will mock you for your belief.

[41:29] There's all kinds of sin out in the world. But God will deliver the just out of that world. Just as He delivered just Lot out of the city of Sodom and delivered just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.

[41:45] Folks, this verifies what I just said that Lot was just. Granted, no, Lot had no business in Sodom. He shouldn't have been there. I agree with that 100%.

[41:56] But folks, I've said many times, I've used this as an illustration or example many times while preaching. If I'm out going through the desert somewhere, and I've been in the desert for two days and had a drop to drink, and the first place that I come to is Tom's Bar and Grill.

[42:14] I have no business going in there. I have no business going into a bar. But I promise you, if it's been two days since I had a drink, and I'm going to die without a drink of water, I'm going in and I'm going to ask for water.

[42:27] And hopefully they'll give it to me. That's not sinful. The sin comes when you tarry in it. Folks, if it's a must situation, like I said, like if you're literally dying of thirst, and the only place you've got to go to is some ungodly hole-in-the-wall place that you know where there's going to be sinful people, there's going to be drunks, there's going to be harlots, there's going to be all these things going on.

[42:54] But that's the only place you're going to get water. There's nothing sinful about going there and asking for water. The sin is if you stay there. Why? Because just as God told the Israelites, you stay away from the Moabites.

[43:06] You stay away from the Ammonites. You stay away from these and those. Stay away from the Perizzites and the Holabites. You stay away from all of them. Why? Because they will drag you in.

[43:16] I have separated you a holy people. I have consecrated you as my home and they will suck you into their beliefs. They will suck you into their religion. They will suck you into their idolatry and you will leave me.

[43:31] And the same thing will happen to us if we tarry in the world. That's why church is so important. That's why attending church with brothers and sisters in Christ is so important.

[43:42] This is where we come, folks, as the Scripture says, admonish one another with psalms and hymns. We come to encourage one another. We come to exhort one another. I ain't coming here this morning to cut you all down.

[43:53] I'm coming to be an encouragement to you to keep your nose in the Bible so that you are aware and you can discern between false teaching and true teaching. That's what I want.

[44:04] Charles Spurgeon, great man of God, once said that discernment is not knowing what's right from wrong. Discernment is what's knowing right and what's almost right.

[44:16] And boy, don't I agree with that. Because there's a lot of things out there that's almost right. But folks, there ain't but one thing that's right and that's this. That's the Word of God.

[44:29] The righteous man dwelling among them and seeing and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. Paul was just in the eyes of God and he was righteous according to what we, or not Paul, Lot was just in the eyes of God and he was righteous in the eyes of God.

[44:46] It says that it vexed his righteous soul to live amongst this sin. And we say, well, why was he there then, folks? Why are we here? Why are we here?

[44:59] Why do we send our kids to public schools knowing what's being taught there? Why do we go to work knowing what we're going to hear there? Folks, God says, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

[45:13] He doesn't say, go ye into all the world and be like the world. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. You teach your kids to stand upon the Word of God when they go to school, if they go to public schools.

[45:25] You teach your kids to stand upon the Word of God. You teach your kids to pray over their food when it comes lunchtime. You teach your kids to pray with other children if they fall on the playground and get hurt or whatever the case is.

[45:37] You teach your kids to show the light of Jesus Christ. And we adults need to be doing the same thing out in the world whether we're at work, wherever we're at.

[45:50] If we're at Food City, Walmart, 7-Eleven, not that we have any of those around here. Wherever we're at, we need to be showing the light of Christ. Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

[46:08] We glorify our Father which is in heaven when we let our light shine. But the men out there in this world and the women out there in this world that have no idea who Jesus Christ is, they're out of relationship with Christ.

[46:19] They're the ones that need to see those good works. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Folks, He gives these examples here. He gives the examples of the angels being cast out of heaven.

[46:33] He gives the example of Noah and his family being saved from the flood. He gives the example of Lot and his two daughters being saved from the city of Sodom and Gomorrah.

[46:45] It's brought up here in the Scripture. It says, if God can save these, He knows how to deliver us, His own, out of temptations.

[46:57] And I'm thankful for that. And I'm not just talking about temptations as far as being tempted to sin, folks. I'm talking about trials. I'm talking about things that come our way.

[47:07] Depression comes our way. Bad moods come our way. Bad things come our way. Bad circumstances come our way. And the Lord knows how to deliver His own out of them all.

[47:20] Hallelujah. Book of James, chapter 1, verse 2. James says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

[47:33] But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. But He says, count it all joy. Count it all joy when we have trials and temptations in our lives.

[47:44] Spencer, I find it hard to do that. I find it hard to do that. But the Bible commands it of us. Why should we? Because we know the God that delivers. We know the God that heals.

[47:56] We know the God that has healed us in the past. And we have confidence that He can heal us now. Hallelujah. He's the same God. Nothing's changed about Him.

[48:07] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations. Not that He can't deliver the ungodly out of them. But the ungodly don't want it. The ungodly don't want it. Folks, we seek after God.

[48:19] There is not one single lost person out there in the world that has ever seeked God. I wasn't seeking God when He found me. You weren't seeking God when He found you.

[48:29] You might have been at church. You might have been at a revival meeting. But folks, the Bible says there is none that seeketh after God. There is none that doeth righteousness. No, not one. You were not seeking God but God came looking for you.

[48:43] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under the day of judgment to be punished. He can deliver the godly out of temptations. And just as much He can reserve the unjust, those that don't belong to Him.

[48:59] He can reserve them unto judgment. Folks, He is God. And He can and He does do anything that He wants to. The heavens declare His glory. And the entire world, the entire universe belongs to Him.

[49:15] If He wanted to strike me dead right now, He would be completely just in doing so. In fact, if He wanted to strike me dead and cast me into hell right now, He would be completely just in doing so.

[49:27] Except for one thing. The Bible says in the book of Joel in chapter 2, there was coming a day when anyone that should call, whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered.

[49:38] And Paul echoes that in the book of Romans in chapter 10. He says, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I have called upon the name of the Lord. And that is why when I die, that is why when my time here is up, when I've drawn my last breath, I'm not going to hell.

[49:57] It's not because of me. It's not because of anything that I've done. It's not because of my acceptation. It's not because of my righteousness. It's not because of my glory. It's because of the goodness and the mercy and the grace of Almighty God.

[50:11] It's because of the blood that Jesus Christ shed on Calvary's cross. It's because that blood is powerful to wash away all sin. That's why. Nothing to do with me.

[50:22] Nothing. That's the message for this morning. God bless you all. I appreciate your attention. and I will continue prayers for you and your congregation here.

[50:34] I appreciate the opportunity to stand. God bless you all.