Today’s message is from 2 Peter 2:1-10a. The Holman Christian Standard Bible (the HCSB, the translation we are using) gives this passage the title The Judgment of False Teachers. (Actually, the title is for all of chapter 2. But I’m just going to talk about verses 1 through 10a today. I’ll talk about the rest of chapter 2 next week, the Lord willing.)

The HCSB gives today’s passage the title The Judgment of False Teachers, but the apostle Peter also talks about the power that God has to protect and rescue those who believe in him—to save them. And I’m going to spend some time talking about these people. Peter mentions Noah and Lot as righteous men. They are righteous because they have believed God. They have the righteousness that comes through faith (or is it faithfulness? ...remember? It’s the same word in Greek). The passage is also a warning to us against false teachers—and also to the false teacher about their coming judgment.

So, 1) the passages is going to warn us about false teachers, 2) the passage is going to warn the false teachers about their coming judgment, and 3) it’s going to encourage us (those of us who believe) about the power God our Father in heaven has to rescue and save us.

As always, remember as we read the passage that we are reading the word of God—the word of God given by the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter. The word of God gives life. Jesus is the word of God who became flesh. Jesus gives life.

Let’s read the passage—2 Peter 2:1-10a. (10a, by the way—verse 10a, in case you are wondering, means the first half of verse 10. The translators started a new paragraph half way through verse 10, so I chose that point as the dividing point between today’s message and next week’s.) Let’s read 2 Peter 2:1-10a:

¹But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves. ²Many will follow their unrestrained ways, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. ³In their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced long ago, is not idle, and their destruction does not sleep.

⁴For if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned, but threw them down into Tartarus and delivered them to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment; ⁵and if He didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, when He brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; ⁶and if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to ruin, making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly; ⁷and if He rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral ⁸(for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— ⁹then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, ¹⁰especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority. (2 Peter~2:1-10a)

I overlapped this with last week’s passage again. Verses 1 through 3 are from last week’s passage (actually, from two weeks ago, since I didn’t talk about 2 Peter last week). Just as there were false prophets in the Old Testament times there are false teachers these days. They cause the way of truth, the Christian religion, to be blasphemed. (That means, insulted, slandered, reviled and railed against.) People who reject God, atheists, tell the world that religion, particularly the Christian religion, causes all sorts of evil. Then they recite all of the atrocities that have been committed in the name of Christ—the Salem witch trials, the crusades, the inquisition, and so forth. They tell the world about how religion (Christianity) is used for political purposes and to manipulate and enslave people and how it is used to exploit and defraud people. All these things have happened because of false teachers—false teachers who were only interested in their own personal gain.

And I will point out again, just as I did two weeks ago, that this isn’t about teachers who are sincere but mistakenly teach something that is wrong, but about teachers whose only goal is their own selfish gain. It’s about teachers who don’t care whether or not their teachings are right, in fact who don’t even necesarily believe that their teachings are right, only that they might gain money and power. If they really feared God... In fact, if they even believed there was a God, they might repent. Their destruction does not sleep.

Look at verse 4. Verse 4 says, “For if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned, but threw them down into Tartarus and delivered them to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment...” Tartarus, in Greek mythology, is like the lowest hell. It’s lower than Hades. It’s a dungeon. There are different interpretations of this verse, but I believe the angels that Peter is speaking about are angels who rebelled against God. He says they sinned. Some or most of the angels who rebelled against God are still loose and are causing trouble all over the world. We usually call them demons or evil spirits.

The evil spirits that Jesus cast out from the Gerasene demoniac (Luke 8:26-39) begged Jesus not to send them to the abyss. (They asked Jesus to send them into a herd of pigs and that’s what Jesus did. The herd of pigs all rushed down into the Sea of Galilee and drowned. They committed suicide.) Also, in Revelation (Rev. 20:1-3) you can read that before the foretold thousand years of peace begins, Satan will be bound in chains and thrown into the abyss. I (and a bunch of other people) believe that Tartarus and the abyss are the same place. However, Tartarus and the abyss are not the final destination for these fallen angels. They are being “kept in chains of darkness for judgment.” That judgment is the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt. 25:41, Rev. 20:10-15). That is also where the false teachers are headed.

If you read Genesis, chapter 6, the entire world had become corrupt and violent. When the Lord saw man’s wickedness, he regretted that he had made him and declared that he was going to wipe them all out. However, Noah was a righteous man. He found favor with the Lord. The Lord told Noah that he was going to bring a flood over all the earth. He told Noah to build an ark—and Noah did.

Noah was 500 years old when his sons were born. After that, assuming the account is told in sequence, the Lord told Noah to start building the ark. Noah was 600 years old when he entered the ark, so it may have taken him 100 years to build it. But, through it, the Lord saved Noah and seven others—Noah’s wife and his sons and their wives. When the flood came all men were killed as well as all of the animals and birds. Only Noah and his family and the animals that he had taken onto the ark were saved. God knew how to protect Noah.

Peter says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. Noah was preaching righteousness among people who God said were wicked and corrupt and violent. How would you like to try to do that? Throughout history people have been persecuted for preaching righteousness to people who love wickedness. That is still true today. In fact, in some places if you preach righteousness, you may be tortured and killed.

And these were violent people in Noah’s day. But God knows how to protect the righteous. Noah was a man of faith. He trusted the Lord to protect him while he was carrying out the task that the Lord had given him—and what a task—to preserve a tiny remnant of people and animals to repopulate the earth.

Hebrews 11:7: “By faith Noah, after being warned about what was not yet seen, in reverence built an ark to deliver his family. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” Noah was not perfect, but he was a man of faith. It was because of his faith that he was declared righteous (and also that we are here today).

Look at verses 6, 7 and 8: “...and if He (He, the Lord) reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to ruin, making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard)...”

The Lord rescued righteous Lot. His story is in Genesis, too. Lot was Abraham’s nephew. Abraham was the man of faith. When Abraham believed the Lord, the Lord credited it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6) When the Lord called Abraham to leave his family and his home and go to the land of Canaan, Abraham took his nephew Lot with him.

In the land of Canaan, Abraham and Lot became very prosperous. They each had large flocks and herds. In fact, they had so much that the land could no longer support both of them as long as they remained together. There began to be quarreling between Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen. I’m going to read Genesis 13:8-12:

⁸Then Abram said to Lot, “Please, let’s not have quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, since we are relatives. ⁹Isn’t the whole land before you? Separate from me: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

¹⁰Lot looked out and saw that the entire Jordan Valley as far as Zoar was well-watered everywhere like the Lord’s garden and the land of Egypt. This was before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹¹So Lot chose the entire Jordan Valley for himself. Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. ¹²Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities of the valley and set up his tent near Sodom. ¹³Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning greatly against the Lord. (Genesis~13:8-13)

Abraham trusted God and let Lot choose. Lot had the opportunity and he grabbed the best—what appeared to be well-watered like the Lord’s garden. But it wasn’t the best. It was a place of sin. Lot thought of his own interests first. (Have you ever done anything like that—had an opportunity grab what is best and then took it for yourself—before someone changed his mind or got there first? You don’t have to answer. But I have to admit that I do it. It’s not right before God.)

Now if we go ahead to Genesis chapter 13, that’s where the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is. Lot was sitting in the city gate when the angels that were coming to investigate Sodom arrived. (And, by the way, they didn’t look like women with wings that would have been too small to support them. They looked like men.)

When they arrived, Lot invited them to stay at his house. They told him, “No,” that they wanted to spend the night in the square. But Lot insisted and they finally agreed to stay in his house. Here’s the account of what happened:

⁴Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population, surrounded the house. ⁵They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

⁶Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. ⁷He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers. ⁸Look, I’ve got two daughters who haven’t had sexual relations with a man. I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.”

⁹“Get out of the way!” they said, adding, “This one came here as a foreigner, but he’s acting like a judge! Now we’ll do more harm to you than to them.” They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door. ¹⁰But the angels reached out, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. ¹¹They struck the men who were at the door of the house, both young and old, with a blinding light so that they were unable to find the door. (Genesis19:4-11)

All the men of the city came, both young and old—the whole town. Lot offered his two virgin daughters (who were engaged to be married) to these men to be raped. The angels had to rescue Lot and his daughters. Lot was weak, but Peter, who certainly knew the account of Lot’s life—and there’s more that I didn’t talk about—says he was a righteous man. Peter, remember, was being guided by the Holy Spirit as he wrote. It’s God who says that Lot was a righteous man. Let me read verses 6, 7 and 8 from today’s passage again: “...and if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to ruin, making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard)...”

Lot was weak. He knew the men of the city. He knew what would happen to the angels when they arrived at the gate. That’s why he insisted that they come to stay with him. Lot was distressed at the evil and immorality in Sodom. Why wouldn’t he have moved out of Sodom? But he didn’t. The Lord had to rescue him—both from the attack of the men of the city and him from the destruction of the city itself.)

Now let’s look at verses 9 and 10: If God didn’t spare angels who sinned, and if he knew how to protect and rescue Noah and Lot, then, according to verses 9 and 10, “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority.”

What is the difference the righteous and the unrighteous? I tell you over and over again. It doesn’t make you righteous to go to church. It doesn’t make you righteous to preach righteousness. (Noah was a preacher of righteousness, but that is not what made him righteous. The false teachers even preach some things that are right, but that doesn’t save them.) It doesn’t make you righteous even to work miracles. Jesus said, ^“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’” (Mat~7:21-23) The ones who are righteous are the ones who seek to do God’s will because they trust him. Do you trust God? Do you seek to do his will? He is able to rescue the righteous. But the unrighteous will be judged.