II Peter 2:4-10

We will stop there for a minute. So we read here that our holy God cannot tolerate sin. He is a righteous judge. Psalm 11:7 and 146:8 declare, "For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness"; "The Lord loves the righteous." We could add Psalm 5:12, "For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous." or Psalm 34:15 (we actually see this repeated in I Peter 3), "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry."

In II Peter 2:5, God saved only Noah, the preacher of righteousness, and his family from the Flood. And we see the Greek noun here, it is Strong's 1343. It is a bit of a doozy. dikaiosuné, translated righteousness all 92 times in the New King James. It is from an underlying adjective that means righteous. It is the underlying adjective version is Strong's 1342. dikaios, meaning righteous, upright, just, innocent, thoughtless, and guiltless. And we see these same words used in Revelation 15:3; 16:5 and 7; and 19:2 to describe our very great God: "Just and true are Your ways"; "You are righteous, O Lord. . . . True and righteous are Your judgments"; "For true and righteous are His judgments" those scriptures read.

Now, despite some of the most disturbing scriptures in Genesis 19, we read here in II Peter 2:7 that God delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. And again, we see the underlying Greek adjective form for righteous here, Strong's 1342 dikaios is used twice. It is used twice to describe Lot. The same word in Revelation describing God as righteous is used to describe Lot. I found that troublesome at first, I have got to tell you.

Lot was actually oppressed and afflicted with the evil that surrounded him we read here. He was a righteous man, verse 8 tells us, dwelling among the evil. He was actually tormented daily by their lawless deeds, and the use of the word torment here should bring a significant description on Lot's pain. It is the same word we see in Revelation 9:5 and 14:10. I will read those. Same word here for torment.

In this section on God's righteous judgment, we learn only the righteous Judge knows how to deliver His people from sin. It is not something we can do for each other. God will bring His righteous judgment and punishment on the unjust in His due time, and His judgment will be especially hard, brethren, on any that despise or reject or despise in any way, authority. "No pride, no problem." Judgment is coming on anyone that speaks evil of those in charge.

II Peter 2:6-9

For a final scripture, please turn to II Peter 2, verse 6. Jesus Christ teaches us to resist temptation regardless of its source. He promises purity and holiness to those who do it. He also instructs us to pray for diligence in deliverance from exposure to temptation and from giving into it. And God will not allow us to face temptation beyond our Spirit-given ability to resist.

And just as God rescued Lot from Sodom, He can also save us from the temptations we face in a wicked world. Lot was not sinless, but he trusted God and was spared when Sodom was destroyed. Here in II Peter 2, we are going to read verses 6 through 9.

So temptation is used as a form of testing or proving, and the context is the covenant relationship of mutual love and faithfulness between God and His people. God tested Israel to demonstrate the true nature of her faithfulness to Him. His purpose is not to induce us to sin, but to confirm our faith.

As in the case of Job, Satan can serve God's positive purpose even though Satan's negative purpose was to test God's sovereignty. Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was God's testing of Adam and Eve's faith, and Satan's attack again on God's sovereignty. In the temptation of Jesus, Satan tried to entice Jesus to forsake God's sovereignty and His commitment to God's way of life. Jesus, however, proved to be a loyal Son.

Jesus did not test His Father as did ancient Israel, because He lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And having resisted, Satan tempted himself. Christ understands and aids us when we are tested. An essential part of our honest and faithful witness to God's sovereignty and His way of life is how effectively we resist temptation.

One final warning before ending: when temptation hits, it is too late, almost usually, to seek advice. Once one's desire is fully awakened, people do not want guidance, they want fulfillment and satisfaction. So the best time to understand the risks and foolishness of pursuing forbidden sex, or anything else that is harmful, is long before temptation appears. Resistance becomes easier if the decision is made in advance. Do not wait to see what unfolds. Prepare for temptation by deciding now how you will respond when it arises.

II Peter 2:9-11

These two passages speak of false teachers, human teachers, and apostates, and both of these apostles describe them as very rash and taking rights and liberties that do not belong to them. That is, he says specifically "they despise authority." As a matter of fact, they are very full of pride and they want to be the authority. But they despise others who are a legitimate authority. So, what he says here, especially Peter says that they do not defer or respect those who are more powerful or who rightly hold a higher office or a higher position.

By the way, just as an off-handed thing, these dignitaries that it talks about, "they speak evil of dignitaries," is the word doxa in Greek, and it means "glorious ones." So they are people or beings who command recognition, respect, or honor. A term that we have used in recent times, and I mean the last few centuries, is by calling someone who is in a high office, your excellency. So the dignitaries are an excellency in terms of position or power.

Now the example that these two give, Peter and Jude, is of angels, and most specifically in Jude, the archangel Michael, who though he is powerful in his own right, he seems to be right at the top of angelic leadership, but he did not speak evil of even the Devil when they contended over the body of Moses, as it says, but he treated Satan with proper respect, deferring to the Lord to rebuke him. Righteous angels are humble. They do not go outside of their sphere of authority at all. And they treat those of high authority with great honor.

This section also verifies that angels are greater in power and might than humans. These two passages also cover things like their great intelligence and knowledge and understanding. Although in I Peter 1, verse 12,

II Peter 2:6-9

Here is what is so interesting. Lot is three times in that section called righteous and one time he is called godly, and yet when we look back at the story that is written beginning in Genesis 11 and going all the way through Genesis 19, everything that is written about that man is negative. It is not good. It is not put in a good light at all, and yet he is called "righteous" and "godly."

I think that it is even more shocking to consider what I think is Peter's very obvious inference that he was righteous while all these bad, evil, wicked things were going on in Sodom. From that we can then conclude that he did not become righteous by and through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ after the shock of events that occurred with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but that he was deemed righteous by God before them and through the event. That righteous man, it says, was troubled with what was going on within the city. Therefore, Lot was not what we consider a bad man. He was not an evil man. He was not a wicked man. He was what we would consider to be a converted man. He had received the grace of God, and by the grace of God, righteousness was imputed to him, even as it is to you and me.

It says that he was tormented by the things that he saw in Sodom and Gomorrah. What does that mean? That means that he clearly understood about sin. It does not seem as though the Sodomites were concerned at all, but Lot was. He understood sin. He understood that these people were off the mark. Though he was not wicked, he did nothing to remove himself from it. There is the problem. He lingered. See, he was willing to coexist with it.

II Peter 2:9

In this section on God's righteous judgment, we learn only the righteous Judge knows how to deliver His people from sin. It is not something we can do for each other. God will bring His righteous judgment and punishment on the unjust in His due time, and His judgment will be especially hard, brethren, on any that despise or reject or despise in any way, authority. "No pride, no problem." Judgment is coming on anyone that speaks evil of those in charge.

We must be very careful—and I mean very careful—about how we treat God's ordained ministers. Seeing is submitting. If we have faith in God, we have faith that He has put those in charge that He wants in charge and we submit in humility, we respect and obey all those He has put in command.

II Peter 2:9

So just as God delivered Lot, He can also deliver us from the temptations and trials we face in this wicked world. Although Lot was not sinless, he trusted in God and was spared when Sodom was destroyed and God delivered him to a better place, considering him righteous. God will judge those who cause temptation and trials, so we never need to worry about whether justice will be served on those people who try to lead us astray because God says, Justice is Mine; I will repay. God's deliverance of the righteous shows that He can rescue us when we are tempted and that He knows the best way to do so. He sees a solution when we cannot, even if it is often one we would not have thought of.

II Peter 2:6-9

Does that not indicate to you a separation? The godly are delivered from the trial that might indeed cause them a great deal of harm—maybe even take their lives—but they are separated away from those who are set for judgment.