The consequences of false teaching

Well, today we're going to we're going to follow up, continue on in Chapter two of Second Peter. And I label this section called the consequences of false teaching. And I mentioned before, Bob always kind of gives me a somewhat hard time, not in love. Anyway, so let's go on here. OK, so actually, I kind of had some thoughts about overview here in the chapter. So versus one, the three are kind of the characteristics of the false teachers. What we're talking about today are going to be there.

The consequences are teaching, especially versus four to six for some examples from the Old Testament. And that's very interesting examples. Actually, there's a really encouraging section, at least I found in verses 7-9, which talk about in the midst of God's judging the false teachers, or the apostates, He actually is rescuing, He rescues Noah, obviously, from the flood, Noah and his family, and He rescues Lot, and He talks about rescuing the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then, in subsequent weeks, we're going to talk about the conduct of false teachers, But the condemnation of the false teachers. OK. Can I get someone to read verses? Actually, how about if we read the entire one through nine? Put everything in context. Can someone read chapter two? Thanks.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will certainly 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 will be maligned. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others whom he brought in flood upon the world of the ungodly, and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah 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 sensual conduct of unprincipled men. For by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day 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.

Great. Thanks. That's great. Okay, so I took, actually we're just going to cover basically, actually Jeremy last week talked about four. We're not going to spend a lot of time on verse four, but mainly focus on five through nine. But I'd like to kind of, I kind of went in and kind of highlighted what I thought was kind of an interesting pattern here.

And you'll see that there's an if statement at the beginning of verse four, if God did not spare angels, and that if is, what's called a first class condition, or assumed to be true, or something in a sense. So it says, since God, or in view of the fact that God does not spare angels, we're going to go through basically four if statements, if you will. They're not actually, if you notice, several added by the translators. They're in italics. And then I added one myself, just for clarity. So there's four if statements. Then culminating in verse nine, there's a then statement.

So we're going to go through, since God did this, since God did this, since God did this, So that's going to be the pattern we're going to see. So we're going to see, since God did not spare angels, since God did not spare the ancient world prior to the Noah's flood, since he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, and then, those are the negatives, since he did that, and since he rescued Righteous Lot, then, based on that, then he knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. And that's a positive statement, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. So we have some judgments that we're going to see, examples.

And what's interesting, these examples, you know, last week, Jeremy went through, we looked at the first three verses, and it seemed like, you know, and it talked about these false teachers in the church. Well, it's interesting, the examples he uses are not examples. in the body of Christ. They're Old Testament examples. And actually they're not believers either. They're not even in the church body. These are world events or things that happen. So it's interesting he uses those as examples.

And I'm not sure I can necessarily explain that, but that's just what scripture shows. And then the word rescue, we're going to investigate a little bit. He rescued Rosh Hashanah. And how does he rescue us from temptation? That's kind of a cool thing. So we've got the judgments here of God. and we've got how he rescues men. So any questions to start with before we jump into it here? So I'm going to try to summarize with the help of Constable here the first verses four through six. So verse four is an example of the angels who sinned, the fallen angels who sinned, and they intermarried with humans and God judged that. And so that's been observed, that's a work, that's their fallen angels, that's a work of the devil.

And number two example, the example of the ancient world of Noah's day, and that's the example of the world system. The world, except for the eight people in the ark, the whole world was condemned. You may pick up the devil, but it's not exactly the pattern we use here. The third one, verse 6, is the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were turned into ashes, and this is an example of the flesh, men's flesh.

So we see this shows up in scripture in a few places. There's not one verse that talks about the world, the flesh, and the devil. This is one of the occasions where you can see it. In 1 John you can see occasion of the world and the flesh, and certainly in Romans flesh is talked about. So it's important to point out that these three examples focus on the three enemies of the Christian.

The world, the flesh, and the devil, only arranged slightly differently. And I got that from Constable, basically. And others have observed that too. It wasn't exclusively his. I went through the different helps and almost everybody pointed that out. The world, the flesh, and the devil.

And then lastly here, as we go into these three examples, it seems like the B part of verse 3 in chapter 2 talks about the judgments from long ago, and certainly these are judgments from long ago, are not idle and the destruction is not asleep. We're going to see that it's going to say at the very end, that these judgments are ongoing, if you will, and the final judgment has not occurred, which I take to be the Great White Throne Judgment. So that's kind of the summary of where we're going. So thoughts about this or questions?

If not, we'll just jump into the first verse. So the first phrase in the first verse, for if, and I added the part from verse 4, for if God did not spare the ancient world. So this is the second if statement. Did not spare is the idea of despair implying forgiveness. Ancient is basically, that's what's referred to as the times before Noah's flood.

There's some passages I'd like to look at here. I'm going to spend a little bit of time today. Hopefully you have your Bibles and you can get to them or your electronic devices or whatever. Right, soul Bible. No matter if it comes in electronic or paper. It's still God's Word. Can someone read Genesis chapter 6, 5-7?

And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth. And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continued. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on earth and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man who I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repented me that I have made them. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

So basically, this verse has actually, I go through this with Bonnie and with Brian at home. So the question always comes up about, it says he's sorry, he's repentant of making man. And that's, you know, in looking at the full context of scripture, God is not sorry about anything. I mean, in a sense.

But I think what this does show, it shows his compassion and his care and his love for his creation. That it was so He knew it was going to happen, but it's still like when it really happened, it's wow. It doesn't mean that he gave up on man. He didn't give up on man. He had a plan for man for all eternity past, but he just kind of showed I think his compassion for man. So that's that being sorry, repentant of making man.

How about 2 Peter 3, 5-7? For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God, the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. By his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

Thank you. This is the context of the situation with Noah. The second part is, but preserve Noah, a preacher of righteousness. Preserve is to guard, protect. We kind of see that in 2 Thessalonians. I'll just read that one. But the Lord is faithful. He will strengthen and protect you. In this case it says from the evil one. But God is in the business of protecting those who are His own. Now you may argue with that. You may say, well I have difficulties in trials.

But ultimately He's protecting you for eternity. I think there's a sense in which He's protecting you in our Christian walk. And He's involved in our lives. He's our Savior. He's our life. So we go on. He was a preacher, or a herald, or a crier, or a proclaimer. And Zodiac says, the word denotes one who is employed by God in the work of proclaiming salvation.

And I think we see that in 1 Timothy 2.7 it says, for I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. So the question is here, how is Noah a preacher of righteousness? So I don't have a whole lot of questions in this lesson. It was one of the questions, how is he a preacher of righteousness? Any thoughts? How do you do it? Now if you look ahead, you're going to see my answer to that, or an answer.

You build an ark. You know to build the ark for many years. So actually, I think that's a really good point. The ark in itself, I mean, I'm not sure they even know. Some question about how much water was around. He's building this massive thing. That was a testimony. A testimony to the people about him. It seems like we're not told. That's one of the challenges is.

It says that he's a preacher of righteousness, but we don't find in the Old Testament any details on that. We just find, and there's some verses in the New Testament we can look at too, but there's not really any concrete, this is what Noah said, he said this, he said that, it never talks about that. No, I think he was just a witness because he trusted the Lord. Like Abraham in what he what he said and everyone, I'm sure, made fun of him and told him he was crazy.

All that a long time to do it, too. And didn't stop him. Right. Yeah. Well, people, no doubt, asked him what he was doing. They go, oh, man, it's totally landlocked. So he probably told them. God told me to do this because judgment is coming on the world. If you guys don't come with me, you're going to be judged. You're going to be drowned. Actually, going through this, I saw some similarities between the destruction was coming upon the world in Noah's time, and destruction was coming on the world in Lot's time. At least for that city. That city was going to be destroyed.

But Lot didn't do it. Look at Lot's life. It's kind of a mess. Anyway, he's called righteous. I mean, just in the midst of that, we'll get to that a little bit later, but Lot is called a righteous and so is Noah. And so they communicated in ways we don't fully understand about what God had them do in their situations. We'll see more about Lot in a bit.

But Noah had a testimony here. Actually, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say that, I mean, being positioned as righteous, I mean, in effect, they were men who lived by faith. Exactly. I mean, faith falls short for all of us at times, but clearly Noah and Lot believed the Lord for what he revealed. Remember, this is believing what God has revealed. And at that time, he didn't reveal too much. Presumably enough, right? That would be called righteous. No, you have to look at Abraham, you know, believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

So we see that pattern with Abraham and with Elah and we see Noah. So Joshua basically, you know, something that we kind of just said, by his words and his deeds, Noah proclaimed righteousness. to his ungodly neighbors. So I had a couple of verses here. The Genesis one says, I'll read that one, then I'll have somebody read the Hebrews one. Genesis says, these are the records of the generations of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time. Noah walked with God. Now that's really kind of key. If he walked with God, the very fact he's walking with God, then his life can demonstrate what he's about. The other one that's kind of neat is the Hebrews one. Can someone read Hebrews 11, 7?

By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Isn't that powerful? In reverence he prepared the ark for salvation of his household, by which it condemned the world. So by preparing that ark in faith, he was He was saying, you aren't listening. The rest of the world is not listening to what God is going to do here. And they weren't.

And God knew that, obviously. OK. With seven others, it's literally, I mean, this isn't a big point. It's literally one of the eight. But it's translated, with the seven others, he's the eighth person. One of the eight. OK. The last part is when he brought a flood upon the ungodly world. Luke 17 talks about that. I have a lot of readings today guys.

They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark. And the flood came and destroyed them all. They didn't heed the warning. They didn't heed the message, they just continued on with life. In some ways, that's somewhat what we see in our society. Many people who don't respond to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, they continue on with their lives, and a time will come when things will change.

I was thinking they just had that ark in front of them all the time, and we may get a chance to see replica of that. Answers in Genesis is doing one. Accordingly to the size that is described in the Bible. Ken Ham, if you are familiar with Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis, he is building a to scale model of the ark.

The Tennessee Cleveland area, Northern Kentucky, the side of the river, Cincinnati. Right. He's building. There's also a museum there, but he's building a full size to scale. That would be pretty, pretty impressive to see in the Ohio. Interesting. I can see selling tickets. It would be fun to ride on. I don't know. It would be great.

But I was just thinking that they saw that every day. Every day it was right in front of them. You can make a lot of analogies. God's word and the existence of God and who he is, is not hidden from man. In fact, not at all. But men choose in their unrighteousness. Like in Romans, they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. And in this day they suppress that truth as well. Constable points out that people see the deliverance by the flood, prefiguring the rapture of the church, being taken out. I'm not going to spend a lot of time, I just thought it was an interesting observation.

Okay, verse 6. And so this is the third if statement. And if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes. So, sorry guys, a few more things to read here if you wouldn't mind. How about, so and these verses, the reason I chose these verses, they either have similar phraseology to what's being said here. That's kind of the main approach here.

So Luke 7, 28 and 29. So on the day that lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. OK, that was when I was just twenty nine. Twenty eight is it was the same. And as happened in the days of lot, they were eating and drinking and they were drinking. They were buying. They were selling. They were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and burned stone from heaven and destroyed them all. There we go.

Actually your handout doesn't have, I made a few little tweaks. That's why you got confused. I apologize for that. No big deal. So basically, Sodom and Gomorrah was condemned. And before that they were carrying on there. Then in Genesis, 19, 24, 25. I can read that one.

It says, The Lord reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, just like we have here. The Lord reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire, from the Lord, out of heaven. And he overthrew the cities and all the valleys and all the inhabitants of the city that grew on the ground. Having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter.

And you know what you find as you go through 2 Peter chapter 2, there's kind of a parallel between 2 Peter chapter 2 and Jude. It says some of the same things. Some skeptics have said, well, one copied from the other, and they have all kinds of weird ideas. As we find in scripture many times, the Lord will repeat something more than one time. And that's not unusual at all. So in Jude, go ahead. Let me read you. Thanks.

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. This makes me recall. Right after I got saved, I was in Seattle at the time and I went to Bible study fellowship and we were studying Genesis that year. What was amazing to me would be in studying Genesis and then seeing the references both in the gospel account and in the epistles really helps substantiate the fact that God's not about taking us down wrong paths. We're trusting that this judgment is ahead. Right. You keep wondering why he's taking him so long, right? I mean, the idea that Simon Camorra has mentioned multiple times. Oh, it is. After Genesis. Absolutely.

And it's amazing the information we get from the New Testament sources. It goes back and it gives us additional, just like find out that we wouldn't think that Lot was a righteous man by his actions and what happened in his life. In fact, actually, apparently the Hebrews, the Jewish rabbis don't think much of Lot. Because they haven't read the New Testament, or they don't know about it. Well, that's because they have a faith based on works, right? And law. So law isn't one of their... There's Abraham, of course, but law, not so much. It's kind of a checkered past, so to speak. Okay. All right. So basically, this kind of ends the three judgments where he judged the angels, the fallen angels. He judged the world, the ancient world. And then he judged Sodom and Gomorrah. So six kind of ends that.

And then we go, but the story kind of continues on. But now we're going to switch and talk about his rescue efforts, if you will. So if you rescue righteous lot, that's a fourth if. Rescue, it's a word to to preserve from, to deliver. Let's read the account of Lot's rescue. Genesis 19. Can someone read Genesis 19 and those verses there? Yes, thanks.

And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters, which are here, lest they be consumed in the iniquity of the city. And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of the two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth and set him without the city. And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, and he said, Escape for thy life, look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain, escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. As interesting as if you keep reading, a lot is always. Well, how about this in those mountains? I'm not sure I want to go to those mountains. How about the city over here?

Is it Zora? Zor, Z-O-A-R. So he, he, he, he negotiates. He negotiates going to there rather than going to the mountains. I gather it must have been close. I don't know. I'm sure you could say this out and figure it out. But it's interesting. It seems like he's always negotiating. Somebody righteous, somebody that's not righteous. He wanted to stay in San Gamorra, which is kind of sad it seems like.

I'm just noticing it's kind of interesting how he gave Lott a little second chance, but the wife, boy she turned to salt in it. Well what it says, actually it says if you look back, that was Warren actually. The angel warned him, he said if you look back, things are going to happen. And she did look back. Yeah I know, but it seemed like they, The Lord gave Lot a second chance. Is this like a gender thing here? It doesn't say that he looked fat. No, he didn't look fat. It doesn't say that he looked fat. She did.

There are probably hundreds or thousands of sermons that have been preached on that. I'm not going to go there. They were warned, but he said, let's go to the city over here. And he said, okay, you can go there. We'll take you there. But they had to take him by the hand. They had to pull him out of that, you know, which is just incredible. Okay.

And so what's interesting is what's going to be revealed now is we're going to see, and it kind of makes you wonder, the Old Testament account gives you this picture. The New Testament says that he is really in torment over what's happening. It seems like he'd be willing to get out quickly. So I don't understand totally what's going on. He's oppressed by the sensual conduct of a principled man.

He's being distressed in the present tense with all the wantonness, indecency, lasciviousness, licentiousness, I'm sorry. Wallace says, so Weiss renders this completely worn down by the manner of life of Wallace in the sphere of unbridled lust. So we are going to see this and then verse 8 is going to expand upon that and say down to his very soul he was vexed.

So actually, verse 8, it's in parentheses in most Bibles. It's kind of, I would say, an amplification of verse 7. And I'm not quite sure how they decide when to put brackets on it. I don't know how that, you know, that's what the translator... Does everyone have brackets on this verse? Okay. So translators do that, and I haven't read the fine print on how they decide that, but whatever. Anyway, it seems like it's an amplification. By what he saw and heard, So he was literally seeing and hearing.

So here's the second time. It says, for by what he saw and heard, that righteous man lot, like I said, in the Old Testament you wouldn't get that picture, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by the lawless deeds. The third time he's called righteous. He's called a righteous man twice and then by his righteous soul. God is communicating to us that he was righteous, even though his actions didn't seem to portray that. Tormented, tortured, vexed, harassed, lawless deeds, wicked.

And here's a comment. I'm not sure I totally agree with it, but I put it out here just for interest. Lot not only refused to join his neighbors, but he did not allow himself to sink into passive indifference toward their sins. I guess what he's trying to say is it's not obvious.

If you look back through the account in the Old Testament, he did point out to people that wanted to come into his house, he said, you're wicked. He told them they were wicked. That's one of the few places I found that he actually confronted the men who saw him and said, no, what you're doing is wicked. don't get away. Of course he offers his daughters, which kind of blows your mind a little bit too, but I don't know.

That's where the inconsistency doesn't seem like it's there. Alright, so then verse 9. So based upon that, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment. OK. So after the Fortis statements, we see the concluding then statement. There's both a positive aspect and a negative aspect. So the positive aspect is the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. I found this a really comforting verse. And you can take it probably in multiple ways.

In the context, it seems like he's talking about And temptation here we're going to get into, but it could be in the sense of eternal salvation. But I think there's a sense in which in our Christian life this applies to that as well. Rescue, it's the same rescue as he rescued Lot, same word. But here's some other verses that I found that use that word rescue that I felt were kind of comforting. So I thought we'd read a few of those. So if someone could read 2 Timothy 3, 10 and 11. I think in some cases I added a few verses maybe over what I had in the handout. 2 Timothy 3, 10 and 11.

Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance. Persecutions and sufferings such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Leicester. What persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord rescued me. This is Paul talking here. He talks about his persecutions, his sufferings, Antioch and Iconium, and he says And he says, the Lord rescued, and out of them all, the Lord rescued me.

So I thought that was, you know, so that kind of applied that word, the use of that word to kind of the Christian life, if you will. And then in 2 Timothy 4, 17, there's another example of that word being used. Go ahead. But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me so that the proclamation might be fully made through me and all the Gentiles might hear.

So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. So same word here. Paul again says that he was he was rescued out of the lion's mouth. And it almost seems like he was alluding to maybe something from the Old Testament. I don't remember exactly what he was involved in with lions, but I could be wrong.

OK. When he was in the arena, wasn't he? OK, well, maybe that was it. Was he in the Coliseum? I think it was. OK. OK. That could be. I wasn't. He talked about it in acts. Right. Rescued from. He has a list of all the different things he went through. OK, that's a good point. OK. I guess, you know, Raj, something comes up here, you know, in terms of a lot. And I think it relates to us to today is, you know, we.

God wants to live by faith, doesn't he? And so in these trying times of the rainfall in Sodom and Gomorrah, the fire, etc. Lott did believe God for what he revealed to him, didn't he? So it's not like we have anything to do but believe, right? So maybe much of his life was not that of belief, but self-serving in many ways, which falls short.

I mean, none of us lose our salvation no matter what we do. That doesn't mean you let go, let God do anything you want. The point is that the principle is living by faith. Right. And I think that's probably what's being communicated. The New Testament tells us, three times it tells us, he was a righteous man. And he did live by faith. He did exercise faith. I think it was circumstantial though. It was clear that much of his life was not really honoring God.

Exactly. In many ways, we're just exactly the same. And that should be encouraging for us. The Lord doesn't ask us to live... Be a perfect person. Exactly. He asks us to live by faith. I was just going to say that if a lot can be declared righteous by God, then I feel pretty good about that. I'm not living a perfect life. Paul would say that's not a lie. Should we continue to send the grace mail? God forbid, right? The life we live, by the power of the spirit and the new creation where Christ Jesus is one that lives by faith, that we're increasingly being conformed to the image of his son. Locke didn't have that truth at that time.

But living in such a horrible place as Sodom, it's bound to influence you in some ways. It'll seem easier to righteousness looks like. But it is interesting that the Lord spent verses 7 and 8 prior to verse 9 here talking about how much it was affecting him in his soul. I mean, he seemed like verse 7 was sufficient, but he tells us he has verse 8 in there and you think, well, this is a kind of rehash.

And as we see, in our society, it's very hard many times to You know, I just turn off the news. I don't want to hear it anymore. I mean, I've heard it. I just don't want to hear it anymore. I'm sorry. It's just too much to take. I think that's what that's what a lot was expressing.

OK, so let's focus on this one about rescuing the godly. That's us from temptation. So the godly here is actually believers in reference to unrighteous or unbelievers. So actually, the word temptation is one of these words that there's actually several words for temptation.

This is prosmos. It's a trial with a beneficial purpose. And there's several examples of that I have up there. God is testing us or giving us a trial, not to make us fail, but to approve us. So that's a wonderful thing. The trials spoken of here are those that want to approve us.

And I have several verses in there that talk about that and some of them are very familiar and hard ones to take some time. So let's read a couple of those. It's easy to read these verses when you're not having a trial or temptation, but when you are, it's hard to say, is that really true, Lord? It's easy from afar, but when you're in the midst of those, it can be very difficult. 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7, does someone read that?

You rejoice in this, though now for a short time you have had a struggle in various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. that part of verse 6, in this you greatly rejoice, even though, now for a little while, and you might argue with the Lord, how long is a little while? I think a little while is maybe a day, a year sometimes, until you go home and be with the Lord. So a little while depends upon the situation. You have been distressed by various trials. And as Vern points out, that's multifaceted, multicolored. And then the other one is 412 and 13.

It says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you, which come upon you for your testing, as though something strange, plain, what's happening to you, but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that you also, at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exaltation. And we have to remember, Christ suffered, and we're going to suffer. And so it's part of being a Christian. Not everybody wants to say that, or to show that, but that's part of the Christian life.

The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. That's the positive part. The negative part is to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment. To keep is an idea to kind of hold in place, or it's the judicial reservation by God in view of future doom. And the verses in there talk about coming, impending judgment. Maybe I'll just skip them just for the moment here. And this is back to what I mentioned before. All three of Peter's examples were dealt with unbelievers. I'm not quite sure why I put this point exactly.

Under punishment. the day of judgment. So the picture here, and the NIV has it, and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment while continuing their punishment. So I think the picture is like we see in Luke there with the rich man Lazarus, you know, the rich man Lazarus, you look through the account in Luke, the rich man He said he was in agony, in the flame. So it seems like that's the picture being painted here, to keep the unrighteous under punishment. And that's kind of the under punishment for the Day of Judgment, which is going to come, ultimately, when God reconciles all things. So it's not a pretty picture. So the unrighteous are suffering right now, and they will ultimately be judged at the Great White Throne.

Alright, any last thoughts or comments? Are you up next week, Bob? I don't think so. I'll ask Jeremy next week. I think I have the next one. Alright, Jim? It's interesting, he keeps the unrighteous under punishment, so their punishment begins immediately upon death. Exactly, exactly. That's what occurred to me as well.

It's not like They're waiting. The picture we see of the rich man, Lazarus, that's one of the best pictures I think of where we are right now. They're under punishment right now. They're not waiting for it. And actually, the amazing part about that is, there is some compassion there. Because it says in that passage in Luke, that he doesn't want his brothers to come there. And he said, well, I need someone to go and tell him. And he says, well, there's someone who is telling him. So that's a very interesting passage. And he doesn't declare that it's unjust either. I know. He doesn't say, I've got a bad deal here. That's just amazing. Actually, we're going to be covering that here. Innocent until proven guilty. Any of the things we hear today.

Pretty amazing. But I like the part The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation. That's a real uplifting, encouraging thing that the Lord knows where we're at. He knows our situations and our trials. I thought that's kind of cool. He knows how. He has the know-how. Well, it relates to our position and our citizenship. Right. And that's the point about what does he want us to do?

It was kind of neat. Mike and I talked the last couple of weeks. It was amazing. We never talked about it. We kind of paired our parts independently. We both kind of focused on looking at our position in the Lord. We were seated in heavenly places. And then my kind of came back with the prayer of the Lord's praying for us and how we have this intimacy we have with the Lord and how we're to see that. And so it's all the Lord's approach to reversing the Christian life is to keep our focus on Him and know who we are, where we've come from, and that's to be our focus as we enter the trials and temptations.

Okay, well let's close. Roger, I forgot at the beginning, Phil's mother is going into surgery tomorrow for two knees. She's very concerned about it, so please pray for her. Her name is Ruth. Okay, we'll pray right now. Dear Father, we thank you so much Lord. Thank you for this class Lord. Thank you for the message of how you do rescue us from temptations and trials. We pray for Ruth, Phil's mother. We just pray for, Lord, your encouragement and your guiding and directing these operations. Father, thank you for that. Thank you that we can trust you in all things. In Christ's name, Amen.