2 Peter chapter 2. Now Peter has written, we went
over this just a little bit here. Peter has written to those that
have obtained like precious faith. And he's written this to them,
telling them that his hopes and his desire is that they'll grow
in grace and peace. That it will be multiplied to
them by God. And it will be multiplied unto
them according as His divine power gave them grace and peace
in the beginning, and called them, and created them anew,
and gave them all things that pertain to life and godliness.
That's how this grace and peace will be multiplied, by His power.
Just like He gave us all these great and precious promises.
He accomplished those promises. He made them Himself. He accomplished
them Himself. He brought them to Himself by
His power. And he says, just like he made
us partakers of the divine nature by his power, and made us to
escape the corruptions that are in the world through lust by
his divine power. Now he tells us to give all diligence
to these things, to make our calling and election sure that
we, because it's through this same gospel, through this same
power, through this same grace and peace of God being multiplied
unto us, that we're going to grow in the graces of God, in
virtue, and temperance, and patience, and godliness, and brotherly
kindness. But when this grace of God is not in you, when you
lack these things, because you haven't been giving diligence
to the Word of God, you haven't been giving diligence to follow
after Christ, to hear His Gospel, and to search His Word, and to
see His faith. you become blind. He said, he
that's blind can't see afar off. You become dull. You become idle.
But if you have these, give diligence and have these things, walk in
the light God's given us, you'll see and you'll be sharp and you'll
have this grace and this peace be multiplied in you. And he
says now, and you won't fall. You won't fall away. You won't
be led away. You won't be led astray. And he said, now, I know
you know these things, you're established in these truths."
And he said, but I'll keep repeating them to you over and over. Because
we haven't followed cunningly devised fables. We haven't followed
falsehood. He said, Christ came and we were
eyewitnesses of his majesty. We saw him transfigured and we're
eyewitnesses to you. And he said, and not only this,
but the prophets of old are witnesses to us of all the things that
have transpired that God's brought to pass by his power. And he
says, so, how do we give diligence? How do we make our calling and
election sure? He says, this prophecy, this
word of the gospel that's been given to us, we do well to take
heed to it. Give all diligence as a light
that shines in a dark place. This word of God is the light. Christ is the light and his gospel
is the light that enlightens our heart and grows us and keeps
us and strengthens us. This is how faith is grown. It's
how it's given, it's how it's grown, it's how every other grace
is grown. It's through His Word. It's not my way, it's God's way.
This is how God determined to do it. And He says, so, just
like, and you need this sharpness, you need this diligence. Because,
he said, just like there were false prophets of old, there'll
be false prophets in your time. And they come in privately, very
cunningly, and they bring in damnable heresies, and they,
many, not a few, many follow their pernicious ways. And by
reason of whom, it gets to the point where the whole world thinks
that's the truth, and in the way of truth, they speak of it
as evil. And he said, you need to be aware of this. You need
to be diligent to know, so you can discern the difference, and
hear the difference, and know the difference. And so when he
speaks about these false teachers and their damnable heresies,
they deny the person of Christ Jesus, deny His redemptive work,
whom they claim they're preaching. They claim that this is the Lord
that bought them. But in everything they say, they
deny He bought them. They deny the redemptive work
that Christ actually did in their gospel. And all their ways denying,
too. And he says, and they'll make
merchandise of you. And he says, but they're going
to be reserved until the day of judgment and they're going
to face damnation. And he gives three examples. Now the first
one we saw in verse, second chapter, verse four, he said, God spared
not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered
them into chains of darkness to be reserved under judgment.
And then he said, the old world, in verse 5, he spared not the
old world, but he saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher
of righteousness, and brought in the flood upon the world of
the ungodly. And then he compares the ungodliness of false teachers
and their judgment to the ungodly cities of Solomon and Gomorrah.
And this will be our text this morning. This is a message for
lots. A message for lots. We got any
lots here? This is a message for lots. The
thing is, It's usually when you're a lot, you don't know it. You
don't know it. Look at verse 6, "...and turning
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes." He turned those
cities into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow. Now Peter's
saying that's how he's going to do false teachers and those
that follow their damnable heresies. And he said he made them an example
unto those that after should live ungodly. And this is the
subject. The ungodliness we're talking
about is these false teachers. And he says, and he delivered
just Lot. Lot was justified. And he delivered
him. And he delivered just Lot. He
brought out his wife. She looked back, turned into
a pillar of salt. He delivered his daughters, but he delivered
Lot. Lot was his elect. vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked. Verse 8, 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 knows
how to deliver the godly out of temptations. He does, and
to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished.
You'll be turning over to Ezekiel 16. Hold your place in 2 Peter,
we'll come back. But we're going to spend quite
a bit of time in Ezekiel 16. The first thing I want you to
get is this. The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah was very great.
Outward, lewd, ungodly, immoral sin. But the Lord declares the
wickedness of false teachers who exalt man's worth, man's
will, man's work, man's merit, self-righteous, self-holy, self-redeemed,
man-exalters. It's Satan's gospels what it
is. I'll give you a word about this to help you discern the
difference. If you can just get this one thing. Satan starts
with Eve. He always starts with Eve. He
starts with the bride. He always tells you to look at
you, and you to start with you, and that's how you come to God,
and that's how you please God. That's where He starts with.
God starts with the head. He starts with Christ, and He
does all things in Him and through Him and tells you to look to
Him. That's how you can discern these two messages. It's clear
as a bell to a believer. All right. He compares these,
but this religion that he's talking about is far worse. And that's
what Peter's addressing. Now, you remember, while you're
getting set there in Ezekiel 16, you remember how the Lord
sent Isaiah to address Judah in Isaiah? He said, Hear the
word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom. That's what he called
them. The priests and the teachers and the leaders in Jerusalem,
in Judah, he called them Sodom. Give ear unto the law of our
God, ye people of Gomorrah. That's what he called them. What purpose is the multitude
of your sacrifices unto me? He said. Making many sacrifices. He said don't bring any more
vanity to me, your vain oblations. He said it's iniquity, the solid
meeting. He said when you spread forth your hands, I'll hide mine
eyes from you. When you make many prayers, I
won't hear you. Your hands are full of blood. Now look here
at Ezekiel 16.1. Again, the word of the Lord came
unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. Now who is he talking to? Jerusalem.
Cause Jerusalem to know her abominations. Now turn around and look at verse
48. This is a, this is a, to a believer,
this is a comfort because it's warning and it's comforting at
the same time. We need this. Every script, every
book of the Bible deals with it beginning to end because as
long as Satan's in the world, Peter said, you need to give
all diligence to be sharp because these things are coming. These
things are coming. Now look who he's talking to,
verse 48. He says, As I live, saith the
Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters,
as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Now he's talking to
Jerusalem, he's talking to his people in Judah. He said, she
hasn't done nearly as bad as what you've done. And he says,
behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. And he said,
now this was her iniquity. And he said, now your iniquity
is worse than hers. This was her iniquity. First
of all, he said, pride. That's the mother of contempt
of God and of all cruelty is pride. Pride is the tyrant sin
that rules and reigns in the natural heart of a man. God hates
it. It's the very stuff of Satan's
religion. It's what caused him to be cast
out of heaven in the first place. It makes men forget their own
wretched, helpless inability. It makes sinners take to themselves
not only more than what's right, calling themselves dignified
and excellent, it makes them to make themselves equal with
God and to expect that by their own deeds and that they deserve
the merit of God and the favor of God. They take the very glory
of God. That's what free will works religion
is. That's exactly what it's doing.
It's not just a little bit off the mark. It's a damning heresy. Verse eight, It makes a sinner
unable to acknowledge his own sin. He sees a lot of faults
in others, but not in his own heart. It doesn't humble him
because it promotes pride. That's what it does. It teaches
you to uncover sin. It teaches you to try to exalt
yourself over others. That's Satan's gospel. That's
what he's been trying to do from the beginning. And it was the
sin of the angels, it was the sin of Adam and Eve, it's the
sin of the old world, it's the sin which condemned the Sodomites.
But the Lord says of those false teachers and their followers
and those idolatrous works in Jerusalem, right there in Judah,
He said their sin was far worse than Sodom's. You know why it
was? They were taking the true and living God and His Word and
the things He had given them, and they were doing these things
in His name. That made it worse inside them. They weren't even
pretending to believe God. Alright, here's the next thing
He says in verse 49, fullness of bread. The land of Sodom was very fruitful.
It was like the garden of the Lord, full of provision, full
of plenty. The sin was that they took the
things that God had given them and they lived for themselves
in luxury and in temperance, eating and drinking to excess.
Do you remember what Peter said there in 2 Peter 1? He said,
if you're not given diligence to hear this gospel, take heed
to this word that's shining as a light. He says, He said, if
you are, you'll grow in grace and you'll grow in temperance. But when you're not hearing the
truth, you grow in intemperance. That's what they did. You see,
Christ is our bread, and God keeps His regenerated children
humbled under His mighty hand, feeding upon this blessed gospel
of our Redeemer, eating this bread, growing us thereby by
the sincere milk of this Word, and He makes our dependence to
be wholly upon Him. And we receive from Him all our
fullness. We have of His fullness received
grace for grace, and we keep receiving fullness from Him. That's what Peter's exhorting
us to do. Follow Him. Give all diligence to hear Him,
to hear a word from His mouth, from the mouth of God Almighty.
But the naturally religious man will take the Word of God and
the things that God has given that are the very sustenance
to the believer, and he'll take those things and he'll abuse
them in the name of worshiping God and building great churches
for God. He'll abuse those things. That's
what they were doing in Jerusalem. Let me give you an example. Earlier
in the chapter here, and I'd encourage you to go back and
read this chapter sometime at your convenience. It's a very
horrible description of Judah. A horrible description of him.
Compares him to a harlot, to an adulterous woman, to a prostitute.
And he's talking about their religion. He gave them gold and
silver to use for the furtherance of His name, for the work of
ministering. And He adorned them, He said,
from head to toe. A picture of what God does for a believer.
The privileges and the bounty of the Word and the worship of
God. And He said, My comeliness that I put upon you. But you
know what they did? He said, But you trusted in your
own beauty and played the harlot. Instead of looking at him who
gave the things, he said, you looked at yourself and said,
yeah, I do look good. And you played the harlot. You
left me, he said. They took the silver and the
gold and they set up an idol. And you know what they made it
look like? A man. A man. That's the idol of false
religion is a man. It's a man. They loathe the bread
from heaven. They take the things of God and
use them to fuel man's pride, to entice and please men, just
like a harlot does, to worship the creature more than the Creator,
teaching men to indulge and feast on the fatness and fullness of
the works of their own hands in the name of Christ. And you
know what it creates? It creates this next thing. Verse
49, abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters.
Verse 49, It means abundance of peace. Remember Peter said
there in the first chapter, he said, if you do these things,
you'll never be idle. You won't grow in idleness of
peace. idleness of abundance of idleness. The problem in Sodom and the
problem in Jerusalem and the problem if you and I begin to
find contentment in what God has given us rather than in God,
in Christ himself. This is what will happen. We'll
wax fat and say we have abundance and we have all peace and we
just grow idle. Just grow completely idle. We'll
be in a firehouse for another five years. That's where we'll
be. Remember the church that led to Sia? You know why they
grew lukewarm? Revelation 3.17. He said, Thou
sayest I'm rich, and I'm increased with goods, and I have need of
nothing. That's what the believer is. His people are rich. We are
increased with goods. We do have need of nothing. But
when we start looking at the cuddliness that God's given to
us, we start looking at the riches He's given to us, and the goods
He's given to us, and think we have need of nothing because
of those things, we forget, you know not, you forget that you,
of yourself, without God's grace and His abundance, He says, we
forget that you're wretched, and you're miserable, and you're
poor, and you're blind, and you're naked. That's what we are in
ourselves. without Him continually giving
us this grace and keeping us. And if we're not walking diligently
with Him and hearing this Word preached to us consistently,
you know what happens? We'll grow idle and think, I
know God. I can go up to the top of the
temple and jump off. God will keep me because I'm
His child. And we'll presume upon the promises of God, forgetting
that you've forgotten, Peter said, you can't see afar off
and you've forgotten. what Christ has done, and what
He must continue to do, and that He's the one you must have. That's
why He says, so give all diligence. Listen to what the Lord answers.
He said, in Revelation 3.18, He said, I counsel you to buy
of Me. Come to Me and buy. And He uses
the word buy because, I'll show you in a minute, but He says,
come and buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou may be
rich. and white raiment, that you may be clothed, that the
shame of your nakedness does not appear. Anoint thine eyes
with eye salve, that you may see. He said, as many as I love,
I rebuke and I chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent.
Turn from looking at the riches, and turn from looking at the
goods, and turn from looking at what I've given to you. And
he says, repent and look back to me, and come to me. And he
said, I'll give you gold fried in the fire. He's the faithful
one. The riches of God's grace, the
fullness of bread in Christ. It creates idleness when we become
zealous for the beauty that God has bestowed rather than the
beauty and riches in Christ our Redeemer. We've got to go to
Him for these things. I'm thankful for this building.
I'm thankful for what the Lord's done here. But it doesn't make
me want to sit in this building. five more years or another year.
I don't want to sit here. We have children to teach. We
have visitors that come. I don't want to give any man
an excuse not to come and hear the gospel. Not to say, well,
I came there and it was just a bunch of noise. I came there
and I had to climb those stairs. I came there and it wasn't a
convenient place or a nice place I could concentrate and worship.
Men are going to use excuses not to come. I don't want to
give them some. You know? I know of missionaries, I know
churches living in places far worse off than we are, and you
know what they prove by their faith in Christ? They prove that
when you're hungry and when you really are trusting the righteousness
of Christ and all the abundance that He gives, Him Himself, that
you can do a lot with absolutely nothing. A lot with absolutely
nothing. Do we need faith? The Lord says,
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire. Come to me,
that you may be rich. I've said this to you time and
again, Christ is the tried gold that makes us rich in faith,
which is more precious than gold that perishes. If we wait till
we get enough of the gold that perishes, we won't ever have
enough of the gold that perishes. We'll constantly be going, well,
We'll be saying, really, I'm rich and don't have need of anything,
when in truth we're poor. But if we have that faith that
he gives, which is that gold that's more precious than silver
and gold, it's more precious, it's tried, it's proven, it's
faith that he gives that can't be turned away, if we have that,
We can move mountains. We can move mountains for that
because we trust in him who's doing the mountain moving and
not ourselves, not our riches and our saviors and all those
witnesses that will be witnesses against us when they're rusted
and cankered in that day and say, I told you about the $460
million man. A man like that, if he dies and
meets God in glory without a redeemer, he's got 460 million witnesses
against him. Christ is our righteousness.
He covers our nakedness. And He's that eye salve. That's
what Peter said. If you do these things, you give
diligence to follow Him. He said, He that doesn't is blind
and can't see. Where are we going to get the
ointment? Where are we going to get the eye salve that gives us the sight?
Christ. Christ. We don't look to the
ointment. We look to Christ who gives it.
He's the balm. He said, I counsel thee to come
to me. Alright, let's go back to Ezekiel 16. Let me show you
the next thing, verse 49. He said, neither did she strengthen
the hand of the poor and the needy. This is what Sodom did
as well. She didn't strengthen the hand
of the poor and needy. The poor and needy are those that are
without. Without God, without hope in the world. That's poor
and needy. And it's a needy sinner. He's
bankrupt. He has need of the righteousness
of Christ. He has need of the strength of
Christ. That's one that's poor and needy. The truth and the
gospel is the message whereby the poor and needy are enriched
and they're clothed and they're provided for by the righteousness
of God revealed in the person and work of Christ. That's what
Christ just said in Revelation 3. Come to me and buy gold dried
in the fire. Come to me that you might have
white raiment that covers your nakedness, an eye salve that
anoints your eyes and gives you sight." This is where it's found.
That's why Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. The long and short of it is false
prophets are ashamed of Christ and they're ashamed of the gospel.
Paul said, I'm not, because it's the power of God unto salvation. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. You take the righteousness
of God out of the Gospel. You take that righteousness which
is manifest by the faithfulness of Christ Jesus the Lord coming
to where we are and living and going to the cross as that perfect
substitute and being made sin for His people that God might
be just to pour out wrath upon Him in the place of His people.
That God might be just in showing mercy to all for whom Christ
died. and declare that God is just
in doing so, and He is the justifier thereby, so that justice and
mercy have kissed one another in perfect peace, so that His
people are freely justified by God Almighty. In Christ Jesus,
the propitiation whom God has set forth, that His people will
be brought by the Spirit of God through this gospel to believe
upon Him. But you take that out of the
gospel, You take it out of the gospel and you make it to be
that it's by a man's work that he makes Christ's blood to have
accomplished something. You take it that it's man's will
that makes, allows Christ to do something for him. That God's
done everything and he wants to do some more, he'd love to
do some more if his God would just let him, if a man would
just come down and let him do something. And that's what this
message, it makes man a God. and not God-God. And you take
that, you take the truth of the message out, and you've got no
message. You've got no power of God unto
salvation. You've got nothing to be accompanied
by the Holy Spirit wherein He'll give life and peace and create
a man anew. This has to be... Look, whenever
this message is not preached, whenever you don't see the mercy
and truth meet together, whenever you don't hear that God is not
depending on you to save, God's doing the saving, He's God, He's
the Savior. When you don't hear clearly set
forth to men that He's the one that's going to regenerate. He's
the one that's going to draw. He's the one that's going to
bring His people in and wash them by His Spirit and wash them
in His blood and make them new and make them rest in Christ
and keep them in Him. Where this message is not, sinners
are not being fed. They're not being clothed. You
may be like a Pharisee. They would compass land and sea.
They'd be happy to put a coat on your back. But Paul said,
I bear them record. They have a zeal of God, but
it's not according to knowledge. Because all that that they're
doing in the name of God, just like Judah and Jerusalem was,
it's sodomy. They're going about trying to
establish their own righteousness by those things. Just wait and
see. You that are saved and have eternal
life will stand with Christ in glory, and you will know it's
true. You will hear men argue with God in the day of judgment
that every work they did in religion they were doing to try to find
acceptance with Him. You wait and see. We will see
that, brethren. We will hear men say, I did many
wonderful works. Didn't I do many wonderful works?"
And they'll argue with God. Even when they're in hell, He
said, they'll argue with Him and say, raise somebody from
the dead and send back there. They'll believe then. And the
Lord said, if they won't believe this gospel, they won't believe
if a man raised from the dead. Well, here's the next thing they
did. And you know, this is true, I
can't pass without saying this too. Not only are the poor and
needy not clothed, not only are sinners not given the robe of
Christ's righteousness and given the bread from heaven, not only
are the poor and needy not provided for when the gospel is not preached,
you know what false teachers do, what false churches do? They
oppress the poor and needy. They try to press out of them. They try to make them go through
this little thing, and so now they're saved. Oh, Christ, you're
saved. And they go all their life trying to remember, what
did that preacher tell me in the back room? And that's their hope.
He told me I was saved. And I'm hanging on to that now.
I'm going to hang on to that from here on. And they'll hold
on to that and go through this whole life denying the truth
of God because they're holding on to a lie a man said rather
than hearing the truth God says. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Hear the truth God declared.
And then as soon as they get you saved, then they turn around
and they take you back and they give you all these things now
you have to do. And all these things, and it's
righteousness that they try to squeeze out of you that you can't
bring forth. And holiness they try to press
out of you that you can't bring forth. Not only do they not clothe
you and feed you with the truth of the Gospel, oppress something
out of you that you can't provide any more than a poor, needy man
can provide money or bread or clothes to put on his own back.
Have you ever noticed how everything in religion costs money? Paul
said they will make merchandise of you. The Lord Jesus Christ
said that you have turned my house into a den of thieves.
Conferences cost money. Their books cost money. If you
want to go to a seminar, it costs money. Everything costs money
in Satan's religion. Everything costs money in Satan's
religion. This is what Christ said, Ho,
everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that
hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Come ye, buy wine and milk
without money and without price. That's why he said, I counsel
you to come and buy of me gold, trident, and fire. He's using
that word buy because with him, It don't cost anything. It's
free. It's the very opposite of what
Satan and his religion tries to squeeze out of you. He said,
I raised him up in righteousness. He's going to direct. He's going
to build my city. He's going to let go of my captives.
And he's not going to do it for price or reward. You can't give
him anything to make him redeem you. You can't give God anything
to make him save you. He's going to do the saving.
he's gonna do it. And he's not only the savior
and the cloth and the need and the provision for a poor needy
sinner, he's a refuge in the time of that oppression. Are
you being oppressed? Are you being oppressed by religion? You know how you are? You know
how when you're oppressed with religion, you got no peace at
all. And you can't find any. And no
matter what you try to do, you can't find any. He is a refuge
for the oppressed. He said in Psalm 9, not only
am I the judgment of my people and the just one who's justified
my people, he said, I am also a refuge for the oppressed in
all your times of trouble. He said, run to the Lord, run
to him. Look at verse 16, Ezekiel 16,
50. Here was the other thing, and
they were haughty. They were haughty. This was so
in Sodom, but he said it's worse in Judah. They were haughty.
They lifted up themselves above God and above man. They were
swelled up with plenty, with prosperity, and they looked down
upon their fellow citizens that were right there amongst them,
and they looked down on anybody that was a stranger. And that
was so of Sodom. But God said it's far worse for
the idolatrous religion. The Lord Jesus said, that those
who rejected John the Baptist and rejected himself, that they
were wise and prudent. You know, haughty men, they don't
like to listen to a hick like John the Baptist. He's a hick
to them. They're in the ivory temples
of Jerusalem. They don't have anything to do
with a hick like John the Baptist or the Master. You know what
the Master said? He said, Thou Capernaum which
are exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell. For
if the mighty works which had been done in you had been done
in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day. But I say unto
you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the
day of judgment than for thee." And at that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent. They can't
know them. They can't know them. Haughty.
They can't know them. and you've revealed them unto
babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."
You know what the next thing they did? Look at verse 50. And
they committed abomination. And you know what this is? It's
what we think of when we think of Sodom. It's sodomy. That lewd, wretched sin of sodomy. Paul said those who are circumcised,
they don't really keep the law. They just constrain others to
do it so they can glow in your flesh. That's sodomy. That's
sodomy. That's what it is. And God said
it's worse than the sodomy in Sodom. Why does he compare the
sin of works religion to sodomy performed in Sodom so often?
That's what he's doing right here in this verse. Why does
he do that so often? Well, both of them were committed openly
and publicly. without any shame whatsoever.
Those in Sodom and those in Judah. The one in the temple in their
religion, the other one out in their immorality and lewdness.
Likeness is comparable because they're both committed with no
fear of God, no reverence for God. Both sodomy and works religion
change the nature and order that God ordained to glorify Christ,
the husband of his bride, who is the only one who produces
children through the incorruptible seed of his gospel. And neither
sodomy or works religion ever, ever, has ever produced a child.
Never. Not one. Never. Find me one in
this book. Find me one in this book produced
by a false gospel. You ain't going to produce any
children engaging in sodomy. It's just not going to happen. 1 Thessalonians 4.3, Paul said,
This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you
should abstain from fornication. that no man go beyond and defraud
his brother in any matter, in any matter, because that the
Lord is the avenger of all such as we also have forewarned you
and testified." That's exactly what Peter's saying. That's exactly
what the Lord's saying right here in Ezekiel. If we've been
sanctified, don't go anymore unto that harlot. Don't go to
her anymore. You go back, read Ezekiel 16,
you'll see that she's compared to a harlot, fornication, a harlot,
adulterous woman. Don't use false deception to
defraud Christ our brother, to attempt to entice his bride,
his sons, his daughters into your bed of ill repute. The Lord's
the avenger of all such. That's what Peter's telling us.
That many will follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way
of truth shall be evil spoken of, and they'll, through covetousness,
make merchandise of you, and their judgment now of a long
time lingers not, their damnation slumbers not. What happened in
verse 50? The Lord said, Therefore I took
them away as I saw good. Now look down at verse 52. He
says, Thou also, which has judged thy sisters, Those in Judah,
they said, oh, we wouldn't dare do the things that those out,
open, lewd sinners in Sodom do. We wouldn't do anything like
them. Oh, what a wretched bunch of evil sinners they are. He
said, you bear thine own shame, for thy sins that thou hast committed
are more abominable than they. They're more righteous than you.
Yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou
hast justified thy sisters." By doing this in my name and
in religion, God said, you've not only done something worse,
you've justified that outward lewd immorality that they engaged
in in Sodom. Because you've done the same
thing spiritually in the name of religion. That's what He told
them. That's hard language, isn't it? That's hard work. That's
Peter's warning to us. Let's go back now to 2nd Peter,
I told you I was going to run long, that's why I was trying
to get started right on time. 2nd Peter 2.7. Peter's telling us here, he said,
this is different for a man that's never heard the truth. But anybody
that's heard the truth, heard the gospel, and turned from Christ
for the religion that makes the blood of Christ an unholy thing,
and that's what false religion does. They do it by their works,
the doctrine of universal atonement. That's Satan's gospel. God don't
save by that. He just don't save by it. They
constrain poor sinners with the law of Moses. It's worse than
sodomy. The Lord told his disciples this.
Whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you, when you depart
then shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against
them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.
Now, look here, and this is where we have some comfort, though.
2 Peter 2.7, the Lord knows how to deliver his children out.
You see, we sometimes do what Lot did, and we start looking
at Sodom. He delivered just Lot, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked. For that righteous
man, dwelling among them and seeing and hearing, vexed his
righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds. What
was Lot doing down there in the first place? Why was he there?
There wasn't any gospel there. The gospel was with Abraham.
Well, he had gotten rich in Egypt, and that plain of Jordan looked
just like Egypt did. Pride of life. Lust to the eye. Scripture says, light lifted
up his eyes on Sodom. Look down there. Lust to the
flesh. It appeared well watered and
prosperous and fat. Peter said, they make merchandise
of you. So the groves of false religion are always going to
appear well watered and fat. They don't look like that to
the natural eye. Do you hear this? I'm not trying to offend
you. If I didn't care for your soul,
I wouldn't be telling you this. If I didn't care for your soul,
I wouldn't be warning you this. This is not me just trying to
be contentious with you. This is me telling you the truth
of God's word right here. I don't want to, I don't want
to stand with Christ in the day of judgment and him say, did
you tell him this? And say, yes, I did. Lot didn't do anything at first,
but just pitch his tent in that direction. He just started looking
at it. But that's where he ended up.
But Lot's a just man. Lot found out. He knew. He knew
he had made an error in judgment by going down to Sodom. It says
there in verse 8, for that righteous man dwelling among them and seeing
and hearing, he vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their
unlawful deeds. He sat at the gate down there.
That's where he was when the messengers came. He was sitting
there because when people would come in, he would try to take
them to his house to spare them having to go into Sodom. He knew
it was a lewd place. He knew it was a horrible place.
Whenever he spoke against the men of Sodom when the messengers
came, they turned against him. They said, you're just a sojourner
here with us. Now you're going to try to make
yourself a judge? That's what they always say.
Don't judge now. You better judge, and you better
judge righteous judgment too, God said. Better. You do it every
day. You judge between one bank and
another. You judge between whether this is safe or that's safe.
Better judge. Judge righteous judgment. And
they pressed Lot very sore and they came near to break the door
down. They're always oppressive. But Lot was justified. He was
justified in Christ. He was righteous in Christ. And
the Lord told Abraham, because there's one man down there that's
righteous, I'm bringing him out before I destroy that city. I'm
bringing him out. And he did that. He brought Noah
out. Brought him out in an ark. He
brought Abraham out of Ur of Cadi. He brought Lot out of Sodom. He brought many of his elect
out of Jerusalem. He brought Saul of Tarsus to
Apostle Paul. He brought him out. He didn't
leave him there. He brought him out. He brought
him out. Except the Lord of Hosts had
left us a very small remnant. We'd be like Sodom and we'd be
like Gomorrah. I tell you this all the time, and my fear is
what Paul said, I fear less by any means as the serpent Magali
through his subtlety. So your mind should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. Now, Peter's warning
us here from the very beginning. He's saying, I want you to grow
in grace and peace. I want it to be multiplied to
you. And it's going to be done by the power of God. It's going
to be done through this Gospel. Take heed to it, he said. Give
all diligence. It'll keep your foot from slipping.
It'll keep you from being deceived by false prophets. It'll keep
you from turning away from the way, the truth, and the life,
he's saying. And it'll be done by the power and grace of God. I said this to you the other
night. I'll say it again. They're going to make merchandise
of you. If you've got your eye pitched towards Sodom, anybody,
I'd say this to anybody, in entertaining the idea of joining in with this
world's ungodly, satanic religion. I can't speak bad enough about
it. If you're thinking about becoming
a Sodomite, let me tell you this. Before you go, Before you go,
come here consistently and hear this gospel preached.
Don't give a dime. Don't do a thing. When you leave,
you won't anyway. So don't now. Come, though. Come and hear. Give all diligence
and come and hear this word. I don't want your money. We can
do without it. God's provided. We can do without
it. But come here, because if God's going to settle the heart,
if God's going to unite the heart with Christ and with brethren,
you're going to do it. You're going to hear it through
the gospel. Be hard-hearted. Be obstinate. Say, no, I don't
have to hear the gospel. That's what Satan tried to get
Christ to do when he took him up to the pinnacle of the temple.
And he said, you're a child of God. You've got the promises
of God that he'll keep you. You've been carried to the heights.
You've heard the word of promise. You've been enlightened by the
gospel. You've professed to believe. You've got the truth now. And
you know the system of doctrine and truth. Just jump off. You
don't have to hear this gospel. And the Lord said, I'm not going
to presume upon the promises of God. I'm going to live upon
every word of God. I'm going to go the way He said
go. The Word, Christ Himself the
Word, He's the revealer of what the original intention of our
hearts is. Through this gospel, we'll either
be united and rejoice and delight and be settled and learn what
it is to be in a true church family. Learn what it is to be,
to really delight, to call up your brother and your sister
and say, let's have dinner together. and really delight to wherever
the church is gathered, to gather with them, and really delight
to do things together, and find out what it's like to be a part
of a real church family, and you'll have a very bad distaste
for corporate religion. You just will. You just will. Or, if the real intentions of
the heart is enmity against God, this Word will reveal that too.
It'll reveal that too. But this is all my hope right
here, that last verse, verse 9. The Lord knows how to deliver
the godly out of temptations. You know what He'll do? You know
what He did for Lot? He sent some angels down there. He sent some messengers to them.
I wonder if the Lord might have done that for you today. I reckon today was the day when
the Lord came right to you and stood in front of you and said
to you personally, don't go to Sodom. Come out of there. Don't look back at it. Don't
come out of it. You're mine. You're righteous.
I've justified you, all your hopes in me. Come out of it.
Will you be like Lot's wife? Come out in body, but really
in heart say, I want to really be there. and look back at it
and die. The Lord knows how to deliver
the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust until
the day of judgment to be punished. Amen.