For if God did not
spare the angels who sinned,
but cast them down to
hell and delivered them
into chains of
darkness, to be reserved for judgment:
and did not spare the
ancient world, but saved Noah,
one of eight people,
a preacher of righteousness,
bringing the cites of
Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
condemned them to
destruction, making them
an example to those
who afterward would live ungodly;
and delivered
righteous Lot who was oppressed by
filthy conduct of the
wicked (for that righteous man,
dwelling among them,
tormented his righteous soul
from day to day by
seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)–
then the Lord knows
how to deliver the godly out of temptations,
and to reserved the
unjust under punishment for the day of judgment,
2Peter 2:4–9
Yes,
our God is patient! Yes, our God is merciful! Yes, our God is loving! And yes,
our God is Just and His justice will be met. We cannot simply set aside His
judgment against sin, and sinners. Are you converted to Jesus Christ? Have you
not sinned? Are you sorry for being caught in your sin, or are you heartfelt
for your wrongdoing to God who is Holy? God did not spare the angels who sinned
(Jude 6), and He will not spare sinners and will chastise His children when
they sin. God does not chastise because He is angry, rather He chastised for
two reasons: 1. He is Holy and will not allow sin to remain. 2. He loves His
children and by means of His chastisement He brings us into conformity to Him
and we are formed into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ: “And you have
forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not
despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by
Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He
receives’” (Hebrews 12:5–6). Do we not chasten our own children? At least I
hope we do for if we do we do so to train them and raise them up to be good
citizens and to become followers of Jesus Christ. Not that they can do anything
to earn that position with the Son, rather that they live according to what God
has commanded and if they are of the elect they will live as a witness for
their God and not to be so tormented by this world to succumb to worldly
desires. Who is the elect? I don’t know! God knows His Children, those whom He
elected, but we can see in a person’s life whether or not they are truly
converted, or are they just hoping to be saved so they can avoid the final
destruction. Are you one who believes with their whole heart and mind and soul
that they will live forever with God. If so, then why, why, worry about this
world; it is temporary. We are here to
be a witness to the world and to bring to God those who have His faith so that
their faith will be activated and their lives be a witness to the Glory of this
world. Not just for a blessing as some go around to preach and teach, rather
that they have fallen in love, so in love with God that this world has little
meaning for them: they live as what they are: children of God. Our God know how
to deliver a person out of temptation; He has done so by His word that gives to
us His will for our lives. We don’t need, as some teach, a small still voice
speaking to us as though we need other things than what He has given to us in
Scripture. No, we need Scripture imbedded in our minds so that when we are
confronted with this world and it desires, that the Holy Spirit speaks and
teaches us Scripture. But if we have not put Scripture into our minds, if we
sit aside and believe that God will talk to us even though we have not taken
time to pray to Him or to read His word, is this not stupid? Is this not silly?
How can we think that God who has not spared even the angels that sinned and
has placed them into Tartarus, a place of incarceration, to be left there until
the final judgment, would He not chastise us and this by our own devises. By
the way, our Bibles translate the Greek word Tartaroo as hell, and it is hell,
but not the hell we have come to associate with the word hell. It is a place of
dark incarceration, a holding place that will in the end be tossed into
Gehenna. Peter could have used the word, Hades, or Gehenna, here in this verse
but he did not, for it is not Hades, or Gehenna, that they are in, it is a
place so designed by God that they are reserved alive, no relief, no escape, no
forgiveness, and there they remain until Jesus Christ returns. God is just, and
God will not attend favorably to those who sin and while He condemned forever
those angels that sinned, He will chastise His children, and the world that is
not of Him, will be condemned.
The
blessing of God come to us when we adhere and follow in our daily lives His
commands. Allow Peter to say what I would life to say: “Beloved, I know
write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by
way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before
by the holy prophets, and of he commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and
Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last day, walking
according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continue as they were from
the beginning of creation.’ “For this they willfully forget: that by the word
of God the heavens wee of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the
water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.
But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are
preserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men”
(2Peter 3:1–7.
Don’t test
our God! He is Just! He is Holy! He is Patient! But as before, His patience
does not mean permission and He will act according, and He has given us His
word that He is coming to finally put an eternal end to all wickedness. Praise
God!
Hell and Destruction are
Before the
LORD;
So how much more the hearts
Of the sons
of men.
Proverbs 15:11
Live For Him: You Will Be Blessed
Richard L. Crumb
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