FRIDAY 6th
2 Peter 2:4-22
V4 ‘For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment . . .’
Verses 4-22 in this second chapter are a long section which I will need to attempt to break down into smaller morsels for us to consider. Firstly we see that they are a warning to us today as we see in verse 4 that if God did not spare angels who sinned but cast them into hell, then we must learn from this that he will not spare sinners, nor anyone who wilfully commits sin or in the context of the previous verses, false prophets and false teachers who have spoken false words. This is solemn and serious! Those who teach false words, that is those who distort the Word of God, the doctrines of the Christian faith and the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ will not be spared, they will face the same judgment as sinners, the same as that of the angels who sinned.
Secondly they are a warning that God will not excuse any sinner on the day of judgment. Sin which is transgression against God must be judged and punished, and the punishment for sinners is as we have seen, the same place as for the angels who transgressed, Hell. Hell is real, Hell is an horrific place, and the only way that we can escape Hell is by coming through faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid the ultimate price for our sin by laying his life down on our behalf at Calvary, in the words of the well-known hymn, ‘He took my sins and my sorrows, he made them his very own, he bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone’.
In Galatians 2:20 we have these wonderful words, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’.
As we come to Jesus and accept him, he grants us forgiveness of sin, the transgression that stood between us and God is removed and our future is changed from that as a sinner bound for Hell, to a child of God who is bound for Heaven.
Don’t be enticed by false words, but be encouraged by the truthfulness of the Word of God, to everyone who reads or may listen to this devotion I say to you, God loves you, he gave himself for you, so that you will not have to go to the place that has been reserved for the angels who transgressed and reserved for the false prophets and false teachers and reserved for all who fail to believe and to place their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. God loves you, come to him and accept his great offer of salvation.