II Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished
Yesterday, I was taking my ten-mile run—well, actually it was my four-lap walk with my wife—when for the second time in probably four days, I passed a neighbor’s house and there was this amazing aroma wafting from the grill on my neighbor’s carport. I thought that was really cruel for him to do that. While I was bettering myself, he was tempting me to eat three or four hamburgers on my way around. Now, suppose I had gone over there and saw who was there. I would have seen my neighbor and maybe there would have been a couple other neighbors there. That would not be surprising. That would be what you would expect to find. These are neighbors in the same neighborhood who work with the same ministry, Bill Rice Ranch. It would be expected to see them together.
Suppose I had gone over there and I had not only seen my neighbor, but I had seen Elon Musk. My neighbor is talking about summer camp or something and Elon Musk is talking about missions to Mars. You just wouldn’t expect to find those two people in the same neighborhood let alone at the same grill. Now, sometimes in the Bible you find a couple characters together and you think, “What are these doing together? Is this a comparison or a contrast?” You would not expect to find these two together. You find such in II Peter 2.
The context is verse 1, which says, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you.” So, there have been false teachers, and there will be false teachers. Are we to panic? No, God is up to this. That is the point being made. An if/then proposition begins in verse 4 and ends in verse 9, which says, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned…and spared not the old world, but saved Noah…and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorra into ashes…and delivered just Lot….[then] the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” The point is, there will always be false teachers just as there have been, and God will judge the wicked and will deliver the righteous just as He always has.
Two examples here are Noah and Lot. God spared not the old world, that is, God sent a flood, but He saved Noah. The Bible says that He destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he delivered “just Lot” who was “vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” Now, quite frankly, you would not even know that Lot was a “righteous” man if you stopped reading halfway through the Bible. You have to get all the way to II Peter to find God’s commentary, what God actually knew, that Lot was a just man before God.
So, if you know about Noah and Lot, would you consider them two characters that should be compared or contrasted? If they were in your church, you might wonder, “What are they doing here together?” This is as unlikely as my neighbor and Elon Musk being at the same house and eating the same hamburgers. So, why would you have Noah and Lot together in comparison when they are so different?
What do they have in common? Their commonalities are things that you wouldn’t really think of. The Bible says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. The Bible says that Lot was “just Lot.” The Bible says that God delivered Abraham and God delivered Lot. The Bible tells us the story of Noah, who lived in a wicked world, and Lot, who lived in a wicked city. So, those are the things they had in common, but what you think about is how they were different.
How were they different? Well, the clue is found in verse 5 where it says that Noah was the eighth person. Who were the eight? That would be Mr. and Mrs. Noah, their three sons, and their son’s three wives. You might remember that in contrast, Abraham was pleading for God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot lived, but God could not even find ten people who were righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah and that included Lot and all of his family. They weren’t doing what was right. You might recall that when Lot went and warned his daughter about the destruction to come, the Bible says that the son-in-law thought that Lot mocked. It wasn’t that he mocked Lot. He thought that Lot was mocking them because it was so out of character for Lot. Lot was not a spiritual man who talked of God. So, for him to come and say, “God’s judgment is falling” was totally out of character.
In short, Noah didn’t save the world, but he saved his family. Lot didn’t save the city, but he didn’t even save his own family. That is stark and worthy of note. Sometimes we think that the problem with Lot is that he was in Sodom. I’m not saying that ended well, but are we suggesting that Abraham lived in a wholesome, healthy, Christian world? No, the problem was not primarily that Lot lived in Sodom. The problem primarily was that Sodom lived in Lot. Lot was saved because of what God knew, but Lot’s family was lost because of what they knew. I can’t change the world I leave to my kids, but I can change the kids I leave my world and in doing that I might actually change my world as well.
The reason you know about this today is because Noah saved his family and we are the descendants of Noah. In short, Noah changed the world by doing what was right by his family. Noah was not perfect, but the point is start with the people you know.
Do you want to win the world? Win your family. Do you want to help the world? Help your family. Do you want to make a difference in the world? Then start with the family God has given you. There are a lot of things we cannot change, but we should focus on the people close at hand. It should not end there, but we should begin by being the right kind of example and influence for our neighbors, coworkers, and certainly our families. Start with the people you know. Lot was delivered, but he was the only one who was delivered. Noah was delivered. He didn’t deliver the entire world, but he delivered his family and in delivering his family, he changed the world.