Grow In Understanding

And uh and then next week we're gonna find some discernment there in the end of the chapter.

But this idea of growing in understanding, I liken to my childhood thoughts of my school teachers.

You know how when we are young, we are very simplistic in our thinking.

We think that the world is one way.

And then as we get older, we discover that it's more complex.

And uh it wasn't that the world changed, it was that my understanding grew.

Well, when I was little, I didn't think that teachers had any life outside of school.

Now, I didn't think that they lived at the school, but I didn't think they did any fun things outside of the school.

You know what I mean?

I thought they were like teacher mode all the time.

And I remember running into a teacher outside of school in some setting that I didn't expect them to be in.

And it was mind-blowing to me as a little kid.

Oh, okay, I understand a little bit more.

There are more than one dimension to this person I know as Mrs.

So-and-so.

And in this text of scripture, what I find is that Peter wants us to understand that there's more than one dimension to God.

He is not just the God who saves, he is also the God who damns.

That's a tough one, but I believe that Peter explains it to us in this text.

And so, beginning chapter 2, verse number four, it says, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment, and spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly, and delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, for that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds.

Here's the proposition in verse nine.

The Lord knows how to deliver the un the how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

Let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would help us as we wrestle with this concept that may be antithetical to our understanding of you.

But Lord, may we see that not only are you the God of greatest mercy and grace, who went to the furthest extent to save us, that you are also the God who is wholly, righteous, and just and must execute justice and the punishment that comes with it.

And so, God, I pray that you'd help us to grow in our understanding from our study of your word today.

In Jesus' name, amen.

In the previous verses, the Apostle Peter warned us to be aware of false teachers and who propagate damnable heresies.

Now, a heresy, to remind you, is a teaching that goes against the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And that's what makes it damnable, is that it undermines the gospel.

It's different than an error.

You can be in error about certain things, and it has no eternal consequence.

For example, a person can be in error about the mode of baptism.

And if you don't know this, Baptists are famously known for being immersers.

That's why we have a baptistry that holds hundreds of gallons of water in the church.

That's in fact how we got our name Baptist.

It was a label that was slapped on us because we were baptizing people by immersion after they got saved.

But if you go to a variety of churches, you'll find not everybody has a baptistry, and not everybody baptizes by immersion.

Some of them sprinkle a little water on them, and some of them pour a little water on them.

Hey, listen, you can be wrong about the mode of baptism.

And yes, I believe we're doing it right, so they're wrong.

And it doesn't affect your eternal soul.

That's an error.

You can be in error about the continuation of sign gifts.

Baptists are not Pentecostal, not charismatic.

We don't believe that those certain sign gifts continue on to this day.

You can believe differently about that, and uh it doesn't risk the eternal security of your soul.

In fact, you you can be wrong about eternal security.

You you can you can say, well, I don't know if once saved, always saved, right?

Another famous thing Baptists are known for.

We call it eternal security, that when Jesus saves you, he saves you all the way, permanently, he gives you everlasting life.

But you could believe that you could lose your salvation, and it still doesn't jeopardize anything eternally, because those don't hit at the heart of the gospel.

But if you get the gospel wrong, it has eternal consequences because there is only one way to God, and that is by believing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So a heresy is something that undermines the gospel, and it is damnable because if you get the gospel wrong, then you bring upon yourself the damnation of God's eternal judgment.

If you're trying to wrestle with that, I would say to you, it is like the difference between drinking stagnant water, which can make you sick, and drinking poison, which will certainly kill you.

Or there's some similarities.

Sure, they're both liquids.

You both ingest them, they both have repercussions to them.

But one of them is life-threatening and the other one is just life-damaging.

And that's how we need to look at heresy.

Error, right?

It'll do some damage to you, but heresy will kill you.

And this is why Peter went heavy on the damnation language in verses 1 through 3.

Do you remember he used that repeated word that was translated as damnable and destruction and pernicious and damnation?

Now, mind you, that would have been as shocking to his audience that received this letter at that time as it was to us.

Like, whoa, Peter, you're really throwing it down.

Damnable, destruction, damnation, pernicious?

I mean, you are really packing in the damnation language, which leads us to ask this question: would God really condemn a soul to eternity in hell?

It's a big one.

And it's one that a lot of people have.

It's a hang-up that a lot of people have that say, I just cannot believe that a loving, good God would damn people to eternity in hell.

And so the question, would God really condemn a soul to eternity in hell?

Knowing that this would be a hard pill to swallow, Peter goes on in the following verses to establish a precedent.

To remind you, a precedent is an act or an instance that may be used as an example in dealing with subsequent similar instances.

And so, is there a precedent that demonstrates that the same God who offers salvation to a sinner is the same God who issues damnation to a sinner?

Is there a precedent?

So if we're going to object to this, say, I don't know if I believe that God would send a soul to eternity in hell, we have to say, is there a precedent that God has done this sort of thing before?

Is there a precedent that the same God who offers salvation to sinners is the same God who offers damn or issues damnation to a sinner?

It's similar to how the same judge who condemns the guilty exonerates the innocent, right?

We don't have a conflict with that.

The judge is judging by the law, by the evidence.

These people are in court.

If they're innocent, exoneration, if they're guilty, condemnation.

Same way with a police officer, it's the same police officer who protects a victim that arrests the perpetrator.

And we understand that that police officer, that law enforcement officer, has this dual duty, this dual responsibility.

In that same way, we have to understand that God has a dual responsibility to execute justice, which does mean offering salvation and issuing damnation.

Verse 4 begins with the words for if.

And that clearly is indicating that it is explaining what was said in verses 1 through 3.

So verse 1 through 3, damnable heresy, destruction, pernicious ways, damnation.

He's warning us that there is something out there that can condemn our souls to hell.

And so he continues, and he says, for if, and he is explaining what he said in verses 1 through 3.

If God has previously been the arbiter of both damnation and salvation, then it stands to reason that he continues to be the same for us.

If we have evidence that he has been both the arbiter of damnation and salvation.

Right?

That's what Peter's saying.

For if, for if he's connecting us back to those first three verses.

Furthermore, notice the continuing conjunction that connects verse 5, 6, and 7.

And so verse 4, for if, that connects us back to verses 1 through 3.

He's explaining this damnation stuff.

And then verse 5, 6, and 7 continues, says, and, and, and, and so he is connecting that whole passage together and saying, here's the explanation.

I'm going to show you how God did it here, and he did it here, and he did it here.

And so we declare that he's still going to do it now and in the future.

What we find here in those verses that have the connecting conjunction is that Peter goes back and he calls into evidence the first three big judgments by God in the Bible.

That's the kind of precedent I like, isn't it, you?

Like I don't like it when somebody tries to establish a precedent, try to convince me of something, and they've got some skewed off-based data point that they're trying to point me to.

Right?

I would rather have the rock solid.

Here's the evidence, you can see it from a mile away.

Well, that's what Peter does for us.

He's like, you've got, you want to know that the same God who saves is the same God who damns?

Well, let me just point you back to the first three big judgments, and I'll show you that precedent in all three of those in the Bible.

First, we find that he refers to God judging the angels who rebelled, and then God judged the world in the flood, and then God judged Sodom and Gomorrah.

You read your Bible, you'll find those are the first three big judgments in the Bible.

And yet, God saved the angels who didn't rebel.

God saved Noah and his family, and God saved Lot and his family.

So right there we find, just on the quick observation, the damnation of God that comes and the salvation that comes from the same God.

In each of those situations, we find the same precedent.

The precedent that the same God is the one who saves as the one who damns.

And this is not just the postulation of Peter, but it was also the position of the apostle Jude.

If you would, look over at the little book of Jude, just a few pages to the right in your Bible, and look at verses 5 through 7.

In Jude, verse 5, the Apostle Jude writes, I will therefore put you in remembrance, though you once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, after destroyed them that believed not.

You see it there?

Same God who saved was the same God who damned.

Verse 6, and the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Even, verse 7, 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.

And so here we find this agreement between Peter and Jude that they're both saying, listen, the same God who brings judgment, the same God who brings salvation.

Now, I am fully convinced that my only job is to tell you what God said.

What my job is, is to spend my week digging into a text, getting to know that text, figuring out what the words in that text mean, confirming that text through cross-references, and then to stand up here and say, here's what this text means.

My job is not to edit the text.

I cannot stand up here and say, just because I don't like the idea of hell, it God wouldn't really do that to you.

There's no such thing as eternal damnation.

You'll just be in a soul sleep and one day we'll all be revived in heaven.

Listen, I can't do that because God didn't say that.

What I can do is take you into this text and say, here's what this text says, here's what this text means, you decide what you're going to do with it.

And so let's dig in a little bit deeper into each of these situations to see what determines whether God issues salvation or damnation.

What's the deciding factor?

If it's the same God who issues salvation to Noah but condemns the world, issues salvation to Lot but condemns Sodom.

Like, what's the deciding factor here?

Well, I've got some texts that I want to read to you.

I'll give you the reference.

If you want to turn to them, you can.

If not, you can jot them down and look at them later.

But the first reference he makes is to the angels.

What's he talking about, these angels who left their first estate, these angels who have fallen?

Well, Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 15 tells us about the lead angel, the one who led the rebellion.

Isaiah 14:12–15

His name was Lucifer.

And it says in Isaiah 14, 12, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How art thou cut down to the ground who did weaken the nations?

For you said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High.

And Isaiah says, Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

Here we find that Lucifer, who is the chief angel or was the chief angel in heaven, got it in his heart that he wanted to be God.

That's what he wanted.

Now, Ezekiel 28 gives us some more detail about it.

It tells us that he was a covering angel, that he was the worship leader in heaven, that the way he was set up, that it was music and light that kind of reflected and flowed out of him so that the angels in heaven could worship God.

And as I'm trying to think through that, I can imagine how that that would be a pretty stimulating drug.

And if everybody is looking at you, but you're reflecting the glory back to God, how that you might get it in your heart to say, Well, I can do all this.

How about I just be the object of worship?

And if you think I'm misprofiling Lucifer, just think about what he asked of Jesus when he tempted him.

Hey, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world if you'll just bow down and worship me.

That's what he wants.

He wants worship.

And so he got it in his heart that he wanted to sit in the seat of God, and so he convinced some of the angels, a portion of the angels, to join him in this attempted overthrow.

It's described for us in Revelation chapter 12, verses 7 through 9.

Revelation 12:7–9

It says, There was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not.

Neither was their place found anymore in heaven, and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceived the whole world.

He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.

So what we learn is that Lucifer was not alone.

And that resulted in them getting expelled from heaven, and God damned them to hell.

As a matter of fact, in Matthew 25, verse 41, Jesus said that hell, the eternal fires, were created for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 25:41

That was the place of punishment that God created for them when they rebelled.

And so that's a look at the angels, but the next example is the flood that is given.

And the flood is recorded for us, or the occasion for the flood is recorded for us back in Genesis chapter 5, verses 5 through 7.

Genesis 5:5–7

And I know I'm moving a little bit fast.

I'm just assuming you want to eat lunch today.

Is that right?

And so we've got the one precedent.

We see that the angels, it was God who condemned them.

It was God who cast them down when they rebelled.

Now we look at the flood, Genesis 6, 5, and 7.

God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart, and the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom 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 repenteth me that I have made them.

But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

What happened is Satan exported his damnable heresy to the earth, to Adam and Eve, and then sin spread like a contagion until the entire world was infected by the time we get to Noah's day.

Now I know it's only separated by a few chapters, but it is about 1,800 years from Adam and Eve until Noah.

And so a lot of time has passed, and a lot of sin has been able to be propagated and contaminated in the human race.

And once again, I would point out to you that it is God who issues the judgment of the flood to destroy the earth.

He spoke plainly in Genesis 6.

I slowed down for you'd pick up on it.

I will destroy man from the face of the earth which I created.

God said that.

God said he would be the one who issues the judgment.

Now I know that some people do not believe in a worldwide flood.

There are those, even those who claim to be Christian theologians who believe that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are mythological.

God didn't really create the earth in six literal days.

That's just allegorical.

That's just an origin story.

Well, there wasn't really a flood that covered the whole earth.

You know what I find is ironic?

That the consensus of scientists today believe that there were local floods all over the world at one time.

But there was not a worldwide flood.

Potato, potato.

Come on now.

There's evidence of floods all over the world.

As a matter of fact, you talk to any cultural.

Coal miner and they have seen oceanic fossils in the coal mine.

How you get that in Appalachia?

We always had to go to Myrtle Beach to get to the ocean.

Because the Bible says God sent a flood one time and it covered the whole earth because it was a judgment to destroy those who had rose up against him.

But let me bring it back to the real issue, the most important issue, which is Jesus Christ.

To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe everything that the Bible says about him.

So if you say, I believe in Jesus, what you're saying is I believe everything the Bible says about it.

Virgin birth, check.

Sinless life, check.

Substitutionary death, check.

Resurrection, check.

Ascension, check.

Return, check.

Return for the rapture of the church.

Return for the judgment of Armageddon.

Check, check, check.

And it is also to say, I believe everything that Jesus said.

I believe everything.

If I believe in Jesus, I believe everything the Bible says about him, I believe everything that he said.

So what did Jesus say about the flood?

See how I got you there?

What did Jesus say about the flood?

Luke 17, verses 26 through 30.

Luke 17:26–30

Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.

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.

Likewise, also, as it was in the days of Lot.

They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built it, but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

Well, if you have an issue with the flood, then it sounds like you have an issue with Jesus.

Because Jesus taught a literal historical flood.

And not only did Jesus refer to an actual historical event, but he also cited it as a precedent for how it would be similar for those who reject him.

Interestingly, I find Jesus also made a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Perhaps that's where Peter got it from.

Perhaps that's why Peter put both of those examples in his letter, because he was there in Luke 17 when Jesus cited the flood, and he cited the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And so let's turn our attention to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Again, we find the biblical record in Genesis 19, and it says Lot went out.

And he spake to his sons-in-law, which married his daughters, and he said, Up, get you out of this place.

The Lord will destroy this city.

Well, Lot knew who was bringing the judgment.

But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.

And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened to Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters, which are here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of this city.

Then the Lord reigned upon Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.

And he overthrew those cities in all the plain and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

Once again we find the exact same pattern.

The God who brings judgment is also the God who brings salvation.

In all three of those citations of Peter, with the angels, with the flood, with Solomon Gomorrah, it is God who sends the judgment.

It is God who issues the damnation.

It is God who condemns the guilty.

But what I want you to see is that the Bible is consistent in this, from Genesis to Revelation.

Nowhere in the Bible does it back off of the idea that God sends judgment.

It's consistent all the way through.

But what we also find is consistent is that the unchanging character of God contains both justice and mercy.

And we have seen his justice.

When you look at this judgment, you have to understand that is justice.

That is the punishment for the offense.

But God is also merciful.

Let's look at his mercy now in Peter's text.

We've seen the damnation of God, now the salvation of God.

Not only did Peter cite the damnation of God, but along with it, he describes the salvation of God.

First with the person of Noah who was saved from the flood, and then in the person of Lot who was delivered from Sodom.

And so it begs the question: what made the difference?

What made the difference between these guys and the multitude?

Why were they saved and the others damned?

That's the pressing question, is it not?

There is judgment, there is damnation.

It has happened in the past.

God has said he's bringing it again in the future, and yet he saved some people from it.

I want to know what makes the difference because it's my neck that is on the line.

It's revealed in our text by two distinctions found in both of these men.

The first is righteousness.

Notice that it says in 2 Peter 2.5 that Noah was a preacher of righteousness.

And verse 8 says that Lot was a righteous man.

And so here's a character trait, here's a quality that we can see about.

Both of these guys are categorized as being righteous.

What does it mean to be righteous?

Well, in simple terms, the word righteous simply means right with God.

What does it mean that he was a righteous man?

It means that he was right with God.

That's what it means.

Think about it in these terms.

Put it in building terms.

If a house is to be right, it must be level, it must be plum, and it must be square.

Right?

That's what we're looking for.

If your contractor doesn't own a level, don't hire him.

Why?

Because those are fixed standards.

And what the contractor does is he brings the material in line with the fixed standard.

And when that happens, we call it right.

Or think about anything else that has to do with fixed standards.

Math.

There's a fixed standard.

We know how that works.

Music?

Fixed standards, isn't there?

If I were to get on this keyboard and start beating on it, first Brian would have a heart attack at home to see me pounding on his keyboard.

But it wouldn't be music that comes out of here.

It would be noise.

Why?

Because there is a fixed principle of what notes make a chord.

Those one, three, five, and sevens.

They go together, they correspond.

You rearrange that, it doesn't work.

Right?

Not just because it sounds bad to one person's ear.

Collectively, everybody is like.

Because we understand there's a fixed standard to music.

And so let me ask you, is it mean and is it cruel to place a level on the floor and to judge whether or not it is level?

Is that mean and cruel?

Is it mean and cruel to string a plum line and say, is this thing plum?

or that we would judge a musical instrument to be out of tune?

That's not cruel.

That's just honest.

It's just saying this isn't right with the fixed standard.

Likewise, God must be honest about whether a person is right with him or whether they are not right with him.

Have they come in line with the fixed standard or are they skewed?

So what made Noah and Lot righteous?

We know that that's one of the shared qualities that they had that sets them apart, but can we find out what made them righteous?

And I believe that we can in this text.

They believed God's word.

They believed God's word.

Think about it.

God said to both of them, judgment is coming, and if you will trust me, I will save you.

Isn't that how we could summarize it?

Hey, Noah, there's a flood coming.

But here's the plans to an ark.

You build that boat, I'll save you.

Hey, Lot, fire's coming, brimstone's coming, it's going to rain down, but if you'll go with my angels, they'll save you.

And so they got a word from God that judgment was coming, and they believed God.

They trusted him, they followed his instruction to be saved.

You see this in the life of Noah when he builds the ark, simply because God told him to do so.

What other reason does he build an ark?

It is only because God told him to do so.

He believed God over the popular opinion.

The Bible says that people were mocking him and making fun of him and saying, What are you doing, you crazy old man?

There were competing voices of alternate beliefs.

Nah, this isn't gonna happen.

You're delusional, you're obsessed.

That's not gonna happen.

You know what?

Noah even had to trust God over his own personal experience.

It says that it had not rained on the earth up to that point that God had a different irrigation system before the flood.

And so from Noah's own personal experience, he has never seen water fall out of the sky, much less a puddle pull up on the ground because of it.

And God said, Listen, I'm gonna make so much water fall out of the sky that it's going to flood the whole earth, and the only way for you to be saved is to build this ark and get in it.

And so he exercised faith in what God had said, and it saved him.

Likewise, so did Lot.

Lot was warned about the coming judgment of God to Sodom and Gomorrah, and God said, If you will trust my plan, I will save you.

Now, understand that neither of these men, either of them, if they had not believed God, they would have both been destroyed with the rest.

That's what stands out.

The word came to them.

And listen, by the way, you say, well, how come Noah got a word and the rest in it?

Because the guy who got the word then went and preached the word.

Okay?

He was a preacher of righteousness.

He says he spent a hundred years warning people.

Well, what about that guy Lot?

He got the word.

How come nobody else got the word?

He went and spread the word and he said, get out of the city.

Judgment is coming.

Sometimes people say, Well, it's not fair.

It's not fair that God would send somebody to hell from a country where they've never heard about Jesus.

They didn't get the word that judgment is coming.

And I say to you, we got the word.

And we were told to go tell them.

And if there's a fault, it is on our side, not on God's side.

Well, I'm telling you, what made the difference in these guys between the damnation of God and salvation of God?

Believing God's word was the determining factor in their salvation.

And the same is true for us.

The word has come, judgment is coming.

As a matter of fact, I don't have time to take you there, but if you go over to 2 Peter chapter 3, he tells you God sending fire.

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

He's going to burn up the earth.

And then he says this, but he's not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance.

Hey, the same God who has to send the judgment is the same God who offers salvation.

And the word has come to us.

Judgment is coming.

But God has also said, if you will trust me, I will save you.

Is that right, Lord?

What do I need to do?

Do I need to build an ark?

No.

It's not a flood.

You don't need to build an ark.

Do I need to escape the city?

No, it's going to be worldwide.

You can't escape the city.

What do I need to do, Lord, to escape this judgment?

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

That's the word of salvation.

It is the gospel, the power of salvation to all those who believe.

And there are likenesses, by the way.

What made the difference between Noah and the people who died in that flood?

Their position to the ark.

He was in it.

They were out of it.

What's the difference between facing the damnation of God and the salvation of God?

Well, it's your proximity to Jesus.

Are you in him or are you out?

We are in him by faith.

When we believe, we're placed into the body of Christ, which shields us from the judgment that is to come.

And so it is the same God who issues damnation that also offers salvation.

The only thing that determines whether or not you experience the damnation of God or the salvation of God is whether or not you believe his word.

And so the responsibility then is placed upon us.

Will you place your trust and faith in Jesus Christ?

Because Peter advised us in 2 Peter 1 9, listen to these words and we're done.

The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.

Listen.

But you can't deny what the Bible says.

If you're honest, you're going to look at that and say, says it right there.

He set the precedents.

The precedents are there.

There's a consistency from the beginning to the end.

I don't like it, but I can't deny it.

And if you can't deny it, my friend, then that ought to give you real concern about the damnation of God.

Because I can tell you what everybody who experienced it shared, they didn't believe it.

The people in Noah's day didn't believe it.

The people in Lot's day didn't believe it.

And the people in Jesus' day who will go to hell are the ones who don't believe it.

And so I implore you today believe what the Bible says about the judgment of God and the salvation of God.

Would you bow with me?

As we bow our heads for just a moment.

A moment to respond, however, we need to respond.

If there's anybody here today who's never trusted Christ, today would be a great day to get saved.

Today would be a great day just to say, I believe, Lord.

I don't understand it all.

I don't know how it all works, but I believe it.

I'm convinced that your faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

For those of us who are saved, it's not a matter of an issue of belief.

I believe it's an issue of obedience.

Are we telling other people?

How cruel would we be if we know that judgment is coming and we remain silent around the people that we care about.

And so may we be moved today to be like Noah in that respect, to proclaim it to those who will listen.

Dear Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

It is a frightening thing to consider the damnation that the Almighty God can issue.

As it says in the Gospel of Luke, that we ought to have a greater fear of God than man, because all that man can do is kill the body, but God can destroy the body and the soul in hell.

And yet, Lord, you're not one-dimensional.

You're not just an angry God who is seeking to go scorched earth on everybody.

But you are the very epitome of love and grace.

And you have made a way for us to be saved at the greatest expense to yourself, not making us jump through hoops or to entertain you, but to satisfy the righteousness of the law.

You were willing to send your son to die in our place, to suffer our punishment, to shield us from the judgment to come.

May we see you, Lord, as both the executor of judgment and salvation.

And may we know you not as our judge, but as our Savior.

I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.