Here is the hope in 2 Peter 2 verse 9:
“The LORD knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations.”
If we are the LORD’s today, He has delivered us. He has pulled us out of false religion.
He has pulled us, drawn us aside out of the ways of this world, out of mere professionism.
We are not impressed when a person just says, “I am a Christian.” That doesn’t impress me.
Tell me a little bit about the God you profess. Tell me about the Christ you profess.
“The LORD knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations.”
There is a separating out of His people from the world.
But it also says there in verse nine:
“...and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."
To be unjust means to be unjustified. It means not to have a ransom.
It means not to have a representative before a Holy God and no matter how a person tries to fix themselves up, they are unjust still outside of the LORD Jesus Christ, outside of His righteousness being their covering.
And so to me this is a message of hope when I consider myself, because I was in religion.
I was in professionism. I was in one that seemed very close to the Truth.
In fact, the very Bible I hold in my hand is one that when I was at a very young age I asked my parents to get for me. I saw my dad up reading early in the morning. I wanted to read.
So I cut my teeth on this Bible.
The LORD let me go for a number of years in a false profession and then when it pleased God to reveal Christ in me, He delivered me.
He knows how to deliver the Godly out of temptation.
None of us are Godly by nature.
But when God is pleased to regenerate the heart and open our eyes to Christ, it gives us that reverence for God and for Christ and causes us to look to Him alone and He delivers us out of temptations. He delivers us out of even any desire to go back into it.
Some will look at you and say,
“Well, you are cold and calloused, because you won’t even give us an ear.”
You know, I have been there. I know what the LORD has delivered me from. So I am not going to sit down and listen to your reasons again as to why I should go back to a profession that is not based upon this Word or the work of the LORD Jesus Christ ALONE.
(This is an excerpt from the full SermonAudio message 'Discerning Truth and Error'.