Chapter 2, let's begin in verse number 1. We'll read down to verse number 10. The Bible said that there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privately shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not. 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. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed, They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. Let's pray together. Father, thank you again for the great day that you've given us, the opportunity again tonight to be in your house. And Lord, I do pray that you would help us for just a few moments as we look into your word. Thank you for your people, Lord, that have put forth the effort to be here tonight. And Lord, I pray that you would just meet the needs of the congregation. Lord, I realize I don't have enough sense to do that, but you sure do. And I'm glad, Lord, you can take your word and do in our lives what only you can do. And I pray you do that tonight, especially in these days of apostasy. I pray you'd strengthen this younger generation, Lord, and these that are new to the way and these that are growing, Lord, I just pray that you'd help them get grounded and founded on the Word of God. When all these attacks come against them, they will stand true and be a light to this lost world. And Father, help us as a church in these days to stay the course. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for standing. Now, I want to look tonight, as we've been looking through II Peter, I want to look at this thought here in chapter 2 on the danger of deceivers. The danger of deceivers. You remember when we started this study, we were looking at this book in light of saints looking toward the second coming of Christ. That's really the theme of the book. Peter deals with that throughout all three of these chapters. Chapter 1, we look primarily at the saints. Now tonight, beginning in chapter number two, we're going to look at what I call the seducers, the false prophets, and the apostate teachers. And then, Lord willing, in a few weeks we'll get to chapter three, and thank God we'll look at the Savior. We'll look at His coming again, and how the coming of the Lord should be a terror to those that are not saved, and should cause them to be fearful. But for you and I tonight that are saved, it ought to be an exciting time, looking for that blessed hope and glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So tonight here, quickly, I wanna give you three things that Peter gives us tonight on the danger of these deceivers. Number one, you'll notice, beginning in verse one tonight, the surety of their being. Of course, this is written somewhere around AD 66, as I've mentioned to you before. In Peter's day, these false teachers, these false prophets were on the scene. And how much more are they on the scene in our day? We notice their location in verse 1. He said, but there were false prophets, notice this now, also among the people. Peter is not talking about just in society here, but he's also talking about the church and among the religious group. He said, there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. He's warning those that would read this tonight that among them, there are going to be false teachers and false prophets. In Acts chapter 20, verse number 29, the apostle Paul said this, as he was about to leave the church of Ephesus, he said, for I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock, also of your own selves." Notice this, he said, "...shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." So a lot of times we think about false teachers, we think about apostates, we think, well, that's just out in the world. That's just a bunch of people that are sinners out there in the world. But no, what an apostate is is they're religious, but they're not redeemed. They claim the name of Christ, but there's been no conversion in their life. An apostate is not someone that got saved and then lost their salvation. We know the Bible teaches us that once we are saved, we are eternally saved and eternally kept by the power of God. But an apostate is one that puts on and feigns their salvation. They're hypocrites, if you will. And then along and along, the real truth comes out that they're really not saved. And what they've done is they have rejected the gospel. I want you to understand tonight, these are not just average sinners. These are not just people that are lost. These are people that have taken the gospel and heard it clearly, and even claimed it one time maybe to believe it, but then they've totally rejected it and pushed it away. And you know this tonight, if you're a student of the scripture, someone that is an apostate, there's no hope for them. And listen, that's God's business. That's not for us to decide. But someone that rejects the gospel and turns from that gospel, there's no other way of salvation. Again, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man cometh unto the Father but by me. and those apostates will turn away from the gospel. They'll even ridicule the gospel. We're seeing that in the day that we live. We're seeing a crowd that has risen up in the past several years here in America and other places that have belittled the gospel, belittled the old time way, belittled your King James Bible. They have attacked some of the the faithful men of God that went on before us, and they have no shame about it. And listen, I want to go on record tonight saying this, I believe that crowd's apostate. I believe there's no hope for them. They have belittled godly preachers and belittled the King James Bible. and made fun of men that preach the truth. So you believe somebody like that's saved, you've lost it, amen? They are lost, they have no desire to know God, and I don't know that they ever will know God. You say, preacher, that's a little tight. Well, that's just the way I see it tonight. It's one thing to be somebody that rejects the gospel, and turns away from the gospel and goes on about their life. But it's another thing when you take someone that tries to destroy that gospel and destroy men and churches that stand upon the Word of God. There's a demonic entity in somebody like that. There's something wrong with them. So Peter reminds us tonight the location of these deceivers many times that they rise up out of the congregation of the church, of the religious whole, if you will. But then he mentions their labor in verse number one. Notice what he goes on to say. He calls them false teachers. He said they're among you who privately, notice they're seductive, they're private about what they do, shall bring in damnable heresies Even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. Again, we find from verse number one, this is just not an average lost person. This is not just somebody that's going through life and doesn't want to hear the gospel, doesn't want to be saved. This is somebody that knows the truth. They've been exposed to the truth. Again, many times they have claimed to believe the truth. But Peter reminds us here tonight that they're coming in privately, or privily, or privately, if you will, and bringing in a damnable heresy. They're trying to subvert the believer, and we'll see that when we get down through this in a few verses here by illustration from a man by the name of Lot. He goes on to say this, even denying the Lord that bought them. Now this phrase, the Lord that bought them, does not mean they were saved and lost. It simply means that Jesus died on the cross for all men. We know that. He died for all of humanity, and God, purchased the price of salvation for them and gave his life on the cross that they might be saved. And yet they are throwing back in the face of God, if you will, that very free gift of salvation. I heard Billy Kelly say this years ago. He said, you can take an individual, this is an old lost sinner. and they're out there living their life, and they don't bother anybody, and they don't run the church down, and they don't hinder the gospel. He said many times, God will let that person live a long life in giving them the time to get saved and repent of their sin. He said, but I'm gonna tell you, he said, you put your hand against the holy things of God, and he said, God's gonna be on your trail. And I believe that tonight, and if you don't, we'll see here in just a few verses what God's going to do to this crowd. So their location is mentioned, their labor, their subverting. They have an agenda. They're not just living their life, but they're trying to tear down the very truth of the gospel. They are emissaries of Satan because they want to try to keep anybody that's lost from getting saved. But then you notice they're leading in verse number 2. He goes on to say, and many, here's the danger tonight, and many shall follow their pernicious ways. This is an old English word that means evil and desperately wicked. Many shall follow their pernicious ways. How do they do that? He tells us, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. Again, I want to emphasize to you tonight, Peter's not talking about your run-of-the-mill lost person. He's talking about somebody that has that agenda and that drive and that desire to destroy the gospel. Does that sound like anybody we know in this day? I'm telling you, they got podcasts and radio broadcasts and a big following in this area in the South, and I'm telling you, I wouldn't be in their socks for their shoes tonight. They have ran down God's men. They have perverted and taken out clips of God's men preaching the gospel and twisted them, and they sit around and mock them and laugh about them, I'm telling you, God is going to judge that crowd. I promise you tonight. And we're warned here to be careful not to follow them. And the reason why they're followed many times, he tells us in verse number two, he said, of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. They're tearing down the core of the gospel. They're tearing down the way. Again, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. There are not many ways in the Bible to be saved. There are not many ways to go to heaven. There's only one way, and that's through Christ and Christ alone. There's only one Jesus. It's not the Jesus that they've made up. It's not this modern day Jesus that just looks over sin and pats you on the back no matter how you live, and you know God just understands and everything's going to be alright. No, it is the holy God of this Bible. I think if there's one thing we've lost, and we've probably lost a little bit of it every generation since the cross, and that's the holiness of God. We need to realize tonight we're not dealing with a God that we should trifle with. We don't have a God tonight that we ought to look at flippantly and make light of and just look over. I saw just a clip the other day, and I turned it. It made me so angry. Some of you may have watched it and seen where it was at, but something about going on with the Super Bowl, some so-called church was going to kick a Bible across the stage. God help us. How can anybody be right with God with that kind of mentality? More than likely, they weren't kicking a King James Bible anyway. But still, just the thought of that, just the flippancy of this generation and this society toward the things of God. We don't understand we're dealing with a holy God. We're dealing with a God that can be a God of wrath and will one day be a God of wrath upon all of those that have rejected Him. So we find their labor, we find their leading. They're leading souls astray by the hundreds every day, no doubt. And then we see they're lying. Everything about them is based upon lies. He said in verse number 3, and through covetousness, that's their motive. They don't care for the flock. They don't care for the people of God. They don't want to build the church. They want the church to build them. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words, that means fake words, false words, feigned words, make merchandise of you, whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not." Peter is reminding us here tonight that these false teachers, these apostates, these false prophets, they're liars. They say whatever will bring the crowd in. They say whatever sounds good. They're not going to give you the truth. They're not going to say what does sayeth the Word of God because they don't know the God that they say they do and they don't believe His Bible. They're just saying what is socially acceptable. They're saying what will tickle the ears of the hearer and fill their churches, so-called churches, I use that word lightly, fill their buildings and fill their coffers and fill their pockets. That's all they're interested in. They're not interested in souls being saved. They're not interested in the saints of God growing and being everything God would have them to be, but they're interested in building their own ungodly kingdom of religion. And boy, Peter's reminding us and warning us tonight, stay away from that crowd. So we see tonight the surety of their being. Now, young people, I want you to understand tonight that as we get closer to the coming of the Lord, there are going to be more and more false teachers. There are going to be more and more people that claim to know God. And you say, preacher, how do we know? How do we know whether they're right or not? Some of them seem so sincere and so kind and so gracious. You line them up with the litmus test of this Bible. and rightly divided. You line them up with this word, and if they go against the word, and if they don't tell you the Jesus of this Bible, you write them off, and you don't listen to them, because they're out to destroy souls, not to help you. Now, secondly tonight, we find the sentencing of their behavior. You say, well, somebody might say tonight, well, what's the big deal about a false prophet? I know we live in such a watered-down generation, and I'm getting a little older now, and I'm seeing that. And I'm sure the generation behind me, they saw that in our generation. And you know how people are so sensitive in our day. And how the world is so sensitive. And there's just seemingly no absolutes in people's minds. And they can't think the thought of God destroying somebody. But I'm here to remind you tonight, yes, God is a God of love. Yes, he loves sinners and he wants to save whosoever will. But don't forget tonight, he is a God of wrath. He is a God that is going to punish those that have perverted the gospel. In Matthew chapter 7, when you read that text there about them saying, Lord, Lord, you know, we prophesied in thy name. We've done many wonderful works. That's the context of false teachers. That's what that's all about. And he said, depart from me. He called them workers of iniquity. He said, for I never knew you. and how true that is about this crowd of false teachers. Now, notice with me tonight in verse number four, God begins to reveal to us the sentencing of these apostates. And again, the Lord doesn't take it lightly. And you say, why doesn't He take it lightly? Well, number one, He's a holy God. And number two, they are dealing with the souls of men. Whenever you deal with a soul, don't ever take it lightly. That's eternal. You can't refund that. You can't change that. When somebody leads a soul astray, that is an eternal danger there. That's why it's so scary and so overwhelming for us as preachers and teachers of the Word of God. We're dealing with eternal souls. We must be careful that we rightly divide the Word of Truth. We must be careful of our motives in the way that we do things. And of course, these false teachers, these false prophets, their motives are not real because they don't know the Lord. Now, Peter is going to give us three examples here, three classes of individuals that are apostates. And every one of them, they knew the truth, yet they rejected it. They're not just, again, they're not just average lost people wandering through life. These are individuals that knew the truth, that were presented with the truth, and probably no doubt even said they believed the truth at one time, but the real them came out, they rejected it, and God destroyed them. Notice with me these three groups. First of all, in verse number four, notice the angels. He uses the example of the fallen angels. He said, for if God spared not the angels that sin, he's talking about the third of the angels of heaven, that rose up with the devil when he rose up against Christ. And Satan had an eye problem. He lifted himself up. He said, I'll be this and I'll do that and I'm going to be God. And God cast him out of heaven and a third of those angels went with him. And Peter tells us about that. He said, 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. He reminds us here of these angels, these created beings and how when they turned against the truth, they were in a perfect environment, were they not? They were in heaven. They had a perfect opportunity to do as the other angels did and just obey and just follow God. But you know, God gives us a self-will. And with that will, they chose to go against God. They chose to rebel against life. Can I remind you tonight, child of God, and remind myself, it is dangerous when we rebel against life. Right now, we're living in a generation and a time that says, well, you know, this really don't matter over here. This is just a little thing. Well, let me throw this out to you tonight. Everything big starts with something little. The enemy may be whispering in your ear tonight and saying, well, you know what the preacher preached or what mom and daddy's teaching or what the Bible said. That's just a little thing. It's really not that big a deal. Well, the problem is when you open up that little thing, usually it moves on to something else and it goes on to something else. And I'll promise you tonight, there are people right now that never believed they would be in the bad shape they're in because they opened the door with little things and little doubts and little compromises in their life, and it's opened up to bigger things and bigger things. The best thing you and I can do tonight is never open the door to those little things. If God says it ought to be, it's a big thing, amen? If God says stay away from it, guess what? We ought to just stay away from it. If God says embrace it, we ought to embrace it. Listen, if God has taken enough time and effort to say something about it, then we ought to listen to it and embrace it and put it into action in our life. So these angels are mentioned in Jude, verse number 6, he said, in the angels, which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. Notice, they did the leaving. That's one thing you'll find out about these apostates. They're the ones to blame. They can't blame God. They can't say God basically kicked them out of heaven. They left God. They rebelled against God. He tells us here in Jude, he said, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, under the judgment of the great day. They're not going to have another opportunity to get right. God's not going to bring them up. I know that's foreign to this generation. God's not going to bring them up and say, okay, I'm going to give you one more chance, one more opportunity to get it right. No, they've sealed their doom. And I'm going to tell you, when somebody goes down the slippery slope of apostasy, of rejecting and rejecting and rejecting the gospel, I'm telling you, they're headed for trouble. If you're here tonight and you're not saved and God deals with your heart about being saved, you better run to the cross. You better run to Jesus, because every time you reject Him, you're narrowing that window of opportunity. Every time you tell Him no, you're hardening and callousing your heart to the point that you may get to the place where you never get saved. You say, preacher, I don't like that. Well, it's just the truth, amen? Not everybody's going to heaven. I wish they were. But it's just the fact. It's not going to happen that way, because when we reject God, there is no other remedy but judgment. So he mentions the angels as the first group in these verses of sentencing. Then notice he mentions the antediluvians here in verse number 5. He said, and spared not the old world. He's talking about those before the flood. He said, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. He said, boy, I can't believe that God would send a flood. and destroy mankind. Well, he gave them 120 years of preaching, did he not? He gave them Noah. I mean, he put Noah out there and his sons and his daughter-in-laws building that ark. And they had ample opportunity every day they walked by watching that ark being built. I can't help but think there were people from time to time that would take a stroll by Noah's house. Went down by where he was building that ark. Heard all the hammering and the nailing and the sawing and all that. Went by there and probably said, hey Noah, what are you doing? Noah said, I'm building an ark. And they might have said something like this, what's an ark? He said, well God's given me these plans and he said to build this ark. And it's going to rain, and we need to be ready for the Lord's rain to come. And somebody probably said, what's rain? Because it never rained before. And they mocked Noah in that day, and they laughed at Noah until the fountains of the deep opened up, until God flooded the earth. And here he reminds us, Peter reminds us, of those that reject the truth. Again, this Antediluvian generation had 120 years of preaching, even more than that from the time of Adam, when Adam taught his children how to sacrifice, and they were to teach their children and carry it on. The Bible tells us here, he spared not the old world. In Genesis chapter seven, verse 21 and 22, the Bible said, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and of cattle. And a beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man, and all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died. And again, I know that doesn't fit the narrative of our weak generation, but I'm telling you, God's going to judge sin. And listen, He loved His Son so much. that he sent him to die on an old rugged cross. He loved his son so much that he let them beat him and mock him and spit on him and pluck his beard out and hang on that Roman cross and be mistreated. Do you think for one minute that's going to go to waste? Would we think for one moment that God is going to overlook a man or a woman that would reject the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? No. God is a merciful God, but there's coming a day when that mercy is going to run out. And one that rejects the offering of Christ, and rejects the truth of the gospel, and turns their back against who Jesus is, is an individual that's going to spend an eternity in the lake of fire without God. We need to be reminded of that tonight. The angels are mentioned here, the antediluvians are mentioned here. Notice the third class that he mentions concerning the sentencing of their behavior. He mentions the abominable. Look at verse number 6. He said, "...and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes." Condemn them with an overthrow, making them," notice this now, I read this yesterday and I thought about this again, making them an example. You know what Peter's saying here? If you're going to live this lifestyle, this is what's going to happen to you. He said, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. Boy, is that not a hot button issue in our area today? In our society, thank God for an administration that said, bless God, there's only two genders. Amen. I appreciate that. I know the liberals' heads are spinning around like tops. Amen. But I'm telling you, we need that. I'm hoping some of these young people that are raised in these perverted homes, I'm hoping they'll hear the gospel. I'm hoping something will happen that they'll see the truth and get out of that darkness and get saved by the grace of God. God said that's an abominable lifestyle. God said that the sodomite lifestyle is a sin and it's ungodly. You say, preacher, but you don't understand. Oh, yes, I do understand. Listen, I know there are people that get caught up in that. I understand there are people that get wrapped up in that. And listen, between them and the Lord about getting saved, I do believe God can save them. But I also do believe there are some that sent away their day of grace and they keep rejecting it and they keep having an adamant spirit against the gospel. And they're going to end up like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God is not going to put up with sin. He's not going to put up with the rejection of His Son. People say, well, how can a loving God send somebody to hell? He don't send them to hell. They go on their own because they've rejected the way of escape, the truth of the gospel. And I know in our society today, we just don't want to think that. But I'm telling you, we need to get back to reality. There's people in my family tonight, okay? And there's probably people in your family. If something don't change in their life, they're gonna spend eternity in hell. And that ought to hit home. Maybe we'd get a little bit of burden about it. Maybe we'd pray some more and live a little bit closer to the Bible that they might get saved. I'm telling you, it's a heartbreaking thing. I'm not excited about this. But it's the truth tonight. Peter is giving us these examples of those deceivers and where they're going to end up. God's not going to have a special pass for them. He's not going to just say, well, that's all right. No, they're going to be judged eternally by the wrath of God. And we need to remember that tonight. In Genesis chapter 19, verse 24, the Bible said this, Then the Lord reigned upon Sovrin and upon Gomorrah, Brimstone, and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. You remember in Genesis chapter 18, God saw fit to tell Abraham he was going down there to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham began to intercede with God. And Abraham brought him from 50 down to 10, didn't he? He said, preadventure there'd be this many righteous and that many righteous. Gets all the way down to 10. You know what, Abraham thought, surely there are 10. I encourage you to do this tonight. Go back and read in Genesis about Lot and his wife and his family. There were 10 individuals in his family, if my calculations are right. And Abraham was trying to save Lot and his family. And Abraham was trying to get them out. And he bargained with God. He interceded with God. He begged God to spare that city for 10. And God said, all right, if I can find 10 righteous, he said, I'll spare the city. And you know the sad truth of the story tonight? He did not find 10 righteous in Sodom. He couldn't and he had to destroy them. And even Lot, we're gonna look at Lot here in just a minute, but even Lot had to be basically drug out of that city because he had been so ingrained with that lifestyle. And you know, Lot didn't get all his family out of there. There's many of them left behind. His wife died on the way out. His two daughters that got out with him, he probably wished they'd have died and he'd have died in the midst of it after everything happened that happened with them. I'm telling you, this deception, these false teachers, it's a dangerous thing. If I had a child tonight that somebody was trying to peddle false doctrine on them, I'm telling you, I'd probably get rough with them. I'll just be honest with you. I remember years ago, a man I know said that that Jehovah Witness crowd come knocking on his door and he knew them. He told them, he said, don't you come back again. Well, they showed up one day when his child was there. And he said, I found them down at the store, and I told him, I said, you come back up there again, buddy, I'm gonna lay hands on you. He said, preacher, that ain't right. Listen, it is right. How many of you remember Brother Frank Phillips? I remember one time I was in a meeting with Brother Frank. We was in a meeting in Tennessee. If you knew him, he didn't, you know, mix his words. He just said what he thought. And I remember one time we were at that meeting, and somebody got up, and the preacher was preaching. He said, you know, we don't throw rocks, but this, that, and the other. Brother Frank got up, and he said, we got Jehovah Witness of Yancey County. He said, bless God, I'll rock every one of them out of the county if I can, amen. It's just the way he was. Thank God for those old men. Thank God for their staying. You say, preacher, that's mean. No, that's an eternal soul hanging in the balance. If I had somebody trying to peddle false doctrine to one of you young people, I'll promise you I'd have something to say to them. Somebody ever came in this church with false doctrine, they're headed back out the door, amen? It is eternity we're talking about here. That's what we have to understand. I think that's what Peter's trying to get across to us. The weightiness of this, it's an eternal soul. Now let me give you something else and I'll finish tonight and you carnal folks can go watch the Super Bowl. Amen? I don't even know what time it's coming on. If you watch a halftime, I hope you go blind. I'm serious. God, help us. I'm telling you. Is that not a mess? I better hush. I'm meddling. I better get back to preaching. Listen, I know we don't have anybody here that would do that, so praise the Lord. Amen. You can watch the news in the morning and your team, if they made it, praise the Lord. Amen? Notice this tonight, now let me give you this and I will be done. Notice in verse 3, and this is sad, when you think about false teachers and you think about people going to hell in their eternity. Yesterday we were out here at the pantry, my wife got to witness to two individuals that, by their own profession, they were living in a lifestyle of sin. One of those individuals seemed to be a little receptive, the other one was very adamant, very angry about it. And listen, I know none of us like to be confronted with our sin. But thank God for the day that we got confronted that we were sinners. I thank God for the day that God sent the message to my heart and confronted me that I was a lost sinner and I needed to be saved. Where would I be tonight if somebody hadn't upset my life? Where would I be tonight if the Holy Ghost hadn't turned me upside down? I'm thankful for that tonight. So notice now here, here's the danger to the believer tonight. Again, the believer cannot lose their salvation. But notice in verse number 7 we see the subverting of the believer. The word subverting, I wrote this definition down. I wanted to get it right. It means to bend, to make crooked, or to pervert. And the enemy Satan knows tonight, he can't get your soul if you're sane. But I'll tell you what he can do, he can pervert your life. He can bend your life, He can twist your life to such a degree that you're really no use down here for the gospel's sake. Look at what Peter tells us tonight. I'll give you this and finish. In verse number 7, we do see the believers escape. Thank God for that. The Bible tells us here, verse 7, if it had not been for verse 7 of 2 Peter chapter 2, we would honestly think tonight Lot was not even a righteous man, would we not? You read about him in Genesis. Sure doesn't look like he's righteous there. I don't have time to go back and go into all of it, but I'm going to tell you, a man that would push out his daughter into that vile crowd, I'm telling you, there's something wrong with somebody. He don't even deserve to be called a man. And I would for sure preach a lot in hell if it wasn't for 2 Peter chapter 2. But here the Bible tells us, and delivered just Lot. He's not talking about only Lot here. He's saying just, he's a just man. Believe it or not, Lot was a man that believed. He was Abraham's nephew and he knew the truth. He believed the truth, but he put himself in a bad situation. We see the believer's escape. He delivered just Lot. Lot is a picture of a worldly believer. He's delivered, but he's subdued by the ungodliness of the environment around him. Child of God. That's why you and I have to take a definite stand against this. We cannot yoke up with this, even though, listen, I know we've got family that are involved in sinful things. We're to love them and to be kind to them, but not to be real close to them and not to yoke up with them. You may have co-workers that are involved in deception and ungodliness. Again, you're to be kind to them. You're to give them the gospel. But you don't need to go on vacation with them. You don't need to go fishing with them. You stay away from that because what you don't understand, you may think it's not going to affect you. But here's a man, Lot, no doubt he thought when he went down to the well water plains of Jordan, he thought, man, everything will be alright. I know what the truth is and I'll be able to handle myself and he wasn't able to. And he himself got subverted and I already mentioned to you how much of his family he lost. A horrible mess. I remember, Miss Chair is not here tonight, but I remember Brother Jeff Autry years ago preaching here at a youth service on the lousy life of Lot. Let me get that right. The lousy life of Lot. Anybody ever remember that message? That was a good message, amen? Lot had a lousy life. And as a child of God, God doesn't want us to have that kind of life. He wants us to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might. So here we find the believer's escape. In 2 Corinthians 6, 17 and 18, Paul said this, Wherefore, talking to believers, Come out from among them, be ye separate, saith the Lord. Touch not the unclean thing, I will receive you, and will be a father unto you. Ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Young people, I know sometimes you probably get tired of the preacher harping on separation. You probably get tired of your parents, maybe your Sunday school teacher, grandparents harping on separation. But I'm going to tell you why we do that. We do that because we love you. And we don't want you to get tangled up in this kind of deception. If you are saved, we don't want your life to be watered down. and messed up and hindered to a degree that you can't be used for God. We say that because we know the danger. Many of us by our own mistakes, we know the danger of getting tangled up in this world. So Lot escaped. But notice this tonight. Look at verse 7 and 8. I'm almost done. I see the believers escape in verse 7. The last part of verse 7 and verse 8, I see the bad effect on his life. Notice this, he said, "...delivered just Lot," but look at this, "...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." You know what happened to Lot? He hung around sin till sin messed his life up. He hung around sin until it became, it was no longer exceedingly sinful to him. Listen, I can remember now, I can remember when I was a young person, was growing up and in school and this sin of the ungodliness of the sodomite lifestyle and all that, I can remember when that was not accepted like it is today. I mean, I can remember when I was in school, if there was somebody like that at Redneck A.C. Reynolds, you didn't say anything about it, amen? You'd probably get hurt. And I'm not advocating hurting people and physical violence. Just understand, that's the world we grew up in. But now we're in a world tonight that accepts anything. And it's dangerous and it's not good and we should reach out to them. We should not mistreat them and hurt them and be ugly to them. Understand me tonight. But we need to call sin, sin. We need to let people know the danger of that sin. When you are inclusive with that kind of lifestyle, you are damning those souls to hell. You're letting them think that it's okay and going on in their sin. That's not love. If you love somebody, you're going to tell them there's a fiery burning hell out there. There's a lake of fire. If you don't get saved, you're going to end up there. We don't want you to go there. We want you to get saved and be born again. Notice the bad effect though. It's vexed his life. Lot was so vexed by the atmosphere of Sodom that he couldn't even reach his family. Can you imagine that tonight? Can you imagine any greater heartbreak for the believer than the fact you don't even have a testimony, you don't even have an influence with your family? Lot told them when those angels came and said, let's get out of here. Lot told them, Lot said, get out, get out. And they saw him as one that mocked. They thought, what God are you talking about, Lot? What do you mean being saved? What do you mean judgment? Lot had lived such a lousy lifestyle. He had lived such a worldly lifestyle. They didn't even believe he knew God. There was very little, if any, evidence in the life of Lot that he knew God. He hadn't stood against those deceivers. And then we see tonight the bitter end for those that don't know Christ. Look at verse 9 and 10. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government. That's not just talking about elected officials, that's talking about authority. They despise the government of this Bible. They hate this book. When you tell them what thus saith the word of God, It fires an anger in them. They hate it. They don't want to hear it. He said, presumptuous are they. They're presuming that God's going to look over their sin. They're presuming that everything's going to be alright, but it's not going to be. He said, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. You see, tonight Peter's reminding us of the danger of these false teachers. And I'm telling you, they're all around us. They're in churches tonight. There are some churches that you and I know that have allowed things like this to come in to their congregation. And I'm telling you, I'd hate to stand as leadership in that church and answer to God for that. Tonight, we need to understand how dangerous deceivers are. We've got a generation tonight. I never thought this. You didn't either about my age. You never thought this. We'd have a generation that didn't know whether they were male or female. We'd have a generation that even thought about going in an opposite bathroom. I'm telling you, that's the day we're living in and all that is is this age of antichrist and this age of deceivers and deception that's come in on our land. And God wants us in these last days as a child of God looking for the coming of Christ to stand against this. And again, you don't have to be mean and ugly and hateful to people. I don't believe the Lord wants us to be that way. But he does want us to stand firm. And people need to know where we stand. I hope the community knows that Little Ivy Baptist Church, we love sinners, but we don't love sin. We want to see people get saved, but we're not for that wicked lifestyle. We're not for that deception and those other ways to heaven and those false gospels. Again, there's only one way, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. People ought to know that in our church. They ought to know that in our public life. They ought to know that in our family tonight, that we stand for the truth. It's so important in these last days. Look at the young people here tonight. As I was preparing this this week, I thought about the young people in the church. I thought about you young people that sung in the youth choir this morning. You sung that song, I'm not going to turn back, or however it went. I'm not gonna look back. I'm gonna stay the course. You know what I thought about this morning? I'm not being negative now. But I've been here a while. I've been here almost 17 years. Here in another month or two. And I thought about some other young people just like you that sung in the choir. And days gone by I said they wasn't going to turn back. And tonight they've turned back. Tonight they've rejected the truth. Boy, it breaks my heart. And I'm praying for you young people tonight. I'm telling you, you better get it settled in your heart what the truth is. and stand against this deception and mommas and daddies and grandparents. We better do everything we can to teach our young people what is right and what is wrong. And not only to teach them that, let's live it in front of them. I mean, let's live a life that shows them that it's a joy to be saved. And it's right to believe this book. I'm telling you, I wouldn't want to live in a household that questioned the Bible. I wouldn't want to live in a household and be under parents that made light of the preaching of God's Word. You say, preach, that might be a little hard. Listen, I'd rather be a little hard than too easy, amen? I'm telling you, I remember my pastor saying this. I'll say this and I'm done. I remember him saying this not too long before he passed away. He said, you know what, I wish I'd preached her a little straighter. And I'm gonna tell you, if you knew my pastor, he preached it straight, as straight as could be. Many of you, and I'm not saying this to be mean tonight, many of you young people tonight, you couldn't handle my pastor, amen? If I had time to tell you some things he preached and some lines he'd drawn, many of you probably couldn't handle it. But he was God's man, and he loved the Lord. And if he said, I wish I'd have preached it a little straighter, I think tonight, how much more should I preach it straighter? Because I'm nowhere near what he was. I'm telling you tonight, we're living in a time where deception is on our land. It's in our churches. I mean, it's infiltrated our pulpits. There's deceivers that this Sunday morning and tonight have gotten in so-called Baptist churches and preached heresy this evening. And I'm telling you, we just need to stand in these last days. You're not going to be popular. Everybody's not going to like you. But it'll matter when you get to heaven and you stand before the Lord. And if God gives you a family and you have children and grandchildren can say, mom and daddy, grandma and grandpa, stand for the truth. I'm telling you, that's priceless tonight. You can't put money on that. So I hope tonight that we will take to heart the message that Peter has given us here on the danger of deceivers. It's dangerous tonight to be in deception. I don't want to be deceived in any area of my life. I go purchase a vehicle, I don't want to be deceived. When I go to the doctor, I don't want the doctor to lie to me. Tell me, doc, like it is. And I'm telling you, when it comes to the things of God, I want the truth tonight. I need it, I must have it, because I've got to correct myself and get in line with this book. I appreciate the truth of the word tonight and I hope tonight God will help us in these last days just to stand strong and be alive. You will never know how many people you're affecting for the cause of Christ just by standing and being firm in these days. I hope this will help you tonight. Let's stand all over the house if you would, musicians if you'll come.