II Peter 2:4-8 God the Righteous Judge Part III

As we look at this world and see people disrespect God and His word, it’s easy to get discouraged. I would imagine many of you pray sometimes, just as I do, “How long, Lord?” We want to see God’s righteousness and justice become a present reality in the world not just some sort of high and lofty concept. While we wait for that day to come, we can take comfort in the fact that scripture clearly reveals that God has dispensed justice and distinguished between the right and the wrong. Because He has done so, we can trust Him to do it again.

As we saw in the previous post on these verses, God “preserved Noah” who was described as a “preacher of righteousness”. Lot’s story is a little bit different. If you read the account in Genesis, Lot chose to live near Sodom and Gomorrah. He was offered by his uncle, Abram, the choice between the land of Canaan and living near Sodom and he made the choice of Sodom. Now, Genesis tells us that the folks living in Sodom were wicked. So, Lot gets there to Sodom and he’s living there around these wicked people. He sees for himself the sorts of people they are and how wicked they act and what does he do? He continues to live there. Then, a few chapters later he and his family get captured when a local war breaks out between some of these kings. After his uncle comes and rescues him, you might expect him to say to himself “Ok, these people are wicked and the area is not safe with all this warring and strife. We need to move”. However, that’s not what happened. He stayed in this unsafe area surrounded by wicked people.

So, when God brought judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, He didn’t preserve Lot like He did Noah. God “rescued righteous Lot”. Of course, we recognize that Lot was righteous the same way that anybody becomes righteous—he had faith in God. We can commend Lot for that but the fact that God had to rescue Lot tells us something. The Greek word translated “rescued” (rhoumai-4506) means to snatch away from danger. Lot didn’t go willingly, remember—they had to drag him out (Genesis 19:16). He and his family left Sodom though it was not of their own accord but they did make it out before God’s terrible judgment fell on those wicked people.

However, even though he had to be made to leave, let’s listen to what scripture does say about him. As we have noted, Peter writes here in verse 7 under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that Lot was righteous. The people he lived with in contrast are described as “sensual” (not restraining any of their passions-“if it feels good, do it”) and “unprincipled” (athesmos [113]-not willing to be subject to the rule of law). Peter writes that in this environment, Lot was “oppressed” or worn down by their vile behavior. He was burdened. In fact, Peter in the next verse describes Lot as feeling “his righteous soul tormented day after day”. The word “tormented” translates a word that was sometimes used to describe torture and it also was used to describe testing precious metals with a touchstone. The evil deeds he saw as he lived there in Sodom were a constant, daily source of anguish. While he might not have lived the kind of life that Moses did and allowed his lifestyle to preach the goodness and judgment of God on these people, we can at least acknowledge that he did not allow himself to become contaminated by the putrid lifestyles of the sinner he lived among not did he partake in their “lawless deeds”.

Peter’s point in these verses has been that God does punish sin and redeem those with saving faith. Because He has done it in the past, we can trust that when He judges in the future it will likewise be righteous. We can be thankful that we will not suffer His wrath if we are His children but we should therefore be even more motivated to call men and women everywhere to repent of their sins so that God will forgive them. That is our mission and our privilege.