God's Dealings with the Godly and Their Persecutors
Thos. Adams. 2 Peter 2:4-10 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness… I. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE GODLY. 1. A deliverance. It is a great comfort in every distress to hope for a deliverance; to believe it, greater; to be sure of it, greatest of all. Thus certain is every Christian, by the assurance of faith, grounded on the infallible promise of God. God often defers His deliverance. (1) To return us home: when no man will harbour that unthrift son, he Will back again to his father. (2) To make us seek our deliverance in the right place: while money can buy physic, or friends procure enlargement, the great Physician Helper is not thoroughly trusted. (3) To set a better price on His benefits; for suddenly gotten are suddenly forgotten. 2. The persons delivered are the "godly." Godliness consists in two things:(1) The devout admiration; and(2) Sincere imitation of God. 3. From what — "out of temptations." They, of all men, are most subject to temptations. The higher a tree shoots up, the more tempest-beaten. To suggest evil is Satan's blame; to resist it our praise. The more we are tried in the furnace, the purer gold we shall go to the treasury of heaven. Lord, make us as strong as the devil is malicious. (1) We that pray for deliverance from evil must endeavour against evil. Let us have wary eyes, for it is not the self-appearing devil, but the same or transformed angel, that doth corrupt us. (2) Consider what preventions the provident God useth against our sinnings. Sometimes He shortens our own arms, sometimes strengthens others against us. Sometimes reason is heard, when religion sits out; and the dishonesty, inutility, or difficulty of a sin is perpended. But it is best, when the fear of God hath corrected us, or the Word of God averted us, or the Spirit of God recalled us. (3) Let us meditate how we are blessed of God, and have reason to bless God, for these happy deliverances. (4) If we love not evil, let us long for our final and plenary deliver ance from it; that immortal court, where sin can no more enter; out of this the tempter is excluded for ever. Here the Lord delivers us from the damnation and domination of sin, there from the temptation and assault; here it shall not over come us, there it shall not come near us. 4. Our deliverer — "The Lord." His sovereignty is — (1) Independent. (2) Absolute. (3) Universal. (4) Necessary. We could not live but by His dominion. (5) Immutable. What God once is, He is for ever, (6) Incomprehensible. (7) Glorious and blessed. 5. "The Lord knoweth how." As there is nothing impossible to His might, so there is nothing concealable from His understanding. (1) He knows our temptations before they be upon us; He sees the preparing of the potion, weighs the ingredients to a scruple, qualifies the malignity of the purgatives with sweet consolations. (2) He knows them when they be upon us (Exodus 2:25; Psalm 31:7). (3) He knows how to rid them from us. They are often so perplexful and intricate, that neither we see, nor the world sees, nor reason apprehends how, yet the Lord knoweth. II. THE END OF THEIR PERSECUTORS. 1. The malefactors. The wicked are "unjust."(1) To God. Righteousness is an obedience to the will of God, and injustice is no other than disobedience. (2) To man. Such are they that measure their right by their power, and therefore will do injury because they cannot do it. Unjust — (a) To the commonwealth. (b) To the Church. (c) To private persons. (3) To a man's self. So is the thriftless, that spends himself into poverty by pride and luxury; the envious, that loses the sweetness of his own by grudging at his neighbours; the covetous, that adds to the continent of his treasure what he should add to the content of his nature. 2. The binding over. "Are reserved." Whether they sleep or wake, play or work, stand or walk, their time runs on, their judgment is nearer; and they are more surely kept unto it, than any dungeon, with the thickest walls and strongest chains, can hold a prisoner till his arraignment comes. (1) Wickedness hath but a time, but the punishment of wickedness is beyond all time. (2) The unjust are already reserved, the decree is passed against them. They are bound over to the last assizes by a threefold recognisance, as it were with infrangible, though insensible, chains of judgment — the bond of their sins, the bond of their conscience, and the bond of omnipotent justice — and this threefold cable is not easily broken. 3. The assizes. "To the day of judgment." (1) The sufficiency of the Judge (2) The necessity of the judgment (2 Thessalonians 1:6, 7). 4. The execution. "To be punished." In this judgment, God respects no persons; He knows no valour, no honour, no riches, no royalty, in the matter of sin; but Romans 2:9. (Thos. Adams.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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; WEB: For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;