The Lord knows how to rescue the righteous.

​“then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, especially those who follow the polluting desires of the flesh and despise authority. Bold, arrogant people! They do not tremble when they blaspheme the glorious ones;”

‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭HCSB‬‬

We start today in the middle of one of the longest sentences of the Bible. It is seven verses long. It is also an if-then sentence. So what was the if’s?

“For if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned but threw them down into Tartarus and delivered them to be kept in chains of darkness until judgment; and if He didn’t spare the ancient world, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, when He brought a flood on the world of the ungodly; and if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to ruin, making them an example to those who were going to be ungodly; and if He rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the unrestrained behavior of the immoral (for as he lived among them, that righteous man tormented himself day by day with the lawless deeds he saw and heard ) —”

‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭4‬-‭8‬ ‭HCSB‬‬

1. if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned

2. if He didn’t spare the ancient world

3. if He reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes

4. if He rescued righteous Lot

Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. 

We don’t spend much time thinking about the people He rescued from these calamities but we will today.

1. When the Devil and 1/3 of the angels sinned against God, God rescued the 2/3 from tormenting thoughts. I like it to those who are facing war. Those who are afraid are an infection among the ranks and will cause others to lose heart and be afraid too. 

2. When the ancient world was full of sin God rescued Noah and his family through the year-long boat trip. For if Noah had been left with that evil generation then he would have lost the righteousness he had in God. 

3. When Sodom and Gomorrah had fallen so far and there was no repentance from their actions, God had to rescue the rest of the world from being infected with sexual immorality, pride, gluttony, apathy, complacency, idleness, and lack of concern for the poor.

“As I live” — the declaration of the Lord God — “your sister Sodom and her daughters have not behaved as you and your daughters have. Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn’t support the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me, so I removed them when I saw this.”

‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭16‬:‭48‬-‭50‬ ‭HCSB‬‬

4. God also had to rescue Lot and His family for the torment in their souls of being around the sins of Sodom day after day. We step on his wife for turning around and becoming a pillar of salt, but maybe instead of longing to be back in the city she wanted to see its destruction for in her soul she knew that that was an evil place, but because her husband wanted to live there she stayed too. God provided a place for Lot in the mountains temporarily but he sought refuge in a new city and eventually ended up permanently living in the mountains.

In every act of judgment, God is rescuing someone else from judgment into His provision. I want to be in His provision rather than His judgment!