LESSON 6

December 1, 1888.

2 PETER 2:1-10.

  1. WHAT obstacles hindered the progress of truth “in old time”? 2 Peter 2:1, first clause.
  2. What did Peter say there should still be among the people? Same verse.
  3. What does he say of the character and work of these false teachers? Same verse.
  4. Is it necessary that these false teachers who deny the Lord should be avowed disbelievers in him? Titus 1:16.
  5. What does Christ say will be the fate of such? Matt. 7:22, 23.
  6. HoW much following will such ones have? 2 Peter 2:2.
  7. What will be the result to the truth? Same verse.
  8. What principle is it that leads these men to cover their licentiousness with the garb of religion? Verse 3.
  9. When such ones flourish the most, what may we know concerning the time of retribution? Verses 1 and 3, last part of each.
  10. What three great events of the past assure us that God will not allow them to go unpunished? Verses 4-7, 9.
  11. When will there be a parallel to the wickedness of in the days of Noah and Lot? Luke 17:26-30.
  12. In what did the great sin of the people in those times consist? Gen. 6:2, 5, 12; Jude 7.
  13. What does Peter say of these last-day false professors? 2 Peter 2:10, first part.
  14. To what time are all the wicked re- served for punishment? Verses 4, 9, last part of each.
  15. What was the character of those who escaped the judgments that have been brought upon the earth in the past? Verses 5, 7, 8.
  16. What encouragement can the righteous find in the account of past judgments? Verse 9, first part.

NOTES

IN 2 Peter 2:4-9 three events of the past are brought to view as evidences that God will surely punish the wicked, and deliver the godly out of temptation. First, “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell;” second, he “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 third, he turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, “making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly,” but delivered just Lot. Now, says Peter, if God did these three things, he knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. The fact that God has done these things in the past (and that he has, all the wicked may know if they will) is sure evidence that God will finally punish all the wicked, and will thereby deliver the godly out of temptation.

AND here it may be noticed that the punishment of the wicked is necessary to the complete redemption of the righteous. The loyal angels could not have been delivered from temptation if God- had not cast out from among them the angels that kept not their first estate. Jude 6. Lot’s righteous soul was vexed from day to day by the filthy acts of the Sodomites, and the same must have been the case with Noah, when every imagination of the thoughts of the hearts of men was only evil continually. God destroyed the wicked race, preserving Noah alive. So when wickedness abounds over the whole earth, and men totally reject God’s Spirit the safety of God’s loyal people, no less than outraged law, demands the destruction of the wicked.

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