Discover why God's judgment of fallen angels is the clearest evidence that no one escapes accountability.

A fake seatbelt is a perfect symbol of modern self-deception: it looks like safety, it signals compliance, and it keeps trouble away right up until the moment impact exposes what’s real. We start there with a story of stubborn “autonomy,” then pivot to a heavier question: when God warns us, is He limiting our freedom or protecting our lives?

We open to 2 Peter chapter 2, where Peter answers false teachers who sneer at the idea of divine judgment. Peter builds his case with a chain of “since” statements rooted in Genesis, and he begins with the most mysterious evidence he can offer: certain fallen angels who sinned and were immediately committed to “chains of gloomy darkness” until the judgment. That leads us into what the Bible actually teaches about angels and demons, why spiritual warfare is more than a metaphor, and how deception can hide behind confident religion and persuasive voices.

We also unpack Peter’s unusual word choice, Tartarus, and why it matters for understanding temporary imprisonment versus final judgment. With Jude and Genesis 6 as guardrails, we talk about boundaries God sets, what it means to defy them, and why Peter’s warning is aimed at protecting the church from false teaching. We close with a two-part response: pray because the battle is real, and praise because Jesus was not spared the wrath we deserve, so we can be saved from the wrath of God.

If this challenged you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. What part of this warning do you find easiest to ignore?

Transcript

Seatbelts And The Cost Of Defiance

SPEAKER_00 0:26

In 1968, I have read New Automobiles came out with something brand new, installed, ready to be used. The automobile industry was pretty excited about the innovation. The public could not have been more disinterested. The new installation was called seatbelts. Immediately, the majority of people refused to bother with this new contraption. You know, they'd rather not be bothered to buckle up. Nine years later, it would become law. And I can remember as a teenager being frustrated with having to remember to buckle up. I can remember as a child the best seat in the car was the back window ledge where you could stretch out there and watch the clouds go by. You had that happy childhood? I sure did. Well, that's gone. Those days are gone for good. Now kids are so strapped in they could go to the moon and back safely. I read recently about a man who just a few years ago decided that he wasn't going to use a seatbelt. They had no right to infringe on his autonomy. Once he stepped in that automobile, his life was his own. The police disagreed. They ticketed him 32 different times for not using a seatbelt. Traffic fines were costing a lot of money, so, you know, he, instead of obeying the law, decided that he would make a fake seat belt. If you imagine taking the time to tie a fake seat belt to the seat belt and then looping it over your shoulder, which he designed to do to just hang loosely rather than just buckle up. Well, that's what he did. I'm not going to wear it. I'm going to fool them. And it worked. Until, unfortunately, he had an accident, a head-on collision, the Associated Press reported he was instantly killed. The seatbelt law didn't have anything to do with restriction, it had everything to do with protection. I mean, if you see a sign on the side of the road that says, you know, slow down with a sign of a squiggly curve, well, you can do three things. You can heed the warning and slow down. You can ignore the warning and keep going at your same speed. You can defy the warning and speed up. I'll show them who's in charge of my life. The same principle exists with the Word of God, the warning of God in Scripture. You can obey it, you can ignore it, or you can defy it. I'll show God who's in charge of my life. That's the Apostle Peter living in a day when false teachers were defying the warning of God, telling him that he was making up this idea of a coming judgment of God. Peter, you're making all of this up. You're trying to restrict our freedom. You're messing with our lives. What right do you have to tell us what we can do and cannot do? Had nothing to do with restriction. It has everything to do with protection. If you'll take your Bibles and open to 2 Peter chapter 2, he's going to now give three illustrations of judgment. He's going to sort of pull over on the roadside, as it were, and stop his description of false teachers, which we have been exploring. And now he's going to give three illustrations of judgment. In fact, you'll notice that, you might notice that verse 4 through the first part of verse 10 is actually one sentence. One very long sentence. Peter sounds a lot like the Apostle Paul here with these long sentences. Well, in this one sentence, Peter's going to take us back to the book of Genesis and review three judgments that took place. By the way, he's going to give them in the same order that you find them in the book of Genesis. It's as if Peter's got the scroll of Genesis opened up in front of him as he's writing this letter. And now he's going to talk about the judgment of God. Now I realize this isn't exactly the typical passage for Mother's Day. If you look up verses to preach on Mother's Day, this is not going to be one of them, unless we need to call judgment down on your children, which probably is something they might deserve. However, you do have the promise of a rescue here for faithful believers, and that would certainly be you today. Now you might get out a pencil or pen and circle the several times the little word if shows up in this long sentence. We're only going to deal with the first part of it, but you'll notice in verse 4, if God did not spare angels, verse 5, if he did not spare the ancient world, verse 6, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes. Verse 7, if he rescued righteous Lot. These are what grammarians call first class conditional clauses. And I know your eyes are going to glaze over on that, but what it means is it is an if as if this might have happened, it might not have, if it did. It could be rendered, and you might write in the margin of your Bibles the word sins. That's the idea of this conditional clause. If this happened and it did. Since God judged in the past in this manner, well, there's going to be this final judgment, just as sure as the earlier judgment. Now, I want to unpack these three judgment illustrations one at a time because there's just really too much to even cover one of them in our session today. A lot of people come up with questions afterward, and I welcome that from you as well. The first illustration Peter pulls from the Old Testament is still one of the most mysterious passages in a dramatic illustration of the judgment of God. And that is the judgment of certain fallen angels. This is Peter's exhibit A. This is his undeniable evidence the judgment will happen because it happened to some of these demons. So what does he mean? Well, let's just dive in and look at verse 4. 2 Peter chapter 2. For if, that is, since, for since, God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. That's where he ends that illustration, and we'll stop for now. This is one of the most mysterious scenes, verses in the Bible. And it leads you to immediately ask questions, doesn't it? Like, who are they? Where are they? What does it mean to us? What does it mean to false teachers? Well, let's just pause and begin with a basic understanding of angels. There's a lot of mystery about this spirit world, this invisible world. Good angels, that is those who chose not to defy God and follow Satan. And bad angels or unholy angels, we call them demons, who chose to follow Satan in that original uprising. Unfortunately, the church, especially the medieval church, really didn't help a lot. All these legends, I'll give you a few of them. One demon, especially, uh, enjoys strangling people, and um King Solomon captured it and assigned it to a spinning wheel where it's got to spin forever. Now, to me, that sounds like rumple stiltskin, frankly. Not something true. There's the legend of a demon that gives people sore throats. That's their job. You're thinking, oh wait, no, that wasn't a demon. But that demon will flee in terror if you pray to the angel Raphael. So if you have a sore throat, call out to Raphael. I would recommend you call that to Rakola, not Raphael. And there's a demon who gives people upset stomachs. That's his role. To give people indigestion. So it wasn't Taclo Bell after all. It was this demon, and I can't pronounce his name, it's too long. Well, what do we actually know from scripture about angels? Well, they're mentioned in 33 books of the Bible. They're mentioned over a hundred times in the Old Testament, more than 150 times in the New Testament. If you're reading the Bible, and I really pray you you are, you just notice it's one angel after another. Which is, by the way, why Paul warned the church if an angel appears to you and delivers a gospel contrary to the gospel you've received, let him be accursed. He doesn't say if an angel appears to you, well then you know it's not true. You know you're hallucinating. He assumes it could be true. I have every reason to believe that an angel did appear to Joseph Smith. I have every reason to believe an angel did appear to Muhammad. And in the history of that religion, those religions, angels delivered information. If an angel appears to you and delivers a gospel contrary, Paul writes, let him be accursed. Don't give him the time of day. Now the Bible doesn't tell us when Satan and his angels defied God. In fact, we're told that upon their creation or in the original creation, they are shouting with joy, watching the rest of creation be brought into existence. We know that from Job chapter 38, where God said to Job, Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? He's taking them back to the very beginning of creation. And when the sons of God shouted for joy. Sons of God is an expression in the Old Testament for angels. The angels are shouting for joy at the glory of God demonstrated in the creation of the universe. So they're created at the very outset of Genesis chapter 1 and verse 1. We also know that angels were created by God the Son, preexistent deity. At one point, at the incarnation, took the form of a man, named him Jesus. John clears that up when he says, in the beginning was the word, the Lagos. This is the pre-existent Lord. And the word was with God, that is God the Father. And the word was God. Now notice all things came into being through him. And apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being. Paul writes in Colossians of Jesus Christ, and he says, For by him that is Christ, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Notice that, the spirit world. And now he refers to the arrangement of angels: thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities. All things were created through him and for him. Let me tell you, the Bible never, never once attempts to prove the existence of angels. It just announces that they do. It's kind of like the Bible never attempts to prove the existence of God. It just announces, in the beginning, God. As if to say, take it or leave it. Not, and let me give you five reasons we can prove he exists. No, in the beginning, God. What did God do? Created. The heavens and the earth, the universe and the earth. So the Bible doesn't try to prove the existence of angels, it just repeatedly shows us angels in action. They show up hundreds of times throughout Scripture. They're ministering angels, doing the bidding of God for the sake of the believer. It's one of their occupations. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 14. My wife is convinced that I've got two of them guarding me. One on my front bumper and one on my back bumper. I can tell you they've got to be exhausted by now. Throughout Scripture, though, angels are amazingly active. They announce the birth of Christ to Joseph, to Mary, to the angels. They deliver answers to prophetic visions. They deliver prophecy as they did to Zachariah, the John the Baptizer would be born. They deliver apostles from prison. Doors just open as angels move toward them. They minister to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. They announce the Lord's resurrection to his disciples. Throughout the book of Revelation, it's one angel seeing after another announcing judgment. Angels are going to destroy much of the resources on planet Earth at the bidding of God. And finally, at the final throne of judgment, angels cast unbelievers into the lake of fire. Peter's talking here in chapter 2 about fallen angels. He's talking about demons who do the bidding of Satan. Now you might wonder why any angel would ever sin. Why would any angel who watched the triune God involved in the creation of the universe, living in the glorious light of God? How in the world, in that perfect world, would they defy him? Have you ever thought about the fact that angels were the first sinners, the first transgressors? The Apostle John writes in 1 John chapter 3 and verse 8 that the devil is sinning from the beginning. We're not told how long it took before his creation in the fall. We're not told how long Adam and Eve lived in the garden before the temptation. Could have been years. We're not told. But in there he defied God. Jesus calls him in John 8.44 the father of lies, the original liar, the fountainhead of all deception. God created angels with self-determination, free will. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 6 commands them to worship God, which means they have the opportunity to disobey or obey. That cry of angels circling the throne right now, we can't see it, but they're crying out holy, holy, holy, created to do that. That still is nothing less than a willful response to the majesty of God. Satan's fall was a volitional act. He's going to be held responsible for it. It was a demonstration of pride. He says, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that. We're giving insight into that moment as he began to defy the throne of God. Isaiah chapter 14, I will ascend to heaven. I will set my throne on high. I will ascend higher than the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High. I will, I will, I will. Of course, loses. God is not unseated. And the devil is forever unsettled, but they have not surrendered, have they? Martin Luther, the reformer, said, I know Satan exists because I've done business with him. And so do you. We fight not against flesh and blood, but against those spiritual powers that we cannot see. Satan and his demons have been fighting the cause of God ever since, attempting to destroy Israel and make Nolan void the promise of God for a future kingdom. They've attempted to stop holy angels from carrying out their mission, warfare in the heavens. We're given a description of in Daniel chapter 10. Demons are considered the real influence behind false teachers. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. The Apostle Paul said that false religion is actually the doctrines of demons. They've inspired it, they've created it, they motivate mankind to believe it. They're behind it. In fact, the unbelieving world, we're told, is under the delusion of the God of this world, little G, who's blinded the eyes of those who do not believe the light of the glorious gospel. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. But Satan still is going to battle all the way to his final defeat, which shows you the depth of his hatred for God and for you. Until finally he's judged and thrown himself into the lake of fire. Now, since Satan and demons are free to roam about today, their freedom is limited. They cannot dispose of anything apart from the sovereign will of God. This early judgment referenced here by Peter can't be the original fall of Satan and his demons at the beginning of creation, because there are still demons roaming. Peter isn't referring to the final judgment in Revelation chapter 20, because he's referring to angels who are already incarcerated. Notice again, verse 4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness, notice, to be kept until the judgment. What Peter is saying here is that the evidence of a coming judgment can be seen in the fact that some fallen angels have been judged already and already are chained in darkness. Where is that? Well, my translation says they've been chained in hell. Peter uses an unusual word here, not the typical word for the place of torment. That would be Hades. It's a real place. It is in existence today. It is the temporary holding place for unbelievers. Luke chapter 16 makes it clear, those who've died without Christ are awaiting their final judgment in Hades. Peter doesn't use that word. He doesn't use another common word for a place of judgment, the word used by the Lord often, Gehenna. That was simply the name of Jerusalem's town dump where trash was burning continually, and Jesus used that word simply as a word which people would have understood as a place of fire, a place of torment. Words are used to this day to describe difficult places. We'll say, well, that person, bless their heart, they're in. I see you. Not in the hospital. They're not in ICU, but we're using that as an expression that people understand as a place of difficulty. Where that person is real, they're in a valley. Well, they're not in a valley. We're using that word to express some place we all understand as a place of difficulty. But Peter uses the word here. If we transliterate it, it's the word Tartarus. Translated hell. This was a common word in the Greek world. Tartarus was believed by the Greek world to be a place of torment for those who defied the gods. That doesn't mean that Peter believes in the Pantheon any more than Peter or Jude believe in the books of Enoch, even though they refer to him in Jude verse 6 and 14. A lot of legends in those books, if you read them, simply identifying with something in it that was indeed fact. Peter is adopting the word because everybody in his world understood, Greek mythology, understood it was a word that was used for a place of torment and isolation and judgment. But unlike his pagan world, Peter doesn't view Tartarus as the place of final judgment, but as a place of temporary judgment. Notice again, Peter says here these angels are temporarily there. He says they're committed to chains of gloomy darkness. That verb speaks of someone being handed over for imprisonment. They're imprisoned here as they are awaiting the final judgment. One author calls this place a cross between solitary confinement and death row. The book of Revelation tells us then that Satan and all his demons are going to be cast eventually into the lake of fire. So there is this temporary place, and these angels are already chained there. And again, that leads to the question: you know, what did they do in order to be sent early to death row? Well, that only deepens the mystery because Peter doesn't tell us. Fortunately, the little book of Jude provides wonderful commentary. So in verse 6, Jude uses the same language Peter uses. He writes, And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise, note that, which likewise did what? Indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire. So Jude is using the same illustrations that Peter's using. They both seem to have the book of Genesis open, although Jude gives added commentary that takes us back to Genesis chapter 6. So let me read from there. When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. They came into the daughters of man and bore children to them. This egregious sin of these demons was something unnatural, something sexual, something out of bounds. Now I gotta tell you, there's a lot of ink spilled on Genesis chapter 6, these opening verses, and a lot of legends as a result. I don't have time to give you all the opinions, I only have time to give you the right ones, okay? But I gotta tell you, much of what's out there is philosophical, legendary, poetical. It is not exegetical, that it is not coming from the commentary of Scripture. In other words, a lot of it is simply our imagination rather than God's revelation. I will tell you one view, the most popular one, is that these fallen angels were somehow capable of reproducing through sexual relations with women. It might appear at first glance to be that if we let the Bible provide commentary on what Genesis gives us very little information about. Nowhere are we told that angels have the ability to reproduce. In fact, Jesus makes it clear that angels don't, in that little expression in Matthew chapter 22, verse 30, that angels are not given in marriage. By the way, that doesn't mean that angels don't have the joy of marching down an aisle in an expensive tuxedo. They probably can't afford it. It doesn't mean that these demons never get the ability to, you know, say their I do's to the woman they love. No, the primary purpose of marriage in the word is procreation. And procreation was not given to angels. One theologian puts it well, let me just repeat him as he reviews creation. He says this: God created two of human kind, and two of each animal kind, each complete with a self-replicating genetic system for reproduction. He created angels without any reference to a mate or to kind. So you probably never thought about it before, but the number of angels has never increased nor decreased by even one since creation. They don't have the ability to reproduce. Now, I don't intend to be graphic or insensitive, but the view that demons and human women created a race of half-demon, half-human creatures would require a demon to have the ability to produce seed, sperm. Nothing of that sort is even hinted in Scripture. In fact, we're told the opposite. They're unable to fulfill one of the blessings of marriage, which is procreation. In my opinion, the idea of a half demon, half human belongs in Marvel comic books and not in the Bible. Now, could they have somehow fiddled with a genetic code to produce the Nephilim or the giants? They may have. We're not sure. We're not told. But what's happening here? Well, I would agree with those who write that fallen angels lusted after women. They found them attractive. They wanted to experience sexual intimacy, procreation, at least indirectly, get as close to it as they possibly could. So they possessed mortal men who cohabited with women, which was a violation of some boundary that God had established that we aren't told about until we're told here that they transgressed it. Somewhere in the past at creation, he said, this is what you're not going to do. And they did it in their defiance of the law and the prohibition of God. And for that act, God committed these demons. We're not told how many, but he's committed these demons to the abyss, to Tartarus, to this dark, gloomy place of isolation where they have now, for the last 6,000 years, been awaiting the final judgment? Think about that. You think about the defiance of mankind. You think about the defiance of Adam and Eve. How could Adam and Eve have defied God living in a perfect world? Walking with God in the cool of the evening. Being given this magnificent garden. But they defied him. How can an angel who once knew the glory of God, who once sang of the majesty of God at creation, decide we're gonna unseat him. We're gonna kick him out. Now we're told they failed. And now in this additional defiance, some of them are chained in darkness. And Peter says this is exhibit A of a coming judgment. And let me tell you, beloved, the demons know all about this. The demons are not sitting around wondering about creation. We're wondering if it began in a little mud puddle. We wonder if aliens see the deer. No. They saw it, they attribute the power of God to it. They're not sitting around thinking, I wonder if there is a place called hell. I wonder if there's a coming judgment. They know about it. In fact, when Jesus arrived at the region of the Gadderenes, one of those men, demonized, the demon spoke through him and said to Jesus, What do we have to do with you, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time? Well, they know I'm out of time. In Mark's gospel, the demons named Legion begged Jesus. When they were being sent out of that man, they said, Look, there's a herd of swine. Send us over there. Don't command us to depart to the abyss. They all know about that abyss. Mark chapter 5. They don't want to go there, even though they know they're awaiting a final judgment. Now, having said all of that, given this rather horrific illustration of judgment, it's possible to get lost in the weeds of it all, to try to figure out all the mysteries of all of it, and miss his primary point. False teachers are convinced that Peter's making up this idea of coming judgment. These demons know it's true. False teachers are convinced that any idea of a terrifying judgment from God is ridiculous. These demons already know it's happened. False teachers were held in high esteem by the nation, revered. So angels were held in high esteem, but even they did not avoid the judgment of God. And false teachers will not be spared either. In the end, like the guy with a fake seatbelt. Everything was okay until suddenly. It wasn't. And that's the warning to false teachers. Peter's delivering this warning to them. He's writing us to tell us this is the warning he's giving to them. And it's a severe warning to the church not to listen to them. What's our response to something this somber? Twofold. First, pray. There is an invisible war taking place that's affecting what we see. We typically ignore that which we cannot see and focus only on that which we do see. You need to think about the fact that when you enter your workplace or that classroom or that neighborhood, those people are under the delusion of the God of this world who's fallen, who knows he's headed to judgment, and he wants as many to follow him as he can. Pray for them. Pray for your mission to deliver the gospel. That's why Jesus didn't save you and immediately take you to the Father's house. He left you here to be ambassadors. So pray. And then secondly, it leads you to praise. Praise might be a surprising response here, but let me show you something. In 2 Peter, we read, Peter wrote, God did not spare angels. And Paul uses the same verb when he writes, God did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all. Romans 8 32. Jesus was not spared the wrath of judgment from God. So we are led to praise in response to our Redeemer who was willing to go through all of that, not to be spared this wrath, so that we could be spared forever. The Bible says, since therefore we have now, that is right now, been justified, declared righteous, right with God, by the blood of Christ, his blood, much more, it's as if he says, well, there's something even better than that, if you can imagine it. Much more, we shall be saved by him from the wrath of God. Our future has nothing to do with the wrath of God, for Jesus was not spared, delivered over to experience it on our account. And so you have a choice. You can face the wrath of God on your own. You can say, Well, I'm going to tell God what right he has over my life. You will fulfill the promise of Scripture in the book of Hebrews that it is appointed unto man wants to die, and then the judgment. You will stand before him. Or you can trust in Christ and follow Christ, who was not spared, who paid the penalty for your sin. If you're a child of God today, the Bible says if you've received him, he gave you the right to be called children of God, John chapter 1. Then you've been rescued. Now you're justified already, and you'll be saved from that future day of wrath. Now let me just add, this is the grace of God in our lives, because as a child of God, having trusted him for your salvation, you might be a stubborn child today, or a submissive child. You might be a faith-filled child. Or a fearful child today. You might be a strong child. You might be a weak child. You might be a mature child, or you might be, you got a lot to learn as a child. No matter what kind of child of God you are, because you are a child of God by faith in Christ, praise him. You have been redeemed. You are safe and secure forever. Father, you have delivered through your servant by means of your spirit, the truth, that our world resists. Deluded, deceived by these doctrines of demons. And you've given us by pulling back the veil of past history something mysterious, but an illustration of defiance. You pull us by these passages. You incentivize us, you encourage us as your children toward obedience. You lead us to have to pause and praise you because we're we so focus on what we see. There is this world we do not. That's busy, active, deceiving, boring. We feel very small after a passage like this, but I I pray, Father, that we will all feel very secure for as little children to belong to you. And I pray for anyone in this auditorium who might even be treating this service as a fake seatbelt. That it will become real to them even today as they surrender their lives to you, Almighty God. And give us a renewed passion to pray for our world, our leaders, our neighbors, our classmates, our co-workers, our family. This is our mission. To deliver the gospel to a needy world, may it be. Cause us today to leave praising you for our redemption. Lord Jesus. Like the angels who were not spared great judgment, you were not spared, great judgment on our behalf. Because of you, we're free. We're saved. In your name we thank you.