1.     Tonight is New Year’s Eve, and many people will be making reservations for restaurants and parties and shows.  In fact, some people made their reservations many months ago.

2.     By the way, you do not need a reservation to get in here tonight.  Just show up.

3.     In case you do not know it, God is making reservations too.  But it is not for a big New Year’s Eve celebration.

4.     It is a reservation for judgment (cf. II Peter 2:4, 9, 17; 3:7; Jude 6, 13).

5.     Thankfully, reservations are also being made for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you” (John 14:1, 2).

6.     Which reservations are being made for you?  Let us consider the reservations described in II Peter 2 and the book of Jude.

I. THE JUDGMENT FOR THE ANGELS THAT SINNED (2:4).

1.     This is speaking of fallen angels (cf. Jude 6).  I should start out by stating that the Bible has little to say about this judgment and so we must be careful in our exposition.

2.     Many Bible teachers identify these angels as the angels that followed Satan in his rebellion against God.

3.     You will recall that in Matthew 25:41, our Lord referred to hell as an “everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

4.     Revelation 12:7 & 9 refer to the dragon (Satan) “and his angels.”

5.     These fallen angels in II Peter 4 and Jude 6 are said to be in hell, and bound in chains of darkness (II Peter 2:4).

6.     Now if these angels are incarcerated for their sin, we must ask how are they still free to roam the earth, enticing men to sin?   All throughout the Bible, both in the OT and the NT we see fallen angels – devils (demons), unclean spirits or evil spirits –  possessing unbelievers and vexing believers.

7.     In Luke 8, after casting out the devils out of the Gadarene maniac, our Lord asked him, “What is thy name?”  The man replied, “Legion,” and Luke explains that this was because many devils were entered into him.

8.     There are many stories like this in the four Gospels and the book of Acts.

9.     Therefore, we must conclude that the sin referred to here in II Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 was of a special character, and that it was so grievous and heinous that God cast these angels down to hell. 

10. It is my opinion that their horrible sin is recorded in Genesis 6, where these “angels that sinned” are referred to as “the sons of God.”

11. The word for hell in II Peter 2:4 is literally “Tartarus,” and it is the only time we find this word in the Bible.

12. The Greeks thought of Tartarus as a subterranean place lower than Hades.  The words, “to be reserved unto judgment” (2:4b), indicate that their incarceration in Tartarus was temporary. Their final judgment is still future.

13. These “angels that sinned” are “reserved” – locked up in Tartarus – until that future day of retribution.

14. Before moving on, let me add that we are living in a day of increased demonic activity.  As America slips further and further away from the Bible, unclean spirits are getting a foothold.

II. THE JUDGMENT FOR THE UNJUST (2:9).

1.     “Unjust” is the opposite of “just,” which means “righteous.”

2.     Proverbs 29:27 says, “An unjust man is an abomination to the just…”

3.     Zephaniah 3:5 says, “The unjust knoweth no shame.”   They are shameless!

4.     Second Peter 2:9 says, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” 

5.     This “day of judgment” is one of the great themes of the Bible (cf. II Peter 3:7).  But it is seldom preached these days. 

6.     The most famous sermon ever preached here in America was preached in Enfield, Connecticut on July 8, 1741 by Jonathan Edwards – “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

7.     Edwards said, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.”  The entire sermon is like that.

8.     But few preachers today will preach like Jonathan Edwards.

9.     Second Peter 2:12 says they “shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” 

10. Second Peter 2:13 says, they “shall receive the reward of unrighteousness” (hell).

11. These Scriptures refer to hell, described in II Peter 2:17 as “the mist of darkness.”

12. Jude 13 refers to the eternal judgment of hell as “the blackness of darkness for ever.”

13. In Matthew 8:12, our Lord referred to hell as “outer darkness: (where) there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

14. He said the same thing in Matthew 22:13 and 25:30.

15. The Bible warns of “the power of darkness.”  This refers to the power Satan and his demons have over mankind.  Satan uses the world and the flesh to entice sinners (cf. II Peter 2:18, 19).

16. Colossians 1:13 says those of us who have been saved have been “delivered from the power of darkness.”  We have been translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.

17. But though we have been delivered, the pull of the world and the flesh remains very strong.  If not dealt with, this power of darkness will pull us away from God – away from prayer, away from the Bible, and away from church.

18. And for the ungodly, the power of darkness pulls them down into hell itself.

19. Before moving on, let me stress that there will be a greater judgment for false teachers.  In fact, this is the great theme of II Peter 2 (cf. 2:1-3).   Their judgment “lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not” (2:3).

20. The Bible says “many” (2:2) are deceived and led astray by false teachers (cf. 3:17).

21. Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Ye shall receive the greater damnation” (Matt. 23:14).

22. Just as there will be degrees of reward for Christians at the Judgment Seat of Christ, there will be various degrees of punishment for sinners at the Great White Throne judgment.

23. Jude 7 says that the wicked, perverted Sodomites are “suffering the vengeance of eternal hell.”  However, we need to consider that the religious and hard-working citizens of Capernaum (our Lord’s adopted hometown) will be worse off than the Sodomites (cf. Matt. 11:23, 24).

24. Do you remember what our Lord said in Luke 12?  He said, “And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes” (12:47, 48).

III. THE JUDGMENT WILL BE “FOR EVER” (2:17).

1.     There are certain individuals who teach that the punishments of hell are only for a short duration.  This is one of the reasons why false religions are very popular.  The JW’s, the SDA, and many other religious cults deny eternal torment in hell.

2.     The RCC teach sinners go to a place called “purgatory.”  (But apparently they seldom teach it any more.)

3.     Buddhists and Hindus teach “reincarnation.”

4.     Judaism basically teaches that everyone goes to heaven when they die.  Jewish rabbis does not have much to say about the afterlife, and Judaism leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion – annihilation, reincarnation, and many other unbiblical views are accepted and taught.

5.     Muslims, Masons, and Mormons do not worry about going to hell. 

6.     But the Bible has this to say about the fires of:

·        “for ever” (II Peter 2:17).

·        “eternal fire” (Jude 7).

·        “everlasting fire” (Matt. 18:8; 25:41).

·        “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46).

·        “everlasting destruction” (II Thess. 1:9).

·        “eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29).

·        “eternal judgment” (Hebrews 6:2).

·        “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night” (Rev. 14:11).

CONCLUSION:

1.     America has produced many great preachers – DL Moody, RA Torrey, Billy Sunday, Harry Ironside, John R Rice, and thousands of others that you and I have never even heard of.

2.     There was one itinerant preacher you probably never heard of named Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834).  He was born in CT but preached all over the United States.  He also traveled extensively in Canada, three times to England and Ireland, and once to the West Indies.

3.     He is not well known these days, but his autobiography at one time was the second-best selling book in the United States, exceeded only by the Bible.

4.     There are many amazing stories about the preaching of Lorenzo Dow.

5.     Back in 1794 the town of Jacksonboro was established in the state of Georgia, about halfway between Augusta and Savannah, not far from the Savannah River that separates Georgia from South Carolina.

6.     For 36 years Jacksonboro grew into a hustling and bustling frontier town, but it was also a very rough and wicked town with plenty of drinking and fighting.

7.     Lorenzo Dow came to Jacksonboro and preached the Gospel.  He denounced their drinking and called on them to repent.

8.     The people of Jacksonboro responded by scornfully pelting him with eggs and tomatoes.   They refused to let him preach and tried to run him out of town.

9.     Finally, a powerful man, named Seaborn Goodall, gave Lorenzo Dow sanctuary in his house.   The next day, Lorenzo Dow came back to preach but his tormenters chased him down to an old bridge and told him never to return.

10. Lorenzo Dow told this wicked mob that the wrath of God would soon come down upon Jacksonboro, and the town would be utterly destroyed, except for one house – the home of his friend Seaborn Goodall.

11. The wicked townspeople laughed and jeered Lorenzo Dow.  But they weren’t laughing for long.  Soon fires broke out inexplicably.  Windstorms tore off roofs.  The placid little Beaver Creek became wild and unruly, sweeping away homes in flash floods. 

12. Those that survived finally gave up and moved five miles away where they founded a new town named Sylvania.  Today, time has removed all traces of Jacksonboro, except for the home of Seaborn Goodall.

13. The Goodall home had fallen into disrepair by the mid-1960s when the Brier Creek Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution took possession of the house. The group raised $40,000 and renovated the house.

14. Today the old Goodall home still stands in good shape along an otherwise abandoned dirt road while all other signs of the once bustling town are long gone.

15. Today the town of Jacksonboro no longer exists.  It is not even on the map (cf. Jude 7).