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Lesson 26: Diligently understanding Biblical examples

Read 2 Peter 2:1-22- https://www.bible.com/bible/59/2pe.2
⁴ For if 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;
⁵ if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
⁶ if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
⁷ and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked
⁸ (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);
⁹ then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,
¹⁰ and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

One of the wonderful things about the Bible is God gives us examples of how faithful He was to people who lived before now. There are examples of great faith, and there are examples of great unbelief in these pages, and how God remained faithful to each person.


We must, however, use diligence in reading these stories and hearing God’s Truth in them. In the first example in our verses today we read about the angels. God created the angels to be His messengers – the word angel means messenger. He made them beautiful, powerful beings who could do whatever He asked of them. But those who chose to follow Lucifer when he sinned were given only one chance to choose between Lucifer and God. There was no second chance, no mercy, no grace – only righteous judgment given to them for their one choice. We might think it was unfair of God to not give them a second chance. But God never promised to be fair by our standards; He is just and righteous by His standards.

In our next example, the story of Noah and the flood, God gave mankind many chances to believe and follow Him. It took Noah between sixty and one hundred years to build the ark, and he preached to the people around him the whole time (Genesis 6:11-22). The people around Noah had many, many chances to turn to God, but they refused. We might think God gave them too many chances. But God is a God of grace and mercy as well as of justice and righteousness. In the end, when they continued to choose not to believe, God’s justice and righteousness had to be accomplished. The flood killed everyone on earth except for Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives.

The next example is Lot and his family in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19). The Bible says Lot was a righteous man, and his wife and daughters were also righteous. However, when God sent His angels to rescue Lot and his family, Lot’s wife turned back, even when the angels had told them not to, because her heart was bound by the things she had owned in these cities. Turning back cost this woman her life.

We must understand these examples as God set them before us in the Bible; we cannot make them be what we want them to be.

*Who is your greatest example in the Bible, and why?