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Colin Smith: The distinguishing mark of a righteous man in the unrighteous world is that he's distressed. He experiences distress. You see, the counterfeit believer takes a light view of sin. It doesn't bother him. He finds a way to accommodate it in his own life, live with it, become comfortable with it, and say, "Oh, this is just something I can't change."

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, for those who are distressed by what some people may call a bad habit, but ultimately a sin in their life, it's got to be comforting to know that that's actually a sign of a real and genuine faith of a true believer.

Colin Smith: It really is. And we're in Second Peter, Chapter 2, speaking about all this darkness and false teachers and counterfeit believers and all the rest of it. And then Peter homes in on the one distinguishing mark of a genuine believer, and he takes Lot as the example.

The distinguishing mark is just what you said, Steve: being distressed over sin around and over sin within. And then he says for that kind of person, God knows how to deliver that person. It is the most marvelous encouragement. I think a lot of folks are really discouraged about the way in which our culture is moving. And the very distress over darkness is a sign of the presence of light.

Steve Hiller: And while there are many who may be listening today who can take comfort in that truth, there's also a comfort to know that God will not allow the sin of this world and the sin of those who claim His name, but don't want to deal with sin, to go unpunished.

Colin Smith: Yeah, that's right. And that's at the core of Second Peter in Chapter 2. He knows how to hold the angels who rebelled ready for judgment, and He has a day of judgment set. That's why no serious Christian can ever be unconcerned about the remaining presence of sin in our own lives.

Steve Hiller: Well, it's a powerful message and I hope that you'll open your Bibles and join us in Second Peter, Chapter 2, as we continue "Everything You Need for Deliverance." Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: We're homing in on the question: How then do I know that I'm a real Christian and not a counterfeit Christian? Well, there's one distinguishing mark that Peter draws out here. I'm not saying it's the only mark, but it is one mark that he draws out for us here. It is hidden in your heart and therefore you cannot know it for sure in other people, but you can know it for sure in yourself.

Just before we look at what it is, let me just remind you that we do need to be very careful about making false judgments. I find in my own spirit that I need to check myself because I jump to conclusions too quickly again and again. Remember this, when we read in verse 2 of false teachers who deny the sovereign Lord Jesus Christ, who's writing this word about denying? Peter. Peter. His pen must have quivered when he wrote the word "deny."

You know, if I'd been in the courtyard hearing this man call down curses and denying the Lord three times, I might have been tempted to say, "Well, there you go. You see, he was a counterfeit." And I would have been dead wrong. It would have been a premature judgment. So be very careful about making judgments you can't make, you see, because the distinguishing mark is hidden within the heart. You can't know it for sure of other people. That's why there will be some surprises in heaven both in who is there and also in who is not there. But you can know it in yourself.

What is it? Here it is: Godly people are distressed over sin. That's Chapter 2 and verse 8. Now let's think about this. Peter reminds us of a man called Lot, who was a godly man living in an ungodly city. Lot had made a bad decision. You can read about it in the book of Genesis, where he chose where to live. And he experienced great unhappiness because he had chosen to live in an unusually wicked city.

But I want you to notice that Peter does not say anything about Lot's bad decision, which is interesting because that's the first thing that at least comes to my mind, and maybe yours, when we think about Lot. Peter doesn't say anything about his bad decision. That helps me because, you know, there are some decisions that we make in life that have lasting consequences. If you could run your life again, you would make a decision differently. I'm talking here about decisions of where to live, what career to pursue, perhaps even a decision of who to marry, a decision about where to locate.

The truth is, in the back of your mind, if you could rerun the last 20 years or 10 years or whatever it is, you would have made that life decision differently, and it weighs on you. And Lot made a decision that brought a whole lot of sorrow into his life when he chose to live in Sodom. And I think it is wonderful that Peter doesn't say a single word about it. Because as Peter looks back on the life of this man, you see, one bad decision can't stop the grace of God in your life.

One movement that has lasting consequences can't stop the grace of God. The thing that matters about Lot is not that he made a bad decision that brought a lot of sorrow in his life. The one thing that matters about Lot is that he was a righteous man. That's all that matters. And Peter says it three times in verses 7 and 8. God rescued Lot, who was a righteous man. He was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men. For that righteous man lived among them day after day and he was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds that he saw and he heard. Three times, he was a righteous man. That's the one thing that matters about Lot. Not his bad decision, but that he was a righteous man.

Now, what is the mark of a righteous man in an unrighteous world? Peter says he was distressed and he was tormented. And that was his experience day after day. Here is the distinguishing mark of a righteous man in an unrighteous world: He is distressed over sin. He's distressed over sin in the world around him. He's distressed over sin that remains in his own life and that he battles against.

The distinguishing mark of Lot as a righteous man was not that he was without sin. There is nobody without sin in this world save our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is why He is our Lord and Savior and He alone. The evidence that Lot was a righteous man is not that he was without sin, but that he was distressed over sin wherever he saw it. That's helpful because some of you live and work in an environment in business that causes you distress, tension in your conscience every day. And you say, you know, you're not off the world, you belong to Christ, but you are in the world and you are doing business in an environment that you wish was different from what it is, and you find there's a distress and a torment.

And you think, "Wouldn't it be nice to be a minister instead?" And I want to say to you, I'll tell you, there are people who go into ministry for that reason and they never last. But I want to say to you, your distress over that environment is a mark, a defining mark, that you are the real thing. And I thank God for it and you should thank God for it when you feel the pressure of it. You're like Lot. The distinguishing mark of a righteous man in an unrighteous world is that he's distressed. He experiences distress.

You see, the counterfeit believer takes a light view of sin. It doesn't bother him. He finds a way to accommodate it in his own life, live with it, become comfortable with it, and say, "Oh, this is just something I can't change." He sees it in the world around him and, well, you know, that's just the way of the world. It doesn't really bother him. But if you are Christ's, here is the distinguishing mark that you can see evidence of in your own soul. If you are in Christ, you will experience distress over sin wherever you see it, whether it be around or within.

Thank God for that distress. Can you see that mark in your life? Does your own sin distress you or have you become comfortable with accommodating what you have no intention of ever changing? Now, the true Christian is distressed over sin. Lot is the model of this. And the opposite, therefore, just reinforces the point and you'll see it in verse 22: that unrighteous people, far from being distressed over sin, love sin.

Speaking of the ungodly, Peter says, verse 22, of them the proverbs are true. Kids, listen up for this one. A dog returns to its vomit and a pig, a sow that is washed, goes back to her wallowing in the mud. I think this is a marvelous verse for an illustrated talk to middle school students, don't you think? I mean, you read that and you go, "Oh, gross! That is disgusting!" which is exactly the effect that Peter's words given by the Holy Spirit are intended to have. A sinner who loves what is filthy and goes back to it is gross.

Now think about this: the dog returns to its own vomit. It sniffs around what it has just thrown up. The dog is interested in it. It's intrigued by the vomit because the dog loves the vomit as the unrighteous man loves his sin. That's why he keeps going back to it. And if you think about the pig that has just been washed by the farmer, the pig goes back to wallow in the mud. Why? Because pigs love mud and sinners love sin and keep going back to it.

Any change, therefore, in the dog or in the pig is not a change in nature, but it is merely temporary. The pig, when it's washed, looks better, but it never lasts because it goes back to the mud and ends up as it was before. The dog that was sick feels better. Isn't that right? When you're sick, you always feel better when you got rid of it, right? Okay. Feel better when you've been sick. But what does it do? It goes back to its vomit and therefore ends up being as ill as it was before.

So the pig looked better, the dog felt better, but neither were better. The change was only temporary. Now, Peter is saying that's the counterfeit Christian right there. You had some kind of religious experience that had a temporary effect in your life, made you look better, made you feel better, but you remained the same person that you were before. And Peter says in verse 20, if that's you, you are worse off. Worse off than if you had never had that experience that only had a temporary effect in the first place. Worse.

I want to make this application. We're coming up to graduation time in the year. I want to speak to our high school students especially, and this throughout all of our services. Some of you know Christ. The Holy Spirit lives within you. You love the Savior. You hate sin where you see it in your own life. And as you go out to college, I have no fear for you and your parents need have no fear for you either.

But there are others who are in a different position and you know it. Of course, other people think that you love Christ, but you know in your heart that that is not true. And here's what's going to happen to you. You're going to go in a few months to a university campus, and you're going to find that there are people who have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ before, they've never been in a church, and they hear the Gospel and they receive it and their lives are changed by it.

But with you, it will be different because you've heard it all before and you are tired of it, and in your heart, you can't really wait to get away from it. And here's the irony. Having grown up in an environment where you have become used to pushing off the claims of Christ on your life, you have developed a hard shell around you even as I'm speaking to you now, and you are in the worst possible spiritual position.

I don't know of any group in the world that are harder to reach than older people who have become used to hearing the Gospel and not being affected by it. And you're already on that track. See, the truth is, and I do not exaggerate, every time the Gospel is preached, every person who hears it is changed. Because either in the hearing of the Gospel you are softened and drawn nearer to Christ, or in the hearing of the Gospel it comes to you, makes no difference in your life, and what happens is another layer of that hard shell develops over your life.

And I'll tell you, it's not just in a secular campus that this is true. You could be going to a Christian campus and just be under the radar as a counterfeit Christian, and you know it when everyone else assumes that it's real. But you don't hate your sin. You love it. So I'm making this appeal to you today, and especially the high schoolers are just on my mind and heart as I have prepared this message, but others, please hear this too.

Today, if you hear the voice of God, do not harden your heart. That's what the Bible says. You yield yourself to Jesus Christ. You turn in repentance to Jesus Christ. You tell Jesus Christ, "I have been pushing You away for years and I cannot go on making this shell harder. O Lord, I come to You now in Your mercy. Save me because I don't want to go on as a counterfeit believer." What a place to have to hit the pause button, huh?

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "Everything You Need for Deliverance." It's part of a larger series called "Everything You Need for Life." And if you ever miss a broadcast in the series, come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at openthebible.org. Back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Seven general characteristics, one distinguishing mark. Here's the last thing very briefly: two ultimate outcomes. Now, in the verse that we're learning this week, and it's a very important verse, there are obviously two outcomes of life, one for the godly and the other for the unrighteous, and they could not be more different.

Peter makes an argument that kind of leads up to this verse and so let's just follow it. It begins in verse 4. He starts giving three examples of how God deals with the unrighteous and how He deals with the godly, and it's always different. With the unrighteous, he starts with the angels, verse 4, who rebelled and He sent them to hell and He holds them in the gloomy dungeons, holding them for judgment.

Thank God for that, by the way. I mean, with the demons that God allows to stalk this earth, evil is bad enough. Can you imagine what this world would be if all hell was let loose? Thank God that He keeps these rebels in the gloomy dungeons reserved for the day of judgment. Evil only goes as far as the sovereignty of God allows. That's what we learn from the book of Job and we learn it supremely from the Cross. He's keeping most of them locked up. Thank God for that. It's called common grace.

Second example is from the life of Noah. God did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on ungodly people, but He protected Noah. So He does different things to these two different groups, and Peter wants us to learn from this.

Third example from the time of Lot, verse 6. God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes. And He made them, that's these cities, an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. Could that be clearer? The burning to ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah is, Peter says, an example that God gives of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

But, he says, verse 7, He rescued Lot, a righteous man. Now, what do we learn from these three examples? Well, what we learn is this, verse 9: the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials. You see that in Noah. You see that in Lot. Take that in and receive it as a promise, brother and sister in Christ.

God knows how to rescue the godly from trials. That's His promise. You love the Lord. You grieve over your sin. You grieve over the sin in the world around you. Listen, God knows your trials. Your very distress is a mark of His grace in your life and He knows how to rescue you from these trials and He will rescue you. You can count on that. You have everything that you need for living a Christian life in this ungodly world through the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have everything that you need for your intense battle against the flesh in your knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And you hold onto this today, believer, that God knows how to rescue the godly from trials.

And then there's one more thing, the second part of the verse. God also knows how to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment while continuing their punishment. So you see Peter is telling us that there is a punishment for sin that begins right now. Sin brings its own sorrow, brings its own consequence in life. The way of the sinner is hard. But there is worse to come for those who will not turn from their sin, those who love it and remain in it. God holds the unrighteous for the day of judgment.

If the truth about you today, as you sit in church, is that you love your sin and you will not turn from it, if that is the truth of you today, then you need to hear this right now: this is what God is doing in your life. He is right now continuing your punishment. And right now, He is holding you for the day of judgment. But if you love your sin and you will not turn from it, that is your position.

And dear friend, that is not where you want to be. You do not want to be among the unrighteous who love their sin. You want to be among the godly who grieve their sin and who repent of their sin and turn to in faith from their sin to Jesus Christ crucified for us. You say, "I hear that and I'd love to do that," but someone is saying in the congregation right now, "Yeah, but how can I change? I know myself. I've tried to change. I'll tell you what I'm like. I'm like the dog that returns to its own vomit. And you're talking to me about becoming godly? How can I do that?"

Listen, God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and... come on... godliness in our knowledge of Jesus Christ, who calls you right now to follow Him by His own glory and goodness.

Steve Hiller: If you know Jesus, what a great reminder from Pastor Colin today that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. He can and will rescue you from whatever you're facing. And if you don't know Christ, I hope that today's message was an encouragement for you to come to Him. And if you have questions about that or you'd like to talk with someone about beginning a relationship with Jesus, I hope you'll contact us here at Open the Bible. Our number is 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, and the website is openthebible.org.

Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. We're able to do what we do and bring you Pastor Colin's teaching each day because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we're going to send you a copy of Pastor Colin's brand new 30-day devotional book called "Grow in Love." And Colin, who is this book for?

Colin Smith: Well, people have very different experiences of love, and perhaps you knew what it was to grow up with a godly mother, a godly father, who loved you well and you've had all the benefits of that. But you still find, now you've come to adult life, that you want to know how to grow in love yourself. And if that's where you're at, this book is for you.

But there are other folks who have not had the blessing of being loved well. And if that's been your experience, you may find that you struggle with some real questions. What does it mean to love another person? What does real love actually look like? Where are you going to find it? Well, you're not sure that you know. Well, this book is for you. It's going to show you how receiving love from God through Jesus Christ can put you in the position where you're able to give love and receive love from others well.

Steve Hiller: Well, we'd love to send you a copy of Pastor Colin's new book. It's called "Grow in Love" and it's our thank you for your financial support this month. You can find out more or give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365 or openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: Hi, this is Pastor Colin again and I want you to know about "Watch Your Life." "Watch Your Life" is a six-session course that is geared for leaders, but accessible to every believer. The six sessions will show you how to grow in godliness, how to feed on Christ, how to pray in the Spirit, how to battle temptation, exercise faith, and discern God's will. There are questions at the end of each session and you can use them on your own or you can discuss them with a friend. For more information, visit openthebible.org/courses. That's openthebible.org/courses.