Deeper Dive: 1 Peter 3:18-22

hey my name is Jeremy and I have the privilege of serving as the lead pastor here at Shelter Cove but I just want to say thank you so much for tuning in with us today I firmly believe you're gonna be encouraged you're gonna be inspired but most of all that God's gonna do something through this message that's gonna move you closer to Jesus thanks again for tuning in hey everybody I'm Scott and I wanted to take the opportunity to go a little deeper on a passage in first Peter chapter 3 you know currently our church is doing a series on first Peter and sometimes it's it's not so easy to go as in-depth as you'd like on a weekend message especially when it comes to a passage like the one we're gonna look at in just a moment first Peter 3 18 to 22 so go ahead and turn there because I want to I want to take a look at this together now to bring you up to speed on what Peter has been talking about so far in this book he's talked about the importance of our role as a witness in the world in which we live it's it's an unrighteous world and he's talked about five key areas where we are to be witnesses in Chapter two he talked about our role as a witness as citizens of this nation and then he talks about our role as a witness as employees in the workplace he goes on in Chapter three to talk about our witness to perhaps an unbelieving spouse in the home and then he talks about how we are witnesses in community with other Christians as the world watches how we interact with one another because Jesus says in John's Gospel that this is how they will know you are my disciples in that you have love for one another and then finally he talks about our role as a witness in the way that we suffer at the hands of the world because in Peters day the believers were all undergoing severe persecution for their faith so that is the line of thought that he's been operating under as we come to this passage right here and it really kind of culminates in in verse 15 of chapter 3 where he says always be ready in light of all this to give a defense for the hope that is in you in other words be able to articulate in any season under any circumstance why you follow Jesus Christ so with that in mind he then in verse 18 of chapter 3 takes a little trail for about four verses and it's a wild ride and it it evokes some questions let's see how many questions pop into your mind read this four verse text Peter says in verse 18 for christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through water baptism which corresponds to this now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who is gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels authorities and powers being subjected to him okay now if you were paying attention I'd wager that a whole bunch of questions popped into your brain even as I read this I look at that and Peter's describing what happens after Christ is put to death in the flesh he what happens to him he's made alive in the spirit what's that mean is that the resurrection is is that something that happens before he's resurrected so what's he doing while his body is in the tomb and he's made alive in the spirit where does he go what's he doing he's what he's he's proclaiming something he's preaching something who's he preaching to spirits what spirits where are they they're in prison what prison what's what's this message he's preaching to them is it the gospel and who are these spirits were they from there from the from the days of Noah what does Noah have to do with Jesus and it says that Noah is saved through water and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also baptism saves us I didn't think baptism saved us I thought it was just a picture you see what I'm saying there's a lot of questions a lot to unpack that won't necessarily fit into a weekend message so let's go a little deeper and let's see if we can't answer some of these questions so let's start with the baptism question this this flood that happens in Noah's day and on the ark Noah and his family are brought safely through water Peter says this water symbolizes baptism which now saves you does baptism save you we recently baptized people at our church now we don't teach that baptism saves you water baptism that is we teach that it is in fact a picture of what has already happened in the believers heart when a person professes faith in Jesus Christ the first step of obedience is to publicly testify to what he's done for them by being baptized and we immerse when we baptize we dunk them under the water and it's a picture of what happens when the old nature is crucified you believe in Christ you receive his spirit your old self is put to death and is buried that's what the immersion is and coming up out of the water symbolizes resurrection you are being resurrected as a new creation a brand new life that's what water baptism represents so that baptism follows belief it's not what saves you but it represents a baptism that does in fact save you and we call that spirit baptism you see that's true baptism and true baptism is what happens when you receive the Holy Spirit you put your faith in Jesus Christ his Spirit comes to live in you and you are baptized spiritually and that actually does save you so the water baptism is really just a picture of a baptism that saves you well you know what else apparently is a picture of baptism that saves Peter says the flood in Noah's day is also a picture of a baptism that saves and so if you're writing anything down any notes you could just write down this phrase right here Noah's Flood was a baptism for 8 Souls I'll explain more about what that means in just a moment so why is he bringing Noah why is he bringing Noah into this story right here why is he talking about Jesus dying on the cross and then being made alive in the spirit and then he starts talking about Noah and the flood what does Noah have to do with Christ well we know from the story of Noah that God destroyed the earth with a flood do you know why God destroyed the earth by a flood I've asked that question in many Bible stor studies that I've led and and the young adults that I am leading through this account often answer that question by saying well yeah God God destroyed the earth because there was sin the earth was was evil and I say okay well you know there's sin now it's evil now why doesn't God destroy the earth now and they say well he promised that he wouldn't fair enough all right yeah he gave us the rainbow got it but that doesn't really answer my question what was so bad in Noah's day that God went to such lengths to just wipe the slate clean by destroying every living thing save Noah and his family with this flood well to find the answer to that question we have to leave first Peter and we need to go all the way back to Genesis chapter 6 and so I'd like to ask you to do that would you turn to Genesis 6 I literally want you to go there yourself don't just listen to me read from it because you might not believe me when you hear what I'm gonna say as I read from Genesis 6 I want you to see it with your own eyes the reason for the flood is spelled up for us in Genesis 6 the first eight verses of that chapter so if you're there take a look here's how it reads Genesis 6 1 says 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 and they took as their wives any they chose now listen to the next verse because here's where some of God's judgment starts to surface then the Lord said my spirit shall not abide with man forever for he is flesh his days shall be a hundred and twenty years so we in the first two verses start to get an idea about what is displeasing God and right here we've got two groups represented you've got the sons of God and the daughters of men now there's a distinction between these two groups the sons of God in the Hebrew that's the fray Benna hey Benny ha Elohim sons of God Elohim means God in Hebrew daughters of men is beneath Adam daughters of men ha Dom Adam man daughters of men sons of God daughters of men their names denote something the sons of God are a special creation they are directly created they are not born God has created them the daughters of men are the product of human reproduction they are physically born they are the daughters of Adam of men the sons of God come directly from God himself he's created them now how many men have been directly created by God well just the one Adam himself all right no others so are we talking about human men here we are not talking about human men these daughters of men they are in fact human women but buckle up okay you need to fasten your seat belt because some of this is gonna really really rattle your cage a little bit in terms of what you believe these sons of God that phrase is something that you see only three other times in all the Old Testament and it's those references are all found in the book of Job and in job that phrase applies exclusively to angels the sons of God is a phrase that means and refers to angels wait a minute pastor Scott women what what are you saying are you saying that what displeased God and precipitated the flood is is that angels came down and what had had physical relations with human women is that is that what you're saying that's exactly what I'm saying and I'm here to tell you this is what happens when we actually take the time to read this book called the Bible I've taught this and I've had young people in a Bible study literally hold their Bibles throw their brow and turn and look at the cover of their Bible because when we take the time to read what's in this book we find out in its totality it's a supernatural book and we can't be afraid of that after all we adhere to a faith where we believe in God who by definition is supernatural we believe that because of the sinful nature of man God himself in one of the persons of his Trinity his Godhead he sent the son Jesus Christ to the earth supernaturally incarnated taking on human flesh born of a virgin supernatural he lives a perfect life while he's on the earth he does miracles he feeds the hungry by multiplying the loaves and the fish he he heals the sick the lame the blind the deaf he raises the dead he does a variety of things that aren't even recorded he goes to a cross he dies for the sins of all mankind three days later he rises resurrected from the dead supernatural later we read he ascends to the right hand of God in his place comes the holy spirit that in dwells all believers so yes our faith is a supernatural faith so when we read things that that kind of stretch our imagination a little bit don't be afraid of it accept the Word of God as it is and seek to understand why we're being told these things so here we have these groups the sons of God referred to in Scripture as angels and the daughters of men which are undoubtedly human women and what is displeasing God is these angels are cohabiting with these daughters of men now this is the view of the rabbi's going back all the way to the earliest times of the Old Testament and this belief was the unified belief of the early church until the fourth century when skeptics started to mock Christianity and people started to within the faith started to come up with rationalized explanations for why some of these stories exist and they came up with some alternate theories about who the sons of God are who the daughters of men are but this view is the original view all the way through the first four centuries of the church that the sons of God were in fact angels and they're doing something very unnatural something that God forbade them to do now you may say well I'm not I'm not doubting that they're Angels here's what here's what I'm struggling with it's this whole cohabitation thing it's this whole physical union how was that even possible I mean angels are spirit right and and and the daughters of men are physical they're human so how how does that even work I mean isn't it true that that that the Bible says that angels can't marry they can't be given in marriage doesn't Jesus actually say that well it's Matthew 22 where people try to trip up the Lord and they ask him questions and they pose to him this little riddle they say what about a man who has a wife and the man dies and she marries his brother whose wife is she in the resurrection and Jesus responds as well in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels of God in heaven who don't do such things all right so notice there that he doesn't say that angels cannot do these things he's saying angels do not and what kind of angels is he talking about angels of God in heaven what kind of angels are being described in Genesis 6 well if they're acting in ways that are antithetical to God's will they're not righteous angels they're disobedient they're fallen angels folks there's a term for angels who are disobedient who are fallen we call them demons and so the reason for the flood is that these demons have come down and they have disobeyed God they have taken as their wives any women that they chose from the earth and you can see that there's a violent aspect in the language that is being used there it's in the book of Jude chapter well there's no chapters in Jude in verse 6 of Jude he says this he says 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 that great day that that phrase proper dwelling that the Angels have left according to Jude it's the Greek word okay Tyrion and you see it elsewhere in 2nd Corinthians 5 talking about believers how we earnestly desire to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven same word habitation Boyka tirion it refers to a spiritual form jude saying these angels have left their spiritual form and they have come down here and they have done things that god opposes now to answer the question how to spirit interact with flesh-and-blood folks just understand one thing we don't really know all that angels and demons are capable of in terms of the material world certainly in scripture throughout the Old Testament you see angels interacting with the physical world angels come and they meet with Abraham they share a meal with Abraham they protego food with Abraham you see an angel wrestling Jacob taking his hip out of joint you see angels visiting Lots in the city of Sodom and the perverse men of Sodom look upon them and they lust after them and they they want to molest them so there is evidence throughout scripture that angels can in fact interact with the physical world I mean if you think of the Gospels at the empty tomb an angel comes rolls that stone away sits on top of that stone they absolutely can interact with the physical world and so the reason for God's anger is that these fallen angels have gone against his will and done something unnatural something in opposition to him to thwart him in some way now there's a there's a product to this Union there's an outcome to when these sons of God come down and interact with the daughters of men and we read about it in Genesis 6:4 so take a look at that next verse it says that the Nephilim we're on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them so what's happened is they've had relations with these women and these women have borne children to the sons of God and the product the name of those children we call them the Nephilim now that word right there Nephilim it literally means fallen ones that's what it means in the Hebrew and they are described in verse four as being the mighty men who were of old the men of renown okay now there is a translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint it's the Greek translation of the Old Testament and they translate Nephilim as the Greek word gigan tastes well what does that mean well you guessed it it means Giants in fact if you have a King James Bible that's exactly the word used in the King James they say there were giants on the earth in those days not Nephilim and so the tradition is among the scholars that these were very large very powerful fearsome warrior types that the product of combining the demonic with human genes and we call them the Nephilim now it says that they were on the earth in those days and also afterward after what well after the flood now how can that be if the flood came in killed everybody destroyed everything why do we see them later on well the short answer is that that demons attempted such a thing later in in a smaller dose okay they populated the earth to a great degree prior to the flood after the flood it apparently happened again and we see that in the Old Testament throughout the Old Testament we see Giants periodically in fact I bet you can think of the name of a very popular giant in Scripture we all know the story of David and Goliath Goliath was of this line as well and elsewhere we see the name a neck and the sons of a neck and they are described as being Giants you see king of Bashan in the book of Deuteronomy famously his bed was 13 feet long it says six feet wide Moses slew aughh of Bashan you see entire races of Giants you got the on Hakeem the ref I M you have the Amim the right the Zam zooming all these different races of Giants in fact a lot of people may struggle with a book like Joshua whereas the Israelites entered the land of Canaan the Lord instructs Joshua to go in and wipe out an entire people and to just take all their life leave none left alive men women children and modern ears are offended by such a notion that God would command basically the genocide of a people and the reason the short answer is that he talking about a race just like the Nephilim in other words his motivation to wipe out some of these people's occupying the Israelites land and Canaan is because they are the same type of beings that inhabited the earth that God sought to destroy with the flood I told you to fasten your seat belts right okay just check in so the condition of humanity in Noah's day in verse 5 of Genesis 6 it says that the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually now what you think about that only evil continually so corrupt was the human race that the every every thought of his mind every inclination of his heart was vile wicked and violent at all times minute by minute hour by hour day by day week by week year by year century by century a an earth completely corrupted and tainted by demonic influence not just mentally but genetically alright so man was only evil all the time and in verse six says the Lord regretted that he'd made man on the earth and it grieved into his heart so the Lord said I will blot out man whom I've created from the face of the land man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I'm sorry that I've made them but Noah verse eight found favor in the eyes of the Lord what made Noah so different what set Noah apart well in verse nine it says he was a righteous man it says these are the generations of Noah Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation what made Noah righteous well the same thing that makes you and I righteous faith when Abraham was declared righteous it was because of his faith righteousness was credited to his account see Noah was told something by God and Noah believed it see he came from good stock his family had been a faithful family they'd been untainted demonically they had been faithful to God Noah's great-grandfather was a man named Enoch Genesis 5 describes Enoch as walking with God God shared something with Enoch that there was a judgment that was coming Enoch had a son and he named his son Methuselah you know what Methuselah means it's a compound word that means he dies and it is sent Methuselah the son of Enoch his name was a prophecy that when Methuselah lived out his days and finally died at that moment God's judgment would befall the earth and you can trace on a Bible timeline all the days of Methuselah and his death coincides with the coming of the flood and so this is passed down through Noah's family it comes to Noah whose name means rest by the way he is a reprieve for all of humanity in that God would bring him through judgment and start all over with mankind just with Noah and his family and so God decides to wipe out mankind save Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives incidentally when God earlier in the chapter in verse 3 says my spirit shall not abide with man forever his day shall be a hundred and twenty years that doesn't mean that the average lifespan of man is now gonna be a hundred twenty nobody's gonna live past 120 what that means is from now on Noah you're gonna start building this boat you got a hundred and twenty years mankind has a hundred and twenty years before the flood hits you got that much time to turn around to repent to turn to me and so for 120 years Noah was a faithful witness by being obedient to the Lord by building that Ark as others mocked him as others laughed at him in their their demonic disdain for him and the Lord that he served and every last person other than Noah and his family was demonically possessed corrupted tainted on the earth and in the six hundredth year of Noah's life in the second month on the seventeenth day of the month Genesis seven tells us that on that day God shuts that our he shuts it Noah doesn't shut it God shuts it they don't get out nobody else can get in and judgment falls on the earth it says the little Fountains of the deep erupted the heavens windows were open and the water came down you got water coming from below from above the flood covers all the land every living thing perishes on that earth all right now it was credited to Noah and his family righteousness because of their obedience and everybody else everybody else not on that Ark not faithful to God was wiped out now what happened what happened to those spirits that disobeyed those demons who came down that opposed God and corrupted the earth well folks this is where it brings us back to our initial text in 1st Peter so go back to 1st Peter 3 verse 18 just to read it again it says for Christ suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous you know what that is folks that's that's his death on the cross right there that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh all right so Christ dies on the cross this is millennia after the flood his body is laid in the tomb Peter says he's made alive in the spirit so question when Jesus body is in the tomb how long is it in there for three days right where does Christ's spirit go in those three days where is Jesus spiritually while his body is in that grave well here's what Peter says he's made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison what spirits the disobedient spirits the demons that disobeyed God that came to the earth and Genesis six that corrupted the earth he's preaching to them what's he preaching in 2nd Peter the Apostle says for if God verse 4 did not spare angels when they sinned but cast them into hell committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be until the judgement and if he did not spare the ancient world but preserve Noah a herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly what is he preaching to them where did he go there in a place Peter calls it prison in first Peter but in 2nd Peter he calls it by a different name he calls it Tartarus this is the same it's part of the same place that the Hebrews called Sheol it's what the Greeks call Hades and at the time of Christ's death it existed on the same plane it was separated by a chasm you see it kind of explained when Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus but on one side of this chasm you've got paradise which is where all the righteous that died in the Old Testament era would go you got Abraham you got Moses that whole crowd is in paradise okay Jesus tells the thief on the cross who trusts in him from the cross Jesus looks at him says today you will be with me we're in paradise okay the other side is where the rich man languishes in torment we call it torment we know it as hell and so Jesus is going to go to places after he dies in the spirit he goes to paradise Ephesians 4 says when he ascended on high he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men and in saying he ascended wasn't mean but that he also descended so he goes to Paradise does a little jailbreak on those Saints there but he also goes to this other place and in 2nd Peter it's a place called Tartarus and Tartarus is the place where these disobedient spirits are kept in everlasting chains and so the context is that Jesus comes to deliver a message to them now what is the message that he delivers to them well it depends I submit on their motivation for for doing what they did in Genesis 6 and the answer is found in Genesis chapter 3 I want you to go there with me right now because we're introduced early on in that chapter the identity of our greatest adverse arrey it says in verse 1 that the serpent whom we later find out is Satan himself the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field the Lord God had made he said to the woman did God really say that you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman to her credit said to the serpent oh we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden neither shall you touch it lest you die but the serpent said to the woman oh you you won't surely die for God knows that when we eat of it our eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good from evil well you know what happens next Eve eats of the fruit of that tree she gives it to her husband he eats of the fruit of that tree and in verse 14 the Lord comes he discovers what they've done they present themselves to him they're ashamed they've tried to cover their sin there they're now cursed and he tells them exactly the ramifications now your your bodies will wear out you'll you'll toil by the sweat of your brow you're gonna travail in childbirth all of these things you won't live forever etc but then he turns his anger to the serpent and he says in verse 14 because you have done this curse it are you above all livestock above all beasts of the field on your belly you shall go dust you shall eat all the days of your life and here it is in verse 15 pay close attention here I will put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and her offspring and he singular shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel now folks that's what scholars call in the Latin the protoevangelium it means first gospel if anybody ever asks where is the gospel first given in the Bible it's not Matthew it's in genesis 3:15 in one verse God gives a prophecy of his plan for redemption to bring Christ through mankind ultimately to bring a defeat crushing the head of the serpent now Satan has no details on how when where any of that all Satan knows is that God is going to bring about his defeat through the line of mankind now if you're Satan you're gonna do whatever it takes to keep that from happening and so if you know that it's coming through humanity what do you do you pull out all the stops you use whatever resources are at your disposal to make mankind completely corrupt unredeemable hence the reason that these demonic forces in Genesis six have completely invaded the entire earth and they come awfully close they corrupt all but eight souls on the earth before God intervenes to keep the prophecy of Genesis three from coming true and so if you think about what Noah and his family were saved through how that flood was a baptism which which represents salvation it symbolizes a baptism that now saves you Noah was not saved from the flood the flood saves Noah and his family from the corruption in the sin that is rampant on the earth so what is that message that Christ goes and preaches proclaims to those disobedient spirits in prison according to first Peter I think the content of that message was basically this you failed hey boys remember what you tried to do remember how you came to the earth you tried to wipe all of mankind out and tried to corrupt all of it so that I wouldn't come well guess what you blew it I came and I just fulfilled my mission and you're gonna be down here in Chains forever isn't that good to know that our God is already won the victory is already in hand and when Peter calls upon us to be witnesses in an unrighteous world listen as bad as this world may seem it's been worse it'll get bad again scripture says like it was in the days of Noah it will be at the coming of the Son of Man but folks the victory is God's and it has been ever since the cross and you and I get to be representatives of a victorious King that's a deeper look at first Peter 3:18 2:22 have a blessed day

Channel: Shelter Cove Community Church

Views: 4,194

Keywords: Deeper, Witness

Id: Jw6qb6mL-6s

Length: 34min 20sec (2060 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 31 2019