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"These are ancient things." Most men hunger after the latest news; let us on this occasion go back upon the earliest records. It does us good to look back upon the past of God's dealings with His creatures; herein lies the value of history. We should not confine our attention to God's dealings with men, but we should observe how He acts towards another order of beings. If angels transgress, what is His conduct towards them? This study will enlarge our minds, and show us great principles in their wider sweep.

I. Consider our text FOR OUR WARNING. "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell." Behold here a wonder of wickedness, angels sin; a wonder of justice, God spared them not; a wonder of punishment, He cast them down to hell; a wonder of future vengeance, for they are reserved unto judgment! Here are deep themes and terrible.

1. Let us receive a warning, first, against the deceivableness of sin, for whoever we may be, we may never reckon that, on account of our position or condition, we shall be free from the assaults of sin, or even certain of not being overcome by it. Notice that these who sinned were angels in heaven, so that there is no necessary security in the most holy position. This should teach us not to presume upon anything connected with our position here below. You may be the child of godly parents who watch over you with sedulous care, and yet you may grow up to be a man of Belial. You may never enter a haunt of iniquity, your journeys may be only to and from the house of God, and yet you may be a bond slave of iniquity. The house in which you live may be none other than the house of God and the very gate of heaven through your father's prayers, and yet you may yourself live to blaspheme.

2. The next thought is that the greatest possible ability, apparently consecrated, is still nothing to rely upon as a reason why we should not yet fall so low as to prostitute it all to the service of the worst of evils. A man may not say, "I am a minister: I shall be kept faithful in the Church of God." Ah me! But we have seen leaders turn aside, and we need not marvel; for if angels fall, what man may think that he can stand?

3. Neither must any of us suppose that we shall be kept by the mere fact that we are engaged in the sublimest possible office. Apart from the perpetual miracle of God's grace, nothing can -keep us from declension and spiritual death.

4. I want you to notice, as a great warning; that this sin of the angels was not prevented even by the fullest happiness. The most golden wages will not keep a servant loyal to the kindest of masters. The most blessed experience will not preserve a soul from sinning. No feelings of joy or happiness can be relied upon as sufficient holdfasts to keep us near the Lord.

5. This warning, be it noted, applies itself to the very foulest of sin. The angels did not merely sin and lose heaven, but they passed beyond all other beings in sin, and made themselves fit denizens for hell. Oh my unrenewed hearer, I would not slander thee, but I must warn thee: there are all the makings of a hell within thy heart! It only needs that the restraining hand of God should be removed, and thou wouldst come out in thy true colours, and those are the colours of iniquity.

6. The text may lead us a little farther before we leave it, by giving us a warning against the punishment of sin as well as against the sin itself. "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell:" They were very great; they were very powerful; but God did not spare them for that. If sinners are kings, princes, magistrates, millionaires, God will cast them into hell. You unbelievers may combine together to hate and oppose the gospel, but it matters not, God will deal with your confederacies and break up your unities, and make you companions in hell even as you have been comrades in sin. Neither did He spare them because of their craft. There were never such subtle creatures as these are — so wise, so deep, so crafty; but these serpents and all the brood of them had to feel the power of God's vengeance, notwithstanding their cunning.

II. But now I want to ask all your attention to this second point for OUR ADMIRATION.

1. I want you to admire the fact that though angels fell the saints of God are made to stand. Oh, the splendour of triumphant grace! Neither the glory of our calling, nor the unworthiness of our original, shall Cause us to be traitors; we shall neither perish through pride nor lust; but the new nature within us shall overcome all sin, and abide faithful to the end.

2. Now let us learn another lesson full of admiration, and that is that God should deal in grace with men and not with angels. One would think that to restore an angel was more easy and more agreeable to the plan of the universe than to exalt fallen man. I rather conceive it to have been the easier thing of the two if the Lord had so willed it. And yet, involving as it did the incarnation of the Son of God and His death to make atonement, the infinitely gracious Father condescended to ordain that He would take up men, and would not take up the fallen angels. It is a marvel: it is a mystery. I put it before you for your admiration. Behold how He loves us! What shall we do in return? Let us do angels' work. Let us glorify God as angels would have done had they been restored and made again to taste Divine favour and infinite love.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

WEB: For if God didn't spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;