We're turning to Genesis chapter 19 for our
scripture reading this morning.
You'll remember that in chapter 18, God appeared
to Abram, spoke again concerning the promises that
had been made to him, gave specific word
concerning the fact that Sarah would be the
mother of the promised seed, and then the
chapter concluded with the intercession of Abraham for
the wicked city of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And now chapter 19 continues, and you remember
as you read chapter 18 that there were
three men who came to visit Abram, one
of whom turns out to be the Lord
himself, a theophany, an appearance of the Lord
Jesus before the incarnation, and then the other
two, it now becomes plain, were angelic beings.
For we read in verse 19, now the
two angel, in chapter 19 verse 1, now
the two angels came to Sodom in the
evening as Lot was sitting in the gate
of Sodom.
When Lot saw them, he rose to meet
them and bowed himself with his face to
the ground.
And he said, now behold, my lords, please
turn aside into your servant's house and spend
the night and wash your feet.
Then you may rise early and go on
your way.
They said, however, no, but we shall spend
the night in the square.
That incidentally was the custom in those days
if you visited a city to spend the
night out in the open ordinarily.
Yet he urged them strongly, so they turned
aside to him and entered his house, and
he prepared a feast for them and baked
unleavened bread and they ate.
Before they lay down, the men of the
city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house,
both young and old, all the people from
every quarter, will you notice, both young and
old.
And they called to Lot and said to
him, where are the men who came to
you tonight?
Bring them out to us that we may
have relations with them.
This is sexual relations.
So these are homosexual relations.
But Lot went out to them at the
doorway and shut the door behind him and
said, please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
Now behold, I have two daughters who have
not had relations with men.
Please let me bring them out to you
and inasmuch and do to them whatever you
like, only do nothing to these men inasmuch
as they have come under the shelter of
my roof.
But they said stand aside.
Furthermore, they said this one came in as
an alien and already he's acting like a
judge.
Now we will treat you worse than them.
So they pressed hard against Lot and came
near to break the door.
But the men reached out their hands, that
is the angelic men, the men reached out
their hands and brought Lot into the house
with them and shut the door.
And they struck the men who were at
the doorway of the house with blindness, both
small and great, so that they wearied themselves
trying to find the doorway.
Then the men said to Lot, whom else
have you here?
A son-in-law and your sons and
your daughters and whomever you have in the
city, bring them out of the place, for
we are about to destroy this place because
their outcry has become so great before the
Lord that the Lord has sent us to
destroy it.
And Lot went out and spoke to his
sons-in-law who were to marry his
daughters and said, up, get you out of
this place for the Lord will destroy the
city.
But he appeared to his sons-in-law
to be jesting.
And when morning dawned, the angels urged Lot
saying, up, take your wife and your two
daughters who are here, lest you be swept
away in the punishment of the city.
But he hesitated.
So the men seized his hand and the
hand of his wife and the hands of
his daughters, for the compassion of the Lord
was upon him.
And they brought him out and put him
outside the city.
That clause translated in the New American Standard
Bible, for the compassion of the Lord was
upon him is literally in the mercy or
forbearance of the Lord upon him.
And that word translated compassion is the word
that is translated pity in the authorized version
in one of the messianic sections of chapter
63 of the book of Isaiah.
It means pity or mercy.
In the compassion or pity of the Lord
upon him.
And it came about when they had brought
them outside that one said, escape for your
life.
Do not look behind you and do not
stay anywhere in the valley.
Escape to the mountains, lest you be swept
away.
But Lot said to them, oh no, my
Lords.
Now behold, your servant has found favor in
your sight and you have magnified your loving
kindness, which you have shown me by saving
my life.
But I cannot escape to the mountains, lest
the disaster overtake me and I die.
So he pleads that it would be too
much physical exertion for him to go to
the mountains.
Now behold, this town is near enough to
flee to, and it's small.
Please let me escape there.
Is it not small that my life may
be spared?
In other words, he says, this is such
a small place, it wouldn't be a great
demand on the mercy of God to spare
this little place.
And he said to them, behold, I grant
you this request also, not to overthrow the
town of which you have spoken.
Hurry, escape therefore.
I cannot do anything until you arrive there.
Therefore, the name of the town was called
Zoar.
Small.
The sun had risen over the earth when
Lot came to Zoar.
Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord out of
heaven.
Incidentally, in this 24th verse, you'll notice it
says the Lord rained brimstone and fire from
the Lord out of heaven.
And so the ancient interpreters have thought that
that was another place in the Old Testament
that taught plurality in the Godhead.
The Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone
and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
So it would be the Lord out of
heaven, the Father, raining down fire and brimstone
at the direction of the Lord, the Son,
who has made this theophany or appearance here
upon the earth.
And he overthrew those cities and all the
valley and all the inhabitants of the cities
and what grew on the ground.
But his wife from behind him looked back
and she became a pillar of salt.
Now Abraham arose early in the morning and
went to the place where he had stood
before the Lord.
And he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah
and toward all the land of the valley
and saw and behold, the smoke of the
land ascended like the smoke of a furnace.
Thus it came about when God destroyed the
cities of the valley that God remembered Abraham.
You can see from this that it is
the Abrahamic covenant that governs this mercy that
is shown to Lot.
God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of
the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew
the cities in which Lot lived.
And Lot went up from Zoar and stayed
in the mountains and his two daughters with
him, for he was afraid to stay in
Zoar and he stayed in a cave, he
and his two daughters.
Then the firstborn said to the younger, our
father is old and there is not a
man on earth to come in to us
after the manner of the earth.
Come, let us make our father drink wine
and let us lie with him that we
may preserve our family through our father.
So they made their father drink wine that
night and the firstborn went in and lay
with her father and he did not know
where she lay or when she arose.
And it came about on the morrow that
the firstborn said to the younger, behold, I
lay last night with my father.
Let us make him drink wine tonight also,
then you go in and lie with him
that we may preserve our family through our
father.
So they made their father drink wine that
night also and the younger arose and lay
with him and he did not know when
she lay down or when she arose.
Thus both the daughters of Lot were with
child by their father.
And the firstborn bore a son and called
his name Moab.
He is the father of the Moabites to
this day.
And as for the younger, she also bore
a son and called his name Ben-Ami.
He is the father of the sons of
Ammon to this day.
May the Lord bless this reading of his
word.
Paul's letter to the Galatians reads this way.
For the one who sows to his own
flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but
the one who sows to the Spirit shall
from the Spirit reap eternal life.
That text finds illustration in the experience of
Lot, the nephew of Abraham.
Our subject for this morning is Sodom, Lot,
and the Harvest of Sowing to the Flesh.
Lot's story portrays the tragedy of carnality, a
believer who wishes to have the best of
both worlds.
He wants to have the best of the
eternal benefits of the forgiveness of sins, of
justification, of the relationship of sonship to God,
and of all of the other spiritual blessings
that belong to those who have believed in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
But at the same time, Lot desired all
of the temporal possessions of this life, the
earthly possessions, which are so meaningful to so
many of us.
Position, influence, money, and the things that men
seek so avidly after.
And Lot learned, of course, to his own
sadness ultimately and to the grief of all
who knew him, that one cannot accomplish this
impossible task.
It is impossible to have the best of
both worlds.
And even though Lot was a believer, he
nevertheless learned that sad lesson in the experience
of his family.
Now there is no question, I think, that
Lot was a believer.
One might think with a history such as
we find here that Lot is an illustration
of a man who did not persevere in
the faith because did he not have an
ignominious end.
But nevertheless, the Bible seems to be fairly
plain that he was a believer.
But a believer who did seek to have
the best of both worlds and thus lost
almost everything.
Lot had the grace of hospitality.
That's one of the graces that should characterize
a believer.
He had the experience of entertaining angels unawares
and also the experience of being used as
an illustration in the New Testament of hospitality.
He made a courageous defense of his guests,
went out in the midst of that wicked
crowd and gained their anger and nevertheless defended
them.
In addition, in a wicked city that it
appears that everyone was infected with the sin
of the city, he had two daughters who
were virgin daughters.
That must have been very rare in the
city of Sodom.
And while in a moment he will attempt
to turn them over to the wicked men
of the city because of the high regard
that the ancients had for hospitality, nevertheless it
is true that they were virgin daughters.
And finally, he is the object of a
very gracious deliverance on the part of God
who sought him out with angels in order
to deliver him from the destruction of that
city.
It's the New Testament, however, which lets us
know finally and definitely that Lot was a
believer.
He is called three times a righteous man
in the New Testament.
Reference is made to his righteousness three times
in 2 Peter 2.
He is called just Lot or righteous Lot.
It is said that he vexed himself by
the conversations that took place in Sodom and
the life of the city.
So he is an illustration of a Christian
believer who made a decision that was wrong
and then had to suffer the consequences of
on down even after his own earthly life.
This chapter is a rather superb study, incidentally,
of two aspects of judgment.
We find cataclysmic judgment in the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah, but we also find gradual
judgment in the life of a man like
Lot.
For you can see that this decision that
he made many years ago finally issues in
the disintegration of this man, and he and
his family break up even in the midst
of the hands of those who were sent
by God to rescue them from the destruction
of the city.
So Lot is a sad story of a
worldly Christian who knew something of one of
the greatest movements of God in history.
He was Abraham's nephew.
He had been called out with Abram, followed
Abraham out of war of the Chaldees, knew
about Abram's election, knew about the promises that
had been given to him, was a part
of a company of people to whom God
gave some of the greatest promises of the
Bible.
He had evidence in the life of Abraham
of unusual working of the power of God.
He was one who experienced the deliverance that
Abraham won for them in the battle of
chapter 14.
So a man who knew about divine things
had firsthand contact with the great example of
faith, and yet in spite of that his
papiety is one of a fast-fading variety.
He made that fateful decision to choose his
place to dwell near Sodom in the midst
of the fertile valley of the plain.
Then the text of Scripture said that he
pitched his tent toward Sodom.
The next chapter says that he was living
in Sodom, and now in chapter 19 he's
sitting in the gate of Sodom, evidently or
perhaps an influential man, possibly even one of
the elders of the city.
And we see that he's now in the
state that he offers his daughters to two
ungodly men to marry, for they were evidently
ungodly men.
The Bible says that we are to separate
ourselves from unbelievers.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
And the greatest of yokes is the yoke
of marriage.
We laugh about the yoke of marriage, but
the yoke of marriage is a yoke.
Now of course it's a great yoke for
those who love one another, but the scriptures
are very clear.
Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
And a believer who marries an unbeliever shall
suffer.
And here is Lot giving his two daughters
away, if they were believers, at least they
were part of the deliverance here, to wicked
and ungodly men.
How important are the simple decisions of life,
and some of those decisions about which we
thought very little are decisions that ultimately will
affect not only our lives, but the lives
of those who come after us.
As we shall see, Lot's disintegration affects not
only him, but it affects his children as
well.
And the chapter ends on that note of
incest.
Lot being a drunken partner in it.
There are other important lessons in this particular
chapter.
There is the danger of looking back.
One wonders, in the case of Lot's wife,
whether she was a believer or not.
In the morning service I said, as I
was just passing, a believer, and I'm not
sure that she really was.
I want to correct that.
It may well have been that she was
not a believer.
But the danger of looking back pertains to
those who have had an opportunity to hear
the gospel, but who turn away from it
in apostasy, just as it pertains to those
who have truly responded to the gospel, but
turn away from following after the Lord more
completely.
So the danger of looking back, it reminds
us of Demas, who left the apostle Paul
and went back to Thessalonica, having loved this
present age, Paul says.
The danger of looking back.
There was a Sunday school teacher once who
was describing how Lot's wife looked back and
suddenly turned into a pillar of salt.
And as little children do in the Sunday
school, they frequently want to illustrate things and
interrupt the teacher.
And so, Johnny interrupted the teacher at this
point, and incidentally, it's very interesting to teach
children because they usually give interesting family illustrations
that the family has no idea are really
being told broadly.
So this little boy said, my mother looked
back once while she was driving and turned
into a telephone pole.
This chapter also illustrates, I think, the difficulty
of delivering good men from the toils of
sin, for it is clear that the angels,
speaking from the human standpoint, had great difficulty
in delivering Lot, who wanted to linger from
the destruction that they had announced over the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Probably the greatest lesson that the New Testament
gives, other than the lesson our Lord gives
in his famous three words, remember Lot's wife,
is the lesson of the divine ability and
necessity of executing judgment.
In 2 Peter chapter 2, in Jude verse
7, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is
set forth as an example of the suffering
of eternal fire.
In fact, where the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah are today is not definitely known.
Many have thought that in the southern part
of the Dead Sea, where the waters are
shallow, it is under there that the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah are to be found.
But at any rate, the waters of that
Dead Sea, if that be true, ripple over
a part of the site where once stood
the cities of the plain with all of
the busy stir of life that was there,
all of the sounds of human joy, of
human sorrow, of traffic, of the call of
the herdsmen, the murmur of the market, the
voices of the little children playing in the
open spaces, but today it's all silent.
An illustration of the judgment of God.
And if you should ever stand by the
side of the Dead Sea at that point,
that's one of the things that perhaps would
be brought to your attention.
Luther confessed that he could not read this
chapter without a feeling of deep revulsion.
He used to say, Es geht mir durch
mein ganzes Herz.
It goes straight for myself, straight through my
heart.
Now, he was speaking, of course, of the
evil that is reflected here in this 19th
chapter of homosexuality.
But when one thinks about the wickedness of
the sentient, the judgment that it suggests, that
should bring revulsion to the spirits of men
who are in harmony with the thoughts of
God as well.
But let's turn now to the chapter, chapter
19 of the book of Genesis, and we
look first at the first 11 verses.
This is a lengthy chapter.
We cannot deal with every verse.
I want to deal for a few moments
with the depravity of Sodom as it is
expressed here in these opening sections.
It is angelic work, according to this chapter,
to quicken the lingering.
The angels are sent in order to deliver
Lot and his family from the judgment that
is to come.
It's a great mercy, incidentally, to be sought
by the mercy of God, and Lot was
the object of the mercy of God.
He did not appreciate it, it is obvious.
He wanted to stay, he wanted to linger,
and even hesitated after the judgment is announced,
sought to wheedle some additional concessions from the
angels.
There are people who at times react negatively
to those who seek to bring them out
of their sin to the knowledge of the
Lord Jesus Christ, but let me assure you,
my dear friends, that it's a great mercy
of God for you to be sought by
earnest Christian friends for the kingdom of God.
If you should happen to have some Christian
friends who are so concerned about your soul
that they speak to you and rebuke you
concerning your sin and rebuke you concerning your
need of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's one
of the greatest mercies that God could ever
show you.
I am so thankful that I had individuals
at a point in my life who rebuked
me and sought to bring me to the
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It used to irritate me, I used to
get in arguments, which I usually won, but
it was one of the greatest mercies of
God that he kept continually after me until
finally, through my own mother-in-law, I
came to the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ as my Savior.
Lot had angels seeking to bring him out
of that place, and while he didn't like
the work of the angels, it was the
mercy of God.
Listen to the scripture.
He hesitated, so the men seized his hand
in the hand of his wife and the
hands of his daughters, for the compassion of
the Lord was upon him.
In the pity, in the mercy of the
Lord upon him, the Hebrew text reads.
So he was the object of divine blessing,
even though he did not particularly enjoy it.
Well, the two men who had been with,
who were angels, who had been with Abraham
and the Lord, near the Oaks of Mamre,
have now reached the city of Sodom, and
as they come through the gate, they engage
in the ministry which is ultimately the, to
carry out the Abrahamic mercy promised in the
promises given as far back as Genesis chapter
12.
It's an illustration, incidentally, too, of God's interest
in the individual, because God was interested in
Lot.
One of the commentators has said, special value
attaches to hand-picked fruit, and this is
a case of hand-picked fruit, for Lot
is by himself taken out of that city
by the working of the Lord.
Well, when the men come, they were thought
to be men, they were really angels.
When they came to the city of Sodom,
Lot was there sitting in the gate, and
when he saw them, moved with a desire
to show them compassion, he bowed down before
him in a worshipful position, and said, Behold,
my lords, please turn us out into your
servant's house and spend the night.
Incidentally, nothing is said about his wife.
What are we to think about her?
What was she doing now?
Home cooking?
Someone has said home cooking, that's where a
husband thinks his wife is.
Well, it's Lot who turns out to be
the cook in this instance, for he finally
urges the two men, and evidently, they are
not so anxious to go home with Lot.
They were anxious to sit down and be
fed by Abraham in the 18th chapter, but
here, with Lot, it's a little different, and
it may just be a reflection of the
difference in the spiritual condition of Abraham and
Lot.
But they yield, and they come to Lot's
home, and Lot prepared a feast for them,
and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
And before they were to lie down to
sleep, the men of the city, having seen
the two men, who must have been rather
good-looking men, angelic beings, suddenly the whole
city, and notice, not only the men of
the city, but the men young and old,
even the children, the male children evidently, gathered
around the house, and the request comes to
Lot, bring out the two men that have
come to you tonight, that we may have
relationships with them, that we may know them,
the Hebrew text says.
D.
Sherwin Bailey has written a rather interesting book,
in one way, it's called Homosexuality and the
Western Christian Tradition, and in that book, he
sought to show that the verb know here,
and also in Judges 19.22, does not
have a sexual connotation.
Now, he bases his denial on some arguments
that we don't have time to talk about
this morning, but it is an indication of
the fact that even today, there are serious
attempts made by individuals sympathetic with homosexual movements
to avoid the plain and obvious, I think,
teaching of the Old Testament that homosexuality is
an abomination before the Lord.
The word know here, in the light of
the context, and also in that Judges 19
passage, is a word that refers to sexual
relations with those of the same sex.
And so what we have here is an
attempt at homosexual rape on the part of
the men of the city, and it is
set forth here in Sodom as the reason
for the outcry that had reached the heart
of the Lord, and had caused him to
say that the sin of that city was
exceedingly grave.
When we think about Sodomy, we think about
the city of Sodom.
Sodomy, unnatural sexual relationships, particularly sexual relationships with
individuals of the same sex, and that name
derived from Sodom.
Sodomy, you read it in your newspapers every
day, for our society is filled with sodomy
and lesbianism.
Now what happened was, as we have just
read in the scripture reading, the men of
the city sought to have the men come
out to them that they may enter into
these relationships with them, but Lot, because of
the high value placed upon hospitality, evidently, went
out and announced to them that he had
two daughters who were virgin daughters, and he
offered these to the men in order that
they may have relationships with them, but not,
he asked them not to do anything to
the men inasmuch as they had come under
the shelter of his roof.
They said, stand aside.
You're acting like a judge in our midst.
It's obvious that while he had been there
and evidently had a place of position, deep
down within they didn't really like Lot.
There was something about Lot that made him
different, even in his worldliness.
There was that basic commitment to the promises
given to Abraham, and they ferreted that out.
That's why, incidentally, a worldly believer never is
able to accomplish what he thinks he will
accomplish.
He thinks that by mingling with the world
he will be an influence upon them, but
he's not an influence upon them, and the
one who is hurt is he himself.
And so Lot now is the object of
the anger and rage of the crowd.
So he has succeeded in his attempt to
bring order into the situation in jeopardizing the
lives of his daughters, of enraging his friends,
and requiring rescue by the ones that he
was seeking to protect, the angels themselves.
So in the midst of the kind of
small riot that took place, the angels reached
their hands out the door, outside the door,
take Lot, bring him within the room, and
then as a result of that, a supernatural
blindness is given the men.
That blindness, incidentally, is a word that is
found in only one other place in the
Old Testament, in 2 Kings chapter 6 and
verse 18, and it refers to the confusion
of the brain by means of confusion of
the eye.
So that they were struck with a form
of blindness that dazed them, but nevertheless, as
a result of the blindness of their eye,
their minds became confused, and so they thought
they were seeing, but they were seeing wrongly,
and in seeking to find the door, they
finally could not find it, and then just
gave up.
It was the judgment of God upon them.
Mental confusion from distorted vision.
Now there's something about this that interests me,
because we are living in a society that
is a society that is filled with increasing
emphasis upon homosexual life.
In a cover story in Time magazine, an
article entitled, How Gay is Gay, not written
by any Christian believer, of course.
In this article, it is estimated that 10
% of the population of the United States
of America are afflicted with homosexuality in some
form or another.
Some of our leading citizens are publicly known
to be, and announce the fact that they
are, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and others of
similar influence, who are not ashamed to admit
that they are homosexual.
Did you know, according to this article, that
the styles that we think are straight styles,
are styles that come straight from homosexuals?
This startled me.
I didn't know this.
I don't frequent too many discos, but I,
according to this article, the disco lights, the
disco dancing, and the disco music, first took
place in the homosexual clubs, and was taken
over by the straight clubs.
Did you know that the music that we
sing is music that is largely brought, or
is quite largely brought to us by homosexuals?
Did you know, with reference to style, for
example, that the first men who wore Adidas
running shoes as part of casual wear were
homosexuals, in the homosexual community?
You can go home and throw yours in
the garbage can, I guess, if you want
to.
That the first to wear baggy white painter's
pants, which became quite popular, were homosexuals.
The first to wear scarves around their necks
with sport coats, rather fashionable attire, were the
homosexuals.
Furthermore, and this may surprise you, but the
first to wear long hair among men were
the homosexuals.
And also, the first to move from long
hairstyling back to shorter hairstyling were the homosexuals.
In other words, the society and the style
by which most of us live, a large
part of it is traceable, according to this
article, and the authors of it, traceable to
the homosexual community.
And of course, we know from the influence
of the arts and music and others, society
in which homosexuality is very prominent, that that
probably is to be expected.
Our society is a society that is filled
today with homosexual influence.
The interesting thing about it to me is
that the Apostle Paul, in one of the
fieriest sections in his writings, in Romans chapter
1, speaks very strongly with regard to a
point that I'd like to offer to you
just as an opinion or as a judgment
and let you make up your own mind.
You know in the latter part of Romans
chapter 1, the Apostle speaking about the fact
that the human race has fallen into sin,
turned away from the revelation that was given
in the Old Testament, made it necessary, their
turning away made it necessary for God to
give them over to all kinds of judgment.
But the judgment to which God gave them
was more sin.
And it is specifically stated in Romans chapter
1, verse 26 and 27, that as a
result of the apostasy of the race, God
has given them over to homosexual practices.
We read, let me just read those verses,
Romans 1, verse 26 and 27, as soon
as I find the epistle to the Romans,
that is the New Testament, isn't it?
Verse 26, for this reason God gave them
over to degrading passions, for their women exchanged
the natural function for that which is unnatural,
lesbianism, and in the same way also the
men abandoned the natural function of the woman
and burned in their desire towards one another,
men with men, committing indecent acts and receiving
in their own persons the due penalty of
their error.
Now the interesting thing about this, and I
just throw this out as a suggestion to
you, is that the apostle regards this as
a judgment upon men.
It is not something he is going to
do, it is something that God has done.
So when we look at increasing homosexuality in
our society, we don't say, well if this
continues we are liable to experience the judgment
of God.
According to Paul, the increase in homosexual practices
is the judgment of God.
It is upon us because of our apostasy
for, from divine truth.
And so when we see this pervading our
society, we are not a society that is
moving toward judgment, but we are a society
that is already under judgment and moving toward
the final cataclysmic destruction of the society as
we know it when the Lord Jesus Christ
comes at his second advent to the earth.
If the apostle were here, he would give
us those same strong words concerning homosexuality.
I'd love to have heard an exposition of
the 19th chapter from the apostle Paul.
As a matter of fact, of any chapter
from the apostle Paul would be all right
as far as I'm concerned.
The next section in verses 12 through 22
is the account of the deliverance of Lot.
And I love the way the angels speak
to Lot because angels and apostles speak a
little bit differently from men down here upon
the earth.
You will notice that there is no squeamishness
at all in the announcement of coming judgment.
Their lips are not lined with velvet, such
as our modern preacher's lips are lined with
velvet.
They were not afraid to speak of hell,
fire, and damnation.
And I cannot help but feel that there
is so much maudlin sentimentality in our United
States of America.
The result is that men stand in the
pulpit, men who even acknowledge that they believe
the Bible, but when they talk about judgment,
you really hardly ever hear these notes that
the apostles and our Lord Jesus gave out.
Our modern feeling that we should not offend
men by speaking of hell, fire, and damnation
is not of the Lord.
Are we to be more gentle than the
apostles?
Are we to be more true to the
divine revelation than our Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the one who speaks more of hell,
fire, and damnation than anyone else in Scripture?
How is it going to be when we
get to heaven and the subject of this
comes up and we have spent our time
trying to be wiser than the Word of
God, trying to introduce judgment as a nice
semi-palatable kind of thing in the midst
of the exposition of the love of God?
My dear friend sitting in the audience, if
you are not a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, you are heading for the Gehenna
of fire.
It is the Lord Jesus Christ who speaks
of the undying worm, and it is He
who speaks of unquenchable fire.
And that is your destiny if you do
not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, my friend, turn from your sin.
Turn from the wickedness which you have inherited
from Adam and which you practice to the
wonderful grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
through the blood of the cross offers a
way of escape.
Your destiny is the destiny of those that
are perishing.
Flee to the city of refuge, our Lord
Jesus Christ.
I wish it were possible for me to
warn you in proper accents of the judgment
of God.
Baxter used to say that when you spoke
of the judgment of God, you ought to
speak of it with tears in your voice.
Now the angels, when they speak to Lot,
they do not trim their sails at all.
They do not cut corners.
They say to Lot, whom else do you
have here?
Do you have a son-in-law, sons
and daughters?
Whomever you have in this city, bring them
out of this place because we are about
to destroy it.
Now Lot was so under the influence of
the angels at this point that he went
to his sons-in-law and sought to
persuade them to leave the city.
But in a very classic text in verse
14 it says, but he appeared to his
sons-in-law to be jesting.
That's the way people respond to those whose
profession is of a certain style, but whose
actual life is something entirely different.
While they said when Lot told them about
judgment to come, he is just giving us
a big line.
They took it as if it were one
huge joke that there was judgment coming to
the city of Sodom.
You see, the Christian man, because of his
worldliness, has lost his testimony in the midst
of the unsaved.
It's always that way.
If you want to reach the lost, you
have to be different.
Not the same, different.
It's Abraham who's able to reach those who
are outside of Christ.
Not Lot.
Not the man who went down and was
the lovely citizen in the community, gained influence
and position, as if that were a testimony
to the grace of God.
It was just the opposite.
It was Abraham who was the man of
God and who was able to exhort the
vile sinners.
Now you know, of course, in Believer's Chapel
that we have preached very strongly the doctrines
of sovereign grace.
Most of us, I think, feel very, very
strongly about the doctrines of sovereign grace.
Some of our enemies think that if you
believe in the sovereign grace of God, you
cannot exhort sinners.
How foolish.
The Bible sets forth exhortation as the means
by which God wins his elect.
And so we do exhort sinners.
If it's vile for a man who believes
in the sovereign grace of God to exhort
sinners, seek to persuade them to come to
Christ, then we'll continue to be vile.
And by the grace of God, we'll be
vile still, because we want sinners to come
to Christ.
We want you to come, if you're outside
of Christ, to believe in him.
Exhortation is for the elect of God.
So we exhort you, come to Christ, believe
in him, through whom alone there is salvation.
Now Lot hesitated.
Isn't that interesting?
How insane Lot's lingering must have seemed to
the angels.
Here they have announced the judgment to come
as coming from God, and Lot's seeking to
wheedle one last concession out of him.
Don't make me go to the mountains, that's
too much trouble, and I may get lost
in the judgment that is to come.
Let me go over in this little city
over here, it's just a little place, and
surely to save Zoar, that would not be
a great call upon the mercy of God,
would it?
A man, the subject of the grace and
mercy of God, seeking to wheedle one last
concession out of God.
Not even brimstone and fire can make a
pilgrim out of Lot.
That's an important principle.
And the picture that you get of the
angels is remarkable.
Two angels, they have four hands, because they
were appeared as men.
Four people are dragged out of the city,
and you can see the two angels, one
with Lot in his hand on this side,
and in Lot's wife's hand in his hand
on this side, and the other with the
two daughters, each in one hand, and the
two of them dragging these four unwilling people
out of the city of Sodom, which is
soon to be destroyed.
Oh, for the grace of God manifested to
Lot.
Now Lot is hastened by them.
It's a good illustration, incidentally, an illustration of
the security of the believer, because we read
down here in verse 22 that the angel
said, hurry, escape there, for I cannot do
anything until you arrive there.
In other words, the angel's hands were tied
in destruction of the city until Lot is
out of the city, because God has determined
that his elect soul shall be saved from
this destruction.
That illustrates, of course, the eternal security of
the believer, because our eternal security rests on
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we cannot be lost.
I give unto them eternal life, and they
shall never perish.
How wonderful it is to know that.
Once having believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
I am secure forever, and standing behind that
promise is the power of God.
How Sodom is destroyed, the Bible does not
say.
Great discussion has taken place over this by
the archaeologists and Old Testament scholars.
We know that the land about those cities
was volcanic.
It is possible that there did take place
a volcano at the behest of God.
It is possible that an earthquake took place.
It's possible that the earthquake broke open the
earth, the gases of the chemicals that were
there were released, an explosion followed with the
materials being shot up into the air, exceedingly
high, mixed with the salt, the sulfur and
the salt characteristic of that part of the
land, and the result then was the supernat—was
the raining down from heaven of the materials
as a result of the explosion.
That has been suggested by some competent scholars.
Still others have taken the ancient view that
it was simply a supernatural raining down from
the Lord in heaven of fire and brimstone.
At any rate, the cities were overthrown.
And, of course, the saddest story is the
story of Lot's wife.
Whether Lot's wife was a Christian or not,
the scriptures do not say, but she's an
illustration of both an unbeliever and a believer
in turning back for both turn back.
We read in verse 26, But his wife
from behind him looked back, and she became
a pillar of salt.
She was an example of her refusal to
make a clean break, the kind of thing
that I know is apropos for many of
us here in this auditorium.
And the fact that she turned back is
something that betrayed the true home of her
heart.
And unfortunately, by turning back, it left her
unsheltered in the plain where the judgment was
coming.
And as the materials rained down from the
sky, evidently they fell upon her, and her
body became encrusted with salt.
And she became a kind of perpetual memorial
of what it means to turn back because
one loves the things of this world rather
than the things of the Lord.
Abraham comes to look over the destruction because
he sees it in the distance.
And so he came down and looked over
it and saw the smoke that ascended from
the destruction of the five cities of the
plain.
And the text of scripture says, verse 29,
Thus it came about, when God destroyed the
cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham
and sent Lot out of the midst of
that city.
In other words, God remembered Lot for Abraham's
sake.
God remembered Lot for the sake of the
promises.
God did not save Lot for Lot's sake,
but for the sake of the promises of
mercy which had been granted.
The last part of the chapter which I
won't say much about is the disgrace of
Lot.
Schemes of unbelief by the two daughters.
Incidentally, you'll notice again, this is I think
the third time that we have seen this.
Perhaps only the second so far, but I
made reference to some other incidents.
This is at least the second time in
which the drinking of excessive alcoholic beverage is
linked with sexual immorality.
And we have it again here.
Excessive alcoholism with sexual immorality.
The names of the two sons that were
born, Moab means from the father, and Ammon
means son of my people.
And both of them have within the names
references to the sin of incest from the
father.
And son of my people represent the kind
of sin that took place.
And as you well know, it is Moab
and Ammon, the Moabites and the Ammonites who
trouble Israel throughout the remainder of their Old
Testament history.
So the simple little things of life, the
decision of Lot, which Abraham offered him, take
wherever you want.
And he looked toward the cities of the
well-watered plain and chose that place for
his domicile.
That simple decision, which seems so in itself
so easy, so inconsequential is the thing that
ultimately leads to the disintegration of this man
and also not only of him and his
immediate wife, but also of his children.
Let me tell you, my dear friends, the
simple decisions of life that you make regarding
the interests of the world in your life
will have their definite effect not only in
you, but in your children and in their
children's children.
And you are responsible for those children that
God has given you to train them in
the Word of God and to urge them
and exhort them to make decisions that the
Lord Jesus Christ shall have as full a
sway as possible in our lives.
May God help you who are adults in
Believer's Chapel to face up to the decisions
of life.
May God help you to bring up your
children in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord and preserve them for him and preserve
them from the disintegration that inevitably follows, even
when believers decide for the world.
The divine disapproval of Lot is seen in
the fact that Lot lives an unrecorded life.
We do not know anything about his death.
He falls into an unknown grave.
We do not know where he was buried.
All the end of a foolish choice.
No joy in the halfway experiences of Christianity.
The Lord Jesus has an interesting word about
this event.
Remember Lot's wife.
Those three words, remember Lot's wife, some would
say refer to the shortest biography in the
world in one sentence.
But his wife from behind him looked back
and she became a pillar of salt.
Those three words, remember Lot's wife, underline the
danger of spiritual relapse because of failure to
set our priorities right in our Christian life.
It is the Lord Jesus who warns us.
My dear friends in the audience, as an
ambassador of him, remember Lot's wife.
One last thing.
It has been said, incidentally, she stood a
silent sentinel to sordid selfishness.
Beautiful statement.
There's one final thing that I want to
mention.
The sin of Sodom, of course, was awful.
It was the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism, and
all of the other forms of sordid sexual
sin that go along with it.
And we are inclined to think that that's
the greatest kind of sin that a man
could commit.
But the Lord Jesus said it's not the
greatest.
As a matter of fact, he said there
were individuals that were going to suffer a
great deal more than Sodom and Gomorrah because
of much greater opportunities.
He said, I'm reading his words, and whoever
does not receive you nor heed your words
as you go out of that house or
that city, shake off the dust of your
feet, individuals who refuse the message of the
apostles.
Truly, I say to you, it will be
more tolerable for the land of Sodom and
Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for
that city.
In other words, the sin of Sodom was
great, but the sin of the rejection of
Jesus Christ is far greater.
And you are faced today with the necessity
of deciding to receive Christ or to reject
Christ.
To reject Christ is to sin greater than
the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I call upon you and ask you, why
do you linger?
Why do you not come to the Lord
Jesus Christ?
Do you think it will affect your business,
your family, your pleasures?
Why do you linger?
Why is it necessary for me to exhort
you to come to Christ and receive everlasting
life?
Why must I plead with you as an
ambassador of Jesus Christ?
Come to him.
Come now.
He has offered the all-atoning sacrifice by
which our sins may be forgiven.
Come to him.
Receive it as a gift.
You cannot earn it.
You are lost and undone.
No good works of yours are acceptable to
God the Father.
We are not saved by our good works,
for by grace are you saved through faith.
That not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast.
Come to him.
Turn aside from trust in anything in this
life, your church, your good works, your family,
your education, your culture, and come and receive
as a penitent the free gift of eternal
life.