God's Justice and Mercy - Pastor Tom Loghry
In Genesis 19, we see the justice of God played out on Sodom and Gomorrah and the mercy that he shows to Lot.
Content Warning: This passage deals with the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as the sins of Lot’s daughters, which Pastor Tom deals with very directly.
Transcript:
There are times in our lives when we'd all like a second chance. Sometimes they're offered, and sometimes they're not. I remember my Home Depot manager was displeased when he found out I was riding one of their flat carts like a skateboard across the parking lot around closing time. Still, he gave me a second chance, and I didn't do it again.
On the other hand, there was the time I accidentally cut a live wire at an electronics recycling facility and I was falsely accused of doing it intentionally. I pleaded my case, but the supervisor did not give me a second chance. We're not always given second chances. When they're offered, most times, we should probably take them.
In the case of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, we'll find that God offers no more chances. They're chronic offenders. The time for judgment has come. At the same time, we'll see that God's mercy is still living and active in the case of Lot and his family. We'll be covering all of chapter 19 today, so to do that, I'm not going to be reading every single verse, so we'll read some verses and summarize others.
But we'll start with reading some of these opening verses, beginning with verses 1 through 4. It says there that the two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. My lords, he said.
Please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning. No, they answered. We will spend the night in the square. But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house. So, as you'll recall earlier in Genesis chapter 18, God had told Abraham that he was going to investigate the city of Sodom to see whether it was as wicked as he had heard. Now obviously God knew exactly how wicked that city was, but he was sending these two angels in order to demonstrate his diligence as a judge.
He's fair. He's examining all the evidence. So he sent these two angels down to Sodom. Now, just kind of preliminary details. We ask, well, where is Sodom? And that's a disputed fact, you know, where exactly Sodom is. If you go to the next slide, there's a map. So you can, these are the traditional locations of the sites mentioned here in Genesis 19, you have Sodom, they're kind of close to the very southern part of the Dead Sea, you have Gomorrah, and Zoar, and back in the day this area right to their left would have been a plain, it wouldn't have been filled with water. Now, again, like I said, these areas are disputed, some say Sodom was further north, I've actually been to the site, the traditional site of Sodom, Babadrah.
If you go to the next slide, that's a picture I took there, and it's just, it's a giant heap of dirt. It's, there's not much to look at. It's just a giant heap of, you know, it basically explains it. That's what it, that's what it looks like. it's, it covers about an area of nine to ten acres. And it suggested that the city would have had up to about 1, 200 occupants.
So a little bit of a different idea of a city than our own idea of a city today, where you have maybe tens of thousands of people. you have to think of how a city very often served as kind of a place of protection for the people living in the area. You had, you had the wall, everyone could go in when, enemies came by.
So these two angels are coming to Sodom and they encounter Lot at the gateway of the city. Now you ask, why in the world was Lot just hanging out at the gateway? Well, at the gate of the city was where typically the elders of the city would gather to hear matters of dispute and render their, their judgment.
So it was kind of a place where you could rub elbows with the, the important people of the city and so what it kind of demonstrates to us, you know, we don't know whether Lot actually occupied a position of authority, but at least he was trying to kind of fraternize with the important people in the city.
He was really trying to make himself at home in Sodom, and in fact, he really had made it his home, even though he was a foreigner. Now he sees these two angels coming in. He doesn't know they're angels right from just seeing them, but he, he offers them his hospitality. He insists that they come and stay at his home.
Now, initially the angels are like, no, we will stay in the square of the city. And you can imagine, you know, their purpose there is to make an observation. You know, they're there to examine the city. So what better way than to kind of, stay in the public square, but Lot's very insistent that they come home with him And so they do, and he doesn't give them quite as good a meal as Abraham had had given them. He just kind of throws together some some bread made without yeast, it is something you can throw together very quickly, and we soon find out why it was that he did not want them to stay in the square. We get to verse 5 and picking up there.
It says that these young and old men that had surrounded Lot's house began shouting out and they said, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them. Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him. He said, no, my friends don't do this wicked thing.
Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof. Get out of our way, they replied. This fellow came here as a foreigner, now he wants to play the judge.
We'll treat you worse than them. They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. Now, the description we have here is as bad as it sounds. These men from across the city had surrounded Lot's house with the intent that they wanted to rape his two guests, and it seems like they may be even threatening to do the same to Lot.
They said that we're going to treat you worse than them. Now, in response, Lot makes a very curious offer and we're uncertain whether he was serious about this or not. The Old Testament scholar John Walton suggests that when Lot offers his daughters to these men, he's actually doing it kind of in an ironic, kind of sarcastic sort of manner.
So like, I would as soon as give these men over to you as I would my own daughters. That kind of thing. Now, I don't think John Walton would, you know, be scared of saying that Lot in fact did offer his daughters to them. So that's a possibility, but we also have to entertain the possibility that he did in fact, make this offer to them which in that case is wrong. And this is something that we have to remember when we're reading the Bible even when we're reading about characters that on the whole like God's going to be trying, he's going to be delivering Lot from the situation It doesn't mean that they're perfect and doesn't mean that everything that they do is right So just because the Bible describes something doesn't mean that it prescribes. And so maybe he was just saying this ironically to point out just how egregious it was that they're asking him to do this.
Maybe he was serious, but what it underscores on either way, what it underscores is that Lot is very serious about his hospitality. It's like, you will, these guests are under my roof. You will not mistreat them. And now, of course, you know, this whole episode, right here, it has become infamous because it seems to highlight the immorality of homosexuality.
Now, LGBT interpreters of this text have tried to spin it in a different direction, by saying that, well, Sodom and Gomorrah was judged because they lacked hospitality. Now, of course, we can see how the people here are not very hospitable. They, they want to rape, rape visitors to their city.
Definitely not hospitable, but it seems like that's maybe papering over things a little bit. Now we do see, of course, that kind of front facing issue here is that they're threatening violence against these these visitors to their city. Then we do see the homosexual variety. It wouldn't have been any better if they were trying to threaten to rape, you know, women that were visiting their city.
And we should, it should be noted that there was other things going on in the city besides sexual sins. We see in Jeremiah 23: 14, and Ezekiel 16: 49, testimony of this, says in among the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen something horrible. They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers so that not one of them turns from their wickedness.
They are all like Sodom to me. The people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah. So you have the sense of just a general wickedness on the part of the people of Jerusalem so that they are described as being like the people of Sodom. And then what's really, I find this passage in Ezekiel really interesting. It says, now this was the sin of your sister Sodom.
She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned. They did not help the poor and needy. Now, I don't know about you, but usually when you think about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, you don't think about how they failed to care for the poor and needy. So we do understand here that there is a bigger picture in terms of the wickedness.
It wasn't just limited to sexual sin. It included their violence, their lack of hospitality, and their lack of concern for the poor and needy. It's just a general pridefulness. So then, though, we do ask, well what about this homosexual activity then? Is it okay that they were engaging? And that, while we look at the rest of the testimony of scripture, I'm not going to give you a whole study of this, but just two points to look at is it's, the Bible is very clear that this wasn't just something incidental that was being pointed, kind of picked out here in the narrative, but that it was another point demonstrating the wickedness of Sodom because in Leviticus 18:22 It says, do not have sexual relations with a man as one does a woman.
That is detestable. Now remember, the author of Genesis is Moses. Moses also wrote Leviticus. So you got the same guy. He's writing, he's describing both things. And so we have this understanding that, yes, homosexuality is understood to be sinful as a person engages in that, in that practice. Now, again, those who would try to defend homosexuality would say, well, this is, this is a prohibition that has passed away, just as the prohibitions against eating pork and shellfish have, have passed away.
But when we look at the New Testament, we see that this is clearly not the case. And I think probably the most important passage on this that you should try to remember is Romans 1. Romans 1 really gives us a really big picture understanding of what's problematic about practicing homosexuality. in Romans 1, what Paul does is help us understand the iconic significance of of homosexuality, of how it reveals a greater issue going on among human beings in terms of their turn towards sin.
So, we're going to cover verses 21 through 32. I'm not going to dig super deep into it, but I just, it's important to cover this so you understand. Romans 1, starting in verse 21, it says, For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools, and then pick up on this language of exchange. And exchanged the glory of the immortal God, for images made to look like a mortal human being, and birds and animals, and reptiles. So they traded the real God for false idols. Therefore God gave them over, in the sinful desires of their hearts, to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. It's easy to miss there, but notice that because of their turn from God toward idolatry, God, it says that God gave them over to sinful desires as it regards their sexuality.
And so there's something that's significant, literally, there's something, there's a sign in this. Paul goes on and says, because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged, so think about exchanging God for idols, you have this exchange with sexual relations. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. So again, there's something iconic about this, about the rebellion of the human heart that's signified in the twisting and perversion of, of our sexual desires. Now the last verses here I think are so important because it shows that it's not just about the sex.
That, again, that this is really just kind of a capstone. We see in verse 29 that, of everything else that's included under this. It says in verse 29, they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful.
They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things, they also approve of those who practice them. Now, aside from, you know, all the mention about homosexuality and all that, I think verses 29 through 32 really encapsulate what's going on in Sodom.
They're filled with every kind of wickedness. They're rebellious down to the core. And this is why God is bringing judgment upon them. And so, this observation of their homosexuality, I, I think is acting as a signal to us. It's a signpost pointing to Sodom's complete rebellion against God in all things.
Now at this point, you know, the angels have gone down to kind of make their observation. And you have to ask, do they need to see anything else? They literally showed up and the people of the city tried to rape them. It seems like their investigation can be wrapped up pretty quickly. And so. They, they conclude, yes, God's going to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, but God is going to show mercy to Lot.
So these men are surrounding the house and this is where I'm going to do some summarization versus 10 through 14. the men had surrounded the house. They're trying to get at Lot. The angels bring Lot back in and they blind the men that had surrounded the house so that they basically have to give up their efforts at trying to get in.
Now, you can understand at this point, once Lot has seen that these guys, these angels blinded everyone that these aren't just your regular sorts of guests, that there's something divine, angelic about them. And so when they tell them, when they tell Lot that judgment's coming upon Sodom, of course he's going to listen.
And so they tell him, you know, if you've got any relations in the city, go warn them so that they can get out with you. And Lot went to his son's in law. Now they weren't, probably at this point they hadn't been, they had not been actually married to his daughters. It says that they were pledged to be married to his daughters.
He went to them and pleaded for them to come with him, but they didn't go. They thought he was joking, maybe even mocking them. And, and, and that kind of just again illustrates just the lack of seriousness on the part of, of them as being, you know, occupants of Sodom. And the way that even today when we talk about God's judgment, maybe a lot of people shrug that off, kind of laugh that off.
Now, we can expect that Lot was disappointed by the response and his mind pretty muddled by the quick turn of events, so it's no surprise to find that he's not really moving with the needed haste. You can imagine if you were in those circumstances, you might be a little bit dazed and confused. And so in verses 15 through 20, we see God's continued mercy towards him and his family, the angels are urging him. They're saying, go, you got to get out of the city. It's to the point where it says in verse 16 that the men had to, the angels had to grab him by the hand, grab his family by the hand and say, we're going, we're getting out of the city. And it says towards the end of verse 16, it says for the Lord was merciful to them.
So this is where we were seeing a whole lot of judgment that's going to play out here, but we see God's mercy in the midst of it towards Lot and his family, even though he's kind of a weak man, he's not a, not a perfect man. Now as they're going, the angels are, are telling them, do not look back. Don't stop anywhere or you're going to be, you're going to be swept away in the judgment.
And at this point, Lot is just, he's very overwhelmed and they said, you know, we want you to flee to the mountains. Lot says, I can't pull that off. Can I just, can we just go to this little town over here? Wouldn't that be good enough? And he kind of emphasizes, I think, the fact that it's a little town to suggest that maybe it's not so wicked as the bigger town, the bigger city of Sodom.
And they make a concession. Now we don't know exactly why Lot wanted to go there, whether it was truly because he thought it was going to be too hard for him to get out of Dodge, basically, before the judgment came, or whether he was just generally intimidated by the mountains. But. In any case, they do show him that mercy, and they said, Very well, we're looking at verse 21.
The angel said, Very well, I will grant this request to you. I will not overthrow the town you speak of, but flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it. That is why the town was called Zoar. It means little, small. By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. So all of this had been happening very early in the morning.
It probably took them a few hours to get to Zoar, so it's the middle of the day. Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land.
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Now, everyone's imagination, I think, is really captured by that last bit there, that Lot's wife looked back and it was like, boom, she like turned into a pillar of salt. So we asked, well, what does that really mean? Was it quite like that, kind of like looking at Medusa and getting turned into a stone statue?
Was that what happened to Lot's wife? Actually, the commentary that we have from Jesus suggests that it wasn't just a mere glance back that resulted in Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Jesus says in Luke 17 verses 28 through 32 says it was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It'll be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who's on the housetop with possessions inside should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.
Remember lots wife. So what's Jesus suggesting there? What's Jesus suggesting there? He's suggesting that Lots wife and looking back wasn't merely just glancing back, but she was actually going back. She was going back to Sodom. This is why Jesus saying, don't go back. Don't, don't, don't go back to grab anything on the day of judgment.
And, and so Lot's wife, she had been offered mercy the same as the rest of them. She had been given this second chance, but the trouble is that she had given her heart to Sodom. Which is why she was going back, despite the fact that judgment was coming upon her. Now, the reason why she was, it says that she was turned into a pillar of salt.
It's not something that's arbitrary. Remember, this is in the area of the Dead Sea. It's a very salty sort of area. And I'm not a scientist, but in reading kind of some of the speculations on this, a lot of the natural elements in the area could come together that when you mix fire with it and then a person getting burned up.
And the fact that it's a salty area could result in someone being turned into a pillar of salt. So it's not just out of the blue, God said, like, yeah, I'll make her a pillar of salt instead of a pillar of pepper or something. You know, it's, it had to do with the area that they were actually in. and I think I have a little picture of that from, from the area of what that might've looked like.
Now, what we're seeing through all this, apart from the fact that, yes, God is bringing judgment, that He's showing mercy to Lot and his family, what we're also seeing is that God is being faithful to Abraham. Remember how Abraham had pleaded for God to be merciful to the righteous, which, in this case, really devolved down to just Lot and his family.
It wasn't even ten people. And we're reminded of this in verses 27 through 29. It says, Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw a dense smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham. And he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived. So remember that we, that Abraham was to be a blessing. And we see how Abraham was a blessing to Lot as he intervened, interceded on his behalf, and God was faithful to Abraham.
So, without a doubt, Sodom was evil. But the final verses of this chapter remind us that human sinfulness thrives outside the city limits of Sodom and Gomorrah. In the aftermath of all this, We have this really kind of disturbing tale told, starting in verse 30. It says Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar.
He and his two daughters lived in a cave. One day the older daughter said to the younger, Our father is old and there is no man around here to give us children, as is the custom over all the earth. Let us get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.
That night, they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. Now, it's really interesting, this first detail. It says that, you know, Lot had, remember Lot had pled with the angels that he would be able to live in Zoar.
But after all this plays out, he's like freaked out. He's traumatized. I mean, you could imagine being traumatized by this experience. So that you wouldn't feel safe, maybe living in a populated area. And so he basically flees to the hills with his daughters and says, I'm going to live out here all by myself.
Now, just put yourself in the position of those daughters. You know, you're living in a patriarchal society. You have to follow your father. They cannot strike it out on their own. And so they're basically dragged out into the wilderness with their father. Kind of really bleak circumstances. Kind of not much hope on the horizon from, from their viewpoint.
And so, what we see playing out here is that human tendency to reach for our own solutions rather than calling on the Lord, waiting on the Lord. That's what ideally would have happened here, is that they would have called upon the Lord and that God would have provided them a way where they could be delivered from those circumstances, where they would be.
given legitimate husbands and, but instead of doing that, they came up with their own solution. And their solution was to have sex with their father so that they could have children and carry on the family line. Now, something that has to be picked out here and noticed is that the text really goes to great lengths to emphasize that Lot was unaware.
Now, that doesn't mean that Lot is a perfect guy. I mean, you could ask, well, why did he let them get him drunk? I, I, I don't know. We just understand that Lot's a very human sort of, sort of fellow here. He enjoyed some drink. He's, again, a guy that's probably traumatized. He's probably like, yeah, give me more drink.
I, I, I'm just been so messed up by everything that's happened. And so he gets drunk. And while he's drunk, he doesn't have any recollection about what's going on. And so they are able to have relations with him. And then we see in the last verses, verses 34 through 38, that the younger daughter does the same thing the next night.
And they were successful in their plot. Both of them became pregnant, and the older daughter had a son. And it says in verse 37, she named him Moab. He's the father of the Moabites, and the younger one had a son named Ben Ami, and he became the father of the Ammonites today. And we have a little map that shows you the basic area of the territories that they would have occupied.
So you can see not far from the area of the Dead Sea, they all stayed fairly local. Now what's kind of interesting that I found in studying this is it says in Deuteronomy 2 that the Israelites were instructed not to attack the Moabites and the Ammonites in the land that they occupied because it was given to them by God.
And so it seems that despite how sordid this whole situation was, that God was still intent on honoring and blessing Lot despite the terrible circumstances by which these sons were conceived and born. But we also do see later on that the Israelites do come to blows. They have battles and fights with the kingdom of Ammon and Moab. And they both are pagan nations. They're not faithful to God at all. So very different than Israel.
On the whole, just stepping back, we see that God judged the cities of the plain. But he gave a second chance to Lot and his family. And yet, Lot's wife didn't accept God's mercy. God wouldn't force his mercy upon her. The warning was clear, but she disregarded it all the same. Now we are in the same position today.
Judgment is coming. Peter tells us in 2nd Peter 3. That the heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. We don't know when this day will come, which only underscores our need to be prepared today. Jesus may return today.
You may die today. Both occasions render final the decisions you have made. God has delayed the return of Christ only so that more people can take the second chance that he offers. Peter, once again in 2 Peter 3, tells us, The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
As Paul reminds us, God shows his kindness to lead us to repentance. Repentance is saying goodbye to Sodom and following Jesus. It's a change of direction. It doesn't mean you're a perfect person. Again, as we've seen, we see in Lot a weak and imperfect man. But he did follow God's lead. He knew God could save him.
The same is true for you and me. We follow Jesus. Because we know he can save us. But if we're following Jesus, that means we're not following the world. You can't do both. As Jesus says, you can't have two masters. There's the wide way that leads to destruction, and there's the narrow path of salvation that's found in Christ.
You must take your pick. So here's my challenge to you. If you're someone who hasn't decided to follow Jesus, to trust in Jesus for your salvation, today is the day. What else is there to wait for? Mercy has been offered. Take his hand and leave the city. And then also, if you're someone who has said that you're following Jesus, I want you, I want to challenge you to just check your compass.
I had a moment like that in my life when what I said with my mouth didn't match up with my actions and God brought me to my knees in a moment that decided which way I would go, whether I'd follow my sin or whether I would follow Jesus. You can't be trekking to Sodom and claim you're following Jesus.
If your life is controlled by sin, You need an intervention. And above all else and above all else, please don't deceive yourself. Don't follow a phony Jesus of your own creation, a Jesus who could be a citizen of Sodom, a Jesus who asks nothing of you, a Jesus who only pats you on the back, follow the real savior out of the city.
Father,
this passage has revealed to us the wickedness of Sodom, of the depth of their sinfulness, Father, but in truth, Father, as we see their own, their wickedness, we see a reflection of our own. The same wickedness that we see in Sodom, we see in our society today. We see it throughout the world. We've seen it throughout history, Father.
All of us deserve the judgment that Sodom received. And yet, Father, in the midst of this judgment that we've seen in this passage, we've also seen your mercy. How you mercifully intervened to leave Lot and his family out. Father, I just pray that rather than giving our hearts over to Sodom like Lot's wife did, that we would follow Christ, that we would take his hand, that we would be saved despite our weakness and imperfection, that we would follow him so that we may receive all that You want to offer us, Father.
You want to offer us a new life. You want to restore us. You want to clean us up through your Son. So, Father, help us to take the second chance that you're offering us. Help us to follow Jesus, we pray, in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us this Sunday, as we continue our sermon series looking at the Bible's account of Abraham.
It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)