This morning, we turn in the Bible to Genesis chapter 19, making our way through Genesis. We continue our study in Genesis, and this is found on page 17 in your pew Bible. We will read the first 29 verses, Genesis chapter 19. Let's give our attention this morning to the word of the Lord. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening and 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 earth and said, My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way. They said, No, we will spend the night in the town square. But he pressed them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof. But they said, Stand back. And they said, This fellow came to sojourn, and he's become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. And they pressed hard against the man Lot and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out, groping for the door. And the men said to Lot, have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of this place, for we are about to destroy this place. Because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, get up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his son-in-laws to be jesting. As morning dawn, 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 lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him. And they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away. And Lot said to them, oh no, my lords, Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life, but I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it's a little one. Let me escape there. Is it not a little one? And my life will be saved. He said to him, Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew the cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley. And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. May the Lord bless the hearing of his word. When the New Testament speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah, it uses this entire event as a teaching tool to help us remember and to think very seriously about God's judgment against sin. 2 Peter 2 tells us that God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, and made them an example, thus the title this morning of paradigm judgment, an example to those who afterward would live ungodly. In other words, this was always designed to be used throughout the generations and in our day as a teaching tool and a specific example for us to teach us and our children about how God ultimately is going to deal with the problem of sin. We don't have a whole bunch of these sort of scenarios in Scripture. Sure, we have the flood event in what we've studied so far. But this single event, this single event of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was to be the event throughout history that would teach us about the final judgment that is to come and ultimately how God is going to deal with all of this, how God is going to punish this world. it was done with fire. Second Peter describes at the end of the world, it will be destroyed with fire. And this, all of this this morning was to have some kind of effect. This is the design of this in how the believer is to live and to be prepared for what is going to come to pass. That's how the scriptures constantly spoke about Sodom. Jesus did the same thing in Luke chapter 17 when he said, on the day when Lot went out from Sodom and Gomorrah, Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. So it will be when the Son of Man is revealed. You see, Jesus just made the link and linked it up and said, just like that, this is how it's going to be. So the whole event that we're studying this morning was to be exactly that, a teaching tool, a reminder of a real situation that happened, a kind of lasting monument for us of what will happen to those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ and pursue an ungodly life. And last time we considered in Genesis chapter 18, which was a remarkable chapter when we put this together, that Abraham was finally learning this about the Lord's justice. And Abraham was finally beginning to take a little more seriously now why this promised seed needed to come. He and his wife had been laughing. He had laughed in chapter 17. His wife laughed in chapter 18. And by the time chapter 18 was done, he was not laughing anymore. It got real serious. And all that laughter went away when he realized the severity of God's judgment that is to come. And now, why the birth of Isaac was so needed. When the Lord came down in chapter 18, the first question he had is, where is your wife? He is focused on that. He is focused on the coming promised seed. He is focused on the promised son. And because in the next scene, you have the reality of judgment. The promised seed, the promised son, and judgment set side by side. And now Father Abraham has had a big shift in how he's looking at the seed. He hasn't taken this very seriously so far. Well, we ended last time with Abraham standing there interceding before the Lord in the court scene, remember. And he starts with 50 and he's down to 45. Lord, if there's just this many righteous, would you spare it? One last time, just ten. And the Lord says, if I find ten in that city, I will spare it. That's it. That was the end of that scene. This morning, we pick up where we left off, and what we see is the Lord answering that question of Abraham. You should all be at this point thinking a little bit about, Will he find ten righteous in that big, massive section of the plain where there are five large cities? Will he find ten righteous? Will you really, Lord, destroy the righteous with the wicked? Could God do that? That's the question because Abraham posed that. Would you far be it from you, Lord, to destroy the righteous with the wicked? And the answer is, of course not. God's not going to do that. And today, interwoven into this narrative, which is so fascinating to me as I studied this and prepared this sermon, are the shocking actions and the depths to which the Lord goes to deliver a lot. And that's what should really stand out today. As terrible as this event is, and there's nothing easy about preaching this text. I thought to myself, this is a really hard text to preach, Yet in the midst of it is the glorious actions of our Lord stooping so low and being relentless to pull out who I think is one of the worst examples of somebody in the Bible, maybe worse than Samson. We'll let Dr. Godfrey tackle that in Sunday school. As terrible as this event is, it was to be a comfort to struggling sinners, that the Lord will deliver his people no matter how bad it gets. and I believe it should cause us to fall on our knees, but also ask the question this morning, what does the Lord desire of us? What is the Lord after with us? What do we learn from this? How do we then interject the life of Lot to us? How do we transfer that to us and think very carefully about the core message the Lord wants us to take from this particular passage? The one thing I come up with is if he hadn't delivered righteous Lot, everyone would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah. But the shocking thing is that Lot was righteous. Let's look at this chapter. It's now evening. The sun has set. Abraham had his meal with the two angels. But at some point, the angels got up, remember, and their faces were directed towards Sodom. They're looking at the sun hitting it. The sun is going down in the west, and they're looking at the beautiful cities of the plain. God had just revealed to his servant Abraham what he is about to do because Abraham is a friend. That's what God does for his friends. Abraham has now gone back to his tent, and about this time, the angels have approached the gate of the city. So when you come to verse 1 of chapter 19, I want you to notice that these angels, now appearing as men as they have been, they come to the city, and who is the first person that they meet at the gate of the city. That's verse 1. Now, the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. We haven't heard from Lot for some time now. In fact, the last time we heard from Lot was back in chapter 13, when Abraham had come to deliver Lot, remember, and he had plundered all those kings, and he rescued Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah was very accountable. They had experienced the deliverance of Abraham, and so did Lot. But the surprising thing was, Lot went back, and we haven't heard from Lot now for some time. Well, the scene is moving. Notice the way that the Bible here describes Lot. He's sitting in the gate of the city. They say that the city gate of Sodom was a great monument. It was beautiful. It was a high, narrow passageway, and it was a really splendid thing to walk through the gate of Sodom. It was a whole picture of its culture and power. Sodom was a beautiful city. As we saw last week, the text is drawing our attention to something else than the fact that when these angels came to Abraham, he showed hospitality, but the Lord wanted to draw a great contrast for us, not ultimately just to teach us about hospitality, but to show us a great contrast between the righteous and the wicked. Abraham's sitting in his tent door, Lot is sitting in the gate of Sodom, and how are these men treated? Great contrast of what grace is doing in the life of Abraham, the hospitality that we studied. And now what's happened now to these men as they enter the city of Sodom, they want to go and stay in the open square. Lot persuades them. Lot knows that can't happen. So he begs them. He begs them to come and to stay in his own house. And so in verse 4, it all begins. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, and all the people to the last man. Now think of that. Are there ten righteous, Lord? All the people, young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. See the emphasis here? It's being answered for you. There's none righteous, know not one. Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. The men of the city, young and old from every quarter. And this is a perverse scene. They're howling. They are howling for these men to rape. The society had become so out of control immorally and sexually, they were acting like zombies to everyone who walked into the gate. The city encircles the house. And why does the Lord reveal this so graphically to us? What is the Lord ultimately teaching us this morning when we look at this? Because this is uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable. And I believe the first thing that the Lord wants us to grasp this morning is that his judgments are not willy-nilly. His judgments are just. His judgments are deserving. They're not fly-off-the-handle kind of judgments. Remember what Abraham said, what he said to Abraham? The Lord said to Abraham, the outcry of Sodom has come up. All I keep getting are all these cries, cries of injustice. And remember now, God had set apart Abram to train his children justice and righteousness. This is all I'm getting. All of the cries, they just keep coming up. It's fascinating when we look at this, you know, what Sodom had fallen into. It wasn't just unnatural desire. Jude really picks that up. Jude highlights all the perversity, uses words that are strong. Remember last time to describe the unnatural desire of the inhabitants of Sodom. But Ezekiel picked up on something that I think is so important to state. Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride. Excess of food. and prosperous ease. And they did not aid the poor and the needy. This is a society completely devoid of justice. And they were haughty, and they did abominations before me, so I removed them when I saw fit. Societies, you see, are always moving in cycles. Societies are always moving in cycles of iniquity. Remember what the Lord said to Abram back in chapter 15, that Israel's going to go back. Israel's going to go down into Egypt, and they're going to be there for a set period of time. But he won't bring them out until the iniquity of the Amorites was complete. Israel was to cleanse them. What was the Lord saying that? Have you ever reflected upon that? That in every given society that has ever existed, there is a cycle of iniquity working itself out and this cycle is going somewhere and key things mark the cycle of iniquity working itself out to the ultimate judgment whether it's a judgment that puts an end to that nation throughout history or it's the final judgment that cycle is working its course and it's so helpful for us in the united states so that we understand this key things happen the poor are totally abused they become poor everyone is at ease with idleness excess is everywhere excess is everywhere pride marks that society if you ever were to go through before the judgment on the northern kingdom listen to what was described in isaiah for the vineyard of the lord of hosts is the house of israel and the men of judah are his pleasant planting and he looked for justice but behold bloodshed for righteousness but behold think of sodom an outcry that's all he gets woe to those who join house to house who add field to field till there's no more room they're just greedy they keep taking and taking and taking and taking until the poor are pushed out, remember? Until you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land. The Lord has sworn in my hearing, houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses. Ten acres of a vineyard shall yield but one bath. We keep going on. Woe to those who rise in the morning that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late in the evening until wine inflames them. The Lord, Isaiah 3, has taken his place to contend. He stands to judge peoples. The Lord will enter into judgment with elders and princes of his people. It is you who have devoured the vineyard, the spoil of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the face of the poor, declares the Lord God of hosts. I rehearsed that to say when you have the Lord saying these kind of things, the cycles run its course. And God is showing that the entire culture, the entire cities of the plain had been given over into exactly what Romans 1 describes. The whole thing, they were given over. Now, you can be smart and think about a little bit what's happening to us. When you see the poor and the middle class getting wiped out, and you see the greed that dominates and you see all the idleness going on in our society and excess everywhere and pride governing our country and you see what's being legalized in all the states we're in the cycle and i've rehearsed a lot about this in my time with you and i think everyone here would say it's an interesting time to preach this stuff because 20 years ago if i preached it people might have been a little more irritated it. But you've seen it. And now you say, yes, pastor, we see this, we get it. Escondido URC agrees. This is where I think the text this morning is challenging us a little bit to go beyond that. We're being challenged to look at who's interwoven into this narrative. We're being challenged to look at the life of Lot and to ask what happened to Lot. Notice as you come to verse 1 that this man is sitting in the gate of the city. He is a political leader. What's wrong with being a political leader? But there's a bigger story behind this. Remember at the beginning, Lot lifted up his eyes and he saw the plains of the Jordan, that they were well watered like the garden of God. And what happened to Lot? Well, he journeyed east and he walked east. and so then he pitched his tent by Sodom, and now we come to chapter 19, and he's seated in Sodom, and now you see Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. He's done all three of them. And the Lord is drawing a huge contrast for us this morning. He's drawing a huge contrast between Abraham and Lot to have us think about all of these things that have been presented, which I believe Genesis is doing, to teach us about the pilgrim life and to contrast a worldly life. As I studied this, I wanted us to look carefully at Lot and to see here that Lot became completely assimilated into this. What do I mean by that? Well, Abraham has a tent in the wilderness. Notice the contrast. Lot is rooted in Sodom. There's a contrast between the wives. There's a contrast between the children. The contrast is left and right, left and right. I mean, it is all over the place between these two narratives, but I think one of the most vivid contrasts comes in verse 8. Lot goes out in the doorway, shuts the door behind him, and what does he do to his children? He hands them over to Sodom. Now I stand back and I think, well, this is perverse. I mean, it's so appalling for me to preach on this. That is the most perverse thing that I could ever preach about. He just dumped his daughters over to the men of Sodom to do whatever they wanted to do. Then it dawned on me. What did God say to Abraham? I have known him that he may command his children that they would keep the way of the Lord and that they would observe justice and righteousness. Lot says, here you go. Now, I see a contrast there. He's not even half the man of Abraham. This is a giant and a dwarf, as one pastor said. And the scene is escalating into a nightmare. I mean, the angels blind the men. they pull lot back in and he makes they make an announcement of judgment do you have anyone else here if you have anyone else here go get them right now and they say in verse 13 for we are about to destroy this place because this outcry against its people has become great before the lord and the lord has sent us to destroy it god's not staying this lot go get your kids so he runs and he speaks to his sons-in-law who were men of sodom who were pledged to be married to his daughters get up come but to his son-in-laws he seemed to be joking i think that is a great tragedy the verb here is the very same one that was used for sarah's laughter no one got up you know what it means of course is that the children were unprepared they were rooted his family's compromised the text says look at how rooted he is look at what happens to a lot he wanted so bad to join with this he fell into this and he can't get out that's the the imagery that we have here think about it his wife is a sodomite his children are marrying the men of sodom and he's so intertwined in it he's so interwoven into the fabric of sodom he's stuck he can't get out and the text is not done making us feel how bad the problem is it's it's in verse 16 the angels finally have to do what he won't leave so they put their hands on him and they pull him but what do you read he lingered so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand. I love this statement. The Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And then Lot does something I was completely baffled with as a pastor. He says in verse 18, just save me a little bit of Sodom. I just want a little. Come on. There's one of the cities of the plain over here. Let me escape there. If I go in the mountains, the Lord can't protect me from this. See it? So let me go back to the city and I'll live. I'll live. Zoar was one of the five cities of the plain. It was a mini Sodom. And so notice the final contrast here. Abraham intercedes for Sodom for the sake of the righteous. Lot intercedes for Sodom to remain with the wicked. Let me have a little bit. Do you notice how the emphasis is here in the text? It's just a little one. Whoever said the Bible is not practical. You've been gracious enough to spare me. Let me go back. It's just a mind-boggling scene. And I believe it's so bewildering that that's the intended effect. It should be bewildering. What do you expect from the Lord? Why doesn't he put an end to this dwarf? But what does God do? God spares this little city for a lot. And it's overwhelming. Because what I see here is the Lord's relentless commitment to go after a sinner even like this. I mean, it's just relentless. And the real glorious picture here is that alongside of his judgment is just as powerful God's will to save his elect. That's what I get. Just as powerful as his judgment is his will to save his elect. And even though Lot had made so many bad decisions in this life, he was one of God's righteous. I mean, we would never get that studying the Old Testament, but the New Testament says it. And Romans 4 tells us that He justifies the wicked. And I love this because notice what the angels are saying. We can't touch this city until you're out. They grab Him. And the phrase that you should just highlight in this whole narrative is the Lord being merciful to Him. It's almost as if all the prayers of the psalmist, who when they cried out, Deliver me, O Lord, out of the affliction. Deliver me out of my enemies. Deliver me from the deep waters. It's almost as if the Lord is answering this when Lot didn't even pray it. Lot had those prayers answered when he had no strength to get out, when his ties were that deep. And you know, as I reflect on the New Testament message of 2 Peter 2, God delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. And then he adds this. After his soul was tormented, Peter says, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation. Did you hear what Peter said about him? He was daily tormented by the actions of the wicked. You know what that means? It means that this man was going through a living nightmare living there. In other words, he was completely tormented and it was no heaven on earth. Vegas is no heaven on earth. It's a city of the plain. And he's tormented. And remember what the Lord said about those who are like this in Ezekiel? Passed through the city, put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over the abominations that are committed in it. He felt it. And here's where the story of Lot comes together for us this morning. Lot was tormented, but in the next sentence, Peter says, the Lord is able to deliver all of the godly out of temptation. That is the most pastoral, that is the most encouraging message you could ever get in the midst of this. And this is where the Lord wants us to pause this morning and to think, maybe we're overwhelmed by the societies we live, and we're overwhelmed by the choices that we made, and we're overwhelmed by the things that we've done in our families or in our lives that we have completely wrecked the way. And we have been the wrong guy of Psalm 1. And what does the Lord want you to hear this morning? I can deliver you. I have the power to deliver you. Lot is a, as one pastor said, a prototype and a paradigm of many believers today. He's not a caricature. He's not a joke written on the pages of Scripture. Lot is for real. Lot is a man who, I add, fell into what the Bible talks about and warns against, a love for the world and the things in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. And you see, you shouldn't do that because all of this is coming down. And the consequences were terrible. You don't want to live this kind of life. You don't want to go through this. He lost his wife. The next scene with his daughters is horrendous. in fact it says that lot's wife turned around to look and she became a pillar of salt you know josephus in his day says that the pillar was still there and i was reading a few commentators and john currad one of the commentators said the very same thing you can still go find the pillar if you don't believe me i don't know if it's the one but i googled it and i tell you what there she was it looked like a woman as a pillar of salt looking over the dead sea go google it god is not telling us all this this morning to discourage us god is telling his people that he can help us and that he's strong to save us but you should also realize how serious the problem is you should also think about how bad the world is you should also think about how serious god takes sin and this is why i did the reading of the law the way I do. We're not a bunch of stick-in-the-muds about this. Because verse 23 is horrendous. It's just. But you never want to have to face this. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley. And the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground, It must have been awful. Can you imagine it? Everyone's getting up early in the morning. The shops are going to open. The cafe doors were swinging. People were ready to have another day in the desert sun. And when they least expected it, fire and brimstone came out of heaven. Combustible sulfur in great balls ignited and completely lit up and destroyed everything that lived in the cities of the plain. They say today that those cities are buried under the southwest of the Dead Sea. In other words, those cities are forever imprisoned and became like the very Dead Sea that has no life in itself. But I want to close with this this morning. It's one last scene. Look at verse 27. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord. This is where the court had been held. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward the land of the valley. And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was when God destroyed the cities of the valley. God remembered Abraham. That's the same word after the flood happened that God remembered Noah. How so? So he sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, and he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. He delivered Lot. Abraham had interceded, and God saved his righteous. There's another time this fire fell, you see. It fell in about the year A.D. 30 upon Abraham's greater son. And Jesus Christ came down here to become Sodom for us so that he would save, as was promised to Father Abraham, a multitude that no man can number. Not one, but a multitude that no man can number. The fire fell on his son. And today, the Lord wants you to understand that that is the way, he is the way of escape, and you need to tell your children about that. Isn't that a focal point in these narratives? You need to talk to your children about this. You need to command your children. You children, boys and girls, you are absolutely different in this world. That's what God's called you to be. You are to observe righteousness and justice. You are to come to the Lord Jesus Christ and believe and be set apart to Him. And the Lord wants all of you to know today that if He can deliver a lot, He can deliver all of us out of our temptations. Quoting Jude, He knows how to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Let's pray. Oh Lord our God, we praise you this morning again as we've heard your word because you are faithful and you are merciful and the display that is put before us today of that is again overwhelming. And how you care to instruct us that we would not do these things that are put before us but that we would be a separate people to you, that we would be those who believe you and trust you and command our children and are separate to you and that we would not love the world or the things in the world because all of this, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, all of it is of the world and the world is perishing. And so give us your mercy today and deliver all of us out of the temptations. All of us, Lord, face various temptations and they're too strong for us. But we come to you as one who is stronger to set us free, to bring us out, and as we come out, let us not look back. In Jesus' name we pray these things, amen.