Genesis 19 - Part A

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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Actually, he wrote a letter to the editor. The letter went something like this, I plowed my fields on Sunday. I planted on Sunday. I cultivated my crops on Sunday and I hauled in my crops on Sunday, but I never went to church on Sunday. And yet, he continued in his letter, I have brought in more bushels per acre than any God-fearing Christian farmer in this area, even those who never miss a single Sunday.

A very boastful, proud letter. The editor put it in the newspaper, but then underneath he wrote his own comment that said, God doesn't always settle his accounts in October. In the 19th chapter of the book of Genesis, God is going to settle his accounts with the city of Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah, a city that has become a byword by the very speaking of the name Sodom. It has come to mean a highly wicked group of people. Now the Bible tells us that God is slow to anger.

Aren't we happy for that? God has a long fuse. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But we have also seen that though God is merciful and kind and loving, that there reaches a point where God in justice, in righteousness, must act in judgment. And he does so here in the 19th chapter. Now in chapter 18, I take you back to verse 25 because part of the story is Abraham has a conversation with God when God tells Abraham that he's about to judge the city of Sodom. And because Abraham's nephew Lot is living in Sodom at the time, Abraham in verse 25 of chapter 18 says, he's saying this to God, far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you shall not the judge of all the earth do right.

Now that's a great question. Does God ever do anything that's not right? And by the way, that is the very core of the idea of righteousness, is to be right, rightness. And the answer is no, everything God does is always right.

Well Abraham is saying, how can you judge the righteous with the wicked? So he starts with 50 people. If you find 50 people, will you spare the city?

God says, I'll spare it. Well how about 45? How about 40? How about 30? 35?

Goes all the way down to 10. Because he's making the point that God should not mingle his judgment of the wicked while there are righteous people that are living in that city. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?

The answer is absolutely. God always does right and in chapter 19 we see God doing what is right and that is to judge Sodom because of the sins that have reached that limit. So God the judge of all the earth will do right. Years ago, whenever there was in the scripture the theme of the judgment of God, I felt uncomfortable. I really didn't like to teach on God's judgment and that's because I saw what it did is people would listen. It makes people feel uncomfortable as they hear about God's judgment. Well I have long since changed my mind on that and I see the judgment of God as not only right but absolutely essential. Now some people will say well you know God's judgment raises a whole set of problems and I think just the opposite. I think God's judgment settles a whole lot of problems. How do you feel when you read the newspapers or turn on television and hear the news of child molestation or child rape or murder or abduction?

Does your blood ever boil? Do you ever get angry at that kind of stuff, that that kind of sin against somebody who is innocent? Don't you ever wish that something would be done, some act of righteousness, some form of judgment? Well think of God who sees every news headline in every newspaper of every city every single day. For God to never ultimately judge people for sin would only mean that God is not righteous, that God is amoral. He is totally disregarding any morality at all.

There has to be justice and there has to be ultimate justice and since God is the creator and since God set the rules of what is right and what is wrong and gave us laws of what is right and what is wrong and gave us even permission to judge among ourselves in a society what is right and what is wrong, God ultimately reserves the right to judge any culture at any time and he does so here. I did a word search. I did a word search with some of the common words that we associate with the attributes and the activity of God. For example, the word love when associated with God is used in the Bible 360 times. The word grace is found 148 times. The word mercy 282 times. The word peace 397 times. Now all of those are attributes and activities of a wonderful God but I also looked up the word judge when it comes to the activity and attributes of God 188 times. Judgment 190 times. Judgments that is in the Bible and judgments that is in the plural 122 times. So you have in scripture as a dominant theme over 500 times the idea of God's judgment. So if you're uncomfortable with it now you got a lot of Bible to go and you're going to see it over and over and over again. In fact, did you know that Jesus our wonderful Lord himself uses God's judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah as an illustration of what God will do again in the end times.

I'm going to read it to you. You don't have to turn there if you wish you can. It's found in Luke chapter 17. In verse 22 he said to his disciples, the days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man and you will not see it.

And they will say to you look here or look there. Do not go after them or follow them for as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven and shines to the other part under heaven so also the Son of Man will the Son of Man will be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man they ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. But on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. You see in Sodom one day it was business as usual. Shopkeepers opened up their shops, the Sodom Starbucks was packed full of people giving out lava chinos and double espressos and the McDonald's over in Gomorrah, same thing. But the next day totally and completely destroyed.

Let's read that story. Verse 1 chapter 19 of Genesis. Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot, notice this where he was, was sitting in the gate of Sodom. The gate of the city isn't like a gate that opens on hinges like we have a gate, it's a room.

A stone room built into the wall or in this particular era it would have been like adobe clay brick. But it was a room that had benches and those who were judges and those who occupied a prominent position of authority or adjudication stayed in the gate. So now we see Lot not only living in Sodom and we'll trace those steps of how he got there in a minute, we see him as one of the leaders sitting in the gate of Sodom, one of the prominent leaders of the city.

He's not only living there, he's like a big wig there. He's an important dude there and the angels come. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, the question of God's existence has serious implications from his presence and participation in our lives to the reality of life after death to the reality of life after death to the basis for human morality. And in his book Is God Real, Lee Strobel, former atheist and legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, weaves together the latest evidence from a range of brilliant scientific and philosophical minds to answer the most consequential question of all time. This resource will equip you to address your own doubts and respond to others questions about God with confidence. We'll send you a copy of Is God Real along with two messages Strobel preached on this topic at Calvary Church as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. So when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. That was that common oriental Persian-like hospitality of bowing toward the ground we mentioned last week. And he said, here now my lords, please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet that you may rise early and go on your way.

And they said no, but we will spend the night in the open in the open square. Something we touched on last week and you'll see it again clearer than ever here. Lot is a picture and we see the picture carried off into the New Testament is a picture of a worldly half-hearted believer, a carnal believer, one who has a knowledge of God but he denies the power thereof. He doesn't have a close relationship with God, a fear of the Lord like his uncle Abraham did. He's sort of caught in between.

He would be like the person who who says or wants to say I'm a Christian, I believe in God, these things are important to me, but you'd never really see it in his day-to-day life. In the late 1800s there was an interesting political group. Have you heard of the Mugwumps? The Mugwumps were a group of, they were in New York state, group of Republicans who voted for, he became President Madison at the time, voted for Madison who was a Democrat because they saw political and financial corruption in the Republican party with James Blaine as their candidate. They just decided let's swing the entire state toward Madison and they became known as the Mugwumps.

They're fence sitters, you know, they say they're one thing but they act a very different way come election time and so Lot was like a mugwump. His mug was on one side of the fence, his wump was on the other, you never knew where he stood spiritually, teetering back and forth, but we see him sitting at the gate. Now I told you that we wanted to trace the steps just to bring us up to speed and get the whole context. His story begins back in chapter 13. There's a few verses that go together so just look at, go all the way back to chapter 13 of Genesis.

He's still with Abraham at the time. Verse 10 it says Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah like the garden of the Lord or like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. Now he had just gotten back from Egypt and what he saw reminded him of Egypt and so the first step downward towards Sodom is he looked with his eyes, he focused, he looked longingly at Sodom. Keep in mind he'd lived in tents all of his life or in the last several years migrating with Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees up to Haran and now down into the promised land.

He's lived a rural lifestyle. The idea of the city life man with all of its accoutrements attracted him. So he looked longingly, that's his first step. Second step in verse 11, then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan and Lot journeyed east and they separated that he that is he and Abraham separated from each other. So the second step is not only he looked at it but because he had focused on it so long with his eyes he chose that as the place for his future. Third step is in verse 12, Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom.

So now he's moving closer what he sees and now where he's moved attracts his attention and he just gets another step closer. Go to chapter 14 verse 12. This is that battle of the kings we discovered a few weeks ago. Those kings they also took Lot, Abram's brother, or Abram's brother's son who dwelt in Sodom and his goods and departed. So now he's moved into Sodom.

He looked at it, he moved close to it, he moved closer to it, now he's living in it. Now in chapter 19 verse 1 he's in the leadership position sitting in the gate wielding his influence. Well in verse 2, remember I said that I tell you every time the word the first mention of something comes up? In verse 2 we have the first mention of the word house in the Bible and I want you to notice it. He said, here now my lords please turn into your servant's house and spend the night. So it's interesting Lot who used to live in a tent now lives in a house.

He's not traveling sojourning anymore, he's not a pilgrim anymore, he's settled down. It's important because we in the past studies contrasted Abraham versus Lot. Abraham still lived in a tent, Lot lives in a house. Abraham is the pilgrim, Lot is the citizen of Sodom.

Now you say well why is that a big deal? Well it's a big deal when you get to the book of Hebrews chapter 11 and down around verse 9, 10, and 11 of that chapter it discusses Abraham. It says, Abraham by faith lived or dwelt in the land of promise as if he dwelt in a foreign country dwelling in tents. For he looked and waited for a city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God. He becomes the picture of somebody on earth realizes I'm passing through, I'm not going to get my roots down too deeply here, whereas Lot settled in the city. Now does that mean the Christians can't live in cities and own homes? That's not the point. The point is one of comparison, one who's heavenly minded and one who in name or word only is heavenly minded but really is focused upon earthly things and earthly status and earthly prominence. Well he tells these two angels disguised as visitors human beings to spend the night at his house. They go no no no we'll just stay out here in the open square. Now watch what happens.

But he insisted strongly. Why? Because he knows his town pretty good by now. And so they turned into him and entered his house and then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and ate. Boy when I read those verses it might sound insignificant but I get hungry. Because I know what unleavened bread in the Middle East tastes like.

It's pita bread but when they make it fresh on a stone or put it in those Persian or Iraqi ovens that unleavened bread and just comes off and it's so okay enough. They gave them unleavened bread and they ate. And now before they laid down the men of the city of Sodom both old and young all the people from every quarter surrounded the house 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 know them. Now in the New King James if you are reading like I am it has in italics the word carnally. Does your Bible have that? And it's in italics. So it says if I were to finish out the verse and I didn't on purpose that we may know them carnally. But the word carnally is in italics.

It's implied by context and I'll tell you why in a minute. But it simply is that we may know them. Yadah is the Hebrew word. The translators put carnally and that is a correct move and some Bible translators like the New Living Translation make it even clearer.

Let us take these men that we might have sex with them. That's what the word to know Yadah implies. For thousands of years and I say that without stretching it at all for thousands of years people have recognized that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin.

They understood that. It was never a dispute of what the Bible says about it. Now you can say well I disagree with the Bible and the Bible is wrong that's your privilege. But there was never a dispute of what the Bible said about homosexuality being a sin. The Old Testament laws the Levitical laws under the laws of Moses get really explicit about what to do in case there's an offense in that regard. And the New Testament holds up this sin both in Romans, Jude, Peter and other books as being sort of the threshold that marks the that marks the ultimate corruption of a culture. And here is a case where people again for thousands of years have recognized that this is the posturing in the city of Sodom for homosexual rape.

We want to come into these men and we want to force ourselves on them and know them sexually intimately carnally. And a lot's going to prohibit that from happening in a weird way. Here's the problem with with this belief. You can't be a practicing homosexual and hold to that belief. You can't hold to the belief that it's it's wrong that it's a sin.

You can't do that. That's mutually incompatible. Especially if you consider yourself and I'm going to give you a new term maybe it's not new to some of you to others it is. If you consider yourself a homosexual Christian.

That's a term that has come up in the last several years with the upsurge of the church the Metropolitan Community Church under Troy Perry came up 20 years ago. Where people say I am a Christian but I'm a practicing homosexual. So you have to do something with that thousands of years interpretation that the Bible condemns this as a sin. So what do you do? Here's what you do.

Here's what you do. You reinterpret the biblical documents to mean something other than what they plainly mean. Now the real first attempt at this was back in 1955 when an English gentleman by the name of D. I think it's Edwin Bailey but it was a guy by the name of Sherwin Bailey. D. Sherwin Bailey wrote a book called Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition. And what he said when he came to Genesis 19 is that the sin of Sodom was not a proposed homosexual rape at all but it was the lack of hospitality shown these two men who came to visit. Because hospitality was such a huge thing in that culture and for them to barge in and not show hospitality that was their sin.

That's why it was judged that's why the city fell. Now the same author will acknowledge that when you get to the New Testament there's some pretty blatant texts like Jude that takes and says about Sodom and Gomorrah that the people were involved in immorality sexual immorality and they loved strange flesh. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go remember that when you give fifty dollars or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig we'll send you Lee Strobel's book Is God Real and two of his sermons on the same topic preached at Calvary Church to help you answer life's most consequential questions about God's existence. To request your copy of these resources call 800-922-1888 that's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse by verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.