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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Angels are invisible because angels are non-corporeal. They don't have a body. Because they are invisible, non-corporeal, they don't have a body, they don't have the restrictions or the limitations that we as human beings do.
However, from time to time, God sees fit to, let's say, clothe them with a form so that people can interact with them, so they appear to be like human beings, to suit his own purpose. And the closest example, and it might be lame to some of you, but I'm going to share it anyway, do you remember Star Trek? Okay, follow me so far, Star Trek. Think about Star Trek episodes. And you remember when you're in a Federation starship and you're traveling around the universe and you've got like star hopping and there's a long journey, you've got to do something. And so for entertainment aboard some of the Federation starships, they had a thing called the holodeck. Remember the holodeck? Okay, nobody, two of you do?
God bless you, that hand, I see that hand, I see that hand, I see that hand. Okay, so the holodeck created three-dimensional holograms that seemed like real life. You could interact with them, you could walk through them. If you were from Earth, you could design the Alps and take a trek through the Alps in the holodeck.
If you were a Klingon, you could recreate an ancient battle and test your fighting skills. It was a computer program, but it seemed so real. So think of angels appearing with the physical features of a human sort of like that. God enacts the program so that human beings can see and interact for God's own purpose. So we see that in the Bible, don't we? In the Garden of Eden, there were two angels that stood guard with the flaming sword. Adam and Eve could see them, they could interact with them.
They were visible, non-corporeal, invisible, but for a time, like the holodeck, to interact with man, they're provided with some sort of morphological structure. In Genesis 18, they were dinner guests. The Lord Himself and these two angels, they ate a meal with Abraham and Sarah. Now, what do you feed an angel? Angel food cake, that's exactly right.
Very good. Now here, we see them in Sodom and they're divine bouncers here. Okay, a little insight on angelic power. In 2 Kings chapter 18, Sennacherib the Assyrian has gathered his troops against Israel and are staging an attack on Jerusalem. Well, King Hezekiah of Judah is in the city and he sees and he hears what they're threatening and he prays to the Lord, oh God, please save us from this enemy.
He tears his robe and he prays and says we trust the Lord, not our own strength. So the Lord answers his prayer and the next day, one angel, an angel of the Lord, goes through the camp of the Assyrians and kills 185,000 Assyrians. That's one angel. Now here's two angels in Sodom, massive power, can totally wipe out the city. Boy, that puts a whole new spin on what Jesus said to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane. He said, Peter, put your sword away. Don't you know I can call for 12 legions of angels?
A legion is between three and six thousand Roman soldiers. So don't you know, Peter, that I can call like this for between 36,000 and 72,000 angels? Well, if one angel can down 185,000 Assyrians, can you imagine what 72,000 could do?
Powerful. In the tribulation period, God will dispatch his judgment to angels. After the seven seals are opened up, seven angels blow trumpets that issue four judgments and seven more angels pour out bowls of judgment upon the earth, very, very, very powerful judgments. We're in verse 12. Wow. Then the men said a lot.
Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whomever you have in the city, take them out of this place for we will destroy this place because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out, spoke to his sons-in-law who had married his daughters, evidently the daughters that had not known a man. This is different ones, obviously, and said, get up, get out of this place for the Lord will destroy this city.
Watch this. But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking. Now why would they take what Lot said as a joke? Probably because they'd been around Lot, they'd seen his lifestyle. He wasn't like Mr. Jesus God guy and suddenly he's talking about God's judgment and the angels of God and they're going, what's up with you, buddy?
Seemed like a joke to them. When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry saying, arise, take your wife, your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city. And while he lingered, who would linger in the face of that?
Lot. The men took hold of his hand and his wife's hand in the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. It's like, you know, get out of Dodge, dude, and they're just going what are you doing? So he has to force him out of the city. And it came to pass when they had brought them outside. He said, escape for your life. Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere on the plain. Escape to the mountains lest you be destroyed.
And watch this. And Lot said to them, please no, my lords. Indeed now your servant has found favor in your sight.
I guess he's assuming that. And you have increased your mercy and you have shown me by saving my life but I cannot escape to the mountains lest some evil overtake me and I die. See now, this city is near enough to flee to. It's a little one. Please let me escape there.
Is it not a little one? And my soul shall live. And he said to him, see I have favored you concerning this thing also in that I will not overthrow this city, that's the city that he wanted to go to for which you have spoken. Hurry, escape there.
For I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the city was called Little Zoar. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. It's interesting that Lot thought, no, I can't go to the mountains. There were plenty of caves in the area, still are.
I got to be in a city. You know, maybe he had become so accustomed to city life. Maybe been a long time since he's been out in the tent with Abraham. He didn't want to go up into the and rough it in the mountains.
Of course, he didn't have any idea of what kind of judgment was coming. But he went over to Zoar. But did you see that in verse 22?
Hurry and escape for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. Did you notice that God made a difference between Lot and the people of Sodom? The New Testament calls Lot righteous. In a comparative way, he was better than the people who lived in Sodom. He was a believer, a carnal believer.
But the angel said, I can't do anything until you're out of there and you're in a safe place. So here's the principle. When God judges, he makes a difference between the ungodly and the godly.
That's a principle. It's a principle found throughout the Bible. When it came to the flood, did God just indiscriminately destroy the world or did he save a group of eight people on an ark?
That's what he did. In fact, he, get the symbolism, lifted them off the earth and preserved them and then God judged the earth with the flood. In the book of Joshua chapter 10, hailstones come from heaven on the Amorites and destroy the enemies of God.
God makes a difference. In Ezekiel chapter 9, same principle. An angel of the Lord with a writer's ink horn is told to go throughout the city of Jerusalem and place a mark on the foreheads of the people who cry and sigh because of the sins and the wickedness of Jerusalem.
God says, I'm about to destroy this city, but I want to save those people who care and are crying out and praying for this city. In Revelation chapter 7, a mark is put on the foreheads of 144,000 Jewish believers who are kept safe and huddled during the tribulation upon the earth. And I submit to you that the rapture of the church following the character of God throughout the Bible will be of the same ilk. That the reason we hold to a pre-tribulation rapture is because it is God's character to not destroy the righteous with the wicked. Now people will say, well, you know, Jesus said in the world you will have tribulation.
Exactly my point. And there's a huge difference between the tribulation that comes from the world, from the devil as its source, and the great tribulation that will come from the hand of God. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, in his book Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, author of the New York Times bestselling book The Case for Christ, provides a rational exploration of the proof of God's existence and the basis of our eternal hope. Writing to skeptics and believers alike, Strobel turns his critical mind and expert interviewing skills to perennial questions like, how do we know which God is real? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden?
Is God real? Along with two messages preached by Lee Strobel at Calvary Church, our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your resources when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Let me read to you out of 2 Peter chapter 2. Listen to this. Don't have to turn there. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly, and delivered righteous lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked, for that righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Now listen to this.
Here it is. Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for that great day of judgment. When God judges, he makes a difference. And Jesus talked about the great tribulation as being the worst time in human history. And I submit to you that just as God always made a difference in judgment, he will do it again in that period of time. Verse 25. So he overthrew those cities, all the plain and the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. The idea of looking back is a longing, wistful, hankering. J. Vernon McGee in his commentary says that Mrs. Lott was part of the Country Club, the Sewing Club, and the Shakespeare Club.
I don't know where he got that from, but if you've ever heard him, it's just classic McGee. She missed it. She longed for it. Her roots were in Sodom. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward the land of the plain, and he saw and behold the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lott out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lott had dwelt. So he did it for Abraham's sake. That's why the angel was insistent. Abraham, back in chapter 18, remember the conversation?
Would you spare it for 50, 40, etc.? When Abraham went to bed that night, he probably thought, I can rest secure this city will not be destroyed because I got, had that conversation with the Lord, got him down to 10. If he finds 10 people, surely there's going to be 10 people in the city. He looks out and sees smoke rising the next morning and he thinks, uh-oh, I was wrong.
I slept easy for the wrong reason. God destroyed it. And what he finds out is God delivered those who comparatively were more righteous, that is Lott and his family, took them out of the city and he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. There's a researcher, archeological researcher, scholar named Dr. Melvin Kyle who says because of what we find in that area of Israel, in that area of the plain and the Dead Sea region, we find salt deposits, we find bitumen, which is a, it's a liquid, viscous liquid hydrocarbons like tar, the kind of stuff you pour on the roads, because we find deposits of that everywhere. He says that he believes that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God did this, that there was a break in the earth's strata. There was a subterranean pool of oil, oily material underneath that whole surface of the plain and that something ignited it, maybe lightning. God could have used lightning, fire from heaven, the Bible often refers to lightning, could have struck it, exploded it and he said it is possible that the entire floor of the valley was lifted up off of the earth, that the earth, the strata separated, the upper strata separated, sending this material sky high and then raining down and Mrs. Lott could have been the victim of salt deposits, sulfurs that encrusted and encased her and she was just instantly killed by it.
I don't know, I wasn't there, just taking what it says here. Then Lott went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains. He goes, now wait a minute, what do you mean he left Zoar and dwelt in the mountains? He was begging not to go to the mountains and he says, can I go to that little city? Okay, go. And now he goes, I'm leaving, I'm going to go to the mountains. Crazy. And his two daughters were with him, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar.
If I had time, I'd get into that, but don't have time. And his two daughters dwelt in a cave. Now the firstborn said to the younger, our father is old and there is no man on the earth to come into us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of 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 when she lay down or when she arose. He was sauced, he was drunk. It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, indeed I lay with my father last night. Let us make him drink wine tonight also.
You go in and lie with him that we may preserve the lineage of our father. Lot was able to take his daughters out of Sodom but not take Sodom out of his daughters. That moral compass is awry in their own lives. Some people in reading this have said, well you know, it was a desperate situation for them and it was the custom to prolong seed. Oh really, if it was so customary and they saw nothing wrong with it, why did they get him drunk?
They knew they had to get this guy in an altered state of consciousness to get him to do this and he didn't even know it happened. And they made their father drink wine that night also and the younger arose and lay with him and he did not know when she laid down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child.
He got them pregnant. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben Ammi.
He is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. So this incestuous relationship, it's so sad. The Bible is so honest about those that it writes about. Even its heroes, it tells us the good and the bad.
This is really, really bad. Now the Moabites and the Ammonites, three important truths. Number one, they became arch enemies of Israel. So this will hurt the lineage of Abraham for generations to come. Number two, one of the gods they worshiped was Molech.
Keep that in mind. You'll read about that in the Old Testament. Number three, out of this same region came probably the greatest carnal seduction in Israel's history in Numbers chapter 25 at Baal Peor when Balaam has the people go down into the camp of Israel and seduce them to commit sexual immorality in mass so that God judges that country. Two lessons I leave you with tonight. Two stark lessons out of this chapter. Number one, our decisions are always important. Our choices, the choices that we make, need to be weighed heavily because we might live with the ramifications for a long time.
Choices like where I'm gonna live, what kind of a culture and an environment I will raise my children in. These kinds of choices, Lot made the wrong ones and he lived for generations to see the negative ramifications. Now I know the New Testament calls him a righteous man and I'm willing to live with that.
It's biblical. But you know it's possible to have a saved soul and a lost life. I know people they have a ticket to heaven, they trust in Christ, but their life doesn't really amount to much. They go through their life, they have a ticket to heaven, they have a saved soul, but their life, their influence is lost.
That was Lot. Abraham had a saved soul and a saved life. Lot had a saved soul and a lost life. So number one, our choices are always important.
Our decisions are always important. Lesson number two, God's actions are always right. Chapter 18 verse 25, shall not the judge of the earth do right?
You betcha. He will always do right. And even when God judges, he is acting rightly, righteously. Now I mentioned and we saw at the beginning that Jesus used the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah as something typical of the future judgment. Don't have time to turn to it, but in 2 Peter, the Bible talks about the earth being dissolved and melting with fervent heat. So what happened in Sodom is going to happen to the entire earth. This earth is going to be destroyed at some point in the future, totally destroyed by fire. God will create a new heaven and a new earth. The judgment is coming. You don't have to go through it.
It all depends on where you're standing. In the days when people were settling from the east and moving across the plains and toward the west, and there were the homestead laws where people could carve out a piece of land and just settle there, one group in a wagon train was coming across the plains and suddenly they looked up from their camp and they saw an entire wall of fire coming toward them. Evidently lightning had struck in the mountains, it ignited the plains, and it was as if the world of fire was coming to destroy them. One of the pioneers was a quick thinker and he quickly took a match and lit and burned all of the grass in a large area around the camp. And then he told everybody to get inside that circle. And as the fire got closer and closer and closer, one of the little girls in the camp cried out and she says, we're all going to be burned up.
And the man said, sweetheart, you don't have to worry. We're not going to be burned up. We're standing where the fire already was. It can't get here any longer. There's nothing to burn up around here.
And they were safe, of course. If you're in Christ, you're standing where the fire already was. If you're in Christ, you're standing where the judgment already was. If you're standing outside of Christ, you're standing in the direct line of where the judgment is coming. You just read the book of Revelation.
It's all laid out. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been encouraged in your walk with Christ by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently respond to questions and challenges to God's existence.
It's Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two messages he preached on the topic at Calvary Church. Request your resources when you give $50 or more to support Connect with Skip Heitzig. Call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip. 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.
