Father Abraham
A Sermon Series
“The God Who Rescues the Righteous and Judges the Wicked:
Angels Rescue Lot: Part Two”
Genesis 19:8-29
Introduction
“If I had a brother who had been murdered, what would you think of me if I …daily consorted with the assassin who drove the dagger into my brother’s heart; surely I too must be an accomplice in the crime. Sin murdered Christ; will you be a friend to it? Sin pierced the heart of the Incarnate God; can you love it?” C.H. Spurgeon.[1]
Review
- Lot’s Increasing Callousness Toward Sin (vv. 1-3)
- Sodom’s Sin (vv. 4-7)
III. Lot Offers An Alternative (vv. 8-11)
8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. 10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11 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.
How could Lot offer his daughters to the crowd for them to “do what you like with them?” In order to correct the homosexuality of the act, he offers his daughters that would remove abomination part – but because Lot is so compromised that he has become blind to the violence, and even violence against his daughters. Lot is thinking, “God’s problem is with the homosexuality part of the sin, so he offers his daughters instead of them to solve that problem.”
This is a further step in Lot’s decline. Sin blinds the sinner from the harmful effects of his actions. We come up with crazy solutions to the situations we find ourselves in, because we don’t want to give up certain sins. The person doesn’t care how their actions affect others. This is the ultimate selfish act. Sin draws one into thinking more and more about yourself.
Christ teaches us to look less and less at ourselves and more and more at God. Lot was focused on getting the angels out so that his lifestyle could continue. He wanted to run back to the city gate and continue living as he had. Dawn came. Judgment was about to fall, but Lot hesitated. He was a righteous man in that he believed God. He believed what the angels had told him. But he loved the lifestyle of living in the city, his following God was way off track.
But the angels had to physically take the family’s hands and by force pull them out of the city to safety, saying “flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain!” All who sin will be punished, if they have not turned from sin and fled for safety to the cross of Christ.
If you are a believer living in Sodom, You may have, like Lot, thought he had it far enough away that you could control it, gained considerable recognition in the city. Perhaps you have bartered away your faith, and the world has accepted you as endorsing its lifestyle.
But whenever it comes time to take stand your stand, you will soon discover that the people will turn on you like they did Lot. If you are not taking a stand against the sin and are instead trying to blend in, then you are not winning Sodom, Sodom is winning you.
“so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.” – These men are so focused on trying to bring the men out of the house and they are so consumed with lust for these men that they can’t put together that they are blind, that everyone around them is also blind, and after attempt and attempt they are tired from “groping for the door.” Their sin had blinded them from the presence of God’s representatives in their city, and God blinded them in order to protect the righteous man Lot.
But also, their judgement was coming, God had already stopped and talked with Abram about how their sin was so opposed to His ways, that He came down to observe and see for himself, Genesis 18:20-21 “Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.”
When we ask “why didn’t they stop groping around,?” “why didn’t they realize everyone around them was also blind?,” and “why didn’t they stop and realize something miraculous was going on?” Their obsession and lust had caused them to lose control of being rational – they are blind to reality because of their sinful focus. This blindness may have been God’s last and final act of grace for this city. God blinded them as one final act of mercy to a city who have sinned gravely.
The men of Sodom are blind to the coming judgement of God, His presence within their city, their being consumed by their sin, and even the final offering of grace from God. What does God have to do to get your attention?
Acts 9 “But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus . . . God in a voice and bright light blinded Paul – he was breathing out murderous threats against the church – God strikes him with blindness and he comes to his senses. . . . v. 17 after Paul had been with Ananias “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; 19 and taking food, he was strengthened.” Paul came to his senses and became the person God used to share the gospel to the Gentiles.
Later the man who understood spiritual blindness (Paul) wrote in Romans 11:7-10 “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, 8 as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.” 9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; 10 let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.”
Also in Isaiah 6:8 “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Blindness can cause you to stop and realize you need God,
or it can drive you into further darkness and judgement.
It’s Time to Leave – Judgement Is Here (vv. 12-16)
12 Then 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 the place. 13 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.” 14 So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. 15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 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.
As the judgment of God is about to fall upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah , the angels tell him, “For we are about to destroy this place,” Lot is still trying to figure out how he can hold on, what can he grab and take with him – he can’t take anything with him and survive – so he lingers (he’s consumed with trying to salvage something from his life there). What can I take with me?
He was so caught up in trying to figure this out, “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.” So by force, the whole family now stands outside the city walls, and are given instructions to flee, don’t linger, don’t look back! There is a wave of destruction that is coming, and you don’t want to get caught up in it.
Still Trying to Hold On (vv. 17-26)
17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!” 18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it-it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.” 21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar. ) 23
It seems incredible that Lot would argue with the angels who were going to destroy the city (even when the lives of his family members were at stake) but instead of going to the mountains as they had suggested Lot wanted to go to a smaller city instead.
He bases his plea on the fact that God has already been gracious in delivering him from Sodom “Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life.” In other words, since God has been good enough to spare his life, he should now also be good enough to allow him to go on sinning. God had been gracious enough to spare his life but then he doubts God’s ability to get him to the mountains. Lot also argues on the basis of the smallness of the place he wanted to go. “Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it-it is very small, isn’t it?”
Even as a he is running from the consequences of sin; he is trying to see how he can continue to sin further. So why do the angels let him? God never prevents us from sinning.
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah-from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities-and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Our definition for righteous is not sinless perfection, but it is believing on God’s Word. What does He say that a person needs to do, be, what are His instructions – and then to follow them, to take Him at His Word. God specifically said, don’t look back if you want to be saved, “Lot’s wife looked back.” You cannot be saved from God’s judgement if you ignore His instructions on how to be saved?
Does Our Sin Affect our Family?
Lot’s Wife
There doesn’t seem to be any indication that Lot was married before he moved close and eventually into Sodom. So, it is my guess that he married a woman from Sodom. There also does not seem to be any indication that she was a believer in the one true God. She could not seem to tear her herself away from the city. She seems to have lingered behind, looked back, and was overtaken in the destruction.
Lot’s wife was never persuaded by her husband’s faith. I wonder why? Was it because his life so blended into the cities that there was nothing different about him. Fathers, your sins will hurt your family.
Lot’s Daughters
Just like their father they have grown up and learned by their father’s example to only focus on themselves. Sin causes you to not worry about God’s Word, his ways or even the very laws of nature that he has established.
Gen. 30:30-38 describes that when Lot and his daughters had escaped the daughters were concerned that they would not have anyone to marry and have children so they got their father drunk and each in turn had sex with him.
The children went on to become the Moabites and the Ammonites who were enemies of the line of Abraham. The daughters did not see a father who lived out a faith. If you want to raise children that will do awful evil things that you may not even be able to imagine, then say you are a Christian but let your children watch you live everyday as a worldly person.
Lot’s Son-In-Laws
Notice that earlier in the story, it says that “Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house.” Lot’s sons-in-laws would have been apart of this crowd. Lot’s daughters were offered “to the crowd,” they didn’t say anything to this.
Verse 14 says, “So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.”
Why did they think he was joking? Many of the men had just been struck with blindness, and couldn’t they see what was going on. Lot more than likely had never spoke with them about anything regarding God so now when he does, it’s a joke. How could Lot’s daughters have chosen men like this? They followed their father’s example.
Conclusion
Are you trying to live like the world and yet follow the ways of the world? 1 Cor. 3:11-15 says, “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
One day the judgment of God will come for all people. For those who live in Sodom (still in their sin), they will be burned up, no further chances. But the Christian who is in Sodom, he will be saved, but it will be as one “escaping through the flames.”
He will have nothing to present to God for all the years of life given to serve and worship Him. Don’t let that be you. Have arm loads, trucks loads, years, of service to present to God, to bring Him glory. This is a year to start, help be apart of the church family that is going to impact our world.
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[1] https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/w/worldliness.htm
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