Three Visitors

When we think about the great judgement passages in scripture we often think of course the great flood, The Tower of Babble, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Today we approach of a passage that many revisionist have reinterpreted to fit an acceptable modern philosophy. The narrative of Sodom and Gomorrah. We are told that this passage of scripture is not about God’s judgement on abhorrent sexual practices but rather on city’s inhospitable treatment of the visitors.

No doubt rampant sexual perversion was not Sodom and Gomorrah's only sin but it is the sin in which the scriptures highlight. It seems that sexual perversion is sign of a nations rapid decline.

These two cities and the surrounding cities were so wicked and so rebellious that they were beyond redemption. It was not that God was not ready to redeem but that their hearts had grown so wicked and rebellious toward God that nothing would have caused them to repent. How does a nation get this way?

Romans 1 gives us insight into how this happens. Romans 1 tells us that rampant homosexuality is a sign of God’s judgment on a nation.

Romans 1:18–28 CSB

For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen. For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error. And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right.

We see in this passage that those who refuse to acknowledge God, God will eventually give them over to a corrupt mind. A Corrupt mind involves only loving what is evil.

Those who practice such things are evil.

One of the things that we have unintentionally added to scripture is the idea that people are not evil, only what they do is evil. Scripture makes no such distinction. A person does evil because they are evil.

When we understand this concept, we understand God’s just and righteous judgement and the need for new birth, a new heart, and redemption.

However, this passage is not just about the judgement of God. Instead I would suggest this morning that even amidst a passage of judgement we see God’s Holy and loving character.

So let’s look at this passage together this morning.

The first thing I want you to notice is

I. God is the Source of Life.

Genesis 18:1–2 CSB

The Lord appeared to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent during the heat of the day. He looked up, and he saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them, bowed to the ground,

Genesis 18:3 CSB

and said, “My lord, if I have found favor with you, please do not go on past your servant.

So Abraham runs to these men, bows, before them and then offers them offers them a shady place to sit, along with food and drink.

Afterward they begin to enquire about Sarah.

Genesis 18:9–15 CSB

“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him. “There, in the tent,” he answered. The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?” But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.” Sarah denied it. “I did not laugh,” she said, because she was afraid. But he replied, “No, you did laugh.”

At this point about 24 years had past since God first promised Abraham and Sarah a son. Sarah was almost 90 years old when today’s text. But we See the Lord ask a question. Is anything impossible for the Lord?

In Gen. 1 we looked at the God who spoke life into existence out of nothing. Can he not also create life within a woman that is too old to have a child.

In this passage, again, we see that God is the source of all life. He is its creator. He can even command the bodies of two old people to become fruitful again. Life is his and he has the power and authority to do his good will with it. He is the good life-giver.

It is only in this context and understanding that the next point and passage makes sense.

II. God is the Judge of all life.

God is the judge of all life because all life comes from him.

In verses 16-22 God tells Abraham what he is going to do.

If the angels come back with a bad report then the Lord is going to utterly destroy the city.

This passage does not show that God has an absence of knowledge but that once again he chooses this path as a witness to his righteous actions and a desire to involve His creation in His work.

But Abraham seems shocked by this idea of God. God’s judgement is often shocking to a broken world. Abraham is seems shocked by the idea that there is no one worth sparing in Sodom and Gomorrah.

he says to the Lord,

Genesis 18:25 CSB

You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won’t the Judge of the whole earth do what is just?”

So Abraham begins to plead with God.

But notice that Abrahams pleas begins with understanding God’s Character. He recognizes that God is righteous. And because he knows God is righteous he is confused by God’s willingness to destroy these cities.

So Abraham does not underestimate God’s character instead he he under estimates the depravity of man. It isn’t just that these cities deeds were evil. These people were evil.

Evil is not an outward problem. Evil exists in the heart of all mankind and manifest in evil actions.

So Abraham begins to plead with God .

First Abraham starts asking God id he would spare the city for 50 righteous people.

Then forty -five and then all the way down to 10 righteous people.

Genesis 18:32 CSB

Then he said, “Let my lord not be angry, and I will speak one more time. Suppose ten are found there?” He answered, “I will not destroy it on account of ten.”

You see God is merciful.

God is patient.

Ezekiel 33:11 CSB

Tell them, ‘As I live—this is the declaration of the Lord God—I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked person should turn from his way and live. Repent, repent of your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel?’

So Abraham appealed to the righteous merciful character of God. But the sad thing was that in an entire region their was no one that had a heart for God. In this next passage we can see the absolute debauched culture that existed in these cities.

Genesis 19:1–8 CSB

The two angels entered Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in Sodom’s gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them. He bowed with his face to the ground and said, “My lords, turn aside to your servant’s house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and go on your way.” “No,” they said. “We would rather spend the night in the square.” But he urged them so strongly that they followed him and went into his house. He prepared a feast and baked unleavened bread for them, and they ate. Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population, surrounded the house. They called out to Lot and said, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so we can have sex with them!” Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. He said, “Don’t do this evil, my brothers. Look, I’ve got two daughters who haven’t been intimate with a man. I’ll bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the protection of my roof.”

This to me is one of the most disturbing passages in all of scripture. This description of the people of this city sends chills down my spine.

How can a culture become so wicked where rape and homosexuality were considered acceptable behavior.

While many will point to this passage and say how could God do such a thing? As I read this passage, I sit i n awe that God allowed these people to get this far gone before destroying them.

But in this we see God’s Holy patience and restraint.

However this should also be warning to us as a nation or any other nation that protects sexual perversion.

When sexual perversion is normalized. Sexual perversion will only grow. And worse things will be normalized. Already in our nation and in the U.N. The same group of people who are burned in their lust, those that have been given over to a corrupt mind the LGBTQ+ activist are changing the language used to accommodate their new sexual imaginations.

Instead of pedophilia they are removing that word and adding the term “minor attracted persons.” The world is walking down the path of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We see that the outcry against these cities were so great that God himself came to deal with it personally. That is a scary thing. With Scary results.

These Angels go to the city on behalf of God to investigate and I believe to warn them of the coming destruction. But the wickedness had become so great there was no chance for a warning nor need of one. The people would not have listened.

And we see that Lot was just as corrupt. So corrupt, the passage alludes to him being one of the leaders sitting at the city gates.

He became so corrupt in his thinking that he literally offers his two young daughters to the crowd.

The father in me is repulsed and disgusted. How can someone be that far gone that they would willing offer up their own children to be abused. Are you sensing the magnitude of wickedness found in this place?

Yet God spares Lot

Genesis 19:9–22 CSB

“Get out of the way!” they said, adding, “This one came here as an alien, but he’s acting like a judge! Now we’ll do more harm to you than to them.” They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door. But the angels reached out, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. They struck the men who were at the entrance of the house, both young and old, with blindness so that they were unable to find the entrance. Then the angels said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here: a son-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of this place, for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people is so great before the Lord, that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were going to marry his daughters. “Get up,” he said. “Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. At daybreak the angels urged Lot on: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he hesitated. Because of the Lord’s compassion for him, the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters. They brought him out and left him outside the city. As soon as the angels got them outside, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Don’t look back and don’t stop anywhere on the plain! Run to the mountains, or you will be swept away!” But Lot said to them, “No, my lords—please. Your servant has indeed found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life. But I can’t run to the mountains; the disaster will overtake me, and I will die. Look, this town is close enough for me to flee to. It is a small place. Please let me run to it—it’s only a small place, isn’t it?—so that I can survive.” And he said to him, “All right, I’ll grant your request about this matter too and will not demolish the town you mentioned. Hurry up! Run to it, for I cannot do anything until you get there.” Therefore the name of the city is Zoar.

So then why did God spare Lot? Because God is also the preserver of life.

III. God is the Preserver of life.

Genesis 19:29 CSB

So it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when he demolished the cities where Lot had lived.

In this we see the gospel message don’t we. You see God spared Lot not because of Lot’s righteousness but because of Abrahams. Lot was spared because of the righteousness of another.

The Scripture says that God “remembered Abraham”. Several weeks ago in Genesis 8:1 we see this same Idea

Genesis 8:1 CSB

God remembered Noah, as well as all the wildlife and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water began to subside.

It is not saying that God somehow forgot Noah or forgot Abraham.

its not a cognitive issue of remembrance.

Instead, it is saying based upon the information I know I will act differently or accordingly.

So even though lot deserved to to die alongside those in Sodom and Gomorrah God spared him on the merit of someone else. He spared him for the sake of Abraham.

In the same way we see this remembrance in the N.T.

Luke 23:42 CSB

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Lord Jesus, based upon the knowledge of my repentance “remember” me. Act upon this knowledge and allow me to enter into paradise. Remembrance is not forgetfulness but rather acting upon knowledge. In this way, the thief on the cross was remembered when he passed from death into life.

So in this chapter in this judgement chapter in Genesis we see...

God’s rightful authority over all life, We see God righteous judgement against sin and then we see God’s salvation not on our merit but on the merit of another, Jesus Christ.

This passage is about the good ness of God.

Yes God wrath is coming

Romans 2:5 CSB

Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.

But the good news is this.

2 Peter 3:9 CSB

The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

Church Family God has provided away for guilty to be redeemed. He has offered his precious son to die and take your place. So that you maybe saved not because of your merit but because of His.

If a physician has a cure for a disease and offers it to a patient who is sick. But the sick patient refuse to admit they are ill and thus refuses the cure, who is responsible for his death. The Doctor or the patient?

In the same way. If we are stubburn and refuse to accept God’s gracious gift. It is we who are responsible for our own suffering in hell.

If you are here today and you are unrepentant. My fear is that you will forever remember this sermon in torment. Instead of enjoying the presence of God forever in heaven.

Won’t you accept his free gift today.

Let’s pray.