Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Sodom is mentioned six times in the Old Testament, four times in the New Testament.

…When Sodom is mentioned, it is always mentioned with a sense of foreboding and fear, because it was an exceedingly wicked city, and God destroyed Sodom with fire and brimstone.

...Peter tells us, in 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 6, that God “[turned] the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes [and] condemned them with an overthrow...[He left] them [for an example to all] that after should live ungodly.”

(2 Peter 2:6) ...The smoking ruins of Sodom, ...is God’s classic example of how He feels about the sin of Sodom.

...what happened to Sodom should be an example to us.

...the Bible says, “As it was in the days of Lot, it’s going to be in the day of the coming of the Son of man.” (Luke 17:26–30) [Adrian Rogers, “The Sin of Sodom,” in Adrian Rogers Sermon Archive (Signal Hill, CA: Rogers Family Trust, 2017), Ge 18:16–23.]

I. Sodom’s Perversions (Gen.

18:16-22, esp.

v. 20).

A. The Iniquity of Self-Exalting Pride

B. The Iniquity of Unbridled Gluttony

...”fulness of bread”

We see it all the time in this area, people who are so full of material possessions that they cannot see any need for Jesus in their lives.

Their not hungry anymore; not searching for God; not hungering and thirsting after His righteousness; why? because their full already; no room left in their life for the things of God.

A glutton whose had more than his share, and has become desensitized to the seriousness of sin.

C. The Iniquity of Abundant Idleness

“…abundance of idleness was in her and her daughters....”

Work and Play.

From earliest times work and its complement, play, have been objects of human reflection.

God had scarcely created the world before man got his first work assignment, to till and keep the garden of Eden (Gen.

2:15).

But the first account of work predates even this, for God himself worked at creation and then rested at its completion (Gen.

2:2).

These first references to work are positive.

God freely chose and heartily approved of his own work (Gen.

1:31), and Adam’s tasks were perfectly suited to the marvelous life of Eden.

It did not take long for this picture to change.

The next chapter recounts the fall of humans and God’s ensuing judgment.

The ground was cursed, and man faced “toil … thorns and thistles … sweat” (Gen.

3:17–19).

This is the base for the tradition that work is a curse, a penalty for sin.

This view has enjoyed strong and extensive support, yet the earlier images of work as a desirable thing will not go away.

For people who see work as a curse, play is delicious shirking or an attempt to recoup one’s powers for fresh work.

The person who majors in play is a fool or a scoundrel.

And he or she might be charged with impiety because he or she has so little regard for the force of the fall.

To say work is a curse is not to say that it serves no good purpose.

If, as folk wisdom says, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, then people need someone to keep them busy at a worthwhile task such as survival.

As they struggle to make ends meet, they come face to face with their own finitude, insecurity, and wretchedness.

In this condition they are disposed to seek and depend on God.

...

The work-as-curse people stress the indignity rather than the dignity of work.

Without awkward and back-breaking tasks people have room for vanity and indolence.

The idle rich are too smooth and self-pleased.

They need blisters and grime to acquaint or reacquaint them with their mortality and insufficiency.... [M.

Coppenger, “Work and Play,” ed.

David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology & Counseling, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 1265–1266.]

Edith Hamilton said of the Athenians, when the Athenians wanted not to give to the state but for the state to give to them, when the freedom they wished most was the freedom from responsibility, the Athenians ceased to be free and would never be free again.

America is filled with people who want to be free, but free from responsibility.

And when we get that kind of freedom, we lose every other kind of freedom, and we will become enslaved and eventually condemned.

[Rogers, Ge 18:16–23.]

D. The Iniquity of Gross Neglect

“…neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

God has a special place in His heart for those who cannot help themselves; we ought to be like Him.

Driving flashy cars, building fancy homes, vacationing in exotic locations, Sodom had no time or resources for the poor and needy.

Notice Sodom was indicted not for failing to give a handout to the poor and needy but for failing to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy—for failing to come alongside and invest themselves in their plight.

[Jon Courson, Jon Courson’s Application Commentary: Volume Two: Psalms-Malachi (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006), 635.]

E. The Iniquity of Haughty Immorality

Not only did they commit abomination; they came out of their closets to do it.

They were proud of it, and they were haughty.

They could not blush, and God says here in Leviticus chapter 20, verse 13, “They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.”

(Leviticus 20:13) Now I remind you this was in the Old Testament, under a theocracy.

We do not go by that law today, because the death penalty is not commanded today for that sin.

But I want to tell you, it brings spiritual death.

[Rogers, Ge 18:16–23.]

...some people have the idea that, if we don’t get right with God, then He’s going to judge us.

Friend, I want to tell you that sexual perversion itself is the judgment of God already.

When God gives a nation up, God takes His hands off of a people, then these things are a part of the judgment of God...We actually now today have entertained ourselves by watching sexual perversion in movies and films and so forth.

And God have mercy upon our nation!

This was the sin of ancient Sodom, and it is the sin of America [and also of many of the nations of the world through her perverse influence]...Sin that used to slink down the back alleys now struts down the main street.

[Rogers, Ge 18:16–23.]

II.

A Saint’s Intercessions (Gen.

18:23-33).

Note the rhetorical questions of this section: “Is any thing too hard for the LORD?… Shall I [the LORD] hide from Abraham that thing which I do…Shall not the Judge of the earth do right?...” along with the comedy of Sarah, the compassion of Abraham and the cries of Sodom that each came before the LORD.

After God reviewed the reasons for sharing His plans for the destruction of Sodom with Abraham, He told the patriarch that He was about to investigate the wicked condition of that city.

This news moved Abraham to ask God to be just in His dealings with the righteous there.

“A rhetorical question in each section—’Is anything too demanding for Yahweh?’ [v.

14]; ‘Shall not he who judges all the earth give right judgment?”

[v.

25]—sounds the major motif of each unit [vv.

1–15 and vv.

16–33]. . . .

In both units it is some kind of noise that provokes Yahweh—Sarah’s laugh and Sodom’s groans.”531

18:16–21 God chose to reveal His intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah to Abraham.

He did so because of His plans for Abraham.

“In this section [vv.

1–21] we have an illustration of fellowship with God and some of its essential features.

Fellowship is the crowning purpose of God’s revelation (1 John 1:3).

There is nothing higher than this, for man’s life finds its complete fulfillment in union and communion with God.

Notice the following elements:

“1.

Sacred Intimacy. . . .

“2. Genuine Humility. . . .

“3. Special Revelation.

— Fellowship with God is always associated with the knowledge of His will.

Servants do not know their master’s purposes, but friends and intimates do. . . .

“4. Unique Association.

— The man who is in fellowship with God does not merely know the Divine will, but becomes associated with God in the carrying out of that will. . .

.”532

18:22–33 This is the first time in Scripture that a man initiated a conversation with God.

He prayed for the people of Sodom, not just Lot.

[Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ge 18:15–22.]

Abraham did what the councils of Sodom could not do, what the diplomats could not do, what the philosophers of Sodom could not do, what the mayor of Sodom could not do, what the armies of Sodom could not do, what the wealth of Sodom could not do, because that one man knew how to pray; that one man knew how to get hold of God, and he prayed.

Lot wasn’t praying.

Lot was carnal.

...living on the borderline of sin as a carnal Christian, he could not see the hand of God raised in judgment.

He could not tell what time it was.