01(Gen 19) Sodom and Gomorrah

I.    Sin abounded.

Sodom is a wicked place, and God can tolerate it no longer. The fullness of time has come for Sodom and Gomorrah, and judgment is at hand.

Lot was a righteous man.

2 Peter 2:7-8 7and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked 8(for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)

Lot became a success. He accepted the sinfulness that surrounded as the price you pay if you want to be successful.

Lot wasn’t all that he should have been. He made some very wrong choices in his life.

Lot was too concerned about wordly things. They had captured his eye since his days in Egypt. (Gen 13).

By the time he is convicted about God’s judgment, his family no longer takes him seriously. He hasn’t taken God seriously for so long, that to mention God must be a joke. Here he is with the most urgent message of their lives and all they could do was laugh.

The moment a loved one, a dear friend, begins to take the things of God lightly is the moment they begin to take sin lightly. How much we need to regain the fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom.

There was no fear of God to be found within the city of Sodom. As a society, we too have become dull to the very sins that brought destruction upon Sodom. We laugh at things that use to make us blush. Instead of extolling the virtue of marriage as God’s ethic in the Bible, we now view that as only one option – and not necessarily the best option.

Quick divorce, life partnerships, homosexuality – all of these are paraded as being natural and desirable. Yet God condemns them. Their acceptance in our society is proof of the power and grip of sin that abounds in human lives today.

Why have your children, your sons-in-law, stop taking church seriously? Is it because they no longer take sin seriously? And is that because you did not take their sins seriously, did not guide them, discipline them (disciple them) to the importance of God’s Word?

II.  Grace did much more abound.

A.    God answered a prayer (18:25).

He has family praying for him. His uncle is praying for him, and his prayers are answered. He prays in accordance with God’s will, God’s character. When he appeals to God, he appeals on the basis of His Word. And God honors his word. He has a covenant commitment to His Word.

The message of divine judgment is always interwoven with the message of covenant grace. Lot is part of the household of Abraham, but more importantly, part of the household of God. And to the people of God has been committed the message of the gospel which offers hope, life and salvation.

B.    God provided an escape (12).

To stay in Sodom was to be lost. But there was an “out”, and exit, a way of escape. So it is with the gospel. To remain as we are is to be under the condemnation and power of sin. But Jesus says “I am the door”. There is a way of escape, to something safe, something better.

C.    God effected the escape (16).

While Lot lingered, grace did not linger. The angels took hold of him and his family and took him out. Why? Verse 16 says because the Lord was merciful to him.

Lamentations 3:22 22It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

Grace did the work that only grace can do, ensuring that Lot becomes an heir of blessing and covenant kindness.

D.    God made good his promise (29).

The reason for Lot’s salvation was in God’s covenant commitment. What he promised he now performed.

E.    Jesus tells us to remember Lot’s wife (Luke 17:28-32).

(Read Luke 17:28-32).

The days of Noah and the days of Lot are here again. There is nothing wrong with eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting or building. But when we walk after these things, we neglect so great a salvation, and we think we have plenty of time for religion later.

(Read 2 Peter 2:4-9).

Lot’s wife had the same opportunities, the same gospel, but her heart never left Sodom. Even though her feet had left the city, she was drawn back. She disobeyed God’s direct command, and showed by her actions the nature of her heart.

Lot, in the grip of grace, was saved.

His wife, in the grip of sin, was lost.

The flying Wallendas are perhaps the world's greatest family of aerialists and tightrope walkers. ... Karl Wallenda had a capacity for concentration on the intention, the task, the decision. Wallenda fell to his death while walking a tightrope without a safety net between two high-rise buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico. ...

Later, Wallenda's wife said that before her husband had fallen, for the first time since she had known him, he had been concentrating on falling, instead of on walking the tightrope. He had personally supervised the attachment of the guide wires, which he had never done before.

Often the difference between success and failure, life and death, is the direction we're looking.