The Judgment of God

INTRODUCTION

On August 24 in the year 79, the people of a picturesque Italian seaside town called Pompeii began their day as usual. Shop keepers took the shutters down and began to sell their wares, servants began to prepare meals and sweep floors. Wealthy businessmen went to the official rooms of their houses where they received customers and conducted business, gladiators practiced for the arena, in short life began that day as it had so many days before for the citizens of Pompeii.

But when the sun rose on August 25, Pompeii was gone and thousands of people were dead. Not just destroyed but gone, covered by tons of rock and ash from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. In fact, the destruction was so complete, that within a few years, the location of the city was forgotten and it remained that way until the 18th century when the ruins were discovered underground.

In a single day, in a moment, we might say, in the twinkling of an eye, the end came for Pompeii and it's citizens.

That's how it's going to be one day for the entire earth. The Bible says life will be going on as normal just like in Pompeii, just like in Cumming, Georgia today, when the Day of the Lord comes and takes everyone by surprise:

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. - Matthew 24:38-39

Here one day, gone the next.

But like the rumblings of Vesuvius the citizens of Pompeii had heard many times, God gives us a warning of that day. He tells us that it's coming and he tells us what it's going to be like and he tells us to prepare ourselves for it. There are a lot of things going on in the passage we'll look at this morning but the main reason this passage is in the Bible is to be one of those warnings, to wake us up to the fact that judgment is coming and to be a foreshadowing of what that will look like when the Day of the Lord is upon us.

Our teaching this morning is from Genesis 19 and well look at verses 1 - 29. It's part of our series on Abraham, "A Journey to Believe." At first glance the passage seems out of place in that journey. For one thing, it doesn't say much about Abraham (although it does say something very important about him at the end that we'll get to). It's more concerned with his nephew, Lot. Yet, we know the placement of the story in scripture by the Holy Spirit is no accident.

To think this through, let's go back to the days of Noah:

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. - Genesis 6:17-18

Now, let's go back to the Lord's call of Abram:

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” - Genesis 12:2-3

God set apart Noah because judgement was coming and he wanted to preserve a remnant for himself. In a similar way, God set apart Abraham because judgment was coming and he wanted to preserve a remnant for himself - a people of His own. Once sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, judgement was coming, had to come in order for God to remain faithful to Himself. Yet God, in his kindness and graciousness, chose to set apart a people for himself who would be saved from the wrath to come.

Also in His kindness and graciousness, God forewarns us of this coming judgment and offers a way to avoid it.

So, as I just mentioned, the story of Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities of the plain is a foreshadowing of the final judgment that will come on all mankind. We know that because scripture tells us so specifically:

if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly - II Peter 2:6

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. - Jude 1:7

And it's no accident that this example comes on the heels of God's covenant with Abraham because, as Ken pointed out a few weeks back, God's covenant with Abraham promises to save him and his spiritual descendants, not from trouble and hardship in this life, but from the wrath of God. Sodom and Gomorrah represents what Abraham and all those who receive the blessing and become believers will avoid. Sodom is the antithesis of the city whose "designer and builder is God" to which Abram looked forward.

God's judgment is a recurring theme in scripture but one that's not taught very much these days. We love the recurring themes of God's love or his grace or his mercy - his judgment, not so much. Yet, to understand the Lord we must understand the fullness of who He is. God is not a smorgasbord from which we can pick the attributes we like and leave the rest, He must be taken in his fullness or not at all, he must be worshipped in his fullness or not at all. A judgment-free, wrath-free god is an idol.

This morning we're going to think about God's judgment. I tried to come up with a clever title for the message but in the end decided "The Judgment of God" was the simplest and best title.

We'll see that:

The judgment of God is righteousThe judgment of God is tempered by His mercy (and we're going to look at that in the life of Lot)The judgment of God is certain (it has come at times throughout biblical history in a limited sense, it is coming one day, fully and finally)

Let's read our passage, Genesis 19:1-29:

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 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.

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. 17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” 18 And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. 19 Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. 20 Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” 21 He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.[a]

God Destroys Sodom

23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

29 So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD IS RIGHTEOUS

This is the first thing we must get straight in order to rightly evaluate passages like Genesis 19 - God's judgment is right and good and is consistent with His other attributes, not at odds with them.

We live in a day when many who call themselves Christians and, indeed, entire denominations who call themselves Christian, have dispensed with God's judgement, particularly as portrayed in the Old Testament. People who say things like "I can't understand how God could do something like this," don't understand who God is, don't understand who we are, don't understand the wickedness of sin and the holiness of God.

And because of that, they've dispensed with notion of Hell and so have no place in their theology for a God who punishes sin, a God whose wrath will be poured out on those who reject Him. Yet scripture is clear that this is the fate of all those who reject Christ. And even among those who believe that, I think some of the weakness in our evangelism is because we don't take that to heart.

So, this is what's coming for Sodom. In verse 13 of our passage we read:

"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.”

"Destroy" here the same word used Genesis 6:13 when God tells Noah what's about to happen to the earth. It signifies complete destruction.

The reason for this coming destruction is interesting it is "…because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord…"

Who was crying out? The wickedness itself:

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. - Genesis 4:10

It's a similar concept, the sin is so great that it reaches up to heaven.

Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” - Jonah 1:2

As we a couple of the pastors discussed recently in one of our "vodcasts," God is omniscient, he sees everything. Evil, like all other things in His creation is ever before Him. But wickedness sometimes is so great that God must act immediately. One of the many ways God is gracious to us is that he doesn't immediately judge every sin real time. As the psalmist says:

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? - Psalm 130:3

That's a rhetorical question, the answer to which is "no one." None of us could stand if God chose to give us what we deserve in the moment.

Just as the time will come one day when He will say "that's enough" and will end all evil, there have been times throughout history when wickedness has been so pronounced that God says "that's enough" and he intercedes and judges it in the moment, in time. The situation in Sodom and Gomorrah is one of those times.

We read about that judgment in verses 24 & 25:

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. - Genesis 24:25

This was complete destruction. All the buildings were gone, all the people were killed and even the ground was rendered unable to produce life afterwards. And this was righteous and good. There are three reasons for that:

GOD IS THE CREATOR

The Bible begins with "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." In Johns Gospel we read:

God, therefore, sets the boundaries for his creation, God decides how his creation should be used and God decides what the penalty should be for crossing those boundaries.

So, God is the owner. He gets to do whatever he chooses with his creation. He will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.

GOD IS GOOD

One of the key teachings of scripture is that God is good. Therefore, whatever he does is, by definition good:

This God—his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. - Psalm 18:30

It's important to understand there's not some standard of goodness above and apart from God to which he's accountable, through which we then can pass judgment on him for not having followed this standard. Those who would judge God, accusing him of things like "genocide" when they read the Old Testament forget that God is the standard, he therefore defines what is good.

J.I. Packer once said: "Creatures are not entitled to register complaints about their Creator."

As Christians, we must be reconciled to this and to filter everything we read in scripture through the lens that God is good, even if we cannot see how it is good.

GOD IS HOLY

This may sound a bit like I'm repeating myself, but to be Holy is not the exact same thing as to be good. Holiness is shorthand for all of God's perfections. He is perfect in all his attributes whether he's exercising his love and mercy or his wrath. No one else is like God, he is unique and separate (another meaning of holy) from his creation:

To whom then will you compare me,

that I should be like him? says the Holy One. - Isaiah 40:25

Again, another rhetorical question, the answer is, "no one." We don't sit in judgment on God, he sits in judgment on us. So, when he executes judgment, as we see him do here in Genesis 19, because he is holy, he does so perfectly and righteously. The punishment always fits the crime where God is concerned. We never have to worry about someone being falsely accused or unjustly treated by God.

James Montgomery Boice said: "The wrath of God is not ignoble. Rather, it is too noble, too just, too perfect - it is this that bothers us."

So, this begs a question, and it tends to be THE question when discussing this passage: what was going on in Sodom & Gomorra and the cities of the plain that resulted in God's righteous judgment?

As we should always do, let's start with the passage beginning in verse four:

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 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. - Genesis 19:4-11

Three things stand out here:

The way which the sin of Sodom most manifested itself was rampant homosexuality. And it's clear this was a normal practice for them. This is why Lot was so insistent that the male visitors not spend the night in the town square. He knew what would happen to them if they did. So, contrary to what many today would have us believe, the sin of Sodom is indeed homosexuality. Jude makes this clear as well in verse seven of his epistle that we read earlier:

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

This verse, by the way, puts to rest the notion that it was not homosexuality itself that was the problem but their desire to be violent toward these visitors. Jude makes it clear that Sodom was judged for sexual immorality and unnatural desire. Now, there are other verses that speak about their mistreatment of the poor, their pride, etc. these are all things you would expect to accompany egregious sin but they cannot be taken in isolation and used to downplay the issue of homosexuality in this account. Sodom & Gomorrah were judged by God because they'd reached the point described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 where they'd exchanged the truth of God for a lie and rejected even his created design for men and women on a massive scale.

Peter Jones says: "The Apostle Paul’s teaching on homosexual practice is a great example of the biblical understanding that though sexual sin is indeed an issue of immoral behavior, it’s even more an expression of a religious commitment…"

(Jones, Peter. The Other Worldview: Exposing Christianity's Greatest Threat (Kindle Locations 1311-1313). Kindle Edition.)

So the issue was they'd exchanged the worship of the CREATOR for the worship of the CREATION and the evidence for that is the ubiquity of homosexuality in their culture. That should cause us to tremble for our nation.

Secondly, they rejected any attempt to correct their evil and were willing to use violence against Lot for "judging" them. Notice verse 9. They didn't want to hear about their sin. They loved it too much to allow others to speak ill of it or them. They were willing to attack anyone who got in their way. Disagreement of any kind was not allowed. And those who dared speak up were subject to attack.

And lastly, and perhaps most telling, they were intent upon pursuing their immorality at all costs. Nothing could deter them. The ESV translation says even after the angels struck them blind they "wore themselves out groping for the door." They'd just been blinded by what most commentators believe was a searing light and instead of retreating, they continue to pursue their sin. They were groping around blindly trying to satisfy their lusts.

This is what the Apostle Paul calls being "given over" to sin.

When sin is our master, we serve it, no matter what. The same is true when Christ is our master. We serve our master, whoever it is, even when doing so has been made difficult.

If you wonder who or what you serve, think about how much trouble you're willing to go to in order to pursue whatever it is. The more hardship you're willing to endure for something, the more you show your love for that thing.

I'm sure you can point to times in your own life as I can mine when I was openly sinning and reaping negative consequences for that and yet I continued to pursue my sin because I wanted my sin more than I didn't want the negative consequences. That's a dangerous place to be because if we continue down that road, it leads to a seared conscience, it leads to being given over. That's where the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were. Their consciences were seared and the only thing left for them was the judgment of God. The prophet Hosea speaks of people whose deeds do not permit them to return to God because they do not acknowledge the LORD (Hosea 5:4).

There comes a time when repentance is no longer an option. When the next interaction we have with the Lord is his judgment. Let that hang in the air for a moment. There's a time when, if I'm an unbeliever, I will sin for the last time without eternal consequences. The writer of Hebrews tells us it is appointed to a man once to die and then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). We don't know when that day will be for us. The people of Sodom didn't think it would be the day those visitors arrived at Lot's house - but it was.

I implore you along with the writer of Hebrews:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. - Hebrews 3:12-14

Today is the day of salvation, if you've not done so, repent and believe in Jesus Christ, because you are not guaranteed tomorrow.

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD IS TEMPERED BY HIS MERCY

This brings us to our next point which is that God's judgment is always tempered by his mercy.

In every case where God announces or metes out judgment in scripture he always rescues his people. He would have been right and just to destroy Adam and Eve the minute they disobeyed him but he didn't. He would have been right and just to destroy the entire world in the flood but he saved Noah and his family. He would have been right and just to leave Abram in Ur and not call him out and make him the father of the faithful but he didn't. He would have been right and just to destroy the nation of Israel completely due to their idolatry but he did not. Listen to the prophet Amos:

Thus says the Lord: “As the shepherd rescues from the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the people of Israel who dwell in Samaria be rescued, with the corner of a couch and part of a bed. - Amos 3:12

In other words, God is going to destroy Samaria (Israel) but there will be a remnant of the faithful who is saved.

So, too in Sodom. Though he lived among the wicked, Lot was spared.

We have to then ask a question up front, because this passage doesn't portray Lot in a very positive light. Was Lot a believer. The Apostle Peter tells us he was:

and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, - I Peter 2:7-9

Notice that three times in this passage Lot is called righteous.

But, just as we've seen with Abraham so far, Lot's actions in this passage are a mixed bag. One the one hand, he opens his home to strangers to protect them from the godless inhabitants of Sodom. But, on the other hand, he's willing to sacrifice his daughters to this mob, putting the strangers ahead of his own family. He's warn his sons-in-law about the coming destruction but then hesitates himself when told to flee and has to be dragged out of the city by the angels.

And, just as with the similar situations with Abraham, this was because in the moment Lot valued the temporal over the eternal, to use Augustine's terminology, the earthly city, the city of Sodom and his life there, over the eternal city of God. This is always a temptation for us and something we must guard against. It's the issue we've talked about often in this series, who will you trust? Who will you worship?

We looked, a few weeks back at Lot and Abram's parting of the ways and saw that Lot chose for himself the best land, the land toward Sodom because from an earthly perspective it was most comfortable.

Joyce Baldwin in her commentary on this passage says:

"From that fatal day when Lot made his choice to better himself in the luscious valley he had become more and more involved in moral compromise." (The Message of Genesis 12-50, Baldwin, p. 77)

By the time we get to our passage today, Lot has moved from a tent outside the city to a house within the city. Not only that, he has a seat at the city gate, a sign in that day that someone was a prominent citizen. So, despite the pangs of conscience he felt over the goings on in Sodom, Lot was vested in the life of the city. So much so that when it came time to leave, he had trouble bringing himself to do it:

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. - Genesis 19:15-16

I love verse 16 "…the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him."

God "seized" him. The Hebrew word implies strength or force. The Lord rescues his people even sometimes against our will. I can look back on times in my own life when God kept me from harm despite myself and I'm thankful and grateful to him for that provision. It's not something to presume upon but it is something to be thankful for in retrospect. And one day he will rescue us from the most cataclysmic event in history, God’s judgment on mankind at the end of time.

How did Lot get here, where, despite his understanding of the wickedness of Sodom he still felt at home in the city and hesitated to leave it? It began when he "pitched his tent" in that direction. He was taken in by the things of this world and began moving in that direction. Scripture warns us frequently about the danger of cozying up to sin:

Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned? - Proverbs 6:27

James tells us there's a progression:

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. - James 13:14-15

And we see that clearly in the life of Lot. Though he was a righteous man, he'd become comfortable among the wicked to the point that he became like them in many ways. That can happen to us as well. We must be careful what we expose ourselves to, careful what we watch, careful who we hang out with, careful what we desire, lest we become like Lot and find ourselves compromised by the culture.

If we're believers, it's not a matter of losing our salvation (which we can't do) but when our master returns, we want to be found faithful. And as we live in the here-and-now, we want to honor and glorify our Lord, not bring reproach upon him.

There's another reason as well, cozying up to the world could mean we're not a follower of Christ. And sometimes that realization does not come until it's too late. That’s why scripture calls us to examine our lives. Jesus speaks of people who will stand before him on the last day thinking they are his only to be told "away from me, I never knew you."

Both Lot and his wife were taken out of the city thanks to the mercy of God but both did not escape judgment. The book of Hebrews reminds us that not everyone whom the Lord rescued from Egypt was saved and we see that dynamic here.

In fact, Lot's wife has become a byword for those whose longing for the world keeps them from the Kingdom of God. This is because of what Jesus says in Luke 17:32-33:

Remember Lot's wife. 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. - Luke 17:32-33

Lot's wife didn't just "look back" to see what was going on, she longed for her life in Sodom, in the earthly city, and that cost her everything.

So, when you're tempted to indulge in sin, when you're tempted to compromise with the world - remember Lot's wife.

THE JUDGMENT OF GOD IS CERTAIN

Finally this morning, I want us to consider that God's justice is certain.

The Apostle Peter closed out his second letter with a warning to remember this:

"3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly." - II Peter 3:3-7

As we said in the beginning, ever since man fell in the Garden, judgment was coming, has to come and will come.

We hear a lot from some quarters about this or that world event being a "sign" that the Lord's return is imminent. But the truth is, there's only one more thing that has to happen before the Lord returns, there's only one thing holding back God's judgment by fire of this present age - his passion to rescue his people from that judgment.

Continuing in II Peter 3 we read in verse nine:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. - II Peter 3:9

This verse is not teaching universalism or that God is dragging his feet hoping more people will repent, it's talking about the elect. God is reserving judgment on this earth until all those he's chosen "reach repentance."

When the Holy Spirit calls out of darkness into light the last person given by the Father to the Son, the end will come.

We don't know when that will be. It could be this afternoon, it could be a hundred years from now. But I do know this, we should live each day as if it's this afternoon.

Before we close this morning, I want to bring us back to the text to a short verse that plugs us back into the storyline with Abraham that we'll continue next week.

So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. - Genesis 19:23

Just as Sodom & Gomorrah is a type of God's judgment on the whole earth in the future, Abraham is a type of Christ, God's chosen intercessor who prayed for Lot he would be rescued. We're told at the end of this passage not that God remembered Lot but that "God remembered Abraham," meaning he listened to him and honored his prayer. The Bible tells us the prayer of the righteous availeth much.

H.C. Leupold says "God remembered Lot for Abraham's sake." (Exposition of Genesis, Vol. 1, p. 573) It wasn't because of Lot's righteousness or lack thereof, it was because of Abraham that God was merciful to Lot.

So too the followers of Christ. The Lord "remembers" us because of Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us and because of that we can be sure we'll be spared the wrath of God on that final day. Take comfort in that this week and may it spur you on to share the good news of the Gospel with those who've not yet believed, who are still under God's wrath.

Let's pray.