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Today is one of the most famous sections in Scripture concerning the judgment of God.
Within Genesis so far we have seen 2 examples of God’s judgment for sin.
The first came after the first sin.
Adam sinned, and when he sinned sin came into the world.
God’s judgment was that man now would face death.
A certain bit of vanity came with the human experience, because no matter what we do, how great we are, or how small we are … we all die.
It’s God’s judgment.
Then a few chapters later, the 2nd example of God’s justice came, the Flood.
Sin had infected mankind so much, that every thought of man was wicked from his youth.
God then sent a global flood upon the earth, and all mankind except for one family was destroyed in a flood.
And today we come to God’s 3rd demonstration of his judgment against sin in Genesis.
We come to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I’m not going to read the passages out loud for us ahead of time.
It’s a big chunk of Scripture, I’ll let you do it with your families when you get home.
We will be covering the text of .
So feel free to open up to and follow along as we look at the text.
(NASB95)
6 Its rising is from one end of the heavens, And its circuit to the other end of them; And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Our first point of the sermon is God’s careful justice
The first half of , has God visiting Abraham and Sarah, and telling them that they can be expecting a child in the next year, and they are to name him Isaac.
The second half of the chapter is a conversation with God and Abraham.
God informs Abraham about a coming destruction upon Sodom and Gomorrah.
And what’s Abraham’s thought?
What about Lot?
Lot was his nephew who left his homeland with him.
Lot grew rich being around Abraham.
In fact he grew so rich that they had to split up.
The last time we saw Lot, he was in Sodom and Gomorrah.
It’s never been a good place.
And Lot’s experience there hasn’t been so great.
It looked nice on the outside, but inside it was full of wickedness.
Back in , it was described as a place with great sinners against the Lord ().
You may remember, in chapter 14, Lot was even kidnapped from Sodom.
And yet, he never left.
But by now, God’s had it with Sodom and Gomorrah.
He says that there is an outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah.
The outcry is that God sees sin.
Just as Abel’s blood cried out to God from the ground after Cain murdered him.
The sin of Sodom cried out to God.
He couldn’t ignore it.
So He was going to destroy it.
But there’s Abraham, beside himself.
If Sodom is destroyed, then what’s going to happen to Lot.
, calls Lot a righteous man.
Abraham doesn’t want to see his nephew killed.
So he begins exploring the grace of God.
He asks the question if God would spare an entire city if there were righteous people in it <cough, cough> Lot.
What if Lot is in the town that God is going to judge?
Abraham then begins a conversation with God about his justice.
Would God allow the righteous to suffer the same punishment as the unrighteous?
Abraham asks, suppose there were 50 righteous people in Sodom, would He still destroy the town.
Basically, is God willing to kill the righteous, in order to destroy the wicked.
Abraham asks, suppose there were 50 righteous people in Sodom, would He still destroy Sodom.
And God says no.
Then Abraham says, what if there were 45 righteous people in Sodom, would He still destroy it?
God says no.
What if there were 40 - God says no.
What if there were 20 - God says no.
What if there were 10 righteous people in Sodom - and again God says no.
God makes it very clear, He will remain just in His violent justice.
He will not wrongly accuse the righteous.
The second point of is that God rescues from His justice.
Two of the angels that were with God, go down into Sodom in the evening.
God rescues from sin
Lot’s at the entrance of the town.
He doesn’t know these are angels, they look just like men.
They are planning on spending the night in the town square.
Lot doesn’t know the men, but he knows his town.
He knows where you should and shouldn’t go.
Just like here.
I wouldn’t recommend you go down into the creek across the street from the church.
And I’d never recommend you spend the night there.
Just as we know places you shouldn’t go in Murrieta and Temecula, Lot knew you shouldn’t spend the night anywhere outside in Sodom.
He pressed these men to come into his home.
Not merely to be a host, but to protect them.
They were visitors to the town.
He’s thinking maybe they made a wrong turn.
They’re unfamiliar with the type of people who live there.
He brings them into his house, feeds them, and offers them protection.
Then the bad stuff happens.
They are about to go to sleep for the night, and Sodom awoke.
In , it says that the men of the city surrounded the house.
It doesn’t say some of the men.
It doesn’t say the old men.
It doesn’t say the middle aged men.
It doesn’t say the young men.
It says, “both young and old, all the people to the last man” surrounded the house.
They tell Lot to bring the two angels outside so that they may know them.
When it says they want to know them, they aren’t implying that they are the town welcoming committee and they’d like to give them a basket with homemade cookies.
They aren’t the TSA, or Border Patrol, wanting to know what type of immigrants are entering the town.
When the word know is used here, it’s a very … intimate know.
It’s a sexual know.
The NIV pulls know punches when it translates verse 5.
“Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
That’s what it means by the word know.
This isn’t the first time that this has happened in Sodom either.
Remember, they have a record of great evil, of great sin.
Judgment was already coming to Sodom, that’s why the angels were there in the first place.
What we read about here in is just one of many occurences of grave sin.
, is a chapter that describes sexual sin.
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