Clough Genesis Lesson 56

The Sodom and Gomorrah incident – Genesis 19:1-29

… recalled in eternity future forever and ever about the nature of God’s wrath. Turn to 2 Peter 2:4, in Peter we have a look-back at the Sodom and Gomorrah incident from the standpoint of hundreds of years, thousands of years that have transpired, and Peter looks back on certain events as indicative of God’s wrath. And he says in verse 4, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,” and this refers apparently to the angels in Genesis 6 in a place called Tartarus. [5] “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eight person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly,” again a catastrophic global judgment, [6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that should hereafter live ungodly.” Notice again “an example.”

Sodom and Gomorrah is an example of the wrath of God. God doesn’t teach by abstraction; He doesn’t teach by simply indicating the abstract idea of God’s justice. God teaches by giving us a concrete example, an example that couldn’t be missed by anyone. Verse 7, “And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy behavior pattern of the wicked one, [8] (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, and vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds).” The other thing you want to notice about verse 8 is the word “unlawful.” The word “unlawful” means obviously that they transgressed some law but yet we know very well that Sodom and Gomorrah did not have the Mosaic Law. They were a people without a Bible, yet God says they had a law that was not the Bible. The law they had that was not the Bible was general moral law which they ought to have known through their own conscience. So therefore their deeds are declared to be unlawful even though they don’t have the Mosaic Law. Verse 9, “And the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.”

The principles that we have seen so far in the Genesis passage we’ve been studying, and then in Peter’s comments, is that people, all men, Christians and non-Christians, all men are responsible to God’s general moral laws…ALL men are responsible to God’s general moral laws. To apply now this means that Christians who are citizens are not to by one way of that slogan that goes “you can’t legislate morality.” Well, yes we agree in one sense; you can’t legislate regeneration, you can’t legislate salvation, you can’t legislate moral progress, that’s correct. But having said all that we still must agree that the Christian citizen has part of his godly duties to actively interfere in his community, to actively impose general moral law, if by enacted legislation then by enacted legislation upon his surrounding community, whether they’re Christian or not does not make the point. The point is that the Christian citizen ought to function this way. Sodom and Gomorrah, the example, before the giving of the Mosaic Law, God says all societies and all communities are under His absolute.

Now we have indicated other things about the Sodom and Gomorrah incident, turning back to Genesis 19, we found that in this whole episode, which involves Abraham and Lot, that the emphasis theologically in the text is on Abraham, not Lot, and one mustn’t lose the forest for the trees. Lest we get deeply engrossed today in this passage, Genesis 19, remember that the details, fascinating though they may be, ought not to override the big idea and the big idea of this portion of Genesis is that God is working in history through His elect people, Abraham and his seed and even the Sodom and Gomorrah incident is but a peripheral illustration and adventure on the main theme.

So today, though we don’t deal with the main theme too much, at least keep it in mind. Abraham is the center of the action; in fact, in Genesis 19:27-29, the last part of the text, you’ll notice that Abraham does get reintroduced into the scenery and this just tips us off that basically the story is about Abraham, not Lot.

Lot is a very sorry spectacle; Lot is like many believers who have basically in their carnality tried to live the best of both possible worlds. They want the best of the kingdom of light and the kingdom of God and the want the best of the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of man. And so they forever live on the fence of the interface between these two kingdoms, hoping thereby to gain blessing. Lot is one who is a good illustration of this and we’ll see it in many, many details. But please notice that Lot’s deliverer is not Lot; Lot’s deliverer on the human plain is Abraham. Abraham, in Genesis 14, delivered him by armed force. Remember that the cities around Sodom had been taken over by terrorists; the terrorists marched the population out of the cities, stole their goods, and marched them off to Syria and Abraham said no, this is not right, he did not wait for the United Nations to pass an agreement, he simply took the 318 armed soldiers and went after and destroyed the terrorists, as all terrorists ought to be destroyed.

Then later, in Genesis 18 Abraham made intercession for the city and had intersession been successful Sodom would have been once again saved; not through Lot but through Abraham. There’s a lesson in this and that is the spiritual believer can do more from a distance than a carnal believer can do on the scene. Pay attention to this and watch the price carnal believers pay for trying to do something on the scene when they are ill equipped and out of fellowship and completely really non-functional in a spiritual way. Abraham does more for Sodom than Lot does. Now for the details.

We’ll read the first section of the story, Genesis 19:1-3. “And there came two angels to Sodom at evening; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; [2] And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, no, we’ll just abide in the street all night. [3] And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.”

And so once again we have a situation that compares; the author of Genesis 19 writes this whole story hoping that you have read Genesis 18. In other words, Genesis 18 and Genesis 19 go together. One story can’t be read independently of the other story. There are so many cross-checks on this it’s quite obvious; right here is a cross-check. The angels come to visit Abraham; the angels come to visit Lot. Abraham invites the angels into his home; Lot invites the angels into his home. But, observe the difference. Here, in this lower part of the Dead Sea, Hebron located just to the west, that’s where the incident occurred in Genesis 18; the angels showed up at Abraham’s center of operations for his ranch. Then as they walked together, this whole area of the Dead Sea at the time was empty, it was just a valley, well-irrigated field, and they walked down to approximately this area where you can look down on that valley area, and two angels go on ahead and they walk down to the city, and the other angel, the angel of the Lord and Abraham sit there and they have the conversation they had last week. The two angels that we meet in verse 1 are now coming on the scene.

We’ve looked at this whole episode as a monument and so again to refresh our minds as to what Sodom and Gomorrah actually look like we want to go through some of the slides once again. Keep these in mind as we continue reading in the text because as we started the lesson we looked at 2 Peter 2 which taught us that Sodom and Gomorrah are basically illustrations, examples; examples that could have been seen by any person in the ancient world. All one had to do was walk a few miles and you could have looked at it. Here’s the great rift that runs north/south, just south of the Dead Sea and we have this strange perturbation of land in the southeast corner of the Dead Sea. That perturbation of land marks the place, the southern end of the sea, prior to Genesis 19. Prior to that time the sea was closed off and what we see is this added section down here, which is only 16-20 feet deep compared to a thousand foot depth just north of that perturbation. We find a flooding occurring, an accumulation of water; this water is accumulating over the wreckage of the cities that we’re reading about in Genesis 19. The water has accumulated largely since the time of Christ because there’s an old Roman road of Christ’s day that goes right across here and picks up over here. So we know at least by 100 BC you could drive your chariot across that neck, which obviously means that things have changed, even since Christ’s time.

This area, then, was kept bare, naked, desolate, as a teaching reminder for the wrath of God. Now again look at these slides and get this picture in mind. You’re looking down; this is taken from the western foothills looking across the Dead Sea’s southern end, and off in the distance you can see in the haze the mountains of Jordan. That is as far as that rift is wide; and in Abraham’s time and where he’s coming down to look with the angels down into the valley, at that time this was well-watered; water was coming off here, there was irrigation, some of which from the irrigation areas are still being dug up by archeologists, and it was a very fertile plain. The name of the game was money; money was to be made in Sodom because of the irrigation. The people who ran ranching businesses had an easier time because they didn’t have to travel hundreds of miles with their flock, they had a lot of areas where they could feed and forage. In this area is this salt desolation that has kept the ground forever unplantable. Again, let your mind’s eye feast on these sites because this is the picture God left of Sodom and Gomorrah. When you read about this again and again in the Bible, think this picture; that’s what God’s wrath is all about and he wanted men to know what His wrath was all about thus leaving them a good example.

So the two angels come to visit Lot’s house; two angels, not three! We have to answer a question, why only two angels. Was the angel of the Lord slow? Couldn’t he catch up with those two angels that had gone on earlier? Obviously that wasn’t the problem, that’s not an explanation. Another one must be needed and I suggest the explanation is simply this, that whereas in Abraham’s case he was visited by two angels and the third one was Jehovah Himself, the malak Yahweh, the angel of Jehovah, that that angel is missing deliberately in Genesis 19, not because Lot’s an unbeliever but because Lot is a carnal believer and Lot, therefore, does not share some of the intimate spiritual privileges of Abraham. Abraham, as a mature believer, has what John 14 describes when Christ says if you will obey My commandments and so on, and grow and become mature, then I will make My way and My home with you. Ephesians 3 says Christ shall dwell and be at peace in your heart. It’s not talking about salvation; that’s talking about the extra blessing of a mature Christian. He has that kind of a relationship with the Lord.

Or said another way, in very picturesque terms, the Lord doesn’t bother to visit believers in the Sodom’s of this world. He can’t dirty His feet in those places and won’t. What He does, He sends His spokesmen to Sodom but God Himself does not go to Sodom; even though there may be believers there Jehovah refuses to go there. Jehovah, in other words, isn’t comfortable and isn’t at home in Sodom. And therefore Lot misses out, he only gets visited with two angels; Abraham with three.

It says in Genesis 19:1 that Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. We said there’s the Hebrew participle, the idea of the motion picture tense; the idea of an artist painting; here’s this man and he’s sitting there in the gate. Having a participle here tells us to stop; it tells us to say hold it, the Spirit of God wants to tell us something about this picture; wants to feed our mind’s eye a little bit so let’s pause and think how Lot got to the gate in Sodom.

Turn to Genesis 13:12 where we find the first mention of Lot going back to Sodom. It was back in those days when the two ranchers broke up their business partnership and one partner went one way and the other partner the other way. And you remember Lot took the best, apparently, piece for himself, the well-watered vale of Siddim as the Scripture says, except in the Hebrew it means the valley of irrigated fields. And one doesn’t have to be a rancher to realize the obvious economic benefits that would be derived there from. And so Lot saw it and his business decision took precedence over his spiritual decision. And so we find here in verse 12, it says: Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain,” the word “plain” is the word for circle and it means that small area of the Dead Sea I just showed you in the slide that was cut off after this judgment happened. So Lot, it says in verse 12, visited the cities of the plain; he was a rural man, he lived out in the countryside and he would camp around the pentapolis, that is, the five cities within that circular geographical area. And verse 13 tells us that even at that time, earlier, Sodom was known for its depravity.

In Genesis 14:12 we find the next step in Lot’s spiritual odyssey down. Here “And they took Lot,” this is when the terrorists took over the city, “they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.” Note it says “who dwelt in Sodom.” Now Lot is no longer living in the countryside around the city; now he’s decided to make the city his home and he’s moved into one of those cities, the city of Sodom. And so we find gradual absorption of this carnal believer into the prevailing culture of his time.

And now finally we start Genesis 19 with the fact that he’s sitting in the gate. The significance in the expression “sitting in the gate,” again archeology helps us on this by digging down and here would be a planned view of the gate, large walled cities were built at this time in the ancient east and these cities had these tremendous gates on them that were closed at night. And around the city there would be a main street heading into the depth of the city and there’d be building off to the side but there’d be an open area; the nearest word I can think of in our modern language to describe this would be a plaza. And in that plaza many activities went on. The plaza was used during the daytime for merchants selling their goods and for meetings of the elders of the city council; in other words, the government of the city was done in the plaza.

Hence when you read Handel’s Messiah and it says open ye gates and the King of Glory shall come in, it’s not talking about the gates physically opening; it’s talking about the councils, the men responsible for local government’s to accept the Messiah on the basis of their city, so “open ye gates and the Messiah of glory shall come in;” declare your allegiance to Christ is what that section of Handel’s Messiah is talking about. But here the gate and Lot being seated in the gate shows you that Lot not only has moved into the city of Sodom but by this time he apparently is involved in the decision making machinery of the city of Sodom. He thought that it would be best as a believer to get involved in his community, which normally is a fine thing unless you happen to live in Sodom, and if you happen to live in a Sodom then it’s not a nice thing to get involved in a community; the nicest thing you can do is get out of your community because it’s going to be removed by divine surgery.

So Lot decides that he is going to stay. Lot knows better than this; the passage we began the lesson, 2 Peter 2, that passage says that Lot was constantly vexed, day after day after day after day after day, so he knew in his conscience that he really wasn’t supposed to be there; he knew in his conscience that even as part of the decision making processes of the city he wouldn’t have that much influence. But here he is now, trapped in an embarrassment and awful situation. Who should show up at the gate, and he happened to be on duty representing the town at that time, but the Lord’s angels come walking into town. Great, just when he’s on duty, sitting in the gate, it couldn’t be better for an embarrassing scene. Here’s a believer that ought not to believe there anyway, and here are the Lord’s representatives walking in. You see, up to this time Lot was able to fool himself; he was like a lot of Christians, he was having a ministry in the liberal church because he thought that he would do more good on the scene there than he would over in the areas where the Word of God is taught, and probably he was a lot like some of the other believers who have these ministries in liberal areas and then come over to the Bible-teaching churches for free tapes and counseling.

So Lot was in this kind of a situation where he wanted to have the on scene ministry, but Abraham, the spiritual believer said normally that would be a good idea but not with a Sodom; I’ll have a ministry but it will be from remote control. Or maybe we could liken Lot to some American businessmen whose firms sell advanced electronics to Soviet Russia and China, only so that these same businessmen’s sons can be killed more efficiently in the next war. It’s the same kind of thing, men who wish to put economic pleasures of the moment over long-term historical benefits are the Lot’s of this world. And like the Lot’s of this world are very sorry people.

Let’s look at what happens: the angels walk up and he recognizes who they are, he bows himself like Abraham, to the ground. But now something different happens. Instead of bowing to the ground and welcoming them into his home, like Abraham, something different. Turn back to Genesis 18:1 we’re going to look at the same scene as it was previously played out, this time in front of Abraham’s tent. Let’s refresh our minds so we see the difference. “And the LORD appeared unto him by the plains [or the oak] of Mamre: Abraham was seated in the tent door.” You see, you can’t avoid seeing the parallels between chapters 18 and 19, even the vocabulary is the same. The author of the text was trying to show you something and he’s saying look, here’s one old man and he’s sitting in his tent door. Here’s another old man and he’s seated in the gate of the city. In one case the angel of the Lord comes; in the other case the angels of the Lord come. But now in Abraham’s case it says, [2] Abraham “lifted up his eyes and looked, and…” he saw them standing and he “bowed himself to the ground.” Lot saw the angels and he bowed himself to the ground. So far they look the same; now look at the difference.

Abraham says, [18:3] “My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight,” I pray you come to me. There’s a welcoming of him. [4] “Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched…. [5] “I will fetch a morsel of bread….” And in verse 6 “he hastened into the tent unto Sarah,” and told her to get the food ready and he went out and so on. You remember that story; you remember the situation. There was a welcoming; Abraham wanted the angels to come because he wanted to fellowship with them.

Now observe Lot’s attitude, Genesis 19, he’s seated there, the angels show up, he bows himself to the ground, but now he says, “I pray that you would turn in to your servant’s house, stay all night, wash your feed, you’ll rise up early, and go on your way.” No, we’ll stay in the street. [3] “And he pressed upon them greatly: and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.” Now the real reason as will emerge more clearly later, the real motive for Lot inviting the angels into his house is not the motive of hospitality. So not the motive of hospitality at all, it’s the motive of embarrassment. Here he is caught between the rock and the hard place. He’s in a situation where he knows that those angels and representatives of God are going to come face to face with the depravity of the city and therefore he’s got to do something to protect and to avoid a confrontation. After all, hasn’t this been the story of the man’s life, this sorry person. Hasn’t he always tried to take that middle of the road path to avoid the confrontation between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness? Of course, he always tried the same path. And now he’s still trying it, trying to avoid… for example, later on we’ll read in verse 5-6 he tries to shut the door while he’s negotiating with the men outside so the angel of the Lord won’t see these idiots that are outside his door. Always trying to avoid the confrontation; always trying to postpone what can’t be postponed. A basic decision has got to be faced and has got to be made and you don’t postpone these kinds of decisions. You can’t straddle the fence forever. But that’s the motive here, not hospitality but embarrassment, trying to oops, who should show up at the city today, get them in here, get them in my house before the creeps show up, keep them apart, then sneak them out in the morning so we won’t have a confrontation. That’s more the spirit here. Frankly, this is not Christ at home in your heart; this is not Jehovah at home, relaxed in Lot’s presence like He was in Abraham’s presence.

And so they say in verse 2, no, we’re just stay here in the plaza. The plaza at night, after the merchants packed up their wares and went about their business, in the evening the plaza then became a camping ground for overnight travelers, and probably the overnight businessmen, the men who would travel from city to city would have no place to stay and they too would stay in that plaza area. So it’s nothing unusual that you read here in verse 2, that the angels simply are executing the custom of their time; they’re going to park their wings in the plaza.

Now Genesis 19:3 shows another thing. If you read the situation with Abraham you notice quickly that he ran in and he told his wife to get the meal and then he went down to the supermarket and got some meat. But what happens here? In verse 3 we fail to read a note about this man’s wife. It says, in fact, “he made” the food, and he baked the bread. Now this coupled with several other tips in the passage gives us an inner view of this man’s marriage and his family. Here’s a man who never could decide what he was trying to do in life and men who can’t decide what they’re ever going to do in life, who can’t decide which side of the fence they are going to go on, they can’t command allegiance of people in their own family. And this man’s wife isn’t really motivated to follow him too far because he never has decided what on earth he is trying to do with his life. And so we just find a hint here, later on we find her under a pile of salt, so we don’t think too much of what’s happening in their marriage life. Obviously Lot is not the spiritual leader and obviously, therefore, his wife has nothing to respond to and so she drifts and he winds up being the one that deals with the angels. We might even speculate that somehow that she knew darn well why the angels were there and she didn’t like it because she anticipated very much what was going to happen and she resented it, she didn’t want anything to do with the angels. Lot, go fix your guests some food yourself, was probably the retort that was heard in the Lot household that evening.

So now Lot, sorry individual, sits out there and does the cooking himself. He can’t command respect in his own marriage.

Genesis 19:4, “But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter. [5] And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men who came in to thee this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them. [6] And Lot went out at the door unto them, and he shut the door after him, [7] And said, I ask [pray] you, brethren, don’t do so wickedly. [8] Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore they have come under the shadow of my roof. [9] And they said, Stand back. And again they aid, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and now he needs to be a judge: now will we deal worse with you, than with them. And they pressed hard against him, Lot, and came near to breaking the door. [10] But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house, and shut the door. [11] And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great; so that they wearied themselves to find the door.”

This little roughneck scene is the climax of this man’s life. If you were to paint this picture or dramatize it in a short play you would have all of the elements that were for years and years and years working in this man’s life, all of a sudden they come to a climax at the front door of his house. In verse 4 ‘the men of the city,” notice how the men of the city are described. It says, “all the men of the city, both young and old,” now the Hebrew is even more powerful. The Hebrew reads, where it says “the men of Sodom compassed the house round,” it says “from the oldest to the youngest,” in other words, the whole spectrum of the male population shows up around the house that night.

After the service last week someone asked me the question: Does the Sodom and Gomorrah incident give any tip on how God views a community and when finally He has had enough and He physically eradicates a community. Do we have any tips from the Scripture when that breaking point occurs? I said at the time I don’t think so, Sodom and Gomorrah gives us an illustration, it shows some of the dynamics but it really doesn’t clue you on all the details. But yet after studying the text I think it does and the tip is right in the expression “from the oldest to the youngest,” and here’s how.

If you’ll turn to Exodus 20, the scene where the Ten Commandments are given, nothing to do with the Ten Commandments but I just want you to turn to Exodus 20:5 to show you what happens when the Ten Commandments are given. In verse 5, after it talks about not making any graven image, not going into idolatry, do you notice how God identifies Himself on Mount Sinai? Now for God to identify Himself this way means that God must have been doing this activity prior to the giving of the Mosaic Law, which means then that God was actively judging the nation before the Mosaic Covenant was in place and functioning. It says, “I, the LORD thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that keep on hating Me. [6] But I show mercy upon the thousands,” and it should be, it’s understood in the Hebrew, “the thousands of the generations that love Me.” Incidentally, people say that the God of the Old Testament is a boogey man ought to look very carefully at verses 5-6; the cursing comes on only four generations; the blessing comes on thousands of generations. God is far more willing to bless than he is to curse, but curse He does, and the curse in verse 5 is the curse of the third and fourth generations.

It works this way: let’s imagine your great-grandfather, grandfather, father, you, son. There are four generations of your family. What this verse is saying isn’t that God is going to hit you over the head for something old great-grandfather did; that’s not what it’s saying. What it’s saying is that where great-grandfather had a pattern of unrighteousness and he developed a learned behavior pattern that he gave to grandfather, and grandfather added his little jewels and passed it on to your father, and now you are taking up the same behavior pattern of your father, each generation is getting amplified, a God-hating pattern of carnality that develops in family units will be surgically eliminated. That’s what God says. And the reason He does that is simply to preserve the human race. And this is why, if you go back in your family tree, it’s very interesting, you can study it objectively.

Study the family of Herod in the New Testament times, lots of secular material on the Herod family. And I’ll challenge you to start with Herod the Great, and by the fourth generation the Herod family is destroyed; destroyed from the face of the earth, one of the most powerful people in the Middle East. Why? Because… and you can document this with non-Biblical materials, the old man passed on his sin patterns to his sons, who passed on to their sons and by the time it got to the fourth generation, the book of Acts, you get one of the Herod’s struck down in the auditorium when he struts in one day and everybody says behold, behold, behold, there’s god, and then it says “and God destroyed him there.” Now why does this take place? The sin of man. And so God has a break on families that develop these carnal behavior patterns. Either in the fourth generation you’ll get a couple that won’t have children, it doesn’t have to be a dramatic thing, it’ll just be so innocuous sometimes you won’t even see it happen, but all of a sudden that family comes to a halt. It doesn’t reproduce into the next generation, it just dies and disappears. Why? God wants these families removed.

Now going back to Genesis 19 I believe that’s why that Hebrew expression is put in there; “from the oldest to the youngest,” the oldest to the youngest would encompass 3 to 4 generations; in other words, homosexual patterns of behavior have become established in Sodom and have gotten established over and over and over and over and now the confrontation occurs; just the thing that this very uneasy, embarrassed believer didn’t want to happen happened. And what is it? Confrontation. Why have the angels been sent into Sodom in the first place? God said I want to see, I want to send My on-scene representatives down there and I want actual historic temporal contact; I don’t judge just out of My omniscience, I judge because I am there on the scene and I personally watch and I personally get My feet dirty with the dirt of that city. And in that kind of a high personal confrontation it’s significant that in verses 4-5 it says, “all” the men of the city, not some, not a representative group, but they all come.

Now the Lord does see them, and they say we want to “know” the men of the city. Now for generations upon generations of commentators in this text, the word yada‘ or the word “know” has always been taken with a sexual connotation; always has been read this way, as it is in many, many other portions of the Old Testament. In fact the first time it occurs, “Adam knew Eve, his wife,” and they bore a child. It’s obvious the verb has this, obvious that is until in recent years we have the rise of what is sadly called the Christian homosexual movement and now we have books that have to deal with Genesis 19; these men, as Christians, supposedly, believe that Genesis 19 okays homosexuality. They’ve got to deal with Genesis 19 somehow so now we are told that the interpretation of the word “know” all this time was wrong and now we’ve got new light on the passage; all these poor men were trying to do in verse 5-6, say the Christian homosexuals, is they just wanted to get acquainted with these men. A strange way to get acquainted with the men, to threaten to break down the door; that’s a strange way to get acquainted with the men, if the man passes out his virgin daughters to be gang raped on the front steps. Is all this part of the normal way of getting to know someone? After all, I’ve heard of welcoming committees but this is a highly unusually way of doing it. And besides, had these same commentators just looked two more verses in the text they would observe in verse 8 the word “know” is used there and obviously there it’s used, not of getting acquainted, it doesn’t mean get acquainted, daughters have not been acquainted with man…. That’s not what it means. So it’s the old story if I want to do something I’m going to twist and warp the text of Scripture until I get it to fit what I want to do. So I think we can dispense with that little interpretation and go on back to sanity and look at the rest of the incident and see what’s going on.

The point of the daughters in Genesis 19:8 gives our second tip off as to his family situation. I said the first tip off was that he wound up cooking the meal himself; obviously not commanding the respect of his wife. I would suspect that any man would treat his daughters the way Lot treats them here in verse 8 doesn’t have the respect of his daughters either, and that comes out later in the story, later on in another incident. So now here’s this sorry spectacle of a husband and father out of fellowship, he can’t command the allegiance of his wife and he apparently can’t command the allegiance of his own daughters, and therefore he treats them this shoddy way, just throw them out as a sacrifice. There were other things and other options he might have done if he really knew that they were angels, and he appeared to know these people were angels by verse 1.

The point that he’s saying in verse 8, he doesn’t think of the power of the angels; his mind is still on his personal embarrassment over this whole thing. Notice how he ends the statement in verse 8, don’t do anything, for this reason they have come under my roof; in other words, they haven’t come to my house for hospitality, I didn’t invite them here because I loved them, I invited them here to simply prevent a confrontation, simply avoid for another day having to face this grand compromise I’ve made in my life; just put it out of sight and out of hearing, I’m trying to avoid it. That’s what he’s saying, and he will even cast his own daughters to a gang rape in order to avoid coming to a clear-cut decision. This is how dogmatic he is that that he won’t take a stand one way or the other; he won’t join the homosexual community but then on the other hand he won’t join the Lord’s people. Now get on or get off, do something, but he can’t.

And now the shock of his life. He said in verse 7 to them, “my brothers,” and the hope is the hope of every carnal Christian, is to somehow ingratiate himself socially, somehow integrate himself socially with the group around him so he’ll be a part of it. We call this assimilation. This was the tragedy that gave rise to modern Zionism in the 20^th century, the famous Dreyfus trial in France, when there was a young Jewish reporter who sat in the courtroom and he watched how the French went in their anti-Semitism after Captain Dreyfus of the French army, and this was the scene set that gave rise to Zionism when these Jews said look at that, for [can’t understand word] generation we in France have tried to assimilate to Gentile society, we have been the Jews, we have always been the butt of jokes, we have tried and tried and tried to assimilate and no matter how much we try to assimilate to the Gentile society sooner or later the ugly seed of anti-Semitism springs forth the issue again and here we are, exposed people; we can’t assimilate. And hence the rise of Zionism and the justification of the state of Israel is that if we can’t assimilate let’s have at least one place on the face of the earth where Jewish people can be at rest. And so it’s the same kind of social dynamic that’s working here.

Lot wants to assimilate, in this case for other reasons than what I cited for the Jewish people in the Middle Ages in western Europe. I’m talking here just the process, not the motive for it. And here we have Lot trying to assimilate, “brethren…” “Brethren, don’t do wickedly.” And now Genesis 19:9, the mental attitude of the community he thought he assimilated to now comes bursting to the fore; he never assimilated and they never accepted him. Look at what they say: get out of here, this guy came in “to sojourn,” meaning spending a short time with us, he’s not a native, he’s a foreigner, “he will needs be a judge,” in other words, the Hebrew construction here is he keeps on being a judge over us. They know he’s not one of them, and this is what carnal Christians can never seem to understand; look, no matter how hard you try to run with a non-Christian crowd they intuitively sense you’re not one of them; you can’t amalgamate, you can’t hide with them because they know that you’re not part of them. Here it is: Lot is known by these people as somebody different, “he judges,” meaning he has a standard and he doesn’t like our homosexual lifestyle here in this city and he’s constantly ill at ease about it, he’s just not one of us and they know it.

So now in the middle of verse 9 please observe their attitude. “We will deal worse with you [thee], than with the men [them]” that we wanted originally. “We will deal worse with you,” you see, if you try to get the best of both possible worlds you’ll always wind up with the worst of both. He’s getting the worst of the spiritual kingdom of God because he’s not enjoying God’s blessing, God doesn’t even come to visit his house. And then he turns around and he tries to enjoy the best of Sodom and he finds there they hate him more than the godly people. So let this be a warning; you can’t live on the fence.

And so they began to press in upon him, and then Genesis 19:10, the first of several deliverances, a beautiful scene, the door cracks open and you see these hands reach out, bam, the angels pick him up and pull him inside the house and slam the door and give a message to the guys outside. The word “blindness” is an odd word, it doesn’t necessarily mean blindness, it can mean mental confusion and I suspect that’s what it means here because it says “they wearied to find the door,” meaning they were groping around for some time as though there’s a poor hand-eye coordination rather than actual optical blindness involved in this judgment of whatever it is, they just can’t get their hands on the door is the problem; total confusion.

Now the next aspect of the scene. Genesis 19:12, “And the men said [unto Lot], Have you anything here besides what you’ve got?” Yes he did, he had his whole business there. That’s what he has beside and it’s on his mind. “Son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever you have in your city, get them out of here, [13] For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them has waxed [become] great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD has sent us to destroy it. [14] And Lot went out, and spoke unto his sons-in-law, who married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.” Another sad scene of this sorry individual.

Here he’s given the command, “get out,” there’s not enough for a righteous remnant to save the city. Have you got your other holdings, and here the man who thought he was going to make the best of both possible worlds, after all, Sodom was the place where you could make money fast, have lots of leisure time, and what happened? He lost his whole business. Let’s look at it in dollars and cents, from a man’s point of view. This guy has lost every thing he has; he get out, yeah, with his life, his wife and his two daughters and zero assets. Isn’t that a wonderful accomplishment for a guy who thought he had the best of both possible worlds, and he resents it; you’ll see it come out in a moment.

The angel tells him this is a matter of life my friend, don’t worry about your economic holdings, just get your body out now. And verse 13 is what I call the Texas participle; it says “we are fixing to destroy this place, because the cry of them has waxed great before the face of the LORD.” So we have now the judgment, once you get the Texas participle here that means the action is already started and nothing is going to stop it now, the wheels of judgment begin.

So he goes out and verse 14 is the third tip off about this poor man and his family relation. Not only can’t he command his wife’s respect, he can’t command his daughter’s respect; he can’t command his sons-in-law respect either, they laugh at him. You see, see how impotent this man is. He’s lost his ability to lead people because he never takes a position on anything other than his own selfishness. And so therefore nobody respects him. The word “married” in verse 14 means about to marry and I now take it, having studied the text more carefully that Lot probably only had two daughters and that these daughters that were put out on the doorstep in verse 8 were actually engaged to Sodomite men because in verse 14 the sons-in-law are not Jews, they’re the men of Sodom, “who are about to take your daughters,” so they must have been in some sort of an engaged status, now get out [“Up, get you out of this place”]; so now his sons-in-law refuse.

The scene now opens in the morning. Notice Genesis 19:15, it says “when the morning,” the Hebrew word there means the dawn light, I say “dawn light” in verse 15 because if you let your eyes shift down to verse 23 you see it talks about the sun. I make this observation because I want you to visualize the hurried nature of what not takes place. Between verse 15 and verse 23, all of that must take place from the time of the dawn’s early light until the time that the disc, the solar disc starts to emerge above the horizon, so we have a very hurried scene that goes on. You’ve got to get the hurried nature or you miss the irony of the story. Everything’s in a hurry and that’s the way we’ll interpret verses 15-22. Now watch what happens.

Genesis 19:15, “And when the morning came, the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here….” Now when Abraham has something to do what’s the hallmark of that man? He’s the one that gets up early. Remember Abraham, even that horrible scene in Genesis 22 where he has to offer his own son; God says go out and kill your son—what! Go out and kill your son—well, yes Sir. And he gets up early and goes out and does it; no procrastination, he’s got an obedient nature. See, that’s one of the marks of a mature Christian. The carnal Christian, one of the things that always characterizes a carnal Christian is they’re inconsistent; do this, not do this, well I wonder what I’m going to do today. Never can make up their mind, I don’t think they go to bed on time, eat on time, nothing’s routine in their life, always mañana, always postpone. Well, who rises up in verse 15? The angels, they brought their pocket alarm clock apparently, they got up, and they had to wake Lot up; they had to initiate it all. What kind of guy… his house is going to be destroyed, and they still have to wake him up: Lot, come on Lot, let’s go. Hurried scene! Oh well, get my cup of coffee first. “Arise, take they wife and they two daughters [which are here], lest you be consumed [in the iniquity of the city].”

Now Genesis 19:16 what do you read; look at it again, here it is a rush to get out of what amounts to a nuclear explosion, I’ll give you the evidences later, a category of phenomena is what we’re talking about; it’s like being on ground zero at Hiroshima in 1945, what are you lingering for Lot. “And while he lingered,” and this is a classic passage, read it and enjoy it, God’s sense of humor, “the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the LORD being very merciful unto him: and they” put him out, literally, kicked him out, “and they set him outside of the city.” So you see, it’s good they had two angels because if you look down on it here’s the scene: angel number one, angel number two; here’s Lot, here’s Mrs. Lot and here’s daughter one and daughter two and they’re still floating around hunting up their first cup of coffee in the morning and these are angels are saying now look people, move it. The Hebrew means you throw out, so they literally took them by the hand and led them out of the city.

See again, this poor guy couldn’t make a decision all his life and they’re going to blow the whole place up and he still can’t make a decision. He lingers, still on the fence, still sitting where he ought not to be sitting and under the pressure of this he has to be hand-led. You talk about leading somebody by the hand; look at it, that’s what’s happening. The angel is sitting out there leading him by the hand. I can imagine, using a little unsanctified imagination, what must have gone through the angel’s mind when all this was happening… hey, why don’t we just blow this clod up with the rest of the junk here. Now the angel is going to give us a very interesting comment on why he didn’t do that. But I can imagine it must have been a temptation. Now what kind of idiot does our Lord work with, what are these guys, we have to hand lead them out, they’ve got feet, these human beings, they can walk, what’s the matter with them.

Let’s watch what’s the matter with them; the next episode, again it shows you what a winner this fellow was, all the way, he gets the award. Genesis 19:17, “And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said,” the angel is talking to him, “Escape for thy life; don’t look behind you, and don’t stay in the plain;” I emphasize the word “don’t stay in the plain” because I have to overcome Sunday School images here about Lot’s wife and I’m going to do it by means of that clause, “don’t stay in the plain, escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. [18] And Lot said unto them, oh, no, not so my Lord! [19] Behold now, thy servant has found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shown to me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die.” I don’t know how to live out in the mountain God. [20] “Behold now, this city is near to flee to, [and it is a little one],” there’s the little one, let me escape there because that doesn’t have a lot of sin in it, it’s a little city, “[Oh, let me escape there, (is it not a little city)?] and my soul shall live. [21] And the angel said to him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, which I will not overthrow this city, for which you have spoken. [22] Hast thee, escape there; for I cannot do anything till you be come there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar,” which means the little city.

First to a map, we’ve got to understand what’s going on here to let’s watch. Here’s this basin area, before it was flooded like it is today; over here is a mountain called Mount Sedom, it’s still there, I think it’s called Usdum now for the Arabic, but anyway, Mount Usdum and then to the north of Mount Usdum are the archeological remnants of Zoar. Now what the angel is telling him in verse 16 is it’s not the idea that, as some children’s comic book Bible shows where they were supposed to forward march, don’t look around, don’t look around, just forward march. That’s not really the whole point of the story. The point of the story is they’re rushing between verse 15 and 23 to get over to the edge of the evacuation zone by the time the sun rises; that’s the point. And so he doesn’t want them lingering and they’ve got to walk; he couldn’t get on the nearest camel and ride, he had to walk, all the way over to get out of the plain. Remember I said the word “plain” means circle, the circle of this whole zone is going to go. In other words, you’ve got a radius of destruction here comparable to a nuclear weapon detonation and also apparently thermally it was because now they’ve found beads of glass embedded in the sand around that area which indicates at one time an explosion so violent that it took the silicone of the sand and fused it into glass crystals. So obviously whatever God used here, this brimstone from heaven, was a pretty momentous thing to watch.

So the angel is saying just evacuate the area, so here is a picture of two angels leading four humans because they’re idiots and don’t know where they’re going. Now Lot says this thing: I have found grace in your sight, you’ve got me this far, now please don’t send me to the mountain, lest I die, as though God… and the irony of this, see in verse 19 he’s saying look, I might die there, implying that God doesn’t care for his welfare. But then the irony is look at verse 22, the angel, finally he makes a deal, he says okay, okay, if you want to go to a little place, go to a little place, but whatever you do just get out of here, because, verse 22, “I cannot do anything” until you move it. Now isn’t that fantastic; here are two angels that are nuclear weapon detonators, they’ve got a bomb underneath the streets, they’ve got it all placed and are ready to push the button and they say would you please move it, I can’t blow it until you get out of here. Now the angels from their own point of view might have said boy, wouldn’t it be fun to blow those along with the rest, everybody around here are creeps, we might as well add four more. But had happened? Abraham had made intercession for the righteous and because Abraham, not Lot, because Abraham had asked God to save their lives God says all right, I know they’re weirdoes, you can imagine God giving the assignment to the angels, angel A and angel B; angel A and B I want you to get down there and get those troops out of there, evacuate them. Oh, you can’t be serious Lord, look at them, come on, we’ll make glue out of them along with everybody else. No, Abraham, My righteous servant, has prayed for the righteous. You mean we can’t blow them up? No, not until they get out, then you do your blowing up. Why? Because Abraham, My righteous servant, made intercession for them.

Who is the actor in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Not Lot, he is totally passive; he can’t lead his wife, he can’t lead his daughters, he can’t lead his sons-in-law, he can’t get out the door, he has to be hand led out of the city and when they hand lead him out of the city he still can’t go to the place where they’re supposed to go, which is the mountains. Now that’s not the exciting picture of a dynamic leader. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is all Abraham; Abraham is the man, not Lot.

And so the story concludes, Genesis 19:23, “The sun was risen upon the earth [when Lot entered into Zoar.] [24] Then the LROD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire [from the LORD out of heaven].” We don’t know what the word “brimstone” means; in some places it means kind of like a volcanic ash but something came and you saw from the slides what kind of a desolation was left there in history. The place where the Arab Bedouin… you can drive your car down there now and see it, and it’s just amazing, just the utter complete quiet desolation, just as though God’s saying look, see what I do? Now let that be a tip of how serious I am at enforcing My moral law. And so He rains this down and some commentators have made a thing in verse 24 about “the LORD” occurs twice and I just say this and I say it very cautiously, this may be one of those Old Testament passages that gives you a hint of the Trinity, where there is one Lord, “the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire [brimstone],” and that’s the angel of the Lord, and then the second one “fire from the LORD out of heaven” would be God the Father, so you have God the Son and God the Father. I just state it as a possibility; it may be that the author intended no more than just a description of the origin of the fire. But nevertheless, Jewish commentators, before the time of Christ, recognized this duality in verse 24 so this is not a Christian thing I’m giving you. This is pre-Christian Targums that were commenting on verse 24.

So he overthrows the cities and now you’ve seen the slide, look at the end of verse 25, “and that which grew upon the ground,” and you’ve seen the slides and there’s nothing growing upon the ground, even today, some 4,000 years later. Think of it, this judgment occurred almost 4,000 years ago.

Now the famous Lot’s wife incident; Genesis 19:26, “But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt,” the idea is to linger and it must be interpreted in the light of verse 17 and in verse 17 the term “behind” meant to linger in the plain. Can’t you just see it guys, everything’s going down, oh, oh, I forgot my mirror and my perfume, I’ve got to go back and so on, and so she takes off, boom, and she turns… she’s just buried, it’s not a case where she’s walking along and boom, she’s all of a sudden a pillar of salt. It’s talking about the idea that she just gets trapped and she gets buried underneath this pile of debris from the explosion.

The passage concludes by returning us to the actor, to Abraham. Genesis 19:27, “And Abraham got up early in the morning,” he didn’t need an angel for an alarm clock, “and he went to the place where he stood before the LORD.” He was an interceding, praying, mature Christian, and he knew that he couldn’t pray to God without getting some sort of answer, and so anxiously the next day he goes right out to the same place where he was asking the Lord and he says I wonder what the Lord’s going to do today. [28] “And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, [and toward all the land of the plain,] and beheld, and lo, the smoke [of the country went up] as the smoke of a furnace.” The picture of the smoke and the furnace in verse 28 is repeated in two critical times in history in the Bible: one is when God appears on Mount Sinai, the exact same phrase, and the whole mountain had a column of smoke like the smoke from a kiln. And the second place it occurs is in the book of Revelation when God judges the world, and particularly the harlot of Babylon, and her smoke rose up as the smoke out of a kiln. So we find this as a basic image, a basic event, that colors the interpretation of Scripture in God’s progressive revelation after this.

Genesis 19:29, “And it came to pass,” and look at this, “it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered” Lot? No, “God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, [when He overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt].” In other words, Lot didn’t even have anything to do with his own salvation; it was Abraham, the intercessor, who had to do with his physical salvation. He “remembered Abraham.”

The actor in back of Abraham is actually Jehovah. We want to turn in conclusion to the New Testament where that same actor, the one who destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, which later became incarnate as the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of this incident in Luke 17. Luke 17 gives us Jesus’ own comments on this incident. [Tape ends abruptly]