I’m going to read some headlines and you tell me if we’re in America or Sodom. Ready? Here goes:
- 4-year-old announces he’s a boy in transgender gender reveal
- 80-year-old Washington state woman banned from YMCA after demanding trans employee leave locker
- Proposed curriculum in Wisconsin school includes gender identity, sexual orientation in elementary school
- Will Your Daughter’s Next College Roommate Be A Man?
- Hook-ups, pansexuals and holy connection: love in the time of millennials and Generation Z
- Judge decides Kim Davis violated gay couples’ rights by refusing marriage licenses
- A Kansas teacher is suing school officials for requiring her to address students by their preferred names, saying the policy violates her religious freedom
- A Kentucky summer camp [Sexy Sex Ed] teaches “sex liberation,” “BDSM,” and “self-pleasure” to minors.
- In addition to endless articles we find elementary schools’ bulletin boards with flyers that say things like “The Kingdom of heaven is like a Gay Pride Parade.” Next to that you will find a list of things people can say that are considered “Microaggressions” which include:
- “Are you a boy or a girl?”
- “There are only 2 genders”
- “That’s not a real gender”
- “Did you have the surgery?”
In our government,
- the homosexual Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, has a husband who spends time leading kids in public schools in a pledge of allegiance to the gay pride rainbow flag.
- Richard Levine, a man who presents himself as a woman and goes by the name “Rachel”, is celebrated as a President Biden-appointed, openly transgender person. He serves as the Asst. Secretary of Health & Human Services.
- William Thomas, a man who presents himself as a woman and goes by Lia, has been the darling of the nation’s establishments in recent years. While he, as a man, competes against women in collegiate swimming and breaks record after record he continues to find himself celebrated across our society.
America is getting better and better at imitating Sodom.
At times God has rebuked His covenant nation Israel by calling her “Sodom” and calling her capital, Jerusalem, “Gomorrah.” Do you remember the days when people complained about religion being shoved down their throat? Today you can’t watch a commercial, a show, a game, or shop, or go to school or work without having the sexual perversion of LGBTQ movement shoved in your face. We have to ask ourselves: “How much longer before God calls America ‘Sodom’, and calls Washington DC ‘Gomorrah’?”
Sodom and Gomorrah serve as examples. That’s why he destroyed them and that’s why its recorded in Scripture. God has made them examples of His judgment and their destruction is a historical testimony that God judges sin and what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah is nothing compared to what’s coming upon the whole world:
- “[God] condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6).
- “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 7)
- Describing how God would ruin the land of Israel Deuteronomy 29:23 conjures up the image of Sodom and Gomorrah as a reference, “He will make it a burning waste land of salt and sulfur…, it will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.”
Sodom and Gomorrah were exceedingly wicked places.
We will travel under four headings today: Hospitality, Hostility, Hurry, Heaven-Fire
HOSPITALITY (v1-3)
The two angels arrive in town and are greeted by Lot. Lot is sitting at the gate to the town, which may indicate he had some leadership role in Sodom. The gate was often where social and business issues were addressed by the people of towns.
The angels were intent on staying the night in the town square, but, Lot was so persistent with them that they agreed to spend the night at his house. He treated them to a meal and was very hospitable. All very righteous, all very well indeed. Lot reminds me of his uncle Abraham – first in the way he shows hospitality and second in his ability to persuade through persistence.
It caught my eye what Lot fed them: bread without yeast. We’re probably familiar with unleavened bread because we’ve heard or read of Passover, the night God judged Egypt and freed the Israelites. That night God told them to eat unleavened bread because they were short on time and had to be ready to hussle out of Egypt (Ex. 12:11; Dt 16:13). Unleavened bread would always be associated with God delivering them out of the slavery in Egypt, and sparing them from His judgment.
Now here is Lot, hurrying out of Sodom to avoid God’s judgment, making a speedy meal of unleavened bread.
HOSTILITY (4-9)
The flow shifts from the hospitality of Lot to the hostility of the Sodomites. Read verses 4-9….
Notice 3 things
First, all the men of the town wanted to gang rape the two angels (v4-5). I’m not going to soften that statement. The vileness of their ambitions needs to be felt and we need to feel the disgustingness of their wickedness. When the angels came into town word spread fast of their arrival. And soon all the men – young and old – congregated outside Lots house demanding he send out the 2 “men.” All the men – young and old. Total corruption of that entire city. It wasn’t a few people. It wasn’t the “bad crowd” and all that needed to be done was call the sheriff. It was everyone: old, young, rich, poor, big shots and nobodies. Like the animals led to the ark by God, these depraved men and boys were led by their demons to the 2 angels.
We can back-read Romans 1 into Sodom. By that I mean we can read Romans 1, which was written thousands of years after Sodom and Gomorrah, and in reading what Romans 1 says about homosexuality we can learn some things about the people of those ancient cities. Turn to Romans 1 with me. Notice:
- Sodom rejected God as Creator and His created order (18-25)
- Sodom committed idolatry (25)
- Sodom gave up God so God gave them up to the wickedness of their hearts (24, 26)
- Sodom was full of all kinds of sins (28-31)
- Sodom encouraged and applauded wickedness (32) (
Remember 13:13, “Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the LORD.” They sure were. Then in 18:20 God said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me…” The total, thorough, and entire corruption of the towns
Second, notice Lot’s failure as a father (v8). I have no explanation for Lot’s offer to the men to send out his virgin daughters in place of the two angels. The Bible says Lot is righteous, that the perversion all around him tormented his righteous soul, and we see he shows righteous hospitality to these two men and he has a righteous faith in their message, and he is acting on that faith to get out of Sodom. But we have also been seeing in the Bible how flawed righteous men are. Noah’s drunkenness. Moses’ anger. David’s adultery. Abraham’s timidity. Here we have Lot.
When I read Lot’s offer of his 2 daughters it does two things to me, and it should to you too: 1) angers me that he would do such a thing, and 2) reminds me that the best of men are weak. And I know I’m not the best of men so how much weaker am I then they? There is a demand for humility here to remember that while I have my strengths as a person I also have flaws.
APPLICATION: What does this say about God’s mercy? How can God possibly save Lot after doing something like this? Do any of us truly believe that God has mercy on us because we are SO worthy? Is anyone here among us really convinced that God is so impressed with us that He just HAS to pluck us out from the masses of degenerates we’re surrounded by as though we’re some kind of trophy compared to everyone else? I have no excuse for Lot’s
Third, evil people love evil and hate it when people try and turn them to righteousness (v9) “Get out of our way or we’ll treat you worse than them.” I can’t imagine what’s worse than what they wanted to do to the 2 angels.
The 2 angels grab Lot and pull him back into the house. The men press against the door ready to break in. Suddenly everything went dark because the angels struck them all with blindness. They couldn’t find the door and probably started wandering off in a panic. Then the 2 angels turned around to Lot and told him to hurry.