Genesis 19 - The Beginning of Judgment

Main Idea: Avoid the destruction of what you love by loving God.

• Loving God means loving other people above yourself. (vs. 1-11)

• Loving God means living for His kingdom, not your own. (vs. 12-29)

• Loving God means looking to His solutions for your problems. (vs. 30-38)

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Today, we are in Genesis 19. Genesis 19, I don't know why I'm physically turning there, I have a ribbon. We're in Genesis 19, and we have been in a study called New Beginnings, looking at the life of Abraham in Genesis 12 through 25.

And Genesis 19 is actually a passage in which, I think, if I remember correctly, Abraham's name shows up like one time. So this is one little spot within the life of Abraham where we actually zoom out to see what God is doing in a bigger picture.

And specifically, Abraham was called from kind of modern-day Iran, Iraq, from the city Er of the Chaldeans, what would later become Babylon.

And he was called to go from there to leave his extended family behind to come to the land of Canaan, what would later be Israel. And there God would bless him, he would give him the land of Canaan to him and his descendants forever.

And he would have many, many descendants, even though at the time God called him, he and his wife Sarai were barren. They had never had kids, had tried for decades, and had never been able to have children.

And God told him that you would have a child, and you will have actually so many descendants that you won't even be able to count them all. And so Abraham stepped out in faith. He came to the land of Canaan.

He left almost all of his extended family behind. He brought along his brother's son Lot. And Abraham went through some twists and turns and some difficulties.

He left the land of Canaan during a time when he could have relied on God's provision, but he got scared of the circumstances, went down to Egypt through some lying.

He ended up with a ton of stuff, a ton of riches, went back up to the land of Canaan, and it ended up that all of the stuff that he had compiled meant that him and his nephew Lot could no longer exist in the same place, that the grassland, the

pastures for their sheep and their cattle, there just wasn't enough for all of the animals that they had together. And so they split up with Abraham, finally taking a cue from God's generosity towards him, and he told Lot, take whatever portion of

land that you want, and I'll take whatever's left. And so Lot looked all around, and he looked at the area that we would know now as the area around the Dead Sea. At that point, it's not mentioned in Scripture as being there.

You've got a lot of vegetation. He saw that there was all of this grass on the plains, and it looked like a great place.

But we're told one thing about that location that Lot saw and that he chose, namely that it was a place near a couple of cities called Sodom and Gomorrah. The only mention, the only descriptor that's given to us there, is that Sodom was very wicked.

Then you fast forward a couple of chapters, and there's a fight between some of the Canaanite kings and some of the kings of Mesopotamia that had subjugated some of the Canaanite kings over the course of several years.

And they exacted tribute from them every year. And finally, the Canaanite kings said, we're not doing this anymore, we're rebelling.

So then the Mesopotamian kings came and fought against those Canaanite kings, which included the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. And they absolutely swept through the land. They were victorious in everything that they wanted to do.

And they captured much of the good, the gold, silver, possessions, and even the people of the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.

They took lots of prisoners, which included Sodom, sorry, it included the location of Sodom and its inhabitants, which now included Lot, who had gone from just living in the plains to actually living in the city itself.

So Lot was captured, and Abraham and all of his servants, all of those within his household, he pursued after Lot, and God gave them the victory, and he was able to recover everything and was able to bring it back.

And the king of Sodom tried to tell Abraham, Oh, listen, take whatever of the spoils you want. And Abraham said, No, like, I'm not going to take anything. God's given me everything I need.

I'll give something to the people, the servants that came with me, that they risk their necks, and so I'll give to them. But I don't want you to be able to say, I made Abraham rich. He says, God has given me everything that I need.

Now in Genesis 19, we find ourselves resuming the story that we talked about last week in Genesis 18, namely that God and two messengers, two angels, two spiritual beings came with God, and they were coming to give good news to Abraham that in one

year, him and his wife, Sarah, would have their firstborn child together, Isaac. Whose name means laughter, because when God told first Abraham and then Sarah that they were going to have a baby boy, even in their old age, they laughed.

So God says, you're going to name your boy Laugh, and that way every time you say his name, you remember that God is greater than your disbelief. And I'm so thankful for our mighty God that we serve.

But God told Abraham something at the end of chapter 18. He told him, I am now in covenant, I'm in partnership with you, and as a result, I'm going to let you know what's going on here in this land that I've promised you.

There's been an outcry from the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The phrase is elsewhere used in Genesis 4 when Cain kills Abel, that Abel's blood cried out from the ground.

It's a metaphorical way to say there is need for justice in this place, that evil is taking place, and there needs to be a putting right. And so God says, I'm sending these messengers down to determine if that cry is warranted.

Abraham, knowing the wickedness and the evil of these cities, tries to barter with God to say, okay, I know Sodom, you know Sodom. What if there's 50 righteous people in Sodom? Will you spare?

And God says, yes. Instead of a regular barter, which would be, okay, what if there's 50 righteous people? Ah, 150, and I'll spare the city.

Abraham goes all the way down to 10 people, 10 righteous people in the entirety of those cities. Says, if there are 10 people in right relationship with God and with people, will you destroy the city? God says, no, I won't destroy it.

So then Abraham, that was his last request. He figured, ah, there's at least 10. We're good.

You know, he got Lot, his wife, his two daughters, maybe they're married by now, his two sons-in-law and their wives. There you go, you got 10. If just Lot's household is in right relationship with God and people, we're good.

So Abraham leaves off. And where we end at chapter 18 is the two messengers, the two angels that go down to the city. Today's message is entitled, The Beginning of Judgment.

Just as today, frankly, if you've been around scripture at all, I know there's many people in this room, you've known this story for decades. So it's not a shock to you that like, oh no, judgment's coming on Sodom and Gomorrah.

As you read throughout the rest of scripture, actually, the destruction of these cities becomes a template for how God talks about his judgment on societal evil for all of the rest of scripture.

And Jesus even, well, and the prophets, they highlight that Sodom and Gomorrah were actually the not, they were not the most evil society in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. And we'll look at that a little bit later on.

But I want you to realize today that judgment is coming for you one day as well. Here, the timetable was greatly decreased and it's eminent and we're going to read about it today.

But for all of us, one day we are going to meet our judge and our creator. Hebrews chapter 9 tells us it is appointed for people to die once and after this judgment. You cannot change that judgment is coming.

But you can change what the verdict will be by what you center your life around. It's not simply do these things or don't do these things and you can avoid judgment. It is who really are you and what does your life revolve around.

The Bible tells us that everything that originates in this world, this world's systems, its way of operating, it will all pass away. But what we do in right relationship with God to love people and to further God's kingdom will last forever.

And the ultimate criteria by which we will be judged is what did you do with the person of Jesus Christ? Did you submit to him as your Lord and your Savior? Did you trust in his redemption and his forgiveness of your sins?

Or did you neglect and ignore him and try and live life in your own wisdom and in your own way? Today, we're going to see that Lot loses everything.

He loses his possessions, his home, his dignity, his wife, his relationships, all because he did not live his life loving what God loves, but by building his life on this world.

For us today, we can avoid the destruction of what we love by loving God. We can avoid the destruction of what we love by loving God.

Because when judgment day comes, everything that's not of and from God, who is life and love and everlasting, everything that's not from that, is going to pass off the scene. And when that day comes, will we have anything left?

What will you have to show at the end of your life? Will it be a relationship with Jesus and a life lived in loving and caring for others by living for God's kingdom, by looking for God's direction and his purpose and his goals for your life?

Or will it have been a life lived for and through and simply about you? This is going to be heavy, so I want you all to take a deep breath.

While this chapter involves much of judgment and loss and grief and heaviness, through it, we see God's continual compassion to anyone that turns to him.

And I want you to know today, whatever you've done, wherever you've been, however you've failed, for however long you've failed, God loves you. He has a plan for you, and he wants to be in right relationship with you.

And he made that possible, not through your goodness, but through the goodness of Jesus Christ. Let's pray together. We're going to dive into the passage.

Dear Jesus, thank you for today. God, we pray that you'd be glorified in your church. Lord, I ask that you would speak to us.

Lord, help us to live for you, for your ways, for your kingdom. And God, we ask that if there's someone here today that doesn't know you a Savior, that today they would avoid that eternal judgment by turning to you and living for you.

And Lord, for everyone that does know you. God, may we not live our lives for things that pass away, but may we live for the eternal. We pray all of this in the name of Jesus.

Amen. If we're going to avoid the destruction of what we love by loving God, then we're going to see first in verses one through 11 that loving God means loving other people above yourself. Loving God means loving other people above yourself.

Verse number one, the two angels entered Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in Sodom's gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them. He bowed with his face to the ground.

Here, a gateway of a city was normally where the deals of commerce were made. And this would be, if you will, where the judges would sit. If you want to come to a conclusion on, okay, this person says that they were owed this amount of money.

This person says they owe them no money. You're going to argue, where do you go? They didn't always have courtrooms.

They would go to the gates of the city. And so here, Lot is in a place of prominence even as he is here.

So Lot sees him, he gets up to meet him, he bows with his face to the ground, and he says, my lords, turn aside to your servant's house, wash your feet, and spend the night. Then you can get up early and go on your way.

No, they said, we would rather spend the night in the square.

Here, Lot exemplifies the same value of hospitality, of caring for others and wanting to meet their needs as we saw in Abraham, even when the Lord and the angels came by his dwelling place there at the Oaks of Mammary in chapter 18.

So, he provides hospitality. They say, oh, no, no, thank you. We're just going to spend the night out here in the city square.

But he urged them so strongly that they followed him and went into his house. He prepared a feast and baked unleavened bread for them, and they ate. Here, he's very insistent, and for reasons that we'll see here in a moment, and he provides for them.

This is a good, a kind, a hospitable, a generous man. Verse four, before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom, both young and old, the whole population, surrounded the house.

Mabroul, never a great thing, and we're going to see that here in one moment. All of these individuals from this town come outside of the house, they surround it, they call out to Lot and say, where are the men who came to you tonight?

Send them out to us so we can have sex with them. If you have perhaps a more formal translation, it might say something like, so that we may know them or know them carnally. Here there is abuse that is intended towards these individuals.

Verse number six, Lot went out to them at the entrance and shut the door behind him. He said, don't do this evil, my brothers. Here this abuse, this domination, and this taking over of other people is never ever a good thing.

And here Lot insists on this to them. Then we see where, frankly, just a horrifying thing as we look back, especially with the morality that we have, that scripture gives us, we see here a diabolical statement being made by Lot.

Says, look, I've got two daughters who haven't been intimate with a man. I'll bring them out to you and you can do whatever you want to them. However, don't do anything to these men because they have come under the protection of my roof.

So here, while Lot says and does some good things in the passage, he also hears severely undervalues other people. He's not loving and caring for his family in the way that God would want or in a way that is even normal.

Frankly, no parents in here, Lord willing, would ever say this type of thing. But if you will, Sodom and its wickedness and its evil had become so prevalent that even something like this would be a possible thought for Lot.

Verse number nine, Get out of the way, they said, adding, This one came here as an alien, a resident foreigner, but he's acting like a judge. Now we'll do more harm to you than to them. They put pressure on Lot and came up to break down the door.

Now I want to mention one thing here shortly. The goal of these men was not simply that they were only attracted to men. And so that's the reason why they had this refusal of Lot's daughters.

And instead it was intentionally to harm and mistreat and do evil to those who were at risk that didn't have any help, any family in town. These messengers, these people, these men, for all that the citizens of Sodom knew, they were helpless.

And so what could they do? What could they have done? That's all I'll say at the moment.

Here they say, now we're going to do worse to Lot than we were going to do to these individuals. They put pressure on him. Verse number 10, the angels reached out, brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door.

Here, the protection and the providence of God, that I'm incredibly grateful at times in my life when God has shut a door and he has kept me safe.

And here, Lot attempting in his flawed sinful way as best he can to try and protect someone that had come under his roof. If you will, the only safety that these men had was Lot and his protection.

As far as Lot was aware, certainly, we know even from verse 11, that that's not all of the help that they had.

Verse 11, they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house, both young and old, with blindness, so that they were unable to find the entrance.

Here the angels accomplish a miracle, as spiritual beings often do, and they buy Lot a little bit of time. What I want us to see here first is loving God means loving other people above yourself.

From these verses, I want us to notice first that you love people by seeking what's best for them. This was something that Lot had not embodied.

When Lot was initially looking at the plots of land, and all the land of Canaan that Abraham had said, hey, look wherever you want, pick whatever you want, and I'll choose what's left, Lot looked and he saw the well-watered plains and all of the

grass and the pastures, and he chose what was best for him, instead of being like Abraham, who had a heart of generosity to say, I'm not going to look out what's in it for me, I'm going to do what's best for you. He certainly didn't do it with his

daughters, that instead of saying, hey, take me, don't do anything to these, he offers someone else, someone that is also under his protection, his daughters, instead of being self-sacrificial, he tries to sacrifice others. Lot's only looking out for

himself. Secondly, not only do we love people by seeking what's best for them, we love people by surrounding ourself and those around us with good people. Here, Lot did not have to live in the city of Sodom.

The thing that we've read over and over again throughout the pages of Genesis so far is that these individuals are wicked. They are evil. And in fact, 2 Peter chapter 2 tells us this about Sodom and Gomorrah.

Peter says, if God reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is coming to the ungodly, and if he rescued righteous Lot, distressed by the depraved behavior of the immoral, for

as that righteous man lived among them day by day, his righteous soul was tormented by the lawless deeds he saw and heard. Here scripture even tells us that Lot was daily tormented by the evil that he saw happening all around him.

Even after Lot was captured by the Mesopotamian kings and taken, he could have reconciled with Abraham. He could be like, hey, I know that these people are wicked. This is not the place that I want to raise my family.

This isn't the place where I want to do business. He could have gotten out of Sodom at any point prior to this. But he didn't love either.

He didn't love his relationship with God and he didn't love his family enough to remove them from an evil and wicked place. For you today, 1 Corinthians 15 would tell us, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals.

Bad company corrupts good morals. The people that you are around will shape your life. They will shape how you interact with disagreements.

They will shape how you treat your spouse, how you talk about your children, the way in which you live your life.

Are the people that you intentionally spend the most time with, are the people that know and love Jesus and that will help you to walk in relationship with God, or are the people that continually try and drag you away from following the Lord?

Have a love enough for your relationship with God and a love enough for your family and your loved ones to spend time with godly people. Now, Jesus is called the Friend of Sinners. He was there with tax collectors and with sinners.

But as he was there with those people and loving them and showing God's kindness and his kingdom to them, he was not allowing them to drag him down into sin.

And it might be that God has placed you in a job where there are some people with foul language, there might be some people with off-color jokes, and you can choose to be a light in the middle of those wicked people.

You can choose to follow Jesus in that way.

But if you start to notice that there is evil that is creeping in, that you start being more angry than you used to be, you start using some words that you had once given up, I want to encourage you, be around good people.

Here Lot had allowed the evil of Sodom to have him say and suggest and offer things that he would never have done if he had been walking entirely with God. Then lastly, you love people by choosing to take the hit.

Lot could have offered himself, but instead he offered his daughters. And in fact, Ezekiel 16 tells us why Lot's offer of his daughters was refused. Ezekiel 16 in verse 49 says, Now this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom.

Here's the reason why Sodom was destroyed. She and her daughters had pride, plenty of food, and comfortable security, but didn't support the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable acts before me, so I removed them when I saw this.

God says this, they were in such a comfortable place that they had everything that they could want, and yet it wasn't enough. They wanted more, and they wanted to trample down on the poor and the needy.

Those that did not have recourse, those that could not respond by suing someone that did not have help from others, even as we see them attempting to do with the angels.

I want to encourage you, loving people means that you would rather suffer the loss, you would rather take the hit, than force other people to go through hard times.

Certainly, the best example of this is our Savior, that though we deserved condemnation and separation from God, and we deserve to be separated, he took that on himself, he stepped up in our place, and offered himself on the cross, so that we could

be reconciled to God. In your relationships with other people, are you always trying to see what's best for you and what you can get out of it? Or are you caring for others?

Then verses 12 through 29, loving God means living for his kingdom and not your own. Let's go back to Sodom and into Lot's house. Then the angel said to Lot, do you have anyone else here?

A son-in-law, your sons and daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you, get them out of this place for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people is so great before the Lord, before Yahweh that Yahweh has

sent us to destroy. They say, if there's anyone you care about, get them out. The wickedness, the evil that is in this place has gone too far. Verse 14, So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were going to marry his daughters.

Get up, he said, get out of this place for Yahweh is about to destroy the city. But his sons-in-law thought that he was joking.

At daybreak, the angels urged Lot on, get up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he hesitated.

Because of Yahweh's compassion for him, the men grabbed his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of his two daughters, they brought him out and left him outside the city.

I'm thankful that though often I have been, I've been lax to follow God in the way that he wants, times that I have hesitated to obey, that God has took me by the hand and led me to where I needed to be.

And sometimes it's been leaving behind places of safety and comfort and security so that I would be able to be where God has for me.

Here, Lot and his wife and his daughters, they weren't gonna leave all on their own, but because of God's compassion, that he knew what was coming, he removed them from a place of comfort and security into the place where they needed to be.

And it might be for you today that you're interacting with a circumstance in which you want it to stay exactly as it has been, but God wants to move you out of the place of comfort and security because of his compassion for you.

You don't know what would happen if you were to remain in, perhaps, that relationship, in that home, in that job, and God might be moving things intentionally so that you are saved.

Verse 17, as soon as the angels got them outside, one of them said, run for your lives. Don't look back and don't stop anywhere on the plane. Run to the mountains or you will be swept away.

Even some of these mountains, we would know, Abraham built several altars to God all along this mountain range. It's where he looked down and saw Sodom before. So if you will, he's saying, return to God's presence.

But verse 18, Balot said to them, no, my lords, please, your servant has indeed found favor with you, and you have shown me great kindness by saving my life. But I can't run to the mountains. The disaster will overtake me and I will die.

Here he says, I know what God wants me to do, but I'm not strong enough to do it. I can't get there. This is the same kind of response that you have Moses giving to God in scripture.

Five different times where God says, all right, I want you to go free Israel, tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And Moses goes, I can't talk. No one will listen to me.

What's your name? If they ask me, what do I tell them? He just keeps responding with God, I can't.

But here, if God asks you to do something, he will enable you to do it. Whatever God has told you in his word, the response is not God, I'm not strong enough to overcome that sin. It's not God, but I just can't.

Instead, we realize what Paul tells the Philippian Church, that the one who began the good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Or as he tells them in chapter two, it is God who works in you both to will, to purpose, and to perform his good pleasure. Or as he says to the Thessalonica Church in 1st Thessalonians 5, faithful is the one who calls you, who also will do it.

What God has called you to do, you can do. Here Lot has some doubts. He thinks that whatever disaster, whatever thing that the angels are going to bring, is going to overtake him.

So he says, look, this town is close enough for me to flee to. It's a small place. Please let me run to it.

It's only a small place, isn't it? So that I can survive. And here is a little bit of what we referenced last week, and this is what the Jewish rabbis in the second temple period, that's the time right around Jesus.

This is why they would reference Lot as a righteous man, even with his failures, because he intercedes for this one town. He says, God, don't destroy this town. It's just so small, isn't it?

And verse number 21, and the angel says to Lot, all right, I'll grant your request about this matter too, and will not demolish the town you mentioned. Which led people to wonder, I wonder if Abraham had just said, don't destroy Sodom, God.

My family is there. They wonder what might have happened if someone had interceded for Sodom. Then the angel says in verse 22, hurry up, run to it, for I cannot do anything until you get there.

Therefore, the name of the city is Zohar. It's little place, just like Lot said, hey, God, it's just a Zohar. It's just a little place.

Can I run to it? And that city was fair. I love even the thought in this verse, hurry up, run to it, for I cannot do anything until you get there.

The child of God is under the protection of God, and that there is not the same punishment on the child of God as there is on the world that rejects God.

And everyone that turns to God for safety and everyone that listens to his voice of salvation and rescue, they find safety there.

Even as we'd hear in Romans 8 and verse number 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Verse number 23, The sun had risen over the land when Lot reached Zolar.

Then out of the sky, Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, burning sulfur from Yahweh. He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities and whatever grew on the ground.

This is almost spoken in some of the same terms as we would read in Genesis 6 through 8 with the flood. That instead of it being now this over the whole earth, now it's in this one centralized plain. If you will, fire from heaven.

If you will, could have been lightning, could have been meteorites, could have been any number of things that the Lord used to accomplish this. But as we've mentioned before, when God brings judgment, it's total. It's complete.

God won't just deal with the sins that you don't like in the people that you don't like. When God's judgment comes, it comes for all of us, and it comes completely.

Which is why in 2 Peter 3, we would hear Peter write to those that had been under his preaching at certain points and say, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise to come back.

Instead, he is patient and long suffering toward us, not willing that anyone would perish, but that all would come to repentance. You might wonder, I've talked to some of you before, and I've heard this phrase, why hasn't Jesus come back?

Doesn't he see how wicked our world is? Doesn't he see the evil that is going on? And scripture would tell us he's not coming back because he loves you.

He hasn't come back yet, because when he comes, he comes with the sword and the vengeance and the justice of God. And he loves your family member. He loves your spouse.

He loves your kid. He loves your coworker. He loves your neighbor far more than you do.

And he knows that every person that has not accepted the Lord Jesus as their Savior, that those that have not turned to Jesus for salvation, to the source of life for their own existence, if he were to return, they would be judged forever.

Can I ask you today, who are you interceding for? As the lot selfishly prays for Zohar because he's like, God, I'm gonna get too tired. It's gonna get me.

Who are you praying for that they would be saved today? And then if you're praying for it, put some feet to it. Don't just pray for someone to be saved, share the gospel with them.

Don't just pray for them. Invite them to church with you. Don't just pray for them, give them a gospel tract.

God works through his people and God wants to work through you. Are you allowing God to work through you? Verse number 26, But Lot's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.

There's all of these salt formations surrounding the Dead Sea.

And even as the children of Israel would see these at the Dead Sea, they would be reminded of the people that did not flee from destruction, even though God had compassion on Lot's wife, and though the angels had let her out by the hand, and even

though she was with her family, she still turned back to the place where her possessions were, to where her heart lay. Verse number 27, Early in the morning, Abraham went to the place where he had stood before Yahweh.

He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the plain, and he saw that smoke was going up from the land like the smoke of a furnace.

So it was when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and brought Lot out of the middle of the upheaval when he demolished the cities where Lot had lived.

Here, this word remembered, whenever you see in scripture that God remembers, this is an intentional choice of care. This isn't God going, okay, I'm going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Oh, stink, I forgot about Lot.

Someone get Lot out of there. No, no, no, no, he's saying he intentionally chooses to care for Lot and his family. Loving God means living for his kingdom, not your own.

First, you live for God's kingdom by making it clear, you are a citizen of his kingdom. We can see this in how Lot interacts with his sons-in-law, that when he tells them God's going to destroy this place, they thought he was joking.

If you were to tell those closest to you about Jesus, would it be a laughing matter for them? That they would not believe what you have to say because it hasn't been real in you?

That you haven't lived and walked like a Christian, and so they're like, who are you? That's the sad portion of this for Lot as he has this interaction with him.

The people that loved his family, that loved his daughters, didn't have any belief in God. I've heard Spurgeon mention it before. I say I've heard Spurgeon mention it.

I've read Spurgeon write it before. If men are to die, if men are to go to hell, may they have to enter over our bodies.

That we would do everything within our power to warn them, to let them know that there is judgment coming, but there is a way of salvation through Jesus, not based on human effort or religiosity, but on the sacrifice of Christ and on his

righteousness alone. Are you making it clear to others around you that you are a citizen of heaven? Secondly, you live for God's kingdom by obeying his laws.

And here, every command that the angels give a lot, he seems to like only half-heartedly kind of follow, and this was how his whole walk with God and his relationship with God had been, that he kind of does stuff halfway.

What God has told us to do, let's do it to the fullest. Let's obey him. If he's our king, our Lord, our sovereign, our savior, then let us obey him.

Then lastly, you live for God's kingdom by making it your home. Lot's wife viewed Sodom as her home. That was the place where her heart was, so much so that she would even leave behind her husband and her daughters.

Can I ask you, where is your kingdom? Jesus would tell us, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. He told the disciples, many will say to me on the day of judgment, Lord, Lord, but I will say to them, depart from me.

I never knew you. You that work lawlessness. Are we following our God and our Lord?

Are we obeying him and heeding him or ignoring him? And lastly, today, verses 30 through 38, loving God means looking to his solutions for your problems.

Verse number 30, Lot departed from Zohar and lived in the mountains along with his two daughters because he was afraid to live in Zohar. So the place that God said, I'm not going to destroy here because you have prayed for it.

Lot doesn't even stay there and trust God in that moment, and instead he goes to the mountains. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.

Then the firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old and there's no man in the land to sleep with us as is the custom of all the land. Come, let's get our father to drink wine so that we can sleep with him and preserve our father's line.

So they got their father to drink wine that night and the firstborn came and slept with her father. He did not know when she lay down or when she got up. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger, Look, I slept with my father last night.

Let's get him to drink wine again tonight so that you can go sleep with him and we can preserve our father's line. That night, they again got their father to drink wine and the younger went and slept with him.

He did not know when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. This is not something that scripture is like, hey, this is good.

No, this is soundly condemned. This is an evil, reproachable action. The one other interesting portion of this passage is that Genesis 19 is placed in mirror of Genesis 6 and Genesis 11.

So the flood and the Tower of Babel, two of God's judgments prior to, now is put against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and what happens with Lot. In Genesis 6, you have the sons of God that go and have children with the daughters of man.

That's reprehensible. That's not God's intent. God's intent was humans with humans.

That's what God wanted. And instead, you had these sons of God, angelic beings that had come and co-mingled with humanity. In Genesis 19, instead of it being the sons of God and the daughters of men, you have the sons of men.

And here are these sons of God, these angelic beings, angels and angels.

Then in Genesis 9, where you have Noah right after the flood, where he gets drunk with wine, and it's phrased very, very delicately in Genesis 9, the implication is that his son Ham goes into the tent where both Noah and Noah's wife are just passed

out drunk. Ham takes advantage of his mother and has a son Canaan. And so there with the son with the mother is now mirrored in Genesis 19 by the daughters with the father. Here it is human wickedness.

People doing whatever's right in their own eyes, not seeking God's wisdom, but operating by their own way.

Then we have just this little glimmer of hope that I'm so grateful for, because everything in this chapter has been awful and horrible, except for like because of the Lord's compassion, He brought them out. That's the sole bright spot in all of this.

Verse 37, the firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites of today.

If you guys will remember, a couple centuries later, there's going to be one particular Moabite family that there's a family in Bethlehem, in Judah, that there's a famine in the land, and they book it over to Moab.

And through a sad series of circumstances, a couple of widows then come back to the land of Israel, and one of those widows is a Moabite woman named Ruth, who was the great grandmother of King David, and eventually the ancestor of Jesus Christ.

That is, you look at Matthew 1 and Luke 3, at the lineage of Jesus, you come across this family. And you might wonder, how in the world could God ever operate and work in such evil and human brokenness?

And the answer is, through Jesus, and through the difference that Jesus makes, the worst evil and the worst that humans can do can be redeemed. So thankful for this, that Jesus himself is one of the descendants, even of Lot.

Verse number 38, the young girl also gave birth to a son, and she named him Ben-Emi. He is the father of the Ammonites of today. And the Israelites at that time will deal with that at another point.

Loving God means looking to his solutions for your problems. The daughters had what they thought was a problem. They said, okay, well, you know, God destroyed everything outside of this cave.

The assumption almost seems to be like, okay, we're in the new flood, and the flood destroyed everything that's not in this cave. And so they said, okay, well, I guess we've got to have children through our dad.

Nowadays, people don't necessarily worry about carrying on the family line. If any of you were in this cave, I don't think any of your guys' main problem would be, how are we gonna have descendants? I think you guys would just rather pass away.

And that is perfectly acceptable given the circumstances. Loving God means looking to his solutions for your problems. Looking for God's solutions means trusting God's word.

That Lot and his daughters could have believed that when God said, I'm going to spare Zohar because you prayed for it, they could have trusted that and lived in Zohar and not gone to the mountains. But instead, they thought, and so they acted.

How many times in our life has that happened? That instead of trusting the word of God, instead of believing that God would act, we took matters into our own hands, and we went by our wisdom.

Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 would tell us, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

Psalm 30, it's either 34 or 37 would tell us, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. As we seek the Lord, we find his answers, his solutions for our problems.

And lastly, looking for God's solutions means doing what's right, not what's easy. So Lot's daughters, here's the easiest solution. I've also wondered, where in the world did they get all of this wine?

Enough to get them drunk twice if they're in these caves? I don't know if they brought all of it from Sodom, if they had like stopped by at the store in Zohar. That text doesn't say it's all speculation.

That is weird to me, just as a reader. So here they just do what's easiest instead of doing what's right. And can I encourage you and I?

There will be times in our life in relationship with other people when we have the chance to do what is easiest, to avoid confrontation, to avoid having that hard talk, or we can bring it to the other person.

We can do what's easy and lash out in anger and have bitterness and unforgiveness, or we can surrender it to the Lord and be reconciled to someone else. We get the choice. Are we going to go for God's solutions or our own?

As we see Genesis 19, we see the effects of building our life for this world and this world's systems.

Accumulation of wealth, personal pleasure, the pride of being someone or being in a particular place or having possessions, of going about life determining right and wrong by our own values, and we see that it all ends in judgment and destruction.

I'm 99.999% certain that there's not going to be fire and brimstone falling down on Essex today. I can't say 100%, but I'm pretty sure. I think there's a meteor that's supposed to hit in a couple years.

That's not the judgment that we need to be most concerned with. All of us are mortal. All of us one day are going to meet our judge and our creator.

And when we interact with him, we will either have lived our life in one of two ways. One, living our life for Jesus, having accepted him as our savior and experiencing his forgiveness in life.

Or, living for ourself, trying to live life our own way and our best estimation of good and bad, and having made a rack of everything along the way. Judgment's coming, so avoid the destruction of what you love by loving God.

Today, I want to encourage you. Well, challenge. This one's not really encouraged.

I want to challenge you. If you do not know Jesus as your Savior, do not put that off. You don't know what time you have left.

You don't know when Judgment Day is coming. So don't just try the luck of the draw. Eventually, I'll get around to it.

Jesus tells us, today is the day of salvation. If you are a Christian, realize that when you get before your Father and your Savior, all of your works will be laid out before Him.

We want to be able to rejoice and to have gladness that we lived our life for Jesus, that we would hear, well done, you good and faithful servants.

But we also realize that the aspects of our life that we lived with selfishness, with greed, with malice and anger, all of that will burn away.

I want to be able to stand before my God and to have been responsible to love and to care for his kingdom and his ways and his purposes and his people. Will you seek the same?